Quite an accomplishment

Just a quick question here - why are No. 1 Florida and No. 2 Alabama playing Florida International and Chattanooga respectively at this point in the season? They won by a combined score of 107-3, what's the point?

It's one thing to play some cupcake warm-up games early in the year, but this was the 11th game of the season for both teams. Why not just take the week off? Do they get any satisfaction from drubbing these teams?

Maybe next year Florida can schedule a game with Gainesville High School.

Developing those youngsters

The Knicks didn't sign Allen Iverson because they didn't want him taking minutes away from young players. So explain today's box score.

New York beat the Nets 98-91 this afternoon, but the way Mike D'Antoni is dividing up playing time is odd. Jordan Hill, the eighth pick in this year's draft, didn't set foot on the floor. Toney Douglas, the rookie who's shown good promise this year, saw nine minutes of action.

Meanwhile, youngster Larry Hughes played 35 minutes and baby-faced Al Harrington played 32. Good thing they didn't get Iver-lost, or Douglas and Hill might actually be playing negative minutes.

Be consistent. If the Knicks say they want young players to get experience (which they should) then play them and let the record be damned. Who cares if they win 29 games instead of 32? The important thing is that they have some competent players to team with whatever free agent(s) they sign after the season.

How is it possible that a lottery pick like Hill isn't good enough to play ONE MINUTE for an awful team? Either the Knicks made a horrible pick or they're being idiots by having this guy watch games instead of play in them.

Read his lips and worry

Sometimes you see something really small that leads you to a much bigger conclusion.

It happened with me today watching Rich Rodriguez on the sideline during the Michigan-Ohio State game.

Rodriguez might prove to be a great recruiter and his style of offense may be well-conceived once he gets the right talent. I'm not passing judgment on those aspects. To get a fair assessment of whether he can be a winning coach at Michigan will take more than two years.

But he will never, I repeat never, be a smart sideline coach. And if he ever does get Michigan back into the national picture, he's going to make a huge blunder. I say that confidently based on one thing he did in today's game. It was that telling.

Rodriguez said something on the sideline that shows such an unbelievable lack of comprehension of football that he's too far lost to ever be saved. It's not possible. I mean that wholeheartedly.

Michigan trailed 21-10 with 10:17 left in the game. Ohio State had the ball fourth-and-1 on its own 15-yard line.

The camera panned to Roridguez. Anyone could clearly read his lips. "WATCH THE FAKE!" The camera panned away. And then it went back on Rodriguez. And he yelled it again. "WATCH THE FAKE!"

The possibility of Ohio State faking a punt in that situation was about as great as Sarah Palin becoming a spokeswoman for the Green Party.

Instead of yelling "watch the fake" Rodriguez should have been reminding his players of the exact opposite. Something like, "Don't worry about a fake. Whatever you do, don't jump offside."

I'm not getting on a coach here for failing to do something somewhat sophisticated. It was more than that. It showed an absolutely alarming lack of understanding of something really simple.

Fish out of water

It seems the Marlins won't be able to sign rising star Josh Johnson to a contract extension because they won't offer him more than a three-year deal. Hell, why would you want to lock up a 25-year-old stud who struck out 191 in 206 innings, had a 1.16 WHIP and a 3.23 ERA last year?

As much as I love baseball, this is the problem that keeps gnawing at me. If the Marlins can't (or won't) sign a guy like this long-term, what's the point of rooting for them? Way too many teams have this same problem, and it really takes away from the sport.

What's the solution? I don't know. A number of things would help (equal revenue sharing, salary cap, contraction) but none of these seem feasible because all of these options are unacceptable to either the owners, the players or MLB itself.

I will say this - eventually something is going to have to change. I don't know when or how drastically, but at some point fans of these small market teams are going to get really sick of being out of contention on May 15.

Notre Dame football: A story of rampant delusion

A schedule as average as a No. 4 starter's stuff.

A recruiting class ranked among the top 15 for the fourth straight year. 

Yes, once again, Notre Dame still finds itself out of BCS contention at 6-4 and staring at the prospect of a .500 season. Boo hoo.

Not surprisingly, the school and the clueless fans who still root for this team nationwide appear set on a new football coach. Yes, another one. Charlie Weis simply hasn't cut it, just as Bob Davie and Tyrone Willingham failed to channel God's intentions and win for his favorite football team before him. Supposedly, winning is still the Notre Dame way. I guess someone forgot to tell Mr. Record Book, post-1994.

Here's the problem: The faithful in South Bend made a wrong turn somewhere in the early 90s, back when Tony Rice and Rocket Ismail were relevant football players. So please, I beg you: If you see anyone who looks boring, and appears to be dressed in stuffy 17-year-old clothes that may or may not have shamrocks on them, direct them to the nearest police officer or a gas station. They need directions. Fast.

Allow me...

The Notre Dame program as they once knew it is finished. Gone. Kaput. Not only is Knute Rockne not walking through the tunnel, neither is Lou Holtz. And if you've seen Lou bumbling on TV this fall, you understand how pathetic that commentary sounds. But the problem runs deep.

The idea Notre Dame remains an elite program and an elite job for coaches is outdated at best, foolhearty at worst. Even people who seem to understand how far the Irish has fallen don't quite grasp the enormity of the freefall, nor the reasons for it. They claim the university's high academic standards ruin the program's ability to recruit with the Floridas and USCs of the college football world. So how has Stanford, a far superior school, rebuilt under Jim Harbaugh?Golden Domers can catch the reborn Cardinal in two weeks, when Stanford wipes the floor with them.

The truth is simpler than poor coaches and the wrong players. First, athletes want to compete in a major conference, not against Navy, Purdue and UConn in meaningless non-league games. Second, most have no recollection that Notre Dame once rocked the NCAA. None. This is such a huge factor that few ever discuss.

Players today are far too young. The 2010 commits, for example, were born in 1992. And remember: This is a team that has one win (last year's Hawaii Bowl) in its last 10 bowl games. One! The Irish lost those nine games by a total of 159 points, or more than 17 a game. So not only is Notre Dame unable to win bowl games, it is almost always non-competitive. Mediocre football is all 18-year-olds associate the Irish with.

Rumor has it Weis' job may interest Urban Meyer, a man as shrewd as the Irish faithful are delusional. Chances are the two-time national champ will simply pump Florida for whatever money it has left in the budget — your typical merciless shakeout. Honestly, I can't blame him.

Secretly, I hope Meyer will use his love for ballyhooed love for South Bend as leverage. That's about the only area  Notre Dame football can be competent in these days.

In fact, don't real Top-25 programs like USC, Michigan and Boston College use the Irish every year? For wins, of course.

Take it easy, Bill

I just finished reading Bill Simmons' latest column, in which he discusses Bill Belichick's decision to go on fourth-and-two last Sunday night.

The column was going great, Simmons using his everyman wit to entertain. Then he got a little crazy.

While comparing his trying to get from Seattle to Beaverton, Ore., in two hours to Belichick's decision (already on thin ice), Simmons mentioned he was optimistic about the trip in part because he stood up for Sonics fans when Clay Bennett moved the team. Therefore, Simmons felt he had a pretty good shot at getting out of a speeding ticket in the Seattle area.

Seriously dude?

Listen, I respect Simmons. He's an excellent writer, he churns out content at a meaty pace and usually gives sports junkies a fresh perspective. But he's gotten a bit big for his britches.

Now this guy breaks the speed limit with the idea that he's such a big celebrity that a cop will let him go? Relax buddy. No one's confusing you for Tom Brady just yet.

Simmons' charm has always been that he's just like you and me, just a regular Joe Fan saying what we'd all like to say about the sports issue of the day. That's pretty much over now. Simmons does a lot of name-dropping, and apparently he doesn't view himself as Joe Fan anymore.

This doesn't mean Simmons doesn't write a good column anymore, because he does. He continues to provide good content, and his fan base continues to grow.

So does his ego.

A Few Good Men

So you want to win another National Championship, Kentucky? I don't blame you.

What do you do? Hire the sleaziest coach you can't get your hands on. Check.

Have said new coach, John Calipari, do his usual loading up on prized recruits by doing whatever shady means necessary. Check. (Side note: That blog is called "The Dagger"? Legendary.)

Complement those guys with some good solid role players or what is also known as having some semblance of a decent bench. Well, it seems the Wildcats missed the boat on that one.

I was looking over the stats of last night's win over Sam Houston State (They have a team?) and one number kept jumping out at me: zero. As in the zero points scored by the entire Kentucky bench.

And no, this wasn't some sort of grind-it-out, turn-back-the-shot-clock type of game. It was actually a shootout as the Wildcats put up 102 points while nearly allowing triple digits as well to the Bearkats (No, that's not a misprint and yes, apparently, they still can't spell in Texas).

Taking a deeper look into this bizarre box score revealed that the four UK bench players were in the game for a total of 35 minutes or the equivalent of one starter. And in all that time they combined to take three shots. Talk about the anti-A.I.

Add it all up and the fifth-ranked Wildcats earned their third unimpressive win of the early season. Three days earlier, freshman phenom and probably No. 1 pick in next year's NBA Draft, John Wall, had to hit a buzzer-beater to deliver a victory over Miami of Ohio.

Will this young team get better? I'm sure it will. Will the bench? Maybe if Calipari lets them participate a little bit and his starters strop treating the other players like a bunch of guys that were picked last in gym class.

What's sad is that with the NCAA's rules (Not the ones Calipari gets around like the pesky one that even blue-chip prospects like Derrick Rose actually have to take the pesky SAT to be eligible) you can almost get away with having a lack of depth. Each team gets four 30-second and one 60-second timeout on top of the so-called "TV timeouts" that kick in with the first stoppage of play after every four minutes of game time -- even if the game isn't being televised. Heck, an out-of-shape Jerome James, a.k.a. "Big Snacks," could probably give you close to a full first half if he had that much rest.

There's no debating Kentucky's talent in the starting lineup. To win it all, though, the Wildcats are going to need a little more than a doughnut in the scoring column.

Coach Calipay has been accused of using money to attract players in the past so it isn't crazy to think that some shenanigans were afoot in luring Wall and company first to Memphis and then to the Bluegrass state. If so, then perhaps he should spread out his payroll a little more evenly next time.

Cablevision: Redefining Incompetence

Every Thursday night I'm reminded how absolutely pathetic Cablevision is.

A normally slow night in sports is helped tremendously by the NFL's decision to air a Thursday night game. Of course, only to those who get the NFL Network. No Dolphins-Panthers for the fans who have this garbage cable provider.

This is now going on six years that Cablevision and the network have been embroiled in a dispute. You'd think this was like trying to find some accord in the Middle East.

DIRECTV offers the NFL Network. So does Comcast. And Dish Network. And Verizon FiOS.

Somehow all these other companies can find an accord with the NFL. Not Cablevision.

And Cablevision doesn't exactly get the benefit of the doubt. It's run by bumbling fool, James Dolan.

It's a company that employed Isiah Thomas for six years, and had to pay Anucha Browne Sanders 11.6 million when a jury ruled he sexually harassed her. (Thomas wasn't even fired after that verdict.)

There are so many terrible decisions that it would take a 75,000-word post to get them all.

The company is a total disaster.

Brett v. Sphincter: Sphincter wins

I once met George Brett in Cooperstown. Yes, scotch, spittle and more than one swear word were involved.

Suffice it to say, it would not shock me if that night was one of the "twice a year" he discusses in the following video. Want to know what I'm talking about? Watch it. Trust me. Three minutes and two seconds of Brett redefining what it means to be uncouth.

A nod to Sports Rippers favorite, jeffpearlman.com, where I first watched the vid.

What's done is done

As Mr. Buckner previously pointed out, the French national soccer team was the beneficiary of an unbelievable screw-up by a referee in a World Cup qualifier France and Ireland tied 1-1 yesterday.

Thierry Henry committed a blatant double hand-ball to keep the ball from going out of bounds, then centered a pass to William Gallas, who knocked in the game-tying goal.

Ireland got robbed, screwed and daggered. But now some Irish players and officials are calling for the match to be replayed, and that cannot happen.

If we replayed every game drastically affected by a bad call, it would take 10 years to crown champions in every sport. They didn't replay the 'Jeffrey Maier' game in the 1996 ALCS, not the Maradona 'Hand of God' game, the 1972 gold medal basketball game in Munich - none of it.

Ireland coach Giovanni Trapattoni had the right idea, expressing his frustration and urging FIFA to use instant replay in the future, but also acknowledging that playing the game again is impossible.

Some Irish players, their government and soccer association feel differently. They've appealed to FIFA for the game to be replayed, going so far as to put the onus on the French to push for a replay. Here's a quote from Ireland's assistant manager, Liam Brady.

"If the game's going to survive, it's got to be an equal playing field. If we're going to have integrity and dignity in the world game, the game should be replayed. And we'll go to Paris to play it."

It's amazing he could fit so many ridiculous points into such a short statement. First of all, the integrity he's talking about, is that the same integrity that drives players to fake injuries and roll around on the ground during injury time to run out the clock? Or the dignity that causes them to flop any time they're in the penalty box and someone breathes on them?

Second, I don't think Mr. Brady needs to concern himself too much with the survival of international soccer. Last I checked, some countries take it so seriously that players have been killed after mistakes in big games. Killed.

Look, I understand these guys must be crushed. Playing in the World Cup is the pinnacle of soccer, maybe the pinnacle of all sports. But this isn't third grade, and you can't yell "D.O." when you get a bad break.

Whether the Irish like this or not (clearly they don't), these kinds of moments are part of what make sports great. Games decided by these kinds of blunders are often some of the most memorable, and while I wouldn't want the majority of games decided this way, sometimes it makes for incredible drama.