Idiots Write About Sports

I updated my piece about Keith Whitmire of Dallas, Texas to include his deeply logical reply to my hate mail. Check it out.

For the record, all five Texas writers had Cal ranked above Texas going into last weekend. Pressure on them from fans (and coaches, if you haven’t heard) was immense.

The result?

Kirk Bohls of the Austin American-Statesman, who had Cal ranked over Texas, flipped.

Chuck Cooperstein of KESN radio in Arlington, who lucidly told the DFW Star-Telegram that the only thing more unprofessional than media interviewing media was “the media becoming the story,” kept Cal and Utah above Texas.

Jimmy Burch of the Star-Telegram flipped.

Whitmire flipped, of course. (Although to his credit as a free thinker, he rated Utah higher than both of them.)

Tim Griffin of the San Antonio Express-News kept Cal fourth, Utah fifth, and Texas sixth. And risked his life with the hook-em-horns crowd by writing that Cal deserved it more than UT. Brave.

There’s a complete list of voters here. I’d love it if someone did a geographic analysis. (Update: mtvcdm did! See below.)

Oh, and there’s a complete list of coaches’ poll votes, too — in hell!

Well, I did your geographic analysis, caring only about whether each voter put Cal or texas higher, and by how much. (There were three nationals: ESPN was regarded as Bristol, CT; ABC as the home of their New York HQ; and since Sporting News is owned by Fox, and Fox is based in L.A., that's where they went.)

Till I can e-mail the map to you, here's some early numbers:
*LOTS of California blue on the map. There's no Texas orange west of the Great Plains, as nobody west of Austin, Texas voted the Longhorns.
*Margin of victory in Texas: Tie. Two voters took Cal by 2, one took Texas by 2, and two people took Texas by 1.
*Widest margin: Charlotte, NC, where the writer took Cal by 3.
*Texas support mainly circles a region consisting of parts of the Big 12, Big 10, ACC, Atlanta and Baton Rouge, LA.
*Surrounded by the ring of Texas supporters, however, is some of the staunchest Cal support in the country.

Ok, now rebut this article:
http://www.universitydaily.net/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/12/08/41b6720bbc91a

And re: that article, isn't the Bears schedule set for the next 8 years? They don't have control over it, right?

Well, Cal has to face 8 Pac-10 teams a year whether the conference is strong or not. Nothing you can do there. There's been a long history of pooh-poohing the Pac-10 from other parts of the country. I agree that this year's Stanford, Washington, and Arizona teams were weak. But Oregon, Oregon State, UCLA, USC, and Arizona State were all varying degrees of respectable. None of those teams is weak, although many were inconsistent. Oregon was actually the best team I saw at Memorial Stadium all year.

Also, our friend the college journalism major from Lubbock doesn't seem to realize that with schedules set years in advance, Tedford's influence on the schedule won't be felt for years. It's true, this year's nonconference schedule is much weaker than in past years, when Kansas State, Utah, Illinois, Michigan State, Nebraska (when they were up), and Oklahoma (when they were down) made cameos. Air Force is no pushover, generally, but they were this year. I agree that scheduling teams like NM State (or Baylor, a recent classic) is pretty lame. I'd rather see Fresno State or BYU or Utah or, heck, Texas!

But it does take two to tango. The SJ Mercury reported last year that every school in the Big 12, Big Ten, ACC, SEC, and Big East turned Cal down for openings in 2005 and 2006 -- presumably because they were concerned that Cal might be a tough game.

The real embarrassment next year is Sac State. That's a joke. Basically a warm-up. But Ron Zook's Illini are on there, plus a road trip to NM State. 2006 sees a visit to Tennessee (return trip to Cal in 2007) and home games against Minnesota (also home-and-home) and Louisiana Tech (!).

But while I agree that a couple of Cal's nonconferences this year were weak, I can't agree about the Pac-10 being lame. And yes, with one TBD in 2009, Cal's schedule is locked through 2009.

BTW, this article has the gory details:
http://calbears.collegesports.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/020304aaa.html

It's more than 2009. Colorado is already set for a home-and-home in 2010-11! And Ohio State is set for 2012-13. Now if only Cal could play Michigan... but for that we may have to continue to hope for the Rose Bowl. :-(

What I hate about the locked-in schedule is that there is no flexibility. It would be nice to see a Texas-Cal matchup. And why hasn't former UT Prez Berdahl commented on this?

Anyways, here's an interesting Q&A from the Dallas paper.

Here: http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/nwsltr/sports/ut/stories/120904dnspoutnewsletter.25679f73.html

Bob, the best reason is that Berdahl left Cal.

That Dallas News Q&A piece seemed fair to me, given where it was published. I disagree with some of it, but it seemed even-handed. I do agree that Mack Brown -- or anyone -- lobbying for votes lacks some class, but at the same time, since the current system allows tactical voting, why not? The current system also allows running up the score as a poll influencer (although not a computer influencer...), so why not? Well, because if you've got more class than that, you don't do it. Some people pass that test, and others fail it, but it's a test based on an unwritten and unenforcable rule, so it's meaningless.

In the end, coach Brown got his message out, and regardless of what that Dallas News columnist might think, that message had an impact on how people looked at their votes. If Brown hadn't made Texas' positioning an issue, that Cal-So. Miss game doesn't take on the weight it did. He helped generate a media meme that Cal had to blow out Southern Miss or they deserved to cede their spot to Texas. That's a silly idea (look at Texas' game at Kansas, people), but it took hold and that was enough to send Cal off to San Diego.

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