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Effe Swofford and those sinister ACC officials; obviously giving the ACC sacred cow that is Boston the benefit of all the calls. I’m so sick of the ACC coddling the elite teams like BC so they can preserve the…oh wait, what?
Gowolves, I had the same initial opinion. Then I looked up their stats. To me there are three key stats to evaluating a modern qb’s career; winning % (are you a winner), TD-Int ratio (do you turn the ball over) & yards per attempt (YPA – represents efficiency). Rivers’ career numbers are better than Brees’ in all three of those categories. I would have lost a bet on that. I still think with 20/20 hindsight I would take Brees over PR, but it’s a lot closer than I would have initially thought.
And FWIW, RW’s numbers in those three stat categories in his first two years are better than Manning & Brady (except Brady has a slightly higher winning %).I understand the complaints about the scheduling.
I offer the question what is the ideal schedule? IMHO the best schedule is one FCS team (with so many of them moving up to FBS I can’t say for sure anymore who they are), two mid-lower level non-BCS teams (NIU, Marshall, WKU, etc.) and one middle level BCS team (Ok St, Tenn, Ill, WVU etc).
There are two problems with this. One is team/program performance for a lot of the teams that are historically in the 40+ RPI range varies. It’s not shocking when a MAC school goes 3-9 this year and two years later is 9-3 (or vice versa). Because of recruiting waves, coaching changes, etc. their performance has more variance. Schedule makers can’t account for that. The second problem is we have to get more home games than away games (i.e. 2 for 1) from the non-BCS FBS schools. I don’t know if we have the stature to demand 2 for 1 deals from a lot of schools our fans want to see.
“…fool me once, shame on…shame on you. Fool me twice…you can’t get fooled again…” – ole Bobby must be one helluva used car salesman.
I grew up in BFE (we had three TV channels – this was before satellite dishes started popping up in rural America) and the only baseball I got to see was playoff baseball; for that reason I’m a lifelong Mets fan. All my friends lived in town and had cable and TBS so they were all Braves fans before the great teams of the 90s. I hated Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, Avery, Larry, etc.
Tony Kornheiser had Tim Kurkjian on his radio show yesterday to talk about Maddux and Glavine and Kurkjin had a great line about how smart of a pitcher Maddux was: “…if you ever saw Greg Maddux with his shirt off, and I did, you would never imagine that he was an athlete let alone one of the top six pitchers of all time…”
Va, I’m not going to get into an argument with you about the math; I concede you know way more about how the committee/RPI/etc. weigh road wins compared to home wins. Also I don’t know how Pitt/ND’s seasons will shake out. I’m saying, as a fan, last night’s win more than makes up for Saturday’s collapse. You can win a home game on pure emotion (I’d argue if Saturday’s game was played later in the day, we would have probably had a better atmosphere that could have contributed more to a win). Road wins are all about preparation, mental toughness, etc.
Some may not agree but a road win @ ND more than makes up for a home loss to Pitt. As BJD alluded to, we probably caught ND at the best time, but any road conference win is far more valuable than a home loss to a team that isn’t a big rival (if you can set aside losing the big lead vs Pitt). For a team that will likely finish somewhere in the middle of the conference, road wins are a premium; could be the difference between finishing 10-8 or 8-10.
That’s why ADs are so important. They have to effectively maintain the buffer between the know-it-all boosters and the coaches. McCombs comes across as one of two things (maybe both): 1) an arrogant jerk who didn’t get his way or 2) a racist redneck who hates the idea of a black man coaching “his” football team.
I don’t know TL or any of his friends or family. Everything I say that follows is based on what I’ve seen from basketball players in the past 10-15 years.
I said three weeks ago if TL continues to see <10 mpg, he would leave. McD’s AA’s don’t go to NCSU to ride the pine. That’s not an indictment on the coach or the player, but more on the people who are in the player’s ear. Players need someone (or multiple people) around them to keep them grounded. At some point, Dad, Mom, Brother, Uncle, someone needs to kick the boy in the pant’s seat.
With proper work ethic, TL could be a very serviceable PG as a jr/sr.
Generally I don’t have a problem with transfers, in fact I hate that transfers have to sit out a year when there is a coaching change. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out how either party had planned and it’s ok to move on.
Oh, and I hope our speculation on TL’s transfer is completely unfounded and he doesn’t transfer, but I do think it’s ok to discuss the possibility.
“Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane”…“I find I’m so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head.” Here’s to hoping we make it to Zihuatanejo.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Michael Crichton. I’ve read just about everything he has done from Andromeda Strain to Next. In HS I remember finding a hardback copy of Jurassic Park my step-mother had recently finished. I never read for leisure in HS, but this book got me hooked on Crichton. If I was going to recommend just one of his books it would be State of Fear.
I think there are two items that I have heard mentioned by the talking heads that have not been mentioned here that would factor into Saban’s decision. First Texas has a lot more big money donors that Saban would have to accommodate. From what I’ve heard, Brown was masterful at pressing the flesh and glad handing those donors. Second, it sounds like Texas is going through an internal identity crisis. The administration is going through one of those phases where they are trying to decide how much emphasis should be placed on athletics. Everybody knows football is number one in Tuscalosa; is Saban willing to take a chance football could take a back seat to academics at Texas (which I don’t think would ever happen).
