Monday Grab Bag: 4 Weeks

The clock continues to tick down to the September 3rd game vs. Hawaii.  Less than 4 weeks to go...

Today in the bag I'll talk about practice, recap some golfing and baseball news, and remind everyone that the basketball schedule is locked and that season ticket renewals are on their way.

Click below for the bag...




Weekend practice wrap: I made it into Boulder Valley on Saturday to catch my first practice of the year.  Normally I don't see the point of going to football practice, but it was a nice day, and I'll take any excuse to enjoy a sunny afternoon in beautiful Boulder.  I love the energy and passion the new staff possesses, and the way they demand perfection from the player is very encouraging.  Compared to the meditation sessions of the previous regime, these practices much more resemble those of an actual football team.



(Great practice vid from CUBuffs.com)

The big news from that Saturday morning practice, of course, was the injury sustained by DB Jered Bell.  What had already been a shallow talent pool in the defensive backfield got even shallower as the promising Bell will be sidelined for the season with a torn ACL.  It's not shocking, considering the NFL departures of Jalil Brown and Jimmy Smith, that defensive play at the edges would be a concern, but the injury to Bell takes an italicized question mark and puts it in bold.  Good thing the high-octane passing offense of Hawaii is up first this season (gulp).

Other than that, I didn't take too much away from practice.  My untrained eye can tell that things are still very raw, but I'm otherwise lost when it comes to breaking down things like that (I did notice DaVaughn Thornton looking good running routes, Tyler looking surprisingly shaky on a few reads, and Stephane Nembot looking massive).

I don't know what I'm watching, but football is back!  From: the BDC

I do get a kick out of all the guys who come back from practices and breathlessly report that so-and-so freshman is looking amazing, and "will definitely see some playing time," as if you can tell that from watching a practice or two.  They may be doing yeoman's work in getting me the info I want, but message board posters are funny people sometimes.


Basketball schedule is finalized - While the rest of the world was out enjoying the nightlife on Friday, I sat at home waiting to pickup some friends at the airport.  Good thing too, or I'd have missed the final two games getting added to the basketball schedule.  If you didn't check it out over the weekend, here's my writeup on the final two additions.  I definitely suggest checking out that ESPN the Magazine article about UNO that I linked to; it's an interesting story.


Tiger's back, but Stevie Williams wins the weekend - The sporting world had assumed that Tiger's return at this weekend's Bridgestone Invitational, regardless of his performance, would be the big story out of the golfing community.  Yet, in the end, it was recently fired former caddie Stevie Williams who grabbed headlines Sunday by standing on Adam Scott's bag as Scott went on to win the tournament.  Tiger finished 18-back of the winner.

Williams with the victorious Scott.  From: ESPN

 There's an odd sense of smug satisfaction in the media about Tiger getting one-upped by Williams, yet I honestly couldn't less.  I've always seen caddies as the equivalent of a hitting or pitching coach in baseball: important, but not integral, and easy to blame or fire.  Still, good for Williams, who feels wronged in the whole situation, to get the schadenfreude out of his system.  I always root for schadenfreude.


Sox sweep Minnesota in Minnesota - In ultimate "your what hurts?" news, my Sox went out and swept the Minnesota Twins right out of Target Field over the weekend.  To put it in perspective, we hadn't done that since the end of June 2004.  Even the '05 championship team couldn't take it to the Twinkies on their own field like that.  See, miracles do happen.


Happy Monday!