Blanchette: But honey, Texas got in the way
You never know. But I do.
• I don’t know about you, but the next time I’m in trouble for not balancing the checkbook or folding the laundry, I’m taking a cue from college athletics and blaming The Longhorn Network.
• Never mind his Obama/Hitler analogy. It’s that Hank Williams Jr. doesn’t know the First Amendment from a first down that’s appalling.
• Just a reminder those of you who looked at the schedule and saw a 4-1 or 5-0 start for Washington State: three road games. And the fact that the last Pac-12 member to go from one or two wins to a bowl the following season was Cal – 54 years ago.
• Adam Morrison probably didn’t feel good about getting kicked out of a game with his new team in Serbia the other day. But it had to feel good to be in a game to get kicked out of.
• So Whitworth lost on a last-play field goal Saturday following a taunting penalty? Taunting? At Whitworth? What’s next? Lecture classes at Evergreen State?
• I know it’s kind of a heartwarming deal that Rick Neuheisel reached out to the soccer team manager to be UCLA’s place-kicker. But what does that say about the abilities of the soccer players?
• It would make my day if even one Arizona fan complained that Mike Stoops can’t get it done because he didn’t cut his teeth coaching at the FCS level, unlike a certain other Pac-12 coach.
• With Fox stuck televising a World Series that won’t have the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies in it, and with just one of the top 10 markets in the United States home to a surviving team, expect Rupert Murdoch to order phone hacking of Tony LaRussa, Bud Selig and Bernie Brewer.
• Let me get this straight: Some Memphis boosters threatened to sue – and got a settlement from – coach John Calipari and guard Derrick Rose because the disgrace of the NCAA vacating 38 wins in 2008 supposedly made their 2010 tickets worth less. So you season ticket holders remember that the next time your school goes on probation.
• Sacramento State beat Northern Colorado 14-0 on Saturday without throwing a single pass. The game took 2 hours, 23 minutes. The pilot kept the Hornets’ charter plane idling at the gate.
• Meanwhile, a week ago WAC replay and field officials futzed around for 22 minutes trying to unravel a simple timeout. During the delay, three more schools left the league and four others joined, including one that hasn’t enrolled a student yet.
• In a week of hyper-eulogizing, I half expected Al Davis to be called the Thomas Edison of pro football Saturday.
• I’m not sure what it says that Eastern Washington has won two in a row since coach Beau Baldwin dismissed assistant Chris Hansen. But it sort of shoots holes in the made-up sanctity that argues against midseason firings of coaches, if the head guy thinks he has to do it.
• Take away the free tattoos and inflated-pay jobs and the football program at Ohio State goes all to hell.
• New fairy tale in the works featuring Tony Romo, Alex Rodriguez and Roberto Luongo: The Three Scapegoats Gruff.
• At Idaho, Vandals fans are being encouraged to “throw the V” a la Richard Nixon to show their support. They also might want to throw the football team an IV.
• It’s not so much seeing the likes of Yuniesky Betancourt, Willie Bloomquist and J.J. Putz in the baseball playoffs that gnaws at Mariners fans. Those guys aren’t playing substantially better than they did in Seattle, and aren’t much missed. It’s the fact that random organizations like Milwaukee and Arizona were able to assemble enough better players around them to have success, while the M’s have wasted a decade.
• NCAA president Mark Emmert’s insistence that college athletics “is not a business” suggests that the NCAA needs to put even more emphasis on academics. For its administrators.
• Wazzu fans can denigrate the career of Rick Neuheisel all they want – and not without justification. Just remember that he’s 9-0 against your school.
• After hearing his on-air remarks following Milwaukee’s ALDS clinching, it’s clear that Nyjer Morgan is the verbal equivalent of a wardrobe malfunction.