Category: Big Ten

Rextasy Island and Land-o-Links for 9/26/2007

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, Chicago Cubs, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Major League Baseball, NFL Football, Sports1 Comment

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Well, it looks as if though Rex Grossman is heading into the overflowing dustbin of Bears quarterback history alongside a long list of illustrious names such as Moses Moreno, Cade McNown, Peter Tom Willis, Jonathan Quinn… oh man, just shoot me now.  Let’s face it: this isn’t looking to be a very good season for the Bears and it’s not just about the QB position.  Cedric Benson has gone back to sucking.  The defense is decimated with injuries.  Devin Hester followed up a brilliant performance against the Chiefs to dropping pretty much every ball kicked to him by the Cowboys.  Maybe we can still get into the playoffs since the weakness of the NFC North can never be underestimated, but with the way the so-far undefeated Packers (ugh) have spurred the latest round of the media fellating Brett Favre, the Lions have finally put their 25 first-round draft pick wide receivers to use with some gaudy offensive numbers, and the Vikings having who I believe will be one of the next major stars of the NFL in Adrian Peterson (can we switch ours for theirs?), this certainly will not be a guarantee.  As for the QB situation specifically, I’ve long tried to at least provide a counterpoint to the constant calls for the Bears to bench Rex, but at this point, he’s become the football equivalent of Steve Sax.  A year ago at this time, Rex Grossman was in the driver’s seat to being the NFL MVP and we were contemplating the possibility of the Bears going undefeated since there was finally an explosive offense to go along with a stifling defense.  Now, we’ve got slews of calls to Chicago sports radio shows arguing that Kyle Orton, much less Brian Griese needs to be put in at quarterback as opposed to being the team sideline keg master.  Oh, how things change on a dime in the NFL.

Anyway, here are some links:

(1) The Sex Cannon is Dead; Long Live the Sex Cannon (Kissing Suzy Kolber)  – I’m not sure what the KSK guys are going to do with Rex not playing.  With Brian Griese now at the helm, the Bears officially have the two most blogged about backup quarterbacks in the history of the interweb in Rextasy and Orton.

(2) The Dissenter (New York Times) – A fascinating in-depth interview with Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens (also a Chicago native).

(3) In China, a Moon Cake Makeover (Washington Post) – It’s the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival (also known as the Moon Festival) and the traditional moon cakes are getting some new types of fillings.

(4) Fixing ‘Nowhere’ (Chicago Tribune) – Prior to Mayor Daley’s ridiculous playing of the race card in the fight over the plans to move the Chicago Children’s Museum to the northeast end of Grant Park (and I’m actually someone that has usually supported Hizzoner, despite his occasional tantrums or tearing up of airfields in the middle of the night without telling anyone), Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin put together a nice piece on what the Children’s Museum would need to do in order to be deserving of what would be a high profile location, while also essentially acknowledging that something needs to be done with what is now Daley Bicentennial Plaza.  I’ve always that that this part of Grant Park is one of the most embarrassing parts of downtown Chicago with a leaky Cold War-era fieldhouse and an oversupply of old cracked unused tennis courts.  This might suffice for a so-called neighborhood park, but when this is the space that people get to the end of Frank Gehry’s winding bridge from the magnificent Millennium Park, it’s time for some action.  Kamin is right to make sure that the city shouldn’t put a building in that space just because “something is better than nothing”, but I truly hope a solid plan is put into place quickly.  (The other embarrassing place in a high profile location, which thankfully is finally getting fixed: the Roosevelt Road Metra station.  The bridge is from the Temple of Doom and the station itself is a shack straight out of Deliverance.  I’m not exaggerating.  You would have thought the city would have pushed Metra to put something up a little bit nicer much sooner for the gateway to the Museum Campus and Soldier Field.)

On a related note, I have absolutely no sympathy for the residents in that area complaining about the potential additional traffic that the museum might bring nearby.  The residents have seen their property values skyrocket as a result of the opening of Millennium Park and, for Pete’s sake, they live in DOWNTOWN CHICAGO, the most high traffic area in the United States outside of Manhattan.  Museum or no museum, what the hell do these people expect when they choose to live in DOWNTOWN CHICAGO???  This is like people that live in Wrigleyville complaining about the crowds as if they didn’t realize a 40,000-seat ballpark that sells out all of the time is right down the block.  If you don’t want to deal with traffic and crowds, then it would be wise to not live in a place that, you know, has a lot of traffic and crowds.

And finally…

(5) Bear Down: There’s Only One Answer To The Bears’ QB Problem (Deadspin) – I think that you could probably guess who Deadspin is voting for to replace Rex – let’s just say that it involves a uncontrollable neckbeard and a bottle of Jack.

I’m off to Champaign this weekend to watch Rashard Mendenhall run over JoePa and company.  Until then, Go Illini and Go Bears (and if you’re the type of person that likes the Cubs, don’t choke).

(Image from Chicago Tribune)

Hail to Those Motherf…

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Sports3 Comments

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Well, the first college football Saturday of the season turned out to be much more than anyone could have possibly bargained for. The Illini almost completed a huge comeback against Missouri in St. Louis with redshirt freshman quarterback Eddie McGee doing a more than adequate job stepping in for Juice Williams (who got his bell rung at the very beginning of the game). Of course, that means that if Juice starts seeing his pass completion percentage dip toward his 39.5 percent mark from last year, it won’t be long before there’s another legitimate QB controversy on campus. I’m pretty sure that the old adage that the most popular person in town is the backup quarterback had its genesis in Champaign since, with the exceptions of maybe Jack Trudeau and Jeff George, every Illini quarterback since the Red Grange era has had Rex Grossman-like accuracy with Kyle Orton-like arm strength and Brian Griese-like speed – it would be akin to creating a player on EA Sports NCAA Football and giving him the lowest attribute ratings in every possible category. I still think Juice is still the man the build around since he has incredible athleticism, but McGee showed on Saturday that there’s a viable alternative waiting in the wings.

Despite the 40-34 loss, I was able to enjoy a rare fall Saturday where the Illinois football program looks like a beacon of hope compared to its Midwestern neighbors of Notre Dame and Michigan. The Fighting Irish’s own quarterback controversy in hindsight turned out to be the most ridiculous sports talk show topics in recent memory with the way that they were all pummeled by Georgia Tech in a 33-3 loss (the worst Notre Dame loss in an opener in school history). I’ve been challenging my Irish fan friends over the past couple of years to provide me with concrete evidence that Charlie Weis is any better of a coach than Ty Willingham, since that seems to be the common perception yet the records don’t support that conclusion. So far, I haven’t heard many arguments other than the fuzzy wuzzy “Notre Dame spirit” proclamations from the fact that Weis is an alum, which really doesn’t go into anything as to the quality of his coaching abilities. It will be interesting to see how much the Irish fan base will stay supportive of big Charlie if the team doesn’t make it to any type of bowl this season (when looking at the schedule is more of probability than just a possibility). Something tells me with the way Willingham and Bob Davie were ousted over the past few years, however, it won’t be any prettier this time around.

Of course, it’s impossible not to comment on what I believe is the sports story of the year and what is the biggest upset I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime (I was alive for the “Miracle on Ice” in 1980, but was a bit too young to remember watching it as a 2-year old). Well, I actually didn’t witness it since, even though I am one of the five people in the country that has access to the Big Ten Network as a DirecTV subscriber, the household I was at on Saturday had BTN-less Comcast. Just hearing the scoring updates from the game, though, literally made my heart race. Appalachian State beating #5-ranked Michigan in the Big House is beyond anything that I could have possibly imagined happening. On Friday, I picked the Wolverines to actually make it to the national championship game, yet the very next day that get squashed by a Football Championship Subdivision I-AA Division Conference whatever the hell they call it team. (By the way, what is the NCAA’s problem with just sticking with logical names? The NCAA Tournament was neatly divided into the East, South, Midwest, and West Regions until the association decided to name the regions by their sites every year, leading to such flow-off-the-tongue creations like the “East Rutherford Regional”. At least the 2005 region that the Illini came out of was called the Chicago Region as opposed to the geographically correct Rosemont Region, which would have made the average person on the street believe that they determined one of the Final Four at the United terminal at O’Hare. Fortunately, the NCAA went back to the old region names this year. This logic obviously led them to get antsy and move forward with approving the switch from the perfectly logical Division I-A and I-AA distinctions to the Frankenstein they have now.) While this sort of wounded my pride a little bit as a college football prognosticator along with understanding that this would severely damage the perception of the Big Ten conference for this season, you can’t help but love to see such a monster upset, especially at the expense of Michigan (who for my money, is the “Evil Empire” of college football they way that the Yankees are in baseball and Duke is in college basketball).

I try to stay away from the “instant history” shenanigans that people seem to enjoy playing these days, but the Appalachian State shocker is justified. This is bigger than any type of upset that you could ever see in pro sports since I would argue that the talent gap between the best pro team and the worst pro team in any given sport is much smaller than the divide between a BCS superpower at the level of Michigan versus a lower division school. This is especially true when comparing football, which requires depth and size at a multitude of positions that makes it very tough for true upsets to occur, to basketball, where a team that might be shorter on talent can get hot from the three-point line (this is the typical anatomy of an upset in the NCAA Tournament). The Boise State win over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl was an upset in terms of perception only – the Broncos were an undefeated top-15 team at the time (if the school’s name were Alabama or Florida State, no one would have ever termed it as an upset). Meanwhile, George Mason was ranked in the polls during the 2006 season prior to its run to the Final Four, so that team that supposedly “came out of nowhere” for most of the American public was actually on the radar of a number of people in the sports establishment.

Division III Chaminade over #1-ranked Virginia in 1982 is often considered the greatest upset in college basketball history, but even that game had exigent circumstances, such as Virginia coming off a trip to Japan and basically playing a game in a layover in Hawaii, not to mention Ralph Sampson just having recovered from a bout of pneumonia. For Michigan, though, there was simply no excuse. This was the first game of the season in front of over 110,000 friendly fans at the Big House with a healthy and fresh starting lineup that plenty of people believed could be playing for the national championship. The Wolverines losing to a team in a lower division, much less a non-BCS school, in the friendly confines of the Big House is simply unfathomable. Honestly, the only comparison that I could make would be if a Single-A minor league ballclub came up and swept a three-game series (not just win one game) against the fully-stocked and rested Yankees team at Yankee Stadium. That’s how incredible Appalachian State’s achievement was on Saturday.

Finally, I’d suggest you check out a time capsule of the feelings of the game at this open game thread from Saturday that was on the always entertaining mgoblog. You can see the close to 1000 comments made during the game from mostly Michigan fans, tracking from the first half where they thought they were just going to have a tougher come-from-behind day to that moment where they knew they were the victims of one of the greatest upsets in the history of modern sports. Let’s just hope Illinois doesn’t take their Subdivision Submarine opponent Western Illinois that’s coming to Memorial Stadium on Saturday.

(Image from Detroit Free Press)

The Juice is Loose: Frank the Tank’s College Football Preview 2007

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Sports6 Comments

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I don’t know about you, but with the worst White Sox season since the millennium droning on (with Cubs fans becoming more and more insufferable since it’s hard to see them not backing into the NL Central championship) and the Bears in the midst of another week of questioning whether Rex Grossman can hold onto his balls (not to mention Lance Briggs’ driving skills), the start of the college football season couldn’t come soon enough. That means that it’s time to get on with the annual college football preview:

(1) Illini Are Bowling This Year… Seriously – OK, I know that I said the same thing last season, but it’s got to be our time to get to a lovely bowl destination such as Detroit. Even while taking account Ron Zook’s coaching ability (or lack thereof), there’s way too much talent on the Illinois squad this year to continue to be muddled with the traditional bottom-feeders of the Big Ten such as Indiana and Northwestern. The Big Ten isn’t as strong of a conference as it was a year ago, so I’ve got a good feeling that this club is going to do the proverbial snakebite on a lot of teams. The Illini are returning 20 starters plus adding blue chip superstar players on both offense (wide receiver Arrelious Benn) and defense (outside linebacker Martez Wilson). Meanwhile, Juice Williams can only improve on his 39.5 percent completion rate in his 2006 freshman campaign (right?) and senior J Leman heads up a stable defense.

Looking at the Illini schedule game-by-game, we’re set up to get to that magic .500 mark for bowl eligibility. This weekend brings the return of the football version of the Braggin’ Rights game when Illinois takes on Missouri at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis. I think with this game we’ll find out right off the bat whether this is going to be a whirlwind season with a meteoric rise or one where we merely take some solid steps to get back into the upper half of the BCS echelon. If the Illini can beat Mizzou, who is the trendy pick to win the Big 12 North this season (which is akin to winning the National League Central this year – whoever is left standing at one or two games above .500 will promptly get slaughtered in the postseason), then I think we’re heading toward one of those wacky years where we perform way beyond expectations, such as 1999 when we beat both Michigan and Ohio State on the road. Even if we lose, though (which, in all rationality, I think we will), Illinois is going to still be in okay shape to go bowling. The home opener against Western Illinois is going to be a win, while I’m also fairly certain that the next two road games against a severely depleted Syracuse squad and a just-plain-awful Indiana team will be victories for the Illini. That’s halfway to the six-win bowl mark.

So, where are the last three victories going to come from? Penn State is going to be a tough one – we have a nasty habit of spotting them a point or 60 in the first half, so I don’t think it’s coming there. The Wisconsin game is one that I’m strangely confident about since we always seem to play the Badgers a bit better than expected. Still, Wisconsin is a team that is probably the 2nd-best team in the Big Ten this year after Michigan, so I doubt the upset will happen. Playing at Iowa City isn’t going to be great situation for a relatively young Illinois team, so I’ll chalk the Iowa game up as a loss for the Illini. The Michigan game is pretty much the focus of every Illinois fan this year since it’s set-up as a prime time ABC game at Memorial Stadium (which I can’t attend, as I explained in my last post), but I’m pretty much accustomed to getting my hopes completely crushed every time that we play the Wolverines (not to mention that I can’t see how Michigan isn’t getting at least a Rose Bowl berth this year, if not even better, as I’ll note later), so let’s put this as an Illini L. Next up, our athletic department was nice enough to pay Ball State to come to town so that we can finally win a homecoming game, leaving us with needing two more wins with three games to go. We can beat Minnesota even though it’s in the Hump Dome. Next up is Ohio State at the Horseshoe… we’ll just skip over that one. Getting Northwestern at home for the regular season finale, though, ought to be the clincher in spite of a pretty good Wildcats defense. That gets us to the magic six wins a nice trip dodging bullets in Detroit for the holidays. Honestly, the thought of a bowl game in the world’s worst tourist destination outside of Baghdad making me this excited shows you exactly how putrid the Illinois program has been in recent years. I’ll take anything at this point.

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(2) Big Ten Final Standings Prediction – All of you know that the last thing that I want to do is give any praise to Michigan, but I’m fairly surprised that there’s not that much buzz about the Wolverines getting to the national championship game this season. Sure, they got pasted by USC in last year’s Rose Bowl and their top-ranked run defense has lost a lot of firepower, but the offense is going to be ridiculous with Chad Henne, Mike Hart, and Mario Manningham at the skill positions paired up with an NFL-ready offensive line. Michigan could very well be 10-0 by the second week in November, when they’ll then have back-to-back monster games against Wisconsin and, of course, Ohio State to at least decide who gets to the Rose Bowl, if not the national title game for the second year in a row. I’ll know this much – Lloyd Carr better have a Monster.com account in place if his team loses to the Buckeyes again. As for the rest of the upper echelon, Wisconsin will hold serve as the second-best team in conference while everyone needs to look out for Iowa – it’s as if though people have forgotten how dangerous Kirk Ferentz’s teams can be.  Here are the projected conference standings: (1) Michigan, (2) Wisconsin, (3) Iowa, (4) Ohio State, (5) Penn State, (6) Purdue, (7) Illinois, (8) Michigan State, (9) Northwestern, (10) Minnesota, (11) Indiana.

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(3) BCS Conference Champions Prediction – Nothing too wacky here, although the media continues to astound me with how it has anointed West Virginia as national championship contender yet again (#3 in the preseason AP poll). Here’s what I said about the Mountaineers last season: “[T]he worst argument that anyone can ever have to say that someone is a national championship contender is that the team has schedule akin to playing the runners-up from a sixth grade Punt, Pass, and Kick contest every week, which is what a number of prognosticators seem to be saying about Big East member West Virginia.” The exact same thing is being said about West Virginia this season, which leads me to believe that the team will suffer the exact same shortfall against Louisville to plummet them to a Motor City-type Bowl. The projected BCS champs: Big Ten – Michigan, SEC – LSU, ACC – Virginia Tech, Big 12 – Texas, Pac-10 – USC, Big East – Louisville.

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(4) BCS Championship Game Prediction – I still have to chuckle every time that I hear the name “John David Booty” (heh-heh, Beavis), but let’s face it – the USC Trojans are the team to beat again. It’s coming down to a rematch of last year’s Rose Bowl in this year’s national championship game (for a virtual Rose Bowl with the Big Ten/Pac 10 matchup) with Michigan and USC. Unfortunately for Big Ten supporters such as myself, the result is going to end up being the same. Predicted national championship result: USC over Michigan.

Anyway, if the Illini end up beating Mizzou this weekend, we might be looking forward to something a lot better than Detroit over the holidays. Anyone up for a road trip to Toronto?

(Images from Wikimedia Commons, Bean’s Blog, Jerkass Clothing, and The Big Lead)

Land-o-Links – 8/22/2007

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NFL Football, Sports1 Comment

I apologize for the radio silence over the past few weeks.  Here are a bunch of links to tide you over:

(1) 3 Large Drops of Sweat (Chicago Tribune) – If you’ve been a regular reader of this blog, you know what I think of preseason football, particularly in its ability (or lack thereof) to predict outcomes in the regular season.  That being said, it looks like we’re finding out how Rex Grossman is avoiding throwing interceptions downfield into triple coverage – he’s just going to lay the ball right on the ground.

(2) Yes, Deep-Fried Oreos, but Not in Trans Fats (New York Times) – For my money, the deep-fried Snickers bar is the carnie filet mignon – it’s like melting the candy bar and stuffing it inside a Krispy Kreme doughnut.  It’s good to know that this delicacy can re-enter my diet without guilt along with a bucket of trans fat-free KFC.

(3) Did Hawk Invent the Batting Glove? (South Side Sox) – Hawk Harrelson also invented a way to blow smoke up your ass every single inning of baseball broadcasts every single night.  Who knew that we had baseball’s Enrico Fermi in the booth, White Sox fans?

(4) Brought Down By Arrogance (Washington Post) – There’s been an overload of banter about the Michael Vick dogfighting case and his plea bargain, so I’ll just point you to this Michael Wilbon column that largely encapsulates all of my personal feelings on the matter.

(5) 2007-08 Illinois Men’s Basketball Schedule Released (fightingillini.com) – This is definitely not an easy non-conference tilt for the Illini (something tells me that the bulk of this schedule was put together when we still though Eric Gordon was headed to Champaign to play prior to Satan’s Spawn luring him away).  I’m really looking forward to the Maui Classic right before Thanksgiving (one of my favorite college basketball events every year regardless of who’s participating), particularly with the prospect of playing Duke (assuming that we can advance after the opener with Arizona State).

(6) Only Single Tickets Remain for Illinois-Michigan Football Match-Up (fightingillini.com) – On the other side of the Illini sports world, the buzz for the upcoming football season has gotten so irrationally exuberant that people are actually spending their hard-earned dollars to buy up game tickets.  I know that I would have been going to this game (nationally-televised prime time game = 12 hours of tailgating and 80,000 variations on Ann Arbor’s promiscuity) if not for the fact that a certain someone has a wedding on this date.  (He’s not an Illini, so I guess it’s somewhat excusable for the prospect of this happening not being the very first thing that he would think about, but with college football schedules published years in advance, scheduling conflicts should be the primary cross-check if you have a disproportionate number of people going to your wedding that went to a particular school.  That’s why I had a June wedding.)  On another note, my annual college football preview will be coming very soon.  (Preview of the preview: I like how Illinois is set up this year.  Obviously, I know that shocks you all.)
And finally…

(7) The Singing Bee – Filling in the Blanks (TV Blend) – Lord only knows that I initially wanted to see any Joey Fatone-fueled television vehicle enter the trash bin of bad couch potato ideas along with “The 100 Lives of Black Jack Savage” and Tim McCarver calling baseball games.  Yet, when I ended up flipping on to “The Singing Bee” a few weeks ago, it was as hypnotic as a Lou Pearlman production: brainless, empty-caloried, yet strangely satisfying.  Sure, it’s the equivalent of televising karaoke night at your local bar (I mean, the next thing you know and they’ll be televising guys sitting around playing poker and bass fishing), but the fact of the matter is that if you watch the show, it’s almost impossible not to start playing along.  Once that happens, you’re basically hooked on TV’s crystal meth, only the drug won’t kill nearly as many brain cells after a half-hour.  There’s no hope for me, so please save yourselves!

The Sports Census Maps

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago Bulls, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, NHL Hockey, Sports3 Comments

If you’re one of the three regular readers of this blog, it’s probably readily apparent that I’m a big sports fan.  What you probably don’t know, however, is that I’ve also always been a dork about maps (when my family took road trips when I was younger, I used to collect maps from as many states and cities as possible) and census data (for whatever reason, population and socioeconomic demographic statistics have always fascinated me – I could pore over that stuff for hours on end).

So, when I ended up finding the CommonCensus Sports Map Project, which has put together maps of the geographic distribution of sports fans of teams in Major League Baseball, NFL Football, NBA Basketball, NHL Hockey, and college football, I was predictably sucked in.  Granted, the data is based upon those who vote in the accompanying poll, so it’s not scientific, but it looks as if though the sample size is getting large enough where there is a pretty accurate view of who cheers for what sports teams across the country.  (Note: be sure to also check out the separate “United Countries of Baseball” map discussed on Strange Maps and Deadspin.)

Here are some observations from a look at the different CommonCensus Sports Maps:

(1) The teams that I like are pretty popular in general in terms of total votes.  The Bulls are the #1 NBA team, the Bears are the #3 NFL team (after the Patriots and Cowboys), Illinois is #9 out of all NCAA Division 1-A football teams, and the Blackhawks are the #4 NHL team (maybe there is hope for hockey in Chicago when Bill Wirtz finally relinquishes his throne).  Not surprisingly, my White Sox are the exception as the #15 MLB team out of 30.  If I were a “Cox” fan, I might be enthralled with the Cubs’ #2 MLB ranking (after only the Red Sox), but since I’m not, I just have to shake my head at how the severe the nation’s lemming epidemic is today.

(2) The baseball map is the most fascinating since it really shows the regional rivalry lines.  Growing up as a Sox fan on the South Side, I honestly had no clue how seriously people in Downstate Illinois take the Cubs-Cardinals rivalry until I went to college in Champaign.  I think that most Cubs fans that grow up in the Chicago area look at the White Sox the way, by comparison, Yankees fans look at the Red Sox (just complete and utter disdain for the other team and their fans) while the Cardinals are more like the Yankees’ view of the Mets (really strong dislike).  There are some individual exceptions to this (i.e. the Cubs fans that always love to claim that “they just don’t pay attention to the Sox at all” or the contingent that merely uses Wrigley Field as a happy hour spot before hitting the other bars in Wrigleyville) , but that seems to be the general rule in Chicagoland.  That changes when you get towards the center of the State of Illinois, where I could see clearly that the feelings between Cubs and Cardinals fans are a lot more intense, showing that proximity breeds contempt.  As you can tell by the baseball map and drilling down into the statistical breakouts, the state pretty much splits between the Cubs and Cardinals just south of the U of I campus, with the Cubs also taking most of Iowa and Indiana.  White Sox Nation is relegated to the space bounded by Madison Street, I-80, I-294, and Michigan City (we like to keep our club nice and exclusive).

(3) For college football, the Chicago area is not surprisingly dominated by Illinois, Notre Dame, and Northwestern, followed by other Big Ten teams plus Northern Illinois.  Most of the figures pass the smell test with the exception of the SEC schools along with ACC counterpart Florida State, who seem to be severely underrepresented in terms of votes at this point in time.  I would make a joke that the Confederacy is just moving on from 8-track players, but Arkansas State and East Carolina actually have significantly more votes than Tennessee, Alabama, LSU, and Florida State.  Any sports fan with any semblance of the college football world would know those figures must be inaccurate.  The CommonCensus project coordinators ought to take a look at this because those numbers from the South are completely out of whack with all of the other regions of the country.

(4) In terms of the NFL, the Bears take most of Illinois as expected, although I thought that I’d see a bit more Bears dominance in the northern part of Indiana since there’s a lot more entrenched history there compared to the Colts (much like the baseball Cardinals were the favorite team for generations of southerners prior to the Braves moving to Atlanta).  Still, the Bears appear to be one of the few teams that has a substantive fan presence in nearly every major market (with the exception of Green Bay, Wisconsin, of course).

Anyway, I find all of the data and corresponding maps extremely fascinating.  I recommend for everyone to take the time to vote in the poll so that the quality of the results can continue to be improved.

Big Ten Expansion Talk and Land-o-Links for 7/31/2007

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, Chicago Bears, Chicago Bulls, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, College Football, Food, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, Movies, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, Sports2 Comments

Big Ten commissioner Jim Delaney caused a stir last week by mentioning that conference expansion might be on the table for a school other than the usual suspect of Notre Dame. Last year, I argued for Syracuse as being the best choice other than the Fighting Irish for a 12th team and I still stand by that. Rutgers has a great location near New York City, but it’s going to take a whole lot more than one good football season to make them a viable candidate. The always entertaining mgoblog, even though it supports the enemy, had an intriguing comprehensive write-up on the potential additions. That being said, I disagree with his analysis. If the Big Ten goes in a direction other than Notre Dame, I believe that it’s got to be toward the East Coast as opposed to adding onto the fringes of the Midwest. We need to look to expand our boundaries instead of looking inward. Anyway, here are some links:

(1) Certain Degrees Now Cost More at Public Universities (New York Times) – A number of public universities, including the University of Illinois, are starting to charge more for engineering and business programs compared to the rest of school. I’m glad I got in and out when there was still flat pricing.

(2) Celtics, Wolves Closing in on Deal (ESPN.com) – This was exactly what I was worried about: Kevin Garnett coming to the Eastern Conference to a team other than the Bulls. Even though Ray Allen and Paul Pierce are on the downsides of their careers, adding KG to Boston will catapult that team from the doghouse to the upper echelon of the East. Do I have confidence that the Bulls would be able to shut that team down in a head-to-head playoff series? Nope. Joe Smith is a decent power forward, but it’s not as if though he’s leaps and bounds better than P.J. Brown. Assuming Dwyane Wade are healthy next year, I would put the Heat (don’t read too much into the Bulls’ sweep with Wade at half-strength), Cavs, Celtics, and Pistons ahead of the Bulls next year. I know I’m beating the proverbial dead horse here, but this is what happens when you don’t have a superstar – other teams pass you by pretty quickly (i.e. the Cleveland Cavaliers of the early-90s). This Garnett deal isn’t set in stone yet, so maybe the Bulls can make one last run at him, yet it’s extremely disappointing that they haven’t tried already.

(3) How Do Cats Like Rabbits? Very Much, And Preferably Raw (Wall Street Journal) – In response to the pet foot contamination scare from earlier this year, raw rabbit has all of the sudden become a hot commodity among cat owners. This might be something my cat would go for, but he’s already ridiculously spoiled. I honestly think that he believes my wife and I are his pets, considering that he’s the one that’s fed on demand and gets his poop picked up everyday.

(4) A Dark – But Not So Secret – ‘Knight’ For Sequel (Chicago Tribune) – Since my office is right by some entrances to Lower Wacker Drive, I’ve been seeing props for the new ‘Batman’ movie all over the place, including a Gotham City police car and paddywagon. Other than that, though, the filmmakers seem to be keeping the shooting under tight security.

(5) It’s Official: The Cubs Are Awesome (Goat Riders of the Apocalypse) – Don’t get too cocky, guys. Meanwhile, I’ll just go back to seeing who will be left on the South Side by the end of the day.

(6) Briggs Signs (Da’ Bears Blog) – Despite an offseason of Drew Rosenhaus-fueled acrimony, Lance Briggs will back in Chicago for one more season. Only a month until football season – I’m getting all tingly inside.

And finally…

To my horror when I went out to lunch today, the Chinese chicken place (it was one of those places that just had two neon signs that said “Teriyaki” – despite having little in the way of Japanese food offerings – and “Chicken”, kind of like a roadside restaurant that is identified by only an “Eat” sign or the “Hot” pancake syrup at IHOP) at the Citigroup Center food court in the Loop has been shutdown. If you’ve ever been in that food court, you know exactly what I’m talking about: $6.05 after tax for a heap of fried rice plus two different types of fried MSG of your choice. With the cheapest lunch in the Loop outside of McDonald’s pushing towards $10, the Chinese chicken place was an oasis of full and inexpensive goodness. I have no idea why it has closed since it has always had the longest line in that food court. The obvious thought would be health code violations, but normally there would be notices with respect to that and there none visible. Anyway, this has been such a terrible blow to me (I’m seriously getting the shakes just thinking of the Cashew Chicken/Sesame Chicken combo that I’d always get) that I just had to get it out. R.I.P., Chinese chicken place.

Bulls Bust Out the Brooms and Land-o-Links for 4/30/2007

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bulls, College Basketball, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Major League Baseball, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, Random Thoughts, Sports, Television3 Comments

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At the beginning of the year, I was supremely confident in the advancement of the Bulls and even predicted that they would make it to the NBA Finals. Still, after the way that they faltered against the Nets on the last day of the regular season, I was questioning aloud the team’s intestinal fortitude, even after beating the Heat in the round 1 opener of the NBA Playoffs. However, by the end of the third quarter on Friday night in game 3, my belief in the Bulls was resurrected. I saw a team that answered every single charge from the defending champs that will ultimately put multiple players into the Hall of Fame with poise and efficiency. In game 4, they did the exact same thing by taking one last punch from the Heat and then completely knocking them out. I’ll be honest – I thought that this was going to be a 7-game barn burner as opposed to a Bulls sweep. Yet, with the way the Bulls took out Miami with such vigor and strength, I’m ready for a true revitalization of our rivalry with the Pistons. It’s going to be a tough road and who knows whether the Bulls can hang with the Detroit team that they’re modeled after, but I can’t wait to see NBA basketball being played into May in Chicago once again.

On to some more links:

(1) Deng’s Emergence Isn’t Totally Unexpected (ESPN.com) – I don’t agree with Scoop Jackson very often, but I’m right with him in understanding long before the Heat series that Luol Deng would be the key to the Bulls when no one else noticed him. Here’s what I said in my NBA Preview in November: “The real X-factor is how much Luol Deng improves this season. If he stays injury-free, he could very well become the top all around player on the team that’s the go-to guy that the Bulls have been lacking. In my opinion, how well the Bulls will do this season will depend upon the progress of Luol Deng more than anyone else.” That is the first and last time that I’ve said anything right on this blog.

(2) ‘Idol’ Gives Back, We Give Up (Moraes on TV – Washington Post) – As a whole, I enjoy the pomp and circumstance of “American Idol”.  However, when Elvis was brought back from the dead to do a duet with Celine Dion, I almost ralphed on the couch.

(3) The Latest Must-Have for Yuppies: A Blog About the Neighborhood (New York Times) – I grew up as a south side White Sox fan and despised Wrigleyville for its yuppie quotient.  When I presented this reasoning to my wife one day, she looked at me increduously, called me out as a hypocrite and basically said that I was one of the biggest yuppies that she had ever met.  After feverishly denying this, I then took a look at myself and came to a disheartening conclusion. I have a house in Naperville after previously living only blocks away from Wrigley Field (not Wrigleyville per se, but close enough), got business and law degrees, actually crave Chipotle burritos, would take a foreign luxury sedan over a Detroit muscle car as a dream car any day of the week, don’t mind a Starbucks every once in awhile and would rather go to Ravinia than a rock concert these days. In other words, my wife was right – I have become one of yuppies I used to abhor. Really, I used to be cool… seriously, OK? I’m still a Sox fan, so that counts for something, right? Right???

(4) The Right Pick, Despite Wrong Agent (Chicago Tribune) – The Bears took tight end Greg Olsen from Miami in the first round of the NFL Draft, who looks like a beast, yet all anyone seems to care about right now is that he’s represented by Drew Rosenhaus. The slick agent also represents Lance Briggs, who is pretty much holding up the status of the Bears linebacker core for next year with his insistence on getting a long-term contract into place. Still, the fact is that Rosenhaus has a number of the top players in the NFL and it’s likely the Bears are going to have to deal with him for a long time.  I just hope that both parties can work to get mutually beneficial deals into place (unlike, say, the apparent inability of the White Sox to get anything done with baseball super agent Scott Boras).

As a side note on the NFL Draft, I’ve been saying ever since that I started this blog that Brady Quinn was overrated (I fail to see how anyone could have reasonably thought that he was in the same class as JaMarcus Russell after this year’s Sugar Bowl), but the way that he dropped down all the way to #22 after being projected to go as high as even #2 made Matt Leinart’s time in the waiting room last year look like a nice Saturday in the park.  The Browns would have been insane to take Quinn at #3 and made the right call with Joe Thomas, yet subsequently being able to get the quarterback they wanted much later in the first round (and for a lot less money) was the draft day coup.

Also, I enjoyed the fact that the Detroit Lions actually had little choice other than to take Calvin Johnson, who is yet another wide receiver for that team.  There was little questioning of this move since Johnson was almost unanimously considered the best athlete in this year’s draft class, but Matt Millen’s development of marquee first round wide receiver draft choices has been about as successful as the long term growth of Mark Prior and Kerry Wood for the Cubs.  It’s just unbelieveable that after using high first round choices on wide receivers in four of the last five years, the Lions still fell like that they had a need there.

Finally, my gut reaction to the New England Patriots getting Randy Moss in exchange for a fourth round draft pick was a great move.  There are going to be voices out there stating that the Pats shouldn’t be bringing trouble into their locker room, but the fact is that the team needs a top flight wideout and they grabbed someone who is still one of the best talents in the NFL.  Something tells me that Moss is going to have a bit more success getting back into the end zone with Tom Brady at quarterback instead of Aaron Brooks.  Honestly, I’m glad Moss didn’t end up with the Packers as was rumored for the last few weeks.  A lot of Green Bay fans might have had a visceral reaction to that thought, but judging by how that team went 8-8 last year, adding a top wideout would have made that team even more competitive immediately.  Fans can get over prior enemies pretty quickly (see Dennis Rodman with the Bulls) when they help you win after turning to your side.

And finally…

(5) Michael Jordan Ready To Bag Champaign Coeds (Deadspin) – Those that know me understand that my love for the University of Illinois knows no bounds while Michael Jordan will forever be my idol.  So, with the announcement that Jeff Jordan is heading to Illinois, the thought of MJ being on the prowl in Campustown makes me smile.

(Image from Chicago Tribune)

Land-o-Links – 4/4/2007

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Business, Chicago Cubs, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Law, Major League Baseball, Sports2 Comments

As we close out the college basketball season (the Final Four was pretty anticlimatic and Lord help me if Joakim Noah ends up in a Bulls uniform), say hello to Major League Baseball (I’m getting a sickening feeling that this is the year that the arm of Jose Contreras falls off), and head out to Augusta for the Masters (despite the fact that breaking 100 would be a stellar round of golf for me, this is one of my favorite sporting events of the year), here are some links:

(1) Welcome to the Megaprogram Era (ESPN.com) – As I alluded to last week in pointing out that Billy Donovan would be off of his rocker to leave Florida for Kentucky, Pat Forde tackles the subject of top-tier college football schools building up their basketball programs in-depth.  I’ve actually wanted to put together a list of colleges that I thought excelled at supporting the two main revenue sports for awhile, but Forde beat me to it here (along with listing those that aren’t doing a good job in one sport or the other despite a lot of time, effort, and money).  Please note the very familiar Big Ten school located in central Illinois that he calls “the ultimate football underachiever”.

(2) Billy Packer’s Curious Choice of Words (Deadspin) – Shockingly, this interview was with Charlie Rose rather than Jay Mariotti.

(Confession: There’s only one person in the United States under the age of 70 that watches The Charlie Rose Show on a semi-regular basis.  That person is me.)

(3) You Say You Want a Big-Law Revolution (WSJ.com Law Blog) – For those of you that have access to the Wall Street Journal Online, you can check out how some law students put together a “manifesto”, for the lack of a better word, regarding the treatment of attorneys in large law firms.  As one of the big-law associates that this seems to be aimed at protecting, I’d say that this is very cute.

(4) Vermont Becomes ‘Offshore’ Insurance Haven (New York Times) – The home of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Birkenstocks, and insurance companies hacking their tax bills with the tact of Tony Montana.

(5) Cubs for Sale, but is Wrigley Field (Chicago Tribune) – As anyone that has worked in the commercial real estate industry knows, new Tribune Company owner Sam Zell is a true genius that makes Donald Trump look like a mom-and-pop landlord.  This brings up the interesting prospect of selling Wrigley Field separately from the Cubs in order to maximize what has become one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in the country outside of the coasts.  I see the business logic in this from Zell’s perspective and sale-leaseback transactions are pretty common in the real estate world (i.e. a company sells off its physical headquarters to raise cash and then immediately enters into a long-term lease to occupy that same space), but I don’t see why any prospective buyer of the Cubs would want the club without the ballpark.  For better or for worse, Wrigley Field is what makes the Cubs organziation a cash cow regardless of how the team performs on the field, so I would think that the future owner of the club would want complete control over what is simply considered to be a high-profile piece of real estate in the Tribune deal.

On a related note, my feeling is that the people’s choice of Mark Cuban as owner of the Cubs is far-fetched.  Chicago Heights native, long-time Phoenix Suns owner, and former Arizona Diamondbacks owner and Illini basketball and baseball player Jerry Colangelo seems to be a much more likely choice since he is well-versed in the politics of Major League Baseball, which is a more difficult hurdle to get past than having or raising enough cash.  I also wouldn’t be shocked if an outsider such as the Dolan family (the Cablevision scions that ruined the Knicks) or Daniel Snyder (the marketing wunderkind that ruined the Redskins) enters into the race since they have more than enough money and the Cubs would seem to fit into their broader media portfolios well.  If all else fails, I can see Minneapolis Red Sox start taking up a collection fund to buy the Cubbies up.  I’ll stay away from that one, though.

And finally…

(6) What Will They Do For an Encore? (Siberia, Minnesota) – Speaking of Minneapolis Red Sox, here’s a video that he posted that seems even more poignant in the wake of another Ohio State failure against Florida.  On that note, my college sports predictions will mercifully be put on ice until the fall.

Land-o-Links – 3/27/2007

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, College Football, Random Thoughts, Sports, Television1 Comment

Some long overdue links:

(1) Nothing Fluky About This Power Final Four (ESPN.com) – As I alluded to in Sunday’s post, the upshot of having few upsets so far in the NCAA Tournament is that the Final Four is set up to be one of the most competitive ever.  Saturday’s games are going to be extremely compelling, with the Florida-UCLA rematch of last year’s championship game and Roy Hibbert of Georgetown being one of the few people (if not the only person) in the country that has the size to at least put some type of containment on Ohio State’s Greg Oden that doesn’t involve simply getting the Buckeye prodigy into foul trouble.  The college sports world has been anticipating the thought of Florida-Ohio State matchups for national championships in both football and basketball and with the way the two teams have used their size advantages, I’ll put the Gators and Buckeyes in the championship game.  I’ve liked Ohio State to win it all from the get-go with the Oden-Mike Conley, Jr. combination and with the way that senior guard Ron Lewis has torched everyone over the last three games, I’m staying with my Big Ten brethren to go all the way.  This should be a classic weekend of college basketball.

(2) Donovan Has Yet to Rule Out a Job Change (Kentucky.com) – I know that I might be in the minority in not believing that the Kentucky job is the papacy of college basketball and can’t be turned down, but Billy Donovan would be nuts to leave Gainesville for Lexington.  I’ve heard the arguments that Florida will always be a football school first and foremost while hoops is religion in Kentucky, so Donovan ought to move to one of the nation’s marquee programs.  However, with the way that college sports have trended since the creation of the BCS, there are actually few things better for a basketball program than to have a strong football program to leverage itself off of.  Look at the teams that have risen to power in basketball over the past few years in addition to Florida: Ohio State, Texas, Texas A&M, Wisconsin – all schools that used football money to upgrade their basketball facilities that have attracted top recruits.  Add on how USC made it to the Sweet Sixteen this season and will be enrolling O.J. Mayo next year, the nation’s top basketball recruit, and we have yet another football power getting some love on the basketball front.  Plus, let’s face it, you can get top recruits to come from anywhere and visit Florida.  Just as Donovan’s football counterpart Urban Meyer knew that the tradition and rabid fan base at Notre Dame couldn’t make up for the combination of support and sunshine in Gainesville, the similar tradition and rabid fan base at Kentucky is fool’s gold in this situation.

(3) Darwin’s God (New York Times) – This is a lengthy article but I highly recommend taking some time to read it.  Essentially, scientists have been studying whether (a) humans are naturally predisposed to believing in God or a higher power and (b) that predisposition is a result of evolution.  Absolutely a fascinating subject.

(4) The Best TV Show… You’re Not Watching (Chicago Tribune) – If my plea for you to watch ‘Friday Night Lights’ from October didn’t convince you to watch this fantastic show, maybe this in-depth write-up from the Tribune’s television critic will get you to take some action.  C’mon people – restore my faith in the taste of the American public.

And finally…

(5) Yakov Smirnoff (Wikipedia) – Don’t ask me how I ended up on the biography of Yakov Smirnoff while performing “research” on Wikipedia, but finding out who his roommate used to be might be one of the top ten random facts that I’ve ever encountered.  In Soviet Russia, Wikipedia researches you!

A Chalky NCAA Tournament

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, Illinois Fighting Illini, SportsLeave a comment

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All of you probably thought that I had retreated to some remote cave after Illinois had a horrific second half of the second half meltdown to blow a game that they should have won against Virginia Tech last week.  Believe me, I had a nasty post all ready to go in the wake of the game that would have made Ron Guenther’s exuberance seem mild (note ttha Gregg Doyel, a columnist I like overall, really hammered Illini Nation in that link), but as soon as I got home from watching the Illini debacle, I received a phone call from my mother telling me that one of my close relatives had just passed away.  That quickly put everything in life into perspective and is partly to explain for my relatively long absence from blogging, as well as having to adjust to a new job and waiting for a new laptop to get delivered from some remote location in China.

Today’s post is being written as I watch Florida dispense of a spirited Oregon team, which goes to show you how fine of line there is between being a genius in the tourney (as I picked the Ducks to make the Final Four) and an idiot (how it always seems to go for me).  The one thing that I did when I approached my brackets this year was to avoid too much chalk, particularly in the wake of how last year’s NCAA Tournament played out so unpredictably.  Of course, after employing this personal strategy, we ended up having the most chalk-heavy tourney in recent memory.  This has led to the predictable complaints from the national media that there haven’t been any big upsets and that the NCAA screwed over midmajor schools in favor of the power BCS conferences.  The way I see it, however, is that the NCAA actually did a great job of putting together the tournament field for once.  If the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee picks and seeds the teams correctly, there should be few, if any, true upsets.  For instance, Southern Illinois was given a 4-seed when in the past it probably would have received a double-digit seed just because it’s a directional school in the Missouri Valley Conference.  What that means is that the NCAA really did a great job of which teams were truly deserving of its seeds, which means that it has borne out that there haven’t been too many surprises in this tournament.  While this might put sportswriters at a disadvantage in that there isn’t a George Mason-type underdog to fawn over, the NCAA should really be commended for obviously knowing how well each of the teams would do this year a whole lot better than the average observer.

If anything, the quality of play during this tournament’s second weekend was as high as ever and we ought to have a fantastic Final Four.  That’s honestly more compelling to me as a college basketball fan (despite the absence of Illinois) than a couple of upsets in the first round.

(Image from Journal Gazette/Times-Courier)