Chicago -
By Mike Luce
The bowl season rolls on. We’re on it.
Game: Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl
Time: Monday, December 31, ESPN, Noon (LP Field, Nashville)
Teams: NC State Wolfpack (7-5, 4-4 ACC) vs. Vanderbilt Commodores (8-4, 5-3 SEC)
How they got here: Vandy head coach James Franklin, now in his second season, endured a tiresome interview process before scoring the job. Franklin’s squad bears little resemblance to the doormats of past years.
Posted on December 31, 2012
By Steve Rhodes
The news broke, as it does these days, on Twitter.
First, that Lovie was out.
Second, that before the Bears had even made the announcement – still hadn’t as of 10:30 a.m. – word leaked out this way:
Whoa: Bears have sent out consent forms requesting permission to interview head-coaching candidates.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) December 31, 2012
–
Oy.
Let’s see what various Chicago personalities are saying.
Posted on December 31, 2012
By Mike Luce
Bowl season rolls on. We’re on top of it.
Game: Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl
Time: Saturday, December 29, ESPN, 11:45 a.m. (Amon Carter Stadium, Fort Worth)
Teams: Rice Owls (6-6, 4-4 C-USA) vs. Air Force Falcons (6-6, 5-3 MWC)
How they got here: We were going to say something obnoxious about the Falcons arriving by helicopter, but does the Air Force fly choppers or only planes? Somehow, we have a mental image of Top Gun-types pooh-poohing the idea of flying a helicopter. Real men fly jets, that sort of thing. Those that can’t hack it can either push paper or fix helicopters. But with costs for next generation choppers topping out at seven figures each, we doubt the Air Force hands the stick over to any hacks.
Posted on December 29, 2012
By Mike Luce
Bowl season rolls on. We’re on it.
Game: AdvoCare V100 Independence Bowl
Time: Friday, December 28, ESPN, 2 p.m. (Independence Stadium, Shreveport)
Teams: Ohio Bobcats (8-4, 4-4 MAC) vs. Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks (8-4, 6-2 Sun Belt)
How they got here: College Football Report darling Ohio U. suffered a sharp drop-off, losing four of their last five after starting 7-0. Opponents figured out that the Bobcats folded under an aggressive pass rush and brought the pressure. OU yielded 22 sacks in the four final losses of the season, limiting the effectiveness of star QB Tyler Tettleton.
Posted on December 28, 2012
By Carl Mohrbacher
Thanks Cardinals, you made us feel like we have a Super Bowl-caliber defense and an offense that’s good enough to win. This was like a great party at the end of a marriage that’s been loveless for five years.
They get dressed up, appear at a nice controlled social environment and slap on the charm for a roomful of casual acquaintances. For a few hours, he’s the charmer she fell in love with and she’s lightly touching his arm as she offers to grab him another drink from the bar.
But next week, they’re arguing bitterly about who was supposed to take that bag that’s been sitting in the foyer for the last two goddam weeks to Goodwill or angrily debating whether Lovie Smith’s career record is enough to justify a lame-duck gig in 2013. By this time next year, the papers are signed, the house is split and, because nobody at that party suspected a thing, they all quietly blame Lovie for being such a divisive figure.
Posted on December 26, 2012
By Jim Coffman
Bears fans deserve better than what they’ve received from their team of late. But it isn’t as though they ever really demand even the tiniest of improvements.
That was the thing that struck me as I walked among my fellow fanatics in and around University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, on Sunday.
In the past week there was the predictable response to Brian Urlacher saying he didn’t care what the fans think with commentators slamming the linebacker for biting the hand that feeds him. Then there was the backlash as other commentators argued that fans were fools if they didn’t think that every pro athlete feels the same way to a certain extent.
Now I don’t think fans are fools but I must profess I don’t begin to understand how many of my brethren behave. And that goes back to the whole “never demanding that you be treated better” thing.
Posted on December 24, 2012
By Mike Luce
After a solid regular season, our picks in the first week of bowl season aren’t faring well.
The Chicken opened at 0-2 last week and the remaining pick doesn’t look good. As this is being written, San Diego State is trailing BYU 16-6, meaning the Aztecs need either a touchdown and a field goal; a touchdown and a two-point conversion; a touchdown and a missed extra kick and a safety and/or field goal; two field goals and a safety; one field goal and three safeties; or four safeties to cover.
Posted on December 21, 2012
By Carl Mohrbacher
It took some doing, by which I mean ignoring the running game, and Alshon Jeffery looking like a rookie when he was actually on the field, and not really having a tight end, and a lot of momentum-killing penalties, and a heap of injuries, and some fairly terrible play-calling, and special teams looking average, but the Bears have managed to parlay a 7-1 first half into the seventh seed in the NFC, thus reducing a promising season into a desperate two game win-out-or-die scenario for the third time in five years.
The NFL has an elaborate set of tiebreakers and so only true insiders like the crack Beachwood staff understand how to determine which 9-7 team has a chance to win the Super Bowl. Allow me to use our vast computational resources to help you, the dedicated reader, navigate the byzantine maze of NFC playoff scenarios for teams on the bubble.
Posted on December 19, 2012
By Jim Coffman
Jim “Coach” Coffman talks Bears with Rick Kogan on WBEZ’s Afternoon Shift every Monday afternoon.
At this point it shouldn’t be about whether Lovie Smith will be fired. It should be a matter of taking responsibility for the year-after-year failure to lead a team to even one win against its historic rival. And it should be an acknowledgement of failure to deliver on what the coach enthusiastically if laboriously acknowledged was his first priority when he was hired.
The Bears shouldn’t have to fire Lovie Smith. He should step down at the end of the season.
Posted on December 17, 2012
By Mike Luce
Bowl season, the annual rite of postseason pageantry, is upon us.
And so too is our annual bowl preview. This year we’ll take it week-by-week for the freshest views and latest lines.
This week’s festivities feature a host of midsize mammals, aerial contraptions, and an ethnic group out of Central Mexico. Without further to-do, here are the games, teams, season records, the path each team traveled, and the bottom line: Our picks.
Posted on December 14, 2012
