The Rise of a Child

""And a child should lead them," that is the famous line. At Rutgers that is the case as, fresh off his first career start, true freshman Tom Savage has become an icon at the school. From people going nuts in the stadium when he entered the game against Cincy to his performance against Howard. Now fans are even going nuts on Facebook over the freshman from Philly.

Rutgers students have created The Savage Nation (The official Tom Savage Facebook Fanclub). All the description says is that "we are all witnesses.'' We are all witnesses to one of the greatest stories in Rutgers football. So far the group has approximately 80 members and will surely grown in the coming weeks.

I know that more groups are going to pop up, but the Savage Nation is the first and should be honored as such. As a season ticket holder, OTWT is endorsing Savage Nation as the only group to join.

Argentina's new hero and he does not play soccer

Around Argentina today, people are celebrating, not soccer, but tennis after Juan Martin del Potro defeated Roger Federer in an epic US Open final last night. For once the front pages of newspapers in Argentina were full of tennis stories and not stories about the miserable World Cup campaign that is ongoing.

Here is how some of the papers in Argentina covered the action from the US Open Final:

La Nacion

El Territorio

Clarin

The Great Gus

Who else could bring the pain like Gus Johnson. Johnson made the ending of the Bronco's Bengals game sound like the greatest thing in the world. Johnson is no stranger to greatness.

In honor of his call, here is some Classic NCAA Tournament Gus (remix).

The Cover Story: NFL Opening Sunday

So the NFL season is here and there were a bunch of stories after the first week. Here are how some of the papers covered the first Sunday of the season.

Green Bay Press Gazette

The Dallas Morning News

The Intelligencer (Pa)

Philadelphia Daily News

Metro (NY)

Minneapolis Star Tribune

The Detroit News

The Baltimore Sun

The Times Picayune (La)

The Indianapolis Star

The Chicago Tribune

The Miami Herald

The Examiner (Washington DC)

The Denver Post

San Francisco Chronicle

Professional Tailgating: It's a Savage Life

So the OTWT Tailgating crew return the scene of the crime, Rutgers, for their game against Howard on yesterday. But the day was about more then the game it was the first career start of true freshman Tom Savage. Here are some of the sights and sounds of the day. Savage played well and Rutgers beat Howard.

Wow there is a difference in the amount of cars in the parking lot from the week before

This little Knight is looking for a name please help him
Last week we did not have time to found the cannon in the new section of the stadium, this week it was a different story, not a big fan of the new location The new TV screen is simply amazing.
This youngster is jumping on the Mohamed Sanu bandwagon really early. I think that I might want to get on the bandwagon. He going to be the next Kenny Britt. Tom Savage warms up before his first career start and he looked great

You never want to see this

I was looking for photos of Stephen Strasburg and came across the above photo of Mark Prior, Strasburg, and Kris Benson all together. I hope this is the last association the three of them have and Strasburg's career is not hit with injuries like the other two.

Please be Patient, Its going to be a fun ride

If there is at all a silver lining the Rutgers' opening day loss to Cincinnati it was the play of true freshman QB Tom Savage. After being build as the biggest recruit in the history of the school, the true freshman from Philly showed the crowd what they have to look forward to for the next four years.

His performance made the coaching staff notice and the gave the reigns to offense for their upcoming game against Howard on Saturday. All fans in the stadium on Monday were asking for the Golden Boy to take the field and we all now have our wish.

While its hard to predict his performance because he is so young, one thing is for certain its going to be bumpy ride. There are going to be times where, as fans, we are going to go nuts about a throw Savage makes or a decision he makes, but there are going to times where fans are going to look around and go "what was he thinking.'' In order to play Savage, us as fans have to realize that he is in no way the finished product and we have to be patients. So as a season ticket holder I'm asking my fellow season tickets holder to please don't boo the Golden Boy, let me develop and lead this program into the future.

Its going to be a fun ride, so everyone please buckle up.

Look out South Africa, The Tree Lions are comings

The field for the World Cup is slowly coming together and the Three Lions booked their place in the event with a 5-1 win over the Croatia yesterday, while in South American the unthinkable could really happy the World Cup could be without mess. Argentina could be on the outside looking next summer.

Here is how some papers covered it

The Times (England)

La Nacion (Argentina)

Professional Tailgating: The Great Disappointment

A revamped stadium, a record crowd, and a terrible game. That is the best way to sum on Labor Day Mondays game between Rutgers and Cincy. The OTWT Tailgating Crew was there to enjoy the event.

Before they started arriving at the RAC, this guy tried to learn how to parallel park and he was terrible

The day did not start well for Endy in the Outfield. He was beaten by a high school sophomore at washers

While the game was not class the food was, filet mignon

Rutgers take the field for the first time in their revamped stadium

The new closed end of the stadium looked great, too bad the team did not

C. Vivan Stringer is honored for being elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame, I wonder if Imus was there too.

Despite the loss, the crew will be there again this week for Scarlet Knights game against Howard. Can not wait for the Howard band at half time.

No better person to save your job then your son

In the toughest of times people usually turn to their family for help. With North Texas head coach Todd Dodge that was no different. During his first two years as coach as the Mean Green, Dodge won a grand total of three in his first two years being the head coach.

So before the start of the season Dodge turned to family to help him save his job in Denton. Dodge named his son Riley to be the starting QB and after one game it could not be going better. Riley lead to the Mean Green to a 20-10 win over Ball State on Thursday night. During his first collegiate start Riley threw for 216 yards and also ran for another 76 yards.

Hopefully the Dodge Team will be as successful a team as it was in high school at South Lake Carroll in Dallas. The pair won the 2006 5A state title with a 43-29 win over Austin Westlake in the final. As a junior Riley passed for 4,184 yards and 54 touchdown passes as well as gaining 1,119 yards and 13 TD on the ground. Riley first committed to Texas but soon changed his mind and joined his dad. Riley high school career legendary and its summed up by this performance in the 2006 state title game when he threw up through his face mask.

When times are tough the best people to turn are your family and that is exactly what Todd Dodge did and it may end up saving his job in the end.

DARK KNIGHT

So the stadium looked great, the team in red on the field did not. So its the day after Rutgers dropped the ball against Cincy. Here is how some local New Jersey newspapers covered event.

The Star-Ledger

The Homes News Tribune

The Asbury Park Press

Will be posting photos, video, and commentary of the game and the parking lots in the coming days.

The Chelski Transfer Effect

Fifa ruling against Chelski today could have far reaching economic ramifications on the football world in the coming years.

Chelski are banned from signing any new players until 2011 after they were found guilty of illegally inducing a French youth international to sign in 2007. The ruling from Fifa's Dispute Resolution Chamber also banned the 18-year-old attacking midfielder Gaël Kakuta (pictured above), considered the cream of the club's academy talent, for four months and fined him €780,000 (£681,000).

The ruling will not only make it hard for the Chelski to rebuild their aging squad but it will have a negative impact on the economy of football. By banning Chelski from signing any new players until 2011, it will take one of the footballs real money team out of the equations. Teams like Lens, Blackburn, Wigan, and various other count on teams like Chelski, Real Madrid, and Inter to buy their up and coming players for inflated transfer fees to stay competitive. Since 2003, Chelski has spent approximately 600 million pound on players.

With football continuing to feel the effect of the world's struggling economy taking another one of the big transfer out of the equation might spell doom for some. If you look around the transfer market this year the only large spenders where Real, Manchester City, Barca, and Liverpool. While Chelski might not have spent a ton they are always willing to.

While I'm not saying that they do not deserve to be punished for their action, I have this feeling that FIFA did not do their full home work in looking at the effect that this ruling will have on teams that count on transfer fees from big clubs to stay competitive.

College Football all weekend long

It's finally here and OTWT will be tweeting all weekend on all of the games going on this from tonight's Oregon/Boise State game to the Rutgers vs. Cincy game, which the tailgating crew will be at. So follow us on twitter.

Baby Quarterbacks are taking over

Last years it was the year of the freshman wide receiver with AJ Green, Julio Jones, Michael Floyd, and DeAndrea Brown. This year its shaping up to be the year of the true freshman quarterback with programs such as USC and Michigan turning to the baby quarterbacks.

At USC, the Trojan National has pinned its hopes on the baby face of Matt Barkley. Barkley comes with one of the biggest reputation in the American and hopes to follow in the great line of USC quarterbacks.

While at the mess that is know as Michigan, Rick Rod is turning to two true freshman to run his spread offense: Tate Forcier and Denard Robinson. Last year Michigan used two quarterbacks that had little chance of running the spread offense.

Rutgers and Georgia could also be added to the list of teams that could have baby face quarterbacks under center in Tom Savage at Rutgers and Aaron Murray at Georgia.

Starting true freshman QBs can either be really good or a total mess. For every Matt Stafford there is a Kris Heavner. The chart below from Yahoo shows how some baby faced Qbs did in their first year.
While starting at true freshman can be fun to watch it also can turn into a very stressful experience.

Maybe Spurs are for real

Start the jokes now Spurs are leading the Premier League, I know some people think that its too good to be true but maybe its not and their win over Birmingham City earlier today showed that. In the past Spurs would have packed up and settled for the point, but not this versions of the whites, they kept pressing and finally got the winner after former Spur Stephen Carr fell and allowed Aaron Lennon to break in and score.

People brush off the thought of Spurs keeping this pace up, but its not out of the question. Spurs have talent and toughness to do it.

Modric struggled at times last year, but this season so far his true class has shown. On the opening day against Liverpool, Modric did a great job creating chances and he did the same thing today.

For years Spurs have lacked a hard man in the middle of the park and now they finally have one in the Wilson Palacios. Palacios allows Lennon, Modric, Keane, and Defoe to go forward and not have to worry about defense, which leads to great attacking football.

One thing that people fail to realize is that Spurs have depth and might have as much as any title contender. Spurs have four good strikers and a ton of talent in the midfield. While they might be lacking a little depth in defense, they have players that can move back to play there in a pinch, like Huddlestone. Spurs depth was on display during the opening weekend of the season, when they played Liverpool. The Spurs bench featured Crouch, Bentley, Hutton, O'Hara, and Pavlyuchenko; compared to Liverpool's bench which featured Benayoun, Voronin, Dossena, and a bunch of kids.

People are all talking about how great Manchester City are and how they are going to challenge for a Champions League spot but maybe we should pay a lot more attention to Spurs as a challenger for a Champions League spot.

Its towel time

You never know what you are going to find in the garage. While looking for a towel to clean out one of our tailgating coolers, I came across this towel from our trip to the 25th anniversary game of the McDonald's All American Game. During the game we got to see three future Tar Heels that would win a national title: Felton, May and McCants. As well as other players that would fall flat on their face.

It's starting to look up

On field the Nationals are still terrible, but there appears to be some light at the end of the tunnel. At the last minute the Nationals brain trust got a deal done for Stephen Strasburg and then they named Mike Rizzo as their full time GM, while people might be saying big deal to a Nationals fan this is a big deal.

Coming off the disaster that was Aaron Crow negotiations last year, getting Strasburg signed had to get done and it did, not just for the on the field performance but for the fan base. Strasburg gives us hope that things might turn around. But the draft is not just about Strasburg. At the end of the day it was showing fans that they cared and that is exactly what the organization did. The Nats spent $10.8 million on bonuses for their first 11 picks in the draft that is 32 percent above what the commissioner suggested for those slots, according to Baseball America.

After the disaster that was Jim Bowden, the Nats now have a full time GM that can read birth certificates, Mike Rizzo. It might not be the sexiest name out there, but its someone that we know has the best interest of the team at heart.

While their record is that not good, this summer has given us signs that things might be looking up in the nation’s capital.

Maybe better then before

Sometimes getting rid of your best player makes you better and other times it does not. But for Lyon getting rid of striker Karim Benzema might have been the best thing that they could have done. During the summer the super talented striker traded Lyon for Real Mardrid. The transfer fee was priced at €35 million with the fee rising to as much as €41 million based on incentives.

Instead of pocketing the money, the Lyon board decided to splash the cash in hopes of regaining the Ligue 1 title. They brought in forward Bafetimbi Gomis from Saint-Etienne for a fee of €13m; Defender Aly Cissokho from Porto for a fee of €15m; Brazilian defender Michel Bastos from Lille for a fee of €18m; Argentinean forward Lisandro Lopez from Porto for a fee of €24m. In all told they spend 70 millions euros on improving their squad. The talent added plus the continued development of play maker Miralem Pjanic has made Lyon a force.

So far the plan seems to be paying off. During the first four games of the season Lyon has scored 11 goals including a 5-1 win over Anderlecht in the first leg of their Champions League Playoff. During their first leg win, Bastos, Gomis, and Lopez scored and the team played with a flair that was not present in Europe over the last couple of years. The speed they showed during the game was amazing, they looked like the fasted team in Europe.

In the past, Lyon dominated the French League and then failed when it came to getting to the Champions League Final. With the moves that they have made and the continued development of Pjanic, Lyon might be closer to being in a Champions League Final then ever before.

WSD is no more

Citing the on going attacks from Liverpool fans, World Soccer Daily is no more. Steven Cohen made the announcement at the start of the show today that Friday would be the last show. Saw them in Philly last year and had a great time. Thanks for doing a great show and this is a sad day for American Soccer.

I've seen this story before

In the fall of 2006, a hot shot freshman quarterback from Dallas enrolled at Georgia with the hope of one day leading the bulldogs. The hot shot freshman was future number one pick Matt Stafford. Instead of picking Stafford to lead the dogs out of the gate Georgia head coach Mark Richt decided to have senior Joe Tereshinski III lead the team. JT's run at qb did not last long as he got hurt in the second game and Stafford took over for good.

I know what people are thing, what is the point of this. The point is that a similar situation is developing at the State University of New Jersey.

Today Rutgers head coach Greg Schiano named senior Dom Natale as his starter over a group that includes a hot shot from Philly, Tom Savage. I could see a situation developing where Natale struggles and Schiano turn to Savage just like Richt did three years ago. I hope Natale does a good job and he might, but its always worth remembering the situation at UGA a couple years and how it ended up.

I would say it turned out well, Stafford after all ended up being the first overall pick in the draft.