I don’t watch a great deal of NFL football. What little I do watch is either the Saints or Jaguars – and Falcons once that scumbag Vick was out. I watch the Saints because I grew up watching the Saints. I watch the Jaguars because there’s just something about them I like. They aren’t fancy. They aren’t loaded with superstars known by just their first or last name. They’re simply a scrappy bunch of guys who play hard that I find easy to root for. And I watch the Falcons for one reason only – Jerious Norwood. He’s from my hometown, my highschool, and my university.
I know who Wes Welker is only because of fantasy football this season. Before this season, I had no idea who Welker was. I needed to pick up a 3rd WR for my team and had a couple #1 WRs and tons of #2 and #3 WRs to pick from. A friend of mine who is a huge Patriots fan told me to draft Welker. He’s their #2 WR this year and Tom Brady would be throwing a lot. I browsed his bio and thought my friend was crazy telling me to draft a 5′9″ guy who weighs 185 lbs. soaking wet. Boy am I glad I took his advice. 112 or so receptions later, I’m wondering where Welker has been all this time. Then I read the ESPN.com article above. Wow.
Some highlights from the ESPN.com article:
Welker played offense, defense, and special teams in high school. He was also known for puking during some games. Not because of nerves. He just pushed himself that hard.
Welker is only 5′9″ and weighs just 185 lbs. He’s also slow by NFL – and even college – standards at 4.55 in the 40-yard dash.
Welker’s high school football coach sent out 105 faxes looking for an opportunity for Welker in college. 104 said no, and the 105th (Texas Tech) tried to.
Welker played his way into Texas Tech’s starting lineup as a true freshman.
In his Tech career, he caught 259 passes for 3,019 yards and 21 touchdowns.
His eight career punt returns for touchdowns are tied for the NCAA record.
He played most of his senior year with turf toe that hurt so bad he wore a protective boot on off days.
Welker was not invited to the NFL combine, nor was he drafted.
After being cut by San Diego, Welker was picked up by the Dolphins and became the second player in NFL history to return a kickoff, return a punt, kick a field goal, kick an extra point, and make a tackle in one game.
Welker quietly led the Dolphins in receptions (67) in 2006. Probably because the Dolphins were… and still are… horrible.
Welker’s 112 receptions this year is an NFL record for a player in his first year with a new team. And this is with 6-foot-4 Randy Moss in the lineup. Welker’s 112 receptions is also a Patriots franchise record.
Remember the Dolphins game where Welker did the kick and punt returns and all that? Guess who the opponent was. That’s right. The New England Patriots. Bill Belichick is known for wanting hard-nosed, versatile role players on his team more than the Chad Johnsons and Terrell Owenses of the world. Welker, it seems, is the perfect New England Patriot.
I’m not a Pats fan. I could care less if they win or lose, but consider me a Wes Welker fan. Even moreso after reading this article.
“Ole Miss is like one of those games where C-Rhodes just comes out of the bag.” – Charles Rhodes
The play in this video was ESPN’s #1 play of the day on Saturday. It says everything about the game that you need to know. The Rebels’ Kenny Williams didn’t even contend the opening tip to start the game. Apparently he took one look at Jarvis Varnado and figured why bother.
MSU now has a 9-game winning streak and a 5-game SEC winning streak – the team’s longest streaks since their 2003-04 SEC championship season.
State is 5-0 in the SEC for the first time since 1993-94.
MSU head coach, Rick Stansbury, holds a 15-5 record against Ole Miss, including a 10-0 mark at home. State has also won 11 of the last 13 meetings against the Rebels, including 23 of the last 25 in Starkville. The Bulldogs are 27-6 all-time against Ole Miss at Humphrey Coliseum.
In holding the Rebels to 36.8% shooting on the day, State has now held twelve opponents to under 40% shooting on the year. MSU is currently second in the nation in field-goal percentage defense behind Georgetown.
The game’s 10,421 fans in attendance marks the 9th largest crowd at Humphrey Coliseum.
With 13 points in the game, junior guard Jamont Gordon moved into 10th place on MSU’s all-time scoring list. His six assists also moved him into 5th place on State’s all-time assist list.
Sophomore Jarvis Varnado, appropriately nicknamed Swat, turned in just the third triple-double in MSU hoops history last night as the Bulldogs beat visiting Kentucky 69-64. Varnado had 12 rebounds, 10 points, and 10 blocked shots. Varnado also entered last night’s game as the nation’s leading shot blocker. Varnado now averages 5.47 blocks per game on the season (93 blocks in 17 games. Varnado bested the previous single-game block record (8 blocks held by three different players) earlier this season with 10 against Miami. He also had 10 blocked shots against Georgia.
Varnado is currently second all-time for single-season blocks at 93 this season (Erick Dampier had 106 blocks in 1995-96) with 13 regular season games remaining. He is also fifth on MSU’s career blocks record, just three shy of moving past Rickey Brown into fourth place. With a career .634 shooting percentage, Varnado is now MSU’s career leading in shooting percentage with a minimum of 200 career field-goal attempts.
In posting his seventh 20-point outing on the season – 18th of his career – junior Jamont Gordon scored 24 points to move ahead of Jack Bouldin and into 13th place on MSU’s all-time scoring list with 1,271 career points scored. Gordon also matched his career high of five 3-pointers made.
State has now won seven straight games, matching a seven game winning streak dating back to last year’s non-conference schedule. State has also now won six straight SEC conference games dating back to last February.
State is off to its first 3-0 conference start in fourteen seasons. That 1993-94 team started 5-0 in the conference and finished with a 9-7 record.
Coupled with last year’s 84-82 overtime win over Kentucky in the SEC tournament, last night’s win makes just the second time in school history that State has posted back-to-back wins over Kentucky (1962 & 63).
With 15 blocked shots in the game (one shy of a school-record set the week before against Georgia), State has now blocked 10 or more shots in eight games on the season. Having entered the game second in the nation behind UConn, State now averages an even 9.00 blocked shots per game on the season, including an average of 12.75 blocks in the last four games.
Having entered last night’s game leading the nation in field-goal percentage defense, State held Kentucky to 38.3% field goal shooting to mark the 11th time this season that the Bulldogs have held an opponent under 40% shooting.
As good as all of that sounds, State is completely the opposite when it comes to closing out games from the free throw line. Of State’s five losses thus far, they have had the lead late in the game only to see it dwindle away when they failed to connect on the front end of 1-and-1 foul shooting. Through 17 games, State has made just 60% from the charity stripe and missed at the worst times. Defense wins championships, but not making free throws loses them.
Some factoids sent to the media from the SEC office:
LSU’s 2007 BCS National Championship is the Southeastern Conference’s fourth in the 10 years of the BCS. Tennessee won the BCS National Championship in 1998, LSU in 2003 and Florida in 2006
The SEC is the first conference to win back-to-back BCS titles.
The SEC is 11-4 all-time in BCS bowl games. The SEC has won four BCS bowl games in the last two seasons.
The SEC’s seven bowl wins this season is an all-time high for any conference. SEC had six last season (previous high).
The SEC’s 7-2 bowl record this season is first among the automatic qualifying BCS conferences (.778 percent) and second overall (Mountain West – 4-1, .800 percent) this season.
This season, the SEC posted a 47-10 record against non-conference foes (.825 percent), which is the highest percentage of all FBS conferences. 47 wins ties an SEC high all-time (last season, had 47).
The SEC now has 184 bowl wins in its history, which is tops in FBS.
The SEC’s bowl win percentage of 52.8 (184-164-13) is percentage points ahead of the ACC’s 143-128-5 percentage of 52.7 for tops among FBS conferences. Records are using 2007 conference alignments.
As Ohio State rolled through it’s 2007 regular season schedule, clearly the media darling for returning to the BCS title game, they were constantly reminded of the thrashing 41-14 thrashing Florida put on them in last year’s title game. SEC speed, and lack of Big 10+1 speed was the theme and it was repeated over, and over, and over, and over.
When LSU and Ohio State were selected as the participants in this year’s BCS title game, the SEC speed theme continued despite Ohio State’s claims that speed would not be a factor this year. They were partially right. Chris Wells is fast. Really fast. That much was evident on his 65-yard run in the 1st quarter. If he can stay healthy and not leave school early, he’ll rewrite OSU rushing records before he’s done. That’s a monster statement considering Wells is chasing some guy named Archie Griffin in the OSU rushing recordbook.
But the OSU defense is not fast. Certainly not fast enough to keep up with SEC speed for four quarters. And last night they couldn’t tackle very well. Sorry, Buckeyes, but you’re still too slow to keep up.
Ohio State did jump out to an early 10-0 lead as LSU looked a bit sluggish and out of sync. However, once they settled into the game and got back in sync, it was over for OSU. LSU ran off 31 unanswered points before Ohio State could get back on the board, but by then it was too little too late. The scoreboard says the 38-24 final score wasn’t as bad as the 41-14 loss to Florida, but that asskicking was every bit as bad. LSU made the Buckeyes’ #1 ranked defense look bad; really bad. Ohio State didn’t help themselves with 5 costly personal fouls either.
Ohio State is now 0-for-9 against the SEC in bowl games, something I’m sure you’ll hear a lot of if the Buckeyes square off with another SEC school in the 2008-09 bowl season. For their part, Ohio State will be expected to return to the BCS title game next year for the third consecutive season. Their roster is absolutely loaded from top to bottom with talent.
LSU is the first team to win two BCS titles, having won its first BCS championship in 2003-04 under Nick Saban. Maybe now Les Miles haters will crawl back in their holes and shut the fuck up. No longer can you claim he’s winning with Saban’s recruits. That really wasn’t a fair statement after Miles’ first season. What’s left of Saban’s recruits now were freshmen when he was at LSU. They are not the same players now as they were then. These are Miles’ players; this is Miles’ team.
My early 2008-09 BCS title game prediction: winner of the Ohio State – Southern Cal game vs. winner of the SEC title game (LSU vs. Georgia). I’m leaning towards a Southern Cal vs. Georgia matchup based on me thinking they should have met in the Rose Bowl this year. It would be a good follow-up next season.
