The Man On The End Of The Bench

Every team has a bunch.  The player who walked into the coaches office and ask to be on the team knowing well that he would never get on the field or court but just wanted to be near the game is enough.  ECU had such a player in Justin Hardy who walked in to Ruffin McNeils office and said I want to be on the ECU football team.

Every team needs players that during practice they run the next week's teams plays they are called the scout team.  Those that were good players in high school that are not quite ready to say bye to their game.  Such a player was Justin Hardy nobody wanted a high school quarterback from West Craven but now at ECU he still wanted to play. Didn't take long before Hardy started for the Pirates.

He is a lot like people who win the lottery.  He is an inspiration to all of us that yes there is a chance that I might win or in the case of a walk on football player who might be a super star.  Justin Hardy has caught more passes than any other player who plays D 1 football.  In his 48 career games for the Pirates he has never caught less than two passes in any of his game.

He is the hope for every player who just doesn't want to give up football.  This week Hardy won the ultimate of all walk on awards.the Burlesworth Trophy  which is given to the best college player who started out as a walk on.  The player no school thought was good enough to offer a scholarship.

Tuesday night the Rocky Mount Gryphons traveled to the northeast to play Hertford County.  The Lady Gryphons  recovered from their collapse against South Central beating HC 62-48.  The Ladies had a consistent offense all four quarters as 14 point was the least they scored in any quarter.  Shelby Meeks lead the scoring attack with 17. Three others players hit double figures as Keyanna Spivey scored 14 followed by Tarmara Harper 12 and Michelle Gainey 10.  Lady Gryphons are now 3-2 on the season.

The boys out scored the HC Bears by 10 in the third quarter to open up a double digit lead and that lead to a 78-62 victory over HC.  Isaiah Alston lead we way with 19 followed by Broderick Caudle 11 and Jaequez Jones 10 points.  The boys improve their record to 3-2.  The Gryphons are home Wednesday night as they host East Wake starting at 6pm.

No Small Task

Every one in Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Durham and Greenville are all giddy because they are all going bowling  and we are not talking about trying to make strikes and knock all the pens down.  All four schools have plans that if you buy tickets through their athletic clubs you can get tickets that sits you with everyone else pulling for your favorite team.

That means you will probably sit in one of the worse seats in the football stadium  because all the good seats are held by the sponsor and most of  the time they reward top notch employees or high paying customers who buys product produced by the bowl sponsor.  I am sure if you call the stadium or buy on line somewhere you can get a better seat.  When you do that your school doesn't get credit for selling their allotment  even though you will be there pulling for them.  Let's take a look to see the matchups.

NC State versus University of Central Florida:  Pack gets shot to play the team just last week ECU wrapped up a Christmas present for in Greenville.  UCF is 9-3 and only travel from Orlando to St Pete so there should be a mostly Knights crowd. UCF only has one bad lost on their schedule losing to Connecticut.

The Pack finished the season on a upswing finishing up 7-5.  Losses to Florida St., Clemson, Louisville, Boston College and Georgia Tech.  Four of those losses were to four teams in top 21 in the RPI and the loss to BC they are 47th.  UCF will be about a 6.5 point favorite.

Carolina 6-6 takes on Rutgers 7-5 in Detroit in the Fast Lane a Bowl.  Carolina gave up points in buckets while Rutgers lost big to every good team in Big Ten while they won big against the bad teams.  Sounds like these two are a prefect fit for each other.  Should be high scoring and suspect this game will go point or point in a half either way to toss up.

Duke 9-3 - Arizona State 9-3:  Sun Devils  18th in RPI while Duke is 30th ASU strength of schedule is 43 while Duke is 243.  Duke surely avoided the heavy weights in ACC this year.  Even though both have equal records ASU will be about eight point favorite in this game.  Duke's advantage coach Cut has almost three weeks to get his troops ready.

ECU 8-4 - Florida 6-5.:  Here is Pirates chance against a named football program which the Pirates thrive.  I am sure Pirate Nation will flock to Birmingham where they will be meeting  a program who may not have a head coach by then.  Despite the better record the named program will be favored by Vegas.  Look for the Gators to be eight point favorites.  All the chaos in Gainesville the Pirates have a shot at upset even though records this would not really be upset. They are playing the Big Bad SEC which would be another notch on ECU's gun belt if they knock over a big name.

That's All We Need

Oh boy, four more bowls games than what we had last year.  Now 78 teams from D1 football  will go someplace to play an extra football game this year called something.  There are only 128 teams in D1 so we are getting ever so close to sending a team with a losing record to a bowl game.  I think we have reached the point where we need to let the selection committee should value of the worse four teams and lets have a four team playoff to determine who is the worse team.  Wouldn't that be more exciting that finding out who is the best?

Sounds a lot like high school playoffs when teams with 3 wins or less get in.  There is a good chance that the team winning the NFC South in the NFL  just might not win half their games either.  What we will do to make more money?

So we now have the four  that can still win the so called national championship.  The first semi final will be  Alabama and Ohio State and the other Oregon and Florida State with the two winners meeting  in the jumbo winner take all game.  All other games are now just the . com bowl games to give 74 other teams something to do over the holidays.  Included in those 74 other teams are four from right here in our back yard.

Carolina will be heading to Ford Field in Detroit for their Bowl Game now called the Fast Lane Bowl.   Game time  will be at 4:30  on Friday after Christmas and they will be playing Rutgers.

Duke is heading for a bowl game for the third year in a row which has never been done by Duke Football before.  They will meet 15th rank Arizona  St. in the Sun Bowl.  Game time is December the 27th at 2pm.

If you are a Big Four fan there will be a double header on the 26th.  N C State is heading South to play UCF  in the St Petersburg Bowl or the bitcoin.com Bowl.  That game is scheduled for 8pm

ECU gets up for teams that are from named programs or other in state school.  They will get a shot at the Southeastern  Conference when they meet Florida in the Birmingham Bowl.  That game is on January 3rd at noon.

It is really nice to say you have gone to a Bowl game but Carolina and State are playing the day after Christmas.  These two games are not top tier games and can either school sell their quota on top of Christmas.  Duke's game at least is on the weekend  but can Duke sell that many tickets  for El Paso.  ECU game is on New Years weekend and I think they will sell out their allotment.

Rumors have been  flying for more than a year now and it is finally it has come to past as Kevin Crudup has resigned as the football coach at Nash Central.  He leaves Nash Central having lost the last 24 games he coached which is the third longest active streak in North Carolina High school football.  Now those rumors about who wants the job are on fire  even more. 

The big question is always when a coach leaves or gets canned  is there anyone on staff qualified to take over the program?  You know the perception ever since Nash Central was opened that Nash Central had and has  good athletes and would be a good program to coach.  The perception to the outside world now is that the administration  at Nash Central views sports as a necessary evil and to find a coach that wants to coach at a school under those circumstances will be hard to find a quality coach from the outside world.

Strength Of Schedule

We now know the results from the Saturday football conference championship games  and Alabama, Oregon , Florida State, TCU, Ohio State  and Baylor won their games Saturday.  Four of them will play in the playoffs that will be announced on ESPN today at 12:30.  Please note that the timing in not in conflict of any NFL game.  I hope you are aware of this but the playoff selection committee will also be deciding on where Carolina, Duke, State and ECU play in a bowl game.

Every week now for the last five or six weeks this committee has given us their rankings and from one week to the next it seems they have altered the top four just to see the reaction the fans would get to where ever their team was placed.  It seems to me that one of the five criteria that the committee looks at is conference champion.  So these past weeks they have played with 48 cards instead of 52 because until last night nobody knew who the aces were in the deck.  So all this speculations has been fun but you know like I know this has all been for TV ratings for ESPN.  There is no reason they couldn't lock up the committee this weekend in a hotel like college basketball and spit out the teams in.  Isn't life more fun with Bracketology in basketball over these ranking without knowing conference champions.

One of the five points of value to the committee is Strength of Schedule.  As of Thursday  before any game was played this weekend  the top team in Strength of Schedule was Auburn.  They are 21st in the voting so where does strength of schedule fit in.  Second is Mississippi who is 8th in the playoff voting. 

I know there has been plenty of conversation this year about the poor non conference schedule that N C State played  but they played the 20th toughest schedule in the country.  Alabama was first in the playoff voting but SOS was 34.  FSU 75, Oregon, 73, TCU 70, Ohio St 69 and Baylor was 148.  It is obvious to me that SOS only matters if you win.

I don't like this confusing method of every team on your schedule floats every week based on each team on your schedule and what they did.  The only time where a team is ranked is the week you played them.   I sure would love for the Wolfpack to have played Clemson towards the end of the year instead of the middle because Clemson wasn't nearly as good late in the season as they were when they hosted the Pack early in conference play.

 There is talk this morning that Oklahoma losing yesterday to Oklahoma State is bad for TCU and Baylor but both also played Okla St. Why should any game effect you if you were not involved in the game?  Here are my four  Alabama 1, Oregon 2, Florida State 3 and Ohio St  4.  To make this a national championship playoff that need a team from the north or Midwest.

Just for the matter of knowing Carolina is 57th in SOS, Duke 205 and ECU 201.  RPI voting is  State 43rd, Carolina 57th, Duke 28th and ECU 59th.  If you look at those numbers it all adds up to a popularity contest.  The committee can say they are going by five basic rules but in the end they will vote for who makes for the best TV ratings and we will all watch.  Unlike basketball where the underdog is exciting the first weekend  there will be no underdog announced today.

We live in a modern world right?  There are many things that are politically correct.  I can guarantee you one thing about this power five conference deal in college football.  The good ole boys still run college football  but there is one new member to the club ESPN.

Taste Of Old Bad Medicine

Tonight the Rocky Mount Gryphons got a taste of the tall tree medicine that for the past several years they prescribed for their opponents but Doctor South Central gave to the Gryphons.  South Central starting  Six nine D1 prospect center who is only a sophomore and several other trees taller than the Gryphons dominated the second half and laid the wood to the Gryphons 65-49.  I know in the last 13 years of covering Rocky Mount they have been handle worse than this but I can't recall it right now.

Josh Carlton the big youngster scored 19 and grabbed  11boards.  He had plenty of help from Brian Brightwell 15 points and 10 boards. The Falcons out rebounded the Gryphons 41-27.  The Gryphons using speed on defense in the first half to be only down 26-24 at the half.

The Gryphons needed outside shooting to hang in this one and there was none to be had as it took to 1:10 to play in the game for the first and only Gryphon  Isaiah Alston to hit double digits with 11.  Kenaz Cooper scored nine on the night and lead the Gryphons in rebounding with six coming mostly on long rebounds from his point guard position.

The run and gun Gryphons committed only 12 turnovers while forcing South Central into 14.  This one was never in doubt in the fourth quarter as South Central wins by 16.  The next action for Rocky Mount is Tuesday in Ahoskie against Hertford County and the next home game is Wednesday against East Wake.

The Lady Gryphons pitched a shutout in the second quarter  leading the Lady Falcons 28-5 at the half.  The entire second half was all what can we do next to lose this game as South Central out scored the Lady Gryphons 40 to 14 to pull off a miracle comeback but they got plenty of help from Rocky Mount.

The Lady Gryphons had 20 turnovers in the second half and 32 for the game but the killer of this game was on the night Rocky Mount was 10-25 at the freethrow line including 0-4 the last 50 seconds.  Michelle Gainey was 7/10 at the line leaving all her teammates to be 3 of 15. If there is one stat that truly mystifies you in this one is Rocky Mount was dominant on the boards 37-20.  The entire second half the Gryphons struggled with ball handling and passing as once again  Keyanna Spivey dominated inside scoring 12 points in the first half but only four in the second half in rebound put backs.

Lady Gryphons truly have to improve ball handling and passing as they drop to 2-2 on the season.  The boys are also 2-2 and it is plain and simple they played about as well as they could
Being dominated on the boards the way it played out.  Against teams their own size they are going to be good but surely against in big team in order to compete they need to get taller which I think we all know is what they have done to everybody else for years.

Early Season Basketball Trends

Just a little more than a week into the high school basketball seasons for the four high schools in Nash County trends are developing into what we might see as this season unfolds.  Northern Nash girls who are the preseason  favorites in the Big East with about the whole team returning except the Big East Player of the year Alexus Hill is off to an undefeated  start so far including a couple of wins over 4-A schools.   The other end of the spectrum the Northern boys had yet to win .

Southern Nash boys who were small but athletic last year are off to a good start as they have yet to lose but the competition so far has not been to the Northern Nash level. In reverse from Northern the Southern  girls have yet to win.

The fall did not treat Nash Central very well in any sport but so far both the boys and girls have yet to  lose in this first week of play in basketball.

Both of the Rocky Mount teams are 2-1 and I think most would tell you that the boys are very competitive with the 4-A schools played so far and the girls considering that this has been a very tough emotional month are pleased to be 2-1.

I don't know now  that all of our schools in the area are through with football whether you noticed the Eastern Wayne-Southern Guilford score last Saturday or not.  The game was postponed because of wets grounds on Friday but they sure played a hum  dinger on Saturday.  Eastern Wayne beat Southern the team that knocked Rocky Mount out 56-55 in over time.  EW plays Havelock in the Eastern Final tonight.

A little follow up on the Dudley High forfeit of their final game for using JV players which kept them out of the state playoffs. Investigations of all Guilford  County High schools results in finding out other schools were doing the same thing as Dudley  and some schools had to forfeits some games. Dudley was found to have used JV players in every game and had to forfeit the entire season.

Just a couple of weeks ago Cardinal Gibbons who I know was feeling pressure for their domination of 3-A  state championships ask for and have been granted permission to join the 4-A with the Durham and Chapel Hill schools next season.  This is of course  not the normal course of action taken because we are in mid cycle of the four year realignment that takes place. 

Not only was Gibbons under fire but the NCHSAA was taking plenty of heat for letting Cardinal Gibbons remain in the public school playoffs and winning 90% of all of the 3-A playoffs.  This move avoids and action by the members of the NCHSAA to vote Gibbons out at least until they start winning 90% of all 4-A playoffs and then if that does ever happen be when Cardinal Gibbons might get voted out.

 I think we all hope this levels the playing field but what happens if Gibbons has  three thousand  students in the future and they win everything in the 4-A playoffs.  Least you will not have to hear me holler about how unfair it is Cardinal Gibbons is winning all the 3-A titles with student from all over the Triangle.  I'll let the Wake, Durham and Orange County teams worry about that now.

Only Picks Left To Do

Ok the high school and college picks are over and the only games left for this year are pro games.  Last week went 11-5  and there were some super match ups and once again this week seems as if every team is still alive for the playoffs.  I now stand at 121-66.

Dallas at Chicago:  What a match up to start the week off.  Both have been great and then both have had moments of who are these guys?  Cutler and Romo probably the two most abused quarterback in the NFL by the media.  Da Bears in a close one 26-24

Steelers at Cincinnati:  Isn't this the same m o as the Dallas/Chicago game? I want to take Cincy but I don't know.  Bengals 23-17

Indy at Cleveland:  Hoyers in for Cleveland but Indy can score too many for the Browns.  31-23 Colts.

Tampa at Detroit:  Seems Tampa plays everyone close and always lose, they will again.  31-20 Lions roar.

Houston at Jacksonville:  If I had a vote J J Watt would be NFL MVP.  He leads Houston to a win in Jacksonville.

Baltimore at Miami:  Here is one of those games. Both teams need this one.  Probably be hot and the fins wins 33-27

Jets at Vikings:  I think Jets have quit so Vikings win.  23-13.

Carolina at New Orleans:  After this one Panthers officially out of the playoffs.  Bree's beats Cam 35-21

Giants at Tennessee:  I think both coaches in New York get canned.  Titans 31 Eli  23.

St Louis at Washington:  This will be high scoring.  St Louis is team to look out for next year 38-35 Rams.

KC at Arizona:  KC is on verge of being out of playoffs while the Cardinals are on the verge of losing the division lead in NFC west.  Zona wins 23-20

Buffalo at Denver;  Bills are improved but they just can't score enough to win this game. 38-23 mile high.

San Fran at Oakland:  It is time to earn number one draft pick that means Oakland loses. 9'ers 31- 13

Seattle at Philadelphia:  This will be the game to tell you whether Seattle has a shot at going back to Super Bowl.  Philly 36-30

New England at San Diego:  This is the game we will know about how good the Chargers are.  This is a shoot out. Super Chargers 38 Patroits 33.

Green Bay at Atlanta:   Falcons have a shot still in NFC South.  They have a shot of getting blown out in this one but it will be a game for a while 41-30.