A Forgetable Weekend

From 7:45 PM on Saturday to midnight on Monday the cosmos of sports finally deemed it was my time to suffer.

Sure, I've been spoiled. A World Series championship, a couple of Super Bowls, decent BC teams, competitive fantasy squads. It's been a good run.

Maybe this good run will continue, but from Saturday to Monday it all just came unglued.

It began with probably the biggest game home game in BC history. #8 Florida State coming to the Heights in the #17 Eagles inaugural ACC matchup on ESPN Saturday night (following Game Day, live on campus...surely for the last time).

All week long the hype was that BC was a program on the rise. Well coached, disciplined, huge upfront, with a big time defense. The Seminoles came in off of a shaky game against Miami with questions at quarterback but undeniable team speed and athleticism.

The game started out looking like a typical BC choke, 2 big interceptions from 6th (that's right SIXTH) year quarterback Quinton Porter and a 14-0 Seminoles lead. Then remarkably, in very un-BC fashion, the Eagles rallied and actually took a 17-14 lead into the 4th quarter.

At this point let me set the stage for you. 50,000 rabid BC fans screaming for blood, thinking about a potential leap into the top 10. A Seminoles team that looked totally impotent and unable to move the ball against BC's defense. All they had to do was hold on, with a lead in the 4th quarter at home, and they would be considered a legitimate big-time program. Asking a lot? Not really, just don't totally implode, maybe get another score and voila!

My buddy even turned to me and said, "Do the goalposts come down tonight?"

Lest we forget however, this is BC. A school plagued by inability to win on the biggest stages and buoyed by dominance in the shadowy second tier of college football. And true to form they choked. Florida State put up two touchdowns and BC failed to respond and in 15 quick minutes the dream was dead.

The capper came with 2 minutes to play with BC on Florida State's 2 yard line with 4 chances to punch it in for a gap-closing score. A penalty gave them 3 more chances. And out of this they netted nada, zip, zilch, squat! 7 chances to pull within one score from 2 yards away and this "program on the rise" failed to ascend the necessary 6 feet. A truly pathetic performance to end a truly disappointing collapse. I won't even mention the dropped pass in the back of the end zone, I won't...

From this carnival of sadness my sporting misery moves to Sunday, 1 PM, Pats at the Carolina Panthers, a Super Bowl contender with a chip on their shoulder and tough week one loss at home to New Orleans still lingering on their taste buds.

This was the first regular season meeting between these two teams since the Super Bowl two years ago and apparently the bad blood from that game persists. That's natural since these are the two hardest hitting teams in the NFL but for the Patriots to be concerned with that seems ridiculous, the Panthers as a franchise are a joke compared to New England and their near comeback to make the playoffs last year merely underscored how miserably they played during the first half of the season.

This game actually started out alright, the Pats went up 7-0 and looked reasonably sound against a very strong Carolina defense (although not as strong without Kris Jenkins). Then things simply went south. The Pats were completely unable to run the ball, despite the fact that Carolina was playing without Jenkins, their 330 pound run stopper in the middle. Brady looked very human constantly throwing high and not sensing the rush and moving to avoid it like he normally does. A costly interception on an out pattern wasn't his fault, that was just a great play by the linebacker but he should have felt the rush coming on his fumble. The defense inexplicably couldn't stop the run even though the Panthers primarily used the ageless Stephen Davis (3 TDs). And even Belichick seemed to be off his game, not challenging a questionable touchdown by Davis, and then again not challenging Brady's fumble.

Despite Brady, Dillon, and Belichick all playing below par the Patriots were still in the contest in the fourth quarter, trailing by only ten with the ball at mid field and 9 minutes to play. It almost (and almost is the key word here) had the feel of another game where the opposition let a struggling Pats team hang around too long and ultimately got bitten by a Brady miracle at the end. Not this time though, they went quietly on the remainder of their possessions and never really mounted a significant charge. Very un-Patriot like.

* I'm going to put an asterisk here because the Patriots are allowed a game like this once in a while. They have won 35 of their last 40 and in reality Carolina can't play any better than that; the Patriots played horribly and the game was still decided by only 10 points. This opening stretch of the season is a murderers row for New England but make no mistake, they're still the champs and while the Colts play Bridgewater State every Sunday until week 9 remember that they have never won a game that really matters against the Brady, Belichick incarnation of the Patriots.

Meanwhile back in Boston, starting at 2 PM the Red Sox were playing the Oakland A's, with Matt Clement going for his 14th win in a crucial game that would give the Sox 3 out of 4 against a playoff contender. With the miracle of split cable the Dockside was able to show both the Pats and Sox games, each on 2 TVs but the volume was dedicated to football so my recollection of what actually happened to start to the Sox game may be a little off.

What I do know is that the A's put up a bunch of runs (7?) in the first inning and that it was never a game after that. Clement lasted just 1 and 1/3 innings and the eventual outcome was a 12-3 bludgeoning by a team that hasn't been able to score runs all season.

There isn't even anything else to say about this game, it was simply a nightmare, especially considering that it came at the worst possible time. Clement's ineffectiveness was only heightened the next night as David Wells got smacked around by the mighty Tampa Bay Devil Rays, lasting only 2 and 1/3 innings giving up 4 runs before being lifted. Two games in a row where your starter lasts less than three innings will do a serious number on your bullpen and thankfully Curt Schilling pulled it together last night, saving a few pitches for the tired Sox relievers.

The only good news on Sunday was that the Yankees lost, but even that train derailed on Monday night with their victory over Baltimore, bringing the Sox lead in the division down to 1/2 game. In reality Monday night's game was more troubling than Sunday's. The Sox committed a bevy of errors allowing punishing unearned runs to a bad team, and then failed to get big hits in two crucial late game situations with opportunities to tie. David Ortiz made it interesting in the 9th with his 800th home run this week but then Manny Ramirez struck out pitifully on a Danny Baez pitch that was grooved right down the middle and was begging to be socked 430 feet by the right handed slugger.

A sad sidenote to all of this Boston sports misery was the performance of my 2 fantasy squads. If this were last season I'd be living the high life, needing only to play my 2 first round picks Dante Culpepper and Peyton Manning each week to have a chance to win. This week however they combined for under 400 yards passing, 0 TDs, and 6 interceptions for a grand total of 2 fantasy points. What makes these performances all the more frustrating (aside from the fact that I HATE Manning and myself for having to root for him now and that the Colts won) is that the rest of my squads had good games and with decent quarterback performances I would have won easily, seeing as I lost both games by only 12 points. Last year Manning would have put up 12 points in the first quarter against the Jaguars, this week, he took my whole team and threw it under the bus. Culpepper has yet to land me a TD pass this season and his net fantasy points through 2 weeks are -4.

What the hell I ask you, what the hell?

So that concludes my run down of one of the worst 3 day spans in a Boston sports fan's life.

Coming soon: My suicidal rant if the Red Sox lose the lead to the Yankees and miss the playoffs.