PASADENA, Calif. - Here came a linebacker. Here came a nose tackle. Here came a cornerback. Here came another linebacker. It's supposed to be the ocean that smacks against you in these parts, but on Monday it was the Southern California defense that crashed like waves against Michigan quarterback Chad Henne, over and over, chasing him, knocking him down, stuffing him into the turf, until you half-expected some "Baywatch" lifeguard to come flying out of the stands to save him.As Kid Rock might say, where's Pamela Anderson when you need her?
MITCH ALBOMU-M If I believed Michigan was the second-best team in the nation in November, they still should be so in January. And the second-best team in the nation should be able to do whatever UCLA and Oregon State did.Who's your Wolverine? Mike Hart. You run, you control. You control, you limit Southern Cal's offense and tire its defense. You do that, you win. Who's your Trojan? John David Booty. The quarterback will be looking to make people forget Matt Leinart, and if he wins this game, he might. MVP: Mike Hart.Final score: U-M, 23-13.
On the tape, it looks like any other high school gymnasium. The stands are packed, a crowd of students, parents, cheerleaders. The beefy young football player addresses the assembly, a shirt and tie chosen for the momentous occasion. Into a microphone, he thanks his family and his school. He makes his big announcement."It was Oregon and Cal," says Kevin Hart, looking at the two caps on a table in front of him, "and I decided I'll be playing football at the University of California."
It is wrong and harmful and we should all be ashamed of ourselves and I guess I'm going to keep writing it until I'm the last person in this business saying it. This glorifying of high school recruits has got to stop.Last week was Signing Day for college football, which used to be a date known only to coaches. Today, it is cause for endless TV coverage, mountains of newsprint and an Internet gone wild. What's changed? Nothing and everything.The nothing part is that a high school kid picks a college.The everything is everything else.
2002: NEW ENGLAND 20, ST. LOUIS 17 - 2004: NEW ENGLAND 32, CAROLINA 29 - 2005: NEW ENGLAND 24, PHILADELPHIA 21 JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Donovan McNabb tried. He threw everything he had. Terrell Owens tried. He caught all that he could. Andy Reid tried. He steered some fine drives and called some fine defenses.
Some things in life are not meant to be shared by men and women. Hair curlers. The Three Stooges. Picking a prom dress.The Super Bowl.Oh, I know it's fashionable to make the Super Bowl a coed experience. It is also wrong. The annual over-hyped NFL championship game, which is played tonight, should be one of those times when a woman looks lovingly into her man's eyes, lets her voice drop to a sexy whisper, and says, "Go downstairs."
GLENDALE, Ariz. - No more predictions.If the Giants stunning the perfect Patriots in Super Bowl XLII didn't prove, once and for all, the folly of predicting sporting events, nothing will. All the TV panels, all the radio call-ins, all the "picks" columns in newspaper sports sections - what's the point? All we do is give fodder to the winning team to declare "nobody believed in us."
MITCH ALBOM COLTS 31, BEARS 17 The AFC was better this season. The Colts were the best of the AFC. The Bears have been wobbly in the two areas you can't be wobbly if you want to win a Super Bowl: quarterback and defense. If both of those are magnificent tonight, the Bears could pull the upset. But the Colts can control the game as long as they don't turn the ball over. Bet on Indy's win over New England to be the hump it needed to clear: The Super Bowl may actually be less pressure.
Mitch Albom writes about running an orphanage in impoverished Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his kids, their hardships, laughs and challenges, and the life lessons he’s learned there every day.
