Armadillo: Tuesday's six-pack
Six of the more interesting college football games this weekend......
-- Washington @ USC (-16.5)-- I'm hesitant to give the Huskies this many points.
-- Oklahoma (-16.5) vs Texas- Only a masochist would bet the Longhorns now.
-- Arkansas @ Alabama (-16.5)-- Both teams won on road last week.
-- Georgia (-3) @ Tennessee-- Dawgs try to bounce back after Alabama debacle.
-- Georgia Tech @ Clemson (-7.5)-- Tigers had emotional win last week.
-- TCU (-8.5) @ Kansas State-- Snyder is 10-4 in last 14 games as home dog.
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Armadillo: Tuesday's List of 13: Nobody asked me, but........
13) Greetings from America's favorite city; flight to Las Vegas took a little longer Monday. We were on the plane for 90 minutes before the flight took off- repairs had to be made, and the rain was pouring down when we landed, but now I'm here, things are going well. They are making lot of improvements to Westgate Hotel; good place to stay if you're coming here. Sportsbook is being remodeled now.
12) Seahawks 13, Lions 10-- Kam Chancellor single-handedly saved day by stripping Calvin Johnson of the ball just before he scored the winning TD for Detroit. If I own the Seahawks, Chancellor gets his $1M in fines back after that play-- saved the game and prevented Seattle from falling to 1-3.
Matthew Stafford lost his last 18 road games against teams who finished that season over .500- Lions are already 0-3 on road this season.
11) NFL home favorites of 6+ points are 6-9-1 vs spread this season.
10) Dolphins fired coach Joe Philbin and hired TE coach Dan Campbell as interim coach-- he played for Bill Parcells and Sean Payton and talked big in his introductory press conference. Coach Philbin is a quiet man who worked hard-- he tried to let his coaching do his talking for him, but he didn't win enough games to stick around.
9) 12 of 32 NFL kickers are in their first year with their current team.
8) Get well soon, CC Sabathia; he checked into a rehab facility this week, as he begins to battle alcoholism. We forget that athletes are people too, with everyday problems of their own. Granted most of their problems are better than our problems, but they're also out in the public eye, which ain't always easy......
7) In Max Scherzer's no-hitter Saturday, there were no walks and 35 strikeouts in the game; I'm pretty sure I've never seen that in a major league boxscore before. Sure it was a meaningless game and the nightcap of a doubleheader, but wow....
6) Washington booted Matt Williams and his coaches; they should've done it after they got swept in that series in Citi Field in early August, maybe the team could've righted itself. Former Padre manager Bud Black is mentioned as a replacement.
Cincinnati is bringing Bryan (Bleepin') Price back as manager next year; no idea why.
5) San Diego won't retain Black's replacement, interim skipper Pat Murphy, as its new fulltime manager; Padres' GM AJ Preller may have gone to an Ivy League school, but he's been a nitwit in his first year as GM in San Diego.
4) Ichiro Suzuki pitched an inning for the Marlins Sunday; there had always been rumors that he wanted to pitch an inning before he retired. Ichiro is popular with his teammates and they enjoyed seeing him toe the slab- he was the 27th position player to pitch in the major leagues this season.
3) Funny how Dan Haren threatened to retire in spring training, because he wanted to pitch for a west coast team, but the Dodgers had traded him to Miami. $10M speaks very loudly; Haren pitched, he got traded to the Cubs and now he is in the playoffs, in what he says is his last big league season.
Like I said, being displaced for six months for $10M was a problem for Haren, but a problem 99% of us would love to have.
2) I'm not trying to be mean; this is a serious question-- if you owned an NFL team worth almost a billion dollars, would you hire Jim Caldwell to be the coach?
1) Albany-area college hoop teams have interesting season openers; Siena starts with couple of probable losses, at Duke, at Wisconsin. UAlbany opens at Kentucky; key to those three games is making sure the checks they get clear at the bank, because those games are scheduled to balance the budget, not the win-loss column.
