My thoughts on sports and life

The university of Notre Dame, by virtue of a 22-10 victory over rival USC, have finished their regular season at 12-0, and clinched a spot in the BCS National Championship game with a chance to win their 12th recognized Championship. The Fighting Irish haven't won it all since 1988 under Lou Holtz, and haven't been in the title picture this late in the season since 1993, also under Holtz. One of the more recognizable teams in all of sports, the Irish have spent the better part of the past two decades dwelling in realm of mediocrity and have found themselves, more often than not, playing in either lower tier Bowl games, or not playing in a Bowl game at all. Furthermore, they had been all but dismissed as irrelevant in the national title race by most of the college football world, though they have managed to retained their cache. Now, after a Saturday night in southern California, they are certainly relevant again. It's common knowledge that football is currently king in th...

I'm once again pressed for time, so I won't go into a long introduction. It was a bad week for QBs, with concussions abound. Fantasy players, adjust accordingly, after crying of course. Here we go: TOP TEN 1. Houston-I'm taking full credit for calling Houston. Please address all apologies can be emailed to vancetradamus@irule.com 2. Atlanta-I'm only docking them one spot. The Saints offense can still play with anybody. Matt Ryan is still MVP. 3. Green Bay Packers-A week off to get healthy might spell trouble for everybody not named Green Bay. 4. Baltimore Ravens-Fake kick, up by a few hundred? Yep. Stay classy Baltimore. 5. Denver-I don't even have anything else to say about Peyton Manning. Amazing doesn't do him justice. 6. Pittsburgh-Byron Leftwich is starting his windup now, that way the release will be ready by the time the game starts. 7. Chicago-If Culter doesn't play, who will I make snarky comments about during the game? Wait, Jason Cam...

Week nine of the NFL season came and went without a whole lot of drama. There weren't any major upsets, or a whole lot of heroics to win close games. It doesn't mean that there weren't storylines however, as there were some great individual performances, as well as some nice headlines. The most heart-warming, of course, was Chuck Pagano delivering an emotional post-game speech to the Indianapolis Colts after their win on Sunday. If you haven't seen the video, do yourself a favor and find it. A tip: grab a tissue. As for the other happenings around the league, here we go: TOP TEN 1. Atlanta Falcons-Didn't have to rely on Romo INTs or terrible game management by the Cowboys staff. They just lined up and beat them. I'm sold. 2. Houston Texans-The biggest surprise of the week? Houston didn't score 40 points on the Bills D. 3. Chicago Bears-If defense wins championships, go ahead and give them the trophy. Yikes. 4. San Francisco 49ers-I shudder t...