College Football Last Ten Years

Just as I did last year, I can also list the top college football teams of the last ten years, which is probably more relevant to high school kids anyway. Same rules as my last post, but no points for any season before 1998. Last year was Ohio State (ugh), Oklahoma, Texas, and USC. This year:

USC, Oklahoma, Ohio State, and Texas are again the top four, although USC is in first. Look for that to continue next year. LSU is rocketing up the charts. Michigan, Miami, and FSU continue to fade. Hopefully we won't keep slipping.

College Football

As I noted a year ago at this time, there's nothing happening in college football right now. So I figured I'd update the chart of the most dominant programs of the last 25 years. As before, the #1 team last year (LSU) gets 25 points, the #25 team gets one point. Teams lose one point per year, to the #1 team of 2006 (Florida) gets 24 points down to the #24 team, which gets one point, and so on. There are a few changes from last year:


Florida State is still in first, but their lead is shrinking fast, and will shrink again next year. They will lose 18 points, so they must finish #7 just to stay even. Similarly, Miami will lose 17 points. Those programs will eventually start to move up again, but probably not next year. Ohio State is tied for #3; and they only lose 11 points next year, so figure they will continue to rise. Ugh.

The biggest improvement was Missouri, which rode its #4 finish last year all the way to #36. They may well improve again next year, but not as much.

Just one school dropped out entirely. That would be Virginia. Next year, East Carolina and Fresno State better finish ranked, or they're gone. Meanwhile Missouri, Cincinnati, and Hawaii are new to the list.

As for Michigan, we dropped from 5 to 7, and we'll need to finish in the top ten next year or else we'll lose more points. It doesn't look good. Oklahoma and USC passed us last year, and this year could be Texas and LSU.

Maddux

I thought Greg Maddux would pass Clemens sometime in July. I was wrong. Maddux last won on May 10 and is stuck on 350 wins.

Lately, he's been outstanding. He's had five consecutive quality starts with no wins and one loss to show for it. His ERA is 3.17. He's having a great year.

His problem is his team. The Padres have scored even fewer runs than the Giants. Which is why they're tied for last place in the NL West.

Kevin Garnett

Part of the joy of being a Celtics fan this year is having Kevin Garnett on the team. I'd known about him peripherally in the past, but I paid more attention this year. He's such a likeable superstar because he cares so much.

I found this interview from a couple of years ago, when he was with Minnesota and things weren't going well. It's remarkable:



Seriously, I'm not sure I've ever seen something quite like this.

When he says he doesn't like losing, he's not kidding. When he says it's not about him, it's about his team, he's not kidding.

Galaxy

I went to the LA Galaxy-Earthquakes game last night in Oakland. I'd never seen an MLS game, and they had a good crowd, apparently the largest crowd in MLS history.

Beckham was quite good, probably the best player on the field. In person, you can see that he generally plays far wider on the field than anyone else. Everyone else would be bunched up on one side and he would be all alone on the other waiting for the ball. I would imagine that's because he's used to somewhat better teammates. For fifteen years he played at the best clubs in England and Spain, with better teammates, who are somewhat more used to using the entire field.

He's still an extremely accurate passer. He's got great vision and can pick out any of his teammates on the field, not just where they are, but where they will be when his pass gets to them.

Like the article said, he isn't very physical these days, or at least he wasn't last night. Maybe after all his ankle trouble last year, he made a decision to try to avoid getting hurt.

Sox Pitching

The Red Sox rotation presently consists of:

Bartolo Colon (4-1 with a 3.41 ERA. Yep, we all saw that coming)
Tim Wakefield
Justin Masterson (huh? He's 3-0 with a 2.59 ERA)
Josh Beckett
Jon Lester

I don't think anyone anticipated this.

After Schilling got hurt, the starters were Beckett, Matsuzaka, Lester, Wakefield, and Buchholz. Colon and Masterson have actually been better than Beckett, so one can't complain.

NBA Refs

Now this is news.

The NBA ref who bet on games is alleging that the NBA urged its refs to throw the 2002 playoffs to the Lakers over the Kings. This is juicy.

Curt Schilling, of all people, described the problem that NBA refs face:

Every SINGLE play up and down the floor has MULTIPLE fouls being committed by multiple players. These guys are in close, every play. They are beating the crap out of each other, and the refs see it. That makes me think that the game is called and paced exactly how the refs want it to be.

Everything's a foul; it's all at the complete discretion of the refs about whether to call it.

Just wait until Congress gets involved. As they've shown before, Congress loves to dig into this stuff. NO ONE does Sanctimonious like members of Congress.


As a sidenote, the Celtics presently lead the series 2-1, so in theory they could win the next two games. I would bet dollars to donuts that the series will at least go back to Boston for Game 6. Zero chance the Celtics win the next two games.

Celtics

I was a Celtics fan growing up and then spent many years not caring because the team was so bad for so many years.

I'm watching again. Obviously, Game 2 was a lot of fun.

However. In a courtside seat of the new Garden was a Laker fan wearing an AC Green jersey. This raises all sorts of questions.

-why AC Green (note: this individual did not appear to be AC Green)?
-was this the only AC Green jersey ever purchased?
-seriously, why AC Green? Are there any other famous players for the Lakers?
-AC Green last played for the Lakers in 2000. His "glory years" were in the late 80s. Was this jersey really purchased then?
-this fan had tens of thousands of dollars to spend on that seat. If you have that much cash, would you really be seen in a fifteen year old AC Green jersey?
-is there an age limit on men wearing basketball jerseys in public?

Accountability

The New York Times has an interesting article about Carly Fiorina, who's advising McCain. Her tenure at HP was not much of a success and she was fired.

But she was always good at sales. The article includes a marvelous quote:

“Well, see, the good news about business is, results count. And the results have been very clear. The results have been crystal clear. From the day I was fired, every quarter, even before they had a new C.E.O., has been record after record. That doesn’t happen unless the foundation’s been built.”

Sooooooo, after she was fired, HP's had record results every quarter, and we're to take that as evidence that she is a success? What's Michael Brown doing these days?

Momentous Day in United States History

Today, June 3, 2008, at approximately 8:15 PM EDT, Randy Johnson struck out Mike Cameron, passing Roger Clemens for the second most strikeouts in major league history. He now trails only Nolan Ryan (by about 1100 strikeouts; he's never gonna catch him).



What, did something else important happen today?

Election Day

It's worth pointing out that if our fine state government hadn't moved our presidential primary, then Californians would vote on Obama and Hillary today and would decide the Democratic nominee for president.

I was wrong about Randy Johnson. I thought he would pass Clemens sometime around the 4th of July. Instead, it'll probably happen this week. Johnson struck out 19 guys in his last two starts and he's now tied with Clemens. I think Johnson pitches Tuesday, so he should pass him then.