#1 in my Heart

ESPN ranks the Humanitarian Bowl #31 out of 34.  Meh.

Freddie Barnes, non-AQ All-American

Well, you can take this for what it is worth....Graham Watson blogs on ESPN covering the "other" conferences, which basically means non-BCS (or in ESPN parlance, non-AQ for non-Automatic Qualifier, and they are talking about automatically qualifying for the BCS, so it essentially means the same thing but somehow sounds less exclusionary, I guess).

Graham put together her non-AQ All-American team, and Freddie Barnes is on the team at WR, which is an honor he certainly deserves.  In fact, she says he was a "no-brainer."

He is the only MAC player on offense.  Adrian Robinson, Nick Bellore and Brian Lainhart are all MAC players on the defensive side of the "ball," which technically does not exist, as the whole thing is imaginary.

LaVon Brazill made it as a kick returner.

MAC Predictions Reviewed, with an appropriate level of satisfaction

OK, so with the regular season now concluded, it is time to look back and see how my predictions fared.  My predictions are below, with actual finishes listed in parantheses to the right.

This is actually pretty good.  Last year, if you totaled up the distance from what I had to what actually happened, there was a gap of 26 points.  This year, it was 12.  A few notes:

• The media had 18.  So there.
• In the East, I didn't miss anyone by more than one.
• Saw the Buffalo thing coming.
• Didn't overrate Akron.
• Biggest mistake was faith in Ball State and lack of faith in NIU.

So, you know, for wild-ass, uniformed, unpaid and generally insipid predictions....not too bad.

East Predictions

1. Temple (2nd)
2. Ohio (1st)
3. Kent (4th)
4. Bowling Green (3rd)
5. Akron (6th)
6. Buffalo (5th)
7. Miami (7th)

West Predictions

1. CMU  (1st)
2. WMU (3rd)
3. Ball State (5th)
4. Toledo (4th)
5. NIU (2nd)
6. EMU (6th)

CBSSports.com Blog Poll Draft

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama
2	Texas	1
3	Cincinnati	2
4	Florida	2
5	TCU	1
6	Boise State
7	Oregon
8	Ohio State
9	Georgia Tech	1
10	Iowa	1
11	Penn State
12	Virginia Tech	3
13	Miami (Florida)	7
14	Brigham Young
15	West Virginia	4
16	LSU	5
17	Pittsburgh	5
18	Arizona	5
19	Stanford	5
20	Wisconsin	5
21	Nebraska
22	Southern Cal	5
23	Oregon State	10
24	Utah
25	Oklahoma State	3
Last week's ballot

Dropped Out: California (#16), Houston (#18).

Falcons Appear Headed to Boise

Well, it ended up like it was expected to be, which means that BG and Idaho will play in the Humanitarian Bowl.  When you are used to being "consummated" as we are in the MAC, there were some sweat-inducing moments over the past few hours, however.

The MAC announcements were coming out later than everyone else, and that had some rumors going that while the bowls were required to take BG, they were not required to provide them a non-MAC matchup, and you started to think that some genius somewhere was saying "you know, BG and Temple didn't play," and I had kind of a sick feeling.  And, the Humanitarian Bowl was starting to flirt with UCLA, and that smelled like a classic screw job.

I have a hunch that the delays in the MAC was the league office working the phones on this because playing a team from your conference in a bowl game would totally suck.  But, it appears that ignominious fate has been dodged.

No Boise is not the most glamorous destination and it isn't warm.  And, it will amount to a road game with Idaho being much closer.  Having said that, it is a decent matchup and very much a winnable game and it beats playing Temple, with no disrespect intended to them at all.

• OU is playing Marshall in the Pizza Bowl.
• CMU is playing Troy at GMAC.
• Temple is playing UCLA or Army at Eagle Bank
• NIU is playing South Florida in Toronto

So, one or two matchups with BCS conferences.  All winnable games, but two are very winnable.

And, the January bowl game in Toronto will mark the first time in history people are traveling FROM Florida TO Ontario in January.  There may not even be flights.

Update:  This is all confirmed now.  Book your flights.  Bring skis.

International Centre for Special Teams Research

Well, the final regular season meeting of the ICSTR has been held, and judgment rendered on special team play in the UT game, which was, uh, 8 days ago.  Anyway, it was, by far, BG's most productive special teams game of the season, and really the first game where special teams play clearly put the opposition in a position where it was very difficult for them to win.

Of course, BG had three huge plays--2 blocked punts and one fumble recovery, and that combined with some good field position off kickoff returns gave BG 13 positive points.  Even cooler, there were only 2 negative points, which was far and away the best performance of the season.  We'll look at the year, in a second, but just to say that BG's special teams play had a clear role in the victory over the Rockets.


Bowling Green Positive (+13)

BG blocks punt (+3)
BG blocks punt (+3)
BG recovers fumble (+3)
UT kickoff returned to BG48 before penalty (+1)
UT kickoff returned to BG 40 (+1)
UT Kickoff returned to BG 45 (+1)
UT Kickoff returned to BG 40 (+1)

Bowling Green Negative (-2)

BG punt 28 yard net (-1)
BG kickoff return to UT 38 (-1)

Bowling Green Neutral

BG Kickoff returned to UT 32
BG xp
BG Kickoff returned to UT 33
BG Xp
BG kickoff returned to UT 20
UT punt 34 yard net
BG xp
BG kickoff returned to UT 27
BG 22 yard FG
BG Punt 37 yard net
BG xp
BG Punt 38 yard net
BG xp
BG kickoff returned to UT 33

The UT story is pretty much just a flipside.  Tough to win when your special teams don't do any better than this.


UT Positive (+2)

UT kickoff touchback (+1)
BG kickoff return to UT 38 (+1)

UT Negative (-14)

BG blocks punt (-3)
BG blocks punt (-3)
BG recovers fumble (-3)
UT kickoff returned to UT 37 with penalty (-2)
UT kickoff returned to BG 40 (-1)
UT Kickoff returned to BG 45 (-1)
UT Kickoff returned to BG 40 (-1)

UT Neutral

BG Kickoff returned to UT 32
BG Kickoff returned to UT 33
BG kickoff returned to UT 20
UT punt 34 yard net
BG kickoff returned to UT 27
BG kickoff returned to UT 33
UT xp
UT xp
UT 26 yd FG


Now, let's look at the season as a whole.  Below are BG's scores.  The headline is that with the gaudy numbers against UT, BG reached neutral on the season as a whole.  The special teams did improve, finishing in positive territory for each of the last four games.  The really poor special teams games (OU and Kent) in the past, BG played better if not great on the way home.

Now, below are the rankings for the opponents, who finished the year +6 and therefore 1/2 a point better than BG per game.  The UT game the highest number of negative plays made by any BG opponent this year.

Triumph in the Bronx

The Falcon's men's basketball team rolled easily over Fordham Saturday night in the Bronx, with a 67-46 victory over a team in the midst of a huge amount of turmoil.  Their interim coach was playing without his leading scorer on a team that had trouble shooting the ball in the first place, and the Falcons took full advantage, holding the Rams to 23.8% shooting from the field for the game.  I haven't seen anything on it, but I suspect it has been a long time since a team  shot that poorly against us.

Even beyond that, it could have been a lot worse. BG had a season-high 19 turnovers, and that could have been even bigger. Still, this is a team that has had some close games, and a road blow out is always a welcome thing. BG shot 51% which is also unusual.

Another interesting thing on our team is that we are not really going to the 3 much, as seem to be really pushing the ball inside. In fact, BG only tried 8 threes.

NCAA Basketball Stats

As you can see here, the game was close for a while, but BG locked down Fordham in the last 5 minutes of the first half and blew the game wide open.

NCAA Basketball Stats

Dee Brown had another nice game, with 14 points and 7 boards. Otis had 9 and 11 (although there were 6 turnovers), and Scott Thomas hit double figures with 10. Danny McElroy also had 8 points in one of his better games, and Marschall had 8 too.

With their third straight win, BG now pops over .500 and now has a 4-3 record. There's a break coming now for finals, and then the Falcons Magical December Mystery will head back to New York state.