It’s Wednesday, so that must mean it’s time for the Ohio State/Illinois preview. This Saturday, at 12:30 PT, the Fighting Illini (aka Fighting Zookers) will travel to Ohio Stadium to battle the Buckeyes. Sitting at 7-3, Illinois has improved dramatically from prior seasons and has played well and played hard during the course of the season. The team is stock full of young talent and is definitely on the uptick. You might recall that a 2-7 Illinois team played Ohio State in a tough 17-10 victory in Champaign last year.

This year Illinois has dropped games to Missouri (8-1), Iowa (5-5), and Michigan (8-2). In essence, the only “bad” game they’ve had was against Iowa which in most eyes would be an expected win; though Iowa is steadily improving this season after a very rough start. On offense, Juice Williams is allegedly a dual threat, but in reality, he’s an erratic passing threat and a deadly running threat coupled with Rashard Mendenhall at tailback. The Illini homerun threat is Regis Benn, an electrifying talent in the mold of Ted Ginn. The offensive line is an experienced and efficient run blocking machine and as a result, Illinois leads the conference in rushing at 261 yards per game. The passing game is less prolific checking in at 153 yards per game, last in the conference. Overall, the Illini produce nearly 28 points per game.  

On defense, the superstars are Jeremy (J) Leman in the linebacking corp and Vontae Davis in the secondary. Overall, this defense yields 19 points, 113 yards rushing and 243 yards passing per game. The defensive line is young and fast which will test the Buckeye offensive line, the secondary has proven vulnerable to the passing game throughout the course of the season. The run defense is solid, if unspectacular. The challenge for the Illini is to make the Ohio State offense one-dimensional and they may be able to achieve that goal at points during the game on Saturday. But Ohio State’s offense, producing 35 points, 200 yards rushing, and 215 yards passing per game presents something of a Hobson’s choice for opposing defenses. Put 8 in the box, we’ll burn you over the top. Drop the safeties (as Wisconsin did at the end of the game last week) and we’ll run it down your throat. Which meal would you like?  

This has all the makings of a trap game. Vegas has installed the Buckeyes as favorites sporting a 14.5 point spread, Michigan is next week, the Illini are no pushovers. So what will happen? I think the Buckeyes win a tough game much like last week pulling away in the second half. The spread seems a bit rich to me relative to Illinois’ performance on the field this year – they will be full of confidence from last year’s experience and are a much better team overall than they get credit for. In the end, the balance of Ohio State’s offense, the one-dimensionality of Illinois’ offense, and the fact that this game is played in the cozy confines of Ohio Stadium equal a Buckeye victory. As always, turnovers, mental errors, and big plays in the return game could create a perfect storm leading to upset, but I judge that as unlikely. Equally, those same factors could lead to a blow out, I judge that as unlikely too.  

It’s November, and November is for contenders. We’ll see a very physical high effort game with the Buckeyes winning 31-20. As always, we’ll revisit this prediction after the game to see just how wrong it was…Go BUCKS!     

With the campaign for the Whitehouse in 2008 heating up, it’s time to invest a little time in what I’d like to hear from a candidate on how they would aspire to lead the country. It’s easy to be against things, it’s much harder to articulate solutions. Thus far, I’m entirely underwhelmed with the slate of candidates – in fact – I’m depressed. They’re simply different shades of the same color.  

What would be more interesting? Hearing candidates espouse a set of Core Values we could all agree to live by, have them propose a course of action to “Rebuild America,” and outline specific plans around the following issues:

• How to conclude the war in Iraq
• How to establish energy security
• Reestablishing fiscal credibility and solvency
• Restoring the Federal government to a role of facilitator of activities in the country
• Infrastructure (roads, water, power, schools, healthcare) repair and upgrade

I have some ideas on each of these subjects and I’ll share them in time through a series of entries on the subject. But rather than being against Bush, against the war, against foreign policy, against domestic surveillance, against torture, etc. Let’s turn it around and talk about what we’re for and why it’s important. As much of a right-wing nut job as Ron Paul seems to be, there is one theme from his campaign that resonates very well with me: get back to the bare bones of what the US Constitution dictates. That’s a very good starting place. And from that, a recast of the Federal government to facilitate and enable life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. All of this needs to happen within a context of Core Values as well.

Are these the issues that concern you? How would you go about rebuilding America? 

STOP – This data has been updated for the entire season in this entry. Enjoy.

For prior CSRs, check the links at the bottom of this entry. Here are the results as of games completed Saturday, November 3: 

 
Comments on each conference follow, in alphabetical order:

• ACC – No change from prior report.
• Big East – No change from prior report.
• Big 10 – Increased OOC and No Patsy win rates slightly due to an Indiana win over Ball State.
• Big 12 – No change from prior report.
• Pac 10 – No change from prior report.
• SEC – Played 4 OOC games this week, 2 against DIAA teams and 2 against SunBelt teams. Georgia was fortunate to beat Troy at home – this is arguably the second best team in the SEC struggling against SunBelt competition at home. The SEC now has the dubious distinction of playing the most games of any BCS conference against DIAA competition (and yes, at least they’re winning them all unlike Minnesota and Michigan…)

Based on performance to date, on the field, the conference ranking should be:

1. Pac 10 – The gap between the top 3 is not that great, at least the Pac 10 has played only two DIAA opponents. You can argue that the SEC belongs here except…
2. SEC – The SEC has played a much easier schedule – I can’t believe people are blind to the fact that the SEC is .500 against quality competition OOC. Sure, they’re beating up the “sisters of the weak” – an OOC schedule that Hawaii would be embarrassed to play – but the notion of a super-conference is myth. Performance on the field show this conference to be a gaggle of middle-of-the-road “lucky” teams.
3. Big 10 – The reason the Big 10 is third is because of embarrassing losses to App State, North Dakota State, and Duke. If you want to be the best, beat the teams you’re supposed to beat.
4. Big 12 – Surprisingly strong at the top with Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri. The rest of the conference is forgettable this year.
5. Big East – Remember this next year: September is for pretenders, November is for contenders. After a surprisingly fast start, the conference has faded top to bottom. Does anyone think USF is the #2 team in the land now? Didn’t think so…
6. ACC – After a start that was rougher than the Big 10’s (The ACC sported a 33% OOC win rate against the Big Boys at the end of September) the conference has rebounded. With Boston College’s loss, the guild is off the lily, but the gap between the ACC and the rest has closed.
7. Notre Dame – Coaching 101, when you’re able to win the game with seconds left and a 41 yard field goal attempt on 4th and 8, you kick the ball. Particularly when your offense has churned out under 30% conversions all year long. The man with the schematic advantage cost his team this week. It’s times like this the Big 10 ought to be happy that Notre Dame is an independent because if it had joined the conference, the stench of this team would drag the conference to the bottom of the rankings.

Come back next week for an update of the Conference Strength Report. Prior reports are available below:

• CSR: Through October 28, 2007
• CSR: Through October 21, 2007
• CSR: Through October 13, 2007
• Original Conference Strength Report: Through September 27, 2007

 

$98,000 for a car is steep, but this video does show a great experience. As the Tesla employee says, technology tends to enter the market on the high-end and then commoditize over time. The electric car may finally be here. 

My thoughts are a jumble today, so rather than select any specific item to share, I thought I’d make it a pupu platter.

• Fall colds suck. We’ve had one circulating our household now for about a month. When one of us seems to recover, another goes down. Ah the joys of having a little bio-terrorist freely sharing her germs! Since I know that her Grandparents read this reasonably frequently, she’s healthy – it’s her parents who seem to bear the brunt of the recovery.
• Apple’s Leopard Upgrade is really nice. I updated my laptop last night, and really like it thus far. The only gotcha I’ve seen thus far are in dashboard widgets – those not developed by Apple seem to not work and play well in the new Dashboard environment. The best thing about Leopard thus far? It’s much faster on the same hardware. I’m sure there are other features (like Spaces) I’ll come to love, but it’s worth the upgrade for speed alone.
• Is holding still a penalty? As I watched two defensive linemen being blatantly held while the Wisconsin quarterback completed a big play, I have to wonder, what are refs enforcing in terms of holding? Admittedly, if they hadn’t held, Wisconsin wouldn’t have scored and the game wouldn’t have been interesting. Also worth noting is that even with blatant holding, their quarterback was sacked 10 times during the game. Perhaps the refs decided to save the quarterback’s life by ignoring the infraction? I watched a few minutes of the Patriots vs. the Colts yesterday, different league, same problem with holding, though to a lesser extent. And what’s with the penalties on pass interference? A ticky-tack call yields over 50 yards on a single play? That ought to be reexamined by the league… Oh, and the NFL is still unwatchable.
• Interesting interview technique. Last week at a large Silicon Valley company I had an interesting conversation with an HR representative. She asked me all sorts of “fluffy” questions which individually didn’t seem very interview like but collectively probably yielded a good psychological profile. I liked it, it ended up more as a conversation and after a week of more or less cookie cutter conversations, it was a nice way to end the week.
• Shallow temperature surveys. We were scheduled to be out in the Sou Hills doing some survey work on the prospect. But, real life intruded and we’re now postponed until December at the earliest. That was a pretty disappointing development, I was looking forward to a few days of driving long, hollow metal tubes into the desert pavement and taking temperature samples. We hear that a large geothermal company hit a resource a mere 5 miles to the north-east last week and we know there is a functioning 60MW plant 5 miles to the south-west…As Andy would say, we’re in elephant country!
• A good day trip. Yesterday my daughter and I headed into San Francisco to the Ferry Building. Our objective was a boat ride since she hadn’t experienced that yet. We booked a trip on the Golden Gate Transit ferry to Sausalito back. We returned and had lunch at the Ferry Building and then proceeded home. She seemed to really this adventure and the weather was outstanding.

Well, that’s probably enough random information. Back to the grindstone….