The Vig

Nothing really new here.  Robinson is “cool”.  Ernie Kent is on his way out the door…and has been for five years.  I tried to comment over there, but…well…it’s O-Live.  So I comment here.

Two predictions:

1. Oregon will beat Oregon State this weekend.  By double digits.
2. Unless Oregon State gives him a reason to stay on the West Coast ($$$), Craig Robinson will be coaching somewhere else next season.  He will be a hot name come April, and there are no doubt a few universities back east who can easily pay him more than his current 6-year, $5 million contract.  Maybe then Ken Bone will take the gig.  One can only hope.

Oregon State is turning into the feelgood story of the week.  It has a lot more to do with the coach’s brother-in-law though, than it does with anything that’s happened on the court.  Case in point, as of last night, of Oregon’s four Division I basketball schools, Oregon State had the lowest RPI.

Portland State was 115.

Oregon was 118 (a nod to their outrageous #3 strength of schedule)..

UP was 125.

Oregon State was 145.

Teams better than 145?  Weber State.  Wofford.  Alabama (who fired their coach yesterday).  Middle Tennessee State.  And Marshall.  Not exactly august company.

The guys on The Fan were talking NIT today.  Yeah right.  They barely got by CSU-Bakersfield (RPI 317).

While it’s definitely a fun ride, Oregon State is nowhere near being a top-100 team in the nation.  They’re much improved over last season, but they’re not the best team in Oregon.  That team plays in Portland’s Park Blocks.  Why do we never hear about them?

Penn State has locked up the Rose Bowl.

On second thought…

I listened to part of the Beavers post-game show tonight as I drove to the Drive-By Turckers/Hold Steady show, but had to turn it off when one of the commentators, I have no idea which one, made possibly the most ignorant sports comment I’ve ever heard.  And I’m not being hyperbolic.

One of the guys asked if last night’s win against Arizona was the biggest in school history.  The other hemmed and hawed and made some comment about how he liked to eat, but if asked to name his favorite dish, he couldn’t.

Are you f-ing serious?  That wasn’t even in the top-five victories this decade.  Hell, those two clowns were at the USC game 8 weeks ago.  Do you think that might have been more important than this one?  Do you think that might have been bigger victory than this one?  Do you think it might go down in the top-five all-time Beaver victories?  Yeah, me too.

It drives me absolutely insane to listen to Mike Parker call Beaver games because I know in his heart he’s a Duck.  Oh he says he’s orange and black now, but he’s not.  And he can’t take back all his quacking in the nineties.  Now they’ve got two more guys in there with even shorter memories.  Sheesh.  Would someone in the OSU sports information department please drive up to McMinnville, apologize to Darrell Aune, and ask if he’d pretty please come home?  Thanks.

It seems like a lot more than just four seasons ago that Alexis Serna missed that overtime PAT down in Baton Rouge that gave LSU the game.  He never got a second chance in that game to make it right.  That moment drove him for the rest of his career.  He never missed another PAT.

Clackamas’ own Justin Kahut (Three Rivers League represent!) got his second chance down in Tuscon tonight and he buried it.  Good for him.  And good for the Beavs.

This, of course, sets up one game next Saturday for all the marbles.  Wow.

All signs point to the financial system collapsing by Monday, but tonight I don’t care.  Wow.

A day or two late, but whatever.

Oregon City Pioneers: A good friend of mine coached football at Oregon City years before I got there in 1986.  Whenever I go to his house, I see a picture of that staff.  It was a mix of youth and veteran leadership.  And they all had one thing in common.  They lived in Oregon City.  They lived it, they breathed it.  They loved winning, and they did.  A lot.  But it all goes back to that passion for both the community and the school.  Oregon City has lost that.  Now, you have guys coaching in Oregon City but living in North Portland, Beaverton, and (gasp) Lake Oswego.  Are those guys committed to this school?  Or is this just a stop on life’s highway for them?  I know it’s just high school football, but you know what?  I still love the red and white.  It’s frustrating to watch this.

Portland Winter Hawks:  No, I didn’t go to the exhibition.  It was $12!  Are you kidding me?  That’s a matinee and popcorn!  That said, both Andy and Dylan have me a little excited to see what happens this weekend.

Oregon State Beavers: To be honest, I didn’t think they had it in them.  I’m glad I was proven wrong.

Burn After Reading: Not the Coens’ best effort.  I do think, though, that you have to grade them on a different scale because for the most part their movies are so wonderful.  O Brother, Where Art Thou and The Big Lebowski remain two of my all-time favorite movies.  I think that’s due in large part to the fact the Coens stuck with their stable of regulars and didn’t resort to stunt casting.  Their movies can be hit and miss when they do (Billy Bob Thorton and James Gandolfini in The Man Who Wasn’t There and Tom Hanks in The Ladykillers count among the misses…although I love The Ladykillers).  I think the movie was best summed up at the end when J.K. Simmons asked what we (the actors and the audience) had learned.  The answer?  Nothing.

Dennis Miller: A friend dropped a couple of tickets on me late Saturday afternoon.  It was a pleasant drive down 99W to Grand Ronde and a pleasant experience down at the casino.  If you’re ever hungry while in the area, the chicken wrap they serve at the stand there next to the non-smoking room cannot be improved upon.  The best $2.75 you’re going to spend in there.  Anywho, I saw Miller 20 years ago with my high school bff Matt and a couple of dates.  We sat in the front row!  I really enjoyed Dennis’ album “The Off-White Album” and was excited to see him.  Unfortunately his entire set was straight from that album.  That sucked.  It wasn’t until years later that I came to have an appreciation for the craft of stand-up comedy.  Once you get to a certain level (Seinfeld, Foxworthy, Cable Guy), you can’t just keep regurgitating your old stuff.  You always have to give your audience something new.  Whereas a group like Poison can roll out of bed after 20 years and come out and tell the same stories from two-decades ago.  It’s sort of unfair, if you think about it.  Why does Bret Michaels get to keep making money off two or three tunes while Ron White can’t tell the same joke that made him a star?  Anyway, Miller, I thought, was great.  He had a couple of great bits and told this fantastic story about meeting Sinatra back in the early-90s.  The audience was surprisingly old (at least where I was sitting) and quite right-leaning.  Dennis has made a name for himself lately by supplying bits to Fox News, and so t hat crowd was out in force.  They didn’t quite know what to make of his deference to Obama.  He’s made no bones about the fact he’ll be voting for McCain in November, but he said if Obama wins, he’ll get behind him.  I wonder if I’ll be that magnanimus should McCain win.  Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

Arizona Cardinals: A dominating win over a lackluster Miami team.  They get their first real test of the season this weekend when they travel to John G.’s Washington Redskins.  If they can win that game, then look out.

Hey!  I haven’t done one of these for a while.  Must be an autumn/football thing.

Oregon City Pioneers: What are they, like the fifth largest high school in the state?  And the demographics haven’t changed that much since I was there two decades ago.  Yet somehow they manage to perennially suck.  At least since Coach Burton retured a decade ago.  I don’t get it.  They kept it close against Canby, but in the end they succumbed 21-6.  Someone should explain how this happens.

Oregon State Beavers: Offensively they’re at their best in the no-huddle.  Who not just run that?  Defensively they’re a trainwreck.  I thought this was supposed to be their strength this season!  They can’t tackle to save their lives.  And the punting game is laughable.  They gave up a block against Stanford and nearly had another, then this week Hekker swallowed one snap, and had another one nearly blocked.  The 45-14 loss, though, was a team effort.  Next up is 1-1 Hawai’i then a killer stretch at home against USC and at Utah.  0-5 and 1-6 is a distinct possibility.  Then the Fire Riley talk will start.  Blah.

The search for a decent sports bar: I caught the first half of the Oregon State game at Fuddruckers down in Lake Oswego.  I was trying to find Players but had zero luck.  Turns out they’re on the other side of the freeway.  Next time, I’ll know.  Back to Fuddruckers.  I chose them because I dig their burgers and the game is usually on.  I’d forgotten, however, what a crappy experience it is watching a game in a restaurant on a 32″ tube TV.  No flat screens anywhere.  But the service was quick and attentive.  So they have that going for them.  My next stop Saturday night was the Hideaway in Hazel Dell to watch the UFC fight.  I settled in for a beer and some chicken strips when the waitress came by to ask me for a $5 cover.  I asked her to put it on my tab and I would pay for everything on my card.  She said cash only and pointed me to the ATM.  Right.  Now my cover becomes $8 instead of $5.  No thank you.  I dug a couple bucks out of my pocket for my beer and walked out.  Assholish?  Maybe, but seriously…how hard is it to put the cover on the tab once you have my card?  I ended up driving around for a bit before settling on Pal’s Shanty for dinner.  Open-faced crab and shrimp sandwich.  Mmmmm…..  Yesterday I joined Gavin Dawson and the 95.5 The Game morning crew down at Grand Central Bowl for a little brunch and a full slate of the NFL Sunday ticket.  I may have found my new home.  Flat screens everywhere, good food, and attentive service!  I parked at the bar for close to six hours and never went thirsty once.  Try that at Claudia’s.  And no smoke!  I’ll try it again next weekend.

Arizona Cardinals: I watched all 16 of their games last season and don’t recall a single Sunday when I didn’t want to tear my hair out while watching them.  Today, I got a little queazy early (stupid goal line penalties will do that to you), but that second half was a delight.  They had the ball for nearly 22 minutes in the second half, including a 10-minute fourth quarter drive that was the death blow to the Niners.  The Cardinals went out and won that game, there’s no other way to put it.  Can they do that consistently?  Ah, that’s the question.  Oh!  And if you’re looking for a good back-up fantasy running back, may I recommend Tim Hightower.  He’ll be starting by Week 9.  You watch.

Brooks Hatch asks his readers whether they would have moved the schedule around this season in order to accomodate television.  The way the schedule was originally, the Beavers were to open with Utah, Hawai’i, and Idaho before taking on USC.  Instead, they ditched Idaho and took a lot of money to travel to Stanford and Penn State so they could play on TV.

Was it the right decision?  Fiscally, yes.  But as a football decision?  At first blush, I’d say no way.  But thinking about it for a minute, do I, as an Oregon State fan, ever expect the team to compete for a national championship?  Heck no.  I mean the 2000 season was fantastic and all, but the stars had all literally lined up for that run.  I doubt it could happen again.  Even if they were to schedule Portland State, Idaho, and say San Jose State, then run the table in the Pac-10, a trip to the BCS championship is unlikely.  So why not play a couple of tough games up front, on TV, take your lumps, then make a run at the Pac-10 and maybe catch lightning in a bottle?  If the Beavers go 8-1 through the Pac-10 (unlikely this season…but there’s always next year), that could well be good enough to make a BCS bowl.

So yeah, why not roll the dice in Happy Valley, play two winnable games against Hawai’i and Utah then blitz through the Pac-10?  The more I think about it, the more I like it, both on the field and for the bottome line.