Another week, another weekly football post (although this one is coming slightly early for all of you loyal readers). It was another week of ups and downs for this guy's favorites with the foot, and it is time to get you all caught up on my favorite squads that play a game with the name: football.
Fountain Valley came out to end their regular season on an ultra high note this weekend with a Thursday night battle against dismal Marina. I think the 42-0 final score would indicate to you how this may be the greatest team to ever grace Fountain Valley's Yellow & Blue uniforms. Read even further than the final score, and you may come to realize that Kyle Middlebrooks may be the greatest running back that the Barons have ever seen, and he's only a junior. Total domination would be the way to describe the final regular season game for my alma matter. The Barons kicked things off with a 28-0 first half lead on the heels of 3 Kyle Middlebrooks TDs (from 1 yard, 29 yards, and 28 yards), and even we even grabbed a TD off the arm of sometimes passing QB Dominic Ragland. Nyko Gonzalez was on the receiving end of that 20 yard beauty. While we wouldn't see any more scoring from everyone's favorite Junior, we did still add to the lead with two second half TDs (a 99 yard kickoff return and a 21 yard TD run, both by Dylan Garcia). When it was all said and done, the crowd got to be a part of a 178 yard rushing day from KM, a relatively high passing day for Ragland at 44 yards, and the largest FV blowout of the season (which really eases the pain after the loss to Edison last week). Now at 7-3 (3-2 in the Sunset), the Mighty Mighty Barons turn their attention to the post season. Round one will see a battle between FV and Orange Lutheran, and the winner of that game will match up at either Notre Dame (S.O.) or Compton. O. Luth are 8-2 on the year (4-1 in the Trinity League), and sport big wins of JSerra, Jon Bosco, and Mater Dei. However, they did lost to the Servite Friars, so maybe FV does have a chance. Either way, it will be an exciting first step to Pac-5 glory for the boys from Gospel Swamp.
The now 6-4 Notre Dame Fighting Irish got a big win this weekend to. A game that used to be gimmie has turned into somewhat more of a nail biter now that the Irish are more human. However, a 27-21 win over a hopeful Navy squad did its best to squash the pride of our armed forces and to make ND bowl eligible after a miserable 3-9 year last year. There really isn't much of an excuse for the game being as close as it was, however. ND was up 24-7 with time winding down, and Navy was able to put together some action, including two recovered onside kicks to make it close. I hate to say this because he has brought us back to so-called glory, but Charlie Weis clearly has a problem with getting players to appreciate a lead that they have and continue to fight to keep that lead around. The ND defense was in full effect early on, getting the first touchdown on a blocked punt returned for a touchdown, and then it was the conservative running game that took pressure off of Clausen and made good things happen. Jimmy "Nobody messes with the JC" Clausen only finished with a 15/18 110 yard day, tossing no TDs and 2 INTs. What a golden boy! It was the ground attack of EA Sports multiple Heisman winer James Aldridge (16 for 80), Robert "For my brother" Hughes (13 for 64 and a TD), and Armando "AA Degree" Allen (8 for 60 and a TD) that made it all happen for the Irish. There was none of the usual attempts at flashy long bombs to tall and fast receivers, mostly because J Claus just wasn't on. It was positive to see the team plan evolve and still pull off a win, but Weis needs to figure out how to keep these guys in a winning mode for the entire game. I mean, he's supposed to be really good, right? And again, I hate to say it, but since Willingham's recruits left, I've seen a very small number of games where Charlie Tuna has been able to keep his guys jacked from kick off to whistle. He'll need to do that come Thanksgiving weekend. However, he gets a reprieve again this week as ND tries to further their bowl hopes against a hapless 2-8 Syracuse team. The Orangemen don't even stand half of a chance against Notre Dame, and the Irish will be taking a 7-4 record into Souther California with a chance to make the most surprising upset of the year. If not, I smell Insight.com bowl.
Quickly, I'd like to point out that neither the Rams or the Irish will finish with records I predicted at the start of the season.
How many examples of how bad they suck do the Rams need to give us? The latest is a 16-35 blunder at the hands of the equally crappy 49'ers (which, I might add, really hurt me in the LSF standings!). Marc Bulger had a 34/53 295 game, which doesn't sound bad until you add that he had just 1 TD and 2 INTs. The loss of Steven Jackson continued to be felt way more than it should have, with Akron, OH native Antonio Pittman taking on all of the running duties (14 carries for 95 yards). Tory Holt again finished with baby numbers of just 60 yards in the game, with the lone passing TD going to Dane "Ricky Proehl" Looker on an 8 yard toss by "No Longer Mr. Fantasy" Bulger. In the end, it was a 28 points 9'ers second quarter that did the trick on my Ramies, and despite a shutout second half, there was to be nothing good coming for the Blue & Gold. So, at 2-8-0 (tied with Seattle for last place), the Rams look to Chicago for their next opportunity to prove how bad they are. The Bears may just be a 5-5 squad, but that sounds a lot better than 2-8, so I'm not expecting much.
22-18. That was the final score of the West Division Final in the CFL over the weekend. The BC Lions had chance after chance and just couldn't capitalize against Calgary. Not a single TD in the match was scored by the Orange & Black. Six field goals by Paul McCallum got them their 18 points, but not scoring a TD in the game that directly precedes the Grey Cup just isn't going to get it done. South Dakota grad Stefan Logan had 18 caries for 130 yards against the Stamps, but he just couldn't break free on any of his jogs to get to the elusive end zone. At the end of the first half, BC had 15 first downs to Calgary's 4 and controlled time of possession by an amount of 2-1. However, score is the only thing that matters in sports, and only leading 12-9 despite those kind of stats is pretty rough. Buck Pierce (who makes me think that we'd be looking at a Grey Cup berth if Jarious Jackson got the start) finished the game with a 16/29 262 kind of evening, tossing 0 TDs and 1 INT. The Stamps must be excited to go up against Montreal in the CFL's Super Bowl, but for BC it is just another wasted chance, and another long winter sitting in front of their TV. Good luck, Montreal.
The rest of the world calls soccer "football", in case you didn't know, so let's look at that. The Scottish Hoops took it to Hamilton Academical 2-1 over the weekend to increase their SPL lead over the hated Protestant Rangers to 4 points. Glasgow's own Paul Hartley blasted home the late winner that pushed Celtic to the win after a sketchy game tying goal. Richard Offlong, of Hamilton, scored the opener against Boruc to grab the surprising lead, but a penalty awarded to Shunsuke Nakamura helped the Hoops cancel that out. Although the challenge in question was clearly outside the box, Mr. Ninja Warrior took advantage of the refs mistake to tie things up. Then it was up to Hartley and the shut down keeping of Boruc to push things to the win category. The win makes it 10 straight for the Hoops against SPL opponents, all since a loss to Rangers back in August. Next up for the 12-1-1 squad (an amazing 37 points in 14 games) is a battle against a St. Mirren side that holds the SPL's second to last spot.
Another Newcastle match, another celebration over a draw. A 2-2 dealing with Wigan Athletic has Black & White fans cheering after just a messy season thus far. It was former Newcastle stud Titus Bramble earning the equalizer for a 10 man Wigan side in the 89th minute. Newcastle nabbed goals from oft injured star Michael Owen and one of my personal favs Obafemi Martins. The Mags gave it all they could, but sometimes when a former player returns to enemy territory, there is nothing you can do to foil the plans of the soccer Gods. The draw helped the Boys in Bars to temporarily climb out of the relegation zone (now #17) with their 13 points in 13 games thanks to a 3-6-4 record (W-L-D). Oba leads the charge with 5 goals to Michael Owen's 4, but this squad is going to need to get more goals than they can even imagine next week when the face off in a LSF battle against Brandon's Chelsea Blues. The Blues lead the EPL table (along with Liverpool), and it would be quite an embarassment for them to drop a test with 'Castle. However, hope is strong with this one, and I'm confident that Newcastle will realize that a loss against Brandon's boys would drop me to the basement of the LSF table. That just wouldn't be acceptable.
Since Chivas USA has dropped out of the MLS playoffs, my Chivas coverage will shift to the Mexican side. The Goats dropped Indios de Ciudad Juarez (who have a bad ass logo, in my humble opinion) 2-0 with goals from Fabian Jhonfai and usual suspect Alberto "El Venado" Medina. At 6-4-7 (W-L-D), the 25 points side is just one point back of leading UNAM Pumas, and will be up in the Copa Sudamerica match against Internacional on Wednesday before returning to Mexican Premier action.
In addition, one plus one is two.
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