SB Nation User Blog: Horn Brain

Really?

Horn Brain — Sun, 31 May 2009 05:15:41 -0000

Yes. Really.

Spring Practice Schedule Set

Horn Brain — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:14:12 -0000

Spring Practice Schedule Set

Spring Scrimmage starts at 2:30pm April 5, and there will be three open practices before that, looks like in February.

I've been to the spring game before, and it was pretty interesting. The trouble is finding out whether the offense was good or the defense was bad and vice versa. It's usually best to pick your best units (QB, Receivers, uh... LB's?) and say that anything the other units do well against them is good. If our secondary picks off Colt, for example, I'd go ahead and praise the secondary. Even if it's a bad read or Colt's fault, at least those guys caught something.

On the Road to Scottsdale: Day 3

Horn Brain — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 06:12:21 -0000

Driving through the Arizona desert in the rain was the final disappointment of the trip. The visibility was low and what could be seen was mostly just a dark sillhouette against the fog, so there are no pictures from today. It wasn't the best end to the road trip, but I did get to wrap up my In N Out trials with suggestions from some of you, and my focus is turning more and more to tomorrow's game.

We ate lunch at an In N Out somewhere in the desert, and per The Other Andrew's request, I tried the double-double animal style. It was definitely much better than the regular version, and its uniqueness definitely gives it what it needs to be someone's favorite burger. The fries were exactly the same, though, so I don't think I caught a bad batch the first time. I'll back off calling In N Out average, but I still don't understand why people are so obsessed. P-Terry's beats it in just about every category in my book, knock-off or not. I don't have a moral food conscience that makes a P-Terry's burger taste worse just because they modelled their business after another company. What I have is a tongue, and it tells me that P-Terry's tastes better than an In N Out burger. Plus, P-Terry's tastes good without having to know the secret password.

Tomorrow's game presents an interesting challenge for Muschamp's defense: Power running. We haven't seen much of it this year, and we've shown mixed results. Against OU we shut down the run completely, but against OSU we got gashed when we tried to take away Dez Bryant. I'm expecting more of the former, as we'll be completely focused on stopping the run with no Dez Bryant to chase around all over the field. If we can take away the run half as well as we did against OU, the Buckeyes will feel like they're going uphill on every possession. The Buckeye linemen look to be a stout bunch, not unlike the OU group, and they're built for shortening games, not pass blocking for half a normal work day. Our depth of speed on the DL should help to wear them down, especially if we're trying to penetrate instead of just holding our ground. Can you imagine a 300 pounder chasing around Kindle for three and a half hours? The worst thing we could do, IMO is keep everyone at home and let the Bucks' OL lean on us while Beanie runs three yards after contact against an LB. Conservativism is our enemy in every facet of the game.

Some may say this is a no-win situation, and that we'll get no credit for a win but we'll get hammered for a loss. To them I say that our title game claim is on the line. Look at Tech after their Cotton Bowl disaster - did they deserve to be in the BCS after going 11-1? Yes, and they had a legitimate complaint. But now no one is going to say they deserved anything after they stunk it up against Ole Miss. It will be the same for us if we lose or eke this one out. If we win, we can keep griping about being shafted by the BCS, and if OU were to not suck, we would have a legitimate claim to the national championship. So there is something to earn from this game beyond just beating the Buckeyes.

I'm headed to the Fiesta-val surrounding the game in just a few minutes, so that means I'll have one more road diary sometime tomorrow to recap the game, hopefully with pictures again. Until then, though.

On the Road to Scottsdale: Day 2

Horn Brain — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 07:20:35 -0000

Day 2 didn't begin with nearly the same efficiency as Day 1. Yesterday I woke up at 5:30, brushed the teeth, threw the girlfriend and her bags into the car, complained that no one had taken the back seats out before piling all of their crap on them, hit the ignition and we were almost to San Antonio by the time the girlfriend re-awoke. That's efficiency. Today began two and a half hours after the girlfriend turned off my alarm because I didn't notice it first. We had a nice Mexican breakfast of huevos rancheros for me and chicken and bean nachos for her at about noon before finally crossing the border into New Mexico at light-speed.

Once we noticed that we had crossed the border (When the mile markers jumped to 160-something. New Mexico had no welcome sign unless you count the "Speeding fines double, Safety Zone" signs that accompanied us all the way to Las Cruces.), light-speed immediately gave way to one mile an hour over the speed limit. I figured cosine error would give me that one mph back and keep the ~~taxmen~~ police off my back. Double speeding fines for what? To keep people from careening off of the highway trying to avoid the swarms of police? That was the straightest, smoothest piece of highway we'd seen since we left Houston. The speed limit could have comfortably been 100, but New Mexico has decided that rather than an insincere "Welcome to New Mexico, Drive Fast and Keep Your Head Down!" sign, the best way to show their appreciation for our tourism is with a personal thank you card from one of New Mexico's finest. I didn't get a ticket this time because of my cunning strategy of driving the speed limit, but I was still lucky to avoid one of the 75 to 35 with a cop waiting at the sign speed traps by staying mostly on I-10. Anyone who has yet to get to NM, be careful.

Since we were six hours from Phoenix with two days to go, we took a detour to White Sands National Monument for some photo ops. It was surprisingly not disappointing for a New Mexico destination, and actually very cool, much like the Sugar Bowl the night before. As I finalized yesterday's post, I was constantly tempted to comment on the Utah School of Butt-Whoopin's tremendous performance, but I had to leave it for today. Alabama finally showed why they barely made a bowl game last year, and that they played an absurdly easy schedule considering they play in the supposedly greatest conference in the land. Utah, on the other hand, showed that the Mountain West had some serious teeth this year. They beat Oregon State, TCU, and BYU, a trio of wins that Alabama didn't match during their season, and now they have a victory over a 12-win Crimson Tide. Oh, and did I mention that they're the only undefeated team in the FBS? Utah has a legitimate argument to be #1 this year, over either of the BCS CG participants. You can disagree with it, but you can't dismiss it. If Texas and OU both win, then you've got three schools with real claims to the title. THREE! The BCS was supposed to fix this!

White Sands was very cool, and we ended up spending the whole day there-leaving just before sundown on our way to Tucson for the night. This has been the worst decision of the trip so far. I was so frustrated driving in the darkness as I could see shadows of mountains and canyons fly by almost invisibly. I still have no idea what it's going to look like when I open the curtains tomorrow. I even drove through a place called "Texas Canyon" which I would have loved to mock if I had only seen it. Shameful. The worst part is that I have no Arizona pictures to show you. Instead, you'll have to live with more White Sands photos:

Quantum of Solace, only I'm packing a tripod.

When we finally pulled into Tucson late tonight, we were starved. I had been thinking about Troy Smith showing up fat to the 2006 title game in Scottsdale which reminded me that In-and-Out Burger has locations in Arizona. I've never had one, and I'm not 40, so I figured my heart could take it, especially since everyone kept telling me it was the GBOAT. I ordered a Double-Double just like I like all my burgers (everything but tomatoes), fries and a vanilla shake. Wow. Was that ever a letdown. Fries were good but nothing special. Just regular fries. Shake was pretty good, I thought, a little thick, but with plenty of vanilla flavor, buttery and savory is the best way I can describe it. The burger was a total downer. It came half-wrapped, which got me all excited, but then it tasted like a poor-man's P-Terry's. P-Terry's is that burger stand basically on the corner of Lamar and Barton Springs that prides itself on using food that you would buy to make your burger. Heinz Ketchup, fresh lettuce, good beef, etc. The best part is that they pepper their patties a little, giving a little extra subtle flavor that really makes the burger special. In-and-Out was like this, but without the pepper, and with a big chunk of white lettuce. Patty and buns were fine, but they did nothing to deserve the adoration that I've been bathed in every time I try to talk about what I think is the best burger. In-and-Out is a product of socialization. The place is incredibly popular because it's not everywhere, it's not McDonald's, and it's pretty ok. I will no longer be entertaining any mention of In-and-Out in my future discussions of best burgers.

Crash and Burn

The burger disappointment obviously lends itself to a segue into a trend we've seen in yesterday's biggest bowl games. ‘Bama and Tech had been so built up to be such great teams because they were supposed to be at this point. ‘Bama was good because they'd crushed Clemson and Georgia, both Top 10 teams at the time. No one second guessed their ranking of the Tide when those teams turned out to be awful, and Alabama sat at number one after playing possibly the weakest schedule ever by an SEC team before losing to Florida. Still, a loss in the SEC championship game was more than ‘Bama hoped for after last season, but they weren't thinking about that, and found themselves being clobbered by Utah. Tech gets a miracle last-second play to beat Texas despite being spotted a full half of play, then plays a good game again OSU and proceeds to take a big, curly dump in its next three games. That's called disappointment, folks, and it can happen to us too, if we don't focus on Brutus, Laurinaitis, and Wool-Chest the Terrible. All of our campaigning and arguments will mean jack if we can't slap around a 10-2 team from the Big Ten.

I assure you, this ends badly

Will Mack have us ready this year as he did last year? I haven't heard anything about how mean he's supposedly been, but I do have insider information that Muschamp is still coaching the defense, and that's got to mean something. Reading the Bevo Beat on the Statesman is distressing somewhat, as you'll get reports of us going to watch Kansas play Minnesota or a Suns game (did we go to a Suns game? I seem to remember hearing about that.). That doesn't mean anything certain, of course, but we surely hope that Mack and Will are slapping them around a little bit in practice. "Them" includes Greg, btw.

So that's Day 2. I'm sitting in tonight's motel trying to ignore someone on "Showbiz Tonight" telling me that their top 5 A-listers over 40 are "truly an inspiration," while I set my alarm to something really, really loud and annoying. I'm not sure what tomorrow's excursion will be yet, but tonight's entertainment will be trying to jam the door with these stubby hotel chairs since we had police cars and a helicopter shining spotlights on a bunch of cargo containers strewn about the lot behind our motel. Real prayers, tonight.

Good night, Hook ‘em ‘Horns, and safe driving.

On the Road to Scottsdale: Day 1

Horn Brain — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 03:41:43 -0000

Halfway between Houston and San Antonio on the Road that Goes Forever, as I cursed myself for not having anything to write since Texas got the final BCS shaft, I decided that I would make good use of the plethora of hours I had at my disposal while my girlfriend took her turn at the wheel. Since many of you aren't attending the game, and I'd imagine the vast majority of those who are attending will be traveling to Scottsdale at 36,000 feet, I feel like it's my duty to at least give you all an idea of what you're missing on the ground. 1,000 miles of I-10 to cover in the next three days, and you're riding shotgun with me. Along the way, I'll talk about the bowl games from the previous day and any that happen to be coming in on my stunningly low-tech terrestrial radio that somehow slipped past my nerditude and countless Christmas and birthday wish-lists. I'm also on a mission, and that mission is to see Brutus Buckeye cry a real tear through all that felt. So I'll make sure to bring it all back to the game at hand by the time I pull into my hotel for the night and upload the day's diary.

Oh, and pictures of stuff. There will be pictures of stuff, too.

Today's diary starts off a few miles past Kerrville in the beautiful Texas hill country, where the sky's as blue as the grass is yellow, the deer are from India, and the speed limit is 80 miles an hour until you hit El Paso (the picture above is from much further west, obviously). I'm still picking up the Cotton Bowl on AM 1300 from Austin, amazingly, but only on one side of each hill, which makes for endless fun speculating just how that touchdown was scored:

"Harrell hit as he throws SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH.... tacks on the extra point to make it SHSHSHS with 5:41 to go in the half."

The announcers start yammering about how you can't beat Tech with smash mouth football because you can't score enough points, when I am suddenly reprieved by the total loss of the signal for good. Later, I find out that Tech's losing 38-21 in the second half. I didn't find out how that turned out until much later when my new BlackBerry came back into data service and I read the comments on the open thread. Geez. Thanks a lot to Texas Tech for making our loss to them look worse all of a sudden than Florida's to Ole Miss. You just cannot count on the rest of the Big 12 to play worth a damn outside of conference. Why can't the Cotton Bowl be your Super Bowl, Tech? And why does Okie State decide to look like a JV team on defense against Oregon? On a positive note: Thanks to Northwestern for not utterly embarrassing our conference, and thanks to Kansas for whipping Minnesota like they should have. Also, thanks to Nebraska and Clemson's "Bad Greg"-like OC for giving us some sort of evidence that we're playing defense.

Tech getting stomped isn't all bad, though. It eliminates that whole three-way tie thing, simultaneously ruining OU's best win so far. If by some miracle OU doesn't choke in the championship game, and we put a hurt on Ohio State, the AP will have no excuses not to make us national champions, thus setting up the meanest State Fair ever held next October. Can I go ahead and put in for tickets now? It's enough to make a guy think about going to a women's basketball game to earn priority seating status.

The landscape has slowly lost its trees, giving way to an endless sea of mesquite bushes and tan dirt where there used to be tan grass. No, I'm not metaphorically talking about this year's bowl season, though you wouldn't know it. Trying to remember the good games, I can think of Boise State - TCU, which was really only very close because TCU couldn't convert any of their drives into points. If you have a foot fetish, maybe you would have liked the punt and field-goal fests that were the Oregon State - Pitt and Nebraska - Clemson games. There was that great UNC - WVU game, which got way too creepy when everyone started slobbering all over Pat White there at the end. But the UNC receiver with the ridiculous hands was a-freakin'-mazing. I hope these pictures turn out all right that I'm taking, because the sun broke through the clouds over some short mountains and this is the equivalent of the few games we've seen so far that had any power to hold my attention.

The Rose Bowl was a huge disappointment, and you could see where the game could have been a lot different if it weren't for a few bonehead coaching decisions by PSU early. Running a slow straight handoff play on 3^rd and 1? Twice? Fail. Obviously JoePa didn't watch the first Texas possession in Lubbock. I'm not going to talk about the Orange Bowl, because I didn't even watch it. Wouldn't have paid nine bucks to see it if I lived outside the stadium.

It's starting to get dark now as we close in on El Paso. The girlfriend drives like a bat out of hell, which is great so long as I'm not paying for her insurance. Do I feel bad for her dad? Not one bit, because he didn't raise his daughter to be a Longhorn. Plus, she takes great pictures. Sometimes you get what you deserve, though never in football apparently. Take the Fiesta Bowl for instance. Instead of a resurgent Alabama team and the chance to help dispel the myth that we can't play defense and our offense is junk, we get a shot to not screw it up against an Ohio State team that can't even sell all of its tickets to the game. It could be worse, of course. Shuffle the order of losses a little and Texas Tech could be headed to the (other) desert and we could be the ones Stoops-ing away a Cotton Bowl game against Houston Nutt. That's why I'm making this trip and why I drove completely across Texas in one day so that we could spend two full days traversing the disaster that is the New Mexico and Arizona highway systems (More on that tomorrow). The Enemy awaits...

What do I expect from this game? Let's start with the offense today. We certainly have every reason to pound the Buckeye's tails green and muddy, but I wouldn't be a Longhorn if I didn't harbor a nagging fear that Greg Davis has randomly decided that we should suddenly run I-form on our own goal line, or that we should allow shot after free shot by big uglies on Colt as we refuse to make tOSU pay for blitzing on every damn play. We've basically been guaranteed by Tressell that the Bucks are going to completely change their identity in preparation for this game, and from my experience, that means that we'll do absolutely jack until halftime in this game. The difference is that we have a robot-warrior at QB who will make whatever Davis calls work with ridiculous accuracy and timing, so long as the receivers catch the balls. I'm expecting something like the A&M game, with us looking completely confused early on as we fart around to the tune of 10 or fewer points before sucking in our paunches and exploiting those of the Buckeye front seven for mucho Colt-to-Shipley love connections over the middle. I think we can get to 40 on these guys if we engage the clutch early enough, but if we're ahead by more than two scores in the fourth, Mack will shut everything down and we'll end up with 34 or thereabouts.

Ah, the warmth and comfort of a West Texas HoJo... Quite a long trip today. About 800 miles in 14 hours with a stop to visit the grandparents along the way. Now I'll watch what's left of the Sugar Bowl (to be discussed tomorrow as we weave through the speed-trap minefield of New Mexico), and say my prayers.

Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Bucks, my ‘Horns do beat,
And if we're short on 3^rd and 8,
I pray that Tucker's punt's a fake (BOBINO!!!).

Good night, Hook ‘em ‘Horns, and a safe drive to my fellow road warriors.

Mailbag: Brain Style (Nerds Get Mail, Too)

Horn Brain — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:32:16 -0000

Email, to be exact.

And you're lucky, too. In my nightmares, where I receive actual paper mail, this guy is always waiting for me at the mailbox to hand me my letters personally. Yeesh to say the least.

Hi,
I got so mad about the BCS that I made a video about it (from the Longhorns perspective)...

It’s kind of funny.

-Bobby

Kind of funny? More like my new anthem. Oh, and if any of you are having a bit of writer's block trying to pen that perfect letter to the Big 12, may I suggest:

Dear Dan,

I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore.

Sincerely,

A couple more emails after the break...

IMHO, the greatest blemish is the coaches voting AT ALL. They can barely prepare enough time to watch game film for their own responsibilities regarding upcoming opponents...much less take in 25-35 games each week to assess... each team's worthiness of ranking. Moreover, the offensive bias leads coaches and sportswriters alike to have man-crushes on the likes of Leach, Stoops, Tebow, and Bradford. Meanwhile, the two defensive teams: Bama and UT are getting absolutely zero love. The only team OU played with any defense at all shut them down in the 4th when it counted most. Similarly, FL has not seen the likes of Bama's defense yet this season, and I wonder how they will handle them since their biggest test was a severely overrated Georgia team. While FL and UT share the argument of a very narrow loss, FL has played nobody in the top 10 all season...neither has Bama.

I agree that the fairest thing for the national title barring a Bama victory is an OU Horns rematch...on another neutral field. Ironically, this could validate the BCS were OU to win...but I will take UT's defense over their offense any day.

-Tony

Wow, lots of good stuff here. First of all, I agree with you about the coaches voting at all. Some say they spend hours on their ballots and take it very seriously, others don't even know how many losses the next team they're going to play has. They're all guaranteed to have an incentive to cheat if their team is anywhere near the top 5 or that magic BCS eligibility cutoff, #14.

So what can we do? Well, BZ called for secret BCS computer ratings (and therefore, a mildly secret BCS standings) until the final standings that send the top 2 teams to the 'ship, as well as publicizing all coaches' and Harris voters' ballots and requiring a 500 word explanation of your top 5. That's a start, but the coaches really aren't going to like writing an essay every week when they need to be watching film and preparing practices, so they'll never go for it (Leach would probably alternate between writing a short story where different breakfast foods stand for the top five teams and just writing his top five rankings over and over until he hit 500 words). That doesn't mean it isn't a good idea, however - I think we should ditch the coaches and quit expecting them to care. I think the Harris Poll is a crock, as well, but it could be made serviceable with BZ's improvements. Open the ballots to ridicule, make them justify (in writing) their top 5, don't tell them the computer scores until they've voted in the final poll, and introduce some way for a voter to get tossed from the system if he/she, for instance, doesn't know that Penn St. or OU has lost a game over a month later.

In regards to your other point - that Florida and Alabama haven't beaten anyone ranked in the Top 10 - Um, yeah. That's the big red elephant/green gator in the room isn't it? I'm shocked that no one has taken up this battle cry, and everyone is content to let the voters get away with overrating Florida for the same reasons as OU (Flashy offense, blowing teams out late in the season), but with none of the actual on-field achievements to warrant an argument. Florida has beaten Georgia and Florida State and that's it as far as ranked teams. Georgia just gave up 45 at home to Georgia Tech running the damned option for the first year, and Florida State is only still ranked after that beating because it came at the hands of Florida. Plus, let's not forget the little fact that when Florida lost, it was at home to an 8-4 Ole Miss. If Alabama beats Florida, I have no problem with having them ranked ahead of us, as they'll have one very good win and no losses, but Florida has no business being ranked ahead of us no matter what they do to Alabama. Their loss will be worse than ours and we'll have the far better win (once the Tide lose a game, they ought to drop like a rock in the computers), plus a few more impressive wins to boot. The fact that they'll have won the SEC is a technicality. We beat the Big 12 champion and we only lost once to a team that wasn't in the Big 12 CG, so we sure as hell didn't not win the Big 12. We deserve to be ranked ahead of Florida right now and no matter what happens Saturday.

I've noticed a pretty sympathetic press reaction to the longhorns situation this week. Is it not possible that if OU plays mizzou close, we could pass OU and slip in to the NC?

-M.B. (no, not that MB)

No. At this point, if OU wins, they're going to be ahead of us no matter what. The humans would have to combine to give us basically a full ranking point gain, plus the computers can't get any worse than they are or we're toast. I said no, but I mean almost surely no. It's mathematically possible for us to jump OU, but it won't happen, how's that?

Rooting Guide for Saturday (In order of most important to us):

1.) Root for Mizzou to beat OU by any margin. This virtually guarantees us a spot in the NCG, as USC is never going to catch us with those computer scores unless they're a unanimous #1 in both human polls (and even then I think it would be close). Bonus from this is that if OU struggles with Mizzou and Florida wins ugly over 'Bama (see #2), it could help muddy the human poll waters.

2.) Root for Florida. An ugly Florida win and a little bit more campaigning could make the top three of the human polls into a total clusterf*$#. I don't give a damn what Hinton says over at Dr. Saturday, this is going to be way closer than people think as long as the voters don't give up on us completely now that we aren't in the Big 12 CG.

3.) Root for Alabama... on defense. The uglier Florida wins, the better.

4.) Root for UCLA. Just because we hate the Trojans.

Thanks to everyone for the great emails, and keep them coming. I'll always reply to you, either here or in private (I almost feel like this is an unwritten blog policy), and I'll never use your full name unless you say it's cool (that is blog policy).

Poll

Should Florida be ranked over Texas?

Yes, right now

50 votes

Only if they beat 'Bama

269 votes

If they beat 'Bama, but only because they'll be conference champs

165 votes

Not now, not ever

407 votes

891 votes | Poll has closed

2008 All-Big 12 (Except for Texas Mostly) Football Awards Announced

Horn Brain — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:38:42 -0000

2008 All-Big 12 (Except for Texas Mostly) Football Awards Announced

Colt second team QB behind Bradford, likely because he flipped and fumbled.
Muckelroy is honorable mention LB.
Quan Cosby didn't even make second team WR.
Ulatoski made 1st team OL (Voters didn't watch Aggie game)
OU's Jon Cooper was OL of the year, but only second team OL.

Find others, I'm sure there are more. Awards are almost as screwed up as the BCS.

Update: I agree with you, Stoops getting COTY is disgusting.

Good news? Brian Orakpo was Defensive POTY. Roy Miller joins him on 1st team DL. Sergio Kindle made it as an LB, too.

BCS Breakdown 2008 V1.7 (Won't Get Fooled Again Edition)

Horn Brain — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 03:04:31 -0000

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

Well, we did get fooled. We were tricked into thinking we had a shot to stay ahead of OU, when the computers had us doomed, doomed, doomed long before the Cowboys gave up that last touchdown run in garbage time. Still, we came much, much closer than most of you realize. We were behind OU by one rank in both the Sagarin and Wolfe systems. Reverse those two and we'd be headed to KC. Sigh.

Anyway, don't completely give up hope, because there's still a chance - and it's a heck of a lot better than a Lloyd's chance in Mary...

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the foe, that's all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they all flown in the last war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

Damn those bastards. There are now really only two ways for us to get to Miami. Obviously the first is OU crapping the bed against Mizzou. I don't know about you guys, but I feel like Chase Daniel may actually suck as much as or more than OU. I'm not going to count on it. The other way we get in has been discussed previously, but I want to look at it a little more. BZ did a great job earlier with his BCS numbers post, and it gave me the idea to compare quantized rankings (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) with continuum rankings (Texas is 2.94 instead of 3.00, kind of strong). Let's look at it in a big old table like we normally do:

The Average column shows where a team is expected to land in the rankings given their scores in the three components. It's basically one minus the BCS average times 25, plus one so that a perfect ranking doesn't rank you "zero". In math, that's 25(1-BCSAvg)+1. It gives a meaning to those awful numbers that the BCS attaches to their printouts every week. BZ explains the concept in his post, I've just manifested it in terms of rankings instead of looking at how many poll points a team has compared to their expected score. The benefit of looking at it this way is that it makes intuitive sense. The BCS expected ranking is the same as the average of the three component expected average rankings, so you can see right away how many ranking points one team would need to leapfrog another, and in which polls they would need those points. Confused? Great, it'll make more sense when we look at our very special example:

In a Fair World, Texas Plays OU for the National Championship

That's kind of misleading, because in a really fair world, Texas would be going to KC right now and we'd get to play someone else to prove that we're number one, but this world isn't fair at all, so this is as fair as it gets now that we are where we are. Both Florida and Texas are strong in their positions, while OU and Alabama are weak. Right now, Florida is basically a full ranking behind Texas. If the voters continue to vote Texas and Florida relatively the same and Florida wins the SEC, the Gators would need to gain 3 spots (relative to us) in their continuum computer ranking to pass us. That means they would need each of the four computers that count to rank them three spots higher than they are right now, for a total of 12 computer points. That would bring them into a tie with us, where their narrow human advantage would put them ahead.

The thing is - I don't think that they can get that many points by beating Alabama. Their resume would have one win over Alabama, one win over a suddenly awful computer #13 Georgia, and not much else to brag about. Plus they have a very bad loss to Ole Miss. Texas, on the other hand, has a win over the computer #1, #13 and #20 teams (#20 and Big 12 North Champ), with a loss to the computer #4. Hands down, Texas has the better resume, so I think Florida can't come closer than 8 of their 12 needed points in the computers. Any teams that fall between us and Florida would widen that gap, but they could jump us in one or two polls, so we'll call that a wash.

If the humans vote us where we belong (ahead of Florida with that resume), then we're in. They won't, though, because the last thing they want is for a trivally-decided non-conference champion to play for it all (in a rematch, to boot). The question, then, is how much can we give up to Florida and stay ahead? If our lead stays at 1 full ranking in the computers, then we can't be behind them in the human polls by more than 1 full ranking combined. That's 114 Harris votes or 61 Coaches votes, spread around however you like. Right now, Florida has us by 44 in the Harris (39% of needed) and we have them by 11 in the Coaches (They need 118% of 61 votes). I think it's going to be close unless the coaches and the Harris pollsters start ranking us down and Florida up just to avoid the rematch. If they vote based on who's played the tougher schedule and who has the best resume, then we're in. If they don't, we're probably out. This may sound promising, but do you really trust them at this point to keep ranking us where we belong instead of pulling shenanigans to try and get what they want? Hell, some of them don't even know that Penn State lost this year, so you can bet on random luck having something to do with it.

So the gist is: Root for Mizzou to beat OU by some miracle, because that's a free ticket to the dance. If Mizzou doesn't beat OU, hope that they get demolished, as every #1 vote for OU is a vote for Texas at this point. The closer Florida is to us the better. We need to get back out on the campaign trail and convince the voters to keep ranking us fairly and not play shenanigans with their ballots to avoid the inevitable. I'd give us a 10% chance to get past Florida based on what I've seen, with a 50% chance to get past them if the voters weren't a bunch of blockheads.

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers* and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie

Do ya?

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

* Someone please photoshop this.

Outliers Watch:

Short and sweet this week:

Hopefully whills finds this version of the graph easier to read. I took away physical borders and fattened the bars around my words like they were illegally entering my country. Your weirdos this week:

Alabama - You're going down, Stampy. You've skated by with the perfect schedule full of horrible teams that everyone thought would be good, and you've barely beaten half of the really, truly bad teams you've played. I just hope you keep it close enough so that Florida doesn't get OMG !!!11111!!!!-ed out of reach of our computer numbers.

USC - Could this be a sign? Just before a gimme game against your horrible, awful rival across town? With that offense? If you sleep-walked through a 12-7 shocker it wouldn't shock me at all.

Tech - Tech is high because the computers like them a lot. They don't play anymore games. Meh.

Oregon - The computers are rightfully not as impressed as the humans with your shelacking of OSU. That pissed me off. Couldn't you have let us beat the tar out of USC in the Fiesta? Screw you and your incredibly fast and strong monster running back that will forever haunt the dreams of Beavers both orange and pink (I'm sure) for many, many years to come.

Florida State - Oh please. Normally I wouldn't bother hanging around down here, but this is such a high standard deviation I have to look into it. It seems the computers still give you a little credit for having lost to Florida. Maybe you deserve it. I honestly think that the ACC is better than I've griped about all this year, and I can't wait to see the champ take on Cincy and then compare/contrast with the potential Boise/Utah kiddie bowl. I don't even know if I'm kidding anymore.

Billingsley Report Card:

Meet the new boss,
Same as the old boss...

I felt like this one came across well without links...

Again, least useful of the bunch, again highest standard deviation. Most importantly, though, these are his top five: Alabama, Oklahoma, Florida, Texas, USC. WTF Billingsley? I defy you to give me one good reason to have Florida ahead of Texas. I. Defy. You. Send me an email.

All of you faithful readers who made it this far, I encourage you to send me emails as well. I recently received one from an Aggie who said something along the lines of "my t-sip ego can't understand" that OU should be ahead of Texas. That's fine, but that's not what I want. Send me an email I won't laugh at, and I'll reply to it fully either in my BCS Breakdown or in a separate post. Ask for nerdy blog stuff, maybe I can help you out.

Finally: Don't let me down, people. Canvas the way we did for 45-35. Let the voters know that we deserve to be ranked ahead of Florida, and let's get as many of them as we can to vote that way. We're not giving up on this team, just like they didn't give up on us down 22-6 at the half in Lubbock, or down 14-3 in Dallas. If we have to beat the Sooners twice to prove we're better than them, then that's what we have to do. We have one more week to go, and once those votes are in they can't be changed, so let's give it one more shot. My beard ain't gettin' any shorter overnight.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

BCS Breakdown 2008 V1.6 (Irresistible Edition)

Horn Brain — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 02:29:05 -0000

Since the ilk of OU absolutely refuse to be persuaded by reason, I'll have to counter with an irresistible force - Trashy 80's music videos with lyrics that were written by Dr. Sbaitso and the MS Word Thesaurus. To you, OU and punditry, this is Simply Irresistible.

How can it be permissible (1)
She(2) compromise my principle(3), yeah yeah
That kind of love is mythical(4)
She's anything but typical(5)

She's a craze(6) you'd endorse(7), shes a powerful force(8)
You're obliged to conform when there's no other course(9)
She used to look good to me(10), but now I find her

Simply irresistible(11)

(1) This is exactly what we've been saying this whole time. (2) She = OU, in case you haven't figured that out yet. (3) Regular season is a playoff, head to head on a neutral field, decide it on the field, etc. (4) Mythical National Championship. That's what "love" means in this weird thing I'm doing here. (5) Becaues typically if one team beats another and each have similar resumes otherwise, you put the head-to-head winner on top. (6) I'll give you that. (7) Bob Stoops would endorse, but not me, or even Mark Schlabach (FotB). (8) This only applies for 2.5 quarters against teams with fast defensive linemen. (9) Which is not to say there is no other course. Look around, do you see a gun pointed at your head? No? Then vote for Texas, because it's illegal for OU to hire someone to kill you. (10) "Playing the best football in the country" will do that for you, unless you lose to Texas when everyone is saying that about you. (11) Except in BCS Bowls.

I'll actually say things that make sense after the break...

So the Sooners are ahead of us in all the freakin' polls. This is obviously ridiculous, and I won't get into the absolute reasons why this shouldn't be the case, but I will point out some inconsistencies with the voters choices. Right now the Harris has OU #3, Texas #4, and Texas Tech #7. The coaches have OU #2, Texas #4, and Tech #8. So much for the coaches being stubborn, they actually swung more than the Harris.

The voters are screwing Texas with a double standard, here. They're saying the three-way tie is enough to ignore the head-to-head result between Texas and OU, but then they're also saying that Tech is out of it barring an OSU upset on Saturday. You can't have both. If you want to argue, as Dr. Saturday does, that the three-way tie eliminates the significance of head-to-head results, fine. But don't couple that with dropping Tech out of the picture, because that's ignoring your own reasoning when it gives you an unsatisfying conclusion. That conclusion here is that Tech should be much closer to OU and Texas than three or four rankings down. But if you look at that like I do, and see that Tech played no one out of conference and doesn't have near the in-conference trophy wall that Texas has, then you can see that the Red Raiders are not quite on par with the Longhorns and Sooners resume-wise.

Let's break that down, though, since there's a lot going on in that line of reasoning.

1.) Head-to-head wins are worth a lot.

It's the only thing we have that directly connects two teams, and it should never be completely discarded. (Yes, even if it makes your brain hurt to think about.)

2.) Head-to-head is not, however, everything.

Do you rank Ole Miss over Florida? Hell no. This is an extreme case used to highlight my point that head-to-head does have limits. If the resumes are too different, you can't use head-to-head to rank teams relative to one another.

3.) Tech's strength of schedule and the absolutely horrid performance against the Sooners put them solidly outside of the domain of Texas and OU.

They played two FCS (D-IAA. At what point can we stop doing this and just say FCS? Now? Ok, now.) teams. They had the same opponents as Texas and OU in the South (duh), but their North draw was Nebraska, Kansas, and KSU - Hardly murderer's row. They have one excellent win against Texas, and one very good win against Okie State, but they have one absolutely horrible loss to OU. We know Texas and OU's schedules very thoroughly by now, and they're better than this. OU because of Tech and TCU/Cincy, Texas because of OU, OSU and Missouri. Texas Tech does not fall into the same category as Texas and OU. I don't see how you can dispute that, unless you're arguing that Tech's resume is similar to OU's, in which case that just makes Texas stand out more. Plus, OU will play OSU Saturday and then they'll have a schedule on par with Texas'.

4a.) We can apply head-to-head between Texas and OU, because Tech is one rung down the ladder from these two.

This means exactly what it says. If Tech had played a tougher out-of-conference schedule and lost to any team outside of the current top five or so, this would be a done-deal. If Tech had two losses, it would be obvious without thought that their resume was inferior and that really all that matters is Texas beat OU and their resumes are similar otherwise. Even if that loss came out of conference, Texas would still be ranked ahead of OU from head-to-head. No one seems to notice that Tech is not on Texas and OU's level when they compare OU and Texas, but when they rank Texas Tech #7 or #8, it's pretty clear that they know it.

4b.) Head-to-head trumps transitive property.

As I mentioned, the transitive property in football could make just about any team in the nation a national champion by a long string of inequalities as long as the champion has at least one loss. It's completely ridiculous to look at the transitive property, because unit matchups dictate outcomes much more specifically than overall team "goodness" comparisons. Therefore, it's pointless to argue that OU>Tech>Texas is more significant than Texas>OU. What if two kids were having a throwing contest, first baseballs, then footballs. Kid A throws a strike 45 of 50 times, while Kid B throws 35 of 50 strikes, then Kid A tries to throw a football through a tire 50 times but only makes it through 49 and Kid B zips it through 49 times, then starts the tire swinging and spinning and does it once more. Now you have to bet on which of them will throw more strikes if they pitch baseballs again. Harris and Coaches Poll voters are standing around when bets are due saying, "Did you see that Kid B? He through a football through a swinging, spinning tire!" SHINY!

The point: What's a more likely indicator of which team is better, Texas or OU? Texas beats OU, or OU beats Tech beats Texas? The only fair thing is to take the simpler, and therefore less subject to random things you don't expect, path. Texas beating OU trumps OU beating Tech beating Texas.

Phew. Hopefully that baseball/football competition analogy makes sense, I've been trying to come up with an analogy for this situation, but I'm apparently horrible at it, because my girlfriend doesn't get it and I've been explaining it to her for like ten minutes. If you're thinking in the back of your head "Yeah, but that trick with the tire, I dunno, I'd give him a shot, what are the odds?" Then you must be on the Harris/Coaches Poll roster, so I won't call you stupid, but come on. Really?

Outliers Watch:

What's this? Horn Brain actually is going to do a BCS Breakdown post? I voted on BZ to do it this week because I like his analogies better.

OK that was the last one. Graph:

Well this year is turning out crazy. All of the voters, human and computer, completely agree about the rankings of just about everyone outside the top eight, with the lone exception of poor #23 Oregon. In good news: The teams I pointed out as outliers last week all played like crap. LSU was stomped by Ole Miss, Georgia Tech destroyed Miami, Ball State nearly lost to Central Michigan, Pittsburgh was getting stomped by Cincy before making a late comeback to bring the game within one score and North Carolina was smashed by NC State. UNC and LSU were pretty big upsets, so that makes me happy for my system. My take on the weirdos:

Alabama - You're going DOWN, Dumbo! Seriously, we've discussed this, Alabama has shown us nothing. They've beaten some ok teams pretty thoroughly, but they've also struggled against some mediocre competition. If Florida shows up in the SEC CG with the same attitude they've had for the past few games, I don't know if the Tide can beat them.

Texas - The computers have us almost in first place, while the humans have us in fourth. Don't be too worried, this is good territory to be in. I've found the computers are usually more right, and I tend to go with them.

Florida - Computers hate them because they haven't really played anyone. Georgia and LSU were overrated, and they lost to an Ole Miss team that's just ok. Normally I'd say this is upset alert, but I think that the computers just don't have enough good games to go on to give the Gators the ranking they deserve. They are playing very well (I'm NOT talking about beating the Citadel.).

USC - With the exception of every powerhouse's biggest fan, Richard Billingsley, the computers hate the Trojans for playing in a crap league. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if they ate it in one of their next two lay-ups. If we go to the Fiesta Bowl because of the moral breakdown of society, I really hope we get to play them. It seems like we could look damn good beating them and possibly steal the AP title from the Sooners if they win the BCS.

Texas Tech - The computers like them because they beat Texas and OSU, whom the computers freaking love. The people hate them because they got a hole stomped in their chest during primetime. This is one case where MOV would help the computers see what's up. Tech conjured up the perfect storm in Lubbock, and it hit at the perfect moment for them to take us out. A very good football team? Sure. Especially for Tech. Not so much for OU or Texas.

Oregon is too far down and not deviant enough for me to have any confidence in them being prime for upset, but hey, Miami and UNC went down and they were down there, so why not?

Billingsley Report Card:

Dude drives me crazy:

RB leads the computers in throwouts again with 10. He actually has company in the highest standard deviation metric this week, with Jeff Sagarin's ELO-CHESS system just 0.06 behind him. What you don't see on here is where I compare the standard deviations from the BCS overall rankings (including humans). In those, Jeff still sticks out, but RB mysteriously has a pretty low standard deviation. Why is that? Because the RB report is just some conjured-up spreadsheet system that is designed to rank the teams like the humans do - preferential treatment for old hands, skeptical eyes on outsiders who overachieve. I call BS, as usual.

Tune in next time for more BCS Breakdown: Same nerd time*, same nerd channel!

*Actually I have no idea when the next one will come out next week.

Texas Coaches Want Us at the North Gate Again

Horn Brain — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 01:03:12 -0000

Texas Coaches Want Us at the North Gate Again

I'll be there this time. So should you.

If you can't use your tickets, give them away to someone who will. Tell them that it doesn't cost them anything as long as they promise to ~~yell~~ cheer as loud as they possibly can.

4:45pm. North Gate. Give Texas a belly full of fried turkey and Wild Turkey and a night game and we can beat anybody. Badly.