Congratulations to the Boston College Eagles, who at 8:29PM CT became the first undefeated team in college football. Would one of my knowledgeable readers please, please tell me what the hell the idea behind the "Swinging Gate" is?
Awwwwwwwwwww, shiiit. It's time for some Friday Night Lites, bitches! As I qualify in my intro, I've been battling the cold this week, so I've been on a strict regimen of cold medicine, NyQuil, sleep depravation, and good old germ-killing booze. Suffice to say, my voice is all over the map, especially since some of these segments were recorded on different days with varying degrees of sinus infection.
But no worries, because this is the bombest Friday Night Lites ever. The man, the myth, the legend, Orson Freaking Swindle from EDSBS is in the house shooting the breeze about Notre Dame - Georgia Tech, tailgating, and his bizarre personal fetishes. And to top it off, Jay from Blue-Gray Sky phones in and we talk about some seroius Irish football.
Also, you might notice the new segment on the show: The Lightning Round. Seven questions in rapid succession while Zombie Nation plays in the background. Both of my guests fared admirably, but left some room for improvement. The updated leaderboard:
So, apparently, there is more than one college football game being played this Saturday. I discovered this recently and was a bit shocked, particularly since I hardly had any time to prepare for this. Since I will be in Atlanta drinking, tailgating, and trying hard to pry my eyes away from the train wreck that will be Orson Swindle break-dancing in his Dungeons & Dragons costume, there's a pretty good chance I'll miss out on too much live action for the rest of the league. Ergo, I will be setting up the DVR at home to grab the tastiest morsels of football so they will be waiting for me when I come home, allowing me to spend Labor Day surveying the competition, replacing lost bodily fluids, and booking travel for my appearances in Atlanta Municipal Court for weekend-related shennanigans. So here's my schedule, and how the game is being pitched to me:
Vanderbilt at Michigan. One of the more curious and novel games of this kickoff weekend. While most big-time teams scurried around and found sickly programs with one or more direction in their name for their league-mandated 12th game, Michigan picked up Vandy, which makes me think about a senior prom where the leggy blonde who got dumped by her date strolls over to the punch bowl and asks the most-pimplefaced nerd in the circle of nerds for the last dance. To extend the analogy to its natural absurd extreme, Vandy's chances of winning might be about the same as the dork scoring with Molly Ringwald, but god knows we'll all be cheering him on.
On a more serious note, it's cool to see a Big 10-SEC showdown this early in the year, and while Jay Cutler is currently tearing apart preseason NFL defenses, Vandy is a spunky team that plays with enough gumption to keep this possibly interesting for a few quarters.
The Pitch: Down-on-its luck powerhouse invites a nerdy whipping boy from the south to play. I smell a reality series!
The Pitch: Another thrilling chapter in the eternal war between zombies and kangaroos. This time, it's personal.
The Pitch: Watch for a fierce mascot battle on the sidelines, as Dooger, the drug-addled peacenik and Junior and Lulu, the moonshine-swilling hillbillies carry the torch for one of the sport's greatest traditions.
The Pitch: Will the corn-fed frontrunners from Oklahoma start their title run, or are they setting themselves up for a Bomarring?
The Pitch: Hogs' Nutt, on the strength of Dick & Johnson, blast through Trojans and ravage Booty!
The Pitch: Jesus loves you, it's all explained in this pamphlet
The Pitch: The centuries-old blood feud between Alabama and rural Washington will finally be settled on the field!
The Pitch: First one to ten points wins!.
Well, the great Hurricane Ernetso scare seems to have come to a conclusion, as the latest word is that it has lost its power and will seen be heading out to sea. Ernesto is no longer a hurricane, but a Tropical Depression, which means instead of roaring across costal areas and unleashing watery hell on levees and dykes, it will be mostly bumming out with iPod headphones in its ears, gently bobbing its head to the anguished sounds of Morrissey and The Smiths.
Having grown up in Denver and spending my adulthood years in South Bend and Chicago, I'm what you would call a dyed-in-the-wool landlubber. Ernesto was the first time my personal life was ever directly threatened by a hurricane, and I'm thankful that things turned out well. I'm so thankful, in fact, that I made a shirt to commemorate the event, and I invite you Midwesterners to join in and celebrate:
Where have I been today? Knocked on my ass by this charming little fellow on your right here, the common cold virus. I've been jacked up on cold medicine all day, had a few beers after work, and just downed a double dose of NyQuil, so apologies if I begin to sound like Marco tonight. I'll try to keep my rambling brief and topical. The plan is to rock myself with a wide variety of drugs so that I will be a functional human being when I hop on the plane for Atlanta.
So I swung by Sports Bloggers Live today and chatted with the fellas over there about Notre Dame and the upcoming season (they bumped Bob Costas so they could talk to me). Okay, so Costas is coming on next week, so that might be a bit of an exaggeration.
Anyway, it's a quick five minute piece with your standard questions about Notre Dame. Hopefully I represented the Notre Dame fanbase well. You can link up the podcast via iTunes here (I'm guessing it'll go online later tonight), or you can wait around and listen to it on the SBL site, if you're so inclined. My biggest beef? They were interviewing me as part of their "Non-BCS school preview", while, you know, Notre Dame is a charter member of the BCS.
UPDATE: You can go directly to the audio from my interview by clicking here.
Yeah fucking right. Like I'm going to watch this travesty again.
The opening day depth chart has just been made public. Pretty interesting stuff. Freshman phenom Sam Young is your starting Right Tackle, Gioa is kicking field goals, Renkes is doing kickoffs. Mitchell Thomas won out the CLJLB spot. Ronald Talley starting at DE. A proper amount of obsessive-compulsiveness will be posted tomorrow. Must sleep now.
The second episode is alive, hallelujah! I'm getting a bit swifter at the technological aspect, so I think you'll see a bit more candidness in the interviews. This week's esteemed guests are Nathan from Golden Tornado and the Irish Outsider from Fire Mark May. Still undecided on if you should listen? Well, here are some of the highlights:
Cervezas for everyone! The House Rock Built has hit another milestone in our brief yet fairly successful existence, as the odometer rolled over 200,000 hits. Since firing up this bad boy midseason last year, it has been nothing but fun watching this humble blog gradually gain popularity. We've had some laughs, we've shed some tears, Maurice Clarett almost shot a bunch of people, and the college football world moves on. I hope you readers have had half as much fun viewing this as I have had making it. Here's to another great year of football!
Our 200,000th visitor punched in this afternoon on his or her own volition (that is to say, he or she didn't get redirected her while doing a Google image search for pornography), and spent an amazing 17 minutes checking out the digs, undoubtedly to the vexation of his or her boss. Thanks for risking your job to spend the afternoon with us to help reach this milestone. If you happen to come back, please send an e-mail to the HRB (see the e-mail link on the bottom of the page) so we can thank you properly. Please also include your favorite brand of miniature liquor bottle (like the ones you find in the hotel mini-bar) in your e-mail.
I'm putting the finishing touches on the latest podcast, so that should be up soon for your enjoyment.
Sorry for not posting, I've been indisposed at work. Friday Night Lites episode two is going into the can tonight for your edification. Nathan from Golden Tornado will check in, the Irish Outsider from Fire Mark May will stop by, and maybe some mystery guests. Also, a couple of posts are going up tonight to make up for today's blackout.
-amish
So CSTV has overhauled their All-Access technology into a snazzy new, state-of-the-art online media player. Kudos to them, drinks are on Trev Alberts tonight.
Oh, as a side note, if you're a Macintosh user, help yourself to a comlimentary kick in the groin from big Trev. But hey, don't worry. All you have to do is throw away your current Mac and toss down a couple grand for a new Intel Mac, then run a beta version of virtual Windows and reboot your computer to get that free streaming media.
A hearty thanks to all the bloggers who took a moment to answer the first roundtable question for the new season. As my duty for for hosting round one, I sifted through your responses and put together this highlight reel. Brian wanted the roundtable to focus on how to improve the blogpoll, and I think there's a good deal of input on that. Also, there's a lot of fun namecalling and Quantum Leap scenarios which, while less substantive, are very salacious and worthy of some airplay here. So here goes:
1. What's the biggest ripoff in this preseason poll? Either pick a team that's offensively over or underrated, or you can rag on a particular voter's bad pick (hey, we're all adults here, we can handle it).
Thanks for opsitng that picture of the Bush push. If you're looking for me, check the bottom of a bottle of gin.
Let that serve as a warning to you all.
The pitchforks are out for the two clowns who thought it would be cool to vote for Duke. Let's kick their asses.
Hide your couches, my friend.
2. What shold a preseason poll measure? Specifically, should it be a predictor of end-of-season standing (meaning that a team's schedule should be taken into account when determining a ranking), or should it merely be a barometer of talent/hype/expectations?
My #1 team is Texas. I think they would have the best shot to beat each team ranked under them at least 51% of the time. My #2 is USC, etc., etc. And, as always, I'm right. So you should pattern your own poll after mine...I'm joking...mostly. - imarealist
I'd propose the following measure for preseason polling:Math? Logic? Formulas? He's a witch, burn him!
3. What is your biggest stretch in your preseason ballot? That is to say, which team has the best chance of making you look like an idiot for overrating them?
Did I mention that I put Cal #1? While I'm still not wild about the Bears on top, I haven't yet found an overwhelming choice to replace them. As a result of this wide-openness, I'm as excited for this season as any in recent memory. -offtackleJust as we all suspected. Thanks to BFT for that very, um, honest and excessively informative response.
4. What do you see as the biggest flaw in the polling system (both wire service and blogpolling)? Is polling an integral part of the great game of college football, or is it an outdated system that needs to be replaced? If you say the latter, enlighten us with your new plan.
Now that's a pretty solid idea. Call it the "Spurrier Award" for abjectly punishing teams based on petty prejudices. What say you, Brian?
Whoa, Nellie. Fuhgettaboutit. That's way beyond my mental ability. Shit, I have trouble economizing my "recruiting points" in NCAA 2007 (which is why I have 20 five star lineman and a walkon at quarterback).
5. You're Scott Bakula, and you have the opportunity to "Quantum Leap" back in time and change any single moment in your team's history. It can be a play on the field, a hiring decision, or your school's founders deciding to build the campus in Northern Indiana, of all godforsaken places. What do you do?
Major Harris screwing up his hip in the '89 Fiesta Bowl. That was a really good team, but without Major at 100%, it was hard to watch. ND was pretty good too. -mountainlairCongratulations, Hey Jenny Slater, you are the winner of the funniest remark in this roundtable. Think about a naked Arnold Schwarzenegger materializing in the Spurrier household armed with his trusty box of rubbers. Come with me if you want to live.
Ah, treasured memories. That snapping of bone sounded like sweet music to me.
Was there a game that day? All the intelligent football fans were watching the Chicken Soup Bowl
You. Son. Of a Bitch.
It's important to know your enemy well, and in the interest of gathering data and extending an olive branch across the blogosphere, I reached out to Jeff from Ramblin Racket and Nathan from Golden Tornado to shoot the shit about Georgia Tech and learn a little bit more about our pocket protector-wearing bretheren from Ted Turnerville. Both of them amazed me by shooting back well-thought and candid responses within hours of me sending them the e-mail. Hopefully you'll find some enlightening information to get you prepared for the tilt at Bobby Dodd in a few weeks. Again, guys, thanks a lot for being so prompt, insightful, and candid. It's going to make it that much harder for me to gloat when we wipe the field with your sorry asses {insert winking emoticon}. Enjoy!
Thanks for coming out guys. Well, first thing's first. Who the hell are you, and why blogging?
So who is your mortal enemy?Jeff: I was born and raised a Tech Man, as four of my uncles (three on one side, one on the other), my sister, her husband and my cousin all attended GT before me. I started blogging early this summer partly to avoid going crazy over the off-season, but mainly to add another GT voice to the Internet. Also, I wanted an outlet to vent my opinions about Tech athletics, traditions, etc.
Nathan: My name is Nathan – and I was a student at Georgia Tech in the late ‘90’s watching little Joe throw the pigskin around. I took up blogging because I was driving my wife nuts ranting about sports around the house.
Jeff: Like most Yellow Jackets, I have a very strong dislike for the Georgia Bulldogs. One of the frustrating things about being a Georgia Tech fan is that Atlanta is not a “Tech town.” Being in the cultural and economic hub of the Southeast, most college football fans move here with existing allegiances, many of them from Athens. Therefore, you see more of the rival’s crap in the home team’s town than you would for nearly any other rivalry (excluding intra-city rivalries).
Nathan: Mortal enemy? Mostly anyone wearing a red hat with a G on the front.
Nathan: This is the most talented team Gailey has had, and there’s a depth and experience level we have not had in several years. The problem for years has been an inability to get those big horses on the lines in enough numbers to really compete, but both the o-line (and especially) the d-line are very, very good going into this season. As a matter of fact, you could make a pretty solid case for GT’s d-line being the best that ND will face all season, especially at the tackles. With a senior QB, a solid o-line and running backs, one of the 3-4 best players in all of college football at WR and a front 7 that is athletic, experienced and extremely well coached … this team should win 8-9 games.
Jeff: As you said, there is no reason based on history to expect anything more or less than seven wins from a Chan Gailey-coached Georgia Tech team. I do expect more from Tech this year, though. We’re not yet a week into preseason practice and nearly every starter is set (excluding one CB, TE, and RG). This is an experienced team with vocal leadership on both offense and defense.
The specific change I expect in results this year is the lack of an inexplicable loss. Obviously games like ND, Miami, and Georgia are not guaranteed wins, but this team should not lose a UNC/Duke-type game. Given that the Jackets usually pull at least one major “upset,” I expect no less than nine wins.
Tell me something about Reggie Ball that I haven't heard a million times by the talking heads (i.e., don't use the word “inconsistent”). It seems like the media has already written him off as talented yet ultimately frustratingly mediocre. Should we believe everything we hear about him or is there another side of the story that we need to hear?Nathan: I honestly don’t think Reggie is as “talented” as some people keep saying. He’s enormously competitive and he’s athletic, but he’s also short and clearly struggles to read defense schemes at times. He’s somewhat erratic as a thrower, though he has a strong arm. All in all, I think a lot of people’s expectations for Reggie over his career haven’t meshed with his talent (i.e – too much expected). I don’t know if I’d use the word inconsistent, I think he’s been very consistent (consistently mediocre). Reggie reminds me a lot of Penn State’s Michael Robinson, a fiery competitor who really struggled to play QB effectively. Of course Robinson had a huge senior season, I’m hoping Reggie can end his career playing well.
Jeff: I would say, yes believe everything you hear. Because the pundits always say “unless…” and it’s those ‘unless’es that will make or break the season. Word out of preseason practice reports is Reggie has matured. He is zipping out accurate passes, and (more importantly) is going through his progression and throwing to 2nd, 3rd, and 4th options. Reggie will never be an NFL talent, but a few extra completions and Tech can progress. Without those extras, there is no “other side of the story.”
Jeff: What makes Calvin incredible is how many improbable catches he makes. The most notable was his “Spider-Man” catch against NC State in ’04. A ball was thrown 3-4 feet behind CJ’s route, but Johnson stopped on a dime and reached way behind himself for the ball.
Nathan: He doesn’t return kicks, he won’t win the Heisman – it’s as simple as that. While CJ is 10x the WR that Ginn Jr. is … he won’t have the flash and “game changing” impact that kick returns seem to give the impression of. CJ is dynamic because he’s huge and he has tremendous body control and hands. He makes more twisting, leaning, leaping catches in traffic than anyone I’ve ever seen, he seems to have some supernatural sense for where the ball is in the air. He’s fast (very fast) but he doesn’t run perfect routes – there’s not quite as much separation as you’d expect from someone with his physical gifts. It’s the leaping, the strength and the body control those … you can’t teach those. I’d expect somewhere between 50-60 catches for around 1,000-1,200 yards and 10 TD’s or so for the season. That won’t get him to NY unless GT wins the ACC, but it will make him one of the first 3 picks in the NFL draft whenever he decides to leave.
Nathan: The starting 4 are good, and Kenny Scott is very good at one of the corners. This is a big athletic secondary, and the two safeties can bring the wood. Depth though? Yikes. I honestly am not sure how much nickel we are even going to play, with a true freshman and a converted WR looking like they will be battling it out for the 5th DB spot. I’m going to be praying to Touchdown Jesus or something if any of the 4 starters get hurt. Tenuta will continue to defend the pass the way he always has, lots and lots of zone blitzes. Both KaMichael Hall and Philip Wheeler are excellent coverage backers capable of dropping back into the deep middle or sniffing out short routes in traffic, and the d-line is good enough to bring a lot of pressure without needing the blitz packages GT so loves. This year’s pass defense will be won or lost on the line of scrimmage.
Nathan: As for job security? Gailey isn’t going anywhere, he goes to bowl games, the team competes, he wins some big games from time to time and his players for the most part stay out of trouble and in class. You have to remember that two the schools Tech most closely resembles are MIT and CalTech, and while athletics are a big part of the Institute’s tradition, somebody like O’Leary was almost “edgy” for us in a way. Gailey is nice and safe, and while he’s a bit boring (and 7-5 every year is monotonous), he’s someone “The Hill” seems very comfortable with.
Pointing with the best of them, seven times a year.
Jeff: Most fans seem very pleased with OC Patrick Nix taking over playcalling, largely because that’s helped free Gailey’s time to recruit. Nix has done well as the QB coach, has experience winning (he QB’d an undefeated season at Auburn), and seems more willing to open up the offense than Gailey was.
Jeff: The Georgia Tech offense leans heavily on Calvin Johnson, lining him up at QB for at least 3 plays including a TD pass and two sprints out of the backfield. Reggie throws 2 TDs, 1 INT. Notre Dame disrupts Tech on offense, limiting the rush, but is also disrupted itself. Quinn throws for 3 TDs. I’m saying Tech 38 – Irish 27.
Nathan: 24-21 Tech with my gold and white colored glasses on. Oh, did I mention we are busting out the navy blue jerseys from the 1990 national championship team? Should be quite a scene.
Oh, by the way, you left your gold and white glasses at the office. They're quite fetching.
Nathan: Many “famous” GT alumni won’t be known much in the realm of common public knowledge, mostly due to the fields they are in (quick, name a famous M.I.T alumn either). GT has had more astronauts than any other D1 university (actually, might be more than any other US school period), so that gets us cool points. John Young commanded the first ever space shuttle, and Richard Truly was the head of NASA, for example.
Jeff: The consensus opinion of me and my buddies is, GT has a fairly normal percentage of pretty hot girls. The problem is, it’s a percentage of a very small number. Tech has around 11,000 undergrads, only about 33% women. By no means is Tech a hotbed of beauties like Ole Miss or UGA, but we’ve got our fair share of bangable Southern belles.
Nathan: Um yeah, it’s true. Even worse, there aren’t many of them and they are far too smart to fall for what most college guys are offering. God bless places like Agnes Scott, they got me through school (and I might have made a trip or two to Athens, but I’m not proud to admit it).
Nathan: Best line from that game (222-0) was “you dropped it, you pick it up” from one Cumberland player to another after a fumble. Heisman was the Spurrier of his day, he LOVED to run the score up. Think about that the next time they talk about the character and sportsmanship of the players receiving the trophy given in his name.
The 1979 Cotton Bowl has earned its own special place in Notre Dame folklore, when a skinny little kid with a violent case of the flu strapped on a helmet in sub-zero weather and propeled the Irish to a 22 point fourth quarter comeback. So, naturally, I was delighted to see it on the upcoming slate on ESPN Classic. The game aired on Saturday at 7 AM, which was about the time I was staggering home down Claremont Avenue and ringing all the buzzers. Luckily, the DVR picked it up and I was able to enjoy the game with my mid-afternoon meal of aspirin and several tall glasses of water.
Anybody who has spent any time in east Texas understands that New Years is usually a warm, festive holiday involving flip flops, coolers of beer on your back porch, and dangerous inebriated usage of shotguns. However, 1979 brought the Dallas region the worst cold snap in recollection, as an ice storm and freezing winds plunged the thermometer below zero (with wind chill) as the teams lined up to play. It was hell on earth, and, as you can see, a large majority of the ticketholders elected to catch the game on television rather than risk frostbite. To make matters worse, young Joe Montana was battling with a particularly virulent strain of flu which was only exacerbated by the bone-chilling weather.
After jumping to a quick lead, the Irish offense collapsed upon itself. Viewers at home can visibly see Joe Montana get sicklier and more frail as the game goes on, and a slew of costly turnovers and confused defense turns the tide in favor of Houston rapidly. The Cougars pile up 34 points, most of which were on short drives off of turnovers, and it looks like it's just about garbage time in Dallas. Even worse is that when the Irish run out their offense to start the second half, Joe Montana is nowhere to be seen. Reports are he has hypothermia and his body temperature has dropped dangerously low. With the backup in, the offense is even more inept. A ray of hope hits the Irish faithful when Joe, with a belly full of chicken soup, comes back into the game, but it quickly evaporates when number three scrambles out of the pocket and heaves up an ugly interception on his first possession. I'll take over liveblogging at this point.
1:20: There is a gasp of live for the Irish when the special teams takes control of the game and blocks a Houston punt. After recovering the punt and assessing a personal foul on Houston, Joe Montana is inside the 20 with a chance to keep this game close. Instead, things turn even bleaker when Montana is nearly sacked and ends up grounding the ball on 4th and 15. The spark has been dashed.Well, two series ago, if Notre Dame could have put some points on the board, this might have turned into an interesting last five or six minutes.Chuckles. Little do you know...
1:36: Finally, Montana looks like Montana. Two big time completions and a pass interference call, and the Irish are inside the five. Now it's third and goal, and Dan Devine calls a daring option to the left. The scrappy, yet not terribly fleet-footed Montana skitters out into the flat and bulls his way into the end zone. For his efforts, Montana receives an incredibly brutal punishment by getting leveled by four Houston defenders. The whole play kind of reminded me of this one in its boldness of call as well as the sheer heart that was demonstrated by these quarterbacks laying down their very lives for the team.
1:55: Montana hits a streaking Haines on the sideline, who steps out of bounds and puts a punishing hit on the Houston cornerback, who falls to the turf like a ragdoll. Six seconds. Eight yards.
In anticipation of what should be an exciting and busy football season, the House Rock Built is taking the great leap forward and going high-tech. The payoff? A weekly podcast called Friday Night Lites (link goes to xml feed). The plan is to come out with a weekly show with interviews of college football bloggers. Hopefully, we'll be able to get some interchange of opinions, some informative analysis, and some chuckles.
Allright, so as the graphic shows, the name is a little double entendre (and triple-copyright violatoin to boot), basically insinuating that you can listen to it on Friday to get yourself amped up about Saturday's games, all the while enjoying some frosty Lite beers (and, just maybe, your host will be enjoying some too).
Show number one is in the books, and it's available in the little player at the bottom of this post. The XML feed link is here, for you competer-literate folk, and the iTunes address will be up shortly (they're currently reviewing it). In a few days, iTunes users can search for "Friday Night Lites" in the podcast directory and add it to your feed there, if you choose to do so (UPDATE: The link is here. I'll add it to the sidebar as well). In my inagural show, Jeff from Ramblin Racket was kind enough to drop by and chat about the Yellow Jackets, nightlife in Atlanta, and why in God's name he ranked his home team so high in the blogpoll. Cell phone troubles notwithstanding, he gave a great interview, despite my frequently-distracting bungling incompetence at the controls. Since I'm currently on the lower asymptote of the learning curve, I will be the first to admit that my ability to work the computer, give an intelligent interview, and talk for thirty seconds without a stream of "uhs" and "ums" is a bit ragged, but I think I can pull it together as the season progresses.
Anyway, enjoy the show, and hopefully this will turn into a successful project. Some quick housekeeping notes:
Tonight, it will be Quinn to Samardzija. At least I hope.Regis proceeds to put one into the rafters. The ghost of Johnny Lujak weeps silently.
Howdy, blogpollers! I know I have met/linked/run afoul of many of you, but for those I haven't, I'd like to extend a greeting from Notre Dame's most schizophrenic second-most schizophrenic blog on the internet* (sorry, Marco, forgot about you at first). My name is Brian, and I have been endowed with the dubious task of hosting the first blogpoll Roundtable by another chap named Brian, who runs the whole shebang over at mgoblog. The topic is polling, and how to improve it. Here are your questions and, I suppose in true schizophrenic fashion, my interview with myself.
Since it's the first roundtable, I've just tossed up a couple of easy questions. Nothing too hard-hitting, so you can leave that red practice jersey on when you fill it out. Just remember to drop me a link in the comments when you've completed the roundtable and posted it on your blog, as I have the task of wading through everyone's responses and picking out some gems for my "wrapup" post on the topic. Good luck and good blogging!
The polls are an unreliable, antiquated, and, to be honest, inherently unfair system. That being said, I love them. It's part of what makes college football so great: a limitless supply of things to bicker and brag about. As it is so richly intertwined with the history of football, I would never advocate getting rid of them, and fully embrace them as an imperfect oddity of the sport. One recent addition that I dislike is the BCS poll utilizing a system of strange and twisted computer polls. As biased and evil as human voters are, I think that computers are even more flawed and biased in ranking the power of teams, plus they cannot be held accountable for their results the same way a human being can. The computer geeks cost college football a consensus champion in 2003, when USC, ranked #1 in both human polls, was shut out of the title game due to the inverse square of the aggregate loss percentage of their opponents' opponents or some damn thing like that. As a result, we have had to deal with petty bickering ever since. Rather than curing polling controversies, computers have only made things even more messy and controversial. I say get rid of them and let us deal with this headache the same way we always have.
5. You're Scott Bakula, and you have the opportunity to "Quantum Leap" back in time and change any single moment in your team's history. It can be a play on the field, a hiring decision, or your school's founders deciding to build the campus in Northern Indiana, of all godforsaken places. What do you do?
You ranked the Irish #1, why?
Regarding my ballot: I really do think Notre Dame will win it all. I think they've got the right coach and the right schedule and are peaking at the right time. I cannot wait to knock them off next year.Pesky little rodents, aren't they?
The top 5 teams could of all been ranked at #1, but I happen to like Notre Dame the most out of those choices so went ahead and plugged the Irish in first. But trust me, I won't be the only one. This vote is more a testament to the faith I have in Coach Weis at improving that defense then anything else. I could sit here all day and talk about ND, Texas, USC, tOSU, and Miami, but then again you've probably read the arguments for and against each team a dozen times already.
1. Notre Dame: Fighting Irish return the hottest trio in the sport to South Bend.Uh, like, we totally already know, BFT. But can they play football?
Anyway, my opening salvo- can't stop the Irish!Testify, brother!
Perhaps the best offense in the country, nine returning starters on defense. I know the defense wasn’t exactly great last year, but there’s no reason to think they won’t improve.I wish I had this kind of blind faith in the improvement of Notre Dame's D. It would help me sleep at night.
Basically, SMQ just thinks [Notre Dame's deficiencies] are more easily-overcome problems than Ohio State's emerging-from-the-crib defense, Auburn's size against the run and inexperienced O-line, Texas' pack of freshman quarterbacks, Florida's whimpering babes on the offensive line and in the secondary, SC's unavoidable succumbing to the Inviolable Laws of an Indifferent Universe and the lingering Jeff Bowden/Lloyd Carr problems at Florida State and Michigan. Notre Dame is flawed, but in SMQ's mind, the least flawed. Or the least fatally flawed. And that is the ringing endorsement.
The ballots are in, and it's time for the week one blogpoll!
If you want to look at more of the data, cruise over to mgoblog and dink around with the special features.
So eight bloggers out there are believers in the Irish (wasn't me, I had them sixth. I'm old school, like Mark May. You have to show me first). The Kool-Aid drinkers and their affililation:
The oft-hilaroius, beleageured Miami linebacker Willie Williams has finally found a new home for his college football playing days: he will be transferring to Pearl River Community College. Those of you unfamiliar with Williams and his antics are directed to this couplet from the Associated Press:
After Miami signed Williams in 2004, it was discovered he had been arrested 10 times as a juvenile.Anyway, best of luck to the newest member of the Pearl River CC Wildcats. As an unrelated hilarity, check out the banner on the top of the PRCC page:
He also pleaded no contest in 2004 for two separate episodes that occurred in Gainesville, Fla., during a recruiting visit. He faced a felony count of setting off fire extinguishers at his hotel, and a misdemeanor battery charge for hugging a woman without consent. Each plea resulted in a year's probation.
Jeff from Ramblin Racket put together a little tailgating primer for Atlanta on In Dodd We Trust before catching a rocket ride to superstardom on Sports Blog Nation. He was also cool enough to do a little Q&A I sent him about Georgia Tech, like, five seconds after I sent him the e-mail (does this guy ever sleep?) Anyway, it's chock full of useful information for those of you, like myself, who will be making their first trip to Atlanta and are in need of a good primer on how to have a fun time and stay out of a dirty Georgia prison. For you Atlanta resident bloggers out there (ahem, Orson), how about you help us out with a "What To Do" guide and perhaps a rundown on the local open container ordinances?
I just got my copy of Here Come the Irish 2006, so I'm excitied to do some bedtime reading about the Irish by some great writers (except for that hack Jay Barry, who the hell invited him to write? {insert appropriate emoticon to convey good-natured joking}) Anyone on campus during the Penn State game is invited to stop by the meet-and-greet with the contributors at the Notre Dame bookstore from 9 to 11. I'll be there pressing the flesh and chatting about football with some of the other writers, so feel free to stop by. I guess technically it's a "book signing", but I can't really think of any reason anybody would want me to sign anything. However, if you ladies out there want me to sign your rack, I suppose I can be persuaded to do so.
UPDATE: Angel from Irish Eyes, God love her, clued me in on the meaning of the pink helmets. During special teams practices, players from both offense and defense are used. Instead of changing around jerseys, theyput on snazzy pink helmetsput pink slips over their helmets to differentiate the teams. If you haven't subscribed to Irish Eyes, what are you waiting for?
