iggymcfly

I was thinking, it would be hilarious if the writers decided to keep Barry out of the Hall, just as a big fuck you for all the stuff he did over the years, and to help fuel one of his RACISM! tirades.

Yeah, what happened to Oswalt today? It's not even that the Cardinals were that hot because the bullpen's been shutting them down.

OK, I figured that this week, I'd write a little comment on all of the teams that I ranked, and see if that helped facilitate discussion a little bit. If there's still no one interested, I'll just stop posting my rankings, and instead just use them as a guide to win the Pick' Em contest, and try to see if I can pick up another $350 when the bowl pool comes around. 1. USC 6-0 (1) The Trojans showed why they’re the best team in the country against Arizona State. They’ve got incredible talent on both sides of the ball, and they know how to win close games too. Given the tough schedule they’ve played, I’d say they’ve accomplished more than Oklahoma or even Auburn at this point of the season. . 2. Oklahoma 6-0 (2) Well, they looked like shit against Kansas State, but they probably had a hard time taking the Wildcats seriously the way they’ve played this year. The Texas win is still big, and they keep the two spot based on the fact that they haven’t really been challenged all year. . 3. Auburn 7-0 (3) Auburn’s got a lot of big wins this year, and you could easily make a case for them being in the top two. However, they did need a freak leaping call to beat LSU at home, and I’d consider Oklahoma a little steadier at this point. If they can do anything close to what they did against the Vols when they play Georgia, they should take the two spot. . 4. Miami 5-0 (4) Somewhat like USC, Miami seems to know how to win, as they just turned it up an extra notch against a very good Louisville team when they needed to. The fact that they did the same thing against Florida State seems even more impressive in light of what the Noles did to Virginia this week. . 5. California 4-1 (5) The Golden Bears did everything except win against USC, and they’ve been incredibly impressive week and week out the rest of the year. If they’d played the Trojans in Berkeley, they might be the top-ranked, undefeated, Orange Bowl frontrunner. . 6. Utah 6-0 (11) Yeah, this seems kind of high for a mid-major, but at this point in the season they’ve played as many BCS teams as a lot of members of BCS conferences. When it comes down to it, I figure that their 20 point win over Texas A&M was more impressive than anything Wisconsin’s done. . 7. Wisconsin 7-0 (13) Speaking of which, the Badgers are still undefeated. They’ve been playing a lot better with Anthony Davis, and right now it looks extremely likely that they’ll run the table in the Big Ten. Of course, if Kyle Orton could hold on to the ball it would probably be a different story, but the Purdue win’s still impressive. . 8. Georgia 5-1 (9) Yeah, they lost to Tennessee and technically they should probably be ranked below them, but the way the SEC is right now, the upper teams can go either way, and I really think that the Dawgs just have a lot more dangerous team than Tennessee does. . 9. Florida State 5-1 (15) The Virginia win was pretty damn impressive, and enough to move FSU into the top ten. However, it was their only really good win of the year, and I can’t really say that it impresses me any more than what Georgia did to LSU. . 10. Tennessee 5-1 (8) The Georgia win was nice, but they should have lost to Florida, and they really haven’t looked very good the rest of the season. They have a lot of performances like the one today where they almost lost to an Ole Miss team with a losing record. . 11. Louisville 4-1 (10) It’s hard to fault the Cardinals much for a last minute loss to the #4 team in the country. However, you did get the feeling that they’d have a hard time doing this week and in and week out, and their best wins are still North Carolina and Kentucky. . 12. Texas 5-1 (12) This is a tough team to rank. Their best win was probably a two pointer over Arkansas, but they did have a moderately close showing against Oklahoma. We really won’t know how good they are until they play Texas A&M. . 13. Purdue 5-1 (6) The collapse against Wisconsin really hurts the Boilermakers. They were in a position where they could have made a run for the Orange Bowl, and one game later, they’re not even in contention for the Rose Bowl. . 14. Michigan 5-1 (17) Looking in-depth at Michigan’s schedule, it doesn’t seem like they’ve accomplished that much, as the Iowa and Minnesota teams that they beat both have been absolutely exposed by Arizona State and Michigan State respectively. However, Notre Dame’s not a bad loss, and the Wolverines certainly have the talent to win out from here. . 15. Boise State 6-0 (16) They refuse to put mediocre teams away, and as soon as they actually pick up a loss they’re done, but they do have a couple decent wins in OSU and UTEP, and more importantly, a big zero in the loss column. . 16. LSU 4-2 (19) The Tigers are still going to be punished for the blowout against Georgia, but they were a leaping call away from beating Auburn on the road, and winning in the Swamp is still fairly impressive. . 17. Virginia Tech 5-2 (20) The Hokies also have two losses, but a close loss to USC can’t hurt you too much, and they do have a solid win in West Virginia. . 18. Texas A&M 5-1 (23) With the big win over Oklahoma State, the Aggies established themselves as the top threat to Oklahoma’s dominance in the Big 12. However, they did lose big against Utah in the opener. . 19. Arizona State 5-1 (7) It might seem hypocritical to punish ASU for a loss to the Trojans and not Va. Tech, but it was 42-7 at halftime. That gives the impression of a team that’s not even in the same stratosphere as their opponent. Of course, they were still a stratosphere ahead of Iowa, so they still should get some credit 20. Florida 4-2 (21) On the one hand, they seem to be on about the same level as Georgia/LSU/Tennessee, but on the other hand, they need to win one of those close games if they want people to see them as a serious contender. . 21. West Virginia 5-1 (24) It’s not that it’s bad to lose to Virginia Tech. It’s just bad that the third or fourth best team from the ACC is the toughest squad they’ll face all year. . 22. Virginia 5-1 (14) After an early year of beating nobodies, the Cavaliers got exposed[/b] by Florida State as an utter fraud. They’ll stay in the rankings as one of the few BCS schools with one loss, but they’re certainly not the top ten team people were trying to make them out to be. . 23. Notre Dame 5-2 (NR) The Irish have done a pretty good job of getting through their difficult schedule and picking up some big wins here and there. Two losses really isn’t bad when an undefeated Navy team is your only “breather” game of the year. . 24. Oklahoma State 5-1 (18) Much like Virginia, Oklahoma State got exposed, but stays in the rankings until they pick up another loss. . 25. NC State 4-2 (NR) Well, there’s no more one loss teams left, and the Wolfpack do at least have the good win over Virginia Tech.

Actually, looking at that again, do the forfeits kill the strength of schedule too? I didn't think they had any effect, but it seems kind of weird for the people with forfeits to all rank dead last in strength of schedule.

I would be really interested to see what my ranking would be like without the forfeit. However, I'm pretty sure I'd be in about the same boat as your Stanford team, since despite facing a ranked team almost every week, I'm still almost last for strength of schedule.

I think Swogger's leg has to be bothering him or something. His accuracy's so bad that he doesn't even look like a I-A quarterback sometimes.

It's probably not that bad. Only one of them's gonna get stuck with Miami, and the other one could easily get an undefeated Louisville team going for a share of the national championship.

Lefors for Heisman anyone?

I had a feeling Louisville would spring the upset tonight, and so far they're looking damn good. Miami can't do anything to stop the passing game, and as long as the Cardinals don't fall apart, they should be well on their way to the upset. BTW, does anyone else think the parallels between Louisville and Cal are really striking? They both dominated their early opponents on both sides of the ball without getting much respect, before picking apart a Top-3 opponent with their passing game. Really, the only difference is that USC's a lot more well-rounded than Miami, and managed to control the ball.

Well, not to me. I'm in college, so my alcohol tolerance is fucking huge right now. Anyway. as someone who sent away their absentee ballot today with the little box for Michael Badnarik filled in under "President of the United States", and someone who thought Bush won the first debate pretty handily, I really thought Kerry won the debate tonight. He spoke confidently and succinctly into the camera, and generally seemed much more self-assured than the President. Bush kept giving that stupid smile and those stupid pauses, and really kind of undermined his own credibility. I still agreed with Bush on a few more of the points raised, but I thought that from a fairly stupid undecided voter's perspective, Kerry looked much much better tonight. Of course, I did start the debate late, and then switch over to the baseball game a couple times, but from what I saw, Kerry was a strong winner.

Shit, I think I'm the only one in the whole contest picking Louisville. Although, if Gert T ends up forfeiting, I guess it won't really matter much anyway.

That all might still be a little much for you to absorb though. I'd say, first make sure to watch a lot of this Red Sox/Yankees series, as those are basically the two biggest rivals in pro sports fighting to get to the World Series. Also, don't think of college football and basketball as inferior to the NFL and NBA. The talent level is very close, and college sports are usually much more entertaining than their pro counterparts. In football, the play clock's twice as short, which basically means there's a lot less time where they're just sitting around. Also, they have less commercial interruptions as the NFL packs in as many as it possibly can. As far as basketball goes, during the regular season, the quality of play is often a little better in college than the NBA. There's much better ball movement and hustle and there's generally more to watch than the dribble-dribble-shoot game of the NBA. Then when the tournament starts, everything's so fast and exciting that it also blows the NBA playoffs away.

I really can't say anything too bad about this new Eminem song, just because I was expecting worse. The Slim Shady LP, and the early D-12 stuff was fucking gold, and had it looking like he might pass 2-Pac as the greatest of all-time. Then, the Marshall Mathers LP was basically a carbon copy of the Slim Shady LP, even positioning the songs that were about the same things on the same parts of the album. And ever since then, it's just been downhill. The Eminem Show was where it first started to look like Eminem was selling out, and the quality was quite a bit lower. It was still better than most rap albums, but you could tell he wasn't at the same level of his earlier stuff. Then, this new D-12 stuff started coming out, and it was just fucking terrible. I hated "My Band" when it came out, and I hate it even more now. There a couple decent tracks buried on the D-12 album, but for the most part it was absolutely phoned in. This new "Lose it" song just being average instead of annoying as fuck is actually a pleasant surprise for me. Oh, and by the way, Purple Pills was certainly not a poppy "made for TRL and radio" type of song. It's an excellent song, and when they try to play it on MTV, they have to pervert it so far from it's original form that it barely bears any resemblance.

Which one should be closed though? They were both started at exactly 9:21. We need a special fancy moderator to merge the two threads. If they do get merged though, I think we should stick with Anglesault's title.

If Adrian Peterson wins the Heisman would that be the first time ever that a team had two Heisman winners on it? That would be pretty crazy anyway.

List looks pretty good to me. Pudge carried my fantasy team to a championship, and Javy's an Oriole, so he's automatically tight as fuck. I'm not that good way down the list, but I would say that with the year Martinez had, he might deserve to be ahead of what's been a pretty mediocre Jorge Posada.

Yeah, I watched a lot of That's my Bush and all it did was make fun of George Bush. This idea that it actually was supposed to compliment is either a joke, or coming from someone who has no idea what they're talking about. Also, I don't see how a show about the president doing dumb things in the White House would have worked if he hadn't got elected. I think JasonX is just making up random shit right now.

Nobody says you shouldn't cheer your team. And I really haven't even seen anyone say OU doesn't deserve to be in the Top 2 right now. All we're saying is that if OU goes undefeated through their next 7 games playing no one tougher than Oklahoma St., and if Auburn defeats Arkansas, Georgia, and another tough team in the SEC Championship, to go along with their earlier wins over LSU and Tennessee, then they would probably deserve it even more. Obviously, if college football were fair, everyone who goes undefeated would have a shot at the national title. However, given the regulations in place, the situation of three undefeated teams would screw someone out of their rightful shot. Given the teams' schedules, it would be less unfair to keep an undefeated Auburn team out of the national title game than an undefeated Oklahoma squad. Of course, you really don't have anything to worry about because Auburn won't be able to go undefeated against that schedule and OU and USC should be able to have their own little party with no interruptions.

As for Oklahoma, yes they are good enough to be the #2 team for now, but if Auburn finishes the season undefeated in the greatly more difficult SEC, they deserve to leapfrog them and take their spot in the Orange Bowl. And as for the polls, UVa, had to leapfrog FSU. I mean they almost lost to Syracuse. When you have one loss, you're supposed to actually be impressive in your wins if you want to be ahead of undefeated teams, not play like shit. I do agree though that the Seminoles are gonna be way too much for UVA to handle in Talahassee though.

Not to press the issue, but I think the fact that it wouldn't change too much is a good thing. That way, we could get rid of the ridiculous anamolies, (#8 Hawaii at 2-4 and #10 Stanford at 6-0), and still leave the bulk of the ratings the same. I really don't think anyone would complain if you did it, and since we are only half way through the season, it would be the perfect time to make a change.

OK, when I first wrote these out, I was actually doing commentary for each ranking with a short paragraph for the top teams, and a sentence or so closer to the bottom. It was kind of interesting and it entertained me, but then I accidentally deleted it once I got to about #20 Since I don't have the energy to do it all over again, here's my new top 25 for games played through October 9, 2004. (Previous week's ranking in parenthesis.) 1. USC 5-0 (1) 2. Oklahoma 5-0 (2) 3. Auburn 6-0 (4) 4. Miami 4-0 (5) 5. California 3-1 (6) 6. Purdue 5-0 (7) 7. Arizona State 5-0 (9) 8. Tennessee 4-1 (16) 9. Georgia 4-1 (3) 10. Louisville 4-0 (11) 11. Utah 5-0 (12) 12. Texas 4-1 (8) 13. Wisconsin 6-0 (18) 14. Virginia 5-0 (13) 15. Florida State 4-1 (10) 16. Boise State 5-0 (14) 17. Michigan 5-1 (19) 18. Oklahoma State 5-0 (18) 19. LSU 4-2 (23) 20. Virginia Tech 4-2 (NR) 21. Florida 3-2 (17) 22. Minnesota 5-1 (22) 23. Texas A&M 4-1 (NR) 24. West Virginia 4-1 (NR) 25. Arkansas 3-2 (NR)

He was fired because they had a coach who wanted to take the job that had just been to the Super Bowl, and they figured he'd be a better coach than Solich was. Of course running an NFL offense when you're personnel's the exact opposite doesn't really work, but what can you do. Oh, and when you're going through SC's schedule, don't forget that Arizona State game next week. ASU's a legitimate Top 10 team.

Hey, the controversy's cool and all, but I think you could still make it a little more fair, and have no trouble with people losing interest. I mean when you have a 2-4 team ahead of a 6-0 team, it's gone past cute controversy, and crossed over into making the games meaningless. I think that just because people didn't bother to post doesn't mean you shouldn't change it a little. Why don't you just go with the 50/25/25 plan, and at least make it reasonable. Also, about the forfeits. The last component's supposed to measure strength of schedule, but it actually rewards people whose opponent forfeited, which would be about the easiest schedule possible. Instead of making forfeits a 0 for the person who got it, and a max score for the person who went against them, why don't you just make it the lowest number anyone got that week in both ways. That way, the person whose opponent forfeited would get punished a little bit, but it wouldn't throw off their whole ranking, and someone whose team forfeited before they took over would get punished, but they'd still have a chance to turn their season around.

On an unrelated note, does anyone else think of the Walter Payton award wining RB from Ga. Southern everytime they hear the name Adrian Peterson? It just throws me for a loop. I mean how unlikely is it that there would be two elite players at the same position within a couple years of each other like that? By the way, this guy's fucking amazing. I can't believe the way he keeps running all over Texas. He's right underneath Kyle Orton on my Heisman list after this game.

What happened to Jason White? Adrian Peterson's been bailing the Sooner offense a little bit, but the passing game's been sucking dick. I think if anything, this game proves that White was the product of a system and good receivers when he won his Heisman, and he's really not all that good of a quarterback. (I'm not saying he's not an above average college QB, but as an NFL prospect he should be lucky to get picked up in the 6th round.)