>
Interviews are like statistics, in that you can pretty much make them say whatever you want. In my capacity as a sports fan, and part-time correspondent for Scale of One to Gus Johnson, I sometimes have the privilege of interviewing people from the sports world. Sometimes I write down what was said at the interview, other times I write down what I think was said. Most of the time, I write down what I think they would have said if I’d actually interviewed them.
Anyway, allow me to present the first of what could be several interviews with sports related celebrities. The Scale sent me down to Miami to cover the BCS National Championship, and I had the pleasure to sit down with Urban Meyer, head coach of the Florida Gators.
Six or more random questions with: Coach Urban Meyer*
[*Editor’s Note: Coach Meyer had quite the potty mouth. We have replaced all swear words with more Johnny Dangerously style versions of the word.]
1. Coach Meyer, sorry to bother you during your manicure, but is it alright if I ask you a few questions?
CUM: Uh…sure, just make it snappy. We’re almost done here.
2. Great. Well, I guess I’d be crazy not to ask you about the game. How do you feel about the championship on Thursday?
CUM: I’m the coach the Florida fargin Gators, how do think I feel? Pretty fargin great. Might as well start engraving the fargin trophy with my fargin name on it. Ohio State doesn’t have a chance in hell against my boys. It’ll be a bloodbath.
3. Ohio…wait, you mean Oklahoma, right?
CUM: What’s that?
You mean Oklahoma? Your team’s playing the Oklahoma Sooners on Thursday.
CUM: You think I give a rats ass who we’re fargin playing on Thursday? You can take the corksuckers off of both of those teams and line them up against us…It’s not going to matter one fargin bit.
4. Ah, so I take it you’re a believer in SEC superiority?
CUM: Where you from, boy?
Well, I’m originally from…
CUM: Who gives a chit, icehole. The University of Florida IS the SEC, you understand? We invented Gatorade, for Cripes sake. Turn on the fargin TV sometime, you deucepad. Write that chit down, the University of Florida is the fargin SEC.
5. Um…okay. I’ll…so, is Percy Harvin going to be 100% for the game?
CUM: Who gives a chit about percentages…100%, 88%, that chit doesn’t fargin matter. All that matters is that my boys do what I tell them to do, and when they do, they fargin do it better than anyone else does it. You think Harvin is fast? You should try that kid’s Macaroni Casserole…my favorite. You think the Pouncey brothers can block…sheeeet, ain’t nothing compared to how good they are at mowing the lawn. Brandon James is a damn good punt returner, but you should see that kid mop a floor. You can eat off that chit. Tebow, everyone’s favorite fargin superhero, gives the best massages this side of the Bunny Ranch. These kids are the fargin best at every fraking thing they do.
Ha, it almost sounds like you give your players chores to do around your house.
CUM: What’s so funny about that? Coach Meyer don’t do fargin dishes. Urb Dog doesn’t clean toilets. Plus, these are the most talented kids in the country, what kind of coach would I be if I didn’t push them to be everything they could be? Not like they got anything else to fargin do after practice.
6. What about Academics?
CUM: What about what, now?
I was actually meaning to ask you this anyway…Coach, is it true that you recently told your players to ignore their academics so they could focus on the National Championship Game?
CUM: Fargin right.
Are you at all concerned at how that might look, given that these are student-athletes? Might be seen as ignoring the whole student part.
CUM: Are you fargin serious? That whole student-athlete thing is bullchit, and every corksucker in the NC 2 A fargin knows it. I’m just the only one with stones enough to admit it. Speaking of which, I have to go to the back to get a shave. You wanna come?
Um, no thanks. I think we can just end the interview now.
CUM: Your loss, deucepad. Coach Meyer out.
Read full post...
Showing posts with label college football. Show all posts
Showing posts with label college football. Show all posts
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Might be time to revoke the Big Ten’s BCS membership
>
Yes, I know the Big Ten is one of the “premier” conferences in college football. And they have experienced a great deal of success over the years. But, things change. Hell, at one time Army was one of the most dominant college football teams in the country. Times have changed, because that is pretty far from the truth at this point. Wait, I don’t want to be perceived as disrespecting the service academies or the Armed Forces, so let me edit that a bit. Hell, at one time Notre Dame was one of the most dominant college football teams in the country. Times have changed, because that is pretty far from the truth at this point. (much better)
Back in the day, the Big Ten used to fare pretty well in BCS bowl games. In the 90’s the Big Ten was undefeated in BCS bowl games. But, that was last decade. In BCS bowls played in this millennium, the Big Ten is a putrid 4-11, including going 0 for their last 6. And it’s not just the losing, it’s how they’re losing. In their last 6 BCS games, Big Ten teams have been outscored by their opponents 222 to 118. That’s pretty pathetic. By way of contrast, the SEC is 11-5 in BCS games, including a 4-0 record in championship games (pending Thursday’s game—-see Not-Turner-Gill’s guarantee).
I say it’s time to put the Big Ten on probation. They should have to relinquish their automatic bid until they prove themselves to be a power conference again. In the meantime, maybe we should give their bid to the Mountain West Conference, who is undefeated in BCS games. Anyway, in a few years, once the Big Ten is back on top, we can talk about getting them an automatic bid again. Although, at that point, we’ll probably have to take it from the ACC. They’re pretty terrible, too.
Now, this probably won’t be a popular move. Especially with fans of USC and the SEC schools, who are used to having a Big Ten team to beat up on in their BCS bowl games. But, we can’t be selfish at a time like this. These are proud fan bases we’re talking about, and it isn’t right to subject them to seeing their team get demolished in a BCS game year after year. We’re better than that. But, I guess more importantly, we’re better than them.
On a scale of one to Gus Johnson, I give this a Thom Brennaman.
Read full post...
Back in the day, the Big Ten used to fare pretty well in BCS bowl games. In the 90’s the Big Ten was undefeated in BCS bowl games. But, that was last decade. In BCS bowls played in this millennium, the Big Ten is a putrid 4-11, including going 0 for their last 6. And it’s not just the losing, it’s how they’re losing. In their last 6 BCS games, Big Ten teams have been outscored by their opponents 222 to 118. That’s pretty pathetic. By way of contrast, the SEC is 11-5 in BCS games, including a 4-0 record in championship games (pending Thursday’s game—-see Not-Turner-Gill’s guarantee).
I say it’s time to put the Big Ten on probation. They should have to relinquish their automatic bid until they prove themselves to be a power conference again. In the meantime, maybe we should give their bid to the Mountain West Conference, who is undefeated in BCS games. Anyway, in a few years, once the Big Ten is back on top, we can talk about getting them an automatic bid again. Although, at that point, we’ll probably have to take it from the ACC. They’re pretty terrible, too.
Now, this probably won’t be a popular move. Especially with fans of USC and the SEC schools, who are used to having a Big Ten team to beat up on in their BCS bowl games. But, we can’t be selfish at a time like this. These are proud fan bases we’re talking about, and it isn’t right to subject them to seeing their team get demolished in a BCS game year after year. We’re better than that. But, I guess more importantly, we’re better than them.
On a scale of one to Gus Johnson, I give this a Thom Brennaman.
Read full post...
Monday, January 5, 2009
Looks like the BCS did what it was designed to do…screw Utah
>
After Utah completed its undefeated season by beating up on Alabama in the Sugar Bowl, I started to wonder why they wouldn’t get some consideration as national champions. Sure, they can’t win the BCS National Championship, but maybe they can get one of those USC-styled paper championships. I mean, if you think about it, Utah had a pretty impressive season.
I know they’re in a non-BCS conference, and play the likes of Utah State and Wyoming. But, they beat Alabama, who was ranked #1 for five straight weeks at the end of the year, and was a few minutes away from playing for a national championship. Utah also beat TCU, which will likely finish the season ranked in the top 10. They also beat BYU, who will likely end up a top-25 team. Another top-25 team defeated by Utah this season is Oregon State, who some of you may remember as the team who beat USC earlier in the year. Utah’s resume may not be stacked, but it’s not entirely thin either.
Actually, Utah’s resume is more impressive than Florida’s, in terms of top-25 teams played. Florida beat only one top-25 team in Georgia (although this will likely end up as 2 if Florida State jumps back in the poll), and lost to the other top-25 team it faced in Ole Miss. I’d like to argue that beating LSU, the most talented 8-5 team in the country, is reason to rank Florida ahead of Utah, but that’s for another day. Just based on top-25 teams defeated, Utah beats Florida 4-2. I still don’t think Utah would beat Florida, but on paper, you could make the argument that they’re more deserving of a national championship. Although I guess if Florida ends up beating Oklahoma, that would make their resume as impressive as Utah’s in terms of teams beaten, if not more so. But, you still can’t get past that whole “only team to go undefeated” thing.
Anyway, this whole thing got me curious about the 1984 season, when BYU won the national championship. They’re the last team from a “mid-major” conference to do so. Just like Utah this year, BYU finished the ’84 season as the only undefeated team. There were a bunch of 1-loss teams that year, including Washington and Nebraska, but somehow BYU was voted #1 in all the major polls. I wasn’t really following college football back then, but apparently it was a pretty controversial thing at the time. This might have something to do with the fact that not one team on BYU’s schedule finished the year in the top 25, and they beat an average 6-5 Michigan team in the Holiday Bowl. Not really all that impressive.
The thing that I found kind of funny was that the articles I read on wikipedia seemed to suggest that it was BYU’s national championship that led the 6 power conferences to form the Bowl Coalition, the predecessor to the BCS, back in 1992. I’m not sure the math works, as that would mean it would have taken 8 years to get it started, but I guess it is certainly plausible. Can’t say that the BCS conferences are all that crazy about change, so maybe it would take that long to get off the ground. Let’s just assume that this was the catalyst for the creation of what is now the BCS. Well, I’d say it’s doing exactly what it was supposed to do…screw over the mid-majors like Utah.
As I stated earlier, Utah’s resume is pretty impressive, maybe impressive enough to get them into the championship game. The problem though, is that we really didn’t know how talented they were until they beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. Until then, they were just a cute story. The team from the crappy conference who managed to beat all the other teams from their crappy conference. We all thought that was great for them, then laughed at the thought of them playing Bama in the Sugar Bowl. (okay, I was mainly laughing about all the Utah fans in the French Quarter, but anyway). All of a sudden they beat Bama, and it’s like, “whoa! Wait a tick, these guys can play. Oh well, too bad the season’s over.”
It’s a shame, because Utah couldn’t have done much more to bolster their resume. They won every game on their schedule, beat 4 top-25 teams, including a team ranked #1 for a third of the season. Not much more they could have done. Well, this year at least. I guess for a school like Utah to get more respect in future BCS polls, they’ll have to start scheduling the perennial powers like Ohio State, USC, and LSU. They need to go for broke every year with their scheduling if they hope to finish at the top of the BCS standings. Because, beating up on the Mountain West and the WAC just won’t get it done.
Maybe this is the kind of thing that will finally get people talking seriously about a playoff. But, I doubt it. If keeping schools like Utah out of the championship picture was the goal of the BCS, I can’t see the powers-that-be changing things for them. For what it’s worth, I certainly haven’t changed my position. As much as I’d love to see what Utah could do in a playoff, I still prefer the current system. Doesn’t really matter though, because I really don’t see things changing any time soon. I guess Utah will have to remain just a cute story.
On a scale of one to Gus Johnson, this gets a Howie Long.
Read full post...
I know they’re in a non-BCS conference, and play the likes of Utah State and Wyoming. But, they beat Alabama, who was ranked #1 for five straight weeks at the end of the year, and was a few minutes away from playing for a national championship. Utah also beat TCU, which will likely finish the season ranked in the top 10. They also beat BYU, who will likely end up a top-25 team. Another top-25 team defeated by Utah this season is Oregon State, who some of you may remember as the team who beat USC earlier in the year. Utah’s resume may not be stacked, but it’s not entirely thin either.
Actually, Utah’s resume is more impressive than Florida’s, in terms of top-25 teams played. Florida beat only one top-25 team in Georgia (although this will likely end up as 2 if Florida State jumps back in the poll), and lost to the other top-25 team it faced in Ole Miss. I’d like to argue that beating LSU, the most talented 8-5 team in the country, is reason to rank Florida ahead of Utah, but that’s for another day. Just based on top-25 teams defeated, Utah beats Florida 4-2. I still don’t think Utah would beat Florida, but on paper, you could make the argument that they’re more deserving of a national championship. Although I guess if Florida ends up beating Oklahoma, that would make their resume as impressive as Utah’s in terms of teams beaten, if not more so. But, you still can’t get past that whole “only team to go undefeated” thing.
Anyway, this whole thing got me curious about the 1984 season, when BYU won the national championship. They’re the last team from a “mid-major” conference to do so. Just like Utah this year, BYU finished the ’84 season as the only undefeated team. There were a bunch of 1-loss teams that year, including Washington and Nebraska, but somehow BYU was voted #1 in all the major polls. I wasn’t really following college football back then, but apparently it was a pretty controversial thing at the time. This might have something to do with the fact that not one team on BYU’s schedule finished the year in the top 25, and they beat an average 6-5 Michigan team in the Holiday Bowl. Not really all that impressive.
The thing that I found kind of funny was that the articles I read on wikipedia seemed to suggest that it was BYU’s national championship that led the 6 power conferences to form the Bowl Coalition, the predecessor to the BCS, back in 1992. I’m not sure the math works, as that would mean it would have taken 8 years to get it started, but I guess it is certainly plausible. Can’t say that the BCS conferences are all that crazy about change, so maybe it would take that long to get off the ground. Let’s just assume that this was the catalyst for the creation of what is now the BCS. Well, I’d say it’s doing exactly what it was supposed to do…screw over the mid-majors like Utah.
As I stated earlier, Utah’s resume is pretty impressive, maybe impressive enough to get them into the championship game. The problem though, is that we really didn’t know how talented they were until they beat Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. Until then, they were just a cute story. The team from the crappy conference who managed to beat all the other teams from their crappy conference. We all thought that was great for them, then laughed at the thought of them playing Bama in the Sugar Bowl. (okay, I was mainly laughing about all the Utah fans in the French Quarter, but anyway). All of a sudden they beat Bama, and it’s like, “whoa! Wait a tick, these guys can play. Oh well, too bad the season’s over.”
It’s a shame, because Utah couldn’t have done much more to bolster their resume. They won every game on their schedule, beat 4 top-25 teams, including a team ranked #1 for a third of the season. Not much more they could have done. Well, this year at least. I guess for a school like Utah to get more respect in future BCS polls, they’ll have to start scheduling the perennial powers like Ohio State, USC, and LSU. They need to go for broke every year with their scheduling if they hope to finish at the top of the BCS standings. Because, beating up on the Mountain West and the WAC just won’t get it done.
Maybe this is the kind of thing that will finally get people talking seriously about a playoff. But, I doubt it. If keeping schools like Utah out of the championship picture was the goal of the BCS, I can’t see the powers-that-be changing things for them. For what it’s worth, I certainly haven’t changed my position. As much as I’d love to see what Utah could do in a playoff, I still prefer the current system. Doesn’t really matter though, because I really don’t see things changing any time soon. I guess Utah will have to remain just a cute story.
On a scale of one to Gus Johnson, this gets a Howie Long.
Read full post...
Thursday, December 11, 2008
A Proposal for the BCS
>
I hate the BCS. I think it’s absurd and inane and represents everything that is wrong with college athletics. Like it or not, though, it doesn’t appear to be going anywhere, and, as a Big10 graduate, I am resigned to the fact that my conference is not going to be represented in the National Championship Game for a long time, because Jim Tressel doesn’t know how to prepare his team for a bowl game.
So instead, the BCS needs to be improved.
For starters, I have a suggestion for how to penalize a conference that underperforms during the season. If a BCS conference, as a whole, has a below-.500 record against a non-BCS conference against whom it has played at least five games, it should lose its automatic bid to that conference.
How would this work? Well, this year, for instance, the Pac-10 went 1-6 against the Mountain West, so the Mountain West would get the PAC-10’s birth. This probably wouldn’t have changed anything this year. Utah would have gotten the PAC-10’s automatic berth that went to USC and USC would have gotten the at-large berth that went to Utah. But what if the sub-mediocre Oregon State team hadn’t choked near the end and had somehow won the PAC-10? This rule would have kept the embarrassment that would have occurred from having the Beavers stink up a BCS game.
The rule wouldn’t keep good teams out of bowl games. USC is a good team. They would have received a bid. Instead, it would keep mediocre teams from conference that had a down year from dragging down the BCS. I mean seriously, who wants to watch Cincinnati and Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl on New Year’s night?
The strongest argument against this rule change, of course, is that BCS bowl teams will be afraid to play the good non-BCS teams like TCU, Utah, and Boise State. But who else would they play? If a good team decides not to play the strong non-BCS teams and loads up on cupcakes, it would hurt their strength of schedule. In addition, the strong BCS teams would need to schedule the better non-BCS teams just to keep them from feeding off of the low BCS teams. The more games Utah is able to play against bottom-of-the-barrel teams like Washington, Duke, and Michigan (wow, it felt great to type that), the better chance the BCS conference has of losing its BCS bid. It would then create an incentive for the better BCS schools to schedule better non-conference teams.
Maybe it’s not perfect, but it sure as hell beats what we have now.
On a scale of one to Gus Johnson, I'd give this a Todd Blackledge. Read full post...
So instead, the BCS needs to be improved.
For starters, I have a suggestion for how to penalize a conference that underperforms during the season. If a BCS conference, as a whole, has a below-.500 record against a non-BCS conference against whom it has played at least five games, it should lose its automatic bid to that conference.
How would this work? Well, this year, for instance, the Pac-10 went 1-6 against the Mountain West, so the Mountain West would get the PAC-10’s birth. This probably wouldn’t have changed anything this year. Utah would have gotten the PAC-10’s automatic berth that went to USC and USC would have gotten the at-large berth that went to Utah. But what if the sub-mediocre Oregon State team hadn’t choked near the end and had somehow won the PAC-10? This rule would have kept the embarrassment that would have occurred from having the Beavers stink up a BCS game.
The rule wouldn’t keep good teams out of bowl games. USC is a good team. They would have received a bid. Instead, it would keep mediocre teams from conference that had a down year from dragging down the BCS. I mean seriously, who wants to watch Cincinnati and Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl on New Year’s night?
The strongest argument against this rule change, of course, is that BCS bowl teams will be afraid to play the good non-BCS teams like TCU, Utah, and Boise State. But who else would they play? If a good team decides not to play the strong non-BCS teams and loads up on cupcakes, it would hurt their strength of schedule. In addition, the strong BCS teams would need to schedule the better non-BCS teams just to keep them from feeding off of the low BCS teams. The more games Utah is able to play against bottom-of-the-barrel teams like Washington, Duke, and Michigan (wow, it felt great to type that), the better chance the BCS conference has of losing its BCS bid. It would then create an incentive for the better BCS schools to schedule better non-conference teams.
Maybe it’s not perfect, but it sure as hell beats what we have now.
On a scale of one to Gus Johnson, I'd give this a Todd Blackledge. Read full post...
The Tale of Sticky Ricky
>
I saw on the ESPN bottom line this morning that Colt McCoy is vying to become only the 3rd Texas player to win the Heisman trophy. The other two were Earl Campbell in 1977 and Ricky Williams in 1998. And this is going to sound weird, but I forgot Ricky Williams ever went to college. He’s been such an odd figure in the sports world, it’s strange to think that he actually came from somewhere. Let’s go over the odd career of Sticky Ricky:
• In 1998, as a senior at Texas, Ricky broke Tony Dorsett’s record and became the all time leading rusher in NCAA Division 1-A football. Dorsett’s record had stood for 22 years.
• The next year, Ricky had his record broken by Ron Dayne of Wisconsin. Ricky’s record stood for less than a year.
• In December 1998, Ricky won the Heisman. And this is where things take a turn for the weird.
• In the 1999 NFL Draft, Mike Ditka, then head coach of the Saints, trades his entire 1999 draft away, plus a 1st and 3rd round pick for 2000, all to trade up for Ricky Williams. The Saints went 3-13 in Ricky’s first season. Might have been a bad move by Iron Mike.
• After the draft, Ricky signs Master P as his agent. Yes, Master P, the ‘rapper’, as a sports agent. “No Limit Sports” negotiated a ridiculous contract for Ricky, making the whole thing based on almost unreachable incentives. Ricky fired Master P a year later, and hired an actual sports agent.
• Prior to his rookie season, Ricky and Coach Ditka posed on the cover of ESPN the Magazine as a bride and groom. And, the word ‘disturbing’ takes on a new meaning.
• Ricky gains national attention for some rather bizarre behavior while playing for the Saints, including giving post game interviews with his helmet still on. With a visor on the helmet so nobody could see his eyes. Ricky was later diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. No kidding.
• After 3 years with the Saints, Ricky is traded to the Miami Dolphins.
• In his first season with the Dolphins, Ricky led the NFL in rushing and made the pro-bowl.
• Then in May of 2004, Ricky was suspended from the NFL for 4 games for testing positive for marijuana. Instead of serving his suspension, he decided to retire from the NFL. He played for 5 seasons.
• After retiring from football, Ricky decided he wanted to be a holistic healer, and began studying the ancient Indian science of Ayurveda. He actually went to a school for this. Which means there’s actually a school for this. Who knew?
• A few months later in February 2005, while Ricky was in a hut somewhere in Thailand, a Florida judge ruled that he had to pay the Dolphins $8.6 million of his signing bonus.
• A few months after that, and completely unrelated to his sudden money troubles, Ricky had a ‘change of heart’ and decided he wanted to come back to the NFL. If only this were the end of the Ricky Williams saga.
• After playing another year for the Dolphins, Ricky failed yet another drug test (his fourth), and in April 2006 he was suspended for the entire season.
• With Ricky unable to play in the NFL for a year, the Canadian Football League endured a little controversy by allowing Ricky to sign with the Toronto Argonauts for the 2006 season.
• I guess the Ricky experiment didn’t go too well, because after the season, the CFL enacted the “Ricky Williams Rule”, which prevents any CFL team from signing a player serving a suspension from the NFL.
• And finally, Ricky served his one year suspension from the NFL, and is now back playing with the Dolphins. He was hurt for most of 2007, but has been playing fairly well this year.
Even though I’ve followed all these different events as they happened, and fully recognized each time how bizarre of a dude Ricky Williams was, I guess I didn’t appreciate the whole story until this morning. Tomorrow, it will be exactly 10 years since Ricky Williams won the Heisman trophy, and man has it been a fascinating ten years. I don’t think Colt McCoy is going to win the award this weekend. But, if he does, let’s hope his post-Heisman decade goes a little smoother than it did for the last Longhorn to win it.
On a scale of one to Gus Johnson, I give this a Joe Theismann.
Read full post...
• In 1998, as a senior at Texas, Ricky broke Tony Dorsett’s record and became the all time leading rusher in NCAA Division 1-A football. Dorsett’s record had stood for 22 years.
• The next year, Ricky had his record broken by Ron Dayne of Wisconsin. Ricky’s record stood for less than a year.
• In December 1998, Ricky won the Heisman. And this is where things take a turn for the weird.
• In the 1999 NFL Draft, Mike Ditka, then head coach of the Saints, trades his entire 1999 draft away, plus a 1st and 3rd round pick for 2000, all to trade up for Ricky Williams. The Saints went 3-13 in Ricky’s first season. Might have been a bad move by Iron Mike.
• After the draft, Ricky signs Master P as his agent. Yes, Master P, the ‘rapper’, as a sports agent. “No Limit Sports” negotiated a ridiculous contract for Ricky, making the whole thing based on almost unreachable incentives. Ricky fired Master P a year later, and hired an actual sports agent.
• Prior to his rookie season, Ricky and Coach Ditka posed on the cover of ESPN the Magazine as a bride and groom. And, the word ‘disturbing’ takes on a new meaning.
• Ricky gains national attention for some rather bizarre behavior while playing for the Saints, including giving post game interviews with his helmet still on. With a visor on the helmet so nobody could see his eyes. Ricky was later diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. No kidding.
• After 3 years with the Saints, Ricky is traded to the Miami Dolphins.
• In his first season with the Dolphins, Ricky led the NFL in rushing and made the pro-bowl.
• Then in May of 2004, Ricky was suspended from the NFL for 4 games for testing positive for marijuana. Instead of serving his suspension, he decided to retire from the NFL. He played for 5 seasons.
• After retiring from football, Ricky decided he wanted to be a holistic healer, and began studying the ancient Indian science of Ayurveda. He actually went to a school for this. Which means there’s actually a school for this. Who knew?
• A few months later in February 2005, while Ricky was in a hut somewhere in Thailand, a Florida judge ruled that he had to pay the Dolphins $8.6 million of his signing bonus.
• A few months after that, and completely unrelated to his sudden money troubles, Ricky had a ‘change of heart’ and decided he wanted to come back to the NFL. If only this were the end of the Ricky Williams saga.
• After playing another year for the Dolphins, Ricky failed yet another drug test (his fourth), and in April 2006 he was suspended for the entire season.
• With Ricky unable to play in the NFL for a year, the Canadian Football League endured a little controversy by allowing Ricky to sign with the Toronto Argonauts for the 2006 season.
• I guess the Ricky experiment didn’t go too well, because after the season, the CFL enacted the “Ricky Williams Rule”, which prevents any CFL team from signing a player serving a suspension from the NFL.
• And finally, Ricky served his one year suspension from the NFL, and is now back playing with the Dolphins. He was hurt for most of 2007, but has been playing fairly well this year.
Even though I’ve followed all these different events as they happened, and fully recognized each time how bizarre of a dude Ricky Williams was, I guess I didn’t appreciate the whole story until this morning. Tomorrow, it will be exactly 10 years since Ricky Williams won the Heisman trophy, and man has it been a fascinating ten years. I don’t think Colt McCoy is going to win the award this weekend. But, if he does, let’s hope his post-Heisman decade goes a little smoother than it did for the last Longhorn to win it.
On a scale of one to Gus Johnson, I give this a Joe Theismann.
Read full post...
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
As far as regular seasons go, College Football is King
>
I’d like to address the idea that college basketball’s regular season is more meaningful than college football’s. Seth Davis over at cnnsi was the latest to attempt this argument, and it was a pretty lame attempt at that. Look, there’s no question that the NCAA Tournament is the greatest sporting event there is. Nothing can match its excitement. I’m sure Europeans would argue for the World Cup, but until Gus Johnson calls a soccer game, there’s really no argument. Anyway, having the most exhilarating championship event doesn’t necessarily mean the regular season is all that special.
I should say that I used to be a believer. I used to be a college hoops junkie, watching and loving every week of the regular season. I’d watch every conference tournament I could. Hell, I remember watching Bryce Drew tear up the Horizon tourney before he ever hit that shot to beat Ole Miss. And then, there was the Big Dance. Who doesn’t love the NCAA Tournament? I used to stay home from school or work during those first two days of the tournament, just because I didn’t want to miss any games. Not that I still do that. My point is that I loved college basketball. Well, I realized not too long ago that the BCS has ruined all of that. And this is my reason for hating the BCS, not because it’s ruining football. But because it’s made college football so exciting that its ruined my love for college basketball.
Despite what Seth Davis and others like him say, the college basketball regular season is meaningless. It just doesn’t matter. Sure, it has some meaning when you’re talking about the evolution of a team, and how they build on each game and improve. But that’s how it goes in every sport. But, when you’re talking about championships, it’s all about the tournaments in college basketball. And yes, I said tournaments, plural. Because other than the Ivy League, every conference gives their automatic bid to the winner of their conference tournament. So winning your regular season doesn’t even matter. LSU beat out Florida to win the SEC in 2006. But, Florida won the National Championship. Still think regular seasons matter? Yeah, LSU got a nice banner to hang in the PMAC, but that didn’t get them into the tournament. They had to get an at-large bid, just like the 32 other teams in the field that didn’t win their conference tournament.
Of course LSU got into the tournament in 2006 despite not winning their conference tourney, because they were a great team. The fact of the matter is that every year, there are a handful of college basketball teams that are good enough to be National Champions. And some of them will win their conference, and some won't. Some will have amazing regular seasons, where they’re #1, or moving up and down in the top 5 all year. And some will have relatively disappointing years, and have to make a go of it in the tournament as a 3 or 4 seed. But all of them will make the tournament. No matter what they did in the regular season, every last one of that year’s elite college basketball teams will have their shot at the National Championship. And that’s why we love it, that’s what makes it the tournament so exciting. You never know which of those teams is going to win it all. Well, that and the upsets. And Gus, of course. But again, an exciting championship event doesn’t make the regular season any more meaningful.
Like basketball, every year there are a handful of college football teams good enough to be National Champions. But unlike basketball, in college football, only 2 will have a chance to win the title. Who those 2 teams are is determined week by week in the regular season. A basketball team can lose 25% of their games and still make the tournament, and have a “shot” at a championship. You think a 9-3 team is getting into the BCS National Championship? Not likely.
Actually, any non-Ivy League team could go the entire season without winning a game. They could start the postseason without any wins, and still have a chance to win it all. Of course, they’d have to win 10 straight games, 4 games to win their conference tourney, and another 6 in a row in the NCAA tournament, to win the whole thing. Wouldn’t that be an amazing and unprecedented feat? Amazing, yes. Unprecedented, not really. That happens pretty much every year in college football.
Florida won 9 games in a row to get to the BCS title game. Oklahoma won 7. If they had lost any of those games, they wouldn’t have made it. The same excitement and “win or you’re done” atmosphere that makes the college basketball postseason so special is exactly what we have in the regular season of college football right now. College football's postseason may not compare to the NCAA Tournament or even the NFL playoffs. But, no sport has a regular season nearly as exciting as college football's. And that’s why I’ve recently started to defend the BCS, and why I’m not all that interested in college basketball right now. So, somebody wake me up when the tournaments start. That’s when the real college basketball season begins, anyway.
On a scale of one to Gus Johnson, I give this post a Digger Phelps.
Read full post...
I should say that I used to be a believer. I used to be a college hoops junkie, watching and loving every week of the regular season. I’d watch every conference tournament I could. Hell, I remember watching Bryce Drew tear up the Horizon tourney before he ever hit that shot to beat Ole Miss. And then, there was the Big Dance. Who doesn’t love the NCAA Tournament? I used to stay home from school or work during those first two days of the tournament, just because I didn’t want to miss any games. Not that I still do that. My point is that I loved college basketball. Well, I realized not too long ago that the BCS has ruined all of that. And this is my reason for hating the BCS, not because it’s ruining football. But because it’s made college football so exciting that its ruined my love for college basketball.
Despite what Seth Davis and others like him say, the college basketball regular season is meaningless. It just doesn’t matter. Sure, it has some meaning when you’re talking about the evolution of a team, and how they build on each game and improve. But that’s how it goes in every sport. But, when you’re talking about championships, it’s all about the tournaments in college basketball. And yes, I said tournaments, plural. Because other than the Ivy League, every conference gives their automatic bid to the winner of their conference tournament. So winning your regular season doesn’t even matter. LSU beat out Florida to win the SEC in 2006. But, Florida won the National Championship. Still think regular seasons matter? Yeah, LSU got a nice banner to hang in the PMAC, but that didn’t get them into the tournament. They had to get an at-large bid, just like the 32 other teams in the field that didn’t win their conference tournament.
Of course LSU got into the tournament in 2006 despite not winning their conference tourney, because they were a great team. The fact of the matter is that every year, there are a handful of college basketball teams that are good enough to be National Champions. And some of them will win their conference, and some won't. Some will have amazing regular seasons, where they’re #1, or moving up and down in the top 5 all year. And some will have relatively disappointing years, and have to make a go of it in the tournament as a 3 or 4 seed. But all of them will make the tournament. No matter what they did in the regular season, every last one of that year’s elite college basketball teams will have their shot at the National Championship. And that’s why we love it, that’s what makes it the tournament so exciting. You never know which of those teams is going to win it all. Well, that and the upsets. And Gus, of course. But again, an exciting championship event doesn’t make the regular season any more meaningful.
Like basketball, every year there are a handful of college football teams good enough to be National Champions. But unlike basketball, in college football, only 2 will have a chance to win the title. Who those 2 teams are is determined week by week in the regular season. A basketball team can lose 25% of their games and still make the tournament, and have a “shot” at a championship. You think a 9-3 team is getting into the BCS National Championship? Not likely.
Actually, any non-Ivy League team could go the entire season without winning a game. They could start the postseason without any wins, and still have a chance to win it all. Of course, they’d have to win 10 straight games, 4 games to win their conference tourney, and another 6 in a row in the NCAA tournament, to win the whole thing. Wouldn’t that be an amazing and unprecedented feat? Amazing, yes. Unprecedented, not really. That happens pretty much every year in college football.
Florida won 9 games in a row to get to the BCS title game. Oklahoma won 7. If they had lost any of those games, they wouldn’t have made it. The same excitement and “win or you’re done” atmosphere that makes the college basketball postseason so special is exactly what we have in the regular season of college football right now. College football's postseason may not compare to the NCAA Tournament or even the NFL playoffs. But, no sport has a regular season nearly as exciting as college football's. And that’s why I’ve recently started to defend the BCS, and why I’m not all that interested in college basketball right now. So, somebody wake me up when the tournaments start. That’s when the real college basketball season begins, anyway.
On a scale of one to Gus Johnson, I give this post a Digger Phelps.
Read full post...
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Playoffs?!?! Don't talk about Playoffs?!?! Are you kidding me?!?
>
In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes--Ben Franklin
When Big Ben famously penned this quote, he clearly had not yet experienced the certainty of the first week in December for college football fans. See, about that time is when you stop hearing arguments about who will beat whom and start hearing arguments about who would beat whom. You stop hearing about rivalries and traditions and start hearing about computers and fantasy odds. Coaches morph from being their usual, tight lipped selves spewing pre-fabricated comments to the media filled with cliché and obfuscation into other people. Some become seasoned politicians, lobbying voters while making their teams' cases; some become balls of rage, decrying a system or team done wrong and calling for change; some become strangely aloof, acting as if the fate of their team really doesn't matter to them all the while being betrayed by their wanton eyes; and some just become whiners, finding creative ways to say that it just isn't fair.
Ah such is life in a BCS-world.
But does it have to be? Every year, it seems commentators, coaches, sports fans, and now a certain president-elect all clamor for what, to college football fans, has become the El Dorado, the hidden treasure…one word, eight letters immortalized by Jim Mora
P-L-A-Y-O-F-F-S
Though they may not agree on the format, everybody seems to want a playoff. And every year, just as the clamoring is certain, they are swiftly rebuked by the wizards of our Oz, the men behind the curtain, who no one knows, but who seem to pull all of the stings in college football--FBS version.
So I've decided to add my voice to the calls for a playoff, and in doing so, I hope to have answered some of the biggest issues that those who like the same, uncertain, semi-corrupt system that we currently employ. So before giving you my ideas, let's examine some of the common issues that the mighty wizard has told us prevent a playoff from happening:
Reason 1: Games lose their meaning. With the BCS every game "counts."
Please ignore the fact that in reality only a few games count, and they only count if you're ranked high enough in pre-season polls AND are from one of the big 6 conferences or Notre Dame.
Reason 2: Our players are "scholar athletes" and they have to take finals.
I swear, I'm not laughing. I'm not. I mean forget the fact that basketball players play throughout finals. And forget the fact that every other division of football is able to do a playoff and be "scholar-athletes." And forget the fact that most of the teams involved in the playoff have dismal graduation rates with most of their players occupying made-for-athlete majors. Forget all of that. We care about our STUDENT-athletes… at least during December we do.
Reason 3: Our fans won't travel with only a week's notice and more than one week.
Basketball fans travel, but that's not the same. NFL fans travel. But that's not the same. Our fans are unique.
Reason 4: The Bowl is a well earned vacation for a lot of teams. Take them away, and you don't have that.
College football--a competitive sport? No. We need to reward our teams. That's why we let 6-6 teams go to bowls and we have more bowls than Brittney Spears has melt-downs. Bowls are for the children….the children I tell you.
Reason 5: The BCS stimulates discussion. Discussion all year.
Never mind it's universally negative. Never mind that it undermines the integrity of the sport. People talk about it before, during and after the game. And that's a good thing.
Reason 6: The money. The money. The money.
We won't actually say this. But the bowls pay a lot. Especially to the BCS conferences. Like 13 million dollars good. Do you know how many recruits … I mean textbooks we can buy with that money? And we BCS conferences really don't want to share with all of the lesser conferences of the world, like the WAC and the Mountain West. Could you imagine letting a team like Boise State share our money? So beneath us.
I'm sure there are more, but these are the highlights it seems. I'll go ahead and outline my 2 ideas and then explain how it solves each of these issues.
My Playoff (version 1):
If anyone knows how the West Coast Conference (a no football conference) sets up its basketball tournament, that's my first proposal. Here's a blank visual of it. http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/west/genrel/auto_pdf/2009WCCTournamentbrackets.pdf
In parentheses, I'll put what the dates would be this year. But I think you could easily push one of these weeks back and be done by Jan 17, which would make it end the same week the new "plus 1" format would.
How would it be populated
Start with 8 teams. BCS conference champions get seeds 1-6 as long as that champion is in the top 15 in the BCS. (I'll explain later why I would do that). If they're not, then the conference can send another team that is in the top 15 or it forfeits its pick (this number would be flexible). 2 wild cards based on BCS standings. Non-BCS schools in the top 8 get automatic bids as wild cards.
How the rounds would go
All playoffs played on Saturdays
Read full post...
When Big Ben famously penned this quote, he clearly had not yet experienced the certainty of the first week in December for college football fans. See, about that time is when you stop hearing arguments about who will beat whom and start hearing arguments about who would beat whom. You stop hearing about rivalries and traditions and start hearing about computers and fantasy odds. Coaches morph from being their usual, tight lipped selves spewing pre-fabricated comments to the media filled with cliché and obfuscation into other people. Some become seasoned politicians, lobbying voters while making their teams' cases; some become balls of rage, decrying a system or team done wrong and calling for change; some become strangely aloof, acting as if the fate of their team really doesn't matter to them all the while being betrayed by their wanton eyes; and some just become whiners, finding creative ways to say that it just isn't fair.
Ah such is life in a BCS-world.
But does it have to be? Every year, it seems commentators, coaches, sports fans, and now a certain president-elect all clamor for what, to college football fans, has become the El Dorado, the hidden treasure…one word, eight letters immortalized by Jim Mora
P-L-A-Y-O-F-F-S
Though they may not agree on the format, everybody seems to want a playoff. And every year, just as the clamoring is certain, they are swiftly rebuked by the wizards of our Oz, the men behind the curtain, who no one knows, but who seem to pull all of the stings in college football--FBS version.
So I've decided to add my voice to the calls for a playoff, and in doing so, I hope to have answered some of the biggest issues that those who like the same, uncertain, semi-corrupt system that we currently employ. So before giving you my ideas, let's examine some of the common issues that the mighty wizard has told us prevent a playoff from happening:
Reason 1: Games lose their meaning. With the BCS every game "counts."
Please ignore the fact that in reality only a few games count, and they only count if you're ranked high enough in pre-season polls AND are from one of the big 6 conferences or Notre Dame.
Reason 2: Our players are "scholar athletes" and they have to take finals.
I swear, I'm not laughing. I'm not. I mean forget the fact that basketball players play throughout finals. And forget the fact that every other division of football is able to do a playoff and be "scholar-athletes." And forget the fact that most of the teams involved in the playoff have dismal graduation rates with most of their players occupying made-for-athlete majors. Forget all of that. We care about our STUDENT-athletes… at least during December we do.
Reason 3: Our fans won't travel with only a week's notice and more than one week.
Basketball fans travel, but that's not the same. NFL fans travel. But that's not the same. Our fans are unique.
Reason 4: The Bowl is a well earned vacation for a lot of teams. Take them away, and you don't have that.
College football--a competitive sport? No. We need to reward our teams. That's why we let 6-6 teams go to bowls and we have more bowls than Brittney Spears has melt-downs. Bowls are for the children….the children I tell you.
Reason 5: The BCS stimulates discussion. Discussion all year.
Never mind it's universally negative. Never mind that it undermines the integrity of the sport. People talk about it before, during and after the game. And that's a good thing.
Reason 6: The money. The money. The money.
We won't actually say this. But the bowls pay a lot. Especially to the BCS conferences. Like 13 million dollars good. Do you know how many recruits … I mean textbooks we can buy with that money? And we BCS conferences really don't want to share with all of the lesser conferences of the world, like the WAC and the Mountain West. Could you imagine letting a team like Boise State share our money? So beneath us.
I'm sure there are more, but these are the highlights it seems. I'll go ahead and outline my 2 ideas and then explain how it solves each of these issues.
My Playoff (version 1):
If anyone knows how the West Coast Conference (a no football conference) sets up its basketball tournament, that's my first proposal. Here's a blank visual of it. http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/west/genrel/auto_pdf/2009WCCTournamentbrackets.pdf
In parentheses, I'll put what the dates would be this year. But I think you could easily push one of these weeks back and be done by Jan 17, which would make it end the same week the new "plus 1" format would.
How would it be populated
Start with 8 teams. BCS conference champions get seeds 1-6 as long as that champion is in the top 15 in the BCS. (I'll explain later why I would do that). If they're not, then the conference can send another team that is in the top 15 or it forfeits its pick (this number would be flexible). 2 wild cards based on BCS standings. Non-BCS schools in the top 8 get automatic bids as wild cards.
How the rounds would go
All playoffs played on Saturdays
First round (December 20): 8 plays at 5 and 7 plays at 6.
Second round: (December 27): Winners are re-seeded with the lower seeded winner playing at 3 and the higher seeded winner playing at 4.
Third round (January 3): Winners are again re-seeded with the lower-seeded winner playing at #1 and higher-seeded winner at #2
Championship (January 10): Championship at a neutral site, rotating bowl site.
Other details
- Teams (or conferences) would split the gate receipts.
- Home team would allocate tickets by offering double what is the NCAA standard for a regular season game to opposing fans. That gives the home team an actual home field advantage.
- Bowl games happen for all of the teams not involved in the playoff. The 2nd place conference team still goes to the bowl of choice. Those games played during the week. The old BCS bowls played on January 1. Nothing changes for the bowls other than losing these 8 teams.
How it solves each of the issues
Games don't matter:
They do. With only 8 teams making the playoffs. Every game matters. Let's take this year for instance. Other than possibly Alabama, any team that loses their conference championship this year would've been left out. Teams with one loss will be left out occasionally. Teams with 2 losses almost definitely will. Sounds like the BCS right now. All 1 loss teams are in--anything more and you're out. Every game counts. What's more. Now we have bowl games other than the BCS championship that counts. Now we have more games for teams trying to get into that top 8 that count. You can certainly drop out of the top 8 with a loss, so every game for each of those counts too. What's more, getting a home game actually gives you an advantage. So those games matter too. And the games that are just normal "bowls," Well, ask how many of those bowls matter now.
"Scholar-Athletes"
Athletes have 2 weeks to take finals. There are only four schools that play on the 20th and all of the rest are on the 27th. Almost all schools are out until the 10th anyhow. No more class missed.
Fans won't travel
They don't have to. Every site is determined almost a month in advance, the same week that Bowl games are announced. The final is at a neutral site--and I don't think you'll have any problem getting people to travel to that one. Ask the Final Four.
Bowl games are vacations
Yes. They are. And they will continue to be for all but 8 fan bases. Funny, but I don't think any of those 8 teams would trade their "vacation" for an actual shot at an actual national championship.
People talk about the BCS
And they'll talk about the 8 team playoff. You think Texas Tech or Alabama wouldn't talk about the 8 team field, since one could likely be left out. You don't think Ohio State or the mid-majors would talk about it? Do people talk about the last four teams out for the NCAA basketball tournament? I think so. Now people can talk about seeds too, as well as who's in and who's out. And since the BCS standings would determine at least to some degree, people would still talk.
Money
Each BCS conference would still get an additional home game. They could justify raising their ticket prices for each. They could still get the bowl game money. And the TV. rights alone would be staggering. Plus, the bowl game that hosts the championship could still give out 17 million bucks to each team or conference. Conferences would make more money using this than the same bowl money now, as the playoffs would be on top of any other money. That's why we have to have the 6 BCS conference winners. If it were up to me, I'd just take the 8 best, but the BCS conferences will never relinquish their control of the pot. This helps them retain control unless their conference is as bad as the ACC/Big East recently.
This model would give teams that perform better a significant advantage (home field and byes), but still give more teams a chance. That's all that teams are asking for. A chance.
How it would work this year:
Just for one last glance, here's how it would play out this year based on the recently released BCS standings.
Round 1: #8 Utah (in the top 8) at #5 Cincinnati; #7 Alabama at #6 Texas (Virginia Tech would forfeit their automatic bid because they were ranked 19);
Or, if the ACC chose to send their highest ranked team (which I would assume they would)
Round 1: #8 Utah (in the top 8, so automatic) at #5 Cincinnati; #7 Texas at #6 Georgia Tech (replacing Virginia Tech since they were ranked in the top 15);
Regardless of the first round, the next one would be.
Round 2: Lower-seeded winner at #3 USC; Higher-seeded winner at #4 Penn State
Round 3: Winner at #2 Florida; Winner at #1 Oklahoma
Championship: In Miami
Does anyone think that Alabama (in the first scenario) or Texas Tech (in both scenarios) fans would say that every game doesn't matter anymore?
An Alternative
How it would be populated:
For those that want a bigger tournament. Take 12 teams and do it in 4 weeks. 6 of the top 8 seeds are BCS conference winners (so they each get a home game) but we'll extend the cut-off to top 20. Other 6 are at large teams based on BCS standings. Top two Non-BCS teams get an automatic bid if they are in the top 12.
How the rounds would go:
Round 1: #12 at #5; #11 at #6; #10 at #7; #9 at #8
Round 2: Lowest-seeded winner at #1; 2nd Lowest at #2; 2nd highest at #3; Highest seeded at #4
Round 3: Two games either at neutral sites or at the highest seeded winner
Round 4: Championship.
Here's a visual:
Advantages of this as opposed to the other:
- This model allows for more teams and more non-BCS teams that go undefeated.
- More games = more money.
- More teams given a chance in the same amount of time.
- Gives a team like Texas this year a home game and doesn't make them play four road games in a row to win.
- Still gives BCS conference winners a home game, but doesn't give teams like Cincinnati and Virginia Tech too big of an advantage
Disadvantages of this as opposed to the other
- Two rounds of uncertainty as to where the games were. Perhaps you'd have to build in a bye weekend between rounds 2 and 3 to allow for more time to schedule travel.
- Might get some two loss teams. Might not. A loss late isn't necessarily going to knock you out so people might be able to argue that "Every game doesn't matter."
- Fewer teams get their bowl "vacation."
Same payouts; same fan allocation; neutral site tickets are split 50/50; home team gets most of the tickets.
Here's how it plays out this year:
Round #1
#12 Ohio State (Because there are already 2 non-BCS teams in the field, TCU gets left out despite being in the top 12 and tOSU being ahead of them) at #5 USC; #11 Boise State at #6 Penn State; #10 Texas Tech at #7 Cincinnati; #9 Utah at #8 Virginia Tech (since it's now in the top 20)
Round # 2
Lowest-seeded winner at #1 Oklahoma; 2nd Lowest at #2 Florida; 2nd highest at #3 Texas; Highest seeded at #4 Alabama
Round # 3 and #4: Would play out the same way as the previous model.
Whichever of the two models you prefer. It sounds like a lot more fun than arguing about what computers and pollsters that rarely watch any of the games think.
It's time for a change. Now, I challenge the Wizard or any of you readers (if there are any of you) to come up with reasons why either of these don't or won't work.
I must be honest, on a scale of one to Gus Johnson...I'd give my idea an Al Michaels.
Read full post...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
