Wesley Carroll threw for two touchdowns and Mississippi State forced a season-high six turnovers in the second half, upsetting No. 14 Kentucky 31-14 on Saturday. Andre Woodson threw 3 interceptions and was sacked 3 times.Kentucky has lost 2 straight since knocking off then-No. one LSU in 3 overtimes. The Homecoming loss to the Bulldogs likely knocks them out of the SEC title race. A year after the Wildcats turned their season around with a victory in Starkville, the Bulldogs returned the favor in Lexington to put themselves one win away from bowl eligibility.

Coach Sylvester Croom led Mississippi State to its third road win this year, including another signature victory last month at Auburn. The Bulldogs hadn’t won three road games since their Independence Bowl season of 2000, the last time they appeared in postseason play.

Carroll, a freshman, threw for 152 yards and doubled his career TD total. Christian Ducre rushed for a career-high 119 yards, and his 34-yard TD run in the fourth quarter was the Bulldogs’ longest running play of the year. Ducre was picked as the Mississippi State player of the game.

Alfonso Smith fumbled the opening kickoff of the half, setting up a 31-yard field goal by Mississippi State’s Adam Carlson.Then, punter Tim Masthay dropped the ball while trying to compensate for a high snap by running toward the first-down marker. The fumble set up Anthony Dixon’s 1-yard TD that put the Bulldogs up 24-7.

One of the few high points for the Wildcats was Woodson and receiver Steve Johnson answered with a dazzling scoring play. Faced with fourth-and-8, Woodson threw an arching 37-yard pass to the end zone, and Johnson leapt over a defender to bring it in. It was Johnson’s second TD reception of the game and team-leading eighth of the year.

Woodson completed 24 of 42 passes for 230 yards, but threw several ugly passes. Among them was a wobbler that was tipped before Keith Fitzhugh grabbed it for the first interception. Woodson wasn’t nearly as sharp as a week ago verses Florida or before that verses LSU. He may have really hurt himself in the Heisman hunt.

The Bulldogs compiled six first downs during an 80-yard drive on their opening possession to take a 7-0 lead. Dixon accounted for nearly half of those yards on the ground before Carroll found Jason Husband for an 11-yard TD.

Woodson tied with an 18-yard touchdown pass to Johnson but Carroll led Mississippi State back down the field on its next possession. Dixon failed to score on three carries from inside the 2 but Carroll then used play action to find Dixon wide open in the corner of the end zone, putting the Bulldogs ahead 14-7. The Bulldogs converted their first six third-down attempts. When Kentucky finally got a stop midway through the second quarter, Blake McAdams boomed a 55-yard punt over the head of DeMoreo Ford to pin the Wildcats inside the 10.

He15man T-shirt

October 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Tim Tebow for HeismanThe Tim Tebow crase is spreading around the country. This young man is football playing machine. The He15man t-shirt can be found at www.sportsfantreasures.com The shirt will be shipped out the very day it is ordered.

College football has been shaken up since the first games began. I do not know about anybody else but I am glad that underdogs have won a lot of the games and especially against the elite and apparent “unbeatable” teams in college football. That is why they play the games. Games are not played on paper, they are played on a real field and with real players. The “experts” should be baffled by each and every week a top ten team gets knocked off. I do not know if the University of Michigan Wolverines’ balloons were popped after Appalachian State Mountaineers blocked a game winning field goal in the final seconds of the first game of the year. Their fans were stunned and after more uncompromising losses, a fair amount of their fans stopped buying Michigan merchandise. Some stopped coming to the games altogether. Apparently they are not real fans because they were deserting their team when they need them the most. After Appalachian won in dramatic fashion, people all throughout the country started buying Michigan Who? Shirts, Appalachian choke Michigan shirts, and a variety of other Appalachian State merchandise like chairs. The way this college football season has started is currently going, upsets are anything but inevitable.

Athletic teams at The University of Alabama are known as the Crimson Tide. The school fields teams in 11 varsity sports in the NCAA’s Division I and is a member of the competitive Southeastern Conference (Western Division). The school’s athletic teams compete at the highest level, often contending for conference and NCAA titles. Athletic facilities on campus include the 92,138-seat Bryant-Denny Stadium, named after legendary football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant and former UA President George Denny, and the 15,043-seat Coleman Coliseum.

Alabama maintains athletic rivalries with Auburn University and University of Tennessee. The rivalry with Auburn is especially heated, as it encompasses all sports. The annual Alabama-Auburn football game is nicknamed the Iron Bowl and is considered by many as the most intense game in all of college football; and second in rivalries only to the New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox rivalry in baseball (as stated in both ESPN The Magazine, and Sports Illustrated).

The Alabama-Tennessee game throughout the decades has many times seen the two best teams in the SEC pitted against one another. The game has traditionally been played on the third Saturday of each October, and thus the rivalry title, the “Third Saturday in October.” While the rivalry with Tennessee is centered around football for the most part, there is no shortage of acrimony here, especially given the recent history between UT Coach Phil Fulmer and his relationship to the Tide’s most recent NCAA probation.

The football team recently played in its 54th bowl game, more than any other college team (30 wins, 21 losses, and 3 ties), has 17 hall-of-famers, and 91 All-Americans honored 101 times. The first All-American from Alabama was W.T. “Bully” VandeGraaff who made the team in 1915. He later served as an Alabama assistant coach and head coach at Colorado College. In 2006, Alabama defeated Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl for their 30th bowl win, an NCAA record.

Alabama quarterbacks won the first three Super Bowls. Notable former Alabama players include Bart Starr, who was a two-time MVP with the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl I and Super Bowl II; Joe Namath, who was the MVP of Super Bowl III with the New York Jets; Ken Stabler, who was the winning quarterback for the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XI; Bobby Skelton; Pat Trammell; Steve Sloan; Johnny Musso and David Bailey, to name a few. The 1980s brought Walter Lewis, Van Tiffin, Bobby Humphrey, Derrick Thomas, Mike Swafford and Cornelius Bennett. The NFL’s 2005 Most Valuable Player, Shaun Alexander, played for the Crimson Tide from 1996-99.

There are currently six former Crimson Tide players enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Only Notre Dame, Southern California and Michigan have sent more of their players to Canton.

Alabama fans support their Crimson Tide by loading up on Alabama Crimson Tide Merchandise from all the local stores. The fans break out the crimson gear as they head to the Bryant Denny Stadium.

Coach Paul W. “Bear” Bryant is the name most associated with the Crimson Tide football program. His famous houndstooth hat, and images of him leaning against a goalpost while his players warmed up for a game, are instantly recognizable by football fans everywhere.

It was on December 3, 1957, that Bryant informed his followers at Texas A&M University, where he was then coaching, that he would be accepting the position of head football coach at his alma mater, the University of Alabama. “Gentlemen, I’ve heard Mama calling, and now I’m going home” he was reported to have said. From 1978 to 1980, Bryant led the tide to 28 straight victories. He had other winning streaks of 19, 17, 12 and 11 victories.

Bryant once said, “Winning isn’t everything, but it sure beats coming in second.” Under his leadership, rarely did the Tide come in second. Bryant understood that there was more to a player than a strong arm or fast legs. The building of character was essential to the building of a winning team. “Intentions over the years were to help the players to be better persons every day, to help themselves, to teach a lesson on and off the field,” he said.

They were lessons not soon forgotten. Kenny “Snake” Stabler, who quarterbacked Bama to a perfect 11-0 season in 1966, recalled when Coach Bryant suspended him during his junior year. “He made me realize what I was throwing away, and he gave me the opportunity to recapture it,” Stabler said.

On December 29, 1982, sports history was made and an era ended with Bryant’s final game, the Liberty Bowl. It was the same bowl he had taken the Tide to in his first year as head coach, and his final team defeated Illinois 21-15. With 323 career wins, Bryant was the winningest coach in college football history to that point. At Alabama, he tallied to 232 wins, six national championships, and 24 straight bowl appearances.

“I’d probably croak in a week if I ever quit coaching,” Bryant once said. He was close — Bryant died 27 days after he coached his last game.

Following the death of Bear Bryant, Alabama has had its high points and its low points. Since the retirement of Bryant, the team has had eight different head coaches: Ray Perkins, Bill Curry, Gene Stallings, Mike Dubose, Dennis Franchione, Mike Price, Mike Shula, and most recently (hired as of January 3, 2007) Nick Saban. The Tide won its last national championship in 1992 against the University of Miami Hurricanes during the Stallings tenure.

Following Gene Stallings’s retirement in 1996, defensive coordinator Mike Dubose was named head coach. He proved to be an excellent recruiter of defensive linemen, though as a head coach he wasn’t as effective. He benefited tremendously from the leadership of Shaun Alexander and Chris Samuels, winning the SEC championship in 1999. Expectations quickly rose for the Tide, which started the season as high as No. 3 in some polls. The Tide quickly lowered, ending up 3-8 in a season best exemplified by a last-second loss to Central Florida. Dubose was fired and replaced by an up-and-coming coach from TCU, Dennis Franchione.

The media-savvy Franchione gained popularity quickly with his coaching style and media-friendly press conferences. He led Alabama to two winning seasons in 2001 and 2002, going 7-5 and 10-3, respectively. After NCAA sanctions hit in 2001, Franchione was rumored to be interested in other jobs, including the Kansas opening. One year later, under much media scrutiny, Franchione left for Texas A&M. After the well-documented Mike Price fiasco , Miami Dolphins quarterbacks coach Mike Shula was hired after a rushed search. It was his first head coaching job at any level. Shula went through many first-year pains, ending up 4-9 after suffering heartbreaking narrow defeats to Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee. Slight improvement during his second season sent the Alabama Crimson Tide to a 6-6 record and the Music City Bowl, its first bowl in three years. The season started off with great promise as the Tide rolled to a 3-0 start, but ultimately season ending injuries to the entire starting backfield doomed the Tide’s chances of any great successes. The 2005 recruiting class was Alabama’s first “full” recruiting class since 2001 due to the harsh penalties imposed on the program for NCAA violations under Coach Dubose.

The NCAA penalties were caused by illegal recruiting tactics by an Alabama booster, Logan Young (an alumnus of Vanderbilt University), who was sentenced to three years in prison for paying high school coach Lynn Lang $150,000 to get his Prep All-American defensive lineman Albert Means to go to Alabama. After the investigation was over, in addition to the loss of scholarships, Alabama was banned from bowl games for two years and was put on five years probation. Young later died in his Memphis home. Investigators initially concluded Young was murdered due to the bloody scene, but they ultimately concluded that Young’s death resulted from a fall he sustained while walking up the stairs in his home, and foul play was ruled out.

In 2005, Alabama rolled to a 10-2 record including a 13-10 win over pass-happy Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl, however, they failed to beat Auburn University for the fourth straight time. The Tide had trouble scoring at times because of a season-ending injury to Tyrone Prothro, Brodie Croyle’s best target and because of poor play on the offensive line. They opened the season with a dominating 9-0 record, including beating the rival Tennessee Volunteers, and the Florida Gators by a score of 31-3. A third-ranked LSU team ended their streak with a home defeat in overtime, and the Tide lost to Auburn in the Iron Bowl the next week after the defense surrendered 21 first quarter points.

2006 was a “rebuilding year” that saw the likes of Croyle and DeMeco Ryans replaced with such players as the young John Parker Wilson. It ended in a disappointing 6-7 record overall and 2-6 in the SEC, including losses of eight points or less to conference opponents Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi State, and Auburn. On November 27, 2006, Shula was fired and defensive coordinator Joe Kines was announced as Alabama’s interim head coach. Mike Shula finished his career at Alabama as the only Alabama coach ever to lose to Auburn four times in a row.

On January 3, 2007, the university hired Miami Dolphins (and former LSU) head coach Nick Saban to replace Shula. According to published reports, Saban signed an eight-year, $32 million contract with the Tide. Saban, who quickly took it upon himself to keep Alabama from losing in the fourth qaurter as they often did before, has had much success in his short time with Alabama. Bama Fans took to him very quickly, and he put the Crimson Tide in the top 25 for the first time since 2005.

The Air Force Falcons are a mid-major college football program that competes in NCAA Division I-A and the Mountain West Conference.

All Falcon home games are played in Falcon Stadium, which sits in at the base of the Rampart Range of the Rocky Mountains at 6,621 feet above sea level. Pre-game activities include flyovers by Air Force aircraft, including the F-15 and B-2. Under head coach Fisher DeBerry, the Falcons are 86-37 at home over the last 21 years. The highest attendance at a home game was 56,409 spectators in 2002, when the Falcons battled the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame University.

Air Force football has been based more on speed and willpower. Under triple option coaches Hatfield and DeBerry, Air Force routinely would compete against bigger and stronger national opponent, regularly holding their own. While the wishbone is almost always assumed synonymous with the triple option, Air Force only deployed the formation occasionally under DeBerry and Hatfield. One mainstay from both of these coaches was the option, and the consistent repitition to near perfection, as witnessed by the wins and the guady rushing statistics in the past 25 years (regularly in the top ten in the nation

1985 was the most successful season in Air Force football history. Under 2nd year coach Fisher DeBerry, the Fightin’ Falcons came within one win of playing for the National Championship. They recorded 10 straight wins, climbed the polls to #2 in the nation, but lost to BYU by 7 points in the penultimate game of the season. Air Force rebounded with a bowl game win over Texas in the Bluebonnet Bowl and finished with a 12-1 record as the #5 ranked team in the nation.

Chance Harridge: In 2002, Harridge set the NCAA Division I record for most single-season rushing touchdowns by a quarterback, with 22.
Beau Morgan: He became the first player in NCAA history to rush and pass for over 1,000 yards in a season twice. He broke the NCAA single season rushing record for a quarterback, along with being only the second player in NCAA history to run and pass for 3,000 yards in a career.

Air Force fans are buying up Air Force Falcon Merchandise from all over town. The fans love supporting their local teams.

LSU is still my pick for this years National Champion. LSU is presently ranked number 4 in the BCS. They will play Auburn tonight. After defeating them and then Alabama then getting past Florida again in the SEC championship game. Ohio State if they are still ranked number one will be a like a week off for the embattled LSU team. Any team that can come out of the SEC with just one lost really ought to be awarded the National Championship right off the bat.

Some amazing games have taken place today. Vanderbilt defeated South Carolina which again shows the power of the SEC. No one can take a week off when playing in the most powerful conference in the country. This is the first time Steve Spurrier has ever lost to Vanderbilt. Arkansas beat up on Ole Miss. West Virginia defeats Mississippi State (why would MSU AD schedule a non conference game with West Virginia) Florida is leading Kentucky at half time, Alabama rolled over Tennessee even after suspending 5 players prior to the game for breaking some University rules.

West Point fans

October 20, 2007 | Leave a Comment

West Point High School (WPHS) located in West Point, MS has been known for their powerhouse football team. For those of you who know nothing about WPHS football, it is primarily a smash-mouth running game with no trick plays. Rarely do we pass the ball. If by chance we throw the ball downfield it is not picked off. Many WPHS fans wonder why we don’t throw it more often. The truth is that we don’t have a real offensive coordinator, just an offensive line coach. One of our major downfalls is the fact that we got way too many penalties that are unacceptable, and many are stupid to be completely honest with you. The fans of WPHS football is very supportive of their good football team. We got a nice, spacious stadium for home games. The fans have a lot of Green Wave gear on. Some bring a Mississippi State lawn chair to some of the games (especially those in which there is a rivalry). After WPHS Green Wave 2005 championship win over Wayne County, fans started buying more merchandise including pompoms and artificial noisemakers. Also t-shirts and sweatshirts sold at a record setting pace. People also bought signs that beared the final score (West Point 17, Wayne County 15).

The Kentucky Wildcats have shocked the football world by beating the number one ranked LSU Tigers. A come from behind win in triple overtime. The Wildcats were losing by at least 2 touchdowns when quarterback Andre Woodson took the game over and brought his team charging back. This was a full teams win. The defense, the offensive line, the secondary all did a tremendous job. Again we see how very talented the SEC is. Even as good as LSU is and they are loaded with players that will make lots of money one day in the NFL. Nothing is guaranteed when you have to play in the SEC week end and week out. Ole Miss gave Alabama all they wanted and only lost the game on the last play of the game with a controversial call where an Alabama defensive back stepped out of bounds then came back in and intercepted the ball then was stripped by an Ole Miss player. The play was reviewed and went against Ole Miss. The Ole Miss fans made their school look really bad by throwing trash on the field. Arkansas and Auburn had a defensive battle struggle in Fayetteville. Mississippi State gave Tennessee all they wanted in Starkville. Croome has the Bulldogs on the way back. All he needs is a quarterback and the Bulldogs will be a team to be reckoned with.

Ken Dorsey for the Heisman Trophy. Is it any dought that the best player in the country. Ken Dorsey will be one of the top players taken in the NFL draft. Just because this young man plays on the defensive line is not a good reason to not vote for him for the Heisman Trophy. The best is the best no matter what position he plays. The Heisman trophy is for the best player in the country not the best skilled player in the country. So if you have a vote do what is right and vote for the best player in the country. LSU Tigers have a football player on their defensive front. Take a look and see what you see.

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