Sports Agenda For Tuesday (8/23/11)

Big Story:
I don't know what it means, but my CD player this morning played in order, Same Old Song & Dance, Highway to Hell, and Check My Brain, this morning on the way to work.
Anyways, the Marlins didn't lose last night! The Dolphins offensive line is a problem, where have I heard this before? And the Hurricanes scandal grows every day.
Let's hit agenda this harder than Irene will the Carolinas!

Firsties:
A little off-topic, but a quick thought about Hurricane Irene.
Viewers often complain that local news and other media overhype hurricanes/tropical storms.
To a degree, they're right.
But, there's a reason for that.
It was almost 20 years ago, but people in South Florida went to bed one night expecting a category 2-3 storm and woke up the next morning staring at Category 5 Hurricane Andrew.
It can happen so quickly, it's prudent to be prepared ahead of time regardless of whether a storm is approaching.
Take Irene for example. If a ridge weakens here or strengthens here, all bets are off with the steering of Irene. The computer models are much better now, but they can be wrong.
The same claims are made in the Midwest and southeast about tornado warnings and severe weather coverage.
Ask the people in Alabama how grateful they are for the advanced warnings after the entire state was ravaged by tornadoes earlier this year.
That's kind of the point.
The media often panics as major weather events near. But, if they didn't, that one time when it actually hits, the blame would fall squarely on their shoulders.
So pay attention to the weather, don't panic, but heed their words and use common sense as storms approach.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled sports talk.

UM Scandal:
The big news coming out now is the Hurricanes are investigating the eligibility of 15 players.
We knew of 12 football players and 1 basketball players.
So there are 2 unknown players that are being questioned.
I feel sorry for Coach Golden, he walked into a disaster and didn't know it.
But, that said, I had to laugh at the commercial for Hurricanes season tickets this morning.
It said something along the lines of "a new era with new rules at UM" or something to that effect.
Made me chuckle.
Last week, I wrote in the agenda that the scandal came down to two things, money, and unadulterated greed.
Both applied to both sides.
UM wanted Shapiro's money at all costs and were greedy enough to look past his obvious problems.
Shapiro wanted to be inside the U and was willing to dangle money in front of the school to gain access.
It was a marriage made in scandal heaven.
As for Jimmy Johnson calling him a jock-sniffer wannabe…thanks for stating the obvious coach.
Look, the deafening silence coming from players like Vince Wilfork doesn't bode well for UM.
He's under no rules to not talk and could say what he wishes and cooperate or not with the investigation.
Obviously, his lawyers or someone is advising him not to talk and to stay away from the subject. Why that is, well, you'll have to ask the massive nose tackle.
There's a lot of smoke with this story, and as the old saying goes, where there's smoke, there's fire.

Dolphins:
Stop me if you've heard this before….the Dolphins have offensive line issues.
Primarily on the right side of the line.
Marc Colombo was awful last year in Dallas and hasn't looked great in the preseason.
Forget about the offense's performance in last week's game.
It was against the worst team in the league last year, so don't put a lot of weight into it.
I'm just not sold on Colombo holding up at right tackle and with Carey on the inside, that leaves a huge run blocking area open on the right side.
Carey isn't a stud, but when he's in shape, he's got the talent to play right tackle.
The Fins hired Tony Sparano to help solidify the line, but since he's been here, the only solid piece of the line has been left tackle Jake Long.
Of course it's pretty hard to screw up the number one overall pick, even though the Dolphins did by passing on quarterback Matt Ryan.