Making it up as we go along

There are reports that Montana State is chipping in $3,000 to help the University of Montana band travel to Frisco, TX to support its football team in the FCS national championship game. As a resident of Montana and an alumnus of the other school in the game, South Dakota State, I understand the immensity of this gesture. Sometimes announcers pump up the hype by exclaiming, "They plain don't like each other." In this case, it is true: The Cats (Montana State) and the Griz (Montana) fans plain do not like each other. But apparently the bands get along.

Anyway, I was reading the ESPN report on this and came away with the impression that the writer, David Hale, does not have an equal understanding of the situation. He writes:

"The two rivals, who meet annually in the Cat-Grizz game, have played 122 times dating back to 1897 -- two years before Montana officially became a state -- with the Grizzlies holding a 74-42-5 edge in the series.

"Montana defeated North Dakota State 31-29 in double overtime on Dec. 16 to secure a trip to the FCS championship game against South Dakota State. It is Montana's third trip to the FCS (formerly I-AA) championship game. The Grizzlies won both of their prior appearances, in 1995 and 2001."

The game is referred to as the 'Brawl of the Wild' not the 'Cat-Grizz game,' which is more of an omission than an error, but there are three major errors in those two short paragraphs. In reverse order:

• Montana has been to the championship game seven times, not two. They won those two in the years mentioned, 1995 and 2001, but also lost in 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2009.
• The series does date to 1897, but that's eight years AFTER Montana became a state in 1889.
• It's Griz, not Grizz. It's in huge letters on the side of the helmet (see below). Mr. Hale, a graduate of Delaware, apparently didn't notice this when the Griz trounced his alma mater 49-19 on December 2 of this year. But what do you expect from a Delaware graduate?

When I was in journalism school at South Dakota State, making one factual error in an assignment would be a failing grade. Old man done yelling at clouds, go on about your business.

Choices

There have been articles in recent days from several writers saying that the Celebration Bowl is a better experience than the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) playoffs.

The FCS is the 128 or so Division 1 football teams that do not participate in the bowl system, with one caveat. The Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) and Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) opt out of sending their conference champions to the 24-team FCS playoffs in favor of playing in the Celebration Bowl. Schools in those conferences are referred to as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU).

The Celebration Bowl drew over 40,000 fans to Atlanta this year, and netted the two conferences $1 million each. In contrast, no FCS stadium is large enough to hold that many fans, and it is not a financial bonanza for teams involved.

Jim Trotter of the Athletic eloquently lays out the almost religious reasoning in favor of the Celebration Bowl, the Black College Football National Championship, without prefacing it by slamming the FCS playoffs. But he still concludes, "Celebration Bowl or FCS playoffs? Do you really need to ask?"

"There's no comparison," FAMU head coach Willie Simmons told Gerald Thomas III of the Tallahassee Democrat. "The experience that the guys get at the bowl, playing on national television in an NFL stadium - it's an experience you can't buy. And once the check clears, that'll be more reasons why people feel the Celebration Bowl is the better option."

OK, if that is what you prefer, fine. But some people want it both ways. They want to play in their bubble in Atlanta but still be presumed to be FCS elite. Thomas quotes former FAMU Coach Rudy Hubbard saying, "I believe Willie and Florida A&M could go into [the FCS playoffs] and win that thing, too."

We have a team we can use to help us figure out whether that is remotely true. North Carolina Central won last year's Celebration Bowl and was favored to represent the MEAC again, but Howard pulled an upset and took that slot. Since they didn't have anything else to do, NCC was selected as an at-large team in the FCS playoffs and promptly got housed by Richmond 49-27. Richmond then got housed by Albany 41-13. Albany beat Idaho but then got epically HOUSED by South Dakota State 59-0. Using the transitive properties of comparative scores, FCS #1 South Dakota State is 109 points better than NCC. Coming back to the real world, which is dominated by degenerate gamblers, the Sagarin ratings indicate SDSU would be a 34-point favorite over NCC, 31 over FAMU, and 39 over Howard.

Simmons says, "In the FCS playoffs, you're going to have to travel to someone else's place; it's going to be cold and outside. It's Thanksgiving weekend." Except that's not true if you don't belong to a crap conference. If you are seeded, you don't have to play Thanksgiving weekend and you play the next weekend at home. (Also, four northern teams that hosted playoff games have domes, but whatever.)

Stan Becton of NCAA.com wrote an article laying out the case that FAMU should be rated as high as #3 when the final polls come out, behind SDSU and the Montana Griz. One of his examples is they should be ranked ahead of Montana State because the Bobcats didn't make it out of the 2nd round of the playoffs. FAMU didn't make it out of the 2nd round either since they chose not to participate at all!

Becton also knocks Albany for losing 59-0 to SDSU. But FAMU didn't drag their asses onto an airplane and go play SDSU after a long trip the previous week to Idaho, so what is the comparison? FAMU's only loss was to FBS South Florida, which was a mediocre 6-6. FAMU is wise enough not to schedule any MVFC or Big Sky opponents, so all we can go by besides subjective opinions is the objective ratings. Sagarin suggests an appropriate FCS rating for FAMU would be #46 and they would be a 21-point underdog to Montana State, 10-point underdog to Albany. Other rating services are more generous, but none place FAMU higher than 9th.

Make your choice. If your conference chooses to play in the Celebration Bowl, take your million dollars and be quiet. The best conferences in FCS are the Missouri Valley, the Big Sky, and the Coastal. The MEAC and the SWAC are the third and fourth WORST. If you want to prove otherwise, stop talking and put your best teams in the tournament.

Update: Voters were not convinced by Becton's arguments. In the two final polls, FAMU was #10 and #11. Here's your (non-)Participation Trophy.

College football rant

The University of Delaware is transitioning its football team from the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) to the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). As an alumnus of two of the schools seeded high in the FCS playoffs, #1 South Dakota State and #3 University of South Dakota, I am taking notice of the Blue Hens and others abandoning FCS for a supposedly-higher level of competition. But how long will it be before the biggest boys in the FBS, such as Alabama and Ohio State, will get fed up with all these silly little teams calling themselves FBS? Some (i.e. pundits on the internet) believe the big schools will set up a new Super-FBS with the 64 or so top college football programs, leaving about 70 programs in limbo.

I'm not going to ponder (yet) whether these 70 silly teams plus the current 127 FCS teams will band together, or whether there will be three Division 1 subdivisions. First things first, what will be the structure of the new Super-FBS? Let's say there will be four conferences divided into eight divisions with eight teams each, with the current Big 10, Big 12, SEC and ACC providing most of those members. They could adopt an NFL-style schedule - seven games in division, two rotating games against teams in the opposite division of the same conference, two games against teams with a similar record in another conference (rotating each year), and one silly team tuneup game. The playoffs would be 16 teams, two teams from each division cross-seeded against other conferences. (No conference championship games.)

Throw a bone to the next 16 teams and the eight first-round playoff losers to play traditional bowls. That would only involve 24 teams versus the current 82, so that would take some figuring out whether the Famous Toastery Bowl (Dec. 18 this year in Charlotte) would take teams from the next level down or just go away.

Now this is the fun part. Borrowing from English soccer, the Super-FBS team that has the worst record over four years gets relegated. Let's say Minnesota is that team. They would get sent down to the lower level and South Dakota State could be promoted to replace them in the Big 10. According to the current Sagarin ratings which includes all Division 1 teams, Minnesota is #69 and South Dakota State is #29. According to the Sagarin formula, SDSU would be a 9-point favorite over the Goofers on a neutral field. Actually, Vanderbilt is probably the current worst so-called Power 5 team (and would be a 19-point underdog to the Jackrabbits), but I like tweaking Minnesota.

It's a pipe dream, I admit it. All the mediocre teams in the Big 10 and other major conferences would never agree to that. So, let's get back to current FCS schools moving up to FBS. On the Fargo podcast I often listen to, the participants think NDSU should just move up, even if it is to a crap conference like C-USA. Just get your foot in the door and figure it out from there. Looking back, it almost makes sense. In their transition from D2 to D1, NDSU and SDSU were part of the patchwork Great West, a crap conference if there ever was one, but one which served a purpose. Four years later in 2008, they were able to get into the Missouri Valley Football Conference. USD joined the MVFC in 2012, and UND moved from the Big Sky in 2020. NDSU and SDSU have come to dominate the conference, and the other two Dakotas are playoff teams this year. Just get your foot in the door, endure a few years of chaos, and it will all work out in the end, according to the theory. I hope whatever they do, the four Dakotas do it at the same time so we don't have this ridiculous situation where they don't play each other for 10 years.

I also want to tweak the flagship university of a state where I used to live, Massachusetts. UMass was strong in FCS, winning the title in 1998, and transitioning "up" about 10 years ago. UMass is currently 3-9, one of their better records in recent years, and does not belong to a football conference. Their current Saragin rating is #189, second-worst in FBS to Kent State. South Dakota State would be a neutral field 32.5-point favorite. Tell me whether being a bad independent FBS team was a good move for UMass. At the very least, you need a conference, even if it is crap conference like C-USA.

I think eventually there will be three subdivisions, and all will have their own postseason. The Power 64 will be #1, the bottom of the current FCS will be #3, and the question is what #2 in the middle will look like. Delaware will probably be back competing with the top of the current FCS in 10 years.

Update: The final Sagarin ratings put FCS Champion South Dakota State at #18, ahead of every G5 team and the majority of P5/P4 teams. From this part of the country, Wisconsin was #43, Nebraska was #60, and Minnesota was #77. And UMass finally did get a conference, the MAC. It's not really a geographic fit, and they are going to be one of the worst teams in the conference for a while, but they are now on the path to qualifying for a meaningless FBS bowl.

Democracy Dies in Darkness

The Associated Press and the Washington Post, the former paragons of excellence in journalism, now have their stories written by a machine. In the following, a machine "intelligence" determined that Baylor was playing Auburn at home. However, Baylor is located in Texas, not Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which is identified elsewhere in the article as the location of the game. Although it is an AP story, I found it on the WaPo site, so clearly they are fine with AI-written articles.

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No. 20 Baylor Bears tip off season at home against the Auburn Tigers

By Associated Press

November 7, 2023 at 3:44 a.m. EST Auburn Tigers vs. Baylor Bears

Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Tuesday, 9 p.m. EST

BOTTOM LINE: The No. 20 Baylor Bears open the season at home against the Auburn Tigers.

Baylor went 23-11 overall with a 12-3 record against non-conference opponents during the 2022-23 season. The Bears allowed opponents to score 70.3 points per game and shoot 45.4% from the field last season.

Auburn finished 21-13 overall with an 11-4 record in non-conference games in the 2022-23 season. The Tigers averaged 72.8 points per game while allowing opponents to score 67.7 last season.

___

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.

Wise guys

The two major political parties in the United States, particularly the Democrat Party, are indistinguishable from organized crime. They don't care about prosperity for all, just for themselves and their favored groups. We have a president who leads a crime family and a media corps that doesn't care.

Simple question

I really hope we don't have a rematch of the 2020 presidential election. But if we do, for me it comes down to one question. Do I want a president who is offensive, perhaps criminally so, but implements the correct policies, or do I want a president who has implemented ALL of the wrong policies and perhaps sold us out to Communist China for a few million dollars? Both candidates are vile, disgusting old men who should be retired, but for me the choice between them is obvious.