R-C Sports Notebook: Season predictions

It's that time, again, for me to weigh in on how I think the fall sports season will play out.

As always, I offer the disclaimer that I have never picked a league dead-on from start to finish, and more often than not, I end up looking like a real fool with my picks. Nevertheless, it's always fun to throw this type of stuff out there. So, in as few words as possible, this is how I see the Fall season playing out.

Football

Playoff teams: High Desert: 1. Reed; 2. Hug. 3. McQueen 4. Reno. Sierra: 1. Douglas; 2. Galena; 3. Manogue; 4. Carson

Regional Champion: Reed.

Surprise team: Carson.

My thoughts: Carson was my surprise team last year and fell very short. After drubbing Spanish Springs Friday, it may be that the Senators are ready to arrive. I can't say enough about how stacked the Reed roster is, but crazy things happen, particularly late in the year, and I have never seen a pass-heavy team thrive in the playoffs. Still, you can't discount their size and speed. Don't be surprised to see Hug make a surprise run through the playoffs. I also wouldn't be surprised to see Douglas step up and break through this year.

Volleyball

Playoff teams: High Desert: 1. Reno; 2. McQueen. 3. Spanish Springs 4. Elko. Sierra: 1. Douglas; 2. Damonte Ranch; 3. Manogue; 4. Galena

Regional Champion: Douglas.

Surprise team: Spanish Springs.

My thoughts: Douglas has plenty of depth and a lot of talent - the only thing left to do is pull through during the playoffs. The last two years, Douglas has arguably been the best team, only to fall just short at the end. There are a number of key players who have been a part of those two teams and they'll be ready to cash in on the lessons learned from the past. Don't be mistaken, the Sierra League race is wide open, probably with the eventual league champ losing a match or two. The regional champion (and subsequent state champion), if not Douglas, will come out of the Sierra League. Spanish Springs is an up-and-comer and could knock off a couple quality opponents during the year. Reno is always dangerous. The depth, though, is in the Sierra.

Boys' Soccer

Playoff teams: High Desert: 1. Reed; 2. Elko. 3. McQueen 4. Hug. Sierra: 1. Manogue; 2. Galena; 3. Carson; 4. Douglas

Regional Champion: Manogue.

Surprise team: Manogue.

My thoughts: I was impressed with Manogue last year, and they looked very good this past weekend in the Howell Memorial Tournament. The Sierra League will produce the regional champion (as they have for the past however many years ... It's a lot, no matter what way you cut it), and will probably represent all four semifinal teams. Those playoff spots will come at a true premium and likely won't be decided until the final game of the regular season. Wooster or South Tahoe could easily slide into one of those spots, if not win the league outright. Fallon is a dangerous team as well. There simply are no easy games in the Sierra.

Girls' Soccer

Playoff teams: High Desert: 1. Reed; 2. Spanish Springs; 3. Elko; 4. McQueen. Sierra: 1. Douglas; 2. South Tahoe; 3. Galena; 4. Carson

Regional Champion: Douglas.

Surprise team: Damonte Ranch.

My thoughts: Douglas is as deep as it is young. The Tigers have turned soccer into a high-octane offensive game, but if the first weekend says anything at all, it's that the defense has come along to compliment the offense in a big way. That being said, Reed has a number of returners back and South Tahoe is going to be very tough to beat at the Lake. Damonte was well-coached last year and could come up with a big win here or there. Manogue is also a strong team.

Let's face it, the Sports Notebook has become a little bit too bulky for its own good. So starting this week, I'll be breaking off some of the key elements into our "From the Bleachers" blog elsewhere on the Web site. You can get there by going to www.recordcourier.com/bleachers.

The blog has actually been up for over a year, but I haven't touched it in nearly as long. This will be a place where some of my rants and rambles about local sports will fit a little better on a daily basis, as opposed to giving you a laundry list of stuff on Tuesday afternoons.

This is my tentative schedule for the elements on the move:

Mondays: Four Surprises and One Not-So-Much (just to kind of round up the weekend's activities)

Tuesdays: Sierra Nevada Sports Media Rankings (This year I'm going to start revealing my ballot as well, along with the Sierra Index Ratings computer formula)

Wednesdays: Ranking the Gamers

Thursdays: My Player of the Year Ballot this week

Friday: Weekend picks (my predictions for the weekend's games)

Plus, keep an eye out for other items posted to the blog. The rest of the regular notebook will remain as is.

- It looks like the Douglas football team debuted new "away uniforms" for this season at Las Vegas (see photo). They are featuring a predominantly white and orange, which is pretty new as I can tell. I don't know if they have new home uniforms as well, but traditionally, Douglas has updated its road uniforms first and then rolled out the new home uniforms the following season.

- What is a snow plow doing driving down 395 in August?

- We tried out some new software Friday night called Cover It Live that we hope to employ with some more key games (particularly on the road) this season. It seemed to be well-received. We'll see how it goes. We may try twittering this week. My apologies as we try to break out of all our old habits in favor of the new world of mass communication.

- IHOP has introduced a new football-centric menu for the fall, complete with AFC and NFC football-shaped stuffed french toast - the difference between the two being that the NFC toast totally loses its stuffing whenever it sees the AFC counterpart.

- The Bengals included a clause in rookie offensive lineman Andre Smith's contract that if he couldn't keep his weight below 350, his paychecks would be cut in half. So you have so little faith in the work ethic of a player YOU drafted, that you need to include something like this?

- Who knew that a perfectly ordinary couch could swallow a 2-year-old whole so quickly?

With pro football season quickly approaching, it's time again to try to drum up interest in our weekly Pro Football Pick 'Em contest. It's your basic straight up pick game with a tie-breaker.

There's an added "regular season survivor" game where you pick the one team you are sure will win that week every week, and continue to do so every week until your team of the week loses. You can only choose each team once during the year.

Sign-up is free and you will be competing for local and national prizes.

Visit recordcourier.profootball.upickem.net to sign up and make your picks.

Celebrating Edd Roush, the only player ever ejected from a Major League Baseball game for sleeping in the outfield.

- A Chinese basketball team playing in a league that doesn't allow any players taller than 6-2 refused to take the floor until an opposing player was measured.

The league refused to comply with the request and the team forfeited the game.

Fans of the forfeiting team began chanting "Unfair" and "Too Tall" and later smashed up five cars outside the arena.

- Apparently tired of the whole "Should Brett Favre have come back or not?" saga, ESPN.com took a different tack this week and asked (and I'm not kidding) "What if Brett Favre were a woman?"

- On the other hand, Sports Illustrated last week announced by press release (and again, I'm not kidding) that their Aug. 31 issue would be 100 percent Favre-Free. Of course in order to let people know it was 100 percent Favre-Free, they had to place a logo in the corner of the magazine trumpeting the claim.

And with that logo, they lose that 100 percent distinction, right?