SPORTS w/The Jock 10-28-11

NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE
When the NFL Owners negotiated their deals and set up the structure for their league with the union, one of the main areas they areas they always accentuate is in wanting to make sure there is parity between all 32 teams/franchises, especially in their payroll structure and amounts, as well as on the field.
Looking at the standings and records heading into the games this weekend, I do not necessarily notice a strong sense of this parity which seems so cultivated! In fact, for all intents, we are seeing some teams that really suck!
Going into Sunday’s games, we got three teams with ‘zero’ wins…the Colts, Rams, and Dolphins. All three have not shown any strength in any way, shape, or form, all ranking in the bottom third of the League in most offensive and defensive categories. After seven weeks of the regular season, the questions and debate has obviously started to emerge…replacing QB’s, Head Coaches, or making other vast changes, all in trying to ‘right the ship’, so to speak.
All three teams have their weaknesses. For the Colts, it is all about QB Peyton Manning and the lack of his playing. For the Dolphins, the issues center upon poor QB play with Chad Henne, as well as questioning HC Tony Sparano’s capabilities. For the Rams, its simply a combination of areas, all of which has them ranked 28th overall on offense, and 29th overall on defense. Only four teams have given up more points than the Rams, which is sad.
Of course, there is one group than oh, so many ways, relishes these situations…the Media! Any of these situations always give us an opportunity to expose all sorts of stories, implications, rumors, etc. Whether that is a good thing or not is always somewhat open for discussion.
And so we’ll see how these three teams fare. The Colts go to Nashville to play the Titans…the Rams host the powerful Saints, and the Dolphins travel to New York to face the Giants. All three teams go into these games as at least nine point underdogs. My expert, insightful guess is for all three squads to remain winless…

COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Last weekend, USC went into their traditional match up with Notre Dame as a nine-point underdog. Plenty of experts felt the Irish were going to emerge victorious and get on a roll. By the end of the evening, the Trojans played their own game, defeating the Irish, 31-17.
Now this weekend, the 6-1 Southern Cal Trojans will be hosting the undefeated Stanford Cardinal. Stanford, led by the all-everything QB Andrew Luck, are an eight-point favorite to win this contest, to be played in L.A. I’ll be very curious to see if USC QB Matt Barkley and the Trojans can play up to the Cardinal and pull off another ‘upset’, so to speak!…
So far this season, the Kansas State Wildcats have to be characterized as the ‘Rodney Dangerfield’ of college football! Why? Because they are getting ZERO respect!
In almost all of the games they played this year, they have not been favored to win. Of course, they have indeed won them all, including ‘W’s at the Miami Hurricanes and the Texas Tech Red Raiders.
That said, here we go, into another weekend, with K-State as the underdog, even though they are 7-0! On Saturday, they host the Oklahoma Sooners…a powerful squad who got upset last week at home by the same Texas Tech squad Kansas Sate beat!
Oklahoma is favored to win by 14 points! We’ll see how it all shakes out…
Most of us all saw and or witnessed Michigan State beating Wisconsin last weekend, culminating a competitive, entertaining game! Both teams are now 6-1.
Now this weekend, we see the Badgers, coming off their loss, as a seven-point favorite to win at Ohio State, while the Spartans, seemingly on a roll, are a four-point underdog in traveling to Nebraska! Go figure…