Random Rumblings: I now live in a basement

• I now live in a basement. That’s why I haven’t written in a week. I was moving into a basement studio on the other side of Providence and it took me a little while to come to terms with the fact that I now exemplify the stereotype all bloggers, online poker players, WOW players and consequently single men in their 30’s despise. I now live in a basement. Thankfully, it’s not my parents’ basement, I’m not in my 30’s (I’m just 23) and I’m not into avatars, which I’m pretty sure is a prerequisite of all gamers and internet gamblers.
  
  So there you have it. That’s why I’ve been MIA. I now live in a basement. Luckily, calling a place with no windows home has yet to make me claustrophobic and hasn’t stopped me from reading The Lost Symbol (better than Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons) and following the world of sports (pretty boring week).
  
  Moving on...
  
  
• The week’s most-used statistic is that since 1988, at least one team that started out 2-0 has made it to the Super Bowl. But here’s a stat that might be more interesting given the teams facing this circumstance heading into week 3: In that same timeframe, only four teams have made the Super Bowl after starting 1-2.
  
  That means that some of the sexiest Super Bowl picks (New England, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Green Bay, and Philly) are essentially playing must-win games this weekend. It should be noted that all five are favorites in Vegas this weekend, but if I was going to pick anyone to lose again this week, it would be the Patriots, who have a difficult matchup with Atlanta.
  
  The truth is, if it were any other team in the league, New England would be an underdog this Sunday. Playing with a still-rusty quarterback, no running back, their leading pass catcher injured and a shaky defense, the Pats are up against one of the best teams no one is talking about in the league. The Falcons have an emerging star at quarterback, a top five running back and made the best move of the off season in acquiring Tony Gonzalez. This is a team that has every right to be thinking about the Super Bowl. Yet because no one is willing to make a Bill Belichick coached team an underdog at home this early in the season, the Patriots are somehow 4 point favorites.
  
  
• Gilbert Arenas is the classic example of why NBA franchises shouldn’t just hand out $100 million dollar contracts to their most marketable players. Arenas became a national star more for his goofy personality than his ability on the court, and now the Washington Wizards are paying for it.
  
  That’s not to say that Arenas isn’t a great scorer. But why would any team want an injury plagued, shoot first, second and third point guard leading the way?
  
  
• Let’s call these little scuffles between the Kansas men’s basketball and football teams exactly what they are: Kids being kids. It wasn’t about gangs or hip hop’s negative influence on young people. It wasn’t a bunch of thugs pretending to be college students. It was a few fist fights, the type of altercations that take place every day, in every neighborhood, all over the world.
  
  In other words, the situation was no big deal.
  
  
• Give Joba Chamberlain credit for this: While the Yankees have been using him as a guinea pig for the past two years, he has stayed quiet and accepted his role no matter what. There probably aren’t many guys with that much ability that would be willing to be this flexible.
  
  
• I consider Gilbert Arenas to be one of the most delusional men in sports, but if there is one guy topping him, it’s Floyd Mayweather. Mayweather may very well be the greatest fighter of the decade, but it took his opponent admitting that he drinks his own urine to get people to buy their fight on pay per view last week.
  
  
• The biggest concern for college football right now is that one side of the National Championship Game is pretty much locked up by Penn State, who is going to be on cruise control following a victory over Iowa tonight.
  
  Why is that bad? Because the Nittany Lions are going to be a two touchdown underdog against any team they play in January.

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As teams schedule for a championship, college football loses relevance

I’ve always had a strange affection for the BCS. I loved the idea from the beginning. Having two teams actually play for a National Championship as opposed to letting writers (the sports version of death panels) pick the champion was what college football had always been missing. And when it screwed up and the wrong teams ended up playing for the title, I stuck by its side, turning my head the way a delusional parent does when they find out their angel of a child is actually using pages from his math book as rolling paper.

Put simple, I might be the system’s biggest apologist. But if Rutgers ends up playing Penn State for the National Championship, I’m out. I will disown the BCS forever.

Normally this wouldn’t be a concern at all. It’s been strange enough to see the Scarlet Knights finish in the top half of the Big East the past few seasons and the Nittany Lions are typically a mortal lock to screw up at least one must-win game every year. But given their embarrassing schedules, both teams have a realistic shot to run the table, a notion that has to make the people at ABC queasy.

If Rutgers is unbeaten after it travels to Maryland (a team that might win four games all season) at the end of September, the talk of a perfect season will start to get loud. The Scarlet Knights get Pitt, South Florida and a down West Virginia team at home and something tells me Army just won’t have what it takes to stop them.

Meanwhile, Penn State is more likely to get beat by its practice squad than the nonconference teams it scheduled. In what most people consider the easiest schedule of any BCS program, the Nittany Lions play Akron, Temple, Syracuse and Eastern Illinois and go on the road just four times all season. Joe Paterno himself could quarterback his team through this schedule.

It’s not just the two teams from the northeast guilty of scheduling for a championship. Ole Miss, who beat Florida last season, is a top ten program playing two games against IAA teams and two others against schools who couldn’t win a high school championship in most states (Memphis & UAB). Wisconsin misses Ohio State in the Big 10 this season, plays three nonconference games against teams that won’t finish in the top 100 and also has a IAA team on its schedule. And don’t forget about Notre Dame, who crazy Lou Holtz picked to play for the BCS Championship specifically because of its weak schedule.

The only thing worse than not having a playoff decide the champion is allowing a team that has five variations of Wofford on its schedule to reach the title game. And that’s what could very well happen this season.

If it does, college football will be hockey to me.

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