I’m sure you know that we’re not huge college football fans at Sports Time Radio, but it seems as though the bowl season has been disappointing. New Years Eve had the Final 4 match ups and both games ended up being blowouts. The first game was Clemson vs. Oklahoma. Oklahoma actually led this game 17-16 going into halftime and then didn’t score again in the game as Clemson cruised to a 37-17 victory. The second game; if you can even call it a game was Alabama vs. Michigan State. Neither team scored in the first quarter. After that Alabama went on to score 38 straight points while not giving up any points as they easily advanced to the title game with a 38-0 victory. I only saw a little bit of each of these games, but unless you are a fan of these teams was there a reason for you to stay with the game after they became blowouts. Here’ hoping the Clemson vs. Alabama championship game will be better than these semi-final match ups turned out to be.
If you’re still interested in college football the last 4 bowl are are on the schedule for today. It starts off with the Taxslayer Bowl featuring Penn State vs. Georgia. Then there’s the Liberty Bowl with Kansas State vs. Arkansas. The Alamo Bowl is the 3rd bowl game on the schedule with Oregon vs. TCU. The night wraps up with the Cactus Bowl which has West Virginia vs. Arizona State. I’m sure I’ll flip over to check the score a time or two in these games, but I won’t watch more than a minute or two at a time. There are just way too many bowl games for me,but give me your reason for watching one of these or all of these games.
It’s the last week of the regular season in the NFL and the league is doing the best they can to make sure teams don’t know if they can rest their players. Originally the Carolina Panthers where suppose to play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Noon on Sunday. While Schaumburg Stu and I where doing the Thursday podcast I notice that the Panthers/Buccaneers game had been moved to a 3:25 p.m. start time. This game was moved because the Seattle Seahawks vs. the Arizona Cardinals game was scheduled at 3:25 p.m. all along. If Carolina and Tampa Bay had played early and Carolina had won the game they would claim the #1 seed in the NFC. Once Carolina had won that game the Cardinals would be able to rest their players because they would be the #2 seed no matter if they won or lost their game with Seattle. I like this move by the NFL; I’m not sure how it will work out, but will see if any teams will try and get their players some rest during Week 17.
There where reports all week that the Indianapolis Colts won’t be bringing back there head coach Chuck Pagano. This isn’t really a big surprise. This was the last year on Pagano’s contract and after the Colts offered him just a 1 year extension you had to think there where some issues between coach and front office. The Colts are a very disappointing 7-8 this season and while there still is a chance for them too find there way into the playoffs I wouldn’t count on that happening. This is Pagano’s 4th season as Colts head coach. In Pagano’s first 3 season with the Colts they finished 11-5 every season and made the playoffs. The Colts where a trendy Super Bowl pick at the start of the season, but with the u=injury to starting quarterback Andrew Luck the Colts have struggled to get to 7-8. There was another report that came out this week that said Pagano and General Manager Ryan Grigson don’t even speak to each other. That sounds like a difficult way to run an NFL team when the guy coaching the players and the guy picking the players don’t talk. Pagano has no say in personnel decisions as Grigson handles all of that. This is a big rif for any NFL team to deal with and someone has to go and since Pagano is in the last year of his deal it appears as he’s the one who will be leaving Indianapolis.
The Miami Dolphins where the first team t let there coach go this season. Then the Tennessee Titans fired their head coach. The Philadelphia Eagles made that same move this week letting Chip Kelly go. If the Colts do let Pagano go there are 3 head coaching openings, but what other teams may try to change coaches. It’s been reported that the Cleveland Browns will be joining this list after the season. Will the San Diego Chargers, New York Giants and Detroit Lions be looking for new head coaches as well. What are the chances that the New Orleans Saints or Dallas Cowboys look to change head coaches. In the Saints case it may be a head coach leaving as Sean Payton seems to be linked to every NFL opening. Minus the Cowboys and the Saints; which opening would be the best one for a new head coach? Would you lean to taking the Colts job where a healthy Andrew Luck could get you right back into the playoffs. Maybe the Lions job looks good to you with a quarterback in place and a couple of capable wide receivers. The Chargers and Giants also have veteran starting quarterbacks in place. Maybe you would lean to taking a team with a young quarterback you could develop; like Marcus Mariotta in Tennessee. If you had the choice what job would you take? and how would you rank these teams if the jobs become open?
There are 11 games on the NBA schedule today with 2 of those games being carried on NBA-TV. The Phoenix Suns vs. the Sacramento Kings start the NBA-TV coverage at 4:00 p.m. The second game on NBA-TV is the Houston Rockets vs. the San Antonio Spurs at 7:30 p.m.
After featuring the outdoor game yesterday which the Montreal Canadiens won 5-1 over the Boston Bruins the NHL has 23 games on the schedule today. While there are a lot of NHL games today the only one I could find on national television is the New York Rangers vs. the Pittsburgh Penguins on the NHL Network at 6:00 p.m.
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