Mythbusters

We've had a few myths broken this week:

1. Jeff does not suck at softball, evidenced by his clutch hitting and solid defense including the speediest 14 second inside-the-park home run in Jacobs Camp history.
   
2. The Saints are not doomed to lose to the Lions. Moreover, the Lions probably will go 0-16 unless they beat the Packers in what would go down as one of the worst losses in that franchise's storied history. 
3. The Red Sox are not the Yankees. $400+ million on 3 players? That's insane. The top 4 highest paid players in the Majors including an incredible $275 million to Alex Rodriguez, a guy whose most memorable hit in the postseason remains his futile slap at Bronson Arroyo in the 2004 ALCS? This should put to rest that the Red Sox (or anybody else for that matter) are anything like the Yankees. 
4. Camp is a sacred place. That one's only partially true after this weekend.

A Missed Fortune

Apparently we choose our name smartly as there is now a 40AcresSports.com. A real site legitimately dedicated to Texas sports, by 2 friends who are apparently smart about the intraweb. 

Our name was originally going to be that, but a typo in the creation stage, combined with our laziness and the fact that we kinda liked the name to produce 40 Acre Sports. Not to mention the fact that we wanted to do with the concept of 80 acres and a mule that 40 Acres Sports brings up. 

Anyhow, one of our lawyer friends suggested that without our little typo we'd be on easy street, most likely with "a few rolls of quarters" in our possession. 

Damn. That could've gone to parking.

Lions Over Saints -- Bet On It

We're calling it, the 7-7 Saints are going to spoil history by losing to the 0-14 Lions. The reasoning is as follows:

• The Lions at 0-14 have nothing to lose
• The Saints at 7-7 and out of the playoff hunt have nothing to gain
• The Lions have played opponents closer in recent weeks including Indy last week and the Vikings the week before
• The Saints have been awful on the road, holding an appalling 1-6 record. 
• Traveling to Green Bay in week 17 it seems inevitable that the Lions must beat the Saints if they're going to win at all this season. 

With those facts in mind, if you've got some disposable cash sitting around (and in this economy who doesn't?) put it on Detroit. And when you speak of us, speak of us fondly. 

11:30 AM, The Day Texas Gets Screwed

Reading a fantastic biography of Robert E. Lee by Douglas Freeman, I (the one of us reading the biography) came to the section about the end of the Army of Northern Virginia. As Lee was surrounded near Appomattax (in Virginia) he knew there were two options: fight his way through the vastly superior Federal forces, or surrender. Around 1 AM on the day of surrender one of General Gordon's staff officers came to Lee asking where General Gordon should halt his movement the next night. Lee's response was to "tell General Gordon I should be glad for him to halt just beyond the Tennessee line," about 175 miles away.

Well, here we are. Tonight the Longhorns will have to surrender to the fate of being screwed by the BCS arguably worse than any team in the history of the system. One of us hates the system in favor of a playoff, one of us is a general proponent of the system but is of the belief that a "plus-one" is needed for flexibility in times like these. Beyond that, Colt will be screwed out of the Heisman that should be his because Sam Bradford gets all the publicity (he completed 77% of his passes and had 4,000 yards passing/rushing, seriously! Again! The Heisman is such crap).

Texas will likely be relegated to the Fiesta Bowl to play Ohio State, a seemingly amazing fate to begin the season will be relegated to one of two story lines: Texas will beat OSU because we're better than them, or Texas will come out flat and lose (a la Texas 2003, Cal 2004) because they're pissed of about losing their chance for glory. Until our destination is decided this afternoon, however, we are very much looking forward to booking our hotel room in Miami. And if not, we will take great pleasure in Florida whipping the crap out of OU.

The Associated Press: Bringer of Justice?

We all know how the final regular-season BCS standings came out. We all saw Barry Switzer's stupid smiling face on Fox declaring how "Bob took the high road," insinuating that somehow Mack Brown's lobbying on Texas's behalf was more whiny than Bob Stoops's exact same lobbying on OU's behalf. Not that Switzer would know the "high road" if he got run over by a truck on it (and then backed over, and then run over again...).

At any rate, there remains a glimmer of hope for the Longhorns that has nothing to do with Missouri (who, for the record, have no shot of beating Oklahoma unless it's snowing). LSU fans (like this guy) will recall the 2003 season, in which there was much hand-wringing and shouting about who should play in the Sugar Bowl for the national championship. Oklahoma had just gotten waxed in the Big 12 Championship Game by Kansas State. USC played a weak conference schedule. LSU seemed to be the only team that everyone tacitly agreed belonged in the game. In the end, of course, LSU and USC shared the national title, with AP voters placing Southern Cal at the top and LSU claiming the crystal football.

Yes, LSU fans in some corners are still bitter about sharing the title, sure that Southern Cal couldn't have scored on that mighty Tiger D. And some (but probably fewer) SC fans are still upset about being left out of the official title game. But in the end, it was the best possible solution in a broken system: both deserving schools get to claim a national championship. Undefeated Auburn would not be so lucky the following season.

So the question now is whether the 2008 Texas Longhorns, should they win their bowl game, will get the SC treatment or the Auburn treatment. Should Alabama win two more games, they obviously deserve the title of undisputed national champion. But we don't think they can beat Florida. And if they don't, two of the following roughly equally deserving teams will play for the national title: Oklahoma, Texas, Florida, Penn State, USC, Texas Tech. The teams on the second half of that list all have a major chink on their resumes that will keep them out of title contention. Texas is likely to be the most qualified team left out of the championship game. Should the Longhorns beat Ohio State or whomever they play in the Fiesta Bowl, here's hoping that the AP voters award this amazing Longhorn football team a share of the national championship. Lord knows they deserve it.