Behold My Peeps

You know being that I do go to church when I'm actually in town on a Sunday and don't have a game (an increasingly rare occurrence these days), I'm kind of an Easter fan. I remember getting a new goalie stick one Easter that was a complete shock. I remember getting a chocolate bunny in a New York Mets jersey (I could only eat the ears) and I remember the year my birthday fell on Easter, and we celebrated with a big cookout with my friends.

But nowadays....I don't look forward to Easter. Sure, I could say it was because my 14-year old got Easter Egg dye all over the counter and had to bleach it out (and no I wasn't home for this), or it could be because I'm not a fan of Cadbury Eggs. But no, I hate Easter because of one thing...Peeps. Yes, those peeps up there in the photo... those disgusting, ugly, heinous things that pass as Easter goodness. Why do those things get resurrected every April? I have had a weird aversion to them since I was a kid...I hate them...look at them...they are so creepy. This borders on how much I get sick at the sight of a bowl of cereal with milk (wifey handled the breakfast for the kids, thanks).

Anyways...people, especially my family, know I hate those things....so what did I find on my desk this morning? Peeps. In my phone (not on....in)? Peeps. On my computer? Peeps. In my drawer? Peeps. I'm scared to go to the bathroom right now. How can I thank for this besides my daughter? Well...Jeff Tingey signed the giant poster that they also left in my office, so I think I know my daughter's accomplice. I do enjoy working here! OK, onto some real stuff.

Tournament Expansion
I'm guessing that Brad might touch on this more, but this whole tournament expending to 96 teams looks like a done deal, and it's sparking plenty of debate. ESPN's Dana O'Neill has a great piece on why it's a monumentally stupid idea. There's plenty of arguments either way, but before I get to the one I want to talk about (which NO ONE IS MENTIONING), let's talk about why this is going to happen.

Money.

See, that was easy, wasn't it? Now, far be it from me to give the NCAA grief about expanding the tournament and maybe opting out of their mega-billion dollar contract with CBS during a massive recession, but let's look at how this will absolutely murder the smaller school conference such as say, oh , I don't know....the Big Sky.

Right now, there are 65 teams in the tournament, and 64 games, but the NCAA grants what they call a unit to 63 games, as the two play-in game winners don't receive a unit for that game, only for winning and advancing into the field of 64. Never mind that the play-in game contains two teams that automatically earned entry into the tournament field and the play-in game should have the final two at-large teams trying to play their way into the tournament (and yes Utah State, I'm looking at you).

Anyways, a unit is defined as a game, and a unit carries over for six years, so let's take this year. Montana played in one game, and was credited with one unit (well, the Big Sky gets it). The Big Sky has six units from one team in the tournament for the past six years, plus we are still getting a unit because of Montana's win a few years back over Nevada, so we have seven units. Each unit gets assigned a dollar amount based on the NCAA Tournament (last figure I saw was $152,000 per year, so one unit equals about $912,000 over the course of six years. That money is divided equally among the conference teams usually (it is in the Big Sky).

Now let's look at the Big Ten. They had Ohio State, Michigan State, Minnesota, Purdue, and Wisconsin all make it, so that's five units. But Michigan State played in four games and will play in five, Purdue three, Ohio State three, Wisconisn two and Minnesota one. The Big Ten actually gets credited with 14 units this year. that's $2,1 million kids....or 13 times more than what the Big Sky got (Michigan State can get to six units, but not seven...there is no bonus unit for winning the title).

Now...let's say the tournament expands to 96. How are we paying this out? Even though the contract is bigger, the payments per unit might be slightly smaller per unit since there are more units (96 instead of 64). Now, this doesn't affect the big conferences, because they will be the leagues supplying most of the teams to get the field to 96. ESPN's Joe Lunardi said that if the tournament this year was a field of 96, 13 Big East teams would make the tournament. What's funny is like two years ago only 12 teams qualified for the Big East Tournament. Brilliant.

So a league now like the Big Ten...instead of getting 14 units this year, might get 17 or 19 units...and how do you ignore the units for the 32 teams with a first round bye? You have to pay them, otherwise teams will prefer to be a 9-seed, kick some 24-seeds butt, and get the payout for the conference while the 8-seed sits on their thumbs.

But all of that...that's not my argument to why this is dumb. My argument is because you are fundamentally changing the tournament, and making it SO MUCH TOUGHER for the bigger schools. You don't believe me? Let's look at Montana from this past year.

The Grizzlies were a 14 seed. Now, people keep assuming that when you add these other 32 teams (31...forgot the playin fiasco), that they will be the bottom 32 teams...but there is no way that will happen. Those 32 teams will push the 14, 15, and 16 seeds currently all the way down to the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th seeds. So Montana, instead of opening against #3 New Mexico, will get to play the #11 seed instead, who would be one of the first teams out (probably a Dayton or Rhode Island or Illinois). Then the winner of that game will face off against the #6 seed, say Notre Dame. Seems a little easier for the #22 seed than the old way as the #14 seed, no?

But what about the #1 seed....Duke. How much tougher is it for the Blue Devils. Well, they get a bye, but that's not Arkansas-Pine Bluff or Winthrop waiting for them as the #16 seed, because they are now the #24 seed and getting eliminated by the #9 seed. Now, Duke now gets the winner of the #16/#17 game, probably a team like Memphis or South Florida. Not quite the same as Arkansas-Pine Bluff, but hey, they are only playing once that first weekend anyways.

And yes, they are going to have the same opening weekend, meaning the first Thursday and Friday are 16 games, and Saturday and Sunday are 16 games. then the second round will start on Tuesday, meaning teams will play Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday or Wednesday, Friday, Sunday. Say you are the #9 seed like Northern Iowa...here's a potential schedule.

Tues., March 16, travel to first round site
Wed., March 17, practice day at opening rounds site
Thurs., March 18, Opening Round game (#9 vs. #24)
Fri., March 19, practice day at opening rounds site
Sat., March 20, Round of 64 game (#9 vs. #8), fly back home late after the game to Cedar Rapids, do laundry in a hurry
Sun., March 21, Fly to Second week site
Mon., March 22, practice day at second week site
Tues., March 23, Round of 32 game (#9 vs. #1) .. think UNI beats Kansas with this schedule? Let's say they do....
Wed., March 24, practice day at second week site
Thurs., March 25, Sweet 16 game (who knows who they are playing at this point)
Fri., March 26, practice day at second week site
Sat., March 27, Elite 8 game
Sun., March 28, Fly home

Now, is the NCAA serious? Really? This is your schedule for STUDENT-ATHLETES. And you still want to hold schools to an APR standard?

Other arguments I've heard is that it will help coaches keep jobs, which I don't think will happen...I think more coaches will lose jobs (AD to coach: You couldn't make it in a 96 team field? Really?)

Also...Um...Mr. NCAA...the ladies would like to know about their tournament. You know, the whole gender equity thing. The NCAA has said it's not about money, but that many of their tournaments have expanded, and the men's tournament doesn't have a solid enough percentage of teams making the postseason tournament. Well guess what...the women have the same amount of teams, so I guess you better expand theirs too, or someone somewhere will have themselves the world's easiest lawsuit to win.

Or they could keep the greatest tournament in America the way it is. What do I know...

Football Might Not Practice Today....
John Zamberlin just came down to inform me that due to the expected weather, they might cancel practice. Watch the main site for that information.

Speaking of football, Channel 6 has a new sports anchor in Matt Gittins, and if you go here and click on the 3/30/10 sportscast, you can see him and his first report on Bengal football. I honestly hadn't watched any local news lately since I've been catching up on my DVR stuff (LOST/FlashForward/V/Survivor/The Office/Family Guy/The Marriage Ref ... I've been gone, can you tell?), but he's pretty good...I think you guys will like him. Scott Bemis and Alyssa Chin had a pair of stories with Coach Z previewing spring ball, and a nice piece on Phil Earley.

Heck, even I tried a rudimentary hand at a video report.

And of course, you can keep up with Kelvin Ang and his spring practice musings, as he is at all the practices.

This blog was a long one, but everyone enjoy your Easter! Softball and track and tennis all have events so watch the main page for the information...and do not send me any more Peeps...seriously, I have enough here.

----Frank

Game Week...and Own Goals

Ah the road of the crowd. The roar of Arizona State fans giving me grief because I mistakenly put "Wildcats" instead of "Sun Devils" on the website in the little story I do for the weekly game notes...er...Game Notes. Yes a fan called both me, and Jeff Tingey, and yes, I fixed it. While I'd love to blame someone...I just goofed up. Less you think I don't stand up when I screw up, I actually posted apologies at Devils Digest and Sun Devils Message Board. Yeah, I manned up...I'm saying it.

However, just to get you all in the mood for a little pigskin, and a big weekend in general in road athletics (soccer at the Governor's Cup, and volleyball also at Arizona State) here are some good links and stuff.

First of all, checking the local news stations websites should be required viewing. Brad Shellgren and Paul Shahen at KPVI have video from Arizona, Oklahoma, and of course ISU press conferences...Paul was in Tempe....nice. Check out their sportscasts from 8/31 and 9/1. Over at KIFI, there's almost too much video to link to, but check out Alyssa Chin's piece on the offense (the defense and special teams will be up later this week), and there are also good pieces on Coach Z talking about Babe Caccia, and some of the newcomers on the volleyball team.

Nothing new in the Journal today, but Kelvin Ang is working on a huge John Zamberlin piece about his playing career for this weekend, and his last big piece was the Tuiasosopo Niusulu piece which was awesome, so this should be fun. He of course adds to his blog daily.

Now, fun times in Tempe, where Dennis Erickson has suspended "5 or 6" players. The media down in Tempe is scrambling because....well..that's all they said. They didn't say who the five or six are. Nice right? Don't you love big time football? Maybe John Zamberlin should have said in the press conference that one or three guys might not make the trip due to eligibility issues, but not say who they were. That would have been fabulous LOL. The East Valley Tribune, DevilsDigest, and many others are trying to figure out the names. The might need these guys to help figure it out.

Dennis Erickson didn't address in much in his press conference, but he did talk a little about knowing John Zamberlin, and his thoughts on Idaho State. Of course, you can watch all of ISU's press conference proceedings on the official site as we posted them on Monday afternoon.

By the way, of the 39 FBC/FCS games this week....the Washington Times doesn't think too highly of our chances...

Governor's Cup Conundrum
Forgive my little rant here, but when you get ready for soccer this week and the Governor's Cup, don't read Boise State's version of the tournament history. It's wrong. Doug Link and I argue about this all the time, but as I've mentioned to him before, I've been here for every single one of these deals. The Governor's Cup is the accumulation of the results between the three Idaho schools. The first three years it was done in a format were one school hosted the other two, so that everyone got to have two home games every third year, since home games for new programs are hard to come by. In 2001, Boise State won the cup, but they don't even acknowledge that, as they said all the games weren't played, but that year our game with Idaho got cancelled and because of a date problem and we couldn't work it back into the schedule, and then 9/11 happened, and whatever.

Then it went for a few years were each team would host one, and travel to the other (ISU, UI, and BSU), and now they are back to the everyone at one site format.

Boise State doesn't recognize one of the ties in which we retained the cup (the original rules of the cup....again, I was a part of this, was whoever had the better record won the cup, and if there was a tie, it was goal differential, then it was goals scored, and it it was tied after that, whoever had possession of the cup retained the cup. That happened with us, and we always state we retained it after a tie.) and BSU even mentions that Seattle was the Idaho Governor's Cup. That can't happen...they ain't a part of Idaho....

So anyways, Doug Link and I have agreed to disagree on this, and they go with their version, and we go with our version. Of course, I think my version is the right version, and BSU thinks there's is correct...either way, a little soccer controversy never hurt anyone, and makes the proceedings more fun. FYI, Boise State won it last year...

Speaking of controversy
Getting ready for Oklahoma and Arizona State, I just love dealing with soccer controversy, but here I am again in the middle of it...and poor Annamarie Hofstetter. When is a goal not a goal? Apparently when she scores it. Here's the deal...on Friday, she takes a free kick, which deflects off a defender and into the net. Southern Utah had no SID present....just a student working his first game apparently from what I was told. He didn't know how to score it and credited it to Hofstetter. Great right? Well, they changed it to an own goal after he talked with the referee.
Now, all the ref said was that the ball hit the defender and went in, and had it not hit the defender, it would have been saves (Allison and Hof both said the exact same thing) and that it was an own goal. Um....see, that's why refs ref and I do what I do. I have to read the scorer's rulebook....I'm guessing the ref didn't, because that isn't an own goal. It's pretty clear in the scoring section of the rulebook that if a player's shot is deflected into the goal, then the player who shot the ball gets credit for the goal. If a player shoots or passes a ball back into their own net....that's an own goal.

The guy I feel sorry for is Kyle Cottam, who is SUU's SID for soccer, who wasn't there and has to go on here say from his coach (who admitted he didn't have a good look at it) and his student, who doesn't really know soccer. We are awaiting the game film and I'm gonna watch it for myself, and if it's pretty obvious this is scored wrong, I'll have to go over folks head to get this changed. What sucks is poor Annamarie hasn't scored since the second game of her career...she is a senior now. Jon Kasper has my back on this...for now it is staying as an own goal (we had switched it already in the notes for this week figuring this was a no-brainer....boy was I wrong).

I love crap like this...we had this at Boise State in fact in 2006...Jason Erickson was there, and we were playing Idaho and an obvious goal was mistakenly ruled an own goal. We got that one switched pretty quick, but not without some hassle...and here I am three years later with the same thing.

I agonized last year when I credited an own goal against UC Davis, but the ball wasn't going in, and our player tried to clear the ball away and hit it into our net by mistake...that's an own goal. Honestly, soccer should get with the rest of America and credit the goal to the last player to touch it. Maybe I'll try to get that changed.

And Away We Go....

Finally, after scrimmages, exhibitions, you name it, we officially, officially start the 2009-10 athletic year with the soccer team traveling to New Mexico to take on the Lobos. I personally have a soft spot for the Lobos as the first football game I ever worked was the ISU at New Mexico game in 1998. Ironically, my predecessor the esteemed Glenn Alford worked HIS first football game at New Mexico for a Bengal-Lobo encounter in 1967. If we ever schedule New Mexico in football for a season opener again I'm gonna start looking behind me though....

Soccer Stuff
Tim Flagstad previewed today's match in the Journal, and then he really goes in-depth on the blog about the freshmen and his thoughts on the season ahead...a must read for the soccer fanatics in all of BengalLand. Also, you can get ISU's match notes here, and New Mexico's here.

Volleyball Scrimmage Tonight at 6:30 pm
Pretty self explanatory headline...that scrimmage is taking place at Reed Gym. I have to score the thing....it could get ugly.

Scooter Hanging in There
Sometimes Kelvin Ang gets this odd rap for being a bad guy which is always funny to me, but he's been covering football now for a while, and for the most part, his stories, such as this fantastic piece on Tubotein Taylor's recovery that ran today, and how the team has come to his side, are just fantastic reads. Kelvin tries to look for stories, and maybe that's it, but he's proving to be a very good writer. That Taylor piece is a great read on a story many reporters might have just forgotten about and dismissed.

Football Scrimmage Inside Holt Arena on Saturday
Holt Arena is fairly busy today and tomorrow, with the old lockers getting torn out today, and then the scrimmage tomorrow. Bengal Foundation members should have received their invitation to the BF BBQ tomorrow at Holt, and all freshmen students will be at Holt Arena for Holt Hurrah, where the incoming freshmen will learn the fight song and get to meet the various teams, take part in drills and such, and generally speaking, have a good time before watching the scrimmage.

The SID and statguy in me prefers the scrimmages inside by the way, because I don't have to guess at the numbers, and I can see the stuff better then from the sidelines.

The New Kids In Town...
Not only are the student arriving, but all the department graduate students as well. Brandy Crum in the training room is already here, but Kristin Kehrer formerly with the University of Detroit is here as a G.A. in the strength and conditioning office with Mark Campbell (she and Joe Cullen can swap stories about moving from Detroit to Pocatello), and even the new G.A. in our office, Jaime Schroeder, straight from Washington State University, will get in town today. In a case of who you know, when I worked at the NCAA Tournament in Boise, Jaime was part of the Wazzu student crew assigned to me. When Mitch Worthington left the G.A. spot to head to air traffic controller school (way more money for equal stress LOL), we ended up getting Jaime, who was the star of the student staff at Wazzu and will handle track, cross country, golf, and assist with other stuff. Of course, Katie Zigars is still around, and it's funny, this is officially year two for her, but she also has a year as a G.A. here, and then the interned for three years, so it's more like six years (heck, this is just my 12th here).

I'm personally hoping Jaime ends my run of one-year G.A.s...and she has no relation, but her last name is pronounced just like David Schroeder.

Facebook Me
Funny that that is now a verb, but you can befriend Idaho State Athletics on Facebook, and there's photos and lots of news there. Good addition to the Blog and the website. I'm on there too, and I tend to post funny videos links there (because I'm a highly entertaining guy)

Speaking of Funny Videos
So the Marching Band has been practicing RIGHT OUTSIDE MY OFFICE DOOR for a week now, and without giving the whole thing away, they have been working on reproducing some classic video game themes, which is cool, but, and this is not a slight on the band in any way, but it will never top this. Have a great Friday!