SpongeWorthy

That would be like vuvuzela apartheid man.

So who are the better actors? The Chinese North Korean fans or Ronaldo?

Yeah but what about the rivalry?

Rondo was engaged in a bunch of goonery against the Bulls in last years playoffs. It's probably more of a Chicago-centric sort of hate. I used to be an unabashed KG admirer too until he started screaming at the opposing team from the bench. But Pierce is the one that really gets on my nerves. The wheelchair of death is just inexcusable in my book.

Without Texas? I mean I think it's really dumb the Pac 10 is now the Pac 11. If you're not going for the conference championship game at least have a round robin. 11 is a dumb number to settle on.

I can't understand the hate for any of those people. http://www.mouthpiecesports.com/blogmedia/2009/04/garnetttaunt.jpg http://resources2.news.com.au/images/2008/06/06/va1237312210745/Boston-Celtics-Paul-Pierce-6080583.jpg

I'll always hate the Lakers and will return to being fairly ambivalent about the Celtics once this crop of players is gone. Although it's entirely possible that I hate this current crop of Celtics so much that it'll outweigh my eternal hatred of the Lakers. I'm still conflicted.

I'm actually kind of a closet ND fan. They were on the Cubs-Bulls-Bears axis before I went to college. If the idea weren't so abhorrent to most people's sensitivities I'd probably root for them pretty hard in the next few years now that SC has been torpedoed. And if I'm being honest with myself, I was probably more of an ND fan than a Bears fan since the Bears were so nondescript in the Wanny/Jauron years while ND was always on TV.

2005 and 2006 were products of Weis-hype, getting a lot of mileage out of the USC game, and then being way over ranked to start the next season (preseason #2 IIRC). I'm not really talking about BCS exemptions or whatever. I would be surprised if there are any teams that have appeared in multiple BCS games that have won fewer games against good teams than those two Irish teams.

of course there was You can submit whatever you like, but you apparently have no idea what you're talking about. "trying" to be independent? it's pathetic. What were these significantly better achievements that occurred under Weis? I'm sure you'll point to the unwarranted BCS berths which I suppose plays. I'd say those are at least canceled out by the 2007 season, losing to Navy, the lack of a signature win, and the fact that he had a worse win percentage. In my mind the absolute apex of ND football in the 2000s was probably the win over FSU in 02, though. And I meant trying to maintain its independence. Sorry for the lack of clarity. I'm guessing if Weis' record had matched the bluster ND would be independent as long as it wanted to. And I'm not privy to any negotiations but if being independent is a priority then I would say having a strong product on the field is better than having a bad one.

I don't know why you keep bringing up the Emerald Bowl as if I mentioned it or it has any relevance here or would even submit that it's better than losing in a BCS game. The Weis era was not significantly better than his predecessors. That is a total fiction. Worse overall record than either Davie OR Willingham, 1 bowl win over Hawaii, coached probably the worst team in school history, ended the Navy win streak, and the biggest "win" under his tenure was a loss. At least Davie and Willingham had the temerity to beat a ranked opponent here and there. Anyway, I would argue that ND getting blown out in BCS games (hell, bowl games in general) is a part of why they're being pursued here. ND's fall from the absolute top was probably inevitable but nothing's been done to slow the decline. Hiring Kelly was a good first start. They've gone from bulletproof to looking seriously at joining a conference. If they'd been the ND of old, or something even approaching it, they'd be calling their own shots. Do you think if you just continue making things up, it will come true? I'm trying to find some nugget of truth in your blabbering on. Must be a trick you learned from Poodle. Next thing we know, you'll sneak out of town just before [expletive] hits the fan. What part of saying that Weis won one bowl game against Hawaii, had a worse record than Davie and Willingham, ended the win streak against Navy, and coached the worst team in Notre Dame history constitutes making things up? The Weis era was better for ND than either Davie or Willingham's. Weis beat ranked opponents, took ND to 2 straight BCS bowls and won their first bowl game in over a decade. But more importantly, he put the program in a much better position to succeed long term, undoing years of damage wrought by his predecessors. If you can't grasp that, you're just burying your head in the sand or you don't understand the most basic elements of CFB. Oh, and the calling their own shots things is funny. ND really caved under pressure. You have no idea how seriously they looked at joining a conference. You know absolutely nothing. Doesn't stop you from spouting off about it. Poodle would be proud. You said significantly better. There is nothing that happened on the football field that was significantly better about his era than Davie's or Willingham's. And I would submit that Weis did nothing to help the program maintain a position of strength in trying to be independent. I THINK he probably did quite a bit of harm if the goal is to keep ND independent long term. But you can continue to get bent out of shape over my completely innocuous opinions.

I don't know why you keep bringing up the Emerald Bowl as if I mentioned it or it has any relevance here or would even submit that it's better than losing in a BCS game. The Weis era was not significantly better than his predecessors. That is a total fiction. Worse overall record than either Davie OR Willingham, 1 bowl win over Hawaii, coached probably the worst team in school history, ended the Navy win streak, and the biggest "win" under his tenure was a loss. At least Davie and Willingham had the temerity to beat a ranked opponent here and there. Anyway, I would argue that ND getting blown out in BCS games (hell, bowl games in general) is a part of why they're being pursued here. ND's fall from the absolute top was probably inevitable but nothing's been done to slow the decline. Hiring Kelly was a good first start. They've gone from bulletproof to looking seriously at joining a conference. If they'd been the ND of old, or something even approaching it, they'd be calling their own shots. Do you think if you just continue making things up, it will come true? I'm trying to find some nugget of truth in your blabbering on. Must be a trick you learned from Poodle. Next thing we know, you'll sneak out of town just before [expletive] hits the fan. What part of saying that Weis won one bowl game against Hawaii, had a worse record than Davie and Willingham, ended the win streak against Navy, and coached the worst team in Notre Dame history constitutes making things up?

I figure OU/UT was already slated to move to Cowboys Stadium like every over sporting event in the world.

I don't know why you keep bringing up the Emerald Bowl as if I mentioned it or it has any relevance here or would even submit that it's better than losing in a BCS game. The Weis era was not significantly better than his predecessors. That is a total fiction. Worse overall record than either Davie OR Willingham, 1 bowl win over Hawaii, coached probably the worst team in school history, ended the Navy win streak, and the biggest "win" under his tenure was a loss. At least Davie and Willingham had the temerity to beat a ranked opponent here and there. Anyway, I would argue that ND getting blown out in BCS games (hell, bowl games in general) is a part of why they're being pursued here. ND's fall from the absolute top was probably inevitable but nothing's been done to slow the decline. Hiring Kelly was a good first start. They've gone from bulletproof to looking seriously at joining a conference. If they'd been the ND of old, or something even approaching it, they'd be calling their own shots.

Better to lose in the Fiesta bowl than squeak out a win in the Emerald bowl. Even better if you didn't have to cheat to get there. I was actually being serious. Seeing ND obliterated in games people already resent them being in doesn't help anything. Being in a BCS game, even if you lose, is good for the program. Financially, for fans, for recruiting. Cheating to get to the Emerald Bowl, or a national title game, is bad for the program. At least in my opinion. You have more direct experience, so you may feel differently. Getting to a BCS game when you have the deck stacked in your favor and then getting blown out by superior teams is a good thing financially, in the short term. It has diminished the brand though. If ND was putting the wood down on teams in big games they wouldn't even consider joining the Big 10 would they? And from a competitive standpoint, getting to those BCS games hasn't helped at all. The trend has been decisively negative except for Willingham's first 8 games and Weis's first year. It's not the unvarnished good thing you make it out to be.

Better to lose in the Fiesta bowl than squeak out a win in the Emerald bowl. Even better if you didn't have to cheat to get there. I was actually being serious. Seeing ND obliterated in games people already resent them being in doesn't help anything.

Getting ND in a conference so they can stop getting waxed in BCS games they don't deserve to be in probably helps the brand.

It's not like Nebraska was terrible or anything. I think most people think Pelini's got them on the right track. They could/should have beaten Texas last year.

http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/statistics/players/distanceandspeed.html Apparently FIFA is using chips in players shoes to track speed and distance covered. Robbie Findley hit over 30 kilometers/hr and has the 3rd fastest top speed recorded thus far.

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l3x1hpbWR31qz82gvo1_500.jpg

That's a mild surprise. I was sort of expecting lots of hemming and hawing about why this transition should last longer than the US's involvement in World War I.

As long as we're all admitting that these things aren't very quantifiable then couldn't I argue that England might play worse by feeling additional pressure as opposed to playing better because they have to try harder?

Kyle's point isn't necessarily moot, just misguided. It's been fun arguing with people who spend much less energy following and understanding the subtleties of a sport than USSoccer and I, but since it's clear you're happy in your obstinacy, I'll leave it at this. A 65% chance is better than a 55% chance. Beyond that, more than any other sport, soccer is difficult to quantify. Unlike baseball, abstract things like confidence and momentum matter. With all the importance stressed on this game both among fans/media and the teams themselves, getting a point is very important. What's more important is the confidence and momentum it imparts to the US team. The US and England will advance. They probably would have advanced even if England won, but to say you're not sure how this helps just shows your ignorance of the sport. I see what you're saying. I would question why momentum and confidence don't matter in baseball just because it's quantifiable though. I think those are the wrong adjectives. Chemistry or something like that, sure. Soccer requires far more teamwork than baseball.

Keep hammering overly simplistic explanations that miss important nuances with heavyhanded sarcasm. It's apparently the only club in your bag, so I can see why you feel the need to use it every shot. The only realistic scenario in which the point against England makes the difference between advancing and not advancing is if the U.S. draws with either Slovenia and Algeria, defeats the other one by a narrow margin, the one that we draw against beats the one that we lost against by a large margin, and the one that we draw against manages to lose to England narrowly. That exact scenario has a slim chance of happening. In the World Cup system, the marginal value of "points" is not nearly as absolute as you want to pretend it is. Some points are huge, some are relatively unimportant. You just made my argument for me. Thank you, Kyle. In a tournament when there is so little margin for error, leaving points on the table is unacceptable. As unrealistic as your proposed scenario is, it could still happen and if it does, you spend the next 4 years kicking yourself for it. Last year at the Confed's Cup we lost two terrible games and had to beat Egypt, the two-time reigning African Champions 3-0 and had to have Italy lose to Brazil 3-0. That was the only scenario where we would advance. I think if you went to some Italian message board, there'd probably be some misguided, under-informed poster arguing like you, that leaving points on the table against Egypt in the second game wasn't a bad thing because it didn't effect their odds of advancing due to the unlikelihood of the confluence of events that happened to happen. But it did. So please stop being dumb, it's ruining my favorite thread. So some weird crap happened in the Confederations Cup so Kyle's point is moot? If that's the counter argument you would've made if Kyle hadn't made it for you then I would say he is basically right--there isn't much of a difference between a loss and a tie.

Onyewu had one really bad giveaway way up field that Howard was exposed on. He got better after that though.