USA Today -There are plenty of positives to a life if one were to attend UCF. One of the most specific upsides is UCF’s proximity to Universal Orlando Resort; just a half-hour car ride southwest of campus, UCF students can make a day trip almost any time. Luckily for UCF’s men’s and women’s basketball teams, the Knights’ new floor at CFE Arena is bringing roller coasters — and palm trees — much closer to the hardwood. In fact, it’s putting them *on* the hardwood. UCF introduced the latest edition of its court Wednesday. Out is the old two-toned look from last season, with a gray wood center court and tan wood inside the arcs.
Wow. If there’s two things I can get behind its wacky basketball courts and of course fire flames jerseys.
We have that here in spades. Shout out to UCF for realizing that no one will give a shit about your basketball team unless you sex it up a little bit. Introducing roller coaster tycoon parquet. Pop on a couple neon and camo jerseys and you got yourself a marketing campaign.
Sports Illustrated – We live in a great era for play-by-play voices. The list of quality game-callers is deep and sports broadcasting has become far more inclusive than ever as evidenced by women (Tiffany Greene, Beth Mowins, Kate Scott, etc…) regularly getting play-by-play assignments that have traditionally been the domain of men only.
Given the quality of talent among play-by-play voices, I thought it would be a fun parlor game to list the 25 best working play-by-play broadcasters in the business. This list is entirely subjective. It is entirely based on my likes when it comes to professionalism, preparation and quality of broadcast. I expect to be told on social media that the list sucks.
While Deitsch admits that his list is subjective and that he expects to get pushback on social media, he won’t get much pushback from me. His list is more than fair and includes a wide range of broadcasters from a wide range of sports. Still, I’ll add my two cents.
23. Phil Liggett, NBC Sports
The soundtrack for the Tour de France in the United States…
22. Mary Carillo, The Tennis Channel and NBC Sports
A play-by-play caller who is unafraid to deliver truths while calling a match…
A cycling announcer and a tennis announcer right out of the gate had me concerned about the direction of this list. Where’s the Boston Marathon announcer going to be ranked?
18. Sean McDonough, ESPN
McDonough continues to be criminally underrated. While he currently handles Monday Night Football and college basketball broadcast duties for the worldwide leader, he was also a terrific college football and Major League Baseball broadcaster. Arguably the best Boston play-by-play announcer of all time.
17. Brad Nessler, CBS
Love listening to Brad Nessler. I feel like my dad watching an Oilers/Bengals game in 1990.
14. Chris Fowler, ESPN
The best tennis match caller working today. There are better on college football but he’s improved each year at that gig, too.
I’ll give Deitsch credit, he is showing more respect to non-Big 4 sports than I would on my list. But I still miss listening to Brent Musburger on big-time college football games. Fowler is ranked too high for my tastes.
13. Gus Johnson, Fox Sports
Would probably be higher on this list if he stilled called NCAA Tournament games. It’s a shame we don’t get to hear him on CBS (or TBS) in March any more.
10. Joe Buck, Fox Sports
Perennially underrated as a baseball voice and he’s self-deprecating on the mic, which is welcome.
I agree with this statement 100%. Not the best in the business, but not deserving of much of the criticism he receives.
9. Kevin Harlan, CBS, Turner Sports, and Westwood One
I respect a broadcaster who will do play-by-play of a drunk fan on the field during the fourth quarter of a lousy Monday night game.
4. Ian Eagle, CBS Sports, Westwood One, Tennis Channel, YES Network
The highest ranked Sunday afternoon NFL broadcaster on the list and I don’t disagree. Though his partner, Dan Fouts, might need to be the next analyst to get pushed out the door when Peyton Manning decides to get back in the game.
2. Al Michaels, NBC Sports
Still the gold standard for the NFL—and still going strong at age 72. He’ll call his 10th Super Bowl on Feb. 4, 2018.
From the Olympics to the World Series to the Super Bowl and everything in between, Michaels is perhaps the best of all time.
1. Mike Emrick, NBC Sports
I did not expect to see a hockey broadcaster at the top of this list but it is well deserved for the Doc. No other sport and broadcaster go together better than Emrick and hockey. Hell, Emrick does minor league and college games when the NHL goes into lockouts. That’s dedication. I can’t imagine Mike Tirico announcing a Northeastern basketball game the next time the NBA has a lockout.
So in the still fresh, completely unrepetitive College Gameday skit of donning the mascot head, Lee Corso just scared the shit out of the real live JMU bulldog.
First off fuck this guy thats pushing the dog back towards that nutbag Corso.
Ya know how they always say dogs can tell you a lot about people by how they act around them? Yea, well this bulldog is saying get me the fuck away from this crazy old man. Wants no part of your zany ESPN bit. So maybe let the bulldog go back to his biscuits and sideline chilling.
Clemson strolled into the Carrier Dome as a 3 touchdown favorite in what was supposed to be a cakewalk for the Tigers. Well, about that. Syracuse was not fucking around tonight as they hung around, and they hung around, and they hung around until they ended up stealing a 27-24 win over the No. 2 team in the country. Yea, Clemson QB Kelly Bryant got hurt, but even the 3rd-string QB on Clemson should be better than the starter on Syracuse. And just like that, errybody is getting laid in Syracuse tonight. The freezing cold desolate wasteland known as upstate New York is gonna be like Woodstock tonight in what is Syracuse’s biggest win in probably 20 years. Enjoy it boys.
ESPN – Ben Hill Griffin Stadium is popularly known as The Swamp. And now the Florida Gators will look the part. For Saturday’s football game against Texas A&M, Florida will wear a new uniform designed to evoke the look and feel of an alligator. The uniform, which was under development for two years and was unveiled Monday night, features a “swamp green” jersey with an alligator-skin pattern. The helmet, pants and socks are rendered in the same color, but without the gator-skin treatment.
OH MY. What have we here? I feel like the wild jersey reveals have slowed down the last year or two. You used to see every school rocking wild combos of camo and chrome and neon and it was AWESOME. Feel like theres been less and less of that lately. Enter, the University of Florida.
You wanna be a Gator? Like the actual ferocious goddamn water dinosaur that is an alligator? Well, don’t talk about it. Be about it.
Rick Pitino just got shitcanned by Louisville and it seems like this might be the end of the line for the controversial coach. Just one scandal after the next. There was the scandal with him banging the chick in the restaurant, the stripper parties that he threw an assistant coach under the bus for, and now this pay to play scandal. Guy is cooked. I think the term “lack of institutional oversight” gets thrown around a lot these days, but Pitino has that shit in spades.
Ouch. College coaches always know when they’re in too deep and shits about to implode so thats when they start looking around. You think Pete Carroll just conveniently decided to take the Seattle Seahawks job right before the NCAA came down on USC for all the Reggie Bush sanctions? No way.
So now Pitino is out at Louisville after another massive scandal, there’s no interest from the NBA, and I’m sure he’ll have some kind of imposed multi-year suspension from coaching by the NCAA when this is all said and done. Theres no way another major school takes a shot on him potentially sinking their program too. Maybe we wind up seeing Pitino coaching Southern Connecticut or something down the line on the Isiah Thomas type comeback trail. I’d be remiss to not end this blog with the most Pitino-y Pitino moment of all time.
Maybe its just Baker Mayfield being like Johnny Football-lite and filling the massive Manziel void in my life, but I’ve recently developed a college football addiction.
Not a ton of people around here are big college football guys, probably because we’ve had ONE good year of college football in Boston since the 80s. Back in 2007 Matt Ryan was at Boston College and they got as high as No. 2 in the AP Poll.
That was fun as hell because it was the first time BC had been ANY good since the days of Doug Flutie. After Matty Ice moved on to the NFL though BC went right back into the tank.
So its hard to have a lot of love for a sport thats basically nonexistent in your market. With legitimately every major team in this city being so good (all having won a title since 2008) theres no time for shitty teams, especially shitty teams that have no intention of bringing in the players necessary to be any good. Kind of like being a Mets fan.
If I wanted to get in my car and drive to a big time college football game, I think the closest team would be Penn State; a cool 7 hour drive from Boston. Fuck you, UConn and UMass do not count, neither does Syracuse. I’m talking BIG TIME college football where they sell out 70,000+ seat arenas. It just does not exist up here.
So not long after BC went back into hibernation I declared myself a free agent and started looking for a team to call my own. I was looking for a team that was fun to watch, played fast, scored a ton of points, spread out the field, threw it a lot, recruited mobile QBs, and of course had some fire flames unis. Basically I was looking for a team that played the same style as me in Madden. Now what team matches that description to a T? The Oregon Ducks of course.
It was right at the start of the Chip Kelly era too so it was perfect timing to get into and follow a team that was actually good at playing football unlike BC. Not to mention a couple of trips (read: losses) to the National Championship and then Marcus Mariota later wins the Heisman in 2014 and I’m pretty invested in the Ducks. I still wasn’t about to sit down and watch college football all afternoon though.
But I think I reached that turning point this past Saturday. It was the first big weekend of the year with some prime matchups. I know CFB kicked off the week before, but this past Saturday we had Oregon vs Nebraska, Louisville at UNC, Georgia at Notre Dame, Auburn at Clemson, Oklahoma at Ohio State, Stanford at USC, and if you’re a real night owl type degenerate, the triple OT #Pac12AfterDark thriller in Boise St at Washington St.
Long story short, I found myself watching college football on the couch for 8 hours straight. There’s so many great characters this year led first and foremost by Baker Mayfield, who took down Ohio State almost singlehandedly on Saturday.
Y’all should’ve known Baker Mayfield was that dude when this hit the internet pic.twitter.com/tnnPKYTkbb
Maybe its something that is just fresh in my mind after a particularly lousy Week 1 in the NFL, but the majority of these college games are always exciting with the added benefit of projecting who would be a good fit where in the NFL. Sam Darnold or Josh Rosen on the Jets is not something I look forward to.
But also, just getting to watch the Heisman Race from Day 1 and witnessing all the big signature moments these guys need in an effort to win the trophy is exciting as hell.
College football, I get it now. Which is a problem since I also just spent 10+ hours watching NFL Football on Sunday, getting my money’s worth from Sunday Ticket. So this could devolve into an incredibly sedentary lifestyle quick.
SB Nation – “On Monday morning, the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats announced the hiring of former Houston and Baylor head coach Art Briles, who was fired in May 2016 amid the Bears’ program-wide sexual assault scandal, as an offensive assistant. But Briles won’t join Hamilton after all, according to the league. Its statement on Monday night: “Art Briles will no longer be joining the Hamilton Tiger-Cats as a coach. We came to this decision this evening following a lengthy discussion between the league and the Hamilton organization. We wish Mr. Briles all the best in his future endeavours.”
I gotta say, I was more than a little surprised when I saw that ex-Baylor coach Art Briles had gotten hired by a CFL team as their offensive coordinator. Granted its the CFL, but this guy wouldn’t be able to get a job managing a Denny’s, let alone another football team.
For anyone that forgets all the details of the Art Briles era at Baylor, here are the sparknotes: this guy basically emboldened scumbags up and down the Baylor roster and intimidated college women from coming forward about sexual assault at the hands of his players. Baylor had one arrest after the other, most of which were for violent crimes. There were legitimate gang rape allegations against Briles team. Sports Illustrated had the below breakdown of utter scumbag entitlement Briles promoted while at Baylor.
“The details of what happened at Baylor under Briles are sickening. At least 52 acts of rape committed by 31 different players between 2011 and ’14, including five gang rapes, according to a lawsuit filed earlier this year by a former Baylor student. Multiple instances of Briles and his staff either ignoring or covering up reports of assault and interfering with police investigations. Players not disciplined while victims were encouraged to keep quiet or leave the university. A blind eye toward accepting players with a history of violence toward women.”
So how the fuck anyone would let this guy oversee even the equipment room for a football team is beyond me.
Well, its apparently beyond the Hamilton Tiger-Cats as well who figured 15 months was enough time passed for a Briles hiring to not be controversial. They guessed wrong. The internet had a field day with this once it caught wind of the hiring. Not even 24 hours later the CFL team came out and said just kidding we’re not going to hire Art Briles.
As an Oregon Ducks fan (This is on you, Boston College) Jonathan Stewart’s newest car legit has me sweaty and short of breath. And not in the fat guy climbing stairs kind of way. That car is so money. And I love that J-Stew went for the even uglier Oregon color scheme and design of his heyday rather than the more recent neon and chrome color scheme.
Its even got the absurd attention to detail that Phil Knight’s favorite school is so fond of like the duck wings on the goddamn mirrors.
Impeccable. The little yellow touch with DUCKS on the door handles is phenomenal as well.
Now hopefully Stewart can get another one of these for the Ducks to illegally bribe a 5-star QB recruit with because Oregon has been absolutely awful under center since Mariota left school to turn pro. Vernon Adams, who plays in the CFL now, was the best they’ve had but he was a short term solution for a team that suddenly finds itself back in the dark, pre-Mariota days without any known commodity heading into 2017. Look good, feel good, play good. Ducks are halfway there.
So I saw the news of Ole Miss football head coach Hugh Freeze resigning yesterday and while I thought it was odd, college football coaches are always getting into shit due to violations with the NCAA. I thought nothing of it. Except I didn’t hear WHY he was getting canned. Then I heard an update on the radio this AM and was shocked. SHOCKED.
Yes, I thought The Freeze, the fucking guy that is the 2017 version of the racing presidents in DC or the sausage race in Milwaukee, got busted for calling hookers. “The Freeze has fallen a long way after losing that race for the first time in the All-Star game last week, hate to see that.” No, you booze soaked brain, it was Hugh Freeze calling hookers from work, not The Freeze. Whoops. Common case of mistaken identity.
The 300s 