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How Good Are The Horned Frogs?

Last week provided a handful of highly anticipated matchups between top 25 college football programs, with five games featuring a pair of ranked teams going head-to-head. This Saturday seems to be lacking in that category. Among the best games slated for the weekend: No. 13 Penn State at Michigan, Oklahoma at No. 25 Kansas, No. 3 Texas at Missouri, and Oregon State at No. 7 USC. Not exactly a power lineup.

But, for college football fiends, all eyes should be on the small town of Provo, Utah on Saturday night. Frankly, if the game was happening in a conference with BCS Bowl affiliations, you’d probably have heard all about it by now. The matchup?

No. 8 TCU at No. 16 BYU.

Maybe not the long-standing rivalry or storied programs most college football slugfests boast, but these two are serious. And for Gary Patterson’s undefeated TCU team, it’s a chance to make a statement.

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And Now for Something Completely Different …

(Before discussing English football, the headline honors the 40th anniversary of the great English import Monty Python, subject of a new documentary.)

This has been more than simply a forgettable week for Tom Hicks’ Liverpool FC. It has been bad, bizarre and getting worse.

The Reds have lost four consecutive matches for the first time in 22 years, fallen well off the pace in the English Premier League only nine games into the season and are in danger of failing to advance out of opening-group play in the Champions League. They lost in stoppage time on Tuesday at home against Olympique Lyonnaise, and that wasn’t the worst of their week. Try losing when you give up a goal off a beach ball.

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Rudy Jaramillo To Sign With Cubs

According to Bruce Levine, Rudy Jaramillo will do his coaching in Chicago for a while. After already being one of the highest-paid coaches in baseball last year, Jaramillo will make more than $800,000 a season to fix a Cubs offense that broke in a big way in 2009, ranking 22nd in the majors in runs scored and 26th in team batting average. Jaramillo will be reunited with former Ranger Milton Bradley, assuming the Cubs don’t cast him aside in the offseason, who enjoyed a career year under Jaramillo in 2008. Alfonso Soriano, another former pupil, is also on the team.

Jaramillo took a lot of heat last season after the Rangers failed to score 800 runs for the first time since 1995 and ranked 24th in MLB in on-base percentage while leading the American League in strikeouts. But David Brown at Baseball Time in Arlington broke down Rudy’s tenure in Texas last week, which yielded some interesting results.

The Rangers, meanwhile, don’t seem to be very far along in the process of finding a replacement for Jaramillo.

Good “Bye Week” Musings

Tomorrow, we dive back into our Cowboys routine (Analyze the Falcons), as the bye week is over. Until then, here are 5,000 Words of Football Dorkdom:

I want to show you the results of a study or two we did during the bye week about the Cowboys offense. Hopefully, by now, you have some interest in our findings every Tuesday during the Season with our various “Football 301″ studies. Well, this week, and then the week after Thanksgiving will allow us a day or two to catch our breath and look at the bigger picture.

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