Why Don't They Practice Laterals?

Ok, so I'm guessing most of you have seen this:



It's an incredible, improbable and unduplicatable (if that's a word) play... and yes it was probably only successful in part because the defense got gassed (gotta love Div. III) and basically gave up after a certain point.

Also, you be the judge but two of those laterals (esp. the 2nd to last one where the guy flips it over his shoulder) were extremely close to being illegal forward passes.

Still... the prevailing thought that I am left with: why don't more teams practice laterals.... Not just for the end of the game when u need a desperation score but during regular play. At a certain point about 1/3 of the way through that play I was distinctly reminded of soccer... because the Trinity players were just controlling the ball and looking for an open lane, passing back and forth and moving backwards if neccesary but keeping the play alive. Only at a few points in the play (when they got closer to the endzone) were they actually in danger of turning the ball over....

So what if you ran a similar play without needing to score a touchdown. Trinity could have picked up 30+ yards on several occasions in that play. Moreover, the more they lateraled the more effective fake laterals became.

So why don't more teams (NFL or College) work laterals into their strategies for moving the ball. After all what good does a teammate running behind the ball carrier in the open field do except in as far as he is a threat to recieve a lateral....

Now I know the answer to why more people don't lateral game-to-game. It's too risky, Right? I'm brought back to the 'SC/Texas Rose Bowl where Reggie Bush attempted an ill-advised lateral (that was actually a slightly forward pass) to his teammate while being tackled by 3 Longhorns. Texas ended up recovering the ball and now that play goes down as part of the reason the game slipped away from 'SC. And yet if that lateral is thrown right to Bush's teammate he would have scored easily and everyone would be praising Reggie for his genius split-second decision. More importantly tho, if players are expecting teammates to throw them laterals (unlike Trojan Brad Walker in this case) they'd be less likely to fumble laterals headed their way.

Also, you might be curious to know that because the Bush lateral should have been considered an "Illegal Forward Pass" (except that the officials in the replay booth were experience "equipment malfunction") the correct call on the field should have been a dead ball, and a penalty on the Trojans... allowing them to retain possession. One of several GREAT CALLS from the booth in that game. But I digress.

The point is that players should practice utilizing the lateral (not when their being tackled by three guys... Reggie) but when they're in the open field. Practicing and using such a rudimentary part of the game seems like a no-brainer to me. It would make players more aware of when they might make an easy big play by pitching the ball, make teammates more aware of helping the ball carrier even if they are trailing the play, and, most of all, make open field plays MUCH harder to defend if only due to the ever-present threat of laterals.

After all Vince Young lateraled on the touchdown play right after *cough* I mean before his knee touched the ground....

I'm not at all bitter by the way.

Anyway, I challenge big balls Pete to reverse USC's fortunes by requiring his players to attempt a lateral on every offensive play. No matter how dangerous.... Then when we score maybe he can tell his players to get a celebration penalty by having the whole team run onto the field too.

Baseball Play Clock, UCONN: "it's no longer a dream" and why you should stop watching the NFL for a few months

Several Thoughts:

1) The World Series

There is no possible reason that the championship for a professional sport should be this boring to watch... honestly I can't get through an entire fucking game without being forced to channel surf. I know, I know... "there's only one october!" But then again Dane Cook just did Good Luck Chuck so I'm afraid no one in their right mind considers him a good judge of what's entertaining.

Ok so let's say you still like baseball (all 4 of you). Let's say somewhere back in your childhood something happened-- like you went to a memorable playoff game-- that forever forged Major League Baseball into this hub for Nostalgia in your mind. I had a roommate once who, when he was depressed would watch the entire 1986 World Series (or whichever one the Mets miraculously won) while drinking an entire bottle of Jameson's. Yeah, that guy was creepy. Anywho, for any of you who really get fired up come playoff time here is my assignment for you: watch an entire game on Tivo (this is what I did with the phillies divisional series thwapping at the hands of the rockies) and bloop through it... the 30 sec jumps on most DVRs almost perfectly skip past the in between pitch time. You'll get through the game in an hour.

Now go back and watch a regular game... it's infuriating. It's like the late-night talk radio equivalent of tv sports. You'll suddenly become exceedingly aware that you just spent the last ten seconds looking at a wide shot of the field or at a fat pitching coach spew seeds or, god forbid, Manny Ramirez calling time for in the batter's box for the 50th time this at bat. What makes it even better is that (unlike football) there's nothing to show of any interest in between plays because most plays consist of a 2 second pitch. Seriously if you literally added up the time that the ball is in play and cut the rest of the bullshit I bet each baseball game would take less than 30 min. For games that (at least in this world series) are lasting 4 hours or more without extra innings, that is preposterous.

So what's the solution. Baseball needs a play clock plain and simple... there should be a 15 or 20 second clock behind homeplate (so the pitcher can see) that starts when he receives the ball and the pitcher must be into his wind up before it expires otherwise the batter would be awarded a ball. Furthermore, the both the batter and pitcher/catcher should be limited to 2 (or so) timeouts per at bat. Of course baseball will never adopt this sort of thing until their ratings completely drop off the map... but honestly if they want more scoring and more drama from pitch to pitch, adding a play clock and some pressure on the pitchers would certainly achieve both.

thats the last I'll talk of baseball because as you're reading this the Red Sox have already swept and no one (unless you're from boston or one of those I love Boston BW-Jumpers) including me gives a shit.

2) College Football

Sadly, 'SC is out of playoff contention (*cries a silent but savory tear*). And yet, college football is still incredibly entertaining this year.... Why? you ask. That's easy: Parity. The mid-majors are better... the perennial bottom feeders in the big conferences are better... in short anybody can beat anybody on any given saturday and no poll BCS or otherwise is safe, which is best evident in the crazy teams that have somehow taken over the national landscape and the crazy upsets they've had. If I'd have told you that a game between South Florida and Uconn would be a worthily featured game on ABC in late October you'd say I was bat-shit. And the same goes for Kentucky being LSU's only loss. Perhaps the only thing that isn't unknown this year... is that the big ten is a terrible conference. That's not to say that the Pac-10 or SEC is totally infallible but top to bottom there is no comparison. If Ohio State were in either the aforementioned leagues they'd never go undefeated (and they still might not if they lose to Illinois or Michigan both of whom are PRETTY good).

Basically, though, this is a college football fans dream year... because every team in the top 10 is still in the hunt in my opinion. Boston College (despite the fact that it seems Matt Ryan can pull Touchdown drives out of his ass at a moments notice) is clearly not that great a team and my guess is that they will be upset by one of 4 tough teams down the stretch... West Virginia is still scary but they still need to beat Uconn (I know. UCONN? craziness), and I still think LSU will lose another game (either next week at Alabama or in the SEC championship where their opponent is still very much up for grabs, Georgia anyone?) and all you LSU knob-slobbers can argue all you want on this one but LSU could have 3 losses at this point (if Les Miles' retardedly ballsy calls had cost them all three times instead of just once) .... Seriously did anyone hear Verne Lundquist proclaim "Call of the Year!" after the last second touchdown against Auburn. Are you kidding me?! That was absolute stupidity. The fact that it miraculously worked doesn't mean that the call itself wasn't idiotic... oh, and Fuck Les Miles... that guy's gonna get hammered by the same sychophantic media when one of those bad calls takes them out of the BCS title game. Come on... who runs up the middle all four downs in overtime? It's called play-action douchebag. Anywho, if I had to put money on it I'd say LSU, WVA, BC and possibly Ohio State will all lose between now and bowl season.

All that said, perhaps the biggest game of the year is next Saturday in Eugene, Oregon where the #4 Ducks play #6 ASU (AP poll #s). If ASU beats Oregon they have to leap frog any 1 loss team or the system is just wrong. They proved they can hang in big games this saturday against Cal, but Oregon is beastly. It, hopefully, will be an exciting game to watch.

Also, watch for Oklahoma/Texas A&M (who looked pretty awful until the last few minutes against Kansas) to be a big game and if Oklahoma can cruise to the Big 12 chip against (probably) Kansas, expect the winner of that game to have a huge shot at the BCS title game. All in all, each week from here on out will provide some huge games and all the Top 10 teams have a shot at a national title. Most years I'd be all but fed up with USC out of contention, but with a year like this I almost don't mind cheering for, say, Kentucky.

One final note:
Watching Tim Tebow get his shit destroyed is really a joyous experience. Come on, Urban, Tebow up the middle one more time... maybe his arm will actually detach itself from the socket this time.

3) NFL

While parity is at an all-time high in College, the NFL couldn't be farther from it. And it's not just that the great teams are that great (though obviously either the colts or the Pats will most likely win the SB), most of these teams that just can't compete are just plain bad... seriously can you remember a year where you've seen so many mediocre-bad teams in the league? Or seen fewer teams that legitimately could challenge for a SB title? or been more sure after 7 games of exactly who will make the playoffs? I can't.

Last monday (after week 7) I told a buddy of mine who I thought would make it in the AFC. Pats and Colts get byes. Charger and Steelers win their divisions. Jags and Titans get the wild cards. I will put money on that. Seriously, please place bets in the comments. Why? Because it's fucking obvious, because no one else is good. Who else is gonna make it? come on... the Chiefs? Broncos? Texans? Those teams are a joke.

The NFC is even worse though. I can't even call who will make the playoffs in the NFC because there aren't 6 good teams in the entire League... seriously, I'm sitting here writing this and the Pats are beating the Redskins 52-0, and the skins are supposed to be playoff contenders. THAT'S RETARDED. Even the Giants who are perhaps the hottest team in the NFC had trouble with the winless dolphins (God I feel bad for any ignorant Brit who went to that game. What a way to reach out to international fans... with the Dolphins). If I had to pick the playoff teams I'd go with Cowboys, Packers, Bucs, Seattle (who win by default bc who else in that division is gonna win it) as division winners and Giants and Panthers/Lions/Saints as Wildcards. I would like to count the bears in there as contenders but they just got beat by the Lions for the 2ND TIME. Lord. The Eagles beat the Lions by 50 points. Their awful! How are the Bears that bad?!

One good thing about the Bears sucking though is that all those Rex haters who kept chanting for Greise as if he were the Second Coming, have to finally eat their words.... Yes, Rex doesn't make the greatest decisions but at least he's got a cannon. Greise has the worst of both worlds and because the Bears running game and pass protection are sub-par he just got picked 4 times by the Lions (who gave up 56 pts to DONOVAN-fucking-MCNABB -- wow I wish my caps could have caps on that one).

One final Note: Other than the Saints making a fun late season run and the Pats/Colts game next week there is really no reason to watch any NFL this season... just mark the date of the AFC championship on your calendar and start doing other stuff with your sundays... we all know that the Colts and the Pats will play again on that sunday and that the winner will win the Superbowl.... In fact, now that I think about it, let me be the first to petition to have College Football on Sundays... Either that or have Manning and Brady volunteer to have their achilles tendons sliced so they have to play on crutches... it's for the good of the league guys.

MLB Needs Robots, Infrared ones

First off, for those who saw the Padres Rockies tiebreaker playoff it was obvious that Matt Holliday never touched the plate because his hand was trapped under the catcher's foot (the heel of which was firmly blocking access to the plate). Still, it's a nearly impossible call for the ump to make in real time, and this became much more evident because he delayed the call way longer than usual as if he was waiting for the catcher to apply the tag... and then (in a bizarre 30 frames of video) when nothing happened and Holliday lay there with a face full of dirt he (rather timidly) motioned safe. It was obvious to the TBS announcers that the Ump wasn't sure about the call, and so in Colorado and with the Game potentially over he made the call that seemed most fitting, a call that unfortunately... was wrong.

But I don't blame the ump... as I said before it's a nearly impossible call... and what's more because calling Holliday safe ends the game and the Rockies immediately rush the field there lies even less room for error because the umps can't meet nor can anyone dispute the call. Changing that call after he made it would have been impossible. So we have to go with a flawed call... "meh, it's baseball, the human error is part of the game" -- well, you my friend would be a retard, and probably not a Padres fan. The problem is that the people in charge of Baseball are too stubborn to accept the inevitability of instant replay.

Think about it. Is there a game more suited to instant replay? Is there a game slower, less subject to time constraint than baseball? After all, managers constantly come out and complain about iffy calls, eating up all sorts of time in a showy huff of testosterone and dust kicking that does them no tangible good at all. It's a stupid tradition and only useful for saturday morning 80's style low-budget blooper reels (you gotta love the added cartoon sfx added to those things). Anyway, adding a managerial challenge to baseball would eliminate the need for stupid shit like that and also mean that a manager could actually prevent his team's entire season from being destroyed over one bad call.

Which brings me to my more important argument. The baseball season is 162 games long. How is it conceivable that the MLB would allow a team that had battled for 162 games to have their entire season hinge on a call that everyone watching TV could tell was the wrong one? Sucks to be the Padres... huh? And this isn't the first time that bad calls have been an issue in the playoffs (think Angels/White Sox a few years back where the Angels catcher never really dropped strike 3, and that Jeffrey Maier kid who caught Derek Jeter's "home run" against the Orioles, who Guliani took out to dinner or some stupid shit... fuckin Guliani). The very fact that whether or not a ball is actually a home run or not is rather commonly debated by a group of 4 umps is laughable (it's a home run for christsake, just watch the fuckin replay...) we shouldn't be crossing our fingers that the umps will make the call everyone else can see clearly from their couch. It either went inside the foul pole or didn't, why are we making it this hard.

Anyway, I'm hoping that this will be a moot point by next year and they'll have done the obvious and instituted an instant replay rule... but you never know, the people that preach "old time baseball" are pretty staunch, and have a certain amount of sway... especially considering the fact that no one under 25 actually likes baseball anyway... unfortunately this kind of shit (and the fact that I usually need to tivo-bloop through 2 of the 3 hours of any given game) is why they don't like it.

Just wait until the Red Sox get robbed by a bad playoff call. Then all those same "sanctity-of-the-game" douches who have been Boston bandwagon jumping for the past decade will come out of the woodwork and perhaps finally replay will be instituted.

Here's what I say... eliminate the umps altogether... just use robots and infrared technology to call balls and strikes, and plays at the plate/bags. Just leave one guy out there (and a bunch of booth replay guys) to make calls on the subjective stuff. That way when Ryan Howard strikes out for the 50th time in 3 games he won't be able to bitch any more at the ump for calling strike three... it's strike 3 douche, guard the plate!

That happened in all 3 ninth innings against the Rockies, all 3. Too bad we weren't playing the Padres, huh? Not that it would have made a huge difference I fear, since the Phil's pitching is fairly dreadful but at least those Howard at bats would have mattered a little more.

"Tell it to the infrared robots Ryan, tell it to the robots."

Les Miles: risk and reward

Perhaps there is no way to separate professional sport from cliche...

Football especially is captivating because it plays like a good documentary, and thus, when it goes unhindered by artificial narratives and generic motifs, the drama inherent in competition naturally shows through. That's what I'd like to believe I guess. That's why my girlfriend is now perhaps more concerned with the outcome of USC football games than I am... because once you watch that one incredible game (2006 Rose Bowl v. Texas) you can never stop watching.

And yet, like a documentary, an artificial narrative is essentially married to the real life itself... football as we know it could not exist without all the hoopla, all the John madden cliches, and the in-game graphics and stats (while we're on the topic, does anybody think that the video profiles of players where they just stand there and smile, or spin a ball in their hand are totally inane... just use a STILL PICTURE... honestly, just because I CAN put peanut butter on my balls and have my dog lick it off doesn't mean I SHOULD... but I digress). So I cannot say that I'd like to remove all cliche from the sporting world. To do so would be impossible... but I'd like to avoid over-simplification if ever possible and I think this is where pro sports media is going. I mean just look at the intricacy of the analysis on ESPN.com or page 2 stuff from Bill Simmons. Still, many fail to recognize inevitable change toward the 'less stupid.'

I heard a sports talk radio host once say that he thought Madden and Summerall were the best sportcasting duo ever... I almost laughed out loud. If I wanted my senile drunk grandpa to blabber on about sweat-stains and how good Brett Favre is and draw telecaster circles on stock shots of tailgating food well... ok basically I don't want that. My personal favorite tandem right now is Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. Maybe it's partly because they've been doing NFC east games on Fox for a while now and I get all misty and nostalgic when a good NFC east rivalry comes around, but I think there's something more to it. When all's said and done those two guys treat us like we are intelligent discerning human beings and analyze the game as such. If there's one thing I can't STAND it's when the commentators don't understand what's going on with, say, a penalty and or a playcall, and while I'm screaming at the TV because it's fairly obvious what is really going on, they take 15 seconds to figure it out. John Madden is notorious for bullshit like this... because he's not very smart. Now maybe I've just watched a lot of sports. But a lot of these guys make me feel like I'd make a better sportscaster than they would. And that's a little sad.

Worst of all the commentator fouls, though, is the constant repetition of the narrative cliche. Let's call this, for the sake of conciseness, the "Enberg Fallacy" (because we all know Dick Enberg, classic sports commentator whore, is the most cliched and generic of them all... that man would commentate me taking a dump if CBS asked him to... "oh my!"). Anyway, the basic gist of the "Enberg fallacy" is that sportscasters often use the simplest, most narratively immediate explanation to describe trends... some examples: Tom Brady and the Patriots just know how to win; Reality: The Patriots have meticulous coaches and don't underestimate the value of having great offensive lineman. Tim Duncan just works harder than everybody else (after all, Duncan is basically a white guy so that must mean that all his natural ability was earned through sweat and tears right...?); Reality: He's 7 ft for Godsakes! And he's smart enough to have developed moves that make fouling him unavoidable. Other than that he just happens to play on one of the Only teams in the league that actually plays defense.

Ok so you get how this works right...? Which brings us FINALLY to the topic of this post. Which is the LSU/Florida game this Saturday. Unfortunately I was flipping all over the place because there was so much good shit to watch that night so I really only saw the final 3rd of the game at full attention. However I did catch most of Les Miles' gutsy calls and I also was lucky enough to here Jolly old Verne Lundquist proclaim "Nick Saban who?!" (which, when you actually think about it, doesn't make any sense as a phrase). And as the clock expired on the LSU victory I knew that the pants-creaming over Les Miles and his "guts" (including going for it and making it 5 times on 4th down, including a fake field goal) were just beginning. Yes Les Miles made some good calls, but the fact is he also made some really bad calls... and got lucky.

1) the challenge: This is actually when I tuned for real to the game and at first glance as they were showing the replay I thought Florida had returned the kick for a touchdown considering the fact that Miles' was using his one coaches challenge (and risking his crucial final timeout in a close game in which he trailed) to challenge a call that had already been initially reviewed upstairs and had not (those officials deemed) required a further look. But it wasn't over a touchdown... it was over 9 lousy yards... are you kidding me?! That's not a gutsy call on his part, that's not "rolling the dice," Verne. That's stupidity. To make matters worse, it seemed clear to me from the grainy blown-up CBS freeze frames that there wasn't conclusive evidence at all that would overturn the call on the field that he had stayed in bounds. I def. thought he hadn't touched the white... and I almost got the impression that the officials overturned it because they didn't want to punish LSU so heavily for such an inconsequential call. Ironically Miles won the challenge. And the stupidity continued...

2) Listen, I'm all for going for it on 4th down... Miles has some great fake field goals in the LSU playbook and he's used them perfectly, moreover by extending those drives he kept momentum throughout the game. I don't even mind the 4th and goal at the 3 where flynn's pass cut the defecit to 3 pts. Because even if they don't get it LSU's defense was starting to shut the gators down and they'd have to start at their own 3. Moreover, Colt David (the LSU kicker) is pretty garbage, except for maybe his running ability during fakes. Still it probably wasn't the right call score-wise but it worked so it looks good. The final 4th down conversion however... was just stupid. He was down 3 at home, with one timeout left (somehow) and easily in field goal range and he goes for it on 4th and 1 at the 7. If they don't get it, the game's over. If they do get it, they might score a touchdown and win (what happened), but if they kick a field goal they tie the game and probably win in overtime the way things are going... Is Colt David that terrible? It's really a no-brainer. No matter how "gutsy" you consider yourself to be you still kick the field goal. It's a simple matter of risk and reward. If Hester hadn't inched over that ethereal yellow line with a gritty 2nd effort Miles would be the in the sports media doghouse instead of their darling.... But they did make it, BARELY so everyone will praise Les Miles and his bad call for the rest of the season... or until they lose to a mediocre SEC team in a couple weeks. "Nick Saban Who?" indeed.

In the meantime we can all watch as countless replays show Les' wry smile and weird tongue-thing as he watches his risky calls inexplicably continue to pay off. But let's stop ourselves before we say Les Miles is the reason LSU is winning games. . . That would be another one of those unavoidable "Enberg Fallacies." It makes for a neat storyline but it's not really true. Jacob Hester is the reason LSU won on saturday (by a matter of inches), and he saved Miles' ass in the process.