The Morning Fade – 12.23.10

Jenni Carlson with a great story on the Weeden family – I know I rip on Jenni sometimes but this really is a great story about a pair of people who seem pretty normal. You know, normal other than the cannon for an arm, Big XII records, and near-million dollar signing bonus.

Helsley with a sexual assault update – I don’t really plan on writing that sentence ever again in my life.

Jimmie Tramel with a lengthy piece on Blackmon – Where are all these quality articles coming from. This is probably the best article I’ve ever read in the TW or NewsOK. It really gives some substance to somebody we all think we know because he had 100+ catches in a season.

Blackmon talks TCU, title game, and Prince Amukamara – How much better of an interview is Blackmon than Dez? 100x? 1000x?

FOX Sports simulating the college football playoffs – Wisky upsetting Cammy Cam in the semis and Oregon hanging on by 1 against TCU? Nah…I wouldn’t have watched any of that.

ESPN Pac-10 blog interviews Arizona DC – “The All-American wide receiver doesn’t drop a ball [Justin Blackmon]. He catches anything within 10 feet of him. He’s just smooth. He looks so natural out there running routes. He has a great knack for finding grass and sitting down in the zone and beating man coverage. And the quarterback [Brandon Weeden] has played consistently all year long for them. They are real solid up front — three juniors, a sophomore and a redshirt freshman starting for them up front. They know how to zone block. They know how to pass protect. It’s hard to get to [the QB] because they are not doing a lot of five-step drop. They’re getting the ball quickly out of the quarterback’s hands. Those two other receivers complement Blackmon because they’re steady. I don’t know if people call them possession receivers but I know they run good routes and catch the ball as well. Then once you look at all that, they’ve got a bevy of running backs — they can throw any one of three at you — and they can pound the ball on you. We’re expecting them to try to run the ball early and then play-action pass us like they do everybody else. We can’t give up a lot of after-contact yardage, whether it’s in the passing game or run game. So we’ve concentrated on trying to shore up our tackling.”

Cool NCAA basketball 2010 recap by Andy Glockner – And just in case you needed to see what would have been the greatest shot in NCAA history one more time (1:27 below)…