March Madness Brackets

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LSU v MSU baseball game 2 thread.

LSU v MSU game 2 thread


This thread is taking place in the Google+ community for LSU Baseball that I created. Join up and hang out, talk some college baseball.

Edit:  Ryan Eades gets the win and is now 4-0 on the year. Katz solo shot, Bregman three-run bomb and Jones's pair of doubles lead LSU to 7-3 win!

2013 LSU Tigers

The 2013 Tiger football team will not look all that different from the 2012 team.

When I heard that 10 tigers were declaring early for the NFL draft, my first reaction was one of great concern. How could Les Miles possible replace some many outstanding players. Then I thought, how many seniors did we lose as well? Were we even going to have the full allotment of 85 scholarship athletes since we could only sign 29 new ones (back counting 4 to last year)?

After taking a look at the roster from this past season and with a little analysis, here is what I found;

Total players - 111

Seniors - 10     (3 starters, 4 players, 1 kicker, 1 left team, 1 walk on)

Juniors - 33     (9 leaving early, 7 starters, 13 players, 1 transferred in, 1 transferred out)

Sophm - 29     (1 leave early, 5 starters, 11 players, 2 ineligible, 1 transfer out)

RSFrsh- 9       (2 starters, 3 players)

Fresh - 30      (5 starters, 10 players)

The sophomores, red-shirt freshmen and true freshmen saw a lot of playing time during the season and on top of that they are very good players. I say this based on the fact that 12 of the first 22 were in this group. Compare that against the fact that we had 9 Juniors and 1 Sophomore good enough to leave early for the NFL draft, I think that says quite a bit about the quality of the depth we have to work with.

    

These two guys are only going to get better.

What else can we say about this true freshman?








The offensive line is going to be better if for no other reason that there should not be nearly as much turmoil as last year. I have a lot of confidence in Elliot Porter to take over at center. Turner and Alexander on the right side will be beasts. Williford is coming back along with Collins. Yes we will have to secure the left side but don't be surprised to see La'el Collins move into that spot.

Then to top it all off, this is the best recruiting class Miles has put together. there are some real studs to work with and possible a few more (Kemdiche and Foster) that could be coming.

Bottom line is I believe we will obviously miss the old faces we saw but there will also be a lot of familiar faces on the field for the tigers next year and we are going to win a lot of games. So stay positive Tiger Fans, the future truly very bright.

Coach

Pay for Play

Well it looks like the pay day is right around the corner for college football players. A report says that the governing body wants the schools to provide a stipend to each student-athlete of $2,000. That sounds innocent enough on the surface but let's be honest, how many schools can really afford that kind of money for all of the athletes (men and women) across the board?

Consider the MAC member Northern Illinois, their average attendance for football was a little over 15,000 per game. Assume a ticket price of $50, that comes to $750,000 per game. Now compare that to Alabama which averages 100,000 per game at home with a ticket price of $60+ or $6 million per game. In fact teams like Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and LSU that all average over 90,000 per game will even make it tough for Ole Miss, Vandy, and Kentucky to compete financially with the big boys if you pull $2,000 per athlete out of their budgets. A conservative estimate for the number of athletes at a given school is probably 300. So that is a $600,000 expense just for the stipends.

So where does the money come from for facilities improvement, recruiting budgets, coaches salaries, etc. With Title IX the way it is, you must provide the same level of support across the spectrum of athletes. Now don't get me wrong, I love the idea. Maybe this will keep some the less financially fortunate athletes from being lead astray by boosters as well avoid future legal issues. But it concerns me about opening the door to more corruption once dollars start flowing toward the athletes.

This is a slippery slope that I hope can be successfully traversed.

Let me know what you think and if you have a suggestion to make this work.

USC with Kiffen is bad

Georgia Tech 21 - So. Cal 7

That score says it all but in case you are not aware how bad this really is, let me enlighten you.

1.  This is the same GT team that Georgia crushed by 32 points (42 - 10)

2.  Lost to Middle Tennessee 49 - 28 (I am sure that MTSU has a much better offense than USC).

3.  The only team that GT beat with a winning record (before today) was UNC 68 - 50.

4.  GT lost to BYU 41 - 17. BYU is not known as an offensive juggernaut.

5.  GT can not throw the football with any regularity, in fact they had less than 100 yards today.

So how hard can it be to prepare a team for a one dimensional offensive attack that tells you where they are going to run the football? I guess for the west coast cool guys, it seems to be very difficult.

Would somebody help me understand how this was a team in August that had more money bet on them to win a national championship than ever before. They were such a sure thing that even the savvy media experts polled selected USC overwhelmingly to stop the SEC dominance in the BSC. ESPN the magazine ran a front cover ad predicting the end of the reign for the SEC, so much for that wish.

Bottom line this was a pitiful effort today and a glimpse into the future of USC football for the next three years as the sanctions will only worsen the situation once the few players they have depart. USC's Pat Hayden (AD) should not accept another lackluster coaching performance from his staff. If he doesn't have a serious discussion with the head coach, the wrong message will be sent to an arrogant individual and also the remaining players. You can mark this down, the Trojans will not compete for a PAC 12 title for at least the next three years.

Good luck SC fans, you have a long road to travel without much of a leader to guide the program.

Coach's Bowl Locks

Sorry about the late post, but I am about to lay the most locked picks of all time on you. Well maybe in my own mind anyway. You will just have to take my word for the Arizona and Utah State picks, but I did have them before the games were played. Listed below you will find in order the games will be played, my picks for the bowl season. No point spreads will be used. My picks will be in red and my confidence number in blue. A confidence number of 1 is lowest and 35 is highest level. So here we go.

Bowl Game                    Favorite                     Underdog                    Date             Confidence No.

Idaho Potato                  Utah St                       Toledo                        12/15                  33
New Mexico                  Arizona                      Nevada                       12/15                  23
Poinsettia                       BYU                          San Diego St.             12/20                    7
Beef O'Brady's               UCF                           Ball St.                       12/21                   9
     Going with the dog here because I think the MAC is better than the Conf USA.
MAACO                        Boise St.                    Washington                12/22                  12
      Peterson over Sarkisian is the difference here.
New Orleans                  La Lafayette              East Carolina              12/22                 21
Hawaii                           Fresno St.                  SMU                           12/24                 31
Little Ceasars                West. Kentucky         Cent Mich                   12/26                   8
      Does anybody know who is coaching in this game?
Military                         San Jose St.                Bowling Green           12/27                 24
       The Spartans have been good for me all year long. So stay with them.
Holiday                          UCLA                       Baylor                         12/27                 10
Belk                                Cincinnati                 Duke                           12/27                   2
Meineke                         TexasTech                 Minnesota                  12/28                 34
Independence                 La Monroe                Ohio                           12/28                 14
           This is a home game for the Warhawks.
Russell Athletic             Virginia Tech            Rutgers                       12/28                   3
Pinstripe                         West Virgina            Syracuse                     12/29                 20
Fight Hunger                  Arizona St.               Navy                           12/29                 15
Armed Forces                 Air Force                  Rice                            12/29                 13
Buff Wild Wings           TCU                          Mich St.                      12/29                   6
Alamo                            Oregon St.                Texas                           12/29                   4
         Can anyone tell me which Longhorn team will show up for this one?
Music City                     Vandy                       NC ST.                        12/31                 28
Sun                                 USC                         Ga Tech                       12/31                 16
Chick-fil-A                     LSU                         Clemson                      12/31                 11
Liberty                           Tulsa                         Iowa St                        12/31                   5
Rose                               Stanford                    Wisconsin                   01/01                 30
Outback                         So. Carolina               Michigan                    01/01                 29
Orange                           FSU                           No. Illinois                  01/01                26
Capital One                   Georgia                      Nebraska                     01/01                18
Gator                             Miss St                       Northwestern              01/01                  1  
Sugar                             Florida                       Louisville                    01/02                27
Fiesta                            Oregon                       Kansas St                     01/03                32
Cotton                           Texas A & M              Oklahoma                    01/04                19
BBVA                           Ole Miss                     Pitt                               01/05                17
Go Daddy                     Arkansas St                 Kent St                        01/06                25
BCS NCG                     Alabama                     Notre Dame                 01/07                22

I have a lot of fun with the blog site picking winners this year and finishing the regular season at over 65% against the spread, it was a good year. I will post my results as we progress throughout the bowl season before we move on to our analysis of the recruiting season. Thanks for reading and I look forward to your comments.

Coach

Watching the New Mexico Bowl

I don't know about everyone else but I sure do miss SEC football right about now. The bad angles and tackling in this game is very frustrating to watch. It's led to lots of offense but without a big hit or great defensive play every now and then I find it monotonous. Basically whoever has the ball last should win. Definitely looking forward to some better teams and match ups.