Sporting Fools
Sporting Fools
Sporting Fools
Sporting Fools
Friday, August 26, 2005
Blogpoll Discussion #6 (??)What criteria do you use to determine if a team and its players are good?
I tend to focus on talent, coaching scheme and their schedule. Talent is simple, the best teams have the best players. Case in point is USC. Believe me, Pete Carroll is a very good defensive coordinator and a decent head coach but he's nothing without this amazing surplus of talent he's got going through that swinging door in Los Angeles. He'll tell you himself it's not about the X's and O's but the Rexes and Beaus. Coaching scheme for me is simple: Does the team consistently play to their strengthes on both sides of the ball? Can they make adjustments on the fly and expose a team's weakness? Are the players mentally tough enough to execute everything out there? And schedule, I don't mean an easy schedule or a hard schedule, but when I look at a schedule do I immediately see three losses or do I think "if anyone can handle this treacherous road schedule, these guys can."
If you could choose one coach to build an offensive system for your school, who would it be? Conversly, who would you choose to devise the defense? Why?
I would take the offense installed at Iowa and the defense by Mickey Andrews at Florida State. I believe that dominance at the line of scrimmage conquers all and that's what the Hawkeyes do. It's a west coast system based on strong power running. I like USC's offense too and the way they would pound teams with LenDale White and plan big plays around White's running. On defense I want an aggressive scheme, I want a balls-to-the-wall approach on rushing the passer and blitzing. Andrews has a great high-risk/high-reward scheme. He loves to pin his ears back and send the defensive line straight ahead.
Describe your typical college fotoball Saturday.
My day could involve covering a game so I have to make alternate plans weekly. But in a perfect world I'd get up around 9 a.m. EST, have some fiber cereal and hit the track for about 45 minutes. I'd get back home to watch Gameday and I'd fire up the old computer and the coastal betting site and start checking lines and doing research. Usually at this point my friends are online and the amount of IMs and emails with betting information that's coming through is pretty high. Usually I'll try to flip through the 4-5 games I can get at noon and look on Sportsline to keep track of my bets. If there's a particular game I need to keep track of and its not on TV, I'll try to listen to it online if that's available.
Florida State usually plays at 3:30 and usually I'll take myself and my laptop downtown to one of the watering holes and continue to follow the games and my action there (thank god for wireless internet). Before I leave the house I might throw a couple games on the DVR that I won't get a chance to watch while FSU is playing. Hopefully the Noles won and I'm ahead on my bets. I'll come back home around 7 and make a little food in preparation for the night game and...more betting. On a good Saturday, FSN or TBS will have a nice 10:30 Pac-10 game to watch but if not I'll watch the games on DVR I missed earlier. Hopefully I'll cap the night off with a bottle of cider and ESPN's wrap-up show.