Coach Rod, Wolverine

The University of Michigan hired Rich Rodriguez, formerly head coach at West Virginia as its football coach this weekend, undeterred by the $4 Million buyout clause in his contract with the Moutaineers, his alma mater.

Hmmm...

Those of you who read my blog entry last November know all about my family ties to the Michigan Wolverines, so I thought I'd be expected to say something about this.

At first I didn't know how I felt about it.

I didn't really think Les Miles was that good of a coach and reports that Michigan was going after him AFTER he signed his contract extension at LSU were nonsensical to me.

Next was Greg Schiano at Rutgers and Jim Grobe - who apparently is waiting for the perfect job...whatever that is...to leave small Wake Forest. I liked those names better than Miles, especially Grobe, but nothing about them really inspired me. Both have gotten teams at traditionally weak football schools to the top of their conferences. OK, great.

But - the Michigan program doesn't need rebuilding or a coach who can help players overachieve. A year ago this time they were the #1 team in the country and then...you know. I'm willing to see how this goes, but I'm sure it'll take time for any big changes to "gel". Go Blue!

Dr Hak Fixes The BCS

I've got the medicine for what ails college football fans...



The BCS is not going to be sufficient in seasons like 2007, when not enough (meaning less than 2) teams distinguish themselves as "the best", nor will it be good enough in years where more than 2 teams show themselves to be great.



PAC-10 and Big Ten honchos want to hold on to the tradition of the Rose Bowl, while their fans want to be national champs...and keep the Rose Bowl around too.



The networks want to televise games that will give them high ratings and bring in ad revenue



The bowls, non-BCS that is, don't want to be marginalized any further, as they bring in tourist dollars a'plenty for warm-weather cities across the South and West...and those in the North with domed stadiums.



College Presidents don't want to jeopardize the students academic progress with a longer season...



... unless there's more money at play



Coaches are sick of having to lobby for a spot in the BCS ala' Mack Brown successful journey to the Rose Bowl the year before Texas...scratch that...Vince Young won the National Title, and Bob Stoops' unsuccessful attempt this year (he didn't have enough time).



Fans want their favorite sport to not be diminished or continue to have stupid ish like Oklahoma in the title game after losing to K-State in 03, Auburn getting left out in 04, and USC getting left out in 03, and then weird years like this one.



So how do we fix this? What can be done to appease everyone?



The answer is nothing. But I do have a solution that would take as little compromise as possible - and only add 4 games (not weeks, games) to the season




Tradition is a big deal in college football. Some traditions more than others. I wouldn't dream of asking Alabama and Tennessee not to play on the 3rd Saturday in October (though its happened), but I would ask teams to let go of their thanksgiving weekend matchups if they are in a conference with a championship game. Do you HAVE to play a game on Thanksgiving weekend? How big a deal is that? Why am I bringing this up anyway? Let's get to Dr Hak's "Fix It" solution.





Dr. Hak Fixes The BCS

I now unveil, the "Final Four Plus-One BCS Solution"

1) End (and, if needed, start) the season one calendar week earlier. Championship Week is Thanksgiving weekend.

2) Four games are played on the first Saturday in December among the "Top 8" teams, as determined by a blue-ribbon selection committee. Non-BCS conference teams are promised one spot per year.

3) Semi-final games and Plus One Championship Game rotate between the Fiesta, Orange and Sugar bowls

4) Rose Bowl hosts a "semi" when both the Big 10 and Pac 10 champ survive into the Final Four. Bowl that "loses" the semi-game is the one that will host the title game the next year. If only one of the two conference champs is in the Final Four, Rose Bowl gets first replacement pick.

2006 Results

December Final Four Play-In Games

• Ohio State defeats Wake Forest or Oklahoma
• USC defeats Louisville
• Boise St defeats LSU
• Florida defeats Michigan

Rose Bowl Semi - Ohio State v USC

Orange Bowl - Boise St v Florida

Sugar Bowl - (loses Semi game, gets two picks) - Notre Dame v LSU

Fiesta Bowl - Oklahoma v Louisville

2007 Projections

December Final Four Play-In Games

• Ohio State defeats Hawaii
• LSU defeats Georgia
• Virginia Tech defeats West Virginia
• Oklahoma defeats USC

Fiesta Bowl Semi- Ohio State v Oklahoma

Orange Bowl Semi - Virginia Tech v LSU

Rose Bowl - Illinois v USC

Sugar Bowl - West Virginia v Missouri

Comments and critiques are welcome

The 2007-2008 BCS

Finally...FINALLY, the 2007 College football regular season is over.

Usually this is a sad time for me (see last year's postings) but truth be told, I'm very ready for this year to be over.

The 2006 season was exciting and dramatic, and ended with a bang - Florida destroying Ohio State.

The 2007 season was a Free-for-All with no dominant teams ever establishing that they were the best, leading to 13 unranked teams upsetting Top 5 teams and the #1 and #2 teams both losing in the same weekend TWICE in the last month of the season.

Thats not fun...or exciting...or dramatic...that's annoying.

Think of all the teams that just had to "win out" in November to claim a shot at the title
Missouri
Kansas
Oklahoma
West Virginia
Oregon
Arizona State
LSU

Sure, winning out in November is harder to do when all the teams have backloaded, ridiculously unbalanced schedules like they do this year, but it has to happen to somebody, right?

The fact that USC and Georgia have semi-legit beefs at not getting a shot at the title when both have not only 2 losses, but a really bad loss within that (Stanford a 41 point underdog beating USC, Tennessee blowing out Georgia with no real explanation) shows how sorry this season was.

Usually a few teams have a "woulda-coulda" play or game or two that leads to an offseason (or a lifetime) or "What If?"s. 2007 has a ton of them, so many so, I decided to give out some awards...

The 2007 What If Awards

West Virginia...if they could've not turned the ball over 40 times at South Florida, or actually put up a decent offensive showing at Pitt

Michigan..if they would've made a field goal and not panicked against Appalachain State, would've had one loss going into November (to #2 Oregon) and might've focused properly against Wisconsin and a totally beatable Ohio State team

LSU... more on them later

Kansas... if they wouldn't have waited until the end of the game against Missouri to act like they belonged

Missouri... if they wouldn't have played Oklahoma like rookies

Oklahoma..if they wouldn't have let Colorado beat them, or had a decent backup QB so they could beat Texas Tech

Arizona State... if they could actually beat a top Pac-10 team...like Oregon OR USC

Florida...if they could've stopped LSU on any of 75 4th down conversion attempts

Virginia Tech...if they would've had some safety help to stop Matt Ryan from completing a miracle bomb in their first game

Clemson...if your boy doesn't drop a wide open touchdown with 2 minutes left to go against BC

USC...if they wouldn't have let STANFORD beat them. They're supposed to beat Stanford. Really. Worse loss than the App St loss. Does this mean Jim Harbaugh is as good a coach/motivator as Bob Stoops?



Ok...Now let's talk about the BCS

With all the what-ifs and the late losses, not the dramatic kind - the stupid kind, we have some...underwhelming games on the BCS slate.

And before I go any further - Missouri got effing screwed. No excuse for the Orange Bowl not taking them over Kansas. Kansas must've been in their ear for weeks promising to sell out the stadium and buy every penthouse suite on South Beach because from a football standpoint - no reason to go with the Jayhawks over Mizzou. That being said, Bowl Games are about money, so I did research and found out...Missouri's enrollment is about the same size as Kansas'...meaning they probably have similarly sized alumni bases.

Outside of having more time to lobby the Orange Bowl since they were idle this week and Mizzou had...higher hopes...the only other thing I can think of is that Missouri's football team has been decent, Top 40 for a while. Not that great, but decent. I can name players who have played their. Kansas hasn't sniffed a bowl in like...ever. I think they might've made one last year under Mangino, but a BIG bowl game is probably a huge huge deal in Kansas. I don't know...it still would be to Missouri too, but maybe not after coming up short in reaching the title game (like how Michigan let USC destroy them in the Rose Bowl last year after they couldn't get it done against Ohio State. Go with the enthusiasm)

Whatever. Let's look at the matchups

Rose Bowl - USC v Illinois
The only game I was able to project before this weekend (I was certain West Va or Missouri would lose, but not BOTH!). Ron Zook has brought Illinois a long way and deserves props.
Or perhaps he lucked out. He's a great recruiter. Most of his players are why Florida won the title last year (except Tebow). But let's say he can't really coach them up - like Mack Brown - and so in the SEC, that ain't gonna work. But in the weakened Big Ten, perhaps having enough unique and special talent will get it done. 9-3 later, plus and upset of then #1 Ohio State and here we are.

USC, while slightly rebuilding, is only - ONLY in this game because Dennis Dixon, Oregon QB, got hurt. No wait, let me think about that. If Dixon stays, Oregon is #1, Ohio State #2 and the Rose Bowl could pick USC as the replacement for Oregon...or Arizona State. OK enough of the what ifs, we did that earlier this entry. I expect next year to be better for USC because they get Mitch Mustain. I'll tell anyone who will listen that Arkansas effed up big time letting him walk away from the program. He was 8-0 as a starter. Yes he had Darren McFadden with him, but he was 8-0 as a starter and one of the 4 big time QB recruits to come out that year, along with Florida's Tebow, Georgia's Matt Stafford and Jevon Snead who went to Texas but I believe transfered to Ole Miss.

The Game - I don't expect much out of Illinois against the Trojans, but that being said, USC hasn't been that powerful this year

USC 31- 20 Illinois

Fiesta Bowl - West Virginia v Oklahoma
I'll keep this brief. If Slaton, White and the boys can't score on Pitt, you think they're going to get over on Bob Stoops? Boise State was another story...actually, now that I think about it, Boise State's former coach (he left after 2005) is Colorado's coach. So the same offense beat Oklahoma within a year. Hmm...West Va does use a spread, but its not the super tricky type the Boise/Colorado clan uses. So they should be OK - excuse the pun.
Oklahoma, to me, has the best gripe against being left out of the title game

Oklahoma 38 - 29 West Virginia

Sugar Bowl - Georgia v Hawaii
Some folks in the media seem disappointed Georgia isn't playing USC. Like it matters or something. This isn't a "Plus One" system. Georgia, despite all the hype, is not all that great. (I guess that's like...all teams this year). I was more impressed with Tennessee watching the SEC title game than I expected to be, but they still suck and they BLEW OUT Georgia by like 30+.
I am interested to see how Colt Brennan and the gang do against an SEC defense. A good one at that. (Tennessee game aside)

Georgia 28-21 Hawaii

Orange Bowl - Virginia Tech v Undeserving Kansas
When undeserving teams make BCS games, they get Stomped. Always. Especially in title games but also in the other BCS bowls. The computers say Virginia Tech is #1. You might disagree since LSU beat them like 41-7 or something, but computers don't use margin of victory, and Va Tech avenged their other loss... Still...tweak the formula.

Virginia Tech 39 - 20 Kansas


I'll be back with my end of the year awards, final regular season rankings, and 2008 Pre-rankings later this week

Dr Hak out!

What? I forgot the title game?

Oh yeah

LSU's Les Miles might not be "going home" to coach Michigan (yet, he will if the next coach gets fired in 3 or 5 years and LSU, the fickle, overly emotional fans that they are, turn on him) but I know he still wants to destroy the Buckeyes.

Will he get to do it?

Hmmm...no so fast.

Ohio State has serious D and a good running game. They also don't want to be embarrassed in the title game 2 years in a row. I'm sure Jim Tressel, a decent coach, has learned a lesson or two. If not, he needs to get fired.

LSU has played down to the level of their opposition all season. Towards the end of the year, the loss of Glenn Dorsey to injury REALLY hurt them

Now, Dorsey has a month to heal. LSU has time to come up with some trick plays, and Early Doucet and Matt Flynn get to heal too.

That is a recipie for an LSU blowout. But they don't blow anyone out. Ever.

Neither did Florida last year, however.

What am I trying to say here?

I can see this game going one of two ways

Ohio State 42-40 LSU in 3OT

or

LSU 42 - 24 Ohio State in a game not really that close.

I'll go with the latter.