From The Tribune

The largest crowd in UFL history, 23,067 fans, came out to witness the premiere of Omaha, Nebraska’s first professional football team after the state became nationally recognised for its mass following of the NCAA University of Nebraska Cornhuskers football programme.

Aside from the biggest crowd, the Nighthawks’ Rosenblatt Stadium was also the home to one of the most spectacular games in the brief history of the league.

Omaha scored their first touchdown in franchise history on a pass from Garcia to fullback Rendrick Taylor to tie the game, 7-7.

Not too shabby.

The Nighthawks next play Sacramento at Rosenblatt Stadium. Gametime is 8:30 PM EDT, viewable on HDNET.

For those keeping track, SportingGnomes favorite Rendrick Taylor didn’t catch on with Tampa Bay. He has landed in the UFL. ManBearPig is now #36 for the Omaha Nighthawks, and they’re playing right now in Rosenblatt Stadium (you’ve probably heard of it). I’m watching live right now on HDnet. Here’s wishing ManBearPig the best of luck in his new home.

PS: One of Rendrick’s notable new teammates is Maurice Clarett.

Strelow is reporting that once doctors got inside Willy Korn’s shoulder, they found that there were more problems than they had initially realized, and that his shoulder had been messed up ever since he broke his collarbone.

But when doctors went in to clean up the injury, they discovered the labrum had been frayed in two more locations. Loose bone fragments were removed, and it was also discovered that a minor procedure was needed on his rotator cuff stemming from the fractured collarbone Korn suffered as a freshman.

“To be honest, it had never felt the same since that injury,” Korn said.

The collarbone injury had been treated with ice and rehabilitation instead of surgery.

This brings up an interesting point, at least in my mind. I recognize and realize that most college football players don’t want to be on the sidelines recovering from surgeries. Nor do coaches want their players to be making constant trips to the doctor to have every ache and pain looked into. So at what point then does a coach have to say, “forget about being tough, I need you to be healthy.”

Speaking of healthy, SportingGnomes’ favorite Rendrick Taylor is back at practice.

He is still trying to shed at least 15 pounds from his current 260, and since his return to practice, coaches have worked him at both running back and tight end.

Tight end … wow, what a novel concept for someone who had so apparently outgrown the receiver position.

At 245, we may have to downgrade him to just Manbear, or perhaps Manpig. Either way, here’s to hoping that he can he can have a healthy and productive ’09 season.

Rendrick Taylor might be my favorite player. When healty, he’s fun to watch. He’s a hard hitting utility beast which is always lurking, always being forgotten about on the other side of the ball, then WHAM! He comes through and makes a big play while dragging a few guys along for the ride. I guess we won’t be seeing any of that this year. Rendrick has been redshirted. As more details come available we’ll pass them along to you.

This bit of news almost slipped by me, and it may have slipped by everyone else.

Clemson’s coaching staff is considering redshirting senior Rendrick Taylor in order to give experience to freshmen running backs Jamie Harper and Andre Ellington, Bowden said.

If this comes to pass, I can’t that I’m surprised that we won’t see ManBearPig on the field. It would be surprising that his lack of playing time would not be related to an injury.

Here’s looking forward to 2009!

There is good news on the Manbearpig, ahem, Rendrick Taylor front. It turns out that his season ending injury wasn’t as bad as initially reported. But for no reason that I can easily discern, no one in the media bothered to report that it wasn’t that bad until just recently. Well now Rendrick is already back practicing at full speed.

I got tackled a few times today and fell on the elbow and it didn’t hurt at all. I bounced up excited and ready to get out there and make another play. Today was a real good day for me. I felt like I got a lot of my confidence back to take hit on and get out there and make plays.

I for one am certainly glad to have him back.

Lock your doors and board up your windows. Manbearpig is a beast out to destroy secondaries and your best defensive schemes — if not civilization as we know it.

The foremost Manbearpig experts agree that the elusive creature has successfully avoided capture, even photography throughout time leaving nothing but hastily rendered sketches. However there is a man believed to share very similar characteristics.

That man is 6’1″ 225 pound true sophomore Rendrick Taylor. And he’s reportedly having a very good off-season. That includes 4 catches in the spring game for 174 yards, which includes a 97 yard touchdown reception. (Aside from the 97 yarder, his other three receptions averaged a measly 25.7 yds.) He’s done even more than improve his hands and confidence. He has also improved his speed. His 40 time has dropped from 4.6 to 4.45.

“Monster” or “beast”, which do you prefer?

UPDATE: The Anderson Independent Mail has more (thanks TigerPundit). I neglected to mention that Manbearpig has apparently beaten out freshman All-ACC receiver Aaron Kelly for the starting gig at the ‘x’ receiver slot.