Flooding, Destruction of Cleveland Fulfills BCS Game Bet

COLUMBUS - Ohio Governor Ted Strickland appeared at the state Capitol today wearing a smile and an LSU Tigers jersey. He was there to make good on a pre-BCS Title Game bet with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal by announcing Jan. 20th as the date for the destruction of Cleveland by a major flood from Lake Erie.

"When I first called Governor Jindal to make this bet, we agreed to each make a bet based on what our state is most famous for," Strickland said. "Looking back, agreeing to release millions of tons of water from the dams around Lake Erie and unleashing a murderous torrent onto the citizens of our largest city hardly seems like a fair trade against a gallon of Louisiana hot sauce. But, a bet is a bet, and hey, it's just football, right?"

The Governor then immediately began expressing his condolences to the tens of thousands of Cleveland residents who will lose loved ones, their homes and livelihoods in the pending disaster.

Sources say that Strickland called Jindal immediately after LSU's 38-24 victory over Ohio St. on Jan. 7 to offer his congratulations and to beg Governor Jindal to spare his city. Jindal reportedly responded by declining, saying that "I guess we won't be alone at the bottom of every national survey on people who are homeless, unemployed or committing crimes, now will we?"

Despite the fact that Cleveland will between submerged in three to five feet within three days, Strickland expressed confidence that the turn-around and recovery will be swift.

"Governor Jindal has pledged that he will let the boys from FEMA know about our problem, and that they will be up there just soon as they are done repairing New Orleans," Strickland said. "I'm sure we'll be seeing the first FEMA crews any day now."

The entire Ohio St. offensive line has volunteered to man all dams, in an attempt to stop any water flows resulting in the opening of all gates. However, Strickland dismissed the effort as "futile."

"We're talking millions of gallons of water, and frankly, these guys couldn't stop a blitzing linebacker, much less nature's destructive fury," Strickland said.

In concert with Strickland's announcement, the Cleveland Visitor & Convention Bureau also announced a new "The Parts of Cleveland That Aren't Underwater or Teeming With Rotting Corpses Rocks!" tourism campaign.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 2:34 PM 0 comments  

BCS Title Game: The Morning After

Driving into work this morning, and then reading some of the blogosphere, there seemed to be an overwhelming consensus about why LSU beat Ohio St. 38-24 in the BCS Title Game last night: The Tigers simply had better athletes than the Buckeyes. "Too fast, too strong, too tough to contain!" is the refrain that I'm hearing over and over again. And while yes, the conventional wisdom is that Big Ten teams simply don't have the elite level of athletes that SEC schools do, I don't think it's that simple.

Getting past our preconceived notions, last night's game was simple, and brought up an equally disturbing trend that I've noticed among Big Ten schools: they simply cannot pass block. A big part of this, I think, goes back to where you come from. While Big Ten schools like Ohio St. might go cross-country to recruit skill players, the meat of their offensive line recruiting comes from the Midwest. And most high school teams in the Midwest are still run-first in nature. Offensive linemen don't work on pass blocking in the Midwest as much as they do in the West Coast or the South, where high school teams have much more balanced offenses. And pass blocking is a technique-based skill, versus run blocking which is much more about physical ability, size and power. You can try to teach pass blocking in college, but if the skills weren't developed in high school, you've got a long way to go.

I'll use my personal observations watching USC play Big Ten teams in the recent Rose Bowls as an example. In last year's Rose Bowl, Michigan's Chad Henne was sacked six times. In the 2004 Rose Bowl, Michigan's John Navarre was sacked nine times. This would kind of lead you to believe that this is just a problem with the Wolverines' offensive line. But in this year's Rose Bowl, Juice Williams was sacked five times by USC. The same "elusive" Juice Williams that was supposed to give USC fits all game. And make no mistake, the Illini has a lot of talent on offense - besides Williams, Rashard Mendenhall is going to be playing on Sundays, and Arrelious Benn was heavily recruited by USC.

But Illinois, like Michigan teams before them, could not cope with a sustained pass rush, and had no idea how to adjust to the variety of blitz packages USC was sending at them. These weren't just sacks, they were "linebackers coming in untouched and crushing the quarterback like an empty beer can" sacks.

Flash forward to last night. Ohio St. had shown early on that they had speed and athleticism at skill positions - witness Beanie Wells blowing past everyone for a 65-yard TD run on their first series. But if your line is getting pushed back play after play, it's going to wear on your line and they are going to start getting killed in the second half. And that's just what happened. They couldn't run, and Boeckman was scrambling for his life. Five sacks of Boeckman and a costly fumble on fourth down later, and that is pretty much that.

Again, it's history repeating - the Buckeyes were sacked five times in last year's BCS Title Game loss to an SEC team (Florida). Say all you will about "coping with speed" or "athletic disadvantages" - the thing that is holding the Big Ten back is their total inability to pass block, plain and simple. Get a Big Ten team down, where they have to pass and the defense can pin their ears back and rush hard? Look out.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 11:35 AM 5 comments  

My 2007 Bowl Game Projections

So, I'm sick. Very sick. How sick? When your doctor calls in the nurse specifically so she can look through into your ear to get a sense of "what a really, really bad ear infection" looks like, you're in bad shape.

So instead of, you know, working at work today, I kept myself preoccupied from the screaming pain in my left ear (which I had attributed before to listening to Steve Lavin call the USC/Southern Illinois basketball game last night) by doing some projections for the upcoming bowl season. Not just the BCS bowls, but all of them.

This is all preliminary, and although I did some research to get a sense of what the rumor mill is saying about destinations, I also used some gut instincts. The big thing you'll notice is that I have Oklahoma upsetting Missouri and knocking them out of the BCS Title game this weekend. Which would be totally appropriate - instead of getting a really exciting match-up with lots of offense, we'd be stuck with Ohio State lumbering in to get taken to the woodshed again (this time by West Virginia). I'm also assuming that if Ohio State plays for the national title, the Rose Bowl would select Illinois to take its place - they are all gooey and nostalgic for the Big 10/Pac 10 match-ups.

Agree with them or disagree, here are my bowl projections:

	Game	Match Up			Teams
	BCS Title	BCS #1	vs.	BCS #2	West Virginia	vs.	Ohio St.
	Rose Bowl	Pac-10 Champ	vs.	Big 10 Champ	USC	vs.	Illinois
	Fiesta Bowl	Big 12 Champ	vs.	At-Large	Oklahoma	vs.	Georgia
	Orange Bowl	ACC Champ	vs.	At-Large	Virginia Tech	vs.	Missouri
	Sugar Bowl	SEC Champ	vs.	At-Large	LSU	vs.	Hawaii
	Capital One Bowl	SEC #2	vs.	Big 10 #2	Florida	vs.	Wisconsin
	Gator Bowl	ACC #3	vs.	Big 12 #4/Big East #2	Virginia	vs.	Texas Tech
	Cotton Bowl	Big 12 #2	vs.	SEC #3/4/5	Kansas	vs.	Arkansas
	Outback Bowl	SEC #3/4/5	vs.	Big Ten #3	Tennessee	vs.	Michigan
	International Bowl	MAC #3	vs.	Big East	Ball St.	vs.	Rutgers
	Liberty Bowl	C-USA #1	vs.	SEC #6/7	UCF	vs.	Mississippi St.
	Mieneke Car Care Bowl	ACC #5	vs.	Big East	Wake Forest	vs.	Connecticut
	Chick-fil-A Bowl	ACC #2	vs.	SEC #3/4/5	Clemson	vs.	Auburn
	Independence Bowl	Big 12 #6	vs.	SEC #8	Colorado	vs.	Alabama
	Sun Bowl	Pac-10 #3	vs.	Big 12 #5/Big East	Oregon St.	vs.	South Florida
	Music City Bowl	ACC #5/6	vs.	SEC #6/7	Florida St.	vs.	Kentucky
	Holiday Bowl	Pac-10 #2	vs.	Big 12 #3	Arizona St.	vs.	Texas
	Emerald Bowl	Pac-10 #4/5	vs.	ACC #5/6/7	California	vs.	Georgia Tech

	Alamo Bowl	Big 12 #4/5	vs.	Big Ten #4	Texas A&M	vs.	Penn State
	Texas Bowl	Big 12 #7	vs.	C-USA #3/4	TCU	vs.	Houston
	Humanitarian Bowl	WAC #1	vs.	ACC #8	Boise St.	vs.	Maryland
	Insight Bowl	Big 12 #5	vs.	Big Ten #6	Oklahoma St.	vs.	Purdue
	Champs Sports Bowl	Big Ten #5	vs.	ACC #4	Indiana	vs.	Boston College
	Motor City Bowl	MAC #1/2	vs.	Big Ten #7	Central Michigan	vs.	Michigan St.
	Hawai'I Bowl	C-USA	vs.	WAC #2	East Carolina	vs.	Fresno St.
	Armed Forces Bowl	MWC	vs.	Pac-10	Air Force	vs.	UCLA
	Las Vegas Bowl	Pac-10 #4/5	vs.	MWC #1	Oregon	vs.	BYU
	Poinsettia Bowl	MWC	vs.	At-Large/Navy	Utah	vs.	Navy
	GMAC Bowl	MAC #1/2	vs.	C-USA #2	Bowling Green	vs.	Tulsa
	New Orleans Bowl	Sun Belt #1	vs.	C-USA #5	Troy	vs.	Memphis
	PapaJohns.com Bowl	C-USA #3/4	vs.	Big East/MAC	Southern Miss	vs.	Cincinnati
	New Mexico Bowl	WAC #3	vs.	MWC	Nevada/Louisiana Tech	vs.	New Mexico

A few interesting possible games here:

- I love the idea of Kansas playing Arkansas. Somehow it should be like a "loser leaves town" match from the old-time wrestling days. Maybe the loser should have to change their name to "Lesser Kansas" for the next year.
- USC vs. Illinois in the Rose Bowl would be fabulous, just because the pre-game hype would turn into a contest to see which coach gets the most "don't let the laid-back approach fool you" stories written about him. Plus, plenty of opportunities for Ron Zook to go water-skiing!
- Any battle between Troy and Memphis might turn into an actual historical war!
- Colorado vs. Alabama: Dan Hawkins vs. Nick Saban. Something has to give. I'm not sure what, but something...

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 4:28 PM 4 comments  

Thank you, Illinois

After this weekend's college football action, I want to personally extend my thanks, on behalf of a grateful nation, to Illinois for knocking off the top-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes. Not only did Illinois prevent a repeat of last year's national title game, where a vastly overrated Ohio State team was destroyed by a far superior, one-loss team (Florida), but we've finally reached the state of total chaos that BCS boosters have dreaded.

Think other years have been controversial and left some people happy. By the time this shakes out, past seasons will look like walks in the park.

First, let's dispel the notion that Oregon was a big winner this week, by moving up to the No. 2 spot (and a temporary place in the BCS title game) despite not playing thanks to Ohio State's loss. Yes, it was helpful to have one less team to jump. However, what the results on Saturday really set up is a bitter disappointment for Duck fans at the end of the regular season.

Why? Take a look at this week's BCS rankings. While the Ducks sit at No. 2, teams No. 3-5 are breathing down their necks. Undefeated Kansas plays one-loss Missouri in a few weeks, with the winner likely taking on one-loss Oklahoma in the Big XII title game. And that's bad, bad news for Oregon. Any number of scenarios exist where Oregon wins out but doesn't make it to the BCS Championship Game:

• (No. 3 BCS Rated) Kansas wins out, including beating Missouri (No. 5) and (No. 4) Oklahoma in the process. Because of their relatively light Strength of Schedule (SOS), Kansas is behind Oklahoma in both the Coaches and Harris polls (which together make up 2/3 of the BCS rating, along with the combined computer polls). Oregon is No. 2 in both "human" polls, meaning that while Kansas would almost certainly gain at least one spot (and jump to No. 3 in both coaches polls) by staying undefeated and beating Oklahoma. That alone plus the bump in the computer polls might well be enough to leap-frog Oregon. And a lot of humans might be tempted to move Kansas ahead of Oregon for the sake of making sure an undefeated team with wins against (then) top 6 teams in their last two games gets to play in the BCS Title game.
• If Missouri wins out, they are going to jump to at least No. 3 in the human polls, and jump up quite a bit in the computer polls as well (right now they are No. 6 in both human polls and No. 5 in the computer polls). I don't know if it would be enough, but they would be the "hotter" team, having just beaten two Top Five teams in a row.
• Right now, the thing that is killing Oklahoma is their relatively low computer ranking (No. 7). Beating Kansas would be a big boost to that. Since they've already beaten Missouri this year, the gain they would get from humans and computers in winning a rematch is not as big. Losses by either Ohio State or Arizona St. before the end of the season would be a big help, since those two teams are ahead of Oklahoma in the computer rankings.

So, get ready for it, Oregon. It's happening, you just don't know it yet. Which I hate to say: being a huge USC homer, Oregon going to the BCS Title Game is crucial to our chances of making a BCS title game.

Of course, I'm not going to try to get into how you explain to West Virginia that they don't deserve to go with one loss. Or tell Ohio State why losing to Illinois (a dangerous team all season) is worse than losing to a suddenly exposed Cal team (Oregon) or Kentucky (LSU). The only thing people seem to be sure about at this point is that LSU is a mortal lock to make it to the BCS Title game. Which given this season, means you can pencil them in for a crushing loss to Georgia in the SEC Championship game.

BCS Armageddon - it's fan-freakin-tastic.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 1:39 PM 1 comments  

US Soccer Team Inexplicably No. 5 in Latest BCS Rankings

Underscoring the perplexing nature of this college football season, the US Men's National Soccer Team was somehow ranked fifth in this week's BCS poll. Despite having a 0-0 overall record, and consisting of professional soccer players - most of whom have never seen a college football game - the US Soccer team has a chance to play for the BCS championship game if things break their way.

"I know it might seem odd for the outsider, but if you understood the math behind it, you'd see that the BCS rankings give the fairest representation of the best teams in the country," said BCS commissioner Mike Slive. "If the computers say that the US Soccer Team is fifth, then they must be fifth."

Critics of the BCS have put the blame on the decision before the start of this season to add American-based teams in the FIFA World Soccer rankings as an equal component of the BCS, a move officials said would help expand the marketing of college football overseas. While the US National Soccer Team does not show up on any human poll and ranks 120th out of 119 teams in every other computer poll, it's standings in the FIFA rankings have boosted it into the Top 5.

"This is the damnedest thing I've seen in all my years tracking the BCS," said computer rankings guru Jerry Palm. "Although it would still be a longshot, the fact that the US National Soccer team does not play before the end of the season could be a benefit. They'll need some teams to lose, but it could happen."

US Soccer Team captain Landon Donovan said despite his only experience with American football was being taunted and beaten by players in high school, he and the rest of his teammates would be thrilled to play for a BCS Title.

"My teammates and I have been working on our formations all week just in case," he said. "We've been working on our shuffle passes, our nickel, dime and quarter defenses, and especially our scrums - we think that's going to be the key. That, and our experience in performing well in big games and rising to the situation when the pressure is on."

Ranked ahead of the US Soccer Team in the BCS rankings are Ohio State, LSU, the 1955 Oklahoma team and the cast of CBS-TV's "How I Met Your Mother".

Despite the controversy, Slive said there were obvious signs that the system worked.

"Hey, I think we can all agree that the US Soccer Team is more deserving than Notre Dame," he said.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 10:03 AM 4 comments