Doug’s Weekend Takeaways
Sep 3, 2013, 2:56 PM | Updated: Jul 26, 2024, 12:52 pm
After watching 17 college football games and five MLB games over the weekend, here are a few of my takeaways:
1) The D-backs are now 39-39 against teams below .500. The number would be worse if Washington was still below .500.
2) Every game C.B. Bucknor is an MLB umpire embarrasses the game. Please Umpires Union, justify his strike zone and job security.
3) Heath Bell gave up four hits and three earned runs in 0.1 IP on Sunday. Does my opinion really need to follow this sentence?
4) You never know if returning a lot of starters from a poorly performing unit is a good thing or a bad thing. Although it was against NAU and only Week 1, UofA’s defense looked OK.
5) Johnny Football will never “get it.”
6) Les Miles must be one of the greatest coaches of all-time because he keeps winning games despite total ignorance to clock management. Maybe offensive coordinator Cam Cameron is to blame, but running the football inside the five-yard line with one timeout near the end of the first half was asinine. You’re now forced to use your timeout for third down. Now, the world knows you’re throwing on third down because you have to score or stop the clock for the FG unit.
7) On the third down play in the LSU-TCU game, the Big Ten officiating crew showed they have no idea what they’re doing. A clear illegal use of hands stripped the left tackle of his helmet. Not only was it not called but the officiating crew ruled the LT had to leave for a play because he lost his helmet — which is only partially correct, because you don’t have to leave if you lose your helmet as a result of a penalty. The pass on the play was incomplete, yet the officials called for a :10 second run-off to end the half since they thought the fallen helmet stopped the clock. There’s no such thing as a :10 second run-off of a non-moving clock but the refs were just making it up as they go.
8) Washington State ran a formation with two tight ends. Let’s be clear…head coach Mike Leach ran an offense with any tight ends, let alone two of them.
9) Atlanta is cheap. A college football field is different than an NFL field. Atlanta, Dallas and Houston had season-opening neutral-site games at the home of their respective NFL franchises. Dallas and Houston both spent the money to have a college football field put in place. Atlanta ran out the lazy four-hash mark field.
10) Georgia’s Mark Richt had eight months to evaluate his OTs versus Clemson’s DEs. He game-planned that his tackles would hold up in protection. It’s bad enough he wasted eight months of valuable time. It was worse that he needed to see 35 minutes of football to figure out his QB was throwing from a clamp instead of a pocket. Screens, draws and chipping are strategies good coaches use to slow down pass rushers. With under 10 minutes to go in the third quarter, Richt chipped a Clemson DE for the first time. It’s not all Aaron Murray’s fault he’s 1-10 as a UGA starting QB when going against a top-15 team in the country.
