Tide Clocks

If you’re a fan of a one loss team then Week 8 was pretty frustrating for you.With a match up between #1 Ohio State and #3 Michigan looming, USC not being it’s usual self, and West Virginia’s undefeated season not impressing the BCS it looks like a one loss team could possibly sneak into the National Championship game, meaning all  their fans still had a little hope. Chances are you spent most of the day frustrated because your one loss team was losing to a lower ranked or unranked team, a team they should be able to beat, with not much time left. If you’re a fan of one of the other one loss teams you ended up frustrated that everyone one of the one loss teams that were losing came back from behind, except one. In Lincoln the one loss Texas Longhorns were looking to keep their hopes of defending their National Championship. With just 4:54 left to go in the game the Corn Huskers scored on a pass from Marlon Lucky to Nate Swift and the extra point gave the Corn Huskers a 20 - 19 lead. The score could have been tied but Longhorns kicker Greg Johnson had missed an extra point earlier in the game and the Longhorns could’ve been ahead because Johnson also missed a field goal earlier in the game too. Nebraska was trying to kill the clock when receiver Terrence Newman fumbled and Texas recovered. Quarterback Colt McCoy drove the Longhorns down the field and got them into field goal range. Since Greg Johnson had missed two previous kicks the Texas Longhorns coach Mack Brown opted to put in the back up kicker. This was no regular back up kicker though; Ryan Bailey was a walk-on attempting the first kick of his collegiate career. Nebraska coach Bill Callahan tried to freeze the walk-on by challenging the previous play. Callahan knew the previous play, an incomplete pass, was called correctly but he challenged just so they would have to spend time reviewing it leaving Bailey to think about the important kick. Callahan’s plan didn’t work though as Bailey knocked the kick right through the middle of the uprights for the 22 - 20 win.

512 Homers for the Slugging Third BasemanOn August 16th, 1954 Eddie Matthews appeared on the first cover of Sports Illustrated. The photo was of Eddie Matthews swinging his bat, a motion which Ty Cobb himself claimed was one of only “three of four perfect swings in my lifetime”. Eddie Matthews used that “perfect swing” to crank  out 512 homers in a seventeen year career, one that saw him be the only player to be a member of the Braves when they were in Boston, Milwaukee, and finally Atlanta. Eddie Matthews was the greatest slugging third baseman in baseball until Mike Schmidt of the Phillies came along, and he teamed up with Henry Aaron to from a formidable duo of power hitters that every National League pitcher in his right mind feared.Edwin Lee Matthews was born in Texarkana, Texas in 1931, but his family moved to Santa Barbara, California when he was young. At six years of age his mom and dad took him to a local junior high field for a baseball workout. His dad, who had played semi-pro ball, positioned himself to shag flies while his mom pitched to Matthews. Eddie remembers that, “I hit a line drive through the box that almost took my mother’s head off, and then they switched”. Needless to say, Eddie Matthews was a star player for his high school team, and he signed with the Braves as soon as he graduated in 1949, turning down a more lucrative offer from the Dodgers. Eddie Matthews was in the majors by 1952, and he broke the rookie record for homers when he belted 25. That season, the Braves’ last in Boston, Matthews became the only rookie up to that time to clock three homers in one game.