Professional Tailgating: Not the best way to end the season

The OTWT Tailgating Crew made their final trip to Rutgers for their battle with West Virginia and as usual the 'Neers won again. But it was a fun way to end the season including a game of kick about with an orange juice container.

It was so cold that the propane tank could not take it anymore

Our tailgating neighbors were getting ready for the World Cup

The 'Neers fans were out in force

A nice game of kick about with an orange juice bottle.

It did not go well for the Knights on the field.

Its was cold enough for Santa to come out for the game

The Cover Story: Bobby Says Good Bye

First Notre Dame decided to change coaches, now the unthinkable has happened at Florida State. Come next year, Bobby Bowden will not been seen on the sidelines. The legend decided to call it quits yesterday after 44 seasons in coaching. Here are how the newspapers in the Sunshine State covered yesterdays events.

Tampa Tribune

Tallahassee Democrat
The Florida Times-Union

News-Journal

The Cover Story: Bye Bye Fat Man

In Indiana some stories are made for the front page and yesterday showed that. Papers around the state featured the same story the firing of the fat man from Notre Dame. Here are some of the papers front pages:

The Times

South Bend Tribune

The Elkhart Truth

Clemson fans really like CJ

The Clemson fan base showed their love for CJ Spiller by taking out a full page ad in the USA Today Sports section. Now that does not come cheap. In the ad it list Spillers achievements both on the field and off the field. It also has a photo of former Clemson head coach John Heisman. I wonder why that is there.
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My Thanksgiving Weekend

The Thanksgiving weekend means a variety of things to a variety of people. For me it means a couple of things: stomach aches from eating too much, trips up and down the Garden State Parkway, and sports lots of it from college football to the NFL to college basketball to maybe a little NHL.

This year has been no different. Starting with the Lions and ending with Josh McDaniels saying "winning Mother Fucking game" and Brian Dawkins playing like an animal. Also on the plate was a sock that had a hole in it as well as watching various college basketball games that featured coaches in camping shirts, for some it was a good look while for others it was a fashion disaster.

Day two of the weekend started in freezing weather on the golf course. Sure I played the whole round in a woolie and under armor, I did not hit the ball that poorly. The rest of the day was more of the same college football. To end the day I listen to Mark Jones call the WVU/Pitt game and I'm dumber for it right now.

Day three has been a little calmer. It Started with the Premier League and then moved on to college football which was good but the only negative is that Matt Millen has followed me again. On Thanksgiving night he called the Giants and Broncos and on Saturday he called Georgia Tech, make him stop. He is the worst.

Day four has been full of stress, mostly from the eagles but it all worked out in the end as they beat the skins. The day started by watching the premier league game between Arsenal and Chelski, thanks gunners for helping me out. The Heels also beat Nevada for Ole Roy's 600 win wrapped up the day.

It's been a long weekend. I have watched so much sports that my eyes hurt. Also my fingers hurt from sending a ton of text messages. Just look at the labels on this post and you can tell how busy a weekend its been. I'm happy to head back to work just so it slows down my sports watching for a couple of days.

Fakes are sometimes better then the real thing

So Al Davis and John Madden have a lot in common, their connections to the Raiders and their loss of their minds at this point. Both also have another thing in common, their fake twitter personalities are funnier they are.

Some classics from the Fake Al Davis:

• Note to self: don't hire anyone whose name starts with Mangin-
• Thank god the Twitter is around to help journalists compare Jay Cutler to Jeff George in real time.
• Cutler hasn't been the same since Jeff George bit him during the last full moon

Some classics from Faux John Madden:

• Winter tip: Always keep a copy of Madden 07 in your vehicle to use as an emergency ice scraper or coaster! That's all it's good for anyway!
• Jon Gruden is like the Chucky looking, eccentric illegitimate son I never had. I'm so proud of him!
• Today MLB voted Joe Mauer as the most valuable player in the American League which means Mauer is probably pretty valuable to his team
• Heres your holiday drink recipe of the day.. To have a "Summerall" simply have an entire bottle of scotch in under 45 minutes. Enjoy!

This is not the way to get me to fill something out

So on Thursday, the Only Time Will Tell Tailgating Crew headed to Madison Square Garden for the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic, which was a lot of fun.

While sitting at work on Monday, my blackberry started buzzing and I had an email it was from the Madison Square Garden asking me to fill out a survey on my experience at the home of Basketball and to entice me to fill out the survey they offered me a chance to win tickets to the Knicks Bobcats game on Dec. 20. Really this is the way to get me to do something offer me tickets to see teams that feature Nate Robinson, David Lee, and Jason Richardson. This is not exactly what I want to try to win.

If the people at the Garden wanted to get me fill out the survey they could have offered me tickets to one of the number of college basketball games they host. Maybe even the Holiday Festival but an NBA game between two terrible teams is not the way to go. As they same thanks but no thanks.

Professional Tailgating: The 'Cuse is in the house

After spending Thursday night seeing the Syracuse basketball team the next logical step was to see the football team. So a fellow member of the OTWT tailgating crew and I head north to see Rutgers travel to Syracuse. Sure it did not end with a Rutgers win, but it was still a good time.

Otto is everywhere

Our pregame meal spot, The Varsity. Not bad at all

All of the basketball jerseys that have been retired in the dome, including one of my favs, Billy Owens

The Cuse still loves Melo

Its never good when you are this close to the band



The Rutgers band leader did not have a lot to cheer about

Professional Tailgating: The Defending National Champs

On Thursday the Only Time Will Tell Tailgating Crew headed for the big city, New York to see their beloved North Carolina Tar Heels. Good seats and cheap tickets led to a good night.

Everyone knew the Heels were in town

The great popcorn spill of Endy in the Outfield make for a mess

The Heels are introduced

The Heels and Bucks prepare for battle

Dickie V Shoot foul shots

The Daily Mail's guide to the World Cup

The Daily Mail runs the rule over the teams that will be South Africa next summer for the world cup.

Coaches vs Cancer Notebook

Thanks to wonders of modern technology I'm filing my Coaches vs Cancer notebook from the train leaving the event. Technology is a great thing right. Now on to the notebook.

Game 1 Cuse vs Cal
• 1:08 into the game Triche heads to the bench for Jardine. Quick hook for freshman.
• Cuse might be better with Scoop at the point then the freshman. Team moves better with him in the lineup.
• Wes Johnson might be the most athletic player Jimmy has ever had at the 'Cuse and a one and done.
• I think this Cuse team might be better then last years.
• The biggest issue with Cal is that they need a third scorer to take the pressure off Randle and Christopher.

Game 2 UNC vs. OSU
• Ohio State is so small on the back line they are going to have trouble rebounding all year.
• Jon Henson is skinny on tv but he is really skinny in person. Show that kid a cheese burger.
• The PA got one of the Wear twins mixed up have to love that.
• The lack of outside shooting is going to continue to haunt the Heels. Guard plays wins in March and right now they lack that.
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Irish hearts and French Hands

For a 120 minutes the Irish National Team played their hearts out and with one hand Henry took their dreams of a World Cup away. Here is how the Irish newspapers covered the events yesterday in Paris.

Irish Times

Irish Independent

Irish Examiner

Irish Daily Star

Cover Story: SI College Basketball Previews

Coming to a mailbox near you in the next couple of days the Sports Illustrated College Basketball Preview. Again this year, the magazine has gone with different regional covers.

Kentucky

Michigan State

Kansas

Villanova

Washington

UConn

Going to be a busy next couple of days

This is the best time of the sports season. College Basketball is just started, College Football is coming to an end. The NHL, NBA, NFL are all going. With all of these options, the OTWT Tailgating crew can not help but head to some games. On Thursday the gang will be at the Madison Square Garden for the Coaches vs. Cancer events which features 'Cuse vs. Cal and North Carolina vs. Ohio State. Then on Saturday, the gang will be making the trip from home base in New Jersey to see Rutgers take on 'Cuse in football. A couple of big events in a couple of days, should be a lot of fun. Check back later in the week to see all of the sites and sounds from the events.

A new way to recruit

For the last couple of year the world of recruiting has started to change. Instead of players keeping their views on their recruitment underwraps, players are taking all of the their thoughts to the public, while others are coming up with tech savy ways of announcing which programs they will play for.

St. Patrick's Guard Kyrie Irving has been at the front of using social media during the process. Irving, who has signed on to play at Duke, has been keeping people up to date with his views with his twitter account. In October, Irving let the world know that he was hanging out with fellow top recruit Tobias Harris at Kentucky. In addition to the twitter, Irving also has a ustream channel that he takes questions from different fans. The twitter aspects of recruiting appears to be growing with 2010 basketball class: Will Barton (Memphis), CJ Fair (undecided), Josh Shelby (undecided), and Kendall Marshall (North Carolina) all have accounts, some of them are open to the public while others are protected. These few just show how much social media is growing when it comes to recruiting.

On Friday, Harrison Barnes took announcing his college pick to a different level. After giving a speech about the final six six schools that were involved in the recruiting process, Barnes said he would Skype the college coach that he was committing to after a couple of seconds Roy Williams face popped up on the screen. I guess the days of just picking a hat up and putting it on are almost over.

Social media is continuing to grow and over the next couple of years many other top high school players wilil be turning to social media.

Professional Tailgating: USF is still not that good

It was not the best start of the season for the State University of New Jersey, but it appears that they have turned it around by doing what they do best beat the hell of the South Florida. Here are some of the sites from the Rutgers South Florida game.

The game was so big that even the Arsenal fans game out of the game

White Castle and Blue Moon what could be better for a cold windy night of tailgating
The cars coming in late for the game

Our friend gets himself stuck under his car looking for his glove that blew away

Despite a ton of empty seats, love the RU in the crowd nice touch

A National Tragedy

Around Germany today, people were still in shocked over the death of former National Team goalkeeper Robert Enke. According to reports in Europe, Enke committed suicide after battling depression for many years. The story was front page all over Germany this morning

Here is how some of the German newspapers cover Enke's death

Opening Night Notebook

The season is here and here are some thoughts on the opening night of the college basketball season:
• Love the old school Frank McGuire uniforms for the Heels.
• Ed Davis looks old school in his get up.
• Will Graves has to give the Heels some type of outside shot this year.
• Larry Drew II is going to be ok at the point.
• Really impressed by Zeke and FIU, they never gave up during the game and played really well. I thought.
• I think Triche is going to be fine at the point for the 'Cuse.
• 'Cuse's Welsey Johnson might make the biggest impact of any newcomer in the Big East.
• Chris Joseph looks like he is going to give the 'Cuse quality minutes off the bench this season.

Now this is a NFL Crowd

Jags fans showed in mass on Sunday as they played the Chiefs. Only 45,546 showed up to watch the home team. This year the teams has not drawn more then 50,000 to any game and the way it looks it might be a long time before they do.

The fast lane to the NHL Blueline

For year, people have talked about the amount of time that it takes for an young defensemen to develop into a good player, but several players from the 2008 NHL Draft are making a mockery that view.

This year several defensemen from that group are making major contributions around the league. Drew Doughty, Kings; Zach Bogosian, Thrashers; Luke Schenn, Maple Leafs (above); Tyler Myers, Sabres; Alex Pietrangelo, St. Louis and Michael Del Zotto, Rangers (right) have all made major contributions to their clubs. Luca Sbisa made a contribution last year to the Flyers but during the off season was traded to the Ducks and sent back to Lethbridge of the WHL. There are also a bunch of these young defensemen from the class in the AHL including Erik Karlsson, Ottawa.

While some of these defensemen were expected to do great things, Myers and Del Zotto were not expected to shine this quickly. Myers improved his reputation a ton last year with his performance at the World Junior Championships, while Del Zotto impressed during the training camp and has seen significate time on the Rangers first power play unit.

There are a couple of reasons that these defensemens have grown up quickly in the league. One of the major reasons is they are getting great training in the junior hockey. All of the kids that have made an impact on the back line have come from the Western Hockey League or the Ontario Hockey League. These leagues are almost run like professional programs allowing for the players to grow on and off the ice. Another major for the growth is the NHL salary cap. Teams can not afford veterans as their fourth and fifth defensemen, so they are turning to younger and cheaper talent to fill those voids.

Watching a young player growup is always fun. Sure there are going to ups and downs. With these defensemen its no different, but all of them look like they are going to be in the league for a long time.

The Defending National Champs

The OTWT Tailgating Crew will be headed to the Big City in a couple of weeks to see the defending National Champions, North Carolina. The group will be headed the 2K Sports Classic to see 'Cuse vs. California and North Carolina vs. Ohio State. The tickets for the event came on Friday and I can not wait. Should be two really good games and we will have a full report after the event.

Some NFL owners care more about the Premier League

The Bucs and Browns are a combined 1-14 this season, while across the pond Manchester United stands second and Aston Villa stands eight in the Premier League standings.

I know what some people are thinking, what is the connections between the four teams. The connections is simple The Browns and Aston Villa are owned by Randy Lerner, while the Bucs and Manchester United are owned by Malcolm Glazer (pictured right).

Both owners bought their Premier League clubs a couple of years ago under different circumstances. Lerner was hailed as a hero after taking over the club from Doug Ellis, while the Glazer family was hailed as villians for buying United. But both men have been turned into good owners in England and terrible owners of their NFL teams.

In England, both men let the soccer people run their clubs. At Villa, Lerner has Martin O'Neil. O'Neil is a soccer man and makes all of the decissions on trasnfers and any other on the pitch related decissions. While at United, the Glazer family has Sir Alex. Sir Alex rules United, he does everythign froom pick the players to picking the food at the training center.

Both owners are hands off in England, but in American its a different story. With the Brown, their is no clear figure head. Just this week the Lerner fired the general manager and it looks like their first year coach could soon be on his way out. While in Tampa, its also a complete mess. The head coach is two years older then me, their is no qb and nothing really to look forward to.

Maybe both owners should do what they are doing in England and have football people run the show and stay away from the action. One of the reasons that this works across the pond is because owners know very little about the soccer, but over here its a different story, both think that they know what is right. Maybe they should take a hands off approach and see what happens. In Philly the hands off approach of owner Jeffrey Lurie, seems to have worked very well for the Birds over the last decade. Maybe both owners should put their egos in check and do this.

Questions that need to be answered in college basketball

The preview mags are out and people are starting to talk about the college basketball. There are a ton of stories lines and questions that need to be answered. Here are just a couple that OTWT has thought up.

• People talk about Carolina being a top five type of team. They are going to be so young, I just can't see it. I will get a first hand look at Carolina on Nov. 19 and then give a full report.
• How much trouble will Coach Cal get Kentucky in. There has already been issues with uber recruit John Wall. Look at Cal's record at UMass and Memphis, he always leaves a mess.
• Super recruiting class always don't lead to great thing. Like a Seton Hall during the early 90's. This is a warning to Kentucky fans.
• Could Kansas be this years North Carolina. I think so
• With all of the talk of Kentucky, Kansas, and Michigan State; Some people are forgetting about Villanova. Jay Wright has the program moving in the right direction. A great recruiting class and great returning guards usually lead to great things.
• How long will it take for before an assistant at FIU accuses Isiah Thomas of doing something wrong. Maybe after the North Carolina game.
• Sean Miller, Arizona and Anthony Grant, Alabama will be success in their new spots, while Mark Fox, Georgia will not get the job done because of lack of SEC ties.
• Texas freshman Avery Bradley will have the biggest impact of any freshman in America. With him at the point, Texas has a shot to be at the Final Four.
• My Final Four before the season even tips off: Kansas, Texas, Villanova, Michigan State.

World Series Game 5 Cover Story

The Phillies beat the Yankees last night in Game 5 of the World Series to send the series back to New York for Game 6 on Wednesday night. Here is how the newspapers in each city over the action from last night.

Metro (Philadelphia)

The Philadelphia Daily News
The New York Post

The New York Daily News

R Country

People traveling into the New Jersey from the Delaware Memorial Bridge now know what country they are entering, Rutgers Country. My brother, Endy in the Outfield, snapped this picture while coming back from Maryland. Its good to see Rutgers marketing its brand like this.