Pyongyang Pikas Postgame: Season Recap

The most hilarious thing about a four-team fantasy football league is that every team makes the playoffs.  The regular season matters for about nothing.  Sure, there's an attempt at seeding, such that the nominally best team in the league plays the nominally worst.  But any team can pull a 2008 Detroit Lions, losing literally every game, then get hot at the right time and win it all.

Nothing quite so dramatic happened in the Pikas' fantasy league, but Zach's Beat Tom was close.  Long occupying the number four spot on the ladder, Beat Tom had a late-season surge to make things interesting.  BT beat the Pikas in Week 13, the last game of the regular season, to drop the Pikas to a losing record overall.  But--in another amusing side effect of a four-man league--their 6-7 mark was enough to earn the #2 seed for the playoffs.  (In retrospect, looking the the records going into the playoffs, it should have been immediately obvious what would happen.  Only Tom's 2MuchJohnson4U had a winning record, an impressive 9-3-1.)

That was a double-edged sword for Pyongyang, though, as the surging Beat Tom claimed the #3 seed.  In a couple of mid-December games that the Pikas would just as soon forget, Beat Tom blew out the Pikas 235-182.  But the Pikas' season wasn't over yet: Christmas and New Years' weekends held the third-place consolation match against Josh's North Dakota Narwhals.  On Christmas Eve, Aaron Rodgers (as usual) and Brandon Marshall had huge games, putting up 32 and 21 points.  Cam Newton had 30 of his own, but the Pikas eked out an 8-point lead.

But playoff games last two weeks in fantasy-land, and third place wouldn't come so easily.  The Pikas made their last stand on the first day of 2012.  Their early games were marked by inconsistency, with 49ers running back Frank Gore scoring exactly zero points (a mere 9 yards on 7 carries) but Michael Turner having his best game of the season, putting together 172 yards and 2 touchdowns for a fantastic 29 points.  It all came down to the last game of the season, a Giants-Cowboys contest that, in true fantasy fashion, I wouldn't have cared about at all but for fantasy.

The game started with the Pikas down 99-79, with one Pika (backup quarterback Eli Manning) and one Narwhal (tight end Jason Witten) to play.  Eli, playing because the Packers were resting Aaron Rodgers, needed to outscore Witten by more than 12.

He scored 26 in a veritable Aaron Rodgers-esque clinic.  Witten scored 6, and the Pikas claimed the third-place "honors" in the league.

Pikas final record: 6-7, 3rd place in playoffs

Pikas MVP: Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers QB.  No question here.  Rodgers was the league's highest-scoring player despite sitting out the last week.  The one week he scored under 20, it was shocking, and his best game was a mind-blowing 45 points.

It's been sometimes fun, sometimes stressful, and always enlightening running a fantasy team.  It's also an excuse to drink bad beer and trash-talk your friends, which I've grown to appreciate is the real point of fantasy.


Currently listening: "Calamity Song," the Decemberists

Pyongyang Pikas Postgame: November Recap

It's been a month of ups and downs for the Pikas, who won two out of their last four to go to 6-6 with one game left in the regular season.

Week 9 saw some strong efforts by a few Pikas, including quarterback Aaron Rodgers (30 points) and newly-healthy tight end Antonio Gates (15) to bring the score against Tom's 2MuchJohnson4U to 96-83 at the end of Sunday.  Both teams had one player left to play: Pikas star running back Matt Forte needed to get no worse than 12 points fewer than 2MuchJohnson4U star running back LeSean McCoy to give the Pikas their first win over Tom's team.  McCoy made it interesting, scoring an impressive 17 during the Monday night game, and even though Forte scored only 10, it was enough.

Final score: Pikas 106, 2MuchJohnson4U 100

Another close game followed in Week 10, but sadly it didn't go the Pikas' way.  Many of the Pikas simply didn't show up in Week 10, with the wide receiver duo of Wes Welker and Mike Wallace only scoring a total of 12 points, and the usually stalwart Ravens defense scoring a miserable 1.  The Pikas were down 87-64 heading into Monday night, where the Pikas played Aaron Rodgers at quarterback and Zach's Beat Tom team played Greg Jennings at wide receiver.  Rodgers had a typically stellar night, racking up 4 touchdowns and a total of 28 points; sadly for the Pikas, one of those touchdowns was to Greg Jennings, and that made the difference in the game.

Final score: Beat Tom 96, Pikas 92

The Pikas were completely demolished in Week 11, scoring by far their lowest point total of the season.  New recruit Brandon Marshall was supposed to bolster the receiving corps but scored no points at all.  Worse for the Pikas, running back Fred Jackson, a key early-season acquisition, was injured during the game and his season finished.  Once that was combined with three Narwhals players scoring more than 20 points each, the Pikas suffered a good old-fashioned blowout.

Final score: North Dakota Narwhals 128, Pikas 76

Fortunately, the Pikas righted the ship in Week 12 starting with an auspicious Thanksgiving Day.  Quarterback Aaron Rodgers had his toughest matchup of the season but still score 20 points.  The Ravens defense put on a clinic against the 49ers, piling up nine sacks and scoring 18; the only points the 49ers scored came off the foot of new Pikas kicker David Akers, who netted 9.  Things fell into place even more nicely on Sunday, with Wes Welker bouncing back from two miserable weeks to get 22 points and Roddy White adding 18 of his own.   2MuchJohnson4U's last hope on Monday night was Jimmy Graham, the New Orleans tight end who is arguably the best in the league.  Graham scored 20, as much as an owner could ever expect a tight end to score, but it wasn't quite enough.

Final score: Pikas 112, 2MuchJohnson4U 98.  Pikas record: 6-6 (3-1 in division)

Only one final matchup with divisional rival Beat Tom remains before the playoffs!


Currently listening: "The Angels Hung Around," Rilo Kiley

Pyongyang Pikas Postgame: Week 8 and Midseason Analysis

The Pikas were destined to lose their Week 8 game from before the season even started, when the Pyongyang front office noticed "there sure are a lot of players on bye in Week 8."  With Aaron Rodgers, Michael Turner, and Matt Forte not playing, an average of 58 points evaporated from the Pikas scorecard, and it proved impossible to fill the holes.

With backup quarterback Philip Rivers not producing this entire season, the Pikas turned to the free agent market to replace Rodgers, and the best option available was Eli Manning.  Eli, to his credit, threw together 21 fantasy points, suggesting that he has a future as Rodgers' backup on the Pyongyang bench.  The resurgent Frank Gore had a nearly Matt Forte-esque game, earning 19 points, but Chris Johnson once again derailed the Pikas at running back, scoring only 3.  (Fortunately for the Pikas, Chris Johnson should never have to start again.)

At wide receiver, neither Mike Wallace nor Wes Welker seemed interested in playing against each other's team, with the Steelers/Patriots game only netting the Pikas 10 points between the two.  One bright spot was Antonio Gates at tight end; despite having to come back from injury and a lackluster Phillip Rivers throwing to him, Gates looked good and scored respectably.

But against Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson scoring 27 points each, the Pikas' replacement-filled roster really couldn't compete, and they suffered their fourth loss of the year.

Final score: North Dakota Narwhals 129, Pikas 95 Pikas record: 4-4 (3-0 in division)

With any luck, and maybe some help from a Calvin Johnson bye, the Pikas will break the "Tom's Team" curse next week and finally defeat 2MuchJohnson4U.

Now that it's the middle of the season, what's working and what's not on the Pikas roster is finally taking shape.

Quarterback: Aaron Rodgers has been the Pikas' most consistent and most prolific scorer, never slipping below 20 and averaging 26.  He's the league's highest-scoring player in terms of points per game; because he's already had a bye, barring a disastrous injury, there won't be a reason to start a quarterback besides Rodgers for the rest of the season.  It's a good thing, because backup Philip Rivers hasn't impressed at all this season.  At other positions, or for other teams, it makes sense to have a backup in case of bad matchups.  Rodgers has shown that there is no bad matchup against him.

Running back: RB has turned into a strength for the Pikas, though the depth chart looks a little different than it did in the preseason.  At the beginning of the season, the Pikas started Chris Johnson, Frank Gore, and Michael Turner, with Matt Forte as a nice bench option in case of an injury, bye, or bad matchup.  But when Johnson proved totally ineffective, and Gore sustained an injury, the Pikas were forced to look elsewhere.  Simultaneously, though, Matt Forte decided to have a breakout season, and the Pikas were able to make a key acquisition of Fred Jackson.  Now, the Pikas start Jackson (the league's #2 scorer in terms of points per game), Forte (#5), and Turner (#6), with Gore as the bench option now that he's healthy and playing like he's supposed to.

Wide receiver: Falcons star Roddy White was supposed to be the Pikas standout at WR with Mike Wallace backing him up.  They're a fine combination, with White disappointing a little but Wallace scoring in the league's top five wide receivers.  But the Pikas got an unexpected boon early in the season when Tom's team released Wes Welker, who has had a solid season interspersed with a couple of monstrous games to become the league's #2 wide receiver.  The Pikas plan going forward is to start wide receiver by committee: choose the two most promising of those three in any given week.

Tight end: TE has been one of the few real disappointments for the Pikas so far.  Starter Antonio Gates missed most of the first half of the season due to injury; backup Jermichael Finley, taking away one colossal 26-point performance, has been a little flat.  The good news is that Gates is healthy and playing like the athlete he is, but if any doubt lingers, it's that Philip Rivers' season has been considerably less than impressive.  Gates is a playmaker catching the football, but he needs a playmaker throwing the football to be effective.

Kicker: This is a tough position to analyze in fantasy because there's so much variance, but Patriots kicker Stephen Gostkowski has been fine so far.  An offense that gets a lot of yards needs a lot of placekicks, either from field goals or PATs, and Gostkowski has done his job well.

Defense/Special Teams: The Ravens defense can do it all: prevent a team from scoring, force fumbles, get a half-dozen sacks per game.  It's a fun defense to watch, with (alleged) murderer Ray Lewis leading the way and getting fired up about all sorts of things.

Outlook: The Pikas have a roster built to win football games.  As long as everyone does their part, shows up each week, and doesn't get hurt, Pyongyang is a legitimate title contender.


Currently listening: "Younger Than We've Ever Been," Kathryn Calder

Pyongyang Pikas Postgame: Weeks 6 and 7

After a frustrating loss to Tom's 2MuchJohnson4U in Week 6, the Pikas rebounded to reclaim a winning record with a victory over Zach's Beat Tom in Week 7.

The Pikas are now 0-2 against Calvin Johnson and company, losing to Tom's team in Week 3 by 4 points and in Week 6 by 5 points.  In Week 3, the loss came down to a bad decision to bench Aaron Rodgers; in Week 6, the Pikas could have started Frank Gore over Matt Forte, or Mike Wallace over Roddy White, or the Bears D/ST over the Ravens, and they would have pulled out the victory.  The Pikas front office never seriously considered any of those moves, though, and the Pikas actually had the lead going into the Monday night game.

Monday night turned into the most amusing construct of fantasy football yet.  Say the fantasy team you're playing against starts a certain defense; we'll call it the Jets defense.  And say the Jets are playing a certain offense; we'll call it the Dolphins.  Naturally, you want the Dolphins to score a lot of points, so that the Jets defense loses fantasy points, and you win.  But at some point, if the Jets defense is good enough (and oh, is it), the 10 points for a shutout start looking a whole lot better than the flood of points they could score if they yield a couple of field goals but rack up some sacks and turnovers along the way.

That's the situation the Pikas faced on Monday night of Week 6.  A comfortable 15-point lead quickly turned into a point short of a tie as the Jets defense picked up a quick fumble return for a touchdown--but that would have been okay, assuming the Dolphins offense scored any touchdowns at all.  Frankly, that would have been even have been okay assuming the Dolphins did literally nothing else on offense.  It would have been better for the Pikas had the Dolphins just swum away from the game and taken knees on every play.

But they didn't.  They tried--and failed--to score more points, and the Jets defense was all too happy to scoop up the football three more times on those failed attempts.  The Jets D/ST turned into 2MuchJohnson4U's biggest scorer, and the Pikas fell to .500 on the season.

Final score: 2MuchJohnson4U 115, Pikas 110

Fortunately, in Week 7, the Pikas found their way to their favorite patch of fresh grass: Zach's Beat Tom team.  Beat Tom has been kind to the Pikas so far, and Week 7 was no exception.  Aaron Rodgers led the effort with 25 fantasy points, but it wasn't a single-player effort: of the Pikas' nine players, six scored 11 points or more, and Jermichael Finley at tight end had a respectable 7.  A backup kicker (with New England's Stephen Gostkowski on bye) managed only 3, but kickers in this league are notoriously swingy.

The sole disappointment was early-season goat Chris Johnson, who was forced to start because new favorite Fred Jackson was on bye.  He hasn't picked his game up at all, cobbling together a mere 3 points.  Fortunately, it didn't hurt the Pikas in Week 7--but it could pose a problem in Week 8.

Beat Tom tried to make things interesting in the late games, with New Orleans wide receiver Marques Colston coming back from injury to score 21 points, but it was too little, too late.  And although the Ravens suffered a pretty humiliating defeat at the hands of the Jacksonville Jaguars, their defense was still good for 11 points to end the week's action.

Final score: Pikas 112, Beat Tom 87  Current record: 4-3 (3-0 in division)

The Pikas are not looking forward to Week 8.  Five of their players have byes, including the league's best quarterback (Aaron Rodgers) and best running back (Matt Forte).  Fortunately, the league's second-best wide receiver (Wes Welker) and second-best running back (Fred Jackson) have gathered enough fresh grass for the time being and are back in action this week.  Hopefully that will be enough to go up two games to one in the season series against the North Dakota Narwhals.


Currently listening: "Santa Fe," Beirut

Pyongyang Pikas Pastgame: Week 5

Week 5 delivered a thrilling matchup between the Pikas and Josh's team, the newly christened North Dakota Narwhals.  With the league-leading Ravens defense on a bye this week, the Pikas drafted the New York Giants defense based solely on an ESPN projection, but other than that, the Pikas roster featured all of its starters.

After an astounding Week 4, the Pikas were virtually guaranteed to regress a little.  Aaron Rodgers' 45 points in Week 4 were clearly unsustainable, but a Sunday night effort of 23 points was nothing to complain about.  In the same Sunday night game, Roddy White (11), Michael Turner (11), and Jermichael Finley (6) all underperformed a little but not enough to doom the Pikas.  Wes Welker's 12 landed him in the same "not a disappointment but not a breakout" spot.  And the draftee Giants defense was mediocre at best, piling up 6 sacks but allowing 36 points to claim a total of 6 fantasy points.

Only a couple of Pikas had breakout weeks: Stephen Gostkowski turned in a whopping 13 at the kicker position, and early-season acquisition Fred Jackson continued to deliver at running back with 25 points.

While the Pikas played consistent (if not outstanding) football throughout their roster, the Narwhals had some players falter--and one truly memorable performance to balance them out.  In three wide receiver slots, the Narwhals combined for a mere 22 points, and running back Darren Sproles was a mild disappointment at 9.  But Adrian Peterson once again had his day, raking in 30 points, 22 of them coming in the first quarter alone.

Peterson's performance was so strong that the Narwhals actually led the Pikas entering the Monday night game, but the Pikas had one more weapon: running back Matt Forte, coming off a career day last week.  The stakes were high, and the math was straightforward: if Forte could run for at least 100 yards, the Pikas could carry the day.  It was demanding but not impossible, and if Forte could reach the end zone at least once, the numbers became a lot more relaxed.

Forte never scored his touchdown, but he did rush for 116 yards (and threw in 35 receiving yards for good measure) to secure the victory for the Pikas.

Final score: Pikas 121, Narwhals 116  Pikas record: 3-2 (2-0 in division)

In Week 6, the Pikas play the ever-formidable 2MuchJohnson4U, the newest moniker of Tom's team, highlighting the remarkable ability of Calvin Johnson to catch footballs.  The ESPN projection has the Pikas ahead, but Johnson--along with Tom Brady and LeSean McCoy--are sure to keep things interesting.


Currently listening: "Solid," the Dandy Warhols

Pyongyang Pikas Postgame: Week 4

This is what the Pikas are capable of.

Weeks 2 and 3 saw consecutive losses for the Pikas, and they desperately needed a win in Week 4 to get the season back on track.  They got it.

Last Sunday's early afternoon games gave the Pikas a quick start, with Matt Forte and new acquisition Fred Jackson combining for 43 points at running back.  Mike Wallace was less impressive--but still not a complete disappointment--at 7.  Going into the late afternoon games, the Pikas had a slim lead, one that could be erased if Darren McFadden or Ryan Mathews had a breakout game.

They could have had two breakout games each, and it wouldn't have mattered.  Jermichael Finley didn't repeat his stunning Week 3 performance, netting the Pikas only 2 points, but everything else clicked at every position.  Wes Welker continued to dominate at wide receiver, the Seahawks defense contributed to the effort by giving Michael Turner a few easy touchdowns, and Patriots kicker Steven Gostkowski was solid too.

But this week's game was so lopsided that all of the above players could have sat on the bench, and the Pikas still would not have lost.  Aaron Rodgers did it all: 400 passing yards including 4 touchdowns, 2 rushing touchdowns, and a colossal 45 fantasy points (I promise never to bench you again!).  And the Ravens defense, fully recovered from its Week 2 stumble, racked up 3 defensive touchdowns coming off an interception, 3 fumble recoveries and 2 sacks.  It led the grossly overrated Mark Sanchez to dominate the Bad Quarterbacks League standings in Week 4, and it cemented the Ravens defense as football's--or at least fantasy's--best defense.

Final score: Pikas 178, Beat Tom 77.  Pikas record: 2-2 (2-0 in division; perhaps I should play Beat Tom every week)

Sadly for me, the Ravens defense gets a bye this week, so the Pikas will have to combat Josh's Team entirely on the strength of their offense.  The projection is for a healthy Pikas win; the past history with Josh's Team suggests otherwise.  We'll see what happens in Sunday's rematch.


Currently listening: "Don't Carry It All," the Decemberists

Pyongyang Pikas Postgame: Weeks 2 and 3

It's been a tough couple of weeks for the Pikas.  After a strong start in Week 1, the Pikas have lost back-to-back matchups.

Week 2 saw the Pikas matched against Josh's Team, and it was a disaster from the outset.  Josh's Team showed up much stronger than they had in Week 1--and the Pikas were apparently busy gathering fresh grass to dry.  It was one of those blowouts so disastrous that literally no combination of players among my starters and bench would have given me the win.  Aaron Rodgers held up his end, and Michael Turner turned in a nice rushing performance against the Eagles, but it wasn't enough.  Chris Johnson was weak enough at running back for a second straight week that he earned a ticket to the bench for Week 3.  Antonio Gates earned literally zero points at tight end, and somehow the vaunted Ravens defense pulled off a negative score.

Final score: Josh's Team 138, Pikas 97

Week 3 was closer, and things could have turned the Pikas' way at any time, but Tom's Breesus Christ edged out the win.  This one was entirely on my bench management; one better choice at any of a few positions would have given me the game.  Aaron Rodgers, who had reliably scored 20+ points in both of the first two games, was "projected" to earn fewer points than my backup quarterback, Phillip Rivers--and that made sense; Rodgers was facing the competent Bears defense, while Rivers had the much more favorable matchup against the Chiefs.

It didn't matter--Rivers scored a mere 6 fantasy points owing to a skewed stat line of 2 interceptions and no touchdown passes.  Rodgers scored a consistent 21 points that I wasn't around to collect.  Wes Welker raked in a monstrous 34, but I never strongly considered starting him over Roddy White (14) and Mike Wallace (20) at wide receiver.  And based on another ESPN projection, the Pikas played entirely the wrong kicker--Josh Brown scored 1, while Steven Gostkowski hammered out 7 on the bench.

Week 3 wasn't as bleak as week 2, with several Pikas starters turning in solid performances.  Mike Wallace's brilliance was outdone only by Jermichael Finley's 26-point fluke at tight end.  And the Ravens defense was back in form, piling up five sacks, two turnovers, and once defensive touchdown, scoring 20 fantasy points.

Final score: Breesus Christ 103, Pikas 99  Pikas record: 1-2 (1-0 in division)

Week 4 features a slightly revamped Pikas offense, benching both Johnson and Frank Gore at running back in favor of new acquisition Fred Jackson, and starting Welker at receiver in place of Roddy White to take some eggs out of the Atlanta basket.  I'm projected to lose by 14, but my projected victories in Weeks 2 and 3 didn't actually project much of anything, so there remains hope.


Currently listening: "The Authority Song," Jimmy Eat World

Pyongyang Pikas Postgame: Week 1

A couple of months ago, my friends decided to start a fantasy football league.  Not knowing the first thing about the NFL, I of course decided to join, joking that I was going to make a team entirely composed of former Georgia Tech and current Falcons players.  The draft came, and luckily ESPN's projections were around to let me know how bad an idea that would have been (though I did pick up both Roddy White and Michael Turner).  If you're interested, you can check out my full roster.

The most critical part, of course, was what to name the team.  After some consultation with friends, I decided I liked the irony of picking a location where American football was incredibly unlikely to be played combined with a mascot that was about as unassuming as UC Santa Cruz's.  Thus were born the Pyongyang Pikas (the alliteration is a nice bonus).

My first matchup was against my roommate Zach, at the helm of the imaginatively named "Beat Tom".  (His stated goal is, regardless of final record, to beat our friend Tom's score every week.)  The Thursday night season kickoff proved to be a fantastic start to the Pikas' season, with Green Bay quarterback (and Cal alumnus) Aaron Rodgers scoring 19 points before halftime.  Rodgers was so solid that at one point, my projected total for the weekend was an improbable 155 points, but on the shoulders of some poor running performances, that was not meant to be.

In the draft, my first pick was a fellow named Chris Johnson, running back for the Tennessee Titans.  I picked him first not because I'd ever heard of him (much less knew him to be good), but because ESPN.com told me to.

Thanks, guys.

Mr. Johnson, "projected" to have something crazy like 19 points, got me a whopping 4.  You know something is wrong when your kicker (nothing against the St. Louis Rams' Mr. Brown) outscores your first-round draft pick.  Frank Gore didn't do much better at 6.

I played the Bears defense/special teams, which between Brian Urlacher and an amazing kick return unit, seemed like a solid bet.  The odd part was that I started my two Falcons offensive players against them, setting up a weird hedge that actually ended up scoring me 35 points.  The Bears D/ST, oddly enough, ended up as my second-highest scoring player behind Rodgers.

So, after a stellar performance at quarterback and on defense, some passable scores at wide receiver and tight end (#unintentionalsportspun), and not much at all out of my running backs, Sunday ended with me having gotten all the points I was going to get and holding a 17-point lead over Beat Tom.  The match was far from over, as Zach still had a trump card in the form of the Raiders' Darren McFadden, a star running back on a not-so-terrific team.  (Zach's logic is that he likes playing good players on awful teams because all the offense is likely to come from that guy, and that reasoning is making more and more sense from a fantasy perspective.)

I watched the Monday Night Football game between the Broncos and the Raiders, not because I care at all about either of those teams, but merely because I wanted to see McFadden not score any points.  When the Broncos had the ball, I didn't care if they scored or not--I just needed them to take as much time as they could doing whatever they were doing.  And when Oakland had the ball, I didn't care if they scored or not either--I just wanted the plays to involve anyone but McFadden.  It's an odd way to watch a football game, but it made me realize exactly how golden fantasy football is to the NFL because it makes you glued to the television for games that you otherwise wouldn't know existed.

McFadden had a fine first half and was on pace to score just under the 18 points he needed to turn Beat Tom into Beat Matt for a week.  That was fine.  Then came a mammoth run in the third quarter, with McFadden stepping out of bounds literally at the 1-yard line.  One more yard, and his touchdown windfall would have sunk my team.  But fortunately for the Pikas, the Raiders did the remainder of their scoring--and most of the rest of their offense--without McFadden, and I scraped by with a 2-point win.

Final score: Pikas 95, Beat Tom 93.  Pikas record: 1-0 (1-0 in division).

Check back next week to hear about my first match with Josh's Team (apparently he hasn't gotten around to naming it yet).  I'm "projected" to win by 17 points, but as they say (and as I very nearly learned the hard way this week), there's a reason they play all the games.


Currently listening: "Might Find it Cheap," Blitzen Trapper

The Case Against a College Football Playoff

It's that time of the college football season again.  Time to watch the best teams play each other, to celebrate the achievements of the student athletes--and to argue about how we could do it all better.  It's awfully trendy these days to argue in favor of a college football playoff, but in reality, a playoff solves few of the problems it's ostensibly designed to fix, and introduces plenty of its own.

1. Someone still gets left out

One circumstance that sparks a particularly impassioned rallying cry among the football playoff's supporters is when a team gets left out.  Maybe there are three undefeated teams, only two of which can play for the national title.  Maybe there is only one undefeated team but three teams with one loss.  Supporters of the playoff argue that a playoff is inherently more fair simply because there are more slots, giving more teams a chance to contend for the title.

Admittedly, even expansion to a modest four-team playoff does allow every undefeated team to contend for the title in most years.  Expansion to a more ambitious eight-team playoff virtually guarantees that all the undefeateds will be in, barring the vanishingly rare case of enormous imparity in every football conference.  However, unless there are exactly four, or exactly eight, undefeated teams, some team with the next-best record is still going to get left out.  I'll use the 2010-2011 season as an example, referencing rankings and records as of the final BCS standings, but you can perform the same analysis on any college football season and come up with pretty much the same conclusions.

This year was an unfortunate example of the "three undefeated teams" version of the "someone gets left out" argument.  Auburn (13-0) and Oregon (12-0) are outstanding football teams and the natural choices to contend for the title.  But in letting them play in the title game, you're keeping out TCU (12-0), who essentially had no chance at ever making it to the title game unless Auburn or Oregon lost, and who showed in the Rose Bowl that they're every bit tough enough to "play with the big boys."

A four-team playoff would have allowed TCU to play for the national title.  It also would have allowed Stanford (11-1) that same chance while denying it to Wisconsin (11-1) and Ohio State (11-1).  While Stanford is also without question very good, you could make the argument that Wisconsin and Ohio State deserve the chance more because Stanford already lost to Oregon.

Want to expand to eight teams?  Okay, but now you're letting in Oklahoma (11-2) but not Michigan State (11-1) or Virginia Tech (11-2).  You're letting in Arkansas (10-2) but not LSU (10-2) or Missouri (10-2).  And you're entirely neglecting Boise State (11-1) and the only team that figured out how to beat them, 12-1 Nevada.

In summary, although a playoff is a step in the right direction toward ensuring that no undefeated team gets left without a shot at the title, it still involves drawing an arbitrary line through a cluster of teams with similar records--and the teams on the wrong side of that line get left out.

2. Bowl coexistence

The bowls are an integral part of college football history, tradition, and culture.  Fortunately, not even the most strident playoff supporters advocate getting rid of the bowls, so it's obvious that a hypothetical playoff would have to coexist with them.  There are a number of ways to do this, but none of them are particularly satisfactory.

The BCS has tried two methods of reconciling itself with the classic "major bowls".  Until 2006, the national championship rotated among the Sugar, Fiesta, Orange, and Rose Bowls.  It's easy to envision a scenario where one year, the Rose Bowl is the national championship game, and the Orange and Sugar are national semifinal games; then the next year, the Orange is the national championship, and the Sugar and Fiesta are national semifinals, etc.

But it didn't really work when the BCS tried it, and there's no reason to think it would work any better under a playoff system.  It's confusing--and it takes power out of the hands of the bowls and gives it to the playoff bracket.  These "major" bowls are classics for a reason.  The Rose Bowl is supposed to feature the best West Coast team against the best Midwest team.  The Sugar Bowl is supposed to give the SEC a chance to defend its reputation on a national stage.  College football is better off if it preserves as many of these traditions as possible.

A second option might be sending all the best teams to bowls at the end of the season... except for the really good teams, who get to enter the championship bracket.  Now, the Fiesta Bowl features the best team in the Big XII... except for those two teams that were better and got to play in the playoff.  You're watering down the bowls--they become the less exciting and less meaningful cousin to the playoff, which is fair neither to the student athletes that play in them nor to the culture of the sport.

Finally, it's conceivable to separate the bowls from the playoffs entirely; to play the bowls as they're traditionally done, then re-rank, then seed the top four or eight teams into a playoff.  That idea has the advantage of preserving the sanctity of the bowl system, but it introduces yet another wrinkle: season creep.

3. Season creep

The college football season is already pushing the limit of how long it can reasonably be.  For a long time, the climactic high point of the season was New Year's Day and the Rose Bowl.  In the BCS era, we've tolerated some early January bowls.  And now that the national championship game is its own entity, we've allowed it to take the place of honor as the very last bowl game--but it's pushing middle January.

Middle January is when virtually every college starts its spring semester--some, including my proud alma mater Georgia Tech, will have already started its semester by the time the national championship game is played.  If a hypothetical playoff added any time at all to the season, then the season will extend at least a week or two into virtually every college's spring semester.  That's okay for us fans, but it's not okay for the student athletes involved.  Commitment over an entire semester is enough; there's no justification for stretching it into another one.


In conclusion, there exists no practical approach to a college football playoff that results in both the bowl season maintaining its tradition and excitement and the playoff not encroaching into middle to late January.  And even if there were, it would rarely if ever solve the "fairness" problem that the current system presents.  We can argue all day long that the BCS is broken, but a tacked-on four- or eight-team playoff is not the way to fix it.


Currently listening: Foo Fighters, self-titled album

NCAA Conference Merry-Go-Round

To paraphrase "Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me"'s Peter Sagal, the only thing more American than sports is pointless arguments about sports. He was talking about baseball, but if there's one sport that's almost as American as baseball, it's college football. And the pointless argument du jour is conference realignment. Conference realignment isn't all about football--it's about all athletics, and even about academics (what a concept)--but it's gotten the most attention in the light of football, so that's mostly how I'll consider it.

All this buzz about conference readjustment started when the Big Ten started throwing around notions of expanding to a horrific 14 teams, and the Pac-10 announced its truly idiotic plan to pursue Texas as its twelfth member. True, like Oregon and California and Arizona, it's a massive public land-grant institution. The similarities end there. Conferences are traditionally geographic for a reason: competition is more fun (and collaboration more worthwhile) when it's with your close peers... and who wants to drive literally halfway across the country to go see a football game?

The Pac-10 was all prepared to accept Texas, but fortunately for everyone involved, Texas stood their ground in the Big 12. Their departure not only would have made the Pac-10 into a nonsensical cherry-picked mess of a conference, but it would have set the precedent across all of college football that it was okay to do that very thing. This isn't to say that Texas acted selflessly, only looking out for the good of the game--they surely got its own sweet financial deal, and more power to them.

Despite my strong objection to Texas joining the Pac-10, I do feel like some expansion was justified or even necessary:

Big Ten

Eleven teams is a miserable place to be, I'll give you that. You're too big to enjoy the cohesion of a small conference where every team plays every other team every year--that's only feasible with ten or fewer teams. But you're not big enough that you can really build meaningful divisions or have a championship game; 12 teams is the magic number there.

At first, I thought it would make the most sense to go after Cincinnati, which is a school consistent with the conference's current geography and one that's established itself as a football powerhouse in the last few seasons. I thought that Rutgers and Syracuse would be good options as well--apparently I felt that pillaging the Big East was much more acceptable than taking from the Big 12.

But the more I think about the Nebraska addition, the more I like it. Nebraska brings many of the same benefits as Texas--big state school, storied football program with plenty of depth and tradition. But it makes more geographic sense. Like Iowa, Nebraska is one of those gray area "sort of the Midwest, sort of the Great Plains" states. Nebraska borders Iowa, which means the Big Ten retains its geographic contiguity, which is perhaps more important to me than it should be.

Finally, it's an interesting move for the Big Ten's audience. Did any Nebraskan ever watch a Big Ten game before? Now they'll be watching twelve. Did any Kansan? Now they'll be watching at least one, because there's no reason to think that they'll stop playing the same series they've been at since 1892. They're not huge markets, but they'll do nothing but boost the Big Ten.

Unsolicited advice to the Big Ten: stop here. Change your name to something that makes more sense (though avoid going for "Big 12"), but quit adding teams. If you hit 13, you're going to be in as awkward spot as you were in with 11, and you're going to have to keep adding until you reach a full-on superconference of 16.

Pac-10

Ten is not a horrible place to be, but the more teams that play a conference championship, the less relevant your conference becomes for the first two weeks of December, and that's revenue you don't want to miss out on.

Utah seemed the natural choice for expansion, so I'm happy that that's going to happen. The 2009 Poinsettia Bowl didn't exactly have the best outcome for us Cal fans, but it showed us that Utah is going to give the conference some entertaining opposition indeed.

At first, Colorado didn't strike me as particularly "Pacific", but then again neither is Arizona, and it fits in just fine with the Pac-10. While Colorado isn't as powerful an athletic addition as Utah, it does represent a good move to expand the conference into the Rocky Mountain states.

Unsolicited advice to the Pac-10: change your name to "Pac-12" and be done with it for exactly the same reasons the Big Ten needs to quit while it's ahead.

Big 12

Losing two schools is bad, but at least it's not your prime moneymakers (anything in Oklahoma or Texas). You can recover.

Unsolicited advice to the Big 12: fight back. Get two more members, and do it quickly, or you're going to be marginalized in the end of the season the same way the Big Ten has been for the last decade. And don't do it by raiding any other "major" conference, or the merry-go-round will just keep turning.

Instead, focus on the so-called "mid-majors", the FBS conferences that aren't guaranteed a piece of the BCS pie. TCU would be an excellent pickup, but the upward-trending Mountain West might not be so happy to lose them. Conference USA then becomes the best place to go. Houston would be an excellent addition to the conference--it's within spitting distance of most of the Texas schools, and it's proven to be a contender in recent years. And there are a handful of other schools in Texas that might fit in just fine.

Mountain West

I, along with probably a million other armchair commissioners, decided back at the BCS-busting 2010 Fiesta Bowl that Boise State would be a natural addition to the MWC. The conference might have weak bottom half, but what a top half Boise State, Utah, TCU, and BYU would be--and Air Force, to their credit, is no slouch of a program either.

Utah is leaving, so that dream of a "mid-major" won't be happening. But I think if the MWC plays its cards right, it can still become a power player at its level, and perhaps even ascend to the upper echelons of the game.

Unsolicited advice to the Mountain West: hang on to your top-tier programs, which at this point are BYU, TCU, and now Boise State. Consider your own expansion to 12 teams--look at Nevada, which is a natural rival for UNLV, and Idaho, which was the surprise of the WAC last year in that they managed to give Boise State a run for their money.

The superconference idea

What happens if (when) someone expands beyond 12 teams? 13 is as bad as 11, and 15 is no better either. 14 is okay, but why stop there? 16 just seems better. At this point, you're more than a conference, you're the first superconference.

A 16-team conglomeration may seem downright unholy, but they make more sense the more you think about them. There are several specific proposals, but the basic idea is this: four 16-team conferences are formed out of the six current eight-to-twelve team conferences. The four conferences that remain are the ones with the biggest impact, or most iconic regional representation, or most robust history. Under this plan:

The ACC expands to 16 teams by absorbing the more "coastal" Big East teams (like Rutgers and Connecticut). Its geographical profile remains essentially the same, ranging down the Eastern seaboard from Boston to Miami, but its presence in the northeast strengthens.

The SEC expands to 16 teams by absorbing the more "southern" Big 12 teams (like Texas and Oklahoma). Its geographical profile remains mostly restricted to the traditional "southeast" but grows in the west.

The Big Ten expands to 16 teams and changes its name to the Big Sixteen by absorbing the more "midwestern" Big East teams (like Cincinnati) and the more "northern" Big 12 teams (like Nebraska, which it has already done). It remains a mostly "midwestern" conference but expands slightly to the east and west.

The Pac-10 expands to 16 teams and changes its name to the Pac-16 by absorbing the more "western" Big 12 teams (like Colorado, which it has already done). If necessary, it also takes the more "Pacific" schools in the WAC and MWC (like Utah, which it has already done).

The Big East is dissolved and divided more or less equally between the ACC and the new Big Sixteen (though West Virginia strikes me as a very SEC-friendly team).

The Big 12 is dissolved and spread among the SEC, new Big Sixteen, and new Pac-16.

Each conference would be comprised of two eight-team divisions. Every team would have a nine-game conference schedule, consisting of seven in-division games, one fixed inter-division "rival", and one rotation inter-division opponent. The other three games would be some combination of FCS opponents, inter-conference rivals, and anything else.

This setup even lends itself to a mini-tournament to close each season: the Pac-16 winner plays the Big Sixteen winner in the Rose Bowl, the ACC winner plays the SEC winner in the Fiesta of Sugary Oranges Bowl, and the winners of those two bowls play each other in the national championship. Or, to expand the tournament to 8 teams, take the winner of each division, seed them according to national ranking, and play a 7-game single-elimination tournament.

Any thoughts? Is expansion good for the game? How about superconferences?


Currently listening: "Window", Guster

Sport in the UK

And they do call it "sport" there, rather than "sports"--you're looking at the "sport" section in the newspaper, the "sport" segment on the evening news, and so on.

The Brits are as into sports as we are across the pond--but it's entirely different sports. Instead of baseball, football, and basketball, we're looking at soccer (except they call it "football"), cricket, and rugby. Football of course takes the lead for the majority of the year... and it is pervasive.

The stereotype of the English soccer hooligan (I think there was even a Saturday Night Live sketch called that), like many stereotypes, comes from somewhere. Unlike most stereotypes, though, it's almost completely grounded in reality. Everyone has their team and a handful of bitter rivalries that go along with it, and everyone is sucked into the drama of the Premier League.

And after having been in London for only a week, the drama already got really, really compelling. Think the BCS, except stretched out for nine months, the top few teams earn the right to play football against colleges from all across North America for the continent champion... and the bottom few teams have to play against high schoolers for the next year.

If you're not familiar with "relegation" and "promotion", it's a fascinating concept, essentially allowing the most podunk club team in the middle of Wales to become the champion of all of Britain in the span of a few years. It also means that the consistently underperforming teams better re-evaluate their game plan the next season when they're playing in a lower league. If we did this in American baseball, the Nationals would have been bounced to AAA a long time ago.

It's a system that creates interest on all levels of the system, on the top and the bottom, and also seamlessly integrates the national system into an international one, with the top handful of teams earning bids into some sort of super-complicated pan-European system that an American doesn't have any hope of deciphering. It's tough to say if American sports would improve by adopting the system... but I'm sort of glad it's not used here, because I for one would waste a lot of time absorbed in the rankings tables.

Also incomprehensible to any American is the sport of cricket. If anyone can explain how a "two-innings" game is supposed to last five days, please do.


Currently listening: "This is the Countdown", Mae, from The Everglow

Tails Between Their Legs

A brief history of the vaunted black jerseys:

November 10, 2007: UGA debuts the black jerseys against Auburn, one of its many archrivals. UGA wins a decisive and convincing victory in the '07 installment of the "Deep South's Oldest Rivalry". Superstitious and almost ritualistic belief in the mystical power of the black jerseys begins to grow.

January 1, 2008: UGA meets a terribly outmatched Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl of the same season. The game is never, ever close. Plenty of fans credit not the lopsided matchup, but the color of the jerseys. This is beginning to sound like Andrew's "lucky Georgia Tech shirt", which he has never failed a test while wearing. "Well, to be honest, I did preselect the tests a bit."

September 28, 2008: Roll Tide. A 41-30 game was never really that close, and Georgia's national championship dreams suffer a serious blow. All this despite the mysticism.


Poll: how many times will WSB be replaying this one? My money's on zero.


Currently listening: "Taking Control", Eisley

The Olympics, Most of the Way Home (or: Earth to Bela)

Only now do I realize that I didn't make a post about Torino two years ago. That, come to think of it, is because I barely watched the Torino games at all. Probably I thought that "paying attention to schoolwork" was somehow a more worthwhile pursuit than paying attention to what was going on in the world. Or because the television belonged to my roommate, and his girlfriend was in a perpetual state of Dynasty Warriors addiction.

Of course, no blog would be complete without at least some nod toward current events, even if I usually stray from the arena, and I don't touch politics with a ten-foot pole. My first question, is there anyone who is not watching, or at least interested in the Olympics? If the answer is yes--and I imagine that it probably is--my next question becomes why not? Are there people who are so absorbed in counterculture that they can't stomach the thought of accepting anything associated with the mainstream, regardless of the fact that in this case "mainstream" applies to most of the rest of the world? Is there anyone so filled with boorishness that they can't find the uneven bars beautiful, a pinnacle of artistry? Anyone so filled with torpor that they can't get a thrill out of the last few meters of a freestyle swimming race?

Sadly, yes, those people are out there. But for the rest of us, the Olympics represent something very special indeed. Exposure to sports most Americans can't honestly claim to know anything about. Sure, you may have heard of water polo and handball, but who actually knows the rules for those games, much less strategies or nuances or personalities? (Tangent: handball is actually pretty cool, though you know what side of the Atlantic something is from when penalties are assessed at a seven meter line.) Even the huge marquee events of the games, the gymnastics and swimming and track, are sports that suddenly gain lots and lots of fans once per four years.

And about those huge events? I could gush over Michael Phelps for several paragraphs, just like thousands of other third-rate bloggers, plus a handful of real journalists. He absolutely does deserve gushing over, but the job has been done for me. Instead, I'll take the opportunity to gush over Nastia Liukin. If you've seen my Facebook page lately, then you've seen it: I have an enormous crush on Nastia Liukin. And why not? She's gorgeous: graceful, blond, elegant, incredibly feminine. Taller than five feet. Eyebrows that are the same height (that one's directed at you, Ms. Shawn Johnson). Extremely skilled and talented. Bilingual. Not content to rest on Olympic laurels, but headed to college after all this business is done. (Is there a new contender for my grad school application?) Even my friends support me on this one: "she's way better than Emma Watson." The one downside is that she has a sketchy Russian gymnast for a father.

While we're on gymnastics, one of the reporters identified an interesting meta-Olympic sport to observe: watching Bela Karolyi watch the Olympics. It's remarkable how into it this man gets, and it's equally remarkable that despite his generally good English proficiency, he hasn't quite gotten the hang of those articles yet. Karolyi identified the 4th-place finish of Alicia Sacramone as "ripoff", which was absolutely correct. (All of that gushing over Nastia would be remiss if I didn't mention that Alicia Sacramone was the second-most beautiful women's gymnast in the games.)

Sure, we've had our share of shady Chinese moments. The fireworks in the opening ceremony. The "not cute enough to perform" girl. The fact that the Chinese gymnasts are probably no older than fourteen. Less than consistent judging. But absolutely wondrous feats all around.

One question that my family has debated over the Olympiad was the issue of the "gayest sport" for both men and women. To make it a touch more politically correct, I'll rephrase it here to the "least manly" or "least womanly" Olympic sport. On the men's side, a lot of people immediately gravitate toward gymnastics, which with one major exception is completely unfair. I'll direct you first to the rings, and second to the pommel horse. Incredibly intense. The exception is of course the floor exercise--I can't think of anything less masculine than traipsing across a padded floor, pointing your toes, and doing it all in short shorts. Some people have said men's synchronized swimming, which would win automatically if it were real. When informed that it's not, a common response is to default to synchronized diving, which is a fine answer as well. Trampoline rounds out the common responses.

The women's sport that made me consider this curious question in the first place was beach volleyball. Scantily-clad women--not particularly feminine ones either--who go about smacking each other on the butt. Add to that all the talk of "partners" and "breaking up" with old ones to "hook up" with new ones. Tiny bit suspicious? Surprisingly, no. Most of these women are married, and a few have families. Actual contenders include water polo (especially that scary-looking Russian team).


Coming soon: the Wikipedia Band Name Game, plus a couple summer movie reviews.


Currently listening: "Marching Bands of Manhattan", Death Cab for Cutie

Spring Sports Update

A mere few weeks into the Atlanta Braves season, and we're already seeing some patterns emerge. "Patient" is the word one day, as in hitters are too eager to swing at the ball. Then it's "depth", looking at whether the bullpen can sustain enough innings. (This was a horrible issue last year.)

Everyone's always said baseball is a game of statistics. It used to be benign things like ERA and batting average. Within the past few years, OPS has become a staple of analysis. That stands for on-base plus slugging percentage, and it somewhat intuitively gives a picture of total offensive power of a player. However, whenever the formula to calculate a statistic includes "hit by pitch" not once but three times (see Wikipedia if you don't believe me) then it's far too complicated. Now, with the advent of the internet, we've got wonderful things like "this guy has a .402 average with runners in scoring position when there are less than two outs and his team is playing a night game at home." Utterly ridiculous.

That being the case, I'll stick with things that make sense. Braves starters are among the league best in ERA and home runs allowed, but among the worst in innings pitched. That shows that we need to get more innings out of these guys... and more innings out of Smoltz and Glavine and Hudson is never a bad thing. Oh, and how about this Jair Jurrjens guy? Before the season started, the only thing I knew about this guy was a particularly insightful comment from my mom, who pondered whether Jurrjens might be Dutch. (He's not; he's from the Islands, but that probably means he has some Dutch in him somewhere.) Now he's one of the team's most promising starters. And is there any way this guy can pitch more?

An announcing theme I've had to sit through lately has been "feast or famine", as in, why is the offense so wonderful during wins and so horrendous during losses? That may not seem like any huge insight, but it is remarkable how a team that scores seven runs one day and gives up four can score two runs the next--and still give up four.

Finally, speaking of announcing, I really miss Skip Caray. He's only on the radio now (except for a slim few on Peachtree TV), and seeing as how I always watch the games on TV, I never get to hear Skip anymore. This move toward "neutral broadcasting" is complete crap. If he's my team's announcer, he gets to root for my team, plain and simple.


Last weekend, I went to see the T-Game, which is the traditional spring football game for Georgia Tech. It was rough. I want to say a dozen fumbles, but that might be an exaggeration. Or, it might be a conservative estimate, because I was hiding my head in my hands so much. The first half had about ten points scored in it, total, which has both positive and negative implications. Of course, it speaks well to the defense; the very best thing I saw was the defense, true to Tenuta's legacy. Michael Johnson looked wonderful and had some excellent plays. But can this offense score points?

More critically, is it interesting to watch? There's a bias in the viewership of football in general against running offenses. We want to see pass plays, exciting Calvin Johnson-style ones. "Three yards and a cloud of dust" is just not that much fun. That's not what our new coach, Paul Johnson, uses per se, but I'm afraid that's what it might turn into. And that's not to say that the running game can't be exciting. Lucas Cox, Mike's younger brother, looked decent. Dwyer is underrated. But we just don't have Tashard anymore, and that's going to hurt.

And that touches on the biggest problem that Tech football is looking at in 2008. Our best players all graduated, with the exceptions of Johnson and Dwyer. But look who's gone... Tashard Choice, who netted thousands of yards for Tech. Mike Cox, one of the best college fullbacks I've ever seen. Durant Brooks, the nation's best punter last year. Travis Bell, a solid kicker for Tech for several years. Philip Wheeler, an all-around amazing linebacker. Let's hope we can scrape together some talent and whip it into a respectable team.


Currently listening: "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", the Beatles

Three Reasons

That Georgia Tech lost to Notre Dame. It had nothing to do with the Irish being a substantially better team; rather a mere few points of contention brought about our loss.

First, Tech’s return coverage sucks. I mean, you get a kickoff that lands nicely on the 15-yard line, or a punt that goes farther than you have any right to expect it to, and suddenly the Irish (or the Bulldogs, the Hokies, the Cavaliers, or any other team that Tech makes a general practice of losing to) are on your 48. Huh? Tech must get better at making sure the other team isn’t handed thirty free yards every time the ball gets kicked.

Second, we had some questionable calls. I’m not one to blame my football misfortunes on the refs… unless there was a call so egregiously bad that it may have cost the game. In this game, we had two. The personal foul call during Notre Dame’s second touchdown drive? I’ve heard two explanations for that one: late hit, and hit to the head. From my vantage point (and bias as a Tech fan) it looked like an in-bound, clean hit to me. Even if there was some incidental contact to the head, it was just that: incidental. Five-yard penalty, not ten. Second was Calvin Johnson’s reception late in the game. This was the only reviewed play in the entire game to be reversed on review… and I’d really like to see what they called “indisputable video evidence.”

Finally... Darius Walker. Need I say more? And to think he was on the verge of going to Tech.


Currently listening: "Brand New Colony," the Postal Service

Suddenly, Everything Has Changed

"And it's root, root, root, for the home team..."

I have just watched the Atlanta Braves lose their tenth straight game. The announcers tell me this is a feat not accomplished since the mid 1980s. The Braves are not playing "bad baseball." They are not in a "slump." They stink, plain and simple. This is America's Team, right? The Team of the 1990s... but not of the 2000s. To fans like today's children, Skip Caray correctly points out, this is not supposed to happen. It is a nightmare, a terrible perversion of the Way Things Are. To me, it's a window into the years of my birth and infancy. I knew this sort of disaster used to happen. Potential for it existed, but never made it into this catastrophic kinesis.

The inevitable question: how does a team go from 14 straight division championships to last place in the division? From winning nearly every series at home to a winless homestand? (As my dad adroitly pointed out, we do not need to see "First to Worst" on the front page of AJC Sports.)

The bullpen is really bad, unquestionably. 15 blown saves to 15 converted saves is not an acceptable ratio. The Braves are, what, 15 games out of first place? And 15 blown saves? How interesting. (Of course, a team cannot convert every save opportunity. But being, say, 3 or 4 games out of first is a lot better than 15 back.) It's almost like the team cannot possibly hope to win unless it has an insurmountable lead coming into the 7th inning. And with the Braves' hitting being lackluster at best lately, that insurmountability isn't showing up too well. Abysmal batting averages with runners in scoring position. No average from the first two hitters, and no home runs from numbers 3-6 in the lineup.

And so the trade rumors start.

Trade Andruw Jones and Chipper Jones, some rumors say. Or John Smoltz, maybe. Jeff Francoeur? Brian McCann? I don't know enough about that to say. I'm not a manager. And then some say that Bobby Cox has outlasted his ability, some say the same about John Schuerholtz. Regarding that, though, I certainly have something to say. Bobby Cox, in particular, has shown time and time again that he can make a team great. Consider 1990, the last time the Braves were not champions. Then consider 1991: the Braves go to the World Series. Both of these managers have deftly handled the team year after year. Let's give them the chance to do so again in the future.

Finally, a massive trade for a single big-name player is probably not the way to go either. The Jim Thomes, Ichiros, and Albert Pujolses of the world? Of course they're talented baseball players. Of course they can guide their teams to victory. But can even they singlehandedly turn a miserable team's fortunes around? I doubt it. A solid hitter, even an All-Star caliber one, cannot erase 15 of 30 blown saves.

Two weeks ago, I would have said that something needs to be done soon, but I think it's already too late for this season. Braves fans, bow your heads, and acknowledge that all things must pass. It's been a good run. But something does need to be done. And we need to trust Cox and Schuerholtz to do their jobs.

Oh, World Cup Fever. The United States lost to Ghana. Oh well.


Currently listening: Ganging up on the Sun, Guster

Clearing from the Wreckage

Before I forget, addition to my list of promised future topics: on resurgence of popular media in the past few years.

Let's talk about the good old NCAA basketball tournament, shall we?

So a lot of people's brackets aren't looking so good. Mine, for instance. I correctly predicted zero of the Final Four teams. So did my dad. But it wasn't unreasonable, in my opinion, to pick most of the Final Four teams. LSU, a fine choice. Lost of people were expecting lots of good things from the Tigers, and those good things materialized. Given that a team could beat Duke, most other potential matchups wouldn't be that much of a challenge. So after picking LSU to beat Duke, maybe a bit of an upset but not an unreasonable one, picking them to win the region makes sense.

UCLA, also perfectly reasonable. It's never unreasonable to pick the #2 seed to win the region. The regional final, a classic 1-2 matchup. Sure, Memphis impressed people with their athleticism, but you can't discount the experience and background of UCLA. Florida, nothing wrong with that pick. The #2 seed in the region got there by winning the Big Ten, and as much as I like the Big Ten, they're just not that strong a basketball conference lately. So Florida beats Ohio State (or gets Georgetown to do it for them) and skates into the regional final. At that point, it becomes a tossup between Florida and Villanova.

So, by themselves, those picks make a lot of sense. Put together, it's a gutsy bracket that bets against Duke, Texas, Memphis, Gonzaga, and Villanova at the same time, but it's at least a sensible one.

Now show me a bracket that had those three teams, plus George Mason. Heck, show me a bracket that had Mason and any other three teams.

I have to think that the word "Cinderella" has never been used so often in conjunction with an early American patriot and statesman, but if the shoe fits... (dear God. Horrible pun absolutely unintended.) And I think I know why. Yes, they're only the second #11 seed to reach the Final Four in tournament history, but even more significantly than that, people love to see teams like UConn and UNC lose. If only the Patriots could also have faced Duke.

Review: Oblivion

You might have noticed that, although I promised a whole lot of interesting-sounding topics last week, among them a review of Oblivion, none of that has come to pass until today. That's mostly because I've been playing the game and having no time to review it. I predicted last year sometime that when Oblivion came out, I would lose all semblance of a social life that I might have thought I had. As it turns out, Mock Trial has been more responsible than anything for destroying my social life, but Oblivion is coming in a close second.

Simply put, this game is magnificent. I can't sing its praises highly enough. Everything is done exactly correctly. And so, rather than attempting to tell what the game is about, and how it works, I will give a summary of everything bad about the game, and every other aspect of the game can be assumed to be somewhere between "excellent" and "outstanding."

The first and most obvious problem with Oblivion is its performance requirements. I'm running P4, 1 GHz ram, 256 Mb video card, and I get an acceptable frame rate most of the time, a good frame rate in locations with little activity, and in the open world when fighting, it's pretty jerky. To fully experience this game (which entails not reducing any graphical settings, because they're that good), you absolutely need as much ram as you can stuff in your machine, and the highest-powered video card you can buy.

Secondly, the openness and lack of linearity can be a little overwhelming to players at first. Trust me, though, it was worse in Morrowind. Fast travel and the revamped quest log system make it a lot easier to remember where you are going, why you are going there, and what you're supposed to do once you arrive.

Who should play this game? Obviously, fans of the Elder Scrolls series. You know how every series has its stubborn purists? I've yet to run into anyone who liked Morrowind who doesn't also like Oblivion, which is saying something. For that matter, any RPG fan in general--be it MMO, console, tabletop, whatever--needs to play it. And heck, even if you're not into RPGs at all, but do like other video games, give Oblivion a try.

Any reactions to the Super Bowl?

Because I sure don't have any.

Generally speaking, people don't watch the World Series if they don't care about either of the teams in it. I'm a pretty big Braves fan, and I follow some baseball outside of my home team, but if the Series features say the Astros against the Mariners, there's no way I'm going to watch it. It's interesting to know who ends up winning it, but besides that, I don't really care to watch all of it unless a team I have an interest in is competing. This follows with most everyone: people are interested in the World Series, but don't schedule massive events around it. The NBA championship, the Stanley Cup, etc. are the same way.

The Super Bowl has somehow diverged from that and distinguished itself. It's not merely a sporting event; it's a cultural event. My theory on this is its solitarity; where the World Series represents seven of the best baseball games of the year, the Super Bowl is supposed to be the single best football game of the year. That's its widespread appeal. So, watching it, one expects an exceedingly good football game.

We didn't get one this year.

The game was, in a word, sloppy. And in two words, it was sloppy and uninteresting. There were a few great plays (the Seahawks' interception in the second half was excellent) but I've seen more spectacular plays watching college games (viz. all four of the BCS games, every year). Heck, I've been more impressed watching the good old Yellow Jackets (when Reggie Ball Type A shows up). The two most exciting parts of the night were the hot wings that Woodruff Dining Hall served, and talking D&D with Andrew. This was a run-of-the-mill football game, nothing more. No hugely athletic plays, no down-to-the-wire suspense, and no tactical mastery that makes a great football game into a memorable one.

In short, the game was in no way deserving of the cultural gravity that's associated with it.