Apparently No One Was Interested in an LSU-Alabama Rematch

I wasn’t joking when I said on Twitter that I was boycotting the BCS National Championship Game between LSU vs. Alabama. It’s not that the decision to rank Alabama #2 was a bad choice, but I’ve grown tired of college football and the SEC’s dominance and this year’s matchup would once again keep the title within their conference. As certain as I am that Oklahoma State would’ve been throttled by both Alabama and LSU, at least it would’ve been something different. Well it turns out I didn’t miss much, as Alabama won through 5 field goals and a touchdown  (missed XP) as LSU channeled their inner 1992 Seattle Seahawks offense.

Hopefully the ratings of this game tell the BCS people that their system sucks and people aren’t interested.

Alabama loved a rematch. Not so much of the rest of the country.

It turns out most television viewers didn’t want to see Alabama-LSU again, at least not an uncompetitive rematch.

Final ratings for Alabama’s 21-0 victory over LSU were the third lowest for a national championship in the 14-year history of the BCS. The All-SEC affair, the first championship pairing teams from the same conference, drew a 14.0 rating on ESPN. The lowest ratings were a 13.7 for USC-Oklahoma in 2005 and a 13.8 for Miami-Nebraska.

The Rose, Orange, Sugar and BCS Championship all took ratings hits this season. West Virginia’s 70-33 rout of Clemson at the Orange Bowl drew just a 4.5 rating, making it the lowest-rated game in BCS history.

 

I’m tired of the BCS. Stupid matchups like Michigan vs. Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl over teams like Kansas State, TCU, and Boise State shows the absurdity of the system and proves that these matches are made based on ticket-sales, not the quality of the game. This year was a pretty dull year of college football in my book (until the first couple of BCS games) and I think I’ve just about dropped to “casual college football fan” from this point until they create a better system to replace this BCS mess.

Oh, and as far as LSU vs. Alabama goes? Well… here’s video of Jordan Jefferson’s chest pass to an Alabama defender. Sums up the game and sums up his QB skills.

VIDEO: Jon Gruden Confuses Michelle Obama With Lisa Salters

During last night’s Orange Bowl, which featured West Virginia’s 70-33 obliteration of Clemson en route to the lowest ratings of the bowl game’s BCS existence, Jon Gruden might just have put in one of the best “All black people look alike” quotes ever. Clemson called a play on the sidelines using placards — something of an increasingly more common practice in college football — and Gruden managed to mistake the First Lady of the United States with ESPN reporter Lisa Salters. Here’s some video evidence to go along with it.

Yeah of course they look the same. I mistake the two of them all the time like I do with Jon Gruden and Dolph Lundgren.

 

PICTURED: Michelle Obama and Lisa Salters....but who's who?

 

In a Shocker, Nick Holt Has Been Fired

PICTURED: Deer in headlights.

After the most embarrassing defensive performance I’ve ever seen in tackle football, my prediction/wish of Nick Holt’s firing has come true. Today it was made official that the Washington Huskies would not retain the alleged defensive coordinator.

U-Dub’s official AD writer Gregg Bell made this comment on Twitter:

I want to thank Nick Holt, Mike Cox and Jeff Mills for their hard work and dedication throughout the last 3 years. I wish them all the best. … They have left our program in a better place.

Mike Cox and Jeff Mills are the linebacker and safeties coach respectively. In short, Steve Sarkisian fired nearly the entire defensive staff.  Fantastic move by a coach who was faced with the tough decision of getting rid of his friend and someone he has coached with since the USC era.

Holt was in over his head and a complete disaster as a playcaller. He literally spent the entire 2nd half against Baylor calling 3 and 4 man rushes and having his DBs playing so far deep in coverage that they were in Oklahoma. Shockingly, all Robert Griffin III needed to do is dump passes off on screen passes and quick outs for easy first downs. The rest was just Baylor’s running attack rushing for nearly 7.5 miles, including a play where RGIII literally was surrounded by three Huskies players, who all proceeded to play two-hand touch.

Good riddance to Holt and his assistants. If he stayed for another season it’d be a damning statement on Sarkisian as a coach and a surefire way to go 7-6 for a third straight year.  For the Huskies to improve as a football team they had to get Holt off the staff. Too many terrible games and horrendous fundamentals on a weekly basis. A replacement is something to worry about later but it’s hard to think it can get much worse than Nick’s three years at Montlake.

Rejoice, Huskies fans! Washington football has put a halt to Holt once and for all.

 

Baylor 67 Washington 56 – The Game Where Nick Holt Gets Fired

That is not a basketball score, that is a college football game played within 60 minutes. You know what? I’m not even going to write about the defense today. Washington’s offense is fantastic and can only get better. Keith Price, Chris Polk (or Jesse Callier depending on Polk’s draft decision), Austin Seferian-Jenkins, Kasen Williams, and Devin Aguilar are all players who can make this offense one of the best in the country and at least top 4 in the Pac-12. Tonight’s game was so entertaining and Washington will be so fun to watch for years to come under Steve Sarkisian. I applaud Price and his amazing QB performance, he arguably outplayed the Heisman Trophy winner in Robert Griffin III. He is going to go down as one of the best players in Washington history.

NOW…..

Instead of focusing on the near 800 yards of offense the Huskies gave up, I’m going to share with you a partial list of actual search terms that have led to people coming to this website just from today:

fire nick holt	25
nick holt fired	24
why is washington’s defense so bad?	4
nick holt sucks	4
nick holt needs to be fired	2
yves edwards vs josh thompson fight video	2
matthew stafford snub	2
huskies defense sucks	2
nick holt should be fired	2
pam ward espn	2
espn sideline reporters suck	2
nick holt needs to go	2
nick holt alamo bowl	2
nick holt rumors	2
nick holt awful	2
spike tv is stupid	1
washington defense sucks	1
nick holt alamo	1

Good night. I have nothing else to say.

Alamo Bowl – The Game Where Nick Holt Gets Fired

I can proudly say that I have not watched a single college bowl game this season. There are way too many games that are complete junk and I really cannot find reasons to care about Cal vs. Texas. I do have a reason to watch the Alamo Bowl between Washington and Baylor, though. Heisman winner Robert Griffin III is playing, and Washington’s defense will unfortunately have to be on the field. I’m excited to see the Huskies’ functioning offense in action against Baylor, but I’m dreading anything that useless defense does.

Nick Holt should not have a job with Washington after tonight. There’s almost no way he can pull off a 2nd miracle and have his defense suddenly show up for a bowl game. There are not many worse defensive coordinators in football than Holt. Look at these sterling statistics in his three years here:

Passing Defense Ranking (119 D-I FBS Teams)

2009 – 89th

2010 – 37th

2011 – 116th

Rushing Defense Ranking (Yards-Per-Game)

2009 – 65th

2010 – 103rd

2011 -  52nd

Scoring Defense Ranking (Points Allowed Per Game)

2009 – 71st

2010 – 93rd

2011 – 99th

Piss-poor numbers. Washington basically gets gashed one way or the other. Holt’s ceiling is middle-of-the-road, and that’s not good. You could look at Washington’s 2011 rush defense and think it’s not that bad, but when you’re almost at the very bottom of Division I FBS in pass defense why would ANY team try to run it? This is the same team that gave up over 400 yards to Bo Levi Mitchell of Eastern Washington, an FCS school. Washington has been blown out in every single defeat, including a 38-21 pounding in Corvallis against an Oregon State team that had one of the worst offenses in the Pac-12 and a 2-8 record at the time of the game.

I’m really not interested in the argument that Washington’s defense doesn’t have the talent to succeed, or that Willingham’s ineptitude is why the defense still sucks. Well if that’s the case, why did the Huskies offense instantly become better under Steve Sarkisian? Jake Locker turned into a top 10 draft pick under two years of Sark and now they average 31 points per game under Keith Price. There has been no improvement under Nick Holt’s tenure and there’s no sign of hope. Scoring defense has gone down each season and the 2011 passing defense is actually ranked worse than the 0-12 Huskies of 2008.

For Washington to become a legitimate Pac-12 contender, they need a defense worth a damn. Nick Holt is clearly not the guy and Steve Sarkisian would be actively damaging his own team by keeping him employed past the 2011-12 season. Three years is long enough to pass judgment on his coaching style, and frankly it’s awful.

Fire Nick Holt!

 

Prediction: Baylor 55 Washington 30

This is Why the BCS Sucks

Tonight is the pillaging of UCLA’s football team. Oregon hosts the inaugural Pac-12 Championship Game and they go up against a Bruins team that has already fired Rick Neuheisel, and is your Pac-12 South champion at 6-6. Because USC is still banned from bowl games, UCLA was seriously the next best team in that division. Now, Oregon is a 30+ point favorite tonight and there’s no reason to believe they will lose even if they play 3rd stringers to start the game. BUT if by some miracle UCLA wins at Autzen Stadium, they go to the Rose Bowl at 7-6. It gets even better, if they lose and finish 6-7 they still have the option of going to a bowl game, because the NCAA granted them a bowl waiver for their 6-6 regular season! UCLA could always decline this but that means that they only need to win one game to go to a BCS bowl. Seriously.

You see, having a play-off isn’t an automatic cure-all for the BCS, but it’s the best choice. I can’t take anymore of this garbage. Alabama is probably going to get a bye to the BCS Title Game. LSU could lose to Georgia tomorrow night and still be considered #2 in the BCS rankings and still play for the National Championship Game. Meanwhile, Oklahoma State, Stanford, and Oregon all had their BCS title aspirations completely shot to hell all by losing one game. What kind of system is this?

My college football enjoyment has declined sharply in recent years and this isn’t helping. Tonight a trip to the Rose Bowl will be decided with a 10-2 powerhouse going up against a 6-6 squad that just lost to USC 50-0.

What a mess.