Tweedle Dum, Dee tied in New Jersey

      1 Comment on Tweedle Dum, Dee tied in New Jersey

The Yankees and Phillies were nice enough to take a day off from their little baseball playoff thing today, to allow the good citizens of New Jersey to vote for their governor. So tonight, instead of debating who’s the bigger idiot, Charlie Manuel or Joe Girardi, New Jerseyites will be voting on who’s the bigger idiot, Jon Corzine or Chris Christie. And it’s a very close call. According to Pollster.com, the race is literally a tie:

It’s a shame Cliff Lee isn’t on the ballot; he’d win in a landslide. Even Yankees fans would be compelled, by the sheer force of Cliff Lee’s will, to vote for him. Instead, we are faced with two possible options: 1) Christie wins, which means Obama is OMG DOOMED; or 2) Christie has the election stolen by ACORN, in an act of blatant fraud personally spearheaded by Obama and his Chicagoite minions. (There is, of course, no possible scenario in which Christie could legitimately lose. There is only glorious victory and fraudulent defeat. I know this because the Right told me so, and the Right in 2009 is the Left in 2000-2006.)

Either way, one thing is certain: once it’s over, everyone will breathe a big sigh of relief, then get back to the important business of baseball.

So, anyway… um, Gooo Corzine, Beeeat Christie?? Ah, never mind, who cares, they’re both terrible.

By the way, I’ve got a predictions thread above. Have fun!

P.S. As noted in the predictions thread, the biggest election of the night is, of course, the one in Newington, Connecticut, the usually Democratic town that surprisingly elected Republican Jeff Wright to the mayor’s office in 2007 by a margin of 54.9% to 45.1%. Wright is now battling for re-election against Democratic town council member Thomas Bowen in what has become a heated race. Needless to say, the Wright-Bowen contest is a referendum on President Obama, and its outcome will single-handedly determine the future of his administration and indeed the entire nation, if not the world. 😛

P.P.S. Elections! Wheee!

The BCS at-large pecking order

      3 Comments on The BCS at-large pecking order

In the wake of the Eugene Massacre, my posts on the BCS championship game “pecking order” have lost all significance for USC fans. It would take a nationwide collapse of utterly epic, cataclysmic proportions — making the BCS chaos of 2007 look like a day at the beach — to get the two-loss Trojans back into the national championship picture. At this point, USC’s position in the title-game pecking order (or should I say quacking order?) is somewhere behind Boise State, TCU, Houston, William & Mary, Appalachian State, Glastonbury High School, and your local peewee league team. All thanks to this a**hole:

ept_sports_ncaaf_experts-514935088-1257049683

Now, having said that, I am personally still rooting for Texas, Iowa and Cincinnati to lose, in order to open the door to another glorious BCS controversy — and a potential invite for TCU or Boise State, assuming Oregon is the top one-loss team in the mix. But it doesn’t look likely to happen, what with Texas apparently peaking at the right time and needing only to defeat five utterly overmatched opponents (UCF, Baylor, Kansas, Texas A&M, and the champion of the dreadful Big 12 North) in order to finish undefeated and land, almost by default, in its appointed spot in Pasadena for a matchup with Florida/Alabama/LSU. So, unless and until there’s some movement at the top of the standings, I won’t be wasting too much more time with that “pecking order.”

But there’s a different “pecking order,” one that I’ve touched on briefly before, which is now extremely relevant to USC fans — and Notre Dame fans, too. It’s the BCS at-large pecking order, and unlike the contest to earn a spot in the championship game, it is determined primarily by non-football factors like national profile, potential ratings, and butts-in-seats, with actual athletic merit being almost a sideshow. You gotta earn your way into the Top 14 by season’s end, but once you’re there, the actual selections are all about money, money, money.

Anyway, here’s the deal. There are 10 available spots in the five BCS bowls. Six of them (including, presumably, both title-game slots) will go to the six BCS conference champions. Another spot, an “automatic at-large,” will go to either TCU or Boise State, or, in the unlikely event that both of those teams lose, possibly to one-loss Utah or Houston (currently #14 and #15, and sure to rise into the Top 12 if they win out). If no team from a non-AQ conference finishes in the Top 12 (or the Top 16 and ahead of the lowest-ranked BCS conference champ), then there’s no “BCS buster,” but that’s highly unlikely. Almost certainly, some mid-major squad gets an automatic ticket to the BCS.

That leaves three true “at-large” spots, which the bowls are free to fill which any eligible (i.e., Top 14) teams they want — but no more than one at-large per conference. After the jump, I consider who those three invites might go to.

Continue reading →