Monday Musings

Wow was I ever in need of a bye week myself. Having been to all of the games so far, and with a crazy October on the way, the week off was lovely just for me if no one else. Crazy weekend though, not a great one for my favorite pro teams, but more on that later I suppose

Football:

So with the bye week for the football team, I guess I will spend a little time talking about the weekend that was both from a conference perspective and a national view as well. It was almost better that Mizzou did not play, for fear they would have been caught up in the insanity this past weekend. On the conference side, a few big wins were scored by the Big XII North with CU upsetting OU in Boulder and kSU further cementing their odd ownership of Texas. While it does bring some stature to the Big XII north, it also makes Mizzou’s road that much tougher as Atch pointed out in the comments yesterday. Being talked about all week from the view point of CU beating the #3 team, kSU beating a top ranked team, kU and MU still being undefeated and MU playing Nebraska in a prime time matchup is lovely for the oft-beaten down section of the conference. An interesting weekend is coming up with what may now be an elimination style playdown with MU/NU and kSU/kU with the winners sitting far better than the losers. Will be great to watch, that is for sure.

On the national side, I am not sure I have ever seen the type of movement in the polls like we saw this week. And yes, there were plenty of upsets to help that process, but there are still some inane moves going on in both polls. At the front of the line has to be South Florida, who just keeps winning, beat WVU at home on Friday night. That win, coupled with a number of losses got the Bulls moved from 18th to 6th. South Florida immediately becomes/is cemented as the feel good story of the season, much like Rutgers from last year. Only two currently ranked teams remain on their docket (Rutgers and Cincy), will be exciting to see where they end up. LSU overtook USC in the AP coming off of a win with a terribly sloppy half against Tulane. I guess that is better than the terribly sloppy game by USC in their win over Wash. A showdown for them is coming with Cal who did well with their matchup against highly ranked Oregon. Auburn picked themselves up off of the scrap heap and did a number on Florida, and I never thought I would see the day where S. Florida and Kentucky take up residence in the top 10. As The Boy texted me on Saturday, “Strange things are afoot at the Circle K”

Soccer:

Well, as The Boy posted about over the weekend, a tremendous effort by the team Friday in front of a ridiculously large (1,500+) crowd in Columbia for a thrilling 2 OT last second win over #4 aTm. I suppose with this win, coupled with the previous loss to #3 Santa Clara, we should be ranked #4 this coming week. J However, in the real world, I suppose this won’t happen. The ladies followed up that win with a great effort down in Waco and hung on for a 4-2 win over Baylor. Not too sure why the schedule now allows for split home-road weekends, but it makes for an even more impressive feat when a team can take both games.

Kristen Andrighetto is making a run at an All American spot with her play of late. Voted to the Soccer America Team last week, she followed that up with another amazing weekend. She scored her 8th goal of the season with just about 30 seconds remaining in the 2nd and final overtime on Friday night to take down the Aggies, and came back today with her 9th of the season in 10 games, with 6 assists and 24 total points. The sophomore will certainly be winning some additional honors this week, and keep an eye on Alysha Bonnick, the frosh who scored her 8th goal of the season against Baylor. Mizzou has already scored the same amount of goals they tallied all of last season, showing the offense has definitely been turned up. After their pending jump in the polls, the Tigers will head down to Lubbock on Friday night for their lone game of the weekend against Texas Tech, who have been so-so on the somewhat young season.

Volleyball:

Was there ever a doubt that if/when Mizzou won their first conference game that it would be in 5-set fashion? Mizzou did just that on Saturday night by taking down the #25 OU Sooners in Columbia in 5 sets, winning the last 15-13. The ladies made things harder on themselves than they needed to be, as they had 2 match points in the 3rd set, but could not capitalize on them before losing the set 35-33. After falling quickly in the 4th, they came out strong in the tie-breaker and never trailed before finally closing out the Sooners.

It is a key time for the ladies, as they have the chance now to string some wins together and begin to build back some of the confidence they surely lost with the pretty murderous start to their conference season. This week, they will take on CU, who is last in the conference at home on Wednesday night (on Fox Sports Midwest, which will be lovely). After that, they will travel back home to take on Texas Tech on Saturday. The time of that game has yet to be determined, but hopefully the AD will put it pretty early in the day so some of the early tailgaters (yours truly) can go to some of it during the afternoon before the football game that night. Hell, I say make it a dollar ticket or something and just let everyone come on in. At any rate, Tech is 2nd to last in the conference, so now would be the time for the ladies to get a couple of wins together and see what they can do about salvaging some of their season.

X-Country:

Both the men and the women participated in the Roy Griak Invitational, which is something of a pre-pre-national meet, with 26 teams participating and a very strong crop of schools. Mizzou had a pretty decent showing overall, with both teams taking 10th. The season continues to show a lot of promise, as the Tigers have many underclassmen making big contributions to the team and showing the future will remain bright for what is one of the steadiest programs at Mizzou. For the men, sophomore Dan Hedgecock led the Tigers with a 28th place finish. Junior Garret Jeffries and senior Billy Bell had great outings also for the Tigers, who came in 3rd among the other Big XII teams which participated.

For the ladies, junior Angela Portykus set a personal record and guided the women, and came in just ahead of freshman Kinsey Farren. Many of the lady harriers set great times where they also came in 3rd place among other Big XII schools participating. In the following weeks, the team will get a sneak preview of the course and site for the NCAA Championship, as they travel to Bradley University in two weeks for their Invitational event. That will lead right into the Pre-National meet not long after that. The X-Country season is a short one, but the Tigers have shown well thus far and will hopefully keep their season rolling along in the weeks to come.

Random Thoughts:

· Yes, my baseball team just completed one of the bigger flops/choke-jobs of all time this past weekend by getting blown out on the last day of the season and missing the playoffs entirely. The Mets will probably also miss out on having the MVP, though David Wright is a worthy choice, but I am just not so sure he will take it.
· Tony Romo is playing just fun football to watch
· That being said, WOW the Rams are bad. I believe their streak of offensive possessions without a TD is now over 30 straight drives.
· The Coors Light commercials with the football coaches and their PC’s used to be funny, but they are just trying too hard with the Bill Parcells’ versions.
· Holy Amazing Game on Thursday night with #11 South Carolina hosting #8 Kentucky. All told, there will be SEVEN games this coming weekend where both teams will be ranked. Looks like another crazy week ahead in poll movement
· Hockey season has started, though my team (the Devils) starts with a nine-game road trip as they await the completion of their new arena.
· Green Bay 4-0…strange