Eric LeGrand Update: Paralyzed Rutgers lineman will lead Knights onto the field vs. West Virginia

More than a year removed from a head-on collision on the football field that left him paralyzed from the neck down, former Rutgers lineman Eric LeGrand will be leading the team onto the same field Saturday for arguably its biggest game of the season.

LeGrand told Yahoo!Sports Tuesday he will be leading the Scarlet Knights out the tunnel for the pregame introductions at High Point Solutions Stadium, where he hopes to give an emotional lift to the 5-2 Scarlet Knights as they make an upset bid against West Virginia. Had the injury not occurred, rendering him unable to play football again, LeGrand would be in the midst of his senior season under head coach Greg Schiano.

"It's going to happen," LeGrand said. "It's official, just talked to coach. It is happening."

The idea behind LeGrand, who moves about in a motorized wheelchair, leading the team onto the field came from Schiano. This summer, Schiano approached his former player and offered to let him lead the team onto the field before a game of his choosing. After discussing it with his mother, LeGrand picked Saturday afternoon against the Mountaineers, the preseason favorites to win the Big East and a team Rutgers hasn't beaten since 1994.

"I was thinking that'd be the perfect game, the atmosphere and being on national television," LeGrand said. "We haven't beaten them in so long and they're No. 25 in the nation. This would have been my senior year. I wanted to lead the team onto the field. Those are my guys, my teammates out there."

The past few days have been poignant ones for LeGrand, who watched Rutgers lose on the road at Louisville on Friday, including the second quarter play where Cardinal defensive back Anthony Conner was hit by the Scarlet Knights Mohamed Sanu. After the play, Conner lay motionless on the field for several minutes as both teams knelt and looked on, the Rutgers team visibly shaken by memories of LeGrand's injury last October. Eventually, the Conner was transported to the hospital where he was diagnosed with a cervical fracture. He underwent surgery earlier this week and is expected to make a full recovery.

LeGrand reached out to Conner on Tuesday afternoon.

"I was praying for him as I watched him there on the field. I know what it's like, that feeling, not knowing what was happening," LeGrand said. "His girlfriend reached out to me on Facebook just to see if I could offer him any advice. He's a little bit down, his playing career is over but he's expecting a full recovery so that's good."

Right now, LeGrand's own recovery is progressing. After months of therapy, he posted pictures of himself standing upright for the first time in July. In November, he's scheduled to begin an intense five-day-a-week rehab schedule, which will run for 24 sessions. He also plans to begin using a body weight suspended treadmill to ratchet up the intensity. His legs and hips will be manually moved on the treadmill to begin the process of getting him to stand on his own two feet again.

"I'm just blessed right now. It's no good to be down on myself. Where there's a will, there's a way. You can't control what happens to you," LeGrand said. "I hope that next time I'm on that field at Rutgers, that I will be running when I lead my team out there."

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Kristian R. Dyer is on Twitter: Follow him @KristianRDyer.

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Oops! Dallas Fox affiliate announces Rangers World Series win

Breaking news? More like broken news.

In a bit of premature celebration, the Fox affiliate for the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex area sent out a news alert message regarding the Texas Rangers and the World Series on its iPhone app Thursday night.

In KDFW's defense, most people watching and covering Thursday night's Game 6 around 10:30 p.m. CT probably thought the Rangers had this one in the bag.

Solo home runs by Adrian Beltre and Nelson Cruz, along with an RBI single by Ian Kinsler, had given Texas a three-run lead after seven innings. And with Derek Holland, Mike Adams and Neftali Feliz available to close it out, a World Series clinching victory looked almost inevitable.

As we know, it didn't quite turn out that way, thanks to several late-inning heroics by the St. Louis Cardinals resulting in a 10-9, 11-inning win to force a decisive final game. Oops.

KDFW might get the chance to resend those text alerts Friday night, if the Rangers manage to win Game 7. If not, maybe those alerts can be salvaged by sending them to third world countries.

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Video: Cam Newton evades seven tacklers on 25-yard scramble

Cam Newton has "it," and by "it" I mean the ability to make seven Washington Redskins defenders flail around�helplessly as he scrambles for a ridiculous first down on a third-and-long from deep within his own territory.

There are so many good things you can say about�Cam Newton. Aside from the fact that's he a natural quarterback, he has command of the huddle, knows how to scramble, can avoid big hits (MICHAEL VICK) and possesses an on-field awareness that few rookies ever show. He's already tied a rookie record for most rushing touchdowns by a quarterback and has kept an otherwise-awful Panthers team in every game this season.

But though we highlight this run, its success was more about the awfulness of the Redskins defense than the brilliance of Cam Newton. DeAngelo Hall whiffs so bad he looked like Alex Rodriguez in October. If it's possible, I think Kevin Barnes missed two tackles on the play.

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One step from ?Bama, LSU indulges its new taste for blood

LSU 45, Auburn 10.
Lord knows, LSU has always had talent. Frightening talent. But the Tigers have lived for so long as the kind of team that scrapes by for a living ? more than half of their SEC wins from 2008 to 2010 came by a touchdown or less ?�surviving by whatever means necessary almost seemed to be part of the weekly gameplan. It took three fourth quarter comebacks to get this team to 11 wins last year. Hell, it took four fourth quarter comebacks for the 2007 team to make the BCS Championship Game, not to mention the two games it lost that season in overtime. Under Les Miles, that's how LSU rolls.

That's how it has rolled, anyway. Maybe it's the new offensive coordinator. Maybe it's a more experienced, mature lineup coming together as upperclassmen. Maybe it's a looser attitude from a more entrenched head coach. Maybe it's a combination of all of the above. But the Tigers flipped some kind of switch between the end of the 2010 season and the beginning of 2011. The result is an absolute nightmare.

And once again, the catalyst for nationwide tremors is the ongoing emergence of an offense that seemed to spend years keeping its blue-chip athletes as close to the vest as possible. No one is particularly surprised by the dominance on the other side: Today, the defense did exactly what it was expected to do to Auburn's first-time starting quarterback, Clint Moseley, sacking him six times and returning an interception for a touchdown in the third quarter, a series of scenes right out of the "Inexperienced Quarterback In a Tough Environment" script. Auburn punted or turned the ball over on eight of its first nine possessions.

By the time Ron Brooks hit paydirt on the pick-six, though, the extra padding hardly mattered. The offense had just turned in its fourth touchdown in as many possessions, the rout was old news and the home crowd was already calling for Alabama on the other side of the coming bye week.

With 45 points today, the Tigers have scored at least 35 in seven of their first eight games, a mark they hit just three times in 26 games in 2009-10 combined. With a pair of touchdown grabs covering 42 and 46 yards in the second quarter, Rueben Randle alone has more 40-plus-yard receptions (7) than the entire team had in 2010. As preposterous as it would have seemed at the beginning of the year, with three more scoring passes and no interceptions, senior quarterbacks Jarrett Lee and Jordan Jefferson remain stewards of the most efficient passing game in the SEC. Overall, the offense has now gone five full games without a turnover.

At this point, "momentum" is irrelevant: Going into the most anticipated regular season game of this year or almost any other, LSU is legitimately dominant. It hasn't been anything less than dominant from the opening kickoff of opening night. Oregon, West Virginia, Florida, Tennessee, Auburn ? all speed bumps en route to Tuscaloosa. If the stage for Nov. 5 was already set but for the hype, the Tigers played their role to the hilt.

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Matt Hinton is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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Upon further review, Tony La Russa still offended by ?Moneyball?

ST. LOUIS ? With his Wednesday night free because of the World Series rain postponement, �Tony La Russa decided to make another run at watching "Moneyball."

The St. Louis Cardinals manager said he had already tried to watch the movie starring Brad Pitt as Oakland A's GM Billy Beane but "walked out" because he didn't think it was a "tribute" to the scouts and baseball people involved.

So what did La Russa think of the movie on this pass?

Same thing.�Two thumbs down.

Reviewed La Russa before Thursday's Game 6:

"I was offended because of what the book represented ... I knew a few of those guys as scouts. It strains the credibility a little bit. They won 20 in a row, qualify for the playoffs, go two up on the Yankees, and there wasn't anything in the movie except a brief [mention] about Miguel [Tejada] and Eric [Chavez], the three starters and [closer] Billy Koch. It was about a couple of trades and turning Scott [Hatteberg] into a first baseman. That club was carried by those guys that were signed and developed the old-fashioned way ... It's a nice story, but it isn't accurate enough."

That La Russa would echo Art Howe by not caring for a movie and book that completely discounts the role of a manager in the success of a baseball team shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. What does come as a surprise, though, is that La Russa had to go to a cineplex with the common folk to see the flick. You'd think he'd have enough pull to at least get a DVD screener copy.

Then again, maybe the Cards just like procuring their own entertainment. After all, even the great Albert Pujols had to head to Best Buy to get his own copy of "Captain America" to pass the time while the rain cleared in St. Louis.

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The absurdly premature 2011 playoff picture: Week 8

The absurdly premature playoff picture presents one man's projection for the NFL playoffs, at each given week in the season -- even if that week is unreasonably early.

? The Jets are one of two new teams this week, making their appearance at the expense of the Buffalo Bills. I don't feel strongly about it, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it switched back in a week or two, but it's kind of looking like Kyle Williams will miss the season, and if that's the case, that's a big ouchie for the Bills. At the same time, their lead over the Jets has shrunk to half a game, and the Jets showed signs against the Chargers of getting back to a halfway-competent level of offense.

? Pittsburgh jumps up to the No. 2 spot, because Baltimore set football back 70 years on Monday night. I even considered moving the Bengals in and the Ravens out of the picture all together. That's how ugly it was. The Absurdly Premature Playoff Picture is a day late this week because I couldn't bring myself to go back and think about that game. It hurt. It made my eyeballs hurt.

? The Raiders still get the nod in the AFC West, which pains me, because they just lost 28-0 to the Chiefs. At home. You know why I can't put San Diego here? It's not that the Chargers lost to the Jets, or even that they blew an 11-point lead. It's because after the game, all they could do was blame the officials, which tells me that this team still has a major case of "We still think we're way better than we actually are" -itis. San Diego vs. Kansas City is one of the week's more interesting matchups. We might be one week away from having Kansas City winning the West here in the A3P.

? Over in the NFC, we're mostly stable, with Atlanta shoving the Buccaneers out the only change being made. Atlanta went in to Detroit and dropped the Lions, which puts them at 4-3, and they're back to playing physical football. I'm still looking for consistency out of the Bucs, and it just hasn't been there.

? Everything else stays the same, with the hardest call of the bunch still being the winner of the NFC East. Dallas was here last week, and the Cowboys did what they should have done in bouncing the Rams last week. Everyone else in the division either lost, had a bye, or was the Philadelphia Eagles.

? The Detroit Lions still easily have their spot, but for the first time in about a month, I can envision a world where they're not in the Absurdly Premature Playoff Picture. They've lost two straight, they're not a healthy group, and I don't even see them as a lock against Denver this weekend. They haven't been able to run the ball. It's a good sign that Matthew Stafford practiced Thursday, but if he misses time or is limited by his injury, and the passing game goes south, too? The Lions start to look a lot shakier.

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Blue Jackets GM?s ?stand and fight? battle cry; will they hear it?

Columbus Blue Jackets GM Scott Howson on his blog dated Oct. 7, 2011:

When I think about our team on Opening Night 2011 another word comes to mind ? OPTIMISM. I believe in our players, our coaches, our staff and our fans. I am optimistic this can be a special year for the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Columbus Blue Jackets GM Scott Howson on his blog dated Oct. 25, 2011:

The first three weeks have been extremely difficult for all of us. The responsibility for where we are lies with me, our management staff, coaches and players. It does not lie with Brendan Shanahan or the NHL or the officials. It is not about luck. The responsibility for getting us out of it lies also with us... all of us doing it together.

So we've gone from OPTIMISM to optimism for the Blue Jackets, now with the pungent odor of desperation. Columbus enters its home game against the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday night with an 0-7-1 record, having previously lost at Detroit 5-2. The Wings are coming off a 7-1 loss in Washington. They'll be in no mood for charity.

Defenseman James Wisniewski will play his first regular-season game for Columbus after serving his eight-game suspension for targeting the head of Cal Clutterbuck after the period had ended. "Sometimes a new body coming into the locker room creates a different kind of energy," Howson told Craig Custance of ESPN. This is especially true when this new body can play the point on the power play and you're 4 for 38 on it through eight games.

His return offers some hope, and a chance to change the conversation about this team, if even for a moment. If also offered a chance for Howson to rally the troops on his blog Tuesday:

I am an admirer of Bill Walsh and in his book "The Score Takes Care of Itself" he emphasizes that after any setback you have to tell yourself, "I am going to stand and fight again." We can't change the first eight games, but we will stand and fight starting tonight. We will focus on being the best we can be today and then being better tomorrow.

Ninety percent of our season remains and that is more than enough time to reach the goals we set for ourselves. We are bent, but not broken, and very determined to get back on track.

Let's say the Blue Jackets find catharsis against one of the best teams in hockey Tuesday night and defeat the Red Wings to move to 1-7-1. That would give them three points in nine games; 73 games would remain in the season. Since the lockout, it's taken an average of 94.2 points to earn the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference.

The Blue Jackets would need around 92 points in 73 games to hit that number (give or take a point); in other words, a record of 46-27 for a .630 winning percentage. That's without factoring in any overtime losses ? Columbus had 13 of them last season.

And that's a hell of a hill to climb.

The image at the top of this post is from a Jackets fan named Garrick who emailed us. He's probably not the first fan that's considered giving himself the Cody Rhodes treatment as the season slips away.

Howson wrote: "Our fans have been remarkably patient with our franchise." That they have; it's past time it was rewarded.

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