Dave from Carter-Finley

NC State coach Tom O’Brien made his podcast debut tonight on the Solid Verbal Podcast.  Download it on iTunes or check it out at the Solid Verbal website.  If you don’t know what a podcast is … well don’t be embarrassed, TOB had no clue what it was either.  I’m so proud that he’s our coach.  When told he would be on iPods everywhere he said, “Okay, good.”  Then Ty and Dan (the hosts of the show) joked that they are “single handedly bringing the NC State coaching staff into the digital age.”  Sadly that might be true.  I cannot confirm or deny it.

As for the meat of the interview there was really nothing earth shattering.  TOB talked a little bit about recruiting, discipline, and non-BCS schools.  Of course that was after he spent what seemed like half the interview talking about injuries and young players being the reason we weren’t very good last year.  Maybe I’m the only one, but it’s getting old hearing the same excuse over and over.  I will admit that we had a lot of injuries last year, but injuries are part of football and they sure as heck don’t excuse getting boat raced by Duke (49-28), Boston College (52-20), Clemson (43-23), and Virginia Tech (38-10).  I think it was more about bad preparation, lack of motivation, and poor game planning.  But that’s just me.

I sent an email to the Solid Verbal last week and their response led me to believe this was coming.  Don’t know why they didn’t choose to read it … would have been perfect timing.  Oh well.  At least this way I don’t have to share my podcast debut with TOB.  So the other coaches they’ve interviewed this offseason have been Jimbo Fisher (FSU), Paul Rhoads (Iowa State), and Houston Nutt (Ole Miss) so if you want to go back and listen to any of them I highly recommend it.  They’re all better, livelier interviews than TOB, especially the Jimbo Fisher interview.  I was real impressed with him.  I still don’t know why they would want to interview TOB, but it’s always nice to get a little bit of national exposure even if it’s at the expense of our coaching staff.

Friday was cold and wet so I toughed it out for four innings (which only took 2 hours) before leaving to go watch the Sweet Sixteen games.  When I left Miami had a 4-2 lead and ended up pulling out a 6-5 win.  Jake Buchanan, the starting pitcher for the Pack, was working excruciatingly slow and never got in a groove.  He was in the mid 80′s and leaving a lot of pitches up in the zone and the Miami batters were making him pay for it.  The Pack batters on the other hand could not find an answer for the Miami starter (soft tossing lefty).  They had him on the ropes in the 1st inning, but he worked out of a bases loaded jam only giving up 1 run.  Then in the 4th, a base running error by Russell Wilson allowed him to skate out of a potential big inning with only allowing 1 run.  Apparently we made a valiant effort coming back, but another base running blunder in the 9th cost us a possible win.

Saturday was a beautiful day, but I had a wedding shower/party to attend (one of the Frumpzilla contributors).  It was the first time hanging out with the Frumpzilla guys since they’ve blown up in the past few months getting linked to on ESPN and Sports Illustrated’s Extra Mustard page.  It’s cool that they still let lowly little ol’ me hang out with them.  Speaking of Frumpzilla, I haven’t got much right in my March Madness bracket (Duke is the only Final Four team I have left … at least for a few more hours right?), but I did hit on my wager on West Virginia last night.  I just knew Kentucky wasn’t going to make the Final Four.  (Note:  If they had made the Final Four I would have totally opined how great they were and how youth didn’t really matter … but I still would have lost my bet, you just wouldn’t have heard about it.) Anyway, I didn’t make it out to The Doak, but the Pack did pull out a big come from behind win scoring 5 runs in the bottom of the 9th to send it to extra innings and then finishing off the comeback in the 11th.

Today is the rubber match.  I’m heading out to Doak Field  now which, by the way, looks absolutely beautiful.  It has come a long way since the days that it was graced with my presence on a daily basis.  The new scoreboard is awesome, the sound system is great with the duck call still being the signature sound (R.I.P. Mr. Ward), and the field is actually flat like it’s suppose to be.  Yeah, back in the day you could lay down at home plate, look down the right field line and only see the right fielder from the knees up.  Interesting home field advantage, huh?  Now it’s just a great setting to take in some college baseball so off I go.

The MLB season begins in a week and I still don’t have enough people together for a fantasy baseball league.  I hate using this blog to shamelessly beg for attention.  Who am I kidding that’s exactly what this blog is all about.  Anyway, I’m still looking for some more people to fill a league.  If you are seriously interested leave a comment or shoot me an email … dfcf99 at gmail dot com.

I’m off to Raleigh for the weekend to support the Wolfpack baseball team as we host #15 Miami in our first home ACC series of the season.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate and Doak Field will be rocking.  I’ll try to have a few write-ups and will definitely be tweeting so if you don’t already follow me on Twitter, now is the time to start.

In hardly earth-shattering news, Yahoo! Sports has a story today about TOB’s hot seat.  I’ve heard these rumblings from multiple sources (someone closely associated with the team and someone in the Raleigh media) so this definitely has merit.  I’m working on an article about this very topic which I plan on posting sometime after Spring Practice concludes.  I can say it’s not entirely about the wins and losses.  I drink the red Kool-Aid more than anybody, but when you start hearing the same things over and over and over, it becomes hard to ignore.  I’ll leave it at that for now.

Yesterday was the NFL Pro Day at NC State.  I’m not going to rehash all the stats and measurables.  Go here for that.  I think it’s now pretty clear to everyone why Toney Baker decided to forgo his final year of eligibility.  Plus I’ve also heard he didn’t really love the coaching staff.  Of course I’m biased, but I just have a feeling that he’s going to have a solid pro career.  He’s definitely a high character, hard working guy that some NFL team will be lucky to get.

I remember the MLB Pro Days when I was on the baseball team:  tons of scouts lining the BP cage, a sea of radar guns behind the plate, and timed 60 yard sprints.  I would love to know what some of the scouts were thinking when I got up there.  Still can’t believe they weren’t intrigued a little by my 8.2 second 60 time, two bad knees, and less than warning track power.  At least they didn’t laugh in my face, right?

My pro dreams never had a realistic chance and I’m cool with that now.  If I was playing pro baseball I wouldn’t be able to attend all the Wolfpack football games and there would be no DFCF.  The world dodged a huge bullet there.  Seriously, though, I wish all the best to the Wolfpack football players that are preparing for the NFL draft.  I’ll be rooting for you.

The big football news of the week is the indefinite suspensions of DT J.R. Sweezy and P Chris Ward.  Sweezy’s beat down of a shuttle bus driver in his hometown of Mooresville has been well documented.  Not so sure the old saying ‘any press is good press’ applies here.  This news did force TOB’s hand to officially announce the Ward suspension.  I won’t divulge what I know, but let’s just say he’s a multiple repeat offender.  Strange that TOB would give Ward 3 or more chances, but get rid of a guy like Dominique Ellis after one mistake and run off the trio of CB DeAndre Morgan, WR Donald Bowens, and P Jeff Ruiz for no reason.

Speaking of Ruiz, after the Ward suspension TOB went back to Ruiz and invited him to return to the team.  Ruiz thought about it for a couple weeks, discussed it with his family, and ultimately decided to come back for his Senior season.  He’s a bigger man than me.  I would have told TOB where he could stick it.  The way TOB played that in the media that it was Morgan, Bowens, and Ruiz’s decisions to graduate and leave the program was flat out not true and very sleazy.  TOB has more of a history of actions like this during his tenure at State than of actual winning football games.  Let ‘s hope this changes and changes quickly.

I don’t watch much college basketball during the regular season but come March Madness I dive in head first.  It won’t be the same as last year when I was out in Vegas for the first two rounds, but I’ll manage.  I finally have my own “man cave” (nothing impressive, but it gets the job done) so I’ll just be hanging out in there all weekend.  No adult beverages though … I’m still recovering from football season.

After a hundred or so iterations, I’ve finally come to a consensus on my bracket and I still hate how it looks.  Oh well.  I’m just ready for the games to start so I can’t mess with it any more.  If my bracket doesn’t go up in flames on the first day then I consider it a win.  I do want to warn you that if you have a Final Four of Kansas, Syracuse, Duke, and Wisconsin then sorry to burst your bubble, but you’re not going to win your office pool.  There’s still a couple hours to make last minute changes so hurry up and make sure your bracket looks nothing like mine.  Also if you haven’t entered Frumpzilla’s 1st Annual March Madness Pool then do so now.  Good luck!

March Madness starts tomorrow and all I can think about is why can’t we have this same excitement about college football?  Well it’s because … the BCS = Epic Fail.  I’m not really down with all the internet lingo, but I think that’s how the kids are saying it these days.  Actually I think it’s way more cool to say … the BCS “pwns” the NCAA.  That one still seems really lame to me and, for all you normal people out there, that is not a typo (although it started out that way and became its own word).  Anyway, I digress.  The point is the BCS system is a sucky way to determine the national champion.

The opinions of how to change it are like … uhm, let’s go with belly buttons … everybody’s got one.  You have the BCS plus-one format, another tier-based BCS plus-one, a 12-team playoff, a 16-team playoff called the Wetzel Plan (similar to Joe Rozsa’s plan), a 24-team playoff, and on and on and on.  Even our country’s fearless leader has an 8-team playoff in mind even though he hasn’t really given us any details about it.  Shocking, I know!

So now it comes to me.  I’m not a college football expert by any means, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.  That was not funny at all and I’m not even getting paid for that plug.  Oh well, moving on.  I’ve read most of the proposals out there and I’ve thought about this a lot “dating back” (ding … inside joke) to 2002 when NC State was ranked 10th in the AP poll and 9th in the BCS standings.  Not that I think NC State can ever realistically win a national championship, but under the current BCS system we will never even get that chance.  I did a presentation on this very topic in my Public Speaking class back in 2002 during the week leading up to the Georgia Tech game.  Sorry!  Don’t blame me!

Because the BCS is so skewed towards the big name programs, even if NC State had remained unbeaten in 2002 we would not have played for the national championship.  Looking at some of those big programs; Ohio State, Texas, Southern Cal, LSU, Florida, Miami, Oklahoma, and Florida State have all appeared in multiple BCS title games and comprise 20 of the 24 total spots in the twelve year history of the game.  That would be like skipping the whole March Madness Tournament and making the Final Four consist of some grouping of Kentucky, Kansas, North Carolina, Duke, Michigan St., UCLA, and UConn every year.  Blasphemy, I say!

Ok, I’ve rambled on enough already so … drum roll please!  I humbly present the DFCF Plan:

• Conference Alignment – All the big six (a.k.a. BCS) conferences should expand to at least 12 teams.  I don’t know or ultimately care who the Big Ten, Pac-10, or Big East would want, although it seems like we could be finding out soon what the Big Ten and Pac-10 have in mind.  Both have begun exploring their expansion opportunities.  I do have my dream conference alignments, but that’s for another post … maybe later this week.
• Schedule – The regular season schedule should be cut back to 11 games consisting of 8 conference and 3 non conference games with no games against D1AA teams allowed (with this plan the terms FBS and FCS would thankfully become obsolete).  I’m pretty sure that huge cheer you just heard was coming from Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Other than that, who’s really going to miss Florida vs. Charleston Southern or Alabama vs. UT-Chattanooga (both actual matchups from this past season)?  I would, however, be fine with one preseason exhibition game against a D1AA team that didn’t count towards records or player eligibility ala the NFL.  Just a thought.
• Conference Championships – Let me be the first to say that I hate conference divisions.  It seems like more times than not the best two (or even three) teams are from the same division so the conference divisions should be scraped.  The conference schedules should have two common opponents and rotate the other six games with the best two teams meeting in the conference championship game period.
• Non Big Six Conferences – I haven’t forgot about you guys.  The best two teams from all the non big six conferences should meet in a pseudo “Little Guys” Championship game.
• Playoff Bracket – The playoff should consist of eight teams: the six conference champs, the little guys champ, and one at large team that cannot be a championship game loser.  How about a game between the next best “big boys” team and the next best “little guys” team.  What, no convoluted formula or biased committee to determine that last spot?  Actually deciding it on the field?  What nerve I have!  Okay, I guess you would need a formula or committee to determine playoff seeding, but as long as the champ is decided on the field I don’t think seeding matters that much.
• Playoff Schedule – The conference championship games would remain where they are now … the first weekend of December.  The following weekend would be an off weekend.  Then the playoffs would begin with the first round being played on the third weekend of December and the second round on the fourth weekend.  Then the championship would take place a week and half later in the same Thursday night prime time spot that the BCS championship game has held for the past few years.  All playoff games would be played at neutral sites … preferably a rotation between the current Rose, Sugar, Orange, and Fiesta Bowl venues.
• Bowls – For this plan to really work some of the bowls would have to be kept, just not all of them.  Let’s say 12-14 bowls were kept and all played on or right around New Year’s Day.  It would keep the New Year’s Day bowl tradition going, reward the teams that had very good seasons, give us some exciting football to watch, and fill in the break between the semifinals and the championship game.

I’m sure my plan isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty damn close, right?  All I did was try to make it exciting and fair for everybody.  I’m pretty sure that I at least accomplished that.  I might have missed addressing a few of the common reasons we hear for not having a playoff, but I didn’t miss these …  This plan does keep importance on the regular season and it does include the non big six conference teams.  It also does not lengthen the schedule too much (one extra game for the championship game participants than under the current system).  Most importantly, it will determine a true champion.

Feel free to comment on how awesome this plan is or ways you would tweak it.

March Madness is in full effect right now.  I’ve never been real good at filling out brackets, but I still fill out way too many every year.  The best thing about this year is my brackets won’t be ruined by giving Carolina a first round exit.  Love it!  If you don’t have a pool to join or you want to join another one that’s totally free check out my good buddies over at Frumpzilla.  Tell them DFCF sent ya.

As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t get too into college basketball.  It’s just not good for the ticker, however, I will say that March Madness is one of my favorite times of the year.  Last year I was out in Vegas for the first and second rounds and it was absolutely crazy.  Not going this year, but hopefully when I’m out there again next year the Wolfpack will be back in the Big Dance.

The reason that March Madness is so great is because it allows college basketball to determine its champion on the court.  Maybe it has something to do with the excitement and drama that takes place too.  Leave it up to the NCAA, though, to screw it up as they’re talking about expanding the field to 96 teams.  If this is all about making more money then why do we still have the idiotic BCS system for college football?  I would argue that a college football playoff would be much more exciting and would make the NCAA a lot more money than March Madness.  Check back Wednesday as I will unveil my plan for a college football playoff.

Now I’m off to fill out some more brackets.  Good luck everybody!

I just wanted to pass along what I heard today regarding Chuck Amato.  Everyone knows he was diagnosed with cancer back in January (reminder).  Today I heard good news about his recovery.  He has finished his treatment and all-in-all feels pretty good.  We all know how much he loves working out, right?  I mean he was probably the originator of GTL for all we know.  And don’t make me post a picture from his early days at Florida State when his pecs reminded me of those old school Reebok pumps.  Actually I’m still pissed that I lost that picture and can’t find it anywhere on the internet.  Oh well.  Anyway, now he’s back going to the gym whenever he feels up to it.  Great news so far.

I also heard that he is “moving” again so I’m going to read between the lines and speculate that means he found a coaching job.  I guess we’ll find out soon enough if that is indeed the case.  Please keep Chuck and his family in your prayers as he continues his fight with cancer.

know I’m gonna see you around soon.

Gonna see you in the evening when the sun goes down,

see you in the rising moon.

Anybody that’s been to Doak Field knows that tune by heart.  It’s the chorus of Bruce Robison’s See You Around and it’s played at the end of every Wolfpack baseball game.  Why do I bring that up?  Well when I read this article about Lee Fowler from StateFansNation it is what immediately popped into my head.  The following excerpt has me jumping for joy:

“For the better part of the last month, the frequency and consistency of rumors related to a Lee Fowler departure has significantly intensified. Many different sources have shared with SFN that Lee Fowler will ‘retire/resign’ as NC State’s Athletics Director at some [point] in the very near future. The scenarios around Fowler’s ultimate departure usually takes the form of one of the two of the following:

(1) Some of the rumors have Fowler departing NC State in May, coinciding with the end of the school year. This version centers on the premise that Fowler has been given an ultimatum to have found a new job and hit the bricks by the end of the year…or else. This would have Fowler riding into the sunset with another of SFN’s most disliked NC State administrators, Tom Stafford. [Woohoo! Even better.]

(2) The more intense and immediate version of the rumors have Fowler ‘retiring’ next week as the Wolfpack’s basketball season is expected to be completed. The most widely speculated and most logical date of departure would be a Friday afternoon announcement on March 19th as the news and attention to the story would be significantly diluted by the NCAA Tournament first round.”

I’ve been hearing stuff as well over the last month or so, but is this actually going to happen?  Even though it is long overdue, I’m taking the “I’ll believe it when I see it” approach.  If this does come to fruition it might be time to throw the first ever DFCF sponsored shindig (I just love that word).  I’m crossing my fingers … and tentatively working on those party plans.  Go Pack!