On The Road, Again

So here's my schedule for the rest of this week:

On Wednesday afternoon, I pick up a rental car in Orlando. This will be explained later.

Thursday morning, I drive to St. Petersburg and assist Todd Kalas, Dewayne Staats, and Joe Magrane with live pregame and postgame coverage of the Tampa Bay Rays' first ever playoff game, against the Chicago White Sox.

I use the phrase "assist" lightly, as these guys have seen every game the Rays have played this year -- hell, they've seen every game the Rays have ever played. My presence is certainly not required, but I'm happy to be there. The Rays, a squad that finished DFL in its division in nine of its ten living seasons, are unquestionably the best story in sports this year. Honestly, don't try to sell me on anything else, because you're wrong.

However, they present a problem.

Because, you see, I am making my 'Prime Time Noles' play-by-play debut this Saturday as Florida State plays, ahem, Miami. These two programs may be down, but it's still one of the best rivalries in the game...and the timing sucks.

Let me explain.

Paul Kennedy has been calling the play-by-play for Sun Sports' exclusively produced replays of Florida State football for 20 years. However, he's also our host for Tampa Bay Lightning hockey, and the 'Ning happen to be playing on Saturday. In Prague. Good seats still available.

No, he's not going there, but he IS coming to our studio to host pregame and intermission reports for the game, and generally be a failsafe in case the satellite feed from the Czech Republic is interrupted, which is unlikely, but certainly wouldn't be shocking.

So anyway, he's out for the FSU-Miami game.

Normally, Tom Block would step in for Paul, but he and his wife just had a baby (and Mazel Tov to them). Tom, being a smart guy, foresaw the fact that his wife would be due right about now, so he asked for the weekend off. Which left me.

Since I was going to be in Miami anyway for a previously scheduled pregame show, I simply move into the play-by-play booth. Perfect. Except...the Rays.

Game 1 is Thursday, Game 2 is Friday. So the schedule now reads: drive said rental car to St. Pete on Thursday morning. Assist the professionals with their pregame show (on FSN Florida, ask your cable or satellite provider) from 1:30pm until first pitch. Stay and watch the Rays play their first playoff game ever.

/wrapping hair over ears, whispering "excellent"

Assist the professionals with the postgame show (again, on FSN Florida, and I *really* think you need to call your cable or satellite provider). Drive to hotel and check in.

Friday, same drill. Wake up, work out.

No, seriously. I really do that on the road. Minimum 30 minutes a day on the treadmill, or I'll pop a power yoga DVD into my laptop. Swear. If I didn't do that, I would go nuts.

Anyway, 5pm pregame show on FSN Florida, 6pm first pitch, stay and watch the game, do some interviews on postgame show (on FSN Florida!). Go to hotel. Sleep.

Saturday morning, wake up and drive rental car (aha!) to Tampa airport. Take 55-minute flight to Fort Lauderdale. Pick up another rental car. Drive to hotel, pick up Keith Jones, Barry Milligan, and whoever else needs a ride to Dolphin Stadium. Drive to the park and do the play-by-play for Florida State and freaking Miami.

Feel sorry for me? I know you don't. But I'm losing track of rental car reservations already. And I have a LOT of work to do to get ready for a college football game this weekend...more than you can imagine.

Stay tuned. More to come.

New Magic Uniforms Announced

Analysis? They never should have dumped the pinstripes in the first place.

What Have We Learned?

What have we learned this weekend?

On a personal note, I have learned that I need to throw caution to the wind more often, and just write whatever the hell pops into my mind. I say that because I never doubted, not once, that the United States squad would win the Ryder Cup, Tiger or no Tiger. And I realize that writing that now, after the fact, is as useful as you-know-whats on a boar, so you'll just have to trust me.

ESPN.com's Bill Simmons has advanced the "Ewing Theory" -- team loses superduperstar, team succeeds as a result of reduced pressure and tension -- so I will forgo the psychobabble about why this year's US Ryder Cup squad gained from Tiger's absence. But it was there, perceptible throughout the weekend. Did you see the look on Phil Mickelson's face when interviewed late Sunday afternoon?

Total relief, fueled by a lack of anxiety. Tiger, through no fault of his own, completely intimidates his American counterparts during the Ryder Cup. And as hard as he may try to be "one of the guys," it never works. He's just too, umm, Tiger. Dorky in a kind of best-player-that-ever-lived sorta way. Like Wayne Gretzky.

However, when the star is absent, nobody expects the backup singers to actually win...and that liberates them just enough to go out there and kick some Euro tush.

With Tiger rehabbing his surgically repaired wheel and absent at this year's Cup, the mere mortals on the PGA Tour were free to be who they are: a relentlessly talented, gutsy, in-your-face bunch. I would have bet the farm on a United States victory. In fact, I wish I did.

Not only did the United States bring the Ryder Cup back to these shores for the first time since the controversial '99 win at Brookline, they also served to identify the one player who might actually have both the game and the gumption to challenge the aforementioned T. Woods for the next decade. If you take nothing else from the 2008 Ryder Cup, remember the name of Anthony Kim as the player who is going to make the non-Tiger golf world interesting from now until whenever. Considering Sergio Garcia's record at this event, it's tough to overstate how big Kim's win over Garcia in Sunday singles really was. App State over Michigan in 2007 doesn't quite capture it; this was more like Brett Favre quarterbacking Southern Miss to a win over Florida State in 1989. In both cases, we're talking about the dawn of a new era.

When all is said and done (and when is that, really?), Anthony Kim will finish his professional career with more wins in majors than Phil Mickelson. Go ahead, write it down. Remember, I'm the guy who coined the phrase "Big Five."

What else did we learn this weekend?

In college football, we learned that Tennessee is horrible. Which means, by extension, that we really have no idea how good Florida might be. The Gator offense has certainly scored plenty of points, but they've yet to truly exploit the talents of players like Chris Rainey, Jeff Demps, or the still-recovering Percy Harvin, so I have no idea what to expect from this team for the rest of the season.

So far this year, Florida has blown out an overmatched Hawaii team at home; played a desultory first half against Miami (again, at home) before the athletes took over the game in the second half; and now watched as Tennessee lit itself on fire in Knoxville with ineptitude in the goal-line offense, fumbles, interceptions, and stupid penalties. None of which tells us anything about Florida's offense, really.

Consider this: Florida has scored 14 touchdowns this season, which is four fewer than South Florida and two less than Florida State. Yet, of those 14 Gator TD's, two were pick-6 interceptions by Ahmad Black and Major Wright, and two came on Brandon James punt returns. That means that the vaunted UF offense has scored ten times in three games against opponents with a combined record of 4-5. Will that beat Georgia?

While we (Christian) Ponder that question, here's another: how much further can the Florida State offense plunge?

A 12-3 loss to make it three in a row for the Demon Deacons over the Seminoles is embarrassing enough; but after so many signs of hope in their first two games, and coming off back-to-back 7-6 seasons, this particular loss is crushing.

Seven turnovers, with five interceptions. 118 passing yards. 102 rushing yards, with 46 of that coming from the backup quarterback. Not only did the offense fail to reach its own mediocre standards of last season, it appears they've gotten worse.

Of course, throw this in, too -- Wake Forest is better than you think, and certainly light years ahead of the two I-AA opponents that opened Florida State's schedule. Still, not much solace. You want to know the biggest difference between FSU and Wake right now? The Wake kids, while arguably not as talented as Florida State, always go where they are supposed to go. They rarely miss an assignment. Can we say the same about the Seminoles? And what does that point to?

If college football were an investment -- and the way things are going right now, it's as good as any -- I would seriously consider placing some long-term funds in Miami. That win over Texas A&M (an admittedly down program, but still a roadie in a traditionally hostile environment) was huge for the confidence of the young Hurricanes, and proved Randy Shannon to be prophetic: the loss to Florida did, indeed, help his team more than anyone would know.

Miami didn't just beat the Aggies, they smoked 'em. Speed on both sides of the ball, a poised and confident Robert Marve, a running game that racked up nearly 6 yards per carry. They're young, they're callow, but they're so bloody talented...the challenge is on the coaching staff to keep their heads in it for an entire season. And didn't that October 4 matchup with Florida State just get that much more interesting?

And one more thing we learned this weekend -- the Rays are for real, as predicted. We'll save that one for another time.

Pairing Off At The Ryder Cup

Aaah, the wonder of live television.

Sitting in the office on a Wednesday afternoon, getting ready for Thursday night's Chevy Florida Fishing Report and trying to figure out my next round of golf, I flipped on the Golf Channel's live coverage of the Ryder Cup press conferences in Louisville.

As it happened, European captain Nick Faldo was on the dais, receiving a grilling from the notoriously aggressive Euro-media. The topic was Faldo's pairings for the opening day of the Ryder Cup, information that historically has been guarded by team captains as closely as US presidents have guarded the Book of Secrets.


"I've found it...he's playing Westwood with Stenson!"

As silly as it may sound to anyone who doesn't play golf or follow the Ryder Cup, these pairings are kind of a big deal. The pairings are blind, meaning that the opposing team isn't supposed to know the order or combination of your players until shortly before the day's matches begin. The trick for a captain is to anticipate what the other side might do, and attempt to stack his team accordingly -- while also paying attention to the desires and personalities of his own team (see the disastrous Woods-Mickelson pairing at the '04 Cup).

Anyway, one of the European television networks apparently got a clean camera shot of Faldo's Friday pairings, which were allegedly written in his own large hand on a piece of paper he was carrying around at Valhalla. I say "allegedly" because, even though the media gathered in Kentucky made repeated references to this camera shot, I couldn't find anything about it online as of this writing. But they were insistent.

Faldo, who has reinvented himself as an affable television personality since leaving the game, seemed to revert to his mid-1990's churlish persona when pressed about these pairings. At various points during the press conference, he claimed that the piece of paper in question was:

1. A pairings sheet for Thursday's practice round
2. A randomly organized roster, simply for his own reference
3. A list of lunch orders for his squad
4. His NFL picks for this weekend

Okay, maybe not the last one, but...he looked bad. Real bad. Best I could tell, he was caught red-handed, flashing his presumptive Friday pairings within camera range, a Ryder Cup captain rookie mistake if ever there was one. And when pressed on the matter -- one European reporter claimed that not only had everyone in the press room seen it, but it was now being beamed back home -- Faldo went into a smiling, sarcastic, bite-me routine without ever giving a straight answer.

Faldo, for those who don't follow the game, was known overseas as combative with the media during his playing days. The Golf Channel panel, particularly the exceptional golf writer John Hawkins, speculated that the Euro press may have seized on this gaffe as a chance to stick it right back to him. If the goal was to make him sweat, it worked.

All of which begs the question -- who cares? If that was indeed his Friday pairing sheet, what would it matter?

Well...imagine if you were a Major League Baseball manager and knew, in advance, the precise pitching lineup you would face that night. You knew you would see Kazmir for 6 innings, Bradford in the 7th, Wheeler in the 8th, and Percival to close. Would that information be useful to you? Could you not plan your offensive lineup accordingly?

It's akin to stealing the playbook, or knowing who's coming off the DL right before the game. That's why the pairings matter. That said, there was a solution for Faldo, one that apparently never occurred to him.

It's Wednesday. The event starts Friday. Nothing is set in stone until they hit the course that morning. Faldo could have easily blown this off by saying, "Yes, it was a pairings sheet -- one of about six that I had in my pocket. I've written down a half-dozen different possibilities for Friday, and the camera caught me looking at one of them. That might be the one I use. And it might not."

Done.

Instead, he deflected, denied, obfuscated, smart-assed, and treated the questioners like dirt -- which will do absolutely nothing to get them off his back, and places even more stress on an assignment that's already akin to a month's worth of wearing underwear that's four sizes too small. He had a great chance to throw one more psychological wrench at the Tiger-less US squad...and blew it.

Granted, it's easy to sit here and think that clearly, as I'm not the one facing the klieg lights and the microphones. But ask yourself this: would Paul Azinger make that mistake? And would he then compound it by tap-dancing on the podium? Not in a million years.

Of course, there's also the possibility that Faldo was pulling a dummy on the European tabloid press, sporting a fake pairings sheet precisely for the purpose of throwing off the Americans and/or sticking it to the media. Possible, but not likely.

From here, it looked like a rookie mistake.

Raising 'Canes

I've made three different radio appearances in the last seven days: one in Orlando with Brady Ackerman and Jerry O'Neill and two in Tampa with the Killer B's (midday) and Scot Brantley (afternoons, with the Fabulous Sports Babe, who still hasn't lost her fastball. Anyone else remember how the afternoon TV simulcast of her national radio show pretty much kept ESPN2 afloat during the early days? The Babe and Jim Rome built that network. Honestly, they should both be honored with bronze statues on the Bristol campus. You better recognize. I'm digressing).

Anyway, during all three shows, the question of Miami came up. Not just the Randy Shannon handshake thing (not the best way to express himself, but who cares) or the Meyer-running-up-the-score thing (get serious), but the Hurricanes in general. So here's what I told them all:

If Miami plays as hard every week as they did against Florida last Saturday, these 'Canes will contend for the ACC title this year. Not next year, not two years from now (when the 22 true freshmen who played in their opener become juniors) -- this year.

The ACC is down, of course, which makes that statement far less fearless than it looks. Consider the following, just from the first two weeks of the season:

--NC State got bageled by South Carolina
--Virginia was destroyed by Southern Cal (no shame in losing to the Trojans, but 52-7? And you're a member of a BCS conference?)
--Virginia Tech was beaten by then-unranked East Carolina (again, less shame now than it was then, as the Pirates appear to be for real, but still...East Carolina? Frank Beamer used to put East Carolinas on his cereal in the morning.)
--Maryland was lucky to beat Delaware
--Clemson got crushed by Alabama (on national television, no less)
--North Carolina had to score 14 points in the 4th quarter to beat McNeese State (!)
--Maryland lost to Middle Tennessee State

...and Miami added to the conference's early-season woes with a 23-point loss to a vicious rival in the Florida Gators.

We know nothing of Florida State yet; their opener against Western Carolina was impressive in that they handled their business against a clearly overmatched team, but that's all we can take from it. I don't expect to learn very much from Chattanooga this week, either. Their first test comes September 20th against Wake Forest, one of the few ACC teams that has looked halfway decent over the first two weeks (although that barnburner against Ole Miss makes me wonder). Hell, for all we know, Florida State might be the class of the conference this year.

But the topic was Miami, and not only have I seen them play in person this year, I've seen them play in person the last couple of years -- not at Miami, but in high school, where more than a dozen current Hurricanes played in FHSAA State Championship games televised by Sun Sports and/or FSN Florida. Robert Marve, Jacory Harris, Sean Spence, Marcus Forston, Leonard Hankerson, Brandon Harris, Kendal Thompkins -- the list goes on. And what's impressive to me about Miami is the fact that all of these athletes are going just as hard as they did in high school.

What I mean is, it's pretty clear from watching the Hurricanes in person that they believe in themselves. Despite a Swamp-record crowd of over 91,000, the 'Canes didn't get flustered -- they just got beat, by a better, more experienced team. Florida's execution in the second half was a result of being there before; they weren't necessarily faster, or more talented, than Miami. They were just wiser.

Which brings us back to the Atlantic Coast Conference. With so many programs in flux this year, Miami's talent could be enough to carry them in their division. The key question is coaching -- not just from Randy Shannon, but from Patrick Nix and the rest of the offensive staff. Miami's biggest weakness against Florida was an inability to execute offensively, and a lack of adjustment when it became apparent that the Gators' defense was especially salty on that night. They've got to learn how to toss the game plan out the window when it's obviously not working, something that comes with, well, experience (on the part of the coaches as much as the players).

But man, do they play hard. That squad did not embarrass themselves last week. And in a conference that has looked pretty embarrassing so far, that might be enough.

Road To Hogtown

Two words: Gainesville Marriott.

Now THIS, my friends, is the glamour of sports television.

I'm here on an overcast evening, watching the (first-place) Rays play Toronto on FSN Florida, as I prepare for Saturday's Hurricane-Gator Pregame on Sun Sports. The room is adequate and smells like gym clothes. There is no kitchenette, not even a fridge. The television sporadically and randomly shows me a Settings menu, which disappears on its own after a few seconds. I've stopped trying to figure it out. Oh, and the ice machine is broken on my floor.

Like I said, glamour. I will not complain, however, because tomorrow night I will see a college football game in person, on a Saturday, for the first time in five years.

This is only possible because the Sun Sports programming lineup has changed this year. After five seasons of live postgame shows after every Florida and Florida State football game, the network shifted its focus to Monday's "Tailgate Overtime" and the presentation of five live, on-location pregame shows at selected games around the state. The first of these is the reason why I'm in Gainesville.

Last week, the opening weekend in college football, I did what everyone else in America has been doing for the last five years -- I sat on my duff and watched football from my living room. It was nice, but odd. My body had become programmed for 12 hours of writing scripts, taking notes on games, and preparing for (at one point in our history) four hours of live programming on every college football Saturday. Over the years, those hours dropped -- we moved "College Kickoff" to Friday night instead of Saturday, and dropped the "Tailgate Saturday Football Wrap" highlight show -- but it was a bear of a day nonetheless.

Now, with the exception of the five weekends of travel, I can watch at home like everyone else. I have mixed emotions about this change of schedule, as I had an emotional attachment to both the Friday "College Kickoff" show as well as the postgames, which were unscripted exercises in information management (something that I happen to relish as an announcer). The reasons for the change in programming are numerous, and I agree with only a couple of them. However, until I get tapped to run a network (shudder), my opinion is only marginally relevant.

So, I'm in Gainesville. Cool.

Five years after I returned home to Orlando to join Sun Sports, my car can now pretty much drive to either Gainesville or Miami by itself. Far and away, those two cities have been my most frequent in-state destinations on the job. I've been to Tallahassee a few times as well, but that's usually a flight. Hogtown and the Magic City are almost always road trips (getting reimbursed for mileage, of course), and they both have become rote memory.

If you've ever made either drive, you'll think I'm nuts when I write this: I think I enjoy the drive to Miami more. It's longer than the Gainesville trip by at least 90 minutes, but for whatever reason, I love passing through the wide chunk of Florida that separates Central and South (understand that I always take the Turnpike, not I-95). It's the headwaters of the Everglades, of course, and the accompanying wide-open spaces. Flatter than flat. Concave, even. Then, civilization gradually creeps up on you in the form of Port St. Lucie, gets fairly obvious in West Palm Beach, becomes unavoidable in Ft. Lauderdale, and then slaps you around in Miami. You have to understand, as an Orlando native, it's a monumental leap for me to admit that I like going to Miami. But I like going to Miami.

Gainesville, on the other hand, is a trip with a totally different vibe. Where the drive to Miami gets more tropical by the minute, the trip north is the direct opposite. It gets hilly and greener and more south-Georgia with every mile. My favorite part: crossing Paynes Prairie. For one, it means I'm five minutes away from my exit, and for another, well, in case it's not obvious, I like a long view.

So anyway, here I am. Out for dinner tonight with my man Mark Wise, then a football tilt tomorrow. Florida will most likely roll the 'Canes, but then again...

I watched Robert Marve play in high school. Jacory Harris, too, as well as all of the Miami Northwestern HS recruits that have signed with Miami. Don't be surprised if the Hurricanes make some kind of a game out of it. For a while, anyway.

No matter what happens, I get to see a football game tomorrow. In person. Not a bad deal.

Live Pregame, Saturday at 7 on Sun Sports

This programming reminder -- Brady Ackerman and I are live at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville this Saturday night for a one-hour pregame show on Sun Sports leading up to the Florida-Miami game. Cast of thousands, must-see TV. More to come this week.