FF:ACNC, take 3!

Well, let's give this another try...

WELCOME back, friends! G Paul Smith here, getting ready for the beginning of the 2016 football season as the down-under folks finish their last weekend of pre-season footy in prep for the start of the season on Thursday, March 24th....the NFL starts its fiscal year with the release of unwanted players and the start of the free agent signing period...the CFL starts putting its teams in place for pre-season games coming up in just a few weeks...colleges in the States go through its annual hypocrisy of pretending its athletes are students as it agonizes about whether they can let their players miss any more class for playoff games, or FORCE them to accept payments for their services and thereby damage their amateur status.

And soccer and rugby and the other related games probably still exist. Haven't checked recently.

So, hope you're willing to join me again, riding solo from now on (my business partner and beloved bride, Melissa, passed away in 2014), as we talk about the sport we all love, in all of its various forms.

        WELCOME HOME!    ~gps

Sometimes a pivotal moment in time is clear enough to allow us a choice of paths

Rohan Connelly of The Age has a remarkable point in the wake of the death of and mourning for Adelaide coach Phil Walsh Friday and this weekend. 

Can we change our day-to-day culture in this moment in time?

Can we stop thinking that sport is more important than life? (And this means not just footy but American football, soccer, whichever sport dominates your thinking.) 

Can we allow our players to smile occasionally after a loss? Can we allow them to skip the angst we've always demanded from our defeated players?

Can we remember that not only are our players not superhuman, not personal role models?
Can we remember instead that they are young men (and women!), some barely out of their teens (and the college kids may not even be that old), and don't have the life experience yet to have the same well-thought out positions on the major social issues of the day - especially when a reporter stabs them with a surprise question and the answer will run on a loop on ESPN SportsCenter?

Can we all just relax and enjoy the game for what it is: a game?!  

The stabbing death of Coach Phil Walsh

At 2 a.m. Friday, Adelaide Crows coach Phil Walsh, 55, was stabbed to death by his 26-year old son, Cy Jacob Walsh, in a domestic dispute that also injured Mrs. Walsh with non-threatening injuries.

The entire footy world has united in grief over the loss of AFL lifer Walsh, who also spent time coaching in Port Adelaide and West Coast, as well as playing in Brisbane, Collingwood, and Richmond.

His Crows team were scheduled to play Geelong this weekend at home in the Adelaide Oval; the game was cancelled but the remainder of the weekend's slate of games will go on as scheduled. Friday night, in a classic matchup between heavyweights Hawthorn and Collingwood (which the premiers won 101-91 in a tight competitive game), the two teams came together after the game in an unscheduled moment of prayer which saw the two teams interspersed between each other - Hawthorn, Collingwood, Hawthorn, Collingwood,... - in a beautiful moment of salute.

Of course, tributes from players and the entire AFL community have poured out on Twitter and Instagram, but the best words came from detective commissioner Des Bray, investigating the murder: 

"For any family, regardless of who it is, is one of the worst things that you could imagine that could happen to you," he said.
"The only thing that is different with this is that he has a high profile. The pain and suffering of the family is no different."

It's the US and Japan again for the Women's World Cup title

Just repeating the news, as I can't say I follow futbol like I follow football...

The United States defeated Germany 2-0 on Tuesday, and last night the Japanese were able to get past England thanks to an English player kicking the ball into her own goal (accidentally, of course) just before the end of regulation time.

How heartbreaking must THAT be? In most sports, you can't even SCORE for the other team. Baseball, cricket, golf, and so forth - it's impossible. In American, Canadian, and Australian football (the sports of choice 'round these here parts), it's possible to score one or two point scores for the other team, and most of the time it's done intentionally, as a strategy to either get the ball back or prevent a larger score by the opponent. In basketball, it's entirely a bad thing, but it's one basket out of 40 or 50, and very rarely has any part in deciding the game.

But in soccer, where only a couple of goals are scored in the entire match in most cases, an own-goal can and usually does decide the entire game when it occurs. It seems unnecessarily cruel, but then much of soccer is cruelty - the tension that builds in a scoreless game, the thought that a World Cup championship can and often does come down to penalty kicks, and the outside pressure that major club and national teams feel from their fans, who often place an inappropriate amount of importance on the outcome of a fickle game. 

Every time something like this happens, I think back to the 1994 Men's World Cup, when a player from Colombia cost his team the chance to advance with an own goal and found himself dead within a month or two of returning home  We'd all like to think England's more civilized than that - because as Americans we come from that stock originally - but I sure don't want to see their tabloid sports sections today...

On betting and gambling...

Proud to brag (against my Christian beliefs) that despite Port Adelaide's favored status, my Geelong pick held up, and they won by 23 in the Adelaide Oval Friday night, Aussie time.

The correct pick pushed me up into the top 1/2 of 1% in the various AFL "tipster" contests at afl.com.au - so let that be evidence that you can trust my prediction advice! The CFL site has a similar contest, so I thought I'd try it out this season as well, although my Aussie knowledge is definitely superior to my Canadian! Can't hurt to try, since they're all free to enter.

It's a far cry from risking my own money on someone else's athletic prowess and flukes of injuries and the whims and follies of men in the twenties. If you're going to gamble your hard-earned coinage, do it on your OWN abilities, or at the very worst, on something with some statistical basis for your projection.

And if you must gamble your money, KNOW WHEN TO STOP. Set a limit that you can afford, and stick to it. If you can't stick to it, NEVER GAMBLE. When someone with an addictive personality gets into the "I can win it back" mode, they're doomed. If, on the other hand, you enjoy gambling (whether it's sports betting or slot machines or poker or the lottery) as much as, say, a nice dinner out? Take forty dollars (or whatever the evening is worth to you), go enjoy yourself...but when that money is gone, YOU'RE DONE. If you can't stop then, DON'T START! No "just one more"s, no "but I was just about to get hot!"....

When it comes to sports, there are so many free competitions on line you can compete in - get the thrill of the bet without the painful side effects. You have no excuse to hamper your life and that of your family by throwing money down the toilet with nothing to show for it but regret.

Another felon released in the NFL

Brandon Spikes was released by the Patriots today after his damaged car was found abandoned on I-495 in Foxborough a day earlier. Last week, the Chicago Bears released Ray McDonald after the latest of his domestic assault and dog attacks and other abuse and violent behaviors. No team seems to have the slightest interest in signing the talented McDonald, either.

What's the NFL coming to when you can't play in the league just because you're a certified felon with a large and recent history of unsafe behavior and no sign of changing?

(Good on ya, NFL!)

Talk about bad injury luck - here's a young man I admire

Through five or six years of hard knocks, recurrent injuries, strenuous rehabs and more bad luck, Anthony Morabito has had more than his fair share of occasions to demonstrate his resilience, his positive morale, and his character. 

And he's continuing to do it in spades.

Morabito, who apparently has lost yet another season to injury now as bone bruising and other knee issues continue to plague the Fremantle recruit, showed how he's overcoming more injuries than any one player should ever have to deal with. 

Head coach Ross Lyon talked about him earlier this week, and this quote stood out for me:

"He puts it into context that this is just a football injury and says, 'I look around me and I see real tragedy'. So he's in pretty good shape."

The idea that he can realize that spending six years chasing your dream to get three games total out of it (so far) is nothing compared to the real human tragedies all around us all is remarkable maturity for a twenty-three year old who's seen more than enough already.

Watching the game against Melbourne up in Alice Springs last season, when his name was called at the last minute - the team rushed his parents up the desert to see him play! - and to see that crowd of people cheer his every move was one of the most heart-warming things I heard all year. 

Morabito was a very high draft pick in 2010 - he has talent! 

And someday...he'll get to show it off again....

Good on you, Cameron Guthrie!

Thought this was super cool at the time it happened - Cam Guthrie, himself a budding star for the Geelong Cats, stopped former Brownlow medalist Chris Judd of the Carlton Blues after the Cats had wiped them out and did something that happens on occasion on the soccer pitch but almost never in footy. He asked for Judd's jersey.

It was a sign of ultimate respect for the role model Guthrie had as a footy player, and probably the first and last time he'd play Judd in an AFL game. In fact, he probably outplayed his idol that night, but that didn't erase years of admiration. 

Judd's reaction was..."I'm sorry, what?"

As I said, it's not something that footy players do. But Judd couldn't help but be grateful, and he willingly traded jerseys with this young player he may not even really have known.

 
Cameron Guthrie ‏@CamGu3

Privileged to compete against a player I have always had great respect for. Thanks for the jumper @cjayfive

So Everett Golson's going to be a Seminole, eh?

The well-traveled Everett Golson is changing schools again (this is transfer number 3, for those keeping score), moving from Notre Dame, where he was a Heisman candidate until he learned giving the ball to the other team was easier than he'd thought, to Florida State, who apparently needs a quarterback after number 1 draft pick Jamies Winston left for Tampa Bay last month. (Seems to me the back-up did a pretty good job against Clemson last year, but hey, what do I know?)

ESPN's Mark Schlabach has done his usual thorough job looking at how transfers have managed over the last ten years or so - some good, some not so much. My personal opinion is that three transfers are a three-sided red flag against Golson, a sign that he can't handle adversity. I know FSU put up with a ton of crap from Winston, and think they got what they wanted out of him - a national title, another undefeated season - but the stain never goes away. 

As for Golson, I'd recommend the advice of the 65-year-married couple, who when asked about the secret of how they'd stayed together so long, answered, "We stayed because we didn't consider leaving an option. If it's broken, we fixed it. We didn't just abandon the marriage at the first sign of trouble!"

Speaking of Easterbrook, consider this advice:

This is analysis of a UC Berkeley report on WHEN you should kick and when you should go for it on fourth down...more in formation after the article:

Hey, NFL coaches! Want to win one more game this season than you otherwise would? Below I'll tell you how. In fact, I will reveal a simple formula that will increase the odds of victory for most football teams.

And I won't just be whistlin' Dixie. The formula was tested over the offseason in thousands of computer simulations by the sports-analysis firm Accuscore -- the same Accuscore that, during the 2006 NFL season, compiled a better game-predictions record than anyone in the ESPN television, radio and Internet empire. Accuscore and I spent some time over the winter devising and testing various assumptions about football tactics, arriving at one formula that almost always improves the chance of winning. Ideally we'd like to sell the formula to NFL franchises for huge amounts of money, then spend the rest of our lives riding around in limousines. But what the heck, in a moment I'll simply give it away.

First, some history. Year in, year out, Tuesday Morning Quarterback rails against excessive punting. I document "preposterous punts" -- punts on fourth-and-short in opposition territory or on fourth-and-1 when trailing in the second half. My archive of preposterous punts now numbers into the hundreds, and shows teams that punt on short-yardage situations in opposition territory, or when trailing in the second half, almost always go on to lose.

Elaborately, I've argued that if NFL, college or high school teams went for it on most fourth-and-short downs, the additional scoring from sustained drives would more than offset the field position surrendered by occasional failed tries. I've quoted Don Shula as privately telling a powerful insider (me) that not punting would revolutionize football. I've shown that since the average offensive play gains almost five yards, going for it on fourth-and-3 or less mathematically favors the offense: and that this would hold even if nobody ever punted on fourth-and-3 or less.

Last fall, I worked through the probabilistic pluses and minuses of rarely punting, concluding, "Probabilities suggest a team that rarely punts will increase its scoring" but not increase opponents' scoring. Last fall's anti-punt column also highlighted an academic paper by economist David Romer of the University of California at Berkeley, who contends NFL teams should go for it even on most fourth-and-longs. Finally, I've railed against the two reasons coaches order punts on fourth-and-short. First, "because that's what we always do." Second, because if coaches order fourth-down tries that fail, they will be blamed, whereas if coaches order punts, the players will be blamed for the loss.

Because coaches are afraid of being blamed, my anti-punt theory has never received a systematic trial. In my own coaching of middle-school, county-league flag football, I haven't sent the punt unit on the field in two years, and have posted two undefeated seasons. But since punting happens less in flag than in tackle anyway, this might not tell us much. Until such time as some college or pro coach decides to believe what he reads in TMQ, there won't be a real-world confirmation of anti-punt thinking.

So, I asked the computer whiz-kids at Accuscore, whose software simulates entire NFL games, if they could take actual games from the 2006 season and rerun them with everything the same except one team eschewing the punt. We chose three types of games: great games between top teams (for instance, New England at San Diego in last season's playoffs), good games between good teams (for instance, Denver at St. Louis in the regular season) and average games involving average teams (for instance, we tested the home-and-home series between the 49ers and Cardinals). We defined two sets of punt-shunning rules: the hyperaggressive pedal-to-the-metal tactics advocated by Romer and a somewhat more conservative set of anti-punt rules designed by TMQ. We assigned the anti-punt tactics to the home team but not the visitor, then to the visitor but not the home team in the same pairing. Accuscore simulated about 10,000 sets of games, to wash out the effects of chance.

Bottom line: avoiding punts added an average of one point to a team's per-game scoring, without adding any points to its opponents' average scoring. Teams avoiding punting became 5 percent more likely to win -- statistically significant owing to the thousands of tries. Doesn't sound like much? One more point scored per game represents the difference between the Bengals and the Patriots of the 2006 season. Last season, one additional victory would have put the Packers, Panthers or Rams into the playoffs. A 5 percent improvement in victory likelihood translates into one additional victory per 20 games, or just shy of one extra win per NFL season. I think any NFL owner would gladly pay millions of dollars for one additional win per season.

Accuscore tested the hyperaggressive approach advocated by Romer in this paper, and also tested TMQ's somewhat more conservative tactics. The Romer rules, derived from his statistical study of an entire NFL season, are as follows. Go for it on fourth-and-4 or less from anywhere on field, even deep in your own territory; go on fourth-and-7 or less inside the opponent's 45; go on fourth-and-10 or less inside the opponent's 33 (except that inside the opponent's 33, attempt a field goal in the fourth quarter if a field goal causes a tie or gives you the lead). My own rules I'll describe in a moment.

Accuscore found when high-quality teams -- especially last season's Chargers, Colts or Patriots -- employed either Romer's very aggressive anti-punt tactics or my somewhat less aggressive anti-punt rules, their chances of winning improved by about the same amount. That both sets of rules worked for quality teams suggests good teams are more likely to be able to convert first downs -- and thus the better the team, the more that team might profit by rarely punting.

There was one exception: rarely punting slightly reduced the odds of victory for the 2006 Baltimore Ravens, which had a weak offense but the league's best defense. For the mid-quality teams, such as last year's Broncos and Chiefs, and for average teams such as last year's Niners and Titans, Accuscore found the hyperaggressive Romer strategy was volatile: making victory a lot more likely about two-thirds of the time, but decreasing the odds of victory the other one-third of the time. For the same group, TMQ's rules added somewhat to the odds of victory while almost never backfiring.

AP Photo

Stop me before I punt again!

The Conclusion: unless you are the Baltimore Ravens or Baltimore-Ravens-like, use the Tuesday Morning Quarterback Sure-Fire, Never-Fails, All-Weather, Computer-Tested, Victory-Enhancing, Call-Me-in-My-Limo Guidelines. Here they are, and sorry there was no way to simplify:

• Inside your own 20, punt.
• From your 21 to 35, go for it on fourth-and-2 or less.
• From your 36 to midfield, go for it on fourth-and-3 or less.
• From the opposition 49 to opposition 30, go for it on fourth-and-4 or less.
• From the opposition 29 to opposition 3, go for it on fourth-and-3 or less.
• From the opposition 2 or 1, go for it.
• Exception: inside the opponent's 25, attempt a field goal if it's the fourth quarter and a field goal causes a tie or gives you the lead.

A few notes on my sure-fire formula: By only disdaining the punt in situations in which the odds of success are pretty good, my anti-punt strategy takes into account player and crowd psychology. Because fourth-and-short attempts will usually succeed, players will remain upbeat, while the defense will understand that though it occasionally will be sent out with bad field position after a blown try, overall, the team will benefit from rarely punting. Romer's more aggressive strategy creates too much chance of a lustily booing home crowd, or players who think their coach is a fool after, say, a missed fourth-and-3 attempt from your own 10-yard line: and psychology is a big factor in football.

My strategy also values field goals more highly than does Romer's: field goals are nothing to sneeze at, so it makes sense to attempt them on fourth-and-long. Finally, my rules violate my own immutable law of field-goal decisions, namely, Kick Early, Go For It Late. I couldn't think of a way to incorporate Kick Early, Go For It Late into the decision-making tree without causing Accuscore's job to become excessively complex. At any rate, the simulations showed that unless you're in the fourth-quarter exception, statistically you're better off going for the touchdown on fourth-and-goal from the 2 or the 1 -- disproving the Kick Early, Go For It Late law, which can no longer be viewed as immutable. (I've sent the football gods a memo on this.)

By the way, this "revolutionary" study? It's approaching TEN YEARS OLD...

About the Pro Bowl...

Apparently they played the Pro Bowl last night.

Who cares?

I applaud the NFL's continuing efforts to attempt to salvage this albatross - first moving it to Hawaii so the players could make a vacation of it, then to the site of the Super Bowl and making it as close to a pick-up, fantasy football game as they can manage. 

But the truth is - you might as well play it with flags on. Nobody wants to get hurt playing football ever, but they sure as heck don't want to get hurt playing a completely meaningless game that no one cares about. 

All-star games in basketball, hockey, baseball, soccer...all work because they're relatively safe. At the college level, they have a secondary purpose - to showcase kids for the draft. The HS All-American game does the same for those kids going into college. 

What possible motivation would the pro football players have. Money? Pride? Presitge? Can't all that be achieved with a nice banquet celebrating the All-Pro players the same weekend? (And then you can include the Super Bowl teams' players, too.) Make it part of the Honors gig they do anyway, and call it good.

(Who won, anyway? I never heard...)

OK, here's my DeFlateGateTake, and it's hard on Tom Brady...

The NFL has conducted more than forty interviews on this matter... yet of all people not to interview, apparently they've yet to talk to suspect number one, the quarterback of the team involved, Tom Brady...who came off sounding like an idiot yesterday, in particular for a combination of two quotes:

He said he prefers the football to be inflated at 12.5 pounds per square inch, which is the lowest end of the league requirement. "To me, that's a perfect grip for the football," he said. "When I pick those footballs out, at that point, to me, they're perfect," he said. "I don't want anyone touching the balls after that. I don't want anyone rubbing them, putting any air in them, taking any air out. To me, those balls are perfect, and that's what I expect when I show up on the field."That implies very strongly that he can tell the difference between 12.5 and 13.5 psi, which is the maximum legal range for an NFL game football. 

(Remember, this man has been an NFL starting quarterback for fourteen years.)

Now, consider this quote: Brady said he didn't notice a difference between the footballs from the first half to the second half on Sunday. "I'm not squeezing them, that's not part of my process," Brady said. "I grab it. I feel the lace, the leather. I feel the tack on the ball. That's really what you go for." 

Now, the league has said that all twelve New England footballs were under-pressurized, and at least eleven of the twelve were at least two psi under the legal pressure.

TWO psi. When Brady has a strong preference within a single psi range.

On Colin Cowherd's show this morning, Sal Paolintonio (who's covered the Pats for years and years, certainly all of Brady's tenure there) pointed out two things he's known for a long time: Brady very much prefers softer footballs, and has said so in multiple interviews over the years, not just this week. But he prefers them so much that he was the driving force behind a rule instituted a few years ago that the VISITING team should get to choose THEIR footballs, and not just have the home team handle all 24.

This is a subject that MATTERS to Tom Brady.

One more point, and you've heard it everywhere if you've listened to any talking heads this week... Mark Brunell, a former starting QB in the league said it best: "I did not believe what Tom had to say. Those balls were deflated. Somebody had to do it. I don't believe there's an equipment manager in the NFL that would, on his own initiative, deflate a ball without the starting QB's approval ... That football is our livelihood. If you don't feel good about throwing that ball? Your success on the football field can suffer from that."

Did I believe Bill Belechick? I hate to say it, but yes, to a point. He went out on a limb at his press conference in a couple of ways: he didn't need to hold the conference at ALL, nor did he need to say more than he ever says, which loosely translates to "On to Arizona. Next question." He was eloquent, elaborated on a great deal of the behind the scenes stuff that he really didn't need to say (he scuffs up practice balls to give the team trouble in practice to deal with? Wow.) - AND he took a relationship with the quarterback that made him the "genius" that he is today, and essentially threw it and him under the bus. To me, that sounds completely like something Belechick would do. He's cut every player who can no longer do his team good - and if that's what this scandal has come to, then Brady's next. No one realistically thought that when Brady hit the aging back-up stage, Belechick would keep him on the roster for "old-times' sake", did they? He doesn't do that for his own grandmother, and he's proven that time and time again. He does whatever it takes to win: legal (roster cuts, clever formations and plays), shady (remember the snow shoveler who found the lines and cleared the turf for the game winning kick years ago?), and outright illegal (Spygate, may it rest in peace).

Check the motivations. Bill Belechick did exactly what he does. I believe every word...EXCEPT that he doesn't know what's going on with the balls before a game. Bull. He knows where every media member is in his stadium at all times, and he doesn't know the procedures for the most important piece of equipment they use? I don't doubt he has "plausible deniability", but don't tell me you didn't know what the process was, Billy boy. But I don't think he's the primary offender here. He probably gave Brady carte blanche to do whatever he thought he needed to do, and Brady went too far. 

And if I'm wrong, I'll never be able to prove it, because Mr. Runway Model slit his own throat in his own press conference the next morning.

SO, what's the appropriate punishment? I don't know. It's not like the commissioner has given us any reasonable set of precedents to gauge our choices by. But the court of public opinion will decide the only important punishment for these two men - the same way they have for Alex Rodriguez, Mark McGuire, Barry Bonds, Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, Roger Clemens, Lance Armstrong, and any other athlete they determine is a serious and unrepentant offender. If they're convinced, this blows over after the game. If they're not, and this is the last straw for Patriot haters... 

Mike Ditka: I wouldn't want my kid playing football.

This short article is part of Peter King's regular Monday Morning QuarterBack column, the Taj Mahal of NFL weekly writing, on SI.com. If you don't read it weekly during the season, you can't really call yourself an NFL fan. 

We've touched on the dangers of concussions quite a lot here at Following Football, but this HBO feature includes some items on the famous 1985 Chicago Bears team that are downright frightening...

The Ditka stuff on HBO might surprise you.

On Tuesday at 10 p.m. Eastern Time, HBO’s “Real Sports” with Bryant Gumbel will air a segment on the 1985 Chicago Bears, and in particular how several of the players from that team have suffered (and are suffering) from cognitive problems after their starry football careers. Quarterback Jim McMahon, whose head-trauma problems have been well-documented, gives this harrowing account about his current life with his live-in girlfriend: “The forgetfulness … I’d leave the bedroom, tell her I was going to the store, get a dip or something, and she’d come in there a half hour later, and I’m still standing there, wondering what I was going to do. And she said, ‘You were going to go to the store.’ I said, ‘Oh, okay.’  So I’ll go to the store, and then I’ll have to call her and say, ‘I don’t know how to get back home.’”

Ditka (Brian D. Kersey/Getty Images)

The Bears lost a safety from that era, Dave Duerson, to a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 2011, and an autopsy showed “moderately advanced” CTE, the brain malady that scores of deceased football players have been found to have. The coach of that team, Mike Ditka, has been outspoken that the league should be doing more—even more than the recent $765 million settlement with former players over brain trauma—and continued that with Gumbel. “What I would say to the commissioner, to the owners … You got an obligation and responsibility to those guys because you wouldn’t have a damn job right now if it wasn’t for those guys.”

When Gumbel asks Ditka, in effect, if this could end up being the ruination of the sport, Ditka says: “Let me ask you a question better than that. If you had an eight-year-old kid now, would you tell him you want him to play football?”

“I wouldn’t,” said Gumbel. “Would you?”

“No,” Ditka said. “That’s sad. I wouldn’t. And my whole life was football. I think the risk is worse than the reward. I really do.”

That’s Iron Mike Ditka, folks. Should be a piece well worth watching Tuesday night.

About Jamies Winston...

Andrea Adelson is right. There really is only one choice he can make. Jamies Winston, quarterback and lightning rod of the Florida State Seminoles, announced today he's leaving the university to go to the NFL, certainly as a first round pick, possibly as the very first pick of the draft. 

If you're in college training to enter a particular profession, and that profession tells you after two years that you are already the best candidate for their job and they want to hire you and compensate you appropriately for that position, of course you take it. That's why you went to college - and I guarantee that's the only reason Winston went to college. This is not going to be a diatribe on the need for a college education, although for 98% of college players I'm all set to climb on that soapbox in a heartbeat.

No, the question I want to ask is this: Would YOU draft Jamies Winston, knowing what we know publicly about him?

Yes, he's talented - I heard ESPN's "Mike and Mike" arguing today he's the best pure quarterback in the draft since Andrew Luck came out of Stanford three years back, and I'll take their word for it. I'm not sure that even as "pure quarterbacks" go, I wouldn't rather have Marcus Mariota, but let's take their point as given for now.

What and who do you want your quarterback to be? He is the leader of your team. He sets the tone, not only for your offense, but for your entire team. Often, his persona is more important than that of the head coach: watching Peyton Manning in Indy, with Jim Caldwell as his coach, did you ever get the feeling that the team fed off of Caldwell? NO...it was always Peyton running the show.

Speaking of Manning, think back to when he came out of college. Like this year, with Winston and Mariota, there were two consensus "great" QBs coming into the draft: Peyton Manning, from Tennessee, and Ryan Leaf, from Washington State. Both put up numbers and videos that made you drool as a scout; the whole world knew that Indianapolis and San Diego were going to take them one-two. What was the difference between them? Peyton Manning had a reasoned head on his shoulders. At the time (and from recent evidence, probably it's still true), Leaf didn't. The result, of course - Manning is one game short of 70,000 passing yards in his career; Leaf has been out of football for over a decade after playing just 25 games in his two year career. 

Character MATTERS, most especially for a quarterback. Ndamukong Suh can have a career as a defensive lineman with a rap sheet like his; receivers can get away with murder (ooooh...sorry, Aaron Hernandez - I guess that's not literally true...). But look at the quarterbacks in the league: Manning, Brady, Rodgers, Brees, Luck, Rivers, Romo, Wilson, Kaepernick, Palmer, Smith, Ryan, Newton, Tannehill, Dalton, Flacco, Stafford... They're all upstanding citizens. The worst you can say about any of the current quarterbacks is that Jay Cutler's sullen and Ben Roethlisberger's bar habits are a little questionable. Exceptions are few and far between. Michael Vick's about the only one that comes to mind: a QB who was successful leading his team, AND had trouble with the law on a regular basis. The others who did - Ryan Leaf, JaMarcus Russell, and (we highly suspect) Johnny Manziel - didn't last long in the NFL, no matter HOW good they were in college.

We will put it in writing right now, on the day Jamies Winston was announced to be coming out for the NFL draft: he will NOT be a successful NFL quarterback. If he's starting for a team in five years, we'll be astounded. Mariota may or may not make it - NOBODY's a sure thing, no matter what they say - because of his training in a "blur offense" style that doesn't translate to NFL teams well. But we'd take him over Winston seven days a week, and twice on Sunday. (Church in the morning, games in the afternoon!)

Forget Saban/Meyer - here's the ultimate contrast in bowl coaches!

As we follow the "Belk Bowl" (whatever the blazes a "belk" is), between Georgia and Louisville, we here at Following Football can't help but mention the HUGE difference in the head coaches involved. Georgia's Mark Richt is perhaps the most famous Christian coach in the nation, even appearing as the inspiration in the famous Christian film Facing The Giants. Meanwhile, Bobby Petrino was famously relieved of his duties at Arkansas after crashing his motorcycle with his illegally hired mistress on the back; this after arriving in Arkansas when he literally deserted the Atlanta Falcons midseason when the opportunity to jump ship arose. 

Forgive us, UL friends, if we root for the Bulldogs tonight....

How endangered is our sport of choice?

This survey indicates what many others have as well - concussions are a significant to the potential livelihood of every young man wanting to grow up to play gridiron football when they grow up. Forty percent of parents would move to prevent their sons from playing football because of the health threat it poses, primarily through brain injuries caused by concussions and other head trauma. 

Fiesta Bowl, eat your heart out...

As a longtime Boise State follower, it's hard to beat the 2007 Fiesta Bowl as the greatest college game of my lifetime (the USC-Texas/Vince Young national title game is the only one I have above it), but piece the highlights together from today's Bahamas Bowl between Western Kentucky and Central Michigan, two medium level teams who played an amazing game today.

WKU scored touchdowns on all six of their first half possessions and led 49-14 going into the fourth quarter. With less than twelve minutes left, CMU scored the first of their five consecutive touchdowns: the first two just looked like garbage time scores to pretty up the final tally, the third brings them within two TDs with just over three minutes to go; the fourth with 1:06 to go seems to mean an onside kick has to be successful...but using their timeouts, they get the ball punted back to them with one second left, on their own 25. CMU QB Cooper Rush threw a Hail Mary to about the thirty, and four laterals later, Titus Davis stretched out to reach the pylon and tie the game...

...except that CMU head coach Dan Enos has balls the size of Wilson.

No time on the clock, extra point pending, he decided to go for two - win or lose on one play. 

I'm all for it, and I'll tell you why.

First, who cares? It's a BOWL GAME. It doesn't really affect your standings, your conference record, or anything else. Why not?

Secondly, they had ALL the momentum! CMU had just scored five touchdowns in less than twelve minutes. Western Kentucky hadn't stopped them in forever - why not? 

Thirdly, the football gods were with them! One play for the win when you just pulled off a play that looked like The Play? Why not?

But fourth and most importantly, it shows your current and future players that you have balls. When push came to shove, you trusted your players to win or lose that game. It's the flip side of the coach that refuses to go for 4th and 1 at midfield and punts instead ("because we're playing the 'field position' game...") or at the goal line and tries the field goal ("because we need the points on the board") instead of trusting that if you miss, your defense will get it done. It's the same thing as the Pulaski (ARK) Academy "never punt" theory that says, trust your players to win games, instead of playing scared and not to lose. It's playing the game with courage and integrity, instead of pussyfooting around and trying to deflect the blame to your players if you lose. Be a man, coach. Play to win, like Enos did. 


(Did they win or lose? I won't tell you...because it doesn't matter. It was the guts to try it that mattered.)

Bill McCartney: Man of Conviction.

For anyone who doesn't remember Bill McCartney, the greatest football coach the University of Colorado ever had, Michael Weinreb has a great interview and retrospective on the man whose Godly convictions overwhelmed his love for coaching. 

As a Christian man myself, to watch a Godly man put himself where his mouth is, so to speak, is inspiring. But for anyone, you have to respect someone who stands behind his beliefs to the point where he gave up what was at the time one of the best coaching jobs in the country to follow his heart.

I (this is Gordon) was a successful band director for thirty years before an illness forced me into semi-retirement. The illness, in a very real sense, led me to the Lord, and the new path that He moved into my life would not have been possible had I remained a band director: the time that job took was prohibitive, and like Bill's, my family suffered for it. And (like him), extolling my Christian values was and is difficult when your employer is a state-run entity.

I encourage you to read this. It's a portrait of a man who knows what's important.

Awesome. Maybe "NFL" isn't "no fun league" after all...

Remember when the Bills' home game against the Jets was snowed out, and they had to move the game to Detroit? The Lions weren't home that week, so Ford Field was available - it was still an inconvenience, we're sure, but in the end the big picture is what counted to the Lions.

Well, apparently the Bills were very appreciative...

Following today's Football...

As the final game of 774 regular season FBS contests gets underway, we'll follow today's Army/Navy game as well as the lower division playoff games...

Last night, New Hampshire managed to oust Chattanooga 35-30 despite being outgained by two hundred yards and outplayed for the first 2 1/2 quarters - but that's what a number one team does. Today, defenders North Dakota St overcame Coastal Carolina 39-32, in a surprisingly competitive game, and currently Sam Houston St and Villanova are waging a back and forth war - SHSU kicks a field goal,  Villanova scores a TD,  and now the Bearcats take the lead BACK with a TD drive of their own to lead, 34-31. UPDATE: The Wildcats were forced into trying and missing a tying 51 yard field goal; the Bearkats held on to win, 34-31.

Meanwhile, Army leads Navy 7-0, after a jailbreak blocked punt converted for a touchdown, with the Black Knights controlling the line of scrimmage on both offense and defense...until a fourth down conversion of theirs is negated by a LATE time out from the sideline, followed by a Navy stop and turnover, closely followed by a TD pass to tie the game at seven. Controversial time out changes the whole game!

UPDATE: As expected, the two Division III powerhouses are cruising to what we believe is their NINTH consecutive championship meeting! Mount Union routed previously 12-0 Wellesley 70-0 after three quarters, before the fourth string allowed three garbage time TDs. Currently, Wisconsin-Whitewater leads 14-0 early in the second quarter against 11-1 west coast power Linfield.

UPDATE: Linfield has come back to tie UW Whitewater at 14 going into the fourth quarter, and after the Naval Academy pushed out to a dominating 17-7 lead, Army's Daniel Grochkowski skimmed through a field goal from 52 to close within a TD with 1:51 to go!

UPDATE: Illinois St leads Eastern Washington 31-20, and in twelve possessions the two teams have scored on NINE of them, with EWU's initial punt, their subsequent fumble, and ISU's kneel to end the first half being the only non-scoring drives of the game so far as of the mid third quarter.

Meanwhile, Navy beat Army 17-10 for their 13th consecutive win. CBS's Allie LaForge interviewed Navy coach Ken Niumatololo after the game, and asked the coach about the key time out he called in the second quarter. Coach said, "If  you asked me who told me to call that time out, you wouldn't believe me." She asked anyway, and his answer was, "The Man Upstairs."  GOOD for YOU, Coach!

UPDATE: Illinois St can't be stopped! In their ten possessions AT Eastern Washington, on the freaky red field, they've gone as follows so far: FG, TD, TD, TD, TD, end of half, TD, TD,TD, TD... (To be continued.) They lead 52-27 early in the fourth. ...and at game's end, they won by the score of 59-46. In all, there were 24 possessions: 17 ended in scores (14 TDs and 3FGs), 3 EWU turnovers (fumble & 2 interceptions), two end of half kneel downs by ISU, a failed 4th down late by the winners they didn't need, and one lonely punt, just two minutes into the game. Division III update: UW-Whitewater went on to win, 20-14, over Linfield, so we get rematch number nine or so for the D3 title next weekend in Salem, VA: Mount Union v. UW-Whitewater. In D2, Minnesota St is waiting for the winner of tonight's Colorado St-Pueblo/West Georgia game to set up next Saturday's Division II title tilt. 

(SO, as far as our prognostication battle goes with the professionals, Illinois St kept us from winning all four games up to this point: in fact, we hit Sam Houston by 3 and North Dakota St by 7 on the nose, and Arizona by 6 was extremely close to perfect. And...well, we really had irrational faith in the Big Sky, I guess. Three turnovers to none will do it, though. Anyway, it's 3-1 Following Football, with three NFL games left to decide the weekly winner...and we just need to be right once to win the weekend!)