Sucessful Non-BCS Schools are NOT bad for college football

I'm not sure what the best way to put it lightly is, but this article is THE worst sports article I have read in at least a couple of months.

To me, it seems like the writer (David Whitley) is trying to become the Billy Packer of college football (in other words, be heavily biased towards BCS conferences and never giving any of the non-BCS conferences credit for anything and trying to sabotage their credibility)

The entire article is basically a smear campaign on all of the elite college football conferences that have the misfortune of not being in one of the 6 BCS conferences that control the money. The first three paragraphs alone are enough to make the blood boil a little bit.

Unless the NCAA takes the win away, Bobby Bowdenjust did college football a big favor. His Florida Stateteam beat Brigham Young, knocking out a pretender to the throne.

Excuse me, who are you to speak for College Football? Having a non-traditional football team contend for a title would not hurt College Football. It would only make it stronger. It would give hope to fan bases outside the major conferences. It would inspire fans that in any given year...if they have one of those dream seasons...they could perhaps win a championship. BYU even won a title in the 80s and college football hasn't been any better or worse for it.

Also, BYU a pretender? Correct me if i'm wrong but didn't they beat one of the elite programs in Oklahoma a couple of weeks ago?

Then Oregon beat fellow pretender Utah. Now if somebody could dump Boise State, we'll all have a merry Christmas.

Utah as a pretender? The same Utah team that's 2-0 in BCS bowl games this decade? The same Utah team that was the only team to go undefeated last year and destroy a strong Alabama team in their bowl game. The same Utah team that got robbed of playing in the title game for playing in the wrong conference?

That's not likely because the Broncos have already gone unbeaten in their one-game season. It's all over but the routing of San Jose State, Idaho, UC Davis, UC Chula Vista and UC Schwarzenegger.

I will concede that Boise State doesn't play in the strongest conference. That being said, they still have to execute on the field, play the games. While those teams are not setting the college football world on fire, it's guaranteed that their opponents are going to bring their A-games against Boise State and the Boise State will still have to work for their wins.

And to infer that the success of the small guys is bad for College Football, correct me if i'm wrong but didn't Boise State give us one of the most entertaining bowl games when they beat Oklahoma in '07. I guarantee you an overtime game like that would not generate the same buzz if it was one of your standard BCS conference 10-2 team such as Texas, Georgia, Ohio State, or whatever happens to pass for a Big East or ACC Champion in that given year.

On a side note, how dare you slam the fine UC System (which I am a product of) and make the point of slamming UCD by listing a couple of made up UC names. I'll be the first to admit my alma matter is not what you'd call a football juggernaut. However, if your gonna slam UC Davis at least put them next to an actual UC School. I'll even list a few examples you can use next time to save you 20 seconds of your time (UC Santa Cruz, UC Merced, UC Santa Barbara and UC Riverside).

I'd have a lot more respect for Boise State if it played a real schedule. More importantly, the BCS would have a lot more respect if the Broncos had to get up for more than one game a year.

Come on, Boise State is not the first top-25 team nor the last top-25 program to schedule non-conference cupcakes (this weekend). Boise State has Bowling Green on the schedule this weekend. Granted Bowling Green is not what you would call an elite program but it's no worse than scheduling Louisiana-Lafayette (Nebraska...cough...cough..), Charleston Southern (cough...Florida..cough) or Florida International (Alabama....cough)....Point being, where's the outrage of the elite programs scheduling teams that are inferior to them.

Sure, Boise State beat Oklahoma in a thrilling Fiesta Bowl and Utah thumped Alabama in last year's Sugar Bowl. Nobody's saying the best from the Mountain West and WAC can't beat the best from the SEC and Big 12.

Then how come your so reluctant to let these teams prove themselves on College Football's biggest stage? Seriously, last year in the MWC, there were 3 teams finishing in the top-16. On the contrary, the best the ACC could give us is a 3-loss Cincinnati team and a 4-loss Virginia Tech team. While the WAC is basically the Boise State show, (how they get slammed for this while Florida State's got a free pass for being THE ACC in the 90s is beyond me).

Well that's enough ranting and raving for one night. I can't wait to see Boise State, TCU and/or Houston school Ohio State in a BCS bowl game.

So are baseball post-game celebrations good or bad? Some just can't make up their mind

Saw this article online from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writer Gene Collier who was complaining about excessive celebrating in baseball.


To put it nicely, Collier is way too incoherent in his argument.

Amongst the highlights:

Seems like somebody wins the World Series every night nowadays, at least on the TV highlights shows, where no manner of walk-off hit fails to spark the kind of 25-man running, jumping, tumbling, laughing celebration once traditionally reserved for once-in-a-lifetime moments in October.

It is July, right?



A bit of an exaggeration on the extent of celebrations. It's like oh no, a team is happy that they won a game. Isn't that a good thing? I'd rather have that than 25 guys who could care less whether or not they win the game.

Also, while it may only be July, there are more teams than not that still have legitimate post-season hopes. As a result, the difference between being on the winning and losing end of these close games is a big deal to the teams and their fans. Another thing, these aforementioned celebrations are in smaller scope and less narcissistic than other sports ....cough...NFL....cough.........

First of all, these celebrations are happening as a TEAM. Second, you don't have an Ocho Cinco/TO types planning over the top elaborate celebrations. In other words, the celebrations are pretty low on the excessive scale.

But oh no, someone could get hurt.

The Chicago Cubs placed starting pitcher Ryan Dempster on the disabled list Tuesday with a pulled celebration.

Scrambling to join teammates celebrating a titanic victory Sunday against Milwaukee (it pulled the Cubs within two games of first place with only 82 games left to play), Dempster tripped over the dugout rail and broke his big toe.

Nice piece of cherry-picking there. Out of this whole "pandemic" of players being happy about scoring more runs than the other time....he picks out one time where it adversely affected a player and uses that as one of the man backbones of his "argument"......

And then he changes his stance mid-article:

To be perfectly unclear, I'm not sure how I feel about demonstrations of joyfulness in baseball because they are probably too few. It's better to have people pounding each about the head, neck, ears and back than slinking into the dugout to calculate the game's impact on their various incentive clauses.

But I thought this guy was disgusted by the rash of post-game celebrations. He makes it pretty clear he doesn't like these celebrations and that there's too many.....and then he goes around to argue the exact opposite. So is baseball joy getting out of hand? Or is it ok? Or is it simultaneously acceptable and unacceptable?

Well to sum up the rest of the article Collier goes back and forth incoherently about whether these post-game celebrations are good or bad.....I would give more highlights about this but honestly...... watching the Brewers give up 6 runs in the top of the 10th has made me too disgusted to think clearly. (On an "unrelated" note I REALLY, REALLY hope Carlos Villaneuva is either pitching in Nashville or looking for work by the time I wake up tomorrow......I really don't want to see him (or anyone) single-handedly pitch the Brewers out of contention)

It's the minor leagues......get over it

This article was so bad I couldn't help but give my two cents on it (even though its a few days old).

Pretty much, LA Times Writer/Around the Horn commentator Bill Plaschke incoherently rambles about how much of an atrocity it is that Manny Ramirez is allowed to rehab in the minor leagues before the end of his 50-game steroid/fertility pill suspension and how its such an outrage that Dodgers fans still have Manny Ramirez's back even though he got suspended for violating MLB's steroid policy

The biggest "highlight" of this masterpiece was:

I was here to find a Dodgers fan brave enough to boo him.
Surely it would happen, right? 

Alright  so he got busted doing fertility pills, not the smartest career move but if I was Dodgers fan I would not be booing Manny Ramirez. I would be counting the days until the end of his suspension [If God forbid, Braun and/or Fielder were to go through this, I would still cheer their return]. If you don't like that he does steroids, thats one thing but to treat him like a pariah because he messed up is another. Following this "logic" do you want to eradicate all the good he's done for the Dodgers. First of all, the dude has put up ridiculous numbers since being traded to LA and behaved himself  (for now). In other words, while Manny  has  done his share of selfish acts over the years, this behavior has regressed in LA. Furthermore, if not for Manny the Dodgers would still be the mediocre . 500ish team they were before coming to LA.

In plain mathematical terms it translates to the following, 

No Manny=No Playoffs

No Playoffs=Dodger's not winning first post-season series in 20 years

No Manny=Youngsters not gaining confidence by being around Manny and not holding on to that substantial division lead even during Manny's suspension.

No Manny=The Dodgers are likely hanging out with San Diego and Arizona at the bottom of the NL West.

Basically, in Plaschke's mind doing PEDs undos all these positives. Simply, with Manny Ramirez the Dodgers have become one of the elite teams in the national league. So even if you dislike steroid use, the critics have to at least see why Dodger fans are excited about his return.

Also, who cares....steroid use has been one of the most over-blown stories in the last 5-10 years. Seriously, NFL players are WAY more juiced than MLB players but when someone gets busted in the NFL the only people who care are the ones who have said player on their fantasy football team. Point being, he's not playing in the major leagues...he's not getting paid....and really who normally pays attention to those games in exotic locales such as Albuquerque and Lake Elsinore.........which begs the question, will Plaschke still have this self-righteous rhetoric if Manny being Manny brings the Dodgers a World Series crown.......

Also, will anyone even remember this fake outrage about Manny getting back into playing shape in a month? 10 days? a week? Even as it's going on now I could really care less.........but it's steroids.....its 2009.....the anger.....the outrage...............