Here it is:

The anti-Big East Ad

The anti-SEC Ad

The anti-Notre Dame Ad

Clay Travis has some ideas, too.

Why choose the lesser evil?

We accept the Blogpoll’s Straight Bangin’ Award with pride this week, and mostly because of our creeping suspicion of the pistol with a bayonet that is the Florida offense.

The pistol with a bayonet: our metaphor, stolen wholesale from Wes Anderson’s American Express commercial, seen only a choice handful of times on network television because it is long, and it requires two minutes to show the whole thing, thus rendering it useless but nevertheless brilliant. (Much like The Life Aquatic.) Anderson rushes through a set beleaguered by questions from do-people; one approaches him with a stage gun; Anderson replies that he likes it, but could it have a bayonet on the end, too?

Seconds later, the flunkie returns with a mockup:

And voila! There you have the Gator offense 2005-2006: two things potentially lethal things put together in an inefficient and odd construction.

Does the Gator offense rely on too much…strategery, as Kevin and Gatorpilot have suggested? There’s hints of that, sure: the endless end-arounds, reverses, option fakes, and triple lindys* Mullen’s spinning in the second half are sure signs of an offense with zero confidence in its ability to run up the middle against quality defenses.

It’s not complexity, though, that’s sinking the offense. (more…)

Perusing Michael Lewis’ The Blind Side at the moment, and we’re pleasantly surprised at the amount of quality college football content in a book about the evolution of the left tackle position. The best bits focus on coaches and recruiting pitches, which go about like you think they would, especially when you consider that they were all recruiting Michael Oher, who is referred to as “a freak of nature” by nearly everyone who sees him in the book. (Oher is now at Ole Miss.)

To wit:

–Oher’s recruited by everyone, but the three finalists are LSU, Ole Miss, and Tennessee.

–Phil Fulmer is pictured running at one point in 100 degree heat. That he did not die while doing this is perhaps the greatest triumph depicted in the book.

50 yards across the parking lot: truly a triumph.

–Fulmer’s recruiting pitch seemed to consist of the coach and his staff squatting in Oher’s home and ignoring the women until the men feel like talking. His cromag manners and approach earn him scorn from the women in the book, who alternately refer to him as “a hick” and as someone who looks like he was dressed by his mother.

This pleases us way more than it should.

–Nick Saban, though, is on full recruiting terror alert in the book though only in the most gangsta way possible. Saban rolls into the house wearing Armani and looking like he’s been dipped in lip gloss (”I think Nick Saban is a very attractive man,” beams one of the women.) Before getting down to football, he even comments postively and knowledgeably on the decor of the house. Considering that Michael’s adopted mother is an interior designer in Memphis, the comment “I love those window treatments” must have been sweet music to her soul.

The man was obviously a ruthless recruiting ninja.

–Saban, however, immediately torpedoes all ninja cred by leaving for Miami shortly afterward.

–A scary recruiting trip to Baton Rouge didn’t help: Oher, when asked about it, responds with “Mama, that’s a bad place down there.” We see dead hookers.

–The best bits are the the Orgeron’s appearances, mostly because Lewis writes his dialogue in Orgeron speak. “You’re a big boy” is rendered as “YAW BEE BAW.” Which is about right, actually, though our favorite bit of Orgeronspeak is “let them stay,” said in response to Oher’s question about recruits promised schollys by former coach David Cutcliffe: “LEMSDAY!”

It’s officially our new favorite day of the week: Lemsday.

Even if the Orgeron finishes the next two years with a losing record…LEMSDAY! We need the material.

We’ll put more pretty pics in this post ASAP, but for the junkies we post fast few pics bet win GO!

A sad day for me today (I’m writing this on Wednesday), as the legendary Stardust Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas has closed its doors, making way for the building of Echelon Place, which is set to open in 2010. Anyone who has been there knows that the Stardust–the whole place, really–is a shitpile; its place in the history of sports betting in Vegas, however, is immeasurable.

Wayne Newton: that’s class.

A while back, I considered writing a piece on the most important figures in the history of sports betting in the USA. Suffice it to say, the column never got written, but the list was made–and there is little doubt, the #1 figure on any such list would be Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal. For cinephiles, Mr. Rosenthal provided the inspiration for the Sam Rothstein character (played by Robert DeNiro) in the Martin Scorsese movie “Casino.”

Mr. Rosenthal–blessed with a knack for statistics and mathematics–made his name as an accomplished horse and sports bettor, which attracted the attention of the Chicago mobsters, who were more than happy to listen to his input on gambling issues. Eventually, he earned their trust and was sent to Las Vegas to oversee the operation at the Stardust Hotel and Casino. In 1975, he testified in front of the Nevada State Legislature in favor of legislation allowing sports betting in the casinos, and he was instrumental in the legislation being passed. Prior to this point, the only legal sports betting in Nevada took place at “Turf Clubs”–unseemly places, similar to OTB parlors (for the New Yorkers among you), or to the betting shops in the UK. As it stood, these places were not especially conducive to betting–most visitors to Las Vegas preferred to spend their time at the larger hotel/casinos, and these places opened and closed with regularity.

After the legislation allowing sports betting in the casinos was passed, Mr. Rosenthal oversaw the construction of a Stardust Sportsbook that was quite visionary for its time. It was large–close to 10,000 square feet–and was designed to accommodate over 500 bettors. He installed a bank of large television sets in the wall opposite bettors, and devoted the majority of his space to horse racing, covering the five largest racetracks around the nation. All of this is SOP now, but at the time, it was revolutionary.

Even up until last year, the Stardust was the most highly respected ‘book in Vegas. On Sunday nights at 6.00 PM local time, they were the first sportsbook in town to post lines for the following week’s football games, a ritual that was followed by a lottery to determine the individuals that got first crack at them. In recent years, some of the offshore locations started putting up their lines before the Stardust would, but despite this the Stardust still generally set the trends with regard to the betting lines.

There’s little doubt that others have done it better since–Caesar’s Palace, Mandalay Bay, and the Las Vegas Hilton are three that immediately come to mind–but, for my money, the Stardust was always special, and it’s sad to see it go.

But a hearty thanks to Mr. Rosenthal–still alive and living in Florida–for setting the standard that all the others have aspired to imitate.

Losses in the Thursday and Sunday games last week put me a damper on my weekend, but an 8-1 Saturday more than made up for it. My record stands at 55-35 for the season, a winning percentage of 61%. Often times, things can get away from you quickly, but hopefully I can keep it going this week. Here are this week’s selections:

SATURDAY:

Boston College (-3.5) v. WAKE FOREST

With all due respect to all of the other contenders–Greg Schiano, Bret Bielema, and Terry Hoeppner come immediately to mind–I think this game is a matchup of the two coaches who have done the best job this season. I have always liked Jim Grobe, and when you consider that his team is 7-1, rebounding nicely after a crushing collapse v. Clemson that would have doomed all but the most resilient of teams. All this despite losing his starting QB in week 1, and stud RB Andrews in week 3–both of which have been replaced by freshmen–the job he has done is even more impressive. In fact, it is so impressive that I think he warrants coach of the year consideration even if Wake loses its last 4 games, which they may well do. Almost as impressive is the job Tom O’Brien has done with BC; despite losing 5 starters off his D, including star DE Kiwanuka, he has cobbled together arguably the best D in the ACC. In addition, BC is winning despite their QB pretty much playing injured all season. Fortunately for BC, the schedule offered up a game against lowly Buffalo last week, allowing the Eagles to rest QB Ryan (along with WR Gonzalez and LB Dunbar) and all of them should be ready to play this week. Wake, for their part, have fresh injury problems; an injury to RB Harris means that they are moving WR Moore to RB this week to share carries with RB Bryant. I do not rate the Wake running game as particular strong anyway; they have only averaged 100 ypg since the opener (when running QB Mauk was injured) and injured RB Harris was, by far, the best of their remaining options at RB. Wake’s passing game is actually pretty efficient–I’d wager that QB Skinner is an upgrade over QB Mauk, at least as far as his passing goes–but they don’t throw enough to take advantage; they are averaging 17 passes per game this season, and hitting over 170 yds passing only once, against Duke. Either way, BC’s pass D is pretty solid; while they’ve given up 245 ypg this season, opposing teams have thrown an average of 40 passes a game to get to that number, and their ratio is an impressive 6-11–and much of that damage was done by BYU, one of the better passing attacks in the nation (without BYU, the numbers drop to 213 ypg and 5.78 ypp). On D, Wake is strong against the run, but are much weaker against the pass; for the season, they are giving up 6.44 ypp and have a 5-8 ratio. These are impressive numbers until you consider that they have played Duke, UConn, UNC, and Ole Miss, 4 of the worst passing teams in the nation, and the best QB they have faced is probably Clemson QB Proctor, last seen pissing his pants against VT when they Hokie D took away the run–something Wake’s D couldn’t do. QB Ryan is not the greatest QB but he is certainly serviceable and makes few errors; he should do a fine job against this D. The BC running game is also not overly flashy, but they are good and will get yards in this game; BC was stuffed by the Clemson, VT and FSU Ds–83 ypg–but Wake is not the equal of those teams. Wake gave up over 200 yds to Clemson, and NC State went for 150; I do not think BC’s running game is as good as those teams, but UNC went for 123 (albeit on 38 carries) and I think BC is much better than that unit. BC has already won at FSU this season, and I think they will get another workmanlike win in this spot and get ahead of this number.

Jim Grobe: underappreciated, underrated…and will likely lose this Saturday.

CLEMSON (-16) v. Maryland

Clemson was stuffed last week by the VT D, but as long as they have not given up on their season–and, that’s possible when you consider that last week’s loss likely dropped them from the Orange Bowl to the Peach Bowl–I think they will get back on track this week. (more…)