Radioactive Communist Zombies

A BCS Playoff System?

I hate the BCS (Bowl Championship Series).  I think every college football fan pretty much loathes it.  One thing I hate about it is I don't understand it.  Something like it takes the ratings from the polls, combines it with some computer algorithm, the phase of the Moon, and what the tea leaves read and comes up with a top two teams who play a bowl game for the National Championship.

So, I'm pretty much excited by rumors of its demise.  Unfortunately, what is being proposed isn't much better.  According to Dan Wetzel at Yahoo! Sports, athletic directors are leaning toward a four-team play off which would be three games.  The advantage is two of those games could be in the "big" bowls and the Rose Bowl could stay Pac-12/Big 10 which is important for some reason.

But this still has all the problems of the BCS in how do you choose the four teams?  Would it still eliminate, for instance, an undefeated Boise State?

I've got a better system.  I don't know how many bowl games there are right now but I bet there's at least 20.  If you can't work this into the bowls we have now, there's something wrong.

There's twelve conferences (counting the independents as one conference).  Take the conference champions and rank them based on the AP poll (if there's one that's not ranked, put them at the bottom.  If there's more than one unranked, put them all at the bottom).  Take the bottom 10 teams and like they do in the NCAA basketball tournament and match them up: #3 with #10, #4 with #9, etc.  Play those five games in five bowls.  You now have five teams.  Bring in #2.  Again, put the highest rank teams with the lowest ranked teams.  That's three games in three bowls (we're up to 8) and three winners.  Bring in #1.  You're down to a football Final Four.  Play two games on New Years Day in two "big" bowls (maybe rotate the games through the bowls that want them, or make them bid for them, putting more cash in the hands of the winning teams).  Then on the second Saturday of the year, play the national championship game in a nice warm location.  That's a total of 11 games to pick a champion, all of them can be bowl games except for the championship

Now the weakness I see with this system is the rankings because people are still going to complain that Boise State didn't get a fair shot (even though they get a chance to prove themselves against other conference champions).  And the #2 team has a big advantage and the #1 team has a huge advantage perhaps making the AP poll have more clout than it should.  Also, your big teams won't be playing your early games which might hurt TV ratings.  Maybe if you picked the teams getting the byes at random.  But then you might get some horrible team in the final four.

So it's not perfect.  The other option is to pick four wildcards so you have 16 teams to start with.  But how do you pick those four?  Again, maybe the AP Poll (the four highest rank teams that aren't conference champions).  And some people might bitch about Notre Dame is almost always going to be in the playoffs because the other independents are generally lousy (it'll come down to them or BYU) and there's only four teams in that "conference" anyway.

But that's my idea.  And I think it's better than a BCS final four.  The more teams that get to participate, the better.

And maybe that will shut up those Boise State fans.

Guess I'd Better Talk About the Huskies

I was predicting with fairly good confidence an 8-4 regular season for the University of Washington Huskies.  But they lost a game they should have won to Oregon State.  In their defense, they played most of the game with back-up quarterback Nick Montana (son of Joe Montana) and he just wasn't prepared.

So now the best the Huskies can hope for is 7-5, assuming they win this week's Apple Cup cross-state rivalry with the Wazzu Cougars.  That's still (slightly) better than last year's 6-6. better than 2009's 5-7, and a vast improvement over 2008's 0-12.

Once again the Huskies show they don't have much depth and rely too much on stars.  It used to be quarterback Jake Locker but now running back Chris Polk is almost carrying the team.  Quarterback Keith Price is improving and doing well, but without Polk the team would be in much worse shape.  Coach Sarkisian has worked miracles and is recruiting well, considering this is a team that's hardly seen a bowl game since the early naughts (what are we going to call the last decade?).

And, the Apple Cup is being shown on a channel I don't get (Versus).  So I either have to upgrade my satelitte package ($$$) or listen to it on the radio (please).

Let's hope the Dawgs can win.

I still Say Huskies 8-4

Okay, I guess it's time to discuss the University of Washington football program, that is, the Huskies. Earlier in the season I predicted an 8-4 season which would then get them into a bowl that I hope they will win, for a 9-4 season (or 8-5 at the worst). This would be a great improvement over last years 7-6, 2009's 5-7 and a vast improvement on 2008's 0-12. New (well, since 2009) coach Steve Sarkisian has worked miracles taking a team from win-less to a bowl in two seasons. That's the good news. We have a great new quarterback in Keith Price who replaced the irreplaceable (it seemed) Jake Locker. If Price can just stay healthy.

The bad news is, this year, the Huskies are 0-4 against ranked teams (despite being briefly ranked). Sure, they are 6-0 against unranked teams. But to really compete, they are going to have to beat ranked teams. Again, this turn around is amazing. But there is more work to do. We are already bowl eligible (and have been since week 9). We face two more unranked teams (Oregon State and Washington State). Washington State beat Arizona State Saturday which indicates they are not going to be a pushover in the Apple Cup (the annual cross-state rivalry game).

But Washington is looking good despite losing two-in-a-row. I was kind of hoping they pull a threepeat and upset USC again. But no luck. And they've had some tough opponents in Stanford, Oregon, and Nebraska. But they've lost horribly to all of them.

I still say 8-4. But they have to win their last two games, including the Apple Cup. Go Dawgs!

Huskies are Ranked!

I haven't blogged at all this year (so far) about the University of Washington Huskies.  Maybe I didn't want to jinx what is so far their best start in ten years at 5-1.  But today came the news that the Huskies are ranked at #22 in the AP poll (24 in the USA Today Poll and 25 is something called "Harris Interactive").  The Huskies were briefly ranked in 2009 after beating #3 USC but then went on to lose dismally to Stanford and haven't been ranked since.

But now at 5-1 (3-0 in conference) the Huskies are having their best year in a long long time.  One more win and they'll be bowl eligible.  I hope it's not a bad omen that next week they play Stanford.  Stanford's going to be tough; they are currently ranked #7.  But the Huskies have done nothing but improve as this season has gone on.  I'm thinking we are looked at, at worse, an 8-4 season.

And rising star quarterback Keith Price is only a Sophomore!

Baseball Playoffs Are On

The interminable baseball season is finally over (the Seattle Mariners mathematically eliminated ages ago).

Now we just have to suffer through another month of post-season play.  At least this year it's not running into November.  But there will be somewhere between 28 and 41 games played to determine the World Series champion (not that I want more baseball but how can they call it the "World Series" when it only involves teams in North America?).  You know, it almost always comes down to that last game so why don't they play that game first.  We could be done with this whole thing in seven games and that could take eight or nine days.

Baseball comes from a simpler time in America, when people wanted hundreds of games to watch because there was no television, no internet, radio was barely relevant.  A man could spend a leisurely four hours watching men run and spit.  It sure beat what was on the Liberty Radio Network.

I don't know how TV ratings are for all these endless baseball games.  I guess if the market demands them, I shouldn't complain.  But I still will.  Oh well, that blessed time between the end of the World Series and the beginning of "Spring Training" (which starts about mid-winter) is almost upon us.  Then if I want to see people spit on television (and believe me, I don't), I'll be plumb out of luck.  Well, except maybe if I watch Keith Obermann.

Rednecks Turning Left

People ask why I don't like NASCAR.  And I reply, "It's just rednecks turning left."  So when I saw today's Bizarro cartoon, I had to laugh and share.

Huskies are Bowl Eligible

Since I was travelling last night I DVRed the Apple Cup: the annual cross-state rivalry game between UW (a/k/a/ U-Dub) Huskies (a/k/a The Dawgs) and WSU (a/k/a CowTech) Cougars (a/k/a The Cougs).  I was trying to avoid hearing or seeing anything about the game but I swear a guy in the parking shuttle said the score was 16-0 Huskies at half-time.  It wasn't true.

Anyway, going into the game Washington needed one more win to be bowl eligible after beating UCLA at home and Cal in Berkley.  Now they just needed to overcome the Cougars in Pullman on a chilly night.  The Apple Cup has a history of upsets with favored teams losing and dark horse teams being victorious.  For example, one year the Huskies were national champions and the Cougars chumps.  But in a snowy game in Pullman, the Cougars managed to win.  So you never go into the Apple Cup with any certainty (except maybe in 2008 when it was certain the Huskies were going to go 0-12).

After getting home late from driving from the Seattle airport, I watched the Apple Cup.  It was an exciting game.  The Cougars never led but the outcome wasn't certain until a late touchdown by Washington sealed the deal. 

Apparently the Huskies will be playing in the Holiday Bowl in San Diego playing a Big 12 team.  Which could be a challenge.  But it's great that after going 0-12 in 2008 the team has in two years gotten to a bowl.  And it's great that quarterback Jake Locker who gave up millions of dollars by not going to the NFL last year came back and took his team to a bowl.

Next year's going to be strange without Jake Locker (he's played since being a true freshman).  But it looks as if my beloved Huskies are on the rise.

UPDATE: It's confirmed, the Huskies will be playing in the Holiday Bowl against Nebraska, to whom the Huskies lost horribly early in the season (56-21).

Huskies Beat Cal

In order to keep their hopes of going to a bowl game for the first time since 2002 (yes, amazing, isn't it) the University of Washington Huskies needed to win their last three games.  And both the fans and the team want to send Jake Locker off on a high note and a bowl game would do just that.

So far, they've won two of those three games, beating UCLA last week and yesterday squeaking by California in the last play of the game yesterday.

The first half of the game was almost scoreless until Cal got a very long field goal in the last moments of the half.   But the second half was very exciting as the Huskies won on the last play of the game as time ran out.

According to Steve Kelly in the Seattle Times:

With Oregon and Stanford headed to BCS bowls, the Huskies, if they can win Saturday's Apple Cup (certainly no gimme), have a chance to play in the Holiday or Sun Bowl. That would give this ascendant program visibility it hasn't had in almost a decade.

 And if they could win a bowl game, that would be a great send-off for Jake Locker and a cap on a program that two years ago went win-less.

So on to the Apple Cup against Washington State University Cougars in cold Pullman.  Let's hope it doesn't snow during the game.

Huskies Beat UCLA

The reason there's been no blogging so far tonight is because the University of Washington Huskies were playing UCLA at 5:00 P.M. so I set it up to record on the DVR and came home from work and started watching the game.  I didn't have high hopes for this game after the dismal performance of the Huskies lately (big loss to Oregon; shut out by Stanford).  And the game started out pretty badly with UCLA scoring a touchdown pretty easily against seeming no opposition and the Huskies unable to even get a first down.  But UCLA's run game stopped working and UW's run game started working and a couple of turn-overs by the Bruins and the Huskies won, 24-7.

If the Huskies can beat California and the WSU Cougars, they will be bowl eligible.  And that would be the first time in a long time.  And a fitting end to Jake Locker's college career. 

Not Been a Good Year for Husky Fans

At the beginning of the college football season, things were looking up for the Washington Huskies.  Jake Locker decided to forgo millions of dollars and stay for his senior year as quarterback.  He was even a lead contender for the Heisman Trophy.

But now with four games left, us Husky fans are hoping to repeat last year's rather dismal 5-7 record.  At least last year some of the losses were heartbreakingly close: Notre Dame and UCLA games especially.  But this year, despite some impressive wins (USC, Oregon State) there have been too many decisive losses: Nebraska (56-21) and last night's loss to Stanford (41-0).  To have a hope at a bowl game the Huskies have to win 3 of their last four games.  But opponents include #1 Oregon (next week) and UCLA and California.  The only game that looks like the Huskies have a good shot of winning is the Apple Cup against Washington State.

Jake Locker has been inconsistent (and roughed up) and the Husky defense has been consistent only in its mediocrity.  Coach Sarkisian has done great things with a team that went 0-12 in 2008.  But I was hoping the improvements would continue.

And next year we won't have Locker.