A Quiet Week

Tues.-Fri., September 10-13, 2024

As is often the case, a week doing as little as possible is just what the doctor ordered.

The first week of the 2024 NFL

season was now in the books

The Rams disappointing, overtime loss to the Lions in Detroit put us at the bottom of the NFC West standings at 0-1, tying us with the Arizona Cardinals.

Too many injuries, especially in the Offensive Line, does not bode well for the near future.

The Rams will break their tie

with the Cardinals on Sunday as the

two clubs meet in Glendale, Arizona

This from a Mexican website

The teams not in gray are the only NCAA DI teams still undefeated after Week 2 of play. There have actually been three weekends of college football when you recall the smattering of games that were played during Week 0.

How many of these undefeated teams will we lose this weekend?

Bold news from the PAC-12 (PAC-2?)

Oregon State and Washington State were the only two PAC-12 teams that did not find a new conference to join in the off-season.

Facing the sting of abandonment, the Mountain West Conference came to their scheduling aid.

A deal was worked out where even though OSU and WSU would not be members of the MWC, they would each get a slew of games guaranteed against MWC clubs. The Beavers have seven games and the Cougars have eight games vs. MWC teams in 2024.

With OSU and WSU still in ownership of the defunct PAC-12 brand they did the noble thing in return to the MWC's hospitality.

This week they announced that they were raiding the MWC and stealing four of their teams (Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State) starting in the 2026 season.

It appears that loyalty in college athletics is a thing of the past.

Money, on the other hand . . . 

The new PAC-12 will now have six

teams in 2026, how many more

colleges will jump ship before then?

The hot rumor has California and Stanford rejoining the PAC-12 Conference after two years in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Stay tuned . . .

The 113th Apple Cup game will kickoff

at Lumen Field in Seattle on Saturday

The Apple Cup series started in 1900 between Washington and Washington Agricultural, now Washington State. That first game ended in a 5-5 tie.

Washington has dominated the series with 73 wins, 33 losses and 6 ties.

The Huskies have won 12 of the last 14 Apple Cups including the last two.

GO DAWGS!

Jacob at stand-up DE at

Tuesday's practice

Turning the corner on Pass Rush

While he enjoyed a good practice on this day, he came up with a sore back forcing him to sit out the last half of Wednesday's workout and all of Thursday's.

His status for Saturday's game vs. the Oxnard Knights is in question.

Back on the "Bundles for EuroBall" front . . .

We shipped out this box today containing

59 white pants to our long time

EuroBall coaching friend, Bart Iaccarino

Bart's Cecina Trappers are located

in the Livorno region of Italy

This box of pants to be used for practices. They will surely help the Trappers grow the game in lovely Italy.

Go Trappers GO!

On Friday night, there was only one thing to do, go to our latest edition of Friday Night Lights!

With grandson Jacob's back still hurting him it was only myself and Michael along for the ride. Jacob rested at home and will be in street clothes for his Pop Warner football game on Saturday due to his first health experience mimicking his geriatric Poppo's current life style.

We opted to stay local on this cool mid-September night.

The Channel League's Ventura Cougars

0 Wins - 2 Losses

at

The Marmonte League's Camarillo Scorpions

1 Win - 2 Losses

Incredibly, it was a BEAUTIFUL

night for American football!

The game turned out to be high drama with lots of ebbs and flows, big plays and hard hits.

An action packed First Quarter ended with Ventura leading 14-7.

The Second Quarter belonged to the Scorpions until the Cougars scored with just seconds left before the intermission, a portent of things to come. At the break, it was Camarillo 24 - Ventura 21.

The Second Half would be just

as entertaining

There was again lots of action but only one score. After three chukars of play it was Camarillo 31 - Ventura 21.

The drama grew in the Fourth Quarter with Ventura making a furious comeback.

The Cougars, just as they did to end the First Half, drove the length of the field to score a TD with only nine seconds left in the game to bring home their first win of the season.

FINAL SCORE

Ventura Cougars (1-2) - 35

Camarillo Scorpions (1-3) - 34

A wild ball game to say the least.

Odds and ends from the net . . .

This crest popped up randomly

Long time readers of this blog may recall my fascination with all things doing with European heraldry and this one definitely caught my eye.

It is the crest of Spanish King Carlo I, born in 1500, who was also Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire.

He was King of Spain from 1516 to 1556 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1519 to 1556.

A King at 16 years of age and an Emperor at 19. Nice work if you can get it.

Why this intricate crest was on FaceBook this week is beyond me.

Now that we own both a cat and

a laser pointer, we understand