Posts Tagged ‘Complaints’

Here’s my ballot for this week’s CBS Sports BlogPoll Top 25 hosted by — as you might imagine — CBS Sports.

Week 7

Through 11 October 2009

Glory be!  Yes, I have succumbed to my inner instincts and have made a change at the very top of my ballot this week.  As for the rest of the changes in the world of college football represented in my BlogPoll Top 25 ballot for this week, hopefully most are fairly obvious.  Either way, here’s my ballot:

My Ballot for the Week

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama	2
2	Florida	1
3	Texas	1
4	Southern Cal	2
5	Boise State	–
6	LSU	2
7	TCU	–
8	Ohio State	–
9	Penn State	–
10	Iowa	–
11	Virginia Tech	–
12	Miami (Florida)	1
13	Cincinnati	1
14	Kansas	2
15	Notre Dame	–
16	Oklahoma	1
17	Oklahoma State	1
18	Nebraska	2
19	South Carolina	NR
20	Mississippi	8
21	Oregon	1
22	Pittsburgh	1
23	Georgia Tech	NR
24	Houston	NR
25	Auburn	6
Last week’s ballot

Explanations after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s my ballot for this week’s CBS Sports BlogPoll Top 25 hosted by — as you might imagine — CBS Sports.

Week 4

Through 19 September 2009

First things first…

No, I have not abandoned the Gate.  No, I am not dead.  No, I have not defected and become a Florida Gators fan.  I have, however, had more on my plate the last few weeks than I really could possibly hope to keep up with.  Thus, I have had to make concessions here and there.  Regular posting on the Gate (as well as commenting across the web) has been one of those areas.  Between trials, funerals, and trips from one end of the State of North Carolina to the other, I have simply been trying to keep my head above water.  To both of you out there who regularly read the Gate, my apologies.  To those of you who accidentally stumbled upon Gate 21 while searching the web for a place from which you could purchase Viagra, well, you’re in the wrong place, but I’ll apologize nonetheless.

Moving right along…

There were a few surprises over the past week in the world of college football, some which I simply did not see coming and others which, while not expected can hardly be said to be earth shattering.  Bearing this in mind, here’s is my BlogPoll Top 25 ballot for the week.  Most of these should be fairly obvious.  Either way, here’s my preliminary ballot:

My Ballot for the Week

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Florida	–
2	Texas	1
3	Penn State	1
4	Alabama	1
5	California	2
6	Mississippi	–
7	LSU	2
8	Miami (Florida)	2
9	Boise State	1
10	Oklahoma	1
11	Southern Cal	9
12	TCU	–
13	Ohio State	2
14	Iowa	2
15	Pittsburgh	2
16	UCLA	3
17	Georgia	1
18	Notre Dame	2
19	Virginia Tech	4
20	Kansas	1
21	Oklahoma State	1
22	Nebraska	8
23	Cincinnati	1
24	Florida State	NR
25	Michigan	NR
Last week’s ballot

Explanations after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

Due to trials, funerals, and numerous other obligations, this will probably be my only post this week.  I will, however, be back next weekend after the Florida Game to commiserate or celebrate (after the UCLA disaster, I’m afraid I know which it will be).

At any rate, here is my preliminary ballot for this week’s CBS Sports BlogPoll Top 25 for all to attack, without comment:

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Florida	–
2	Southern Cal	–
3	Texas	–
4	Penn State	–
5	Alabama	–
6	Mississippi	–
7	California	–
8	Boise State	3
9	LSU	3
10	Miami (Florida)	4
11	Oklahoma	2
12	TCU	3
13	Brigham Young	3
14	Nebraska	3
15	Ohio State	7
16	Iowa	4
17	Pittsburgh	1
18	Georgia	1
19	UCLA	3
20	Notre Dame	10
21	Kansas	2
22	Oklahoma State	13
23	Virginia Tech	1
24	Cincinnati	1
25	Utah	1
Last week’s ballot

Sorry to be so brief, but duty calls…

– So it goes …

Here’s my ballot for this week’s CBS Sports BlogPoll Top 25 hosted by—as you might imagine—CBS Sports.

Week 2

Through 8 September 2009

After the past week in the world of college football, there have been a bunch of changes, mainly at the back end of my poll.  The other biggie is the Oklahoma Sooners who plummeted after losing to BYU.  In addition, the entire back end of my poll pretty much emptied out as a result of a ton of teams losing.  Thus, there are some new faces, and a few that have departed.

Unfortunately, I am starting a multi-week trial today and am already running behind in getting this posted.  Given my trial schedule, it is doubtful that I will get much of substance posted for the next week or so.  Be that as it may, most of my changes should be fairly obvious.   Either way, here’s my ballot:

My Ballot for the Week

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Florida	–
2	Southern Cal	1
3	Texas	1
4	Penn State	1
5	Alabama	2
6	Mississippi	–
7	California	1
8	Ohio State	1
9	Oklahoma State	4
10	Notre Dame	–
11	Boise State	3
12	LSU	–
13	Oklahoma	11
14	Miami (Florida)	5
15	TCU	–
16	Brigham Young	6
17	Nebraska	3
18	Pittsburgh	5
19	Georgia	8
20	Iowa	1
21	Clemson	3
22	UCLA	3
23	Kansas	3
24	Virginia Tech	8
25	Cincinnati	1

Alas, I simply don’t have time to post any real explanations aside from “this is what I think,” but such is life…

You can view the final results of this week’s poll over at CBS Sports later this week and check out an analysis of how the collective blogging brain-trust arrived at this week’s result.  If you’re craving even more BlogPoll goodness, you can also check out how other bloggers voted and see how your team fared across the Blogosphere.

Oh, yeah, and if I ever figure out who it is that keeps spamming the comments here at the Gate with random crap offering links to porn sites, Viagra shipped to your home, or moneymaking schemes, I’m going to find his address and tell Eric Berry that the jerk said something nasty about his mother…

– So it goes…

Just in case you thought I was dead or moved to Georgia, I figured I’d go ahead and let everyone know that I won’t be posting this week—I’m on vacation and won’t be back around until the first of next week.  Thus, though I know it breaks your heart, you’ll have to wait a few days before there is anymore nonsensical drivel riveting and hard-hitting analysis here at the Gate.

All I can say is that this brief reprieve is long overdue.  Time to slow down a bit, sit and watch the sunset, maybe even grab a few rays.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well, here it is, Friday, and I’ve got very little to show for the week…

I have been tied up the latter half of the week, and have been unable to get anything of consequence posted.  Even now, I am writing during a break in the action at a deposition.  Sad though it may be, I think Orson over at EDSBS may have gotten things right in his “football reads” assessment of the path most lawyers take in finding their career—especially the whole lack of math skills part.

This is all very simple once you've lived it...

Anyway, since I’ve pretty much been absent lately, at a minimum, I wanted to pass a long a great video I stumbled upon. This is a pre-game pep-talk from the chaplain at Georgia Tech.  Great line in there about “We gonna fight, till we cant fight no more, gonna lie down, bleed a while, gonna get up, fight some more!!!”

Video: Gonna Fight Some More!!!

• HT to: Her Loyal Sons

Bring it!  I’m ready to bleed a while…

– So it goes…

Image(s) Courtesy of: EDSBS

Yes, friends and neighbors the NCAA Tournament is upon us.  Thus, we all get ready for the mayhem that accompanies that grand old tradition.  For what seems like forever, that has included watching endless hours of basketball courtesy of CBS Sports.  Now, generally, I am a huge fan of CBS Sports, and I favor their web presence when it comes to sports content on the internet. **

All that said, last year’s NCAA tournament almost drove me mad.  Actually it wasn’t the tournament, but the way that CBS covered the tournament on television.  That led me to fire off at the mouth a bit.  Since it is that time again, I figured it would only be appropriate to take a stroll down memory lane and look back on what I had to say about CBS’s coverage.  I do this for two reasons.

First, this seems relevant as we all get ready to become couch potatoes for a month.  This may be minimized a little bit due to the fact that CBS will be broadcasting all games online free of charge once again, but the fact remains a big flat screen is infinitely better than even the best computer monitor.

Second, I have been so busy that I haven’t yet gotten a chance to finish up my thoughts on the Oklahoma State Cowboys…

Thus, without further adieu, we go back in time to my post entitled simply:

CBS = Complete Bull Sh*t

The following is an excerpt from an archived post on Gate 21 which originally appeared on 31 March 2008.  To continue reading the original post in its entirety, simply click the title above, or the “Continue Reading” link at the foot of this post

I intentionally waited a few days before airing this complaint, mainly because I didn’t want my vitriol to be mistaken as nothing more than “sour grapes” over the BasketVols loss to the Louisville Cardinals.

Trust me, this has nothing to do with Tennessee, Louisville, or any other specific team…

For the past … well, it seems like quite a long time, now … CBS has been the exclusive home of the NCAA Tournament. I vaguely remember ESPN covering first and second-round games during the 1990s, but CBS is all we have had for a while. Either way, CBS has held a stranglehold on the Final Four since Billy Packer conned James Naismith himself into signing over the rights some time during the 1920s — back when Billy Packer was in his 50s.

First of all, I do want to applaud CBS Sportsline — CBS Sports’ internet division — for their ambitious decision to broadcast every tournament game for free on the web. Similarly, the CBS “Game Center” on the internet for each game — displaying myriad stats and information in real time — is amazing. It is as artful as it is impressive. Any fan can get up-to-the-second information on every facet of the game — including points, fouls, assists, shooting trends, whether a player is taking bribes to throw the game, which boosters the cute little cheerleader next to the basket is sleeping with, and so much more — via one of the best interfaces I’ve ever seen for statistical information of that kind.

Despite the minor fact that the bandwidth draw for the “March Madness on Demand” service has been so obscenely high that it has — at times — nearly crashed massive trunk lines on the web, I salute these efforts of CBS’s internet division. For reasons which will become clear in a second, in the future I may choose this as the only way I’ll watch the tournament — even if it is in a 5″ x 5″ low resolution streaming window.

Continue Reading >>

**Disclosure: While lawvol is a voting member of the CBS Sports Football Blog Poll and the CBS Sports BasketBlog Poll, neither this site, its editor, nor publisher receives any payment or other compensation of any type or kind in return for participation. Furthermore, neither Gate 21 nor lawvol received any benefit of any kind for this article, which was neither requested nor solicited by CBS Sports. This article represents the actual opinion of the author (for what that is worth) and was in no way influenced by any other person(s).