Looking Back

With so many sports going on at once, how can you keep track of them all? You don't have to, but I will. Every Monday I will look back and hit briefly upon the five story lines that stuck out from the previous weekend.

1. Maryland proved - again - that it has the talent to win the ACC. Yes, the entire ACC. As we know, though, we won't really have learned anything about the Terps until after this coming week, after another classic trap game. This time it's against NC State, 0-3 in the conference. Please don't lose.

2. The AFC Wild Card race is going to be a good one. The Patriots got a leg up on the competition just a minute ago with a 41-7 thrashing of Denver. The Jets, Ravens, Jags, and Colts all sit right behind them at 3-3, and the Chargers confuse at 3-4. 

3. Meanwhile, the NFC Divisional races look to be the hot thing. In the East, all four teams have shown definite strengths and weaknesses, and any of the four could be there at the end of the year. In the North, the Packers and the Bears stepped forward with huge wins this weekend. In the South, the Bucs and Panthers both look extremely strong, but don't count out the Falcons. In the West, the Rams - yes, the Rams - may be charging, and you can't say with certainty that the Cardinals won't choke. 

4. The Rays earned their trip to the World Series. The odds were stacked against them.

 After letting down from a 7-0 lead in game 5, the Rays lost in game 6, and had absolutely 0 momentum in game 7. But thanks to a pitching gem by Garza, they somehow did it. I've been riding the Phillies bandwagon the entire postseason, but they're going to have to overcome a Rays team with an absolutely unreal amount of spunk.

5. For lack of anything else, have you seen Colt McCoy's stats? This guy is so by far and away the Heisman trophy winner through the halfway point it's not even fair. The numbers: 81% passing, 1894 passing yards, 19:3 TD:INT, 371 yards rushing, 6 TDs

The only one close is Bradford, but he doesn't have the rushing yards, and he doesn't play for the number one team in the nation.  

Looking Back

With so many sports going on at once, how can you keep track of them all? You don't have to, but I will. Every Monday I will look back and hit briefly upon the 5 story lines that stuck out from the previous weekend.

1. The Big 12 officially has the depth to compete with the SEC as college football's best conference. What a huge Saturday, and nobody made more noise than these two conferences. To say that another conference is even close is absolutely absurd. What we are witnessing happen is teams beating each other up in conference play. This will lead to teams getting worse bowl games than they deserve, which will lead to the Maryland's of the world being absolutely torched.

Consider:

Texas is now the number one team in the country after beating Oklahoma, but if you don't think Oklahoma is still a top 5 team, you didn't watch that game.

Kansas looked dominant. They're 16 and should be higher.

Oklahoma St. is undefeated. It really wasn't that huge of an upset over Missouri.

2. Wake Forest is the best team in the ACC. Which means that Maryland will probably beat them Saturday. If Maryland does, the Coastal is there for the taking, because the next three best teams (VT, GT, and UNC) are all in the Atlantic.

3. The MLB playoffs are fun again. After some boring divisional series, the championships series are already heating up. Tampa Bay proved their mettle - again - by outlasting the Sox in game 2 after being blanked by Dice-K in game 1. And the Dodgers certainly made things interesting last night in their beat-down of the Phillies, especially Hiroki Kuroda, who threw the ball on a line at Shane Victorino's head.

I love the Dodgers player, who, after the game said: "It wasn't at his head, it was over his head."

Yea, he ducked.

4. Contender or Pretender? 

Contender: Colts, Jags, Chargers, Bucs, Cardinals

Pretender: Pats, Dolphins, Ravens

5. Matt Ryan is already better than a lot of starting quarterbacks in the NFL. Did you see that throw he made with 6 seconds left to put the team in field goal range? Terrific throw. Every time I see a Falcons highlight, it's Matt Ryan heaving the ball 40 yards downfield right on the money. 

Meanwhile, Joe Flacco is playing like ... a rookie from Delaware who should be the third string quarterback on his team this year but, due to a couple injuries, is forced to start behind a young offensive line and with a new head coach.

He will get better, but it may not be this year.