***The Bears 7-9 season is finished. Now what? Lovie Smith will meet with many of his players and his staff starting Monday at Halas Hall.GM Jerry Angelo was not visable in the Ford Field Press Box Sunday, no doubt trying to avoid having to take questions about the Coahing staff future.
***The Lions finished 2-14,and what’s sick about that is the fact that they IMPROVED on last year’s 0-16 mark by a couple of W’s. 2-30 over two seasons!
***What a New Year’s weekend this was. I covered overtime losses by the Northwestern Football team(in the Outback Bowl to Auburn in Tampa Friday)and the Illinois men’s Basketball team(Saturday to Gonzaga at the United Center)some 24 hours,and 1000 miles apart. Oh, and a difference of some 70*.
***NU’s loss to Auburn was the school’s 7th straight Bowl defeat. This was as winnable of a Bowl game they have had. The Wildcats marched up and down the field against Auburn’s defense all day, but Mike Kafka(who nearly threw 80 passes)was intercepted 5 times. There were also the three missed field goal tries by Stefan Demos, who is a good kicker,but who had a tough day. His try as time expired in the fourth quarter would have won the game for the Cats,but it sliced wide right. Then came his overtime try to tie the game,that hit the right upright.Demos was also hurt on that attempt when a Tiger rolled into him for “roughing the passer”.That gave NU a first down but they couldn’t reach the end zone,choosing to ‘go for it’ on fourth down rather than try a field goal with an inexperienced kicker try a FG. The fake with a ‘fukblerooskie’ was stuffed, thus ending the game.
***Illinois had a miserable start against the Zags Saturday,but after falling behind by 21, they rallied and took as much as an 8 point lead in the second half.The Bulldogs caught up,and made the plays late to win by two. The loss was a rare one for the Illini in the UC,which they call their “Home away from home”.
***Since the Bulls have all of a sudden won four in a row-including a win over defending Eastern Conferene Champion Orlando Saturday night, is the Vinny Del Negro watch off for now?
***OK, so the Cubs finnally pulled off a player addition for the first time since dumping Milton Bradley! They got Marlon Byrd. And why not? They have been ‘flipping the Byrd(bird)’ at Cub Fans for years!
LES