Has Theo ever really Left?

In a post comparing the Boston Red Sox to the Cast of '24' I paired Theo Epstein and President David Palmer. Palmer was elected with high hopes, we assume he produced results but did not seek re-election after one term. He came back this past season during the State of Emergency and for all intents and purposes ran the country as if he was the President while President Keeler was recovering from the crash of Air Force One.

ESPN's Peter Gammons on his weekly appearance on WEEI in Boston's "The Big Show", seems to think Theo may be doing the same and put wood on the fire of Theo return rumors. He had this to say regarding the recent Renteria-Marte trade.

Conversation logged by the fantastic Boston Dirt Dogs Fan Site


Larry Johnson (Guest, Black Minister biggest Michael Bishop fan there's ever been): If Theo were still running the show, do you think he would have operated the same way in terms of endorsing...

Peter Gammons (The Commissioner, although I get as much insight from ESPN.com and Big Show contributor Sean McAdam): You don't think he is?

LJ: I'm sorry...

Gammons: You don't think he is?

LJ: I don't know, is he?

Gammons: (four seconds of silence) Umm, yeah, he definitely would have operated the same way.

LJ: Do you think he still has some contact with them with input?

Gammons: Yes. I don't think there's any question... of course he talks to them, he's very good friends with them all.

Glenn Ordway (host of the show making $2 Million a year to serve as a facilitator for whom without the show would be grating to listen to): You're not giving the impression, because it's been thrown out there, Buster Olney's thrown it out there, that he still believes there's a chance that Theo's gonna come back in that position. You don't believe that's gonna happen do you?

Gammons: (three seconds of silence) Yeah. I think there's a chance. I mean, there's certain things you couldn't script and they're all laughing about this today. There are things that are very funny and I'm not being cruel about it but one of the funniest things, and the thing we in Boston have been laughed at most, is people actually saying and writing that Jerry Kapstein is gonna be the general manager. That is the single funniest thing... it's become the laughing stock of the United States... He's a wonderful guy. He's a terrific guy but he hasn't been in baseball a long time... he's a very well meaning, terrific person... I don't know where it's all going. There's always contact because he's friends with those guys. This thing has gone on a long time. There is nobody on the general manager horizon. I could see maybe they would do it, although (Bill) Lajoie reiterated today that he doesn't want to be the general manager, I could if there were no way Theo came back, I could see them continuing this group. But there's no one there right now that they've interviewed who's a candidate.

Ordway: But with everything that's happened, how would Theo come back and take that role?

Gammons: John Henry never wanted him to leave in the first place and Larry never wanted him to leave. I think that. There are things that I always believed could be cleared up. Larry Lucchino wants the team to be really good. And by the way, he did a phenominal job down here with the whole Scott Boras negotiations with Damon... Right now, I'm not sure it could happen, but I don't really see what else they will do... they've made no move to go in another direction... they're all adults (and can clear up past problems). I'm not saying it's happening. I just think it can happen... it seems strange to me that 37 days (after Theo left) there would be nobody on the horizon to replace him... If you knew Theo Epstein, one of the things you would understand that one of the things he's best at is saying 'you know what, I'm wrong' and moving on (as he would have done on Renteria)."

Paul gets a Question from My Own Private Idaho

“Mr. Amin, Please excuse me if I time out while writing this. We only have dial-up connections where I'm from...You often say the regular season is a tournament with one loss eliminating teams from a shot at the championship like the basketball tournament in March. However last year my team went through the season undefeated and still did not warrant a chance at the national championship? What would you say to teams who do not get to schedule 9 games against schools with 40,000 students and play in the Mountain time zone with little tv coverage unless we play on a Tuesday afternoon, but go through their season without a loss. Is the national championship closed to us forever? And if so why are we a division 1-A program?”

D. Hawkins- Boise, ID

Pete Thamel's Thoughts

Slightly more legitimate College Football writer Pete Thamel reviews the winners and losers of the Bowl pairing announcements in this past Monday's edition of the New York Times. In true New York Times' style, his opinions on the current system are thinly veiled.

Another thing the man whom my sister affectionately refers to as "Sportswriter Pete" and I agree on: We will be glued to our sets watching the GMAC Bowl on December 21.

The bad news is you need to register now to read NY Times articles. The good news is its free.

Pete Thamel Column

"Reggie from 'the 619'" You're on The Pizza Parlor...

"Long time reader, First time writer, love the blog...In a playoff system, what is the reward for finishing the regular season undefeated? Isn't a playoff actually less fair because one fluke play or bad referee call could cost a team that had been undefeated a game against a team with possibly as many as 3 or 4 losses. Oh and one more thing, what if you play for a team so good that you clinch a playoff spot early, so the top players sit for the last two weeks? That could cost top players the Heisman Trophy."

-R. Bush, Los Angeles, California

The best playoff system would be eight teams (six major conference champions, two at-large bids). No undefeated team would be left out of a playoff, and a rule would be written to insure that. The implementation of Instant Replay in almost all of college football has eliminated almost all human error from entering play, but I don’t believe that is Paul, I mean Reggie’s point. If a game were to be decided by a “fluke play” it would be a result of 59 competitive minutes in which a team with three (possibly in a playoff if it won its conference) or four (highly unlikely) losses would have proven it can compete with a team that went undefeated in an entirely different schedule.

Since the playoff format is tied to conference championships which are rarely decided by more than two games, the threat of a “Week 17 rest-up” is much less likely than 6 more teams playing late season games with national championship implications. You actually receive more interesting late season games than you would in the current format. If you applied this format to this year, it would have ADDED excitement to Ohio State-Michigan, Notre Dame-Stanford, and Alabama-Auburn games as those teams would be in the playoff "bubble". This would also add weight to Conference Championship games for larger conferences like the Big XII, SEC, and ACC.

So Mr. Bush to answer your question, if the Pac Ten had adopted the same tiebreaker scenarios as the rest of college football, your spectacular game against UCLA would have been for the Pac Ten championship your status if you had lost that game both with the current BCS and a playoff would have been unclear. Even if it wasn’t, your coach’s record against your rival whom you always play last is part of his review criteria and is important for recruiting reasons. He has enough reasons to play his full team. Congratulations on your Heisman! I hope the Jets get the #1 pick and don’t take you…that would be funny.

The BCS Debate Continues

Paul answered Joe from State College's question on his News U Can't Use Blog

"Well, Joe, that certainly is a long question. We are sure they are the two best teams in the country because they have survived the season-long single-elimination tournament. Yes, USC and Texas played in weaker conferences this year, but even in the event of a playoff there's no way to guarantee every team will face an equal challenge. In a field of 117 teams from ten conferences only two are undefeated, so it would be MORE arbitrary, not less, to subject these teams to a playoff. While a playoff would be exciting for two weeks, it would be less valid in determining the best team because a team with two losses or more could get lucky and win three games a in row to become the champion. I've often heard the argument "let them decide on the field." I think the current system does that, through a 13-game tournament, instead of a 3 game playoff."

The only thing college football's regular season has with college basketball's tournament is I make sure I am off work for both. The whole concept of a tournament is a consolidation of an elite field by half each time (e.g. 64-32-16-8-4-2-1) the idea being that the smaller the field the better the teams because they have advanced over the teams outside the field. But you knew that.

Assuming USC's undefeated season to be better than Penn State's 10-1 season is almost as blind logic as assuming Matt Leinart's A in Ballroom Dancing to be superior to Lee Chin's A- in Biochemistry. Matt Leinart may have gone to class every day for 16 weeks just like Lee Chin taken a final and did a presentation. Would you accept Leinart as your valedictorian or would you want to see the two at least take the same test once?

My thirty seconds is up..

Paul and I's BCS Debate Raises Questions

Paul has written the beginning of his case for the BCS on his News U Can’t Use blog. He of course applauded the system for giving us No. 1 USC vs. No. 2 Texas this year and claimed that the BCS has a perfect record of making sure the best team in the country is awarded the National Championship. This debate raises several questions:

This one is from a J. Paterno from State College, Pennsylvania:

"While USC and Texas have the two best records in the country, how are we so sure that they are the two best teams in the country? Of course a game between them is the matchup we want, it’s the matchup that has been hyped all season long. And while USC and Texas have each beaten a Top 10 opponent (Notre Dame and Ohio State respectively, both games VERY close), their conferences were the 5th and 4th most competitive this season out of six major conferences. Would USC and Texas be undefeated if they were to play in the Big Ten or the SEC? The point is not to diminish the accomplishment of USC and Texas’ undefeated seasons, but to make my primary point. In a field of 117 teams from 10 conferences, why is a “leap of faith” taken to only determine the top 2 and declare them eligible for the National Championship? Why wouldn’t an extended system test the validity of these teams’ seasons?"

Best Commercial Ever Returns

When Sprint acquired Nextel, they also acquired the rights to perhaps my favorite commercial of all time. You can imagine how happy I was to see it rehashed during this weekend's NFL football games. The commercial displays the convenience of now Sprint's Business IT solutions by showing that it frees up time for white guys to dance to Salt N' Pepa in the office. Ooh baby..baby!

But...the BCS is still Broken

In addition to congratulating Texas and USC on their undefeated seasons, I would like to congratulate one more entity that won something this weekend. I would like to congratulate the Bowl Championship Series, its sponsors, conferences, bowls and network. This weekend the BCS won validity as the only two undefeated teams this season will play one another in the Rose Bowl for the National Championship, preceded by an undercard of dream games that the BCS was implemented to provide when it merged the Rose Bowl with the Orange, Sugar, and Fiesta Bowls, prioritizing the No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup over traditional conference-bowl pairings.

There is no third, fourth, and fifth undefeated team like 2004, no trinity of one-loss teams with a convoluted, unexplained ranking system anointing one team the second best even though they lost their final game of the regular season like 2003, and for that matter 2001. In fact there is almost no controversy at all this year. Almost no cry for a playoff system parallel to the NFL, or every other major professional or collegiate sport…Almost.

In surprising news, Congress has scheduled hearings to discuss the “flawed” BCS system and while Congress’ need to get involved in issues like this during a time of war and natural disaster relief can be viewed as meddlesome even by me, the perception is shared by almost everyone that covers the sport of College Football. The BCS is “flawed”, the fact that the lack of controversy in the BCS is as much of a story as the success of USC and Texas, is a revelation to how flawed the system is.

In a pool of 117 teams, it is almost impossible to determine the top 2 through a period of 12 weeks. With few schools playing common opponents in different conferences, it is short sighted to judge a 2nd ranked teams’ body of work to that of even the 8th ranked, as superior. It is almost corrupt to do it through a means of arbitrary polls, and scientific computer polls with criteria by which the public has almost no knowledge.

When an eight team, seven game playoff system would provide an excitement unparalleled in any sport, professional or college would serve the public interest better, the current system is defended mainly by those who benefit from it; the bowls themselves. You will hear my friend Paul Amin argue the other side to this debate on his blog News U Can't Use He will articulately argue some points that say the current system serves college football fans just fine, if not better than a playoff system would.

To him, I say that if the two best teams play each other on January 4th or after an exciting eight team playoff, he will be just as right. However with the current system in place we will always be skeptical if we are getting the best National Championship possible.

Bowl Schedule Set

The 2005-2006 Bowl Schedule was announced yesterday. The BCS system was a huge winner as for the first time in three years the clear cut No.1 and No. 2 teams will play in the Rose Bowl on January 4. Reggie Bush and No. 1 USC will play Vince Young and No. 2 Texas. Both teams are coming off blowout statement wins on Saturday. For the first time, perhaps since the BCS’ inception three of the four BCS bowls are marquis can’t miss match-ups. While the Georgia-West Virginia Sugar Bowl is missable, Notre Dame-Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl is the second biggest game of the season, College Football’s winningest active coaches, Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno, take their teams into Miami for the Orange Bowl.

The fun in most years seems to come from the more minor bowls, where major programs are sent to towns like Boise and Shreveport and have to pretend to be excited to play in bowls sponsored by Insurance companies and pharmaceuticals. I am not promising any running diaries this year (I did last year and did none, looking like a jackass, although I did not have Tivo last year either) but I hope to do at least one.

The Bowl Schedule:

New Orleans Bowl, December 20: Arkansas State vs. Southern Miss
GMAC Bowl, December 21: UTEP vs. Toledo
Las Vegas, December 22: BYU vs. California
Poinsettia, December 22: Colorado State vs. Navy
Fort Worth, December 23: Houston vs. Kansas
Hawaii, December 24: Central Florida vs. Nevada
Motor City, December 26: Akron vs. Memphis
Champs Sports, December 27: Clemson vs. Colorado
Insight, December 27: Arizona State vs. Rutgers
MPC Computers, December 28: Boise State vs. Boston College
Alamo, December 28: Michigan vs. Nebraska
Emerald, December 29: Utah vs. Georgia Tech
Holiday, December 29: Oregon vs. Oklahoma
Music City, December 30: Minnesota vs. Virginia
Sun, December 30: Northwestern vs. UCLA
Independence, December 30: South Carolina vs. Missouri
Peach, December 30: Miami (FL) vs. LSU
Meineke Car Care, December 31: N.C. State vs. South Florida
Liberty, December 31: Tulsa vs. Fresno State
Houston, December 31: Iowa State vs. TCU
Cotton, January 2: Texas Tech vs. Alabama
Outback, January 2: Iowa vs. Florida
Gator, January 2: Virginia Tech vs. Louisville
Capital One, January 2: Auburn vs. Wisconsin
Fiesta, January 2: Ohio State vs. Notre Dame
Sugar, January 2: West Virginia vs. Georgia
Orange, January 3: Florida State vs. Penn State
Rose, January 4: USC vs. Texas