Newz Forum: OTHER: The Sports Curmudgeon on the Wisconsin Badgers, ESPN's Dream Job" plus more...

Will someone please put the Wisconsin Badgers out with the trash? Their loss to Michigan State last week was embarrassing; their vaunted defense gave the Spartans 49 points and then Michigan State turned around this week and showed what an offensive juggernaut they actually are by scoring 13 points against a hapless Penn State team.

Nonetheless, when Michigan lost, the Badgers still had a shot to make it to the Rose Bowl. If they beat Iowa, they are still the Big Ten champs. In horse racing parlance, they spit the bit one more time. They lost to Iowa by more than 3 TDs. Can we please put to rest the myth that Wisconsin is a top-flight program and face the reality that it's season records are always bloated with three out of conference patty-cakes and a couple of games against perennial bottom feeders in the Big Ten?

Please recall that Rutgers opened the season with a win over Michigan State. Saturday, Navy beat Rutgers by 33 points and produced 613 yards of total offense against Rutgers including 476 yards rushing on 67 carries. Yes, that is over 7 yards per carry.

I watched Auburn/Alabama over the weekend. Auburn is very good; I don't know if they are the best team in the country or if they are the second best team in the country, but they are really good. Alabama played as if this was the huge rivalry game that it is. I realized that both defenses were playing well throughout the game but here is what I did not realize until I read the stats on Sunday. Both teams averaged less than two yards per rush. I'm not sure I ever saw that before.

As far as the NFL goes, I think an investigation is in order. Somebody had to spike the Gatorade buckets around the league last week because there were a lot of offensive explosions and some were from places where they aren't typically found. The Carolina Panthers beat the Cards 35-10 and averaged over 5 yards per carry. The Bills beat the Rams 37-17 even though they let the Rams' offense have the ball for more than 35 minutes in the game. The Ravens won their game by scoring 30 points and the Bucs won their game scoring 35 points. What's up with that? The Colts and the Broncos also produced big scores, but you kind of expect that to happen...

If that kind of offensive spasm continues into the game between the Pats and the Chiefs, who knows what the score might be. Both of these teams have shown the ability to light it up. This one could be 62-53 before it's over. Somebody needs to take a sample of the Gatorade.

I read somewhere that ESPN has been so happy with the ratings for Dream Job that it will add a new wrinkle to its next iteration. Instead of having sports geeks compete for the job, the network will have former college and pro athletes compete for a job. I have a better idea. Why not take all the former athletes that are littered all over the sports broadcasting landscape, toss them onto the show, and let them compete to see who gets to keep their job? Would you really miss Tony Siragusa's insight and wisdom?

Finally, I want to point out something in the sporting world that I never thought I'd see. Here we are in "Thanksgiving week", and there are a whole bunch of goalies in the NHL all of whom have a 0.00 goals against average. Amazing!

But don't get me wrong, I love sports...

Copyright The Sports Curmudgeon.






[Edited on 11/24/04 by SportzWriter]