Florida gets Another Shot at Getting it Right

Carlos Dunlap of the #1 Florida Gators was arrested early Tuesday just days before the Gators are to play the Alabama Crimson Tide in the SEC Championship game. Dunlap was found asleep at his car and performed poorly in a field sobriety test and was taken in when he refused to take a Breathalyzer test. This is a fascinating story beyond just the usual will he or won’t he play on Saturday, this provides an interesting story on how Urban Meyer will handle this situation. If you remember, Meyer suspended linebacker Brandon Spikes for only the first half in a game against Vanderbilt due to the eye-gouging incident in the Georgia game. This incident gives Florida the opportunity to save face and suspend Dunlap for the SEC Title game. Failure to do this further shows that winning football games is more important to Meyer and the Gators than teaching these student-athletes lessons.

Look at the Iowa Hawkeyes, just two years ago Kirk Ferentz was suspending players left and right due to players breaking the law. Ferentz realized that teaching these students that if you break the law you have to face the consequences that everyone else faces is more important than winning games. Just because you happen to be a football player at a major university doesn’t put you above the law. Now obviously the Hawkeyes’ record paid the price with all the suspensions but with a school like Florida where they probably have high school all-Americans as backups it won’t be as big of a problem. Meyer really needs to wake up and do what is right and that may involve losing the SEC title game.

Heisman Contenders and BCS Bowl Projections

With the College Football regular season winding down it’s time to look at who is going to win the Heisman Trophy and what schools will be playing in BCS Bowls come January. Let’s start with the top Heisman candidates:

Top 5 Heisman Candidates
5. Toby Gerhart, RB, Stanford: Gerhart had the ability to soar up to the number 1 candidate had his team won against Cal. He still is putting up incredible numbers for a power rusher and deserves some Heisman love.

4. Tim Tebow, QB, Florida: Tebow doesn’t have the numbers for the Heisman; he is however still a great player on arguably the best team in the nation. He’s a great leader and definitely deserves Heisman consideration.

3. Jordan Shipley, WR, Texas: If Shipley’s quarterback wasn’t Colt McCoy; he would have even more Heisman consideration. His work as a wide receiver and on special teams is remarkable. He’ll unfortunately not get a lot of votes due to his roommate, McCoy.

2. Colt McCoy, QB, Texas: At the beginning of the season this was supposed to be a race between Tebow, McCoy, and Sam Bradford. McCoy has been solid all season, providing the only source of offense early in the season while Texas was starting off slow. He’ll likely get a few votes taken away from him due to some voters voting for his teammate.

1. Mark Ingram, RB, Alabama: This really has become Ingram’s award to lose. He’s putting up dominant numbers against tough defenses in the SEC. He’s doing this while defenses know that he’s Alabama’s main offensive threat. In a year where it took a long time for a player to claim the top spot in the Heisman race, but Ingram has and he’s as good as any previous winner.


BCS Bowl Projections

National Championship Game: Alabama - Texas

Rose Bowl: Ohio State – Oregon

Orange Bowl: Georgia Tech – Cincinnati

Sugar Bowl: Florida – Boise State

Fiesta Bowl: TCU – Iowa


The way the selection order goes is the bowls that lose their automatic qualifiers pick first and the bowl that loses the #1 team gets to pick first, so after all the automatic qualifiers are paired up with their bowls the order will go: Sugar Bowl, Fiesta, Orange, Fiesta, and finally the Sugar Bowl. The Sugar Bowl will undoubtedly pick the loser of the SEC Championship game as its replacement team. The Fiesta Bowl’s replacement pick is where it gets interesting. The Fiesta can choose to honor its Big 12 tradition and pick Oklahoma State if they beat Oklahoma next week or they can pick TCU, Boise State, Iowa, Penn State, or even the Big East Champion. I see the Fiesta taking TCU and then Iowa. With the Sugar Bowl up next I see them taking an undefeated Boise State team to play Florida. That leaves the Orange Bowl to take the Cincinnati Bearcats to matchup against the ACC Champ, Georgia Tech. And the one BCS bowl that has two Conference ties, the Rose Bowl getting Ohio State and Oregon.

Teaching Some Lessons

There are some people involved with sports that from time to time need to be sat down and explained certain things so they don’t continue to go out there and make fools of themselves, here are a few examples:

If you haven’t heard by now, Brandon Spikes has suspended himself for the entire game tomorrow against Vanderbilt. His actions against Georgia clearly warranted at least a 1 game suspension if not 3, so I congratulate Spikes for doing this to himself because his coach and his conference felt they did not have to. Unfortunately, Spikes is suspending himself for the wrong reason. He said he’s doing it as a way to avoid being a distraction for his team. While there is some truth to that, he doesn’t seem to believe that he did anything wrong and he’s just doing this to shut the media up so the Gators can focus on beating Vanderbilt this weekend. If Spikes were to say that he was suspending himself for the entire game because he knows what he did was wrong and he was deeply regretful for what he did then I’d be more supportive of this self-induced suspension.


Some of you might not have seen this yet, but last night, BYU and New Mexico were playing in a women’s soccer game and all of sudden thanks to Elizabeth Lambert, an MMA fight took place. Lambert took an elbow to the midsection during the match and then took it upon herself to inflict as much pain on the rest of the BYU women’s team as one person could do. She rightfully has been suspended indefinitely, but my main problem here is how no referee in the entire match saw any of her actions that were worthy of a red card. All she received was a yellow, and when you watch the replay of all the things she did, she clearly deserved a handful of red cards but instead the officials in the match turned their back to all those actions.


Last night the Cleveland LeBron’s took on the Chicago Bulls in Cleveland and when it came down to the last shot for the Cavs, LeBron was called upon to win the game and he drove and was stopped by Luol Deng and Joakim Noah of the Bulls. James took major exception to the fact that no foul was called as he drove to the hoop. James should really stay silent, why is it that superstars are constantly looking for calls to go their ways, they get enough calls as it is. If you’re the best player in a league, shouldn’t you embrace the challenge that teams are going to double-team you and possibly cause you to take a difficult shot where contact is involved? As a superstar, especially with the body of Lebron James who could be an NFL tight end, you should know contact is coming and not complain about it and put the basket in the hoop.