Quick Kicks

Kyle has been running a college football pick'ems contest for a group of us law school buddies for several years now. In the interest of supplying content for the 'bone here, I'll be discussing my picks from week to week. I'll just be talking about the games in our little contest, so please don't be upset if I leave your team out some week.

For tonight's games, I agree with Kyle (and Chris Fowler) that Mississippi State could beat South Carolina. But I think Simeon Rice will have a couple of big plays, and I think the Bulldogs are still a year away. So, something in the neighborhood of a 24-14 Gamecocks victory.

The other one we picked is Northwestern at Miami (Ohio). The story line here is going to be the sudden offseason death of Randy Walker, the Northwestern coach who used to be at Miami. I think the emotional surge from the Wildcats will give them a lead early, and they'll have enough talent to hang on, so I'll say 28-24 Northwestern.

I'll have picks for Saturday's games tomorrow sometime.

ESPN's Bruce Feldman posted the other day some bookmaker's odds for the Heisman. ("Insider" subscription req'd.) The front-runners were: Brady Quinn at 3-1, Adrian Peterson at 4-1, and Troy Smith at 9-1. If you gave me $100 to bet at these odds, I think I would divide my pot in this wise:
$40 on Peterson;
$30 on Quinn;
$20 on Kenny Irons at 27-1;
$10 on Smith.
The Heisman dark horse will be Cal's Marshawn Lynch, but there's no reason to think Brady Quinn won't be the front-runner all year long. I suppose the Heisman voters will let Beano Cook die happy for predicting that one correctly.

One thing I have been meaning to post about, but never found the time, is my suspicion that a big hidden factor this season will be the new 12-game regular season schedules. To accomodate a twelfth game, most teams opted to play twelve games in a row without a bye week. I think it will be interesting to see how the kids hold up to that slog. Some teams are going to be exhausted come late-season rivalry week. The teams who were able to build an off week into the sked may be very lucky. I haven't looked at all the schedules, but one thing that did catch my eye was that Oklahoma has a bye week before the Red River Shootout, but Texas plays a game. Now, granted, that game is against Sam Houston State. But a game is a game, and someone could be injured for Texas, while the Sooners will have a week to rest up, to throw a new wrinkle into their game plan, or just watch a little more film. I think the missing bye weeks are going to be worth keeping an eye on this season.

I, too, will be going to a game this opening weekend: Duke's home opener against Richmond. I expect that game will be closer than Kyle's. The Devils had to suspend their quarterback for the year over a plagairism charge, so who knows what kind of offense they'll be able to run. We're all expecting big things from defensive tackle Vince Oghobaase, though. But Richmond is a quality opponent, and the Spiders could bite the Blue Devils. I'll try to remember to take some pictures from Wallace Wade Stadium, the prettiest place in the country to watch bad football.

Finally, the Season Has Arrived

The college football season officially gets under way tonight in Starkville, MS with the Cocks battling the Mississippi State Bulldogs. The game's on ESPN for those inclined to watch two middle to lower tier SEC teams play. I think this is a surprisingly compelling game. Spurrier has the hype, but does he have the players? He has a decent to good group of skill players, but the offensive line is in serious disrepair. It got worse this morning when Mr. Shiny Pants suspended a starting guard. If Mississippi State can put pressure on Blake Mitchell and not fall behind by more than six points, I think the game can go either way. Las Vegas thinks differently, as they have the Cocks as favorites by a touchdown. Mississippi State has a good shot here. Don't be surprised if they pull it out in the land of the cowbell. Surprising fact: Steve Spurrier has never defeated Mississippi State in Starkville.


The wife and I are heading to south Louisiana this weekend for a tennis tournament, but we are stopping in Baton Rouge on the way back for the LSU game. LSU is taking on the mighty Ragin' Cajuns of UL-Lafayette. The game should be a snooze fest, but I bet I see more than my fair share of wild, drunken fighting, the best kind of fighting around. For south Louisiana, this game is far more important than to us folks up north because there may be some actual divided loyalties for this game. Kathleen Blanco, our highly effective and composed governor, has already created a stir by hosting the UL-Lafayette alumni at the governor's mansion before the game. After the party, I guess she and the Cajuns are going to the game. She might have thought about staying neutral for this one, but then again she's always hanging with the winners.

Anyway, I'll have reaction from Baton Rouge and maybe some photos. I doubt the score will ever be in doubt.

The big game of the weekend in in Miami. I like FSU in this one. Yeah, I know the series history, but I don't like the suspension of Ryan Moore and Tyrone Moss. Those are two big cogs to replace. FSU wins it by a touchdown or more.

Other things I'm watching for this weekend:
1. Can Tennessee beat a top 10 opponent in Neyland for the first time since 1999?

2. How many QBs will play for Georgia?

3. How will John Parker Wilson look against the Rainbow Warriors?

4. How will Notre Dame's defense look against Calvin Johnson and the sputtering offense of Georgia Tech?

5. How bad will the new Gameday song be?

6. Can Kirk Herbstreit keep me watching the ABC primetime game despite the both overly dramatic and obvious comments of the grusome twosome, Brett Musberger AND Bob Davie?

BCS Predictions

One of our intrepid readers asked me for my BCS predictions. At the risk of committing these to google-able posterity, here goes. (I'll admit I haven't looked into the selection order this year, especially in light of the new fifth BCS game, so this is far from an expert opinion.) At first I just had my matchup predictions, but in the end I went ahead and picked winners, too. After all, if you're gonna go, go all out.

Rose Bowl: USC (11-1) v. LSU (11-1)
I think USC just has too much talent to lose more than one Pac-10 game. They get Nebraska, Oregon, Cal, and Notre Dame at home (although the last three are in consecutive weeks), and their toughest road tests look to be unknown quantities Arkansas and Arizona. You wouldn't be crazy to pick the Trojans to slip up in any of those contests, but I doubt you'd get rich picking against them. I think LSU will lose only to Auburn, and be a very attractive BCS at-large pick, even aside from the inane hype we'll get, trying to make this game some kind of revenge fantasy for a split title years ago when most of these kids were in high school. Winner: LSU.

Fiesta Bowl: Texas (12-1) v. Cal (10-2)
I think Texas will struggle early (as in, win by fewer than 30 points) as it adjusts to life post-Vince Young. They're still a very capable team, but the Ohio State game will come too soon for them to have all the questions answered. I think they'll win the Big XII, though. I predict Cal will finish second in the Pac-10, and will end up here when TCU fails to crack into the BCS. Oregon is a possibility, too, but I foresee a Holiday Bowl for the Ducks. Winner: Texas.

Orange Bowl: Florida State (12-1) v. West Virginia (11-1)
Oh, how the tv types hope this doesn't end up being Virginia Tech v. West Virginia. Instead, they'll breathe a sigh of relief when Bobby Bowden does what Joe Paterno did last year. FSU's quarterback Drew Weatherford has his chance this year to fulfill all his promise, and the schedule helps by sending Florida to Tallahassee at season's end. Miami or Virginia Tech are both capable of beating FSU in the ACC championship, but I think this is FSU's year to make a nice run. I don't think they're capable of beating Miami twice, though, so they'd better hope for the Hokies in the title game. West (By God) Virginia is the trendy choice to run the table. The only hurdle is supposed to be Louisville, but I think it will be trickier than that. They get Marshall and Maryland at home, but they'd better not be looking past the Herd or the Terps. A Thursday night game at Pitt won't be a cakewalk, either. I just think that the Mountaineers will lose one they're not supposed to, somewhere, and while I think they'll win the Big East, that one loss will keep them out of the title game. Winner: FSU.

Sugar Bowl: Auburn (13-0) v. Louisville (11-1)/Oklahoma (10-2)
Auburn looks really, really good this year. Kenny Irons is going to be a hoss. I think they're going to beat everyone they play, but they're going to find themselves on the outside looking in yet again thanks to a nonconference schedule including Washington State, Buffalo, Tulane, and Arkansas State. That's really an embarrassment, and I'm not even holding conference games against Ole Miss and Mississippi State against them. Yes, Notre Dame plays powerhouses like Army, Navy, Air Force (is Notre Dame eligible for the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy?), and Stanford. But they also play Georgia Tech, Penn State, Michigan, and USC. Ohio State, of course, plays Texas. Until Auburn starts scheduling some better nonconference teams (like their USC matchups a few years ago), they have only themselves to blame for finishing undefeated and not playing for a national title. Also note that Auburn gets LSU, Florida, and Georgia at home this year. Really, they should win every game with that schedule. They're certainly poised to jump into the title game, and I would be happier to see the Tigers win the title than Notre Dame or Ohio State, but that's just not how I see it playing out this year. As for their Sugar Bowl opponents, I couldn't decide between these two at-large selections. It will probably be Oklahoma because of the national attraction, especially if Adrian Peterson has the kind of year he should. Winner: Auburn.

BCS Championship: Notre Dame (12-0) v. Ohio State (12-0)
Lord, I don't want to see this matchup. I mean, I'm sure it would be a good game. But I don't like either of these teams. I just think they're very good and are going to win all their games. And, like USC and Texas last season, since they're starting the season as #1 and #2, that means they're on course to meet in the desert for the title. Not that this game doesn't have its glitz factor and appeal, especially with these offenses. I think we very well could see another game in the vicinity of last year's 41-38 national championship game. In the end, I don't think Notre Dame's defense will have an answer for Ted Ginn, Jr., and so I'll predict Winner: Ohio State, for Sen. Tressel's second title.

208 Pages Is Not Enough: An Ode to the Media Guide

The college football season officially began for me Friday when my UGA media guide arrived at the house. My wife reported that only one person has been able to deliver it for the past few years. In years past, before the NCAA instituted an unwarranted crackdown on media guides by limiting them to just 208 pages, it took four former defensive linemen in UPS browns to deliver the enormous tome that the UGA sports information director churned out. You had to use a crowbar to pry open the crate it came in. Over 400 pages of photos, holograms, raw statistics, ridiculously refined statistics, player bios, coaches bios, athletic staff bios, mascot bios, records, traditions, cheers, songs, Larry Munson's home address, and on and on and on.

2003 college football media guides ready for home delivery.

In 2004, USC, Texas, Georgia, and Oklahoma were among the football programs with media guides of around 400 pages or more. While my postman may be happy about the new, slim media guides, I wish for more. Where else am I going to find my team's record in games against ranked opponents at night when they have a back running for over 75 yards and a quarterback throwing for over 200 yards and are playing on a natural surface? It's like a two Phil Steele preseason guides devoted solely to your team. Even the walk-ons had page and a half bios repleate with obscure minutia.

Now, I must make do with only 208 pages. What is so wrong with a huge, glossy media guide? So what if it was being used as a blatant, out-of-control recruiting tool? How else am I going to memorize the high school, major, and favorite color of everyone on the team? How are Florida, Alabama, Notre Dame, and USC supposed to abbreviate their arrogance into only 208 pages?

Crafty SID departments are starting to find ways around the page limitation, though. Witness the 2006 Texas media guide, sporting holograms on the front and back cover. Two dimensions are not enough to explain the greatness of Mack Brown.


I'm even considering bidding on an eBay auction currently ongoing offering media guides for every SEC team plus the conference media guide put out by the SEC itself, but both my wife and postman have frozen my PayPal account until the auction is over.

Myles Brand, repeal NCAA Bylaw 13.4.1.1(g).

Now You Tell Me?

The Wall Street Journal's Russell Adams had a great breakdown of the accuracy of predictions made by the preseason publications in this weekends Wall Street Journal. Lindy's comes in at No. 1. Sports Illustrated and Athlons don't do as well. Unless you read the ranking criteria, which Adams devised with help from a BYU stats professor, there isn't any heavy math or statistics.

While I enjoy the article, I could have used it two months ago before I spent fifty bucks on these preseason magazines.

Also, I hate preseason polls. They make it more difficult for a team that isn't hyped before the season to make it to the title game (just ask Tommy Tuberville). They also create an inertia for teams that have a lot of preseason pub, but who flop when the season arives. Ideally the first poll would come out in late September, but they sell way too much paper to go away.

Weekend Reading

A couple of articles for your weekend reading:

The Atlanta Journal Constitution has their college football preview section up. Unlike many UGA fans, I like the AJC, but that opinion may have something to do with living outside of Georgia. When the local paper doesn't really cover your team, you're happy to get good information, even if some of your fellow fans think it is fatally biased.

If you have a Texas Monthly subscription, they have a great series of short articles about Texas football at all levels. It's a modest and humble layout, like everything in Texas, with titles such as "Our Football Blogs Are Better Than Everyone Else's."

Wha's Goin' On On This Side?

As this is my first post ever as a "blogger," I hope those who wander onto The Wishbone will be patient with me as I get my bearings. I want to thank the King Bee for inviting me to post at his site. I have wanted to post my musings on a blog for some time now after reading the generally superb work of Orson Swindle, Paul Westerdawg, and Kyle King, but I doubt I will ever be able to match their efforts. I suppose that is enough bouquets.

Just so you know where my heart belongs, I'm a Georgia grad. I'm a devoted and borderline obsessed Dawg fan. I haven't, however, always been a Dawg. I grew up in Minden, Louisiana the descendent of a long line of LSU alumni. (My poor father was president of the LSU Alumni Association while my brother was attending Texas A&M and my sister was at Alabama. After I went to Georgia, I'm sure he caught hell from all sides.) As such, I grew up a devoted and borderline obsessed LSU fan. I can even remember my roommate at boarding school, a lifelong UGA fan, keeping the headline "UGA pounds LSU, 31-10" taped up on his desk for a year to taunt me.

Even while attending Georgia, I was still more of a Tiger fan, which worked out fine because LSU and Georgia didn't play each other. That is until my senior year when the two teams met in Baton Rouge. My then girlfriend, now wife and I got into the biggest fight of our relationship up to that point or after when she thought I was not acting "neutral" as I had said I would.

I eventually severed all ties with LSU after attending the UGA-LSU game in Baton Rouge in 2003 when I finally determined that I had become more of a Dawg than a Tiger. I don't really like the new power LSU of 2003 and beyond. I much preferred the goofy, delinquent, underachieving LSU teams of the Archer, Hallman, DiNardo years. I just somehow had more fun then. Plus, I think LSU fans don't really understand how someone could go to any other school and not be somehow defective, making fitting in here in Shreveport, Louisiana, where I now practice law, awkward. It doesn't matter if the person went to UGA or Harvard, to them LSU is better. I suppose we all feel that way about our school, we just don't make it so obvious.

In any case, I'm a Georgia fan and a SEC man. I love Southern football, from D-1AA teams to the big boys. I look forward to pouring over the season with you and the King Bee.

Thoughts on the Hot Seat

I really wanted to start off with a college football post, and I didn't want to do my preseason rankings just yet, so I waited before launching this rocket until I could find good football material. And I think I have -- coaches on the hot seat.

I saw this nice story in the AJC about a roast for long-time UGA broadcaster Larry Munson. One of my best friends is a Dawg alum, so I've heard plenty of bootlegged Munson clips over the years. His "hobnail boot" call may be one of the best football play-by-play calls ever. (And that's a list Munson would show up on a couple of times.)

But the most intriguing detail in the article, to me, was that former Bulldog Coach Jim Donnan showed up. No word on what the reception was. Donnan was fired after several decent seasons in which he beat everyone except the schools he really needed to beat -- Florida, Georgia Tech, and Auburn. Looking at it now, it's hard to say that UGA didn't make a good decision trading Donnan for Mark Richt. But Georgia got very lucky finding him. Too many schools make the quixotic hope for perfection the enemy of the pretty good. I have nothing against a school aiming for national titles. But I think a lot of schools are fooling themselves if they think they deserve something better than 9-3 every year. It's just not realistic to think that you can fire a Frank Solich and get a replacement the caliber of a Mark Richt.

One big reason for that is that good, smart coaches don't want to go to a school that's willing to run off a 9-3 coach. It's one thing to have high expectations; it's another to work for a bunch of spoiled babies. My Dawg friend said one time that he thought Georgia's 1980 national championship was, in some ways, the worst thing that could have happened to Georgia, especially the fans, because it spoiled them into thinking that they deserve that kind of success every year.

We see that kind of attitude in many places with one modern national title and outsized expectations because of it. Clemson, Florida, Washington, Colorado...maybe a few others I'm forgetting. I'm tempted to put Notre Dame in there, given that its last title came in 1986 or so. But places like ND and Nebraska get a bit of a pass because of a decades-long tradition of success. Similarly, Duke's Coach K is never going to feel a hot seat, but what will the expectations be of his successor? See Matt Doherty or Mike Davis for a cautionary tale. (Isn't it funny how many of these one-hit-wonder national titles ended up being tainted by hints of scandal? At the least, a lot of those coaches later left their schools on probation...)

This wasn't intended to be a basketball post, but the school this got me thinking about is NC State. Their 1974 and 1983 national titles in basketball gave them crazy expectations for any coaches who followed Jim Valvano. (Of course, Valvano's personality was another hard act to follow.) And so, last season, they ran off Herb Sendek, who won more than NC State could realistically expect and was nothing but hated for it. Now they're going to do the same thing with football coach Chuck Amato. Amato could have nine 8-4 years out of the next ten and it wouldn't be good enough, even though it's crazy for Pack fans to expect State to win 10 or 11 games every year in that conference.

I'm not saying Amato is a great coach or anything -- he's fine, but nothing special -- but State is also delusional if it thinks it can run him out of town and land a mega-star name. I'm sure the latest speculation is that Steelers Coach Bill Cowher will ride in and save the day. Pack faithful make much out of the news that Cowher is contemplating retirement and that his family has moved to Raleigh. The odds that Cowher will leave the NFL champions for the Wolfpack are only slightly better than the odds he'll ask me to play tailback. It's like those UNC fans who wanted to get rid of Carl Torbush because they thought they could get Steve Spurrier or someone on that level. Having Mack Brown at the helm spoiled them. I hope they're happy with John Bunting. I think a lot of this could apply to Tennessee, too. They have no business running off Phat Phil Phulmer on the slim hope that they can find someone to do better. Who's going to do a better job at UT than Fulmer? Johnny Majors?

I don't agree with the notion some sportswriters have -- that it's poor form to speculate on coaching vacancies before they exist. I know that this scuttlebutt can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But the fact is that a lot of schools have expectations that their coaches just aren't going to meet this year. I think it's worth critiquing that, although my sense in many cases is that those expectations are irrational.

Kickoff, Tipoff, First Pitch...whatever

Welcome to The Wishbone. This is a blog about sports.

The title comes from that oddball football offensive scheme, the wishbone. For a sample wishbone playbook, check out the Indiana Wishbone Association site. That will give you a visual representation of the wishbone triple-option offense, but it's really as much a philosophy as a set of plays. Here's a nice homage from Texas Monthly: "Like many great works of art, the wishbone was equal parts genius, plagiarism, and luck....a combination of simplicity and duplicity, brute strength and sleight of hand,....[Y]ou don't have to be sophisticated -- just good." I hope some of that applies to this humble enterprise.

I'm using the nickname "King Bee," although that's not my real name. I'm not trying to stay super-anonymous here, but I don't want this site to be the first thing Google tells you about me. I will tell you I'm a lawyer in the mid-Atlantic region. I went to Duke undergrad, so I'm a big Blue Devil fan. But growing up in ACC and SEC country, I feel like I got the best football in the fall and the best basketball in the spring.

I expect to have more posts about college football and college basketball than any other subjects, but I won't artificially limit myself. I'll try to post on whatever interests me. Sometimes that will mean longish posts (like the next post, my first substantive one), and sometimes shorter. If you have a short attention span, I won't be offended if you skim. But don't count on a lot of NFL, MLB, and NBA posts. I'm sure I'll have some here and there, but I don't follow the pro sports as closely as the college ball. I'll let my co-blogger introduce himself at his leisure, but I'm sure he feels free to post about anything that strikes his fancy, too.

I'll probably write with an assumption that most, if not all, of my readers have some basic sports knowledge, a "SportsCenter" level of knowledge. For example, I doubt I really had to explain the source of the title. So I won't always be extra-precise about details, and I won't take the trouble of identifying, say, Charlie Weis as "University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish head football coach Charlie Weis." But feel free to seek clarification.

I'll be adding links as I find more sports sites. Please suggest your favorites. Also, please feel free to email me with suggestions or requests if you'd like to hear my opinion on any sports-related topics. Thanks for checking out The Wishbone, and please tell your friends and come back often!