Tag: sports

That Duke Thing Again

So Scoble posts about some gathering at the Apple Store in Seattle where Buzz Bruggeman sees some other Duke guy wearing his Duke gear and they start talking about Duke this and Duke that (but not, I assure you, about Duke’s crappy football team). Scoble says it proves his theory that guys who go to the “good schools” get all the breaks.

I comment on Scoble’s page that the Duke thing has more to do with the hoops program than the academic program. There are a lot of great schools out there, but you don’t see many people running around in Columbia hats.

Shortly thereafter I get a good natured email from Buzz telling me, no doubt correctly, that he never sees anybody wearing a Wake Forest (my alma mater) hat. And that’s the problem. Marketing is, believe it or not Mr. Million Dollar a Year school president, important for schools just like everybody else, and there is no better marketing than a great sports program. And if you can’t have a great sports program (e.g., Stanford) then at least have one great sport (the sweet smell of Duke basketball more than masks the stench of its bottom of the conference football team). I guarantee you that Duke has received more meaningful press as a result of its hundred or so ACC and NCAA basketball championships that is has all of its Rhodes Scholars and other academic notables combined.

Every televised game (which means every game, since Duke owns the networks during hoops season the way Notre Dame does during football season) you get to hear about what a great school it is (and that’s true- it is a great school, but there are lots of those). You also get to see that stupid Coach K/Amex commercial about 500 times, but I digress. The thing is that young kids (even the future Duke students still living up in New Jersey) don’t care about average SAT scores or Rhodes Scholars. Even if they do care, that information isn’t on ESPN every time you turn on the TV, like the Duke basketball team is.

All of these schools (Wake Forest definitely included) who pretend to be showing academic integrity by ignoring their crappy sports programs (my other alma mater, Vanderbilt, being another great example of this) are not only thrusting a canard at us to rationalize athletic mediocrity, they are also missing out on the kind of marketing and publicity that money can’t buy (but championships can).

So my hat’s off (like all the other hatless Wake Forest fans) to Duke for stumbling into this brilliant marketing strategy by hiring Coach K back when he was a nobody. But sorry Buzz, I still hate the Blue Devils.

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Delaney's First Soccer Game

Delaney had her first soccer game this morning. She jumped right in and played as hard as she could. She kicked the ball a few times and (mostly) paid attention to the game.

With a little more practice, she can be a good player. Most importantly, she had a good time.

WFU Week Four: Downward Spiral

After beating ECU for win number one in this soon to be written off season, the Deacs took on Maryland this afternoon in the Deacs’ Homecoming game. Not too many people came home if the crowd on TV, particularly early, was any indication. The Deacs lost a game that was only within reach because of Maryland mistakes 22-12.

Rather than rehash how bad we looked, how predictable our offense is and how we couldn’t throw the ball in the ocean from the shore, I think I’ll jump right to my conclusions:

1) Like everything in college sports, it comes down to recruiting. Some optimists at ACCBoards.Com love to bash recruiting rankings and claim such rankings are skewed and don’t matter. Here’s the only problem with that: it’s utterly and completely wrong. While rankings are certainly part art as well as part science, it has been empirically proven by the ACC Area Sports Journal on more than one occasion that the teams that get the higher ranked players will win more games than those that don’t. I’m not bashing our players by saying that- I am simply stating a fact.

2) The fact that WFU generally battles Duke for the lowest ranked recruiting classes in the ACC requires Jim Grobe to do things to compensate for the talent differential. At first, he was able to close that gap by running a lot of misdirection and orbit plays (I don’t know where that overused and never successful shovel pass came from- it was on almost as much as the commercial for that stupid golf movie). The problem is that other teams, especially the other ACC teams, have figured it out. The smoke and mirrors quit working and while the coordinators have not distinguished themselves this year, there’s only so much they can do. The way to win more games consistently over the medium and long term is to recruit players as good or better than most of the other teams you play. I don’t know if that’s possible at WFU, but trying to pretend it’s not necessary is a recipe for failure. You simply can’t count on sneaking up on people to get you to a bowl every year or five.

3) The talent differential also makes it easier for other coaches to implement halftime adjustments than for Grobe to do so. The second half trends this year bear that out. Grobe appears to be getting outcoached at halftime, but again there’s only so much he can do.

4) WFU does not have a single real threat at wide receiver. Part of the reason Ben (who ain’t jamin’) Mauk looks so bad out there (and he does look really bad out there) is because his receivers can’t get open. And even when they do and he actually throws the ball to them instead of tucking it for yet another QB keeper (if I were the running backs I wouldn’t even bother running on the option plays because Mauk never gives them the ball), they often drop it. If we had better receivers, Mauk would look less bad.

5) Now for the thing I’m the most certain about- the coaching staff does not have confidence in Mauk. They can say they do, but their game plans make it obvious they don’t. Grobe said earlier this year that Mauk does not have the green light to audible out of plays except in certain situations (which must mean that all the pointing and walking around pre-snap is some sort of head fake designed to fool any defensive players who didn’t read that interview). If that’s the case, then the play calling makes it abundantly clear that the staff views Mauk’s arm as the weapon of last resort. Whether this is because of him or them, I don’t know. But if this is so obvious to me, it’s also obvious to other coaches, which is exactly why other teams keep daring Wake to pass the ball.

This all adds up to a long season for the Deacs. I’m not sure if there is an answer, but if there is, someone on the WFU board at ACCBoards.Com will come up with it.

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ESPN Fantasy Football Sucks

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This is my third year in a fantasy football league. While I’d rather watch paint dry than an NFL game (I greatly prefer college sports), I have enjoyed fantasy football much more than I thought I would. It’s a fun challenge to put the best possible team on the field week in and week out. It’s a bit of a thrill to check the box score on Sunday and find out that you’re thrashing your opponent. The problem is that, since my league uses ESPN’s fantasy football service, I can’t ever (and I mean ever) get to the box score on Sunday afternoon. What I do get is page after page after page of 503 errors. Essentially, there are too many leagues sharing the same server and the server simply can’t handle all of the resource requests it receives. There is no way ESPN could be surprised by the traffic it is receiving, since the very same thing happened last year. Thus, I can only assume that ESPN simply doesn’t care.

It is extemely frsutrating and makes me much less interested in the league. If you want to enjoy fantasy football, choose another platform. You’ll be glad you did.

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WFU Week Two: Deja Vu All Over Again

Last week I predicted that Wake would lose at Nebraska by 10 or less. Silly me, I forgot that the game was on national TV. A nationally televised game guarantees a WFU embarrassment and that’s what we got. I suspect that at some point the networks will notice this and, but for any games mandated by the ACC TV contract, we won’t see any more Deacon football on national TV.

In a game in which Nebraska’s bad offense made Wake’s mediocre (which, by WFU standards, means “pretty good”) defense look very good for a half, Nebraska spanked the Deacs 31-3. WFU is now 0-2 for the season, with 5 top 25 teams among the 9 games that make up the rest of the season. It’s going to be tough to match last years’ 4-7 record. That’s what losing at home to Vanderbilt will do for you.

Ben Mauk, who was an amazing high school QB but was (maybe not so) curiously not recruited by the big boys, looked absolutely awful (and that’s being kind). Micah Andrews looked OK, but lightning didn’t strike twice (not another 250+ yard game). The special teams looked, well, not very special. If there’s a worse kicking team in America, I don’t know about it. As far as I can tell, we have no WRs.

Here’s my thing: Jim Grobe has been riding the benefits of taking a typically 3-8 team and turning it into a typically 5-6 team for a couple of years now. That’s a fine accomplishment, but at some point Wake needs to actually win some games. Clearly, Bill Callahan made much more effective halftime adjustments than Grobe. I’m still a Grobe fan, because I believe that if anyone can win at Wake, it’s Grobe. But itsy bitsy baby steps and moral victories are no longer enough for me. I want some tangible evidence in the only place where it matters: the won-loss column.

Playing in the ACC, you simply can’t afford to let winnable games slip away. Vanderbilt (at home, no less) was a gimme that Wake lost. Nebraska, who has an anemic offense and struggled with Division I-AA Maine last week, was winnable. Many of the remaining games are simply not winnable absent a major upset. Wake plays better when it has no chance, so expect some close losses (as long as the Deacs are not on national TV).

Some folks will rightly call for Cory Randolph at QB after Mauk’s performance. I can understand that (believe me I can), but Grobe should either stick with Mauk or, if there is a younger QB with potential, maybe give him a shot. This year is over bowl-wise, and Randlolph is a senior. We need to give next year’s QB experience this year. There’s always next year. It’s just that with the Deacs, next year will probably look a lot like this year.

Come join the post-game party on the WFU message board at ACCBoards.Com.

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Fantasy Football Draft

mrMy fantasy football league soundly rejected my plan to save the league, so we held our draft last night. Our league rules make Doc Searls’ blog seem like a Dick and Jane book, but here’s what little I have been able to gather about the complex rules and their effect on the teams:

1) It is a hybrid keeper/auction league. Each team has 100 points to spend. You can keep 2 players from the prior year roster at a slightly increased salary and you can claim match rights on 3 others.

2) The 2 expansion teams, led by Alchris Lallodavis, negotiated entry rules that make it virtually impossible for those 2 teams not to become instant dynasties. Goober, the other new owner, managed to defeat the odds and end up with a bad team.

3) Andy had to run to the restroom and regroup in the middle of the draft for the 2nd year, out of 3 total. Emmett, who quit last week, showed up for the draft and managed to put together a good team. He’ll lose by 50 to Alchris Lallodavis, but he’ll be better than everyone else. I don’t think his new employer has a fantasy football team, so it may be hard for him to Kip-out.

Anyway, my draft didn’t go well. I think this is because I had a bad plan to begin with and then executed it poorly. My plan had something to do with saving points until the middle rounds of the draft, by which time everyone else would be down to their last few points and I could buy a bunch of pretty good players for 8-15 points each (top players go for 30-35 points). The other owners did spend a lot of money early. The problem is that they bought all the good players so I had to buy pretty bad players instead of pretty good players for my 8-15 points.

Somehow I ended up with Tiki Barber as my marquee player, Kevin Jones as my other RB and 3, count ’em 3, Detroit Lions as my receivers. Sure wish I’d known who Mike Williams played for when I drafted him in the rookie draft (after the expansion teams drafted all the blue chip rookies). I also forgot to draft a kicker, which almost always goes for 1 point, so I had to drop a player I paid 5 for to add a kicker from the free agent pool.

Here are my predictions for the league:

North Division:

Hawkeyes- decent starters; thin bench; way overpaid for Manning; too heavy in Colts; will probably finish 2nd in the division behind Brilligs.

Longhorns- betting it all on Priest Holmes; lots of injury concerns; not a threat this year.

Brilligs- this is Emmett’s team discussed above. Very, very strong with McNabb, Jamal Lewis, TO, and Javon Walker; Will meet and lose big to Alchris Lallodavis’s NYSE in the championship game.

Capacitators- Floyd rode LT and Shaun Alexander to the championship last year and paid lots for them this year; one of those guys will get banged up this year and the thin bench will hurt; will still fight the Hawkeyes for 2nd in the division.

Young guns- not a good team, considering the way the draft was stacked in favor of the expansion teams. Goober was in Vegas and let Alchris Lallodavis draft for him by proxy; hope he won some cash in Vegas because he’s going to lose some in this league.

South Division:

Buckeyes- good, balanced team; good, cheap young RBs (Johnson and Brown) for next year; will face and lose to NYSE in the playoffs.

Wolverines- when I need to feel less bad about my team, I look at this roster; Vick and Harrison can’t do it by themselves; not a threat this year.

Whackjobs- good depth, but depth only works if there are lots of injuries; will battle the Buckeyes for the chance to lose by 40 to NYSE in the playoffs.

Ramblers- as discussed above, I had a bad night at the draftsky; no playoffs for the Ramblers this year.

NYSE- how can Trent Green, McGahee, Curtis Martin, Ahman Green, Torry Holt, Alge Crumpler, the Colts defense and coach and the highest rated rookie be on the same team in a 10 team league? Enough said; NYSE wins this year and next, easily.

It’s going to be a long year for the Ramblers, but I’ve got some decent players at low salaries so maybe next year….

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WFU Week One: Clash of the Titans

In a clash of the titans that resonated throughout college football, my two alma maters met in a gridiron war tonight. In the first live college football game televised on ESPN-U, Vanderbilt (my graduate school) beat Wake Forest (my undergraduate school) 24-20.

I care about Wake Forest and follow the Deacons football team closely, even though I know from 40+ years experience that it will almost always be painful and frustrating. I don’t follow Vanderbilt athletics at all, so the fact that this was a game between my alma maters is more trivia than conflict.

Jim Grobe has been anointed the savior of Wake Forest football, and he may be (to the extent it can be saved). Wake loses games by a few points now, whereas it used to lose by a lot of points. Vanderbilt, who was 2-9 last year and is even more entrenched near the bottom of the SEC than WFU is near the bottom of the ACC came into Wake’s home stadium and beat the Deacs again, raising Vandy’s record against Wake to 7-3 (a better record than either team has had since 1992). Next week, the Deacs travel to Nebraska. Let’s do some projections: Wake loses to a traditionally pitiful Vandy team at home by 4 then travels to play a traditionally good Nebraska team. Hmmm…. Sounds like a recipe for moral victory (Wake has a lot of those). Mark it down- Wake will lose by 10 or less next week. For sure, the Deacs will lose, but they will look good doing it. Otherwise we Deac fans would just write off the season and try to recoup our emotional investment. An investment that has had consistently poor returns over the years.

Here are my thoughts on tonight’s game.

Yes, Vandy’s Jay Cutler is a good QB (276 yards passing). But to try to rationalize this loss on the fact that the opponent has a good QB is simply a canard. If it hadn’t been the QB it would have been a RB, WR, kicker or equipment manager.

Like every other year, the Deacs seem utterly unable to put any pressure on the QB. With 11 seconds to throw, Harpo Marx would look like Johnny U.

I thought we were in for another year of horrible special teams play after a few of those squib kick-looking kickoffs, but Swank later sent one out of the end zone. Maybe he was just messing with us on the first few, setting expectations low and all that.

The Deacs still have trouble throwing downfield, but I think this year that has more to do with the inexperienced receiving corp that the QB or the system.

Granted, it was against Vanderbilt, but the offensive line looked very good and Micah Andrews (254 yards rushing) looks like a player. Wake has good pass/run balance and that should help keep the loss margins in the single digits.

I sure hope Jon Abatte (Wake’s best defensive player and the anchor of the defense) isn’t hurt. He was not on the field much, if any, in the second half (at least as far as I could tell). Without him, our defense would be much less effective against the run. Granted, the run defense was pretty good tonight until Vandy’s final drive, but the Deacs don’t play Vandy every week (much to Vandy’s dismay).

Yes, I sound frustrated. That’s because I am. But make no mistake, I love the Deacons. I just keep expecting them to become the good team they are allegedly on the verge of becoming. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t care.

Few of us picked our colleges based on how good their sports teams are. Obviously, I didn’t. There are many, many reasons to love Wake Forest that go beyond and above its football record. But it sure would be nice to have one more reason to love my school.

If you want to talk about the Deacons, visit the WFU message board at ACCBoards.Com. It’s hopping tonight.

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Fantasy Football Fairness

I am a huge college sports fan. I watch a lot of college basketball and football. On the other hand, I am not a pro sports fan, as I find the idea of watching a bunch of greedy rich guys playing for teams owned by other rich guys generally unappealing. I am, however, a member of a fantasy football league. We are about to enter our third year.

When the younger guys in my office approached me about starting a league, I wasn’t interested. I haven’t followed NFL football since the Snake was throwing passes to Fred Biletnikoff. But they persisted and I gave in. I spent a couple of hours learning the players the night before our first draft. I went to the Super Bowl the first year, and lost to the other old guy in the league. Last year I scored more points than any other team, but lost in the first round of the playoffs.

This year the league is expanding to allow two new guys in. The members have been fighting like only a bunch of lawyers can about how to structure the expansion draft. The new guys think that the expansion draft is designed to put them in the cellar for years (it’s a partial keeper league). Some of the old members think the expansion draft will result in two new dynasties. One guy is threatening to Kip-out (a term named after one of the founding team owners who left the league last year to play in another league with his “real friends”).

Until today, I have stayed out of the debate, saying only that I will abide by whatever the majority decides. But after reading a few email bombs and a set of proposed rules that make css seem simple, I decided to come up with a set of rules that would be equally ludicrous and brilliant. I think I hit both; the other league members think I only achieved the first. So since my league won’t enact it, here is the Newsome Fairness in Football Plan (the “NFFP”). It is designed for the expansion or revamping of an existing league, but could be modified for use with a new league. It assumes a 10 member league.

1) Put the 30 highest paid players (assuming a league salary cap) in a hat and draw them out randomly, 3 for each team. If you don’t have a salary cap, you could use some other criteria to identify the best players.

2) Then have a 5 round straight draft for 5 of the other players. The order of the draft should be randomized before each round.

3) Then have a four round auction draft with each team owner to have a randomly generated number of points to spend between 60 and 80. This assumes that the typical league salary cap would be 100. You can adjust the number if necessary.

4) Then give each team owner the right to take one player from every other team, with each team to lose no more than one player. Players that have been taken from a team already could not be taken again.

5) Then every player on each roster is randomly assigned a salary of either 5, 10, 15 or 20 points, for use during next year’s draft. Again, this assumes a typical salary cap of 100.

6) After the following season, the league would be a modified keeper league where any player whose total fantasy points for the prior season is an odd number can be kept at the prior year salary plus a number equal to positive difference, if any, between, the last digit of the then current year minus 3 (for example next year it would be 6-3 for a 3 point bump). Any player whose total points for the prior season is even cannot be kept and must be placed back in the draft pool. This ensures that some good players get returned to the draft pool and adds an element of luck in rebuilding that would give the owners of bad teams more incentive to stay active.

7) Prior to future drafts, one team owner to be determined in the same manner as the NBA lottery (worst team gets 10 balls in the bucket, next worst 9, etc.) would have the right to pick one player off of any other team’s roster and keep that player at the same salary as the prior year, plus or minus 5 points to be determined by a coin flip by the commissioner or, if the commissioner is one of the teams involved, by any other team owner. The coin flip would occur after the player has been selected and immediately prior to the draft.

Ludicrous on its face, yes. But if you think about it, it sounds incredibly fun to me.

Too bad my league won’t enact it. If anyone wants to start a league with these rules, let me know. Maybe I’ll Kip-out too.

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4th of July Fun

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The City of Bellaire held its annual Fourth of July parade today, which was a slice of small town fun for kids and parents alike. After the parade, we walked over to the nearby festival, where Cassidy once again climbed a high wall. The wall was much higher than it looks in the photo and Cassidy climbed it in about 90 seconds in flip-flops.