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 The Alabama Crimson Tide came in as heavy underdogs against the #9 ranked Clemson Tigers but surprised everyone by dominating the game from start to finish.
AP:
Nick Saban may face his toughest task yet: Holding down runaway expectations for his inexperienced Alabama team. Crimson Tide’s $4 million-per-year coach gave Alabama backers a reason to think big Saturday night, leading ‘Bama to a thorough 34-10 beating of No. 9 Clemson 34-10 at the Georgia Dome.
“Nobody can be satisfied with a one-game performance,” Saban said. “This will be a challenge for our team and it’ll be interesting to see how they respond.”
Still, as the Alabama band broke into Queen’s “We Are The Champions,” at the end, you had to wonder if they were honoring the Crimson Tide’s past, with 12 national titles and years of dominance in the Southeastern Conference under Bear Bryant, or gazing into the near future.
“It’s still early. We still got a long way to go,” cautioned quarterback John Parker Wilson, who threw for two touchdowns and ran for a third. “But we’ve got a good group of guys here who can do it.”
The statistical comparison was overwhelming:
| Team Stat Comparison |
|
 |
 |
| 1st Downs |
25 |
11 |
| Total Yards |
419 |
188 |
| Passing |
180 |
188 |
| Rushing |
239 |
0 |
| Penalties |
6-40 |
6-43 |
| 3rd Down Conversions |
11-17 |
1-9 |
| 4th Down Conversions |
0-0 |
1-2 |
| Turnovers |
0 |
2 |
| Possession |
41:13 |
18:47 |
It’s worth pointing out that Clemson’s vaunted offense was held to a measly field goal, with 7 of the 10 Tiger points coming on a kickoff return.
ESPN’s Ivan Maisel thinks Alabama is ahead of schedule after a disappointing first year for head coach Nick Saban:
Alabama coach Nick Saban wanted to play No. 9 Clemson in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Classic for a lot of reasons. He wanted the national prime-time exposure of the opening Saturday night. He wanted his No. 24 Crimson Tide to have a presence in this recruiting hotbed. He wanted his young team — 14 freshmen on the two-deep — to play in a bowl-like atmosphere.
Saban, in sum, wanted this game in order to prepare his team for a future when they would be ready to contend for championships. In the wake of Alabama’s 34-10 victory, that may have been Saban’s only miscalculation.
Future? The future is now. If Alabama continues to play as well as it played Saturday night, the Crimson Tide will play in the Georgia Dome again this season — in the Southeastern Conference Championship Game.
It’s an exciting start to the season. Clearly, Saban has done wonders in recruiting. But Alabama faces an absolutely brutal schedule, playing at Arkansas, at #1 Georgia, at #18 Tennessee, at #7 LSU, and closing the regular season at home against #10 Auburn. If they can even win three of those games, it would be a spectacular year. Even that, though, wouldn’t be enough to guarantee them a spot in the SEC title game, let alone the BCS championship game.
Kim missed winning last year’s affair by one shot in one of the year’s most exciting finishes. From AP-
Christina Kim shot a four-under 68 on Friday to take a one-shot lead over four players midway through the State Farm Classic.
Kim, who fired a 63 on Thursday to also hold the first-round lead, stood at 13-under 131 after two rounds at Panther Creek Country Club.
Christina is one of the most exuberant players on tour. This has been known to rub some people the wrong way, but I think Ladies golf could use a few more players like her. If Christina wins this weekend it will be her first victory since 2005.
Not too many people are paying attention to the golf being played in Springfield Illinois this weekend. That could be subject to change. This because of one of the golfers one shot behind Kim.
Michelle Wie was among the four players tied for second place behind Kim following a round of seven-under 65, which matched her lowest score on the LPGA Tour.
Sherri Turner, Ji Young Oh and LPGA Championship winner Yani Tseng all posted rounds of 66 on Friday to join Wie at 12-under 132, while Sun Young Yoo shot a 69 to stand alone in sixth place at 11-under 133.
Overall, there were 19 players within five shots of Kim’s lead heading to the weekend.
Following her best round in a long time, Wie’s name is the most recognizable among them.
*****
It has taken Wie — now 18 and entering her second year at Stanford — almost two years to get back to the form she displayed in the 2006 season when she posted six top-10 finishes, including three consecutive top-threes in major championships.
Since then, she has posted more rounds in the 80s (five) than in the 60s (four). Those numbers include her 67-65 start at this tournament.
Wie holed out from the fairway for an eagle at her first hole on Friday, then made five birdies the rest of the way, including one at her last hole to join the logjam in second place.
I still think Michelle has a world of talent if her wrist injuries ever become healed. Can she win this weekend? I see no reason why not. It won’t be a given, the State Farm is known for low scoring and dramatic moves on the leaderboard. Boy do I have a great deal of golf to watch this weekend.
The seven-time PGA Tour winner has never finished better than third in a major championship. From AP-
K.J. Choi rolled in a 25-foot birdie on the final hole for a 3-under 67 in more gloom and wind along the Irish Sea, giving him his first lead in a major championship. It will be the second straight year he plays in the final group at the British Open going into the weekend.
But the biggest surprises were right behind him, starting with a pair of British Open champions who once were No. 1 in the world.
Norman barely touched a club in the month leading up to his 26th appearance in golf’s oldest championship. The 53-year-old married tennis great Chris Evert three weeks ago, and a trip to England counts as the tail end of his honeymoon.
He wound up renewing his love affair with links golf, delivering great escapes over his final three holes for an even-par 70 that put his name atop the leaderboard for most of the afternoon until Choi birdied the final two holes.
Choi was at 1-under 139, one shot ahead of Norman.
An argument can be made for Choi as the best player in the world without a major. It will have to be seen if he can hold up over the weekend.
Norman, the 1986 and 1993 British Open Champion, playing well is one of the two biggest surprises so far in the tournament. It will be even a bigger one if he is still around the top of the leaderboard on Sunday. I said the same thing about Rocco Mediate at last month’s US Open, and we all know how that ended.
Choi and Norman will be playing together tomrorrow. When Norman won the 1986 BO, his final round playing partner was Tommy Nakajima. Like Choi, Nakajima was probably the most recognizable Asian player in the world and arguably the region’s best player. Nakajima shot a final round 77 that day in 86, and was not a factor on Sunday as Norman won by 5.
I wish the media would stop talking about Norman’s divorce and then his marriage to Chris Evert. Norman has a home in my end of Florida, I’ve worked hard to avoid this incessant gossip reporting. I want to read about the British Open, not what a player is doing in their private life.
Camillo Villegas is in solo third, two shots back. The group at 142 three strokes behind Choi include Jim Furyk(One of my three picks this week. Stuart Appleby is at 143, Justin Leonard is further back but made the cut), Defending BO Champ Padrig Harrington, Robert Allenby, and 2001 British Open Champ David Duval. Duval’s being contention has to be considered as equally suprising as Greg Norman at this stage. Since his win at Royal Lytham & St. Annes in 2001, Duval’s career has been in a tailspin.
Time to settle in for a weekend of links golf. There really hasn’t been a boring British Open weekend in some years. Probably the last was Duval’s 2001 triumph. I expect a great deal of leaderboard changes as a result of tomorrow’s round, after all Saturday is ‘moving day’ in professional golf.
However the Irish golfer thinks he will be able to tee it up when play begins tomorrow.
SOUTHPORT, England — If this was nearly any other week, Padraig Harrington would already be home.
Instead, he was strolling around blustery Royal Birkdale, still trying to cope with the pain in his right wrist, still trying to work out how he can possibly defend his British Open championship.
Harrington cut short another practice round Wednesday on the eve of the tournament, managing only three full swings before his wrist started throbbing again. He walked the rest of the course, limiting himself to chipping and putting, the only things he felt comfortable enough to risk.
So, will he play?
“I can’t say honestly at this moment,” Harrington said as he strolled down the middle of the 18th fairway, midway through a practice round that was little more than a pleasant walk.
Later, after coming off the ninth green, he was a bit more specific about his prospects. Harrington said it was 75 percent likely he would at least tee off, but put his chances of making it through the first round at only 50 percent.
To me the wrist sounds too sore to make Harrington a legit threat to repeat this year. If healthy, I may put him in a list of the 10 players most likely to win the 2008 British Open. Englishman Luke Donald withdrew from the BO Open earlier this week, and now looks doubtful in regards to this fall’s Ryder Cup.
Who do I think will win? Ryan at Golf News Net gives the odds for certain players as set by bookmakers in the UK.
8/1 - Sergio Garcia
12/1 - Ernie Els
14/1 - Phil Mickelson, Lee Westwood
16/1 - Padraig Harrington
20/1 - Justin Rose
22/1 - Jim Furyk
25/1 - Vijay Singh, Robert Karlsson
28/1 - Adam Scott, Geoff Ogilvy, Andres Romero
33/1 - Retief Goosen, Angel Cabrera, Henrik Stenson, Stewart Cink, Anthony Kim
40/1 - Luke Donald, Trevor Immelman, Paul Casey, Justin Leonard, Robert Allenby, Martin Kaymer
Jason Sobel of ESPN ranks the top 50 players as he sees them.
Here’s my prediction- I think it will be a fairly obscure player, probably one of the Europeans. Someone this admitted golf nut is unlikely to have known of before this week.
Birkdale has a history of unknowns contending. Syd Scott, Mr. Lu, a then unknown Spaniard Seve Ballesteros at the 1976 British Open, Eamon Darcy, Mike Harwood, Raymond Russell and Brian Watts. Then you always seem to have one of these at any Britih Open venue. They usually come in second or third, but they surprise sometimes. Paul Lawrie for example. There were also Todd Hamilton and Ben Curtis more recently.
So I’d take the field. According to Ryan, the odds with the bookmakers for that selction is 3/2. Alot of golfers at pretty low odds.
That’s what I think will happen this weekend. Phil Mickelson never plays well in the British Open, most of the other likely contenders have one or more marks against them going into this week’s play. If some were to make me name three golfers, they would be- Jim Furyk(3rd at the 1998 BO, the last played at Birkdale), 1997 BO Champ and 99 runner up Justin Leonard, and Stuart Appleby. It will be an interesting weekend.
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British Open after 36 holes- KJ Choi leads by one shot linked with OTB Sports
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Wizbang Sports linked with British Open after 36 holes- KJ Choi leads by one shot...
Guess what famous Chicago landmark it will be played at? From AP-
CHICAGO - Wrigley Field is going to be the frozen confines on New Year’s Day 2009 when the defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings meet the Chicago Blackhawks outdoors in the home park of the Chicago Cubs.
It will be the NHL’s second Winter Classic. Jan. 1 in Buffalo, the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Buffalo Sabres 2-1 before a crowd of 71,217. Snow fell during the game.
“We expect interest to be on an international level for this once-in-a-lifetime event,” Blackhawks chairman Rocky Wirtz said.
The game will be televised nationally on NBC.
The matchup will be the 701st meeting between the Red Wings and Blackhawks — no two NHL opponents have played more regular-season games against one another than the two fierce rivals.
It will mark the third regular-season outdoor game in NHL history. The Edmonton Oilers hosted the Montreal Canadiens on Nov. 22, 2003.
If you make a rare event a yearly occurence, well its no longer rare or novel. Now if the Florida Panthers or Tampa Bay Lightning hosted an outdoor ice hockey game in Florida, that would be newsworthy….err I mean impossible.
Another horseracing track in dire straits. From the Baltimore Sun-
CAMBRIDGE - The Maryland Racing Commission declared Rosecroft Raceway to be in an emergency situation yesterday and approved the track’s request to discontinue live racing for perhaps as long as two years while allowing it to simulcast races at the Prince George’s County facility.
Yesterday, at the commission’s monthly meeting, held at the off-track betting facility in Cambridge, the track’s new chief executive officer, Edward “Ted” Snell, and Kelley Rogers, president of Cloverleaf Enterprises Inc., presented the track’s business plan for the next two years and asked for the declaration of emergency status in order to continue being open for simulcasting.
“Economically, it’s not feasible to have the type of purses necessary to run,” Snell said after the meeting. “Simulcasting [revenue] will allow us to meet our debts and pay our bills.”
Said commission chairman John Franzone: “This is another sad day for Maryland racing. Without Rosecroft - we need that [slots] referendum. We have to realize how close we are to losing everything. Without the referendum, there is no Rosecroft and thoroughbred racing will be what Charles Town was 20 years ago - racing donkeys. Almost all of our proud history is almost out the windows. All it will be is memories.”.
That is what I think horseracing in the United States will be in 50 years, memories. Besides Rosecroft in the state of Maryland, Laurel and Pimlico are having financial difficulty. Pimlico is host to one of the sports biggest races, The Preakness.
CEI, which closed the Rosecroft doors to live racing June28, has a yearly $5.9million obligation to the thoroughbred industry as part of the 15-year Cross-Breed Agreement that was signed two years ago and a $7.2million mortgage on the racetrack. Rosecroft management has seen its yearly betting handle fall from $110million in 2005 to a projected $80million this year, according to Thomas Cooke, president of the Cloverleaf Standardbred Owners Association.
Rosecroft will save $500,000 through the end of the year by not paying purses for live racing and is saving an additional $1million through salary cuts and layoffs, Cooke said. By discontinuing live racing, he said, the track should be in the black by “a couple hundred thousand” this year.
I think Cooke is being extremely optimistic. Businesses that cut hours, or events to save money, give less incentive at the same time for people to return as customers. It’s a catch 22, and I’ll be surprised if Rosecroft has any live non-stakes racing at sometime in the future.
The 47-year-old PGA Tour veteran won for the third time this year. Beating two players in a playoff. Perry now stands #2 on the 2008 money list, only behind Tiger Woods.
Much has been made about Perry deciding to first skip US Open, and now the British Open. I’m of the opinion that the golf media really needs a life. Seldom has so much been written about so little. Since when has a ordinary player’s tournament scheduling been newsworthy? Tiger Woods is one thing, but I’ve been around long enough to have watched Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, and others and don’t recall their decisions to play or not play a tournament dissected.
In Perry’s defense, I’ll point out the following
*- Lee Trevino chose to skip the Masters three times in spite of him being eligible to play. It may be 4, but in 1977 Trevino had back problems. That may account for him missing the tournament.
*- 1967 PGA Champion Don January refused to play the 1970 US Open at Hazeltine because of his dislike for the course.
*- Twelve time tournament winner and 1984 Vardon Trophy winner Calvin Peete never played the British Open.
*- Here’s the best comparasion to Perry. In 1969 Dave Hill, who won 13 times on tour, skipped that year’s British Open. Hill won 3 times in 1969, finished 2nd on the money list that year, was competing for a Ryder Cup spot(like Perry, and Hill made it as Kenny is likely to do), and took home the Vardon Trophy that year.
In fact Hill only played once at the British Open. If I look some more, I’m sure to find players of like ability to Perry who skipped the British Open.
This non-story has gotten to the point where non-golf writers are taking shots at Perry. Take for instance Gene Wojciechowski at ESPN who writes-
“I was going to have to miss Milwaukee [the U.S. Bank Championship], which is a tournament I’ve won,” Perry told a small gathering of reporters earlier in the week at the John Deere Classic in Silvis, Ill. “I’ve had eight top-10 finishes there.”
Is that right? Eight top-10 finishes in Milwaukee. Wow. Well, then I can certainly understand why you’d stiff the world’s oldest major, and a Birkdale course where Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson and Johnny Miller won championships. And I’m just spitballing here, but maybe you’ve had those eight top-10s because, you know, the world’s best players ARE AT THE BRITISH OPEN!
Let me fire a cannonball back at the careless and unoriginal Mr. Wojciechowski. How many times have the Milwaukee and British Opens been played the same week since Kenny Perry turned pro, not counting this year?
Once, in 2007. A simple check of golfobserver.com would have shown this. So 7 of Perry’s 8 top 10s at Milwaukee didn’t come alongside the British Open.
If you’re going to play the same broken record Gene Wojciechowski, get your facts straight. Otherwise you look like a fool. Better yet, don’t write about golf at all.
Some off-day reading for y’all -
Inspired by a conversation with my father-in-law about Andy Pettitte, I decided to try to discover who has the best pick-off move in history (via stats). Bear in mind though, pick-offs have only been recorded since 1956, so we don’t know about some of the great pitchers before that time (e.g. Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Lefty Grove, etc.).
Going by total career pick-offs, Andy Pettitte ranks second to Steve Carlton. No surprise that southpaws top the list. Both Pettitte and Carlton are quality lefties, and both had/have pretty lengthy careers. The main reason Carlton bests Pettitte is longevity: he threw roughly twice as many innings, and hence has about twice as many pick-offs. That’s not really fair to Pettitte, who has a better pick-off-per-inning rate than Carlton.
Pettitte picked off a runner every 31 innings. Carlton every 36 innings. The ‘King of Pick-offs’, though, might just be Darold Knowles, who nailed a base runner every 24 innings. He isn’t higher on the list because he threw just 1092 innings, primarily as a reliever for nine different teams during the 60’s and 70’s.
That’s the not the conclusion though, because Carlton and Knowles pitched in more pitcher-friendly eras (meaning they generally had less base runners, hence less pick off opportunities). The real stat we need to find is pick-offs-per-base runner. We find this by adding hits and walks, subtracting home runs, and dividing by pick-offs. I’m not going to account for hit-batters and double plays as they roughly cancel each other out.
Carlton picked off one of every 42 base runners.
Pettitte: one of every 39 base runners.
Knowles: one of every 32 base runners.
Again, Knowles is the best, but we’re not quite done.
Who was the best at keeping runners from stealing - who put the most fear into base runners?
We can find this by calculating total base runners, then dividing by attempted steals.
Carlton: one of every 11 base runners attempted to steal.
Pettitte: one of every 15 base runners attempted to steal.
Knowles: one of every 28 base runners attempted to steal.
So now we can make the educated assumption that Darold Knowles is one of, if not the best pick off artist of the last 50 years.
He died in a auto accident late last night. If not for Kiel’s arrest for shipping cough medicine two years ago, I would most likely not even remember him. RIP.
SAN DIEGO - Former Chargers safety Terrence Kiel was killed after he was thrown from a Chevy sedan he was driving, police said Saturday.
Kiel, 27, was driving alone after leaving a party at about 10:15 Friday night when he hit a wall in San Diego’s upscale Scripps Ranch neighborhood and was thrown from the car, police Sgt. Alan Hayward said.
Kiel was barely breathing when paramedics reached him and he died about an hour later, Hayward said.
Friends had tried to keep Kiel from driving home from the party, Hayward said, and witnesses told police he appeared to be driving in the wrong direction when he crashed.
Police would not know whether Kiel had been under the influence of drugs or alcohol until toxicology tests were performed, Hayward said.
A second-round draft pick out of Texas A&M in 2003, Kiel played four years in the NFL from 2003-2006, all with the Chargers.
In February 2007 he pleaded guilty to felony and misdemeanor drug charges for shipping prescription cough syrup to Texas, the most significant of several scrapes with the law.
He was released by the team after his plea.
Kiel had been led off the practice field and arrested in the locker room by Drug Enforcement Administration agents in September 2006, suspected of shipping at least two parcels of prescription cough syrup, apparently to be mixed with soft drinks to make a concoction known as “lean.”
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She defeated her sister Serena for her seventh career grand slam title.
WIMBLEDON, England - Venus Williams beat sister Serena 7-5, 6-4 Saturday for her fifth Wimbledon title and seventh Grand Slam championship.
This was Venus’ first victory over her younger sibling in a Grand Slam final since the 2001 U.S. Open, and it evened their career record at 8-8.
“I can’t believe that it’s five,” Venus said. “But when you’re in the final against Serena Williams, five seems too far away. … She played so awesome, it was really a task to beat her.”
Venus came from 3-1 down in the first set to turn around the match, breaking Serena four times while dropping serve twice in a final that produced breathtaking tennis despite swirling wind.
This was more than a matchup between siblings; it was a contest between two of the hardest-hitting, most athletic players in the world at the top of their game.
Venus broke to finish the match in 1 hour, 51 minutes, with Serena hitting a backhand wide on the second match point. The sisters embraced at the net, and Venus kept her celebrations in check as she twirled and waved to the Centre Court crowd.
Venus accepted the winner’s trophy — a sterling silver salver aptly named the Venus Rosewater dish — from the Duke of Kent.
I rarely watch tennis, but tuned in for most of today’s final. It was a good match, but probably won’t lead to my watching the men’s final tomorrow. See the wife and I go to mass on Sunday morning, therefore I won’t be home for most of the broadcast.
The last time I watched a men’s final in tennis was one of the Borg-McEnroe battles of the late 70’s or early 80’s.
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