Watty's Week 4 computer picks

Disclaimer I'm still giving for at least another week or two: these numbers still aren't really meaningful for several teams, since I'm still using some of last year's stats. I think after about 5 weeks, this year's numbers will be meaningful and will be the only numbers I use. So again, for some teams, they are pretty good, but for teams with a lot of turnover from last year or with major changes at quarterback or head coach, some of these are still not statistically relevant. That being said, here are the Week 4 picks:


Teams Prediction 1 Prediction 2 Vegas spread

Oklahoma State 31 41
Texas A&M 37 36 -4.5/70

North Carolina State 26 28
Cincinnati 26 35 -7.5/60.5

UCF 17 20
BYU 19 25 -2.5/42.5

Colorado 14 18
Ohio State 36 33 -16.5/44.5

Tulane 27 28
Duke 39 31 -10/55

Toledo 18 20
Syracuse 22 19 -2.5/55

UAB 38 32
East Carolina 34 30 -14/60.5

UTEP 10 12
South Florida 27 27 -29/47.5

Western Michigan 27 27
Illinois 28 36 -12.5/53

Ohio 20 21
Rutgers 11 19 -4.5/50.5

Eastern Michigan 13 12
Penn State 35 29 -28.5/44.5

Kansas State 20 25
Miami (Florida) 31 29 -12/47.5

SMU 36 36 -21.5/54
Memphis 17 16

Temple 19 20
Maryland 18 26 -8.5/51.5

Central Michigan 11 10
Michigan State 29 30 -21.5/49.5

Georgia 45 51 -9/54
Mississippi 27 30

Bowling Green 13 13
Miami (Ohio) 21 18 -4/52.5

Army 21 20 -4/50.5
Ball State 22 20

Virginia Tech 23 27 -20.5/46.5
Marshall 9 15

Arkansas 23 27
Alabama 36 44 -12/50.5

California 26 28
Washington 21 28 -1/58.5

LSU 13 21 -5.5/49.5
West Virginia 17 28

San Diego State 39 39
Michigan 36 36 -10.5/57

North Carolina 41 35
Georgia Tech 50 50 -7/58.5

Florida 21 27 -19.5/44
Kentucky 21 32

Notre Dame 21 24 -7/54.5
Pittsburgh 15 21

Florida State 18 23
Clemson 18 23 -2.5/50

New Mexico State 19 18
San Jose State 23 18 -10.5/46.5

Fresno State 19 21 -3/52
Idaho 19 17

Connecticut 13 17 -8.5/46.5
Buffalo 9 12

UCLA 23 23
Oregon State 30 24 -5/49.5

Nevada 30 33
Texas Tech 66 54 -17/61

Vanderbilt 20 18
South Carolina 31 41 -15.5/50

Louisiana Tech 23 25
Mississippi State 45 38 -19/59

Rice 42 38
Baylor 78 59 -20.5/67

Southern Mississippi 35 33
Virginia 37 31 -3/52.5

Nebraska 26 30 -21.5/59
Wyoming 25 31

Missouri 29 31
Oklahoma 25 35 -21/56.5

Colorado State 19 16
Utah State 27 26 -9.5/56

Tulsa 21 22
Boise State 54 44 -28/62

Oregon 59 64 -15/64.5
Arizona 29 28

USC 22 22
Arizona State 33 38 -2.5/53.5

Florida Atlantic 10 11
Auburn 50 53 -31.5/57.5

A short look ahead to some week 3 college football action

It's been a fun start to 2011 college football. There are some great games coming up this weekend. I'm particularly excited for the Oklahoma vs. Florida State matchup, though I won't be able to watch it since I'll be at Kyle Field watching the Aggies destroy Idaho. But I think this is a good chance for OU to show that they are legit, and I think they will do so. They are favored by about a field goal, but I think they'll cover and win by seven or more. There are lots of reports out of Tallahassee about the amount of young talent they have, and I don't doubt it, but it's still young. Give them another year or two and we might see them contending for a championship. For now, OU wins.

Many people will be interested in the Texas - UCLA matchup. I think Texas wins this one pretty easily, actually. Benching Garrett Gilbert was one of the easiest paths to improvement for the Horns, and now that they have finally done that, they can at least move forward as an offense. They'll still have to be creative to find ways to hide Ash and McCoy's inexperience, but Harsin is a creative guy. Throw in the fact that it seems that Malcom Brown is ready to take over as the lead running back (which is the obvious choice- he's far superior to any of their other running backs), and they will now have a new pep in their step. Oh, and UCLA is an awful, awful team. Texas wins easily.

Other big name games include Ohio State and Miami (come on, no one has a clue what will happen there), Tennessee and Florida (two teams looking to get back to past glory), Notre Dame and Michigan State (can Notre Dame finally win one of these crazy games?), and of course the always heated Buffalo versus Ball State matchup (just kidding, those are completely made up teams).

As for A&M, they are favored by 5 touchdowns against Idaho in what should be an easy tune up. Obviously you still have to take every opponent seriously, but Idaho shouldn't offer much resistance to the efficient Aggie offense. A&M kept things admittedly conservative against SMU, but with Oklahoma State looming, I'd hope the Aggies open things up just a bit more to work out any kinks that need working out. Official prediction: I'll go with A&M winning 51-14.

Watty's Week 3 College Football computer picks

Here are my computer formula-based picks for week 3 of the college football season. I'm still using 2010 stats plus 2011, so a lot of these are still meaningless, but there still isn't enough 2011 data for that be meaningful on its own. Maybe after a couple more weeks. So here are the picks, along with the Vegas lines as of Tuesday.


Prediction Vegas line
LSU 27 -4/49.5
Mississippi State 28

Boise State 42 -20/60.5
Toledo 23

Iowa State 17
Connecticut 20 -4/43.5

West Virginia 20
Maryland 27 0/57

Auburn 50
Clemson 28 -3.5/61.5

Pittsburgh 21
Iowa 30 -3/50.5

Akron 9
Cincinnati 34 -34.5/56.5

Wyoming 17
Bowling Green 17 -9.5/54.5

Eastern Michigan 19
Michigan 53 -28.5/63

Penn State 19 -6.5/44.5
Temple 21

Central Michigan 17
Western Michigan 24 -7.5/55.5

Mississippi 30 -2/47
Vanderbilt 25

Duke 17
Boston College 19 -7/47.5

Kansas 20
Georgia Tech 36 -14.5/61

Colorado State 21
Colorado 29 -7/50

Wisconsin 44 -16.5/64
Northern Illinois 38

Miami (Ohio) 17
Minnesota 22 -5/46.5

Tennessee 29
Florida 33 -9.5/51

Michigan State 27
Notre Dame 27 -4.5/51.5

Virginia 25
North Carolina 31 -10/48

Texas 26 -4/43.5
UCLA 22

Washington 21
Nebraska 38 -17/55

Texas Tech 43 -21/55.5
New Mexico 12

Northwestern 25 -7/54.5
Army 23

Tulane 20
UAB 27 -13/54

Navy 32
South Carolina 40 -16.5/58

Washington State 25
San Diego State 41 -5/58

Louisville 24
Kentucky 36 -5.5/41

Houston 34 -6.5/70.5
Louisiana Tech 25

Marshall 13
Ohio 20 -.3/47.5

Idaho 16
Texas A&M 37 -35.5/57.5

Buffalo 11
Ball State 14 -4.5/52

Arizona State 35
Illinois 33 -1/59

Kent State 12
Kansas State 31 -17.5/46.5

Syracuse 19
USC 31 -16.5/47

Oklahoma 35 -3.5/55
Florida State 31

UTEP 23
New Mexico State 14 -3/49.5

Ohio State 35
Miami (Florida) 27 -2.5/47.5

Utah 25
BYU 21 -3.5/46

Oklahoma State 61 -13.5/69
Tulsa 38

Hawai'i 43 -20/59
UNLV 16

Stanford 46 -9/54.5
Arizona 33

Louisiana-Monroe 13
TCU 39 -29/52

Arkansas State 22
Virginia Tech 36 -24/53

UCF 26 -5.5/51
Florida International 21

North Texas 15
Alabama 54 -46/53.5

Troy 27
Arkansas 62 -22.5/63.5

Watty's Week 2 computer picks

My super secret formula at work again... And again, early in the season, some of these are pretty worthless, though some are pretty good. For now, I'm using all of 2010 plus 2011, so for teams without much turnover, I have a pretty good model, but obviously for teams like Auburn and TCU, it's pretty worthless until we have a few more weeks of real data. That being said, here's what I have for this week. In theory obviously, if you were using this to make picks, you'd look for ones with huge differences between my model and the actual lines and pick accordingly. But based on my admission that these are mostly last year's numbers and that I pretty much just made this model up myself, you'd be pretty stupid to use this for real money betting (though I think I actually have a pretty good model... did I say that already?)

p.s. Sorry about the weird formatting. I suck at computers and internets.

        Prediction Vegas Line
BYU          19
Texas          28         -7/48

Missouri         28
Arizona State 22 -10/51

Oregon State 17
Wisconsin   34 -20.5/57.5

Iowa                 25      -6.5/44.5
Iowa State 15

Toledo        9
Ohio State 38 -17.5/52.5

Mississippi State 32 -5.5/57
Auburn                35

Northern Illinois 35 -4.5/62
Kansas                17

UTEP        18
SMU        26 -19.5/54

Cincinnati         25
Tennessee         31 -4.5/56

Virginia Tech 53 -17.5/63.5
East Carolina 24

Nevada        25
Oregon        46 -26.5/63

California         28 -6.5/47
Colorado         22

Alabama         32 -9.5/42
Penn State 13

TCU                 25
Air Force    21 -1/49.5

South Carolina 25 -3/51.5
Georgia        29

UAB        18
Florida        39 -23.5/53.5

Utah                 25
USC                 27 -8.5/51.5

Notre Dame 34 -3/55
Michigan         29

Houston        39 -21.5/64.5
North Texas 27

My Texas A&M preview

So for what it's worth, here are a few of my thoughts and my official prediction on the 2011 Ags.

On offense, A&M is pretty loaded. Trying to take off my maroon glasses and find weaknesses, and there just aren't many. Tight end, maybe? A&M is young at that position, but at the same time, they have three or four guys that they feel are adequate, so they have depth, if not dominance.

So going down the roster by position, we start at quarterback. Most people know the story by now. Halfway through 2010, A&M made the change from Jerrod Johnson, who never fully recovered from off-season shoulder surgery, to junior Ryan Tannehill. Tannehill exploded early, reeling off huge numbers against Kansas and Texas Tech before coming back to earth a bit. Even so, he led A&M to victories against OU, Nebraska, and Texas before finally suffering his first loss as a starter against LSU in the Cotton Bowl.

Tannehill returns as the unquestioned leader, and while I personally think most A&M fans gave him a little too much credit last year, he's still a top level QB by most accounts (don't be surprised when he goes very, VERY high- like top 5 high- in the NFL draft next year).

He has tons of weapons to throw to. At wide receiver, A&M returns the best receiver in school history in Jeff Fuller. He owns basically every record A&M has and I've been saying he's an NFL-ready receiver since his freshman year. One record he actually shares is the record for most catches in a season. He shares that record with Ryan Swope, who also returns. They are joined by Uzoma Nwachukwu, who has had a strong two seasons to start his A&M career, and a handful of other contributors. In fact, A&M returns their top 7 receivers from last year.

In addition to that, A&M returns the best two running backs in the Big 12, Cyrus Gray and Christine Michael. Either one is capable of carrying the load, but having both will allow Mike Sherman to ride the hot hand and keep them fresh. With Cyrus coming off a 1,000+ yard season, A&M is one of only four teams in America to return a 1,000 yard receiver (Fuller) and runner.

They will all be helped by an offensive line that is young on the edges but extremely good. The tackles are both true sophomores, but everyone in the A&M program thinks they are sure-fire NFL talents, and it was in large part due to them that A&M rolled off the six straight wins late last year, relying mostly on a dominating running attack.

So again, long story short, A&M's offense is loaded. There is a very real possibility that A&M's starting quarterback, running back, and wide receiver will all be drafted in the first round of the NFL draft next year. I assume that is something that has not happened many times. This is unquestionably the most talented team at the skill positions that A&M has ever had.

So then, how will the defense be? Well, that's the million dollar question. Most people think the defense will improve over last year because they are in year two of the Tim DeRuyter era. He supposedly runs a complex scheme and year one is quite the learning curve, but in year two, the theory goes, the players now know the defense and are able to play faster and do more creative things scheme-wise.  Of course the question that can't be answered is the issue of how will A&M replace Von Miller? Miller left Aggieland as a consensus All-American and the highest draft pick in school history. A&M will try to replace him by committee, as a stable of promising players like Caleb Russell and Damontre Moore will fight for reps.

The other linebackers should be solid if not spectacular. Certainly good enough. The defensive line is the same story. No All-Americans, but solid play and plenty of returning talent from last season's conference-leading run defense.

Behind them is one of the best secondaries A&M has had in a long, long time. They can all tackle, they can all cover, and they're all aggressive and cocky. A&M didn't put up great pass defense numbers last year, but some of that was a little deceiving, because A&M played a very pass-happy schedule, as they will again this year.

So, as long as A&M can pressure the quarterback, the defense should be good. It has a chance to be really good. In my unbiased opinion, it won't be "great," but it doesn't need to be since the offense absolutely has a chance to be a top national unit.

The big question mark remains special teams. Randy Bullock has developed into a pretty good placekicker, but A&M's inability to find a dependable punter the last few years has been frustrating, and spring and fall reports seem to indicate that the problems are still there.

A&M has plenty of options at kick returner, and, assuming they can hold on the ball, punt returner seems to be ok as well.

From my perspective, A&M has enough talent to run the table. I'm not saying they will, but they legitimately could. The issue is that it's just hard to win every week, even against teams that are supposedly inferior. OU, Arkansas, and OSU are teams that A&M can certainly beat, but at the same time, beating all three is asking a lot, especially since only one of them is at Kyle Field. And aside from those three, you still have teams like Texas, Missouri, Texas Tech, Baylor and Kansas State that could very easily beat a team like A&M on a given week. So it's just asking a lot to go through all that without ever slipping up against the decent teams while rising to the occasion to beat the best teams.

My point? I think A&M is a legitimately good team this year, but I do think OU will beat them, and I think the Ags will split with Arkansas and OSU, and I think somewhere along the way, A&M has one more bad week and ends up 9-3. I think 10 wins is more likely than 8 though, if that matters, and that 11 is more likely than 7.

College football week 1 computer predictions

One thing I thought would be fun (for me, at least) would be to try to come up with my own statistical model to use to try to predict the outcomes of college football games. A couple people on texags.com already do it, so I stole the idea from them and decided to give it a try this year.

Basically I compiled all the stats I felt were relevant, and then organized them and created ratings (relative to the average) for a handful of different categories. Then, using my own ideas of how they relate to each other, made a few formulas that I can use to plug those statistics in and then get a prediction for how those teams will fare against each other. Basically I do two sets of predictions and then average them. One of them looks at things from one team's offensive perspective and pits them against the defense's ratings, and the other looks at that same team's defensive stats and pits those against their opponents offensive ratings. From there, I add in home field advantage and my own top secret rating to account for strength of schedule, and out comes a prediction.

I will try to post these each Thursday in advance of that weekend's games. I'll probably only do around 20 games a week, mainly Big 12 games and other games of note, simply because it can be a little time consuming. And for the first few weeks, I'm forced to use last season's stats, which admittedly is somewhat useless. I am hoping that about 3 or 4 weeks in, each team will have enough current history to maybe make some semi-valid predictions. Until then, I'm using last year's numbers and with all the year-to-year turnover in college football, it renders these predictions pretty useless, but still fun. I expect that some of them will be pretty good, and some of them will be wildly wrong.

As you'll see, a few of these really jump out, and for some of them, there are obvious reasons. The Auburn score, for example, is obviously affected by the fact that Cam Newton was on the team last year. Everyone with a brain this year has rated Auburn to be worse than they were last year, so take this first prediction for what it's worth.

Some big numbers also pop up. Oklahoma State will supposedly score 72 points. That may sound crazy, but at the same time, that actually probably does happen once a week in college football, so it's not much of a stretch to say that OSU could do that this week. I actually kind of like the fact that my predictions include some huge blowouts and high scoring games, because those things do happen in real life, but people rarely predict them.

Anyway, all that being said, here is what came out of my computer for week 1:


Teams/Vegas line/My computer prediction

TCU -6/56       36
Baylor              24

SMU                26
A&M -16/56     36

UNLV               11
Wisc -35/56    36

Miss St -29      50
Memphis          12

Wake Forest      7
Syracuse -6     30

Utah St               16
Auburn -22/56    62

Akron                     6
Ohio St -34/48     47

Miami (OH)               9
Mizzou -17/47.5      31

Kent St                      6
Alabama -37/45.5    30

UCLA                     28
Houston -3/61.5     56

W. Michigan             34
Michigan -14/61       33

Minnesota               26
USC -21/51.5         47

S. Florida                   15
Notre Dame -10/47    19

BYU -3/55                  35
Mississippi                 30

S. Carolina -20/62      62
E. Carolina                 28

Rice                           19
t.u. -24/55                  48

Tulsa                         31
OU -24.5/64.5           58

Boise St -3.5/51         27
Georgia                      17

Oregon -3/55          32
LSU                         22

ULaLa                           18
Ok State -36.5/62.5       72

FAU                              10
Florida -35/46.5            35

Can A&M compete in the SEC?

With A&M's imminent move to the SEC (yes, it's still happening, and probably quite soon), many people have been trying to convince Aggies that it's a horrible idea based on the supposed fact that A&M will get routinely wailed on when playing against the big, bad SEC schools. According to these people, some of which are even Aggies, your basic SEC football team is roughly equivalent to an NFL wild-card team, and at best, A&M will have to hope for 6 wins a year. So, is there any truth to that? Is A&M destined to be middle-of-the-pack at best?

In a word, no. I'll keep this fairly brief, but there is no reason whatsoever to believe that A&M won't be able to compete at the highest level. "But Tuna," you may say, "look at how bad A&M was for the last ten years! Look at how Texas dominated you, and how all the SEC schools have abused you!" And I can't deny those facts. The problem is, people that think that our 2005 results have any bearing on our 2012 results are not using logic. Yes, A&M had a bad decade. Kind of like how OU and Texas also endured before going on their respective runs. Does one down period define a program? No.

You see, being able to look back on things, there are very clear reasons why A&M had a bad decade. It boils down to two things: a bad athletic director and a bad coaching hire. The athletic director during the successful Slocum era was Wally Groff, and his major problem was that in the '90s, he thought we would just continue our success indefinitely because of our past success, and he neglected the very important aspect of facilities. Long story short, our facilities fell so far behind the likes of Texas, OU and others that RC could no longer recruit. That led to his teams getting gradually worse until he was eventually fired.

They hired Dennis Franchione. Seemed like a great hire at the time. We were all excited. I remember going up to meet Coach Fran at a basketball game the spring he was hired, wishing him well and telling him we were excited to have him. Well, turns out that for whatever reason, he was an awful fit here and darn near decimated the A&M football program. People are just now starting to realize how much he set A&M back.

Those two things caused major problems for A&M football. In the meantime, the same year Fran came, new athletic director Bill Byrne came from Nebraska. He helped with getting our facilities back on par with other schools (step 1), and, after firing Fran, hired what is turning out to be a good coach in Mike Sherman (step 2), and lo and behold, A&M is recruiting lights out and winning games again.

So as this relates to the SEC, it's simple. People who say we can't compete seem to always bring up the last ten years, as if the last ten years are what defines A&M football. People seem to think that we are the Longhorns pathetic little friend who just can't compete with them (never mind the fact that even with this last decade, A&M is still up 19-18 on Texas since scholarship limits were imposed in 1973, including 18-17 in the last 35, 13-12 in the last 25, and 3-2 in the last 5) and that we are sending the Fran program to the SEC.

The fact is, the program we're sending to the SEC is the program that finished in the top 25 last year and is currently ranked in the top 10 this year. The program that has a very, very good chance of putting its starting quarterback, running back, and wide receiver in the first round of the NFL draft next spring (I'm curious how many times that's been done before). The program that just produced the #2 pick in the NFL draft this past year. The program that has had two straight very good recruiting classes to fill in behind those guys and that has already starting building an early top 10 recruiting class for both 2012 and 2013.

Will it be difficult? Yes. I am not arguing the fact that the SEC is the best conference in America, and that there will be more tough games and fewer easy wins. But is there any reason A&M can't do exactly what LSU does? No. People WAY overstate just how good the SEC is. Yes, they're the best, but it's not like they're unbeatable.

And here's another reason A&M should be competitive. I'm not the first to say this, but being the only SEC school in Texas will pay huge dividends for A&M's recruiting. Texas will always get good players and always have something to sell, whether it's a network or eventual independence or whatever, but moving to the SEC will give A&M something unique to sell to Texas kids as opposed to just trying to be nice guys or something. We can tell the kids that yes, you can play in the premiere conference in America while still staying in Texas. A&M is in one of the three (or four or five depending on if you include Ohio and Pennsylvania) recruiting hotbeds in America. We already are recruiting lights out. You add the SEC to our sales pitch, and there's no reason we won't have top 10 recruiting classes every year.

So in summary, and this is something I've sort of said already but is really my main answer to the "can we compete" question, people need to realize that A&M is a top 10 program right now. At least according to the polls. Only 2 SEC schools are ranked ahead of A&M. Why on earth would a top 10 team not be able to compete? And last I checked, if/when we go, we're going to go ahead and send our current team of future NFL players.

SEC update

Wow, what a crazy week! And we're just getting started.

Basically, everything is still happening as far as "A&M to the SEC" is concerned, but with a few new twists. I had originally written that I thought maybe the 8/22 BOR meeting would be a critical date. Well, after writing that, things sped up in a hurry. A&M basically decided to make their move, and they announced a special BOR meeting for today, 8/15. That will happen later this afternoon.

But to quickly go over what happened over the weekend, it appeared that today's BOR meeting was going to be for the purpose of announcing a done deal. The SEC presidents had a meeting scheduled for yesterday, and many people assumed that it was a meeting to officially approve A&M as a new member.

Well, in the meantime, ESPN, who happens to be partners on a $300 million deal with the University of Texas, spent all of last week both denying the story and flat out spreading false information about the story in an effort to squash the deal. UT, ever the spoiled brat, hired a p.r. firm to launch a smear campaign against A&M and, began exerting political threats and pressure towards A&M, and, with ESPN's help, planted some false stories designed to put doubts into the heads of the few remaining people who could supposedly stop the deal. One of those stories was regarding the issue of the 14th team (the other team the SEC would supposedly add to keep an even number). In reality, this is not and was not ever an issue for the SEC, as they are prepared to spend a year with only 13 teams, but throwing this diversionary story out there proved to be effective for a short time, as it dragged other schools into the story and created the perception that not only was the A&M invitation conditional on other factors (false), that this move was the beginning of an immediate and massive shift for the worse in conference realignment (false).

Another interesting thing to watch on Saturday was the all-out hatchet job done on A&M by almost every single on-air personality that ESPN has. If they were on t.v., radio, or Twitter, the message was the same: A&M was greedy, jealous, delusional, and oh by the way, would be a perennial loser in the SEC. It was truly stunning to watch such a coordinated effort. I personally listened to ESPN Radio for a good portion of the morning, watched some t.v. coverage that night, and read every single Twitter post about the issue along with catching up on what I missed by reading Texags.com as they had running tallies of the carnage. ESPN has clearly said goodbye to any and all journalistic credibility they had. Sure, they have their place in the sports world and I will continue to watch them (don't have much of a choice), but people need to know that what they do is not impartial. They are doing editorials, not news. They are "covering" a story that they are literally part of. Massive conflict of interest there.

So anyway, getting back to what happened and what's going to happen, it had appeared that things were all set, and many people expected the SEC to be meeting with the purpose of approving A&M. Then, somewhat out of the blue, the SEC released a statement saying that they are happy with 12 teams, they did not discuss any particular schools, but that if future conditions change, they might still expand. Well once again, the media (especially ESPN) showed no restraint in gleefully reporting that the SEC had "snubbed" A&M, that it was a done deal, that those dumb Aggies didn't even have an invitation! They mocked Texas A&M for the whole afternoon, even writing articles that likened A&M to the high school kid with a crush on a girl who doesn't like him (http://espn.go.com/espn/page2/index?id=6862753) and other sassy articles. Their headline right now even still says "SEC satisfied with alignment; no A&M invite ". Well, the only problem with that headline is that it is totally misleading.



What happened at the SEC meeting, and what a few responsible journalists thankfully reported, was that they met and had a conference call with some attorneys to make sure they aren't breaking any laws (the term "tortuous interference" has been thrown around a million times in the last week) and to protect themselves from a lawsuit. They then released the very carefully worded statement to let people know, on the record, that they are not approaching A&M. Does that mean they don't want A&M? Not remotely. It just means that technically, A&M needs to approach the SEC. And that's where today's BOR meeting for A&M comes in. If they were really saying that they weren't expanding and/or that Texas A&M was not going to be a part of their conference, trust me, they would have worded that statement a LOT differently. Essentially, the SEC was saying that you can't get re-married until you divorce. And that's fine, and A&m knew that going in. 


After the supposedly stunning announcement from the SEC, A&M President Loftin released a statement not long after (hmm... almost like he knew exactly what was going to happen...) indicating that the BOR meeting is still on, and that the point of the meeting is still to give him the authority to leave the Big 12, which A&M will be doing. And again, if the deal were really dead, trust me, Loftin would have worded his statement a LOT differently. 


Long story short, once A&M leaves, the SEC will (surprise!) welcome A&M with open arms. And a LOT of "journalists" will have a lot of egg on their faces. People in the know don't seem to know exactly when the deal will be official, but it could be as early as Wednesday or it could take a couple more weeks still.


Another thing to keep in mind with all of this, and it's another reason for my confidence that the deal will be done shortly, is that Mike Slive (SEC commissioner), Loftin, and all the people associated with them including their fellow advisors, decision makers and attorneys, these guys are not stupid. Considering the fact that this move almost happened last year, there is a zero percent chance that both sides have not considered all of these issues ahead of time. ZERO. Both sides knew exactly what legal risks were involved. Both sides knew exactly what kind of pettiness to expect from the University of Texas. Both sides knew of the risks with how things could be portrayed in the media, and knowing all that, have been very specific with what they've done, when they've done it, how they've done it, and what they've said about it and who they've said it to. The timing of everything has been orchestrated, and they are not surprised by anything that's happened.  


There are a ton of other sides to this story that hopefully I'll get a chance to talk about, including more on the incredibly bad reporting on this story and the issue of whether or not A&M can compete in the big, bad SEC. And I really could go on for thousands of words about the stuff I just wrote briefly about, but it's hard to decide which parts to drone on about and how much detail to go into. 


Most of my info has come from Billy Liucci of Texags.com (he's been far and away the most accurate and timely of all the reporters covering the story), a cross section of all the major national and state reporters who cover college football, the message boards at texags.com and my own little brain.

A&M to the SEC?

Yesterday was another one of those days where the internet (or "blogosphere," as dorks call it) went crazy with rumors that A&M was heading to the SEC and that it was a done deal. With Twitter being the new source of news these days, it's interesting to watch how quickly the fire spread, and then in the afternoon, people with different agendas worked to put the fires out. The question remains though, was yesterday significant? I think so.

First, a quick summary (Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.) of why A&M wants to leave. A&M almost left last year when the University of Texas basically destroyed the Big 12. A&M had an offer on the table to join the SEC at that point (despite what some misinformed national media members think), and almost went, but decided to stick with the Big 12 based on the new promises and contracts that were negotiated. A&M saved the Big 12. The media would have you believe it was Texas that did that, but that's laughable. Texas is the reason the Big 12 almost broke up last year and will certainly be breaking up in the next couple years (or sooner). And I'm not just saying that as an Aggie. The facts are all there. I don't have the time or energy to get into all of them here, but the fact remains, A&M saved the conference last yer, contingent on certain concessions from the conference and the school in Austin.

Well, months later, it was clear that Texas had no intention of honoring the promises they made. Most of these promises are related to the Longhorn Network, Texas' joint venture with ESPN. One of the issues involved the Longhorns' desire to broadcast high school football games on their network. A&M and a couple other schools immediately spoke up, pointing out that that is an unfair recruiting advantage. Texas made no secret about how they were using the network. Without coming right out and saying it, they were telling recruits that if they committed to play at UT, they (UT) would, in exchange, put their high school game on television. It's no coincidence that two of the first games announced by the Longhorns were to feature the respective high schools of Jonathan Gray and Malcom Brown.

Additionally, Texas went full speed ahead with their goals of broadcasting multiple football games on the LHN, despite the previous promises to only do one and despite the legal issues involved. The legal issues came out in much more detail when, earlier this week, the actual contract that Texas and ESPN signed was released and detailed on themidnightyell.blogspot.com.There wasn't anything too shocking in there, but what it did do was show that UT had been doing some public lying regarding their intentions, seeing as how they signed a contract that specifically detailed their intentions, and the intentions are quite broad and aggressive, much moreso than they had led everyone to believe.

The other issue with the LHN is that the contract they signed with ESPN directly undercuts the television contract that the Big 12 has, and by doing so, Texas has made it quite clear that they care about their interests first and foremost and really don't care at all about the Big 12. Long story short, the Big 12 absolutely will not last more than a few more years, even if A&M decided to stay and take whatever the Longhorns dish.

Thankfully, A&M appears to have finally decided that enough is enough. A&M does indeed still have a standing offer to join the SEC. Many media members seem to scoff at the notion, but they are wrong. Why am I so sure? The simple answer: Billy Liucci. Liucci is the man behind Texags.com, and is the insider of all insiders when it comes to Texas A&M. He has been the first to report basically every big new story out of College Station, whether it was coaching changes or facilities news or conference realignment. And here's why I think yesterday's rumor-fest was significant.

Liucci is usually very careful about what he says. His reputation is on the line when he is going up against the likes of Stewart Mandel and Ivan Maisel. If he's not sure of something, he won't stick his neck out there. Yet for the last couple weeks, Liucci has been dropping not-so-subtle hints about the future of A&M in the SEC. Then yesterday, he basically went all in, going on Twitter and Texags and multiple radio stations saying that, in essence, A&M is headed to the SEC, and that it could happen as soon as this month.

So the Texas A&M Board of Regents have a meeting scheduled on August 22nd. Will a decision be made then? I don't know, but I know that yesterday, Liucci said that he does not expect an announcement in the next 7-10 days, but he does think we'll hear something in the next month. Well that fits nicely with the timeline of August 22nd, now doesn't it?

Other unnamed sources that were quoted on Twitter all day yesterday said similar things. Rumors abounded that the deal is all but done and we are just waiting on a formal announcement, but won't hear it for a couple weeks.

So for now, there is so much smoke that I believe there is a major fire. Billy Liucci has gone public, even enduring some public mockery in the process, but even so, he reiterated just today that he is assuredly as plugged in as anyone else out there. I believe that we will hear some actual, concrete news sometime in the near future, and that at that point, we can look back to yesterday as the day that it first went down.

Preseason Top 25 thoughts

Today is a big day for college football fans. The first official top 25 poll has been released! I plan on writing a lot about college football (mostly A&M and Big 12 related) this coming year and here's a good excuse to start that party.


Here's the list:

Aug. 4, 2011 - preseason poll


Rank Team (first-place votes) 2010 record Points Final 2010 ranking 
1. Oklahoma (42) 12-2 1,454 6 
2. Alabama (13) 10-3 1,414 11 
3. Oregon (2) 12-1 1,309 3 
4. LSU (2) 11-2 1,296 8t 
5. Florida State 10-4 1,116 16 
6. Stanford 12-1 1,101 4 
7. Boise State 12-1 1,065 7 
8. Oklahoma State 11-2 933 10 
9. Texas A&M 9-4 885 21 
10. Wisconsin 11-2 829 8t 
11. Nebraska 10-4 814 19 
12. South Carolina 9-5 779 22 
13. Virginia Tech 11-3 767 15 
14. Arkansas 10-3 750 12 
15. TCU 13-0 687 2 
16. Ohio State 12-1 631 5 
17. Michigan State 11-2 536 14 
18. Notre Dame 8-5 440 NR 
19. Auburn 14-0 329 1 
20. Mississippi State 9-4 301 17 
21. Missouri 10-3 266 18 
22. Georgia 6-7 260 NR 
23. Florida 8-5 240 NR 
24. Texas 5-7 162 NR 
25. Penn State 7-6 161 NR 

Others receiving votes 
Arizona State (6-6) 158; West Virginia (9-4) 149; Utah (10-3) 50; Miami (Fla.) (7-6) 49; Iowa (8-5) 41; Northwestern (7-6) 30; Arizona (7-6) 28; Central Florida (11-3) 22; Michigan (7-6) 19; Air Force (9-4) 15; North Carolina (8-5) 14; Houston (5-7) 13; South Florida (8-5) 9; Hawaii (10-4) 8; Clemson (6-7) 7; Tennessee (6-7) 7; Southern Miss (8-5) 6; Brigham Young (7-6) 5; North Carolina State (9-4) 4; Northern Illinois (11-3) 4; Oregon State (5-7) 4; Pittsburgh (8-5) 3; Washington (7-6) 3; Georgia Tech (6-7) 1; Nevada (13-1) 1. 



So, let's start with teams ranked too high. My first instinct is Alabama. I don't think they can make it through the year with 0 or 1 loss, which is what they would need to be #2. Of course one question that is perpetually unsolved is the question of whether or not a preseason poll is supposed to guess the outcome of the year or is it supposed to rank where you think the teams are relative to each other right now. For my purposes today, I'm commenting on whether or not the teams will finish where they start.


Of course I'm excited to see Texas A&M at #9. This is the first time in ages the Ags have been a top 10 team. The only problem is that as much as I love my team and see real potential, I don't think we'll be that high come January. I'll touch on it a lot more in a later post, but I see A&M as a 9-3 regular season team, probably finishing the year ranked somewhere in the high teens. Of course 10-12 regular season wins are legitimately possible with everything we have coming back, but I don't believe it will happen.


I think South Carolina is a bit high at #12. I respect coach Spurrier a lot and think he's a great coach, but I think SC has reached a ceiling, and in the brutal SEC, which has 8 of its 12 teams ranked, I don't see South Carolina coming out of it with enough wins to justify a ranking that high. The fact of the matter is, when you do have that many teams from the same conference that are all ranked, some of them are going to get knocked out and underperform, just because of the schedule and the parity. 


I'm not sold on Ohio State at #16 or Notre Dame at #18. Ohio State obviously has a ton of adjustments to go through after losing their coach and several of their players including the stud QB. Notre Dame is ranked in the top 20 every season, no matter what, so I'm not surprised to see them there, but I'm at a point with them where I'll believe they're a quality team once they show it for a whole year. I do like their coach though and think in the next few years their ranking will be well-deserved.


And finally, let's just all admit that it's laughable to see the Texas Longhorns at #24. Let's be honest, this is just a name pick, just like Notre Dame is every year. If you took the logos off of every helmet and presented a fact sheet about every team to an impartial group, no one, and I mean NO ONE, would rank the team that showed up with Texas' resume. They went 5-7 last year, and this year's schedule only features two teams- that's right, TWO- that Texas beat last year. They have no proven QB, are relying on a true freshman running back, they only return two proven wide receivers, their offensive line was bad, they lost 3 of their 4 starters in the secondary, and they have a whole new coaching staff. Granted, they always recruit well and they could easily sneak their way into a good season if things go well, but no sane person should ever include the team I just described in the top 25. Not when they are leaving out Miami, Utah, W. Virginia, Air Force, S. Florida, Nevada, Pitt, NC State, Iowa and a handful of others with far better resumes than Texas. I'll have much more on Texas at a later date.


There are a few teams I would move up. Wisconsin is one I really like. They're always good, they play solid defense and can run the ball, and they play in a weak conference. But now they get a proven QB for this season in transfer Russell Wilson, who was one of the best QB's in NC State history the last three years and now will play for Wisconsin after graduating from NC State and having one year of eligibility left. Huge pickup for the Badgers and I think they're a top 5 team.


Virginia Tech is another I'd move up. They play a notoriously weak conference and are head and shoulders above anyone in the conference on a yearly basis. Beamer has the formula down and doesn't vary from it. They return enough from what was a VERY good team last year. Don't be shocked to see them in yet another BCS game.


Finally, I'll pick Florida as another underrated team. Yes, they too have to face the brutality of the SEC schedule, but I think Florida still has more athletes than any other team, and I think that Will Muschamp is actually a great defensive coach who will be able to slow down everyone they face. Meanwhile, the offense is going to be very interesting now that they have Charlie Weiss installing his NFL style passing game. Weiss's Notre Dame teams did very well offensively in his first couple years before falling off. I don't know if it was a talent issue or if teams figured him out, but I think that once again, he will come right in and have a successful offense. They have a winning culture at Florida, and I think that goes a long way, and it's why I'm more sold on them than I am on some other SEC teams like South Carolina and Mississippi State.

Top 5: Comedies

A few years back, I watched the movie High Fidelity and really liked it. One of the things they were always doing in that movie was making top five (or three) lists of various things. At the time, it inspired me to just start making my own. No good reason why, but it was enjoyable to think about. I've lost that list, but I figured I will periodically do a top five here on the blog. Today, I start with movie comedies. Very, very tough for me to pick just five because really there are probably about 20 that have received the Mattywatty gold star rating. I have no particular system for how I rate these, but will say that to make my list, they must be movies that I endlessly quote. But if I just had to pick five, as of today, here is the list (in no particular order):

-Dumb & Dumber. Easy choice here. Ever since it came out, it's been my personal choice for funniest movie of all time. Never gets old, never ceases to make me laugh. The hardest I ever laughed in a movie theater was during this film (the daydream sequence with Lloyd and the toilet scene with Harry, if you must know specifics). There are rumors that Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels are on board to do a true sequel. I desperately want that to happen, much like Lloyd Christmas desperately wants to make love to a schoolboy. Most common quotes that I use from this movie include... well honestly the entire movie. At some point in a given week, I probably directly or indirectly quote 25 different parts of the movie, and that's no exaggeration.

-Waiting for Guffman. This one is not very well known, but I think it is easily the funniest of the Christopher Guest mockumentaries, all of which are genius movies. Spinal Tap and Best in Show get all the love from most movie fans, but I really think Guffman and A Mighty Wind are the best. Anyway, the hardest I have ever laughed at home while watching a movie was at the end of their song "This Bulging River," which actually is a deleted scene. After getting to know the main characters, especially Corky, and then watching that awful/amazing performance, his final note was so funny that it had me in tears.

See, for me, the genius in this movie is the character of Corky. For my money, he is the single funniest character I've ever seen. The other characters are good, but Corky is just perfect. This is another one that I quote dozens of times per week in some form or fashion.

This is also a great movie to listen to the commentaries for, because the whole movie- like all the Guest mockumentaries- is done without a script. They have an outline for the scenes, and then it's all improv. But this movie required them to learn a bad musical, which technically was scripted, but perform it badly, as good as they could, all while improvising everything else around the music. If that makes sense.... Anyway, the commentaries have some interesting stories about that process.

-The Princess Bride has to be listed. A true classic, this movie is on the list for millions of men, I would assume. The dialogue is what makes this movie so darn funny, since it is always done so straight faced. It feels like the whole movie was written with a wink, a wry smile. There are some throw-away lines that are part of big, funny scenes that have crept into my day to day vocabulary and get used constantly ("very well, I accept"), and of course there are big chunks of dialogue that get quoted all the time as well.

I've seen this movie so many times, Westley's voice is so ingrained in my head, that just a couple months ago, we were at a movie, and there was a character on screen I did not recognize at all. He's much heavier and has a beard. And then he spoke. And instantly, just for a moment, I was back in the land of the princess bride, watching the man in black who has been mostly dead all day.

Now is where it gets difficult, trying to pick just two more. Will Ferrell is my favorite comedic actor, so I'd like to include one of his, but which one? Monty Python is far and away one of the most quoted movies in my life and could easily be listed, but then what about Mike Myers? The Austin Powers trilogy and So I Married an Axe Murderer would feel left out. What about Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller? What about Bill Murray? Leslie Nielsen? My goodness, what about John Candy?And I haven't even mentioned Chevy Chase and Steve Martin, who both were in The Three Amigos of course and who also have one or two other movies that belong. There are some other greats that I truly love (Dirty Work, Van Wilder, Spaceballs, Top Secret, Office Space, American Pie...). So, I am forced to make a snap decision. Ask me my list tomorrow and these could be different, but my final two comedies are...

-Anchorman. I decided I do need to include Will Ferrell, but couldn't decide between Anchorman and Old School. Frank the Tank is one of Ferrell's best characters ever, no doubt. The entire Old School movie is still, for me, the funniest of the new era of R-rated comedies (not that I've seen all of them). But I pick Anchorman because it features more of Ferrell, more of his improv

Ferrell has the ability to make literally any line of dialogue funny. He's one of those guys that can make me laugh by doing nothing or by doing huge, ridiculous things. His body of work on SNL is incredible. I enjoy hearing what other actors say about each other, and Will Ferrell is considered the best of the best by people in the improv comedy world. Tina Fey talks about it some in her book Bossypants.

Oddly enough, Anchorman wasn't the funniest thing ever when I first saw it. In fact, I didn't even see it when it first came out, but then after hearing a co-worker constantly quoting it at work, I decided to rent it. First viewing, I liked it, but wouldn't have put it on this list. But then you watch it that second time, and you think to yourself, wow, this is genius. Ferrell has the ability to make absolute immaturity into something amazing.

-After much internal debate that led to cramping and some vomiting, I'm going to go with Swingers for my final choice. It's basically the first true Vince Vaughn movie, in the sense that it's the first one where he popularized his fast-talking, cool persona. Swingers is just such a guy movie. I don't think most women can relate to it the way we men can. Every guy is either a Mikey or a Trent. Or both, which is why it's so easy to love this movie if you're a guy. Throw in the fact that this movie singlehandedly made "Vegas, baby!" a ubiquitous catchphrase, and you have a classic. This movie has some of the best painful, awkward comedy you'll ever see, and it would border on depressing if not for the friendship of the guys and introduction of Heather Graham's character.

Honorable mention: Gone With The Wind, Part Deux; Schindler's List: The College Years.