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.