Per the BBC:

In apparent criticism of the referee, Mourinho said: “I heard [some players] say it was impossible to win here.”

Real, who have won only one of the last 14 El Clasico encounters against Barca, dominated the first half but found themselves a goal down at the break—3-1 on aggregate—after Lionel Messi danced through their defence to find Pedro.

Madrid defender Alvaro Arbeloa did not think highly of the referee’s job during the second leg of the quarterfinal tie.“We were much better than Barcelona, we had a lot of opportunities but the referee lost it in the little details. We would have preferred it if the cards had been more evenly distributed.”

Mourinho should be embarrassed by his comments toward the performance of the referee. Instead of complaining, he should instead find a way of beating Barcelona, who have dominated Mourinho throughout his career—especially during his tenure at Madrid.

The Portuguese manager is arguably the most brilliant coach in world football, but his criticism of referees after nearly every major loss, especially to Barca, is laughable and makes himself and Los Blancos look terrible.

What Mourinho should do is admit his players are nowhere near capable of beating Barcelona on a consistent basis, and that it’s his fault for that because of his failed tactics and inability to bring in stronger defenders during transfer windows.

Barca centre-back Gerard Pique accurately stated after the second leg that Madrid also got some breaks from the referee, not just the Catalan club.

“The referee made mistakes in all senses, but he did the best he could. [Lassana] Diarra’s play [in which he hacked Lionel Messi down having already been booked] was a clear sending-off.”

Due to the intense nature of this rivalry, players on both sides are going to be physical and often cross the line with their tackles and antics.Madrid, in many matches against Barcelona during Mourinho’s tenure, could have had one and sometimes more players sent off for unneeded tackles. It’s not like Madrid has played clean matches versus their rivals and have wrongly been red-carded numerous times.

What Mourinho must do is figure out a way to beat Barcelona consistently or his stay in the Spanish capital will end sooner rather than later.

If the club wants to win La Liga, the league cup and the Champions League, they will likely have to go through Barcelona, which is an opponent they cannot beat at the moment.

Mourinho cannot focus on the referees, because the greatest hurdle he must climb at Madrid is beating Barcelona, and it’s a challenge he has mightily failed thus far.

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Honestly, he must be waking up in a cold sweat each and every night haunted by the fact that his biggest rival now possesses arguably one of the best college football coaches and recruiters in the nation.

It surely puts a damper on Michigan’s 11-2 season and Sugar Bowl win, doesn’t it?

Before the hiring, things were really looking good for Hoke and the Wolverines.

After the ineptitude that was the Rich Rodriguez of Michigan football, bringing in a “Michigan man” was like a breath of fresh air for the struggling program.

He was able to come in and almost seamlessly transition from Rodriguez’s offense to his own, while still effectively using standout quarterback Denard Robinson.

Most impressive, though, had to be the hire of former Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator Greg Mattison, who took one of the worst defenses in the league and molded a sixth-ranked squad that only gave up 17.4 points a game.

That’s a far stretch from the defense that gave up 65 points to Illinois just a year before.

There’s no doubting that Hoke has built something good here in just one year, but one can’t help but feel the hiring of Meyer is going to be quite a damper on the growth of this program.

The Buckeyes were dead in the water after the Jim Tressel fiasco. Not only did they finish with a 6-7 record, going 3-5 in the Big Ten, but they lost their last four games, which included a bowl game loss to Florida and a loss to the Wolverines.

They were facing NCAA sanctions and a bowl ban, and Luke Fickell did not appear to be the guy for the job.

With Michigan State and Wisconsin losing key players to the NFL draft, it looked like Michigan was set up to have a nice run at the Big Ten, but that all came crashing down with the hiring of Meyer.

He’s got two national titles under his belt, a great coaching resume and instant credibility. Look no futher than this piece from Steve Hemmelgarn of the Parkersburg News and Sentinel, which states that Meyer already has the No. 3 recruiting class in the nation.

Meyer hasn’t even coached a down for the Buckeyes and he’s already got them back on track.

This spells trouble for Hoke and the Wolverines.

Without Meyer, there is a good chance that Hoke’s recruiting skills plus the name brand of Michigan football would be able to win over possible recruits deciding between the two Big Ten powers.

However, the edge now firmly has to go to Ohio State.

How many recruits is Hoke going to lose out to Meyer over time? How is that going to impact the product on the football field for both schools?

I have to imagine that’s a question that keeps Brady Hoke up all night.

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Reports emerged from virtually all sources, ESPN, the NFL Network, Tampa sports radio station WDAE 620, the Tampa Bay Times and the Tampa Tribune, that the Bucs are finalizing the deal with the man who resurrected the Scarlet Knights program.

Schiano had been rumored for the past few years as the eventual replacement for the late Joe Paterno at Penn State and might have ended up there had it not been for the scandals that led to the firing of the coaching icon.

Those who watch USF football have seen Schiano up close and personal. He’s a defensive guy and his Rutgers teams are known for their toughness and fundamentals.

What may have pushed Schiano into the eyes of the team owners—the Glazers—was the endorsement from New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, who feels that Schiano will be a solid NFL coach.

Schiano proved once again that the ongoing Mike Sherman interviews were simply a smokescreen. The list of NFL assistants that had been interviewed only masked the apparent determination of the Glazers to go with a college coach.

Schiano has NFL experience. He was with the Chicago Bears for three years, 1996-1998, and eventually became their defensive backs coach. He was the defensive coordinator at the University of Miami and had nice success there, which led Rutgers to hire him.He took over a lousy Rutgers program and led it to national prominence and he garnered a lot of awards and recognition in the process.

He has produced a lot of current NFL players, including Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice, who is an unrestricted free agent this year.

Would Ray Rice have in interest in reuniting with his old college coach?

Imagine that.

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Commercials, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and WWE.com are all giving time to the Rumble match and one thing that has been said over and over might make this year’s event very interesting.

A very prevalent statement in almost all Rumble ads has been “Every WWE superstar is eligible to enter the Rumble.” Does this mean the current champions are eligible as well?

If this is indeed the case and WWE plans on having whoever is the WWE or World Champion going into the match and winning, then we could see the re-unification of the titles coming soon.

With WWE basically doing away with the brand extension and having every superstar appear on both shows frequently, this could be the start of another Undisputed Championship.

This is a long shot and likely not the case, but WWE is known to try different things once in a while and this could be something they have been planting the seeds for with their commercials.

By specifically saying the words “Every Superstar is eligible,” they are giving the impression that it would include the current top champions as well.

I for one would love the see the Undisputed Championship make a return because I feel like WWE would benefit more from having another mid-card title instead of two top titles.

The Championship scene has plenty of people who could make for several different combinations for interesting feuds, but those people are spread a lot thinner when you have two top belts to compete over.

What do you think? Is WWE setting it up so one of their current champions wins the Rumble?

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First order of business: Keep Peyton Manning.

Second order of business: Keep Peyton Manning.

Third order of business: Shave your goatee, and then keep Peyton flippin’ Manning.

You have the one thing every NFL franchise wants—an elite quarterback—so do not let him loose. Don’t fall victim to hype and prospecting and clouded strands of recency.

Peyton Manning—who is, let’s remember, one of the five greatest quarterbacks in NFL history—gives you the best team possible over the remaining four years of his contract.

That’s the most relevant piece of information in this decision.

People will try to district you from that simple fact. They’ll say you have to plan for the future. They’ll say you need to make a clean break. They’ll say you need to move in a new direction.

Don’t believe them. Or at least, don’t believe them past the point of trading/releasing Peyton Manning.

It’s easy to break things into dichotomies—to reduce this argument into a red-pill-blue-pill choice between the “future” and “now.” But you don’t have to do that. You can have both. Draft Andrew Luck. Keep Peyton Manning. Have it both ways.

Those in opposition to the above statement fall, generally speaking, into two lines of logic.

The first line of logic considers personality. It says Manning and Luck cannot play on the same team because one or both of them are too proud to share the stage with another top-flight quarterback.

That’s ridiculous.

I’m not saying their playing together wouldn’t engender some bitterness or resentment or internal competition. That’s fine. But to make that argument is to tacitly suggest that putting Manning and Luck on the same team would somehow sabotage the latter’s development.

If Aaron Rodgers can learn and grow behind the ego that is Brett Favre, Luck has nothing to worry about. I don’t care what Archie Manning has to say on the matter. Manning isn’t going to ruin Luck just by being there.

The second argument is a bit more substantive and, I will admit, harder to grasp.

It’s about money, and Manning is owed a bunch of it if Indianapolis exercises his option before March 8. To draft Luck and keep Manning would amount to a massive investment in the quarterback position over the next four years.

And while that is an uncomfortable proposition, if there’s any position on the field worth the reach, it’s quarterback. The defense may languish and the running game may suffer, but to ensure a successful transition of power at the quarterback position is to ensure your franchise’s health for the next decade.

Teams that can manage that transition, understand their assets before they act, do well. 

Again, I refer you to the Green Bay Packers (or the mid-’90s San Francisco 49ers, if you prefer).

(Side note: The number being tossed around as a fiscal boogeyman is $50 million. As in, the Colts would pay $50 million to have Manning and Luck in uniform next season. That isn’t all against the cap, though, as some is out of pocket.)

Behind all of these arguments, however, is a whisper—a whisper that says Peyton Manning isn’t all that good.

It is a whisper that suggests Manning was somehow to blame for the team’s regression from 14-2 in 2009 to 10-6 in 2010. It’s a whisper that places the man’s decline years ahead of where it actually stands.

Concerns about the injured neck aside—because presumably a better prognosis on that is forthcoming—the last time we saw Manning he was as good as ever.

Yes, his team went from 14-2 to 10-6, but the Colts offense was actually a smidge better in 2010 than in the Super Bowl year of 2009.

The offense scored more points and gained more yards in 2010, and Manning’s output was nearly identical.

In 2010 he threw for 200 more yards, the same number of touchdowns, one more interception and completed just 2.5 percent less of his passes.

This is Peyton Manning’s last impression as an NFL quarterback: 4,700 yards, 33 TD, 17 INT, 66.3 percent completion, 91.9 quarterback rating

There are maybe four other quarterbacks in football capable of posting that line. More importantly, the Indianapolis Colts can win with a quarterback of that caliber.

To forfeit a winning proposition in the NFL amounts to organizational suicide because nothing is guaranteed beyond tomorrow in a league this violent and mutable.

If you have a chance to win, take it.

Or, to put it another way, windows to win in the NFL are always smaller than they seem. Chuck Pagano, this is your window. Don’t draw the blinds.

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