As Promised, my BCS defense

The BCS is very popular to bash. The hosts of ESPN’s shows, like College Game Day and even Sportscenter take shots at it, along with the ‘analysts.’ When they roll highlights of the I-AA playoffs, they often say things like “they are doing it the right way with a playoff.” Computers shouldn’t decide the National Championship they say.

Here’s what I say, the BCS is almost fine. In fact, there are only two things I recommend the BCS do. First, bring back the old formula with strength of schedule and quality wins as components. If the AP still doesn’t want to be apart then fine, but without these components a team like Kansas or Missouri can “make their case” for going to a BCS game despite playing no one.

Second, add the plus one game. Let the four BCS games pick whoever they want to pick. At the end of the day Jan 1, we should get a consensus #1 and #2, and let them play next week. For instance, this year Ohio State would play USC and LSU would possibly play Virginia Tech again or even Georgia. That would pretty much be all we needed to fix the “mess” this year.

How could I defend the BCS you say? Easy, it’s the sole reason that college football is so exciting. Every week we’re at the edge of our seats. After each upset, another team’s hopes and dreams go down the drain, making the experience that much more emotional.

Imagine if there was a playoff, West Virginia’s loss Pitt at the end of the season would be meaningless. This year, it was the sole reason they didn’t make it to the BCS championship game.

Second, a playoff would be hard to pull off. A lot of people suggest using the bowl games as sites or having an 8 or 12 team playoff and keeping the rest of the bowl games. Not only will that not fly politically, it’s just not practical.

Keep in mind that these players are technically student athletes. December for college students is basically finals month, then vacation. For a playoff to happen, something would have to give, practice or exam preparation. Even though many of them probably don’t care about their education, we have to at least give them a chance.

Third, football isn’t basketball. I think the main reason people want a playoff in football is because the playoffs in basketball is so exciting. Basketball doesn’t have the first two issues I addressed when it comes to their playoffs. In addition, it’s easy to play 32 games in about three weeks. Basketball isn’t as physically taxing as football, where you need about a week off just to recover.

Another thing to consider is that basketball teams are often closer in talent than football teams. The nature of the sports is different, so it’s harder to get a team full of blue chippers in basketball, because everyone wants their shine.

In football you can have a Top 5 QB, RB, OT, C, DE, LB, CB, and Safety on the same team and it’s all good. Also, the “Any Given Sunday” principle applies more to college basketball than football. In football, at the most there may be four or five teams with a semi-legit claim to the title. In basketball, you could have up to ten teams with a legit shot.

That’s my case. In fact, this year’s mess wasn’t really that messy. That’s the beauty of college football, just win all your games and play a quasi-tough schedule.

Ohio State lost once to a BCS team. LSU lost twice in triple overtime!

As for the rest, Hawaii didn’t play anybody. Kansas played a cream puff schedule and lost to Missouri. Missouri turned around and lost to Oklahoma. Oklahoma lost to Colorado and Texas Tech. Georgia lost to South Carolina and got dismantled by Tennessee. Virginia Tech got waxed by LSU, nuff said. USC lost at home … to STANFORD.

All of these teams with “gripes” defeated themselves. If USC would have just beat Stanford, they’d be in right now, etc.

Ohio State didn’t have a tough schedule, but they did what they had to do. After they get waxed by LSU, everything will be right with the world, as LSU has been the team that most people felt was the best anyway.

Quick Hits 11/16/07

First, I want to say that my prayers are with Sean Taylor and his family right now.

There’s no need to speculate about the situation right now, we should just hope he pulls through.

NFL

As for the rest of the NFL, things are starting to get interesting. The Eagles say they won’t start McNabb until he’s 100%, which is code for “let’s see if A.J. Feely’s game against the Patriots wasn’t a fluke.”

Speaking of the Patriots, their road to 16-0 continues. I will say that their game against the Eagles was more of them taking the foot off the gas, than Philly coming up with a blue print.

Speaking of 16-0 (or 0-16), tonight Ricky Williams makes his triumphant return for the Dolphins. (Insert marijuana joke here).

I’m also looking forward to Dallas making short work of the Packers. However, if Green Bay does knock of the Cowboys, I’ll finally start to take them seriously as a Super Bowl Contender.

Right now, the Super Bowl berths are Dallas and New England’s to lose. Green Bay, Indy, Pittsburgh, may make it interesting, and the Jaguars and Browns are seemingly legit as playoff contenders at least.

Besides the Cowboys and Packers, the rest of the NFC looks like garbage.

Speaking of garbage, I looked at my preseason and fantasy picks over the weekend … horrendous.

NBA

There are a few themes developing early this season in the NBA.

1. LeBron James is here. While many people would’ve wrote this a year or even two years ago, I was always somewhat critical of LeBron, at least in the sense that I didn’t feel like he was the best player in the league or a Jordan reincarnate.

Now, he’s finally living up to those expectations and seems poised to average a triple double for a season some day. I’m now going to watch as many Cavs games as possible.

2. The Suns, Spurs, and Mavs are up to their old tricks again in the West, but the Magic and Celtics are also emerging as power teams. Look for them to be the new Pistons and Heat, as two more of my predictions are made foolish.

3a. The NBA is filled with young and exciting teams. New Orleans, Toronto, Milwaukee, Charlotte, Golden State (kind of), Atlanta, Washington (Caron Butler is the new Carmelo, you heard it here first), the Lakers, Portland are all fun teams to watch.

3b. The NBA hasn’t realized this, and continues to give us the same damn teams on TV. Note to the league, no more Rockets, Heat, Knicks, Nets, Pistons, or Bulls games until further notice. Thanks!

NCAA Football

I’ll save my defending the BCS/making it better rant for later, but I can say that the “overrated teams will lose eventually” theme of college football is constantly proving itself.

If Missouri knocks of Oklahoma this weekend, then I’ll consider them legit. If they lose to Oklahoma, look for West Virginia to destroy Ohio State for the national championship.

Also, expect Hawaii to lose to Washington this weekend, and look the Virginia Tech/BC winner to become overrated.

Georgia is also very overrated and should get shellacked in its bowl game, depending on the match-up.

I’m still mad that Dennis Dixon got hurt and ruined my West Virginia-Oregon dream title game.

NCAA Basketball

Still too early to tell in college basketball, but I can say the CAA is looking strong this season. Even my Drexel Dragons are playing well and my possibly exceed expectations this year.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Winter is my favorite time for sports. Double doses of football with a dash of wacky baseball trades, free agent signings, etc. While I don't have anything to say about baseball, there's definately a lot to discuss elsewhere ... like my bad predictions.

NCAA Bball

I didn’t do a NCAA preview because it’s pointless. 1. The real season starts in March. 2. With the new(ish) NBA rules, each college season is essentially unpredictable.

There’s an influx of freshman stars who may come and go, struggle early then flourish later on in their careers, or just flame out all together. Regardless, from about 96 until the rule was implemented, most of the Derrick Rose, O.J. Mayo, Eric Gordon types would’ve been on some NBA team’s bench right now.

That said, I think the media has it right with the early favorites of UCLA, UNC, and Memphis.

NBA

LOL at my NBA predictions. I definitely underestimated the surges Dwight Howard and Chris Paul would have this season. They are now in the top 10, as far as players in the league go.

I also underestimated the smarts of Bulls GM John Paxson, and the effects a non-Kobe trade would have on the Bulls.

I overestimated the Hawks young nucleus coming together.

Enough about me. This season has been very exciting so far, the NBA is in great shape. There really isn’t a team in the league without a star, except maybe Charlotte, but they have a good nucleus of young players.

If you’re sleeping on the NBA, wake up. This year has the potential to be one of the best years in recent memory.

NCAA Fball

It’s been hard for me to write about NCAA football since Dennis Dixon is done for the season. I talked him up for the Heisman early in the game, and he was poised to be the best prediction in the almost 1 year history of Sportsology. DAMMIT!

Now it should go to Tim Tebow. I was watching ESPN today and they were hyping up the QB’s from Kansas and Missouri, who are admittedly decent. However, if you were to give it to one of them over Tebow then you might as well give it to Dennis. The biggest benefactor of Kansas and Missouri’s “surprising” runs has been weak scheduling.

Speaking of which, one of those two teams making the national championship game would be a disaster. In the original BCS formula, I’d be surprised if West VA wouldn’t be ahead of them anyway, or maybe even Ohio State. The Big 12 is so suspect, as always, and it would be a shame if LSU didn’t square off with West Virginia or Ohio State at this point.

(Although I still say Michigan would’ve knocked them off with a healthy Hart and Henne. Another one of my predictions bites the dust)

NFL

All of the talk has been about the historic runs of New England and Miami. That’s understandable. However, I think three things are getting lost in the mix.

1. There isn’t really a dominant running back in the league besides Adrian Peterson. By that I mean a traditional power running back. LaDainian is perhaps a victim of poor coaching, a little bit of age, or maybe a combination of the two. Willie Parker is good, but they can’t trust him around the endzone. Brian Westbrook is having a crazy season, but that’s because he’s a combo back. The leader in rushing yards this season may not even crack 1,400 yards.

2. Tom Brady is having one of the greatest seasons in NFL history. This isn’t talked about enough, I don’t think. However, number 2 is only possible because of number 3.

3. Randy Moss is the MVP of the league, and is having one of the greatest seasons any athlete has ever had in any sport. He’s literally unstoppable. He’s making Brady look like a God and making his opponents look second class. When you look at many of his touchdown catches, a lot of them were either bad passes or very questionable decisions that he cashed in on anyway. You can say Brady wouldn’t have thrown those passes to anybody but Moss, but you can also say Brady wouldn’t be this good, this year, if it wasn’t Randy and company at wide out.

I Heart the Spread Offense

Glad to see that Dennis Dixon for Heisman campaign is starting to work. Way back on October 22nd, yours truly said that Dixon should win the Heisman (if he kept up the good work).

At that time he was still behind Tim Tebow and Matt Ryan in most projections and even behind Darren McFadden, Andre Woodson, Pat White, and Colt Brennan in some of those projections.

Now, after beating Arizona State in primetime on ESPN, many of the East Coast folks who are usually sleeping when Oregon is doing their thing got a chance to see what Dixon is all about. Unfortunately, his best pass of the night was dropped, but the perfect over-the-shoulder pass he threw to WR Jaison Williams helped show that Dixon has arm strength and accuracy to go with his athleticism.

Let’s hope the NFL doesn’t try to make him into a wide receiver.

As for the college football world, things are starting to get interesting. BC predictably took an L, and is probably eliminated from title contention.

(The way the polling system works in college football is fairly stupid, btw. You lose a game and go behind most of the teams with one loss, regardless of if you’re better than them or not, and so forth and so on. It’s as if the voters don’t watch football, they just read the box score Sunday morning, look at the records, and try to put the teams together that way. For teams like Kansas, they must look at it like “An 8-0 Kansas team can’t be better than Oklahoma,” without watching either team play. I digress.)

Anyway, my dream match-up is looking more and more feasible. Oregon vs. West Virginia in the title game. Spread-option vs. Spread option. Pat White vs. Dennis Dixon. Steve Slayton vs. Jonathan Stewart. No defense played at all. Well, maybe some defense. It would be a very fun game with the best spread-option passing team squaring off against the best spread-option running team. (Florida is best overall, I think, and is probably second in both categories as long as they keep letting P. Harvin run the rock.)

Ohio State is going to lose to Michigan, and I can’t imagine LSU continuing to remain so lucky. Kansas has at least three games left, including a home match up against Missouri. If they beat Missouri, they’ll likely face Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship game. I can’t see them winning out.

Speaking of Oklahoma and Missouri, they are due for at least one more loss a piece, if not two. The Big 12 is very weak this year, but overrated teams shall fall sooner or later. All three of these teams (Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri) are very overrated. Well, I guess Kansas deserves to be #4 since they’re undefeated, so let’s say their record is inflated by their poor strength of schedule.

As for Oregon and West Virginia, all they have to do is keep winning and watch everyone else lose. Oregon is clearly the best team in the Pac-10 right now. If they win out, they should end up at #1.

West Virginia has a much tougher road, considering their poor strength of schedule. For the record, I’m not sure if they can beat LSU, Ohio State, Boston College, or even a team like Kansas or Oklahoma. I just really love to watch them play.

Anyway, beating UConn will be a plus for once, considering the Huskies record. Before UConn, they play Louisville (a rivalry game that will be unpredictable) and a very tough Cincinnati team. If they win out, they’ll get a boost in the computers from Cincy and UConn and will be battle tested to hang tough against BCS team.

Let’s see what happens this Saturday.