Archive for November, 2008

This weekend marks the final game for Phillip Fulmer as the head coach of the Tennessee Football squad.  After 17 years, it all comes down to this, and one last game against the Kentucky Wildcats.  Hopefully, the Vols will send the Great Punkin off in style with a big win—keeping the Vols streak against the Wildcats alive.

But before we get to Saturday, the Tennessee Volunteers have some other business to tend to.  Next up is the BasketVols versus the Siena Saints (who exactly decided that a Saint Bernard was a fearsome mascot?), on Thanksgiving at noon in the Old Spice Classic, being held in Lake Buena Vista (Orlando), Florida.  That game will be televised on ESPN2 and—as always—the Vol Network Broadcast will be available online at UT Sports.com as well as over the air on XM Radio Channel 199 starting at 11:30 am.  So, you’ll get the chance to watch Bruce and the Barbarians play while your munching on your Thanksgiving Dinner.

Bearing all of that in mind, here’s Episode 22 of the Blazer Chronicles, courtesy of VolzRChamps, with a complete round-up of Tennessee sports.

The Blazer Chronicles: Episode 22

I wonder if Bruce Almighty will be chomping on a Turkey leg in the coaches box?

Go Vols, Beat the Saints!

– Go Figure …

Video Courtesy of: VolzRChamps / Blazer Chronicles

In case you hadn’t noticed, there is a great new video resource available on the web over at FanDome.com which has assembled one of the best and most varied collection of sports videos on the web.  What’s even better is that all of the videos are classified by team and sport—making it much easier to find what you’re looking for.  What’s more, if you take the 30 seconds required to become a registered user (registration is free by the way), you have the ability to affiliate with your favorite teams.  Thus, registered users get a profile page  which automatically displays all the videos associated with their team.  In my case—surprise, surprise—that would be Tennessee.  All of the major teams across the nation have their own FanDome categorized by sport.  Tennessee has both a Football FanDome and a Basketball FanDome.

The video upload process is amazingly simple, allowing you to upload from your own computer or from other sites such as YouTube.  To top it all off, the folks over at FanDome have created a series of video widgets which show all the latest content for a given team.  You can check out their widget over in the right sidebar here at the Gate (that’s this way  for those of you who are directionally challenged).  Thankfully, all of the content on display is embeddable, linkable, etc., just like this little clip:

The content is as varied and, at the same time, well-organized as I’ve seen on any of the various video sites across the web.  FanDome has really done a nice job in putting together its virtual smorgasbord of sports video.  If you like YouTube and the like at all, FanDome really is worth checking out.

– Go Figure …

**Disclosure: While both Gate 21 and FanDome.com feature hyperlinks to one another, neither site, their editors, nor their webmasters receive any payment or other compensation of any type or kind in return for those links.  Furthermore, neither Gate 21 nor lawvol received any compensation for this review, which was neither requested nor solicited by FanDome.com.  This “Shout Out” represents the actual opinion of the author (for what that is worth) and was in no way influenced by any other person.

Check out the Full Poll Results at Garnet and Black Attack!

Week 13

Through 22 November 2008

Well, there were only four games in the SEC this weekend, thus, I have very little to say about some of the teams that took the week off.  Be that as it may, here’s my ballot for this week in the SEC Power Poll, along with a feeble attempt at explaining why I’m such a moron.

In all its radiant glory:

The Rest of the Power Poll

Now that you have wasted your time looking at my ballot, go check out what everybody else is saying over at Garnet and Black Attack, where the final poll results will be posted Wednesday-ish.

– Go Figure …

Here’s my ballot for this week’s CBS Sports College Football BlogPoll hosted by—as you might imagine—CBS Sports.

Week 13

Through 22 November 2008

Well, while my Top 10 remained fairly stable (with the notable exception of the Texas Tech Red Raiders), nearly the entire field in the backend of my ballot from last week managed to lose over the weekend (6 teams from 15-25).  It looks like things are tightening up down the stretch, and we can now begin to see where the teams will land for the bowl season.  Most of my votes should be fairly obvious.  Either way, here is my preliminary BlogPoll Top 25 for this week:

My Ballot for the Week

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama	–
2	Florida	1
3	Oklahoma	1
4	Texas	1
5	Southern Cal	1
6	Missouri	1
7	Utah	2
8	Boise State	–
9	Ohio State	1
10	Penn State	1
11	Texas Tech	9
12	Ball State	–
13	Oklahoma State	–
14	Georgia	–
15	TCU	4
16	Cincinnati	5
17	Oregon State	5
18	Northwestern	7
19	Oregon	5
20	Boston College	6
	Michigan State	4
22	Pittsburgh	6
23	Brigham Young	8
24	Florida State	2
25	Mississippi	1

Dropped Out: North Carolina (#18), LSU (#20), Maryland (#23).

Explanations after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

Well, my vacation is almost at an end which means that I will return to my usual low standards of writing here in the next day or so…

Yes, I realize that it is a bit disingenuous to celebrate the Gate’s birthday by going on vacation and not posting much of anything for a week. Thankfully, HSH and VolzRChamps have made up for my laziness. Not to break-up a good thing, here’s Episode 21 of the Blazer Chronicles, courtesy of VolzRChamps.

The Blazer Chronicles: Episode Lucky Number 21

Lucky number 21, it just sounds nice, doesn’t it?

– Go Figure …

Videos Courtesy of: VolzRChamps / Blazer Chronicles

Well, after a whirlwind couple of months, I’m actually taking a little R&R this week — my first vacation in over a year. Nonetheless, here’s the Episode 20 of the Blazer Chronicles, courtesy of VolzRChamps, with a complete rundown on Tennessee Sports for this week.

The Blazer Chronicles: Episode 20 — Tennessee Sports Rundown

Go Vols, Beat the Commodores!

– Go Figure …

Videos Courtesy of: VolzRChamps / Blazer Chronicles

Of course by now those of you who actually read my posts know of my complete lack of creativity, since I mention it ad nauseum. I’m also not really all that funny of a guy either. However, this is actually pretty funny…

Unfortunately, I did not come up with it. No, that credit belongs to a co-worker of mine who showed/told me it shortly after deadline (I work at the News-Sentinel…the Scoreboard page? yes, that’s what I do) one night a couple weeks ago.

Here it is:

DUCK

DUCK

GOOSE (GOSSAGE)

There you go. If at first you don’t have a clue, that’s fine – neither did I. Trust me, though, it’ll make perfect sense when someone (or me) gives you the answer. I can’t really offer any kind of reward since I’m just a college student (yes, I did just play that card), but I can offer you this: pride. Sometimes pride is the best thing you can win. This is one of those times…

So just leave your guesses down there as a comment and I’ll let you know what the answer is if/when someone gets it right. Enjoy!!

Images Courtesy of: Butch Dill / AP (Daylife) • Getty Images (Daylife) • Passions of the Weiss