Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Blog

Some of you have found me (great!).

Others haven't.

I am here.

Please note that the page is still under construction. It's not as functional as I'd like, but it's easier to work with from my standpoint, and the content isn't going to change a whole lot.

I hope you'll pay me a visit.

Archives are staying here for the time being.

NOTE: The latest post is wrought with problems. I don't think our blog setup thing likes Firefox. I will have to get that fixed. Since I won't be at work until tomorrow, it won't get fixed until tomorrow. Sorry for the eyesore. For now, please enjoy a look at my BlogPoll ballot, which is what I tried to post on the other site:

RankTeamDelta
1 Ohio State --
2 Michigan 2
3 Southern Cal --
4 West Virginia 2
5 Auburn --
6 Texas --
7 Florida --
8 Louisville --
9 Oklahoma --
10 Oregon --
11 Clemson --
12 Iowa --
13 Notre Dame --
14 Louisiana State --
15 Virginia Tech 2
16 TCU 2
17 Nebraska 1
18 Georgia 3
19 Tennessee --
20 Rutgers 1
21 Cal 1
22 Missouri 4
23 Wake Forest 3
24 Boise State 2
25 Wisconsin 1

Dropped Out: Alabama (#20), UCLA (#23), Arizona State (#25).

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

We're moving; Oh, and BlogPoll: Week 2

Yeah, I'm serious.

Soon, the original content generated in this blog will be moving to a different place. It's nothing against Blogger. It's just the right thing to do.

As I iron out the kinks and figure out how the new place works, I'll move everything there. For now, you can plan on the archives remaining here, but all new content being in the new home.

I'll let you know where to find me as soon as I have stuff moved there and ready to be viewed. The material won't change. It will still suck. I'm just going to poison a different website with it, and I'm going to make all of you who have been kind enough to link me go back and change those links.

In the meantime, I thought I'd throw at you my BlogPoll ballot for Week Two. This is not necessarily the final answer, but someone will have to come up with a pretty good argument to get me to change my mind.

RankTeamDelta
1Texas--
2West Virginia--
3Ohio State--
4Southern Cal 1
5Oklahoma 1
6Notre Dame 1
7Auburn 1
8Michigan 3
9Clemson 4
10Nebraska--
11Florida 3
12Iowa 3
13Louisiana State 3
14Louisville 3
15Oregon 7
16Tennessee 10
17Florida State 5
18Georgia 1
19Penn State 1
20Texas Tech 1
21Miami (Florida) 12
22Wisconsin 3
23Alabama 3
24Navy 1
25Cal 19

Dropped Out: Georgia Tech (#18), Arkansas (#24).
I dropped Georgia Tech out because I was stunned at the simplicity of their game plan on offense. I was also stunned at the continued undevelopment of Reggie Ball at quarterback. Every time he does something to make you think he's going to turn it around, he has a half like the second half of the Notre Dame game, where he was practically useless.
I dropped Arkansas out because they lost a home game 50-14. I don't care if they were playing an NFL team. That's ridiculous.
Cal stays in the poll because I still think they're good, and if they're not, at least Minnesota can say they beat a ranked team. But they beat out Arkansas for "Most Eye-Openingly Embarrassing Performance of the Weekend".
Miami stunk on Monday night. They're lucky they played Florida State.
Why did Florida State stay so high? Because they won the game. One more note on FSU. They have a linebacker, Buster Davis, who is going to kill someone at some point this season if he's not careful. I wish ESPN could have found room in their Full Circle coverage for a constant iso shot of Davis running around hunting for people who had the football so he could destroy them.
I saw no reason to make any significant changes in my top ten. I moved USC up one spot, ahead of Oklahoma, but I'm not going to be all giddy on the Men of Troy yet. There's an equal chance that Saturday's result was more a reflection on who Arkansas is than anything else.
I probably haven't put Tennessee high enough here, but I'm not prepared to launch them into the top ten because they won a single home game against a team that was probably overrated.

Monday, September 04, 2006

BlogPoll Roundtable #2: SURPRISE!

Time's a wastin', and this is a holiday, after all.

Week One was a hodgepodge of what we expected (Ohio State looked really good), what we didn't expect (Montana State/Richmond/Portland State??), and what we couldn't have expected (most thought Tennessee would win, but huh?).

With that in mind, this week's roundtable is centered on your expectations versus the reality of Week One. Oh, and where do we go from here? Who does that dude who voted for Cal vote for #1 now?

1. What team best met your overall expectations of them in their opener?

In other words, which team that you expected to be either really good or really bad (or somewhere in between) came the closest to making you look good?

As an example, it's Notre Dame for me. I think they're really good, but Georgia Tech isn't the toughest team they'll face this year. In fact, they're not even close. The game really typified the kind of season I expect Notre Dame to have. They'll blow some people out, but they're going to have a lot of struggles in various games, and they will lose a game at some point, because they're just not that much better than everyone else.

(PostScript #1: Yes, I thought Notre Dame would lose. And they only won because Reggie Ball struggles with this "consistently accurate" concept. If Ball were two-thirds as accurate with his throws as Brady Quinn usually is, Notre Dame would be 0-1.)

(PostScript #2: If you are a Notre Dame opponent, get after Brady Quinn. He looked a bit lost at times when Tech got aggressive, and it's the best way to beat him, because you're probably not going to confuse him very often.)

2. What team jumped off the map and surprised you the most? (Bonus points to anyone who can make an argument for someone besides Tennessee.)

Tennessee is the obvious answer here, because of the opponent (Cal) and the score (yes, the final was 35-18, but it was 35-3 when Phil called off the dogs).

I'm going with USC. Not because Lou Holtz REALLY liked Arkansas, but because I thought they'd struggle, if only just a little bit. What the Trojans did on Saturday was simply remarkable. John David Booty was Palmerinart-esque, and the offense was better than anyone could have fairly expected. They weren't as wide-open and potentially spectacular, though that will probably come with time. Instead, they used the cliche-ish surgical precision to carve up the Hogs' defense.

Instead of moving Houston Nutt further towards the Hot Seat, this game only established USC as a threat to take another national title. Nutt has all season to move himself toward the seat.

3. What team best moved themselves into a position to surprisingly contend for a national title?

This is where I'll go with Tennessee. The Vols need to run the ball better, because not everyone is going to let Eric Ainge pick them apart like Cal did. But the defense was flying around the field, disrupting QB Nate Longshore and putting an early end to Marshawn Lynch's darkhorse H*i*m*n candidacy. Ainge and Robert Meacham were outstanding, but there is still work to be done here. Air Force shouldn't pose much of a challenge for the offense next week, though the Vols' defense could have issues defending that offense, which is unlike any they'll see all year.

Keep in mind that this team was 5-6 last year. I'm not a Phil Fulmer fan, but he can really cement his legacy in Knoxville with a huge season this year, national title or not.