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They probably could have but that also would have likely been close to the end of their offseason. I'm not sure he was worth that. Edit: And as TT said who knows if the Marlins really wanted a player like Infante as a replacement for Uggla and the Cubs couldn't offer somebody like that.

Yes, because that's exactly what I said. I said "8-10 in conference" they would need and named 3 teams they would need to beat twice (which I meant to put Iowa instead of NW). If you put 2 and 2 together, that would mean they would have to win 2 more games vs. the other teams in conference.....which would mean 2 wins over good teams. Which means you're once again trying to convince yourself that IU will never be decent again by constantly responding negatively to posts that are even remotely positive about IU. I think he's saying that 18-20 wins is not going to impress the committee with IU's relatively weak nonconference schedule (and as you mentioned a lucky conference schedule as well). A losing record in conference will not get IU into the NCAA's. They would probably need to go 10-8 in conference and get a Big 10 tournament win to get in. Even that might not be enough (see Penn State in 2008 who was left out with that resume).

when you hire good people at the vp level of a mlb org, does it matter what the title is? besides, based on his blog, doesn't seem like a bad fit. Well, yeah, there's still a large bit of differentiation. Take Jim Hendry, he did a very good job on the player development side, and now that he has to do more than that he's not nearly as effective. DePo, for all his abilities, doesn't seem like an optimal match for the Scouting/Player Development role. Is Jim Hendry a VP? I didn't say GM level. Jim Hendry is a VP as are several GM's around the league.

Manning gets hit a pretty good amount now. He doesn't get sacked very much because he gets rid of the ball so quickly but it's hard avoiding your share of hits when your offensive line is well below average.

I wonder if this will be in the back of pollster's minds when they make out their ballots. A few people might push TCU ahead of Auburn just on the chance that Newton will be suspended by the time the national championship game happens.

Cody said that he would start recruiting players immediately and he mentioned Yogi by name. With IU needing another point guard by 2012 and at least 2 other players recruiting him it would seem like IU has everything lined up for Yogi. IU needs a point guard by 2010. I would say they need another one. Hulls running the point for 20-25 minutes a game isn't bad. The problem is who runs the point for the rest of the time. And by 2012, it will be worse since there's nobody in the 2010-2011 classes that can really run the point.

Cody said that he would start recruiting players immediately and he mentioned Yogi by name. With IU needing another point guard by 2012 and at least 2 other players recruiting him it would seem like IU has everything lined up for Yogi.

They are 3-3 now. Are they legit? I heard about of preseason hype from Pacer fans but not a lot outside of Indy. Btw that is a mind boggling quarter. They look like they could make the next step and get 38-45 wins and maybe a playoff spot. They finally have a legit point guard in Collison, Hibbert continues to improve, and Granger/Dunleavy/Rush should provide a pretty good amount of perimeter scoring. Their power forward position doesn't look as bad as it did before the season as the energy guys they're putting out there help complement all the scorers on the floor nicely. But they're definitely the type of team who can beat anybody and who can also lose to anybody so there will be some wild swings for them during the season.

The Pacers were 4 seconds away with finishing a quarter with a 100% field goal percentage tonight. Instead they had to settle for finishing 20/21 from the field in the quarter and scored 54 points in the 3rd.

That's kind of what I thought too. I don't think I would be all that excited for the guy, but that's probably not fair since he isn't his brothers. Cody's really important to IU for 2 reasons. The first is what people have mentioned is that he is seen as the piece that might bring even more elite recruits to Indiana. And the 2nd is simply that IU could really use another big body. We all know that Crean can recruit guards. To pair them with big men with talent makes those big men really important pieces. IU doesn't need Zeller to actually be the 20th ranked player in the country for him to be a huge get for them. They just need a solid player at the positions that they are sorely lacking at and also a possible help in recruiting momentum.

Only 1 non-BCS team ranked 12 of higher is guaranteed, which would of course be TCU. Does that apply for the title game? If TCU were to make the title game, would one of the BCS bowls have to pick Boise State because of that rule? As far as I understand it from reading the rules no. Only 1 team can automatically qualify from a minor conference in any year unless both were to make the national championship game.

Huh? http://espn.go.com/college-football/bowls/projections?season=2010&week=10 One has them in the Rose Bowl, the other in the Sugar Bowl. I'll see if I can find it. There was one that had Oklahoma State in a BCS game instead of Boise State last night. It makes sense based on how the bowls are picked that Boise could get left out. If Oregon and Auburn win out, Big 10 winner locked into Rose: let's say Wisconsin right now Big XII winner locked into Fiesta: Nebraska ACC winner locked into Orange: Virginia Tech So there would be 5 slots left. The Rose Bowl would be contractually obligated to take TCU to fill Oregon's slot. The Sugar would be next and they would want to pick an SEC team if they can. A 1 loss or maybe even a 2 loss LSU team (or possibly a 2 loss Arkansas team if they win out) would be a logical choice for them. Then the Sugar gets to pick again. This would probably be the only place left for Boise to go. But the Sugar might be concerned about Boise's ability to travel and could easily pick a Ohio State, a Stanford, or somebody like that who's left out there. After the Sugar comes the Orange. If VT is sitting in the game they aren't picking Boise to face them since they already played this season. They'll select an at-large. Finally comes the Fiesta and they'll be forced to pick the Big East winner which none of the other bowls wanted. It's bad for Boise because if a major conference team finishes 3rd or 4th in the overall standings they automatically qualify even if they don't win their conference. But Boise will not automatically qualify even if they hold on to 4th. The Fiesta would probably want Boise again but they aren't going to be able to pick them. There are lots of scenarios where Boise's chance of getting picked increases but there are several scenarios in where they aren't likely to get picked.

There's a couple of things: 1) Their conference is almost always going to drag them down. 2/3 of their games are in conference and strong OOC scheduling is only going to help them so much. 2). It's hard for top teams to play them because of the heavy emphasis on the polls. You're likely to get beat and even if you don't you always run the risk of the pollsters saying Boise isn't that good because they don't have many other chances for signature wins. If you're a top team, you'd much rather schedule Oklahoma or Alabama than Boise because you'll get more respect in the polls for blowing out those teams.

No way. He would not come back if Childress is still there. If his effort wasn't bad enough last week... I know, Moss is likely gone. But just in general is the waiver processes similar for both MLB and NFL? MLB has both revocable waivers (which is the type that most players get put on every year) and irrevocable waivers. IIRC, NFL has only irrevocable waivers, so Moss has to get released by the Vikings when they put him on waivers (or they have to give him up if he gets claimed).

I wouldn't consider Philly's schedule that much harder than the Giants remaining. The Eagles have to host the Colts, Texans, and Vikings and go on the road to Chicago. The Giants have to play at Green Bay, at Minnesota, and at Seattle while hosting Jacksonville. The Giants have an extra game with Washington and the Eagles have an extra game at Dallas. Those schedules are pretty much a tossup when you consider how good Seattle can be at home and how poor the Texans have been in the past on the road (although they have pulled out 2 close wins this year). It will probably come down to the two Giants-Eagles games. If the Eagles sweep, they have the advantage. A split and the Giants have a decent advantage in that division. Yeah, that's my point. Philly doesn't have a favorable schedule to makeup the deficit and they aren't that good. NYG has been playing really well since 2 early season losses to AFC opponents, one of which Philly still plays. Philly has already lost in the division. I guess I just disagree that the Giants are playing that well. They beat up the Bears but that's just an awful matchup for the Bears. They crushed the Texans which was a great win. They struggled with a Detroit team that had Drew Stanton at QB for most of the game and they played very, very sloppy against Dallas both at the beginning and end of the game and made that game much closer than it should have been. But at the same time, I don't think Philly is all that good either. So I can see your point that the Giants have an advantage and I probably should have put them on my original list. But I have a hard time trusting the Giants because they are so careless with the ball (3rd most turnovers in the NFL and tied for 6th worst turnover differential).

I wouldn't consider Philly's schedule that much harder than the Giants remaining. The Eagles have to host the Colts, Texans, and Vikings and go on the road to Chicago. The Giants have to play at Green Bay, at Minnesota, and at Seattle while hosting Jacksonville. The Giants have an extra game with Washington and the Eagles have an extra game at Dallas. Those schedules are pretty much a tossup when you consider how good Seattle can be at home and how poor the Texans have been in the past on the road (although they have pulled out 2 close wins this year). It will probably come down to the two Giants-Eagles games. If the Eagles sweep, they have the advantage. A split and the Giants have a decent advantage in that division.

I'll be honest, I still feel comfortable saying the Colts will win the South. The Titans and Texans have played well, but I just don't think they'll surpass the Colts this year. I think Peyton will make mince meat out of our secondary. Maybe, but if the Colts lose tonight not only will they be behind in record but they'll be in very bad tiebreaker shape (they would already lose the tiebreaker to the Texans and the Titans would just need a split to pretty much lock up the tiebreaker over the Colts). If they win tonight, they'll be in pretty good shape but they still have a lot of work to do and of course have some serious injury questions still. I could see betting on them on the theory that Peyton will find a way, but I don't think it's anywhere near a slam dunk.

5-3 heading into the bye isn't bad considering only 2 teams will have more wins after tonight. Only 1 team actually. 1 team at 6-1, 8 teams will be 5-2, 3 are 5-3, and 5 more will be 4-3. What is interesting also is that every division is in turmoil. I don't remember a season where there weren't at least a couple runaway favorites in divisions by midseason. This year..if you had to pick any team in the league to win its division, who would you feel safe with. Green Bay? Kansas City? There just isn't a dominant division leader right now. A lot of that of course is due to the fact that some divisions are really good (AFC South, AFC East, NFC South) and some are really bad (NFC West, AFC West, NFC North).

Nevada winning is mostly irrelevant for Boise now. It makes very little impact in the computers. And the way the teams have shook out a win over a 9-1 Nevada team isn't really going to move them in the polls any differently than a 7-3 Nevada team. The team that would really help them to keep winning is Va Tech. If they win out and win the ACC Championship game that would definitely be a boost in the computers and a possible boost in the polls. The game that would really, really help both Boise and TCU is Oregon and Oregon State. If Oregon State pulled off the upset, it would knock Oregon out of the picture and it would provide a decent boost in the computers to both TCU and Boise.

I'm trying to figure what result I should be wanting out of that game as a Boise St fan. Probably Utah based on the Computer Bowls. I don't think a win will jump themp over Boise. But a TCU win should jump TCU ahead of Boise in the human polls and they already have the lead in the Computer Polls. TCU has given up 16 points the last 5 games though they haven't played a road game in a month. I'm not sure a TCU win will jump them over Boise in the polls. Boise's still closer to Auburn then they are to TCU in the polls. And the fact that Boise beat TCU last year (should be irrelevant but it isn't) and Boise is playing a pretty good team this week should keep them ahead unless TCU just obliterates Utah. But I would still agree that a Utah win is preferable for Boise State fans even though it increases the risk of Alabama passing Boise State.

It also appears that for one of Boise/TCU/Utah to make the title game, they just need one of the following 3 things to happen (along with going undefeated): Oregon to lose Auburn to lose against somebody other than Alabama Alabama to lose against somebody other than Auburn Oklahoma has a small shot to overtake an undefeated Boise/TCU/Utah and I guess LSU would too especially if they found a way into the SEC title game. But both of those teams would need significant help (Ohio State and Wisconsin losses would help them move up in the polls for example). But mostly it's the undefeateds and Alabama right now and the others probably won't be considered until those start falling off.

when you lose is more important then who you lose too And where you start in the polls makes a huge difference. The teams who started 1 and 2 in the polls not coincidentally are the two teams that the polls rank a lot better than the computers do: Alabama: 5th in polls, 15th in computers Ohio State: 8th in polls, 16th in computers Meanwhile Missouri, Nebraska, LSU, Michigan State, and Oklahoma State are all seen as much better by the the computers than the polls. Missouri in particular still sticks out as they are 4th in the computers and average out to be 14.5 in the polls.

Yeah, I'm not confident at all about Harris. I think they have a decent shot at Ferrell. They also have at least a somewhat reasonable shot at Hollowell (although of course he's a forward). There's a couple other top 100 Indiana kids that could be fallback plans as well.

Good news. ( :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo: ) It's going to be hard to imagine an Indiana team with legitimate size! Perea thinks that both Zeller and Yogi Ferrell will follow him (along with him already putting in a call to Gary Harris to recruit him). I'm a little more skeptical about if that's going to be true. The key is still Zeller...if he comes Indiana will likely get one of the highly rated guards in the 2012 class. And if that happens, would that not be enough to consider them a legitimate threat?

ND is losing to teams whose starters wouldn't even backups for them. I'm not sure about that. They really haven't played a bottom of the barrel team yet this season. Tulsa's below average and definitely not a team that ND should ever lose to but they're not one of the worst 25 teams in Division 1-A. In fact, ND and Tulsa were only 9 places apart on Sagarin's predictor entering today (ND 47, Tulsa 56). Throw in Crist's injury and it's not surprising they could lose a close game to them. And Tulsa definitely had some playmakers on offense that could play for anybody.