1. By now everyone has heard that if there is a three-way tie in the Big 12 South, the highest-ranked team in the BCS will play in the Big 12 Championship Game. That means the humans (66% of the BCS Poll) will determine the Big 12 South representative. Let’s assume Oklahoma sinks the pirate ship at home next week. Try to sway the pollsters by arguing which team you think should face off against the Big 12 North.
As you'll recall, Stoops didn't enjoy this handshake much last year.
If Oklahoma wins big, as in by double digits, and does the same to Oklahoma State the following week, then send the Sooners to the Big 12 title match. They’d be the first team all season to have outscored the diabolical Mike Leach offensive machine, and a big win over the Cowboys would be more impressive than Texas’s four-point victory earlier in the season, as well as a sign that OU is playing at a higher level than anyone in the conference at that point. And if there’s a three-way tie atop the division, in which each team has both beaten someone and lost to someone in that little love triangle, you might as well send the team that’s playing the best football at that moment.
However, if Oklahoma barely squeaks by the Red Raiders and/or loses to the Cowboys in Stillwater, then I think you have to send Texas. You can’t ding the Longhorns too hard for losing to TTU on literally the next-to-last play of the game, and you also have to give them at least a little credit for holding the Raiders to their third-lowest point total of the season. And, of course, you also have to take into account the fact that the ‘Horns beat Oklahoma by 10 earlier this year, a feat which (I think) would be more impressive than just barely beating Texas Tech, particularly if Oklahoma gives up a bajillion points in the process like I think they’re going to.
Does any of that make sense? Hopefully, if OU does knock off Texas Tech, they’ll at least go and lose to Oklahoma State and save us all a lot of trouble.
2. ESPN is aggressively bidding on the rights to the BCS when Fox’s contract expires after the 2009 season. My half baked theory is if they do win the rights they will push for a +1 system. Lucrative television deals have landed ESPN in bed with each of the BCS conferences. The revenue a playoff would generate could be a huge motivator for the four letter to be the common denominator and unifier among the conferences that finally helps them all to see the light of why a playoff would be good for college football. Help expand upon or debunk this theory.
Get out of here and take your extraneous marching-band shots with you.
Ehh, as much as I’d like to see some kind of plus-one implemented, I don’t see it coming that much closer to fruition just because ESPN has muscled the BCS rights back from Fox. There’s still going to be the same old inertia there due to the old “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” philosophy — which, in this case, might be more accurately depicted as an “If it ain’t broke and it’s making us an un-f%$#ing-believable amount of money, don’t fix it” philosophy. As long as millions of college football fans are still watching — and they will be — there’s less incentive for ESPN to push for any major changes, particularly as long as the Jim Delaney/Rose Bowl Axis of Douche is determined to stand in the way. And the one thing that might’ve prompted Delaney to get off his stubbornly traditionalist high horse this year — Penn State going 12-0 but getting left out of the national title game — isn’t going to happen.
3. Rivalry week is around the corner. How do you think your team will fare? Feel free to talk a little or a lot of trash.
I’d talk a lot more trash if a win over Georgia Tech was as bankable as it’s been the last seven years, but there’s no guarantee that we’re going to make it eight in a row. Overall, Tech’s talent level is significantly lower than Georgia’s, but then, we thought the same thing about Auburn and Kentucky. And the new triple-option offensive scheme that Paul Johnson implemented on the Flats this year just happens to match up with what has been our biggest weakness over the past few games, i.e. a rapidly collapsing run defense. Like Paul Westerdawg, I’m hopeful that even in the event of a big day from the GT running attack, Georgia’s balanced and supremely talented offense will be able to stay a step ahead of them. But I still think we’re going to need at least one big defensive stand, or a bunch of screw-ups (read: turnovers) by the Tech offense, to put them away.
God, what a miserable answer. I can’t believe I’m at the point where I’m sweating Tech. That’s like staying in your room with the door locked because you’re afraid your 10-year-old little brother is going to come in and beat you up.
Ooooh, is that a . . . pass rush? I remember those! They were awesome!
4. And now for a little fun … Assemble your dream announcing team. Pick a play-by-play announcer, color commentator, sideline reporter and for the hell of it celebrity guest that drops on by.
Awesome question. Well, my play-by-play guy would obviously be Ron Franklin, but I’m sure at least half the people answering this question are gonna say that, so if he’s unavailable, I’ll take Uncle Verne Lundquist. Both of those guys are absolute masters of their craft whose voices pretty much defined Saturday afternoons/evenings for me during my formative years as a rabid Georgia fan.
As for the color guy? Call me crazy, but I really like Kirk Herbstreit. He knows his shit, and he’s enthusiastic without being overbearing; with a lot of guys in that particular chair, you can kind of see/hear the wheels turning in their head as if they’re thinking, “Ohh, this is big, how can I be sufficiently bombastic that people will forever associate my voice with this game?”, but Herbstreit doesn’t do that. He’s still got a little bit of that Big Ten homerism to work out, but he’s gotten better at that. Runner-up: Ron Jaworski, who’s finally getting his due props for being an absolute master of the game, analysis-wise, with his gig on Monday Night Football. Don’t know how well he’d carry over from the NFL to the college game, but I wouldn’t mind finding out.
Sideline reporter: Sorry, I’m gonna have to go with another likely common answer, and that’s Erin Andrews. She gets the nod by being a) hot and b) smart enough at her job to deserve it even if she wasn’t hot. My left-field answer, though, is Holly Anderson, who would bring the halftime interview to a whole new level of entertaining.
"Where are we this weekend? Oklahoma-Texas Tech? Fine, let me gas up the Ferrari and I'll be there in thirty minutes."
And finally, my special celebrity guest: The Selleck. Has to be. He went to USC on a basketball scholarship, but the Trojans won the national title his senior year, so I’d be surprised if he was completely oblivious to football. The one caveat, though, would that he’d have to appear in the booth wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a Detroit Tigers cap. This would not be negotiable.
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