At first the only reasonable plan I could see was to somehow talk Notre Dame into joining. The problem with adding Notre Dame is that there is no way to divide into two divisions. The best option is…

Big 10 East: Indiana, Michigan, Michigan St, Notre Dame, Ohio St, Penn St

Big 10 West: Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Northwestern, Purdue, Wisconsin

Maybe you could switch Purdue and Notre Dame, but I still don’t like it.

Then a new plan occurred to me that I love. Add Iowa State. That’s right, Iowa State. If the Big 10 added Iowa St the divisions are easy:

Big 10 East: Indiana, Michigan, Michigan St, Ohio St, Purdue, Penn St

Big 10 West: Illinois, Iowa, Iowa St, Minnesota, Northwestern, Wisconsin

I love it! It’s balanced for football and basketball, it makes sense geographically, it’s perfect.

You may ask, what does the Big XII do now that it only has 11 teams. Great question. The Big XII adds Boise St, Colorado St, Houston, Texas Christian and Tulsa, to become the Big 16.

Big 16 North: Boise St, Colorado, Colorado St, Kansas, Kansas St, Missouri, Nebraska, Tulsa

Big 16 South: Baylor, Houston, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Christian, Texas Tech

In football each team plays it’s divisional opponents and then two opponents from the other division, leaving three non-conference games. This way each team would play all the other teams at least once every four years, but Boise St only has to travel to Houston (and vice-versa) once every eight years.

In basketball each team play it’s divisional opponents twice and the other division once for a total of 22 conference games. It’s a lot, but it still leaves 9 non-conference games.

I think it creates two stronger conferences.

Fantasy Football enables you to truly understand the story of football. Many people, instead of taking the longer more rewarding path of watching football as epic story want a shortcut. They want to get the benefit of the story of football without putting in the hard work of watching 4-8 games per weekend (depending on the number of TVs available). Just as shortcuts in reading the Bible affect our spiritual health, shortcuts in watching football affect our football health.

Shortcut 1: Officials to be argued with

Some people see football as a series of controversial decisions which must be contested from their living room couch. This person thinks they know the rules of football better than the officials and they need everyone to know it. This person can become pompous, self-righteous, and accusatory. Sometimes they become resentful that others haven’t caught up to their level of football knowledge.

Shortcut 2: Morsels of Blessing and Promise

Some people ignore football altogether until a local team starts succeeding and then they jump on the bandwagon. They pick and choose when they are a fan; they may even jump from team to team riding the wave of whoever is successful and disregarding the rivalries intrinsic to the game. Because these people are looking for morsels of success, and avoid the ups and downs, the pains and sorrows, they miss out on the blessing that is football. The blessings and promises of football emerge from living out the overall story of football.

Shortcut 3: Mirrors and Inkblots

Some people project onto football what they want to see. In the pre-season everyone thinks they’re a Super Bowl contender. We project onto our favorite team what we want to see; when it does not work out we blame it on the refs, the injuries, and that one unlucky bounce of the ball. Instead of being swept up into the story of football these fans sweep football up into their own story; football becomes an opportunity for narcissism.

Shortcut 4: Puzzling Together the Pieces

For some football is like a big puzzle. Once you’ve got the puzzle solved you go to Vegas and stake your fortune. For these people I would just like to say that the Gambler’s Anonymous national help-line is 888-424-3577. Call it.

Shortcut 5: Maestros

Some people go to football to watch the story of THEIR team. Depending on the time or place we are born into we select one team over another and assert that this is THE true, right, and good team. All other teams are weak, misguided, potentially evil, and destined for failure. Unfortunately, seeing football through only one team’s eyes gives us only one chapter in the story of football.

Fantasy football allows us to develop “Magic Eyes” and be drawn into the full, multi-chaptered story of football. Watching the story of football through fantasy football gives us a context within which to enjoy the artistry of players regardless of team. It allows us to appreciate the part of the story made up by each individual team, and each individual player. These are in fact wiki-stories. On any given Sunday, football stars will be brought low and unknown players will achieve amazing acts. None of these individual wiki-stories is final; none of them is comprehensive; none of them is absolute; none of them is exhaustive. Each of them tells A story of football; but it takes all these stories put together to see THE story of football. This is what fantasy football does; it enables us to see the overarching story of football.

*This is an attempt of a parody of “The Blue Parakeet” by Scot McKnight, no offense or copyright infringement intended to anyone.

All of you NFL fans who are also familiar with Samuel Beckett (admittedly, a small subcategory of football fans) will enjoy this piece: Waiting 4, Godot 0.

I thought it perfectly captured the tone of the whole Favre retirement thing, and it was hysterical in a subdued kind of way.

AFC Championship: Steelers over Ravens (21-17)

NFC Championship: Cardinals over Eagles (37-30)

Super Bowl: Cardinals over Steelers (28-24)

- MVP: Kurt Warner

?!

AFC:

Divisional – Titans over Ravens, Steelers over Chargers

Championship – Steelers over Titans

NFC:

Divisional – Panthers over Cardinals, Giants over Eagles

Championship – Panthers over Giants

Super Bowl:

Panthers over Steelers

AFC:

Wildcard – Dolphins over Ravens, Colts over Chargers

Divisional – Colts over Titans, Steelers over Dolphins

Championship – Steelers over Colts

NFC:

Wildcard – Cardinals over Falcons, Vikings over Eagles

Divisional – Panthers over Vikings, Giants over Cardinals

Championship – Panthers over Giants

Super Bowl:

Panthers over Steelers

So the Playoff teams would be…
AFC: 1-San Diego, 2-NY Jets, 3-Jacksonville, 4-Cleveland, 5-Indianapolis, 6-Buffalo
NFC: 1-Minnesota, 2-Washington, 3-Carolina, 4-Arizona, 5-Dallas, 6-Green Bay

The teams in bold are my pick to win.

Football

My Jayhawks got off to a good start this weekend.  They beat Florida International 40-10.  The O-line looked a little shaky, but they’ll get it together.  The kicking game is going to give me a heart attack before the end of the year.  Next week they play a surprising Louisianna Tech team that beat Mississippi state 22-14.  Then we have the big game at #19 South Florida on the 12th.  By the end of that game we’ll know a lot about this team.

My Carolina Panthers begin the season Sunday at San Diego.  If we have to play San Diego I’d rather play them in week 1, before all the rust has been knocked of LT’s tires.  If Delhomme is truly healthy we have a shot.  As Jake goes, so go the Panthers.

Baseball

Well, my Dodgers decided to finish off August by losing seven in a row and dipping below .500.  They still have a shot because the only team they have left to play with a winning record is Arizona, the division leaders who are 2.5 game ahead of the Dodgers.  With a month to play 2.5 games is possible, but they have to start playing better.  Of course, then they would play the Cubs in the divisional series and I’m not too excited about that.

Politics

If you go look at some of my old posts you’ll see that I acurately predicted three out of the four presidential and VP nominees.  I called Obama-Biden and McCain-Huckabee.  McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin is not terribly surprising to me.  She is a strong conservative who appears more moderate than she is.  She will solidify the “James Dobson Republicans” and she has a shot at energizing women (a group McCain does poorly with).  She has a record of ethics reform in the corrupt Alaska political system and will be able to contrast her experiences with Obama’s failure to take on the Chicago political machine.

There will be some tabloid trash about her at the beginning because nobody knows her and so people will believe anything written about her.  I don’t think her daughter’s pregnancy is relevant or warrants media coverage.  Seventeen year olds make their own decisions, some of them good and some of them bad.  A parent’s job is to help the child learn to take responsibility for those decisions and hopefully help them make the better decision when possible.

Politics

The democratic primary alternates between pure joy and absolute tedium. There are only a few issues I want to talk about.

First, the Jeremiah Wright issue. One of two things is going on with Jeremiah Wright’s recent comments and Barrack Obama denunciation. Either Jeremiah Wright is completely out of it, believes that he is a martyr for the black community, and does not care if Obama is elected, or he understands that the only way Obama was every going to be able to move past him as an issue is if he went so far that Obama would have to publicly reject him. If the truth is the later, then both Obama and the Reverand are briliant politicans, if the truth is the former, I feel sorry that he can’t move forward.

Second, the Hillary gas tax recess issue (in all fairness this was originally McCain’s idea that Hillary latched on to, but Hillary has defended this idea with such idiocy that it is now solely her issue). At best it would make no tangible difference for this country’s citizens if the gas tax is suspended for the summer. At worst it would permanently and artificially raise gas prices, take money away from needed road and infrastructure repairs, and give money directly to oil companies and refineries. Hillary’s idiocy is that she will not admit, or even acknowledge that no credible source on the face of the planet thinks suspending the gas tax would be a good idea (for a decent summary and some of Hillary’s comments go here). A direct quote from Hillary that just makes me want to shiver: “I’m not going to put my lot in with economists.” That’s the person I want in charge of our economy.

Finally, if Obama wins Indiana tomorrow, I think there will be a tidal wave of superdelegates announcing their support for Obama in the next week. If Clinton wins Indiana, the race continues until…