Why? Why do you mock me, O Lord?

Over the last few years, there have been billions of words written criticizing the BCS and how it sets up teams to play in the major bowl games. But there is no greater indictment than this: Many people seem to be in agreement that LSU needs Florida to win in order to get an invite to a BCS bowl game (probably Orange or Rose). The Effing Gators have to win. Why? Why do you mock me, O Lord?

In other news, the Mighty LSU Tigers beat Arkansas on Friday 31-26. A great back and forth game, big plays on either side. Arkansas gashed the LSU run defense all day long. Darren McFadden is a phenomenal running back. It didn't help that LSU's linebackers were dinged up, but he's really that good. But LSU played well on offense and got a big kickoff return from Trindon Holliday to put them over the top. A lot of LSU fans were wiping their foreheads in relief.

Should Florida win, LSU could face Michigan in the Rose Bowl, or the winner of the ACC in the Orange Bowl. I'd feel pretty good about either. It could be a good start to the offseason, recruiting, and next season.

One final note: some people are saying that Notre Dame doesn't deserve a BCS bowl. Or Florida doesn't if they lose. Or LSU doesn't anyway. Or whoever doesn't. Let me make this clear: The word DESERVE has no place in a discussion of the bowl bid process. It's about TV, money and maybe matchups. There's no use griping about it. Just be glad if you get in.

The Reaper looks different than I thought

Gallaudet University recently went through a very dramatic time when students shut down the campus to protest the recent choice of university president. The board of trustees eventually caves to the students and removed the nominee. Below is a photo taken from the celebration.


That's a brave man carrying Death on his shoulders.

Gallaudet has had a tough time of it lately. The whole episode came off as a black eye for the school. It looked like the university allowed a student mob to start making the rules, like they can now throw a big tantrum anytime they don't like what's going on and get their way. Sort of an "inmates running the asylum" kind of thing. John McCain resigned his position on the board of trustees. The Washington Post ran a story about lapses in academic standards, incluiding grade fixing. The government funds about two-thirds of Gallaudet's budget, but gives the school a lot of leeway because of it's place in deaf society. If things continue to go badly, people are going to stop caring about the deaf part and start caring about the institutional integrity part.

@$$-gate

At halftime of the LSU/Tennessee game, CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson asked LSU coach Les Miles how LSU could go out and show that they are a good football team. "Play our asses off!" he said. I thought it was great. Pretty surprising, but great. You get the feeling that Miles was really sick of hearing people talk about his supposed inability to coach the Tigers to road wins against ranked teams. I wonder how people forget the game at Alabama last year, when LSU was down and came back to win in overtime. This win might make him feel a bit better.

By the way, I don't recommend googling "assgate" unless you're in the mood for a lot of X's.

How did we win that game?

LSU turned the ball over four times, while taking it away from the Vols only once. One of the INTs was returned for a touchdown. The game was on the road, and Tennessee got a relatively inspired performance from backup quarterback Jonathan Crompton, including two long touchdown passes that got the crowd into the game. LSU committed eight more penalties than Tennessee as well. LSU's leading Russell was the 260-pound quarterback, who had an amazing 34 yard run. The referees missed what looked like an obvious touching on a Vols punt return that would have given LSU the ball on the UT 4 yard line.

So how did LSU win?

1) The defense. Tennessee managed only 247 yards, and only 62 on the ground. The defensive line shut down any holes, and the linebackers didn't allow anybody to get outside. They had two sacks, several other pressures, and an INT. Whenever the offense didn't turn it over, they made life tough on the Vols offense. They knocked Tennessee starting QB Erik Ainge out of the game in the first quarter (Ainge is the nephew of Danny Ainge).

2) A diverse and surprising ground game. I already mentioned Russell's rushing, which always came in big situations. Keiland Williams carried the ball on the second play of the game, and I'm not sure if he even saw the field before the 4th quarter in any other game. He ran with good speed and power, and I'm not sure Tennessee was expecting him. LSU also used Jacob Hester, Alley Broussard, Justin Vincent, and Trindon Holliday at running back. Holliday looks like he can go the distance on every play. He's incredibly quick and fast.

3) Russell connected on several screen passes to Dwayne Bowe and Early Doucet (inside screen to Bowe, bubble screens to Doucet) and it looked like Tennessee had no real answer for them. Bowe's TD came on one of these near the goal line, and his fumble came on one at midfield. Craig Davis also had a TD catch, but Bowe and Doucet were the two most popular targets on the day. Doucet snagged a hard pass out of the air that may have been meant for Bowe in the back of the end zone, but it turned out to be the game-winning catch.

4) LSU didn't go in the tank and quit after making so many mistakes. As hard as it is to believe, the Tigers always looked like a team that believed that victory would be gained. It's great to watch.

In Praise of Random

I wrote here about the appeal of sameness and routine. It's still as nice now as it was then. It's nice not to have to say, "You mean I have to do what today?" Having said that, over the last few weeks I have gained a greater appreciation for what I think of as "The Joy of Random" (technically, it should be "randomness" since it's a noun and "random" is an adjective, but I think it works better my way). The two main ways I've seen randomness add a certain flavor to life are humor and storytelling.

1) Humor: a random word in an unexpected place can make for a really good joke. The people you're talking to have no idea where it came from, and maybe neither do you. A word that seemingly has no connection to the conversation, but you find that it really works. Sometimes I think of these words as "appropriately random", although I think you could make a case for that being an oxymoron.

2) Storytelling: I think storytelling gets a huge boost from randomness of experience. Something that happens to you totally out of the blue that you can't wait to tell people about. Sometimes I'll be in the middle of something and already be thinking about how I'm going to tell the story to other people. The "getting kicked in the butt by a girl while at the urinal" episode is just the latest. Sign of the Whale is a great place for randomness to happen to me.

Third Dick From the Sun

I won't say that I forgot and needed to be reminded, so I will say that it's very, very nice to experience the wackiness of 3rd Rock From the Sun again on DVD. I liked it a lot when it was on TV, and I like it even more now. Wonderful writing and an on-screen chemistry among everybody in the cast made for a fun time all the time. Chemistry between the two love interests is important and rare enough, so for it to exist from top to bottom is outstanding.


One thing I really enjoy is that it was willing to do a lot of different things. Some shows do one thing and do it very well. Some do things that nobody has ever done before (though doing something that's never been done before...has been done before). 3rd Rock never fell into the trap of sameness. It helped that they could approach the most ordinary things with a fresh perspective. Two scenes that stand out are Dick experiencing kleenex for the first time and being freaked out by a pop-up book. Speaking of Dick...

One of the more enjoyable minor points of the show was that they often found inventive ways to work "Dick" into the title. Some examples:

Lonely Dick
Angry Dick
Selfish Dick
Much Ado About Dick
Dick Jokes
Dick Behaving Badly
Will Work for Dick
Stuck With Dick
Near Dick Experience
Shall We Dick?
My Mother, My Dick

It waned a bit the last two seasons, but it was a nice touch.