More Picks

Where is the International Bowl? Oh well, I'll look it up later, let's make some more bowl picks.

Champs Sports: Maryland vs Purdue I'm going with the Terps.
Insight: Texas Tech vs Minnesota Going with Tech.
MPC Computers: Miami vs Nevada Going with the Canes.
Alamo: Texas vs Iowa Picking the Longhorns.
Sun: Oregon State vs Missouri Nice Beavers.
Meineke: Navy vs Boston College Reluctantly picking BC.
Liberty: Houston vs South Carolina Cocks all the way in this one.
Cotton: Nebraska vs Auburn Tigers.
Outback: Penn State vs Tennessee Volunteers
Gator: Ga Tech vs West Virginia Tech now has a shot since Reggie Ball is not playing but I'm sticking with the Mountaineers.
Capital One: Arkansas vs Wisconsin Razorbacks.
Fiesta: Oklahoma vs Boise State The Sooners should kill BSU.
Rose: USC vs Michigan Go Wolverines.

I'll get to the others next week. And for the record, my little freaks, I am not a closet Gator fan so please stop insulting me with those accusations.

Dear ESPN.......

I don't know if your producers have informed you but, the Rose Bowl is not the national championship game. I realize you only support and report those things that favor you but please stop making such asses of yourselves.

In case you are not aware: the national championship game is in Glendale, Arizona and the two teams competing are Ohio State and Florida.

Thanks,
La SportsChica

Bowls and Stuff

I trust everyone had a fabulous Christmas. Thankfully, your Chica did as well.

Since Christmas Eve, I've watched two bowl games and fortunately for me, my picks have won! I'm involved in a Bowl Pool and it's fun. I've said it before and I'll say it again, it makes these boring bowl games involving schools who's mascot I don't even know a lot more interesting.

The Hawaii/Arizona State game was okay because it had a lot of scoring. As most of you know, La Chica loves her some offense. I must say however, I found myself quite annoyed by the long Polynesian hair worn by many Hawaii players. Actually, you can't watch a PAC 10 or Hawaii game without there being at least 5 players on the field with hair longer than Crystal Gayle (that's right, I threw that country name out!). It's not attractive and I can only imagine the stench underneath the helmet. I say the same thing about the dudes with the long dreadlocks so please, no hate comments on this one.

Last night's game was Central Michigan vs Middle Tennessee State. This game left a lot to be desired. CMU outplayed Middle (that's what the analysts calling the game called them) and were simply bigger and better. All in all I give the game a 1 out of a possible 5 for excitement level. I keep having to remind myself that the fun bowl games actually start with tonight's game, Florida State vs UCLA.

God only knows what kind of commentary is going to come from this game. I'm going to pick UCLA to win tonight but wouldn't be unhappy if the Seminoles won for the sake of the ACC. Here are a few other picks and games that will be worth watching:

12/28 Holiday Bowl: Texas A&M vs California. I'm going with Cal.
12/28 Independence Bowl: OK State vs Alabama. I'm going with OSU simply because Bama does not have a head coach.
12/29 Music City Bowl: Kentucky vs Clemson. Go Tigers!
12/30 Chick-fil-A Bowl: Va Tech vs Georgia. Look for your Chica at the game as I will be in la Georgia Dome and cheering for the mangey Hokies. Go ACC!

Check back for more picks later.

Holiday Season

I know it's the holiday season but check back in from time to time over the next several days as I'm going to update the blog with picks and other sundry items.

Merry Christmas to all and Happy Hannukah to all my Jewish peeps.

Poinsettia Bowl Thoughts

Last night was the first college football bowl of the season and it was quite a boring display. TCU killed Northern Illinois. It looked like a college team (that would be TCU) against a high school team (that would be NIU). Let's hope the rest of the bowls are much better.

ESPN had an hour long pre-game to discuss all of the BCS games and other bowls. Here are my thoughts about the show:

- Why does ESPN continue to have Doug Flutie as an anchor type analyst? I think he's fine calling the games as an analyst but he's still too nervous doing the actual shows. He stumbles quite a bit on his commentary.

- Don't look now SEC peeps but the guys on the show last night were not giving your conference any love, especially John Saunders. Speaking of John Saunders, is he drunk when he's on the air? Sometimes it seems like he's hitting the bottle before the shows. I'm just sayin'.

- And then there's Desmond Howard! Now, I do not want to speak badly of him because I actually like him but can someone please clarify to Desmond that California is playing TEXAS A&M in the Holiday Bowl and not the University of TEXAS. You would think John Saunders would have made it clear but he may have been too drunk.

Spitting, New Brawl and Other Items

I didn't watch the Falcons game Saturday night versus the Dallas Cowboys; your Chica was at Cirque Du Soleil watching men in tights, midgets flying around and clowns dancing about; it was quite lovely. The obvious news is that the Falcons lost to Dallas but what about Terrell Owens spitting on DeAngelo Hall? Once again, TO proves to be an idiot!

Spitting on someone, regardless of the circumstance, is unacceptable. And yes, I know that Sean Taylor did the same thing last year. I say the same thing about him, it's disgusting and unacceptable no matter who you are or where you played college football. There's nothing else to say about that, I can't believe that grown men actually commit these asinine acts.

Speaking of grown men behaving like fools, did anyone witness the brawl between the New York Knicks and the Denver Nuggets Saturday night? Funny how that brawl has not received all the attention that the FIU/Miami brawl did a couple of months ago. Oh right, ESPN. 'Nuff said.

Moving on to better subjects, the college football bowl season kicks off tomorrow with the Poinsettia Bowl (yes, that's right). Northern Illinois will face TCU at 8pm on ESPN2. Hey, I'm just happy college football is on and will revel in the magic that is bowl season. Okay, that's a bit dramatic but you guys know what I mean.

The Way To Do It

This evening, Appalachian State will play UMass for the Division I championship. I know it's a deadhorse but I love the way all the other college divisions and sports decide their respective national champions.

Wouldn't it be great if the big guys in college football had some kind of playoff? They could take the top 8 teams, keep the 4 BCS bowls and add another game for the national title. Oh well, it's not going to happen in our lifetime.

In the meantime, I'm going to support the little guys and you should too. So tonight, tune in and watch App. St vs UMass. Go Mountaineers!

Alabama

The University of Alabama still has not named a head coach. Back in the day, coaches would jump at this opportunity. Nowadays, peeps are afraid!

It's not unlike most major college football programs, if a coach doesn't win in 3 seasons he's out. And as a fan, I say rightfully so. However at Alabama, it's a little different; those fans are in dire need of other sports excitement. There are no professional teams in the state of Alabama so the entire year is dedicated to college football. And not that there's anything wrong with that but sometimes people get a little crazy over there.

Take Bill Curry for example, his family was threatened by "fans" during one of his seasons at Alabama, he gladly left and went to coach at Kentucky.

The bottom line is contrary to what most Crimson Tide fans think, this is not the glorious job it once was. Alabama fans need to let go of Bear Bryant's ghost and give a coach a legitimate fighting chance. Oh yeah, and get over themselves because Bama ain't all that and a pack of gum.

The NFL, Devin Hester and Big Butts

Now that the regular season has ended for college football, I ask myself: what am I going to write about? Fret not, I'll find stuff, I may even make up stuff ala ESPN.

Let's start off with the NFL. Don't get a Chica wrong, I do love pro-football but not nearly as much as college. And even though my beloved Dolphins started winning too late in the season, the fact that they kicked the crap out of New England and Tom Brady makes me smile. What I've decided is that I need something extra to peak my interest in Sunday football. So, I started betting on games! I joined a pool at a local hangout in my neighborhood and it has made all the difference in the world. The lesson learned boys and girls? Betting is both educational and cool.

Speaking of the NFL, did you guys watch Monday Night Football last night? The game was Chicago vs St. Louis. Devin Hester returned 2 kicks back for touchdowns in one game!! He's amazing and God bless him. He's a little guy who occasionally fumbles the ball but he makes up for it with his run-backs. And he's a Cane!

If you watched the game last night then you may have noticed something I did: la big butts. There's a player on the Rams team named, La' Roi Glover, he's number 97. He's got the biggest ass I have ever seen on a man or on an athletic man I should say. Your Chica could not stop looking at it and when the camera wasn't on him, I was searching for La' Roi like a meth addict searching for aluminum foil (sorry, but I've seen too many episodes of Intervention on A&E). I hope the Rams make the playoffs so I can follow La' Roi's booty, uh I mean progress.

Off Topic: If you haven't seen Rob and Big on MTV, you're missing out!

Ugh!

Well, it's official, the University of Miami once again hired an assistant from within the program to become the head coach. UM's defensive coordinator, Randy Shannon, was hired last night. Let's see, the last time this happened was with Larry Coker and we all know how that turned out.

At least when Coker was hired he was left with Butch Davis' amazing recruits. That team could have won the national championship with me as head coach and my dog, Zoe, as offensive and defensive coordinators! This time around it's different because Coker didn't leave that talent behind but instead left a mess behind that, in my opinion, needs an offensive genius to rebuild.

UM had a chance to inject some much needed new blood into this program and they failed. They even hired a fancy consultant to help them in their search for a new head coach. Hell, I could have been paid the money to look down the hall. How does this athletic administration continue to waste money and get away with it? I've been saying for awhile that the athletic director should have been fired as well. If he were running a regular corporation, he would have "gotten the boot" last year for his mistake of extending Coker's contract.

As a diehard Miami Hurricane fan, I will support the new coach and the team but I'm incredibly disappointed this morning. I feel it's going to be another long and possibly humiliating season next year. I hope I'm wrong; I hope I'm eating my words this time next year because I'm tired. I'm really tired of cheering for a losing team.

Can You Spot La Sportschica?

10 Things I Learned This Season

This was a tough season for your Chica for obvious reasons but college football is still the best sport going and I enjoyed the hell out of it. These are in no particular order but here's what I learned over the last 4 months:

1. Picking the outcome of a college football game is near impossible or I'm just really bad at prognosticating.
2. I really love using the word "prognosticate". It's fancy.
3. The media (especially ESPN) is going to sway its viewers and readers regardless of the truth. It doesn't matter peeps, they're going to write and say whatever they want even if it's not true and that's sad. I lost a lot of respect for a network I used to dream about working for. Oh who am I kidding, if they came knocking at my door with a job, your Chica would take it but I would still bitch about their unfair bias!
4. On the same line as the above bulleted item, it's amazing there are still certain sportswriters getting paid to cover sports: John Saunders, Woody Paige, Joe Theismann, etc. I could go on.
5. "This is our country"...John Mellencamp's song was ingrained into our brains so much this season that a lot of people moved out of "our country". I'm just saying!
6. Never, ever, ever bet more than $20 on college football games! Or even more importantly, never, ever say you'll show any body part if a certain team wins.
7. Doug Flutie's 80s hair will never go away. Bless his heart.
8. While I love Kirk Herbstreit and respect him because the man does know his college football, he made the most bonehead call of all this past preseason by picking the Miami Hurricanes to win the national title. As much as this Chica would have loved that, we all know what happened but it made me feel better with all my bad predictions. Thanks Kirk.
9. The BCS still sucks.
10. Watching your team play live in another country and continent ROCKS!

What did you guys learn this season?

National Title

The national title game has been decided and as you all know it will be Ohio State vs Florida in Arizona. Folks are pissed off all over the country but let's face it, no one wanted to see a rematch except the peeps who live in Michigan!

As for your Chica, while I'm happy for my Florida friends, I gotta say it will be a long year around these parts if Florida wins the national title in both football and basketball in the same year! However, they played a tough schedule this year and came away winning almost all of their games so I personally feel they deserve it more than Michigan for that reason alone. I'm in the minority though, a lot of articles I've read this morning are saying the only reason Florida got the nod is because of all the whining (and begging) done by Tommy Tuberville and Urban Meyer. Hey whatever works, right?

I will say, I'm sick of hearing all the hype about the SEC from SEC people about their conference being the best in the country! To these peeps I say this: Here's your chance to prove it! If Florida beats the best team in the country, I will toot the SEC's horn but if they do not, then sit your ass down, SEC!

Picks and Stuff
Your Chica is back, fresh off my European holiday and ready for football this weekend! I must say, I'm a bit sad as this is the last weekend of the regular season (sniff, sniff) but I must press on:

#16 Wake Forest vs #23 Georgia Tech
No offense to either school or their fans, but you know it's a down year in the ACC when you have Wake vs Tech in the championship game. I'm just saying. Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb and pick GT for no other reason than they've got to feel like jackasses for losing to Georgia last week. By the way, kudos to me for picking that one.

#2 USC vs UCLA
This game is posted on my blog this week solely because its outcome has a lot of implications. If UCLA can somehow pull out the upset over USC then a lot of Florida fans will be happy or will the Michigan fans be happy??? Personally, I think it's a moot point (or as some idiots say: a "mute" point) because USC will win this game and go on to the national championship game.

#8 Arkansas vs #4 Florida
Ooooh, this game is going to be fun, or at least I hope so. La Chica is stumped on this one my peeps. Had Arkansas taken care of business and beaten those mangey LSU Tigers last week, I would have no problem picking them to win but sadly, they did not. Oh, the dilemma........my Florida friends will give me smack but I am going with the Razorbacks. By the by, if anyone has an extra ticket, let a Chica know!!!

#13 Rutgers vs #15 West Virginia
This game should be a fun one as well but in the end West Virginia will beat their ass.

#19 Nebraska vs #8 Oklahoma
Zzzzzz's. I've given the Big 12 no love this season so why start now? However, it is their conference championship game so I must make a pick: OU.