11-5 again, making some strides it seems. Now at 109-69.

Week 13’s Relentlessly futile picks.
Minnesota over Chicago – The Bears have no QB. They never do.
Carolina over New Orleans – Butch leaves, Wannie leaves – will Haslett take a hin?
St. Louis over San Francisco – Rams lose this and Martz gets fired.
Atlanta over Tampa Bay – Falcons can flat-out play.
NY Jets over Houston – Pennington returns to save the day
New England over Cleveland – Pats roll over coach-less team
Detroit over Arizona – What UM QB will Green start next week? Trade for Brian Griese?
Indianapolis over Tennessee – Colts too good, Titans are pretty much done
Buffalo over Miami – Break up the Dolphins? Yes, McGahee homecoming on a roll
Cincinnati over Baltimore – Upset special, no-O Ravens fall to immature Carson
Kansas City over Oakland – Raiders got their miracle win – they can now go and fold.
San Diego over Denver – Broncos exposed as a not very good team.
Philadelphia over Green Bay – I’m not ready to tear down the Eagles season
Washington over NY Giants – In a battle of sucking, take the home team 10-9
Pittsburgh over Jacksonville – We just saw how the Jags lose without Byron
Seattle over Dallas – ‘Hawks right the ship over punchless and now defenseless Cowboys.

There you be – 16 games. Hopefully 16 winners, or at least 10 again.
Summary:MIN, CAR, STL, ATL, NYJ, NE, DET, IND, BUF, CIN, KC, SD, PHI, WAS, PIT, SEA

USC cheerleaders are the best. (just starting off strong with obvious facts)

Mike Williams should have been allowed to return to USC; Maurice Clarett should not be allowed to return to the Buckeyes.

Conference championships only serve to eliminate good teams from the BCS bowls by giving them the chance to lose to inferior opponents.

A playoff system will work for college football, even at 16 teams, but no one really seems to want it bad enough to make it happen. What good is a four team playoff?

Saying the BCS computers are prejudiced and giving more power to the human voters is like saying “Good Morning, Mr. Pot. Mr. Kettle will see you now with Mr. Black”.
[Ed. Note: Fresno State’s lack of poll prominence is always proof]

College football pollsters are one of the greatly admired and horribly overrated forces in the universe. They rank someplace in the Overrated Top Ten along with Neilsen ratings, the Atkins diet and Doppler radar (or its offspring SuperDoppler and Bride of Doppler)

Anyone who has ever chosen a kicker in the third round or higher of any fantasy league should be immediately banned from every playing again. Unless it’s in a league with me, because I could really use the extra cash.

College football’s overtime system stinks. What’s really so bad about ending in a tie? What’s so wrong about playing the entire 15-minute overtime? If you insist on playing the current keep-away version, how about the team that gets home-field first is the road team the next two times, not alternating?

Things I’ve noticed about people… not all of them are absurd.

People know who the third-string outside linebacker was for their local team in 1984, but that can’t name more than three head coaches in the NFL or half the teams in the Big 12.

People will zoom ahead of you in their car, just to cut back into the right hand lane and take the next exit, instead of just waiting that additional 3.14159 seconds.

People who want to talk to you about their god won’t let you talk to them about yours.

People who can’t talk politics without getting militant and angry at you should shut up.
I, as a grownup, can have an intelligent conversation without having a hissy fit.

I don’t mind soap operas. Really. I just can’t stand the rotten character names. I mean, honestly, who named their kid Greenlee? I expect to see Crystal and Angelica and Veronica and the rest of the Archies, but Greenlee? I can’t let that one go.

More people have faith in their Magic 8-Ball than they do their local politicians.

More people celebrate the church of the NFL than visit actual churches on Sunday.

I want to live in a lavender house full of boobies.

Okay, wait, let me explain that one. My girlfriend asked if I’d live in a house that was painted lavender on the outside. I said “Sure, know why? Because guys don’t care about that sort of thing.” She asked what we do care about. I told her “What’s inside? Like, furniture and stuff.” She suggested that I also want a house full of naked women.

True enough. I care more about naked women than the color of my house. However, in all fairness, there’s precious little I care less about than that. Blue house, white house (or eggshell, ecru, whatever); it’s just not important to guys.

Now jersey colors – that’s something that matters. You need colors to rally around. Colors can be very important, especially in game apparel. Every year, in every sport, at least 5 teams change their jerseys, usually for the worse. For example,

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I mean, you can’t decipher the logo, and that color? Mustard? In fact, it’s worse than mustard, brown mustard at that. Where were they going with that?

The real problem there is, naturally, money. A new jersey means one more thing the die- hard fan thinks he or she must have in their closet or in their child’s or spouse’s closet.

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The Red Sox alternate, just like the alternates for the Twins, the Indians, et al, look like beer-league unis. Jerseys that someone’s kid designed. Jerseys designed in the dark. By someone who knows nothing of fashion. And is color blind. And hates sports. And fans. And me. Yes, me specifically.

The classic uniforms are exactly that, classy. Pinstripes. Red, white and blue. Simple blue and white for Penn State. The best uniforms are the ones that exercise something the modern ones can’t touch – simplicity. No multi-colored sleeves. No elaborate plans.

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You know, maybe it’s just the color yellow or orange. These don’t look like the best tops I’ve even seen. I don’t think anyone really wants to take the field looking like this.

Do we need a ban on the color orange? The Broncos’ orange jersey was actually red.
Who wears orange? Nobody, and with just cause. It’s just an absurd color for anything other than a pumpkin and nobody wants to be thought of as a pumpkin, believe me.

What to do about Notre Dame.

I waffle between regarding Notre Dame as a shining beacon of college athletics and shrugging my shoulders at the school that symbolizes what I can’t stand in sports.*

Playing Notre Dame Pro and Con is like playing a game of War. You remember War, the card game? You divide the deck in half then turn up the first card, high card takes both. It’s entertaining enough for a little kid. As soon as you get older and know anything about math you realize the entire thing is just an exercise in randomization – an event whose outcome is predetermined. Like ‘will the UPN fall lineup will tank?’, there are just some things in the universe we know for certain. Death, taxes, eating too much, being creeped out by Andy Dick, wishing MTV hadn’t gone straight to hell for the last decade…

In their favor, Notre Dame seems to be one of the few schools that maintains academic standards for their student-athletes. While I’m sure that all colleges try to match that high level, both at acceptance and for graduation, Notre Dame student-athletes had the highest graduation rates, 92%, for enrollees in 1996. They came in second the year before. Notre Dame has actual standards for their student-athletes. Shocker! The school actually expects its student-athletes to attend class and graduate. Right now Bob Huggins is rolling over in his grave and the guy’s not even dead yet.

Notre Dame also schedules a difficult set of games every season, always facing USC and Michigan and often Florida State as well. You have to respect a program that doesn’t take the easy way out (good morning Kansas State) and plays a tough opponent every single game. I may be in the minority but I’d like to see a national championship game between two teams who finished 9-3 facing the toughest schedule strength in the land rather than a pair of unbeaten teams who didn’t face a single challenge mightier than the Northwestern Louisiana Dental College Ragin’ Bicuspids.

On the negative side, Notre Dame’s boosters seem to have some very lofty and very unreasonable expectations for their teams, coaches and the bowl games as well.

Notre Dame’s supporters seem to be under the impression that college football was invented by and for them. They’ve deluded themselves into thinking they are royalty or monarchy. But, like the actual monarchy, their time has passed. Forty years ago there weren’t very many successful football programs on the landscape; now there are dozens. While ND alums may feel let down by consecutive winning seasons, their expectations no longer fit the reality of sport. Nearly every other school in the country would gladly relish the success the Irish football program has enjoyed, but not the golden domers. Most schools are happy to send their team to a bowl game; Notre Dame’s alums don’t seem happy unless the team reaches a BCS bowl, an achievement that will grow more difficult year after year. The Irish haven’t won a bowl game in a decade and the bitter taste being left in their mouths isn’t from an Irish lager – it’s from the AP rankings.

These same alums hinted (and when I say hinted I mean suggested) in a letter to their school of pride and joy last season that if the football team didn’t recapture the glory days of yore, or at least have a winning season, that a coaching change would be required. That’s their prerogative; however, a rational mind would point out that no coach alive can return the Irish to the glory days – those days no longer exist, not for their program, truly not for any program.

No coach on the planet, past or present, can return the Irish to the days of winning the Cotton, Sugar and Orange Bowls in consecutive seasons. Talent is diluted across colleges, players leave early, scrutiny is greater and the pressure is higher. No school, not even the vaunted Notre Dame, can expect to maintain that level of success. Many come close, but there will be no more dynasties.

The best Notre Dame can hope to accomplish is to run a successful program with a winning and respectable coach, which is what every football program should be vying for nowadays. The Irish had both; too bad some boosters think they had neither.

* [Ed. Note: My experiences watching Notre Dame have been primarily in football, therefore the comments are based upon that as well. I am not intentionally ignoring their other sports; I’m simply not familiar enough with them to speak intelligently]