Tar Heel Football - yes a football - blog

Carolina looked pretty good taking down Rutgers 44-12 on Thursday night.  I started watching that game around 9pm courtesy of one of the greatest inventions of all time, the digital TiVo box.  I breezed through every commercial, Lou Holtz studio segment, time out, fair catch, etc but managed to watch all the action.  TiVO, and 44 points on the road, made for some quality Carolina television.

Two things stood out about Carolina's performance.  On defense, the Heels kept Rutgers from converting a single first down.  All game long Carolina stopped the Scarlet Knights a few yards short on third down, and that was without Danny Green!

Two, no turnovers on offense while putting up 37 points (minus the interception return).  The offensive line looked a little shaky the first two series, but the whole offense played with confidence the rest of the game.  

Finally, Brandon Tate had another great game, scoring on a 69-yard pass and a 12-yard end run.  If the season ended today he's be the Heisman Trophy winner.

Despite their success, I'd be happy if the season ended today.  I'd rather focus on the baseball pennant races and playoffs, and the run up to basketball season. Especially here in DC, but also on ESPN, etc., football is like some kind of science fiction virus - eating up column inches and taking up oxygen. That is made a bit more palatable when our home town Washington Offensive Nicknames stink and the Heels are good, so this season we may have antidote for the virus!

ACC Football

Carolina's win - on the road versus a Big East team - is one of the ACC's few good out of conference wins this young season.   Wake Forest - basically a school the size of Davidson that is in the ACC because of basketball - is the marquee FOOTBALL team of the conference and the only one ranked.  Other ACC teams have already lost to the likes of Middle Tennessee State (Maryland), Northwestern (Duke), and East Carolina (Virginia Tech), in addition to losing games that were supposed to bolster the conference's reputation; NC State got blown out by South Carolina, Virginia got waxed by USC, Florida dominated the U, and Clemson was never in it against Alabama.

I guess Carolina's win must have inspired other ACC teams, since Maryland beat Cal today and Duke upset Navy.

Baseball Update

Still on the Rays bandwagon, so much so that I stayed up until midnight on Wednesday to watch Tampa Bay defeat the Sox in 14 innings.

Though I'm on that bandwagon, I'm still hoping that the Nats win at least 7 more games to finish with 63 wins and therefore with fewer than 100 losses.  Not impossible when you consider they have 10 more home games, including three against the last place Padres next weekend in Nationals Park.

Favorite News Item of the Week

My favorite headline of the week had to be PALIN FAMILY SHOCKERS: WHAT SARAH'S REALLY HIDING! from the National Enquirer.   I also liked the grilling McCain received on The View.

I also think the interview with Charlie Gibson was significant in that once again, as she was in her acceptance speech, Palin was incredibly snarky and smug.  If that continues to be her style, I don't think that will play well with swings, to say nothing of her hard right views on church and state, abortion, etc. and her lack of experience. She's just not good with the swings in general.    

Though McCain has picked up a Palin-induced bounce, I'm still confident that she will not put him over the top. As we get closer to November 4th, the focus will increasingly go back to McCain and the celebrity status of Palin will fade.  Once that happens, I think the electorate will remember that a first term of the McCain-Palin administration will be the third term of the Bush-Cheney administration.  Finally, once the focus is back on Bush-McCain-the last 8 years, Obama will win.