 1. The Illini are bowl-eligible and bowl-bound: For the first
time since 2001, the Illinois football team will be spending
Thanksgiving and Christmas practicing and preparing for a bowl game.
With wins over Ball State and Minnesota, Illinois now 7-3 on the
year, with two regular-season games left to play. Best guess at this
point and time would be either the Champs Sport Bowl in Orlando on
Dec. 28 or the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio on Dec. 29 -- although New
Year's Day bowls in Tampa and Orlando are still very possible. This
much I know -- it is much more fun to cover 7-3 teams as compared
with 2-8 teams!2. The New England Patriots are the best team
in football: The battle in Indianapolis didn't disappoint, and
in the end the Patriots came out on top with a 24-20 win. Indy
looked in control after Peyton Manning's one-yard TD run gave Indy a
20-10 lead early in the fourth quarter, but Tom Brady said not so
fast, and New England rallied for the victory. Coach Bill Belichick
is awfully easy to root against, but boy is he a good football
coach. I wouldn't be surprised a bit to see New England run the
table all the way to 19-0 and a Super Bowl title.
3. The Chicago Bulls should go get Kobe Bryant -- today: Last
Wednesday, it appeared Kobe Bryant was leaving the Lakers and
heading for Chi-town (I'd love to see Brian Cook come with him!).
Then, GM John Paxson announced all potential trades involving Bryant
and the Bulls were finished -- not going to happen. Then the Bulls
opened the season with three straight losses -- and they looked
awful in two of the three games. Paxson reportedly doesn't want to
part with Luol Deng -- and neither do I -- but bottom line, my
advice is simple: Do whatever it takes to get Kobe to Chicago -- and
do it sooner as opposed to later.
4. Rashard Mendenhall might have just three games left in his
Illinois career: The junior from Skokie is on the verge of
history and is the best running back at Illinois since the mid-'90s,
when Robert Holcombe set career records while playing for really bad
football teams. Mendenhall is about to shatter the single-season
rushing record and may have just played his way out of his senior
year at Illinois. Many more games like Saturday at Minnesota (201
yards rushing with two touchdowns) and Mendenhall might hear his
name called on the first day of the NFL Draft next April.
5. The Illinois hoops season tips off on Sunday: Sunday at
1 p.m. (don't forget to observe Veterans Day), Illinois meets
Northwestern at the Assembly Hall, and it will be Illinois' only
home game during the month of November. Best guess on a starting
lineup? I'll go with Brian Randle, Rodney Alexander, Shaun Pruit,
Trent Meacham and Chet Frazier.
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6. Jimmy Johnson is the king of NASCAR -- at least for a week:
After his third straight victory on Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway,
Johnson stormed past Jeff Gordon to take a small lead in the Nextel
Cup chase. With two races left, it is anybody's guess who will
emerge on top, but Johnson is making quite a push late in the NASCAR
season.
7. Illinois football plays the No. 1 team in the land on Saturday:
2:30 p.m. on Saturday will see Illinois invade the Horseshoe at the
Ohio State University to take on the No. 1 team in the land. The
Buckeyes are really good, but wouldn't it be sweet to see the boys
from Champaign pull the upset of the year on national TV (ABC)?
Juice will need to make good throws, the team cannot turn over the
football, and the defense will need to make a statement early.
Here's hoping for the victory of the year.
8. Joe Torre goes the left coast and takes over the Dodgers:
The Yankees treated Torre like Michael Vick treats dogs -- OK, not
that bad, but you get the point. The L.A. Dodgers seized the day and
signed Torre as their manager, who is bringing former Yankee coaches
Don Mattingly and Larry Bowa with him to Hollywood. This looks like
the offseason move of the year and is bad news for everyone in the
NL West. My guess is Torre makes an immediate impact and the Dodgers
are in the playoffs in 2008. Wouldn't it be something if L.A. made
the playoffs but the Yankees stayed home?
9. The LCC volleyball team wins regional and heads to the
national tourney: The Angels are pretty much a college
volleyball machine, and new coach Jason Farr has picked up where
former coach Kevin Crawford left off. LCC is once again playing in
the national tourney with a chance for more hardware. Lincoln had
hosted the last four national gatherings, but this year the event
shifts to Omaha, Neb., and the campus of Grace University. Good
luck, Angels. Bring home a trophy!
10. The Boston Red Sox bring home the bacon! The Sox are
champions of the world for the second time in four years after
sweeping the Colorado Rockies last week. The Rockies were the
hottest team in quite some time heading into the fall classic, but
an eight-day layoff seemed to really cause Colorado problems. In the
end, the Red Sox were just plain better and looked every bit the
part of best team in the game. And as if winning the title wasn't
tough enough on Yankee fans, their superstar, Alex Rodriguez,
announced he was opting out of New York -- during the fourth and
final game of the fall classic. Beautiful -- just beautiful!
Have a great week, everyone, and let's see if Illinois can't win
one for the ages in the land of the Buckeyes on Saturday!
[By GREG TAYLOR] |
