Borderline Fantastic

Audio: mp3
Running Time: 1:02:38
Hosts: Evan and Mike
Guest: Gregg

Evan and Mike are joined by a fellow Inter-Dis alum, Gregg. Most of the discussion, as usual, focuses on College Football. As well as looking ahead to the big weekend with Ohio State visiting Penn State.

Topics
Multiple Ketchup Brands on a Restaurant Table
Gregg is an Inter-Dis Alum
College Football
-ESPN Page 2 College Football Rules #27-33
-Picks
-Heisman
-Conference Champions
-Halloween Tailgate
World Series
-Mike: Rockies in 7

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South Florida lost @ Rutgers 30-27.
Colorado State won @ UNLV 48-23.

One team fell from the list in each category last week. Colorado State easily handled UNLV. South Florida couldn’t quite take out Rutgers. This week all but one of the undefeated teams plays a 1 or 2 loss team. Things are

Toughest Games for Undefeated Teams: Arizona State (California), Boston College (@ Virginia Tech), Ohio State (@ Penn State)
Best Chance to Stay Undefeated: Hawaii (New Mexico State)
Best Chance at a Win: Marshall (Rice), Utah State (Louisiana Tech)

Undefeated

Arizona State (7-0, 4-0)
Last Week: Off
This Week: California (5-2)
Look out for: California (Saturday, 5-2), @ Oregon (11/3, 6-1), @UCLA (11/10, 5-2), USC (11/22, 6-1)

Boston College (7-0, 3-0)
Last Week: Off
This Week: @ Virginia Tech (6-1) on Thursday
Look out for: @ Virginia Tech (Thursday, 6-1), @ Clemson (11/17, 5-2)

Hawaii (7-0, 4-0)
Last Week: Off
This Week: New Mexico State (4-4)
Look out for: Boise State (6-1)

Kansas (7-0, 3-0)
Last Week: W 19-14 @ Colorado
This Week: @ Texas A&M (6-2)
Look out for: @ Texas A&M (Saturday, 6-2), Missouri (11/24, 6-1)

Ohio State (8-0, 4-0)
Last Week: W 24-17 vs Michigan State
This Week: @ Penn State (6-2)
Look out for: @ Penn State (10/27, 6-2), Wisconsin (11/3, 6-2), @ Michigan (11/17, 6-2)

Winless

Florida International (0-7, 0-3)
Last Week: L 28-14 @ Louisiana-Monroe
This Week: @ Arkansas (4-3)
Best Chance: Louisiana-Lafayette (11/17, 1-7), North Texas (12/1, 1-6)

Marshall (0-7, 0-3)
Last Week: L 33-24 vs Southern Miss
This Week: Rice (1-6)
Best Chance: Rice (Saturday, 1-6), UAB (11/24, 2-5)

Utah State (0-7, 0-3)
Last Week: L 31-28 vs Nevada
This Week: Louisiana Tech (2-5)
Best Chance: Louisiana Tech (Saturday, 2-5), @ Idaho (11/24, 1-7)

The individual computer polls don’t seem to get a whole lot of attention. I’ve never been able to figure out why this is. Here are some links of where to find each one. I’ve also included their #1 and where Hawaii is ranked.

Anderson & Hester
#1 Arizona State
Hawaii: #31
On the main page of this site there is a quote: “The most accurate computer rankings.” Who made this bold statement? It’s credited to the Pac-10 Conference. Yes, the whole conference. I wonder why?
I like the bullets on the ranking page. The best team an undefeated team has played? Purdue, who is ranked #28 on these rankings. They also justify Hawaii’s ranking, since their schedule is ranked #119.

Richard Billingsley
#1 Ohio State
Hawaii: #33
Based on the information given in the rankings it looks like this one accounts for the current ranks when teams play each other. I have no idea if that’s true, but why else would it be included on the list.

Colley Matrix
#1 LSU
Hawaii: #29
I’m not sure how I feel about a team with a loss being #1. Actually I do, I don’t like it.

Kenneth Massey
#1 Boston College
Hawaii: #68
First, there is a list, but no rank identified. I can to count.
It points out that margin of victory does not count, I like that.
Down the page there are some interesting stats: Best Conferences, Least Likely Outcomes, Largest Margin of Victory, Most Total Points, and least Total Points in a game. If you’re curious the most unlikely 1A game: Wyoming beating Virginia. The list includes all divisions so that one is #4 overall, the App St game is #8.

Jeff Sagarin
#1 Boston College
Hawaii: #52
I’ve been checking out Sagarin’s rankings for a long time. He has them for just about every sport. He has two rankings: with and without margin of victory. The one he sends to the BCS is without margin of victory.

Peter Wolfe
#1 Boston College
Hawaii: #17
This one also has conference rankings and biggest upsets. #1 upset is App St over Michigan, Notre Dame over UCLA is #2, and the perviously mentioned Wyoming over Virginia isn’t in the top 10.

I’d like to follow these throughout the year and find out a little more about each one.

I don’t know what took so long to think of this. Bandwagon Jumping really didn’t work for what I was going for. I’ve had Lists for years, so it makes perfect sense. There are many lists. When someone crosses me, they are threatened with being put on The List. But there can be good lists as well. You can have a list for just about anything. For now, we’ll keep it simple: Good and Bad.

Good

MAC OS X Leopard
This will be my first new OS release since being a Mac user. I’ve been excited for OS releases before. Windows 95 and XP being the most notable. The release of Leopard is a little different. An OS is a big change and its not something you want to screw up. So I try to wait until its out for a little while to make sure every computer it touches isn’t bursting into flames. Apple is doing such an amazing job marketing this thing that I’m strongly considering pre-ordering. The biggest hurdle is how ridiculous it is to pre-order an OS. Video games, movies, DVDs, sure. But not software and especially not an OS. I think I’m going to wait a few days. I’m not going to be around for the weekend of the release. When I get back on Sunday or Monday I’ll read up and what people have been going through. If everything seems to be going alright then I’ll swing by the Apple Store one day.

Apple Keyboard
While we’re on the subject of Apple … I decided to order the new Apple Keyboard a few weeks ago and I’m loving the purchase. I previously had the old Apple Keyboard with Bluetooth. The Bluetooth was beginning to act strange, telling me my batteries were dead when I had just charged them. Instead of going through all the trouble of figuring out what was wrong I just ordered the new one, which had just been released. I had gone to the Apple Store and played around with one right after they came out and really liked the feel. The keys are more like a laptop keyboard. It took a little while to get completely used to but now I love it. The only way I’d improve it would be to have some sort of indication on the function keys so I can find them without looking. I went with the wired version because the wireless one doesn’t have a numeric keypad.

Bad

Football Announcers
This week Andre Ware and Brian Baldinger were the color analysts for my college and NFL games this week. If you just listened to Ware you’d be shocked to learn that PSU is a good team and won the game. He spent the entire game talking up Hardy, the Indiana WR. It was so bad a friend of mine had to call and vent about how horrible it was. Baldinger was his usual self. Actually, while Baldy really bothered me during today’s Eagles game, thinking again about Ware makes Baldy look great. One note on Baldy, I think he has positioned himself perfectly to step in for Madden when the time comes. They both have a similar style and even sound a little alike, if you can imagine what Madden might have sounded like 30 years ago. Take a listen next game.

I was looking at the Complete BCS Rankings on ESPN and started looking how the computer rankings were looking. If I’m reading this correctly these would be the computer only rankings from the BCS. Overall BCS Ranking in parenthesis.

1. Boston College (2)
2. LSU (3)
3. Ohio State (1)
4. Arizona State (4)
5. South Florida (10)
6. Virginia (15)
7. Kansas (9)
8. Virginia Tech (8)
9. Oregon (5)
10. West Virginia (7)
10. Florida (11)
12. Kentucky (14)
13. Missouri (13)
14. Oklahoma (6)
15. South Carolina (16)
16. Auburn (22)
16. Connecticut (23)
18. ???
19. Michigan (20)
20. Georgia (18)
21. USC (12)
22. Alabama (24)
23. ???
24. ???
25. ???

27. California (21)
29. Penn State (25)
Not Ranked: Hawaii (17), Texas (19)
The empty spots are teams that were not in the BCS Top 25.

I always side with the computer polls because they shouldn’t have any bias. Looking at these, there is some bias toward mid-majors. Hawaii is undefeated, that should qualify for being in the Top 25 of more than one computer poll. If they saw undefeated that would include a win over Boise State. With other teams losing along the way that has to climb them up into the Top 12.

Here are the large disparities between the Computer and Final BCS rankings. Note that the computer is a third of that BCS score.

Computers have them 5 spots or more better:
South Florida
Virginia
Auburn
Connecticut

Humans have them 5 spots or more better:
Oklahoma
USC
California
Hawaii
Texas

What jumps out is that all but one team that the computers like better is not a very big name (Auburn) and all but one (Hawaii) that the humans like better are consistent powerhouses. This is exactly why the human polls need to be cut out of the process or given a little guidance. The point needs to be driven home that what a team has done in any other year previous to the current one doesn’t matter. There should not be any preseason rankings released from any of the major polls. All they do is screw up the polls the rest of the year. If the fans are desperate to see some preseason rankings then pick up one of the hundreds of magazines put out each year or find some new sites to read on the web.

Colbert
The Colbert links are all over the place thanks to his book release and his Presidential Bid.

Watch - On Larry King, this link is to the Larry King iTunes podcast. CNN doesn’t seem to have any direct links to their podcasts.

Read - From the New York Times Op-Ed page. He wrote Maureen Dowd’s column for her.

I’ve very excited for his run in South Carolina. Anyone who thinks this is a joke that will make a mockery of the primary process has not been paying attention to the primary process. Right now his focus is getting the signatures to get on the Democratic ballot. The $25,000 to get on the Republican ballot is going to be more difficult. Why does it cost so much to get on the ballot? Shouldn’t the chance to run for office be open to anyone? I thought signatures were fairly standard, or having to go and fill out a form and pay a processing fee, but one a little more realistic. The next step needs to be voter registration. At the very least a ton of people who have never voted before will register and go to the polls. A decent showing could spawn a write-in campaign across the country. In the end, two things are accomplished: more people are registered to vote and people take notice that the whole process is actually a joke. Who knows, maybe by defending his right to be in the race he can get some of the other candidates to defend their words and be honest.

Conan
During taping of Conan one night this week an alarm went off. Conan rolled with it and they wound up keeping it in the show. It continued when the next guest, Paget Brewseter, came out.

I’ve been concerned that Conan might not be able to be successful on The Tonight Show when he takes over. I think he’s great, but, to me, The Tonight Show is an entirely different audience. An audience that enjoys Jay Leno, which I cannot understand how that’s possible. After seeing how he played this I realize how truly great he can be and that he can work with any situation. That will make him successful in the new time slot. I’m just hoping he doesn’t change too much and keep the consistent boredom that is the current Tonight Show.

More Goods
Best Dilbert Blogs that I read this week. They may be a little older, I had some catching up to do.
Indoor Recreation - Just for his idea for the Ping Pong Palace.
Some People - Sometimes, you just want to kill someone for no particular reason.

North American Vexillological Association - Flags, flags, and more flags. The kind of site that you think is dumb, and then a few hours go by and you are still looking at it.

The videos follow …

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No IDM this week. Evan is on a field trip the rest of the week so picks are just going to be posted.

Week 8 Picks
Evan: 16-19 (4-1), Mike: 13-22 (3-2)
South Florida (EM) @ Rutgers (Thursday, 7:30)
Tennessee @ Alabama (EM) (Saturday, 12:30)
Texas Tech (M) @ Missouri (E) (Saturday, 3:30)
Kansas State (M) @ Oklahoma State (E) (Saturday, 7:05)
Michigan (EM) @ Illinois (Saturday, 8:00)

Make your own picks.

Last weekend 5 unbeatens fell and one of the winless got a win. Here is what happened to the teams who won’t be joining us on the list this week:

Connecticut lost at Virginia 17-16.
LSU lost at Kentucky 43-37 in OT.
Missouri lost @ Oklahoma 41-31.
California lost vs Oregon State 31-28.
Cincinnati lost vs Louisville 28-24.

North Texas beat Louisiana-Monroe 31-21.

As for this week a few of the unbeatens have off weeks. I not used to midseason off weeks anymore since the Big Ten has stopped scheduling them. All of the winless teams are in action. We have left 6 unbeatens and 4 winless teams in 1A.

Will Remain Unbeaten (off): Arizona State, Boston College, Hawaii
Toughest Games for Undefeated Teams: Kansas (@ Colorado), Ohio State (vs Michigan State), South Florida (@ Rutgers)
Best Chance to Stay Undefeated: No cupcakes this week.
Best Chance at a Win: Florida International (@ Louisiana-Monroe)

Undefeated

Arizona State (7-0, 4-0)
Last Week: W 44-20 vs Washington
This Week: Off
Look out for: California (5-1, 10/27), @ Oregon (5-1, 11/3), @ UCLA (4-2, 11/10), USC (5-1, 11/22)

Boston College (7-0, 3-0)
Last Week: W 27-14 @ Notre Dame
This Week: Off
Look out for: @ Virginia Tech (6-1, 10/25), Florida State (4-2, 11/3), @ Maryland (4-2, 11/3), @ Clemson (4-2, 11/17)

Hawaii (7-0, 4-0)
Last Week: W 42-35 (OT) @ San Jose State
This Week: Off
Look out for: Fresno State (4-2, 11/10), Boise State (5-1, 11/23)

Kansas (6-0, 2-0)
Last Week: W 58-10 vs Baylor
This Week: @ Colorado (4-3)
Look out for: @ Texas A&M (5-2, 10/27), Missouri (5-1, 11/24)

Ohio State (7-0, 3-0)
Last Week: W 48-3 vs Kent State
This Week: Michigan State (5-2)
Look out for: @ Penn State (5-2, 10/27), Wisconsin (5-2, 11/3), Illinois (5-2, 11/10), @ Michigan (5-2, 11/17)

South Florida (6-0, 1-0)
Last Week: W 64-12 vs UCF
This Week: @ Rutgers (4-2) on Thursday
Look out for: @ Connecticut (4-2, 10/18), Cincinnati (6-1, 11/3)

Winless

Colorado State (0-6, 0-3)
Last Week: L 45-21 vs Air Force
This Week: @ UNLV (2-5)
Best Chance: Georgia Southern (1AA, 11/17)

Florida International (0-6, 0-2)
Last Week: Off
This Week: @ Louisiana-Monroe (1-5)
Best Chance: Louisiana-Lafayette (1-6, 11/17), North Texas (1-5, 12/1)

Marshall (0-6, 0-2)
Last Week: L @ Tulsa 38-31
This Week: Southern Miss (3-3) on Sunday
Best Chance: Rice (1-5, 10/27), UAB (2-4, 11/24)

Utah State (0-6, 0-2)
Last Week: Off
This Week: Nevada (2-4)
Best Chance: Louisiana Tech (2-4, 10/27), @ Idaho (1-6, 11/24)

This week’s full schedule.

I’m keeping this as Bandwagon Jumping until I find a better name. After thinking about it, the name doesn’t really make sense. The idea it to start the bandwagon, not jump on it. Bandwagon Starting isn’t all that great a name. So until I figure something out, or hear a good suggestion, here are my weekly look at what I’m liking, and what I’m not.

On

Basic Instructions - I heard about this one from The Dilbert Blog. It was good when I first started reading it, but the last few have been great. Check out this and this.

nhl.com Video Highlights - They show all the goals and great saves. Sometimes even some hits. The stream is 700k, meaning excellent quality and it uses Flash so I haven’t had a problem viewing it anywhere. There is also the option to embed the clip. One problem, controversial plays are skipped. The Flyers-Canucks clip from this week did not show the Boulerice hit that led to his 25 game suspension. I guess that sort of thing requires some voiceover and all the highlights just use the game announcers.

Versus College Football - Last week Stanford beat #1 USC. This week Oregon State beat #2 Cal. I have no idea if the actual coverage is any good, I only watch the last few minutes and at that point you don’t really notice the announcers. I don’t get Versus in HD, but that’s more of a Verizon issue. I’m hoping the Penn State/Ohio State game in two weeks can somehow be covered by Versus.

Angels & Airwaves - My Only Fear - I’m excited for the new A&A album, I-Empire. It comes out on November 6th. I’ve heard some of the songs and My Only Fear hooked me instantly. Don’t be surprised if this album makes the Bandwagon in a month.

Paramore - I’ve like both their albums so far. The reason they are here now is how impressed I am at their live performances. For example, this acoustic version of Misery Business. This week they were on Conan and were amazing doing the normal version of the song.

Dollyrots - Because I’m Awesome - Sirius Hits One is slowly picking up that this song is good. First I like the full of herself attitude of the song. Also, I usually like songs where two people have a conversation in part of it. For example … Guy: I always tell you how smart you are. Girl: It’s cause my brain is really supersized. There are a couple of those type of exchanges in the song.

Natasha Bedingfield - Love Like This - If I like Unwritten and I like this, do I need to get the album? I haven’t heard any other songs.

Off

Finger Eleven - Paralyzer - I was on board with this song early on, then it started spreading. Now its one of the most requested songs on Sirius Hits One. This song just didn’t stand up to being overplayed. Few songs do.

Reaper - I actually like this show. It just didn’t do enough to keep me coming back for more. It isn’t serialized enough. I could watch the first few episodes on their own or in any order and it wouldn’t have made any difference. Its entirely possible that they will figure something out and I’ll be getting these DVDs in a year. For now, I’ve got too many shows that I’m watching every week and something needs to go. I can’t keep up this pace. This is one is the first difficult cut. If you see that its on and you’ve got nothing else to do, you should definitely check it out, you’ll enjoy it.