FanHouse Fiascoes

Clown of Infinite Sadness time.

Earlier today we mentioned that one Les Miles, esquire, head coach of LSU, had been on the phone with Mary Sue Coleman and Bill Martin, the president and athletic director of Michigan, respectively. What was this conversation about?

Miles, via the LSU official website:

"I had a conversation with Michigan last week that covered a wide range of topics. I was doing nothing more than helping them with their search for a football coach, just as any loyal alumnus might do. It was nothing more than that.

"I'm not a candidate for that job and I will not be a candidate for the job. I was only assisting them in their search for a coach. I have a great job at a wonderful place, a place that my family calls home. It's time that Michigan goes on with their search for a football coach. I'll say it again, I'm going to be the coach at LSU next season."

This is, of course, Colombian-grade BS, but another nail in the "Miles to Michigan" coffin -- which, at this point, is made entirely of nails.

There is no way Michigan called up Miles and said "hey, we're looking for a successful head coach with Michigan ties ... do you know anyone that fits that description?" And there's no way Miles responded "I can't really think of one, sorry." Because, hey, Brady Hoke's out there, man.

Brady Hoke.

Of all the many, many things wrong with the BCS, one rickety contraption stands proudly above them all: Richard Billingsley's fradulent computer rankings.

For an example of a typical Billingsley blunder, take a look at Burnt Orange Nation. They've highlighted one particularly egregious instance: Billingsley's computerized doohickey ranks USC #10, whereas no other computer metric ranks USC higher than #21 and all but one omit USC entirely.

This is no fluke. In the comments of the BON post Horn Brain drops some knowledge, showing that the Billingsley computer is hugely deviant compared to the others, with a standard deviation more than two points higher than the next weirdest computer, Anderson & Hester. Remember how the BCS throws out the highest and lowest scores for each team when calculating a computer average? 44% of the time, the ranking thrown out is Billingsley's. Billingsley is consistently, repeatedly out of line with both the other computers and popular perception.

There is outrage on the Penn State campus when a killer home schedule (Notre Dame and Ohio State) and newly Ticketmaster-ified purchasing process led to the following things:

• All 21,000+ student tickets getting snatched up within an hour
• Many students reselling their $190 ticket package on the eBays for a grand or more
  
• Facebook groups titled "F--- Off Penn State ... I'm a senior give me FOOTBALL TICKETS!!"

Anyone who's taken Econ 101 -- or heard of economics -- could probably have predicted this well in advance of the unfolding fiasco, but when athletic department officials proposed a lottery the students were against it. There is a middle ground between a Babylon lottery and the free-for-all fiasco that happened.

Take, for example, Michigan and I assume most schools around the country: tickets are distributed according to seniority in terms of credits earned anyone presenting a student ticket must either show a student ID or get the ticket "validated" by paying the difference between the student price and the regular price at various campus locations. Penn State does something similar to the latter by requiring student ID for student tickets, period, but left the distribution process in the hands of one of America's most hated corporations in an internet gold rush that was the functional equivalent of a lottery, only vastly more frustrating. But this is an athletic department that continues to employ Jay Paterno, so... yeah. Not entirely unexpected.

About a month ago word came down that Cal's planned athletic facilities upgrade had been temporarily halted by literally tree-hugging hippies. Apparently the hippies' legal counsel was wiser than their hairstylists -- white male dreadlocks were regrettably prominent -- and managed to get the facilities delayed based on some obscure seismic statutes. Everyone was duly pissed off and waited for the next shoe to drop.

That shoe appears to be an 80-year old archaeological report featuring one skeleton and one 19th century Mexican coin:

he protesters, who have been roosting in the oak grove since Dec. 2, pointed Tuesday to a UC archaeological survey from 1925 stating that human remains were removed from the area when the stadium was constructed.

"I think this is a significant find and the area should be protected," said Stephan Volker, attorney for the California Oak Foundation, one of four groups suing UC over the proposed renovation of Memorial Stadium and construction of the $125 million sports training center.

Cal blog Tightwad Hill sees through this obvious load of crap and is unamused:

In reality, what the anthropologist in question found was a partial skeleton and a Mexican gold coin dating from the 19th century - but please don't pay attention to the facts. After all, the facts don't really matter - the hippies have another interest group to drag up into the trees and yell into bullhorns. What they lack in gainful employment is more than matched, I'm sure, by their energy and enthusiasm for civil disobedience.

Never mind that no one EVEN KNEW ABOUT THIS SO-CALLED REPORT until the lawyer for the hippies dug it up and shopped it around. It's still very sacred, I'm sure. Break out the smudge sticks and the burning sage, and let's party! Sorry if you think I'm being flippant, but this is the worst sort of opportunism. This 1925 report has yet to be corroborated by any other source. Ken Lightfoot - who as the head of the UC Museum of Anthropology, knows a thing or two about the subject - is unimpressed and says the skeleton's ethnicity is undetermined.

It would only be flippant if there was the slightest shred of evidence that this 1925 report was relevant to anyone except unemployed people with awful hair and kickin' lawyers.