Sports stuff

Starting with my FCS report.  Georgia Southern remained #1 (on my and the coaches' poll) after winning a creampuff game against Tusculum 62-21, and Wofford stayed at #2 (#8 coaches) after giving big boy Clemson all they wanted in a 35-27 loss.  Appalachian St. rebounded after their kicking by VA Tech,  routing conference foe N. Carolina A&T 58-6 to move into third in both polls, while William AND Mary climbed to 4th (5th) after topping VMI 24-7.  The two Montanas each move up a pair on mine; Montana St. (4) to #5, riding a 3 TD second quarter to rout UC-Davis 38-14, while Montana (11) moved to 6th with a tough 37-23 win over Cal Poly.  Eastern Washington drops to 7th (10) with their shocking 30-17 drubbing by South Dakota, 2-0 after being a doormat all last year.  Richmond moves to 8 (9) after a lackluster 21-7 win over Wagner; Jacksonville St., who struggled in week 1, lost in week two to then #24 Chattanooga 38-17 to fall to #9 (16).  Rounding out my top ten is New Hampshire (12), who defeated a team that I had regrettably not ranked- Lehigh- 48-41 in OT.

The rest of my top twenty-five includes #11 Liberty (20), #12 Northern Iowa (2, are you kidding?), #13 Villanova (in the also getting votes section),#14 Chattanooga (17),#15 Lehigh (19),#16 James Madison (14), #17 SF Austin (13), #18 South Carolina State (21), #19 North Dakota State (6, c'mon man!) #20 S. Illinois (15), #21 Delaware(7, but they burned us all last year), #22 Stony Brook, 0-2 but losses in two big boy games, losing in OT to UTEP week one and 35-7 to Buffalo last week), #23 Western Carolina (who won a rout against cupcake Mars Hill after a 42 point loss to big boy Georgia tech), #24 Bethune-Cookman (also getting votes after a 26-18 loss to South Carolina State), and #25 Old Dominion ( ignored despite outscoring FCS rivals 81-31 in two games).  In place of the five of mine they didn't like, the coaches had Central Arkansas (18), McNeese St. (22) South Dakota (23, and they were still giving them votes at 1-4 last year) Sacramento State (24, who got blown out by Southern Utah 35-14) and UMass (25 and no longer eligible for anything since they move to FBS next year).  I can see Central Arkansas, but all McNeese has on its ledger is a 42-21 loss to bbg Kansas and week two off.

This week, 7 of my teams (GA Southern, Wofford, UNH, Northern Iowa, N. Dakota State, Southern Illinois, Western Carolina, and Bethune Cookman) get a week off. The lone BBG belongs to SF Austin (Baylor- ouch!).  Ranked matchups include #6 Montana vs #7 Eastern Washington ( a FAR bigger game for EWU after last week), and #11 Liberty vs #16 JMU.  Two teams get cupcake games (W&M vs New Haven and Montana St. vs Minot State).  That leaves us with: App St. vs Savannah State (who are 0-2 and already have 100 points against); Richmond against VMI (who W&M had no problem with), Jacksonville State vs Georgia State (who got pasted by ODU last week) and boy don't THEY need a win; Villanova gets Monmouth (everyone's favorite whupping boy, and they REALLY need to whup someone, anyone, at 0-2); Chattanooga gets Eastern Kentucky (who followed up an impressive 3-point loss to Kansas State with a disappointing 4 point win over Missouri State); Lehigh gets Princeton (who, like the rest of the Ivy League, opens this week); OOPS!  South Carolina St. also has a BBG- against IU!  Delaware gets cross state rival Delaware State (who is a deceptive 2-0- they only topped VMI by 3, and had to score 22 in the 4th quarter to edge cupcake Shaw);  Stony Brook finally picks on someone their own size, Ivy Leaguer Brown; And ODU draws Hampton (who is a solid but not spectacular 2-0).

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I also thought I might do an every week or two report on the KHL, in honor of the fallen of Lokomotiv.  The season opened this week, and Torpedo Nizhny-Novgorod is off to a 3-0 start, with a pair of 3-0 shutouts surrounding a 4-1 win over Spartak.  They lead the Western conference by 3 points over Dinamo Minsk, whose only loss was one of those same 3-0 shutouts.  Last years' conference champ are among 5 teams with one win, theirs a 3-1 victory over Neftekhimik.  The "Moscow trio" are 2-3 combined thus far, with Dinamo and Red Army both 1-1.  In the east, the season opening Lokomotiv Cup went to Salavat Yulaev, who rallied from early down 3-0 to win 5-3 over Atlant.   They followed that up with a 5-4 win over traditional rival Ak Bars to be one of two teams with 2 wins.  The other is season favorite Metallurg Magnitogorsk, who has topped first year team Lev Poprad 4-2 and Traktor Chelyabinsk 5-1.  Poprad, who started in the Czech Republic and moved to Slovakia when the Czech Hockey Federation would not clear them to play in the KHL, is the first and only team from outside the old Soviet Union (and one of 4 outside of Russia proper).  They also dropped one to second year team Yugra 3-1 to open their first campaign at 0-2.    There has already been two games that went to OT shootouts: the first night, Traktor topped  Metallurg Novokutznetsk 3-2, and this morning our time, Avangard Omsk topped Kazakhstan's Barys Astana 5-4.

Of course, the team I always feel sorry for is Amur Khabarovsk, way out on the Pacific coast.  It is farther from their to the next closest team (I think Magnitogorsk or Omsk) than it is fro that city to Poprad in fricking Slovakia!  Thus they get a lot of doubleheaders over two nights.  The first was against Sibir Novosibirsk, with the far-easters losing the first 5-2 and winning the second 5-3.  The league has thought about getting rid of them because of travel costs, but they outdraw the rest of the league at home consistently.  But I think until Loko gets back next year, my team will be Automobilsk Yekaterinburg- the city where the Bolsheviks celebrated their newfound rule by slaughtering the Romanov family.  AY opened with a 3-2 loss to Metallurg Novokutznetsk, and followed with a 3-1 win this AM over Neftekhimik, and thus are not only looking up at East leaders Salavat and Magnitogorsk, but also Omsk with 5 points and  and Novokutznetsk and Barys with 4.