Know Your Enemy

Sorry it's been such a long time, but now that summer is here, it's time to get the ball rolling on this blog life.

Today, I wanted to visit the old adage "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." As is the case, never has the Texas-OU rivalry ever been hotter than it is right now coming off the 2008-09 sports season. In basketball, the men's teams split the regular season matchups, with Blake Griffin getting knocked out of the game in Austin before leading his team to an Elite 8 run ended by UNC. Meanwhile, Texas fought valiantly before bowing out to Duke in round 2 in a year marred by inconsistent play and glaring faults. In baseball, Texas swept OU as both squads captured top 8 seeds in the NCAA tournament. However, OU was vanquished by another enemy of the 'Horns in the Arkansas Razorbacks in the regionals while Texas makes its 33rd trip to Omaha this week. Finally, as you might of heard by now, Texas came back from a double digit deficit in Dallas to prevail 45-35 over OU, only to get passed over for the Big 12 title game, National Championship Game, and Heisman trophy.


So, heading into the 2009 college football season, it's easy to say we still hate the Sooners. We hate that they come to Texas to recruit. We hate that they keep going to BCS games. (Though it's quite humorous to see them lay egg after egg in the big games.) We hate that they get rewarded for scoring 60 every game, while people overlook their D giving up over buttloads of points in those games. We also hate that they have an aversion to toothbrushes, deodorant, and homes without wheels. But that's just being picky....

It's 4:10, and OU still sucks. It's also about that time to get to know your enemy. There's plenty of time left to dissect the Texas team going into the new season. But for now, let's get to know the ins and outs of OU football for the 2009 season.

Offense

One of OU's potential saving graces this season is the amount of talent that decided to come back despite the opportunity to be first round draft picks for the NFL. Obviously, everyone knows Sam Bradford, but I might argue that Jermaine Gresham's return is just as critical. Gresham will help make up for the loss of a good chunk of Bradford's wide receiving corp from 2008. At 6'6", 260 lbs., Gresham is an athletic freak who can line up at TE or WR. However, it'll be interesting to see if teams can focus on him this season. OU will need players like Ryan Broyles to step up, and Mossis Madu will play a lot out of the slot rather than as an RB this year. In addition, Trent Williams will come back to try to add some stability to the OU O-line. 4 starters off of last season's team have moved on, and this will truly be the big question mark about the Sooners this season. Can they piece together a line that will help protect Bradford, or will he look a lot less spectacular if he's having to run for his life and throw the ball away? Finally, Murray and Brown will be back in the backfield, although Demarco Murray has been lost to injuries twice the past few years. He's easily OU's most explosive back, but can they keep him on the field? Maybe a reduction in special teams return duties will keep him available for a full year.

The bottom line is that this is still a very potent offense, but the departures at WR and OL would seem to be the "weak links," relatively speaking, going into 2009. If OU can get capable replacements at WR, and meld together a solid O-line (the talent is likely there, if not the experience, they'll easily be in the running for another Big 12 title.

Defense

For all the worries about the offensive line, the defensive line for OU is likely one of the most formidable in college football. Gerald McCoy joins the offensive returnees who turned down NFL millions to come back to Norman...for some reason or another, I guess. Regardless, he'll be joined by Frank Alexander, Auston English and Adrian Taylor, amongst others, in applying pressure and trying to lock down the run. Behind them stand a stable of linebackers with plenty of depth, including Ryan Reynolds, Travis Lewis, and Keenan Clayton. The secondary, not exactly elite last season, still lacks depth and experience as standouts Nic Harris and Lendy Holmes moved on. OU will be breaking in two new safeties this season as they try to slow down the pass happy attacks of the Big 12. (More on this in the schedule section.)

On defense last season, OU was able to mask many of their issues by outscoring their opponents and letting the media fawn over those 60 point performances. (They gave up 31 to KU, 35 to KSU, 28 to Nebraska, 45 to Texas, 28 to A&M and 41 to Okie State.) This season? Well, they could be better, but they'd better hope Ryan Reynolds and Auston English are able to overcome injuries, otherwise we could be looking at a team trying to outscore everyone again, but with fewer weapons to do so. They get 9 starters back overall, but how good were those starters? Maybe we find out this year.


Schedule

This is the part I really wanted to spend some time on. According to Phil Steele, OU has the 3rd toughest schedule in the nation this season. Especially considering that their pass defense struggled last year (ranked 99th in the nation in pass defense according to Athlon), OU might have some struggles against a plethora of pass-happy teams this season. BYU, Tulsa, Texas, Kansas, and Texas Tech all face off against OU in '09. Furthermore, here are the road (and neutral) games for the Sooners: BYU (in Arlington), U. of Miami, Texas (in Dallas), at Kansas, at Nebraska, and at Texas Tech (late in the season when Tech will have settled in with their new QB, Taylor Potts, and where OU has struggled in recent years.) Throw in a year-ending matchup with Okie State in the Bedlam Series, and this may be a year where OU does trip up, in conference or out, trying to get settled into a new O-line.

One more thing to consider is that OU benefitted a lot from turnovers last season. And, statistically speaking, what goes around often comes around in following years. In other words, about 77% of the teams with a double-digit + turnover margin often see a stagnation or drop in their record the following year. (According to Phil Steele, OU was +23 last season.) Certainly this doesn't guarantee anything, but it's a trend that's held up solidly since 1996 according to Mr. Steele's research. So, it's worth observing this year.

All in all, OU will once again be a great team, and a tough team to beat. But, with Texas winning 3 of the last 4, with OU facing some serious issues at Offensive Line and Wide Receiver, and with OU staring at a "harder than it looks" schedule, here's hoping that Texas can get back to the MNC game without any of the drama or insanity of last season. And if we have to see a few more faces like this after the matchup in Dallas....





...then that's okay, too.

Well, since you asked....

...I guess I'll share my thoughts on how I would format a playoff system. Let's forget, for a moment, how likely or unlikely such a playoff would be. Let's forget about who should have the power to make such decision, and how that decision should come about.

Let's just focus on the fact that fans are fed up, the current system is a crapshoot at best, and there are plenty of functional alternatives if all interested parties would just sit down and focus on what's best for the sport! (Yes, I know that "what's best for the sport" may not be what's best for all of the constituents. But a fan can dream, right? I mean, I can hope that one day we won't have to deal with all the politicking and bickering, and we'll be able to settle everything on the field? God, I hope so....)

With that said, here are some of the issues my system tries to address:

1) Too many games. I agree that college football can't go the way of the NFL, with teams playing nearly twenty games, counting preseason and post-season.

2) Fan travel. One can't expect most fans to be able to travel with their team for 4 rounds (or more) of road games in hopes of playing for a championship.

3) Room for the "little man." Not unlike major league baseball, the non-BCS teams have no chance to win a title each year. That is a FACT. Utah, BYU and Boise State might as well be the Pittsburgh Pirates.

4) Maintaining the importance of the regular season. No, I don't want the regular season cheapened, per se, either. However, I'm not letting every damn team into a bowl game, much less the playoffs. Furthermore, I'm rewarding the top teams for finishing near the top.

5) Get the freaking coaches out of the system! My system removes the obvious conflict of interest in coaches voting in the BCS.

Without further ado, here is my "system." I call it the "This is a Hell of a Lot Better than the Current System" System.

In my plan, the playoff takes in the top twelve teams. How are those twelve teams decided? Fantastic question! Like the NCAA tournament committee, I would create a committee of people who watch games all year long, meet during the season to practice seeding, evaluating, etc. Rather than coaches voting, who rarely watch teams other than their own or opponents, this committee will be devoted to watching non-stop football and making the final call on which teams make the field, and which will be delegated to the traditional bowl field.

What criteria will they consult? Well, just like basketball, it will be critical to look at strength of schedule, non-conference and conference schedule, injury situations, strength of conference, conference championships, etc.

Compiling their data, the committee will pick the top twelve teams, no questions asked. If a team wins a conference championship? Well, congratulations! But don't tell me that should guarantee a team anything. I'm not going to claim that a Virginia Tech or Cincinnati team is better than a Texas, Ole Miss or USC just because VT won the conference championship and those others did not.

As an amendment to the current situation, I call for ALL conferences to abort their conference championship games. They accomplish little, often force a team to beat an opponent twice, and often just destroy championship hopes for teams in the current system. Then, all conferences should abolish the "divisions" in the conferences, and play a systematic rotating schedule. Want to keep alive the rivalries like Texas-OU, OSU-Michigan, and Florida-Georgia? That's fine. That can be done if both teams prefer it. Finally, trim the schedule down to 11 games. This will help in the long run by cutting one more game from the loaded schedule the dear Athletic directors claim to worry about, DESPITE the fact that they added a 12th game for everyone several years ago.

Now, once the top twelve teams are selected, regardless of conference, the top 4 teams will be rewarded with a first round bye. This is their reward for for finishing in the top 4, and also an incentive for teams to try to go undefeated, or lose as few games as possible, in the regular season. The other 8 teams? Well, the 5-8 seeds will play HOME games against the 9-12 seeds. For example, the 5 seed hosts the 12, 6 hosts the 11, etc. This rewards the next four teams with another home gate, even though they have to win potentially an extra game. Also, this helps keep people from having to travel too much. The games will easily sell out, and I'm sure there will be sufficient interest in road fans trying to make road trips to some unique university stadiums with a aura of "sudden death" importance in the air.

In the next round, the four winning teams will face the four bye teams. The matchups will be re-seeded so that the top team plays the lowest seeded team, etc. Like the current BCS games, these games will take place at 4 of the 5 BCS game sites. (I say 5 because I think the Cotton Bowl should regain top 5 prestige again with it moving to a state of the art stadium that can be insulated from bad weather in the winter.) For instance, the four second round games would potentially take place at the Cotton Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, and Sugar Bowl. These would be tremendous matchups between top teams, and this would also be a fantastic trip for fans to make! These first two rounds would be played after a one week break from the regular season. Some may say that two weeks off after the regular season is a bit of a long layoff for the bye teams. However, I think it's much better than the current 38 day layoff the title teams might have. After these two rounds, the last four teams would break for two weeks for a holiday break and final exams.

The last four teams would commence in a "Final Four" event like in NCAA basketball. All four teams would meet in the 5th BCS site. For example, all four teams would meet at the Rose Bowl to settle the championship. The semifinal games would take place on a Saturday after the break, and then the championship game would take place on the following Saturday at the same site. This would also help with travel because people could make a week-long trip to one destination to catch the semi's and final game. Who wouldn't love the week-long hoopla similar to the Super Bowl or college basketball final four? It would fit easily into the current BCS bowl system, without a doubt. The money to be made would be ridiculously great for all parties involved. Fans wouldn't have to travel to 4 different sites. Rarely would a team play any more than 13 or 14 games, which is quite comparable to the current situation. Best of all, the best team would be decided on the field.

What about the other bowls, you ask? To me, it's obvious there are WAY too many. If we drop back down to 11 games, I'd cut the rest of the bowl field down to 20 bowls. This is 25 total sites, counting the 5 playoff sites. That would work out to a total of 52 bowl teams. I think that is a substantial cut from the 68 bowl teams now. I'm tired of seeing mediocrity rewarded! By slicing the bowl/ playoff teams to 52, I would think we'd see more 7-4 teams making the final cut, rather than the downright silly amount of 6-6 teams that go on to lose and finish their season 6-7 after the bowl. Huh??

So, I know this is long and a bit wordy, but what do you think? What do you like? What potential flaws do you see? I tried to troubleshoot and think of specific issues and details, but let me know if you think I forgot anything....I'm excited to hear some feedback!