FOOTBALL

In the NFL, it was Monday Night Football between the Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars.  The Ravens have been pretty solid this season, even beating up on a strong Houston Texans offense last week.  The Jaguars, on the other hand, have been struggling.  They put in rookie QB Blaine Gabbert, who is using this season to get adjusted to the NFL, but nobody thought they had a chance against Baltimore… even IN Jacksonville.  The Jags wanted to prove everybody wrong, and their defense came out and just suffocated the Ravens.  They kept them scoreless for 3 quarters.  The Jags offense was average at best, but it was efficient enough to give them a safe lead.  The Ravens got a TD from a Flacco pass to Anquan Boldin, but it was too little too late.  The Jags held Baltimore to 146 TOTAL yards of offense — a performance that Jacksonville fans can surely be proud of. Jacksonville 12, Baltimore 7.

And in some college football news, this past weekend USC marched into Notre Dame and beat them pretty soundly, even though Notre Dame was favored to win.  Notre Dame looked very sloppy out there… like they couldn’t keep up.  USC quarterback Matt Barkley said flat out that he thought Notre Dame gave up in the game.  Pretty bold statement.  He supported it saying that he thought Notre Dame would strategically use their timeouts midway through the 4th quarter to force USC to throw or dare them to run.  But with 7 minutes left, Notre Dame didn’t call one.  So Barkley said he thought they were saving them until the end.  But, in under 2 minutes, Notre Dame still didn’t use their time-outs, which means, in Barkley’s viewpoint, that they pretty much threw in the towel.  At this point, Notre Dame just doesn’t have the talent to compete with the big boys like they did in the 80s and 90s.  That’s why you see their head coach going on ESPN all the time, and why they wore those gorgeously gold helmets — it’s all for the flare of recruiting the big talent.  Perhaps they will rise again.  And, if now, you can always watch the movie Rudy to get your Notre Dame fix.

BASEBALL

And in the World Series:  Game 6.  We’re tied at 2 and the Cards were hoping for a win on the road so they would only need one win at home.  They jumped out to an early lead behind clutch hits from Yadier Molina and Skip Schumaker.  It was 2-0 Cardinals.  Then Mitch Moreland homered for the Rangers to pull within 1 run.  And later, in the 6th, Adrian Beltre smashed one out of the park to tie the game.  Suddenly, the Cardinals were scared.  And in the 8th, the Rangers momentum continued when Mike Napoli crushed one to deep right field to bring in 2 more runs.  And the Rangers were up 4-2.  Then they brought in their main man — closer Neftali Feliz.  He pitched masterfully to maintain the lead and give the Rangers a 3-2 lead in the World Series.  One more win… and they’re finally World Champs.  Texas 4, St. Louis 2.