Dear BCS,

You get beat up on far too often by the bloggers, ESPN and water cooler quarterbacks. So I’m here to show you some love. Here are 5 reasons that I love you, BCS.

1. You bring college football to the forefront of sports discussion, when the NFL could dominate it. Seriously, would anyone have been talking about the games half as much, if a win or a loss only determined home field advantage for a shot at the national title?  What happens when an undefeated FSU / Florida matchup happens down the road and all it means is that the loser has to play on the road in the 2nd round? You make regular season games into playoff games. For years it was Florida or Florida State, last week it was Missouri or Kansas. Fans will watch those games, since they have meaning under your system.

2. You attempt to settle the disputes that the old poll system couldn’t get right anyway. Yes, the computers are cryptic. Yes, they have human error built into them, but it’s an attempt and you get an A for effort BCS. Seriously, was the AP vs. Coaches vs. I’m claiming the ScalpEm.com National Championship this season, any better?

3. You’re better than the playoff we’ll likely get down the road, which will be 4 or 8 teams, instead of 16. Think about it, there’s no way teams are going to go for a 16 team playoff scenario (even though I’d love that more than you BCS, I’m sorry).

4. You’re a proving ground for smaller teams.  Boise State would not have made it through a 16 team playoff last season, Hawaii wouldn’t make it this year, but thanks to the BCS, BSU (and maybe Hawaii) have a shot for that one big moment where they beat up on a traditional power.  The best game of the year last season? Boise State vs. Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.

5. You allow for disputes, discussion and talk for years after a season. Think about it, with a playoff, there’s no more discussion over who was really the better team, LSU or USC?  A playoff settles that, and fans don’t get to talk about it later on. What would bloggers and message boards guys talk about? :)

Disagree? Agree? Leave some comments, but please understand that I’ll leave the BCS for a 16 team playoff.  That’s one of those “5 freebies” everyone gets in a relationship, like Megan Fox or Jessica Alba.

“I thought we were very solid with our defensive fundamentals,” FSU coach Leonard Hamilton said.

“I think we were just playing solid basketball, sticking with our defensive principles,” Hamilton said. “That’s what experience will do for you.”

“We do all that we can not to let them get the ball on the inside,” Reid said. “And if we do front the post and get good help-side (defense), that’s what we’re going to keep working with.”

“I think what Ryan has done is accepted our defensive principles, and he’s executing,” Hamilton said. “He’s doing all the little things he wasn’t doing earlier.”

“When Reid wants to shut somebody down, he shuts them down,” Swann said.

“That was our biggest concern,” Hamilton said. “We had to neutralize those two guys inside. … They didn’t get into the offensive rhythm that they’re accustomed to, and I think Ryan and Uche had a lot to do with it.”

Regarding the 9 1/2 minute stretch where FSU held the Gophers to one basket, “I think that our experience, just playing together, hitting free throws and not turning the ball over under pressure was very good during that stretch,” Hamilton said.

“Whatever we did [defensively] I thought we did a good job,” FSU Coach Leonard Hamilton said.

“We’re still in the learning process and trying to figure out who we are,” Mims said. “A lot of people are calling us one-game wonders since we beat Florida, and we’re just trying to get past that.”

“We won against Florida and this was a big game, a national-television game against Minnesota,” said Douglas, who topped the 1,000-point mark on a 3-pointer early in the second half. “But our character is going to show when we come back Friday night and play Stetson if we can bring that level up even more.”

“That’s a very good night in anybody’s book,” FSU coach Leonard Hamilton said on Mims’ on court performance. “We might have to let him sing the national anthem in the locker room (every game) to get him tuned up.”

“You guys came to watch a basketball game and a Ralph Mims concert broke out,” Hamilton said.

“I come from a singing family,” Mims said. “I didn’t want my Florida State career to be over without trying this.”

“My man can blow,” Swann said. “He definitely deserves a contract somewhere.”

“Who knows,” the coach added, “we all might be coming back here one day to buy tickets to a Ralph Mims concert.”

“I was just having fun,” Mims said with a sheepish grin. “It’s my last year and I’m trying to do some different things to excite my senior year.”

“Ralph got us off to a good start,” FSU coach Leonard Hamilton said. “He wants to be a professional singer when he gets through playing college basketball, and we thought we would give him an opportunity to expose his vocal talents, and I thought he did a mighty fine job.”

“We really wanted to follow that Florida game up with a solid game on national TV,” said senior guard Isaiah Swann, who had 15 points and seven rebounds. “Because we knew everybody was watching us. And we knew it would be good for us come Selection Sunday.”

“We’re trying to change the culture,” Swann said of a program that hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 1998.

“We’re trying to get past that,” he said. “I think we are, but we are still learning. We’re understanding how to win now,” said senior guard Ralph Mims.

“We’re not a real good rebounding team but we’re getting better. It’s an issue for our team,” Mims said. “Coach wanted us guards to help our big guys, to be in the right spot and to fight for every loose ball.”

“Ralph’s got big, wide shoulders,” Rich said. “He can mix it up in there. He’s a pretty big guard.”

“I thought our execution was pretty poor,” Smith said.

“We knew we had to have a good shooting night and take care of the ball,” said Smith, whose Gophers did neither.

“We’ve got to get some scoring from our veteran players,” Smith said.

“We didn’t think we were playing with the same intensity,” Smith said. “That’s something we have to do.”

“We were in the game, they were just better than us,” Westbrook said. “No excuses.”

“We needed a game like this so we can evaluate and measure where we are,” Smith said.

By Bill Kristoph

3 Up

Gary Cismesia. Yes, that thing DOES have a hemi, which provided the power for a 60 yard field goal in Gainesville last weekend.  Mr. Cismesia, you might have just earned yourself some serious cash.

FSU Men’s Hoops. After a couple of inexplicable losses, FSU Basketball is off and running with victories over rival Florida and Big Ten opponent Minnesota. The Noles are now 6-2 on the season.

FSU Soccer. The best futbol team in Tallahassee, the ladies are racking up the goals behind Mami Yamaguchi and advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals… again. The Seminoles are perfect at home in the post season… ALL TIME. 13-0-0.

3 Down 

FSU Football. The defense was horrible, the offense was bland and the Noles looked slow. Oh yeah, and did I mention Tim Tebow looks like Superman and Percy Harvin looks like he has a rocket up his ass?  I guess the only solace is that FSU has to face them twice more at most.

T.K. Wetherell. The FSU president is in talks to move next year’s Colorado / FSU game from Tallahassee to Jacksonville or Tampa. Maybe those ‘Canes and Gators fans HAVE been spelling it right all these years… F$U. Oh yeah, and there is still no Athletic Director to replace Dave Hart, maybe T.K. is planning on doing that too?

Bobby Bowden and his new contract. Just get one that he wants already. FSU named the field after him, Bowden gets to name the time & place of when he wants to vacate his office. Get over it fans. A performance based contract is a slap in his face at this age and legendary status, but, in reality does he really deserve a raise?

Andrew Carter hit it on the head again, recruiting is a big hype machine.

From the article:

At this point, it’s time for FSU fans to admit that the talent within the program has been extremely overrated. Seminoles fans, here’s a painful truth: All the recruiting hype you’ve read over the years is just that – hype. It’s carefully marketed and sold to you so you’ll pay $9.95 a month to read about it and salivate over it. Recruiting news has become big business, and it’s become big business because of gullible people like yourselves who can’t get enough of the bogus information out there. 

No offense to Warchant.com right?

But, Andrew has a valid point, and provides a ton of examples in his blog.  Cullen Harper? Three star recruit.  Phillips Rivers? A no-name kid from Alabama. The list goes on and on. So if you pay that $9.95, leave a comment and tell me why you do it, when obviously Xavier Lee isn’t better than Matt Ryan or Cullen Harper.

I get it… football is a team sport… but when you’re hounded by reports about Tim Tebow’s Heisman potential, give the kid a little bit more support.  The SunSports postgame press conference was amusing, when Urban was all too happy to talk about everything but Tim-may winning a Heisman. Why not say something like, “The stats speak for themselves, or of course I think he’s had the best season.”

If Tebow really is Superman, there’s no reason to think he’d slack even if Coach Urban Meyer proclaimed him great.

Okay… so seriously I’ve seen a lot of bastardizations lately… please, please, please… if you’re linking here… the name of the company and website is ScalpEm.com.  Not Scalp ‘em, ScalpEm, Scalp ‘Em or whatever. ScalpEm.com… the whole thing. :)

Thanks,

The Management

Not WILL Tebow win it… but should he?

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1. Here are some things that may ease the sting of yesterday’s non-tackling drill.
A. At least we led at one point. Until their offense took the field that is.
B. At least we owned them in basketball this season.
C. At least Shiny Pants lost too.
D. At least we were spared Tony Joiner kissing anybody.
E. At least the defense was not as bad as FIU’s. The Owls’ gave up 48 points yesterday. So there, take that Gary Danielson. FSU was three points better! Of course that was to FAU. On 2nd thought, maybe we should leave it at A thru D..
So, did that help?

2. The No, That’s Not Quite Accurate Award goes to PT Willis. After FSU kicked its second field goal in the game Willis said “You’re not going to beat the Gators kicking field goals.” Sure you can PT. Ask Auburn. Okay, it would have taken FSU twelve more field goals to do it. But it still was mathematically possible right? Think about it. Why waste all that time getting into the redzone to kick yet another field goal. Just line Gary Cismesia up at the 50 yard line and it’s money in the bank!!!!

3. There is absolutely no truth to the rumor (started by yours truly, but you knew that already) that Bobby’s halftime speech went something like “Now men, if they don’t score another point and we kick five more field goals we win dadgummit.”

4. And as was predicted, Tim Tebow did go down. Down the field running for first downs. Down the field running for touchdowns. Down the field throwing for first downs and touchdowns. Just basically a lot of going down the field. Memo to Geno Hayes: DON’T do that again!!

5. The wit and wisdom of Mrs. BFT. In an effort to improve the well executed defensive strategy of Won’t Somebody Please Tackle Somebody came the suggestion from the couch “Maybe we can play Preston Parker on defense.”

6. Earlier in the week Mickey Andrews was asked if he knew how to stop Tim Tebow. His response was “Yes, but it’s against the law.” Hey, long about the time the gatros (their …) aka crocs of XXVI scored on their first four possessions, the vast majority was probably VERY willing to try anything.

7. Here’s a question. If the punter for the gatros (their …) aka crocs of XXVI had been late getting to the game and didn’t show until halftime, would Urban Meyer even have noticed?

8. Best quote from the game: From Tom Block to open the pre-game radio show, “It’s a nice day in Gainesville which sounds like an oxymoron I know.”

9. Upon further review, maybe that 14 point spread afforded to that OTHER team was a tad conservative.

10. After discussing at the half with ABC’s sideline reporter on how to stop various plays Colorado was successfully running, Bill Callahan, with his team leading 35-24 at the break, apparently forgot to impart that knowledge to his Nebraska team.

Bonus Aimlessly Random and Thoroughly Meaningless Thoughts

11. Sign seen at ESPN’s Gameday at Arrowhead Stadium: “Obesity Lives Here!” Stay right there guy. The transfat police will be along any minute now.

12. Here’s the situation. You’re head coach. Your team is leading 14-0 with ten minutes to play. It’s 4th and one at your 49 yard line. Following the call to go for the first down which leads instead to a three yard loss you:
A. Say you were hoping they would jump offsides.
B. Claim you thought it was third down
C. Deny you made the call and say it was your OC who did.
D. Contemplate your buyout package and start looking for another job.

13. Just a few weeks ago, Ole Miss chancellor Robert Khahat was quoted as saying that Ed Orgeron would be back in 2008 as the Rebels’ football coach unless he did something insane. Apparently, the above-mentioned play qualified as grounds for admission to Belleview.

14. After losing 37-0, really, if NC State wasn’t that interested in going to a bowl game wouldn’t it have just been simpler to just call Maryland on the phone on Wednesday and say “You win”?

15. Following LSU’s overtime loss to Arkansas (now maybe Les Miles will learn how to pronounce the name of the state; it’s Ar-KAN-saw not AR-kansas there Les) furniture stores in West Virginia experienced a major economic boon selling out of couches in minutes.

By Bill Kristoph

Before I get to the Noles, let’s talk Gators for a second. I’m going to say it… if Tim Tebow doesn’t win the Heisman Trophy it’s criminal.  Tebow scored 5 touchdowns in a rout of the Florida State Seminoles tonight.  Number 15 is the best player in the nation right now, as much as I hate to admit it. He’s both a passer and a runner, and he deserves the trophy with the stats this year. Without Tebow the Gators would have lost more than 3 games. Also, give credit to the Gator defense that stepped up their game a bit, and looked faster than they had all season.

Now, on to the Seminoles. It was much of the same old story for FSU.  The Noles’ Offensive Line was brutal again, and Drew Weatherford often had no time to throw the ball. On the bright side, Preston Parker looked great at tailback again, but not having him as a receiver hurt. And, congratulations to Gary Cismesia who booted at 60 yard field goal (a school and ACC record) as the first half expired.  Drew Weatherford was a leader, yet again and didn’t throw an INT, and hopefully these Seminoles will play hard for him next year, as he plays his senior season at FSU. As for other positives… well at least Florida was kept under 50 points.

On to the negatives. Where can a Seminole fan begin? It was brutal. The offense couldn’t punch anything in, in the red zone, settling for field goals.  The defense is flat out pathetic. They take bad angles, and they don’t make tackles.  Again, FSU had no running back other than Preston Parker, and receivers played mediocre football. It was obvious that the FSU coaching staff had no answers for Tebow, Harvin or Meyer’s playcalling. Perhaps the telltale sign of the FSU defense was Head Coach Bobby Bowden’s comment that, “We can only fix those problems through recruiting.”

I’m sure there will be plenty of opinions to follow, for now I’ll leave with a mildly optimistic attitude about a bowl game, and be thankful FSU is 7-5 after another up and down season.  What are your thoughts? Leave some comments Seminole fans!