The SoapBoxers

The Pro Bowl is the all star game for professional football. This year, the National Football Conference won in pretty convincing fashion. This is interesting since they were missing more of their selected players than the American Football Conference. This year they are back in Hawaii rather than in the Super Bowl venue, but again this year, the game is between the championship games and the Super Bowl. The commissioner made a not so veiled threat the if the game was not played up to NFL standards, the game would be deleted from the schedule. This was due to the lack luster effort the last two years (55-41 and 59-41).

The change in location in 2010 (2009 season) to the Super Bowl venue and the move to before the Super Bowl were both moves by the commissioner to make it a better game. Let’s face it, the game has suffered from both of these moves. The game is supposed to be a reward for players who are recognized for their performance and it is a reward for fans to see their players one last time this season. By moving the venue, the reward for the players was reduced. By moving the date, the reward for the fans has been removed.

Here are the negatives; players from the Super Bowl teams are not there. Fans of the non-Super Bowl teams really have nothing left after this week end. Sure, true football fans will watch the Super Bowl, along with many people who only tune in for the final game, but there is really nothing for most of the fans.

The other change that the commissioner made to the Pro Bowl was to try to give it meaning. The conference that wins is considered the home team in the Super Bowl the next year. This does not actually mean much, but it does define who chooses what uniforms they wear (in general home is dark and away is light) and who calls the coin toss. There is no advantage statistically for home team or coin toss since it is played on a neutral field. This is still the most useful change the commissioner made and the only one I don’t think should be reversed.

I do not know what criteria the commissioner will use to determine the continuance of the Pro Bowl in the future. I would like to think that he realizes just how important this game is to players and fans, even if it is not the hard fought battle of a regular season game. Congratulations to all of the players selected, especially those who were enjoying their first times. Here is hoping that we get to see this celebration for years to come.

Manti Te’o

Last week I was going to write this, but with the Lance Armstrong story breaking, and being a cancer survivor myself, that story took precedence over the big news story that was simply a made up one.

Oh yes…then there is Manti Te’o.

Teo’s story is already added some phraseology to the ever changing slang dictionary we utilize in American culture. We have arguably the largest hoax in the history of college athletics in what I am and others like to refer to as Te’ogate. This is now better known now as a “catfishing” scheme.

For those who have been hiding under a rock (much like an actual catfish would) the term Catfishing is based on the title of the 2010 documentary Catfish — which is also the name of an MTV show that is based on the movie. The purpose of the show is to expose actual hoaxes that take place on line. Although I have never watched the show personally, I have to believe ratings after this past week are now at an all-time high.

So, the story basically goes like this – Star Football player from close knit family rises to success, leads the team that you either love or hate (Notre Dame) and is mentioned in the Heisman trophy talk. He has the perfect on-line relationship with a girl, life is good, then he loses his beloved grandmother and girlfriend almost simultaneously. He manages to overcome this great tragedy and continue to play out the remainder of the season and lead the Fighting Irish to an undefeated record in the regular season, despite all of these off the field events.

What is most amazing to me about the entire Te’o situation is that you would have figured in South Bend, someone would have done some homework on this a little more once the stories came out.

If this would have occurred in my beloved Lincoln, Nebraska, the home of the Huskers, it would have been the biggest news story of the year. Now mind you there is little to no crime in Lincoln, and it is a college community. So if you have the star football player, lose his beloved grandmother, as well as a girlfriend to a disease such as cancer in the span of a mere few to 48 hours (depends on what report you DO believe) one would think that the newspapers, radio personalities, and local news stations would be asking a lot of questions. They would be asking for comments from the family, ask to speak to the mom and dad of the deceased girlfriend, get reactions from friends and acquaintances.

This is what happens when a non-major news event happens in this sound-byte hungry town, at least when a football player is involved.

The biggest irony in this entire situation is that the media is asking all of the questions now. What did Te’o really know? Was he victim or willing participant? They produce various copies of interviews, stories that we now know were made up including his parents indicating they met the young lady. The timelines seem to crisscross all over the place – which in turn just creates more questions.

So how did this go so unnoticed for so long? Why were NONE of these questions asked earlier, how could so many media faces miss the easy questions that needed to be asked or at least investigated.

Now the journalists pile on and raise all of their questions because this story has turned bizarre, and makes for just as good if not better news than if the original story would have in fact all been true.

Lest we forget it was these same major news and sports broadcasting stations – national journalists that all added and put this tragic tale of woe on a pedestal for all to hear and read.

Shame on all of you…..

Next time check your basic facts. Last time I checked that is something they taught you in Journalism 101…

At the end of the day we were not duped by Manti Te’o or the ‘catfishing scheme. No, instead the American public believes what they were told to believe.

And as a parting shot – – fellow lemmings, remember to do your homework. After all, it is what you tell your kids every night when they come home from school.

Joe Cool is headed to the Super Bowl.

So the Super Bowl is set. The Harbaugh brothers will face off in New Orleans in two weeks. My prediction of Atlanta vs Houston was completely wrong. The majority of the sports talk community was only half right, predicting a New England San Francisco match up.

Let’s review the story lines beyond the sibling rivalry. This will be the sixth trip to the big game by San Francisco. It has been a long time since the Montana – Rice and Young-Rice days. There will be many hours of radio dedicated to comparing and contrasting the current version of the 49ers with the historical version. The Ravens have also been a long time away from the Super Bowl, but they do have a connection. Ray Lewis was there for the first on and will play his last game as a Raven in the Super Bowl again.

Both of the teams are undefeated in the Super Bowl with San Francisco posting five wins and Baltimore posting one. With a win, San Francisco fans will start talking about how they are the best. They will tie the Pittsburgh Steelers with six wins, but will claim superiority based on being undefeated. They made same claims when they were tied with Pittsburgh and Dallas for five wins even though those teams had made it to more Super Bowls. Well each fan base can claim as they please. Using that logic, with a win, the Ravens will jump ahead of the 49ers in the list of winners, being undefeated with two wins.

These two teams represent some of the best offense and defense available in the league. Pure offense did not drive the participants this year, nor did pure defense. Overall, my evaluation is that these two teams are very evenly matched. This should be a very good, hard played, close game. Even if you are not a fan of either team, even if you are not a typical professional football fan, you are very likely going to be one of the millions of viewers or at least participate in a Super Bowl party. You have two weeks to plan. Party responsibly, and enjoy the game.

And we are down to four. My predictions from a couple of weeks ago are debunked. I think I shall continue to write and work as an engineer rather than trust in my gambling acumen or my sports genius. I had predicted that the Atlanta Falcons would face the Houston Texans in the Super Bowl with the Texans taking home the Lombardi Trophy. The Texans fell to the New England Patriots. The Baltimore Ravens beat the Denver Broncos in a shootout to continue the Ray Lewis retirement tour. The Atlanta Falcons held on against the Seattle Seahawks to at least keep that half of my prediction valid while the San Francisco 49ers beat the Green Bay Packers to earn the other spot in the NFC championship.

This weekend, the games averaged 64 points with the least points by a singe team being 28 points. The highest scoring game (SF-GB) had 76 points. What does all of this scoring mean? At the very least, the rules that have been changes to promote more offense has definitely paid off for the league. The interpretation of the rules has also helped. Very seldom does an offensive face mask penalty get called except on linemen. Offensive pass interference also seems to be a penalty that is destine to be remembered only in history.

Next week should be a pair of good games. Baltimore, Atlanta and San Francisco are trying to break back through to the Super Bowl. New England is trying to get back to make up from the loss last year. Thing of the eventual match ups in the Super Bowl, any of them should be exciting. The San Francisco – Baltimore match up would match up brothers as the head coaches. Personally, I would prefer to see a Baltimore – Atlanta match up primarily because San Fran and New England have already been to the big game so often. It is still too early to plan the decorations for your Super Bowl party, but it is time to send out your invitations and make plans for food.

College football is done and until Spring football season give fans something to go watch again.

So all attention has turned to the NFL Playoffs, where just four teams remain…unless of course you are into Hockey…oh wait…

We hit the Divisional Round this week with some interesting match ups.

Denver vs. Baltimore – Everyone seems to be picking the Broncos in this one. The extra week to rest and prepare, the Sheriff at the helm, we are playing at altitude. Peyton Manning is not exactly known as an “outside the dome” quarterback in his career, and the Ravens are riding on the wave of emotion fueled by the assumed pending retirement of Ray Lewis at the conclusion of the season.

I picked against the Ravens last week, and I will again this week, although I think it will be close. Broncos 28 – Ravens 27

Houston vs New England. – Remember when the Texans looked like the juggernaut of the NFL, and then the last few weeks happened, moving from an insurmountable #1 seed with guaranteed home field advantage to now being on the road in ever tough New England.

You look at the Patriots and you just keep wondering how the heck they do it. Billy B has two weeks to get ready for this one, which means dire consequences for the Texans. New England – 31- Houston – 20

Russell Wilson

Seattle vs. Atlanta. The Seahawks are arguably the hottest team in the entire league. While they have been considered an iffy road team at best, they went into RFK last week and pulled off a win against the Redskins, mainly thanks to a gimpy-now blown out- knee by Robert Griffin III.

This will make two long plane rides in two weeks for Seattle, and Atlanta is way overdue to win a playoff game under Matt Ryan. Plus the dome will be rockin’ after having the extra bye week. In a battle of the birds, I will take Atlanta mainly because of my huge dislike for Seattle Head Coach Cheater Pete Carroll. Falcons – 24- Seahawks – 20

Green Bay vs. San Francisco – I think this is the best overall match-up this week with two teams that have been at the top of the NFC for the last couple of years. This one is purely strength against strength with the volatile Packer offense against the stout 49er defense.

Both teams feature mobile quarterbacks and this IS a quarterback league. That is the difference in this one. Kaepernick is more mobile, is good throwing on the run, but this is his first time at a rodeo featuring this big of a stage. Rodgers, on the other hand, has been there, done that. The Packers offense is the most potent in the league if it is clicking on all cylinders, but Kaepernick will give them problems. Go Pack Go – 35 – Niners – 27

Until Next Time – Stay Classy Wheat Ridge, Colorado!

2012 may be over, but football, both college and professional, are still in the 2012 season. The Pros still have weeks of playoffs to go, but the college ranks will be finishing off this week with a Monday night, crowning of a national champion. This week, let focus on College. So how did the season go? The experts fawned over the SEC all year. It turns out that they were correct. The SEC leads the rest of the conferences with 5 bowl wins and one more chance in the championship game. The ACC, Big XII, Pac 12 and USA all came in with 4 wins. The SEC and Big XII put 9 teams into bowls with the Pac 12 putting in 8 bowls appearances. So who did not do as well? The Big Ten and Big XII both had 5 bowl losses with the MAC having a chance to join them on Sunday night. The Big Ten number is skewed since the two best teams in the conference were not bowl eligible. This forced lesser teams into stronger bowls.

Even now, the experts are talking about the rankings next year. Obviously, the SEC will figure strongly in the predictions and rightly so, but all trends change. A few years ago, the Pac 10 was the best, before that the Big Ten. All these things cycle, although some conferences drift to the bottom never to return. Just two years ago, Notre Dame was on the ash heap of history, but now they are playing in the national championship.

There are also people complaining about the conference realignments. This is a natural part of the sport as each school positions for the best possible financial return on their programs. The demise of the Big East has most of the experts (who are east coast centric) upset, but even in their own analysis, they show that this is an evolution. The Big East is 34 years old (founded in 1979) and was not a football conference until 1991. Teams have come and gone constantly, some by choice such as West Virginia, and some were voted out such as Temple.

These same reporters did not shed a tear when the Southwest Conference evaporated, a conference that included a three time national champion in football and contenders in basketball (men’s and women’s). The Southwest Conference was exceptionally stable, with seven members staying from 1923 to 1991 (when Arkansas left for the SEC), before it dissolved in 1996.

Other conferences such as the Big Ten and Pac 10 have been even more stable, while the SEC has been on a steady growth path to the fourteen teams that now make up that conference (expect this to grow to sixteen for the first super conference). The SEC started in 1932 with ten of the current teams as part of that line up. They had lost three teams by 1966 but gained two in 1991 and two more in 2012. The Big Ten started in 1896 with six of the current teams, adding two in 1899, one in 1960, one in 1990, one in 2011 and two more will join in 2014. University of Chicago dropped out in 1946. Expect the Big Ten to expand to sixteen teams as well to make a second super conference. The Pac 12 started in 1915 with four of the current teams, adding and losing teams to stabilize at eight teams in 1928. Two schools were added in 1978 and two more in 2011. Expect the Pac 12 to become the Pac 16 to become a third super conference,

One conference that has changed dramatically in the last three years is the Big XII. This conference was created from the Big 8 and the Southwest conference when the SWC folded. When two teams left a couple of years ago, the experts were calling for the dissolving of the Big XII and the creation of a super conference based on the Big East. That was interesting in that the Big East at the time only had a couple of teams that could be considered good, while the Big XII still had at least three if not more high quality football programs. Colorado, Nebraska, Missouri and Texas A&M have left with West Virginia and TCU joining. Comparing the impact of these gains and losses based on bowl performance shows that it is pretty much a wash for the Big XII. Two of the teams that left did not make it to bowl games, the other two were one loss and one win in their bowls. The two newcomers both made it to a bowl, and both lost.

Sitting at a total of ten teams, the Big XII does not seem to be in a position to become a super conference, but they could by scavenging from the Mountain West, MAC and WAC. If the political questions could be overcome, the ACC and Big East could merge to become a super conference, but there is some bad blood between those conferences as far as membership goes.

Next year, the NCAA will try a playoff of the top four teams to make sure that they are crowning the true champion. Some of the experts have stated that there should be automatic bids for positions in that playoff. Such predetermined matchups are for elites who are afraid to lose their position to a better team. The four slots should be filled by the four best teams of that year. I do have an opinion beyond what the NCAA has posted. I think that any member of that group must be the champion of their conference. I state this to avoid another same conference championship like happened last year, or the whining that got Texas into the Rose Bowl in 2004 (and I am a Texas Alumni). If you don’t win your own conference, how can you claim to be one of the best teams in the nation?

If super conferences do come into being, a playoff would be inevitable. There are currently 124 schools in the NCAA Division 1 FBS. If there were 7 super conferences of 16 teams each, 112 of these teams would be filtered down to 7 champions. An 8 team playoff would pit these champions against each other and 1 non-super conference team that was qualified based on record (this would allow independent teams like Notre Dame and Navy to have an opportunity to play for the championship). Will it happen? I think so. There is so much money to be made, all of the universities will be drawn to it. The traditional bowls will never go to the wayside, it is too good of an excuse to party and for northern teams to have a warm holiday.

First and evaluation of each of the AFC divisions. In the East, New England is it. They could improve their playoff position, but they are in the playoffs regardless of anything else that happens. This is overall a week division, but Miami and the Jets are still mathematically in the playoff hunt but it takes ties and combinations of losses for either of these teams to make it. In the North, Baltimore is trying to lose their playoff spot and Pittsburgh is equally trying not to get it. Today it looks like Baltimore and Cincinnati will both be in the playoffs. In the South, Houston has the division and unless the sky fall in on them, Indianapolis gets a wildcard berth. In the West, Denver gets the nod. There is not much to be said for any of the other teams in this conference.

Now for the NFC divisions. A few weeks ago, this looked like the boring conference, but things have heated up. In the East, there is a three way tie. What was once the most average division, now is on the verge of possibly having three teams in the playoffs. Washington, Dallas and the Giants all have the opportunity, but will any of they step up? In the North, Green Bay has sown it up with Minnesota and Chicago still grasping at possible wildcard births. In the South, Atlanta had things wrapped up several weeks ago. Last week the pundits pronounced the Falcons dead because of one bad game against New England. That is rather harsh for the number one seed in the NFC. In the West, San Francisco and Seattle need to figure out which will win the division and if the other can win enough games to take a wild card. Although there are three other teams that mathematically could still make the playoffs, it would take a miracle.

This year, parity has played out just like every year, with some of the haves remaining at the top and some of the have nots remaining at the bottom. There have not been that many surprises as far as who are the prime candidates for playoffs now that we are in December, although there have been some games that were surprising in outcome. My predictions are Green Bay – Atlanta in the NFC championship, with Atlanta representing in the Superbowl, Houston – Denver in the AFC championship with Houston representing. On top of that, I will predict Houston winning their first Lombardi Trophy.

Quarterback U???

In my childhood days, the University of Miami (the one in Florida, not the one in Ohio) was known as producing a number of great Quarterbacks who had outstanding careers in college and then went on to have fantastic professional careers as well.

Not every one of them turned out to be good in the NFL, but the hits were much better than the misses.

There are some great ones on the list to be sure. Bernie Kosar, Vinnie Testeverde, Jim Kelly. These guys all had fantastic and LONG NFL careers. Of course for each of these guys there is also a Brock Berlin, Frank Costa and Gino Torretta.

How the Heck did Torretta win the Heisman anyway?

Smoke and Mirrors

Gino Torretta

Gino won the Heisman the way many college quarterbacks win the Heisman. They end up playing on the best team in college, often times a team playing for a national championship, they have a dominating defense, and a superior offensive line that is loaded with future NFL players.

So…an “average” quarterback ends up putting up stellar numbers in college because 1) He is on a good team 2) his offensive line is like a Berlin Wall and he never gets touched and 3) ESPN hypes him to the hilt ultimately leading to the Heisman trophy discussions and vaulting him up the draft projection charts come draft day.

Fast Forward to 2000…

Miami won their last National Title in 2001 – although they were good for a few years after that. At that point there was a resurgence of the University of Southern California football team.

Of course we know now that much of what led to their success (and ultimately Pete Carroll leaving town) was “questionable” benefits made to players such as Reggie Bush – who then had to “vacate” his Heisman Trophy.

Carson Palmer was the signal caller in 2000. Palmer lead to a definite improvement for the Trojans. Pete Carroll had just been hired – and the Trojans went 6-6 in his first year. But that is the last time that he would lose that many games for the Trojans.

Booty call

Palmer was followed by Matt Leinart (Heisman winner) then by John David Booty, next by Mark Sanchez…and finally that brings us to current day Matt Barkley.

The Trojans during this time were loaded with NFL talent (some brought or should I say “bought” to campus) and were great teams. Awesome NFL players abounded on both defense and offense.

So as mentioned earlier, criteria #1 and criteria #2 have been met.

Over-rated….

In 2009, USC was named “Team of the Decade” by both CBSSports.com and Football.com, as well as the Program of the Decade by SI.com, and was ranked No. 2 in ESPN.com’s Prestige Rankings among all schools since 1936 (behind Oklahoma). Additionally, in 2009, ESPN.com ranked USC the second-best program in college football history.

Really….WOW – looking back now that seems like that might have been some caught up in the moment rankings by the so called “experts”.

If you have watched ESPN in the last 10 years it is safe to say the only thing the college day game crew loves more than USC is Nick Saban and Alabama…)or maybe Dukie Vitale and his love of the Duke Blue Devils)

The hype has overtaken the reality.

Barkley was annoited the Heisman front runner before the year even began. I even wrote about it some months ago. Truth is..he really is not very good.

The list of Quarterbacks from USC in the last 12 years all had very impressive NFL careers. Only Palmer could be argued as being remotely decent in the NFL. The rest…..in order – Horrible, vanished, mentioned as the 2nd coming by the New York media and now maybe the most hated man in town….and that brings us to Barkley – …future NFL bust.

We will see what comes draft day in 2013. This class is loaded with lineman, and short on skill position players and big name – over-hyped quarterback prospects.

Some owner will roll the dice on Barkley and get burned to tell about it later.

I just hope for my friends in the desert..that the Cardinals do not make the same mistake in short order and chase down another USC quarterback

Until next time…stay classy Monroe, Louisiana

Just a quick stop en route another big time job?

How in the hell does Western Kentucky have the chance to hire Bobby Petrino? More importantly why is this guy allowed to coach anywhere?

Right after getting inked to a 10 year contract with Louisville, Petrino left for the friendly confines of the National Football League to head up the Atlanta Falcons.

Things went badly with the Falcons. Michael Vick was in prison, the team was trying to break in a new quarterback and a bunch of young players – the team found themselves at 3-10 and losing 34-14 to the New Orleans Saints. How did Bobby respond? He left notes in the locker room explaining to his players that he was leaving to go back to college football. That is right, he left players notes…did not even have the decency to talk to them…man to man.

Less than 24 hours after leaving the goodbye notes in the lockers….off to Arkansas went good ol’ Bobby P. There he was singed to another large contract. He was going to take Hog Soooooeyy to the next level of the SEC. They had achieved success under Houston Nutt – they even had talented running backs like Darrin McFadden – but the boosters ran Nutt outta town.

Petrino did not last real long at Arkansas either. If you remember it was discovered that he was sleeping with a tall blonde who coincidentally was riding on the back of his Harley when he wrecked in in April of 2012…which in and of itself seems like no big deal. Except Petrino’s was married, the tall blonde was not his wife but instead was a person that he personally selected for a job in the except that he had also awarded her a job in the Arkansas football department over 158 other applicants — and then kicked in an extra $20,000 as a gift to her.

Now Petrino is getting yet another chance. Western Kentucky is hiring him to take over their football program as head coach.

Pretty obviously to me that they are beyond desperation to hire someone who has such an interesting past as this guy. He has shown the propensity to be non-loyal, abuse his position of authority and step out on his family.

Not it appears he is just following the money.

And Western Kentucky apparently has closed their eyes and ears to all of these past problems and just cares about one thing….

Trying to get a winning football team.

A couple of years ago the Hilltoppers made the jump to Division 1. They had a successful 1-AA program. They made the move to the higher class, spent almost $50 million in improvements to their stadium and facilities, and then tanked…..losing 26 straight games over the course of three seasons.

They rebuilt the program, even made a trip to Lincoln to play my beloved Huskers, and with former quarterback Willie Taggart at the helm, the Hilltoppers went 7-5 the last two years.

Taggert headed to Florida to greener pastures and more money, which left the Hilltoppers looking for a new man to run out behind the Orange Blob mascot (what the heck is that thing anyway?)

It is too bad that schools overlook morals, cheating, recruiting violations and other character faults when hiring coaches. I am sure Petrino is just going to use this as a stepping stone after his long fall from grace just a year ago…the question will be…will there be an even bigger school waiting to give him yet ANOTHER chance?

Until next time….Stay classy Carlsbad, New York

December is finally here. The college football regular season is complete and the bowl invitations have been made. If your team is in one, the travel plans are in work. The sports talk shows are arguing the merits and weaknesses of each team and bowl pairing. Fans are excited by or bemoaning the season, the rankings and the talk shows.

The Big Ten conference has provided much of the fodder for discussion this year. The two best teams (Penn State and Ohio State) are not bowl eligible, and a five loss team (Wisconsin) is going to a BCS bowl because they absolutely trounced a theoretically better former Big XII team (Nebraska) 70-31. The Big XII put 9 out of 10 teams into bowl games with both of the new comers (TCU and WV) showing well and with 2 of the 4 teams who left (Nebraska and Texas A&M) getting bowl bids as well. The SEC is the SEC and a couple of weeks ago the writer decided that they would be the second half of the championship game. I am not saying that Alabama does not deserve to be there, I am just a little tired of a one loss SEC team being considered so much better than a one loss team from any other conference. In some polls, and SEC team can have two or even three losses and be considered better than a one loss team from anywhere else.

One last college comment, here is a big shout out to the Northern Illinois Huskies! Great season and good luck in the bowl game. Florida state will be a challenge, but you guys are playing on New Year’s Day!

In Pro football not much has changed over the last few weeks. The New York Giants as still slogging away leading the mediocre NFC East. Atlanta and San Francisco have control of their divisions. Green Bay and Chicago have to decide who gets the division and who gets the wild card. Although it looks like Seattle will get the other wild card, there are several other oh so average teams that could take it. On the AFC side, the divisions are pretty much locked up with Houston, Denver, and New England locked in, and Baltimore needing an absolute melt down to fail. The wild cards are also almost sewn up with really only three teams vying for the spots, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Indianapolis. Indy has to play Houston twice while Pittsburgh and Cincinnati have to play each other.

In the end, the AFC wild card and the NFC north are the interesting battles. If you are a fan of one of the six teams trying to get the last NFC wild card spot, it will be interesting for you, but, honestly, none of those teams have shown well against any of the division leaders.