Unverified Voracity Makes Brackets Again
Annual exercise. This site, like all other sites, has a favored playoff proposal that it spent way too much time justifying a couple years ago and wouldn't like to revisit in depth but would like to remind you how much better it would be than the current broken system.
In short, it's a six-team playoff with home games in the first two rounds and the final at the Rose Bowl. There are no autobids. First round would be the weekend after the Championship games (ie, this weekend), the second round would be January 1st, and the final would be the 8th or whatever in the Rose Bowl. This year's edition:
1. Alabama vs. 4. TCU / 5. Boise State
2. Texas vs. 3. Cincinnati / 6. Florida
That is weirdly like two of the existing BCS games, but this time they actually, you know, get a shot at the big boys should they win.
A brief recap of why this is good:
- Byes and home games keep huge tension in the regular season. The SEC championship game didn't eliminate Florida but instead of a bye and a second-round home game, Florida gets to go to Cincinnati in a quarter-final.
- Slanting the playoff towards regular season results also makes it likely that the national title winner would always have the best resume at the end of the season. Even a two-loss team slipping in at the back end would probably get voted #1 independent of any crystal footballs after three straight wins against elite competition, two of them on the road.
- It doesn't require anyone to travel excessively.
- It doesn't affect the bowl system much. Only four teams are sucked out of the bowls.
- It's not the dumbest thing in the history of the world.
Yea, truly this is the way.
The most evil corporation in the history of world. …probably isn't this one I'm about to talk about. But they are irritating.
No one else probably remembers this, but when I saw the letters in this Sporting Blog post I was reminded of a previous fiasco:
Back in late October, SI broke the story of a fight for film going on between the NFL and XOS Technologies. As a quick refresher, XOS is in charge of digitizing film for eight conferences, including the SEC, Pac-10, Big 12, Mid-American, WAC and Sun Belt. Now XOS wants what is reportedly $20-$30 million for film the NFL used to receive for nothing.
You may remember XOS from such ill-fated public relations disasters as "The SEC Controls Your Mind"; they signed on to do all the digital stuff for the SEC this year and immediately issued a draconian policy that was RIAA-esque in its blinkered belief that you can control the internet. Now this same corporation is trying to extract money from the NFL for tapes of prospects, and the NFL is in a fight. I bet coaches who want to tout the NFL-readiness of their players just love this corporation.
You'll note the Big Ten is not afflicted; they've cast their lot with Fox and the Big Ten Network and should have no problems getting seniors and—more importantly for folks hoping Donovan Warren reconsiders—juniors scouted in a timely fashion.
Aigh. Formerly Anonymous ran across this interview with Richard Billingsley, which gives me another opportunity to rail against his hodge-podge of dreck that purports to be a computer rating system. It's not a surprise that a guy who's described his system like this…
Believe it or not, the system is designed after our own United States Constitution. But don't hold that against it! Although at times I feel this system is just about as complicated as our Federal Government, there is one huge difference..... this one works!
…"doesn't even have a degree," according to the article, and won't divulge his formulas for ranking teams. Because they're insane. Things Billingsley does in his rankings:
- Weight Billingsley's own arbitrary preseason human rankings.
- Partially consider a team's (arbitrary, information-free) rank at the time of a game, thus hugely overvaluing wins like Notre Dame's victory over #3 but soon to go 7-5 Michigan in '05.
- Heavily weight the most recent week.
- Add in arbitrary bonuses.
This is an organization that thought a propaganda website, widely-mocked twitter account, and Ari Fleischer were good ideas, so it's not a huge surprise that they've cast their lot with a guy who sounds like he owns a bunch of stuff from the Franklin Mint. It is further confirmation that the people in charge of college football are sort of clueless: they've cast their lot with an aging nut's secret blend of herbs and spices that hasn't been updated since 1970.
PREWB! This was discussed extensively on the radio but has gone uncommented on here: the latest Free Press bit on the Michigan State "fight" is further evidence that the paper is in the tank for the Spartans. It interviews two parents of suspended players but doesn't bother to talk to the very talkative victim, mention that the president of the fraternity in question would like to see the football players gone for good, or mention anything in Glenn Winston's past. It is strictly from the POV of State players' parents. Jon Chait has a fuller takedown of an organization that's descended into self-parody.
This quote from the "grand polaris" of Iota Phi Theta—what a title—is from the News…
"From what I understand, almost all of those guys, if not all of them that came in there, (threw) a punch," Price said of the eight who received suspensions. "They came in, (based) on their behavior, with the sole purpose of beating up or physically abusing an Iota."
…and is followed up by the term "assault," not "fight." The News also reports on Dantonio's response to the thing. Like the context left out of the Free Press Katrina story and provided by AnnArbor.com, you don't have to take a crazy biased blogger's word for it. You can observe the other news organizations covering the story and contrast them with the Free Press.
Etc.: Chengelis on the AD search. Harbaugh is not talking to Notre Dame. Bill Taylor discusses his company, which deals with substance abuse. Red is 70, and it's been suggested that Happy Birthday should be sung on Friday at Yost.
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... so it's not a huge surprise that they've cast their lot with a guy who sounds like he owns a bunch of stuff from the Franklin Mint.It's OK, though, I HAVE A SPECIAL OFFER FOR YOU:
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