Time To Cower, BCS; Rick Reilly Is On Your Case!

I implore you to read Rick Reilly's complaint about the BCS.  If you are wondering how it is that Rick Neuheisel got a head coaching gig at UCLA after bombing out at Colorado and Washington (with NCAA sanctions, to boot) or Greg Robinson got the defensive coordinator job at Michigan after disastrous spells with the Kansas City Chiefs and Syracuse, just look at their magnificent coifs.  Imagine a middle-aged decision-maker who drives a Lexus, listens to Jimmy Buffett to unwind, spends way too much time futzing with his investments, and views golf as a sport.  That guy is just going to look at Neuheisel or Robinson and say "that guy looks like a coach," in the same way that the Oakland A's scouts said "that guy looks like a player" in Moneyball.  That guy is also going to click on the front page of ESPN.com and say to himself "awesome, a new column by Rick Reilly!  He just looks so friendly and unthreatening!  I'm in the mood for a bunch of dumb one-liners that would be beneath Jay Leno!  And I don't like data or cogent, orderly arguments in my sportswriting.  Explain the world of sports to me, Rick!"

How else can one explain ESPN giving prominent space to a column that contains the following gems:

• Reilly complains about the fact that there could be six unbeaten teams by the end of the college football season, as if all six were likely to run their respective tables.  As if to show how ludicrously short-sighted his argument was, Oklahoma and Wisconsin lost on Saturday night, cutting Reilly's nightmare scenario down before the column had been up for 48 hours.

• Reilly argues against an imaginary strawman, namely that an unbeaten Oklahoma or Oklahoma State would be jumped by the one-loss loser of the Alabama-LSU game.  Rick, now that you are writing on the Internet, you might be expected to learn about the concept of a hyperlink.  If you are going to argue against a proposition, then you might want to link to someone making that argument.  Or at least give us a name?  Is that too much to ask?  It seems relevant when you are arguing against an all-SEC BCS Championship Game, an event that has never occurred and in fact has never come close to occurring.

• How about this gem:

True, trying to win a national championship by beating Big Ten teams is like trying to get drunk drinking non-alcoholic beer, but what do you want them to do? They can only play their schedule and they've fricaseed every team they've played, 301-58. It's enough to make a Wisconsin fan hurl his lunch, which would be known as Bielemia.

What do we want Wisconsin to do?  Oh, I don't know, maybe play a non-conference road game against a team more threatening than UNLV, Fresno State, or Hawaii?  Rick, if you knew anything about college football other than the fact that it provides you with fodder for an annual complaint about the BCS, then you would know that programs get to pick their non-conference schedules.  A program like Wisconsin that has a large home stadium and supportive fan base has near-total latitude in making scheduling decisions.  Wisconsin doesn't just play their schedule; they make 33% of their schedule.  So yes, I want Wisconsin to start acting like the college football power that they pretend to be. 

• Reilly complains about the computers not showing any love to Stanford.  You want to know why the computer rankings are so bad, Rick?  Because the BCS kow-towed to bitchy columnists after Nebraska pipped Colorado and Oregon for the right to get slaughtered by Miami in the 2001 national title game on the basis of margin-of-victory.  You want to take a wild guess what position Reilly, a Colorado alum who hates Nebraska, would have taken at that time?  I am going out on a limb and say that Reilly wasn't motivated by a rigorous commitment to empiricism and math.  Also, Reilly complains about Stanford's low computer ranking and then cites their schedule going forward.  You know, the part of the schedule for which the computers are not yet accounting.

• I can't believe that Reilly gets paid to write sentences like this gem about Boise State: "And yet every time they play a big-conference school they tend to win, including Georgia this year and TCU coming up."  He's unintentionally paraphrasing Brian Fantana: 60% of the time, they win every time.  And that's before we get to the fact that TCU isn't yet a big conference school. 

• Reilly also got paid to write this: "If the [Clemson] Tigers go undefeated, they'll have beaten everybody but the Chinese army -- Auburn, Virginia Tech, Boston College, Florida State and South Carolina."  Boston College?  Are you too f***ing busy to click on the ACC standings and notice that Boston College is 1-6?  Would you prefer to cite the Packers' accomplishment in going unbeaten against a schedule that has included the winless Rams?  Or, since you seem to like shallow geopolitical analogies, maybe you should tout our armed forces' triumph over Grenada? 

Rick, if you feel like college football is crucifying you, then might I suggest you find another religion?  The CIMB Asia Pacific Classic is ready when you are.

You Wouldn’t Get Away with this in your Brother’s Courtroom

On the heels of the Marist poll reflecting that Northeasterners are unusual in that they do not know or care about college football, here is Gregg Easterbrook attempting to write about the Oregon offense. Let’s count how many mistakes our favorite this NFL fan makes when he steps out of his comfort zone:

First, let's examine what Oregon is doing. The blur offense combines four existing ideas -- the "pistol" set developed at the University of Nevada (itself a high-scoring team, averaging 43 points); the single-wing run fakes used since football became a sport, then forgotten as old-fashioned, and now revived; the triple-option that is a standby of high school and college football, though very rare in the NFL; and the spread set that was considered radical a decade ago but now is practically conventional.

My goodness, this is going to be a fish in a barrel Fisking. Oregon’s offense is not a heavy user of the Pistol. Watch the highlights of their shelling of Stanford. Not a single play in this highlights package comes from the Pistol. Every touchdown was scored from a normal shotgun, one-back set. Additionally, Easterbrook would be OK if he claimed that Oregon’s offense uses option principles, but he’s wrong when he uses the term “triple option” because one of the three options that a quarterback had in that offense was to bury the ball in the fullback’s gut. As best I can tell, Oregon does not use two running backs (all of its touchdowns against Stanford come from one-back sets), so it’s wrong to say that Darron Thomas has three running options on Oregon’s base plays when really, he has only two. (There is a triple option angle to the Spread ‘n’ Shred when a quarterback runs a zone read play and also has the option to throw a bubble screen if a corner or safety crashes from the outside, but I don’t recall Oregon using this approach. There is also a two-back version [or a back and a slot receiver version] that has a dive man and a pitch man, but I don't recall Oregon using this approach too much. Unlike Easterbrook, I’ll admit to not being an expert on the Ducks’ version of the Spread, so I’m willing to be corrected on this.)

The pistol set means the quarterback is 4 yards behind center, rather than 7 yards as in a shotgun. (A pistol is smaller than a shotgun.) Like the high school version of the spread, the blur involves lots of hitch screens, in which the quarterback quickly throws sideways to a wide receiver who's hitching. Being only 4 yards behind center means the quarterback gets the snap a bit faster and the hitch screen throw has slightly less distance to travel, arriving one second earlier. Saving a second helps accelerate the tempo. In the pistol, the tailback is behind the quarterback rather than next to him as in the shotgun. This means the tailback takes his handoff moving forward with momentum, rather than standing still as in a shotgun's draw action.

I’ve never heard someone claim that an advantage of the Pistol is that a screen pass gets to a receiver quicker. We’re not talking about a second faster; we’re talking about a fraction of a second faster. The major advantage is the second one that Easterbrook briefly describes: the offense combines a traditional downhill running game with the advantages of the shotgun (quarterback gets the ball facing the defense).

The old single-wing involved constant confusion about whether the ball was going forward, end-around or to a pitchman who came in motion from the outside back toward the formation. The Miami Dolphins rediscovered single-wing fakes in 2008 with the Wildcat formation, and the blur offense uses lots of single-wing confusion. Sometimes the quarterback fakes to the tailback into the line and then goes into the opposite side of the line in an old-fashioned move, now being rediscovered, called the "midline option." Sometimes the quarterback sprints outside with the motion-man pitchman behind him, basically a high-tech variation on the triple-option. Often, the quarterback executes a zone-read with the tailback. Everybody's doing the zone-read in college football this season; the blur offense just executes it really quickly.

Yes, the Miami Dolphins “rediscovered” the single wing offense if by “rediscovered,” you mean “hired Arkansas’s quarterbacks coach and implemented an offensive set that the Hogs had been using for two years, leading NFL fans to go wild over a new idea that college fans had seen for a while.” And no, Gregg, you have no idea what the midline option is. It doesn’t involve a fake to the tailback going into the line; it involves the tailback going outside with an unblocked defensive tackle hopefully following him, at which point the quarterback cuts inside into the space vacated by the defensive tackle. But nice try.

Pass patterns are minimal, which keeps the quarterback's mind from melting under the pace. Oregon runs hitch screens, then occasionally fakes a hitch screen and sends a receiver on the fake side deep. That's it -- that's the blur offense passing tree.

Do any Oregon fans want to comment on the claim that the only pass patterns in the offense are hitch screens (as opposed to bubble screens or any one of a number of different types of screens that the Spread ‘n’ Shred deploys) and fly patterns?

The blur offense has maybe 20 plays, though several involve an option about who carries the ball. A very simple playbook allows Oregon to perfect the execution and snap really quickly. Players on the field couldn't possibly understand hand signals for a conventional 50-play college playbook.

I haven’t watched enough Oregon football to comment on the claim that the playbook is only 20 plays long, but I’m pretty damn sure that Easterbrook hasn’t, either. By way of comparison, the Urban Meyer version of the offense has a lot more plays and it is plenty effective (or at least it was when the Gators had a quarterback who could run the ball. That reminds me of the most basic element of the Spread ‘n’ Shred that Easterbrook doesn’t mention: the offense deploys the quarterback as a running threat and therefore outnumbers the defensive front).

Fantastic offense hardly ensures a BCS bowl win for the Ducks. Oklahoma set the NCAA scoring record at 58 points per game in 2008, using a variation on the high school-style Franklin spread. The Sooners went on to lose to Florida in the BCS title game.

Does Easterbrook mean the Tony Franklin spread? If that’s the case, then no, that’s not what Oklahoma ran. Through the miracle of a Google search, we can determine that no one has described Oklahoma offense as the Franklin spread. (Want to try again, Greg? Try starting with Kevin Wilson and the Northwestern version of the Spread.)

One last thought on Easterbrook’s sudden infatuation with Oregon: it’s not surprising that he would fixate on Oregon’s version of the spread (as opposed to Florida’s or Michigan’s, for example) because Easterbrook loves to bitch about "football factory" schools and by focusing on cute little Oregon with its coach from New Hampshire and its Donald Duck mascot, he doesn’t have to worry about sullying himself. If only he understood the terminology that he tosses around.

Bobby Knight Should Have Decked You When He Had the Chance

Let's all feel sorry for John Feinstein. He went to Duke and writes for a major newspaper in Peter King's beloved I-95 corridor, so he doesn't know or care about college football. That's fine with me. I prefer to remember Feinstein for Season on the Brink, which is one of my all-time favorite sports books. I have four of his books on the wall, although none more recent than March into Madness, after which Feinstein ceased being relevant or interesting. Combine a guy who understands college football about as well as I understand Uzbek folklore and a writer whose skills have eroded and you get this gem. The Senator linked it and Orson inspired me, so let's dust off the ol' fisking gloves and get busy:

BCS: Where Money Talks and Hypocrisy Walks

By John Feinstein
Monday, June 29, 2009 1:19 PM

The latest example of the hypocrisy of the Bowl Championship Series came last week, when the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee met to consider a proposal made by the Mountain West Conference for an eight-team playoff, the kind of championship tournament the NCAA stages for every other sport (including football, at every level except division I-A).

Let's keep in mind that the theme of this article is "name-calling." Count the number of times that Feinstein doesn't make an argument, but instead shouts like the worst sort of purple-faced sports radio caller. Let's also keep in mind that I-A football is unlike all other NCAA sports in two important respects: it doesn't have a massive playoff and it is worth more economically than all the other NCAA sports put together.

After summarily rejecting the proposal, the oversight committee sent forth Oregon President David Frohnmayer to dispense with the usual lies.

So we have hypocrites who tell lies...

First, Frohnmayer claimed the proposal had been given serious consideration. And surely the Yankees have given serious consideration to cutting their payroll in half in the interest of bringing parity to baseball.

Let's see, the idea of the Yankees agreeing not to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars that they generate from being the most popular baseball team in the Milky Way is ludicrous because we would not expect a major entity to act in a manner totally at odds with its own self-interest. So what is it that you are asking the 66 teams the compose the major BCS schools to do? Oh yeah, give away a massive economic advantage that they created so they can share their wealth with teams whose fan bases are comparatively tiny.

Then he went into the BCS presidents' spiel about there being nothing wrong with the BCS -- sort of like when your stockbroker tells you your portfolio is doing just fine even if it's down 70 percent -- and then becoming self-righteous about their position.

You know, a quote would be good here. I smell a whiff of overstatement. And if you're keeping track, we have self-righteous hypocrites who tell lies.

Guys such as Frohnmayer -- who is really no different than the rest of his BCS cronies -- really believe they can throw out any statement they want and they will go unchallenged because they have a bunch of degrees on their office walls. That's why, even though complaints about the BCS are getting nearly as weary as the entity itself, the topic must continually be revisited.

Please do. I need the material in the summer.

After a pompous, arrogant and obnoxious pummeling of the "pundits and broadcasters" who have had the nerve to criticize the BCS -- does President Obama fall under the category of pundit or broadcaster? -- Frohnmayer claimed there were two "fatal" flaws in the arguments for a playoff. In doing so, he referred to those proposing an "NFL-style" playoff system in a blatant attempt to link a playoff with professionalizing college football. Excuse me, but what would be wrong with the "style" of the division I-AA, II or III playoff systems? They all work just fine.

We are now up to self-righteous hypocrites who tell lies and administer pompous, arrogant, and obnoxious pummelings.

Uh, Frohmayer probably referred to an "NFL-style" playoff because that's what a college football playoff would look like if people like Feinstein had their way. John, you know that 12-team playoff that you're pining for with the top four seeds getting byes? Where else can we see such a playoff? I wonder?

The first of Frohnmayer's "fatal" flaws was the claim that the pundits and broadcasters (and presidents of the United States) were completely ignoring the academic calendar. Seriously? Let's walk through this one more time: A college football tournament, whether it was the proposed eight teams or 12 or even 16 would require far less missed class time than the NCAA basketball tournament does in March. Most, if not all, of the games could be played in January, virtually all of them between semesters. Teams would miss less class time during the tournament than they miss during the regular season. Final words to Frohnmayer and the other 66 BCS presidents on this issue: Shut up.

The self-righteous hypocrites who tell lies and administer pompous, arrogant, and obnoxious pummelings need to shut up.

A I-A college football team has 85 players on scholarship. A Division I college basketball team has 13 players on scholarship. I wonder why college presidents would be more concerned about extending the college football season? Also, John, this may surprise you, but some schools start their semesters very early in January, so those teams would not be playing their games in between semesters.

To bring up academics as a reason for not having a tournament is patently dishonest on every level. Let's forget the fact that the significant percentage of football players at national championship contenders will never graduate. Let's pretend that it matters -- and, to be fair, it does matter to some players. Having a playoff will not for one second affect their chances of graduating if that is one of their goals.

The self-righteous hypocrites who tell lies, administer pompous, arrogant, and obnoxious pummelings, and are also patently dishonest need to shut up.

Really, there is no possible academic implication for a marginal student playing football throughout the month of January after having already practices and played from August through December? For the record, I'm not a huge fan of the academic concerns professed by college presidents as a reason not to have a playoff, but Feinstein is acting as if these presidents are arguing that Dred Scott and Plessy had overlooked merit. Frohmayer is not making a particularly outlandish claim here.

The second of Frohnmayer's fatal flaws was the "complete lack of a business plan." Please. A business plan would take about 15 minutes to concoct, and it could be put together by my daughter's fifth-grade class. The TV networks would fall all over themselves to get the contract, or contracts. The potential burden of fans having to travel for three weeks -- if you went with 12 or 16 teams, it would make sense to play first-round games at home sites -- doesn't seem to be a problem for fans whose teams make the Final Four. If a real national championship game was played next year in the Rose Bowl, does anyone think there would be an unsold ticket?

Again, Feinstein fails to grasp that there are differences between college basketball and football. The early rounds of the NCAA Tournament are played in smaller venues, which means that huge traveling hordes don't need to follow their teams. For a three-round playoff, Feinstein wants to make 40,000 Ohio State fans travel to Orlando one week, then New Orleans the next, then Pasadena the week after that. Now Ohio State fans will do it because they're batshit crazy, but there are differences in the number of people who are having to traipse all over the country. Has Feinstein perhaps missed the gaping maws of empty seats NCAA Tournament regional semis and finals that are played in domes?

One more nugget from Frohnmayer: In an attempt to be funny, he commented that, as successful as the BCS has been, he hadn't heard from fans at Auburn and his own school about being left out of past national championship games.

OK, even I'm calling bullshit on this one, Frohmayer. You really think that Auburn fans aren't a little sore about 2004?

How about Utah, David?

Remember Utah, the team that went undefeated last season and thoroughly thrashed BCS power Alabama in the Sugar Bowl? How about Boise State going undefeated this past season and not even playing in a BCS bowl? How about Boise State's 2006 team, which won one of the great games in history against Oklahoma (they're in the BCS, right?) in the Fiesta Bowl, that also wasn't allowed to compete for a national championship?

Right, the Utah team whose own coach voted fifth going into a Sugar Bowl in which they played Alabama without their best player. The Boise State team that lost that lost the Poinsettia Bowl. Another Boise State team that won an overtime classic against a good, but hardly overwhelming Oklahoma team after playing an absurdly easy schedule during the regular season. All of these teams were eligible to play for the national title, but no one - not the computers, not the media, not the coaches, and not the Harris Poll voters - saw them as being serious contenders to be one of the top two teams in the country before the bowls. And bonus points to Feinstein for not using the best example of a non-BCS conference power that could have legitimately played for a national title: 2004 Utah.

Finally, there's the now well-worn claim that college football has the "most meaningful" regular season in sports. Again, this is complete hyperbolic trash. First, how can you call a regular season meaningful when the decisions on who will play where in the postseason are made by computers and frequently biased voters.

The self-righteous hypocrites who tell lies and administer pompous, arrogant, and obnoxious pummelings need to shut up before they spew more hyperbolic trash.

What exactly does the voting method for the post-season have to do with whether the regular season is meaningful? And what's wrong with computers. Last I checked, you like college basketball and the Tournament selection committee tends to rely on the RPI pretty heavily.

The American Football Coaches Association's recent decision to keep secret coaches' ballots in the final poll screams deceit. All polls in all sports -- including Hall of Fame ballots -- should be made public.

I can't disagree here, but again, the NCAA Tournament is populated and seeded based on the workings of a committee that convenes in private and does not even publish the methodologies that it used to create brackets. I'll look forward to your column calling the NCAA Tournament fraudulent because of the lack of transparency in putting teams in various spots.

Are the BCS apologists trying to say that the college basketball regular season has no meaning? Every game played the last three weeks of the season is analyzed, re-analyzed and broken down to determine how it will affect seeding, the bubble and who is in and who is out.

Earth to John: the college basketball regular season goes on for over four months. If only the last three weeks are relevant, then you have made my point for me. You're supposed to be arguing against the BCS, remember?

You want meaning in a regular season? Give the first four teams in a 12-team playoff a bye. Give the next four a first-round home game. Let the last four scramble to avoid playing in the New Mexico Bowl.

And now you've hit on the problem with college basketball. Duke and North Carolina wage their epic battles every spring so the victor can play in Greensboro while the loser has to travel all the way to Philadelphia. Oh, the mighty stakes when the regular season is about seeding!

Of course, Frohnmayer and his partners don't care about or want to hear any of these arguments. That's because they don't believe any of what they're saying either. They just know they have a system they're comfortable with, one that ensures that Utah or Boise State won't ever compete for a national championship. They care about power, and they care about money.

The self-righteous hypocrites who tell lies and administer pompous, arrogant, and obnoxious pummelings need to shut up before they spew more hyperbolic trash that they don't believe as they're saying it.

John, do you remember when you were in college? Do you recall following Duke basketball way back when? You may recall that the ACC was eight teams at that time. If you care to take a gander, it now has 12 members. When you were in college, Miami, Florida State, Boston College, and Virginia Tech were blips on the college football map. Through good coaching and management, those programs built themselves into powerhouses (well, at least three of them did and the fourth tagged along because it is in a big TV market) that were attractive to the ACC. What is stopping Utah from turning itself into a shiny apple that the Pac Ten will want to pluck?

They don't care about the truth. They certainly don't care about their student-athletes. And they certainly don't care about any opinions other than their own.

Uh, right. They're rational actors seeking to create good results for their own schools. What a f***ing disgrace! Hurry, comb through your thesaurus to find more names that you can hurl! That's surely the way to show that you have the best arguments!

Adam Rittenberg: Labeling the Rational Choice as "Desperate" since Yesterday

With Stewart Mandel off in Shangri-La and Terence Moore having given up the notion that Juan Pierre is the solution to the Braves' perpetual left field woes, I've been looking for new material. Adam Rittenberg, come on down!

Michigan offers Paulus chance to compete at QB

Wow, that's a big story! I'm very interested to know if you're going to have quotes from Michigan's coaches to back up the notion that a guy who hasn't played football in four years is going to step in front of two four-star recruits, one of whom has already gone through a spring practice as the starter and went 11-14 in the spring game.

As amazing as it sounds, former Duke basketball player Greg Paulus has an offer from Michigan to compete for the starting quarterback job this fall.

Amazing!

Paulus visited the Wolverines' final practice of the spring on Tuesday and met with head coach Rich Rodriguez and his assistants. He's receiving interest from other college teams, including his hometown Syracuse Orange, but right now Michigan is the only real possibility.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about this wild story is the fact that Paulus didn't even throw or work out for Rodriguez or his assistants on Tuesday but still has a chance to join the team.

"It was a visit," Paulus said Thursday morning. "There was no throwing the ball around or anything like that. There was no workouts. There was nothing like that."

OK, so our news flash so far is that Greg Paulus visited Michigan and didn't throw the ball. Fascinating.

This is a guy who hasn't played football in four years. Sure, he was a great high school quarterback, but to expect him to grasp the spread offense in one summer and win a starting job seems pretty far-fetched. Reeks of desperation, don't you think?

File this under the heading of "no s***, Sherlock." Michigan's current depth chart at quarterback consists of the aforementioned true freshmen - Tate Forcier and Denard Robinson - and a walk-on - Nick Sheridan - who was atrocious last year. Forcier looked promising in spring practice, but he isn't the biggest guy in the world. Robinson is a great athlete, but he might be a little raw as a quarterback. He had offers from a number of major SEC powers, but probably not to play under center. (Insert wishful Pat White analogy here.) Faced with this situation, what coach in his right mind would not look to bring in additional options? So naturally, because Rittenberg wants to stir the drink and get suckers like me to link his article, the rational choice becomes desperation.

Paulus reiterated that holding a clipboard and wearing a backwards hat aren't what he's planning to do next fall.

"The chance to compete for a starting job is important," he said. "With me only having an opportunity to play for one year, the chance and the opportunity to compete at a high level is important. There is an opportunity to do that at Michigan."

The lead on this story strongly implied that Michigan has promised Paulus a shot as a starter. A casual reader would also infer that Michigan is not happy with the performance of its quarterbacks in the spring. When you get to the actual meat of the article, you get Paulus saying that there is an opportunity to start at Michigan. Tellingly, he doesn't say that he was told this by anyone at Michigan. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that Paulus bases that statement on the fact that he has eyes and has seen Michigan's depth chart at quarterback. He's drawing his own conclusion as to the possibilities if he spends a year in Ann Arbor.

That's what makes the title of the article and the opening paragraph so f***ing misleading. You would think that Michigan is begging Paulus to come to school to be the immediate starter. Instead, there is absolutely no evidence to support the implication. I hate using this term because it makes me sound like Bernie Goldberg, but that's wildly irresponsible journalism. Did Rittenberg even bother to talk to Michigan's coaches about what they said to Paulus? Did Dick Vitale write this article?

Michigan has given Paulus no firm deadline to make the decision, but the former Duke point guard knows the sooner he finalizes his plans, the better off his chances are of grasping a new offense.

As for that pesky eligibility issue, Paulus is on pace to graduate from Duke in May. Since he never redshirted in basketball and will complete his degree in four years, he can go elsewhere, enroll in graduate school and play immediately. Paulus said a strong graduate program means a lot to him, and Michigan would certainly qualify.

Rittenberg might want to mention that the NCAA rule permitting athletes to transfer for a fifth year without sitting out if they have graduated in four years is a very new phenomenon. Urban Meyer made use of the rule in 2006 to bring in Ryan Smith in an effort to shore up a leaky defensive backfield. Smith was all-SEC in 2006 and Florida won the national title on the back of a terrific defense. Was Urban "desperate" when he brought Smith in? Or was he just being logical and using every available legal avenue to shore up depth chart issues?

I've gone back and forth on the Paulus situation.

This might be a low-risk, high-reward move for Michigan, which can move forward with Tate Forcier, Denard Robinson or Nick Sheridan if Paulus doesn't pan out. But it also sends a curious message to Forcier and Robinson as well as a fan base that seemed to be finally warming to Rodriguez. Couldn't see this happening at Michigan under the old guard.

It's not that this "might be" a low-risk, high-reward move; it is a low-risk, high-reward move. Michigan will have fewer than 85 scholarship players in 2009. There is literally no downside to bringing Paulus in as he is filling an unused scholarship for one year. I suppose you can claim that bringing Paulus in will unsettle Forcier and Robinson, but that is true any time a team brings in a new recruit. Did Michigan unsettle Forcier and Robinson when it got a verbal from rising high school senior Devin Gardner, who will likely be rated ahead of Forcier and Robinson by Rivals when the season is over? Is the lesson that a team should never bring in new quarterbacks once it has two freshmen ready to play the position? This is what Rittenberg finds "curious."

And what Michigan fan with an IQ over 70 finds this move curious? Again, the current starter is a 185-pound true freshman. Oddly enough, football players will occasionally sustain "injuries" that prevent them from playing. If one of these "injuries" should befall Forcier, then the options will be another true freshman whom most SEC programs saw as a great receiver or corner and Nick Sheridan. Michigan fans have seen Sheridan play. That's why they can't possibly find it curious that Rodriguez would bring in a quarterback who would make the prospect of Sheridan seeing the field less likely. This move is not an indictment of Forcier and Robinson. It's impossible to indict two quarterbacks who have 15 practices under their collective belts. Instead, it's an acknowledgment that Michigan needs more depth at quarterback other than Sheridan. Paulus may be rusty, but he was good enough four years ago to be a blue chip prospect. This means that he has (or once had) a strong, reasonably accurate arm and sufficient size. Nick Sheridan has none of these things. I'm sure he's a great guy and good to his mother, but any strategy that makes him taking a meaningful snap a less likely proposition is a good strategy.

And that last backhanded shot about the old regime not doing something like signing Paulus is total crap. First of all, the rule only existed at the very tail end of Lloyd Carr's tenure. Second, Lloyd recruited Russell Shaw from a junior college when Michigan's depth chart at receiver looked bad. He recruited Austin Panter from a junior college when Michigan's depth chart at linebacker looked bad. he recruited the academically dubious Marques Slocum when the depth chart at defensive tackle looked bad. If Lloyd were faced with two true freshmen and a quarterback whom MGoBlog subtly nicknamed "Death," he would also be scouring the waiver wires for options.

And what about me?!? Shouldn't I get the benefit of an entire year of Stalingrad references? If Michigan is going to get bad quarterback play, shouldn't I at least have the pleasure of imitating Hitler's rant when von Paulus surrendered to the Red Army rather than commiting suicide? (Note to self: I think the whole rant is in Alan Clark's Barbarossa. Make sure you read that section before we play Notre Dame.)

Got to run to Ohio State now, but I'll have more on this as it develops.

I can't wait.

Mark Bradley, you Complete me

I've had this gnawing feeling in my gut for weeks. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something just didn't feel right in my life. I had pent-up feelings of...something. This morning, I figured out what I'd been craving: a good fisking. I figured this out when I read Mark Bradley's superficial argument that Matt Stafford is better than Tim Tebow. I read Bradley's piece and the words just came pouring out like they were written in my soul. Let the fun commence:

Tim Tebow is a great player. Tim Tebow is the Heisman holder. Come Saturday, Tim Tebow will be the second-best quarterback on the field.

I'm anxious to hear your reasoning, Mark. After all, ran the numbers two weeks ago and found that there was no comparison between Tebow and Stafford using, you know, objective data. Let's see what facts Mark has in mind to make his argument...

Matthew Stafford has become the Matthew Stafford Georgia fans envisioned when he arrived from Dallas. He has stopped throwing the ball to the wrong team, and he has long thrown the prettiest ball in college football. But throwing isn’t everything, and there have been times where we wondered if Stafford the quarterback would measure up to Stafford the arm. We wonder no more.

And the answer to my prior query is "none." When Stafford got on the bus to go to Baton Rouge, he had thrown five picks in his past three games, or three more than Tebow has thrown all season. After 60 minutes in Death Valley in which Stafford did not throw a pick, Bradley has now concluded he no longer throws the ball to the wrong team. On the same basis, I can conclude that Duke would win the SEC this year because they beat an SEC opponent last week.

He was the difference at LSU. Jarrett Lee’s first pass went to Georgia linebacker Darryl Gamble, and after 20 seconds the Tigers were chasing seven points. As hard as they chased, they could never get ahead. Stafford kept his team moving, kept making the throws that finally revealed the Georgia we thought we’d see.

Uh, Mark, are you aware that the LSU team that Stafford shredded is 9th in the SEC in total defense, 11th in scoring defense, 10th in pass efficiency defense? If you're trying to prove that Stafford is better than Tebow, then using a performance against LSU isn't the best idea. Tebow went 14 of 21 for 210 yards with two touchdowns and no picks against LSU. But anyway, you've decided to shift from arguing that Stafford is better than Tebow to arguing that Stafford had a good game against LSU, so don't let me stop you.

Two Stafford passes, both in the third quarter, that were the finest he has made as a collegian. Both times LSU, desperate to force a turnover, brought a blitz, and both times Stafford stepped into the rush and delivered down the left side. One ball went to A.J. Green - 49 yards and a touchdown. The other went to Aron White, the tight end who’d never caught a pass at Georgia - 48 yards and a vital first down.

Again, there is a reason why LSU is so bad statistically in pass coverage. Stafford wasn't exactly up against Alabama 1992. Or Alabama 2008, but I guess Matt Stafford has undergone a series of blood transfusions and is now a different quarterback than the one who led Georgia to a big fat goose egg for a half against the Tide.

“He’s standing in there when everything is flying around him,” Mark Richt said afterward, and never has Stafford stood taller than those 3 1/2 hours in Death Valley. And now, if you’re voting for All-SEC quarterback, who’s the pick? The Heisman holder and living legend, or the guy who leads the conference in yards passing and total offense?

Hey, actual numbers. Admittedly, Bradley is using aggregate numbers that would favor a quarterback with a lot more attempts (Stafford has 65 more attempts than Tebow), but I'm touched that Bradley is going to use some actual evidence to support his claim. In the words of Jules Winnfield, allow me to retort:

National rank in pass efficiency:

Tebow - 11
Stafford - 23

Yards per attempt:

Tebow - 8.63
Stafford - 8.5

Interception rate:

Tebow - one every 82 attempts
Stafford - one every 45.8 attempts

Touchdown rate:

Tebow - one every 13.7 attempts
Stafford - one every 19.1 attempts

As good as he has become, Stafford still needs a championship of some sort for full validation. All he has to do to win the SEC East is to outplay the most famous player in the land. The belief here is that John Matthew Stafford will.

Mark, rooting for the home teams is all fine and good, but your reputation as an oracle took a bit of a hit after you wrote these words on May 26:

Memorial Day arrived with the Braves in second place. They’ll be in first by the Fourth of July, and come Labor Day they’ll be pulling away.

You wrote those words after the Braves had impressively knocked Brandon Webb around. One would think that you'd learn your lesson not to get overly excited by one good performance. One would also think that the morning after the Phillies won the World Series, you might remember that you dismissed the Phils as unlikely to win even the division because they have "so few arms" and thus shy away from the bombastic predictions of glory for the local collectives. I guess not.

How exactly does one write about Atlanta sports and retain this sort of optimism, Charlie Brown?

I Can't Believe you Get Paid for this, Terrence

In one of the least surprising developments in Atlanta sports history, Terrence Moore thinks the Braves should keep Andruw Jones. Does he examine Jones's record to give us hope that his disastrous 2007 was a fluke? Does he attempt to justify making a long-term commitment to a guy who doesn't pay so much attention to staying in shape? Does he make the argument that Jones is worth the $15-18M per year that it will apparently take to sign him? No. He's Terrence Moore and he wants a unicorn to come down and pay for Andruw Jones with hugs, smiles, and Monopoly money. Let the fisking commence:

Bad move.

Terrible move.

OK, we've established that you think that two words can constitute an effective paragraph. What else are you going to do to embarrass yourself?

Actually, this is an atrocious move for the Braves, because manager Bobby Cox had it right for eternity when he said of Andruw Jones, who ranks 1a, 1b or 1c among baseball’s center fielders for the ages, “He has RBIs in his glove.”

Yes, Andruw saves runs with his glove. So does Reggie Abercrombie. Does his defensive ability justify a .238 OBP? Are there teams lining up to give him $100M over five years?

It didn’t matter that Jones often looked ridiculous for long stretches after swinging and missing at pitches in search of reaching the farthest dark hole. Who cared that his batting average spent two seasons going south instead of north? No, he wasn’t much in the clutch this year, and yes, his agent is Scott Boras, the bogeyman for teams wishing to sign one of Boras’ clients below the amount of the national debt.

Let's rephrase this to be about a sports columnist instead of a centerfielder to illustrate the fact that an outfielder's inability to hit is somewhat important:

It didn't matter that Moore couldn't tell the difference between first person and third person voice. It didn't matter that Moore demonstrated such a lack of understanding of baseball that he determined that Juan Pierre was the solution to the Braves' hole in left field. It didn't matter that Moore couldn't construct a logical argument that would pass muster in eighth grade civics, let alone a major newspaper. It didn't matter than Moore demanded to be paid $11M per year to write columns that only served to anger his readership.

And, yes, the Braves can ease some of the post-Jones trauma with the signing of free agent Torii Hunter, the former center fielder and slugger for the Minnesota Twins. He also has a magic glove, and even though he can’t slug with Jones, he is more consistent at the plate with his ability to sustain hitting streaks.

Demonstrating the adage that a stopped clock is right twice a day, Moore actually makes a decent point here. Hunter is a good player and, unlike Andruw, his OPS+ has gone up in each of the last four seasons. Not coincidentally, he takes care of himself physically and has therefore not shown the aging effects that a centerfielder carrying around 15 extra pounds in the belly might.

That said, with the new folks at Liberty Media claiming they are willing to increase the payroll, the Braves’ Designated Geniuses should have discovered ways to acquire much-needed starting pitching while keeping Jones.

It's all so simple! The Braves should re-sign Andruw for an outrageous sum AND improve the pitching. Presumably, we'll trade Corky Miller for Jake Peavy and Chris Woodward for Brandon Webb. We'll then win five straight World Series titles and it was all because the profoundly moving Terrence Moore suggested to Liberty Media that it bump the payroll up to $150M and give Kevin Towers and Josh Byrnes lobotomies!

In fact, Jones was part of the solution regarding that starting pitching. He is the hidden reason the Braves produced Cy Glavine, Cy Smoltz and Cy Maddux, along with all of those consecutive years of team ERAs that ranked first or second in baseball. He caught everything. He threw out everybody. He made the spectacular routine. He did so through an 11th year with the Braves that will produce a 10th Gold Glove, but management will shove Jones out the door by allowing him to become a free agent while yawning.

Here are the Braves' ranks in NL ERA in the seven years before Andruw Jones became a regular centerfielder in 1998:

1991 - 3rd
1992 - 1st
1993 - 1st
1994 - 2nd
1995 - 1st
1996 - 2nd
1997 - 1st

Gee, how did the Braves' pitchers ever get anyone out when Otis Nixon, Deion Sanders, Roberto Kelly, Marquis Grissom, and Kenny Lofton were in centerfield?

Moore's citation to the gold glove award, one of the most useless awards on the face of the planet, just shows the bankruptcy of his argument. Riddle me this, Terrence: if Andruw can no longer steal bases, that would imply that he's not especially fast anymore, right? And if he's not especially fast anymore, then how does he catch everything? As for throwing everyone out, would it have killed Moore to actually look at Andruw's outfield assists - seven in the past two years - before making yet another argument that would have been true several years ago, but isn't now?

Well, mostly yawning. As a lifetime Braves player who contributed heavily to the franchise’s record 14 consecutive division titles, Braves officials will continue to say nice things about Jones as they wave good-bye. Still, the bottom line remains: He’s gone, and he’s only 30, and history comes to mind. Not in a good way, especially if the baseball gods wish to spank the Braves for their short-sightedness.

This oughta be good. Terrence is going to teach us a little history. Will he blame the Braves decline on the departure of Brian Jordan or David Justice? I'm tingling with anticipation.

Consider 1966. That was the first year Frank Robinson played for the Baltimore Orioles, and it was the first year of David Justice’s life.

And there's our answer.

Let’s start with Robinson, the undisputed star of the Cincinnati Reds for nearly a decade. He was traded to the Orioles for nothing worth mentioning before that 1966 season, because Reds owner Bill DeWitt said Robinson was “an old 30.” All that a creaky Robinson did in his first season with the Orioles was take the American League’s Triple Crown Award, lead them to their first world championship and grab World Series MVP honors. He eventually pushed the Orioles to three more pennants and another world championship (over the Reds), and then trotted to Cooperstown from there.

Cincinnati traded Frank Robinson following a year in which Robinson had a .926 OPS. He showed absolutely no signs of decline. Andruw is coming off of his worst season in a Braves uniform. Additionally, the Reds made the voluntary decision to trade Robinson. Do you not see a wee distinction between trading someone already under contract and not pursuing an expensive free agent when you have finite payroll and a pitching staff in desperate need of reinforcement?

As for Justice, the batting hero of the Atlanta Braves’ only world championship in 1995, he suffered a shoulder injury early during that next season, and then he was dealt to the Cleveland Indians before the following year for nothing worth mentioning.

Nothing worth mentioning = three-time all-star Kenny Lofton, who was coming off a season in which he had a .372 OBP, stole 75 bases, and finished 11th in the MVP voting. Oh, and Lofton was heading into his age-30 season and promptly had a poor year for the Braves. That kinda defeats the argument that letting someone go around their 30th birthday is always a terrible idea, doesn't it?

He was …

That’s right, 30.

Do you get paid by the paragraph, Terrence?

Justice immediately slugged the Indians to their second World Series in three years.

Justice had an outstanding year in 1997, possibly because he was angry about getting traded and decided to show the world that he could still play, but that's neither here nor there. In terms of getting the Indians to the World Series, Justice hit a whopping .253 with one homer in 67 post-season at-bats in 1997. He must be the reason why the Indians made the World Series.

He later joined the New York Yankees, where he became the MVP of the AL championship series before helping to lead the pinstripe bunch to another world championship.

You're right. Justice was the key to the Yankees winning in 2000. Where else could they have found a DH to hit .206 in a post-season?

When he ended his career with a playoff trip with the Oakland A’s, he had reached the playoffs six times after his trade from the Braves. He also retired as the all-time postseason leader in games played, at bats, extra-base hits, runs, hits, total bases, walks and RBIs.

Congrats, Terrence. You've conclusively established that David Justice played on a lot of good baseball teams. He played for the Braves in the midst of a run of 14-straight divisional titles, the Indians in the midst of five straight divisional titles, the Yankees in the midst of a run of 13 straight playoff appearances that shows no signs of abating, and the A's in the midst of a run of four straight playoff appearances. How is this relevant to Andruw Jones? Oh yeah, you were making the point that it is dangerous to off-load a player at age 30 by showing that the Braves made a mistake when they traded one star outfielder around age 30 for another. The lesson most sane people would take from the Lofton/Justice trade is that it is bad to acquire a malcontent with a bad hamstring. The lesson for Terrence is that baseball teams should never trade 30-year olds.

By the way, Moore cites to Justice's aggregate post-season stats, but neglects to note that Justice is a career .224 hitter in the playoffs with a .717 OPS. He accumulated lots of numbers because he played for good teams and the playoffs are much longer now than they were for most of baseball's history. There's that pesky concept of context biting Terrence in the rear again. (For the record, I always liked David Justice. I just feel the need to slag him off because Terrence Moore is using him to illustrate a point.)

This isn’t to say Jones will become Robinson or even Justice during his post-Braves career.

This is to say why even take the chance?

This reasoning could be used to prevent the Braves from ever letting any player go. Why let Chris Woodward go when he could turn into Cal Ripken? Why let Buddy Carlyle go when he could be the next Greg Maddux? Moore's argument is also putrid because he acts as if the only risk is in letting Andruw go. There can't possibly be any risk involved in giving an expensive long-term contract to a pudgy centerfielder who is plainly not as fast as he used to be and is coming off of his worst season in the majors. A useful analyst would compare the risks and make a recommendation. Terrence Moore is not useful. Or, as Terrence would write it...

Terrence Moore.

Is not.

Useful.

Drafting Wide Receivers is Risky...as Opposed to Drafting any other Position?

I'm normally a big fan of Len Pasquarelli's work, but this piece on the risks involved in drafting a wide receiver with the #1 pick just isn't very well thought out. Len's makes a couple arguments, all of which can be dismissed with a "and the alternatives are...?" response:

1. Mike Furrey was an undrafted free agent and finished second in the NFL in catches last year.

Yes, and you can make the same arguments about quarterbacks. Peyton Manning led the NFL in passer rating, but #2 was Damon Huard, who was undrafted when he came out of Washington. The #5 quarterback in terms of passer rating was Tony Romo, who was also undrafted coming out of college. If the Raiders take Jamarcus Russell over Calvin Johnson because good wide receivers can be found later in the Draft, then they are making a huge mistake. In other words, they are just being the Raiders.

One other point: why focus on the number of catches as the measure of a receiver's merit? Do we evaluate running backs on their number of carries? A system like that run by Mike Martz can ring up huge reception totals for its wide receivers, regardless of whether those receivers are actually good. Wouldn't it be better to look at, say, Pro Bowl berths? DraftHistory.com did the heavy lifting for us by analyzing the 2005 Pro Bowl rosters and lo and behold, of the eight Pro Bowl wide receivers that year, four were first round picks, two were second round picks, one was a third round pick, and one was an undrafted free agent. The interesting conclusion from that article, by the way, is that teams should spend their first round picks on running backs and offensive tackles. Defensive tackles and cornerbacks also look like solid bets.

2. Lots of wide receivers drafted in the first rounds between 1997 and 2003 flamed out.

This argument is meaningless without comparing wide receivers to other positions. Again, since the unstated implication from Pasquarelli's piece is that the Raiders should take Jamarcus Russell instead of Calvin Johnson with the #1 pick, let's look at first round quarterbacks over the same time frame:

2003 - Carson Palmer, Byron Leftwich, Kyle Boller, Rex Grossman

2002 - David Carr, Joey Harrington, Patrick Ramsey

2001 - Michael Vick

2000 - Chad Pennington

1999 - Tim Couch, Donovan McNabb, Akili Smith, Daunte Culpepper, Cade McNown

1998 - Peyton Manning, Ryan Leaf

1997 - Jim Druckenmiller

It would be pretty fair to conclude that more than half of the quarterbacks on that list have never been or will never be productive starters in the NFL. Druckenmiller, Leaf, Couch, Smith, and McNown are confirmed busts. Carr, Harrington, Ramsey, Boller, and Grossman are either en route to being busts or at least have bust potential.

3. Only two receivers have been taken with the #1 pick and neither of them are going to the Hall of Fame.

Wow, a sample size of two! We can make TONS of legitimate inferences from that!

4. "Because of the rules changes that have opened up the passing game and turned ordinary receivers into players capable of snagging 60 balls per season, it's not necessary to have Hall of Fame-caliber players at the position."

So if the rules favor the receivers, doesn't that make a superlative receiver even more important because defensive backs can do relatively little to stop them?

Incidentally, I have a theory on why wide receivers sometimes flake out in the NFL when they play the position that should be the simplest to evaluate for scouts. (OK, I cribbed the theory from a 2002 Slate.com article.) The position tends to collect the biggest head cases, players with flashy athleticism and a desire to be isolated into one-on-one encounters where teamwork is unnecessary. Thus, wide receivers are more likely to flame out in the NFL than players at any other position because they are the most likely players to go nuts once they are lavished with money and attention. This is my theory as to why Charles Rogers, for example, was an NFL bust despite physical skills and a college pedigree that seemed to guarantee NFL success. Anyway, coming back to Calvin Johnson for a moment, CJ is universally described as terrific individual, so the normal skepticism that NFL types have about top wide receivers do not apply.

I'm Feeling Socratic this Morning

Peter King spent years extolling just about anything that the New England Patriots did, but he had a specific affection for their low-budget approach to free agency, where they eschewed signing big-ticket free agents and instead looked for bargains that would improve their depth. He also babbled on endlessly about how the Patriots would only bring in character guys. So now that New England is on a free agent spending spree and have gone after a collection of former Tennessee Vol receivers with demons (Donte Stallworth and Kelley Washington), what's King's reaction? Brilliant! Not a hint of acknowledgment that all of his former praise might have been flawed. Scott Pioli could form a group of Patriot Ultras to pay homage to Arkan and Peter King would hail the move as a visionary step to mimic the best traditions of European fandom.

Meanwhile, Tom Verducci is busy castigating the Yankees for taking a flawed approach to team development. This article would have made sense about four years ago when the Yankees were busy trading prospects every year for mediocre, "proven" veterans, but Verducci is completely behind the times. I am loathe to praise the Yankees in any respect, but they've done a commendable job in the past couple years of not mortgaging their future and of looking to their farm system to plug holes instead of signing the Gary Sheffields and Randy Johnsons of the world. As a result, the Yankees have, gasp, an honest-to-g-d good young player in Robinson Cano and another one in the pipeline in Philip Hughes.

The major problem that I have with Verducci's piece is that he contradicts himself. He argues (correctly, in my opinion) that the baseball playoff are a complete crapshoot and he cites some truly startling numbers:

In all postseason series from 1995 (the start of the wild-card era) through 1999, the team that won the greater number of regular-season games came out on top 52.5 percent of the time (21-19). But from 2000 to '06, the team with more regular-season victories won only 36.2 percent of postseason series (17-30).

Then, instead of simply concluding that the Yankees are, barring an unforeseen disaster, going to be in the playoffs and they'll have a 1/8 chance of winning the World Series once they're there, Verducci goes on to make the claim that teams with older players are at a disadvantage in the playoffs. If the playoffs are random, then it shouldn't help or hurt having older players, right? It has to be one or the other, but it can't be both.

Looking more closely at the Yankees' exit last year against the Tigers, there is no rational way to conclude that the Yankees were done in by their older players. Look at the OPSs for their position players:

Abreu - .812
Cano - .266
Damon - .690
Giambi - .800
Jeter - 1.467
Matsui - .562
Posada - 1.348
A-Rod - .142
Sheffield - .166

Yes, a couple of the Yankees' older players were dreadful, but their best hitters in the series were 32-year old Derek Jeter and 35-year old Jorge Posada. Conversely, their one young player (Cano) did nothing for them. The age factor that Verducci likes to tout doesn't prove much at all.

Ivan Maisel as Soviet Historian, Part Two

Far be it for me to make a suggestion to ESPN.com's pre-eminent college football writer, but might Ivan Maisel consider hiring a personal assistant to review his columns to make sure that he isn't saying things that are totally inconsistent with what he's written mere weeks before? On the heels of his "Jeff Bowden can never be fired! Jeff Bowden had to be fired!" Sybil impersonation, he now can't make up his mind about Mal Moore. Here is Maisel on November 28, 2006 after Alabama fired Mike Shula:

There's no reason to think that [Mal] Moore or a powerful trustee named Paul Bryant Jr. will hire the right guy this time. They've had more opportunities than most and they haven't done so yet. It comes as little solace to Alabama fans these days, but the right guy is rarely the obvious one.

And here is Maisel on January 3, 2006 after Mal Moore did the unthinkable and landed an excellent coaching candidate:

If the report of $32 million over eight years is accurate, give credit to Moore for putting such a big stack of chips behind Saban. He has been accused unfairly of mishandling more searches than Inspector Clouseau -- wrongly accused, in my opinion.

On a related note, Paula Jones just issued a statement complaining about women wrongly accusing Bill Clinton of exposing himself in hotel rooms.

I also have problems with the "woe is college football for misplaced priorities!" statement:

Wealth just triumphed over imagination. The power of college athletics once again ran right up the middle against higher education. Alabama's hiring of Nick Saban takes everything that is skewed about college football, shines a spotlight on it and says, "Hey, watch this!"

On the one hand, he's right that Saban's hiring is a somewhat damning indictment of a state that spends less on education per capita than any other state in the Union. Even if Saban's salary isn't coming directly from the funds used to buy books, computers, and other useless tools of education in Tuscaloosa, the wealthy people funding this hire would be better off donating to improve the quality of the school or increase access through scholarship money. Then again, I'd be better off reading Richard Evans on the Third Reich than Ivan Maisel on Nick Saban, so we can all be criticized for spending too much time and money on sports. But then we get to the uncomfortable point for Ivan that his mortgage is paid by the insane interest in college football that leads to a head coach getting $4M per year. His intellectual talent and reporting skills applied to Alabama's coaching decisions as opposed to relations between China and Taiwan are just as much a case of misplaced resources as the power elite of Alabama spending their millions on a better football coach because they're tired of their accountants from Auburn mocking them year-round. So a pox on everyone's house.

We Learn Two Things about Terrence Moore this Morning

1. He is capable of criticizing an African-American sports figure. For years, Braves fans noticed Moore criticizing certain players, typically Caucasian, and advocating for others, typically African-American. This morning, he's doing his inept best to rip Billy Knight, the one African-American general manager in town. I suppose one can come back with the argument that what he's doing is sticking up for Mike Woodson, the one African-American coach in town, by arguing that he doesn't have much to work with, but that seems unlikely to me. So kudos to Terrence for disproving a stereotype about his opinions.

2. Terrence still can't make an argument worth a damn.

Here's his effort at examining Billy Knight's record as Hawks' GM:

To see how far the Hawks haven’t come during their journey from self-inflicted implosion to wherever their slew of bosses say this franchise is headed, just study the other guys Wednesday night at Philips Arena.

After doing so, you’re allowed to scream as loudly as you wish.

Those other guys are the Utah Jazz. In 2003, the year before Hawks general manager Billy Knight did the right thing by blowing up the messy roster that he inherited, the Jazz prepared to go from sweet to sour notes on the court after the retirement of John Stockton and the departure of Karl Malone. If you combine those losses to the Jazz’s stated goal of rebuilding, you had their version of Knight ousting the likes of Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Jason Terry, Boris Diaw, Antoine Walker, Rasheed Wallace, Theo Ratliff and Al Harrington.

We're OK so far...

The thing is, while the Hawks are now closer to the cellar than the penthouse of the Southeast Division with the NBA’s worst overall roster not in Philadelphia, the Jazz are roaring among the elite at 18-7. Not only that, the Jazz have a three-game lead in the Northwest and a future as bright as the Hawks’ is cloudy.

And now we've completely blown it. The Hawks' roster isn't anywhere near the bottom of the NBA. What GM in his right mind would take the Knicks' roster, laden with similar players possessing untradeable contracts, over the Hawks', which has a number of promising young players and is cheap enough that the team has flexibility to go after free agents when the opportunity arises? Or take Minnesota's roster, which has one aging superstar, one promising young player, and then a series of dreadful players. I was hoping that Minnesota could trade for Iverson because Iverson and Garnett are two players who have never had the benefit of playing with another superstar and they deserve the chance to play with one another, but the Wolves had virtually nothing that interested the Sixers.

Why the contrast? Well, here are the CliffsNotes: The Jazz get it right more often than not when it comes to drafting, and the Hawks don’t. You also have that gambling thing. The Jazz aren’t afraid to seek the big payoff at the roulette wheel (Mehmet Okur and Carlos Boozer), and Knight prefers the nickel slots (Speedy Claxton and Lorenzen Wright).

This is just unbelievably wrong. Maybe Bobby Knight is right about journalists? First of all, Knight did sign one big ticket free agent during his tenure. You might have heard of this Joe Johnson fellow, Terrence. He's currently 5th in the NBA in scoring while shooting 50% from the field. Second, Carlos Boozer was viewed as a complete bust for his first two years in Utah, when he was overpaid, could not stay healthy, and was an essentially decent power forward when he was on the court. The fact that he's having a renaissance this year does not change the fact that if Moore was in Utah, he would have killed that franchise for two years for lavishing so much money on Boozer. Third, the fact that Utah has signed two big ticket free agents who, in Terrence's make-believe world, were great signings does not change the fact that the NBA's free agent market, like baseball, consists of players who typically get far more than they're worth. Remember when Knight was killed in the press for failing to acquire Sam Dalembert, Tyson Chandler, or Eddy Curry? Right now, the Hawks get equivalent production from the much cheaper Zaza Pachulia, while the Sixers can't offload Dalembert, the Bulls have offloaded Chandler, and Curry was a massive disappointment in New York last year. (He is playing better this year.)

To be fair, the Jazz had a shot to build walls and a roof around a solid foundation named Andrei Kirilenko. It’s just that the Jazz also had the guts and the wisdom to add paneling by giving $50 million to Okur and $68 million to Boozer as free agents. Now the three comprise one of the league’s most potent frontcourts.

In contrast, the Hawks don’t have one of the league’s most potent anything. Knight is so obsessed with not overspending on players that only the Charlotte Bobcats have a lower payroll than the Hawks’ $45.6 million. Plus, the Hawks are nearly $8 million under the salary cap, which means they have the money. They just don’t like to spend it.

See above. Knight has refused to spend money on free agents who tend to be massively overpaid. The one big ticket free agent that he signed has turned out to be better than any of us had hoped. Additionally, the Hawks have the young players and cap room to sign a free agent if a good one becomes available, but even if they don't, the Hawks have an extremely young team that should get better and better as time goes by. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that approach. For example, that's how the Bulls built their team and they only went after a pricy free agent (Ben Wallace) once they had assembled a young core and it had started winning. But since Utah is in town tonight, the Bulls don't exist.

It shows. Beyond Joe Johnson, the Hawks’ only legitimate star, at least five of their 12 players are marginal by NBA standards. Royal Ivey. Matt Freije. Cedric Bozeman. Esteban Batista. Solomon Jones. The Hawks also haven’t a starting point guard (again). Instead, they use a couple of career backups in Tyronn Lue and Claxton in that role. Josh Smith remains a project, and several of his teammates are constant reminders of what the Hawks should have done in past drafts but didn’t.

Here's the bottom of the Jazz's roster; let me know if any of these names are synonymous with "good":

Rafael Araujo
Jarron Collins
Derek Fisher
C.J. Miles
Roger Powell

As for the starting point guard issue, the Hawks brought Speedy Claxton in to be that guy. He's been hurt for much of the start of the year, so writing him off seems silly. This weekend, for instance, he had 10 points and 11 assists against the Bulls and 19 points and 11 assists against Memphis. Not bad for "not a starting point guard." Finally, the criticism of Josh Smith is interesting, since Knight took him with the #17 pick and Smith has significantly out-performed his draft position so far in his career. Ironically enough, Utah had the #14 and #16 picks in that Draft and came away with Kris Humphries and Kirk Snyder. Humphries is currently averaging 2.7 points per game for Toronto; Snyder is currently averaging 5.7 points per game for Houston. Billy sure screwed that pick up.

For instance: The Hawks made Shelden Williams the fifth pick in this year’s draft, and he has yet to impress. In fact, he has yet to do anything worth mentioning. That’s opposed to Rudy Gay, just named the Rookie of the Month in the Western Conference. He was picked in the draft by the Memphis Grizzlies — you know, right after the Hawks picked Williams.

Rudy Gay - 15.2 points per 40 minutes, 6.9 rebounds per 40 minutes, .385 FG%

Shelden Williams - 10.9 points per 40 minutes, 10.3 rebounds per 40 minutes, .435 FG%

And that leaves aside the facts that: (1) the Hawks could not take Gay with their existing roster; (2) I don't recall Terrence Moore screaming for Gay on Draft Night, so this smacks of "let me figure out which rookie is off to a fast start and rip the Hawks for not drafting him; and (3) judging draft picks on the basis of their first 20 games is typically a terrible idea. At this time last year, the Jazz were getting killed in the press for taking Deron Williams instead of Chris Paul.

Then there was the 2004 draft near the start of the Hawks’ rebuilding. They took Josh Childress, which was OK, when they could have selected from among Luol Deng, Al Jefferson and Andre Iguodala, which would have been better.

Childress, by either the 82games.com model or the Wages of Wins model, is an extremely valuable player. He defends well, he rebounds, he moves without the ball, and he shoots at a very high percentage (.567 this year before he got hurt; .552 last year). The Hawks' stumble after a fast start can be attributed pretty closely to Childress's hairline fracture. If the Hawks start playing well when Childress returns, you think we'll see Terrence Moore acknowledge his mistake? I'll expect that right after he acknowledges that trading for Juan Pierre might have been a bit of a boo boo last year for the Braves.

No, I didn’t forget about 2005. I saved that draft for last. That’s when the Hawks took Marvin Williams instead of Chris Paul, the starting point guard that they still need and the former Wake Forest whiz who eventually was named Rookie of the Year for the New Orleans Hornets. Anyway, the Hawks also skipped over somebody else in that draft. We’re talking about Deron Williams, among the league’s most efficient point guards, and guess who was omniscient enough to get him?

The same team whose omniscience caused them to take Kris Humphries and Kirk Snyder in the 2004 Draft.

If you mentioned the Jazz, you may scream a little louder.

That said, the Hawks still have a chance to get it right. Come this summer, you’ll have stellar point guards Chauncey Billups and Mike Bibby as free agents. You’ll also have Vince Carter, Darko Milicic, Gerald Wallace and Rashad Lewis, all considerable talents, all available at the right price to turn the Hawks into something in the vicinity of the Jazz. Or at least farther away from resembling the Hawks.

Billups and Bibby would be interesting, but we'd have to see if they wanted to play for Atlanta. Rashard (that's with two "r"s, Terrence) Lewis would be interesting if he could play the four, but he'd likely add to the logjam at the forward spots. Still, he's an excellent player, so I wouldn't be totally opposed to signing him. Vince Carter is an inferior version of Joe Johnson: a scorer who doesn't get to the line that much, only Vince shoots a signficantly lower percentage and is also an insufferable ass. What is it about Darko's 7.5 ppg that makes him so appealing? Gerald Wallace is a small forward and no improvement over Josh Smith. He'd likely sit on the pine behind Smith, Childress, and Marvin Williams, so yeah, Terrence, that would be a great idea, just like everything else you've advanced in this totally unsupported, worst form of Monday Morning Quarterbacking that you call your livelihood.

Look, if the point is that Utah has rebuilt faster than Atlanta and we all wish that the Hawks looked like the Jazz right now, then yes, that would be reasonable. If you want to criticize Billy Knight for taking Marvin Williams over Deron Williams or Chris Paul, then that's fine too. Marvin might turn out to be a great player and that will lessen the magnitude of the mistake, but Knight still passed on a chance at two excellent players at a hard-to-fill position for an excellent (we hope) player at an easier to fill position. If the Hawks don't show improvement this year (35 wins or so) or don't make the playoffs next year, then Billy Knight will likely be fired for that mistake. (Or, the Hawks' owners could lose in Belkinkampf! Scheisse! and then Knight will be gone the next morning.)

That said, Knight has made some excellent decisions, namely: (1) identifying Joe Johnson as a free agent target and overpaying to get him; (2) drafting Josh Smith 17th in the 2004 Draft; and (3) signing Zaza Pachulia at a very reasonable price while passing on a number of free agent centers who turned out not to be worth the contracts that they signed. I'd probably add drafting Josh Childress to the list of successes, as he's really won me over. In making a limited point, Moore completely loses the plot and makes a series of one-sided arguments with little or no basis. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

The Return of Michael's Pinata

I was feeling frisky this afternoon, so I decided to click on HeismanPundit for a giggle. Lo and behold, he just can't help himself when discussing the SEC:

Some pundits like to rave about how much talent LSU has. Best in the SEC, maybe the nation, they say. I agree they have talent, but no one ever takes the next logical step to ask: If they are so talented, why do they have two losses? And why do they underperform so regularly? And Les Miles? He gets a pass, the alternative being to get yelled at--just ask Tracy Wolfson.

You're right, HP. No one ever criticizes Les Miles...except for just about every blogger who pays any attention to the SEC. Other than that, spot on, Mr. Mencken.

Fact is, LSU lost a snoozer--not a classic--to an Auburn team that has itself been blown out twice this year at home. It also lost to Florida, a team that has yet to have an impressive outing against a good opponent.

So much fun here. First of all, what difference does it make whether LSU's loss to Auburn was a snoozer or a classic? HP's somnambulent state every time he sees a defense that can tackle aside, LSU lost a road game against a quality opponent by four points. They outgained Auburn and ended the game in Auburn's red zone. What difference does it make if they lost 7-3 or 45-41...other than the fact that teams with great defenses are more likely to win the national title and thus, the game was not inconsistent with the conclusion that LSU and Auburn were legitimate national title contenders? Second, HP pretty much illustrates tautological thinking by claiming that Florida hasn't had an impressive outing against a good opponent. The only way he can prove that LSU isn't that good is by claiming that Florida doesn't have any good wins, but he has to prove that LSU isn't good in order to make that statement in the first place. Chase your tail much, pussycat?

Its two marquee wins were narrow ones against Arkansas--a team whose best passer is a tailback--and Tennessee--a team that was playing without its starting quarterback.

Uh, USC's best win was also over that Arkansas team, only they didn't play the Hogs with that aforementioned tailback at full strength. They also played Arkansas with their fourth best QB, since HP would presumably rank the Arkansas passers McFadden-Dick-Mustain-Johnson. And yes, LSU beat Tennessee with Erik Ainge sidelined, but they did manage to exceed Cal's offensive output against the Vols by over 100 yards and that didn't have anything to do with Erik Ainge's absence. Furthermore, that figure includes the garbage time yardage put up by Cal after they fell behind 35-0. (Oh, I do love bringing that game up.)

LSU athletic director Skip Bertman raved after today's game about how tough the Tiger schedule was. Four top 10 teams on the road, never been done, he said. Yada yada yada.

On Seinfeld, yada yada was a euphemism for "more than I wanted to know" details. For HP, it's a substitute for trying to argue against the incredibly obvious conclusion that a team that played four top ten teams on the road in one season actually played a difficult schedule...unless we're being tautological and have decided with no evidence that no one in the SEC is worth a damn and the conference is soon to be dominated by Urban Meyer's offense...or not.

What he doesn't mention is that the other eight games the Tigers played were at home against teams with a combined record of 37-50. So, the Tigers had a four-game season and merely had to go 2-2 on the road to ensure this 10-2 mark everyone is so impressed with now. So LSU is asking what if? Good grief, man. What if they had hadn't played eight home games, or what if they had to take on Erik Ainge at full strength?

Incidentally, one of those eight games was against Arizona, a team that beat BYU, Oregon, Washington State, and Cal. Let's play the comparative score game for fun:

LSU 45
Arizona 3

USC 20
Arizona 3

Arizona 24
Cal 20

Arizona 37
Oregon 10

So if Arizona is a crap team, then what does that say about the rest of the Pac Ten?

Oh, and one more crowning insult: HP has cited Sagarin's rankings as definitive all year because they show that the Pac Ten is the best conference in the country. For the record, I don't necessarily disagree because the Pac Ten was a lot deeper this year, as it had only one bad team while the SEC had several. If you're simply taking the average ranks of the teams in a conference, then the Pac Ten will come out ever so slightly ahead. That said, I would also argue that the SEC was a more dangerous conference for a team with national title aspirations because it had more top teams. LSU illustrates this point. Five of Sagarin's top 12 teams are from the SEC. LSU is one of those teams and they had to play the other four on the road. Sagarin has LSU at #4 in his rankings; LSU's prime conquests Arkansas and Tennessee are #8 and #9; and the two teams that beat LSU, Florida and Auburn, are #6 and #12.

And while I'm picking on Ivan...

His logic for arguing that the Auburn-Alabama rivalry is the best in college football is pretty weak. He argues that because Michigan and Ohio State aren't in the same state, their fans don't have as much interaction with one another, so it doesn't have the same emotional impact that Auburn/Alabama does. He's mostly right about that, although there is a significant overlap of fans in northern Ohio. Also, Michigan and Ohio State grads tend to spread out around the country, which means that there are plenty of Michigan and Ohio State grads in offices to fight with one another after Saturday. (Actually, since Michigan grads tend to scatter all over the country, but Ohio State grads do not, the dynamic is typically Michigan grads and native Ohioans who went to another school. OK, I'm speaking from personal experience here with a limited sample size, so take my statement with a grain of salt.)

Anyway, overlap of fans is certainly a factor for a rivalry, but it's not the only one. "Big stakes" would have to be part of the equation and Michigan-Ohio State has it all over Auburn-Alabama. Let's look at the games in the past decade that had an impact on the national title race:

Michigan-Ohio State

2003 - Michigan win prevents Ohio State from being in position to make the BCS Title Game.

2002 - Ohio State win sends the Buckeyes to the Title Game.

1998 - Ohio State win keeps the Buckeyes among the one-loss teams in contention for the Title Game.

1997 - Michigan win sends the Wolverines to Pasadena as the #1 team in the rankings.

1996 - Michigan win denies Ohio State a shot at the national title, opening the door for Florida. (Orson, you're welcome.)

Auburn/Alabama

2004 - Auburn win keeps the Tigers in contention for the Title Game.

That's it. If you open up the sample size to include the '92 and '94 Auburn-Alabama games, then the rivalry has a little more oomph, but that increase in sample size also brings in the '93 and '95 Michigan-Ohio State games, both of which were Michigan wins that deprived unbeaten Ohio State teams of shots at the national title.

Having grown up in the South and attended Michigan for four years, I can say with some experience that the level of intensity for Auburn-Alabama is higher than the level of intensity for Michigan-Ohio State. There is a religious quality to that rivalry that makes it unique. Maisel is right to point out that there are factors that make Auburn-Alabama a greater rivalry. However, what he ends up doing is he simply takes one factor - frequent contact between the fan bases - and elevates it over every other factor that matters to a rivalry. Using his rationale, Celtic-Rangers is the biggest rivalry in European football, since the fan bases share Glasgow and they hate each other with a passion that's probably unrivaled in Europe (and that says something). Most Europeans, though, would point out that Celtic and Rangers rarely make a major impact outside of Scotland and therefore, rivalries like Juve-Milan, Real-Barca, or Liverpool-Manchester United are better because they are contested by true titans. Auburn and Alabama are not quite Celtic and Rangers, but they aren't quite Juve and Milan, either. They're #9 and #22 in winning percentage over the past 20 years; #21 and #39 over the past 10 years.

In short, I'm happy that one prominent writer has pointed out this week that there are rivalries other than Michigan-Ohio State and that these rivalries could, gasp, be just as great, if not greater. I just wish that Maisel would have been a little more persuasive in making the argument. In his defense, the "For Argument's Sake" format doesn't exactly lend itself to a factor-by-factor analysis.

Ivan Maisel as Soviet Historian

I generally like Ivan Maisel's work (and not just because he e-mailed me during my PigskinPost.com days to say that he really liked the column I wrote after Alabama's sanctions were announced). He's a good writer and his takes on college football are typically well thought out and well argued. That said, he has soft spots and the most prominent one is that he comes close to Vitale-ish levels of defending coaches even when they're clearly in the wrong. As if on cue, as Florida State plummeted to last place in the profoundly underwhelming ACC Atlantic several weeks ago, Maisel wrote stepped in to inform Florida State's boosters that they have no grounds to be upset that their once-great coach is taking the program straight to the toilet. (Click on the "Soapbox Moment" tab for his discussion of Florida State.) Here's what he wrote regarding their wretched offense:

The bottom has not fallen out. The Seminoles are 4-3 despite an incredible rash of injuries. There are noninjury issues, sure. Sophomore quarterback Drew Weatherford hasn't progressed as quickly as expected. The offensive line is young and thinly talented.

Most Florida State fans would give anything to see Bowden replace his offensive coordinator. But Bowden has made it clear that his son, offensive coordinator Jeff Bowden, isn't going anywhere. Hasn't Bowden put enough good will in the bank at Florida State to allow him to draw on it?

I read Maisel to be making two arguments here: (1) Florida State has been unlucky with injuries and has some personnel issues; and (2) Bobby Bowden should be allowed to retain his son because of accumulated goodwill. Maisel doesn't explicitly defend Jeff Bowden, as he has more sense than to defend the indefensible, but he does imply that the offensive problems are not Jeff's fault. Maisel explicitly says that the boosters who are paying thousands of dollars every year to Florida State's athletic program have no right to expect Bobby Bowden to remove the anchor around the program's neck (or at least one of the anchors).

Anyway, here is Maisel after Jeff Bowden's resignation: "It has been obvious to everyone but the Florida State head coach that he needed a change at the top of his offense." Really? It sure wasn't obvious to you three weeks ago, was it? You were busy making excuses for Bobby Bowden and claiming that he has the right to make decisions against the interests of the program that compensates him in the seven-figure range. Your new perspective reminds me of Rush Limbaugh defending the Republican Congress for years as they betrayed just about every core conservative value and then announcing after Election Day that he was happy to no longer have to carry water for those who don't deserve it, i.e. make arguments that he did not believe were right.

And then Maisel pulls out the violin for a closing flourish: "Jeff Bowden has moved on, effective end of the season. We will watch closely to see how long it takes Bobby Bowden to move on from this heartbreak." Gee, Ivan, do you think that Bobby might have avoided this "heartbreak" by not employing his incompetent son in a critical and high-profile position? Didn't Bobby set himself up for this failure?