Tag Archives: championship

Nov 27 2012

This Week In The Pac-12: Football

AROUND THE PAC-12

PAC-12 FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: Meeting for the second time in six days, the Stanford Cardinal and UCLA Bruins square off in the second annual Pac-12 Football Championship Game. By virtue of its better conference record, Stanford will host the game at Stanford Stadium on Friday, Nov. 30 at 5 p.m., with FOX broadcasting the game to a national audience… The Bruins are making back-to-back appearances in the Pac-12 Championship Game as they fell at Oregon, 49-31 in the inaugural game… A victory in the Pac-12 Football Championship Game comes with the league’s automatic berth in the Rose Bowl Game. Stanford’s last appearance in the Rose Bowl Game was Jan. 1, 2000, where they lost to Wisconsin, 17-9. UCLA’s last appearance in the Rose Bowl Game was Jan. 1, 1999, where it also fell to Wisconsin, 38-31.

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DON’T FORGET THE BEAVERS:OREGON STATE will close out its regular season on Saturday, Dec. 1 with a home contest with Nicholls State. The game was previously scheduled for Sat., Sept. 1, but Hurricane Issac forced Nicholls State to close its campus and the game was postponed. The Beavers look to post nine wins for the first time since 2008.

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PAC-12 FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME

UCLA (9-3) at STANFORD (10-2)

Fri., Nov. 30, 5 p.m. PT – FOX

UCLA leads, 45-35-3. Last game: STAN, 35-17 (2012)

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UCLA BRUINS

UCLA senior RB Johnathan Franklin sits second on the school’s single-season rushing list with 1,506 yards to date. Karim Abdul-Jabber holds the Bruin single-season mark with 1,571 yards in 1995. Franklin’s 4,175 career rushing yards rank fifth all-time in the Pac-12. USC’s Marcus Allen is a distant fourth (4,810 yards)…. More Franklin – his eight 100-yard rushing games ties for the school single-season mark. His 4,671 career all-purpose yards are 17 yards shy of matching the UCLA career mark of 4,688 set by Maurice Jones-Drew (2003-05).

UCLA freshman QB Brett Hundley has set a UCLA single-season completion mark with 269. His 3,516 yards of total offense is second on the UCLA single-season list, trailing Cade McNown’s 3,652 yards. His 26 touchdown passes also place him second behind Drew Olson’s single-season mark of 34 touchdowns… More Hundley – he was the first UCLA QB to throw for at least 300 yards in three straight games when he tossed for 305 vs. Nebraska, 320 vs. Houston and 372 vs. Oregon State.

Junior LB Anthony Barr made a successful transition from offense to defense and earned All-Pac-12 First Team honors. A running back his first two seasons, he switched to defense and ended up with 66 tackles (5.5 avg) and a league-tying best 12 sacks… Sophomore LB Eric Kendricks leads the league in tackles with 127 (10.6 per game). He’s recorded 66.5 tackles over last five games (13.3 per game).

Senior P Jeff Locke pinned the opposition inside the 20-yard line a Pac-12 best 30 times in 66 punts. He also had 60 touchbacks on 76 kickoffs.

With nine wins on the campaign, UCLA head coach Jim Mora is now tied with Terry Donahue (1976) for the most victories by a first-year UCLA head coach.

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STANFORD CARDINAL

Secured its third consecutive 10-win season, marking the first such run in school history. Stanford has won eight or more games in each of the last four seasons. The last time the Cardinal achieved that feat was when they posted five straight seasons of eight or more victories from 1926-30… The Cardinal finished the 2012 regular season home slate 6-0… The Cardinal has won 12 of its last 13 games played in November dating back to 2009.

The Cardinal, which allowed its first first-quarter touchdown of the season against UCLA, has outscored opponents 82-20 in the opening frame. Additionally, the Cardinal has only trailed once at halftime this season. 

In its ten wins during the regular season, the Cardinal allowed just 412 rushing yards (41.2 avg), and only conceded 100 yards to an opponent once. In Stanford’s two losses, it gave up 286 rushing yards (143.0 avg)… Over a three game stretch in late October/early November, Stanford held California, Washington State and Colorado to a combined -36 rushing yards. 

Senior RB Stepfan Taylor notched his school-record 21st career 100-yard rushing performance in the win at UCLA Saturday, picking up 142 yards and two touchdowns on the ground. With Friday’s effort, Taylor (4,138) is now just 32 yards shy of the school record set by Darin Nelson (4,169 – 1977-81). The Cardinal is 18-3 when he rushes for 100 yards.

Stanford has forced an FBS-high 53 quarterback sacks on the season, establishing a new school record for single-season sacks. The Cardinal sacked UCLA QB Brett Hundley seven times in the regular season finale en route to breaking the previous school record of 48 set in 1999.

Senior TE Zach Ertz is tied with Washington’s Seferian-Jenkins for most receptions by a tight end in the FBS with 63. He is one of three finalists for the John Mackey Award given annually to the nation’s best tight end.

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PAC-12 HONORS

OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Marqise Lee, USC

PAT TILLMAN DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Will Sutton, Arizona State

OFFENSIVE FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR: Marcus Mariota, Oregon

DEFENSIVE FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR: Leonard Williams, USC

COACH OF THE YEAR: David Shaw, Stanford

 

[Pac-12 Media Relations]

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CadChica Sports

Nov 20 2011

Spanning the Twitterverse: Great Smoke-out

Spanning the Twitterverse to bring you the constant variety of tweets
The thrill of the retweet and the agony of the unfollow
The human drama of the twitter timeline
This is CadChica’s Wide World of Tworts

As I have mentioned before, I am not a #NASCAR fan. However, for a brief (“very brief”) moment, I turned into one tonight. Last race of the season. Final race in the Sprint Cup. Down to two drivers for the championship: Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards. That was about all I knew going into the race. For the actual preview, go here.

It came down to those two, and I was enthralled. Not enough to become a fan permanently but enough to keep watching tonight at least. Edwards had the lead. Then Stewart took the lead. Stewart was down but somehow was able to come back and win this thing. And win it he did. Here’s what the Twitterverse had to say:

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TWEETS OF THE DAY

I really wanted the first one to be the only tweet of the day. But Elliott Sadler had to come along and BOOM! I couldn’t pass his up for tweet of the day. So we have two:

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CadChica Sports

Apr 5 2011

Follower Update and Twitter Trash-Talking

There is no stopping this Twitter train. Last night, I thought I had checked the follower lists one last time. But, somewhere along the way I’ve become fascinated by them. And so, without further adieu:

TWITTER FOLLOWER UPDATES

 Shaka Smart: @coachsmartvcu  =  6754 last night / 6840 tonight

Brad Stevens: @BUCoachStevens  = 12,601 last night / 12,283 tonight

Jim Calhoun: @CoachCalhoun = 366 last night / 386 tonight

Missouri State account: @CuonzoLMartin 1851 last night / 1851 tonight

Tennessee account: @CuonzoMartin  4176 last night / 4207 tonight

Well done Rocky Top. No changes on the Missouri State account. Woo Hoo. Not sure if I typed the numbers wrong for Coach Stevens or not though. Hard to believe he “lost” followers so maybe last night’s number was 12, 061. We’ll keep an eye on it though to see if it’s a trend. Now that basketball is done, I’d expect a bit of a slow down. At least until we get closer to Midnight Madness.

WOMEN’S NCAA BASKETBALL:

The women’scollege basketball championship was tonight. Those two heavyweights UConn & Stanford met. Wait. The coronation of those teams would have to wait because they were beat in the semis on Sunday by Notre Dame and Texas A&M, respectively. And so we were left with two newbies. I know Notre Dame is not really a newbie but it seems the talk centered around UConn and Stanford as being destined to meet in the final for most of this year. Not that I’m a women’s basketball fan but if you listen to sports radio or read sports websites often enough, you’re more than likely to read about UConn and Stanford.

I didn’t watch the game tonight until the last few minutes. I followed along on Twitter, of course. Thankfully, it was a better game than what the men turned in last night. Texas A&M defeated Notre Dame 76-70. Naturally, after the fact, I went to Twitter and decided to check the status of one of the players, who shall remain nameless. From my search, I found tweets upon tweets upon tweets just denigrating this player. Most of them had nothing to do with her playing. .

The more I typed this, the more confused yet irritated I got about this subject. To prevent from having to “edit” myself, I will now stop this subject right now. But I will ask this one question. Why is it okay to talk about female athletes’ in non-sports terms if they don’t do anything but just play their sport????? I am in no way a champion of “all things women’s sports” but come on now. Is it really necessary? Really? I’m not a politically correct person but I do know when to grow up…every now & then.

CadChica Sports 

Apr 4 2011

Oh How Ugly It Was

As I’m typing this, I’m watching one of the ugliest basketball games you’ll ever want to see. UConn & Butler is not a pretty game for a championship. It’s hard to imagine that this will get any better, but I’m not holding my breath.

I thought refereeing would be critical in this game but not in the way it’s playing out. After watching UConn get their opponents’ key guys in trouble their last two games (See: Derrick Williams-Arizona, Josh Harrelson-Kentucky), I thought for sure Butler needed to keep their guys out of foul trouble. They have so far. But the game is not being called like their last 2 games. It’s being reffed like a Big East game, which is right up UConn’s alley. Here’s how I found this out:

** Sorry folks. I had to take my own personal time-out. I kept watching this game & getting more and more irritated by the above notation. I don’t like to edit my posts; like to just lay it all out there. But that game was just brutal. I watched Big East basketball this year and that’s what that was to a “T”. **

So, now this game is over, thankfully. The One Shining Moment disappointed, except for the 5 Arizona scenes they had. Derrick Williams had a couple in there but his best dunk did not show up. Major fail on CBS’ part. In addition, the game really was a sorry way to end this tournament. The tournament, while yes it did show parity yet again, really was enjoyable as a whole. Upsets, nailbiters, game-winning shots, players like Derrick Williams shining bright like the Tucson sun and just fun overall. I know I didn’t watch as many games last year as I did this year. But after this mock Big East finale, I’m glad it’s over. One last note: the Tweet of the night for me:

“And Now Here’s Something We Hope You Really Like” (shout-out to Rocky & Bullwinkle). (Google them youngsters if you don’t know who they are.

TWITTER FOLLOWER UPDATES

Here is the breakdown: checking at 8:15 this morning, halftime & postgame

Shaka Smart: @coachsmartvcu  =  6556/6718/6754 followers (had 4,282 when I began)

Brad Stevens: @BUCoachStevens  = 11,501/11,894/12,601 followers (had 9,851 when I began)

Jim Calhoun: @CoachCalhoun = 321/350/366 (started with 230 when first checked a few days ago0

Missouri State account: @CuonzoLMartin 1848/1852/1851 followers (had 1,713 when I began)

Tennessee account: @CuonzoMartin  4142/4169/4176 followers (had 3,596 when I began)

So what did we learn? I’m sure someone who understands “social networking” better than me can give a better explanation but, I think Twitter and sports go hand-in-hand right now. It is instant communication and connection in a world of microwave mentality. Sure in the past you could join a fan club, wait outside the ballpark or arena and hope to get an autograph but Twitter is allowing fans or just people in general to feel instantly connected to sports figures. I know it’s exploded in the entertainment industry but Twitter is going to take, if not already, sports to another level. It’s become the norm, if you will, in sports to tweet about an event. It’s instant blogging. It’s instant opinion. It’s that instant connection that fans love.

One caveat though. I still can’t explain why Coach Martin’s Missouri State account keeps gaining followers. Earth to Tennessee? Anybody home? You got some ‘splainin to do.

CadChica Sports