 |
|||||||||||
Game
On It's officially football season. The kids are back to school. The summer doldrums are history. And the real season is underway....Thank God. As I pulled into my driveway Friday night after the radio show and walked towards my house, a short distance away I could hear the band play and the crowd roar at the Myers Park High School game. I got that cold, clammy feeling knowing that the next five months will be a wonderful thing....the football season is here. Now that the high school kids have kicked off "Friday Night Lights", the college boys are about ready to return the favor. This Thursday, we'll be broadcasting live from Columbia as N.C. State and South Carolina kick-start our Sun Drop Southern Fried Football™ Tour. There's nothing like a little ACC-SEC showdown to whet the appetite. Of course, the big ACC-SEC head knocker will come on Saturday night in the Georgia Dome, when 'Bama and Clemson get together. More on that game later in the blog. I'm also interested in this week's performance of Appalachian State. Can the Mountaineers shock the world again? The reigning three-time "Football Championship Subdivision" champs take on the "Football Bowl Subdivision" titleholders in Baton Rouge. We all know what App State did in last year's opener at Ann Arbor....this year, they try to put the whammy on LSU in Tiger Stadium. Good luck....you'll need it. All summer long, Appalachian State fans have called and emailed the show talking smack about what they're going to do against LSU. Saturday at dusk, they'll get the chance to see how they measure up against a real rock'em-sock'em SEC powerhouse. For all the App State fans that are heading down to Baton Rouge, all I can tell you is that you're in for an incredible day of celebration. The tailgating at LSU is as legendary as a Saturday night at Tiger Stadium. I can assure you that you'll come away impressed with every aspect of the LSU football experience. On Saturday, the Sun Drop Southern Fried Football™ Tour will be setting up at the WFNZ Doghouse on the corner of Mint and Morehead as we check out Virginia Tech and East Carolina. Last year, the Pirates played the Hokies tough in a very emotional home opener in Blacksburg. I have no idea what to expect in this one. The Hokies lost a ton of great players and the Pirates seem to be on the verge of something big in Greenville. But ECU has to find somebody to fill the void left by Chris Johnson. All I know about this one is that the crowd will have a blast at the neutral site affair. I hope the city of Charlotte continues to push for more games like this one. Speaking of games at the stadium....how about the Panthers? I know it's still August football in the NFL, but Carolina's performance Saturday night against the previously unbeaten Washington Redskins was very impressive. I can't remember a time when the Panthers looked so good in a pre-season game. They did anything they wanted to against a team in Washington that was playing with confidence. I know Joe Theismann predicted on our show that the Skins would be a playoff team and the Panthers would be sitting at home in January...but I have a feeling that the former Skins QB came away very impressed with John Fox's squad after the 47-3 beat down. The Panthers were really, really good. I know you've got to keep August performances in check, but if this team plays that way all season, it's going to be a happy time around Charlotte on Sundays this Fall. The big question for Carolina will surround the opening of the season. It's great to play well in August, but September we actually keep score. The Panthers open on the road at San Diego and then come home against Chicago. I don't need to remind you that the Panthers have been brutal at home in recent years and even worse in home openers. The Panthers are 2-9 in their last eleven home openers, which includes losing their last four to start the year at the stadium. I still like their chances against Chicago, even with Steve Smith standing on the sidelines. But we'll get to the NFL when we kick things off in a few weeks. I read where my buddy Jim Nantz claimed that the week one opener between the Jets and Dolphins has grabbed his attention. Nantz says that the game is the biggest game of week one that he can ever remember. Come on, Jim...leave the CBS hype behind. The Jets-Dolphins game isn't even the biggest game in week one at that particular stadium. A few days earlier the New York Giants ( the defending Super Bowl champs) will open up in the Jersey swamp against the Washington Redskins. There's no comparing the two games...even if Brett Favre is wearing a different shade of green. The Jets and Dolphins are two below-average teams that combined to win a grand total of 5 games in 2007. The Giants and Skins both participated in playoff games in January.....enough said. Congratulations to Mike Krzyzewski and the Men's USA Basketball team. After years of frustration and disappointment in the international competition, the NBA traveling All-Star team brought gold back to the States. While the final margin of victory against Spain was closer than anticipated, the USA team won every game by double digits. The world basketball scene has improved ten fold since the days of Barcelona Olympiad, but the best basketball players in the world reside in the US of A. The stars that committed themselves for the past three years deserve some credit. It would be easy to enjoy the downtime from a grueling NBA season and enjoy the time off spending their millions of bucks. But these guys accepted the challenge of Coach K and restored order to the basketball world. While the players should enjoy the accolades, for Coach K it's back to the real world. While he did a great job of winning gold and massaging the egos of his star-studded team, he now heads back to Durham to try to bring another team back to the top...his Duke Blue Devils. I can assure you he will have a tougher time with this chore than the one he just finished. The Tar Heels, eight miles down the road, will be far more imposing for Coach K this season than the Spanish team he just defeated for the gold medal. I don't want to spend much time with Major League Baseball this week, but is it possible that both the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox miss the playoffs? The Yankees have been a mess all season long. They've made the playoffs every year we've had a full season...the last time they were sitting at home was 1993. The Red Sox now find themselves a handful of games behind those amazing Tampa Bay Rays in the American League East. Now, they are in a dead heat in the Wild Card race with the surprising Minnesota Twins and Chicago White Sox in the AL Central. What were the odds before the season of the Yankees and Red Sox missing out on October baseball? While the NASCAR season slowly reaches the Chase for the Cup "post-season". We finally have a legitimate rivalry in the works. It is safe to say that we all wanted Dale, Jr. and Kyle Busch to rub fenders each week. The only problem with that scenario is that Junior kept watching Busch win every week while his fan base booed and threw soft drink and energy drink cans at the # 18 car and driver. Obviously, it takes more than a loyal following to create a real rivalry. Well, that all changed on the high banks of Bristol this weekend. Carl Edwards won his sixth race of the season and in the process ruffled the feathers of Kyle Busch. After moving the kid out of the way with 29 laps to go, Edwards held on for the win as Busch finished in the runner-up spot. Then the action really heated up. Busch and Edwards traded paint in the cool down lap, eventually leading Edwards to spin Busch out of control. The two drivers who have won 14 races this season talked smack towards each other afterwards...and the rest is history. Two more races until we get to the "Chase", but there is no doubt that NASCAR has itself a legitimate rivalry between the two best drivers of 2008. Dale, Jr. and the rest of us need to pull up a chair and watch 'em go after each other. Finally, we know the Chicago Cubs and their loyal fans have endured enough barbs and tough times since their last World Series win. The Cubs' last title was in 1908, just in case anybody was counting. I mentioned earlier that the Clemson - Alabama game is the showcase, primetime game of the upcoming start of the football season. Even though the two programs haven't played each other since 1975, did you know the last time Clemson beat Alabama in football was 1905? Even Cub fans have to smile about that one. |
Packman
on Sports Commentary
|
||||||||||
