Texas Tech, who have been merciless in running up the score against weak opponents, got run out of the building by Oklahoma.

Keep in mind. I’m not saying that my very presence creates an aura that causes sports teams to triumph. I will simply put out the facts and let you be the judge.

So is it all just a coincidence? Or do I rock? You be the judge.

My friend Chris defends the honor of PSU over at his blog, taking issue with the people who are saying PSU should be kept out of the National Championship game owing to the weakness of the Big Ten. I posted this comment in response:

On the other hand, if there are three undefeated teams, someone has to get shut out. A few years ago, it was Auburn. Given how poorly the Big 10 has done in their non-conference games this year, it would have to be PSU *if* there were three undefeated teams. But I would probably take an undefeated PSU team over a 1-loss team, given how impressively they’ve walked through the Big 10 ( so far).

I just find it hilarious that we see this every year. Fans get offended in advance for something that has yet to happen.

Expanding on that last point, I’m getting calls from fellow Georgia fans offended that Georgia is “only” number 8 in the polls. I’d say the same thing to them. The season isn’t over yet. If Georgia beats Florida, Auburn, Georgia Tech and Alabama to win the SEC, then we can complain. Georgia is currently ranked #6 in the BCS. If they roar past everyone, they will still have to hope that Texas or PSU loses, but they’ll be well-positioned.

But should a 1-loss SEC team be behind an undefeated Big-10 team? Or an undefeated Big-12 team? What about USC? Let’s just look at the three undefeated teams for now and their non-conference schedules:

Alabama: at Clemson, Tulane, Western Kentucky, Arkansas State (11-18)

Texas: Florida Atlantic, at UTEP, Arkansas, Rice (14-17)

PSU: Coastal Carolina (AA team), Oregon State, at Syracuse, Temple (12-19)

Not too impressive. All three have fattened up on patsies, once again demonstrating that the key to a national championship season is often an easy schedule. Compare what these three teams have faced to USC:

USC: at Virginia, Ohio State, Notre Dame (17-7)

and you begin to see why I’m not terribly happy about the current system. Any rational person would judge a 1-loss USC team to be at least equal to a zero-loss Texas, Bama or PSU team.

Conference strength matters too, since the bulk of any team’s schedule is within their conference. Consider the bowl records of the major conferences over the last five years.

SEC: 27-17
Pac 10: 19-16
ACC: 23-20
Big East: 18-16
Big 12: 24-23
Big 10: 19-24

Rankings are often a bad way of judging conference strength since there’s a certain circularity to them (Texas is good because they beat Oklahoma; Oklahoma is good because they played Texas). But consider the number of ranked teams:

Big Twelve: 5
Big Ten: 4
SEC: 4
ACC: 3
Pac-10: 2
Big East: 1

So what’s the upshot?

The upshot is that you can make any argument you want. You want Texas? You can point to their walloping of Missouri and Oklahoma. You don’t want Texas? Point out that the entire Big-12 has fattened up on easy targets.

You want PSU? Point out that the only team that even challenged them was OSU in the Horseshoe and Paterno has a great bowl record. You don’t want PSU? Point out that PSU’s scheduled included Coastal Carolina and the conference they are dominating has the worst bowl record over the last five years and their defending conference champ was demolished by USC.

You want ‘Bama? Point out that the SEC has the best bowl record and that they clobbered a great Georgia team on the road. You don’t want ‘Bama? Point to their easy non-conference schedule.

If we end up with three undefeated teams .. or one undefeated team … or no undefeated teams .. or a 1-loss USC arguing for their inclusion over a 0-loss PSU, you can expect to see arguments like the above dusted off. All of them are valid and all are of them are bullshit. Whichever one happens to grab enough of the media will determine the BCS match-up. The media will then insist that it’s obviously the right matchup even though history has shown their bold proclamations to have slightly less foresight into BCS results than my liver.

The fact is that there is no way to determine, based on 12-13 games, who are the best two teams in the country. People who engage in these arguments (including me) are playing a fool’s game. We might as well be arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

The difference between me and the Sports Media Twerps is that I won’t claim otherwise. I won’t say that I know who the best two teams in the country are. I don’t. No one can. Neither the smartest media guy nor the most sophisticated computer can tell you that.

Once again, we are proving why we need a playoff. If we had a playoff, no one would give a shit about the Big 10’s lousy bowl record or Missouri’s pathetic non-conference schedule or Bama being coached by a turd. If we had a playoff system, the SMTs’ opinions would be for entertainment purposes only, not the basis of a championship system. The actual championship would be determined by what happens on the field, not whose fans scream loudest with their biased arguments.

Last year, I came up with an excitement index to evaluate how good a baseball post-season was. The system isn’t exactly scientific, but it does provide some insight. It works like so:

Every game played gets 1 point.

Each game get 0.2 extra points for a lead change or tie. So tonight the Sox led 1-0. The Tribe tied it. Then the Sox took the lead for good. 0.4 points. Now if the Tribe had scored a run in the 1st and another in the second, that would have been 0.4 points; but had they taken the lead with two in the 1st, that would have only been 0.2 points. The system rewards a little drawing out of the game.

Extra innings or a last at-bat victory is worth an extra 0.5 points.

Finally, the game is credited with 1/(margin of victory). So a 1-run game gets an extra point. A five-run game only gets 0.2 points.

It’s arbitary, I know. It gives the same weight to an 18-inning game as a 10-inning game. It weights early rallies as much as late ones. It doesn’t account for runners left on base, which is why Game 7 of the 1991 World Series comes in at only 2.50. It weights an exciting game one as much as an exciting game seven. It doesn’t care if a team has come back from being down 3-0.

In other words, it’s quick and dirty.

I’m not really looking to rank the greatest game in baseball history. What I’m looking for are series — and post-seasons full of series — that go the distance with lots of exciting close games. And I don’t have the computer resources to do a more thorough job. This one can be calculated just by looking at the line score.

Here’s a list of season-by-season excitement indexes in the wild card era:

1995 – 66.20
1996 – 62.06
1997 – 66.86
1998 – 53.07 (all-time great teams make boring playoffs)
1999 – 60.83
2000 – 56.35 (subway series; ugh)
2001 – 62.13
2002 – 61.48
2003 – 74.12 (WOW! See the linked post.)
2004 – 65.42
2005 – 57.37
2006 – 49.84
2007 – 47.62

Last year was the boring post-season of the wild-card era. We had no less than five series sweeps. The Cleveland-New York DS went four games. The only decent series was the Boston-Cleveland LCS and that was only because it went 7 games. It was the dullest 7-game series in history.

So this season? So far, it’s 49.20. So it’s already matched the excitement of the last two post-seasons. The Red Sox-Rays series that just finished was the most exciting since the 2001 world series (although the 2004 NLCS comes close). Game 2 was an utter classic for the ages, one of highest single-game score in the database. Games five and six were also highly exciting. The score of 14.94 was the fourth highest since 1991, being topped only the 1991, 1992 and 2001 world series. I know it was that good because I could barely watch (I was pulling for the Rays).

Given the mean score of a seven-game series (10.97), we can expect a score for 2008 of about 60. This is almost exactly the average in the wild-card era.

I’m really starting to dislike the Red Sox. They’re the Yankees reborn. Now that they’ve come back from 7-0 down, we’re going to have nothing but two days about clutchiness and character.

God, I hate the sports media. This has not been a good year for me, sports-wise.

ESPN has their big prediction page for the NFL season. Easterbrook documents how many picks were wrong post-facto. Last year, I documented how spineless the picks were in the first place. Less than half of NFL playoff teams repeat the next year. But the typical ESPNer predicts eight to nine teams to repeat and usually picks six or seven division winners to repeat.

This year, they aren’t nearly as spineless. The picks are:

AFC East — Everyone picks New England, which seemed reasonable until Brady got hurt

AFC North – Twelve pick Pittsburgh to repeat, Four pick Cleveland

AFC South – Ten pick Indy to repeat; six take Jacksonville (but those six all have Indy as the Wild Card)

AFC West – All pick San Diego to repeat, which seems reasonable given how crappy the AFC West is.

AFC Wildcard – Cleveland, Jacksonville, Tennessee, Jets, Indy, Pittsburgh, Houston, Denver and Buffalo all get picks. Only the Dolphins, Bengals, Ravens, Raiders and Chiefs get no votes (although Denver and Buffalo only get one each).

The AFC has a lot of repeat picks, with two commentators spinelessly picking the entire slate of 2007 playoffs teams to repeat exactly. I’m guessing most people would currently believe the AFC is the superior conference. But it’s not. The NFC outperformed them by two games last year. Moreover, the AFC is incredibly unbalanced, with several great teams and a lot of horrible teams. The NFC is much more competitive, which is reflected in the picks

NFC East – 14 pick Dallas, one each pick Philly and the Giants

NFC North – Evenly split between Green Bay and Minnesota

NFC South – New Orleans gets all but one vote, that one going to Carolina

NFC West – Seattle gets 14 votes, with two extremely deluded people picking Arizona.

NFC Wild Card – Minnesota Giants, Carolina, Philly, Green Bay, Washington, Tampa, Dallas and St. Louis all get votes.

San Francisco, Atlanta, Chicago and Detroit are the only teams not picked to make the playoffs by anyone.

Going analyst by analyst, while Chadiha and Clayton pick seven division repeats, no one picks more than nine overall repeats and Wickersham takes over Tafoya’s spot as the only analyst with real balls, picking only five division winners and six teams overall to repeat.

So my non-spineless somewhat randomized picks?

AFC East – Pats, even if Brady is hurt.
AFC North – Pittsburgh
AFC South – Jacksonville
AFC West – Denver

Wild Cards – Indy and Cleveland

NFC East – Philadelphia
NFC North – Green Bay
NFC South – Carolina
NFC West – Seattle

NFC WC – Dallas and New Orleans

That’s four division repeats and seven overall repeats. I deliberately picked to not have as many repeats — which was tough in the very unbalanced AFC. I suspect that one of Indy and Pitt will not make the playoffs, but since I like both teams I unfairly bounced San Diego. I’m still not happy having seven repeat teams, but it’s the best I can do.

Yet more pooch-screwing today by the US track team. They’ve been thoroughly thrashed by Jamaica. And now they don’t even make it out of the first round in the 4×100 relay. They did salvage a bit by sweeping the 400m final.

In other news, Laura Wilkinson blew two dives. US softball lost for the first time in eight years. Well, at least the May-Walsh held up their end.

American dumbassery at track and field continues. Yesterday, Brad Walker didn’t try a single pole vault until 5.75 meters, the promptly blew all three. Today Breaux Greer set a season best with his first javelin tossed, then passed on his next two throws. He almost didn’t qualify as other athletes passed him.

Gregg Easterbrook today:

In other Olympic news, the timer said Michael Phelps swam the 100-meter butterfly in 50.58 seconds, Milorad Cavic swam it in 50.59 — can anyone seriously believe either finished one-hundredth of a second different from the other?

Yes. Because the cameras at the finish take pictures 10,000 times a second.

Jesus Christ, I just saw an NBC puff piece on Kobe Bryant. It would been quicker and more entertaining if the reporter had simply sucked Kobe’s dick. He asked, I shit you not, if loving your country was outdated.

This is journalism?

Stop whining whenever you don’t win. Between Blake screaming about his tennis match and Marta Karolyi whining about underage gymnasts and Davey Johnson claiming the Cubans are throwing at his players, you sound like a bunch of sore losers.

It’s not just for the US:

Every four years some people moan and hand-wring about American TV’s excessive focus on American athletes and the Olympic events where Americans are likely to win medals.

These people need to get out more.

Or at least they need to spend a little time watching CCTV in China. Today’s early morning and evening Olympic coverage — was gone in the interim, at a real Olympic venue about which more later — focused heavily on events like Women’s Air Pistol (Gold medal: China), Men’s Air Pistol (Gold medal: China), Women’s 48kg Weightlifting (Gold medal: China), Men’s 56kg Weightlifting (Gold medal: China), and… you get the idea.

I’m watching women’s volleyball right now — did I mention that I love the Olympics? — and I just have this to say:

Rally scoring sucks. The worst thing about rally scoring is that an error by an official is a two-point swing, rather than 1-point swing or a loss of service.