Around the world in 80 seconds

This archived article was written by: Jeremy Jones

Professional sports take center stage this week as the NFL rolls on, the MLB playoffs start to take form, and the NBA has even started its training camps. Oh yeah, and college football is still going on. Here are this week’s highlights.
NFL: No one in the NFL can stop Dante Hall and the Kansas City Chiefs, although Denver came close to doing both on Sunday. The Broncos were up 23-17 with only 6:40 left in the game when they were forced to punt to the most dangerous kick/punt returner in the game today. Dante Hall of the Chiefs had run back a punt or a kick for a touchdown in three consecutive games, an NFL record. Hall fielded the punt on the eight yard-line and started upfield. He was surrounded by Denver Bronco tacklers, so he cut left.
There were more Broncos, so he broke back to the right. He was still surrounded, so he started running backwards, towards his own end zone. He was nearly caught at the two, but slipped a tackle, started up the sideline and, by then, there were no more Broncos left. He took the ball 93 yards for the score and gave the Chiefs the lead for good at 24-23. The win moved the Chiefs to their first ever 5-0 start and sole possession of first place in the AFC West.
Other scores from this past Sunday were: Minnesota 39, Atlanta 26; Miami 23, NY Giants 10; New England 38, Tennessee 30; Buffalo 22, Cincinnati 16; Carolina 19, New Orleans 13; Chicago 24, Oakland 21; Dallas 24, Arizona 7; Green Bay 35, Seattle 13; Jacksonville 27, San Diego 21; San Francisco 24, Detroit 17; Philadelphia 27, Washington 25; Cleveland 33, Pittsburgh 13.
MLB: The divisional series’ are over and it’s on to bigger and better things for some major league teams. For others, they get to go home and watch the rest of the playoffs from their comfortable couches on ESPN and FOX just like the rest of us. The Yankees ousted Minnesota three games to one, including an impressive 8-1 game 4 victory in Minnesota to advance to the ALCS. They will face the Boston Red Sox, who came from two games down to beat out the Oakland A’s three games to two.
In the National League, the Chicago Cubs defeated the Atlanta Braves three games to two to advance. For the Cubs, this was their first playoff series win since they last won the World Series in 1908. They will face the Florida Marlins, who surprisingly beat out Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants three games to one.
NBA: The Utah Jazz opened up preseason play against the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday. The Jazz came away with the win 90-85. Raul Lopez and Aleksandar Pavlovic led the Jazz with 10 points apiece and Matt Harpring chipped in nine.
The Jazz are expected to look to Harpring and returning star Andrei Kirilenko as their primary scoring options this season. Dirk Nowitski and recently acquired Antwan Jamison both had 16 points for the Mavericks.
College Football: Being ranked in the top 25 this year in college football is hurting more teams than it is helping. It seems that every week, at least some of the supposed “best teams in the country” are losing. Here are a few examples from last week’s play.
Utah upset number-22 ranked Oregon in Salt Lake City 17-13 Friday night. On Saturday, Auburn upset the number-seven Tennessee Volunteers 28-21 down in Alabama. Number 19 Iowa took out number 11 Michigan at Iowa 30-27. Mississippi knocked number 24 Florida from the top 25, beating them 20-17.
Number two Miami eeked out a win over West Virginia 22-20 on Thursday.
This Saturday is being hyped as the game of the year, matching number-two Miami against number five Florida State. The game will be aired on ABC at 10 a.m.
Women’s World Cup: The defending champion United States was knocked out of the World Cup by Germany 3-0. The U.S. really couldn’t get anything going the whole match and Germany was able to do what they wanted. The Germans scored early on a corner kick and added two late goals towards the end to seal the victory. Germany faces Sweden, who knocked Canada out of the tournament 2-1, in the final.