Cranky Greg's View

Thoughts on Sports

It's college football season again and it's time for Cranky Greg to get all worked up over the ridiculous and silly college football polls and other such nonsense.

Cranky Greg went to the Fresno St. v. Boise State game Friday night.  As expected, Boise State won the game.  Cranky Greg was pulling for the Bulldogs, but Cranky Greg really loves Boise State.  He loves the way they play the game.  They play to win every game and they take on big teams and don't shrink under pressure.  They belong in the Pac-10, where they would be better than every team except USC, and after USC's embarrassing performance yesterday in Washington, might even be better than USC.  Boise State would never run the ball at the end of the half when out of timeouts and in field goal range.  Chris Petersen is a better coach than Pete Carroll.

Speaking of Pete Carroll at USC, Carroll should stop reading his press clippings and watching the ongoing Pete Carroll Love Fest on ESPN and start worrying about football.  Bill Plaschke has more to say on  this subject.

And the Big 12 South is really where all the action is.  Last night, Texas Tech lost to the Longhorns, but at least Tech didn't get the hell pounded out of them.  QB Taylor Potts looks like a keeper.

Pete Carroll is not the only coach who is guilty of making stupid coaching decisions: Tech pulls within 7 points of the Horns in the 3rd quarter and Tech coach Mike Leach decides to try an onside kick and guess what?  Texas recovered the ball and a couple of plays later were celebrating a touchdown and another 14-point lead!

Underdogs have to position themselves to win, not take stupid gambles and shoot themselves in the foot.  Recovering an onside kick is not a good percentage play, and even if it works, you don't get points - just the ball.  That's the best that could happen.  The worst that could happen is that you give the team with the lead the ball with great field position.  Stupid decision by Coach Leach.  I am sure the folks in Lubbock are gonna be all over Leach this week.

The Oklahoma Sooners must be a miserable bunch after losing to BYU the other day  and then seeing BYU getting simply hammered by an unranked Florida State in BYU's home field in Utah!!

The Sooners can salvage their season by beating Texas in a couple of weeks.

Typical Tech & BCS Mess

Cranky Greg is one cranky mood after watching the Oklahoma Sooners dismantle Texas Tech last night.  It was carnage in Norman.  Tech looked befuddled and confused and overmatched.

Tech was beaten so badly that Tech can just goodbye to any hopes of playing in the fraudulent national championship game.  And now the BCS is really a mess.

Just look at the Big XII South.  Texas beats OU.  Texas Tech beats Texas.  OU Beats Texas Tech.  Next week, OU plays OSU, Texas plays A&M, and Tech plays hapless Baylor.

If Texas, OU and Tech win, there's a 3-way tie.  The BCS rankings will determine which of these teams from the South will play in the Big XII Championship Game.  That's crazy.  What of Missouri wins the Big XII Championship Game?

People say Florida and USC should be considered.  USC probably won't win the Pac 10.  So they shoudl be out.  Florida has a loss, and we'll have to see what Alabama does, and there's the SEC Championship Game.

Oh, and Cranky Greg doesn't want people to forget about Boise State!  And Utah!

All Cranky Greg knows is that season screams out for a playoff system.

Meanwhile, Texas Tech fans get burned by their team again.  This season is even worse than the 1976 season when Tech lost to Houston, at home in Lubbock.  When Texas Tech puts together a decent year, Tech always finds a way to lose a big game.  That is where the "Typical Tech" phrase came from.

This year, it would have been "Typical" for Tech to have lost to Kansas, but Tech throttled Kansas.  Then, after Tech beat Texas, it would have been "Typical" for Tech to have lost to Oklahoma State.  But Tech throttled OSU.  So Cranky Greg thought that perhaps Tech was past the "Typical Tech" territory?

Not.  It wasn't losing to Oklahoma that was so bad - it was the way Tech lost.  So in "Typical Tech" fashion, Tech drove another painful dagger into the hearts of Tech fans everywhere.

Tech is destined to be behind Texas and OU into Eternity.

Dammit!

There's talk that coach Mike Leach may be wooed by the Washington's and the Tennessee's.  Cranky Greg wonders if that talk will die down now?

A lot of it has to do with how Tech plays against Baylor.  It wouldn't be a huge surprise if Tech lost that game.

Had Tech put up a big fight in Norman, then Tech's prospects would not be so dim.  But to just get hammered the way they did just ruined their season.

Typical Tech!!

But not is all lost.  OU still has to beat OSU.  Texas still has to beat A&M, which has been difficult the last couple of years.  If Tech beats Baylor, and OU or Texas loses, then, who knows?

Tech needs to hang about 70 on Baylor.

Go Tech!

BCS and College Football Poll Nightmare Scenario

A nightmare scenario for the BCS and the silly college football polls is brewing.

Alabama is undefeated and is now ranked #1.  Texas Tech is undefeated and is ranked #2.  Boise State is undefeated and so is Utah.

If Texas Tech loses to Oklahoma, then in the Big XII South, Tech, OU and Texas would all have one loss.  To each other, basically.  Then who would play in the Big XII championship game?  For the chance to perhaps play for the National Championship?  Under this scenario, Texas beat OU, Tech beat Texas and OU beats Tech.

In the SEC, Alabama is currently undefeated.  They have Auburn and Mississippi State left on the schedule.  Assuming Alabama wins these games, they will probably play Florida in the SEC Championship game.  What if Florida wins?  Then Florida and Alabama would each have one loss.  Is Florida better than Texas Tech?  Or Boise State?  Or OU?  Or what about Alabama?  Could Alabama beat USC?

And speaking of the SEC and Big XII, it appears that these conferences are much better than the PAC 10.  Which by no means means that a team from the PAC 10 should never be a National Champion.  But the Big XII and SEC have Championship Games - and the PAC 10 doesn't.  What if USC had to play Oregon State again?

The bottom line is that the point of football is the game.  The games need to be played.  We don't need coaches and writers who are always wrong in their rankings to determine who is the National Champion.  To have a computer involved in the BCS rankings is damn near criminal.

Why don't we just feed a bunch of information into a computer and figure everything out that way?  Who needs to play the games?

Even President-Elect Barack Obama wants a college playoff system.

If it's good enough Barack Obama, it's good enough for Cranky Greg!

Texas Tech v. Oklahoma State & Other College Football Musings

Texas Tech hosts Oklahoma State tonight in the biggest game in Tech's history.  That's because Tech beat Mack Brown and his Longhorns last week in Lubbock.

Many are picking Tech to lose tonight, but if Tech does lose a game this year, it will probably be to Baylor.

Unfortunately, Cranky Greg will not be able to watch tonight's game, which may be a good thing.

In other games, it's too bad that TCU lost to Utah, and that Fresno State was hammered by Nevada last night.

Listening to "Dog Talk" last nght in Fresno after the loss to Nevada, participants were almost unanimous in their calls for Pat Hill to leave Fresno State.  These callers may be right - Fresno State hasn't won the WAC outright during Hill's reign.  It's frustrating every year to watch the Bulldogs team knock off a BCS team and then do something stupid like losing to Louisiana Tech.  Or Nevada.  Or Hawaii.  Happens every damn year.

USC plays Cal, and Cal is always overrated, but there are a lot of folks in California who are praying for a Bear victory in light of coach Pete Carroll's comments that the BCS just isn't fair because he can't figure out how Texas Tech went up in the polls after beating #1 Texas and USC dropped after beating the hell out of Washington, which any local high school team could do.

Cranky Greg agrees, and so do the fine folks at Utah and TCU and Boise State.  But it seems unseemly coming from Carroll who's teams have lost twice to Oregon State in the last 3 years and once to Stanford last year at the Coliseum.

Trying to apply logic to the college football polls and the BCS is like trying herd cats, but Cranky Greg tries to anyway.  USC hardly has an argument for being #1 or #2 as long as there are undefeated teams out there like Alabama, Penn State and Texas Tech.  Regarding strength of schedule, Alabama is in the SEC and Texas Tech is in the Big XII.  Can anyone argue with a straight face that the Pac 10 is better or even equal to the Big XII or the SEC?

Penn State is kinda out there, but they're kinda out there undefeated.

USC lost to a lower tier team in their own conference.  Cranky Greg thinks that every team ranked ahead of SC deserves to be there, based on the results so far this season.

But what does Cranky Greg know?  The only way to figure this out properly is to have a playoff system.  Let's have USC as PAC 10 champs play the Big XII champs.  Or the SEC champs.  Let's see who survives a playoff system.

The current system is just silly.

Let's kill it and kill it now!!!

Texas Tech #2?

The polls, which are bogus to begin with, have Texas Tech at #2.

This despite the fact that the Texas Longhorns beat Oklahoma when OU was ranked #1.

Then Texas became #1.

Then undefeated Texas Tech beat #1 Texas.

So Texas Tech beats a #1 team that beat another #1 team and Texas Tech is #2?

What kinda shit is that?

Bevo shit.

Oh well.  Just the stupid polls which Cranky Greg disdains.

College Football....OU Falls....LSU Falls...Who's #1? Texas? Penn State?

Does anyone out there still believe that the BCS and the college football polls make sense?

If so, you can probably get a job at King Paulson's Treasury Department.

In previous years, Cranky Greg used to go through the college football polls every week and show how bogus the polls are by pointing out the ranked teams that lost to unranked teams or higher ranked teams that lost to lower ranked teams.

It got to be no fun because it was like shooting fish in a barrel.  And it happened every week. 

This year the trend continues.  USC lost the other day to Oregon State.  USC was going to be the next dynasty.  Then it was LSU.  No, wait!  Georgia was the next big team!  Then Alabama came to town.  But don't forget OU, aka "Choklahoma" for their losing streak in bowl games.  This year, OU was gonna win it all!  But here comes Colt McCoy and his Longhorns, who just kicked the Sooners in the teeth in a most enjoyable game.

The fact is that the BCS system is just plain dumb.  Who cares what the coaches or computers say?  Shouldn't things be decided on the field?

The Texas Longhorns look really good.  But they have some tough games ahead.  They can look forward to Missouri (that's right - the #3 Missouri Tigers who lost to #17 Oklahoma State) Oklahoma State (who will now move up in the rankings after beating Missouri) and # 7 Texas Tech in Lubbock (who had difficulty beating unranked Nebraska).  And then they have to play Texas A&M, the team that beat the Longhorns even with that loser Coach Fran at the helm.

If Texas gets through that hellacious schedule unscathed, Texas should be #1, but then thay have to play in the Big XII Championship game.

USC doesn't have to play in a PAC 10 Championship game.
How fair is that in the rankings?

That's why there needs to be a playoff system.

"Experts" say that the Big XII or the SEC are the toughest conferences.  But that doesn't mean that a PAC 10 team cannot be the best team in the country.  Or a WAC team, for that matter.

Should Boise State be left out of contention for a National Championship merely because Boise State is in the WAC?

Rankings are stupid, just look at the preseason polls.

1.  Georgia
2.  Ohio State
3.  USC
4.  Oklahoma
5.  Florida
6.  Missouri
7.  LSU
8.  West Virginia
9.  Clemson
10. Auburn

Of these top-10 ranked teams, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM HAS LOST A GAME TO AN UNRANKED TEAM OR A LOWER RANKED TEAM.

Cranky Greg would love to hear from someone who can intellectually defend the BCS/Poll system.

Senseless College Football Polls

Cranky Greg hasn't complained too much this year over the ridiculous college football system and the repugnant BCS.  It's not like he's had the economy on his mind or anything.

Anyway, Lex Icon makes a pretty good argument for the abolition of the current system.

Of Fresno State, Texas Tech and Lousy BCS

It's football season, and Cranky Greg hasn't forgotten.  Last Saturday night, Cranky Greg and family headed out for Reno to see Texas Tech play Nevada.  This is a photo CG took of Tech's offense.  It was a very frustrating game, even though Tech won, because Tech QB Graham Harrell was completely out of sync the whole night.  He underthrew passes, and he was not on the same page as his receivers.  Despite the problems, Tech won, but if Tech plays like this against Texas or Oklahoma, or even Oklahoma State or the Devil's Team, Texas A&M, Tech will lose.

One thing about Tech receiver Michael Crabtree - when he gets the ball he outruns everyone else on the field.  He's got to be the fastest receiver in the Big XII.

Tech plays SMU this weekend, and Tech needs to pound the Ponies.  SMU's new coach, June Jones, is hoping for the big upset in Lubbock to add some pizazz to the hapless program on the Hilltop.  June Jones has his work cut out for him, that's for sure!

The other big game this week is Fresno State v. Wisconsin.  Both teams are ranked in the bogus rankings that don't mean a damn thing because they are always wrong, and silly, to say the least.

But that shouldn't cloud Fresno State's quest for a spot in a bogus BCS bowl game.  This is probably the biggest home game in Fresno State's history, and Cranky Greg actually thinks that the Bulldogs will beat the Badgers.  If that happens, Cranky Greg hopes that Fresno State doesn't screw things up later by losing to a bad team like Louisiana Tech.  Which seems to be a habit.

But should Fresno State go undefeated this year, no one can claim that Fresno plays a patsy schedule like many other football teams do.  They went to New Jersey to play Rutgers.  They play Wisconsin.  And then they travel to Pasadena to take on UCLA next week.

If Fresno State goes undefeated this year, there is no reason why Fresno should be denied the opportunity to play for the National Championship.

But Cranky knows what will probably happen:  USC will beat the hell out of Ohio State tomorrow, and then USC and Ohio State will probably play for the National Championship, even if Fresno State goes undefeated.

But Cranky won't get his undergarments in a wad yet.  It's only September.

Football Ramblings

This is Texas Tech coach Mike Leach celebrating after Texas Tech's "thrilling" victory over #21 Virginia in the Gator Bowl on January 1.

In what apparently is a bowl-game trend, Tech looks awful the whole game (for example, how about QB Graham Harrell's two safeties in the first half?) and then at the end wins the game in dramatic fashion.  Last year, Tech beat Minnesota 44-41 in the Insight Bowl after being down by 31 points.  The Gopher coach was fired a couple of days later.

But other than Tech fans or Virginia fans, no one cared about this game because it didn't mean anything.  The stadium was damn-near empty.  The meaningless college footballs polls listed Virginia as #21, but unranked Texas Tech beat Virginia.  Doesn't that mean that Tech should be ranked at least #21?

It's simply more proof that the college football polls are bogus.

And how about Choklahoma?  That's the new name for the Oklahoma Sooners who seem to do anything to keep from winning a bowl game.  Last year at the Fiesta Bowl, Boise State beat the Sooners in what was probably the best football game Cranky Greg ever watched.  This year, the #4 Sooners were embarrassed again in the Fiesta Bowl by #9 West Virginia, 48-28.

Polls were wrong again.  OU #4?  Defeated by #9 WVA?  And don't forget that earlier this year, unranked Texas Tech beat Choklahoma as did unranked Colorado.

A team is defeated by two unranked teams and ends up #4 before the bowl games?

But Choklahoma did beat Missouri twice (and Missouri beat undefeated Kansas and Missouri is ranked #6 and hammered Arkansas in their bowl game) and did defeat the Longhorns.

This is precisely why a playoff system is needed.  Who can make sense of all this?

Certainly not the "experts" who look foolish every week.

Here's some more bowl game evidence that the polls are useless and silly:

Unranked E. Carolina beat #24 Boise State, 41-38.
Unranked Wake Forest beat #21 Connecticut, 24-10.
Unranked Oregon beat #21 S. Florida, 56-21.
Unranked Michigan beat #12 Florida, 41-35.
#19 Texas beat #11 Arizona State, 52-34.
#23 Auburn beat #15 Clemson, 23-20.

Oh yeah, there is one game left.  The game is meaningless.  Cranky Greg thinks that USC could beat Ohio State and LSU.  But we will never know because there is no playoff system.  Just some "experts" and computers who know better than settling these issues on the field.

SMU MUSTANG UPDATE:  The SMU Mustangs fired coach Phil Bennett earlier this year, and Cranky Greg was worried that SMU would hire that disgraced dumbass, Dennis Franchione, to replace Bennett as head football coach.  SMU did talk to "Coach" Fran, but it appears that SMU has its eye on Hawaii coach June Jones.

SMU wants to pay Jones $2 million per year.  Oh, brother!

Anyway, CG expects Jones to stay put.  It's not like SMU is in the Big XXII or something.

SMU should hire anyone but Franchione.  The problem is, "Coach" Fran may be the only one willing to take the job.

SATURDAY NIGHT SMU UPDATE:  According to this story in The Dallas Morning News, June Jones is headed for The Hilltop.  Coulda fooled Cranky Greg!

More on the BCS BS

Reader(s) tire of reading about how Cranky Greg HATES the BCS and hates the college football polls.

Wise men agree with Cranky Greg.

Just ask former Texas Tech coach and current Appalachian State coach Jerry Moore.