College FB '12 Dread News - Week 8

Here in Big 10 country .....
While Wisconsin and Minnesota play each year for the Paul Bunyan Axe (the Badgers kept the Axe for the 9th straight year, defeating the Gophers 38-13 last Saturday), Michigan and Michigan State play for the Paul Bunyan Trophy. Now if I understand it correctly, while Michigan fans are more preoccupied with beating Ohio State than Michigan State, Michigan State fans want nothing more than to beat Michigan. If that is true, then the most recent games between the two teams have brought a great deal of joy and satisfaction to MSU fans. For 4 years in a row starting in 2008 the wooden statue of Paul Bunyan perched on a pedestal has resided in the MSU trophy case. Prior to those 4 years, the Spartans hadn't been able to take even 2 in a row from the Wolverines since the mid-1960's. If the Spartans were to make it 5 in a row, it would mean that Denard Robinson, Vincent Smith, and the rest of the Michigan seniors would become part of a very small group of people still living to have played their entire career at Michigan without ever beating Michigan State.

Well, it wasn't easy, and it wasn't pretty; but the Michigan seniors avoided that ignominious group last Saturday.

College FB '12 Dread News - Week 7

TCU was deemed undesirable when the Big 8 and SWC merged 16 years ago to form the Big 12. But thanks to their recent run of tremendous success in football, and with the Big 12 desperate to add teams following the defections by Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, and Texas A&M, the Horned Frogs were welcomed into the conference beginning this fall. Likely the most enjoyable part of that success for TCU fans was that dream-come-true 13-0 season in 2010, culminating with an unlikely appearance in the Rose Bowl. Included in that season was a 45-10 blowout of Baylor in Week 3 - a whipping that apparently was not forgotten by the Baylor players. And when TCU opened the 2011 season at Baylor, well, revenge was served, to say the least.

The TCU defense, which allowed 229 yards per game in 2010, was shredded for 564 yards that night by the Bears. After allowing 10 TD passes all season in 2010, the TCU D gave up 6 in one game that night.

College FB '12 Dread News - Week 6

One of the benefits of having Texas A&M and Missouri join the SEC this season was that it allowed the schedule maker to move the South Carolina-Georgia game from its usual spot in Week 2 to later in the season. Not that South Carolina Coach Spurrier considered it a benefit. In the days before the game Spurrier quipped that he "sort of always liked playing them that 2nd game because you could always count on them having two or three key players suspended." Ha ha. Sorry Coach, but your program has gotten so good lately that Week 2 is too early in the season for an important game like this.

The Bulldogs and Gamecocks (both 5-0) met last Saturday night at Columbia, and it was no contest. South Carolina jumped out to a 21-0 lead before the 1st quarter was over and cruised to a 35-7 victory to remain undefeated.

Welcome to the House

Before I get started, let me say this. If you don't like dreadlocks, there's no need to read any further. This ain't for you. Whatever it was that brought you to this page made a mistake. You'd be better off spending your time somewhere else.
Now, for those of you who are not haters .....

A little more than four years ago, while doing a Google search for Rashean Mathis, I stumbled upon a blog titled "Shake Dem Dreads." That quickly led me to "Shakedemdreads" corresponding page on the website known as Yardbarker. Through Yardbarker's "bark it up" system in effect at the time, you could tell there was a fair amount of interest in the items posted by Shakedemdreads. And so, being a lifelong huge sports fan as well as a big fan of many athletes who have dreads, I decided to start my own dreadlock-themed sports blog. Although I've never done it professionally, I've always enjoyed writing stuff about sports. So, just for fun, I opened an account on Yardbarker and called it "HouseofDread."

Well, it certainly wasn't a smashing success (I didn't expect it to be), but I was more than satisfied with the amount of interest in what I was writing. As time passed, however, Yardbarker underwent several significant changes. And with every each change they pushed me closer and closer to the door. Their latest change - deleting all the photos from everything that everybody had posted - was the last straw. It was time for the House of Dread to find a new home. So here we are now right here - and hopefully no longer subject to so many unexpected changes.
For those of you (if there is anybody) who regularly viewed my stuff on Yardbarker, this is a continuation of that blog. I'll be picking up right where I left off. To those of you who are new and/or have stumbled upon this blog, and if you like sports and dreads, you can check out my stuff from Yardbarker (what's left of it, that is) by clicking on the link below, and then clicking on "Forum Posts."
http://www.yardbarker.com/users/houseofdread

For now at least, I'm going to allow comments. But be warned: I don't like negative comments. Listen. I get it - there's many more people out there that don't like dreadlocks than do. I'm fine with that. But I don't need you to tell me that you don't like dreadlocks or tell me that you don't care. Certainly I welcome constructive criticism or any agreement or disagreement with something I've written. But if all you're going to write is "Who cares" or something like that, please don't waste your time. Please.
For those who are fans of dreadlocks in sports, welcome to my house. Hopefully you'll find some of my stuff interesting.