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Sunday, February 25, 2007

Mind, Zapped. Ass, Kicked. Face, Melted

Flip Scoldjah and Excalibrah absolutely dominated the 40 Watt Club Friday night. Simply an incredible performance that every single person there enjoyed and will talk about for a long time.

Dude in the bathroom: Who were those guys? They were awesome!

Ice's dance-off? Amazing - and the crowd ate it up.

Nazgul pizza delivery, Immigrant Song? Pants-crappingly hilarious.

Wangs? Brought down the house. "That song was so fuckin' good!"

Can we get them to play more often? Please? I will not miss another concert with them. Also, Dr. Dog (who was pretty good), how's about playing until 2 if you're going to cut the earlier bands short? Hell, Flip and Brah should've been able to get back up and do 6 more songs after Dr. Dog. And it would've ruled. And everyone in the place would've loved it.

Simply awesome show. And now, I will go shit in a graveyard.

Soakin' in the Jircuzzi

I went with The Wrangler to the Dawgs-Mississippi State game yesterday. A few thoughts...

I like how Miss State are the bizarro bulldogs. Dude in my row was wearing a Fresno State sweatshirt. Odd that the guy was supporting via clothing a team called the bulldogs, but not either of the teams playing. Is Fresno State the bizarro-bizarro bulldogs?
About 4 rows up on the north side (opposite coaches), there's this dude who wears hilarious sweaters and pumps up the crowd constantly. He's hard not to watch. Anyway, anyone else noticed that dude?
Gaines had a rough first half scoring, but his defense is incredibly important to the success of the team.
Lots of people have noticed this - Humphrey created a whole lot by slashing to the basket and dishing. Here's hoping he can do that over the next two.
The Wrangler noted, and it's something I'd fear - if Georgia ran into an obnoxious officiating crew, the Dawgs could be in trouble on the front line.

I think they need two wins the rest of the way to make sure they're in the tournament. Beat UK and UT, I think they're a lock. Win one of them, and I think they need to win their opener in the SEC tourney. Win neither, I think the Dawgs need to get to Saturday at least (and probably need to win that one and make the selection committee save a spot for them regardless). I think they can do it.

Flick the Button

Oscar Night, so I should catch up on the backlog. I saw 4 of the 5 Best Picture nominees.

1. Firewall. Massive waste of time. Twists were seen miles ahead. Big bright flashing strobe plot arrows. Mixed in were literally dozens of obnoxious product placements (including one for Equifax of all things). The movie probably made money before it showed in a single theatre. You're fired.

2. Rashomon. I wasn't as impressed as I think I would've been had I seen it 50 years ago, though it's hard to look at it in that manner. Maybe I was waiting for the movie to blow my mind and it never got there. The "big idea" is supremely creative, and has been copied dozens of times, but I think it probably needed to be, as it almost seems like the organization and themes could've been more fully developed. For the effect on things, it's probably deserving of all the acclaim given, but it wasn't really the thing for me. Maybe I should've given it another chance. As of now, an incomplete You're Fired.

3. Croupier. This was such an odd film. It seemed really dated for a 1998 film. The sets, costumes, and style seemed more early 1990s than late - and there's a real difference. Owen shows all the promise he's fulfilled since. The screenplay was a little indulgent and could've used a few edits, though the final payoff was quite good. Kept my interest, though I wasn't crazy about it either. Just barely below Steak Knives, but still, You're Fired.

4. Oklahoma! Doesn't really fit the parameters of what I do here. It was funny, campy and silly. The Lady's seen it a bunch and she loves it. Now I get her jokes about Tom Cruise's daughter having a fringe on top. Gayer and better than Brokeback Mountain. Steak Knives.

5. Stander. This was a great surprise. If you've never heard of it, it's about a cop in 1980s Johannesburg, South Africa who starts robbing banks. Fast paced, clever, and most of all fun. Tom Jane is likable as hell. I'm not sure I buy the "result of apartheid" bit, but that didn't make the film any less enjoyable. Far more entertaining than any American action film I've seen this year (save The Departed). Sharp Steak Knives.

6. Music and Lyrics. Hugh Grant looks old, even in the videos that are supposed to date from 20 years ago. He was a little funny though. Drew Barrymore is kind of annoying. Everyone else really just looks like they're cashing checks. And this is ironic, since a major theme in the movie is about "not selling out and doing something just because you think that's what the consumer wants" - and that's precisely what everything about this movie was. You're Fired.

7. Flightplan. Kept us awake and the first 45 minutes are pretty good. The second half feels too rushed. They could've let Foster's character marinate a little longer - let her begin to doubt things. It just ends, too. I almost thought the Tivo had jumped ahead 15 minutes. Better made than Firewall and some other similar type thrillers, but it could've been a lot better. Also, The Lady Vanishes is much better. You're Fired.

Now, the Oscar choices... I wrote about Little Miss Sunshine before, which I liked probably second best among the 4 I've seen.

8. The Queen. A great screenplay, and fantastic performances. If it's an accurate portrayal of the royalty or not, it's far more interesting than anything I've read about them in tabloids and such. The Oscars made a massive mistake by failing to nominate Michael Sheen, whose Blair captured all the nervous brilliance of the PM in his early days. Steak Knives.

9. Babel. OK. I liked Amores Perros a lot better. This and 21 Grams are about the same in that they both feel like then needed things a little tighter and they needed fewer Oscar-reel scenes. The Mexico scenes were the most enjoyable. I don't know. Putting the problems of the world on horny kids seems like a waste of time. Or something like that. I just saw this today, so maybe it'll get better in my mind as I think of it. Right now, probably You're Fired, but maybe Steak Knives.

10. The Departed. I'm a sucker for energetic films, big performances, and twisty screenplays. This film isn't perfect (I might have a full post up on what I think are plot problems), but it's easily my favorite of the Oscar-nominated films. I will end up watching this movie probably a few dozen times. Every performance was fantastic. The direction was spectacular. A great film that I hope wins the Oscar. Cadillac.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Some things I like

1. Rob Huebel's myspace blog. "Welcome to the wonderful world of AIDS."

2. Luxury Ducks

3. Jigsawdoku

4. This picture:

5. The lady who dropped her O-ring laughing at the trailer for "Road Hogs" and further herniated herself laughing at all the moments previously seen in commercials during "Music and Lyrics" (don't ask... or do. It was hilarious. The lady, not the movie.)

6. How frequent LeBron James chews on his nails during games.

7. Season 1 of Veronica Mars (though season 2 much less so).

8. The Pac Man Jones strip club story.

9. Pissing The Lady off by watching the end of the Daytona 500 with genuine interest.

10. That baseball is just a month and a week away. I sleep better after a Braves win, and it's been too long since I've slept well.

One other big thing, but that'll take its own post.

OK, just one small taste of douchebaggery

So I was hunting through Michael's archives at Braves and Birds trying to find a comment thread where I was praising Valencia's lineup (lucky, not prescient... anyway, it's here). On my way spelunking around there, I spotted this post on a gem of an article by our favorite SI college football writer, Stewart Mandel.

The crux: 16 teams had a real chance to win the national title, in Mandel's opinion, based upon a number of reasons. One major reason appears to be mediocrity in the previous season:

While the past two seasons have played out largely as predicted, there have been three seasons since 2000 in which a team that finished with five losses the year before rose up to win a national title the following season: 2000, Oklahoma (7-5 the year before); 2002, Ohio State (7-5); and 2003, LSU (8-5). Auburn's undefeated 2004 team also went 8-5 the preceding season. All four teams started the year outside the Top 10. This year the Buckeyes, Texas, Notre Dame and USC sit atop the preseason coaches' poll, but the No. 1 team come January could just as easily be a lower-rated squad such as No. 11 Miami (9-3 in '05), No. 13 Louisville (9-3), No. 15 Michigan (7-5) or No. 17 Iowa (7-5).

That "five losses" bit should stick out like a sore thumb. Here's why. Of the 16 teams Stewart Mandel listed, half of them - EIGHT (!!!) - ended up with at least five losses in 2006. I'm no good at math, but I'd bet someone can put together a study as to what's more likely: bouncing from 5 losses to a national title, or going from 5 losses to mediocrity. Beer is on me if it's the former.

Some other fun facts:

Mandel listed 4 ACC teams with a chance at winning the national title. None won the ACC. OK, nobody on earth picked Wake to win the ACC. But the 4 teams Mandel did choose... each and every one of them lost at least 5 games by the end of the season.
Mandel only listed 2 SEC teams. Not listed is the eventual national champion. Listed is South Carolina, which finished 5th in the SEC East. Neither team listed made the SEC title game and neither played in a BCS bowl.
Mandel picked a random non-BCS-automatic-qualifying conference team, Utah. The Utes lost 5 games and finished 3rd in that non-BCS-automatic-qualifying conference.
6 of the 16 teams had lost a game (putting them in dire position for qualifying for the BCS title game) by Saturday night, September 9.

What was the purpose of this list? I don't know. I don't understand preseason predictions at all. I think they're useless in terms of accuracy. What I do think this column was useful in doing: driving readers angry enough to increase readership and get fulminating emails for mailbags. But when it's August and we're all starving for some football, there'll be some big previews with words arranged in sentences posing as analysis. Ignore it. Seriously. It's pointless.

Reset

Been a while. Lots of reasons and stuff.

In the silence, I've had some odd thoughts about what I want to do with this space. I feel like I've been too negative. I get this feeling a lot. Sometimes I wonder if the feelings of guilt at being mean or negative or picky or exacting or whatever aren't guilt, but rather the internal struggle. Am I fighting the real me, who is a jerk?

Anyway. I want less anger. Less catharsis. More positivity. This won't be easy. Because, y'know, sometimes you can't fight who you are.

So, as a way to start, here's that adorable dog Murphy, that just happens to be my friend and cohabitant:

Yep.

So... how's everyone doing 'round here?

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

If this weren't my son's wedding, I'd punch you in the face, you anti-dentite sonofabitch!

On the right hand of this blog, you'll notice several political blogs, and you'll notice that, like my rod, they lean to the left. But if you look through my archives, you'll note that I rarely write on politics. Mainly because I don't think you all are interested in my thoughts on politics.

But if you are a frequent reader at all, I do, in fact, write frequently about morons who talk about sports in the media.

Which brings me to this.

Hilarious.

I'll be quick with it.

1) The presumption that criticism of Rex Grossman is unwarranted is idiotic.

Grossman sucked in the Super Bowl, and wasn't very good all year long. Grossman was 24th in QB rating this season when you only look at "qualified" (14 attempts per game) players. When you add in other QBs who hadn't had enough attempts, Grossman isn't in the top 50. Only two player threw more interceptions than Grossman this year (Kitna and Roethlisberger). He was 28th in completion percentage. Grossman was seriously poor this year.

The Bears won this year despite Grossman, by no means because of Grossman. The Bears led the NFC in takeaway margin despite finishing in the bottom half of the conference in giveaways. Considering how close the Bears were to a championship (made the Super Bowl, kept the game close for three quarters - until a Grossman INT was returned for a touchdown), it's normal - and completely fair to criticize Grossman and wonder what if a merely mediocre QB had been at the helm.

2) Assuming that criticism of Grossman isn't warranted, the idea that such criticism is driven by race-based animus is utterly ludicrous.

To determine what the motivation for criticism of Grossman is, let's use Occam's Razor. Could it be that he's not very good, and as a result of his poor play the Bears weren't able to win? That seems like a reasonable motivation, so it's clearly not correct.

No, it must be because Grossman's white. The media simply want to promote black quarterbacks. That's why there's been such a coordinated effort to discredit Grossman - to get him replaced with his African-American backups Kyle Orton and Brian Griese. Wait, what's that you say? Both those guys are white too? Weird.

No, it must be because Grossman's white. After all, the media's efforts at promoting Grossman's opposing QB were non-stop, before and after the Super Bowl. The constant media fluffing of Peyton Manning was just a result of the media's pro-black-QB agenda.

It must be because Grossman's white. The media won't let up on him. Compare him to how much positive press David Garrard had this year (we've all seen his Sprint/Mastercard/DirecTV commercials, right). Doesn't it surprise you that Garrard is way below Grossman in rating, completion %, yards per attempt, etc. Oh, wait. Garrard isn't behind Grossman in any of those categories. In fact, there were only 5 black QBs who qualified for stats. Only one was behind Grossman in passing statistics - Vince Young, who was a totally inexperienced rookie. If you asked 1000 Bears fans if they'd trade Grossman for Young straight up, if 5 said no I'd be stunned.

See, the thing is that Grossman was poor this year. And that's why people criticized him. In football, unlike politics, there are objective statistics and outcomes that just about anyone with a brain can understand and make informed judgments about. When you see a player suck, you can call him on it. You can say, this guy sucks because X, Y, Z. In politics, opinion and subjectivity come into play. If you don't like a particular politician, you can say that it's because you disagree with policies, but someone can infer that it's because you don't like his race/religion/haircut/etc.

Grossman is criticized because he sucks in the NFL (so far). The criticism isn't because he's white, any more than because he's the son of a dentist.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

NOT DEAD

Nope, sorry. Just have writers' block and been busy with work, etc. I've had time for comments elsewhere, but haven't felt inspired enough for full posts here.

Promise I'll have something worth reading sometime. More movies and things that make me look less cool. Less football because, y'know, football kind of ends in a couple days.

OK. Something this weekend. OK.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Breaking News!

Bobby Petrino is coming to coach the Falcons. Can't say I saw this coming. Louisville's balanced attack over the last few years has been impressive, but I don't think (hope) that Petrino will come in planning to shoehorn Mike Vick into a particular offense.

Let's hope Blank opens the checkbook for the right D coordinator too.

On that, Petrino's salary looks huge. The only thing that'll stop Blank is the salary cap.

Big catch for the Falcons.

Before this, I was thinking that Blank would hire a retread NFL guy with some experience. Someone like Dick LeBeau or Dom Capers or Jim Fassel. There are two directions coaching hires seem to go, and they tend to alternate. Hire an "experience guy", which is code for retread dude who never got over the top, or hire an assistant/college guy, typically younger, and hope that you catch lightning in a bottle.

The Texans followed Dom Capers (retread) with Gary Kubiak (assistant). The Redskins went from Marty Schottenheimer (retread) to Spurrier (college) to Joe Gibbs (not a retread, but an experience guy). The Cowboys followed Dave Campo (longtime assistant) with Bill Parcells (experience guy). The 49ers followed Dennis Erickson (retread) with Mike Nolan (assistant). Likewise, the Seahawks followed Dennis Erickson (at the time, college guy), with Mike Holmgren (experience guy). The Giants followed Jim Fassel (when hired, a longtime assistant) with Tom Coughlin (retread). The Lions went from Marty Mornhinweg (assistant) to Steve Mariucci (experience) to Rod Marinelli (assistant). The Panthers went from Dom Capers (then, his first head coaching job) to George Seifert (experience) to John Fox (assistant). The Cardinals went from Dave McGinnis (assistant) to Dennis Green (retread). The Chargers went from Mike Riley (college) to Marty Schottenheimer (retread).

See the pattern?

And the Falcons have fit the pattern for a long time, too. Jerry Glanville (experience) to June Jones (assistant) to Dan Reeves (experience) to Jim Mora (assistant). I really thought the pattern would continue, and we'd hire a retread and there'd be plenty of spin about bringing experience to the organization, more discipline and a more businesslike approach. And the fans would be bored as hell.

I like the hire right now.

But I know one guy who is definitely happier than I am: Rich Rodriguez. His biggest rival is gone, and Schiano will probably leave in a year or two. West Virginia might be looking at a minimum 7 BCS berths in the next decade. Syracuse will eventually be back. Cincinnati just hired a good coach. UConn? South Florida has the best talent pool, but is fighting with others. Louisville has fantastic facilities and a good track record of hiring coaches on the way up. But WVU has the best coach in the Big East right now, and he's pretty well locked in for a long time.

Big Game Hunting

So with the hiring of Nick Saban last week by Alabama and the way Alabama folks (and others) have been talking about "experienced coaches", I started thinking about whether particular coaches are "sure things" while others aren't. Is it reasonable for Alabama to (probably) overpay for Nick Saban if he's a "sure thing", when spending market rate for someone who isn't a "sure thing" could be more expensive in the long run?

But what is a sure thing? Is it someone with several years' experience as a head coach? I'd say no, because someone could have experience over time, but never elevate to greatness. A coach could do just enough to get by over time, and that wouldn't make him a "sure thing". Is a sure thing someone who has a great overall record for an extended period of time? Maybe, but in college football an overall record could be misleading - there are too many teams, and too many bad teams that a guy could potentially win nearly 70% of his games, but lose against almost every good team he played (a guy at Georgia in the late 1990s, perhaps?). Is that a sure thing?

So I started thinking about how particular coaches performed in "big games". Perhaps that's a better gauge of the talent of a coach. How his teams performed against top talent.

First, a few disclaimers before I get to the data.

For this study, I looked at a bunch of the coaches I thought were closest to "sure things" in college football today. I looked at guys with multiple years of experience, with big programs. Some guys who have recently become unemployed but still have experience. If I missed someone you think should be on the list, tell me in comments. Or feel free to run the data yourself...
Big Games - this is very difficult to define. Rivalry games are "big games". Conference games are "big games". I recognize that my definition is purely arbitrary and is cleary incomplete.
I used games against ranked opponents at the moment the game was played. Now, first off, I recognize that rankings are fluid during a season. A team that is ranked in the opening week might end up with a terrible record. Rankings during a particular week may not be a good indicator of how good that opponent is in the abstract. That said, rankings in a particular week is a good indicator as to whether the game is "big" - the perception of the opponent is good, the event is bigger. For example, in 1998, Georgia played at LSU early in the season. LSU at the time was undefeated and ranked in the top 5 or 6. Georgia won the game, and LSU fell apart, pretty much not winning another game and ending up with a losing record. That LSU team was not great, but the game against Georgia (I was there) was a huge game.
Another qualifier that has to be said is that not all ranked teams are the same. It's one thing if you're playing against the #1 team in the country. It's another entirely if you're playing the #25 ranked team. My numbers below are highly simplified, but I just didn't have the time to do more extended mining.
Finally, the numbers don't take into account how good the coach's team was or whether the wins and losses were against teams that were particularly better. For example, Jim Tressel and Pete Carroll have some of the best "big game" records. That may be because they're great in-game coaches. It also might be that they were coaching great teams against teams that, while still ranked, were ranked lower. So when looking at these numbers, take into account the teams these coaches coached. A losing record for someone like Ralph Friedgen at Maryland might not be as bad as the record suggests.
Some of the coaches have very small samples of games against ranked opponents. Take those numbers with a grain of salt.
Basically, these numbers don't really mean all that much. They're arbitrary, and small samples in some cases.

Here's how the current numbers look, ranked by winning percentage. The numbers are based upon the last 6 years, but some coaches haven't coached that long. The records are games against ranked opponents. The numbers are as of today (Tressel and Meyer naturally will add a win and a loss tomorrow). For ties, I ranked the guy with more games first.

1. Pete Carroll (USC) 20-6; .769
2. Jim Tressel (OSU) 20-7; .741
3. Mack Brown (Texas) 18-7; .720
4. Larry Coker (Miami) 21-10; .677
5. Urban Meyer (Florida, Utah) 6-3; .667 (2003-2006)
6. Bob Stoops (Oklahoma) 15-9; .625
7. Tommy Tuberville (Auburn) 14-10; .583
8. Gary Patterson (TCU) 4-3; .571
9. Steve Spurrier (Florida, USC) 9-7; .563 (2001, 2005-2006)
10. Nick Saban (LSU) 13-11; .542 (2000-2004)
11. Mark Richt (Georgia) 15-13; .536
12. Lloyd Carr (Michigan) 14-13; .519
13. Frank Beamer (Va. Tech) 11-11; .500
14. Bobby Bowden (FSU) 12-14; .462
15T. Kirk Ferentz (Iowa) 10-12; .455
15T. Barry Alvarez (Wisconsin) 10-12; .455 (2001-2005)
17T. Bobby Petrino (Louisville) 4-5; .444 (2003-2006)
17T. Charlie Weis (Notre Dame) 4-5; .444 (2005-2006)
19. Phillip Fulmer (Tennessee) 11-15; .423
20. Les Miles (LSU, Okla. St.) 10-15; .400
21. Tommy Bowden (Clemson) 8-12; .400
22. Mike Bellotti (Oregon) 9-14; .391
23. John L. Smith (Louisville, Michigan State) 7-11; .389
24T. Tom O'Brien (BC) 7-12; .368
24T. Chuck Amato (NC State) 7-12; .368
26. Pat Hill (Fresno St.) 5-9; .357
27. Tyrone Willingham (Stanford, Notre Dame, Washington) 9-18; .333
28. Ralph Friedgen (Maryland) 8-16; .333
29. Rich Rodriguez (WVU) 6-12; .333
30. Mike Price (Washington St., UTEP) 3-6; .333 (2001-2002, 2004-2006)
31. Jeff Tedford (Cal) 5-11; .313 (2002-2006)
32. Dennis Franchione (Alabama, Texas A&M) 8-18; .308
33. Houston Nutt (Arkansas) 8-20; .286
34. Mike Riley (Oregon State) 4-10; .286 (2003-2006)
35. Al Groh (Virginia) 7-18; .280
36. Gary Barnett (Colorado) 6-18; .250 (2001-2005)
37. Frank Solich (Ohio, Nebraska) 3-9; .250 (2001-2003, 2005-2006)
38. Bill Callahan (Nebraska) 2-6; .250 (2004-2006)
39T. Mike Leach (Texas Tech) 6-19; .240
39T. Joe Paterno (Penn State) 6-19; .240
41T. June Jones (Hawaii) 2-8; .200
41T. Jim Leavitt (South Florida) 2-8; .200 (can't find 2001)
43T. Jeff Bower (Southern Miss) 1-4; .200
43T. Steve Kragthorpe (Tulsa) 1-4; .200 (2003-2006)
45. Ron Zook (Florida, Illinois) 5-21; .192 (2002-2006)
46. Dan Hawkins (Colorado, Boise State) 2-10; .167
47. George O'Leary (UCF, Georgia Tech) 1-6; .143 (2001, 2004-2006)
48. Sonny Lubick (Colorado State) 1-8; .111
49. Glen Mason (Minnesota) 2-17; .105
50. Jim Grobe (Wake Forest) 2-18; .100
51. Greg Schiano (Rutgers) 1-13; .071
52. Gary Pinkel (Missouri) 1-14; .067
53. Dirk Koetter (Arizona St.) 1-18; .053
54. Paul Johnson (Navy) 0-7; .000 (2002-2006)

ANALYSIS

Like I said before, this list shouldn't be read into too deeply. The sample sizes are small, and much of these records are tautological in that good teams provide good records to coaches, and good coaches lead to good teams. It's hard to tell what's the chicken and what's the egg. But there are some interesting things to get from this list.

The guy with the most wins against ranked opponents since 2001 doesn't have a job right now: Larry Coker. I have to say I'm a bit surprised that his name didn't come up for any of the job openings this year. Maybe he didn't want another job. In any event, Coker should be in line for another job somewhere next year.
Chuck Amato and the guy who replaced him, Tom O'Brien, have identical records against ranked opponents since 2001.
Another thing about Chuck Amato (and something that shows how these numbers don't tell us all that much) - this past year he had a pretty good year against ranked opponents, going 2-1. He went 1-8 against the rest of his schedule.
The Notre Dame question? In his first two years, Charlie Weis has gone 4-5 against ranked opponents while getting crowned a coaching genius. Tyrone Willingham was 5-6 against ranked opponents in his first two years at Notre Dame (a better winning percentage). Take note, too, that under Weis, none of the teams Notre Dame beat while ranked finished the season ranked (none last year, Penn State was the only win this year and they are not currently ranked, though they may end up in the polls).
Looking at these numbers, I find it odd that no larger school has backed up a money truck to try to get Gary Patterson away from TCU.
There is sort of a pattern for coaches that have been fired recently - the inability to beat ranked opponents seems to be a large factor. Look at Dirk Koetter. 1 win over a ranked opponent in 6 years isn't going to cut it. Gary Barnett hadn't beaten a ranked opponent in his last three years at Colorado (and surprisingly, Dan Hawkins' record isn't much better). Glen Mason rode Laurence Maroney to two wins over ranked opponents, but that's it since 2000. During Ron Zook's tenure at Florida he lost at least 4 games against ranked opponents in every year, and never beat more than 2 in a year (Urban Meyer's bested that in both of his seasons). If these numbers mean much, I think Gary Pinkel should watch out (1 win in 6 years).
Nebraska fired Frank Solich and replaced him with Bill Callahan. They have the same winning percentage against ranked opponents (though Solich had a better record against them while at Nebraska).
It might seem a little odd that John L. Smith is out of a job when guys listed way below him were in line for promotions or better jobs this season. Slappy is kind of a mystery. His numbers against ranked opponents aren't too bad. But his numbers against unranked opponents aren't much better. Against unranked opponents over the same timeframe, Smith is only 33-23. 23 losses against unranked foes (about 4 a year) won't let you keep your job at a school that thinks they can compete with the best.
Some numbers are pretty skewed by coaching moves. Les Miles' numbers are much better at LSU than at OK State. Spurrier was naturally better at Florida than at South Carolina. Mike Price was better at Washington State than UTEP. Zook's numbers took a huge nosedive after heading to Illinois (and they weren't all that great to begin with). Willingham's numbers have tumbled because of the last two years at UW (0-9). Interestingly, Dennis Franchione has been better at A&M than he was at Alabama (I was surprised by that because it's kind of conventional wisdom that he's sucked in College Station). Half of Dan Hawkins' losses came this year at Colorado.

OK, those are trivia-level facts. What about the initial premise as to "sure thing" coaches? As I look at the list, I think there's probably a small list of coaches that fit the category of a "sure thing". Surely guys who win 70% of the games against top opponents have to be considered sure things, though an argument can be made that for Carroll, Tressel and Brown, who knows how they'd fare if they were coaching significantly less talented teams (and the response is that these guys recruit the players, so who's to say those teams would be significantly less talented...). In fact, I'd go a step further. Considering the small sample sizes and the inability to differentiate between games against higher-ranked opponents and games against lower-ranked opponents, I think a coach that's reasonably close to .500 against ranked opponents is good enough to be considered a sure thing. I think most college football fans want to go into every game against a top team with at least a 50-50 chance of winning - and the top 20 or so are the coaches that give their teams that chance.

So if the question posed is whether it was worth it for Alabama to spend $32M to sign Nick Saban, and he's one of those guys who gives you a 50-50 chance or better to win every game against top opponents, I think the answer is yes. There are very few of those kind of coaches out there. If you have one or have the chance to get one, it's probably cost effective to overpay, rather than spend nearly as much (market rate) for uncertainty or worse.

Consider: some of the top coaching candidates at various schools this year are towards the bottom of that list. Guys like Mike Leach, Greg Schiano, Steve Kragthorpe, Jim Leavitt, Jim Grobe and Paul Johnson. Their positions on this list are lower mainly because of the difficulty in winning at those locations, but also consider that the fact that they are "hot" candidates largely because of their winning records - which must be inflated by wins against unranked opponents. Each of these guys might be able to win consistently against top opponents at a school where it is easier to bring in top talent, but they're clearly not sure things - there's some level of uncertainty in hiring any of them. I think spending $4M a year for a 99% chance of getting a great coach (Nick Saban) is probably a smarter decision for Alabama than spending $2.5M+ for a guy who might only be a 60-75% chance of being a great coach (with a decent sized risk that in a few years you'll have to spend money to fire and rehire another coach - and yes, there's that risk with Saban too).

Flick the Button

Massive backlog. I need to do this more often, because I start to forget seeing movies, let alone remembering what I think about them.

1. The Dukes of Hazzard: I hit on this in a post on football already. Better than I expected, and not bad either. Embraces Southern individualism that was the heart of the show, and also kind of does a good job at pointing out that folks down here are pretty sharp and witty. Fun soundtrack, and even the actors (I expected miscast) were alright. Enjoyable with a few great moments. Steak Knives.

2. The Island: As you'll see, there are a host of big budget action films I saw this time around. The term "OK" fits this one just right. The concept is a little interesting, and the actors are definitely game (especially Johansson). Michael Bay has a style I typically hate, but here he seemed a little toned down, and the movie was better for it. Plenty of worse ways to spend a couple hours (like with most of Bay's other movies). Dull steak knives.

3. American Dreamz: Pretty boring. Conceptually, I'm not sure how this movie got made. It's not very funny. The biggest flaw is that it's hard to watch a big-screen, large budget version of American Idol that just looks infinitely more cheaply made. The set looked like they filmed it on some high school theatre stage. And there really weren't any revelations or interesting twists that wouldn't have come up in a five minute brainstorm. This seemed just slacker. You're Fired.

4. Thank You For Smoking: OK, but felt like it pulled too many punches. Very watchable, and exceptionally well casted. Paced very well. But also not quite black enough. I wanted something either more outrageous or angrier. But that's not the director's goal, I guess. I'm not sure whether it's a good thing or not, but I do think this is the first movie I've seen Maria Bello in where her clothes have remained on. Weird. Edge of fired and knives... I'll go Steak knives.

5. Cape Fear: Original version. Kind of a disappointment. Mitchum isn't quite as menacing as I was expecting. Peck is great, though. Here's what confuses me: it's set for the most part in Savannah, Peck has to fly to Atlanta for a hearing with the state bar or something, but he rents a car and hauls ass to Cape Fear and says "I'll be there in a couple of hours". Cape Fear is in North Carolina, and is pretty damn far from Atlanta. Like at least 7 hours by car now, and when this was made, I'm not sure how great the interstate road system was in the South. Did the writers have no idea about the Southeast? The last 45 minutes or so, I dwelt on that. Unfortunately I thought it kind of dated too. Some serious plot holes too, I'd argue. No way that the transient girl Mitchum pounds on wouldn't press charges. You're Fired.

6. Brokeback Mountain: Boring, Boring, Boring. About an hour too long. Nothing happens for the first 45 minutes, and the second hour is extremely repetitive. Infidelity as love story doesn't work all that well, regardless of the orientation. Even the arguments of the beautiful scenery don't fly with me - dozens of westerns are shot as well or better. The only redeeming qualities of this movie were the costumes and hair styles of Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams. Especially Hathaway. You're Fired.

7. The Constant Gardener: Pretty good. I rather liked the lack of plot arrows, and trying to figure out what I was supposed to be paying attention to. Meirelles is an exceptionally talented director (City of God is one of my favorite movies of the decade), and while this isn't his best, it's still very good. The picture of Africa in this movie will probably be emulated by dozens of films in coming years - realistic, diverse, gorgeous and hideous. Thinking back on this, I realize how much I actually liked it. There were some simplifications and lecturing in the plot, but I kind of expected more. Might be the best non-comedy I saw in this group, and I kind of want to watch it again. Let's go Cadillac.

8. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan: For all my expectations and the previews I'd seen, it still blew my mind in dozens of ways. I'd argue that no character this year, and probably no film made this year is as indelible as this one, and none has become a part of cinema vernacular like this. Sacha Baron Cohen has done something amazing here. But you already knew that. All I can add is that it delivers on its promises. Cadillac.

9. Broken Flowers: Pretty forgettable. We've seen Bill Murray do this bit before and better. I think I've seen the Jeffrey Wright character before too (Portman's adoptive brother in Garden State?). Felt like a movie that confuses silence with depth, and forgets to be interesting in the process. A shrug of a movie. You're Fired.

10. Ravenous: Easily the strangest movie in this collection. This is a movie that has no idea what it is, and I as the viewer was left as confused. Kind of horror movie, kind of comedy, kind of period drama, kind of pretty-scenery-and-electronic-music movie. The actors seemed to have little guidance as to how ridiculous to perform. Carlyle goes over the top, Pearce goes restrained, and most of the other characters just go bad. Thoroughly odd. Had it chosen a particular path to go down, it might've been OK. You're Fired.

11. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby: Successful. I laughed hard frequently. Reilly is great. What I liked about it is that it didn't so much mock Southern NASCAR culture as much as it mocked sprawling suburban culture and a culture of "winners and losers" divisiveness (similar theme to Little Miss Sunshine, below). There are hints that Ferrell can go on cruise control, and the movie could've gone more ridiculous (it probably would've been better as an R-rated movie, as most comedies). But still, it's an ownable movie and one that'll get put in the player or left on when it's on cable. Edge of Steak Knives and Cadillac. I'll go Cadillac because I know I'll watch it dozens more times and find funnier things each time.

12. Aleksandr Nevskiy: Eisenstein's anti-German film released at the onset of World War II. The depiction of the Teutonic knights is shocking - swastikas appear on the high priest's garb, the depictions of child-murder are interspersed with prayers. But also there's anti-semitism and the suggestion of capitalist treason (the characterization of the Novgorod merchants). Like other Eisenstein films, it seems like every frame is an amazing photograph. The point of the film is hard to find common ground with, but incredibly powerful filmmaking. Time capsule is really the best way to describe it - it places the viewer in a position where he or she must pay attention to the propaganda. Prokofiev's score haunts. A film I'm unsure I want to recommend to others, but also inarguably great. Cadillac.

13. Stay: Not as messed up as it thinks it is. The camera tricks seem like more of a crutch and ingenuity. MacGregor's pants are too short - that annoyed me. I also don't appreciate being told that I shouldn't have made the effort to pay attention. You're Fired.

14. Primer: I've said before how much I like fast paced movies, and I liked this a lot. Yes, I didn't understand it very much, and I've been asking all of my friends if they've even heard of it just so I could have someone to talk about it with. Yes, the exposition is poor. But I kind of liked that - I felt like I was tiptoeing along the unknown, just like the characters. I honestly loved the twist that technology leads up to screwing up/fixing the mundane rather than the big questions of existence. Is this sci-fi dogme? Is it even possible? Cadillac.

15. Everything is Illuminated: A book like this shouldn't have been made into a movie, because too much of the enjoyment has to get removed. The depiction of post-Soviet Ukraine is nice - realistic, not romantic, but also not as backward. Eugene Hutz makes everyone else look bad. But it's not as fun as the book. Had I never read the book, I might've liked it a lot more, but it just seemed watered down and too-directly told. You're Fired.

16. Mission: Impossible III: Watchable, but with huge problems: (a) I was totally rooting for Hoffman to kill Cruise throughout the second hour; (b) the internal traitor angle almost directly mirrored the plot of the first installment of the series; (c) Ving Rhames was totally underused (as well as the other members of the crew). But still, there were moments where I was on the edge of my seat - Abrams does a great job on Lost and here of making the viewer feel the tension well. Not a great movie, but I never once thought about turning it off or opening the computer to pay less attention. Steak Knives.

17. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest: Just because a film is the middle part of a trilogy doesn't mean it can't resolve anything. And it doesn't mean it has to suck ass. Unfortunately, this resolves nothing and sucks. All the fun of the first one disappears, and we're left with a plot that just keeps circling itself, a script that prides itself on using a thesaurus - but with characters using accents that makes the dialogue virtually impossible to understand, and no geographic understanding. They're supposed to be in the Caribbean, right? So how do they end up in the South Pacific and then in the Louisiana Bayou without any traveling to each place? The ending is as unsatisfying as any film in recent memory. Second parts are supposed to make you excited for the completion - this gave me no reason to want to see the third one. The worst of the movies I saw over this stretch, easily. You're Fired.

18. Little Miss Sunshine: I loved the themes, and the actors were fantastic. More Alan Arkin is a good thing. Greg Kinnear surprised me a lot. I ask why this family was together in the first place, but that didn't bother me too much. Plot devices were a little forced, but that's forgivable too. Several laugh-out-loud lines and scenes, a great soundtrack, and a satisfying ending. A very nice film, and one I'll think about with a smile. Generously, a Cadillac.

I resolve this year to do this more frequently.

A little follow up on blogbashing

Sorry to get meta for a second, but this has been on my mind for a bit.

During the second half of the Rose Bowl last Monday, Brent Musberger started going off on a rant about how the "blogs" would be all over Lloyd Carr for the relatively weak performance of the Wolverines against the Trojans. Bob Davie responded that Carr should be more interested in preparing his team for next year than what people are writing on the internet (reasonable), but Musberger kept pushing the evil of the blogs, and Herbstreit something about how there are always going to be detractors and such.

It is too often that mainstream media voices use their platform to degrade blogs, without any nuance or clear understanding of what "blogs" are. It comes off as insecure.

So here's a short primer on new media, for anyone is the old media who wants to gain a better understanding of "blogs":

"Blog" is not a collective term for everything on the internet. For that, you should use a term like "website" or "on the internet". A "blog" is a specific type of site - a "web log" where thoughts, impressions, factual assertions, and other opinions are posted in a chronological order. A "blog" is akin to a diary.
Many blogs have a function that allows readers to provide instant feedback, in the form of comments. Believe it or not, when a reader posts a comment to a blog, it does not immediately become the voice of the writer of the blog. Often readers post comments directly opposing the point of view of the writer of the blog. When a commenter posts something outrageous, such as a more caustic or irrational thought, that comment is the reader's, not the writer of the blog's. If I write a post saying "Coach X used bad clock-management on the last drive", and some commenter responds by saying "Coach X should be fired immediately, drawn and quartered and raped in front of his kids", that is not a function of the "blog" but rather a function of the way anyone can freely comment upon a blog, even morons.
To follow up on that last point, some have claimed that there is no accountability in the world of the "blogs". This is patently untrue. There is arguably more accountability in blogs than there is in real media. The reason is that blogs have no built in audience, such as corporate-owned, billion dollar companies that can broadcast events. If a blog wants to have readers, it must have credibility, and in order to get credibility, it must remain intellectually honest, present things in a factual manner, and continually make interesting and salient points. If a blog's only point is to say "Lloyd Carr sux, should be fired!!!!1!1!1", nobody will want to read it for very long. And at that point, there is no point. If a blog can't be relied to to provide interesting information, people will stop reading it, and at that point it has no influence whatsoever. On the other hand, a talking head on ESPN can make elementary errors, be wrong about countless predictions, dumb any analysis down to second grade level, and nothing will happen - because people are watching regardless. Additionally, commenters on blogs are subject to the same kind of accountability - if they continually make no sense, nobody's going to pay attention.
Some complain about anonymity on blogs. Bill Simmons wrote about how terrible it is that someone can anonymously slander people on blogs. I post anonymously, sort of. I'm sure some, if not most of the readers here know something about me. But just because I'm anonymous doesn't give me any right to slander someone. If I do publish false and malicious statements about individuals, readers won't trust me enough to read me. If a slandering tree falls in the forest and nobody's there to read about it, what is the difference? That's the great thing about the internet - it's a true meritocracy. If you continue to publish false statements, nobody will read you. That's true whether you're anonymous or not. Unfortunately, it's not true in the paid-media world. You can be wrong about countless things and continue to get a platform to spout inaccuracies.
Here's something else people need to understand: NOT ALL BLOGS SERVE THE SAME PURPOSE. Some blogs track an individual's lovelife. Others follow politics. Not all college football blogs are the same. Some cover a particular team. Others follow the sport generally. Some focus on individuals. Some have a focus on particular conferences. I try to follow the media. Some blogs are clear on intent, and you can read it in the name of the blog, while others you have to read a few posts to figure out what they're writing about. The point is that every blog is kind of different, just like the people who write them are all different. So by saying "the blogs are going to be all over this", you make no sense. Some blogs might take a particular point of view, but there's never a complete consensus on any point.
Here's a point that I think some bloggers might take issue with: Members of the media need not feel insecure about the growth of blogs and internet media. Seriously. I'm sure there are some bloggers who write online with hopes of turning that into a mainstream media job, and I also know that there are tons of online writers whose voices would be an important and excellent addition to a mainstream media outlet. But blogs are never going to eradicate old media. Never. TV pundits are still going to exist, newspaper columnists will still have their inches. Pavement-pounding journalists will always get stories because of their access. In fact, I (and I'd argue that most bloggers) want those people to keep doing their jobs. The only thing old media voices need to worry about is this: Bloggers will continue to pressure them TO DO A GOOD JOB. I don't want Stewart Mandel's job. I want him to do his better. I don't want Kirk Herbstreit to be off the air entirely, I want him to take his job seriously and provide better analysis and insight - and to be held accountable when he's wrong. We don't want your jobs, we want YOU to do them better. This is an absolutely fundamental thing about blogs that mainstream media members have to get if they ever want to understand what the point is.
There are things on the internet that aren't blogs, and it may be incumbent upon you to understand them some in order to not sound like a total idiot. There are things called message boards. These allow fans to write and post opinions in a forum more akin to a conversation than a blog. Think of a blog as a mini-newspaper column with instant feedback. Think of a message board as a group of people hanging out around the water cooler. Sometimes comments pages on blogs turn into ad hoc message boards at more-highly-trafficked blogs. One shouldn't paint with a broad brush though. Many message board posts are extremely well thought out and well-written. Some are not. Some message board communities have a very high-level discourse. Others may not. They're not all the same, just like the people who post on message boards. But message boards are also fundamentally different from blogs - in that they are usually faster moving, but susceptible to inaccuracies due to the speed. It's like how a 24-hour newschannel is more likely to roll with a story that might lead the wrong way than a newspaper that has all day to let the story play out before rolling to print. There are also other things, such as podcasts, youtube posts, and plenty of other technological advancements that may be incorporated into blogs, but aren't necessarily "blogs". You might want to look into these things and understand how they all aren't the same.

Much of this lesson may be already known. But the same stuff keeps coming up in mainstream media outlets. The main thing is that folks don't need to make overarching pronouncements about "blogs" that fundamentally don't understand the medium.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Some assorted football thoughts

1. I'm not doing a recap because I didn't record it, but Gameday on New Years' was pretty damn bad. Tremendous cross-promotion for the Rose Bowl (which followed almost a month of promos). It was almost as if the other games didn't happen. Plus, several minutes were spent allowing Kirk Herbstreit to order AP voters to vote for Michigan if Florida were to do what Michigan couldn't. I'm on the record - under no circumstances should media personalities have any influence on crowning a champion. And to top it all off, the Fiesta Bowl, the best game of the day (season), was barely mentioned.

2. The supposed controversy over Nick Saban saying one thing while at a job and then another after he'd taken a different job seems to me to be media driven. Coaches leave jobs, and Nick Saban (as much as Dennis Erickson) especially has lots of experience leaving jobs. It's not surprising, and nothing worth getting all this upset about. The reason people are talking about it? Because Saban semi-berated journalists who were asking impertinent (to him) questions. One writer asks Saban a few weeks ago (while he still has games to coach for Miami) about Alabama, and he denies it. Ten, twenty, thirty more writers ask the same question, and Saban snaps at them. And then he turns about face, and the journalists he snapped at call him a liar. Add those journalists' friends in the print, radio and television media get the word out. Doug Gottlieb on ESPN Radio said as much yesterday in the midst of a 5 minute rant on Saban's lack of integrity. Saban can change his mind, protect his interests, and leave for what he considers a better job. Journalists can ask questions, write stories, and even become annoying to those from whom they seek information. And journalists are free, as much as anyone else, to harbor grudges against those who disrespect them. But journalists also should mind the fact that their platform gives them certain privileges and expectations. If too many journalists use that platform to promote angles based on personal grudges, they might cause more of the consumers to turn elsewhere for something balanced. And sure, there's a meta discussion here. Blogs and message boards offer equal opportunities for personal biases to come into play. And that's surely one reason why I like transparency.

3. I blame ESPN's overhyping of the Rose Bowl and the absolutely terrible announcing crew of Musberger, Davie and Herbstreit (which truly got worse over the course of the year - I kept waiting for Herbstreit to explode with a "why must I be surrounded by frickin' idiots!") for me missing the Fiesta Bowl. After about 136 hours straight of football, topped off with a snoozefest of a game and a crew of announcers that stoop to mock those bloggers who SHOCK! want them to do a fucking better job than the unprepared, cliched shitshoveling that they do... well, I'd 'bout had enough with football. And the best damn game of the season drops in. The highlights were pretty great. I feel like an idiot.

4. I agree with Orson and Peter on the Sugar Bowl coverage. I'm about stunned that I'm writing this, but I actually didn't mind FOX's coverage of the Cotton, Orange and Sugar Bowls. For the Cotton and Orange, I got the sense that the announcers weren't talking all that much. They actually let crowd noise in. They let you hear the game instead of inanity. It was kind of weird, really. And really weird considering FOX's NFL coverage. The Sugar Bowl was a gab-fest, but the announcers were kind of entertaining. This all may just be due to the fact that I haven't gotten sick of the FOX announcing crews from all year long, like I have with every other announcer crew.

5. The Chick-Fil-A Bowl was a microcosm for my experience as a Georgia football fan. Frustration and joy. That is all.

6. I am not looking forward to playing Kentucky next year. And I've got a weird feeling that Ole Miss is going to make a leap up next year too. Georgia's schedule is not going to be easy next year.

7. One other thing about Boise State... There's been some discussion around the blogs about how Boise State should have some consideration for a title. Nobody beat them, so I say raise a banner. Boise State will finish no lower than second in the Lebowski rankings. I swear that system works. I swear!

8. I actually watched the last quarter and overtime of the Insight Bowl. Thank the Lord Glen Mason didn't take the Georgia job in 1995. Terrible coaching down the stretch.

Middle Schoolers Have No Frame of Reference

Upon request by occasional commenter The Dagger, it is my duty to comment upon the fact that Notre Dame hasn't won a bowl game in forever, though huge payout bowls keep beckoning, like a mistreated spouse.

How to put in perspective the nine game, 13 year stretch of losses for the Irish? I was thinking about listing any number of historical milestones that have come and passed since January 1, 1994. Rather focus things to football.

Since 1994...

87 different teams have won at least one bowl game. (and there's a chance for two more if Western Michigan and Ohio win their bowls this weekend)
30 teams have won at least FIVE bowl games.
6 teams have won SIX bowl games (Auburn, Michigan, Ohio State, Tennessee, USC, and... Colorado).
4 teams have won SEVEN bowl games (FSU, Penn State, Texas, and... Utah)
6 teams have won EIGHT bowl games (Boston College, Georgia, LSU, Miami, Nebraska and Wisconsin)
28 teams from non-BCS-automatic-qualifying conferences have won a bowl game. (and two more potentially this weekend)

Consider, too, that there are FOURTEEN more bowls today than there were in 1994. More opportunities to make a bowl than there used to be. And about the bowls, look at how things have changed:

The following bowls have become defunct at some point since ND last won a bowl game:

Freedom Bowl (in Anaheim)
Carquest Bowl, later the MicronPC Bowl (Miami)
Seattle Bowl
Silicon Valley Classic (San Jose)

The following bowls have changed their names since ND last won a bowl game:

Copper Bowl (now Insight)
Hall of Fame Bowl (now Outback)
GalleryFurniture.com Bowl (now Texas)
Florida Citrus Bowl (now Capital One)
Peach Bowl (now Chick-Fil-A)
The Aloha Classic and the Oahu Bowl have sort of merged to form the Hawaii Bowl

In 1994, Connecticut, Idaho and Troy were Division 1-AA teams. Each has won a bowl.
In 1994, South Florida did not have a football team at all. The Bulls have won a bowl.
In 1994, Boise State and Marshall were both in Division 1-AA. Both have won FIVE BOWLS!!!

The reason for ND's poor bowl performances that makes the most sense is that the Irish are favored by bowls and TV networks, and that means that ND typically has ended up in better bowls than they probably deserved, against opponents that have more likely "earned" their spot in the bowl from performance. I think that's a reasonable position, though I think it's probably impossible to prove empirically terms like "deserve" or"earn".

Are there other reasons for ND's inadequacies in bowls? How about coaching continuity?

Notre Dame has had 4 different full-time coaches since 1994. Add an interim coach for one bowl game (end of Bob Davie's term) and the George O'Leary debacle, and one could argue that ND has had 6 coaches since 1994. In 1994, Lou Holtz was coaching the Irish.

[[Aside: Lou Holtz isn't the only odd name you see among coaches when you look at college football in 1993-4. Here are some others: Bill Curry (Kentucky), Curley Hallman (LSU), Gary Gibbs (Oklahoma), Bill Walsh (Stanford), Dennis Erickson (Miami), Howard Schnellenberger (Louisville), Billy Brewer (Ole Miss), Gary Moeller (Michigan), and freaking George Perles at Michigan State!]]

Back to the Irish... 4 different fulltime coaches is clearly a disadvantage. But the Irish aren't the only team to suffer such a fortune. 15 other programs have had at least 4 fulltime coaches and still won a bowl game:

Alabama: 4 coaches (plus Mike Price and Nick Saban), 4 bowl wins
California: 4 coaches, 3 bowl wins
Colorado: 4 coaches (plus an interim coach), 6 bowl wins
Kentucky: 4 coaches, 1 bowl win
LSU: 4 coaches, 8 bowl wins
Louisville: 4 coaches, 3 bowl wins
Michigan State: 4 coaches (plus an interim coach and Dantonio), 2 bowl wins
Mississippi: 5 coaches, 5 bowl wins
Oklahoma: 4 coaches, 4 bowl wins
Oklahoma State: 4 coaches, 2 bowl wins
San Jose State: 4 coaches, 1 bowl win
Stanford: 4 coaches, 1 bowl win
Washington: 4 coaches, 2 bowl wins
Wyoming: 4 coaches, 1 bowl win

And then there's Boise State. Since 1994, when the Broncos were a Division 1-AA team, Boise State has had SIX different coaches that were there for at least a year. They've still won five bowls.

So what about the teams that are in Notre Dame's position, as in having no bowl wins since 1994?

Including ND, (and excluding WMU and Ohio, since they might win over the next few days), there are 30 teams that haven't won a bowl game since 1994.

13 teams haven't been to a bowl since 1994 (Baylor, Buffalo, Eastern Michigan, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Indiana, Kent State, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, New Mexico State, SMU, Temple, Vanderbilt)
12 teams have only been to one bowl since 1994, which they lost (Akron, UAB, Arkansas State, Army, Ball State, UCF, Duke, Louisiana Tech, Middle Tennessee State, Rice, San Diego State, Utah State)

Notre Dame is 0 for 9. Here are the other teams that have been to multiple bowl games but haven't won one:

Northwestern (0 for 5)
New Mexico (0 for 5)
Houston (0 for 4)
UTEP (0 for 3)

There's the comparable group. Man.

I feel sad for Irish fans.

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Gameday Recap

Week Fourteen
Bristol, Connecticut - ESPN Campus
December 2, 2006

Finishing the job, though it's late. I'm expecting a lot of season-long highlights. So much has happened in college football since this show that it'll probably not be very useful. But on the plus side, no Game Face or fake field walkthroughs.

I caught the end of the morning SportsCenter and some discourse with Holtz & May... naturally, May was hilariously wrong about the USC-UCLA game. Holtz ends up right but makes no sense in his reasoning. A perfect fractal of both their careers.
Whoops, I'm wrong about the fake field already. The opener is on an inside fake field. Seems very rehearsed.
2 years since they'd been in the studio.
Three conference championships today with teams that are back in the title game for the first time in a while. Plus, there's the UCLA-USC game and Army-Navy.
Corso says Army-Navy is his favorite.
Corso: Rutgers and Wake Forest in the BCS bicture, Boise State in the BCS, FSU in the Emerald Bowl - clearly the fault of Global Warming or El Nino.
Herbstreit says the biggest game of the day is USC-UCLA. Now, in hindsight this looks like a prescient choice. However, in foresight, is there any reason why he should've chosen that game? The SEC title had two top 10 teams, a Heisman finalist and had BCS Title Game implications. USC had BCS title game implications... and was on the family of networks that employed Herbstreit. He's right about USC shouldn't assume a win, but Herbstreit also doesn't think UCLA will win.
Fowler jumps on that, says that Herbstreit picks a big upset "as often as Jim Tressel visits a dance club." Obviously Fowler doesn't read Tressel's World.
Fowler says they'll talk about Florida soon, since there are some Gator fans who think they should be considered for the BCSNCG even without a USC loss, but calls their statements "spinning" and "propaganda", but "nobody over here is buying it". This show is restating and creating conventional wisdom with that one sentence. At the moment that this sentence was read, Florida had a better record than USC. The schedule Florida had played was just slightly less difficult than USC (but still among the toughest in the nation). Florida had beaten more top 10 teams than USC. Florida's loss was against a significantly tougher opponent than USC. These facts are what they're calling "propaganda" and "not buying".
Herbstreit: UCLA has two of the best defensive ends in all of college football.
Corso on GT-WF: Pleads for Tech to get Calvin Johnson the ball, cites the few catches he had against Georgia (disregarding the number of times the ball was thrown his way but defended).
Herbstreit on WVU-Rutgers: Steve Slaton may have to carry the load because Pat White has "an ankle and a toe". Strange, I have two ankles and 10 toes. Pat White's injury must be more serious than I remember being reported. The loss of an appendage and 90% of his toes must've been a bad accident.
Watch for Connecticut-Louisville? Really? This game is something people should pay attention to ahead of the SEC title game? Seriously, they listed this game ahead of Florida-Arkansas.
Fowler calls Florida's offense "unfairly bashed". By whom? Your colleagues? You are the media.
Desmond Howard comes on to tell us how Florida isn't that good. There's no conflict of interest here whatsoever, is there? Howard calls Florida "a dime on paper, but really a nickel and a couple of pennies", and goes into detail about how Florida isn't as good as their record when you actually watch them. Howard cites Florida's struggles against FSU and South Carolina, but interestingly, no one mentions USC's close wins over Washington, Washington State and Arizona State, or Michigan's close wins over Penn State, Ball State or the lackluster win over Northwestern. Howard does say that voters might give Florida credit for a win over Arkansas if USC loses. Still, he was clearly working on a narrative there.
Corso says that if USC loses, Florida might jump in the polls simply to avoid a rematch. Corso doesn't say whether that'd be right or wrong.
Herbstreit squats on the fence hardcore. Says Florida deserves a chance at OSU, but Michigan deserves a rematch more. Says that it's been too long for Michigan since they played and people are forgetting about them. Unlike the others, at least Herbstreit says who he thinks should go, even if he qualifies it and tries to make nice. Everyone else simply talks about what might happen rather than what should happen.
Fowler chimes in and says that the matchup he'd really like to see is Florida-Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl.
Fowler says Florida could be complaining, but the system stinks and there should be a playoff. Herbstreit responds by again calling for a Plus-1 system. Corso says exactly what needs to be said: it's not happening. The contracts are signed. This is the way it's going to be.
Corso does some game analysis on Rutgers-WVU. I like to see this, but I have nits to pick on the analysis itself. Por ejemplo, Corso loves WVU's O-line and says they're as good pass blocking as run blocking because they've only given up 8 saks all year. WVU has probably the most mobile QB in the country. Dude's not going to take many sacks because he can outrun pursuit. The highlights didn't really match what Corso was talking about either.
Herbstreit calls Rutgers one of the most aggressive defenses he's seen all year. Darius Reynaud is one of the most explosive slot receivers in all of college football. We're not 20 minutes in and Herbstreit's already dropped three superlatives.
Extended piece on Patrick Hughes, the blind and disabled marching band member at Louisville. Tom Rinaldi reporting.
Nebraska-Oklahoma: Corso thinks OU might have trouble with Nebraska's passing game, not 15 seconds after Fowler said Nebraska could have trouble because of the weather. Do they listen to each other? Herbstreit also doesn't respond to the comment about the weather. It's odd how the analysis on this show seems written so far in advance that late information just doesn't seem to come into the picture. Fowler, with a broadcasting background, is the only one who seems to be able to react to new info.
Flashback to Gameday on the road at Army, the show got rained out.
Some talk about Army-Navy. They actually focus on the game at first instead of just the pageantry - which I think is actually respectful to the teams.
All-Access with Navy Football. (Aside: the nicest campus I've ever seen is the US Naval Academy. It's absolutely beautiful.)
The team talks about the pageantry for a bit. Why didn't they go to this game?
Coaching changes: list of people who have turned down the Alabama job. Corso calls Alabama's expectations unrealistic, but he also says that agents are messing with things, trying to get their clients better jobs. Herbstreit also rails against agents, Alabama's expectations. So who's going to get the job? Any insight?
WIRED with Urban Meyer. Useless as usual. The mic is a little loud, or Urban yells loud.
Herbstreit: Brandon Siler is one of the fastest LBs in the country, Florida has one of the best sets of DBs in the country. More superlatives.
Herbstreit won't stop with the weird semi-sarcasm about Arkansas not being able to move the ball on Florida. It's very odd.
Highlight package on big hits in football this year. Always enjoyable.
Play of Season: Corso: ND TD vs. UCLA. Herbstreit: Pitt punt return inloss against WVU. OK. Fowler likes DeSean Jackson's return TD against Oregon.
Game of the Year: Corso: OSU vs. Michigan. Herbstreit: Rutgers vs. Louisville. Fowler likes Oregon vs. Oklahoma.
Surprise of the year: Corso: Rutgers. Herbstreit: Wake Forest (and he admits that it took him too long to realize it). Fowler: FSU and Miami.
Interview with Troy Smith. This didn't work that well, because it seems like Troy Smith has been well media trained. I like how Smith said that guys can play QB whether they're 6'5" or "quote/unquote not tall". The quotations sell it.
Short discussion on who wins between OSU and USC. Two years in a row ESPN assumes something about USC and they end up faltering. Were I a Trojan fan, I think I'd be about tired of ESPN's fawning coverage.
Corso says that OSU's D is ridiculous because they've given up a total of 10 points off of 16 turnovers. That is pretty ridiculous.
Herbstreit says he'd love to see the colors of a USC-OSU game. Fowler wants the matchup too. Glad to see that they admit that their coverage is based upon personal whims rather than simply covering the best teams.
Some discussion on Colt Brennan. (Aside: is it just me, or is his delivery kind of to the side, like Vince Young's? Obviously, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing - I believe the delivery doesn't matter as long as the ball gets there. But I don't remember reading anyone dwelling on it, even when people talk about Brennan's pro potential.)
Extended piece on Colt Brennan. Steve Cyphers reporting. June Jones shaved his mustache? Unthinkable! Outrageous! Meanwhile, I think Colt Brennan might be wearing a wig from a gay medieval guy's costume. And he might be 14, wearing a fake beard.
Game Face: Some dudes at the Louisville game. I thought they wouldn't be doing the cheesy bits.
Wake-Tech discussion: They throw to the coverage team on site. Nessler suggests that Reggie Ball might bounce back (not so much). No discussion on Wake Forest by the announcer crew. Corso does talk about Wake, though it's pretty clear that he can't pronounce any of the names. Good mention by Corso on the importance of Wake's system of redshirting and playing seniors. Corso and Herbstreit say Grobe is clearly the national coach of they year (I have a feeling that sometime, on some program, they've probably touted Greg Schiano and others as well).
Extended piece on Dwayne Jarrett. Shelley Smith steps out of her comfort zone to cover a USC player. Jarrett deserves coverage, sure, but how many Shelley Smith USC stories over the last two years are we expected to swallow before it becomes old hat?
Howard on the fake field. There's no reason for him to be on the fake field. He's not acting anything out. He could've easily said the same exact stuff at the anchor desk.
5 teams before USC had been ranked #2 in the BCS and lost their last game. Interesting.
Fowler lets us know that style points don't matter to the pollsters for USC. Again, conveniently ignoring their poor performances in the middle of the year.
Corso likes a close game in USC-UCLA.
Herbstreit again gives the same superlative for UCLA's DEs. The Lady laughed when she heard Herbstreit say "It'll all come down to whether UCLA can get after Booty." Not nearly a good enough double entendre for my tastes.
Herbstreit thinks USC wins in a blowout.
It seriously feels like they've covered Louisville-Connecticut more than Arkansas-Florida. How embarassing.
Gamechanger: Corso: McFadden. Herbstreit: Lawrence Jackson (and hilariously, Herbstreit says that Jackson's got to be tired of hearing about UCLA's DEs - after TWICE in this show HERBSTREIT called them the best in the country. Funny.) Fowler: Allen Patrick.
They thank the National Football Foundation for an award they gave to the show for its contribution to the game.
Saturday Stupid Selections: Corso: Rutgers, Hawaii, Nebraska, USC Herbstreit: Arkansas, Georgia Tech, USC.

In the studio made for a boring show, actually. Get back on the road.

That's enough from me. See y'all next year.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Bowl Meritocracy!

I hinted at it a few weeks ago, so here comes a long post.

It is no surprise that I don't like the current system of selecting a champion in college football. I dislike the subjectivity of polls. I don't like the way teams are never in control of their own destinies. I dislike how a team can win every single game and not win a championship. I prefer objectivity.

Over the last few weeks a debate has arisen around college football blogs over whether there should be a playoff instead of the BCS. I hate the current system, but I still am not sure if I think I'd prefer a playoff. See, it'd still have some level of subjectivity involved in selecting the teams to compete in the playoff. Maybe it'd be better than the BCS, but it still wouldn't be perfect. And regardless, the current system isn't going anywhere. There are contracts in place that will be honored through the next decade. The NCAA and university presidents appreciate how the bowls provide them a useful excuse to lie about how they care about the athletes' academics in the face of the massive checks they cash from bowl sponsors. Simply said, the bowls ain't going anywhere.

So is there a way to make the bowl system fairer, more objective, even simpler? Yes, I say.

I'm not arguing that there are too many bowls. Well, there might be, but I don't think it matters all that much. I do think that bowls are too cheap to put on, though. 14 of the bowls, nearly half, have the minimum payout - $750,000. Three were added this year at the minimum, and (I think) at least 10 at the minimum in the last decade. The evidence suggests, to me at least, that these bowls are making money - lots of money. That's why Toronto, Birmingham and Albuquerque got in on the action. ESPN or other networks pay probably at least that in fees per bowl - and they get between 6 and 8 hours (or more) of TV airtime. ESPN shows each game twice, and if it's a classic, they might get more viewings on ESPN Classic. For each game, ESPN probably gets a half hour to an hour of commercial time. Split all that up, and ESPN is making money. Now, add in whatever other functions the bowl puts on and gets sponsors for (parades, luncheons, etc.). The cities, even at lesser bowls, make a lot of money from visitors. Everyone wins with bowls. Except the teams, in a way. My question is this - for all the money the bowl committees and cities make on bowls, why is it that the teams make the minimum (and few lower tier bowls have increased payouts over the last decade)?

I say the reason is competition. Automatic tie-ins to conferences and multiyear contracts that are negotiated every 5-10 years give no incentive for bowls to work harder. The Emerald Bowl could work their ass off, find a better stadium, up their payouts, put on a great show for the teams, but they'll still be stuck with the 7th place ACC team that doesn't want to trek all the way across the country.

So my suggestion: get rid of all tie-ins. All of them. Get rid of the BCS rules. Get rid of everything regarding bowl tie ins.

Here's how you do it.

Step one: take all the bowls and list them in order of bowl payouts. Start with the biggest payout, and order it down to the lowest.
Step two: slot teams according to their position in the purely objective rankings based on won-loss, schedule strength and head-to-head wins, the Lebowski Rankings on this website. #1 and #2 play in the biggest payout bowl, #3 and #4 play in the next, all the way down. Exception - if two teams paired up after slotting have already played during the season or are in the same conference, you skip one and pick up the next.

Result: the teams with the best seasons (maybe not the "best" in someone's particular opinion, but teams which have played best) end up in better bowls. Another result is that bowls can end up with better teams if they want to - they just need to pay. Each year, the payout scale might change. If the Holiday Bowl committee thinks they can afford upping the payout to jump ahead of the Chick-Fil-A and Outback bowls, they can go for it. #1 always plays #2, and #3 always plays #4. In fact, all the matchups would be between teams that had pretty comparable seasons. No The teams that get screwed in the new system are the mediocre to bad teams in major conferences - but so what? I'd much rather screw a 6-6 team in a big conference than a 10-2 team in a smaller conference.

So how would it work in practice? Would my system provide for better matchups for the bowls, or the teams?

Let's go Bowl by Bowl, starting with the cheapest. Oh, and one other thing. When I ranked the bowls, and the payouts were the same, I placed the bowl closer to January 1 in the slot with higher priority.

32. Poinsettia Bowl - $750,000
Actual matchup: Northern Illinois vs. TCU
New matchup: Florida State vs. Pittsburgh
Analysis: Bigger names, though perhaps lesser quality for the new matchup. Pitt is the last team in under the new system, and they didn't get a bid under the current system. I think more people would watch the new matchup. Plus, I don't think it'd be a two-touchdown spread. On totality, I think the new matchup would be better.

31. Las Vegas Bowl - $750,000
Actual matchup: Oregon vs. BYU
New Matchup: Iowa vs. Oklahoma State
Analysis: Neither matchups is terrible, though BYU is a better team than the rest (and should probably be going to a better bowl). If any bowl should be ponying up more money, it's the Las Vegas Bowl, so under this kind of system, I'd expect a quick raise for payouts. The new matchup has two teams that should travel well, and I'd bet the city would prefer fans that gamble and fornicate and such. Probably about the same for matchups, but the system this bowl would be big fans of.

30. New Orleans Bowl - $750,000
Actual Matchup: Troy vs. Rice
New Matchup: Minnesota vs. Washington State
Analysis: Bigger programs, and probably better teams. Washington State is another team that simply should've been included in a bowl ahead of some others. Better matchup, more interest, better bowl.

29. Papa John's Bowl - $750,000
Actual Matchup: ECU vs. South Florida
New Matchup: NIU vs. Arizona
Analysis: Birmingham probably would prefer the actual matchup, since geographically the actual teams might be more likely to travel. However, Arizona is the best team in the country according to the Lebowski Rankings that did not get invited to a bowl. Arizona deserved a bid somewhere. I'll call it a wash.

28. New Mexico Bowl - $750,000
Actual Matchup: New Mexico vs. San Jose State
New Matchup: MTSU vs. ECU
Analysis: Since it seems like the New Mexico bowl was tailor made for New Mexico, this is not as good a matchup.

27. Armed Forces Bowl - $750,000
Actual Matchup: Utah vs. Tulsa
New Matchup: Utah vs. Troy
Analysis: Not too different. Troy deserves some credit for winning its conference, so a slightly better bowl than New Orleans is deserved. Tulsa ends up better. Geographically, the bowl might prefer Tulsa to Troy, but Tulsa has one of the smallest fan bases in the country. Wash.

26. Hawaii Bowl - $750,000
Actual Matchup: Hawaii vs. Arizona State
New Matchup: Kansas State vs. Rice
Analysis: Worse for the bowl, since the 10-win home team is gone. But Hawaii should've been going to a better bowl. The new matchup isn't all that bad though. This Bowl is one of the most expensive to attend for bowls, so increased payouts would be extremely important.

25. GMAC Bowl - $750,000
Actual Matchup: Southern Miss vs. Ohio
New Matchup: Cincinnati vs. Texas Tech
Analysis: Southern Miss was a semi-local draw, so that's a drawback. But Texas Tech is a bigger name. The new matchup teams are both pretty good, so it'd be a decent matchup under the new system.

24. Motor City Bowl - $750,000
Actual Matchup: Central Michigan vs. MTSU
New Matchup: Kentucky vs. Arizona State
Analysis: Another local draw gone, but two big conference, large fanbase teams head to Detroit. The new matchup would be a pretty exciting matchup too. I think this change would be beneficial to this bowl.

23. Emerald Bowl - $750,000
Actual Matchup: FSU vs. UCLA
New Matchup: South Carolina vs. UCLA
Analysis: Not too different. FSU's season was more deserving of a worse bowl than this (and this isn't that great a bowl). I'd argue that this game is better than the actual matchup.

22. International Bowl - $750,000
Actual Matchup: Western Michigan vs. Cincinnati
New Matchup: Southern Miss vs. Oregon
Analysis: I have no idea whether this is a better game, matchup for the bowl, or what. Southern Miss probably isn't a catch for Canada, but Oregon gets ratings, for some reason.

21. Texas Bowl - $750,000
Actual Matchup: Kansas State vs. Rutgers
New Matchup: San Jose State vs. Purdue
Analysis: Not as good for geographical draws, and this bowl loses a great story in Rutgers. But Rutgers deserves better. Purdue doesn't, and they're more appropriate here. Maybe not a better matchup, but I'd argue it's a fairer matchup.

20. Insight Bowl - $750,000
Actual Matchup: Minnesota vs. Texas Tech
New Matchup: Nevada vs. Western Michigan
Analysis: Smaller names, but better teams (seriously). Plus, Nevada is a geographic draw (sort of). I think this is a better and fairer bowl.

19. Meineke Car Care Bowl - $750,000
Actual Matchup: Boston College vs. Navy
New Matchup: South Florida vs. Tulsa
Analysis: Worse matchup, worse draw. But BC and Navy deserve better bowls. Maybe fairer, but not better for the bowl.

18. MPC Computers Bowl - $750,000
Actual Matchup: Nevada vs. Miami
New Matchup: Missouri vs. Clemson
Analysis: Much better teams for Boise, and Miami probably didn't deserve a bowl bid. Better game, better teams. Overall, a definite positive.

17. Music City Bowl - $780,000
Actual Matchup: Kentucky vs. Clemson
New Matchup: Georgia vs. Maryland
Analysis: The first bowl where a couple thousand more makes a difference. The shape of things to come if money meant better choices. Basically, Music City slides up a notch in the SEC and ACC bids, so it's a better bowl.

16. Champs Sports Bowl - $862,000
Actual Matchup: Purdue vs. Maryland
New Matchup: Ohio vs. Penn State
Analysis: Penn State is a good pick for the bowl, and Ohio gets a reward for a great season in the MAC. Probably a wash as to the quality of the teams.

15. Independence Bowl - $1,200,000
Actual Matchup: Oklahoma State vs. Alabama
New Matchup: Georgia Tech vs. Central Michigan
Analysis: Seriously, that payout is legit! Alabama shouldn't be in a bowl this year. And Shreveport is suprisingly a better bowl than it gets credit for. Better teams. I'd say it's a better bowl.

14. Liberty Bowl - $1,500,000
Actual Matchup: Houston vs. South Carolina
New Matchup: Oregon State vs. Nebraska
Analysis: The SEC automatic bids are crazy high payouts, man. Liberty deserves better, and Memphis is a totally underrated destination. Much better teams, a better matchup, and finally this bowl gets the attention it deserves. Significantly better.

13. Sun Bowl - $1,575,000
Actual Matchup: Oregon State vs. Missouri
New Matchup: Boston College vs. Navy
Analysis: The Meineke Bowl gets a deal. BC and Navy deserve a better bowl than where they're heading, and the Sun would get decent teams, if not a better matchup.

12. Gator Bowl - $1,600,000
Actual Matchup: Georgia Tech vs. West Virginia
New Matchup: Cal vs. Texas
Analysis: The bowl would love it, since Tech isn't coming back after a loss in the same city, and two of the most telegenic programs and largest fanbases would arrive. Vastly improved (and WVU deserves a little better).

11. Alamo Bowl - $1,650,000
Actual Matchup: Texas vs. Iowa
New Matchup: Tennessee vs. Texas A&M
Analysis: Iowa doesn't deserve a bowl this good (they lost to Northwestern and Indiana!). Tennessee and A&M are a great matchup and there's still a geographic draw. Much better bowl.

10. Holiday Bowl - $2,000,000
Actual Matchup: Cal vs. Texas A&M
New Matchup: Houston vs. Hawaii
Analysis: Smaller names, but probably a more fun matchup. Hawaii and Houston both deserve better bowls than where they're headed because of their good seasons. Cal doesn't head to San Diego for like the 10th straight year. Maybe not a much better bowl, but it'd be interesting.

9. Chick-Fil-A Bowl - $2,350,000
Actual Matchup: Georgia vs. Virginia Tech
New Matchup: TCU vs. Arkansas
Analysis: Georgia probably deserves worse (I admit it), VPI probably deserves better. TCU showed tonight that they deserved better. Arkansas would be a return team, so the bowl probably wouldn't like it. Probably a worse matchup, but maybe fairer.

8. Cotton Bowl - $2,500,000
Actual Matchup: Nebraska vs. Auburn
New Matchup: Rutgers vs. BYU
Analysis: Two teams are now involved that definitely deserve better than the bowls they're headed to. And it might be a more telegenic game. Definitely fairer, and arguably better.

7. Outback Bowl - $2,850,000
Actual Matchup: Tennessee vs. Penn State
New Matchup: West Virginia vs. Virginia Tech
Analysis: I'd say better teams, and it could be an exciting game. The drawback is that these new teams have played a few times in recent years.

6. Capital One Bowl - $5,312,000
Actual Matchup: Arkansas vs. Wisconsin
New Matchup: Notre Dame vs. LSU
Analysis: The Capital One gets the Sugar matchup for a third the price. Better matchup, more exciting teams. Much better bowl.

5. Fiesta Bowl - approx. $14,000,000
Actual Matchup: Oklahoma vs. Boise State
New Matchup: Southern California vs. Auburn
Analysis: Pretty good matchup either way. The Fiesta gets two big teams to finish what could've been in 2004. Arguably, a better bowl.

4. Rose Bowl - $14,998,000
Actual Matchup: Michigan vs. USC
New Matchup: Oklahoma vs. Wake Forest
Analysis: Yeah. The Rose wouldn't be too crazy about this.

3. Orange Bowl - approx. $15,000,000
Actual Matchup: Louisville vs. Wake Forest
New Matchup: Louisville vs. Wisconsin
Analysis: Better matchup, bigger teams. Better bowl.

2. Sugar Bowl - approx. $16,000,000
Actual Matchup: LSU vs. Notre Dame
New Matchup: Florida vs. Michigan
Analysis: Now that'd be fun, wouldn't it? Better matchup, better teams, exciting draw. Better all around.

1. BCS National Championship Game - approx. $17,000,000
Actual Matchup: Florida vs. Ohio State
New Matchup: Boise State vs. Ohio State
Analysis: The two undefeated teams face off. No way there's a split title. Boise State gets a chance at a title by winning every game. For the people who think Ohio State is head and shoulders ahead of everyone else, here's a victory lap for them (instead of another tough game). It might be a huge spread, but there'd be the chance for the single greatest upset in the history of college football, with a title on the line. I'd love it.

And there you have it. The bowl selections are based solely on how much the bowls are ponying up and how good the teams' seasons were. Totally objective. I'd say there are probably a lot of fairer and several better bowls.

Of course, there's another way of doing things - rank the bowls by money, but then let the bowls who pay the most have the first two "picks" without regard to who actually was best. That'd be interesting too.

Is this the right answer? Is it the right question?

Florida Blog Orange and Blue Hue approaches an interesting subject - Why isn't Georgia Better? (spotted via CFR).

First off, go read the post. It's not a flame, and it's actually quite favorable and reasonable.

Next, indulge me in picking a few nits...

First, I have some problems with the thesis "why don't they win more?" (at least in terms of football). Specifically, what does that mean?

Does it mean "more" than Georgia "should" be winning? If so, how does one quantify how a team "should" be winning? Is it that "underrated/overrated" thing, because over the last 20 years Georgia is the 8th most underrated team (meaning they ended up winning more than expected, see here, and guess who's ranked way down at number 72?).
Does it mean "more than other programs"? If so, we must address scope.
Does it mean "more throughout the history of the program"? If so, can it really be argued that Georgia didn't win a lot? Georgia is the third winningest program in the SEC after Alabama and Tennessee. Georgia's 11th all time in wins. 13th all time in winning percentage. Georgia has won more SEC titles than any other program, save Alabama and Tennessee. Georgia has won twice as many titles as Florida. Among SEC teams, only Alabama and Tennessee have won more national titles than Georgia.
Does it mean "more in recent history"? How should "recent history" be defined. Is it over the last 5 years, during which Georgia has the best record in the SEC (52-13, one win better than LSU) and more titles than any other program? Is it over the last decade?

Though Keltic Gator doesn't say it, I've had this argument about scope with too many of my Gator friends before. Do we want to gauge the merits of each program based upon the totality of history (during which Georgia is quite good, and Florida was quite bad), or do we want to limit it to a shorter period. When I've restricted it to the past 5 years (during which Georgia has been damn good and up to this year during which Florida has been mediocre), Florida fans get upset. Too often Florida fans have wanted to limit all discussions of how good a particular program is to "the specific years where Steve Spurrier was coach at Florida". Naturally, I disagree with these fans. I say either look at the full history, or limit things to a particular period during which there was some commonality of players and where specific reasons for success or failure can be spotted (like a given five year period). If we look at 5 year periods (and it doesn't have to be the most recent period, you can take any 5 year period), we can give some pretty good reasons for why a particular team is good or not.

So to respond to the main thesis, I'd argue that, in the abstract, Georgia does win a lot. Over the long term, and over the short term. As to whether Georgia wins more than it "should", that's a question I believe one can't answer, exactly. For example, I think with all the talent Georgia had on its team in 2000, 8-4 was a poor result. But at the same time, the 2005 SEC Championship team I believe overachieved to win that title. Some years teams don't win as much as they probably should have, other years teams might win more. But whenever one addresses the question of "should've won more", I always think about Bill Parcells' line about records - they're usually a pretty good description as to how good you really are. And if that's the case, then I think Georgia has earned their spot as a premier SEC program - over several decades and in recent years.

On to Keltic Gator's other points...

On athletic department budgets: I think Keltic Gator raises a good point about UGA's athletic department being so profitable. However, profits of the massive size we've seen for Georgia in recent years are in some ways just that, recent. The state of Georgia is not the same state it was 20 years ago. Population and industry growth have made Georgia significantly wealthier than it once was, and the University and the Athletic Department have clearly been some of the beneficiaries. As recent as a decade ago, season tickets were readily available to non-donating persons. That is no longer the case. In the last 5 years, demand for tickets has skyrocketed. Second, the windfall the department has received from leasing skysuites at Sanford Stadium is something of recent days (the expansions are only now getting finished). The bloated budget and profit margins are not something Georgia had the luxury of even 10-15 years ago. Georgia's budgets have risen very well over the last few years, but for a good long time Georgia trailed Tennessee, Ohio State, Michigan, Texas and plenty of other programs in size of budget. Further, I think there's an argument that merely having large budgets does not always equal on-field success, but at the same time, I think it's interesting how Georgia's on-field fortunes have improved over the last 5-6 years, the budget has grown exponentially. I'm not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg, or which came first.

Now, there's a second issue regarding athletic budgets at Georgia - how profits are spent. This is a touchy subject, and one that I know I'm not in a position to have all the right answers on. Georgia has a very large budget (though definitely below Ohio State, Texas and Florida levels). Georgia has a budget that is more profitable than anyone else. The natural response is, "well, why aren't they rerouting those profits back into the program?" Indeed - I think it's pretty clear that one of the reasons why Georgia is more profitable than the above listed programs is that Georgia hasn't been spending like those other programs. Though it's planned for the future, Georgia has no indoor football practice facility. Georgia is currently making headway on a massive basketball facility, one that the profits from the past few years' budgets will clearly be spent on. In a way, the profits of the past couple of years may be somewhat misleading - Georgia may be saving for new projects, or for making sure Mark Richt remains the coach forever.

Another issue regarding budgets is the other sports within the athletic department. An astute commenter noted that Georgia took away from Florida the all-sports trophy last year (and in past years Georgia has finished ahead of Florida and the rest of the SEC in the Director's Cup). Georgia has always placed an emphasis - organizationally and budgetarily - on sports other than football and men's basketball. And that costs a lot of money, as few other sports (save women's gymnastics) are self sufficient. Another factor is Title IX. Georgia has a student body which is 57% made up of women. Thus, to remain compliant with Title IX, 57% of the scholarships offered must be awarded to women. With 85 scholarships awarded for men in football, that means Georgia has to find not just 85 scholarships in other sports for women, but actually more than that - in order to match the student body makeup. That means more sports for women, often which are for sports that, regardless of the merit, simply cannot support themselves financially - such as recent Georgia additions equestrian and lacrosse. For a state school of its size, Georgia is not exactly normal in its gender makeup - mainly because Georgia Tech is so heavily male - if both schools were merged it'd be a lot closer to 50-50. Not every large comparable university has as high a percentage of women as Georgia. For example, Tennessee is under 51% women. So there are perhaps external forces that prevent Georgia from merely spending the large budget back on football. Of course, that too relies on the supposition that more money means more wins.

Let's go back to picking at nits...

Keltic Gator wrote:

I like Marc [sic] Richt. I think he’s a fine coach and one of the best football
minds in the SEC. His teams never seem to overly impress me though.
There is always talent on the field but they don’t seem to have the type of
playmakers you find at Florida, LSU, Texas, Ohio State, USC, etc.

(his emphasis). Here's the question: why does Georgia not impress him much? Since Richt became coach at Georgia, the Dawgs are 60-17. That's a 5 and a half game lead on second place in the SEC East (Florida, 54-21). LSU inched ahead of Georgia this season, as they're 61-16 over the same period. I know I need to keep pounding it into my head - winning alone isn't impressive and that's what makes college football so great - the fact that you need to mix in a couple of triple axels and have incredibly appropriate music and an absolutely breathtaking wardrobe... oh wait, I keep mixing figure skating up with football. Silly me.

Also, "playmakers"? Another word I have no idea what actually means. Because it obviously doesn't mean guys who make plays on defense. Guys like David Pollack, Champ Bailey, Thomas Davis, Greg Blue, Tra Battle, Tony Taylor, Sean Jones, Paul Oliver, Boss Bailey, Kendrell Bell, Richard Seymour, Marcus Stroud, Quentin Moses, Jermaine Phillips, Demario Minter, Kedric Golston, Charles Grant... And just so we don't leave out the offense, there actually are a few guys that can "make plays" on Georgia's rosters of recent. Maybe the NCAA's all-time winningest QB? Maybe the most recent Super Bowl MVP? 4 NFL running backs? One of the NFL leaders in TD receptions?

The point Keltic Gator is making, though I'm sort of mocking it, has some merit though. Well, sort of. Keltic Gator doesn't know Georgia's playmakers - or at least he doesn't immediately bring them to mind like players at other schools. The thing is that Georgia has had those kinds of players, they just haven't necessarily gotten the coverage other teams have had. As he writes in the next few sentences:

And is it me or does Bulldog football seem to be buried on the back pages of the
national papers and for late at night on the sports networks? Georgia
seems like they are the best team to not receive much national notoriety.
They are extremely regionalized and often overshadowed by fellow SEC teams like
Florida, Tennessee, LSU, Auburn and Alabama even when those teams aren’t as
good.

Again, his emphasis. His point is that Georgia doesn't grab the headlines. And that's true, unfortunately. Please venture through my archives to see all the numerous places where I've tried to get across the point that college football's reliance on the mass media and publicity to drive storylines and select champions is an incredible shame. I'm not one to complain that Georgia isn't getting a fair shake from the media. I think it's terrible that the media has any influence at all. Also, I think Georgia gets at least as much coverage as Auburn. I have little idea why certain teams get more favorable coverage than others. It's just an unfortunate fact of college football.

Another nitpick - scheduling:

Is it scheduling? I realize that Georgia hasn’t played a game outside of
the south since the 1965 but other big name schools seem to get away with being
regionalized.

There's that 1965 number again. September 20, 2008 (at Tempe, AZ) cannot get here soon enough so we can stop hearing that number. And though I don't think Keltic Gator is taking a shot at UGA's merit of scheduling, but can we at least note Florida's complicity in the fact that Georgia hasn't played many OOC road games? It's simple math - for many years when we had an 11 game season, every school would want 6 home games. Because Georgia plays an OOC game home and home against Georgia Tech and a neutral site game against Florida, Georgia had to schedule two more OOC home games to get to 6 (because in even years they'd only play 3 home SEC games, in odd years they'd play only 2 OOC home games). Before the SEC played a full 8 game season, Georgia played an annual home/home series with Clemson. Basically, for the bulk of those years since 1965, Georgia might not have played a terrible team from another part of the country on the road, but they were playing decent to very good local teams on the road. Yes, that might've added to a "regional" aspect of Georgia, but one of the main reasons for that was the game in Jacksonville. Let's compare Georgia to Florida - who has the same scheduling limitations as Georgia (the neutral site game and an in-state rival home/home). Florida has played exactly one game outside the South in the last 20 years - a road game at Syracuse in 1991. So why is it that Florida isn't considered regional like Georgia? My guess is that it isn't Florida's doing, but rather FSU's, and Georgia Tech's. Follow me: The Florida-FSU games throughout the 1990s and early 2000s were some great matchups - and FSU was a top 5 team for pretty much the whole time. Meanwhile, Georgia won 7 straight against a Georgia Tech team that since 1990 has made very little waves (and Georgia wasn't exactly lighting it up in the mid-90s either). A little more... Georgia had some epic battles against non-conference opponents in the early 1980s. Arguably, the early 1980s games between Georgia and Clemson (and in some ways, Georgia and Georgia Tech) were as important nationally as almost any of the Florida-FSU games. But in the early 1980s, there was only one game each week on TV. Thankfully, the Universities of Oklahoma and Georgia sued the NCAA and forced them to stop monopolizing television viewings. Had ESPN, CBS, ABC, and 5 other networks been showing games in the early 1980s, I'm certain Georgia would have had much more hype than they got. Florida's football program came of age during the TV era - and during an era when their signature OOC game featured great national attention.

Got no problems with his next paragraph.

But then it comes as a rush...

Looking at the records, UGA has 2 SEC Championships under Richt (2002 and 2005) their first since 1982. A 20 year shutout? Now how does that
happen? I look at other schools and the closest comparison would be
Florida - schools of similar size and location that are even in the same
conference.

How does that happen? Indeed. 20 years is a long time to go between SEC titles. It's the longest such dry spell for Georgia. However, it's not quite as long as the 58 YEAR DROUGHT Florida had between the day it joined the SEC and when it hoisted it's first title. That's a dry spell almost three times as long as Georgia's longest time without a title. How does that happen?

But other schools like OU and Texas have been able to rebuild traditional
programs from mediocrity back to national prominence in all the major
sports. Even the athletic directors of WVU and Louisville have lured good
coaches in to take their programs to new heights in both football and
basketball. Ohio State has taken its football and basketball programs to
new heights in the past 5-6 years and is a school with a large resemblance to
the one in Athens in terms of support and state allegiance.

Oklahoma didn't win a conference title between 1987 and 2000 - 13 years. And I bet you didn't realize this, but Texas won the first Big XII title (on an awesome 4th down call), but didn't win another one for a decade - until last year's title. Ohio State hadn't won an outright title in the Big 10 between 1984 and 2002. Until last year, it had been 12 years for West Virginia to win an outright title in the smaller Big East. Those are some pretty big gaps. Even the biggest, baddest best run programs go through title droughts. USC hadn't won a Pac-10 title outright between 1989 and 2002. Extended periods of time between titles happen. Sometimes it's due to bad luck. Sometimes coaching turnover makes a huge difference. Keltic Gator says these things, too.

The point I'm trying to make is that Georgia's success on the field has been pretty good over the long-haul, and pretty good in very recent memory. How they're perceived is a different matter entirely. If Keltic Gator (or CFR) think Georgia hasn't been as good as they should've been, well, I don't know how to respond. If the statement that "...national notoriety seems to have eluded the Bulldogs since the age of Hershell [unforgivable sic] Walker" is true, I'm not sure what Georgia could've been doing to get it back over the last couple of years. Most wins in the SEC? SEC titles? Top 3 finish? Tons of NFL draft picks? Maybe the issue isn't Georgia not doing what it needs to do, but rather, as Keltic Gator suggests, that Georgia isn't getting covered like other teams. Maybe. I don't like the "media bias" complaint though. I prefer to complain that the media has a role at all.

Now, on the other point raised by Keltic Gator - on Georgia's basketball team - I think he's on firmer ground, sort of. Georgia has the worst basketball tradition in all of the SEC. There is very little tradition there. If only the University had allowed African-American players and John Wooden had taken the Georgia job when offered... But still, no tradition is no excuse. Georgia could've placed more of an emphasis on it long ago. I think the basketball program is a clearer indication of the discussions above regarding budgets. Like I said, large budgets at Georgia are relatively a new feature. For decades, the men's basketball program was probably underfunded. And Title IX's influence can be seen pretty clearly in the way the Lady Dogs' team has been funded and backed by the athletic department over the years. In recent years, the increased budgets has led to added funding for the men's team, but there can be no question as to the negative effect of (a) Tubby Smith leaving for Kentucky, compounded by (b) the utterly terrible hiring of Ron Jirsa, and exponentially compounded by (c) the hiring and failure to micromanage Jim Harrick. Those three events caused a decade's worth of damage, and no amount of money thrown at the problem could have fixed it without time.

As to football and basketball, I think Georgia is on the right track. But the University is also a cautionary tale. Assuming for the sake of argument that the thesis "Georgia should win and should have won more than they do/have" is correct, the reasons can be directly attributed to coaching. The timeframe that it appears that Keltic Gator is addressing features the downtrun for Georgia football at the twilight of Vince Dooley's career. Georgia hired Ray Goff as a successor and probably held on to him a few years too long. Then, Georgia had an awkward replacement search (the Glen Mason debacle), and ended up hiring Jim Donnan. There can be no doubt that Jim Donnan improved the program and brought significant talent to Georgia. There can also be no doubt that his game-coaching left something wanting. Donnan won consistently at Marshall by having more talent than the other team, cloaking his strategy shortcomings. At Georgia, his capable recruiting brought Georgia to a level playing field, upon which Donnan just couldn't compete against better coaches. Why did Georgia have a downward slide in the 1990s? Their close rivals hired the right guys (Spurrier, Fulmer, Bobby Ross), while Georgia did not. And fixing the problems of a bad hire can often take a long time, depending on how bad things got. For basketball, as previously mentioned, two bad hires caused ridiculous damage to the program. Coaching made a huge difference.

Let's close with Keltic Gator's conclusion:

The bottom line is that in any ten or twenty year period Georgia should be in
the top three in both sports when judged from a resource standpoint. Yet
for some reason they aren’t and I’m not sure why. A school that should be
the home for championships is instead often the home of the phrase “wait until
next year”. It’s one of those enigmas in sports where a school that seems
to have all the individual pieces can’t seem to find a way to put them
together. To me the Bulldog legacy will always be one of quandary and
confusion.

Going forward, I think it's reasonable to say that Georgia should be successful on the field in both sports. But as for past history, I cannot agree with his assertion. Some schools put all their eggs in one basket - and for a long time Georgia did this in football. The phenomenon of the huge budget program succeeding on the field and the court at the same time is a recent thing (Ohio State, Texas, Florida). In past years, there just wasn't enough money to spread around to do that, and so you had top basketball programs where football was an afterthought (UNC, Kansas, Indiana), and top football programs where basketball was an afterthought. It's pretty hard to find schools that had sustained success in both sports over time. And Georgia's budget hasn't been in the stratosphere for too long, either.

And as for "wait 'till next year U"... at least we've never waited 58 years. Beat Ohio State in January and you catch us in MNCs. Win the next 5 SEC titles and you catch us.

In football at least, Georgia has won... a hell of a lot in fact. If Georgia has a reputation of not living up to expectations, it's undeserved. If size of budget is directly related to on-field success, the future is bright for Georgia, and the past isn't all that embarassing.

Anyway, read Keltic Gator's post. It's definitely worth a read, and don't let my nitpicking responses here make you think he doesn't raise some good points.

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