Bowl Game Projections: A Brief Bit of Bragging

As you may have noticed, I've pretty much bit the bag this season with my handicapping (as has my partner in crime), to the point that I've finally waived the white flag on the whole thing. So please indulge me as I brag about some predictions that I made earlier that have now come true. Thanks for the patience in advance.

Ahem.

You might remember a few weeks ago, with a couple of weeks to go in the college football season, that I gave a prediction on who was going to be playing where for every bowl game this season. Now the the regular season is complete and the match-ups are set, I went back to look and see how I did. Much to my amazement, I was pretty frickin' good:

Total Bowl Games: 32
Correctly Picked Both Teams: 15
Correctly Picked One Team: 15
Correctly Picked No Teams: 2

So, I had an almost 50 percent success rate at predict the exact match-up that was going to be taking place in the bowls. Keep in mind, this was on Nov. 26, before the chaos and confusion of the final week of games.

How good was that? I decided to go back and look at the bowl projections of the "experts" that had been made around the same time. The experts I found were: CFN.com, ESPN.com (Ivan Maisel and Mark Schlabach), CNNSI.com (Stewart Mandel) and MSNBC.com (Mike Woods). CBS Sportsline hasn't made their Week-by-Week projections available as far as I can see.

How did I stack up? I'll let you be the judge:

YOUR FACE IS A SPORTS BLOG

Both: 15
One: 15
None: 2
Pct. of Teams Correctly Placed: 70.3%

CNN/SI (Stewart Mandel)

Both: 15
One: 14
None: 3
Pct. of Teams Correctly Placed: 68.8%

ESPN (Mark Schlabach)

Both: 9
One: 21
None: 2
Pct. of Teams Correctly Placed: 60.9%

ESPN (Ivan Masiel)

Both: 10
One: 15
None: 7
Pct. of Teams Correctly Placed: 54.7%


MSNBC (Mark Woods)

Both: 8
One: 18
None: 6
Pct. of Teams Correctly Placed: 53.1%

CFN*

Both: 5
One: 15
None: 12
Pct. of Teams Correctly Placed: 39.1%

(*CFN stopped doing a projection the week before everyone else, forcing me to use one that was a week earlier. That's what you get for not working over the Thanksgiving holiday, I guess.)

Again, let's review:

ME: No. 1. EXPERTS: Nos. 2-6

Stewart Mandel and I were very close, and Mark Schlabach was the only other person to completely miss on only two bowl games. As for the rest...even with the one-week handicap, the CFN projections are a mess. Part of this is because they insisted on placing Boise St. into a BCS game, when they basically had no shot even if they had beaten Hawaii. I'll give Ivan Maisel some credit for being the only person to predict that Kansas would go to a BCS bowl instead of Missouri, which was either a bold prediction, or a careless one that turned out to be right.

What were the two I missed out on?

The Humanitarian Bowl: The big issue here is that I assumed that the bowl would select Boise St. as a natural fit to play a bowl game in Boise in order to assure a sell-out. I didn't count on the Hawaii Bowl swooping in to steal Boise St. away, leaving Fresno St. with a consolation trip to Idaho in December instead (albeit against a higher-profile opponent).

The Emerald Bowl: Again, same concept - I assumed that the bowl game based in San Francisco would wind up with Cal. However, I didn't count on Cal losing to Stanford, and basically making it real tough for the bowl to select them at 6-6 ahead of 8-4 Oregon St.

Much like a South Florida beating an Auburn, this is the type of win that builds credibility. I figure that I can make horrible predictions for the rest of the season now and I can point back to this as proof that sometimes, I get lucky.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 10:35 AM 2 comments  

Oh My God, This is Actually Working! I'm Flyi---SPLAT!

For those of you who think that parachuting is old news, that base jumping is so not "radical", "extreme" or "cool", here's the latest trend: wing suits. As in, wearing suits that have "wings", that proponents hope will lead to one day being able to jump out of an airplane and land without a parachute.

Here's a picture of the "wing suit" worn by enthusiast Jeb Corliss:

If you are like me, you are expecting to see the words "Acme Corporation" on the suit somewhere...




More specifically, the problem isn't so much "jumping" out of an airplane and landing - gravity kind of takes care of that. As French jumper Loïc Jean-Albert told the New York Times:

"You might do it well one time and try another time and crash and die."

Which is also what one might say about having Rex Grossman as your starting quarterback. Folks! I'll be here all week.

Not to say that I'm not impressed...but jump from an airplane and successfully land WHILE SLAMMING A MOUNTAIN DEW!!! and then I'll be really impressed.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 7:05 PM 0 comments  

Santa Clara Pep Band: Out-Dorking Tony Romo

You might remember recently that I posted a photo from CNNSI.com involving Tony Romo looking like a complete dork while playing Guitar Hero. I thought that it might be impossible for any photos to top that for pure geekiness. However, I underestimated CNNSI.com's abilities to find the absolute nerdiest photos possible. But if I knew that they were going to be doing a full photo spread on the Santa Clara University Pep Band's "Campus Crib", I would have known.
Somehow, they've managed to make their most prominent alum, Steve Nash, seem cool by comparison.

This is just one prime example of what I am talking about:

I don't know who at the University thought it was a good idea to let this photo shoot happen. I'm sure they thought "Hey, it's a way to get some free publicity and show off the great school spirit we have!" Apparently, this person forgot to ask for any ability to review the photos ahead of time. I'm also sure that he/she has been fired.

Unless the plan was to increase the number of pasty, nerdy, perpetually dateless, World of Warcraft-addicted geeks attending their school this year. In which case, bravo on a job well done. MTV's "Cribs" couldn't have done a better job of hitting your target audience.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 6:31 PM 5 comments  

Lenovo Stats: A total farce, or merely completely useless?

The NBA would like you to get very excited about the Lenovo Stat. They would like you to understand the Lenovo Stat as often as possible, and treat it with the same level of importance that you treat points, rebounds or assists. That's why they've created a whole special section on their Web site just for it, and are promoting the hell out of it at every opportunity.

Which would be fine, if it was a stat that meant anything, and not just some made up, BS stat with the same name as "The Official PC Partner of the NBA". Because when commerce and sports collide, the result is usually riveting statistical analysis.

So what is this "Lenovo Stat" that's going to revolutionize the concept of basketball statistics? If you guessed "a warmed-over version of the plus/minus stat that they've been using in hockey for years", you guessed right. Essentially, it's the total amount of points that your team scores while you are on the court, minus the number of points your team gives up during that time.

I don't think I need to tell you how useless this is. First off, there is no way to compare players from different teams - players on winning teams are almost always going to have higher rankings than players on losing teams, just because their teams are scoring more points than their opponents regardless of what they do. If you were comparing how many points a team scored/gave up while a certain player was on the court versus how they did when he was on the bench, or versus their overall performance, maybe you would have something.

Actually, no, you wouldn't. It would still be absolutely pointless, but at least it would be slightly more useful.

Want an example? Guess who the "Lenovo Stat" leader is for the Los Angeles Lakers? It's obvious, right - Vladimir Radmanovic. He of the 9.7 points and 2.9 rebounds per game. As for Kobe Bryant - you know, the most feared player in the game? Of course - he's fourth on the team on the Lenovo Stat, behind not only Radmanovic but Andrew Bynum and Luke Walton.

Any stat where Luke Walton is ahead of Kobe Bryant is pretty much inherently flawed and worthless.

"But," you might counter if you were a marketing person with Lenovo reading off a list of talking points proponent of the Lenovo Stat, "it isn't an individual stat - The Lenovo Stat shows the power of teamwork. It's a way of showing the best-engineered, best combination of players on the court."

"Really?," I would counter."Because it still seems like a crock of crap to me. Take at look at the Lenovo Stat for the best two-person combinations on the team. No. 1 is Radmanovic and Bynum. Kobe isn't on there until No. 4, and he's only part of five of the Top 20. Now, you want me to believe that Vladimir Radmanovic and Jordan Farmar are a better combination than Kobe Bryant and...well, anyone?"

And you would not answer, because you would run screaming and in tears back to Lenovo world headquarters rather than admit defeat. And then I would treat myself to a two-piece chicken plank basket at Long John Silver's, but really reward myself by ADDING A THIRD PLANK! And then my official LJS Stat count would be a +3 for the season.

(Note: in the time it took me to finish this post, the Lenovo Stat section on NBA.com appears to have imploded. I'll take the credit for it - I'm sure they were so scared about the power of my upcoming post that they panicked and removed the site entirely.)

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 2:10 PM 2 comments  

Yahoo! Sports Reports Reggie Bush Owes More Than $59 in Library Late Fees

SAN DIEGO - In yet another chapter in their on-going investigation into New Orleans Saints RB Reggie Bush, Yahoo! Sports today published a report that the former Heisman Trophy winner racked up more than $59 in late fees from the USC library system while a student there - a sum which has never been repaid.

"Clearly, this sort of shocking revelation blows the lid off of our entire investigation," said Jason Cole, who has been investigating various aspects of Bush's life for more than 18 months. "Bush's startling disregard for the library jurisprudence system is just another example of how he shamelessly abused the system, and how USC is a renegade, out-of-control program."

Cole said that Yahoo! Sports has made other "explosive" recent breakthroughs in their continuing investigation of Bush. Among the new charges:

• Bush frequently "helped himself" to mints, butterscotches and other hard candies in the loose bin at the Ralph's near USC during his time in school, without ever paying.
• On several occasions, Bush "took a penny" from a bin at an off-campus 7-11, but was never documented to "leave a penny".
• Bush received meals, apparel, athletic coaching and academic tutoring from the University while a student at USC.

Despite waning public interest and a lack of action from the NCAA, the Heisman Trophy committee, the FBI and other organizations, Cole said that he plans to continue his investigation until "justice is served".

"I mean, at some point, people are going to realize the truth - that Yahoo! Sports is a reputable news source," said Cole. "If it takes running Reggie Bush's name into the ground and destroying the reputations and lives of him, his family, and everyone he loves in order for my snooty college classmates now working at "The New York Times" and "ESPN" to see that just because I work for a company with an exclamation point in its name doesn mean that I screwed up my career, then that's what I'll do. The truth needs to come out."

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 11:33 AM 0 comments  

Meyer Says Player "Totally Justified" in Alleged Beating of Restaurant Employee with Sandwich

GAINESVILLE, FL - Florida Gators head coach Urban Meyer today said that starting defensive end Jermaine Cunningham was "totally justified" in his actions that led to his arrest with a former teammate after allegedly assaulting a sandwich shop employee with a sandwich and empty soda cup.

"I mean, if you buy a sandwich, you should get the chips for free, right?" said Meyer. "Then, they tried to make the sandwich with one of those 'wedge cuts', where a wedge is cut out of the top of the loaf of bread instead of slicing it in half. Everyone knows that's a complete rip-off - you get like half as much filling that way. I normally condone any member of the team that gets involved in an off-the-field incident. But it this case, the jerk at the sandwich shop totally deserved it."

Meyer said that outside circumstances also need to be taken in consideration.

"He hit that guy with a turkey and avocado on white," he said. "I don't think anyone - even a football player - is going to cause that much damage with that sandwich. If it was a Cold Cut Trio on rye, maybe it's a different story."

Sources close to the investigation report that the unnamed employee may have caused the already tense situation to reach a breaking point by adding vinegar and oil to the sandwich without asking Cunningham.

This is not the first time that Florida players have had a restaurant-related incident. Four players were suspended for one game after causing more than $20,000 to a Gainesville-area Shakey's Pizza after being told that it would be 15 to 20 minutes before the pepperoni pizza would be ready as part of the Bunch-A-Lunch buffet.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 3:46 PM 3 comments  

My Christmas Gift to the UCLA Bruins

Now, you might expect me to be the last person to give UCLA advice on how to conduct a head coaching search. You would think that as a loyal USC alum, the last thing I would do is help out my rival. That I would just chuckle at the fact that the head coach of Boise St. would rather stay there than come to coach at UCLA, meaning that somehow the Broncos job is now more prestigious than the Bruins job.

And normally yes, I would. But in the car this evening, I had a flash about who would be the perfect hire for UCLA. The head coaching candidate that would send some shock waves through college football and actually scare the living crap out of USC. It's such a good idea that I have to share it, even if it means that I am betraying my school.

UCLA should go after and hire Jim Harbaugh.

Think about it. If you want to send a message to USC that you mean business, what better way than to bring in the guy who beat them this season at Stanford and pulled off one of the biggest upsets in sports history. Pete Carroll might seem unflappable, but if UCLA were to hire Jim Harbaugh, I promise you that even Coach Carroll would have his pulse rate go up a few ticks immediately.

It's not going to happen. But it should. And it would be AWESOME if it did.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 1:08 AM 1 comments  

Diet Pepsi Machine Cut by Atlanta Falcons

Atlanta – Despite being cut by the Atlanta Falcons today, former first-round draft pick and rookie sensation Diet Pepsi Machine vowed that his playing career is not over.

“I still feel like I can contribute to a team that needs a talented playmaker, or a zero calorie alternative to regular soda,” said Machine as he cleaned out his locker at the Falcons’ training facilities.

















Atlanta, desperate for offensive talent, brought in Diet Pepsi Machine after he had been cut by the New Orleans Saints at the start of training camp. However, he had contributed little since joining the team, mainly playing on special teams.

Diet Pepsi Machine first burst on the NFL scene in 2005, when the New England Patriots shocked the sports world by taking him late in the first round of the NFL draft. The unconventional move appeared to pay huge dividends immediately, when he caught 14 passes for 809 yards and 14 touchdowns in his first six NFL games as a tight end.

The success of Diet Pepsi Machine in his rookie season caused other teams to try to emulate the Patriot’s success, said NFL draft guru Mel Kiper Jr.

“Of course, none of them were successful,” Kiper said. “There was the Lions using a No. 8 pick on a Snickers Ice Cream bar machine and the Jets taking an old cigarette machine. And I think the league would like to forget the Raiders going to Japan to bring in a machine that appeared to sell cans of beer and used schoolgirls’ underwear as their new starting QB.”

However, Diet Pepsi Machine was plagued by a series of drops that left the Patriots shaken in their confidence in him. ESPN NFL analyst Ron Jaworski said that it was one of the most precipitous falls from grace in recent pro football history.

“Diet Pepsi Machine has always been almost unstoppable once he gets into space – his Yards After Catch is amazing,” Jaworski said. “The problem is simple – his lack of hands. And I don’t mean that in a figurative sense, I mean that he literally doesn’t have hands. The only way he can catch a ball is if it is thrown directly into the slot where Diet Pepsis usually come out. Once teams realized this and directed their defenders to expect low passes, even a quarterback as accurate as Tom Brady couldn’t get the ball to him.”

Diet Pepsi Machine’s progress was further stalled by a series of injuries suffered in the 2007 season, including: a ruptured dollar bill acceptor, a broken coin return, and clogged gears caused by leaky soda.

The personal life of Diet Pepsi Machine also caught up to him. While in New England, he was frequently spotted at 24-hour grocery stores and liquor marts the night before game time. Patriots coach Bill Belichik released Diet Pepsi Machine late in the 2006 season after an incident where he reported was seen sneaking massive quantities of rum into his dispenser in the locker room minutes before kick-off.

Diet Pepsi Machine attempted to make a comeback before the start of this season, signing a free agent contract with the New Orleans Saints. However, he only played into exhibition games, leaving the team over a dispute over his role with the team.

“If he would have accepted his role as a fullback, he could have been something special for this team,” said Saints head coach Sean Payton at the time when Machine left the team. “However, he refused to block. Every time we asked him to open a hole for Reggie (Bush), he would claim that the motion from making a block might ‘cause him to overcarbonate’ and explode. We can’t have that on our team.”

Talking to reporters after his release today, Diet Pepsi Machine said that he would attempt to catch on with an Arena Football League team this season, or possibly look for work outside a local Piggly Wiggly.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 1:02 AM 0 comments  

Handicapabling Challenge: Rivalry Week

It's rivalry week, and for a USC alum like me living in Los Angeles, it means experiencing a tradition unlike any other. No other big time college football rivalry has two schools with campuses so close together. Families, offices, and friendships should all be put on hold for a week of barbs, taunts and zings.

At least that's how it should be. But for me, that never happens. No one at my office graduated from UCLA. Only a couple of people even watch football at all: one guy is from Texas, and the other is from Serbia or Crotia or some random Slavic country that didn't exist before the 1990s. Somehow, I don't think he's a Bruin either. I don't know anyone who graduated from UCLA well at all. A couple of friends from high school I talk to once or twice a year, maybe.

And I'm not seeing any support from the Bruin fans this year. No people wearing school colors, bumper stickers, or those flags you suction cup to your car. I suspect that they sort of know that last year was as good as it is going to get for a while, and that in about two weeks, the football team will be looking for a new full-time head coach while some assistant is leading them as interim coach at the Zircon.com Aluminum Bowl or some nonsense.

Plus, it's raining today pretty hard (by LA standards), so therefore LA is about as deserted as Random City X in Random Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Film. It's weird.

Anyway, on to the picks. I didn't make any last week, since I was in a strange land without the Internet (my sister's place near Fresno). Let's see if I can make up for lost time and somehow drop seven or eight picks when only making five. (For the record, I am 6-9 for the season. I will avoid making any juvenile jokes pertaining to a frankly overrated sexual act. I think you know I'm better than that.)

(Also, ball farts. Tee-hee.)

Fresno St. (-13) @ New Mexico St.: Fresno St. is a terrible, terrible team against the spread under Pat Hill - they are 7-18 in their past 25 games. This is a good indication of why a lot of people back in Fresno are unhappy with Coach Hill and have been for years: they always play to the level of their opponents, and never put away bad teams.

Now, I don't think NMSU is a very good team at all. But they are 4-2 at home this year, while the Bulldogs are just 2-3. Now that Fresno St. has a chance to go to a decent bowl game (probably the Hawaii Bowl) with a win, this is a perfect chance for them to screw that up with a loss and get demoted to some podunk bowl in the Midwest in mid-December. Bring gloves, kids!

The pick: New Mexico St. (+13)

UCLA @ USC (-20): The thought of laying 20 points with a team quarterbacked by John David Booty makes my skin crawl. However, the thought of UCLA being able to score any points on USC is also pretty daunting at this point. But looking outside, it is wet, and it's going to be wet tomorrow afternoon. And the Coliseum field is already pretty torn up from recent soccer games. The bottom line? It's going to be a slog, much like the USC/Cal game a few weeks ago. USC wins, but not by 20.

The pick: UCLA (+20)

(Note: That said, I'd gladly be wrong on this and have USC win by 100, just so the rare UCLA fan who has chirped up with "13-9" this week can go back to Pauly Pavilion and stay for the next nine months.)

Army vs. Navy (-14): As a true patriot, I refuse to say that one team or the other is going to win - picking against the Army or Navy is tantamount to picking against America. I predict that in defiance of the NCAA and their "overtime rules", this game is declared a tie, and both teams turn their attention to kicking some terrorist butt! Which I guess means Army will cover. (That and the fact that Navy are only 3-7 in their last 10 games against the spread, because they can't stop anyone enough to cover any spread.)

The pick: Army

Big 12 Title Game - Oklahoma (-3) vs. Missouri: It's very hard to beat a good team twice in one season. Especially when that team has the motivation of playing for a national title, and they are playing the return game with their leading rusher (who didn't play the first time). Plus, Oklahoma is turning into a lousy cover team (2-6 in their last eight ATS), and I'm beginning to have zero confidence in Bob Stoops' coaching abilities in big games. In fact, I've started to refer to a shot of a coach on the sidelines after his team makes a big, dumb play (where he has a look that's a combination of anger, disgust and confusion) as "The Bob Stoops Face".

The pick: Missouri (+3)

New York Jets @ Miami (-1): So wait...a team that is 0-11, and just lost perhaps the ugliest football game in history, (and is coming off of a short week because of said game, which is never good) is a favorite against anyone? I know the Jets are bad, but they aren't...Dolphins bad. This is a team on a date with their own brand of perfection - don't try to throw a game away to them - they'll find a way to lose. They always do.

The pick: New York Jets (+1)

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 2:10 PM 0 comments  

USC Mulls Move to Oakland Coliseum

LOS ANGELES - In a surprising twist to an ongoing saga, University of Southern California officials today announced that they are considering moving home games to Oakland beginning next season. The university had originally discussed moving to the nearby Rose Bowl after talks with the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum stalled. However, school officials are now considering a radical plan to play home games at the Oakland Coliseum.

"After evaluating our options, we think this provides us with the best solution going forward," said Todd R. Dickey, USC's senior vice president for administration. "Although it will add an additional commute for our alumni and students, we think that with the loyalty of our fan base, we'll have little trouble selling out most games. Plus, all of our letterhead already says 'The Coliseum' on it, so this is going to save us thousands of dollars a year."

Under a university plan, shuttle buses would take fans and students to and from campus and the Oakland Coliseum. This will mean that fans will need to arrive no later than 3 a.m. for a 12:30 p.m. kickoff. University officials said that studies showed this would be comparable to the wait times for parking at the Rose Bowl.

"The 'Weekender' trip for our fans to the Bay Area schools is always a highlight of the football season," said Dickey. "This plan brings the fun and excitement of a Weekender to every home USC football game."

USC head coach Pete Carroll briefly discussed the plan after today's practice in preparation for their Rivalry Week game against UCLA. He said he wouldn't treat the 1,000 round-trip distance of their home stadium as a disadvantage.

"If that's what happens, then it's a great opportunity for us to get out there and show what we can do to a new audience," Carroll said. "It's what we do as a program, take advantage of what's put in front of us. It's something to look forward to. We'll build on it and go from there. We're all excited about it."

Carroll then headed off to his Heritage Hall office, muttering positive mantras to himself the entire way.

Reaction in the Bay Area was mixed. Some fans thought that Bay Area sports fans would not embrace a team moving from Southern California.

"By great Lucifer's ghost, moving a team from Los Angeles to here would never work!," said A. Davis, an elderly man found eating a Senior Slam at an Oakland area Denny's. "Next, there will be flying automobiles, and phones that tell you the scores of football game. And toasters that can steal your soul! From Irwindale, that's where salvation is from these foul howler monkeys. Irwindale!!!"

Davis rambled for a few minutes, then fell asleep in his grits.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 2:04 PM 0 comments