Monday, April 28, 2008

SMQ thoughts

SMQ wraps things up nicely in the very first, admittedly premature
preseason forecast of the fall.

Given the unknowns, I can't
argue with with 5-7 to 2-10 outlook. If the offense gels at all, and
stops getting hives in the red zone, 5-7 isn't crazy. Improved line
play will make whoever ends up under center look better than Meyer did
last year.

More previews as the appear.

PT

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Grading the Ungradable

I always chuckle at those who grade how an NFL team has drafted, just as I chuckle at recruiting rankings. With all the variables that go into player development, how can you accuratly grade?

Looking back 3 years in the NFL and 5 years in NCAA makes sense- you can really see how a team improved or declined based on how draftees/recruits panned out. Get a few surprises and your team got a lot better. Miss a few in key places and you are out of a job. I'm glad I'n just a fan.

As I recall, Virginia Tech's recruiting classes won a bunch games in the mid-90's with recruiting classes that wwere ranked as nothing special. Coach Beemer had the audacity to ignore rankings and stats and times and just watch tape and talk to kids and their coaches. He looked for football players- guys who just liked to play football, were the first to come and the last to leave practice, who just worked their asses off because they liked getting better. You get a bunch of those kids as the core of your team and you will win on Saturdays.

Drafting and recruiting is on some level just a crapshoot. Don't place any money of whoever "graded well" this weekend.

Peterclone

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Sober

LE's been sober for five years today.

Keep it up. We're proud of you.

Peterclone

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Validated

This
is a funny read.


It essentially reiterates what I've
been saying since the start
of the Cy-Hawk series:ISU should never win the thing.

The funny part is that the writer tries really, really hard not to come right out and say "ISU should never win this thing". But reading between the lines, he's saying exactly that.

The SUI quote trots out the old "We want to win TenEleven Championships" chestnut. Yeah, and I want a pony.

The impressive numbers appear late in the column: ISU leads 47-39 overall, and if you remove the results of football and men's basketball, ISU would lead the series 3-0-1. Ouch. When you consider the money spent on "Olympic" sports in IC versus Ames, Double Ouch.

I'll tell you what SUI and its fans really want: to somehow return ISU to its "College" days when it could justify treating it with second-class, little brother, back-of-the-bus arrogance. They would drop the football series in a heartbeat if they could. They would drop the Cy-Hawk if they could. But they can't without looking like they are running from a fight.

So we might as well continue tormenting them by winning the dang thing.

Peterclone

Sunday, April 20, 2008

KU and Winning

I'm not going to harp on the fact that KU should have lost to a team with one stud and a bunch of DII players (which would have been appropriate 20 years after Danny and the Miracles) or that they benefitted from perhaps the biggest choke job in a title game ever. That would be petty and low class.

But could a stat geek out there find for me a team that has won more games and conference titles in the last 20 years that hadn't won an NCAA title? (Thanks for suggesting Princeton, smart guy.) Has any school done less with more? Are they the equivelent to Texas football?

Discuss.

Will KU losing two studs to the NBA make a difference to the rest of the B12 next year?

No.

As long as KU is handing out schollies for hoops, the league is theirs to lose each year. Any season they don't win the league title should be considered a wasted year, and grounds for firing the coach.


Peterclone

Spring Afternoons

I'm the first to admit that I don't memorize the two-deeps for my team, but I really don't see the attraction of the Spring Game at my school, other than the excuse to tailgate on a (hopefully) decent spring day.

When I see 70K+ showing up in Happy Vally and Columbus and Lincoln, I can only conclude that those folks are daft.

Perhaps someday I'll attend and catch whatever it is that makes the expeience so pleasing. Or not.

Peterclone

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Crete Watching

This is one of the best rivalry stories of late. If I'm that RedSox
fan, I leave 3 or four bits in the concrete, and only admit one. After
digging out the easy item, the place is still cursed, but everyone
thinks it is fine.

This has ramifications here in Cyclone land.
As Athletics undertakes its planned capital projects, like the current
work at Trice, they should consider hiring one person with construction
experience to monitor the work, especially the pouring on concrete, to
prevent any shenanigans by an SUI fan in a hard hat.

Not that SUI fans care enough about ISU to even bother trying to jinx us. The obvious joke is that Cyclone football is already jinxed.

Still, if something black and gold isn't already in the foundations around ISU athletics, it will be soon.

How well do you know the guy in the hard hat?

Peerclone

Psychic Insight

Black Heart Gold Pants stumbled on ISU's new logo images, and opinionates about them.

Funny
thing, he can't use the same yardstick even in
his own analysis.


First, he projects forward that ISU
would use an aerial shot of an SUI game, because we all know the only
time Trice sells out is when the drunken buzzards come to town and buy
up all the tickets. That's why the artistPhotoShopped all the
black-wearing fans out and replaced them with red wearing fans. (If he
was going to all that trouble, why not replace every last one? I
digress.)

Longtime readers know my feelings on this topic. The question shouldn't be "Why doesn't ISU sell more tickets", the question should be "Why doesn't SUI sell more?" Follow the link for the full reasoning, but in short "ISU can't sell tickets" is the best local sports myth behind "SUI football is on the cusp of a National Championship".

I've personally been in Kinnick
the last 10 years when 20K Wisconsin and Penn State and Ohio State fans
have purchased all of the singles, and were usually the only ones in
the house at the final gun. Get off that horse, my friend. How are
sales for '08 going?

Besides, if ISU is going to use an image of a football game, it might as well be one with a full house and probable win.

BHGP
then switches gears, acting as if the Hilton shot is past historical
record. No, you dork, like the shot of Trice it is again a future
projection. (Nice angle, BTW. I've never seen that one.) Does BHGP
really expect a marketing department to post an image like that with
the home team losing? Duh.

What is most hysterical about BHGP
is that he, like most SUI fans, claims not to care about Moo-U, and
spends dozens of blog posts showing how much he doesn't care.

Thanks for visiting. I'm sure you won't attend or watch this year's ISU-SUI game because A) It's a walkover for SUI B) You don't care if ISU loses or not C) You are too busy breaking down which bar in IC has the best drink specials 8-11 AM on Tuesdays.

Peterclone

Monday, April 07, 2008

Smart

Season ticket holders only to see the Fuskers.

It was a good idea last year, it's a good idea this year.

Maybe Gene will get us to the point that season tickets are an easier sell than singles.

Peterclone

Norms

A nice discussion at Sunday Morning QB about KU's chances of winning 10 games again this year.

Short version: they aren't good.

KU
was a good team, but they also benefited from the perfect storm of
incredible individual performances, a favorable schedule, football
cycles that worked in their favor (bad NU,KSU and CU teams) and few injuries.

It
is interesting to see SUI of '01 mentioned as being unable to replicate
a sudden 10 win season. The writer obviously hasn't talked to SUI fan
to learn that they are only a decent OC away from a national championship.

Go read. Stats are fun. The same argument also explains ISU's lack of consistent football success.

Peterclone

PhotoShop Tricks

This is worth a chuckle: The New ISU Mascot.

Nice work.

Peterclone

Sunday, April 06, 2008

What Could Have Been

John Cooper really, really wanted to follow Earle Bruce as ISU football coach.

Instead he followed Bruce as Ohio State football coach.

ISU got Duncan, Criner and Walden instead. That makes me weep.

What could have been.

At least Gene has asked Coop back into the fold, even for a day or two. Cyclone football could use some of his influence.

Peterclone

Cronyism

The TeeVee tells me that Sean Sutton quit as Okie State coach recently. I'm not surprised.

Any coach who couldn't come up with a halftime response to an ISU
defensive scheme deserves to be fired. That's not a slam at Greg and
crew- when your team is just as flummoxed by an opponent in the second
half as in the first, and when that opponent is eventually going to
escape last place with a win over you- you are in over your head.

I never thought much of Sean as a player- a nice player, but getting extra
minutes because of Dad- and I thought the same of him as a coach. OSU
under Junior struck me as playing beneath their talent. He'll make
someone a nice recruiting coordinator, or perhaps he should drop down
to DII or a mid-major to learn how to coach, then come back up. As much as I despise Alford, he did pay some dues along the way.

Heck, I'd give James Dickey the promotion to Head Coach. He won a pile of games at Tech- he'd be better Day One than Sean ever was.

Pat Knight, you are on the clock.

Keno, you've earned a half dozen mulligans.

Peterclone