Even without a Colts game to suck up time, it was a solid sports weekend.
I covered an opening round football playoff game Friday. It was a blowout, but the coach I spoke with seems like a good guy and is struggling to turn around his alma mater. It was interesting to listen in as he spoke to his team for nearly 20 minutes on the field after the game, laying out a plan for the offseason.
I walked back to the car, wrote my story while listening to the post-game show of a game up the road (I was way the hell out again, about 20 minutes from Cincinnati), filed my story and stats, and headed home. I flipped over to the state-wide scores show and about ran off I-74 when I heard the #1 5A team in the state, which seemed to be head-and-shoulders above the rest of the state, got upset. Another top five 5A team lost, too. And a third dangerous 5A team from Indy got knocked off. Chaos in the opening round!
Our local 11, by the way, are ranked #2 in 5A, losing only to the former #1 team. They have a very difficult sectional, facing a 9-1 team this week and if they win that, likely a 10-1 team for the sectional championship. If they can get through the sectional, though, the schools that have beat them in three of the last four state title games are gone. Getting to a fifth-straight championship game would be a heck of an accomplishment. If they can do that, they would be the favorites to win their second title in four years. I hope I didn’t just jinx them.
I spent Saturday afternoon the way I’ve spent much of the fall: watching Auburn’s Cam Newton go nuts. I don’t have strong feelings for Auburn, good or bad. Newton is turning me into a fan, though, and each Saturday morning I check the TV listings to see if the Auburn game is on. That guy is amazing.
Saturday night I watched the Giants-Phillies game from start-to-finish. That was some fantastic baseball. Clutch hitting, great pitching, some questionable moves and calls. It had everything you could want from playoff baseball. As an added bonus, we now get to watch a World Series without the Yankees, Red Sox, or Phillies. I’m sure Fox will still find an angle to over-hype, but at least it should be restrained compared to most years.
I did watch some of the KU game along the way, but it was brutal as expected. That long Turner Gill post is getting longer. I’ll have to post it before it becomes unreadable.
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