So, at least the top three teams stayed strong. Of course, the big news for #1 Florida, who beat Kentucky into the ground, was that Tim Tebow was taken out of the game and to the hospital with a pretty bad concussion. He’s doing OK now, which is to be expected with a simple concussion – it’s just a little scary when you’re not sure if it is something worse or not. #2 Texas (who beat UTEP  64 – 7) and #3 Alabama (who beat Arkansas 35 – 7) held steady, but after that, the top 25 went to shit.

First, the Gamecocks shut down #4 Ole Miss, in a game that was all about defense. South Carolina’s defense, that is. Mississippi usually relies heavily on Jevon Snead, but South Carolina pretty much took him out of the game. Oh, he wasn’t injured or anything, but the O-line just couldn’t stop the Gamecock defense, and Snead couldn’t seem to make any places. How’s this for an embarrassing stat: Ole Miss has now lost 6 straight SEC openers. Ouch.

But they aren’t alone when it comes to embarrassing states. Did you know that Penn State has lost 7 of their last 8 games against…Iowa. Seriously, I kid you not, Iowa has a football team. They’re a team that just doesn’t get much press time, and for some reason, Joe Paterno and Penn State haven’t realized that they have a rivalry with them. The Hawkeyes came to Happy Valley this year, and it was a downpour for much of the game, but that didn’t stop them. Head coach Kirk Ferentz actually wanted to play for Penn State and JoePa when he was in high school, but there wasn’t any scholarship interest. Ibet he gets warm fuzzy feelings every time he whoops ass against PSU. The game itself was kinda a snoozefest, holding steady at 10 – 5 for much of the game. Then, Iowa suddenly exploded in the fourth quarter and Penn State made some major mistakes. Final score ended up being 21 – 10, and Penn State is no longer a top five team.Yes, it hurts my soul.

Image: Newscom

Moving on, the previously-ranked #6 California had a bad week as well. They were thrashed by Oregon. I mean, thrashed. Final score 42 – 3 thrashed. Coming into the game, Cal had the tenth best rushing offense in the country. And then Oregon was like “and now, you don’t.” The Ducks aren’t a horrible team, but this was an embarrassment for Cal. They shouldn’t have let Oregon have 32 unanswered points. A single field goal isn’t good enough when you’re a ranked team.

LSU, ranked seventh at the time, won their game against Mississippi State, but it wasn’t pretty, and I personally don’t think that they deserve the #4 spot that they have now after a game like that on Saturday. Sure, they won, but it should have been an easy game and it was anything but. Mississippi State played their heart out and almost ran away with the game. One of the most interesting games of the week was #9 Miami at #11 Virginia Tech. Oh wait, Miami blew too. Seriously, it wasn’t supposed to be a gimme game for the Hurricanes, but they looked like hell on the field this week. It should have been a good game, and it just wasn’t. At least Boise State (then 8, now 5) played like a top ten team should, beating Bowling Green 49 – 14.

We’re mid-season. Teams need to be playing with more heart than I’ve seen. I mean, I’m all for a few surprises and upsets every week, but Week Four was ridiculous.

Post from: EveryJoe

College Football Week Four 2009 in Review

Week One is usually not very exciting, unfortunately. My favorite team, Penn State, plays Akron, so although this game means they’ll likely be able to keep a high rank, it won’t actually be that fun to watch. Actually, I don’t even think the game is being televised… Maybe I’m selling Akron short. *shrug*

Can Kellen Moore take Boise State to a BCS Bowl this year? Image: Newscom

In any case, despite all of the easy non-conference games we’re seeing during Week One, there are some games to watch as well. The season officially starts on Thursday at 7:00 PM EST, when a number of teams kick off, but the real start to the season, in my opinion, is at 10:15 PM EST when #16 Oregon takes on #14 Boise State. The games on ESPN, and you bet I’ll be watching. Boise State has a lot more on the line than Oregon, since it will be harder for them to be bowl eligible as a WAC team than it will for Oregon as a Pac-10 team. It’s also at Boise State, and Kellen Moore is a solid quarterback, so I give them the edge in this game.

Another game to watch? San Jose State at #4 USC, with a kickoff at 3:30 PM EST on Saturday. Now, no one here expects this to be a close game. In fact, if USC doesn’t run all over San Jose State, I think you’ll have to pick my jaw up off of the floor. I want to see the freshman golden boy quarterback play, though. People put so much emphasis on Pete Carroll’s choice to play true freshman Matt Barkley instead of returner Aaron Corp. This game will really test him to see if he can handle the pressure of being the leader of such a popular team. Will Corp get any playing time at all? We’ll see.

The USC game isn’t nationally televised, so I’ll have to keep up with it online…but that’s ok, since my eyes will be glued to the 3:30 PM EST game on ABC: #13 Georgia at #9 Oklahoma State. My heart is with Oklahoma State on this one, but it isn’t going to be an easy game by any means. They’ve lost Matt Stafford, but if Joe Cox, their new quarterback, really steps up, they could be the surprise of the SEC this year. Florida who? This game is going to set the stage for Georgia for the entire season, so I feel like they’ll fight tooth and nail for it, but Oklahoma State isn’t going to just bend over and take it. They have a huge number of returning starters and are also looking to set the stage for a surprising season. Otherwise, they’ll never be competitive in the Big 12.

On a side note, I’ll also be checking in with the 3:40 game, Missouri versus Illinois. The teams aren’t ranked, but I think it will be an even match up and a good game. Big Ten love!

Sam Bradford is back, hoping to lead the Sooners to a National Championship game again. Image: Newscom

At 7:00 PM, another possibly great game hits ESPN – #20 BYU versus #2 Oklahoma. Ok, I may be going against the grain a little here when I say that I think BYU is overrated. I do love that they’re helping to make a name for a non-BCS conference, which pushes the issue of a playoff system. Do they have a good enough offensive line to beat Oklahoma? What about receivers? They may have the defense they need to keep Oklahoma’s numbers down, even though OU has some amazing returners like Sam Bradford, but you can’t win if you don’t put any points on the board. My vote for winner definitely does to Oklahoma. Sorry, BYU, better luck next year.

Just an hour after the BYU-OU game starts, #5 Alabama meets #7 Virginia Tech on the field, the game televised on ABC. This is a tricky game to predict, in my opinion. The Hokies may take the ACC, and Tyrod Taylor is back at quarterback. Is that enough to top Alabama? The Crimson Tide are replacing great offensive players like Andre Smith, and they have a new quarterback, but players like Mark Ingram could make the difference in this game. Like with Georgia, Alabama needs to win this game to set the stage for the season if they’re going to be competitive in the SEC.

It’s going to be a great Week One – better than we’ve seen in quite a few seasons. I’ll also be interested to see how Notre Dame does against Nevada – an easy win for the Fighting Irish, maybe, but I want to see is quarterback Jimmy Clausen can really put up numbers. Also on my radar is Maryland at #12 California, which starts late Saturday night and Miami at #18 Florida State which is on ESPN at 8:00 PM EST on Monday.

Post from: EveryJoe

College Football Week One 2009 Preview

Playing his college football with California, Mack was recognized as the top scholar-athlete in college football by winning the Draddy Trophy. He also was nominated for the Rimington Trophy, which honors the best center in college football.

If he is to join the starters on offense, he’ll likely have to beat out Hank Fraley. Although Fraley has been a good offensive lineman at times during his career, most scouts agree that he struggled last season.

The Browns also signed fellow rookie Kaluka Maiava recently. A linebacker out of USC, Maiava was drafted in the fourth round.

Cleveland Browns rookies will report to training camp on July 31st.

Alex Mack - Cleveland Browns (Image: Zuma Press)

Post from: EveryJoe

Browns Sign Rookie Center Alex Mack

This monopolistic partnership has prompted Blockbuster to raise their subscription price to keep at par with Netflix. In the end, consumers were the losers which led to the lawsuit.

Netflix and Walmart could easily lower their prices as they help each other out and I don’t see any reason why they have to increase their prices which led Blockbuster to do the same.

At least, when consumers are concerned it only means they are not downloading pirated copies using their computers.

Post from: EveryJoe

Netflix and Walmart Under Fire

The award is up-to $10k and will “be applied toward tuition and other educational expenses at the school at which the student is currently enrolled, and an optional paid internship of up to 10 weeks at Sony Online Entertainment’s headquarters in San Diego, California (room, board, transportation and living expenses not included), to work on the upcoming online video game Free Realms™.”

“There are a significant number of women who are gamers, but not enough working in the video game field,” said Torrie Dorrell, Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing, Sony Online Entertainment. “With the application process starting today, we’re taking a concrete step toward opening the door a little wider for women who want to go into game development.”

So if you’re a lady who is in college and working on a degree having to do with gaming then click here to check out the application process and good luck!

Image|Station.com

Post from: EveryJoe

G.I.R.L.s Get Scholarship from Sony

Just one problem – Cal had never recruited Hart. In fact, neither had Oregon, the school Hart had reported that he was turning down to play for Cal. In fact…no one had recruited Hart. Both schools were kind of like “umm…ok….”

So, we all turned in anger to finding the man responsible – Kevin Riley, allegedly a promoter Hart had paid and who had made Hart believe that these schools wanted him. Hart filed a police report and college football fans everywhere were up in arms about how someone could dash a student’s dreams like that.

Ok, two problems – Cal had never recruited Hart…and there is no one named Kevin Riley. Well, maybe there is someone named Kevin Riley, but no one Hart paid for promotion.

It was all a lie.

It seems a bit Hollywood to me, but the real story here is that Hart wasn’t to play for a Div-I school so badly that he thought it would be a good idea to pretend he was led to believe he was being recruited. And then, when the school was confused, he would blame it on a promoter stealing his money and lying. Maybe he thought the school would feel bad for him and sign him anyway? Or, maybe he thought that the national attention would get someone to sign him (or, at least look at his tapes)?

He got found out quite easily, however, when he couldn’t give the police any information about the so-called shady promoter – no phone number, no canceled checks, no physical description. So, he came clean…and for that, I do commend him.

And I soooooo want to make fun of this kid right now. Trust me, I’m the queen of snark and have been called a bitch on more than one occasion.

But instead…I’m actually just kinda sad. I mean, this kid just really wanted to play. Being from a prep school is hard, since chances are that you don’t have a good football team and you don’t have a schedule worth talking about. So, even if a recruiter does notice you, they don’t have much to go on, especially for an offensive lineman. What he did was wrong…but I can’t say that I don’t understand.

How do you feel about Kevin Hart’s story? Vote on the sidebar to the right and leave your comment below!

Post from: EveryJoe

Kevin Hart Comes Clean About Recruiting Lies