We’re pretty certain that the Minnesota State Screaming Eagles had a more enjoyable experience in the Patriot Bowl than the Pitt Panthers did today losing 3-0 in the Sun Bowl.

In the most improbable of stat lines - according to Yahoo Sports - Syracuse puts 100 points on the board without recording a single assist.  This must have either been the most selfish 100-point performance of all-time, or just an amazing display of long, one-on-one moves.  Well played, Syracuse, not sure how you pulled this one off…

Updated on Tuesday, Dec 30, 2008 9:56 pm ET

No, not Ed Hochuli.  Ed Cunningham.  He might be the most awful commentator for college football of all-time.  He makes Bill Curry sounds intelligent, John Madden sound insightful, etc, etc.  And yes, this is not the first time we have ranted on Ed Cunningham.  We did so in this post from last season.

Last night, Ed was calling the Alamo Bowl with Ron Franklin.  Franklin was really bad for some reason, constantly missing what down it was, how many yards were gained, among other things.  But two long periods of discussion by Ed were enough, in our opinion, to keep him off the air for forever.

(1)  With about 8 minutes left in the first quarter, Northwestern has the ball on its own 11 and completes a long screen pass to Tyrell Sutton.  At the end of the play, Sutton fumbles near midfield, and it’s recovered by Missouri.  However, there is a flag on the play against Missouri for offsides.  The ref then announces that the play will be reviewed, which seems to be customary on fumbles.  Ed and Ron start wondering why in the world they would review the play.  At no point do they consider the play being ruled not a fumble and Northwestern declining the penalty.  Instead, they engage in a 5-minute discussion of whether Northwestern would (a) accept the penalty, keeping the ball and making it 3rd-and-4, or (b) decline the penalty and let Missouri have the ball at midfield - since that would be 40 yards farther down field.  Amazingly, they came to the conclusion that Northwestern should accept the penalty.  We’re not kidding - this actually happened.

(2) This conversation was just as egregious.  Missouri had the lead 20-16 late in the 3rd quarter.  Northwestern scores a touchdown on a long pass to take the lead 22-20.  Before the extra point is kicked and while the play is reviewed, we get about 7 minutes of Ed telling us why the Wildcats should kick the extra point instead of going for 2.  We assume that he was misreading the score and thought Northwestern was now down by 2, not up by 2.  Or he really has no concept of how to play football.  Either way, there is no excuse.   Ed has two possible defenses to his inane argument - (a) despite watching the game for nearly 3 quarters, he had the score wrong, or (b) he really does think a team should go for 2 to try to increase it’s lead to 4 instead of kicking the extra point for a 3-point lead.  And seriously, he spent 7 solid minutes giving us the pros and cons of going for two.  Wouldn’t you think at some point that someone would jump in to tell him the score?

So this is our plea… take Ed Cunningham off the air.  He is horrible.  This guy makes listening to the game call a harder effort than a Dick Vitale basketball game.  On a scale of 1 to 10, the entertainment value of the actual game played last night was about an 8.  Back and forth, overtime, all that.  The entertainment value of the game when you factor in the announcers: 3.

After having this article about the Jets’ coach being fired read to him by his dad, Baby Mangino released the following statement:

“Thank God I chose to be Baby Mangin-o for Halloween, and not Baby Mangin-i.”

In light of the recent Terrible Towel stomping incident that occurred in Nashville this past Sunday and some of the backlash that has filtered through, we decided to come up with out list of the 5 most idiotic “thems are fightin’ words” moments in the NFL in recent memory.  Really, the NFL - more than seemingly any other sport - has guys getting angry or finding extra motivation from the silliest things.  How could the Steelers possibly be any more motivated if the travel back to Nashville with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line?

It’s going to get you more pumped up to be angry about a guy stomping on a yellow towel than the idea that a win gets you to the Super Bowl?  Honestly. Read the rest of this entry »

First baseman Mark Teixiera has agreed to an 8-year, $180 million deal with the Yankees.  The completion of the deal, however, is pending a physical by Teixiera.   The terms of the physical are quite interesting.  Scott Boras, Teixiera’s agent, released the following statement regarding that physical:

“We have agreed that the physical must show that Mark Teixiera can complete a full season with the Yankees.  Based on my clients’ teams past success combined with what the Yankees have done over the past 7 seasons, the contract agreed upon states that a full season is no more than 165 games.”

Sounds fair to us.

After putting up that last post about Clemson hoops, we did some quick research and found some bad news for the Tiger fans.  Over the past 8 years or so, shortly after the NFL’s Terrell Owens throws his quarterback under the bus, the Clemson basketball team starts losing games at an alarming rate.

In 2003, the Tigers started out decently with a 7-4 mark.  Then, T.O. quit on the 49ers and told Playboy that he thought quarterback Jeff Garcia was gay.  After Owens submarined his team, Clemson fell as well, losing 14 of its next 17 games.  In 2005, all was well with the Tigers while Owens played nice with Donovan McNabb.  Clemson started out 12-0, then Owens called out McNabb for not being very good and hung the Eagles out to dry.  After T.O. killed the Eagles, the Tigers stumbled down the stretch - finishing with 13 losses in their next 20 games and missing the NCAA Tournament.

And once again, Clemson sits currently at 12-0, ranked in the top 25.  T.O. has shown us some signs that he is about to blow up on the Cowboys and start calling Tony Romo mean names.  We’ve gotten a sniff of the problems with the whole Jason Witten issue.  If they miss the playoffs, will T.O. go all the way and rip into Romo?  If so, will Clemson then see the wheels come off and finish near the bottom of the ACC?

Only time will tell.  But if we were Clemson fans, we’d really be cheering for the Cowboys to at least make the playoffs.  Because we feel certain that T.O. has not matured enough in the last few years to act with class if things don’t go well.

It’s mid-December and the Clemson basketball team is undefeated.  Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!