Labor Day Weekend Review...

Football is here! Or at least College Football anyway. Still have a little time to trash talk before the Nobody's  Faithful League to keep up. For the love of money... not Championships, and especially not for your fans or city, but for the For Self League. College athletics are not far behind, but the majority of those guys still play for pride, and love of the game! That may not pay the bills, but the education they obtain, just might...

So what games meant a hill of beans to you? I am starting off with College Fottball, and getting start to business.

College Football

DUKE 21 Richmond 23
Dook at Wallace Wade (home), is downed by the Richmond Spiders! 23-21 and a Dook loss! That was good enough to end with, but had to get things started on the right foot.

Auburn 42 Utah St 38
Baylor 50 TCU 48
Auburn came back on USU scoring two late TD's to take a victory, and continue their win streak into the new season, and Baylor and TCU were in an offensive dog fight! If Griffin 3 keeps playing at the rate that he did this weekend, he is most def a Heisman candidate in my book!

Wisconsin 51 UNLV 17
The Badger game was almost my top pick for the thumpin' of the day, but I believe I will have to give those honors to Cinci, for bullying up on Austin Peay. Final 72 - 10! However, I will say this again, with Toomer and a talented receiving corp, taking passes from Russell "Mr." Wilson, things could look even brighter for the Badgers this year. The Bucky faithful are once again in the hunt for their conference title and possibly a little more, but I just don't know even with above mentioned and the one-two punch of Ball, and White in the backfield, that they can win it all. If they are going to do so, then the D is going to have to get better!

UNC 42 JMU 10
Last but certainly not least, Carolina opened the season, and took care of their new Head Coach. UNC defeated James Madison by the score of 42 - 10, and gave Coach Withers his first victory as the new skipper. I am praying that this continues. Bryn Renner connected on 22 of his 23 attempts, and tied a school record for consecutive completions by connecting on his last 14... Nicely done Bryn, nicely done!

Cycling

It saddens me to say, that Jakob Fuglsang, of Leopard Trek, dropped in the standings even more. He is now a bit more than 3 minutes off the pace of the race leader (Cobo), and with one week remaining, I just don't think you can be this conservative, and win. The majority of the stages left are mountain stages, with no time trials, and no easy paces from here on out, so being down by minutes at this stage of the race is crucial...

1 Juan Cobo (GEO)
2 Chris Froome (SKY) 3 Bradley Wiggins (SKY)
4 Bauke Mollema (RAB) 5 Maxime Monfort (LEO) Trek honorable mentions: 7th Jakob Fuglsang (LEO) 22nd Janez Brajkovic (RSH)
25th Oliver Zaugg (LEO) 29th Tiago Machado (RSH) In the Team Overall: 1 Geox - TMC 2 Leopard Trek Trek honorable mentions: 11th Radio Shack Trek
Moto GP: Jorge Lorenzo led the Misano race from pole to finish, and dominated. He still has a lot of ground to make up, with only five rounds remaining, but anything is possible. If JoLo (HoLo) wins out, he still needs help from Stoner. Here's to a couple of third place finishes and a couple of Yamaha 1-2 podiums with Lorenzo, Spies, or even better 1-2-3 finishes with Edwards helping play spoiler too. Breaking News or not...This just in... Trek teams Radio Shack, and Leopard are rumored again, to be looking toward a merger. http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/more-rumours-around-leopard-trek-radioshack-merger Now a few key elements have to come into play. 1. Andy is going to have to be the overall rider that he needs to be to make this work. It's a lot easier said than done, but his overall performance is going to have to be on point. He must improve in the areas of weakness. Most notably his Time Trialing. 2. Is the Chemistry there? With a team full of heavy hitters you have to deliver! If Andy doesn't step up, and is out ridden by his brother (Frank), then will one of the other riders step up, and if so, what will that do to the morale of the team? Can you say Miami Heat? D Wade, and LeBron sounded like an unstoppable tandem, and don't get me wrong, if I am a franchise owner, and can get both of these guys on my squad, then it's a done deal! The talent is there, now how do you get them to utilize it? More Breaking News! Appears to be closer to a done deal now!!!
Leopard is done after a year and Schleck's are said to join Radio Shack!!! Leipheimer, Horner, Schleck Bros., Cancellara, Fuglsang, and others... could be very interesting if the chemistry is there!

Labor Day Weekend Sports Update!

Great finish for HTC rider Michael Albasini. He sprinted across the line first, and took Stage 13 from Eros Capecchi. It looked as though Capecchi came out of his shoe momentarily, or that his cleat released from his pedal, and at that point he knew he was finished.

American rider Taylor Phinney of Team BMC calls it a Tour, and prepares now for the World Championships. He had a solid Time Trial in the Vuelta, and will now prepare to do battle in the Worlds against favorites Martin, and Cancellara. Martin has been more of the machine this year, and has dominated in each Tour concerning Time Trials. Speaking of Cancellara, fellow countrymen Oliver Zaugg finished 6th in today's mountainous stage. Great work! The Trek teams are looking good in the overall standings!

The Team Standings show strongly in favor of the Waterloo, WI teams!

Stage 13 Team Results

1. Team Shack
2. Leopard Trek
   

Stage 13 Individual Results

1. Michael Albasini (HTC)
2. Eros Capecchi (LIQ)
3. Daniel Moreno (KAT)
4. David De La Fuente (GEO)
5. Nicolas Roche (AG2R La Mon)
6. Oliver Zaugg (LEO)

General Classifications
Slight change to the Top 10

Britain's Bradley Wiggins of Team Sky, is still the top rider logging in 51: 14:59 after finishing Stage 13 today. He is trailed by teammate Christopher Froome, also from Britain by seven (7) seconds. Jakob Fuglsang of Leopard Trek moved up a spot into fourth, but is still nineteen seconds behind race leader Wiggins. Fuglsang's teammate, Maxime Monfort holds onto the seventh spot, and Radio Shack just missed have the one two punch to stay in the Top Ten. Janez Brajkovic dropped to eleventh, and teammate Haimar Zubeldia, remains in tenth.

Labor Day Weekend = College Football/Futbol

Wisconsin downs UNLV 51 - 17. Wisconsin was expected to blow out an undersized UNLV at Camp Randall, so no big surprise in this one. Coach Bielema has some work to do on his D, however. UW has a new QB, and he looked pretty good last night. Wilson made sharp passes, and got a somewhat nice comparison last evening. One of ESPN's commentators compared him to Drew Brees. Then they saw that he can run as well... talks say Wilson could go pro! Time will tell.

My beloved Heels play tomorrow Saturday at 3:30pm on ESPN3 y'all, and the missus is trying to drag me out camping! Sorry Coach Withers, I may be campside with the family, and doing work with Kert tomorrow, but I will follow the updates on the old Droid ;)

My Drive Time...

Photo Courtesy of SteephillTV

The peleton finished with the same time as the guys out front, and Treks lead man was sprinter Daniele Bannati. The breaks are nerve racking in the closing kilometers. One rider makes a break and then with 100 meters to go, another sprinter finds a burst from deep within, and overtakes the attacker! It is ridiculous! Team Sky rider Chris Sutton, from Australia made such a surge, to out last Team Lotto and Team Shimano Skil riders to claim the stage victory. However, again because the peleton finished with the same group, Team Trek Leopard finished on top in the General Classification, taking first and second overall. Daniele Bannati with his sprint finish took the red jersey from teammate Jakob Fuglsang finishing ahead of him in the slightly uphill finish. Trek Leopard now has three riders in the Top Ten.

Now if I can just find a replay of Stage Three for tomorrow! Great job Trek Leopard. Great job from Fabian Cancellara and the team to force a grueling pace!