Let’s not rehash the hideous details here, but Crompton didn’t get to start every game of the 2008 season, as backup QB Nick Stephens got …well, he got the kind of playing time you’d expect from a team with an offense that showed up DOA to the first game of the season.  The head coaching staff rolled over pretty severely at the end of the season – really, “severe” is the only word you can use to describe jettisoning Phil Fulmer – and the next roll of the dice came up snake eyes.  Of course, Lady Luck didn’t actually reveal that roll until the end of the 2009 season.

Lane Kiffin came in with Jim Chaney, Monte Kiffin, Ed Orgeron, and a host of promises and awkward moments that have been covered past wit’s end halfway across the ‘net.  What we care about for the purposes of this story is that he stuck with Crompton in the starting role; Crompton was entering his senior season.  Sure, Nick Stephens was an upperclassman, but he had spent enough time as an understudy to Crompton that it wasn’t the end of the world to sit behind him for one more season.  On top of that, Crompton was the more talented of the two.  So Crompton would start in 2009, Stephens would assume the starting QB role in 2010 and the year of the QB reckoning would come in 2011.  Well, that was going to happen if Kiffin wasn’t able to recruit a blue-chip QB or two and hand them the reins as a redshirt freshman.

Say what you will about Kiffin and his crew, but the one thing he’s been able to do – and been very successful at – is recruit.  (Some would say that’s all he does.)  Giving a crew like his a goal like this is about as simple a task as you can imagine.  Ed Orgeron took the hint and started hitting the road, but it didn’t quite work out for Tennessee like they were expecting.  Jesse Scroggins was the first major target along with Tyler Bray (with Jake Heaps tossed in at the side).  Heaps left the picture early to BYU, but Scroggins was in the picture and the main target.  That worked out well for the Kiffins; Scroggins committed to USC in July, and Tennessee came into the 2009 season with no answer to a 2010 backup QB.  In-season recruiting is always such a tricky proposition.  Fortunately, Tyler Bray committed to Tennessee in late September.

Somewhere in this time frame – honestly, I forget the timeline at this point – some fairly aggressive JUCO recruiting was taking place, resulting in Nick Lamaison enrolling in time for the spring semester.  Tennessee’s QB performance during the season progressed as nice as you’d wish; after a rough first few games, Crompton matured into an inexplicable dynamo, confusing most of the football-watching nation in the process.  This was a great sign for 2010 – if Jim Chaney could do this for someone who looked as lost as Crompton did in ’08, surely Nick Stephens would be even better next season.  Crompton ended up drafted.  He ended up drafted!  The kid who couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn or read defenses to save his life in 2008 is going to get a chance with a NFL franchise.  Surely Nick Stephens can pull a 58% completion percentage in ’10 under the same tutelage, right?

Well, these things don’t always work out like you’d expect.  The Kiffin Medusa left to go coach the QB they missed out on in Knoxville (Jim Chaney stuck around) and Derek Dooley came in.  With Dooley came JUCO Matt Simms – and later, Nash Nance.  That’s a total of 5 QBs on scholarship – or at least 5 relevant QBs on scholarship.  Spring practice came and went, and as spring practice went so did Nick Stephens.

Of course, that’s simplifying things a bit.  Stephens struggled during the spring, eventually getting dropped down the depth chart behind the true freshman Bray and Simms.  Once Stephens realized he’d be a backup during his last season, he decided that was the end of his career at Tennessee.  As these things go, that’s probably a fair assessment; I think he had an opportunity to jump back up the depth chart, but realistically Stephens would be in the same situation he was in during the ’08 and ’09 seasons – primary backup.  For a guy that had to have felt that he’d paid his dues, waited for his chance, and learned everything that had been asked of him getting shuffled down to the emergency QB slot was it.

After the chaos of the last two seasons, it’s set in stone that the starter for Tennessee will open the season taking a total of zero snaps in orange.  Of the four prospects, Lamaison is the least exciting.  Lamaison was a useful cog back in 2009 when there was no immediate answer to the backup QB issue, but for now the position battle has passed him by.  At this point, he’ll likely inherit Stephens’ spot as third on the depth chart.  Nash Nance wins the battle for best name among the QB prospects (really, I’ve been seeing his name for months and I want to flip one of the N’s for a V – Vash Nance or Nash Vance feel like they make more sense); unfortunately, he’s also the clubhouse leader for Most Likely to Redshirt.  Nance isn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, but he’s fortunate enough to be a true freshman he gets a year to learn the system.

That leaves two legitimate contenders for the starting role – Matt Simms and Tyler Bray.  Let’s talk about the guy who gives me hives first – after spending the better part of the last eight years mocking Chris Simms’ performance in the 2001 Big 12 Championship Game, I’m not sure how I feel about being in a position to cheer someone with that last name.  Simms may be a perfectly capable QB, and on some level I like the idea of playing a guy who’s at least seen college athletes, but on the other hand I know I’d like him way more if his name was Matt Smith.  In terms of raw recruiting chops Simms profiles similar to Nance (which posits well for Nance come 2011), but clearly there’s a superior ability to accept instruction, read defenses, and perform as compared to Nance.

On the other hand, Bray is clearly the most talented of the group.  Sure, he may have the mobility of a Weeble – which will be a problem this year – but Bray is the choice for the future.  He has height but resembles a beanpole; in a perfect world Bray is the kind of guy you redshirt behind a capable senior and force-feed the guy until he gains 25 pounds.  (Even with that 25 pounds he’d still weigh less than Lamaison, FWIW.)  This is just about as far from a perfect world as you can get, and the unfortunate question for Dooley is if Bray has enough strength to handle the grind of a college schedule.

The one issue we haven’t talked about yet is protection; not only is the QB situation a mess, the offensive line might actually be in worse shape.  Most of the guys with functional starts (or any starts) are gone, and depth is going to be a major concern.  On the plus side, most of the line is likely set save center, but …well, set doesn’t necessarily mean good or experienced.  Dallas Thomas and Ju’Wuan James should slot in as tackles with JerQuari Schofield and Jarrod Shaw as guards.  Of those four, Shaw is the only upperclassman – heck, he’s the only guy who’s not a freshman.  Fortunately, the center competition involves a sophomore and a junior, so the line isn’t entirely freshmen.  Whether the line meshes is a huge key to the season; the fortunate news among the line is that they were all in for spring practice.  James Stone may jump in as depth, but …well, of the seven guys listed in this paragraph, only three of them have had the fortune to come back to Tennessee for a second season.  Putting a quarterback – any quarterback – behind this offensive line and asking them to win games is going to be a tall proposition.  It’s a fool’s errand to hope that offensive line health will hold throughout the season, but it’s the case here.

Whichever QB makes it to the opening game of the season may very well not make it out of the opening game.  Quite frankly, the odds that a crucial QB skill list for 2010 Tennessee includes “take a hit” are pretty high.  As a result, while Bray is certainly the most talented of the crew – and absent game experience, it may as well come down to talent or a coin flip – there’s a risk with putting a guy out there who can be snapped like a wheat stalk.  Maybe putting one of the JUCOs out there is the right path (and I’ll ignore the true long-term strategy, which is to redshirt Bray, let Nance get the crap knocked out of him, and then get rid of him at the end of the season; don’t run your actual football teams like I run my NCAA ’10 teams, kids (unless you’re Nick Saban).  It’s less mean when you’re doing it to memory than when you’re doing it to people) for now, and once the offensive line gets a chance to gel and improve you let Bray take the reins.  This also gives him time to see and break down film from college games.

Then again, there’s something to be said for allowing a true freshman to learn on the job.  Opportunities like this at major schools don’t come along every day, and if Bray is the kind of talent that Tennessee thinks he is there’s a very real line of thought that lends itself to letting the kid take his lumps.  Erik Ainge ended up doing pretty well for himself after getting thrust into the fire as a true freshman (including getting himself a SEC East crown his senior year) and besides, it’s not like Bray would end up with a full-blown 100% of the snaps in that scenario.  He’d be protected when it makes sense to protect him – in blowouts, off injuries, and the like.  If Simms and Bray are as close as they appear to be right now, then there’s no incentive to play for this season.

As painful as those words are for me to write, this year wasn’t going to be good and we knew that going into it.  Heck, we knew that going into the Kiffin regime, too; the way the line played out last year was 2009 was learning the system, 2010 was rebuilding, and 2011 was contention.  With Dooley running things, now Tennessee has compressed learning the system and rebuilding into the same year.  Next year will likely be rebuilding too – it’s tough to build a foundation when you tear a house down, start to rebuild it and then notice you’re building on a sinkhole halfway into construction.  It’s a minor miracle that recruiting has done as well as it has; Dooley deserves credit for pulling together one heck of a class given the offseason chaos.  This kind of problem would be glorious were it not for the backdrop it was laid against and the massive pile of questions at half the other positions on the field.

Simms is the safe choice – pedigree, knowledge, experience.  Two years is a lot of time to learn the game, and more than that I’d bet Simms has a better grasp on how to learn the game.  Bray may be a film rat for all I know, but Simms has had more time to know how he absorbs information.  Heck, I didn’t figure that out at all my first three years in college – knowing what to do is easier than knowing how to see what to do.  I’m pretty sure Bray knows what to do, but does he know how to see?   Again, I’m not sure if Simms has had exposure to advanced schematics (thanks again, Charlie Weis) at the JUCO level, but I feel pretty safe in saying that Simms has probably seen more of the stuff he’ll see in SEC play than Bray has.  More importantly, he’s seen more of it.  Has he seen copies of Saban’s defensive schemes, or has he seen the Mustang package?  (Please tell me he’s seen the Mustang package.)  Probably not, but he might get it sooner.

As much as I’m loathe to admit it, that kind of pattern recognition matters a lot to coaches.  Simms simply has to have this knowledge base because he doesn’t have the physical gifts that Bray does.  There’s no other way for him to be this close in the QB competition otherwise – and yes, that pedigree does mean he’s learned how to do things like break down defenses and watch film, or at least I’d guess he has (whether he learned it from Phil or Chris is another question entirely; let’s hope he learned it from Phil).

There’s always the idea of a QB rotation, which seems like the worst idea of the bunch.  Neither option here is great for this season, so when absent a good option, taking two mediocre ones and chucking them together smells less like a good idea and more like football Frankenstein.  If they had disparate talents I’d understand somewhat (although as we’ve learned recently, running QBs now play in the slot and young “dual-threat” QBs can be effectively reworded as “guys who can run but don’t have either the accuracy or the power to play QB at the college level, but they can get a snap from under center”) as that was part of the intent behind the well-meaning Brent Schaffer / Erik Ainge platoon in 2004.  However, all the guys in camp are classic pocket passers, and while one of the guys may be able to bust out a 4.8 40-yard dash on occasion, that won’t let them escape from the DE who runs a 4.59.  The mad scientist in me looks at the dearth of QB talent and the mess of RB talent (Tauren Poole, David Oku, Toney Williams) and wonders if we can’t just stick two RBs in the backfield, teach one of them how to take a shotgun snap, and run zone reads 15 times a game.  It’d keep the QB crew safe if nothing else.

Somewhere in this mess of words there’s an answer for who to start and how to make it work.  I’m not sure I know what the answer is, though – at this point there have been so many doors shut that it’s tough to tell which doors didn’t get locked.  Simms or Bray will be the starter for the first game of the season, but after that it’s anyone’s guess.  Heck, it’s anyone’s guess if they’ll succeed.  The only thing I feel pretty confident about right now is that I won’t have to write this piece again next year, and for that I’m thankful.

It’s such a weird conglomeration of events; LeBron is, at worst, the second-best player in the NBA – who’s bound for free agency.  There’s a whole mess of subplots involving Cleveland and their history, their tortured fanbase, and all that assorted chaos that I’m really not too concerned about right now.  It’s much less that for me and more a story of redemption.  ESPN has gleefully taken up the mantle seeing LeBron out of Cleveland, and me being me (don’t make me link back to the whole mess of Mike Leach / ESPN finger-pointing from around New Year’s) I can’t help but think the stinkbomb dropped in Game 5 is going to prompt …well, I don’t know.  Anything and everything’s in play here, and if we’re headed for a 50/15/10, I want to see it.  God help us all, I’m actually excited for basketball.  And I figure if I’m crazy enough to actually watch basketball, I might as well preserve it for posterity.

Pregame: The keys to the game are apparently defense and rebounding.  Either Pat Summitt is now coaching Boston (it’d probably be a step up) or John Madden is now announcing basketball.

8:10 PM (10:00 left, 1^st quarter): Boston’s opened up hot; Cleveland is running their offense through James, but the looks he’s taken haven’t been great.  He looks a bit rushed so far.  If you want better analysis than that, come back during football season.  I don’t know shit here.

8:15 PM (7:30 left, 1^st quarter): It’s hard for Shaq to maneuver in the interior with a gigantic fork stuck in his back.  After bricking a bad shot with a move that could charitably be described as herky-jerky (and accurately described as god-awful), someone fails to clear the interior and Boston gets an open slam.  TO, Cleveland.

8:25 PM (4:00 left, 1^st quarter): Hey, Paul Pierce has two fouls.  LeBron’s got a couple of steals so far, although I haven’t seen a ton of him so far.  After one of said steals, LeBron spends a few seconds attempting to chew out the ref.  Somehow this works – Tony Allen commits an off-the-ball foul on LeBron, which: what?  The Boston crowd seems to have fallen into some vague level of hatred I’d classify as “less than Matt Cooke walking into anywhere in Boston”.

8:26 PM (3:30 left, 1^st quarter): Players wandering back toward the play after getting caught out of position and waving their hands around wildly never ceases to get old.  Thank you, Anderson Varajeo.  Also, LeBron’s stuffing the stat sheet so far – of course, this includes a couple of turnovers.  It almost looks like he’s trying to do it all.

8:30 PM (3:00 left, 1^st quarter): I just realize I saw Brian Scalabrine in a suit.  Score!

8:32 PM (2:10 left, 1^st quarter): Has Cleveland always run isolation plays for LeBron, or am I just noticing all the isolation plays?  It’s not a bad idea necessarily, but it gets old in a hurry.  Also, holy crap does Varajeo know what he’s doing on the defensive side of the court?  Every time I look at him he’s out of position.

8:34 PM (1:00 left, 1^st quarter): I think I just saw LeBron bounce it a defensive board off the glass before coming down just because he could.  I know I just saw him pick up his second foul – weak call, but it makes up for wondering what the hell happened to Tony Allen earlier, so whatever.  Also, I’ve read so much about how subpar NBA officiating is that I’m used to it, even though I’ve never watched it.  Weird.

8:37 PM (10.7 seconds left, 1^st quarter): Mo Williams just burned a good 15 seconds off the shot clock before a shot clock violation.  Boston has a chance to end the quarter up 8…

8:39 PM (end of 1^st quarter): …but a missed fallaway by Pierce just means they’re up 3.  LeBron’s looked decent so far, but it feels less like he’s taking the game over to me and more that he’s pressing.  Again, it’s a layman’s eye here and while I have a general sense that he owns the Cavs, he’s wrested control of the game away from everyone – and yet the Celtics seem okay with that right now, too.  It’s interesting, and in a way that I can’t quite put my finger on.

8:45 PM (11:00 left, 2^nd quarter): Rajon Rondo just dominated not only his defender, but – wait for it – a horribly out of position Anderson Varajeo!  Beautiful under-the-hoop scoop layup by Rondo with a foul.  Just in case that wasn’t embarrassing enough, someone (Jamario Moon?) whips something that we might call a shot against the backboard – Boston fast break, Ray Allen jam, plus-1.  Boston up 8 and LeBron’s back in.  Not that it helps – another miss and now Tony Allen’s into the action.  Boston up 10.

8:50 PM (10:30 left, 2^nd quarter): LeBron responds with a nice drive, drawing a foul on Tony Allen (his 2^nd) and converting the free throw for a three-point play.  Also, I just realized that Tony Allen’s open layup was thanks in part to Anderson Varajeo!  What a gamer.  Why’s he on the court, anyway?

8:53 PM (9:00 left, 2^nd quarter): ‘Sheed with his third foul – and a T to boot.  Good timing there.  Also, LeBron just hit his 5^th TO of the game – Cleveland’s at 10 for the game.  Paul Pierce “charges” (some yahoo called it a “college call” – only if you’re Ted Valentine, son) and now he’s got three, too.  Also, Varajeo has somehow woken up.

8:58 PM (7:30 left, 2^nd quarter): I’m getting entranced by Rajon Rondo; he just whipped out this absurd 20-foot run into a nice layup.  Just blew by half the Cavs.  Not to be outdone, Mo Williams dribbles into chaos, drops a low outlet pass and Cleveland picks up two in return.  The refs then swallow their whistles while LeBron (miss) and Rondo (make) take about 150 steps between them.

9:00 PM (6:00 left, 2^nd quarter): Varajeo out of the game; announcers compliment his play.  I contemplate my own mortality.  Meanwhile, Rajon Rondo is leaving smoke marks whenever he dribbles the ball and the crowd has finally come alive – at least to the extent they’re going to.  Really mediocre crowd so far; I’ve heard much better in college.

9:05 PM (5:00 left, 2^nd quarter): Mo Williams is the only reason that the Cavs are in this game.  All over the place scoring (16 points so far), although he has the same curse LeBron has – 2 assists, 2 TO.  Bonus: Shaq shooting FTs!  When you watch basketball once a decade like I do, it’s good to know that still blows.

9:08 PM (4:00 left, 2^nd quarter): Ugly sequence; Shaq pulls down an offensive board, pivots twelve times on both feet (no call), puts up a bad shot, only Mo Williams comes back to pull down the offensive board, slices back in once he controls it, and Shaq ends up getting the two anyway. That was fun; now let’s never speak of it again.

9:18 PM (1:30 left, 2^nd quarter): Hey, NBA refs call lane violations!  Of course, Garnett was under the rim when that shot went up, so it was a little obvious.  Meanwhile, the announcers are openly talking about LeBron going to the Knicks – it’s cool guys, the game isn’t tied or anything like that.

9:20 PM (42.4 left, 2^nd quarter): Tony Allen just whipped a dunk where he angled at about 30 degrees before bombing that in, and NOW the crowd’s actually alive.  Of course, a couple of missed threes and a Cleveland possession or two later and there goes the crowd.

At halftime (51-49 Boston): It’s a very even half so far.  LeBron’s still on mathematical pace for a triple-double, but he kind of went dormant in the last few minutes once the game got close.  That’s in part because Mo Williams is carrying the scoring burden, which makes me think that either Cleveland’s going to crater or LeBron’s going to step up.

On the other hand, I’ve been very impressed with Rajon Rondo’s athleticism.  He’s damn near unstoppable in space, and while I’m not sure he’s been the best player so far, he’s been the most noticeable one.

9:44 PM (10:30 left, 3^rd quarter): Cleveland’s come out strong, running off five straight so far before LeBron goes to shoot two.  He had a nice dish to Anthony Parker in the corner for three right before this possession.  1-for-2 from the line, but Boston recovers by going to Garnett for a fallaway two.

9:46 PM (9:00 left, 3^rd quarter): And Garnett does it again.  Antawn Jamison (who’s been getting owned by Garnett) launches up a terrible three in retaliation.  That’ll show ‘em.  Meanwhile, that might’ve been the best possession of the Cavs’ last five, since it didn’t result in a turnover – unfortunately for them, they keep that up for the next couple of possessions, and Mike Brown is forced to call TO.  Boston’s up 2 now.

9:54 PM (7:00 left, 3^rd quarter): We’ve entered the herky-jerky portion of the game; lots of fouls on both sides, missed shots, and so on.  Fortunately, Kendrick Perkins and Shaq go at it and earn double technicals.  Meanwhile, I’m contemplating watching MLS.  LeBron rewards my patience, launching in with a nice layup (rimmed out), then ripping the board out of Perkins’ hands before whipping it back to Shaq for a free two.

9:57 PM (6:00 left, 3^rd quarter): LeBron just skies in to take a board off a FT; this doesn’t sound like much in print, but he came from 35 feet away to get that.  This feels like he’s warming up, I hope.  Meanwhile, he’s got 12 boards to go with his 13 points.

9:58 PM (5:00 left, 3^rd quarter): Anderson Varajeo!   Of course, Garnett still drains the shot but at least he tried there.

9:59 PM (also 5:00 left): That was a “New York Knicks” chant there, wasn’t it? I thought I heard that correctly.  And yes, it was directed at Varajeo, how’d you know?  I’m working up a pretty good hate train for him – at least it reads that way.  Really, he’s just like a big goofy mascot to me.

10:02 PM (3:30 left, 3^rd quarter): Boston’s gone on a mini-run (sparked in part by Varajeo walking around complaining that he’s bleeding) and they’re now up 9.  We’re in danger territory here.

10:06 PM (3:00 left, 3^rd quarter): Boston really should have momentum here, but a LeBron steal off a deflected pass followed by a fuck-the-open-man-I’m-getting-two drive and a foul has turned the crowd on its head.  I keep on waiting for it, and it keeps on almost happening, but he’s forcing it.  Meanwhile, Boston’s taking what comes to them and they’re now up 12.  It’s not game yet, but we’re closing in on it.

10:09 PM (1:30 left, 3^rd quarter): The announcers keep on going on about how LeBron just needs to take over, and here’s the thing; he’s trying to.  But he’s trying too hard – he’s trying to grapple with the game that’s just not coming to him.  I think he can take over still, but he needs to be a bit smarter and a bit more patient.

10:14 PM (end of the 3^rd quarter): Tony Allen did a good job shutting LeBron down on the Cavs’ previous possession, playing patient and stripping the ball when the opportunity presented itself.  He’s rewarded by getting an opportunity to brick a couple of free throws, which he does admirably.  But he picks up another strip on the last shot of the quarter.

At this point, Boston’s up 9 and I’m not sure Cleveland can come back.

10:20 PM (11:45 left, 4^th quarter): Is Rajon Rondo even aware of half the things he can do?  Because the things he does are staggering – he just dropped a one-handed bank shot in with no real effort.

10:25 PM (9:30 left, 4^th quarter): LeBron just hit back-to-back threes.  Cleveland’s back in this after all – down 4, the crowd is silent, and Boston’s taking a TO.

10:30 PM (8:30 left, 4^th quarter): Flip side of the coin – LeBron dribbles it off his foot, Rondo with an easy 2.  Meanwhile, Anderson Varajeo is fucking up offensive opportunities – Paul Pierce drains a three after another miss and Boston’s up 9.  If this is rope-a-dope, it’s working.

10:35 PM (6:30 left, 4^th quarter): One of the announcers has started sounding like Dick Vitale.  Meanwhile, ‘Sheed hits a three, another Cleveland turnover, and Garnett kills the break with a vicious dunk.  Boston by 14, and …well, this might be game.  LeBron’s trying to take over – and he’s closer than he’s been.  But his teammates are god-awful right now, missing open shots galore.

10:42 PM (4:00 left, 4^th quarter): Antawn Jamison: 1-8.  He’s gotten three good looks from LeBron.  Boston’s still up 14; we’re in game over territory, so I’m closing this up.

LeBron played …decently.   I can’t fault him too much for not making a ton of the massive defensive pile the Celtics threw at him, but the nine turnovers set the tone to 22 Cavs turnovers.  The weird thing is given his line – which certainly wasn’t bad at 27 points, 19 (!) boards, and 10 assists, with a few steals and a block thrown in there – he wasn’t comfortable with owning the game.  I’m not sure if he just can’t do it or he was hamstrung by his team, but Boston was more than content to let LeBron try and do everything and just throw bodies at him.  By all rights, LeBron should’ve had 15+ assists, but Cleveland’s inability to make open shots doomed them.

The $100,000,000 question is where LeBron goes from here, but that’s an issue to be dealt with at another time.  Or, if you’re ESPN, to be dealt with every 10 minutes from now until July 1^st.

Nats Triple Play

Capitol Punishment

Nationals Inquisition

Those of you who are aware of foreshadowing are probably smart enough to figure out where this is going.

Look, I understand that from a purely financial standpoint, you want to sell seats.  The Nationals aren’t any good, and with the rise of hockey (and the associated zombie bandwagon fans I’ll probably disparage later – hey look!  It’s a Caps tattoo sleeve!) the Nats get to compete with the Wizards for the title of third-most followed team in the DC area.  DC’s more transient than most, so you’re going to have a larger than typical away crowd at most games.  That’s just how it goes.  There’s a fine line between dealing with transients and implicitly encouraging them, and most of the rage comes from the Nationals having a festival on the far side of that line.

Take the email exchange here as an example.  (And, for the purposes of this argument, I’m not going to reference Stan openly asking Phillies fans to come support their team in DC – this was last season.)  Where do you see any mention of “we might’ve wanted to be careful about making sure we limited out-of-town group sales” or “the atmosphere at Opening Day wasn’t supportive for our Nationals” or “man, that was totally fucked up”?  I don’t see any evidence of contrition, and as frustrating as it is to see a ton of Philly fans storm the home park, it’s equally frustrating to have upper management respond with “hey, sucks to be y’all”.  Whether or not that was the intent, that was the interpretation.   People are pissed.

It seems to me that it’d be a good idea to make sure that the fans you have converted don’t decide things aren’t going well.  Hell, I was a straight-up holdover from the previous incarnation of the franchise – I’m as close to caught as you can get, and this makes no sense to me at all.  It’s OPENING DAY – it’s not hard to sell out Opening Day.  You know why it’s not hard to sell out Opening Day?  BECAUSE IT’S OPENING DAY.  Sell group tickets to Phillies fans for the rest of the games for all I care – Opening Day was one of two times all season that the Nats will get a good percentage of the nation’s eyes.  (The other will be Strasburg’s first start, whenever that is.  And even that will be the baseball diehards, and they’ll turn away once he leaves the game.)  It’s not like the Nats are known as anything other than a crapbag franchise, and when people tune in and get treated to CBP Southeast, the impression you leave fans with is twofold:

- The Nats don’t have many fans

- Front office doesn’t particularly care about this fact

Here’s a protip: local fans can figure that out as well.  Are you sure that second message is the one you want to be sending?

-          Jason Marquis is a heavy groundball pitcher (although likely not as heavy as he was in 2009) whose 2009 numbers were helped thanks to a low HR/FB rate – in Coors, no less – and a .291 BABIP.  Both of those – especially given the Nats’ infield defense, figuratively anchored by 3B Ryan Zimmerman and literally anchored by “1B” Adam Dunn – aren’t likely to improve, and this is a guy who was touted as the Nats’ #1 starter.  This is a guy who doesn’t strike people out and hasn’t had an ERA under 4 since 2004; this guy is an ace?  This is the guy who can turn around the Nats’ pitching woes?  The only thing working in Marquis’ favor is that he doesn’t get injured; the advanced readers have already determined that a guy with a 4.48 career ERA who doesn’t get injured sounds exactly like an innings-eater.  The Nats have decided to make an innings-eater their #1.  What?

-          Matt Capps is a decent, but not good reliever – who is the Nats’ de facto closer.  Amazingly, a 5.80 ERA is a step up from last season’s bullpen and the walking firebomb of Joel Hanrahan and Mike MacDougal; note that this isn’t a statement saying Matt Capps is good.  HIs peripherals are decent, but relievers with decent peripherals are pretty common, and I’d rather have ’08 Capps (who didn’t walk anyone) than ’09 Capps (with the highest walk rate of his career).  Nothing to be excited about, since he got non-tendered by the freaking Pirates of all people

-          Adam Kennedy?  Oh boy; he’s again, a decent but not great second baseman, the kind of guy you don’t pay a ton for if you can’t find anything else better.  The problem here is that, quite frankly, this team isn’t doing shit in 2010; why pay money for a guy when you have someone (in this case, Ian Desmond) who might not be any better than Kennedy, but is under team control?  How does Kennedy end up as the starter?  This signing would’ve made a heck of a lot of sense had Desmond been the starter and Kennedy been the primary MI backup – 400 ABs isn’t bad – but that wasn’t the case.

-          Pudge Rodriguez at this point shouldn’t occasion comment, but while I’m slagging the free agent signings it’d be remiss to not say anything since he will be a Hall of Famer at some point.  Of course, those seasons happened a while ago and at this point Pudge is the near definition of a warm body, which isn’t actually a half-bad idea given Jesus Flores’ current and likely future spot is at DL.  Still, he’s also a 38-year old catcher which means there’s a good chance he’ll spend at least part of the year slotted at DL2, at which point you’ve dropped a fair chunk of change on the modern-day equivalent of Crash Davis.  Oh boy.

If you’re trying to build a fanbase – which, given how long the Washington franchise has been the Washington franchise, seems like a good idea – what do these moves do?  (And if someone says “well, they tried to sign Teixiera last season”, for shame – he’s not on the team, and this isn’t horseshoes.  If you pat the franchise on the head and say “aw, at least you tried”, what kind of message are you sending?  Get the signature and we’ll congratulate you for spending money.)  Sure, people have heard of Rodriguez at least, but he was that guy who was awesome with the Rangers back in the ‘90’s and – hey, lookit this calendar I have over here.

Going further, does Eric Bruntlett make you excited?  How about Mike Morse?  What about the decaying corpse of Cristian Guzman?   The fabled youth movement is either injured (Jordan Zimmermann, last seen having his best season at any level before visiting Dr. James Andrews –see you in 2011, kid; Jesus Flores, last seen on the side of a milk carton in Viera, FL), not ready (Strasburg, Drew Storen to a lesser extent, Chris Marrero, repeat as necessary) or not actually a movement (Craig Stammen, come on down!), leaving the team to pin its hopes on …who, exactly?  Zimmerman is coming into his own, and Josh Willingham and Adam Dunn at least act like a competent offensive core, but Dunn gives an amazing amount of his offense back on defense (last season: -36.3 runs below replacement in the field); even if he upgrades from a defensive black hole to merely a singularity that’s not necessarily good except if everything looks a little bit red when you put on your glasses.  Nyjer Morgan had his best season ever at 29, and Elijah Dukes still hasn’t been consistent enough to matter.  Everyone else has gaping holes in their game (most of which manifest in the form of being unable to recognize four pitches outside of the strike zone in a single at-bat) which I’m sure won’t be an issue at some point this season.

There just doesn’t seem to be much of a direction for this team right now, and watching to see where things go from here quite frankly isn’t that exciting.  This team is headed more or less in a circle this season, to the point where there’s a very real likelihood they’ll rush the best prospect this franchise has seen since Pedro for the purposes of selling a few additional tickets.  2010 doesn’t make a damn bit of difference; don’t act like it’s pivotal.  I’d be less pissed if GM Mike Rizzo had come out and said “we need some warm bodies to get up to a 25-man roster that won’t make MLB think about implementing relegation”, because at least it’d be honest.

The Rose Bowl is pretty much the reason why we didn’t have the BCS as early as 1991, and the reason why the BCS is what it is today instead of the playoff that everyone else wants. So… bowl history? 91 Miami/Washington, split national champions. 94 Penn State, unbeaten but didn’t get to play national champs Nebraska. 97 Michigan/Nebraska, split national champions. There’s your Rose Bowl history. Oh, more Rose Bowl history, you ask? 03 LSU/USC, split national champions. 00 Miami/08 Texas, sat at home and watched teams they beat lose national championship games. 04 Auburn, unbeaten SEC champs and not a slot for them in the championship game. 04 Utah/06 Boise State/08 Utah/09 Boise State – unbeaten without even an asterisk. The Rose Bowl is evil. As darkly evil as Jim Delany’s black heart. When Bill Hancock sends Chris Petersen a congratulatory note on his team’s “great season” he should include a dozen roses along with that.

Also Vince Young had the greatest ever performance of all time, now and forever, at the Rose Bowl, which is the only redeeming thing about this bowl’s history.

Alabama Crimson Tide

Alabama had damn near a perfect season; short of Auburn and Tennessee (their two rivals, who likely got up and a half for this game), nobody else got within a possession of them. It’s because of that domination that everyone’s expecting the Tide to well, roll. (Yes, I hate that joke. No, I couldn’t think of anything better.)

Alabama’s success is predicated on the typical, cliché-as-hell, “championship team” motto: defense and a good running game. Of course, it’s only a cliché because it’s worked before, and Alabama’s adhered to that as tightly as you’d like. Nick Saban got where he is because he follows the money because he’s a great defensive coach. Saban’s known for preferring to adhere to a Cover 1 scheme, leaving his free safety as a general catch-all and allowing for his strong safety to focus in either run support or as another coverage back. It’s to Alabama’s benefit that FS Mark Barron was as good as he was, ending up as a first-team All-SEC selection and leading the team in interceptions (by far) with 7, including one returned for a TD. Aside from Barron, the rest of the secondary opts for pass breakups; DB Marquis Johnson led the nation in pass breakups with 16, and three members of the secondary (Kareem Jackson being the other) finished the season in the top 30 nationally of passes defended. It’s because of these guys – and the nasty run defense – that Alabama finished 8th in the country in pass defense, including a particularly nasty 9/20 TD/INT ratio.

From there, Alabama is free to stuff the run (something they’ve done very well all season, allowing nearly 80 yards on the ground total per game) – helped a bit by virtual mountain NT Terrance Cody stuffing up the interior running lanes. LB Rolando McClain – last seen sweeping up awards en masse – patrols the middle, functioning as the leader of the linebacker corps and pulling his weight in pass defense as well. He’s decent at that, only finishing as a first-team All-American. All told, the defensive unit finished with only allowing 4.1 yards per play; that seems high at first glance – after all, you’d convert every third down with 4.1 yards per play – except that’s good enough for fourth nationally, behind Nebraska (who uses a similar approach, especially at the nose tackle position).

So what about the second half of that equation? Well, Mark Ingram was one of the best power runners in the nation – the best if you base it on receiving little stiff-armed trophies – at 6.2 yards per carry and nearly 120 yards per game. However, it’s not like Ingram is the only running threat; true freshman RB Trent Richardson is averaging over 5 yards a pop and Roy Upchurch has been effective in limited carries. When a team has that many backs averaging that many yards a carry, it means two things: 1) they have great backs and 2) they have a pretty good offensive line. That offensive line is anchored by Mike Johnson and Alabama has typically done a lot of running between the tackles. Ingram in particular excels after contact (part of the reason he’s been responsible for so many demoralizing runs for the Tide’s opponents).

If there’s a weak spot on this Alabama team, it’s the passing game. QB Greg McElroy has been good enough – he was the potential weak link on a championship-capable team – but he had a rough middle of the season, bottoming out in a 15-34, 147 yard performance against Ole Miss. Still, he’s been good as the season wore on, snapping out of his funk to complete no worse than 66% of his passes against his last three FCS opponents (including a 4/0 TD/INT ratio). Again, he’s not going to be asked to win the game, but he can at least not lose it now. His targets are the incredibly talented Julio Jones, speedy Marquis Maze, and reliable safety valve Colin Peek. Jones is the obvious talent here – so obvious, in fact, that teams have been throwing the kitchen sink at him all year and his numbers have suffered as a result.

Because Alabama isn’t insane enough in its own right, K Leigh Tiffin has also had a fantastic year, finishing as a first-team All-SEC selection after going 29-for-33 in FG attempts (including at least three games where he hit four FGs). P Pat Fitzgerald is a weak link by comparison, but he’s averaging 42 yards a punt; so much for that theory. Arenas also doubles as a return specialist; again, since Alabama is all about imbalance, he’s 9th in the nation in kickoff return average and 3rd in the nation in punt return average (with two TDs on the season).

So if there’s a team with no discernible weakness, how on earth do you attack them? Well, they’re going to be straightforward enough about what they do – and it’s not like it doesn’t work, based on this season – so the answer may lie in throwing them a curveball. Both Tennessee and Auburn had success by forcing the Tide out of their comfort zone – ironically, both with recovered onside kicks in part – and it’s possible to beat Alabama in short chunks. I’m not sure it’s possible to win all 60 minutes against this team, but it’s certainly possible to win 15 and hold on for 45. Maybe this comes via Colt McCoy going over the top a couple of times, or Earl Thomas starts jumping routes, but this unit thrives on things going according to plan. It’s up to Texas to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Texas Longhorns

Perhaps fittingly for a sport that refuses to get with the times, the Texas Longhorns’ drive to the national championship game started last season (take heart, Boise State fans) when they finished 11-1, en route to 12-1 with a BCS victory, but were inexplicably left out of the national championship game in favor of an Oklahoma team who they’d beaten by double digits earlier that season. The strong season and Fiesta Bowl victory propelled the Longhorns to #2 in the preseason rankings, where they’ve stayed pretty much all season en route to a 13-0 record. Perhaps it was voter sentiment about 2008, perhaps it was the second-toughest schedule amongst the unbeaten teams (Alabama facing the toughest of the five), but one way or another the same system that screwed the Longhorns just a year ago smiled upon them in 2009.

Texas cruised through September, surprisingly holding Texas Tech to just 3 first half points in a much better defensive effort than the Horns put up in their lone loss of 2008. A few weeks later, the Horns won an ugly Red River Rivalry game against Oklahoma after ending Sam Bradford’s season with an unblocked blitz early in the first quarter. The next month was again a breeze, and Texas appeared destined for a title game berth with an 11-0 record. But rivalry games are strange things, and Jerrod Johnson brought his A+ game to account for total 439 yards against what had been one of the most dominant defenses in the nation until that point, but Colt McCoy had an even better game and the Longhorn special teams were able to seal the deal with a late KR TD, their third on kickoffs and fifth overall special teams TD of the season. Finally, in conference championship week, a very underrated Nebraska team (perhaps now getting a bit more respect after their 33-0 Holiday Bowl win over Arizona) nearly pulled off an upset that would have thrown a bit of chaos into the BCS mix, as Ndamokong Suh repeatedly broke through the Texas line to sack and otherwise rattle McCoy into his worst game of the season. But this time the defense, nearly goats of the A&M game, played the role of heroes, holding Nebraska to 106 yards of total offense and picking off three passes, and at the last possible second Hunter Lawrence was able to hit a game-winning, championship berth-clinching field goal.

Texas runs a very pass-heavy spread attack with a little bit of zone read thrown in as the staple of the running game. Just a few years ago, this offense had Cedric Benson and then Jamaal Charles in the backfield and was extremely deadly on the ground. Freshman Tre’ Newton is now the team’s leading rusher, but with just 513 yards on the season (5.0 ypc). McCoy is the next-leading rusher and leads the team in rushing attempts, something Texas had hoped to get away from but apparently were unable to do so. Vondrell McGee and Foswhitt Whittaker frequently spell Newton, and Cody Johnson is the established short yardage back with 12 TDs. The 152.6 ypg and 4.02 ypc that Texas averages as a team are about average for the NCAA, and indeed the lack of a running game anywhere near the level of their passing game is typically cited as the Longhorn offense’s biggest weakness. (might I add, incorrectly cited – more later)

When throwing the ball, Texas has the most accurate passer in the game, first team All-American Colt McCoy, directing a very precise offense. After setting the NCAA record for single season completion percentage last year, McCoy has fallen off to a mere 70.5% accuracy this season, not even good enough to finish tops in the country (second, behind Dan LeFevour’s 71.3%). It’s a top 20-quality passing offense, but perhaps not top 10 level unlike what we saw last season. Jordan Shipley has had an outstanding season, also receiving All-American honors, averaging 104 ypg receiving with 11 rec TD in 13 games, along with having returned two punts of TDs. But nobody else on the team averages over 50 ypg receiving, which is where Texas really misses having a second elite receiver (Quan Cosby) like they did a year ago, when teams couldn’t double team both Cosby and Shipley without seriously sacrificing the rest of the field. At times, Malcolm Williams, James Kirkendoll, Dan Buckner, and Marquise Goodwin have all shown promise during the season, but in the end none has ever emerged as that reliable #2 threat. At least one, and probably two, will have to step up against Alabama.

Overall, the Texas offense is 3rd in scoring (40.7 ppg) despite being just 16th in total yardage (432.4 ypg), and they can thank a 46% 3rd down conversion rate (15th) for that. This is where it really helps to complete 7 out of 10 passes.

Defensively, Texas runs a standard 4-3 base with their SEC-bred coordinator and outstanding personnel at all positions. If defense was the reason Texas fell just short of the title game in 2008, it’s really the reason they’re here in 2009. The defense ranks 8th in scoring, giving up 15.2 ppg, although the A&M game did a little to inflate that. Texas gives up 251.1 ypg (3rd) and is first in the nation in yards per play at 3.8. The strengths of this defense are run defense (62.2 ypg, 1.99 ypc, both 1st), interceptions (24, 1st – leading to the nation’s 10th best pass efficiency defense), and third down conversions (27%, 2nd). The secondary has returned four picks for TDs, including two by All-American safety Earl Thomas (8 int for 149 yards). While Thomas has been a beast, perhaps the biggest improvement in the Texas secondary has been Blake Gideon’s move from being a safety defenses tended to pick on into an excellent compliment to the conference’s best safety, picking off 5 passes himself and generally playing much, much better coverage than he was known for a year ago.

The DL is also excellent, as you’d expect from the nation’s #1 rushing defense. Sergio Kindle hasn’t been the next Brian Orakpo that many had hoped, but he is a solid pass rusher and is also very useful in stopping horizontal run plays. Lamarr Houston, meanwhile, has been an outstanding presence on the inside, and is probably the single biggest reason why Texas has been able to get away with playing so many smaller defensive ends and relatively quick-but-midsize linebackers compared to, say, Alabama. Three of the top six tacklers on the team play lineman, and tacklers #1 (Roddrick Muckelroy) and #3 (Keenan Robinson) are linebackers – indicative of the fact that the backs and safeties are not having to make a lot of tackles – ie, plays are getting stopped at the point of attack. Indeed, Earl Thomas probably comes in second in tackles more because he has a tendency to come way up to help in run support, as he has excellent recovery/track-back speed which gives him incredible range as a defender. When Bob Stoops analyzed Texas in Rivals’ preview of this game, he singled out Thomas for this very ability as one of the things that makes the Texas defense to difficult to attack, and flat-out said he wished Thomas would go pro.

As has been the case for many seasons, the Texas special teams are a true third prong of the attack. Hunter Lawrence has connected on 22 of 25 field goals, none bigger than the 46-yarder as time expired to win the Big 12 Championship and send Texas to the BCS title game. DJ Monroe, who has been reinstated to the team after being cleared from a midseason arrest for possible DUI, is second in the nation in kickoff return average at 35.8 yards a pop, and has taken two KRs back for touchdowns. They might line up Marquise Goodwin back there with him, as Goodwin was the replacement in his absence and took a kickoff back for a TD against A&M. When Texas fields punts, that duty falls to Jordan Shipley, who comes in 14th in national average at a shade under 13 yards per, and has taken two punts back for scores. Combined with the defense’s interceptions, Texas’ 9 non-offensive TDs leads the nation.

On Defense Against Alabama

Will Muschamp absolutely believes in taking away the run, pressuring the quarterback, and forcing turnovers in the secondary. It’s been fantastic watching the Texas defense become more and more aggressive over the last two years, to the point where they’ve really dictated the flow of the other team’s offense this season. Expect a lot of blitzing from Texas, both in an effort to flood the backfield to stop Ingram and to pressure McElroy into taking risks against this opportunistic secondary.

Make no mistake about it, Texas (not Florida) has the best secondary Alabama has faced this season. But Alabama has the most physical offensive line Texas has faced by a long shot. These two will strike some kind of balance – how much help does the Texas front seven need to stop Ingram vs how well can the Texas back four bottle up Alabama’s receivers to allow the front to go all-in after the Bama backfield? For that matter, how aggressively is Earl Thomas able to support the run defense without sacrificing coverage soundness? Wherever this balance lies, that will determine how successful these two units are.

On Offense Against Alabama

You know how we mentioned that the Texas running game isn’t really its Achilles heel? Well, yeah. Greg Davis is. I’m expecting Texas to come out in lots of 4 and 5 receiver sets, run the same plays they always do (which were easily pattern-read by Oklahoma and Nebraska defenders… and oh hey, Bob Stoops has made a few visits to Tuscaloosa this winter), and score a couple TDs less than they otherwise would because of repetitive scheming. With the sheer volume of receivers Texas sends out on most plays, Colt McCoy can always just play really amazing and make up for it. But the burden falls on McCoy to make the perfect read and throw in the small amount of time it takes Rolando McClain to tear through the line unblocked, because Davis thinks it’s a good idea not to keep extra blockers in the backfield… um, just about ever. But hey, they’re never going to expect the flanker screen in that situation!

So for me, that’s all it comes down to. McCoy, McCoy, McCoy. I expect Texas to run plays that Alabama generally recognizes, plus Alabama has a bit of an athletic edge here so it’s not like you’re going to have three receivers open or players turning four yard outs into 30 yard gains like we did against A&M. But at the same time, the number of players who can run a route and catch the ball that Texas throws at you makes it unrealistic for a college defense to bottle them all up. When McCoy’s on, there’s not really a lot you can do to stop this offense. But McCoy has to be on this game, because the receivers aren’t going to be running for a ton of yards off some short flare against these defensive backs, and the ground game should be just about useless against this defensive front unless the passing game is already working.

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Alabama section written by our friendly neighborhood co-blogger, Chris.

Last season’s Utah, the nation’s lone unbeaten, claimed 16 out of the AP’s 65 first place votes, finishing second in the country. While certainly more respect than has been afforded to any midmajor team before them, it still took beating Alabama in the Sugar Bowl (Oregon State, TCU, and BYU didn’t cut it) for the Utes to earn that respect.

So it’s kind of a cool phenomenon that TCU has been a real part of the title discussion in 2009. It’s not just the “best team in Texas” talk that’s come out of Fort Worth in so many recent seasons, but a real national interest in a team who has played an entire season at a similar level as the other elite teams.

By the Numbers

TCU ranks in the top five of scoring, rushing, and total offense and are in the top six of scoring, rushing, passing, and total defense. While their passing offense ranks #66, this is at least in part due to the fact that the Frogs aren’t often in the kind of games where they need to throw the ball a lot; their team pass efficiency rating is 3rd nationally. It’s fair to say that no other team in the country dominated the competition they faced as well as TCU did in 2009.

The knock on TCU is just that – the competition they faced. This is the thing that would have kept them out of the BCS championship game even had Texas not been ranked so highly in the preseason or even if the Longhorns had fallen against Nebraska (as Cincinnati was next-in-line at #3 in the final BCS standings) – strength of schedule. According to Phil Steele’s blog, TCU had the #89 schedule in the country at the end of the regular season, just about the 25th percentile. Alabama impressed voters with the #22 schedule in the country, thanks to their showdown with Florida, while Texas’ road was a little tougher than most at #43 and Cincinnati’s was about average at #59. In addition to having Clemson as their toughest non-conference game rather than Oklahoma like the year before, this time around Utah lost to Oregon and BYU was throttled by Florida State. (it didn’t help that a potential quality win for BYU, over Oklahoma, was diluted when Sam Bradford went down en route to a 5-loss season for the Sooners; then again, that probably contributed to the Cougars’ 14-13 win) The Mountain West was still a good conference in 2009, and their current 4-0 bowl record backs that up, but it was a much tougher league in 2008 when Utah was also an excellent team.

vs Previous “BCS Busters”

This season, TCU and Boise State became the 5th and 6th teams from non-automatic qualifier conferenced to earn a BCS bid. What about the previous four?

2004 Utah was the first non-AQ team to get a BCS invite, and their strong performance probably paved the way for more to follow. Utah pasted a weak Pittsburgh team 35-7 in the Fiesta Bowl. Over the entire season, Utah beat teams by an average of 45.3-19.5, which is good, basically this was a top five offense coupled with a top 30 defense. We’re pretty sure the offense was legitimately that good, trusting Urban Meyer’s coaching ability and Alex Smith’s skillset being such a perfect fit for the Meyer system. Pittsburgh was also the only team Utah faced that finished with 8 wins, so the Utes never faced anything resembling an elite opponent, as nobody on their schedule finished in the final top 25.

2006 Boise State may be the non-AQ team people remember first, famous for their assortment of trick plays used to beat Adrian Peterson’s Oklahoma Sooners in a thrilling Fiesta Bowl game featuring numerous late-game lead changes, fourth-and-forever conversions, and a two-point conversion in overtime. Led by Jared Zabransky and Ian Johnson, the Broncos featured the nation’s #2 scoring offense (39.7 ppg) and #20 scoring defense (17.6 ppg). Similar to 09 TCU, the Broncos were top 10 in most major offensive categories except passing yards, and again similarly the passing efficiency was actually excellent (5th). Defensively this does not quite hold true, as the Broncos were 20th in points per game and 15th in yards per game in 2006. This team certainly had more quality wins than the only BCS busters to come before them, beating three teams with 10+ wins, two of which came from AQ conferences.

2007 Hawaii was the lone non-AQ team to lose their BCS game, and in doing so they really made people think twice about these teams that win all of their games without ever facing a quality opponent. Before facing Georgia in the Sugar Bowl, Sagarin had their strength of schedule worse than #119 (I forget what exactly), meaning there were I-AA teams who faced tougher schedules than the Warriors. The result was a 41-10 blowout in the Sugar Bowl against a hot Georgia team that really played on a lot of stereotypes about non-AQ teams. Georgia dropped seven into coverage and got constant pressure with their front four, and on offense they basically just ran the ball for consistent gains and occasionally threw over the top when the defense desparately threw everyone at the line; by the time Hawaii had a drive longer than 50 yards, the score was already 31-3.

2008 Utah did their best to immediately correct those perceptions. Up until now, we’d seen two AQ teams who won all of their games against non-top 25 competition, and a third who got a big win with all kinds of crazy trick plays being able to barely outscore an offense that pretty much attacked directly at them. These Utes were the first “BCS Buster” team who played against quality opponents and won with a standard offense (since by now, the spread option had become one of the standards in college offenses). Their opening week victory in the Big House lost its luster as Michigan tanked for the season, but Utah also defeated Oregon State one week after the Beavers gave a great USC team their only loss, defeated two legitimately good MWC teams in TCU and BYU, and then of course jumped out to a big early lead and held off heavily favored Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. This Utah team maybe wasn’t quite as impressive statistically – 15th in scoring offense (36.9 ppg) and 12th in scoring defense (17.2 ppg), and in total offense they were just #36 – but you can put that completely on the result of them playing by far the toughest schedule of any BCS Buster, including the two teams who made the BCS this year. Counting their game against Alabama, Utah faced the #56 schedule according to Sagarin’s computer.

This season’s TCU seems to fit more into the same category as 04 Utah and 06 Boise, minus the trickery, but unlike those teams TCU’s defense has been a little more dominant against their relatively weak schedule. Indeed, TCU may be the first really defense-oriented BCS Buster we’ve had so far — their performance against Clemson especially makes me a real believer in this defense, holding CJ Spiller & Co to 10 points in their lowest-scoring performance of the season. At the same time, the only defense with the size and depth we expect from AQ teams that contend for their conference titles was able to hold the Frogs’ offense to 14 points, with the game-winning touchdown coming in the 4th quarter. I’m a little more skeptical of how this offense would fare against an elite defense, which unfortunately we’ll never get to see that get played out on the field.

Looking Back

I’d also like to take a look at the 2008 edition of the Horned Frogs. This TCU team finished 11-2 with a Poinsettia Bowl victory over Boise State, a real treat of a bowl game played so early in bowl season. That team outscored opponents by an average of 33.6 – 11.3, outgaining them 421.3 – 217.8 in the process (5.4 yards per play versus 3.8).

But 08 TCU did one thing that the 09 edition never got the opportunity to do: take on a nationally elite BCS conference opponent. Championship Game losers Oklahoma defeated TCU 35-10 in Norman, outgaining the Frogs 436 – 314 in the process. If we remove this game from the sample, the 2008 Horned Frogs went 11-1, winning by an average of 35.6 – 9.3 (430.3 – 199.6 yardage) against a similar set of opponents to what TCU faced in 2009.

Keep in mind that the 2009 statistics are 12-0, average score 40.7 – 12.4, average yardage 467.8 – 233.3. Aside from allowing and gaining an average of some 30 ypg and a few ppg more on both sides of the ball, the team seems to be doing about the same as a year ago. So why 12-0 vs 11-1? (again, looking at the similar parts of the schedule)

The difference, of course, is the Utah game. One thing I was not really aware of is how much TCU dominated the gameplay between these two teams in 2008. The final score read Utah 13, TCU 10. Nothing else was so close. TCU outgained Utah 416 – 275. They gained 4.2 yards per rush to the Utes’ 1.8. Andy Dalton averaged 6.8 yards per pass, Brian Johnson 5.9. The deciding factors were Dalton throwing 2 INT and Evans making just 1 of 3 FGs. Committing 11 penalties to the Utes’ 2 did not help matters either. I won’t say it was purely luck – Utah tended to pull out of games like this with wins in 2008, and some credit goes to Brian Johnson for having a knack for leading these comebacks and being a great leader for the team in general. But the statistics say that, on a play-by-play basis, TCU dominated this one but couldn’t translate that to the scoreboard.

Fast forward a year and TCU outgains Utah 549 – 284. This time, turnovers are even at 2 apiece and Utah commits 14 penalties to TCU’s 5. The result is a 55 – 28 blowout that played out remarkably like the pervious year’s game on the field. Only rather than the Utes catching all the breaks for a somewhat fortunate win at home (on a go-ahead pass with 48 seconds left, to boot), the Frogs coast to a comfortable win in their home stadium that is a little more indicative of what you’d expect given the yardage totals.

What does that mean for TCU?

There is some good news and some bad news here.

The good news is that, barring a heroic performance by Kellen Moore, this does bode well for the Frogs in the BCS game they are playing tonight, the Fiesta Bowl against Boise State. Like in their loss to Utah, in the Frogs’ close win over Boise State in the 2008 Poinsettia Bowl, they actually dominated the yardage statistics and should have won by more than they did. Boise State has done little this season to make me think that they are better than they were a year ago. In all likelihood, the Frogs should emerge from the Fiesta Bowl victorious and ranked #2 behind the Alabama/Texas winner.

The bad news is that the difference between 12-0 this season and 11-2 last season had more to do with a) not facing a championship game-caliber team and b) Utah not catching a ton of breaks / possibly missing Brian Johnson’s leadership… as opposed to some massive improvement by the Frogs. Indeed, this is basically the same team it was last year, playing at about the same generally high level. And therefore, I see little reason to believe that they wouldn’t face a similar outcome against an elite team than what happened a year ago. I’d expect Alabama, Florida, or Texas to beat the Frogs comfortably.

But we shouldn’t end things on a sour note, so there is some more good news here… and this ultimately matters more anyway. The team is becoming stably dominant over the over teams that they typically face. Indeed this consistency of playing about the same from year to year means that the Frogs have taken a step towards not just having a great team, like Utah seems to have every three or four years, but towards becoming one of the standards for consistent high-level play on a year in/year out program level. With consecutive blowout wins over BYU and consecutive strong performances against Utah, TCU is becoming the king of the MWC. Should they beat Boise State for a second year in a row, they essentially claim the title of best non-AQ program in the country. They’re losing a few key playmakers this offseason, notably Jerry Hughes, Rafael Priest, and Nick Sanders from their defense. Andy Dalton and most of the offense, save for RB Joseph Turner, should be back. With Max Hall graduating from BYU, who is going to challenge them for the MWC in 2010? The only non-AQ team in a better situation is actually Boise State, who should return 21 starters (all as juniors or seniors) with only CB Kyle Wilson graduating. But again, if they’re the premiere non-AQ program, as opposed to just having an elite team every few years or whatnot, there’s no reason why they can’t just fill this relatively small number of holes and continue to field top 10 squads year in and year out. I’m interested to see how they do without three of their biggest defensive stars in 2010, to see if they really are at the level where they can just reload the way the great programs do.

TCU will face Baylor in 2010 and 2011, and they add Texas Tech in 2011 as well. If they want to get national championship invites over a team from, say, the Big 12 with the same record, then they will need to put Texas or Oklahoma on the schedule in a year when that team wins 10 other games, or alternatively try to face USC or a high-level SEC opponent. Indeed, with Boise State facing both Oregon State and Virginia Tech in 2010, they probably wouldn’t even be first on the pecking order amongst non-AQ teams trying to get their first title berth ever, or competing for that lone at-large bid in a season where the AQ conferences field one or two more elite teams than they did this year. However, if their strategy is to merely avoid getting passed over by a team with a worse record a-la what happened to Utah last season or Boise State in 2006, then a schedule like they faced in 2009 and will face in 2010 is just the ticket for doing that (which very nearly worked out for the Frogs this season as Texas and Cincy both squeaked by in week 14).

[probable followup with more detailed analysis coming in the weeks following the Fiesta Bowl]

South Carolina’s offensive line has spent most of the year practicing the swinging gate play without actually moving; their 33 sacks allowed on the season is a wee bit subpar, to put it mildly.  I’m not typically a fan of blasting an offensive line as a unit, but the rushing attack (3.6 yards per carry) really isn’t doing a whole lot to make me feel any better; sure, it’s not like South Carolina has much in the way of running backs, but since sack yardage counts, you have bizarre things like Stephen Garcia getting 100+ carries at a little over a yard a pop and junior RB Brian Maddox only getting three a carry.  Sure, freshman RBs Kenny Miles and Jarvis Giles did decently at 5 yards per carry apiece, but balanced against the rest of the team, it’s not going to sway too much.   There’s help on the horizon, but it didn’t really show up this year.

With that being said, WR Alshon Jeffery was a very welcome surprise for the Gamecocks.  As a true gas-pumping freshman, Jeffery emerged as the best receiving threat on the team any way you slice it, leading the team in receptions, yards, and TDs.  If anyone’s going to talk about South Carolina’s dangerous offense (and not be on some kind of mind-altering drugs), that danger begins – and ends – with Jeffery.  The rest of the offense is strictly padded-pillow routines.  On the other hand, defensive danger is real; both Eric Norwood and Cliff Matthews are pass-rushing beasts, and Norwood himself is an absolute terror; I’m of the mindset that neutralizing him is less of a possibility and more of a dream.

On Connecticut’s side, it’s about as pedestrian as you can get.  They’re Generic Bowl Team – slightly above average for their conference in most cases save for an obvious weak spot (in their case, pass defense) and a random specialty (they’re deadly at the return game, 9^th in the country in kick returns with 4 return TDs on the season).

Based on that, let’s go for some kind of wholly unimpressive result – I’ll pick Connecticut in a slight upset to the tune of 17-12.

- Some current players have come out against Mike Leach and his treatment of players.  In addition, Texas Tech coach Lincoln Riley has flipped sides, now coming out against Mike Leach.  This is a change of heart from his previous defend-the-Leach

- Adam James came out with the video response to Trapped in the Closet; quite frankly, if someone hasn’t reposted this video yet as a response to Trapped in the Closet I’m going to be very disappointed in the YouTube crew, but that’s neither here nor there.  Regardless, this claims to be shot while James was locked in the closet by Leach and is shot with his cell phone.

- From the background-info department, some emails were leaked involving Texas Tech brass talking about Leach’s contract extension.  It looks like most of the discussions were relevant to the negotiations, but it’s a good insight as to TTU’s management viewpoint of Leach at the time of negotiations.

- Leach has done what you’d expect from him – launch a howitzer at Texas Tech.  This story has some of the highlights, most notably Leach’s intent to file a lawsuit.  The New York Times (last seen lobbing potential recruiting violations Tennessee’s way) was able to land an interview with Leach that kind of steals the thunder out of half the points I was planning on making, but there you go.

At this point, we’ve passed the point of absolving one party of blame.  It’s weird, but given the chance to take the high road, pretty much everyone’s opted to dive into the gutter and party.  Let’s go back to the bullet points for the breakdown of the relevant parties.

- Mike Leach: Well, he did pretty much start this by even putting himself in a position to treat a player inappropriately in some fashion.  Since then, things have spun at least somewhat out of his control, as the other parties have elected to go on the attack.  Leach’s reply was more or less what you’d expect from him; man the cannons and start launching invective.  That’s probably not the best way to avoid controversy, but considering the man’s going to be filing yet another lawsuit against his now-former employer, I find it hard to be surprised at this.

- Texas Tech Administration: So far these guys aren’t making out too well, to put it mildly.  The decision to fire Leach for the equivalent of lack of institutional control is contingent on Lech failing to execute a couple of clauses in his contract; however, by the same token they had already made the decision to fire him prior to the hearing of Leach’s injunction.  That in it of itself wouldn’t be a big deal, but the leaked emails seem to show a pattern of tolerance at best for Leach; I wouldn’t go so far as to say they were waiting for him to screw up, but there’s a chance they had the termination letter drafted right after he signed the contract.  They’re not doing a whole lot as of the last couple of days, since it’s mutated into a James v. Leach story.

- The James family: As a sympathetic figure, they’ve done a remarkable job swinging public opinion.  I’m not totally sure I understand the point of releasing Trapped in the Closet 2: Electric Bugaloo at this point in time; Leach is already fired and the only thing they gain by this is saying “hey look, this actually happened!”  Instead, they kicked up questions about video authenticity (which nobody is really touching, since that’s a quagmire) and there’s another issue that we knew was going to pop up at some point – Craig James and ESPN’s involvement.

I’ve been very reluctant to comment on ESPN’s involvement in the Leach story until I saw how they were going to react to it; so far it’s been solidly behind the James family.  This would be somewhat expected, but I’ve really taken issue with their trotting out Craig James as a football analyst for this story.  The man has a very real, very personal connection to the story – and that’s fine; the man needs to play Adam James’ father here, not an analyst.  If you want him on TV, that’s fine, but don’t ask him to offer insight as to what Leach did or how he acted since word of this began trickling out.  If you’re going to solicit opinions, don’t solicit only the opinions of players who wanted him gone; I can’t imagine that all the players under Leach resented him and didn’t want to play for him.

It’s been interesting to see ESPN adopt the role of pro-James; on some level, they’ve gotten scooped for some of the juicier Leach comments (NYT was able to land the phone interview with Leach, not ESPN, although I imagine Leach isn’t in a forgiving mood to ESPN) meaning the best stories they’re getting are the pro-James stories.  Whether those are the stories they’ve chosen to lead with I’m not sure, although they do have an interview with a trainer up that refutes James’ accounts.

On some level, I’m not really surprised this has happened.  ESPN is a nasty position to try and attempt neutrality when it employs one of the involved parties; on top of that, the main contradicting party isn’t granting them access, interviews, or anything resembling news.  As a result, they’ve been reporting stories that validate the James’ family viewpoint; the trainer story has been the first real story that refuted James’ viewpoint so far, and I imagine that’s there in part since a) the trainer was able to give ESPN an interview and b) everyone else has been reporting contradictory information.

At this point we’ve passed the realm of forgiveness, and we’re heading down the path of not being able to support any of the involved parties.  Maybe that’s the lesson here, and the only thing we really need to do at this point is just watch the carnage.

However, it’s a bit odd to see Arkansas here.  When we last left the Razorbacks at the beginning of the season, they had to deal with a tough schedule including road games at (what we thought were) the top four SEC teams; they’d have to nearly run the table to have a shot at a bowl game.  Sure enough, that’s what they did, dropping a shootout loss to Georgia early in the season before Joe Cox went in the tank but winning the rest of their games.  Sure, the skins of South Carolina, Troy, Texas A&M, and Auburn aren’t great skins, but those teams are within Arkansas’s peer range, and going 4-1 against their peers is about as good as it gets.  With this schedule, 7-5 counts as an accomplishment, and it’s a credit to Bobby Petrino and the coaching staff that they were able to get it done against this nasty schedule.

Petrino’s teams thrive on two things: a strong-armed quarterback and a power back to provide most of the rushing attack.  Ryan Mallett fits that first description perfectly; not only do NFL scouts salivate over his 6’7”, 238-pound frame (who needs stats when you have projectables?), but the kid had a pretty decent year, too.  As he goes, so do the Razorbacks; 4 of his 5 worst performances came in losses, including all of his sub-50% completion percentage days.  As long as he was over 54%, his team won.  (His 29/7 ratio and average of 9.3 yards per attempt don’t hurt matters.

As a result, the WR corps excelled; Greg Childs led the teams in receptions, yards, and TDs.  Remarkably, of leading WRs Childs, Joe Adams, and Jarius Wright, there was only one game where one of them had over five receptions (Adams, at Alabama), which shows the amazing balance they had in the passing game all season.  Remarkably, TE DJ Williams never got on track in the passing game save against South Carolina (helped in part by a huge end-of-half reception where South Carolina just straight-up sucked at tackling); while Williams is a legitimate receiving threat in theory, it never was really capitalized on.  It’s probably more a function of having four quality receiving threats than a statement against Williams.

What about the power running game?  Well, that had some issues; the team struggled to find a consistent running threat all season, as Michael Smith never really got on track before injuries set in.  Depending on the week, any one of Broderick Green, Ronnie Wingo, or Dennis Johnson was filling in as the primary back.  Green also doubled as the end-zone back, leading the team in carries and accounting for over half the Razorback TDs on the ground.  Thank these guys for Arkansas being second in the nation in red zone conversion percentage (and being fourth in the country in TD percentage).

On the other hand, East Carolina’s managed to fly under the radar for most of the season; I imagine most people wouldn’t have expected the Pirates to end up at 9-4.  The main reason they’ve stayed off the radar is they lost to most of the decent teams they played out-of-conference, looking unimpressive in games against West Virginia, North Carolina, and Virginia Tech.  Fortunately, the rest of the season ended up in the win column (save a bizarre road loss to SMU, fueled by a punt-block TD and an interception return TD) including a tough win over Houston in the conference championship game.

Most people, when pressed to name something about East Carolina they’d actually know, will come up with QB Patrick Pinkney and RB Dominique Lindsay.   Lindsay is legitimately quality, racking up over 1,000 yards and 5TDs on the season after struggling early on (including missing a couple of games at the end of September).   Pinkney, on the other hand … well, Pinkney’s the kind of guy people know because he’s stuck around forever.  He’s a low-risk passer who has a decent completion percentage, but not a whole lot else going for him (14/10 TD/INT, 6.7 yards per attempt); on the plus side he’s not prone to huge swings, having one outstanding game (vs. UAB) balanced against a couple of stinkbombs (vs. Appalachian State, at West Virginia).  Dwayne Harris and Darryl Freeney are the WRs of note; TEs aren’t really used except as additional blockers.

The premiere matchup for this game will be Arkansas’s offense against East Carolina’s offense.  Generally speaking, the better QBs did pretty well against the Pirate D (and even the not-better QBs; seriously, Jarrett Brown completed 77% of his passes?), which doesn’t bode well.  With that being said, East Carolina does have the ability to completely shut down teams’ running games; it was only when teams had success in both facets did East Carolina really get into trouble.  Based on that, I’d expect Arkansas to have success against the Pirates; they probably won’t need to average much more than 3 yards per carry to get the job done, and their path for success – pass down the field, punch it in on the ground – bodes well against an East Carolina team not well-fitted to stop it.  With that being said, players abound on the East Carolina D, from DE CJ Wilson (and DT Linval Joseph) to FS Van Eskridge, CB Emanuel Davis, and LB Jeremy Chambliss.  Don’t think Arkansas’s going to run roughshod over these guys.

I haven’t mentioned the other side of the ball yet for one reason: it’s kind of unassuming.  East Carolina’s good, but not great; Arkansas’s passable and maybe good in the right game.  Whatever.  Special teams trends slightly toward East Carolina, but not enough to really break the game in their favor.

Arkansas should have the edge here, but it’s close.  East Carolina likely won’t get blown out, and I can easily see this game in a 14-10 range at halftime before Arkansas drops an early 3^rd quarter TD to effectively end the game.  Pencil in Arkansas for something like a 38-27 win.

(stats provided thanks to CFB Stats)

One of the last games of the year, the Sun Bowl has had its share of good games and good stories in recent history – Oregon rebounding from the devastating loss of Dennis Dixon to win big in 2007, Oregon State making a huge 4th quarter comeback against Missouri and memorably going for two rather than sending the game to overtime… in fact, no game in the last eleven years has been decided by more than 12 points, and only two had double digit margins. Of course, close isn’t always good, as last year’s 3-0 win by Oregon State over Pitt was a complete disaster of a game, all the way down to the 1/4 FG line, but hey that shouldn’t happen this year, right? I mean, it’s not like one team has a great defense but at the same time has been completely decimated by injuries on the offensive… oh wait. But nah, this’ll be a good game! We promise!

Oklahoma

The 2009 season was not a kind one for the Oklahoma Sooners. Already having lost All-American TE Jermaine Gresham in the offseason, Heisman QB Sam Bradford suffered a shoulder injury in the second half of week 1 that effectively ended his college career, as he briefly returned only to have it re-aggravated in the first quarter of the Red River Rivalry. The Sooner defense picked up the slack for much of the early season, even in losses, holding Texas to their second-lowest points total of the season, and only three times all year did the opposition break 20 points against this unit, with the Texas Tech game being a 41 point blip on the radar as a tribute to Mike Leach’s genius. (For those who just watched Nebraska shut out Arizona while holding the Wildcats to 36 total yards until their final drive, realize that Leach’s offense scored 31 against that same defense in what was by far their worst outing of the season. Great move, getting rid of him.)

Indeed, when we go to the stat sheet, we quickly see that Oklahoma is 7th in the nation in both scoring and total defense, 8th against the run, and 22nd against the pass which is pretty good considering the style of offenses run in the Big 12 (plus BYU on the schedule); the defensive pass efficiency is 9th. This defense is outstanding at all positions, particularly linebacker where Travis Lewis leads the team in tackles and Ryan Reynolds’ return from a midseason injury last year has clearly reinvigorated the unit. One does wonder what the 2008 season would have been like for Oklahoma had the defense played even close to this good. Surprisingly just three Sooners made the all-conference first team defense (Gerald McCoy, Lewis, and Dominique Franks) although another three made the second team.

This is contrasted by an offense that placed just two skill position players on the second team offense ( DeMarco Murray, Ryan Broyles) and lineman Trent Williams was the lone Sooner of the conference first team offense. Landry Jones’ struggles at QB will take a lot of blame for that, but the fact is also that OU’s offensive line has been brutalized often by opposing defenses. Indeed, Bradford was repeatedly hit by BYU, not known as a physical defense, and pocket pressure was a season-long issue for the offense. In a loss to Texas in which the defense played very well and Jones played as well as you could ask at the time, the offense was held to -16 yards on the ground, with big losses from sacks and no real gains in the running game to offset that. I’m not even that interested in the stats, as OU blew out some of the creampuffs on their schedule to pad those, but in conference losses against Texas, Nebraska, and Texas Tech, this unit scored a total of 29 points.

Stanford

Stanford is quite the opposite. Behind Toby Gerhart, a Heisman finalist at RB, the Cardinal boast the nation’s #11 rushing offense, and at least nine of the teams above them are either midmajors, run the option, or both. Stanford runs a straight ahead, physical attack featuring the #2 yardage running back in the nation, and tops in rushing touchdowns. The Cardinal are 10th in scoring and 13th in total yardage. Freshman QB Andrew Luck has had a respectable season, doing enough to keep defenses from stacking up too much against the ground attack, with his primary target Ryan Whalen hauling in 861 yards for the season. Beware Toby Gerhart throwing the ball as well, with a 581 passer rating on the year, absolutely devastating opposing secondaries… okay, he’s thrown one pass. Got it in the end zone though. Along with Gerhart, lineman Chris Marinelli was named to the all-conference’s first team offense, and TE Jim Dray and lineman Chase Beeler received second team honors.

Unfortunately, the Cardinals are a bit softer on the defensive side. Coming in at #66 in scoring and #85 in total yardage, thanks largely to the nation’s #105 pass defense, the defense has been the culprit in three of the Cardinal’s four losses. In each of these conference losses, the offense scored at least 28 points, and every time it wasn’t enough to offset a poor defensive effort. Even in some wins the defense looked bad, such as a 51-42 near-comeback by Oregon, or a 45-38 shootout against Notre Dame. It may not be surprising that not a single Cardinal player was named to the all-conference defense.

What to Expect

Well, don’t look at me! In November, Stanford followed huge wins over Oregon and USC with a completely unexpected loss to Cal, then survived a shootout with a Notre Dame squad led by a lame-duck coach. That same month, Oklahoma beat Texas A&M and rival Oklahoma State by a combined 92-10, but lost to Nebraska and Texas Tech by a combined 51-16. Frankly I have no idea what kind of performance to expect from either team in this one, let alone how the two are going to compete against each other on the field.

All I can say is that this is a bowl game, and one of these is a Bob Stoops team.

Pick: (heads) Stanford