Tuesday, August 15, 2006

 

Uuuugh...can we please play somebody now?

I'm dying here. Awash with stories of arrests, camp injuries, and baseball races not involving the Cubbies, I have an overwhelming feeling of.... sadness? depression? What's the word? Last Friday a bit of a cold front blew in followed by a rainstorm. It smelled like football, and I nearly wept. Please leaves, start changing.

Hmmmm. What's going on around the college football world? There's a guy at Ohio State who entered treatment in May after drinking an esrimated 30-40 beers a day. Why is this so looked down upon? He would have fit in nicely at A-State; maybe a transfer isn't completely out of the question.

The story out of Camp Tontozona is that the Arizona State defense is outplaying the vaunted ASU offense. Should this entice exuberant excitement or sheer terror? Much has been made of the improved talent at running back for the Devils, but the same has been said about the defensive line. True frosh RB Dimitri Nance, one of only 2 high schoolers to ever rush for over 3,000 yards playing 5A ball in Texas (the other being Cedric Benson), ripped off a 37 yard TD run in last week's scrimmage. Problem is, his other 6 carries totaled a not-so-monstrous 8 yards. The Koetter quarterback tandem, also known as Kellerpenter, threw for a whopping 26 comletions totaling 216 yards on 40 attempts, including one TD (Rudy) and one INT (Sam). Both guys played the "lack of rhythm" card in the post scrimmage press conference, and I suppose that's ok. No its not. Both Sun Devil quarterbacks were all world last year and shouldn't be thwarted by ANY ASU DEFENSE this side of Terrell Suggs. The solace I can take is that Koetter made a similar comment at a similar point in fall camp 2005. In case you're not up to date on stats, 2005 final national rankings for ASU: total offense-2, total defense- 115.

It was also stated by many that the safety position is in great shape with conference-leading tackler Zach Catanese (can't believe his name starts with cat), but that's no surprise. The real standout on D has been the other safety, oft-injured Josh Barrett. Koetter has dubbed him the camp MVP thus far for his effort, athleticism, and leadership. I was originally thinking that former Dedger Mike Nixon would make a fine safety (one of his high school positions) rather than going out for linebacker, but the Sun Devils actually sound set at defensive position! kinda makes me feel like riverdancing...

In other sad bastard postings, my top two high anticipation players are out with mild injuries right now, sophomore reciever Mike Jones (g'head and say it...you know you want to...MIKE JONES!!) and transfer defensive end Loren Howard. I think it speaks volumes about Howard in that he hasn't had any live football action in two years but is on the Lombardi Award watch list as the top lineman in the country (offense or defense), although he'll have stiff competition with fellow Devils Andrew Carnahan and Zach Miller in the mix. Both Jones and Howard are day to day and don't expect to miss the opener against the 'Jacks.

I figured out the word from the first paragraph. Angst.

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