Well, I didn't expect to beat LSU. It was a good win. If you look at my last post (and the comment I added), I went through coaches with a better winning percentage than Kelly's winning percentage at Notre Dame. I assumed a loss yesterday, but the win puts Kelly at .692 at Notre Dame, which keeps him ahead of Paul Johnson and Kevin Sumlin. It was the best game Kelly has coached since Florida State. The offensive game plan was excellent. We ran the ball well and I think that helped us make some plays in the passing game when we needed to. We gave up two very big plays on defense and a kick return for a touchdown, but the offensive game plan kept the defense off the field. It was nice to beat an SEC team for the first time since I was a student (Tennessee in 2005). We've only played two SEC teams since I finished as a student in December 2006 (LSU in the Sugar Bowl that season and Alabama in the Championship Game two years ago), but we got blown out by both. I was skeptical about musical quarterbacks, but it worked. Zaire was very good. Golson was shaky early, but he made some plays to help us win also. I thought he wasn't coming back in the game at the end and he might not have if not for Zaire's helmet coming off, but he made a couple of plays at the end. And Kyle Bridza had a bad year, but he had been a good player for us in the past. He kicked five field goals against USC in 2012 to help us get to the Championship Game. I was happy that he got to finish his college career with a game-winning kick. It's still a disappointing season, but it's our best bowl win in 20 years. That's not saying much. We've only beaten Hawaii, Miami, and Rutgers in bowl games before beating LSU. We beat Hawaii and Rutgers because those games were a mismatch of talent. We beat Miami because their players didn't want to play because their coach had been fired and it was too cold for them. We were evenly matched with LSU in terms of talent and we just beat them. So I'll take it. Let's hope next year is much better.
The College Football Playoff Era is beginning and I'm really excited about it. I meant to post yesterday about the New Year's Six, but that post went on long enough anyway. Let's take a look at the bowl games played on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day last year.
New Year's Eve: AdvoCare V100 Bowl (Arizona vs. Boston College), Sun Bowl (UCLA vs. Virginia Tech), Liberty Bowl (Mississippi State vs. Rice), and Chick-fil-A Bowl (Texas A&M vs. Duke)
New Year's Day: Gator Bowl (Nebraska vs. Georgia), Heart of Dallas Bowl (North Texas vs. UNLV), Capital One Bowl (South Carolina vs. Wisconsin), Outback Bowl (LSU vs. Iowa), Rose Bowl (Michigan State vs. Stanford), and Fiesta Bowl (UCF vs. Baylor)
Now there were some good games in there (you also had North Texas vs. UNLV in there), but you had the Sugar Bowl (Oklahoma vs. Alabama) on January 2, Orange Bowl (Clemson vs. Ohio State) and Cotton Bowl (Missouri vs. Oklahoma State), and of course the only bowl that really mattered was on January 6 (Florida State vs. Auburn in the Championship Game).
New Year's Eve and New Year's Day will be much better this year.
New Year's Eve: Peach Bowl (Ole Miss vs. TCU), Fiesta Bowl (Arizona vs. Boise State), and Orange Bowl (Mississippi State vs. Georgia Tech)
New Year's Day: Outback Bowl (Auburn vs. Wisconsin), Cotton Bowl (Michigan State vs. Baylor), Citrus Bowl (Missouri vs. Minnesota), Rose Bowl (Oregon vs. Florida State), and Sugar Bowl (Alabama vs. Ohio State).
So we've sacrificed two games over those two days compared to last year, but the games are so much better and more meaningful (and their names have improved also). So I'm a big fan of the College Football Playoff. But I think they did something that doesn't really make sense. The playoff rotation doesn't make sense when you consider the bowl tie-ins.
Here are the bowl tie-ins when the games aren't playoff games:
Rose Bowl- Big Ten vs. Pac-12
Sugar Bowl- SEC vs. Big 12
Orange Bowl- ACC vs. SEC/Big Ten/Notre Dame
Fiesta Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Peach Bowl- displaced conference champions (the Big 12 champion this year), the top-ranked champion from a non-contract conference (Boise State this year), and at-large teams (the second Big 12 team, Ole Miss, Arizona, and Michigan State this year)
So you got four at-large teams this year. At most, you could have had five if a Big 12 team had made the playoff and Florida State hadn't because then no conference champion would have been displaced.
But now let's think about what next season will look like. The Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl will be the playoff games. We know what conferences will be playing in the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl. That leaves the Peach Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl for other teams. One of those spots goes to the top-ranked champion from a non-contract conference. So that leaves three spots at most for at-large teams (if there are no displaced teams).
The season after that gets worse. The Peach Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl will be the playoff games. We know what conferences will be playing in the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, and Orange Bowl. That leaves the Cotton Bowl. One spot in that game will go to the top-ranked champion from a non-contract conference. The other will be an at-large team (nobody can be displaced since the playoff games don't have tie-ins).
So we go from having possibly five at-large teams the first year of the rotation to possibly three at-large teams the second year of the rotation to one at-large team the third year of the rotation. Here's what the New Year's Six would have looked like if the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl were the playoff games:
Orange Bowl- Alabama vs. Ohio State
Cotton Bowl- Oregon vs. Florida State
Rose Bowl- Michigan State vs. Arizona
Sugar Bowl- Mississippi State vs. Baylor
Fiesta Bowl- Boise State vs. TCU
Peach Bowl- Ole Miss vs. Kansas State
If the Peach Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl were the playoff games, it would look like this:
Peach Bowl- Alabama vs. Ohio State
Fiesta Bowl- Oregon vs. Florida State
Rose Bowl- Michigan State vs. Arizona
Sugar Bowl- Mississippi State vs. Baylor
Orange Bowl- Georgia Tech vs. Ole Miss
Cotton Bowl- Boise State vs. TCU
So you end up with not a whole lot of difference in the teams, but the games would be different. Of the twelve teams in the six games, only one would change in year two (none in year three). I actually just did the same exercise for based on last year's rankings (just using the BCS rankings). You end up with the same result (Clemson gets a spot two out of the three years, Oklahoma gets that spot the other year). So perhaps this isn't as much of a problem as I thought it would be, but I would still change the semifinal rotation to this:
Year 1- Rose Bowl and Peach Bowl
Year 2- Sugar Bowl and Fiesta Bowl
Year 3- Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl
That way, you could always have up to three at-large teams. I'm biased. Notre Dame is an independent so I don't really like the idea of having one at-large spot. It would be nice if we could just make it to the playoff or Orange Bowl and not have to worry about that.
And there's one other problem I have with the College Football Playoff. This is not a huge deal to me, but I would still change it. This year, you have the semifinal games on January 1. The other two years of the rotation they will be on December 31. I would always have them on January 1 (except when it's a Sunday). I think the problem is the Rose Bowl. They want to be on January 1 and it's on the west coast. And the playoff wants to be the late games. So you could play the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl on January 1 next season, but one of them would have to be before the Rose Bowl (you're not going to have the Rose Bowl at 9:30 in the morning local time). That's not going to happen so you have the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl as semifinals on December 31 next season. People work on December 31 (I don't, but people do). One game will be starting at 5:00 or 5:30. Even if you live on the east coast, you're not getting home from work before the game starts. On the other hand, I always like being off the day after a big game. People are always off on January 1, but not always on January 2. I'm off on January 2 if it's a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. So the only way I'll have to work the day after the semifinal games is if those games are the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl and they're on a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. It looks like for the 2017 season, the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl will be the semifinals and they're on a Monday. That's really the worst case scenario. As of right now, this College Football Playoff setup is contracted for 12 seasons. Assuming the format doesn't change during that time (might not be a safe assumption, but still), it looks like I'll have to work the day after the semifinal games twice out of those 12 seasons. Not too bad.
Enjoy the football.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Lots of Football Thoughts
Notre Dame plays today in the Music City Bowl. There's a lot of apathy among Notre Dame fans about this game. I would be very surprised if we won and it's been a disaster of a season, but I probably care more about this game than most fans. My favorite sport is baseball and I love the Dodgers, but I care about Notre Dame football more than anything else in sports. There are 365 days in a year and at most Notre Dame plays 14 times in a year (hopefully next season). After today, Notre Dame doesn't play again until September 5. So yeah, I'm going to enjoy today's game as much as I possibly can (which might not be very much).
As far as next season goes, it might be the first year that I don't make it back to campus for a game. It really is a hassle to get there. Flying to South Bend this year was nice, but even with that, I had to stay 50 miles from campus. Here are the teams we play at home next year: Texas, Georgia Tech, UMass, Navy, USC, and Wake Forest. I have no interest in paying to watch us play UMass or Wake Forest (especially considering the Wake Forest game is in November). This year for the first time I started trying to avoid games in October for the baseball playoffs, with the exception of the Stanford game, which was in early October, when I felt I could miss a couple of playoff games (that game was awesome and things looked great at that point, but sadly it was the last time we played defense this season). Our October games next year are Navy and USC. I've seen us play Navy more than any other opponent (2005, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014). I don't need to miss playoff games to see us play them again next year. I've seen us play USC a bunch too (every home game against them going back to 2005 except for 2007). If we hadn't beaten them in 2013, I'd be planning on going to this game next year. That leaves Texas and Georgia Tech in September. If anything, I'd go to the Texas game. But if not, I'd be okay with not going to a home game next year. In 2016, home game possibilities would be Michigan State in September and Miami in late October (I'd want to check on the World Series schedule before I decide on that one). But even if I don't get back to campus next year, I'd like to get to at least two football games. We play at Virginia, Clemson, Temple (at Lincoln Financial Field), Pittsburgh, Boston College (Fenway Park in the Shamrock Series), and Stanford. The two that I most want to go to are Boston College (we'll see about getting tickets for that one, but I might have an in) and Clemson (I'd grant them the early October exception). I love Fenway Park and football would be the third sport I've seen played there. And getting to the Clemson game would allow me to cross South Carolina off my list of states to get to (I might have gone down there to see us play them in basketball this season if it was a weekend game, but it's on a Tuesday). Perhaps I can get Dennis to go to that game also since he lives within driving distance. Temple is close by so that's also a possibility, but do I really want to pay to watch us play Temple? Maybe if some of my friends are going. Virginia would also be a possibility since they have an awesome campus (I visited when I was junior in high school).
There's a lot of angst among Notre Dame fans about Brian Kelly as coach and I understand it. Michigan just hired a top tier coach and Ohio State has Urban Meyer, so it looks like we have the third best coach in the area (maybe even fourth best if you put Mark Dantonio ahead of Kelly). This season was a disaster. If you look at Kelly's time at Notre Dame, 2012 definitely looks like an outlier. He'll have one top 20 finish and two top 25 finishes in five years which definitely isn't good enough. Here's the problem: Could we get anybody better? I'm not sure that we could. If we could get Urban Meyer (and keep high academic standards), then send Kelly packing. But how many coaches would do better than Kelly at Notre Dame? Bob Stoops was mentioned as one of the three dream coaches when Weis was fired (Saban, Meyer, Stoops). Stoops has absolutely no academic standards to worry about at Oklahoma. Would he be better than Kelly at Notre Dame? I'm not convinced. Here are all the active college coaches with better winning percentages than Brian Kelly: Mark Helfrich, Chris Petersen, Jimbo Fisher, Urban Meyer, Rod Carey, Chuck Martin, Bob Stoops, David Shaw, Gus Malzahn, Nick Saban, Gary Patterson, Mark Richt, and Bobby Petrino. How many of those guys am I convinced would do better than Kelly and are guys that I would want at Notre Dame? Since I have no interest in Jimbo Fisher or Bobby Petrino coaching Notre Dame, I would say Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, Gary Patterson, and Mark Richt. Second question: Can you get any of those guys? You probably can't get Meyer or Saban and you might not be able to get Patterson or Richt either (worth finding out though). So the point is that I don't love Kelly, but I'm not convinced that we'd replace him with somebody better.
Here's something to consider though. What do Southeastern Louisiana, SMU, Kansas, and Iowa State have in common? Those were the only four teams that TCU beat last year. Gary Patterson went 4-8 with all of the wins coming against pretty terrible teams. This year they were very close to making the playoff. Notre Dame loses very little and gets some suspended players back next year. The fact that this year was a very big disappointment does not mean that we can't be good next year. If next year is another disappointing season, then it's probably time to make a change.
Anyway, it's playoff time. With Notre Dame and the Jets not in the playoffs, I have to decide who to root for. Let's start with college. There are plenty of reasons to root against these teams (I really wanted TCU or Baylor to make it so that I'd be able to root for them):
1. Alabama- they've become college football's evil empire, they're an SEC school
2. Oregon- really terrible uniforms (they do very rarely break out some really nice looking uniforms, but I'm not optimistic for the bowl game)
3. Florida State- Jameis Winston, Jimbo Fisher, their history of criminal behavior that goes back before those two
4. Ohio State- Urban Meyer (I'd want him at Notre Dame, but until that happens I'm rooting against him most of the time) and they're a Big Ten school
Really terrible uniforms is the least of all evils here. I'm all in on Oregon, but I'm not optimistic about them.
Now for the NFL:
Obviously, I can't root for the Patriots as a Jets fan and the Seahawks are out for being coached by Pete Carroll. That's my nightmare Super Bowl. It would kind of be like Lakers-Knicks in the NBA Finals, but not really because I'd easily root for the Knicks in that situation because I hate them but not nearly as much as I hate the Lakers. My sports hatred for the Patriots and Seahawks is almost equal. The next thing to consider is how many Notre Dame players are in the playoffs. According to my count, there are 16 Notre Dame players in the playoffs. Every team except for the Seahawks and Packers have at least one (another reason not to root for the Seahawks). I probably would root for the Packers if they had at least one Notre Dame player, but they're out. The Bengals only have Tyler Eifert, but he's injured and they wear really ugly uniforms so they're out. The Cowboys only have Zack Martin. I do love Zack Martin, but they're the Cowboys so they're out. The Steelers only have Stephon Tuitt and he didn't graduate so they're out. The Panthers' only Notre Dame player is a long snapper and they were only 7-8-1 (more on that in a bit), so they're out. The Colts only have Sergio Brown and I don't want to root for Andrew the Giant (Stanford), so they're out. The Ravens have Kapron Lewis-Moore (one of my favorite Notre Dame players ever, so important on that 2012 team), but that's all they have and they wear ugly uniforms, so they're out. The Lions have three of my favorites (Golden Tate, Theo Riddick, and T.J. Jones), but I don't think T.J. Jones played at all, they have Reggie Bush, and they play in the crappiest city in the US, so they're out. I would like to see Peyton Manning win another Super Bowl, but they only have David Bruton, so they're out. That leaves us with the Arizona Cardinals. They have John Carlson (who lived in St. Ed's when I did), Michael Floyd, Robert Hughes (I'll always fondly remember his game-winning touchdown against USC in 2010, the whole drive was beautiful actually), and Troy Niklas. Niklas didn't graduate, but that's not enough to outweigh everybody else, so I'm rooting for the Cardinals. So here are my rankings of the playoff teams:
1. Cardinals
2. Broncos- entirely because of Peyton Manning
3. Lions
4. Ravens- no more Ray Lewis and Ed Reed really helps this ranking
5. Packers- no Notre Dame players, but beautiful uniforms and the best stadium in the NFL
6. Colts- really good uniforms and we could have a revival of the Patriots-Colts rivalry
7. Bengals
8. Panthers
9. Cowboys- might be the best hope of beating the Seahawks in the NFC
10. Steelers
11. Seahawks
12. Patriots
Of course, the Cardinals are probably winning one playoff game at most with their quarterback situation. In that case, I'm rooting for Peyton Manning.
And finally, we have two problems that I'm here to fix. The first is the Panthers getting into the playoffs with a losing record. This isn't the NBA. In the NBA, 53.33333% of teams make it to the playoffs. In the NFL, it's 37.5%. If you can't win half of your games, you don't belong in the playoffs. So here's my solution, if you win your division with a losing record, you forfeit your spot in the playoffs if the team that would be the 7th seed has a winning record. So this year the Eagles would get in at 10-6 over the Panthers and Cardinals and Lions would get bumped up to the 4 and 5 seeds. But if the Eagles were only 8-8, then the Panthers hold on to their spot. You have to finish above .500 to take a spot from a division winner with a below .500 record.
And the last problem is college football's National Championship Game. I absolutely hate that it's on a Monday night. It's been that way for some time now. And it starts late. I hate going to work the day after the Super Bowl, but at least I was off that day and the game ends at a reasonable hour. To solve this problem, I either have to break ESPN's bowl monopoly or use it to help us. The National Championship Game should be part of a triple header of football with two NFL playoff games on a Saturday. So this year it would be on January 10 instead of January 12. To make this happen, the NFL games need to start at 1:00 and 4:30 instead of 4:35 and 8:15. The only way that's going to happen is if one network has all three games or they make some kind of arrangement that is good for them all. So ESPN either needs to expand their NFL playoff coverage (believe me, I don't want to give ESPN more power, but it would help in this situation) or another network needs to get in on the college games. (Why don't the other networks spend money to get in on these college games? You're going to get ratings.) You could even have a rotating situation between two or three of NBC, CBS, and Fox. If you rotated it among the three, they just rotate the two NFL games and the college game. If it was only two, you rotate between the 1:00 NFL game one year and then the 4:30 NFL game plus the National Championship Game at 8:00 the next year. One of my favorite things about college football is being able to watch and not go to work the next day. But for the most important game of the year, it's at 8:30 on a Monday night. That needs to be fixed.
As far as next season goes, it might be the first year that I don't make it back to campus for a game. It really is a hassle to get there. Flying to South Bend this year was nice, but even with that, I had to stay 50 miles from campus. Here are the teams we play at home next year: Texas, Georgia Tech, UMass, Navy, USC, and Wake Forest. I have no interest in paying to watch us play UMass or Wake Forest (especially considering the Wake Forest game is in November). This year for the first time I started trying to avoid games in October for the baseball playoffs, with the exception of the Stanford game, which was in early October, when I felt I could miss a couple of playoff games (that game was awesome and things looked great at that point, but sadly it was the last time we played defense this season). Our October games next year are Navy and USC. I've seen us play Navy more than any other opponent (2005, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014). I don't need to miss playoff games to see us play them again next year. I've seen us play USC a bunch too (every home game against them going back to 2005 except for 2007). If we hadn't beaten them in 2013, I'd be planning on going to this game next year. That leaves Texas and Georgia Tech in September. If anything, I'd go to the Texas game. But if not, I'd be okay with not going to a home game next year. In 2016, home game possibilities would be Michigan State in September and Miami in late October (I'd want to check on the World Series schedule before I decide on that one). But even if I don't get back to campus next year, I'd like to get to at least two football games. We play at Virginia, Clemson, Temple (at Lincoln Financial Field), Pittsburgh, Boston College (Fenway Park in the Shamrock Series), and Stanford. The two that I most want to go to are Boston College (we'll see about getting tickets for that one, but I might have an in) and Clemson (I'd grant them the early October exception). I love Fenway Park and football would be the third sport I've seen played there. And getting to the Clemson game would allow me to cross South Carolina off my list of states to get to (I might have gone down there to see us play them in basketball this season if it was a weekend game, but it's on a Tuesday). Perhaps I can get Dennis to go to that game also since he lives within driving distance. Temple is close by so that's also a possibility, but do I really want to pay to watch us play Temple? Maybe if some of my friends are going. Virginia would also be a possibility since they have an awesome campus (I visited when I was junior in high school).
There's a lot of angst among Notre Dame fans about Brian Kelly as coach and I understand it. Michigan just hired a top tier coach and Ohio State has Urban Meyer, so it looks like we have the third best coach in the area (maybe even fourth best if you put Mark Dantonio ahead of Kelly). This season was a disaster. If you look at Kelly's time at Notre Dame, 2012 definitely looks like an outlier. He'll have one top 20 finish and two top 25 finishes in five years which definitely isn't good enough. Here's the problem: Could we get anybody better? I'm not sure that we could. If we could get Urban Meyer (and keep high academic standards), then send Kelly packing. But how many coaches would do better than Kelly at Notre Dame? Bob Stoops was mentioned as one of the three dream coaches when Weis was fired (Saban, Meyer, Stoops). Stoops has absolutely no academic standards to worry about at Oklahoma. Would he be better than Kelly at Notre Dame? I'm not convinced. Here are all the active college coaches with better winning percentages than Brian Kelly: Mark Helfrich, Chris Petersen, Jimbo Fisher, Urban Meyer, Rod Carey, Chuck Martin, Bob Stoops, David Shaw, Gus Malzahn, Nick Saban, Gary Patterson, Mark Richt, and Bobby Petrino. How many of those guys am I convinced would do better than Kelly and are guys that I would want at Notre Dame? Since I have no interest in Jimbo Fisher or Bobby Petrino coaching Notre Dame, I would say Urban Meyer, Nick Saban, Gary Patterson, and Mark Richt. Second question: Can you get any of those guys? You probably can't get Meyer or Saban and you might not be able to get Patterson or Richt either (worth finding out though). So the point is that I don't love Kelly, but I'm not convinced that we'd replace him with somebody better.
Here's something to consider though. What do Southeastern Louisiana, SMU, Kansas, and Iowa State have in common? Those were the only four teams that TCU beat last year. Gary Patterson went 4-8 with all of the wins coming against pretty terrible teams. This year they were very close to making the playoff. Notre Dame loses very little and gets some suspended players back next year. The fact that this year was a very big disappointment does not mean that we can't be good next year. If next year is another disappointing season, then it's probably time to make a change.
Anyway, it's playoff time. With Notre Dame and the Jets not in the playoffs, I have to decide who to root for. Let's start with college. There are plenty of reasons to root against these teams (I really wanted TCU or Baylor to make it so that I'd be able to root for them):
1. Alabama- they've become college football's evil empire, they're an SEC school
2. Oregon- really terrible uniforms (they do very rarely break out some really nice looking uniforms, but I'm not optimistic for the bowl game)
3. Florida State- Jameis Winston, Jimbo Fisher, their history of criminal behavior that goes back before those two
4. Ohio State- Urban Meyer (I'd want him at Notre Dame, but until that happens I'm rooting against him most of the time) and they're a Big Ten school
Really terrible uniforms is the least of all evils here. I'm all in on Oregon, but I'm not optimistic about them.
Now for the NFL:
Obviously, I can't root for the Patriots as a Jets fan and the Seahawks are out for being coached by Pete Carroll. That's my nightmare Super Bowl. It would kind of be like Lakers-Knicks in the NBA Finals, but not really because I'd easily root for the Knicks in that situation because I hate them but not nearly as much as I hate the Lakers. My sports hatred for the Patriots and Seahawks is almost equal. The next thing to consider is how many Notre Dame players are in the playoffs. According to my count, there are 16 Notre Dame players in the playoffs. Every team except for the Seahawks and Packers have at least one (another reason not to root for the Seahawks). I probably would root for the Packers if they had at least one Notre Dame player, but they're out. The Bengals only have Tyler Eifert, but he's injured and they wear really ugly uniforms so they're out. The Cowboys only have Zack Martin. I do love Zack Martin, but they're the Cowboys so they're out. The Steelers only have Stephon Tuitt and he didn't graduate so they're out. The Panthers' only Notre Dame player is a long snapper and they were only 7-8-1 (more on that in a bit), so they're out. The Colts only have Sergio Brown and I don't want to root for Andrew the Giant (Stanford), so they're out. The Ravens have Kapron Lewis-Moore (one of my favorite Notre Dame players ever, so important on that 2012 team), but that's all they have and they wear ugly uniforms, so they're out. The Lions have three of my favorites (Golden Tate, Theo Riddick, and T.J. Jones), but I don't think T.J. Jones played at all, they have Reggie Bush, and they play in the crappiest city in the US, so they're out. I would like to see Peyton Manning win another Super Bowl, but they only have David Bruton, so they're out. That leaves us with the Arizona Cardinals. They have John Carlson (who lived in St. Ed's when I did), Michael Floyd, Robert Hughes (I'll always fondly remember his game-winning touchdown against USC in 2010, the whole drive was beautiful actually), and Troy Niklas. Niklas didn't graduate, but that's not enough to outweigh everybody else, so I'm rooting for the Cardinals. So here are my rankings of the playoff teams:
1. Cardinals
2. Broncos- entirely because of Peyton Manning
3. Lions
4. Ravens- no more Ray Lewis and Ed Reed really helps this ranking
5. Packers- no Notre Dame players, but beautiful uniforms and the best stadium in the NFL
6. Colts- really good uniforms and we could have a revival of the Patriots-Colts rivalry
7. Bengals
8. Panthers
9. Cowboys- might be the best hope of beating the Seahawks in the NFC
10. Steelers
11. Seahawks
12. Patriots
Of course, the Cardinals are probably winning one playoff game at most with their quarterback situation. In that case, I'm rooting for Peyton Manning.
And finally, we have two problems that I'm here to fix. The first is the Panthers getting into the playoffs with a losing record. This isn't the NBA. In the NBA, 53.33333% of teams make it to the playoffs. In the NFL, it's 37.5%. If you can't win half of your games, you don't belong in the playoffs. So here's my solution, if you win your division with a losing record, you forfeit your spot in the playoffs if the team that would be the 7th seed has a winning record. So this year the Eagles would get in at 10-6 over the Panthers and Cardinals and Lions would get bumped up to the 4 and 5 seeds. But if the Eagles were only 8-8, then the Panthers hold on to their spot. You have to finish above .500 to take a spot from a division winner with a below .500 record.
And the last problem is college football's National Championship Game. I absolutely hate that it's on a Monday night. It's been that way for some time now. And it starts late. I hate going to work the day after the Super Bowl, but at least I was off that day and the game ends at a reasonable hour. To solve this problem, I either have to break ESPN's bowl monopoly or use it to help us. The National Championship Game should be part of a triple header of football with two NFL playoff games on a Saturday. So this year it would be on January 10 instead of January 12. To make this happen, the NFL games need to start at 1:00 and 4:30 instead of 4:35 and 8:15. The only way that's going to happen is if one network has all three games or they make some kind of arrangement that is good for them all. So ESPN either needs to expand their NFL playoff coverage (believe me, I don't want to give ESPN more power, but it would help in this situation) or another network needs to get in on the college games. (Why don't the other networks spend money to get in on these college games? You're going to get ratings.) You could even have a rotating situation between two or three of NBC, CBS, and Fox. If you rotated it among the three, they just rotate the two NFL games and the college game. If it was only two, you rotate between the 1:00 NFL game one year and then the 4:30 NFL game plus the National Championship Game at 8:00 the next year. One of my favorite things about college football is being able to watch and not go to work the next day. But for the most important game of the year, it's at 8:30 on a Monday night. That needs to be fixed.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Happy Festivus!
I have so many grievances I could air with Brian Kelly. My last post was about the ridiculous pass interference call that cost us the game against Florida State. I went to the game against Navy two weeks after the Florida State game (after a bye week). I never got around to doing a post about it and then our last four games destroyed my will to blog about Notre Dame football. So here are some quick thoughts about the Navy game:
1. My brother Sean and I tailgated for a little bit with Jon and his family. That's always fun.
2. It was cold, but not as cold as the Stanford game.
3. The cold weather and the fact that it was a night game probably made it the lowest attendance of any college game I've ever been to. There were 36,807 fans there. There were almost that many Americans in Dublin for the Navy game two years ago (and when you count the Irish fans there, it was easily a bigger crowd than this game). Six of the ten baseball games I went to this past season had bigger crowds.
4. We were sitting up high pretty much right on the 50 yard line. That's as good of a view as I've had for a football game.
5. We should have won easily, but Navy actually took a lead in the third quarter.
6. It wasn't an impressive performance, but we won.
As unimpressive as it was, I never expected that it would be our last win of the regular season. Arizona State and USC were disasters. I was surprised we showed as much fight as we did against Louisville after falling behind early. Kyle Brindza was once a good kicker, but he's not anymore. He missed the game-tying kick against Louisville, but even if he made it, there's no guarantee that we win the game in overtime. And Northwestern has to be one of Kelly's worst losses. Going for two to try to make it a 13 point lead instead of a 12 point lead made absolutely no sense (I said it at the time). Still, you should be able to hold an 11 point lead with 10:34 left. So we now find ourselves in the Music City Bowl against LSU. I don't have high hopes for this one. If we do win, am I supposed to be happy? I wouldn't change the bowl system because football is better than no football, but it really is silly.
Our basketball team is off to a good start. No grievances with them so far. Our schedule hasn't been all that difficult, but we've taken care of business against the decent teams we've played except for a one point loss against Providence. If we win our last non-conference game against Hartford, going .500 in the ACC should get us enough wins to get into the tournament. The team does look very good so I'm definitely hoping for better than .500 in the conference, but we were 6-13 last year in the ACC so let's wait and see.
The Dodgers and Celtics both traded big names in the last week. Matt Kemp should have been the MVP in 2011 (I will air my grievance with that cheater Ryan Braun every Festivus). In the second half of this past season, he was hitting like it was 2011 again. But Joc Pederson needs to play and Matt Kemp can't field anymore, so he had to be traded. I'm disappointed that the Dodgers traded for a cheater (Yasmani Grandal), but he's not a cheater on the level of Roger Clemens, Barroid, A-Roid, or Ryan Braun (there are a lot of cheaters in baseball's last 25 years, but most don't rise to that level). So anyway, I hope Kemp hits lots of home runs against the Giants, Diamondbacks, and Rockies. As for Rajon Rondo, it was another move that had to be made. Rondo helped the Celtics win the championship in 2008 (21 points, 8 assists, 7 rebounds, and 6 steals against the Lakers in Game 6 in 2008) and he was the last guy left from that team. He also outplayed LeBron James when the Celtics beat the Cavaliers in the second round in 2010. But Rondo might not ever be the same player as he was before his knee injury and he wasn't going to resign with the Celtics anyway. So I have no grievances with Danny Ainge for now. He's stockpiling assets. He has to find a way to use those assets to turn the Celtics into a contender again. You need a superstar in the NBA and the Celtics obviously don't have one right now. Ainge has to draft one or trade for one with all those draft picks or sign one or whatever. The Celtics are in better shape than most bad teams with all their draft picks, but that doesn't mean anything if they don't do anything good with them.
One last grievance: The Gator Bowl is now the TaxSlayer Bowl. They took a good name and made it into a terrible name. Since it's bowl season, let's update my bowl name rankings:
38. TaxSlayer Bowl- You could make an argument that it's better than a few other names (the "Slayer" part of the name is strong). But I'm penalizing it for taking a really good name and giving it a really bad name.
37. Belk Bowl- Last year I had it as the worst name.
36. Quick Lane Bowl- It was the Pizza Bowl last year. Let's just stop kidding ourselves and call it the Urban Blight Bowl.
35. GoDaddy Bowl
34. Foster Farms Bowl- It was the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl. I still say it should be the Golden Gate Bowl even if it's played in Santa Clara now.
33. Russell Athletic Bowl
32. Outback Bowl- You could make an argument for this one ahead of the next few, but my rule is that games that only have a corporate sponsor for their name rank at the bottom.
31. Boca Raton Bowl- This is a new one this year. I'd like it better if it was the Del Boca Vista Bowl. It ranks behind the next two because they improved their names from last year.
30. St. Petersburg Bowl- Last year it was the Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl so this is a slight improvement.
29. Birmingham Bowl- Same thing as the St. Petersburg Bowl. It went from the BBVA Compass Bowl to the Birmingham Bowl
28. Las Vegas Bowl
27. Texas Bowl
26. Heart of Dallas Bowl
25. New Mexico Bowl
24. New Orleans Bowl
23. Bahamas Bowl- It's new this year. I generally don't like bowls named after their location, but I can't really argue with it when it's out of the country.
22. Hawaii Bowl- Or not on the mainland United States
21. Miami Beach Bowl- This is a new bowl. The inclusion of the word "Beach" really helps the name (I'm totally serious, that puts it ahead of the other bowls just named for places).
20. Fiesta Bowl
19. Music City Bowl
18. Holiday Bowl
17. Camellia Bowl- This is new this year. It has to rank behind the other bowls with flower names.
16. Military Bowl
15. Armed Forces Bowl
14. Pinstripe Bowl
13. Poinsettia Bowl
12. Independence Bowl- Last year it was the AdvoCare V100 Bowl. Such a good change. But it's played in Shreveport, Louisiana. If it was played in Philadelphia, it would be a top 5 name (same for the Liberty Bowl).
11. Liberty Bowl
10. Sun Bowl
9. Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
8. Citrus Bowl- Much better than the Capital One Bowl that it had been recently.
7. Peach Bowl- The Gator Bowl needs to follow the Citrus Bowl and Peach Bowl's lead and go back to its real name.
6. Cactus Bowl- The former Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl. I called for this name in my post last season.
5. Cotton Bowl
4. Alamo Bowl
3. Sugar Bowl
2. Rose Bowl
1. Orange Bowl
1. My brother Sean and I tailgated for a little bit with Jon and his family. That's always fun.
2. It was cold, but not as cold as the Stanford game.
3. The cold weather and the fact that it was a night game probably made it the lowest attendance of any college game I've ever been to. There were 36,807 fans there. There were almost that many Americans in Dublin for the Navy game two years ago (and when you count the Irish fans there, it was easily a bigger crowd than this game). Six of the ten baseball games I went to this past season had bigger crowds.
4. We were sitting up high pretty much right on the 50 yard line. That's as good of a view as I've had for a football game.
5. We should have won easily, but Navy actually took a lead in the third quarter.
6. It wasn't an impressive performance, but we won.
 |
| Opening kickoff. |
As unimpressive as it was, I never expected that it would be our last win of the regular season. Arizona State and USC were disasters. I was surprised we showed as much fight as we did against Louisville after falling behind early. Kyle Brindza was once a good kicker, but he's not anymore. He missed the game-tying kick against Louisville, but even if he made it, there's no guarantee that we win the game in overtime. And Northwestern has to be one of Kelly's worst losses. Going for two to try to make it a 13 point lead instead of a 12 point lead made absolutely no sense (I said it at the time). Still, you should be able to hold an 11 point lead with 10:34 left. So we now find ourselves in the Music City Bowl against LSU. I don't have high hopes for this one. If we do win, am I supposed to be happy? I wouldn't change the bowl system because football is better than no football, but it really is silly.
Our basketball team is off to a good start. No grievances with them so far. Our schedule hasn't been all that difficult, but we've taken care of business against the decent teams we've played except for a one point loss against Providence. If we win our last non-conference game against Hartford, going .500 in the ACC should get us enough wins to get into the tournament. The team does look very good so I'm definitely hoping for better than .500 in the conference, but we were 6-13 last year in the ACC so let's wait and see.
The Dodgers and Celtics both traded big names in the last week. Matt Kemp should have been the MVP in 2011 (I will air my grievance with that cheater Ryan Braun every Festivus). In the second half of this past season, he was hitting like it was 2011 again. But Joc Pederson needs to play and Matt Kemp can't field anymore, so he had to be traded. I'm disappointed that the Dodgers traded for a cheater (Yasmani Grandal), but he's not a cheater on the level of Roger Clemens, Barroid, A-Roid, or Ryan Braun (there are a lot of cheaters in baseball's last 25 years, but most don't rise to that level). So anyway, I hope Kemp hits lots of home runs against the Giants, Diamondbacks, and Rockies. As for Rajon Rondo, it was another move that had to be made. Rondo helped the Celtics win the championship in 2008 (21 points, 8 assists, 7 rebounds, and 6 steals against the Lakers in Game 6 in 2008) and he was the last guy left from that team. He also outplayed LeBron James when the Celtics beat the Cavaliers in the second round in 2010. But Rondo might not ever be the same player as he was before his knee injury and he wasn't going to resign with the Celtics anyway. So I have no grievances with Danny Ainge for now. He's stockpiling assets. He has to find a way to use those assets to turn the Celtics into a contender again. You need a superstar in the NBA and the Celtics obviously don't have one right now. Ainge has to draft one or trade for one with all those draft picks or sign one or whatever. The Celtics are in better shape than most bad teams with all their draft picks, but that doesn't mean anything if they don't do anything good with them.
One last grievance: The Gator Bowl is now the TaxSlayer Bowl. They took a good name and made it into a terrible name. Since it's bowl season, let's update my bowl name rankings:
38. TaxSlayer Bowl- You could make an argument that it's better than a few other names (the "Slayer" part of the name is strong). But I'm penalizing it for taking a really good name and giving it a really bad name.
37. Belk Bowl- Last year I had it as the worst name.
36. Quick Lane Bowl- It was the Pizza Bowl last year. Let's just stop kidding ourselves and call it the Urban Blight Bowl.
35. GoDaddy Bowl
34. Foster Farms Bowl- It was the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl. I still say it should be the Golden Gate Bowl even if it's played in Santa Clara now.
33. Russell Athletic Bowl
32. Outback Bowl- You could make an argument for this one ahead of the next few, but my rule is that games that only have a corporate sponsor for their name rank at the bottom.
31. Boca Raton Bowl- This is a new one this year. I'd like it better if it was the Del Boca Vista Bowl. It ranks behind the next two because they improved their names from last year.
30. St. Petersburg Bowl- Last year it was the Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl so this is a slight improvement.
29. Birmingham Bowl- Same thing as the St. Petersburg Bowl. It went from the BBVA Compass Bowl to the Birmingham Bowl
28. Las Vegas Bowl
27. Texas Bowl
26. Heart of Dallas Bowl
25. New Mexico Bowl
24. New Orleans Bowl
23. Bahamas Bowl- It's new this year. I generally don't like bowls named after their location, but I can't really argue with it when it's out of the country.
22. Hawaii Bowl- Or not on the mainland United States
21. Miami Beach Bowl- This is a new bowl. The inclusion of the word "Beach" really helps the name (I'm totally serious, that puts it ahead of the other bowls just named for places).
20. Fiesta Bowl
19. Music City Bowl
18. Holiday Bowl
17. Camellia Bowl- This is new this year. It has to rank behind the other bowls with flower names.
16. Military Bowl
15. Armed Forces Bowl
14. Pinstripe Bowl
13. Poinsettia Bowl
12. Independence Bowl- Last year it was the AdvoCare V100 Bowl. Such a good change. But it's played in Shreveport, Louisiana. If it was played in Philadelphia, it would be a top 5 name (same for the Liberty Bowl).
11. Liberty Bowl
10. Sun Bowl
9. Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
8. Citrus Bowl- Much better than the Capital One Bowl that it had been recently.
7. Peach Bowl- The Gator Bowl needs to follow the Citrus Bowl and Peach Bowl's lead and go back to its real name.
6. Cactus Bowl- The former Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl. I called for this name in my post last season.
5. Cotton Bowl
4. Alamo Bowl
3. Sugar Bowl
2. Rose Bowl
1. Orange Bowl
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