1. My brother Sean and I tailgated for a little bit with Jon and his family. That's always fun.
2. It was cold, but not as cold as the Stanford game.
3. The cold weather and the fact that it was a night game probably made it the lowest attendance of any college game I've ever been to. There were 36,807 fans there. There were almost that many Americans in Dublin for the Navy game two years ago (and when you count the Irish fans there, it was easily a bigger crowd than this game). Six of the ten baseball games I went to this past season had bigger crowds.
4. We were sitting up high pretty much right on the 50 yard line. That's as good of a view as I've had for a football game.
5. We should have won easily, but Navy actually took a lead in the third quarter.
6. It wasn't an impressive performance, but we won.
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| Opening kickoff. |
As unimpressive as it was, I never expected that it would be our last win of the regular season. Arizona State and USC were disasters. I was surprised we showed as much fight as we did against Louisville after falling behind early. Kyle Brindza was once a good kicker, but he's not anymore. He missed the game-tying kick against Louisville, but even if he made it, there's no guarantee that we win the game in overtime. And Northwestern has to be one of Kelly's worst losses. Going for two to try to make it a 13 point lead instead of a 12 point lead made absolutely no sense (I said it at the time). Still, you should be able to hold an 11 point lead with 10:34 left. So we now find ourselves in the Music City Bowl against LSU. I don't have high hopes for this one. If we do win, am I supposed to be happy? I wouldn't change the bowl system because football is better than no football, but it really is silly.
Our basketball team is off to a good start. No grievances with them so far. Our schedule hasn't been all that difficult, but we've taken care of business against the decent teams we've played except for a one point loss against Providence. If we win our last non-conference game against Hartford, going .500 in the ACC should get us enough wins to get into the tournament. The team does look very good so I'm definitely hoping for better than .500 in the conference, but we were 6-13 last year in the ACC so let's wait and see.
The Dodgers and Celtics both traded big names in the last week. Matt Kemp should have been the MVP in 2011 (I will air my grievance with that cheater Ryan Braun every Festivus). In the second half of this past season, he was hitting like it was 2011 again. But Joc Pederson needs to play and Matt Kemp can't field anymore, so he had to be traded. I'm disappointed that the Dodgers traded for a cheater (Yasmani Grandal), but he's not a cheater on the level of Roger Clemens, Barroid, A-Roid, or Ryan Braun (there are a lot of cheaters in baseball's last 25 years, but most don't rise to that level). So anyway, I hope Kemp hits lots of home runs against the Giants, Diamondbacks, and Rockies. As for Rajon Rondo, it was another move that had to be made. Rondo helped the Celtics win the championship in 2008 (21 points, 8 assists, 7 rebounds, and 6 steals against the Lakers in Game 6 in 2008) and he was the last guy left from that team. He also outplayed LeBron James when the Celtics beat the Cavaliers in the second round in 2010. But Rondo might not ever be the same player as he was before his knee injury and he wasn't going to resign with the Celtics anyway. So I have no grievances with Danny Ainge for now. He's stockpiling assets. He has to find a way to use those assets to turn the Celtics into a contender again. You need a superstar in the NBA and the Celtics obviously don't have one right now. Ainge has to draft one or trade for one with all those draft picks or sign one or whatever. The Celtics are in better shape than most bad teams with all their draft picks, but that doesn't mean anything if they don't do anything good with them.
One last grievance: The Gator Bowl is now the TaxSlayer Bowl. They took a good name and made it into a terrible name. Since it's bowl season, let's update my bowl name rankings:
38. TaxSlayer Bowl- You could make an argument that it's better than a few other names (the "Slayer" part of the name is strong). But I'm penalizing it for taking a really good name and giving it a really bad name.
37. Belk Bowl- Last year I had it as the worst name.
36. Quick Lane Bowl- It was the Pizza Bowl last year. Let's just stop kidding ourselves and call it the Urban Blight Bowl.
35. GoDaddy Bowl
34. Foster Farms Bowl- It was the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl. I still say it should be the Golden Gate Bowl even if it's played in Santa Clara now.
33. Russell Athletic Bowl
32. Outback Bowl- You could make an argument for this one ahead of the next few, but my rule is that games that only have a corporate sponsor for their name rank at the bottom.
31. Boca Raton Bowl- This is a new one this year. I'd like it better if it was the Del Boca Vista Bowl. It ranks behind the next two because they improved their names from last year.
30. St. Petersburg Bowl- Last year it was the Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl so this is a slight improvement.
29. Birmingham Bowl- Same thing as the St. Petersburg Bowl. It went from the BBVA Compass Bowl to the Birmingham Bowl
28. Las Vegas Bowl
27. Texas Bowl
26. Heart of Dallas Bowl
25. New Mexico Bowl
24. New Orleans Bowl
23. Bahamas Bowl- It's new this year. I generally don't like bowls named after their location, but I can't really argue with it when it's out of the country.
22. Hawaii Bowl- Or not on the mainland United States
21. Miami Beach Bowl- This is a new bowl. The inclusion of the word "Beach" really helps the name (I'm totally serious, that puts it ahead of the other bowls just named for places).
20. Fiesta Bowl
19. Music City Bowl
18. Holiday Bowl
17. Camellia Bowl- This is new this year. It has to rank behind the other bowls with flower names.
16. Military Bowl
15. Armed Forces Bowl
14. Pinstripe Bowl
13. Poinsettia Bowl
12. Independence Bowl- Last year it was the AdvoCare V100 Bowl. Such a good change. But it's played in Shreveport, Louisiana. If it was played in Philadelphia, it would be a top 5 name (same for the Liberty Bowl).
11. Liberty Bowl
10. Sun Bowl
9. Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
8. Citrus Bowl- Much better than the Capital One Bowl that it had been recently.
7. Peach Bowl- The Gator Bowl needs to follow the Citrus Bowl and Peach Bowl's lead and go back to its real name.
6. Cactus Bowl- The former Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl. I called for this name in my post last season.
5. Cotton Bowl
4. Alamo Bowl
3. Sugar Bowl
2. Rose Bowl
1. Orange Bowl
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