Wow that was quick. He predicted it would happen quickly and it did. What does this mean for that program?

Leach put Texas Tech on the map with their gunslinger offense and turned themselves into a feared team that no ranked team really wanted to play. His best win came against Texas last year as they ruined the Longhorns title hopes on a last second catch by Michael Crabtree. He has been a controversial and outspoken coach who has an ability to not hide his opinions no matter what and that had to ruffle some feathers within the university.

Leach was originally suspended after a player accused him of mistreatment following a concussion diagnosis. As the coach was walking into the hearing where he was appealing the decision the university handed him a notice of termination with cause. Leach was due 800 k if he was the coach on dec 31st and this shoots this down. He was making 2 plus million a season and will now take his offense somewhere else.

Leach has maintained his innocence in the matter but that didn’t matter to the school who either has some evidence that says otherwise or they just wanted to get rid of the guy. Leach will end up on his feet and lead another winner very soon. I’m hoping Illinois hires him but that won’t happen.

The Saints are fading fast and threatening home field throughout the NFC playoffs after losing to the lowly lowly lowly Tampa Bay Bucs. What was that and how does that happen on your home field? I know the Saints didn’t deserve to be undefeated going into the Dallas game a couple weeks ago but there is no excuse to lose to the Bucs and a rookie qb.

Where does this leave the Saints? They now have to go to Carolina to clinch home field and that isn’t a done deal. How can a team who knew they could clinch home field lose like that to one of the worst teams in the entire league? The only answer is that the Saints have lost their mojo. It sounds dumb but nobody is afraid of this team now and they are psychologically shaken at this point. The reason I’m not a fan of the Colts losing is because in my opinion teams don’t need that on their mind. The Saints have done some damage to themselves and the way other teams look at them because of this loss. Carolina isn’t making the playoffs but has been playing pretty well without Delhomme at qb and the Drew Brees has looked human these last couple weeks and practically handed the MVP to Peyton Manning who deserves the award.

I want the Saints to go far but they aren’t the best team in the NFC and right now aren’t the best team in their division. They’ll make the playoffs and probably earn a first round bye but that doesn’t mean anything at this point because the mystique and magic the team had only a month ago is gone. The Cowboys and Eagles are peaking at the right team and are the teams to beat in the NFC.

After watching Dallas beat the Saints Saturday and then having Minnesota get drubbed by Carolina I am not sure who the team to beat is in the NFC. I thought it was New Orleans until i watched them lose at home to Dallas. I didn’t see that one coming. In their other games that were deemed tough the Saints came out and dominated play but this one was different. They didn’t control the ball and it haunted them.

In Carolina last night, the Panthers just worked the Vikings with a backup quarterback. Favre is doing his typical late season slide and the Vikings look human. The loss of EJ, the middle linebacker, has really hurt this team emotionally and they just aren’t the same defense without him. How will they react?

Right now you would have to say that Philadelphia might be the best team in the NFC. They are playing very well right now and Westbrook hasn’t even been out there. DeSean Jackson is looking like the best deep threat the game has seen since Randy Moss and he’s a threat to score every time he gets the ball. If the Eagles get a shot to play New Orleans in the playoffs I would take the Eagles at this stage of the season.

Tomorrow it could change but this one is a tough one to call.

This guy is amazing and may have sealed the deal for MVP. How do you not give it to the guy who has led his team to 7 4th quarter comebacks in one season? We are talking about a player with 4200 yards and 33 touchdown passes with 2 games to go. I hope he plays because he has a legit shot at 40 td passes which would be the 2nd time he’s done that. His 33 td’s this year tie for the 2nd most he’s ever had but it is debatable if he has ever played better.

I’ll listen to arguments about Drew Brees but I’m sold on Manning. What sets him apart are those 7 4th quarter wins and that STAMP that he had coming back and beating New England. When people talk about his season they’ll remember that moment over all of them and that’s how MVP’s are made.

The Chicago Bears are a disaster this season. Jay Cutler has had chance after chance to lead his team to victory or force overtime and hasn’t been successful much at all. I know he has some terribly inexperienced receivers and his line is porous, but the point is that he’s had his chances and is failing. I expected him to struggle this season but not this much. NOW WHAT?

Lovie Smith is going to get fired and deservedly so. He has taken over the defense this year and that unit hasn’t been Bear like at all. I know that Urlacher has been out but other teams face injuries also and the best coaches simply overcome that. Lovie is done but the new coach is going to come in to a bare cupboard and getting worse. Since the Bears dealt their top pick to the Broncos for Cutler they also dealt their 2nd round pick to Tampa Bay for Gaines Adams who has been a washout in the league so far. That leaves them with a 3rd rounder as the highest pick they are going to bring in unless they are aggressive in trading to get back into the first round.

I sense a disaster coming to the windy city where they Bears could be down for years and Jay Cutler’s potential will waste away as he’s sacked constantly and throwing to inexperienced less than stellar receivers. Not good Bears fans, not good.

I HATE THIS PART OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL SEASON. How can anyone like waiting a month for another game to be played? As a player it would be practicing and gearing up for 3-4 weeks losing all momentum in the process. Sure a player can get healthy during this time but we’ve seen games like these that are hyped for a month be over by the 2nd quarter. In fact, any time we’ve seen Ohio St in recent history we’ve seen this happen. I watch the games every year and say “we’ve waited a month for this”. The season doesn’t gain momentum like college basketball does with March Madness. Those games all build and loyalty gets stronger. In football you win and now you wait a month while a bunch of other teams play for what amounts to money. I don’t know who wins the bowl games each year and in truth the only teams that care are the National Title teams. The other games are for the programs and the sport in general and I’m sick of it.

I want the BCS to do the right thing and quit. They wont because of all the money but they have the means, the methods and the brains to make a playoff happen yet they won’t do it. This week we could be watching Boise St versus TCU in a game where the winner would advance and people would watch it like it was the super bowl. If the winner advanced between Cincy and Florida everyone would watch. They could easily fill a stadium with 100k people. The sports interest would grow and the most watched sporting sequence in the United STates would take place because people love football.

Oh well, I’ll wait a month and watch the first quarter of Texas and Alabama and see what happens. My friends and I will probably get together and eat good food at least.

I don’t mind at all that the National Championship game is between Texas and Alabama. That game is fine, but what bothers me is that they pit TCU vs BOISE ST. Are you serious?

Number 1- Cincinnati shouldn’t have jumped past TCU in the rankings all the way to 3rd. I know they went undefeated but TCU killed teams all season long and Cincy squeezed a few wins out against similar competition.

Number 2- TCU and BOISE played last year and it was a very good game but do you really want to play them again under these circumstances. Both these teams beat every team on their schedule and they want a piece of the big boys. They need a shot at the big boys to push their cases as teams deserving automatic bids like the weak BIG EAST OR ACC. Instead the BCS chickens out and pits them against each other so as not to give them more strength. It’s as if they said “ok you went undefeated but I’m still in control so you guys will now play each other.”

I’ll watch TCU and BOISE but the other way I’d watch 2 games because I want to see these teams compete against Florida or Oregon or Cincy or Ohio St. TCU would beat OHio st. by 3 touchdowns and Boise already beat Oregon.

I never in a million years thought I’d see the Saints be undefeated at this point of any season ever. When I was growing up the Saints were the laughingstock of the game and have never really deserved a ton of respect, but last night that all changed. How do we not believe in them now?

The Saints destroyed the Pats yesterday. Destroyed. The Pats realized that they needed to score every time they had the ball and they couldn’t keep up. The Saints defense has some playmakers and they made Tom Brady look human. On offense it wasn’t even close. Drew Brees was perfect according to his qb rating and was flawless. He constantly found one on one situations and made great passes to able receivers. Pierre Thomas has stepped in and taken the role of number 1 back and is running away with it. Who would have ever thought that Pierre Thomas would be better than Reggie Bush? (Pierre went to Illinois by the way).

If the Saints get homefield throughout the playoffs they will win the NFC. This is barring injury but the Vikings can’t slip up because 2 losses might be too many to get them homefield in the playoffs. I believe in the Saints.