If you'll indulge me for going all Barking Carnival here, this preview of the weekend's games to watch has a Velvet Underground theme.  Yeah, that's right.  Velvet Underground.  With Nico.  Take that, HenryJames!

All Tomorrow's Parties

And what costume shall the poor girl wear
To all tomorrow's parties ...

And where will she go and what shall she do
When midnight comes around
She'll turn once more to Sunday's clown
And cry behind the door ...

And what will she do with Thursday's rags
When Monday comes around ...

For Thursday's child is Sunday's clown
For whom none will go mourning ...

Oh those Thursday games did look good last night, didn't they?  It's great to have football back, even if it is Baylor's unique brand of "football."  But those games have come and gone.  Here's a recap: Baylor is still terrible, but Robert Griffin is less terrible than Kirby Freeman. Stanford: not terrible!  Oregon State: horrendous!  UTEP: maybe not actually very good at all!  Seriously, BUFFALO?  South Carolina: worst team to ever win a game by 34 points.

There, shed Thursday's rags and let's move on to All Tomorrow's (and Tonight's) Parties.  These are the games to tune into this weekend:

Southern Methodist at Rice:  I know what you're thinking: "WTF? BZ must be dating someone from one of those schools to pick that game.  And I've seen the Rice ladies at the games....so it better be an SMU girl."  Well, you're exactly right, but I swear that has nothing to do with it.  SMU is under new coach and Run and Shoot proprietor June Jones, inexplicably stolen from Hawaii where apparently he was too successful in too beautiful a setting for his tastes.  So he traded all that in for a 1-11 SMU squad in scenic Dallas.  Did I mention he suspended the incumbent QB and is starting a true freshman instead?  Awesome.  But here's the thing, they're going to suck this year, that's a given.  But they're always going to be fun to watch, and after that, are they going to become the next Texas Tech?  I can see the Mustangs getting better and better each year and getting better and better recruits until they get to where Texas Tech is today.  Texas is a much more fertile recruiting ground than Hawaii and if SMU can get into a territory where it's competing for Texas recruits with (and often beating out) TCU, Tech, Baylor and Houston, then the inherent advantages of Jones' offensive system can lead SMU to a point where they can compete for the title of the second best team in Texas.  It's all a hypothetical fantasy right now, but it's a hypothetical fantasy that wasn't even worth hypothesizing a year ago.  Something to keep an eye on. (Friday night)

Appalachian St. at LSU: It doesn't seem like LSU's the defending national champion does it?  Two losses, a graduating QB, a dismissed asshole QB, and a starting QB transfer from Harvard who, upon arriving for the game on Saturday will automatically become the smartest person to ever enter Tiger Stadium (also: the state of Louisiana).  Seriously, why haven't we discussed this yet?  Their starting QB is a transfer from the Ivy League!  Still though, I don't see App St. pulling the upset two years in a row.  One, because the element of surprise is missing, and two, because LSU's defense isn't full of slow-ass midwesterners coached by Lloyd Carr.  Armanti Edwards is amazing, but I just don't see it.  Nevertheless, could still be a good game to catch while you're waiting for the Horns game to start, if only to see what batshit insane stunt Les Miles pulls.

Illinois at Missouri: I'm not buying Illinois at all, but it'll be interesting to see where Missouri is at right now against a decent team.

Alabama vs Clemson (in Atlanta): Is Clemson really legit?  Can Tommy Bowden coach his way out of a paper bag?  Is Nick Saban the antichrist? What exactly is Clemson paying all those ridiculously talented recruits to commit?  [My guesses: probably not; no more than his daddy can navigate "the ebays"; um, obvi; meth?]

Washington at Oregon: Jake Locker is the quarterback for Washington.  I said repeatedly last year when he was a freshman that he reminds me of Vince Young more than any other QB I've ever seen.  Not that he's nearly as good as VY, but his running style is exactly the same.  Never looks like he's running that fast, but has a preternatural ability to avoid tackles.  It's sort of uncanny.  Did I mention that Locker is white?  Weird, huh?

Tennessee at UCLA: eh.  Neuheisel and Fulmer are both dicks and I really don't care, but it's college football on a Monday and it's going to be a hell of a lot higher quality game than those Thursday rags we have to shed when Monday comes around.  Or so say the Velvet Underground.  Nico compels you to watch this game! (Monday night)

[And while I have the opportunity in a post talking about music, whoever it is that makes Texas highlight videos, can you please stop using awful alternative rock?  Like, now?  Use the song List of Demands by Saul Williams or something.  There's even a part with some babies whining!  You could put video of Stoops complaining to the officials synched up with it.  It'll be great.  But please, no more Linkin Park.  That's all.  Thanks.]

Enjoy the weekend BONers.  If you're in New York, come out to the Texas watching parties at The Hill (416 Third Ave) or Stout (133 W. 33rd).  I'll be at one of them (not sure which yet).  I'll be the guy in the burnt orange shirt.  See you there!  --BZ

Conversations about football polls, especially preseason polls, are cans of worms.  HornBrain opened up such a can of worms the past few days, and I must say that I'm not very good at walking away from cans of worms.  Instead, I like to go fishing with them.  To that end, I'd like to talk briefly about why preseason polls are an inevitbaly logically inconsistent scourge that is not only useless in theory, but in practice is also playing a part in ruining college football.  And America!*

What's that?  You want me to tell you how I really feel?  Fair enough.  Will do.  But first we have to briefly look at the different logical methods by which people rank teams.

Resume Ranking vs. Power Ranking vs. Projection Ranking

I've talked about this endlessly before in different contexts, but most thoroughly in Part 1 of my Flex Playoff proposal from a year and a half ago (my how time flies).  To quote myself in explaining the two:

Resume Rankers: believe that the notion of "best" is based on what you have done or not done so far in relation to what everyone else has done or not done so far.  This can cause some weird-looking rankings at the beginning of the season, but logical ones towards the end.

Power Pollsters: believe that the notion of "best" is a subjective analysis based both on what teams have done and the pollster's own opinions on how good each team is according to what cannot be captured in the win-loss column and the margin of victory totals. 

These diverging methods of ranking teams lead to different ways of determining who is the "best" team, and thus different ways of determining which system is the most ideal for crowning this "best" team the national champion.

The resume ranker looks at the results of the regular season and determines who the best teams are based on those results.  The regular season results don't just play heavily into the rankings; they ARE the rankings.

The power pollster of course pays attention to the regular season results, but then adds in his own subjective analysis of who he THINKS is best.

I didn't mention the "Projection Ranking" theory in that article because that column had to do with end-of-year rankings and projection rankings don't apply to end-of year rankings.  Essentially, this theory of ranking teams states that you look at how good a team is (either based on resume or "power") and also look at their upcoming schedule to determine how you think those teams will end up ranked at the end of the season.  This is most prevalent early in the season, and for obvious reasons is non-existent at the end of the season: it's either a power ranking or a resume ranking at the end because there are no actual games remaining of which to project the results.

Which is Better Generally?

My personal belief (and I believe the dominant majority belief, at least in theory) is that resume ranking is the preferred method.  Resume ranking is not entirely objective (nothing ever can be given the nature of human beings), but it strives for ranking based on hard data: the results of actual games that have actually been played.  Based on what has happened so far, who has had the best season? 

Power Rankings take into account the results so far, but instead of leaving it at that, take that information and layer on top of it a level of complete subjectivity in determining which team is "better" than which other team - which presumably means which team would beat which other team in an imaginary game played completely within the head of each individual power pollster.  Thus, while two different resume rankers may rank teams differently, at least they are using the same reality-based information as the basis of their rankings.  Power pollsters base their rankings in part on completely different information as each other because such information is all imaginary.  And in the end, they don't care who had the best season.  The best season is irrelevant to them.  The only thing that matters is who would beat who if they played tomorrow.

Projection Ranking is, to my mind, a worse folly than power ranking because it takes the problem inherent in power ranking and doubles down.  Not only is a projection ranker trying to predict what will happen on the field in a series of games that have not been played, but he further attempts to predict how the pollsters as a whole will react to the imaginary results of that as-yet unplayed game.  If you're counting at home, that's two levels of utter speculation on the future: one more than power ranking and two more than resume ranking.

Click through to read why pre-season polls are destroying America.

Continue reading this post »

Over in the diaries, errr... "fan posts", a debate is taking place over the merits of Texas Tech's lofty preseason internal aspirations and external expectations.  The general consensus seems to be that Tech will probably be better this year than they have been since 2005, they're still Tech: that weird school with the weird coach that upsets a better team every year and loses to inferior team every year.

While this has been true in the past, I don't think that reflects poorly on Mike Leach as a coach, as some seem to.  It's the nature of the beast he has created in Lubbock.  Leach could have been content with Tech being a mediocre team that loses to good teams with better players and beats the teams it's supposed to.  But he instead created a system that allowed his inferior players to beat the best on any given Saturday.  Unfortunately for Leach, however, if his offensive system isn't working, Tech can lose to teams that have even more inferior talent than it.  Why?  In short, no damn defense.

No longer the starting nose tackle.

Some people seem to think that there's something inherent about Leach or his offensive system that ensures a lack of defensive prowess at Tech.  He doesn't coach them well; he doesn't care about that side of the ball; his offensive system doesn't give them enough rest.  While bits and pieces of those explanations might be true, I don't buy them as anything more than small components of why Tech's defense is bad.

I believe it runs much deeper than that.  I have touched on this topic before, but not as it exclusively relates to Tech.  Essentially, the theory goes: (1) offenses can be enginnered to take advantage of inferior athletes much more easily than defenses.  (2) defenses require great athletes to be great.  (3) it's very hard to recruit great athletes to Lubbock, Texas.  (4) therefore, Leach's offenses have outpaced his defenses.  Look around college football at the mid-level programs that have over-achieved in the past 10 years. What do they all have in common?  Explosive offense; spotty defense.  There's nothing inherent to Mike Leach's offense that makes his defenses bad; it's the fact that he coaches at Texas Tech and not Texas.

If any of you have read the Blind Side by Michael Lewis, you'll recall his discussion of Bill Walsh's innovative West Coast offense.  Well, NOW it's called innovative.  Back when it was introduced, it was thought of as gimmicky and voodoo.  Sound familiar?  Then Walsh (who himself said that defensive prowess depends primarily on having great athletes and smart football players, not a scheme) and his 49ers got a defense and won a few Super Bowls and now teams freely use the West Coast Offense as a viable system.

The question is, can Tech get the athletes on defense necessary to be an elite team (even if just for a year or two)?  Well, with success comes better recruiting.  And Texas Tech has been having quite a bit of success the last 8 years.  Not Texas-level success certainly, but a type of success that leads to progressively better recruits who might not choose Tech over Texas, but who would choose Tech over Missouri or Kansas State or Okie State or even perhaps A&M.  And once those recruits succeed, he gets better ones.  He's never going to get the types of athletes that Texas and OU get, but I don't think he has to.

Texas Tech has beaten OU twice and Texas once under Leach and has a 6-2 record vs. A&M.  And he's fairly consistently challenged Texas even in the losses.  And he's doing this with a TERRIBLE defense.  Imagine what his teams could do with even a mediocre defense.  If Tech held Texas to 35 points a game, Tech would win more than half the time, most likely.  If Tech had a good defense, not even a great one, I think they could be a top 10 team every year.  And I tend to think that it's not impossible for that to happen.

Now, does that mean that Tech can compete for the national championship this year?  Probably not.  The defense isn't there yet, but it's a whole lot better than it used to be.  So can they win the Big 12?  Absolutely.  Will they?  Who the hell knows.  The only problem I have with Leach's system is that it's like the knuckleball of offensive systems.  When it's working, it's practically unhittable.  When it's not, well, it just hangs up there waiting to get hit out of the park.

The question I have is whether Harrell and Crabtree, et al. are good enough football players to make the offense more consistent in a way that all those mediocre offensive players before them were not.  That is what's going to make this seson, I think.

Judicial Orders in response to simple motions are generally short, dry documents that get to the point.  Sometimes, however, Judges and their clerks get bored at work just like the rest of us.  What follows after the jump is quite possibly the greatest judicial order ever, issued yesterday afternoon by Judge James R. Nowlin, a graudate of the University of Texas School of Law, and incidentally the judge that sentenced former Longhorn kicker Russell Exrelben to 84 months in jail for fraud.

In case you were ever wondering the federal judiciary's stance on the Texas/Arkansas rivalry, take a look.  Considering Texas is in the 5th Circuit and Arkansas is in the 8th, could we be looking at a Circuit split that gets to the Supreme Court and decides this issue once and for all?  I'm crossing my fingers.  I've always wondered about Ruth Bader Ginsburg's stance on the Horns and Hogs...my guess?  RBG likes the beef.

Continue reading this post »

As the Texas baseball team enters its regional play on Friday against....no way that's right...St. Johns?  They have a baseball team?  Whatever.  Anyway, as the team enters another postseason, its as good a time as any to remember the previous two national champions (2002 and 2005) and their magical seasons.

And rather than spend time and effort coming up with well-written odes to these two teams, let's just go to the YouTube, why don't we?

First, we whet your appetite with the CWS-clinching strikeout of a dastardly Florida Gator in 2005 by the superbly named J. Brent Cox.  The rest of the clips are after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

It's a time honored tradition: claiming ESPN is biased against your favorite team.  Members of this community indulge in this on a regular basis.  For instance, there's the "ESPN is biased against Texas" sentiment, frequently accompanied by the more severe "ESPN hates Texas" accusation, occasionally complimented backhandedly with the "I'm surprised at how unbiased ESPN is being" comment, all supplemented by the rare but endlessly amusing, batshit insane charge, such as "the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll is biased simply by virtue of being associated with ESPN even though no one from ESPN has any vote whatsoever."  That one's my favorite.

But not only is it absurd to claim bias against Texas of all schools, it's just not true to claim any bias whatsoever for or against any team.  ESPN is not biased against your favorite team.  This isn't to absolve ESPN of its sins, which are myriad; it is just to say that ESPN cares about nothing but its bottom line.  This focus on the business aspect of its sports empire sometimes seeps into the entertainment and news aspects of the ESPN operation, which is not a good thing, but claims of bias are ridiculous, as today's endless hyping of the OJ Mayo/USC violations demonstrates pretty clearly.

The thrust of the "ESPN is biased against Texas" sentiment stems from the lead-up to the Rose Bowl between USC and Texas during which ESPN held its infamous "Is USC the greatest team of all time?" online poll/fodder for talking heads shows.  Undoubtedly, this was a terrible idea to which Texas fans rightfully took offense and from which the team gained strength.  But it also lead to a lot of dumb "ESPN is biased in favor of USC" comments as well.  These persist to this day, and they're just as dumb today as they were then.

But if that was true, would the network and accompanying website be hammering this "OJ Mayo took benefits while at USC" story nearly as much as it has, including Pat Forde's incendiary column?  Hell, the ESPN show "Outside the Lines" is the group that did all the investigatory work to unearth this story.  They're the ones that broke it.  And that feeds into my point.  ESPN is hyping this story to no end precisely because they're the ones behind it.  They have no over-arching reverence for USC, just as they have no bias against Texas.  If they did have some editorial bias in favor of USC, they would be burying the story to minimize its impact.  They wouldn't have even investigated the story in the first place.  But their only bias is in favor of ratings.  And what gets ratings?  Big names, sensational stories, and exclusive content, particularly if those things occur in large media markets.

ESPN focuses a lot of attention on USC because they're hugely successful, have a lot of stars, and are located in the second largest TV market in the country.  ESPN focused a lot of attention on Rutgers in their undefeated run 2 years ago not because they have an East Coast bias, but because it was a rags to riches story of a terrible program going on a magical run, combined with the fact that nearby NYC is a largely untapped market for college football and the fact that Rutgers played a lot of games on ESPN that year.  Talking a lot about Rutgers and hyping it as a good story had nothing to do with an East Coast bias.  It had everything to do with increasing ratings for their broadcasts and hits on ESPN.com.  This is the same reason they hype Red Sox/Yankees so much, often to the exclusion of attention to other teams.  And lest we forget that when Kevin Durant was here, the Texas basketball team got much more positive attention than such a mediocre team deserved simply by virtue of having a star player with a great story.

Ideally, ESPN would keep its News, Entertainment and Business operations separate, primarily so that the latter two would not affect the editorial decisions made by the News division.  That they don't do this adequately enough is the sin of ESPN, not that they have a bias against your favorite team.  Can we please place a moratorium on these absurd claims?  Talking about how sports is covered is sometimes just as much fun and interesting as talking about the sports themselves, but let's try to do it intelligently.  Let's talk about why a story is being reported one way rather than wildly accusing people and organizations of bias every time they disagree with you.  Deal?