And didn't blow a tire this week!

And didn't wreck anyone else!

And actually finished 12th!!

And moved up to.....wait for it.....

              He's so fast, he can only be seen in Low-Def!!

23rd in the point standings!!! Holy ####!!!

Yep, here in Sadler Nation (the Liechtenstein of fan "Nations"), we have to find our little victories where we can. Plenty of room available on the Sadler Bandwagon (the Yugo of fan "Bandwagons") if anyone's interested.....

Well, it was a gorgeous day in Richmond on Saturday. We pull into Randy’s Auto Service parking lot at 3:00. Randy was thrilled to see us. Because we’re old pals? Because we needed an oil change? No, that’s where we tailgate, and he collects $20. Only the best when you party with us….Randy’s wife is pushing Moon Pies on us pretty hard for some reason. Only $1. Uh, no thanks. (Can you use those profits to upgrade the plumbing in your freakin' bathroom?) First beer cracked at 3:01.

~3:15, Dave gets the grill fired up. Cheddar burgers and hot sausages. The local wildlife was quite enthralled. And by “wildlife”, I mean the ####. No, I’m not trying to sound superior, I’m half-#### myself. Second beer cracked at 3:17.

~5:00, start walking to the track (it’s about a half-mile away, but it’s worth it since we miss all traffic when we leave). I lose count of the confederate flag-bearing pickups halfway to the track. Working on fourth beer.

~6:00, after picking up the tickets from Will Call, run the gauntlet of souvenir trailers with minimal financial damage. I buy a #19 koosie (sic?), and that’s it. Others in my party not so lucky. Not sure which beer at this point….sixth?

~7:00, arrive at seats. After walking around the track and the souvenir trailers, I’m shocked to realize I saw not one other person sporting #19 garb. OK, not so shocked. But a little disappointed. Our seats are in a sea of Junior fans; also not a shock.

~7:30 the festivities get rolling. Driver introductions. The usual chorus of boos for Jeff Gordon, the usual roar for Junior. Surprised to start hearing a similar response for Jimmie Johnson that you hear for Jeff Gordon. Shouldn’t be surprising, since Johnson is pretty much Gordon the Second. Nice cheers for Denny Hamlin, the local guy, and Jeff Burton, another Virginian. Although Elliott Sadler is also a Virginian, but he didn’t get much of a response. Other than me. I get some strange looks from The Nation surrounding me. Beer #8.

Then the National Anthem. On a serious note here, I gotta say I was very disappointed in the crowd. I’ve been to around 10 Sprint/Busch races, all but one at Richmond, and this was the first time I noticed the disrespect for the National Anthem in the crowd. People talking, making jokes, laughing, and I’m thinking I thought NASCAR fans pride themselves on being the most patriotic fans out there? Usually seems to be the case, but not on this night.

Then the Flyover. Best ever. The Blue Angels. The timing was absolutely perfect, right at the end of the Anthem. Maybe the best flyover in NASCAR history? Hard to say, I know, but I can't imagine one better.

To the race; my boy Sadler gets stuck behind his teammate, the #10, and goes backwards. After finally getting by the #10, he starts picking cars off. The #48. Then the #42. Then the #29. It was freakin' beautiful. Soon up to fifth! Then the gorgeous sunset. I thought it was a sign of things to come....

Sunset over RIR, 5-3-08. A Sign? Will the NASCAR gods allow Sadler to win?

Uh, no.

Then I go down to meet my cousin-in-law (editor-in-chief of NASCAR Illustrated, great magazine by the way, sorry for the plug) and by the time I get back, the #19 is way back in the pack. Right where he’s comfortable. I breathe a sigh of relief, since I would have had no idea what to do if Sadler actually had a shot to win. Whew, dodged a bullet there! I down a $7 24-oz. Miller Lite in celebration.

Well, we all know how the race went in the latter stages. Denny dominated, then lost his tire, then his head. Michael Waltrip then proceeded to lose his head bigtime. Then The Incident That Shall Not Be Named. And Oh Yeah, Bowyer won. Beer count at this point is completely unknown, in the mid teens I think.

Then the trek back to Randy’s, who’s long gone at this point. Not sure how the wife made out on the Moon Pie sales, I'll try and find out.

Anyway, it was a phenomenal day at RIR, the rain held off, and neither of the Goody-Two-Shoes Twins (Gordon/Johnson) won. Sounds like a winner to me!

Well, the annual March screwing of the mid-major has occurred. Yeah yeah, the Committee's got an impossible task, someone will always be screwed, blah blah blah. You know who the one's that are usually screwed are, don't you? Let's take a stroll down Screwed-Mid Lane, shall we?

Butler: Ranked #10 in the latest Coaches poll, #11 in AP. RPI=17. At worst, should be a 5 seed, right? Nope, got a 7, and basically play a road game against USA, in Birmingham. And IF Butler makes it to the second round, they likely get Tennessee. Somebody in the NCAA clearly doesn't want Butler to do well in this tournament.

While Butler (RPI=17) got a road-game 7, Oklahoma (RPI=27) somehow got a 6-seed. In the latest AP, Butler got 989 votes to Oklahoma's 1. Yep, 1. In the Coaches, it's Butler: 499, OU: 0. Notta single vote. But OU gets a 6 to Butler's (road) 7. Indefensible! Yes, I'm sure OU played a tougher schedule. But isn't that already accounted for in the RPI? I thought that was what the RPI existed for....

Davidson: Ranked #23 in both polls. Rewarded with a 10 seed (!) going against #24 Gonzaga. At least the game's in Raleigh. Which brings us to....

Gonzaga: #24 in AP. Have to travel across country to play #23 Davidson in its home state. Huh?

Top teams left out by RPI: Dayton (32), Illinois State (33), UMass (42), Creighton (46). Notice any similarities with these four? That's right, all mid-majors.

Worst teams by RPI to get an at-large bid: Oregon (58), Kentucky (57), Villanova (51), Kansas State (50). Notice anything similar about these four? You got it, all BCS conference teams. And Oregon not only somehow got in, but received a 9-seed!

And how about the whining about Arizona State, left out while Arizona got in. Wow, my heart really bleeds for ASU. You have to go well down in the RPI, to 83 (!), before you find the Sun Devils. Gosh, they beat Arizona twice, and have a better Pac-10 record than Arizona! And ASU has five wins against RPI Top 50!! So my question therefore is; why is Arizona's RPI at 37, while ASU is at 83? Must be a reason for that, eh? Anyone bother to look at the rest of the resume for ASU? Yes, you beat down Xavier, give you credit for that, but how about other wins that include Cal Poly, Florida Gulf Coast, Delaware State, Coppin State, Idaho, St. Francis (PA), Montana State, and Princeton?

Does the Committee use the RPI at all? I know, they also use "Record vs RPI Top 50" (a completely arbitrary criteria which already figures into the overall RPI#, doesn't it?), and strength of schedule (which also already figures into the overall RPI#, right?). Why these extra criteria? Well, to help the big-boys, of course. Who benefits from "Record vs RPI Top 50" and SOS? Not the mids, that's for sure. And of course the mids would love to boost their SOS, but how can they when no big boys will ever give them a fair home-and-home deal?

Even the NIT isn't immune. Of the nine games I counted between mids and the majors in this year's first round, seven times the major gets the home game. Last year was just as bad, with 11 out of 14 first-round games pitting mids against majors being played at the major. But what do you expect now that the NCAA runs the NIT?

Everything is stacked against the mids, and, well, to be downright literate about it, it sucks large. How many more times do the mids have to prove that they can hang with the big boys? And fans love the supposed underdogs, I mean, wasn't THE story of the '06 tournament George Mason? That's what makes March Madness so much fun to begin with! When will action be taken to stop this constant reaming? It's not even subtle anymore, it's outright blatant, and the mystery to me is that there is mid-major representation on the Committee!! OK, I've gotta go, I'm completely flustered now, about to blow a gasket....

What up, homies? Well, the troop here is kicking back at my mansion in Dreamworld, and we just got done with our two favorite pastimes, frog-giggin’ and catfish-noodlin’. That’s right, catfish and frog legs; man, it don’t git no better!! Yes, I know, Dreamworld is starting to sound an awful lot like #### heaven. Which rocks!! Ricky the Albino Satyr couldn’t really take part in the noodlin’ since, you know, he has hooves instead of fingers. Anyway, we were just in a deep discussion about the ever-growing inequities in baseball. So, as usual here in Dreamworld, we decided to fix what ails the sport as we have done for NASCAR, college hoops, and college football (see previous posts). OK Bud, move over, the gang in Dreamworld is taking over!

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Well, first and foremost, Tommy the Unicorn insisted on a hard salary cap. The current luxury-tax system isn’t solving the big-market/small-market problem; who are the only teams you hear about when it comes to Johan Santana? The big-spenders, of course. We encountered some resistance from the player’s union, but when we threatened the leadership with cattle prods, they very quickly came around to our point of view (negotiating in Dreamworld is so much easier!). We also moved the trading deadline ahead a full month to June 30 to try to head off the ridiculous sell-offs by non-contenders (though, admittedly, my Braves probably benefited most at the deadline last year with the addition of Teixeira....).

Chad (Blossom's miniature purple rhinoceros) doesn’t like the fact that baseball has to compete with the NFL so much at the end of the season. Can’t exactly start the season sooner, when games in Cleveland and Denver are postponed due to snow already. One thing you can do is end the season earlier, and by over a week at that. How? Go back to the 154 game schedule which hasn’t been around since the early 60’s. The less time you have to compete with the NFL, the better. Does the season really need to be 162 games long?

Actually, this is really all we had. We tend to hammer Bud for allowing the steroids era to blossom under his watch, but some good things have happened too. The expanded playoffs and interleague play have been great successes, despite the grumblings of the “purists”. We’re in favor of contraction too, but who to contract? Yanks and Red Sox would be a great start.....

Well, we’re all relaxing and power-napping after a full meal of catfish and frog legs. Later this evening we’re going to saddle up and head out to the Monster Truck show at the fairgrounds (go Carolina Crusher!! If you can't beat 'em, run over 'em!). It’s a great carnival atmosphere, with games for the kids like whack-a-gnome (using real live gnomes). See y'all next time here in beautiful Dreamworld....

Howdy folks, just chillin’ with the crew at my girl Blossom’s castle here in Dreamworld. Beautiful place, really (paid for with residuals from her old TV show. The show’s apparently still huge in Yemen; poor woman can’t walk down the street in al-Mukalla without getting mobbed). We love NASCAR here, and were just discussing how the sport has gotten even better since we started running things, much like our improvements to college hoops and college football (see previous posts below). Here’s what we did for NASCAR....

9/23/07---Dover, DE: A Dreamworld-like day with 135,000 of my closest friends!! However, in Dreamworld, we'd have gotten a jet flyover, not freakin' helicopters....

Well, for starters, we realized that the season is insanely long. February to November? Seriously? Of course, how to shorten the season was a major concern for us. For the good of the sport, the track owners decided to let us trim some races off of the schedule (remember, this is Dreamworld after all…serious suspension of disbelief is required). We decided not to cut any road courses or short track races, or superspeedways. And any ideas on further expansion were nixed as well. And you just can’t go head-to-head with the NFL either. That’s why when the NFL season starts, we moved all races to Saturday night. This makes sense anyway, what normally happens when there’s a rainout for a Sunday race? The race is moved to Monday when nobody can watch it. Except for those of us who are currently unemployed, but that's another story entirely.

What the....Punky Brewster just showed up at Blossom’s castle; this is not good, people, not good at all. Punky and I have, well, some “history”. Blossom can be a bit jealous, especially when it comes to my exes. Awkward, Awkward, Awkward! I’ll be back in a little while; this situation has catfight written all over it, made worse by Mikhail and Tommy the Unicorn who are egging Punky on.....

Schedule Trimming

First, we got rid of the Bud Shootout and the Gatorade Duels. We thought, why can’t we just qualify cars for the Daytona 500 like we do all the other races? These crews need all the breaks they can get, so these meaningless exhibitions were cut. Moving on….

Next, we got rid of the incredibly stupid all-star race. I mean really, the all-star race has pretty much the same drivers that race every week, right? What’s the point of an all-star race, especially with no points? Another meaningless exhibition. Gone! Next!

Pocono is a very unique track, which made it tough to axe one of their races, but it’s not one of the more popular tracks, so the Pocono 500 is gone. And in a somewhat controversial move, we took away one of California Speedway’s races. Sorry folks, if you can’t sell out a 92,000 seat stadium (actually not that big for NASCAR) in the second largest market in America, you don’t deserve two races! (Bristol easily sells out 160,000 for cryin’ out loud!) And TV ratings in California are plummeting at a staggering rate as well.

We also got rid of the March 22 off-week because, well, the season just started, why take a break here? I know I just got done saying the crews need all the breaks they can get, but I bet they’d rather have the season end one week sooner. And the break’s between the Bristol and Martinsville races, tracks which are practically right beside each other. A break just isn’t needed there!

So we knocked off nearly a month off of the season which now ends in mid-October, not mid-November. So far so good.

We like the one-engine rule as is, and left it unchanged. One more way which we’ve tried to give the crews a break is to reinstate the impound rule for all races. After the car is qualified, it’s parked and can’t be altered until the green flag drops.

Well, managed to get Punky and Blossom separated for the moment. That faint rumbling in the background is the daily Running of the Gnomes here in Dreamworld, which is super fun now that gnome hunting has been legalized. Ooh, here they come.....ready, aim....

The Cars

We introduced radical changes to the cars. First of all, if we’re going to have a car called the “Car of Tomorrow” (although I guess it’s now the “Car of Today”?) then we decided to update the engine technology from 1952. Pushrods, 16 valves, and carburetors? I thought one point of racing was to push technology farther.....So we made the engines normally-aspirated still, but now they incorporate fuel-injection, 32 valves, and four overhead cams. We also limit the displacement and compression ratio to limit the power of the engines. We toyed with the idea of using V6’s instead of V8’s to limit power, but we realized that to the true red-blooded American NASCAR fan, that would be akin to using instant grits for breakfast. And son, that just ain’t right.

Yes, we understand that such a radical engine change will take a number of years to implement and the R & D costs for the teams would likely be in the astronomical range, but this sport needs to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern age! And by "modern age", we mean the engine technology of, say, 1992 as opposed to 1952.

To keep speeds from getting out of control as a result of better engines, we also decided on an incredibly simple, cheap solution: change the tire width from 12” to 9”. We also modernized the wheel; I mean, how many high-performance cars on the road today use a 15” steel wheel? We decided on 18” alloys, though this is simply an aesthetic change…To us, the 9” tire width has the benefit of increasing the dependency on driver ability, and decreasing the dependency on car setup. Don't get us wrong, we still know setup is critical, but it shouldn't be everything! Think about it; if you put Robbie Gordon in Jeff Gordon’s car from last year (and vice versa), I would bet that their positions in the standings would have been nearly reversed. That’s certainly arguable, and no disrespect to JG (even though I can't stand him), but we fervently believe that the car setup these days far outweighs driver ability. Here in Dreamworld, we hopefully have changed that.

The decreased tire widths should also make handling more of a factor on the superspeedways, which will hopefully break up the huge pack of cars that frequently results in “the Big One”. Some fans may like the “Big One”, but not us here in Dreamworld. How much does it suck when one guy wrecks and takes out your favorite driver? Sucks large, as far as we’re concerned.

Well, we bagged a little over a dozen gnomes; not that difficult when using a 12-gauge aiming at a herd of a couple hundred gnomes. Like shooting fish in a barrel, really, those little suckers are quite slow. We needed over a dozen because, surprisingly, there really isn’t that much meat on a gnome. Mostly fat. We got enough for a good meal, though. They taste a bit like lobster; gnome is becoming quite the delicacy here in Dreamworld.

The Chase

The system at present makes such little sense that we changed this too. Under the current system, the 12th-place driver could theoretically start the Chase with more points than the regular-season points leader. Nonsense! In our system the 12th place driver starts with 5000 points, 11th place starts with 5010, etc. to the points leader who has 5110. The top drivers should get a healthy advantage over the lower ranked drivers, shouldn’t they? We place more significance on wins throughout the entire season by making them worth an additional five points.

5/5/07---Richmond, VA: Saturday night racing with 112,000 of my other set of best friends. This is how it should be done!

Well, there you have it; NASCAR in Dreamworld is pretty sweet! Punky and Blossom accidentally bumped into each other while in line for the bathroom, and got into a nasty brawl. Hell hath no fury like a Blossom scorned, trust me on this. Everything worked out though, ‘cause my boy Elliott Sadler was here, and volunteered to take Punky to the emergency room, and I think a nice little romance blossomed as a result (get it? Blossom-ed?). Anyway, calm is restored, and we’re all stuffed on fricasseed gnome (cooked to perfection by Sidney, who’s quite the gourmet, and also a half-mule/half-leopard, or “mullepard”. We’ve got some interesting creatures here in Dreamworld). Then tomorrow it’s to the river for some catfish-noodlin’. See ya next time!

Howdy folks, me and the gang are hanging out here in Dreamworld, gettin' all sorts-a fired up for college hoops now that the conference schedules are starting. We're grillin' out over at Mikhail and Tommy the Unicorn's place and all is well. So far. However, the gnomes have started doing Jager bombs, so things could get ugly here soon.....Remember this equation folks: Gnomes + Jager = Certain Disaster....

We were just discussing the current college hoops system, and have determined that the system is, well, quite flawed. Too much unfairness toward the mid-majors, the big schools just won't play us fairly; either it's always at their place, or they play us once at our place and we place twice at their place, or they come play us, not on our campus, but at the nearest  major pro arena, etc. The braintrust here has come up with a pretty neat solution. Well, at least, we think so.

Put the garden tool down, Jeffrey. Then you may have more Jager....

OK, the key to fairness is making everyone's non-conference schedule (close to) equal in strength. Basically, there are 31 conferences, and each could be classified in one of three groups by their previous season's performance. Call it Class A, B, and C, for instance, 10 conferences in Class A and C, and 11 in Class B. Based on last year's Sagarin ratings, Class A would be the six BCS conferences plus the Missouri Valley, Mountain West, WAC, and Conference USA. Class B is comprised of the A-10, Horizon, WCC, MAC, CAA, Big West, MCC, Southern, Big Sky, Sun Belt, and Patriot. Class C is therefore the Ivy, MAAC, America East, Southland, OVC, Big South, Atlantic Sun, NEC, MEAC, and SWAC. There is a point here, wait for it.....Uh oh, hold on a sec....

Well, Blossom just arrived riding her pet miniature purple rhinoceros Chad, and she's wearing a VERY skimpy bikini. I don't think the gnomes have ever seen a T-back before, and they're getting a little restless. Oh, somebody puh-leeze make the uncomfortable-ness stop. And now they're starting to shotgun cans of Milwaukee's Best. This has trouble written all over it people.....

Anyway, uh, back to the point. So if a particular conference plays an 18 conference game schedule, they should therefore get 12 non-conference games. Or in other words, the total games should come out to 30, no matter how many conference games are played. If 12 non-conference games are played, there has to be four against Class A competition (two at home, two on the road), four against Class B, again two at home, two on the road, and four against Class C. So six non-conference games are at home, six on the road, and the schedule strength is nearly equal for everyone.

Computer ratings should still be kept, because inevitably some schedules will still be harder than others. But at least it's much closer, and far more fair. And this also pretty much means the death of the pre-season and holiday tournaments, but does anybody actually care? And, whoa, wait a sec, oh no.....

Blossom and Chad seem to have gotten into the Electric Punch, and now she's giving Ricky the Albino Satyr a lap dance. Damn you, my sweet Blossom! Oh jeez, now one of the gnomes is humping poor Blossom's leg.....poor thing, she's trying to shake him off.....I knew this was going to happen....be back in a minute folks......

Anyway, when Selection Sunday comes around, the at-larges can simply be chosen by their computer ranking. Which means NO COMMITTEES INVOLVED!!! You either have the number or you don't. And the seedings are also determined by the computer ranking. And can we please get rid of this humiliating play-in game? Why do the two lowest ranked conference champions get punished by making them play an extra game? And don't give the spin of "one of those teams can say they won an NCAA tournament game". Everyone knows it's not a real tournament win. If you absolutely have to have a play in game, make the last two at-larges play it, but don't punish conference champions.

And there you have it, a much improved system, no non-conference rivalries are lost, and the big boys can no longer unfairly screw the mid's. What d'ya think?

Well, things have gone from bad to worse here in Dreamworld. They tried the daily Running of the Gnomes, but the lead gnome was so hammered, he led the entire herd straight into the pool, and we lost a couple dozen of 'em. Sad, but hilarious at the same time. Probably not such a bad thing, those little ####s multiply like rabbits. I keep lobbying for a gnome hunting season, it may happen soon....Anyway, Ricky is hurling in the fountain, Chad's bobbing for dead gnomes, and Mikhail and Tommy are calling the cops. Yep, we have cops here in Dreamworld, and I think you can see why!! Blossom, however, is giving me that "come hither" look.....man, I love it when she drinks. See ya!!

From The Sloaner's Dreamworld.....(cue mystical sounding music and, wait, what the hell's Tommy the Unicorn doing here? And where's Blossom?)

Wishful thinking no more, fans, the playoffs have arrived!! (And no, I'm not calling it the Bowl Subdivision. Did I miss the public outcry to rename the D-I divisions?). Anyway, the format is a 16-team playoff with minimal disturbance to the current bowl system. How, might you ask? Well, there's no rule that says a playoff HAS to happen in December is there? How about January? Beginning of a semester, minimal disturbance to athletes' classes and holidays (yeah, like that ever truly mattered...). Anyway, the 11 conference champions are in (you too, Sun Belt!), with five at-larges. How are those decided? Well, NOT by a committee, for starters. You simply take the teams with the highest BCS ranking that aren't conference champs. The BCS ranking is also used for seeding purposes. So your field of 16, seeded 1-16 are:

1. Ohio State                (Big 10 Champs)
2. LSU                           (SEC Champs)
3. Virginia Tech           (ACC Champs)
4. Oklahoma                (Big 12 Champs)
5. Georgia                    (First At-Large)
6. Missouri                   (Second At-Large)
7. Southern Cal           (Pac-10 Champs)
8. Kansas                     (Third At-Large)
9. West Virginia           (Big East Champs)
10. Hawaii                      (WAC Champs)
11. Arizona State           (Fourth At-Large)
12. Florida                      (Fifth At-Large)
13. BYU                          (Mountain West Champs)
14. Central Florida       (Conference USA Champs)
15. Central Michigan   (MAC Champs)
16. Florida Atlantic       (Sun Belt Champs)

The Fightin' Zookers would be the odd-men out, but there's quite a gap in the BCS number from Florida to Illinois, so there isn't much argument there. Doesn't mean there won't be an argument in the future, but hey, you've either got the number or you don't. Somebody will always be the first one left out.

Next, oh, wait a sec, Mikhail (Tommy the Unicorn's, uh, "partner") just made a ####y on the neighbors lawn here in Dreamworld, be back in a minute....

Yucko! Guess Dreamworld isn't so dreamy after all...Anyway, these 16 are paired up using the eight most prestigious bowls, which I guess could be argued after the top four. We're also reserving December 31 and January 1 for these eight bowls, and nobody else can play on these days. The BCS bowls get January 1, the "lesser" four get December 31. Playing from noon (or even 11AM), you can get four games in with minimal overlap in a day. Two ways to do the matchups, both have problems:

1. Use the most fair pairings; 1 v 16, 2 v 15, etc. to 8 v 9. Problem is, many of these matchups will frankly suck, and New Year's traditions, specifically the Rose Bowl, are lost. Which brings us to...
2. Keep traditional bowl pairings/destinations, even if it means the higher seeded teams have much more unfair matchups.

I prefer option 2. to keep bowl traditions alive. Even if it means some day in the future a #1 Big 10 team has to play the #2 Pac-10 team in the Rose Bowl in the first round. Oh well.

I also say the top four bowls be reserved for the top eight conference champions. The rest, try to make matchups based on fairness and geography, as close as is reasonable. (Yikes, I guess a dreaded committee would have to do this, eh?). So here is the first round of the playoffs:

December 31, 2007

1. Peach Bowl: #5 Georgia vs #16 Florida Atlantic
2. Cotton Bowl: #6 Missouri vs #15 Central Michigan
3. Holiday Bowl: #8 Kansas vs #11 Arizona State
4. Gator Bowl: #12 Florida vs #14 Central Florida

I'm sure the Cap One folks would throw a bunch of money to get one of these, but screw 'em.

January 1, 2008

1. Rose Bowl: #1 Ohio State vs #7 Southern Cal
2. Sugar Bowl: #2 LSU vs #13 BYU
3. Orange Bowl: #3 Virginia Tech vs #9 West Virginia
4. Fiesta Bowl: #4 Oklahoma vs #10 Hawaii

Yes, I see the problem with having #1 having a brutal matchup while #'s 5 and 6 likely cruise. To me it's better than 1 v 16, 2 v 15, etc, and here traditions are preserved. Neither way is gonna be perfect, folks. One reward for the top bowl participants is a higher payout, which the fans won't care about (but the presidents sure as hell will). Or maybe in the second round the BCS bowl winners get a home game. Yes, there are tweaks that would be needed.

Whoa! Gimme a sec, forgot about a little daily tradition here in Dreamworld, gotta watch the "Running of the Gnomes".....Much more dangerous than it sounds.....

OK, next, we have a scheduling problem, this is also the weekend of the NFL Divisional Round, assuming the Wild-Card round was January 5-6. This could still work, have one college game Friday night, January 11, then the remaining games on Saturday the 12th, 1:00, 4:30, and 8:00. NFL could have their games on Sunday the 13th at 1:00, 4:30, and 8:00, with the fourth game on Monday night. We'd really need Mr. Goodell's help on this one. And somebody may whine about a short week, but screw 'em.

The NCAA semis are on Saturday, January 19 (sites TBD), while the NFL's Conference Title games are on Sunday, January 20. Easy enough, but we gotta move on, I might wake up at any moment!! Still waiting for Blossom, we're supposed to pound down some 'shine and go frog-giggin'! I know what you're thinking; Dreamworld rocks!! Anyway, back to business....

Smokin'!!

Since the NFL likes taking two weeks off between Conference Title games and the Super Bowl, the NCAA title game can be during that NFL off-weekend, on either Saturday, January 26 or on Sunday the 27th. Therefore the Super Bowl is the following Sunday, February 3. Each championship game gets its own weekend, and everyone wins, everyone's happy, right?

This playoff system is similar to March Madness, in that virtually every team gets an equal chance to win it all (in theory, of course), except for a few independents. Except with no insulting play-in game. Oh, and no special considerations for Notre Dame either, you either earn your way in as one of the five highest ranked at-larges, or you can pout and stay at home. I really don't care. Or here's an idea.......join the Big-10!!!

Think about the NCAA and NFL playoffs happening at the same time... it's January Madness!! Or January Insanity!! And I know a Florida Atlantic would have no chance at winning a game, but that's not the point; giving everyone in D-IA the opportunity to take part is what'll make it so fun. Kinda like....March Madness. Makes too much sense, right?

Well, Blossom just arrived in Dreamworld riding her miniature purple rhinoceros named Chad, so I gots to go, y'all!! Enjoy the playoffs.....My money's on the Sooners....Chad!! Not on Federico's lawn!!! I just got done cleaning up after Mikhail and those damn Gnomes!!!! That's a very bad miniature purple rhinoceros!!! Yeesh.....