Archive for the College Football tag

Mike

The List

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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.

Mike

Rankings: Humans vs Computers

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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.

Inter-Dis Material

IDM Week 8 Picks

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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.

Mike

College Football Undefeated/Winless – Week 8

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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.

Inter-Dis Material

Inter-Dis Material 34

Inter-Dis Material No Comment

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…)

Mike

College Football Undefeated/Winless – Week 7

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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…)

Mike

Bandwagon Jumping

Sports 1 Comment

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.

Mike

Regional Coverage

Sports No Comment

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.

Inter-Dis Material

IDM Week 6 Picks

Inter-Dis Material No Comment

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)

Inter-Dis Material

Inter-Dis Material 33

Inter-Dis Material No Comment

Audio: mp3
Running Time: 38:37
Hosts: Evan and Mike

The new TV season has started and Mike is very upset he hasn’t written a sitcom yet. Then its all the College Football coverage you’ve come to know and love.

Topics
New shows are so bad, we could write one better.
College Football
ESPN Page 2 College Football Rules #8-9
-Picks
-Heisman
-Conference Champions
-Evan will be at the Auburn/UF game
-Mike and Evan have secured tickets to OSU/PSU
Looking for listener questions/topics

(more…)

Inter-Dis Material

Inter-Dis Material 32

Inter-Dis Material No Comment

Audio: mp3
Running Time: 50:43
Hosts: Evan and Mike

We discuss the excitement of the past weekend in College Football and look ahead to next week. We also discuss the Taser incident. Plus, a new idea for some awards of our own.

Topics
Student Tasered at Kerry talk at UF
Emmy’s
The Dailys
College Football
ESPN Page 2 College Football Rules
-Blue Out at UF
-Tons of great games last weekend
-Picks
-Heisman
-Conference Champions

(more…)