Reporting the Latest - A Day Late

In a shocking news bulletin not likely to get the attention it deserves, I feel it is my moral obligation to pass along the news: Watching the Super Bowl may cause an increased rate of heart attack, especially for emotionally invested fans of the two teams playing. According to the German study that took data from World Cup 2006, heart-related medical cases tripled on days that the German National team played.

Gee, who would have thought that increased stress levels coupled with wings, beer and pizza could raise the risk of heart trouble? Aside from avoiding alcohol and the aforementioned foods, the report suggest that fans should also try “not getting mad at the refs”. Thanks, doc.

Now what?

So what do we do with our time now? The NFL season is over, save for the commercial spectacle that is the Super Bowl. MLB spring training is a couple of months away. Aside from recruiting, college football is on ice until August. The NHL was apparently disbanded due to a lack of interest several years ago.

Granted, the NBA regular season is in full swing, nearing its mid-way point. However, this is all just a prelude to the never-ending NBA playoffs, which last a staggering two months and stretch from April until late June. I salute anyone who can honestly say they regularly watch the NBA and then have the stamina to watch the entire post-season. The playoff teams are pretty much set at this point, give or take a couple of seven or eight seeds. Through roughly half of the regular season schedule, only six Eastern Conference teams carry a winning record, meaning the odds are decent that the East will produce two teams with losing records in the playoffs. The Western Conference playoff race should be a little more interesting, but let’s be real: The winner will come down to Dallas, Phoenix, San Antonio, and maybe LA. The East winner will be Boston, Detroit, or maybe Orlando. That’s it. So wake me up in April when the playoffs start.

College basketball appears to be the lone source of sports entertainment, but even now, conference play is just heating up. Things won’t get interesting for another month or so, when teams are jockeying for a spot in the Big Dance. I’m not sure why, but I love the Bubble Watch. Teams that have never played each other are sized up, judged, ranked and seeded, and then of course it all goes to crap once the games are actually played. ESPN currently runs a Bubble Watch segment, which I find to be a little preposterous at this point in the season. Still interesting, but can any team really be a lock at this point? Most teams have played three, maybe four conference games. I’ve never been a huge college basketball fan, but now that Tennessee is turning it on (aside from the Kentucky incident) I will start paying a little closer attention. It is hard to imagine someone from outside the North Carolina/Kansas/Duke/Memphis conglomerate winning the tournament, but with two months to go, plenty can change.

For the soccer fans among you, the Champions League is down to it last 16, with the first games set for mid-February. All the usual players are still involved, including Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan, Chelsea, Manchester, and Arsenal. In La Liga action, Real Madrid holds a comfortable seven point lead over Barcelona, with just under half the schedule left to play. Real Madrid has performed spectacularly thus far, with a perfect home record and an impressive 7-2-2 away record. The Premiership race is much tighter, with Manchester United and Arsenal tied atop the standings, with Chelsea only four points behind in third place. United has also performed well in its home stadium: The Red Devils have allowed only three goals in twelve home games. As you can see, there is plenty of exciting European soccer action to follow, but unfortunately it’s never on television here, and reading box scores just doesn’t seem to have the same effect.

So, bottom line, my advice to you is that you find a new hobby or activity to occupy your time until the end of February, when sports will become relevant again. Bummed about that gut? Can’t afford bigger shirts? Try hitting the gym. Go run outside. Trust me - you’ll feel a much bigger sense of accomplishment than you do running in normal weather, especially if you’re running through a little bit of snow. Imagine Rocky IV. Try something new, like curling. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. I haven’t actually tried it myself, but I’ve heard good things, especially when alcohol is involved. If you can’t think of anything, you'll be forced to fall back onto the dregs of sports reporting. I imagine we’ll be subjected to many more stories about Roger Clemens’ ass, where Terrelle Pryor is visiting this week, and Chris Mortensen’s haircut’s Mock Draft Version 15. Don't say I didn't warn you...

Or....you can lose part of your soul along with the rest of the nation and submit to Fox's concoction The Moment of Truth, which is basically the most evil television show ever created.

Capitulation

OK, let’s just get it over with and hand the Lombardi Trophy over to the Dark Side.

The Last Great Hope, Brett Favre, gun-slung his way out of the Super Bowl by throwing a pick on the second play in overtime. After watching Lawrence Tynes woefully shank the winning field goal as regulation expired, I knew that the Packers were destined to play the role of Good to New England’s Evil. When Green Bay won the OT coin toss, there could be no doubt: Brett Favre would march his team the requisite thirty yards for the game-winning field goal. All appeared lost as Favre’s weak out pass floated into the waiting arms of the enemy, but still hope sprung. The Packers defense held and forced a 47 yard field goal attempt. Coach Tom Coughlin had to forcibly remove Lawrence Tynes’ hands from their clutched position around his own neck before sending the Scotsman out for the game-winning try. Surely after missing two relative gimmies from 36 and 43 yards, Tynes would wilt before the Manifest Destiny awaiting Brett Favre and company. But, alas, it was not to be. After briefly appearing to hook right, the kick self-corrected in mid-air and sliced right between the middle of the goalposts.

New England is currently installed as a two touchdown favorite over the New York Giants. True, the Giants gave the Patriots their toughest challenge of the year (apologies to Indianapolis and Baltimore) but you got the feeling that the Giants played as well as they possibly could in that game. They converted on 60% of their third downs. Eli threw only one interception to four touchdown passes. The Giants’ defense forced New England into three first half field goals, when it seems like the Patriots are always scoring touchdowns. However, Bill Belichick started to figure out how to beat the Giants somewhere in the middle of the third quarter. After falling behind by 12 points midway through the third quarter, the Patriots scored 22 unanswered to take a 10 point lead. The Giants were able to score a last-minute touchdown, but after a failed onside kick, the game was over.

Eli has looked good this post-season. Good, not great. True, he hasn’t thrown an interception in three straight road games, but he has also surpassed 200 yards only once in that stretch. And don’t forget, this is the guy who tied for the lead league in interceptions. The sentiment that he’s due for a bad game doesn’t seem completely unreasonable. The Giants seemed to have decent success running the ball in their season finale against New England, although they didn’t go to the run game very much. Brandon Jacobs averaged 4.5 yards per carry, but on only 15 carries. I was surprised that the Giants didn’t try to power the ball down New England’s throat in the fourth quarter, and then they got into trouble with the passing game, as Manning was sacked and pressured into his few mistakes of the game. You can be sure that Bill Belichick will once again keep the heat on Manning by putting more people in the box, which will both pressure Manning and limit the rushing attack.

The bottom line is this: I have more belief that Belichick will craft a winning recipe than I do in Coughlin, given that both have seen the same game footage and know (somewhat) the other’s tendencies. Maybe fourteen points is a little high on the Vegas line, but the odds against New York have to be overwhelming at this point.

Define "enjoy"

Thanks to CNN for this terrific piece, which details the adventures of a 16 year-old playboy wannabe.

You have to love the title "Boy, 16, enjoys champagne, hostesses" and the story highlights in the upper right, which include this gem: "Champagne and hostesses savored during illegal partying". What does savored mean exactly in this context?

Bully for you, anonymous 16 year old Japanese hooligan.

Breaking Down the Super Bowl Matchups

Despite my best efforts, New England has advanced to the AFC Championship game. Apparently, defeating the Patriots in Madden 2008 with the Jacksonville Jaguar had no impact on the outcome of the actual game. Maybe I should have subbed in David Garrard, as the original rosters still had Leftwich as the team’s quarterback. Well, I can always try again this week with the Chargers.

With four remaining teams, the league has a limited amount of potential Super Bowl matchups. Luckily, most will have an interesting slant that should provide for plenty of SportsCenter fodder over the two week dead period before Super Bowl Kickoff. At the very least, we will have matchups featuring exciting teams, as opposed to recent thrillers such as Pittsburgh-Seattle (OK, any Super Bowl featuring Seattle would be a snooze-fest), Tampa-Oakland, and the all-time favorite, Baltimore-New York Giants, which featured the dymanic quarterback battle between Kerry Collins and Trent Dilfer.

Scenario 1: New England – Green Bay (55% probability)
Network execs are foaming at the mouth for this one. Not only would it feature two of the NFL’s most popular players (Brady and Favre) but it would be a re-match of Super Bowl XXXI. Of course, fans galore would tune in to A.) see if The Pats can achieve perfection, or B.) root like hell for the Packers to knock New England and their grating fans off of their collective perch. I personally would be in Camp B. Potential downside: All the talk about Favre’s retirement over the last two years? Quadruple it.

Scenario 2: New England – New York (30% probability)
The story is not quite as riveting for this game, but again, you would have New England striving for perfection against one of the teams that gave it the most trouble during the regular season. Appeal outside of the Northeast might be limited, but who cares about the rest of the country, anyway? Everything always seems to revolve around New York and Boston, so this would be a fitting addition. Ratings for the Pats-Giants season finale set all kinds of ratings records, so the game would not disappoint from a revenue perspective. The game would be close, although Belichick likely “obtained” some information from the previous game that could prove useful in a re-match.

Scenario 3: San Diego – Green Bay (10% probability)
Of all the scenarios, this is probably the least exciting. Sure, it would be great for Brett Favre to get another Super Bowl ring, but what else is there to talk about? The Chargers are a solid team, but are battling through injuries at key positions and simply haven’t been a very fun team to watch lately. We would have the opportunity to see what crazy, idiotic thing Rivers does next, and the wailing lamentations coming from the general direction of New England would be an added bonus.

Scenario 4: San Diego – New York (5% probability)
At face value, not an overly intriguing matchup, but you can bet that reporters will be asking Eli Manning and Phillip Rivers all week long about Draft Day 2004. Eli Manning looked like the whiny, immature crybaby back then, but he has since blossomed into a savvy quarterback. Rivers, on the other hand, seems to be going out of his way to look a giant douche. It certainly would be interesting to imagine how both teams' fortunes would have been had the Manning-Rivers swap not occurred. Both of these teams underachieved somewhat during the 2007 campaign: San Diego at 11-5 and NY at 10-6, with a combined three wins over teams with winning records. Of course, they certainly picked the right time to get hot, and have since combined for three tough playoff road wins, plus San Diego’s home win over Tennessee.

What seems to be the problem, ociffer?

Adam 'Pacman' Jones just can't catch a break these days. This latest incident, in which it is "alleged" that he a struck a female patron in the face at a strip club, marks approximately the sixth time Pacman has been arrested since he was drafted. What a string of bad luck! Poor Pacman always seems to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and people always seem to be running their faces into his fist (or bullets). And unfortunately for Pacman, this latest misunderstanding involved a female attorney, so I am sure that she will use some fancy legal-ese to make Pacman look like the bad guy here.

After having sat through a one-year suspension, Adam simply cannot afford another arrest on his rap sheet. Is there somezing he can do for Commissioner Goodell, or perhapz somezing he would like to do to Pacman, to avoid zis dilemma?

In More Civil War News - Sherman's March Continues

The Evil Empire marches on. With Tom Brady looking like an unstoppable machine, the Patriots withstood a valiant effort from Jacksonville and advanced to the AFC Championship game. New England will square off against a supposedly depleted Chargers team, although I believe that the bruises sustained by Rivers and Tomlinson will be sufficiently healed by this weekend. Antonio Gates will also be one week healthier.

In NFC news, the Giants upset Nick Lachey and the Cowboys and will travel to Green Bay to face NFL Golden Boy Brett Farve and the Packers in the NFC Championship. Overlooked by most analysts, the NFC Champ could still provide more than a speed bump challenge for New England and its quest for immortality. We obviously have seen that the Giants match up well with New England. However, one team that no one seems to be talking about is Green Bay. With arguably the top cornerback tandem in the league (Al Harris and Charles Woodson), Green Bay should be able to provide tight coverage on Randy Moss. We’ve also seen that New England can be vulnerable to the run, and Ryan Grant is about as hot as any runner in the league right now. In fact, he led all rushers over the last eight games of the regular season and is coming off of a career 200+ yard performance. Brett Favre will keep his team in the game no matter what, although you have to be a little worried about the turnover potential.

Wow, and what a collapse by the Colts. Their defense had no answers for San Diego, even after Rivers and Tomlinson were forced to exit the game. The Colts had two chances to win the game with under three minutes to go, first giving it up on downs near San Diego’s goal line, and then again after having forced San Diego into a three-and-out. The Colts will surely look back on their missed opportunities, including three turnovers deep in San Diego territory, and wonder what might have been. If the Colts had managed a field goal on just one of those possessions, the final result might have been significantly different. The Harrison fumble was especially tough to swallow, since the Colts were looking unstoppable coming out of the gate and could have gone up 14-0. Unfortunately, this year it looks like Peyton Manning will have to settle for a title in the DSRL.

One positive note for everyone who isn't a Patriots fan – at least they didn’t cover the spread, so all those Bostonians lost a ton of money on the game.

Screwdriver? Yeah, just look for the huge toolbag. It's right behind the toolshed.

In what could provide an endless supply of posts, let me dive into some of the reasons Bill Simmons is an annoying jackass who has become too popular for his own good.

I will confess, I have been reading The Sports Guy articles for several years now. In fact, his articles were the main reason I went to espn.com, well, you know, aside from checking scores and reading actual analysis. But all that aside, when did The Sports Guy become so huge? He's got his own podcasts (which are terrible), youtube video collections, hell, even his random idiot friends have podcasts just because they hang out with the guy.

I think part of the reason he got to be so popular was because everyday fans could relate to him, mainly because he suffered through terrible Celtics years and having the Red Sox fall short every year. The average fan can relate to having bad to mediocre teams, because most teams realistically have no shot at winning the championship in any given season. Now that the Pats are a mini-dynasty, the Celtics have the best record in the NBA and the Red Sox have won two World Series titles in the last four years, the average fan from Denver, Atlanta or Minnesota can't relate anymore. What used to come off as anguished bitterness now comes off as whining. Oh no, everyone is mad at the Patriots for cheating! Waa, JD Drew doesn't care about me as a fan. ~sniff~My wife is way better at gambling on sports than I am. Enough, man. Now he's an insufferable jackass who thinks Boston is the center of the universe.

Only Bill Simmons could justify his voting selection based on some ridiculous Bill Belichick metaphor. "They've been in the office before and made all their mistakes the first time around. Shades of Belichick learning from his Cleveland days. This time around, at least we know they'll take over the office with a game plan instead of limping through that first "What the hell am I doing?" year that seems to happen to every new president." And I'm not even going to get into the fact that he is considering voting for Hillary.

And what the hell is this comment? Finally, the Jaguars made an enormous mistake by allowing this to happen on their Web site. Haven't teams learned by now not to rile up the 2007 Pats? Lay the points and thank me later. Wow, so some website editor decided to point out the fact the Patriots cheated, and now the Patriots are going demolish the Jags in retribution? First of all, I think the asterisk is hilarious. But like I mentioned in my Spicer post, is this really something that the players are going to be talking about and get offended? Give me a break, Simmons, and get over yourself.

I can only hope that Jacksonville saves us from the possibility of having three major Boston sports teams win championships in the same season. In fact, I hope we have a Manning-Manning Super Bowl so that he can complain about how the Pats beat both of those teams in the regular season and still deserve to be mentioned as one of the greatest teams ever, all while he's watching Peyton and Eli share a hug with the Lombardi Trophy and Tom Brady is putting diapers on his illegitimate child.

Enough!

Different year, same result. The Big Ten Champion waltzes through a cupcake schedule and gets invited to the big dance, only to be physically and emotionally pummeled by its SEC date. Real sad story. I will be honest – this year, I thought it might be different. I suppose I was expecting a repeat of the crappy Jennifer Lopez movie Enough. I’m assuming you haven’t seen it, so I will fill you in (It’s on TNT all the time, give me a break). J-Lo is physically abused and stalked by her jealous ex-husband so she gets desperate and hires a personal trainer, complete with the requisite Rocky-esque training montages. She of course quickly becomes a kickboxing expert and ambushes her overconfident and bullying ex-husband and gets her revenge. I suppose you could call it murder, but somehow that wouldn’t really fit in with the film’s message. Anyhow, I guess I thought after a year of being abused and then enduring endless criticism, Ohio State would have risen to the challenge and fought back a little harder against LSU.

Despite claims otherwise, this result is devastating for the Big Ten. Two consecutive BCS title game blowouts, of the same team no less, will cause voters to view the next Big Ten champ with skepticism. All along, I felt that voters were unfairly giving Ohio State a free pass to the title game simply because they had one loss while everyone else had two. Hawaii was undefeated, but they didn’t get a sniff of the championship game. Why, you ask? Of course, everyone pointed to their schedule and close wins over weak teams. But how was Ohio State any different? I’ve pointed out before that Ohio State clearly lacked a signature win and benefited greatly from playing a weak non-conference and Big Ten Schedule. In the end, both Hawaii and Ohio State were exposed as pretenders. Were it not for Michigan’s unexpected and inspired win over Florida, the Big Ten’s top four teams would have gone a woeful 0-4 in bowl competition.

One thing I will not claim is to know who really should have been in the title game. After Oklahoma’s impressive win over Missouri in the Big 12 Championship, I probably would have selected them and Georgia to play for title. Obviously, in retrospect Oklahoma would not have been the correct choice, either. USC has a lot of support right now, but if you look at their body of work, it doesn’t seem impressive enough to me to say definitively that they deserved to play for the title. Other than the big win over Arizona State, what did USC do in the regular season? And we saw against Texas that Arizona State was clearly a second-rate team. But this is the problem right here. No one can really say with certainty who the top two teams are. Teams rarely play significant games outside of conference, so the criteria for evaluating teams is very limited.

Georgia university president Michael Adams recently proposed an eight team playoff system, which suggests to me that some of the higher-ups are finally starting to realize that the current system clearly does not work. And even more encouraging to me is that someone of Adams influence (he is also chairman of the NCAA executive committee) admits that a plus-one system would not resolve the issue. Of course, it’s easy to say that Adams’ proposal is due in part to Georgia’s title snub, but I think that played a very small part, if any, in Adams’ decision to speak out. Michael Adams has presented a very rational and feasible plan, and I agree with almost everything he says. In fact, I had drafted a playoff proposal earlier this season and found that many of his points mirror my own. I will provide a more thorough breakdown of the proposal in the next week.

As far as this season is concerned, I think it’s safe to say that the SEC was by far the best conference. After going 7-2 in bowls, including a 4-1 performance from its top five teams and two BCS bowl wins, the SEC had the best record among BCS conferences. The Big 12 also took home also a BCS win, although it surprisingly came from Kansas, not Oklahoma, and finished a respectable 5-3 in bowl play. The top five Big 12 teams also went an impressive 4-1. The ACC and Big Ten proved to be losers this year, finishing at 2-6 and 3-5, respectively. Boston College and Wake Forest were the only two ACC teams to win bowl games, with BC’s win coming over a middling Michigan State squad. The Pac-10 and Big East performed decently, finishing 4-2 and 3-2, respectively, and were buoyed by impressive BCS wins from their conference champions.

Next year should be another competition season, as many of the top teams are not losing very much senior talent, such as Georgia, Ohio State, Oklahoma and Florida. Now we can turn our attention to recruiting and wondering why the Big Ten won't allow the rest of the conferences to create a playoff system.

Pulitzer Prize, here I come!

This just in! Jacksonville defensive lineman Paul Spicer made inflammatory statements regarding the New England Patriots as recently as September of 2007! And he failed to take them back when given a chance to do so!! Can you believe the nerve of this guy?

According to ESPN.com, “If the undefeated Patriots need bulletin board material for their playoff game Saturday night against the Jaguars, they have it now.” Agreed! Of all the negative things said about New England over the last four months, the Patriots will surely use this nugget of gold to fire them up. For example, Spicer absurdly claimed, in reference to the Spygate scandal, "Do like the NCAA and kick them out of the playoffs or something." He then proceeded to blaspheme "This ain't news. I've heard it in the past. They finally got caught. The Patriots got caught. They're busted." When given the chance to recant his earlier outburst, Spicer retorted “I don't regret saying what I said. I'm a man of my word. I always speak my mind and that's what I felt at that time… If they got to bring up something said so long ago, let that be their motivational tool.” Well, you know what, Paul? You have just awakened the sleeping giant. I hope you’re happy. New England would not have been motivated to win this game at all, but thanks to you, they will have just the motivation they need to kick your Jaguar asses.

ESPN.com, we must bow at your feet. Your round-the-clock reporting has given us this great insight into the minds and psyches of NFL players and coaches everywhere. In fact, I am getting a mental image of Bill Belichick pulling out a newspaper from last September and whipping his team into frenzy. “Look at this Spicer joker! He thinks we shouldn’t be here. Well, golly, let’s show him that we do deserve to be here!”

Hopefully, NFL players will learn a lesson from Spicer's gaffe. Never state your opinions, much less make observations regarding recent controversial events, lest an opponent or some bored sportswriter bring them up a year later and make you look like the fool that you are.

All Good Things Must Come To End

After four months of regular season games, 31 bowl games and untold controversy, all will finally be resolved in tonight’s BCS Championship game. Okay, so the controversy will probably continue on until next season, but at least the nation will be able to declare a champion. Number one ranked Ohio State faces off at 8:15 EST against LSU in what can be considered a home game for the Tigers.

LSU is the prohibitive favorite and is currently giving four points in most betting lines. Ohio State has not really been given much of a chance, and I think in the wake of the Florida-Michigan upset, that could prove dangerous. LSU has essentially been a shell of the team that dominated over the first month of the season, and has given up 24 or more points in six of last eight games. Without the 48-7 beating administered to Big East champs Virginia Tech (in week 1, by the way) I honestly do not believe the Tigers would be in the championship game. They certainly haven’t looked like a championship team since that first month. Granted, LSU did suffer a significant amount of injuries, but is it fair to assume that a healthy Glen Dorsey would have prevented the defense from giving up 40 or 50 points to Kentucky and Arkansas?

Ohio State is a little bit more enigmatic. The only one-loss BCS conference team in the country, Ohio State basically defaulted into the title game. They lack a signature win. Two of their three best wins came against teams fighting injuries at crucial positions: Wisconsin was without PJ Hill and Michigan’s Chad Henne and Mike Hart were banged up. Ohio State looked dominant in their win over Penn State, but that doesn’t really shed much light into figuring out Ohio State. Additionally, Ohio State loss to the best team it played, which was an Illinois team that was absolutely rocked by USC in the Rose Bowl. The Buckeyes seemed to have trouble containing Juice Williams, and while LSU’s quarterbacks aren’t as mobile as the Juice, they could present a similar threat.

After being dominated in last year’s title game, Ohio State is not in any way being given the benefit of the doubt, especially after losing Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Troy Smith and multiple top talent players to the NFL draft. No one is claiming that these Buckeye’s are better than last year’s team, but against LSU, they may not have to be.

The general public seems to overwhelmingly favor LSU (65% in a recent ESPN SportNation poll), with a good percentage of fans (35%) expecting a blowout. I expect LSU to win, but I am more inclined to believe the Vegas line, with a final score in the range of 24-21 or 24-17. Don’t forget how rusty the Buckeyes looked in last year’s National Championship. The long layoff definitely hurts teams, and though Jim Tressel will have surely reminded his team about last year, it is tough to get back into game-time mode after six weeks of layoff.

Enough chatter, though, the game will finally be decided as it should - on the field. Then we can start talking about next year and how USC would have, like, totally kicked the crap out of ______ if they had been given a chance.

Happy New Year! Except for you, Tim Tebow

Wow. It seems like Florida was the one who got Tebow’d this time. The Gators and their Heisman winning QB were ambushed by Michigan in the Capital One Bowl, much to the surprise of, well, pretty much everyone. I didn’t have a chance to watch the game, but from the box score, it looks like the game was pretty intense. Despite a final score of 41-35, no one ever led by more than a touchdown. Florida actually had the lead with five minutes to go, but Michigan was able to come back and finish off the game. As a SEC fan, I hate to see another SEC team lose, especially to a Big Ten team (and especially one that lost to Appalachian State) but as a Tennessee fan, I guess I don’t mind too much to see the Gators go down.

Remember when Auburn beat Florida earlier this year? You must…They continually show the field goal that won it in “Pontiac’s Game-Changing Performances”. In any case, you had to love watching the Auburn kicker doing the Gator chomp as he ran celebrating off the field. I did anyway.

What the hell is wrong with Chris Spielman? I had to endure his terrible commentary while watching the Tennessee-Wisconsin Outback Bowl. I have never heard such biased announcing in a network broadcast. Okay, Chris, we get it, you went to Ohio State and you support Big Ten teams. If I was broadcasting the game, I probably would have been ripping on Wisconsin the whole time. But I don’t get paid the hundreds of thousands you do to be a “football analyst” or a “color commentator” so I expect some rational commentary when I watch a game on ESPN.

Every other play, it seemed, Chris Spielman would wax poetically about the great tradition of Wisconsin football. You wouldn’t have even realized another team was on the field. Tyler Donovan, man, he is such a competitor! Look at him bounce back from all these hits that he’s taking! Of course, no need to acknowledge the team that is actually delivering the hits. Let’s continue to praise the guy writhing on the ground every five plays! He even went on a rant about how the SEC’s speed is overrated, calling out a Tennessee linebacker (Dorian Davis) for not being able to catch Tyler Donovan on a QB scramble when Davis clearly did not have the angle. But no, that wasn’t enough. Spielman continued to discuss the issues, and even went back to last year’s BCS Championship and claimed that Ohio State was actually a faster team than Florida. If you lined those two teams and had them run 40’s, I guarantee you Ohio State would have come out on top. Ted Ginn aside, I mean seriously. What game was he watching? And who really cares anyway? I am trying to watch Tennessee and Wisconsin play here.

All that aside, I was glad to see Tennessee finish up its season on a strong note, something they haven’t done much lately. The defense looks much improved and I expect it be strong next year as well. Most of the starters will return, and the true freshman players (Eric Berry, Brent Vinson) in the secondary will be a little more battle tested next year. Tennessee will have to replace two departing senior defensive ends and star safety Jonathan Hefney, but should be pretty set at the other positions. Jerod Mayo could leave early, but I have a feeling he will stick around for another year. The offense will also return all starters with the notable exception of quarterback Erik Ainge and TE Chris Brown. The young receiving corps featuring all freshmen, sophomores and juniors will be much better next year. It was obvious in the first few games that Ainge was a little tentative with his receivers, having lost his top three receivers (Robert Meachem, Jayson Swain and Bret Smith) from the prior season. Jonathan Crompton (who came in touted in the same Elite 11 2004 class as Chase Daniel and Ryan Perriloux) will have to step up at quarterback next year, as he has played very little behind Erik Ainge.

Georgia and USC both made strong statements in their BCS blowout victories. These two teams were mentioned as the hottest teams in the country at the end of the season and clearly wanted to emphasize that point as they handily defeated their weaker opponents. Illinois was lucky to even be on the same field as USC, but I expected them to put up a little bit more of a fight. The Hawaii result was more predictable, as the Bulldawgs defensive front simply manhandled Hawaii’s offensive line, getting to Colt Brennan without having to blitz. Unfortunately this is the end of the road for these teams, and we’ll never know how good they could have been. I do feel justified in having ranked UGA number one at the end of my regular season poll, but we all know how much that means.

Congratulations to the Mountain West on clinching the Bowl Challenge Cup. With Florida’s loss, the SEC has officially been eliminated from contention, leaving the 4-1 MWC as winners. With a win over Ohio State, the SEC can finish 7-2, a half game behind the MWC. The Big 12 could go 6-2 if both Oklahoma and Kansas win, but no other conference will be much over .500. The Big Ten could actually finish at .500 if Ohio State knocks off LSU, which would be much better than most people expected.

For those of you who plan to watch the Orange and Fiesta Bowls tonight and tomorrow, enjoy. I doubt I will even watch more than a quarter combined of those two games. Maybe the Fiesta (Oklahoma-West Virgina) but the Kansas-Virginia Tech Orange Bowl does absolutely nothing for me. I will be waiting for the Ohio State-LSU showdown, to see who will win the right to play the winner of USC-Georgia. Oh wait…