Tilting at Windmills

Let the bitching begin in earnest.

Paranoiacs and straight-up whiny bitches (you know who you are) that think they got screwed in last year’s USA Today Coaches Poll (one of the components in determining BCS rankings) can now have their little snogfest, comfortable with their conspiratorial knowledge that the world is out to get them:

The final USA Today Coaches Poll in 2010 will be secret.

That means the theory that Stoops has half of the Big 12 (and a bunch more of the overall voters) in his pocket will now no longer be confirmed, nor denied, for it’s hard to prove or disprove something without all of the facts (not that that matters usually).

AFCA Executive Director and Baylor god (small “G”) Grant Teaff wins the award for worst analogy of the day by comparing the coaches’ votes to the United States’ electoral system:

Gallup recommended the change because confidentiality leads to a better poll, according to Teaff. “Why do you have booths for people to vote in?” he said.

It’s about accountability, coach. Nobody cares who I voted for in the ’96 presidential election, but there are a shit-ton of folks who want to know where Tech savant Mike Leach put OU (1), Tech (2) and Texas (5) in the final 2008 poll (what excuse could he possibly have for voting his own team higher than UT?).

At one level, this tells us how important college football is. The electoral college system used for selecting the POTUS is decried and some would like to change it, but there hasn’t been a serious effort to change or abolish it in almost 40 years. Voices scream almost as loud about the BCS method and there have been discussions at the highest levels of the federal government to tweak it (presumably because they have nothing better to do).

Should it really be that big of a deal, though? Do people really care that ex-Washington coach Tyrone Willingham put Texas at #4 behind USC, then got fired for putting up a donut in the win column? We’re talking about football here, not something less serious like who is going to represent us to the nation and world for the next 2, 4 or 6 years.

Coaches will still be allowed to vote for their own team, so somebody might want to tell Mack. Tired of the silliness after voters still put Missouri ahead of OU after the 2007 Big 12 Championship beatdown, Stoops stopped voting in the poll.

So, in order to address the tinfoil hat theory that says Stoops has half of the coaches in his pocket, let’s take a look at the Stoops tree and how they voted in the final 2008 poll:

Bo Pelini – OU (1), Texas (2), Florida (3), Tech (6)
Mike Leach – OU (1), Tech (2), Florida (3), Texas (5)
Steve Spurrier (South Carolina) – OU (1), Florida (2), Texas (3) … which is exactly how they finished in the overall poll.
*Art Briles (Baylor) – OU (1), Florida (2), USC (3), Bama (4), Texas (5)
Kevin Sumlin (Houston) – doesn’t vote
Mike Stoops (Arizona) – doesn’t vote
Mark Mangino (Kansas) – doesn’t vote

*Briles included because he coached for Leach, ergo some think he’s in Stoops’ coaching tree. I don’t get it, but that’s what “they” say.

It’s a silly game, but if you really want to go down that path of the “well, those coaches are in your pocket” meme, here are Mack’s:

Gene Chizik (Iowa State) – Texas (1), Florida (2), OU (3), Tech (6)
*Mack Brown (Texas) – Florida (1), Texas (2), OU (3), Tech (8)
Todd Dodge (North Texas) – Texas (1), Florida (2), OU (3), Tech (9)
Dick Tomey (Syracuse) – Florida (1), Texas (2), OU (3), Tech (9)

*Yeah, Mack votes. It’s weird how a team that beat his got ranked 6 spots lower on his ballot, too.

As you can see, the whole argument about having coaches on your side didn’t really work in 2008. Will it have any bearing in 2010 when we’ll just be guessing at the coaches’ individual ballots? Your guess is as good as mine.

Our friends over at Barking Carnival thought it would be a great idea to come up with an Oklahoma All-Garbage team, pointing out trouble players at various positions and making a team out of them.

For their target audience, it was a fairly well-written and funny piece that made for a nice off-season story. The impetus was that it has been 20 years since CT was on the cover of SI in an orange, Cleveland County jumpsuit. With that backdrop, this submittal was pretty clever. Kudos.

There were just a couple of problems, though:

1. We Sooners were probably thinking “Yeah, they’ll bring up Buster Rhymes and Stanley Wilson. We know we know.” Actually, no. The article is poorly researched by what appears to be a young 20-something who did nothing but scan the SI article, then throw in Chaisson and Granger to spice it up.
2. Really, Texas? You really want to play the “all-arrest” team? Fine, I’ll play your game, you rogue.

Before listing enough Longhorn arrestees and asshats to fill out a two-deep, Orange-White game scrimmage roster, I want to address the first point above. If you’re going to go with an all-douchebag team (or whatever your criteria was), do a little research. Look, man, any number of us could have helped you fill out this roster. Despite your perceptions, we know our flaws and readily admit that yeah … Joe Don Looney was fucking cray-cray, but he was our guy. Never heard of Joe Don? My point exactly.

Since you admittedly said you’re so young you’ve only been following football for 20 years, it’s understandable (and also obvious from the article without you even telling us) why you’d miss so much low-hanging fruit like Kerry Jackson, Buster Rhymes, Marcus Dupree, Stanley Wilson, Jamelle Holieway (seriously, you missed Jamelle and put Brent Rawls on there instead??), Darryl Hunt … I’ll stop before my Sooner brethren start stringing me up. Just know, fellow Sooners, that I’m not trying to bag on our own guys, but just wanting to help this kid out with his research because he obviously only flipped through the old SI a bit before he logged into his WordPress account, using the password “itsfiveoclockandoustillsuckshahaha.”

It never gets old

Then you think it’s clever to include Keenan Clayton and Jermaine Gresham for what amounts to parking tickets. Srsly? Hell, go ahead and throw me on your team then. It took me a couple of months past the due date before I remembered to pay that $4.00 tollway bill I got. TxDOT slapped me with a $5.00 late charge on top of it. Can I play kicker?

Addressing point two above – really, you want to play this game? I guess 2007 just magically didn’t happen in Austin. I’m glad you were able to dig up Billy Sims, who played 30 years ago (not three, like Ramonce Taylor). Oh, by the way … if the best thing you could dig up on Billy was his performance at Sam Bradford’s Heisman ceremony (which I thought kicked major ass, Billy!), you totally failed on your Sims research.

I’m just the messenger here, Billy. You can BOOMA! whenever you want to, my man!

We’ll soon post our own compilation of similar Texas transgressions, going position-by-position.

I can’t make up stuff this good: a day after the world learned that UT claims a 2008 Big 12 football championship, Asterisk-gate continues on the 40 Acres. DeLoss Dodds has decided to pay $44,000 in bonuses to Mack’s assistant coaches as part of a contractual-incentive for winning … the Big 12 championship. Be sure to read some of the comments. They’re priceless.

So, in honor of this silliness, we at TaW thought we’d map out the timeline to see how we got here. A special thanks to DeLoss Dodds and the UT SID for helping out us bloggers during football nuclear winter.

May 20 and 22, 2008: Annual Big 12 spring meetings

Football revenue-sharing and player eligibility highlight the agenda. Most are mainly looking forward to seeing the conference’s success over the past 10 years translating into something besides chicken casserole and soggy rolls at the media trough buffet.

July 31, 2008: Big 12 issues press release regarding divisional tie-breaking procedures

Ah … here they are: the tiebreaker procedures that will be used in the 2008 season. It’s good the Big 12 did this just in case there’s a question later and we need to refer back. Some of these are a little bit overkill, though. A three-way tie? There’s no way would that ever happen*.

Divisional Champion: The (eligible) team with the best winning-percentage of all divisional members in its eight conference games is declared the divisional champion and representative to the Dr Pepper Big 12 Conference Football Championship Game. A team ineligible under NCAA or Big 12 rules for postseason (bowl) competition shall not compete in the Championship Game.

Divisional Tiebreakers:

The following procedure will determine the representative from each division in the event of a tie:

a. If two teams are tied, the winner of the game between the two tied teams shall be the representative
b. If three or more teams are tied, steps 1 through 7 will be followed until a determination is made. If only two teams remain tied after any step, the winner of the game between the two tied teams shall be the representative.
1. The records of the three teams will be compared against each other
2. The records of the three teams will be compared within their division
3. The records of the three teams will be compared against the next highest placed teams in their division in order of finish (4, 5 and 6)
4. The records of the three teams will be compared against all common conference opponents;
5. The highest ranked team in the first Bowl Championship Series Poll following the completion of Big 12 regular season conference play shall be the representative
6. The team with the best overall winning percentage [excluding exempted games] shall be the representative
7. The representative will be chosen by draw.

August 30, 2008: College football season starts.

Our summer of discontent has finally ended and football season has started. #4 OU sleepwalks 57-2 past Tennessee-Chattanooga with Joey Halzle throwing a touchdown pass in the second quarter to put OU ahead 50-0 at halftime. This prompts the first of many shrill cries throughout the season that the Sooners run up the score (hereafter abbreviated “RUTS”). Howard Schnellenburger spends too long at Scholz’s and misses kickoff of the game between his Florida Atlantic Owls and #11 Texas. He missed his quarterback’s happy-go-jacky routine against UT’s young secondary, putting up over 2 bills through the air by halftime. By the time Drunkenberger shows up, UT’s on the way to crushing FAU 52-10.

September 13, 2008: Get bent, Pac-10

Sam Bradford has maybe his finest game as a Sooner, completing 18 of 21 passes for 304 yards and 5 TDs. The #3 Sooners smashed UDub in Seattle, which despite the Huskies finishing the year as one of the worst teams in college football, it finally showed that OU could perform well on the road. The shrill cries this week came from people warning everybody in Austin to build an ark before Hurricane Ike washed the entire city away. UT postpones its ass-kicking of Arkansas while just enough rain fell in Austin to fill a pitcher of diluted margaritas at El Arroyo.

October 11, 2008: UT wins Red River Rivalry

Bradford throws for 387 yards and 5 TDs, but thanks to an inability to stop #5 Texas in crucial second half situations (that was your backup plan, Venables? Seriously?), #1 OU falls to Texas, 45-35. With the win, Texas takes essentially a two-game lead in the Big 12 South (see Tiebreaker A). Brainfart Players of the Game are shared by Brent Venables, Brandon Crow and the entire Sooner kickoff coverage team. Two phantom personal fouls against Colt McCoy and a disallowed Sooner interception in the end zone leave Oklahoma fans seething.

October 25, 2008: OU 58, Kansas State 35

The #4 Sooners look like they’re playing Madden 2008 on Playstation as they put up 55 points by halftime on Kstate, prompting cries of RUTSing by those who didn’t actually watch the game. This running theme will continue.

November 1, 2008: #7 Texas Tech 39, #1 Texas 33.

Tech’s Michael Crabtree shakes free of two Longhorn tacklers and scores with :01 second left to upset Texas and turn the college football nation upside down. Leach says his team plays 60 minutes, including the last minute of the game. By Monday, Texas fans will forget this game ever happened. With this game, Tech is now – gasp – atop the Big 12 South and just has to win at Oklahoma to go to the Big 12 championship.

Meanwhile on that same night back in Norman, #4 OU is teabagging Nebraska 28-0 with 9:30 to play in the first quarter on the way to a 62-28 rout. (insert RUTS meme)

November 8, 2008: #6 Oklahoma 66, Texas A&M 28.

After dropping 60 on Nebraska, the BCS has no love for the Sooners and drops them two spots. OU takes out its frustration by hanging 60 again, this time at College Station. It was 21-0 at the end of the first quarter. OU had 66 points with 3:54 still to play in the third quarter, the final points coming on Dom Franks’ 39-yard fumble return. RUTS cries continue from those who don’t have televisions or eyes.

November 22, 2008: #5 Oklahoma 65, #2 Texas Tech 21.

It was 42-7 by halftime and the entire stadium was jumping around. Bradford threw deep for a 66-yard pass to Ryan Broyles late in the third quarter. OK, maybe Stoops ran this one up, but he and the entire team was pissed. With the win over previously undefeated Tech, there is now a three-way logjam atop the Big 12 South standings between OU, Tech and Texas. Longhorns immediately begin discounting Tech since the Sand Aggies just got beat by 44 points, essentially trying to punish OU for doing what Texas should have done itself three weeks earlier. The politicking begins.

November 29, 2008: #3 Oklahoma 61, #12 Oklahoma State 41.

OU wins a wild, back-and-forth shootout in Stillwater by scoring 17 points in the last 8 minutes of the game. Despite this being a tight, three-point game with 10 minutes to play, people like Geoff Ketchum convince themselves that OU is once again* RUTSing. I call Ketchum’s show and rhetorically call him a “freaking idiot” on the air. UT fans and interwebs posters are convinced that there’s not even a prayer that OU will jump Texas in the BCS poll (UT is ranked #2, OU #3). As shown in the above-cited tiebreaker procedures released from the Big 12 offices four months prior, the team that is rated higher in the next BCS poll will go to the Big 12 championship the following week and will play North Division champion for the Big 12 title.

December 1, 2008: OU jumps Texas in BCS poll.

Neither airplane banners nor Mack’s politickin’ nor the plaintive wailing of “45-35” could make BCS voters forget that Texas lost to Texas Tech. OU’s blowouts down the stretch impressed the voters as much as UT’s whining turned them off, and they install OU as the #2 team in the nation, behind Florida and just ahead of Texas. Since there is a three-way tie in the Big 12 South (not a two-way tie, but a three way … you don’t get to discount losses whenever it’s convenient, Texas), according to rule b(5) posted above, OU will play Missouri for the Big 12 championship next week in Kansas City:

The highest ranked team in the first Bowl Championship Series Poll following the completion of Big 12 regular season conference play shall be the representative

In a presser following the announcement, Stoops makes sure to point out that there were three teams, not two, involved in the process. Oh, and maybe (just maybe) OU deserved to go just as much as the other two.

December 14, 2008: Sam Bradford wins Heisman

Bradford had the best season in school history for a quarterback, throwing for 4,700 yards and 50 TDs, and leading the highest-scoring team in NCAA history. Heisman voters chose him over Colt McCoy and Jesus Tebow. What does this have to do with Asterisk-gate and UT not playing for the Big 12 championship? In reality, nothing. However, in the failed logic of UT fans, it was just another reason to think that somehow the rules they couldn’t change after the fact or whine their way around screwed them.

January 8, 2009: #2 Florida 24, #1 Oklahoma 14

The Sooners come up just short of winning their 8th national championship, but when the other team has Jesus at quarterback, really what can you do? What does this have to do with Asterisk-gate and UT not playing for the Big 12 championship? In reality, nothing. However, in the failed logic of UT fans, it was just another reason to think that somehow the rules they couldn’t change after the fact or whine their way around screwed them. Obviously UT would have been in this game if they had just played in Kansas City instead of Oklahoma because, you know, it was like a foregone conclusion and whatnot that they’d beat Missouri. Duh.

February 13, 2008: Asterisk-gate gains momentum

Woodward and Bernstein Our friends at the Red Dirt Kings are among the first to notice that UT is somehow claiming a Big 12 championship they did not win. Unfortunately, the big boy media either doesn’t see the story, or because they didn’t report it themselves, choose to ignore it. Of course we at TaW, never to be confused with the big boy media, were all over it and so were the tens of loyal readers.

April 5, 2008: The sh*t hits the fan

Texas’ spring game the prior Sunday had all kinds of media inside the bowels of UT’s Moncrief-Neuhaus athletic shrine. Somebody finally noticed what had been up there for at least two weeks: the Horns are claiming they won* a Big 12 championship. Much laughter and derision ensue.

April 6, 2008: UT decides to take down the 2008*

After repeated calls and guffaws from, well, pretty much everybody, the UT SID decides to pull the offending numbers (and asterisk) off the wall. Mack Brown claims he knew nothing about it, according to Asst. SID John Bianco, who prefaced the canned statement it with “let me answer that for Mack.” I sort of don’t blame Mack for not minding the 2008* being on the wall. After all, if you only have one conference title in a quarter century as a Division I head coach, you’ll take all the help you can get.

April 7, 2008: Longhorn coaches get bonuses for winning* Big 12 Championship

In what essentially amounts to “yeah, we still think we won it,” UT decides to go ahead and pay Mack’s assistants bonuses they would have received had they actually won the Big 12 Championship the way you’re supposed to: playing for it on the field and taking home a trophy. UT president William Powers said it was “the right decision.” Mack didn’t get a bonus, ostensibly because after further review, the Longhorns actually didn’t win shit.

April 8, 2008: Where does Asterisk-gate go from here?

Bloggers can only hope the madness continues as we search for something – anything – to write about from now until fall practice begins. Given the reputation for clownish antics on the 40 Acres, we at TaW might have to dig deep and hire a phalanx of writers to keep up.

From the “Don’t Confuse Me with the Facts” files, the University of Texas football is proudly claiming a 2008 Big 12 championship.

No, we’re not making it up.

The writing on the wall, as it were, pretty much speaks for itself. I fully expect the Pirate to hang a jolly-rogerish Big 12 championship banner* somewhere around Jones Stadium, too.

Our astute friends at the Red Dirt Kings were all over this story back in February. Those paying attention years prior should have known something like this would happen one day when DeLoss Dodds claimed relations with Morgan Fairchild.

So, in celebration of everybody getting a ribbon, here’s a rundown of a few similar asterisk events. Feel free to add your own:

• OU won the 1988 basketball national championship.*

• Ramonce Taylor was holding it for a friend.*

• Bobby Reid’s momma didn’t really hand-feed him fried chicken.*

• WMDs found in Iraq.*

• The Titanic was just stopping for ice.*