I prefer to refer to this an homage to Drew Magary, rather than acknowledge the fact that it is a blatant rip-off.
I’m not sure I’ll have the stomach to keep this up all season. All the vitriol TMQ causes me will probably give me an early ulcer.
My clever nicknames will keep you in stitches!
College Schedules
Yet another item that’s repeated year after year with only the details changing. Easterbrook hates the fact that big time college football schools pad their schedules with easy wins. That’s fair enough, everyone would like to see more high-power out of conference matchups.
The problem arises when Easterbrook tries to blast the athletic departments for poor sportsmanship. As will be a running theme through these rejoinders, TMQ yet again fails to consider motives behind behaviors.
College football is motivated by two things, money and prestige. Schools want to win a lot of games to increase their prestige and make a bowl game with a big payday. There’s nothing wrong with that, professional teams have similar motivations. But in college, the schools set their schedules, rather than the league. Schools make calculated decisions about their schedules in an attempt to maximize money and prestige.
If Oklahoma State thinks it can go undefeated in conference, why should it schedule tough games outside the Big XII? If they run the table, they make the BCS Title game. If they schedule Florida or Ohio State and lose, they risk being left out of the title picture even after a perfect conference schedule. The BCS creates perverse incentives, but vilifying the ADs for reacting to those incentives doesn’t help anything.
Stupid Nicknames
The Ming Ding Xiong ("Bears whose outcomes are decided by fate" in Chinese)…
This annoys me to no end. I’ll admit that a few of TMQ’s team nicknames are amusing when used in moderation, but his quest to have a crazy nickname for every team is beyond stupid (see above).
Plaxico Burress
Had Burress remained a Giant, he would have had the most popular organization between Washington and Boston in his corner, and it's simply human nature that prosecutors and judges might have looked sympathetically upon his case. Instead, Burress angrily refused the team's offer…
It’s time to play thought experiment! Let’s say Plax was still on the Giants. Let’s also say that he got relatively easy treatment by the NY judicial system. Who do you think would be first in line to blast the powerful influences that spoiled athletes take advantage of?
“Weasel Coaches”
Easterbrook spends 6 paragraphs bashing coaches who skip town when they have commitments in place. He singles out Bobby Petrino, Rich Rodriguez, and Nick Saban. Again, that’s fine, no one likes lying college football coaches who promise to stay and then leave.
The problem as always is TMQ’s overreaching and misleading use of statistics. He claims that the “football gods” punish schools who employ “weasel coaches” and cites some records that appear to back him up (the three schools mentioned, Arkansas, Alabama, and Michigan were a combined 20-18 last year). In piling on Saban, he also points out that with the 2007 victories that were vacated by the NCAA, Saban is 14-13 as Alabama head coach, and Alabama is 25-53 since 2003.
I’m no fan of Nick Saban, but isn’t TMQ leaving out some crucial information here? I’ll refresh your memory: Alabama went 12-2 last year with its only losses coming in the SEC Championship Game (to Florida) and the Sugar Bowl. Even in Tuscaloosa, that’s considered a pretty decent season. Easterbrook does this all the time, throwing out misleading and incomplete statistics to back up his points in a way that would make a lobbyist blush. He just assumes that you won’t bother looking up the details and then every once in a while he says something so obviously wrong (Alabama has suffered since hiring Saban) that it makes you question everything he writes.
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