In the week that was it appears that the USA soccer team it trying to challenge the Browns for futility. It appears that they are succeeding. For the first time since 1986 the USA will not be a part of the the World Cup. It is very hard to understand how a country of over 300 Million people can field a team that cannot compete with countries that are so much smaller.
It really comes down to the way the sport is run from the earliest youth leagues all the way to the top. There is no path in the Untied States that encourages top athletes to pursue Soccer. They are redirected to Baseball, Basketball, Football or just about any other sport. This is not a problem that is going to be fixed quickly or easily. This is something that is going to be around for a while.
I am not even sure that in the near future Soccer will gain much more attention in the USA. The people that are watching now are hard core fans and they will follow no matter what happens. The fringe fans. The ones that make it grow have to reason to even check it out. In past years when the world cup came around. The soccer viewership would go up. Since there will be no USA team to root for this time around. I do not see that happening. The core fans will be there but there will be no spike in viewership from the fringe fans.
Crazy Chaos in NCAA Football
This was one of the most interesting weeks in college football in a long time. It started with the Thursday games when Syracuse took down Clemson. Was Clemson looking ahead? Possibly. But it probably more shows that Clemson is not as good this year as they were last year. Chaos is good for College Football. The same teams getting in the playoff every year. Will at some point cause people to become uninterested. I know just from my own feelings that if the Championship game was going to be Alabama and Clemson again. I would probably not watch it. Unless you are a fan of those two teams it gets old watching the same two teams play for the championship.
Other than Alabama winning it was a very interesting week. Other than the Clemson loss. Number 8 Washington State lost. Number 5 Washington and number 10 Auburn all lost. When this many teams in the top 10 it makes for an interesting week in the polls. Right now the Big 10 is looking pretty good but the crazy part of their schedule is coming up and a few if not all of the top teams will come out of it with a loss.
Alabama will more then likely play Georgia in the SEC championship game. If it is a close game with Georgia winning. We could have the first year that two teams from the same conference make the playoff. Those are the only two good teams in the SEC so that will probably not help to make that happen.
It is better for ratings if 4 of the 5 power conferences are represented. Looking forward to next week with some big games.
NFL Wide Open North
Not just the North but every division is pretty open. The thing that makes the NFC North so open now is the broken collar bone of Aaron Rodgers. The Packers were living on the strength of Rodgers arm. With all the injuries they have and now a back up quarterback. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. The Lions did not have a great game against the Saints. The Bears won but really how many more games are they going to win. The Vikings are still a complete unknown. If Rodgers does not get hurt it really looked like this game would be a blow out Packers win.
Other than the huge injuries over the past week. The big story is the refs. WOW are they just amazingly bad. In the Packers Vikings game there were so many bad calls that they ran out of red flags to toss. Even with all those bad calls that was not the worst reffing of the weekend. In the Jets Patriots game there was the worst call since the Packers Seahawks game when they called a touchdown catch an interception.
Something is really going to have to be done about this. I am blaming a large portion of this on replay. It seems to make the refs less aware. They can rely on replay. The problem with replay is that they seem to get it wrong more times then they get it right. I would really like to see replay just go away. Accept that we are human and that mistakes will be made. Nothing to see here just move a long… LOL Yes I know that is never going to happen. Replay is here to stay. So we are just stuck with it.
Colin Cowherd
I had not heard Cowherd on the radio since he had left ESPN. While he was always a bit off in several ways. He is really off now. On his reboot of The Herd With Colin Cowherd he really is staring to sound like a parody of his former self. His rants were long winded, generally not that interesting and mostly off the mark. I will write more on this later after I get to listen to him again. Or rather make that if I get to hear his show again. Cowherd is pretty much a walking week that was. He has become even more of a blow hard. Of course maybe I am just jealous because he has a huge following and I don’t.
Probably not since the last good thing that he did was Colin’s Football show. Which was actually pretty good. This showed that he actually does have the ability to do a good show with out all the grand standing. On the other had it got cancelled so I may be the only person that is looking for shows like that.
Fear the Walking Dead – No Clan
Fear the Walking Dead came to an end for the first half of it season. FTWD has made some huge strides this season and actually had some watchable stories. They have not fixed all the problems with it though. To me the problem seems to be that there is no clan. In the Walking Dead for the most part the group is together. There are few stories where people get split off from the group but they are almost always working together. With FTWD they are almost never together. We don’t know who we are supposed to root for.
There is no way for us to identify with them since the story is so haphazard. While getting better there is still a long way to go. The two hour end of the season left us knowing very little about anything that is going on. Who is a live who is dead, where will the story go? It was a cliff hanger but a cliff hanger with no direction. Really by the time the second half of the season comes around it will be like starting the show completely over. Granted The Walking Dead stories have not been on the same level of a few seasons ago. The difference is that we are tied to the characters so it makes up for it.
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