the tindog coffeehouse

The city of Arlington and Jerry Jones kicked a bunch of people out of their homes to build the $1.15 billion monument to ego known as Cowboys Stadium.  The city (with the approval of voters) also raised the sales tax a half percent to help pay for it.  So you’d think that Arlington high schools (particularly Lamar, whose students were those that lost their homes to Jerryworld) would be the first in line to play their football playoff games there.

Wrong.

At least initially, only bidistrict games between the 5-5A and 6-5A districts will be played there.  That includes schools such as Euless Trinity, Colleyville Heritage, Grapevine, and Southlake Carroll.  District 4-5A, which includes Arlington Lamar, Arlington Bowie, and Arlington High, is out of luck.  At least part of the reason, it seems, is because it’s too expensive.  (Naturally.)

As an alumnus of Lamar, this really ticks me off.  When I was in high school, we went to the playoffs every year, playing ten games at the old Texas Stadium over the course of the three years I was there.  I remember being in the marching band and marching out of the tunnel for the first time into what was the biggest stadium I had ever been in (which of course is nothing compared to the monstrosity that replaced it).  I remember catching a glimpse of Troy Aikman on the sidelines one game and feeling honored to stand where the heroes of my childhood once played and coached:  Roger Staubach, Tony Dorsett, Drew Pearson, and of course Tom Landry.

The current generation of Arlington students should have the opportunity to make the same memories.  Instead, they’ll be on the outside looking in while their wealthier neighbors are given preference.

Honestly, I’ve never had much respect for Jerry Jones, but now I have even less.

Update, 11/10/09:
Well, it looks like I was totally wrong (although in all fairness the Dallas Morning News article was horribly misleading).  Arlington high schools will, in fact, be playing at Cowboys Stadium.  Arlington Martin and Arlington Bowie have games there on Thursday night, and Arlington and Arlington Lamar have games on Friday night.  Full schedule here, and UIL brackets can be downloaded here.

Go, Vikes!

Fort Myers, Florida, columnist and self-identified Lutheran Sam Cook has taken Gators quarterback Tim Tebow to task for openly displaying his Christian faith on and off the field:

Religion – except for the “Hail Mary” pass – has no place in sports.

In Tebow’s case, he should play football and forget about us sinners for 31/2 hours every Saturday.

Somehow, we’ll survive without him displaying a “John 3:16″ Bible verse under his eyes. We separate church and state. Why not church and sports?

Actually, I think we need more athletes like Tebow and Texas quarterback Colt McCoy and OU quarterback Sam Bradford: men and women who not only live out their faith off the field and out of the spotlight but who display it in the public eye as well.

Listen, I’m not a big Florida fan, and the Tebow hype is beyond ridiculous.  But greatly I admire him for standing up for what he believes, even if it’s not always the popular thing to do.

Previously:
What number are you?

After two Texas Tech football players recently posted negative comments on Twitter, coach and head pirate Mike Leach banned his team from tweeting altogether and also suspended offensive lineman Brandon Carter indefinitely.

Naturally, the story generated a lot of interest in the media and around the Internet at a time when the Red Raiders are still dealing with the aftermath of losing their second game of the season.  But was it the right move?

James Hodgins, social media director for the Price Group advertising agency in Lubbock, Texas, says no:

What right does Leach have to ban his players from Twitter just because they posted negative views? Can a company ban its employees from social media if they post negative comments? Or staying at the university, can a professor ban her students for the same thing?

Of course, for the team and a business, there needs to be a policy in place that outlines what can and cannot be said. But how can you claim transparency (the whole point of social media) if you ban all negative points?

In my view, Leach should have suspended players temporarily from Twitter until the time the athletic department could create a solid set of standards. This, people would have understood, and there would have been less controversy surrounding the program.

As it stands now, Leach either has to stand by his guns and be the bad guy, or backtrack and admit he overreacted. Neither are good options.

Of course the athletic department should’ve had a policy in place before this happened, but obviously it didn’t.  As a result, Leach had no choice but to implement a ban, at least until some kind of guidelines can be put into place.  Yes, that makes him the bad guy.  But sometimes that goes with the job.

That said, I disagree with Mr. Hodgins’ claim that the whole point of social media is transparency.  Transparency implies that everything about an organization is out in the open, available to be posted freely on the Internet without reservation, and quite frankly, that’s pretty irresponsible.  Some kind of reasonable limits need to be in place.

Does that mean that players aren’t free to express their frustrations online?  Yes and no.  The distinction is this: When you identify yourself as part of a particular organization, be it a football team or a company, you represent that organization, whether you’re on the clock or not.  And that means that any public behavior is a direct reflection on that organization.  As such, organizations have a responsibility to place restrictions on what their members say and do publicly in order to protect their image.  And that is in no way infringing on our rights to free speech.

Further, even though they didn’t violate any written rules since none existed, by venting their frustrations with the team publicly on Twitter, the Tech players displayed questionable judgment and a lack of maturity.  If they had a problem with Leach, they should’ve taken it up with him in private, not simply posted their opinions online.  And if players can’t be trusted to use proper discretion, then an outright ban is the only option.

Previously:
Sorry, Leach is not ‘the best college football coach in the country’

First, a quick rant.  Thanks to the Louisiana-Monroe game being on pay-per-view and the Wyoming game being on the Versus network (which was just dropped by DirecTV over a financial dispute), it looks like I’m going to miss the first two Texas football games of the season, which really blows.  I mean, I’ve been jonesing since January for some college football, and now that it’s finally here, I’ve gotta wait two more weeks?  Argh!  It’s killing me!

OK, rant over.  Deep breath.  Serenity now!  Ah, much better.

So last year I tried a season-long experiment in which I played NCAA College Football on the Wii every week, pitting the Longhorns against that week’s opponent to see if the video game score was any indication of the real score.  The answer was that, well, no, it wasn’t too accurate.  So while I had fun playing video games every week, I won’t be repeating the experiment this year.  Sorry to disappoint you.

However, I did want to weigh in with my thoughts about the upcoming season.  Basically, it comes down to this: The Horns have to win.  Period.

Here’s their schedule:

• 9/5: Louisiana-Monroe
• 9/12: at Wyoming
• 9/19: Texas Tech
• 9/26: UT El Paso
• 10/10: Colorado
• 10/17: OU
• 10/24: at Mizzou
• 10/31: at Oklahoma State
• 11/7: Central Florida
• 11/14: at Baylor
• 11/21: Kansas
• 11/26: at Texas A&M

Of those games, the big three are Tech, OU, and OSU.  Forget the National Championship.  If the Horns want to win the Big 12 South, they have to win all three of those games.  Any misstep there, and the Big 12 tie-breaker rule that bit ‘em in the butt last year could do the same again.

Also, the schedule allows no room for error since the last four games will essentially be givens against weaker non-ranked (or lower-ranked) teams.  In other words, if they fall early to OU or get tripped up in Stillwater, a blowout victory against Central Florida isn’t going to help them; there’s nowhere to go but down.

Contrast this with OU’s schedule:

• 9/5: BYU
• 9/12: Idaho State
• 9/19: Tulsa
• 10/3: at Miami
• 10/17: Texas
• 10/24: at Kansas
• 10/31: Kansas State
• 11/7: at Nebraska
• 11/14: Texas A&M
• 11/21: at Texas Tech
• 11/28: Oklahoma State

Not only does OU play tougher non-conference games, they play tough, high-ranked opponents late in the season.  So even if OU falls to Texas at the Cotton Bowl, they have a chance to at least partially redeem themselves over time.

The only way Texas can ensure they will end the regular season with a higher BCS ranking than OU is to go undefeated.  And even if they do win the Big 12 with one loss, that single loss will probably be enough to keep them out of the National Championship.  So it really comes down to winning every game, not just the biggest three.  As Yoda says, “Do or do not… there is no try.”

Now the big question: Can they do it?  In my opinion, yes.  They have all the right ingredients to go all the way, just as they did in 2005.

It should be an exciting year for Longhorn fans.  Even if we won’t be able to witness all of it.

Hook ‘Em Horns!

The cover of the September issue of Texas Monthly proclaims of Texas Tech coach Mike Leach: “This crazy pirate may be the best college football coach in the country.”  They got the “crazy” part right, but I definitely wouldn’t say he’s the best coach in the country.

Granted, he’s very good at what he does, and he deserves a certain amount of recognition for that.  If nothing else, his ability to recruit virtually unknown players and turn them into one of the most dominant passing offenses in the nation is worthy of admiration.

But NCAA records are one thing; results are quite another.  At some point, those billions of passing yards have to translate to meaningful wins, and that’s where Leach has so far come up short.  Sure, they beat Texas last year in what was arguably one of the biggest games in the country, but at the end of the season, all they had to show for it was a shared Big 12 South title and a loss to Ole Miss in the Cotton Bowl.  In fact, in the nine seasons Leach has coached at Tech, they’ve never outright won the Big 12 South division or played in a BCS bowl game.

So how does that qualify him as “the best college football coach in the country”?  The fact is, it doesn’t.

But if Leach isn’t the best, then who is?

Well, of course that’s pretty subjective, but popular choices among the experts include:

• Urban Meyer, Florida
• Nick Saban, Alabama
• Pete Carroll, USC
• Bob Stoops, OU
• Mack Brown, Texas
• Jim Tressel, Ohio State
• Les Miles, LSU

There are others, of course, but you’d be hard-pressed to find Leach’s name anywhere on the list.

I’m sure the Pirate of the Panhandle is just fine with that.  He certainly isn’t worried about anyone’s opinion of him, that’s pretty obvious.  But to earn the hyperbole bestowed upon him by the Texas Monthly editors, he’ll have to do more than just beat Texas at home; he’ll have to win national championships.

A lot of them.

Previously:
At least he’ll always have his spiffy visor
Longhorns should root for Tech and Bama to win out

Did Karl Marx, the Father of Socialism, invent college football’s Bowl Championship Series (aka the BCS)?  Or would he have approved of a “communistic” playoff system?

That appears to be the big question in college football (and even on Capitol Hill) these days.

First, during a hearing in May by the House Energy and Commerce Committee (because apparently they have nothing better to do), Congressman Joe Barton compared the BCS, which decides bowl placement based on several computer algorithms and human polls, to communism:

“It is interesting that people of good will — I think everybody on whatever side of the issue is a person of good will — keeps trying to tinker with the current system.”

“It’s like communism, you can’t fix it.”

But Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe disagrees, arguing that allowing lesser conferences to face off against “more productive” ones (i.e. the Big 12) in a playoff system is really the Soviet-approved option:

“My memory of when I studied history and Karl Marx was that a major tenet of communism involved taking from each according to their ability and giving to each according to their need,” Beebe said.

“It’s ironic we’re being labeled as communists when what was actually being asked of us was to be more communistic, taking from those of us who produce more in the marketplace and giving to those who don’t produce in the marketplace.”

Beebe may not have all his terms right, but his argument reveals exactly why he’s so adamantly opposed to playoffs.

Far from being the model of Marxism, the BCS really more closely resembles an oligopoly, an economic condition in which a small number of sellers control the market and consequently have the power to artificially manipulate supply.  In this case those small number of sellers include the six conferences with an automatic bowl bid: the ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-10, and SEC.  Teams from other conferences can and do make it to BCS bowls, but the spots are limited and there’s no guarantee.  Instead, the BCS is designed to reward teams from the six participating conferences, even if teams from other conferences are ranked higher.

Is that fair?  No.  Is it meant to be?  No.

Just like OPEC and other oligopolies, the BCS is designed to protect the interests of its members at the expense of other potential sellers (or conferences).  One of the reasons why conferences like the Mountain West are “less productive” is because they don’t get the same kind of national exposure that BCS conferences get.  They don’t get the same television contracts, they don’t get the same licensing deals, and they don’t get the same bowl invitations, even when the BCS’s own ranking system says they should.

So does that mean we should force the BCS into total equality or replace it altogether with a playoff system?  That would be ideal, but it’s clearly not going to happen.  At least not without a revolution.

Previously:
Yes, the BCS is flawed. What’s your point?
Longhorns Inc.

I normally don’t follow college basketball; there are just too many games.  But I do tend to get caught up in March Madness.  Not to the point of bringing a TV and rabbit ears to work like a former co-worker of mine used to do every year, but I do enjoy watching games when I can.

That said, here are my pics for the men’s tournament.  Yes, most of them are safe bets while a few are probably long shots.  (Predicted winner in parentheses)  Discuss.

Sweet 16.
Pitt vs. Florida State (Pitt)
Duke vs. Villanova (Villanova)
Louisville vs. Wake Forest (Louisville)
Kansas vs. Michigan State (Kansas)
LSU vs. Gonzaga (LSU)
OU vs. Syracuse (OU)
UConn vs. Purdue (UConn)
Missouri vs. Memphis (Memphis)

Elite 8.
Pitt vs. Villanova (Pitt)
Louisville vs. Kansas (Kansas)
LSU vs. OU (LSU)
UConn vs. Memphis (UConn)

Final Four.
Pitt vs. LSU (Pitt)
Kansas vs. UConn (UConn)

Championship.
Pitt vs. UConn (Pitt)

There you go.  Let the madness begin.

What a sweet, sweet ending to the 2008 college football season.  After a first half marred by interceptions, penalties, and defective play clocks, the Florida Gators emerged victorious over the Oklahoma Sooners in the BCS National Championship game last night.  For the Sooners, it’s their fifth straight BCS bowl game loss and their third national championship loss under head coach “Big Game Bob” Stoops and his dandy white visor.

OU’s loss dropped them to No. 6 in the final AP poll behind No. 5 Texas and proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Gators were playing the wrong Big XII team for the national title.

While the BCS system is still broken and will likely remain that way for the foreseeable future, however, at least undefeated Utah ended up in the No. 2 spot in the AP poll (although they still finished behind USC and Texas in the USA Today poll).  I guess that’s as close to justice as anyone can expect in this day and age.

So now officially the season is done and the long drought begins before the next collegiate kickoff.  Thanks to a returning Colt McCoy, Jordan Shipley, and a host of extraordinarily talented younger players, Texas is well-positioned to make another run for the championship in 2009.

I can’t wait.

I wondered at the beginning of this year’s college football season how accurate EA Sports’ NCAA College Football 09 for the Wii was at predicting the outcomes of the real games.  Each week, I played the game as the University of Texas versus their scheduled opponent for the week and then compared that score to the real score.

A few of the Wii scores were fairly close to the actual ones (Florida Atlantic, Rice, Texas A&M) while others were way off (Arkansas, Missouri, Baylor), margins of error probably not too different than what you’d get from ESPN and other “expert” prognosticators.

Which brings us to the final Texas game of the season, the Fiesta Bowl.  It’s been yet another wacky season thanks to the BCS computers, biased voters, and controversial Big XII tie-breaking rules.  Heck, it even involved competing fleets of airplanes over Austin and Norman as the Red River rivals taunted each other by air.

But while Florida and OU are busy trying to justify why each of their 1-loss teams are more deserving of the National Championship than undefeated Utah, the Longhorns are happy to settle the score with the Ohio State Buckeyes.  UT and OSU have met twice before, in 2005 and 2006.  The Horns won the first with Vince Young on their way to a National Championship, then lost the second with Colt McCoy — that game only being Colt’s second game of his college career.

A lot has changed since 2006, however.  Colt is now a Heisman runner-up, and the Horns are a dropped pass and missed tackle away from a perfect season.  Ohio State, meanwhile, has two losses for the season, both to teams who squared off against each other in the Rose Bowl.  Texas had one of the toughest schedules in the nation, while the highest ranked opponent beaten by Ohio State was No. 18 Wisconsin, and even that was only a 3-point victory.  (It should also be noted that Wisconsin went on to get thumped by Florida State in the Champs Sports Bowl.)

Now some might argue that a team’s regular season schedule isn’t always an indicator of how well they’ll do in the bowl game, and that’s true (just ask Alabama).  So how well have Texas and Ohio State fared in recent bowls?  Well, the Buckeyes have been to the National Championship game the last two years, but they lost both times.  Texas, on the other hand, has won its last four consecutive bowl games, two of which have been against Big 10 teams.

And this year should make it number five, with Texas beating the Buckeyes 20 to 7, according to the Wii.

As always, I’ll update the blog after the game with the real score.

And as always, Hook ‘Em, Horns!

Real Score: 24-21.

Wow, what an incredible game!  Frustrating, of course, for most of the game, but the final two minutes made up for it.  It was very fitting that the final touchdown was made by Quan Cosby, who, like Vince Young, can say the final play of his college football career was a game-winning touchdown made in the final moments of a BCS game.  Coupled with Brian Orakpo’s sack seconds later, you couldn’t have asked for a more fitting ending to the season.

The Longhorns finish the season 12-1, and while they likely won’t end up as national champions, they have nothing to feel bad about.  Keep in mind that most people looked at their schedule this year and expected them to finish the regular season 9-3 or 8-4, maybe 10-2 if they were lucky.  Yet, they were nearly flawless.

I just want to say I’ve had a lot of fun this season doing these prediction posts.  If anything, it’s given me an excuse to play video games once a week.  Maybe, I’ll do it again next season just for grins.

Of course, right now that seems like an eternity away.

Although the college football bowl season officially kicked off a few days ago with the EagleBank Bowl (?!), tonight it really begins when TCU faces off against Boise State in the Poinsettia Bowl.

This should be a great game between two strong teams.  The Horned Frogs are 10-2 and ranked No. 11, while Boise State is undefeated and ranked No. 9.  Both teams, of course, got shafted by the BCS and have lots to prove, which should make for an exciting game.  (Thankfully, the game is in San Diego instead of on the Smurf-turf at Boise State!  Seriously, what in the heck is up with that blue Astroturf?!)

I have my share of complaints about the BCS system, which I’ve shared before, but one great by-product of it is that you often end up with some really entertaining games between teams that wouldn’t otherwise ever play each other, even in a playoff system.

I won’t make any predictions, but I’m certainly rooting for TCU to win big against the Broncos.

Go, Frogs!

Texas coach Mack Brown wasn’t happy.  Because of an odd tiebreaker rule in the Big XII Conference, OU will play Missouri for the Big XII Championship with a shot at the National Title game should they beat the Tigers.  The Longhorns, meanwhile, finish behind OU even though the Sooners lost to the Horns in October and will likely end up in the Fiesta Bowl against Ohio State.

That, apparently, isn’t a good enough consolation prize for Mack:

I’m really disappointed for our kids that two teams we beat this season will be playing for the Big 12 Championship. I’ll try to explain it to them, but most importantly, my message will be that you’ve done enough to put yourself in position to play for the conference championship, you had a great season and there still is a lot out there for you to play for. …

Since this situation has never happened before in the Big 12, I think the conference should follow the lead of all of the other BCS leagues with championship games (ACC/Conference USA/Mid-American/SEC) in how they settle three-way ties. I think their systems are fairer and give more credit to how the two highest ranked teams performed against each other on the field.

I have to wonder, though: Would Mack and all the other angry Longhorn fans feel the same way if they had come out on top?

It seems like this same argument comes up every year about how flawed the BCS system is and why a playoff system is necessary.  Maybe it is flawed, and maybe playoffs would be a better alternative.  But so what?

Anyone who thinks for a minute that the BCS is about determining the best college football team in the country is kidding themselves.  If it were, then why would a 9-3 Missouri team ranked No. 20 have more of a shot at a BCS bowl than undefeated Boise State who’s ranked No. 9?  Why would a 3-loss Boston College team ranked No. 17 have a shot when 1-loss Texas Tech (No. 7) will probably have to settle for the Cotton Bowl?

No, the BCS is about making money.  That’s it.  That’s why some conferences such as the Big XII and SEC get automatic berths while others, such as the Mountain West, do not.

Hey, Frito-Lay paid good money to put their Tostitos brand on the Fiesta Bowl.  They expect to get their money’s worth.  FedEx has a vested interest in how many viewers tune in for the Orange Bowl.  The cities that host the BCS bowls (Glendale, New Orleans, Pasadena, and Miama Gardens), have a vested interest in how many tickets they can sell and how much money the spectators spend while they’re there.

Teams also have a vested interest.  Just for playing in a BCS bowl, a school stands to earn about $17.5 million, and many coaches’ contracts provide for extra bonuses for making to and winning a BCS bowl.

Meanwhile, non-BCS bowls, because they’re not as lucrative, end up getting a bad rap.  From Texas Monthly:

Last season, teams that would have otherwise accepted invitations to the Cotton (SEC runner-up Georgia) and the blue-turf Humanitarian (WAC champ Hawaii) earned a lucrative promotion to the Sugar Bowl. As part of the resulting lineup shuffle, 6-6 Alabama played 6-6 Colorado in the “Who Cares?” Independence Bowl—except that the Crimson Tide’s 30-24 win over the Buffs made for better viewing than the Bulldogs’ 41-10 blowout of the Warriors. One year before that, the Fiesta Bowl gave us Oklahoma-Boise State, an all-time classic. But that same season the Sun (Oregon State beat Missouri 39-38 by going for 2 points at the end of the fourth quarter) and the Alamo (Texas overcame a 14-0 hole to hold off Iowa 26-24) bowls were just as entertaining.

Do Texas fans have a legitimate argument that they deserve to be ranked higher than OU based on the head-to-head matchup?  Sure.  But it didn’t work out that way.  Not this year.

Instead, Texas ended up ranked No. 3 in the nation at the end of the regular season with only a single loss (which came in the final seconds of the game).  Their quarterback broke a string of school records and is a finalist for the Heisman.  They beat both OU and A&M.  And they will likely play in a BCS bowl against Ohio State (a game I, for one, am looking forward to).  They even still have a slight (albeit unlikely) chance at playing for the National Title if OU loses to Missouri.

So tell me, how is it that Mack Brown is disappointed?

The BCS isn’t fair sometimes, just like life isn’t fair.  But as long as the money keeps rolling in, that’s the system we have to deal with in college football.

Like it or not.

With so much focus on the various BCS predictions, it’s easy to forget there’s a football game on Thanksgiving night.  But of course it’s not just any game, it’s Texas vs. Texas A&M.

Now, you’re probably wondering, so what?  The 10-1 Horns are No. 2 in the nation, and the Aggies are 4-7.  Heck, A&M (“the floormats of the Big 12″) even lost to Baylor this year!  A blowout is all but guaranteed.

Or is it?

Aggie fans will be quick to point out that Texas has lost to A&M the past two consecutive years, and I’m betting they’d like to make it three.

Oh, who are we kidding?  A&M doesn’t have the same caliber team it’s had the past few years, and Texas is playing at least as well as it did in 2005.  The Horns will win this one and win big: 41-0, according to NCAA Football ‘09 for the Wii.

But with almost nothing to gain from the victory, why is it still such an important game?

Because it’s Texas vs. A&M.

OU might be UT’s biggest threat, but A&M is still their biggest rival.  After all, it’s the Aggies who are mentioned every time the Longhorns sing their fight song:

Texas Fight, Texas Fight,
And it’s goodbye to A&M.

So have another round of turkey, dressing, and burnt orange pumpkin pie, and let’s all be thankful for another Texas Longhorn victory.

Hook ‘Em, Horns!

Real Score: 49-9.  Wow!  A pretty close prediction (closer than I expected) and the largest margin of victory for Texas over A&M in 110 years!  With the exception of a missed field goal, it was a picture-perfect game.  Unfortunately, it probably won’t be enough to stay ahead of OU in the polls, but the Horns have done everything they could possibly do.  If they make it to the Fiesta Bowl, I will be satisfied.  More thoughts about the flawed BCS system and Big XII tie-breaker method later.  But for now, just appreciate an 11-1 season that far exceeded all expectations.