AFC 28 - NFC 28 heading into week 16....
Pittsburgh over St. Louis
BUT
Detroit over Kansas City
New York Giants over Buffalo
Seattle over Baltimore
So that gives us: Mighty Invincible AFC 29 - Weak no-shot NFC 31
With Week 17:
New England at New York Giants
Buffalo at Philadelphia
San Fransisco at Cleveland
Minnesota at Denver
I'm thinking Patriots over Giants, Eagles over Bills, Cleveland over S.F. and in a total toss-up Minnesota running backs over Denver's poor run-defense for a grand total of NFC 34 - AFC 30; that is by no means a clear thing, all of the game (except the first one) are toss-ups, all 6 of those other teams are on-off teams and you never know what you'll get, plus all 4 of the games are going to be cold weather games.
Why do I keep commenting on this while the Patriots and Colts are supposedly so awesome; when people say you can't look at the total records of the conference... because you can.. becuase this is proof of changing times. The disparity in the AFC is great compared to the NFC who is picking up the slack now where they not only lost the overall conference matchup, but got hammered; in fact when was the last time this happened... about 7 years ago when the NFC's parity slipped and the St. Louis Rams were killing everyone but the rest of the league was weak while they simply got the consolation prize winner of Oakland and New England... Now I'm not saying New England will get upset like the Rams did back then, but this sure is setting up to look just like it... a team no one will bet against playing well anyone from the NFC will be considered a done deal, and even if the Patriots win, next season's momentum has already shifted to the NFC who has teams a few year in to their rebuilding while the AFC teams are just starting their downswing...I wouldn't think much beyond the Dolphins, Jets, Raiders, Baltimore, Kansas City, and Cincinnati rebounding anytime soon;
Why overall do those teams matter. Well because The patriots have knotted up 15 wins so far this season, and only 4-5 of those wins came against good teams and 6 were automatic against their division then add in the Bills and Bengals, and then you look at their 3 closest games... 1 was the colts while the other 2 were the Eagles at home and a really piss-poor Ravens team. What is going to happen is that no matter how many times you go 16-0, if 11-12 of those games are basically easy push-overs, then you struggle when real competition shows up...
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Monday, December 17, 2007
Weekend of Snow!
There’s that one weekend marred by weather for a team, rarely does it hit half the games all on the same day. I’m not sure what was more amusing, watching the ball blow off the tee and roll down the field in New York, the slipping sliding in Cleveland plus the refs not being able to find the 50 yard line… or seeing highlights of the San Diego game in the sun….
So first things first…. NFC 28 – AFC 28 (apparently I made a mistake in my math last week as this is the current standings showing on both NFL and Espn.) so this weekend was just another tie but here’s what’s next:
Week 16:
Pittsburgh at St. Louis
Kansas City at Detroit
New York Giants at Buffalo
Baltimore at Seattle
The way all of these teams are playing, I’d say that every one of those four games is a toss-up right now.
More importantly, playoff races. The AFC is more or less set assuming no major hiccups by Cleveland, they can actually in-fact still win the division with the way Pittsburgh is playing and to be honest playing at Cleveland (even if its just the first round) is a scary thought for any other team, that team has been losing for decades yet has the craziest fans, imagine them in a playoff atmosphere...possibly in a snow-storm…
On the NFC side, just when you expect things to work itself out, doors stay open. The Cowboys fall to the Eagles in a low scoring dome game!? Yeah sure the roof was open, but there is no excuse for 10-6 in a dome (I realize the Eagles could have scored to end it for possibly the smartest play I’ve seen all season.). So that re-opens the 1st seed back up to the Packers; but then the Seahawks lose to Carolina. I understand that it is some serious jetlag for them to go all the way to the east coast but Carolina was starting its 4th QB of the season. This actually wasn’t on the defense but the offense.
More importantly however, The Giants to the Redskins and the Saints won. The Giants end with Buffalo and New England both away and both games they will very probably lose; I’m not sure if they have the tiebreaker over the Saints, Vikings or Redskins; but if NFL and ESPN are neither saying that the Giants have clinched then here’s what we’re hoping for, the Giants lose both, and the Saints or Redskins win out.
WHY?
Minnesota, Tampa Bay, the Saints, and Redskins are hot right now, and if maybe not hit they look like lava next to the Giants who simply racked up early wins against crappy teams. (remember only think about performance: the Saints and Redskins would both be on even better streaks right now if not for one bad call or play in games) But more importantly, the Giants are boring and will get pummeled by whomever they play. Eli hasn’t yet been able to get the team to rally around him and Shockey is out now as well, that loss last night told you everything you need to know about why we want the Giants to lose 2 more games and to have the Vikings and Saints/Redskins in the playoffs instead; who wants to watch the same Giants team from the last 4 years once again flame out?
In other side news the Falcons try for Cowher, but he says he’s not interested… Not interest in coaching was his claim, which can be true, but is it really, not interested in the Falcons?
Anything Else? Germany wins Nations Cup (Race of Champions) ousting the USA in the first round. Jimmy Johnson said he just couldn’t get used to the Rally car 4-wheel drive…(there were also right turns on this course...)
So first things first…. NFC 28 – AFC 28 (apparently I made a mistake in my math last week as this is the current standings showing on both NFL and Espn.) so this weekend was just another tie but here’s what’s next:
Week 16:
Pittsburgh at St. Louis
Kansas City at Detroit
New York Giants at Buffalo
Baltimore at Seattle
The way all of these teams are playing, I’d say that every one of those four games is a toss-up right now.
More importantly, playoff races. The AFC is more or less set assuming no major hiccups by Cleveland, they can actually in-fact still win the division with the way Pittsburgh is playing and to be honest playing at Cleveland (even if its just the first round) is a scary thought for any other team, that team has been losing for decades yet has the craziest fans, imagine them in a playoff atmosphere...possibly in a snow-storm…
On the NFC side, just when you expect things to work itself out, doors stay open. The Cowboys fall to the Eagles in a low scoring dome game!? Yeah sure the roof was open, but there is no excuse for 10-6 in a dome (I realize the Eagles could have scored to end it for possibly the smartest play I’ve seen all season.). So that re-opens the 1st seed back up to the Packers; but then the Seahawks lose to Carolina. I understand that it is some serious jetlag for them to go all the way to the east coast but Carolina was starting its 4th QB of the season. This actually wasn’t on the defense but the offense.
More importantly however, The Giants to the Redskins and the Saints won. The Giants end with Buffalo and New England both away and both games they will very probably lose; I’m not sure if they have the tiebreaker over the Saints, Vikings or Redskins; but if NFL and ESPN are neither saying that the Giants have clinched then here’s what we’re hoping for, the Giants lose both, and the Saints or Redskins win out.
WHY?
Minnesota, Tampa Bay, the Saints, and Redskins are hot right now, and if maybe not hit they look like lava next to the Giants who simply racked up early wins against crappy teams. (remember only think about performance: the Saints and Redskins would both be on even better streaks right now if not for one bad call or play in games) But more importantly, the Giants are boring and will get pummeled by whomever they play. Eli hasn’t yet been able to get the team to rally around him and Shockey is out now as well, that loss last night told you everything you need to know about why we want the Giants to lose 2 more games and to have the Vikings and Saints/Redskins in the playoffs instead; who wants to watch the same Giants team from the last 4 years once again flame out?
In other side news the Falcons try for Cowher, but he says he’s not interested… Not interest in coaching was his claim, which can be true, but is it really, not interested in the Falcons?
Anything Else? Germany wins Nations Cup (Race of Champions) ousting the USA in the first round. Jimmy Johnson said he just couldn’t get used to the Rally car 4-wheel drive…(there were also right turns on this course...)
Thursday, December 13, 2007
13 Players of note
List Courtesy of Deadspin
Below, a complete list of players mentioned in the Mitchell Report.
Paul Byrd (wonder if this is the same one he claimed back during the playoffs to be prescribed... by a doctor who had his license revoked...)
Jay Gibbons
Troy Glaus (Kelly I think he's on your fantasy team, I think that means you forfeit your league championship)
Jose Guillen
Jerry Hairston, Jr.
Gary Matthews, Jr.
Scott Schoeneweis
David Bell
Jose Canseco (Obviously he's been telling the truth all along, and I'd never fault him for making money on the books, just fault him for being an idiot. see: Surreal Life)
Jason Grimsley
Darren Holmes
John Rocker (too bad they didn't make steroids for the brain)
Ismael Valdez
Matt Williams (this didn't surprise me at all, right up there with McGuire)
Steve Woodard
Below, a complete list of players mentioned in the Mitchell Report.
All the players listed in the section VIII. B.: "Information Regarding Purchases or Use of Performance Enhancing Substances by Players in Major League Baseball" (section 3 is "Radomski's Distribution of Performance Enhancing Substances to Major League Baseball Players")
Lenny Dykstra
David Segui
Larry Bigbie
Brian Roberts (for a user he sure is a small guy)
Jack Cust (a rising star still?)
Tim Laker
Josias Manzanillo (NOT Manzanillo too!)
Todd Hundley
Mark Carreon
Hal Morris
Matt Franco
Rondell White
Roger Clemens
Andy Pettitte (I'm not sure why either of these guys would surprise anyone, they peaked in their late 30s)
Chuck Knoblauch
Jason Grimsley (who cares, the more important thing is that he went through an air-shaft for Albert Belle)
Gregg Zaun
David Justice
F.P. Santangelo
Glenallen Hill
Mo Vaughn (are they sure they didn't confuse steroids with food?)
Denny Neagle
Ron Villone
Ryan Franklin
Chris Donnels
Todd Williams
Phil Hiatt
Todd Pratt
Kevin Young
Mike Lansing
Cody McKay
Kent Mercker
Adam Piatt
Miguel Tejada (Any possibility this is why Baltimore traded him?)
Jason Christiansen
Mike Stanton
Stephen Randolph
Jerry Hairston
Paul Lo Duca
Adam Riggs
Bart Miadich
Fernando Vina
Kevin Brown (an L.A. collection of guys)
Eric Gagne (Wonder if he stopped taking them when he went to Boston?)
Mike Bell
Matt Herges
Gary Bennett, Jr.
Jim Parque
Brendan Donnelly
Chad Allen
Jeff Williams
Howie Clark
Nook Logan
Section IX. B."Alleged Internet Purchases of Performance Enhancing Substances By Players in Major League Baseball"
Rick AnkielPaul Byrd (wonder if this is the same one he claimed back during the playoffs to be prescribed... by a doctor who had his license revoked...)
Jay Gibbons
Troy Glaus (Kelly I think he's on your fantasy team, I think that means you forfeit your league championship)
Jose Guillen
Jerry Hairston, Jr.
Gary Matthews, Jr.
Scott Schoeneweis
David Bell
Jose Canseco (Obviously he's been telling the truth all along, and I'd never fault him for making money on the books, just fault him for being an idiot. see: Surreal Life)
Jason Grimsley
Darren Holmes
John Rocker (too bad they didn't make steroids for the brain)
Ismael Valdez
Matt Williams (this didn't surprise me at all, right up there with McGuire)
Steve Woodard
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
AFC takes the lead
AFC 28 - NFC 27
The NFC South accounting for 13 of those losses surmounting a wonderful 3-13 record against the AFC. Can the NFC comeback and take down the invincible AFC??? Here's what is left of inter-conference play:
Week 15:
Cincinnati at San Fransisco
Detroit at San Diego
Week 16:
Pittsburgh at St. Louis
Kansas City at Detroit
New York Giants at Buffalo
Baltimore at Seattle
Week 17:
New England at New York Giants
Buffalo at Philadelphia
San Fransisco at Cleveland
Minnesota at Denver
So with 10 more match ups remaining there will be a winner, PLUS there will be a leader after each week. The AFC is the home team for only 4 of the match ups, but heres where you can have some fun; does it mean anything in those match ups?
San Fransisco & St. Louis are both 1-5 at home
Detroit is 4-3
Seattle is 6-1
Giants are 3-3
Philadelphia is 2-5
While the AFC home teams are 5-1, 5-1, 4-3, 4-3
Odds are definitely looking against the NFC, especially with the Giants playing the Patriots but I can also see this final 10 coming out in the NFC's favor 7-3 at best for a 34-31 finish.
Interesting note: No Division leader has lost more than 1 home game.
The NFC South accounting for 13 of those losses surmounting a wonderful 3-13 record against the AFC. Can the NFC comeback and take down the invincible AFC??? Here's what is left of inter-conference play:
Week 15:
Cincinnati at San Fransisco
Detroit at San Diego
Week 16:
Pittsburgh at St. Louis
Kansas City at Detroit
New York Giants at Buffalo
Baltimore at Seattle
Week 17:
New England at New York Giants
Buffalo at Philadelphia
San Fransisco at Cleveland
Minnesota at Denver
So with 10 more match ups remaining there will be a winner, PLUS there will be a leader after each week. The AFC is the home team for only 4 of the match ups, but heres where you can have some fun; does it mean anything in those match ups?
San Fransisco & St. Louis are both 1-5 at home
Detroit is 4-3
Seattle is 6-1
Giants are 3-3
Philadelphia is 2-5
While the AFC home teams are 5-1, 5-1, 4-3, 4-3
Odds are definitely looking against the NFC, especially with the Giants playing the Patriots but I can also see this final 10 coming out in the NFC's favor 7-3 at best for a 34-31 finish.
Interesting note: No Division leader has lost more than 1 home game.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
13 Things delayed
Sorry hit-and-run on the new car yesterday, been spending all the free time yesterday and today with cops, insurance & collision repair/estimate people. Will try to get 13 things up for tomorrow.
Monday, December 3, 2007
A weekend capped by stupidity
The Saints call a gimmicky reverse when trying to run the clock out, Joe Gibbs double-calls time-out for a 15-yard penalty, but the best of it all… the absolute stupidity of the Bowl Championship Series.
I could go on for weeks about this… and I will. But first lets examine the overall stupidity of the so-called championship system: Everyone screams about how college football is the best season because every game is a playoff game… yet undefeated Hawai’i got no consideration for the National Championship… just as Boise State and Utah got screwed in seasons past.
Hawai’i began the season #23 and couldn’t get higher than #10 yet Kansas was #2 after starting the season unranked and playing a weaker schedule than Hawai’i… the only difference? Kansas is in a BCS conference.
The way the season played out this year we (as fans) were subjected to 6 different coaches politicking on national television telling us why they think their team should get in national championship:
6 teams all claiming their shot at the NC while claiming Hawai’i had a poor schedule, yet their schedule was about the same as USC, Ohio State, Kansas and Missouri’s (NOT TO MENTION that Michigan was actually scheduled to open with Hawai’i but dropped them for fear that Hawai’i might actually be able to beat them, talk about karma); Georgia loses twice and doesn’t even win its conference or division but claims they deserve it because they are “playing better”; USC barely eeks out the Pac-10 on tiebreakers and also claims the “playing better” argument, yet if you look at their end of schedule its nothing to care about. Yet through all of this Hawai’i beat everyone that would play them, and beat them all convincingly and gets the “privilege” of playing in the Sugar Bowl…
Not kidding the BCS says that Hawai’i is getting the privilege to be allowed into their prestigious system, and this brings me to my biggest point about why the NCAA absolutely MUST institute a playoff system.
The NCAA through its “post-season” system is mandating discrimination based solely on unjustifiable prejudice. Every other sport in the NCAA system has a playoff; why does football (only in division 1) continue to not? How does it make any sense to mandate discrimination and force people to discriminate?
Don’t understand it, here it is in short. Right now and for the past decade we tell 55 Division I football teams that they don’t matter, that they might as well not play their games because we’re not going to let them win the national championship anyway, but MORESO and MORE APPALLING We degrade them and nationally criticize teams that lose to them and criticize their conferences and their universities and in every way possible, tell them that they are lower football beings than the BCS conference teams simply based on absolutely nothing than our own prejudices and simply Because the BCS said so.
Seriously, listen to any idiot football fan or analyst talk about Hawai’i right now; They don’t even give Hawai’i the attention to watch their game but will very quickly tell you they are inferior to the BCS teams…
I was probably one of the very few people who actually stayed up and watched Hawai'i; they are simply amazing and should be playing in the national championship over any 2-loss team out there. People saw the first 5 minutes and then the final score and assume Hawai'i just squeaked it out. They freaking dominated that game, just like they dominated Boise State.
Essentially they spotted Washington 21 points with silly turnovers all within the first 10 minutes of the game and Washington never really threatened again not to mention they could NOT stop Hawai’i from scoring. So erase the silly fumbles and Hawai'i wins the game by 28 instead of by 7.
Right now I would take Hawai'i, U. of Central Florida, and maybe even BYU to beat any of the top 9 BCS teams on a neutral field in a playoff atmosphere. Any idiot fan or analyst would laugh at this and say they have NO chance, but how in the hell do they know when they won't let them even try.
On top of our extreme prejudice and downright discrimination and slander thrown at the Non-BCS teams we think we are so awesome that we can correctly predict which teams are better, all 119 of them. Then for a second we decided that obviously we can’t watch 60 games each week so we let ourselves be lent a hand from something that could: computers, and the moment it gave us the match up we didn’t want to see we went right back to ranking the teams ourselves and for the past 2 seasons more than ever, we’ve lent the league to politics, bringing a team into the national championship game with absolutely NO EXPLANATION as to why/how they leapfrogged teams we previously had ranked ahead of them.
13 top-five teams have lost to unranked opponents, eight of them doing so at home). With all the loses that happened this season (only 1 undefeated team and only 2 1 loss tams) how could any person have such an ego to think that they could correctly look at those teams and decide which of them is better?
The first thing that should happen is all the 55 non-BCS schools should make their own playoff, but while a little unrealistic here is one that isn’t. Non-BCS schools should for now on refuse to play BCS schools until they allow them into the post-season “system.”
“The system remains an insult to the sport, and to fans who are smart enough to know they're being sold swampland disguised as beachfront property.”- Pat Forde
I could go on for weeks about this… and I will. But first lets examine the overall stupidity of the so-called championship system: Everyone screams about how college football is the best season because every game is a playoff game… yet undefeated Hawai’i got no consideration for the National Championship… just as Boise State and Utah got screwed in seasons past.
Hawai’i began the season #23 and couldn’t get higher than #10 yet Kansas was #2 after starting the season unranked and playing a weaker schedule than Hawai’i… the only difference? Kansas is in a BCS conference.
The way the season played out this year we (as fans) were subjected to 6 different coaches politicking on national television telling us why they think their team should get in national championship:
6 teams all claiming their shot at the NC while claiming Hawai’i had a poor schedule, yet their schedule was about the same as USC, Ohio State, Kansas and Missouri’s (NOT TO MENTION that Michigan was actually scheduled to open with Hawai’i but dropped them for fear that Hawai’i might actually be able to beat them, talk about karma); Georgia loses twice and doesn’t even win its conference or division but claims they deserve it because they are “playing better”; USC barely eeks out the Pac-10 on tiebreakers and also claims the “playing better” argument, yet if you look at their end of schedule its nothing to care about. Yet through all of this Hawai’i beat everyone that would play them, and beat them all convincingly and gets the “privilege” of playing in the Sugar Bowl…
Not kidding the BCS says that Hawai’i is getting the privilege to be allowed into their prestigious system, and this brings me to my biggest point about why the NCAA absolutely MUST institute a playoff system.
The NCAA through its “post-season” system is mandating discrimination based solely on unjustifiable prejudice. Every other sport in the NCAA system has a playoff; why does football (only in division 1) continue to not? How does it make any sense to mandate discrimination and force people to discriminate?
Don’t understand it, here it is in short. Right now and for the past decade we tell 55 Division I football teams that they don’t matter, that they might as well not play their games because we’re not going to let them win the national championship anyway, but MORESO and MORE APPALLING We degrade them and nationally criticize teams that lose to them and criticize their conferences and their universities and in every way possible, tell them that they are lower football beings than the BCS conference teams simply based on absolutely nothing than our own prejudices and simply Because the BCS said so.
Seriously, listen to any idiot football fan or analyst talk about Hawai’i right now; They don’t even give Hawai’i the attention to watch their game but will very quickly tell you they are inferior to the BCS teams…
I was probably one of the very few people who actually stayed up and watched Hawai'i; they are simply amazing and should be playing in the national championship over any 2-loss team out there. People saw the first 5 minutes and then the final score and assume Hawai'i just squeaked it out. They freaking dominated that game, just like they dominated Boise State.
Essentially they spotted Washington 21 points with silly turnovers all within the first 10 minutes of the game and Washington never really threatened again not to mention they could NOT stop Hawai’i from scoring. So erase the silly fumbles and Hawai'i wins the game by 28 instead of by 7.
Right now I would take Hawai'i, U. of Central Florida, and maybe even BYU to beat any of the top 9 BCS teams on a neutral field in a playoff atmosphere. Any idiot fan or analyst would laugh at this and say they have NO chance, but how in the hell do they know when they won't let them even try.
On top of our extreme prejudice and downright discrimination and slander thrown at the Non-BCS teams we think we are so awesome that we can correctly predict which teams are better, all 119 of them. Then for a second we decided that obviously we can’t watch 60 games each week so we let ourselves be lent a hand from something that could: computers, and the moment it gave us the match up we didn’t want to see we went right back to ranking the teams ourselves and for the past 2 seasons more than ever, we’ve lent the league to politics, bringing a team into the national championship game with absolutely NO EXPLANATION as to why/how they leapfrogged teams we previously had ranked ahead of them.
13 top-five teams have lost to unranked opponents, eight of them doing so at home). With all the loses that happened this season (only 1 undefeated team and only 2 1 loss tams) how could any person have such an ego to think that they could correctly look at those teams and decide which of them is better?
The first thing that should happen is all the 55 non-BCS schools should make their own playoff, but while a little unrealistic here is one that isn’t. Non-BCS schools should for now on refuse to play BCS schools until they allow them into the post-season “system.”
“The system remains an insult to the sport, and to fans who are smart enough to know they're being sold swampland disguised as beachfront property.”- Pat Forde
Friday, November 30, 2007
Hey Media?
Where is all the rage about the Celtics running up the score on the Knicks?
Don't be hypocrites now...
Don't be hypocrites now...
Thursday, November 29, 2007
13 Things to Distract You From Leftover Turkey
1. The Coaching Carousel
The carousel of coaching in college football is usually big, or at least big enough that ESPN dedicates an entire static page to keeping up with it. I’m not going to spend a ton of time on it, you can decide which ones are worth keeping up on your own, I’ll just spend time on some on 2-4 of the more intriguing. First of course is Les Miles and Michigan finally getting permission from LSU to talk to him (most probably because LSU is out of the National Championship race now). Most people think its a done deal, forgetting that LSU is easily in a situation to throw money at this, but if Miles does in fact leave, which I think he may, LSU really ought to keep tabs on Bo Pelini who is apparently in the top two for Nebraska’s job.
The other most intriguing is Southern Mississippi forcing Jeff Bower to resign after 17 pretty darn decent years and 14 straight winning seasons. Most people are outraged but forget that in the past 2-3 seasons if you removed division II and Sun Belt teams USM does not have a winning season. I think it’s you can’t decide until you know who USM hires. If USM hires an unknown or something without history, then it is easily the stupidest decision of the year, but there are definitely ways it can be a big spark, (e.g. bringing back Tyrone Nix from S. Carolina).
2. Third Athlete in a Row Takes Dancing with the Stars Trophy
First of all; yes, race car drivers are athletes, whether it is a sport or not is debatable, but they are definitely athletes. Anyway, the reason this is a great story/issue is because of the potential here just as ESPN’s Terry Blount states: “Helio Castroneves won a lot more than a little dance contest Tuesday night. Castroneves won the hearts of America, and in doing so, gave the IndyCar Series a popularity boost that no race ever could accomplish.”
If you look at the celebrities who started the competition as their starting fan-bases alone, Helio wouldn’t have even been Top 5. The fact that he won this competition was great, but what it actually does is even more important for the Indy Racing League, it humanized and introduced one of its drivers, and possibly the most personable too. Sure not all 24-30 million viewers of the show will tune into racing but if any small percentage does, it’ll easily double the press and fan-conversion Danica brought to the table but at basically no cost to the series’ marketing budget.
3. Tampa Bay Devil Rays vs. St. Petersburg Grand Prix
Firstly I’d like to credit Brant James at Lug Nuts for the great coverage of this issue, everything I know about it has come from his site. If you don’t know, the Tampa Bay Rays are tired of low attendance for their team; and as we all know, surely you fix this by building a new stadium. Just don’t pay attention to the can’t stop finishing last in their division thing. Well the new proposed stadium is in St. Petersburg and basically looks to re-route roads and parking lots and in the process destroy what is essentially 25% of the St. Petersburg Grand Prix. Obviously it’s an issue in the making, as the construction wouldn’t start until 2009, but it is very apparent that the Rays could care less about the race (they claim to have been in touch with the race officials all this time and Kevin Savoree, of Andretti Green Promotions who put on the race, says they’ve never talked to them once about it), but the city and mayor are concerned as more should be because the Grand Prix last year brought in 125,000 fans over 3 days, definitely something we all know the Rays don't.
The Rays representatives claim: “The Grand Prix is a great event. It brings a lot of people to St. Pete and frankly, if they’re going to have an international event that showcases our ballpark through their course, we certainly have no reason to make it harder for them to do that." Time to start putting the money where the mouth is; the race at this point definitely has more positive press than the team.
4. Watching History Happen
I know its off-season and off-radar for most but if you were ever a fan of open-wheel racing, now is the time to jump back in as I believe we are watching its revolution back into the sports world. TV ratings are up, prize money is up and the IRL is really making one smart decision after another (first with bringing back road-courses) and now with the new revenue-sharing system that I think will completely revitalize the sport which has (since the open-wheel split) been plagued by low car counts.
Say hello to a brand new racing team bringing 2 new cars to the mix. Marty Roth is a guy with decent but not enough money to do a race here and there, but without a high enough finish the team couldn’t sustain on winnings alone, but it’s a Catch-22 as you really can’t win if you don’t have the money to pay good engineers and do enough racing and testing to set the cars up well. On top of it his second driver, Jay Howard, is the guy who won the developmental series, Indy Pro Series, in 2006 and would have won even more this year but was trying to secure a IRL ride instead of a IPS ride.
So lets add this on top of Helio’s Dancing, on top of already rising race attendance and TV ratings plus the already rising driver count and NASCAR’s declining ratings, and you have not only a rising series, but an incredibly stable one which is the most important thing while CHAMP Car World Series is losing multiple races by the month.
5. Can Boxing ever rise again
If it is ever going to happen this unification is the first step in the right direction. If I ask you ho is the champion of each weight class right now, you can’t tell me; and in this day of sports definitiveness; boxing’s various organizations need to suck up their idiotic pride and realize that The Contender bears more validity these days. All boxers should take this as an example and turns every weight class into a quick unification tournament. There are 4 belts out there right now which means a quick 4 person tournament, if someone owns 2 of the belts then he gets a bye.
6. Baseball’s off-season
A-Rod worked a deal that makes sense in his bonuses for historic achievement. Obviously the Yankees will get tickets, ratings, and news out of it; no reason he should get a bonus for doing that; but the question is: Are McGuire, Sosa, and Bonds kicking themselves now? Other things that may be overlooked especially is Indians Pitcher Juan Lara in critical condition from a car accident (and by accident I mean Lara was stopped at an intersection and a motorcycle with 2 riders slammed into his drivers side pinning him in the vehicle). Both people on the motorcycle died and it is being reported that Lara may have suffered some brain damage but only time will tell, how fast are you going to cause all of that? Just another senselessly stupid thing to scar the world.
7.Another week in hockey, another stupid incident
I’m making it my new rule to not comment on games in the NHL if there is a stupid on-ice issue to mention. It’s a boycott no one will care about or realize is happening, but its my boycott dammit; The NHL really needs to do something about this nonsense. Take a note from yourself, really, you fixed so many things up till now, why in the world would you let the fighting and cheap-shots continue to exist.
8. NFL vs. NFL Fans
So the NFL takes its first real shot at NFL fans tonight by putting Green Bay vs. Dallas on the NFL Network. Yes they will put up nonsense about how it’s the cable companies doing it, but lets be frank, the cable companies don’t want to pay more for a networks dedicated to a seasonal product and low ratings than they pay for CNN a 24/7-365 days a year network. Put this on top of their unlawful monopoly of NFL Sunday Ticket and the NFL has officially let its ego get ridiculously out of hand.
The game however should be one to watch (if you can). Neither team winning would be a surprise, but I think Green Bay is a lot better than people give them credit for.
9. College Football's hangover weekend.
Not much this weekend means much. 2 games have impact over the National Championship.
Pitt at WVU and Oklahoma at Missouri. Everyone is expecting Pitt to be a pushover and Oklahoma to run over Missouri although Missouri winning would not be so shocking. In my personal favorite a strong mid-major plays another strong Mid-major in the Conference-USA champ game. VT should clobber Boston College in the rematch and LSU should but may not make its way into the Sugar Bowl.
The 2 things to really watch this weekend however starts with Hawai’i in a total trap-match. Boise is over and everyone’s hung-over from it but Washington is hardly a push-over having almost beaten every team they lost to. The more important thing to watch out for…
10. BCS implosion or another squeak by?
UCLA at USC - Oregon State at Oregon - Arizona at Arizona State
If all three home teams lose then unranked UCLA is your PAC-10 champ! Obviously as we’ve seen in the past this sort of thing doesn’t kill the non-playoff system, but it does give the BCS system another black-eye. While everyone else out there wants to say computers are stupid, they fail to realize the computers get it right while the humans mess it up. Take our champions and then add next highest teams for a playoff and I think everyone would be happy. IF you can’t stand the non-playoff system here is who you root for this weekend: Pittsburg, Oklahoma, Oregon State, Arizona, UCLA, Tennessee, Hawai’i & Boston College.
11. The NFL weekend’s underlying Meaningfulness
Miami's best shot at a win at home vs. Jets. The Jets have looked very poor and even though they lost John Beck has looked decent/good in the crappy rain game; he’s definitely learning. Seattle can eliminate Philly this weekend, but more importantly if the Eagles do well, will people ever finally realize that the best thing for the Eagles is to not play Donovan McNabb?. Carolina at San Francisco: Where will New England’s 1st round draft pick end up? Houston – Tennessee: Tennessee stays alive with a win and Houston (who I think will win) takes Tennessee down with them for the season.
12. Apparent NFL Meaningfulness
Tampa Bay at N.O. This game means a whole lot, but what exactly it means yet no one is sure. New Orleans needs to win to keep a decent shot at the playoffs alive. Tampa Bay really just needs this win to prove to everyone that they are for real and to make everyone realize just how good they are and beating the Saints in New Orleans would be a good move in proving it and also locking up the NFC South. Jacksonville at Indy is now a game for the Division; Giants at Chicago is a game where one team will finally place the nail in the coffin of the other. While the Giants losing doesn’t eliminate their playoffs, it definitely shows the true team that we know from the past years, one that can’t take it the distance. Cleveland at Arizona: Arizona NEEDS this win, they need to prove they can win when they need to, and they need it to keep playoff hopes alive, and Cleveland needs a win to keep pace with Pittsburgh while the loser of Buffalo at Washington is realistically eliminated from playoff contention.
13. NFC 25 - AFC 23
Lastly here is the oh-so-fun reality that idiot media members continue to ignore. All hail the almighty AFC and their 2 game deficit to the weakly NFC. And while this week presents only 2 inter-conference match ups even losing both and being tied 25-25 would be a miracle against the all-powerful AFC…
The carousel of coaching in college football is usually big, or at least big enough that ESPN dedicates an entire static page to keeping up with it. I’m not going to spend a ton of time on it, you can decide which ones are worth keeping up on your own, I’ll just spend time on some on 2-4 of the more intriguing. First of course is Les Miles and Michigan finally getting permission from LSU to talk to him (most probably because LSU is out of the National Championship race now). Most people think its a done deal, forgetting that LSU is easily in a situation to throw money at this, but if Miles does in fact leave, which I think he may, LSU really ought to keep tabs on Bo Pelini who is apparently in the top two for Nebraska’s job.
The other most intriguing is Southern Mississippi forcing Jeff Bower to resign after 17 pretty darn decent years and 14 straight winning seasons. Most people are outraged but forget that in the past 2-3 seasons if you removed division II and Sun Belt teams USM does not have a winning season. I think it’s you can’t decide until you know who USM hires. If USM hires an unknown or something without history, then it is easily the stupidest decision of the year, but there are definitely ways it can be a big spark, (e.g. bringing back Tyrone Nix from S. Carolina).
2. Third Athlete in a Row Takes Dancing with the Stars Trophy
First of all; yes, race car drivers are athletes, whether it is a sport or not is debatable, but they are definitely athletes. Anyway, the reason this is a great story/issue is because of the potential here just as ESPN’s Terry Blount states: “Helio Castroneves won a lot more than a little dance contest Tuesday night. Castroneves won the hearts of America, and in doing so, gave the IndyCar Series a popularity boost that no race ever could accomplish.”
If you look at the celebrities who started the competition as their starting fan-bases alone, Helio wouldn’t have even been Top 5. The fact that he won this competition was great, but what it actually does is even more important for the Indy Racing League, it humanized and introduced one of its drivers, and possibly the most personable too. Sure not all 24-30 million viewers of the show will tune into racing but if any small percentage does, it’ll easily double the press and fan-conversion Danica brought to the table but at basically no cost to the series’ marketing budget.
3. Tampa Bay Devil Rays vs. St. Petersburg Grand Prix
Firstly I’d like to credit Brant James at Lug Nuts for the great coverage of this issue, everything I know about it has come from his site. If you don’t know, the Tampa Bay Rays are tired of low attendance for their team; and as we all know, surely you fix this by building a new stadium. Just don’t pay attention to the can’t stop finishing last in their division thing. Well the new proposed stadium is in St. Petersburg and basically looks to re-route roads and parking lots and in the process destroy what is essentially 25% of the St. Petersburg Grand Prix. Obviously it’s an issue in the making, as the construction wouldn’t start until 2009, but it is very apparent that the Rays could care less about the race (they claim to have been in touch with the race officials all this time and Kevin Savoree, of Andretti Green Promotions who put on the race, says they’ve never talked to them once about it), but the city and mayor are concerned as more should be because the Grand Prix last year brought in 125,000 fans over 3 days, definitely something we all know the Rays don't.
The Rays representatives claim: “The Grand Prix is a great event. It brings a lot of people to St. Pete and frankly, if they’re going to have an international event that showcases our ballpark through their course, we certainly have no reason to make it harder for them to do that." Time to start putting the money where the mouth is; the race at this point definitely has more positive press than the team.
4. Watching History Happen
I know its off-season and off-radar for most but if you were ever a fan of open-wheel racing, now is the time to jump back in as I believe we are watching its revolution back into the sports world. TV ratings are up, prize money is up and the IRL is really making one smart decision after another (first with bringing back road-courses) and now with the new revenue-sharing system that I think will completely revitalize the sport which has (since the open-wheel split) been plagued by low car counts.
Say hello to a brand new racing team bringing 2 new cars to the mix. Marty Roth is a guy with decent but not enough money to do a race here and there, but without a high enough finish the team couldn’t sustain on winnings alone, but it’s a Catch-22 as you really can’t win if you don’t have the money to pay good engineers and do enough racing and testing to set the cars up well. On top of it his second driver, Jay Howard, is the guy who won the developmental series, Indy Pro Series, in 2006 and would have won even more this year but was trying to secure a IRL ride instead of a IPS ride.
So lets add this on top of Helio’s Dancing, on top of already rising race attendance and TV ratings plus the already rising driver count and NASCAR’s declining ratings, and you have not only a rising series, but an incredibly stable one which is the most important thing while CHAMP Car World Series is losing multiple races by the month.
5. Can Boxing ever rise again
If it is ever going to happen this unification is the first step in the right direction. If I ask you ho is the champion of each weight class right now, you can’t tell me; and in this day of sports definitiveness; boxing’s various organizations need to suck up their idiotic pride and realize that The Contender bears more validity these days. All boxers should take this as an example and turns every weight class into a quick unification tournament. There are 4 belts out there right now which means a quick 4 person tournament, if someone owns 2 of the belts then he gets a bye.
6. Baseball’s off-season
A-Rod worked a deal that makes sense in his bonuses for historic achievement. Obviously the Yankees will get tickets, ratings, and news out of it; no reason he should get a bonus for doing that; but the question is: Are McGuire, Sosa, and Bonds kicking themselves now? Other things that may be overlooked especially is Indians Pitcher Juan Lara in critical condition from a car accident (and by accident I mean Lara was stopped at an intersection and a motorcycle with 2 riders slammed into his drivers side pinning him in the vehicle). Both people on the motorcycle died and it is being reported that Lara may have suffered some brain damage but only time will tell, how fast are you going to cause all of that? Just another senselessly stupid thing to scar the world.
7.Another week in hockey, another stupid incident
I’m making it my new rule to not comment on games in the NHL if there is a stupid on-ice issue to mention. It’s a boycott no one will care about or realize is happening, but its my boycott dammit; The NHL really needs to do something about this nonsense. Take a note from yourself, really, you fixed so many things up till now, why in the world would you let the fighting and cheap-shots continue to exist.
8. NFL vs. NFL Fans
So the NFL takes its first real shot at NFL fans tonight by putting Green Bay vs. Dallas on the NFL Network. Yes they will put up nonsense about how it’s the cable companies doing it, but lets be frank, the cable companies don’t want to pay more for a networks dedicated to a seasonal product and low ratings than they pay for CNN a 24/7-365 days a year network. Put this on top of their unlawful monopoly of NFL Sunday Ticket and the NFL has officially let its ego get ridiculously out of hand.
The game however should be one to watch (if you can). Neither team winning would be a surprise, but I think Green Bay is a lot better than people give them credit for.
9. College Football's hangover weekend.
Not much this weekend means much. 2 games have impact over the National Championship.
Pitt at WVU and Oklahoma at Missouri. Everyone is expecting Pitt to be a pushover and Oklahoma to run over Missouri although Missouri winning would not be so shocking. In my personal favorite a strong mid-major plays another strong Mid-major in the Conference-USA champ game. VT should clobber Boston College in the rematch and LSU should but may not make its way into the Sugar Bowl.
The 2 things to really watch this weekend however starts with Hawai’i in a total trap-match. Boise is over and everyone’s hung-over from it but Washington is hardly a push-over having almost beaten every team they lost to. The more important thing to watch out for…
10. BCS implosion or another squeak by?
UCLA at USC - Oregon State at Oregon - Arizona at Arizona State
If all three home teams lose then unranked UCLA is your PAC-10 champ! Obviously as we’ve seen in the past this sort of thing doesn’t kill the non-playoff system, but it does give the BCS system another black-eye. While everyone else out there wants to say computers are stupid, they fail to realize the computers get it right while the humans mess it up. Take our champions and then add next highest teams for a playoff and I think everyone would be happy. IF you can’t stand the non-playoff system here is who you root for this weekend: Pittsburg, Oklahoma, Oregon State, Arizona, UCLA, Tennessee, Hawai’i & Boston College.
11. The NFL weekend’s underlying Meaningfulness
Miami's best shot at a win at home vs. Jets. The Jets have looked very poor and even though they lost John Beck has looked decent/good in the crappy rain game; he’s definitely learning. Seattle can eliminate Philly this weekend, but more importantly if the Eagles do well, will people ever finally realize that the best thing for the Eagles is to not play Donovan McNabb?. Carolina at San Francisco: Where will New England’s 1st round draft pick end up? Houston – Tennessee: Tennessee stays alive with a win and Houston (who I think will win) takes Tennessee down with them for the season.
12. Apparent NFL Meaningfulness
Tampa Bay at N.O. This game means a whole lot, but what exactly it means yet no one is sure. New Orleans needs to win to keep a decent shot at the playoffs alive. Tampa Bay really just needs this win to prove to everyone that they are for real and to make everyone realize just how good they are and beating the Saints in New Orleans would be a good move in proving it and also locking up the NFC South. Jacksonville at Indy is now a game for the Division; Giants at Chicago is a game where one team will finally place the nail in the coffin of the other. While the Giants losing doesn’t eliminate their playoffs, it definitely shows the true team that we know from the past years, one that can’t take it the distance. Cleveland at Arizona: Arizona NEEDS this win, they need to prove they can win when they need to, and they need it to keep playoff hopes alive, and Cleveland needs a win to keep pace with Pittsburgh while the loser of Buffalo at Washington is realistically eliminated from playoff contention.
13. NFC 25 - AFC 23
Lastly here is the oh-so-fun reality that idiot media members continue to ignore. All hail the almighty AFC and their 2 game deficit to the weakly NFC. And while this week presents only 2 inter-conference match ups even losing both and being tied 25-25 would be a miracle against the all-powerful AFC…
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Rest in Peace Sean Taylor
It is just such a sad and unnecessary/senseless event to even have happened. Just wanted to say all thoughts, prayers, and condolences go out to the family, teammates, friends and anyone who in any way, no matter how big or small, was connected to Sean Taylor.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Improbable, yes; but Impossible, hardly
Normally today I'd wrap-up the weekend but instead I wanted to leave the body of work to a scenario that most people aren't paying attention to (for obvious reasons as it is not terribly high in the percentages of possibilities).
My wife being a BYU graduate, I've come to take them as my 2nd team, as per official rules of fandom state I can, and she, who in the past 3 years has become a great football fan, has asked me a simple question that I decided to tax myself over: What would it take for BYU to make it to a BCS bowl game??
I thought it maybe easy to dismiss this with a "they won't realistically get in", or maybe quickly finding out they can't, but alas, thus was not the end result of my research as they can very much make their way to a BCS Bowl and thus continue my hopes of bringing down the monster that is the Bowl Championship Series Championship Game. (If you know me you know I only hate the 1 game playoff not the computers as next week I will give my plan for a 16-team NCAA football playoff)
ok so what do we know?, we know to get an automatic birth the BCS rules state that a non-BCS conference school has to:
A) finish in the top 12
B) finish in the top 16 while one of the BCS conferences winners finishes out of the top 16.
While A has a shot if enough top 18 schools lose I doubt A will happen for BYU, so lets look at B as the more realistic shot right now.
1. The Big East and Big 10 champions have already been decided and they are currently #1 West Va. and #3 Ohio State. WVU plays Pitt this week and even in a loss I doubt they drop out of top 10.
2. All SEC, Big-12, and ACC Championship games feature 2 teams currently in top 16 so concieveably none of them will drop out with a win.
3. HOWEVER Here is the shot though the Pac-10 as it is a mess. They go simply on your final record without a champ game and here is how they currently break out
#13 Arizona State 6-2
#8 USC 6-2
#17 Oregon 5-3
Oregon State 5-3
UCLA 5-3
Arizona 4-4
California 3-5
Wash. State 3-6
Stanford 2-6
Washington 2-7
Ariz. St. is playing Arizona
USC is playing UCLA
Oregon is playing Oregon State
If all the upsets happen then you would have the following final standings.
Arizona State 6-3
USC 6-3
Oregon State 6-3
UCLA 6-3
Oregon 5-4
Arizona 5-4
The way the pac 10 breaks a tie between multiple teams:
b. Multiple-Team Ties.
(1) When three or more teams are tied in Conference play, if one has defeated all others, it shall be the Rose Bowl representative. If that is not the case, a comparison of the tied teams' records against the other tied teams shall be made and the team having the best record against the other tied teams shall be the Rose Bowl representative. If two or more teams are still tied after this comparison, the appropriate two-team or multiple-team tie-breaking procedures shall be repeated among those teams still under consideration.
If at any point in the process the multiple-team tie is reduced to two teams, the two-team tie-breaking procedure shall be applied. (record against each other)
If more than two teams are still tied after comparing their records all the way through the Conference standings, the team among the tied teams with the highest ranking in the final BCS standings shall be the Rose Bowl representative.
THIS puts those four teams at:
Arizona State 2-1
USC 2-1
UCLA 2-1
Oregon State 0-3
(2) If more than two teams are still tied after the process above is completed, each remaining tied team's record against the team occupying the highest position in the final regular season standings shall be compared, with the procedure continuing down through the standings until one team gains an advantage.
When arriving at another group of tied teams while comparing records, each team's collective record against the tied teams as a group shall be used.
This is where I get slightly confused but If I've read this right, it means that we take the team highest in the regular season that isn't one of these teams and see how everyone did against them. In this case Oregon State would start the highest but all 3 teams beat them so next in line is Oregon which UCLA is the only one to have beaten. (Thanks Robert):
unranked UCLA as PAC-10 Champs!
With Arizona State starting this week at #13, it is totally conceivable that they would drop below #16 after losing to an unranked Arizona... Oregon at #17 would have lost to Oregon State dropping the ducks down giving the BYU Cougars at least 2 spots up to #17 based on the PAC-10 alone. BYU could jump some other teams if they did a great convincing job of proving they mean business against San Diego State but with SDSU at a balmy 4-7 lets assume BYU needs help beyond themselves winning.
BYU would need to make up 1 more spot for the top 16 and theres a couple ways they'd get this help: the most probable is #14 Tennessee could conceivably get knocked down if they get beat bad by LSU and then next most probable is #12 Hawaii could lose at Washington, and then the two long-shots #11 Boston College would have to get get totally slobberknockered by Virginia Tech and the same for #9 Oklahoma by #1 Missouri.
SO... while they wouldn't get an automatic berth simply getting into the top 16, they WOULD become BCS eligible. Add in a Hawai'i loss and it is automatic. So here is what we're rooting for this weekend just because it'll be ridiculous enough to be cool (and possibly give more motion to a playoff system):
Arizona beats up Arizona State
UCLA beats up on USC
Oregon State beats Oregon
BYU handles SDSU easily
LSU handle's Tennessee
and the ones not as necessary
Missouri handles Oklahoma
Virginia Tech handles Boston College
BUT just for good measure on my hatred of the non-playoff system (as I do like the BCS computer ranking system just hate that we get a 2 team playoff of 1 game) on making things chaotic lets have Pitt beat WVU, and Oklahoma beat Missouri, and Hawai'i squeak by Washington. this way we could end up with a two non-BCS teams problem with Hawai'i and BYU as well as a problem on top of the BCS.
My wife being a BYU graduate, I've come to take them as my 2nd team, as per official rules of fandom state I can, and she, who in the past 3 years has become a great football fan, has asked me a simple question that I decided to tax myself over: What would it take for BYU to make it to a BCS bowl game??
I thought it maybe easy to dismiss this with a "they won't realistically get in", or maybe quickly finding out they can't, but alas, thus was not the end result of my research as they can very much make their way to a BCS Bowl and thus continue my hopes of bringing down the monster that is the Bowl Championship Series Championship Game. (If you know me you know I only hate the 1 game playoff not the computers as next week I will give my plan for a 16-team NCAA football playoff)
ok so what do we know?, we know to get an automatic birth the BCS rules state that a non-BCS conference school has to:
A) finish in the top 12
B) finish in the top 16 while one of the BCS conferences winners finishes out of the top 16.
While A has a shot if enough top 18 schools lose I doubt A will happen for BYU, so lets look at B as the more realistic shot right now.
1. The Big East and Big 10 champions have already been decided and they are currently #1 West Va. and #3 Ohio State. WVU plays Pitt this week and even in a loss I doubt they drop out of top 10.
2. All SEC, Big-12, and ACC Championship games feature 2 teams currently in top 16 so concieveably none of them will drop out with a win.
3. HOWEVER Here is the shot though the Pac-10 as it is a mess. They go simply on your final record without a champ game and here is how they currently break out
#13 Arizona State 6-2
#8 USC 6-2
#17 Oregon 5-3
Oregon State 5-3
UCLA 5-3
Arizona 4-4
California 3-5
Wash. State 3-6
Stanford 2-6
Washington 2-7
Ariz. St. is playing Arizona
USC is playing UCLA
Oregon is playing Oregon State
If all the upsets happen then you would have the following final standings.
Arizona State 6-3
USC 6-3
Oregon State 6-3
UCLA 6-3
Oregon 5-4
Arizona 5-4
The way the pac 10 breaks a tie between multiple teams:
b. Multiple-Team Ties.
(1) When three or more teams are tied in Conference play, if one has defeated all others, it shall be the Rose Bowl representative. If that is not the case, a comparison of the tied teams' records against the other tied teams shall be made and the team having the best record against the other tied teams shall be the Rose Bowl representative. If two or more teams are still tied after this comparison, the appropriate two-team or multiple-team tie-breaking procedures shall be repeated among those teams still under consideration.
If at any point in the process the multiple-team tie is reduced to two teams, the two-team tie-breaking procedure shall be applied. (record against each other)
If more than two teams are still tied after comparing their records all the way through the Conference standings, the team among the tied teams with the highest ranking in the final BCS standings shall be the Rose Bowl representative.
THIS puts those four teams at:
Arizona State 2-1
USC 2-1
UCLA 2-1
Oregon State 0-3
(2) If more than two teams are still tied after the process above is completed, each remaining tied team's record against the team occupying the highest position in the final regular season standings shall be compared, with the procedure continuing down through the standings until one team gains an advantage.
When arriving at another group of tied teams while comparing records, each team's collective record against the tied teams as a group shall be used.
This is where I get slightly confused but If I've read this right, it means that we take the team highest in the regular season that isn't one of these teams and see how everyone did against them. In this case Oregon State would start the highest but all 3 teams beat them so next in line is Oregon which UCLA is the only one to have beaten. (Thanks Robert):
unranked UCLA as PAC-10 Champs!
With Arizona State starting this week at #13, it is totally conceivable that they would drop below #16 after losing to an unranked Arizona... Oregon at #17 would have lost to Oregon State dropping the ducks down giving the BYU Cougars at least 2 spots up to #17 based on the PAC-10 alone. BYU could jump some other teams if they did a great convincing job of proving they mean business against San Diego State but with SDSU at a balmy 4-7 lets assume BYU needs help beyond themselves winning.
BYU would need to make up 1 more spot for the top 16 and theres a couple ways they'd get this help: the most probable is #14 Tennessee could conceivably get knocked down if they get beat bad by LSU and then next most probable is #12 Hawaii could lose at Washington, and then the two long-shots #11 Boston College would have to get get totally slobberknockered by Virginia Tech and the same for #9 Oklahoma by #1 Missouri.
SO... while they wouldn't get an automatic berth simply getting into the top 16, they WOULD become BCS eligible. Add in a Hawai'i loss and it is automatic. So here is what we're rooting for this weekend just because it'll be ridiculous enough to be cool (and possibly give more motion to a playoff system):
Arizona beats up Arizona State
UCLA beats up on USC
Oregon State beats Oregon
BYU handles SDSU easily
LSU handle's Tennessee
and the ones not as necessary
Missouri handles Oklahoma
Virginia Tech handles Boston College
BUT just for good measure on my hatred of the non-playoff system (as I do like the BCS computer ranking system just hate that we get a 2 team playoff of 1 game) on making things chaotic lets have Pitt beat WVU, and Oklahoma beat Missouri, and Hawai'i squeak by Washington. this way we could end up with a two non-BCS teams problem with Hawai'i and BYU as well as a problem on top of the BCS.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
13 Things To Do Over the Holiday
1. NHL’s Sean Avery kill-watch
Ok so I was off by a day in predicting something to happen with Sean Avery over the weekend, but low and behold Rick DiPietro (a goalie!) I’m sure received nothing but props from other NHL players for punching Avery in the head Monday night. I’m sure this won’t do anything to stop Avery from generally being an ass out there on the ice so what’s next?
2. Now while Avery getting punched in the head almost seems deserving and satisfying, the NHL can’t continue to pussyfoot around the unnecessary roughness of its sport. The league is in some serious danger that it doesn’t seem to recognize. Todd Bertuzzi is still going through a lawsuit over his totally uncalled for punch to Steve Moore’s head, and personally I hope Moore gets every penny as Bertuzzi should have been banned from the league. The kind of actions that are continuing in this sport is really starting to make this less of a sport and more... well… roller-derby.
3. Packers at Lions
For all you pick-em and fantasy football people out there, don’t forget to do picks and line-ups before the games tomorrow! For those of you (like me) who pain the Thanksgiving matchups each year, we’ve finally hit a great one. The Packers are fighting for probably the most dominant home field playoff advantage; and the Lions are simply pissed off and fighting for a wild-card. I personally think the Packers outmatch the Lions but neither result in this game would surprise me. How will the Packers fare in their warm up to the Cowboys game?
4. For most of you, scratch this off the list.
The continuing stupidity that is the NFL Network. First of all you won’t miss much in Indy at Atlanta Thursday night, and besides most everyone will be watching #5 on my list anyway. But put all of that aside, the NFL is in some serious trouble right now in thinking it is a good idea to put games on the NFL Network. The majority of football fans can’t get it to begin with, another large portion don’t care to get it, and that’s on top of the people who don’t have any cable and already can’t see Monday Night games. The NFL’s ego is getting ridiculously large here and unfortunately they won’t recognize it and will continue to alienate fans.
5. After watching the Packers and Lions take a break and then watch what is really the Pac-10 championship game:
Arizona State vs. USC. USC may have lost 2 games but they are hardly any small measure of a team while a lot of people (like myself) will be rooting on the Sun Devils just as a matter of parity and to see the underdogs come out of nowhere to represent the conference in the Rose Bowl (and an outside shot at the National championship).
6. College Football’s yearly best week… Rivalry Week starts Friday
There is no shortage of games to watch on Friday and Saturday but lets start with some Friday match ups:
Ole Miss at Mississippi State – MSU needs the win to lock up a bowl game and finish the coach of the year job done by Sylvester Croom (2nd probably only to Mangino at Kansas) and Ole Miss would like nothing more to ruin it just… because…
Arkansas at LSU. By no means a pushover game, and by far one of the better trophies (The 2 states on top of each other, seemingly a giant boot). LSU should win this game, but LSU’s past performances don’t yield anything beyond the dramatic. And lets continue the warm-up with
Texas vs. Texas A&M, if not for the rivalry, simply because Texas needs a win to keep its Conference title hopes alive.
7. The Match to decide who gets the outside BCS bid
Boise State at Hawai’i. Now I’ve been on Hawai’i’s case most of the year, but if they win this game it (to me) will give them the legitimacy they need, and then they’ll follow it up with more legitimacy vs. Washington. The winner of this game will most probably get that outside conference BCS bid and deservingly so.
8. Saturday’s Rivalries
lets start with the games that are not only rivalries, but games of much importance:
Virginia vs. Virginia Tech – winner goes to conference champ game representing Coastal Division
Georgia vs. Georgia Tech - Georgia is in the passenger seat as far as the conference is concerned but NEEEDS this to lock up the BCS bid
Kentucky at Tennessee – simple Tennessee wins they face LSU next week, they lose and Georgia gets it. I’m not sure whom you want as LSU but I’m betting Georgia in the Georgia Dome is a much tougher game… but also would look much better on the BCS resume
West Virginia vs. Connecticut – WVU needs the win to boost its BCS hope and UConn wants it to lock up the division when they were predicted to be the bottom feeder
Okalahoma vs. Oklahoma State – Oddly enough Okalahoma can lose and still represent the B-12 South if Texas loses, but chances are they will need the win to lock that up, not to mention needing the win to keep the resume alive and a chance to upset the North
9. Just for Rivalries sake:
Utah at BYU – This is probably the best non-BCS non-implications game out there for the weekend. The Rivalry is huge already but on top of that, both teams are on 7 game win streaks and BYU finally cracked the rankings.
Florida and Florida State – I would normally say “watch what happens to Tebow against decent competition” but umm… have you seen Florida State recently?
South Carolina vs. Clemson – simply for rivalries sake
Washington vs. Washington State – see above
Alabama vs. Auburn – so what will Saban equate losing the week after Louisiana Monroe to?
10. Probably the best and biggest match up of the year
Undefeated Kansas vs. Missouri. Easily the two best quarterbacks in college this year, for all the marbles of BCS and conference implications not to mention primetime and in Arrowhead Stadium. I don’t need to play this up any further; just watch it.
11. NFL games to watch
Some quick notes for you
Seattle at St. Louis – Trap game for a now strong running Seattle against a resurgent and healthy St. Louis
Washington at T.B. – Tampa Bay can put a stamp on their good performances with a win
Houston at Cleveland – Both unexpected winners, both need the win
Baltimore at S.D. – Both have fallen from grace since last season’s league leading records
N.O. at Carolina – the “stick a fork in em” match. Loser is done for, winner has outside chance alive.
Miami on Monday Night football! Now Starring Ricky Williams! If that weren’t enough, after Pittsburg overlooked the Jets, can they overlook the Dolphins as well?
12. The ALL-POWERFUL AFC
You know for all the “expert” analysis and roving about how awesome the AFC is, the NFC sure is winning the conference match ups right now 23-21…
13. Turkey Bowl!
Most football loving people have their own version of the Turkey Bowl, that’s the name for most for most but even if not so I encourage you to have some kind of friendly game of football be it touch, flag, or even (like myself and the crazy 14-20 of us that get together every year here) tackle without pads. Nothing wakes you up quite like full contact football in the cold at 8am, finishing just in time to catch some NFL football at home.
Ok so I was off by a day in predicting something to happen with Sean Avery over the weekend, but low and behold Rick DiPietro (a goalie!) I’m sure received nothing but props from other NHL players for punching Avery in the head Monday night. I’m sure this won’t do anything to stop Avery from generally being an ass out there on the ice so what’s next?
2. Now while Avery getting punched in the head almost seems deserving and satisfying, the NHL can’t continue to pussyfoot around the unnecessary roughness of its sport. The league is in some serious danger that it doesn’t seem to recognize. Todd Bertuzzi is still going through a lawsuit over his totally uncalled for punch to Steve Moore’s head, and personally I hope Moore gets every penny as Bertuzzi should have been banned from the league. The kind of actions that are continuing in this sport is really starting to make this less of a sport and more... well… roller-derby.
3. Packers at Lions
For all you pick-em and fantasy football people out there, don’t forget to do picks and line-ups before the games tomorrow! For those of you (like me) who pain the Thanksgiving matchups each year, we’ve finally hit a great one. The Packers are fighting for probably the most dominant home field playoff advantage; and the Lions are simply pissed off and fighting for a wild-card. I personally think the Packers outmatch the Lions but neither result in this game would surprise me. How will the Packers fare in their warm up to the Cowboys game?
4. For most of you, scratch this off the list.
The continuing stupidity that is the NFL Network. First of all you won’t miss much in Indy at Atlanta Thursday night, and besides most everyone will be watching #5 on my list anyway. But put all of that aside, the NFL is in some serious trouble right now in thinking it is a good idea to put games on the NFL Network. The majority of football fans can’t get it to begin with, another large portion don’t care to get it, and that’s on top of the people who don’t have any cable and already can’t see Monday Night games. The NFL’s ego is getting ridiculously large here and unfortunately they won’t recognize it and will continue to alienate fans.
5. After watching the Packers and Lions take a break and then watch what is really the Pac-10 championship game:
Arizona State vs. USC. USC may have lost 2 games but they are hardly any small measure of a team while a lot of people (like myself) will be rooting on the Sun Devils just as a matter of parity and to see the underdogs come out of nowhere to represent the conference in the Rose Bowl (and an outside shot at the National championship).
6. College Football’s yearly best week… Rivalry Week starts Friday
There is no shortage of games to watch on Friday and Saturday but lets start with some Friday match ups:
Ole Miss at Mississippi State – MSU needs the win to lock up a bowl game and finish the coach of the year job done by Sylvester Croom (2nd probably only to Mangino at Kansas) and Ole Miss would like nothing more to ruin it just… because…
Arkansas at LSU. By no means a pushover game, and by far one of the better trophies (The 2 states on top of each other, seemingly a giant boot). LSU should win this game, but LSU’s past performances don’t yield anything beyond the dramatic. And lets continue the warm-up with
Texas vs. Texas A&M, if not for the rivalry, simply because Texas needs a win to keep its Conference title hopes alive.
7. The Match to decide who gets the outside BCS bid
Boise State at Hawai’i. Now I’ve been on Hawai’i’s case most of the year, but if they win this game it (to me) will give them the legitimacy they need, and then they’ll follow it up with more legitimacy vs. Washington. The winner of this game will most probably get that outside conference BCS bid and deservingly so.
8. Saturday’s Rivalries
lets start with the games that are not only rivalries, but games of much importance:
Virginia vs. Virginia Tech – winner goes to conference champ game representing Coastal Division
Georgia vs. Georgia Tech - Georgia is in the passenger seat as far as the conference is concerned but NEEEDS this to lock up the BCS bid
Kentucky at Tennessee – simple Tennessee wins they face LSU next week, they lose and Georgia gets it. I’m not sure whom you want as LSU but I’m betting Georgia in the Georgia Dome is a much tougher game… but also would look much better on the BCS resume
West Virginia vs. Connecticut – WVU needs the win to boost its BCS hope and UConn wants it to lock up the division when they were predicted to be the bottom feeder
Okalahoma vs. Oklahoma State – Oddly enough Okalahoma can lose and still represent the B-12 South if Texas loses, but chances are they will need the win to lock that up, not to mention needing the win to keep the resume alive and a chance to upset the North
9. Just for Rivalries sake:
Utah at BYU – This is probably the best non-BCS non-implications game out there for the weekend. The Rivalry is huge already but on top of that, both teams are on 7 game win streaks and BYU finally cracked the rankings.
Florida and Florida State – I would normally say “watch what happens to Tebow against decent competition” but umm… have you seen Florida State recently?
South Carolina vs. Clemson – simply for rivalries sake
Washington vs. Washington State – see above
Alabama vs. Auburn – so what will Saban equate losing the week after Louisiana Monroe to?
10. Probably the best and biggest match up of the year
Undefeated Kansas vs. Missouri. Easily the two best quarterbacks in college this year, for all the marbles of BCS and conference implications not to mention primetime and in Arrowhead Stadium. I don’t need to play this up any further; just watch it.
11. NFL games to watch
Some quick notes for you
Seattle at St. Louis – Trap game for a now strong running Seattle against a resurgent and healthy St. Louis
Washington at T.B. – Tampa Bay can put a stamp on their good performances with a win
Houston at Cleveland – Both unexpected winners, both need the win
Baltimore at S.D. – Both have fallen from grace since last season’s league leading records
N.O. at Carolina – the “stick a fork in em” match. Loser is done for, winner has outside chance alive.
Miami on Monday Night football! Now Starring Ricky Williams! If that weren’t enough, after Pittsburg overlooked the Jets, can they overlook the Dolphins as well?
12. The ALL-POWERFUL AFC
You know for all the “expert” analysis and roving about how awesome the AFC is, the NFC sure is winning the conference match ups right now 23-21…
13. Turkey Bowl!
Most football loving people have their own version of the Turkey Bowl, that’s the name for most for most but even if not so I encourage you to have some kind of friendly game of football be it touch, flag, or even (like myself and the crazy 14-20 of us that get together every year here) tackle without pads. Nothing wakes you up quite like full contact football in the cold at 8am, finishing just in time to catch some NFL football at home.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Weekend of surprises and nonchalantness…
Let’s start with the early weekend surprise. Oregon loses to Arizona, but that’s not the surprise considering how it happened. The surprise is that Dixon had apparently torn the ACL two weeks ago. With all that goes into college football, how was this not discovered 2 weeks ago? He was wearing a brace, prescribed by somebody, how was the torn ACL not discovered; and if it was why was he playing?
Hawai’i again needs last minute play to beat another average team…
And now the team that is showing it will be a BCS contender for years to come: The Fighting Illini! Inspired but also smart football, which is what makes a consistent winner. The difference between this and Florida, is Illinois understands the time it takes to develop a team.
Chase Daniel and Todd Reesing should lead the popularity contest trophy (Heisman) not Tim Tebow who succeeds in running up the score against Florida Atlantic. This week’s match up, however, I think we showcase something that’s been underappreciated by the media: the KU defense.
Where is LSU’s Defense? And while he’s struggling to walk and is too nice a guy to say it how has nothing ever been done to Auburn or the 2 players who deliberately tried to break Glenn Dorsey’s leg in a game.
And now for the predictable media: DID YOU HEAR LLOYD CARR RETIRED AND WE THINK LES MILES WOULD WANT THIS JOB EVEN THOUGH HE SAID HE DOESN’T AND THAT WOULD BE DISTRACTING TO HIM AND HIS PLAYERS WOULD BE DISTRACTED… DISTRACTION!!!!!
In other new about 20 other coaches will also not return to their teams in collegiate football.
The most shocking thing of the College Football weekend however: I have the same thought right now that I had watching the entire game: How was Oklahoma Not prepared for Texas Tech? TT passes 90% of the time for at least the past decade or two. How was Oklahoma not prepared for pass defense?
And now for some historical significance: Jimmy Johnson is now only the tenth person to win NASCAR’s main series back to back, and the first since Jeff Gordon in ‘97-’98. With the second one in the bag Hendrick Motorsports is looking to get Johnson into a lifetime contract; Johnsons’ 6-year career so far: 34 wins 134 top ten’s, 2 championships… lifetime contract sounds like a good idea to me.
More history: While the media wants to talk about Boston's sports dominance, they will all conveniently forget the New England Revolution lost their 4th MLS Cup in 6 years and (Buffalo Bills-esque) 3rd in a row now. And in that same breath the Houston Dynamo are the first MLS team to win back-to-back title since D.C. United did it in ‘96-’97. And if you want to speak dynasty, even though we’re supposed to treat the Dynamo as a expansion team even though it is all the same players from San Jose (just like the Browns move to Baltimore), 4 titles in 7 seasons is certainly worth a mention.
Also worth a mention is Major League Soccer’s growth: the MLS has already announced new teams in Seattle and San Jose, but now they have also announced 9 cities with a very large interest and the league’s intent to have 18 teams by 2010. For those not familiar with the league, that’s at least 1 or 2 expansion teams each year. The MLS is definitely on its way to becoming one of the major North American sports leagues.
More History: in NFL history 17 teams have gone 10-0 before so we haven’t hit the big part just yet, but New England is still alive to be the second member of the undefeated club.
And now some quick NFL anecdotes:
Arizona beats Cincinnati with its defense and special teams: Doesn’t prove too much about Arizona but does continue to show just how bad the Bengals are. Controversy in Baltimore? Only if you are an idiot. I don’t understand why using the replay is supposedly controversial; they simply used a camera to make the correct call. The Bears seem to have lost their defense, or better yet, they can’t continue to have 2-3 guys hold it up anymore. Seattle escaped from a game that shouldn’t have been close, their offense looks as convincing as ever. Tampa Bay handles Atlanta: Why does Atlanta even have Joey Harrington on the roster if they don’t care how well he does? Jeff Garcia continues quietly leading his team without attention, and for the 5th consecutive season it looks as though the previous worst team in the NFC South will win it the following year.
Detroit defeats itself, credit win to N.Y. Giants: I’m not sure if this game proved anything. Green Bay easily beats another opponent: outside of the one "remnant of last year" in the loss to Chicago, Green Bay looks like the team to beat in the NFC, not Dallas. Indy is still recovering from the game with New England: Kansas City is still recovering from lack of leadership and effort. Minnesota beat Oakland: so was it Adrian Peterson that was awesome or Minnesota’s blocking? Dallas should have lost to Washington: “Hey you think we should cover that T.O. guy?” ..." No thats ok Dallas doesn't much care for that whole Defense thing" Not a surprise that once the Rams recover from injuries, they start looking convincingly good (especially against 2 of the worst defenses in a row)
Miami continues run towards history: Just remember that this team had Wes Welker and Chris Chambers. Philly once again proving that they don’t need to overpay for a makes-no-difference Donavan McNabb. Pittsburg tried to mail it in vs. the Jets, not a good idea. Jacksonville starting to really show its cohesiveness, San Diego proving that firing Shottenheimer was a great idea.
And lastly, New Orleans is exactly the same as San Diego: talent and greatness… when they feel like it. And while Jason David is trying to set the record for times being burned I simply don’t understand how the media continues to tell us the Saints woes are simply because their defense stinks, yet here is the Saints offense by drive: FG, fumble, Int, Punt, TD, Punt, turnover downs, Punt, Int, turnover downs, time runs out.
I give you: the Saints need to fix that damn defense.
Hawai’i again needs last minute play to beat another average team…
And now the team that is showing it will be a BCS contender for years to come: The Fighting Illini! Inspired but also smart football, which is what makes a consistent winner. The difference between this and Florida, is Illinois understands the time it takes to develop a team.
Chase Daniel and Todd Reesing should lead the popularity contest trophy (Heisman) not Tim Tebow who succeeds in running up the score against Florida Atlantic. This week’s match up, however, I think we showcase something that’s been underappreciated by the media: the KU defense.
Where is LSU’s Defense? And while he’s struggling to walk and is too nice a guy to say it how has nothing ever been done to Auburn or the 2 players who deliberately tried to break Glenn Dorsey’s leg in a game.
And now for the predictable media: DID YOU HEAR LLOYD CARR RETIRED AND WE THINK LES MILES WOULD WANT THIS JOB EVEN THOUGH HE SAID HE DOESN’T AND THAT WOULD BE DISTRACTING TO HIM AND HIS PLAYERS WOULD BE DISTRACTED… DISTRACTION!!!!!
In other new about 20 other coaches will also not return to their teams in collegiate football.
The most shocking thing of the College Football weekend however: I have the same thought right now that I had watching the entire game: How was Oklahoma Not prepared for Texas Tech? TT passes 90% of the time for at least the past decade or two. How was Oklahoma not prepared for pass defense?
And now for some historical significance: Jimmy Johnson is now only the tenth person to win NASCAR’s main series back to back, and the first since Jeff Gordon in ‘97-’98. With the second one in the bag Hendrick Motorsports is looking to get Johnson into a lifetime contract; Johnsons’ 6-year career so far: 34 wins 134 top ten’s, 2 championships… lifetime contract sounds like a good idea to me.
More history: While the media wants to talk about Boston's sports dominance, they will all conveniently forget the New England Revolution lost their 4th MLS Cup in 6 years and (Buffalo Bills-esque) 3rd in a row now. And in that same breath the Houston Dynamo are the first MLS team to win back-to-back title since D.C. United did it in ‘96-’97. And if you want to speak dynasty, even though we’re supposed to treat the Dynamo as a expansion team even though it is all the same players from San Jose (just like the Browns move to Baltimore), 4 titles in 7 seasons is certainly worth a mention.
Also worth a mention is Major League Soccer’s growth: the MLS has already announced new teams in Seattle and San Jose, but now they have also announced 9 cities with a very large interest and the league’s intent to have 18 teams by 2010. For those not familiar with the league, that’s at least 1 or 2 expansion teams each year. The MLS is definitely on its way to becoming one of the major North American sports leagues.
More History: in NFL history 17 teams have gone 10-0 before so we haven’t hit the big part just yet, but New England is still alive to be the second member of the undefeated club.
And now some quick NFL anecdotes:
Arizona beats Cincinnati with its defense and special teams: Doesn’t prove too much about Arizona but does continue to show just how bad the Bengals are. Controversy in Baltimore? Only if you are an idiot. I don’t understand why using the replay is supposedly controversial; they simply used a camera to make the correct call. The Bears seem to have lost their defense, or better yet, they can’t continue to have 2-3 guys hold it up anymore. Seattle escaped from a game that shouldn’t have been close, their offense looks as convincing as ever. Tampa Bay handles Atlanta: Why does Atlanta even have Joey Harrington on the roster if they don’t care how well he does? Jeff Garcia continues quietly leading his team without attention, and for the 5th consecutive season it looks as though the previous worst team in the NFC South will win it the following year.
Detroit defeats itself, credit win to N.Y. Giants: I’m not sure if this game proved anything. Green Bay easily beats another opponent: outside of the one "remnant of last year" in the loss to Chicago, Green Bay looks like the team to beat in the NFC, not Dallas. Indy is still recovering from the game with New England: Kansas City is still recovering from lack of leadership and effort. Minnesota beat Oakland: so was it Adrian Peterson that was awesome or Minnesota’s blocking? Dallas should have lost to Washington: “Hey you think we should cover that T.O. guy?” ..." No thats ok Dallas doesn't much care for that whole Defense thing" Not a surprise that once the Rams recover from injuries, they start looking convincingly good (especially against 2 of the worst defenses in a row)
Miami continues run towards history: Just remember that this team had Wes Welker and Chris Chambers. Philly once again proving that they don’t need to overpay for a makes-no-difference Donavan McNabb. Pittsburg tried to mail it in vs. the Jets, not a good idea. Jacksonville starting to really show its cohesiveness, San Diego proving that firing Shottenheimer was a great idea.
And lastly, New Orleans is exactly the same as San Diego: talent and greatness… when they feel like it. And while Jason David is trying to set the record for times being burned I simply don’t understand how the media continues to tell us the Saints woes are simply because their defense stinks, yet here is the Saints offense by drive: FG, fumble, Int, Punt, TD, Punt, turnover downs, Punt, Int, turnover downs, time runs out.
I give you: the Saints need to fix that damn defense.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Gettin into Wrestlin
So lemme try to recap a lot of things so I can catch everyone up to this stuff. So now there are 2 main wrestling classifications that I follow, which are the real ones: Greco Roman and Freestyle.
Greco Roman is all upper body and Freestyle is where you can use everything. So first off, the World championships were held in Baku, Azerbaijan this year in September. I'll try to sum this up as quick as I can. We (U.S.A.) won Greco Roman as a team but oddly we didn't place anyone too high, the majority of the team placed below 10th......Greco has become such a crazy style because no one is consistent, but maybe a select few of great wrestlers out there.
Russia finished second in Greco and had a few strong performances from their good wrestlers. The reason that is important is because with the summer Olympics coming up everyone is watching out to see who will be where for the Olympics. In freestyle U.S.A. did not do so well just because we could have done better; we finished fourth and here are the top 7 because these are the nations that could do some damage in the Olympics: 1 RUSSIA 68 pts. 2 TURKEY 40 pts. 3 CUBA 34 pts. 4 UNITED STATES 32 pts. 5 UZBEKISTAN 31 pts. 6 UKRAINE 28 pts.7 IRAN 19 pts. The reason we didn't do so well is because we had really good wrestlers wrestle like crap and not do anything but lose when they could have finished top 5.
Slowly I'll go through them as we get closer to the Olympics; I'm not gonna bore you with 7-8 bios in a row in one post. So as you can tell by the point spread here is that Russia completely dominated the World championships. They got first in 6 out of 7 weight classes and 3rd in the other weight class.......THATS AMAZING. Completely unheard of to do that and I just still can't believe they dominated so much.
So to finish this section off I'll say 2 things. 1 is that the Eastern Bloc countries/former Soviet Union countries and the middle eastern countries are completely amazing at wrestling. They train harder and better then anyone one else in the world and oh by the way the majority of their facilities are crap. The one or two major facilities they do have are better than anything the United States or any other rich country has to offer. -2 There was no news coverage of any of this, these athletes work harder than all of the football players in the NFL and all of them still have jobs to carry.
So now another thing has kicked off, and that is the NCAA wrestling season. I'll just post the rankings of top 15 an leave it at that with a few comments here and there.
1 Minnesota (12) Last years Champs with many returners
2 Iowa State Coming into great year with Great coach...he was selected for Olympic assistant coach but turned it down to give his kids everything.
3 Oklahoma State I think this is the most overrated team on here.
4 Iowa
5 Michigan
6 Northwestern Also overrated.
7 Missouri
8 Cornell Underrated, great team with very good kids and one fo the only places in the nation with a separate entire wrestling training center just for wrestling.
9 Central Michigan
10 Penn State
11 Wisconsin
12 Hofstra My favorite team this year just because of all their underrated wrestlers and one who has already beaten the number 2 wrestler at his weight class. His name is Lou Ruggirello now ranked 4th and his nickname is King Louie.
13 UT-Chattanooga
14 Nebraska
15 Ohio State
Next thing I'll report on is the Nation's All start classic. This is where they pair up the best wrestlers in NCAA in each weight class and let them wrestle but some people turn it down because it doesn't really count towards anything official and they don't want to wrestle it because of injury and because they simply don't want to lose.
One late night post because I simply can't sleep...I'm out.
Greco Roman is all upper body and Freestyle is where you can use everything. So first off, the World championships were held in Baku, Azerbaijan this year in September. I'll try to sum this up as quick as I can. We (U.S.A.) won Greco Roman as a team but oddly we didn't place anyone too high, the majority of the team placed below 10th......Greco has become such a crazy style because no one is consistent, but maybe a select few of great wrestlers out there.
Russia finished second in Greco and had a few strong performances from their good wrestlers. The reason that is important is because with the summer Olympics coming up everyone is watching out to see who will be where for the Olympics. In freestyle U.S.A. did not do so well just because we could have done better; we finished fourth and here are the top 7 because these are the nations that could do some damage in the Olympics: 1 RUSSIA 68 pts. 2 TURKEY 40 pts. 3 CUBA 34 pts. 4 UNITED STATES 32 pts. 5 UZBEKISTAN 31 pts. 6 UKRAINE 28 pts.7 IRAN 19 pts. The reason we didn't do so well is because we had really good wrestlers wrestle like crap and not do anything but lose when they could have finished top 5.
Slowly I'll go through them as we get closer to the Olympics; I'm not gonna bore you with 7-8 bios in a row in one post. So as you can tell by the point spread here is that Russia completely dominated the World championships. They got first in 6 out of 7 weight classes and 3rd in the other weight class.......THATS AMAZING. Completely unheard of to do that and I just still can't believe they dominated so much.
So to finish this section off I'll say 2 things. 1 is that the Eastern Bloc countries/former Soviet Union countries and the middle eastern countries are completely amazing at wrestling. They train harder and better then anyone one else in the world and oh by the way the majority of their facilities are crap. The one or two major facilities they do have are better than anything the United States or any other rich country has to offer. -2 There was no news coverage of any of this, these athletes work harder than all of the football players in the NFL and all of them still have jobs to carry.
So now another thing has kicked off, and that is the NCAA wrestling season. I'll just post the rankings of top 15 an leave it at that with a few comments here and there.
1 Minnesota (12) Last years Champs with many returners
2 Iowa State Coming into great year with Great coach...he was selected for Olympic assistant coach but turned it down to give his kids everything.
3 Oklahoma State I think this is the most overrated team on here.
4 Iowa
5 Michigan
6 Northwestern Also overrated.
7 Missouri
8 Cornell Underrated, great team with very good kids and one fo the only places in the nation with a separate entire wrestling training center just for wrestling.
9 Central Michigan
10 Penn State
11 Wisconsin
12 Hofstra My favorite team this year just because of all their underrated wrestlers and one who has already beaten the number 2 wrestler at his weight class. His name is Lou Ruggirello now ranked 4th and his nickname is King Louie.
13 UT-Chattanooga
14 Nebraska
15 Ohio State
Next thing I'll report on is the Nation's All start classic. This is where they pair up the best wrestlers in NCAA in each weight class and let them wrestle but some people turn it down because it doesn't really count towards anything official and they don't want to wrestle it because of injury and because they simply don't want to lose.
One late night post because I simply can't sleep...I'm out.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
13 Things to Think About this Weekend...
I'm going to try and list 13 things to look out for on the upcoming weekend, doing it on Thursdays because the weekend officially starts on Friday plus it gives people time to comment back . here's attempt #1.
1. The beginning of College Football's "non-hype but quite meaningful future implications weekend" Will Ohio State go from National Champion contenders to Outback Bowl participants in two weeks?
This weekend in college football may be one of the most boring in a long time with basically not a single BIG match up in the slate, however there are tons of trap matches out there so lets start with: The more important question from the early game on Saturday; What will happen with Ohio State? OSU NEEDS to win this game to salvage any shot at well…. basically anything. Michigan wants to win just for the shot at messing up Ohio State and that is usually a decent motivator. About the Lloyd Carr thing I will state this… who cares? If the man retires, so be it, that happens, I think the media is just pushing it so much because they want it to happen that way they can then report during All LSU games that Les Miles is distracted and distracting his players (even though he shows no signs of either).
2. Will someone (Nevada) finally complete a win over Hawai'i?
I really wish someone would because it’s getting annoying. A resilient team wins all its games close and you don’t care because you see the grit and determination and talent coming through, Hawai’i wins all of their games by simply passing the ball 98% of the time and getting success some of those times for touchdowns. They average almost as many interceptions as touchdowns and should have been beaten at least 3 times this season (especially at Louisiana Tech except the coach decided to go for 2 in early overtime and just made the wrong choice of play) The BCS computers see the hole in Hawai’i but I think only a loss will make the humans pollsters see it.
3. Will Tennessee lose and give LSU a (better looking on a BCS resume) SEC Championship opponent in Georgia?
The biggest part of the college weekend actually has to do with setting up of matches that need to happen for some teams. For LSU they would much rather face Georgia than Tennessee in the Championship game, it would look better on the resume for computers and would also do well for human voters since they are inclined to call Tennessee shaky.
4. Will the Big 12 retain its best-case scenario with Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri all winning this week?
Of all the college football implications this weekend this is easily the most important. Kansas Oklahoma and Missouri ALL have a chance to win their way into the Bowl Championship Series Championship Game (I spell it out because its stupid). For any of these teams to do it however they need their opponents to stay as strong as possible which means they ALL need to win this week, and while they are all favored the opponents are not pushovers: Kansas State could really give Missouri a game depending on if they are on the up or down portion of their up and down season, Kansas should have the easiest game in Iowa State, but Is was hardly a pushover for Oklahoma; and then Oklahoma will match up against pass-wacky Texas Tech who should be able to be stopped if Oklahoma just forgets about stopping a non-existent rushing game. If all 3 Big 12 contenders win, then the BCS implications are at their best and we can start with Kansas vs. Missouri and then the winner of that vs. Oklahoma.
5. Will BYU finally get in the darn rankings?
I know they had a week off because of the fires and they lost early to a then ranked now crappy UCLA but BYU’s only other loss is to Conference USA’s champ-to-be Tulsa and BYU is currently on a 6 game win streak that includes wins over 8-3 Air Force and 7-3 New Mexico. I’m not saying they are top 10 material, but it seems a little shaky to have a team undefeated on top of its conference out of the rankings, especially with the convincing way BYU has been beating opponents (especially in comparison to say Hawai’i), not to mention the very unlike BYU running game. I think beating Wyoming this weekend should guarantee them their entrance into the rankings, but who knows?
6. NASCAR's lackluster or not-as-lackluster finish.
A lot of people are griping that this thing is already over. For the most part they are right about a “realistic” shot for Jeff Gordon to win the race and also have Jimmy Johnson finish 22nd or lower. However I think what they are forgetting are the horrible non-chase finishes they’ve had in the past. If there were no Chase then Jeff Gordon would have clinched this thing about 4 races ago. I’m not saying the Chase is great, but it’s realistically the only way for NASCAR to prevent giant leads in a 40 billion races schedule. The thing to watch though is the fact that there is totally a shot that Jeff Gordon could pull it off. Think about it, crashing is fairly common and who is to say that Jimmy Johnson would come out unscathed in the race. Chances are he’ll be playing it safe, but its not a total long shot to think Jeff Gordon could win the race and Johnson could be involved in a crash.
7. College Basketball's first real weekend.
Although littered with a lot of warm-up games its time for the first real weekend of meaningful competition…which means we’ll soon figure out quite a few pretender and contenders. I think Davidson made a big point in a 4-point loss to say that they deserve top 25. While I can’t really single out any particular games at this point, I'm sure Mr. Furious can.
8. How has Isaiah Thomas not been fired?
Seriously!? This guy so far has been caught A) trying to setup other teams with hookers and parties to tire them out before matches. B) Made himself the coach of the team rather than hiring someone qualified C) been found guilty in a sexual harassment lawsuit involving an employee at his current job, D) and now this Stephon Marbury nonsense??? First of all I think Marbury is an idiot for handling this thing like a five year old and think he is more in the wrong here, however; how did Thomas let it get to a point where a player is trying to blackmail him into playing. It’s actually rumored that the two got into a fistfight on a team flight, whether that is true or not, the fact that it is believable tells as much. Its VERY obvious Thomas has not only no business being a head coach but also no business being an employee of any kind to well… really any kind of business. So I guess the thing to watch is to continue to watch how poorly this situation gets before someone finally does something about it.
9. Will someone be slamming Sean Avery on the ice this weekend?
If you don’t know, the NHL is once again catching headlines for the only reason it seems to… a fighting incident. Basically this is even further proof that the NHL seriously needs to outlaw fighting and make it a suspend-able offense with an automatic ejection. There is entirely too much posturing, shoving, and bullying and it’s getting in the way of a good sport. The best form of hockey is at the Olympic level where there is NO fighting and it moved the blue line to make it more offensive. The NHL finally got the point about making the game more offensive, yet refuses to realize that the only people who like fighting in hockey are hockey nuts. Baseball surely doesn’t advertise itself to new fans by showing them pitchers throwing at batters heads or reports of players cheating so why would hockey allow something as bad as Sean Avery’s actions (reportedly spent the whole game trying to get into a fight with Darcy Tucker from small insults to shoving and then apparently making jokes about Tuker’s teammates cancer!? The latter why people are expecting someone to take Avery out soon in a game) to continue as a regular part of the sport?
10. The beginnings of serious NFL playoff implications.
We’re 1 game past the halfway point and everyone is done taking breaks, and its now down to every game matters for most teams. With a win or loss most teams can get into a race, take hold of a race or get put in a big hole or get knocked out. Pretty much every division has teams within 1 or 2 games of the leader, and the wild-card picture includes almost everyone but the Jets, Vikings, 49ers, Rams, Raiders & Dolphins. I’ll pick out a few to really pay attention to this weekend: Saints vs. Texans loser of this game is pretty much done although not mathematically, but realistically. Seattle and Chicago have a similar situation except Seattle has a bigger cushion to fall back on, and probably the biggest implicator of the postseason is Denver-Tennessee where both teams really can’t afford to lose and be put in that hole.
11. The fate of the bullies - Giants vs. Lions.and Patriots vs. Bills
While the Bills aren’t bullies, more the bullied underdog that has managed a pretty good win streak, I’m just hoping they beat New England simply so people will shut up about the totally meaningless undefeated nonsense. The Giants v. Lions got its own item because it’s a pretty big crapshoot. Both teams have proven they can beat the snot out of the crappy teams in the NFL, yet neither has yet to prove they can beat a real opponent. I’m not sure if that means you can consider them playing each-other a real opponent, but they both need a win to stay ahead in the wild card race as its pretty obvious neither has what it takes to win their division.
12. How extensive are the Dolphins' problems?
We find out Sunday when they start not only their final option for this season, but the guy who is slated to be their future: John Beck. I have no idea if he will be good or not, I saw him play for BYU and he looked good but the NFL is a different animal. I’m not going to be wondering if he makes the team win this weekend, but instead looking at how competent and composed he looks behind the center because that’s the important thing. How does he do with a depleted team will tell you a lot about how much better he will be once the team gets Ronnie Brown back.
13. The more important New England game this weekend.
Oddly enough even though ESPN is the sole coverage station for Major League Soccer and even though the championship game is on their sister-station ABC; ESPN for whatever reason doesn’t feel the need to tell you the MLS Cup is this Sunday at noon in Washington D.C. (RFK Stadium) and will have the New England Revolution vs. the Houston Dynamo. All these media people are busy telling you how great it is to be in Boston right now with the Red Sox winning, Patriots winning, Boston College and the Celtics, and yet they are skipping over the fact that the Revolution are going for their first MLS Cup this weekend, not to mention RFK Stadium will be used for the sport it was built for. And a story on top of this, the Revolution owners are paying for buses from N.E. to D.C. for any fan that wishes to go to the game; now that’s a team I could be a fan of, if you can get away from football for a second or can flip channels, I recommend switching to this game at least to see the difference in a football and soccer crowd.
I give this weekend an 8 out of 10 for sports fans.
1. The beginning of College Football's "non-hype but quite meaningful future implications weekend" Will Ohio State go from National Champion contenders to Outback Bowl participants in two weeks?
This weekend in college football may be one of the most boring in a long time with basically not a single BIG match up in the slate, however there are tons of trap matches out there so lets start with: The more important question from the early game on Saturday; What will happen with Ohio State? OSU NEEDS to win this game to salvage any shot at well…. basically anything. Michigan wants to win just for the shot at messing up Ohio State and that is usually a decent motivator. About the Lloyd Carr thing I will state this… who cares? If the man retires, so be it, that happens, I think the media is just pushing it so much because they want it to happen that way they can then report during All LSU games that Les Miles is distracted and distracting his players (even though he shows no signs of either).
2. Will someone (Nevada) finally complete a win over Hawai'i?
I really wish someone would because it’s getting annoying. A resilient team wins all its games close and you don’t care because you see the grit and determination and talent coming through, Hawai’i wins all of their games by simply passing the ball 98% of the time and getting success some of those times for touchdowns. They average almost as many interceptions as touchdowns and should have been beaten at least 3 times this season (especially at Louisiana Tech except the coach decided to go for 2 in early overtime and just made the wrong choice of play) The BCS computers see the hole in Hawai’i but I think only a loss will make the humans pollsters see it.
3. Will Tennessee lose and give LSU a (better looking on a BCS resume) SEC Championship opponent in Georgia?
The biggest part of the college weekend actually has to do with setting up of matches that need to happen for some teams. For LSU they would much rather face Georgia than Tennessee in the Championship game, it would look better on the resume for computers and would also do well for human voters since they are inclined to call Tennessee shaky.
4. Will the Big 12 retain its best-case scenario with Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri all winning this week?
Of all the college football implications this weekend this is easily the most important. Kansas Oklahoma and Missouri ALL have a chance to win their way into the Bowl Championship Series Championship Game (I spell it out because its stupid). For any of these teams to do it however they need their opponents to stay as strong as possible which means they ALL need to win this week, and while they are all favored the opponents are not pushovers: Kansas State could really give Missouri a game depending on if they are on the up or down portion of their up and down season, Kansas should have the easiest game in Iowa State, but Is was hardly a pushover for Oklahoma; and then Oklahoma will match up against pass-wacky Texas Tech who should be able to be stopped if Oklahoma just forgets about stopping a non-existent rushing game. If all 3 Big 12 contenders win, then the BCS implications are at their best and we can start with Kansas vs. Missouri and then the winner of that vs. Oklahoma.
5. Will BYU finally get in the darn rankings?
I know they had a week off because of the fires and they lost early to a then ranked now crappy UCLA but BYU’s only other loss is to Conference USA’s champ-to-be Tulsa and BYU is currently on a 6 game win streak that includes wins over 8-3 Air Force and 7-3 New Mexico. I’m not saying they are top 10 material, but it seems a little shaky to have a team undefeated on top of its conference out of the rankings, especially with the convincing way BYU has been beating opponents (especially in comparison to say Hawai’i), not to mention the very unlike BYU running game. I think beating Wyoming this weekend should guarantee them their entrance into the rankings, but who knows?
6. NASCAR's lackluster or not-as-lackluster finish.
A lot of people are griping that this thing is already over. For the most part they are right about a “realistic” shot for Jeff Gordon to win the race and also have Jimmy Johnson finish 22nd or lower. However I think what they are forgetting are the horrible non-chase finishes they’ve had in the past. If there were no Chase then Jeff Gordon would have clinched this thing about 4 races ago. I’m not saying the Chase is great, but it’s realistically the only way for NASCAR to prevent giant leads in a 40 billion races schedule. The thing to watch though is the fact that there is totally a shot that Jeff Gordon could pull it off. Think about it, crashing is fairly common and who is to say that Jimmy Johnson would come out unscathed in the race. Chances are he’ll be playing it safe, but its not a total long shot to think Jeff Gordon could win the race and Johnson could be involved in a crash.
7. College Basketball's first real weekend.
Although littered with a lot of warm-up games its time for the first real weekend of meaningful competition…which means we’ll soon figure out quite a few pretender and contenders. I think Davidson made a big point in a 4-point loss to say that they deserve top 25. While I can’t really single out any particular games at this point, I'm sure Mr. Furious can.
8. How has Isaiah Thomas not been fired?
Seriously!? This guy so far has been caught A) trying to setup other teams with hookers and parties to tire them out before matches. B) Made himself the coach of the team rather than hiring someone qualified C) been found guilty in a sexual harassment lawsuit involving an employee at his current job, D) and now this Stephon Marbury nonsense??? First of all I think Marbury is an idiot for handling this thing like a five year old and think he is more in the wrong here, however; how did Thomas let it get to a point where a player is trying to blackmail him into playing. It’s actually rumored that the two got into a fistfight on a team flight, whether that is true or not, the fact that it is believable tells as much. Its VERY obvious Thomas has not only no business being a head coach but also no business being an employee of any kind to well… really any kind of business. So I guess the thing to watch is to continue to watch how poorly this situation gets before someone finally does something about it.
9. Will someone be slamming Sean Avery on the ice this weekend?
If you don’t know, the NHL is once again catching headlines for the only reason it seems to… a fighting incident. Basically this is even further proof that the NHL seriously needs to outlaw fighting and make it a suspend-able offense with an automatic ejection. There is entirely too much posturing, shoving, and bullying and it’s getting in the way of a good sport. The best form of hockey is at the Olympic level where there is NO fighting and it moved the blue line to make it more offensive. The NHL finally got the point about making the game more offensive, yet refuses to realize that the only people who like fighting in hockey are hockey nuts. Baseball surely doesn’t advertise itself to new fans by showing them pitchers throwing at batters heads or reports of players cheating so why would hockey allow something as bad as Sean Avery’s actions (reportedly spent the whole game trying to get into a fight with Darcy Tucker from small insults to shoving and then apparently making jokes about Tuker’s teammates cancer!? The latter why people are expecting someone to take Avery out soon in a game) to continue as a regular part of the sport?
10. The beginnings of serious NFL playoff implications.
We’re 1 game past the halfway point and everyone is done taking breaks, and its now down to every game matters for most teams. With a win or loss most teams can get into a race, take hold of a race or get put in a big hole or get knocked out. Pretty much every division has teams within 1 or 2 games of the leader, and the wild-card picture includes almost everyone but the Jets, Vikings, 49ers, Rams, Raiders & Dolphins. I’ll pick out a few to really pay attention to this weekend: Saints vs. Texans loser of this game is pretty much done although not mathematically, but realistically. Seattle and Chicago have a similar situation except Seattle has a bigger cushion to fall back on, and probably the biggest implicator of the postseason is Denver-Tennessee where both teams really can’t afford to lose and be put in that hole.
11. The fate of the bullies - Giants vs. Lions.and Patriots vs. Bills
While the Bills aren’t bullies, more the bullied underdog that has managed a pretty good win streak, I’m just hoping they beat New England simply so people will shut up about the totally meaningless undefeated nonsense. The Giants v. Lions got its own item because it’s a pretty big crapshoot. Both teams have proven they can beat the snot out of the crappy teams in the NFL, yet neither has yet to prove they can beat a real opponent. I’m not sure if that means you can consider them playing each-other a real opponent, but they both need a win to stay ahead in the wild card race as its pretty obvious neither has what it takes to win their division.
12. How extensive are the Dolphins' problems?
We find out Sunday when they start not only their final option for this season, but the guy who is slated to be their future: John Beck. I have no idea if he will be good or not, I saw him play for BYU and he looked good but the NFL is a different animal. I’m not going to be wondering if he makes the team win this weekend, but instead looking at how competent and composed he looks behind the center because that’s the important thing. How does he do with a depleted team will tell you a lot about how much better he will be once the team gets Ronnie Brown back.
13. The more important New England game this weekend.
Oddly enough even though ESPN is the sole coverage station for Major League Soccer and even though the championship game is on their sister-station ABC; ESPN for whatever reason doesn’t feel the need to tell you the MLS Cup is this Sunday at noon in Washington D.C. (RFK Stadium) and will have the New England Revolution vs. the Houston Dynamo. All these media people are busy telling you how great it is to be in Boston right now with the Red Sox winning, Patriots winning, Boston College and the Celtics, and yet they are skipping over the fact that the Revolution are going for their first MLS Cup this weekend, not to mention RFK Stadium will be used for the sport it was built for. And a story on top of this, the Revolution owners are paying for buses from N.E. to D.C. for any fan that wishes to go to the game; now that’s a team I could be a fan of, if you can get away from football for a second or can flip channels, I recommend switching to this game at least to see the difference in a football and soccer crowd.
I give this weekend an 8 out of 10 for sports fans.
Monday, November 12, 2007
It Should All work out….Should
“Hey sexy mama, wanna kill all humans?” – Bender (Futurama)
I honestly can’t believe that Kansas is not the #1 or 2 team in the country in the BCS... Not because I believe they are #1 or 2, but simply because it is caused by idiot humans...
Firstly I completely understand that their strength of schedule is not that of LSU or Oregon’s (YET, which is why I think they’ll end up #1 if they win out against the BCS 4 & 5 and shut everyone up and take it out of everyone’s hands.)
However, my gripe has to do with idiot humans who should NOT have any say-so in this matter. There is not a single significant difference from Ohio State last week and Kansas. What is the ONLY difference is that Ohio State was pre-ranked… meaning people randomly guessed that Ohio State might be good and so far Ohio State played a schedule roughly exactly equivalent of Kansas… BUT Ohio State was pre-ranked.
The bigger mistake however… can you explain to me how poll people have actually ranked Oklahoma ahead of Kansas, when Oklahoma lost to a team that Kansas beat in identical conditions. BOTH Oklahoma and Kansas went TO Colorado undefeated giving Colorado a David vs Goliath motivation yet only Kansas won and somehow we’re to believe that Oklahoma is a better team because people pre-ranked them?
I honestly can’t say Oklahoma is better or worse (none of us can because they haven’t played yet), but given the evidence we have (which is the only thing pollsters are supposed to pay attention to) Kansas is the better team, they haven’t lost yet in the same conference as Oklahoma.
They literally should throw out the Harris and Coach’s polls… why? Because computers don’t care who you are, it is a very nearly perfect system of judging teams in an un-biased manner.
The only thing computers judge everyone on is what has actually happened AND a computer unlike any human can actually pay attention to every team, every score, every matchup. Computers take the time to calculate every single team in college football, who beat who and how it impacts everyone (which is also why the computers think so lowly of Hawai’i). A lot of people get up in arms over the early BCS rankings because they may seem out of place, but they are in fact a perfect reflection of the season so far.
Think of how absurd the idea of Human polls are... especially the coaches’ polls. You have a guy coaching a team, which means he can’t watch any games going on at the same time as his and probably not the ones before either. As soon as his game is over he’s being interviewed and then preparing for the next week. Even the biggest football fan can only watch enough highlights and game film to try and get a decent grasp on half the teams in division 1. To think that a coach or any other human being can accurately rank 119+ teams each week is just absolutely absurd.
Every year the early BCS rankings come out and the #1 team isn’t #1...yet… and why? Because they haven’t played anyone yet, but it all solves out in time because the computers will continue to judge you as you play the better teams. But if we removed human polls altogether it would remove 2 very important things: rankings getting swayed by politics, and the continued practice of putting non-opponents in a schedule, it would actually be a start to at least parity in schedules which has been needed for a very long time.
I honestly can’t believe that Kansas is not the #1 or 2 team in the country in the BCS... Not because I believe they are #1 or 2, but simply because it is caused by idiot humans...
Firstly I completely understand that their strength of schedule is not that of LSU or Oregon’s (YET, which is why I think they’ll end up #1 if they win out against the BCS 4 & 5 and shut everyone up and take it out of everyone’s hands.)
However, my gripe has to do with idiot humans who should NOT have any say-so in this matter. There is not a single significant difference from Ohio State last week and Kansas. What is the ONLY difference is that Ohio State was pre-ranked… meaning people randomly guessed that Ohio State might be good and so far Ohio State played a schedule roughly exactly equivalent of Kansas… BUT Ohio State was pre-ranked.
The bigger mistake however… can you explain to me how poll people have actually ranked Oklahoma ahead of Kansas, when Oklahoma lost to a team that Kansas beat in identical conditions. BOTH Oklahoma and Kansas went TO Colorado undefeated giving Colorado a David vs Goliath motivation yet only Kansas won and somehow we’re to believe that Oklahoma is a better team because people pre-ranked them?
I honestly can’t say Oklahoma is better or worse (none of us can because they haven’t played yet), but given the evidence we have (which is the only thing pollsters are supposed to pay attention to) Kansas is the better team, they haven’t lost yet in the same conference as Oklahoma.
They literally should throw out the Harris and Coach’s polls… why? Because computers don’t care who you are, it is a very nearly perfect system of judging teams in an un-biased manner.
The only thing computers judge everyone on is what has actually happened AND a computer unlike any human can actually pay attention to every team, every score, every matchup. Computers take the time to calculate every single team in college football, who beat who and how it impacts everyone (which is also why the computers think so lowly of Hawai’i). A lot of people get up in arms over the early BCS rankings because they may seem out of place, but they are in fact a perfect reflection of the season so far.
Think of how absurd the idea of Human polls are... especially the coaches’ polls. You have a guy coaching a team, which means he can’t watch any games going on at the same time as his and probably not the ones before either. As soon as his game is over he’s being interviewed and then preparing for the next week. Even the biggest football fan can only watch enough highlights and game film to try and get a decent grasp on half the teams in division 1. To think that a coach or any other human being can accurately rank 119+ teams each week is just absolutely absurd.
Every year the early BCS rankings come out and the #1 team isn’t #1...yet… and why? Because they haven’t played anyone yet, but it all solves out in time because the computers will continue to judge you as you play the better teams. But if we removed human polls altogether it would remove 2 very important things: rankings getting swayed by politics, and the continued practice of putting non-opponents in a schedule, it would actually be a start to at least parity in schedules which has been needed for a very long time.
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