SECond Best

I went to "school" in South Carolina, so I am more than aware of the fervor in which SEC fans tout their conference. Bigger, faster, stronger, deeper, better, they all say. I heard it, and hear it, year in and year out. Nevertheless, that doesn't make me understand it anymore than I understand quantum physics or why girls convulse over Twilight.

Gamecock fans, and maybe its because I was surrounded by them for four years, seem the most prone to this SEC bravado. With each passing 6-6 or 7-5 campaign they continually fall back on bragging about how superior their conference is to the rest of the nations. How their shortcomings in the win column are because the SEC is so danged tough and how that if they were in any other conference they'd be competing for championships. USC fans are not alone in this line of thinking though. From Athens to Oxford and Knoxville and all over the Southeast its a common rallying cry that the SEC is second to none.

With two mediocre SEC teams beating the two teams that will meet for the ACC Championship next weekend, fans of the conference are puffing out their chests. Well, time to peg them back down to size. At the expense of getting  barred from ever returning to Dixie, here are X reasons why the SEC circle jerks have got to stop.

First and foremost, in sports, you should be cheering on your team, not your conference. This phenomena only seemed to begin within the past decade as the BCS started to weigh in strength of schedule.Who cares what the other teams are doing, they are supposed to be your rivals, your enemies. Worry about your own teams record.
MLC: This is a terrible point to make.  The entire college football concept is predicated on matching equally-finishing teams from different conferences in nationally televised bowl games.  We have to include conference comparisons in order to decide who the best teams are to put into these bowl games and eventually decide who the best team in the country is.  The system is flawed, but conference comparisons are as intrinsic to modern day football as shoulder pads and helmets.  If there were no conference comparisons, you and I would not even have this fake second job that we enjoy so much...at least not as it relates to college football.

Yes, conference comparisons serve a purpose, but my point was more such that SEC fans, more than any other fan base in the country, really get off to touting their own conference. Maybe this has something to do with demographics and the fact that in reality, college football is more important in the Southeast than it is anywhere else. Professional sports just aren't as prevalent and have never big as big a deal in the South and thus college football fills that void. The Pac 10 and Big XII and other conferences love their teams just as much and are just as passionate, but its not the only show in town. It isn't as "do or die" as it is in Dixie. When I watch post-game reactions after non-conference games outside the SEC I  see fans more excited for their teams victory, not hollering about their conference. Earlier in the season I suffered a real conundrum when Va. Tech played Alabama to start the season. It was a tale of two evils: on one hand do I root for the team I have hated my life, whose fans I despise, or do I root for a team who plays in the SEC. I actually rooted for VT solely because I knew that if Bama won I would be constantly reminded via all forms of social media at just how dominant the SEC is. If Va. Tech had won I would have gotten annoyed by a bunch of Tech fans thinking they were destined to win every game, but never would they have start taking about the ACC this and the ACC that. Strength of schedule and thus conference comparison is important, just shouldn't be a bragging point and a fallback point for mediocre teams that litter the SEC landscape this year.

The best team in the country doesn't come from the best conference. Quite simply this isn't the case in any sport and I don't understand why people think this is the case in college football. Last year in college basketball everyone raved about the Big East and how incredible the conference was. Not one of their teams made it to the finals.
MLC: That's not always the case.  Sometimes it is.  Sometimes is isn't.  Also, comparing a 16-team basketball conference to a 12-team football conference when the college basketball postseason is composed of a playoff (basically) and the college football postseason is composed of one out of conference neutral site game is not a good argument.  Besides, despite LSU's obvious downfalls as a two-loss team, it's tough to argue that the SEC was not the best conference in college football in 2007.  And I honestly can't say for sure whether the Big XII was the best when Oklahoma won the title in 2000 or when Nebraska won it in 1997.  I will agree that the best team doesn't always come from the best conference, but not that it never comes from the best conference nor that it cannot come from the best conference.

Here is why people think the SEC is the best and here is why they are wrong. On paper, the conference has 4 of the last 6 National Champions. This is all well and good until you actually, you know, remember those seasons and that the BCS sucks instead of just spewing out facts. LSU won the Crystal Trophy in 2003 despite Southern California being #1 in both the Coaches and AP polls. The Trojans were somehow left out of the game but were still awarded the AP National Championship, thus split champions. When Florida beat Ohio State in 2006 who knows who the best team in the country really was as the season long assumption of the dominance of the Big Ten was laid to rest with a thud. Another example in the danger of conference hyping. LSU won the next year despite having 2 losses and literally backing into the title game. And last year a one loss Florida beat Oklahoma by the same margin a one loss Texas did. Am I really supposed to believe that any of these 4 teams was definitively the best in college football? Of course not.
MLC: No arguments here, just an addition: the SEC has really spotty quarterback play all over the place.  LSU's quarterback Jordan Jefferson sucks and spikes the ball with one second remaining.  Jevan Snead at Ole Miss was a total disappointment this year. Ryan Mallett was surprisingly good, but then again he had to transfer to Arkansas to get into the SEC.  The guy that Arkansas actually recruited is now a third stringer at USC (and I mean Soutrhern Cal for all of you stupid 'Cocks...notice the apostrophe).  South Carolina's Garcia is weak. Does anybody know who plays QB for Kentucky?  Mississippi State? Vanderbilt? Joe Cox at Georgia has proven to be poor man's Joe Tarashinski (and that's really embarrassing).  Alabama wins despite Greg McElroy.  No thank you to Tennessee's Jonathan Crompton.  Auburn's Chris Todd is actually pretty good, turning in 21 TDs to only 6 INTs.  Well done Chris Todd! And that leaves us with only Rev. Tim Tebow, who is not so much a quarterback as fullback who can throw wobbly passes to really fast receivers.  I give you the quarterbacks of the SEC.  We can build on this.

In any sport if a team with a mediocre record beats a better team in the regular season does it really ever matter? Only reason it matters in college football is that there isn't a playoff and for the most part, teams don't play twice. Doesn't change the fact that Clemson and Georgia Tech are better football teams and having better seasons than USC and Georgia despite this weekends losses. I understand USC and UGA fans should be proud that they upset their in-state rivals, but I am sure their fans would much rather have a conference championship and BCS bid than a 7-5 season.
MLC: I can't really agree with this one either.  Shitty Georgia, who was blown out by your whipping boys Tennessee, dominated one-loss Georgia Tech, the head and shoulders best team in the ACC (despite getting worked by my Canes) from start to finish in Atlanta.  Now that's just as much a home game for Georgia as Georgia Tech, but you get my point.  Mediocre South Carolina was clearly the superior team against Clemson. These beatings underscore what many already knew: the ACC is not a good football conference this year and has not been for quite some time.  Two mediocre SEC teams beat the two best teams that the ACC has to offer (theoretically).  Whether or not the fans of South Carolina and Georgia would rather play in a BCS game or have a 7-5 record is irrelevant.  They'll have a 7-5 record and still be better than the eventual ACC champion, which doesn't say as much about the SEC as it does the SEC.

I'll stick with my guns here. Georgia Tech and Clemson had both already wrapped up their spot in the conference championship game. They both knew that the course of their season would be decided in that game. Now, did they want to lose their rivalry games? Of course not. But they weren't playing with the same degree of intensity that their opponents UGA and USC. That game was the end of their mediocre seasons and held the ONLY redeeming aspect of lost expectations. It was a much, much bigger game for the Dawgs and Cocks and not surprisingly they won. Big whoop. After next weekend either Clemson or Ga. Tech and their fans will be conference champs, be playing in a BCS bowl, and most certainly will have forgotten the results of their game against their rival. 

Don't give me that SEC defense crap. Just because the Tide and Gators have great defenses, doesn't mean the rest of the conference should infer they do.
MLC: I've already touched on this, but I'll repeat it: the SEC's quarterbacks are terrible from top to bottom.  It's embarrassing that we'll be watching either Tebow or McElroy play a really good quarterback (Colt McCoy) in the national title game.  I predict that the gap in ability and talent at the qurterback position will be one of the most glaring discrepancies in the 2010 BCS National Championship Game.  Keep in mind that this does not necessarily mean that Texas will beat Florida or Alabama.  Remember: that throwing full back (Tebow is not so much a running quarterback as a throwing full back) for Florida is still pretty good at scoring touchdowns whichever way he can.

People seem to fail to realize that conference supremacy ebbs and flows like the tide. From 1999-2003 the conference didn't have a team even make the BCS title game. In 2004, an undefeated Auburn team didn't even receive a vote for a share of the national championship because the conference was nationally perceived as being weak. I'll concede that the conference has been deeper the past couple of years than most anyone else, but that doesn't change that the conference still loses its fair share of big games. Florida and Tebow lost to a Michigan team which had lost to Appalachian State earlier in the season 2 years ago in the Outback Bowl. Last year, Ole Miss, the team that gave Florida its only loss, had just lost to a mediocre ACC team in Wake Forest (but that Ole Miss team did also take advantage of the Cotton Bowl dominate a Texas Tech team that beat Texas and was ranked number two at one point in the season. Texas Tech had bigger aspirations all season than winning the Cotton Bowl. I don't blame them for having a lackluster game against a streaking team). Speaking of the ACC, South Carolina lost to Clemson and preseason #1 Georgia lost at home to Georgia Tech last year as well. In the Sugar Bowl, one loss and mighty Alabama lost to the mid-major Utah Utes (Insert TCU in the 2010 Sugar Bowl, same result). So, yeah, the SEC was deep last year, but your not as good advertised.
MLC: How can you argue that Clemson beating South Carolina and Georgia Tech beating Georgia is anywhere close to relevant when you just made the opposite point in a previous paragraph? You literally just wrote that those wins were more or less aberrations this year, so why did they matter last year?

Ah, because football is situational my friend. As I stated earlier, Clemson and Ga. Tech had bigger things in the back of their mind while their opponents had only to concentrate on their rivals. Last year, with no team destined for a huge bowl, the game was equally important for both teams. It was all 4 teams seasons. Just not the case this year.

That brings us to this year.

This weekend undefeated Alabama meets undefeated Florida for the chance to play for the national championship. The game has all the makings of an instant classic: Heisman hopeful vs. Heisman hopeful, stifling defense vs. stifling defense, and Saban v. Meyer (may Satan curse them both). It should also speak volumes to the state of the SEC in 2009. Two undefeated teams. The rest of the conference has six (SIX!) 7-5 teams! This is the definition of mediocre. The conference IS Alabama and Florida. That's it.
MLC: I disagree that 7-5 records make these teams mediocre.  This means that there is parody in the SEC.  Each team is just as good as the other, except for Alabama and Florida, who are better than the rest.  The truly glaring falsehood and a major chink in the armor of these SEC teams is the weak out of conference schedules they ALL play.  Of the 12 SEC teams, four (4) of them played ranked nonconference teams from power conferences.  Mississippi State and Georgia both played Georgia Tech. Georgia also played Oklahoma State.  Alabama played Virginia Tech.  South Carolina played Clemson.  That's it.  Mississippi State also played Houston, but whatever.  The rest of their schedules are filled with always tough powerhouses like Louisiana-Monroe, Lousiana Tech, Western Kentucky, Miami (OH), and Florida International.  Oh, and don't forget Western Carolina.  Watch out for those fesity Catamounts.

So the SEC...they're all as good as each other and better than the worst 25 teams in the country.  Other than that we have no proof of anything else, really.

And unlike previous seasons there is a conference out there that, despite not having a national title contender, that is drastically deeper and better than this years SEC.

The Pac-10. And its not even close. (On this, we agree)

The SEC East's second best team, Tennessee, lost at home to a UCLA team that is currently EIGHTH in the conference. The same Tennessee that played Florida close in Gainesville and came within a Cody blocked FG away from beating the Tide in Tuscaloosa. Bowl eligible Georgia barely won at home against an Arizona State team that is second to last in the conference. LSU, second in the SEC West, struggled mightily to beat a 4-7 Washington team. Unlike fans down South, I've watched both conferences play. (It should be noted here that Newman has hated Tennessee all year long, including one memorable tweet that read something like "I don't want to live in a world where Jonathan Crompton is good.")

The Pac 10 is just better. It has 5 teams that are 8-3 or better. Two weeks ago Arizona came within an OT of all but clinching the Rose Bowl berth. However, with that loss the Wildcatss, despite winning this weekend, are now the conference's sixth place team.

Before SEC fans gag on their grits, allow me to clarify again. Best doesn't mean the Pac-10 has the most outstanding teams. It has the most outstanding competition, which is even better.

Out West, you never know what's going to happen. Down South, you know what to expect.

Florida will win. Alabama will win.

All meaningful drama has been on hold until the SEC Championship Game Dec. 5. Otherwise, the season's been a sideshow where fans just wait on Lane Kiffin's mouth to rev up or Les Miles' brain to freeze.

Face it, boys. It's a down year for almost every team outside of Gainesville and Tuscaloosa. The Pac-10 doesn't have a super team, but it has a half-dozen good ones. And if you want to get technical, as I said, UCLA thumped Tennessee and Arizona State almost beat Georgia in Athens. And lest we forget, Pac-10 also-ran USC (how funny is that?) beat Big Ten champ Ohio State on the road. Let's see the fifth-place SEC team do that.

The SEC is like an auto company that has two great cars and a bunch of clunkers. The Pac-10 can roll out a line of impressive models. Oregon is the flashiest, but it still must beat Oregon State this weekend to win the league crown.
MLC: The SEC has ten used Nissan Altimas and two Aston Martins.  The Pac-10 has 8 Lexuses, a used Geo, and a Yugo (Washington State is the Yugo).  What I mean by Lexuses is that these cars look nice and everybody recognizes them as impressive, but once you get inside it's just a gussied up Nissan (Fact: Lexus is the luxury version of a Nissan).  The Pac-10 teams are not vastly better than the SEC teams, they're just slightly better, but they're all slightly better.

So SEC fans a little advice. Stop using selective memory, actually watch games outside your conference, and start taking more pride in your own teams instead of wasting your breathe ballyhooing your rivals. And don't forget that no matter how you spin it, this year your conference is, quite simply, second best.

Jerrod Johnson for Heisman

November 26, 2009

Texas 49 Texas A&M 39

Colt McCoy:

Passing: 24/40  304 yards  4 TD  0 INT

Rushing: 18 Carries for 175 yards 1 TD

Jerrod Johnson

Passing: 26/33  342 yards  4 TD 1 INT

Rushing: 14 Carries for 97 yards  0 TD

To be completely honest, this post is not so much an argument for why Texas A&M quarterback Jerrod Johnson should win the Heisman Trophy as much as it is an argument that what will likely mean a Hesiman for Colt McCoy in reality should not.


You can look at the stats above, and you can watch the Texas-Texas A&M game live, as I did, and you can write the script for Colt McCoy.  McCoy has a big performance against a rival on Thanksgiving night in the only college game played on that day in front of a huge national audience.  BAM! Instant Heisman.


That's bullshit.


I am making an assumption here that the voters will be swayed by McCoy's performance in College Station and crown him 2009's best player in college football, thus awarding him the Heisman Trophy in December.  This is incredibly troubling for me, considering that giving McCoy the award would be more like a career achievement award than an award for the best player in college football.  This year McCoy is on pace to throw for less yardage, fewer touchdowns, more interceptions, and have quarterback rating 20 points lower than last year, yet he's right back where he was last year in the thick of the Heisman talk.  Certainly he deserves to be in the discussion, but if he were to win the award, last year would have been the year, not the vastly inferior year that he is having this year.

Coming into this week, McCoy was behind in ESPN's pre-Heisman balloting.  Far behind.  Granted it is internet voting, but with a lack of any other pre-vote system, I'm going to assert its credibility by lack of other options.  McCoy ranked 5th in the voting behind 1) C.J. Spiller 2) Ndamukong Suh 3) Mark Ingram and 4) Tim Tebow.  Yet I fully expect that because of this performance, he will be feted above all of these names.


Take a quick look at the stats I posted above at the beginning of this article.  Jerrod Johnson and Colt McCoy achieved comparable offensive stats in a rivalry game against each other.  But here's a key difference between the two: Jerrod Johnson was playing Texas's defense with Texas's throw away recruits while McCoy was playing Texas A&M's defense at one of the premier recruiting programs in the country.


Coltg McCoy was throwing to Jordan Shipley, Malcolm Williams, and James Kirkendoll, jewels of the recruiting class.  Jerrod Johnson was throwing to Jeff Fuller (who, I grant you, is great), some guy named Uzoma Nwachukwu, and a short white dude named Ryan Swope (a converted running back, no less).


On defense, Johnson was facing Thorpe Award finalist and Texas safety Earl Thomas and Lombardi Award finalist and Texas linebacker Sergio Kindle.  Not to mention that Texas has far and away the best defense in the Big XII.  Texas A&M racked up season high passing yardage, rushing yardage, and points against the Longhorns and coach-in-waiting Will Muschamp.  McCoy was facing A&M safety Jordan Pugh, who essentially dislocated his shoulder mid-game and continued playing.


And what was the difference in the game?  Special teams.  Texas won by 10 points and the game included a kickoff return for a touchdown by Marquise Goodwin and a missed field goal by A&M kicker Randy Bullock.  If those two go the other way, we may be headed to overtime at 42-42.


At the end of the day, McCoy is going to win the Heisman or at least be first in the discussion as a result of his performance on Thanksgiving night in College Station.  My point is, if we're awarding the Heisman on that basis, give it to the guy who played just as well against much tougher odds, with much less talent on his side.


Jerrod Johnson for Heisman.

Here I was, the end to a great Thanksgiving with my family, relaxing downstairs catching up on the seventh season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Imagine my dismay when I came to find out there was still some Turkey left to be eaten on this fine day.

Jerrod Johnson over Colt McCoy? Really, Mitch? Really?

Listen, Johnson was phenomenal tonight, and he has been great all season, but we all know the Heisman isn't necessarily about numbers. There are reasons why stat stuffers like former Hawaii QB Colt Brennan and nearly every QB that goes through Texas Tech never make it to the Big City for the trophy presentation. The numbers certainly matter, but there is something just a little bit more important here.

Wins.

McCoy not only puts up the numbers (he had more total touchdowns and total yards on the night than Johnson), but he also has won more games than any quarterback in the history of college football. His team is 12-0 and most likely headed to the National Championship. Johnson's team is 6-6 and it doesn't matter how talented the guy is when his team doesn't perform well on the field. Some of that blame has to fall on his shoulders and that is why there is no legitimate argument you can make to sway anyone that he should be a Heisman contender. Maybe next year...

And who cares if McCoys numbers aren't what they were last year? Do you expect every MVP in every season of every sport to have better numbers year after year?

Michael Jordan won MVP trophies in '88 and '98. His '88 numbers he averaged over 7 more points, 2 more steals, and 5 more assists a game than he ended up doing in '98. In fact, his numbers in '88 were better than the remaining four MVPs he won. But you know what, who cares? Jordan was the best player and had the most impact on his team just as much in both years. Stats are just stats. They don't tell the whole story.

2009 is not 2008, so why does it matter to compare stats of the two years? And it's not like McCoys numbers this year are bad. The guy is leading the nation in passing completion percentage. He has over 3,300 yards passing with a game to play as well as 27 touchdown passes and, oh yeah, he just rushed for more yards in one game than C.J. Spiller has in any game this year.

And come on Mitch, you've played football. Who cares what unit is ranked what, this is a heated rivalry game! Who cares about the names on the back of the uniforms (what you fail to understand, however, is that Shipley is the only returning receiver from last years team). There are reasons why upsets happen. If the best team won all the time, sports would be pretty damn boring. Texas went into an EXTREMELY hostile environment against a team with which this game was their season. You didn't think A&M was going to get up for this on? On Thanksgiving? They played out of their minds. And you know what? McCoy never blinked. Not once. Not for a second. It would have been easy after A&M scored on their third play for Texas to start feeling the pressure. Answer after answer, the crowd noise grew louder and louder. The 12th man was in frenzy. It would have been understandable for McCoy to slip up somewhere during all of that, but he never did. He led scoring drive after scoring drive, with his feet and his arm. When A&M scored to tie it right before halftime, McCoy led the offense down the field in 50 seconds to take back the lead. I was way more impressed in this one game with McCoy than I have been by any of the other Heisman potentials in any of their games thus far this year. Can you name me another Heisman worthy performance in such a spotlighted game? Anyone?

And don't give me the "what if" scenarios about the special teams in this game. If we played that game than both Alabama and Florida, and thus Ingram and Tebow, would have been sitting at home with one loss quite a few weeks ago. The game unfolds the way it unfolds, and plays happen in all facets of the game. That is the game! You can score on a kickoff, you can miss field goals, you can turn the ball over in the red zone. That stuff happens. And the good teams, the great teams, find a way to do that stuff less. It's cliche, but they find a way. Florida and Alabama found a way earlier this season to pull out tough wins at home. Texas just did it on the road against a heated in-state rivel with whom McCoy has struggled in the past. That impresses me just a little bit more.

McCoy has got everything and more you could want in a Heisman trophy winner. He is the undisputed eader of an undefeated football team, although not up to par with last season he is still outperforming most any QB in America, and he just had that showcase game it seems all Heisman winners have to have.

If you'd rather take a guy whose leading his 6-6 team into the Humanitarian Bowl than that's your decision.

I'll just call you a Turkey for it.

But dude, you're missing the crux of my argument.  As I said when I began the article, I am not seriously arguing Jerrod Johnson for Heisman.  Here's what I am arguing: A) Colt McCoy played great B) Before he played great, he was not even in the top 3 in pre-Hesiman voting, C) After this performance, he will move way up on that list if not to the top, so his Heisman chances pretty much became 5 times better as a result of the Texas A&M game in which D) Jerrod Johnson played just as well, throwing for more yards, a higher completion percentage, and just as many touchdowns as McCoy against MUCH stiffer competition (Texas A&M's defense ranks at or below 100 in the Bowl subdivision in most major categories).


So, to repeat and conclude, Colt McCoy could essentially win the Heisman because of the game last night.  Well if you're going to award the Heisman on that basis, give it to Jerrod Johnson for tearing up the Texas D in a way no other team in the nation has been able to.  Because if this game is enough to catapult McCoy to that podium next month, then that's what the award is based on, and McCoy was no better in that game than Jerrod Johnson.

Couple of things you neglect to factor in. First off, McCoy has been in the Heisman discussion all year and every reasonable pundit has said if he finished his last two games strong than he'd be a serious contender. I'd say he is fulfilling that expectation after last night. If McCoy wins the Heisman it isn't just because of this game, just like Tebows 6 TD performance against USC and Reggie Bush's 500 plus yards against Fresno State didn't win their Stiff Arm Trophies. McCoy is in the Heisman frontrunner seat because his team is undefeated, his stats are pretty damn good, and he just had a prolific game on a national stage with everyone watching.

Not only has McCoy outperformed Johnson all year, he outperformed him last night. He finished with more total yards of offense, one more touchdown, and also didn't have any turnovers. And he did this no less, in an a raucous environment with the weight of National Championship dreams on his shoulders. Yes, Johnson put on a show against what was the nation's best defense. But the Aggies offense is something like 10th in the nation and Johnson and the rest of his team were playing with absolutely no pressure. I know you're not too old to remember the factor pressure plays in sporting events. It's the reason a crappy Boston College team came within an Ed Reed interception of beating Miami in 2001 or why USC needed the Bush Push to beat Notre Dame in 2005. Better teams than Texas  have struggled and lost to worse teams in the past than A&M. Just 2 years ago all West Virginia had to do to make it to the title game was beat a bad Pitt team. They lost. Appalachian State beat Michigan AT Michigan in 2007. Later that year Stanford, a 44 point underdog, beat USC. I could fill up this blog of teams losing games they were supposed to win. That's just football. The best team doesn't always win and factors outside of stats and rankings play in. So I don't care  that Johnson perfomed comparably against Texas D, I am more impressed by the guy who did just a little bit better, won the game, and did so when he very easily could of let the pressure of the moment and the crowd get to him. And he has been doing it all season.

Lastly, I don't understand why it is hard for you to grasp that a performance such as last night by McCoy shouldn't have an affect on the voting. As I said, every Heisman candidate and winner usually has one game that pushes them over the edge. The only reason C.J. Spiller is mentioned is because he had a game in which he threw, caught, and passed for a touchdown. For the first half of the season, when his team lost to Maryland, he wasn't even mentioned. Then he had a few games where he reminded people of his taltent and BOOM back on the list. That's what happens. McCoy has been in the conversation, especially the past month as his game has heated up, but I don't see why you think a Heisman winner be on the list of potential winners all year? That makes no sense. Saying that those polls mean anything, and they most certainly don't, aren't we supposed to be swayed by performances?  McCoy just threw for 300 plus yards and 4 touchdowns and ran for 175 more with another touchdown. That's 479 yards of total offense with 5 touchdowns and no turnovers! Did Troy Smith ever have a day that good? For that matter did Tebow or Eric Crouch or Jason White? The answer to all is emphatically no, no and no. Why shouldn't a game like this catapult him up these hypothetical lists?

It should and it will.

If McCoy leads his team to victory against Nebraska in the Big 12 Championship game than voters will see a guy with Heisman worthy statistics, an undefeated team, and a showcase game to push him over the edge. I have no problem seeing the winningest quarterback in college football history take home an award far less deserving people have obtained.

Black Asses and Black Eyes

Not sure which was the funnier event coming out of this weekend, the fact that a national television audience was subjected to Devin Hester's ass or that Notre Dame QB Jimmy Clausen was sucker punched outside of a restaurant Saturday night following his teams loss. Apparently, Clausen is sporting a black eye, which no doubt is probably an upgrade over his normally douche demeanor. So which is funnier?

Personally, I'll go with Einsteins Law of Special Relativity in which Black Ass always trumps Black Eyes.

MLC: Well, we all know how I feel about Jimmy Clausen.  I can't wait to see him with a real black eye to match the one Weiss has given the reputation of the Notre Dame program.

Sweet Redemption and Rivalry Week

I've been puffing my chest out a little this week, I won't lie. I've also had a little bounce in my step, well metaphorically at least (it's hard being perky going to work at 8 in the morning surrounded by odd smelling people on the subway). And deservedly so. The weather in New York is unseasonably warm, a much needed Thanksgiving at home looms close, I'm getting paid to sit at a desk and type this (sort of), and my college picks weren't a complete embarrassment. Following a few weeks of some questionable picks, which saw my jarringly bad selection of Georgia over Florida, I was feeling like Leonardo DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, but then Stanford obliterated USC and I was finally able to get out of the red with a 4-2 record that moved me back to a respectable 4 games over .500 on the year. I feel like I know a little something about college football game. Now that I have just jinxed myself, on with the picks...

#9 Ohio State at Michigan

Big Ten frenzy culminated three years ago this week when the Buckeyes and Wolverines were the consensus #1 and #2 teams in the country. The game in Columbus turned into a shootout, which the Buckeyes won, and gave the illusion that these teams were indeed the nations best. Fans and sports pundits alike started to seriously entertain the notion of a rematch in the title game. Alas, thankfully for everyone there was not. Ohio State got embarrassed by Florida in the title game and Michigan got blown out by Southern Cal in the Rose Bowl.

The conference's image has yet to make a proper recovery from that disastrous bowl season and its only hope is a less than inspiring Rose Bowl bound Ohio State team that struggled to put away a depleted Iowa team last week in the Horseshoe. Jim Tressell continues to, sorry for the pun, play things to close to the vest. The coach played for overtime at home with over two minutes left and the ball, running it three straight times for little gains. Also, why recruit an incredible athlete like Terrelle Pryor if all your going to do is give him the ball to hand off? I haven't seen a worse waste of talent since Kate Beckinsale in Whiteout. (Begin rant) Come on Kate, you are easily one of the hottest women on the planet. You can do better than this shit. Find a manager who will put you in something, that, you know, people will want to see (End rant). Tailor your offense to Pryor's strengths for crying out loud and maybe you won't lose to two teams like Purdue.

Anyways, before Ohio State gets a shot at the Pac-10 champion it first travels to Ann Arbor. The only way this game is even close is if the Buckeyes have a letdown after earning their trip to Pasadena last week. However, eleven manikins could do as good a job as Michigan's defense at this point in the season. It doesn't matter how many hours Rich Rodriguez is making his team practice, that defense is atrocious. It will continue to be so.

And so will the Big Ten.

Ohio State 37, Michigan 14

#10 LSU at Ole Miss

Anyone who saw Rebels tailback Dexter McCluster torch a very good Tennessee defense for over 300 total yards must have all been thinking the same thing as me: Where the hell has this guy been all season? Not only did McCluster look like an absolute stud shifting and sprinting his way around the Vols, he also looked like a carbon Darrien Sproles copy and the type of back that can thrive in the NFL these days.

Needless to say I was curious to find that through Ole Miss first six games the senior had a grand total of 164 yards rushing.

164 yards!

He's had 591 in his past three. Not surprisingly, his numbers have gone up with an increase in touches. So congratulations are in order for coach Houston Nutt for letting his best offensive player waste away for half a season.

Unfortunately for a very banged up and very overrated LSU team, Nutt won't be ignoring him any more.

Ole Miss 28, LSU 17

#11 Oregon at Arizona

The Pac 10 really is the wackiest, not too mention deepest, league in America. I have no idea who to pick in these games. On one hand you have Oregon who destroyed USC and then got soundly beat by Stanford. A Stanford team that had already lost to Arizona. But then Arizona lost to California last week and has also lost to Washington, who have also beaten USC. So yeah, I don't really know how to pick this one. I think I'll go with Oregon, but that's purely based off of the fact I have never seen Arizona play. Needless to say, I'm not that confident.

Oregon 42, Arizona 31

California at #14 Stanford

I have already done my whole Pac-10 spiel, so let me offer up some stats that, in the wise words of Kenny Powers, will "fuck you up with the truth."

Stanford RB Toby Gerhart #7 2009 Stats

262 Attempts

1395 Yards

5.3 Yards Per Carry

19 Rushing Touchdowns

8 Receptions

87 Receiving Yards

0 Fumbles Lost

Alabama RB Mark Ingram #22 2009 Stats

194 Attempts

1297 Yards

6.7 Yards Per Carry

10 Rushing Touchdowns

25 Receptions

225 Receiving Yards

3 Receiving Touchdowns

0 Fumbles Lost

Now I am not going to delve into who is having the better season, but just trying to illustrate to you how good Gerhart has been for the Cardinal this year. It would be a disservice for him not to be a finalist for the Heisman.

Stanford 38, Cal 35

Kansas State at Nebraska

The Big XII North has been so bad the second half of this decade that its potential winner, Kansas State, won't even make a bowl game unless it beats Nebraska on Saturday. II don't see it happening. Nebraska, aside from a complete no show against Iowa State, has been the best team in the division all year and deserves to win it.

Their reward for  a divisional crown?

Getting slaughtered by Texas.

Nebraska 17, K-State 10

Connecticut at Notre Dame

I am more worried about Charlie Weiss suffering the same fate as UGA XII than losing his head coaching job. That might change with a loss here. I am 0-3 when I pick Notre Dame to win. Naturally, I'll pick them again.  

UConn 28, Notre Dame 31

#13 Penn State at Michigan State

Akron, Syracuse, Temple, Illinois, Eastern Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Northwestern, and Indiana.

What are the two things all these teams have in common?

1. They make up all of Penn State's 9 victories this season 
2. They all suck

Michigan State sucks too. It is in the Big Ten. I just thinks it sucks a little less than the teams listed above. Especially at home.

Michigan State 24, Penn State 17 

Eulogy for Uga

Dog's are generally regarded as man's best friends. In UGA VII's case he had  nearly 93,000 of them every Saturday Between the Hedges and every day from the countless other Bulldog fans scattered around the nation.

That's what makes the sudden news of the passing of Georgia's beloved mascot so sad. The four-year-old Bulldog had served as the school's mascot for less than two years before unexpectedly succumbing Thursday to heart problems (to the Charlie Weiss and Mangino's of the world, take note). The 56-pound dog, nicknamed "Loran's Best," was known as a laid-back mascot who seemed oblivious to crowd noise during boisterous games and would sit patiently as excited fans snapped photos of him. He often roamed the sidelines in a shirt with a 'G' stitched on it, sometimes resting on a bag of ice to cool off in his customized dog house.Georgia will play with a heavy heart and no mascot tomorrow against Kentucky.

UGA VII was the latest in a line of dogs owned by the Sellers family that has served as the team's emblem for the last 54 years. An interim dog will be in place for the Georgia Tech season finale on November 28 in Atlanta and will also represent the team in their bowl game but won't necessarily become UGA VIII. A thorough search for a worthy heir will commence as soon as possible.

UGA VII is dead, long live UGA VIII.

ESPN's 30 for 30: A Midterm Review

I'm not in college anymore, but as everyone I work with can attest, I wish I still was and from time to time I try to act like I am.  This would explain why I routinely come into work hungover on Thursdays.


Sidebar: Ruby Tequila's claims that "Wednesday night is the new Friday night!"  Here's why that's bullshit: Thursday morning is not the new Saturday morning.  You can act like it's Friday all you want on Wednesday, but when that alarm goes off, and you wake up bleary-eyed from too many beerritas (beer and a margerita go together better than you might think) and with a gut full of Mexican queso dip and enchiladas, it's not a good thing.  Then you go to work smelling like you just crossed the border and celebrated by going on a two-day bender.  Then you try to look the City Mayor straight in the face with your bloodshot eyes and ask him about plans for the redevelopment of downtown Lubbock.  Really and truly, you realize Thursday morning is in no way Saturday morning, because if it was you'd still be lying in bed getting a little hair-of-the-dog treatment and wasting the day watching shitty Big 10 football when you wake up at 11 AM.


I miss college.


So any excuse I have to act like I'm in college, I will use readily.  Enter ESPN's documentary project 30 for 30.  The idea is 30 films from 30 great film makers about incredible events that happened over the passed 30 years (since ESPN hit the air in 1979).  The topics they'll cover range from the USFL, to The U (The University of Miami, one I personally can't wait for), to Reggie Miller.


The series began October 6th with "King's Ransome," a wonderful opening salvo about Wayne Gretzky's trade from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings.  The most recent installment was "The Legend of Jimmy the Greek," about an ex-NFL handicapper whose career went down in flames after some questionable comments made on air.


In all, 30 for 30 has debuted six hour-long documentaries.  I have watched all of them, so I thought I'd hand out grades for each doc and tell you what I liked and did not like about each.  Call it a mid-term review, because that way I can pretend that I'm still in college and that this is a legitimate way to spend my time.

JNG: During my senior year of college....Sorry, got a little choked up there for a second. Anyways, as I was saying, during my senior year of college I was lucky enough to take a creative writing class. The class was taught by Professor Bret Lott, who appropriately enough has made quite a living off of his own writing. He has written twelve novels, with his book Jewel earning him a guest appearance on Oprah Winfrey's show (a selection to her book club) and a spot on the the New York Times Best Sellers list. He also took a hiatus from teaching to be the editor for LSU's Southern Review, a highly respected literary journal.

The class, and Lott himself, fit about every fictitious fantasy I ever held about an author teaching a class. We had all our classes outside, sitting on the bare lawn under the Spanish moss while Lott sat in his chair chomping on a cigar and filling the air with the woodsy scented smoke. There were no grades, only writing, and of plenty of Lott's making fun of us and waxing poetic about life. It was a free flowing conversation that touched on what it meant to live and how that translated into writing. Cigar smelling clothes be damned,  it was easily the most interesting class I took in my four years in Charleston, and Lott was easily my most interesting professor.

Now, I fancy myself to be a good writer. I mean, obviously, I take the time out to write things like this.So for my first short story assignment, which the whole class would read and dissect, I tirelessly made an effort to come up with something great. Something people would enjoy and appreciate and be surprised by. Something that would show my potential as a writer.  And most importantly to impress Lott, who probably looked at me as some shaggy haired frat boy looking for an easy grade.

The story I came up with involved an elaborate dream sequence with soaring vocabulary and implicit thematic devices. It delved from there into a story about a boy going to New York for a job interview against his will and meeting an old man in a deli and the conversation between the two. I worked on it for over a week (which for a fly-by-the-seat writer like myself, who rarely edits after a first draft, is a long, long time) and when I turned it in, I felt instant pride in my work. Most everyone in the class enjoyed it, but I'll always remember something Lott told me, both for  that assignment and for life.

He said, with the cigar still clenched in his teeth, "Show, don't tell. Believe that you can get a point across better by illustrating it than by talking about it."

I tell you this because I feel like what Mitch and I are looking for in these documentaries is vastly different. The best of what 30 for 30 has had to offer thus far follows what Lott told me almost a year ago. It has been more about showing you something indirectly, through images and interviews and old clips, and letting you make your own conclusions about the material without the director ever explicitly laying it out or telling  you. I feel like that is what Mitch wants; he wants the story to have structure, and he wants it in a straight forward, traditional way. That's fine, everyone has their own criteria of which to judge something they view (even though Mitch to this day says The Punisher is a good movie while I am positive 99.9% of the population would say it was horrible).

I just see it in a different light. I understand that each documentary is telling a story personal to the director. A story with which the director empathizes and feels strongly enough to take the time out and show to us. Most of these directors came ESPN when they heard of the idea for the series. Most of them already had stories they wanted to tell. This is the most intimate thing ESPN has ever done. I appreciate that.



1) "King's Ransom"
Director: Peter Berg
Premiere: October 6
Synopsis: In 1988, the Edmonton Oilers traded the NHL's best player, Wayne Gretzky, to one of the NHL's worst teams, the Los Angeles Kings.  Gretzky was a hero and a national icon in Canada.  The documentary deals with the effect the trade had on Edmonton, Canada, the NHL, and Gretzky himself.


MLC:
Grade: B+
Viewer's Eye: "King's Ransom" was an excellent premiere for the 30 for 30 series as a whole.  I was one-year-old going on two in August 1988 when this happened, so I clearly don't remember it.  To be able to experience this event and learn new things about what happened was amazing.  I had no idea that Wayne Gretzky's wife Janet was a soap opera actress and that her life in LA may have contributed to Wayne's decision to OK the trade.  In fact, I had no idea that any part of the trade was even up to Gretzky.


The Edmonton Oilers traded the best player of all time after he won four straight Stanley Cups to a new team in LA while he was in the prime of his career.  The trade made expansion actually viable for the NHL and indirectly resulted in franchises popping up in Tampa, Miami, Phoenix, and Dallas.  LA even got a second team (Anaheim). 


Imagine the Bulls trading Jordan after his first 3-peat to the Clippers for a few players and a mountain of cash.  The doc had tears, it had betrayal, it had burning in effigy.


It gets a B+ because I hated the way director Peter Berg shot his interview with Gretzky on a golf course.  it made Gretzky look like a douche bag.  He's talking about one of the most Earth-shattering moments in hockey history, something that ruined an incredible dynasty and changed the league forever, and his venue is an LA country club with Gretzky chilly-dipping his 9-iron.  Here's  a novel idea: be ultra authentic with it.  Take him back to Edmonton.  Interview him on the Oiler's bench.  Not on a golf course.  What kind of shit is that?






JNG: "Kings Ransom" was the first documentary in the series and was directed by Peter Berg, who also happened to direct one of my favorite sports movies of all time in Friday Night Lights. The film looks at the trade of NHL superstar Wayne Gretzky from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988. 

Berg paints the picture around the actual event of the trade with fast edits that cut between old footage and interviews with various parties involved and Berg and a middle-aged Gretzky looking back on the fallout while playing golf  together. The documentary shows the personal impact of the trade; how it devastated small-market and passionate Edmonton, how it brought about expansion in the NHL, and how it personally affected everyone involved.

The impact is what touched me the most. Seeing the full press conference announcing Gretzky's trade and the facial expressions of everyone there, specifically Gretzky breaking down as the realization of the moment got to him. Tell me this, would you ever see an athlete do this today? Absolutely not. Refreshing to see players care about who they are playing for and having an attachment to a city and a fans that goes beyond money. Gretzky understood the business side of the trade, and from his interview you can tell part of him also enjoyed the exposure that playing in LA would provide him, but he also felt a deep and heartfelt  bond to Edmonton.

Before the trade, Gretzky had won eight consecutive Hart Trophies (NHL MVP) and five Stanley Cups in seven years. After the trade he would only win one more Hart Trophy and never again would he hoist the Cup.

What could have been?

It is one of the most compelling story lines in sports. "Kings Ransom" does a beautiful job touching on the Trade that changed Gretzky's career, the course of the Oilers franchise, and the NHL forever, all the while leaving us to wonder "what if".



2) "The Band That Wouldn't Die"
Director: Barry Levinson
Premiere: October 13
Synopsis: In 1984, Baltimore Colts owner Robert Irsay had his team moved out of Baltimore in the middle of the night.  The team packed up and headed for Indianapolis.  But the Baltimore Colts Band refused to go away.  They continued playing their instruments and lobbying for another NFL team.  They eventually got one when the Ravens arrived in 1996.

MLC
Grade: A
Viewer's Eye: Maybe it's my midAtlantic bias, but I loved this documentary.  It also has something to do with what little I knew about it.  The dedication of these people was incredible to see.  25 years later, these people have a new team that has already won a Super Bowl, new band uniforms, and ostensibly a new allegiance.  Yet they still cry when they remember the Baltimore Colts.  They still talk about the Colts like that one ex-girlfriend that every man has that he never recovers from, no matter what he may go on to do with his life.  They played at halftime of other NFL games, they played in parades in Baltimore and other cities, they played on the steps of the State Capitol.  This was (is) an amazing group of people that truly never gave up hope and forced the mighty NFL to take note and bring football back to Baltimore.


I had forgotten a\bout the Baltimore Stallions, the Canadian Football League team that Baltimore had to deal with prior to the Ravens.  I had forgotten about the tell-tale Bal'mer accent.  Most of all, I'd forgotten about the Baltimore Colts, my Dad's favorite team.  I've never had an event that I did not live through brought back so vividly as to become in my mind a vivid memory that I had never before possessed.  I wasn't alive for it, but I lived through it through this documentary.  This includes the ultimate irony: Baltimore gets its team back, but at the expense of another hard-luck city who goes through the grieving process all over again (Cleveland).  Wow.


3) "Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL?"
Director: Mike Tollin
Premiere: October 20
Synopsis: The USFL was a new pro football league that attempted to take on the mighty NFL in 1983.  They had some early success but could not sustain their own expansion.  Tollin hammers home the point that New Jersey Generals owner Donald Trump killed the league.


MLC
Grade: B
Viewer's Eye: Right from the beginning I knew I'd have a problem with this documentary.  That's when the director Tollin puts himself squarely in the middle of the documentary.  I was a young kid.  I had a starter production company.  I had all the exclusive rights to this footage.  I sat down with Donald Trump.  Tollin narrated.  Tollin provided background.  Tollin Tollin Tollin.  It just annoys the hell out of me when someone telling a story about one thing makes it half about themselves.  Like most of my writing (see the intro).


The saving grace of this film is that it does not focus so much on Mike Tollin as maybe Mike Tollin would have desired.  It is full of great footage, interviews, and bits of information that I had no idea existed. I knew nothing about the USFL (aside from the fact that it existed and failed), nor its demise until this documentary.  I don't care about Mike Tollin, but watching this documentary and learning more and more about Donald Trump was great.  Especially seeing that his hair has always been retarded, not just recently.

JNG: "Small Potatoes" does suffer for the fact that its director plays a little much of a central figure. But the footage is incredible. I was born in 1986 and have heard about the UFSL but t was a delight to actually see the games and players (even though the logos and jerseys were some of the most hideous I have ever seen). I also didn't know how prominent some of the players who played in the USFL went on toe become. The league signed three straight Heisman winners (Herschel Walker, some guy, and Doug Flutie) as well as having future Hall of Fame quarterbacks Jim Kelly and Steve Young. The games looked entertaining. The league was fun and with its spring season actually seemed to be a potentially viable league.

Then the Donald came along. In his power hunger and greed, Trump insisted that the season be moved to the fall to compete with the NFL as well as leading the orchestration of a lawsuit against the NFL. Both of which we are led to believe played a primarily role in the league eventually folding. Trump has gotten a free pass from the media since "The Apprentice" debuted, so it was nice to be reminded of how big a dick the guy is.

The documentary was interesting. The footage was fascinating. I enjoyed seeing players, league officials, owners and Burt Reynolds talking about the league. But I think it tried to tell too many parts of the story, rather than focusing on one small part of a larger story (the trade with Gretzky's career, the marching band with the Colts move).

4) "Muhammad and Larry"
Director: Albert Maysles and Bradley Kaplan
Premiere: October 27
Synopsis: Muhammad Ali was once the brash king of heavyweight boxing.  But in 1980, he was far past his prime.  Yet he accepted $8 million to fight one last fight against Larry Holmes.  Holmes beat him to a pulp.


MLC
Grade: D
Viewer's Eye: I get it: Muhammad Ali was old.  Too old for this fight.  He was no match for Larry Holmes.  So why spend an entire hour beating this into my head?


First Ali's trrainer says he's old.  Then the boxing writers say he's old.  Then Holmes says he's old.  It's just a lot of training footage of Larry being Larry and Muhammad being Muhammad and us not really learning anything aside from the fact that Muhammad Ali was too old for this fight.


Sound repetitive?  Then don't watch this documentary.

JNG: Mitch is missing the whole point on "Muhammad and Larry", which to me has been the documentary that has touched me the most out of the series thus far.

These first four "30 for 30" films all were tragedies in some way, and "Muhammad and Larry" was the grandest tragedy of them all. The time frame of the series (which has to cover events from ESPN's lifespan) means we can't get a film about Ali when he was The Greatest of All Time. We can't see the days when he was faster and funnier than any other fighter on the planet. Nor can we see the Ali of the 70s when he had slowed down but gained in toughness what he lost in speed. And who survived legendary slug fests with George Foreman and Joe Frazier. There are traces of that man in "Muhammad and Larry," particularly in the snippets of him bantering with the visitors to his training camp (and in magic trick sequence, which becomes incredibly poignant when you realize the Parkinson's has robbed him of the ability to even do something as silly as sleight-of-hand), but this is an older, slower Ali. 

And those classic Ali fights have been well-covered by the dozens of Ali documentaries and books out there , whereas Albert Maysles' footage of the build-up to Ali-Holmes sat on a shelf for decades, because no one wanted to revisit the horror of that one-sided demolition of the beloved Ali.

Then "30 for 30" came along, and Maysles' archival footage was combined with contemporary interviews  and so we get to see the car wreck of a fight unfold in slow motion. We barely see any of the fight itself, but there's such a sense of dread over the build-up footage, and such regret in the voices of most of the 21st century interviewees, that we only need a few glimpses to recognize how awful this was, and how sad that nobody could talk the champ out of it.

At the same time, the film manages to tell the ultimately happy story of Larry Holmes. Holmes never got much respect as champ, in part because everyone felt bad about the whupping he laid on Ali, in part because he was a fairly bland, unassuming guy compared to Ali, Frazier, Foreman and the other men who had dominated the heavyweight ranks for the previous two decades. But it feels oddly refreshing to see a relatively well-adjusted champ, one who gets so much obvious, simple pleasure out of listening to songs written about him, and who's perfectly happy to still be living in his hometown of Easton.

As Lott told me, 'Show. Don't tell." The footage in this documentary speak for themselves. I felt for Ali, I felt for Holmes (who respected Ali immensely and knew he was a shell of himself), and I was enraptured the entire time. I loved this film.

5) "Without Bias"
Director: Kirk Fraser
Premiere: November 3
Synopsis: Picture a mix of Blake Griffin's outstanding talent and athleticism and Ray Allen's jumper; that was Len Bias.  Bias was an incredible player and a budding pro prospect.  The Boston Celtics selecte dhim second overall in the 1986 NBA draft and looked to have the pieces of a long-runnign dynasty.  Tragically, Bias died of a cocaine overdose before he ever played for the Celtics.


MLC
Grade: C+
Viewer's Eye: I have conferred with my colleague and believe me, we differ in our opinions on this documentary.  I preemptively agree with you Newman: the footage of Len Bias playing in his heyday is jarring.  It's insane how good this guy was and how good he could have been.  It's also insane how crazy good the Celtics could have been and how the death of Len Bias dropped that franchise into a tailspin from which it did not recover until 2008.  


Here's my problem: I didn't learn anything new. I'm familiar with Bias. Any sports fan has to know this story, especially anyone who follows the NBA.  The other thing that bothered me the most was the lack of emotion from anyone in the interviews.  I got the feeling this was the 90 millionth time they had all talked about it, then Kirk Fraser comes around and everybody rolls their eyes and says, "Are we really doing this again?"  Why do you think there were so many cutaways to crying family, friends, teammates, and the like throughout the documentary?  It's because there was ZERO emotion in the interviews.  It's tough to feel the impact and the sadness when the impact of the sadness is not even exemplified by those who should feel it the most.


This documentary was lifeless, and that's why I gave it a C+.

JNG: Au contraire Mitch, au contraire. You suffer from the fallacy of thought that viewing these documentaries are supposed to teach you something new, give you some new facts or spin. And while I agree that it is always refreshing to watch something new, I don't understand why this has become any sort of criteria for you in judging these films.

"Without Bias" made me care, because it's obvious how much Fraser, the director, and all the people who get a chance to talk in the film, cared about Len Bias. He was so important to so many people. I understand that his death was every bit the major, unsettling event that everyone describes in the film. I understand why it made people like Bill Simmons feel like this.

Bias was touted by every reasonable basketball person to be just as good as Michael Jordan. He was taller than Jordan, had the same killer instinct, same explosiveness, and a picture perfect jump shot. He seemed just as marketable, with an easy smile and polite demeanor, and was destined for perhaps even more greatness than #23 achieved.  Drafted by a Celtics team that won the 1986 championship and is considered to be one of the best, if not the best, teams of all time, Bias surely would have swung the 1987 title and prolonged and reinvigorated the careers of Bird and McHale. Who knows what was possible. As I said earlier, what if?

The documentary tells so many compelling stories. Many of the sound bytes and images from the movie have stayed with me in the week since I watched it: the composure of Mrs. Bias, the regret of his college teammate ("Why did we have to be stupid enough to do drugs?"), the eloquence of Michael Wilbon (which is easy to forget if you just watch him on "PTI" every day, as I do) and, especially, the TV interview about Jay Bias's murder, where the dad talks about "the eulogy that he would give for Len Bias," then stops himself when he realizes what he's just said, and what a horrible double-burden has been visited on his family, and tries to fight back tears before walking away.

Len Bias worked his entire life towards achieving a dream. He practiced tirelessly, worked out constantly, conditioned himself, and demonstrated at Maryland what a talent he was. When the Celtics drafted him his dream was fulfilled. He would be an NBA player, playing for the most storied franchise in the sport. To work so long and so hard and to see your dreams come to pass is something few people get to ever experience. The best days of his life lay in front of him. Two days later he was dead.

What if  indeed.


6) "The Legend of Jimmy the Greek"
Director: Fritz Mitchell
Premiere: November 10
Synopsis: Jimmy the Greek was the man that made sports betting main stream.  For years he handicapped NFL games on CBS's football pregame show every Sunday.  After some negative comments about the origins of the athelticism of African-American athletes, the Greek went down in flames and died a sad, lonely death.


MLC
Grade: C-
Viewer's Eye: Note to Fritz Mitchell: If you're going to make a documentary and use, as one of your techniques, a first person narration by that documentary's deceased subject, that narrator's voice should sound like the real guy's voice.  What do I mean?  Let's say they make a movie about my life and cast Brad Pitt, but throughout the movie they have pictures of me, and you're asking, "Who is the guy in those pictures?" because I look nothing like Brad Pitt.  That's kind of how this documentary went.  Mitchell wanted to tell the story of Jimmy the Greek in part through his own words, so he used a narrator to let "Jimmy" tell his own story.  But Jimmy has sound bites throughout the documentary, and the voice over guy sounds nothing like Jimmy the Greek.  I kept going, "Who is that talking?"  It was supposed to be the Greek, but it was terrible.


On top of that, this documentary is a cop-out.  The big deal about Jimmy the Greek was what he said about African-American athletes: they're physically superior to white athletes because in white slave holders bred them to be so for 300 years of slavery.  In Jimmy's words, "The slave owners would take their big female slave and breed her with the big male slave so they'd have big strong kids."


The Greek was derided, fired, and eventually killed by the lasting effect of these remarks.  I cannot agree more that the remarks were extremely insensitive at a time when race relations were doing their best to make a mends after the tumultuous '60s (uh, pretty sure race was a big issue after the 60s).  But every time I hear anything about the Greek, it's all about how what he said was so awful.  No one ever tries to check the validity of the statement because they're afraid to do so.  I'm not saying Jimmy the Greek was right or wrong.  I'm just asking why we're not allowed to ask why.  As a white former athlete, I can testify that the majority of my African-American friends were far superior in athletics and physical genetics in general to what meager ability I could produce.  I'd like to know why.  And slave breeding is a nasty fact of life that we're too afraid to tackle in 2009.  From 1619 until the Civil War, white plantation owners treated human beings as animals.  Is it impossible that this may have contributed to the athletic superiority of African-Americans in today's sports landscape?


I'm not saying what's right or what's wrong.  All I'm saying is that no one knows that.  I would like to hear an anthropologist, or a doctor, or a historian, or anyone credible break it down for me that this is absolutely false and that Jimmy the Greek is an idiot.  But that's not allowed.  That's taboo and it ends up with some ignorant white dude in a room with Jesse Jackson and about 50 TV cameras.  Maybe I'm that guy.  Maybe I'm ignorant.  All I'm saying is prove it.


This documentary does not do that.  It sweeps Jimmy's comments under the rug and ignores the true issue.  Plus the voice thing.  That's why this documentary gets a C-.

JNG: Mitch, you really are missing the whole point of this documentary. 

I didn't really get into football until the '90s, you know, because before I was an infant, and I was still too young to really care or notice when I heard of Jimmy the Greek and how his career came to an end after he gave that local TV interview about black athletes being better because of slavery.

So to a viewer like me, who only knows Jimmy from the scandal, "The Legend of Jimmy the Greek" did its job. It told me why Jimmy mattered before he ever opened his mouth to that DC camera crew, and why his life was colorful - and tragic - enough to merit the "30 for 30" treatment.

I didn't know that Jimmy set the line for Super Bowl III, that he was so influential in the public acceptance of gambling, or about all the tensions between Jimmy, Phyllis George and Brent Musberger in that classic "NFL Today" cast, or that CBS was more or less ready to dump Jimmy even before the scandal broke. Nor, of course, did I know any of Jimmy's personal life, including the murder of his mother and the deaths of three of his kids and how much all that tragedy weighed on him.

But even if very little of the documentary had offered new information to me, it still would have worked as a movie. With one exception (the ghost narration I agree), Fritz Mitchell told the story well and thoroughly. It was one of the more conventional of the "30 for 30" films so far, but he made good use of the archival footage, and I found it a nice touch that so many of the interviews were conducted in a bar, given the story that the film opened on.

And while Mitchell and the interviewees don't absolve Jimmy for what he said, I thought Brent did an admirable job of trying to at least place it into context - to suggest that there was some kernel of a point in there, but that Jimmy wasn't articulate enough, and too old-fashioned, to make it properly.

Senior Thesis: Call me harsh if you like, but 30 for 30 has not yet lived up to its billing.  I have enjoyed the documentaries immensely, but I'm a huge sports fan and sat through an entire Niagara-Drexel college basketball game because it was opening day of the '09-'10 season and I was excited.  My point is, I'll watch and be entertained by just about anything sports (well, male sports).  These documentaries have fallen short of my expectations, and I'm looking for more when they start up again in December.

Posterized 2.0

Because God knows how much we all hate Anderson Varejao

Clear Forecast for BCS and Picks Redemption

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