Borderline Fantastic

Audio: mp3
Running Time: 38:41
Hosts: Evan and Mike

Back from a week-long hiatus due to sickness and Phillies playoffness. Speaking of that, the baseball playoffs are underway with a new player this year: TBS. We also look at a few more of Page 2′s College Football Rules and then get into the usual things.

Topics
TBS covers MLB Playoffs
College Football
-ESPN Page 2 College Football Rules #10-23
-Picks
-Heisman
-Conference Champions
-Evan will be at the UF/USC game

(more…)

Six weeks into the season and 11 undefeated teams remain. On the flip side, 5 teams remain winless. Time to start keeping track of these teams.

A look at all the teams follows, but first, some of the highlights.
Toughest Games for Undefeated Teams: Missouri (@ Oklahoma), Connecticut (@ Virginia), LSU (@ Kentucky)
Best Chance to Stay Undefeated: Boston College (@ Notre Dame), Ohio State (vs Kent State)
Will Remain Winless: Florida International and Utah State. Both teams off this week.
Best Chance at a Win: North Texas (vs Louisiana-Monroe)
(more…)

The past few years I have jumped on a team’s bandwagon for the MLB playoffs. For whatever reason I find myself liking the way a team plays the game so I root for them all the way through. The past few years I’ve supported Detroit, Chicago, and Boston. This doesn’t violate any rules since the Phillies hadn’t been in the playoffs since 1993.

This year was different. The Phillies managed to get hot at the end of the year and the Mets went ice cold. The perfect situation. I could root for the Phillies in October. Unfortunately the bats weren’t prepared for October baseball and now I’m back to my usual position in October.

After the Phillies lost I didn’t just go and search out a team. One of them has to be interesting to me. There has been such a team and that team is the Cleveland Indians. The fact that they are up 2-0 on the Yankees somewhat helped the situation. At least because I’m not going to start pulling for a team on the verge of elimination. The shortest explanation of ‘Why the Indians?’ includes the names Sizemore, Sabathia, and Carmona. The slightly longer answer includes Martinez, Peralta, and Hafner. The rest of the AL teams have been doing this for a few years. I like young upstarts. If you are allowed to call a team young when Kenny Lofton is on the roster. The Indians last made the playoffs in 01, and they were led by Charlie Manuel. I fell that also puts us in the same boat. I don’t remember hearing a lot of complaining about Manuel from his Cleveland days. So either he’s lost it or the Cleveland fans were just in too much pain to yell loud enough for me to hear.

Things are slowly coming in to focus in college football. A few underdogs have emerged with a shot. South Florida being the most obvious. Although they made the FAU game a little interesting. Now it looks like the Big East might be decided in the USF/Cincy game on Nov 3rd. I’m shocked South Carolina is in the Top 10, but that SEC is rough.

One team that I’m pulling for is Arizona State. Their 6-0 start has moved them up to #14. Of course they haven’t played any of the big guns in the Pac10. Their 3-0 conference record come courtesy of wins against Oregon St., Stanford, and Washington St. However, today, their 41-3 win at Stanford seems a lot more impressive. Their upcoming schedule includes Washington, California, Oregon, UCLA, and USC. Make it through that only losing 2 then people will start talking. Its been a few years since I’ve heard much excitement about ASU. Really, I wasn’t aware they’ve had a program since The Snake left. I’d like to see them compete, I’m a fan of any non-Cali team competing for the Pac10 Championship. I’d be almost as excited for Arizona, but they have basketball. Looking into the history books, ASU needs some good years. The school has had only 3 bowl wins (in 8 games) in the past 20 years. Just maybe they can survive this schedule. Or just maybe they’ll lose to UDub this weekend and we’ll forget I ever said any of this.

Usually when discussing college football coverage my first complaint is about the announcers. I don’t do enough complaining about the games they select to put on TV for my region.

Today the Penn State/Iowa game is on ESPN2. At least that’s what I thought. After the Miami/UNC game ended it came on. I saw all of two plays when the picture suddenly froze. I quickly switched to the SD version of ESPN2 only to find NC St/FSU. I haven’t had Verizon long enough to trust that they aren’t going to screw up this sort of thing. I called up and the guy was very helpful. He had all the coverage maps and blackout lists handy. When he reset my box I flipped through the channels and found the game on ABC. I had never thought to check there since all I’d seen advertised was ESPN2 and I saw the game on ESPN2 before it vanished.

I found the game, but I still wasn’t happy. It wasn’t in HD! I know it was produced in HD somewhere, I saw it on ESPN2HD. This is what I don’t understand. There is no reason that this game wasn’t in HD on ABC. If they can’t handle it then don’t move it from ESPN2. If you are that excited to watch PSU/Iowa, you likely are someone who gets ESPN and ESPN2. Are there a lot of OTA people clamoring for this game?

This also took the Texas/Okalhoma game off of my schedule. A game that I would certainly like the option of watching. The game that was showing on ESPN2, NC St/FSU I couldn’t watch in HD because ESPN2HD was blacked out for no particular reason.

I don’t have ESPN Gameplan. There aren’t enough games that I need to watch to justify the price. I’d like to be able to see some of those games. If it only cost $50, then I’d be on board. On occasion one of these games might be picked up by one of our local channels. This week the selection was CMU/Ball St. I didn’t spend much time watching that matchup.

I am a big fan of the Fox College Sports channels that I get part of the Verizon Sports Pack. They are really the only channels worth mentioning in that package. These channels give me the good Pac10 and Big 12 games that aren’t picked up by ABC/ESPN. Last week I was able to watch Colorado beat Oklahoma. Today included Kansas/Kansas State (which Comcast Sportsnet was showing) and Arizona State/Washington State.

As far as college football is concerned the biggest difference between Comcast and Verizon is having CSTV on Comcast and ESPNU and ESPN Classic on Verizon. There would occasionally be a good game on CSTV, usually from a mid-major. I’d much rather have the ESPNU/ESPN Classic combination. ESPNU always has some major conference teams and Classic has good matchups on occasion. This week Classic went with an American Gladiators marathon instead of any games. You can’t argue too much with that decision.

What’s missing from all this is the Big Ten Network. I’d love to have this channel. Of course that means the main channel plus the extra channels when there are multiple games on. There have already been three PSU games on BTN this season. I still have to side with the providers in not carrying this channel. There is no reason for the vast majority of subscribers to have to pay for this channel. I’d gladly pay extra, so BTN should let me have that option.

See, I’m laying off the announcers today. You could say I’m growing as a person. You could also say I am saving my announcer rage for tonight when I have to endure another game with Joe Simpson doing the color for the Phillies/Rockies game. Other than him, and a few other issues, TBS’s coverage has been way better than ESPN or Fox have been for the playoffs over the past few years. Now if I only had TBS in HD.

Mike was sick this past week and was focused on following the Phillies making the playoffs for the first time in 14 years. There was no time for Inter-Dis Material this week. Still, the picks must continue. Evan and Mike will pick up with the Heisman and Conference picks next week. Here are this week’s game picks …

Week 6 Picks
Evan: 11-14 (3-2), Mike: 7-18 (2-3)
Kentucky (M) @ South Carolina (E) (Thursday, 7:30)
Georgia (E) @ Tennessee (M) (Saturday, 3:30)
Virginia Tech @ Clemson (EM) (Saturday, 6:00)
Florida (E) @ LSU (M) (Saturday, 8:00)
Cincinnati (M) @ Rutgers (E) (Saturday, 8:00)

Today marks the 200th Daily Pick. Somehow I have managed to not forget to put up a Daily Pick for this long. Its very easy to compete in the Daily Pick. Each day, log on to Ice Cream Helmet, the pick is right there on the front page. Pick who you will think will with the game or event. You get points for picking, more points for picking correctly, and even more if you pick the less popular choice and they wind up winning. Points roll off after a certain period of time, so you can quickly climb the rankings. Plus, the Daily Pick counts toward your ICH rank.

My record: 107-85, there have been a few cancellations and I might have missed a few days while away.