Now let me start off by saying that I think Rich-Rod is one hellauva coach. He has changed the way college football is played with his spread offense. I also wish him luck at Michigan, where I think that he will be a dominate coach. However I still have a problem with him leaving and here's why:
1. You left your team before a BCS bowl game. This most important fact has even non-interested fans up in arms. Many WVU fans are more upset about leaving his team and fans without a coach in the biggest game of the program. Then there is the many factual reporting problems that some of you are told. Interestingly enough, all of the national papers that I read stated that Rich-Rod had a team meeting and told his players about his soon to be departure. Some players were quoted as saying he was a "stand up guy" for telling the team first. There are many problems with this of course, first being that potential recruits(for Michigan) knew of Rich-Rod's decision before any of his WVU players did, nice touch of class. Another interesting point is that half of his team walked out of his 10min meeting regarding his departure, nice that was not mentioned in any national papers.
2. He is going to a team where is just another coach. At WVU he could have been a god. He was rebuilding a program that many considered to be a joke. He was a native of WV and supposedly "loved" the area. Fans were of course upset that he lost to Pitt, but there was never a question that he was our coach, no mention of ever being on the hot seat. At Michigan you are not the hometown hero, you lose and your out. Just to give you a peak into how much he meant to a state that does not have any professional teams, there was talk of a tax to help pay his salary and many residents were for it. The importance of the hometown hero argument, Major Harris still makes appearances. If you have no idea who that is, you have just proven my point.
3. There is a saying in Politics that you have no chance of becoming president if you can not win your own state. Look if former Michigan coaches and or alumni do not want the coaching job, then why are you taking it. This signals that they determine the job to either be worse then their current position, or an expectation level that cannot be met. Either way, that does not look very appeasing. Especially when all I heard this week is that there is "only one Michigan", last time I checked there is only one USC, UF, WVU and just about another other school out there.
Now I will explain why I think that he accepted the position:
1. Since going to Michigan there is an article regarding him everyday. He and or his program never received the attention that he has gotten thus far at Michigan.
2. I know that many Big Ten fans will be upset but here goes, your conference sucks!. Look your best team lost to Illinois, they are not a rival, Zook is a good recruit but is not considered to be a great coach and they run a similar offense that WVU does, but with less talent at QB and Rb. Your conference is getting by on name alone. The Big East was dominate in Bowl games last year and get no respect. If Michigan had the same record as WVU and was in the same position, they would be playing in the national championship.
One last comment:
I do not think this will happen and there is very little evidence but know this, Belein left the WVU basketball program for Michigan last year, he was replaced with a former player and hometown guy Huggins. Currently with Belein's players WVU is 10-1. I am not sure what Belein's record is at Michigan, but I know that is not 10-1. WVU will get a hometown guy for it football program, I am not saying that they will surpass the success that Rich-Rod had or that Rich-Rod will have a defunct program, but is something to consider.
So I know that the AP poll has not been posted yet, but I just looked at the Coaches Poll and I have a question. Why is it that WVU lost to South Florida who was ranked at the time and dropped further in the polls then the top teams who lost to unranked opponents? Just this past week USC lost to unranked Stanford and they fell 6 spots! Oklahoma lost to unranked Colorado and dropped five spots, but WVU loses to ranked South Florida and drops 8. Please do not tell me that it is because WVU plays no one. At least half of the teams WVU has played thus far this season competed in bowl games last year. Wisconsin is another example. They dropped 10 spots in the coaches’ poll for losing this past weekend. It appears that if you are a considered an elite program the voters will do whatever is in their power to maintain your standing in the polls.
I am not sure what the big deal is, so 1-AA Michigan lost to 1-AA Appalachian, this kinda stuff happens all of the time. What I really love is how the media and fans are trying to make App better then they really are by saying things like "App won the 1-AA Championship recently" or my favorite, "App could probably compete in the Big 10". What I like about it is that the integrity of the conference has not come into question. You better believe that if a Big East team lost to a 1-AA school people would be clamoring to say that the Big East conference is a joke! I am just waiting to see how Michigan fans are going to spin this one. Michigan #### the Big Ten conference this year. Now To Other Musings......
-App deserves credit for going to Michigan and beating them at “the big house”, which after this post, will never be referred to by me as “the big house”.
-I do not want to hear any SEC fan tell me again that the Media is bias against you. The only games on this weekend were SEC games. LSU, UGA, TENN, Auburn. However the best Headline comparison goes to Fox Sports, "LSU justifies their ranking by blowing out Mississippi St" or something along those lines, in comparison Louisville beats Murray St 73-10, but that is not considered a blow out or a justification of their ranking.
-Why is it that the networks can not or will not televise the top ranked teams the first week, Florida was not on t.v, WVU was not on t.v, hell even the Michigan game was not on t.v. Only three of the top 10 teams were on television this weekend and two of those games occurred before the weekend officially started. The networks in my area did not even switch to the Michigan game in the final minutes when it was close.
-ESPN, I have watched you for hours this weekend, can I see just 1 WVU highlight, I mean they are ranked third in the nation!
-Notre Dame proves that either there is no God or that he does not like football, they stink. I thought that I would get joy out of their lackluster play, however I just realized that they will still be on t.v no matter how bad they are.
-Auburn, Kansas St, I mean really. If you did not watch that game, know this, Kansas St looked really good against them or Auburn looked really bad. Saban you might have a chance!
-I never would have thought that Florida would move up in the polls by beating Western Kentucky, again Michigan you stink.
- Michigan is not in my top 10, nor should they be, their schedule was weak, like Ohio State.
- Boise St should be ranked at least 2nd
- I can not believe that Louisville wins their game and drops in the polls.
- LSU played a great game against Notre Dame. They are ranked lower then Louisville because they have 2 losses.
- USC was ranked 8th in the AP so they move up some to 5
- Wisconsin won their game, they stay put, in the AP they also drop from winning which makes no sense.
- Auburn wins they move up.
- WVU moves up (although I am a fan), but because they won coming from behind without their key player, actually according to stats, Slaton is in the Top 3 for running backs in the nation.
- Ohio State, I feel that I was nice by keeping you in the Top 10, you played no one this season and coasted in on reputation alone. People gave Florida #### saying that they barely beat opponents. Ohio beats Illinois 17-10, Rutgers beats Illinois 33-0, no one mentions that, go figure.
- Rutgers, you were one of the darlings this year, have a good defense, a great running back and a great coach.
Now I know some of you might be upset by how many Big East teams are in the Top 10, but the Big East is undefeated in Bowl games this year, the only conference to do that. I also want to point out that many detractors said that the “spread offense” that was invented by WVU head coach Rodriguez would never work in the SEC or other “Major Conferences”. Florida uses it and they won the National Title.
Maybe this is the first year that I have really paid attention to the heisman award, but does anyone else feel that this year has got to be the worst finalist ever. Let’s look at some numbers to see what I mean.
Troy Smith
Passing Efficiency (4), Brennan (1), Beck (2), Russell (3) all rank above him
Total Offense (32), Brennan (1), Beck (4)
Total Passing Yards (33), Brennan (1), Beck (6)
Points Responsible for (7), Brennan (1), Beck (3)
Actually as far as stats go, Smith is not even the best Q.B in the country, much less the runaway heisman winner.
Brady Quinn
Passing Efficiency (14)
Total Offense (8)
Total Passing Yards (8)
Points Responsible for (5)
Out of both of these quarterbacks, neither one of them is ranked 1st in any statistical summary as located here, actually Brennan from Hawaii looks amazing.
Now let’s look at the R.B McFadden
Rushing (10), Wolfe (1), Johnson (2), Slaton (3), Rice (4)
Total Offense, not in top 100, Wolf (80), Johnson (89), Slaton (90) Rice (100)
Scoring (26), Johnson (1), Bradshaw (2), Rice (6), Slaton (9)
Points Responsible for (65), Johnson (19), Bradshaw (34), Wolf (47), Rice (53), Slaton (61)
As you can see with all of these players that none of them statistically are at the top of their respective categories and yet they are the top three in the hesiman voting, why? I think that out of these three, McFadden is the best athlete and out of these three should win, but he is not even ranked consistently above these other backs. I realize that Smith is the runaway favorite and that has more to do with the fact that he is from one of the “golden 5 “ schools then anything else, but how is he even a runaway favorite. Give me your thoughts.
I was browsing the blog today and I see that LSUfan has made a personal attack against me. His allegation is that I have deleted one of his posts. His rational is that I am a poor sport. However, with most of what LSUfan says, you have to dig a little deeper to get the truth. A couple of weeks ago I posted some comments defending my team and showing some facts about the SEC conference on one of LSUfan’s blog. These comments were then deleted and I was told that they were off topic. LSUfan then posted comments on the very same blog attacking my arguments that he had just deleted; thus giving only one side of the argument. My questions is, if my comments were off topic, then why did you address them on the very same blog? I thought the whole idea of blogging was to hear others thoughts and ideas. It is for this reason that I delete LSUfan’s comment on one of my blogs. Now he has taken offense to his own ignorance. LSUfan I would hope that one day you actually make an argument that is fact based, however I realize that would take some level of intelligence. I do not think you will ever graduate from sitting in the corner and eating glue sticks.
It is amazing to me that so many people come onto fox sports and make statements that just do not have any facts behind them. They regurgitate them over and over again hoping to get other sports fan to eat up their supposed knowledge and become a believer. The main focus of my argument today is the Lie that the SEC is the best conference in football. Now, let me start off by saying that I am a Big East fan (WVU). So I take a special interest considering most people who blog on fox sports considers our conference the “Big Easy”. Listed below are a couple of statements made by other bloggers and my reply with statistical evidence to the contrary.
The Big East plays 1-AA schools, get a real schedule.
Reply – Actually many teams in D-1 play 1-AA schools, I would say the majority do at one time during the year. But, if you look at the stats, the SEC teams have more games against 1-AA schools then the Big East. 8 out of 12 SEC teams play 1-AA schools or 66%. 5 out of 8 Big East schools play 1-AA schools or 62%.
The out of conference teams that are played by the Big East are easy wins because they do not play anyone.
Reply – In reality this is not the case. With the season not over yet, it is difficult to add up total wins and losses but as of Thursday, here are the stats.
WVU’s out of conference opponents winning percentage 41%
Rutgers out of conference opponents winning percentage 43%
Louisville out of conference opponents winning percentage 43%
LSU’s out of conference opponents winning percentage 35%
Florida’s out of conference opponents winning percentage 45%
Auburn’s out of conference opponents winning percentage is 44%
The difference breaks down to about a game, nothing more.
Now for the sake of argument listed below is Ohio State’s and Michigan’s out of conference opponent’s schedule
Ohio State’s out of conference opponents winning percentage 62%
Michigan’s out of conference opponents winning percentage 47%
Any SEC team could play in the Big East and win the conference
Interesting considering that the Big East is 2-0 verses the SEC this year. I think that same thing was said before WVU played UGA in the Sugar Bowl, I forget what happened to your reigning SEC Champions again.
WVU should not be ranked as high as they are what have they done.
Reply, actually they have done a lot; they beat the best team the SEC had in the Sugar Bowl, in Atlanta no doubt. They have remained undefeated thus far this year. Have two legitimate Heisman trophy candidates in Slaton and White. Thus far they have done everything that the pollsters have asked of them.
As you can see the SEC is not as great and powerful as many would have you believe. If you prescribe to the antidote that you are only as strong as your weakest link(s), the bottom three teams by record in the SEC are a combined 8-19. The bottom three teams in the Big East are 11-14.
