What's Going on in College Football - 11/14

I haven't updated in a while, because honestly, I don't like writing negative things, and UofL has had a pretty bad season. But here are some other happenings and observations.

• Cincinnati has had a couple close games recently. One against UConn last Saturday night, and then one Friday night against West Virginia. After the UConn game, they fell in the rankings. While TCU and Boise State had bigger margin of victories, their competition wasn't all that greater. I also believe that a USC or Ohio State would not have been punished for a close victory. I distinctly remember Ohio State having many close games against inferior competition on their championship run during the 2002 season. Of course, if Florida and Texas wins out, it doesn't matter if Cincinnati, TCU or Boise State finishes undefeated.
  

• Speaking of the BCS, I am tired of hearing the complaints. I like the bowl games. Winning a bowl game allows for a nice celebration at the end of the season that does not exist in a playoff format unless you win the championship. When you lose a playoff game, it feels bad regardless of when it occurred. Winning a bowl game is an enjoyable experience that allows for an enjoyable time afterwards.

• It would appear that USC's loss to Washington was not a fluke, and the win against Ohio State was. USC has now loss handily to Oregon and Stanford. What's particularly surprising about those two losses was that it was the defense that gave up the games. Coming into the season, the question was the quarterback, and those fears seemed to be true in the loss to Washington, but now USC is giving up more points than I have ever seen them give up.
  

• Notre Dame may lose the last four games of the season and finish 6-6. This will certainly make the extension they game Weiss a few years ago as a reward for doing nothing really look foolish. Currently, Notre Dame is 6-4, having just lost games to Navy and Pitt. Remaining on the schedule is UConn, who is playing everyone close, and Stanford, who just beat up on USC.

• In Louisville related news, they did finally win their first Big East game today, beating Syracuse. It's nice to know they aren't the worse team in the league. Although, it should be noted that this was an ugly, painful game to watch. Both teams are that bad. Tied 3-3, Syracuse scored a touchdown and missed the extra point. This allowed Louisville to win the game on the extra point when they finally scored a touchdown. It should also be noted that both touchdowns came in the fourth quarter. Now, I don't follow the belief that the score is a true justification of the quality of the game, but trust me, this one was ugly. Kragthorpe is gone. Monday after the season, it will be announced. No, I have nothing official like other people claim, just common sense. Jurich has to fire him. attendance is poor, and the expansion is opening next season. It just doesn't make sense to fire him during the season. It's not going to improve things. An interim coach is pointless.
  

UofL vs. Indiana State -- 9/5/09

In Kragthorpe's first season, the offense was able to keep the team in most games, but the defense was not able to stop anyone. (There was also this thing about a UConn punt returner running a punt back for a touchdown after signaling for a fair catch.) In his second season, the defense kept the game close, while the offense couldn't score. What's in store for this season? It's difficult to say. A game against a 1-AA school, excuse me, a Football Championship Series, will not really show you what your team can do. It will show things to be worried about.

1. Penalties. UofL committed 14 penalties tonight. That is way too many penalties to be committing in any game, even the first one of the season. The more acceptable range would be 5-7. If they continue to play in the 10+ range, then this is going to be a very, very long season, with very few wins.
2. Kicking game. UofL's place kicking was an issue all last year. While Payne was able to make 3 of 4 field goals, his kick-offs were fairly short. This field position disadvantage will wear on the defense, and good offenses don't need any help.
3. Burke's decision making. While his first interception was an errant pass in his wild first quarter, his second interception was a stupid mistake, and worries me about his instincts as a quarterback. With 6 seconds left, there is time for one quick pass into the the end zone. If that pass is not there, throw the ball out the back of the end zone quickly so you can then kick a field goal. Burke's instinct was to scramble and then try to dump the ball off with his left hand. That type of decision-making and game management worries me.
4. Burke's arm. His deep passes need a lot of work. Once he settled down, he became fairly accurate with his shorter passes, but his deep passes were still off. I pin this on Burke because the receivers were open downfield, often wide open. If he can't stretch out the defense, then that is going to make life rough on the running backs, which are the highlight of the offense.

Kentucky is in two weeks, and that is when we'll be able to see more clearly how the rest of the season is going to progress. Right now, I'll admit I'm not very hopeful. But right now, UofL did win tonight, and a win is a win. Better to be 1-0 than 0-1. Just ask Oklahoma who just saw their national championship hopes take a major hit after losing their starting quarterback, and get upset by BYU.

The Pitino Thing--My Two Cents Worth

For those of you that do not know what is going with the Rick Pitino/Karen Sypher scandal, quit living under a rock, and Google it. I am a blogger, not a journalist. Now, here is my opinion on the matter.

First, let's start with the actual act, sex in a restaurant. I agree with the police that this was likely not rape. But the fact remains that there was still sex at a place where people eat. That is just gross. I will not be eating at this place. Well, if I could afford it, I would choose not to eat here. While sex between two adults is not a big deal, Pitino is married. And to some people, adultery is a big deal. Okay, to most people, it's a big deal. But is it an issue to lose your job for? Well, that depends on who you are, and how good you are at your job. Pitino is coming off his first Big East championship, and back-to-back Elite Eight appearances. Yes, there is a "morality clause" in his contract that says the university may fire him for actions that are detrimental to the university. But honestly, you are a fool if you think that this clause is really there to fire people because of scandals. These clauses are there to provide an easy out for the university if they feel the need to fire the coach before their contract expires. The university can find conduct that is detrimental, and fire him without having to buyout his contract. As I mentioned earlier, Pitino is coming off a couple good seasons. Winning coaches don't get fired. Now, if this was Kragthorpe, the university would have thrown a party, and kicked him quickly to the curb.

Another issue at hand is whether or not Pitino paid Sypher to have an abortion. Right now some groups are protesting the university, and it'll likely come up again when UofL plays at Notre Dame. Here, I could just copy and paste my reasons Pitino won't get fired from this. Winning coaches don't get fired for non-NCAA scandals.

So, do I think Pitino should be fired? No, not really. I'm not one that thinks a person should be fired for non-job related issues if it is not effecting their job performance. Kind of like random drug tests at work. If you're a good employee, it shouldn't matter to the employer. I do hear some say that this will discourage parents from letting their kids play for Pitino, but this is naive. Good players are drawn to winning program. They want to go to someone that can get them to the NBA, and Pitino has shown he can do that. A sex scandal is not going to change that. So , long as Pitino keeps winning, and stays out of any NCAA trouble, he will remain with UofL for as long as he wants to.

Hat Trick - 2/7/09

1) The way NHL hands down suspensions confounds me. One person gets a 1 game suspension for leaving the bench to join in on a fight, someone gets a 2 game suspension for fighting, someone gets a fine for hitting someone in the head with a stick, and yet someone else gets 6 games for saying some players are getting his sloppy seconds because they are dating his. Now, I am fairly new to really following hockey, so my memory is shaky as to who did what, with the exception of the last person, but I wanted to be consistent.

2) Both of my rooting interests in hockey, Columbus ("local") and Pittsburgh (first NHL time I discovered) are currently on the outside of the playoff picture, but not by much. I find the Pittsburgh situation confusing, in that they have the top two scorers in the NHL, but still have trouble scoring goals consistently. (For better coverage of Pittsburgh, go to Pensburgh.) With the March 4 trade deadline a few weeks away, I will be keeping track of who is buying, and who is selling.

3) The Las Vegas Wranglers, an AHL team, had quite possibly the greatest promotion ever on Wednesday night, Blagojevich night. In recognition of governor, everyone involved in the game wore prison uniforms. The home team had the black stripe jerseys, the away team wore solid orange jerseys, and the officials wore prison guard uniforms. This is probably my favorite quote about the story, taken from channel KTNV's website. "Over the years we've asked our players to not look so tough for a cause," Johnson said. "Once they had a lot of chirping from opposing players when we've dressed them in pink for cancer research. We owe them a game of looking a little more sketchy. G-Rod helps us with that." Below are pictures of the uniforms.

3-Pointer

1) I have two words of advice of UofL fans, don't panic. Sure UConn came in on Monday night and absolutely destroyed UofL in Freedom Hall. Sure, no one besides T-Will could do anything in that game, but remember, it was just one game. Bad nights happen. Now, if UofL loses at St. John's, at Notre Dame, and against DePaul, then you can start panicing.

2) On Wednesday, IU beat Iowa 68-60 to gain their first Big Ten win of the season (6-15, 1-8). To say that Tom Crean has had a rough first season at IU would be an understatement, but this has not been unexpected. When Crean came into the program during the offseason, he did quite a bit of house cleaning. After the Mike Davis firing, and the Kelvin Sampson debacle, the program was in an awful predicament. However, I do have confidence that Crean will be able to restore IU to the type of program it used to be, and more importantly, I believe that the President and AD at IU understand the problem, and will give Crean time to do the job.

3) On Wednesday, LeBron James had a triple-double (52 points, 11 assits, 10 rebounds) against the Knicks in Madison Square Garden, following up on Kobe's record setting 61 points earlier in the week. Well, correction, no he didn't. On Friday, NBA officials took away one of his rebounds, and said that it should have gone to Ben Wallace. Stupid staticticians and their stupid counting.

Strikeout - 1/29/09

In attempt to motivate myself to update more, I am going to try to implement a new column series. Since I rarely have the time to write a long piece, these will be a series of 3 quick points regarding a particular sport, and will be titled as such. Baseball = Strikeout, football = 3 Point Stance, hockey = Hat Trick, and basketball = 3 Pointer.

1. Now, I have never been a big supporter of a salary cap in baseball, but during this off-season, the New York Yankees are making me believe something needs to be done. So far, they have spent over $441 million on free agents. The second place buyer is the Cubs at slightly over $87 million. The total expenditure of the other 29 teams is $557.2 million, with the mean being $19.2 million, and the median (#15 on the list) $11.55 million. To me, this represents a problem. While I still do not favor an overall salary cap (although I am leaning more in that direction every year), I do not think a cap on free agency expenditure is not unreasonable. Maybe set a per year limit so teams have to build gradually, or a 2-3 year average mark that forces teams to choose whether they want a slow build, or throw all of their eggs into one basket.

2. The Reds have not done a lot in the free agent market, but I do like the moves they have made. I think signing Willy Taveras was a good move. It gives them a decent lead-off hitter and fills an unsure centerfield. If he can have a season somewhere between his very good 2007 season and his poor 2008 season, the Reds will be in good shape.

3. It sucks that Detroit plays at St. Louis instead of at Cincinnati. Maybe I will be able to convince my Tigers fan friend to go to a game against the Indians or Royals so he can boo those division foes.

UofL vs UK, Basketball

UofL won this game 74-71, on a 30-foot 3-point shot by Edgar Sosa with 2.8 seconds remaining. The game was tied at 71 with 16 seconds left, after UofL gave up a 4 point lead on two Earl Clark turnovers. Meeks and Patterson had wonderful games for Kentucky. Any success UK is to see this season will hinge on the performance of these two players.

With UofL, the key to playing well is emotion. Specifically, the players emotional state of mind. Sosa is a great example of this. He's been in a slide ever since he missed what would have been the game-winning shot against Texas A&M in the 2007 NCAA Tournament. Overall, his confidence was shaken, and he plays better if he is confident in what he is doing. He will have a good game if he can hit an early shot. If he does not, then usually he will have a bad game. Hopefully, this game-winning shot will last in his mind a while.

But Sosa is not the only player who's performance depends on his mindset. Clark and Samuels are also like this. Clarks shot has been off, and you can see it in his body language and his expression. Same thing with Samuels. There are times when he is having a difficult time adjusting to college ball. Now, this is not a critique of anyone's work ethic. I have not felt like any player has given up on a game.