SportsHoncho

Indoor Football?!?… Can it satisfy my desire for the college football season?

There are some games that when modified rules are incorporated, enhance the base sport to make it funner, faster and better.  Dunk-Ball in my parents backyard, for instance, is by definition basketball, but with some subtle rule changes make it an amazingly fun game for a bunch of 6' white guys.  Some of the better rule changes are:

• Lowered basket.  The basket is set to about 8'6" so that this bunch of 6'2"-and-under white guys can play above the rim and feel like Michael Jordan.  Its a home-made adjustable basket, that can go from 7' to 11' tall.  I don't think it has ever been put above 8'6" for years.
• Goal-tending.  You can goal tend any shot, except 3-pointers which follow the international rule of 'fair game after it hits the rim'.  This rule gives the shorter white guys, who can't jump, some advantage.
• Back-court line.  The half-court pad is small, even 3-on-3 gets a little crowded, and the back-court line to switch possession between teams is 10 feet from the basket and so you can get a rebound, stick your foot behind the line, jump and dunk it without having to dribble it once.

Between me and my 3 older brothers, and slew of friends, this court was heavily played throughout the 80's and 90's.

Our family went to the Utah Blaze game on Saturday, and I am not sure rule changes have made this football game funner, faster and better.  The game was:

• TOO loud  - The music and PA announcer was always on and the volume control was pegged at 10.
• TOO slow - I really thought the game would be faster, but I think the cheerleaders and promotions team was on the field more than the players.
• TOO boring - The game didn't get me excited as mush as real football.  There are some cool aspects, live kickoffs off the screens, hits against the walls, but overall its not that exciting.
• TOO much scoring - Every possession results in a TD, the rules (see next item) are such that the offense can move the ball and score too easily.
• TOO many weird rules - I realize that some rule changes are in order for this modified game.  However I do not agree with rules that hinder strategy or hobble the athletic ability of the players.  For instance "Illegal Twisting" was called on a defender.  Reading into the rules a little bit revealed that defenses couldn't stunt or twist to break from their blocker.  This means that the defender can only try to go over or through the blocker and not use talents to get around them.  Another rule is that there is no blitzing, only 1 of 4 defensive backs can rush the QB. Also, there was a kickoff that hit the net and after a couple of bounces ended up in the hands of the kickoff team for a touchdown.  However there was a penalty flag down and the TD was called off for (I think I heard this right), "the kickoff team passed the 5 yard line before the receiving team touched the ball."  WHAT?  Isn't the kickoff into the nets and the subsequent rebounds integral to the excitement of the game, and they have made a rule to tone it down?

In my opinion, there were too many rule changes and hindering rules to make the game exciting enough to keep my attention.  I really wanted this to fill the void of college football, but didn't even keep my attention for 4 quarters, we left at the end of the 3rd quarter. 

I am willing to go to another game in the future, due to some mistakes made by me.  My wife and I brought our boys, 2 and 5, which needed to be entertained most of the time, so I couldn't concentrate on getting into the game.  My wife has already said she will not go again, but I will give it another shot, but I am not TOO optimistic about its outcome.

The New York Giants are Super Bowl Champions!

What?  With Eli Manning as quarterback?  Yeah, I think the entire nation is still in shock.  I had my money on the Patriots, however I thought either outcome was going to be impressive; either a 19-0 season or a team that stopped a 19-0 season from happening.

I was going to write this line ("I can't wait to see what Bill Simmons writes, IF he even writes anything").  I love his columns, but there is no bigger fan of the Patriots and he had predicted a destruction of the Giants in this game.  I was looking forward to his humbling and eating a little crow.  Well, with great dignity he has already written a great column, and more impressively he did it in the wee hours of the morning, after the game.  At least in defeat he can be subjective about the game.

Here are a couple of thoughts I had about the game:

• The Patriots offensive line lost this game for them, or more accurately, the Giants' defensive line WON the game for them.  The Pats line could not stop that pass rush.
• Tom Brady wasn't safe, especially if he dropped back 7 steps.  I don't understand why it took the Patriots 3 quarters to figure this out and change to a 3 step drop and have him get rid of the football.
• I am glad that now the "Is this the Best Team ever" discussion can now go away.  I hated it and thinks it is very hard to compare teams, separated by decades.
• It was really strange to see Peyton Manning cheering as a fan.  I know it was his brother, but it was still strange.  I also thought it was funny, that the woman next to him really wanted to celebrate with Peyton on some of the plays, and he completely ignored her.

For you NY Giants fan, I got this email offer in my inbox from Fathead, minutes after the game ended, thought I would pass it on - Celebrate the World Champion New York Giants!

7 straight for Utah!

Utah beat Navy last night in the Poinsettia Bowl, for their 7th straight bowl win.  That is tied for the longest consecutive bowl wins in the nation.  Other awesome facts about Utah's bowl season:

• 6 straight bowl games appearances,
• 7 straight bowl wins,
• Utah is 10-3 in bowl games (.769)

A couple of strange things about the game: 

1. They gave Joe Dale the defensive MVP for the game... and as a Ute fan watching the game, we noticed how many times he screwed up on his assignment.  He got worked over several times by Navy's option offense, so I was a little surprised that he got MVP.  With that said, other than Martell Burnett, I can't think of anyone on Utah's defense that deserves it for a bigger play than the interception to end the game. 
2. The offensive MVP went to Brian Johnson, WHAT?  Darrell Mack had a much bigger game and performed consistently through the entire game.  Johnson struggled off and on throughout the game.  Alas, he is the QB so he gets the trophy.
3. The STRANGEST thing was the No-Call near the end of the game, when Utah's Brooks fumbles the ball, which hits the pylon and they do not call it a touchback for Navy.  They even reviewed it and didn't give the ball to Navy.  That was a bad call, and the refs are now admitting it.
4. I couldn't believe how many times the commentator with marbles in his mouth (Lou Holtz), said that Utah was probably the best of the Non-BCS schools.  Fact is we are better than some of the BCS programs, but that is great thing to hear from a nationally recognized expert.

Not the best game from the standpoint of consistency and winning in style, but it was a win, so its a great start to the Christmas weekend.

Epilogue: College Football Rivalry Week (Utah at BYU)

OK, so I have had a few days to reflect, think and let off steam concerning Utah's 17-10 loss at BYU.   I have come to terms that Utah lost the game when they allowed BYU to convert a 4th and 18, from their own 10 yard line, and NOT because of the two horse-shit calls made against Utah right after that play.  As you can tell, I haven't completely absolved the referees part in the loss, but after watching the replay of the game can accept the loss. 

The two bad calls were Unnecessary Roughness and Pass Interference, one right after other, right after the 4th down conversion.  Being at the game and when talking to people right after, I was adamant that they were horrible, horrible calls; the refs were obviously paid off and giving the game to BYU (I'm a Utah fan, what else was I suppose to think).  After watching the replay I have toned that down to just 'two BAD calls.'  The problem with the unnecessary roughness call was the inconsistency, since almost the exact same thing happened a few minutes earlier against a Utah receiver, without a call... and the safety was in the air to hit the receiver, who did get a hand on the ball.  The pass interference, when watched live, looked like the BYU receiver pulled the Utah corner onto him, but after seeing the replay, I think it should have been a no call.  The Utah corner had caused the receiver to run the route further out and DID turn to find the ball.  The receiver was out of position to get to the ball without cutting back into the corner.  (Yes, I understand that my argument could be flipped to defend the PI call, but that is not how I see it.)  The corner didn't grab or shove the receiver, only made him run outside of the correct pattern.

Now my biggest problem with the game is that the announcers for the The Mtn. (the Mountain West Conference TV channel) were the two biggest BYU homers they could have assigned to the game.  Both are ex-BYU something or other, I felt like I was watching the BYU channel.  They sounded depressed when Utah took the lead and jubilant when they came back.  I think a conference-wide channel should provide at least a little bit of objectivity to the announcing team.

College Football Rivalry Week (Utah at BYU)

I can't believe the college football season is coming to an end already.  Utah's season ends this weekend with its rivalry game with BYU (see this Wikipedia entry that describes the great characteristics of the rivalry).  One of the great parts of this rivalry is that immediate family's have divided loyalties.  I grew up a BYU fan (that makes me sick to admit) because my Dad is a BYU fan.  However, I went to Utah, saw the error in my fandom and now support Utah (and hate BYU!).  My brother-in-law Wayne was a longtime BYU fan, he was personally recruited by Lavell Edwards, but now has season tickets with me to Utah.... and 3 of his 4 sons are still BYU fans and call him a traitor.  Family dinner discussions during the football and basketball seasons can get a little heated.

Utah had won 4 straight until last year's win by BYU.  I still have not watched a replay of this game, where BYU throws a last second TD to win (makes me sick to watch, so I refuse to embed the video into my blog).  Wayne has watched it and insists its one of the best ever games between Utah and BYU.  However, Utah has beaten BYU on their home-field 6 of the last 7 times, and the last 2.   

Unfortunately, since college football changed to 12 regular season games, the Utah/BYU rivalry has been on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  I say unfortunate, because I have always had a huge Thanksgiving weekend in St.George, UT with my Dad's family.  This has been an annual event for our family since before I was born (33 years ago) and I think I have only missed 1 year.  I realize that many people think this is a great weekend, since they will be coming "home" to the Salt Lake valley and can enjoy the rivalry, but since I leave town, it is a hassle when I have tickets.  And... I have had tickets to both home and away games in the rivalry for the last 6 years, so I make my family come home early.  This year will be no exception.  Me, Wayne, my nephew Nathan from Iowa, and an unspecified lucky person (most likely my brother Bruce) will be going this year, along with Spud, my high school buddy, and his family.  Should be a good time and a great game.

Cincy-Louis(y)-Indy, the Midwest Football Triangle, Part III

Day 3 - 10/6/07
Unfortunately, after a late-night game, we had to wake up early and drive a couple of hours to  Bloomington, Indiana for the Minnesota at Indiana game at noon.  On our way we waited in one McD's drive-thru (pic) for several minutes, drove away and looked at the line in two others before we found a fourth with no line.  This is only important, because they were only serving breakfast for another 10 minutes.  It took us a little under 2 hours to get to Bloomington and the last 45 minutes was on a windy two lane highway.  There was no scarcity of flea markets or opry houses along the way.  When we were almost there, I asked my nephew, Jaxon if he had seen the camel a ways back.  He asked me, "Was it peeing?"  "No." "That's not interesting then."  Now I know, a camel is only interesting to Jaxon if it is peeing.  We made it to the stadium right at kick off (pic), and it was a little bit different atmosphere.  Less people and a much quieter, calmer crowd.  Indiana is having a great year at 5-1, and 2-1 in the Big Ten, but the place, even with a conference rival in town, was not close to sold out.  Kellen Lewis, Indiana's quarterback, is amazing, very athletic and accurate thrower (pic).  During the game, a commercial was played for the Big Ten Network, and the crowd booed.  It made us laugh since the Big Ten and Mountain West fans are having similar problems with their ability to get games on TV.  (Both conferences have signed contracts with their TV networks for exclusive distribution on either cable or satellite, and they can’t come to terms to distribute it on the opposite form.)  We did ask the fans sitting in front of us, what a 'Hoosier' was…We left the game without an answer!  After the game we stood in the exits and handed out ZipCodeSports post cards, around 100.  We were very tired from sitting in the 90 degree and 90% humidity for 4 hours.   Once we got the sicky Bruce to bed, Wayne and I took Jaxon to experience White Castle sliders.  We forgot our camera, but he made some great faces as he choked down 2 of them.  Sliders at 9:30pm, nothing better.  Oh, I did some research and the Indiana University website had this answer for the term Hoosier, I will not comment.

Day 4 - 10/7/07
Since the Colts played the late Sunday afternoon game, we again slept in.  We walked around downtown  Indianapolis (pic) for a little while and ate at BadaBoomz (pic), it had great food and atmosphere.  The Colts are moving to a new stadium soon, but I didn’t think the RCA Dome looked that old and thought it was a fairly nice stadium.  We were 3 rows from the top and the view was still great (pic).  The new stadium is huge and from the brochure we saw in the game program will be very, very nice.  This is only my second pro football game, the other being a Arizona Cardinal game at Sun Devil stadium, but I could not believe how many jersey’s were being worn (pic).  I would guess that at least 80% of the people (men, women and children) had a jersey on.  Watching Manning pick apart and destroy the Tampa Bay defense was amazing.  He takes the entire play clock to figure out the defensive setup and positions and it seems that he knows exactly where he is going, to exploit the defense, when he finally snaps the ball.  The game was completely dominated by the Colts.  After the game we all stood outside of the stadium and handed out ZipCodeSports post cards, around 250.  We left the game and drove to Cincy.

Day 5 - 10/8/07
Since we all booked Super Saver flights, we had to get out of bed way too early.  Another uneventful flight, until we landed and were informed that there was a minor medical emergency and paramedics will need to board the plane and take care of it, before we can deplane.  I always think this is funny, not because someone is sick, but because everyone on the plane turns to see who the sick person is.  They are already embarrassed and self-conscience about the experience, why should we heap on some anxiety by staring.  Great weekend, great football and a great way to have a tax deductible business trip.

Cincy-Louis(y)-Indy, the Midwest Football Triangle, Part II

Day 1 - 10/4/07
We left SLC and had an uneventful flight to Cincy.  As we landed a guy asked us if we were going to the Utah/Louisville game, since both me and Wayne had on Utah hats.  He turned out to be a huge sports fan and as we walked out of the terminal, I pitched ZipCodeSports.com and gave him a postcard (Booyah! Its now a business trip!).  He loved the idea and said he would check it out, he especially liked the included map and ticket links.  We met Bruce and Jaxon at the curb (they had taken an earlier flight), made a quick junk-food stop and drove to Louisville (Louisy).   (Selecting any of the links with (pic) will take you to the trip's photo album, here.)

Day 2 - 10/5/07
Since we didn't get into Louisville until 2am, we slept in a bit and were in desperate need of nourishment in the morning.  We chose a Waffle House (pic) and, in hind sight, it was probably a mistake, since both me and Wayne felt sick during the game that night.  We made it to downtown Louisville and the Louisville Slugger Museum (pic).  We met people we knew coming out of the museum/factory tour and they advised us not to go through the tour.  So we spent an hour at the batting cage in the back and walked to the Muhammad Ali Museum.  Due to time constraint and Bruce not feeling well, we weren't able to go on this tour either.  However, the lobby exhibits were intriguing and interesting (pic), and if I am in the area again I will take the entire tour.  After letting Bruce rest a bit, we went to Wayne’s cousin’s house; ate pizza, played pool, watched ESPN on a huge HD projection TV and putted on the indoor green, all in his “Man Cave” in the basement.  After visiting for a while, we made it to the game, and were warmly welcomed, I can't tell you how many people we walked by, who said "Welcome to Louisville."   The Papa John's Cardinal Stadium (pic) is a very nice stadium, has a great surrounding area for tailgating and although we were two-thirds the way up, the view was great.  Similar to our own Rice-Eccles Stadium, I doubt there is a bad seat in the stadium.  That night, a thousand, or so, cadets from Fort Knox were in attendance (pic), and were given 6-7 standing ovations throughout the night, even when they were simply filing out of the stadium.  I was able to meet and discuss ZipCodeSports with a couple of guys at the game, both sounded excited about the idea and would use it.  What a game to be at.  Great fans and great atmosphere, even when the Cardinals were down by several touchdowns, the entire crowd rose and cheered when it was a defensive third down.  It was a dominant first half by the Utes, ending 27-7.  In the second half, Louisville fought back into the game creating energy in the stadium and got the fans rockin’.  Luckily, the Utes settled down, made some plays and sealed the win with a field goal.  We made our way down to the Utah fan section and the team came over to celebrate (pic).  After the celebration we handed out ZipCodeSports.com post-cards to Utah fans leaving the stadium.  It was great to see that only 2-3 of them were thrown on the ground as we walked out. 

Back from the Midwest

Holy crap, its hot out there!  They had record breaking heat all weekend and its really nice to be back in the dry air of the Wasatch front.  The Sports Honcho Crew (my brother Bruce, his son Jaxon, and my brother-in-law Wayne) had a blast; went to three different football games, met some great fans and passed out ZipCodeSports.com postcard fliers.  Unfortunately, it did not work out to post each day's events while there, but within the next couple of days, I will post a full trip report.

Awesome vacation coming, but today was crappy...

I thought I was starting a good day when I got my son to school on time, which I hadn't done for two straight days, but it was to be one of the few bright spots.  Following is a quick run down of the crappiness (is that a word?):

1. Vendor shorted a shipment of parts, that we were to modify and ship today,... didn't happen,
2. In my frustration, I grabbed the phone from my desk to call the vendor, it slipped and broke my engineering calculator, which I had had for 15 years*,
3. I designed the packaging for the components to ship based on a known box size, and cut the foam pad thusly, and then couldn't find the box size in any nearby supply centers,
4. While cutting the foam on our laser, I started a fire, which is common inside the laser chamber, but this one was a little out of hand and required the extinguisher,
5. I had to spend 30 minutes cleaning the laser, before it worked properly again,
6. When I got home, I started the wash, so that I could take some clean clothes on the trip, and the washer stopped working, full of water...,
7. Instead of paying the $180 bill, like last time, I unplugged the pump myself, but in the meantime, cut my hand several times**,
8. While talking with my wife, she laughing during most of it and singing "Ryan started the fire..." from The Office, I tipped over my drink.

I am going to bed before anything else can go wrong.  Tomorrow will be a good day, it has no choice; by then end, I will be in Louisville to start the football weekend.  The next part in the Midwest Football Triangle series is coming shorty, I will try to post nightly about the days events and then do a full trip report, with pictures when we return.

* - This makes me a nerd, which is not the Sports Honcho's way, but...  The calculator that an engineer chooses to use through college, is a prized possession and it almost becomes an appendage.  I am use to my calculator, the HP 48GX, and don't really want to learn how to use a different one.  Before you stop reading this and never come back, most engineers feel this way.  Case in point, my calculator is selling on Ebay for around $140, which is more than the original 1992 price I paid and is more than the latest engineering calculator offered from HP.  Wow, that was really nerdy, I explained the lose I felt over my calculator.

** - There was a little sharp piece of sheet-metal right above the pump that I had to unplug.  As a design engineer, I would like to point out that not all of us make poor stupid designs like this.  I almost took my hammer and modified it myself.

Cincy-Louis(y)-Indy, the Midwest Football Triangle, Part I

This is how I, the Sports Honcho, use my own website ZipCodeSports.com. 

My brother-in-law Wayne, brother Bruce, his son Jaxon and myself decided to plan a football trip to the Louisville vs Utah football game on Friday, October 5th.  Since we are going so far we decided to make it a full weekend of football, including a pro game in the area.  Below is the process taken to put the trip together and, of course ZipCodeSports.com was used extensively.

The best, and cheapest, flights to the area were Thursday night into Cincinnati.  We first searched for a Cincinnati Bengals game on Sunday 10/7, but found nothing (Fig.1).  So I increased the date range to include the following weekend (Fig.2).  I wanted to find at least one result for the Cincinnati Bengals, and did on 10/14 (Fig.3), so that I could select on the Cincinnati Bengals name in the search results (the blue text) to get their full schedule pop-up (Fig.4).  Their schedule showed the Bengals have a bye the weekend of 10/7. 

(Fig.1)                (Fig.2)                (Fig.3)

(Fig.4)

So I changed the team selection to the Indianapolis Colts (Fig.5) to find their next game (Fig.6).  I found a game to attend, the Colts are at home on 10/7.  I clicked on the "Buy Tickets" button to find some tickets to the game (Fig.7).  By selecting the specific game on StubHub.com, you get a list of available tickets to choose from (Fig.8).

(Fig. 5)              (Fig.6)                 (Fig.7)                 (Fig.8)

Going back to the search results shown in Fig.6 and clicking on the "Map" button, you get a map directly to the Indianapolis Colts stadium, RCA Dome.  By changing the zoom and centering the map a little, we can see the Midwest Football Triangle (Fig.9).

(Fig.9)

I am going to use this map and search results from ZipCodeSports.com to find another college football game to attend on Saturday, in the area.  So I did a search for 200 miles around Indianapolis, IN for Saturday, 10/6, (Fig.10). As you can see this brought up way too many results.  So I limited the radius to 60 miles from Indianapolis (Fig.11).  Looking at these results, I liked the Purdue/Ohio State game, but by opening the map, we found that West Lafayette was another hour away on the opposite side of Indianapolis from Louisville.  So we decided to go to the Indiana vs Minnesota game, the map to the University of Indiana is shown in (Fig.12).  Again, I selected on "Buy Tickets" to find tickets for the game. (Fig.13).

(Fig.10)             (Fig.11)               (Fig.12)             (Fig.13)

Now, all I need to complete the trip, is to get tickets for the Louisville vs Utah game (Fig.14).  I selected "Buy Tickets" for some tickets (Fig.15), got some Utah gear by selecting on the "G" button next to Utah (Fig.16) and a hat by selecting on the "L" button (Fig.17).

(Fig.14)             (Fig.15)                (Fig.16)             (Fig.17)

So the final itinerary for the Midwest Football Triangle:  Fly to Cincy, drive to Louis(y) (Louisville vs Utah game), drive to Indy, (stop at the Indiana vs Minnesota game), (Colts vs Buccaneers game), drive to Cincy, fly back to SLC.

Follow these steps and ZipCodeSports.com will find a game for you to attend.  Decide where you're going, set the date range, then choose a team in the area or enter a zipcode or city/state.  Choose the game to attend from the results list, get the gear, get your tickets, get a map and Get to the Game!