I have taken some grief for not posting my own blogs for quite some time. The reasons vary from me "hiding" (laughable) to laziness (closer to the truth). My biggest issue with the FOX blogs is from the technical side. I am easily aggravated when, for example, I can't comment on blogs unless I use Explorer and not Mozilla Firefox. Guys, it's fine if you don't want to run a third Next Great Sportswriter contest (instead Lisa Horne "won" deservedly so without the pretense of bogus voting and disinterested judges). I'd be a lot happier to post blogs, and comment more than I do, without the constant fear of the page closing or my comment disappearing.

NOW FOR THE GOOD STUFF

Everyone wants a playoff in college football. We're not getting it. We have KNBR sports talk blasting here. Terry Bowden, now of Yahoo! Sports formerly Auburn's head coach, was talking to The Razor (Ralph Barbieri) and Mr. T (Tom Tolbert) on the subject about a week ago. He was discussing why these dopes refuse to budge. A plus one? Bowden quoted one of the guys in charge as saying if college football does that we (the fans, players, coaches) will "just want more". What? Is that a bad thing? I have never liked Bowden as much as I did when he said just that in response to this stance. Wanting more is the American way. Why do you think The Biggest Loser starts a new season as soon as the previous one ends?

DECEMBER DELIRIUM

All we can do now as fans is imagine what a playoff might look like and argue about it. As some of you might know I write for TheFootballExpert covering the NFL, college football and the NFL draft. Maybe that explains why I have very little time to offer up FOX blogs. Strictly for fun I put together a totally unrealistic 64 team tournament based on the BCS standings at the top and further down I used full rankings from Rivals and CBSSportsline as two-thirds and an average of the computers for one-third. Then I carried it out to a winner. You can find all the brackets HERE. I also want to point out that as an incentive to throw down some smack talk on the newly created TFE forums anyone registering and posting 3 times can win a Kevin Boss autographed shirt. Click that link for the details. It's pretty straight forward.

IS THAT IT?

Uh, yeah. I think so. Feel free to poke around TFE where I regularly make NFL picks (152-87-1 this season, 170-86 in 2007) rank the college Top 35 (because 25 is for wimps) and eventually will craft my annual 7 round NFL mock draft. Happy New Year everyone.

The AP is reporting that after weeks of speculation and power struggles between owner Al Davis, head coach Lane Kiffin and defensive coordinator Rob Ryan the team wants Kiffin to resign. Reportedly the kid's reponse has been daring them to fire him instead, which is sort of smart considering the roughly $4,000,000 remaining on the final two years of his contract.

My reponse? Why? This all started when Kiffin tried to get Ryan fired. Dumb move by an inexperienced head coach. Granted, the Raider defense was much worse in 2007 than in 2006 when Kiffin was busy at USC. They fell from #25 to #31 in total run defense and from #1 to #8 in total pass defense. The scoring ranking dropped from #18 to #26 and total yards was a free fall from #3 to #22. However, was this Ryan's fault?

All Ryan can do is draw up schemes. He can't help the fact that their interior lineman are subpar, pass rushing depth is slim and safety play is marginal at best. What can he do with good linebackers and a quality #1 corner? When the personnel improves through another draft the unit will as well.

The man in line to reportedly replace Kiffin is Coors Light commerical laugher Dennis Green. Yeah, the guy known for his "they are who we thought they were!" rant when his Cardinals gave away a Monday Night game against the Bears. (Lay off the Mickey D's there Denny) This might have been a good move a coach or two ago when the team had veterans who would respect him including Randy Moss, possibly enough to have him still in Silver & Black. Now the team is young and at least from my perspective seems to be responding to Kiffin's fresh offense.

This really shouldn't surprise anyone. In the NFL head coach is the position with the least amount of security and Al Davis has been the leader of the firing brigade for years. He actually got upset with a reporter when introducing Lane Kiffin when she asked about how many people have filled the position in recent years. The word we're looking for is "senile".

Marty Walker is a glutton for punishment. He wants us to rip his Buckeyes. This shouldn't be tough. Cal fans aren't fond of teams with a tree for a mascot. Apparently buckeyes are actually the shiny, dark brown nut that comes from the buckeye tree. Thank you Google, you give and never ask for anything in return. Anyway last year Ohio State laid out something dark brown in the BCS title game last year and it wasn't a nut. Their reward is backing into another shot at the championship after beating a conference filled with teams who couldn't beat opponents from the FCS. If you're not sure what the FCS is join the club. It might be a secret government organization for all I know. 

 

Ohio State was voted #1 in both polls. Why? Their notable wins came over Wisconsin, Michigan and Penn State. How good are those teams exactly? We don't even know because the Big Ten as a whole had zero wins over bowl eligible teams from BCS conferences. That's right, none. Ohio State's big win out of conference came over Washington who finished last in the Pac-10. How about the wins for the other three teams? Michigan beat Notre Dame, a team in the midst of their worst season since dinosaurs roamed the planet. Wisconsin beat Washington State who finished ahead of only Washington in the Pac-10. Penn State beat Buffalo, and unless it's the Bills I'm not impressed.

 

Despite finishing 11-1 the Buckeyes were third in the computer behind two teams who lost twice. Perhaps I should be thanking the pollsters in that case because if not for Ohio State we could be looking at a rematch of LSU's 48-7 pounding of Virginia Tech. Ohio State could be staring at a similar fate after losing 41-14 to another SEC team in last year's title game.  

 

Our reward after a season filled with upsets and dramatic finishes is watching a team who gave up no more than 7 points seven times this season. Great, I can't wait for LSU 12, Ohio State 3. I'll be sure to set my DVR so I can preserve this masterpiece. I think I'd rather get a haircut from Sweeney Todd.

 

In my final poll I declared USC should meet Oklahoma for the title. Then ESPN plays out their dream playoffs and those teams are the last two standing. The same goes for SI.com. Instead we get Tigers chewing on nuts. Thank you BCS for managing to screw up the ending of the most exciting season in history.