Ranting against the BCS system is something of an annual past time with me (sort of like my obsessive rants against Day Light Savings Time). The nice thing about the BCS is that there is always some new nuttiness each year that demonstrates to about 99% of the college football fans that it is a useless, broken, and disheartening system; detrimental to the good of college football.
My basic premise is that every summer each Division 1 (or BCS Championship, or Bowl Championship or whatever other dysfunctional name that they keep trying to foist upon people) coach should be able to truthfully tell his players that if they win they have a chance to be the national champions. The problem is, that would be a lie. Look at Hawaii. The only undefeated team in Division 1 and in the new BCS ranking they finally get to #12. I don't care about the "strength of schedule" or any other such nonsense; they are the ONLY undefeated team in Division 1, there are a couple of conferences that are a lot weaker than the WAC and the unwillingness of teams to schedule Hawaii for non-conference games is well documented, and equally unfair. They are a Division 1 team, they've won all their games, they shouldn't have to be on the bubble just getting a major Bowl game with no hope at all of being the National Champion. All of the BCS hierarchy are probably hoping against hope that Hawaii loses their last game this Saturday against Washington. Then at least this scandal would go away.
The system has been tweaked about a zillion times, the last one being just a few weeks ago when the system leaders realized that there may not be enough "at large" teams available to cover all the bowls.
The nuttiness continues: Today the #1 team is Missouri, who to the overall relief to the BCS leaders (and the FOX network folks), beat previously unbeaten Kansas. Missouri will now play #9 ranked Oklahoma for the Big 12 Championship. The only problem here is that Oklahoma is favored! If either Missouri or West Virginia (playing Boston College for the ACC Championship Saturday) lose, then Ohio State looks to move back into the championship game, even though they lost to unranked (at the time) Illinois a couple of weeks ago and did not play any team and of those team ranked higher than #21 (when they played). Among the Big 10 besides Ohio State, only Illinois (#15) only Wisconsin (#18) are still ranked. Strength of schedule apparently only counts for those teams and conferences that the BCS was designed to keep out of the "big games."
I have nothing against Ohio State, but they are not the best team in Division 1 and probably would be underdogs to any of the other top 12 teams (including Hawaii). The Big 10, as a conference, is terribly over-rated and only Illinois seems to see the future of offensive strategy. Last years Championship game (Florida basically destroying Ohio State) and the Rose Bowl (where USC destroyed Michigan) should have made that pretty clear. Until they change their philosophy, traditional Big 10 football will almost always lose to modern spread offenses with fast mobile defenses.
The two marquee teams of the Big 10, OSU and Michigan, are just playing outdated football. It's not just the Big 10, the SEC is guilty of the same thing, although more of those teams have begun to adjust. USC has forced the rest of the Pac 10 to raise the level of their play the last five years and the Big East is making some significant strides. Even the WAC with Hawaii and Boise State are raising the level of their conferences. The Big 12 is another strong conference where many of the teams have begun to modernize.
The nuttiness, however, does include the south as well. This Saturday LSU (#7) will play Tennessee (#14) for the SEC Championship, while Georgia, at #4 is ranked higher than either of those teams and now benefits by the fact that they can't win the SEC Championship and their season is over!
Until all of the silly excuses for not having a Division 1 Football playoff system are ignored as bogus and lame excuses, the BCS system scrapped and a playoff system that recognizes all the Division 1 Conference Champions, then it will simply muddle along and continue to snub deserving teams and, more often than not, put undeserving teams in the championship game.
PS: Unfortunately USC was banged up and lost to Stanford and dropped a close game to Oregon (when they were ranked #2), but does anyone really think that Kansas (#5), Georgia (#4) or West Virginia (#6) are better teams right now than USC? USC just needs to beat UCLA this Saturday (which I expect will be by about 40 points) and they get the Rose Bowl and their 6th straight Pac 10 title.
A week long conference followed by a week long bout with the flu kept me from writing much the last two weeks, so I'm a little behind on baseball news.
The new Hall of Fame ballot was released today and it's fairly mundane. Honestly, I'm not sure I'd vote for any of them to be in the HOF. All were obviously good to great players (but usually great for a short length of time) but none really jump out at you as HOF material. Someone will probably get voted in but I wouldn't be surprised if none were.
The free agent signing season has started as well as the first half of the trading season (between Christmas and New Years not much gets done). A lot of the experts and "insiders" keep talking about the signings and trades the Dodgers need to make. Hopefully Ned Colletti isn't listening to any of them.
The idea of trading Kemp, Loney, Billingsley, Kershaw, LaRoche, or even Ethier, is abolsute lunacy. If the Dodgers trade Kemp it will almost immediately rank with when the team tried to "hide" Roberto Clemente in their minor league instead of keeping him safe by bringing him up to the majors. In that story the Dodgers front office seemed oblivious to the fact that Branch Rickey, who has left the Dodgers to become president of the Pittsburgh Pirates, probably had every minor leaguer in the Dodger system memorized. If they trade Billingsley or Kershaw it would almost immediately become the worst trade in the team's history, ranking right up there with the Pedro Martinez for Delino DeShields mess.
The Dodger needs, in my opinion are fairly simple. They need back end rotation help. Their #4 and #5 starters last year were horrible and as a result the team never had a winning streak over five games and were constantly in the bullpen. If Kershaw is ready to jump to the majors, then one spot is filled. I don't think Estaban Loiza is the answer either, but he probably gets a chance in the spring.
The same experts keep talking about the Dodgers needing a center fielder. That would be OK if they were also talking about Juan Pierre being sent somewhere else, but the rumors are signing a center fielder and moving Juan Pierre to left. Perhaps I'm missing something here but I wonder how many clubs would like the following starting line up:
1B James Loney
2B Tony Abreu (hoping that Jeff Kent is traded before the season starts)
3B Andy LaRoche
SS Rafael Furcal
LF Andre Ethier
CF Juan Pierre (but insert Jason Repko if he is recovered and has a good spring)
RF Matt Kemp
C Russell Martin
Starting Pitchers: Chad Billingsley, Brad Penny, Derrick Lowe, Clayton Kerhsaw (?) and TBD
Relief: closer: Takashi Saito, Set Up: Jonathan Broxton and Jonathan Meloan
Trading any of these young players (who aren't very expensive yet) would be silly at this point. The Dodgers were only eight games out of winning the NL west (and into late July still had the best record in the entire NL). A swing of +10 to 15 will make them a division winner. That's not all that hard to imagine since the 4-5 starters last year only won 6 games between them.
Hopefully, the Dodgers can unload Jeff Kent and get him away from their clubhouse. Nomar Garciaparra is under contract this year, but he should be a utility player, not a starter. Luis Gonzalez has said that he'd like to resign because of Joe Torre being the new manager, but it is far more likely that he has figured out that no one is going to offer him a $10 million per year contract. The Dodgers don't need Gonzalez and should not resign him.
The trade rumors about Miguel Cabrera have quieted down thankfully. The idea that the Dodgers would trade four of their top prospects for one player is absurd. I would consider Kemp, Billingsley, Kershaw or Loney, individually to be equal value to Cabrera. Cabrera is a great hitter, but his work habits and discipline seem to be a question (his weight is also a concern) and he's only at this point slightly above average as a fielder.
It should be interesting up through Spring Training. So far Colletti has not made any trade moves or stupid free agent signings (Chan Ho Park may still be serviceable in middle relief), I hope it stays that way.