College FB '13 Dread News - Week 6

If you had told me before the start of the 2013 season that by the end of the first 6 weeks of the season Miami redshirt sophomore RB Dallas Crawford would score nearly 3 times as many touchdowns as his former HS teammate, Clemson junior WR Sammy Watkins, I probably would have been like Chief Lutz and asked you if you had "submitted yourself for drug testing yet?" But here we are approaching the middle of October, and it's a fact that Crawford has scored 8 TD so far for the Hurricanes, while Watkins has 3 TD for Clemson. Crawford used to throw passes to Watkins when they were at South Ft. Myers HS but also was a standout cornerback; so I figured when the 'Canes met the Tigers (if they ever meet them) we'd be seeing Crawford trying to cover Watkins, not trying to outscore him. But after playing on defense on the scout team while redshirting in 2011, Crawford switched to offense (RB, not QB) last season. And so far in 2013 he's been making quite a few house calls.

Crawford's 7th and 8th TD were scored last Saturday as Miami improved to 5-0, rallying from an early 17-7 deficit to defeat Georgia Tech 45-30.

College FB '13 Dread News - Week 5

When I mentioned last week that Rutgers might be a threat to spoil Louisville's expected romp to the AAC title, you could almost hear the grumbling all the way from Orlando: What about UCF? I agree - what about UCF? Well, apparently I wasn't the only one curious to see if the Knights were for real after getting off to an impressive 3-0 start this season, because a sellout crowd of 47,605 was on hand (the second largest crowd since UCF opened their new stadium 6 years ago) last Saturday to see how they would fare against one of the better teams in the SEC. With Coach Spurrier's South Carolina Gamecocks on the opposing sideline, the Knights made their first ever appearance on ABC television. And although they did not pass the test, at least the day wasn't a total failure for UCF. The Knights led by 10 early, the Gamecocks went on a 28-0 run, and the Knights finished strong, with South Carolina hanging on for a 28-25 victory that left both teams at 3-1.

The game got off to a bad start for the Gamecocks, as starting QB Connor Shaw went down with an injury on their opening possession. They fell behind 10-0 and might have faced an even larger deficit at halftime if not for the 1st INT of the season by junior CB Victor Hampton, which ended a UCF drive that had reached FG range with 1:17 remaining in the half.

College FB '13 Dread News - Week 4

There wasn't any one game that I watched from start to finish this week, and none of the games I watched portions of was going to be in the running for this week's house of dread award; so I started paying closer attention than usual to the scores flashing at the bottom of the TV screen. When the score Middle Tennessee 42 Florida Atlantic 35 came up, I thought I had my HOD winner. Well, not quite; but the small crowd on hand for FAU's home opener (much less than the announced 13,911) did get to see several players with dreads in prominent roles for both teams. MTSU vs. FAU - last year it was a Sun Belt Conference game. This year - still a conference game, but now in CUSA instead of the SBC. And for their first ever league game in CUSA the Blue Raiders (according to the MTSU website) took the field wearing white helmets for the first time in 35 years.

I figured MTSU against FAU would contend for HOD honors because MTSU has a couple of WRs with dreads, while FAU has a couple of WRs, a TE, and a starting RB with dreads.

College FB '13 Dread News - Week 3

After Arizona State and Wisconsin last met in Week 3 of the 2010 season, I wrote something about the ASU players leaving the field at the end of their 20-19 defeat that afternoon at Madison knowing that they should have won the game. Well, the shoe was on the other foot late last Saturday night at Tempe as the Badgers walked off the field knowing they should have won following a controversial 32-30 defeat to the Sun Devils. Turnabout was or was not fair play - depending on whose side you were on.

UW fans and players will insist that the dawdling Pac-12 officials were directly responsible for the loss, their utter incompetence in the closing seconds denying the Badgers a chance to kick a last-second FG that would have won the game. ASU fans would probably counter that yes, the officials blew it, but that there were a whole bunch of questionable calls that went against the Sun Devils in that game three years ago. Just to name a couple, in fact, I remember an obvious pass interference penalty in the end zone by a UW DB that wasn't called in the 2nd half as well as a TD catch by WR George Bell in the 1st half that didn't count only because none of the TV cameras provided a conclusive-enough view of him getting one foot down in the end zone before his other foot landed out of bounds, even though we all know that's exactly what happened. So now the two teams are even, right? 

You know, the more I watch Melvin Gordon, the more he reminds me of another RB I like, who plays on Sundays - and not only because he wears a red and white #25 jersey and has dreads.

College FB '13 Dread News - Week 2

After just two weeks of the 2013 season there's already one thing that has become very clear: if you are a running back with dreads, the competition for spots on my postseason all-America with dreads team is going to be stronger than ever before. Of the 7 running backs with dreads for FBS teams who rushed for over 1,000 yards last season, five are back in 2013 (with only Eddie Lacy and Andre Ellington having moved on to the NFL). Joining those five and Kansas State senior John Hubert (who was about 50 yards short of 1,000 in 2012) in the competition are several freshmen along with a couple others who are not freshmen but who figure to be carrying the ball a lot this season. It's not at all out of the question that at least a dozen FBS running backs with dreads will top the 1,000-yard mark by the end of the season. And it's possible that a half dozen of those will be from teams in the SEC. 10 of the 14 teams in the SEC have at least one RB with dreads who has carried the ball already this season. Todd Gurley and Keith Marshall of Georgia and Jeff Scott of Mississippi were featured in last week's report. So let's take a quick look at the RBs from the other 8 teams this week.

Florida sophomore Matt Jones (photo above), who came on strong late last season, made his 2013 debut this week after missing Week 1 (and a lot of training camp as well) with a viral infection.

College FB '13 Dread News - Week 1

Two of the very best players with dreads in college football were on the national stage last Saturday night as Georgia and Clemson - schools just 75 miles apart - met for the first time in 10 years. Not only two of the best players with dreads, Georgia sophomore RB Todd Gurley and Clemson junior WR Sammy Watkins are two of the best players period, and they did not disappoint in a game ESPN saved to be telecast in primetime on ABC. There were 4 ties and 2 lead changes, and in the end Clemson held on for a 38-35 home victory in a battle of two teams that coming into the game had realistic dreams of going undefeated this season. But only Clemson's dream remains alive after the Tigers beat the Bulldogs for the first time in 23 years. The game lived up to its billing as a matchup of two high-powered offenses against two mediocre defenses. More than 1,000 total yards were amassed by the two offenses, with Georgia finishing with a 545-467 advantage. And to the surprise of nobody Gurley and Watkins accounted for more than one fourth of those yards.

Oh Brother, Here we go again

Yes, it's that time of the year again - the first week in September. Time for the beginning of another NFL season. And in the house of dread, that also means it's time to take a look at what my crystal ball (which I simply call "CB") is predicting will happen during the season. At this time a year ago, in a stroke of genius (or maybe it was just dumb luck) CB predicted the Harbaugh brothers (John and Jim) would be shaking hands after their teams (Ravens and 49ers) met in the Super Bowl. And now what? CB says it's going to happen again? Well, as Lee Corso says, not so fast! Although CB thinks the 49ers and Ravens will both make the playoffs this season, neither one will make a return trip to the Super Bowl. Instead, if CB is correct, there will be a different pair of brothers shaking hands on the field following the NFL's first ever cold weather Super Bowl.

If you've ever taken a boring tour or two in your life, then that hilarious commercial - the one where the Manning brothers, Peyton and Eli, and their father, Archie, are part of a group taking a tour of ESPN - really hits home. Although that commercial makes fun of the sibling rivalry between Peyton and Eli, I'm sure there's at least one competition that still exists between the two in real life. And in that competition, the scoreboard currently reads: Peyton - one Super Bowl victory, Eli - two Super Bowl victories. Now as fierce a competitor as Peyton is, and as great a player he still is at age 37, do you honestly believe he's going to retire from the NFL having won fewer Super Bowls than his little brother?

Well, CB thinks Peyton is fixin' to change the score this year. Not only will he lead the Denver Broncos to victory in the Super Bowl, he'll do it with Eli's team - the New York Giants - on the opposing sideline.

DG149

The NFL 2012 season in review is the focus of dread gallery #149. I was hoping to do more than one DG on the NFL (you may remember I somehow did six in one week last year); but I'm out of time; so I'm going to try to stuff all the best photos I saved from last season plus some other extras into one giant post. Same as with college football, I wasn't able to visit anywhere near as many websites as I wanted to; so no doubt I missed out on a whole bunch of great shots. But I saved a lot of great shots too; hopefully you will enjoy them. Only about 50 or so of the NFL's players with dreads will be featured; so you might be seeing some of the players I like over and over. I'm not going to check the game situation for each photo as thoroughly as I normally do, because I just didn't have enough time to. So here we go with NFL '12 in the house of dread.
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1. After playing three seasons in college at Alabama (where Coach Saban stifles dreads), rookie RB Trent Richardson finally gets a chance to unleash his dreads as he takes the field for his 1st NFL game on Sept. 9 at Cleveland. Richardson had a tough opener, rushing for only 39 yards on 19 carries in the Browns' 17-16 loss to the Eagles. 

DG148

As a result of spending so much time searching for basketball photos this summer, I didn't do anything on college football. I'd estimate that of all the games from last season for which I wanted to save pictures, only about one fourth of them was I able to search all the websites I wanted to. So I can only imagine how many pictures of great dreads that I missed. From the games I did save pictures I've already posted all of the best photos I could find. But there are a few more that I didn't post that you might find interesting. Let's take a look at them in dread gallery #148, as we take a (quick) look back at last season and look ahead to 2013.
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1. The season got off to a bang on Aug. 30. As South Carolina senior TE Justice Cunningham makes the catch on 2nd and 7 on the 3rd play of 4th quarter, he is hit so hard by Vanderbilt CB Andre Hal that his helmet comes off .....

Dreaded Dozen 2012

For the best players with dreads in college football I do an all-America with dreads team each year. For the best with dreads in the NFL I call it the dreaded dozen. It's a ranking of who I thought were the 12 best players with dreads for one season only, not their whole careers. And there's no secret formula or point system involved. It's entirely my opinion, complete with my own personal biases (although I try to be as fair as possible). Mostly I just go by a player's stats and whether or not he was selected for the Pro Bowl. If you disagree with the selections, it's not a problem. Please, we'd love to hear how you would rank them.

The list for 2012 is a bit different than usual - in that more defensive players than offensive made the top 10. In fact, half of the first half dozen in the rankings play D. In previous years no more than one defensive player per year has been able to crack the top 6. Seven players are repeat selections from 2011 (where a player ranked in 2011 will be noted by the number in parenthesis following a player's name), but oddly the player who ranked #1 was not one of them. And unlike the list for 2011, no rookies made the list this time. So without any further delay, here are the dreaded dozen for the 2012 NFL season.

Stark Raven

When LB Josh Bynes (photo, with the Vince Lombardi Trophy) tackled WR Ted Ginn well short of the end zone on a last-ditch, all-or-nothing kickoff return on the final play, Super Bowl 47 was over, and the Baltimore Ravens were on top of the football world. Congratulations, Ravens, on a job well done. And there was no doubt about it, right? I mean, throughout the season whenever you thought you had the Ravens on the ropes, actually it was the Ravens who had you right where they wanted. Let's see, there was that missed FG by the Dallas kicker at the end of the game in Week 6 (one of only two FG attempts he missed all season); there was that ridiculous 30-yard gain by Ray Rice on 4th and 29 in Week 12; then there was that outrageous 70-yard TD by Jacoby Jones with 31 seconds remaining at Denver in the playoffs; and finally there was the Ravens' D, after being scored upon four possessions in a row, getting the job done when they absolutely had to on the 49ers' final drive of the Super Bowl. There's a fine line between winning and losing in the NFL, and in 2012 more often than not when the Ravens needed a play made, they gone one; and whenever their opponents needed one, they didn't get it.

The Ravens' championship makes it twice in the last four seasons that my crystal ball (CB) has correctly picked the Super Bowl winner before the season began. And not only that, this time CB picked the correct Super Bowl loser too.

DG147 - Part 1

Not willing to put in the extra effort, I kept telling myself I was going to do a nice, quick dread gallery on pro basketball. And then I went through all the pictures I saved ....... Well, so much for nice and quick. Instead, dread gallery #147 will be a nice, not very quick look in two parts at basketball players with dreads who play for pay. We'll look at all 10 of the NBA's players with dreads in action from the 2012-13 season (which I will still refer to as this season even though it's already finished) along with a few (and only a few) of the many playing in minor leagues around the world. No doubt there will be several players with dreads not featured here. I don't have the time to check every single league worldwide. So if I don't include some of your favorite players, I'm sorry; it will be up to you to please let us know about them.

We'll lead off part 1 of DG147 with Gerald Wallace.

Prior to this season Wallace on many occasions had his hair in braids hanging loosely from his head, making them look like they were dreads. And on many other occasions he had braids that looked like braids, such as in the photo above from March 2011. But this season was different.