Irish Trojan in Tennessee

Al & George

By Brendan Loy

Heh:

Hey, wasn't there a SNL sketch about this?

Coaching carousel update

By Brendan Loy

Washington State's Bill Doba: fired.

Georgia Tech's Chan Gailey: fired.

Duke's Ted Roof: fired.

Southern Miss's Jeff Bower: fired.

And finally, Arkansas's Houston Nutt: inexplicably offered a new contract, which he inexplicably turned down, possibly to go to Ole Miss.

P.S. Oh, and Syracuse's Greg Robinson may be next.

UCLA's Karl Dorrell will, of course, have a job for at least five days. I wonder: if the Bruins somehow beat USC and go to the Rose Bowl, will they still fire Dorrell? And if so, will he be the first coach ever to be fired immediately after leading his team to the Rose Bowl? Heh.

UPDATE: ESPN.com has created an incredibly helpful coaching carousel page with a list of all the departing coaches and (eventually) their successors. Cool.

A Lott of goodbyes

By JLR

Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss) has announced his retirement, effective sometime in December or January.  Though his temporary replacement will be nominated and placed by Republican Governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour, this is a stunning turn for Republicans in the Senate.  As the #2 Republican in the Senate (and formerly the #1 Republican and Majority Leader), Lott made himself a lot of friends and made himself a lot of enemies--especially after his comments about how it would have been great if a segregationist candidate (Strom Thurmond) had won the 1948 presidential race.

What's my take?  Anytime a powerful conservative decides to leave either house of the Congress, I'm perfectly happy.  Of course, chances are good that Arizona Senator John Kyl, who is loads more conservative than most of the Republicans in Congress, will take over as minority whip.  Then again, it's possible that someone else might overtake him.  It's also possible that either Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) or Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), both of whom are more moderate than Kyl, might run for the #3 spot. 

In all, though, it probably won't matter much between now and--at the very least--2009 when the new Congress takes over.  As long as Democrats maintain a majority, it seems much less likely that this change will have a major effect on legislation.  True, a conservative leadership on the Republican side of the aisle would make bipartisanship more difficult (just as a liberal leadership on the Democratic side would).  However, the immediate impact would not be as large as it would have been if the Republicans still controlled the Senate.

Hurricane forecasters say seasonal errors are hurting their credibility

By Brendan Loy

The Miami Herald has an excellent article about the third consecutive high-profile failure of seasonal hurricane forecasts to closely approximate reality. (The forecasted storm totals were way too low in 2005, way too high in 2006, and substantially too high in 2007.) The article focuses, quite rightly IMHO, on the fear that these forecasting failures are lowering the public's confidence in the much more important -- and much more accurate -- operational forecasts regarding individual storms that the National Hurricane Center does such an excellent job with. I talked about this issue in my season wrap-up for Pajamas Media, and the Herald keys on it as well. Excerpt:

[G]iven the errors -- which can undermine faith in the entire hurricane warning system -- are these full-season forecasts doing more harm than good? [Yes. -ed.]

''The seasonal hurricane forecasters certainly have a lot of explaining to do,'' said Max Mayfield, former director of the National Hurricane Center. ...

Mayfield and virtually all hurricane researchers and forecasters, some of whom were skeptical years ago, now support the issuing of full-season predictions. [Why?? -ed.]

But many openly share concerns about the current system, focusing in particular on NOAA's tendency to subtly link the National Hurricane Center in West Miami-Dade County to the seasonal forecasts produced by [Gerry Bell, NOAA's lead seasonal forecaster]'s team, which is based in Maryland.

In fact, it is important to emphasize the distinction between the six-month seasonal forecasts and the real-time forecasts of an actual hurricane or other tropical system, which are called "operational forecasts.'' ...

Many [operational forecasters] worry ... that substantial errors in those full-season predictions can undermine faith in their generally accurate forecasts of actual storms.

They note that NOAA, parent agency of the hurricane center and Bell's team, often releases Bell's predictions during pre-season news conferences conducted at the hurricane center.

During other years, the hurricane center's director is ordered to participate in the pre-season news conference, wherever it might be held.

''NOAA has been using the good name of the National Hurricane Center, at least to some extent, to help promote the seasonal product and that's not the mission of operational hurricane forecasters,'' Mayfield said.

''In some areas, hurricane forecasters are losing credibility even though they are not the lead on this -- and that's always a concern,'' he said. "We don't want the credit for the seasonal forecasts.''

Bell said the differences between the two groups should be clear to the public by now. He said South Floridians and other residents of the hurricane zone should never disregard real-time forecasts, especially based on a misconception about the full-season predictions.

''There's no basis for those kinds of comments,'' Bell said, "especially if they're made by people who don't know what they're talking about.''

There might be "no basis" for comments linking operational forecasts and seasonal forecasts -- no valid basis, anyway -- but NOAA is setting itself for the inevitability that such comments will be made, with or without a "basis," when it releases its seasonal forecast with such a media splash and involves the NHC in that splash. So forgive me if I have little sympathy for the hue and cry that people "who don't know what they're talking about" are to blame for this. Ignorant people will always mouth off about things they don't understand, all the moreso when it suits a political agenda. NOAA is squarely to blame for giving them an easy opportunity to do so.

Philip Klotzbach, who issues the Colorado State forecast along with William Gray, "said long-range predictions satisfy the public's 'inherent curiosity'," according to the Herald. Well, he's a scientist, so he can do stuff simply for curiosity's sake if he wants to. But NOAA officials aren't just scientists, they're also policymakers, and they need to base their actions on sound policy judgments -- not just a desire to satisfy idle curiosity. It seems to me that these seasonal forecasts are indeed doing more harm than good, and NOAA should either stop issuing its own forecast or at least vastly scale back the media profile that it chooses to give that forecast. Don't call a press conference, don't do interviews, just quietly release the thing on the Internet (loaded with caveats) and satisfy the weather nerds' "curiosity" that way, without unintentionally (but foreseeably!) misinforming the public at large. And certainly, if you must make a media splash, don't involve the NHC operational forecasters in it, for heaven's sake.

It would also be a good idea to issue a press release, whenever anybody releases a seasonal forecast, reminding the media how generally pointless and useless these things are, that they're really just a curiosity, and that we ought to focus on what matters: preparing for big landfalling storms (which can happen in active and "inactive" seasons alike) and forecasting them accurately when they actually form.

Anyway, read the whole thing. And if anyone is tempted to turn this thread into a global-warming debate, please at least read my PJM piece first, if you haven't already. I address a lot of the obvious arguments there (like the old stand-by, "OMG If They Can't Even Forecast A Hurricane Season, Then How Can They Forecast The Climate In 100 Years?? Al Gore Suxxx!!") and I'd rather not repeat myself.

P.S. I will, however, repeat what meteorology Ph.D. student Charles Fenwick wrote back in August, because he made the point very well:

I don’t take too much interest in [seasonal forecasts] personally and don’t like how they are being pushed to the general public. They are a experimental works in progress and should be treated as such. I am most displeased with NOAA’s trumpeting of their forecasts. It gives the public the sense that these are operational forecasts that are on par with the other forecasts of the National Weather Service and that is definitely not the case. [One blog commenter, responding to a dire track forecast for an individual storm, asked], “Where are all the hurricanes the NHC had forecast for the last 2 years? just curious as to why we should panic over predictions that have little or no accuracy?” This shows the confusion that the hurricane season forecasts cause because the National Hurricane Center is not the agency that puts out the seasonal forecast and, as I just said, the seasonal forecasts do not have the same accuracy as the operational forecasts put out by the NHC. … [The seasonal] forecasts are most useful for people who have a stake in the macro-scale, namely insurance companies. They are of little value to individuals.

Indeed.

UPDATE: Welcome, InstaPundit readers!

Gig 'em, I guess.

By Jay Johnson

After the monumental failure with the hire of Dennis Franchione, Texas A&M backs up excellent decision making with the hiring of a failed NFL head coach that couldn't get a Brett Favre led team to the Super Bowl in the then-pathetic NFC.

Mike Sherman?  Really?

Way to go Aggies! (False exuberance here.  I see nothing in this hire for anyone at TAMU to be excited about.  This is as lackluster of a hire as could be imagined.)

BYU to the BCS?

By Brendan Loy

BCS analyst extraordinare Jerry Palm confirms what I said yesterday: don't sleep on BYU. (Don't sleep with them, either, unless you're married to them. They're very moral!) The Mormons Cougars could end up in the BCS, if they beat San Diego State on Saturday and everything falls their way:

"It looks like BYU has a chance if the following teams lose: USC, Hawaii, Arizona State and two of [the following] - Tennessee, Oregon and Boston College," said Palm, who operates collegebcs.com. "Even then, it's not guaranteed. Better still if all six lose, and BC losing is the least helpful."

If a two-loss team from a mid-major conference qualifies for the BCS, that would be, well, a perfect ending to this craziest of college-football seasons.

Er, well, "perfect" except in the sense that it would involve USC losing to UCLA. Which is to say, not perfect at all. So nevermind.

In women's soccer, a very Brendan Loy bracket

By Brendan Loy

The women's soccer NCAA Tournament has reached the Elite Eight, and an astounding number of schools that I care about are still competing for the championship. Both of my alma maters, USC and Notre Dame, are still alive, as is my original home-state team, UConn. And my two least-favorite universities, UCLA and Duke, are still alive as well. The only thing that could have made the bracket any more Loy-o-riffic would be if my current hometown team, Tennessee, had beaten Portland in the Sweet Sixteen to set up a date with the hated Bruins.

As things stand, it's Portland that must visit UCLA, while USC travels to West Virginia, Notre Dame hosts Duke, and UConn visits Florida State, all on Friday evening. Potentially, we could have a USC-UCLA semifinal on one side of the bracket and a UConn-Notre Dame semifinal on the other. Will the Women of Troy need to beat both of their school's archrivals to win the championship? Heh!

For what it's worth, in the final regular-season coaches' poll, UCLA was #1, Portland #3, USC #9, Notre Dame #11, West Virginia #12, Florida State #14, UConn #24, and Duke unranked. So I guess that means both the Irish and the Trojans will be favored on Friday. Go ND and 'SC, beat Duke and WVU!

USC upsets SIU; three big tests loom

By Brendan Loy

Southern Illinois went to the Sweet 16 last year, and having seen them in person, I can confirm that their success in March was no fluke; they were a very good basketball team. So I'm disinclined to take issue with their preseason ranking of #24, nor with their climb to #19 heading into last night's game against USC. However, perhaps the loss of Jamaal Tatum and Tony Young had more of an impact than the pollsters thought, and as a result, this year's SIU squad is a bit overrated. Either that, or I was wrong to doubt whether USC could live up to the hype, because the Trojans absolutely wiped the floor with the Salukis last night, 70-45, to win the inaugural Anaheim Classic:

USC has won five straight since inexplicably dropping its opener, 96-81 to Mercer. But the real test of the Trojans' resurgence will come with a brutal six-day, three-game stretch at the end of this week and the beginning of next. They host Oklahoma (5-1) on Thursday and #4 Kansas (5-0) on Sunday, then travel to #3 Memphis (5-0) next Tuesday. (Damn, I wish I was going to be in L.A. this weekend. USC-UCLA at the Coliseum on Saturday, then USC-Kansas at the Galen Center on Sunday? That'd be sweet!)

After that, the Trojans will get a bit of a breather, finishing December with a trio of cupcakes (Delaware State, Cal Poly and UC Riverside) before diving headlong into the crucible of the Pac-10 schedule.

But hey, one game at a time, right, Coach Floyd? Fight on! Beat the Sooners!