National Championship Running Diary

Bill Simmons has a rule: whenever Paul Arras's former favorite sport to watch is holding a pseudo-national championship the day before a New Hampshire primary, and Paul actually thinks it might be a really good game, then Paul has to keep a running diary.

8:13 After catching 15 minutes of a surprisingly entertaining pre-game show with Eddie George, Urban Meier, Jimmy Johnson and what looked like Lance Bass, Thom Brennaman and Charles Davis (Tony Gwynn?) take over the commentary.

8:16 Brennaman mentions some of the key players, who I only vaguely recognize. Let me come right out and say that I am not at all qualified to say anything insightful about college football anymore. Back in middle school, I used to watch every single bowl game. Now I'm only watching one bowl game more out of obligation as a sports fan than anything else. And yes, I do think this will be a good game. I just don't buy the theories that say the SEC is THAT much better than everyone and that Ohio State doesn't have the athletes to compete.

8:19 If anything, the biggest factor is that LSU is playing in their own state. How is that fair? I guess OSU travels well.

8:26 A minute and a half into the game, Chris Wells gives LSU and the SEC a taste of Big 10 speed...65 yards for the touchdown! I should also mention, Ohio State has been my Big 10 team to cheer for since the John Cooper-era, when they were second fiddle to Michigan in the Big Ten. Also, when Chris and I lived in the same room in our fraternity senior year, we lived next door to Steve Register, who might have been the biggest Ohio State fan to not go to OSU. He was a pretty soft-spoken guy, but everybody knew it when he was watching a Buckeye game in his room. Somewhere, Register is shouting.

12:03 (Let's switch to game time.) LSU goes three and out, moving backwards after the center snaps the ball over the QB's head on third down. That's followed by one of those "Dude!" beer commercials, with a cameo from Joe Buck. Has there ever been a less likable big time announcer? He just rubs me the wrong way.

11:53 Another huge play from Ohio State, this time a pass, gives the Buckeyes first down on LSU's fifteen! Moments later, Brennaman reminds us that LSU's defensive coordinator, Bo Pelini, is moving to Nebraska and is, by the way, an OSU alum.

9:15 Nice job by Pelini's squad, holding OSU to a field goal and keeping this game reasonable.

9:05 First beer. Work tomorrow at 6:00am, but this was my only day off all week. Plus, I'm possibly the greatest Borders employee ever. The secret to waking up at 4:50am is having all your clothes picked out the night before. Who wants to choose a golf shirt and khakis or chinos that early in the morning? It's just straight into the shower for me. I'll also probably get my lunch together so I can just toss it in a bag and go. The beer, by the way, is a JW Dundee Honey Brown. Not the best honey brown I've ever had, but it hits the spot right now.


6:35 LSU RB Jacob Hester majors in Interdisciplinary Studies. That reminds me...

Hibbert: (Chuckles) Your playing days are over, my friend. But you can always fall back on your degree in... communications!? Oh, dear Lord!
Lubchenko: I know! Is phony major! Lubchenko learn nothing. Nothing! (cries)


2:31 (1st) I just wanted to point out I spent four minutes of game time looking up that quote online to get it right. LSU, having converted three straight third downs, is now in the red zone. They kick a field goal to make it 10-3.

13:00 (2nd) LSU ties it up with an impressive drive, capped off with a trick-formation TD. But Chris Wells comes right back with another nice run featuring a devastating stiff arm. I just looked it up...Wells is only a Sophomore. Wow.

12:12 "When it comes to blood...blood is going to win ahead of school, when blood is in the contest." -Charles Davis. Valid.

10:53 LSU blocks a Buckeye field goal. The Tigers just drove up, threw Momentum in a white van, and flew off down the road with it. This is starting to feel like a coaching chess match. Tressel came out firing, now Miles has countered. It's up to Tressel to respond before LSU takes the lead.

7:25 (2nd) Too late. LSU TD on yet another impressive drive. Les Miles is an excellent coach. 17-10 Tigers.

4:16 Another TD makes it 24 unanswered. 24-10. OSU has to score before the half or I'm looking at an early bedtime after all.

Half Didn't happen. I don't know about Jim Tressel, but my second half game plan consists of milk and cookies, fiddling with the TV cables to try to get the weak Syracuse Fox HD signal over the antenna, and playing it by ear whether I stick with this game to the bitter end.

7:47 (3rd) OK, I've spent all of halftime until now trying to get the elusive Fox HD signal. I've had to dig up this old HD antenna and plug that in. I've got the signal, but it flickers every minute or so, which is really annoying. With an analog signal, if the signal wavers, the picture might get a little scratchy or something. When a digital signal wavers, it drops out completely for a split second. This is very important, because the Super Bowl is on FOX this year. If it takes climbing up onto the roof and actually manipulating our antenna, old school style, with someone shouting up at me, so be it. We will get HD Fox by the Super Bowl.

Meanwhile, this game is over. 31-10 LSU. I was wrong. The SEC is much better than the Big 10 right now. Oh well. Time for those cookies.

Notent Notables

• I'm still shocked that England failed to qualify for Euro 2008. It wasn't until they drew the groups for the finals the other day that it hit me the three lions wouldn't be participating. I haven't seen a game since I left, and I'm still upset. I can't imagine what the nation is going through. If I were Steve McClaren, I'd go hide in Florida somewhere for the rest of my days. Good heavens, what a disaster.

• I think we can all agree that the NFL is the biggest sport in America. But that doesn't mean it necessarily has to stay that way. Thinking the NFL will always be king is like thinking the US economy will always stay strong or that America will always be the strongest nation in the world. Baseball used to be the biggest sport in the country. In the 80s, as I understand it, the NBA was bigger. Personally, even though I followed Michael Jordan religiously and liked college football more than the NFL when I was a kid, I've always admitted the NFL was on top. But now I'm sensing a change. I'm finally seeing Chris's point, that the parity in the NFL might have gone too far. Sunday Ticket isn't quite as appealing as it was 5 years ago because the number of worthwhile teams has dropped. I still like tuning in when all the games are ending, in case it gets exciting, but most of the afternoon the games don't have my attention. Don't get me wrong, I think the playoffs are going to be amazing this year. But I think the overall quality of the product has slipped...

• ...while the NBA is looking better. I think the number of worthwhile teams is growing this year. I also think that with the Big Three in Boston and Dwight Howard's emergence as an all-time superstar in Orlando, the East has legitimate contenders this year. In fact, I think more teams can realistically win the NBA championship than the Super Bowl. Count 'em yourself. The NBA is coming back, folks. I'm intrigued.

• College Football will always have its base with the Solid South, but the lack of a tournament is really killing it. This season has been the most exciting one that I can ever remember. It is true that the significance of the upsets would have been lessened slightly by a post-season playoff. But ask yourself this: how many of the huge upset games have been "appointment viewing" for the casual college football fan? For me, the only appointment viewing games have been the Ohio State-Michigan game, and the Missouri-Kansas game, both of which would have been on my list of games to watch even if there was a playoff system. (Think of it this way: if #1 plays #2 in college basketball during the regular season, are you going to watch?) My point is the exciting storyline of the season isn't making me actually sit down and watch more games. And I'm not really interested in any bowl game other than the national title. But an 8-team playoff, that included the 6 major conference winners plus two at-large teams...I'd watch every game that stayed close, and I'm sure other casual college football fans like me would, too.

• I have Jim Valvano's ESPY speech on our downstairs TiVo tagged with "Save until I delete" status. If you're in town and need a pick-me-up, feel free to drop by.

• On SU's loss to UMass. That was a wildly entertaining game. Well into the 2nd half I was still watching with glee. But about halfway through the 2nd half (which was, I realized later, when Donte Greene cooled off), I got one of those bad feelings that you get when you really know your team is going to lose. You know what I mean? Sometimes it can work in the opposite direction, and you'll just know your team is going to pull it out. The problem, I decided, was that we weren't playing Big East basketball, or Syracuse basketball for that matter. Syracuse basketball wins with defense. As spectacular an offensive team as we are this year, our defense needs to be a lot better. We're not going to win too many games in the Big East playing shootout basketball. I didn't see the Tulane game, but it sounded like we took a step in the right direction. I think we're going to learn a lot more about this team on Wednesday, in Virginia.
  

A moment for SU football

Today's headline of the Syracuse Post-Standard sports page: "Lackluster Practice fires up Robinson."

The Donnie Webb article went on to explain that, after the Orange came off the practice field, Coach Robinson started his daily press briefing by saying that things were "Not that great."

Other facts from the article about the tirade:

1. He used no bad words
2. His voice wasn't any louder than usual
3. He had a blank-slate look on his face
4. His answers were cold and bordered on snippy
5. It wasn't a tirade

That's all I have to say about SU football for now. If I write more about SU football than SU basketball between now and Thanksgiving, it will be a miracle.