DBD 6.11.10 - Welcome Colorado Buffaloes

Sandy on Colorado:

"I think under the circumstances and some of the strategies employed by some of the conferences to either stay together or acquire new members, you can see why it had to come together very quickly," she said.

Without getting ahead of the process that may ultimately land Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State in the Pac-10, Barbour said she understands how difficult this might be for schools such as Baylor and Kansas, which may find themselves left behind in a crumbling Big 12.

"That’s a really unfortunate part of this kind of movement," she said. "It’s very exciting for those that are considered winners to find new and exciting and enhanced homes."

On the question of how the Pac-10 will handle travel and scheduling, Barbour said conference leadership has her full confidence. They "will use the right value system and the right priorities in putting together the massive numnber of details that will be required to be prepared for an expanded conference in 2012."

Farudo’s got a nice compact story:

Including potentially the establishment of a conference football championship game, something the Pac-10 does not have. An unnamed Big 12 coach has suggested the expanded league might maintain that policy but lobby for two automatic bids to the BCS football playoffs, one each going to the champion of two divisions.

“Absolutely,” Cal coach Jeff Tedford said when asked if he favored a conference championship game. “How else would you decide a conference champion? That’s the model the other conferences use. And it’s a big money-maker, there’s no question about that. I would just assume if we went to 16 teams, that’s what we would do.”

Fingers crossed that YF gets to cover football for the CCT.

Kawakami:

* Am I misreading this or does the reported USC 2-year bowl-ban expire in perfect timing with a 2012 expansion and USC-Texas conference-championship game as an entry-way to a BCS title bid?

No, I’m not misreading it. Pretty convenient–though the Trojan penalties seem on the harsh side, there was no way the NCAA was going beyond 2011 for any postseason ban for this cash cow.

* But the bowl-ban may not be short enough to get USC rising-sophomore QB Matt Barkley into another bowl game.

He could be a top-5 pick in 2012 draft as a junior-eligible without ever having played in a BCS game. (USC sunk to the Emerald Bowl last December.)

* Of course new Trojan coach Lane Kiffin knows how to deal with knowing his team won’t be playing in the postseason for a while.

He coached the Raiders, after all.

And JaMarcus Russell.

* My apologies to Raiders fans for those last two cheap shots. All the recent good will I’ve built up with Al D, gone, just like that.

* What’s the Pete Carroll/USC legacy Kiffin is most likely to duplicate? The two national titles or the two years’ probation? (I’d say the latter.)

* The only two Tweets from @PeteCarroll in last 24 hours… are about Taylor Swift and Barkley. Is she going on probation, too?

* Speaking of Tweeets, this from @AaronRodgers12: Looking forward to getting my PAC-10 championship ring from the ‘04 season.

Ratto:

“The College Athletics Industry: We’re Predator/Whores, And We’re Not Even Bothering To Hide It Any More.”

The last development of the day was the indication, through the ahead-of-the-field (i.e., well-sourced and properly leaked) Chip Brown of the unofficial Texas blog site Orangebloods.com, that Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and OSU are waiting for Nebraska to announce its intention to join the Big Ten before announcing for the Pac-10, perhaps as soon as Monday. And Texas A&M might be locked out if the SEC thing doesn’t happen, and Utah would return to the Pac-10 picture.

And one last thing. Both the Texas Legislature and Kansas Republican Sen. Pat Roberts are trying to get involved on behalf of clients Baylor and Kansas. Evidently there are times for more government, and supervising market cannibalism is one of them.

In the meantime, Larry Scott is the commissioner of the Pac-11 and now must feel the same way flagmakers felt in the three days between Montana’s entry into the union and Washington’s. You got a flag with 41 stars all ready for sewing, and suddenly it’s 42. He knows it won’t be the Pac-11 for long, but he’ll have a whole weekend to give all the love Colorado needs, before dropping it like a hot skillet to schmooze his new BFFs in Texas and Oklahoma.

And if you think that’s a problem, imagine what happens if Colorado turns out to be the best news Scott has to report. Consider if he starts out with half the Big 12, including the biggest prize of all, and finishes with Colorado and Utah. Bringdown doesn’t begin to cover it.

But at least he won’t have to bore us with empty tales of the noble and educational value of the college athletic experience anymore. He knows better than to try.

I can’t find the link, but a rumor I heard was….. In order to maintain your BCS big you need a conference with at least 6 teams, of whom have played each other for at least 5 years. This would mean if Nebraska, Colorado, and the 5 Big-XII south teams leave, the Big-XII would lose their BCS bid.

Most of the elite within Colorado are displaced Californians.

Starcraft 2 commercial debuted last night! I’ve played the beta a little and it looks like it’ll be really good. Who’ll be ceding their life to this game the next few months?

Forum Blue & Gold.

But in the end there were just too many mistakes. The Lakers didn’t rebound well enough, didn’t take care of the ball, and didn’t execute down the stretch. They had the lead going into the 4th quarter, but (as I mentioned earlier) gave up 36 points in the 4th quarter and didn’t get enough from their bench to give the starters the rest they’d need to close the game down. They now get two days off to think about the loss, regroup, and hopefully get Bynum healthy enough to contribute. I’m surely disappointed that the Lakers didn’t take advantage of their chances and grab that 3-1 lead, but a 2-2 tie is faaar from the end of the world. And in a series where neither team has won two in a row, I think there are things to feel good about going into game 5. So, stew on this loss Lakers (and us fans), but don’t fret too much. Another chance is coming and if this series has taught us anything, the Lakers will be ready to compete and be in the game at the end with a chance to win.

Giants win.

Guillermo Mota hasn’t done this to us yet, and on a day when the starter left after the second inning, you have to figure that one of the relievers is going to have an off outing. It just stings a wee bit more when it’s in the eighth inning, though.

This was the regression to the mean game. Denny Bautista isn’t a 1.00 ERA kind of guy, and his peripherals indicated as much. Poof! His ERA is now 3.52, much closer to reality. Mota isn’t a 1.00 ERA kind of guy, and while his walk rate is excellent, his strikeout rate isn’t that good. Poof! His ERA is 2.42 now, which is still impressive, but it’s a bit more realistic. Of course, using ERA to evaluate relievers is kind of silly, but it’s hard not to be superficially impressed when the pitchers in question have goofy-low ERAs.

Like him As fans?

But hey this Trevor Cahill guy is pretty good, huh? Tossing a career-high eight innings, Cahill got 14 outs on a ground balls as the A’s beat the Angels 6-1 to gain a split of their four-game series.

It is the sixth straight outing that the young right-hander has gone six or more innings, but he was extra special today. He threw 73 of 108 pitches for strikes, and not once did he go to three balls on a batter, walking only one batter. Not too shabby for a hurler who was the odd-man-out when the team broke from Spring Training, and ultimately spent some time on the disabled list.

Fear the Fin has more on San Jose.

Sactown Royalty with an excellent breakdown.

Part of what made Nocioni a decent acquisition (aside from the cap savings in the 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons) is that this is who he is. He wants to play, and he’ll fight to be on the court. Maybe his game as a bit of what Tim Thomas’ would define as “fugazy” — a lot of El Chapu’s so-called defensive prowess is the old Coach K bit: Nocioni scowls and beats his chest and gets in his defensive crouch. He actually quite mediocre on defense. He sags off his man way too much, and his lateral quickness leaves much to be desired.

But I digress. I was trying to compliment him, wasn’t I?

This guy at Niners Nation has lost it a bit.

I have a confession to make, so please bear with me. These past few weeks have been a challenge to me as a San Francisco 49er fan. In fact, I haven’t been interested in any news regarding the team at all. I used to post here a lot, even hanging out for a long time waiting for meager news about David Carr, and the presser that never happened. Now, part of my dilemma stems from the NBA post season, and the upcoming US Open golf championship. As a man in his 40’s who refuses to grow up, I may have to finally face the reality of age. The last time the 49ers won a championship was 15 years ago. Since then the team has gone up and down to down and out, to now just competing for respect, and hopefully winning a Division they once owned regularly. During this time I have managed to hang onto my fandom, not jumping off or on any bandwagons. But I fear a certain reality creeping in. That reality is life, and how the 49ers fit in it.

S&BP:

Seymour, who is currently listed as one of our seven DEs, is holding out again, missing OTA’s, wanting more money than he’s worth, and reminding me of the unmentionable-one (he who is ‘dead to me’ waived 5/6/10). Richard Seymour, whose local fan-base never fails to defend his lack-luster play by asserting his team influence, that “Richard is a great influence on the Raider’s younger players.” Well, that positive intangible quality is now in question.

Last year Dick refused to report to the Raiders (after NE traded him) until the the Raiders reminded him of the repercussions available to Oakland through the NFLCBA. Now, after being given the exclusive franchise tag, this declining former Patriot, who only looked like his former self in two games last season, is holding out for the big money.

True Blue LA:

While the sixth best organization in baseball is mired in last place and starting to look toward next year, the team that is always counted out by the sabre crowd is once again in their familiar position. As I write this the Angels are 1/2 a game out of first and could easily be in first when they arrive at Chavez Ravine tomorrow night.

I love the Angels because I love the experts being wrong. Mike Scoscia continues to get crucified for his aggressive style of base running but the numbers back his style up. I’d link to those numbers but they might not prove my point so I’ll let others do it.

The team to the South is as hot as any team in baseball. Like the Dodgers the Angels are 8 – 2 over their last 10 games. Like the Dodgers the Angels were being written off in April. Like the Dodgers the Angels rotation is doing some great work during the winning streak. Like the Dodgers they are over performing their Pythag. Like the Dodgers they have a catcher as a manager. Like the Dodgers they reside in Southern California. Like the Dodgers they keep losing in the playoffs.

Enough of the likes. Unlike the Dodgers, they don’t have the best record in the AL, or anything close to it even after their 8 – 2 run.

Reddit’s got some good ones.

I’d have to say in regards to a proper meal, any type of roast pork belly with crackling (oh my god). I also love a good bowl of crispy french fries.

The best simple dish anyone can make is Mi Goreng. This shit is off the fucking hook. You can find it at some grocery stores and most Asian specialty stores.

One time I was given free reign of a bagel store I worked in. I was in charge of everything. Everyone was gone for the day.

I made a hero out of bagel dough. Whole wheat dough, everything bagel toppings. I made the bread into garlic bread, with REAL garlic and REAL onions that I sauteed up in fresh butter.

The day before, my boss was having a family party so he ordered REAL Italian gourmet meats from Italy, to do it right. He made all the platters ahead of time, but still had leftover meats that he said we could use for our own delight. Real prosciutto, real salami, real provolone cheese that was unprocessed and unpasteurized. Capicola ham, spiced ham. I made a spiced mayonnaise myself, in the store. Roma tomatoes. Romaine lettuce that I delved through to find the perfect pieces. Red onion.

I stacked the meat so that it would be fluffy, folding each piece and making sure that it was in line with the bread-horizon. I used a perfectly sharpened bread knife to cut it on a slight diagonal across the hero-bagel-bread.

I roasted some red peppers that we had over our grill, and used the true, raw olive oil that he had used for the party for antipasto trays. I used a few olives to make a small tapenade that went into the center of the bread, injected via turkey baster. After I cut it, I wrapped it up and put it into our walk-in refrigerator to marinate for about half an hour.

I made a sandwich whose street value was easily over 150 dollars. I made two of these sandwiches. I gave one to my friend Kenny for his birthday.

The other one I ate over the course of a day. I ate nothing else that day.

I wept. Guys, I don’t want this to sound like some bullshit story, but I fucking cried. I fucking cried over this sandwich, and I think about it every few weeks. This was almost four or five years ago.

I’m a breakfast guy, so here we go.

On our way home from a friend’s wedding reception one morning, my wife and I get up and begin to head home. Still wearing our dress clothes from the reception the night before, we walk into this old building where they used to make wire back in the late 1800’s. It is now a semi-upscale place with a light artsy/modern feel with a nice blend of old and new.

We sit down to order and are informed that one of the specials for the morning is French Toast Bananas Foster. and I like french toast, and I like bananas foster, so I go for it. Anyway, accompanied by a large glass of ice cold milk, the french toast comes out in a stack of 3 slices, each piece rotated slightly from the one below it and cut in half diagonally. This delicious masterpiece is topped by a the syrup that is cooked down with sliced bananas, walnuts, and sprinkled with powdered sugar.

At first bite, the toast is not too eggy and has a firm enough bite. But then it seems to melt away as the flavor of the banana, cinnamon, and vanilla are met with the crunch of the walnuts. My cares fall away and I am left sitting at the table, eating the best breakfast ever with the woman of my dreams,

When I was a young kid I hated tomatoes, that is, if they weren’t cooked in a sauce and absolutely lump-free, like the sauce in spaghettios. Well, my dad was an avid vegetable gardener. His pride and joy was the harvest of big, plump, juicy tomatoes he grew every summer. I remember one year (I’m sure it happened more than once a year but this is the one scene I remember), it was a hot summer day and Dad was grilling pork steaks for dinner. Pork steaks are a summer staple in the midwest, maybe elsewhere too but this seems to be the one thing every carnivore in the midwest grills by default, and the man had it down. I was already convinced of the deliciousness of barbeque, but when we sat down to dinner that night I thought the pork steak was the best thing I had ever tasted- at the age of eight or nine, maybe it was- the main contender to that would have been my granddad’s pineapple ice cream). Anyway, I guess I felt a surge or maturity or perhaps they had been offered up often enough and I finally gave in and had some fresh tomato with it. One of Dad’s prize tomatoes had been thickly sliced and placed next to some fresh corn on the cob. Dad always salted and peppered his tomato slice and ate it just like that, like any side vegetable. I did the same and just fell in love with fresh tomatoes just like that, in an instant. That was the best meal I have ever had, to this day- fresh corn on the cob and tomato from the garden, with a perfectly grilled pork steak.

I didn’t have to be convinced ever again to eat a fresh, raw, homegrown tomato- and to this day a slice with salt and pepper is one of my very favorite foods of all.

A fresh mango in Guatemala. And it only cost one quetzal.

Steak, cooked to perfection:

First, rub sea salt and oil into the surface of the steak. It should be at least two inches thick if you want the recipe to work properly. Next, grab a butane torch from your garage. The more powerful the better. Sear the outside of the steak until it is perfectly browned, using the torch on maximum heat. Next, preheat the oven to 120 degrees Fahrenheit and place the browned steaks (what, you weren’t seriously going to make just one, were you?) in the oven for 12-18 hours. Once that’s done, heat a cast iron skillet to maximum heat, and briefly pan-fry the steaks in bleu cheese infused butter. Let the steak rest for at least 5 minutes before cutting.

You will end up with a steak that is uniformly and perfectly browned. There will be a thin layer of crunchy, buttery, blue cheese flavored malliard-reactioned goodness, followed by a thin layer almost jerky-like in chewyness, and finally a perfect, juicy and tender as fuck, rare center that almost melts in your mouth.

I find it’s a bit of a waste to use this method on fillets, so I would recommend using a ribeye or NY strip steak. Also, if you ruin it by putting steak sauce on it, there are no words to describe the horrors that will be visited upon you for your transgression.

Edit: recipe credit to Heston Blumenthol.

Here are five. Click on the link for the rest.

1. Processing Dreams: These dreams can feel quite annoying in that they are a rehashing of the events of your day — in other words, “sleep-working.” (And who needs that?) Processing dreams are a way for our subconscious to digest the bazillion message units we are exposed to all day

2. Venting Dreams
These are your nightmares where you’re being chased, falling, failing a test or arriving naked to a job interview.

3. Integration Dreams
You dream that you or someone else is acting out in an extreme way that you either greatly admire or seriously judge (i.e., pole dancing in the lobby at work.)


4. Breakdown/Breakthrough Dreams
Dreams of disaster, death, fires, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, oh my!

5. Recurring Dreams
Your recurring dreams are like a Secret Agent on a mission for the S.I.A. (Subconscious Intelligence Agency). Their mission: to deliver a message to your conscious mind that will enhance your well-being

10 hottest South African women

50 hottest Brazilian women.

Gallery of hot soccer fans

More hot soccer fans

Soccer booty

Asian girls with long legs

Rotten Tomatoes gives these movies the following percentages of approval.

62% The Karate Kid
51% The A-Team
93% Winter’s Bone
92% Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
83% Reel Injun

Open thread is here for week 1!

“I think it will hamper the lifestyle and spirit of the campus when football season comes around because every college wants that promise of the bowl game,” [U$C film student Tyrone Edmond] said outside a campus library. “It’s the ultimate culmination when you win a trophy and bring it back home.”

LATimes

From LATimes Front Page blurb:

… one [U$C] staffer says a bowl season without the Trojans would be like Christmas without Santa.

Your ridiculous school just taught you disappointment.

I hope we get more stuff like this

“It’s Division I football. It’s the Big 12 Pac 16. It ain’t intramurals!”

 #4wordsthatleadtosex

Wow, no new official stories. Oh well.

I was really wondering whether today’s DBD would be about the World Cup, the Pac-10 expansion, or the A-Team.

Our overambitious teenage girl is ok.

A 16-year-old California girl who was feared lost at sea while sailing solo around the world has been found alive and well, adrift in the southern Indian Ocean with rescue boats headed toward her, officials said.

The money line is +2500. Bet $10 to win $250. I couldnt stay away. I’m sure I just through my money away. Is the NCAA football analogy WSU over U$C or something in line with that?

Reporting on CU joining the conference and the other things possibly happening

Cal football coach Jeff Tedford could not be reached for comment Thursday about Pac-10 expansion. But at a Cal coaches function Wednesday night at AT&T Park, he said, “I think there could be some benefits to it. I need to learn more about it, how the league would be aligned and what the rotation would be. … I think it’s exciting. You’d have a (conference) championship, and that’d be pretty cool. It’d be competitive, I know that.”

The benefits for Stanford [sic] would surely include an attendance boost. Despite its recent football success under coach Jim Harbaugh, the school has had a difficult time filling Stanford [sic] Stadium. The facility has just 50,000 seats, but even a game with powerful Oregon last season, when Stanford [sic] pulled a major upset, fell 6,000 short of a sellout.

Harbaugh is in Peru as part of an aid mission and could not be reached for comment on the expansion. When Pac-10 football and basketball coaches gathered in Phoenix recently, Harbaugh didn’t seem sold on the need for expansion, telling reporters, “What we got right now is a good thing. It’s set up really well.”

So I work at a bank and most of the major streaming websites (espn3.com, etc) are blocked. Univision isn’t working.

I have a stream on my phone, but it’d be nice to have this in the background during work. Please advise.

Thanks!

Let ’em vote again, says Tommy Tuberville

Tommy Tuberville’s 2004 Auburn football team was never given an opportunity to play Southern California for the national championship.

Now that the NCAA has ruled that the Trojans will have to vacate their 55-19 victory over Oklahoma in the 2005 Orange Bowl because star running back Reggie Bush was ineligible, Tuberville says the Tigers should be named national champions.

“We never complained when they went by the process the last time, and they should go by the process this time,” said Tuberville, who is now head coach at Texas Tech. “If they were ineligible, I think they should have a revote and let people vote on it and decide who they think was the best team that year. If everybody thinks it was Oklahoma, that’s fine. If everybody thinks it was Auburn, that’s fine.”

KenCraw’s take:

As for the Pac-16, I like the fact that we’re looking at a Pac-8 division in the conference. That’ll work out nicely. I like the fact that the conference championship game will help us in publicity as a conference. I also like the fact that we’ll get access to the Big-12 bowl lineup which is far better than the Pac-10.

However, there are some downsides. We end up losing some bowl slots in bowls that formerly had both a Pac-10 and Big-12 alignment. They’re not going to keep two slots, so the combined conference will lose a spot. If it was only one bowl, but it’s 2 1/2: Alamo, Holiday, and Sun every other year. Add that to the fact that there’s going to be a whole lot of extra competition for those bowl slots and it’s at least a bit worrisome that perhaps the added bowls won’t be enough to improve the situation for the existing Pac-10 teams. I’d want to see the bowls be forced to pick fairly based on team success and not just "pick in order", which gets very complicated with a two division conference.

I’m also VERY against conference games against the other half that COUNT (and I can’t emphasize this enough) for who is the division champion. I’d love to play Texas every few years, but I most definitely don’t like the idea that the year that we play Texas in Texas ends up being the year we’d otherwise win the Pac-8 division except for that loss sinking us. The same goes for Oklahoma. No, it better be just the 7 games in the division that determine the division winner. I hate, hate, HATE how the current 12 team conferences do it and it’ll be even worse with 8 teams because at most there will only be 2 out-of-division conference games and there’s just no way to "balance" those games so that it doesn’t unduly affect the division standings.

So, from where I sit, if we either only play 7 conference games or if we play 8 or 9 but only the 7 within the division count for the division standings and our new bowl alignments are significantly better than our current alignments (so much so that even though we’ve got these extra teams and lost a few spots, we’re in better shape), then I’d be happy if the Pac-16 came to pass.

I like his idea about the divisional games only counting for the divisional standings.

Sentencing for the Frat-Row Stabbing

Hoeft-Edenfield and a friend were walking on Warring Street near campus when they became involved in a verbal dispute with members of Wootton’s fraternity, Sigma Pi. The argument escalated into a melee in the Chi Omega sorority’s parking lot, where Hoeft-Edenfield stabbed Wootton, authorities said.

Police tracked Hoeft-Edenfield to a friend’s house in Oakland, where he had gone to sleep.

Wootton, who was from Bellflower (Los Angeles County), was two weeks short of graduating. He planned to continue with his nuclear engineering studies as a graduate student at UC Berkeley.

Hoeft-Edenfield was a Berkeley City College student who worked at Jamba Juice.

Exec Summary -

Texas is likely to experience sizable economic losses if Baylor is separated from the other Texas Big 12 teams. The Perryman Group estimated these effects to include $714.0 million in annual expenditures, nearly $371.8 million in annual output, and 5,764 jobs.
 
The potential decrease to Waco is estimated to be $196.7 million in annual total spending, $106.4 in annual output (gross product), and 1,677 jobs.

Reads like a desperate move to ask the Texas State gov’t to intervene

Boise State leaves WAC, joins MWC

This facebook group made me laugh, although I guess UC Davis has to go somewhere when they finally finish the transition

GNO Recap?