So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish!

Assorted Thoughts about the Bowl season and the end of the worst college football season ever:

-The national championship game would have been a lot better if the television coverage wasn't so amazingly bad. As a rule of thumb, championship events should never be covered by networks that don't have regular season broadcasts. That's why you won't find me complaining too much about ESPN televising any championship. Yes they tend to employ more than their fair share of mouth-breathing idiots, but they are generally technically proficient and don't do stupid stuff like cut back from commercials too late or scream into the mic about how big this fourth down is when it is actually third down.
-Bowl records are always cited by the mainstream media as evidence of the relative strengths of each conference, but they are actually don't tell us much at all. The Pac 10's 5-0 record this year was as much a function of who they played as the strength of the conference. Likewise, while there is no doubt that this was a down year for the Big Ten, if OSU had not made the BCS, and all the Big Ten teams slid down a spot, the conferences record would have been two or three games better.
-All non-BCS games should be played on or before January 1. Period.
-Rich Rodriguez did a couple of interviews on WTKA a few days back and he was asked about a college football playoff. Most of his response was boilerplate, "we want what is best for the kids" type stuff, but he did make one interesting comment about a potential "Plus-Three" format. Now I would love to see a 16 team playoff with all conference champs getting an auto bid. But any system that destroys the bowls has no realistic chance of being implemented in our lifetime, the big money conferences won't allow it. But a "Plus-Three", where the top 8 teams play in the four BCS games, and then the winners of those games advance to national semifinals might actually be a plausible alternative.
-With so few games on January 1, I decided to watch my copy of last year's Cap One Bowl vs Florida. It's amazing how long ago that game seemed, yet they started the broadcast talking about what a great citizen Tim Tebow was. It was enough to make Thom Brennaman cry.
-As I mentioned before, our version of the Golden Rankings had a horrible bowl season, going 14-18. Just like the BCS, we will tinker with the formulas in the off-season to make sure it fails in a completely new way next year.
-Only 237 days until kickoff against Western Michigan. 90 days until the Spring Game at the Big House. 24 days until national signing day.

Still basking in the afterglow

-I find it highly ironic that one of the biggest days of the year for college football, that as I watched Sportscenter last night I kept wishing they'd finish with their college football talk so that get to the college basketball news. I'm kicking myself a little bit for not buying tickets to the game earlier this week when I found some online, but am hopeful there will other big games this year. I wonder how much tickets to the Big Ten tournament are.
-I also find it ironic that the same school year that saw an end to our great bowl streak, may also see an end to our awful non-big dance streak of ten years.
-Like most of the country, I get the feeling that Florida and Oklahoma are the best teams in the country, and despite OU's recent big bowl history, I get the feeling that their game could be a classic on the lines of UT / USC a few years back. That being said, I can't help but feel bad for the Texas fans. I don't know how much more you could expect from your team than they got from theirs this year, yet they still have to watch their arch-rival and a team that lost to a mediocre Ole Miss at home play for the national championship.
-If the Sugar Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl were smart, they'd let Texas go the Sugar to play Alabama, and invite Utah and Boise State to the Fiesta to play a sort of mid-major national championship game. That way, along with the championship game and the USC/PSU Rose Bowl you'd have all 8 teams that have a reasonable claim to a national title shot playing each other.
-I love what UCLA and USC did with both wearing their home jerseys. In the big scheme of things one timeout at the start of a game doesn't really affect much, and the nod to tradition was very cool. I wouldn't mind seeing us do this against OSU one year.
-I don't get the Lane Kiffin hire for Tennessee. It just strikes me as far less inspired a choice than someone like Brian Kelly, and has Callahan to Nebraska written all over it.
-Just when you thought that Washington couldn't get any worse, Cal's running back Jahvid Best runs for 311 yards on only 19 carries! I still find it hard to believe that Washington could be that bad. I mean outside of USC (and maybe UCLA), the Huskies have the most football tradition in the Pac Ten, and somehow, in a little less than a decade (they were in the national title discussion in 2000) they've become possibly the worst program in FBS.

-Final regular season rankings will be up soon, as well as a look at what a playoff would look like if I ran the circus. The season's first basketball rankings coming tomorrow.

Bowl Math

After getting undressed on homecoming, we sat in the stands doing bowl math. That's when you go through the schedule and try and figure out where the six wins will come from to make us eligible for the the 33rd year in a row. What we came up with:
Sure Losses -- at Penn State, at OSU -- This is the year the streak ends for the Knitknees. Considering they lose almost all their starters next year, it better. And the trip to the Snakepit could get ugly.
Sure (as much as anything is sure in this year) wins -- Toledo, at Minnesota, at Purdue -- If we don't win all three of these games, we'll be home for the holidays.
Tossups -- Michigan State, Northwestern -- This is where the bowl push will be won or lost. Lose both of these, we go nowhere. Win both, we go bowling, maybe in the Alamo bowl, or the Champs Sports Bowl. Split these games, things get dicey. The bowl rules say that all 7-5 teams must be guaranteed a bowl spot for 6-6 teams to get a spot. The Big Ten has seven slots, including the BCS. Five Big Ten teams currently have 5 or more wins (Penn State, OSU, MSU, Northwestern, and Minnesota). The first four are likely to be bowl eligible, although never count out the ability of the Spartans to completely implode. 3-2 Illinois and 3-2 Wisconsin will both probably get to seven wins. That leave Minnesota, 2-3 Purdue, 2-3 Indiana, 3-3 Iowa and us fighting for that last Bowl bid. Now, if Ohio State and Penn State both end up with two or less losses, they are both likely to end up in the BCS, meaning there will be an extra bowl spot open. So at 6-6, we have a good shot at a bowl, but not a risk.
Will we get there? Good question. I think that MSU is a good match up for us, similar to Wisconsin. Power team with not much offensive diversity and serious questions in pass defense. Northwestern doesn't have the athletes the Spartans do, but they might have a better defense.

As for the game, not much to say other than Juice Williams. We stopped their zone running game fairly well, but just couldn't stop Williams running or throwing the ball. He has certainly grown as a QB. Last year you could count on him to make a number of bad reads and throws every game. This game he didn't. In short, he is exactly the type of QB I think Rich Rod would want for our system.
The offense was the same as it ever is, stop and start, very erratic. Occasionally flashes of what it could be, but mostly just missed plays. Throws off by a bit, routes run incorrectly, blocks not held long enough, etc.

From other games:
-Iowa flat out gave away the game in East Lansing. The Hawkeyes out gained the Spartans and held their all-everything uberback Javon Ringer to under 100 yards. But two endzone turnovers, another on their own 20 put the spartans up16-3 halfway through the third. Iowa rallied to 16-6, when Kirk Ferentz made the first of two ridiculously bad decisions with about 8 minutes left in the game. With a 4th and 5 at the MSU 15, he passed up the field goal which would have brought them to within 7 and went for it. The pitch play failed, and State took over. After Iowa scored again to make it 16-13, Ferentz again passed up a field goal to go for it on 4th and 2 at the MSU 20 with two minutes left and only one time out. When the off tackle play was stuffed for no gain, MSU took over and ran out the clock. If I were an Iowa fan, I would be livid. The decision to pass up the game tying field goal was inexcusable. Considering your five previous red zone trips had resulted in 6 points, you take the points whenever you can. For the Spartans, they need to find offense from someone other than Ringer, or he won't last the season.
-I was thinking that OSU looked beatable until that last drive. Yikes, let's hope Pryor actually starts to play like a freshman at some point this year.
-With apologies to MSU and Northwestern, I think the big ten is a three team race now: OSU, Penn State and Illinois. I know the Illini have that loss already, but I still think they can give the Buckeyes trouble.
-I wonder if any of the defensive coordinators in the Big 12 sleep at night. My goodness, Sam Bradford at OU has been near flawless, Texas Tech is still taking no prisoners, Texas' Colt McCoy has been scary good, Kansas can't fall behind far enough to stop it's offense from coming back, and i don't think Missouri has a punter on it's roster. The Tigers haven't had a 3 and out with the first string offense all year. Oh, and Oklahoma State has scored 223 points in their last four games!
-On that note, the next four games for Texas: OU, Missouri, Oklahoma State, @ Texas Tech. That's the #2,3,4 & 5 scoring offenses in the country.
-How bad has the year been for the Pac 10? Their second best team, Cal, got whipped by a team (Maryland) that got blown out by a team(Virginia) that got blown out by Duke.
-If Miami and Florida State played a football game in an empty stadium, would it make a sound?
-Golden Rankings out later this week, after the Wednesday game. Guess who's number one?
-Hey, I got a link from the UofM Alumni Association! Glad to see our donations going to good use.

The Rose Bowl & Tradition

In his most recent biased opinion, Golden objects to language used by Brent Mush-burger in promo for the upcoming USC slaughter of Illinois: "The Rose Bowl. The way it was meant to be. Pac 10. Big 10".
To Golden this promo, which he surmises was written by the Tournament of Roses people, is a slap in the face to all other football fans:

"...the Rose Bowl apparently believes that only Pac-10 and Big Ten teams and fans can appreciate the pageantry of the Rose Parade and the beauty of the area. Yokels from Oklahoma, Texas, Georgia, or Missouri need not apply."

First off, he should know better than to take any bowl hype seriously. This game has few selling points other than tradition, so ABC is trying to play up that angle. Secondly, there are plenty of fans who remember the old days of the bowl system with some fondness (myself included). Doesn't mean we don't appreciate different match ups, or want a real postseason, it's just that there is something special about Big Ten/Pac Ten Rose Bowls. It's the same with the Sugar Bowl and the SEC. Was Georgia the best at-large team? If the Sugar had selected West Virginia or Virginia Tech, don't you think that the SEC slappies would have been howling? The bowl system is imperfect, and outside of the championship game, each of the bowls has to do whatever they can to market their match up. Appealing to people's fondness for yesteryear is one way to do that.

This and that

Some assorted thoughts that I've been holding on to:
-Although I was kinda rooting for Central Michigan to pull off the upset over Purdue, I am glad to see the Boilers win, as it could be the only win that the Big Ten gets this bowl season. MSU, Michigan, and Illinois are huge underdogs, with Michigan and Illinois playing against top ten teams with top five talent. Ohio State and Penn State are playing virtual road games. Wisconsin is in a pick'em game, and who knows what to expect from Indiana after a 15 year bowl drought. Part of the problem for the Big Ten, apart from the travel issues (Big Ten teams always travel further than their opponents) is that Big Ten teams are often playing teams that are higher ranked in their conference. Wisconsin, 4th in the Big Ten plays the SEC runner-up Tennessee. #6 MSU plays ACC runner-up Boston College. I would like to see a revision of the bowl selection process that would rectify this problem, and would also vary the match-ups from year to year, so that teams don't go to the same bowls year in and year out. The six BCS conferences choose three bowls as the "second place" bowls (say, Capital One, Cotton, and Holiday), three as the third place bowls, three as the fourth place, etc. Each of the bowls in a particular group gets a chance to select any team in their particular slot. So for instance, the Capital One, Cotton, and Holiday would match-up the top non-BCS teams from the six BCS conferences. The Third place bowls would get the next choice, the fourth place the choice after that and so on.
-I wonder if Texas fans are more happy at their team's 7th straight 10 win season, or disappointed that they appear to underachieve once again. Looking back, there is no way they should have lost to Kansas State or Texas A&M. If they win those two, they could've been in New Orleans instead of San Diego. They are very young, and have a fairly easy schedule next year. They should make a serious push.
-Why the heck did Southern Miss can Jeff Bower? What more do they think their program should be? Bower gave them 17 years, 14 straight winning seasons, 119 wins, nine bowl games in the last ten years, three out of the four last conference championships. He is an alum who married a local beauty queen. He wasn't going anywhere, and he's gotten more out of that program than anyone else could reasonably expect. They're in freakin' Hattiesburg, do they really think there is a coach out there that can take them to the BCS? Within two years, if not sooner, they'll regret their decision.
-Speaking of traveling, the Wizard of Odds has an interesting post about the amount of miles travelled by college football teams for non-conference games in the last ten years (HT: EDSBS) While some of the results are too be expected, BCS conference teams travel less than BCS conference teams, eastern teams travel less than western teams, some of the results are surprising in their degree. We knew that SEC teams rarely traveled outside of the south, but we didn't realize it was so pronounced. In the last ten years Georgia has traveled a total of 358 miles for non-conference regular season games. Compare that to the 23 thousand miles logged by USC, or the 11 thousand Michigan has travelled. When you consider that 8 of the 10 least travelled teams are from the SEC, and only one team in the league, Alabama has averaged more than 1,000 miles a year, and you get some idea of why the SEC has accumulated the non-conference record it has. So the next time you hear someone ramble on about the superiority of the SEC, remind them that the average SEC team has traveled 350 miles per year to non conference games in the last decade, while Big Ten teams went almost 1,000 miles, while PAC Ten teams put in 1,500. And, of course, there's that whole home bowl game thing.
-Not to keep flogging a deceased equine, but I was very interested in the news that Les Miles called Rich Rodriguez to congratulate him on getting the Michigan job. According to Rich Rod's mother Miles thanked him for losing to Pitt but joked that the loss cost him his dream job. There's a little truth in all humor, right? How much do you want to bet that Miles would have given up the chance to coach in the championship game to come to Michigan? He really needs to stop thinking about the Michigan job, or he's going to get killed on the recruiting trail.
-Finally saw HBO's "The Rivalry" the other night. There are certainly some elements that are well done, but I had to agree with most of the criticism I heard from other people: it is definitely told more from the Ohio State perspective than the Michigan perspective; there should have been more about what Schembechler's passing meant to Michigan fans, than what it meant to Buckeye fans; there was no mention of Lloyd Carr, which is ridiculous; they could have included a lot more on Bob Ufer; they left out a number of interesting items from the ten year war, the buckeyes tearing down the M club banner, the Michigan fan dotting the "i", "Save Fuel, Burn Woody bumper stickers", etc. All in all a great show, but with a few tweaks could have been better.
-In all the hubub after the OSU game, Carr's retirement, etc, I forgot to send out an attaboy to our spartan brethern for their two game winning streak to end the season and their invite to the Champs Tangerine Micron PC Sports Bowl. After they lost to Michigan and Coach Dantonio got involved in a pissing match with Mike Hart, they had the look of a typical spartan team about to collapse down the stretch and blow their shot at the post season. But they pulled it together and beat two straight bowl teams to end the season on a winning streak for the first time in forever. Even if they get torched by BC in today's game, this has been a positive first season for Dantonio, and spartan fans should be very pleased with the progress. Now if he can just find a way to beat big brother ;-)

The little nine strike back

I heard someone comment recently about how the big ten was reverting back to the mid-70s, with Michigan and OSU winning something like 36 of their last 38 games, with the two losses being their yearly donnybrook. Well this past weekend, the little nine bit back.

-As hard as I try, i just can't seem to get myself too worked up by our stinker performance in Madison. Yes you want to win every game. Yes, you want to continue the positive momentum the last eight weeks have given you. Yes, there was a slim chance at a BCS bowl even with a loss to OSU. But clearly, in the grand scheme of things, this game meant next to nothing, especially in contrast to the game this week. Consequently, I don't think this loss tells us anything about the OSU game, other than perhaps that we need Henne and Hart to be healthy to beat OSU. Of course, anyone who didn't realize that before this week hasn't been paying attention very closely. Yes the run blocking was horrendous, as was the run defense. But the defensive failings were a result of being on the field too much, and the run blocking was a result of getting behind and needing to pass to catch-up. I also think the entire team realized the significance of this game, or lack thereof, and mailed it in.
-Meanwhile, down in Columbus, we learned that Michigan is not the only team that can't defend the spread option attack. The Buckeyes just couldn't get Illinois, a slightly better than mediocre team coached by the second coming of John Cooper off the field when they needed to. For the second time this year (MSU) Todd Boeckman looked less than perfect when he was pressured. Unfortunately for us, we don't really have the scheme that can take advantage of this weakness. Yes we can spread the the ball around to different talented receivers (assuming Henne is healthy), but we don't have the running threat at QB that caused the OSU pass rushers to pause.
-I do wonder if there will be any hangover for the Buckeyes. All off-season all they heard about was how the blew it in the national championship game. They heard the cracks about how they were overrated, didn't belong on the same field as the Gators. The fact that their basketball brethren also lost to the Gators in the championship game only served as a reminder of their disappointment. Sweatervest even made the score of the game the entry code to their football complex. So after working all year to replace all the talent that left, and working their way up from a pre-season ranking in the teens, they had finally gotten to a place where they could almost taste their shot at redemption. And then it was taken away from them in the form of a 16-play, 40 yard, 8 minute drive from the Illini. The Buckeye offense literally had to sit and watch their dreams die in front of them.
-The big winner in the game in Columbus, other than the Illini was the Rose Bowl. The Rose Bowl would dearly love to get the Buckeyes, since they have only been their once since 1985, as opposed to Michigan who would be returning for the fourth time in five years. If OSU had won out, the Rose might have had no Big Ten team to take.
-The big losers, other than OSU, were Iowa, MSU, IU and Northwestern. All four teams are 6-5, and with six other teams ahead of them, will all be competing for one bowl slot (the Motor City) if the Big Ten only gets one team in the BCS. All other things being equal, the Motor City would like to take MSU and the guaranteed sell-out in Detroit. But by rule, they can not take a 6-6 team if there is an eligible 7-5 team. So this week's games against Western Michigan, Penn State, Purdue, and Illinois respectively are that much more important.
-It amazing how far and fast Miami has fallen. 48-0?!? To Virginia?!? In the Orange Bowl finale?! Have some pride, have a sense of history, and at least put up a fight. No wonder they never sell out games. The Hurricanes were always much more of pro franchise than a college program.
-I wonder what sort of gimmick Mark Richt will come up with in Georgia's next big game to fire up his players.
-If I'm a Nebraska fan, i don't know if the performance against K-State makes me happy, or makes me pissed off that we hadn't seen that effort in the prior 5 weeks when the season was still salvageable.
-When a QB comes off the field and gets on the phone to talk to the coaches upstairs, why do they still use corded phones? Couldn't they use a Bluetooth or something else that isn't twenty years out of date?

Hoops is here
-Looks like the craziness of the college football season has transferred to basketball. Gardner-Webb over Kentucky? Belmont over Cinncy? Mercer over USC? That's three wins by Atlantic Sun teams over major conference teams. To put that in perspective, the Atlantic Sun was 0-30 last year against BCS conference teams with an average margin of defeat of just over 22 points. Of course, with a tournament, these upsets don't mean nearly as much as they do in football.
-So far so good with Beilein's boys. Two comfortable wins against Radford and Brown, with fewer turnovers, more steals, and more energy than we ever saw from Amaker's teams. Perhaps the thing that I liked the best happened off the court. Last year's starting PG Jarrett Smith was suspended for the opener because he missed some classes. Apparently Beilein informed Smith that he would miss the Friday opener at a practice earlier in the week. During the practice, Smith went down with an ankle injury, complaining loudly. Beilein told all the players to leave him alone and left him with the trainers while he took the team to the other end of the court. After practice, he told Smith he would serve his suspension once he was completely healthy. No skating on the punishment because you are hurt. That strikes me as very Bo-like.
-The freshman back court looked really good. Manny Harris looks like, well, Mr. Basketball. Kelvin Grady is very fast and will help up press the tempo a lot. Together they actually look like a decent big ten back court. I would be shocked if Jarret Smith ever starts another game for us.

December Madness?

June 19, 2008 Note: This is a post that originally appeared on Golden's Football Rankings and is reproduced here for posterity.

So someone mentioned recently that with 32 bowl games, we have exactly 64 teams playing in the postseason. To complete the thought, I put together the 64 teams into a March madness style bracket, using the BCS rankings for the first 42 teams, and the Golden Rankings for the last 22. First two rounds are on campus. Midwest plays West, East plays Southeast. The bracket is listed below.

Midwest
1) Ohio State
16) Alabama

8) Houston
9) Arizona State

4) Rutgers
13) West Michigan

5) Tennessee
12) Texas Tech

3) Auburn
14) Oklahoma State

6) Boston College
11) Rice

2) Boise State
15) Minnesota

7) UCLA
10) Missouri


West
1) LSU
16) Miami

8) Oregon
9) Central Michigan

4) West Virginia
13) Kansas St

5) BYU
12) Nevada

3) Arkansas
14) San Jose St

6) Texas A&M
11) S. Miss

2) USC
15) Iowa

7) Ga Tech
10) S. Florida


Southeast
1) Florida
16) New Mexico

8) Hawaii
9) Navy

4) Virginia Tech
13) Purdue

5) California
12) Ohio

3) Notre Dame
14) Utah

6) Nebraska
11) Tulsa

2) Wisconsin
15) MTSU

7) TCU
10) Maryland


East
1) Michigan
16) Troy

8) Georgia
9) Clemson

4) Wake Forest
13) E Carolina

5) Texas
12) Cinncy

3) Oklahoma
14) Florida State

6) Oregon State
11) Kentucky

2) Louisville
15) No Illinois

7) Penn State
10) S Carolina

Lots of interesting match-ups, but the first round games that pop out at me are the Alabama at OSU game and the LSU/Miami rematch of the Peach Bowl. Of course something like this is entirely unrealistic, but who would’ve imagined 30 years ago that there would be 32 bowl games.

-I went to the Motor City Bowl last night. Not a bad game, not a bad venue, and overall a feel good night for the CMU Chips. As a fan of one of the big time programs, you never really realize how much wins in even a so-called lesser bowl mean to a fan base. There were a lot of CMU fans there calling this one of the biggest wins in the program’s history. What we forget when we complain about the glut of bowls is that these games give hope to the “other” I-A programs that have little to no chance of playing on the big stage of the BCS.

-The Motor City Bowl chose Middle Tennessee State instead of a major conference teams because it had no choice. A new NCAA rule this year stated that a 6-6 team could only qualify for a bowl if it was filling one of it’s conference’s bowl slots, or if all of the 7-5 or 8-4 teams are taken. That’s why 7-5 MTSU and NIU went to bowls while 6-6 Kansas, Arizona, Washington State and Pittsburgh stayed home. Personally, I think it is a great rule that will help level the playing field, if only a little bit.

-The talk of a “Plus One” playoff is encouraging, if only because it is an improvement on the current system. The system does have it flaws, and wouldn’t resolve all problems, but it would be a playoff and could lead to an enlarged tournament. The thing to remember is that a four, or even an eight-team tournament is not likely. Right now, there are 10 BCS bowl spots that pay 10-17 million each, eight of which go to the power conferences. Any playoff system that is enacted would have to either take place after the BCS bowls, or would have to guarantee at least 10 big payouts. Additionally, any system that does not reserve at least one spot for non-power conference teams could face a legal challenge, or political pressure. That means the only two possibilities that would be likely to get support from the power conference presidents would be a “plus one” or a twelve team tournament. Since a 12-team tournament seems like an unlikely first step, I would guess we will see more support for a post bowl game playoff after this BCS contract runs out.

-Did anybody tell the Oregon Ducks that their uniforms were, are and continue to be god-awful? I mean seriously, somebody has to tell them. We can’t let them go on embarrassing themselves like that.