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Merging CONCACAF and CONMEBOL

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 1:58:39 EST

A few months ago, it was announced that there may be a 2016 Copa America held in the US to celebrate the 100th anniversary of CONMEBOL. This has made me again think about a possible move to unite North, Central, and South American soccer. This would be a huge move and the positives would highly outweigh the negatives for most of the parties involved. Here are the some of the reasons why this should happen.

1. No More CONCACAF "Cupcakes" at the World Cup - Since 1994, the only CONCACAF nations to make it out of the group stage at the World Cup are USA and Mexico. A merger would all but eliminate those smaller island nations that are far inferior to the powerful countries that are at the World Cup. If merged, the confederation could receive 8 automatic bids with another possible in a playoff with Asia. So most likely, we would see the qualified nations being something like this: USA, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Uraguay, Paraguay, Chile, and Ecuador. This is much better than seeing Honduras, Costa Rica, or Trinadad and Tobago out there representing the continent.

Just Another CFB Playoff Idea

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 10:59:39 EST

So here is my newest idea for a playoff. See if you like it and please comment.

The first thing I would do is cut the 12th game of the regular season and bring it back down to 11. This would do 2 things, make sure that a team has a winning record to go to a bowl game, and as you will see, the teams who end up in the NCG would end up playing 17 (or 16 depending on if they play a conf CG) games rather than 18.

So you play out the regular season and conference championship games as it's done now. Then you play all the bowls with the current conference tie-ins (except the NCG, that gets eliminated). All the non-BCS bowls will be played by Dec 31st. One of the BCS Bowls will also be played on Dec 31st in primetime (this will be on a year-to-year rotating basis). The other 3 BCS bowls will be played at 1pm, 4pm and 8pm on New Years Day.

Top 10 Male Tennis Players of All-Time

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 4:04:28 EDT

So a few months ago I ranked the Top 10 Tennis players of the decade. Now I decided to do the top 10 players of All-Time.

Using only the 4 GS tournaments here is how the points were awarded:

Winner - 2000 pts

RUP - 1200 pts

NCAA Tournament Predictions

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:09:20 EDT

Mid-West Region

1st Round

Kansas over Lehigh

UNLV over No. Iowa

Idea for NCAA Tourney Expansion

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:54:57 EST

So I was thinking about expanding the tourney and how this could be done without "just letting mediocre teams in".

I got to thinking, what about a qualifying tournament type of thing? You could seed the regular tourney team with the 31 auto qualifiers and then give 25 intial at-large bids. This leaves the 15 and 16 spots open in each region. Next, select 32 teams and put them in a seperate "play-in bracket". They will be seeded by a committee and play out the games until you get down to 8 teams. Those 8 teams will be put in the 15 and 16 spots in the big dance.

I think this is the best way to find the 64 best teams in the country and you have to earn your way in by beating multiple teams.

Also, they should enstate a rule that if you have a losing record, you are not eligible for the big dance. Even if you win your conference tourney.

"Syracuse LETS GO" (song written by Jake Ober)

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 18:41:17 EST

I did not write this song. Let me make that clear. I am not trying to take credit for this song, its not mine.

This is a song written by Syracuse University Freshman Jake Ober. Who was inspired by the way the basketball team has been playing. I'm posting this link on my blog so that this song can get some exposure. It should be played at the dome to pump up the crowd and the player during the pre-game player intros.

http://blog.syracuse.com/orangebasketball/2010/02/su_student_writes_song_about_o.html

Top 10 Male Tennis Players of the Decade

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:37:19 EST

While the player listed #1 is no surprise to anyone, there are a few players on this list that my shock you a little bit. Now before you go all nuts on how stupid I am and that this player should be ranked ahead of this player, let me tell you what went into these rankings. I used the ATP points system to come up with a number of total points for each player. But I only used the four Grand Slam's and the ATP World Tour Finals in the rankings. In my opinion, the player who performs well when the stakes are the highest is the best. Once I came up with the total number of points, I divided it by 4 because some of the numbers got insanely high and it made them seem irrelevent (ex. Federer's total points before I divided by 4 was 52,560). So here are the rankings and a bit about each player. Hope you enjoy. Please comment!

College Football Restructure

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:24:56 EDT

I basically started from scratch. I took all the BCS teams, plus, Notre Dame, TCU, Boise State, BYU, Utah, ECU and UCF. I had to add ECU and UCF to make it an even 72 teams and they were the best choices geographically. So I split those teams up into 6 conferences of 12 teams. Those would obviously be the 6 new power conferences. Which would get automatic bid to the playoffs. I took the rest of the teams and split them up into 4 conferences of 12 teams. I'll explain how they fit into the playoff/bowl system at the end. When sorting out the conferences, I did my best to keep big rivalries intact. (i.e. Ohio State/Michigan, Texas/Oklahoma)

Power Conferences Northeastern Conference

East

Syracuse, UConn, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Boston College, Penn State

Doug Marrone's Inagural Season in Review: Offense

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 15:18:30 EST

With the season now over it's time to take a look back at what we saw and look forward to what we can expect next year.

QB - While Greg Paulus showed flashes of what we saw when he was in high school, I think Marrone probably should have gone to Nassib more often. He seemed a lot more comfortable in the pocket and has a rocket laucher for an arm. Yes, Paulus is now "the most accurate QB in Syracuse history" but 95% of his passes were bubble screens and little dump offs on roll outs. In the end I think together they did a pretty good job. But Nassib will be very good in the next few years for us.

Grade: B

RB - Delone Carter was huge for us this year. He did an excellent job rushing for over 1,000 yds and kept us in a lot of games. Antwan Bailey and Avrin Collier also showed some flashes of great things and will be a good 1-2 punch next year. I would have liked to them get Bailey into the wildcat (or stallion as Marrone called it) more and had them put more of a variation into it instead of Bailey just running up the middle every time.

Syracuse 16th in latest AP Poll

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:42:30 EST

After beating the last 2 national champions, Kansas and Florida, the Syracuse University basketball team is listed at 16th in the AP poll and 20th in the coaches poll.

This gives the Big East a record 8 teams in the top 25. UConn stayed at #2, while Pitt moved up to #3. The rest of the Big East rankings went like this. No. 7 Notre Dame, No. 11 Louisville, No. 16 Syracuse, No. 17 Villanova, No. 20 Georgetown and No. 25 Marquette. The Big East now has 2 teams in the top 5, 3 in the top 11, and 7 in the top 20.

Now only if they were this good in football.

Syracuse fires Greg Robinson

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:10:53 EST

After over a year of speculation, it's official, Greg Robinson is out as the head football coach at Syracuse University. At 2:30 on sunday afternoon, Syracuse athletic director Dr. Daryl Gross stated this:

“I have made the decision to move our football program in a new direction and have informed Greg Robinson that his tenure as Syracuse’s head coach will end at the conclusion of this season. Coach Robinson worked very hard to try to establish a winning program, one that could eventually compete for the conference championship on a regular basis. Unfortunately, the progress we expected to see has not occurred.Greg has been professional and honorable in how he has handled his responsibilities as head coach. He has been dedicated to teaching and guiding the student-athletes in his charge, and passionate in wanting Syracuse to be a quality and successful program. I thank Coach Robinson and his entire staff for creating a highly competitive culture in which our players never gave up, and for his development and leadership of our student-athletes in the classroom and community. His commitment to community service was outstanding. He leaves the program with a solid base on which we will continue to build. We wish Greg and his family the very best moving forward.The timing of this announcement allows us to end rumor and speculation and provides us ample time to hire a head coach who has shown the capability to produce a winning football program that the Syracuse nation can be proud of. That process will begin immediately and will remain confidential until a selection is made.”

Syracuse beats...........NORTHEASTERN!??!!?!!!???

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 20:26:56 EDT

Well it wasn't pretty, but Syracuse finally pulled off a win on Saturday, defeating Northeastern 30-21 on homecoming weekend at the Carrier Dome. The win was once again highlighted by the running game. Curtis Brinkley rushed for 145 yards and a TD. Doug Houge also had 100 yards and got into the end zone once on the ground. This is the first time since 2004 that Syracuse has had two 100 yard rushers when Diamond Ferri rushed for 146 yards and along with an INT return for a TD and almost single handedly beat #17 Boston College 43-17. Damien Rhodes was the "other" RB that game with 107 yards.

Cameron Dantley also played very well, completeing 14 of 17 passes for 165 yards and a touchdown. He spread the ball around well as he completed passes to 7 different players. Tight end Mike Owen led the Orange reciving corps with 3 catches for 29 yards. Freshman Marcus Sales had 2 grabs for 41 yards. Doug Houge had Syracuse's only reciving TD of the day, an 8 yard strike from Cam Dantley mid way through the quarter.

Field Hockey Cracks Top 10!!

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:42:34 EDT

The SU field hockey team has had a great start to the season (unlike the football team). They are 4-0 with 2 wins over top 10 teams, Old Dominion and Michigan State. They have cracked the top 10 of the field hockey polls at number 7. 11 spots better than thier 18th spot last week. Other wins for them have come @ Central Michigan and vs. Colgate. They look to continue thier win streak @ the Terrapin Invitational with contests against Maryland and Delaware.

Brief Big East Breakdown

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:58:44 EDT

West Virginia - With Pat White as the leader it's no secret thet WVU is the front runner in the Big East.

South Florida - Grothe and top D lineman George Selvie are coming back and USF wil have another good year and should stay in the top 15.

Connecticut - Former WR Tyler Lorenzen is back under center this year and so is thier duel threat at running back in Dixon and Brown.

Pittsburgh - Lesean McCoy will lead this team back to the thick of the big east race with 1500 yards rushing.

National Champions Once Again!!!!!

Tue, 27 May 2008 18:32:44 EDT

The Orange are owners of the NCAA National Lacrosse Title for the 10th time in the storied programs history. After a comback for the ages in the semi-finals against Virginia on Saturday. The 2 greatest programs of all time in college lacrosse squared off for all the marbles once again. Syracuse and Johns Hopkins were tied for the most NCAA titles with 9 going into monday. But Syracuse came out with 10. Hopkins struck first on a Paul Rabil goal with 11:06 left in the opening period. Then 3 minutes later Stephen Keogh lined a shot past Hopkins goalie Micheal Gvozden to tie the game at 1. After the Blue Jays scored the next 2 goals, Syracuse's 5th year senior and faceoff specialist Danny Brennan won a faceoff, scooped up the ball made a b-line for the goal and fired shot that found the back of the net to score the first point of his carrer to bring Syracuse within one goal of Hopkins. After Keogh scored for the Orange in between 2 goals by the Blue Jays. Syracuse went on to score the next five goals to make the score 8-5. The 2 teams split the last ten goals with 5 each but Hopkins never led again. They threatend a comeback scoring the last 2 goals of the game but ultimatly ran out of time. The clock struck zero and the SU fans and players celebrated the schools 10th NCAA NATIONAL TITLE. Congratulations Guys.

SU Lax In Final Four...............Again

Tue, 20 May 2008 17:34:34 EDT

The Syracuse Men's and Women's lacrosse teams both made it to the final four. The first for the women who are taking on #1 seeded Northwestern. As for the Men this is thier 25th time in the National Semifinals and they will be traveling to Foxboro, Mass to play the #2 seeded Virginia. They lost in OT to Virginia earlier in the season. If they win they will play the winner of Duke/Johns Hopkins.

Syracuse in the draft

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:28:51 EDT

Uhhhhhh. Not much to say here. First time since 1975 that they didn't have anybody drafted. But as much as it pains me to say this I'm not suprised.

Syracuse Football Spring Wrap up

Thu, 01 May 2008 20:20:38 EDT

From what I heard from Greg Robinson's press conference it looks like this team has made leaps and bounds to having a decent record this year. Our main weakness the, offensive line has improved alot and replaced alot of thier fat with muscle. He said that Delone Carter and Curtis Brinkley will be 100% for training camp in August so we will have our top 2 running backs for '08. Also, Andrew Robinson is set to have a stellar 2008 campaign, with 2 solid targets in Mike Williams and Laver Lobdell. He did say that he still has no answers in the secondary. Overall i think this team will improve alot in 08, belive it or not i could see them winning 6 or 7 games this season.

Cuse Lax #1

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 12:54:53 EDT

The Syracuse lax team defeted the Albany Great Danes on friday night to extend their win streak to 9 games. And retaining their #1 ranking. Massachusetts comes to the dome on April 26th. Then the Orange travel to Colgate to take on the Raiders on May 3rd. After that its the NCAA tourney and hopfully a 10th National Title.