July, 2020 | The Sports Curmudgeon

Pat Forde Realigns College Football

A couple of days ago, a reader asked in a comment to the daily rant if I had any comment on Pat Forde’s radical suggestion to restructure college football. I did not at the time for the simple reason that I had not seen it, but now I have and so I will comment.

Forde’s article appears on SI.com. In the broadest overview, he proposes limiting “Division 1 College Football” to 120 teams that are regionally organized into 12 conferences of 10 teams each. Every one of the current football conferences is shattered in his proposed realignment and he proposes that 11 of the current teams in what we call “FBS Football” are relegated/demoted to “FCS Football”. Aligning the new conferences regionally/geographically intends to reduce travel times and costs as well as developing new potential rivalry situations.

Forde proposes a 10-game season where every team plays the other 9 teams in its new conference plus one other game out of conference. Note, there is no room here for Powerhouse State to schedule a glorified scrimmage against The National Rehabilitation School for Multiple Amputees. I am beginning to like this idea…

None of the conferences will have a championship game; each conference champion will be determined within the regular season schedule using tiebreakers presumably. Those 10 conference champions along with 2 other wild card teams would be seeded into a 12-team playoff grid to determine an on-field College Football Champion.

There is one paragraph in the article that I particularly like:

“There still will be bowl games for the teams that don’t make the CFP. Just fewer of them, which nobody should mind.”

Indeed, I would not mind at all…

The Forde Plan – – it must have a name if anyone is going to take it even moderately seriously – – would provide consistency to college football scheduling and that is definitely a plus. The hurdles to adopting such a plan are numerous and they are high hurdles indeed. Here are what I think are the two biggest ones among those he mentions:

This radical an idea would need to be undertaken with the imprimatur of a centralized “command structure” for college football. That does not exist. Please do not delude yourself into thinking that Mark Emmert and the jamokes at NCAA HQs can or do fill that role.
This works only if all the 10 new conferences share the revenues from media rights and the expanded college football playoff system. That means the current “Power 5” conferences will have to share money with schools from the “Other Guys”. That idea will go over like an anvil in a cesspool.

Please read the article in its entirety as linked here. There are plenty of benefits and problems associated with the idea and Forde lays them out without too much obvious bias. Even though I doubt the idea will ever be taken seriously by any of the current conferences, there are some very appealing aspects to it.

One very interesting aspect to Forde’s Plan is that I proposed something along the same lines back in January 2017. My college football universe was 128 teams broken up into the “Big Boys Category” and the “Little Boys Category”. Each “Category” would have 4 conferences of 16 teams and each conference would have 2 divisions. The regular season would be 11 games – – 7 against the division foes and 4 against half of the teams in the other division in the conference. (That “half” would rotate every year.)

My wrinkle was to have the “Little Boys Category” have a playoff system too and for the top 4 teams in the “Little Boys Category” to be promoted while the bottom 4 teams in the “Big Boys Category” would be relegated. There are differences between the Forde Plan and my vision for reinventing college football, but we agree on more things than we disagree on. In any event, here is the key point of commonality between the Forde Plan and “My Plan”:

Neither one is gonna happen.

Just for fun, here is the link to my rant from January 2017 if you would like to see how similar the foundations for the two proposals are. I guess it shows that great minds run in similar channels. Then again, so does sewer water…

While on the subject of college football, Boomer Esiason said something recently that I hope is completely wrong. Esiason hosts a morning radio show in NYC; it is on WFAN in the time slot that used to be occupied by Imus in the Morning a long time ago. According to a report in the NY Post, Esiason suggested that teams reporting large numbers of players who tested positive for COVID-19 had the players get it on purpose. Here is what he supposedly said:

“I gotta be really careful here, because I don’t want to say that this is an accusation. I don’t want to … I just was thinking the other day about what is going on with the SEC teams down south. And Clemson included, who’s obviously an ACC team. A lot of their players are coming down with COVID-19, oddly enough. So are they trying to herd immunity their teams?”

I have no insight into any college football programs nor do I have any idea if Esiason has access or sources that led him to say that. However, I will say that if any college football coach is intentionally infecting members of his team to develop localized herd immunity, that is hugely irresponsible behavior. About the only thing related to COVID-19 that might be worse would be to find a way to infect most of the players on your upcoming opponent without the other guys knowing about it.

Another problem with Esiason’s comment – without some sort of sourcing – is that it fuels just the sort of speculation on which sports talk radio feasts. In 2020, people love to hear about and ponder “conspiracy theories” and Esiason took his comment above one more step down that sort of path:

“So these guys can get sick now as opposed to getting sick during the college football season if, in fact, there is one. And I’m telling you right now I wouldn’t put it past any of those guys down there. I think it’s going on. I honestly … the numbers coming out of like Alabama, LSU and Clemson, all these teams? It’s too much of a coincidence. I don’t think it’s that crazy either.”

That is classic conspiracy theory thinking. Coincidence becomes evidence and the lack of hard evidence becomes an element of proof for the conspiracy… I hope he is dead wrong, and I hope that coaches like Nick Saban, Les Miles and Dabo Swinney call him out for that.

Finally, let me stay with today’s theme of college football with a little COVID-19 tossed into the mix with this Tweet from Brad Dickson, formerly with the Omaha World-Herald:

“Good guy Scott Frost has a new PSA where he tells ppl to keep up with routine medical visits during the pandemic. He doesn’t get paid for this. But, after listening to his deadly dull monotone during this brief speech I now know why Nebraska usually plays bad in the third quarter.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

Hall Of Fame Players As Head Coaches

I have long had a theory regarding Hall of Fame quality basketball players being less-than-fully capable as NBA head coaches. My theory is that they excelled at the game because much of what they did was instinctive and because it was instinctive, they probably did not know how to express it is such a way that some younger player might do what got the coach to the Hall of Fame. Here is a partial data set for Hall of Fame players as NBA head coaches broken down into three categories:

Highly successful head coaches
Meh!
Not-so-good head coaches.

In the category of Highly Successful, I will start with the exception that proves the rule and offer Lenny Wilkens name. He was indeed a Hall of Fame player and then went on to an NBA coaching career that involved winning 1332 games and an NBA championship with the Seattle Supersonics. No one I will mention from here on will have a coaching career equivalent to Wilkens’ career.

Billy Cunningham: Over eight seasons with the Sixers, he won 69.8% of his games and an NBA championship.
Bill Russell: His three seasons with the Celtics produced two NBA championships so I have to put him in this category even though a large measure of that success is due to the fact that he was a player-coach for those teams and his play was as integral to the success as was his coaching. Later on, his time with the Sonics was mediocre; in four-plus seasons there, the best record was 43-39.
KC Jones: With an overall record of 552-306 plus two NBA Championships and three conference championships, he may have had a better coaching career than playing career. Maybe?

Here are a couple of Hall of Fame players whose coaching career evokes the “Meh!” response:

Larry Bird: His winning percentage is outstanding; he won 68.7% of his games. However, his coaching career included only 2 full seasons and part of a third season.
Mo Cheeks: Over all or part of 9 seasons, his coaching record was 305-315.
Richie Guerin: In seven-and-a-half seasons with the St. Louis/Atlanta Hawks, he compiled a 327-291 record.
Kevin McHale: Over three full seasons and parts of four other seasons, his record was 232-185 with no playoff accomplishments of note.
Bill Sharman: Yes, I know he won a high percentage of his games and an NBA Championship with the Lakers. However, that team had Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain Elgin Baylor and Gail Goodrich on the roster. Hard to lose with that team…
Paul Westphal: In all or part of 10 season, his record was 318-279 with a playoff record of 27-22 in 4 playoff appearances.

Finally, here are some great players who were not successful as head coaches in the NBA:

Wilt Chamberlain: His single season on the bench was with the San Diego Conquistadores of the ABA and not the NBA. Nonetheless, his record that year was a lackluster 37-47.
Bob Cousy: In a little more than 4 seasons, his coaching record in the NBA was 141-207. The best single season record was 36-46.
Dave Cowens: Over all or part of 6 seasons, his coaching record was 161-191.
Jason Kidd: In four-and-a-half seasons, his record is 183-190. He will likely be back with another team in the future…
Magic Johnson: To his credit, he realized that coaching was not his calling and he resigned the position after only 16 games on the bench. The record was 5-11.
Dolph Schayes: In four years as a head coach, his record was 151-172.

I can sense that some of you are wondering why any of that is interesting today. Well, with more time on my hands than usual, I wondered – not aloud but in my head – if there was a similar pattern among great NFL players who advanced themselves into the ranks of NFL head coaches. So, I indulged myself in some browsing through NFL stat world and came up with an interesting parallel.

[Aside: I limited this “research” to modern NFL time since the merger of the NFL and the AFL. I will leave the days of the Decatur Staleys and Curley Lambeau to real NFL historians such as Dan Daly.]
[Aside #2: If you have some time on your hands and are looking for a good sports book to read, let me recommend Dan Daly’s excellent history of the old NFL called the National Forgotten League. It is entertaining AND informative.]

I found 8 NFL Hall of Fame players who have had time on the sidelines as a head coach since the merger. I would not categorize any of the eight as being great head coaches so let me just list them alphabetically here:

Raymond Berry: In five-and-a-half seasons in New England, his record was 48-39-0 with an AFC Championship in 1985. That was his first full season with the Pats, and it was pretty much downhill from there.
Mike Ditka: He had plenty of time on the sidelines and racked up a 121-95-0 record plus a Super Bowl Championship – – where he beat Raymond Berry’s Patriots after the 1985 season.
Forrest Gregg: In eleven seasons his teams went 75-85-1. Ho-hum…
Dick LeBeau: He was extraordinarily successful as a defensive coach and coordinator over multiple decades in the NFL as well as a Hall of Fame player in the 1950s. However, his head coaching record was a less-than-laudable 12-33-0.
Mike Munchak: In three seasons, his Tennessee teams compiled a 22-26-0 record. Ho-hum…
Art Shell: Over seven seasons with the Raiders, his cumulative record was 56-52-0.
Mike Singletary: Over all or part of 3 seasons with the Niners, his teams were 18-22-0. He also had a brief stint with the Memphis Express in the AAF.
Bart Starr: He coached the packers for 9 seasons from the mid-70s to the mid-80s; those teams compiled a record of 52-76-3.

They say that idle hands are the devil’s workshop; in my case, letting my mind wander often leads to strange and unusual places…

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………

It’s Bobby Bonilla Day

In the world of baseball, July 1 is known as “Bobby Bonilla Day”. Even though Bonilla last played for the NY Mets in 1999 and that he has been out of MLB since 2001, Bonilla receives a check from the Mets every July 1^st for a little more than $1.19M. Sounds great – – but wait there’s more. He will continue to receive a check from the NY Mets in that exact amount every July 1^st through 2035. To what good fortune does Bobby Bonilla owe this windfall?

Back in 2000, the Mets wanted to buy out Bonilla’s contract; he was 36 years old and his best playing days were over. The cost of that buyout was $6M in round numbers. But the Mets saw a way to make some money on the buyout and offered to defer payment to him – – sort of like an annuity. The Mets agreed to pay him $1.19M every July 1^st from 2011 until 2035 instead of paying him $6M on the spot in 2000. Here was the Mets’ motivation to offer such a deal:

Mets’ owner, Fred Wilpon had invested a whole lot of money with Bernie Madoff and in 2000 those investments were flying high. By keeping Bonilla’s $6M in Madoff’s funds, the Mets projected that they would rake in huge returns on that $6M and would more than cover the added expenses.

It all came apart at the seams in 2008 when Madoff’s enterprise was exposed as nothing but a Ponzi Scheme and Fred Wilpon lost a ton of money. Some estimates have his losses as high as $700M; other estimates say he lost a mere $400M. None of that is important to Bobby Bonilla on July 1^st, 2020, because today Bonilla’s bank account will record a deposit of $1,193,248.20.

Staying marginally in the world of baseball for the moment, the folks in charge of the University of Cincinnati have removed Marge Schott’s name from the school’s baseball stadium. Personally, I do not take nearly the same level of offense at many of the statues around the country that have drawn such ire in recent weeks, but I am not nearly motivated to try to protect those statues either. However, in the case of Marge Schott – – and George Preston Marshall whose statue in DC was taken down peacefully by the city fathers recently – – I am in full agreement with the removals. Schott and Marshall were outrageous individuals in their own times and by today’s standards would be categorized as “loathsome creatures” or possibly something lower on the evolutionary scale. Congratulations to the people at the University of Cincinnati who made the decision to rename that baseball stadium…

Here is a follow-up note… Yesterday, I said that an undrafted free agent who had signed with the Arizona Cardinals had lost his chance to make a good first impression when he drove his car into Lake Erie “under the influence”. Last night, I read a report that the Cardinals had released him.

As I have mentioned here several times, the absence of live sports makes it more difficult to find things to write about here. My long-suffering wife – who is the antithesis of a sports fan – has heard me say that to friends. Demonstrating her desire to help where possible, I got an email from her yesterday with the subject line reading:

“JIC you didn’t see this”

The email contained a link to a story in the Washington Post with this headline:

“Ron Rivera says Redskins name debate is ‘a discussion for another time’”

The recurring debate about that team’s name has always devolved into a strategy to just kick the can down the road. By delaying any direct encounters that could become confrontational, the vigor of the protesters has waxed and waned while the team name trudges on. I do not think that is what Ron Rivera is espousing here. In the same interview where he said the discussion is “for another time”, he also said that his time in football and his view of football is that it ought not to be linked to politics. He says he supports the players and their involvement in sociopolitical issues, but that he is not necessarily comfortable being in the forefront of something that is so political.

It seems to me that if it is OK for some folks to choose to be “activists”, then it should be just as OK for others to choose to be something other than activists – – even to the point of being “opponents” which is not the case for Ron Rivera. I think there is another element to his quietude here beyond his preference to stay away from ‘political stuff”:

Ron Rivera has been given more latitude and more decision authority that any previous Skins’ coach in the Daniel Snyder Era. That includes Joe Gibbs who was a boyhood idol of Snyder’s; recall that Gibbs had to deal with and tolerate Vinny Cerrato as the team’s de facto GM and as an éminence grise having the ear of the owner.
Rivera has to install his “system” and his “culture” over an off-season where the only way to do that is by remote control. That is a sufficient challenge for him without potentially getting into anything resembling a crosswise posture with the owner who said he will NEVER change the team name.
Even if Rivera is totally convinced that the team name should be changed immediately, he probably has more than a few “football issues” to resolve against upcoming deadlines and the team name debate has no such imminent deadlines.

Remember, I do not read minds; therefore, that analysis above is far more akin to speculation that real analysis…

Finally, Bob Molinaro had this comment in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot recently regarding the ream name for the Skins:

“Wondering: It’s been theorized that a fan boycott might convince Snyder to change the team’s name. But judging from attendance at FedEx Field the last few years, how could anybody tell if there was a boycott?”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………