The Blog for the Sports Gamer

Someone at the DSP forum asked what I thought about the “resignation” of Butch Davis in Cleveland. Well, here’s my take:

He had to go. Davis may be a great college recruiter but he’s a terrible game day coach (I mean 100% rotten) and one of the worst judges of NFL talent I have ever seen. Combine those two redeeming features with his insistance on being both head coach and GM and he had to go.

The Browns have had some of the worst drafts over the past few years. Couch wasn’t his fault and nor was Courtney Brown (Brown is more of a bad luck pick because he’s always hurt).

But Davis drafted:

-3rd pick overall DT Gerard Warren who flat out sucks (We could have had Ladanian Tomlinson but no..we wanted this fat ass. Warren is literally stealing his $)

-19th pick overall C Jeff Faine who is terribly average, at best

-16th pick overall RB William Green who is a decent back but not a star

-He wasted a 3rd round pick in a center who never sees the field (thus he had to draft Faine)

-He used a 5th round pick to draft a LONG SNAPPER. Seriously. A Long Snapper.

-He wasted a 2nd round pick on a OLB from West Texas A&M who is still learnng how to play football.

-This season with Winslow and Sean Jones getting hurt not ONE player from the draft made a contribution to the Browns in 2004. None. Zero. He also traded up ONE SPOT to get Winslow and gave up a 2nd round pick to do it. Davis was played, by all people, Matt Millen.

In 4 drafts, Davis has made only a handful of picks that are noteworthy:

4th rnd CB Anthony Henry

5th rnd MLB Andra Davis

4th rnd RB Lee Suggs

3rd rnd FS Chris Crocker

Add ALL of that with the fact that we never bring any significant FAs (Garcia and Ryan Tucker and Ross Verba being the exceptions) and you have a 3-8 team that needs a new leader.

I hate starting over again, but this absolutely needed to happen.

As for Willingham leaving Notre Dame, I have no comment. I care as much about Notre Dame as I do the Chilean soccer team.

Those of you still on the fence about Rumble Rose, check out this ‘premiere party’ in the UK for the game. I never got to go to junkets like this! Damn! Warning: Pictures may be offensive to some and arousing to others.

I took a look at the write up over at EB and see this: “Starring the sexiest female models ever to grace the ring, Rumble Roses – the first and only all-female wrestling game – is a sexy grappler set to deliver intense girl-on-girl wrestling action with jaw-dropping graphic detail. Each of these vicious vixens comes with an arsenal of moves, as well as a little jiggle in all the right places, that will knock gamers off their feet.” Good thing they aren’t using sex for this game! I can just see the quotes:

“Makes Dead or Alive Volleyball look like a Disney Game” – Newsspeak

“Me likey the naked chicks. I’m 12 and can barely type and this is how I get off” – IGN

So there you go.

Get in now while we still have room. 58 teams are in. The following teams are spoken for:

Ohio State

Kansas

NC State

UConn

Illinois State

Auburn

Illinois-Chicago

Michigan

Providence

Miami FLA

Okla State

Indiana

Pitt

Illinois

North Carolina

DePaul

Manhatten

West Virginia

Arkansas

Florida State

Penn State

San Diego State

Wake Forest

Memphis

New Hampshire

Arizona

GA Tech

LSU

Notre Dame

Cincinnati

Maryland

Wisconsin

St. Louis

Texas

Duke

Michigan State

Kent State

New Mexico

Purdue

Texas Tech

Oregon

UNC Charlotte

Iowa

Florida

Kentucky

Vandy

Louisville

Mizzou

Syracuse

Mississippi state

Gonzaga

Southern Illinois

Seton Hall

Minnesota

Charlotte

Arizona State

Northern Illinois

Alabama

Leave it to the Browns. My beloved, painful to watch, truly snakebit Cleveland Browns. They have to be the only team that could surrender 10 points in a game and still lose and then the next week score *48* points…and lose by 10. That’s tough, folks. That’s not easy to do. Now that the Red Sox have won a series, I submit that the new curse rests in Cleveland. Name me a city that has three major sports franchises that have not won a title since 1964. I can’t come up with one. Toss on heartbreaks like The Drive, The Fumble, The Move, The Shot (Jordan over Ehlo), and the Tribe getting to the World Series in the 90s only to lose. Tough stuff.

Got my glasses today. Whew. That was a tough week. Wearing glasses with one nose pad–I lost a few sanity points. I’m gonna get my basketball goggles replaced. I need more peripheral vision. With these new fancy gogges, I have zero, but tonight is hoop night so I’ll have to make do. At least I can see.

The 32 team ESPN College Hoop Tourney is all set and ready to go. If you want in on the next tourney, which will hopefully be 64 teams, just let me know. I have Ohio State and Dan has New Hampshire. I expect us both to exit stage left rather quickly.

Oh, and I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving.

Few miscellaneous thoughts:

1. Nothing sucks more than getting a Sunday paper, having 23 K-Mart inserts but no Best Buy or Circuit City inserts. Ugh.

2. Congrats to 1-AA New Hampshire for their great performance on ESPN 2 last night in the 1-AA football playoffs. 1-AA is so much better than the BCS crap, it’s not even funny.

3. Madden on Tapwave needs a serious patch fast. I’ve had one crash, one run out of the endzone on a kickoff for a safety, and more of that Atari 5200 like crap. The graphics are very good, the AI is average; but things like that just annoy the hell out of me. Play by play is very good, much better than I thought for a handheld; however you can’t expect an Xbox level of commentary. There is an ‘update’ planned for bluetooth and a create a player mode. Hopefully they’ll fix the other stuff as well.

4. Patriots game is on at 4.15. Still no CBS HD. Ugh.

5. I know OSU is Bill’s Alma Mater — but this whole thing is disgusting. What makes it worse is that if these allegations are true, that probably puts OSU on board with all the rest of the 1-A schools. If anyone believes these problems are just related to OSU, they need a clue. The NCAA just whores these kids out, and just look at the BCS for further evidence.

6. That being said, a real shame that BC got creamed by Syracuse, elminating them for a “good” bowl bid. Enjoy the ACC, becuase you’ll have zero chance of a bowl bid now. But hey, it’s all for the money and you earned it!

7. I have to go eat lunch now.

If you read ESPN as a gospel of sports news reporting..well..that’s a bad idea. ESPN reported last week that, “Three more Buckeyes support Clarett allegations.”

Well, not really. You see, ESPN is spinning this how they want, and they’re really trying to lend credence to their initial story on Clarett. In the new article they quote Fred Pagac Jr., a former MLB and the son of a former coach. Well, in today’s Columbus Dispatch, he’s quoted saying:

“Whoever wrote that kind of made it seem like we were trying to bring the program down, and the coaches down; I think the caption was we were supporting Clarett’s allegations,” Pagac said yesterday. “That’s not true at all. “I had no comment on summer jobs, and money, and cars, and all that kind of stuff. And (the reporter) asked me about tutors and I pretty much made a comment about tutors in general; students, people helping out other people to get stuff done.”

Tutors aren’t affiliated with the school.

“I wasn’t trying to support any allegations about tutors helping out football players to get through school and all that kind of stuff,” Pagac said.

Former receiver Drew Carter also talked with ESPN. The story indicated that he not only got illicit academic help but that he and fellow players would help other players “hook up” with the right people to aid them, too.

“I just wanted to clarify that no tutor ever did my work,” said Carter, who is with the Carolina Panthers and is currently rehabilitating a knee injury. “I worked hard. I worked hard for everything, and I’ve always done that.

Then Friday, ESPN was forced to run a story that was in the Dispatch about the Clarett car fiasco. Remember, Clarett implicated Tressel to Tom Friend at ESPN the Magazine. This article pretty much sticks a fork in that.

Does anyone else find it odd that the only FACTS being reported are from the Columbus Dispatcn and not the investigative slueths at ESPN?

Then lastly, Drew Carter’s brother, who is a regular at Bucknuts.com says this about the Carter interview:

“I wanted to spread the word on how ESPN has been going about this story so here it goes. ESPN has been calling anybody and everybody they could of former players. When the player gets on the phone the conversation is completely one-sided. The interviewer starts talking about the Clarett situation, and keeps talking, and talking, and talking and the players are barely saying anything throughout the entire conversation. At certain points in the conversation the person doing the interview might stop and say, “What do you think about that?” or little questions here or there. In Drew’s instance regarding football players and jobs, Drew made comments about how he got help getting jobs, which is legal, he always had to fill out the proper paper work including his social security # so there was records of the jobs being legit, and Drew mentioned he got paid thousand dollars. ESPN twisted the few words that Drew said into Buckeyes were getting set up in cake walk jobs, doing nothing, and getting paid thousands of dollars when Drew never said that.

Regarding the tutors, the ESPN interviewer did his typical talking and talking and talking, then asked Drew, “What do you think?” Drew’s comments were something to the effect of, well if he (Clarett) needed help, I’m sure he could have gotten it, anybody can get hooked up with a tutor; it is a college campus. Drew said nothing about tutors doing work for players, that was all added by ESPN, and nothing about $100 handshakes. Drew also added that with all the help a player can get, and they are still failing out, what does that say about the player?

Moving forward from here, Tressel told Drew that he is going to be contacted by a University PR person for a quote and Drew has been working with the Carolina Panther PR people regarding this situation. ESPN should be ashamed of themselves. In my opinion, The univsity, Drew, former players, need to make an effort to get the truth out or people like Drew are going to be looked down upon for quotes they didn’t say for the rest of their lives.”

If what he says is true, ESPN could be in serious legal trouble if the NCAA clears OSU, and any former player will corobberate this. Scary, scary stuff.

I’m starting to think that the Sega games are $19.99 because they’re buggy messes rather than Sega trying to stick it to EA. I’m almost to the point that playing a Legacy in ESPN College Hoops for the Xbox is pointless because of all of the freezes/lockups when simulating days of the week. I’ve had to reboot three times now at different stages. I’ll play a game, do some recruiting, simulate a few days of the week to get to my next game and all of a sudden it freezes, the music starts looping and the entire game locks up. I go over to Operation Sports and read a 4 page thread of people having this exact same problem.

NFL 2K5′s Dynasty mode is buggy as hell and now College Hoops Legacy Mode is a frozen mess. Thanks Sega. Tell ya what–next year sell the damn games for $50 and make sure they WORK.

I love Christmas shopping for Ashley. I love toys. I was turned onto the new V-Smile education video game system by some friends of mine who have kids ranging from 3 to 6 and they just rave about this thing. Anyone have any experience with it?

You can buy a Best Buy gift card online, but the gift card is not good for online purchases? Discuss.

I had an email in my mailbox from Tapwave saying that Madden 2005 was now available for the Zodiac. This game looks better than the DS, in my opinion. I bought it instantly and downloaded it. Actual music, pretty good (ie better than Genesis) graphics, and decent play by play (text and audio). And it has vibration! I haven’t played much of it yet, I also bought Tony Hawk 4 for the unit, but so far I like what I see.

I’m sure I’ll play more when I’m eating Turkey at my inlaws!

Well, it’s Turkey Day! Woohoo. Always a good day. Tomorrow not so much. I have to work. At 6am. Who decided on those crazy hours. Oh, me, I forgot.

If anyone goes to Wal-Mart, can you pick up the two TV Games for $20 (you know, the ones that look like a joystick? They’re normally $20 each). Thanks.

Bill kept telling me to buy College Hoops and don’t be a wuss and wait for the review. Of course, after I bought it, the review shows up. Damn you Bill! So anyway, I’m glad I bought it, I definitely think Sega deserves the sell-through. I’ve only played a couple of games, but I’m hooked, and believe me, Basketball games are on the low end of my interest level, right next to MMORPGs. So there’s that.

I also played some Outlaw Golf 2. That game is pretty interesting. Part arcade game, part golf sim. And of course, a lot of adult humor, and I can always go for that.

Someone had kindly posted about those Airborne pills and how there’s a placebo effect. I certainly understand the point being made, and I didn’t say it cured me — I said it makes me feel better–in the way 2 cups of coffee makes you awake. It is more of a revitalize effect — the same thing happens to me when I take a multivitamin. Your mileage may vary.

I don’t get too personal on the blog. But I’m pissed and wanted to share. So here goes. Some of you already know this but if you don’t, I have an eye condition called Keratoconus. If you’re bored, you can read about it here.

I didn’t start to notice the condition until about five years ago. Never wore glasses, never had any issue until it started to degenerate. If you read that webpage linked above, I’m at the stage where soft contact lenses and regular glasses don’t really fix anything. They make my Astigmatism more tolerable but I still struggle to look at certain things, and night driving in an unfamilair area is not a good idea. At all. I see much better with glasses than without, but the glasses don’t fix the main issue that comes with this disease.

It’s hard to explain but imagine looking at a neon sign. Now, you prolly just see the sign. I see the sign and another hazy sign right below the real one. It’s almost like seeing double. So when driving at night I don’t see just the car lights and street signs, I see reflectrions of those lights bouncing all over the damn place. It’s loads of fun. I’ve gotten used to it, though and I’m perfectly functional with my glasses and really can get around fine and even drive without them. It’s only at night when things get hairy.

Anyway I tried wearing hard contact lenses. It didn’t take. I not only had to get hard lenses but they were THICK. Imagine again taking two sheets of hard plastic and ramming them into your eyes. I just couldn’t get used to it. I ALWAYS knew they were in there, which was driving me insane. They did help a lot though but the tradeoff wasn’t worth it. So it was back to glasses and seeing double of nearly every light that I looked at.

There is a point to all of this besides me feeling sorry for myself. You can imagine the strain this can put on one’s basketball game. I love playing basketball. Hate the NBA. Love the game. I play every Monday and Tuesday nights from 6-9 in a 30 and over open gym. Tons of fun and I’m actually back into relative shape. My weight has always been a bizarre issue in my life. Combine that with my eyes and I’m a total freak! I weighed 255 pounds in high school, and it wasn’t the “good football” 255 pounds. It was pretty much me being a fat ass. 6’0 255 pounds. The girls flocked, believe me.

Thank God I didn’t need the glasses then…hoo boy. I was always considered the fat guy that was still somehow athletic. Instead of playing HS basketball (which I could have done, I was on the 7th and 8th grade teams despite being overweight) I played golf. I was Craig Stadler. I finished my HS golf career with a trip to the State Finals, a school match record of 32 (3 under par on a par 35 9 hole course) coupled with a complete and total meltdown at the State tourney. I shot two day scores of 86 and 89 and walked off the course disgusted to the point that I haven’t played a wholee lot since, well, at least not as much as I used to.

In college, I got into shape, finally. By the end of my sophomore year at OSU I weighed about 185 pounds because I started to eat right and me and my roomies played basketball on campus every other day for over a year. That will get you into shape and FAST. Also, there’s nothing quite like the incentive of a campus full of good looking women to urge one to shed a few pounds. Worked for me, lemme tell ya. After marriage and after having Ashley, I saw myself slowly getting back into bad habits and I woke up at 220 pounds and freaked out. That led me back onto the basketball court. We joined the local Rec Center and now I play as much as I can. I’m back down to 200 pounds. I’d like to get back down to my college weight, but that might be just a pipe dream. You hear how it is always harder to lose weight when you get past 30. True. Very true.

ANYWAY, back to my eyes. This whole Keratoconus thing makes playing ball tough, especially when my game is beyond the 3-point line. I’ve always been able to shoot but when you see one and a half rims..kinda tough. I’ve adjusted though but last week a guy came out of nowhere and raked me across the face, cutting me and sending my glasses flying. The frames were bent all to hell and so I went to the eye doctor the next day to get a new pair and to order some eye goggles. They turned me onto these $120 prescription goggles that are “very popular.” Being the sucker that I am, I bought them. I had to wait a week to get them and last night the order came in–just in time for Tuesday night hoops. I played on Monday without any glasses and good Lord that was ugly. People saying, “Bill damn it shoot the three!” and me replying, “I’m seeing two rims and both are hazy!” Not good. So the goggles were a big deal.

I get them and they look all new age. These are not James Worthy Goggles. I get to the court and after 10 minutes of warming up they start fogging up. I mean REALLY fogging up. I need a defroster inside my goggles. So I’m gonna try to get these eye drops that a friend at the court suggested that scuba divers wear called “No Fog”. I hope it works, I mean..$120.

You might be asking why I’m telling you all this. Well, I need to vent. When the in-laws are here for Turkey Day and they say, “Boy you sure do spend a lot of time on that computer..” I tend to get pissed. I mean, my job is my computer. I tell them that they’re lucky I’m not working. I have some highly offesive games I could play to totally freak you out. Here, mom, let me fire up Painkiller.

Anyway, that’s my sob story for the holiday. Foggy goggles, bent frames (I’m still waiting for my new frames), a fucked up eye condition, and in-laws.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Today is the big day for the new U2 album. Huge fan myself. I’m so lame I even bought the DVD/Book/CD set. Of course I’m already familar with the songs, sounds like a very good album to me.

While I was at Sam Goody with my Triple Points Coupon, I opted to go ahead and purchase ESPN College Hoops even though usually I receive it for review, just because of Bill’s wet dreams about the game. I also picked up Outlaw Golf 2 and Dead Or Alive Ultimate, basically becuase I wanted to really destroy my credit card before the holidays. Haven’t played anything yet.

I enjoyed watching the Pats win on MNF, but these 12:45 AM endings are killing me.

I was feeling a bit under the weather, then a friend told me about Airborne pills. Damn. They are pretty impressive in terms of making you feel better. I don’t know if it’s a drug induced ‘better’ feeling, but they work.

Harry Potter DVD out today as well. Yay!

Just a few quick thoughts today as I begin Operation House Clean in preperation for Turkey Day. With parents, in-laws, and other members of Clan Abner coming over, we have to fake like we keep a clean house. Anyway–

–College Hoops is, maybe, the best basketball game I have ever played. Maybe. I have not touched Legacy mode yet and most Sega games seem to totally screw up their franchise, dynasty, and legacy modes via major bugs. We’ll see. But PLAYING the game..hoo boy great stuff. If Legacy mode does pass muster, I’ll do an OSU legacy report time permitting.

–I have not played March Madness, but plan on doing so soon. I might be doing a comparison article for GSpy.

–Whenever the Buckeyes beat Michigan, I’m happy. A win usually ensures that I’m in a good mood at least through the holidays, up to the Bowl game. As a Browns fan, OSU beating Michigan is doubly important because after The Game, all I have is the Browns until late December or, usually, New Year’s Day. This year is no different. With the Browns sucking it up at 3-7 and with Butch Davis firmly on the hot seat (this guy coaches an NFL team like they’re all redshirt Sophomores in college) the OSU dismantling of Michigan makes these bizarre Browns losses easier to deal with. How do you lose 10-7 to the Jets? 10-7?

–The Big 10 has kinda sucked this year. Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, OSU, Michigan State, Purdue, etc. are all, I think, average to above average football teams. This year. The Big 10 is very young, as young as I have ever seen the conference from top to bottom, especiallly at the QB position. Ohio State, for instance, as a RS Soph QB, a Fr HB, RS Soph WR, a Fr WR, and no seniors on the OLine. In fact, the biggest loss for OSU will be its kicker, Mike Nugent. (A major loss though) If the Michigan game wasn’t a fluke, and if Ohio State is starting to gel with all its youth, they’re gonna be a very, very tough team in 2005. I hope so. Because the Browns will undoubtedly suck in 2005. Oh, and looks like Ohio State is headed to t he Alomo Bowl to play a Big12 team–maybe Okie State, Nebraska, A&M or Texas Tech. I hate domes. HATE THEM.

–Burn BCS Burn! Come on Utah! Go go USC! Don’t stop now Boise State! Keep pace Auburn! Hang in there Oklahoma! Don’t you dare lose now! I want chaos! Anarchy! Multiple undefeated teams–and top it off with Cal getting screwed out of the Rose Bowl! YES!!! MUHAHAH!! Tear it down! Tear it ALL DOWN!! Ahem. Sorry.

–My thoughts on Ron Artest and the “fight”: zzzzzz. I stopped caring about the NBA a few years ago (ok, like, 10 years ago) and could really care less about what happened. I love basketball, love college baskewtball, but the NBA does absolutely nothing for me. At all.

I’ll try to post some stuff tomorrow but if I don’t have a great holiday. For our non-US readers..um….it’s almost the weekend. Woo hoo?

On ESPN College Hoops. After a few more games, it ain’t perfect, but it’s a LOT better than last year, which was a game that most people enjoyed more than I did. I have beat Mizzou and lost last night to Cal Fullerton! They were unconscious from 3 and I lost by 9. Great game.

Anyway, you can get EVERY team’s real rosters in this thread at Operation Sports (For the Xbox and you’ll need an Action Replay or something like it)