College FB '12 Dread News - Week 12

In the big money grab game known as conference musical chairs, the biggest loser has been the WAC. All the realignment that went into effect this season left the WAC with only 7 teams, and they had to add 2 new teams just to have that many. Next season there will be only 2 teams left, as five schools will be heading for greener pastures. So instead of having Idaho and New Mexico State play every week in a best of 7 for the conference championship, WAC football will cease to exist beginning in 2013. So who will be the conference's last-ever champion? The 2012 title was all but wrapped up last Saturday in a wild game at Ruston, LA.

Defending WAC champ Louisiana Tech has gotten all the hype - and the top 25 ranking - this season thanks to their 9-1 record, with the only loss coming to Texas A&M. Meanwhile, the team I suspected might be better - Utah State - has been under the radar all season. The Aggies, 8-2, very easily could have been undefeated coming into this week, having barely lost on the road to Wisconsin and BYU. But they knew they wouldn't be able to steal any of LA Tech's thunder because they wouldn't be meeting the Bulldogs until Week 12. Finally getting their shot, USU jumped to a 17-3 halftime lead.

Short but not small - TJ2K12

"I was 5-8 and wasn't growing."

Dealing with that bit of reality during his sophomore year in high school, Tim Jennings decided to quit basketball and give football a try. It turned out to be a decision that has served him quite well, you think? He may be short, but Jennings has been absolutely huge for the Chicago Bears during the first half of the 2012 NFL season, making big plays on a regular basis. When he had 2 INT and 2 PBU in a victory over the Colts in the season opener, I just thought it was an excellent game against a rookie QB playing his first game. Nothing special. But no, Jennings was just getting warmed up. After picks in Weeks 2 and 3, he was named NFC defensive player of the month for September. And in October, in Week 8, he made one of the Bears' biggest plays of the season - a pick six with the Bears trailing the Panthers in the 4th quarter.

I never thought I'd be doing a piece on Jennings, a cornerback now playing his 7th NFL season. Of course, I never thought he'd ever be leading the league in interceptions either.

College FB '12 Dread News - Week 11

Heading into Week 11 there were 6 remaining undefeated teams in Division 1-FBS. The big five - Alabama, Oregon, Kansas State, Notre Dame, and Ohio State occupied the top five spots in the weekly AP rankings. And then there was Louisville - the ugly duckling of the bunch - way down at #11, behind five teams who were not undefeated. That's the kind of respect the Big East has been getting lately, and deservedly so. In fact, if you examine the first 9 games on Louisville's 2012 schedule, you could make a convincing argument that the Cardinals didn't even deserve to be as high as #11. Among their 6 home wins were close calls against North Carolina, South Florida, and Cincinnati. And their 'best' road win was against 4-5 Pittsburgh.

So I suppose it wasn't surprising that when the Cardinals traveled to Syracuse last Saturday for their toughest road game of the season so far, they fell flat on their faces, losing for the first time this season, 45-26. It was the Cardinals' misfortune to be the opponent on Senior Day for Syracuse.

College FB '12 Dread News - Week 10

Thanks to the 50,000-watt blowtorch that is WWL, my affinity for LSU football began at a young age. So I'm accustomed to the pain of seeing the Tigers lose at home to Alabama. But that loss last Saturday night? Man, hands down that had to be the most painful one of them all. Just when it looked like LSU had things under control, just when it looked like they might win, Alabama suddenly drove 72 yards in a 5-play drive that took just 43 seconds, scoring a TD with :51 remaining on the clock to steal the game 21-17 and end LSU's hopes for a 2nd straight SEC championship as well as a return trip to the BCS title game. No, I was not quite as disappointed as freshman CB Jalen Mills (photo below) and the rest of the LSU players; but no doubt this one is going to sting for a very long time. 

With the win the Crimson Tide remain ranked #1 and improved to 9-0. They also improved to a ridiculous 17-4-1 against LSU in their last 22 visits to Baton Rouge.

129 yards to the house!

With a title like that, you probably already know what this post will be about ...... the CFL, of course, where the field of play is 110 yards long and the end zones 20 yards deep. I haven't done anything on the CFL since 2009 and wasn't planning on doing anything this year. But when I found out what happened with Trent Guy back on Sunday, Sept. 23, I knew I was going to have to do something.

After wrapping up his college career at Louisville in 2009, Guy, a Charlotte native, signed as an undrafted free agent with the Carolina Panthers and spent 2010 on their practice squad. He was released at the end of training camp in 2011 and this year found his way to the CFL, where having a good kick returner is more a necessity than the luxury it is for NFL teams. In the photo above Guy, a 5-8, 171 WR, is celebrating his 1st TD in a Montreal Alouettes uniform - on a 9-yard catch and run with 4:54 remaining in the 2nd quarter. But a little later, it was his 2nd career TD that caught everybody's attention.

College FB '12 Dread News - Week 9

If at first you do not succeed, try, try again - until the other team scores a touchdown, that is .....

I had the Purdue-Minnesota game on the list of games I wanted to watch for Week 9. But there were several other games I needed to see, so I ended up skipping the Boilermakers and Gophers. Now, after reading what happened at Minneapolis last Saturday, I'm kicking myself because of all the interesting stuff that I missed. Not the least of which was a sequence at the beginning of the 2nd half.

After converting a 3rd and 10 on the first series after halftime, Purdue QB Caleb TerBush tried to hit WR Gary Bush on 1st down, but the pass was broken up by senior CB Michael Carter. 2nd and 10: Carter again breaks up a pass to Bush. So what does Purdue do on 3rd and 10? Right, throw the ball to Bush. And yet again Carter made them pay, this time intercepting the pass and taking it 43 yards to the house (photo above) for his 1st career TD.

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.