The Fake Lonnie Finch

Is Uncle Rico available?

No radio. No televsion. No keeping up on the 'net via phone. Just missed it. First time in...I don't know...five, six years. I stopped listening and going near the end of the Dickey era as well. Came home late. Read the official recap. Buzzed through the stats. Then read most of the threads here in their entirety. Then, I just laughed. And laughed, and laughed, and laughed. F'ing F, dudes. Lousiana is one of the worst teams we'll play all season. 3/5th of the line gone. Record setting halfback gone. QB gone. I can't do it anymore. All I can do is laugh. And laugh, and laugh, and laugh. This thing is done. Out, man. See ya at the press conference for the new coach in December. Tecate makes a good beer. Drink it, if you must drink until then. I will.

Awesome to see Canales mixing it up and having that much passion for our school!

I love the future schedules with the exception of the Texas and LSU games. But, those look to disappear quickly and we get a refreshing batch of schools mixed into the future - Iowa, Georgia, and Florida. Love the Army, SMU, Tulsa deals. You can't beat a schedule of winnable out of conference games. The only extra I'd hope for in the future is games with our two oldest rivals, Texas State and Mew Mexico State.

Or, if we'd had an offense that could stay on the field longer than 2 minutes, or keep from turning the ball over, maybe the defense... Never mind. The facts in football are what the won-loss record is. It appears that our new offensive coordinator understands you win games by controlling the clock, not putting the ball at risk, and wearing out the opposing defenses. You can always check out Ford's old work at whichever high school hired him. It's a great high school offense he runs; our opponents the last three years loved it.

I'd say go watch it live...but, I've got my own hellish dilemma: A friend called yesterday and said he had an extra OU-Texas ticket. I could go watch an epic battle between two seemingly underachieving giants and watch the miscreants of both schools mix it up. That game will end sometime between 5:30 and our kickoff with Lousiana. Free OU-Texas ticket...UNT/Lousiana game...I'll try to squeeze in both. I wish this were a season when OU and Texas played at 11 a.m. instead of 2:30 in the afternoon.

The TCU/Big East thing sparked it. I'm sorry. I was just reading that thread thinking of the absurd distance of TCU from the Big East schools.

(I chose INVESCO and New Meadowlands because I'd like to see the national title game played in the snow every now and again)

The playoff of this 14 conference masterpiece would go like this: Two Bracket featuring the champions of: The 7 conferences with schools which are basically West of the Mississippi River and The 7 conferences with schools which are basically East of the Mississippi River Schools with the best record/highest ranking in each bracket gets a First Round Bye All Non-Champions and First and Second Round losers are eligible to play in bowl games Championship Game Rotates Among Four Stadium: The Rose Bowl, INVESCO Field at Mile High Stadium, JerryWorld, and The New Meadowlands Stadium, so that the national title game is played in each time zone every four years.

Here's what I would do in a perfect world - football playoff, no blowhardism from the "traditional powers" - after viewing and studying this helmet map between phone calls and e-mails: The Far Out West Conference: Hawaii All the California Schools Both of the Nevada Schools The Way Up West Conference The Oregon, Washington, and Idaho Schools The View Is Great Up Here In The Mountains Conference Wyoming The Utah Schools The Colorado Schools The Hey What Happened To The Grass Conference Texas Tech and UTEP The Arizona Schools The New Mexico Schools The No-Whar But Texas Conference The Texas Schools not named Texas Tech or UTEP The Farmin' And Plowin' 12 The Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa Schools ...plus, Missouri, Nebraska, and Minnesota The Gulf Swamp Conference The Louisiana and Mississippi Schools The South Shall Rise Again Conference The Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina Schools The Florida Department Of Tourism Conference The Florida Schools The You Could Cram Us Together And Make One Big Long State Conference The Tennessee and North Carolina Schools...plus Virginia Tech The Johnsonville Brats Conference The Illinois and Indiana Schools...plus Wisconsin The Lake Erie Conference The Michigan Schools and the Northern Ohio Schools (Toledo, Bowling Green, Akron, and Kent State) The Mining And Manufacturing Conference The Kentucky Schools, The West Virginia Schools, The Mid- and Southern Ohio Schools (Ohio State, Miami of Ohio, Ohio, and Cincinnati...plus Pittsburgh) The High Brow Yankee Conference Virginia The Maryland Schools The Pennsylvania Schools not named Pittsburgh Rutgers The New York Schools Connecticut and Boston College

The important thing is the geography of it. You can see where the schools are...then understand what a clusterf*ck the conferences have become.

Because, it's better than the gay white ones we have now.

But, what does it mean?

What ya'll think 'bout 'dis? Now, go do yo conference realignments and sech!

Hmmm. Well, that former offense coordinator didn't seem to be able to figure out how to break those low-ranked Sun Belt defenses, though, eh? And, he had three years to take a crack at them - 21 games, 2 wins? What are we now 1-0 in the Sun Belt with Canales? I don't think it will take him 21 games to get us to two wins in the Sun Belt as it did with the pass-pass-pass-pass-regardless-of-the-opposing-defense Ford/Dodge combo. In fact, I'm willing to wager. Anyone want to bet me that this offense under Mike Canales won't produce two Sun Belt wins in 2010 - and, thereby, equal Ford's three year total? Also, here's a riddle for Batman and others similarly situated in league against the joker: which college team hired Ford after we let him go? I mean, based on his record against low-ranked, Sun Belt defenses someone surely was clamoring for his services. FBS-level? FCS? DII? DIII? NAIA? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? If Ford was still here, we'd have passed all day and FAU would have beaten us. Thankfully, sanity is restored with a college coach in Canales who can watch game film of an opposing Sun Belt defense and craft a game plan to beat it.

It's no surprise. Less than 20 universities have money-making athletic departments.

Hey, Fresno State's problem became this - no one wanted to schedule them at home or on the road after they started taking down the big boys in the early 2000s. I feel for Pat Hill at Fresno. He worked hard to get his program to a winning level, then no one would play them. Boise State may find the same problem. Hell, look at the out of conference schedules, the major powers pretty much duck each others. Everyone is afraid to lose because there isn't a playoff: one loss and you're out of the national title hunt; one loss to a non-BCS, and you pretty much kiss away the chance of going to a major bowl even if you win the rest.

It was really rocky after the Dodge wildcat play late in the Rice game. The Army game...what can you do? Your second team QB goes down early, you're in a jam with the third guy who hasn't taken non-Wildcat snaps at QB since March. But, given five days to install an offense specifically tailored to Riley's weak arm and quick legs, Canales gets it done. This is night and day different than the Todds trying to have Riley throw it every down, come hell or high water. And, that's the difference. Canales knows what he has and finds a way to make it work. In the prior three years, and even with Dickey/Flanagan, the coaches just tried to plug back-ups into failing systems...too much pride in their "systems." You've got to know what to do at this level to succeed. Dodge (or RV forcing Dodge behind the scenes...whichever way it happened doesn't matter) giving up control to Canales was the best thing that could have happened to this program. The Todds were clueless at this level; Chico is not. There's now some mystery in our game plans and play calling for opposing defensive coordinators. They can no longer just have linebackers blitz with abandon while defensive backs sit on our slants and bubble screens and blow them up, play after play after play, series after series after series, game after game after game, season after season after season. Thank goodness we finally have a bona fide QB coach and offensive coordinator. We finally have some hope of success in the Sun Belt. ...in the Sun Belt. Baby steps. It's baby steps with this school. But, at least we finally have a college coaching staff baby-stepping in the right direction.

Dodge said so himself over the summer in an interview. Canales coaches the QBs, makes the game plan, and calls the play during the game. Dodge also said that he'd be giving more of his time to the special teams. I think it's probably better to hire in a real special teams coach, but I'll take the baby steps. It took us four years - and 31 losses in three seasons - to get a college coaching staff assembled. With some success this year, maybe we'll finally have a special teams/TE coach in 2011...to help break in the new stadium (which seems to be our battle cry for every wish for the future).

The Fan surely sucks. But, The Ticket doesn't exactly give us much time either. This morning Jub squeezed in a few seconds in reporting our win over FAU while he and Craig did their weekly college football review. He didn't pump it up too much, if at all. And, he, of all people, should be the one trying to build excitement about the program. They may have spent 10 or 15 seconds...and most of that was reviewing the fact that Dodge has only won six games in four seasons. In reality, none of the stations are going to respect us until we do something, like win with consistency over a period of many seasons. Jub did devote some time to speaking about how amazing the rise of Boise State has been from I-AA to Big West to national power. The bottom line is, has been, always will be, for any school - win and win consistently, you get good press. Lose and lose consistently, you're an afterthought or punchline.

So, with our offense lightning does strike twice!

Anyone care to guess what a nightmare we'd be in if the Todds were still running the offense with all of the injuries we've had? Look at what has happened: Because of injuries, Mike Canales changed the offense he'd installed in the spring and worked all fall. And, he did it in less than one week! That's adjusting, folks! Think about that. Since February, the guys were learning Canales new offense to be led by passers Tune and Thompson. Both get injured, along with the top two centers, and what happens? The guy comes out with a game plan where we can actually succeed with Riley as quarterback. Many of us have said for years that you've got to have people in place who know what they're doing. After three years of throw, throw, throw and throw some more - whether it's working or not, and most of the time it wasn't - we see what a college football coach does. Canales had us moving the ball against Clemson at Clemson. Three weeks later, we're two QBs down, and he gets our retread rolling with a completely different scheme. He didn't just try to plug Riley into the same plan Tune and Thompson had. Genius...or, just common sense? The guy is good. We may not win another game (I think we'll win at least three more, by the way), but it won't be because Canales isn't doing his job. Next, we'll see what wrinkles he puts in against ULL, who now have game film of Running Riley and the Hamilton/Dunbar Wildcat.

You know, watching those clips of Hamilton got me to thinking the same thing. If he's been that fast and elusive all along, why hasn't he played more? My guess is simple: (1) We now have a coach running the offense who can recognize what to do with the talent we have on hand, even if it means changing the overall attack three games into the season. (2) Charr. He's got Hamilton looking like a back who would see time on a BCS roster. The kid looks ready.

Welch, I think people just want to be happy for a change. We all understand the overall picture. But, there is a silver lining. We now have an offensive coordinator who is tailoring the game plan to the players he has week-to-week instead of insisting the we run the spread come hell or high water as in year's past. If Canales keeps planning and coaching us to our strengths, we could break even or do better in the Belt. Remember, Dodge is no longer coaching the QB, drawing up the game plan or calling the shots. That in and of itself had many of us believe, pre-injuries, that this thing could be bowl worthy. With the injuries, and with Canales doing what he did yesterday, we could still do well in conference. And, to me and others, we'll take that improvement and look forward to 2011.

Before the season, many of our Sun Belt foes were going to have holes due to graduation. That was part of the reason for my optimism for 2010 - Canales was going to be leading a group of experience players against inexperienced foes: ULL: 5 returning starters of offense, 6 on defense ULM: 4 and 4 ASU: 6 and 5 FAU: 3 and 8 FIU: 5 and 4 MTSU: 7 and 6 Troy: 5 and 3 WKU: 9 and 9 Basically, every team is lacking in some area in a major way. Lousiana graduated three linemen - ditto FAU, FIU, ULM. FIU graduated 6 of their front 7. Troy lost almost everyone on defense. Really, WKU and us were the only two schools to return the vast majority of our starters. So, what the injuries have done, is lowered our experience level to about what everyone else had going into the season. The outlier is MTSU. And, that is who should achieve great things this year. If they can't do it with this squad, even with Dasher being suspended, then it Stockstill won't ever be able to do it. I expected us to have many Sun Belt wins by double digits in 2010. Instead, the injuries will have us in dogfights week after week. For dogfights, I prefer what we saw last night. 3-to-1 run to pass ratio so that we don't have to rely on Riley's arm...or get him exposed to many big hits in the pocket. A defense that may bend, but not break. If we can do this, we should still win three or four more in the Belt. And finish 4-8 or 5-7. As stated before the season, I am fine with Dodge staying if we can break even in the Belt. If we can't, it's time to say goodbye. The talent level in the Belt this year just isn't that high once you get past MTSU and Troy.