Offseason Roundtable #10

In an effort to not only increase our chatter about the Cards, but to also increase some reader participation, Edge, RV, and Alan will be doing these roundtables every week. Love the answers? Want to post your own thoughts? Of course you do. And you can do so in the Comments section. Because remember, dear readers, a smarmy sarcastic blog about Ball State athletics is only as good as its small yet powerful reader base. Have at it, boys and girls...


1) The NCAA has given Florida State two weeks to respond to major violations that could cost Coach Bowden 14 wins. How appropriate would the decision to wipe 14 wins be, and how will that impact the history when we have a chance to look back at all this?
Edge: This really is idiotic. This reminds me of all those people that want to scratch home runs and pitching wins in baseball due to steroids. Yeah, it sucks, but you can't change the past. In 50 years we'll look at the record books, and it is still going to show Florida State won those games, asterisk be damned. You want to punish the school? Take away 14 scholarships. Or how about no bowl eligibility for 2 years? There's other ways to go without stupidly taking wins away from a legend.

RV: The problem that I have with this is two-fold. First, 14 games? That is the amount of wins that Bowden has cheated for over the years? Come on, that's just petty. The man is a legend, just let it go if you're only going to after him this one time. Secondly, the man is a God in the coaching world. He deserves better than some slap on the wrist that will put him behind Paterno in the race to most wins before dying on the field. Neither Paterno or Bowden really care about the total wins record nearly as much as the fans do, so do the right thing and let him keep it. In the end, true historians and CFB fans will put the prerequisite asterisk next to his name but it won't hold the value in the history books that Bonds' asterisk does.

Alan: Ultimately, it's all a wash. Vacating wins does virtually nothing other than officially removing them from the record books, but college football fans will have a hard time with this and Florida State fans will still claim they were victories. If the violations are sufficiently major enough to cause this kind of an uproar, then maybe 14 games and letting him keep his job is rather light. If the violations aren't sufficiently major enough to cause this kind of an uproar, then the NCAA is out to ruin a legend simply for the news of it all. Either way, that's not good.


2) Ball State wasn't painted in a good light this week as the preseason magazines all but predict a rather dismal season for the Cards. Your thoughts?
Edge: I didn't believe what they all said last year, so why would I this year? So they think BSU is borderline going to suck... big deal. Look, if these preseason mags were right all the time, what point would there be to play the season (or have a site like this!). They have a load of great statistical information and some very important analysis, but in terms of rankings, it's a crapshoot.

RV: Preseason mags are notorious for glossing over details and overlooking the things that make teams successful. And what point do we take them at their face value and stop overvaluing the preseason crap. If you want a good indicator of a team's potential, talk to someone who follows them regularly. OTP might have a somewhat slanted view, but we certainly know more than the preview magazines will pretend to know. Personally, I use these magazines to get general information about a team and help support any thoughts I might have about the makeup of their team. Anything more than that, and I know I'm being foolish.

Alan: In reality, it's not surprising in the least. Regardless of what happened last year, BSU is hardly a football school, we lost a lot, and we still play in the MAC. To the casual observer, that says that BSU isn't very good. Additionally, there isn't enough of a national following or presence to really necessitate them doing their homework or looking past the obvious, because their time is better spent building up schools like USC, Texas, Florida, and Notre Dame, who's fans will buy any magazine that features them. It's like asking me about soccer. I don't know enough to even offer any sort of relevant opinion.


3) News reports came out that Lee Corso had suffered a small stroke recently. God forbid something should happen to him, but if he was unable to be a part of College GameDay with Herbie and Fowler, who would you like to see fill that spot?
Edge: Stephen A. Smith is unemployed now, right? There ya go. Ok, seriously... I think I'd like to see Dr. Lou in there. I think he'd provide just as much crazy old man-ness as Corso, so it would be a good fit.

RV: Depends on what role we're trying to fill. If the goal is to find a zany character who pretends to know what he's talking about but just truly be a caricature of college football fans, it has to be Coach Lou. Truly entertaining with a whole lot of eye rolling mixed in. If we're trying to round out the awesome twosome of Herb-dawg and Fowler, my vote would be Jesse Palmer. He always seems to err on the side of straight forward analysis but still adds enough controversial commentary to keep people interested in what he's saying. Plus, he hasn't turned all SPEEEEEED like Herbstreit has.

Alan: Well, if we're going for former coaches who didn't have great records and who sort of sucked at the game of football, I'm sure Bill Lynch will be looking for some work after this season. ZING! In all reality, you can't replace Corso. And the show would suffer immensely if he wasn't a part of it. And if they brought in someone like Mark May, I would drive to Bristol and burn down ESPN.


4) You can attend one regular season game this year. What game and why?
Edge: Oklahoma - Texas, hands down. Huge rivalry, and it's destined to be one of the biggest games ever for these two teams. There's going to be a lot of Heisman talk centered around this one game, just watch.

RV: I'll leave out the ND/USC game, because I know I'm going...but my vote goes for the Red River Shootout (I refuse to say replace Shootout with Rivalry). My lord, that game is going to have a plethora of draft picks, gigantic men, Heisman hopefuls, finger gestures and beautiful women to require any football fan to do anything to be there. Hopefully it'll avoid the 3:30pm slot that the USC/ND game currently has...please make this a night game.

Alan: Florida-Georgia. The winner of this game has the inside track to winning the SEC East and getting the berth in the SEC title game that comes with it. By default, if you win the SEC odds are you're playing for a national title, so one of these two will probably win it all this year.


5) College football fans unfortunately have to endure a relatively long offseason. But that time gives us a chance to do other things - like watching sports movies. What's the worst sports movie ever?
Edge: Ready for this? "Necessary Roughness". Quantum Leap guy playing the QB, Kathy Ireland the kicker, Robert Loggia, and... wait for it... SINBAD. Can't go wrong, right? Bleh... On another note, the best terrible movie with a significant portion of the plot involving sports has to be "The Last Boy Scout" with Damon Wayans as a drug addict former QB and Bruce Willis playing a guy playing John McClane. Terrible acting, horrific plot, worse one-liners than a Bond movie, but still immensely enjoyable over a few beers.

RV: Whatever that movie was with Orlando Bloom about tennis. In-air flight movies, I hate you.

Alan: I'll go with two, neither about Football. "The Fan" with Robert Deniro and Wesley Snipes was simply awful. Was it Barry Bonds? Was it not? Deniro as a knife salesman who loves an uppity scumbag baseball player. It was crap. Second, I'll go with Rocky V. After the epic cinematic masterpiece that was Rocky IV, we get this turd. I'm still mad. Mad enough that I never saw Rocky VI, as I pretend the series ultimately ended after he beat some Russian ass.


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