I Tell Ya' Herbie

  The conference title games have been completed and the bowls are on their way, so it's time for an interim edition of I Tell Ya' Herbie.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                             I believe that Alabama is a better team than Florida State is currently and I also think that Florida State is the more deserving team and should have been the fourth seed no matter their status at the quarterback position.

The games should stand for something and this year they didn't.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

Many have theorized about how Alabama was selected but one possible reason has yet to be mentioned.

Could this be the quiet backlash against Jim Harbaugh's various shenanigans at the University of Michigan? 

Washington could have arguably been placed first, yet Michigan was slated there, and had Florida State made it into the field, the battered Seminoles would have been a strong underdog against the Wolverines.

Instead, Michigan faces Alabama with the legendary Nick Saban and close to a month to prepare for the supposed favorite.

Could it be allowing Alabama in over Florida State be as simple as wanting the best shot at avoiding the humiliation of the scandal-plagued Wolverines and the man that flipped the bird to the NCAA and the Big Ten holding the trophy on the game's highest stage?

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                             The hire that I've liked the most in the coaching silly season?

Bronco Mendenhall at New Mexico, a school that usually struggles at football, looks to be a perfect fit.

Mendenhall was very successful at BYU with a record of 99-43 and while his tenure at Virginia could have been more successful (36-38 in six years), he still made three bowl games and turned down a fourth bid.

Mendenhall coached at New Mexico as an assistant for four years, is from the West Coast, and will be coaching at a school where bowl bids are celebrated, so I think the Lobos have done well with the addition of Mendenhall.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                             The committee got it right with the selection of unbeaten Liberty over two-loss SMU as the G-5 representative in the New Year's Bowls but both schools got the shaft to certain degrees.

Liberty got an awful draw in the Fiesta Bowl against an athletic team in Oregon, and while the Mustangs and their two losses didn't deserve the G-5 slot as many had stated, they weren't treated fairly as the AAC champions to be relegated to the Fenway Bowl against a mediocre Boston College team that is basically playing a home game.

I Tell Ya' Herbie:

                             I wonder about how many bowls will still be around five or ten years after the twelve-team playoff begins.

I think the smaller bowls that many don't pay attention to will be okay as ESPN owns many of those and they are cheap programming at a time of year when they are searching for them,

However, the middle-range bowls like many of those held in Florida on or around New Year's Day may eventually have problems.

Those bowls won't be prized as much as they are currently and fans aren't as likely to travel to those games. preferring to save for the future when they can go to tournament games.

Should they become money-losing propositions, the bowls could cannibalize themselves, leaving middle-class teams either accepting lower payouts to be in the postseason or bowl games going out of business leaving fewer slots available. 

I Tell Ya' Herbie

Another day and another edition of
I tell ya' Herbie where I give my takes on various news in college football.


I tell ya' Herbie:
                          The game of the week is down in Memphis, home of Elvis Presley, Keith Lee and Jerry "the King" Lawler- none of which are football players, although two did attend the then-Memphis State, now University of Memphis.
The AAC West lead is the prize as 8-0 SMU travels to 7-1 Memphis with the winner taking a step forward to winning the division.
SMU has been the surprise story of the season behind former Texas quarterback Shane Buechele, while Memphis keeps rolling along with their offense and head coach Mike Norvell, who seems destined for a Power Five job whenever he finds the right fit.
SMU still has to play one-loss Navy, while Memphis has the 6-1 and undefeated in the AAC Cincinnati Bearcats waiting in their final game, so the winner hasn't locked up a championship berth yet.
What could be the most important part of all about this game?
With a lighter schedule as far as impact games this Saturday, SMU-Memphis will be the Saturday night game on ABC and give the AAC a rare chance to show their product on a national stage.
Considering that both teams score plenty of points and have been in exciting games all season, this game is the game that I am most excited about this weekend.

I tell ya' Herbie:
                          I'm writing this early Friday morning from the road office and watched the Georgia Southern upset of undefeated Appalachian State 24-21 as the Eagles held off a late rally from the Mountaineers in beautiful Boone, North Carolina.
The loss not only kicks Appalachian out of the hunt for the Group of Five spot in the New Year's Day bowl games but also dropped them into a tie in the loss column for the division lead in the Sun Belt East division with Georgia State and Georgia Southern.
The defeat snapped the thirteen game winning streak for Appalachian State dating back to 2017 where they lost to... Georgia Southern.

I tell ya' Herbie:
                          Let's give some credit for a coaching hire that I wasn't crazy about, but has turned out well thus far in Les Miles at Kansas.
Now, to be fair, it wasn't that I dislike Miles as a coach, it was that at Miles' age (Soon to be 66) Kansas was such a disaster that he would be better suited to spend his borrowed time elsewhere.
Miles has won three games in Lawrence, beat Texas Tech last Saturday on a wacky play at the end of the game and lost at the gun to Texas on the previous Saturday. which wouldn't be a big deal at most places, but in Kansas it's noteworthy.
I'm not sure that the Jayhawks can win three of their final four to qualify for a bowl, but this is still better than things have been in years.

I tell ya' Herbie:
                          I know it's a cute story with the Minnesota Golden Gophers at 8-0, but looking closer at the schedule shows that record is tissue paper soft with no one near the top 25, two close wins in non-conference over Fresno State and Georgia Southern and drawing what might be the best five teams to play in conference for a fast start with three teams with losing records (Purdue, Maryland, and Rutgers), disappointing Nebraska at 4-4 and catching 4-4 Illinois before they seemed to turn their season around.
P.J. Fleck's campaigning to bring ESPN GameDay to campus before next Saturday's game against fellow undefeated Penn State could backfire if the Gophers get rolled as I think they will.
The Gophers hold a two-game lead over Wisconsin and Iowa, but I don't think that they can hold it with games against Penn State and the two teams trying to catch them in their final four games.
Still, if Minnesota does manage to pull off their first divisional title, I think they'll be toast against any of the still eligible teams from the eastern division- Ohio State, Penn State or Michigan.

I tell ya' Herbie:
                          There might not be a worse conference at the bottom of their league than Conference USA, which has three teams with a combined two wins with Old Dominion, UTEP, and Rice.
Sadly, Old Dominion doesn't play UTEP or Rice, but in the final week of the season UTEP, which has one win (a two-point win over Houston Baptist) will battle winless Rice in the type of game that makes you think of last week's awful game of the week (Hmm, perhaps an addition to the PPM out tomorrow?) between Connecticut and Massachusetts that was part of "Herbie" last week.
Connecticut defeated Massachusetts 56-35 in just the sort of game that I imagined it to be!
Please, football gods, televise UTEP-Rice somewhere and not against a team that I need to watch!

I tell ya' Herbie:
                          One thing about Group of Five football that gives it a minor league look is the lack of attendance.
I understand why this happens when you have a bad team and are getting killed every week with facilities that are often less than great.
I wonder why some of these teams that don't have long traditions (MAC and Mountain West, which has almost all the heritage of the old WAC) even try and could be better suited to drop to a 1-AA football level.
Conference USA and the Sun Belt would be better off combining the best of each league for football only, allow the weaker sisters to play in their own league for football only in 1-AA, and then return to their normal leagues for the other sports.
This would result in a stronger league for the Group of Five and give schools that don't invest as much money into their football programs (at the G-5 level) a chance to compete for a national title in 1-AA.
I'll expand on this in another "Herbie" down the road, but here is an example of the struggles for some teams.

Want to attend a Conference USA game between 1-7 Old Dominion and 4-4 Florida International in Miami-Dade County?
According to this ad on ESPN as I looked up the records for C-USA, you could attend this game for three dollars.
Tough to make money like that.

I tell ya' Herbie

Time for another edition of I tell ya' Herbie where I sift through a few grains of sand through the hourglass that is college football.

I tell ya' Herbie:
                          What the hell got into Iowa's Kirk Ferentz last weekend in Ann Arbor?
The 10-3 loss to the Wolverines was befuddling mainly because of Ferentz and his Hawkeyes' refusal to do what they do best- run the football and take advantage of what the other team gives them- an inability to stop the run.
Iowa threw 40 times and only ran 28 and yes, Michigan did better than expected in stopping the run.
However, Iowa threw away the biggest advantage that they had- using their big strong offensive line to wear down Michigan and repeat what Wisconsin did so successfully.

I tell ya' Herbie:
                           I'm not sure what to think of Miami, who fell far back against Virginia Tech, who we noted last week had was coming off a 35 point loss to Duke, rallied from 21 points down midway through the fourth quarter to tie with three minutes to go before allowing the Hokies to march down the field for the winning score.
It seems like Miami has tried about every style of coaching background that you can think of and seemingly none has been able to do the job returning the once-powerful Hurricanes to prominence.
The problem could be this- the work that was accomplished by Howard Schellenberger, Jimmy Johnson, Dennis Erickson, and Butch Davis at a private school with barely more male undergrad students than Duke, might be the best run of its type for a school in its size ever and that's what might make returning to that level daunting, if not almost impossible.
After all, when similar-sized Duke even makes a bowl, it's treated as a big deal, yet Miami supporters believe anything short of national title contention is a wasted year.
I understand with their type of tradition from that tremendous two-decade run (I'm adding the first few years of the Larry Coker years with Butch Davis recruits) that they expect more, but it may not be feasible, particularly when you consider that several schools in Florida that now play division one football that did not during the Miami heyday.
It's possible that Miami may have seen its best days and will be elite only to an aging fanbase that remembers when.

I tell ya' Herbie:
                          Is there a bigger avatar for a miserable fan base than in this article about Kansas football?
It's a picture of a student sitting all by herself knitting in the stands and not seeming to remotely care (turns out she truly didn't, read the article) about the game at all.
Les Miles has maybe the toughest job in college football right now between little talent, weak facilities in the Big 12, and no tradition to excite an apathetic fan base that looks at Kansas football as barely a diversion before basketball season.
The Jayhawks likely won't win another game this season, but the fan base certainly looks fired up by the looks of this fan!

I tell ya' Herbie:
                          The feel-good story of the season so far might be the SMU Mustangs, who at 5-0 are one of two undefeated teams remaining in the American conference.
Sonny Dykes has patched together several transfers to add to a better than expected holdover group from former coach Chad Morris and the Mustangs are ranked for the first time since 1986.
SMU's comeback from down 21 in the 4th quarter with touchdowns on the final three possessions of regulation to force overtime against Tulsa, where SMU would win in three overtimes.
Assuming SMU can win their next two games, which aren't gimmes (Temple at home and at Houston) and Memphis can do the same (they have three games before SMU).
The Mustangs and Tigers could hook up in a battle of undefeated teams for the game of the year in the American West.

I tell ya' Herbie:
                          The game of the year in the American East may have already been played as last week's Cincinnati-Central Florida game will more than likely decide the East champion after the Bearcats 27-24 win.
The Knights had won 19 conference games in a row before the defeat and Cincinnati's door to the title looks open with lesser teams ahead until the final two games of the season against Temple and Memphis.
Cincinnati was thought to be a contender for the Group of Five bid before the season, but a crushing 42-0 loss to Ohio State looks far better now than right after the game and defeating the defending champion Knights puts them in the drivers seat for the division title and maybe that G-5 bid isn't out of the question after all.

I tell ya' Herbie,
                          I generally don't have a favorite team in the SEC, it's the conference (along with the Pac 12) that I generally move around through the years depending on who's coaching a team and don't have staying power.
I've rooted for Georgia, Tennessee, and LSU in the conference at various times and now back to LSU with the Tigers starting Ohio State transfer Joe Burrow at quarterback.
I'm a Joe Burrow fan, not because he is a former Buckeye, but because of how he became a former Buckeye.
Burrow competed with Dwayne Haskins for the starting job in the spring of 2018 and when he came out on the losing end by a narrow margin, Burrow decided to transfer to a place when he could play.
That's completely understandable, but Burrow left with his head held high and filled the air with compliments towards Ohio State, which is quite a contrast to how so many players leave schools in this day and age.
The 5th ranked Tigers host number seven Florida this Saturday night and it is a Gator team that is coming off a win over Auburn, who entered that game also in the top ten, so this is a huge game at the conference level as well as nationally.

Finishing Up Strong- with our top five in the Power Five and the Group of Five.
This is a combination of how you are playing and who have you beaten, so keep that in mind before screaming at me about being a homer.

Power Five        Group of Five
1: LSU                1: Boise State
2: Ohio State      2: Cincinnati
3: Alabama         3: SMU
4: Georgia           4: Memphis
5: Clemson          5: Appalachian State

Cleaning out the inbox

We return to the inbox with plenty of news and some passings as well....

The post on the Hagerstown Suns pitchers was our 3000th post here!
It's hard to believe that I have done so many posts.
I am amazed that I actually stuck with this....


Starting with the passings as "Lefty" Koch sends word of the death of former pitcher Joaquin Andujar at the age of 62.
Andujar won 20 games in 1984 and 1985 with the St,Louis Cardinals,but was surprisingly out of the game by 1989,
The righthander blossomed after becoming a Redbird after a journeyman-like tenure with the Houston Astros that never saw him win more than 12 games in the rainbow uniforms in the Astrodome.
Andujar is also remembered for being ejected in the middle of the Cardinals game seven loss in the 1985 World Series in what would be his final game as a Cardinal,as he was traded to Oakland at the end of the season.
Andujar might be best remembered as he dubbed himself "one tough Dominican" and once said his favorite word in English was "Youneverknow"......

Another passing was that of former Iowa forward Roy Marble at the age of 48,
Marble,who is the father of the Orlando Magic's Devyn Marble,left Iowa in 1989 as the schools all time leading scorer and would spend two seasons with the Atlanta Hawks.
Marble could play small forward or shooting guard and I thought that he would have been a better pro than he turned out to be.
Marble passed away due to lung cancer..

I really enjoyed the SEC Network program on former N.C.State and LSU head coach Bo Rein.
A forgotten figure,Rein took the LSU job in 1980,but never coached a game after dying in a mysterious plane crash.
I think you'll be pleased with the half hour on the former Buckeye baseball and football star.
Eleven Warriors brought it to my attention and I enjoyed the program.

Hardball Times looks at the career of Bobby Murcer.
Hardball Times often looks at players on the 40 year anniversary of Topps baseball card sets and the Murcer card from that season was after the winter trade to the Giants (we wrote about it here) for Bobby Bonds.
The card features one of those awful Topps airbrushing jobs of the day with a not so swift Giants cap on Murcer.

Grantland discusses two southwestern programs with two different types of problems.
The first topic is about the problems that the SMU Mustangs have had since their death penalty in the late 1980's.
What I thought was most interesting was the comparison to fellow Dallas/Ft.Worth metroplex school TCU,which was of the same status as SMU for years before the investment into their program and resulting rise....

The other talks about the Arkansas State football program and the difficulty in keeping coaches as for the first time in years,ASU has been able to retain their coach (Blake Anderson) for a second year.
Arkansas State lost three coaches in a row to more successful programs after their first season in Jonesboro and this article talks about the issues in retaining coaches after success at lower levels...

Hagerstown is considered part of the Washington TV market,which moved up one spot in the Nielsen ratings.
Nielsen has been the name brand in TV ratings for decades and their research saw Washington nose out Boston for 7th place.
Baltimore is 26th overall and if Baltimore and Washington were to be considered one market,it would move up to 3rd behind just New York and Los Angeles overall.