Larry Brown Sports

It was a bad night for the Florida Panthers all the way around on Monday against the Thrashers. Not only did they lose 4-3 to drop to 10-12-4, but they also saw their goalie get injured by his own teammate. With the game tied 1-1, Ilya Kovalchuk skated in for a goal to put Atlanta up 2-1. Defenseman Keith Ballard was not happy about the goal going through and expressed his displeasure by whirling his stick at the goal post. Unfortunately his stick happened to meet goalie Tomas Vokoun’s head before it connected with the post. Vokoun ended up being taken off the ice on a stretcher after a delay that lasted several minutes. Check out the video of Tomas Vokoun getting hit by Keith Ballard:

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The UCLA/USC crosstown rivalry is always heated and contentious, regardless of how well or poorly the teams are performing. One team may dominate the rivalry for a stretch of time but that doesn’t take away from the overall significance the fans place on this game. Out of all the years that the game has been played, we may have never seen a contest end with such heated emotion as we did on Saturday. With the game already out of hand at 21-7 and under a minute to play, Rick Neuheisel called a timeout to stop the clock and stop USC’s kneel-down efforts. The first mistake was made by Neuheisel who did not concede defeat and take his medicine. Bottom line, your team is not very good, they got beat by a better squad, admit the defeat and try to get better for next year. If UCLA wasn’t letting up and continuing to compete then there’s nothing wrong with USC continuing to compete.

USC was in the wrong for jeering, showboating, and taunting after scoring the touchdown. Scoring the TD on UCLA after the Bruins decided they weren’t going to go out quietly was enough of a statement; the touchdown was thoroughly embarrassing. The sad part is that it wasn’t the players acting independently that produced the skirmish at the end — they took their lead from their coach, Pete Carroll. Carroll acted childishly, unprofessionally, and without class. His team was better, they had proven it on the field, and they had embarrassed UCLA with the final score. Why not let the TD speak for itself? It surely sent Neuheisel a message to submit when you’ve been beaten, so why give the Bruins a chance to win the second game — the postgame fight? In both regards, each coach was in the wrong and should learn from his behavior. It’s also seemed like Carroll was taking out his aggression and frustration from the Stanford game out on the Bruins. Neuheisel may have ignited it by refusing to quit but Carroll went overboard in the celebration. He should have saved that for Harbaugh. Here’s the video of the UCLA/USC fight after the game:

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Virginia wrapped up their worst season since 1986 with a 42-13 loss to Virginia Tech. The Cavaliers were down 14-13 at halftime only to end up getting outscored 28-0 in the second half with Ryan Williams running for four official touchdowns. The loss culminated a six game losing streak to end the year during which the team got outscored 204-87. Things really never turned following a season-opening loss to William & Mary so the reality that Al Groh was going to be axed after the final game had been accepted by everyone involved in the program, Groh included. In fact, he even had a statement prepared for the media after the bludgeoning — he elected to recite “The Guy in the Glass” by Dale Wimbrow:

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We heard about Jimmy Clausen getting punched last weekend and that it resulted in a pair of black eyes. That report seemed to be exaggerated considering visual evidence confirms he has one black eye. Notre Dame may have been helping Jimmy “saving face,” saying he got sucker punched, but that doesn’t change that we saw the damage to his face on Saturday in the Stanford game. Clearly this dude got decked!

I know there’s a Jimmy Clausen penis joke somewhere involving that photo on the bottom left. I said it before and I’ll say it again: given Jimmy’s personality, I would not be surprised to hear he provoked the fight. Even though I crack on the guy, I have to give him plenty of credit for the way he played on the field — 340 yards and 5 touchdown passes is simply awesome. Can’t fault him for the defense’s issues; he doesn’t tackle.

BYU beat rival Utah to win the Holy War on Saturday, 26-23 in overtime. Max Hall was off most of the game going 12-32, but he did manage to throw the game-winning touchdown pass in overtime, his second TD of the game. Hall was a junior last year when the Utes took it to the Cougars 48-24 so no doubt he was pleased to get revenge. But Hall actually took it to a new level with his postgame comments saying he hates Utah. This is a soundbite for the ages that will certainly cause more friction in Utah:

I guess when you’re a defensive end in the league, the only thing you really need to know about your opponent is who’s blocking you and who their quarterback is. Take Jared Allen for example — dude’s a typical mullet-wearing meathead who’s good at one thing — killing the quarterback. Does he really need to be up-to-date on the coaching carousel around the league? Obviously not. As this video of him mic’d up for NFL Films shows, he missed out on the whole Mike Holmgren’s taking a sabbatical news item:

Not to get too technical, but it actually isn’t Jim Mora Jr. since he and his father have different middle names. Maybe Jared Allen was under a rock when Mora got pissed at Olindo Mare for blowing the Seahawks game against the Bears. Without a doubt, Allen is one of the more colorful personalities in the league, which isn’t too surprising considering he’s the same guy who said the word “schism” was an STD.

The events of Thanksgiving week have to be amongst the worst in Tiger Woods’ life. On Wednesday the National Enquirer said that Tiger Woods had a mistress/hooker on the side, Rachel Uchitel, whom he flew to various locations around the world, ostensibly for sex. Since the evidence against him from the Enquirer seemed to be pretty strong, he must have had a tough time answering questions from his wife Elin Nordegren. While Woods’ camp may have been tight-lipped about a “car accident” he was involved in nearby his house early Friday morning, the latest report from TMZ seems to make by far the most sense:

[Tiger] said his wife had confronted him about reports that he was seeing another woman. The argument got heated and, according to our source, she scratched his face up. We’re told it was then Woods beat a hasty retreat for his SUV — but according to our source, Woods says his wife followed behind with a golf club. As Tiger drove away, she struck the vehicle several times with the club.

We’re told Woods became “distracted,” thought the vehicle was stopped, and looked to see what had happened. At that point the SUV hit the fire hydrant and then hit a tree.

Now this fills in every blank and hole in the story that existed prior to the report. Namely, how did Tiger have cuts all around his face and bleeding in his mouth from a low-speed collision with a fire hydrant? Additionally, why did Elin break the back door of the car with a golf club? It also explains why Tiger’s driving was so out of control despite not being drunk. This story seems to confirm the rumor of Tiger’s affair and makes you wonder about the status of his family (e.g. will Elin take him back?). It also marks the first chink in the perfect image Tiger’s created throughout his career. Now here’s where the tough question comes in: how will he be accepted by the public after this incident? Steve McNair was vilified by many for cheating on his wife while others decided to care strictly about his on-field accomplishments. How will you choose to view Tiger from now on?

The NFL Network had a major screw-up in a big moment on Thursday night. Still trying to grow in terms of popularity, ratings, and viewership, the NFL Network hosted an evening game on Thanksgiving for the second straight year. Whatever excitement the game lacked because of the horrid play by the Giants was made up for by NFL Network which played this audio of Josh McDaniels dropping an f-bomb while yelling at his players during the game:

All I got out of that jibberish was, “All we’re trying to do is win a mother****ing game!” McDaniels kind of lost me after that. I suppose the audio wasn’t even intended for me to hear anyway, so he probably accomplished his goal of trying to motivate his team. After the game, McDaniels responded to the NFL Network’s mistake (for which they immediately apologized on-air), saying, “It’s the NFL Network. It doesn’t surprise me.” You figure someone would have previewed the sound before giving it clearance on-air. If they didn’t I’m guessing a suspension or firing is in line, unfortunately.