SimonOnSports

Championship games abound with a trip to the BCS title game on tap as well. A good way to finish off what has been a solid regular season of College Football. 5. Oklahoma Sooners vs. Nebraska Cornhuskers in Big 12 Title Game The perennially thrilling battle between Big 12 South (Yankees) and the Big 12 North (Devil Rays). Making this matchup even less exciting than the typical Big 12 blowout, Adrian Peterson who was apparently "healthy" enough to play last weekend is not going to play this weekend either. Boo. The winner of this game goes from arguably the least exciting Championship game, atleast ACC has a Cinderella Story, right to the least attractive BCS game against Boise St. Not a banner year for the Big 12 conference. Anyway on to the matchup, eh I'll be honest I don't care. The Pick: Sooners by 10. 4. Wake Forest Demon Decons vs. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in ACC Title Game Throw the ACC conference into the blender of conferences having a bad season. ...

And Thursday Night games are now in full force forcing me to make my weekly selections a day earlier. A lot of difficult games to breakdown and decipher this weekend, and of course this is the nfl so the bizarre is bound to happen. 5. New Orleans Saints (- 7 1/2) vs. San Fransisco 49ers The 49ers have one of the worst ranked pass defenses and have given up a boatload of yardage this season, Drew Brees is on pace to finish just behind Dan Marino's single season yardage record seems like a recupe for disaster doesn't it. The Saints have played very well this season in the Superdome and a win here keeps their one game lead in the NFC South. 4. San Diego Chargers (-6 1/2) at Buffalo Bills The Chargers struggled last week against the Raiders but it was a divisional rivalry game and the did end up with a W anyway. The Bills rush defense is one of the lowest ranked in the NFL and facing the best running back in the NFL that's a recipe for disaster. In addition could you honest...

Michael Strahan this week on his weekly segment on WFAN, a segment he apparently gets paid for, completely threw Plaxico Burress under the bus , saying that he quit on the team and that he doesn't understand what his motivation is, etc. It was obviously a comment out of frustration and he was most likely just honestly answering a question which in most cases leads to problems. Today was one of those days. At first Strahan was approached to talk about his statement from yesterday but he refused to comment on the previous comment saying that he doesn't talk to the media until thursday. Then the ESPN reporter decided to bring the comment directly to Plaxico Burress and read the quote verbatim to him. This lead Plaxico to sit there in almost complete shock as it was the first time he heard the statement. His replies were the typical things like that's unfortunate that he feels that way, I'm not going to talk about another player on my team, he should say it to me, etc. ...

With only 5 weeks remaining and some inexcusable losses coming in week 12 who's still got a chance and how will the Playoff Spots Breakdown in the NFC. Cruisin Towards a Bye Chicago Bears Likely Spot: NFC North Champs #1 seed Despite the loss against the Pats this weekend the Bears will need a collapse down the stretch to yield the number 1 spot in the NFC to any of its competetion. After the Bears went 2-1 on their difficult Northeast Road Trip the Bears should cruise to the seasonal finish line while hopefully improving Rex Grossman's decision making and production. Remaining Schedule: Minn, @Stl, TB, @Det, GB Fighting for a Bye Dallas Cowboys Likely Spot: NFC East Champs #2 or #3 seed The Cowboys are currently playing like the best team in the NFC East but as we have seen with other teams, aka Giants Bears, its not that difficult to fall off the perch. A loss to the Giants gives the Cowboys a legitimate shot at losing the division as they would no longer control their ow...

The Giants three weeks ago were sitting at 6-2 with the division looking to be a formality, the Cowboys switching Qbs, the Eagles coming off a few bad losses, and the Redskins all but dead and buried. Three weeks and three losses later and the Giants are on the cusp of not making the players, so what in the world happened to the Giants. Injury Bug It all started with the season ending injury to LaVar Arrington and increased at an exponential rate. Soon following the Giants lost half of their starting defense including both ends Umenyiora and Strahan who were very much responsible for the Giants 2005 success and who were just beginning to garner a dominant 2006 pass rush. Soon after the defense passed the virus to the opposite side of the ball and reliable receiver Amani Toomer was lost for the year and followed by the loss at the all important left tackle position when Luke Petitgout was lossed for the remainder of the regular season. Its one thing to continue winning through a fe...

Week 12 Awards Wow You Guys Suck: Atlanta Falcons Pass Offense, I watched much of this game as the Jet game was mostly out of hand in the second half and while Michael Vick was running wild it was blatantly obvious that the problems in the passing attack are two fold. First Vick is not the best passer in the world, he never throws touch passes and his accuracy is often suspect. That being said he is the least of their passing problems, their receivers simply can't catch. Jenkins dropped a big time ball which hit him directly in both hands. Roddy White dropped a deep ball which he was camped under like a punt return. Matt Millen gets destroyed for drafting two terrible receivers in the first round, wheres the heat on Rich McKay and the rest of the Falcons front office. Runners Up: Pittsburgh Steelers thanks for defending your Super Bowl title with such vigor, Cleveland Browns way to give the home fans a nice show by the way the Bengals defense is terrible just in case you guys ...

For those of you that do not know the rules of the BCS, here you go . I'd prefer not rewrite something that's already written. Team Scenarios Automatic Qualifications Ohio St. - National Title Game, no questions asked. USC - Already Qualified for the Rose Bowl as Pac 10 Champions, a win versus UCLA will send them to the National Title Game. Boise St. - Currently ranked #8 in the BCS, must fall to #13 to lose the Auto-Qualification, this will not happen and thus are BCS bound. Arkansas - Defeat Florida on Saturday to clinch SEC Title and bid. Florida - Defeat Arkansas on Saturday to clinch SEC Title and bid. Nebraska - Defeat Oklahoma on Saturday to clinch Big 12 Title and bid. Oklahoma - Defeat Nebraska on Saturday to clinch Big 12 Title and bid. Wake Forest - Defeat Georgia Tech on Saturday to clinch ACC Title and bid. Georgia Tech - Defeat Wake Forest on Saturday to clinch ACC Title and bid. Rutgers - Defeat West Virginia on Saturday to clinch Big East Title and bi...

What a weekend of college football with upsets all around and massive shifting in the Power Rankings. A few teams make their debut in the top 11 and not surprising a new team moves into the poll position for the race to Glendale. 1. Ohio State Buckeyes - With all questions answered its time for Tressel to sit back and start watching some Southern California game film and start prepping his boys for a massive layoff. Quality Wins: Penn St., @Texas, Michigan 2. Southern Cal Trojans - My preseason National Champion pick moves on to one rivalry game away from Glendale. The Trojans moved the ball at will on Notre Dame again showing Notre Dame's biggest weakness, a lack of depth and skill in the secondary. In additon the Trojans played better defense than their title game team last year and are looking like the legit 2nd best team in the Nation, unfortunate for Wolverine fans like myself but true. Quality Wins: Nebraska, @Arkansas, Oregon, Cal, ND Bad Loss: Oregon St. 3. Michi...

Congrats to the Buckeyes for clinching their spot in Glendale on January 8th, now with 2 weeks remaining only a handful of teams have any shot of playing the Buckeyes. Last week Rutgers, Wake Forest, and West Virginia had very remote shots but with the close loss by Michigan and the losses of Rutgers and Wake Forest all have been eliminated from contention. 1. Southern California Trojans - The Trojans continue to control their destiny, their victory over Cal was highly impressive and barring some very weird situation the Trojans should jump the Wolverines with two more wins. Southern Cal will be and should be rewarded for playing ND, Arkansas and Nebraska as out of conference games. Scenario #1: Win Remainder of Games without any controversy. Scenario #2: Win Remainder of Games Period combined with Florida not defeating Arkansas and Florida St. by about 40+ in each game. 2. Michigan Wolverines - Very disheartening loss for any Michigan fan but there is still light at the end of t...

Has there ever been a time in the past decade where the Florida Florida St. game was the 5th biggest game of the weekend? Well you certainly can argue this weekend whether the Seminoles even merit consideration for the Big 5 but because of the National Title implications which rest on the Gators shoulders it sneaks in to the last spot behind 4 big time BCS implication games. 5. Florida Gators vs. Florida State Seminoles in Tallahassee Miami won last night versus a ranked team to secure a trip to a bowl game. Can Florida St. possibly follow up and do the same? Well Boston College is certainly no Florida Gators. SO the answer to that question is a big time no. While I don't expect Florida to run away with it, when have they lately run away with anything (WCU doesn't count), I expect them to win without much stress. The Pick: Gators by 10. 4. Boise St. Broncos vs. Nevada Wolf Pack in Reno Call Reno 911, there's a big time sports event in the little big town. Boise St. w...

As I said yesterday and in my award picks I did not think Morneau deserved the MVP and I thought Derek Jeter did. Well listening to the major culprit Joe Cowley, of the Chicago Sun Times, the man who voted Jeter 6th, speaking on the radio it is blatantly obvious that this man is an idiot and does not deserve a vote. First I can see how you can look at the statistics and see all of Morneau's RBIs and HRs and average for a team that did not have overpowering offense statistics and vote him first I have no problem with that. I think they're wrong but I'm not gonna call a guy a complete idiot for voting Morneau first. Cowley however is an idiot for several reasons. 1) When asked by Stephen A. Smith how often he saw the Yankees play this season he responded with, how many times did they play the White Sox, 6. Ok so why exactly is a guy who watches the White Sox play everyday yet never watches another baseball game given the right to vote for something that would need a perspe...

Turkey Day throwing a wrench in when I have to write this article. Well hopefully nothing happens from today to friday which would have changed my decision. Anyway I think this week provides a few solid choices. 5. Carolina Panthers (-4 1/2) at Washington Redskins Jason Campbell actually played pretty well in his first start, but their rushing game on the other hand was atrocious. Betts did nothing as a replacement for Clinton Po. The Panthers defense is starting to click on all cylinders and with Steve Smith the Panthers are one of the best teams in the NFC. 4. Cincinatti Bengals (-3 1/2) at Cleveland Browns Ocho Cinco is back and the real reason for that is that Carson Palmer is throwing strikes once again and having fantastic performances week after week. The Browns are coming off a gut wrenching defeat to the Steelers and will lose another one down the stretch to another division rival. 3. New England Patriots (-3 1/2) vs. Chicago Bears The Pats have come up empty in their big...

So every Tuesday Night I head out to the local Hooters for their trivia night. They typically ask the easiest questions in the world and by the end of the night I have consumed some wings, curly fries, and a pitcher of Samuel Adams, typically Sammy Seasonal. About 50% of the time our team ends up winning so we get about half our bill paid for so it works out in the end. Basically its something to do on a Tuesday when otherwise I would sit on my ass at home and search for a television show to watch that most likely would be completely uninteresting. But last night was different. I come in the door try to locate where my buddies are sitting, I typically show up late cause I'm lazy, I finally see them to my left and I sit down. I notice that the waitress doesn't seem to be around nearly as much as she typically is, but don't think much about it right away cause I'm not really in a rush. There's one of those wooden dividers of right in front of me and as I look st...

This is another year where the voters picked a Most Valuable Player who wasn't even the most valuable person on his team. The most blatant of these past choices was when Jeff Kent somehow won the MVP over teammate Barry Bonds in 2000. When I came out with my award picks I had two Minnesota Twins in my 3 choices and neither were Justin Morneau. Morneau had monster stats but he wasn't the MVP of his own team nevermind the league. Joe Mauer is hands down more valuable for the Twins than Justin Morneau. First off Mauer batted in the #3 hole the whole season while Morneau consistantly batted in the 5th or 6th spot in the order. Pretty simple that Ron Gardenhire thinks Mauer is a better hitter than Morneau. People who say that you shouldn't take position into account are fools and this is the primary reason why Mauer is much more important than Morneau in the lineup. If you look up and down at Mauer's stats in comparison to every other American league catcher the dispa...

Week 11 Awards Wow You Guys Suck: St. Louis Rams, I wasn't a big time believer of the Rams even after they got off to the 4-1 start. But I am pretty surprised that they have lost 5 games in a row. And they didn't even put up a fight this weekend. Steven Jackson had only 27 yards on 7 carries, the Rams only had 111 total yards. Just miserable, now they're even behind the 49ers in the standings. Runners Up: Seattle's rush defense got gashed to the tune of 212 on 24 carries from Frank Gore pathetic, Detroit sure knows how to position themselves for a high draft pick. Cough Cough Cough: New York Quarterbacks, as bad as Eli Manning was on National Televesion last night consistently making bad throws including a ton of his typical high throws, Pennington was worse. He killed their best drive near the goal line with an INT. He killed their next best drive with a terribly thrown screen pass right to the safety. And he didn't throw a single deep ball the whole game....

The Fighting Irish supporters might sit there and think that with a dominating performance they should head to Arizona for a rematch of last years Fiesta Bowl but there are several reasons why the Irish should not be ranked ahead of the Michigan. Obviously this is all under the assumption that Notre Dame does in fact beat USC to improve to 11-1. Rematch Theory Sure we just saw Ohio St. Michigan, really the only point Notre Dame or any pollsters could make in ranking the Irish ahead of Michigan. But so quickly do we forget that we have already seen Ohio St. Notre Dame this calender year in the Fiesta Bowl. Notre Dame lost worse than the Wolverines, 14 to 3, and their game was on a neutral field. We've seen both and if you want to say last years game is irrelevant thats your personal opinion, I see a better Ohio St. team this year and the same Notre Dame team as last year. The results would be the same or worse. Quality Victories One way I like to look at the talent of teams is w...

Coming into this past weekend I had the opportunity as a fan to enjoy the greatest of all weekends. My college team had the opportunity of a life time to win against their biggest rival and head to the National Championship game in a blaze of glory and my pro team had a chance to improve to 6-4 with only terrible teams remaining on their schedule. Oh and it gets worse than just the losses of both of those teams. Michigan vs. Ohio St. Even if you aren't a fan of either of these teams if you are remotely a fan of college football you had to be pumped up for this contest. I as a big time Michigan fan was of course hyped for the showdown. It was all I could think about on friday and I even dragged my hungover ass out of bed on Saturday morning to watch College Gameday. And this is when things started to go awry. Lee Corso was saying his typical idiotic things saying Ohio St. defense was so good that Michigan might not even be able to score on them. So you know what that means, he...

After this weekend of college football the rematch seems more likely than ever but the Trojans are still standing in the way of the Wolverines. This weeks Power Rankings had some movement in the top and the bottom but with only two weeks remaining in the regular season its now just a matter of finalizing the BCS games. Oh and I'm sure they'll be some good debating as to who really deserves that #2 spot. Picking teams 1 through 6 is relatively easy, after that, it gets tough. 1. Ohio State Buckeyes - Back to the top for the Buckeyes after a one week hiatus. The Buckeyes jumped out in front of the Wolverines and minus the turnovers really dominating the game. It was interesting to see how Michigan's front 7 crashed the line so hard, and once Pittman or Wells got past them they took it to the house. Were you expecting the Buckeyes to have such game changing plays from both their running backs. I don't think there's a defense in the land that could stop the Buckey...