Tracer Bullet

at 1:05 he completely blows an opportunity to law out Tate and break up a TD at 1:43 he tries to lay out Tate and gets up a little shaky. ND doesn't have a chance to tie the game with the ball inside USC's 10 yard line at the end of the game if Mays plays like a first-round pick safety.

for purely selfish reasons, I like it. This allows me to like TN again, as I liked their fans when they came to ND and generally like the TN fans I know. And it allows me to combine my hatred of USC for my hatred of Kiffin, who's a slimeball.

unfortunately, so are cfb programs. there's not a great deal of loyalty on either side of the coin.

yeah, this is just brutal for TN fans. I don't even know where you begin looking for a coach. The more this CFB coaching thing spins out of the control, the happier I am that ND jumped on Kelly when they did. I could see him strongly considering a place like TN if ND weren't open.

The only people it faked were the cameramen, or director, who were slow to pick up on what was happening (although not as bad as NU game). I also didn't think that 3rd down pass was catchable, unless that guy has crazy leaping ability or my angles in my head were way off. I don't mind passing there, and passing again. I was just thinking that running on 3rd and leaving the option open on 4th was the best way to go at the time. completely agree

It's not like southern teams have never seen rain. And 50 degrees is hardly bone chilling. It's still a game in the south against southern teams, at best it partially negated the disadvantage. Impressive win by Iowa. Although that gimmick offense isn't that hard to beat when you have time to study it. They rely on catching people off balance. I didn't get the fake field goal call. Why not just go for it on 4th down there? You put the ball in the hands of a guy who can't handle it and you run the risk of what happened, and what almost happened. Instead of GT getting the ball on the 3 worst case scenario, they get better field position and could have ran back a fumble for a TD. I would have liked to see a 3rd down run there, and then 4th down anything other than fake field goal. I don't know how much of that is Ferentz and how much is the OC, but I had the same thought. I don't even mind the 3rd down pass (though I'm not sure it could have been caught anyway), but only if you're then going to go for it on 4th. I'd prefer running on 3rd, but I can understand trying to catch them off guard. The fake makes little sense (and the actual type of fake called makes no sense).

Yeah, he spent so much time in NE rocking the boat... Lovie ain't Belichick. As down as the Weis brand is right now, I wouldn't be shocked at all for Bears fans to quickly forget his ND tenure and start angling for him to be HC if the offense clicks. why would you want to forget his tenure at ND? His offenses (when he had any talent at all) were very good. He developed QBs and WRs (his 1 RB that left in his time at ND also has been in and out of the league; though Aldridge never did recover from his leg injury in HS and won't sniff the NFL). He wouldn't be responsible for hiring (and, more importantly, firing) the OL coach if he sucked, so one of his biggest faults is removed from the equation. And who hated him in NE? Belichick loves him. Brady loves him. If he gets along with Lovie and Cutler and we win 4 Super Bowls, everyone else can **** my ****.

Other than Floyd, who was probably the best route runner on the team as soon as he set foot on the field, you're right that Weis developed all those WRs. Look at where Tate is now from his first game as a freshman when Weis told him from the sideline to run a "go" and Tate looked back and asked what that was. Weis pointed to the MSU DB and said "see that guy, run past him a catch the ball." The CB looked back in shock. Tate caught the next pass on a go route. He's now a Biletnikoff winner. Weis has a lot of faults, but I think you're exactly right that he's not looking to be the head coach anywhere any time soon. He would likely want to clearly be the head honcho on offense, so having a defensive-minded HC would be a good fit.

Yeah, he spent so much time in NE rocking the boat...

http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/nfl/news/story?id=4799863 pleasepleaseplease

why couldn't you have spun out on your way to OKC and be sitting in the ditch mocking the drivers that didn't crash? it's a cruel world.

right, except brett favre is old for his profession and retires every offseason, only to wait for another team to cater to his every desire and allow him to come back after skipping all of the hard work during the preseason, whereas urban meyer suffered a serious of significant health incidents that made him think he needed to retire - very early for his profession - but then reconsidered and a day later decided to take a leave of absence in hopes that he could improve his health in that way. in other words it's pretty much exactly the same thing except in just about every way possible. so, let me see if I can break this down into one off-the-cuff statement: he retired and then unretired. What famous NFL QB that ESPN loves has done that recently...let them think...it's right on the tip of my tongue... you two quit being bitter than meyer decided he'd rather win the nat'l title in the florida sunshine than lose to navy in cold, boring indiana. Bitter? I hate a lot of people who haven't spurned me or my favorite CFB team. There's not enough bitter in the world for all of my wrath. "cold, boring Indiana" - I spent over 20 years in Iowa. I love the place, but come on. little pot/kettle, isn't it?

right, except brett favre is old for his profession and retires every offseason, only to wait for another team to cater to his every desire and allow him to come back after skipping all of the hard work during the preseason, whereas urban meyer suffered a serious of significant health incidents that made him think he needed to retire - very early for his profession - but then reconsidered and a day later decided to take a leave of absence in hopes that he could improve his health in that way. in other words it's pretty much exactly the same thing except in just about every way possible. so, let me see if I can break this down into one off-the-cuff statement: he retired and then unretired. What famous NFL QB that ESPN loves has done that recently...let them think...it's right on the tip of my tongue...

I don't see anything particularly unreasonable about that. Traveling around the country, scouting players, and selling them on your program vs. rest and close consultation with doctors is a fairly big difference. Where's the advantage to the Gators for him to do that? From a pure football standpoint I don't see much to gain from him doing this so it seems incredibly stupid for someone to impugn him for taking some time off for a legit medical condition. If Meyer had been running a middling SEC program for the last few years no one would any where would have a problem with it. traveling around the country? I'm not sure Meyer travels further than Georgia to recruit, and even then maybe once or at most twice, during that time. Why in the world would you announce your retirement before a BCS bowl and then, 24 hours later, hold a PC to say that you're not retiring and that your "leave of absence" is only going to last until fall camp? Oh, that's right b/c you lost the SEC title so you need the spotlight on your University. And you know that by making a spectacle of it, ESPN will run your PC uninterrupted giving you a national podium from which to declare how much you love your players and school such that you'd risk your health, even after your children just a day earlier praised you for quitting and told you "I get my daddy back." It's all a hoax. The sympathy I had for Meyer yesterday is gone.

myspace was a fantastic idea, but it's a terrible website. Facebook may have gotten my vote if it had launched to the public earlier. But Google, and all the crap you can do there, wins. I never thought I'd make a search engine my home page, but I love iGoogle. Roll in gmail, GIS, maps, docs, wave. It's incredible. youtube comes in 2nd. Though, again, Facebook may pass both if they can keep innovating without alienating users.

The second one-line paragraph is a transition, but given the first and 3rd (and the general tone of the article), the second one-line paragraph plays into the overall perception that you want him traded b/c of how he handled the Bradley situation. The way I see the article, you used to like Theriot b/c he was an average player that was inexpensive and you thought it was a nice guy. He's still an average player, though not as cheap as he once was. But you "hate" (your word) the way he handled the Bradley situation. It appears from the article that the baseball stuff supports why another team would value him now (aka, why a trade is even plausible) rather than why you value him. In other words, you seem to be saying "I thought Theriot was a nice guy. I was wrong; he's not a nice guy. Thus, I think the Cubs should trade him. And a trade might bring something of value because, despite throwing a teammate under the bus, he's still a decent SS."

Is that really all you got out of the article? Really? Pretty much,Tim.When you start with " I used to like Ryan Theriot ", then end a paragraph about his handling of the Bradley situation with "Count me as one person who no longer thinks of Ryan as such a nice guy" it taints any legitimate reasoning you may have presented with the stain of being simply sour grapes. At the very least I would have axed the opening line. Once again, my opinions. And you're ignoring all the baseball reasoning in the middle. Excellent. Sorry, Tim, but I read it the same way. you have 3 single-sentence paragraphs, distributed pretty equally in the piece. The first sentence: "I used to like Theriot." A third of the way down: "so why am I dead set on trading him?" And 2/3 of the way down: "I no longer think of him as a nice guy." People are going to skim articles. The way it's set up lends the article to skimming and reading those 3 sentences while browsing over the rest. Supporting the trade with the arbitration stuff makes sense, but the structure of the article minimizes that in favor of the "Theriot isn't nice b/c he said bad things about Bradley." In fact, one other line jumped out at me. You said, you'd never seen any player throw another player under the bus like that, or something close. You set off 3 single-sentence paragraphs and then add hyperbole to drive that point home. I'm a little surprised to see you now argue that you aren't in favor of trading Theriot almost solely b/c of the Bradley situation. While the baseball stuff makes sense, I really thought the tone of your article meant you were upset with Theriot and wanted him dealt if a fair deal could be had. Sorry if i misinterpreted your point.

moved from rants. seems like there's at least legitimate baseball discussion about the choices.

is there an obvious omissions I'm forgetting? I find it pretty hard to argue with that infield.

The only holdover will be Tony Alford, the RB coach. I know. But Quinn has been Kelly's OL/OC for seemingly ever. Given the recent OL struggles, which Verducci went a long ways towards stopping last year, I was hoping we'd have Quinn (familiar with Kelly) or Verducci (familiar with the players).

Kelly's OL/OC and long-time assistant Jeff Quinn took the Buffalo job. And I think Kelly just told Verducci he wasn't coming back as OL. Hope that wasn't a mistake.

The Cubs got both a few bucks and an (allegedly) near-worthless player. The huge money over the next two years is a sunk cost. It's not a sunk cost when we didn't have to pay it to a horrendous player before the trade. I don't think you comprehend the concept of a sunk cost. In this case the monies committed to Bradley cannot be recovered. That $21M absolutely WILL be paid. Replace "ticket" with "contract", and "movie" with "Bradley circus", and you've got the present situation described to a T, except here the Cubs got a little something for their "ticket" instead of just throwing it away -- a marginal player and $5M savings. Yes, I absolutely understand what a sunk cost is, and it's a simplistic idea that doesn't consider the realities of a MLB trade. Of course the 21 million will be paid, but as we can see it is not for certain to be paid by the Cubs, and the value received from that 21 million varies significantly depending on who is "playing for that 21 million" so to speak. That would be an applicable analogy if we had paid all but "a couple bucks" of his salary and got something like a minor leaguer in return. Instead, what actually happened is that we now have Carlos Silva and his contract. To sum up: Before: Bradley and his contract providing X value After: Silva and his contract providing X - a billion value, plus a few million dollars To use that ticket analogy, if Bradley is the ticket, then Silva is someone hitting you in the back of the knee with a crowbar. that would be funny if it weren't so accurate.

If you look back here or in the ND coaching thread, you'll see that I posted something about footballcoachscoop running baseless rumors. A guy literally emailed them from a hotmail account and said he heard a rumor (that was unbelievable) and they not only ran it, but embellished. It's a terrible website.

seems more likely today than even yesterday. when he's divorced, he can go back to whoring and golfing with no concern for his family. he may double the record.

and women's volleyball or something like that too.