SBM Exclusive: Sports Doppelgangers, Volume 52

In honor of UCLA’s convincing win in the Sun Bowl over Virginia Tech, we would be remiss if we didn’t point out the alarming resemblance between Bruins head coach Jim Mora, Jr. and Mark “Don’t call me Marky Mark” Wahlberg.

Sports Blog Movement 2014 Fiesta Bowl Preview

The four venues that host the BCS games take turns hosting the Championship game. This year, that duty falls to the folks in Pasadena at the Rose Bowl.  But there’s a flip-side to that; lately, ther’s on BCS game that is loaded up with teams you either never heard of or just don’t seem to fit with the concept. This year, that duty falls to the folks in Glendale at the University of Phoenix Stadium as the Fiesta Bowl will host Baylor and the University of Central Florida.

We’re going to ignore the obvious comment here about how an on-line university has a stadium. Instead, we’d rather focus on the fact that since both these teams are making their BCS debuts, the average fan my not know much about these teams. Of course, we are here to fix that.

Sports Blog Movement 2014 Rose Bowl Preview

We’re not going to put a lot of fluff on top of this preview, because this game will prove to be the antithesis of what football fans have come to expect. Don’t be surprised when you see Stanford using formations that include as many as eight offensive linemen. Don’t be surprised if there aren’t 20 forward passes total. Don’t be surprised if you see Teddy Roosevelt in the stands, because this will be his kind of football.

As far as the series history between these two schools is concerned,  Michigan State leads, 3-2.  Stanford won the last meeting, 38-0, in the 1996 Sun Bowl.

We’re pretty sure they won’t actually wear leather helmets in the 100th installment of the Rose Bowl, but make no mistake…this will be Cro-Magnon, hairy-knuckled football with the plays drawn on the walls of each team’s respective caves.   Michigan State earned its first trip to Pasadena since 1988 and its first taste of the BCS ever by using its stonewall defense to Rose Bowl cock-block the previously second-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes.  For Stanford, the 2014 Rose Bowl is the Cardinal’s second in as many years, marking its first back-to-back trips to Pasadena since 1970 and 1971.

So, why will this look less like the passing-based modern football Americans have become used to in the last twenty years, and more like the first 20 minutes of “2001: A Space Odyssey?”

SBM Exclusive: Six Things To Watch For In The Final Bowl Championship Series

By J-Dub and Neil Roberts

As we approach the final installment of the Bowl Championship Series, it becomes time for us here at Sports Blog Movement to break down six things you can expect to see as we go through the five games that we sometimes not-so-lovingly refer to as the BCS. After all, you damn well know the blowbags at ESPN aren’t going to tell you anything like this.

1) Tears for Fears for Alabama

Be warned Sooner Nation: Even the youngest Alabama fans are getting serious about this shit.

This may come as a shock to the casual college football fan, but Alabama is not playing in the national championship game.  If you got your college football news from ESPN exclusively before the Tide lost to Auburn, you would have thought the boys from Tuscaloosa were an automatic berth to the BCS game every year since Alabama was re-admitted to the Union.  Truth be told, Alabama won the big game three of the last four years.

What We Learned From Week 16 of the 2013 NFL Season: The Coaches’ Death Watch Edition

By J-Dub and Meehan

This will be our  last regular-season weekly breakdown; by this time next week, all the play-off matches will be set, and that means the time for looking back is as gone as that stuff Marv Albert used to call hair. Play-off predictions aside, there’s another thing that will start happening, and it may not even wait until next week.  It’s the time of year when NFL start getting clipped at a rate faster than mob informants.  Gary Kubiak was the first, but he sure as shit won’t be the last. That’s why we are here to run down the most likely candidates to face the Sword of Damocles over the next few days.

1) Mike Shanahan – Washington Redskins

Mmmmmmm…Arby’s Sauce.

Top 5 Rose Bowl Games Of All Time

jsportsblogger

The granddaddy fo all bowl games will be celebrating a major anniversary this year. The Rose Bowl will be played for the 100th time in Pasadena, California. A New Years Day tradition, the Rose Bowl is still one of the most highly anticipated games of the season. The BCS Championship game will be contested at the Rose Bowl this year, but this post will concentrate on the Rose Bowl game itself. Here are the top 5 games in Rose Bowl history.

January 1, 1963: USC 42 Wisconsin 37

The top two teams in the country played for the National Championship in Pasadena during the 1962 season, and the game lived up to expectations. The top ranked Trojans were led by quarterback Pete Beathard and running back Willie Brown. The second ranked Badgers were a balanced team that was guided by the on-field leadership of quarterback Ron Vander Kelen. The Trojans…

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Fast Reaction: Cougs Blow a Late Lead In New Mexico

Here is my swear word ladden tirade about the end of the 2013 New Mexico Bowl, enjoy

Sports with Neil and Friends

Washington State’s football team laid a massive egg in the last quarter of its last game of the 2013 season. The Cougs had three straight fumbles — one of them was overturned because Halliday’s was sitting on the ground when he was stripped — at the end of the game; those fumbles led to 18 unanswered points in the final five minutes of the ball game, and a Colorado State victory.

The most frustrating part about this entire situation is the fact that the Cougs had a touchdown lead and ninety seconds to burn off of the clock to secure the victory and instead of kneeling it, the Cougs ran the zone read…and then after that near disaster (Connor’s fumble was overturned) they ran it straight at the Rams stud middle line backer with Lafusa, and he fumbled the ball. Why WSU didn’t take a knee there, I will never know.

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The Ideal FBS Playoff: Part 2

In October I started to discuss what my ideal FBS Playoff would look like. The first part addressed how the conferences would be represented, the division of the tournament bracket, the BCS Bowls, and how the wild card teams were selected. This playoff system was only partially completed in that post, and there are still several points about the potential playoff that needs to be addressed.

These points are; the seeding of the tournament, the location of the playoff games, and the timing of the tournament. In a couple of weeks, Part 3 will come out and that will use Tim’s Computer Rankings to figure out how this tournament field would look with the 2013 regular season.

Here, we, go….

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What We Learned From Week 15 of the 2013 NFL Season: Truth or Lie Edition, Part III

By J-Dub and Meehan

As we have been doing all season, we are breaking down things that you need to know as we head into the play-offs. As we get closer, that means that issues with team get more magnified. That also means that a lot of assumptions that have been held about the teams who are still play-off contenders become true or get exposed as just another pack of lies. So, without any further adieu, here are this week’s questions…

1) Truth or Lie: The Philadelphia Eagles Defense is a joke.

We Say: Truth

They allowed 29 First downs and almost 50 points against a Minnesota Vikings team with no Adrian Peterson and they made Matt Cassel look like the second coming of Fran Tarkenton. As brilliant as Nick Foles and the offense have been, the defense has been the exact inverse.

The 2014 Winter Olympics Will Not Have Many Foreign Leaders in Attendance

Russia’s tough policies towards homosexuals have led to human’s rights activist to request that countries boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. While there has yet to be any boycott announced by any country, the Presidents of France and Germany have announced that they (or any top government officials) will be attending the event.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius announced that neither he or President Francois Hollande will be attending the Olympics in Sochi. Minister Fabius statement was pretty brief and did not give a reason for the decision:

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