The Natty: it's here

Well, here we are. It’s been a long time coming. The bowl slate is essentially over, and Auburn and Oregon comprise the last remaining watchable contest of the season. So what can fans expect to see in this most exciting matchup?

This game could act as a window to the future of sorts, with old maxims being replaced. As everyone is aware by this point, neither team resembles many of the college football champions of old. The Ducks and Tigers play fast and loose on offense, taking risks with what would have been considered gadget plays a generation ago, and running most snaps from the shotgun. The defenses are fast and aggressive, but neither is consistent or dominant enough to be considered anything close to elite. In fact, both teams have a noticeable lack of NFL talent relative to past champions.

The SEC has used superior size and speed to win the last four national championships. Speed won’t be an advantage against Oregon. Commentators have gushed over the last few years about the speed of the Ducks’ offense, and this season the defense has caught up. Auburn won’t be able to run away from Oregon; in fact, Oregon may actually be able to out-pace Auburn. Size, though, is a different matter.

While the Tigers’ offensive line is not the largest the Ducks have faced this year, they are still quite powerful and dominant. Just look at the time Cam Newton gets to throw. Auburn’s size isn’t just relegated to the O-line, either. The Tigers’ defensive front seven is all quite large as well. The difference between them and Oregon’s other competition is that Auburn’s linebackers and ends are both big and fast, rather than one or the other.

However, there’s a reason that Auburn’s defense was so bad this year: the Tigers’ defense isn’t regular SEC-caliber. Auburn’s starters are pretty solid, excluding the secondary, but the defense lacks the depth typical of a Southern team. The Tigers are good up front (10^th in the country against the run) and mediocre everywhere else. Oregon should have the advantage on offense.

The same applies for Auburn, though. Although Oregon’s defense is underrated, they do have a noticeable lack of size, particularly on the line. Can the Tigers mash the Ducks the way the last two teams to beat Oregon (Stanford and Ohio State) did? The formula to beat UO in the past two seasons has been essentially the same for every team: overpower the Ducks at the line, control and clock and keep Oregon’s offense off the field. Auburn has the potential to do just that. However, it’s worth noting that Stanford tried the same thing this year and failed.

Defensively, the teams that have slowed Oregon’s spread (and spread offenses in general) have gotten great penetration into the backfield to disrupt the Duck’s timing and rhythm. This also applies to Auburn’s offense, but the Tigers’ big D-line is better suited to accomplish this than Oregon’s. Fortunately for the Ducks, though, defensive penetration is often based on gambling against the abilities of the opposing passer, and Darron Thomas has provided a welcome upgrade in that area in 2010.

Comparing the teams by position, I think that Auburn has the advantage on the offensive line and in Cam Newton. Oregon’s offensive line is good enough that their matchup with Auburn’s front should be a wash, and Oregon’s receivers are a little better than Auburn’s, mostly because of their excellent blocking ability. Oregon’s backs are certainly superior. But what matters most is the matchups each of the groups will get against their counterparts.

Oregon’s receivers are only a little better than Auburn’s receivers. But they’ll be going against a fairly weak Tiger secondary. On the other hand, Auburn’s pretty good receivers will be going against a very high-level defensive backfield. Advantage, Ducks. In short, Oregon appears to stack up better at the skill positions and Auburn looks stronger along the lines. Line play tends to decide games.

Then, of course, there’s the final aspect – special teams. The kicking games are more or less even, but Oregon holds a huge edge in the return game. It would be surprising to see the game decided by a special teams play, but this is the most glaring mismatch of the entire contest so it should be noted.

In the end, what do I think will happen? It’s been extremely tough to make up my mind. I recall thinking just before the Oregon-Stanford game in October that the Ducks could really be in trouble, and it looked like they were. I also thought Alabama would be able to handle Auburn, and it looked like the Tigers were dead in the water early. But both teams rallied on those occasions, scoring their most impressive victories of the season to get here. The Ducks and Tigers have both shown a bizarre propensity to play opponents close until they blow them out in the second half. Oregon was slightly more dominant in the regular season, Auburn played a slightly tougher schedule.

I’ve gone back and forth on this game several times since the matchup was finalized on December 4^th. If the game had been played the next week, Auburn was on enough of a roll that I have almost no doubt the Tigers would have won. However, this massive layoff has allowed me to think and afforded the teams time to rest and prepare. I feel that, with the motivation and experience from last year’s Rose Bowl failure, Oregon will have a much better idea of how to play in this game. Auburn has had over a month of collecting awards and hearing about the media making them the favorite. I’ve decided to go with Oregon. After this season, how could I not?

New Year's check-in

Well, that was certainly depressing. After a respectable start to my bowl picks, the sport decided to mock me by making me lose seven games in a row. While I can blame one loss on bad officiating (looking at you, Pinstripe Bowl) and another on a team not showing up (Nebraska might have had the most lethargic bowl performance of all time), in general I just picked poorly yet again. Bowl season can be a cruel mistress sometimes, and the better team doesn’t always win. While I was delighted that Washington got revenge on the Cornhuskers, for example, there’s no question which of those teams was better this year. Perhaps I’ll fare better in the later bowls.

With all of the madness associated with the end of the regular season – not to mention my own schedule – I didn’t get a chance to address some news tidbits that came up in December. Chief among these was the firing of Randy Shannon by Miami (FL). Now, I absolutely agree that Shannon’s teams should have performed better on the field. But sometimes you have to look past wins and losses to the other things that make up a football program.

When the Hurricanes fired Larry Coker in 2006, the team was in shambles. Despite fairly recent success, including a 34-game winning streak that nearly culminated in back-to-back national titles, Miami was not same squad it had been. The overall talent level in the program had begun to slip, and the high-profile move to the ACC had proved to be such a significant step up in competition (sounds crazy, but a lot has changed in the past decade) that the Canes’ conference dominance – nine Big East championships in 13 years – was now a thing of the past.

But the team’s record wasn’t close to the most distressing thing about Miami football circa 2006. The Hurricanes, long known for their unsportsmanlike conduct on the field and player arrests off of it, were viewed across the country as a program out of control. Accurately. Remember the shocked reaction this offseason when Oregon saw multiple players cited and charged with various offenses? Miami was ten times worse. “The U” made the right decision when it cut ties with Coker.

Enter Shannon. With little expectations and national opinion for Miami at perhaps an all-time low, the new coach was given the time to do what rebuilding coaches need to: slowly work the program and players back to a place where both would respected and competitive. He purged the team of many of the malcontents and questionable characters that had defined Hurricane football since the Jimmy Johnson and Dennis Erickson days (Erickson, one of a long line of Miami coaches who openly valued winning above fair play, sportsmanship, and NCAA rule-abiding, later coached the 2001 Oregon State team that led the nation in personal fouls – and went 11-1).

But even more important was Shannon’s impact on the culture at the school. Miami hasn’t had a major rules violation, a player scandal, or an embarrassing incident on the field for years. If you’ve followed college football in the last 20 years, the mere idea of that is stunning. The Canes were always in the news, seemingly getting busted for one thing after another. It’s remarkable to compare the two eras to one another. Even though Shannon’s teams underachieved – particularly this season – it’s scary to think of where the program would be without him.

So by all means, Miami, exile the man who saved you from your darkest hour. I thought the school had its priorities in the right place when it brought Shannon in. What does it say about the university (and how much it values loyalty and hard work) now that it has abandoned Shannon? It’s interesting how fast everyone in Dade County apparently forgot about this.

The NCAA pulled another fast one when the news of the Ohio State tattoo scandal (which will henceforth be referred to as “TattooGate”) broke. Cam Newton had to be rolling over in his grave – with laughter – when he heard the ruling that the five OSU players would be suspended starting next season. What's that? He's still alive? Well, he would have, if he was dead. In any case, the NCAA’s decision is once again absolutely baffling and makes the entire idea of amateurism seem like a complete joke. So, we’re to believe that the Buckeye players didn’t know it was a violation to sell their jerseys, trophies, and autographed memorabilia? I suppose the next question is, how stupid does the NCAA think we are?

First of all, there’s the “plausible deniability” defense. It was used the Newton case, so we shouldn’t be surprised that it used again here. But in this situation, it isn’t even plausible. Ohio State has a huge athletic department, complete with several people whose sole job is to ensure violations like this don’t occur. Yet they apparently “failed to educate” the athletes on this subject, which lies pretty much at the heart of the idea of collegiate amateurism.

Well, OK. So Ohio State’s athletic department is just incompetent. Kind of insulting to them, but let’s roll with it, I’m really gullible. What about the coaches? You’d better believe that all coaches know exactly what is allowed and what isn’t in regards to keeping their players eligible. It’s pretty much their most important job – making sure their charges can play. So where was Jim Tressel – not to mention the rest of the coaching staff – in all this? It seems rather unlikely that no coach ever sat down to talk to his players about the dangers of accepting and giving benefits.

All right, so I guess Tressel is just incompetent too, and ignorant at that. Given his background and experience as a major-college coach, this once again seems unlikely. But once again, I’ll buy it, because I’m really gullible. So how does the NCAA explain the smoking gun that is the A.J. Green case?

I’ve written about Green before. If you don’t recall, he’s the Georgia player who was suspended four games to start the season after he sold his bowl jersey last year. I thought the punishment was harsh considering how the NCAA has acted against players who have violated other rules. However, Green did do something illegal, and he had to pay. Fair enough. Now, explain to me – given the punishment Green received – how these OSU players are still eligible for the Sugar Bowl.

Green was suspended immediately, for the first four games of the 2010 season. This makes sense, because he had made himself ineligible by violating his amateur status. The NCAA ruled the exact same thing in the Ohio State case, so shouldn’t they have been suspended immediately as well? The only difference is the caveat that the players “didn’t know the rules.” Since when, exactly, is ignorance of the law a permissible excuse? That is, of course, if you even buy the “plausible deniability” garbage the NCAA has been spewing out. I don’t know how you can. You’d have to be really gullible.

The Ohio State situation has emphasized yet again what the only important thing is in college sports – money. The NCAA wants the Sugar Bowl to be a success. Disallowing some of the Buckeyes’ best players in a high-profile BCS bowl would be self-destructive. It would hurt OSU, it would hurt the Big 10, and it would potentially hurt the chances of the Sugar Bowl to do well. Why do you think the bowl’s organizers were so pleased at the NCAA’s decision? Big surprise there. They care about one thing – how much revenue they can bring in. Eligibility, rules, ethics… these things mean nothing in today’s college football world. There’s exactly one organization that believes the game is as pure as it was in its infancy, and it’s the one calling all the shots. The NCAA is God. It has a reality that it wants to exist, and it has made it so. Amen.

Now, Tressel has apparently decreed that any of these players who want to play in the Sugar Bowl must pledge to return for their Senior seasons. That’s a good idea, because it forces the guys who broke the rules to serve their suspension next year if they want to play now. But you know what would have been better? Taking the audacious step of suspending them himself. Tressel could have taken a stand and said that he wouldn’t tolerate illegal behavior while giving the players the option to return if they wanted to make amends for their actions. You want to come back? Great. But you get to sit out now.

While I do love this sport, there are several things about it that can make people uneasy. The shadowy agents that lurk behind players, the obvious violations that occur across the country, and the self-serving coaches that see themselves as better than the rules can all temper one’s enthusiasm for college football. But in general, as fans we tend to block out the parts of the game we don’t like and glorify the parts we do; it’s only natural.

As a bigger football fan than most people (the word “fanatic” is truly applicable to me), I probably do this even more. However, I also make every effort to recognize the dark side of sport. That’s why I want to tout the book I just read by Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry of The Seattle Times. “Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime and Complicity” details the 2000 Washington Huskies and all of the behind-the-scenes events that went unreported or were covered up as the school and local media sought to protect the team’s magical run to the Rose Bowl. It’s disgusting, shocking, and a must-read.

More importantly, it’s the most sobering reminder you’ll ever get of the true nature of big-time collegiate athletics. The worst part of reading the book isn’t discovering what the Washington players did – it’s the realization that all of the events chronicled within aren’t the exception in college football – they’re the rule. Washington just happened to leave enough of a trail to get caught. The sad truth is that things that went on that year in Seattle (not to mention the events leading up to that season) are probably fairly commonplace. No one wants to believe that their team could be guilty, so when confronted with the decision to do the difficult thing – to question what the team and media tells them – fans will turn a blind eye. Every time.

And on that uplifting note, I have to take my leave. I only have time this week to address these topics, but I plan to write another post before the national championship game to preview the Oregon-Auburn matchup in-depth. Happy New Year.