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So if Oklahoma loses tonight, there will be several things open up. One, the Big 12 South will still be up for grabs depending on the results this week. If I read the tiebreakers correctly, it will all be dependent on an Oklahoma win next week. if Oklahoma wins, they win the South. If Oklahoma loses, Texas goes no matter if they win against A&M or not (they'd win by themselves if they beat A&M and they would have the tiebreaker in the 3 team tie with Oklahoma and Oklahoma State). Plus, that would leave only 6 viable teams for the national title, with several of those teams having serious tests next week. I honestly don't think you'll see any more than 3 of those 6 remaining by the time the dust settles, maybe 4. Ohio State is already 1 of those that will be remaining, although they are at the back of that 1 loss pack and so will need losses from the others to sneak into the title game.

Sorry, I can't follow you there. There's something to be said for the relativity between bad wins and good losses, but you can't weight them equally like that, it's the fundamental purpose of the sport. sure you can. we're talking about predicting who is better. in terms of future performance, theyre identical. This may sound crazy, but why are we talking about predicting future performance? Ranking the teams should be a reflection of what has happened, not what the percentages are moving forward. we're asking which teams is better. Which is more important? what theyve done or how good they are? answer: how good they are Now you're just playing with words. What's more important in determining team strength, what might happen, or what actually has happened? what might happen because it pretty much uses what has actually happened as a basis...we're talking about looking at what has happened, and then saying what things in the past point towards success in the future. in reality beating a team by 1 point is roughly equivalent to losing to the same team by 1. that's the ultimate idea. But it isn't equivalent. You're penalizing teams who use a form of the prevent defense that makes scores closer than they should be but is an effective winning strategy. Some games that were decided by 7 points or less were decided on 1 play (a field goal going in or out, etc.) Others though were never in doubt. There is no easy way to account for the difference between those types of games, and so the win by itself has to count for a lot.

A quality loss does count for something, but it's not worth nearly as much as a win over a similar team (and in the computers there isn't that big of a difference between Tennesee and Penn State, and watching them gives the same result). Football isn't the same in baseball in this. Close losses aren't necessarily due to luck. Luck can play a factor in it, but it's much easier in football for a team to control its own destiny and make the plays to win. Vanderbilt has shown repeatedly this year that they struggle in close games in the 4th quarter. They've led or been tied in a few games that they've blown. That pattern shouldn't be attributed to luck, and the fact that Michigan State did make the plays needed to win the ballgame makes a big difference.

TAMU beat Okie State and has five losses ... then Kansas had to survive against them MSU beat PSU and has five losses ... then Ohio State had to survive against them Vandy beat SC and has six losses ... then they keep it close UGA, Tenn and Kentucky It's pretty darn close. MSU has also beat Purdue, Indiana, and Bowling Green, all winning teams, 2 from BCS conferences. The only other winning team (in I-A) that Vandy has beaten is Miami of Ohio. Texas A&M is about the same as Vandy having beaten only Fresno State besides that Oklahoma State win. Vandy and Texas A&M are comparable. Michigan State had a little better resume than Vandy before today. Now, they have a much better resume.

Tennessee survives Vanderbilt 25-24 as Vandy misses a field goal with 30 seconds left.

It's not that delusional. A Hawaii loss is the big obstacle now. There's other obstacles besides that. First, Illinois has to climb 5 spots to even be considered. Even if they do climb the 5 spots, how are they going to get picked over the other teams in the top 14? There are a lot of traditional national powerhouses up there. I don't see any way that Illinois gets picked over teams such as USC, Florida, Texas, WV (if they lose to UConn), LSU (if they lose to Georgia in the SEC title game), or the 2 losers of the Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma triad. There's simply no way that Illinois even gets close to making a BCS game unless tons of teams start losing in their last game. Each conference can only get two teams. So that means it can be LSU + UF/Georgia, 2 of OU, Kansas, Missouri, USC + Oregon/ASU. ACC and BE champs get in. Of course OSU Texas has no chance of getting in. Oh, I forgot that silly rule. What I was thinking is that they had adopted my proposal which they really should to raise that limit to 3. When you have to have 4 at large teams from just 6 conferences, it makes no sense to limit it to 1 per conference. I agree with the rule when there was only 2 at-larges, but now when there's 4 it leads to a lot of deserving teams being left out.

It's not that delusional. A Hawaii loss is the big obstacle now. There's other obstacles besides that. First, Illinois has to climb 5 spots to even be considered. Even if they do climb the 5 spots, how are they going to get picked over the other teams in the top 14? There are a lot of traditional national powerhouses up there. I don't see any way that Illinois gets picked over teams such as USC, Florida, Texas, WV (if they lose to UConn), LSU (if they lose to Georgia in the SEC title game), or the 2 losers of the Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma triad. There's simply no way that Illinois even gets close to making a BCS game unless tons of teams start losing in their last game.

Some interesting scores around the nation right now. Alabama 14, Louisiana Monroe 14 early 3rd. Alabama in an unexpected battle to try to get a 7th win before the Iron Bowl next week. Minnesota 10, Wisconsin 3 early 2nd. It's pretty inexcusable to be down to Minnesota if you're any kind of decent team in the 2nd quarter. Western Michigan 12, Iowa 0 early 2nd. Huh? Suddenly the fact that Iowa is guaranteed 7 wins and a bowl is called into question, which could be huge news for teams like Indiana, Purdue, and Michigan State. Still very early to say that's probable, but with Iowa's bad offense it is at least a big concern for them at this point.

Actually it is the 5th tiebreaker. http://bigten.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/102204aad.html Looks like 4th tiebreaker in that link-#1 saying ineligble teams don't count isn't really a tiebreaker. I didn't realize they had put in the games against Division I-AA teams as an actual tiebreaker.

Florida's sleepwalking a little bit against Florida Atlantic. I have no doubts they'll win the game, probably by over 20 points, but only a 28-20 lead a minute before halftime isn't so good.

It's on ESPN at noon, at least in my area. I don't think they do regional coverage at noon (so it should be on everywhere), but I'm not completely sure of that.

Agreed. I remember his interview in the 4th quarter. Someone asked him to compare his latest injury to the one that he had the previous week. He said he felt about the same, and that he would be fine. He obviously wanted to talk the coaching staff into letting him play even after the 2nd time, but I'm glad they shut him down at that point. Still though, he never even came close to letting on in the interview that it could be a serious injury, and the fact that he went out there with that is impressive.

No way! I thought you needed to play like four months in the bigs! It's 130 AB's, 50 innings, or 45 days on the roster before September call-ups.

YOU'RE bitter...I'M bitter. UM/OSU would be essentially meaningless if you guys had just beaten Iowa, because you'd have clinched a Rose Bowl berth by now. This has been said multiple times, but how is it true? If Michigan beats OSU it leaves them and hypothetical Illinois tied, with Michigan winning head-to-head. The Big 10's tie-breaker scheme is similar to what one would do in a pee-wee football league. Throw out the head-to-heads, throw out point differentials, anything objective that might determine who is the actual best TEAM in the conference. Whoever hasn't won it for the longest is simply declared the champs. And that would be Illinois this year. That's the third tiebreaker. The first is head to head, the second is overall record.

I think it's a little too convenient of a deal to be true, but it does have a lot of elements that are true. First, there is nobody in that deal that any of the 3 organizations are particularly attached to. Church, Drew, Dempster, and Murton are probably the 4 biggest, and all 4 of them have been involved in trade talks at one time or another. So it's not like it's unlikely that any of those clubs would give up those players. At the same time, the Red Sox part of the deal doesn't really match up very well. I think the Nationals are receiving a little too much and the Cubs are receiving a little too much and the Red Sox aren't receiving enough. The only way that rumor would be true is if the Red Sox really have taken a liking to Marshall or Cedeno, which is possible. Also, it's hard to say how much the Red Sox want to get out of the Drew deal. Their desperation might make them be willing to take less. So I believe this deal is fair enough that I wouldn't be absolutely shocked if it was actually reported, but it also seems contrived at the same time with the amount of players involved. It seems like somebody just took the 3 teams, mixed around their spare pieces, and then declared it a trade. It might be a trade that helps all 3 clubs and it's fair, but trades like that simply don't happen very often. Also, I believe a lot of people were speculating on the Marquis deal before it went down, so that's not a big point for the credibility of the person.

He said the Cubs were approaching a deal with Matsui, although he didn't know the length or the dollar amount. Of course, he reported this last night, and there's nothing yet.

Yeah, I heard a minute or two of that. They were wondering why every player busted for steroids weren't being prosecuted. They brought up Mcgwire as a counterexample. I wanted to scream at them that steroids weren't the reason that Bonds is being prosecuted, it's that he lied about using them to a grand jury. Mcgwire never did that, nor did pretty much everybody on the Mitchell list (another thing they brought up wondering if the feds are going to go after all of them too). It was a really, really poor argument, actually worse than ESPN usually is.

Yeah, he was one of 5 GMs to vote against it. LOL. Probably the same 5 GM's who have yet to embrace OBP, also. Voted for: Kenny Williams, Brian Cashman, Pat Gillick, Dan O'Dowd , J.P. Riccardi, Josh Byrnes, Jim Bowden, John Mozeliak, Billy Beane Ed Wade is one of the other 4 who didn't vote for it. Doug Melvin also voted against it. I didn't find anyone else who revealed their vote. BTW, on a related off topic note, instant replay is still a long way from coming into the game also. There is no plan, and it has to be approved by several more groups before even formulating a plan. It will be a couple years at least. Edit: Sorry for all the edits. I'll keep editing this as I find more G.M.'s who voted for or against.

Trading Lee would almost certainly makes us a better team next year because the Cubs could upgrade majorly at another position and then plug Ward in at first base. It would have to be somebody young and productive though because the Cubs would then have to go free agent shopping for a first baseman after the season, and the good ones don't come very cheap. I'd also be very sad to lose Lee, but I understand that sometimes you have to make the hard decisions if you want to get better. People like Lee don't usually get traded though because of perception. If the Cubs didn't make the playoffs next year, even if they put a better product on the field, fans are going to point to the Lee move as the reason why. Perception wise, it's hard to win from the deal and easy to lose from it.

The Cubs don't have nearly enough payroll for all that (that's 30 million added between CF, RF, and SS and the Cubs don't have nearly that much money). If one of Matsui or DeRosa plays SS (creating a Matsui/Theriot platoon), and it lures Fukudome over, it's not horrible. It's still not a great situation, but it's not doom and gloom either. If Matsui and DeRosa end up sharing time at 2nd, or if Fukudome doesn't come, then it become horrible.

It's possible. However, even Daryle Ward will get involved with the stolen base frenzy if Kendall is Milwaukee's C next year. Now, let's not get out of hand. Kendall was able to throw some people out on delayed steals, and with Ward, every steal is a delayed steal. :D

A lot of Texas fans consider OU to be their biggest rival now. And as someone knowing people from both the USMA and USNA, I can assure you that the Army-Navy game is the most important game of the year for both teams. The Notre Dame game will probably be much tougher for Navy to win than the Army game will be, but I would guess that if you'd asked everyone on Navy's football team who they'd rather beat this year, at least 90% would've said Army. The thing about that is now that Navy has beat ND it won't matter as much. I look at it this way. If Army is 1-11 and their only win is over Navy their coach will probably stay. If any of those other teams are 1-11 no matter who they beat their coach is gone, biggest rival or not. You could say it the opposite way though. If Army went 10-2 or 11-1 every year but continued to lose to Navy would the coach keep his job. The answer is definitely! That isn't the case for some of the other schools on that list.

Senior

Could this be the year that a team with 2 losses could win the national title? There are 8 teams currently at the top of the BCS standings with 1 loss. At least 2 of them will be knocked out in the Big 12 scramble. Oregon could go down tonight. That leaves LSU, West Virginia, Ohio State, Arizona State, and that remaining Big 12 team for 2 spots. 4 of those teams could conceivably lose making a 1 loss team and a 2 loss team playing for the national title. Also, if it does come down to 2 loss teams there are going to be a million of them that want their shot.

There is no type C anymore, so I'm not sure what to call Matsui. He's not an A or a B (remember, each of the categories were made more exclusive this year, so there's actually only a few infielders at all classified as an A or a B).