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The Pacers are in a strange spot now. They have to spend money to reach the cap floor (probably 10-12 million). But the free agents this year are not going to be as good as the ones next year so they might try to entice some people with large 1 year deals and really use the cap space to go after a difference maker next year. It's also hard to figure out what position to upgrade because their team is so young that it really depends on which players develop more and which don't. They are still rumored for the big power forwards in this class though (West and Nene especially). The amnesty clause came at the worst time for them after they spent 4-5 years systematically getting rid of all their bad contracts.

Yeah, that couldn't be any more of a perfect scenario for the Bulls. They can cut Boozer whenever he either tanks or they badly need the cap space (which neither one is this year).

Michigan-Houston or possibly Michigan-Stanford should be an entertaining bowl game.

I think there will be a great number who do that. The issue becomes is that right now every single pollster in the coaches poll has Alabama at 2, and almost every single one has them at 2 in the Harris poll. So if 60% of pollsters switch to make Oklahoma State at 2 and the others leave them at 5, that will still leave Alabama at #2 in the polls (I'd have to do the math to see if the computer rankings would push Oklahoma State past or not at that point). If I get a chance I'll try to do the math, but I'd estimate Oklahoma State would need between 65 and 75 percent of the pollsters to switch to tie Alabama in the polls. If Va Tech or Stanford loses, that number goes down though because the pollsters who don't switch them will put Oklahoma State at 4 instead of 5 which will help their average considerably.

So am I reading this right...UCLA wins the Pac 12 south title. But if they lose against USC and then to Oregon/Stanford, they won't be bowl eligible because they'll be under .500 at that point? So winning their division gives them a chance at a BCS bowl and also caused them to probably miss a bowl entirely.

Maybe. Virginia and Notre Dame wins tomorrow would complicate things. Oklahoma State will likely be a little better than Alabama in the computers to end the season, so if they find a way to get up to #3 or #4 in the polls after this weekend and have an impressive performance against Oklahoma, that might be enough to convince enough pollsters. If Va Tech and Stanford both win out, I'd say it's almost impossible for Oklahoma State to do enough. I was thinking that but the point was made during halftime that Oklahoma State was dropped only to 4 after their loss. I think the voters are setting up to move Oklahoma State to two if they beat Oklahoma. The voters have Oklahoma State at 6. It's only the fact that they're 2nd in computer rankings that they are 4th in the BCS rankings. They'll either have to be 2nd or a close 3rd in the polls to get to 2nd in the BCS rankings, and that means that they will have to jump Alabama, Va Tech, and Stanford in the polls. That would be an awfully big jump to have them jump 3 teams just to manipulate the BCS.

Maybe. Virginia and Notre Dame wins tomorrow would complicate things. Oklahoma State will likely be a little better than Alabama in the computers to end the season, so if they find a way to get up to #3 or #4 in the polls after this weekend and have an impressive performance against Oklahoma, that might be enough to convince enough pollsters. If Va Tech and Stanford both win out, I'd say it's almost impossible for Oklahoma State to do enough.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=15574 The whole thing is a very good read. The best news to me was that the consensus that Vitters has made strides defensively to be an average 3B with an above average arm. It'd be nice to only have to worry about him on one front. That is very good. That is the only reason I can see putting Vitters in the top 10. If he's a 1B/LF, he's pretty far down the list of prospects. But at 3B, he still has a lot of upside remaining. And the report on Ha is very different than the one that BA gave. They said he was the best CF defensively in the system while BP says that he's not quite suited for CF. The BP one makes more sense for his relative lack of hype and placement outside the top 10. Because with his age, his numbers, and playing a good defensive CF it made no sense why BA would not put him in the top 10. Ha just turned 21 after the season and is already in AA.

Why are the Bears losing to the Seahawks in the ideal scenario? I'd imagine because it was the only way to get the Seahawks to a good enough record to knock the Saints, Packers, and Giants out. If you have the Bears win that game Green Bay becomes the 6 seed and would face the Bears in the divisional round if they won.

He's been worse than Tarvaris Jackson, Donovan McNabb and Kerry Collins this year. And I don't see anybody scrambling to sign Collins. He's barely been better than Tim Tebow, for Theo's sake. Collins isn't available. The Colts have him on IR and technically have him under contract for next year (but there's no way they're paying him 10 million next year). Looking at Orton's numbers this year is probably a little underrating him, but between his mediocre play and his poor fit for Martz's offense I would be wary of him too.

He was recruiting Harris, but he chose Michigan State. As far as I know he isn't recruiting anyone else, but I am not the most plugged in on that front. They still should be recruiting for 2013 because they have another scholarship left to fill in that class (and possibly 2 depending on how the oversign situation works itself out for 2012).

Not that IU is going to beat Kentucky, but I wouldn't write it off as a blowout just yet. IU played UK close into the second half the last two years before faltering, and this IU team is much better (Kentucky may be better, who knows, they're always loaded with talent so it's hard to say). Pomeroy has UK with a 75% chance of winning, but the margin of victory at only eight. But, you're without the legend of Mo Creek! True. IU is going to miss Creek's 31.0 points-per-game average against Kentucky. Did you hear that he scored 31 points against Kentucky as a freshman? Technically, the hobbled version of Creek did make it to the Kentucky game last year and was pretty terrible. After watching IU for a few games, I still don't know who will transfer to make room for the oversign. The four names that I guess something could happen with are Etherington, Sheehey, Jurkin, or Creek, but I don't see any of those as very likely.

Ok, let's do the same comparison with Michigan, Michigan State, and Notre Dame. Let's assume all 3 win their final game and then Michigan State loses to Wisconsin in the title game. Is it fair to rank a 3 loss Notre Dame team ahead of a 2 loss Michigan team that beat them? No. Is it fair to rank a 3 loss Michigan State team ahead of a 3 loss Notre Dame team that beat them? No. And you say it is also unfair to rank Michigan ahead of Michigan State in that scenario. All 3 of those cannot exist together. So how do you rank those teams? That's the problem with using head to head. It never is just about ranking two teams against each other. Sure, if you limit it to just Michigan and Michigan State then it seems unfair. But when you expand it to making an actual ranking of all the teams, there is no fair way to rank Michigan State, Michigan, Notre Dame, and Nebraska in a top 25 poll using head to head. There is always going to be some head to head matchup you have to ignore to make it work. So you have to go by total resume. BTW, if Michigan State does lose in the title game, it won't matter if the voters keep them right in front of Michigan or not. Michigan would be so far ahead of them in the computer rankings at that point that they would move ahead of them in the BCS standings. Don't fight the hypo. The reason you can narrow this discussion to 2 teams is bc that's the question: Team A won the teams' division, beat Team B h2h, and only has 3 losses bc they played in the title game. As between those 2, which should be ranked higher/be eligible for a bcs bowl? It doesn't work with ND bc they aren't in the same division and don't have a conference title game. UM only has fewer losses than MSU (in our hypo) bc MSU won h2h and thus played in a "bonus" game while UM sat at home. Doesn't seem fair to punish the team that lost what is basically a 1-game playoff for the benefit of the team that didn't even play in the playoff. I would agree it doesn't seem fair, but it's the most fair way to do it. Ranking a 3 loss Michigan State team over a 2 loss Michigan team creates much bigger problems than the ones it solves.

If Michigan doesn't beat Ohio State, things get really interesting for that last at-large spot. A 3 loss Oklahoma? Kansas State? Baylor? Boise State? Va Tech if Clemson beats them? Maybe even ND if everything breaks right? I can't see how any other Big 10 team would be eligible in that scenario. Nobody in the Big East will be eligible, and the Pac 12 and SEC would already have teams in. I have no idea who would get in.

Ok, let's do the same comparison with Michigan, Michigan State, and Notre Dame. Let's assume all 3 win their final game and then Michigan State loses to Wisconsin in the title game. Is it fair to rank a 3 loss Notre Dame team ahead of a 2 loss Michigan team that beat them? No. Is it fair to rank a 3 loss Michigan State team ahead of a 3 loss Notre Dame team that beat them? No. And you say it is also unfair to rank Michigan ahead of Michigan State in that scenario. All 3 of those cannot exist together. So how do you rank those teams? That's the problem with using head to head. It never is just about ranking two teams against each other. Sure, if you limit it to just Michigan and Michigan State then it seems unfair. But when you expand it to making an actual ranking of all the teams, there is no fair way to rank Michigan State, Michigan, Notre Dame, and Nebraska in a top 25 poll using head to head. There is always going to be some head to head matchup you have to ignore to make it work. So you have to go by total resume. BTW, if Michigan State does lose in the title game, it won't matter if the voters keep them right in front of Michigan or not. Michigan would be so far ahead of them in the computer rankings at that point that they would move ahead of them in the BCS standings.

doesn't that mean msu should refuse to play in the championship game them? why risk falling behind umich? Because if they win they get an automatic bid. And Michigan State would be unlikely to get picked as an at-large anyway even if they were ahead of Michigan. Conference championship games have to carry risk or else the conferences with conference championships would have an inherent advantage over those who don't.

Absolutely. Right now, Michigan and Michigan State's resume is virtually identical. Michigan has had the slightly harder schedule and Michigan State has the head to head win (although I don't put much stock in that, since there are so many times in college football where A beats B beats C who beats A). Michigan is already ahead in the computer rankings. If Michigan State plays another similar team and loses, should they not get penalized even a little bit for that? Because even a little bit of a penalty would put them clearly behind Michigan. No, they shouldn't, but they will. W hy do you justify discounting head to head by talking about something completely unrelated? Because it applies in this situation. If the season plays out like this: Michigan 10-2 Michigan State 10-3 Nebraska 9-3 Who should be ranked in front of the others? Head to head doesn't matter in this case because they all beat each other. A championship game gives a team another chance to prove itself. It beefs up their strength of schedule. But it also gives them another chance to lose. With the benefits come risks as well.

Absolutely. Right now, Michigan and Michigan State's resume is virtually identical. Michigan has had the slightly harder schedule and Michigan State has the head to head win (although I don't put much stock in that, since there are so many times in college football where A beats B beats C who beats A). Michigan is already ahead in the computer rankings. If Michigan State plays another similar team and loses, should they not get penalized even a little bit for that? Because even a little bit of a penalty would put them clearly behind Michigan.

Michigan should be eligible with a win. They'll jump Georgia if they lose the SEC championship game. If Wisconsin jumps them, that also means Michigan will jump Michigan State since Wisconsin will have to beat them. Clemson and South Carolina play, so only one of them at most will be ahead of Michigan at the end of the season (and if Clemson beats South Carolina and loses to Va Tech, Michigan could be ahead of both of them). Baylor is the only real concern who could jump them. And there are still upsets (such as Tulsa beating Houston) that will allow Michigan to jump some unexpected teams. I'd put the odds at only 5-10% that Michigan wouldn't be eligible with a win over Ohio State.

Yeah, that was really bad. ND wasn't going to beat Stanford anyway, but any thought of it probably went up in smoke now that we've only got one RB for that game. That means Kelly's going to unleash Rees, which could mean 4 or 5 INTs instead of just 1 or 2. Why do you think ND had no shot against Stanford? I'm not sure Stanford is all that great. They don't have to be. Rees hasn't improved in the slightest, despite playing well into the 4th in almost every game. Kelly must have banked on him improving throughout the year and it just hasn't happened. Teams drop 8-9 guys and make him throw into coverage b/c he can't run, can't zip the ball, and can't throw deep. Gray (guy who blew out his knee) had outperformed Wood for about 8 weeks and gave ND 2 quality RBs. Now we have a junior and 2 true freshman at RB. It's not going to be pretty. Doesn't matter. At either 8 or 9 wins, ND is going to the Champs Sports bowl. There you go, UMFan. Mariner described it more eloquently than I would have but that's it in a nutshell. And as for Rees, God, does ND ever need Hendrix or (more likely) Golson to take the starting job from Rees in the off-season. With him at QB, ND's ceiling is 8 or 9 wins. Yup. I really hope Kelly is open to that because Rees will really limit their potential. It looks like ND could get back to the teens of the BCS with a win over Stanford, but they would need a lot of craziness to get anywhere near 14. The funny thing is that the polls and computers disagree with each other so much on other teams right now that ND is 24 and 23 in the polls, 25.25 computer ranking, and yet that averages out for them to a 22nd BCS ranking.

The only thing about Green Bay is that they also have the whole perfect season thing going. If that's still intact in week 16 regardless of whether they clinced the division and byes, I could see them playing their starters throughout. Yeah, I don't see GB resting starters in week 16. Either they still have their undefeated season going or they won't have clinched homefield advantage yet. Either scenario could have them playing. If San Francisco happens to beat one of Baltimore/Pittsburgh, then it could be both.

All players like LaHair have a chance to be real. But are the chances high enough to risk being given the amount of playing time needed to find out? That's the issue. In general, players like LaHair don't work out. Is LaHair an exception? Maybe. Can the Cubs afford to take the risk to find out? Probably not unless the other options are not that great because the downside of him busting would be too damaging to the team.

Nope. Throwing it near an eligible receiver trumps all. You have to get it past the line of scrimmage when you're out of the pocket.

Akers has made 2 of his 5 field goal attempts through the first quarter and a half.

The Dolphins actually have a positive point differential on the season as of this moment. That's pretty exceptional for a team trying to get to 3-7 on the season.