Prolonged Absenses Suck

Yeah, sorry I have been out for the better part of a month. It has been very hectic around here and the time has just not been there for me. I will continue to write here for the foreseeable future, but not on a daily basis, look for three or four posts a week until summertime. Until I write again, peace.

Bobby Petrino, Somewhat Smarter Than Your Average Bear?

SO yeah, I am a day late and a dollar short on this one. By now it should be common knowledge that Bobby Petrino bailed on the Atlanta Falcons to take the job at the University of Arkansas. Now, it is beyond question, that what Petrino did was shady, and low to the enth degree. When it comes to what he did to his team in Atlanta, and to his boss Arthur Blank, it is beyond reproach. I don’t necessarily disagree with his idea to go back to the college game. But, when it comes to the matter in which he executed his idea I do have an issue, and I tend to agree with Lawyer Milloy’s curt assessment of Petrino as a man.

Now the past transgressions of Petrino are notorious. My personal favorite being the clandestine attepts to ursurp power from Tommy Tubberville with the brass from Auburn flying in and meeting Petrino across the Ohio River from Louisville. This however has to take the cake, I mean, shit, he bailed on his team with 3 games to go. At least Saban had the balls to look everyone in the eye and lie to them while he finished a season before bailing out. Pat Forde, a man who is not prone to this type of linguistic destruction really laid into Petrino.

In the coming days and weeks, the disingenuous drifter will say what Arkansas fans want to hear.

He’ll look at them with blank shark eyes and tell them, in a monotone voice, how excited he is to be the coach of the Razorbacks. He will tell them how impressed he is by the tradition and the fan base. He will tell them that the Southeastern Conference is the place he always wanted to coach (and that might be the one true thing he’ll say, given how many times he’s tried to land a job in the league).

It will be a trumped-up stump speech, as sincere as a politician’s pledge to cut taxes. It will simply be the latest pack of lies in a career full of them.

There are two ways to look at this. The first way, the one currently in the employ of dozens of America’s finest College Football writers, is the tried and true line for Petrino. That he is a completely disingenuous hypocrite, a liar to the T, interested in his own self preservation above all else. That is the line toed by Forde, but he has more of a reason to use it than the others. Given his past history with the coach while he worked for the Courier-Journal in Louisville. But then again, this is pretty much what everyone else has been saying about Petrino, ever since plane gate in 2004. Anyone who has followed Petrino would know all of that, so it should come as no surprise.

The way that I look at this is really simple. Petrino is simply the latest in a long line of coaches to figure out what everyone else has. Namely that the Pro game, for all it’s fabulous riches and opportunities, simply doesn’t compare to the college game. It is, after all, the No Fun League, and there is no one for whom that statement rings truer than for head coaches in the NFL. But the lure for the next big thing, the desire to prove ones self runs very deep in coaches, and for a College Coach that runs very deep. So, many coaches make the trek to the NFL to see what it’s all about, only to realize that it is just not worth it. Yeah you get 3 to 4 million dollars a year. But in return, your employer only asks for 120 work weeks, constant dedication to the company line, but you get no say in matters of personnel, your staff is guaranteed nothing in terms of employment, oh and you’ll get to sleep in your own bed maybe twice a week. Does that sound good to you? There is also the matter that the professional and college games share little in terms of successful strategy. Risk taking and aggression are the hallmarks of good College Coaches. Look at Pete Carroll, the reasons that he is a success at USC, his personality, his enthusiasm, his Überaggressive schemes and his penchant for taking big gambles based on his instincts, more than percentages, are the exact same reasons he had a career record of 34-33 in the NFL. Good College coaches are rarely ever successes at the next level. It only took Petrino 13 games to figure out that coaching in the NFL sucks, and that coaching in College is much, much better. For figuring it out that fas, he should get some credit.
Will Petrino blow off Arkansas at some point in the near future? Yeah, probably, if you are playing his odds. We haven’t learned anything new about Pertino from his actions. Everything he has done in the past few days is predictable. But Petrino learned something new about the NFL, that it sucks, and that it really isn’t worth the money.

A Look Back: The PAC 10

For a refresher on what I thought I knew coming into the season click here, here and here.

 

If the cracks in Troy’s dynasty were starting to show in 2006, they are out in front of the whole world right now. That is not to say that USC isn’t the best team in the conference. On the contrary, with Oregon a shadow of it’s previously awe inspiring offensive self, and Arizona State displaying, in emphatic terms that they still are Arizona State on Thanksgiving. USC clearly is the best team in the conference, by a sizable margin. So yes it is another year, another PAC 10 crown, even if it was shared, and another BCS bowl. And yet this Trojan team was a big disappointment. And that is for one very simple, and very logical reason, Stanford.

 

 

By the way that is by far the best of the worst game winning play by play calls. Ever. Listen closely. USC failed to live up to the billing this year, plain and simple, well at least on offense. The defense was phenomenal all year long, with the noted exception of the last two or so minutes against Stanford. But the problem was with the offense. Fred Davis was the only guy who stood out as exceptional for the duration of the season, everyone else just flitted in and out of the scene with varying degrees of sporadic at best production. Coming into the year there was no feature back, and there was no proven, go to talent on the perimeter. Yeah there was talent, but there is a pronounced difference between talent and production. One does not guarantee the other. Neither of those questions was was answered until very late in the year. The offense was constantly looking for answers. Early on, when the offensive line was blowing holes in defensive fronts the running game looked to be the answer. But as the body toll on the line and in the backfield mounted a new answer was needed, and the offense didn’t have one at QB, on account of JD Booty’s injuries and Mark Sanchez’s greenish hue. Yes this is a tremendously talented team, and yes no one in their right mind wants a piece of them, but still this team was a disappointment.

 

The PAC 10 was truly a land of surprises this year, of the good and the not so good varieties. For the good there is the touching story of Arizona State, and that maverick head coach of theirs, with a history of problem drinking, and a deep seated love for flying golf carts over volcano’s. His team really defied logic, not so much in winning so often, often enough earn a share of the PAC 10 trophy in fact, but in the way that they did it. By routinely spotting teams a quarter, or a half. Why? Who knows, but I cast my vote for too many 80’s parties, a.k.a. Coke N’ Stripper parties. The fact of the matter is that ASU went into the locker room trailing in 7 of 12 games, and they won 5 of them. Really strange, even for this year.

In roughly the same boat is Cal. But unlike UCLA, Cal was a tale of two teams. In the first half of the season Cal looked damn, good. Issues on the defensive side of the ball, particularly in the secondary were readily apparent from day one. But the offense had the explosive ability to compensate for the weakness of the defense. However, as the season wore on, the point of diminishing marginal return was reached. Look at the stat line. For the first half of the season the offense had an average output of 435 yards, their record during that span? 5-1, the last six games? The offense was dismal, 364 yards per game, the record in that span was 1-5. While UCLA was truly schizophrenic, never the same from week to week, Cal simply went from being a very good team to being a very bad team, seemingly overnight.

One last thing, Jake Locker is the truth. He was buried on a bad team this year, but he is going to be one hell of a player in the future. He is one guy that I am really looking forward to watching next season.

 

A Look Back: The ACC.

For a refresher on what I thought I knew about the ACC coming into the season click here, here and here.

The fact of the matter is that, even though I watch a lot of Football, and I do mean a lot. I don’t see that many ACC games. Part of the problem lies in my location. Being in Ohio means that I am forced to watch Big 11 Football on the ABC, ESPN family of Networks. Being in Cincinnati means that if I am not watching the Big 11 on ABC or ESPN I am watching the Big East. No complaints there. So any observations that come to pass below are inherently limited, so take all this with a grain of salt. If you find fault with my opinion, speak your piece, varying opinions are important in the blog sphere.

The biggest surprise of the year was the sudden emergence of the Virginia Cavilers. Going into the season I was fairly high on the Cav, and I thought that they would turn in an impressive season. And then they lost to Wyoming. At that point all of the good feelings and fuzziness that I had built towards UVA was vanquished in an instant. No matter. Jameel Sewell came up huge for the offense. But the unquestioned star of the team was Chris Long, he of Howie Long’s loins. I had the chance to watch them play twice, against Maryland and Virginia Tech, and Long simply blew me away with his natural ability, but more with his technique which is simply flawless at this level. The man came up with 75 tackles, 19 TFL’s and 14 sacks, from the Defensive End, in a 3-4 scheme. Thats pretty much unheard of in that defense. The rest of the UVA team? Not so impressive on offense, but man is that a good sound defense.

Speaking of defensive linemen. Marvin Austin. Wow is that kid impressive. You look at the stat line for the year, 26 tackles, 6 TFL and 4 sacks and it doesn’t look all that impressive. But it is when you consider that he is a freshman, neigh over 18 years old, stepping into a BCS conference and starting from day one in the most physically demanding position in the game, defensive tackle, and then he had a legitimate impact. This is a kid who is going to be scary good next year, after a year in the gym. Three years down the line he could very well have a Glenn Dorsey like impact on game, the kid is that good.

There will be no further mention of Miami or Florida State in this post. I was high on both of them and figured that they would both turn in good seasons. And I am an idiot for thinking so, moving on.

Cullen Harper is the closest thing Clemson has to a Heisman Trophy contender coming into next season. I am serious he was damn near flawless all year long. He was so good in fact that I heard nary a whisper from the Tiger faithful about local prep hero Willy Korn all season long. Just look at the stat line. James Davis and CJ Spiller were under utilized all season long, both of their numbers took a tremendous drop from last year. Now that is not all on the shoulders of Davis and Spiller, it has been proven that they are tremendous talents, but there is a little more too the story than that. The offensive line was no where near as good as the 2006 unit of Nathan Bennett, Dustin and Roman Fry. Barry Richardson was back this year, and he was very studley, but his counterparts did not measure anywhere near as high as Richardson on the stud scale. As an all too predictable result the running game took a step back in production compared to 2006. But there is something else to consider. Last year the Clemson strategy was really simple run the damn ball and play defense, and it worked really well, and that was the strategy was employed against FSU when the run pass ratio was 57/43. However, as the season wore on, and the capabilities of Harper became apparent the formula changed. The Tigers continued to play defense at a very high level, but the offensive part of the equation changed, and the offense became far more balanced, the end of the year ratio was 52/48.

Way to go Duke, you beat Northwestern and stopped your 1A losing streak in September. Of course you started a new 1A losing streak promptly, a streak that is approaching double digits now.

A final thought. While most of the country is taking the miserable season of the Big 11 and using it to expound upon the perceived weakness and inferiority of the Big 11, and while that is fun, and an incensed Big 11 fan is one of the more entertaining objects of observation. The dismal season of the ACC on the whole has been, by and large, ignored. If there is a greater collection of consistently underachieving programs in the country I’d like to see it. Miami, Florida State and Clemson are million dollar programs, problem is that they all have 10 cent heads. North Carolina State has had talent in the past, boatloads of it, but never had any discipline to mold it. Enter Tom O’Brien who was supposed to inject the much needed discipline, the result? 1-11. Not a good initial return on investment. In time the conference will grow into a true Football power. The question is how long will that take?

 

A Week Off

It’s exam week here at the University of Cincinnati, that means that I have better, and probably, more important things to be getting on with. I will be back sometime next week to provide a brief look back at all of the conferences. Maybe not all of them, but at least the BCS conferences. Bowl look ahead to come the week after.