Conflicting Thoughts From Travel to Tennessee

First of all...got to love free wifi in Salt Lake City. I'm so proud of our little home-away-from-home airport that they finally joined the pre-teens (what I've been calling the 2000-09 years) in time for it to turn into 2010. This certainly helps the myriads of folks cruising through the Southwest terminal in SLC.

I know a lot of folks (my wife included) think that travel is this really fun, awesome time. Now, don't get me wrong...sometimes it is, like being in downtown Los Angeles and having the bus drop my and Ryan Cromie the trainer off at the Staples Center and buying tickets to catch the Los Angeles Kings hockey game. But most of the time, travel is a grind....a real grind. Take this six day odyssey for example...this trip is four flights, two long bus trips, and a grand total of six cities (Pocatello to Salt Lake to Las Vegas to Sacramento to Portland to Boise to Poactello). Let's see mapquest figure that crap out.

Seriously...this is today's part of the itinerary....

8:00am Depart Holt Arena South Side

10:45am Arrive @ SLC Airport

12:50pm Southwest Airlines #3067 Departs for Las Vegas

2:10pm Southwest Airlines #2132 Departs for Sacramento

3:45pm Arrive in Sacramento

4:30pm Check into Larkspur Landing

7:00-9:00pm Practice at Sac. State (Small Gym)

The meals are of the figure it out variety....lunch in either the SLC airport before we leave, or during the layover in Vegas, and you can see there's no dinner, because that will be after practice ends at 9ish or whenever. This is the norm for most basketball trips.

I can tell you as a world traveler that the Salt Lake Airport is pretty good foodwise. The Dick Clark's cafe has a nice breakfast, and I'm all for the Sbarro's calzones. The Las Vegas airport has gambling, which is a plus, but the food is expensive, and the wireless wasn't working when I was there a few weeks back.

The Portland airport has wonderful food choices...I usually hit the Panda Express, but they have everything for the discerning food maven. Other good airports for food at Midway in Chicago (get the burger or chicken sandwich at the Illinois Pub and Grill....oh my...trust me), and Phoenix is fantastic. The coaching staff usually ends up at Chili's there, and they have an Einstein's bagels for those early morning flights.

If only Pocatello had an airport that could handle our flights....oh well.

Griz-Cat Redux

Tonight the Griz have another shot at the National Championship, taking on Villanova tonight in the FCS national title game in Chattanooga, and hence the conflict arises...who does a Bengal fan root for?

Now, I got a TON of flack back in early November from Griz fans on eGriz.com because I had the gall to state that in my poll (I'm a SportsNetwork voter), that I had Villanova #1 and Montana #2, despite the fact that Montana was undefeated. I liked my reasoning of why I had done that (basically 'Nova had a better schedule and I had them at #2 and they lost to #1 New Hapshire 28-24, and I didn't think that warranted dropping them based on the other scores that week), and with both Montana and Villanova in the title game, I do have a bit of pride that my top two in my poll are in the title game.

Being that in reality, the Griz-ISU game was the closest they've come to a loss this season, although South Dakota State had them dead to rights and somehow turned a 28-point lead with 20 minutes left into a 12-point loss. You would think my head says that Villanova would win, and honestly, I think their defense is superb, and I think they are probably better than Montana, and that's why my head says that Villanova will win their first Division I football title tonight.

But my head is one thing, and my heart is another, and honestly, how can Montana not feel like they are destined to win? The early season comeback in the fourth quarter against UC Davis got them started, but kicking the winning field goal with no time left when it hits Michael Wright's hand and then caroms off Dustin Tew's hand and still goes in? Scoreing 40 straight ot come back on South Dakota State? The snow against App. State? The clock running out with the Mountaineers at the 4-yard line? The HORRIFIC field goal attempts by ASU? And then throw in Marc Mariani, who honestly might not be the best Big Sky player I've ever seen, but certainly the scariest and the guy who is in my "Jordan Zone" (NOTE: The Joran Zone is that rarified air where a player does something so ridiculous, yet it's just not that surprising, kind of like Michael Jordan in his prime. Seriously, if someone tells you "did you hear about the Montana game? Mariani had to quarterback the final series to get them into field goal range and then had to kick the field goal" ... isn't that plausible at this point? Hence, Mariani is in the Jordan Zone).

I just don't see Montana getting to Chattanooga for a second straight year and losing. There is something to the magic of a destined team, and they look like it. They survived that ugly Bobby Hauck/Kaimin thing (I felt bad for their SID who was basically rendered inert during that whole preceeding), and I just think they will do it.

Of which, I read somewhere that Montana is in their seventh title game with seven different starting quarterbacks....that's impressive. Or Montana could go to the WAC and play in the Humanitarian Bowl against Bowling Green LOL.

Speaking of Bowls....
Former Voice of the Bengals Russ Eisenstein must be in a weird spot in his life....enjoying the fact that his Ohio Bobcats went 9-4 and are in a Bowl game, but it's the Little Caesar's Bowl, which has been derided by ESPN as the worst Bowls of the season (unless Christmas in Detriot is appealing to you). Russ is even enjoying a 6-3 men's basketball team and a Mid Major Poll ranking. (NOTE: Getting ranked in the Mid-Major Poll is not a national ranking. I've now seen two schools in the Big Sky use that term describing either themselves or an opponent about being nationally-ranked. Unless Kentucky is a part of that poll....it's not a "national" ranking).

Facebook
I've been posted personal pics from some of our trips on Facebook, and you can find and friend me over there at www.facebook.com/frankmercogliano. I usually don't put weird things over there, unless you consider my family weird (which I do).

Movers and Shakers

Here are some more photos from the football team taking part John Zamberlin's "Movers and Shakers" program. Just click to enlarge the photo

Carson Glover, Jalani Phillips, and Jake Lammers carry a fairly large carpet into the dorms.














Brandon Garcia is just a kicker, so he gets to carry clothes and stuff.














Tanner Davis, Mark Clampitt, Mihn Williams, and Jacob Hyde pose with a happy dad. The dad is happy because he didn't have to carry much.














Jake Lammers carried some boxes for the young lady on the left.














Carson Glover grabs a box out of a freshman's car.














Jake Lammers, Isaiah Walker, and James Bergren were also helping out Courtney.













Jake Pele also grabbed a box out of the same car.

And Away We Go....

Finally, after scrimmages, exhibitions, you name it, we officially, officially start the 2009-10 athletic year with the soccer team traveling to New Mexico to take on the Lobos. I personally have a soft spot for the Lobos as the first football game I ever worked was the ISU at New Mexico game in 1998. Ironically, my predecessor the esteemed Glenn Alford worked HIS first football game at New Mexico for a Bengal-Lobo encounter in 1967. If we ever schedule New Mexico in football for a season opener again I'm gonna start looking behind me though....

Soccer Stuff
Tim Flagstad previewed today's match in the Journal, and then he really goes in-depth on the blog about the freshmen and his thoughts on the season ahead...a must read for the soccer fanatics in all of BengalLand. Also, you can get ISU's match notes here, and New Mexico's here.

Volleyball Scrimmage Tonight at 6:30 pm
Pretty self explanatory headline...that scrimmage is taking place at Reed Gym. I have to score the thing....it could get ugly.

Scooter Hanging in There
Sometimes Kelvin Ang gets this odd rap for being a bad guy which is always funny to me, but he's been covering football now for a while, and for the most part, his stories, such as this fantastic piece on Tubotein Taylor's recovery that ran today, and how the team has come to his side, are just fantastic reads. Kelvin tries to look for stories, and maybe that's it, but he's proving to be a very good writer. That Taylor piece is a great read on a story many reporters might have just forgotten about and dismissed.

Football Scrimmage Inside Holt Arena on Saturday
Holt Arena is fairly busy today and tomorrow, with the old lockers getting torn out today, and then the scrimmage tomorrow. Bengal Foundation members should have received their invitation to the BF BBQ tomorrow at Holt, and all freshmen students will be at Holt Arena for Holt Hurrah, where the incoming freshmen will learn the fight song and get to meet the various teams, take part in drills and such, and generally speaking, have a good time before watching the scrimmage.

The SID and statguy in me prefers the scrimmages inside by the way, because I don't have to guess at the numbers, and I can see the stuff better then from the sidelines.

The New Kids In Town...
Not only are the student arriving, but all the department graduate students as well. Brandy Crum in the training room is already here, but Kristin Kehrer formerly with the University of Detroit is here as a G.A. in the strength and conditioning office with Mark Campbell (she and Joe Cullen can swap stories about moving from Detroit to Pocatello), and even the new G.A. in our office, Jaime Schroeder, straight from Washington State University, will get in town today. In a case of who you know, when I worked at the NCAA Tournament in Boise, Jaime was part of the Wazzu student crew assigned to me. When Mitch Worthington left the G.A. spot to head to air traffic controller school (way more money for equal stress LOL), we ended up getting Jaime, who was the star of the student staff at Wazzu and will handle track, cross country, golf, and assist with other stuff. Of course, Katie Zigars is still around, and it's funny, this is officially year two for her, but she also has a year as a G.A. here, and then the interned for three years, so it's more like six years (heck, this is just my 12th here).

I'm personally hoping Jaime ends my run of one-year G.A.s...and she has no relation, but her last name is pronounced just like David Schroeder.

Facebook Me
Funny that that is now a verb, but you can befriend Idaho State Athletics on Facebook, and there's photos and lots of news there. Good addition to the Blog and the website. I'm on there too, and I tend to post funny videos links there (because I'm a highly entertaining guy)

Speaking of Funny Videos
So the Marching Band has been practicing RIGHT OUTSIDE MY OFFICE DOOR for a week now, and without giving the whole thing away, they have been working on reproducing some classic video game themes, which is cool, but, and this is not a slight on the band in any way, but it will never top this. Have a great Friday!