Cavalcade of Whimsy
Dec. 13 - Week Fifteen
Past Cavalcades
- 2008
Season |
2009
Season
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Jan 19, Part
1 - Oh those wacky coaches
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Jan 19,
Part 2 - The sucky 2009 season
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Sept.
7, The Marcell Dareus Issue
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Sept.
14, The Boise State Issue
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Sept.
21, MSU's Wild
Weekend
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Sept.
28, Is Boise State the new Florida State or Miami?
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Oct 5, Oh, that
wacky Les Miles
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Oct.
12, Why the
Brett Favre situation matters
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Oct.
19, Is Oklahoma
REALLY No. 1?
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Oct.
26, What if
all the underclassmen come back?
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Nov.
2,
The Notre Dame Tragedy
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Nov. 9, The Hosing of Boise State
- Nov. 16, Cleaning up college football
- Nov. 23 The BCS Games We
Want To See
- Nov. 30 The BCS
Championship ground rules
- Dec. 6 - Rich, Cam, and
the NCAA's rulings
E-mail
Pete Fiutak
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Week
14 Part 2 - 10 Reasons Why Oregon Will Beat Auburn
Sorry if this column sucks, it’s not my fault … Florida stole my thunder.
“I want a hamburger, no a cheeseburger. I want a hot dog. I want a milkshake.” … Nice timing, kids. What better after an hour long dance around the elephant in the room than a documentary about SMU in the 1980s?
But it would be far more entertaining than the one about the USFL … I’m really, really, really hoping ESPN doesn’t end up debuting, “30 for 30: $cam Newton,” after the 2015 Heisman presentation.
“You made a place.
You made a niche for yourself.
And if it's nostalgia..."You should've seen
me when I was a DA back in Queens."
… Let me give you a serious piece of advice:
Leave it there.
God forbid you're not as good as
you remember. I've seen that happen too.
” … The “Pony Excess” documentary did a great job of going through the particulars of just how corrupt and just how dumb the SMU administrators were, but it didn’t effectively convey how bad the program was before it started systematically paying players. (Oddly enough, the best current example of the same sort of meteoric rise would probably be Stanford, going from miserable to a stepping-stone year to the national title debate in a hiccup.) The doc also failed to address one huge, glaring point about the program that went 45-5-1 from 1980 to 1984 ...
SMU didn’t beat anyone.
Let’s not romanticize the Southwest Conference too much; towards the end, the league wasn’t the dominant force that old-schoolers make it out to be. The Mustangs were Boise State with an all-world nose tackle (Michael Carter) and all-timer running backs (Eric Dickerson and Craig James).
The first huge recruiting class cut its teeth with a 5-6 1979 season, and then in 1980, when things started to come together, the Mustangs went 8-4 with just four wins over teams that finished with a winning record. The best win of the bunch was over an overrated Texas squad that finished 7-5.
The 1981 team that didn’t get to go to a bowl game, but won the SWC title and beat four teams that finished with a winning record, with the best victory the season-ender over a decent, but not elite Arkansas team, to finish 10-1. The one loss came against the one great team on the slate, Texas.
About that supposedly dominant 11-0-1 team that some still think should’ve won the 1982 national title, check out the final records of the teams the Mustangs beat: Tulane (4-7), UTEP (2-10), TCU (3-8), North Texas (2-9), Baylor (4-6-1), Houston (5-5-1), Texas (9-3), Texas A&M (5-6), Rice (0-11), and Texas Tech (4-7). Four of those games (TCU, Baylor, Houston, and Texas Tech) were nailbiters against bad teams with SMU winning all four by seven points or fewer
and three of them in the final moments. Outside of the win over Texas, the only other game of note was against Arkansas, who had one of the nation’s best defenses, in a 17-17 tie. The 7-3 ice bowl win over Pitt in the Cotton Bowl wasn’t exactly convincing for a team that simply wasn’t that great.
“Charging a man with murder in this place was like handing out speeding tickets in the Indy 500.” …Yes, everyone was doing the same stuff that SMU did, especially in the Southwest Conference, and yes, the NCAA did make an example out of the program, but going nuclear worked. Verne Lundquist put it best when he said that the NCAA wasn’t going to apply the Death Penalty again except for extreme circumstances, but it also made its statement in a case where it was absolutely justified in dropping the hammer. SMU was given second and third chances, and the place still kept screwing up. Of course the other schools in the Southwest Conference should’ve been hit harder, but no one surrounding the SMU situation has any right for whining about getting nailed with a ticket even though everyone was speeding. The Mustangs happened to be going 183 miles per hour in the wrong lane.
To bring it home, and to try to fight through the Cam Fatigue, this is why there’s such an uproar over the lack of punishment in any way for the Newton Family Fun Time. The NCAA always, always, always, thinks about the precedent it’s setting, and it’ll always, always, always go out of its way to make a point with the future in mind.
“Oh! Oh, Cole! This is perplexing.
What an intriguing offer you've made.
Guys, what should I do?
Should I take the car, or should I take Debbie?”
… FWAA, get over yourselves. To the 12 people on the 2010 All-America committee, by not naming Cam Newton the All-America quarterback you’re making it about you, you’re not making the statement you think you are, and you’ve just opened up a can of hypocritical worms.
So you really want to do this? Okay, here’s the deal. FWAA, if you’re going to leave Newton off your All-America team, then you have two choices. Either you’ll stay consistent and you’ll refuse to acknowledge Auburn as the national champion if it beats Oregon, because the team, to you, has a naughty quarterback, or you’ll admit that you totally blew it and your All-America team is a worthless sack of sanctimonious cow muffins. You can’t have it both ways.
Obviously, Kellen Moore -- the FWAA’s choice for All-American -- wasn’t the best quarterback in the nation this year, and it could be argued that he wasn’t even the best quarterback in his own conference. So, FWAA, either you’re totally inept and someone needs to buy your committee members a TV, or you’ll stick to your guns and Auburn won’t be eligible to win your national title.
And along the way, since you’re going to continue to try to make statements, after doing this with Newton and after putting a (vacated) next to USC in 2004 as your national champion, of course you’ll go through all your national champions and All-America teams to adjust accordingly based on your morals.
What do you plan to do about Eric Dickerson being on the 1982 FWAA All-America team? Where do you stand on 1985 Oklahoma with the Brian Bosworth steroid confessions and with all that we know now about the Barry Switzer era? How about 1990 Colorado after the Josh Luchs bean spilling? What about Miami in 1989, 2003 USC, and anyone in the history of the Southwest Conference? Cam Newton and Reggie Bush, no, but Lawrence Phillips, no problem. Got it.
You started it, FWAA. Now keep going.
“If some Houdini wants to snatch a couple swirls of paint that are really only important to some very silly rich people, I don’t give a damn.” … Regarding the SMU situation in the 1980s and the Cam scandal now … so what?
So a bunch of silly yahoos wanted to keep up in a weenie measuring contest with their fellow oil tycoons. Big deal. If a private university wants to be a football program first and an academic institution second, then why does this have to be legislated? Now, if Mississippi State wanted to use money to buy a quarterback, then that’s a problem because of the tax payer money involved, but if a MSU booster wanted to do it, that’s different.
And then there’s the hypocrisy of the entire system. Newton’s dad couldn’t solicit money to get his son to sign, but Cam is getting the nebulous “gift suite” full of electronics, a Fossil watch, sunglasses, and an Ogio Cooper backpack from the BCS Championship people. Where’s the limit on the dollar amount before it isn’t okay? If a $420 bowl gift is legal, then why might something that’s $500 be illegal? Why not $180,000? If the principle is that a player shouldn’t be getting something for playing a sport, then there should be no difference between booster gifts and sweet perks from the bowl game like …
- GoDaddy.com Bowl – A Nikon 570 touchscreen camera package.
- Valero Alamo Bowl – A Microsoft Xbox 360 with Kinect, a $20 Game Stop gift card, and an Apple iPod shuffle.
- Chick-fil-A – A $250 Best Buy gift card, which rocks compared to the $150 Best Buy gift card the Outback gives away, but the bowl also gives away a $25 Outback gift certificate.
And the most egregious of all …
- Champs Sports and Capital One Bowls - A $420 SHOPPING SPREE AT BEST BUY. How is that possibly different than a booster or an agent providing a few hundred bucks on the side?
And that’s just the start to all the free stuff the players get when they go bowling. Some bowls end up not wanting to disclose what the gifts are, but why? Why the need to reward the players with anything extra in the first place, and why is there any secrecy?
Of course players should have agents and be able to take money from boosters. Of course.
Being drafted by Buffalo would be punishment enough … If I’m an NFL offensive coordinator with any skills whatsoever, I want Cam Newton in my training camp … now. It’ll be interesting to see how the scouting world starts to rank and rate him because he’s the size of pre-Sizzler JaMarcus Russell with the smooth mobility of Vince Young. The problem is that Russell and Young were and are megabusts. I’ve already heard some start to throw out the character and integrity concerns as a possible problem, but that’s not fair. Look at it this way; he has had to deal with as much drama and as much public adversity as any college player at his level ever has, and yet he still played out of his mind. If he can block out the off-the-field problems to mount a comeback from down 24 at Alabama, he should be mentally tough enough to handle the NFL.
“She's leaving,/
Too late to take her home./
She's going,/
Too late to tell her you love her./
She's freezing,/
Rather be dead than alone./
She's going,/
I think you're too late she's gone.” … Cam, Andrew, Ryan, Nick, Blaine, learn from Jake and leave when you have the chance. This year, more than any in a long time, is the perfect time for a quarterback to take off early with at least 14 teams (Arizona, Buffalo, Carolina, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Denver, Jacksonville, Miami, Minnesota, Oakland, San Francisco, Seattle, Tennessee, and Washington) in desperate need of a franchise quarterback or an upgrade of some sort, and other teams already set (like Chicago, Dallas, Houston Indianapolis, New England and Pittsburgh) looking for a better backup option.
Someone got paid a lot to come up with these … So is it better to be a Leader or a Legend?
Nebraska is new to the Big Ten, but it has apparently already achieved legendary status, while Purdue is allegedly a leader, even though it hasn’t been made public exactly what or who is being led by the Boilermakers.
Since the idea of the divisions being called the Legends and Leaders is, well, silly, CFN has submitted its official list of names for the Big Ten to use once the groundswell of anti-Leader/Legend sentiment is too much to overcome (which is now).
- Pretentious and Pompous (Even though it’ll be impossible to know which division to put Michigan in.)
- Ohio State and The One Without Ohio State
- Schlemiel and Schlemazel
- The Pac 10 and The Big 12
- Greasers and Socs
- Huey Lewis and The News
- The SEC’s Punching Bag and USC’s Punk Bitch
- Slow and Stodgy
- Katy Perry and Katy Brand
No, there’s really no spinning this … “We’re proud of our many legends,” said Commissioner Jim Delany, “and even prouder of our member institutions that develop future leaders every day.”
So that means the Big Ten is more proud of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, and Wisconsin than Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Northwestern.
“As long as my brother talks this crazy Notre Dame s***, he deserves anything that comes his way.” … Big East, your time is now to go get Notre Dame. The sales pitch should be easy.
First, Big East, get UCF. In two years the league will have ten teams with Cincinnati, Connecticut, Louisville, Pitt, Rutgers, USF, Syracuse and West Virginia the base, and with TCU and Villanova added to the mix. Get UCF as a natural rival for USF, and with Orlando a fun place for Big East teams and fans to go to bring it up to 11. Second, go to Notre Dame and start kissing butt. Sell the idea of being the big fish in the mid-level BCS league pond. Point out that instead of being lost as just another Leader or Legend in the Big Ten, the Irish would be THE bright, shining star of the Big East. It makes sense for everyone involved.
No, USC going to the Holiday wouldn’t have made a difference … Washington is facing Nebraska, again, but this time it’s in the Holiday Bowl. 0-1. The Dawgs are 13.5-point underdogs, while Arizona is a 14-point dog against Oklahoma State in the Alamo. 0-2. The SEC has been awful in BCS Championships … right. 0-3. Stanford, beat Virginia Tech in the Orange, or I’m demanding that all the bullspit, Pac 10-loving, BCS computer formulas be taken into a field to receive the Michael Bolton printer-bashing treatment.
“George, I don't get it. If there's no Human Fund, those donation cards were fake. You better have a damn good reason why you gave me a fake.” … Fine, I’ll take one for the team. I’ll be the bad guy. Don’t send out a corporate “gift” saying you donated something to charity on my behalf, and don’t send out a “gift card” to be used for the charity of my choice, because then I have to remember to use it, I’ll forget, and then somewhere some kid will cry because she didn’t get a Barbie with blue hair.
The last thing I need is more caffeine, more chocolate, or, actually, anything, but getting sent the charity holiday “gift” 1) sucks, 2) makes me feel like a jerkweed for being the selfish jerkweed who thinks that it sucks, and 3) makes me end up doubling all charitable contributions out of the guilt for being such a jerkweed.
And I’m pushing for GameDay to come broadcast from my breakfast nook, but there aren’t any games this week. Doing it this Saturday would just be weird. … It’s Year Two, Week Fifteen of my open lobbying of the ESPN College Football Final show guys to give me a helmet sticker and the signed T-shirt, suitable for framing. Why do I deserve one this week? 1) I’m about to save your butt when it comes to gift giving (especially if you’re looking to make a client happy): Carolscookies.com. No, there’s no financial interest here or anything like that. This is my gift to the world, because I guarantee there would be no war, no terrorism, no filibustering, and no evil of any kind during the 11 minutes it would take for everyone in the world to eat one of the chocolate chip sugar bombs (microwaved for 30 seconds to soften up, of course) followed up by the totally fulfilling/disgusting (for the love of God, do NOT look up the “nutritional” value) high that kicks in for the two hours after. 2) There aren’t any games. Davis, There’s no freakin’ excuse not to finally give in so I can mercifully put an end to this lame bit.
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Week
14 Part 2 - 10 Reasons Why Oregon Will Beat Auburn