As of today, the biggest fight possible in the UFC is new Lightheavyweight Champ & Pride Legend Shogun Rua vs Middleweight Kingpin Anderson "The Spider" Silva. It is the only fight my new-to-MMA-fan friends have asked me about in the last two days, and the fantasy title fight with the most "buzz".
Ironically, Shogun vs Spider may have been more likely with a Shogun loss at UFC 113.
Anderson Silva has repeatedly stated that the 205-lb belt "belongs to Lyoto", even before The Dragon had been granted his title shot in May of last year. Given their friendship and loyalty, it is very possible Anderson will refuse to fight Shogun for the belt anytime soon - under the assumption that Lyoto will return to his winning ways and earn another title shot within 2 or 3 fights.
So how do we get to a Rua-Silva mega-fight?
The best bet would be for Lyoto to lose again within his next three fights and drop him clear out of title contention.
But who would beat him?
Despite getting clipped on the temple by (arguably) the best 205lber of all time, Machida is unquestionably the #2 or #1b fighter in the division. Some fans will recall one reason for the "delay" in Lyoto getting his title shot to start with was the fact that no one in the Top 10 would actually accept a fight with him. Rampage ducked him. Griffin ducked him even after beating Shogun in 2007. Only then-undefeated Thiago Silva had enough balls (or self-belief) to take the challenge and even that fight was delayed several months after Thiago injured his back. Machida's team basically had to wait, or risk the ability to face a fighter of any consequence.
Even with all of the power UFC matchmaker Joe Silva and Dana White weild, it is only when an avoided fighter such as Machida is the #1 contender or champion that they can really "force" Top 10 guys to fight him. This may explain why certain top fighters - i.e. Rampage, Spider Silva, Big Nog - who enter the organization receive a title shot after their first big win. It also explains why Machida didn't face any of the traditional big names in the 205 lb division you would assume one has to beat to get a title shot.
All of that to say - the few fighters not named Rua who might actually stand a chance to beat Machida won't bother taking that chance...so he won't be losing anytime soon. Rich Franklin would be the biggest name that might want a piece and he's previously been quoted as not wanting the fight on account of Lyoto's "boring" style (the same style Machida used to TKO Franklin). Lyoto will continue to beat Top 20 guys like Luis Arther Cane, Keith Jardine and Matt Hamill until he's back as the clear #1 contender sometime in late 2011 or early 2012.
If Dana White sticks to his recent statement that Spider Silva will need to beat both Chael Sonnen in August and then Vitor Belfort (let's say in December on the year-end show) to be allowed to move to 205 and vacate his Middleweight title, that would put the ETA for Anderson's arrival in the Lightheavyweight division at April of 2011. In the mean time, Shogun would need to beat the winner of the main event at UFC 114:Black on Black Crime, and then Randy "The Natural" Couture by year's end.
By then, Lyoto will be back in the win column, re-activating his claim to the throne and causing Anderson to say "it's still Lyoto's belt" through their (heel?) manager Ed Soares.
So how do we really get to a Rua-A.Silva mega-fight?
Timing will play a large role. The time it takes for Lyoto to earn his title next shot could run parallel to Silva's run through the division. Anderson fighting for the 205 lb belt in May of 2011 (or September 2011 if Forrest Griffin is protected for a year and given a title shot/rematch with Shogun) comes with the distinct possibility that were he to win, the clear #1 contender might be Lyoto Machida. Short of a random split within the House of Soares or some WWE storyline-style professional jealousy, that fight isn't ever happening.
Thus, the best chance for Silva-Shogun to happen is if Anderson is truly serious about eventually moving up to heavyweight to challenge Brock Lesnar and is willing to campaign at Heavyweight for the remaining fights on his contract and then retire.
If that were true, Dana could "convince" him (with $, of course) to take the fight with Shogun, and set up conditions to ensure he wouldn't be in conflict with Lyoto's path to another title shot in the event he won the belt. The deal could involve Spider defending the 205 lb belt no more than twice (options include Jon Jones, Rampage, and maybe a Shogun re-match) and then vacating to move up to Heavyweight and challenging Brock or whoever the champ is at the time. No conditions would be needed if Shogun were to defeat The Spider.
Of course, there are still caveats with this scenario.
1. This is all blown up if Lil' Nog keeps knocking guys out and Silva-n-Soares say the belt belongs to him too.
2. Having Silva as champ while Lyoto returns to prominence would only re-ignite Dana's obsession with making teammates fight.
3. Silva vacating the belt right as Lyoto (or anyone else) gets ready to earn another title shot would reduce the legitimacy of the new champion's claim to the throne. I don't think Anderson cares about that going down in the middleweight division, nor should he. But would he want to hurt the perception of his friend? Would Soares want that cloud hanging over the title reign of one of his clients? That will probably be something Team Soares takes into heavy consideration when the hype for Shogun-Spider picks up at the end of this year.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
Come on, Shaq!
I used to like Shaq, but in the last 12 months, a pair of separate incidents have led me to believe that Shaq, as Diddy would put it, is on some Bitchassness.
First of all, is there a reason he bounces from team to team so much? Shaq is one of the 3 greatest centers ever, and definitely in this era... but he can't keep a team? How is that?
Maybe because he's on some bullshit? Just maybe. I don't know the man. Like I said, I tend to like Shaq. He's charismatic, funny, and seems to enjoy himself.
But umm... what's with fucking Gilbert Arena's life up?
And what's with stealing Steve Nash's idea so dirty you had to give executive producer credit on the show idea you stole from him?
First let's talk about "Shaq Vs."
It's a show on ABC where Shaq challenges top athletes to a duel in their sport. Like a home run derby against Albert Pujols or a swimming race against Michael Phelps. It's a cool idea, I might admit. And in the world of sports, who better than Shaq to pull it off? Personality wise, I can only think of a few names, and since he's going to lose, its about the personality of the event. Athletically, it'd probably be cooler to see LeBron or someone younger do it.
Anyway, Shaq didn't make this idea up, or get it from some TV studio. He OVERHEARD a conversation Steve Nash had in the locker room about STEVE NASH VERSUS (or whatever he would've called it). He then took it to his people, got it to a TV studio, and Shaq Vs was born.
How fucked up is that?
Steve Nash, now an ex teammate, heard about it, and to HIS credit, didn't blow a fuse like I might've. There may or may not have been lawsuit and $ talk, but at the end of the day, Steve Nash gets an Executive Producer credit on the show.
Then, there's Gil. Agent Zero. Now $80 Million Future dollars poorer after being suspended for the rest of this NBA season and likely having his Wizards contract bought out or voided.
Shaq, long story short, was fucking Gilbert's fiancee. Text messages and email accounts from alternate email addresses came out earlier this season. Shaq also had a "shoulder injury" for the 2 games before and after the Cavs only trip to Washington earlier this season. I'm calling BULLSHIT, on a shoulder injury there. And I can prove it too.
Gil has since gone crazy. He probably was going to kill Shaq live on national television had he come, so it's good he didn't show up, but lets look at what else is going on in Gil's head. He doesn't even know if his KIDS ARE HIS are not anymore. He was going to marry this woman, and she's a tramp. With Shaq. His boy. Come on son... that'll drive a man crazy enough to bring 3 or 4 guns into a locker room and tell a teammate to choose one for an OK Corral style "DRAW!" duel.
Gilbert Arenas just lost $80 million, his fiancee, and his sanity...because of Shaq O'Neal.
That's fucked up.
I sincerely hope Gilbert did something to Shaq first. Otherwise... he's just plain evil.
All of this leads me to ask one question I never really expected to ask...
Was Kobe really the problem in LA?
First of all, is there a reason he bounces from team to team so much? Shaq is one of the 3 greatest centers ever, and definitely in this era... but he can't keep a team? How is that?
Maybe because he's on some bullshit? Just maybe. I don't know the man. Like I said, I tend to like Shaq. He's charismatic, funny, and seems to enjoy himself.
But umm... what's with fucking Gilbert Arena's life up?
And what's with stealing Steve Nash's idea so dirty you had to give executive producer credit on the show idea you stole from him?
First let's talk about "Shaq Vs."
It's a show on ABC where Shaq challenges top athletes to a duel in their sport. Like a home run derby against Albert Pujols or a swimming race against Michael Phelps. It's a cool idea, I might admit. And in the world of sports, who better than Shaq to pull it off? Personality wise, I can only think of a few names, and since he's going to lose, its about the personality of the event. Athletically, it'd probably be cooler to see LeBron or someone younger do it.
Anyway, Shaq didn't make this idea up, or get it from some TV studio. He OVERHEARD a conversation Steve Nash had in the locker room about STEVE NASH VERSUS (or whatever he would've called it). He then took it to his people, got it to a TV studio, and Shaq Vs was born.
How fucked up is that?
Steve Nash, now an ex teammate, heard about it, and to HIS credit, didn't blow a fuse like I might've. There may or may not have been lawsuit and $ talk, but at the end of the day, Steve Nash gets an Executive Producer credit on the show.
Then, there's Gil. Agent Zero. Now $80 Million Future dollars poorer after being suspended for the rest of this NBA season and likely having his Wizards contract bought out or voided.
Shaq, long story short, was fucking Gilbert's fiancee. Text messages and email accounts from alternate email addresses came out earlier this season. Shaq also had a "shoulder injury" for the 2 games before and after the Cavs only trip to Washington earlier this season. I'm calling BULLSHIT, on a shoulder injury there. And I can prove it too.
Gil has since gone crazy. He probably was going to kill Shaq live on national television had he come, so it's good he didn't show up, but lets look at what else is going on in Gil's head. He doesn't even know if his KIDS ARE HIS are not anymore. He was going to marry this woman, and she's a tramp. With Shaq. His boy. Come on son... that'll drive a man crazy enough to bring 3 or 4 guns into a locker room and tell a teammate to choose one for an OK Corral style "DRAW!" duel.
Gilbert Arenas just lost $80 million, his fiancee, and his sanity...because of Shaq O'Neal.
That's fucked up.
I sincerely hope Gilbert did something to Shaq first. Otherwise... he's just plain evil.
All of this leads me to ask one question I never really expected to ask...
Was Kobe really the problem in LA?
Black College Football - The Big Idea
(***2nd edit complete. One more to go.***)
College football is by far my favorite sport. The traditions, pageantry, Bowl Games, constant debates over playoffs, etc... I love it all. But when I turn on the TV for the big games on fall Saturdays, I can't help but be a little sad that I don't see black school featured in any CBS spotlight games of the week.
Many institutions of higher learning use their athletic programs as free advertising for the rest of the university, and big money generators as well. For whatever reason, HBCUs don't take full advantage of what they have. I went to an HBCU, specifically, the best school in the country - Florida A&M University.
FAMU has a strong football tradition and program and the added attraction of the world's best band... the incomparable Marching 100. We won the first 1-AA/FCS title in the late 70s and beat Miami in the same season. Somehow, over the last 30 years we've gone from beating the Hurricanes to not even being in the conversation with them for recruits.
Its not just FAMU either. Eddie Robinson, possibly THE greatest coach ever in college football, won his games at Grambling. Southern, Tennessee State, South Carolina State and other black football programs have similar stories to tell.
When I was at FAMU, the Rattlers football team was in the midst of playoff streak that reached 8 years. It ended during an aborted attempt to move the football program up to the 1-A/FBS level. At the time, we would often see Troy State in the playoffs. Troy was a pretty good 1-AA team, but they had NOTHING on the Rattlers and we'd beat them 3 out of 4 years to advance or something like that.
Ten years later, Troy is in the Sun Belt Conference, playing division 1-A football and making up to $1 MILLION dollars a game (Arkansas State, also in the Sun Belt, is getting $1 M to play @ Auburn next year http://blog.al.com/auburnbeat/2009/03/auburn_adds_arkansas_state_to.html) and we're getting paltry checks from Mickey Mouse to sell out the Citrus Bowl with BCC (BCU?) in the Florida Classic.
This bothers the shit out of me. On two counts. 1) there's nothing special about Troy, but they're getting money we should be. Oklahoma and Virgina Tech were ready to chip in more than $500,000 each to play FAMU when we announced our move to 1-A. 2) Black Colleges routinely FILL mega-stadiums and domes with alumni fans and students and do not get anywhere near the $ these 1-A schools get.
For example - The Chick-fil-a Kickoff Classic paid Clemson and Alabama more then $2 Million EACH for a sellout of the Georgia Dome. Guess who else sells out the Georgia Dome?
FAMU vs Tennessee State. Last Saturday in September every year. And it'd be an even BIGGER game is FAMU played SOUTHERN there every year like i'd prefer.
Do FAMU and TSU take home $2 Million for the same sellout that Alabama and Clemson get? Hell no. Why? Partially bad negotiating, partially the fact that we're playing small-time football.
It's BEEN time for that to be over.
Considering the campus make-up, smaller class sizes, and focus on the students' success you find at HBCUs, its a shame they haven't become powers in the world of NCAA college athletics... And I'm talking in all sports.
OK, that's a lot of set up for One Idea. Let's skip to it.
Here's my idea.
I want 8 to 12 HBCUs to create a new football conference and apply for admission to Division 1-A together.
There are multiple components to this idea. The MONEY. The SCHEDULE. The ORGANIZATION.
Let's start with the SCHEDULE.
The minimum requirement for 1-A football is average attendance of 17,000. There are a handful of HBCUs that meet this off top. ( http://web1.ncaa.org/d1mfb/2007/Internet/attendance/IAA_AVGATTENDANCE.pdf )
HOWEVER, this doesn't factor in the "neutral site" games that define the Black College Football Experience. If a school were to play in two big classics a year, considering one a home game and one an away game (you are allowed to do this, according to NCAA regulations), these contests would only need to pull about 30,000 fans to swing the the attendance of several HBCUs on the above list above 17,000 for the year.
When FAMU tried to move up to 1-A, they discovered some serious issues internally, but the biggest program in my mind was the schedule and its lack of attractiveness to fans.
FAMU Football Transitional 1-A Season (2004) Schedule
@Illinois
@Tulane
@Temple
Tennessee State - Atlanta
Virginia Union
Nicholls State
@Va Tech
Savannah State
Florida Atlantic
BCC - Orlando
@Florida International
Nicholls State? Tulane? Florida Atlanta? Who the F wants to see us play them? I don't. As a football fan I don't care about those program, but as an HBCU grad I want to see the Battle of the Bands and the Southern University Dancing Dolls as well.
In a PERFECT world... for FAMU, the 1-AA/FCS schedule looks like this in my mind.
@ Florida
vs Grambling
- Southern in Atlanta
@ Tennessee State
@ Hampton
vs North Carolina A&T
@ Prarie View or Texas Southern
vs Jackson State
vs Alabama A&M
@ Alabama State
- BCC in Orlando
Not only does this schedule provide compelling HBCU matchups, it takes the football team to areas where there are good recruits. South Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, etc... And it guarantees 17,000 fans at home games.
THE ORGANIZATION
The schedule above isn't a 1-A schedule unless these schools become 1-A. So a concerted effort to get facilities and programs in order by say, 2015 to qualify has to be done and it has to be done with harmony and agreement. The SWAC and MEAC won't be happy, but they can be appeased financially and this could technically be a football-only deal.
THE MONEY
Football is THE money making sport in college sports. Basketball can be too for very successful programs like Duke, UConn and North Carolina. But its all about football. And football, and running a university, is all about money.
This is how I see the money working.
FBS/1-A schools get to play 12 games a year. At $1 Million per road "guarantee" game against a big, powerhouse program, there's plenty of money being given out to build a REAL football program over, say, a decade. (Again, see Troy as an example. Did they get destroyed in all their early 1-A games? Yes. Do they now? No...because they took their $, invested in facilities for football, got better, took advantage of their TV exposure, recruited better, and made themselves into a 7-5 type of program. The next step would be to LEAVE the Sun Belt and get to a real conference like Conf USA)
With $1 Million guarantee games available, and increased negotiation power for the Classics (over time), now that the football being played "matters" more, the HBCUs that do this would have the $ to get better over time. I also think that there will be players from Florida who would JUMP at the chance to play for FAMU and have their NFL dreams still be realistic (same with Louisiana boys and Southern/Grambling)... so the rebuilding on the field wouldn't take as long.
So here's the list of schools who could possibly pull something like this off based on attendance (mainly), programs, and what I know about the schools.
FAMU
Southern
Grambling
Jackson State
Tennessee State
Alabama State
NC A&T
Norfolk State
South Carolina State
Maybes
Hampton
Howard (a university that can do whatever it wants but has ignored athletics for some reason I don't get)
Alabama A&M
Prarie View (based on their market, Houston)
Texas Southern (ditto)
...and finally, FAMU's 1-A schedule as part of the new conference
@ Oregon
- Grambling in New Orleans
@ Hampton
vs Tennessee State
@ NC A&T
vs South Carolina State
@ Jackson State
- Southern in Atlanta
@ Ohio State
vs Norfolk State
- BCC in Orlando
vs Alabama State
The MONEY Part 2
Here's the other piece of the $ puzzle - the conference championship game. The SWAC does this now, and if done properly, could be a big deal at the 1-A level sometime around... 2020. That's an extra $500k per school with a $6 million rights fee. I'm not sure what Dr Pepper is paying to sponsor the Big 12 and SEC title games, but if you can win $1 million at halftime kicking a 50 yard field goal i suppose the conferences get way more than that. $6 million is a conservative estimate for sure. And I didn't include the broadcast fees yet either.
If 12 teams are in the conference in two divisions...
West / South Division
FAMU
Southern
Grambling
Jackson State
Prairie View
Alabama State
East / North Division
Tennessee State
Norfolk State
North Carolina A&T
South Carolina State
Howard
Hampton
...a conference championship game the first week in December in Atlanta or Miami would be do-able.
The DOWNSIDE
There's a lot of potential pitfalls for this idea. Most of which involve some form of crabs-in-the-barrel behavior at either the collective or an individual institutional level.
There's also the split-small-town attendance issue. FAMU and FSU share Tallahassee. Southern and LSU share Baton Rouge. Can FAMU and Southern get 17,000 to the stadium without Classics? They already do...again, FAMU trying to schedule Nicholls State and not Grambling State for a home game is part of the short sightedness of going it alone.
The investments needed to upgrade the facilities to even minimum "you call yourself a 1-A institution?" standards are substantial and critical to the success of the project, as there won't be a LOT of kids willing to pass up the Nautilus machines and player lounges at FSU for a weight room at FAMU that's not even as big as the one at their powerhouse, state champion high school.
HOW LONG WOULD IT TAKE?
10 years and the HBCU conference will be at least as good as the MAC or Conference USA. They're already as good as the Sun Belt.
The benefit of moving up TOGETHER is that while the decade passes, and the seed money comes in from getting beat up by Auburn and Oklahoma is put to use, the BLACK COLLEGE GAMEDAY EXPERIENCE DOESN'T CHANGE for students and alumni of these institutions.
Everyone who went to an HBCU, especially the ones listed somewhere above, understands the difference between going to a game to watch the band and going to watch the game. FAMU fans are lucky enough to understand both (I'd try not to get upset when everyone left after halftime when we were up 36-0 back in the Billy Joe "Gulf Coast Offense" days, but I was never disappointed when we had a close game or were down - Rattler fans stayed until the end of the game and participated well).
Using this experience as a starting point for something much much bigger is what I'm bout... and by much much bigger I mean...
FAMU vs Southern on ESPN2,
Young kid sees the game, the band, and says "cool, I want to go there". He's 8.
10 years later, he's a scholarly lad, and wants to be an engineer. Well guess what, now when he considers FAMU, NC A&T, etc... he's not going to some small backwater school no one has heard of, because these teams get on TV as much as the SEC and Big Ten schools now...
So when he graduates with honors and goes to career fairs... he doesn't have to explain his school. And when he starts working on engines for Harley-Davidson, no one asks him "Florida A&M, you mean Florida State?" - response: "NO, Bitch. FAMU", followed by "Oh, where's that?"
And when companies schedule those trips... and cut those scholarship checks... and alumni have to choose between giving to their HBCU undergrad or their Ivy/Big Ten grad school...
You see where I'm going with it. HBCUs are an important piece of the educational history and fabric of the USA and have been somehow relegated to 2nd-class status in many ways. This is tragic. People have to hear of you to care about you... And in America, football is King.
(***To be completed***)
College football is by far my favorite sport. The traditions, pageantry, Bowl Games, constant debates over playoffs, etc... I love it all. But when I turn on the TV for the big games on fall Saturdays, I can't help but be a little sad that I don't see black school featured in any CBS spotlight games of the week.
Many institutions of higher learning use their athletic programs as free advertising for the rest of the university, and big money generators as well. For whatever reason, HBCUs don't take full advantage of what they have. I went to an HBCU, specifically, the best school in the country - Florida A&M University.
FAMU has a strong football tradition and program and the added attraction of the world's best band... the incomparable Marching 100. We won the first 1-AA/FCS title in the late 70s and beat Miami in the same season. Somehow, over the last 30 years we've gone from beating the Hurricanes to not even being in the conversation with them for recruits.
Its not just FAMU either. Eddie Robinson, possibly THE greatest coach ever in college football, won his games at Grambling. Southern, Tennessee State, South Carolina State and other black football programs have similar stories to tell.
When I was at FAMU, the Rattlers football team was in the midst of playoff streak that reached 8 years. It ended during an aborted attempt to move the football program up to the 1-A/FBS level. At the time, we would often see Troy State in the playoffs. Troy was a pretty good 1-AA team, but they had NOTHING on the Rattlers and we'd beat them 3 out of 4 years to advance or something like that.
Ten years later, Troy is in the Sun Belt Conference, playing division 1-A football and making up to $1 MILLION dollars a game (Arkansas State, also in the Sun Belt, is getting $1 M to play @ Auburn next year http://blog.al.com/auburnbeat/2009/03/auburn_adds_arkansas_state_to.html) and we're getting paltry checks from Mickey Mouse to sell out the Citrus Bowl with BCC (BCU?) in the Florida Classic.
This bothers the shit out of me. On two counts. 1) there's nothing special about Troy, but they're getting money we should be. Oklahoma and Virgina Tech were ready to chip in more than $500,000 each to play FAMU when we announced our move to 1-A. 2) Black Colleges routinely FILL mega-stadiums and domes with alumni fans and students and do not get anywhere near the $ these 1-A schools get.
For example - The Chick-fil-a Kickoff Classic paid Clemson and Alabama more then $2 Million EACH for a sellout of the Georgia Dome. Guess who else sells out the Georgia Dome?
FAMU vs Tennessee State. Last Saturday in September every year. And it'd be an even BIGGER game is FAMU played SOUTHERN there every year like i'd prefer.
Do FAMU and TSU take home $2 Million for the same sellout that Alabama and Clemson get? Hell no. Why? Partially bad negotiating, partially the fact that we're playing small-time football.
It's BEEN time for that to be over.
Considering the campus make-up, smaller class sizes, and focus on the students' success you find at HBCUs, its a shame they haven't become powers in the world of NCAA college athletics... And I'm talking in all sports.
OK, that's a lot of set up for One Idea. Let's skip to it.
Here's my idea.
I want 8 to 12 HBCUs to create a new football conference and apply for admission to Division 1-A together.
There are multiple components to this idea. The MONEY. The SCHEDULE. The ORGANIZATION.
Let's start with the SCHEDULE.
The minimum requirement for 1-A football is average attendance of 17,000. There are a handful of HBCUs that meet this off top. ( http://web1.ncaa.org/d1mfb/2007/Internet/attendance/IAA_AVGATTENDANCE.pdf )
HOWEVER, this doesn't factor in the "neutral site" games that define the Black College Football Experience. If a school were to play in two big classics a year, considering one a home game and one an away game (you are allowed to do this, according to NCAA regulations), these contests would only need to pull about 30,000 fans to swing the the attendance of several HBCUs on the above list above 17,000 for the year.
When FAMU tried to move up to 1-A, they discovered some serious issues internally, but the biggest program in my mind was the schedule and its lack of attractiveness to fans.
FAMU Football Transitional 1-A Season (2004) Schedule
@Illinois
@Tulane
@Temple
Tennessee State - Atlanta
Virginia Union
Nicholls State
@Va Tech
Savannah State
Florida Atlantic
BCC - Orlando
@Florida International
Nicholls State? Tulane? Florida Atlanta? Who the F wants to see us play them? I don't. As a football fan I don't care about those program, but as an HBCU grad I want to see the Battle of the Bands and the Southern University Dancing Dolls as well.
In a PERFECT world... for FAMU, the 1-AA/FCS schedule looks like this in my mind.
@ Florida
vs Grambling
- Southern in Atlanta
@ Tennessee State
@ Hampton
vs North Carolina A&T
@ Prarie View or Texas Southern
vs Jackson State
vs Alabama A&M
@ Alabama State
- BCC in Orlando
Not only does this schedule provide compelling HBCU matchups, it takes the football team to areas where there are good recruits. South Florida, Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, etc... And it guarantees 17,000 fans at home games.
THE ORGANIZATION
The schedule above isn't a 1-A schedule unless these schools become 1-A. So a concerted effort to get facilities and programs in order by say, 2015 to qualify has to be done and it has to be done with harmony and agreement. The SWAC and MEAC won't be happy, but they can be appeased financially and this could technically be a football-only deal.
THE MONEY
Football is THE money making sport in college sports. Basketball can be too for very successful programs like Duke, UConn and North Carolina. But its all about football. And football, and running a university, is all about money.
This is how I see the money working.
FBS/1-A schools get to play 12 games a year. At $1 Million per road "guarantee" game against a big, powerhouse program, there's plenty of money being given out to build a REAL football program over, say, a decade. (Again, see Troy as an example. Did they get destroyed in all their early 1-A games? Yes. Do they now? No...because they took their $, invested in facilities for football, got better, took advantage of their TV exposure, recruited better, and made themselves into a 7-5 type of program. The next step would be to LEAVE the Sun Belt and get to a real conference like Conf USA)
With $1 Million guarantee games available, and increased negotiation power for the Classics (over time), now that the football being played "matters" more, the HBCUs that do this would have the $ to get better over time. I also think that there will be players from Florida who would JUMP at the chance to play for FAMU and have their NFL dreams still be realistic (same with Louisiana boys and Southern/Grambling)... so the rebuilding on the field wouldn't take as long.
So here's the list of schools who could possibly pull something like this off based on attendance (mainly), programs, and what I know about the schools.
FAMU
Southern
Grambling
Jackson State
Tennessee State
Alabama State
NC A&T
Norfolk State
South Carolina State
Maybes
Hampton
Howard (a university that can do whatever it wants but has ignored athletics for some reason I don't get)
Alabama A&M
Prarie View (based on their market, Houston)
Texas Southern (ditto)
...and finally, FAMU's 1-A schedule as part of the new conference
@ Oregon
- Grambling in New Orleans
@ Hampton
vs Tennessee State
@ NC A&T
vs South Carolina State
@ Jackson State
- Southern in Atlanta
@ Ohio State
vs Norfolk State
- BCC in Orlando
vs Alabama State
The MONEY Part 2
Here's the other piece of the $ puzzle - the conference championship game. The SWAC does this now, and if done properly, could be a big deal at the 1-A level sometime around... 2020. That's an extra $500k per school with a $6 million rights fee. I'm not sure what Dr Pepper is paying to sponsor the Big 12 and SEC title games, but if you can win $1 million at halftime kicking a 50 yard field goal i suppose the conferences get way more than that. $6 million is a conservative estimate for sure. And I didn't include the broadcast fees yet either.
If 12 teams are in the conference in two divisions...
West / South Division
FAMU
Southern
Grambling
Jackson State
Prairie View
Alabama State
East / North Division
Tennessee State
Norfolk State
North Carolina A&T
South Carolina State
Howard
Hampton
...a conference championship game the first week in December in Atlanta or Miami would be do-able.
The DOWNSIDE
There's a lot of potential pitfalls for this idea. Most of which involve some form of crabs-in-the-barrel behavior at either the collective or an individual institutional level.
There's also the split-small-town attendance issue. FAMU and FSU share Tallahassee. Southern and LSU share Baton Rouge. Can FAMU and Southern get 17,000 to the stadium without Classics? They already do...again, FAMU trying to schedule Nicholls State and not Grambling State for a home game is part of the short sightedness of going it alone.
The investments needed to upgrade the facilities to even minimum "you call yourself a 1-A institution?" standards are substantial and critical to the success of the project, as there won't be a LOT of kids willing to pass up the Nautilus machines and player lounges at FSU for a weight room at FAMU that's not even as big as the one at their powerhouse, state champion high school.
HOW LONG WOULD IT TAKE?
10 years and the HBCU conference will be at least as good as the MAC or Conference USA. They're already as good as the Sun Belt.
The benefit of moving up TOGETHER is that while the decade passes, and the seed money comes in from getting beat up by Auburn and Oklahoma is put to use, the BLACK COLLEGE GAMEDAY EXPERIENCE DOESN'T CHANGE for students and alumni of these institutions.
Everyone who went to an HBCU, especially the ones listed somewhere above, understands the difference between going to a game to watch the band and going to watch the game. FAMU fans are lucky enough to understand both (I'd try not to get upset when everyone left after halftime when we were up 36-0 back in the Billy Joe "Gulf Coast Offense" days, but I was never disappointed when we had a close game or were down - Rattler fans stayed until the end of the game and participated well).
Using this experience as a starting point for something much much bigger is what I'm bout... and by much much bigger I mean...
FAMU vs Southern on ESPN2,
Young kid sees the game, the band, and says "cool, I want to go there". He's 8.
10 years later, he's a scholarly lad, and wants to be an engineer. Well guess what, now when he considers FAMU, NC A&T, etc... he's not going to some small backwater school no one has heard of, because these teams get on TV as much as the SEC and Big Ten schools now...
So when he graduates with honors and goes to career fairs... he doesn't have to explain his school. And when he starts working on engines for Harley-Davidson, no one asks him "Florida A&M, you mean Florida State?" - response: "NO, Bitch. FAMU", followed by "Oh, where's that?"
And when companies schedule those trips... and cut those scholarship checks... and alumni have to choose between giving to their HBCU undergrad or their Ivy/Big Ten grad school...
You see where I'm going with it. HBCUs are an important piece of the educational history and fabric of the USA and have been somehow relegated to 2nd-class status in many ways. This is tragic. People have to hear of you to care about you... And in America, football is King.
(***To be completed***)
Friday, January 29, 2010
Tetris - An Appreciation
I'd like to take a moment to shout out my favorite video game of all time, Tetris.
If you don't know about Tetris, google it.
The highest score I can recall achieving is 360,000. I did that on a gameboy with the ALCS in the background in like... 1999 or so. I've been playing online recently and my goal is to reach 400,000.
There are people with Tetris scores over 10 million. That's insanity. For us not weirdo geniuses - I like to think of myself as just genius enough not to be a true weirdo - 400,000 is a lot of damn Tetris points.
If you don't know about Tetris, google it.
The highest score I can recall achieving is 360,000. I did that on a gameboy with the ALCS in the background in like... 1999 or so. I've been playing online recently and my goal is to reach 400,000.
There are people with Tetris scores over 10 million. That's insanity. For us not weirdo geniuses - I like to think of myself as just genius enough not to be a true weirdo - 400,000 is a lot of damn Tetris points.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Wrestlemania 2010
It's that time of year again... the time where I come out and admit - yes, I still watch professional wrestling. If you don't enjoy watching oiled up steroid using guys and gals pretending to beat each other up for your entertainment, I submit that something is wrong with YOU, not I.
Anyways, last year, Wrestlemania 25 took place in Houston, TX. Though I had recently left H-town, I somehow was still in town that weekend, and ended up attending with 3 friends of mine. Good seats too. It was a cool experience, but the show fell flat from some of the better Wrestlemanias like 14, 18, 19, and even 20.
There was one match, however, that not only saved the show, but took its place in Wrestlemania lore among the all-time classic battles in wrestling history - "The Heartbreak Kid" Shawn Michaels vs The Undertaker.
This match was so good, we should've left afterwards. They should've found a way to put one of the title belts on one of the two homestate Texans so the match could have gone last, avoiding the this-shouldnt-have-happened scenario of a weak Triple H - Randy Orton match closing the show. I believe we left mid-match and heard the end as we descended the escalators of Reliant Stadium.
Well, the WWE is nothing if not consistent, and the best time to watch wrestling is now - January until April. It starts with the buildup to the Royal Rumble, which naturally flows into the "Road to Wrestlemania", given the fact that the Royal Rumble winner gets a title shot at the big dance.
The HBK-Undertaker match was so good, it seems like a strong possibility that HBK-Undertaker II will occur in Arizona. However, the Undertaker isn't planning to put up his Undefeated record at Wrestlemanias and his World Heavyweight (Smackdown brand) Title against a guy he just beat last year. He wants new competition. HBK has been showing signs of obsession wit getting a rematch, and his only option is winning the Royal Rumble. Standing in his way are... pretty much everyone.
So what will the WWE do? I know what I would do... Have Michaels be the LAST competitor eliminated, and have to find YET another way of getting his match with The Undertaker. Oh you want details? OK fine.
HBK is the last man eliminated from the Royal Rumble and his obsession grows. His last chance is to enter the Smackdown Elimination Chamber match at the February Pay-per-view (sometimes known as No Way Out, not sure what they'll call it this year) and win the World Heavyweight title there, forcing Undertaker to face him at Wrestlemania if he wants his belt back.
(A more "twist" filled version of the same story is as follows. Michaels attempts to enter the Smackdown Chamber match but is DENIED since he's on Raw. So he enters the Raw Chamber match, WINS the WWE Title, then sneaks into the ring and causes the Undertaker to get eliminated from the Smackdown chamber match and lose his title. Maybe he even uses Hornswaggle to distract Taker and the referee, allowing for some Sweet Chin Music and the 1-2-3 on the Undertaker. Batista or CM Punk is the beneficiary of the interference and takes on Royal Rumble winner John Cena for the World Heavyweight title at Mania. Triple H fights the other heel (Punk or Batista). I actually prefer this scenario, because it provides some heel heat for Michaels and even more for Batista/Punk...and hey, they could even have a backstage scene where we see Batista/Punk leaving the DX dressing room as HHH enters it, and HBK is acting funny - good ole foreshadowing. )
So, WM26 - Michaels and Undertakr yeah, they're fighting. Otherwise they would've already addressed the whole "I want a rematch" thing by now. I actually expected HBK to beat Undertaker at SummerSlam or Survivor Series to even it up.
As for HBK-Undertaker II the actual match... If i were book the show, I'd have the Undertaker beat up on Shawn for the first 15 minutes, then a ref bump, followed by Shawn Michaels beating the living crap out of 'Taker for the next 15 minutes straight. Multiple Chair shots, groin shots... everything he can heel up. Then I'd have Shawn deliver Sweet Chin Music 3 times in a row, and still not be able to get the pin. Then Undertaker would win and the show would be over.
Other fun matches that will be built up over the next two months include the "12 years in the making" battle between Bret Hart and Vincent Kennedy McMahon. Wrestling fans know the drill. 12 years ago, Bret Hart was WWE Champion. His contract was up in less than a month. Vince and the WWE were in a fight for their lives against WCW and Ted Turner's endless supply of money. Raw hadn't yet benefited from the Stone Cold Steve Austin / The Rock era (because it hadn't started yet) and Vince either didn't want to, or was unwilling to match the financial offer WCW had made to Bret. So Bret decided to leave. Vince said OK, but you need to drop the championship before u leave, as per tradition. He asked Bret to lose the belt in Montreal at the Survivor Series pay-per-view to Shawn Michaels. Bret preferred not to drop the belt in Canada and asked to lose the title at a house show later that week. Vince thought that was ridiculous (he was right) but Bret kept refusing. So he said "OK fine" and developed a plot now known as The Montreal Screwjob.
Vince instructed the matchmaker to insert a new part to the match. Bret Hart would lock Shawn in his trademark finisher "The Sharpshooter", and Shawn would reverse it. Referee Earl Hebner was told to then call for the bell AS IF Bret had submitted or tapped out. Bret knew nothing of it. Shawn did but denied that he knew for YEARS.
The resulting chaos has been replayed on WWE TV many times. Basically, Bret spazzed out in the middle of the ring. Spat on Vince (who at that time wasn't "out" as owner of the WWF. He was "just" an announcer). Made a big W-C-W with his hands to let the crowd know he was leaving. Total spaz out. He then went in the back and punched Vince slam in the face.
From then on, Vince and Shawn can't go to Canada without hearing chants of "you screwed Bret! you screwed Bret!" 12 years later. Same shit. Its kinda crazy.
What's REALLY crazy, is how that incident led to the explosion in popularity the WWF/WWE in the late 90s and early 2000s. Vince was a B or C as an annoucer, but he plays the EVIL BOSS to a tee. So well in fact, that its clear he's really like that in real life. He's a true bastard, and he played one on TV. That made for the perfect foil for the anti-establishment I-don't-give-a-fuck attitude of Stone Cold Steve Austin, the biggest mega-star the WWF had seen since Hulk Hogan. Later, Vince would feud with The Rock, Triple H, Degeneration X, and his son Shane. None of that would've been possible if not for the Montreal Screwjob. Perhaps Vince would've found a way to get on TV at some point, but who knows when that would've been.
So with all that history and weight behind it, the Bret Vince match is going to be a pretty big deal. Expect interference, shenanigans, and hopefully a more in shape Bret Hart than we saw as guest host on the January 4th edition of Raw.
Let's see, what else?
Well, John Cena, Triple H, Batista, Rey Mysterio, Chris Jericho, The Big Show, Randy Orton and CM Punk are all still out there. As are Kofi Kingston, MVP, and The Miz.
Randy Orton and Legacy have been together long enough. Very soon, they are going to break up and DiBiase is going to be the one to stand up to Orton. I see this happening in one of a few ways. Orton takes on Sheamus at the Royal Rumble for the WWE title. He could win, and then order DiBiase and Rhodes to help him defend it at the Elimination Chamber event. When they fail (or more specifically, when DiBiase REFUSES to help), things will boil over and a big match for Wrestlemania will be set. Another route would be for Orton to NOT beat Sheamus, and NOT win the Elimination Chamber, and then make one final, last ditch attempt to use Legacy to get him the title (shot) he seeks by entering all 3 members into the Money-In-The-Bank Ladder Match, where the winner gets a guaranteed title shot at any point up until the next Wreslemania.
DiBiase would either win the M-I-T-B himself, or refuse to help Orton, and the split would be imminent. I don't really see any other options for Orton since he finished off his feud with Kofi Kingston so soon. Actually, it was a little too soon unless they had something else planned (like what I just typed out).
CM Punk and his Straight Edge Society have natural feuds with DX and John Cena. Based on Batista's "seniority" on the card and age (CM Punk has a lot of great heel years ahead of him), I see Batista being the heel in the 2nd Main Event instead of CM Punk. I'm not saying I agree with that, or disagree with it, but that's how I see the politics working out. Punk should still be the Smackdown World Heavyweight champion based on his work from last summer, but the politics have the belt on The Undertaker.
The WWE is blessed with some great heels right now. Jericho, Batista, Orton, CM Punk , The Miz, Maryse, Michelle McCool and Edge (when he comes back and turns heel after 6 months as a face) do EXCELLENT heel work. So much so that the heel turn so many hope John Cena embarks on (he was a good heel when he rapped...a damn good heel) may not happen for another year or three. In fact, they are going to have to start elevating some more faces. HHH HBK Cena Undertaker and Rey Mysterio will need backup from someone like Kofi Kingston, MVP, or John Morrison.
Until then, Triple H will still be on the top of the card. He's either going to win the Royal Rumble and fight Batista, or not win and fight CM Punk.
Here's the Wrestlemania line up I'm expecting to see.
Wrestlemania 26 - Glendale, AZ - March 28th, 2010
Shawn Michaels* vs The Undertaker for The World Heavyweight Championship
Batista* vs John Cena for the WWE Title
Bret "Hitman" Hart vs Mr McMahon
Rey Mysterio vs CM Punk
Randy Orton vs Ted DiBiase Jr
The Miz* vs MVP vs Mark Henry for the US Title
Drew McIntyre* vs John Morrison for the Intercontinental Title
Money In The Bank - Sheamus v Jericho v Kingston v R-Truth v
Evan Bourne v Rey Mysterio v Cody Rhodes v The Big Show v Santino Marella
Beth Phoenix vs Mickie James for the Women's Championship
Maryse vs Melina for the Diva's Championship
ROYAL RUMBLE UPDATE!!!
Edge(!) returned and won(!!!) the Royal Rumble tonight. So I'm adjusting my projected card. I now see HBK costing Undertaker his title in the Smackdown Elimination Chamber, and Jericho winning it. That leads me to an intriguing possibility... HBK eliminated HHH from the Rumble and Hunter doesn't have a natural Mania feud this year. Perhaps a DX-Taker triple threat? That's kind of a bastardization of doing Michaels-Taker 2, but I can see it happening. I'd rather see HHH in a triple threat with Cena and Batista though.
WWE Title - Shawn Michaels* vs The Undertaker
Bret Hart and John Cena vs Vince Mchahon and Batista
World Heavyweight Title - Chris Jericho* vs Edge
CM Punk vs HHH
Randy Orton vs Ted DiBiase vs Cody Rhodes
Women's Title - Mickie James* vs Beth Phoenix
Money in the Bank Ladder Match - John Morrison, Kofi Kingston, Rey Mysterio, MVP, Big Show, Kane, Sheamus, TheMiz, Shelton Benjamin
Intercontinental Title - Drew McIntyre* vs R Truth
ECW Title - Christain* vs William Regal
Anyways, last year, Wrestlemania 25 took place in Houston, TX. Though I had recently left H-town, I somehow was still in town that weekend, and ended up attending with 3 friends of mine. Good seats too. It was a cool experience, but the show fell flat from some of the better Wrestlemanias like 14, 18, 19, and even 20.
There was one match, however, that not only saved the show, but took its place in Wrestlemania lore among the all-time classic battles in wrestling history - "The Heartbreak Kid" Shawn Michaels vs The Undertaker.
This match was so good, we should've left afterwards. They should've found a way to put one of the title belts on one of the two homestate Texans so the match could have gone last, avoiding the this-shouldnt-have-happened scenario of a weak Triple H - Randy Orton match closing the show. I believe we left mid-match and heard the end as we descended the escalators of Reliant Stadium.
Well, the WWE is nothing if not consistent, and the best time to watch wrestling is now - January until April. It starts with the buildup to the Royal Rumble, which naturally flows into the "Road to Wrestlemania", given the fact that the Royal Rumble winner gets a title shot at the big dance.
The HBK-Undertaker match was so good, it seems like a strong possibility that HBK-Undertaker II will occur in Arizona. However, the Undertaker isn't planning to put up his Undefeated record at Wrestlemanias and his World Heavyweight (Smackdown brand) Title against a guy he just beat last year. He wants new competition. HBK has been showing signs of obsession wit getting a rematch, and his only option is winning the Royal Rumble. Standing in his way are... pretty much everyone.
So what will the WWE do? I know what I would do... Have Michaels be the LAST competitor eliminated, and have to find YET another way of getting his match with The Undertaker. Oh you want details? OK fine.
HBK is the last man eliminated from the Royal Rumble and his obsession grows. His last chance is to enter the Smackdown Elimination Chamber match at the February Pay-per-view (sometimes known as No Way Out, not sure what they'll call it this year) and win the World Heavyweight title there, forcing Undertaker to face him at Wrestlemania if he wants his belt back.
(A more "twist" filled version of the same story is as follows. Michaels attempts to enter the Smackdown Chamber match but is DENIED since he's on Raw. So he enters the Raw Chamber match, WINS the WWE Title, then sneaks into the ring and causes the Undertaker to get eliminated from the Smackdown chamber match and lose his title. Maybe he even uses Hornswaggle to distract Taker and the referee, allowing for some Sweet Chin Music and the 1-2-3 on the Undertaker. Batista or CM Punk is the beneficiary of the interference and takes on Royal Rumble winner John Cena for the World Heavyweight title at Mania. Triple H fights the other heel (Punk or Batista). I actually prefer this scenario, because it provides some heel heat for Michaels and even more for Batista/Punk...and hey, they could even have a backstage scene where we see Batista/Punk leaving the DX dressing room as HHH enters it, and HBK is acting funny - good ole foreshadowing. )
So, WM26 - Michaels and Undertakr yeah, they're fighting. Otherwise they would've already addressed the whole "I want a rematch" thing by now. I actually expected HBK to beat Undertaker at SummerSlam or Survivor Series to even it up.
As for HBK-Undertaker II the actual match... If i were book the show, I'd have the Undertaker beat up on Shawn for the first 15 minutes, then a ref bump, followed by Shawn Michaels beating the living crap out of 'Taker for the next 15 minutes straight. Multiple Chair shots, groin shots... everything he can heel up. Then I'd have Shawn deliver Sweet Chin Music 3 times in a row, and still not be able to get the pin. Then Undertaker would win and the show would be over.
Other fun matches that will be built up over the next two months include the "12 years in the making" battle between Bret Hart and Vincent Kennedy McMahon. Wrestling fans know the drill. 12 years ago, Bret Hart was WWE Champion. His contract was up in less than a month. Vince and the WWE were in a fight for their lives against WCW and Ted Turner's endless supply of money. Raw hadn't yet benefited from the Stone Cold Steve Austin / The Rock era (because it hadn't started yet) and Vince either didn't want to, or was unwilling to match the financial offer WCW had made to Bret. So Bret decided to leave. Vince said OK, but you need to drop the championship before u leave, as per tradition. He asked Bret to lose the belt in Montreal at the Survivor Series pay-per-view to Shawn Michaels. Bret preferred not to drop the belt in Canada and asked to lose the title at a house show later that week. Vince thought that was ridiculous (he was right) but Bret kept refusing. So he said "OK fine" and developed a plot now known as The Montreal Screwjob.
Vince instructed the matchmaker to insert a new part to the match. Bret Hart would lock Shawn in his trademark finisher "The Sharpshooter", and Shawn would reverse it. Referee Earl Hebner was told to then call for the bell AS IF Bret had submitted or tapped out. Bret knew nothing of it. Shawn did but denied that he knew for YEARS.
The resulting chaos has been replayed on WWE TV many times. Basically, Bret spazzed out in the middle of the ring. Spat on Vince (who at that time wasn't "out" as owner of the WWF. He was "just" an announcer). Made a big W-C-W with his hands to let the crowd know he was leaving. Total spaz out. He then went in the back and punched Vince slam in the face.
From then on, Vince and Shawn can't go to Canada without hearing chants of "you screwed Bret! you screwed Bret!" 12 years later. Same shit. Its kinda crazy.
What's REALLY crazy, is how that incident led to the explosion in popularity the WWF/WWE in the late 90s and early 2000s. Vince was a B or C as an annoucer, but he plays the EVIL BOSS to a tee. So well in fact, that its clear he's really like that in real life. He's a true bastard, and he played one on TV. That made for the perfect foil for the anti-establishment I-don't-give-a-fuck attitude of Stone Cold Steve Austin, the biggest mega-star the WWF had seen since Hulk Hogan. Later, Vince would feud with The Rock, Triple H, Degeneration X, and his son Shane. None of that would've been possible if not for the Montreal Screwjob. Perhaps Vince would've found a way to get on TV at some point, but who knows when that would've been.
So with all that history and weight behind it, the Bret Vince match is going to be a pretty big deal. Expect interference, shenanigans, and hopefully a more in shape Bret Hart than we saw as guest host on the January 4th edition of Raw.
Let's see, what else?
Well, John Cena, Triple H, Batista, Rey Mysterio, Chris Jericho, The Big Show, Randy Orton and CM Punk are all still out there. As are Kofi Kingston, MVP, and The Miz.
Randy Orton and Legacy have been together long enough. Very soon, they are going to break up and DiBiase is going to be the one to stand up to Orton. I see this happening in one of a few ways. Orton takes on Sheamus at the Royal Rumble for the WWE title. He could win, and then order DiBiase and Rhodes to help him defend it at the Elimination Chamber event. When they fail (or more specifically, when DiBiase REFUSES to help), things will boil over and a big match for Wrestlemania will be set. Another route would be for Orton to NOT beat Sheamus, and NOT win the Elimination Chamber, and then make one final, last ditch attempt to use Legacy to get him the title (shot) he seeks by entering all 3 members into the Money-In-The-Bank Ladder Match, where the winner gets a guaranteed title shot at any point up until the next Wreslemania.
DiBiase would either win the M-I-T-B himself, or refuse to help Orton, and the split would be imminent. I don't really see any other options for Orton since he finished off his feud with Kofi Kingston so soon. Actually, it was a little too soon unless they had something else planned (like what I just typed out).
CM Punk and his Straight Edge Society have natural feuds with DX and John Cena. Based on Batista's "seniority" on the card and age (CM Punk has a lot of great heel years ahead of him), I see Batista being the heel in the 2nd Main Event instead of CM Punk. I'm not saying I agree with that, or disagree with it, but that's how I see the politics working out. Punk should still be the Smackdown World Heavyweight champion based on his work from last summer, but the politics have the belt on The Undertaker.
The WWE is blessed with some great heels right now. Jericho, Batista, Orton, CM Punk , The Miz, Maryse, Michelle McCool and Edge (when he comes back and turns heel after 6 months as a face) do EXCELLENT heel work. So much so that the heel turn so many hope John Cena embarks on (he was a good heel when he rapped...a damn good heel) may not happen for another year or three. In fact, they are going to have to start elevating some more faces. HHH HBK Cena Undertaker and Rey Mysterio will need backup from someone like Kofi Kingston, MVP, or John Morrison.
Until then, Triple H will still be on the top of the card. He's either going to win the Royal Rumble and fight Batista, or not win and fight CM Punk.
Here's the Wrestlemania line up I'm expecting to see.
Wrestlemania 26 - Glendale, AZ - March 28th, 2010
Shawn Michaels* vs The Undertaker for The World Heavyweight Championship
Batista* vs John Cena for the WWE Title
Bret "Hitman" Hart vs Mr McMahon
Rey Mysterio vs CM Punk
Randy Orton vs Ted DiBiase Jr
The Miz* vs MVP vs Mark Henry for the US Title
Drew McIntyre* vs John Morrison for the Intercontinental Title
Money In The Bank - Sheamus v Jericho v Kingston v R-Truth v
Evan Bourne v Rey Mysterio v Cody Rhodes v The Big Show v Santino Marella
Beth Phoenix vs Mickie James for the Women's Championship
Maryse vs Melina for the Diva's Championship
ROYAL RUMBLE UPDATE!!!
Edge(!) returned and won(!!!) the Royal Rumble tonight. So I'm adjusting my projected card. I now see HBK costing Undertaker his title in the Smackdown Elimination Chamber, and Jericho winning it. That leads me to an intriguing possibility... HBK eliminated HHH from the Rumble and Hunter doesn't have a natural Mania feud this year. Perhaps a DX-Taker triple threat? That's kind of a bastardization of doing Michaels-Taker 2, but I can see it happening. I'd rather see HHH in a triple threat with Cena and Batista though.
WWE Title - Shawn Michaels* vs The Undertaker
Bret Hart and John Cena vs Vince Mchahon and Batista
World Heavyweight Title - Chris Jericho* vs Edge
CM Punk vs HHH
Randy Orton vs Ted DiBiase vs Cody Rhodes
Women's Title - Mickie James* vs Beth Phoenix
Money in the Bank Ladder Match - John Morrison, Kofi Kingston, Rey Mysterio, MVP, Big Show, Kane, Sheamus, TheMiz, Shelton Benjamin
Intercontinental Title - Drew McIntyre* vs R Truth
ECW Title - Christain* vs William Regal
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Super Bowl Bound
I'll keep this short.
Tomorrow brings the AFC and NFC Championship games. It would've been a bigger deal if the Colts hadn't decided to rest their starters for a month, but when the Patriots Wes Welker got hurt in the last week of the season (in a game with no real bearing on the standings), I guess you could say the Colts brass was vindicated. Don't say that to their fans though. Football is just entertainmen and they didn't pay season tickets to see JV football... OK moving on.
Jets at Colts - AFC Title Game
Rex Ryan talks more shit than Lane Kiffin, and that's saying something. His defenses, however, back him up. Rookie QB Mark Sanchez a year ago had Pete Carroll at USC mad at him for bolting after only 1 year as a starter (no doubt contributing to the 9-4 season for USC and perhaps Carroll's escape to the Seattle Seahawks), now he's a game away from the Super Bowl.
Well, really he's not. He's a game away from having the best seat in the house to watch the Jets running game try to eat clock against the Saints or Vikings.
Regardless, the last month and a half have been pretty sweet for Jets fans. Will they get another win in Indy? I think they have a shot. Their defense is the type that pisses off Peyton Manning and can have him running for his #@#$ing life for 4 quarters. And when you gain 10 yards a carry there's no need to have a rookie QB throw passes for Braylon Edwards to drop. But this isn't Week 16 and I'm going to assume that Manning Jedi-like command of the offense will allow him to find the open man (that would be whoever isn't blanketed by the awesome Darrelle Revis) a few times, and the Colts D has had time to heal. I'm not going to act surprised if the Jets do win, I just don't really see it happening.
Colts 27 - Jets 14
Vikings at Saints - NFC Championship
THE game of the year so far, unless you count Patriots @ Saints. Let's get a few things out of the way. It's going to be loud as hell in the Superdome. Brett Favre is old and good. Drew Brees is my preferred fantasy football QB (Aaron Rodgers works too) and is on some next level stuff himself. Reggie Bush is playing for his $8 Million roster bonus. The Saints are allegedly the soul of New Orleans, blah blah blah blah blah.
Karma says the Packers must suffer for forcing Brett out. And by suffer, that means "see their franchise's greatest player in the Super Bowl in rival colors". Karma also says the Saints are due.
Let's go to the X's and O's. I believe that if the Saints successfully pick up the pass rush, they will win. That's not an easy thing to do, and it will require leaving back a RB or two. Which would mean reducing the number of pass routes Brees can choose from. It'll be interesting - the Vikes pass rush is as effective as the Cowboys and thebitchass Cowboys came into New Orleans and beat the Saints up.
On the other side, I can't recall if the Saints secondary is better than the Cowboys'. Its gonna have to be, or there will be more whining about people running up the score. NO wait, that won't happen. Only bitch ass Cowboys fans who spend too much time in Euphoria that they won ONE playoff game do that shit. Lames. So what if the Vikings were throwing at the end of the game, its the playoffs of the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE - this ain't JV junior high school. Grow the f%%% up and take your beating like a man.
OK back to this week - the fact that Jason Campbell carved up the Saints secondary should mean that Brett Favre can right? Am I even allowed to use the regular season for info? I don't really know that I can take away anything from the Cards victory last week because the Cardinals are streaky and ran out of gas.
OK, I'll just admit it, I have no idea who will win this game. So my gut is yelling Vikings so (Sorry Officemate - Shoutouts to Rex Guillen) I'm going to go with them... and not be upset if I'm wrong. I do like the Saints.
Vikings 34 - Saints 30
Super Bowl
Colts 27 Vikings 23
Tomorrow brings the AFC and NFC Championship games. It would've been a bigger deal if the Colts hadn't decided to rest their starters for a month, but when the Patriots Wes Welker got hurt in the last week of the season (in a game with no real bearing on the standings), I guess you could say the Colts brass was vindicated. Don't say that to their fans though. Football is just entertainmen and they didn't pay season tickets to see JV football... OK moving on.
Jets at Colts - AFC Title Game
Rex Ryan talks more shit than Lane Kiffin, and that's saying something. His defenses, however, back him up. Rookie QB Mark Sanchez a year ago had Pete Carroll at USC mad at him for bolting after only 1 year as a starter (no doubt contributing to the 9-4 season for USC and perhaps Carroll's escape to the Seattle Seahawks), now he's a game away from the Super Bowl.
Well, really he's not. He's a game away from having the best seat in the house to watch the Jets running game try to eat clock against the Saints or Vikings.
Regardless, the last month and a half have been pretty sweet for Jets fans. Will they get another win in Indy? I think they have a shot. Their defense is the type that pisses off Peyton Manning and can have him running for his #@#$ing life for 4 quarters. And when you gain 10 yards a carry there's no need to have a rookie QB throw passes for Braylon Edwards to drop. But this isn't Week 16 and I'm going to assume that Manning Jedi-like command of the offense will allow him to find the open man (that would be whoever isn't blanketed by the awesome Darrelle Revis) a few times, and the Colts D has had time to heal. I'm not going to act surprised if the Jets do win, I just don't really see it happening.
Colts 27 - Jets 14
Vikings at Saints - NFC Championship
THE game of the year so far, unless you count Patriots @ Saints. Let's get a few things out of the way. It's going to be loud as hell in the Superdome. Brett Favre is old and good. Drew Brees is my preferred fantasy football QB (Aaron Rodgers works too) and is on some next level stuff himself. Reggie Bush is playing for his $8 Million roster bonus. The Saints are allegedly the soul of New Orleans, blah blah blah blah blah.
Karma says the Packers must suffer for forcing Brett out. And by suffer, that means "see their franchise's greatest player in the Super Bowl in rival colors". Karma also says the Saints are due.
Let's go to the X's and O's. I believe that if the Saints successfully pick up the pass rush, they will win. That's not an easy thing to do, and it will require leaving back a RB or two. Which would mean reducing the number of pass routes Brees can choose from. It'll be interesting - the Vikes pass rush is as effective as the Cowboys and the
On the other side, I can't recall if the Saints secondary is better than the Cowboys'. Its gonna have to be, or there will be more whining about people running up the score. NO wait, that won't happen. Only bitch ass Cowboys fans who spend too much time in Euphoria that they won ONE playoff game do that shit. Lames. So what if the Vikings were throwing at the end of the game, its the playoffs of the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE - this ain't JV junior high school. Grow the f%%% up and take your beating like a man.
OK back to this week - the fact that Jason Campbell carved up the Saints secondary should mean that Brett Favre can right? Am I even allowed to use the regular season for info? I don't really know that I can take away anything from the Cards victory last week because the Cardinals are streaky and ran out of gas.
OK, I'll just admit it, I have no idea who will win this game. So my gut is yelling Vikings so (Sorry Officemate - Shoutouts to Rex Guillen) I'm going to go with them... and not be upset if I'm wrong. I do like the Saints.
Vikings 34 - Saints 30
Super Bowl
Colts 27 Vikings 23
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Part 2: Lane Kiffin and The Best Jobs in College Football
**Summary - Lane Kiffin left because USC is a much, much better job for any college coach, especially someone who has worked there, and anyone would've done the same thing unless they had some silly sense of "loyalty" in this day and age where that no longer applies in college football (see Part 1 on Bobby Bowden) or even late night TV.
**But USC SHOULD have gone after the coaches at Boise State, TCU, Utah, or BYU. Instead they are trying to get the band back together with a new frontman who's a younger clone of their first. That didn't work for Creed/Alter Bridge.
**Tennessee is going to have to get over it. This was predictable. If they didn't have an overblown sense of entitlement, there wouldn't have been any dumbass riots. They will probably have to hire David Cutliffe back from Duke or find a coordinator or coach at a much, much smaller school since none of the top coaches would be dumb enough to want to walk into that situation **
**End of Summary**
(continued from Part 1)
Lane Kiffin is not the bad guy here...
...Well, unless you live in the state of Tennessee. They almost had a riot last night and they had Kiffin trapped in his office until the cops escorted him out around midnight. There are probably some death threats or assassination plans being made. Does the PAC10 play the SEC in any big bowl games? *Checking the internets* Apparently not. So, the only way for USC to play Tennessee is in the National Title game or perhaps the Sugar Bowl if USC were to come in 2nd in the PAC 10 and be BCS eligible that year.
The bad guy here would be the vague concept known as "The Game". As in, Don't Hate The Player, Hate The Game.
Do you remember what I said about FSU being a better coaching destination than Tennessee earlier? So is USC. Better weather. IN a Top 3 recruiting SOURCE state. An "easier" conference situation (I don't know how the hell Alabama and Florida keep getting to the SEC title game unscathed. Its pretty unbelievable when you think about the amount of coaching and player talent in the SEC.) The 2nd largest city in the country. I mean, did you see the people from Tennessee on tonight's American Idol? Lovely people. But umm... not really a cosmopolitan demographic. Lane went to college at Fresno State. And he was on the USC staff during the height of their recent/current? dynasty.
Let me just ask everyone who is upset at Lane Kiffin ONE simple question...
If you were Lane Kiffin, would you pass up the chance to go to USC as head coach to stay in the SEC?
Or, if I say it the way I'd say it if I wasn't being politically correct blogger guy "How many of you mf'ers are going to sit there and pretend you wouldn't have done the exact same shit? Be for real."
Did Lane "break" promises he made to people at Tennessee? Yeah of course he did. Guess what? That's the way the college football coaching game is set up. There is a hierarchy of jobs and USC is at the top of the pyramid. Tennessee isn't far down.. perhaps even in the 2nd group depending on how wide your pyramid is. No worse than level 3. (Personal learning Sidenote - Kimberly told me that she heard that out of 100,000 people in Kansas City 6,100 have "The Clap". I told her that sounded way worse than if they had said it the way people normally would = 6.1%. 6100 sounds much more impressive than 6.1%, even if you're told the sample size since no one wants to do the math.) Said another way, there are 119 Division 1-A/FBS/top level of college football coaching jobs available based on access to recruits, media impressions, facilities, alumni expectations (realistic) and support. USC is NO LOWER than #3 or 5 on that list no matter who makes it. Its not possible.
Hey, why don't we briefly talk about the best jobs in college football. Stewart Mandel, SI's top college football writer, tackled the subject in his highly enjoyable book "Bowls, Polls and Tattered Souls". The top 3 on this list of MINE could be interchangeable given that they are the top jobs in the 3 top recruiting states (Texas, California, Florida), but I made choices. Louisiana has MEGA talent in the state but their expectations at LSU are ridiculously high and there's too much pressure on the coach (2 national titles recently just made it worse).
1. Texas
2. Florida
3. USC
4. Miami
5. LSU
6. Oklahoma
7. Oregon
8. Michigan
9. Ohio State
10. Florida State
11. Arizona State
12. Miami
13. UCLA
14. Georgia Tech
15. Georgia
16. Nebraska
17. Illinois
18. Arizona
19. Penn State
20. Alabama
Notre Dame would probably come in at...#25 on my list. Or hell, maybe #40. They have a LOT of money to throw around but since you can't really pay players and they enforce academic standards on recruiting, I doubt they'll ever be who they want to be. In fact, if they join a conference they'll lose their uniqueness and won't even be in the conversation annually. The best thing going for Notre Dame football is their journalism program and history. The media is full of Notre Dame grads so anything they do well gets boosted higher than other programs. The old days there are gone, however. They'd have to convince all the smart kids who can play college football to come there, and that's not happening. Some of those smart kids will still go to football factory SEC programs to "win" and some will realize the NFL dreams are too slim and dangerous to pursue when they can be surgeons and make millions anyway and go to the Ivy League. There are also similar schools (high academic standards, decent football programs) like Cal (also known as The University of California at BERKELEY), Stanford, nearby Northwestern, Michigan, Virginia, Vanderbilt, UCLA, North Carolina and even Duke. Moving on...
Where would Tennessee come in on this list? Somewhere between 21 and 30. The SEC is tough as hell, especially the SEC East. Florida. South Carolina has Steve Spurrier. Georgia. The sleeping giant of Kentucky. Plus three games against the SEC West (Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Arkansas, Ole Miss) and another in the SEC title game.
Did I add that Tennessee fans have a little bit of a sense of entitlement about their place on the hierarchy? Yeah, they do. Phil Fulmer won them a national title and they made him quit. It wasn't QUITE a Bobby Bowden situation but it wasn't far off. Tennessee has 6 national titles in their "history". The one Fulmer brought in 1998 was their first since 1967. The one before that was in 1951. That's not exactly a "current" program when it comes to domination. Any number of schools USED to be good 50 years ago. Tennessee isn't currently good. I guess that's what made losing Kiffin cause them to throw a mass dumped girlfriend tizzy. He represented what they wanted to be. Younger and more recently relevant. Lots of excitement and energy. Some arrogance. No feeling of inferiority to UF or Alabama. I could go on.
For him to dump them, it really felt like all the things they hoped they'd become together are gone forever... u know... drama queen stuff.
Why does Tennessee even care so much? Kiffin is an unproven coach and - REAL TALK - the best thing about having Lane Kiffin as coach is that he comes with his DAD, Monte Kiffin, one of the top defensive minds in the history of football. Ever heard of the "Tampa 2" defensive or the "Cover 2" - yeah... that was Monte Kiffin. Apparently, Lane gets his ambition from his mom - Monte was only a head coach for 3 years at NC State and hasn't really sought out more opportunities to do so.
Tennessee could hire any number of more "qualified" head coaches as they are indeed a Top 30 destination for coaches. But for them to think that they are BETTER than USC and that Kiffin wouldn't go if they came calling - well...that's a bit silly.
Personally, as far as USC goes, I can see why they went and got Kiffin. The MAIN reason USC has been successful this past decade is that Pete Carroll is a strong defensive mind AND a MASTER recruiter. And he kept his staff full of other top recruiters. In fact, Carroll himself is the reason USC is at the top of the destinations for coaches list now.
Kiffin to them is a younger version of Carroll - you know, when you add in his DAD for another few years - AND since he was on the staff during their run through the 2000s, he knows the people there, the coaches in California, their ways, etc etc. For USC, Kiffin makes the most sense on paper. Steve Sarkisian, who left a year ago to become the head coach at the University of Washington, would also make sense, but he doesnt come with Monte Kiffin in a package deal, AND Kiffin had Ed Orgeron on staff at UT. Orgeron himself is a master of recruiting, making it a 3-person package deal.
I guess for USC, the biggest question in my mind would be the choice of Lane Kiffin as head coach with his lack of experience as such. His short stint with the Raiders didn't work out and he didn't have a large body of work to review at UT. BUT... and I will give USC some credit for this, they realize what they have now. USC is THE destination for West Coast football players and a Top 5 destination for blue-chippers nationwide. Texas is great and Austin has pretty women, but it doesn't have the beach. Florida is great but its in Gainesville. Miami would be a better destination if it weren't a private school. Baton Rogue can't compare to Los Angeles. USC is a big recruiting destination and in college football THAT'S ALL YOU REALLY NEED to be successful, make BCS games and bring in $50 to $100 Million in revenue.
So I get that USC is "staying the course" and bringing the band back together. With ironic timing, the Kansas City Chiefs of the NFL are trying to bring back together the band of the New England Patriots dynasty in the mid 2000s by hiring Charlie Weis and Romeo Crennel as coordinators like they were the last time the Pats won the SuperBowl...but they don't have Bellicheat leading the show. Can USC (who is reportedly trying to get offensive wizard Norm Chow to come back) bring their old band together with a new leader and have success? It will interesting to see BOTH version 2.0's at work.
Do I think USC made the RIGHT choice?
No, not really.
I am admittedly a bit of a USC fan. I like the way they do things. They work hard and the players are allowed to also have fun without being under a damn military regime like Nick Saban has going at Alabama. So I was concerned they'd mess up the hire and get someone who doesn't know how to recruit kids to USC the right way (effective way = good and smart kids). Other than added benefits like Reggie Bush got, I can't recall the players getting arrested and doing dumb stuff on a regular basis (like Florida and Tennessee's kids seem to do and Miami's used to) and ending up in the news.
But I think what they may have wanted to do is take the program to the NEXT level. To me, that next level would mean taking what you have and doing much, much better. And you would need someone with EXPERIENCE at improving a program to do that. I'm talking Gary Patterson of TCU or Chris Peterson of Boise State. Bronco Mendenhall of BYU and Kyle Whittingham of Utah also come to mind. These guys have shown both the ability to coach up the players they already have, and recruit talent to destinations that aren't "first choice" Top 30 programs. And they consistently get their teams in the Top 25. Heck this year all were in the TOP 10 at various points.
Let me explain what that means. That means they get 2 and 3 star recruits, with the occasional rare 4 star or 5 star (1 per class, MAX) sprinkled in, and produce teams that on the field compete and regularly destroy schools who have their choice of student-athletes. So that means they know how to evaluate talent as well.
Now, there are a lot of situations (see: Florida State, Chris Rix, once again) where a "can't miss" 5-star recruit doesn't pan out or doesn't develop. When I said in Part 1 that Mack Brown at Texas can't coach, what I meant is that given the choice of talent he has available to him, it seems like he'd be able to win more national titles than the one he has this year (and the one he got screwed out of with last year's BCS bullshit selection of an Oklahoma team he beat and this year's injury to Colt McCoy - did you notice the Longhorns STILL almost pulled off the comeback against the #1 team in the land in the title game? That's because they have so much talent). The fact that Texas underperforms so often given their advantages make me think that Mack Brown isn't as great at developing talent as the 4 coaches of smaller schools that I mentioned.
To prove my point, let's look at Urban Meyer. Where did Urban Meyer come from? Utah and Bowling Green before Utah. He ran through the ranks and coached up players he didn't recruit to high achievements using his offensive system and also left some pretty good players behind for Whittingham at Utah. Utah crashed the BCS party before Boise State made their annual go of it in the last 4 years.
What I am basically saying is - one of those 4 guys is probably the "next" Urban Meyer and if you gave them a platform like USC to show what they can do... Watch out. They ALREADY HAVE TOP 10 TEAMS without the recruiting, booster money, facility, and location advantages... come on son. Make your next move your best move.
Should Kiffin under-perform, I'm sure one of these guys, or whoever is the "next" Gary Patterson, will be summoned in. At least I hope so.
As for Tennessee... yeah Kiffin was bringing in some top recruits and took his dad and Orgeron with him, but its not impossible for you to make a good hire. Mike Wilbon mentioned David Cutliffe. He would make sense given the 2 decades of coaching he's put in at Tennessee over the years.
And umm... Tennessee also ran a national coaching search last year. They couldn't get any of their top targets to show any interest in the job. Except maybe Mike Leach, but he's umm... no longer viable. At least not for a couple years. Everyone gets a 2nd act in America.
Tennessee's silly belief that they are and should be at the top of the college football food chain means that they are not going to be able to get a Nick Saban or Urban Meyer to leave a good or even a "decent" gig and come there. They are going to have to find a coach who really wants out of his "okay" situation, believes somehow he can compete in the SEC, and is delusional enough to believe that the experience will work out (I don't see how it can with Meyer and Saban and LSU around) or be good for him in the long run. OR someone who loves UT already. Soooo... yeah I guess we should expect David Cutliffe to be named head coach in Knoxville really soon.
I wouldn't expect any of the 4 guys I mentioned that USC SHOULD have hired to want to go there...its not the 5th best (at worst) job in country, its the 5th best job in the SEC. But they don't realize that... so they had a riot. Get over it...
Last random thoughts for theday night - Simon Cowell leaving American Idol means the show should just go ahead and end. Randy Jackson calling for "Security!" on tonight's episode was classic. Also, Mary J Blige is ruder than Simon.
Dr Hak Out!
**But USC SHOULD have gone after the coaches at Boise State, TCU, Utah, or BYU. Instead they are trying to get the band back together with a new frontman who's a younger clone of their first. That didn't work for Creed/Alter Bridge.
**Tennessee is going to have to get over it. This was predictable. If they didn't have an overblown sense of entitlement, there wouldn't have been any dumbass riots. They will probably have to hire David Cutliffe back from Duke or find a coordinator or coach at a much, much smaller school since none of the top coaches would be dumb enough to want to walk into that situation **
**End of Summary**
(continued from Part 1)
Lane Kiffin is not the bad guy here...
...Well, unless you live in the state of Tennessee. They almost had a riot last night and they had Kiffin trapped in his office until the cops escorted him out around midnight. There are probably some death threats or assassination plans being made. Does the PAC10 play the SEC in any big bowl games? *Checking the internets* Apparently not. So, the only way for USC to play Tennessee is in the National Title game or perhaps the Sugar Bowl if USC were to come in 2nd in the PAC 10 and be BCS eligible that year.
The bad guy here would be the vague concept known as "The Game". As in, Don't Hate The Player, Hate The Game.
Do you remember what I said about FSU being a better coaching destination than Tennessee earlier? So is USC. Better weather. IN a Top 3 recruiting SOURCE state. An "easier" conference situation (I don't know how the hell Alabama and Florida keep getting to the SEC title game unscathed. Its pretty unbelievable when you think about the amount of coaching and player talent in the SEC.) The 2nd largest city in the country. I mean, did you see the people from Tennessee on tonight's American Idol? Lovely people. But umm... not really a cosmopolitan demographic. Lane went to college at Fresno State. And he was on the USC staff during the height of their recent/current? dynasty.
Let me just ask everyone who is upset at Lane Kiffin ONE simple question...
If you were Lane Kiffin, would you pass up the chance to go to USC as head coach to stay in the SEC?
Or, if I say it the way I'd say it if I wasn't being politically correct blogger guy "How many of you mf'ers are going to sit there and pretend you wouldn't have done the exact same shit? Be for real."
Did Lane "break" promises he made to people at Tennessee? Yeah of course he did. Guess what? That's the way the college football coaching game is set up. There is a hierarchy of jobs and USC is at the top of the pyramid. Tennessee isn't far down.. perhaps even in the 2nd group depending on how wide your pyramid is. No worse than level 3. (Personal learning Sidenote - Kimberly told me that she heard that out of 100,000 people in Kansas City 6,100 have "The Clap". I told her that sounded way worse than if they had said it the way people normally would = 6.1%. 6100 sounds much more impressive than 6.1%, even if you're told the sample size since no one wants to do the math.) Said another way, there are 119 Division 1-A/FBS/top level of college football coaching jobs available based on access to recruits, media impressions, facilities, alumni expectations (realistic) and support. USC is NO LOWER than #3 or 5 on that list no matter who makes it. Its not possible.
Hey, why don't we briefly talk about the best jobs in college football. Stewart Mandel, SI's top college football writer, tackled the subject in his highly enjoyable book "Bowls, Polls and Tattered Souls". The top 3 on this list of MINE could be interchangeable given that they are the top jobs in the 3 top recruiting states (Texas, California, Florida), but I made choices. Louisiana has MEGA talent in the state but their expectations at LSU are ridiculously high and there's too much pressure on the coach (2 national titles recently just made it worse).
1. Texas
2. Florida
3. USC
4. Miami
5. LSU
6. Oklahoma
7. Oregon
8. Michigan
9. Ohio State
10. Florida State
11. Arizona State
12. Miami
13. UCLA
14. Georgia Tech
15. Georgia
16. Nebraska
17. Illinois
18. Arizona
19. Penn State
20. Alabama
Notre Dame would probably come in at...#25 on my list. Or hell, maybe #40. They have a LOT of money to throw around but since you can't really pay players and they enforce academic standards on recruiting, I doubt they'll ever be who they want to be. In fact, if they join a conference they'll lose their uniqueness and won't even be in the conversation annually. The best thing going for Notre Dame football is their journalism program and history. The media is full of Notre Dame grads so anything they do well gets boosted higher than other programs. The old days there are gone, however. They'd have to convince all the smart kids who can play college football to come there, and that's not happening. Some of those smart kids will still go to football factory SEC programs to "win" and some will realize the NFL dreams are too slim and dangerous to pursue when they can be surgeons and make millions anyway and go to the Ivy League. There are also similar schools (high academic standards, decent football programs) like Cal (also known as The University of California at BERKELEY), Stanford, nearby Northwestern, Michigan, Virginia, Vanderbilt, UCLA, North Carolina and even Duke. Moving on...
Where would Tennessee come in on this list? Somewhere between 21 and 30. The SEC is tough as hell, especially the SEC East. Florida. South Carolina has Steve Spurrier. Georgia. The sleeping giant of Kentucky. Plus three games against the SEC West (Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Arkansas, Ole Miss) and another in the SEC title game.
Did I add that Tennessee fans have a little bit of a sense of entitlement about their place on the hierarchy? Yeah, they do. Phil Fulmer won them a national title and they made him quit. It wasn't QUITE a Bobby Bowden situation but it wasn't far off. Tennessee has 6 national titles in their "history". The one Fulmer brought in 1998 was their first since 1967. The one before that was in 1951. That's not exactly a "current" program when it comes to domination. Any number of schools USED to be good 50 years ago. Tennessee isn't currently good. I guess that's what made losing Kiffin cause them to throw a mass dumped girlfriend tizzy. He represented what they wanted to be. Younger and more recently relevant. Lots of excitement and energy. Some arrogance. No feeling of inferiority to UF or Alabama. I could go on.
For him to dump them, it really felt like all the things they hoped they'd become together are gone forever... u know... drama queen stuff.
Why does Tennessee even care so much? Kiffin is an unproven coach and - REAL TALK - the best thing about having Lane Kiffin as coach is that he comes with his DAD, Monte Kiffin, one of the top defensive minds in the history of football. Ever heard of the "Tampa 2" defensive or the "Cover 2" - yeah... that was Monte Kiffin. Apparently, Lane gets his ambition from his mom - Monte was only a head coach for 3 years at NC State and hasn't really sought out more opportunities to do so.
Tennessee could hire any number of more "qualified" head coaches as they are indeed a Top 30 destination for coaches. But for them to think that they are BETTER than USC and that Kiffin wouldn't go if they came calling - well...that's a bit silly.
Personally, as far as USC goes, I can see why they went and got Kiffin. The MAIN reason USC has been successful this past decade is that Pete Carroll is a strong defensive mind AND a MASTER recruiter. And he kept his staff full of other top recruiters. In fact, Carroll himself is the reason USC is at the top of the destinations for coaches list now.
Kiffin to them is a younger version of Carroll - you know, when you add in his DAD for another few years - AND since he was on the staff during their run through the 2000s, he knows the people there, the coaches in California, their ways, etc etc. For USC, Kiffin makes the most sense on paper. Steve Sarkisian, who left a year ago to become the head coach at the University of Washington, would also make sense, but he doesnt come with Monte Kiffin in a package deal, AND Kiffin had Ed Orgeron on staff at UT. Orgeron himself is a master of recruiting, making it a 3-person package deal.
I guess for USC, the biggest question in my mind would be the choice of Lane Kiffin as head coach with his lack of experience as such. His short stint with the Raiders didn't work out and he didn't have a large body of work to review at UT. BUT... and I will give USC some credit for this, they realize what they have now. USC is THE destination for West Coast football players and a Top 5 destination for blue-chippers nationwide. Texas is great and Austin has pretty women, but it doesn't have the beach. Florida is great but its in Gainesville. Miami would be a better destination if it weren't a private school. Baton Rogue can't compare to Los Angeles. USC is a big recruiting destination and in college football THAT'S ALL YOU REALLY NEED to be successful, make BCS games and bring in $50 to $100 Million in revenue.
So I get that USC is "staying the course" and bringing the band back together. With ironic timing, the Kansas City Chiefs of the NFL are trying to bring back together the band of the New England Patriots dynasty in the mid 2000s by hiring Charlie Weis and Romeo Crennel as coordinators like they were the last time the Pats won the SuperBowl...but they don't have Bellicheat leading the show. Can USC (who is reportedly trying to get offensive wizard Norm Chow to come back) bring their old band together with a new leader and have success? It will interesting to see BOTH version 2.0's at work.
Do I think USC made the RIGHT choice?
No, not really.
I am admittedly a bit of a USC fan. I like the way they do things. They work hard and the players are allowed to also have fun without being under a damn military regime like Nick Saban has going at Alabama. So I was concerned they'd mess up the hire and get someone who doesn't know how to recruit kids to USC the right way (effective way = good and smart kids). Other than added benefits like Reggie Bush got, I can't recall the players getting arrested and doing dumb stuff on a regular basis (like Florida and Tennessee's kids seem to do and Miami's used to) and ending up in the news.
But I think what they may have wanted to do is take the program to the NEXT level. To me, that next level would mean taking what you have and doing much, much better. And you would need someone with EXPERIENCE at improving a program to do that. I'm talking Gary Patterson of TCU or Chris Peterson of Boise State. Bronco Mendenhall of BYU and Kyle Whittingham of Utah also come to mind. These guys have shown both the ability to coach up the players they already have, and recruit talent to destinations that aren't "first choice" Top 30 programs. And they consistently get their teams in the Top 25. Heck this year all were in the TOP 10 at various points.
Let me explain what that means. That means they get 2 and 3 star recruits, with the occasional rare 4 star or 5 star (1 per class, MAX) sprinkled in, and produce teams that on the field compete and regularly destroy schools who have their choice of student-athletes. So that means they know how to evaluate talent as well.
Now, there are a lot of situations (see: Florida State, Chris Rix, once again) where a "can't miss" 5-star recruit doesn't pan out or doesn't develop. When I said in Part 1 that Mack Brown at Texas can't coach, what I meant is that given the choice of talent he has available to him, it seems like he'd be able to win more national titles than the one he has this year (and the one he got screwed out of with last year's BCS bullshit selection of an Oklahoma team he beat and this year's injury to Colt McCoy - did you notice the Longhorns STILL almost pulled off the comeback against the #1 team in the land in the title game? That's because they have so much talent). The fact that Texas underperforms so often given their advantages make me think that Mack Brown isn't as great at developing talent as the 4 coaches of smaller schools that I mentioned.
To prove my point, let's look at Urban Meyer. Where did Urban Meyer come from? Utah and Bowling Green before Utah. He ran through the ranks and coached up players he didn't recruit to high achievements using his offensive system and also left some pretty good players behind for Whittingham at Utah. Utah crashed the BCS party before Boise State made their annual go of it in the last 4 years.
What I am basically saying is - one of those 4 guys is probably the "next" Urban Meyer and if you gave them a platform like USC to show what they can do... Watch out. They ALREADY HAVE TOP 10 TEAMS without the recruiting, booster money, facility, and location advantages... come on son. Make your next move your best move.
Should Kiffin under-perform, I'm sure one of these guys, or whoever is the "next" Gary Patterson, will be summoned in. At least I hope so.
As for Tennessee... yeah Kiffin was bringing in some top recruits and took his dad and Orgeron with him, but its not impossible for you to make a good hire. Mike Wilbon mentioned David Cutliffe. He would make sense given the 2 decades of coaching he's put in at Tennessee over the years.
And umm... Tennessee also ran a national coaching search last year. They couldn't get any of their top targets to show any interest in the job. Except maybe Mike Leach, but he's umm... no longer viable. At least not for a couple years. Everyone gets a 2nd act in America.
Tennessee's silly belief that they are and should be at the top of the college football food chain means that they are not going to be able to get a Nick Saban or Urban Meyer to leave a good or even a "decent" gig and come there. They are going to have to find a coach who really wants out of his "okay" situation, believes somehow he can compete in the SEC, and is delusional enough to believe that the experience will work out (I don't see how it can with Meyer and Saban and LSU around) or be good for him in the long run. OR someone who loves UT already. Soooo... yeah I guess we should expect David Cutliffe to be named head coach in Knoxville really soon.
I wouldn't expect any of the 4 guys I mentioned that USC SHOULD have hired to want to go there...its not the 5th best (at worst) job in country, its the 5th best job in the SEC. But they don't realize that... so they had a riot. Get over it...
Last random thoughts for the
Dr Hak Out!
Part 1: Jay Leno and The Folly of the "Coach-in Waiting"
First and foremost, prayers and blessings to the people of Haiti and their families.
I took this info on contributing to relief efforts from Appscout.com:
* According to the Red Cross' Twitter page, you can text "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts. You can also donate online to Red Cross' International Response Fund.
* Haitian-born musician Wyclef Jean's grassroots organization is accepting donations via text. By texting "Yele" to 501501, you'll automatically be donating $5 to the Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund. Check out Yele.org for more information.
* The French organization Doctors Without Borders has been doing work in Haiti for years. Donate at DoctorsWithoutBorders.org.
Check out NPR.org and CBSnews.com for more listings.
Please do what you can to support the relief efforts financially.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
**Quick Summary**
NBC should have told Conan he was going to have to wait his turn and delayed handing over the Tonight Show reigns to him since Leno was #1 and not really showing signs of slowing down. The "next host-in-waiting" contract was a horrible idea for NBC to agree to, considering Conan has always wanted to host Tonight Show and could've waited another year...or five.
Florida State made the same mistake with their "coach-in-waiting" situation. A trend of messy situations that will probably continue until AD's wisen up and stop it. They disrespected the man who made their program and university and karma will get them for it. Similarly, NBC screwed Conan.
**End Summary**
So, Jay Leno is getting his old time slot back, thus forcing Conan O'Brien into limbo without a gig and uniting late night hosts in their one apparent common cause - hate of NBC executives. David Letterman, who apparently also still has beef with Jay Leno, has beenposting videos on the internet doing monologues on the situation nightly, as have Leno, and apparently Jimmy Kimmel - who I didn't even realize still had a late night show on ABC. O'Brien has poked fun at the situation as well, but much less maliciously. Though I did find this skit on his show to be pretty darn funny.
My solution? - Give Jay Leno one night a week, two tops, to do a comedy show. Let's call it Mondays and Wednesday at 10PM. NBC could stop fucking up and bring back some GOOD dramas at 10PM the other nights of the week. (They've been missing with their lineup choices recently.) Leno's an accomplished stand up comedian and his "everyman" comedy is a hit with the older viewers who have come to appreciate the Tonight Show. Conan is hilarious, but his audience skews a little younger and a little more educated. (He did go to Harvard and is the son of two pretty impressive people. Google it). It will take time for him to build that Tonight Show audience and/or connect with the older viewers (who are looking for a place since Letterman violated their value system with his affairs). Hell it took Conan 3 years to get his late night show to a point where it was even watchable. On his 10th anniversary special, Mr T came on and presented him with a present that had the number "7" on it. Conan said we've been on for 10 years. Mr T says "I know fool, but you've only been funny for 7".
I doubt it'd take Conan 3 years to get his footing on the Tonight Show since he went through that experience, but an adjustment time was to be expected. But hell, why am I even bringing that up? Conan's ratings aren't why the mess started - LENO's failure at 10pm is. But that'd be my solution. Its like when ABC overdosed on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. It was awesome at one and two nights a week. Every day or whatever it went to was overdose, and killed it into syndication. I loved Millionaire. But too much of a good thing is never good. We all know that.. well, everyone except television executives apparently.
Since this is a sports blog, you may wondering why the hell I'm talking about late night TV. Well, for one, the shadiness and political machinations that took place for Leno to get his 11:35 timeslot back reminded me a lot of the bullshit that took place at Florida State University this year, which led to Bobby Bowden's untimely and unfair (forced) retirement.
If NBC wanted Jay Leno on the air, they never should've made him leave in the first place. They signed a contract with Conan that said he'd get the show in 2009, and Leno had had it for a while... but Leno was #1 in the ratings and hadn't particularly slipped recently. He should've been able to stay longer and they could've worked something out with Conan - a young man who attracts a young audience that isn't tuned in to NBC at 11:35 (...yet). Signing that deal probably seemed like a good idea 5 years ago, but as the time got closer, say in 2007, something should've been worked out.
Instead, they went with the silly idea of giving Leno a show at 10pm, but the show was trash (since they didn't want to duplicate the Tonight Show format...for some reason) and went 5 nights a week, so Conan - and more importantly the local station affiliates 11pm newscasts - didn't get the ratings lead-ins that used to come from strong 10pm programming like Law and Order.
Now there's a big friggin mess and Conan - a very very funny guy and apparently loyal to NBC (or at least his dream of getting the Tonight Show gig one day) - is getting screwed.
Hmmmm... perhaps Leno got screwed in the first place when NBC agreed to that dumbass "Tonight Show Host-In-Waiting" contract with Conan. He had nothing to do with that decision and as the current #1 in the late night wars, should've been able to leave when he wanted to or his ratings slipped behind Letterman (something nearly impossible since Letterman's been too busy wilding out to write good jokes).
But by unscrewing Leno, Conan gets screwed...
Ready for the analogy?
Bobby Bowden is to Jay Leno as Jimbo Fisher is to Conan O'Brien... more or less.
The first difference (that I'm going to point out on my own analogy) is that Bobby Bowden wasn't currently #1 in the ratings, and some people thought it might be a good idea to let Jimbo run the show full-time since that day was coming soon. As if Bowden had somehow forgot how to coach...
Bobby Bowden didn't forget how to coach, he just has really, really, really strong regional competition for recruits from Nick Saban at Alabama, his old coordinator Mark Richt at Georgia, Butch Davis at North Carolina, any coach worth his salt enough to figure out that elite athletes are all over the state of Florida since the kids gets 12 months to practice and play instead of 6 up north, and - most importantly - Urban Meyer at Florida.
HOWEVER... and I feel really strongly about this having attended college at the better school in Tallahassee *cough* FAMU! *cough* , Bobby Bowden is the only fucking reason Florida State University is important at all. It wasn't that long that FSU was a women's only college (until the end of World War II when they returned to co-ed status). And I'm not talking about the football team only, I'm talking about the entire flippin' university. Who the hell cared about FSU other than their alumni before they became known for something? NOBODY. Its not a great educational school with a lot of tradition like FAMU... The University of Florida in Gainesville is the state school that actually matters in the sunshine state. Trust me, I was there for 6 years. FSU is a football and party school. And they weren't shit in football - EVER - before Bobby Bowden came from West Virginia, turned down Alabama (his dream job), and built a MEGA POWERHOUSE PROGRAM that lead to two national titles and at least 10 near-misses.
Bobby Bowden IS Florida State University. And thosebastards in the leadership of the university and Booster Club and Board of Trustees who didn't show him enough respect to let him "coach a few more years" like he said he wanted have proven that FSU is only interested in money and will never matter academically, and someone should send them a greeting card that says "Sorry for you loss...of your priorities".
How DARE you push out the man who made your program. He really would be gone by 2012 at the latest. And him and Paterno were doing a battle to see who'd retire (or die) with the most games ever won. There's a statue of him outside the stadium. You can't fire him, he's got a friggin STATUE on campus! This is why I cheer for UF when they play the 'Noles, despite not really liking their coach. FSU has done a lot of other really shady shit throughout the years and if I got into the history of the FSU Law School and the FAMU-FSU Engineering School... we'd be here all day. So I'll move on...
Basically, the situation at FSU came to a head because the right decision was not made. Jimbo Fisher probably wasn't going to leave FSU. Where the heck would he go? Oh, well... I guess now the answer would be "Tennessee, perhaps" but let's be realistic. FSU (like USC) is a better destination than Tennessee for an aspiring coach. Like USC, its better weather in a better recruiting state with more tradition. Yes, UT won a national title the year after Peyton Manning left. But it wasn't like they were an annual powerhouse. Like Steve Spurrier said, "you can't spell Citrus Bowl without U-T".
(Sidebar - For those of you that don't know what that means, its afucked up but still funny quip made in reference to the fact that the Florida Gators were winning the SEC, and Tennessee typically competed for 2nd in the conference. Before the Bowl games all took super-corporate names, the Capital One Bowl was called the Florida Citrus Bowl. The winner of the SEC goes to either the national title game or the Sugar Bowl. The Citrus Bowl takes the 2nd best team)
UT under Phil Fulmer did well with recruits from other states, like Virginia and Florida. Well now there's a guy named Frank Beamer at Virginia Tech, Butch Davis at nearby North Carolina, and I mentioned Urban Meyer at UF already. (Remember all that when I actually start talking about Lane Kiffin because I don't feel like saying it twice. I'm already longwinded enough as it is. ) So the best chance for a coach to do well in the ACC or SEC is to be a coach at one of the schools IN Florida.
Did I mention the ACC is an easier conference than the NFL minor league that is the SEC? Yeah... so is the PAC10 (remember that for the Kiffin discussion too).
All that to say, the chances of Jimbo Fisher leaving Florida State while FSU let Bowden ride off into the sunset were slim. And if he was pressed enough to try to force something to happen - FSU's sports leaders are dumber than I already proclaimed them to be. FSU would be a fabulous place to be a coach and they'd have their pick of top coaches. So let his ass leave. But no, they named him the "Coach-in-waiting" and promised him the job withing a couple of years.
You know who else did the "coach-in-waiting" thing recently? The NFL Seattle Seahawks. They named Jim Mora Jr coach-in-waiting when it became clear Mike Holmgren wasn't going to coach much longer. The result? They fired Mora after one year and replaced him with USC's patriach, Pete Carroll...thus opening the job at USC and touching off this whole firestorm in the first place.
Note to NFL and NCAA football GMs, Presidents and AD's - DO NOT NAME SOMEONE THE COACH IN WAITING. YOU WILL LIKELY REGRET IT.
Texas currently has a coach-in-waiting. His name is Will Muschamp and he's the big-time-college-football-defensive-genius du-jour. They named him coach-in-waiting to keep him from leaving. Mack Brown gets whatever freaking recruits he wants from one of the top 2 football recruiting states and is beloved by the UT Faithful, despite my suspicion that he can't REALLY coach. Since he can't really coach, he needs good coordinators. Texas was losing a lot of good D-coordinators and it showed on the field. They pulled this coach in waiting deal and went back to the title game after this 2009 season and should've went after the 2008 season as well. For them, its working. But there are two caveats - Muschamp is pretty young and may not have the itch to run the show yet. Also, he's paid more than many head coaches without the responsibility.
That being said, Mack Brown ain't retiring NO time soon. So the whole coach in waiting deal is obviously a fraud/placeholder. At Florida State, they really were dumb enough to mean it. Muschamp is a University of Georgia grad, and Georgia is a "good enough" job for him to go back and coach at his alma mater once Mark Richt gets fired. That doesn't mean he'll go though. I mean, let's be real about this... the coach at the University of Texas doesn't even really have to recruit. They choose who they want within the state of Texas, and once they do that, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and pretty much everyone else is left to come after the other players in Texas. Luckily, there are enough good players there to go around (see: Oklahoma's success). So even if/when the Georgia job comes open, its not a slam-dunk that he'd leave when he will probably get the Texas job in...I dunno, 10 years or less. Austin's a nice place too.
But at least Texas is using the designation "in spirit" and the situation is clearly ambiguous - that being, no set date in the future that seemed like a good idea when it was set. People are living longer these days. It ain't nothing for a 70 year old man to be a successful coach, hell let's get to the Blue Nittany Lion Elephant in the room - Joe Paterno. He's older than everyone in this conversation combined damn near, and he's still the coach at Penn State. Does he REALLY still coach like he did earlier in his 40+ years as coach? Nope. But they didn't publicly force him out when they didn't have to, or a few years back when Penn State was struggling. And they were rewarded. Penn State is back as a perennial Big 10 contender, and JoePa gets the respect he deserves.
FSU could've had a similar arrangement with Bowden. But no, they wanted Jimbo Fisher, an unproven commodity, to be their head coach when - and I've said this before - any number of proven coaches would've LOVED to take that job once Bowden did retire. I don't even think FSU has been that bad recently. Yes, 8-4 and 6-6 suck, but its all cyclical, and it started going downhill with Chris Rix. FSU's recruiting classes have improved they'll probably be decent next year. Bowden was the head coach when those kids were recruited.
OK enough about the Dumbinoles. Summary - they disrespect Bobby Bowden and all he's done putting that football program and SCHOOL on the map and they'll rue the day.
The only difference with the FSU and Tonight Show situations is that there isn't a way to put Bowden in a position where he could come back and re-take over... well, unless they made him Athletic Director. That'd be hilarious, but it won't happen.
Florida State should've let Bowden coach forever. Should NBC have done the same with Conan and made him wait longer or walk? Absolutely. They held ALL the cards. Leno was #1 and Conan wanted the job so bad he'd be crazy to up and leave at the relatively young age that he is.
So what does all of this have to do with Lane Kiffin leaving Tennessee after one season to be the head coach at USC, where he was on the staff during the height of the 2000s Trojan Era? I could draw a better parallel if I really wanted to (and wasn't a little weary of writing for two hours straight) but I'll stick with the shady political workings of college football...or something like that.
Lane Kiffin is not the bad guy here...
(continued from Part 1)
I took this info on contributing to relief efforts from Appscout.com:
* According to the Red Cross' Twitter page, you can text "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts. You can also donate online to Red Cross' International Response Fund.
* Haitian-born musician Wyclef Jean's grassroots organization is accepting donations via text. By texting "Yele" to 501501, you'll automatically be donating $5 to the Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund. Check out Yele.org for more information.
* The French organization Doctors Without Borders has been doing work in Haiti for years. Donate at DoctorsWithoutBorders.org.
Check out NPR.org and CBSnews.com for more listings.
Please do what you can to support the relief efforts financially.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
**Quick Summary**
NBC should have told Conan he was going to have to wait his turn and delayed handing over the Tonight Show reigns to him since Leno was #1 and not really showing signs of slowing down. The "next host-in-waiting" contract was a horrible idea for NBC to agree to, considering Conan has always wanted to host Tonight Show and could've waited another year...or five.
Florida State made the same mistake with their "coach-in-waiting" situation. A trend of messy situations that will probably continue until AD's wisen up and stop it. They disrespected the man who made their program and university and karma will get them for it. Similarly, NBC screwed Conan.
**End Summary**
So, Jay Leno is getting his old time slot back, thus forcing Conan O'Brien into limbo without a gig and uniting late night hosts in their one apparent common cause - hate of NBC executives. David Letterman, who apparently also still has beef with Jay Leno, has been
My solution? - Give Jay Leno one night a week, two tops, to do a comedy show. Let's call it Mondays and Wednesday at 10PM. NBC could stop fucking up and bring back some GOOD dramas at 10PM the other nights of the week. (They've been missing with their lineup choices recently.) Leno's an accomplished stand up comedian and his "everyman" comedy is a hit with the older viewers who have come to appreciate the Tonight Show. Conan is hilarious, but his audience skews a little younger and a little more educated. (He did go to Harvard and is the son of two pretty impressive people. Google it). It will take time for him to build that Tonight Show audience and/or connect with the older viewers (who are looking for a place since Letterman violated their value system with his affairs). Hell it took Conan 3 years to get his late night show to a point where it was even watchable. On his 10th anniversary special, Mr T came on and presented him with a present that had the number "7" on it. Conan said we've been on for 10 years. Mr T says "I know fool, but you've only been funny for 7".
I doubt it'd take Conan 3 years to get his footing on the Tonight Show since he went through that experience, but an adjustment time was to be expected. But hell, why am I even bringing that up? Conan's ratings aren't why the mess started - LENO's failure at 10pm is. But that'd be my solution. Its like when ABC overdosed on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. It was awesome at one and two nights a week. Every day or whatever it went to was overdose, and killed it into syndication. I loved Millionaire. But too much of a good thing is never good. We all know that.. well, everyone except television executives apparently.
Since this is a sports blog, you may wondering why the hell I'm talking about late night TV. Well, for one, the shadiness and political machinations that took place for Leno to get his 11:35 timeslot back reminded me a lot of the bullshit that took place at Florida State University this year, which led to Bobby Bowden's untimely and unfair (forced) retirement.
If NBC wanted Jay Leno on the air, they never should've made him leave in the first place. They signed a contract with Conan that said he'd get the show in 2009, and Leno had had it for a while... but Leno was #1 in the ratings and hadn't particularly slipped recently. He should've been able to stay longer and they could've worked something out with Conan - a young man who attracts a young audience that isn't tuned in to NBC at 11:35 (...yet). Signing that deal probably seemed like a good idea 5 years ago, but as the time got closer, say in 2007, something should've been worked out.
Instead, they went with the silly idea of giving Leno a show at 10pm, but the show was trash (since they didn't want to duplicate the Tonight Show format...for some reason) and went 5 nights a week, so Conan - and more importantly the local station affiliates 11pm newscasts - didn't get the ratings lead-ins that used to come from strong 10pm programming like Law and Order.
Now there's a big friggin mess and Conan - a very very funny guy and apparently loyal to NBC (or at least his dream of getting the Tonight Show gig one day) - is getting screwed.
Hmmmm... perhaps Leno got screwed in the first place when NBC agreed to that dumbass "Tonight Show Host-In-Waiting" contract with Conan. He had nothing to do with that decision and as the current #1 in the late night wars, should've been able to leave when he wanted to or his ratings slipped behind Letterman (something nearly impossible since Letterman's been too busy wilding out to write good jokes).
But by unscrewing Leno, Conan gets screwed...
Ready for the analogy?
Bobby Bowden is to Jay Leno as Jimbo Fisher is to Conan O'Brien... more or less.
The first difference (that I'm going to point out on my own analogy) is that Bobby Bowden wasn't currently #1 in the ratings, and some people thought it might be a good idea to let Jimbo run the show full-time since that day was coming soon. As if Bowden had somehow forgot how to coach...
Bobby Bowden didn't forget how to coach, he just has really, really, really strong regional competition for recruits from Nick Saban at Alabama, his old coordinator Mark Richt at Georgia, Butch Davis at North Carolina, any coach worth his salt enough to figure out that elite athletes are all over the state of Florida since the kids gets 12 months to practice and play instead of 6 up north, and - most importantly - Urban Meyer at Florida.
HOWEVER... and I feel really strongly about this having attended college at the better school in Tallahassee *cough* FAMU! *cough* , Bobby Bowden is the only fucking reason Florida State University is important at all. It wasn't that long that FSU was a women's only college (until the end of World War II when they returned to co-ed status). And I'm not talking about the football team only, I'm talking about the entire flippin' university. Who the hell cared about FSU other than their alumni before they became known for something? NOBODY. Its not a great educational school with a lot of tradition like FAMU... The University of Florida in Gainesville is the state school that actually matters in the sunshine state. Trust me, I was there for 6 years. FSU is a football and party school. And they weren't shit in football - EVER - before Bobby Bowden came from West Virginia, turned down Alabama (his dream job), and built a MEGA POWERHOUSE PROGRAM that lead to two national titles and at least 10 near-misses.
Bobby Bowden IS Florida State University. And those
How DARE you push out the man who made your program. He really would be gone by 2012 at the latest. And him and Paterno were doing a battle to see who'd retire (or die) with the most games ever won. There's a statue of him outside the stadium. You can't fire him, he's got a friggin STATUE on campus! This is why I cheer for UF when they play the 'Noles, despite not really liking their coach. FSU has done a lot of other really shady shit throughout the years and if I got into the history of the FSU Law School and the FAMU-FSU Engineering School... we'd be here all day. So I'll move on...
Basically, the situation at FSU came to a head because the right decision was not made. Jimbo Fisher probably wasn't going to leave FSU. Where the heck would he go? Oh, well... I guess now the answer would be "Tennessee, perhaps" but let's be realistic. FSU (like USC) is a better destination than Tennessee for an aspiring coach. Like USC, its better weather in a better recruiting state with more tradition. Yes, UT won a national title the year after Peyton Manning left. But it wasn't like they were an annual powerhouse. Like Steve Spurrier said, "you can't spell Citrus Bowl without U-T".
(Sidebar - For those of you that don't know what that means, its a
UT under Phil Fulmer did well with recruits from other states, like Virginia and Florida. Well now there's a guy named Frank Beamer at Virginia Tech, Butch Davis at nearby North Carolina, and I mentioned Urban Meyer at UF already. (Remember all that when I actually start talking about Lane Kiffin because I don't feel like saying it twice. I'm already longwinded enough as it is. ) So the best chance for a coach to do well in the ACC or SEC is to be a coach at one of the schools IN Florida.
Did I mention the ACC is an easier conference than the NFL minor league that is the SEC? Yeah... so is the PAC10 (remember that for the Kiffin discussion too).
All that to say, the chances of Jimbo Fisher leaving Florida State while FSU let Bowden ride off into the sunset were slim. And if he was pressed enough to try to force something to happen - FSU's sports leaders are dumber than I already proclaimed them to be. FSU would be a fabulous place to be a coach and they'd have their pick of top coaches. So let his ass leave. But no, they named him the "Coach-in-waiting" and promised him the job withing a couple of years.
You know who else did the "coach-in-waiting" thing recently? The NFL Seattle Seahawks. They named Jim Mora Jr coach-in-waiting when it became clear Mike Holmgren wasn't going to coach much longer. The result? They fired Mora after one year and replaced him with USC's patriach, Pete Carroll...thus opening the job at USC and touching off this whole firestorm in the first place.
Note to NFL and NCAA football GMs, Presidents and AD's - DO NOT NAME SOMEONE THE COACH IN WAITING. YOU WILL LIKELY REGRET IT.
Texas currently has a coach-in-waiting. His name is Will Muschamp and he's the big-time-college-football-defensive-genius du-jour. They named him coach-in-waiting to keep him from leaving. Mack Brown gets whatever freaking recruits he wants from one of the top 2 football recruiting states and is beloved by the UT Faithful, despite my suspicion that he can't REALLY coach. Since he can't really coach, he needs good coordinators. Texas was losing a lot of good D-coordinators and it showed on the field. They pulled this coach in waiting deal and went back to the title game after this 2009 season and should've went after the 2008 season as well. For them, its working. But there are two caveats - Muschamp is pretty young and may not have the itch to run the show yet. Also, he's paid more than many head coaches without the responsibility.
That being said, Mack Brown ain't retiring NO time soon. So the whole coach in waiting deal is obviously a fraud/placeholder. At Florida State, they really were dumb enough to mean it. Muschamp is a University of Georgia grad, and Georgia is a "good enough" job for him to go back and coach at his alma mater once Mark Richt gets fired. That doesn't mean he'll go though. I mean, let's be real about this... the coach at the University of Texas doesn't even really have to recruit. They choose who they want within the state of Texas, and once they do that, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and pretty much everyone else is left to come after the other players in Texas. Luckily, there are enough good players there to go around (see: Oklahoma's success). So even if/when the Georgia job comes open, its not a slam-dunk that he'd leave when he will probably get the Texas job in...I dunno, 10 years or less. Austin's a nice place too.
But at least Texas is using the designation "in spirit" and the situation is clearly ambiguous - that being, no set date in the future that seemed like a good idea when it was set. People are living longer these days. It ain't nothing for a 70 year old man to be a successful coach, hell let's get to the Blue Nittany Lion Elephant in the room - Joe Paterno. He's older than everyone in this conversation combined damn near, and he's still the coach at Penn State. Does he REALLY still coach like he did earlier in his 40+ years as coach? Nope. But they didn't publicly force him out when they didn't have to, or a few years back when Penn State was struggling. And they were rewarded. Penn State is back as a perennial Big 10 contender, and JoePa gets the respect he deserves.
FSU could've had a similar arrangement with Bowden. But no, they wanted Jimbo Fisher, an unproven commodity, to be their head coach when - and I've said this before - any number of proven coaches would've LOVED to take that job once Bowden did retire. I don't even think FSU has been that bad recently. Yes, 8-4 and 6-6 suck, but its all cyclical, and it started going downhill with Chris Rix. FSU's recruiting classes have improved they'll probably be decent next year. Bowden was the head coach when those kids were recruited.
OK enough about the Dumbinoles. Summary - they disrespect Bobby Bowden and all he's done putting that football program and SCHOOL on the map and they'll rue the day.
The only difference with the FSU and Tonight Show situations is that there isn't a way to put Bowden in a position where he could come back and re-take over... well, unless they made him Athletic Director. That'd be hilarious, but it won't happen.
Florida State should've let Bowden coach forever. Should NBC have done the same with Conan and made him wait longer or walk? Absolutely. They held ALL the cards. Leno was #1 and Conan wanted the job so bad he'd be crazy to up and leave at the relatively young age that he is.
So what does all of this have to do with Lane Kiffin leaving Tennessee after one season to be the head coach at USC, where he was on the staff during the height of the 2000s Trojan Era? I could draw a better parallel if I really wanted to (and wasn't a little weary of writing for two hours straight) but I'll stick with the shady political workings of college football...or something like that.
Lane Kiffin is not the bad guy here...
(continued from Part 1)
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