BCS Mess

Having looked at the pro playoffs last time, let's look at the BCS Bowl bids.

Assuming LSU beats Georgia in the SEC Championship game, the National Title game will be a rematch of LSU and Alabama (in the Superdome no less). Not great, but no one else has established themselves to supplant Alabama. Oklahoma St. came close and if they beat Oklahoma at Oklahoma thus winning the Big 12 Championship, there is an outside chance they could get voted in over Alabama. But I'm not confident that Oklahoma St. will beat Oklahoma so it may be moot.

The Rose Bowl will be Big 10 vs. Pac 12 as normal. In the Big 10 we have a rematch of the great Wisconsin-Michigan St. game from earlier in the year. I would favor Wisconsin but they have shown a tendency to choke in big game situations. The Pac 12 championship game will be Oregon vs. UCLA. Oregon goes because they beat Stanford head-to-head and UCLA goes because USC is still banned from bowl games. I fully expect Oregon to slap UCLA silly.

The Big East was won by Louisville this year and they might get picked up by the Orange Bowl. The Orange Bowl ACC berth will go to the winner of Virginia Tech and Clemson. I would give a slight nod to Virginia Tech but this is a pretty even match-up.

As the Big 12 only has ten members now, the Big 12 championship game has been discontinued. But because of the way the season has played out, Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma St. is a de-facto championship game. If Oklahoma St. wins, they win the conference outright. If Oklahoma wins they win the tiebreakers with Oklahoma St. and Kansas St. due to victories in head-to-head match-ups. Whomever wins, they get the automatic bid to the Fiesta Bowl.

That leaves the at-large bids. With Alabama presumably going to the National Championship game, the SEC is excluded from sending any more schools to the BCS bowls. Should Oklahoma St. somehow get in over Alabama, Alabama would take LSU's Sugar Bowl berth. If Georgia knocks off LSU, all hell will break loose as the computers could conceivably put Alabama and Stanford in the National Title game (neither school having won their conference).

But aside from the doomsday scenario, I suspect the at-large bids will go to Stanford, Houston (assuming they defeat Southern Mississippi in the Conference USA title game) and Boise St. Arkansas and USC would be more deserving but USC is under sanction and Arkansas is excluded due to Alabama getting in.

The Sugar Bowl would probably take Stanford to fill the LSU hole and may try to match them against Houston to get a local flavor (many New Orleans residents fled to Houston after Hurricane Katrina) as well as a game that could push 120 combined total points. The Fiesta Bowl would probably be quite happy with Boise St to face off against whichever Oklahoma team wins the Big 12. That would leave the Orange Bowl as ACC vs. Big East.

I'm not 100% sure about the selection order, but these would make the most sense to me as far as selections go. But we shall have to see how the various games go to see what truly happens. Certainly Georgia would love to throw everything into a phenomenal state of chaos by winning the SEC and knocking LSU from the Number 1 spot.

Early Playoff Speculation

Now that Week 12 is just about over, we can start to speculate about the playoffs.

Starting with the AFC, things are starting to look pretty solid on several fronts. New England will probably win the AFC East. Baltimore has the tiebreaker against Pittsburgh but they really need another game to make themselves comfortable as winners of the AFC North.

Houston has a two game lead over Tennessee for the AFC South and has won their first game against Tennessee. Houston has lost both their starting and backup quarterbacks so their two game lead over Tennessee is not solid. They play Tennessee in the last game of the regular season. It is not impossible that that could end up being a game for all the marbles. Houston could actually be a game behind Tennessee going into that game and if they win, the tie-breaker would go to Houston.

In the West, Oakland has a one game lead over Denver. Oakland and Denver split the season series so that race will remain tight. Looking ahead, Denver has a very real shot of going 3-2 at worst and may go for more. Oakland has a slightly tougher schedule with games against Green Bay and Detroit still on the horizon. This division also could come down to the wire.

Pittsburgh, as they are nipping on Baltimore's heels is looking strong for that first wild card spot. Should they overtake Baltimore in the division, Baltimore would probably supplant them at the #5 seed so there is little excitement there. Cincinnati currently has exclusive rights to the second wild card, but the NY Jets, Tennessee Titans, and Denver Broncos are all one game back. Cincinnati has the tiebreaker over Tennessee and a better conference record than the Jets. Denver has the tiebreaker over Cincinnati. If the Bengals could go 3-1 over their next four games (Pittsburgh, Houston, Arizona, St. Louis), they would be in good shape, even if Denver and the Jets stay on their current strong streaks. Still, it might be to the Bengals advantage to have Denver overtake Oakland for the AFC West crown as the Bengals would be better off matching conference records against Oakland than the guaranteed tiebreaker loss to Denver.

Seeding is up in the air. Houston currently has the #1 seed but that's not going to hold up over the next several weeks. Likely, it will be New England and the AFC North winner (Baltimore currently) that will get the first round byes. I think Houston will hold on to the #3 unless they completely free fall. This gives the #4 to Oakland/Denver. If Oakland held on to win the division and faced Pittsburgh in the first round of the playoffs, that would pose a very interesting match-up as it would call up the shades of when Carson Palmer tore his ACL in the 2005-6 playoffs against Pittsburgh.

On the NFC side, things are also a bit murky in the lower reaches. Green Bay is very close to wrapping up the NFC North crown and will probably wrap up the #1 seed by Week 15. San Francisco will win the NFC West next week if they beat St. Louis, regardless of what anyone else does. This puts them is a solid slot for the #2 seed.

New Orleans currently holds the NFC South lead and the #3 spot. Atlanta is right behind them though and could move into a tie for the lead if New Orleans loses to the NY Giants tonight. New Orleans won the first match-up with Atlanta and they face each other again in Week 16. New Orleans also has a better divisional record which gives them an additional inside track against Atlanta.

Should New Orleans fall, they will lose the #3 seed to Dallas who currently sits atop the NFC East. Of course, a New Orleans loss means that the NY Giants will vault into a tie with the Cowboys at 7-4. Dallas and New York have not played each other yet this year. Dallas has a better divisional record, but the contests of Weeks 14 and 17 will likely decide who wins that division.

Chicago, Detroit and Atlanta are all tied at 7-4 and looking for those two wild card spots. If New York wins tonight, that'll introduce a 4th team fighting for the two spots. Currently the Bears have the #5 seed by virtue of a better conference record and a head-to-head win against Atlanta. Atlanta beats out Detroit due to their head-to-head win against the Lions for the #6 spot. However, I would not put much stock in these standings. Detroit is a gritty team with at least three winnable games on their schedule (Minnesota, Oakland, San Diego). They also play Green Bay in the last game of the season and Green Bay may be resting people giving Detroit a real chance of getting 11 wins this season. Chicago has lost their starting quarterback but a softer schedule (Kansas City, Seattle, Minnesota) gives them a good shot at 10+ wins.

At least one team from the NFC North will make the playoffs and possibly two depending on how Atlanta plays out. The Giants and Cowboys could enter into the picture as well, but I think it is likely that they will beat each other up too much to sneak a wild card spot from a 10+ win Chicago, Detroit, or Atlanta.

Much will probably change in the next couple of weeks, but this is where we stand now.

Easter Island Excavations

I stumbled across this website earlier today. It documents the expeditions to explore and excavate the Moai statues on Easter Island.

One of the most fascinating things is that contrary to popular opinion, the heads on Easter Island are more than just heads. When excavated, the rest of the statue is revealed. Instead of just being an uncarved or wedge shaped piece of stone to anchor the heads, they are revealed to be fully carved statues with significant detail that has been hidden from the elements. The largest one so far discovered would have stood at over 38 ft in height. It's very cool stuff.

Weight Loss

I first entered our company weight loss competition on Sept. 24, 2010. That time it was unofficially as I didn't want to pay into the pool. Still, I decided to chart my progress and see if I could really lose anything. Today (Nov. 18, 2011) I just finished our third weight loss competition (I actually paid the $20 entry fee into the pool on both the second and third competitions).

On Sept. 24, 2010 I clocked in at 264.4 lbs
On Nov. 18, 2011 I clocked in at 215.0 lbs

Feels pretty good.

Solving Thursday Night Football Problems

I occasionally ready Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback column. Last week, one of his readers e-mailed him a suggestion when King wrote about the problems with Thursday Night Football. The problem is that teams have to cram a week's worth of preparation into three days. This gets further exacerbated when you have late games and travel. For example, the New York Jets played the Sunday night game this past weekend. It was after midnight when the players got home. Then they had to cram a week's preparation into three days, then hop on a plane and fly out to Denver to play tonight. That doesn't seem like a fair situation.

The solution that this reader e-mailed Peter King was a setup where all 32 teams in the NFL played one Thursday game and that to prepare, they not play the Sunday before. This would have two additional advantages in that it would get rid of bye weeks as we have them now and it would guarantee every team at least one prime time game. I would think the NFL network would like it in that it would mean extending Thursday night games to nearly the entire season.

My own spin on it would work like this. There are 32 teams in the NFL. To give each one a unique match up on Thursday would mean 16 games. However, Detroit and Dallas already play on Thanksgiving, in addition to the normally scheduled Thursday night game (this year it's SF vs. Baltimore). This now gives you 13 games to fit into 16 weeks. My thought is to have all 32 teams play for the first three weeks, give four teams week 4 off and then open Thursday Night Football with a double header much like Monday Night Football does now. The remaining 15 weeks would then be filled in with a single game and the two teams taking part in that game taking the week before off.

An example using match ups from this season (and including all scheduled Thursday Night games) might look as follows:

Week 5 - Minnesota at Carolina, Arizona at St. Louis
Week 6 - New Orleans at Tampa Bay
Week 7 - Kansas City at Chicago
Week 8 - Washington at NY Giants
Week 9 - Cincinnati at Tennessee
Week 10 - Oakland at San Diego
Week 11 - NY Jets at Denver
Week 12 - Green Bay at Detroit, Miami at Dallas, San Francisco at Baltimore
Week 13 - Philadelphia at Seattle
Week 14 - Cleveland at Pittsburgh
Week 15 - Jacksonville at Atlanta
Week 16 - Houston at Indianapolis
Week 17 - Buffalo at New England

This will probably never happen, but it fun to think about.

Evil Community Lives

With the recent announcement that Community may be headed to the trash bin of television history, I would like to remind everyone that Evil Community will live on no matter what the Networks decide. Eventually, they will overcome the Prime Timeline.

Beatles Guessing Game

Teefury put out a shirt yesterday referencing a number of the Beatles songs. I can get most of them, but there are a few that I don't know. Perhaps someone else can do better than me:

Ron Swanson's Pyramid of Greatness

Capitalism: God's way of determining who is smart and who is poor.
Intensity: Give 100%. 110% is impossible. Only idiots recommend that.
Attire: Shorts over 6" are capri pants. Shorts under 6" are European.


Also, Ron Swanson for Governor of Indiana.

Election Day - 2011

Today is the off-year election. Nothing too big going on (at least from a national point of view) but there are a number of things on the ballot today. On the local level, aside from city council and school board, there are three levies (the biggest of which is the school levy).

But more play will be given to State Issue 2. This is a referendum on the Ohio law to restrict collective bargaining for unions. It's similar to the one Wisconsin passed and had all their trouble over, but the Ohio version is more restrictive, going so far as to essentially eliminate all collective bargaining. Because the law is even more Draconian, independents as well as some Republicans are torn over the law while Democrats are strongly unified against it. As such, Issue 2 will almost certainly be defeated.

I've not read anywhere what the contingency plans are. The general thought was to break the law up and pass various pieces individually that people did like. That would likely remove some of the worst parts of the legislation and start restricting costs without destroying the unions completely (which would garner more independent and some Democratic support).

If anything interesting happens, I'll update later today or tomorrow.

*UPDATE*
Issue 2 did go down 60-40, but Issue 3 (healthcare opt-out) passed nearly 67-33.

All levies passed and all three incumbents were reelected to the school board.

Occupy the Caucus

It would seem that the various Occupy Wall Street groups are trying to coordinate for a major sit-in of both the various Republican candidates offices and Mr. Obama's reelection offices a week before the Caucus on January 3.

The first move will be to try to sit in the offices. Obviously this won't last long and they will probably be evicted quickly by the various local sheriffs. After that, they'll sit outside and try to block doors, harass workers, and create as much nuisance that will get them noticed (without being arrested).

Now my parents live about 15 miles from Iowa (on the Illinois side). I've been over to Iowa many times for various things, especially in December and January. I can tell you that it can get downright miserable outside at this time of year. Cold, biting winds. Sleet and snow. Misery. If they can hang tough and get something done, more power to them. But I wonder if all members who go are going to be prepared for just how miserable Old Man Winter might make this for them.