Reinventing the Wheel

 

Mr. Magic

For the second successive year, the Michigan Wolverines suffered an opening-week defeat at the hands of a team they should’ve beaten.  Last year, it was the mountain men from Appalachian State who ran through the Big House on their way to a I-AA three-peat; this year, however, it was a relatively unheralded Utah team who spoiled Rich Rodriguez’s maize-and-blue debut.

 

While many commentators will no doubt harp upon this loss as a singular indictment of Rich Rodriguez’s overrated status, I am viewing it in a much broader light: For me, the loss is a testament to now-all-too-common phenomenon that I like to call Reinventing the Wheel.

For an illustration of what happens when coaches try to overhaul already-effective systems, let’s consider one notable example:

The Nebraska Cornhuskers of the 1990s were scary.  Tom Osborne and company established a legacy of success that would extend from the untouchable Frazier-Phillips duo to the video-game ridiculousness of Eric Crouch.

Why were they so good? Well, it’s the same reason that I could never beat Dan “Cool As” Schmidt in Gamebreaker: the option.  When the Huskers were running the option offense, you knew that every game–without fail–was going to feature 300+ yards on the ground; even if you knew exactly what was coming, there was little you could do to stop it.

Enter Bill Callahan, and the overrated “West Coast Offense” (woohoo–it took the lousy Raiders to the Super Bowl, where they were outclassed by the defensive juggernaut of Tampa Bay), and suddenly Nebraska has become a thoroughly mediocre team.  Now, they’re just like every other team who recruits above-average “normal”-style players: They might win 7 or 8 games, but they could easily lose just as many.

I’d be willing to bet that if the Cornhuskers still recruited specifically for an option offense, they’d stand a much better chance of contending on the national stage.  Unfortunately, they tried to reinvent the wheel, and have since experienced a free-fall into irrelevance.  

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In much the same way, Rich Rodriguez is riding on the illusion that his success at West Virginia came from his system, whereas I would argue that the Mountaineers’ string of solid seasons was a direct result of Pat White and Steve Slaton; in other words, there were players who met a system that fit them perfectly.

Michigan, arguably the Biggest 1 of the Big 10, is not West Virginia, and the Big 10 is not the Big East.  Wolverines, Buckeyes, and Nittany Lions don’t play flashy, spread-happy football.  Quite the opposite: They recruit 300-pound corn-fed monsters who carry running backs to yards, touchdowns, and Heisman trophies.  It’s smashmouth football, a haven of 10-7 nail-biters and running between the tackles.

I, for one, don’t see the Michigan faithful jumping on the Rich Rodriguez bandwagon anytime soon–and why should they?  The Wolverine style has been successful for years, while Rodriguez’s spread offense led a better-than-good team to relative (yet national title-less) success.

In some instances, such as with Urban Meyer, consistent results justify wholesale reinvention.  When a guy turns wins 10 games at Bowling Green and leads Utah to an undefeated season, he earns the right to place his footprint upon any program he takes over (Keep in mind, too that Meyer did not exactly reinvent the Gators’ offense; the Old Ball Coach established a precedent for high-octane theatrics).  However, when a one-trick pony gets a job at one of the 4 or 5 most storied programs in the history of college football, it’s not necessarily the best idea to have him completely alter the identity of the program.  

There’s a reason that the option doesn’t work in the NFL; and now, there may be a reason that the spread offense proves unsuccessful in Ann Arbor.  A leopard can’t change its stripes–and perhaps a wolverine can’t change its horns.

In a nutshell, I hope Michigan goes 2-9.

Spurs!

With Darren Bent’s equalizer just moments before half-time, Tottenham drew even with Chelsea and managed its first point of the young season at Stamford Bridge. Juliano Belletti’s twenty-eighth minute goal gave the home side an early lead but the Spurs striker tallied his first score of the year and kept any single Premier League side from going without a point through the first three rounds.

Elsewhere, Man City welcomed back Shaun Wright-Phillips and he returned the favor by scoring twice in the second half to send the visitors to victory over Sunderland at the Stadium of Light. Stephen Ireland scored just before half for City’s first score.

Liverpool’s unsteady start to 2008/2009 continued with a nil-nil draw at Villa Park. For more on the Reds, see Rusty’s comments from last night, which after today’s match are even more apt.

Results:
Chelsea 1 – Tottenham 1
Man City 3 – Sunderland 0
Aston Villa 0 – Liverpool 0

With Chelsea and Liverpool both drawing even today, they remain tied atop the table with seven points through three weeks. Man City, Arsenal, West Ham and Boro are tied with six points each and it goes down from there.

Bad Start for Clemson

 

Those of you who thought Clemson would be undefeated and would have national title chances can go ahead and put that away for this year. The Tigers were absolutely awful last night in Atlanta getting crushed by what was supposed to be only an ok Alabama team. The supposedly young defense of Bama totally shut down James Davis and CJ Spiller to the tune of twenty combined rushing yards. Meanwhile the Tide offense racked up almost five hundred yards while Clempson couldn’t even muster two hundred. The final was 34-10 and Clemson’s only touchdown was on the opening kickoff of the second half.

A few other games piqued my interest yesterday.

1. I couldn’t have been happier with East Carolina beating Virginia Tech in Charlotte on a blocked punt returned for a touchdown. The old taste of your own was great and hopefully the Hokies will not rebound from this loss when they host Furman next weekend.

2. Virginia got destroyed at home against Southern Cal. I never expected a win or even for it to be all that close, but 52-7 is worse than I could’ve imagined. This might be a very long year for the Wahoos.

3. Mizzou was impressive in outscoring Illinois in St. Louis, though I didn’t really think Illinois is as good as people thought. Yes, they went to the Rose Bowl last year but a) they got crushed b) their best player is gone (Rashard Mendenhall) c) Ron Zook is their coach. That said, Chase Daniel has a rocket for an arm and really looked good last night. Maybe Mizzou will want to shore up their defense a little though.

4. Duke finally won another game, after beating Northwestern early last year, against JMU last night in Durham. 31-7 was the final, a very surprising result to me as JMU has a really solid 1-AA club. We’ll see if Duke can use it as momentum, but I still say they win no more than three games.

5. A few thoughts about an esteemed colleague: Pitt 17 – Bowling Green 27. Also, Florida Atlantic 10 – Texas 52. Yikes.

The Red Scare

 

Go Reds!!!

With the EPL regular season and Champions League qualifying both recently underway, the venerable Reds of Liverpool have exquisitely lived up to their reputation as one of the most frustrating, confusing sports teams in the world.  

In their opening Premiership contest, Rafa Benitez’s side were rescued by Fernando Torres’ 83rd-minute effort, which alongside his still-talked-about Euro 2008 performance will serve to bolster his status as one of the top 2 or 3 players in the world at present.

Following this near disaster, Liverpool came inexcusably close to plummeting out of the Champions League at the hands of a team that sounds more like an oil company than a football club.  Fortunately, Dirk Kuyt, the oft-forgotten Dutchman who is often lost amidst plaudits for Torres, new-boy Robbie Keane, etc., produced a 118th-minute strike that will long live in Liverpool lore.

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When I chose to follow the Merseysiders as my EPL team of the year, I knew what I was getting into — and, thus far, they have not disappointed.  There’s something to be said for uncertainty, especially the kind of uncertainty displayed by a talent-heavy team that sometimes looks like Real Madrid, and at others looks like Real Salt Lake.

Without question, the Red Ride will be a bumpy one this season.  I, for one, am excitedly looking forward to the ups and downs, the inevitable Benitez managerial saga, the talismanic passion of Steven Gerrard, the heroics of Fernando Torres, and the utterly wide spectrum of possibilities that lay before Liverpool.  They could easily pull a double (or treble), and they could by the same token finish 6th in the table and fail to bring home a single trophy.  One can never be sure.

Arsenal Down Toon, 3-0

Robin van Persie scored twice, including a penalty, and Denilson added to the damage as Arsenal easily routed visiting Newcastle at the Emirates Stadium in Saturday’s late contest. The clean sheet against Toon greatly stunts the progress of the visitors who had a surprisingly nice start to the season.

Struggling Clubs Big Winners in Early Action

Portsmouth 3 – Everton 0
Middlesbrough 2 – Stoke City 1
West Ham 4 – Blackburn 1
Bolton 0 – West Brom 0
Wigan 5 – Hull City 0

Pompey finally get points on the table after two Jermaine Defoe (hooray for my fantasy side!) goals sandwiching a Glen Johnson strike. The defeat of Everton away is a step in the right direction for Portsmouth after losing each of its first two matches.

At the Riverside, Afonso Alves scored his first goal of the season and an eighty-fifth minute goal by Tuncay Tuncay Sanli gave Boro a home win over Stoke City. A Justin Hoyte own-goal evened the score in the seventy-first minute for the visitors, who have yet to win a Premier League match.

Rovers had a second first half goal disallowed for offsides, a call that was erroneous, and Blackburn fell 4-1 at Upton Park. West Ham scored twice in the first twenty minutes before Jason Roberts brought one back for the visitors. Rovers could not complete several open opportunities in the second half and Craig Bellamy and Carlton Cole both scored in extra time to run the score to 4-1.

A nil-nil draw at the Reebok gave West Brom its first point of the season, a result that must have been disappointing for the home side who now carry four points through three matches.

Surprising Hull City came crashing back to earth in a 5-0 destruction at home to struggling Wigan. An own-goal started the scoring for the visitors which was quickly followed by Luis Antonio Valencia’s goal leaving a 2-0 score at half. Two Amr Zaki goals bookended an Emile Heskey score for the complete domination by Wigan.

Premiership Predictions – Week 3

Well apparently I’m even worse at this than I first thought. But here still are my picks for the third round of the English Premier League:

Saturday:
Portsmouth @ Everton – Everton
Stoke City @ Middlesbrough – Boro
Blackburn @ West Ham – Blackburn
West Brom @ Bolton – Bolton
Wigan @ Hull City – Hull City
Newcastle @ Arsenal – Arsenal

Sunday:
Tottenham @ Chelsea – Chelsea
Man City @ Sunderland – Man City
Liverpool @ Aston Villa – Liverpool

Fulham @ Man United – Postponed

Ivanovic – Out

With the start of college football, the NFL looming and baseball pennant races heating up, it’s sometimes easy to forget that one of the most entertaining tennis tournaments of the year is going on up at Flushing Meadows. The US Open started this week and already there is a massive upset. Super hot Ana Ivanovic, the tournament’s top seed on the women’s side, crashed out in the second round to 188th ranked Julie Coin. This marks the earliest a top seed has ever fallen at the US Open.

Obviously what we’d all love to see is a third consecutive grand slam final between Rafa Nadal, the new world’s number one, and Roger Federer, the four-time defending champion of the US Open. After the thrashing he took in Paris and the epic comeback denied at Wimbledon, Federer has to have revenge on his mind in a tournament he usually owns. Hopefully, even with America’s outrageous obsession with football, the US Open will be able to live up to it’s own lofty standards.

Early Returns for SEC & ACC

With college football officially starting last night, several ACC and SEC schools did well to escape first night games against inferior opponents. Here are the results:

South Carolina 34 – NC State 0
Vanderbilt 34 – Miami (OH) 13

Miami 52 – Charleston Southern 7
Georgia Tech 41 – Jacksonville St. 14
Wake Forest 41 – Baylor 13

Bigger games loom this weekend in each league, including another head-to-head matchup that is required viewing on Saturday night:

Clemson v. Alabama (in Atlanta)

ACC:
Virginia Tech v. East Carolina (in Charlotte)
Southern Cal @ Virginia
Delaware @ Maryland
McNeese St. @ North Carolina
JMU @ Duke
Kent State v. Boston College (in Cleveland)

SEC:
Georgia Southern @ Georgia
Hawaii @ Florida
Appalachian St. @ Louisiana State
Mississippi St. @ Louisiana Tech
Western Illinois @ Arkansas
UL Monroe @ Auburn
Kentucky @ Louisville
Tennessee @ UCLA
Memphis @ Ole Miss

Cocks Shutout Wolfpack 34-0

In one of the weirdest games I can remember, South Carolina outpaced NC State 34-0 at Williams-Brice Stadium last night. The game was 3-0 at half and 13-0 at the end of the third quarter before reserve (though maybe not for much longer) quarterback Chris Smelley engineered three touchdowns in the fourth quarter.

Starting quarterback Tommy Beecher was terrible, throwing four interceptions and getting sacked five times. He was only 12-22 for 102 yards and his longest pass was a dump off to running back Mike Davis.

Smelley looked infinitely more confident than Beecher and his stirring success in the fourth quarter will have fans demanding and coach Steve Spurrier likely inserting him in the starting lineup for next weeks’ game against Vanderbilt. Spurrier has never been known to have a long leash with he quarterbacks, so I expect to see Smelley on the field from the start at Vandy.

As for NC State, their defense really looked good in the first half and for most of the third quarter. However, that may have been due to how bad Beecher was. The first ten Gamecock points came after the Wolfpack offense gave up turnovers inside their own fifteen, so it’s tough to pin that on the defense. State’s offense took a pretty bad blow when redshirt freshman starting quarterback Russell Wilson was knocked out of the game (and apparently also literally knocked out) in the second quarter. With Wilson’s ability to run and scramble out of the picture, Carolina was able to focus more aggressively on Daniel Evans, last year’s starter and the replacement for Wilson.

If Carolina can play as they did with Smelley in the game, this can be a pretty good team. The defense was good and didn’t really allow much movement throughout the game, and obviously shut out NC State. Vanderbilt should be a game the Gamecocks can win, but not if Beecher (or anyone) plays as badly as he did last night.

Champions League Group Stage Set

The group stage of the Champions League is one of my favorite times of the year. It lasts all fall as the weather gets cooler, the nights get darker and it even occasionally snows. My first real experience with European soccer was during the 2003 group stage when I followed Rangers, Man United, Stuttgart and Panathinaikos while I was living in Edinburgh.

There is a great number of nations represented in this year’s group stage, maybe the widest ranging to date. Included are England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Portugal, Russia, Ukraine, Greece, Turkey, Holland, Belarus, Switzerland, Denmark, Scotland and Cyprus.

Interesting groups came out of the group stage drawing today in Monaco. The groups are as follows:

Group A:
Chelsea – England
AS Roma – Italy
Bordeaux – France
CFR 1907 Cluj – Romania

Group B:
Inter Milan – Italy
Werder Bremen – Germany
Pananthinaikos – Greece
Anorthosis Famagusta – Cyprus

Group C:
Barcelona – Spain
Sporting Lisbon – Portugal
FC Basel – Switzerland
Shakhtar Donetsk – Ukraine

Group D:
Liverpool – England
PSV Eindhoven – Holland
Marseille – France
Atletico Madrid – Spain

Group E:
Manchester United – England
Villareal – Spain
Celtic – Scotland
Aalborg BK – Denmark

Group F:
Olympique Lyon – France
Bayern Munich – Germany
Steaua – Romania
Fiorentina – Italy

Group G:
Arsenal – England
FC Porto – Portugal
Fenerbahce – Turkey
Dynamo Kiev – Ukraine

Group H:
Real Madrid – Spain
Juventus – Italy
Zenit St. Petersburg – Russia
BATE Borisov – Belarus

Last Chance for Week 1 Picks

Go to The Stormy Present and weigh in with the ten selected games for this weekend. With South Carolina-NC State and Georgia Tech-Jacksonville St. playing tonight, picks need to be in before this evening. The more entrants the better spread of points and the more interesting the results will be. So if you regularly look at this page, feel free to take a look and give your say.

Cocks Open Season with NC State

South Carolina will start their fourth season with Steve Spurrier at the helm tonight against NC State here in Columbia . As usual, the city is pulsing with activity, preparing for the onslaught of 80,000 fans in Williams-Brice Stadium and thousands more just outside.

Carolina had an amazing start to last season, beating Georgia between the hedges, knocking off highly-ranked Kentucky here in Columbia on a wet and rainy Thursday night and reached as high as no. 6 in the national polls. Then the shit hit the fan and the Gamecocks lost their last five games and weren’t invited to any bowl games. There was the 17-6 home loss to Vanderbilt while ranked no. 6 and then an overtime loss at Tennessee and a 23-21 loss to Clemson on a last-second field goal, here in Columbia.

So this year is a bit about redemption. Last year’s team was really quite good and then everything just fell apart. Injuries, especially on defense, played a huge part and the play at quarterback was pretty inconsistent. In 2008 Tommy Beecher will be starting for the first time, as a redshirt junior. Columbia native Mike Davis will be the featured back and Kenny McKinley leads the receiving corps. This is a team that can absolutely compete in the middle of the pack and above in the SEC. There are six winnable games in the first seven (NC State, at Vandy, Wofford, UAB, at Ole Miss and at Kentucky). Three of the last five games will be at home, though the opponents are infinitely tougher (LSU, Tennessee, Arkansas, at Florida, at Clemson). Arkansas can be beaten and Carolina will have revenge on its mind when hosting Tennessee. And of course the Clemson game is always a crap-shoot.

In my opinion, Carolina will finish 7-5. I’ve got them beating NC State, Vandy, Wofford, UAB, Ole Miss, Tennessee and Arkansas with losses against Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Florida and Clemson.

Liverpool Lucky to Reach Group Stage

A Dirk Kuyt goal in the 118th minute sent Liverpool through the third qualifying round and into the group stages of the Champions League, crushing the penalty shootout hopes of Standard Liege.

Other winners include (by aggregate):
Arsenal (6-0 over Twente)
Fenerbahce (4-3 over Partizan Belgrade)
Dynamo Kiev (8-2) over Spartak Moscow
Steaua (3-2 over Galatasaray)
Marseille (3-1 over SK Brann)
Shakhtar Donetsk (5-1 over Dinamo Zagreb)
Atlético Madrid (4-1 over Shalke)
Barcelona (4-1 over Wisla Krakow)
Juventus (5-1 over Artmedia Petrzalka)
Panathinaikos (3-1 over Sparta Prague)

Here are the lists of clubs from which the group stage will be determined. Matches will begin September 16 and we’ll cover them heavily here at the AD Hall.

Steaua Marches On to Group Play

A  Banel Nicolita goal in the fifty-seventh minute has given Steaua a 1-0 win over Turkish power Galatasaray at the Stadionul Ghencea. That goal gave the Bucharest side a 3-2 victory on aggregate, with future fixtures to be determined in the upcoming group stage draw. Steaua will be looking to replicate their great successes of the mid and late 1980s in European competition, with the pinnacle being Helmuth Duckadam’s astonishing penalty shootout performance to give the Red and Blues the 1986 European Championship.