ESPN benched ESPNU commentator Brian Kinchen after his recent remarks made during the NIU-Iowa game.

Kinchen was describing how receivers need to have soft and “tender” hands to catch and “caress” the ball.  His next sentence?  “…that’s kind of gay, but hey…”

During the next play Kinchen described a pass as “rad” and said that the receiver was “booking it” for the end zone.  Then he wet-willied his co-announcer and told him he wouldn’t be his Best Co-worker anymore if he didn’t let him have the crackers from his Snack Pack.

Who are these people?  What is going on with Pollsters and Announcers this year? 

We need to get Kinchen together with Lamar Thomas, the notorious Miami commentator that wanted to run down on the field and bust a cap in the UFI players during Miami’s 38th rumble this season.  That would be a fun conversation….

Thomas: I will kill you.

Kinchen: I know you are but what am I!

Thomas:  I am serious. I will stab you in your skull and then run down your family

Kinchen:  Infinity!

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So this week there were a few close calls.  Close calls for Top 10 teams against unranked, unrespected opponents.  In particular, Texas eaked out a win over lowly Texas Tech (5-4) in a comeback.  What are the headlines?   Stuff like “Texas Proves it’s a Winner”, “McCoy Comes into His Own as a Leader”, blah blah blah.  And Tennessee struggled with not-good South Carolina (5-3), pulling out a win there by a touch.  This SC is also unranked. Again, glowing headlines about the Vols’ “mettle” in winning this game.  Finally, Auburn had to come back against SAD competition from Ole Miss, a great school whose football team is not as they are 2-7 on the year. 

What happened in the polls?   Texas moved UP a spot from 5 to 4, and the Vols stayed right where they were at 8.  Auburn struggles with a 2-7 Ole Miss squad and and they move UP a spot as well from 7 to 6.  Hmmmm, okay.  So three Top 10 teams struggled to beat unranked opponents with one of the teams (TX) needing a huge comeback to do it?  Sound familiar?  ND did it last week against UCLA.  Know what happened to them?   Headlines: “Irish Struggle”, “Weaknesses Appear”, blah blah blah.  And in the polls?  ND DROPS TWO SPOTS. 

Someone tell me what is going on.  I feel like I’m taking CRAZY PILLS OR SOMETHING!

And don’t even get me started on USC’s rank of 9 in both polls vs. ND’s 11 and 10.  ND is a 1-loss team with that loss coming to #2 Michigan.  USC has the same record, but with a loss to #36 Oregon State.  I don’t care if they almost came back, I don’t care if OSU got lucky to pull out the win.  They got BEAT by #36 OSU, and were WAY behind early, and have not beaten anyone with maybe the exception of Arkansas.  So how does ND stay below USC?  Get on your knees pollsters…

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You might want to sit down. USC lost this weekend. I know. We didn’t expect it either. At least not like this.

The media? They’ll be ok. We got a therapist working with them, and she says they’re progressing nicely thru the stages of mourning. Just looke what little Stewie wrote during his denial phase:

And yet, right when it seemed USC was headed for an all-out meltdown, falling behind 33-10 with 4:51 left in the third quarter, John David Booty, Steve Smith and Co. went out and mounted a near-epic, Leinart-caliber comeback. Booty, after struggling much of the game, started hitting everything, Smith gave a performance for the ages (11 catches, 258 yards, two TDs) and the defense finally quieted Beavers QB Matt Moore. Ultimately, they fell two points short, but only after Booty (who threw for 405 yards and three TDs) drove them 80 yards in two minutes to score the potential game-tying touchdown with seven seconds left.

That, more than any of their wins over the past month, tell me the Trojans haven’t completely lost their swagger, and should serve as some solace to all those USC fans out there trying to cope with their first regular-season loss since September 2003. There will likely be at least one more loss before 2006 is over, but I’d be feeling a whole lot better about Booty’s chances of leading a potential title run in ’07. (Granted, I’d feel much better than that if Smith wasn’t graduating.

See? Stewie knows it’ll be ok. He just doesn’t know he knows it yet. And the rest of the press? They’re already thru the anger phase. Yeah, they took it out on Notre Dame, but hey, if you’re gonna take it out on someone, at least take it out on someone who can handle it. Can you imagine if they’d taken it out on, say, Boston College?

It’ll be ok. It’s all gonna be ok.

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National Media Outlet College Football Experts,

Listen up.  Eric Hansen, yes, THAT Eric Hansen, of the South Bend Tribune, owns your ass.

Some people will never get past the Tyrone Willingham firing. Some people will never be able to get past the contract extension. Some people will resent him writing a book just a year into his head coaching career. Some people feel like they have to weigh in on every sound bite that comes out of Weis’ mouth.

And that’s OK. But if you’re going to do that, do your homework. Don’t push aside the facts and context for the sake of proving you’re tough enough to take on big, bad Notre Dame. And it wouldn’t hurt to drop in after practice once in a while. If you’re going to have an opinion, shouldn’t the opinion be informed?

And your cheeseburgers.

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Ahoy!

Being on this pirate isle, I saw about 20 seconds of the game yesterday because, well, it’s Navy, and in 20 seconds we scored. Twice. That and time on this island is relative, and I have no idea to what.

Anyway, dear readers, the HLS staff is, I’m sure, busy working on some excellent content today, so be sure to check back soon!

I leave you with this thought: BBQ turtle. It rules.

So too does rum.

Mmmm… Rummy, rum, rum, rum. I love rum.

I’m a pirate, bitches.

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Despite the fact that ND is not playing Purdue, this may well be the most boring week of the college football all season. Luckily Notre Dame gets to renew it’s “rivalry” with Navy this weekend, and we here at HLS would just like to say it’s an honor, Navy dudes.

• The Big Game: Notre Dave vs. Navy
• The Other One: Texas vs. Texas Tech
• The One Nobody Will Watch (Unless they want to see if UNC’s fired coach can FINALLY win one, oh the irony!): Wake vs. UNC

More…

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Oh Sure, Sed might have the big lead, but a funny thing has happened lately. You can sort of feel it in the air tonight (cue Genesis). Momentum. It’s a fleeting feeling, but when you’ve got it, you should embrace it, and take advantage of it. Sed, at least for this week, don’t got it.

They can both feel it. Ew.

More…

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Hey, I’ve got all the respect in the world for the Midshipmen, but when you make a video like this, it’s bound to be posted on the internet for all to see…

PS – Army wouldn’t have used the floor mat. Oh Snap!

UPDATE: Middies play with Legos.

Which is ok.  Legos rule.

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You’ve all read the quotes on the AP wire or ESPN.com…

“One of the teams (Tennessee) that jumped us had the same game that we had. They’re down, they’re playing at home and they win by a field goal. Another team (Florida) that jumped us wasn’t even playing. They were home eating cheeseburgers and they end up jumping us. That befuddles me. …”Tell me how that works? Maybe I’m just stupid. Tell me how that works?”

And I’m sure that all you ND haters (and therefore Weis haters because you wish you had him) went off on how our great big coach is a great big whiner.  That he should shut his trap and quit complaining.  But Charlie isn’t like that.  And John Walters over at NBC has the FULL story:

In truth, for those of us in attendance, it was a funny moment. The writer who asked the question was the AP reporter Tom Coyne. The sentence that Coyne did not include in his piece was was the next thing Weis said. The ND coach looked directly at Coyne and said wryly, “You’re on the AP, tell me how that works.”

Everyone in the room laughed. [M]ore often than not it’s difficult to appreciate the context of the quote unless you are there or unless you hear it in its enitirety.

If you only read the AP story, you may think that Weis has an agenda, that he’s bitching because the Irish are falling further and further out of the BCS championship game picture. But listen to what he said immediately after Coyne answered his question by saying, “I don’t get a vote.”

Here’s Weis:  “Hey — let’s be very practical here, okay. Would I love for Notre Dame to play for the National Championship this year? Absolutely. Is it a chance that it happens? Remote. Is there a chance? Yeah, there’s a chance because any team with one loss has a chance of playing for it.

Other than that, what’s the next thing you want? Well, you’d like to play in one of the big games. So what do you have to do? Then you have to win. That’s what you have to do. If you win, things usually end up taking care of themselves.”

So calm down playa-hatahs.  Chuck is all good.  As usual.

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Who?

Freddie Mitchell. The other guy playing receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles back when T.O. inexplicably still hadn’t destroyed that franchise. Who knew Freddie “Gator Arms” Mitchell had played for UCLA? UCLA fans didn’t even know this.

Freddie Mitchell, seen here, yet again letting a ball pass thru his hands as he hears footsteps.

Anyway, Freddie wasn’t a very well-behaved visitor to ND Stadium:

By the 3rd quarter, this a-hole was pointing at UCLA fans in other sections and gloating over 4 yard runs. How the mighty have fallen.

While we at HLS hope that one day the Las Vegas medical examiner dictates Freddie’s C.O.D. as “Internal Bleeding Caused by 8,000 Point-blank Hits With Paint-Ball Guns,” we’re proud of the way that ND fans handled it. The guy just ain’t worth manslaughter charges.

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SOUTH BEND Friday evening, in front of thousands of spectators, Notre Dame golden boy Paul Hornung made a true statement about his love of the game. The “Where’s My Pants?” game, that is. Hornung celebrated the 50th anniversary of his Heisman award by giving a heartfelt speech at the Notre Dame-UCLA pep rally. His pants celebrated by dropping down to his ankles.

All records at the Where’s My Pants Hall of Fame were previously dominated by game pioneers Bad Kermit, ChisND and Peej. With one desperate, last-minute maneuver, Hornung now owns them all, including “Exposing yourself in front of the most policemen,” “Most racist underwear,” and “Biggest racing stripe.”

Although the league will not officially condone the abuse of celebrity status for Hall of Fame gain, they will not condemn Hornung ’s actions either. During a press conference earlier today, WMPL chairman J.P. Montufar said that “True, not everybody gets the opportunity to play in front of thousands. But his pants had to drop from way above his bellybutton! That’s some major points in distance alone. I think that Geriatric Where’s My Pants is this millennium’s Shuffleboard.”

You can watch a crappy video of the incident at the following link:
http://www.nbcsports.com/cfb_notredame/index.html?qs=;tab=videos , but you will probably try to buy a gun and then look for the guy responsible for inventing the podium.

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Playboy is coming to UCF, and if it doesn’t use this guy in at least one of the UCF girls’ spreads in the upcoming “Girls of Conference USA” pictorial, Hef has really lost it.

Bonus points for having a girl named “Watwood” quoted in the article. Watwood? ‘Dis wood!

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DTK, a UM Fan (may God have mercy on him), had some things to say about my post below on how the media and the Pollsters view ND’s performances.  In particular, I have taken offense at how they always point back to our whupping by the Wolverines (and yes, I admit it was a whupping) as to why we should be lower in the polls.  And my argument isn’t that it was not a whupping, but that we get penalized for such a whupping more than other teams have. 

Ivan Maisel, in his ESPN.com column today, does it again.  Compare the two lines below. They describe two top 11 teams that had close wins this weekend:

Team A: Team A needed a turnover. Corner Player 1 produced it. A novice kicker prevailed in terrible weather conditions. That pretty much defines “knowing how to win.”

Team B: Great comeback by Team B. Great spirit, great desire, great execution. But what was Team B doing trailing Team C?

Now those two situations are very similar if you eliminate the team’s names.  Both were tight games against relatively lowly opponents, with a win pulled out in the last seconds.  Team A is Texas, and Team B is ND.  (If you can’t figure out Team C, you should spend some time looking in the mirror.)  It really comes down to how things are described, written about and spread.  One team “knows how to win” while the other shouldn’t be behind in the first place?  Why was Texas behind? Were they SUPPOSED to be behind? Didn’t ND show that it knew how to win by, ummm, WINNING?

Well, you say, that’s a fair analysis.  I’d say yeah, fair on both accounts. Sure. No I wouldn’t!

Texas is ranked #5 in his Power Ranking and ND #14, with ND DROPPING and Texas staying right up there at the top.  Now why is that? Is it bc ND’s earlier loss was to a worse team?  Well, only by one spot (#2 instead of #1).  Was it because the Irish got beat at home, in a more dominant win?  Nope, Texas got handled just as easily, and at home.

And regardless of the absolute positions in the polls, why are the Irish DROPPING after such a comeback while other teams move UP or at the least stay the same?  
That is my point.  And I say it stinks like my boys Ivan and Maisel here:

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Congratulations, Matt.

With this super-spawn of a child made up of genetic goo between yourself and your college girlfriend, twenty-some years from now you’ll sit proudly in the audience as your son, your son, your executioner brings down the house with his “sexy, but refreshingly light” tango in Dancing With the Stars.

The happy couple, seen here together. Well, ok, not together. In fact, we can’t find any pics of them actually together.

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I’m just not sure what to do with this. Jason Whitlock moved over to AOLSports.com after being booted from Dear Leader in Sports for pointing out the obvious about a couple of his fellow ESPNers. And now The Big Lead has pointed out that the Hostess Spokesman has ripped open a can of whuppas (gets a link for this single merit) on Mitch Albom in his hysterically titled new column “Real Talk.”

What do we do? For whom do we cheer? This is like picking sides in the annual Miami/FSU game. Maybe it’s more apt to ask this: If Iran and North Korea start bombing the crap out of eachother, for which side do you cheer?

If Mitch and Jason were in a death match, what’s the best possible outcome? I figure if Jason lost, it would suddenly be a lot cheaper to feed the starving. But if Mitch were to die, the overall level of misery in the world would take a dip simply from the news of the event, possibly leading to the end of war.

Darfur – Could really benefit here.

TBL also pointed out that Sonar hasn’t touched his blog for weeks. I’m taking personal responsibility for that. You’re welcome, people of Earth.

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