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09/17/2007 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Appalachian State took advantage of its 34-21 victory over Northern Arizona on Saturday to remain the unanimous No. 1 team in The Sportsbook Betting Lines FCS Top-25 poll, which was released on Monday.
The Mountaineers (3-0) received all 90 first-place votes to stay comfortably ahead of second-place Montana. Montana (2-0) was off on Saturday.
Massachusetts (3-0) stayed in third place, 75 points behind Montana, after a key 36-13 win over Towson in the Minutemen's first Colonial Athletic Association game of the season.
Northern Iowa (3-0) had a solid 31-17 victory at South Dakota State to stay at No. 4 and to close within 42 points of UMass.
North Dakota State's 41-38 victory in the final seconds at home against Sam Houston State allowed the Bison to remain fifth. The loss for Sam Houston State forced the Bearkats down one spot to No. 17.
McNeese State (2-0) used a 38-17 victory over an FBS opponent and old rival, Louisiana-Lafayette, to vault up two places in the poll to sixth place. The Cowboys traded places with Youngstown State, which fell two spots to No. 8, despite a 42-6 pounding of Stony Brook.
Southern Illinois (3-0) stayed at No. 7 with its 44-10 hammering of Southern Utah and James Madison used a 45-17 rout of VMI to retain its No. 9 slot.
New Hampshire jumped two spots from 12th to 10th by beating former FCS powerhouse Marshall 48-35 on the road on Saturday. It was the sixth win of the season by an FCS school over an FBS opponent and the third straight week that FCS schools have won two games against the FBS.
Delaware lost one spot to 11th, even with a convincing 38-9 victory over CAA foe Rhode Island Saturday at home. Hampton's 59-14 thrashing of North Carolina A&T helped the Pirates go up by one position to No. 12.
Wofford's 38-17 loss at North Carolina State cost the Terriers two spots in the poll to 13th.
Illinois State's 24-21 victory at then-No. 14 Eastern Illinois caught the voters' attention as the Redbirds flew up three places to No. 14, while Hofstra continued its rise from 19th to 15th with a 28-13 decision at Albany.
Furman's second straight loss, 38-10 at Clemson, caused the Paladins to fall one position to No. 16.
Montana State's 61-7 victory over Division II Dixie State gave the Bobcats the momentum to climb from 20th to 18th, while Western Illinois captured a 69-0 decision over NAIA opponent St. Francis, IL. to rush from No. 22 to No. 19.
Eastern Illinois close loss to Illinois State cost it six places in the Top-25 as the Panthers fell to No. 20.
Completing the Top-25 were Yale, Lafayette, Alabama A&M, Cal Poly and Eastern Washington.
Yale retained the No. 21 spot by belting Georgetown 28-14 and Lafayette advanced three places to No. 22 with its 8-7 victory over Penn in the final seconds on the road.
Alabama A&M crushed Mississippi Valley State 45-14 to improve to 3-0 and move into the poll for the first time this season at No. 23.
After one week out of the poll, Cal Poly slipped back in at 24th with a 47-19 trouncing of Weber State.
Eastern Washington got past UC Davis 41-31 and moved into the national rankings for the first time this season at No. 25. The Eagles finished with one more point than Delaware State, which was ranked No. 24 before dropping a 38-7 decision at Kent State.
Towson fell out of the poll after coming in at No. 23 the previous week.
<< This Week in Golf - September 20th through September 23rd
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TURNING STONE RESORT CHAMPIONSHIP, Atunyote Golf Club, Verona, New York - With
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There are
<< Nationals claim Gonzalez off waivers from D-Backs
Washington, DC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Washington Nationals claimed pitcher
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<< Senators re-sign Fisher
Ottawa, ON (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Ottawa Senators re-signed forward Mike
Fisher to a five-year contract on Monday.
Fisher enjoyed a career year last season for the Sens after scoring 22 goals
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<< Golovin, Srebotnik post easy wins in Portoroz
Portoroz, Slovenia (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Top-seeded Tatiana Golovin and Slovenian
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NBA reinstates official Joey Crawford >>
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The NBA has reinstated referee Joey
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Scattered change marks new LPGA rankings >>
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USA looking to rain goals on Nigeria >>
Shanghai, China (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The United States needs to earn at least a
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Sweden needs a little luck to get past North Korea >>
Tiajin, China (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Sweden's hoping to change its luck against
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The third-ranked Swedes settled for a 1-1 tie in their World Cup opener on a
late equalizer by Nigeria, then lost to the United States 2
Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).
Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.
Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).
Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.
Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.
The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.
What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.
Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.
But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.
In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
My fellow Americans, as tempting as it may be to don the coat and HD-ready tie in order to deliver this State of the Game address before the cameras, I know better. As Brad Paisley sings on his latest album, "I'm so much cooler online."
The ideas for this annual essay to kick off the MySportsbook.com college football betting preview flowed like frat-house beer, which is to say they were cheap and spilled all over the floor. The 2007 season will be better than 2007, if only because there will be more of it. A year ago, the NCAA Football Rules Committee made two rule changes in the interest of speeding up the game. These changes went over like Kobe burgers at a vegan banquet.
To its credit, the rules committee rectified its mistakes. This season the clock once again will start when a kickoff is received, rather than when it is kicked, and the clock will not start so quickly on a change of possession.
However, kickoffs have been moved back five yards, to the 30, which will force more returns. (Thus forcing the clock to run. Clever, huh?) Special teams might decide a lot of games, because coaching strategy will come straight out of another new Paisley lyric (almost), I'd like to check you for kicks.
Paisley sings with a twang, which is why he's appropriate for this college football season. The sun coming up over the 2007 college football betting lines season rises from the south. It's a Southern football world. As the Southeastern Conference begins its 75th year, the power shift is noticeable.
Eight-figure budgets, glamorous settings -- and that's just for the head coaches. The SEC has four coaches who have won national championships -- the greatest aggregation of coaching know-how since Eddie Robinson dined alone.
Steve Spurrier, Phil Fulmer, Nick Saban and Urban Meyer have given lie to the idea that a conference championship game is too daunting a hurdle on the road to No. 1. In six of the past 10 seasons, the national champions played and won a conference championship game -- three of the six (Tennessee, 1998; LSU, 2003; Florida, 2007) from the SEC.
There will be more of the same this season, if the preseason prognostications are correct. Six SEC teams are in the preseason coaches' poll, more than from any other conference. Only one conference has talent so deep that a team with 15 returning starters, including the best quarterback in the league, from an eight-win season is considered an afterthought. That may speak more to Kentucky's losing legacy than to the wisdom of the predictions, but there you have it. And seriously, keep an eye on Wildcats QB Andre' Woodson.
The reach of the South extends all the way to No. 1. Take a look at the team that is a consensus pick to win the national championship. The quarterback is from Shreveport. The best wide receiver is from Nashville. The top recruit is from New Orleans.
So what's the campus doing in Los Angeles? Hey, it is the University of Southern California.
USC lost two Pacific-10 Conference games a year ago, the first time that had happened in five seasons, and university officials withstood the urge to form blue-ribbon panels to unearth the cause of such a disaster. Instead, the Trojans gathered themselves and routed Michigan, 32-18, in the Rose Bowl.
USC's losses at Oregon State and at UCLA last year should have given pause to those who question the Pac-10's football prowess (such as, without naming names, L.M. from Baton Rouge). The league only got deeper this season; Dennis Erickson is taking over an Arizona State team that never quite got out of its own way under his predecessor, Dirk Koetter.
Erickson will resume his quest to become the first coach to win a national championship at two schools. Both he and Spurrier, now in his third season at South Carolina, returned to college football at schools with lower profiles than where they won their titles.
That isn't the case for the third coach looking for the national championship double. You may have missed this, but NASA reported the astronauts on the space shuttle last spring made contact with what can only be described as beings from another galaxy.
The leader of the aliens said, "We come in peace," followed by, "So how do you think Nick Saban will do at Alabama?"
The public is reacting to the new Crimson Tide coach as if he is the Barry Bonds of college football -- beloved at home for what his fans believe he is going to do, hated on the road for his intimidating attitude and for what his detractors believe he did (bend NCAA recruiting rules). I made this comparison from the dais at a charity dinner in Mobile, Ala., last month, and the chill that washed over me didn't come from the air conditioning.
Saban will attempt to prove that he can remake in Tuscaloosa what he built in Baton Rouge, much like another member of the national championship fraternity. Bobby Bowden is attempting to remake at Florida State what he built at, um, Florida State. Bowden rebuilt his offensive staff, bringing in four new coaches led by Saban's former offensive coordinator, Jimbo Fisher, to jump-start an offense that has been dead for a couple of years.
The Atlantic Coast Conference is expected to show new signs of life, too. That is said with no disrespect toward last season's champion, Wake Forest, which provided one of the best story lines of 2007. The Demon Deacons begin this season in their customary position, overshadowed by the Virginia Techs, Miamis and Florida States.
It's not that Wake will find it difficult to duplicate its success in 2007 as much as the feeling that success engendered. Surprising success is the narcotic of sport. It never feels quite so euphoric the next time. Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese has figured this out. He refers to 2007, when a league looked down upon by fans and foes alike took three undefeated teams into November, as "Cinderella."
The fairy tale may be over, but the Big East has four genuine Heisman Trophy candidates in Louisville quarterback Brian Brohm, West Virginia tailback Steve Slaton and quarterback Pat White, and Rutgers tailback Ray Rice. Rutgers, as did Wake Forest and, of course, Boise State, proved last season that the have-nots in college football occasionally have quite a lot.
The Broncos' rousing 43-42 overtime victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl has raised the profile of all schools in conferences that don't get automatic BCS bids. This season, TCU and Hawaii are the preseason favorites to burst through the BCS doors and earn an at-large bid. The Warriors return 14 starters from an 11-3 team, including quarterback Colt Brennan.
Brennan not only broke the single-season record with 58 touchdown passes in 2007, but he also led Division I-A in passing efficiency (186.0). The senior is expected to contend for the Heisman Trophy, and neither his success nor the rise of his team should come as any surprise in the 2007 season.
After all, Hawaii is the southernmost team in the country.
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