WATERCOOLER CHAT: JETS CONTROVERSY, CLEMSON GETS CRUSHED, TEMPLE DOESN’T QUIT,

FOOTBALL

In the NFL, the New York Jets, after two years of making it to the conference championship game, failed to make the playoffs this year.  Every season, Jets head coach Rex Ryan walks up to the media microphones and utters that the Jets will win the Super Bowl this year.  Well, this time he was dead wrong.  So now everyone is asking, “What happened?”.  There was some public stirrings between Jets receiver Santonio Holmes and quarterback Mark Sanchez.  Holmes doesn’t think highly of Sanchez, and has also been criticized lately for not trying hard enough.  Terry Bradshaw has said that the Jets should just cut Holmes so they can get back on track as a team.  Probably a good idea.  But another problem was made public by Jets back-up QB Greg McElroy (the former standout quarterback at Alabama).  McElroy ripped the Jets locker room, saying that many players didn’t care whether they won or lost the game, but rather just about their personal performance.  And that kind of attitude won’t transfer to Super Bowl wins.

In college football, it was the Orange Bowl, probably the least anticipated of this year’s BCS Bowls, between the Clemson Tigers and the West Virginia Mountaineers.  Clemson was favored coming into the game, especially since they laid a beat down on Virginia Tech to win the ACC Championship.  But that was a month ago, and Clemson has been a team that plays well when nobody believes in them, and terribly when people do and expect them to win.  That’s why, it wasn’t really too much of a shocker when West Virginia came into the game and absolutely crushed them.  The Mountaineers were playing solid defense, stopping a typically explosive Clemson offensive attack, and they were able to score touchdown after touchdown.  They were just dancing all over Clemson out there, even returning a goal line fumble for a 99 yard touchdown.  Going into the half, the Mountaineers led 49-20.  They wouldn’t look back from there, as even their reserves played solidly in the second half, tacking on even more points.  Clearly, new head coach Dana Holgorsen knows what he’s doing. West Virginia 70, Clemson 33.

BASKETBALL
And in college basketball, Duke has surged back to the top of the standings, now sitting pretty in the #3 spot.  But they weren’t prepared for a Temple team that is on fire themselves.  Temple jumped out to a big lead behind their star player Khalif Wyatt.  But, Duke, as is expected, would come surging back behind a solid 16-point night from forward Mason Plumlee.  He got them within 4 points with 5 minutes left, which should have been enough time for Duke to scare the Owls and win in the end.  However, Temple wouldn’t quit, and held onto their lead down the stretch to upset the #3 seed Duke.  Watch out for the Owls come March — they could really bust some brackets.  Temple 78, Duke 73.

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