Weekly Sports Commentary with Scott Gray

contact scott gray via e-mail @ scott.gray@cbsradio.com

Monday, November 16th 2009 - Sports Commentary

Seeing isn't always believing.  Sometimes it depends on who's eye you're seeing through, and the soundtrack that accompanies it.  Sometimes seeing sports through the eye of television offers a distorted view of things.  Tennessee-Ole Miss, Saturday afternoon.  We were informed that three Tennessee freshmen had to sit out the game after being arrested for attempted robbery.  The arrest was actually for "armed" robbery.  Big difference.  The guess here is the CBS network announcers knew the difference but opted to go with the less threatening sounding criminal act, making it easier to keep the telecast sprinkled with references to the nobility of Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin.  With the event being played in Australia, Tiger Woods collecting a three million dollar fee just for being there and a field so overmanned the other entries spent most of the four days expressing their amazement Tiger was even there, the event was so watered down it wasn't worth the trek to televise it live to an audience so far out of prime time it made the original Saturday Night Live cast look like a phalanx of Tony winners, so what we got of the Australian Masters was televised highlights, or lowlights.  One of the latter, Tiger slamming his driver into the ground so hard after an errant drive that it richocheted into the crowd.  The most notable aspect of the scene was the look of stunned amazement on the faces in the gallery.  They don't get as much of Tiger down under as we get up here.  That sort of "just Tiger being Tiger" frivolity is something we see here all the time.  No stunned looks here.  Stunned looks here, however, when the leader board in Australia was listed alphabetically, putting Tiger, not at the top of the list, as is the custom here, no matter how big the tie or what order players came off the course, but at the bottom.  Here in the states such alphabetizing would cost a production assistant his or her job.  But distortion isn't a deterrent when it comes to getting into the televised sports act.  Some people will do anything to get there.  Tomorrow St. Peter's hosts Monmouth in a regular season men's college basketball game.  At six A.M.  ESPN needed someone to fill the time slot in their all day college hoop marathon and officials from both schools couldn't volunteer fast enough to get their student athletes out of bed at two A.M. on a class day to get the T-V time.  But the eyes aren't the only senses that get assaulted.  Here's one for the ears.  In an ESPN Radio interview a Green Bay Packers linebacker happened to drop into the conversation that he has Packers quarterback AAron Rogers on his fantasy team.  ESPN gave him a free pass and it was never mentioned again.  Did it occur to anyone that fantasy football teams are a means of gambling on the NFL, which, at last check, for NFL players, was illegal?  That one not only sounded bad, it felt bad and it stunk.  As distorted as things can look, depending on which eye was see them through, sometimes other senses, even all the senses, are violated.  But that's just another weekend in the electronic presentation of the games people play.  With a comment from the sports world, I'm Scott Gray.

Tuesday, November 17th 2009 - Sports Commentary

Patriots coach Bill Belichick has been sliced and diced from Caribou to San Diego the past thirty six hours over his decision to go for the first down rather to punt on fourth and two from his own twenty eight yard line on the final play before the two minute warning with the Patriots leading the Colts by six points.  I was one of the first to jump, accusing Belichick of handing the game to the Colts.  There's nothing like the luxury of 20-20 hindsight.  If everyone knew the Patriots would make it, keep the ball and run out the clock, as Belichick planned if the play worked, the move would have been roundly hailed.  At the time, however, no one knows what the outcome will be.  It's a bad call only because the Patriots lost.  Earlier this season the Pats were in a similar situation and went for it on fourth down inside their own thirty.  They made it, won the game and Belichick was a genius.  In reassessing Sunday's game in Indianapolis there are a number of factors that must be considered.  A number of former Patriots defensive stallwarts, Tedy Bruschi and Rodney Harrison among them, questioned the move, claiming it sent a bad message to the defense that Belichick would rather keep the game in the hands of his offense than turn it over to them.  An interesting conclusion if turned the other way.  It's not the Bruschi-Harrison defense anymore.  They, and many of their teammates who made that defense so great are gone.  What if Belichick opted to punt, telling his offense he didn't have faith in them to put the game away.  His offense had put up thirty four points, scoring on six possessions, the defense had allowed twenty eight points, actually only stopping the Colts three times all night, while Petyon Manning wasn't having a particularly good game.  The Colts scored on four possessions while giving away two others themselves, one on a terrible pass by Manning, one when Manning and Reggie Wayne ran two completely different plays, leading Manning to throw to an area with no reciever, just two defensive backs.  The consequences of the gamble also had to be assessed.  Get the yardage, win the game.  Fail to make it and turn the ball over to Manning at close range.  Giving Manning the ball anywhere on the field puts him in scoring position.  From seventy yards away he's just as likely to score from his two minute offense, just take more time to do so, and understand I'm not saying it's automatic, but it also isn't automatic they get the touchdown from thirty yards out.  But history tells us Manning is likely to have the ball back at the thirty anyway, just with thirty more seconds burned off the clock, which he has control of, and less time to respond if the Colts do score.  Giving Manning a chance to score from thirty yards out didn't necessarily mean losing the game and in the end, if necessary, the outcome would hopefully be right back where Belichick wanted it, in the hands of his offense.  The Patriots will win the AFC East, probably be seeded second and they'll see the Colts again down the road.  They just lost the number one seed, no real harm done.  One other thing to think about.  My analysis has changed greatly after thinking about it for thirty six hours.  Belechick had one minute to make the call.  That's why he's coaching in the NFL and any number of nattering nabobs like me, who do their quarterbacking on Monday mornings, are not.  With a comment from the sports world, I'm Scott Gray. 
 

Wednesday, November 18th 2009 Sports Commentary
 

Five years ago no one thought it would happen.  Five years 
from now it may be just a distant memory.  But, in at least 
one November, there will be a football game between Notre 
Dame and the University of Connecticut.  After that nothing is
carved in stone.  The original discussion of a deal was between
UConn Athletic Director Jeff Hathaway and then Notre Dame 
A.D. Kevin White, a home and home contract for as many as 
six games that White would never approve if Rentschler Field 
was the home site for the Huskies.  Notre Dame wouldn't
carry it's national brand into a forty thousand seat venue.  
Giant's Stadium and Foxboro were discussed as alternative 
sites but the return for UConn, in terms of revenue and ticket
allottment, probably wouldn't make it enough of a winner for 
the Huskies to move a hundred miles from home.  There is a 
feeling in some corners that new Nortre Dame A.D. Jack 
Swarbrick might be more inclined to allow the Fighting Irish to
play a game in East Hartford, or add to the pot for UConn at 
another venue, and talks with Hathaway go on.  But, for now, 
it's a one game series, this Saturday in South Bend, shrouded
in all the mystique of a hundred and twenty one years of 
football lore, winning one for the Gipper, Knute Rockne,
shaking down the thunder, Touchdown Jesus looking down 
from above.  "It's just another game", said UConn coach
Randy Edsall at his weekly media session yesterday in Storrs, 
"The tenth game of this season.  It probably means more to 
the school and people associated with UConn football from the
beginning."  Maybe for Randy Edsall it's just another game.  
Maybe it is just special for long time UConn football devotees.
But rest assured, in South Bend it's more than just another 
game.  If it does turn out to be the only game UConn ever 
plays against Notre Dame it comes packed with significance.  
If the decision hasn't already been made in South Bend, and 
many feel it was made when the Irish lost their second 
straight home game to Navy then fell to Pittsburgh to fall out 
of BCS bowl consideration, a loss to UConn this week would 
provide the final line on Charlie Weis' buyout deal as Notre 
Dame head coach.  It was roundly reported last fall that Weis
commands a buyout of eighteen million dollars.  Then reports
surfaced that it wasn't nearly that much.  The Sporting News
reported earlier this fall, after researching the matter, that it 
is eighteen million, every penny of it.  That would bring the 
total cost of buying out Weis to between thirty and forty 
million dollars, the cheapest of the acceptable successors out 
there, see Brian Kelly of Cincinnati, commanding five year 
deals worth about three million per.  The bottom line is Notre 
Dame is the only school in the nation with it's own television 
contracts, every game on national T-V, and that's a bottom 
line that has to be protected.  When it comes to it's football 
legacy Notre Dame is a bottom line institution willing to meet 
any bottom line figure to protect the brand.  If it works out 
that this is the only time UConn and Notre Dame meet on the 
hallowed gridiron in South Bend it may well be one for the 
illustrious Fighting Irish history books, marked as the game 
the search for a successor to Charlie Weis began in earnest.  
With a comment from the sports world, I'm Scott Gray.

Here we go again.  The Heisman Trophy ballots went out yesterday.  It's that time of year for the post season college football arguments to ratchet up.  Let's start right there, with the Heisman.  Is it a Most Valuable Player award or is it the award for the best player in college football?  If it's the latter why doesn't a defensive player ever win it?  If it is for the best player in the game statistics alone would give an edge to Clemson running back C.J. Spiller but, based on early prognostications, the favorite appears to be running back Mark Ingram of Alabama.  At least it doesn't appear to be the "best quarterback" award again this season, running backs seem to have the early edge.  But it's a pretty safe bet when they send out the traditional five invitations for candidates to join the Heisman committee in New York for the announcement the second Saturday in December at least three of those five invitees will be from the Southeast Conference and the Big Twelve Conference.  Which runs us head on into the second big argument of the football post season, the lack of a tournament, or some form of playoff format, for determining a national champion.  With three weeks left to the season there are five undefeated teams.  Four of them may get out unscathed.  Half of those four have no chance of competing for the national championship.  Cincinnati and Boise State have one major thing going against them, their conferences.  If Florida and Alabama meet for the Southeast Conference championship the winner will be a shoo-in for the national championship game.  If Texas remains unbeaten in the Big Twelve they're in.  Cincinnati's body of work in the Big East will get diminished consideration while Boise State, in the Western Athletic Conference, can send their argument for consideration back to congress.  This seeding process is done by conference pecking order.  To question the fairness of that process over a tournament look at it this way.  The Big East is roundly considered the best basketball conference in the nation.  Under the football criteria a Big East team would get an automatic championship game bid every year over teams from other leagues with identical credentials.  The accuracy of such a seeding process comes under serious question when the number of national championships won by Big East teams in the leagues first thirty one seasons are counted.  The total is five.  Only one Big East team has won two.  The University of Connecticut.  Based on the conference pecking order method the basketball national championship game would be an annual Big East-ACC showdown.  Nine times since the inception of the Big East the national champion has been a team from the Atlantic Coast Conference.  They are far and away the top two basketball conferences in the country.  In football terminology, unless every team in those leagues spit the bit, they get the championship game nod.  What about the seventeen times in those thirty one years that teams from other leagues won the national championship?  Under the football process those teams wouldn't even get a chance to compete.  Without a similar playoff process in football it's not out of the question to think that fifty five percent of the time the best team in the game not only doesn't win the national championship, it doesn't even get a chance to try.  With a comment from the sports world, I'm Scott Gray. 

Friday, November 13th 2009 - Sports Commentary


It's not hard to make me a believer and if anyone can make me believe it's United Football League President Michael Huyghue.  I'm still not sold on the league, but Northland-AEG getting into partnership with it might not be a bad idea.  Northland operates Hartford's XL Center and Rentschler Field in East Hartford, home of UConn football.  Filling open dates works to their advantage, but to fill three dates with UFL action Northland will have to become part owner of the team, a move expected to be announced by the end of the year, Northland owning fifty percent, the league the other half.  Hartford would be one of two franchises added for season two, bringing the league complement to six.  Huyghue envisions a league featuring "High quality football in non NFL markets", an ingredient he says was missing from the three leagues that tried and failed against the powerful National Football League.  The New York Sentinels, the home away from home team for last night's Rentschler Field UFL preview, misses on both counts.  0-5, they're the worst team in the league, lining up to compete head to head against, not one, but two teams in the biggest NFL market, Huyghue saying they are currently exploring Citi Field, Yankee Stadium and Giants Stadium as potential sites.  He envisions his league becoming the new developmental league for the NFL as it becomes a warehouse for fourth and fifth year NFL veterans who become too pricey for NFL payrolls and sixth and seventh round draft picks looking for a more legitimate shot at playing time.  "The NFL sees the benefits", says Huyghue, "In that they're learning more about these players than they knew six weeks ago."  The Florida Tuskers, who beat the Sentinels last night in East Hartford, feature at least two NFL veterans who continue to showcase marketable wares, former Jets quarterback Brook Bollinger and five year NFL veteran fullback and former Bloomfield High School star Andrew Pinnock.  Huyghue claims the league operates at about a quarter of what NFL Europe cost fifteen years ago.  But don't expect the NFL to abandon NFL Europe for a working agreement with the UFL, it's too invested in becoming a global commodity.  Huygue makes me want to believe.  It all rolls so sweetly off his tongue, like Burt Lancaster in "Elmer Gantry", but, with a television contract good for just one more year and a mountain of new contracts to be negotiated to bring in two new teams, it will be hard for the reality to live up to the vision.  But the UFL brings one more thing to the equation, something UConn football coach Randy Edsall has expressed a desire for, grass-like Field Turf, a durable surface that can stand up to, not only twelve games a season between the UConn and UFL schedules, but as much use as it can get, a lot of high school football games, for instance, possibly the entire CIAC tournament, and less turnaround time between concerts and sporting events.  Huyghue says the league would require the Field Turf and "That's something we would be prepared and willing to do."  For Northland-AEG a win-win.  The more continous operation the more efficient and cost effective it becomes.  The success of Northland's investment won't necessarily be tied to the success of the league.  If anyone can make you want to believe it's Michael Huyghue.  But I'm still not convinced the UFL is a good idea, going where three other such ventures have failed, but it doesn't necessarily make it a bad idea for Northland to get in on the ground floor and reap what benefits there may be.  With a comment from the sports world, I'm Scott Gray.