losing ideals.

park that car
drop that phone
sleep on the floor
dream about me!!!

park that car
drop that phone
sleep on the floor
dream about me!!!


part 1: park that car. [pertubation]

we are the APEX of the construct of college football, and i encourage all of you to be a part of it.

WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN????

it means the system is breaking. it means that we're rapidly going down a path where the dam is bursting; where the bowl system fails us and where we don't know how to discern truth from fiction. and it will happen sometime, mainly because it already has.

only a few weeks ago, i vigorously defended a bowl system that i shouldn't have believed in just for the sake of continuity. tradition is tradition, or so my mind said.

NEVER MIND THAT I THINK TRADITION IS PART OF THE REASON WHY SOCIETY DOESN'T PROGRESS. THROW THAT OUT THE WINDOW.

every season has problems. let's get that out of the way first. the idea of an undefeated auburn being completely dismissed in the polls is disconcerting to anyone who saw a team with three NFL stars in its backfield. jason campbell, ronnie brown, and cadillac williams somehow had the keys to understanding in a non-trivial way.


and we should have known that this was a problem when oklahoma played lsu in a usc-free title game. alternatively, john navarre and chris perry were outclassed, which was quite the surprise to anyone who loosely associated themselves with big 10 intensity.

the point is that this scene has played out before, and so the fact that i didn't recognize that the dam would burst was unfortunate. that falls on me.

what is not trivial is the fact that, hey, this year is the worst year of all. it's the worst year for many reasons: one is that we don't believe that the undefeated teams are the best teams. normally we do. last season, we all believed that ohio state was the best team up until the bcs championship game, while this year, we don't have that belief. nobody believes in kansas, and we loosely believe (at least i loosely believe) that oklahoma, lsu, and maybe oregon are the best teams.

it's bad in another way. there's no way to differentiate the teams. in past years, you couldn't take too much issue with the way ohio state scheduled, and next year, when osu goes to play at usc, we'll be ok with the scheduling once again. but kansas and osu have had yucky out-of-conference affairs, arizona state beat colorado (whatever the hell that means) and we're left trying to differentiate between a bunch of flawed one-loss teams.

part 2: drop that phone [plush reality]

i tell you now why they're flawed. loosely, missouri is flawed because it got sort of exposed at oklahoma. west virginia is flawed because, if you believe that pat white is going to the nfl as a premium qb, you're in the minority. steve slaton has been gameplanned to perfection, and this concludes the proof.

oklahoma is flawed. their performance against iowa state exposed the fact that the offense has paul thompson, who is not a premium guy, leading the way. and lsu fans, take note: your guy isn't a premium guy either. the day i have matt flynn lead me to the kwan is the day jason white makes it in the nfl. i too watched the lsu game, and i was at the kentucky affair, and i know that he's not a good quarterback. for anyone who has doubts about this fact, i refer you to one of the five or six little touch passes that he's missed during the year, which are plays that most guys in high school make on a regular basis.

so destiny shines solely on the oregon ducks, a team with a premium qb, a loosely acceptable defense, and a socially unacceptable uniform.

i'm ok with that. ohio state has todd beckman, and we're gonna ride him to the bcs championship ***cough*** rose bowl ***end cough*** because we're gonna ride the table right through ann arbor.


i want to say that this year, the problem isn't the setup or the bcs, rather it's that nobody deserves to be national champion. it wouldn't be unprecedented: in 1990, colorado won an arbitrary title/shared it with georgia tech, despite the fact that they had one loss, should have had two, and didn't strike fear in the hearts of anyone. but they did beat nebraska.

part 3: sleep on the floor [repelling the revenant]

let me loosely outline the thoughts going on in bobby bowden's mind in a quick stream-of-consciousness affair: "we've gotta good chance to win this ol' ballgame, man, i don't care how bad drew is he'll be good enough. i've been in a hundred of these games before and i know that i'm a better coach than that guy up there 52 weeks of the year. we're gonna play some defense cause i saw how frank did it last week and we can do the same thing and it'll work. i'll blitz matt ryan and he'll throw some picks and the weather will be terrible and that'll play into our hands. i'm still a good coach."

and so it came to pass. b.c. lost last saturday night, and since the big 12 will take care of itself, we loosely have to see whether or not lsu will lose to either arkansas or the sec east champ to really avoid the controversies that will ensue this year.

danger has been averted in some vein, but we're still no closer to absolution.


part 4. dream about me. [the search for truth. (the truth is out there)]

first, i outline the five most likely bcs scenarios.


1) osu wins out, plays lsu, who wins out.


undesirable, but you have to take into account a few things: one is that osu's defense would most certainly smoke kansas, and you'd have to think that osu might have an edge on missouri. so we have to justify oklahoma over lsu at this point, but we can't really justify oklahoma over oregon.

lsu gets the nod for a couple reasons: one is that they would, at this point, have defeated florida, south carolina, alabama, virginia tech, auburn, arkansas, and maybe georgia, which seems like a ridiculous idea.

2) osu loses, oregon plays lsu.

the most desirable matchup, aesthetically, because i don't think anyone believe that oregon does not deserve a shot at this.

3) osu wins, lsu loses, oregon v. osu.

aesthetically pleasing, but could be damaging because if osu loses, the conference's credibility will be on the ropes.


4) osu wins, lsu loses, kansas wins out and jumps oregon.

yuck. now kansas identifies themselves as the apex, and plays in the title game.

5) osu loses, lsu loses, oregon v. big 12 champ.


also yucky, because if the big 12 champ turns out to be oklahoma/missouri, it's likely that wvu has a legitimate gripe.

what if we were to seed the teams one through eight? i'll outline that as well, just for kicks.

1. ohio state vs. 8. missouri
2. lsu vs. 7. kansas
3. oregon vs. 6. boston college
4. oklahoma vs. 5. west virginia

the problem is obvious: doesn't arizona state have at least as much of a gripe as missouri? doesn't georgia have a complaint as some point? what have we learned? is georgia's gripe less significant than oregon's? where is hawaii in this framework?

let me dare to ask a rhetorical question: is it possible that the dam could burst on the playoff system as well? what about a scenario where we take the top four? how do we choose!?!?!?!?! is oklahoma's claim any better (objectively) than west virginia's? loosely speaking, they're pretty similar teams: oklahoma smoked miami, wvu smoked rutgers and mississippi state, and we don't know whether or not south florida at home is better or worse than colorado on the road. how do we objectively differentiate between the two?

or, if i want to stir the pot, i could point at louisville's two one-loss seasons where they got snubbed from the bcs, and i would successfully argue that they would have been snubbed from this playoff 'jawn' as well. and, if i really wanted to stir it, last year's boise state team wouldn't have been included in a playoff system either. lol!!!!!!

it appears that i have come full circle- let me now hit you with a 'spiral of truth.' the reality is that there is no perfect answer. you cry for oregon, i'll cry for georgia, and we'll go out to a bright eyes concert together.

the gamble.

what did eric wedge do on saturday night?

if you answered anything other than "he watched lsu play florida," you're dead wrong.

so if the indians win the world series, credit wedge for his management of the game last night.

this type of low probability gamble was not without precedent. consider, for example, les miles deciding that, what the hell, fourth and one when the team's down by three late in the fourth is worth it. we're trying to win the whole damn thing. so wedge took the same type of risk: what the hell, if we lose tonight, we're likely toast, but we're trying to win the whole damn thing.

knowing full well that if sabathia and carmona didn't get the opportunity to start four of the seven games in the red sox series, the indians were in real trouble (jake westbrook in game 2 = yuck) wedge took a gamble that paul byrd could win. the two gambles are eerily similar in their probability of success (eg, everyone in yankee stadium thought byrd would be shelled, just as everyone in tiger stadium knew it would be inches between destiny and being demoralized) and the guts it would have taken to do it.

of course, it was a huge risk. byrd doesn't have any stuff, and the yankees are the closest thing to murderer's row that we have in the game today. chide that last comment if you want, but a-rod has had a historically great season; jeter and posada have been fantastic, cano was good, abreu is borderline great (but only borderline) and johnny damon is an underrated star. so needless to say, throwing paul byrd out there could have (and probably should have) not worked.


but a funny thing happened along the way: the indians lit up chien-ming wang in the first. they lit him up so badly that the yankees had to put mussina in to stop the bleeding, and then the indians started to believe that it was possible. more runs were scored, and byrd held the dam for five innings. like a coach stealing minutes for a foul-ridden superstar, wedge used game four to steal innings for sabathia and carmona, knowing that if it worked, the indians could set their rotation for the red sox series in a way that would optimize their chances of winning.

and byrd held them off long enough to get to perez. part of the reason was two a-rod k's, to be sure, but jeter didn't help matters with the double plays. once perez came in, the yankees had concerns. once betancourt came in, it was certainly something close to lights out.

so, given a score of 6-3, wedge decided to really roll the dice. knowing that borowski would be essentially worthless if wedge decided to keep betancourt (the better pitcher) out there, wedge took betancourt out and put in borowskit. let me spell out the intuition: if we can build borowski's confidence now, where the payoff is high and the situation isn't so dire, maybe he can close in the world series or the LCS. and we will burn out perez and betancourt at a four-innings pace, so he has to pitch.

and so borowski was brought in, because sometimes you have to roll the dice. and he gave up the home run to abreu, but he somehow got three outs and now we're headed for one of the best LCS's in years.

if we're going to give managers hell for outrageous rationales (such as firing joe torre- how is it his fault that his starting pitching sucked??? i'll never know the answer to that one.) then we should at least give credit for the gambles that worked. and kudos to paul byrd and the tribe.

and, as i've learned the whole season, we must never give up the faith.