The 2014 MLB season was certainly not the craziest on record. Many division leads were large and have been held for quite some time, which has led to minimal intrigue in the last few weeks. Most of the division winners were the teams we expected to win their divisions, so there hasn't even been much drama there. That said, even the most by the book seasons of baseball are still season of baseball. Since baseball is awesome, that means there is still so much awesomeness to celebrate, that one doesn't have the time to fully appreciate it all until it's over. Given that the regular season is now over, I will perform that appreciation here, by picking the winners of the major MJB awards.
As usual, I am just picking the six awards I care the most about. Everything else is either too far afield of my interests (manager, executive) or too silly (comeback player) for me to spend time writing about. Also as usual, I will just list the number of players I feel like for each award, instead of fitting my picks within the framework of the BBWAA. Perhaps when the BBWAA starts admitting people who occasionally post to a personal blog, I will change my tune.
*Since I don't write about baseball often, I always like to note that the majority of stats you see below come from Fangraphs. For a good explanation of the stats used in this post, see the Fangraphs library. For a good explanation of why we should use these stats, even though they aren't perfect, see here.
NL Rookie
1. Jacob deGrom - SP, NY Mets
2. Billy Hamilton - OF, Cincinnati
Let's get this one out of the way first. The NL rookie crop was not particularly deep this year, which left just two real contenders for the award. While I like Billy Hamilton and understand that he created a lot of value by being great at defense alone, I have to give the nod to deGrom. Hamilton is lauded as a supreme baserunner, but was caught stealing on 30% of his stolen base attempts. He also put up a wRC+ of just 79 (meaning he was 21% worse at batting than an average MLB batter), which shows that there are a few significant holes on the offensive side of his game. Jacob deGrom, on the other hand, was one of the most pleasant surprises in baseball this year, which helps to give the Mets legitimate hopes for a top rotation next year. deGrom struck out 25.5% of all batters faced in his 140 Major League innings, which is a higher rate than he achieved at any level of the minors. That he was able to almost match Hamilton's fWAR in only about two-thirds of a season is as good of an argument as any for him to win the award.
NL Cy Young
1. Clayton Kershaw - LA Dodgers
2. Stephen Strasburg - Washington
3. Jordan Zimmerman - Washington
4. Zack Greinke - LA Dodgers
5. Adam Wainwright - St. Louis
I was strongly considering just putting Kershaw's name here, and leaving it at that. I don't think anyone would blame me, given that this is what he has done this season:
27 starts, 198.1 innings pitched - an average of over 7 innings per start
1.77 ERA - First in the NL
31.9% Strikeout Percentage - First in the NL
4.1% Walk Percentage - Fourth in the NL (slacker)
51.8% Ground Ball Percentage - Eighth in the NL among qualified starters
1.81 FIP - First in the NL by over half a run
2.08 xFIP - First in the NL by nearly half a run
2.09 SIERA - First in the NL by over half a run
7.2 fWAR - A full two wins ahead of everyone else in the NL, in spite of the relatively low innings total
So yeah, Kershaw was a comfortable first in ERA and every reputable ERA estimator. Sabermetrics often open up baseball-related debates to a wider swath of possibilities than the narrow views often held by mainstream sportswriters. This is one time where that is not the case. Kershaw was and is the best pitcher in the NL by a mile. There is no debate.
All that said, there are some worthy runners up that I wanted to take a moment to recognize. Stephen Strasburg finally put together a full season of awesomeness, going over 200 innings for the first time, while still maintaining an insane strikeout rate (27.9% - 2nd among qualified starters, behind you-know-who). His xFIP (my preferred measure of pitcher quality) of 2.56 was a comfortable second in the NL, which shows that his overall quality as a pitcher absolutely matches the initial hype from his rookie season. Jordan Zimmerman almost matched his teammate in excellence, attaining both a career high in strikeout rate and a career low in walk rate (3.6% - 2nd in the NL), which led to the best season of an already great career. Unlike the two Nationals on the list, Greinke and Wainwright didn't quite have career years. However, both continued to march along as top-ten pitchers, which is impressive enough to end up on my list.
NL MVP
1. Jonathan Lucroy - C, Milwaukee
2. Clayton Kershaw - SP, LA Dodgers
3. Andrew McCutchen - OF, Pittsburgh
4. Buster Posey - C, San Francisco
5. Giancarlo Stanton - OF, Miami
6. Anthony Rendon - 3B, Washington
7. Carlos Gomez - OF, Milwaukee
8. Russell Martin - C, Pittsburgh
The NL MVP race is quite odd this year. In spite of the lack of a slam-dunk candidate, the field is still very strong. Certain Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw will probably run away with the award in reality, and the last two winners (McCutchen and Posey) both had amazing seasons that were basically of the same quality as the years they won. Young guys Giancarlo Stanton and Anthony Rendon had their first true superstar seasons, while veterans like Carlos Gomez and Russell Martin turned in fantastic efforts.
What makes the NL MVP race the most odd, however, is that I am picking none of those players to win the award. Instead I am going with the guy who has sneakily become the best catcher in baseball, Jonathan Lucroy. His traditional numbers likely won't wow you (13 HRs, 69 RBI), but his batting line of .301/.373/.465 would be spectacular even if he wasn't a catcher, and his 6.3 fWAR (4th in the NL) displays his overall value quite well. Of course, that gaudy WAR total doesn't even include his typically awesome framing numbers, which adds 2-3 wins of value to his resume.* Even though the dark art of measuring this additional impact of catching is in its infancy, there's a lot of evidence to support the claim that Lucroy is among the best as helping his pitchers out. You can't go wrong championing Clayton Kershaw for the MVP award, but I think a full evaluation of what it means to be valuable supports Lucroy as just as worthy of a recipient.
*There's a lot of debate as to where the value of framing should be assigned. Of course, credit should go to the catcher, since he's the one doing it. That said, if a pitcher knows he's dealing with a top catcher, he's more likely to work the corners knowing that the extra strikes are there for the taking. If a pitcher can execute that game plan successfully, he should surely share in some of the credit.
AL Rookie
1. Jose Abreu - 1B, Chicago White Sox
2. Masahiro Tanaka - SP, NY Yankees
3. Dellin Betances - RP, NY Yankees
4. Mookie Betts - 2B, Boston
5. Marcus Stroman - SP, Toronto
6. Colin McHugh - SP, Houston
7. Kevin Kiermaier - OF, Tampa Bay
8. George Springer - OF, Houston
9. Danny Santana - SS, Minnesota
Tanaka was well on his way to winning this (and maybe other awards), and then got injured. Thus, Jose Abreu ends up winning the award handily. I was tempted to still give the honor to Tanaka given how freaking good he was (a 2.58 xFIP shows how amazing he could be if he could just keep the ball in the yard a little more), but Abreu's 36 homers and .383 OBP is such an impressive combination over a full season that I couldn't bring myself to do it. I agree with others that it's a little odd to give this award to players that established themselves in other leagues, but they are technically rookies, so they end up in the top two spots.
You may have noticed that Mookie Betts garnered the #4 spot on this list ahead of many players who played a full season or close to one. While I strongly consider playing time in the MVP and CY Young, it matters less to me in the Rookie of the year award. The main reason for this is that rookies can't really control when they're called up and when they will play. Even if you're raking in AAA, you might be held down for several reasons: lack of room on the MLB roster, not wanting to insert a rookie into a pennant race immediately, or waiting until the super-two deadline to add an extra year of team control. Given that you lose your rookie eligibility after just 45 games played or 50 innings pitched, I like to make sure to recognize guys like Betts who haven't played as much as others, but have clearly shown that they are a fantastic player with a long career ahead of them.
AL Cy Young
1. Felix Hernandez - Seattle
2. Corey Kluber - Cleveland
3. Phil Hughes - Minnesota
4. David Price - Tampa Bay/Detroit
5. Chris Sale - Chicago White Sox
6. Jon Lester - Boston/Oakland
This is the most insanely loaded ballot for any award in my four years of doing this. Max Scherzer basically matched his Cy Young season, and doesn't even make the list because a typical Cy Young season apparently isn't superlative enough. Jon Lester had a career season, and essentially pitched the A's into the playoffs (2.35 ERA in 11 starts). Chris Sale put up the best rate stats in the AL (30.4% strikeout %), and only takes fifth because injuries are stupid. David Price led the league with 248 innings and a 23.1% K%-BB% (the best back-of-the-envelope pitcher quality calculation). How on Earth is he only fourth? And finally, Phil Hughes only put up the best strikeout to walk ratio in the history of the sport.
In spite of all those worthy contenders, the race essentially comes down to two men: Corey Kluber and Felix Hernandez. Both were near perfect this season, so any attempt to separate the two is going to come down to some nit-picking. Felix took the league crown in xFIP (2.51 to 2.57 for Kluber), while a low home run rate gives Kluber the edge in FIP (2.35 to 2.56). Kluber struck a few more people out, while Felix limited walks slightly better. Felix induced more ground balls, while Kluber was able to keep the ball in the yard in spite of more fly balls. The pitiful Indians defense (29th in the majors in UZR) strongly suggests that Kluber had to go it alone when he was on the mound, but Felix wasn't exactly pitching in front of a bunch of gold glovers either. In the end, I am forced to go to a Bayesian tiebreaker, and give my vote to the person who I thought was the best prior to the season. Since Felix has been doing this for almost a decade, he gets the nod.
AL MVP
1. Mike Trout - OF, LA Angels
2. Felix Hernandez - SP, Seattle
3. Corey Kluber - SP, Cleveland
4. David Price - SP, Tampa Bay/Detroit
5. Jose Bautista - OF, Toronto
6. Michael Brantley - OF, Cleveland
7. Josh Donaldson - 3B, Oakland
8. Adrian Beltre - 3B, Texas
9. Ben Zobrist - 2B/SS/OF, Tampa Bay*
10. Alex Gordon - OF, Kansas City
Mike Trout will most likely actually win the MVP this year, which means I won't have to make an impassioned plea for him as I usually do. What is interesting about this is that Mike Trout MVP season is easily his worst full season. His walk rate dropped from 15% to 12%. His strikeout rate climbed to 26%, and his 184 Ks led the league. His batting average dropped below .300 for the first time. His fielding numbers were decidedly below average, according to both UZR and DRS. He only stole 16 bases, after stealing more than 30 each of the past two years.
And yet, in spite of all of this, he still deserves to run away with the award. Basically, he was so good in 2012-2013 that he could survive a mild downturn in production and still be the best player in the world. The increase in strikeouts came with an increase in power, and his career-high 36 homers, helped power him to a 167 wRC+ (just ahead of Victor Martinez for best in the AL). He played 157 games, which shows a durability that some other candidates lacked. Playing a slightly below-average center field still makes you one of the best defenders in the game. Baserunning is more than just steals, as Trout added roughly half a win on the basepaths. And finally, if you care about context-dependent stats, Trout led the majors in both WPA and RE24. Mike Trout will not always put up 10-win seasons, but he just might always be the best player anyway.
*There are too many players here to write about everyone, but I did want to mention that Ben Zobrist has been the second most valuable player in baseball over the past six years.** That is insane. Ben Zobrist is and probably always will be the most underrated player in the game.
**Your daily "Trout is in another stratosphere" reminder: Trout is 10th on that list, in spite of not becoming a full time player until halfway through that time period.
Monday, September 29, 2014
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
College Football Thoughts
At the end of week three, we find ourselves 20% of the way through college football's regular season. This means we've heard about 20% of the ridiculous arguments that college football fans love to make. Here to refute those arguments is me.
Argument 1: The Big Ten is awful and that means Michigan State won't make the Playoff
This is a good one to start with, because it shows that many of these arguments have a bit of truth to them. It is quite obvious that the Big Ten is not having a good season, with all but three teams having already lost a non-conference game. Combining those on-field results with general anger from many fan bases paint a pretty bleak picture about the rest of the season for the conference.
In spite of the Big Ten's self-evident terribleness, the second part of that argument doesn't hold water. The general argument I've read is that the lack of potential marquee wins will eliminate Michigan State from contention. While I agree that the Spartans' upcoming schedule doesn't feature much in the way of top opponents, there is more than one way to collect a big win. If Ohio State turns out to be about the 20th best team, would a three touchdown victory by the Spartans be any less impressive than a three point victory over a top-5 Buckeye team? Would it perhaps be more impressive? The current spread between Sagarin's top team (Oregon) and 20th best team (Kansas State) is only 11 points on a neutral field. While the top teams carry an air of invicibility about them, they're really not orders of magnitude better than other teams. If Michigan State can navigate their remaining schedule in dominant fashion, they should have a strong argument for inclusion in the Playoff, regardless of what other pratfalls befall the Big Ten.
The main message of all of this is to not fall victim to the conference fallacy. Michigan State appears to be a step above the rest of their conference, and shouldn't be overly punished for other's down years. It's both cliché and true that they can only play the teams laid out before them. If they play those games in a manner that makes them appear to be a top four team, they should be in the playoff no matter how stained their conference's reputation is.*
*All of this assumes that the Big Ten remains at least at the level of the AAC or higher, which they currently are (scroll down here). If instead you're playing something like Marshall's schedule, then you pretty much need to dominate every snap.
Argument 2: How can Georgia be ranked above South Carolina? Stanford over USC? Human polls are terrible, and shouldn't start until later in the season
One thing you can always count on in college football is people complaining about rankings that don't perfectly correspond to the head-to-head matchups that preceded them. This season is giving us a couple of great examples with some of the marquee matchups from the early weeks. If you paid attention to the polls this week, you may have noticed that the AP has Georgia one spot ahead of South Carolina, and Stanford one spot ahead of USC. This isn't just a human poll phenomena either. If you look at some of the major computer polls, you'll see Georgia and Stanford ranked higher than the teams they lost to in many of them.
While the poll guidelines do say to consider head to head results, I think those generally get overrated when people compare teams. Both UGA-USC and Stanford-USC were three point games that could have easily gone either way (the former was literally decided by a chain link, and the latter was all kinds of crazy). I accept that we can use the final results of these games as tie-breakers; since the season is so short, we really don't have much of a choice but to treat it as small sample theater. That said, for evaluate purposes games between great teams that go down to the wire should generally be thought of as ties. Do we really think that the USC team that gave up almost 500 yards rushing to Boston College is better than the Stanford team that has destroyed its non-USC opponents thus far? Are we completely forgetting week one, when Georgia looked as impressive as anyone, and South Carolina couldn't stop anything? If we're being honest with ourselves and evaluating the whole of what these teams have accomplished, it's hard not to agree with the ordering of these teams in the polls.
The second part of this argument is a little tricker, but even more important than the first. I touched on this a bit in a post from last season, but I thought I would address this particular point a little more right now. Typically, when a highly-ranked team loses early in the season, the chorus of complaints arises: Why was that team so highly ranked? We don't know anything? Why even do rankings early in the season? I agree that our knowledge in the early part of the season isn't perfect, but I would argue that our relative lack of knowledge about teams in September is actually less of an issue than out adherence to ordering teams by number of losses in November. The famed college hoops analyst Ken Pomeroy has studied this in his sport, and found that pre-season polls generally predict post-season success better than late season polls. FiveThirtyEight also uses the pre-season poll in its model for predicting the tournament.
The basic reason why this works is that, when freed from the sometimes misleading small-sample win-loss record, analysts are able to better pick which teams are truly the best. We will probably never be able to fully predict which young offensive line will jell or which freshman QB will end up winning the Heisman, but pre-season predictions still end up doing a decent job of telling us which teams will be good and which will be bad. That our predictions and our models aren't perfect doesn't mean we shouldn't use them*; rather it means we should strive to continue improving what we know, while acknowledging the usefulness and limitations of our current knowledge. In the end, this means that we shouldn't take early season polls overly seriously, but we also shouldn't stop trying to do the best we can.
*If you're going to read just one hyperlink from this post, make it that one. A good summarization of how one should treat current models in pretty much any field.
Argument 3: Why didn't Georgia run the ball with Gurley on first and goal?
Background on this in case you weren't watching: Georgia was down three late in their game against South Carolina. Following a Gamecock interception, they had a first down at the four yard line. The first play was a pass, after which they got called for intentional grounding.
I understand the general idea behind this sentiment. Todd Gurley is awesome, and is most certainly Georgia's best offensive weapon. With three plays to go for the win, it makes sense to spend at least one of them letting Gurley try to make something happen. That said, I think this complaint is a bit silly for a few reasons:
It smells of post-hoc fallacy - Quite simply, It seems like fans are only angry because this didn't work out. Earlier in the game, Georgia had trusted goal line plays to both their QB Hutson Mason and to their seldom-used fullback, and both resulted in touchdowns. Had the late-game play worked as well, we would have heard nothing of this.
Georgia rushed and passed about equally well - If we credit sack yardage to the pass game (this is one of the few areas in which I prefer the NFL, as they actually do this), then we get the following numbers for Georgia: 34 rushes for 222 yards, 26 passes for 186 yards. While I don't have anything more advanced available at the moment (success rate would come in handy here), taking the simple averages shows that the two methods of collecting yardage were roughly equivalent. Todd Gurley has a lot of hype, and we remember all of the times he's come up with amazing plays, but he isn't perfect, and the Georgia pass game seems to be coming along well enough to trust it in important situations.
Play calling is about game theory - This is probably the most important counter-argument. Here's what the Head Ball Coach had to say about it:
The field of game theory is a complicated area, but the basic practical implication is this: In order to attain the best long-term outcome, you often need to make a sub-optimal decision in the short-term. Even if we make the concession that running the ball is the best option for the Georgia offense, that doesn't mean they should run the ball every play. Because of this, it's tough to judge play-calling on individual plays, except in certain circumstances (if a coach calls a boneheaded play on say 4th and 1, feel free to call for his firing all you want). Rather, one needs to take a more overarching view to truly judge the quality of play calling. Per my count from the last section, Georgia ran the ball about 60% of the time against the Gamecocks, which most would probably agree is a good balance given their relative abilities.
In the end, you can still question Georgia's late game play calling all you want. I'm just not convinced there was an easy right or wrong answer in that situation. What I find really silly is that this line of thinking has seemingly put the blame on Mike Bobo, when the Bulldog defense was once again the main reason Georgia lost a big game. Bobo hasn't been perfect during his near decade as the Bulldog's offensive coordinator, but he's overseen multiple quarterbacks that went on to the NFL, and has led an offense that has been the program's greatest strength over the past few seasons. Let's pump the brakes a bit before getting aboard the #firebobo train.
Argument 4: The SEC is Overrated
Nope
Argument 1: The Big Ten is awful and that means Michigan State won't make the Playoff
This is a good one to start with, because it shows that many of these arguments have a bit of truth to them. It is quite obvious that the Big Ten is not having a good season, with all but three teams having already lost a non-conference game. Combining those on-field results with general anger from many fan bases paint a pretty bleak picture about the rest of the season for the conference.
In spite of the Big Ten's self-evident terribleness, the second part of that argument doesn't hold water. The general argument I've read is that the lack of potential marquee wins will eliminate Michigan State from contention. While I agree that the Spartans' upcoming schedule doesn't feature much in the way of top opponents, there is more than one way to collect a big win. If Ohio State turns out to be about the 20th best team, would a three touchdown victory by the Spartans be any less impressive than a three point victory over a top-5 Buckeye team? Would it perhaps be more impressive? The current spread between Sagarin's top team (Oregon) and 20th best team (Kansas State) is only 11 points on a neutral field. While the top teams carry an air of invicibility about them, they're really not orders of magnitude better than other teams. If Michigan State can navigate their remaining schedule in dominant fashion, they should have a strong argument for inclusion in the Playoff, regardless of what other pratfalls befall the Big Ten.
The main message of all of this is to not fall victim to the conference fallacy. Michigan State appears to be a step above the rest of their conference, and shouldn't be overly punished for other's down years. It's both cliché and true that they can only play the teams laid out before them. If they play those games in a manner that makes them appear to be a top four team, they should be in the playoff no matter how stained their conference's reputation is.*
*All of this assumes that the Big Ten remains at least at the level of the AAC or higher, which they currently are (scroll down here). If instead you're playing something like Marshall's schedule, then you pretty much need to dominate every snap.
Argument 2: How can Georgia be ranked above South Carolina? Stanford over USC? Human polls are terrible, and shouldn't start until later in the season
One thing you can always count on in college football is people complaining about rankings that don't perfectly correspond to the head-to-head matchups that preceded them. This season is giving us a couple of great examples with some of the marquee matchups from the early weeks. If you paid attention to the polls this week, you may have noticed that the AP has Georgia one spot ahead of South Carolina, and Stanford one spot ahead of USC. This isn't just a human poll phenomena either. If you look at some of the major computer polls, you'll see Georgia and Stanford ranked higher than the teams they lost to in many of them.
While the poll guidelines do say to consider head to head results, I think those generally get overrated when people compare teams. Both UGA-USC and Stanford-USC were three point games that could have easily gone either way (the former was literally decided by a chain link, and the latter was all kinds of crazy). I accept that we can use the final results of these games as tie-breakers; since the season is so short, we really don't have much of a choice but to treat it as small sample theater. That said, for evaluate purposes games between great teams that go down to the wire should generally be thought of as ties. Do we really think that the USC team that gave up almost 500 yards rushing to Boston College is better than the Stanford team that has destroyed its non-USC opponents thus far? Are we completely forgetting week one, when Georgia looked as impressive as anyone, and South Carolina couldn't stop anything? If we're being honest with ourselves and evaluating the whole of what these teams have accomplished, it's hard not to agree with the ordering of these teams in the polls.
The second part of this argument is a little tricker, but even more important than the first. I touched on this a bit in a post from last season, but I thought I would address this particular point a little more right now. Typically, when a highly-ranked team loses early in the season, the chorus of complaints arises: Why was that team so highly ranked? We don't know anything? Why even do rankings early in the season? I agree that our knowledge in the early part of the season isn't perfect, but I would argue that our relative lack of knowledge about teams in September is actually less of an issue than out adherence to ordering teams by number of losses in November. The famed college hoops analyst Ken Pomeroy has studied this in his sport, and found that pre-season polls generally predict post-season success better than late season polls. FiveThirtyEight also uses the pre-season poll in its model for predicting the tournament.
The basic reason why this works is that, when freed from the sometimes misleading small-sample win-loss record, analysts are able to better pick which teams are truly the best. We will probably never be able to fully predict which young offensive line will jell or which freshman QB will end up winning the Heisman, but pre-season predictions still end up doing a decent job of telling us which teams will be good and which will be bad. That our predictions and our models aren't perfect doesn't mean we shouldn't use them*; rather it means we should strive to continue improving what we know, while acknowledging the usefulness and limitations of our current knowledge. In the end, this means that we shouldn't take early season polls overly seriously, but we also shouldn't stop trying to do the best we can.
*If you're going to read just one hyperlink from this post, make it that one. A good summarization of how one should treat current models in pretty much any field.
Argument 3: Why didn't Georgia run the ball with Gurley on first and goal?
Background on this in case you weren't watching: Georgia was down three late in their game against South Carolina. Following a Gamecock interception, they had a first down at the four yard line. The first play was a pass, after which they got called for intentional grounding.
I understand the general idea behind this sentiment. Todd Gurley is awesome, and is most certainly Georgia's best offensive weapon. With three plays to go for the win, it makes sense to spend at least one of them letting Gurley try to make something happen. That said, I think this complaint is a bit silly for a few reasons:
It smells of post-hoc fallacy - Quite simply, It seems like fans are only angry because this didn't work out. Earlier in the game, Georgia had trusted goal line plays to both their QB Hutson Mason and to their seldom-used fullback, and both resulted in touchdowns. Had the late-game play worked as well, we would have heard nothing of this.
Georgia rushed and passed about equally well - If we credit sack yardage to the pass game (this is one of the few areas in which I prefer the NFL, as they actually do this), then we get the following numbers for Georgia: 34 rushes for 222 yards, 26 passes for 186 yards. While I don't have anything more advanced available at the moment (success rate would come in handy here), taking the simple averages shows that the two methods of collecting yardage were roughly equivalent. Todd Gurley has a lot of hype, and we remember all of the times he's come up with amazing plays, but he isn't perfect, and the Georgia pass game seems to be coming along well enough to trust it in important situations.
Play calling is about game theory - This is probably the most important counter-argument. Here's what the Head Ball Coach had to say about it:
Spurrier: Were you surprised Georgia didn't go to Gurley on first-and-goal from the 4? "I think we all were."
— David Cloninger (@DCTheState) September 14, 2014
The field of game theory is a complicated area, but the basic practical implication is this: In order to attain the best long-term outcome, you often need to make a sub-optimal decision in the short-term. Even if we make the concession that running the ball is the best option for the Georgia offense, that doesn't mean they should run the ball every play. Because of this, it's tough to judge play-calling on individual plays, except in certain circumstances (if a coach calls a boneheaded play on say 4th and 1, feel free to call for his firing all you want). Rather, one needs to take a more overarching view to truly judge the quality of play calling. Per my count from the last section, Georgia ran the ball about 60% of the time against the Gamecocks, which most would probably agree is a good balance given their relative abilities.
In the end, you can still question Georgia's late game play calling all you want. I'm just not convinced there was an easy right or wrong answer in that situation. What I find really silly is that this line of thinking has seemingly put the blame on Mike Bobo, when the Bulldog defense was once again the main reason Georgia lost a big game. Bobo hasn't been perfect during his near decade as the Bulldog's offensive coordinator, but he's overseen multiple quarterbacks that went on to the NFL, and has led an offense that has been the program's greatest strength over the past few seasons. Let's pump the brakes a bit before getting aboard the #firebobo train.
Argument 4: The SEC is Overrated
Nope
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
College Football Preview 2014
College football starts tomorrow. That's pretty cool. Last year, I wrote a long piece with capsules for each top 25 team. I'll try to limit myself a bit more this year, partially because I'll never be able to top a certain someone, and partially because I agree more with the consensus rankings that I normally do (more on that later).
THE PLAYOFF
The most notable thing about the 2014 season is that it's the first ever four-team playoff to determine the champion. The four team playoff is a perfect idea for it's place and time: It satiates the playoff-hungry crowd while not being too far of a departure from the past. I'm not sure if the size of the playoff is optimal in the long run (although I like it a lot), but it solves the main issue of the BCS - it could only take two teams, when three or four often had great arguments to be champions.
All that said, my love of the playoff isn't without doubts. My main concern is over the thought process the selection committee will use, which shouldn't be a surprise given my occasional dislike of the basketball committee. My main worry is that the "deserver" argument will come into play. I've often crusaded against "deserver-ism" in college sports analysis - that is, the idea that a team that wins all its games or wins its conference automatically deserves its lofty spot in the postseason (Obviously, most teams that go 12-0 and 13-0 should be right in the thick of the discussion for playoff berths, but I think we lose a lot by reducing the complexity of reality into simple heuristics). Luckily, it seems like the committee gets it:
Now, one tweet doesn't mean everything is peachy, but this is a promising first step. As a fan that watches an ungodly amount of college football and follows the analytical side of the sport closely, I would feel a bit put off if the people paid just to watch football and then talk about took the easy way out. If an 11-2 SEC runner up like Georgia has been more impressive than an 11-1 Oklahoma team that survived multiple close wins, I'd like the committee to acknowledge it. It's foolish to think that there will be a non-controversial answer to who the best four teams are every season, but I'd like to think we can at least eliminate some of the worst choices the committee could make. Both this statement from Oliver Luck, and the smarter approach to data* make it seem like this playoff idea might just work.
*Smarter than college basketball which uses the dumb RPI, and smarter than the BCS which stripped out margin of victory from the computers.
STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE
In spite of my optimism in the previous section, I still have a couple of worries about the playoff. The biggest one concerns the committee's emphasis on strength on schedule. Obviously, you need to evaluate the quality of competition when determining just how good a team is. That said, I worry that the committee may take the easy way out, and reject teams with bad schedule strengths outright without evaluating the teams more completely. I don't think a juggernaut like last year's Florida State team (Sagarin SOS of 62) is going to be in any trouble, but I do worry about the more marginal cases like the TCUs and Boise States of yesteryear, that would have had very strong arguments to be included in the top four. Specifically, my worries boil down to two main areas:
1. Measuring Strength of Schedule is Imperfect
This article came to my attention recently. It's conclusion is interesting, and the methodology appears to be solid, but there's one pretty big problem with it:
If you scroll all the way to the bottom, you'll see that they use the NCAA's terrible no-good strength of schedule calculation* (which is also used in basketball, as part of the RPI). Much like the RPI, it generally gets you in the neighborhood of the truth, but can pretty easily be wrong and even manipulated by savvy (read: rich) programs. Also much like the RPI, it's likely to be used by the committee (which is why I can't really get angry at the author of the article....they're just using the metric that is likely to be used).
* I didn't even mention he worst part about it, which is the lack of a home/road designation.
The general impression one gets from seeing strength of schedule plastered on ESPN is that it is one number that perfectly reflects true difficulty. In reality, there's no one perfect way to measure strength of schedule. A schedule that a top team finds difficult, may be advantageous for a more middling program, and vice versa. For example, Florida State's schedule in 2013 featured no top-notch opponents, save Clemson. As a result it was quite easy for Florida State as they marched towards a national title. On the other hand, a middle of the pack team might not have liked to play a bunch of average teams, preferring instead to play a couple strong teams and bunch of bottom feeders. This shows that there is inherently no perfect way to calculate SOS since different teams are looking for different things.
In the end, I really like the SOS that Fremeau uses in his metric, FEI. There, he looks at how likely it is that a top five team would go 12-0 with that schedule. Given that we most often care about the best teams when we are talking about strength of schedule, this makes sense for most practical purposes. I just hope that the committee is able to discern the same complexity in such a seemingly simple matter.
2. You Really Can't Control Your Strength of Schedule
The first argument is more of a tactical issue, while this argument is more of a big picture argument. Consider first how a schedule is made. Depending on which conference you are in, eight or nine of your games are determine by the league office. If your division is in a down year (2013 Florida State) or your cross-conference games are terrible (2013 Alabama), this is going to start you off on the wrong foot. As for non-conference games, these are often determined years out, with as much as a fifteen-year gap separating the announcement of a game and the playing of it. For example, when Ohio State scheduled Cal, they were one of the hottest programs in the nation coming off of legendary battles with USC and a national ranking as high as #2. Then when they played the last couple of seasons, Ohio State got beat up for having a terrible schedule. Of course, Ohio State is the lucky one in this situation - a lot of times those games don't even get played because one partner backs out (Oregon-Kansas State, FSU-West Virginia, Alabama-Michigan State, etc...). In the end all you can do is try your best to get into a strong conference and schedule good games, and maybe you'll get a good strength of schedule.
Even more, the struggle for power-five teams is nothing when compared with that of the other half of the FCS. In order to overcome a weak in-conference schedule just to get a decent overall SOS, you need to schedule multiple games against big-name teams, which often puts you at the mercy of those teams. Even if you do luck out and find a couple top teams that are willing to play you, small conference teams generally have to play neutral site games, one-off road games, or trade two games for one home game. We can dismiss small conference teams for their SOS all we want, but all those teams can do is play the schedule laid out in front of them.
MY TEAMS
I would feel remiss if I didn't talk about my teams for a minute, even though I am less than enthused about the seasons to come, for reasons that will soon be obvious. As you have probably heard, Notre Dame will likely suspend four players for cheating. I am obviously disappointed in the players, not only because it will hurt the team, but because I expect better out of ND athletes (and having gone there, I know they get a lot of advantages like scheduling priority and free tutoring that should make things a little easier on them). That said, I'm pretty happy with the way the University has handled it, getting out in front of the scandal, and giving every indication that they will punish any offenders appropriately. The academic prestige of Notre Dame doesn't dictate that every student will behave perfectly all the time. Rather it says that there is a high expectation of integrity, and any deviations from that will be dealt with swiftly and harshly. Overall, I think this episode has gone as well as it could have.
Of course, not everyone agrees with me on that last point. Most notably, Stewart Mandel (now of Fox Sports) wrote a fairly scathing column that I would rather not link to. Mandel's main idea in the column is that one of Notre Dame's main selling points to recruits is the academic prestige, and now that it's tarnished by this scandal, he doesn't see what Notre Dame has left to set it apart. This argument doesn't make too much sense, as the actions of four players obviously doesn't change anything about a top twenty university that turns out a couple thousand undergraduates every year. In fact, I think the University's response to the scandal only reaffirms this - by being proactive and firm in their handling of the matter, they are indicating that the school's academic prestige is more important than winning games. Mandel is normally a good writer, so I will forgive him for this one #hotsportstake, much as he should think of Notre Dame as the same after this one isolated incident.
As for Nebraska, they also had their own personnel losses above and beyond graduation, although the players involved aren't quite as critical as those that Notre Dame lost. As much as I've come to love Bo Pelini embracing the weirder side of his personality, I have a feeling that this season might be the end of the road for him. Prior to the injuries, Nebraska was already just 41st in Football Outsiders' preseason projections, so there's a real chance of this being the worst unit under his watch. The schedule is certainly favorable enough for even a mediocre team to win a superficially nice 8 or 9 games (57% chance of 8+ wins), but much like Solich's final 9-3 season (that was actually pretty ugly), I am hoping the administration can see through an inflated record if the team truly does fail to improve.
OVERRATED AND UNDERRATED
While I said that I mostly liked the mainstream preseason rankings at the top of the article, I don't think they are perfect. It would be weird if I did think that, mainly because this guy is one of the voters, and I'm guessing he's far too concerned with golf and free refills to do the necessary research:
In my humble opinion, here are the biggest misses from the inaugural Amway Coaches Poll:
#3 Oklahoma - Overrated
Every year a team wins a big bowl game unexpectedly, and then gets overrated the next year. You think we would have learned from the West Virginias of yesteryear, but voters pretty much never do. Oklahoma will almost certainly be quite good this year, but #3 seems extreme for a team that didn't show much offensive spark until the bowl game. The defense is bound to improve after an injury-riddled season, but the month of August has already seen 2013's leading tackler Frank Shannon and RB Joe Mixon get suspended for the year. In spite of a string of good but not great seasons, Oklahoma still has a nice depth of talent, but the margin for error is a little higher than with other top teams, which makes #3 just a bit too high for me.
#7 UCLA - Overrated
On average, roughly one team per year that starts in the top ten will finish unranked. Last year, it was Florida, who endured a heap of injuries, terrible offensive philosophy*, and some bad luck. While I don't think that will happen to UCLA, I do think they are the most likely of the top ten to take a tumble. A #16 rating and a tough schedule conspire to give UCLA a greater than 50% chance of losing four or more games, according to Football Outsiders. Jim Mora Jr. is doing a much, much better job than I thought he would do with the Bruins, but the depth of talent isn't quite there yet to support a run at the title.**
*Sorry, had to link to it
** Speaking of offensive philosophies, I hate watching the Bruins. In spite of some great skill-position talent, UCLA ranked just 69th in IsoPPP+ (the measure for explosiveness) last year. Noel Mazzone is going to have to open up his offense a bit if he wants to match the lofty expectations set for his team.
#9 South Carolina - Underrated
Jadeveon Clowney is gone. As is Connor Shaw. As is Bruce Ellington. Those are all pretty big pieces of a team that went 12-2 on their way to being perhaps the best team in school history. The reason I think that the Gamecocks are underrated is that literally almost everyone else returns. Add in a couple of top twenty recruiting classes from the past couple years, and we have ourselves one of the most loaded rosters in the game. In fact, I can't think of a team that I hold in higher esteem after the somewhat obvious top three (FSU, Bama, and Oregon). I agree with Coach Spurrier that this team will be quite decent.
#14 Wisconsin - Overrated
While Wisconsin has a reasonably easy path to 10 or 11 wins, I'm not sure if this will be as good of a Wisconsin team as we are used to. The transition from Bielema to Anderson hurt recruiting a bit, and the Badgers lose about every important player on the defensive side. While I'm a little excited about starting the versatile Tanner McEvoy over the so-so Joel Stave, that's not quite enough to convince me that this will be a top 15 team.
#16 Clemson - Underrated
Much like their in-state rivals, the Tigers lose a few studs from last year's great team. Much like their in-state rivals, they don't lose much else, and have been recruiting at a high level for long enough to have stockpiled enough talent to overcome those losses. Yes, Sammy Watkins is a rare talent and Tajh Boyd was a steady hand, but a loaded defense and some intriguing skill position prospects make for a team with a much higher ceiling than #16. Yes, Clemson may lose one or both of their early road games to Georgia and FSU (who wouldn't?), but once the dust settles, we'll probably be looking at a fourth straight major bowl appearance for Dabo Swinney, which is something that probably would have sounded ridiculous five years ago.
#22 Nebraska - Overrated
I already wrote about the Huskers above, so I'll go with a different angle here. A recent preview article on Fox Sports featured both authors going against the grain, and picking Nebraska to win their division. The problem with this is, even if you think Nebraska is going to be a little better than Wisconsin, that's still not enough to pick them to win the division, mostly due to the Badgers' easy schedule. Not only does Nebraska have to travel to Madison, but they also have an incredibly difficuly cross-division game at Michigan State, while Wisconsin gets to host a mediocre-at-best Maryland team (both teams play Rutgers....poor Rutgers). If Nebraska is to win the division, they'll have to both play to the best of their abilities, and catch a lot of luck. I'm guessing that both of those things won't happen, and we'll be seeing the Badgers (or maybe Iowa, with an even easier schedule) playing in Indianapolis.
Unranked Missouri, Oklahoma State, Florida - Underrated
These teams fall into the two classic categories of underrated teams. On one side we have Florida, whose 4-8 season was as much the result of bad luck and injuries as it was poor play. With Jeff Driskel back, the offense should at least be decent enough to support another great defense, led by stud CB Vernon Hargreaves. I don't expect Florida to soar to the heights of their 2012 season, but one bad season shouldn't completely derail a top program still loaded with talent.
On the other side, we have Missouri and Oklahoma State, who were good enough to be paired together in last year's Cotton Bowl. However, these teams lose about as much playing time as anyone in the nation, and neither program gets the benefit of the doubt that a traditional power gets. While I agree with the first part, I think the problem is the second part. Sure, Missouri and Oklahoma State aren't yet able to reload like Alabama, but there's been enough solid recruiting and just enough returning experience to expect these teams to play like top 25 outfits.
UNDER THE RADAR STORYLINES
We all know Florida State and Alabama are going to be awesome. We know the PAC-12 will featue a couple of great divisional races. We know the Ohio State-Michigan State game is one of the most anticipated Big Ten contests in almost a decade. I don't want to spend time rehashing all of that, so I'm going to dig a bit to find some of the angles to this season that interest me the most. This section is where I get to talk about things that don't really fit anywhere else.
The Most Explosive Offense
Which team do you think had the most explosive offense last year? Don't scroll down and spoil this, because you'll enjoy this one. Most people would probably guess Florida State or Oregon or Baylor. Maybe you think it's someone from a smaller conference, like Fresno State. These would all be good guesses, but as you've probably surmised, they would all be wrong.
Rather, the nation's most explosive offense (by IsoPPP+, which adjusts for opponents) belonged to Kevin Wilson and his drastically improved Indiana offense. The team as a whole may not have defended well enough or been efficient enough on offense to make a bowl, but boy, were they able to deliver the big plays. While some receiving talent is gone (most notably Cody Latimer), the Hoosiers return both quarterbacks as well as the most explosive running back in the nation, Tevin Coleman. Add in an offensive line that literally returns everyone and improved overall recruiting (42nd the past two years), and Indiana has a chance to have its best team in my lifetime. The schedule is tricky (all six road games are against bowl teams, with Rutgers being the only easy game), but Indiana has the talent in place to be one of the most exciting teams in the nation.
Utah's Difficult Road
One task I enjoy at the end of each season is figuring out the best sub-.500 team in the nation. Some years it's easy, and others it is not. Furthermore, as non-conference schedules have grown more and more easy, it's tougher to find a truly good team with seven or more losses. That said, a combination of an amazingly good Pac-12, bad luck in close games, and brutal injuries led the Utes to be a clear "winner" of the prize in 2013.
It's obvious that last year's Utah squad wasn't as good as the two that won BCS bowls, but with a final F/+ ranking of 31st, the program seems to be getting back on track. Tight losses to UCLA and Oregon State, and then the injury to Travis Wilson in the back half of the season conspired to keep the Utes home for the holidays. I would say there's reason for hope (especially since Wilson's career won't be ended by his injuries), but Utah adds non-conference games against Fresno State and Michigan to a loaded Pac-12 slate that includes cross-division games against Oregon and Stanford. While the team may still be solid this year, I'm not sure the win total will show it.
My Personal Favorite Division Race
The SEC West is (rightfully so) the most lauded division in the nation, boasting six top-30 caliber teams. Both of the Pac-12's divisions should be fun races. The East Big Ten division is even a nice one this year, with a few potentially plucky teams rounding out the much stronger side of the conference. All that said, my favorite divisional race of the year comes in the SEC East. There's a bit of a preconception that South Carolina and Georgia's early game will decide everything. This may be true, but Missouri is still a strong contender, especially since they get a relatively easy home game against Arkansas to finish off the season. Florida is less of a contender (3% divisional odds, per Football Outsiders) mostly due to cross-conference games against LSU and Alabama, but they should at least get to play spoiler as they play all three Eastern contenders within the boundaries of Florida. To top it off, the relative ease of this division, as opposed to the West, should allow the winner to be a main contender for a playoff spot, which adds to the intrigue of each big game.
GAMES TO WATCH
It's pretty easy to look over the schedule and find the biggest games. Instead, I like to find some that interest me regardless of how hyped the teams are. Some of these games will host Gameday, while others will be played on CBS Sports Network. The one thing they have in common is that you should watch all of them.
USC at Stanford - September 6
With the Pac-12 as good as it has ever been, there are a billion great games to choose from. That said, I like the first one the best, mainly because it is the most pivotal game of the first two weeks. Stanford road schedule includes Oregon, UCLA, Washington, Arizona State, and Notre Dame. Given that they'll probably drop one or two of those even if they're a true top five team, they need to seal up the win at home. Meanwhile, USC is getting majorly overshadowed by their divisional foes, and could use a win over the Cardinal for the second straight year to signal their resurgence from the murky depths of the Kiffin era. Given that this series has had some amazing games recently*, I see no reason why this one would be any different.
*In case you forgot:
2007 - Stanford beats #2 USC as 41 point underdogs in perhaps the craziest upset of the craziest season in memory
2008 - USC gets revenge, winning by three touchdowns
2009 - Stanford throttles #11 USC 55-21, prompting a fun exchange between Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh after the game
2010 - The teams trade leads three times in the last 10 minutes, as Stanford wins 37-35
2011 - Andrew Luck leads #4 Stanford over USC in three overtimes
2012 - #21 Stanford beats #2 USC early in the season to start their march to the Pac-12 title
2013 - USC upsets #5 Stanford
Auburn at Kansas State - September 18
Gus Malzahn. Bill Snyder. A rocking Manhattan crowd on a Thursday night. If that's not enough for you to watch, then you're reading the wrong blog.
Alabama at Ole Miss - October 4
Although I don't think they're quite ready to topple the toughest division in the game, I still like Ole Miss a lot this season (QB experience in a league with almost none helps). I especially like them at home in what just might be College Gameday's first ever experience with The Grove. Given that both teams have relatively easy September schedules, I expect this to be a raucous matchup of unbeaten teams. The memory of 2010 Bama-South Carolina keeps screaming in my head when I think of this game....we'll see if Ole Miss is able to pull a similar upset.
Michigan State at Indiana - October 18
I said earlier that I liked Indiana a lot, so let's put their biggest test of the season on this list. While their overall schedule is somewhat difficult, they do get this game at home, so that should give them a fighting chance against the highly ranked Spartans. I already mentioned that Indiana's offense was tops in explosiveness last year. What I haven't yet mentioned was that the Spartans D was tops in efficiency, ranking number one in adjusted success rate (which means that I am also geeked about seeing what the Spartans D can do as an encore). This clash of styles produced a competitive 42-28 Spartan win last year. I'm excited to see what happens on Indiana's home turf with another year of experience in Indiana's suddenly awesome offense.
Rice at Marshall - November 15
First things first: 2014 Marshall is not 2010 Boise State or 2011 TCU. This is not a team that can legitimately ascend into the top five. All that said, one non-power conference team is guaranteed a spot in one of the major bowls, and Marshall has as good of a chance as anyone of making that happen. Furthermore, their biggest challenger for the conference crown visits them in Huntington, which speaks more to their incredibly weak schedule that it does to Rice's football prowess. Still, Rakeem Cato vs. the Owls' unique attack should be a doozy.
South Carolina at Clemson - November 29
While the actual contests haven't been particularly exciting the last couple of years, this game has still grown into one of the most important rivalries of rivalry weekend. Given that both teams have legitimate playoff expectations this year, we could be looking at a virtual play-in game at this point of the season. I'm mostly excited to see how Vic Beasley and the best defensive line in the nation match up against the Gamecock power rushing attack featuring Mike Davis.
PREDICITONS
Since my dad asked for it, let's end with a prediction of who will make the playoff. Why not?
1. Florida State
2. Alabama
3. Oregon
4. Clemson
The first three are easy. Florida State is amazing and has a schedule that has enough heft to be taken seriously (meaning they can take a loss and still make it). Alabama is amazing, and has a schedule that they can survive (outside of the SEC West opponents, the only real tests are Florida, Tennessee, and West Virginia). I am not sold on Oregon being head and shoulders above the rest of the Pac-12, but I still like them more than anyone else, and they have a few more home games against top opponents than Stanford, which should swing the balance.
Finally, I decided to go with Clemson, with the hopes that they take care of their two big non-conference tests in Georgia and South Carolina. There wasn't a second SEC team I loved (South Carolina and Auburn are awesome, but the former draws Auburn and A&M from the West in addition to the trip to Clemson, and the latter's road schedule is somehow even harder than Stanford's), and I don't like anyone from the Big 10 or 12 enough to put them above Clemson (Michigan State is close, but it's going to be way too easy for them to lose two games, with a 77% chance of losing two or more according to Football Outsiders). Since there is at least one person who likes Clemson even more than me, I don't feel too crazy for this pick.
THE PLAYOFF
The most notable thing about the 2014 season is that it's the first ever four-team playoff to determine the champion. The four team playoff is a perfect idea for it's place and time: It satiates the playoff-hungry crowd while not being too far of a departure from the past. I'm not sure if the size of the playoff is optimal in the long run (although I like it a lot), but it solves the main issue of the BCS - it could only take two teams, when three or four often had great arguments to be champions.
All that said, my love of the playoff isn't without doubts. My main concern is over the thought process the selection committee will use, which shouldn't be a surprise given my occasional dislike of the basketball committee. My main worry is that the "deserver" argument will come into play. I've often crusaded against "deserver-ism" in college sports analysis - that is, the idea that a team that wins all its games or wins its conference automatically deserves its lofty spot in the postseason (Obviously, most teams that go 12-0 and 13-0 should be right in the thick of the discussion for playoff berths, but I think we lose a lot by reducing the complexity of reality into simple heuristics). Luckily, it seems like the committee gets it:
Oliver Luck tells @TimBrando the CFP committee is using "best" and "shying away from using 'most deserving'" when picking the top 4
— Patrick Netherton (@PTNetherton) July 29, 2014
Now, one tweet doesn't mean everything is peachy, but this is a promising first step. As a fan that watches an ungodly amount of college football and follows the analytical side of the sport closely, I would feel a bit put off if the people paid just to watch football and then talk about took the easy way out. If an 11-2 SEC runner up like Georgia has been more impressive than an 11-1 Oklahoma team that survived multiple close wins, I'd like the committee to acknowledge it. It's foolish to think that there will be a non-controversial answer to who the best four teams are every season, but I'd like to think we can at least eliminate some of the worst choices the committee could make. Both this statement from Oliver Luck, and the smarter approach to data* make it seem like this playoff idea might just work.
*Smarter than college basketball which uses the dumb RPI, and smarter than the BCS which stripped out margin of victory from the computers.
STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE
In spite of my optimism in the previous section, I still have a couple of worries about the playoff. The biggest one concerns the committee's emphasis on strength on schedule. Obviously, you need to evaluate the quality of competition when determining just how good a team is. That said, I worry that the committee may take the easy way out, and reject teams with bad schedule strengths outright without evaluating the teams more completely. I don't think a juggernaut like last year's Florida State team (Sagarin SOS of 62) is going to be in any trouble, but I do worry about the more marginal cases like the TCUs and Boise States of yesteryear, that would have had very strong arguments to be included in the top four. Specifically, my worries boil down to two main areas:
1. Measuring Strength of Schedule is Imperfect
This article came to my attention recently. It's conclusion is interesting, and the methodology appears to be solid, but there's one pretty big problem with it:
If you scroll all the way to the bottom, you'll see that they use the NCAA's terrible no-good strength of schedule calculation* (which is also used in basketball, as part of the RPI). Much like the RPI, it generally gets you in the neighborhood of the truth, but can pretty easily be wrong and even manipulated by savvy (read: rich) programs. Also much like the RPI, it's likely to be used by the committee (which is why I can't really get angry at the author of the article....they're just using the metric that is likely to be used).
* I didn't even mention he worst part about it, which is the lack of a home/road designation.
The general impression one gets from seeing strength of schedule plastered on ESPN is that it is one number that perfectly reflects true difficulty. In reality, there's no one perfect way to measure strength of schedule. A schedule that a top team finds difficult, may be advantageous for a more middling program, and vice versa. For example, Florida State's schedule in 2013 featured no top-notch opponents, save Clemson. As a result it was quite easy for Florida State as they marched towards a national title. On the other hand, a middle of the pack team might not have liked to play a bunch of average teams, preferring instead to play a couple strong teams and bunch of bottom feeders. This shows that there is inherently no perfect way to calculate SOS since different teams are looking for different things.
In the end, I really like the SOS that Fremeau uses in his metric, FEI. There, he looks at how likely it is that a top five team would go 12-0 with that schedule. Given that we most often care about the best teams when we are talking about strength of schedule, this makes sense for most practical purposes. I just hope that the committee is able to discern the same complexity in such a seemingly simple matter.
2. You Really Can't Control Your Strength of Schedule
The first argument is more of a tactical issue, while this argument is more of a big picture argument. Consider first how a schedule is made. Depending on which conference you are in, eight or nine of your games are determine by the league office. If your division is in a down year (2013 Florida State) or your cross-conference games are terrible (2013 Alabama), this is going to start you off on the wrong foot. As for non-conference games, these are often determined years out, with as much as a fifteen-year gap separating the announcement of a game and the playing of it. For example, when Ohio State scheduled Cal, they were one of the hottest programs in the nation coming off of legendary battles with USC and a national ranking as high as #2. Then when they played the last couple of seasons, Ohio State got beat up for having a terrible schedule. Of course, Ohio State is the lucky one in this situation - a lot of times those games don't even get played because one partner backs out (Oregon-Kansas State, FSU-West Virginia, Alabama-Michigan State, etc...). In the end all you can do is try your best to get into a strong conference and schedule good games, and maybe you'll get a good strength of schedule.
Even more, the struggle for power-five teams is nothing when compared with that of the other half of the FCS. In order to overcome a weak in-conference schedule just to get a decent overall SOS, you need to schedule multiple games against big-name teams, which often puts you at the mercy of those teams. Even if you do luck out and find a couple top teams that are willing to play you, small conference teams generally have to play neutral site games, one-off road games, or trade two games for one home game. We can dismiss small conference teams for their SOS all we want, but all those teams can do is play the schedule laid out in front of them.
MY TEAMS
I would feel remiss if I didn't talk about my teams for a minute, even though I am less than enthused about the seasons to come, for reasons that will soon be obvious. As you have probably heard, Notre Dame will likely suspend four players for cheating. I am obviously disappointed in the players, not only because it will hurt the team, but because I expect better out of ND athletes (and having gone there, I know they get a lot of advantages like scheduling priority and free tutoring that should make things a little easier on them). That said, I'm pretty happy with the way the University has handled it, getting out in front of the scandal, and giving every indication that they will punish any offenders appropriately. The academic prestige of Notre Dame doesn't dictate that every student will behave perfectly all the time. Rather it says that there is a high expectation of integrity, and any deviations from that will be dealt with swiftly and harshly. Overall, I think this episode has gone as well as it could have.
Of course, not everyone agrees with me on that last point. Most notably, Stewart Mandel (now of Fox Sports) wrote a fairly scathing column that I would rather not link to. Mandel's main idea in the column is that one of Notre Dame's main selling points to recruits is the academic prestige, and now that it's tarnished by this scandal, he doesn't see what Notre Dame has left to set it apart. This argument doesn't make too much sense, as the actions of four players obviously doesn't change anything about a top twenty university that turns out a couple thousand undergraduates every year. In fact, I think the University's response to the scandal only reaffirms this - by being proactive and firm in their handling of the matter, they are indicating that the school's academic prestige is more important than winning games. Mandel is normally a good writer, so I will forgive him for this one #hotsportstake, much as he should think of Notre Dame as the same after this one isolated incident.
As for Nebraska, they also had their own personnel losses above and beyond graduation, although the players involved aren't quite as critical as those that Notre Dame lost. As much as I've come to love Bo Pelini embracing the weirder side of his personality, I have a feeling that this season might be the end of the road for him. Prior to the injuries, Nebraska was already just 41st in Football Outsiders' preseason projections, so there's a real chance of this being the worst unit under his watch. The schedule is certainly favorable enough for even a mediocre team to win a superficially nice 8 or 9 games (57% chance of 8+ wins), but much like Solich's final 9-3 season (that was actually pretty ugly), I am hoping the administration can see through an inflated record if the team truly does fail to improve.
OVERRATED AND UNDERRATED
While I said that I mostly liked the mainstream preseason rankings at the top of the article, I don't think they are perfect. It would be weird if I did think that, mainly because this guy is one of the voters, and I'm guessing he's far too concerned with golf and free refills to do the necessary research:
In my humble opinion, here are the biggest misses from the inaugural Amway Coaches Poll:
#3 Oklahoma - Overrated
Every year a team wins a big bowl game unexpectedly, and then gets overrated the next year. You think we would have learned from the West Virginias of yesteryear, but voters pretty much never do. Oklahoma will almost certainly be quite good this year, but #3 seems extreme for a team that didn't show much offensive spark until the bowl game. The defense is bound to improve after an injury-riddled season, but the month of August has already seen 2013's leading tackler Frank Shannon and RB Joe Mixon get suspended for the year. In spite of a string of good but not great seasons, Oklahoma still has a nice depth of talent, but the margin for error is a little higher than with other top teams, which makes #3 just a bit too high for me.
#7 UCLA - Overrated
On average, roughly one team per year that starts in the top ten will finish unranked. Last year, it was Florida, who endured a heap of injuries, terrible offensive philosophy*, and some bad luck. While I don't think that will happen to UCLA, I do think they are the most likely of the top ten to take a tumble. A #16 rating and a tough schedule conspire to give UCLA a greater than 50% chance of losing four or more games, according to Football Outsiders. Jim Mora Jr. is doing a much, much better job than I thought he would do with the Bruins, but the depth of talent isn't quite there yet to support a run at the title.**
*Sorry, had to link to it
** Speaking of offensive philosophies, I hate watching the Bruins. In spite of some great skill-position talent, UCLA ranked just 69th in IsoPPP+ (the measure for explosiveness) last year. Noel Mazzone is going to have to open up his offense a bit if he wants to match the lofty expectations set for his team.
#9 South Carolina - Underrated
Jadeveon Clowney is gone. As is Connor Shaw. As is Bruce Ellington. Those are all pretty big pieces of a team that went 12-2 on their way to being perhaps the best team in school history. The reason I think that the Gamecocks are underrated is that literally almost everyone else returns. Add in a couple of top twenty recruiting classes from the past couple years, and we have ourselves one of the most loaded rosters in the game. In fact, I can't think of a team that I hold in higher esteem after the somewhat obvious top three (FSU, Bama, and Oregon). I agree with Coach Spurrier that this team will be quite decent.
#14 Wisconsin - Overrated
While Wisconsin has a reasonably easy path to 10 or 11 wins, I'm not sure if this will be as good of a Wisconsin team as we are used to. The transition from Bielema to Anderson hurt recruiting a bit, and the Badgers lose about every important player on the defensive side. While I'm a little excited about starting the versatile Tanner McEvoy over the so-so Joel Stave, that's not quite enough to convince me that this will be a top 15 team.
#16 Clemson - Underrated
Much like their in-state rivals, the Tigers lose a few studs from last year's great team. Much like their in-state rivals, they don't lose much else, and have been recruiting at a high level for long enough to have stockpiled enough talent to overcome those losses. Yes, Sammy Watkins is a rare talent and Tajh Boyd was a steady hand, but a loaded defense and some intriguing skill position prospects make for a team with a much higher ceiling than #16. Yes, Clemson may lose one or both of their early road games to Georgia and FSU (who wouldn't?), but once the dust settles, we'll probably be looking at a fourth straight major bowl appearance for Dabo Swinney, which is something that probably would have sounded ridiculous five years ago.
#22 Nebraska - Overrated
I already wrote about the Huskers above, so I'll go with a different angle here. A recent preview article on Fox Sports featured both authors going against the grain, and picking Nebraska to win their division. The problem with this is, even if you think Nebraska is going to be a little better than Wisconsin, that's still not enough to pick them to win the division, mostly due to the Badgers' easy schedule. Not only does Nebraska have to travel to Madison, but they also have an incredibly difficuly cross-division game at Michigan State, while Wisconsin gets to host a mediocre-at-best Maryland team (both teams play Rutgers....poor Rutgers). If Nebraska is to win the division, they'll have to both play to the best of their abilities, and catch a lot of luck. I'm guessing that both of those things won't happen, and we'll be seeing the Badgers (or maybe Iowa, with an even easier schedule) playing in Indianapolis.
Unranked Missouri, Oklahoma State, Florida - Underrated
These teams fall into the two classic categories of underrated teams. On one side we have Florida, whose 4-8 season was as much the result of bad luck and injuries as it was poor play. With Jeff Driskel back, the offense should at least be decent enough to support another great defense, led by stud CB Vernon Hargreaves. I don't expect Florida to soar to the heights of their 2012 season, but one bad season shouldn't completely derail a top program still loaded with talent.
On the other side, we have Missouri and Oklahoma State, who were good enough to be paired together in last year's Cotton Bowl. However, these teams lose about as much playing time as anyone in the nation, and neither program gets the benefit of the doubt that a traditional power gets. While I agree with the first part, I think the problem is the second part. Sure, Missouri and Oklahoma State aren't yet able to reload like Alabama, but there's been enough solid recruiting and just enough returning experience to expect these teams to play like top 25 outfits.
UNDER THE RADAR STORYLINES
We all know Florida State and Alabama are going to be awesome. We know the PAC-12 will featue a couple of great divisional races. We know the Ohio State-Michigan State game is one of the most anticipated Big Ten contests in almost a decade. I don't want to spend time rehashing all of that, so I'm going to dig a bit to find some of the angles to this season that interest me the most. This section is where I get to talk about things that don't really fit anywhere else.
The Most Explosive Offense
Which team do you think had the most explosive offense last year? Don't scroll down and spoil this, because you'll enjoy this one. Most people would probably guess Florida State or Oregon or Baylor. Maybe you think it's someone from a smaller conference, like Fresno State. These would all be good guesses, but as you've probably surmised, they would all be wrong.
Rather, the nation's most explosive offense (by IsoPPP+, which adjusts for opponents) belonged to Kevin Wilson and his drastically improved Indiana offense. The team as a whole may not have defended well enough or been efficient enough on offense to make a bowl, but boy, were they able to deliver the big plays. While some receiving talent is gone (most notably Cody Latimer), the Hoosiers return both quarterbacks as well as the most explosive running back in the nation, Tevin Coleman. Add in an offensive line that literally returns everyone and improved overall recruiting (42nd the past two years), and Indiana has a chance to have its best team in my lifetime. The schedule is tricky (all six road games are against bowl teams, with Rutgers being the only easy game), but Indiana has the talent in place to be one of the most exciting teams in the nation.
Utah's Difficult Road
One task I enjoy at the end of each season is figuring out the best sub-.500 team in the nation. Some years it's easy, and others it is not. Furthermore, as non-conference schedules have grown more and more easy, it's tougher to find a truly good team with seven or more losses. That said, a combination of an amazingly good Pac-12, bad luck in close games, and brutal injuries led the Utes to be a clear "winner" of the prize in 2013.
It's obvious that last year's Utah squad wasn't as good as the two that won BCS bowls, but with a final F/+ ranking of 31st, the program seems to be getting back on track. Tight losses to UCLA and Oregon State, and then the injury to Travis Wilson in the back half of the season conspired to keep the Utes home for the holidays. I would say there's reason for hope (especially since Wilson's career won't be ended by his injuries), but Utah adds non-conference games against Fresno State and Michigan to a loaded Pac-12 slate that includes cross-division games against Oregon and Stanford. While the team may still be solid this year, I'm not sure the win total will show it.
My Personal Favorite Division Race
The SEC West is (rightfully so) the most lauded division in the nation, boasting six top-30 caliber teams. Both of the Pac-12's divisions should be fun races. The East Big Ten division is even a nice one this year, with a few potentially plucky teams rounding out the much stronger side of the conference. All that said, my favorite divisional race of the year comes in the SEC East. There's a bit of a preconception that South Carolina and Georgia's early game will decide everything. This may be true, but Missouri is still a strong contender, especially since they get a relatively easy home game against Arkansas to finish off the season. Florida is less of a contender (3% divisional odds, per Football Outsiders) mostly due to cross-conference games against LSU and Alabama, but they should at least get to play spoiler as they play all three Eastern contenders within the boundaries of Florida. To top it off, the relative ease of this division, as opposed to the West, should allow the winner to be a main contender for a playoff spot, which adds to the intrigue of each big game.
GAMES TO WATCH
It's pretty easy to look over the schedule and find the biggest games. Instead, I like to find some that interest me regardless of how hyped the teams are. Some of these games will host Gameday, while others will be played on CBS Sports Network. The one thing they have in common is that you should watch all of them.
USC at Stanford - September 6
With the Pac-12 as good as it has ever been, there are a billion great games to choose from. That said, I like the first one the best, mainly because it is the most pivotal game of the first two weeks. Stanford road schedule includes Oregon, UCLA, Washington, Arizona State, and Notre Dame. Given that they'll probably drop one or two of those even if they're a true top five team, they need to seal up the win at home. Meanwhile, USC is getting majorly overshadowed by their divisional foes, and could use a win over the Cardinal for the second straight year to signal their resurgence from the murky depths of the Kiffin era. Given that this series has had some amazing games recently*, I see no reason why this one would be any different.
*In case you forgot:
2007 - Stanford beats #2 USC as 41 point underdogs in perhaps the craziest upset of the craziest season in memory
2008 - USC gets revenge, winning by three touchdowns
2009 - Stanford throttles #11 USC 55-21, prompting a fun exchange between Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh after the game
2010 - The teams trade leads three times in the last 10 minutes, as Stanford wins 37-35
2011 - Andrew Luck leads #4 Stanford over USC in three overtimes
2012 - #21 Stanford beats #2 USC early in the season to start their march to the Pac-12 title
2013 - USC upsets #5 Stanford
Auburn at Kansas State - September 18
Gus Malzahn. Bill Snyder. A rocking Manhattan crowd on a Thursday night. If that's not enough for you to watch, then you're reading the wrong blog.
Alabama at Ole Miss - October 4
Although I don't think they're quite ready to topple the toughest division in the game, I still like Ole Miss a lot this season (QB experience in a league with almost none helps). I especially like them at home in what just might be College Gameday's first ever experience with The Grove. Given that both teams have relatively easy September schedules, I expect this to be a raucous matchup of unbeaten teams. The memory of 2010 Bama-South Carolina keeps screaming in my head when I think of this game....we'll see if Ole Miss is able to pull a similar upset.
Michigan State at Indiana - October 18
I said earlier that I liked Indiana a lot, so let's put their biggest test of the season on this list. While their overall schedule is somewhat difficult, they do get this game at home, so that should give them a fighting chance against the highly ranked Spartans. I already mentioned that Indiana's offense was tops in explosiveness last year. What I haven't yet mentioned was that the Spartans D was tops in efficiency, ranking number one in adjusted success rate (which means that I am also geeked about seeing what the Spartans D can do as an encore). This clash of styles produced a competitive 42-28 Spartan win last year. I'm excited to see what happens on Indiana's home turf with another year of experience in Indiana's suddenly awesome offense.
Rice at Marshall - November 15
First things first: 2014 Marshall is not 2010 Boise State or 2011 TCU. This is not a team that can legitimately ascend into the top five. All that said, one non-power conference team is guaranteed a spot in one of the major bowls, and Marshall has as good of a chance as anyone of making that happen. Furthermore, their biggest challenger for the conference crown visits them in Huntington, which speaks more to their incredibly weak schedule that it does to Rice's football prowess. Still, Rakeem Cato vs. the Owls' unique attack should be a doozy.
South Carolina at Clemson - November 29
While the actual contests haven't been particularly exciting the last couple of years, this game has still grown into one of the most important rivalries of rivalry weekend. Given that both teams have legitimate playoff expectations this year, we could be looking at a virtual play-in game at this point of the season. I'm mostly excited to see how Vic Beasley and the best defensive line in the nation match up against the Gamecock power rushing attack featuring Mike Davis.
PREDICITONS
Since my dad asked for it, let's end with a prediction of who will make the playoff. Why not?
1. Florida State
2. Alabama
3. Oregon
4. Clemson
The first three are easy. Florida State is amazing and has a schedule that has enough heft to be taken seriously (meaning they can take a loss and still make it). Alabama is amazing, and has a schedule that they can survive (outside of the SEC West opponents, the only real tests are Florida, Tennessee, and West Virginia). I am not sold on Oregon being head and shoulders above the rest of the Pac-12, but I still like them more than anyone else, and they have a few more home games against top opponents than Stanford, which should swing the balance.
Finally, I decided to go with Clemson, with the hopes that they take care of their two big non-conference tests in Georgia and South Carolina. There wasn't a second SEC team I loved (South Carolina and Auburn are awesome, but the former draws Auburn and A&M from the West in addition to the trip to Clemson, and the latter's road schedule is somehow even harder than Stanford's), and I don't like anyone from the Big 10 or 12 enough to put them above Clemson (Michigan State is close, but it's going to be way too easy for them to lose two games, with a 77% chance of losing two or more according to Football Outsiders). Since there is at least one person who likes Clemson even more than me, I don't feel too crazy for this pick.
Thursday, August 14, 2014
New England
This past weekend, the wife and I headed up to the Northeast corner of our country. You could say we were just looking to get each of our "states we've visited" count into the forties, but you would be mostly wrong (for the record we're both at 42, although not the same 42). Instead, we were looking forward to exploring the geography, food, and spirits from a place neither of us had been. As we both ended up enjoyed the trip thoroughly, I thought I would share all that we did, in the hopes that future travelers see some things they might like to do. Much like the San Diego trip we took earlier in the summer, the focus was on the urban aspects, so this post will also focus on such pursuits.
VERMONT
Over the course of four days, we visited five different states. Our main goal, however, was to visit the state with perhaps the highest ratio of awesome to population, Vermont. We spent half of the trip wandering the Northern half of the state in search of beautiful nature, delicious food, and of course, beer. Thanks to diligent research by yours truly, and a little bit of luck, we ended up enjoying everything we did, which is detailed below.
Montpelier is the smallest state capital in the nation. Not coincidentally, it is also the cutest state capital in the nation. Case in point: there were all of a dozen people protesting against the Keystone Pipeline one of the days we were there....I suppose a town of 8,000 can only spare so many people at once. Anyway, the downtown area is home to many small businesses, my favorite of which is Three Penny Tap Room (link). The wife and I both ordered the Roast Beef Sandwich, and we were both so taken by it that we came back the next day to eat the same thing. It only helps that you can order a combination of fries and salad for your side (which reminds me of this). It also helps that the bar has the widest selection of Hill Farmstead beers outside of the brewery itself available on tap. The combination of beer, food, and actually having a TV (VT is not a sports place overall) probably make this my favorite hangout spot from our trip.
The place that would give Three Penny the biggest run for its money in my estimation would have to be Prohibition Pig (link) in Waterbury. Waterbury is an even smaller and cuter down right in the middle of all things interesting in Northern Vermont. There are a couple other good establishments within walking/stumbling distance (Blackback and Reservoir), but we focused on the one with the best sounding food. I ordered the eponymous sandwich, which was a pork patty topped with pulled meat and bacon. It was as good as it sounds. Of course, Pro Pig also has a great beer selection with most of the same choices as Three Penny.
Our other meal came Saturday night at Misery Loves Company (link) in "downtown" Winooski, just north of Burlington. While our other meals were along the lines of fancy pub food, this was much more of modern American fare. There are entrees you can order, but we chose to go with a selection of small plates to get the best variety. My favorite was the Halibut Crudo (mostly because Halibut is awesome), but you can't go wrong with other dishes like the cleverly conceived Young Onions and Old Bread. If you want a meal that tends more towards the fancy side while you are in Vermont, you really can't go wrong with Misery Loves Company. The tap list wasn't as impressive or deep as other places, but I'll just leave this picture here:
Many of the times we weren't eating, we were drinking, so we found some neat locations at which to do that. If you find yourself in downtown Burlington, the most comprehensive tap list is found at Farmhouse Tap and Grill (link), which features all three of the big names in Vermont brewing (Hill Farmstead, The Alchemist, and Lawson's), plus some other fun stuff. There was a massive Allagash tap takeover one of the nights we were there, during which I learned Adrienne really doesn't like sours. Additionally, their website says they are having a Labor Day Sour-Bration, so that would probably be fun, he said jealously knowing that one of his friends would be there at that time. If you want dinner, they have that, although the internet has told me mixed things. If you don't want dinner with your drinks, there is a massive beer garden that does the trick nicely.
There's a lot more to Vermont beer than just the famous ones. One such example is Lost Nation Brewing (link) north of Stowe in Morrisville (pro tip: this is on the way to or from Hill Farmstead). Like many other breweries, it's easy to miss as its located deep within what might be the only industrial area in Northern Vermont. Once you arrive though, you're treated to a nice bar, ample outdoor seating, and some good smells from the grill. Lost Nation's most available beer is the Gose, which is probably also their best. Gose is a relatively rare German style of beer that approaches the fruitiness of a Radler but holds back a little bit from being outright juice. Lost Nation's version of this was superb, and I'm kind of sad that I didn't spend more time on the trip drinking this. Everything else on their tap list was similarly inventive, and most all of it was good. Petit Ardennes is dominated by a smoke flavor, which is usually a minus for me, but somehow this one worked. Lost Galaxy IPA is the latest entry in the "hoppy wheat" craze borne by Gumballhead and carried on by Fortunate Islands. This wasn't as good as either of those, but it still worked well as a Citra bomb with a solid backbone. The only real disappointments were their Rustic Ale which didn't come together very well, and their Pilsner, which was just boring. On the whole though, Lost Nation is very much worth your time.
Probably the most up and coming brewery in Vermont is Fiddlehead Brewing (link), located just a few miles south of downtown Burlington. When I say up and coming, I mean that they are so eager to give people beer, that they will give you all the free samples you want in their taproom.* Their IPA is the most widely distributed in the region as of now, but I was a little disappointed as it was a little too malt-forward without being distinct enough to justify it. Everything else though, was fantastic. Their pale ale (the other beer they had on tap) was solid and refreshing with just the right balance of C's. Their porter, Hodad, was disarmingly coconutty, but strangely enough it worked. Finally, we got to try a beer that hadn't even been released yet, an amber ale with a great bread/toffee presence that was a fantastic example of how to do a malt-forward ale.
*Their brewery is right next to the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory, which is the best place to check in a beer on Untappd.
In spite of all the glowing words in the past couple paragraphs, I think my favorite under-the-radar brewery might have been Zero Gravity Brewing (link). It is so under the radar that its taproom is actually inside of a separate restaurant, called American Flatbread. Upon arrival, we headed to the bar, and ordered a lot of beer (duh). A nice thing about Zero Gravity is that you're able to order anything in a six-ounce size, which allows for a nice combination of sampling and savoring. Their most hyped beer is Conehead, another entry in the hoppy wheat category. Much like Lost Nation's version, this beer was a Citra bomb with enough wheat presence to balance it out. R Prime is their regular IPA, which brings a harmony of Citra and Simcoe right to the tip of your tongue in a succinct way. As good as those were, the highlight of the visit (and perhaps the trip) was Sim City, an extra pale ale made with 100% Simcoe hops. While I like pretty much every hop variety I've ever come into contact with, Simcoe is probably my favorite. To me, no other hop runs the gamut quite as well, whether it be citrus notes, or pine notes, or that faint stinging taste that reverberates long after it starts. Not all beers that feature Simcoe let all of that shine through, choosing to focus on one aspect or on other ingredients. Sim City is not one of those beers. If I ever need to make my case for Simcoe as the best hop, this is the beer I would put forward.
Lastly, when we visited a local beer store, we saw a locally-brewed cider from Citizen Cider (link). Adrienne loves that kind of thing, so we looked it up and went to their headquarters, just south of downtown Burlington. Their taproom is quite spacious, and features outdoor areas and daily specials (Their Thursday special of a hot dog and a can for $5 was my favorite). Since Ad likes ginger more than she likes most people (and she likes most people), her favorite selection was the Dirty Mayor. That said, we like all of what we had. If for some reason you're looking for a break from beer, Citizen Cider is a nice alternative.
After all was said and done my favorite beers from our time in Vermont are*:
1. Sip of Sunshine - Lawson's
2. Sim City - Zero Gravity
3. What is Enlightenment - Hill Farmstead
4. Edward - Hill Farmstead
5. Gose - Lost Nation
*You might notice that Heady Topper isn't on the list. Heady Topper is great, but it just didn't quite connect with me. The nose comes together nicely, but there just wasn't enough else there to elevate it to the top of the list. Interestingly enough, it seems to play off of its strengths by urging you to drink it out of the can, which would highlight the bright hops and not much else.
I didn't have Lawson's more famous Double Sunshine, but Sip of Sunshine was so good that I didn't really care. This was pretty much the platonic ideal of a double IPA, with a good but not overpowering body, and an assault of hops that lingered on the tongue in perfect harmony for minutes after each sip. It's almost certainly a top five beer for me. The Hill Farmstead beers were also great, but not quite as superlative as the top two. Edward is an amazingly solid APA, with a very floral nose that reminded me a lot of Pliny the Elder. That said, I liked What is Enlightenment a touch better. In the San Diego post, I talked about Modern Times' Blazing World, and how I wasn't sure how much I liked their combination of hops, but it was at the very least quite alluring. This is how I feel about what Hill Farmstead did with this combination of Simcoe and Amarillo, except I know for a fact that I love the result. The way everything came together in a soft, citrusy way is pretty much unlike anything else I've ever had.
In summation, he famous stuff is famous for a reason - it's all really good. But don't let your pursuit of that stop you trying the more under the radar places. All the big names are readily available on tap* so take your time to experience all of the variety Vermont has to offer.
*Buying bottles/cans/growlers is a different story. Hill Farmstead is famously out of the way and crowded, while Heady Topper and Lawson's inspire giant lines at the few stores they are sold at. If you must absolutely take some back with you, you're best bets are The Warren Store on Thursday mornings (Lawson's), Winooski Beverage at 10 and 6 on Thursdays (Heady Topper), and Hunger Mountain Co-op at 3 on Fridays (both).
BOSTON
We flew in and out of Logan, so we decided to spend the first day doing things in and around the city. When I first suggested the idea of a New England trip to the wife, the first thing out of her mouth was "CAN WE GO TO WALDEN POND!?" As she is a massive fan of Walden - enough of one to have written her thesis on it - this was the first thing we did after flying in. The pond is just a short drive outside of the city in a state park. It's a little different today than it used to be, with a crowded beach right next to the parking area. However, once you start walking towards the original site of Thoreau's cabin, it becomes a much more isolated trek with just the lake, the forest, and the occasional beachgoer. The loop around the lake is a little under two miles long, and is a good way to stretch out after a morning of flying. If anyone who reads this does plan on going one day, be aware that the park closes from time to time due to capacity crowds, so keep alert to that.
After completing our hike and taking a brief sojourn to Rhode Island simply because we could, we want back into the city to spend the evening with a couple of college friends. We took a couple of trains towards the MIT area for dinner and drinks. The drinks portion of the evening happened at Meadhall (link), a bar with a massive central island of taps. There wasn't a lot of interesting local stuff on tap (Boston doesn't seem to be the greatest microbrew town), but the pull of a city full of beer enthusiasts meant that they had a lot of stuff from across the nation that you can't get in Ohio (Firestone Walker and Allagash being the highlights). Furthermore, every beer that we had came with it's own dedicated glass design, which is a really nice touch.
For dinner, pizza sounded like a good plan, so we headed over to Area Four (link), a pizza place that does a good job on blending modern ideas with pizzas that actually taste like pizza. I went a little more basic with the Not Pepperoni pizza, which used a similar-type sausage to evoke Pepperoni while staying a bit less greasy. The wife went a little more exotic and got the special, which had a corn-based sauce. So now you understand the range of what they have to offer. When it comes to pizza, I generally prefer straightforward design and execution, but a fun place Area Four can fill the gap between standard fare and highbrow eats nicely.
MAINE
On the last day, we started heading back to Boston. After stopping for a brief hike on the Appalachian Trail in the White Mountains, we continued on the way to Maine. As you might be able to tell by now, I like beer a lot, so out first stop was at Maine Beer Company (link). Situated 15 miles north of Portland in Freeport, the brewery resembles a house from the front, and thus looks a lot more like a mom-and-pop winery than one of the most revered breweries in the nation. Of course, once you enter you'll see the window into the production facility and the giant cooler of beer for sale, so you know right where you are.
As the link from the last paragraph showed, Maine Beer Company doesn't really make bad beers. They are known most famously for their IPAs, and those did not disappoint. I was a couple of weeks late for Dinner (their double IPA), but Lunch was a fine alternative, with the piney nose reminding me of a more reserved Hop Juju. Another One was...well...another IPA that played it close to the vest and came together nicely. Their pale ale, MO, tasted a lot like something that I couldn't put my finger on. And then of course, Adrienne got it in two seconds....this is basically New England's version of 3 Floyd's Pride and Joy. I like that beer a lot, so I'll let you guess how I felt about MO. Their amber ale, Zoe, was the strangest of the offerings, mixing some strong hops like Simcoe with a bold chocolate body, but everything worked well enough to make it another solid beer. In all, my favorite beers of the weekend all came from the Vermont portion of the trip, but Maine Beer Company makes a lot of great beers, and was definitely worth the trip.
Our final stop of the trip was for dinner. Since we were on the ocean, the hope was to find a good seafood dinner. We had called Street and Company (link) before the trip, but their reservation list was booked until the late hours. Fortunately, we showed up and got the last two seats in the bar area. I say fortunately, because this is what we ate:
I am told pictures are worth a thousand words, so I will leave you with that.
VERMONT
Over the course of four days, we visited five different states. Our main goal, however, was to visit the state with perhaps the highest ratio of awesome to population, Vermont. We spent half of the trip wandering the Northern half of the state in search of beautiful nature, delicious food, and of course, beer. Thanks to diligent research by yours truly, and a little bit of luck, we ended up enjoying everything we did, which is detailed below.
Montpelier is the smallest state capital in the nation. Not coincidentally, it is also the cutest state capital in the nation. Case in point: there were all of a dozen people protesting against the Keystone Pipeline one of the days we were there....I suppose a town of 8,000 can only spare so many people at once. Anyway, the downtown area is home to many small businesses, my favorite of which is Three Penny Tap Room (link). The wife and I both ordered the Roast Beef Sandwich, and we were both so taken by it that we came back the next day to eat the same thing. It only helps that you can order a combination of fries and salad for your side (which reminds me of this). It also helps that the bar has the widest selection of Hill Farmstead beers outside of the brewery itself available on tap. The combination of beer, food, and actually having a TV (VT is not a sports place overall) probably make this my favorite hangout spot from our trip.
The place that would give Three Penny the biggest run for its money in my estimation would have to be Prohibition Pig (link) in Waterbury. Waterbury is an even smaller and cuter down right in the middle of all things interesting in Northern Vermont. There are a couple other good establishments within walking/stumbling distance (Blackback and Reservoir), but we focused on the one with the best sounding food. I ordered the eponymous sandwich, which was a pork patty topped with pulled meat and bacon. It was as good as it sounds. Of course, Pro Pig also has a great beer selection with most of the same choices as Three Penny.
Our other meal came Saturday night at Misery Loves Company (link) in "downtown" Winooski, just north of Burlington. While our other meals were along the lines of fancy pub food, this was much more of modern American fare. There are entrees you can order, but we chose to go with a selection of small plates to get the best variety. My favorite was the Halibut Crudo (mostly because Halibut is awesome), but you can't go wrong with other dishes like the cleverly conceived Young Onions and Old Bread. If you want a meal that tends more towards the fancy side while you are in Vermont, you really can't go wrong with Misery Loves Company. The tap list wasn't as impressive or deep as other places, but I'll just leave this picture here:
Many of the times we weren't eating, we were drinking, so we found some neat locations at which to do that. If you find yourself in downtown Burlington, the most comprehensive tap list is found at Farmhouse Tap and Grill (link), which features all three of the big names in Vermont brewing (Hill Farmstead, The Alchemist, and Lawson's), plus some other fun stuff. There was a massive Allagash tap takeover one of the nights we were there, during which I learned Adrienne really doesn't like sours. Additionally, their website says they are having a Labor Day Sour-Bration, so that would probably be fun, he said jealously knowing that one of his friends would be there at that time. If you want dinner, they have that, although the internet has told me mixed things. If you don't want dinner with your drinks, there is a massive beer garden that does the trick nicely.
There's a lot more to Vermont beer than just the famous ones. One such example is Lost Nation Brewing (link) north of Stowe in Morrisville (pro tip: this is on the way to or from Hill Farmstead). Like many other breweries, it's easy to miss as its located deep within what might be the only industrial area in Northern Vermont. Once you arrive though, you're treated to a nice bar, ample outdoor seating, and some good smells from the grill. Lost Nation's most available beer is the Gose, which is probably also their best. Gose is a relatively rare German style of beer that approaches the fruitiness of a Radler but holds back a little bit from being outright juice. Lost Nation's version of this was superb, and I'm kind of sad that I didn't spend more time on the trip drinking this. Everything else on their tap list was similarly inventive, and most all of it was good. Petit Ardennes is dominated by a smoke flavor, which is usually a minus for me, but somehow this one worked. Lost Galaxy IPA is the latest entry in the "hoppy wheat" craze borne by Gumballhead and carried on by Fortunate Islands. This wasn't as good as either of those, but it still worked well as a Citra bomb with a solid backbone. The only real disappointments were their Rustic Ale which didn't come together very well, and their Pilsner, which was just boring. On the whole though, Lost Nation is very much worth your time.
Probably the most up and coming brewery in Vermont is Fiddlehead Brewing (link), located just a few miles south of downtown Burlington. When I say up and coming, I mean that they are so eager to give people beer, that they will give you all the free samples you want in their taproom.* Their IPA is the most widely distributed in the region as of now, but I was a little disappointed as it was a little too malt-forward without being distinct enough to justify it. Everything else though, was fantastic. Their pale ale (the other beer they had on tap) was solid and refreshing with just the right balance of C's. Their porter, Hodad, was disarmingly coconutty, but strangely enough it worked. Finally, we got to try a beer that hadn't even been released yet, an amber ale with a great bread/toffee presence that was a fantastic example of how to do a malt-forward ale.
*Their brewery is right next to the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory, which is the best place to check in a beer on Untappd.
In spite of all the glowing words in the past couple paragraphs, I think my favorite under-the-radar brewery might have been Zero Gravity Brewing (link). It is so under the radar that its taproom is actually inside of a separate restaurant, called American Flatbread. Upon arrival, we headed to the bar, and ordered a lot of beer (duh). A nice thing about Zero Gravity is that you're able to order anything in a six-ounce size, which allows for a nice combination of sampling and savoring. Their most hyped beer is Conehead, another entry in the hoppy wheat category. Much like Lost Nation's version, this beer was a Citra bomb with enough wheat presence to balance it out. R Prime is their regular IPA, which brings a harmony of Citra and Simcoe right to the tip of your tongue in a succinct way. As good as those were, the highlight of the visit (and perhaps the trip) was Sim City, an extra pale ale made with 100% Simcoe hops. While I like pretty much every hop variety I've ever come into contact with, Simcoe is probably my favorite. To me, no other hop runs the gamut quite as well, whether it be citrus notes, or pine notes, or that faint stinging taste that reverberates long after it starts. Not all beers that feature Simcoe let all of that shine through, choosing to focus on one aspect or on other ingredients. Sim City is not one of those beers. If I ever need to make my case for Simcoe as the best hop, this is the beer I would put forward.
Lastly, when we visited a local beer store, we saw a locally-brewed cider from Citizen Cider (link). Adrienne loves that kind of thing, so we looked it up and went to their headquarters, just south of downtown Burlington. Their taproom is quite spacious, and features outdoor areas and daily specials (Their Thursday special of a hot dog and a can for $5 was my favorite). Since Ad likes ginger more than she likes most people (and she likes most people), her favorite selection was the Dirty Mayor. That said, we like all of what we had. If for some reason you're looking for a break from beer, Citizen Cider is a nice alternative.
After all was said and done my favorite beers from our time in Vermont are*:
1. Sip of Sunshine - Lawson's
2. Sim City - Zero Gravity
3. What is Enlightenment - Hill Farmstead
4. Edward - Hill Farmstead
5. Gose - Lost Nation
*You might notice that Heady Topper isn't on the list. Heady Topper is great, but it just didn't quite connect with me. The nose comes together nicely, but there just wasn't enough else there to elevate it to the top of the list. Interestingly enough, it seems to play off of its strengths by urging you to drink it out of the can, which would highlight the bright hops and not much else.
I didn't have Lawson's more famous Double Sunshine, but Sip of Sunshine was so good that I didn't really care. This was pretty much the platonic ideal of a double IPA, with a good but not overpowering body, and an assault of hops that lingered on the tongue in perfect harmony for minutes after each sip. It's almost certainly a top five beer for me. The Hill Farmstead beers were also great, but not quite as superlative as the top two. Edward is an amazingly solid APA, with a very floral nose that reminded me a lot of Pliny the Elder. That said, I liked What is Enlightenment a touch better. In the San Diego post, I talked about Modern Times' Blazing World, and how I wasn't sure how much I liked their combination of hops, but it was at the very least quite alluring. This is how I feel about what Hill Farmstead did with this combination of Simcoe and Amarillo, except I know for a fact that I love the result. The way everything came together in a soft, citrusy way is pretty much unlike anything else I've ever had.
In summation, he famous stuff is famous for a reason - it's all really good. But don't let your pursuit of that stop you trying the more under the radar places. All the big names are readily available on tap* so take your time to experience all of the variety Vermont has to offer.
*Buying bottles/cans/growlers is a different story. Hill Farmstead is famously out of the way and crowded, while Heady Topper and Lawson's inspire giant lines at the few stores they are sold at. If you must absolutely take some back with you, you're best bets are The Warren Store on Thursday mornings (Lawson's), Winooski Beverage at 10 and 6 on Thursdays (Heady Topper), and Hunger Mountain Co-op at 3 on Fridays (both).
BOSTON
We flew in and out of Logan, so we decided to spend the first day doing things in and around the city. When I first suggested the idea of a New England trip to the wife, the first thing out of her mouth was "CAN WE GO TO WALDEN POND!?" As she is a massive fan of Walden - enough of one to have written her thesis on it - this was the first thing we did after flying in. The pond is just a short drive outside of the city in a state park. It's a little different today than it used to be, with a crowded beach right next to the parking area. However, once you start walking towards the original site of Thoreau's cabin, it becomes a much more isolated trek with just the lake, the forest, and the occasional beachgoer. The loop around the lake is a little under two miles long, and is a good way to stretch out after a morning of flying. If anyone who reads this does plan on going one day, be aware that the park closes from time to time due to capacity crowds, so keep alert to that.
After completing our hike and taking a brief sojourn to Rhode Island simply because we could, we want back into the city to spend the evening with a couple of college friends. We took a couple of trains towards the MIT area for dinner and drinks. The drinks portion of the evening happened at Meadhall (link), a bar with a massive central island of taps. There wasn't a lot of interesting local stuff on tap (Boston doesn't seem to be the greatest microbrew town), but the pull of a city full of beer enthusiasts meant that they had a lot of stuff from across the nation that you can't get in Ohio (Firestone Walker and Allagash being the highlights). Furthermore, every beer that we had came with it's own dedicated glass design, which is a really nice touch.
For dinner, pizza sounded like a good plan, so we headed over to Area Four (link), a pizza place that does a good job on blending modern ideas with pizzas that actually taste like pizza. I went a little more basic with the Not Pepperoni pizza, which used a similar-type sausage to evoke Pepperoni while staying a bit less greasy. The wife went a little more exotic and got the special, which had a corn-based sauce. So now you understand the range of what they have to offer. When it comes to pizza, I generally prefer straightforward design and execution, but a fun place Area Four can fill the gap between standard fare and highbrow eats nicely.
MAINE
On the last day, we started heading back to Boston. After stopping for a brief hike on the Appalachian Trail in the White Mountains, we continued on the way to Maine. As you might be able to tell by now, I like beer a lot, so out first stop was at Maine Beer Company (link). Situated 15 miles north of Portland in Freeport, the brewery resembles a house from the front, and thus looks a lot more like a mom-and-pop winery than one of the most revered breweries in the nation. Of course, once you enter you'll see the window into the production facility and the giant cooler of beer for sale, so you know right where you are.
As the link from the last paragraph showed, Maine Beer Company doesn't really make bad beers. They are known most famously for their IPAs, and those did not disappoint. I was a couple of weeks late for Dinner (their double IPA), but Lunch was a fine alternative, with the piney nose reminding me of a more reserved Hop Juju. Another One was...well...another IPA that played it close to the vest and came together nicely. Their pale ale, MO, tasted a lot like something that I couldn't put my finger on. And then of course, Adrienne got it in two seconds....this is basically New England's version of 3 Floyd's Pride and Joy. I like that beer a lot, so I'll let you guess how I felt about MO. Their amber ale, Zoe, was the strangest of the offerings, mixing some strong hops like Simcoe with a bold chocolate body, but everything worked well enough to make it another solid beer. In all, my favorite beers of the weekend all came from the Vermont portion of the trip, but Maine Beer Company makes a lot of great beers, and was definitely worth the trip.
Our final stop of the trip was for dinner. Since we were on the ocean, the hope was to find a good seafood dinner. We had called Street and Company (link) before the trip, but their reservation list was booked until the late hours. Fortunately, we showed up and got the last two seats in the bar area. I say fortunately, because this is what we ate:
I am told pictures are worth a thousand words, so I will leave you with that.
Monday, July 7, 2014
San Diego
I recently had the pleasure of taking a trip with my lovely wife to lovely San Diego. We spent a lot of time on the beach, which was as nice and relaxing as it always is. In between all of that, we managed to drink and eat a lot. Since the latter is probably a tad more interesting to you, dear reader, here are a bunch of awesome things that you yourself can do in San Diego.
WEDNESDAY
After a copious amount of sleep (we got in at what would be 4 AM Eastern), we had an extremely late breakfast at The Mission (link), which is, rightfully so, one of the most revered breakfast joints in San Diego. Since we wanted to start off our trip by seeing the beach, we went to the location two blocks inland of Mission Beach, which was nicely nestled in between a bunch of rental properties and other small businesses. The menu featured an equal amount of breakfast staples and Latino-themed dishes. The first morning (yes, we went twice) I got the Breakfast Quesadilla (pictured below) while Adrienne got the Mission Chilaquiles. Both were delicious and appropriately filling, which was good because we hadn't eaten in about 20 hours. The second morning, we stuck to the basics and both got the French Toast. Made with their homemade cinnamon bread, it was quite rich while still remaining light enough to not be overly filling, which is an amazing combination of traits for such a dish.
After we took a lengthy walk up and down the beach, it was already well into the afternoon. Hence, we figured we should probably start drinking. What would be our only significantly inland journey of the trip took us to the Alpine Beer Company (link) in the town of the same name. While Alpine is famous for making one of the top rated beers in existence, they are both than just one beer. That said, I had to start out with the famed Nelson, and it did not disappoint. Surprisingly light in color (it's the half-drunk one in the front), the beer does a fantastic job blending a subtle rye touch with the right amount of Nelson hops. Rye beers can often overwhelm with the bitterness of the rye combining with the hops, but this one goes the other direction to make a nice reserved beer that I could drink all day.
Next up in my sampler was Duet, a nice but not superlative blend of two of my favorite hops, Amarillo and Simcoe. This was followed by Pure Hoppiness which, as you might guess, is a pretty straightforward hop bomb. The final beer I had at Alpine was the Bad Boy, which was a lovely combination of the fantastic Maris Otter malt and, as the menu put it, "most of the C's.*" If I had to choose a favorite of the day, it would be either Nelson or Bad Boy, for very different reasons. Adrienne sampled most of their other non-hoppy beers, and wasn't as impressed by them as I was of mine. Let that be a lesson to us all.
*For the uninitiated, that refers to the hops that pretty much started the concept of a West-Coast IPA.
Of course, there are a lot of other breweries in San Diego, so we kept plowing along. Next up was Societe Brewing (link), which is located about ten miles north of downtown. As with many west coast brewers, the focus there was also on the hop. While Alpine was able to hit a bunch of different notes successfully, I wasn't as impressed by Societe. There was a similar breadth of beers, but without as much depth and/or creativity. That said, I still really liked The Dandy, which brought a little bit of everything together in a very focused manner. Their highest-rated beer, The Pupil, was not as unified, and their English IPA (one of my favorite styles when done right) tasted bizarrely grassy. All in all, it was a fine experience, which was enhanced by running into a group of people that we had just seen at Alpine. This would not be the last time this happened this weekend, which shows that San Diego still has a hint of small-town feel about it, if you look in the right places.
For dinner, we headed to the nearby Hillcrest neighborhood (the area just north and west of the zoo) to visit Ortega's Bistro (link). We both tended towards the seafood portion of the menu, with me ordering fish tacos and Adrienne ordering the shrimp tacos. While I enjoyed the contents of my tacos, the best part of the dish was the fresh flour tortillas, which were as rich as any I've ever had. Additionally, Adrienne's shrimp were about the best she's ever had. If you're looking for a good Mexican dinner, you can't go wrong with Ortega's.
THURSDAY
Following another morning of eating at Mission and relaxing at the beach, we decided to try one of San Diego's entries in the FiveThirtyEight Burrito Bracket, Lucha Libre (link). The main reason we chose this one was because it was six blocks from our hotel, which turned out to be quite fortuitous. The food was great, but what made it truly unique was the atmosphere of the restaurant. The walls were lined with pictures of Mexican wrestlers (hence the name), and there was even a Champion's Booth complete with all-gold regalia that you can reserve for up to four people. This probably wasn't my favorite Mexican food of the weekend (the steak and shrimp were both a little dull), but there were enough nice touches (grilled cheese on the Queso Taco) to make it worth our time.
Infected with World Cup fever, we next decided to visit one of the most renowned soccer bars in San Deigo, O'Brien's Pub (link). The beer list was a little picked over (probably because they were preparing for an Alesmith tap takeover later that night) but any place with Speedway Stout on tap can't be too bad. There was a nice outdoor area, but we stayed inside to avoid the glare on the screens and stay close to the bar. The game itself (a scoreless tie between Japan and Greece) wasn't exactly the pinnacle of soccer, but it was a lot of fun to watch with a heavily pro-Japan crowd that whipped into a frenzy at every major juncture. (Here's a hint to that one fan on the patio - If management has to keep asking you to stop standing on your chair during the game, then you're probably a little too into the game.)
For dinner, we had our fanciest meal of the trip at Richard Blais' new restaurant, Juniper and Ivy (link). The interior was open in a very modern way, with natural light coming from all directions, and the (Blais-less) kitchen in full view. The menu was also quite modern - in lieu of the typical entrees section, there were many sections of smaller plates (one section was "Toast"). Since I had no real strategy for attacking such a menu, I deferred to the waitresses' selections, which were fantastic. I started in the raw section with the Baja Yellowtail, which had the perfect blend of acid and sweetness. Next, I had the Carne Cruda Asada. It managed to work jalapenos into the dish in a non-grating way, which I consider quite the accomplishment. Finally, I had the Black Sesame Churro. This was a little out of my comfort zone (the sesame smells quite nutty), but couldn't go to a Blais restaurant and not have some weird flavored ice cream (tortilla, in this case). For your dollar, most of the other places on this list are better, but it was a nice departure to enjoy some smartly conceived and unique dishes.
FRIDAY
Friday saw us enjoy another morning of breakfast and beaches. Once the afternoon rolled around, we went to one of the many drinking establishments on 30th Street, Toronado (link). This would turn out to be my favorite San Diego bar, for many reasons. First of all, the beer selection was awesome. I had my first ever taste of Russian River - in this case, the well-renowned and excellent Pliny the Elder (which would end up being at every other bar we visited). Toronado also was the only place I saw beer from Almanac and Alpine (other than Alpine's brewery, of course). I had a delicious blackberry sour from Almanac, and perhaps the best APA ever from Alpine. Hoppy Birthday may be another name with an annoying pun on hops, but the beer was so focused and over the top with its hop profile (at only %5 ABV, too) that I didn't mind. A nice bready malt balanced it out to make it more than just another hop bomb. It just might have been my favorite of Alpine's beers.
Toronado has a lot going for it besides just the beer. The interior is straightforward and a little old-timey, which reminds me a lot of Krug Park in Omaha. There is also a lovely beer garden out back with room for 50 or so people. We spent the later part of the afternoon there, drinking beer and playing Trivial Pursuit with the limited cards they had. The food is also good. We split a BLAT (bacon, lettuce, avocado, tomato) for the second time on the trip, and I would say Toronado's was a bit better than the one we had at Alpine. It didn't hurt that it came with a huge salad, which is a nice alternative to the typical side of fries. All in all, this was one of my favorite places in San Diego - make sure to stop there if you're ever in town.
Following our afternoon at Toronado, we headed downtown as we had tickets to the Padres-Dodgers game that night. We were pretty hungry, so we ventured to Neighborhood (link) for an early dinner. Neighborhood prides themselves on "combining quality beer, locally sourced food, and intelligent design" and they didn't fail to deliver on any of those components. While I enjoyed everything, my favorite part would have to be the garlic aioli that came with the steak tacos. There's a scene near the end of the movie Ratatouille where the critic (voiced by Peter O'Toole) tastes the title dish, and has a spontaneous flashback to his childhood as a result. For me, the garlic sauce was my ratatouille, tasting exactly like garlic bread fresh out of the toaster oven from my childhood.
After dinner, we still had plenty of time before the game and just a little bit of room in our stomachs, so we headed to Heavenly Cupcake (link) for some dessert. This was one of the few places from our honeymoon that we re-visited, so you could we liked it a lot. The frosting on my strawberry cupcake had the perfect blend of sweetness and tartness, with a lightness about it without losing substance. The cupcake craze can be overbearing at times, but places like this make it worth it.
Finally, we ended our day at Petco Park, watching the aforementioned Padres game. We had tickets directly behind home plate in the 300 section, which gave us a lovely view of both the game and downtown San Diego. Petco is one of the nicest parks I've been to, both for the open and unique feeling of the stadium, and for the wide selection of craft beer available all over the park. I had a lovely evening watching a close game and enjoying a freshly-tapped Sculpin.
SATURDAY
I haven't written much about the beaches we visited, largely because they're all roughly the same. There is some variation in the terrain and surrounding communities, but pretty much anywhere you go on the coast of San Diego will be nice. That said our final day at the beach was a bit different. We headed just south of Torrey Pines, climbed down a steep trail to Black's Beach (link), and took a nice stroll up the beach and back. Torrey is probably my favorite golf course, so I was excited to take a walk just beneath it. The beach was quite lovely and secluded, as you can tell from the picture below. That seclusion just happened to lead to the most interesting discovery of the day: Apparently, Black's Beach is a nude beach. As we made our way back to the trailhead, we noticed one nude person, followed by another, and shortly by a bunch more. Us clothed people were still in the majority. Still, we could tell that as the temps continued to rise, so to would the amount of nudity. Thus, we enjoyed the rest of our walk at a moderate-to-brisk pace, and climbed the cliff back to the civilized world.
For lunch, we went to In & Out Burger. I don't feel like I need to write a full paragraph on this, because you probably all know how awesome it is. If you don't know how awesome it is, just go there next time you're in California/Arizona/Texas.
The highlight of the trip came next, as we wandered over to the nearby Modern Times Brewing (link). Getting there was not the easiest, as it's located in between strip malls, strip clubs, and ugly looking industrial buildings, with thoroughly unnecessary one-way roads surrounding it all. Once we were there though, it was perfect. Just the unique wall art and bar made out of books alone were enough to make it an interesting place, but of course the beer is what makes it special. Adrienne and I each got a sampler of their four main beers, and each was solidly above average at the least. Most great breweries are known for their special high-gravity beers, but making a solid line of "normal" beers is perhaps even more indicative of the quality of a brewery.
The highlights of the afternoon were many. Black House is a fantastic coffee stout, with a little more subtlety than you might expect from a brewery that roasts its own coffee. Blazing World is a IPA/APA/beer that is either really good or one of the best things I've ever had. I couldn't quite tell which it was, even though I stole most of Adrienne's sample (don't worry, I traded her my Black House). I have had beers that are more Simcoe-forward; this beer instead opted to blend it with Nelson and Mosaic to make quite the alluring combination. Finally, there was my favorite of the day, Fortunate Islands, a hoppy wheat that rivals Gumballhead in it's domination of the category. It is basically the same beer, except with a Citra-Amarillo blend instead of straight Amarillo. Like the can says, it tastes like wizards.*
*Modern Times might have my favorite beer packaging of all time. Not only do the cans look nice, but they also have the ingredients (even the malts!), as well as fun descriptions:
Not ready to be done with our revelry, we headed to the third top-100 bar of the trip, Hamilton's Tavern (link) in central San Diego. We were probably a touch burned out at this point, so we didn't enjoy this as much as our other stops. That said, it was still a great place with a good selection of beer on tap. And taps, lots of taps:
For our final meal in Southern California, we stopped at another participant in the Burrito Bracket, El Zarape (link). Whereas Lucha Libre had been more representative of the "new wave" of eateries, El Zarape was a much more old-fashioned establishment, complete with a too-small kitchen tucked in behind the counter. Adrienne ordered entirely too much food, while I ordered just a lot of food. My chicken burrito came with few frills, but was as delicious as anything I ate on the trip. You could say it was too juicy, but that would be a ridiculous thing to say.
And with that, our trip came to an end. Almost everything we did was a highlight in some way, and I would recommend you do just about everything we did on your next visit to San Diego, if you have the time. And if you don't have a next visit to San Diego planned, well, you should plan one.
WEDNESDAY
After a copious amount of sleep (we got in at what would be 4 AM Eastern), we had an extremely late breakfast at The Mission (link), which is, rightfully so, one of the most revered breakfast joints in San Diego. Since we wanted to start off our trip by seeing the beach, we went to the location two blocks inland of Mission Beach, which was nicely nestled in between a bunch of rental properties and other small businesses. The menu featured an equal amount of breakfast staples and Latino-themed dishes. The first morning (yes, we went twice) I got the Breakfast Quesadilla (pictured below) while Adrienne got the Mission Chilaquiles. Both were delicious and appropriately filling, which was good because we hadn't eaten in about 20 hours. The second morning, we stuck to the basics and both got the French Toast. Made with their homemade cinnamon bread, it was quite rich while still remaining light enough to not be overly filling, which is an amazing combination of traits for such a dish.
After we took a lengthy walk up and down the beach, it was already well into the afternoon. Hence, we figured we should probably start drinking. What would be our only significantly inland journey of the trip took us to the Alpine Beer Company (link) in the town of the same name. While Alpine is famous for making one of the top rated beers in existence, they are both than just one beer. That said, I had to start out with the famed Nelson, and it did not disappoint. Surprisingly light in color (it's the half-drunk one in the front), the beer does a fantastic job blending a subtle rye touch with the right amount of Nelson hops. Rye beers can often overwhelm with the bitterness of the rye combining with the hops, but this one goes the other direction to make a nice reserved beer that I could drink all day.
*For the uninitiated, that refers to the hops that pretty much started the concept of a West-Coast IPA.
Of course, there are a lot of other breweries in San Diego, so we kept plowing along. Next up was Societe Brewing (link), which is located about ten miles north of downtown. As with many west coast brewers, the focus there was also on the hop. While Alpine was able to hit a bunch of different notes successfully, I wasn't as impressed by Societe. There was a similar breadth of beers, but without as much depth and/or creativity. That said, I still really liked The Dandy, which brought a little bit of everything together in a very focused manner. Their highest-rated beer, The Pupil, was not as unified, and their English IPA (one of my favorite styles when done right) tasted bizarrely grassy. All in all, it was a fine experience, which was enhanced by running into a group of people that we had just seen at Alpine. This would not be the last time this happened this weekend, which shows that San Diego still has a hint of small-town feel about it, if you look in the right places.
For dinner, we headed to the nearby Hillcrest neighborhood (the area just north and west of the zoo) to visit Ortega's Bistro (link). We both tended towards the seafood portion of the menu, with me ordering fish tacos and Adrienne ordering the shrimp tacos. While I enjoyed the contents of my tacos, the best part of the dish was the fresh flour tortillas, which were as rich as any I've ever had. Additionally, Adrienne's shrimp were about the best she's ever had. If you're looking for a good Mexican dinner, you can't go wrong with Ortega's.
THURSDAY
Following another morning of eating at Mission and relaxing at the beach, we decided to try one of San Diego's entries in the FiveThirtyEight Burrito Bracket, Lucha Libre (link). The main reason we chose this one was because it was six blocks from our hotel, which turned out to be quite fortuitous. The food was great, but what made it truly unique was the atmosphere of the restaurant. The walls were lined with pictures of Mexican wrestlers (hence the name), and there was even a Champion's Booth complete with all-gold regalia that you can reserve for up to four people. This probably wasn't my favorite Mexican food of the weekend (the steak and shrimp were both a little dull), but there were enough nice touches (grilled cheese on the Queso Taco) to make it worth our time.
Infected with World Cup fever, we next decided to visit one of the most renowned soccer bars in San Deigo, O'Brien's Pub (link). The beer list was a little picked over (probably because they were preparing for an Alesmith tap takeover later that night) but any place with Speedway Stout on tap can't be too bad. There was a nice outdoor area, but we stayed inside to avoid the glare on the screens and stay close to the bar. The game itself (a scoreless tie between Japan and Greece) wasn't exactly the pinnacle of soccer, but it was a lot of fun to watch with a heavily pro-Japan crowd that whipped into a frenzy at every major juncture. (Here's a hint to that one fan on the patio - If management has to keep asking you to stop standing on your chair during the game, then you're probably a little too into the game.)
For dinner, we had our fanciest meal of the trip at Richard Blais' new restaurant, Juniper and Ivy (link). The interior was open in a very modern way, with natural light coming from all directions, and the (Blais-less) kitchen in full view. The menu was also quite modern - in lieu of the typical entrees section, there were many sections of smaller plates (one section was "Toast"). Since I had no real strategy for attacking such a menu, I deferred to the waitresses' selections, which were fantastic. I started in the raw section with the Baja Yellowtail, which had the perfect blend of acid and sweetness. Next, I had the Carne Cruda Asada. It managed to work jalapenos into the dish in a non-grating way, which I consider quite the accomplishment. Finally, I had the Black Sesame Churro. This was a little out of my comfort zone (the sesame smells quite nutty), but couldn't go to a Blais restaurant and not have some weird flavored ice cream (tortilla, in this case). For your dollar, most of the other places on this list are better, but it was a nice departure to enjoy some smartly conceived and unique dishes.
FRIDAY
Friday saw us enjoy another morning of breakfast and beaches. Once the afternoon rolled around, we went to one of the many drinking establishments on 30th Street, Toronado (link). This would turn out to be my favorite San Diego bar, for many reasons. First of all, the beer selection was awesome. I had my first ever taste of Russian River - in this case, the well-renowned and excellent Pliny the Elder (which would end up being at every other bar we visited). Toronado also was the only place I saw beer from Almanac and Alpine (other than Alpine's brewery, of course). I had a delicious blackberry sour from Almanac, and perhaps the best APA ever from Alpine. Hoppy Birthday may be another name with an annoying pun on hops, but the beer was so focused and over the top with its hop profile (at only %5 ABV, too) that I didn't mind. A nice bready malt balanced it out to make it more than just another hop bomb. It just might have been my favorite of Alpine's beers.
Toronado has a lot going for it besides just the beer. The interior is straightforward and a little old-timey, which reminds me a lot of Krug Park in Omaha. There is also a lovely beer garden out back with room for 50 or so people. We spent the later part of the afternoon there, drinking beer and playing Trivial Pursuit with the limited cards they had. The food is also good. We split a BLAT (bacon, lettuce, avocado, tomato) for the second time on the trip, and I would say Toronado's was a bit better than the one we had at Alpine. It didn't hurt that it came with a huge salad, which is a nice alternative to the typical side of fries. All in all, this was one of my favorite places in San Diego - make sure to stop there if you're ever in town.
Following our afternoon at Toronado, we headed downtown as we had tickets to the Padres-Dodgers game that night. We were pretty hungry, so we ventured to Neighborhood (link) for an early dinner. Neighborhood prides themselves on "combining quality beer, locally sourced food, and intelligent design" and they didn't fail to deliver on any of those components. While I enjoyed everything, my favorite part would have to be the garlic aioli that came with the steak tacos. There's a scene near the end of the movie Ratatouille where the critic (voiced by Peter O'Toole) tastes the title dish, and has a spontaneous flashback to his childhood as a result. For me, the garlic sauce was my ratatouille, tasting exactly like garlic bread fresh out of the toaster oven from my childhood.
After dinner, we still had plenty of time before the game and just a little bit of room in our stomachs, so we headed to Heavenly Cupcake (link) for some dessert. This was one of the few places from our honeymoon that we re-visited, so you could we liked it a lot. The frosting on my strawberry cupcake had the perfect blend of sweetness and tartness, with a lightness about it without losing substance. The cupcake craze can be overbearing at times, but places like this make it worth it.
Finally, we ended our day at Petco Park, watching the aforementioned Padres game. We had tickets directly behind home plate in the 300 section, which gave us a lovely view of both the game and downtown San Diego. Petco is one of the nicest parks I've been to, both for the open and unique feeling of the stadium, and for the wide selection of craft beer available all over the park. I had a lovely evening watching a close game and enjoying a freshly-tapped Sculpin.
SATURDAY
I haven't written much about the beaches we visited, largely because they're all roughly the same. There is some variation in the terrain and surrounding communities, but pretty much anywhere you go on the coast of San Diego will be nice. That said our final day at the beach was a bit different. We headed just south of Torrey Pines, climbed down a steep trail to Black's Beach (link), and took a nice stroll up the beach and back. Torrey is probably my favorite golf course, so I was excited to take a walk just beneath it. The beach was quite lovely and secluded, as you can tell from the picture below. That seclusion just happened to lead to the most interesting discovery of the day: Apparently, Black's Beach is a nude beach. As we made our way back to the trailhead, we noticed one nude person, followed by another, and shortly by a bunch more. Us clothed people were still in the majority. Still, we could tell that as the temps continued to rise, so to would the amount of nudity. Thus, we enjoyed the rest of our walk at a moderate-to-brisk pace, and climbed the cliff back to the civilized world.
For lunch, we went to In & Out Burger. I don't feel like I need to write a full paragraph on this, because you probably all know how awesome it is. If you don't know how awesome it is, just go there next time you're in California/Arizona/Texas.
The highlight of the trip came next, as we wandered over to the nearby Modern Times Brewing (link). Getting there was not the easiest, as it's located in between strip malls, strip clubs, and ugly looking industrial buildings, with thoroughly unnecessary one-way roads surrounding it all. Once we were there though, it was perfect. Just the unique wall art and bar made out of books alone were enough to make it an interesting place, but of course the beer is what makes it special. Adrienne and I each got a sampler of their four main beers, and each was solidly above average at the least. Most great breweries are known for their special high-gravity beers, but making a solid line of "normal" beers is perhaps even more indicative of the quality of a brewery.
The highlights of the afternoon were many. Black House is a fantastic coffee stout, with a little more subtlety than you might expect from a brewery that roasts its own coffee. Blazing World is a IPA/APA/beer that is either really good or one of the best things I've ever had. I couldn't quite tell which it was, even though I stole most of Adrienne's sample (don't worry, I traded her my Black House). I have had beers that are more Simcoe-forward; this beer instead opted to blend it with Nelson and Mosaic to make quite the alluring combination. Finally, there was my favorite of the day, Fortunate Islands, a hoppy wheat that rivals Gumballhead in it's domination of the category. It is basically the same beer, except with a Citra-Amarillo blend instead of straight Amarillo. Like the can says, it tastes like wizards.*
*Modern Times might have my favorite beer packaging of all time. Not only do the cans look nice, but they also have the ingredients (even the malts!), as well as fun descriptions:
Not ready to be done with our revelry, we headed to the third top-100 bar of the trip, Hamilton's Tavern (link) in central San Diego. We were probably a touch burned out at this point, so we didn't enjoy this as much as our other stops. That said, it was still a great place with a good selection of beer on tap. And taps, lots of taps:
For our final meal in Southern California, we stopped at another participant in the Burrito Bracket, El Zarape (link). Whereas Lucha Libre had been more representative of the "new wave" of eateries, El Zarape was a much more old-fashioned establishment, complete with a too-small kitchen tucked in behind the counter. Adrienne ordered entirely too much food, while I ordered just a lot of food. My chicken burrito came with few frills, but was as delicious as anything I ate on the trip. You could say it was too juicy, but that would be a ridiculous thing to say.
And with that, our trip came to an end. Almost everything we did was a highlight in some way, and I would recommend you do just about everything we did on your next visit to San Diego, if you have the time. And if you don't have a next visit to San Diego planned, well, you should plan one.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
College Gameday's Mystery Location
College football is just three months away. In that span of time, I will write some fun posts about the exciting journey that the 2014 season is sure to be (I will also enjoy my summer, because I don't get paid for this and I'm not a psychopath). For now though, let's talk about an relatively meaningless thing that arose from a tweet yesterday.
As you all know, College Gameday is far and away the best preview show for college football (and perhaps any sport). Sure, it's far from a perfect show, but it does a great job representing the madness of the sport in a mostly lighthearted way. As much fun as it is to watch crazy fans at different locations represent their school, it's just about as fun to try to guess where the show will go in coming weeks. Luckily, one of the producers is often more than willing to encourage that anticipation. Which brings me to the tweet from yesterday:
Before I go any further, let me say how much I love the tone of this tweet. He's privy to some information that thousands of fans would love to have, and shrugs it off with an "Always fun." Never change, Lee Fitting.
As you might guess, the goal of this post is to figure out where this new location might be. Before I make my top guesses, let me eliminate a majority of games with the help of the schedule, a list of previous Gameday sites, and my expansive knowledge of college football [citation needed].
It can only be a game from the first three weeks
If you take a look at the TV schedule I linked to, there is a pretty significant drop-off in planned TV games after week 2, and a drop-off to almost no planned games after week 3. ESPN often waits until Sunday morning to determine the location for the next week's Gameday, for the same reason that TV matchups have only been determine a couple of weeks out: They want to go to the best games possible. Since a lot can happen in the first three weeks, I am guessing that Fitting's proclamation won't go beyond that. Case in point: Gameday went to Fargo for week four last year. This wouldn't have happened if a couple of the notable games lost their luster (ND-MSU, Wiscy-ASU), and if NDSU wouldn't have notched their big upset over Kansas State.
Gameday is going to prioritize major games
Yes, Gameday likes going to smaller games, but they generally only do so when there aren't any obvious bigger games (see my example from the last section). The first three weeks give us:
Week 1:
Florida State vs. Oklahoma State in Arlington
LSU vs. Wisconsin in Houston
Clemson at Georgia
Week 2:
Michigan at Notre Dame
Michigan State at Oregon
Virginia Tech at Ohio State
USC at Stanford
Week 3:
Georgia at South Carolina
Texas vs. UCLA in Arlington
Week three doesn't give us too many marquee games, but the first two weeks are absolutely loaded. It's going to take quite the special game to beat out those games with major playoff implications.
Gameday has already been to all of the locations for those marquee games
They've actually been to most of these sites multiple times, including a surprising six visits to South Carolina. The site that is closest to being a non-visit is Reliant Stadium in Houston, but they did travel there in 2005 for a Katrina-relocated Bayou Classic. Combining the early parts of the schedule and the list of previous Gameday sites just doesn't give us a classically obvious answer.
Given all of the above, here are my top guesses for the mystery Gameday location (sorry Baylor, your schedule is too awful to merit inclusion on this list):
#4: Oregon at Washington State (Week 4)
I know I said the game would have to be in the first three weeks, but Washington State is a favorite of the Gameday program because of its dedicated fans, so I'll give this a tiny, tiny chance of being the game Fitting speaks of. Washington State is unlikely to be great (though they certainly may be good), so I doubt Gameday has this circled on their calendar. Additionally, Oregon's week 2 battle with the Spartans gives them a decent chance of coming into this game with a loss, so I doubt Gameday would commit to this game so early.
#3: Louisiana at Ole Miss (Week 3)
Here is the first game that has a fighting chance of being the one. The Grove is by far the most notable college football location that has yet to host Gameday, so I am sure they are looking for every excuse possible to make a visit (promoting the new SEC network wouldn't hurt either). As I said earlier, week 3 is the most likely week in September for a less-hyped game, so this would make a lot of sense.
#2: Penn State vs. UCF in Dubin, Ireland (Week 1)
This game makes sense on a lot of levels. There are so many big games on the first week, that choosing more of a novelty might be the best bet. Taking Gameday to foreign soil would be quite the accomplishment for the program. Plus, we would get to see how people from other nations react to Big and Rich.
All that said, I still think this game is fairly unlikely for a couple of reasons. One, while both Penn State and UCF are bound to be good teams (37th and 27th respectively in the preseason F/+ rankings), I don't necessarily think the allure of Ireland is enough to overcome the middling matchup. Two, the game begins at 7:30 eastern time, so I'm not exactly sure when Gameday would air here. I doubt they would actually start at 4:30 AM, and I severely doubt they would tape delay it. Logistical reason may doom this game from the start.
#1: Sam Houston State at Eastern Washington (Week 0)
Sorry everyone, I tricked you earlier in the post. When I said the game would have to be in the first three weeks, I am betting you didn't know there was a week zero. My bad. The two best FCS programs (non-NDSU division) square off a week before everyone else gets started. Furthermore, the game is on ESPN, and it will be played on a red field. Gameday generally has a season preview show the week before the season in a studio in Bristol. I am betting that they take this show on the road this year. This probably isn't the sexiest answer to Fitting's tweet, but I think it's pretty cool that Gameday appears to be rewarding a program that has achieved great success (they won the 2011 title) despite being in the middle of nowhere (and yet having to compete with several nearby FBS programs for recruits). Time will tell if I am right.
As you all know, College Gameday is far and away the best preview show for college football (and perhaps any sport). Sure, it's far from a perfect show, but it does a great job representing the madness of the sport in a mostly lighthearted way. As much fun as it is to watch crazy fans at different locations represent their school, it's just about as fun to try to guess where the show will go in coming weeks. Luckily, one of the producers is often more than willing to encourage that anticipation. Which brings me to the tweet from yesterday:
This year, @CollegeGameDay will broadcast from a location that we've never been to before. Always fun.
— Lee Fitting (@leefitting) May 28, 2014
Before I go any further, let me say how much I love the tone of this tweet. He's privy to some information that thousands of fans would love to have, and shrugs it off with an "Always fun." Never change, Lee Fitting.
As you might guess, the goal of this post is to figure out where this new location might be. Before I make my top guesses, let me eliminate a majority of games with the help of the schedule, a list of previous Gameday sites, and my expansive knowledge of college football [citation needed].
It can only be a game from the first three weeks
If you take a look at the TV schedule I linked to, there is a pretty significant drop-off in planned TV games after week 2, and a drop-off to almost no planned games after week 3. ESPN often waits until Sunday morning to determine the location for the next week's Gameday, for the same reason that TV matchups have only been determine a couple of weeks out: They want to go to the best games possible. Since a lot can happen in the first three weeks, I am guessing that Fitting's proclamation won't go beyond that. Case in point: Gameday went to Fargo for week four last year. This wouldn't have happened if a couple of the notable games lost their luster (ND-MSU, Wiscy-ASU), and if NDSU wouldn't have notched their big upset over Kansas State.
Gameday is going to prioritize major games
Yes, Gameday likes going to smaller games, but they generally only do so when there aren't any obvious bigger games (see my example from the last section). The first three weeks give us:
Week 1:
Florida State vs. Oklahoma State in Arlington
LSU vs. Wisconsin in Houston
Clemson at Georgia
Week 2:
Michigan at Notre Dame
Michigan State at Oregon
Virginia Tech at Ohio State
USC at Stanford
Week 3:
Georgia at South Carolina
Texas vs. UCLA in Arlington
Week three doesn't give us too many marquee games, but the first two weeks are absolutely loaded. It's going to take quite the special game to beat out those games with major playoff implications.
Gameday has already been to all of the locations for those marquee games
They've actually been to most of these sites multiple times, including a surprising six visits to South Carolina. The site that is closest to being a non-visit is Reliant Stadium in Houston, but they did travel there in 2005 for a Katrina-relocated Bayou Classic. Combining the early parts of the schedule and the list of previous Gameday sites just doesn't give us a classically obvious answer.
Given all of the above, here are my top guesses for the mystery Gameday location (sorry Baylor, your schedule is too awful to merit inclusion on this list):
#4: Oregon at Washington State (Week 4)
I know I said the game would have to be in the first three weeks, but Washington State is a favorite of the Gameday program because of its dedicated fans, so I'll give this a tiny, tiny chance of being the game Fitting speaks of. Washington State is unlikely to be great (though they certainly may be good), so I doubt Gameday has this circled on their calendar. Additionally, Oregon's week 2 battle with the Spartans gives them a decent chance of coming into this game with a loss, so I doubt Gameday would commit to this game so early.
#3: Louisiana at Ole Miss (Week 3)
Here is the first game that has a fighting chance of being the one. The Grove is by far the most notable college football location that has yet to host Gameday, so I am sure they are looking for every excuse possible to make a visit (promoting the new SEC network wouldn't hurt either). As I said earlier, week 3 is the most likely week in September for a less-hyped game, so this would make a lot of sense.
#2: Penn State vs. UCF in Dubin, Ireland (Week 1)
This game makes sense on a lot of levels. There are so many big games on the first week, that choosing more of a novelty might be the best bet. Taking Gameday to foreign soil would be quite the accomplishment for the program. Plus, we would get to see how people from other nations react to Big and Rich.
All that said, I still think this game is fairly unlikely for a couple of reasons. One, while both Penn State and UCF are bound to be good teams (37th and 27th respectively in the preseason F/+ rankings), I don't necessarily think the allure of Ireland is enough to overcome the middling matchup. Two, the game begins at 7:30 eastern time, so I'm not exactly sure when Gameday would air here. I doubt they would actually start at 4:30 AM, and I severely doubt they would tape delay it. Logistical reason may doom this game from the start.
#1: Sam Houston State at Eastern Washington (Week 0)
Sorry everyone, I tricked you earlier in the post. When I said the game would have to be in the first three weeks, I am betting you didn't know there was a week zero. My bad. The two best FCS programs (non-NDSU division) square off a week before everyone else gets started. Furthermore, the game is on ESPN, and it will be played on a red field. Gameday generally has a season preview show the week before the season in a studio in Bristol. I am betting that they take this show on the road this year. This probably isn't the sexiest answer to Fitting's tweet, but I think it's pretty cool that Gameday appears to be rewarding a program that has achieved great success (they won the 2011 title) despite being in the middle of nowhere (and yet having to compete with several nearby FBS programs for recruits). Time will tell if I am right.
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