Boomer's Urban Renewal: Road Warriors in Week 5

You're bound to run into a few unique characters, on the road.

Saturday's in the fall, there's nothing quite like 'em. This week 12 ranked teams take to the road, with the ultimate goal to become road warriors. Last night, unranked Washington (Dub-U) in front of a wild "blacked out" crowd defeated #8 Stanford 17-13. That makes one ranked team already, fail to become road warriors. Ranked teams with road trips this week include: #2 Oregon, #4 Florida State, #6 South Carolina, #12 Texas, #15 TCU, #17 Clemson, #18 Oregon State, #19 Louisville, and #24 Boise State. All those teams face unranked home dogs. Who's on Upset Alert? It will be interesting at the end of Saturday night, to see how many of those teams survived their road test. Two Top 25 match ups this week as well, when #14 Ohio State travels to #20 Michigan State & #25 Baylor goes on the road to play #9 West Virginia. It looks like another fun weekend in college football, so make sure you get up early have some breakfast (I prefer pancakes, for my pregame meal), and catch College Game Day Live from East Lansing, MI.

Boomer Report: Reds chase 100, Acta fired & Browns on TNF

For the second time in three seasons, the Reds win NL Central.

Indians fire Manager Acta, with six games remaining.

Boomer's Diamond/Gridiron Notes: Final Week in MLB; Nuts & Bolts in the NFL

These guys have their clubs on the verge of the AL playoffs.

A week from tomorrow, will be the final day of the 2012 MLB regular season. The postseason picture is a little clearer in the National League at this point, so lets talk about that first. The Nationals, Reds, and Giants respective won their divisions and/or clinched a playoff berth this past week. With a win tonight, the Braves could be the 4th NL team to punch their ticket to additional game(s) in October. Leaving just one spot left, the second Wild Card spot. This is the first season that an extra WC spot was added in each division, making the past month very interesting to say the least. The St. Louis Cardinals held the spot at this moment but are being chased in the final week by division rivals the Milwaukee Brewers, along with the LA Dodgers. Barring a major meltdown by the Cardinals, look for them to hang on to the second WC spot. The Nationals lead the Reds by 1 game and the Giants by 4 games for the best record in the National League (like that matters this season anyways, see NLDS). In the American League, there is a lot to be determined still with a week to go. No one was clinched a division title, and in the AL Central it seems like nobody wants to win it at all. The Yankees & Orioles are battling it out for the AL East crown. The Consolation prize? The 1st WC spot. In the AL Central the White Sox & Tigers, one of 'em gotta win the division, right? The Rangers should clinch the AL West by the weekend, with the A's looking like a solid choice for the #2 WC spot. Chasing the A's, would be AL West division rival the LA Angels and Tampa Bay Rays. In other news, my Fantasy Baseball team again flamed out of playoffs in the semi-finals, and now fights for a respectable 3rd place finish in the remaining week or so.

To the Gridiron, if you been living under a rock for the past 24 hours heres what you missed. A blown call, by the infamous NFL replacement referees costed the Packers the game. After watching it and following the aftermath of the situation, I instantly started chanting the famous high school chant, "Nuts & Bolts...Nuts & Bolts...THE PACKERS GOT SCREWED! Enough is enough, the replacements need replaced, ASAP. As for my Fantasy Football team, dropped to 1-2 on the season after I watched my bench players almost outscore my starters. #smh MLB Hunt for October NFL Power Rankings

The final straw, it's time to go back to refereeing Junior High games.

Boomer's Game Recap: Browns fall to Bills, start 0-3 again

T. Rich had 51 total yards & a rushing TD vs. the Bills.

Recap: Fitzpatrick (3 TD's), Bills beat Browns to snap road skid

Box Score: Bills 24, Browns 14 Final

Ugh! Another 0-3 start to the season. You look forward to the Browns season all spring/summer, then its over before it even gets started. I know they are young and won't expected to do much, but it's getting old losing. Yesterday's game another classic example, going down 14 to 0, and having to battle back all day long. Would it be to much to ask, to come out that 1st quarter and take a lead, instead of falling behind early and constantly having to play from behind. I would love to sit in on a Coach Shurmur pre-game speech, I bet it really gets the juices flowing (#fireshurmur). The best way to end a bad streak, case in point, the Bills had not won a road game since Week 1 LAST season, is to play the Browns. That skid came to an end in the Bills 24 to 14 win vs. Browns yesterday in Cleveland. Thanks to Time-Warner finally agreeing to carry the NFL Network, I'm forced to watch the Browns on TNF this week, when they travel to Baltimore to play the Ravens. If you looked up the word loser in Webster's Dictionary, I'm pretty sure this picture would be beside it.

Boomer's Game Recap: Buckeyes sleepwalk past UAB

Braxton Miller rushed for another two scores vs. UAB.

Recap: Miller, Buckeyes overcome slow start, beat UAB

Box Score: Ohio State 29, UAB 15 Final

An imperfect team, with a perfect record. It's starting to sound like a broken record. Saturday's game wasn't what anyone thought it would be. The Buckeyes (4-0), again played another sub-par game vs. a lower-opponent UAB (0-3) and still have several question marks, heading into their Big Ten Conference opener vs. Michigan State (3-1). The line was set at 37 points! Gosh, the Buckeyes didn't even reach 37 points, let alone come anywhere close to winning by 37 points. At one point, the Buckeyes saw themselves down 9 to 0, before they finally showed some sign of life in the final 7 minutes in the 2nd quarter. For it to be a 21 to 15 score with 5 minutes to go, is just unacceptable. The Buckeyes were again, lucky that the Blazers won't able to make a couple plays/catches here or there or things could of really went wrong in this one. Again, its a win, but this non-conference slate of games where tougher then I (the rest of Buckeye Nation) expected. Better tighten your chain-strap, cause things get a whole lot tougher, in the next couple of weeks with games @ Michigan State & vs. Nebraska (October 6th). An imperfect team, with a perfect record. Hey, I'll say that for eight more games if I have to, haha.