If you want a good reason as to how screwed we are as a football society...

I submit to you two of the coaches involved in that Florida referee attack from September.

Sarasota County, Florida, like many counties, has an online ability to check court records.

Lookie what I found on one of the coaches, a Timothy Howard:

In August 5, 1999, he pled no contest to two felonies: Cocaine possession with intent to sell or distribute, and possession of a controlled substance.

He was sentenced to consecutive one-year terms.

How is this guy, who appears, previous to this, to have fourteen different filings with the court (including resisting arrest, failure to obey police, numerous probation violations, and perhaps another year in jail for an additional drug charge), allowed anywhere near kids in this kind of a setting?

And that's nothing compared to what I came up with on Antonio Bradley, another of the three coaches involved:

• 2004 Marijuana sale within 1000 ft of a church: 2nd degree felony.
• 2004, four months later: Discharging an airgun in city limits
• 2005, smuggling contraband into a detention facility
  
• 2006, sale of cocaine, another felony.
• 2006, destruction of evidence, another felony.
  
• 2007, suspended license, small marijuana possession, etc. (This three years after a conviction which could've drawn 15 years in the state pen!)

These two both face trial for the referee attack in April, 2012.

This sounds to me as if it's at least one of the guys who's been dabbling in the gambling on these kids.

HOW IN THE HELL ARE WE SUPPOSED TO HAVE FOOTBALL WITH THIS KIND OF IDIOCY AROUND?

More football riot news...

Yet more examples of why we need get the Neanderthals out of football, even if that means getting the football out of football:

• Fight in the handshake line in Virginia after a penalty-fest.
• Another Georgia incident has led to a parent's arrest after he shoved another player, apparently for picking on his son. Four players, total, were ejected from this game.
• Even the garbage Lingerie Football League had punches thrown in a game recently.
• About a month ago, another parent-student fight at a youth football game led to suspensions, and now has led to one parent receiving battery charges. Thankfully, both teams' participation in football has been terminated for the year.

Mr. Goodell, this starts with you. How many more before we get shots fired at games?

And yet MORE on the Georgia football riot...

Atlanta Journal Constitution:

It has now been reported by the Warren County school attorney that Hancock County assistant football coach Marleau Blount sent several "vulgar and threatening messages" to players on the Warren County football team.

Here's the kicker: Until August of this year, when he resigned, Blount was the head football coach at Warren County!!!

This is taking an institutional attack to unheard-of and obscene levels, if any of this is true. This almost assures that the attack went all the way through the football team (and the order may have come from Blount, if not the entire coaching staff at Hancock County!)

This is the text of one of the messages purported to have been sent by Blount:

"Better stay yo stupid [expletive] in [Warren County] B4 som1 get really hurt."

You better fucking pray that this is not true, on so many levels...

This is purportedly a special-ed teacher who volunteers (for no pay) as an assistant football coach.

If this is Blount with that kind of message, this takes my concerns to an entirely new level.

This (cleaned up for some degree of grammar) was a text that the attorney states Blount sent after the fight:

"How th[e] [expletive] I kno[w] about yall bull[expletive]. Yu started this [expletive] last week. Remember yu started this."

(referring to the incident at the third school mentioned earlier, where Warren County players openly went on the field and celebrated with the third school when that school defeated Hancock County)

Also in the AJC:

A community forum will be held to try to prevent this from happening again in Hancock County.

Here's about the only thing I think can prevent this from going nuclear:

1. No more sporting teams, of any kind, at Hancock County Schools until the students and the staff can establish they have an ounce of maturity between them.
2. A community-wide investigation into what's been going on in the two counties, before somebody starts a true war down there.

That's it. Nothing short of this will suffice. Death Penalty the sports programs at Hancock and get to the bottom of this entire situation before someone does what I probably would've done if I were a Warren County parent of a player:

I'd probably have grabbed a gun...

Week 8 Score Report

Another week that Vegas has called on the NFL to keep the scores down.

2011 Monday-nighter pending...

2004: 48.64
2009: 46.46
2006: 45.79
2008: 43.57
2002: 42.00 even
2011: 41.97
2005: 41.86
2010: 41.69
2001: 4007
2003: 38.64
2007: 36.07

The 8-week averages:

2011: 44.63
2002: 44.57
2008: 44.41
2009: 43.15
2010: 43.07
2007: 42.08
2003: 41.80
2006: 41.47
2005: 41.45
2004: 41.40
2001: 40.35

Look at 2003-2007: all within about 2/3 of a point per game...

B$C$: We now have our answer for keeping Boise and Houston out...

It's Stanford and the Heisman winner/#1 Draft Pick.

And here's the kicker, the game may have been rigged to ensure overtime.

34-34, time running out, USC with the ball and the last chance to win it.

Here's what ABC showed...

Remember, this week, Kansas State and Clemson both lost, leaving the number of undefeated "Big Six" teams at 4. Two of them will play (in, because of the door being slammed on the other two FBS undefeateds, will almost certainly be The Real BCS National Championship Game) next week, LSU at Alabama.

The third is Oklahoma State, a near-unanimous #1 in the computers, by some weird mechanism.

The fourth is Stanford, who was losing most of the night in Los Angeles to the ineligible University of Spoiled Cheats.

Until Luck and his boys got the game to 34-34, and then the above happened.

By college rules, the player does not have to be touched down to be down, and the referee signals (without seeing the clock) that he had touched down out of bounds to ensure what probably would've been about a 50-yard field goal to win the game.

The call on the field was that time had expired, but go to 0:18 in the clip. He's DOWN. College rules, the play is over. ONE SECOND REMAINS ON THE CLOCK.

It appears as if two calls have to be made:

1) Did he get out of bounds?

So if the official is signalling "time out", the only call possible is that the player did achieve out of bounds. (Though the "yellow line" is unofficial, it's far enough away from it that we can conclude that there was no way the USC player achieved the first down. Even then, there would've been essentially no chance to snap the ball had he and the ball been in bounds, even had they gotten the first down.)

Another angle (second clip below, after the Stanford touchdown) makes it very hard to believe he actually got out of bounds, but that's the only way he could've signalled it.

2) Did time expire?

Clearly, at 0:18 in the clip, you see he was down. The play is over. (Cross-reference the 2009 Nebraska-Texas Big XII title game to ensure Texas got in the BCS title match!) If the official signals "time out", then the official is stating that the player did achieve out of bounds, and there clearly is one second remaining on the clock in the clip that the booth was reviewing.

If the call was that he was in-bounds, then there should've been no signal of "time out", as the clock would've continued to run (and run out) at that point.

Boise, you're getting screwed again.

Houston, welcome to the screwjob.

BOHICA, boys!

On edit: Here's another one...

Watch this clip at about 0:38. 2:21 to go in the game, Stanford down 7, 3rd and 6 at their own 40. They need a touchdown.

Luck throws incomplete, but the receiver is abjectly levelled with a high (and clearly illegal) hit.

Either the player knew he was going to be flagged and was following the script, or that was a terrible call. Either way, welcome to the showbiz manipulations, as Brian Tuohy puts it.

Got a rather pointed message which plays back to another week 7 game that Brian thinks was fixed...

Back to the NFL as we now watch St. Louis' inevitable coronation as World Champions of Baseball.

Got a rather pointed missive to a YouTube comment I made associated with the Brandon Ayanbadejo ejection on Monday Night Football.

Apparently, the NFL has now "admitted" it was in error when they ejected Ayanbadejo, and he will not be fined, even though the replay clearly shows he threw a punch at the Jacksonville player.

The article notes the ejection itself usually carries a $50,000 fine, which was what I thought Ayanbadejo would get as a two-time loser -- so one has to wonder if the fine could've approached six figures...

But the NFL, with Commissioner Limpdick, chickens out.

Look, I know the "true believers" (especially Raven fans) who prostrate themselves to the league are enablers to this kind of malarkey. I don't need the fucking Commissioner to do the same.

Either have an interest in cleaning up the game or don't - but this half-way bullshit has to stop!

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If the NFL erred in ejecting any player, the next question has to be whether the NFL manipulated or rigged the outcome, either through the officiating or other means.

Let's make no secret about this: Vegas is losing their shirts this season on collegiate and professional football. I've talked about the over-under most weeks on this blog, and the complete lack of good teams (save about two or three on each level) is exacerbating this problem.

Gamblers have been able to correctly key in to certain teams (almost certainly the Packers, LSU, Alabama, and a couple of others), and then the run of the Cardinals to the World Series Championship (which will net one bettor $375,000 on $500 bet: $125,000 when the Cardinals won the NLCS, and another $250,000 for when the same bettor placed $250 at full 999-1 odds that the Cardinals would win the World Series!)...

Brian Tuohy posted this Monday night, and I now fall in full agreement: Vegas is pleading with the NFL to fix the games to line Vegas' pockets. Vegas is getting hit left, right, and up the center (in ways I've already discussed and almost certainly others!), and they are trying to get their money back - any way they can!

If you still believe the games to be legitimate, you are not paying attention.

Are we seeing a rigged World Series?

I'm asserting it's a real possibility now after this scoreline and a re-examination of last night.

This was the fifth inning, within which the Cards took a 3-2 lead and made it a 5-2 lead:

Feldman has just come in to relieve Harrison here.

Theriot grounds out. 1 out.
Craig walks.
Pujols is hit by a pitch.
Berkman sacrifices the runners to 2nd and 3rd. 2 out.
Freese gets the intentional walk.
Molina walks in a run for 4-2.
Wilson relieves Feldman, and PLUNKS Furcal to force in a second run.

2 runs, NO HITS, 3 walks, 2 HBP.

The game is now 5-2 in the bottom of the 7th, and I do not anticipate Texas coming back.

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So why is this beyond just bad pitching and that I'm questioning whether it's a rigged World Series?

Let's go back to last night and these clips from MLB.com:

David Freese, ninth inning: Down two runs, and one strike from victory, the pitcher serves up an absolute down-the-middle meat-ball -- on 1-2 no less, which Freese drives to right.

But that's not all! The Texas right-fielder, if you watch, makes NO REAL EFFORT TO TRACK DOWN THE BALL. With a decent amount of hustle, he makes the catch and the Texas Rangers win the World Series four games to two.

Even if he believes he IS burnt, the runners are going on the hit, but the second run has to score all the way from first base! If he's burned, he can play the ball off the wall and probably hold that second runner to third, leaving probably runners at the corners.

His half-assed non-effort turns probably a single off the wall into a two-run "triple" (at best, that's a three-base error!) and extra innings.

Berkman in the 10th: Down, a second time, to their final strike for a championship (the count was 2-2, so there was no immediate walk here), the Texas pitcher serves up a pitch just above the knees over the heart of the plate -- hit to center, tie game again.

Freese, AGAIN, in the 11th to win it: Leadoff batter, tie game. This pitch, about the same level as the "triple" he blasted in the 9th (right about at the waistline), only about a ball's width off the absolute center of the plate...

And if you really don't think there's an interest in Mr. $elig in all of this, someone asked him about it last night! Listen for yourself, and we'd like to congratulate the 2011 St. Louis Cardinals, who are about to be openly awarded a World Championship.

Do I think they rigged the Series? They certainly rigged it to go 7 -- and I think they did rig the result!!