Monday Morning Coffee

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December 1st, 2014

I had the displeasure of seeing not one, but two horrendous college football games this weekend.  Let’s start with Saturday’s debacle at the Coliseum, where USC ripped Notre Dame to shreds, 49-14.  Do you know how bad this game was?  It was so bad that people actually think that Cody Kessler is a Heisman Trophy candidate next year! It was so bad, it was the worst game that I never saw (since I spent much of the first and fourth quarters in the parking lot tailgating).  The real question though is why The Trojans didn’t throw the ball to George Farmer more this year? This guy is easily the fastest player in the team, and probably would have helped in those losses against BC and Arizona State.  Still, 8 regular season wins may not be what most Trojan fans were hoping for, but considering that Sark beat Notre Dame for the first time in two years, any realistic SC fan can’t be all that angry.

As for my Fighting Irish of Notre Dame, what a disgrace they were on Saturday, and in the 2nd half of the season.  After the loss to ASU, which they were totally unprepared for, they looked completely disinterested in the rest of the season.  Brian Kelly, not only didn’t prepare his team and didn’t keep them focused, but crushed the confidence of his starting quarterback Everett Golson, who was afraid of just making a mistake in the last few games.  The collapse on defense is understandable with all the injuries, but the offense is inexcusable.  Getting your ass kicked by USC is a very Charlie Weiss like ending to the regular season.  I’m not ready to fire Brian Kelly, but much of this season’s collapse is on him.  On my way home last night a dog jumped in front of my car.  I guess that dog is a Notre Dame fan too.

Speaking of disgraceful performances, I also had the misfortunate of watching that UCLA-Stanford game on Friday.  Laying an egg against Stanford was so typical of this UCLA team.  Brett Hundley spent a whole week telling the media how he accomplished everything he wanted to at UCLA, and how he’s going to the NFL.  Maybe if he had shut up about that, and talked about how he wanted to beat Stanford and win the Pac 12, the Bruins might be playing a meaningful game next week.  Beating USC should not be good enough for UCLA Football.  It wasn’t that long ago that UCLA would actually win the conference and win Rose Bowls.  I guess nobody seems to care about that, and especially not Brett Hundley, because that’s exactly how he played.  This team will probably get smoked in the Holiday Bowl against a Big 12 team.  They may be young, but they’ll need a new quarterback next year, and they’ll have to actually expect more from themselves.  Apparently, everyone else expected too much from these underachievers.

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Good thing Mississippi State lost, and will likely be out of the playoff now.  That way, us Southern Californians won’t have to worry about all those red neck southerners and their Ford pickup trucks invading the Southland in a few weeks.  Instead, you’ll have to deal with half as many rednecks and a bunch of smelly, unshaven tree huggers when Oregon and Florida State come to town.

On to the disaster that is the Lakers.  Byron Scott is angry.  After Friday’s loss to the Timberwolves, Scott said that “right now, we are the worst team in the West.”  Actually Byron, you’ve been the worst team in the West since July, when this roster was put together.  The worst part of this debacle is that the team isn’t rebuilding.  They are just bad.  Rebuilding involves playing young players with upside.  The Lakers aren’t playing any young players.  Julius Randle is hurt.   Ryan Kelly can’t stay healthy for 5 minutes, and Jordan Clarkson is in the D-League.  Nobody else is young.  This has the makings of a long road back to competitiveness.  The T-Wolves may stink, but they’ve got young players they are building around.  I think  Zach Lavine scored more points on Friday than he did at UCLA all of last season.  On a positive note, 6,000 assists is a great accomplishment for Kobe, and pretty good for a guy that is a “ball hog”.  Last night was a nice win against a good team,  but it doesn’t matter if Kobe plays the facilitator or the scorer.  The Lakers are going to lose a whole lot more this season.

As for the Clippers, don’t be fooled.  They went 6-1 on their 7 game trip, but they collected all those wins against the bums of the NBA.  Four of the six wins came against teams that were below .500, and another came against a Houston team that was missing Dwight Howard.  It doesn’t mean much, but then again, the Clipps are going to fatten up on a lot of these scrub teams because 7 of their next 10 games are against teams with records below .500.  LA could make its way further up the Western Conference standings in that stretch, which will probably fool everyone, including themselves, into thinking that they are for real.

Speaking of basketball teams fooling us, as Dennis Green would say, the UCLA Bruin basketball team is exactly who we thought they were.  After a 4-0 start and sneaking into the top 25, the Bruins got schooled by Oklahoma, then blown out of the gym by North Carolina.  The best thing the Bruins can say about last week, is that nobody noticed because they were all stuffing their faces with Turkey.  When UCLA faces elite teams, they resort to lots of turnovers and missed free throws.  That’s the sign of a team that just isn’t ready to compete against the elite.

On to Week 14 of the NFL, where the Seahawks were very thankful for Colin Kaepernick and his inability to complete a pass on Thursday.  The Cowboys have already begun their late season collapse.  I’m running out of adjectives to describe how bad the Bears have been.  Aaron Rodgers connected with Rich Rodgers in the Packers win over New England.  This is where Jon Gruden would say “Wow that Rodgers to Rodgers connection right there really blew my mind!”  Just when you think Drew Brees is getting old, he shows you he can still throw for 5 TD passes.  The Rams did more damage to the Raiders than those St. Louis protestors did to that Little Caesar’s earlier in the week.  They should change the Snickers ad to “Eat this Johnny.  When you are hungry you play more like Brian Hoyer.”  Gotta love the fact that RGII was in a “sub” commercial.  The Chargers don’t know how to do anything easily, but they are still in the AFC playoff chase.  Andy Dalton was so inaccurate against the Bucs, I actually got scared that I was gonna get hit in the head with a football while sitting in my living room…..

You didn’t really think that the Kings were playing well enough to beat the Blackhawks did you?  Chicago is pacing themselves just like the Kings, but they are still a matchup nightmare for LA.  The Kings have to be at the top of their game to beat Chicago, which at the present time is something they are not.  Saturday’s loss also is further proof that LA needs another top defenseman.  Meanwhile, the Ducks aren’t exactly rolling anymore.  They lost consecutive games against the Hawks and Sharks, and Frederik Anderson is not looking like the goaltender they thought he would be.  If this keeps up, Anaheim is going to be looking to trade for another goaltender.

So let me get this straight…..they are making another Jurassic Park?  Let’s see….in the first movie, a small group of people went to the island and were eaten by Dinosaurs.  In the second movie, another group of people went to the island and were eaten by Dinosaurs, while more people were eaten when the Dinosaurs came to the mainland.  In the third movie, another group of people went to the island and were killed by Dinosaurs.  Now in the 4th movie, they actually thought it was a good idea to open the park, and tons of people thought it was a good idea to go? That makes sense.   I think the real question is what lunatic actuary is insuring the park?  The bigger issue I have with the movie is that it didn’t require any discipline to make it.  The producers stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something.

On a more serious note, I’m not gonna pretend like racial profiling doesn’t exist in this country.  I also think the number of times that Michael Brown was shot is highly questionable.  However, it’s hard for me to have any sympathy for a kid that just robbed a convenience store, then thought it was a good idea to get physical with a cop.  This kind of stuff happens way too often, and it’s killing the reputation of law enforcement in our country.  Still, these liberal morons that were in the streets protesting are either homeless, criminals, or the same idiots who were participating in an election for the first time ever during the last Presidential race.  Clearly, nothing memorializes the death of Michael Brown like burning down a Payless Shoes.

Finally, the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead went down last night on AMC.  This is a big time spoiler alert if you haven’t seen it yet, so stop reading if you intend to do so later on.  Here’s a quick summary.  The episode begins with Rick chasing down Bob in a cop car.  He breaks officer Bob’s back, then guns him down, which felt a little unnecessary.  Then it was time for the “Father Gabriel Amateur Hour”, where he led zombies from the overrun school back to the church, and got some help from Carl and Michonne.  Michonne goes “Kill Bill” on the Walkers, and when they are safe, they reunite with Abraham’s group.  With the church gone and news of Beth’s whereabouts discussed, the group decides to join the fun in Atlanta.  Speaking of Beth, she gets caught up in the middle of a nasty fight between Dawn and some jerk cop named O’Donnell.  Beth shoves O’Donnell down the elevator shaft.  Rick then meets up with two other Grady cops and proposes a swap for Beth and Carol.  They go to the hospital and the stage is set for the swap.  All goes according to plan until Dawn says she wants Noah.  Reluctantly, Noah obliges.  Beth then confronts Dawn, and stabbed her in the shoulder with scissors, while Dawn responded by shooting her in the head.  Darryl then shoots Dawn in the head.  Both sides then agree to lower their weapons so nobody else dies.  The episode ends with Darry walking out of the hospital and Maggie sobbing when she Beth’s dead body in the arms of Darryl.

This was a fantastic episode, yet a sad one with the loss of Beth.  Once again, typical Walking Dead with the way she died, at the hands of a human being over a stupid fight.  Beth became a much more interesting character over the past season, but losing her is one we will all get over quickly, as opposed to losing a Darryl, Carol, or even Glen.  This show has a tendency to kill off characters that transform from weak to strong, and just when you think they have it together, they die.  Andrea, Dale, Hershel, and Beth all fall into this category.  I think all along Rick’s group should have gone in with the original “guns blazing” plan to storm the hospital.  We saw some of the new violent Rick at the beginning of the episode when he killed officer Bob.  What a dumb a-hole Gabriel is.  The guy is a total coward, deciding to bring back a group of Walkers to the church and endangering Carl, Michonne, and the baby.  That dude is a liability, and has to go.  I feel like the writers tried to establish a very deep connection between Dawn and Beth, but I just didn’t see it.  Ultimately, the show didn’t need both Beth and Carol, so it was easy to kill her off.  In a lot of ways, Beth knew that was she was doing by stabbing Dawn was like committing suicide, which was strange over someone that she basically just met in Noah.  At least there will be no more singing.    A sad ending that even caused Beth to cry on Talking Dead last night.  When Darryl cries, we all cry.

 

Darryl cries after beth dies

 

 

 

 

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