Wow, Cincinnati.

Anyone see the NC State - Cincinnati game last night? Zach Collaros was sure impressive. I've been a fan of his for a few years now, since he was playing as a back-up to Tony Pike in 2009 (even then I felt like he should've been the starter). I like his size, his toughness and ability to run, and this year so far, his passing game has gotten a lot better with accuracy and his vision.

I was impressed anyways.

LSU

Stayed up waaaay too late last night (on a workday night too!) watching the replay of #3 LSU- #25 Miss. St. I was really interested in this SEC matchup, and it even turned out to be a much better game than I expected. I kind of thought LSU would handle the Bulldogs easily, but that was not the case. It was closed game, tied most the way through. LSU seemed to crash mentally in the 3rd, giving up penalty after penalty and allowing Miss. St to get not only great field position, but momentum too. All they got out of that series was a field goal and it remained tight. LSU pulled it back together and scored the game's only TD in the 4th quarter to pull ahead and win it.

There were some big time hits, and some amazingly athletic plays though. It was great SEC football.

Cam who?

Can Newton threw for 422 yards today against the Cards. Who saw that coming?!

ASU's Ranked 22!

Check it out!

http://espn.go.com/college-football/rankings

I realize they're all the way up at 18 in the coaches poll, but the AP poll and the 22nd ranking is the number that will show up next to their name when they're playing this coming week, so we're gonna go with that for now.

Way to go Devils!

Just a Plug For One of My Favorite Teams

Saturday is a Special Day

Most Saturdays are quite busy for me. Wake up at 8:00 to play basketball, then there's always something to work on at the house; the water heater, remodeling the bathroom, spraying for crickets, sealing the shower, working on the yard... And after that there's grocery shopping or chores (there's always laundry), preparing my Sunday School lesson for church, or watching Trey so Shirley can get other things done. And then, well, I'm a social guy and like to visit with friends or have company over... So even in the off-season, there's not much time for anything.

But come next Saturday, chores will be put off, house projects will get done on week nights, basketball will end a little earlier, and if friends want to hang out, they better like watching football. Saturday, is a special day. Much to my wife's chagrin, yes, Saturday is a special day. Last year it didn't hit me until the very first Saturday of college football. But this year... I'm feeling it.

I happened to have a couple free hours last Saturday, and I spent most the time trying to find the remote (we don't watch a lot of tv in our house). All I wanted to do was turn on the tv and find some football. Now I knew it wouldn't be on, but I was ready for it. I passed a little time sitting on the couch just as if I was watching Michigan or Miami on a Saturday at noon... It was nice. And I can't wait.

So here's to 9 days left...

Will this be the year for ASU?

In the preseason coaches poll (the USA Today Poll), ASU was 26th - meaning they just missed actually getting their name on the Top 25 list, instead, getting the "others receiving votes" asterisk.

In the ESPNU Fan Rankings, ASU ranked 25th! But I don't put much stock in fan rankings and I chalk this up to ASU just being a big school with a lot of students/fans.

But in the ESPN Power Rankings, ASU comes in at 21!

ASU was only 6-6 last year, but that included a few really (no, really) close games against Wisconsin, Oregon, and USC. I think a lot of  the hype about the team this year is a hope that since they're returning a lot of starters (something like 11 on offense and 7 or 8 on defense), that they'll be able to win those close games this year. All of those "well yeah, but if only..." games.

Another high point is Junior linebacker Vontaze Burfict. Burfict has shown amazing play-making ability in his 2 years in the league. I still remember how he single-handedly kept Georgia out of the endzone at the end of a close game (in what was only his 3rd game of college football), stuffing them at the goalline play after play. But he's also been a consistent source of penalty yards for the Sun Devils. Rumor is he's "matured", but to be truthful, I'll believe it when I see it.

I was a big fan of all-conference corner Omar Bolden, but he's out for the season with an ACL injury. ASU's pass defense was terrible last year with Bolden - I'm not optimistic about it without him.

Also, with the addition of Utah, and Colorado, and the splitting of the now Pac12 into two divisions, ASU won't play Stanford (best quarterback in the league) or Washington this year. While Washington is insignificant (unless they prove themselves otherwise), not having to play against Andrew Luck is certainly good for our pass defense.

When you add everything up, the good and the bad, I'm confident ASU will pull off a winning season for the first time since 2007 (they were good that year). And if all else fails, at least they'll look good in their sleek new uni's:

Updated the Blog - Gearing Up For September

It's been a few months since I posted so I just wanted to update the blog.

I've played around with the design a little... I'm no website designer pro, but I played with the template a little and feel like we've got a fresh(er) new look around here.

Only a couple more weeks till college football season starts!

Thought It was about time for a new post - It's NBA Playoffs!

A little talk about the playoffs on facebook got me even more excited about the next two months... it's NBA Playoff time!

I'm bummed that my Clippers didn't show up for the first half of the season and blew any shot at the postseason, but there's always next year.

And hometown hero Stevie Nash just couldn't will his team to rise to the occasion and squeak in. It would've been nice to slip into that 8 seed, because I'm pretty sure we know how to beat the Spurs (see last years playoff series).

I'll just brag for a moment about how I snuck into first place in the last week of the season to win my NBA Fantasy League this year!! It was greeeat!

Anyways, this post is for a little Western Conference Rd 1 Playoff preview. So here we go:

This one should be a gimme as far as I'm concerned. I'm still not sure how the Grizz hung around all season and managed a playoff spot. Rudy Gay has played great ball this season (really, who from the 2010 summer U.S.A. basketball team hasn't played great this season?), and they've got a pair of pretty good bigs in Randolph and Gasol... but what else?

I've always been a Spurs hater, but it's been mostly because of their players. So while the likes of Ginobli and Parker are still around, at least the Horry is gone, and I've actually come to respect Duncan. And I've been a fan of some these new guys they've picked up. Not the most talented group, but this year's Spurs team palys together and has just the right mix of youth, energy, and experience. As much as I don't like saying it, there's a reason they've got the best record in the league.

My name is Michael and I'm a Laker Hater. I am not ashamed.

That being said, I don't see the Hornets beating the Lakers. At all. There's a chance they might not get swept. But without David West, the hornets don't have much. Trading for Landry helped their cause. He's a capable starter at the 4. But really, when you're starting 2 guard is named Belinelli, you  might as well just play with 4 players on the court. No offense Belinelli.

Chris Paul is probably the best point guard in the league, and he sure has his Laker counterpart (Fisher) outmatched. But it just takes more than that to win a 7 game series. Which stinks... since I hate the Lakers.

This one is my favorite match-up of the first round! To me at least, it seems like the Trail Blazers have been underrated all season. They have a handful of underrated players that, when healthy, make this team a lot deeper than people realize. LaMarcus Aldridge is an All-Star (even if he didn't make the All-Star team) and has been playing amazing ball since Brandon Roy started having knee troubles early this season. Wes Matthews was a steal from Utah (maybe not a steal - they are paying him pretty good - but no one expected him to play this well), Nicolas Batum has been solid, and Andre Miller is a solid veteran point guard. With the addition of crash - aka - Gerald Wallace, this is a deep team that could easily win this series.

That being said, The Mavericks have enough talent and experience that it wouldn't surprise me if they came out and won it in 5 games. I really like the addition of Chandler (evidently, so did he. Chandler played SO much better this season than last). He brings toughness and a defensive big man to the line-up that Dirk just doesn't. Losing Butler hurt their depth, but getting Rodrigue Beaubois healthy brought a larger than expected boost to the offense.

Officially, I'm picking the Portland in the upset, but I wouldn't be surprised if they can't beat the Mavs.

This one should be a really great series as well. A lot of youth and energy and loads of talent.

Following the Carmelo trade in february, Denver Nuggets GM Masai Ujuri said "We feel like we got killed in the trade... "  But did you Ujuri? Did you really? The Nuggets got almost the entire Knicks starting line-up in the exchange. All quality players. This is a team that lost it's superstar but now has the deepest team in the league. I was a Denver fan before, and I'm a bigger Denver fan now.

However... I have to pick OKC in this series. Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and now Kendrick Perkins?! How can you pick against that in this series? With Perkins in the middle, the rest of the Thunder defense shouldn't have a problem covering Denver's outside shooters. And while the trading away of Green hurt their offense a little, Hardin has stepped up and hey... you've still got the leading scorer in the league.

This should just be a fun series to watch. I hope it goes to 7 games...