The Sports Rumors

Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself

Wow. It has been over a week since I have gotten the chance to post. Been extremely busy with work and some social events but fear not; I’m back. A lot has happened since the last time we spoke. Dallas and Green Bay showed that they are the class of the NFC and will square off in the coming week. LSU learned how to pronounce ARKANSAS; mainly because Darren McFadden gave them a lesson that they won’t soon forget. Missouri is number one in the nation?! Virginia Tech kicked Virginia in the teeth and taught them not to talk badly about their superiors. The Washington Redskins found a way to outgain an opponent by almost 300 yards, in one half, and still lose. Devin Hester is the greatest return man in NFL history. Frank Caliendo is great at doing impressions, but his show is a flop.

Let’s talk college football. The BCS Rankings were announced and they were as follows:

1. Missouri
2. West Virginia
3. Ohio State
4. Georgia
5. Kansas
6. Virginia Tech
7. LSU
8. USC
9. Oklahoma
10. Florida

I can’t argue with that. The only change I’d make is have Kansas behind VT and LSU. But I can also understand them being where they’re at. This has been a crazy season but when it’s all said and done, West Virginia is going to play Ohio State, and beat Ohio State. The final rankings will look something like:

1. West Virginia
2. Ohio State
3. Georgia
4. Virginia Tech
5. LSU

I will say this though. College football is in dire need of a playoff system because it is ridiculous to think of West Virginia as potential national champions. I can’t accept a team that got punished by South Florida, who’s ranked in the upper teens somewhere, as college football’s best team. I just can’t. It’s looking like the title game is going to be WVU vs. Ohio State and to be honest, brutally honest, I won’t view either one of them as the best team regardless of who wins. In an eight team playoff system, with the current seedings, WVU wouldn’t get out of the first freaking round. Now I know that the BCS isn’t going away because it makes more money. I realize that, and I’m not going to write a 10 page paper on the benefits of a playoff. However, I can’t sit here and say that WVU or Ohio State is the best team in the nation when in fact I know that if you throw the top 8 teams in the mix for a two round playoff concluding with a championship game, LSU or Georgia would have the best shot at winning. A playoff would look something like this:

Round 1                           Round 2                      Championship

USC @ Missouri              LSU @ Missouri            LSU @ Georgia

LSU @ WVU                   Georgia @ Ohio State

VT @ Ohio State

Kansas @ Georgia

Also, it is ludicrous that some conferences have championship games while others don’t. How the hell that was decided is beyond me. College football is light years behind college basketball and all professional sports when it comes to scheduling and common sense.

I’m not going into too much depth today about the NFL weekend, mainly because yesterday lacked star power and interest. However, I want to show you something Don Banks from SI posted.

Down 19-10 with 2:10 remaining in the third quarter, Gibbs bypassed a chip shot field goal to go for it on fourth-and-1 from the Bucs’ 4. Clinton Portis got stuffed for no gain on the play, and Washington could have used those three points when Jason Campbell was intercepted in the end zone by Brian Kelly with 17 seconds to go in the 19-13 Redskins loss.

If the Skins had taken the field goal earlier, they would have been in position to tie the game at 19-19 and force overtime later. The play that Campbell was picked off on was a second-and-10 from the Bucs’ 16 — putting Washington easily within Shaun Suisham’s range.

If you are going to submit analysis for games, do your audience a favor and watch the entire game; not snippets from Sportscenter or the FOX halftime show. And don’t do the hypothesis style “If the Skins had taken the field goal earlier…then they would have been in position” crap. What are you, a twelve year old science student? Yeah, obviously IF the Redskins played perfectly all season, THEN they would be undefeated. That doesn’t mean jack and neither does your god awful analysis. Had Banks followed the basic rule of objective journalism (watch the game you’re going to comment on), he would have known that Washington was dominating that entire drive; moving the ball at will. The Redskins had the Bucs guessing between pass and run, and were successful at doing both. They came out of halftime with a lot of steam after a dismal first half. To stop that drive and kick a field goal when all the momentum is in your favor, and while Bucs defensive players are visibly exhausted, would not be good coaching. Yes, looking back, you would have had three points and things might have been different. But at that juncture in the game, it made the most sense to continue to move the ball and try for a conversion on fourth down. A touchdown on that drive would have sent the Bucs much more into a panic than a measily field goal would have. So to Don Banks, and all the other jackasses who think they are great analysts because they write up a paragraph after watching one or two highlights narrated by Terry Bradshaw, learn to see the big picture and how things work in the scheme of things before you open your mouths. I don’t call out coaches and their decisions for games that I don’t watch. Neither should you.

And since today is Monday, a rainy one at that, and I am in a rainy Monday mood, I am going to take this time to launch a new page on this site. It will be dubbed, The Jackass Den. Each time I feel someone does or says something that warrants me calling them a jackass, I will add them to the list. Don Banks will be the first on the list and believe me, there will be many more. Look for that page a little later. Enjoy the power rankings, and look for much more from me this week.