Sporting Madness

Community  and SEC football are both great things, and as we all know, great things are great together. Also, my mind works in mysterious ways; ESPN declaring Steve Spurrier as the most-hated coach of all time surprised me, as South Carolina-era Spurrier seems to give off a Pierce Hawthorne vibe; sure, he's often annoying, grumpy and pushing others' buttons, and he's an odd fit amongst today's group of SEC coaches, but there's value to having him around and everyone just sort of ignores his terrible moments. That led to a discussion with Lisa  and Eddie about recasting Community  SEC-style, and it turned out to fit surprisingly well. Here's what we came up with (casting's a group effort, comments are mostly mine): Steve Spurrier as Pierce Hawthorne:  Spurrier's famed trash-talking of other schools ("You can't spell Citrus without UT," "Free Shoes University," Auburn library fires , etc) is straight out of Pierce's play...

Tonight’s BCS national championship game between the Oregon Duck Star and the Auburn Tigers is about more than just the action on the field. There are rumours of shadowy background figures, stories of vast sums of money, and questions about undue influence floating around—and that’s just on the Oregon side! I’m obviously exaggerating for effect there, but it does bother me a bit that all the questions people are raising about ethics and morality are surrounding Auburn , and particularly Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Cam Newton. I’m not here to defend Newton or the NCAA’s convoluted decision to declare him eligible despite finding evidence of a pay-for-play scheme that’s certainly against their rules as they currently stand. Whether those rules are right or not is another question entirely , and whether it’s possible to change them in a way that’s fair and equitable to all athletes is yet another issue, but I understand where the people who want to put black hats on Auburn ar...

The Mike Leach saga took a bizarre twist this morning when Texas Tech fired him [ Tommy Craggs , Deadspin ] just before [ Matt Hinton , Dr. Saturday ] he received a court order [ Pete Thamel , Twitter] allowing him to coach in their bowl game. This comes after [ AP ] their suspension of him a few days earlier in response to allegations [Craggs] of mistreatment by Tech wide receiver Adam James , the son of ESPN analyst Craig James . The whole thing stinks to high heaven. Seth C of Double-T Nation , the SBN blog for Texas Tech, has an excellent post here detailing the lack of communication between the university and Leach, the financial implications at stake and the power play between Leach and athletic director Gerald Myers . Spencer Hall goes through more of the details and discusses the power struggle between the two sides over at SB Nation, Chris Brown has an interesting analysis of how this might eventually shake out and Matt Hayes of The Sporting News has a great ...

This past season in American college football, Texas Tech quarterback Graham Harrell broke the NCAA record for most touchdown passes thrown in a college career with 134. He completed 442 of 626 passing attempts for an outstanding 70.6 completion percentage, threw for 5,111 yards, completed 45 touchdown passes while only being picked off nine times and became the first NCAA quarterback to record multiple seasons with more than 5,000 yards passing. Despite all that, Harrell wasn't selected in the NFL draft. In the first five picks alone, the Detroit Lions and New York Jets opted to take Matthew Stafford and Mark Sanchez respectively, despite each accomplishing significantly less than Harrell at the college level. By comparison, Stafford completed only 235 passes on 383 attempts at Georgia last season for 3459 yards and a completion percentage of 61.4 per cent; he also threw 25 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. Sanchez completed 241 of 366 attempts (65.8 per cent) at USC for 320...

So, your team got hosed by the arcane process of the BCS? Fear not. Here are some links to make you feel better about it. First, we have Patrick Hruby and Mike Philbrick 's tournament to figure out what sci-fi computers would be better qualified to determine a national champion than the current system. My money's on Skynet. Next, Matthew J. Darnell of Shutdown Corner has a great piece on why the BCS is the ultimate solution and we should replace the NFL's silly "playoff system" with it. Enjoy.