Gretzky's Mullet

I might have better phrased the question I suppose too, no problem. However, as much as one would like to believe in his public image, I have a hard time believing he wasn't in on any of it, it'd be just too bizarre. For instance, he claimed to have seen her at a football game, which obviously was untrue. I suppose if he saw someone similar looking and briefly, and then that person contacted him online, maybe you can come up with a scenario where he's innocent there. But she's in the hospital for a crash and then for leukemia and he never tries to visit her even once (upon which he'd find out she doesn't exist), the woman he wants to marry? And he doesn't attend her funeral either? If anything, that speaks worse about his character than would him making up the hoax. At least with my closet homosexuality theory, he comes across more as an insecure and uncomfortable young person under a lot of pressure than he would under the current story. In any case, I have a feeling we haven't heard the end of this what with all of the unanswered questions.

Indeed, and I asked whether you buy that he was the victim or not? It was a question. Then I stated reasons that I don't. My personal conspiracy theory (completely unsubstantiated by any evidence and unrelated to any of the current rumours) is that he's a closet homosexual. Having an imaginary long distance girlfriend would be a convenient way to satisfy Mormon parents antsy for their son to get married (and to a woman), and would be a convenient excuse for him not to engage in the generally promiscuous and highly sexualized lifestyle of a male campus icon, not to mention that he'd be able to hide what would be a disadvantage as a highly publicized athlete in a hypermasculine sports environment. His buddy Tuiasosopo would either be an accomplice or perhaps even his partner. However, as his career wound down, and as his family and fellow players perhaps began to suspect something was amiss, they had to "kill her off", and hadn't counted on the rigor of that particular journalist in exposing him. Admittedly, it doesn't explain everything, but it makes a lot more sense than anything else currently out

You buy that he was the victim? There are a lot of inconsistencies in the story. He himself has said that they met in 2009 after a Stanford football game, which must have been a lie. His family also was said to have met her. The dates of the deaths are very fuzzy. The hoax was said to have been perpetrated by one of Te'o's friends, so there's something of a motive issue. The photo is of an existing and very much alive person who has never met Te'o, meaning that he must never have even seen her if this was a hoax, and so why was he talking about marrying a girl he'd never even seen on a video call, let alone actually in person? Seems much more likely to me that he was in on it. The motive question remains, but the rest of it makes more sense. If he wasn't in on it, then he's been lying quite extensively to cover up whatever "it" was. If he was in on it, then either he's some kind of nutjob, or he was using it cover up something even more embarrassing. Whether or not he was the victim, he's most definitely not innocent.

You might be right about that. You can probably call the quality of losses a wash between the two teams. However, if you just look at the wins then, I'd still say Alabama deserves to be ahead. And I kept on feeling that the Bulldogs got screwed (am not a Georgia fan, but just saying). Maybe I'm just pissed off that I was the only one pulling against the Cardinal vs Ducks among the group I watched with and the Ducks screwed it up. Yeah, they're not unbeatable, but neither is anyone else this year. Also enjoying the chat, though we are on a canucks site after all. I often feel a little lonely in the MLB thread too.

Yes but did you realistically think that Oregon was going to be able to leapfrog a team that won the NC? And after Oregon didn't even play for their own conference championship? Meanwhile Alabama beat an excellent Georgia team in their conference championship (albeit barely), and their only loss was to an excellent A&M team, definitely a more touted opponent than Stanford was. It doesn't matter if you "lost in overtime", it's still a loss to a lower ranked team. Also, watching that game, the Cardinal defence completely flummoxed the Ducks offence, and that probably strengthened the impression that the Ducks offence was overrated and simply hadn't been properly challenged yet (up to that point in the season, they hadn't even really been challenged). Also it doesn't matter that the LSU win was close they were still the first team to beat the Tigers in Baton Rouge since Tebow and the Gators in 2009. That win earned the Tide more credibility with the voters than anything the Ducks did. Also the Tide played Michigan in week 1, a harder non-conference game than any that the Ducks played. I live in the States as well and get really sick of hearing about the SEC from its stupid fans. But, I'm not about to deny that the conference deserves its accolades.

Oops I forgot that Ohio State would still be in the AP rankings despite not being in the BCS. I think Oregon benefited from an easy schedule this year and was overrated. Really, they lost to the only good team they played (Stanford), and that despite the fact that the Cardinal didn't play very well (fumbles, etc). I guess they deserve a little credit for the Fiesta Bowl win. Not sure how you can say Alabama is overrated though, they played a very challenging conference schedule and beat all but the 5th ranked team, who I think should be higher than ND for sure. Also, I think Georgia got majorly shafted this year, they had only one regular season loss (a bit of an ugly one, but to a top 10 team), and they were 4 yards away and a few seconds short from going to the NC against Alabama. Somehow, a 4 point loss where they couldn't quite punch it in from the red zone to win at the end of the SEC Championship game (ie: about as close as it could possibly be) against the SEC's best team was enough to drop them in the rankings, and yet Notre Dame can get absolutely run out of the building by that same team and yet still finishes ahead of the Bulldogs. Meanwhile Florida got the chance to make a fool of themselves in the Sugar Bowl when anyone could see they just weren't very good.

I could see that, and it would mean the first and last "BCS Championship Game" under the bowl format that wasn't won by the SEC. What a disappointment Notre Dame turned out to be, they were simply outclassed yesterday. If I had to pick a top 10 to end the season, it'd be: 1. Alabama 2. Georgia 3. Oregon 4. Texas A&M 5. Notre Dame 6. Stanford 7. Florida 8. LSU 9. South Carolina 10. Kansas State However, I imagine Florida will somehow finish higher, even though they totally did not deserve a BCS bowl over Georgia (who got majorly shafted in the pre-Bowl rankings IMO) and the Gators subsequently licked balls in said BCS bowl against #21 Louisville. I might be snubbing Clemson a little bit too, perhaps they deserve to be in ahead of K-State.

That was a huge game to kick off Bowl season yeah. I watched the 2nd and 3rd quarters at the gym, and then left and didn't bother to turn the TV on when I got home, thinking that Nevada basically had it wrapped up. Stupid me. Not to mention that I was also flipping to Butler vs Indiana in hoops and Butler toppled the #1 team in OT, and I didn't catch the end of that either. The Idaho Potato Bowl (formerly the Humanitarian Bowl) was less entertaining, but still had its moments. Utah State played its last WAC game in style, pounding the injury depleted Toledo, and showing they're ready to be a big cheese in the Mountain West. Chuckie Keeton is only a sophomore, and looked incredible yesterday. Look for that team to challenge for a bigger bowl next year. Incidentally, I don't know why the NCAA can't force title sponsors to give bowls a dignified name and then just add their name before it. Eg: they may call the Orange Bowl the "Discover" Orange Bowl and the Rose Bowl "presented by Vizio" but at least they don't call them the Discover Bowl and the Vizio Bowl. Yet this week we have the "Beef'O'Brady's Bowl", which used to be called the St Petersburg Bowl but now it's officially the BoB Bowl St Petersburg. I'm not going to watch it on principle, nor will I watch the Little Caesars Bowl (formerly Motor City Bowl) or the Peach Bowl which is now the Chick-Fil-A Bowl (and which is actually a really compelling matchup, LSU and Clemson). I wish they'd realize that letting the sponsors give it a stupid name like that demeans it, though I guess selling out is what the NCAA does best. The "Citrus Bowl" is now the "Capital One Bowl", the Mobile Bowl is the "GoDaddy.com Bowl" (that one didn't have much history, it pretty much sucks), the Hall of Fame Bowl is now the "Outback Bowl", the Texas Bowl is now the "Meineke Car Care of Texas Bowl", the Queen City Bowl is now the "Belk Bowl" (also a crappy one with no real history). At least the "Heart of Dallas Bowl", which is a new one, has that name based on a charitable organization that uses sports to raise money for local charities.

Yeah but there's also the doghouse you gotta worry about. I think I may have avoided it but it's too early to tell. EDIT: Nope, I got in trouble again. It came up in conversation, and I got asked why I care to watch a game between two schools I'm not associated with in any way. I mentioned that she doesn't know any of the people competing on X-Factor either and yet she watches that so what's the difference. Later I couldn't help but notice that we went quite promptly to sleep after getting into bed. Women, what can you do?

My wife's really big on making plans in advance, and I took one look at our calendar for January and canceled my way out of a plan made with a bunch of other people on Friday the 4th so I can watch the Cotton Bowl. Hopefully the Aggies and Sooners can make it worth the lambasting I got over that one.

I think the vote should be close, as both players could make a case for being deserving. I happen to think that the hype around Manziel and the fact that he's a QB will probably push it to him. I also think the Aggies are going to beat the Sooners in the Cotton Bowl, sorry Rupert. I've been wrong before, but I just think the Aggies will be better on both sides of the ball. Looking at the balance of their games, the Sooners have only beaten one opponent that ended the season ranked, and it was the largely unimpressive Longhorns in the Red River game. Granted, the Aggies played an easier SEC schedule than some of the other teams in that conference (eg: did not have to play Georgia or South Carolina), and they lost (albeit by tiny margins) against LSU and Florida at home, however, they also beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa, which probably qualifies as the single biggest victory by any team in college football all season. Both teams have some question marks on the defensive end, but that's far more serious of a problem for Oklahoma, who gave up a combined 97 points in back-to-back barnburners against West Virginia and Oklahoma State. They won both games, but demonstrated they can't stop the run, giving up over 300 yards rushing to the Mountaineers' Tavon Austin and 5 rushing TD's against the Cowboys. Up against the balanced attack of Manziel, as well as the underrated but capable Malena, I think the Sooners will have real problems.

I'm going to point out that I hate that Florida is going to the Sugar Bowl instead of Georgia. When you think about it, all Georgia did to get demoted from the 3rd overall seed to 7th was lose to the 2nd overall seed, in a very close game in a conference championship that Florida didn't even have to play. So by virtue of sitting (since they couldn't earn their way into that championship game) the Gators can leapfrog a team that has to play? So so stupid. Not to mention that Georgia actually beat Florida head to head this year.

That's one of the best Bowl matchups of the year, including the BCS. I like that it doesn't conflict with any other important bowl too (January 4th). Can't miss. The whole BCS actually looks pretty good this year actually, though I'll probably skip the Orange Bowl. Of the non-BCS, along with the Cotton, the Outback Bowl (Denard's last game) should be pretty exciting, and the Las Vegas Bowl has Boise State vs Washington Huskies, which has a lot of entertainment potential.

I think Alabama vs ND actually does have some potential for excitement. I think the Tide will win, but it should at least be worth watching. I can't believe the Badgers pounded the Huskers as bad as they did either. Who would've imagined a Badgers-Cardinal Rose Bowl two weeks ago? Good to see K-State redeem themselves back into the Fiesta too.

I'm going to come out and say that it was exactly the right time for Costas to say something. The problem people have in this country is that there is a sense of cognitive dissonance between the idea of people being murdered and the idea that guns are part of the problem. So it's perfectly ok for Bob to go on and say that the death of these people was a tragedy, but then when he rightly points out that by extension, it was preventable and that the easy availability of a murder weapon was partly responsible, he gets in trouble? Only the extreme lunacy of the gun nut movement would lead to this even being a source of conflict. The time to talk about fixing problems, like gun violence, is in the wake of that violence, especially with a problem so urgent. Handguns exist for one purpose, and one purpose alone. To murder people. They're not for hunting, they're not for war (where killing isn't usually referred to as murder, largely a semantic difference), they are designed with only one function. Is it possible that Belcher would have murdered his girlfriend without a gun had one not been available? Of course it is: while we will never know exactly what was going through his head at the time, there are many ways for a person to kill another. However, none have the swiftness, the finality, or the potential for complete spontaneity as a handgun pointed to someone's head. However, because of the hard and tireless work of the NRA, people have learned to divorce the concept of the tool from the handyman that wields it, when the evidence that more guns means more homicides is effectively indisputable. Bob was pointing out what in any sane country or setting should have been self-evident, and that's that the most tragic thing about these senseless tragedies is that they ARE preventable, and that we are not doing enough to prevent them. They also had no business playing that game IMO. These people need to learn a little perspective.

Harbaugh announced Kaepernick as the starter vs the Rams this week. Alex Smith taking it in stride though obviously and understandably a little frustrated. Personally, I'm not crazy about this decision. All he did wrong was get hit in the head. He was coming off a week where he was the NFL's offensive POW, and looked good in the game he was knocked out of too. He's in year 2 of a career renaissance under Harbaugh, whose system he fits perfectly, and he's one of the NFL's most efficient and consistent passers. He's got chemistry with his receivers, and meshes well with the running backs that are central to the team's success. Kaepernick was good in relief (and played quite well vs the Bears), but he was hardly amazing versus the Saints lousy defence, throwing a pick and relying on two defensive touchdowns by the 49ers excellent D to win that game. Sure, Colin's flashier than Alex, but for a team built around running and defence with a timely and efficient air attack mixed in, I think Alex is the more sound choice in the long run, and all this move does is to sacrifice the long view for questionable short term gain.

No they had no answer for him. Lucky for them Brady Hoke decided to basically sit him the entire fourth quarter. I think the guy is a good coach, but wow was it stupid to completely abandon the gameplan (ie running the ball) with the game close and on the line.

Go Blue! Very exciting Michigan-Ohio game right now. So sad that Denard Robinson's career is coming to a close, with this probably his penultimate appearance in a Wolverines uniform (a non-BCS bowl will most likely be the very last). Next year looks bright with Gardner under center but few players can ever match the excitement of Shoelace.

Yeah, being that it's effectively a guarantee that we're seeing one of those, I'd love to see Johnny Football (truth be told I hate that nickname), though they're a long shot. Otherwise I'd be ok with Georgia. I wonder if there will ever be a BCS Championship game under the current format that doesn't include an SEC team. Since the advent of the extra game in 2007, there has been at least one participant from that conference every year, and every one of those games was won by an SEC team. Most have been largely anticlimactic, though I will confess to having enjoyed both games that Florida won, and the Cam Newton v Oregon game was watchable (though I was really drunk so it might have just seemed that way). Alabama's two titles have been boring as hell, though the first sucked largely because Colt McCoy got hurt and the Longhorns were pretty uncompetitive without him. The last truly thrilling "title game" however would've had to have been the last one under the old format, USC v Texas in the Rose Bowl with Vince Young beating out Bush and Leinart. Coincidentally, the last time two non-SEC teams played for the title. Anyways, next year is the last of the current format, so hopefully the Big 10, Big 12 and Pac 12 shape up a little and we can see someone else win the last one.

I'll tell you exactly why that matters. Stanford has an out-of-conference loss in a close game against the nation's number 1 ranked team. Conversely, Oregon has three non-conference wins against 3 cupcakes who couldn't tell their own butts from a hole in the wall. To say that Stanford is 9-2 and Oregon 10-1 and therefore the Ducks should be ahead completely ignores the circumstances of those games. Oregon scheduled themselves an easy non-conference schedule with the thought that they'd breeze through the Pac-12 and not need any strength of schedule boost otherwise, and now that didn't happen and they're getting their just deserts. The strength of the SEC isn't some kind of mirage. I don't particularly love that conference but it's legitimate. This year Alabama has run roughshod over everyone save for a close win vs LSU and a close loss vs the Aggies. The Aggies themselves have only lost to LSU and Florida (by an average of 4 pts per loss) while clobbering everyone else. Florida has only lost to Georgia, who's only lost to South Carolina, who's only lost two, against LSU and Florida. The pattern here is that all these teams are very evenly matched, and the level they're matched at is far above any potential opponent. If Ohio State were bowl eligible they'd certainly be in the mix. But look at Oregon. They've got a win against Washington, which looks like a quality victory, but otherwise they've availed against some very flawed opposition, like the Pac-12 bottom feeders and the decidedly average Arizona teams. And while they beat USC, they also gave up 51 points in the process. All that did was to alert the world that their defence couldn't handle any serious competition and that if they were forced to stay on the field instead of giving the ball to their offence to push the tempo, they couldn't stack up. Then along come the Cardinal with a decent defence for a change, and the Ducks looked completely ordinary. I'd say the Ducks are lucky at this point that with a win against the Beavers and a USC win vs the Irish (unlikely but possible) they're probably back in the title game. I'd say that if they had to play any of the top 5 SEC teams they'd probably lose.

Ducks didn't even deserve to win that game, and it wasn't even about the kicker. Had Stanford been able to hold onto the ball (their turnovers were pretty weak and certainly not a product of particularly good defence) they would've won much earlier. I had wanted to see the Ducks in the Championship over the protestations of a bunch of friends (was watching with mostly Bay Area grads and therefore fans of Stanford, with one couple who are Alabama alums thrown in). However, that performance on Saturday left me wholly unconvinced the Ducks could be a match for any SEC team. I don't think Notre Dame would be either however, and am hoping USC wins just to knock them off their inflated perch, though with Barkley out I don't know how likely that is. Though the alternative is probably another all-SEC final. Ugh. Stanford must be ruing that loss that close loss to the Huskies in September, without which they'd almost certainly be #2 nationally right now. As an aside, I think the NCAA should implement a rule that to be eligible for a BCS bowl you should have to win a Conference Championship. This would transition nicely to the upcoming playoff format too, and would make those conference championship games so significant. It would also light a fire under stupid Notre Dame's butt, and really I think every other school pretty much hates their little independent "sort of in the Big 10" routine enough to agree with me. To their credit, the Irish have played a pretty tough schedule this year, but I think it's pretty dumb that they could win next weekend and get a free pass to the Championship, whereas Alabama and Georgia have to play each other for the privilege. Pretty sure that if they brought in my rule the Irish would be jumping into a conference pretty quickly in order to be eligible.

Yep, Alabama's still got a shot but need some people to lose.

God I hope K-State doesn't finish first. I can't think of a less interesting #1 team. Give me Oregon in the Final against an SEC team any day.

Could the second ever Big-10 championship game include a team from the Leaders division that is .500 or below in conference play? Undefeated Ohio State sits in first in that division but is bowl ineligible due to NCAA sanctions, while disgraced Penn State is currently second (and we all know what happened to them), leaving the presently 3-2 Wisconsin as the current frontrunner, with Indiana 2-3 behind them. Trouble is, both of those teams play each other and Penn State, while the Badgers also have a game against the Buckeyes coming up. Meanwhile, the exciting but certainly flawed Huskers putter along in the Legends division. If the season were over today (assuming favourites were to win their conference championships), the BCS would look approximately like: National Championship game: Alabama vs Kansas State Rose Bowl game: Oregon vs Nebraska Orange Bowl game: Louisville vs Florida State Fiesta Bowl game: Oklahoma vs Oregon State Sugar Bowl game: Georgia vs Notre Dame It would be the second year in a row that a non-AQ team fails to snag an at-large berth, after at least one had done so every year since the introduction of the BCS championship game. However, such teams pretty much have to go undefeated in non-conference and conference play, which no non-AQ team has done.

Check that, ignore CF for a week and Oregon drops to 4th, despite not losing? Anyways, they won a thriller last night, who knows how the top of the ledger will be impacted. Also, I could've predicted the end result of the LSU-Bama game. I was sitting there chastising the TV, telling Les that he wasn't going to make that field goal, and that he shouldn't be running on 3 and long when a first down would seal the game up, and that he shouldn't be playing so conservatively once the Tide got it back. I think my wife has decided I'm totally nuts, but I can understand LSU fans frustration with this guy, always awful late game decisions. I was really wanting to see Alabama lose (am sick of seeing them at the top).