Short Shots, 9/24/2001

Crazy happenings in the world of college sports, will have another post of conference realignment soon.

- So I watched Battle: Los Angeles this week.  I don't know what I was expecting (I take that back, I was expecting a piling heap of garbage), but I didn't think it was that bad.  It was a classic behind enemy lines plot line (not a Behind Enemy Lines plot line) and if it had been set in WWII or Vietnam, it would probably be better received.  Maybe people are alien-invasioned out.

- Bought a box of Fruit Pastilles today.  Yummy!  I balanced it with some chicken and peppers stir fry, so don't scream at me about my food choice.

- Watched Georgia Tech beat North Carolina in football today.  They won to go to 4-0 for the first time since the National Championship season but this team isn't that good.  They could very well be 7-0 when they go down to Miami.  That will be a tough game, then they have Clemson and Virginia Tech at home.  I'd be interested to see if the undersized offensive line and complex blocking schemes will be able to create holes against those 2 teams.  Unfortunately, they might have trouble stopping both those offenses.  After watching Clemson today, no idea how Tech will be able to hold them under 40 points.

- Also watched the New York Cosmos documentary.  Good to see my Dad playing in some of the highlights.  Not so good to see him get scored on by Giorgio Chinaglia.

- Watched the weigh-ins for UFC135.  Why the hell do they make the guys strip on stage.  Of course, they have to get down to their shorts, but damn why not do it backstage?

- Video today brought to you from the The Great White Norge.  Norway's newest supergroup, The Megaphonic Thrift playing a live version of "Talks Like A Weed King".  You can almost hear all their influences splattered throughout their music: Sonic Youth, Guided by Voices, Hüsker Dü, Superchunk, etc you can add your own.  I can't hate on them, because they make great songs.

College Football Realigment, Here We Come...

So, Texas A&M set the ball rolling, now it's at ramming speed with Pittsburgh and Syracuse applying for the ACC.  So, how will the new shape of the conferences shake out?  Driving around today, I heard a tease about an interview with Beano Cook about his thoughts on the realignment.  I missed the interview, but since that guy is still pissed about the forward pass being legalized, I don't give 2 shits what he has to say.  So, how can we take the current six BCS conference system and realign it more interestingly?

ACC	Big 10	Big 12	Big East	Pac 12	SEC
Boston College Clemson Duke Florida State Georgia Tech Maryland Miami (FL) North Carolina NC State Virginia Virginia Tech Wake Forest	Illinois Indiana Iowa Michigan Mich. State Minnesota Nebraska Northwestern Ohio State Penn State Purdue Wisconsin	Baylor Iowa State Kansas K. State Missouri Oklahoma OK State Texas Texas A&M Texas Tech	Cincinnati Connecticut Louisville Pittsburgh Rutgers S Florida Syracuse West Virginia	Arizona Arizona State California Colorado Oregon Oregon State Stanford UCLA USC Utah Washington Wash. State	Alabama Arkansas Auburn Florida Georgia Kentucky LSU Miss. State Ole Miss South Carolina Tennessee Vanderbilt

Now, let's look at the alignment with the latest rumoured movement:

ACC	Big 10	Big 12	Big East	Pac 12	SEC
Boston College Clemson Duke Florida State Georgia Tech Maryland Miami (FL) North Carolina NC State Pittsburgh Syracuse Virginia Virginia Tech Wake Forest	Illinois Indiana Iowa Michigan Mich. State Minnesota Nebraska Northwestern Ohio State Penn State Purdue Wisconsin	Baylor Iowa State Kansas K. State Missouri Oklahoma OK State Texas Texas Tech	Cincinnati Connecticut Louisville Rutgers S Florida West Virginia	Arizona Arizona State California Colorado Oregon Oregon State Stanford UCLA USC Utah Washington Wash. State	Alabama Arkansas Auburn Florida Georgia Kentucky LSU Miss. State Ole Miss South Carolina Tennessee Texas A&M Vanderbilt

So, as you can see, the Big East is dead as a football conference. What happens to their teams?  Let's see what we can do with those teams?

ACC	Big 10	Big 12	Pac 12	SEC
Boston College Connecticut Clemson Duke Florida State Georgia Tech Maryland Miami (FL) North Carolina NC State Pittsburgh Syracuse Virginia Virginia Tech Wake Forest	Illinois Indiana Iowa Michigan Mich. State Minnesota Nebraska Northwestern Ohio State Penn State Purdue Wisconsin	Baylor Iowa State Kansas K. State Missouri Oklahoma OK State Texas Texas Tech	Arizona Arizona State California Colorado Oregon Oregon State Stanford UCLA USC Utah Washington Wash. State	Alabama Arkansas Auburn Florida Georgia Kentucky LSU Miss. State Ole Miss South Carolina Tennessee Texas A&M Vanderbilt West Virginia

I moved UConn into the ACC purely for the fact that if basketball is considered in realignment, that would be a natural fit. I've moved West Virginia into the SEC based on the rumors that have been swirling. Unfortunately, Rutgers, Cincy, South Florida and Louisville don't make the first cut. But since we are going to eliminate the Big 10 and make 4 conferences of 16 teams, they might find a home somewhere else. So, now to dole out the remaining Big 12 teams. (Which now has 10 teams, while the Big 10 now has 12 teams.  Nice job, people.)

ACC	Big 10	Pac 12	SEC
Boston College Connecticut Clemson Duke Florida State Georgia Tech Maryland Miami (FL) North Carolina NC State Pittsburgh Syracuse Texas Virginia Virginia Tech Wake Forest	Illinois Indiana Iowa Iowa State Kansas K. State Michigan Mich. State Minnesota Nebraska Northwestern Ohio State Penn State Purdue Wisconsin	Arizona Arizona State California Colorado Oklahoma OK State Oregon Oregon State Stanford UCLA USC Utah Washington Wash. State	Alabama Arkansas Auburn Florida Georgia Kentucky LSU Miss. State Missouri Ole Miss South Carolina Tennessee Texas A&M Vanderbilt West Virginia

So, Baylor and Texas Tech didn't make the cut.  I put Texas in the ACC for a couple of reasons.  First, that is this week's rumor.  Second, I think the ACC would be the most willing to accept the fact that Texas has their own cable network.   They are quite a ways away from another ACC team but thems the breaks.  So, I have 16 ACC teams, 15 Big 10 teams, 14 Pac 12 teams and 15 SEC teams.  So, let's see who we have left to fill up the last 4 places:

Baylor, BYU, Rutgers, Cincy, South Florida, Louisville, Notre Dame, Rutgers, Boise State, TCU and Texas Tech.

ACC	Big 16	Pac 16	SEC
Boston College Connecticut Clemson Duke Florida State Georgia Tech Maryland Miami (FL) North Carolina NC State Pittsburgh Syracuse Texas Virginia Virginia Tech Wake Forest	Illinois Indiana Iowa Iowa State Kansas K. State Michigan Mich. State Minnesota Nebraska Northwestern Notre Dame Ohio State Penn State Purdue Wisconsin	Arizona Arizona State BYU California Colorado Oklahoma OK State Oregon Oregon State Stanford TCU UCLA USC Utah Washington Wash. State	Alabama Arkansas Auburn Florida Georgia Kentucky Louisville LSU Miss. State Missouri Ole Miss South Carolina Tennessee Texas A&M Vanderbilt West Virginia

My last spot in the the Pac 12 came down to Boise State, Texas Tech and TCU.  I figure that the new Pac 16 would go for TCU to get into that Dallas market.  So now we've got our four 16-team superconferences, but let's go farther.  Let's turn each conference into four divisions:

ACC
Northeast	Atlantic	Tobacco Road	Southeast
Boston College Connecticut Pittsburgh Syracuse	Clemson Maryland Virginia Virginia Tech	Duke North Carolina NC State Wake Forest	Florida State Georgia Tech Miami Texas

Big 16
Heartland	Leaders	Legends	Metro
Iowa Iowa State Minnesota Nebraska	Illinois Michigan Michigan State Purdue	Indiana Notre Dame Ohio State Penn State	Kansas Kansas State Northwestern Wisconsin

Pac 16
Northwest	Mountain	UCal	Central
Oregon Oregon State Washington Washington State	Arizona Arizona State BYU Utah	California Stanford UCLA USC	Colorado Oklahoma Oklahoma State TCU

SEC
North	Missala	Midwest	Southeast
Kentucky Louisville Tennessee Vanderbilt	Alabama Auburn Miss State Ole Miss	Arkansas LSU Missouri Texas A&M	Florida Georgia South Carolina West Virginia

So, maybe controversial decisions, but I tried to keep geographies and natural rivalries consistent. Now we have 4 divisions in each conference, we can have 2 rounds of conference championship games for all the division winners. Might as well make it interesting, each division winner plays in a 4 team playoff for the conference titles and all of the conference winners play in a 4 team playoff for the National Championship.  So we now have a 16-team playoff system that looks like a 4-team playoff system. The changes will probably come fast and big in the next year or more, so I doubt that any ideas are completely off the table.  I'm sure lots of people will disagree with my ideas and choices.

Short Shots - 9/15/2011

- Most controversial movie idea ever, remake The Crush and keep everything the same but replace the 14yr old girl with a 14yr old boy.

- The ACC really needs to change the names of their divisions. I'm a fan of Georgia Tech, but I still couldn't tell you which ACC teams are in which divisions. If Texas really comes over to the ACC, I guess they'll have to change one of the names to the Longhorn Division.

- I'm sick of hearing people say that Peyton Manning is worse off with his injury because during the lockout he couldn't meet with the Colts trainers. I'm sure that Manning was visiting the best doctors in the world and what the hell do the Colts trainers know about neck surgery?

- Is Jason Bateman's character in Couples Retreat the most obnoxiously awful character in the history of cinema? Annie Wilkes in Misery has more redeeming qualities.

- Listen Scarlett Johansson, I got your back.

- I've been spamming Dana White's twitter with my idea for a sure fire lock for a Fight of the Night fight matchup. Unfortunately, it seems he doesn't respond to tweets unless the tweeter calls him a cockhair or something. I know somebody in Dana's ear will read this and help me out.

Now, go watch my damn video:

Short Shots

Just a variety of meaningless quick thoughts:

- For Love of the Game is actually a pretty good movie.

- Why the hell is The Karate Kid Remake called the Karate Kid? The kid goes to China, gets beaten down by a kid using kung fu, learns kung fu from a kung fu master, enters a kung fu tournament and wins a kung fu tournament using kung fu. So why wasn't it called the Kung Fu Kid? Stupid.

- If you are into sports gambling and you hear, "This situation is 19-0 in the last 20 years", it's probably useless. Most of these idiots trying to sell picks will say something like, "I like San Francisco this week. Road teams that won their home opener that are playing against a home favorite that lost their first game of the season as a 3-7 point underdog by more than 10 points in the first game for a new head coach are 24-1 since 1983" The more parameters you add to a betting angle, the more useless that angle is.

- I guess I can retire my #makenickdiaztufcoach twitter hashtag for a while. If the guy can't show up for a press conference for a title fight he's in, not much chance of him wanting to coach in The Ultimate Fighter.

- What happened to Anna Faris's face between Lost in Translation and her latest piece of shit romantic comedy?

- I saw the 2024 version of Laurel from the RW/RR Challenge at Publix. Not the first time I've seen a famous person's doppelganger at one of my grocery stores.

Well, that was garbage.

So the Falcons came out and laid a big, fat egg. They made the Bears, who I'd be amazed if they finish better than 8-8, look good. Turnovers, stupid penalties and terrible 3rd down conversions is a sure fire recipe for disaster. Add to the fact that teams I figured would be battling for the 1st pick in the draft Buffalo and the Bengals both won and the Falcons look even worse. At least every other team in the NFC South lost this weekend too.

Good fights last night in Strikeforce and Bellator. My man, Douglas Lima, took a punch to the back of the head right off the bat and looked out on his feet. He managed to ride it out and then dominate the rest of the fight. Lima got thru to the next round of the WW tourney but Hornbuckle lost.

In Strikeforce, Daniel Cormier managed to knock out Giant Silva.

Even with a grill like that, Silva ain't got much of a jaw. I figured that the near knockout Mike Kyle had on him might have been a lucky shot, but I guess not. So Cormier versus Barnett in the final of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix. You would think Barnett would have an experience edge, but I don't remember Cormier ever really being in any trouble yet in his career. And he's managed to improve his striking every time out.

There's more MMA tonight besides Strikeforce

So the Strikeforce Heavyweight GP continues tonight, but Bellator is also running a show tonight I'll be watching.  I'm most intrigued to see Douglas Lima make his Bellator debut in the latest Welterweight tourney against somebody named Steve Carl.  Lima trains at American Top Team here in Atlanta and rampaged through MFC up in Canada to win the WW belt up there.  My spamming of Dana White's twitter feed to sign up Lima was not heeded.  Heeded?

You can catch the Bellator show on MTV2 and EPIX HD tonight. Also tonight at Bellator, Dan Hornbuckle tries to get back on track after losing 2 out of his last 3.  If you've never seen "The Handler", he's responsible for one of the most brutal knockouts in MMA history. Just go to 1:30 into the video to see Akihiro Gono decimated.

It's been a while

So this blogging thing I used to do a long time ago and quit.  Damn that short attention span twitter.  To be fair, I only recently started that mess.  So, what caused me to return, other than the fame, the money and the glory.

A movie called "MVP2: Most Vertical Primate" is the reason.  Here's a short plot summary:

"MVP 2 opens with the lovable Jack being ousted from his hockey team, the Seattle Simians, and having to hit the road after being falsely accused of league misconduct. Jack ends up in the city, where he's befriended by Ben, a homeless skateboarder, and Ollie, a skate shop owner. Jack proves to be as adept at mastering the half-pipe as he does at delivering a slap shot, and before long, he and Ben are crashing amateur skateboarder competitions all over the country."

That's right, a fucking monkey gets kicked off a hockey team and decides to be a skateboarder.  Now I don't expect anybody to follow this blog, but I would hope to whatever supreme being is out there, that more people read this than watch that dumb shit.

On a happier note, Wesley Snipes doles out some words to live by: