RockRaines

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Nov 16, 2012 -> 01:58 PM) Enough already. I'm an ND fan as well, but you're outrageous at this point. Oregon is ahead of them because they clearly appear to be the better football team. Same with KSU. This has zero to do with pre-season rankings this late in the season. If you have watched all 3 teams play, and think ND is better than either of them - then you're just a homer. Hell, even if you haven't watched them play, look at the results of the games (as the article went through), you'd have to put Oregon and KSU ahead of them. I didnt know you were a ND fan. Oregon has 2-3 players that are head and shoulders above anything ND has on their roster. They have probably one of the most dangerous offensive players in the nation on their team and he's not even their main weapon. We'll see how it holds up against a really really good defense possibly from the SEC but as of now its pretty clear their talent is why people think they are so good. The best player in the Big Ten couldnt even start on their team.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 16, 2012 -> 06:44 AM) ND's offense is more run-oriented and thus runs more clock, resulting in fewer possessions. The goal of coaches is to win games, and they really care zero about margin of victory. LOL. Do you realize how ridiculous this sounds? Oregon is primarily a running offense as well. They score ALOT quicker than ND because they have much more offensive talent. A team with a dominant defense will give their team a TON of offensive possessions because the other team keeps going 3 and out. EVERY coach including Kelly wants to win and win by alot. Nobody including the Vest went out thinking, I just want to win by a little. I'm a fan of a team that won a hell of alot more than ND with clock eating and dominant defense and the main reason the margin of victory small at times was because the offense was complete bulls*** not because Tressel only wanted to win by a little.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Nov 15, 2012 -> 04:05 PM) Everyone. You can also just google "ready player one .epub" or "ready player one .mobi" and be good to go. Anything from mobilism is safe. Literally the only reason I put up with you

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 15, 2012 -> 03:52 PM) Not quite that. Oregon plays a faster pace that produces a lot more possessions. The bigger the gap between them and their opponent, the more it inflates their margin of victory. Oregon is going to beat bad teams by 40 when ND and KSU are going to beat them by 20. Oregon is going to beat decent teams by 20 when ND and KSU are going to beat them by 10. This is going to make Oregon look like they're a lot better than ND and KSU when they really aren't, and that is borne out in the bowl games when they play evenly matched games against teams that they have been made significant favorites against because of their style of play. Kelly's offense at Cincy was a fast paced scoring machine, so its not scheme. I think what you are saying is ND doesnt have a good offense, certainly not as good as those teams. I dont think Kelly's design is to only beat teams by a little.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 15, 2012 -> 03:32 PM) Yes, they lost 2 of 3 bowls against tough teams in low scoring games after running up scores all season long, thus proving that their huge margins of victory didn't mean a whole lot. They weren't any better than Big Ten teams that had been winning a lot of games by smaller margins. How does that make them overrated? Those teams had months to prepare for their offense and by definition title games or bowl games are going to have very talented teams in them.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 15, 2012 -> 03:24 PM) No disputing ND's past, just pointing out that Oregon's style of play tends to leave them overrated by poll voters due to inflated victory margins. Yeah, I dont buy that at all. When have they been overrated exactly? They had a very real chance to win a national title (lost by 3 points), they won the Rose bowl last year and were beat by a top tier defense the the 2010 Rose Bowl by only 9 points.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 15, 2012 -> 03:13 PM) Margin of victory isn't really a test of a team being elite. It's very misleading, especially depending on a team's style. ND is a team built on running and defense. There are fewer possessions in their games so they don't win by as many points. This is how Oregon fools everybody into thinking they are so awesome until they go get crushed by an SEC team or the likes in a bowl game. They play an up-tempo game that produces lots of possessions and points and their margin of victory impresses idiot voters. The skillset required to beat average-to-good teams by a ton of points isn't necessarily the skillset required to beat the other elite teams. Oregon has a BCS win at least, I wouldnt harp on a team that has been much more successful than Notre Dame has over the last 20 years. They've been to back to back to back BCS games including a title game. Pretty sure they aren't "fooling" anyone.

QUOTE (Jake @ Nov 14, 2012 -> 12:14 PM) In other words, you better hope that giant jump is due to Mike Trout being on base and a HOFer being behind him. If it was just luck, you're going to see those numbers drop. Let's be real though -- Jackson Hunter (I guess they'll put him here?) Cabrera Fielder VMart That's a pretty good start to a lineup if they all play as they expect. Soooo, who plays 1B? Vmart and Fielder are both 1B/DH. I guess VMart is going back to catcher? He played there full time only one season in the last 5 years pretty much. Does that make Avila available?

QUOTE (Iwritecode @ Nov 15, 2012 -> 10:38 AM) Just finished "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline. As a child of the 80's and a slight geek, this was right in my wheelhouse. There were a couple of references that I didn't quite get because I hadn't played the game or watched the movie but I enjoyed it overall. So who can send me this for free?

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 15, 2012 -> 11:51 AM) I was pointing out that ND's schedule is more difficult year in and year out because they do not load their schedule with cupcakes. Navy is not an elite team but it is also not a cupcake. Navy is better than the worst 2-3 teams on most schedules. There is a big difference. Navy, NIU, Toledo are teams that can beat a Top 20 team if that team has a bad game. Akron, Eastern Michigan, and Coastal Carolina aren't beating a Top 20 team no matter how bad they play. First of all thats not what you said, its easy to see up top where you said they rarely schedule second tier schools like the MAC. Navy is a second tier football school. So by "very rarely" you mean they schedule second tier schools every single year. They also add other second tier conference foes from C-USA, and the MWC about every year as well. They have temple, AF, Navy and BYU from "second tier" conferences in 13. Rice, Navy, temple, in 14 and so on. ND is one of the best at putting together decently tough schedules but its almost impossible to not schedule a team from one of the lower conferences. Also these are made so far in advance that who knows what teams will be good, NIU could be s*** in 3 years and Akron could be dominant. They may not "load" their schedule with cupcakes, but no top tier team does because they have to play a conference slate which is difficult regardless of foe since you know each other so well. Look at who some of the SEC teams are playing this weekend. Second, any team can beat any team at any time, especially teams in the second tier schools. Michigan found out that you can actually lose to a non-FBS team as well. I personally think that we will see these schedules get a bit harder as the playoff format expands and we will eventually see schedules split out the tiers of schools from one-another. There wont be much of a benefit of playing a team like EMU for Michigan because padding the record wont count as much. I would love to see the major conferences play each other instead of Western Kentucky, UAB etc. I just noticed this looks harsh but I dont mean it that way. Nobody can defend their schedule as not having easy spots or "breaks" its how they've been designed since the titles were voted upon and especially since the BCS took over for some reason. I fully feel the expanded playoff will really force teams to look at SOS as a way in, which is why my team in particular is trying to schedule non-cons with all good teams instead of one good one and 2-3 s***ty ones (the vest loved throwing money to small ohio schools).

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 15, 2012 -> 06:35 AM) Navy, or an upper level MAC team, would beat the worst team on any other Top 10 team's schedule by quite a bit. That is my point. I dont think that was your point at all, you were saying ND was so great because it didnt schedule MAC teams when it was pointed out that they instead scheduled service academies which are basically MAC teams anyway. Every top school in the nation schedules cupcakes, every single one. This will be changing IMO with the playoff system but as it stands today its a rule to do so.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Nov 14, 2012 -> 02:33 PM) Navy often fields a pretty respectable team. Army's always terrible though. Respectable meaning what? They are essentially an upper level MAC team. Their last 10 years have been good for them since the olden days of them actually competing for something and they've gone 83-53.

Mark literally took a leap of faith based on Ozzie being in Miami. Now hes in f***ing Toronto.

QUOTE (buhbuhburrrrlz @ Nov 13, 2012 -> 05:10 PM) ya I usually put Richard Simmons ahead of Bo Jackson in my lists too I actually prefer Herschel over Bo. Bo had a bad disease but Herschel is STILL competing in athletics at a high level. He participated in the olympics and still is rumored to never lift a single weight.

QUOTE (flavum @ Nov 13, 2012 -> 06:42 PM) I agree. Loria is a joke, and this is the kind of trade that a commissioner could veto, and nobody would fault Selig for doing it. They bet the ranch on Ozzie and some free agents and it bombed. They royally f***ed the Marlins fanbase. On the flip side, its ENTIRELY feasible that Mark could be headed back to us if we wanted him.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 13, 2012 -> 03:33 PM) I bought the donut house coffee pack at Sams for ours. It's not great, but for .46 cents a cup it's delicious. I was drinking way too much dunkin' donuts and starbucks at 2-3 bucks a pop. Thats what I'm thinking. Plus Costco's return policy is such that I can return it pretty much at any time if it breaks or if I hate it.

QUOTE (flippedoutpunk @ Nov 13, 2012 -> 02:48 PM) If starbucks releases a White Chocolate Mocha K-Cup flavor then i will definitely never have to see the hipsters behind the starbucks counter ever again. Most likely that will be in their coffee maker the Verissimo. Or the new Keurig Vue. Both have the steamed milk feature.

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 13, 2012 -> 02:47 PM) I applaud you. We've done the same effort. Still prefer drip to keurig. Mine did come with the my k-cup feature where I can still grind my coffee I guess. We'll see how much I like it after trying all the different kinds, its actually more for the future wife.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 13, 2012 -> 02:29 PM) My brother has one, I also can't stand it. I think they make s*** tasting coffee. I live across the street from a starbucks and I am trying to get away from going there everyday. Made my first cup today, not bad so far. Definitely better than the single cup coffee maker I had before.

Well I broke down and got a Keurig, lets see how long this lasts.

QUOTE (zenryan @ Nov 12, 2012 -> 10:05 PM) This post makes me sad. Not because of the loss and the one person who kept that team from winning the title(Larry Coker, not the ref) but how far they've fallen from horrible coaching hires. But as we've seen, in a one game setting with weeks of prep, anyone can win 1 game. Everyone had FSU beating OU in 2000, Miami beating OSU in 2002, OU beating LSU in 2003?, Rams over Patriots, Patriots over Giants. Just has happened too many times to think it would be a cakewalk for the favored team. Plus given there is a 5 week break, I think ND would match up better against Oregon that K-State. Oregon is all about finesse and timing so the long layoff plus prep time could really get them out of whack. K-State being more of a power team probably should be able to overcome the layoff better. LOL, in hindsight both teams had a ridiculous amount of NFL talent on them, but before the game there was probably 3 people in the country that thought OSU had a chance. Before the 2010 Rose Bowl all I heard about was Oregon's speed and we completely slobber knocked the s*** out of them. Nobody has the ability to declare anyone the winner before they play the game. But once again I think this will all shake out anyway.

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Nov 12, 2012 -> 10:10 PM) Dog has turned into quite the chewer. Every toy she has is not something to play with, it's something to chew and try to destroy. In the past few weeks she's burned through almost everything. Anyone have good recs for some really durable toys? We do use edible things like rawhides, etc, but it'd be nice to have some that aren't edible, just toys. Before I go walking down an entire aisle of toys, wanted to see if any of you had ones you've used in the past, or things I should be looking for - keeping in mind that again, she'll try to essentially tear it into pieces, not just play with it. The super strength Kongs were the only thing that never got totally destroyed.

Peavy's already done. Not sure you'll see a bigger move than that.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 12, 2012 -> 03:11 PM) Almost every highlight of an Oregon passing TD I see has the QB sitting in the pocket having a cup of coffee before throwing the ball. That isn't a luxury he'll get against good defenses. And to add on to this too, I've seen my underdog team go up against their unstoppable and possibly superior to this year's roster and shut them down with a dominant defense. Matchups are matchups. I think there will be 2 undefeated teams left and they will face off. Well, undefeated teams that arent on probation ;-)

QUOTE (GoodAsGould @ Nov 12, 2012 -> 12:24 PM) Sorry, a team that struggles with Michigan, Purdue, BYU, and Pittsburgh doesn't get to use the argument they would stay in the game vs anyone. I honestly hope they get into the national championship game just so Oregon can stomp them. IN 2002 I watched a team struggle with Illinois, Purdue, Michigan etc and then face what many were calling one of the most unstoppable forces in college football history. You cannot definitively say they wont win because of who they've faced previously.