Hey all. Quick intro today, but we've got some good stuff from txtwstr7 and learned hand, along with my always thrown together at the last minute Undulating Curve of Media Hype. In case you missed the past two installments which were buried on Fridays, they are here and here. Good stuff.
SOMEONE GET A BREATHALYZER ON THE BOISE BUS DRIVER
by learned hand
There are few certainties in life. Death, taxes, the Greg Davis bubble screen on 2nd and 10, and Pat Forde treating college football fans like amnesiac kindergarteners in need of a good bedtime story. The internet has given rise to a new kind of talent - those who can fling ideas against the wall with the vague sense that something will eventually stick. And Pat Forde is their leader.
On September 7th Forde served up this:
The Dash picked Boise State (2) No. 1 all the way back in January and kept the Broncos there heading into this season...Boise will remain No. 1 in The Dash's Top 25 until there is compelling reason to make a change. Moore will remain No. 1 on The Dash's Heisman ballot. And Boise is poised to remain in the national title mix all year long, snobs.
Deal with it. Get on the Boise bus.
Or, if boarding the bus is just too difficult for an Establishmentarian to do, get your snob school to schedule the Broncos home-and-home. Any takers?
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Andy_Staples: Poll ballot rough draft complete. Just a mess after the top six. PeteThamelNYT: And two Boise wins against the Ducks. RT @davecurtis33: Will be interesting if Ohio State's Rose Bowl win over Oregon comes up with voters. (-txtwstr7) |
Okay, Forde declared a Boise State team a yearlong national title contender after the first game of the season. Mildly controversial, but as I noted at the time, a lot of pundits were doing it. Of course, that Virginia Tech team promptly lost to an FCS team the following week, and there was the predictable backlash. My complaint then was about the premature anointment. Now, I'm just amazed he even bothered.
On October 2nd, this little gem was not posted on sportspickle:
In fact, this is a one-team nation.
With their 31-6 thumping of Florida, the Crimson Tide sent the following message around the South and around the country: When we're on our game, nobody can hang with us.
Not Ohio State, which wheezed past Illinois Saturday. Not Boise State, which would be hard-pressed to match the depth of the Tide. Not even Oregon, despite all the points the Ducks are racking up these days.
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Hey, You know who's Notre LAME? Clay Travis! Even though Travis has been a repeat guest on EDSBS Radio with our esteemed colleague Peter Bean, his crime this week cannot go unpunished. After Texas lost to OU, I openly wondered to some friends if the silly "this is karma for realignment" potshots would start coming two weeks earlier than expected. Well, they did. And they came from Clay Travis, who stupidly called Texas "the biggest coward program in college football" during the offseason, after they refused to embrace their destiny (or whatever) of joining the SEC or PAC-10. In his weekend recap column for AOL Fanhouse, Travis took the next step. After celebrating the recent losses with an obnoxious headline, he concluded "Texas finally reaped what it sowed for dodging out on playing good teams in a decent conference and extorting the members of the TBC -- Texas' Bitches Conference -- not to leave either." All in all, I like Clay Travis. I get his schtick (kinda). I'll even give him a pass on the "refusing to play good teams" comment, despite the fact that Texas accordingly beefed up its future non-conference schedules after realignment. But I'm not going to enjoy reading any additional columns-either before or after the Nebraska game-referencing Texas' disappointing season as some type of karmic justice. That should be left to the masses on random SEC Message Boards. (-txtwstr7) |
A month ago, Forde called those questioning the depth of Boise compared to a presumptive SEC/Big 10/Pac 10/Big 12 champion "snobs". Now he dismisses them out of hand for the same reason. But it gets better. My favorite part of this piece of prose is how Forde devotes about half the article to pointing out the various indicia that Alabama's offense isn't quite there yet, noting that Florida is no longer a worthy adversary in the John Brantley era and pointing out that the SEC East is generally terrible. Whatever, one team nation.
Now we can stop playing the games after the first week of October and reserve Saturdays for finding new Dashettes. Please pay no attention to the rolling Broncos after they defenestrated the New Mexico vintage of Aggie, the physical Buckeyes who possess a defense built to go heads up against a team like Alabama, or an Oregon team that pasted a Top 10 team in Stanford that has looked much, much better than this year's version of Florida,[1] Please, that's the PAC-10 and when it comes to establishmentarism, the SEC is where it's at.
Forde falls back into the comfortable WWL trope of "the SEC championship is the de facto National Championship." This is impressive both because I thought he was driving the Boise Bus to Pasadena and because Florida doesn't look like they'll be playing in the SEC championship game. So this is a touch premature, no?
Then on October, 5th Forde wakes up from his dreams of Big Al flexing his rippling, Rambo-ey arms and takes a walk of shame awesome back to the Boise bus:
And for every SEC snob who sneers at Boise's theoretical ability to play every week in that league, take a look at the mighty Eastern Division. It went 0-5 last week, with South Carolina upholding divisional pride by not playing.
Think the Broncos couldn't win the East? Think again.
While The Dash readily acknowledges that Alabama looks like the best team in America right now, the battle is lively for No. 2 -- and all that really matters is finishing in the top two. After this past weekend, The Dash has the Broncos second, Oregon a close third and Ohio State fourth.
So the Bus rolls on, undeterred. Still time (and room) to climb aboard.
"I fully understand the University of Tennessee. They came out and played a good ball game today. If you look at their films previous, they played their best game ever. They probably could have just about beaten anyone in the country today." This is cute. In analyzing the Tennessee-LSU game, Tigers LB Kelvin Shepherd said the Volunteers would have beaten just about any other team in the country. It was their "best game ever," you see. Mr. Shepherd, if a team's "best game ever" includes a mere 217 yards and 14 points, then they probably aren't going to win too many games. And they probably can't beat just about anyone in the country. This is especially true when they have already lost twice-at home-by a combined 49 points. But, hey, play on playa... (-txtwstr7) |
That's right, the same Florida team being used to prop up Alabama isn't the same caliber as the Boise State Broncos. The entire SEC East isn't. And the Bus didn't slow down, and you shouldn't think it did, because Alabama didn't prove nearly as much as Forde said it did earlier. Please look at Ana Ivanovic and don't think about this too long.[2] It's simple really. It's a one team nation of Alabama and Boise state. Unless it's Oregon. Or Ohio State.
[1] The 2010 Florida Gators are averaging 2 turnovers a game, John Brantley has the lowest QB rating for a Florida starter going back to 2004, and the Florida rushing game hasn't been this unproductive since the Zook era. Apparently, beating this team is all it takes to demonstrate complete superiority over the college football universe.
[2] Closer Forde, but I said blonde tennis players. I'll give you a pass when Sharapova is Dashette. Maybe.
And now, without further ado, but with apologies to New York Magazine and Adam Sternbergh, here is your weekly Undulating Curve of Media Hype.
