The Soap Opera That Preempted the 2011 College Football Season

I have a confession.  It's a guilty pleasure.  I enjoy watching The Young and the Restless with my wife.  I didn't start out as a man who enjoyed soap operas.  When I met my wife, she was a fan of The Guiding Light and The Young and the Restless.  Frequently she would watch one, the other, or both and I would politely sit by her biding my time until "real" television came on.  My wife would talk to me as if I was paying attention.  "Oh my God, I can't believe _______ did that!"  My responses to these statements were normally, "Who's ______?"  My wife would then exasperatedly explain to me for the nth time that ______ was the brother of __________ who was once married to __________ and is now sleeping with ___________.  We continued these identical conversations for almost three years before I started paying attention.  I realized that ________ actually had a name and that I remembered _________ and even though I frequently made fun of the bad writing and the story lines that would drop off for no earthly reason, I found myself falling into the shows.  I have reconciled my guilty secret with the knowledge that at their heart, soap operas are simply modern, commercial versions of ancient Greek tragedies.  All the basic elements are there.  There is nice emotional release that can be had from watching a soap opera.  The characters do things they shouldn't do; they put themselves in situations that they shouldn't put themselves; and they allow their emotions to rule their better judgment.  As a viewer, you can relate to the character and also comfortably be morally condescending that you would never stoop to their level.  It's their frequent lack of better moral judgment that drives the ratings.  Lately, I have realized that I'm not the only man who enjoys a good soap opera.

Early in my marriage, I frequently questioned why my wife liked soap operas.  She responded by asking me what I loved about college football.  In many ways, I found that what I liked about college football and what she liked about soap operas were very similar.  I told her that when it comes to college football, or any sport for that matter, there is drama, there is great story, but in football, it is unscripted.  When you watch college football, it is a game played among young men but the outcomes of those games sometimes become legendary.  I gave her examples.  Florida State had lost three games to Miami on wide right, end of game field goals.  Isn't that worthy of a great story?  There were transcendent games, in 1970, USC's defeat of Alabama might have done as much to break down racial barriers in Alabama as did sit-ins and marches.  Just last week, college football featured one of the best regular season games in many years.  It was a #1 versus #2 matchup of two teams that featured two of the best defenses to ever take the same field in the same game.  It was coined "The Game of the Century."  Whether it was worthy of the title is a debate for another article however in terms of drama it is nowhere close to a game being played this week that, for all the wrong reasons, will be "The Game of the Year." 

Of course with any major sport there are stories that don't take place on the grid-iron but it seems of late, the side stories are becoming the featured event while the actual game suffers.  Unless you are living under a rock, you are probably aware of the Penn State, Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky scandal.  It has spread from the sports pages, to the front page, and even to TMZ.  In less than a week, it has turned the world of college football upside down, ended the legendary career of the coach with the most wins in Division I football, and spurred a violent riot on one of the largest collegiate campuses in the Nation.  We are five days into this story and it is far from over.  More heads will roll and there are now questions as to whether Joe Paterno will be charged criminally by his inaction to report the incident to police.  Is it all newsworthy?  Absolutely!  Is the sports media right in demanding blood?  For the most part, yes.  Don't get me wrong, my qualified answer to my question is not to be seen as support for the culprits, and they are culprits, but moreover the dangerous road that the sports media is travelling down with this story. 

On Monday night, most people who follow college football were aware that Jerry Sandusky, a former Penn State defensive coordinator, had been indicted for sexual molestation of young boys.  Generally the sports viewing public was also aware that Joe Paterno was a witness for the prosecution at the Grand Jury.  By Tuesday morning, the major online sports media outlets were demanding for Joe Paterno's immediate dismissal, (something that was accomplished by Wednesday night).  Before the general public could even ascertain what the facts were, readers were being spoon-fed what they should be thinking.  Make no mistake, those calls for immediate dismissals were right on target.  Without rehashing the entirety of the facts, very briefly, in 2002, Mike McQueary, a then graduate assistant and current assistant coach walked into a Penn State locker room and allegedly found Jerry Sandusky subjecting a ten year old boy to anal sex.  He then reported that, not to the police, but to head coach, Joe Paterno.  Joe Paterno then reported it to Athletic director Tim Curly and also it was reported to Penn State Vice President Gary Shultz.  None of the men mentioned reported the incident to the police.  Jerry Sandusky is charged with similar incidents after 2002, all of which could have been prevented if any one of those men had bothered to report it.  Losing your job is a bare minimum of punishment.  Sometimes though, in the case of the media, you can be right and still be wrong.

This week's scandal has shown us not only an ugly side to a well respected coach but also to the media that is reporting on the incident.  Any journalist who has simply stated that there should not have been an immediate rush to judgment has been met with a backlash of virulent anger from fans and other media reporters that somehow their unwillingness to immediately grab the pitchfork is seen as support for people who had a massive moral collapse. 

On Wednesday night and Thursday morning, the new target of the Penn State scandal was the Penn State student body who protested the firing of Joe Paterno.  More than likely, their violent protest had a lot to do with their inability to digest all the information before the Board made their decision to pull the plug on the Joe Paterno era.  Did the Board of Trustees make the right decision?  Sure, it was a no-brainer but would the Board have made the same decision, the same way, without the media's calls for that decision.  That is debatable.  My guess is that if the Board of Trustees had not been under so much intense pressure, it would have suspended Joe Paterno while investigating the matter.  As the investigation moved on, Paterno's support with the students probably would have eroded and either Paterno would have seen the light and resigned or the Board of Trustees could have made the same decision a few days later without all of the circus that has surrounded it.  Even though the same result would have been achieved, it was being demanded not by the public and not by Penn State but clearly by the sports media.

I am a huge supporter of media.  Media can be and has been the watchdog for the public but sometimes members of the media can cross a boundary in which they stop being journalists, even stop being editorialists, and take on the role of moral compass.  It was unnecessary with the Penn State scandal.  The facts are what they are.  Was it believed that the sports public was simply too obtuse or morally deficient to make the right decision given the facts?  Is this story the proverbial golden egg laying goose?  This Saturday, Penn State will face Nebraska and for the first time since 1966, will have a new head coach.  I expect that it will be a ratings bonanza for all the wrong reasons.  Less than half who tune in to watch the game will be doing so for football but will be doing so in spite of the game.  It's very possible that the Penn State / Nebraska game could top last week's LSU / Alabama matchup in terms of ratings.  Meanwhile, Saturday night, Stanford will face Oregon in a game dripping with national championship implications but the game is threatened to be overshadowed by any news coming out of Pennsylvania.  I hope that the soap operas of college football go back to being those that are played out on the football field on Saturdays and that the soap operas involving moral indecency and sex scandals go back to being played by actors on shows that air Monday through Friday.

Another Big Ten Scandal – Another Legendary Coach Gone (The Fall of Joe Paterno)

As I write this, Penn State and Joe Paterno are immersed in one of the most controversial scandals in the history of college football.  As a college football enthusiast, I had come to believe that I was starting to get immune to college football scandals.  This time last year, the world of college football was engrossed in the question of whether then Auburn quarterback had been paid to transfer to Auburn.  Just last week, the NCAA closed the books on that question with a "no proof of wrongdoing" answer.  Before we could even exit the 2010 season, Ohio State was dealing with an issue of free tattoos for their players.  At the time, it seemed a minor infraction, and truthfully, had it been handled properly, it would have stayed that way.  However, during the offseason, evidence emerged that the head coach of Ohio State, Jim Tressel, knew about the infractions early on and then knowingly failed to report those infractions.  I wrote about those scandals in my article The Offseason of our Discontent http://theevilcommish.blogspot.com/2011/07/offseason-of-our-discontent.html.

 

The major difference in the two scandals in The Offseason of our Discontent and the one that is threatening to destroy or at least severely taint the legacy of the coach with the most wins in FBS is that this is not a scandal about college football.  Joe Paterno has been a coach at Penn State for sixty-seven years.  He has been the head coach at Penn State since 1966.  During that time, Penn State has never been involved in any kind of scandal.  Joe Paterno has been a coach that has been the poster child for how to do things the right way.  Early this week, that all came to a crashing end.

Records from a grand jury indictment became public.  In those documents, Jerry Sandusky was indicted on forty counts of sexual molestation and is accused of sexually molesting eight boys from 1994 to 2009.  Sandusky's relationship to Penn State and Joe Paterno is that he was Joe Paterno's defensive coordinator and one time heir-apparent to Paterno.  This in itself would not be enough to taint Joe Paterno.  Events that took place in 2002 have directly linked Joe Paterno to this scandal and yesterday's reaction to those events clearly turned the tide of public opinion from support of Joe Paterno to angry calls for his immediate dismissal. 

In 2002, then Penn State graduate assistant, Mike McQueary witnessed Jerry Sandusky molesting a ten year old boy in one of the showers in the Penn State locker room.  McQueary did what he should have done.  He brought the incident to Paterno.  According to Paterno, McQueary did not lay out the details of what he saw to Paterno only that Sandusky and the boy were in a shower together.  Paterno did what he was required to do.  He brought the incident to Penn State Athletic director, Tim Curly.  Tim Curly and Penn State Vice President Gary Shultz did . . .  nothing.  They are now currently facing criminal charges of their own for their inactions.  By letter of the law, Joe Paterno is criminally guilty of nothing but sometimes doing the right thing is not something that can be mandated in a state statute.

After the 2002 incident, Jerry Sandusky continued his affiliation with the Penn State program and had been on the Penn State campus as recently as last week.  The questions quickly arose on Monday evening as to what if anything Joe Paterno should have done.  The answers were in no way kind to Paterno.  Andy Staples, a writer for CNN.SI wrote an article calling for Paterno's immediate dismissal.  Todd Blackledge, a current ESPN college football announcer and former Penn State quarterback told ESPN News this morning that even though he considers Joe Paterno a mentor and a friend, that if the allegations do hold water that there should be an ultimate accountability.  Kirk Herbstreit of ESPN's College Game Day was on ESPN's Mike and Mike in the Morning and stated that Paterno would need to go if these accusations proved true and that ultimately, this wasn't about college football, Joe Paterno's legendary status, or anything else other than the victims of these crimes.

By mid-morning today, Joe Paterno tendered his resignation effective for the end of the season.  I doubt that we have seen the end of this story, and I would wager that Joe Paterno's chances of coaching in the Nebraska game this Saturday are less than fifty percent.  Paterno's resignation seemed to come as a conciliatory gesture to allow the University to move forward but something like this doesn't get taken care of so easily.  As I write this, I am sure that attorneys are contacting the victims.  They have the classic perfect legal case—victims of heinous crimes and culprits with bottomless pockets.  Regardless of what Paterno was required to do regarding the 2002 incident, Joe Paterno's continued employment at Penn State has quickly become a liability.  Penn State students have poured out in support of Joe Paterno but so far, their support of Paterno has not spread beyond Happy Valley.  Joe Paterno has stated that he only wants to do what is right by the University that he has been a part of for the majority of his life.  Sometimes what is best is to walk away.

The Game of the Century – #1 LSU versus #2 Alabama

By its very title, Game of the Century implies simply one game per century.  In the world of college football, it meant about five games during the last century and truthfully, since no one had coined the phrase prior to 1971, (you may have to check me on this), We really should rename the title, Game of the Decade Which May or May Not Be Shared  With Another Deserving Team Within The Decade So Really Game of the Decade Unless Another Game Comes Along That Is Better Within The Same Decade Then We Will Conveniently Forget That This Was The Game of the Decade.  As the more accurate title fails fabulously on a marketing level we stick with the misnomer, Game of the Century.

One would think from my opening paragraph, that I am not a big fan of these so called Games of the Century.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  I do think it is a bit presumptuous to give a game the title a whole week before kick off but those games that did wind up getting the designation, Game of the Century, (usually after the game had been played), have certainly lived up to the hype, (see 1971 Oklahoma/Nebraska; 1988 USC/Notre Dame; 1991 Florida State/Miami; Michigan/Ohio State 2005).  

This week's Game of the Century features my own alma mater, #2 Alabama versus #1 Louisiana State University.  On this Saturday, the nation, (the world?, aliens from the planet Grghgskzaxxx?), will tune in to watch two superpowers clash.  It's Ali and Frazier, The Celts versus the Lakers, Kim Kardashian versus that guy she just filed for divorce from.  In reality, this really could be one of those matchups that lives up to the absolutely, ridiculous amount of hype that it has and is being given.  On paper, this is probably the first game that really looks like it could rival the original Game of the Century 1971 matchup between Oklahoma and Nebraska.  Both teams mirror each other in many ways.  Stewart Mandel of CNN.SI called Alabama's defense "unworldly."  If, and this is a big if, if LSU's defense is not as good as Alabama's, it is not as good by a hair's breadth.  Per the NCAA, Alabama ranks #1 in total defense with LSU ranking #4.  Both Alabama and LSU have simply dismantled every opponent they have faced and there have been a slew of great opponents.  LSU took on currently ranked #24 West Virginia and currently ranked #7 Oregon at the start of the season and neither team were able to stay on the field with LSU.  Alabama's opponents haven't been quite as impressive but the results have been the same.  Alabama's most notable out of conference win was against Penn State which is currently ranked at #16.  It was their closest game of the season as Alabama beat Penn State 27-11.  Both teams have faced Florida and Tennessee.  Alabama played Florida and won 38-10.  LSU got the Gators the next week and won 41-11.  LSU played Tennessee on the third Saturday in October, a week more traditional of the Alabama/Tennessee game, and LSU won handily 38-7.  On the following Saturday, Alabama, after being tied at half time with the Volunteers, poured it on in the second half and beat Tennessee 37-6.  Both teams rely on a strong running game complimented with a good but conservative passing attack.  If Alabama looks in the mirror, they see LSU and the Tigers see crimson when they look in their looking glass. 

Many times, in a game like this, the hype starts a week or two before the teams take to the field.  That wasn't the case with this week's matchup between the Tide and the Tigers.  The hype started preseason.  With every week, the anticipation was notched a little higher.  As both Alabama and LSU have looked unstoppable, it only makes sense that a matchup between them would be the only thing possible of derailing these two freight trains.  So much hype has been bestowed on this game that there is already talk of a possible rematch of LSU and Alabama in the national title game.  Right now, I think that talk is very premature.  The world of college football can change drastically on any given Saturday.  There is no reason to get ahead of ourselves.  This Saturday we have a chance to see what might one day be considered one of the great matchups on the college football gridiron.  As to whether it winds up being one of those famous Games of the Century will be left to the results and time itself.  For now though, it is nothing more than an upcoming matchup between two great and evenly matched teams and I plan on savoring the game minus the needless hype.

The Great College Football Playoff Debate Revisited

   I have been watching football since I was a child and for as long as I can remember, there has always been a debate about whether college football should have a playoff system much like every other sport in America, (and even most of the world).  Even President Obama got into the mix on this issue by publicly stating that college football should have a playoff.  On the surface, you would have to admit that the college football system does appear to be antiquated.  Crowning a national champion involves computer rankings, polls consisting of journalists and former coaches, officiating and the mistakes of those officiators.  Wouldn't it be simpler to just have a playoff where there is little debate at the end about who is the Champion?  There are quite a few examples of injustices.  The Auburn Tigers of 2004 went undefeated and were denied a chance to compete for a National Championship because both Texas and USC were ranked higher than they were and also went undefeated.  Texas claimed the National Title and Auburn, unable to compete, had to settle for a final season #2 ranking.

     Since the early days of college football there have been vast improvements on fixing these inequities.  The latest attempt to try and guarantee a true national champion is the Bowl Championship Series better known as the BCS.  The BCS has gotten better through the years but in its early phase it relied too heavily on computer ratings which took into account at various times, strength of opponent, margin of victory, and even applied those to the opponents themselves.  Those computer ratings led to some strange results.  It would not be uncommon in the early days of the BCS for the national championship game to be determined by two four win teams because one of those four win teams played someone hoping to get the championship game and their win or loss could positively or negatively affect another team solely based on their meeting two months prior.  During this time, I commonly abbreviated BCS by leaving out the middle "C" and wondered out loud to anyone who would listen why we shouldn't just scrap college football altogether and simply have each school get their best video game player to compete against other schools on a Sony Playstation to decide college football's national championship.  I was one of many fans who were fed up but it wasn't just the fans.  The sportswriters who comprised the Associated Press poll demanded that their poll, (the most respected poll in college football), not be used in the calculation of the BCS's determination of who should play for the national championship.

     To give the architects of the BCS their due, they have tinkered each year in the hopes of improving the BCS system and their work has shown vast improvement.  You could argue that in the last few years, not only has the BCS system worked but it has finally done what it was intended to do in the first place, which was to right the inequities of the system that preceded it.  The system before it was essentially bowl matchups governed by contracts that failed to put the top teams against each other more often than not and then expected voters to put aside their regional biases to declare one of those bowl winners a national champion.  If the BCS still has one big argument against it, it would be that teams who are not from major conferences have little chance of making it into a national championship game.  Teams such as Boise State have consistently been snubbed for any shot at a national championship game.  In defense of this snubbing though, Boise State does not play against the same kind of competition that an Alabama, Oklahoma or Oregon faces on an almost weekly basis.  Those lines are getting blurred though.  I don't know that the same argument could be said of The Big East which is a BCS conference.

     At this point, it would seem not only obvious that college football should have a playoff but that it is almost criminal that it lacks a clearly defined playoff system.  The problem though is that a playoff doesn't simply right the ship like it would in other sports.  Let's take a look at two places where a playoff system works and compare them to the college football world.  The most obvious place to look is the National Football League.  I don't think fans would be clamoring to end the NFL playoffs in support of a system of polls.  Here though, there is a good argument for why it works in the NFL but would not work in college.  It's simply the amount of teams.  Currently the NFL has thirty-two teams.  Now compare that number to FBS college teams, (formerly Division 1-A), in which there are 120 FBS teams.  Even assuming that that you realign all the FBS teams into super conferences with divisions and sub conferences, there is no way that enough of these teams can play against each other to not have inequities in a playoff system as bad if not worse than the ones that already exist.  This gets us to our next comparison which would be the NCAA sixty-four team basketall playoff.  Here one could point out that you can do a playoff system with the 120 FBS teams because it is already done in basketball and is done well.  The problem that you have with this is that we are talking football and not basketball.  It's not feasible to have a sixty-four team playoff because it can't be done in the same amount of time.  To have a sixty-four team playoff would extend the college football season out longer than it should be.  In that case, we could reduce the playoffs to a smaller number.  Again, we head down a slippery slope.  Each year the NCAA basketball selection committee is second guessed on how they picked the sixty-four team field.  The controversy is minor because with so many teams competing, it is hard to believe that the few bubble teams that don't get selected would have won the championship.  However that controversy grows exponentially every time you reduce the playoff field.  In the end, if you get it down to a reasonable number such as four, you have simply switched out a poll or a BCS system for a selection committee and that committee would be no less arbitrary than the system you have in place.

     So what's the answer?  To me, it's simple.  Leave it alone.  It's actually not a broken system as everyone would have you to believe.  There are times when you can point to controversy but every sport has controversy.  It could be worse.  It could be as bad as eastern European Olympic judges or the horrendous officiating that takes place at the World Cup every four years.  All of these controversies a small when you compare them to what you would lose.  Let's go back to the NFL for a comparison.  Your favorite team loses in Week 1.  Is the season over?  Not by a long shot.  Everything still shimmers in front of you.  In college football, a Week 1 loss can end it all.  At the beginning of this season, Louisiana State played Oregon.  Louisiana State won and Oregon lost.  That Week 1 loss may have cost Oregon their shot at a national title this year.  That isn't a bad thing, that's a good thing.  College football demands perfection more than any other sport.  Invariably, at the end of a season, there is always a large possibility that we will be left with a group of one loss teams and that only two of them will get a chance to play in the national championship game.  Is this a controversy?  To some yes--to me no.  Each of those teams gave up their right to complain when they lost that one game.  Only teams that finish with perfect records have a real gripe and even those teams need to be able to make an argument that they played a tough schedule.  No one is going to put up with a team playing ten patsies, one mediocre team, and one good team as an argument for a right to play in the national championship game.

     Normally when I talk to people who are very bothered by the lack of a college football playoff, I quickly find out that they don't actually watch a lot of college football.  They look at the surface issues and ignore the idiosyncratic aspects of college football that makes the sport great.  Frequently they are huge fans of Pro Football who consider college football to be the equivalent of junior varsity play to Pro Football's varsity play.  Yet, almost nowhere but in the playoffs does pro football demand perfection and even when it does, it demands it out of seasoned veterans.  To me, there is something beautiful that an entire team's hopes for the year can ride on one fourth quarter play by an eighteen year old kid who is only a few months removed from playing high school football.  That is college football and that is why college football should never succumb to a playoff system but it is also why college football should always strive to improve it's game without surrendering what makes it unique.

A funny thing happened on the way to . . . . (Paul Kemp's latest blog regarding the Alabama - Florida football rivalry. Originally written Thursday, September 29th, 2011)

the Battle for the S.E.C.

 

    Around three quarters of the way through the 2008 season, I wrote an email entitled "The Battle for the S.E.C."  In it, I lined out what I thought was a likely scenario.  That scenario was that Alabama and Florida were going to meet in the SEC Championship for Game 1 out of a possible 4-6 game matchup over a four year period, with the three possible outcomes being, 1.  Florida beats Alabama and retains their stranglehold over the SEC; 2.  Alabama beats Florida taking back the SEC from the usurper of '91; 3, There would be a relative split between the two schools and we would be treated to an intense rivalry more the equivalent of the Dallas Cowboys - San Francisco 49ers rivalry of the 1990s.

 

The results so far:

Game 1 - Florida survives a fierce attack by the Tide by dominating the 4th quarter.  They win game 1 and go on to win the National Title.

 

Game 2 - Alabama, plotting their revenge all season, decimates the Gators's hopes at their first undefeated season and wins big and with relative ease.  Likewise, they go on and win the National Title.

 

Game 3 - A young Gator team is trounced in Bryant Denny.  At this point, the Tide had taken a clear advantage and it looks like we are going with outcome #2.

 

Then a funny thing happened.  Any hope for a rematch in the SEC Championship game went horribly wrong.  Somehow someone forgot to inform South Carolina and Auburn that they weren't a part of the conversation for SEC dominance.  Neither Alabama nor Florida made it to Atlanta.  The offseason resulted in Urban Meyer calling it quits . . .  again and this time for good.  So instead of Game 4 taking place in December of 2010, we get to . . .

 

Game 4 - This one has turned out a lot more interesting than it looked to be at the start of the season.  Alabama is #2 or #3 depending on which way the wind blows.  Their defense looks to be as good as the 2009 defense.  Florida has been surprising.  They are undefeated and have looked better than I would have thought they would.  Florida didn't change just a coach, they changed their whole offensive and defensive philosophies.  Just changing one of those things can give you five losses in a season, changing both could result in eating popcorn and watching television during the Bowl season.  Obviously September was not a tough month for the Gators but they seem to be rolling with the changes.  Add to that, Florida's new head man who is a disciple of Alabama's Saban.  Florida, fields a very talented defense and is going to be running similar disguised blitz packages much like Alabama.  Alabama is fielding a brand new, fairly inexperienced quarterback who is prone to make mistakes when pressured.  Alabama's strategy is simple, run Trent Richardson right at Florida and dare Florida to stop Richardson.  Mix in some high percentage short yardage passes to keep Florida from blitzing every down. 

 

Alabama is favored by 4 but it's in Gainesvile.  Truth is, Gainesville hasn't been too bad for the Tide.  Alabama and Florida first met in Gainesville in 1935 and Florida didn't pull off their first victory in Gainesville until 1991.  The 1991 game was quite a game.  Florida throttled Alabama to the tune of 35-0 and gave Alabama it's worse loss in at least 40 years.  Florida had announced in very loud tones that the SEC wasn't Alabama's conference anymore.  Though no one expects it, imagine, just for a second, that Florida pulls off another 35-0 style victory this Saturday.  It would be '91 all over again.  Florida doesn't need to beat the Tide by 35 though.  A simple victory lets the college football world know that Florida isn't dead yet and that they are still very much a part of the "Battle for the SEC." 

Week 2 Picks

Okay, so an article every Tuesday has posed to be a little bit more of a commitment than I anticipated.  Working a full time job, trying to finish a manuscript, trying to find an agent, blah, blah, blah has gotten in the way.  I will try to do a better job in the future but no promises. 


As for the Pick 'Em League, it was a good start for yours truly.  I got my first victory and finished second overall for the week in points.  Among my highlights, I picked USF to upset Notre Dame, correctly picked LSU over Oregon and picked Northwestern to top Boston College. 


This week is going to be a bit harder.  I am facing Commissioner Dan in a battle of undefeateds.  Honestly, these are some tough picks this week.  


Game 1:  Mississippi State at Auburn - I'm going with State on this one.  This was one of the easier games for me to pick.  It's not just based on Auburn's scare against Utah State last week.  I think we all knew that Auburn was in for a tough year.  Auburn is in that weird gap period between two great teams.  They were great last year and I expect that they are going to be challenging for the SEC West title next year but this year is going to be more about making a bowl game.  Counter that with State.  This is a team that gets a little better each year under Dan Mullins and year three tends to be a pivotal year for a new coach.  I expect that State is going to have a breakout year and be a surprise in the West, (yes I know I picked them for a SEC West 5th place finish but I'm already regretting that one).  State has a powerful offense and from what I can see, Auburn's defense is weak at best.  It will be a close one but Auburn's comeback luck ends this Saturday.


Game 2:  Boston College at U.C.F. - I really debated this one but I am going to go with UCF.  Vegas has them favored by six and I can see why.  Last year was UCF's best season and this year they may be more talented.  Boston College, on the otherhand, looks like a team that may be heading towards the bottom of the ACC pack this year.  All apologies to Northwestern but Boston College's loss last week had more to do with Boston College being bad than it did Northwestern being good.  I think UCF could be have another Top 25 finish this year.  If they do, this will be a key game that could get them there.  Of course, in typical UCF fashion, they could feasibly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  Still though, they are finally learning how to win games against big name schools and not just settle for the ocassional moral victory.


Game 3:  Notre Dame at Michigan - Once again, Notre Dame is favored and I have to scratch my head as to why.  It's not like the guys in Vegas are swayed by media love of the Irish.  I saw both Notre Dame and Michigan play last week.  Both of them looked like shadows of their former selves but with Notre Dame, I saw a team that had potential but found ways to give a game away.  With Michigan, I saw a team that could face adversity and rally.  I saw a team that could beat an opponent by twenty + points and not be satisfied with the result.  When games are too close to call, I like to go with the ones that find ways to win and not find ways to lose.


Game 4:  Cincinatti at Tennessee - I really debated this game.  Because of weather, Cincinatti has yet to take the field.  Tennessee has the luxury of a game under their belt.  Tennessee is favored by a touchdown.  They are the S.E.C. team facing a Big East opponent that lacks the scoring power that they had under Brian Kelly.  Everything would make me pick Tennessee but I am picking Cincinatti.  I will be rooting for Tennessee but I just think Cincinatti is going to be a little more put together.  I expect Tennessee to get out to a better start and they may even have the lead at halftime but I think that by the middle of the third, the game is going to start to slip away from the Vols and Cincinatti is going to be able to pull this one out in the end.


Game 5:  Alabama at Penn State:  Alabama is the number three team in the nation.  They are many peoples pick to get to the Championship game this year.  Last year, Penn State couldn't even make a game of it.  Alabama was floating in their second string and then their third string.  It was an anomoly in what has otherwise been a great series.  I think Alabama will get the victory in Happy Valley but this is going to be another close one.  Penn State is greatly improved.  Alabama has a serious issue with their offensive line's ability to protect their young quarterbacks.  This will not be a blow out.  This is a game that will be decided in the fourth quarter and if it turns out that my Alabama pick is wrong and Penn State gets the victory, I won't be surprised, (how's that for pure equivication?).


Game 6:  California at Colorado - I didn't put much thought into this one.  I don't think I have to.  Colorado has been a disaster since the Hawkins era began.  Their coaching hire in last year's offseason is one of those that makes sense from a loyalty standpoint but sends a message to everyone who doesn't root for the Buffs that Colorado is not serious about returning to the national stage.  I don't think there are many teams that Colorado will beat this year and probably not next year or the year after that.


Game 7:  South Carolina at Georgia - Since the Spurrier era began at South Carolina, this game has typically been close but it has also typically been a game that Georgia has managed to win more often than not.  I don't see it this year.  This is not a slap against Boise State.  I really am starting to come to the opinion that if Boise State can run the tables this year, then they deserve their shot to play for a Championship.  How many times can we dismiss them?  However, even though Georgia is chocked full of talent, I just think the Richt era is coming to an end.  Richt beat Spurrier more often than not with superior talent.  Spurrier now has real talent to compete against the Bulldogs and now that Stephen "Badboy" Garcia is back under center, I think Georgia is about to get off to an 0-2 start.  


Game 8:  BYU at Texas.  I think I stared at this game longer than any other trying to make a pick.  For most of that time, I went with the Longhorns but at the last minute I have switched to BYU.  Week 2 is always a danger week.  It has a tendency to flip flop everything we thought we knew in Week 1.  What did Week 1 tell us?  Texas struggled against Rice but managed to put the pieces together and get a decent win out of the deal.  BYU faced Ole Miss, a team generally believed to be headed for the SEC West cellar and was barely able to pull out a win with some fourth quarter luck.  Sounds to me like Texas should win this game by at least a touchdown.  No surprise, it is what Vegas has them favored by.  However, I am picking the Mormans in this game.  Games like the Ole Miss game can help a team mature quickly.  Both Texas and BYU learned that they could face adversity and overcome it but BYU did it on a national stage against the big bad Southeastern Conference.  Last Saturday, boys became men.  Sometimes merely the belief that you can win is more important than the talent that it takes to get it done.  I think Texas' psyche is fragile.  It will only take a couple of bad breaks for the Texas players to get it in their head that it is 2010 all over again.  BYU might just be a little too good and a little too confident a little too early in Texas' schedule. 


Of course the elephant in the room is conference realignment.  I promise to write something soon.     

Annual SEC and More! Predictions

    Since I won't be around tomorrow, I thought it would be good to get the article out a day early today.  Some notes about these predictions.  First, I always try to take a historical perspective into my predictions.  I don't know how many times I have read a post script article to a predictions article stating "who could have predicted . . ."  Well, that's the point of predictions, predicting the things that most people can't and truthfully each year is full of "unpredictable" surprises.  If you just look at schedules and what you see on paper, you miss out on so much more.  There are psychological factors that always way in to a team's performance.  There are always teams that surprise you by doing far more than you thought they would accomplish and teams that fall flat for no readily apparent reason.  More than likely it will happen this year and the trick of course is predicting which of those teams will surprise us in both good and bad ways.  That being said.  Let's begin. 
 

     It's that time of year again for the Southeastern Conference predictions and some national predictions as well.  Even though this is the first time that the predictions are hitting the blogger website, the annual traditions have been going on now for the better part of a decade.  Predictions, of course, can be all over the board and mine usually are.  I have hit on some good ones through the years.  Most recently I predicted that Alabama would win the SEC West in 2008 but even that pailed to my best prediction which was made just prior to the 2003 season when I predicted that LSU would win the National Championship that year.  To put it in perspective, LSU started the season ranked #15 so it was anything but a given that they would be playing for a national championship.  Of course, to be fair, I did predict that they would be playing against Virginia Tech in that game.  Well the past is the past and now it's time to look to our very near future.
 

      First, when looking at the SEC you have to look at it as two conferences of "have's" and "have nots."  The old dynamics of the top powers being in the East, followed by a middling West and then followed again by some Eastern stragglers is no more.  For years, the balance between the East and the West was almost perfect.  During the years 2002-06 Eastern and Western games were split with the SEC Championship game being the tie breaker.  That all ended in In 2008 when power seemed to suddenly shift to the East in dramatic fashion.  This was Florida's power run where they were eating up opponents and it combined with Vandy's miracle season when they were ranked and even beat Auburn.  Based on that 2008 year, it seemed that the balance had gone so much to the East that it may take the West a few years to catch up.  A few years, as it turned out, was one season.  The West would get their revenge in the 2009 season by taking back the advantage and then in the 2010 season would deal the East a drubbing the likes of which had not been seen.  Three teams in the East, Florida, Kentucky, and Georgia didn't manage to beat one Western opponent.  SEC East Champion, South Carolina finished with a 1-3 record against Western opponents.  Whether the East can gain back some ground or whether we are seeing a very dominate West again remains to be seen.  One thing for me though is that it makes predicting the SEC East a very hard thing to do.  No longer can you just automatically pencil Florida in at the top and move Kentucky and Vandy to the bottom.  This year's East is set up to provide some odd surprises.  The recipe is right for an unknown to emerge and have their own miracle season.  Could it be a year that Kentucky sneaks in?  Could Tennessee shock all the pundits and be farther along than anyone thinks.  
 

       Hey, look.  The West is no picnic either.  For most of the last decade you could count on either LSU or Auburn being at the top but truthfully the West has always been a hard conference to predict.  The SEC West is similar to the NFL in that the differences in all six teams is so minimal that on more than one occassion the team predicted to win has finished at or near the bottom and the team predicted to finish last has won the division title.

       Okay, now that my caveats are out there, I guess it's time to put my butt on the line.  Let's go to the SEC East first.  I do think that the West will continue their domination this year.  There are too many question marks and not enough constants to make me believe that the East can get back to even with the SEC West.

The SEC East.
 

1.        SOUTH CAROLINA.  I don't feel really good about this prediction.  It certainly lines up with some of the national media's beliefs and we shall soon see if it agrees with the upcoming SEC media days.  On paper, South Carolina is poised to repeat and get to Atlanta.  Perenial power Florida is going through a coaching change and more importantly a coaching philosophy change.  That usually indicates a rough year.  The only other team that looks as good as South Carolina is Georgia and I just have a feeling that Richt's time at Georgia is quickly running out.  Richt is a good coach who always fails to capitalize during the times when a power vacuum is created.  Why should this year be any different?  What I like about South Carolina is Steve Spurrier's experience, their returning players, their new found experience at playing at a top level and the depth that they have gathered that was not there in years' past.  What I don't like about South Carolina.  Well,  . . . they're South Carolina and they are skilled at finding ways to lose when the pressure is on and of course how can you ignore the soap opera that is Stephen Garcia? 
 

2.        KENTUCKY.  Yes, I know, I should put down the drugs but it's really not the most outrageous thing that could happen.  Coach Joker Phillips made some good progress last season and definitely added to what former coach Rich Brooks did in pulling Kentucky out a mire of scandal and bottom level performance.  It's not so much that I think Kentucky is great this year but they have some advantages.  One, they didn't pull the worst SEC West schedule they could have gotten.  They face powerhouse LSU and then get both of the Mississippis.  State should be good this year but they won't be invincible.  They get Florida early in the season when the Gators are more likely to stumble.  It would only take one or two surprise victories to get Kentucky to the top of the SEC East. 
 

3.       FLORIDA.  This is a very talented football team.  It is from a pure talent perspective, the most talented Eastern conference team and right up there with Alabama and LSU in terms of talent on the field.  Florida's incoming coach, Will Muschamp, knows his stuff, knows defense, and is taking on defensive players probably more talented than the ones he left behind in Austin.  His offensive coordinator, Charlie Weis isn't exactly a star on the rise but he has proven time and again that he take good offensive talent and get the best out of them.  In theory, Florida could be at the top again this year.  I don't think that's going to happen this year and here's why.  Florida is making a fundamental change in their philosophy.  They are going from an offensive minded team to a defensive minded team.  This may seem like much 'ado about nothing but it usually affects a team's psychology.  Alabama made the switch in 1990.  In 1989, Alabama fielded a very powerful offense with a solid defense.  The philisophical switch in 1990 resulted in a team that was 10-3 in 1989 to a team that was 7-5 in 1990.  Once that switch was acheived though, Alabama went on to lose only one game in the next two years.  Florida, I believe, is in the same boat.  This will be a rocky year but I think Florida will be back to power by the 2012 season. 
 

4.      GEORGIA.  By all accounts, the Bulldogs should be the team that is going to represent the SEC East this year.  They still have more talent than SEC East defending champion South Carolina.  They have a slew of returning talent and they pull the easiest possible schedule of Western opponents.  All this should equate to an SEC East title run but again, Richt's Georgia teams of late have a talent of proverbially fumbling at the one yard line.  If Richt can't capitalize, then I think he is in his last year of coaching between the hedges.  Georgia is one of the original big three of the SEC, (Alabama and Tennessee being the other two).  The last time Georgia won a national championship was over thirty years ago.  Meanwhile, Alabama has won two, Tennessee has won one, upstart Florida has won three, LSU has won two and Auburn has won one.  Georgia fans are abnormally patient fans considering that Georgia is traditional SEC royalty but even their patience has to be wearing thin as they watch South Carolina emerge and Florida rebuild.  I think if Georgia stumbles in its September 10th matchup with the Gamecocks, Georgia will not recover. 
 

5.       TENNESSEE.  The Vols may be farther along than everyone is giving them credit for.  Dooley has had an uphill climb ever since accepting the job but he knew what he was getting into.  I wouldn't be surprised if Tennessee is a surprise this year and has a respectable season but they are struggling in the talent area, the NCAA is sniffing around which provides nothing but distractions and worst of all, they face this year's Big Three in the SEC West for their western opponents, (Alabama, Arkansas, LSU).  None of this can be good.  It's gotten so bad that even Vanderbilt believes that they can take on the struggling Volunteers for control of the state.  A fifth rank place for the Vols might just be generous.
 

6.       VANDERBILT.  Former head coach Bobby Johnson took Vandy to heights they had not seen in decades and just when the 'Dores could start to get a little excited about the future, he was gone but not for a well deserved job at a bigger football program.  No, Johnson dusted off his boots and headed into the sunset for retirement.  No real good reason was given.  After one year, Johnson's assistant, Robbie Caldwell was forced out and in comes James Franklin.  This seemed to be a bizarre coaching move.  Franklin was all set to become Maryland's head coach.  He would have taken over a program that could have competed for ACC Championships in a BCS conference.  Was it simply impatience that made him take a job that even Auburn's offensive coordinator, Gus Malzahn was smart enough to turn down?  To give credit, Franklin's a good coach and so far, he is showing that he is a great recruiter but Vandy is unlike any other school in the SEC.  Good coaches have come and they all go.  It is the graveyard of coaches who thought their star was on the rise.  It's possible that Vandy could have some success under Franklin and it may even come this year but Franklin's coaching abilities are going to be hard pressed to overcome that every other SEC team he plays will be bigger, stronger, and faster than his.  Also, it's not like these other SEC coaches are hacks.  SEC coaches are literally a star studded batch of greatness.  

The SEC West.
 

1.      ALABAMA.  This year it seems like a no brainer but then again, it seemed like a no brainer last year when I predicted a first place finish for the Tide in the SEC West.  Alabama's biggest issue going into the season is replacing the Big Three.  Gone are Heisman winner Mark Ingram, stud receiver, Julio Jones, and veteran, almost mistake free quarterback, Greg McElroy.  Still though, Alabama is finally hitting their stride when it comes to the old stock phrase, "they don't replace, they reload."  Alabama will most likely start off the season using a two quarterback tandem and continue the ever lengthening starting job competition through much of September.  Trent Richardson replaces Mark Ingram at running back and Alabama has quite a few go to guys at receiver even with Jones gone.  More importantly, the weak link with last year's Tide team, the defensive secondary, now have another year under their belt and showed a lot of promise last year.  I wouldn't be surprised to see the Tide get to the national title game.
 

2.       LSU.  I debated between LSU and Arkansas.  A lot of people are calling Arkansas a dark horse team to win the SEC this year and certainly I think it's possible but more to that at #3.  As for LSU, I think Miles is finally starting to find himself and his identity at LSU.  Last year's victory over Nick Saban's Tide definitely helped him emerge from Saban's shadows, probably more than he did when he won the 2007 National Championship.  LSU fields one of the most talented teams in the nation.  This year, LSU finds themselves with the pieces in place to make not only an SEC West run but possibly a run at the national title game.  Look to the November 5th matchup of LSU at Alabama to decide the SEC West. 
 

3.     ARKANSAS.  Arkansas seems to be everyone's darling to win the SEC West this year.  I'm not buying it.  I think Bobby Petrino is an excellent coach and an offensive wizard.  I think he is amassing talent that can make a serious run but I'm not sure that talent is quite there yet.  Quarterback Tyler Wilson may be a quarterback that is better than last year's Hogs' qb Ryan Mallet.  What bothers me about Arkansas is that everyone is touting Arkansas' strength as their veteran receivers.  They are veterans and they are talented but last year they continually dropped wide open passes putting the Hogs in a bad position.  If they had managed to hang on to the passes last year, I think there is a good chance that Arkansas could have won the SEC West.  Greg Childs is an exception but it isn't going to take good defensive coordinators long to figure out that they should double team Childs and take their chances with the spotty receivers left.  Meanwhile, Arkansas has to travel to Baton Rouge and Tuscaloosa to face the other two SEC West powerhouses.
 

4.       AUBURN.  What are you thinking?  How can I put the defending national champions down to fourth on the SEC West depth chart.  This seems almost unprecendented.  Well it's not.  If you want a prior example you have to travel far into the dark depths of SEC history.  You have to travel all the way back to  . . . last year.  Defending champion Alabama finished 4th in the SEC West.  Sounds bad but they were 10-3 and only a few points removed from playing in the title game again.  I think Auburn is going to be lucky to get to 10-3.  They have the coaches and they are getting the talent but one thing we have learned about spread offenses is that they really struggle to replace a great qb.  You only have to go to last year and look at Texas and Florida to see how true that is.  I once thought that Tim Tebow was the best college football player I had ever seen in my adult lifetime.  Now, I wonder if he isn't #2 to Cam Newton.  Disassociate all the possible scandal and the real crime is that we were all robbed of watching Newton play for more years at the college level.  I'm sure Auburn wishes he had gone to Auburn to begin with and I'm sure Meyer had some second thoughts about not keeping him in Gainesville as he watched the wheels come off the Florida bus last year.  Auburn doesn't just lose Newton.  They lose a wealth of experience at the top and they lose key members of a great defense.  Last year, Auburn benefitted from winning a lot of really tight games.  I think they will be lucky to get into tight games with some of the teams they are playing.  I think what we will see is that Auburn will lay the groundwork for a possibly title run in 2012 assuming they can get Malzahn to stay one more year.  
 

5.      MISSISSIPPI STATE.  Ahh State.  Here is a team that is making a lot of headway in the SEC West.  If there is really a possible Cinderella lurking in the SEC West, stay out of Arkansas and go to Starkville.  They get better every year under Dan Mullins but I just don't think State is ready for the big time just yet.  There is still at least another year of ground that State needs to make up to catch up with the powers that be in the SEC West.  

6.      OLE MISS.  This isn't a bad Ole Miss team.  Houston Nutt's team of last year was in a worse position.  I could see the Rebels, (Bears, Toddies or whatever they call themselves now), beating all three of their Eastern opponents and still finish sixth in the SEC West.  The problem is someone has to be at the bottom and Ole Miss is the likely team to be there.  Nutt's a good coach but not a great coach and he will be facing more talented coaches with more talented teams on his SEC schedule.  Nutt's savvy though, who knows?  Maybe he will leave Ole Miss midseason for a different team.  He probably has agent, Jimmy Sexton placing phone calls as I write this article.

SEC Championship Game.

Alabama over South Carolina. 

AND NOW FOR THE EXTRA.

      This is the part where I like to make some national predictions.

     FSU.   I really like FSU this year.  If FSU can beat Oklahoma this year, (and I think they will), FSU could be on their way to an ACC championship and a possible national title birth.  Last year, FSU played Oklahoma and Miami played Ohio State and it was apparent that both teams still had a ways to go to be of any national significance again.  This year I think the 'Noles and 'Canes will win those games and that we are seeing a reemergence of the early 1990s when the Big Three Florida schools ruled the Nation. 

     TEXAS.  Supposedly it was an anomaly.  Last year's UT team was a bad year in the middle of the great ones but I have seen this before.  I think Texas is down and possibly out.  Muschamp's defection may have spoken volumes.  I think the Oklahoma-Texas series will switch yet again to Oklahoma and it may be a few years before Texas gets back to prominence, (with or without Mack Brown).

     MICHIGAN.  Just like the Texas-Oklahoma series, Michigan-Ohio State tends to go in streaks.  I think Michigan wins this year and doesn't let go of this series for quite a few years.

    RICHT.  It's Richt's last year at Georgia.  Look for someone else to be coaching the Dawgs come next September.  He's a good coach but Georgia deserves great.

    NOTRE DAME.  We will see more improvement this year but they are still at least a year away from anything significant.  Of course there is that old rule that any coach at Notre Dame who hasn't won a championship in their second year never wins a championship. 

     WISCONSIN.  I think Wisconsin will win the Big Ten this year.  No, it's no real stretch to write that out.

The Offseason of Our Discontent

       It seems like ages ago when Auburn faced Oregon in the BCS National Championship game but oh what a difference seven months can make.  First, let's go back to that January.  The 2010 season had already had its share of bizarre moments.  Of course there was the Cam Newton soap opera.  Was he paid for, was he not paid for?  Though many people thought by now Auburn would be in the middle of a huge scandal of their own, so far with the exception of one lunatic Alabama fan from Dadeville, it's been all quiet on the Plains of Auburn.  We were all on RichRod death watch alert.  RichRod's failed experiment at Michigan was mercifully coming to an end and even before the final axe fell, the folks in Ann Arbor were clammoring for Jim Harbaugh.  In a much more feel good ending, the great Southeastern conference, offensive architect Urban Meyer was stepping down from being the head ball coach in Gainesville to be with his family.  If Meyer doesn't coach another day in his life, he has already secured his place in college football's prestigious Hall of Fame.  Sure, it wasn't a picture perfect college football world back in the cold month of January but compared to today, it was as idyllic as the Knute Rockne "Win one for the Gipper" speech.
 

         Part of this spring and summer's college football collapse had already begun last January.  Controversy was already stirring when Ohio State's tatoo'd tainted football players were cleared to play against Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl in a deferred deal of punishment that was to be carried into the next season.  Back then the controversy was only around whether those players would stick around to serve their punishment and how the NCAA could justify their seemingly quick, save the cash cow decision.  As it turns out, those questions didn't even make it near the iceberg much less constitute the tip.  Then with an email, a decade long dynasty came crumbling down.  I think I was less surprised with the sudden break up of the old Soviet Union.  For years we were told that Jim Tressel was one of the good guys.  He was the midwestern antithesis of the stereotypical, corrupt Southern coach who would do anything to win.  Tressel represented proof positive that nice guys could finish first, that if you did the right things, and ran things the right way that success could come.  But with one email, all that good press came tumbling down.  Of course, on the surface, Tressel committed the cardinal politician's sin.  He took a minor scandal, a small NCAA bump and he covered it up.  Tressel also committed another unforgivable sin, he fooled us.  He fooled college football fans and in some ways, more importantly, he fooled the college football press.  Tressel was like the old fashioned medicine man selling his made up potions to any rube on the road and the press bought what he was selling.  How mad were the press?  I have frequently read on more than one occassion, the phrase, "he will most likely never coach again."  I wonder if this is attempted prescient prophecy or wishful thinking.  There will always be some small school out there willing to take a great risk for the hope of success.  Further, sometimes those kinds of risks payoff, see George O'Leary and UCF.  It was the press that flayed O'Leary alive and its the press that is touting O Leary's success at UCF.  Why?  Because it's a known fact that we Americans love to build up heroes, tear them down and then see if they can rise back up from the ashes.
 

        But I digress.  It seemed that before we could even fully digest the Tressel scandal we were hit with another scandal that might or might not be as big as the one taking place in Ohio.  In another O state, it appears that another dynasty may be coming to an end before it could even begin.  In Oregon, Chip Kelly is under fire for what appears to be a major scandal in the making.  Will Lyles was supposedly hired as a recruiting consultant.  He received a $25,000.00 fee.  Oregon, when forced to produce the report that Lyles gave to Kelly's Ducks, the report was full of outdated information that a devoted fan could have probably pulled off any recruiting website.  Suspicion was out there but really there was no proof. . . until July 1st, when Yahoo! Sports broke a story on their website that was based on an interview with Lyles.  According to Lyles, the $25,000.00 payment wasn't for the outdated scouting report, (no real surprise there) but was actually for "access and influence" over recruits.  The report was generated after the fact when Kelly asked Lyles to send him a retroactive recruiting report presumably for no other reason than to cover up the real purpose of the money, (okay, no real surprise there either other than the surprise of having Lyles actually admit it).  It seems that cover ups are becoming harder and harder to accomplish these days.  Apparently, I am not the only one who thinks so.  CNNSI Andy Staples was so moved by the latest dose of imcompetence to write a lengthy article entitled Cheating for Dummies.
 

      Honestly with an offseason this hot, it's almost hard to believe that the actual season can compare but the truth is that no matter how good (or bad) the scandals are, nothing can compare to the greatest sport on earth.  College football has a magic to it and no matter how badly it gets tainted, the game still manages to rise above.  Let's hope that keeps happening lest it devolves into something so utterly devoid of fun like baseball.