The Two Guys Using Logic Poll…

Brought to you by Beauford and Champ. No, we’re not in any particular poll guild or league that will combine our individual thoughts into some larger consortium and produce a super-poll that is greater than the sum of its individual parts. Rather, it’s just us… which is fine. Here’s how it’ll work. Each week B-squared and I will each come up with our version of the Logic Poll and compare. We will then tally up each team’s rank in each of our polls and add it together… lowest cumulative total is ranked highest, and we go on down the line. If two teams happen to tie at the end of the season, B2 and I will retreat to our bat-cave and determine which team is deserving of a higher rank through a complex process of coin-flips and arguments filled with hyperbole.

If there is a large disagreement in rank for a particular team between our two submissions… like, I don’t know… say Penn State for example, you know just for example’s sake and all. Anyways, if there’s a discrepancy then we will attempt to give you, the reader, some kind of justification for why we think that team is much better/worse than the other seems to. I know you can feel the excitement building can’t you?

Yes, I can barely contain myself; I haven’t been this excited since Tim Dwight learned how to catch punts and we decided to put feathery things on our jerseys...




My goodness, it's Hayden Fry! Welcome! That was quite a look coach…

Your damn right it was, pink locker-room, feathers, mandatory dresses for Saturday morning walk-throughs, by God whatever it took to win… Now get back to your poll.


Alright.

Wait... just how do you handle if one team is unranked in one half of your poll but ranked in the other?



Good question coach. Unranked gets a total 26 added for the unranked value (arbitrary as hell) and a big asterisk in front of their name so that we make sure to consider that the following week. Hopefully, the number of asterisks diminishes as time goes on... naturally, however, towards the bottom of the Top 25 there's going to be some.


Fair enough, we settled disputes for starting roles by having players pillow-fight in the visiting locker-room, but your idea could work too. Continue on.


Alrighty. So here’s the official preseason Logic Poll brought to you by Beauford and Champ (ties stand for now because, frankly, it'll all work out as we get on down the road):

1. University of Ohio State (2)
2. Oklahoma (5)
2. USC (5)
4. Georgia (8)
5. Florida (11)
5. Missouri (11)
7. Clemson (14)
8. West Virginia (18)
9. LSU (20)
10. Texas (22)
11. Va Tech (24)
12. Penn State (26)
12. Auburn (26)
14. BYU (31)
15. Wisconsin (33)
15. South Florida (33)
17. Tennessee (34)
18. Texas Tech (37)
18. Utah (37)
20. ** Arizona State (39)
21. Wake Forest (40)
22. ** Kansas (41)
23. Michigan (45)
23. Oregon (45)
25. ** Cal (47)
------- Others Receiving Consideration-------
- Central Michigan (49)
- Michigan State (51)

So there you have it! Preseason fillibustering at its best. Now for the airing of grievances:

A. Penn State... Beauford says they're a top ten team because they'll likely finish second in the Big 10... Champ politely disagrees and thinks that extreme caution should be exercised on highly ranking any team with Jay Paterno involved, especially when it has a "new" offense, no experience at quarterback, and no real offensive playmakers to speak of... oh and their defense continues to break extremities and such. Penn State ends up 12th in the preseason poll, which is still six spots too high. Of course if they get past the Beavers of Oregon State, they play nobody until a buzz-saw of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio State all in a row.

B. West Virginia - Blue-light special here... both Beauford and I think that WVU could be in for a significant case of Bobby Williams Fever here in a month or two. We rank them up in the Top 10 thanks to another paint-peeling performance in a bowl game, but let's just say that we doubt Bill Stewart's ability just a tad... particularly now that nearly the entire staff is gone, gone, gone.

C. South Florida... Beauford has them in the top 10... they end up 15th in our preseason poll largely due to my placing them near the bottom of the Top 25. I happen to think there are more than only 8 or 9 teams out there that would beat South Florida, perhaps they'll prove me wrong.

D. Arizona State... I had them in the top 15 because they're a decent football team in a crappy conference. We'll see what happens.

Picture Me Blog Poll'in: Preseason, B2 edition

DISCLAIMER: TOGTM did not make the cut to be in the official Blogpoll as run by Mgoblog. Never deterred, we decided nonetheless to go ahead and publish a poll, just to see how wrong we can be.

This preseason poll is garbage, as there is absolutely nothing to distinguish the middle 20 teams. As such, my polling philosophy is to rank teams that I feel have a good chance at winning a conference, running through their schedule relatively unscathed, or having a shot to be in the BCS picture when it's all said and done. We'll start with the top 5:

1) Ohio State
2) Oklahoma
3) USC
4) Georgia
5) Florida

Ohio State is the most talented team on paper. They return nearly everyone sans Gholston, made it to the title game last year, and have the best coach in the game at the helm. I sincerely believe that anyone not putting OSU as their #1 is letting recent collapses in title games influence their decision. Oklahoma should plow through their schedule, and with Sam Bradford at QB throwing behind an experienced O-line, they get the nod as the number 2 team. Right behind them goes USC, which is really moot because depending on the outcome of the USC vs. OSU game, this is going to get all shifty-like. Georgia seems to be the flavor of the month, but recent injuries and a general disdain for consensus has them at number 4. Florida goes off at number 5, ACL's be damned. Basically, I expect that at least one of the title game participants will come from this group. Whoever gets through unscathed will probably be at least #2 by the end of the season. Even the loser of the USC v. OSU tilt will probably have a shot at #2 if they get through the rest of their schedule.

6) Missouri
7) Clemson
8) Penn State
9) USF
10) WVU

Chase Daniels is for real, and the Big XII North sucks. Missouri has the potential to contend for the Big XII title, and gets the nod at 6. Clemson...eh...I'm not too high on any team from the ACC this year, and have serious doubts as to whether one has enough mustard to run the table. I think that on paper (which is all we have right now) Clemson is the most talented, but I still think they get beat by Wake on a Thursday night game, and VaTech if they make it to the championship game. Under the philosophy of "who has a legit shot at winning a conference" I go with Penn State at 8. I think this year's Penn State team has the ability to be rather 2005-ish. They have a lot of player returning, but (as Champ will point out in a later post) not a lot of returing talent. However, their offensive line looks good, and if Jaypa can bottle even a little of the juji juice that worked for Robinson the last time they ran the spread, they should be contending for the Big Ten title. USF will win the Big East until WVU proves to me that they can beat them. Speaking of which, WVU rounds out the top ten. I'm not buying Stewart's stewardship. Either USF or WVU will be there as the Big East champ this year - the poll will sort itself out.

11) LSU
12) Texas
13) Virginia Tech
14) Auburn
15) BYU

I don't have much to say about LSU other than I really, really hope they lose to App. State in the opener. Texas will probably flirt with the top 10 until they lose to Oklahoma, and will probably end up hovering just outside the top ten for the season. Colt McCoy is good enough to win a few that they shouldn't. Virginia Tech should win the Coastal division. Always a good defense and good special teams. Auburn is as vanilla as they come. They should compete in the SEC West, and may even knock off LSU for a spot in the SEC title game. BYU is here because they're talented, play in a weak conference, and will probably be this year's version of Hawaii.

16) Utah
17) Tennessee
18) Texas Tech
19) Wisconsin
20) Wake Forest

I've got Utah at 16 for the exact same reason I've got BYU at 15. One of these two teams will be good enough to crash a BCS bowl. Tennessee falls into the same catagory as Texas Tech: Show me. The defense should be good in Knoxville, but I need to see it before they go higher. Texas Tech seems to be a chic pick, but they're experiencing some backlash lately. They're good enough to be middle-ranked, but, like Tenn., I need to see some proof of goodness before I move them into the top 15. Wisconsin could be as good as Penn State this year - and really could be ranked anywhere in the miasma that is 10-20. All Wake Forest has done recently is played really, really solid football with guys that were largely passed over by SEC and ACC monsters. They've done it for 2 years running now, and I don't see why they should slow their roll here.

21) Cal
22) Michigan
23) Oregon
24) Central Michigan
25) Michigan State

Cal? See: Michigan State. Michigan is a wildcard deserving of rank, not deserving of anything higher. If they dismantle Utah, I'll put them in the top 20; if they get smoked, out they go. Oregon was average last year without Dixon. They don't have Dixon this year (I stole that from Champ, who will ridicule me in his post). Central should rule the MAC, unless you believe Jason Whitlock, who says that Ball State's gonna crash a BCS bowl. Michigan State gets the nod at 25 - but it's moot, as the loser of Cal v. MSU gets dropped for South Carolina after the first game of the season. Oh, and Kansas isn't on this poll. That's not a mistake.

Let's NOT forget that keeping wildlife um...an amphibious rodent, for...um, you know domestic...within the city...that ain't legal either.

Every once in a great while, a message board will yield something remarkably similar to fruit, as long as you're counting good concepts and interesting questions as fruit. Otherwise, it's mostly dick jokes and fans with the distinct smell of dumbass on their breath (on both sides, I'm sure). But sometimes, there's a man, and I won't say hero because, what's a hero? But sometimes there's a man...

Whoa

Lost my train of thought.

Aw, hell, I done introduced it enough.

I was trolling around on an Ohio State message board when this came to my attention: a thread entitled "alarming fact that OSU is getting the screw." It was perfectly set up - and fit right in with the Buckeye disrespect mantra. Ohhhhh - of course! Ohio State has been getting screwed all these years! That's why they've only appeared in 3 National Titles games in the past 6 years, and have dominated the Big Ten, beaten Michigan to a bloody pulp, and have a recruiting class lined up that will make the '92 dream team look like FUCKING AMATEURS (football...basketball...whatever).

Then I actually read it.

The crux of the argument is this: For the past three seasons, Ohio State's opponents have been the least penalized on a yards/game basis than any team in the country. In 2007, Ohio State benefited from 37.2 yards per game from opposing team's penalties, 119th in the country. It's the same story from 2006, and 2005 - 29 and 35 yards/game respectively, both dead last in the NCAA. Them's the facts - inscrutable as ever. However, there must be another reason besides "OMG tOSU is getting SCREWED" right?

Right.

Theory: Big Ten Officials Don't Call Penalties

Conference ref's are all different. They're different in what they'll let teams get away with, what they'll call automatically, and the frequency with which they'll call it. Football is an odd sport in that there is probably a penalty on every play. The Big Ten's best player last year, Jake Long, admitted to "holding" as one of his favorite strategies, illuminating what has become the popular mantra amongst those playing the sport at a high level: it's a penalty if you get caught, an advantage otherwise.

The Big Ten seems particularly adept at playing by those rules - mostly because the ref's allow it. Of the 119 teams in NCAA, the vast majority of the Big Ten falls in the bottom 30 for penalties against - the notable outliers being Northwestern and Indiana who rank 51 and 21 respectively (important for later). Since the majority of games are played in conference using the same set of Big Ten officials, it stands to reason that Ohio State has the fewest penalty yards against at least partly because of the conference they play in. 4 of the 11 Big Ten teams fall in the bottom 10 of the rankings. To put it in perspective, the other teams in the bottom ten break down as follows: 2 MAC, 1 SEC, 1 Big 12, 1 Mountain West, 2 ACC. But this can't be the sole reason why Ohio State is ranked dead last over the past 3 years - if it were simply a conference bias, then there would be just as much chance that any other Big Ten team would be ranked at the bottom of the pile. There is something else going on here, and it's a bit...fishy.

Theory: Underdogs Get The Calls

In order to take on this theory, we need to establish something of a baseline understanding of how penalties work. The assumption is that teams do not consciously foul certain teams more than others. As I mentioned before, penalties occur on nearly every play - what matters is how/when they're called. For purposes of this discussion, I will assume that teams don't have specific agendas on penalties, and that they occur randomly throughout any game, regardless of opponent.

That being said, it is interesting to look at the rankings of each conference in terms of which teams gain the most yards on penalties. The top three in some of the major conferences with their final record in parenthesis:

ACC
2007
Duke (1-11)
Florida State (8-5)
Boston College (9-3)

2006
Duke (0-12)
Georgia Tech (9-5)
NC State (3-9)

2005
Clemson(8-4)
North Carolina (5-6)
Georgia Tech (7-6)

Big XII
2007
Kansas State (5-7)
Texas Tech (9-4)
Baylor (3-9)

2006
Baylor (4-8)
Texas (10-3)
Iowa State (4-8)

2005
Kansas (7-5)
Texas Tech (9-3)
Missouri (7-5)

Big Ten
2007
Indiana (7-6)
Northwestern (6-6)
Purdue (8-5)

2006
Indiana (5-7)
Northwestern (4-8)
Iowa (6-7)

2005
Wisconsin (10-3)
Penn State (11-1)
Northwestern (7-5)

There you have it - out of three conferences (only 3 because I don't have time to do the rest, and frankly, I see nothing that would suggest a different outcome) the teams that benefitted the most by officiating are by and large the underdogs of the conference. There are notable exceptions in the 2005 Big Ten season and Texas - the only teams on the list to crack 10 wins. Excepting those, this collection of teams is pretty "meh" and was probably an underdog in the majority of their conference games. Duke and Indiana led the ACC and Big Ten in opponent penalties for 2 years running with a combined record of 13-36. They were underdogs who got the calls.

The aggregate record of the teams above over a 3 year span is 172-161. If you throw out just 2 wins per team that came against the presumably lack-luster OOC games, you get 118-161. I could have made that 3 weak OOC games/team but given the subjectivity, I wanted to low-ball.

The upshot? The above teams, with some exception, sucked hard. And yet - somehow - they got all the calls. Meanwhile, teams like Ohio State (conference champs), Wake Forest (Division champs, conference champs), and Oklahoma (generally awesome) are somehow not getting the calls (they are all either at, or near the bottom of the ranks in every year profiled). It would stand to reason that a weaker team would need the benefit of penalties more than a stronger team would need to commit them, but no. Instead, we see teams that spend most of their time as underdogs getting the most yardage out of penalties.

I cannot, and will not speculate that refs are consciously pushing an underdog agenda, nor will I say Vegas is running things, Ref's are trying to control the spread, etc. For Big Ten fans, we need to remember the first theory - Big Ten refs generally don't call as many penalties as refs from other conferences, but we can also point to empirical evidence that suggests that the favored team in a matchup, for whatever reason, is most likely going to be penalized more than the underdog. So next time you're playing Iowa, Mr. Ohio State fan, and you start screaming "over the line" and bitching about the refs...and I hate to concede this...

you may be right.

Yay Journalisms!!!!

Well, as the countdown reaches a fever pitch round these parts, the daily battle to stay occupied and to soak up any bit of news concerning your team or any team for that matter sometimes yields fantastic results... observe dear reader:

An anonymous author for the Hazelton, PA Standard Speaker gives you the kind of low-down nitty gritty football detail that you and I crave:

"I disagree on Penn State. The Nittany Lions will win nine or 10 games. I’ve been accurate on my Penn State predictions the past few seasons."

Naturally, you read on with great interest as you are certain that there will be a reality-altering explanation for this assertion... and you read on, and you scan further down the page, and.... well... really there is none. Zip. In fact it simply jumps on to another topic completely. What do you expect? The man has been accurate, and damnit that was certainly good enough for Sam By-God Walton, it will have to be good enough for us.

10-2 I say!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What makes this "article" fantastic is it is the kind of non-sequiteur rant that you can only get from a crotchety old fan of any team. What takes it to the next level is that this was published by a paper. News worthy? Certainly not. An entertaining read? Well it certainly had me chuckling away.

Which brings me to this... Stew Mandel's glorious response to a questioning of the validity of Michigan's occupation of the 24th spot in the first Coaches Poll... (second page just over half-way down).

"I hate to beat this to a pulp, because I've said it several times before, but Michigan's offense is going to stink this season, and nothing short of Charles Woodson's return and/or a 1997-caliber performance from the defense will render Michigan a top-25 team. Which leaves only one possibility: There must be a bylaw in the coaches' poll -- much like the one that requires them to vote the BCS title-game winner No. 1 -- mandating the Wolverines' inclusion."

If someone would like to point out the difference between the first quote further up on the page and this one, by all means educate away. No knee-jerk responses here, no need to get into a spitting contest, but I think it will be nice to have this quote to look back on as the season rolls along, you know just in case ol' Stew happens to be correct... or if all the moons around Jupiter align and we make a first-down this year we can ask Stew what happened with his crystal ball. I don't know how after 125+ years of never having to replace playmakers on the offense it finally caught up with us... God, I wish we had recruited some more players!

Have we really reached a point where it's time to lambaste a team that's ranked 24th as overrated?? Stew seems to think so:

"I wrote a few years back about the recurring phenomenon of Michigan's overinflated preseason rankings (quite prophetically, I might add; that was the year they started No. 4 and finished 7-5) -- but this is the most flagrant case yet. [...] All at a time when the new coach is trying to implement an offense for which he currently lacks the proper personnel?"

Ding, ding, ding!!! There it is! Lacking the proper personnel for his offense! Journalism sticker for you Stew! That brings the running total of references to this lazy and completely devoid-of-any-sort-of-research point to 2,743 thus far this offseason... and still two weeks left to go!

Now listen, if you happen to think that Michigan is not deserving of such a lofty ranking, by all means you are entitled to your opinion... but, uh, to say this is the "most flagrant case yet"... at 24th?

I honestly cannot think of another time when Michigan lost a bunch of play-makers and guys on the O-line and was able to so much as cross mid-field the following year or ever got so much as a contribution from guys who had to step up to replace former stars... (videos courtesy of WolverineHistorian)

Buckeyes; Spartans; Utes; ah, heck, just about anybody: Commence Trashtalk Now

Arg, formatting issues...just click to make larger.


Image taken directly from the official merchandise store of the Michigan Wolverines: the Mden.

If you can't laugh at this you're not human. Champ, apparently, is not human.

As long as we're nominating...

Oops Pow, writing under a funny name for the Fanhouse, recently posted this video and nominated it for a YouTube Oscar:

While we're quite certain that such an award does not, in fact, exist* we'd like to get ahead of the game, and go ahead and nominate our own video(s). OPS boldly claims that the video contains "the greatest soundtrack selection for a football highlight reel in history." Au Contraire, my friend.

I cannot, under any circumstances, recommend any of the following videos. The mere fact that they exist is a slap in the face to proper NSFW rap-tracked highlight videos. Creed is a bold choice, but I submit for the committee's approval the following three videos, all posted by one man, all entitled "Glenville State: The Rich Rodriguez Years."



Instrumental. Touching. Not football. Not even close.



Ok, we're getting a little closer...



2 words: Mariah Carey.

Creed? Bitch, please - Mariah is in the house.

*Yet, people! Yet.

Following Our Heroes; 2nd installment

With round one in the books and nary a complaint, we'll move on to round two, wrapping up the Big Ten...

Minnesota: Dominique Barber, safety, was drafted in the 6th round. He looks to make little impact on the Houston Texans, and will be lucky to see special teams duty - if he makes the team. Combine profile goes here. He is the brother of Dallas Cowboys RB Marion Barber, which will net him exactly zero points going into Houston's camp. Wait a second. Scratch that. It turns out one of the main reasons he was drafted was because his brother and dad played (plays) in the league...

"With (Dominique) Barber we feel like we have a player with a great bloodline. His dad played with the (New York) Jets; his brother now plays with Dallas. When you get into these kinds of rounds and you are going through and trying to decide who you are going to pick - a lot of things are good here, but it depends on who has a chance to really compete and try to make your football team at this stage. We think because of his bloodline with his dad and also with his brother that this guy will come in here and give everything he’s got because it’s in his family genes to make this football team."

That was Houston GM Rick Smith. So it turns out that the Texans took a flier on a kid because his brother worked out. Hmmmm...I wonder why Houston is perennially in the cellar...

Jokes aside, it sounds like Barber is well aware that if he is going to see the field, it's going to be on special teams:

"People know me as a safety, but I played special teams for four years at Minnesota. I look forward to doing that. I think it will help me to be able to play in so many different situations."

He warrants watching, but I doubt he becomes a super-contributer. There is a great write-up on Barber on a newly discovered, but appearing to be excellent Houston Texans blog called Battle Red Blog. Requisite hat tips and terrorist fist jabs to you, my friend.

Northwestern: There was nobody drafted, and as such, nobody to report on. If there was an undrafted FA, or something of that sort, please let me know.

Ohio State: Vernon Gholston is really the only choice here. Drafted in the first round by the New York Jets, he was last seen doing this:
Right. Combine profile goes here. Predraft chat with ESPN goes here. There is a small interview with Jets head coach Eric Mangini here that alludes to some sort of rule that kept Gholston out of Jet's camp for awhile. I wasn't aware that something like that had happened, but apparently Mangini isn't concerned. Gholston should be an immediate impact player on the defensive line for the Jets, and will be a lot of fun to watch develop as a player. He was one of those guys who was always going to be drafted high, but then tested off the charts at the combine. He went from a 15-25 overall pick type guy to a 1-10 overall pick. His knock at OSU was that he would disappear from games, going long stretches without impact. Did his combine effort put stars in GM's eyes? Time will tell.

Penn State: Dan Connor makes sense here, as he continues the strong tradition of white PSU linebackers. He was drafted by Carolina in the third round. Combine profile goes here. This is, again, a sort of "wait and see" type player. He has impressed in camp thus far, but is slated to be a part of the team in a backup capacity. In this Tricity Harold article, he is described as being "physical and instinctive." The cliche train then rambles on for a few more paragraphs before it is awkwardly concluded with a jab at the Big Ten's recent failings to beat schools with 'dat suthern speed, boyah. It is...not so good.

Purdue: The last remaining first round pick, Dustin Keller, was taken by the New York Jets. Combine profile goes here. On Thursday (umm..yesterday) against the Browns, he caught one pass for 5 yards. Unlike Mike Hart, this does not warrent a youtube clip. However, he has impressed in camp (to the point where a Google search of "Dustin Keller Camp" brings out about 5 articles of effusive praise, far and away more than any other player profiled here) and he looks to beat out Bubba Franks and Chris Baker for the starting role. Add in Brett Favre, and you get what could be a very successful rookie season for Keller. From QB Kellen Clemens:

"He was interfered with and still made the play," Clemens said. "He's a smart kid. He'll help us out this year."

Operative words being "this year."

Wisconsin: Jack Ikegwuonu left Wisconsin after his junior year, getting drafted in the 4th round by the Eagles. He was then dealt to the Packers, where he got mired in some legal trouble (now dropped) and badly injured his knee. He is on the PUP list for camp, and will most likely contribute only on special teams. I would have loved to profile somebody else for this spot, but the other Wisconsin draftees included a kicker, and a defensive tackle - both in the 6th round. If Jack doesn't play, I'll update the kicker Taylor Mehlhaff.

So, that's the list. Hopefully after reading this you're primed, and I'll go ahead and update stats, etc. after each NFL game this fall. At the end of it all, I'll probably pull together some sort of synopsis of "who had the best rookie season" and hand out an arbitrary award for "Best Big 10 Rookie." This, of course, can be used for trash-talk in the same way that Michigan fans use Tom Brady; no specific relevance to collegiate athletics, but still pretty awesome.