Toothless in Miami

By now most people have seen the ugly incident between the University of Miami and Florida Atlantic's football squads. If you haven't seen it, the youtube stream is available below. (Warning it is violent).



Others have already pontificated on the lack of an appropriate response by the NCAA, the Atlantic Coast Conference, or the respective (using that term loosely) universities. While the violence on the field is disturbing (criminal actually; at least two of the players on that field should have been charged with aggravated assualt) equally troublesome is the way in which Miami President (and fellow Maxwell School alum) Donna Shalala spun and soft-pedaled the incident.

The University of Miami simply will not tolerate or condone this type of behavior. Period. We expect the best from our students. Indeed we hold all of them to a high standard of personal conduct.

The one bright light is that the thousands of students from both institutions who attended the game behaved in exemplary fashion and kept their seats and their heads.

Of course, "not tolerating or condoning this type of behavior" does not go so far as to take away scholarships, or fire coaches and althletic directors. And hey, there were a few people there who did not commit aggravated assault; we should celebrate their conformity with acceptable comportment and committment to civil decency.

Of course Shalala is not going to be too critical. The Univerity of Miami (as is also the case for my employer) generates massive revenue from intercollegiate athletics. And in Miami's case (which is not true for my employer) the Huricane Mystic and Swagger is part of the marketing jugernaught. This behavior brings them coverage, revenue, and recruits.

We have a problem with elite college athletics. I acknowledge this with no small degree of cognitive dissonance as I love sports generally and college football in particular. But something is way out of wack.

Brent Musburger's pie hole (a rant for noone in particular)

I watch a lot of college football (some might say too much). Typically, I tune out the banter of the commentators. While some of them draw my attention to interesting strategic aspects of the game (such as Bob Davie and Mike Gottfried) most just fill air with the obvious (Brent Musburger & John Maddden {in the NFL}) .

But last night as I watched an obviously overmatched Penn State team struggle against Michigan, I caught a couple of comments by Musburger that flabergasted me. This man has been doing football play-by-play for more than 30 years. I have to think that in that time-span he'd pick-up some of the canonical rules of game management.

For instance, Penn State scored a touchdown with 3:30 left in the game, drawing them within 7. Musburger, ratchets up the drama: "folks, get ready for an onside kick..." What? There is 3:30 left in the game and Penn State has all its time-outs. If wikipedia is to believed, onside kicks only work about 23% of the time. That means that with that much time left on the clock, trying an onside kick will likely give Michigan the ball at the 50 yardline. Even if Penn State were to stop the Wolverines, a punt would give them the ball back inside their 20. Given how poorly Penn State's offense was faring against Michigan, the onside kick gives them little chance to win as they would have to cover 80 yards or more.

But Penn State's defense was playing fairly well. Kicking it deep, stopping the run, and using time-outs is the smartest strategy. In the best case scenario, Penn State gets the ball back close to the 50. There they have a chance to work some corner routes and possibly get into the end-zone. [Though we all knew that the odds were against them].

In the end Penn State did the right thing and kicked it deep. Unfortunately, Michigan's rushing attack was too strong and they worked the ball up to the 40 before having to punt with about a minute left. Penn State's last ditch effort came up short.

Now, what I just described makes sense to someone who pays attention to football strategy. Why in the world would Musburger make such a comment? Can he really be that clueless to basic principles of strategy? Bob Davie (the color commentator who usually focuses on strategy) tried to point this out, but Musberger said: "Yeah, but Bob, they need to give themselves a chance."

Musberger had another idiotic comment about a hit on the Penn State quarterback being unnecessary. Even Kirk Herbstreit told him it was a good hit....

Oy, I'm not sure why I'm even commenting on this. Maybe I should quit my job and go into commentating.