Nobrainer’s Think Tank

College football just doesn’t need a championship. Clearcut, easy-to-determine championships aren’t bad — most people like them — but the constant debate behind today’s so-called championship is far more valuable to the sport than having any kind of true, undisputed champion. In that sense, the BCS is the perfect solution. It kinda makes a champion which kinda pleases a lot of people, but the process is so open for debate that people are prone to spending far too much time, well, debating it.

So I’m going to contribute to the greatness of NCAA DIA football by putting my 2 cents on the table.

As if we were not aware already, human polls are crocks-o-crap. As a detractor, I’ve said it for years. The proponents love it because they can subjectively change rankings for no really good reason. Which is also why I am a detractor. And this weeks’ polls are perfect examples.

In all the polls — USA Today, AP, and Harris — Michigan was ranked ahead of Florida from Week 8 onward. That continued even after Michigan was handed a 3 point loss by #1 Ohio State in week 13. And that seemed fine with everyone because it looked like USC was headed to play Ohio State in the “national championship” game.

But then, then, USC unexpectedly lost.

And the OSU-Michigan re-match was on!

Or at least the re-match was on until the voters realized it and decided they just didn’t want a re-match. I don’t personally want to see a re-match, but it’s pretty dadgum clear that the voters voted on a matchup and not on rankings. Out was voting on who deserved to be #2. They voted on who they felt deserved to play Ohio State.

Ri-fucking-diculous.

On another note about the whole debate, is the issue of strength of schedule. My problem is that most people use NCAA “toughest schedule” (.pdf) The NCAA ranking is based solely on opponent wins and losses.

That bothers me because people who use it are basically saying that it is not enough to judge just by record. But they unblinkingly go on to use the NCAA ranking… which is based on just records. I take this as further proof that the talking heads — much like politicians — are happy to cherry pick data for the sake of making themselves seem important.

In 2 weeks I’ve been on 3 trips, in 5 cities, and covered about 2,000 miles in my car. I’ve slept in 6 beds and on one floor. I estimate I’ve gained 5 pounds. In other news:

• Comcast/Adelphia has yet to resolve last week’s problem.
• O’Neill’s Irish pub was understaffed today with people who didn’t know how to change the channels on the television. The waitress told us she didn’t own a TV, never watched TV, and that she didn’t know how to operate a TV. I also noticed that she doesn’t know what Guinness is.
• It was cool that Comcast Sports picked up the FSN broadcast of the Oregon/Oregon State game. It wasn’t cool that when the game went long they cut the game to 5% of the screen and cut the audio in favor of hockey.

‘Tis the season to be Merry.

Fuck them all.

I was looking over some football stats, trying to determine which ACC school has the greatest home field advantage. Based on my reasoning, UVA enjoys that position.

For ACC teams with their current head coaches, I compared winning percentages at home and on the road both for all games and just for league games. And under Coach Groh, the Cavs are more than twice as likely to win at home as on the road. That means that Scott Stadium is truly one of the underappreciated home fields, or Al Groh is extremely bad at motivating his tropps on the road.

From Sunday Morning Quarterback about the graduation rates of colleges athletes:

In other words, be as demographically stereotypical as possible: rich Northerners succeed, Southerners - especially black Southerners - do not, and still it’s a wash because Yankee weather sucks and private school chicks are ogres.

Holy cow! What a weekend!

In accordance with prophesy, I spent the majority of my Saturday parked in my living room in front of two TVs (Friday night I gave serious consideration to buying a third.)

Starting with the most important game of the day, Clemson upset #9 ranked FSU. This was a game that the pundits had circled months ago. It was dramatic and it has far reaching impacts in the quest for ACC and national championships.

The quote from one of the announcers really sums up the first half for Clemson. “Well it’s a strange way to get to 14.”

Clemson scored a touchdown only to have the extra point blocked and returned for a 2 point safety. Clemson 6, FSU 2.

Clemson drove again, settling for a field goal attempt. It was blocked and returned for 6, + the PAT. Clemson 6, FSU 9.

Apparently the Clemson placekicking and FSU offense were somewhere else during the first half.

Clemson drove for another touchdown, this time opting to go for the 2 point conversion. Clemson 14, FSU 9.

More after the half:

(more…)

Fortunately I am not moving. Nor is this blog. Nope the other one has and it has been a pain. in. my. butt.

Our Clemson sports blog, The Sporting Gnomes now resides on its own server at sportinggnomes.com. It would have been moved to thesportinggnomes.com, but a day after I looked to see if it was available, someone registered it. Those dirty rats! And unlike Jeremy, we weren’t propositioned by AOL to blog for them.

For the time being, it is still published through blogger (which still causes me great pain) even though we’ll be transitioning to Wordpress soon enough. Basically I just need the time to properly set up a good theme. (And yes I know it looks like crap in Internet Explorer. Blame Canada, and then blame Microsoft.)