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Showing posts with label South. Show all posts
Showing posts with label South. Show all posts
Monday, December 20, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
Auburn 56, South Carolina 17: Auburn Coasts to a Date With Oregon (nytimes)
ATLANTA (AP) — Cam Newton still seems a little dazed by it all, how a guy who was playing at a junior college in Texas just a season ago has the Heisman Trophy in his grasp, his team just one win away from the national championship.
Believe it.
With his best performance yet in a week when NCAA pronounced him good to go, Newton accounted for six touchdowns in the Southeastern Conference championship game to lead No. 2 Auburn to a 56-17 rout of 18th-ranked South Carolina on Saturday.
"It's not even sunk in," said Newton, who threw for a career-best 335 yards and four touchdowns, plus ran for a pair of scores. "I've just been living the dream."
An even bigger game looms on Jan. 10.
Auburn, which came into the day leading the Bowl Championship Series standings, wrapped up its spot in the title game against top-ranked Oregon, which secured a trip to Glendale, Ariz., with a 37-20 victory over Oregon State.
The Ducks will be facing a player that Auburn coach Gene Chizik calls the best he's ever seen at the college level. That includes Vince Young, who was at Texas when Chizik was the Longhorns' defensive coordinator.
"When you look at the 13-game span, I've never seen anything like it," Chizik said. "It's running the ball. It's throwing the ball. Usually great quarterbacks do one or the other better. What God has blessed Cameron with is the ability to be really, really good at both."
He'll certainly get no argument from coach Steve Spurrier and the Gamecocks, who gave Auburn a tough game in the opening month of the season but never had a chance in this one.
"You can't tackle him," Spurrier said after being denied his seventh SEC title. "He's almost a one-man show but those guys really help and their receivers are really good. With that offensive line and him, it's hard to stop him."
The wins by Oregon and Auburn denied another team with a perfect record, TCU, a shot at becoming the first school from a non-BCS conference to play for the title.
Before the national title is decided, Newton will likely be picking up the college game's top individual honor when the Heisman Trophy is awarded next weekend in New York City — especially after the NCAA cleared him of any wrongdoing in a pay-for-play recruiting scandal involving his father.
Hard to imagine the Heisman vote even being close after the 6-foot-6, 250-pound junior followed Tim Tebow as only the second player in the history of football's top division to run AND pass for 20 touchdowns in a season. He slipped away from defenders with his surprising quickness, buying extra time to throw. He broke tackles with his power, not at all shocking given that he outweighed all three of South Carolina's starting linebackers by at least 25 pounds.
Or he just ran right over 'em.
Newton guided the Tigers (13-0) to touchdowns on their first three possessions, though South Carolina (9-4) was in the game as halftime approached. Trailing only 21-14, the Gamecocks simply had to knock down Newton's last-gasp heave on the final play before the break.
They couldn't even do that.
Newton launched one up and 6-foot-2 DeVonte Holloman, standing in front of Terrell Zachery, leaped to tip it away. But the deflected ball went right to Darvin Adams for an improbable 51-yard touchdown that changed the complexion of the game. After South Carolina missed a field goal on the first possession of the second half, it was all Tigers.
"That was huge momentum swing right before the half," Chizik said.
Maybe there's a bit of karma in how things worked out.
While many will surely consider any title to be tainted because of Newton's father seeking illegal payments during the recruiting process, the Tigers can counter that this makes up for the 2004 season.
Auburn went 13-0 that year but didn't get a chance to even play for the national title. Instead, USC and Oklahoma met in the Orange Bowl, with the Trojans winning in a 55-19 romp.
This game was nearly as lopsided. In the second half, Newton ran right over Antonio Allen on a 1-yard touchdown, sending the linebacker tumbling onto his back to make it 35-14. The Auburn star finished his day with a nifty little 7-yard scoring pass to Emory Blake in the right corner of the end zone for a 49-14 lead.
Well, there was one more snap to take.
Monday, December 6, 2010
South Korea starts exercise, Obama urges China to curb N Korea
SEOUL: South Korea's military began a major live-fire exercise on Monday amid high tensions sparked by North Korea's deadly bombardment last month, as Washington pressed Beijing to curb its unruly ally Pyongyang.
The South, smarting over the unprecedented shelling of a civilian area, dismissed claims by the North that the five-day drill could spark war.
The land, sea and air firing exercise follows last week's major show of naval strength by Seoul and its close ally Washington, designed to deter Pyongyang from future attacks.
US President Barack Obama in a telephone call late Sunday urged his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao to send "a clear message" to the North that its shelling of South Korean territory and other provocations must end.
Obama urged China to work with the United States and other countries "to send a clear message to North Korea that its provocations are unacceptable", a White House statement said.
The North's bombardment, the first of civilian areas in the South since the 1950-1953 war, came less than two weeks after it put a new and apparently operational uranium enrichment plant on show to US visitors.
The North says the plant is for peaceful purposes. But US experts and officials say it could easily be reconfigured to make weapons-grade uranium to supplement an existing plutonium stockpile.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet foreign ministers Kim Sung-Hwan of South Korea and Japan's Seiji Maehara later Monday in Washington to forge a strategy for dealing with the North.
All three nations have responded coolly to a proposal by China, the North's sole major ally, for an emergency meeting of envoys to stalled six-nation nuclear disarmament talks to discuss the Korean peninsula crisis.
China's refusal to blame the North for the November 23 bombardment of a South Korean border island -- which killed two civilians and two marines and caused widespread damage -- has caused frustration among the United States and its allies.
The Washington Post reported that the Obama administration has privately started accusing Beijing of "enabling" North Korea to start the uranium enrichment programme and to launch attacks on South Korea.
Hu in talks with Obama stressed the need for a "cool and rational" response from all sides to the crisis, Beijing's foreign ministry said.
"Under the current situation, it is very possible that tensions on the Korean peninsula could further escalate and get out of control if not properly handled," it quoted him as saying.
Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the five-day exercise which began Monday would take place in 29 locations off South Korea.
But a spokesman said bad weather had delayed one of the drills, off Daecheong island near the flashpoint disputed Yellow Sea border. He said it could go ahead later in the week.
Pyongyang said it shelled Yeonpyeong island in retaliation for a South Korean artillery drill, which allegedly lobbed shells into waters claimed by the North.
On Sunday it described this week's exercise as an attempt to trigger a war.
"The frantic provocations on the part of the puppet group (Seoul government) are rapidly driving the situation on the Korean peninsula to an uncontrollable extreme phase," its official news agency said.
"I don't dwell on North Korea's response as it does not deserve even a little consideration," said the South's new defence minister Kim Kwan-Jin, who last week vowed to hit back with air strikes against any new attack.
More troops and weaponry are being sent to five frontline islands "so that we will be able to respond resolutely to any provocations", Prime Minister Kim Hwang-Sik said.
He said the government would spend 30 billion won (26 million dollars) to help Yeonpyeong residents and encourage them to return to the island.
Analysts say the North's display of nuclear prowess and the bombardment are designed to burnish the military credentials of Kim Jong-Un, son of leader Kim Jong-Il and his heir apparent.
They say the North also appears to be pressuring the United States and other parties to restart nuclear negotiations and aid.
The funeral of the two civilian victims of the North's attack was held Monday.
"I can't live. This is not what I wanted. I want to follow you," said the sobbing 83-year-old mother of one of them, clutching his portrait close to her face.
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