Player Arrests: Bad Coaching Decision

I just realized I have yet to do a Terrence Moore column, and that needs to be remedied, because he is the Carrot Top of sportswriting. If he were a cosmic phenomenon it would be a black hole. Which is to say that he sucks. Like, a lot. And now he’s writing about Georgia football player arrests.

Richt must eliminate Georgia’s ‘knuckleheads’

I envision Latin American death squads hunting down these so-called knuckleheads when I read that headline. That has nothing to do with anything, but the idea of coaches dispatching murderous commandos to deal with fuck-ups is kind of funny to me.

If you’re a decision-maker with Georgia’s football program, and if you wish to give your talented Bulldogs their best shot at winning a national championship this season, you just can’t spend the offseason having two, three, or four of your players arrested.

On the Mitzelbaum Scale (which measures the logical coherence of if, then statments) this rates a .04 (the maximum is 82.7). I assume that by “decision-maker” he means “coach or administrator” and not “creature possessing a rational brain and free will.” So the coaches and/or administrators have made the conscious decision to have players arrested. And that, ladies and gentlemen, you just cannot have. I honestly don’t know what the coaches and administrators are thinking at Georgia. Don’t they realize how counterproductive this is? This is Intro to Winning shit.

You just can’t.

I’m with you T-Bone.

The Bulldogs have had seven and counting, by the way.

Holy fuckballs! That’s, like, more than twice as many as three and nearly double four. Oh well, it was nice to think Georgia had a chance while it lasted. I’m going to stop sarcastically siding with Moore from here on out.

It makes you wonder if coach Mark Richt jumps whenever his Blackberry beeps.

I don’t have a blackberry, but I’m sometimes startled by my phone when it rings. Not to the point of jumping, because, really, do people ever actually jump when they’re startled? I always assumed that was a cartoonish thing used for comedic effect.

“Well,” he said, after a long pause over the phone, “the main thing is, I’m sad when anything like (the arrest of a Georgia player) happens. Just like you would if it was your own son. You’re sad when somebody in your own family makes a mistake or gets hurt or whatever it might be. When things like this come up, you hate to hear it. But these guys are human. They do make poor decisions at times.”

Seems pretty reasonable.

That’s true, especially since we’re talking about those between the often wild ages of 18 to 22. Richt also likes to suggest that the bulk of the 130 or so players in his program are closer to Wally Cleaver than Eddie Haskell. Several Bulldogs took a mission trip to Honduras and worked on summer projects spanning from Habitat for Humanity to Camp Sunshine.

That’s not really helping your case T-Dog. You know, the one where Richt is making the decision to have players arrested?

Plus, the publicly laid-back image of Richt is somewhat of a fraud. Just ask the Florida Gators.

Which makes sense seeing as the Florida Gators have probably only seen Richt’s public persona.

They were stunned along with everybody else last season in Jacksonville after Richt ordered his Bulldogs to charge into the end zone after their first touchdown to celebrate enough to get a penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Wouldn’t this kind of play into an outlaw program sort of article? “Look, he sent his players out to intentionally draw a personal foul. The inmates are running the asylum in Athens.” Something along those lines? It certainly doesn’t speak to one’s disciplinary streak. And yet…

The point is, Richt swings a big stick behind the scenes before and after one of his players becomes a knucklehead.

That is the point he is attempting to make with a story about what many would consider a demonstration of a lack of discipline. Someone who didn’t suck with the force of a thousand sucks might have pointed to Richt’s history of suspensions in the lead up to that point, but that is what makes Moore so damn good.

“I just wish everybody could see how often we do have those conversations. How often we do sit down with these guys as a group, as individuals, as positions coaches in meetings, and it’s a constant message,” said Richt, who frequently ignores the university’s guidelines for punishment by doubling the penalties for his players.

Now you mention his punishments.

Added Richt, “The bottom line is, they’re going to pay a price for what they did, and then we move forward. In the meantime, shoot, I can’t tell you how many good things are going on this summer. The great majority of them are working their tails off. They’re running. They’re lifting. From what I hear from our seniors and our leaders, they’re showing up, and they’re doing well in school.”

I’m excited!

Little of that matters when some of your Bulldogs are spending more time taking mug shots than publicity shots.

What? Why? Nothing can be good unless absolutely everything is good?

One guy was arrested and charged with allegedly fracturing the eye socket of another student in a fight.

Terrible. I believe this was the gentleman kicked out of school.

Two other guys were arrested after they were accused of rubbing the belly of a pregnant woman against her wishes.

Weird. Sort of creepy.

Three guys had alcohol-related arrests, including a DUI.

So, like, two drunk in publics and one DUI. Eh.

Another guy was charged with speeding and carrying a concealed weapon, but the latter charge was dropped.

Holy shit! Speeding? That changes everything!

If you didn’t know better, you’d think a bunch of Bulldogs are getting full of themselves since they will likely be ranked first or second in most preseason polls.

Or a more rational person might think:

“Uh, I don’t think it’s that at all,” Richt said. “I wish I could tell you what I know about every situation, because I don’t think you would relate those two things at all.”

And then an irrational and shitty writer might close with:

Well, whatever is causing these Georgia knuckleheads, Richt and his folks need to find more ways to stop it, like now.

Like, totally.

This Red Herring Is Delicious

Matt Hayes doesn’t get logic. That’s the only explanation for this column. His argument is that Virginia Tech is saving the ACC. His fallacy will be distilled to its essence.

“Until this conference starts winning non-conference games against other BCS teams,” O’Brien says, “We don’t have a leg to stand on.”

Followed by:

Tech is 28-6 in league games since 2004; no other ACC team is close.

You see the problem, yes? So, how has Tech done in non-conference BCS games since 2004?

• Vs. all non-conference BCS opponents: 4-5
• Vs. ranked non-conference BCS opponents: 3-5

The league as a whole is 32-41 in all non-conference BCS games in that time, for a winning percentage of .438, which is pretty much the same as Virginia Tech’s .444. Against ranked opponents the league is 9-31 (.225), which is worse, though not markedly so, than Virginia Tech’s .375. Virginia Tech: Savior.

Also, all of those BCS wins by Virginia Tech have come against Big East teams. I just thought that was an odd coincidence.

Update: For proper comparison I should remove Virginia Tech’s games from the overall conference records. So, the first would be 28-36 (.438 ) and the second, 6-26 (.188). That makes their winning percentage against ranked teams look a little better, but their record is 3-5. If expanded to the same number of games it would be 12-20, which is still kind of shitty. All small sample size issues duly noted.

Me>Dodd, Officially

A few weeks back Dodd actually quantified his lack of football knowledge, by taking this beast of a rules test for officials. It’s a mother fucker, to be sure, but Dodd uses it to demonstrate how awesome officials are. Wrongly.

There’s nothing too bad in the early going. He decided to take the test, blah, blah, blah. His score: 46. I did it and got a 60, and I’m not paid to actually know anything about the game. But after he admits to his ignorance of most things football he starts getting weird.

Terry Porter, whose name is officially a swear word in Coral Gables, all is forgiven. Porter is the official who threw that controversial flag for pass interference against Miami’s Glenn Sharpe in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl against Ohio State.

Huh? I never thought this was all that bad a call, but, if I did, how would his ability to pass a test based upon rules he is supposed to study absolve him? He still would have blown a call in the biggest college football game of the season. He also beats it into the ground by including two more much more egregious examples: the onside kick in the Oregon-Oklahoma game last year and the 5th down play by Colorado back in the day.

The next time I think about ripping an official, I’m just as likely to send a sympathy card. It has become obvious that their job is harder than titanium. After taking the test, the hot-air balloon that was once my football ego is now flatter than West Texas.

Man, he can churn out some mighty fine metaphors. The point itself? Yes, officiating is a difficult job, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be criticized when they fuck it up.

But you want a quote that sort of detracts from his point? Okay.

“I see scores that go down — for regular officials — into the low 60s, the first time they take it,” the Evil LeMonnier said, trying to cheer me up.

Regular officials, who presumably have read the rule book at least once, barely outscore me, a fan who has never cracked a book on the subject. Does that make you feel better about the state of officiating at all? There’s also this:

He and co-author Dick Honig, a retired Big Ten referee, begin jotting down notes during the season. In December, they start writing questions. A third party edits the material. Two months ago, 15 officials test-drove the test before final adjustments were made. You don’t need to know that the lowest score was 75.

75 is a fucking C. I expect officials to know the rules backwards and forwards, not to just get by. Am I being unreasonable in that expectation?

Anyway, the rest is repetitive self-deprecation involving monkeys and shit. Not too bad. Just, you know, annoying. Sorry for the pun in the subject line and the general lack of humor in this post. That test left me all addled.

A Preseason Mindbender

Kirk Bohls wrote an article for the Austin American-Statesman with this headline:

Summer football mags can predict, but how well?

When reading such a headline one might assume that the article will examine past predictions by preseason magazines and compare them to the actual outcomes of those seasons. And that, my friends, is why you should never assume. Instead we will be taking a look at an article predicting the accuracy of predictions for the upcoming season. That’s right, it’s a prediction article about predictions. Welcome to the world of metametacriticism.

Preseason football magazines.

This is the opening paragraph. No shit. You feeling that dramatic tension? You could cut it with a spoon.

Are there three sweeter words in the English language, other than “insurance covers that”?

I don’t want to undercut his awesome joke, but here’s a list of some three word combinations I prefer:

• More beer, anyone
• Paging Dr. Love
• Superman dat ho
• Fourth and dumb
• Desperately Seeking Susan
• Rollercoaster of Love
• Ticket to Ride
• menage a trois
• I love you
• Condoms are optional

Frankly, nothing quite beats such mindless, summertime reading.

This is a judgement call, but really? Nothing beats it? You write for a living. Surely there’s something out there that you prefer to hastily assembled lists and team profiles and what not. This is like choosing People magazine over “The Grapes of Wrath.”

After spending half the night Wednesday perusing three football periodicals, we offer our scorecard of some of their strongest predictions or opinions on the upcoming season. So get out your No. 2 pencils and score along at home. (Why didn’t No. 3 pencils ever catch on?)

Which is worse: a) that he’s “scoring” preseason predictions, b) that he wants us to join in the madness, or c) that No. 3 pencil joke? I think I’m most offended by c.

1. Missouri, Sporting News writes, will have two Heisman candidates in quarterback Chase Daniel and receiver Jeremy Maclin. Spot on.

Remember back in the last paragraph when he said he was going with their strongest predictions? Well, he thinks the college football equivalent of “the sun will rise tomorrow” is strong or bold or whatever.

2. The surprise teams, Phil Steele’s 328 trillion-word magazine says, will be South Florida (true), Clemson (false, an annual underachiever), Texas Tech (true), Auburn (false because Will Muschamp’s gone) and Penn State (true).

I want to take this opportunity to point out that Steele’s magazine is not hastily assembled and has quite a bit of good, in-depth analysis. It stands alone in the world of preseason college football magazines. Now, on to Bohls. There’s nothing of why he thinks the trues are true, but take a gander at those falses. Clemson: “an annual underachiever” and Auburn: “Will Muschamp’s gone.” This is bad metacriticism, and I should know because I’ve been producing bad metacriticism for months. First, the only reason Clemson can even be thought of as a surprise team is because the expectation is that they will not play to their capabilities. Second, the past performance of teams is not predictive of their future successes or failures. Third, losing one fucking coach is going to keep Auburn from being better than expected? A better argument would be that they’re breaking in a new offensive system, and I’m not even sure whether or not I agree with that one. Fourth, dick joke.

4. Florida has the nation’s most explosive offense and is ranked ninth by Sporting News. That rating is nuts. Steele has the Gators No. 1. But Sporting News also places Texas Tech a lowly No. 20. That’s crazy. This could be the Red Raiders’ breakout year.

So many things:

1. 9th is a pretty high ranking.
2. Teams are also expected to play defense.
3. 1st seems a little high for Florida and closer to crazy than 9th, inasmuch as preseason rankings should be thought of in those terms. Since: They’re fucking predictions, and will turn out to be wrong at least as often as right.
4. Texas Tech could also go about 8-4 like they usually do.
5. You just bagged on Clemson for past performance. Why do you give Texas Tech the benefit of the doubt?

6. The top NFL prospect is Oklahoma offensive guard Duke Robinson. False. We’ll say Ole Miss offensive tackle Michael Oher or South Florida defensive end George Selvie.

Why false? Why those two guys? Answer me!

8. Phil Steele lists his Heisman favorites as Tim Tebow, Chris Wells, Pat White and Chase Daniels. Wrong. No way Tebow repeats. Wells won’t be flashy enough. White doesn’t have enough help. Daniel really could win, but Missouri better beat Illinois out of the box, or you can kiss the trophy goodbye.

Again, so many things:

1. “No way Tebow repeats”?! Even if he accounts for, like, 8,000 touchdowns again?
2. “Wells won’t be flashy enough.” What does this even mean? Was Eddie George flashy? Rashaan Salaam? Chris Weinke, now there was a flashy player.
3. Seems to me that White not having help would help his chances should WVU have a good enough season to keep him in the race, which is obviously assumed by his inclusion.
4. Daniel could win it, but only if they don’t lose to Illinois. An occurrence that even Ron Zook would not predict. Though he does predict a lot of improving.
5. You don’t maybe want to include three dudes to replace the three you summarily dismissed?

9. Sporting News calls Colorado’s Ralphie the league’s best mascot. You hear that, Bevo? Sic ‘em.

Everyone but Texas fans probably think Ralphie is better than Bevo. Hell, I’m guessing a plurality of Texas fans would agree. Though if Bevo is actually trained to attack on command I’d give him the nod. Because that would be awesome.

10. That magazine says West Virginia rookie Bill Stewart will better the 11-2 mark of Rich Rodriguez last year. Not a chance. He’s overmatched.

That remains to be seen. When last we saw him he was inspiring WVU to beat an Oklahoma team with more talent. So based on that, I’d say there is a chance he could improve upon that 11-2, all other things being equal.

12. Lindy’s accurately suggests Syracuse’s Greg Robinson has made predecessor Paul Pasqualoni look like Bear Bryant.

Well, that’s a fucking bold…prediction? Fuck the heck?!

And skipping to the end:

22. A heads up to fans. There are no more 5-yard face mask infractions (all 15 yards) or sideline warnings. Previously, a team could receive two warnings, but now a 5-yard penalty could be stepped off with the first infraction. Call it the Chris Jessee rule.

Not a prediction. Not related to preseason college football magazines. Why is this here? And that’s all for our look at preseason metametacriticism. For the record, I predict that games will be played, won, and lost. Some teams will have good years. Some will have bad years. And I will critique at least 37 Dennis Dodd columns.

Poor Phrasing

I listen to sports talk on my brief drive home in the evenings. Yesterday on the Frangie/Dempsey show on Jacksonville’s 1010 AM in reference to the Brett Favre situation I heard Frangie say:

This could get fun and sticky.

Surely there is a less disturbing way of saying that.

Something is Rotten in the City of Bristol

Sometimes there comes an article with such a hackneyed premise that it captures the imagination and changes your conception of just what awful sportswriting can be. It smacks of desperation during the long college football offseason. It is paradigm changing. It is life alterting. Most importantly, it is fun. And it is here thanks to a man named Pat Forde. Are you ready? Are you excited? I know I am. Let’s mock this bitch:

Midsummer night’s dream reveals puckish prognostications for ‘08

Take it in. Bask in it. The headline only hints at the absurdity though.

Because it’s June, and because June is slower than an Ivy League defensive back when it comes to college football news, the boss e-mailed me with a quirky story idea.

Did he really? I suspect Forde realizes how stupid this article is going to be and wants to pass the buck. Also, awesome joke with the Ivy League cornerbacks metaphor. Grow some balls and say what your really mean: white cornerbacks.

He pointed out that Midsummer’s Eve was upon us, and the day has a long tradition of being a time for telling fortunes. Some guy named William Shakespeare even built a story around Midsummer’s Eve — and the suggestion was that I do the same.

Seriously, I call bullshit. But if this is true, that Forde was so bereft of ideas that this one seemed good by comparison, just cancel his offseason writing schedule. Here comes the stupid…

Who can turn down an offer like that?

Anyone. Seriously, anyone with a lick of sense would recognize the inanity involved in this column before getting started, and say to themselves, “Fuck. That.”

After reacquainting myself with “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” it seems Shakespeare himself might have had football on the brain when he wrote it. You don’t believe me? I have the evidence.

By “reacquainting” I believe he means googled ”‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ quotes.” Also, the premise of this article is that William Shakespeare - poet, playwright, lover of Gwyneth Paltrow, inventor of modern English, dead in the early 17th century - had football - an awesome sport that I’m sure he would have loved, because it is awesome and Shakespeare was awesome, had he not predated it by about 200 years - on the brain when he penned his most revered comedy, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Think about that. Get your head wrapped around that concept. Laugh at it derisively. But: he has proof. Like:

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!” — Was that Puck? Or Tim Tebow?

Puck was a metaphor for Tim Tebow! Of course! It was staring me in the face the whole time, and I refused to see it. If ever there was airtight proof of Forde’s point, this is it.

“Days of absence, sad and dreary, Clothed in sorrow’s dark array, Days of absence, I am weary; She I love is far away.” — The average college football fan in the dog days of summer, waiting for the season to begin.

Shall thee compare thy love of football to thy love of a maiden? No, thee shall not. Fuckest thou.

“Masters, spread yourselves.” — Billy Shakes correctly predicting the era of the spread offense.

God damn it! You’re better than this Forde. Billy Fucking Shakes?!

I can’t take any more of these. There are ten. They are all stupid, and the rage generated increases as you proceed. Let’s move on to the “Puckish” predictions.

1. Notre Dame will be better.

Bold. Careful out on that limb, Pat.

3. Rick Neuheisel won’t bet on his own team in the office bowl pool.

This is true, but mainly because they won’t be in a bowl.

4. Ohio State at USC is the nonconference game of the year.

“I think the obviously best matchup on paper between teams from different conferences will be the best nonconference game.”

5. Georgia at Arizona State won’t be bad, either.

“I also think that a matchup between teams likely to start the season in or near the top 10 will be better than bad.”

9. The one unit in all of college football with the most on its shoulders is …
… BYU’s secondary.

I’m leaving that other part unbolded because he weirdly did that rather than include it in the heading. Also, BYU? They have no chance at winning the national title. How about Florida’s ineffective DLine or secondary? How about Georgia’s linebackers? How about USC’s something-or-other? How about any of the major contenders for the national title over a team that has no chance at a national title and a chance to make a BCS bowl only if they go undefeated?

13. The 2008 season foretold here will end the way “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” ended.
With an admission that none of this is real. Play it again, Puck:

“If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream …”

If only it were truly a dream.

Key Games

A not uncommon feature of college football preview time is the “Key Games” article, and someone named Chris Low, who has a blog at ESPN.com, has three for the Eastern Division of the Southeastern conference entitled:

Who’s dancing in 2008?

Dancing is generally a basketball thing. You know, March Madness being the Big Dance and what not. Is it too much to ask that our sports metaphors are kept in their rightful domains?

The reality is that seven or eight games will probably determine the East champion, but here are the top three and what may or may not be at stake:

The reality is that each of the six teams in the East plays eight conference games, which makes for 48 factorific games. Sure, the games between teams like Florida, Georgia, LSU, Auburn and Tennessee are more likely to play a role in determining the division champs. And it’s also likely that Vanderbilt, Kentucky, South Carolina, and the rest are not good enough to win enough games to matter as much more than a spoiler, and I think that’s the point of his big three. Right Chris?

3. Georgia at South Carolina, Sept. 13

Oh, so that’s your choice for the 3rd biggest game. I think we should parse his reasoning. Cool? Cool.

The Bulldogs have never played particularly well in Columbia, and the Gamecocks went into Athens last season and won.

Never is a bold term. Let’s take a quick look at the Richt-coached Bulldogs’ records/results against the Gamecocks:

• 2001 in Athens: 14-9, ‘Cocks
• 2002 in Columbia: 13-7, Bulldawgs
• 2003 in Athens: 31-7, Snoop Dawgs
• 2004 in Columbia: 20-16, Underdawgs
• 2005 in Athens: 17-15, Bacon-wrapped, deep-fried hot dawgs
• 2006 in Columbia: 18-0, The Dawg Pound
• 2007 in Athens: 16-12, Shuttlecocks

A good point would be that Georgia tends to play at an unusual level of mediocrity against South Carolina, or that South Carolina tends to play one of their better games against Georgia. A bad point would be to say that Georgia never plays well in Columbia. Also, the results of the previous season have little to no bearing on the results of the upcoming season.

The last thing Georgia needs, after all the hype this offseason, is to lose its SEC opener.

A plane crash involving the entire team is probably the last thing they need, but yes, losing to South Carolina would probably kill their Championship hopes, at least at the national level. In terms of the East, though, one might want to bear in mind that we are coming off of a season where Tennessee lost their SEC opener by 39 fucking points and still won the fucking SEC East! (Is everyone else still as amazed they recovered from that as I am?)

If that happens, a killer schedule suddenly becomes an impossible schedule.

If Georgia loses the LSU Tigers are dropped from the schedule and replaced my the New Orleans Saints. Should they lose the first two a platoon of the 1st Marine Battalion will fire mortars and .50 caliber machine guns at them as they try to advance the ball down the field. Good luck with that assholes. Semper Fi! Am I right?

As for the Gamecocks, here’s a chance in the first few weeks of the season to show that they’re for real.

I read this every year and every year it turns out to be untrue. I’ve actually become convinced that some sort of evil spirit has infected that football program and will forever keep it from moving past mediocrity. Or you know, the lack of a recruiting base when compared to the likes of LSU, Georgia and Florida. One of those.

Win this game, and who knows? There’s a chance South Carolina could be 6-1 or even 7-0 going into three straight home games against LSU (Oct. 18), Tennessee (Nov. 1) and Arkansas (Nov. 8).

Okay, fine. There’s also a chance they could be 6-1 if they lose this game. 5-2, on their way to a 6-6 or 7-5 season, is far more likely in either scenario given their talent and schedule. Point being, Chris Low is a crazy person who called a game between the favorite to win the division, SEC and possibly national title and a perenial fourth-place finisher within their division one of the three most important games in determining the outcome of said division.

Choking on Dying Mediums

Let’s just dive right into this.

NCAA Managing Director of Football and Baseball Dennis Poppe confirmed for me Monday what I’ve been wondering about the proliferation of bowl games.

When it will end? What’s the oversaturation point? How many more additional football games we can expect, because football is an awesome sport and you’d like to watch more games? My guess: What does proliferation mean?

When it comes to new bowls, it’s promoter beware.

What a let down. This isn’t even jokey or anything. It’s kind of obvious and uninteresting, but that’s to be expected. It’s Dodd after all.

The NCAA in April approved two more bowl games, the Congressional Bowl in Washington D.C. and the St. Petersburg  Bowl in — guess where? — St. Petersburg, Fla.. That brings the total to 34 bowls. Do the quick math and that means 68 bowl slots. There were only 71 bowl-eligible teams last season.

Doing some more quick math (Subtraction this time. Thank God Dodd did that nasty ole multiplication for me.), that still leaves three teams that are technically deserving of a bowl unable to go.

Poppe, here for the College World Series, calls that a safe “margin of error.” Three teams? (Actually, the number  varies from year to year but it’s still close. In 2006, there were 73 bowl-eligible teams.)

I guess there’s a slim possibility that only 67 teams could qualify in some year, but with the loosening of the I-AA rule it seems very unlikely. Also, does 3-5 extra teams seem like a safe “margin of error” to all of you readers? Yes? Cool. I love you, man.

The pressure is not on the NCAA, which does little more than certify new bowls, but on the bowls themselves. If there aren’t enough bowl eligible teams, there simply won’t be bowls.

That hardly seems all that pressurized for anyone. 71 and 73 have qualified in the first two years of the relaxed requirements. Seems like a pretty good bet that the 68 slots will be filled.

“The only option right now is that the bowl wouldn’t have a game,” said Poppe, a former lineman for Missouri’s 1970 Orange Bowl team. “That’s what it always has been (but) we reaffirmed that. The association’s position is that granting a license doesn’t necessarily guarantee a game.”

Works for me. What about you, Dennis?

If there was a possible shortage, why did the NCAA certify the two new bowls? Legally, it doesn’t have much choice.  It might be surprising to know that the NCAA has little to do with the postseason. It certifies bowls, assigns officials and sets rules. Other than that, cities, promoters, schools and conferences stage the games.

Show of hands: How many college football fans, i.e. the people who might read a Dodd column, did not know that the NCAA has little to do with the college football postseason? Stop being a smartass, Magillicutty. Seriously, the bowl system is subject to endless debate every fucking football season. I daresay that anyone who does not know this is illiterate or suffers from that short-term memory thing in “Memento.”

If there is a glut of games, the public loves it. Average attendance at the 32 bowl games in 2007-08 was the highest in eight years. That would suggest that although seven bowl eligible teams didn’t make the postseason last year, there are fans out there willing to watch the likes of Troy, Ohio and Louisiana-Monroe. (The other four bowl eligible teams that did it get invites were South Carolina, Northwestern, Iowa and Louisville.)

If the public is going to the games and watching them on TV can you say there is a glut? These people willing to watch the likes of Troy and Ohio are known as “college football fans”. They also comprise your readership, Dennis. I will watch Division III playoff games. I have watched high school games on television. There is not enough football to sate my appetite, let alone glut it. I’ve probably said a bit too much about myself there.

The next hurdle for bowl executives could be the dreaded Academic Progress Rate. Beginning in 2009, teams that have posted a sub-900 APR three consecutive season could be banned from postseason competition.

I guess this could cause a problem and lead to a reduction in bowl games.

“We are in an area where the margin is pretty thin,” Poppe said. “I still think we should have enough teams … The theory is to provide as much opportunity as possible.”

I like that theory. Oh, that’s the end of the bowl thing? Okay, but what do you think about these newspaper layoffs?

• You might have noticed that the newspaper industry is in shambles.

Yep, circulation down, ad revenues down, layoffs all over the place. The fucking New York fucking Times is even having to lay people off. It’s a revolutionary time in information getting.

This is not gloating. While we Internet hacks seem to be the lucky ones, our hearts go out to colleagues who are being downsized because of corporate mismanagement.

Sure, nobody likes to see someone lose their job. At least not if they’re doing it reasonably well. You, I wouldn’t mind seeing fired.

Two good friends left their jobs recently. Wendell Barnhouse of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram took a buyout after more than three decades in the business. The Star-Telegram has decided to do away with its national college football beat as part of its downsizing.  Also, Howard Richman was let go at the Kansas City Star after a quarter century with the paper. He was covering Kansas State, nailing every breaking story on the beat.

I’m not really familiar with either of these gentlemen, but I’ll assume Dodd is right that they were good. I’m feeling generous.

These guys are two examples of how the reader is losing. Newspapers still haven’t figured out to make their product  work in a changing media environment.

You’d think they’d have an idea by now.

Sure, the Internet is a threat but you would have thought by now that someone would have figured how to reconfigure newspapers.

What does this mean? Reconfiguring them into a web-based medium that still maintains quality control to some degree? Or like, just reconfiguring physical newspapers? Which makes no sense to anyone with a thinking brain. Anyway, if it’s the first, then newspapers have been slow on the uptake.

The major problem is papers being run by corporations instead of journalists. This guy Zell who owns Tribune Co. literally scares me.

This guy does seem pretty frightening. Downright Pennywisian. You don’t maybe think that the problem with newspapers is that their revenues are drying up while circulation plummets rather than the big, bad, corporate bogeymen? Okay, it’s your delusion.

It used to be about putting out a good product. Now it’s more about profit margin.

These two things are apparently mutually exclusive.

This bastardization of a vocation causes good people like Wendell and Howard to leave the profession. Courage, guys. We’re thinking about you.

I’m sure they’re reasonably decent dudes, but really they weren’t screwed over. They’re in a dying medium. This is what happens when technology renders something obsolete. Must…not…use…buggy whip…clich…é.

The Unanswered Question(s) About Terrelle Pryor.

It’s been a while. Sorry, I’ve been busy-ish. I return with none other than Dennis Dodd, after whom I probably should have named this blog since he’s the worst college football writer going. Live and learn.

Next step for Ohio State Idol: Living up to the hype

That’d be a play on American Idol. I only know this because he makes the direct link later. It’s not funny or clever there either.

Somewhere near the Yucatan Peninsula there is a giant underwater crater. Some scientists believe a meteor impact kicked up enough dust into the atmosphere to kill off the dinosaurs.

And this is related to college football how?

And some recruitniks swear it was the imprint of Terrelle Pryor trying to get one foot inbounds before scoring another touchdown.

Oh, those stupid recruitniks. They don’t know anything about the Mesozoic Era. Thank God Dennis Dodd is there to inform them of their nearly unbelievable ignorance.

And if I might comment on Dodd’s style, if you notice there is a formula to it:

1) Sentence or two that are kind of weird.

2) Pause for dramatic effect

3) Sentence or two that are supposed to serve as the punchline for the first part, but in reality are about twice as weird and terribly unfunny.

It’s nice to have something you can rely on.

This just in after the nation’s No. 1 high school player finally picked a college: Paul Bunyan wants his deal reworked.

You may find this surprising, but I’ve never in my life heard a Paul Bunyan joke. And if Paul really does want his deal reworked this could revolutionize the mythical entity market. If he becomes the highest paid mythological being, what do you expect someone like Zeus to command, or the Lord God Almighty for that matter? This could destroy the FMBL (Fucking Mythical Being League). You’re right, it does seem crude, but who am I to question God?

Yeah, Pryor’s legend is that big. His upside is a space walk. The most protracted, celebrated, confusing recruitment in the history of Tom Lemming ended Wednesday with the Jeannette (Pa.) quarterback choosing Ohio State.

Meteor that theoretically destroyed an entire species and completely changed the global environment = Really large dude who travelled around with an equally large blue ox = Astronaut = Really good high school quarterback.

If you’ve followed the Pryor timeline, you’re as winded as the defenders who tried to catch him. Forty-two days and two news conferences later, we have the same result we thought we had on Feb. 6: Buckeyes uber alles.

Yes, it was an abnormally long, though not unheard of, recruiting season for Pryor.

If this is a sign of how decisive the kid is going to be with an audible, Jim Tressel just signed another Justin Zwick. None of us know that for sure, of course. YouTube, rivals.com and shadowy boosters still agree: Pryor is a franchise quarterback.

What an indecisive punk? How dare he take time to consider a decision that will affect the next four years of his life, and potentially his life up to around age 40. Also, note that last sentence, because…

But we sure as hell can think it. The next, great American high school phenom has embarked on a journey to who knows where? He is one part athletic (6-5½, 220 pounds with a rocket arm), and one part charismatic with a dash of American Idol.

Swap the last sentence of the previous paragraph with the first sentence of this one and you get coherency. As it is, you get Doddency. And there’s the American Idol reference, which makes sense in that singing for judges is almost exactly the same as playing college football.

Which means he could be making millions real soon or be the next Ruben Studdard.

Remember that fat guy who sang some shitty song about being sorry and was kind of a bust on the Billboard Charts, especially considering all of the hype that comes with going the distance on American Idol? Terrelle Pryor, a svelt, fleet-footed, strong-armed QB could end up exactly like him. I’m as surprised as you are.

This country loves The Next Big Thing. What it loves even more is seeing those legends fail. It keeps cable news and Congressional hearings in business. Don’t forget that in the sports arena alone, a certain haughty pitcher has gone from Rocket to Roidger.

I think we like to see them fail in large part because of fawning media coverage by people like you Dennis. I’m sure there’s more to the psychological shit involved, but that’s certainly a factor. And in the end, even when we derive a certain amount of joy from one person’s failure, we also derive pleasure from another’s success. We’re a great big complicated mess, we humans.

At this rate in our culture, if Nike hasn’t signed the nation’s No. 1 recruit to an endorsement deal — pausing briefly as the ink dries on the Ohio State scholarship papers — Phil Knight deserves to be smacked upside the head with a waffle iron.

You know, except for the fact that such a deal is against the rules and would make Pryor inelligible, thus costing Nike money on an investment with no return. But sure, no deal = Phil Knight’s head + waffle iron.

Wait. Nike deal? That would make our new BMOC a professional. We’ll pause for a moment while those of you who believe that Pryor hasn’t been, ahem, “well taken care of” catch up.

Is Dennis accusing Nike and/or Ohio State of paying Pryor? There must be some evidence right?

This is not a specific indictment of Nike, Ohio State or anyone else. We don’t have names, just common sense. Pryor’s coach is so disgusted with the process that he’s glad this was a once-in-a-lifetime deal. That’s because his life can move on.

Nice cop-out. So we have no evidence, but common sense dictates that Ohio State cheated because that’s just how things work. For example, Pryor’s coach is even disgusted. Who needs proof when you have vague, ass-covering innuendo?

The waffle iron is symbolic of the first pair of Nikes, the soles of which were made with the breakfast appliance. But there’s a fine line between genius and the stink of burning rubber.

What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Talk. Ing. About?

In one sense, Pryor can’t possibly live up to the hype, can he? If he wins a national championship, that’s what he was supposed to do. If he wins a Heisman, well, it’s been done before in Columbus.

Those accomplishments would be the very definition of living up to the hype.

Already his announcement has created ripples that make that Yucatan thing look like skipping rocks:

Does nobody look these things over and maybe ask Dennis if he really wants to go with these comparisons?

Editor: I’m a little concerned that you may be overstating your case.
Dodd: What do you mean?
Editor: Well, you compared the signing of a QB to a literally world altering event.
Dodd: And?
Editor: ….That’s bad writing.
Dodd: FUCK YOU!! You don’t tell me how to do my job, egghead! I write with the passion of a thousand suns! My words are poetry! You heard of poetic license, fuck nut?!
Editor: ……..So, you want to leave it in?
Dodd: Yes.

Of course that’s ridiculous, Dodd doesn’t have editors.

• Whatever happened to football being the ultimate team sport? This sounds kind of obvious, but there is no doubt in this age of the zone-read spread option that the quarterback is the most important player on the field. This one has been compared to Texas’ Vince Young. Look what Texas did with Young and look what it has done in the two years without him.

The QB has been the most important player on the field for a fairly long time, since the beginning of modern offenses in college football. The ’50s I guess?

In support of Pryor, Young did deliver on his promise.

This is true.

• It’s a double negative for Michigan.

It’s a positive! 

Score another one for Tressel in the rivalry. You wonder where the next Wolverines quarterback is going to come from, while the Buckeyes continue to be the Big Ten favorites (and national championship contenders) for the foreseeable future.

I guess that’s bad for Michigan, but they had to have seen this coming, and they still would have been the underdog to Ohio State in the upcoming season. Beyond that, who knows?

That’s bad if you’re Michigan, good if you’re the next SEC team to play Ohio State in a bowl.

I’m already tired of the Ohio State jokes. I didn’t think that would happen for a few more years.

• Speaking of Tressel, we already knew he was up there with Saban and Stoops as one of the best recruiters. But this guy has just landed the nation’s No. 1 dual-threat quarterback to run what had been a pro-style offense.

Which proves that he…er…is one of the…um, best recruiters in the nation, up there with Saban and Stoops.

It seemed to work out for Troy Smith, who went from punk to superstar in Columbus.

Indeed it did. Was he really a punk? I don’t remember that period, but whatever.

Amazingly, Pryor already seems to be buying into to his freshman season mirroring Tim Tebow’s. In case you didn’t know, Ohio State has a starting quarterback, Todd Boeckman. Pryor as a super backup might be perfect for his development.

It might. Or he might blow a knee and never be the same. It’s a fickle game.

• Does this unfortunate result for Penn State, impact Joe Paterno’s future? With president Graham Spanier supposedly controlling the coach’s future now, it can’t help.

Pryor delayed his announcement on Feb. 6, in essence, so he could take an official visit to Penn State. It was a visit he never took.

I’m willing to say indisputably, doubtlessly, indubitably that Terrell Pryor signing with Ohio State will have absolutely, positively, conclusively no impact on Joe Paterno’s future.

• I feel kind of slimy for joining the breathless ranks during the recruiting process. This is a replication of a text conversation I had with Pryor in February.

Too bad you were born without free will.

Me: U R having a press conference on Wednesday?

TP: Haven’t decided yet.

It’s that kind of in-depth reporting that wins Pulitzers.

Eh, self-deprecation. Not really funny, but I’ll let it slide.

•  Finally, I’ve said it before: Pryor toyed with 2A competition in Pennsylvania. I would have loved to have seen him play more against large-class schools. None of us have seen him against major-college competition.

He also won the MVP at the Army All-Star Game against some of the best prospects in the country, so…yeah, he’s probably pretty good.

While we’re waiting for Pryor’s next space walk, anyone for waffles?

And the callback, another Dennis Dodd trademark.

The Win-Win

I was going to go a searchin’ for something different. Something local. Alas, work intruded, so CBS it is. Preseason rankings are everywhere, and I just stumbled across this little nugget. Why do you hate sports fans CBS? 

24. Pittsburgh - With their big upset over West Virginia carrying them into 2008, another losing season is not going to cut it for Dave Wannstedt this fall. Not with LeSean McCoy leading the charge along with Pat Bostick at quarterback. Defense should be strong. 2007: 5-7.

So, he knows that Dave Wannstedt coaches them and still thinks they’ll be ranked. That’s bad, but… 

25. South Carolina - Steve Spurrier keeps talking about the talent he’s brought to Columbia these past few off-seasons, so this could be the year it really shows. The good start spoiled by an awful finish should motivate Spurrier and his Gamecocks. They’ll need consistent quarterback play and a defense that can stop the run. 2007: 6-6.

So per #24, a big win at the end of an otherwise forgettable season builds momentum, and per #25, collapsing after a promising start is inspiring. For the record, winning your first seven games, losing two in a row and closing with three straight wins can be used as a springboard. Winning all of your games until the bowl game will inspire you to finish the job next year. Winning your first two, dropping the next one, reeling off three more wins, losing two, winning two more, losing one, and winning your last one will have no emotional effect on your team. Losing your first two games and winning the rest, however, will cause a general malaise to set in. In fact, it is entirely possible that the season will be cancelled due to too few players showing up for games. Hey, I don’t make up the rules of momentum and inspiration*, I’m just passing along the information.

* I did in fact make up these rules.

The Dienhart Paradox

The point of this column, that Duke is bad at football and Cutcliffe has a hard job ahead of him, isn’t that bad. Oh, but the journey is a short strange trip.

At this exact nanosecond in time, it’s better to be David Cutcliffe than it is to be the Duke football coach. It’s not even close.

This statement caused a fluctuation in space-time that destroyed a galaxy a few million light years from our own. It was inhabited by at least ten sentient races, numbering in the tens of billions. Hope you can live with yourself Dienhart.

David Cutcliffe has a big reputation. David Cutcliffe is a proven commodity who has won big and groomed some of the top talent in America as offensive coordinator at Tennessee and head coach of Ole Miss.

This is pretty much true, though he was fired - mistakenly in my opinion - by Ole Miss.

Duke football is a black hole that swallows up hopes, dreams and coaches. Duke football is a college football wannabe with no wanna.

There is actually a sign hanging above the entrances to Wallace Wade Stadium reading, “Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrate.” Also, if you remove the wanna you get, “Duke football is a college football be,” and I think that’s just fucking fantastic.

Cutcliffe doesn’t care. When I talked Friday morning with him, Cutcliffe was brimming as he waited at the airport for his two prized students to land: Peyton and Eli Manning.

Cutcliffe braved the ninth circle of hell on a recruiting trip in 1993, where he met with and later received a commitment from a demon lord particularly noted for his vicious demeanor and speed off the edge. That demon lord’s name was Leonard Little. So you can see why Durham holds little fear for him. I’m dying to know with what he was brimming though. I’m guessing love.

Many have tried to make Duke matter since Steve Spurrier left after leading the Blue Devils to the ACC title in 1989. And they all failed. Barry Wilson, Fred Goldsmtih, Carl Franks, Ted Roof. The bloody details of the 18 seasons A.S. (After Spurrier):

Wow. Look at that list of coaches. If you need anything to explain Duke’s problems for the last twenty years, those four names sum it up perfectly.

Record: 43-159-1
Bowl bids: one
Optimism: zero

He forgot:

Hope: -23
Joy: -463
Anger: 307

How about a coach quote?

“What surprised me the most after looking at it?” says Cutcliffe. “The general apathy around the program. People seemed to accept an average effort and didn’t respect the program.

Cutcliffe is surprised that people were apathetic about a program that has basically never won anything? I would question the hiring of someone who is surprised by this.

But this is Duke. The excuses for failure are low-hanging fruit, ripe to be plucked by every Blue Devil coach coming off a humiliating loss to, say, Richmond.

Time for some bullet points.

• It’s a basketball school.

You may remember this. This is still a pretty meaningless phrase. 

• It’s a bastion of ivy-covered academia with impossible entrance standards.

I doubt their football players are of the same caliber as the rest of the student body.

• It’s Duke. C’mon.

Congratulations, Tom! You came up with a more meaningless statement than, “It’s a basketball school.”

And it’s all right there for Cutcliffe, the possibility of turning around the worst BCS program in the nation.

I think Baylor would like to have a word with you.

Mailbagging

Things have been a little Doddy lately around here, but he is so supremely bad it’s hard to lay off. That said, here’s a quick hit on his mailbag column. It’s full of needless snark, which may sound ironic coming from me. Here’s a taste:

How many pieces of me do you want?

Three, so far, but I expect that number to increase exponentially.

Stories, blogs, mailbags. Hey, we’re showing the house on Sunday. Why not come on by and we’ll kick it around for a while.

He feels put-upon for having to do his job? Stop bitching, Dennis. You are compensated for doing something very poorly. We should all be so lucky.

Either you people can’t get enough of me or you really, really hate me.

It’s more a feeling of amazement at each new and uninformative column that you churn out. I worked computer support with a guy who didn’t know how to format a disk. Watching him fail and making fun of him to coworkers was one of the few joys of that thankless job. It’s kind of like that, and just like that guy I think you should be fired, Dennis. I don’t hate anyone, though.

And now down to the last mailbag entry:

From: Michael

I simply do not enjoy reading your articles. I don’t find them to be very insightful or well written. It appears that your greatest talent is stating the obvious, which isn’t a bad starting point but I would like to see articles that go beyond the obvious and I don’t see that coming from anything you write. I write this to let you know that not all of the readers post inflammatory and insulting threads, some of us just go quietly to other websites for our college football information.

I have a man-crush on Michael. Very reasonable of you Mike. I’d have been hard-pressed to be so reasoned in a missive to Dodd. What say you, Dodd?

Way Too Much Time On Your Hands:

Wait, wait, before you leave might I suggest Gregg Doyel?

If you’re the kind of masochist who read the entire column, you know that he snarkily changed the names throughout. It didn’t matter if the e-mail was reasonable or not. So Dodd is not only bad at his job, but he’s also an asshole about it. But the best part of that response? Looking through his archive, Gregg Doyel has written one column that is even half-related to college football. So in trying to keep a reader (jokingly, whatever) Dennis pointed him to someone who doesn’t write about the sport mentioned in the e-mail. And it was the last fucking line, so it should have been fresh in whatever passes for Dodd’s brain. Brilliant!

Hopefully, Dennis won’t post anything for a little while and I can move onto someone else.