A BLIZZARD OF FOOTBALL, AND THE UNVEILING OF THE GRANDADDY OF JACKATHLETES.

USA Today reports that Notre Dame may be ready to consider full membership in a conference. That ringing noise you hear is the ACC bureaucrats calling each other to brainstorm on how to “uninvite” Boston College.

Oklahoma didn’t run up the score in their 77-0 rout of Texas A&M on Saturday. Jason White sat out the entire second half, the Sooners didn’t throw a pass in the game’s final 25 minutes, and the Sooners ran four straight “don’t block and dive” plays after starting 1st and goal from the 2 in the scoreless fourth quarter. Tough to feel sorry for Texas A&M, who threw for a TD pass in the 4th quarter of their 73-10 win over Baylor. It is the first time in football history that a team whose coach makes $2 million per year lost by over 70 points, a fact that pleases a good portion of the state of Alabama. Surprisingly, another team both scored and gave up 70+ points in the same season and it occurred just two years ago. BYU Beat Tulane 70-35 in their 2001 opener but lost to Hawaii 72-45 in their regular season finale that same year.

The media has drummed into your head that it was a huge weekend of upsets in the NFL. So how did favorites go only 6-6-2 against the spread? That giggling you hear is from Big East schools pleased with the upset losses of Benedict Arnolds Virginia Tech, Miami, and Boston College. The reason that it isn’t outright cackling is the opportunity cost of not having two teams in the BCS Bowls, which won’t happen now that Tech and Miami have two losses apiece. Satisfaction is dwarfed by money in the college sports world.

The state of Florida has the most football talent in the nation. (Brilliant observation, huh? Bet you’ve never heard that before). Yet not a single team from the state is ranked in the top ten right now. Last week all five Florida 1-A teams (Florida, Florida State, Miami, Central Florida, and South Florida) were favored by a TD or more. Three of them lost, none of them covered, and South Florida only survived awful East Carolina by a single point. The margin by which the five teams lost to the pointspread was 77½ points. Adding to the Sunshine State carnage, bad losses by the Bucs and Dolphins on Sunday. Only the Jaguars upset win over the Colts kept the anti-Florida eight-team parlay from cashing.

More bad news in the Sunshine State. Central Florida fired coach Mike Kruczek this week. Just a couple of years ago Kruczek was considered to be a hot, young prospect for a major coaching job. This season’s suspension and dissension-ridden team proved to be his downfall, with a series of behavioral and academic problems that make Mississippi State look like Harvard.

This handicapper is offering a guarantee this weekend. Despite sweeping my picks in my first round matchup of the Stardust Invitational, I guarantee that I will not go 7-0 in the second round matchup against Gaming Today’s David Stratton in Las Vegas this weekend. Though this prediction is roughly as courageous as suggesting that the Super Bowl champion will not come out of the Falcons/Giants game last Sunday, it would still be a pleasure to meet any readers who stop by the Stardust Sports Book on Friday night. The contest is at 9PM Pacific Time and the broadcast on KDWN radio lasts for an hour.

With the Chiefs still undefeated, we’ll start to see stories pop up about the old 17-0 Dolphins who keep the champagne on ice until the last undefeated team in the NFL gets knocked off each year. Rather than celebrating greatness, Shula’s bunch wants history to themselves. This uniquely selfish crew flouts the classy tradition of sports figures celebrating the accomplishments of those who break their records. If the old Dolphins attitude was prevalent in the sports world we would have had the Maris family heckling Mark McGwire in an effort to keep him from 61 back in 1998.

You know all about the Ravens dominating the Rams on the line of scrimmage but losing by 12 due to turnovers, but do you know exactly how dominant a performance it was? The Ravens outgained the Rams in the first half 206-38. For the game, the Rams required only 3.66 yards per point scored, speaking to how little they actually did in the game. Another weird statistical edge for a losing team was the Cardinals outgaining the Steelers 475-333 (winning both passing and rushing), both teams having a single turnover, and Pittsburgh winning by a comfortable 28-15. The explanation? A Randle El punt return blew the game open in the third quarter, giving the Steelers a 28-3 lead. Pittsburgh then relaxed as the Cards piled up two garbage time TD’s down the stretch.

One baffling strategic mishap that occurs over and over again is the odd refusal of teams to take a shot at the end zone from midfield at the end of the half. With 37 seconds left in the first half on Sunday, the Panthers ran a 3rd and 1 play from the 50 for no gain. Rather than snap the ball again, the Panthers simply let the clock run out. Why not snap the ball with a couple of seconds left and throw a Hail Mary to the end zone. It works a couple of times a year to close the half in both the NFL and college football, and Tennessee took command of their game at Florida a few weeks ago with such a play. The Vols scored a TD on a bomb as the clock expired, giving Tennessee their first penetration inside the Florida 40 in that ballgame. Tell your QB not to take any risks if there is a meaningful pass rush, but the opponent is always in a prevent defense with only three pass rushers. The only reason is to avoid a potential end zone interception by Jake Delhomme. If you value a QB rating over scoring points, maybe that makes sense, but from this corner it was a clear botch by John Fox, and a mistake we’ll see made by numerous other coaches before the season is out.

Before we get to a college and pro pick for the weekend, it is time to unveil our original jackathlete, the guy who combined all the qualities we look for in today’s jackass athletes. Actually, our original jackathlete was a handful, but not nearly the jackass that some of today’s ego driven players are. But the advances he ushered into the area of athletic malfeasance are legendary. Our man? The Can.

Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd was a reed-thin pitcher for the Boston Red Sox in the 1980’s before moving on to the Texas Rangers and Montreal Expos. Boyd was always embroiled in some kind of controversy or trouble. Let’s look at some of the Can’s areas of mishaps and problems, and compare them to the ballplayers of the new millennium.

The Can was a master of the stupid comment. After a game was delayed by fog in Cleveland, the geographically challenged Can said “that’s what they get for building a stadium on the ocean.” Such inanity was mild, but it paved the way for the more hurtful ignorant comments of John Rocker, Kellen Winslow, Jr., and others. To say nothing of the New York Knicks, who during the 2000 NBA season, Charlie Ward and Allan Houston told a Jewish writer that Jews are to blame for persecuting Christians “every day”. The Can merely misunderstood the difference between a lake and the ocean. But future athletes took it to an offensive level.

Can also had a minor x-rated video scandal. In spring training one year he was involved in a brouhaha over some rented adult movies that he failed to return to the video store in Winter Haven, Florida. Boston media wags labeled the incident “The Can’s Film Festival”. This paved the way for jackathletes like Ray Lewis, who when on trial on a murder charge had his claims of being a church deacon and upstanding citizen contradicted by his appearance as a bystander in sexually explicit videos. And then there’s Darrell Russell of the Washington Redskins, who while an Oakland Raider videotaped two friends raping a model that had passed out. Once again, The Can involved in something innocent by today’s standard, but today’s jackathletes take and run with it until it is no longer victimless, but a crime.

As a pioneer in the area of speaking of oneself in the third person, The Can referred to himself frequently as “The Can”. Before facing Bo Jackson for the first time The Can issued a challenge through the media, “I am The Can, and I am going to come right at you with my best shit, and if you can hit it, I want to see how far Bo Jackson can hit The Oil Can.” Jackson’s response traveled 515 feet. Constant first person references influenced teammate Wade Boggs, who took The Can’s lead and instead of saying “I” or “me” referred to himself as “Wade Boggs” constantly. Boggs’ fame helped pave the way for Michael Jordan and a multitude of others to refer to themselves in the third person. This is another area where “The Can” doesn’t get nearly the credit he deserves.

Think Keyshawn Johnson and Terrell Owens have an inflated sense of their own worth that is detrimental to the team? The Can was one of the originators of the “if you look closely, the letters M-E are contained in team” philosophy. Boyd annually threw a hissy fit when he was not named to the All Star team. He once shoved a reporter who gave him the news of not making the Midsummer Classic and had to receive psychological treatment to get over it. Boyd was scheduled to start Game 7 of the 1986 World Series but when a rainout pushed it back a day Red Sox manager John McNamara decided to start the superior Bruce Hurst instead. Boyd went nuts on McNamara in a way that Johnson, Owens, and other jackathletes of the today regularly berate their coaches. The Can also frequently criticized his teammates, and his groundbreaking work in this area gave Johnson, Owens, and others a role model.

A 32-ounce can of Miller High Life was referred to as an “oil can” in Boyd’s native Mississippi. With a nickname originating from a youthful fondness for hops, it is no surprise that there were some substance abuse allegations while in Boston. Some clubhouse kids supposedly made drug runs for Boyd and Dennis Eckersley. Of course, this was the 80’s. Boyd also played the race card on more than one occasion. But it is tough to fault him for that, especially on a Red Sox team that spent spring training in a Florida backwater that saw the local Elks Club Lodge offer admission passes to white coaches and players but not to blacks and Latinos.

With the exception of steroids (The Can weighed 160 pounds) Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd touched on almost every form of odd, troubled, and abhorrent behavior that is the norm in the sports world today. A trailblazer for the modern jackathlete, The Can gets almost none of the credit that he so richly deserves.

Let’s take a look at a college game this weekend. It seems strange when you look at the relative merits of the teams this season, but Alabama stampeded LSU 31-0 in Baton Rouge last season on yardage of 477-196. Can’t be too impressed by Bama’s blowout shutout win against “no Mas”ssissippi State last weekend. Bama defenders announced this week that their goal is to close the season with four consecutive shutouts. This will surely get LSU’s attention, just in case the shutout revenge doesn’t do the trick. Look for the superior Bengal Tigers to stretch out to a convincing win in Tuscaloosa.

Monday Night Football tends to be high scoring, with plenty of big plays as players and coaches show off for their peers around the league. That explains New England's 30-26 win at Denver, an action-packed game that was not representative of the two teams. New England's three previous games saw totals of 23, 32, and 12 points. Dallas' last three games have seen 16, 35, and 16 points scored. Belichick and Parcells have enough respect for one another to keep this evening's offensive game plans close to the vest. Both of these teams are top 5 in yards per play allowed and top 7 in third down defense. Neither defense will show the same look twice. Weather could potentially be a factor at night in mid-November in Foxboro. Look for the under to come through in Sunday Night football.

Thanks for taking the time to read us. Good luck and be careful.

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Kevin O’Neill is the director of content for www.consumerbet.com. His 24-hour free telephone selection hotline can be accessed by calling 1-770-618-8700.

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