unless jake delhomme puts up six touchdowns tonight and stephen davis gets hurt, it appears that willie's destroyers will wind up on the outside looking in in the 2003 fantasy football playoffs. this could have changed had i:

1) followed my instinct and acquired the jacksonville defense (shutout, two turnovers, a few sacks today)

2) started bobby engram, i guess

3) started josh reed, had i been a genius

4) not drafted badly

oh well. good vibes to delhomme.

at least the davenport darts are in, with a shot to make some real noise in the postseason.

in other news, i guess the bcs is a bit dumb, no? but, of course, the solution is not to offer some contingency plan, nor is it to create a playoff system. no, my friends, the option is to go back to the old system. that would put the postseason matchups this way:

rose bowl: USC vs. michigan
cotton bowl: oklahoma vs. florida state
fiesta bowl: lsu vs. texas

these are, of course, hypothetical matchups. but the point is that they would have made so many games interesting come the start of the new year. i mean, who in their right mind is planning on watching k-state and ohio state? utterly meaningless, and stupid.

why is the playoff system wrong?

to have the championship game to take place new year's day, you'd obviously have to back-date the system. an eight-team tournament would have to start three-plus weeks before the championship, a sixteen-team tourney four weeks. (i.e. this year's championship game would be thursday, january 1. that would put the playoff dates as december 20, december 13, and december 6 - yesterday.)

teams that would be left out of an eight-team field: k-state, for one. florida state, for another.
teams that would be left out of a sixteen-team field: ole miss, or nebraska, or probably miami (ohio).

the point is, unlike the ncaa hoops tournament, there's no possible way you could get every team with even a reasonable chance to win into the field.

and you can't have the championship game in january. you're already cutting too far into the basketball season. and you can't start the tournament in november, because schools are too reliant on the 12- and 13-game schedule. and this ignores the 'academic constraints' of such a tournament.

point being, a playoff system is a bad idea. as is the bcs.

there's no perfect way to determine this thing; let's just let 'em play who they play, and then argue about it.


in other news, i generally find sideline reporters to be harmless people. many do a horrible job of it, but it is an artform that can be done well. and a reporter who asks probing questions can often get reasonable answers. (unless you ask lloyd carr. he's just a dick about it.) and i'd rather hear mark richt spout cliches than verne lundquist, anyway. generally speaking, they don't detract from a telecast and can add to it.

there is one exception to this rule, and his name is jack arute.

a rough transcript of his interview with k-state's bill snyder last night:

jack(ass) arute: i guess the understatement of the day would be that this is your biggest win.
bill snyder: is that your statement or mine?
arute: mine
snyder: ok then.
arute: how 'bout the way your team got those turnovers?

as a fat, stupid boy once said: "'great game michael' is not a question."

and finally, sunday night football gave us a bitchin' 'welcome back michael vick' introduction. so great that it featured approximately eight grown men in vick jerseys at urinals while a woman cooed 'i love the way you move.' it also featured the staff of the varsity yelling 'welcome back michael vick!'

jake delhomme just threw a pick. there goes that dream.