College football, and NASCAR? What the ... ?

You all know by now - Chris Henry, wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals, died on Thursday, Dec. 17. It's a tragic story, Henry had his fair share of issues on and off the field, but it's a shame to see someone so blessed and talented go so early.

He was only 26-years old, and it was widely publicized that he'd worked hard to overcome the problems he'd dealt with throughout his career. After being suspended from the NFL multiple times for various violations of the NFL Personal Conduct Policy, and even being waived by the Bengals in 2007, he looked to turn things around. Henry worked hard to improve the life he was living, and the poor decisions he was making. He cleaned up his act, and earned a spot back on the Bengals roster in 2008.

It's truly an eye-opening incident, and it's another reminder of how short life can be. It's not worth our time for me to tell you what I think went wrong in his life like most of the media aims to do, because obviously I don't know Chris Henry, I have no idea what kind of person he was. I've read the same stories you have - he was a guy looking for direction, and often times found himself in poor situations due to his bad decisions. What's important is though, is for those who are even remotely similar to Chris Henry to value what they have, and don't make mistakes he made.

I understand he was a professional athlete, making big bucks, "How can we possibly relate to him?" - that's not what I mean. I mean those people who are also struggling to find a direction to go in life, a path to take; learn from Henry and try to right your wrongs. It probably wont be easy, but it is possible. We are so quick to take life for granted, but a life can be taken even quicker.



The Bowl season started the other day, with Fresno State blowing another game against an inferior opponent. It's become somewhat of a trend in their postseason games - Fresno State will beat the teams they're not supposed to (example: They beat Georgia Tech, UCLA, and Virginia from 2002-2004 and Georgia Tech again in 2007), and lose to teams who they should beat comfortably (example: Air Force in 2000, Tulsa in 2005, Colorado State and Wyoming the past two years).

It's depressing to watch, each year local newspapers are headlined by something about Pat Hill's Bulldogs crashing the BCS party; finally breaking through and becoming a non-BCS school to earn a bid to a January bowl (something WAC rival Boise State has done multiple times now). Based on the Vegas odds, of all 34 bowl games, Fresno State was one of the biggest favorites to beat Wyoming (they lost in semi-embarrassing fashion). It was actually a pretty good game, Wyoming's true freshman quarterback made play after play when he had to. Simply put, Wyoming wanted it way more than Fresno State; to me that reflects coaching.

Fresno entered the game 8-4 with three of their losses coming to top 25 teams, and they were all competitive games. 34-31 in overtime @ Wisconsin, 51-34 to undefeated Boise State (was 41-34 in the fourth quarter), and 28-20 @ undefeated Cincinnati.

Pat Hill has continuously done a great job getting his teams up for the big games, while letting the games against lesser schools slip away. I've always been a firm believer that good coaches are far more dispensable than they're made out to be.

More than anything, I've always believed recruiting builds championships. Time in and time out, the teams who contend for national championships also contend for the top recruiting classes. Is that because of solid coaching though? If you constantly have the best talent coming in, aren't you already better than everyone else? That makes sense right? Or you could go the other way and say it takes a great coach to recruit those players and manage all of the egos, in other words - make the team mesh. I'm not sure which one is more accurate, or if there's even a difference - I'm just rambling, and since it's my blog I'm allowed to.

Anyway, with college football the subject of discussion - Who wants to see a playoff system implemented? Probably most of you. But let me tell you - bad idea. If anything should change about the current system, it should add a "plus-one" game, rather than a four, eight or 16-team playoff. Let me tell you why:

Say an eight team playoff system were to kickoff this year (last time I checked, eight teams was the consensus choice), lets take a look at what teams would qualify: obviously Alabama, Texas and Cincinnati right? All three are undefeated in major football conferences. The following three would likely go something like this (in no particular order)- Florida, TCU and Boise State, that makes sense, two more undefeated teams and one-loss Florida who was ranked number one throughout the season. Leaving two spots, so who gets those? It's a toss up between champ Ohio State (Big Ten champs, 10-2), Oregon (Pac-10, 10-2), and Georgia Tech (ACC, 11-2). Regardless - a team who's deserving gets left out.

You'll probably be quick to say "Then make the bracket more than eight teams." But the same thing will happen again, where teams on the bubble get left out, and rightfully criticize the system. Trust me. It's exactly what happens in the BCS right now, and it's exactly what would happen in a playoff system as well, no matter the number of teams involved.

One of the main factors against a playoff system that I haven't even mentioned is the length of a teams schedule. If you create an eight team playoff, you're adding an extra three games a teams schedule. Three games might not seem like much, but in college football, where the regular season is generally just 12 games, that's a big deal.

For arguments sake, lets add a plus-one system into the current post-season format and see where that leaves us: In 2003-2004, the season ended with a split national championship. LSU topped Oklahoma for the BCS National Championship, while USC finished the season ranked first by the Associated Press. Wouldn't a plus-one system be perfect here? It would add one last game to the season, determining a single, unanimous champion, rather than leaving fans unsatisfied with two teams celebrating one title.

More recently, in the 2006-2007 season, Florida (12-1) and Ohio State (12-0) met for the national championship, which Florida won, finishing the season 13-1. When the final rankings came out, Florida was one, and 13-0 Boise State was ranked second, despite being perfect all season. In a situation like this, a plus-one is ideal. It would then add a final game to the end of the season, with Boise State playing Florida.

This year a perfect plus-one situation is likely to come up again, obviously the winner between Alabama and Texas will be undefeated, and the winner of the Boise State - TCU game will finish undefeated. Then the two winners would square off, leaving us with one true champion. Isn't that why we like College Basketball's format? Partly because it's pure chaos for the first week, yes, but also because it gives us one team to call the best, there's no arguing.

I'm not saying the plus-one would be flawless, so don't get crazy and look to prove me wrong with a bunch of stats and research. For example - this year, if Cincinnati were to beat Florida (I don't see it happening), that leaves three undefeated teams, and a plus-one wouldn't really solve anything. But more than you'd think, a plus-one would be far more successful than a playoff system.

One of my buddies and I were talking the other day, when we became stumped on one single question, "What's America's obsession with NASCAR?" And also What does NASCAR even stand for? Actually, forget that second question - I don't even care. Anyway, lets think about three things that NASCAR drivers do to qualify them as athletes:

1.
2.
3.

That's my list, that's all I could come up with... blank lines. The most athletic thing Jimmie Johnson does is drive a car for a few hours, while holding his bladder. I refuse to let a man's bladder dictate whether or not he's an athlete or not. Football players have to run, cut, throw, catch, and a bunch of other crap, all while avoiding being decked. Every sport at least requires some sort of physical ability in order to excel. Cheer leading (which is NOT a sport, by the way) requires MORE athletic ability than NASCAR drivers, and I just said it's not a sport! At least cheerleaders have to move, and jump, and do synchronized stuff. Maybe that's the direction NASCAR should head: have the drivers be super attractive (which I would imagine rules out like 99% of current drivers) and have them do stuff in sync, like jumping and shaking pompoms (I don't know how to spell pompoms). At least then it can be considered semi-athletic.

To add insult to injury, the man I just spoke of, Jimmie Johnson was just named the tenth best athlete of the decade by Sports Illustrated. Because of that, SI just lost a customer. For Christmas I asked for a magazine subscription, and now Golf Digest gets my service.

What a joke though, the tenth best ATHLETE? There should be a separate category called "Best entertainers of the decade" and in a smaller text say, "In the world of sports". That category can have all cheerleaders, drivers and professional cyclists they please, and they'll never see a blog from me about it. (Hahahahaaaa!!! Joking about the cycling thing, that oughta outrage some people I know.)

Song of the Week - "Can't Stop Partying" by Weezer featuring Lil Wayne. It's not because it's Christmas break and because I can't stop partying, it's just a dope song, and those are the kinds worthy of earning Da Blaaahg's SOTW honors.. Dope songs. Enjoy it, and enjoy the holidays. Merry Christmas.