SportsRatings: College Football

LaGarrette Blount's punch after Boise State-Oregon game

LaGarrette Blount had a terrible night rushing for the Ducks, ending in negative yardage. The rest of his season should be a lot better if he's allowed to play after punching a Boise State player and trying to attack some fans after the game.

Let's see how long this video stays up...

Blount will probably miss at least the next game, I figure, if not several. There's no doubt that Byron Hout, the Boise State player he hit, had egged him on with some trash talking before the punch. Still, keep it on the field, dumbass.

Playoff debate: So who plays in the "plus one" game this year?

The idea of a playoff for college football is more popular than ever, but no one seems to agree how to do it. If it's going to happen, I hope it's done right. I don't think it will be, and that's why I'm not too excited about the prospect. I'd rather come up with criteria for determining the impossible to determine rather than see a crappy playoff system.

One of the worst proposals is the "Plus One" game. The idea is that after all the bowl games, even the BCS Championship, I guess, then the two top teams would be matched in a true championship game.

In some years that idea might have worked. Before the BCS, certainly. Since the BCS, there are a few that might work (last year, possibly) and many that wouldn't; after Texas and USC played, you'd have Texas face...who exactly? Penn State?

This year is a problem for the opposite reason. Now that the season's over, if a "Plus One" game had been the law of the land, who would play whom? Florida and Utah, the top two in the AP? Florida and USC? Florida and Texas?

Clearly this would have been a good year for a playoff, and a terrible year for a "Plus One" system. Some years are terrible for both. Again, 2005 comes to mind. Why deny ourselves Texas vs. USC to an upset?

But if it's a playoff everyone wants, let's do it right. Here are some things I think are musts for a playoff:

1. Sixteen teams is too many.

There should be eight teams, max; sometimes fewer, and maybe only two some years (i.e., no playoff when there is a clear top two).

2. All undefeated teams should make the playoffs. But no 2-loss teams should. 

Every year except 2007 the national champ had fewer than 2 losses. Why allow those teams in at all? If there aren't 8 teams with 0 or 1 losses, cut the number of teams to four. Then add 2-loss teams if needed, i.e., if there isn't an obvious #1 and #2.

3. All 1-loss teams from major conferences should be included; other 1-loss teams can get in if they are selected, otherwise they're out of luck.

If the Sun Bowl wants a guaranteed representative, all they have to do is go undefeated in their cupcake schedule. Some would complain that they have it easy, and they do. Suffer a loss and they're at the whim of the voters/computers.

4. Perhaps limit two teams to a conference in the playoffs, or use it heavily as a selection criteria.

This just makes sense for this year. Three teams from the Big Twelve might be too many.

5. If a 1-loss team has been defeated crushingly by another 1-loss team, the game should be considered a de facto part of the playoff and the loser removed from consideration.

Another way to keep teams like Texas Tech who've already been convincingly defeated, out.

Using these rules, this year would have worked out rather nicely.

There were 10 teams with 0 losses or 1 loss: Oklahoma, Florida, Texas, Alabama, USC, Utah, Texas Tech, Penn State, Boise State, and Ball State. Texas Tech (beaten badly, and third in Big 12), and Ball State (weakest 1-loss team) would be out.

The brackets should be arranged so that Oklahoma and Texas, as well as Alabama and Florida, wouldn't meet until the final. We don't want rematch games.

So put USC and Penn State in the Rose Bowl; Oklahoma and Boise State in the Fiesta; Florida and Utah in the Sugar; and Alabama and Texas in the Orange. The Rose and Orange winners meet, and the Fiesta and Sugar winners meet. Et cetera.

But many are enamored with the idea of having 2-loss teams like Ohio State in the mix. After all, the Buckeyes got a BCS bowl. Or people would want conference champs like Virginia Tech or Cincinnati to be in the tournament, or worse, have the Sun Bowl get a bid. And have 16 teams.

This would yield a tournament where a couple of 4-loss teams who got a few upsets would be playing for the national championship.

Some day we'll have a playoff in college football. And I think it will suck as bad as the BCS, if not more.

Shut up whiners, this was a great game

Already the whiners have started.

After complaining all season that teams weren't playing defense against the likes of Oklahoma and Florida, now suddenly the complaint is that there wasn't enough scoring in the game.

Make up your mind, whiners.

Do you want to see defense or not? Because defense means lower scoring games, like this one. 24-14 isn't the high-powered score you see when Oklahoma beats Baylor or Florida crushes Kentucky, but it's certainly better than Oregon State vs. Pitt (a 3-0 final).

Would they rather have seen a rout like USC over Oklahoma in January of 2005? Or like Ohio State suffered the last two years? Those had scoring—most of it by only one of the two teams involved in the game. Is that better?

Or were the whiners spoiled by the USC-Texas game in 2006, and the Miami-Ohio State game of 2003? Sorry, you can't have candy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Of course the whiner in the link above, Jim Litke, was simply using this game as part of his argument for a playoff. Whether you want a playoff or not, bashing this game is not necessary. How would a playoff ensure that the title game was exciting? Answer: it wouldn't. Would it have matched two better teams in the final? Maybe, depending on who you think are the best. It's also possible two much lesser teams could have made it, by luck.

So take your playoff propaganda somewhere else. It has nothing to do with this game, the clock stoppages and awkward timeouts that marred the contest. Nor does it have anything to do with the four touchdown passes, four interceptions, and numerous big-time defensive plays that the game featured, aspects that true fans of the game can appreciate.

But whiners can only whine. And we can only shut out their noise, as well as any other arguments they're trying to promote along with their whining.

Syracuse—not Auburn—should get flack for not hiring Gill

There's been a lot a whining about Auburn not hiring Turner Gill, the ex-Nebraska star and coach that turned around the Buffalo program in a few short years. But those complainers are wrong; Auburn had no obligation to hire Gill rather than Gene Chizik, who coached Auburn's staunch defense of years past. Instead, it's Syracuse that missed the boat and should be receiving the criticism.

Charles Barkley started the shouting, saying that "race was the number one factor" in Chizik's hiring. He then went on to say that—get this—Gill should have been hired because of his race. "Clearly, if we’d hired a black coach, it would have created a buzz," he is quoted as saying in the Rivals article.

We can pardon Charles for his loud mouth, as it's par for the course for him. But why does Rivals' Dan Wetzel have to wholeheartedly agree with him? His arguments against Chizik are moronic, much like his infantile and constant grousing about not having a playoff system. He points out that Chizik hasn't done well at Iowa State, ignoring the fact that he's had success everywhere else he has been. At various jobs at Middle Tennessee, Stephen F. Austin State, and Central Florida, he helped raise middling and fledgling programs up, before going to Auburn in 2002.

At Auburn, he was defensive coordinator during one of the Tigers' best seasons ever, when they went 13-0 largely due to tough D. The next year he was defensive coordinator for the national champion Texas Longhorns. This is a record to be mocked? Just for the purpose of propping up Gill and shouting about injustice?

Chizik's record at Iowa State was terrible. Being a poor team in the best conference in the country this year was no easy task. The team floundered the last few years largely this was due to recruiting, which we can assume won't be a problem at Auburn. If it is, he'll be gone soon enough. But clearly he proved himself to the people at Auburn when he coached their team's defense which led directly to a #2 finish.

So complaining about Auburn hiring Chizik over anyone else is stupid. They know him, they like what they saw, and they believe the Iowa State record is irrelevant. They weren't looking for "any white guy" they were looking for "their guy" and their guy is Gene Chizik.

Instead, were they supposed to hire Gill, a man with no connections to Auburn or the SEC? Sure, Gill worked a miracle at Buffalo, and for that alone would have made a good hire for anyone, but Auburn clearly wanted Chizik, and not because he was white. That theory is ridiculous.

Now the team that should be taking the heat is Syracuse. The Orange play in the same state as Buffalo, so he knows the area. If Gill can recruit decently to Buffalo, imagine what he could have done in Syracuse. Unlike Auburn, Syracuse really did need to "make a splash" as Barkley said. Dismal for the last half-decade, they needed to make a bold move, and the answer was right in their backyard. Instead they hired Doug Marrone, an alum who has no head coaching experience. For a program in such dire straits, hiring one of their own is not the way to go. And as a move for Gill, going to a major conference but not to a mammoth hot-seat like Auburn would be a good move, his last stepping stone before going to one of the big programs (for example...Nebraska?).

So why are people all over Auburn's case and not Syracuse's, when the Syracuse job really was the perfect fit for Gill? I don't know. Maybe they assume that Syracuse is completely incompetent and therefore excused, while Auburn is in the south and is therefore suspect when it comes to race issues. Gill himself said he though the fact that he has a white wife is what made the difference.

People in situations like that always see their unique circumstance as the determining factor. I really doubt Auburn would have hired him but thought, "wait, remember, he has a white woman for a wife." What they did say was "we have to interview some other people before we give our good friend Gene the job" and Gill was one of those interviewed. He had an uphill climb because he was up against a good friend of the people making the decision. It happens a lot in job searches, when the people doing the hiring want to hire a specific person but have to do a "search." If Gill had been the defensive coordinator at Auburn from 2002-2004, they would be hiring him right now, even if he'd struggled at Iowa State for a couple of seasons, while Chizik brought Buffalo to life.

So lay off Auburn. The real thing people should be mad at them for is giving Tuberville the $5.1 million firing bonus that he forfeited by quitting. And put the heat on Syracuse, they are the ones that deserve it for passing over Gill.

Meanwhile, poor Iowa State wanted Gill, and he didn't want them. Can't blame him, it's a tough job right now, pretty much a dead end...unless you have friends in high places elsewhere.

Wetzel's playoff plan features 2nd round rematch we all want: Texas Tech vs. Oklahoma

A college football playoff. It seems that everyone wants one, but no one can agree how to do it. Which is why I'm wary of the concept, even if the BCS has managed to make the idea popular through its incompetence.

Dan Wetzel writes his usual weekly article about how college football needs a playoff and rails against the unnamed "apologists", and includes brackets for a 16-team playoff, and therein lies the rub. I think college football will eventually adopt a playoff system, and most likely it will suck as bad as the BCS.

First of all, there needs to be a system for choosing the teams involved. Certainly, a BCS-like system will be adopted. At least they've simplified the stupid formula from the years when all sorts of pointless data was included, but still it's less than ideal, with the Harris poll and coaches poll featured without the much-better AP, and too few computers to make that section legitimate.

Second, how many teams will be featured? Do we really want to go from a tradition where only a select few are in consideration for the national championship to one where sixteen teams have a shot? From decades where a team had to have an incredible season, and finish undefeated or with just one loss (last year's aberration notwithstanding), to one where a four-loss team is in the running?

Third, though they claim otherwise, the regular season will be greatly diminished. There will either be fewer games, and/or those games will be less relevant. Questions that were solved will be re-opened by a playoff.

Wetzel's brackets have all of these pitfalls: far too many teams, four-loss teams competing, a questionable system for choosing the very few at-large teams, a diminished regular season, and rematches among teams where the first game was an unmitigated stomping.

For the latter point: Oklahoma and Texas Tech would meet in the second round of this playoff. Does anything more have to be said about this? Wasn't the question of which team is better settled when the Sooners dismantled the Red Raiders 65-21?

That's not to say Texas Tech wouldn't deserve to be in the field. But a good system would insure that they had to earn the rematch by putting them on the other side of the bracket so they'd have to meet in the final. Of course, that has its own problems. Would they be considered the best team by winning a rematch by 1 point?

I think a playoff with far fewer teams would be better. Eight, at most, or even four. Some years, there should be no playoff: who would argue that in 2005 anyone but Texas and USC should have had a shot at being national champion?

But the system that eventually will be adopted will have no flexibility. It will have major flaws, and they will either tweak those flaws like they did the BCS, or stubbornly hold on to the system, like they have the BCS...

And everyone will complain about the system, about how their team was screwed, and about how the system needs to be changed.

Sound familar?

Thoughts: Big Twelve rankings; Utah's BCS bowl Orange; the Oregon State-Penn State rematch

Some thoughts after Saturday's action:

• How the rank the Big Twelve teams
  
  With Oklahoma having beaten Texas Tech, who beat Texas, who beat Oklahoma, there is of course a "round-robin" situation where each team is 10-1 and has beaten and lost to one of the other. Normally this would be a tough situation, where you'd have to ignore one of the losses and place someone on top, but Oklahoma's convincing win made it clear that Texas Tech should not be that top team.
  
  Further, Texas' win on a neutral field, combined with their last-second loss, makes them the most logical top team going by head-to-head competition principles. Voters (remember, the criteria for breaking a three-way tie is whichever team is highest in the BCS rankings) may jump Oklahoma over Texas on the idea that they are playing better "at the moment," but taking the viewpoint that the entire season is what matters—and with no playoff, the idea that the entire season matters is paramount—I would have to rank Texas at the top of the three teams.
  
  The computers will probably agree with that assessment. Since margin of victory is not used, there is no reason they will elevate Oklahoma over Texas at this point. But another win over Oklahoma State might be enough for at least some of the computers, and enough of the pollsters, to put the Sooners ahead of the Longhorns. Currently in my Success power rating—a BCS style computer rating in that it does not consider victory margin—Texas is #2, and Oklahoma #4.
  
  Oklahoma still has to beat Oklahoma State, and if the Sooners are the South rep, Missouri. So they may yet stumble. If they do, it leaves Texas and Texas Tech. Head-to-head, the Red Raiders win that one, though I'd find it far less objectionable if Texas were ranked ahead of them than if Oklahoma is currently ranked ahead of Texas.
  
  Seeing Oklahoma in the Big Twelve title game is not a bad thing, as they have yet to play Missouri, and Texas already has. I don't like rematch games where the first game was a convincing win (see the third item). But ultimately even if Oklahoma wins out I put Texas ahead of them at least until the bowl games are played. Then it's another judgement call depending on who they each play and what happens.


• Where is Utah going to play their BCS game?
  
  I've recently seen articles that say Utah "is going to a BCS bowl, probably the Fiesta" and "probably the Sugar." According to what I can suss out, the Orange bowl has last pick among the bowls that have to fill slots. It seems that Utah will go in the last open slot, meaning they'd play a middling ACC team, much like the middling Big East team they beat in 2004.
  
  If all goes according to "plan," which it never does, Florida beats Alabama and goes to the BCS title game. Oklahoma wins out, wins the Big Twelve, and is also in the title game. The Sugar and Fiesta pick replacements (Alabama and Texas), the Rose is filled by USC/Oregon State vs. Penn State, and the Orange has perhaps Georgia Tech.
  
  So seven slots are filled: Two in the BCS title game, two in the Rose, one each in the Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange. Then the Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange pick their 2nd team, in order. If USC is available at this time they will be taken first; then Ohio State, Georgia, possibly some Big Twelve teams, all will be likely be taken ahead of Utah, who will end up in the Orange bowl.
  
  Traditionally, the Orange Bowl was the Big Twelve's bowl, but for some reason the ACC was given the bowl as its link (probably due to Miami and Florida State). So while there could be an interesting matchup with Texas and USC in the Fiesta, the Orange is looking like this year's dud.
  
  The only hope is that Utah gets selected in one of the other two bowl games. A Utah-Alabama matchup in the Sugar would be nice, but it requires that USC be in the Rose Bowl (see below).
  
  Update: I realize I hadn't mapped out the possibilities correctly. The Big East rep (probably Cincinnati) is in the mix as well, and Utah probably will be chosen ahead of them. So the Sugar bowl really is the most likely place for the Utes. And the Orange Bowl will be exactly as it should be: a poor, inconsistent ACC rep vs. a poor, inconsistend Big East rep.
  
• Penn State vs. Oregon State: The worst Rose Bowl ever?
  
  It looks like it's going to happen. Oregon State beat Arizona and now just has to get past Oregon at home to make it to the Rose Bowl. Rivalry games are tough and Oregon has a chance, but right now it's looking more and more like the Beavers will be in Pasadena.
  
  Congratulations will be due Oregon State if this happens, of course; they've earned it under the rules, they had to beat USC, and they're playing far better than they did early in the season. But none of that makes up for the fact that this game will stink for two reasons.
  
  One, a USC-Penn State matchup in the Rose Bowl would be a great thing. Two classic teams, both presumably 11-1, vye for a higher position in the rankings and possibly some #1 votes. Joe Paterno vs. Pete Carroll. Enough said.
  
  Two, Penn State already beat Oregon State 45-14 earlier this year. They should not have to "prove it" after that convincing of a win. As bad as rematch games are when the first one was close, they are a joke when the first game was a blowout. From Oregon State's point of view it's a win-win, as they have a shot at avenging the loss. From anyone else's point of view, the first game is sufficient and should stand. The rematch would undoubtedly be closer, as Oregon State has improved and rematches are almost always closer. But that doesn't take away from the fact that very few people would be exited about this game, and the college football world will be rooting for the Ducks next week. Sorry, Beaver faithful, but it's true.
  
  Remember when everyone was afraid that the Rose Bowl would be an Ohio State-USC rematch? I don't know which is worse, that outcome or the present one. An Oregon win next week could avert that possibility, but remember, if USC sneaks into the BCS title game, then Oregon would be going to the Rose Bowl. Which isn't a whole lot better than Oregon State, but at least it averts the blowout-rematch scenario.
  
  I guess I just like the BCS bowls to be filled with teams with 2 losses or fewer. This year, between the Rose Bowl, ACC, and Big East, there could be three BCS bowls with three-loss teams, while several undefeated and 1-loss teams end up in the lesser bowls.

Penn State has no cakewalk to an undefeated season

Ok, we get it already—the Big Ten gets no respect. Despite the obvious shortcomings of the Big East, ACC, and this year especially, the Pac 10, it's the Big Ten that is summarily dismissed most often. Now that Penn State is looking to go undefeated, we have some saying an undefeated Penn State isn't worthy, while the rest are saying the Lions' last three games are walkovers.

An example: this column by Mike Huguenin is par for the course, as he writes: the only way Penn State doesn't finish unbeaten in the regular season is if it beats itself.

Admittedly, the Nittany Lions cleared their toughest hurdle by beating Ohio State on the road. Looking at their three remaining foes (Iowa on the road, Indiana and Michigan State at home) doesn't strike fear into hearts the way Texas Tech's remaining schedule might. Penn State will be favored in all three games, and probably should finish 12-0. But the sportswriting nation is selling the Big Ten short.

First of all, Iowa. The Hawkeyes are only 5-3 and have played sloppy football at times. But those losses were to three winning teams: 5-2 Pittsburgh on the road; 7-2 Michigan State, also on the road; and 6-2 Northwestern at home. More importantly, the three losses were by a combined eight points—Iowa could very easily have won each of those games, and if they had they be 8-0, and this game would be seen as a huge hurdle in Penn State's way. Which is how it should be seen. Penn State's rushing defense did a great job against Beanie Wells, but Iowa's Shonn Greene could be an even tougher test. And the Hawks' defense is just as good as Ohio State's, so the game could be very low scoring, making it anybody's ball game. Check out the power ratings if you are skeptical: Iowa is firmly in the top 25 when judged on a pure-points basis such as my Strength ratings, and Sagarin's Predictor has them #10 to Penn State's #3. This is a perfect trap game for Penn State to fall into.

Next, Indiana. This is clearly the least worrisome game remaining, but 3-5 Indiana is coming off a win over Northwestern and has lost only to decent teams: undefeated Ball State, Michigan State, 7-1 Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois. Quarterback Kellen Lewis has been injured but could be back for the Penn State game. Still, as it takes place in College Station, this is the one game that should be a gimme for the Lions, though there's a chance the Hoosiers prove pesky.

Finally, Michigan State. This is another home game for the Lions, and because the Spartans were so thoroughly spanked by Ohio State many are discounting their threat. But at 7-2 they should be treated with a bit more respect, and we've seen many strange things happen to teams on their final week of the season—remember West Virginia vs. Pitt last year? Penn State will have to be focused, especially if either of the teams ahead of them have lost by this time, causing visions of a national championship to dance in front of them mesmerizingly.

That's no cakewalk. As West Virginia-Pitt and USC-Stanford/Oregon State proved, no conference game against a capable foe is a given, not even at home. Penn State won't have to "beat themselves" to lose a game; their opponents will be more than happy to try to do that for them.

Dienhart wants USC, Florida, Georgia ahead of undefeated Penn State

Poor Penn State. They have to live with being #3 behind undefeated Texas and Alabama, faced with the possibility of yet again going unbeaten and left out of the national title picture. Even Texas Tech, waiting in the wings if they beat the Longhorns, could hold the Nittany Lions out of a spot in the top two.

And that's the way it should be. The Big Twelve and SEC are so much better than the Big Ten that any team that emerges undefeated from those conferences should have priority over an unbeaten Big Ten team. Especially since both of the former conferences play a championship game, meaning they'd have to go 13-0.

But now, adding insult to injury, prominent sports writers like Tom Dienhart are suggesting that teams that have already lost a game should move ahead of the Lions. That's plain sad. Especially when there is little to no logic behind the sentiment.

Dienhart names, in addition to the aforementioned Texas, Alabama, and Texas Tech, three other teams he thinks are more deserving than Penn State: Florida, Georgia, and USC. Let's look at them one by one.

Florida just got done crushing Kentucky 63-5, a few weeks after they beat LSU 51-21. No doubt they've been pretty dominant, except when they lost to 4-4 Mississippi—at home. So the Gators have a home loss to a marginally winning team, to go with blowouts over outmatched competition. Yes, even LSU counts among the severely overrated. The dirty secret is that the SEC, which has been the premier league the last two years (or more), isn't as good this year. That doesn't mean that a 1-loss team that wins the league shouldn't play for the national title, but they shouldn't jump over Penn State.

Georgia just beat LSU as well. That seems to be the litmus test for whether an SEC team is good: can they crush LSU? Florida and Georgia pass the test; Auburn, not so much. We saw what happened to Auburn against a struggling West Virginia. Face the facts: the SEC has three good teams—Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. Florida and Georgia play each other, so only one can possibly figure into the national title talk. Should the winner of that game win the conference, they deserve to play for the national title, but again, not ahead of Penn State.

USC sputtered past Arizona on Saturday, the same Arizona team that lost to Stanford and New Mexico. Dienhart complains about the Big Ten, but where is his outrage at USC's easy path to national title contention in the abysmal Pac Ten? Sure, you can compare USC's 35-3 whipping (at home) of Ohio State to Penn State's 13-6 win (on the road), but at least Penn State won the game. Which is more than can be said for USC against Oregon State, a team that Penn State destroyed 45-14. Now THAT is a relevant comparison. And Dienhart has the gall to suggest USC is more deserving than Penn State? An undefeated USC and an undefeated Penn State would have the same basic résumé; give one team a loss and it's no contest, and no person using logic could suggest otherwise.

The three teams he mentions, Florida, Georgia, and USC, each have one win to hang their hats on so far: Florida and Georgia beat LSU, and USC beat Ohio State. Dienhart complains so much about the Big Ten and Ohio State, but somehow USC deserves a title shot due to beating the Buckeyes? And where is the derision for LSU, who has given up 50 points twice now? Should they not be as contemptible as Ohio State? After all, they *won* the title last year, so they have fallen much farther.

The bottom line is, if Penn State loses, they're out, period. Just like USC should have been when they lost. Florida and Georgia deserve a shot at redemption because of the schedule they face, and next week one of the two will be eliminated. But currently, Penn State deserves their ranking, and they are properly ahead in line of those three teams in the national title picture.

Dear Mike Huguenin: BCS Computers can't consider score margin

Same day, another article about the BCS computers and how they can't use score margin. This one comes in response to Mike Huguenin's article about the first BCS rankings this week.

In an overall decent look at how the initial BCS rankings shape up, he writes:

USC is 10th in the computer rankings and has no remaining games against teams currently in the BCS top 25. The Trojans beat Ohio State by 32, yet are ranked five spots behind the Buckeyes in the computers.

That statement is unfair to the poor computers. (Not that their feelings can get hurt). I agree it's worthwhile to point out that Ohio State is ahead of USC by the computers' estimation, since that is unusual and very unintuitive. But to point out that USC beat Ohio State by 32 is not relevant to evaluating the computers' performance, because the computers aren't allowed to "know" the score of that game, only that USC won it.

Put into perspective: what if USC had won by a single point? They subsequently lost to Oregon State, giving them one loss as well. And for all the computers know, that loss was by 50 points. But just assume we know two things: USC beat Ohio State in Pasedena, then later lost to Oregon State.

Is it so ridiculous to put Ohio State ahead of them? Maybe it still is. But some of the computers will evaluate Ohio State and conclude that they've won seven games, and lost one game, on the road, to a very good team. USC, on the other hand, beat five teams, one of them a very good team, but lost to a mediocre team. That's how Ohio State ends up ahead in four of the six computers, and tied in another. Only Richard Billingsly's algorithm has USC ahead, by a single place.

Add in the score margin and almost any computer algorithm will put USC in front. They're #2 in my Strength Power Rating, which uses score margin, while Ohio State is #13. In my Success Power Rating, which like the BCS computers does not use score margin, USC is #6 and Ohio State #8. The Trojans are still ahead, but as you can see, remove score margin from the equation and they are a lot closer.

BCS computers can't use score margin because the BCS committee decided to make it that way. On one hand, it makes the power ratings less accurate, especially at mid-season, and allows examples like this one to make the computers look stupid. On the other hand, it gets rid of incentive for coaches to run up the score. However, coaches have enough incentive to run up the score anyway: to impress the human pollsters, though this can sometimes backfire.

Another statement Huguenin makes is also a bit misleading:

While strength of schedule isn’t a BCS component, all six computers have a strength-of-schedule factor in their rankings.

It's true the BCS used to add in a ridiculous "strength of schedule" component, back when the formula was overcomplex and they tinkered with it every year to try to somehow make it match the AP and Coaches polls' #1 and #2 teams. They got rid of the strength factor, as well as the "quality wins" bonus, leaving it 2/3rd human polls, 1/3 computers.

The computers include a strength-of-schedule factor by their very nature. There is nothing "added in" as far as I know, to any of the formulas; it's just part and parcel of how they work. Imagine a computer ranking system that didn't include strength of schedule in any way. In other words, the computer couldn't know which teams are playing each other.

That's right: by letting the computer know which teams are playing each other, strength of schedule gets factored in no matter what. Without it—and also banning score margin—the computer might as well rank teams by winning percentage and let that be it. Or add in a home/road factor of some sort. There's nothing else to go on. It's the way the computer uses the head-to-head comparisons between teams that makes a power rating. Very few power ratings, if any, do what the BCS used to do, which is figure out a strength-of-schedule score and add it in later, as its own component.

My problem with some computer ratings, as I've mentioned before, is when strength of schedule is average rather than aggregate. When it's averaged, you can have a situation where an 11-0 team would be ranked higher if they didn't play Washington State in their last game. In an aggregate system, they'd play the Cougars, gain few if any points, and have basically the same rating they started with. If their strength of schedule is averaged, they lose points for winning a game.

That's all for now. I'll be back the next time someone writes something erroneous about the BCS computers, even if it's just to take a shortcut because they understandable don't want to have to write ten paragraphs about it. I'll do that part.

Dear Andrew Bagnato: BCS Computers can't consider score margin

I see it as my duty—since no one in the media seems to want to do it—to correct misconceptions about how the BCS computer algorithms work. While it may be difficult to get into details, a basic concept that all the BCS computer formulas must follow is this: margin of victory is not allowed to be used as a factor, period.

So when Andrew Bagnato writes in College Football Today,

With the first Bowl Championship Series standings due out Sunday, was No. 6 Southern California trying to send a message to the voters and the computers in a 69-0 rout of Washington State? Maybe.

He's inadvertantly spreading disinformation. The computers won't be impressed by the rout, no more than they'd be impressed by a 3-0 win by the Trojans. They won the game, and that's all they see.

In fact, some of the formulas might penalize USC for winning the game. If they use overall (average) strength of schedule in their algorithm rather than considering each game individually (like my Success power rating, which doesn't use score margin, and where teams aggregate points for each win), USC's schedule strength may decline and make them rate slightly lower.

Some of the formulas have had this effect in the past, though I'm not certain they still do—I don't want to spread disinformation of my own in this campaign season, but it's a common feature of many power ratings.

The really sad thing is, it probably will send a message to the voters. Not that a huge shutout win shouldn't send a message; I believe in using score margin to an extent when evaluating team performance. But let's put this one in context: they beat the 119th best team in Division I-A 69-0. Just because Washington State is a BCS conference school doesn't make the win impressive. But when voters see USC crush a team 69-0, the Trojans get a lot more credit than other schools would, mostly because no one pays attention to scores like these:

• California 66, Washington State 3
• Oregon 63, Washington State 14
• Oregon State 66, Washington State 13

From these results, it's clear no one should be impressed that a top ten team could score 69 on the Cougars, nor that they shut them out. It's almost the expected result. Using my Strength power rating, which *does* use score margin for it's results, the predicted result was USC 55, Washington State 0.

Therefore, a score-margin-based power rating might be somewhat impressed by USC's win. The voters, however, should note that everyone in the Pac-10 was scoring 60+ on the Cougars, so high-ranked USC should do the same. And certainly, none of the BCS computers will care at all.

It will be interesting to see if USC jumps anyone else due to beating one of the worst teams in Division I-A by a score that should come as no surprise to anyone. In the AP poll USC was 6th and Florida—idle this week—5th. The Harris poll finds USC tied with Oklahoma, which is a joke considering Oklahoma's résumé, which was strengthened further with a win over Kansas. The Sooners should pull ahead this week, unless USC's win mistakenly sways the Harris voters more.

ESPN360, get your shit together

I've had it with ESPN360. They list two great games—Ohio State vs. Michigan State, and Kansas vs. Oklahoma—only to "black out" one of them right before the game (there's no technology that could determine this earlier?) and the other is a blank screen.

This is almost as bad as ending the broadcast with 1 minute left in the 4th quarter, which is another all-too-common occurrence. Get your shit together or stop promising what you can't deliver.

Update: Now the entire slate is down. Nothing showing at all.

Another O.C. Bites the Dust: Auburn fires Offensive Coordinator Franklin

Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville reversed himself and fired offensive coordinator Tony Franklin, whose spread offense didn't catch on with the Tigers. Auburn averaged 19 points a game, scoring only 3 points against Mississippi State and 13 in a loss to Vanderbilt last week.

Tuberville had voiced support for Franklin just days ago. Most observers didn't think Franklin's offense was close to fully implemented or used at Auburn, which raises the question of how much authority Franklin had over the playbook.

Whatever the case may be, Auburn's O wasn't getting the job done. When adjusted for opposition, Auburn's offense ranked just 102nd in the nation in scoring, and the latest yardage stats show that the Tigers were 96th in passing offense, 69th in rushing offense, and 103rd in total yardage so far in 2008.

The person hired to replace Franklin will be the team's sixth offensive coordinator in the last eight years, starting with Noel Mazzone's final year in 2001. After Bobby Petrino left voluntarily after the 2002 season, all since have departed due to dismissal.

Job Security? Auburn's offensive coordinators

Year	coordinator
1995-2001	Noel Mazzone
2002	Bobby Petrino
2003	Hugh Nall
2004-Dec, 2007	Al Borges
Dec, 2007 - Oct, 2008	Tony Franklin
Oct, 2008	???

We think that whoever gets the job as Auburn's new O.C. should write into his contract a Wall-Street-style Golden Parachute for his inevitable firing. Either that or Tuberville should stop passing the buck and just take over the offense himself. New offenses take time to gain traction but clearly something was up in Auburn making it harder for Franklin to do his job.

LA Times article ignorant about computer ratings

Here we go again. The annual article showing a complete lack of understanding about computer rating systems. It's not so much the ignorance that bothers me, but that the authors never even attempt to try to gain an understanding. They just push forth a few examples that make computer rankings look stupid or irrational, and then say "wow, can't possibly make heads or tails of that! Why even try?"

The examples in the article make complete sense to me, mostly because my two rating systems mirror the examples almost exactly. The author (Chris Dufresne) exhibits dismay that Jeff Sagarin's two systems can evaluate the same team differently. Here are his examples:

• USC: #1 but also #16
• Northwestern: #28 and #2
• Florida: #7 and #46

He doesn't even understand how Sagarin combines his ratings. The real numbers he should have cited are:

• USC: #1 (Predictor) and #16 (ELO)
• Northwestern: #35 and #2
• Florida: #2 and #46

Using my comparable ratings (Strength is similar to Predictor, and Success mirrors ELO somewhat):

• USC: #3 and #17
• Northwestern: #37 and #10
• Florida: #6 and #40

So while the differences in my ratings aren't quite as extreme, they're pretty close on the whole. So why the discrepancies between two methods of rating college football teams? There are many reasons.

One is that it's early in the season. With only four or five games to go by, any one game can have a big effect on a score-based system. Likewise, using winning and losing only, five games is a paltry amount to base a rating on. This is why I (and Mr. Sagarin) combine the two systems. When combined, the deficiencies of the two systems are lessened. USC ends up #3, Florida #8, and Northwestern #27 in my Overall ratings. In Sagarin's method, USC is #1, Florida is #7, and Northwestern #28.

Also, early ratings are sometimes handled differently until there are enough "connections" to make valid comparisons. Jeff Sagarin uses some weighing of last year's results until this year has enough data. At this point, according to his site, Predictor (the score-margin system) still is using some weight from last year, while the ELO portion does not. This is naturally going to lead to greater discrepancy between the two.

For the SportsRatings power rating, there is never any use of last year's data. But early ratings are naturally weighed heavier with the results of Strength rather than Success. The Success ratings build throughout the year as teams win games. It's difficult for a Win-Loss-only system to have good results until teams have played about 10 games; until then, the score-based system carries more weight. My motto is "you can't argue with Success" but only at the end of the season. Until then, some results, like Oregon State's upset of USC, can be at least somewhat written off as a fluke.

Dufresne does point out that USC's huge wins over Ohio State and Oregon count for a lot in a margin-based system. From there it doesn't take a lot for the ratings to make perfect sense; why should a 3-1 team by any higher than #16 anyway?

Florida's case is easier to understand. If you only knew that some "Team X" had defeated four teams that were each 2-3, and Team X had lost to another that was 3-3, wouldn't #46 seem like a possible ranking? But knowing that the score of the four wins were 56-10, 26-3, 30-6, and 38-7, and that the loss was by 1 point, you might think it reasonable that they be in the top ten. 

Just a little digging could help people understand the computer rankings, and it's an area that journalists have failed. There is so much coverage of every aspect of college football by the press—offenses, injuries, history, human-interest storylines—but the computer rankings are addresses with either pure ridicule and/or ignorance. There is no attempt to educate the fans on exactly what mechanisms they operate by. Why not? Sure, it may make for a longer, more in-depth article, but it has become a crucial area due to the BCS system. But all we get is "oh my God, look at what those computers did!"

Even for the financial meltdown in the stock market has articles that attempt to explain, step-by-step, just what happened in a technical sense. And that "system" is so complex than no one really understands how it works or where it is going since its scope is so huge. College football has a finite amount of games—it would be possible to show exactly what a computer is "thinking" every step of the way!

Sportswriters do a disservice to fans when they use the computer ratings only to take potshots at the BCS rather than to introduce fans to a very interesting nexus of sports and mathematics. The introduction of computer power ratings has clearly influenced sports and college football in particular. Spreads on games hew close to computer models these days. And pollsters, over the last ten years, have started to refer to power ratings when making their choices. In the early days of Sagarin's ratings being featured in USA Today, the difference between his ratings and the polls was huge. Then many of the teams he ranked high started to "upset" other teams. After years of this happening, you started to see these teams enter the top 25 earlier, and move up faster, than they did in the past.

Now, with spreads and the AP poll mirroring the computer rankings so much, any discrepancy is quickly noted. But does the AP poll make that much sense right now? #24 Pitt beat #19 South Florida who beat #16 Kansas; all teams have 1 loss. Michigan State is at #23 at 5-1, but the 4-1 Cal team that beat them isn't rated. There are justifiable reasons for these discrepancies perhaps. But the polls have another advantage: they are the aggregate of 70 different opinions. Combine 70 computer rankings and you wouldn't be able to pick one or two apart for having widely contrasting results.

The inconsistencies and biases that show up in the human polls are one reason I like computer power ratings. It's also why I base the SportsRatings Top 25—a non-computerized, subjective ranking—on a few basic principles so that teams are ranked in a fair manner. First and foremost, I try to explain why I put teams where I do, so that someone who takes issue with them at least knows where I'm coming from.

It's a lot easier just to mock a rating system than to try and understand it. But I think there is fan interest in knowing how these systems work, and journalists would be doing their job to go a step further in this direction.

Ball State receiver Dante Love's football career is over

Dante Love, senior wide receiver for the 4-0 Ball State Cardinals, and until last weekend the leading pass catcher in the country, will not play football again.

Love was injured in the 2nd quarter against Indiana Saturday, and spent 15 minutes on the ground before being rushed to the hospital for five hours of surgery to repair a spinal fracture. Love was reportedly able to move his hands and feet after the operation, and doctors say he'll likely make a full recover—aside from being able to play football.

Full story here.

Commentary: Apart from the obvious bad news for Love, the injury was bad news for the Cardinals as well. Love was an important part of the offense, and with him they had a real chance of going undefeated this year. It's a good sign that they were still able to beat Indiana without him, though maybe emotion gave them the edge. The Hoosiers were their big hurdle, but they have a lot of games left and he was their go-to receiver.

At the bottom line, it's great news that he can live a normal life, but unfortunately a "normal" life doesn't include playing in the NFL, or even on a college team trying to have a breakthrough season.

Below is a video of Dante Love in action.

Sooners coaches SHOULD be whining about Granger injury

I'm not sure why Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops and defensive line coach Jackie Shipps decided not to publicly support their players, saying that they won't "whine" about the play that resulted in DeMarcus Granger possibly missing the rest of the season. If I were them, I would be whining loud and clear, or at least taking matters through the proper channels to let Washington know that their players did something wrong.

Granger was hurt during Oklahoma's 55-14 blowout of the Huskies. On a broken play, Granger bulled through the line after the whistle had blown. He was unapologetic, but why not? He hadn't done it on purpose. He clearly though the play had started when Washington's line jumped. He didn't get away with it, either; a penalty was called by the officials.

On the next play, though, Washington's players triple teamed him and "gave him the business" a la the famous referee calls from years past. Granger limped off the field, and as it turns out was hurt worse than initially thought. He may be out the rest of the year, all for a little premeditated revenge. No penalty was called on the play.

What Granger did was a natural part of the game: being overaggressive. It only took a split second for him to run into the lineman, and he couldn't have stopped himself if he wanted. What the Washington players did was inexcuseable: they agreed to take a player down and physically punish him, and try to hurt him. That's beyond being aggressive, and has no place even in a game as violent as football.

But what adds insult to Granger's injury is how his coaches don't have his back. They should be livid at Washington and demand that Ty Willingham discipline his players for their actions. Instead, not wanting to look like "whiners," they've essentially said that Granger got what he deserved. "Those things happen. In this game, you’ve got to learn how to take care of yourself," Shipp said. I for one wouldn't want to play for a coach who had that attitude about an incident where opposing players had deliberately injured me.

Here's a video of both plays. You can judge for yourself as to how much Granger is to blame, and how much the Washington players were out of line, but to me it's Oklahoma's coaches that look like the losers in the end.

Ohio State will NOT play for the national championship!

The latest talk is that somehow the Ohio State Buckeyes, despite being roguered 35-3 by USC, will end up playing for the national championship.

One theory is that voters will see how good they are with Beanie Wells back and decide they deserve a shot. Another scenario states that the BCS is so screwed up that it will just put OSU in the championship game.

Well I hate to tell you (no...actually I'm happy to tell you), it's just not going to happen.

Of course the BCS system is screwy; everyone knows that, even those who think a playoff is a stupid idea. But just because a system is screwy doesn't mean that it is forced to lead to a screwy result. No one voting in the Harris poll will want to see Ohio State in the title game. No one. So if there is ANY team as an alternative, they will get the nod.

First we are assuming, of course, that the Buckeyes sweep the Big Ten, which is no longer a given due to their performance Saturday, but let's say that Beanie Wells pushes them to an 11-1 record. Then we assume that no other team (than the Trojans) goes undefeated, another questionable assumption (remember, last year was a huge anomaly).

Even if this happens, any one-loss team from the SEC or Big Twelve will be ahead of the Buckeyes, no question. Even the faltering ACC and Big East would provide a champion 1-loss team. Right now Ohio State is 13th in the AP poll, 14th in USA. But there are teams behind them who will pass the Buckeyes if that's what it takes to prevent them from finishing #2.

In fact, this is a great year to be a BCS-buster team, because your school has a much greater chance than ever to play for the title. The Mountain West has a good shot of producing not only a BCS bowl team, but a national title contender, thanks to Ohio State. It works like this: let's say the SEC and Big 12 are both so tough that every team in the league finishes with two losses. Very unlikely, but it essentially happened last season. If Utah or BYU ends the season undefeated, they'd have a great argument—unlike Hawaii last year—to play for all the marbles.

East Carolina would also have a good argument if West Virginia and Virginia Tech recover and win their conferences. An undefeated Boise State (if they upset Oregon) and TCU (has to beat Oklahoma, Utah, BYU) wouldn't be relegated to a minor bowl if there weren't alternatives.

So while an Ohio State-USC rematch will NOT happen in the BCS title game, there really is a decent chance of a rematch—in the Rose Bowl.

No one's even considering the possibility of USC losing, but if they do—say, to Oregon, and Oregon runs the table and goes to the BCS title game—then USC will have to settle for the Rose Bowl. And who will they face? Well, if Beanie comes through and the Big Ten is like butter to OSU's knife again, it will be Ohio State. In Pasedena. After settling matters at 35-3 just months earlier.

This is the real problem with the BCS. Not the title game, not the lack of a playoff. The problem is in the crappy matchups in the other major bowls. There is no chance, for example, for the ACC and Big East champions to meet in a bowl. Or the Big 12 and SEC champs. No champion of BCS Conference A shall meet the champion of BCS Conference B unless: 1) They meet in the championship game, or 2) The conferences are the Big 10 and Pac-10.

To be fair, even before the BCS existed, the Rose Bowl sometimes had repeat performances. In 1975, the Bucks won at UCLA 41-20 en route to an 11-0 record...then lost in the Rose Bowl, 23-10, to UCLA. The problem this year is not the BCS system, but the Rose Bowl auto-pairing, something that's been a tradition in football for quite some time.

But the facts remain. Ohio State WILL NOT PLAY for the national title, because the voters will not allow it, as there WILL be a viable alternative team. But the Buckeyes very well could play USC again in the Rose Bowl. This outcome is far more likely than the Bucks-in-the-title-game conspiracy theory floating around sports sites lately.

Here it comes again: "Best USC team ever" talk

It's started already. It's even being declared as a certainty. But we've heard talk like this before and it usually precedes an unexpected Trojan loss.

Does talk like this get into the players' heads? This year, given the dismal state of the Pac-10, overconfidence may be USC's biggest remaining pitfall.

How soon they forget Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, and LenDale White. Mark Sanchez, Joe McKnight, and C.J. Gable are good, but let's see how they finish the season before anointing them better than the best team of the decade. My column from almost exactly one year ago today still stands; just change the names of a few of the competitors.

ESPN360 still sucks ass

For a service that's several years old, ESPN360 surprisingly  has no technical solution for a game that runs a bit long. Today's Maryland-Cal game was just getting good, Cal knocking on the door with 2 minutes left, when the broadcast expired—it simply ran out of time. After a few minutes, the broadcast recovered, but by then Cal had scored a touchdown and failed on their onside kick and the game was over.

At least it's better than what used to happen: the game would die and never come back. Still, ESPN has got to realize that this issue is most likely to occur AT THE END OF THE FUCKING GAME WHEN THINGS ARE GETTING INTERESTING.

Of course without ESPN360 I wouldn't have been able to watch any of the Cal-Maryland game. But I also have to sit through 3,000 screenings of the 3 or 4 commercials they constantly run, too. For that alone they should have pity on me and find some way to seamlessly make the game run until the end, instead of cutting out when the allotted time slot is filled.

Not only that, but it looks like Purdue-Oregon is blacked out. Well I guess there's always Penn State-Syracuse. Not.

USC at #1 in AP, Coaches polls: Jumping the gun?

USC leapt past Georgia into the #1 spot on both polls this week after beating Virginia 52-7 on Saturday. The Trojans had been third in the AP poll and 2nd in the USA-Today/coaches poll.

It's pretty rare for top teams to give up the #1 spot without losing. Sometimes it happens if the top team has a particularly weak showing, but this wasn't the case with Georiga or Ohio State this weekend. There are a few reasons I can think of why USC made the jump, ordered from most to least legit:

1. Their opening win was the most convincing. This is true; they had the most dominant win of any Top 25 team in week one. Virginia was 9-4 last year, and the Trojans went on the road and obliterrated them. At the same time, it's pretty certain that Virginia is not nearly as good as they were last year, a year in which they were overrated due to winning a large number of close games. Florida beat Hawaii 56-10, and Hawaii was 12-1 last year, but the Gators didn't gain a single point in the polls.


2. Injuries, or lack thereof, were factored in. Mark Sanchez' knee didn't look hurt at all Saturday; no so Beanie Wells' foot. And Georgia lost another offensive lineman in their opener. Were some pollsters switching allegiances based on these developments? Could be.


3. Specific doubts about the Trojans were erased. Many pollsters think USC is the best team, but had a reason to put them lower. This year the offense and Sanchez were the main questions about USC; with those doubts removed, they ushered the Trojans to #1.


4. Judging based on limited information. No one likes the pre-season rankings, even those who vote on them. People want to make judgements on actual performance, not on potential and speculation. So when the first game is played, sometimes those results are given too much weight. As of this point, they're all we have to go on, but still, we don't know anything about the opponents. If Virginia struggles mightily from here, do we revisit the USC game and re-evaluate? Probably not.


5. Pro-USC bias. There used to be a West Coast bias, meaning teams from that region weren't fairly evaluated. Now there's a pro-USC bias. Whenever the Trojans are doing well, they're put on a pedastal above all other teams. It only takes one dominant win for this to happen (see last year's Nebraska game).

I don't think anything is wrong with USC being #1—if they had started there. But jumping them ahead of poor Georgia was a little premature. To leapfrog to #1, you should have to beat a worthy opponent, and Virginia was not in the top 25. Why not wait a couple weeks until they face Ohio State? A win over the Buckeyes would be the type of win needed to move a team ahead of a currently solid #1 team.

Arizona Republic Columnist Doesn't Know His College Football

Many have debated which is better, college or pro football, but when doing so you owe it to your readership to have an idea of what each is about. One who watches only the college game shouldn't dis the pro game, and vice versa.

Jay Dieffenbach, in a recent column in AZ Central.com addresses the issue, arguing in favor of the pro game. He mainly spends the article trashing the college game, calling the atmosphere overrated, then ridiculing the BCS system (now there's a tough target). He even compares the cheerleaders, siding with the NFL cheerleaders as "more professional."

But his most ridiculous argument comes when he discusses scheduling. Of course, NFL scheduling is more limited, more even, and not up to the team at all. But when covering college scheduling he writes:

The non-conference schedule issue - do you line up cupcakes (Iowa) or challenge yourself (Southern California)? - is fun to discuss, but all it does is generate more debate that cannot be won.

I'm not sure how old Dieffenbach is, but he'd have to be stuck in the 70s to call Iowa a cupcake. Sure, they've been mediocre for a few seasons, but not a "cupcake." Somehow he misses—or more likely, is ignorant of—the Hawkeyes' three consecutive top ten finishes from 2002 to 2004. Iowa certainly was a "cupcake" in the '60s and '70s, but since then they've had just three "cupcake" seasons, in '98, '99, and 2000.

Not to mention that using USC as an example of a "challenge" is like using a whale as an example of a large fish. Both these examples make it plain that Dieffenbach doesn't follow the college game at all. Maybe he shouldn't, as he clearly doesn't like it, but if you're going to try to argue that one is better than the other, you should at least have a cursory knowledge of both. Maybe 8 or 10 years ago when he last followed the college game, he knew that Iowa was a "cupcake" and that knowledge has followed him, un-updated to this day. (I'd wager he graduated around 2000, likely from a school that sucked at football, hence his 'knowledge' of Iowa and his disdain for the college game).

I prefer the college game for a number of reasons, one of them being the atmosphere he doesn't seem to enjoy. I understand the draw of the NFL—the players are the best in the world, the game contested at an entirely different level. But for years now (really, since the two strikes in the 80s) I've only turned my attention to the NFL when the college season is over. To me, the playoff system so many laud is the only part of the NFL season worth paying attention to. With well over 100 teams in I-A, the college game is a journey of discovery—which teams are going to be good this year?—that continues well into the fall, and then the real fun begins.

And when it's over, the NFL is still there if you want to watch the best of the best.

Darren McFadden runs a 4.27 40 yard dash. How does this convert to 100 Meters? Probably a world record.

Darren McFadden, working out at the pro combines, ran either a 4.27 or a 4.33, depending on who you listen to, in the 40-yard dash the other day.

4.27 was the "unofficial" time, 4.33 the official. But what does "official" mean?

It means it was "corrected for surface." How? No one knows for sure.

For years, I've been hearing these 40 times, and wondering: how do they compare to 100 Meter times achieved by the best sprinters?

The answer is, they are far, far faster than the best sprinters in the world.

Ben Johnson's 1988 ex-Gold time of 9.79 was analyzed, and at the 40 yard mark his time was 4.38 seconds. [For some reason 4.24 and 4.14 are floating around the internet on "answers" sites, but the better sources agree on 4.38]

So what was basically the fastest a human has run (the world record has been just barely lowered since) would be considered a decent time for a fast NFL player.

Yes! You might not expect that a football player would run faster than the fastest men in the world, but they do, even though the track stars are running on perfect surfaces with perfect shoes and perfect technique—the football players are faster.

Hearing these ridiculous 40 yard timings, I wondered if the players are allowed a 10-yard "start" before timing commences. This would explain why the times are so fast, similar to the explanation for 300-lb linemen with 40-inch vertical jumps (it's measured by how high their feet get, and they can bend their knees). But that's no so; they start from a complete stop.

The difference is in the start. NFL players can start when they want, instead of having to react to a starter pistol. Subtracting the 0.2 to 0.3 seconds that this takes and Johnson's 40 time is 4.08 to 4.18, making some of the NFL timings a bit more plausible. The times are hand-started by the timer when the runner begins.

Here's the video of Darren McFadden's run. Is he going faster than the 2008 Olympic Gold medalist will run? You make the call.

Clearly the NFL timings are a joke, which is okay because their only purpose is to compare between NFL prospects. But haphazard timings, with a start determined by the runner and made in different venues under different conditions can have a dramatic effect on a player's worth to the league.

Of course we now know that Ben Johnson was on steroids, and indeed some of those who eventually surpassed his 9.79 were too. DMAC couldn't possibly be on the juice, right?

Most Disappointing Teams of 2007

Rivals.com has an interesting year-end recap, but I don't agree at all with one of their lists: Most Disappointing Team. Here's their list, which consists of a "winner" and 5 "honorable" mentions:

Most Disappointing Team: Louisville
Honorable Mention
1. Michigan
2. Miami
3. Nebraska
4. UCLA
5. California

I think one or two of the teams don't belong on the list, and they've left off the obvious Most Disappointing Team altogether.

Miami certainly shouldn't be included here. Rivals says they were "expected to contend for the ACC title." In which universe? Most observers, including the AP which put them at pre-season #31, thought they might aspire to finishing better than they did last year, but a BCS bowl was not expected by any means. The Hurricanes has a disappointing year, no doubt—especially the 0-4 finish and two huge blowouts—but expectations were not as high for this Miami team as they are normally.

And Michigan shouldn't be the runner-up. Of course their loss to Appalachian State was embarassing, as was their blowout against Oregon. But the Wolverines then put together eight wins in a row. How many teams in Division I-A won eight games in row? Exactly eight: Ohio State, Kansas, Hawaii,  Arizona State, Boston College, Boise State, BYU, and Michigan.

Here's my alternate list.

Most Disappointing Team: Notre Dame.

Is there any doubt? No, they weren't expected to be in the top 25, but they were supposed to have a winning season—roughly 8-4 if you look at their pre-season poll votes—not go 3-9. Everyone saw they had a rebuilding year ahead of them, and a tough first eight games. Struggle through that at 4-4, and sweep the latter, easy part of their schedule and voila, 8-4 as expected. But the first eight games proved much tougher, at 1-7; then 2 of the four 'cupcakes' bit them, including their first loss to Navy in 44 years.

And it wasn't just that they lost, it was how they lost. Georgia Tech: 33-3. Penn State: 34-10. Michigan State 31-14. And both Michigan and USC, 38-0. The Irish had trouble scoring all year, and finished 103rd in scoring offense and 118th in total yards (113th in passing and 102nd in rushing). In power ratings based on points, the Irish finish at #97, just below fellow 3-9 team Iowa State, and behind 14 Division I-AA or Division II teams.

Their upset of UCLA was nothing to brag about, as the Bruins handed them that game, and their two-game winning "streak"—against Duke and Stanford—can't be seen as finishing on a positive note. Notre Dame 2007 had the most losses of any Irish team.

Honorable Mention:

1. Louisville:  Rivals covered the basics here. Pre-season #10, national title hopes, lost to Syracuse at home, finished 6-6, no bowl game.

2. UCLA: Returning the most starters of any team in the country, UCLA started the year #14 and should at least have finished better than last year. Instead they fell to 6-6, and it was the strangest 6-6 in memory. After starting with two wins—one of them a win over BYU that was a big upset in retrospect—the Bruins got punked by Utah to the tune of 44-6. Another two wins put them back on track, including another strange-in-hindsight win over Oregon State, 40-14. Then they hit their low point of the year, losing to awful, winless Notre Dame, 20-6, while committing 7 turnover.

Then they hit their high point of the year, upsetting Cal 30-21 and tranferring some of their cursed mojo to them in the process. But they had more than enough to go around, as they lost their next two to lowly Washington State and Arizona, before giving Arizona State too close of a call at 24-20, shutting out a Dennis-Dixonless Oregon, and losing to UCLA. It's one thing to be bad; it's worst to be bad an completely unpredictable.

Still, after all this, they qualified for a bowl game: a rematch against BYU.

3. Nebraska: This was supposed to be another step in Callahan's rebuilding of the program. Sam Keller was supposed to be the spark that put them firmly on the road to repeating past successes; instead, the defense got worse each week, and the Cornhuskers finished with their second losing season under Callahan, who was promptly fired.

Picked #20 pre-season, the Huskers kept up appearances for a while, crushing Nevada 52-10 like old times, and beating last year's ACC champ Wake Forest. Even a crushing, 49-31 loss to USC at home didn't spell doom for the season; after all, USC was a team for the ages (at least in September). No, the first real sign that something was very wrong was at home against Ball State, who came withing a point of shocking the Huskers, and scoring 40 points on their once-proud blackshirts.

A win over Iowa State followed, but then, disaster: Missouri 41, Nebraska 6; Oklahoma State 45, Nebraska 14; Texas A&M 36, Nebraska 14; Kansas 76, Nebraska 39. They recovered briefly to beat up on KU's little brother 73-31, but ended the year slapped by Colorado 65-51.

When Sam Keller got hurt they found out how well Joe Ganz could run the offense, but by then it was too late, and even so, offense wasn't the issue, it was defense. The blackshirts finished 94th in scoring defense, and 91st in adjusted yards given up.

4. California:

#12 rank + 5-0 start = #2 rank

5-0 start + 1-6 finish = 6-6 season.

5. Michigan could go here, for the cruel fate that awaited returning seniors Michael Hart and Chad Henne, and for the loss to a Division I-AA team. But it wasn't so much that expectations were high for Michigan; they had a chance to play for the national title. But if they made it, there was no doubt they'd be playing the team that crushed them last year: Southern Cal. The most talented team to ever grace college football.

USC going undefeated was a foregone conclusion. And when they beat the stuffing out of Nebraska on the night of September 29th, it was clear: this was the best USC team ever. Or so some people believed. Just a few weeks later, they struggled to a 3-point win over Washington. And the week after that, the unthinkable happened: they lost, at home...to Stanford.

Enough has been said about this, but it's telling that some people still believe USC is the best team in the land, after two losses, including a loss, at home...to Stanford. The excuses roll in: Booty was hurt or they would have won. Stanford isn't that bad of a team. Other teams got upset, too.

Yes, but none of those teams claiming to be the best got upset by a team like Stanford, who really isn't as bad as all that, but still bad enough to get beat by Notre Dame. Sure, Booty was hurt, but was well enough to play, and any team claiming to be the very best should beat Stanford with half their roster injured. The final excuse: USC is playing better than any team right now.

Which is a joke. All season, they beat one ranked team: Arizona State. Two teams total that have a winning record. They beat a 1-win team, a 3-win team, a 4-win team, three 5-win teams, and two 6-6 teams. They beat a 10-2 team and an 8-4 team, and lost to a 4-8 team.

They won the Pac 10 thanks to Dixon's injury and are now in a BCS bowl. But can this season be considered anything but a disappointment given their lofty status and all-around acclaim? Not the biggest disappointment, but 6th-biggest for sure. After they beat Michigan in last year's Rose Bowl, they became the team to beat. USC was a sure thing, until Stanford happened.

Kevin Smith will break Barry Sanders' record—in the Bizarro Universe

There's a lot of talk about Central Florida's Kevin Smith, and how he might break Barry Sanders' single-season rushing record in UCF's bowl game against Mississippi State.

Smith will enter the game as the NCAA's leading rusher with 2,448 yards; Sanders ran for 2,628 in his 1988 Heisman season, so Smith needs slightly less than his 188-yard average to top the mark. Mississippi State's rushing defense is 65th in raw average yards allowed, so there's a very good chance he'll get the record.

There's a problem, though, one that should put a huge asterisk by Smith's mark. No, nothing about steroids. And nothing to do with UCF's comparatively light schedule, or the fact that they've already played 13 games this year. Yards are yards, and a season is a season, and if Smith rushes for more yards in 2007 than Sanders did in 1988, he should have the record. But the problem is, we'll be considering Smith's entire season, but not Sanders'.

The fact is, while the NCAA will count Smith's bowl game in the total, Sanders' bowl game from 1988 did not count in his total. In 2002 the NCAA changed a rule, making bowl game statistics part of the season totals. That's not a problem; what is, is that they didn't go back and add bowl game totals to the current records.

So the very definition of "season" is different for Sanders and Smith.

Sanders, of course, went on to rush for 222 yards against Wyoming in the 1988 Holiday Bowl. It was a fair performance by Barry's standards; only a few yards shy of his 239 yard average. But while it gave him 2,850 yards for the full 1988 season, for the purposes of the record he has only a paltry 2,628.

This means it's quite likely Smith will gain 181+ yards against Mississippi State, making him the single-season rushing king, yet leaving him a couple hundred yards short of the amount of yards Sanders rushed for in 1988. He will surpass Sanders while not really getting very close to him at all.

A strange paradox, wouldn't you say? And a bit unfair.

Now, if Smith were to rush for just above 400 yards (403, to be exact), he could truly surpass Sanders, and there would be no asterisk needed. Regardless of how many games are in a season, or who you play, a yard is a yard, a season is a season, and to begrudge Smith the record in that case would be to behave in a manner similar to those louts who denigrated Roger Maris' accomplishment.

But what's happenening here is akin to taking several of Ruth's home runs and not counting them.

Kevin Smith has had an amazing season, no doubt. He rushed for over 200 yards five times, and only had one game under 100 yards. But regardless of whether he breaks* the record, there's no comparison between his season and Sanders'. Though, as I said earlier, it has no bearing on the record, Sanders had fewer games, and tougher foes. And still, he ran for more yards, averaging 50 more yards per game.

Here is a game-by-game rundown of Smith's 2007 season, with 150+ yard games in bold and 300 yard game in red:

  Kevin Smith 2007        yds
North Carolina State      217
Texas                     149
Memphis                   124
Louisiana-Lafayette       223
East Carolina             147
South Florida              55
Tulsa                     170
Southern Miss             175
Marshall                  188
UAB                       320
Southern Methodist        177
UTEP                      219
Tulsa                     284
Regular-season Total:   2,448 (188.3 yds/game)

and for comparison, Barry Sanders' 1988 season with Oklahoma State:

  Barry Sanders 1988      yds
Miami Ohio                178
Texas A&M                 157
Tulsa                     304
Colorado                  174
Nebraska                  189
Missouri                  154
Kansas St                 320
Oklahoma                  215
Kansas                    312
Iowa State                293
Texas Tech                332
regular-season Total:   2,628 (238.9 yds/game)

Wyoming                   222
Overall season Total:   2,850

I hope that clears things up.

Bowl Overkill

Looking over the list of bowl games apart from the BCS contests, and one thing is readily apparent.

There are far too many bowl games.

The December 20th through 31st slate is watered-down mess, with 21 contests involving 42 teams. Add in the oddball bowls that play on January 6th and that's 23 games between 46 teams. The BCS bowls, plus the other New Year's Day games, number 9 bowls with 18 teams. All told, that's 32 games, 64 teams.

There are only 120 (officially 119 at this point) Division I-A teams, meaning that over half go to a bowl game. So it's no wonder there are so many crappy, worthless games being played almost all the way through December.

The genesis of this took place a few years ago, when two things happened: The NCAA softened its requirement regarding number of wins needed to be bowl-eligible; and, they allowed one win against a Division I-AA team to count toward the total.

Both of these things happening at once watered down the bowl pool immensely. Just a few years ago, on an 11-game schedule, a team had to go at least 6-5, with all 6 wins from major opponents. Or they had to go 7-4 if any one of those wins was over a Division I-AA team. The requirement then was that a team had to have a winning record and six wins over Division I-A teams.

This lead to a shortfall of bowl eligible teams. A lot of the teams that finished 6-5 had a win over a Division I-AA school and weren't eligible. The NCAA foresaw a time when there wouldn't be enough teams to fill the expanding number of bowls. So they allowed teams to count one Division I-AA game toward the total. This would allow more teams to qualify without allowing them to count several lesser opponents toward the tally. A team could go 5-5 against Division I-A and make it to a bowl.

Later, the season was expanded to 12 games. Since this would lead to fewer teams with strictly winning records—due to the expected large number of 6-6 teams—the NCAA stated that six wins would still allow a team to be bowl eligible. However, they kept the clause allowing a win over a Division I-AA opponent to count towards the total, thereby effectively making a 5-6 record against Division I-A acceptable.

This watering down effect was seen last year, when Iowa and Miami both made bowl games with extremely weak 6-6 records. Iowa's wins included Division I-AA Montana; Northern Illinois; and conference cellar-dwellars Syracuse, Iowa State, and Illinois. Likewise Miami beat Division I-AA Florida A&M; ACC dog North Carolina; and two teams that went winless in '06, Florida International and Duke. Neither the Hawks nor the Canes were close to their usual standards, but both got bids. Miami squeaked by Nevada, 21-20, while Iowa performed admirably before falling to Texas, 26-24.

Basically, any bowl including a 6-6 team is suspect. Remove all the 6-6 teams from bowls this year and there'd be enough teams to fill 28 1/2 bowls instead of 32. Then there are the 7-5 teams. Most of these come from Conference-USA or, in other years, the MAC. If these 15 teams were cut to 8, that would eliminate another 3 1/2 games, making a manageable 25 bowl games.

Then theres the matter of scheduling. This year there are two crappy bowl games after the 1st of the year, bowls that should be played before Christmas. The NCAA should nix the "International" bowl, which this year has the long-awaited meeting of Rutgers and Ball State. Likewise the GMAC bowl should have to move or die, taking Tulsa and Bowling Green with them. Clearly those bowls don't belong on January 6th, after the Rose Bowl and three other BCS bowls are finished.

Everybody complains about the BCS, but the worst part of it isn't the selection of the #1 and #2 teams, it's the bowl-selection process that follow. The major bowls start the problem by choosing terrible matchups, and after that, the field is so watered down that good matchups occur only randomly. Every year the projections include interesting, amazing games—USC vs. OSU, LSU-Hawaii, Florida-Illinois—only to have upsets and bad picks kill these possibilities. Underrated teams are matched with 6-6 or 7-5 competition, allowing them to prove absolutely nothing.

The first step in all of this is quite simple: the NCAA should cut back on the number of bowl games. Every matchup would be better, and would more than make up for the disappointed fans of the teams that didn't deserve a bowl game in the first place.

LSU or Oklahoma, NOT Georgia

If things work out in the BCS, either LSU or Oklahoma should face Ohio State in the title game. Georgia absolutely does NOT deserve it.

Georgia has, for some reason, risen in the ranks without really beating anybody of note, and become the media darling. Their string of wins in the second half of the season is more due to their schedule than to any greatness on their part.

Their best win is over 9-3 Florida, a team LSU also beat. Their losses came at home to South Carolina, a team that finished 6-6 on the year. Then they were crushed by Tennessee, 35-14. No team that loses a game in that manner should be playing for it all, especially a team with 2 losses.

Other than the Florida win, what other top 25 victories do they have? 7-4 Auburn, whom LSU also beat.

Louisiana State lost two games, both in triple overtime. How can these losses be compared to a 35-14 demolition? Both were good teams, particularly Arkansas (who is 26th in the AP poll, 25th in the coaches poll, and 27th in the BCS standings). LSU has the same wins as Georgia, over Florida and Auburn, and a win yesterday over the Tennessee team that beat Georgia, plus a win over BCS-bound Virginia Tech.

So LSU beat the two teams that beat Georgia, and beat the two teams Georgia is considered so great for beating. The Bulldogs did beat the Kentucky team that was one of LSU's losses. But there's no question LSU is more deserving to be in the title game. Georgia has really done nothing to be ranked so high, except not lose for a number of weeks.

Oklahoma has a much better argument than Georgia, and maybe better than LSU's. By beating Missouri for the second time they wrapped up the Big 12, and they also have a win over Texas. That alone is better than Georgia's win résumé. Overall their schedule doesn't compete with LSU's though.

Their losses are close games to 6-6 Colorado, and borderline top 25 Texas Tech. These are certainly no worse than Georgia's losses to 6-6 South Carolina and the blowout to Tennessee.

Here's a summary of the teams seasons, using (yesterday's outdated) BCS rankings:

Oklahoma (11-2)   Lost at 6-6 Colorado 27-24, Lost at #28 Texas Tech 34-27
                            beat #20 Texas 28-21, beat #1 Missouri 41-31, beat #1 Missouri 38-17
LSU (11-2)             Lost at 7-5 Kentucky 43-37 (3ot), Lost to #27 Arkansas 50-48 (3ot) 
                            beat #6 Virginia Tech 48-7, beat #14 Tennessee 21-14,
                            beat #10 Florida 28-24, beat #24 Auburn 30-24
Georgia (10-2)       Lost to 6-6 South Carolina 16-12, Lost at #14 Tennessee 35-14
                            beat #10 Florida 42-30, beat #24 Auburn 45-20

It's too bad Tennessee pulled out the victory over Kentucky, otherwise we would have had a Georgia-LSU final in the SEC championship game, and the Bulldogs' possible title birth would have had some legitimacy.

As it stands, I would put Virginia Tech ahead of Georgia. Tech has two losses to top 25 teams, and three wins over top 25 teams, including the avenging of one of their losses. Even Missouri has a better resume; both their losses are to Oklahoma, and they beat Illinois, 1-loss Kansas, and Texas Tech. Both these teams should be ahead of Georgia, but by head-to-head competition Tech is behind LSU, and Missouri is behind Oklahoma. Hence the title shot should go to the Tigers or the Sooners.

The BCS computers, of course, can't see that LSU's losses were both in triple overtime, nor that their win over Virginia Tech was 48-7. Taking away that information, and weighing recent games more than earlier games, might lead one to put Georgia in front. But I think the entire season has to count, and count equally. A playoff system would reward teams that are "hot" at the moment, but to determine who's deserving of a single-game playoff, the entire season must be the standard. And even so, I don't buy the sentiment that Georgia is playing the best right now; they were playing poorly in the first half of the season, and are playing well in the 2nd half, leading to a string of wins that propped them up as other teams stumbled, but their earlier stumbles were worse, and later wins less impressive, than the others.

It's up to the human element—the polls—to take into account the information the computers aren't allowed to see, and the intangibles that the computer can't ever taken into account.