September's Sports Takes

Bama Crusher for the Hogs

It could always be worse . . . You could be O.J. Simpson.

Still, for Razorback fans, it doesn't get much more painful than a 41-38 loss at Alabama on Saturday night. The Hogs coming back from 21 points down twice in the ballgame, only to lose on a John Parker Wilson-to-Matt Caddell TD toss with eight seconds left. Arkansas' tailbacks were phenomenal in defeat, with Darren McFadden (he is not human) rushing for 195 yards on a career-high 33 carries and Felix Jones chipping in with 96 yards of his own. McFadden was, simply, spectacular. None of his numbers came on runs longer than 24 yards. Six yards, eight yards, twelve, five, ten . . . The way D-Mac ripped off physically-pounding run after run impressed me more in this game than in any other of his performances. But the defense struggled mightily all game long, spotting the Crimson Tide a 21-0 lead after one quarter. It was 31-10 in the 2nd half before a ferocious Razorback rally saw Arkansas take the lead with eight minutes to go. All this, just to suffer, oh so painfully, as Nick Saban's crew chewed away at the deficit with a 42-yard Leigh Tiffin field goal and a punch-you-in-the-gut 73 yard game winning TD drive at the end.

You can pinpoint any number of areas in this one that hindered Arkansas' cause: the secondary was scorched, again, and rarely turned to look at incoming passes. Jerrell Norton: what are you doing, buddy? The defensive front was feeble in its pass rush (though decent against the run). Casey Dick struggled early, finishing 11 of 23, but had a couple of key drops, including one by Reggie Fish that could have gone for a touchdown. Indeed, wideout London Crawford was so excited to catch a pass in the open field that he fumbled the football untouched, killing another Arkansas drive in Alabama territory.

And then there's the coaching. I give Houston Nutt a lot of credit for keeping his team in the game---and sticking with the run---down by 21 points in the second half. But in Arkansas' final drive, with tailback Darren McFadden on the sideline suffering from a "slight" concussion, the Hogs tried to run the clock out and couldn't. The biggest play of the game, to me, was a 3rd and 12 with 2:30 left, the ball still inside of Arkansas' 40 yard line. Instead of running the ball and taking another 40-45 seconds off the clock (against an Alabama team that had no timeouts left), Nutt called for a rollout pass by Dick, which fell incomplete and saved the Tide a bunch of precious seconds.

A terrible pass interference call against Kevin Woods on a 3rd and 9 and a ridiculous clock delay for measurement with :21 seconds left both aided the Tide's win, but I hate to say a game was exclusively decided by the officials when it definitely was not.

It's always easy to go back and criticize things afterwards, but the fact of the matter is this: Arkansas is 1-1, 0-1 in the SEC, and has a tall task coming to Fayetteville this weekend in the shape and form of the Kentucky Wildcats. Led by All-Conference QB Andre Woodson, the Cats are better than most people think, and showed it by beating #8 Louisville this week. Barring significant defensive progress, it would not be much of a surprise to see Kentucky put a load of points on the board against the Hogs again this weekend.

Even with the best player in the country in Darren McFadden, it wouldn't be surprising if Arkansas were 0-2 in the league after Saturday.

Quick Hits from Week 2 of the NFL

-How do the Cleveland Browns score 51 points in a month, let alone in a single game? Truthfully, I have no idea. But that's just what they did this weekend, outscoring Cincinnati 51-45 behind 5 touchdown passes from Derek Anderson. (Doesn't he play basketball?) Of course 215 yards by RB Jamaal Lewis on the ground helped greatly (I guess he isn't finished), but it's still a really bad loss for the Bengals. Not time for the Brady Quinn era in the Rock and Roll city just yet.

-Meanwhile, the QB controversy in Jets land is on, and I don't understand why. A 20-13 loss to the Ravens wasn't all that surprising, and neither were the struggles of first-time starter Kellen Clemens. The quarterback from Oregon did absolutely nothing for three quarters against the stout Baltimore 'D', then got it going in the hurry-up and rallied the Jets for what should have been the tying score. (WR Justin McCareins missed two touchdown throws in the final 90 seconds.) Yet it's clear that New York's offense isn't the same without Chad Pennington on the field, and there's no question in my mind that he should be the starter next weekend at home against Miami. The fact that any Jets followers even consider Clemens the man for the job right now is kind of scary. The three times in Pennington's career when he's been healthy and on the field for most of the season, they've made the playoffs every time. Let's not get stupid and throw the season away after two weeks for experience's sake here, Mr. Mangini, okay?

-Can it be that the Dallas Cowboys are the best team in the NFC? Quite possibly. Just two games into the Wade Phillips' era, Big 'D' looks offensivly more potent than it has at any point since Troy Aikman retired. QB Tony Romo looks well over any ill effects of last year's post-season field goal snafu. Terrell Owens actually seems "happy" and he's dancing again all over the field again. And Marion Barber seems to be getting better with each and every game of his still-young career. Dallas' defense doesn't look anywhere near good enough yet, but that's Phillips' specialty, and it's no stretch to think it will be where it needs to be by the end of the year.

Major League Baseball Through to Final Two Weeks

Boston, Cleveland, the L.A. Angels . . . those three teams are locks for the postseason in the American League. The Yankees are all but a shoo-in for the Wild Card. The National League? Well, that's sort of a different story.

Nothing is fully settled yet, though it looks like the Mets and the Diamondbacks will get in. We know it'll be either the Brewers or the Cubbies in the Central now that the Cardinals have collapsed, but who'll be the NL Wild Card? Probably San Diego, but it could be the Phillies if they can get any pitching down the stretch. Philadelphia has now won an astonishing eight straight games against the Mets after a weekend sweep that still sees them at 3 1/2 games out. At the least, New York's team confidence has taken a major hit. At the most, the Mets could be in for an historic collapse.

I'll wait another ten days or so before giving out my end of the season awards, but as has been usual of late, it looks like all eight teams that make the playoffs are going to have a realistic chance to win the World Series.

OJ Squeezed by the Cops Again

Just a quick parting ponderance here, but what in the world goes on in O.J. Simpson's mind? Here he is, somehow a free man after everyone and their mother knows he got away with double homicide 12 years ago, and he gets himself arrested again? Craziness. Man, if I were O.J., at this point, I'd be wary of even jaywalking. Apparently Las Vegas police are pretty confident that Simpson and a bunch of his thieves broke into a hotel room filled with sports memorabilia last week and demanded they get it all---at gunpoint. Simpson claims most of the stuff taken was his, and has already tragicomically used the quote "what happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas" in his own defense, but it doesn't sound like there's any way the 60-year-old Simpson is going to avoid jail time on this one.

I know, I know, we all said the same thing about Simpson when he faked a suicide note, fled in a Bronco and put a gun to his head, before finally allowing police to arrest him for the murders of his ex-wife and her boyfriend more than twelve years ago. It looked like an obvious conviction for murder, but defense attorney Johnny Cochrane somehow worked his way out of it---"if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit." But this time, O.J. is going down. Big time. Hey O.J., Johnny Cochrane isn't alive anymore. Maybe you should've thought about that before orchestrating this latest disaster.

On second thought, eliminate my initial ponderance. I was confused to have even had it. I realize now that I have absolutely no interest in knowing anything about what goes on in O.J. Simpson's twisted brain. It would freak me out way too much....

That's it for now, folks. I'm out.

-JAB