jersey cubs fan

why do you want fukudome traded?

I find that people who make broad generalizations about large groups of people are usually more ignorant than the people whom they make such generalizations about. What's the generalization? Louisiana is the 4th most obese and 4th from last in percentage of college educated citizens. How dare someone call it a fat, uneducated state. What's next, impugning the fine reputation of Mississippi? Now you're taking shots at Favre?

Right, just like this year when everybody wrote it off and they were ranked 3rd. It's a balance between playing a couple of them to get some respect and staying undefeated to remain relavent.

sharps have put a ton of money on mississippi state today is my guess. Craig Stevens, arguably Auburn's best LB, won't play tonight and didn't play against Arkansas State....i'm not sure why the line has moved 4 points in MSU's direction just today. Is this going to be a thing now? Years ago I never heard anybody talk about "going chalk" on their brackets, and then every Tom Dick and Harry was using the phrase. I'd never heard the term "sharps" used before this football preseason and now I'm hearing it all the time. By the way, 2nd google option is SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice.

KSK is doing their NFC North, ummmm, let's call it preview I found this entertaining

I've heard it reported (on Sportscenter and the like, no links as proof however) that Boise has offered to play one-time games on the road with more prolific schools and has been turned down at each offer. From the reports, they're not content with the softer schedule. As far as simply getting teams better than Wyoming and Toledo, would people really give them credit for beating Kentucky at home or Duke at a neutral site? And what motivation do those teams have to play Boise when they have their own tough conference schedules to play, which they generally don't win much in anyway? Boise is in a unique spot (kind of along with Utah, BYU and TCU) where there's really no positives for major programs to play them, yet they need to play as many major programs as possible. As long as we have the BCS, there will be no reason for a major program to schedule Boise. Why a few do now I have no idea, because there's no real gain to it (except perhaps some monetary gain). There's plenty of gain. You get some national attention, and your own strength of schedule can benefit. It's a challenge to get a Penn State on your schedule, but it doesn't have to be Penn State. But why is it Toledo? They lose 7 games every year. If you are going to schedule a Mid-American team why not one that doesn't suck every year? I'm guessing they have some sort of rivalry to justify the Wyoming game, but they'd be better off scheduling a Mountain West team that wins a little more frequently. Why not get another big fish in small pond school to play you every year? Maybe you can't get all the SEC or Big Ten schools to play ball, but there's plenty of second tier BCS schools out there playing this type of school. As I said before, it actually serves their purpose to limit the amount of tough games, because if they finish undefeated, at least they are in the headlines on everybody's mind and playing in a big bowl game. One loss and they are going to drop.

I think there's a lot of conspiracy theory going on here. Maybe on my side as well...I dunno. Truth is, we don't know what the real ability of Boise to schedule good teams is. Your assumption is that they want to have an easy schedule. Mine is that there's no benefit for the consistently highly ranked teams to play Boise or TCU or whatever other "upstarts" there may be. I'm glad Boise is changing conferences. I would've liked to have seen it be the PAC-10 instead of the MWC, but it's still a lot better than the WAC. My assumption is that if they really wanted to, they could definitely schedule better competition than Toledo and Wyoming.

I guess my point is that Boise and TCU can only schedule the teams that will play them. Telling them to go out and "schedule harder teams" is pretty disingenuous. Harder teams need to be willing to play them to improve the SOS. So are you telling me that nobody better than Wyoming or Toledo was willing to play them when they scheduled those games? When you play that conference schedule whey are you even bothering putting Toledo on the schedule? The fact is it serves them very well to not play tougher teams because it gives them a better chance of finishing undefeated and going to a bigger bowl plus getting more national exposure. As soon as one of these teams loses an early game, they are no longer interesting and don't get publicity.

That's a really weird thing to say.

You still mad that their flooding got more news than your flooding?

Vikings and Iowa fan complaining about obesity?

Seriously, it's not the defense, it's just the fact that in the end Brett Favre will always let down his team. That was inevitable.

That's why I don't get the 6.5 point spread. It's been bet like the smart money knows the Bears are going to destroy them.

I think you are grossly overstating the defensive skill set. I think the Harris trade is going to be a bust. The guy wasn't that good when they let him leave and he wasn't that good when he was gone and he's barely good enough to start for this team. Peppers is here but he replaced the 2 best defensive ends from last year, offsetting much of that improvement. The other end is not very good. Tommie Harris is working off several years of excuses about injuries long in the past and has a long way to go to ever deserve the credit he is given by people who assume this defense is still potentially top notch. Having Urlacher back is great, but that's the only real clear cut improvement of talent, but even he is long past his prime. This defense is coming off three straight very disappointing seasons and hasn't added a single young starting caliber talent to the roster. I see very little chance for this defense to be better than average, and with all the pressure on old guys to step up and be the difference, I could easily see a decline. You should be concerned with every level of the defense. Again, the line is hardly the only real concern. The receivers have a year under their belts, in a different scheme. And experience isn't the only thing that matters. It's possible they will step up, but they haven't yet. The running back position is strong only because they changed backups, but whether the running attack is better is still a question. People are hoping for the return of what was a grossly overrated Forte from 2008, when his sub 4 yard per carry average did not impress. And the very weak line also plays a part with that problem, not to mention an OC who doesn't care much about the run. This is the unit that at least has a chance of being very good, but they could also be very bad, especially with that piss poor line. I'm not predicting a 12 loss season or a top 5 draft position, but the range of what this team might do is huge. The defense is out of excuses, has been bad for years and only upgraded incrementally at best. The offense may or may not gel in year 1 of a new system and the special teams aren't what they used to be. I could see 10 wins, I could see 10 losses. If they did go 5-11 I wouldn't be that shocked but an 11 win season wouldn't be that crazy either. It all depends on the offense and the offense depends on Cutler and the receivers compensating for a bad offensive line.

Is that even possible? It's the NFL, where everybody knows a team can turn it around quickly so everybody is more likely to think a crappy team can be much better going forward. But a lot of the recent good teams are going to be worse. 2009 playoff teams are going to be drafting in the top half next April. Division winners are going to miss the playoffs.

I'm fairly certain that was Dr. Z.

That is a whole bunch of nonsense stuffed into a couple sentences. Divisions are relatively new things. Having everybody in each league all bunched together is a relic from the past.

Wc teams are often better than third division winner and the teams on the outside are right there. Plus, teams with best record are usually really good. They benefit

they have one listed on their website

You aren't expressing an opinion, you are proposing an unnecessarily crazy overhaul of college football. And it's stupid.

Seriously. Especially because baseball spring training is about 7 weeks long, and football training camp is about the same. It's weird to see training camps wrapped up in 3-4 weeks. If they could figure out a way to make money off it I'm sure they'd make it go longer.

Yeah, we get the make believe scenarios, but an 8 team playoff easily solves any situation where some team could reasonably be called the best in the country.

I don't understand the motivation for getting a balance of power for conferences. There's no reason for it. As was pointed out before, there are other sports and the elite teams aren't the same in each. I think you take the top four teams and have the winners of their bowl games play each other. The other option is after the current BCS you just take the top 2 and have them play. Or, you could just go with a 8 team playoff using current bowl games as the first round, and add three more games in early January. I think 16 games is pointless. There's no reason why the 13th ranked team needs to be involved in the competition for postseason, and there's absolutely no way you can justify trying to pull some 64 team tournament off.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/don_banks/09/08/week.1.3/index.html Don Banks does not like the Bears.

A: That's not true B: Why is the only thing that matters to you the national championship? The concept of a national title game is very new in college football. The fact that a Boise State hasn't played one yet doesn't mean they never can. Under the current system they have to play the toughtest schedule they can find and win them all to have a chance. In a slightly tweaked one they have to win a big bowl game at the end of the year and then a national championship game. In a slightly more tweaked one, they win a couple playoff games. But you don't blow up the entire system so that Boise State can have a better shot at a title.