teke184

Auburn can win, but Auburn came pretty damn close to firing Tuberville shortly before he put together a 13-0 season. Alabama wants a coach who can come in and immediately go 9-3 or 10-2, with some of those wins coming over LSU, Auburn, Tennessee, and Arkansas. A good coach COULD do that, but it's very hard to do that year-in year-out and Alabama's fans have such high standards that it's easy to get on their bad sides. Unless a coach is given a few years of stability to get their system and their recruiting in place, it's unreasonable to expect them to come in and knock off a bunch of perennial world-beaters like several of Alabama's permanent SEC opponents, which are Auburn, LSU, Arkansas, and Tennessee. The recruiting isn't horrible. It could be better but it's still Top 20 in the country. Good enough to be more competitive then they have been. What really bothers me about the "you can't win at this school" line of reasoning, you're letting bad coaches like Mike Shula, Pack Hackett, and John Blake off the hook. I'm not saying you CAN'T win at Alabama. I'm saying that the Alabama alumni's definition of winning is friggin' unreasonable, which is why coaches typically aren't given enough time to have a real chance. Alabama's fans have trouble accepting that the SEC is no longer Alabama and the 9 dwarfs like it was until the early 90s. They think that a coach should be able to walk in and beat Tennessee, Auburn, LSU, and Arkansas despite three of the four being perennial Top 10 teams and the fourth being a constant SEC West challenger A sample year of Alabama football- Alabama will win 4 out-of-conference games, barring an actual Top 25 team appearing there. They will beat Ole Miss and Mississippi State on an annual basis, unless those teams improve to bowl-eligible status. (Neither team has been a regular bowl team over the past 10 years unless they get a once-in-a-lifetime player like Eli Manning) They *should* be able to beat 1 SEC East team (Tennessee or their two rotating opponents, which can be patsies like Vanderbilt and Kentucky or world-beaters like Georgia and Florida) The *should* be able to beat 1 of the 3 remaining SEC West teams (Auburn, LSU, Arkansas) That's 8-4 right there, which is considered good for most BCS conference schools. However, it's typically not considered enough at Alabama due to their storied history. The alumni won't be happy until they're beating Auburn at least 50% of the time, if not more, and regularly contending for the SEC title. I'm not saying it WON'T happen, but Alabama is too impatient for a coach to bring in the kind of players needed to make his system work. At least when LSU cans coaches, it's because of multiple losing seasons. Jerry Stovall- 2 losing seasons in 4 years, canned. Mike Archer- 2 losing seasons at the end of 5 years, canned. Curley Hallman- 4 losing seasons in 4 years, including the worst in school history at 2-9, canned. Gerry DiNardo- 2 losing seasons at the end of 5 years, canned. Shula has had 1 losing season, 2 .500 seasons, and a 10-2 year. I feel that poor decision-making cost him 1-2 games this year (Arkansas and Tennessee), but that the continued absence of WR Tyrone Prothro crippled his offensive game and put him in this situation. While Shula is not a good coach, I feel they should have let him stay at least one year to give the program a sense of stability, which they have not had since Gene Stallings left in the mid-90s. Between Mike DuBose, Mike Price, Terry Franchione, and Mike Shula, they've been through 4 coaches in a short period of time. They should be looking for someone to put in a long-term fix, not someone who needs to win right away to get pissed-off alumni off of his back. The problem is that the treatment of the last few coaches has been so extreme that few are willing to go to Tuscaloosa no matter what is offered to them. It's seen as a job where you'll be there for four turbulent years at the longest. I think that they'll end up blowing this hire by trying to throw money at the hot coach of the day, probably someone like Bobby Petrino who's linked with every job in football these days, then end up right back here in 4-5 years because they were impatient and looking at the wrong things when making their coaching search. If they go into one of these things with a solid plan for a replacement, things may turn out different. However, they always seem to think that the Alabama program is an asset to them in this search when, in reality, it's been an albatross for every coach who's been there for the past 10+ years.

Auburn can win, but Auburn came pretty damn close to firing Tuberville shortly before he put together a 13-0 season. Alabama wants a coach who can come in and immediately go 9-3 or 10-2, with some of those wins coming over LSU, Auburn, Tennessee, and Arkansas. A good coach COULD do that, but it's very hard to do that year-in year-out and Alabama's fans have such high standards that it's easy to get on their bad sides. Unless a coach is given a few years of stability to get their system and their recruiting in place, it's unreasonable to expect them to come in and knock off a bunch of perennial world-beaters like several of Alabama's permanent SEC opponents, which are Auburn, LSU, Arkansas, and Tennessee.

I'm hoping that Bobby Jackson and David West can get healthy soon so that the Hornets will start winning regularly. I'd say the same thing for Peja, but we knew he was an injury risk when he got signed.

LSU beat Texas A&M last night in an early-year rematch of the 2nd Round game during March Madness. This should help offset the fact that LSU lost to Wichita State earler this season. (Not that Wichita isn't good, but it's considered bad form to lose early to a mid-major team not named Gonzaga)

Ugh... WHY? BC has lower expectations on their program than NC State, although it hasn't been getting the quality of athletes that NC State has. Taking that NC State job means he's thrown away a sure-thing job at BC for a gamble on an up-and-down program. On top of that, it's bad form to not only poach a head coach from within your league, but also from within your division. The only time I can think of where that worked out well was when Auburn hired Tommy Tuberville away from Ole Miss.

The only reason I say 10 is that I feel Booty will blow a drive late in the 4th quarter, a la Jake Delhomme on Monday night, which results in a score Michigan wouldn't have had otherwise. It's pretty much going to be an even game besides that, but I feel that Michigan will have the edge.

We shall see. If Michigan blows their 4th bowl in a row (and 5th in 6 years), they and Carr are officially overrated.

I'm definitely not an impartial person, but I figure that Michigan will be able to break down the USC-UCLA game tape, along with the Oregon State game and the other close games (Arizona, Washington, etc.), and be able to put together a defense that will give Booty fits. If they get the same kind of pressure on Booty that UCLA did, it'll be hard for the Trojans to put up a lot of points without help from the defense. The real question will be if the USC defense can stop Michigan's rushing offense. UCLA kept gashing the USC ends for gains around the corners by their QB and their RB, neither of whom has the stats of Michigan RB Mike Hart. If Michigan tries the same thing with Mike Hart in the backfield, who is #8 in the country for rushing yards and has 9 100-yard games this year, the Trojans better hope they can read the Wolverine formations to know where he's going and then get there first. I'd say Michigan wins by 10 barring something unforseen happening (major injury, suspension of a major player, etc.)

Hell, I say they go 4-0 with that set of patsies on the way for them. I'm just saying it's the only feasable way that Chicago loses homefield advantage.

It wouldn't officially be a Bears myth... it would be centered on Grossman since he's the one who QBed them against Carolina last year and, barring unforseen circumstances, will pilot them into the playoffs this year.

Williams WOULD have been allowed to return to USC if he'd returned money he'd been given by his agent. He'd have also had to re-enroll at USC in the meantime for either part of the Spring semester or the Summer semester. These ideas were apparently non-starters, which is why USC moved on without him.

Mike Williams was a bigger flop. What a little fucking cunt he is. At least Gallery willingly plays. As for the next bust, that's whoever Arizona picks. Most are assuming they'll take Joe Thomas as OL is definitely their weak spot, if they can stop winning meaningless games. Gallery got mentioned because I said O-Line, much like Ryan Leaf is the gold standard for QB busts. Mike Williams position as the top WR bust is questionable considering Charlie Rogers was #2 overall, got constantly injured, and was suspended for substance abuse. Williams, OTOH, is just having attitude / conditioning issues in comparison.

They're also 5-0 when both Hasselbeck and Alexander are in the lineup. This team is a lot better than they are getting credit for. The NFC is going to come down the the Cowboys, Seahawks and Bears. If the Seahawks end up with homefield, would you bet against them? Don't be silly. Chicago has 2 games over everyone else in the NFC with 4 left, and they aren't going to split the final 4 games against St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Detroit and Green Bay. Get real. (Not to say the Bears won't lose any, but they will probably go 3-1, and even if they do split, they hold a tiebreak over Seattle.) The current scenario being peddled by one of the major sites (probably ESPN or CBS Sportsline) is that Chicago gets home-field advantage throughout the playoff but blows their first game thanks to shitty play by Grossman. That would leave the 2nd team in prime position to come into the Conference Championship with homefield advantage. As far as a team besides Chicago getting homefield advantage going INTO the playoffs and not by virtue of Chicago being eliminated, it would have to be the Saints. If the Saints win out and Chicago drops 2 games, the Saints will get homefield advantage by virtue of a superior record against NFC teams. (3 of the 4 Saints losses would be against AFC teams, while all 4 of the remaining games Chicago plays are against NFC teams.)

Maybe Leena or Harley should figure out which lineman drafted by Oakland, Arizona, and/or Detroit will become the next big flop a la Robert Gallery... Or maybe all three of them will start fighting over Calvin Johnson and Dwayne Bowe since none of these three teams need a WR and yet they like to stockpile them. (Well... Detroit needs WRs to be #2 behind Roy Williams, but they've already thrown enough money down the toilet with Mike Williams and the already-cut Charlie Rogers)

All the newspeople love the "flavor of the week" because it gives them good copy for a while. They also love to do the competing "What's right/wrong with America's Team" kind of stories, either blowing the Giants, Bears, Colts, Cowboys or trashing them, depending on that week's results. It's hard for them to use pre-canned copy to cover a team like the Saints because everything they've had in the can since Jim Mora Sr. flipped out was mostly "The Saints f*cked up again and lost" or "The Saints win on a miracle play", not "The Saints completely dominated the 49ers thanks to 4 TDs by Bush." On the other hand, it's very easy to talk about long-standing big-market stories like Detroit's ineptitude under Mike Millen, Chicago's offensive woes, LT kicking ass and taking names in San Diego, Peyton putting up the yards in Indy, John York doesn't know WTF he's doing in San Francisco, Washington's big FA pickups this year are huge busts, etc. For instance, the only reason ESPN realized that the Titans are winning games was that they knocked off the Manning brothers in dramatic fashion. Coming up with stories that don't fit in this kind of template require some original thought, which is sorely missing from the journalism profession in general and not just with sportswriters.

INT, Delhomme. Game, Philly. The Saints go into Dallas with a 2-game lead on the NFC South.

I agree whole-heartedly as an LSU fan. We wanted Michigan or USC so we could have a Top 5 matchup. Instead, we get a Notre Dame team that got their asses whipped by Michigan AND USC.

I'd say that Michigan over USC and LSU over Notre Dame are mortal locks, given the way all four of these teams played their last games. I say that Florida is being underrated by most people against Ohio State, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Boise is good but I see Oklahoma pulling it off in a close one. Wake has little offense, but the Rutgers game proved that Louisville is susceptible to a good defense. This will be a close one but Louisville will win.

17?!? I'd take those odds. I think Ohio State will win, but it will be by 10 at the most.

It's official... Florida vs. Ohio State Unfortunately for LSU, that means "only" a Sugar Bowl appearance rather than a first-ever appearance in the Rose Bowl against hated USC.

Yep... The road to the other First-Round Bye goes through Dallas for the time being. Dallas is looking more vulnerable than I'd thought, but they're still a solid team. The Saints are making things work on both sides of the ball right now, shutting down the #1 rusher in the league while getting their own running game going. This will be a great game.

OK, Martin, you hit the FG. Now don't start jumping up and down like a fucking moron and tear your ACL.

Let's see if Automatica can hit an easy 40-yarder to ice the game.

I think Coughlin's about to shit a brick after THAT defensive series. An INT coughed back up as a fumble, a PI call in the end zone on a pass that wasn't going to be caught, and a TD.

Only if they're playing their own defense...