Two Big XII Teams in the BCS National Championship?

The following is a much-appreciated guest post from The Franchise over at smorgusblog.blogspot.com.  Guest posts are welcome and encouraged.

I’ll cut right to the chase: I think two teams from the Big XII could very likely play in the BCS National Championship game.  I know, I know, the BCS pairings aren’t anywhere close to finalized.  And although the season is winding down rapidly, a lot can happen in the last two weeks, as any college football fan paying attention in 2007 will attest.  But follow me down this rabbit trail.

First, some predictions. Texas Tech will beat OU in Norman this week.  As much as it pains me to say it, Tech is performing like the best team in the country week in and week out.  I don’t think they can be stopped at this point, not even by a motivated OU defense looking to put the kibash on Mike Leach’s relentless air attacks.  Prediction #2 - Texas will win the rest of their schedule with ease.  Since their only remaining contests are home games hosting a very bad Arkansas and an even worse Texas A&M, I’m fairly comfortable with that prediction.  #3 – Florida will beat Alabama in the SEC championship.  As much as I like what Nick Saban has done with the Crimson Tide, Tim Tebow & Co. are playing inspired ball down in Gainesville.  I expect that Alabama will put up a fight, but Florida will be left standing victorious when the clock runs out.

 

Now, for the sake of argument, let’s make some assumptions.  First, assume that somehow, Florida drops their away game at Florida State on Nov. 29.  They have the SEC East championship locked up, so that wouldn’t change their matchup with Alabama, but it would significantly affect their BCS standing and undoubtedly deep-six their title game hopes.  Also assume that USC will win the rest of their season, but because of the weakness of their opponents, their very bad loss to Oregon State, and their lack of a marquee victory (beating up on a Beanie Wells-less Ohio State doesn’t count), they remain generally below the Big XII leaders in the BCS standings. 

 

So under this scenario, Tech goes undefeated (after beating a hapless Missouri in the Big XII championship game); Alabama loses to Florida; Florida picks up another loss at Florida State; Texas’s only loss is at Tech; and OU has two losses (to Texas and Tech) and amazingly finishes 3rd in the Big XII South but in the top 7 in the BCS rankings.  USC is a one-loss conference runner-up to champion Oregon State, and Utah is the undefeated Mountain West champion.   

 

If my predictions and assumptions somehow come to fruition, at the end of the season, the BCS rankings look like this: #1 Tech, #2 Texas, #3 USC, #4 Utah, #5 Alabama, #6 Penn State, #7 OU, #8 Boise State, #9 Florida, etc etc etc.  Under these rankings, Tech and Texas would have to play for the championship game, barring some rule that prohibits two teams from the same conference playing in the title game (which I admittedly haven’t researched). 

 

Even though I loathe both Texas and Tech, I am greatly in favor of this outcome.  I think Texas and Tech are the two top teams in the nation, and I think they’d both make strong runs through a playoff system.  Florida and USC are very good but haven’t had near the consistency or strength of schedule of Texas or Tech.  Utah, while undefeated, plays in a patty-cake conference.  I’ve got no hate for the non-BCS conferences, but when the only tough games on your schedule are BYU and TCU, it’s hard to make an argument that you deserve to play for the trophy.  Some have written that this would be a nightmare scenario for the BCS system, and that no one outside of Texas would pay attention.  I disagree and think that any fan who has seen the level of these two teams’ play over the last two months would tune in and enjoy. 

 

I’d be interested to hear thoughts on this and where yall think my scenario is askew.  Whatever happens, the BCS week should be filled with great football. 

 

State Ballots

With some of the states and Senate races still in play, I wanted to highlight some of the interesting state ballot initiatives that occurred last night. Unlike CNN, I’ll go beyond covering gay marriage and abortion.

Voters in Florida, Arizona, and likely California passed gay marriage bans.

Arkansas banned unmarried couples from adopting.

PHOENIX (AP) – Arizona voters have rejected five ballot measures, including Proposition 202 which would have made business-friendly modifications to sanctions for employers of illegal immigrants.  Prop 200 would have allowed payday loan outlets to stay in business under new rules while Prop 105 was a proposed amendment that would have made it more difficult to pass initiatives. Proposition 300 would have given legislators a pay raise and Prop 201 was a proposal to expand warranty rights for property buyers.

Voters approved two measures last night.  Proposition 101 — a proposed amendment to prohibit laws that restrict health care choices — remains too close to call.

Nebraska banned affirmative action with Colorado too close to call.

Mass. voted against repealing the income tax but for decriminalizing marijuana possession.

Michigan voted in favor of legalizing medical marijuana and allowing stem cell research.

Washington voted to allow physician-assisted suicide.

Missouri strengthened its official English-only laws and mandated that certain utilities buy energy from renewabale resources.

Pennsylvania voters approved a $400 million bond to go to infrastructure improvements.

 

Anyone hear of anything else interesting?

Election Day Open Thread

Post and discuss anything you’d like.

Election Prediction Thread

After over a year of nonsense in this presidential election, we are finally at the conclusion of this ridiculous context.  In honor of the seriousness of the issues involved surrounding the election and a possible Democratic sweep, A Modest Proposal has decided to hold its inaugural prediction context. At stake, potentially nothing, although I’m willing to increase from nothing to perhaps a pizza as the bet. Big spenders here at Modest Proposal!

Anyway, the categories will be listed below. Post your entries by Midnight, EST, on November 3rd and come back on the 5th to see if you’ve won the prestigious Modest Proposal Prognosticator Award.

Categories:

(1) Total Vote Turnout (2004 had 122 million voters) 

(2) Popular vote margin; (2.5% margin in 2004)

(3) Final Senate tally (Non-Democratic Senate Seats – Currently there are 49 non-Dem seats)

(4) Final House tally (Democratic-held seats – Currently there are 236 Dems)

(5) Correctly Predict the Following Swing States: Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia.

(6) Predict One Major Upset of a State not listed above: 

(7) Will A Winner be announced by Midnight, EST? 

(8) Predict the margin of victory in your home state: 

(9) Predict the Winner! (worth 10 points)

10) Electoral Vote Count (worth 5 points if within 5 votes)

Point allocation is posted in the comments.

Of potential use: Electoral Map Calculator  and http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

Good luck! And make sure you try and vote!

WOOOOO

PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES!!!!! YOUR WORLD CHAMPS!!!

Votive Offering

One of my major concerns with the elections I’ve voted in has been the prevalance of plurality voting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality_voting_system).  Because 3rd-party candidates siphon votes from the major candidates and create a spoiler effect, the vast majority of races involve no more than two candidates, which polarizes the race and creates one-dimensional debates.  In almost all cases, I prefer ranked or rated voting methods to plurality voting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plurality_voting_system).

I’d been thinking about different voting systems lately when I came across the following article in Technology Review on Range Voting:

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/21172/?a=f

While I thought the article did an excellent job explaining the shortcomings of IRV (Instant Runoff voting), I’m not convinced that range voting is a preferable alternative to IRV.  Let’s take the example of a typical ballot in the 2008 election:

Obama: 10

McCain: N

Castro: 0

Hitler: 0

The trouble comes when the voter tries to set a value for N.  Assuming he likes Obama better than McCain, will he want to give McCain a number higher than ‘0′ because McCain is preferable to either Castro or Hitler? If he (along with all other voters preferring Obama) gives McCain a ‘0′, it is possible that Castro could defeat McCain if a small minority give only Castro a ‘10′.  If all voters gives McCain a ‘9′ to prevent the Castro victory, it is possible that McCain might defeat his preferred candidate (Obama) on the strength of his second-place votes.  Under a range voting system, it would be difficult for voters to determine the appropriate score to give middle candidates.

I remain partial to a ranked ballot system resolved by a condorcet method (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method), which allows voters to rank every pairwise matchup in a pool of candidates.  However, moving to such a system would require citizens to trust a computer to calculate election results (even if the ballots were cast on paper).

The Bailout (Finally)

The tile of this post doesn’t refer to any sort of bailout plan that has been passed. Rather, it refers to the fact that I’ve been waiting to update until Congress addressed the current fiscal crisis.  Since that hasn’t happened…well…here I am.

As for the politics surrounding the bailout, I won’t address too much of it here, since I don’t want to get into the horse race aspect of everything.  I think neither McCain or Obama have any idea what to do in response to the crisis, but I also think McCain’s suspension/cancel the debate move was beyond stupid. 

As for my general thoughts on the issue:  Unfortunately, this crisis pulls directly at my two opposing policy-instincts, a principled libertarianism of letting the market operate, having companies go bankrupt and essentially just letting the chips fall where they may.  The other instinct I have is probably what I’d call Mike Huckabee Main Street-populism, where I am very concerned about what the effects my CATO-Libertarian policies will have on the average person, regardless of whether they took a subprime mortgage.

It’s tough for me to advocate giving billions of taxpayer dollars to companies where CEOs made  tens of millions and delivered their company into bankruptcy.  Any plan should have executive compensation limits for any company that elects to take federal money. Similarly, I have difficulty stomaching giving billions of dollars to failed companies when there are companies that behaved responsibility and are in no trouble.  Some have advocated tighter regulation of corporations, but I’m not entirely sure what benefits that would produce.  I also have significant sympathy with the sentiment espoused by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont who said, “And I think if it’s too big to fail, it probably is too big to exist.” (referring to claims that the financial companies were too important to let fail).  Lastly, I have a problem with the notion that it’s okay to bailout big corporations but not okay to bailout individuals (such as recent bankruptcy reform which made it much harder for individuals to declare bankruptcy).  

Despite all of those concerns, some form of bailout has to occur.  As much more knowledgeable people than myself know, our economy will collapse without capital liquidity and without any sort of capital flow.  The inability for individuals to get funding, or more importantly to the overall economy, for small business owners to get loans, or corporations to get loans for capital improvements, etc, the economy will grind to a halt, eventually.  I’m not going to sit here and say I know what form the bailout should take, because frankly, it’s not my area of expertise.  

I will say that I think this is emblematic of a society out of control with debt, and a government quickly sliding down to financial insolvency by consistently incurring massive amounts of debt.  In my view, it’s time to buckle down and go through 10 to 15 years of belt-tightening to ensure that the next generation isn’t burdened by the same difficulties as our generation.

Issues?

I’d wager that this is the first election totally devoid of a focus on substantive policy issues, which is incredibly disappointing considering the expectations I had for this election, which I consider to be pivotal.  In 2000, we had large debates over Social Security, tax cuts, and even some foreign policy. 2004 was the Iraq War issue, which I think substantively made the difference in the election. People wanted to stay in Iraq, so they chose Bush.   I’m making no comments about the quality of issue debate, but at least issues were discussed in that election.

In this election, we have senior campaign strategists flatly saying that this election is not about issues.  We have people liking one candidate because he’s young-ish, gives a great speech, and fits into their notion of a 21st Century-American.  We have people not really liking the other candidate (note…I did not say Senator, who I genuinely liked), but liking the vice-presidential nominee in large part because she hunts moose and looks pretty.   Really? This is what determines our votes in the supposedly-enlightened 21st century?  

I just finished re-reading Team of Rivals (again) and I just simply loved the notion that Lincoln-Douglas could come to a small town and talk for four hours and draw massive crowds that would stay for that long.  That Lincoln, Chase, or Seward could give such a speech, that it would be  reprinted on pamphlets, widely distributed, and widely read and understood.  

No one will ever be able to convince me that society today, for all its technological improvements (which may or not be beneficial), its entertainment improvements, its medical improvements (which certainly are beneficial) is better than the societal mindset of the 1800s, in which reason and thought dominated over 2 minute news stories.

(Part of that is the reason I have not posted in a week. I simply wanted to see if we had the attention span to continue to hit back to an issue for more than 5 minutes of a post.  And, to some extent, I believe we have had some success here. I’m not aiming to give the most posts, but rather, hoping for thoughtful, measured discussion that isn’t the equivalent of a segment on Hardball.)

Maybe it’s not the politicians fault, as so many like to claim. Or the news media for dumbing down coverage of serious and complex issues (there’s that word again). Rather, it’s simply our fault, for not asking for coverage of issues, for having the attention spans of 5 year-olds, and for favoring ideology over reason. Maybe this is the election we deserve.

2009 NFL Preview – AFC

This will be the first of what will hopefully be the very rare back to back same-category post. I figured I should get the whole preview up before the first full slate of games. I care much less about the AFC so expect a shorter post than the NFC one.

AFC East: Nothing has changed at the top. The Patriots are still significantly better than the rest of this division. Interestingly enough, I dislike more teams in the AFC East than any other non-Eagles division.

1. Patriots
2. Bills
3. Jets (Sorry Brett)
4. The Marinos

AFC North: The Ravens will be rebuilding with rookie QB Joe Flacco at the helm. The Ocho Five’s will continue to be what they are: offensively explosive and defensively-challenged. At least they have a defensive-genius as their head coach…The Browns are the trendy pick to win the division. Simply because I don’t recall any trendy pick ever winning the division, I think they will, at best, match last year’s record. Steelers all the way here.

1. Steelers
2. Browns
3. Ocho Five’s
4. Ravens

AFC South: Maybe the best division in the AFC, this may be the year the Jags dethrone the Colts. A lot depends on how the Jags react to the recent shooting of a teammate. I’ll go with the Colts just because I think Peyton has one more year with this team to make a deep run, but I do think the window is closing on the championship-caliber Colts. The Titans’ fate lies with Vince Young’s right arm, which is not an attractive proposition. The Texans are not anywhere close to the level of the Jags and Colts, and will fight for 3rd with the Titans.

1. Colts
2. Jags
3. Titans
4. Texans

AFC West: No team is anywhere close to the Chargers. The Raiders continue to be dysfunctional, but should be interesting to watch for a few weeks with JaMarcus Russell and McFadden in the backfield. The Chiefs have a tremendously overrated coach and not enough talent. Similarly, the Broncos are led by an overrated coach, who is depending on Jay Cutler making the jump from average to very good. I don’t think it’s likely, which is why the Chargers should dominate this division, and finish with the best record in the AFC.

1. Chargers
2. Broncos
3. Raiders
4. Chiefs.

Playoff Teams: Patriots, Chargers, Colts, Steelers, Jaguars, Broncos. Eventual AFC Champion: Colts.

2009 NFL Preview – NFC

I was going to pick my weekly picks, but to be honest, the slate of NFL and college games are quite dull, so instead I’ll go with a NFL preview.

NFC East: Toughest division in the NFC, by far. If any of these teams were in the NFC South, they’d probably win it. The Giants’ loss of Umenyiora will prove devastating. The Redskins aren’t quite there yet, with their QB in his 4th system in 4 years. It’ll come down to the Eagles and Cowboys. Barring an implosion that destroys the team from TO or Pacman, Dallas should win the division. The playoffs are another story.

1. Dallas
2. Eagles
3. Giants
4. Redskins

NFC North

A terrible division in its own right, there is not much of interest to me here. The Vikings will go as far in the postseason as their untested QB, Tavaris Jackson, takes them. In this division, Adrian Peterson and a solid defense should be enough for a division title. The Packers’ season will be entirely about Aaron Rodgers, and I imagine the specter of Favre will prove distracting enough to ruin the season. The Bears again decided to go with terrible quarterback figuring why improve an unimportant position. Oh, wait.Quarterback…Anyway, the Lions will slide into their usual mediocrity, which in this division, may be enough for second place.

1. Vikings
2. Lions
3. Packers
4. Da Bears

NFC South

I barely know who is in this division. The Falcons will be awful behind rookie QB Matt Ryan. The Bucs will be relying heavily on the ancient arm and legs of Garcia and Galloway. The Panthers are a bit of a sleeper, with a solid defense and running game. John Fox is a good coach, however much will depend on Delhomme staying healthy, which given his past is not at all reassuring. The Saints are unpredictable, but I am counting on Brees’ leadership leading them to a division title.

1. Saints
2. Panthers
3. Bucs
4. Flying Vicks

NFC West: What? These teams still exist? Man, the NFC is not good. Anyway, the 49ers will again be godawful, this time behind the arm of J.T. O’Sullivan. I expect Mike Nolan to be fired around Week 9. In Mike Holmgrem’s last year, the Seahawks seem to be stuck in that good enough to win 9-10 games, but not good enough to advance deep in the playoffs. Their running game, with the additions of Julius Jones and TJ Duckett, will be what holds them back from a deep playoff run. With the return of Orlando Pace, the Rams offense should be much better. Barring an unbelieveable rookie year from rookie Chris Long, the Rams are looking at a 7-9 season. I have nothing to say about the Cardinals.

1. Seattle
2. Rams
3. Cardinals
4. 49ers

Playoff Teams: Seattle, Cowboys, Saints, Vikings, Eagles, Panthers: Eventual NFC Champion: E-A-G-L-E-S.