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Usually when Arizona is mentioned in the same sentence as the Super Bowl, it’s as the location for the NFL’s largest showcase (as it was for Super Bowl XVII last year).

Don’t look now, but Arizona is one game away from playing in the big game.

Even more astonishing, if the Philadelphia Eagles defeat the New York Giants in the Meadowlands on Sunday, the Cardinals would actually host the NFC Championship game.

Yes, the Cardinals. Once the model of NFL futility and the butt of every perennial loser joke, the franchise’s struggles are almost legendary, having followed the team from Chicago to St. Louis to Phoenix. To be sure, sports pundits have frequently picked them to break through in recent years, but until this season, those predictions have all been for nought. 

Continue Reading Arizona for the Super Bowl?

Another college football season has come and gone, and the Florida Gators are the unanimous national champions. I was hoping against hope that the AP would go out on a limb and name Utah #1. Not surprisingly, that possibility didn’t realize, but the Utes did garner the AP’s #2 spot, in the process grabbing an impressive 16 of 65 first place votes, just under 25%. How Utah is still only ranked #4 in the Coaches’ Poll defeats me.

Who would not like to see Utah square off against Florida? What a great game that would be! Ah, but for a playoff! Allow me to be wistful…

With the season over, I thought I’d revisit some of my college football predictions and analysis and see just how accurate I happened to be.

Continue Reading 2008-2009 College Football Wrap-Up

This is a cross-post of an article I wrote for FierceAndNerdy.com, for whom I will be writing a periodic blogumn. It’s actually an expansion and elaboration of my comments on the title square-off put forth in Nate’s Most Intriguing Bowl Matchups, worth revisiting here on game day.

The first pseudo major sports championship of the year takes place Thursday night in Miami as the 12-1 and top-ranked Oklahoma Sooners face off against the 12-1 and second-ranked Florida Gators in the BCS National Championship game. I say pseudo because college football will never have a true national champion until a playoff system is put into place. The money-grubbing and gross inequities inherent to the Bowl Championship Series system will always result in college football’s champion being largely determined by polls, not on the field.

But, like the BCS or not (if you couldn’t already tell, I don’t)‚ it did result in a legitimate matchup for the so-called title game this season. Sure, other teams (Texas, USC and especially undefeated Utah) had strong arguments why they should be in the BCS Championship game, but those same discussions would exist regardless of which teams were playing–that’s the problem. From an outside observers standpoint, Oklahoma vs. Florida is a completely legitimate matchup, though I personally maintain Utah’s undefeated season warranted them the nod.

Continue Reading Fierce And Nerdy: The BCS Championship Game – Oklahoma Sooners vs. Florida Gators

Every time a team continues to pile on the points long after the game is out of reach, crybabies who belong on hippie communes where competition is forbidden complain about running up the score.

I like running up the score. I believe in running up the score, in demoralizing your opponent so viciously that they trble in fear the next time they face you.

Why am I bringing this up?

Continue Reading Running Up the Score

Round 1 of the NFL playoffs is complete. Some games were close, some were… well, not so close, and perhaps even those were closer in final score than they really were on the field. So, what did you learn? Here are my musings (some serious, some slightly less so) based upon the just completed Wild Card games.

1. Darren Sproles is the best back-up running back in the NFL. Any other team (except for the Vikings) and he would be starting. A healthy LaDainian Tomlinson and Sproles is one of heck of a lethal combination. Continue Reading What We Learned From the Wild Card Round