npocs Fox Sports blog
Check out the Fox Sports blog which will contain all the my sports content from December to January.

Playboy
it appears npoc may be WVU's next Playboy On-Campus rep. Whether this entails personal tryouts in my living room has yet to be decided but when it does, seats for the event will promptly be posted on e-bay.
Speaking of playboy, you think Al Michaels and John Madden got a hold of the Lisa Guerrero Playboy spread. Either way, it is still amazing and worth checking out. Apparently Michele Tafoya is in the works for maternity playboy spread.
Whatever effect looking at those Lisa Guerrero pics had, was compltely wiped away with that Tafoya reference.

Mythical National Championship
On my Fox Sports Blog the second round matchups have officially been set and you can check out all the recaps from the first round. Notable upsets include Akron and South Carolina both advancing to the second round.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
And its not even close, COLLEGE FOOTBALL BOWL SEASON, begins its marathon march tomorrow night with the Wyndam Hotels Nawlens Bowl. People are still talking about npocs very probably 26-13-2 run, in predicting winners against the spread and over/unders in the 2001-2002 bowl season.
npoc has his college football notebook bowl dusted off and ready for action, but of course everytime he does this he cannot help but feel the slightest bit nostalgic. Allow me to take you on a trip down bowl notebook lane.

The 2002-2003 Bowl Season stretched from December 17 to January 3. npoc went an unflatterring 37-39-3 in predicting the sides and totals in those games. North Texas continued their tradition of playing in New Orleans bowl as they defeated junior Gino Guidugli and crew 24-19 as npoc went 0-3 to start off his down fall.....Marshall pounded Louisville two nights later in the famed quarterback matchup between Byron Leftwich and Dave Ragone, they both went in opposite directions after that.....Kliff Kingsbury added to his record setting numbers in the Tangerine Bowl with a 55-15 win over Clemson in a game they were favored by 5 points in......In what was then presented by Sega Sports, UCLA covered the 10.5 spread against New Mexico in the Las Vegas Bowl....Hawaii lost in the Hawaii Bowl....Brian St. Pierre led Boston College to 51 points over Toledo in the Motor City Bowl in yet another Northern bowl for the eagles....With Frank Solich recently canned Nebraska and Jamal Lord fell 27-23 to Eli Manning's Ole Miss Rebels in the Independence Bowl......Oklahoma State covered the 7.5 spread against Southern Miss. The game featured Dustin Almond (he's been there for 8 years) and NFL stars from Ok state. Rashaun Woods and Tatum Bell.....The day after christmas, no.24 pitt traveled west in a game that Larry Fitzgerald officially put himself on the map as they thrashed Oregon State 38-13.....In an 11 a.m. start the Mountaineers packed the house for the inaguaral tire bowl and were easily defeated 48-22 by Virginia and its barefoot band......The Holiday Bowl always delivers and it was no different this year with a star studded lineup. Kansas State and Eli Roberson, Darren Sproles, Terrance Newman and Josh Buhl put up a 37-27 win (they were favored by 18) on Arizona State that featured Terrell Suggs and Andrew Walter......Minnesota made the first of two appearances in the Music City Bowl with the 23rd hijacker Asad Abdul Khaliq under center. They upset Matt Jones' 8 point favorite Razorbacks 29-14.......In the ill-fated Seattle Bowl, Wake Forest invaded Duck territory to come away with a 38-17 win over the heavily favored Oregon team that featured Onterrio Smith.....The string of touchdown favorites losing contined as Wisconsin and Anthony Davis and Brooks Bollinger stopped the running back tandem of Bobby Purify and Chris Brown and win in overtime 31-28.....In another upset Purdue took out Washington 34-24. Even with a Kyle Orton/Brandon Kirsch quarterback controverysy they were still able to outgun the passing tandem of Cody Pickett (he was good in college) and Reggie Williams.....If you doubled each team's total points, you still missed the over under in the Liberty Bowl by two touchdowns, Colorado State and Brandlee Van Mullet could only muster 3 points against TCU's 17.....In a home game for Boise State in the rotating name bowl aka Crucial.com Humanitiarian Bowl VI, the Broncos added to Seneca Wallace's plummet toward mediocrity with a 34-16 win. After somehow receiving heisman hype, Seneca quickly bombed the last 7 games of the season to go 1-6.....Good god in the goose basket, if it wasnt for the free chik-fil-a coupon I printed off at halftime this game would of completly been erased from my memory. In a game that was supposed to be a pickem, Maryland walloped Tennesee 30-3 behind the strength of Bruce Perry and Mr.Butkus E.J. Henderson and the weakness of Casey Clausen.....If you watched this entire game from the east coast then you missed out on the changing of the year as Virginia Tech defeated Air Force 20-13 in the San Francisco Bowl that kicked off at 10:30 p.m. Lee Suggs and Kevin Jones helped savage what was left of a season from a team that started 8-0 but ended up 10-4.....Easily the worst game of the bowl season, every season, the Silicon Valley Football Classic features nearly as many points as fans. Fresno State upset the favored Georgia Tech 30-21 before an over estimated crowd of 10,014. Paul Pinegar played in this game as a freshman.....New Years Day.....Auburn shutdown the Joe Paterno offense and started the two year slide for the Nittany Lions with a 13-9 win....No. 12 Michigan led by the air combo of John Navarre and Braylon Edwards handed Florida its first five-loss season since 1098 with a 38-30 win in the Outback Bowl.....No. 9 Texas easily covered the 10 point spread 35-20 over LSU in the Cotton Bowl. The game featured Chris Simms, Roy Williams and Cedric Benson all from Texas.....Phillip Rivers and No. 17 NC. State crushed Notre Dame 28-6 in a game that should have featured West Virginia and not the Carlyle Holiday led Fighting Irish.....In the Rose Bowl Game, Mike Price bid farewell to No. 7 Washington with a 20-point loss to No. 8 Oklahoma on New Year's night. It was Nate Hyble and Mary Clayton all day long for Oklahoma who finished the season who finished their season 12-2.....No. 6 USC started the dynasty here, with a 38-17 win over No. 3 Iowa in one of the more hyped up bowl games of the season. Carson Palmer with his Heisman already in hand hooked up with Mike Williams and Troy Polamualu led the Trojan defense against Heisman runner up Brad Banks and Dallas Clark....The ACC served up yet another sorry ass BCS Representative as No. 16 Florida State was unable to cover the spread losing 26-13 against No. 4 Georgia. The two quarterback passing system of David Greene and sophomore D.J. Shockley worked all day with Terreance Edwards and Fred Gibson catching balls. Florida State suffered its first five loss season since 1981 as Chris Rix and Anquan Boldin had more than forgettable days....The Tostitos Fiesta Bowl National Championship 2003....No.1 Miami 24- No. 2 Ohio State 31 in double overtime.....The bad pass interference call will always be remembered as what changed this game but the Hurricanes were supposed to blow the Buckeyes out of the water, they were favored by 11.5. Miami's 34 game winning streak came to an end in Tempe and Larry Coker suffered his first loss as Miami coach. The Buckeyes finished the season 14-0. Ohio State pulled together its fifth fourth quarter rally of the season on a team that included Maurice Clarette, Craig Krenzel, Michael Jenkins, Mike Doss and Chris Gamble. Ken Dorseys weapons that year included Kellen Winslow II, Willis McGahee (ruptured his ACL in this game) and Andrew Johnson.....

Later this week I will recap the 2001-2002 bowl season

-m