Stop Whining

Wojo is dead-on in his column today. I'll comment more later.

UPDATE: Not as into this as I was this morning, so bullet points:

-Having so many bowls is awesome. That means we get "Bowl Week" on ESPN. People who complain about this need to shut up and go find some NBA game to watch.

-As Wojo says, and as I've said before, a playoff will only push the controversy down a level. You'll never be able to make people happy.

-Government needs to stay out of football. Idiots.

-MSU will be toasted by Texas Tech. I seriously think it will be something like 48-21.

Enabled

In an article in the Detroit News today, Marney Rich Keenan writes:

Now almost two weeks into the razor-sharp decline of the golfer's once-stellar reputation and along with it, his commercial endorsements, the irony is how many of us enabled Tiger Woods to get away with the infidelities for as long as he did.

If she's casting blame on the media, fine, I get that. Not sure I agree totally, but that's a reasonable opinion. If she's talking about the rest of us, poppycock. I've only been interested in Tiger to the extent that he's a phenomenal golfer. If there were signs that Tiger wasn't all that he seemed, I certainly don't feel bad for not digging them up.

Robin Hood

Force Unleashed II

12 Again

The Detroit News has a story about expanding the Big Ten today. No new information, unless you count a list of teams that have been mentioned previously: Rutgers, Syracuse, Pitt, Missouri, and Notre Dame. They also break down the divisions as follows:

WEST
Illinois
Iowa
Minnesota
Northwestern
Purdue
Wisconsin

EAST
Indiana
Michigan
Michigan State
Ohio State
Penn State
New team (Pitt, Rutgers or Syracuse)

So I was more or less correct with my guesses.

RE: 12?

(This was going to be a comment, but ran long.) Setting up the divisions was another problem that had occurred to me too. East and West would make the most sense geographically speaking. Assuming a new team was in the West, the divisions would be:

EAST
PSU
OSU
UM
MSU
Indiana
Purdue

WEST
Illinois
Iowa
NU
Wisconsin
Minnesota
New Team

Assuming I have my geography right (which I might not), the East would be a heck of a division, having all three of the historical powerhouses in the conference. But you absolutely need to keep UM vs MSU and OSU vs UM. I know something similar happens in the Big 12 with Texas and Oklahoma in the same division, but it seems less than ideal to me.

RE: Top Coaching Jobs

I've thought about it a bit, so I'll try an answer. Note: These are what I think would be generally thought of as the top coaching jobs, not the jobs I'd want most as a coach. Obviously my personal list would begin and end with MSU.

Basketball
1. UNC
2. Duke
3. Kentucky
4. MSU
5. Kansas

It's tough for me to evaluate MSU because it's difficult to imagine Izzo leaving. I think it will be a highly desirable job, almost as much as the top two, when he steps down (hopefully after many more years). I think the other jobs Ump listed could easily make it to #5, but Kansas has an edge in my mind.

Football
1. USC
2. Florida
3. Texas
4. Michigan
5. Notre Dame

I'm really not sure about these. In college football things change pretty fast. Should 'Bama be back on top because they're playing for a national championship? Is Miami still a desirable job? What about FSU (Seminoles, not Bulldogs)?

Jingle Bells

Seems it's that time of year:

Arkham Asylum 2

12?

Barry Alvarez says that the Big Ten is seriously looking to add a twelfth team. I'm sure I've mentioned before that I'm generally not a fan of the idea or of adding divisions and a championship game. I'm more interested in a different question here though, namely, who would the Big Ten target? Some thoughts:

ND: Notre Dame still makes more money being an independent, and having just hired a new coach it would be at least three years before things might change enough to make joining a conference realistic.

Cincinnati: Cincy is pretty high-profile right now and would make sense geographically. But do they meet the academic standards?

Directional Michigan: I saw this brought up, but I can't really see it happening. both Central and Western have had some success in recent years, but it doesn't seem like enough to move up to Big Ten status (I guess this pretty much goes for all the MAC teams). Plus, like Cincy, you've got the academic question. Also, would UM and MSU be for or against?

Pitt: I don't see them leaving the Big East, but they do seem like they'd be a good fit in general.

I don't really see any other I-AA (yeah, I'm still using that designation) that would seem even a little likely. Thoughts?

Shatner and Palin

Top Coaching Jobs

Give your top 5 most desired coaching jobs in College Football and Basketball (not necessarily in particular order):

Basketball:

1. North Carolina
2. Duke
3. Kentucky
4. Kansas
5. UCLA, Indiana, UCONN, MSU, or Syracuse


Football:

1. ND
2. Michigan
3. Florida
4. Alabama
5. Texas, Oklahoma, or Nebraska

Captain Planet with cats!

After reading John Nolte's review of Avatar, I have to post this video, which came out months ago when the first Avatar trailer hit. WARNING: Language. And Nazis. But mostly language.

Transformers: War for Cybertron

This might be cool:

Bad Moves?

I'm no baseball expert, but it seems to me if the Tigers want to get worse, this would be the way to start. Am I wrong?

UPDATE: I think Lynn Henning got one thing right in this article: Tiger fans are going to be pretty unhappy about trading Granderson, even if a reasonable case can be made for doing it. Following a disappointing season by trading away your most popular player isn't a recipe for enthusiasm.

UPDATE 2: Sports radio in Detroit is going to be epic tomorrow. Someone needs to fill me in on what they hear.

Remember the Alamo... Bowl

The Spartans are headed to the Alamo Bowl, where they will likely be massacred, with the Red Raiders of Texas Tech playing the role of Santa Anna and his army. While it's a relief to be playing a team that doesn't have a future first-round NFL QB at the helm (the last two years MSU has faced Matthew Stafford and Matt Ryan), facing a team that averages 380.7 passing yards per game (per NCAA stats) isn't much of a consolation. But rather than dwell on the negatives, I'll try to be inspiring, so, in the words of William B. Travis, "VICTORY OR DEATH!"

Uprising

House Humor

Seeing the Steelers on TV made me remember that I wanted to post this:

Fraternizing

Apparently the guy those Spartan football players went to Rather to beat up was a frat boy. So, instead of suspending the players, I think we should give them some kind of award. Maybe a medal?

College Football

Got your back, Ump:

What do we have this weekend? #1 v #2...Florida v Alabama. (In this entire scenario, please assume a 3 point loss or an OT game). Winner advances to championship game of BCS. Fine. Loser...more than likely out of a chance for a championship rematch. That's what bothers me.

Wasn't there a championship rematch in the 90's? Florida v FSU? FSU won the regular season game, then the "Ole Ball Coach" got Florida back in the championship with Danny Wrueful (sp?) complained about the cheap shots on the QB and Florida beats FSU in the National Championship.

If Florida v Alabama plays 10 times, is it split 50-50? Does each win 5 times?

Here's my problems: Who is supposed to win the game Saturday? Florida. Why? Because they are the #1 team. If they weren't supposed to win, then they shouldn't be ranked #1. If Alabama is supposed to win, then they shouldn't be ranked #2. So, if the game is close or ends in OT (on a neutral field) why does the #2 team get penalized? Why are they going to be dropped in the BCS rankings? THEY WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO WIN!!!

Think about it. The SECOND BEST TEAM in the country loses by 3 points or less or loses in OT. Why aren't they still considered the second best team out there? By dropping them in the rankings, what you are saying is another team could have done better or should have been ranked #2. If that is the case, how can you do much better than a 3 point loss or an OT loss? The only way you can do better is if you WIN! In that case, Florida shouldn't be the #1 team!

If you think #2 Alabama is better than #3 Texas, then it shouldn't matter if Alabama loses to #1 Florida (as long as the game is close). Alabama should still be considered better than Texas even if they lose.

Either way, the system is what it is. If Florida loses in the National Championship to Texas, Texas is the National Champion. But are they really the best team? For one game they beat Florida.

If a team wins the National Championship, they should be #1. But in the regular season, you don't become the #1 ranked team just because you beat them. Appalachian State didn't become #3 in the country just because they beat Michigan. Michigan also didn't become unranked just because they lost to an unranked team.

It is what it is. Even a playoff doesn't change things because what if Texas loses to TCU but TCU loses to Florida, but Texas (if they would have played) could have beat Florida. You can't possibly play everyone.

Once again, we've been down this road before and I don't have an answer. Just like the NCAA tournament...it's only a TOURNAMENT! It's about who can survive for 6 games.

The only solution I have is to take the six BCS conferences and rank each team individually in each conference. Completely get rid of the AP, BCS and Coaches Poll rankings. Then, at the end of the year, take the #1 ranked team from each BCS conference and then pick two "At-Large" teams from the rest of the country. Now you have 8 teams for a playoff.

If you rank each team in each BCS conference, that's pretty simple because for the most part, everybody plays everybody. Obviously Michigan doesn't play Northwestern every year, but you can easily rank based on conference records.

The only argument to this is Florida, Alabama, and LSU might all be better than Ohio State, but only Florida might make the cut.

If college football ever got around to doing some "Big Ten/ACC" challenge like basketball (which would be a great idea by the way), you could have a way each year of saying who the better conferences are. Then, if you needed to pick an "At-Large" team that did not win their conference, a second SEC team could be picked ahead of the second best Big Ten team.

Thoughts? Comments?