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“COLORADO-VS-COLLEGE FOOTBALL”
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King college football takes center stage this weekend, and there will be storylines everywhere.

But the glare of the spotlight will be no brighter than what happens when Colorado takes the field against TCU on the road in Ft-Worth.

Prime Time, Neon Deion makes his debut as the head coach of the Colorado Buffaloes, trying to fix what has been so wrong  for years at Folsom Field in Boulder.

Deion Sanders was like a tornado landing on that campus, after 3-spectacular years at Jackson State, restoring pride to the once proud SWAC-black school.

But lining up to play Mississippi Valley State is very different than Saturday’s vs USC-UCLA-Oregon or even this weekend against the Horned Frogs.

Sanders told his players in the first meeting, be prepared to go into the Transfer Portal.

He brought with him his personality, his fiery personality, and a bundle of transfer players onto that campus.

The body bag count is staggering.  When CU faces TCU there will be 86-new players wearing Black-Gold.  There are only 10-scholarship players left from last year’s (1-11) disaster.  He used the transfer portal to clean house, and to fill his roster slots.

Colorado has 56-transfers, including 22-who came in once spring football was done.

The reaction nationwide has been harsh.  The Transfer Portal was not put in place to be a dumping ground for players after a coaching change.

Opposing coaches believe what Sanders did was unethical.  It has created alot of ill-will that some teams may dominate and try to destroy CU in retaliation for what was allowed to happen.

Sanders has embraced it like some form of football free agency.  He has rebuffed the mountain of criticism saying he deals in the truth.  Those players were (1-11), they were losers, they should never have been here in the first place.

It was harsh, just like the treatment of the players they lectured in their exit meetings, that led to angry exchanges.  Included was their leading receiver, who tore knee ligaments, stayed and rehabbed the final part of the season, the off season, then was told to leave as spring ball began.

When they break the huddle, his QB will be his son Shedeur Sanders, who put together great seasons at Jackson State.  But he won’t be throwing against Alcorn State or Johnson C-Smith starting this week.  He will have 9-teammates who transferred in from JSU.

So we see where this goes on Saturday against TCU and what transpires the rest of the season.

Coach Prime is popular in the Boulder area code.  Whether he is across the PAC 12,or in the Big 12-where his team is headed in a year, remains to be seen.

He was a great high stepping player in the NFL.  Interesting to see if the teams they play against will try to stomp them into the turf for what they did to alot of victim-like players at CU, and how they have acted since Deion Sanders got off the plane at Colorado.

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“AZTECS-IDAHO STATE”
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San Diego State earned their opening day win over Ohio University.

They got to QB-Kurtis Rourke, before he got to them. Rourke looked as if he was on his way to a 400-yard passing day, before he went down with a possible hit to the head.

SDSU grew from that point on, picking off 3-passes, its defense dominating as the game wore on.

This week, they play Idaho State, a bottom dweller in the Big Sky Conference.
The Bengals are just (2-20) over the last two years.

Coach Brady Hoke:
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Brady Hoke:

Review Ohio film, we missed a bunch of assignments early
We won the 4th quarter that was huge
Defense got better and better, and were a plus 2-in the game
We played with pretty good discipline

Marcus Radcliffe played really well as a freshman
Cody Moon was everywhere making plays
Still need to figure out our rotation on defense upfront
LT-Christian Jones played well in his first start

Offense-time possession needs to be better
Secondary had 8-pass deflections-we were aggressive
We need to challenge WRs as game went on

Jalen Maden started (4-10)…footwork issues early
He was hesitant not letting it go
Really settled in late in first half-went (13-17)

Offensive line…Dean and Miles played well at RT-RG-lots communication
Starting center learning points about technique..footwork-feet-pad level

Ryan Lindley-lot of trust in him to call plays

Ohio really good..bet Bobcats win 10-games
Ohio ran clock down trying to get SDSU to commit defense before snap

Playing Idaho State..(2-20) last two years
They have 70-new players from a year ago
They have new offense-new coach
They run some things from Washington State-Hawaii-Cal Davis

We get alot of snaps to work on fundamentals in this game
There are alot of unknowns with ISU

Scheduling-take advantage of who is on the schedule..
Not going to save Idaho State overmatched
——————
(Jaylen Maden)

Key TD passes-needed patience-let receiver run route
I have to calm down
First game jitters in first quarter
Started out tight got better
Starting last five games-gave my team trust from my teammates
Transfer from Mississippi State-believed I could play this position
Believed I could help at safety-was a really thin spot
Learn from Ryan Lindley career..really smart
Appreciate the most-not making me do things I can’t do
He changes game plan if I talk to
I am in an open space to talk to him about what I need in game plan
Get anxious with Lindley not on sidelines but in press box
Very calm on headsets….he calmed down me
Mark Redmen-TE…he is diverse..we run alot of packages for him
He knows what he is doing in our formations

(Cooper McDonald)

Defense got better as game went on
Ohio was solid offensive line
Kurtis Rourke can sling it around like Jake Haener
All of seniors left-alot of young guys played well
We think there will be alot of improvement from week 1-to-2
Maden knows offense and defense-having played safety
Idaho State is a whole new team
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“AZTECS FOOTBALL–Why”
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Can somebody please tell why no one cares?  Cares about San Diego State football?

A decade of pretty good football under Brady Hoke and Rocky Long.  Some upset wins over of Pac 12 teams.  Bowl games.  Taking control of the Mountain West Conference from Boise State.

And no one seems to care.

The scoreboard does not lie.

Last year’s debut season at shiny new Snapdragon Stadium wasn’t very good.

Then in this year opener, just a shade over 16,000-fans on hand, including 5,000-free tickets to students, in a pretty electric win over Ohio University.

In what has to be viewed a desperation move, Athletic Director JD Wicker wrote an EMail to season ticket holders, asking them, no begging them, to bring friends so the team could fill up Snapdragon.

In the history of SDSU football, we had the electric run of Don Coryell at the Aztec Bowl, all those great throwing offenses and the quarterbacks.  SDSU actually outdrew the AFL-San Diego Chargers, but that was the 60s and 70s.

Along came the wild era of Marshall Faulk, Al Luginbill, the huge games with BYU, bowl game, and crowds of 48-51,000.  Featured in that span were the 51-51 tie with BYU and the 31-31 tie with USC.  When Faulk left, so did the fan support.

There have been some bad football seasons for sure, notably the Chuck Long era.  There have been years when there was discussion that maybe the school should drop football.

But it always  came back, but the fan support never did.

Basketball sells out at very high prices.  Football has not in a long, long time.

And now the AD is begging San Diego football fans to please come support the program.

The shocking aspect is there are over 150,000 SDSU graduates living now in a county of 3.5M people.  It is a vibrant campus with 42,000 students too.  The townspeople, the student body, don’t show up?

Why the apathy? Why the disinterest?  Why the disdain for good coaching and good kids?

Is it the mistake SDSU made opening the new stadium, the terrible pricing gauge?  Is it the affiliation with the Mountain West Conference-which few people respect?  Is it the non conference, non-sexy schedule?  Is it the inability to recruit what fans like to see, high octane offenses, quarterbacks and NFL type receivers?

Is there no respect for fierce defense?  No appreciation of special teams?  No linkage to wins and losses?

Do these people know that Hoke and Long have combined record of (120-63), and yet no one really shows up to support the team.

We lost our NFL team in 2017.  The Aztecs failed to capture the fancy of the community with their ad campaign ‘1-Team-1 City’.

Why is it this way?  What is wrong with the football fans in this city?

Somebody who refuses to go to games needs to explain to me..Why?

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“PADRES–WORST SEASON EVER”

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Oh there have been disappointments before.

100 loss seasons
Failures-sweeps in the playoffs
World Series sweeps
Failures in the late season pennant race.

But this seems to take the cake, this plunge  by the Padres in what was supposed to be a World Series type season.

Nothing wrong with your eyesight as you read this.

The Padres are 20-games out of first place in the NL-West.

Yes those Padres with the Fab 4-batting order, the Gold Glovers in the field, and  Cy Young Award winners in the rotation, helped by the best closer in baseball.

Yes those Padres who are tied with the lowly, rebuilding, cost cutting Washington Nationals for the 7th slot in the wildcard race.  You know a wildcard race that only takes 3-teams.  You know Washington, whom the Friars traded 5-prospects to so they could get Juan Soto and agent Scott Boras.

Yes those Padres, who are closer to last place Colorado that any of the top teams in the NL West.

Those Padres with the 253M-payroll, second highest in baseball.  The Padres with all that age on the roster, and those 10..11..14-year contracts that you cannot trade.

The dugout temper tantrum of Manny Machado late in Sunday’s game, swinging viciously 7-times at the water cooler, as his team approached another loss.  By the way, it is now a season worst 9-games below .500.  Your Padres have now lost 14-of-20 games at the most important time of the season.

Machado’s tantrum equalled my feeling about watching this team play this way, not in a weekend series, but in homestands, large chunks of time.  The only difference, Machado makes 30M more than me.  And I am not going to take a baseball bat to my big screen TV because of these losers.

Social (unsocial) media has been vicious within the last week.

People saying this is worse than the 2019 season when Ron Fowler ripped his team for its collapse.  Worse than what we visited in 2021 when Peter Seidler called it an ‘epic collapse’

The last night of the wasted (5-5) homestand against poor teams, the fans booed the team in the 9th inning on that last game played at Petco.

Machado will have his worst statistic season of his career.
Tatis’ numbers are below standards for him, even with a steal of home.
Bogaerts looks like an old man.
Soto seems to be the most over-rated superstar San Diego has had.

You can pick any category you want about what we have seen and scream.
Pick an offensive metric, from batting average, to runners in scoring position.  And by the way, do you know the Padres have 3-hitting instructors and all those smart metric people upstairs?

Pick any of these games, the (0-10) record in extra innings, you know games that start with a runner at second base and the Fab 4-coming up-and not hitting them in.

Yell if you are upset this team is (34-39) vs teams that were .500 or worse when San Diego played them.

Lest we forget the horrors of losing series to the worst teams in the league, the Pirates (2X), Royals, Nationals, Arizona.

Add in a (9-51) record when they trail early in a game; (2-57) when they trail in the 8th; (30-33) at Petco Park this year; (6-20) in one run games; (19-36) in one-or-two run games: and my favorite (7-15) since the all important trading deadline.

And the fans, who have sold out 51-games at Petco Park are letting the team know what they feel, as Social Media Says:

..The GM is supposed to create a winning culture.  Preller has not done that-time to go

..Soto-least clutch player I have ever seen

..Machado-nice it took him 5-months to care about anything

..Who you going to trade-get rid of?

..You want me to join the ‘on deck waiting list’ for season tickets?

So here we are.  The franchise that gave us 5-seasons of 100-loss baseball…gave us a Firesale of talent…keeps getting kicked out of post season..now .gives us this mess, this week.

Guess we have to invoke Harry Caray’s Cubs phrase forever..’wait till next year’.

Is it on Seidler to take a leadership role?  Preller to clean out his front office? Preller to be asked to leave?  Remove Bob Melvin?  Putting a chunk of this roster out for sanitation service pickup on Monday?

Padres baseball…now we find out the team’s new colors are really ‘Bad Baseball Brown and Fools Gold’.

Why does this feel like ‘crypto-currency fraud’?

What a nitemare.  This may be the worst we have ever experienced, and this team has experienced alot of bad times.
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‘REGGIE BUSH VS NCAA’
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The career was spectacular.  The statistics are staggering.  Those are the memories.

But so too are the memories of the NCAA investigation that brought down the USC football program.

In the end, it stained Reggie Bush too.

The story is not over now with the Trojan legend filing a defamtion lawsuit against the NCAA for its handling of the entire scandal that led to massive sanctions after Bush had gone to the NFL.

When the probe was done, USC was hit with 2-years of sanctions including bowl games, stripped of 30-scholarships, impactxed on the recruiting tale.  AD-Mike Garrett, arrogant, wound up losing his job.  USC was ordered to disassociate itself for 10-years with Bush.

His Heisman Trophy was ordered returned to the Maxwell Club.  His historic statistics were deleted from the record book.  His uniform #5-never to be retired.

Pete Carroll, the record setting head coach, was never charged, but he exited to take the Seattle Seahawks job.

The family was charged with taking over 100,000 from two men fronting as marketing execs, friends of the family, who negotiated to represent Reggie Bush when he turned pro with the New Orleans Saints.

In essence, the family was found guilty of under the table payments.  Cash, a free house, a car, payment of past debts, hotel rooms, airline travel, clothing.

Former NFL agent Mike Ornstien and then Lloyd Lake were involved in tons of illegal benefits.  Bush’s signatures showed up on hotel bills, paid for by credit cards of the two agents..

We can never know what benefits were given to Bush, because to this day, he has never spoken of it.  He did not cooperate with the NCAA probe.  He stayed silent when banned from Heritage Hall, when he shipped his trophy back to New York.

He went off to a very good NFL career, making millions from the Saints, onto Detroit before injuries caught up to him.  Again silence.

And now years later, Bush wants his due.  Because of the changing landscape in the NCAA, payments to players in the NIL, Bush now feels slighted.

He wants damages.  Wants the trophy returned.  Records restored.  Reputation put back in place.

His reasoning, if college players can be paid now, he should not be held accountable for what happened in the past.  He views himself as having a right to take benefits back then, because benefits are allowed now.

it seems far-fetched to think life in the early 2000s can be changed now because the NIL has changed college athletics now.

Equally strange, because USC running back coach Todd McNair was banned from coaching, fired at USC, and lost a career and salary, charged with lies and lies.  He fought it thru the courts and finally had the case overturned.  Career-reputation ruined.

Bush thinks he suffered  damages too, eventhough his career was successful.  He thinks he was damaged too like McNair.

The difference, the assistant coach testified infront of the NCAA about what he knew or didn’t.  The probe indicated he lied alot, leading to his expulsion.

Bush never cooperated, never admitted wrong doing, and never apologized to USC for what happened.

It’s as if his silence was to be construed as his innocence.

Never knew what was going in his house back in San Diego?  Never spent time with a former criminal friend of his father-who orchestrated the loan payments?  Never got any special benefits as his family moved into a new house and money exchanged hands?

If so innocent, why not testify to the NCAA about what he believed?

Tough to read innocent in all this.  Tough to connect the dots that he did not know, did not receive anything from anybody.

And now 18-years after all this broke, he wants damages long after the fact.  And he thinks the rules in 2023 (NIL) should apply to him for what he did in the early 2000s.  And he tries to springboard from current rules to clear him of a past he won’t admit too.

All these years later this is a problem for him now?  Seems far fetched.  Just like far-fetched about what was happening around him that he allegedly knew nothing about.

Not sure this holds up in court.  Hate to think this is a money grab.
Don’t agree with Bush’s actions now after decades of silence back then.

Guilty or innocent?  The NCAA tactics?  Or the NCAA actions?
You be the judge.

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