The holiday is over, but the holidays are just beginning...

  • If you're looking to make blanket statements about Texas and Alabama, don't settle for the Horns cannot play defense (532 total yards allowed to Texas A&M) or Alabama has no offense (291 total yards against Auburn).  This is a down year.  Despite obvious flaws on both sides, Texas and Alabama are undefeated because they have strengths.  The Horns have the best QB-WR combo in the country with Colt McCoy and Jordan Shipley, while the Tide rolls out one of the stingiest rush defenses (77 yards allowed per game) led by Terrance "Mount" Cody and Rolando McClain.
  • Mack Brown is not a great football coach, but he's a great head coach.  Unlike Pete Carroll, Bobby Bowden and soon-to-be Urban Meyer, Brown does not let his ego keep him from sharing the credit with big name coordinators.  Carroll has not won a championship since his bust-up with Norm Chow.  Bowden has not won anything since he replaced his great coordinators with his sons.  And Meyer's team looks increasingly stale since he promoted his offensive line coach to replace Dan Mullen as the offensive coordinator.  Mack Brown is a great recruiter and a solid leader and that's a "win forever" strategy.
  • Bootsy is convinced Bob Stoops will be the next head coach at Notre Dame.  Stoops is an obvious choice if he says yes, but "Big Game" Bob is the anti-Bowden.  He has not won anything since his family of coordinators left him for Arizona.  Of course, Stoops would be a lauded choice with his impeccable track record, but he's the John Calipari of college football.  He will bring in the best players, but fall short of the mark for pregame and in-game strategy.
  • Thank God for rivalry week.  Finally, teams had to play other teams that could (gasp) beat them.  Seven ranked teams went down and 10 match-ups involving ranked teams were decided by two touchdowns or less.
  • The USC-UCLA bad bloodfest boils down simply.  Don't call timeouts to prolong a game when you don't want the other team to keep playing.  USC took a knee to end the game.  Rick Neuheisel called his first of three timeouts to prolong the game.  USC threw another touchdown pass to end the game.  The Trojans were going to try to finish the job (gracefully or with an exclamation point) and Neuheisel chose door #2, an embarrassing deep ball to Damian Williams and a ridiculous march out to midfield that needed security to intervene.
  • Did Norm Chow take early retirement and fail to let anyone at UCLA know?  In the Bruins final game, his big strategy was to run two marginally athletic quarterbacks on the edges against a defense that is weak up front, but fast side-to-side.  Basically, he watched the Oregon tape when he should have been watching the Stanford tape.
  • After three Thanksgiving Day turkeys, there was some real football played Sunday.  The Steelers/Ravens has turned into the most intense rivalry in the NFL.  The Pats/Colts is better football, but the AFC North foes bring the pain. 
  • The Giants are spineless, mentally and physically.  They play soft and they fully acknowledge it.  Instead of trying to regain their physical identity, they have shifted their gameplan to account for their new finesse style.  On the field, they are missing their spine defensively with safety Kenny Phillips and MLB Antonio Pierce out injured, plus their defensive tackles have been brutal all season.  Defenses are like baseball teams, if you're not strong up the middle, you're not strong.
  • We can say goodbye to the Dolphins, Texans and Jaguars who all lost games that playoff teams don't lose this week. 
  • I've believed in the Tennessee Titans playoff hopes for the last couple of weeks and I'm not jumping off the crowding bandwagon now.
  • The Eagles miss Brian Dawkins.  They are so talented, but they don't bring it every week.  Donovan McNabb is a quirky guy that finds a way to keep himself motivated, but leaves his teammates and fans confused by his behavior.  Without Dawkins, the injured Stewart Bradley and the late Jim Johnson, Philly has no voice defensively.
  • Maybe he's saving himself for a huge postseason, but Adrian Peterson is having a mediocre season.  His per carry and per game yardage averages are down and his fumbles are up.  Considering Brett Favre is thriving, Peterson should be getting less attention and more opportunities to run free.
  • I cannot wait for the Monday Night Football battle between New England and New Orleans.  Is it a changing of the guard?  Or, will the Patriots expose the Saints?  My prediction...BOTH.  Expect a shootout.  The Pats will expose the Saints improved, but not championship caliber defense, while Drew Brees will outduel Tom Brady.  Saints 34, Pats 31.
  • Derek Jeter was named SI's "Sportsman of the Year" today.  I've been collecting Sports Illustrateds since the World Series earthquake in 1989.  This will be one worth holding onto.
  • Oh no!  It sounds like there was a car accident outside.  What should I do?  A) Run outside immediately, B) Call 911, C) Grab a golf club.  Come on Tiger!  We're going to need a better story than what we got so far.  As we learned from the steroid problems in baseball, the American people can get over anything if you're honest and apologize.  He won't do that of course because he has 31 people in his entourage that are paid a lot of money to cover his image and they all are trying to justify their salaries this week.  

Tiger chose this...

Over this.  His misreading of greens has carried over into his personal life.