Closing the Book on Football

It's a weird time for me as a sports fan. My favorite NFL squad, the New Orleans Saints, are still undefeated eleven weeks into the season. I'm certainly happy for their success, but I've seen too many heartbreaks at the hands of the black and gold to not be exercising a healthy amount of restraint. My excitement will remain tempered for the time being. On the college front the situation isn't too different, my alma mater had one of those seasons that's hard to wrap your head around. They beat a handful of teams that they should have and upset a ranked opponent (their rival no less), and yet they lost more than they won against a very difficult schedule. Now that the season is over, I'm reflecting on the Bulldogs and trying to decide how to feel about the new regime.

The Bulldogs were under new head coach Dan Mullen for the first time and finished the year with five wins and seven losses. When he was hired, I was skeptical that it was wise to give an SEC job to a coach without any head coaching experience. The statistics say that first time head coaches don't perform well in the SEC. Of course, it's only the lower tier teams that are going to take a shot on someone without head coaching experience so those statistics are, by nature, a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. One year into the Mullen regime, I can't say that I'm disappointed but I also can't say that I'm overwhelmed. According to many, Mullen has taken an talent deficient team and gotten the most out of them against an admittedly brutal schedule (Outside of FCS Jackson State, the lowest ranked team to visit Davis-Wade Stadium was the #20 Ole Miss squad). Now, the same people that say MSU is talent deficient were saying that Jevan Snead was going to be the best quarterback in the SEC this year, so I always take opinion of talent evaluators with a huge grain of salt. Only time will tell how deficient this team was talent-wise. But to their credit, the new coaching staff did generate excitement about a previously dismal football team. Some of that credit needs to go to a very attendance-inducing schedule. Fans lined up to see several teams that spent time in the top 15 or higher (Florida, Alabama, LSU, Georgia Tech, Houston, Ole Miss). In many of these games, the Bulldogs were in a position to win, which only added to the excitement. Of course, the five games that were wrapped in maroon and white aren't that impressive: JSU, MTSU, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, & Ole Miss (the latter two being the only bowl teams for MSU to have beaten). However, despite a losing season and the lack of a defining win (which might have happened if the team had called a couple quarterback sneaks late in the LSU game...not that I'm bitter or anything), I have a generally positive attitude about the team going forward. The current regime seems committed to putting the days of "good-to-great defense and an absolutely abysmal offense" squarely behind them. The games this year were entertaining, and given the previous regime's style, that was a revelation in and of itself. My hopes for next season and the future are as follows:

1. We desperately need a quarterback. Whether that is Cameron Newton, Tyler Russell, Chris Relf, or somebody else I do not care, but we need one badly. It is going to be very difficult to win games if we keep getting a negative at the most important position on offense. It's a stinging indictment of the Croom era that Tyson Lee had to start for us this year. The guy is a great guy and I wish him all the best because he tried his hardest but he isn't nor will he ever be an SEC-caliber quarterback. The success or failure of the Mullen era will likely be determined by how this need is met.

2. We need to continue to play top competition. I don't want to be pessimistic here but, Mississippi State is not going to be in the hunt for the national championship. Period. Nor is Ole Miss. Nor is Southern Miss. The population and economics of our fair state scream this at the top of their lungs. We divide a rich, but small talent base three ways (and that's before you consider that Alabama, LSU, Tennessee, Auburn, & Arkansas are all recruiting in Mississippi as well). On top of those disadvantages, we will always have LSU, Alabama, and other juggernauts on our schedule. The prospects of an undefeated season are not good. If that's a given, then we should have no trepidation in scheduling really tough opponents. It gives us more opportunities for headline grabbing upsets and it gives yet another reason for our fans to place their rear ends in the stadium seats rather than the deer stand. Playing one FCS team is fine, but we should be actively seeking out teams like Boise State, TCU, BYU, Utah, and other BCS conference opponents like Georgia Tech, West Virginia, etc. Kids like to play in big TV games. No one is going to put MSU-UAB or MSU-Memphis on national television. The last thing MSU needs is to play more games where they have everything to lose and nothing to gain.

3. We must continue to score points. You can't win in the SEC without defense and my hope is that our defense will improve (it has little room to go anywhere but up from this season's statistics) but more than anything, Bulldog fans need to know that a 14 point deficit is not the end of the game. I've been so scarred by the Croom era that I automatically assume defeat if we get more than 7 points behind. I don't think I'm alone in that regard. People will continue to fill the seats if they are entertained. News flash: 3-2 games are the exact opposite of entertainment. I realize that being more aggressive on offense is going to lead to more turnovers, but after so many years of ultra-conservative play-calling, that's a chance we've got to be willing to take.

To sum up my thoughts and this season, I am cautiously optimistic. State scored 307 points this year, up from 183 last year. They beat every team on their schedule that they should have beaten and upset one ranked team. These are good signs. The question remains, will the team build on this year or stagnate? I'm certainly hoping for the former and preparing for the latter.

Two Football Musings

Time for another all-to-infrequent blog posting. I've lacked a real motivation to blog lately for a bunch of reasons, but I've discovered something just trivial enough for me to get fired up about it. For those of you that follow the NFL, and with the explosion of fantasy leagues that's no small number, you might have seen, read, or heard about Bill Belichick's decision to try and convert a 4th & 2 from his own 29 yard line late in the 4th quarter of New England's game against the undefeated Indianapolis Colts. A cornucopia of pundits have lambasted the decision calling it boneheaded and reckless. They are saying this, in my estimation, because the conversion failed and the Colts ended up scoring and winning the game. But results don't determine whether a decision was wise or not. You might survive jumping out of a plane without a parachute. That doesn't mean it was a wise decision. In fact, a choice can only be analyzed without the result in mind. You must place yourself in the shoes of the decision maker and only use the information he or she had at the time of the choice to determine if it was a wise one or not. The statistics say that Belichick made the right decision. I won't go into all the numbers here, but suffice it to say that the Patriots had a slightly better chance of winning if they go for it than if they punt it. Of course, that didn't stop the meat-head former football players on the various networks from lambasting the decision. These are the same guys whose final math class was College Algebra and they likely needed a tutor to get through that. An economist did a study of three NFL seasons in which mathematically there were 1068 instances in which a team would have been better going for it on 4th down than punting. NFL head coaches punted in 957 of those situations. The most important thing in football is possession of the football. It is the only time when you "control your own destiny." When you have it, the other team must react to you. And yet, we see that in most cases, coaches would rather not face the scrutiny of missed 4th down attempt than statistically improve their chances for winning a game. The next innovation in football will not be the spread, the wildcat, or the 3-4 defense. The next innovation in football will be coaches who refuse to punt. Just imagine the benefits of never punting. It opens up your playbook on 3rd and long because you don't have to pass. It takes that sense of accomplishment away from the defense when they stop you short on 3rd down. It increases time of possession. It adds flexibility to your roster since you don't have to use a roster spot or scholarship on a punter. Studies have shown that forgoing punting except for the most obvious situations would give an average team one extra score per game. At the high school level, it's actually already happening as evidenced here and here. Football talking heads will say that going for it on 4th down is fine at the high school or small college level but that it will never work in the professional ranks. Of course, that's what they said about almost every football innovation over the last several decades. Innovative thinking like this goes against conventional wisdom. But following conventional wisdom always provides small rewards.

You also might have noticed last week that Maurice Jones-Drew, the tailback for the Jacksonville Jaguars, purposely went down at the 2 yard line rather than score a touchdown. The Jags trailed the Jets by less than a field goal and instead of scoring, going up 8 points, and giving the Jets some time to come back and score, Jack Del Rio, the Jags' head coach, instructed Jones-Drew to go forgo the touchdown so that they might burn more clock. The strategy worked and the Jaguars won the game. That was little consolation to the more than 10,000 fantasy teams that lost because Jones-Drew didn't score the touchdown. Many people were noticeably upset. I heard a couple radio hosts talking about how delusional it is to be upset over fantasy results. They said, and I'm paraphrasing, "fantasy results don't matter, real results matter." Well that might be somewhat true for those that participate in NFL games. But for the casual fan, I'd say the opposite is true. An overwhelming majority of the people who play fantasy football are not fans of the Jacksonville Jaguars. They couldn't care less about whether they win or lose. For them, the most important thing is winning the money, bragging rights, or both that are riding on fantasy football results. So while the NFL standings might be important to the fans of NFL teams, the fantasy standings are far more important to the casual fan. The same is true for almost any issue. People are primarily concerned with how any event affects them. How that event affects others is secondary. That's why the second greatest commandment is "love your neighbor as yourself." There's no one with whom we are more preoccupied than ourselves.

Blame it on the Alcohol

Let me begin this blog by saying that I really am sad that this even has to be written. However, I could only go so long before the compulsion to speak some truth became stronger than my desire to be polite. In my fair municipality, the board of aldermen is voting on a law that would allow certain establishments to sell liquor on Sundays. For some of you, the fact that you still can’t buy alcohol on Sunday in some places might be shocking. I’m not sure what to think about the issue. I honestly haven’t investigated it enough to give any sort of informed opinion. The one benefit I see to the rule is that alcohol sales stop at midnight making 2:00 AM beer runs obsolete (that, of course, assumes that there aren’t establishments that bend or flat out break the current rule which is probably a shaky assumption). What has raised my hackles about this issue is that there seems to be a coalition of pastors who are raising Cain on the ramifications of this law being passed. What a sad situation. What a complete dereliction of duty. I’m a pastor. I’ve got a fairly solid (read: biblical) idea of what a pastor ought to be doing. First and foremost, the pastor’s call is to preach the gospel, to point people to Christ and their need of him as their Savior and their Lord. Nowhere can I find any indication from Scripture that my role as a pastor is to be a political activist. In fact, I find just the opposite to be the biblical view (see: Romans 13). In discussions of this issue I’ve heard two things that bothered me. First, I’ve heard that this is not a political issue but a moral issue. To that I say, so what? You know who were the most moral people in the bible? The Pharisees. Christ tore those guys up left and right. Why? Because moralism is not the gospel. If good morals could enact real change then God would have just stopped with the Ten Commandments. The second thing I’ve heard is that alcohol itself is inherently evil. Now I totally understand how someone who’s been hurt by an alcoholic or the abuse of alcohol would be tempted to feel that way. But that is simply not what the Scriptures teach us. Many of these people will point you to Proverbs 20:1:

“Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler,
and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.”

I’d say they’ve greatly misinterpreted this passage. We’ve all heard someone say, “money is the root of all evil,” but that’s not what the Scriptures say. They actually say, “the love of money is the root of all evil.” In the same way, what does this passage teach? That those who are led astray by wine or strong drink are not wise. That’s the only interpretation that the book of Proverbs offers us, especially given what is written later on in Proverbs 31:6:

“Give strong drink to the one who is perishing,
and wine to those in bitter distress;
let them drink and forget their poverty
and remember their misery no more.
Open your mouth for the mute,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
Open your mouth, judge righteously,
defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

Right before the mother of King Lemuel espouses the benefits of a godly wife she commands her son as to how he should act as a King. She tells him to avoid strong drink himself, but not because it’s evil. She tells him to give wine to those in bitter distress. That’s the same Hebrew word (transliterated: yayin) for wine that used in 20:1. Furthermore, those that espouse a view of alcohol as inherently evil are going to have a tough time dealing with Christ. Christ’s first miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana of Galilee (John 2). And don’t let anyone tell you that was non-alcoholic wine (believe it or not, people will argue that). The same Greek word used for wine in that passage (transliterated: oinon) is the word used in Proverbs 20:1 & Proverbs 31:6 in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, called the Septuagint.

In the interest of full disclosure, I don’t even drink. I’m not morally opposed to drinking, I’m just a picky eater (as my mother would attest). I’d simply rather have sweet tea or Coca-cola. I’m not opposed to the responsible consumption of alcohol because the Scriptures are not opposed to it. More importantly, and like I said at the beginning of this post, the real issue is how Christians believe they will change this world. There seems to be a strong contingent of pastors and congregations who think that this law if it were to fail, would in some way be some sort of spiritual victory. Please don’t be tricked into thinking that. If legislation could change men and turn them into new creations then we wouldn’t need Christ (or pastors and churches for that matter). The only true spiritual change comes through the preaching of Christ, the risen Son of God. I’ll leave you with a quote from a far greater pastor than I am. Listen to what the great Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon says:

"If ministers of the gospel were more hearty in their work of preaching; if, instead of giving lectures and devoting a large part of their time to literary and political pursuits, they would preach the Word of God and preach it as if they were pleading for their own lives, ah; then, my brethren, we might expect great success; but we cannot expect it while we go about our work in a half-hearted way, and have not that zeal, that earnestness, that deep purpose which characterized those men of old..."

Step Away from the Kool-Aid

Last time we looked at three teams that I think could sneak up to steal some glory this coming season. Now it's time to find three teams that are due to fall short of their expectations. That's the thing about expectations, you don't get to set them for yourself. I almost feel bad for each one of these teams because they didn't ask to be over-hyped. For their fans, it's been a fun summer of speculating on how good they can be and enjoying the bumps in their ratings on the EA Sports game, but come time to tee it up for real, these teams might fall short of their lofty expectations. Before I reveal them, I want to say two things. First of all, all three of these teams are going to be good. Each of them has too much talent to fall flat on their face miss out on bowl season or anything like that. So this isn't an indictment of their team; rather, it's an indictment of their hype. Secondly, all three of these teams come from one conference, the SEC. The SEC has one if it's staunchest defenders in yours truly. It's the best college football conference in the country hands down. I mean, 5-0 in BCS national title games speaks for itself. However, with so many teams ranked so highly this preseason, it's going to be well nigh impossible for everyone in the conference to exceed, or even meet, expectations. With that in mind, let's look at these three teams:

1. Alabama - Is it good or bad that John Parker Wilson is gone? Who's to say? Will this team miss Andre Smith? Definitely! New QB, new offensive line is not the easiest way to defend your Western Division crown. If I'm a Bama fan, I'm optimistic because the defense will be good and Terrance Cody is the size of an actual bell cow. On top of that, Nick Saban can coach (in case you hadn't heard). Julio Jones is a ridiculous playmaker at WR, but the last time the Tide's best player was wideout, Freddie Milons led the team to a 3-8 campaign. But I'm also worried because Glen Coffee, Andre Smith, Wilson, and others are missing from an offense that wasn't exactly explosive. The schedule is what really worries me. Although they miss out on Florida (whew!), besides the three non-conference freebies, there really isn't a single game on their schedule that is an automatic-no-doubt win. The Tide could be rolling, but even if they play well and make it to Atlanta again, it will be extremely difficult to wind-up ranked 5th or higher.

2. LSU - The Tigers have more question marks than just about any team in the top 15. Warning Sign #1: The offensive and defensive lines have been almost completely gutted. Warning sign #2: The QB will be green. This is both a positive and a negative since up is only one way to go following Jarrett Lee's abominable performance last season. Jordan Jefferson will have to accelerate his growth if this team wants to finish in the top 15. One positive is that of their first four games, Vanderbilt will be their toughest test (and that game is in Death Valley). The young Tigers will have some time to gel, and that's good because they might need it. Les Miles will have to do some serious coaching if this team is going to win the West.

3. Ole Miss - What? All three teams from the West? Yep. The Rebels have gone from a win-less conference slate in 2007 to toasts of the preseason mags in 2009 and with good reason. Ole Miss absolutely demolished then once-defeated Texas Tech Red Raiders in the Cotton Bowl and they bring back Texas cast-off and All-American candidate Jevan Snead at quarterback. This team could be very good. But can this team finish the season in the top 10? They finished last season at #14 and they lost one very good player on the O-line (Michael Oher) and one absolutely fabulous player on the defensive line Peria Jerry. The loss of Jerry cannot be understated. This team was one of the worst running defenses in the country when Jerry sat out last year (not even cracking the top 100). He, like Cody at Alabama, was a one-man wrecking crew last year. Greg Hardy is solid against the run and an NFL-type talent on the pass rush but he can't do it by himself. Stopping the run is going to be paramount in order to get Snead, McCluster, and company back on the field as quickly as possible. LSU's schedule might give them time to gel, but Ole Miss faces a different problem. Their most important conference games occur later in their schedule, when injuries inevitably rack up. For a team that could struggle with depth, this could be a problem. This team has plenty of promise and could most certainly capture their first trip to Atlanta, but I'm skeptical they can finish higher than last year without two of their three best players from last season.

The good news for these three teams is that even if they fail to meet these lofty expectations, they'll still have a chance at winning the Western Division of the SEC. The better news, especially for Auburn and Arkansas, is that if there were a chance to break out and steal a trip to Atlanta, now would be the time to do it. I'd bet that all three of these teams end up ranked in the final top 25 poll, but that the attrition of an SEC grind will keep them from finding themselves ranked as high as they started out. And for the road, I'll give you three other teams that probably will fare similarly:

4. Penn State - offensive line re-tooling could be an issue, but schedule looks like a bakery (cupcakes a'plenty)
5. Oregon - offensive line lost several key players, even though Blount is a beast
6. Oklahoma - they've lost WAY too much, especially on the o-line

Under The Radar

We've got a scant three weeks until college football and the NFL begin to takeover the sports landscape. There are a lot of people who know more about sports than I do, but I thought I'd take a shot at naming a few sleepers who I think will fly under pundits' radars for the first few weeks of the season. Next time, I'll handle the teams I feel are receiving a bit too much hype, but for now, let's try to pinpoint a few teams that could be working their way up from relative anonymity to conference contender.

1. Rutgers - The Scarlet Knights do their work in the mediocre Big East Conference. In case you didn't know, Rutgers invented college football. No, really, not like Al Gore invented the internet kind of inventing, they actually did invent it. Long gone are Mike Teel, Tiquan Underwood, and Kenny Britt, but the offense remains acceptable, especially along the line where the Knights return all five starters. Two seniors (Natale & Lovelace) are battling out for the starting quarterback slot, so this team will feature playmaking runningbacks, a solid defense, an experienced quarterback, and a very strong offensive line. That's a strong recipe for success. On top of that, Rutgers' toughest games will be at home (Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Cincinnati, & South Florida). Rutgers starts the season outside the top 25, but I like them to take home an especially weak (even-by their own mediocre standards) Big East and finish the season in a BCS bowl.

2. Georgia - Being ranked in the top 15 isn't the quickest way to make it on an underrated list, but if there's a team that's flying under the radar in the SEC this year, it has to be Georgia. It's often the case that pundits get behind a team a year too early. Some teams handle that hype with aplomb, while others wilt under the pressure of having a target on their back. If there was ever a year for the Bulldogs to overachieve it would have to be 2009. Any of the attention not focused upon defending champion Florida is likely pointed at maverick Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin. That means Mark Richt's crew can labor in a modicum of obscurity. Matthew Stafford & Knowshon Moreno have taken their games to the league, but the cupboard is far from bare in Athens. Georgia's defense is still salty with Rennie Curran & Reshad Jones leading the way. Georgia returns most of it's offensive line along with a slew of promising young backs (most notably, Caleb King). Joe Cox, a Senior, will attempt to fill Stafford's shoes at QB. There is absolutely zero pressure on this team, and a possible loss in the opener to a more seasoned Oklahoma State squad would only lower expectations further. Richt has proven that he's at this best when he's out of the spotlight, so I wouldn't be surprised if the Bulldogs got hot in conference play and eeked out a few victories against higher ranked teams like Florida or LSU.

3. North Carolina State - The Wolfpack haven't received much fanfare since the days of Philip Rivers, but they've got a puncher's chance of winding up in the ACC title game and possibly a BCS bowl. Russell Wilson is a playmaker who, if healthy, can't really be gameplanned against. NCSU lost Andre Brown to the NFL draft, but the offense boasts quite a few quality players who missed significant time with injuries last year. Their entire offensive line returns along with eight starters on a pretty stingy defense. If you remember Virginia's surprising squad from a few years ago (Heath Miller, D'Brickashaw Ferguson, etc.) then you can see how this team could follow in that same pattern. The Pack won't venture outside of North Carolina but three times all season. Unfortunately, two of those trips are to Blacksburg, VA and Talhassee, FL. All the same, watch out for this team. As we've seen in the recent past, the ACC is a conference that is often up for grabs.

As you can see, all three of these teams have a similar qualities: a returning offensive line, a seasoned quarterback, a decent-to-superb defense, and a favorable schedule. Next time, I'll look at three teams who's highest ranking might be the one they receive before play begins.

My Arch-Nemesis

I hate going to the dentist. My wife is the only person I know who actually enjoys it. Of course, she takes ridiculously good care of her teeth so it's really like a big celebration of her achievements when she goes. I, on the other hand, just keep my teeth in working condition. I'm not looking to get any gold stars. I've had very few cavities (and all of them were "discovered" during a brief time where I went to a different dentist so I question the accuracy of his diagnosis) and I've never had to have a root canal or anything like that. So why do I hate going? It's not the scraping. That's really just fine with me. I can appreciate using a more powerful tool to get the job done. It's not the gritty toothpaste. I don't mind the taste and the industrial strength toothbrush is pretty sweet looking. No, it's none of those things. But after those two rounds, just when you feel like the worst is behind you, that's when they get you. That's when it's time for the flossing. I hate getting flossed at the dentist. I don't floss every day or anything like that, but I have flossed before and will floss again in the future. I know what it is to floss your own teeth and I'm 99.9% sure that these dental hygienists don't floss their own teeth with the same viciousness and aggressiveness they employ upon my helpless gums. It's like a personal challenge for them to make sure that I bleed. It feels as if she is belaying off my tooth. I've tried to circumvent this awful experience. When I know that a dentist appointment is around the corner I will enter the "tooth-boot-camp" stage of my personal hygiene regimen. That means brushing at least twice a day without exception and preferably thrice a day, flossing every night (sometimes in the morning too), and copious amounts of Listerine. At every possible moment, it's time to do some tooth care. After two weeks of ridiculous and meticulous dental fixation, this lady still made my gums bleed! It didn't come easy though. My "boot camp" forced her to use every weapon in her devilish arsenal. I saw her maniacal grin turn into a malicious snarl as my attention to detail thwarted her best efforts at drawing blood with the scraper or the toothbrush. But come hell or high water, she would have her victory. She pulled out some fiendish, barbwire-like floss from a dusty drawer in the back of the office and laughed with glee as she yanked it between my teeth as if she intended to lift my entire body weight with each tug. Finally, after an arduous struggle, my boot-camp hardnened gums yielded some hemoglobin and the battle was over. She casually said, "Ooh, you bled a little there." Really? I wonder why? Her flawless record upheld, she can go and brag to her cohorts about besting me once again. Now I have six months to recover and prepare for the next meeting. I'm considering getting my teeth cleaned the day before I go. Back-to-back dentist visits is a high price to pay, but it will be worth it if I can jump up from the chair wound-free and spike the protective goggles in that evil hygienist's face. The dentist will have to separate us as I get in her grill screaming, "What's up now!?!" That'll show her.

A Nerd Looks Back (and Forward)

College Football is around the corner and thank goodness for that. The doldrums of the sports scene has been almost unbearable this year. With the dawn of another season comes the renewed discussion over the BCS, a playoff, conference supremacy, etc. Instead of prognosticating as to who will do well and who won't, I'd like to tackle the issue of fairness.

DISCLAIMER: I am a self-described nerd. I enjoy using Microsoft Excel. I prefer quantitative analysis over qualitative. If that bores you, then by all means move on.

Last season, the University of Utah Utes completed an undefeated season. They were the only FBS team to finish the season without a loss. However, they didn't hold aloft the crystal football that sits atop the trophy given to the nation's best team. That honor went to the 12-1 Gators of the University of Florida. While sheer fear of drawing Tim Tebow's ire was enough to quiet most anyone who might cry foul, there were some who argued that Utah deserved at least a chance to play for the title. This, of course, fueled more talk of a college football playoff (a pipe-dream that is nowhere near realization given the current television deals). But what I want to point out with this particular blog is just how unfair it would be for Utah, and teams of their ilk, to even be given access to something like this hypothetical playoff. My hypothesis is that if a team the caliber of Utah were to swap places with a mediocre team from a more powerful conference, the results would be quite stunning (at least to Ute fans). I'll test my hypothesis by doing a case study. I will compare two teams, Utah and my alma mater Mississippi State. Since these two teams shared no common opponents last season (nor this coming season) and the nature of athletic eligibility gives way to a harsh fluctuation in year-to-year performance for most football programs, I'll compare these schools in criteria that don't share that same fluctuation. First of all, why these two programs? Their similarities are striking. Utah and Mississippi have similar populations (2.7 million and 2.9 million respectively). Each state host three FBS football programs, with two of the programs having greater prominence than the third. Both of these programs play in medium sized stadiums (45,017 capacity for Utah, 55,082 for MSU). Lastly, among their in-state counterparts each team finds itself squarely in the middle prominence-wise (and mostly for non-athletic reasons). My chosen measure for the 24 opponents each team faced or will face in the 2008 & 2009 season is football revenue. While a program's win-loss record can fluctuate dramatically, their revenue is more stable and has a direct effect on what kind of product they can consistenly place on the field. I gathered all my information from this handy list (issued in June of this year). Here is what I discovered. Utah's football revenue was just under $27,000,000. Last season and this season they faced or will face, on average, a deficit of $7.8 million per opponent. Removing the highest and lowest revenue generating opponents from that list, the Utes still faced a deficit of $5.5 million per contest. When we only consider the opponents who faced the Utes in both seasons, the deficit drops to $2.2 million. So in almost every game that they play, Utah faces an opponent with more resources. That makes their achievements a little more outstanding. But now, let's take a look at Mississippi State. Their revenue sits just over $30,000,000. They faced or will face, on average, a revenue deficit of just over $29 million per contest. When we remove the highest and lowest revenue generating schools from that mix, the average remains at $29 million. If we only look at the teams that the Bulldogs face in both seasons the average remains at $29 million. So every time that MSU takes the field they face an opponent, that on average, has $29 million more in resources. Wow! That makes Utah's predicament seem quite trivial. But let's not stop there. I checked each team's schedule to see how many times they faced an opponent who's revenues more than doubled their own. Utah faces this daunting task twice. On the other hand, Mississippi State faces it twelve times (half of their total games)! Not only that, but Utah has not and will not play back-to-back games against teams that double their revenue in 2008 or 2009. Conversely, MSU faced three such opponents in a row in 2008 and will face four in a row in 2009. So what would happen if Utah played an SEC-caliber schedule? I think it goes without saying that it would be significantly tougher to face a much greater deficit in resources. Couple that increased deficit with the difficulty of playing consecutive games against vastly superior funding and it's clear to see that Utah shouldn't be complaining about their plight, but thankful for their good fortune. This investigation can also remind us why a playoff might be judicous in some sports and not in others. The league salary cap insures that every NFL and NBA team begins with the same amount of resources to use in their quest to obtain a championship. However, no such expenditure cap exists in the world of college football. Instituting a playoff would raise some serious questions of fairness with such a great disparity in revenues. Major League Baseball has failed to address this glaring problem and, in my opinion, the neglect has been a contributor to its decrease in popularity. In the end, those who question the equity of Utah's situation are right to do so. But examination of resources shows us that Utah's problem pales in comparison to that of similar schools.