TCU moves way up for two reasons: 1. They beat a team I believe is as good as anyone Oregon or Auburn has beaten on the road, if not better. 2. They beat that good team 47-7, and by the way, did I mention it was on the road? Holy crap. No one has done that to Utah since Kyle Whittingham has been their coach, and it's not likely to happen again anytime soon (Boise won in Salt Lake City 36-3 in 2006, which is the only massacre that comes close to this).
No one else deserves to lose a spot in the top four, but such is life. Any of the four playing for the national championship would be just fine in terms of entertainment value.
Give credit to LSU. They keep finding ways to win, even though virtually everyone thinks their coach is a moron.
Does this mean Alabama has no shot at the national title? Or do they still have to lose again?
Take you pick at the bottom of the poll. I just filled it out because I'm required to vote for 25 teams.
When I think people deserve to be criticized, I will do so. It works this way in my writing, and it works this way when I'm on the radio. If someone's performance merits criticism, I'm willing to do it, regardless of who it is. No one can be immune.
Earlier this season, I was highly critical of Green Bay Packers management, specifically general manager Ted Thompson and head coach Mike McCarthy.
In the spirit of fairness, however, it seems we've reached a point where the two need a certain amount of credit thrown their way.
GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- If you would have told me on Oct. 7 that UMD wouldn't lose a game until a month into the season, I would have been happy.
That said, Friday night here was quite disappointing. With a number of North Dakota regulars unavailable due to injury, illness, and suspension, UMD was still outplayed in a 4-2 loss.
Of course, despite playing some so-so hockey for most of the game, UMD still had a chance to get at least a point until Justin Fontaine was called for shooting after the whistle with under 100 seconds to play. The Bulldogs pulled goalie Aaron Crandall for an extra attacker while short-handed, but UND popped in an empty-netter to seal it.
Hopefully, UMD can salvage a split with a much better effort. North Dakota gets Brad Malone back for this game, so a better effort will definitely be needed.
GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- The history will be changed. Just believe, Bulldog fans.
This is a huge series for both teams, but no one would bat an eye at a North Dakota team sitting at 4-3-1 right about now. The Sioux are good at this. They start slow and finish fast. It's like a trademark.
For UMD, even a 6-0-2 record leaves a lot of proving to do. That's just the way it is.
The Friday task will be tougher than usual, as senior defenseman and team captain Mike Montgomery is down with the sickness and will miss this game.
Yes, Halloween has come and gone, but the terror may very well carry over into another week for the UMD men's hockey team.
This weekend, the unbeaten Bulldogs take their act to Grand Forks, N.D., home of their longtime nemesis, the North Dakota Fighting Sioux. Ralph Engelstad Arena doesn't feature any funky mirrors, nor are there ghosts (that we know of, anyway) lurking around the corner, waiting to terrify the visitors.
Instead, the Bulldogs simply haven't been very good in the building. Since it opened in October of 2001, UMD is 2-11-2 in games played at Ralph Engelstad Arena. The Ralph has been especially unkind to UMD since their first visit there, which didn't happen until the tail end of the 2002-2003 season. The Bulldogs won and tied on that weekend, and are just 1-11-1 in their last 13 games in Grand Forks.
Not since the Brett Larson-captained 1994-95 team swept a series at the "Old Ralph" has UMD taken four points from the Sioux in a series played in Grand Forks.
Malone, a 212-pound forward drafted by the Avs in 2007, produced his hit on a forecheck while Martin was trying to skate the puck up ice, out of the defensive zone. Malone's shoulder appeared to strike the side of Martin's head. Malone could not be reached for comment.
"Malone obviously didn't mean to hurt him," said DU senior Jon Cook, who visited Martin in the Grand Forks hospital before he was airlifted to Minneapolis.
When told about the phone call to Malone, Cook said, "That's very classy. Jesse is that type of guy. It probably helped Jesse too, to be able to speak with him."
That Malone has been having difficulty dealing with what happened should show you something about his character. He's a very good player who has a bright future, and it's clear there was nothing malicious about this hit.
If you didn't hear about this over the weekend, or get a chance to watch it happen, University of Denver senior forward Jesse Martin was the victim of the first violent and controversial hit of the 2010-11 WCHA season.
This one -- like the one by Aaron Marvin on Chay Genoway last year -- could be season-ending. Worse yet, the words "career" and "threatening" have been thrown out on this one, too.
Martin was skating up the boards Saturday in Grand Forks when he was met by a charging North Dakota forward Brad Malone.
The seniors' bodies hit each other hard, and because Martin put his head down as he struggled to control the puck, the result was scary. Here's a look at the video, with a couple replays thrown in.
First off, some good news and bad news on Martin, who has been declared out for the year by DU.
University of Denver senior center Jesse Martin (Edmonton, Alberta) is in stable condition at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, Minn., tonight after suffering a season-ending injury in last night's 3-0 win over the University of North Dakota.
Martin suffered the injury at the 11:06 mark of the second period after an on-ice collision with North Dakota's Brad Malone, who was assessed a five-minute major penalty for charging and 10-minute game misconduct on the play.
Martin was taken off the ice on a stretcher and was immediately taken to nearby Altru Hospital in Grand Forks, N.D., for observation. After tests were conducted at the hospital, it was determined that Martin needed to be air-lifted to Hennepin County Medical Center for further testing and possible surgery.
According to University of Denver Associate Director of Sports Medicine Aaron Leu, Martin suffered three fractures to his C-2 vertebrae in his neck and is in stable condition. Martin has feeling in his all of his extremities and will undergo further testing during the next 24 hours to determine if surgery is required.
Malone wasn't initially penalized, but the obvious seriousness of the injury to Martin may have played a role in the officials deciding to assess a five-minute major on Malone for charging and a game misconduct.
Now, the WCHA has a difficult decision to make. They were very late to join the rest of the world in taking a stand on headshots last year. When they finally did, fans ripped the league for making an unfair example of St. Cloud State forward Aaron Marvin.
Reality is that if Marvin had been in Brad Malone's skates on Saturday night, the league would be looking at a suspension in the area of five to eight games. Marvin's got to be considered a repeat offender at this point, and he's going to pay a heavy price if he does anything the league doesn't like.
So what does the league think they have to do to Brad Malone?
This is an illegal hit. It might not have been in 1980, but it is now. Players are bigger. They're faster. They're stronger. There is a school of thought that shoulder pads are designed now in a way that makes players more prone to damage when they get a shoulder hit from someone.
Malone charged Martin. He hit him in the head. He caused a serious and season-ending injury. The player did not see the hit coming and had no way to protect himself. Malone was clearly not making any effort to play the puck -- look where his stick is for the whole time that he's in the shot. While he appeared to be coasting, reality is that he skated down the boards for as far as we could see with no intention of playing the puck, and instead the intent to hit Martin hard.
(I don't think the stick caused any damage, nor do I think Malone wanted to use his stick as a weapon. But the reality is that you have to look at this hit differently because Malone had zero intention of playing the puck. If he did, he had his stick in a really weird position.)
No matter what, the bottom line is that players are more vulnerable to serious injury from big hits than they used to be. The human body is only capable of taking so much.
The "keep your head up" excuse is old and tired. It does not excuse illegal hits. Could Martin have avoided the brunt of the hit if he knew it was coming? Probably. But players are still responsible for the hits they throw.
Hockey is a violent, tough, physical sport. But as player safety becomes more and more important, it's up to the players and fans to adjust. Players have to adjust their style of play, and fans have to adjust the expectations they have for hard, fast, and violent contact.
The clean hits of 20 and 30 years ago won't work in this day and age. Those who can understand that and make the necessary changes to their style of play will be the ones who last the longest in the sport.
We wish nothing but the best to Jesse Martin, too. Martin is a class act who has represented one of the classiest programs in college hockey very well over his three-plus years. Hopefully, his recovery is a success, and if he can't get back on the ice in a competitive environment as a result of this injury, here's hoping he can find a way to stay involved in this great sport.
Last week, Vikings head coach Brad Childress was assailed by his fan base for a couple of gaffes during the team's loss to Green Bay. He failed to challenge an obviously dubious call that gave the Packers a touchdown in the second quarter, and he failed to take advantage of having the ball at the end of the first half.
Sunday, the Vikings lost 28-18 at New England. Once again, the head coach appeared to come up short in a couple areas. Oddly, he appeared determined to avoid the mistakes that hurt him in the previous week.
Of course, that meant he would still be making mistakes.
Near the end of the first half, the Vikings faced a fourth down at the one. Looking at a chance to take a halftime lead, the Vikings decided to go for it, instead of taking the points with the knowledge that the Vikings would have the ball to start the second half.
No dice. Adrian Peterson got stuffed on fourth down, apparently after cutting upfield too early. The Patriots then got their defense straightened out in the second half, playing much better, and the offense picked things up.
There is no way of knowing how the game would have turned out if the Vikings had taken the points. I'm not even sure Childress deserves to be criticized for this. However, his flip from being too conservative to arguably being too aggressive may have taken him from one extreme to the other.
And still open to criticism from the local media and fans.
Also questionable was Childress' decision after a long pass from Tom Brady to Brandon Tate that set up the Patriots' first touchdown. Tate caught the ball after safety Madieu Williams -- in position to intercept the ball -- inexplicably had the ball bounce off his hands and right to Tate. Tate bobbled the ball and caught it, then fell to the turf. Childress must have been seeing things, because he challenged the obviously correct call. Maybe an assistant saw something and told him to challenge. Either way, it was a waste of a valuable challenge and a blown timeout.
Was that an overreaction to missing the challenge on Andrew Quarless' "touchdown" the previous week? Maybe. Perhaps Childress just blew the decision.
He's not the first coach to blow a challenge on an obviously correct call. There are times that it almost seems like coaches are challenging calls on purpose, perhaps because they know a challenge is a longer stoppage of play than a normal timeout, so they can get their players a chance to breathe by using the red flag instead of just calling a timeout.
So maybe Childress wanted to do that.
Or maybe he's just getting desperate, as his 2-5 Vikings continue to fade into Mike Tyson's bolivion.
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Yes, Halloween has come and gone, but the terror may very well carry over into another week for the UMD men's hockey team.
Last week, Vikings head coach Brad Childress was assailed by his fan base for a couple of gaffes during the team's loss to Green Bay. He failed to challenge an obviously dubious call that gave the Packers a touchdown in the second quarter, and he failed to take advantage of having the ball at the end of the first half.
