UCLA sucks

As an Irish Trojan, I don't subscribe to the notion of the "perfect day" -- a day when USC wins and both UCLA and Notre Dame lose -- but for those more typical Trojans who do, this has to be one of the sweetest "perfect days" in recent memory. USC avenged last year's loss to Oregon State, UCLA got embarrassed by lowly Arizona, and Notre Dame lost to Navy. Man.

As for me, all I can say is Beat the Bears, and Beeeeat Falcons!

Comments

[B. Minich]

Which, as Stewart Mandel said, this UCLA loss to Arizona didn't surprise him. Neither will a UCLA win over Oregon or ASU, which he ALSO expects to happen. I seriously have never seen a team more skitzophrenic than UCLA. They beat some good teams, and then proceed to lose to crappy ones.

[Sandy Underpants]

Karl Derrrrrel would surprise me if he didn't beat ASU or OU. The funny thing is that I think he'll beat both those ham and eggers.

[Jim Hu]

The last time ND lost to Navy, the year was 1963 and the Irish went 2-7. One of those wins was against ... UCLA.

The other was USC.

That Irish team was the last one to finish with less than 5 wins, which is now certain for the 2007 team even if they win out. The last ND team to lose 8 was the 2-8 1960 team.

You can also think of this as 3 chances to set the all time ND record for losses in a season.

[lexicon]

UCLA: will win at home against a superior opponent. Will lose on the road to a superior or to a vastly inferior opponent. Will lose at home only to the most vastly inferior opponent. conclusion: Arizona State and Oregon are in for a couple of trap games. Arizona and Washington State were totally foreseeable, as is a beating at the hands of USC.

This was one of the most perfect days among all of the perfect days.

[David K.]

Interestingly it was another week of relative boredom in the top 25 with only 2 upsets (FSU over BC) and (Cincy over South Florida) although technically Oregon over ASU was an upset, but I'd hardly call it one. Meaning there won't be too much chaos in the rankings, although Auburn deserves to drop for even scheduling Tennessee Tech.

My TOP 10

1. Ohio State
2. Oregon
3. LSU
4. Kansas
5. Oklahoma
6. Missouri
7. West Virginia
8. Arizona State
9. UConn
10. Boston College

[Sandy Underpants]

Where's Hawaii? Last season peeps on this very blog were in favor of sending Boise St. to the BCS championship because they were undefeated. The Rainbows almost lost a couple to jabronie teams, but they only 'almost' loss.

[Wobbly H]

I bet Washington beats them. That will be the annual inexplicable upset that your favorite coach pulls out of his ass (see Tennessee 2004, Pitt 2003).

[David K.]

As opposed to your favorite coach who doesn't know when to kick a field goal...

[Wobbly H]

Once again, pointless and inapposite.

[Wobbly H]

P.S. You should know that today, I sent an e-mail to Brenners suggesting that he suspend you and Sandy from the blog for your recent behavior. I now go public with that request. Brenners, I know there's the whole loyalty based on the first year of college roommate thing, but you need to, first and foremost, think about your blog. Davie is not contributing to a high-level discussion of anything and needs some time to think about his posting behavior.

[Brendan Loy]

Wobbly, you know perfectly well that I do not ban people from my blog merely because they are "not contributing to a high-level discussion"; I ban them only for egregious transgressions like vicious personal attacks. Therefore I resent your attempt make this about my "loyalty" to David. There is absolutely no precedent for me banning anyone, former college roommate or not, on the basis of my disapproval of their argumentative tactics. If I banned people on that basis, 90% of my audience would have been banned at one point or another, myself included. (You, too.) To imply, on the basis of the conduct you're complaining about, that the only reason I'm not banning David is because he's my friend, is patently ridiculous.

I agree with you that David's rhetorical approach to the Weis/Willingham issue is generally wrong-headed, and Sandy's is worse. I, too, sometimes get frustrated with David, Sandy and others for what I perceive as their failure to adequately grapple with the facts and arguments that people raise in rebuttal to their comments. But that's no grounds for banning them. It's grounds for disagreeing with them, and their rhetorical tactics, and saying so. But if I were to start banning people for stuff like that, the cure would be far worse than the disease.

[Wobbly H]

I certainly don't want Davie "banned" either. I rather enjoy his comments, usually. But the way he engages in dialogue on this matter has become insufferable (look up in this thread, for example). I was only suggesting that maybe he needs to take a break from the blog for a week or two to examine his behavior.

I fear I've overstepped my bounds here, though--it is your blog and for the most part, you've adhered to the rules you put forth.

Thanks.

[David K.]

I don't normally take the Andrew approach but dang wobbly, you are a coward and a pansy. You dish out insults and slams against people left and right, and when i call into question both your intelligence and point out that the coach of your favorite team whom you have defend vigorously in the past is doing worse than the coach of my team who you attack on a regular basis, you go crying to Brendan to have him ban me? Wow. Talk about thin skinned. I'd have been glad to argue with you in a reasonable manner, but since day one of your appearance on this site you have been belligerent arrogant and distasteful in your commenting style. If you want civil discourse you might try it first. Try calling people by their name, trying not insulting them left and right, and try to stop beating the same old Ty sucks argument its not relevant to much lately yet you love bringing it up.

Heck even I think Sandy is over the top with his racism arguments (i think it was more about trying to get urban meyer), but banning him? What has he done that is ban worthy other than disagree with you? What have *I* done that deserves that that exceeds your behavior? You have done quite a bit of distasteful things yet I have never expected you to get banned. Seriously, if saying:

As opposed to your favorite coach who doesn't know when to kick a field goal...

Is a ban worthy offense, well dang, you do have thin skin...

[Wobbly H]

I suggested a suspension, not a ban, and I did so before that comment.

[Brendan Loy]

Wobbly, a "suspension" is a temporary "ban." The fact remains that I have never banned anybody, for any length of time, on the basis of the sort of conduct you're complaining about -- namely, a rhetorical style that I and/or others might find disagreeable or frustrating -- so it's absurd to claim that my "loyalty" to David is what's keeping me from instituting such a ban/suspension here.

That said: in fairness, David, it isn't merely that you "disagree with" Wobbly that he's complaining about; his objection is that he believes you make the same points over and over, fail to adequately consider or rebut the counterarguments to your points, and then when those same counterarguments are raised again later, you either ignore them (again), change the subject, or go on the attack with an irrelevant faux-rebuttal. I think there is some truth to what he's saying; I think you do indeed do that sometimes, and it frustrates me too when you do it. I haven't been following this discussion, or other recent discussions on Ty/Weis, closely enough to know whether you're doing it here, but I've seen it in the past. That said, it's no more ban-worthy than Alasdair's sometimes frustrating rhetorical tendency to eschew substance in favor of puns, or my sometimes frustrating rhetorical tendency to dwell on minutiae and go ballistic over random nonsense, or Becky's sometimes frustrating rhetorical tendency to go totally over-the-top on certain things and be unnecessarily inflammatory ... etc. etc. We all have our rhetorical tics. I'm not going to "suspend" someone over theirs, unless it happens to be something really egregious like vicious personal attacks, unrelenting trollishness, streams of worthless comments containing nothing but snark, etc.

Anyway, Wobbly, the problem isn't that you've "overstpped your bounds" -- you're free to make suggestions, and I'm free to follow them or ignore them; so long as you don't repeatedly bring them up after I've made a final decision on the matter, there's no problem with that. The problem is that your suggestion is not at all in keeping with the way I run the blog, and therefore it's a total nonstarter, absolutely D.O.A.; and secondly, anticipating that I wouldn't follow your suggestion, you snuck in a little side comment implying that I'm giving David special treatment, which is just ridiculous under the circumstances.

[David K.]

So he's complaing about HOW i argue with him? I know you don't feel this, but seriously, if he's got a problem about how someone argues, then uh don't argue with them.

Wobbly, i could say the same about you, you ignore counter arguments you don't like and instead focus on certain parts of your argument i didn't feel the need or have the interest in addressing, but again I find that you have seldom if ever brought up releveant arguments that aren't extremely biased and/or laced with insults.

In the last thread you brought up, I addressed the points you made, i just didn't agree with you.

Again if you want civil discussion that discuss things civilly, don't go running and crying to Brendan when you don't like who you are talking with and stop insulting people. You set the standards for the level of discourse by your behavior. Maybe its childish of me to stoop to your level, but oh well, sometimes its fun to let your inner child out. Anyway like I said, you set the standards. You want them to change, you are free to engage in civil debate and i'll gladly join in.

But this idea that you are somehow the innocent victim here is nothing short of hilarious.

[Wobbly H]

Brendan,
I didn't intend to state that you won't ban or suspend Davie ONLY because he is your former college roommate, but I see how it would appear that way. I am well aware of your previous policy and was more or less advocating a change.

In case you're curious, this thread here is the culmination of my displeasure with Davie's style of argument.

http://blog.brendanloy.com/2007/10/oregon-24-usc-1.html#comments

Davie, I know you won't listen to me, so I hoped to get Brendan involved because sometimes you listen to him. It's not the fact that I disagree with you--generally I do, but you're not the only one--it's that your arguments generally take the tack that Brendan described above. In the absence of the "timeout" for you that I suggested and was shot down, perhaps at least you can heed Brendan's advice.

[David K.]

I figured that was the thread. I addressed your arguments, and I also addressed your mis-use of the ad-hominem defense. But lets take this little example of your style of arguing:

Unhand your Johnson and do a little research on the subject. Or just ask Brenners, who is ten times smarter than you. You said that my argument wasn't valid because my team is doing poorly. This evades the substance of my argument, basically that your team sucks.

So you threw a couple insults at me and then lied about my argument. As I pointed out in that thread, I responded to your criticisms AND IN ADDITION pointed out that your team was doing worse than mine and that you might want to concentrate more on that.

You made some "points" that I addressed. You made some "points" that i ignored because I didn't feel like they were releveant to the discussion or worth arguing with. I am under no obligation to continue arguing with you on a thread if i feel its a waste of my time, and I'm not always going to go point by point with every little thing you bring up. Sorry if you dislike that, but when it comes to ad-hominem and style of argument I would like to point out that YOU were the one who started hurling insults. Read the thread again, I had done no such thing until YOU began doing so. Doesn't mean I should have done it, but it certainly proves that you are absolutely and completely off base in criticizing me for not providing an arena where reasonable debate can occur.

As I have said before, and say yet again, YOU set the standard for discussions with you on this blog with your belligerent arrogant and insulting argumentative style. If you want to be taken seriously stop doing that and stick to the arguments, and i'd be glad to engage you in civil debates. I won't promise to focus all my energy on rebutting every thing you bring up ever and you may disagree with whether or not i've addressed your point but i can't help what you think. If you don't like my style and don't like that i don't address some of your arguments, well thats fine then your arguments will convince more people i guess. On the other hand I think alot of the things you bring up especially regarding the Huskies are based on a complete lack of understanding and information (the idea that we have an "experienced" team for example, just because someone is listed as a senior doesn't mean they have played much) For example, you pointed out Marcel Reese as an experienced reciever. He caught 9 passes last year. I'd hardly call that experienced. Most of our starters only have experience from last year and we lack depth due to the aftermath of the Neuheisal years and Gilberstons lame duck season. We are starting to see results of recent recruiting, including Jake Locker, Ben Ossai, Daniel Teo-Nesheim. On top of that our big losses are to 3 highly ranked teams and we came close against opponents like Arizona and USC, 3 points within USC. Our team is showing improvement that is partially masked by playing the toughest damn schedule in the country. But you don't care about that. Washington has had recent seasons of 1-10, 2-9, and last year a 5-7 that was a great improvement, and this year our improvement as I said was overshadowed by a ridiculously tough schedule.

[Becky]

Puh. Arguing about whether Charlie Weis or Ty Willingham is the better coach is like debating the nutritional value of a Big Mac. They're both pretty lame when compared to actual good coaches like Pete Carroll or Urban Meyer; you know, coaches who have actually, like, won National Championships and stuff.

That being said, at least Washington has shown some signs of life this year. If they can get their act together in front of Loker, they could contend. That's far more than I can say for ND, despite the supposed quality of their recruiting classes and Charlie Weis' thoroughly defrauded "genuis."

Re-re-re-retards.

Wobbly,

You know what happens when you lie down with dogs?

David is a master at baiting people, and he has shown no ability to engage in debate (on any topic) without flaming, engaging in excessive punctuation, or being disingenous. I think you are far better served by ignoring him. Someone mentioned a few weeks ago that it would be great if this blog had an "ignore commenter" section. I understand that the natural inclination is to react to retarded people like David, but for your own mental health, I suggest you just laugh at him as you would a street beggar whom you've just witnessed inspecting his own snot, and go about your productive day, safe in the knowledge that David is probably going to lead a very unfruitful and unhappy life.

Note, my opinion of David is based on a review of his posts here for a few months on a multitude of topics. I will neither be swayed by nor do I care to hear that he is a great guy in person, etc., though I highly doubt any such praise will flow through these chambers, except by his few friends that post in these parts.

[David K.]

Wow, i never realized the anonymi obsessed over me so much :)

Given that you aren't even brave enough to post under a pseudonym i find your critcism hilarious at best, but your attempt at attacking my personal character based on some blog comments?

My guess is that you are another misguided Domer who hates the fact that I criticize your team and therefore hate me because of it. Based on experience with anonymous posters that is.

I actually have quite a happy and productive life, but then you don't actually care about any of that, what you seem to care about is not debating people ina civil manner but (attempting) to belittle them through your comments.

I seriously wonder though what possess someone to post such things about another person they have only "met" on the internet.

As I said, i'm more than willing to debate people civilly, but I won't hesistate to stoop to their level if they refuse to do that. And as I noted, it was not I who used the insults to begin with in the above linked section, it was Wobbly and an anonymous commenter, possibly yourself.

Let me get this straight. Anyone who thinks you argue like a buffoon, who has told someone else to ignore you, is obsessed?

You are dumber than dirt.