The Titans are finished, The SEC really is amazing, and more observations that we deem to be true

SCOTT JACOBS

This is a new Juiced Sports feature, to appear weekly on the site.  Enjoy.

The Titans are finished.  At 0-3 and down 27-3 at halftime to what we initially believed were the lowly Jaguars, Tennessee can officially pan those Super Bowl hopes, and any dreams of claiming the AFC South for the second straight year.  It’s a remarkable fall for the Titans who were 10-0 last year after thrashing the Lions on Thanksgiving Day.  Many people said the Titans were the best 0-3 team in the league.  Well, I guess after today they’ll be the best 0-4 team in the league.  As they offensively stated in a memorable quote from the movie Waiting, “that’s like being the smartest kid with down syndrome.”

The Marlins are looking for a new manager?  Word from John Heyman of SI is that Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria is disappointed, yes, disappointed that his $36 million dollar payroll failed to make the playoffs.  Let me get this straight:  you fork out the lowest payroll in the sport, your team way overachieves to nearly 90 wins, and you want to fire one of the NL candidates for Manager of the Year?  Are you *&#$%#@ kidding me?  Then again, the Marlins who always seem to do things that few other franchises would do, have fired a Manager of the Year winner days after he won the award.  That guy, Joe Girardi, just led the Yankees to over 100 wins and easily the best record in the sport.

Which begs the question: How many managers have won Manager of the Year coaching the smallest payroll in the sport, and then within a 3 year span, led their new team, with the largest payroll in the sport, to the best record in the league?  Do they keep track of this stuff?  They must, right?

So who are the Marlins supposedly looking at to make the great leap to the post-season in 2010?  Bobby Valentine.  I kid you not.  Valentine, best known for his fake mustache after being ejected from a game while managing the Mets, is apparently being sought after by a few teams, most notably Florida.  Valentine’s contract with some Japanese team ran out, so now he’s back on TV, and apparently back in the MLB conscience.  The Indians and Nats are also believed to be interested. So the question is this: is Valentine really a step up from Fredi Gonzalez? The Marlins apparently think he might.

Oklahoma is out of the national title picture.  Miami is back in? After a bad defeat in Blacksburg last week the Canes were staring at a potential 2-2 start as the Sooners flew out to an early 10-0 lead.  Usually a given for an OU victory, the watered down Sooners, still missing Bradford and Gresham, were unable to hold off the Canes. Though OU has lost a pair of games by 1 point each, the fact is this: they’re 0-2, and San Bradford has to be shaking his head that he came back.  Most likely still the number 1 pick in next April’s draft, the Sooners will be lucky at this point to get into a BCS bowl game.  They do have one thing going for them though: neither of their 2 losses were in conference play.

So the SEC has 3 out of the 4 best teams in the country for the second week in a row.  I’ve been fighting people for a few years now who state that the SEC is by far and away the best conference in the country, but maybe it’s time I join the club.  The SEC has SIX teams in the top 25 this week, including newly minted Auburn and South Carolina, and Florida, Alabama, and LSU in the top 4.  The only reason Georgia isn’t ranked is because the AP probably felt it was unfair to have SEVEN teams from one conference in the top 25.  More astonishing about the SEC’s incredible dominance of the polls: Between the Big East and ACC (two of the “big six”), are just five ranked teams (and just two in the top 10.  It should be noted though that the Big East will have it’s clash of the Titans (or clash of it’s only two ranked teams), when USF gets its shot at Cincy.  Cincy it should be dutifully noted is actually ahead of Ohio State in the polls this week.

The Colts look Super.  It may sound premature, but I think Indy has the best team in football right now.  Yes, the Giants have been great, as have been the Saints, but the Colts are just tearing it up offensively.  Since a paltry week one win over the Jags (who usually play them close) Peyton Manning and Co. have lit up their opposition.  With just 15 minutes of possession time the Colts scored 27 points and beat Miami.  Then they went cross country and crushed the Cards.  And today they’re manhandling Seattle.  I know those teams aren’t elite or close rather, but reports of the Colts demise under new coach Jim Caldwell appear to be well off the mark.

How do you schedule a Monday night game after the final day of the baseball season in one of just three stadiums that plays host to both a football and baseball team.  That’s the question I’m asking after the NFL inexplicably scheduled Brett Favre’s new team versus his old one in the Metrodome, the same stadium where the Twins play.  With both the Tigers and Twins tied entering the final day of the regular season, the teams are in the midst  of finishing with the same mediocre records.  And because the Twins won the tiebreaker over Detroit they would host a one game playoff.  Unfortunately the Vikes have dibs on the Homer Dome on Monday night, which means a playoff would have to wait till Tuesday.  This is Minnesota’s last year in the dome, they move to a beautiful new ‘outdoor’ park next year, but c’mon people: this could all be avoided.  Next year NFL schedule makers, do us all a favor: don’t schedule a MNF game in either Miami or Oakland the Monday after the MLB regular season ends.  That probably won’t be a problem though.  Both teams stink right now.  But still. Just saying.

LSU-Florida next week.  Will Tim Tebow play?  Unless he’s unconscious there is no way the Gators rest their championship hopes within anyone else.  The Gators know they have to run the table with their horrendous out of conference schedule, and any slip up, even against a top 5 team like LSU would doom their hopes of a repeat.

Hey Cal, stop doing this.  Every year it seems for like the last 4-5 years you start out hot, people start talking about one of your great running backs for Heisman, and your school as the one to supplant USC at the top of the Pac10 pecking order, and then you actually play USC and your running back gets overwhelmed and you lay another egg.  After getting beatdown 30-3, at home nonetheless, the Golden Bears pulled off the impressive feat of dropping off the face of the earth after looking like a potential title contender within 2 weeks (from number six to completely unranked).  The high powered Bears offense (okay, whatever) put up a meager 3 points in a mutilation at Oregon, and then they come home and get beat down by the Trojans. Cal would make a great stripper, because they’re one hell of a tease, but they won’t be taken seriously as an elite program until they finally win some of these big games.

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