Wouldn't that be a great match up for a bowl game. The University of Southern California against the University of South Carolina. Think of all the jokes that could be made if the gamecocks win it. Trojans fail to cover ####, lose it in the end.

Yes you probably guessed that this is going to be about the dire need of a playoff format and how the NCAA just integrated a bit of it.

First off a playoff format does not need you need to sever the ties of the BCS bowl's to conferences. All that really needs to be done is have a 12 team play off structure where the winners of their BCS conference get a first round BYE. Now since there are some BCS bowls with ties to 2 conferences should have it arranged so that the team with the better record (rankings tie breaker) gets the guaranteed spot in the BCS game while the other team plays against another team with a chance to go to that bowl game if they win.

This format would be almost parallel to that of the NFL's except for there would be no divisions such as the AFC or NFC. If you are having trouble grasping this concept just think of it like the NFL but replace two of the wild card spots with conference champions. the 6 wild card spots would be hand picked.

Now despite what you might think the BCS has made steps toward this along with conferences but never finished the job so in the end it makes about as much since as trying to save a man drowning 100 feet out as sea with a 50 foot rope.

Conference Championship games- Only if the BCS had a play off format would the regular season truly be the play offs they claim it is. In conferences like the big 12 and SEC you have pool play (Big 12 north or south and SEC east or west) the winner would advance to the regional championship (conference championship game). Then the winner would go on to the quarter finals (bowl games if it is a BCS conference), Then there would be a semi finals (would need to be added) then the BCS national title game.

What conference championship games do in this situation would make it so that a first round BYE is all thats on the line for the better team. Lisa4Usc made a good blog about this using the example of how a team in the big 12 north that is 7-5 could win a BCS spot over a Big 12 south that is 10-2. With this system in place all that would be on the line would be a first round BYE for the team with the good record since 10-2 in the big 12 should put them in the playoffs. How ever unless this is put into use in every conference it is unfair to those who have to go through it.

National Title Game- I'm still scratching my head over this one why would they make it so much more like a playoff format but then not include a semi final match up? I am sure that a semi final would be more profitable then having 2 more teams in a BCS bowl. In fact they would not even need to adopt a 4 round playoff system that may keep a BCS bowl from losing the champion of a conference it has ties to if they would just make two semifinal games. Are two games that much to ask for?

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog

The last team added to the NFL was the Houston Texans back in 2002 and seeing as the league has grown in popularity over the past 5 years I think there should be a new NFL team by 2010. Obviously Los Angeles has been the city that most people have been talking about but I will take a look into some other possible cities. They are all in the west because if you look at this map of NFL teams you will see that only 12 teams are located to the west of the Mississippi including those on it. If the NFL had an east and west league then the line would not be the Mississippi but rather if you just cut Michigan in half and cut straight down. Similar to the NHL.

Salt Lake City, Utah- I am going to start this one out with a city not many would expect. Salt Lake City has the facilities to host a professional football team after all they were able to host the 2002 winter Olympics.  Salt lake is home to BYU who has a good following in Salt lake,  Air Force head football coach Fisher   Deberry has said of Edwards Stadium, "Probably the loudest and best  stadium is whenever things are going  good for BYU and their fans start beating on the metal bleachers. That can be a very tough place to play." Lavell Edwards Stadium has a capacity of about 64,000 and could easily have the fan base for a NFL team.

 

 

 San Antonio, Texas- San Antonio is the largest metropolitan area in the country without a football team at the professional or collegiate level. It is the 7th largest city in the country but the 29th largest metro making it about the size of Salt Lake City and it is a fast growing city. Back in the 2005 the Saints had way more people attend in San Antonio then back in New Orleans despite only winning 3 games that year which shows that San Antonio is at the point where it can support a NFL franchise. The Alamo Dome would be the perfect place for a team in San Antonio it is currently the home of the Alamo Bowl in college football and was where the Saints played in 2005 along with the San Antonio Spurs Basketball Team from 1993 to 2002.

 

Los Angeles, California- This one should be obvious to most people why it should have a NFL franchise with it having the second largest media market in the U.S. and a metro population of 13 million this city is well past the point where it could support an NFL franchise it could probably support 2 easily only problem is its horrible track record. Back in 1995 the current Los Angeles Raiders moved back to Oakland while the Los Angeles Rams relocated to St.Louis leaving Los Angeles without a NFL team. This could probably be avoided if they only had one team to keep the fan base from being split. The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum would be a great home field having a capacity of over 90,000 making it as large if not larger then most NFL Stadiums. Some random thing i noticed if you take this picture into microsoft word and highlight it it looks like a X-Ray.

 

 

 

Oklahoma City- It’s got a metro population of only 1 million but the state is full of football fanatics and even though it is not as populated it would have enough loyal fans to fill the stadium coming in from other parts of Oklahoma. If you need proof that this can be done just look at memorial stadium in Nebraska in a city of 250,000 It has been able to sell out the stands of an 80,000 seat stadium at every home game since 1962 if you took the amount of people inside the stadium at one game and made the stadium a city it would be the third most populous city in Nebraska.

 

Now Oklahoma City is not near ready for an NFL franchise but after the cities above  get teams this city should be taken a look into.

 In summary my favorite of these two would be San Antonio and Los Angeles If these cities both got a team it would maintain the NFC/AFC balance by having the LA team go to the NFC because nearby neighbor San Diego has an AFC team leaving San Antonio with the AFC team.

 

 

This new UFL thing is going to be a flop already just by looking at where 3 teams are planned to go in the cities of Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Mexico city. I find it ironic that the one of those that’s in Mexico has the name pronounced in an English way.

  

Mexico City- Are you kidding me?!? For a predominantly American league and sport?!? It’s not like Canada where we can understand the language easily by just dropping the occasional eh. It will be hard for this team to find players who want to live down there seeing as almost no one down there speaks English and the only Spanish most football players learned is school is how to say "I go to the beach to play tennis with my cousin" or something worthless like that.

 

Las Vegas- You have to be nervous about playing here with gamblers wanting the Las Vegas team to win if your on the Las Vegas team you better not let them down and if your on the other team you better hope they don’t try to rig the game to make you lose. Not a smart move at all to put a team in a city that is known for gambling.

 

Los Angeles- ok this actually a good place to put a team but it does have a bad history a little more then a decade ago they had 2 teams but then in one year they both left. Los Angeles is still a good place for a football team as long as they don’t try to split the fan base with 2 teams or try to combine their mistakes with Mexico City and Las Vegas by moving it to east LA.

 

          Just look at cities like Dallas do you see more cowboy fans or desperado fans? NFL teams have long roots in most of its homecitiesand most football fans don’t enjoy different types of football (such as Arena Football) as much as the NFL. And for cities who have dynasty teams it would be nearly impossible to get them to be fans of anotehr leauge even if it did have a team from the same city.

 

             Even cities that don’t have a NFL team still can have a big football fan base because of college teams such as when I lived in Austin people paid much more attention to the UT longhorns then to the nearby Dallas Cowboys about 3 hours to the north. When I go up to Nebraska they don’t have a single professional team in any sport but the Cornhuskers has sold out every game since 1962 that’s almost half a century sellouts for a college team and the capacity is 80,000. That would mean that if you zoned off the stadium as its own biggest city during a game the amount of people inside would make the stadium alone the 3rd most populous city in Nebraska behind Omaha and Lincoln. I can’t speak for Los Angeles but I have heard it’s about the same down there with USC.

 

 

            But here is another idea if you want a team in Mexico City then why don’t you just start up a league down there? Not only would it have no competition but it will expand the American football fan base and you would not have to worry about language differences. This UFL has about the chance of success against the NFL as a 6th grade JV running back against Brian Urlacher of the Chicago Bears.

 

 

 

As most of you college fans know last year UT was the defending national champion and  started out with a 9-1 record and a shot at another national title game. untill Mccoy got injured in the K-State game and the longhorns then suffered a late season collapse losing to the wildcats 45-42 and then to their rival aggies 12-7 lowering their record to 9-3 and losing their big 12 south title and forcing them to settle for a short trip down I-35 to play in the alamo bowl.

It looks to me like UT has lost alot of ground since McCoys injury and that they might be in teh decline that nebraska was in almost a decade ago. This can all be atributed to Vince Youngs departure. Young was carrying the longhorns in a weak confrence at the time and proved to be a college football legend after that amazing run at the end of the rose bowl against USC but without him UT has struggled to get a good Quarter back.

Texas is one of the best colleges at pumping out good quarter backs but they are going to need to find someone bigger then McCoy who can take hits or focus more on building McCoy's strength in the offseason rather then his passing.

   With their new QB Blaine Gabbert who is better then Zac Taylor you just cant say that the cornhuskers wont be back this year. last year they went 9-3 in the regular season having to play against both UT and USC and this year they will finally be able to complete their comback with dare i say it a BCS game if they can win the Big 12 championship game.

 

Missouri will probably also be good this year

Cavs are overhyped and they are the suns of the east with players like lebron and well thats about their team right there. Lebron is a good player but the rest of the Cavs are not equiped to take down the pistons.

Utah has not really proven anything to me yet golden state was never a really good team in my opinon they caught dallas in a slump which probably explanes why Utah went 4-1 against them while when Utah played Houston they went 4-3.

If Utah cant win game 2 the Spurs have the series won. in their last series out of the 4 games the Spurs won 2 were in phoenix showing that this team does not need home field advantage to win games. in fact they are ranked 22nd in away game fan attendance putting them behind teams like the charolete bobcats.

These series might last to 6 but unless the pistons flop in the playoffs like last year its going to be a rematch of '05. 

 

Offense sells tickets defense wins championships

A response to Beat the Bulls? For Pistons, no problem

 

I dont see how this is so surprising to everyone. all chicago did to reach teh second round was sweep Miami the most over hyped team in the east. and now they are playing the pistons the #1 seed in the east and everyone expects a competitve series. chicago is just the east's weaker version of golden state.

well the seeding rule was supposed to keep the teams with 2 best records in each division away from each other untill the west championship. It worked but only halfway. Once again the most anticipated series in the West is being played in the 2nd round where as the western championship game will probably be within easy reach for the winner of the spurs-suns series.

This series might not even be that close if san antonio is able to come out and play against the suns like the usally do on defense and take game 2 a sweep might be on the horizon unless the suns can manage to play like they did in game one.

Every one of those series has been boring for me to watch 3 out of 4 the series were sweeps and the one that wasnt is between 2 teams that are that not that far apart way up in the north east. Im looking forwards to the Chicago-Detroit matchup as ben wallace is playing against his own teammates there but New Jersey-Toronto WHO CARES!

The wesern confrence is much more entertaning this post seaon with no sweeps yet and The best defensive team (Spurs) and the best offensive team (Suns) playing each other and the golden state series where Golden state might pull off a stunning upset if they win tonight.

A response to Spurs shut down Nuggets' stars

 

Finley's marksmanship and the teams defense were both of the reasons why the spurs one it was not because of just one. The spurs would steal the ball and then score a 3 pointer with it which could change the lead by 3 points more and gaining momentum by doing so.  Denver's average points per game in the regular season was 105 but San Antonio held them down to 78. Allen Iverson was not the answer last night.

I am looking forward to the Spurs-Suns series as they are two most consistent teams in the west and it is entertaning to watch some of the top scoring teams try to get past the spurs.

If golden state wants to upset dallas they have to win game 6 while they have home court advantage. If Dallas pulls out a win the series will be tied and heading back to dallas with all the momentum in Dallas's hands. And the Mavs are coming out of their slump as well. Who ever wins Game 6 will win the series and like ive said all throughout this series Dallas will come away with the W.

The Mavs may be down 3-1 but that does not mean they are out yet. Dallas has fallen unti slumps before and been ok and from the looks of how they played in the first half they are starting to come out of one but it was too late for game 4. In my opinon they are still one of the better teams in the playoffs they just get cocky easy like when they are on a big win streak or in this case when they are the number one seed and they play some team that just inched in.

they come back to dallas for game 5 giving them an advantge and they have to win to stay alive and tii have momentum going back to SF.

 

 

After their display of teamwork and athletiscim on thursday night against the suns the spurs have proven themselves to be a missle flying under the radar. San Antonio has proven 3 times that deffense not offense wins chapionships and are looking to make that 4.

THe ability of the Spurs to work as a team is amazing they were able to quickly force a shot by phoinex and then take it to the other side and score and each player has a strong point that san antonio has used to build their offense around.

Yes the veterans are getting old but older players tend to better in the playoffs with more breaks and having more experience in the post season.

It could be argued however that the suns had less to play for since they are guarented a play off berth and the Mavs might of beaten the spurs last year but its a whole new year and its going to be a whole new post season.