Tuesday, November 23, 2004

More BCS Mess

I will first applaud both Clemson and South Carolina for openly declining bowl bids. I would have liked to see Lou Holtz go out on a better note, but both teams needed a severe beat down. It has been suggested that the schools may not have imposed such harsh penalties if it hadn’t been for the Artest fight but if that means that something good came out of that ugly incident, then so be it.

The BCS has declined an opportunity to straighten itself out until 2010 at least. After ABC declined the new package (except for the Rose Bowl) Fox made an offer that was accepted. The BCS will be adding a 5th game to be played at one of the four major bowls on a rotating basis starting in 2006. Some people would like to think that this would solve the problem of a disputed national championship, but it really won’t. Each scenario is different. Last year we had a situation where we needed to have USC and LSU play each other. The year before, it worked out fine, as Miami and Ohio St. were the only undefeated teams that year. Prior to that there was only one team that was the clear number one and a dispute as to who should play them (remember Nebraska getting the shot against Miami over Oregon despite not even getting into the Big 12 title game).

Even this year, it wouldn’t work. Let’s assume there was this 5th bowl game being played at the Orange Bowl this year after the 4 others. With no 1 vs. 2 system, the bowls would pick as they normally do with the BCS as a guideline for various at large berths. The bowl structure would work out as such:

Fiesta: Oklahoma vs. Utah
Rose: USC vs. Michigan
Orange: Boston College vs. Virginia Tech/Miami
Sugar: Auburn vs. California/Texas

We don’t know who will win the ACC yet and the Sugar Bowl would have the option of taking either Cal or Texas as they are projected to finish in the 4th and 5th BCS spots respectively. Utah is 6th but there is so much buzz about them that there is no way that the Fiesta Bowl would not take them for an undefeated match vs. Oklahoma.

Anyway, the problem immediately presents itself. Let’s say that the winners of each bowl game are Oklahoma, USC, Boston College and Auburn. BC is an upset win and their record keeps them out of the title game, but you still have 3 undefeated conference champions fighting for a seed in the final bowl game. It’s the same problem as this year. The bowls don’t want it but you need a playoff system. The top 8 teams go to the BCS bowls. Then the winners are ranked and play each other in 3 more bowls. In this example you would have USC play BC in a 1 vs. 4 match, while Auburn played Oklahoma in a 2 vs. 3. It’s a hard road but one that works. Unfortunately, we can’t even begin to dream of this scenario until 2011.

Mrs. X and I will head out of town for Thanksgiving tomorrow so no more updates this week. Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Monday, November 22, 2004

I Went to a Fight and a Game Broke Out

I know most of us are already sick of hearing every Tom, Dick, and Harry talk about the various fights that went on this weekend, but I can't help putting my two cents in. Despite the constant talking, I still don't know how the whole thing really got started (ie. what started the fight between Artest and Ben Wallace). I just know that both teams broke up to calm down, the cup of fluid came down and then all hell broke loose.

Ultimately, fault does lie with Artest. Yes, fans should not be breaking the plane of the field, but even then, you can't go up into the stands. Now, if the fans come on to the field, then anything is legal. The two Detroit fans who walked onto the court got what they deserved. I personally enjoyed Jermaine O'Neal's clocking of the second fan as he tried to get up. You could see the man's face contort as he laid his fist in. Still, nothing excuses the original incident of heading into the stands. I imagine Detroit police will be doling out several fines for the throwers but arrests will be reserved for the court walkers I think.

One other interesting note is how things got shown on the Today Show this morning. They were discussing the punishments handed out and all they talked to were Detroit Piston's fans. In fact, one hot dog vendor went so far to say that he felt everything was fair except for the 6 game suspension that Ben Wallace got. He felt that was too harsh. I can't imagine why. And we wonder why the exit polling results were skewed.

Regarding the second fight of the weekend, I would go ahead and say that most of the fault lies on Clemson's side. I don't know which player it was, but a Clemson player pulled a very cheap shot on the South Carolina quarterback while he was down. Frustrated about being down, the SC linemen took exception to this and the fight broke out. It was interesting to see Lou Holtz out there trying to break it up. The sad thing is that the Clemson players were ones more at fault, they reacted non-shallantly by blaming the Indiana-Detroit fight for saying it was okay, and its probably the SC players who are going to get punished more. Lou Holtz will come down like the insane hammer of God that he is and Tommy Bowden will probably dismiss the whole incident as excess energy. We'll see but I'll just go ahead and chalk this up as another reason to dislike the entire Bowden clan.

On the other end of the spectrum, there were some good games this weekend. I watched a good portion of the Ohio St.-Michigan game, the Florida-Florida St. game and the Utah-BYU game. All three were quite entertaining and it helped that the team I was rooting for in all the games won. If Tressel can survive the NCAA investigation that's coming down the pipe, I think Ohio St. could be good next year. They still don't have that much of a running game, but the quarterback looks good and most of the defense will be returning next year. Tressel meanwhile is gaining more and more standing to getting his own street named after him in Columbus (Woody Hayes has a street named after him) with the National Title and beating Michigan 3 out of 4 times so far.

So, this is how things stand so far. Auburn did not score enough boku points with the voters to move up to the no. 2 spot. So assuming they beat Tennessee in the SEC championship game, Oklahoma beats Iowa St. in the Big 12 championship and USC beats Notre Dame next week, the bowl picture is looking like this:

Orange: USC vs. Oklahoma
Rose: Michigan vs. California
Sugar: Auburn vs. (Miami/Virgina Tech)
Fiesta: Boston College vs. Utah

The Sugar Bowl picks ahead of the Fiesta Bowl, but if Oklahoma goes to the Orange, then the Fiesta Bowl gets to pick the replacement pick and will take Utah. The ACC winner is yet undetermined and will be decided by the Miami-Virginia Tech game. The Fiesta will probably cut its loses and go with the closer favorite of Utah and then settle for getting stuck with BC when the Sugar Bowl picks the ACC winner ahead of the Big East winner. I don't know if BC has fully secured the Big East title but I think they are fully in the driver's seat.

Stuart Mandel has his projections for the Bowl games here. He's obviously taking Virginia Tech to beat Miami in the head to head. I guess its being played at Virgina Tech. He also has Ohio St. going to the Alamo Bowl as the Big Ten #4. I thought Northwestern was ahead of them and that they were going to be playing Oregon St. in the Sun Bowl, but I guess I was mistaken. I do like that he's projecting Bowling Green to get selected for the Silicon Valley Bowl, assuming the beat Toledo tomorrow, even though they can't win the MAC Championship. We should start seeing the invites before too long.

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

A New Season of TAR

CBS’s theme for reality shows must be “Let’s see how bitchy we can make the women.” The Amazing Race debuted last night and it was pretty good but I was amazed at how confrontational all the women in the man-woman pairs were. If the current trend continues, it’ll become really easy to handicap the teams.

My observations so far:

1) Hollywood Couple – They have strength and youth. They fight a little less than some of the other couples but they were in first place for most of the leg so that’s not saying much. Still, I would expect to see them around for a little while.

2) Long Distance Daters – This team could be really good. They weren’t developed at all so I think they’ll stay around for a while. Distance relationships depend on communication and good communication usually means a team doing really well. I would place this team high in my standings.

3) Mormon Sisters – After one episode, this is the team I would pick for the everyone likes and finishes 4th team. They seem to work well and feed off each other. They are also not alike so they’ll compensate for each other’s faults as opposed to the twins of last season.

4) Engaged Models – This team will last a little while but I’d expect a breakdown when things get bad. Communication is a clear problem as demonstrated by the age gap. I suspect this team will have to work out a lot of things after the race.

5) Screamer and Wife – Easily the most hateable team in the early going. This team will flame out and crash hard before too long. The guy should just hope that his wife doesn’t divorce him after the race.

6) Wrestlers – The guy is likable. But his wife clearly wears the pants. She berates him constantly and he just takes it mostly. Sort of an opposite of Colin and Christy last season. They’ll go far if they can stop bickering for a little while.

7) Hellboy and Girlfriend – This team might have a chance if it wasn’t for the fact that they are an ex-couple. Throwing yourself into the pressure cooker that is TAR is not the way to get back together. Tension will shred this team before too many legs is my bet.

8) Queens Girls – They don’t know how to read a map, but they recovered fairly well. They made up some time after the late start. If they can hold it together, they should make a few more legs before time catches up to them.

9) Grandparents – A little more forceful than previous older couples I’ve seen and that makes them entertaining, but I suspect that they won’t last much longer than one or two more legs. They can claim feeling the youth all they want, but attrition will take its toll and catch up to them.

10) Dad and Daughter – Parent/child teams never do well. The dad seems to be my type of guy with his attitude but I don’t know if that’s good enough to stay long in the race. When you’re complaining about your daughter running all the time in a race, you know that you’re not the overall favorite to win the whole thing.

11) Brooklyn Jews – I liked this team and I wish they had managed to stay longer. They had a good repore and seemed fairly smart. They just never quite got the sense of urgency that you need. After losing so much time in the water, they needed to take a highway where they could pile on speed, not look for shortcuts. But they’re history and we can say no more about them.

It could be a good season. I’ll need some more development before I start pegging down teams that I like and want to root for.

Thursday, November 11, 2004

The Mass Exodus

Before I write on anything news related, I must publicly congratulate Mrs. X for officially becoming an attorney. She got the bar results on October 29 but we kept it hush hush so she could tell various people in person. Then, amidst the election furor, I forgot to post it. Of course, the way this past week has been, I haven't posted much of anything so I can't really be blamed for that. Anyway, we drove up to Columbus for the swearing in ceremony on Monday. It went very well, only lasting an hour. Given that there were about 450 lawyers getting sworn in at that first session, this was quite efficient. So now she has changed her e-mail signature to say Attorney-at-Law and even gets business cards that say the same. Yay her :)

Now, on to other matters. Lots of things in the news but I would like to focus on all the moping Democrats who are talking about moving to other countries. I understand your pain, but giving up on the system and going somewhere else isn't quite the answer. Need I remind all of you that in 1964, the Democrats spanked the Republicans, capping a strong Democratic reign only interrupted by Ike's run in the 50's. The Republicans hit back in 1966 and then took back the White House in 1968. One could argue that the same trend is in effect today. The Republicans have been in power since 1968 with only the runs of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton cutting into their power. The war is turning unpopular and we could very easily see the Republicans starting to get pompous about power. Rally and fight back rather than run away or whine like the little "girlie-men" that Arnold calls you.

In this fighting back, I would suggest a couple of things. Don't be too much of an impediment. If the public sees the Democrats as anything more than a roadblock, why wouldn't they just vote Republican again to get the 60 senators needed to stop a filibuster. Stand your ground, but point out indulgences of power that do not benefit the people.

Second, get out of the ivory New England tower and put your hands back in the soil. Mr. Kerry lost this election because he couldn't connect with the average Joe rather than notion that it was high turnout of people from "Jesusland." If you can't identify with the guy down the block and show him that you understand what he needs and will try to get it for him, why should he give you his vote? The other guy seems just as nice and he feels more like me. Simple connection and understanding. You're not going to get that if you keep thinking that it was a massive conspiracy or that you need to run away to Canada. Just my two cents.

I'll post a little more about Mr. Arafat's death when its been developed a bit. In the meantime, cross your fingers that things don't get any uglier over there.

Wednesday, November 03, 2004

You Mean... That's It?

Well, its official. Mr. Kerry called to conceed defeat and is scheduled to make his speech around 1pm today. For many of us political junkies, its been a little bit of an emotional letdown given how we were all pumped for a lawyer fight. But, in the end, Mr. Kerry must have felt that the landscape just looked too bleak in Ohio.

In this I must tip my hat to Mrs. X who openly derided my beliefs that Mr. Kerry would win Ohio and that it would come down to Wisconsin. Aside from that, I can at least pat myself on the back and say that I had things right down to the final three. Assuming that Iowa and New Mexico are certified as Bush wins (they're still working out the absentee ballots) I will have been almost totally right. I predicted that of the 5 main toss up states (FL, OH, WI, MN, IA), Mr. Bush would carry Iowa while Mr. Kerry would carry Minnesota. My personal feeling was that Mr. Bush would win Florida and Mr. Kerry would win Ohio with Wisconsin at the final battleground. In truth, I had things reversed. Mr. Kerry is going to win Wisconsin and Ohio is the battleground that appears to be going to Mr. Bush. I thought the job loss numbers would be too large to overcome. Apparently, I was wrong.

So, now that we have decided the election, we can look forward to nearly a year or more of the Democrats tearing themselves apart trying to figure out how they lost this race. My feeling is is that they simply did not select a candidate who commited himself enough. Of the field of 9 in the primary, I personally feel that only 2 or 3 could have beaten Mr. Bush. I think Mr. Edwards would have been a strong contender if he held himself in the debates. I think Mr. Lieberman would have pasted Mr. Bush. Mr. Clark could also have possibly beaten Mr. Bush, although his lack of experience would have cost him among some voters. The rest (including Mr. Dean) I just don't believe could have garned enough of the mainstream vote to take down Mr. Bush.

So, will they learn from this experience? Hard to say. People I work with are already launching Ms. Clinton to the front of the pack for 2008. First, I would focus on getting her reelected against a probable run by Mr. Guiliani. After that, we focus on Mr. Bush's annointed successor. Many eyes are being cast in Mr. McCain's direction. Payment for his support this year, Bush's support for the nomination in 2008. That's just speculation but it certainly wouldn't surprise me. But that's a discussion for another post.

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

Election Day

So today marks the first day of selecting a president. I hope everyone has voted today. Considering that the three people I know that read this blog are all in battleground states, I would hope you got out. Of course, two of you are going to be voting for the candidate who opposes mine so maybe I should discourage you ;)

It is my fervent hope that this whole event is essentially resolved around 4 am this morning. Maybe it'll be a little later, but I'm praying that whomever wins, its by a clear majority. Things are already getting testy with reports of jacked machines in Philly and Indian brow beating in South Dakota. Fortunately, despite all the fracas about poll observers here in Ohio, its been rather quiet. I didn't have any problems and the three old ladies I talked to were very nice and well informed. I've also not heard any reports from up around Cleveland or Columbus and that's where I would expect trouble. So we're doing alright so far.

Turnout seems to be alright. Mrs. X had to wait a short time in line when she voted this morning as our polling place only has six tables available at a time, but it was running smoothly when I got there around 10. Most of the people here at work reported standing in lines for a short time, but no real problems. One of the fellows here at work said that they expanded his location and got more tables in. He also said that normally when he goes, he's listed as voter number 30 or 40. Today he was voter 93. They hit 100 voters in the first hour of being open. Normally they have to wait 2 or 3 hours to hit 100. Quite impressive around here. Of course there's also a very nasty fight over a levy going on in his district. I didn't have to worry about that. We just have two levys for hospitals. I supported them both.

So, predictions? Not a clue. Both sides are trumpeting their polls and saying that they'll win. Honestly, I think it comes down to Florida again. As I posted previously, I think whomever takes Florida has the clear advantage and will win. I think Iowa will tilt to Mr. Bush and Minnesota to Mr. Kerry. So that leaves Wisconsin and Ohio. Win one of those two and Florida and you're in. But as to who's going to take those 3, I really have no idea. If we know by midnight though, I think we can safely call it as close to a landslide as you're going to get.