Mo Isom Doesn’t Make LSU Football Team
TALENT
Back on March 7, we posted the report that LSU women’s soccer star Mo Isom was going to tryout for the kicking spot on the football team. Today we post the news that Isom’s football dream ended.
Isom, bidding to become the first women’s football player in Southeastern Conference history, did not make the LSU team when Les Miles made his final decisions concerning which walk-on players to add to his roster after three days of tryouts.
“I am heartbroken, but my head is held high,” Isom tweeted. “Knowing I gave everything I had is the greatest victory. Unending thanks to my LSU football family.”
Isom, 22, was a standout goalie for the LSU soccer team from 2008 to 2011 and had one year of athletic eligibility remaining. As a freshman she became the first LSU goalie in history to score when she soared one in from 90 yards away against Brigham Young, and it made ESPN’s play of the day list. She has also kicked field goals of more than 50 yards on the LSU practice fields.
The 6-1, Marietta, Ga., native made history again last fall by becoming the first LSU student-athlete to be named homecoming queen.
But she fell short of her goal of becoming the first female kicker at a major college since 2003 to score in a game. That was done by New Mexico’s Katie Hinda, who kicked two extra points against Texas State.
Female Soccer Player Mo Isom Tries Out For LSU Kicker
TALENT
Morlan “Mo” Isom is not your typical homecoming queen nor your normal LSU soccer star. Isom is dead set on becoming a kicker on the LSU football team.
Isom, a star goalkeeper on the LSU soccer team from 2008-11, became the first female student-athlete to be named LSU’s homecoming queen last fall. Now she wants to be LSU’s first female football player. She went through a walk-on tryout with other prospective kickers Tuesday during the Tigers spring drills.
“People’s first presumption about this is that it’s a media stunt or some attempt for attention and glory,” Isom said. “That couldn’t be any farther from the truth. I feel it was a goal God placed in my heart. It’s just something I want to do.”
If she makes the LSU team, Isom will become the first female kicker at a major college since 2003 when Katie Hinda kicked two extra points for New Mexico against Texas State, becoming the first female to score in a major college game.
Isom, who is six feet tall, kicked a 51-yard field goal on the LSU practice field while working on her own with LSU kickers Brad Wing and Drew Alleman last August and has even scored a goal on the pitch 90 yards out.
Isom, who has a year of eligibility remaining in athletics at LSU according to the NCAA rule giving student-athletes five years to play four, began training as a kicker for football in January of 2011.
Head football coach Les Miles says he has no objections in playing her “If she gave us an opportunity and an advantage, and I mean add an advantage, then certainly we would consider that. The good thing about it is she’s an athlete. She’s been through team before. She understands the commitment. I would have much less reservation with her than I would any number of other people that frankly didn’t know what they were getting into. But the real interesting thing is it has to be an advantage obtained.”
Miles said he will likely not make any final decisions about adding walk-on kickers until August when preseason practices begin. LSU has two kickers and a punter on scholarship.
C-USA & Mountain West Talk Of Football Merger
Unity
The Houston Chronicle is reporting that officials from Conference USA and the Mountain West Conference were briefed about a possible football-only merger that might help the new league become part of the Bowl Championship Series.
Under the proposed merger, the leagues would play separate schedules and at the end of the season the two champions would meet in a title game with the hope that the winner would receive a BCS bid.
The report says talks will continue Tuesday and Wednesday during the annual meetings of Division I athletic directors in Dallas. The report says a football-only federation which would include 22 to 24 schools would offer the new league a “strength in numbers” response to recent conference realignment.
“It’s an intriguing concept,” Rice athletic director Rick Greenspan told the Houston Chronicle. “It’s one that is probably a bit unique in college athletics.”
C-USA commissioner Britton Banowsky said in a statement that the two leagues were discussing a merger and “working to create consolation strategies that have the potential for positioning our members well into the future.”
Conference USA currently has 12 schools that play football: East Carolina, Marshall, Central Florida, Southern Miss, Memphis, Alabama-Birmingham, Southern Methodist, Tulsa, Tulane, Houston, Rice and Texas-El Paso. East Carolina applied for Big East membership last week and Central Florida has expressed interest in leaving for the Big East.
The Mountain West schools include Texas Christian. Colorado State, Boise State, Wyoming, San Diego State, UNLV, Air Force and New Mexico. Texas Christian will head to the Big East on July 1, 2012. Fresno State, Nevada and Hawaii (football only) will join the league in 2012.
Sagging Pants Lead To Arrest Of New Mexico Deshon Marman
pants on the ground, pants on the ground
DeShon Marman, a junior college transfer at University of New Mexico, was arrested Wednesday at the San Francisco airport after an incident that involved his sagging pants. Marman was wearing his pants low, exposing his boxer shorts. He was in San Francisco attending the funeral of a friend, and was returning to school when he was told by a US Airways employee that he had to pull up his pants after San Francisco police received a call of someone exposing himself outside a US Airways gate.
Marman refused to pull up his pants, and boarded the plane.
“At that point, he was asked to leave the plane,” a police representative told The San Francisco Chronicle. “It took 15-20 minutes of talking to get him to leave the plane, and he was arrested for trespassing.”
Marman allegedly resisted officers as he was being led away, and was arrested on charges of suspicion of trespassing, battery and resisting arrest and was being held on $11,000 bail.
Marman’s mother, Donna Doyle, told the Chronicle her son was targeted at the airport “because of the way he looks a young black man with dreads and baggy pants. But he’s a good kid trying to make it, and he’s going through a lot. And then this happens.”
Valerie Wunder, a spokeswoman for US Airways, said the airline’s dress code forbids “indecent exposure or inappropriate attire.”
New Mexico Quarterback Brad Gruner Out For The Season After Carving A Pumpkin
Gotta Love Halloween
The University of New Mexico Lobos are 0-8 on the season but if you think things couldn’t get any worse then you haven’t heard how they lost quarterback Brad Gruner for the rest of the season. The junior quarterback who has thrown for 327 yards and 2 touchdowns on the season is done for the season after requiring season-ending surgery on his throwing hand after he sliced his pinkie carving a pumpkin.
The only way he can justify the injury is if he was carving a Wu-Tang logo into the pumpkin.
New Mexico Beat Writer Sends Email Telling Football Player To Quit
You Got Beat 72-0 This Year
Greg Archuleta of the Albuquerque Journal has been reassigned after the New Mexico football beat reporter sent an email to Lobo running back Demond Dennis suggesting he quit.
On October 4 Archuleta sent an email to Dennis asking about his status with the team and in he suggested that “if you have quit, maybe that’s a step in the right direction.” The running back turned the email over to team officials, who contacted the Journal.
“While Greg was trying to do his job by finding out whether an important member of the team had left, the email itself crossed the line when it suggested that it would be better if Mr. Dennis quit,” editor Kent Walz said.
Dennis, who had been averaging a team-leading 29 yards a game for the winless Lobos, had only one carry in New Mexico’s 38-20 loss to Texas El Paso on October 2.
Archuleta had covered the team for more than a decade and now columnist Rick Wright has taken over duties of following the team.
Primetime College Football: Longhorns vs Red Raiders
TALENT
This game goes down on the ABC network and it features the University of Texas Longhorns taking on Texas Tech University Red Raiders in Lubbock.
Mack Brown is 3-3 in his trips to Lubbock and all three losses have cost Texas dearly in the chase for Big 12 and national championships. Brown isn’t the only Texas coach to struggle in Lubbock as Texas is 9-9 there since 1974. However overall since coach Brown took over in 1998, the Longhorns are 10-2 in Big 12 openers with 2 of those wins coming against the Red Raiders and they are 49-6 against teams from within the state of Texas. Brown is 130-27 at UT.
Texas goes to Lubbock this year 2-0 and kickoffs Big 12 play after putting identical 34 spots in wins over Rice and Wyoming. As a result, the Longhorns have won 32 of their last 35 games in the month of September, demonstrating their ability to get off to a fast start year in and year out.
The Longhorns have turned over a new page at quarterback with sophomore Garrett Gilbert, 22-35 for 222 yards one touchdown, but the running game continues to be suspect as it’s Brown has named yet another starter. This time the honor goes to junior Fozzy Whitaker, 62 yards one touchdown, but junior Cody Johnson, 46 yards 2 touchdowns, is another option. Freshman Mike Davis, 7 catches 104 yards one touchdown, quickly became Gilbert’s favorite target.
Defensively, the Longhorns held Wyoming to just 257 yards of total offense. Senior defensive end Eddie Jones, junior safety Blake Gideon and junior linebacker Keenan Robinson each had 8 tackles. Senior defensive end San Acho had 3 tackles for a loss while the unit had 10 tackles for a loss including 3 for sacks.
New Red Raiders head coach Tommy Tuberville is also 2-0 with wins against SMU and New Mexico. Tuberville owns a record of 112-60 in 15 seasons as a head coach, and he will be celebrating his 56th birthday which he is 4-0 on. Texas Tech is the third-winningest team in the Big 12 since the turn of the century, sitting behind only Texas and Oklahoma.
The Texas Tech offense is lead by senior quarterback Tyler Potts, 22-34 for 293 yards 3 touchdowns, who had thrown 7 touchdowns so far and no interceptions. His number one receiver is senior Lyle Leong, 16 catches 217 yards 5 touchdowns, and again spotlights that passing is the main option in Lubbock. Senior Baron Batch, 84 yards 2 touchdowns, sophomore Eric Stephens, 81 yards 2 touchdowns. Stephens finished with 264 all-purpose yards and earned Big 12 Special Teams Player of the Week honors.
Defensively the Red Raiders flagged 16 times for a loss of 145 yards but had 3 turnovers to help for a win. The Texas Tech defense had 4 sacks as part of 7 tackles for a loss and senior linebacker Bront Bird led the way with 9.
Texas owns a 44-15 advantage in the all-time series with Texas Tech, and the Longhorns have won nine of the last 11 matchups. The last Red Raider victory occurred in 2008 when they upset then top-ranked Texas for their first-ever win over the No. 1 team in the country.
PICK:University of Texas Longhorns
Primetime College Football: Ducks vs Vols
TALENT
This game goes down on the ESPN2 network and it features the University of Oregon Ducks taking on the University of Tennessee Volunteers, who will be facing off for their first ever meeting and it comes in Knoxville.
Tough to fathom that some hosts on SGE forget the the Ducks and Chip Kelly trout out ALL-SGE-NCAA Team member running LaMichael James (1,546 yards and 14 touchdowns as a freshman) and will return this week after a one game suspension. Kelly’s Ducks won the Pac-10 a year ago and carried that momentum over into this year, as they completely destroyed the New Mexico Lobos 72-0. The 72 points tied the school’s modern scoring record, against Nevada in 1999, and was the most points scored overall since a 97-0 shutout in 1916.
The Ducks without last years ALL-SGE-NCAA Team member and Jeremiah Masoli now playing at Ole Miss didn’t miss a beat as they rolled up 720 yards of total offense with the help of sophomore running back Kenjon Barner, 147 yards 4 touchdowns and one receiving touchdown, Replacing Masoli under center was handled by sophomore quarterback Darron Thomas,13-23 for 220 yards one touchdown. The story of all the offensive output had to be that the Ducks offensive line definitely didn’t allow a sack and paved the way for 6.4 yards per carry.
The Ducks defensive held the Lobos to a shutout which says pretty much it all. The defensive held the run of the Lobos to 25 yards and 82 yards on the pass. Oregon recorded 5 takeaways and 8 tackles for loss and was lead by senior defensive tackle Brandon Bair, 4 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss and senior linebacker Bryson Littlejohn 2 fumble recoveries.
While not as prolific as Oregon’s offensive outburst, Tennessee’s start to the season wasn’t far off the mark, with the Volunteers racking up 50 points and 537 yards of total offense in head coach Derek Dooley’s debut. Junior quarterback Matt Simms, 14-24 for 181 yards one touchdown, saw most of his time utilizing the three-headed monster in the backfield. The Volunteers where lead by junior Tauren Poole,110 yards 2 touchdowns, freshman Rajion Neal,79 yards, sophomore David Oku,77 yards one touchdown, which makes no shortage of ball carries for Tennessee.
The Volunteer defense only gave up 142 yards of total offense, with 56 yards coming on the ground and 86 through the air. Sophomore safety Prentiss Waggner had 6 tackles but a 54-yard interception return to the end zone. Linebackers LeMarcus Thompson, 5 tackles one tackle for loss, and Austin Johnson, 5 tackles one INT, came up big while even adding a safety. Sophomore defensive tackle Montori Hughes, 4 tackles 2.5 tackles for loss one sack, was solid up front.
PICK: University of Oregon Ducks
Oregon’s Ducky Does 506 Push Ups In Team’s 72-0 Win
Quack
On Saturday the University of Oregon thrashed the New Mexico Lobos 72-0 and racked up 720 yards in offensive plays. The Ducks averaged 7.2 yards per play to the Lobos 1.8 and got so crazy that sophomore quarterback Darron Thomas caught his own pass on a play. The offense put out by the Ducks kept team mascot Ducky busy to the point that performed 506 push ups after Oregon scores.
After each touchdown or field goal, Ducky does push ups to correspond with the Ducks tally on the scoreboard.
New Mexico Lobo Elizabeth Lambert Reinstated
I like my women to have some hood in them and that’s why we are revisiting the story of University of New Mexico Lobos soccer player Elizabeth Lambert because she has just that. Lambert was served a two-game suspension for her gritty style against BYU and now has been reinstated and is eligible to play as a senior this season.
That’s a girl bad and me have always liked. A lot!
Elizabeth Lambert An Inspiration To Girls Soccer
Elizabeth Lambert is an inspiration to the girls of Woonsocket Villa Novans and the Tolman Tigers of Rhode Island.
In the girls soccer championship game and with Woonsocket up 5-0 in the final minute, tempers began to flare and Woonsocket’s Kristen Cahill and Tolman’s Maria Lopera realized they had just one more minute left to try impress the coaches of the University of New Mexico so they started a brawl. It didn’t end just there, during the post game awards ceremony fans from both schools continued the fight in the stands.
My crush on Elizabeth Lambert continues to grow with each passing day.
Elizabeth Lambert Is A Bad Woman
I like my women to have some hood in them and Elizabeth Lambert of the University of New Mexico Lobos women soccer team has just that.
That girl bad and me likey. A lot!
***UPDATE*** Elizabeth Lambert has been suspended indefinitely after engaging in rough play, she is prohibited from taking part in practices, games and conditioning, coach Kit Vela announced.
I say leave her alone, it was all in the name of the game, she’s a good woman.
