Anti-Punditry
Monday, June 5, 2006 at 09:19AM Don't fall victim to its suasions.
Better yet, don't break your own sarcastic little rules (ahem, #11 don't be a dick).
The piece in question was a far-from-dogmatic, pass the time type ranking of the conferences. HP included as factors coaching, diversity of offensive scheme, schedule strength, competitiveness and talent level. It's not the most realistic representation and HP acknowledges as much, but the methodology was explained and merits left up to the readers.
As usual, people misinterpreted or ignored the analysis and HP's responses to criticism.
I am not trying to determine which conference has the better teams per se. I think that is a tough endeavor because of the unequal data in play. I am trying to figure out which conference is best based on measures that are a little less skewed
And what does HP mean by skewed? I don't know, maybe that whole two-division/don't play everyone in your conference combined witha few OOC cupcakes easiest way to 9 wins if your team has a pulse strategy in play in the SEC.
With that removed from the equation, different criteria were used. They're imperfect, but the old way of simply giving conference-wide deference and a ridiculous #7 ranking to a team (2003 Tennessee, first example that came to mind) because of their name and 10 wins before falling to Clemson 27-14 in a bowl game isn't really a good idea.
The Pac-10's not immune from criticism, but at least we know their body of work is a little more complete. In 2004 California lost to Texas Tech in the Holiday Bowl, but we also knew that during the course of their season they pitched two shutouts in offense-happy Pac-10 play and were within a play of toppling eventual national champs USC. As it was they held a great offense to 23 points at the Coliseum. There was reason to believe they merited a high ranking and being in a big name bowl game.
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In politics, people are sometimes accused of having a "Pre 9/11 mindset". Their world views and opinions and policy actions are stuck in a time period untouched by more recent events. EDSBS' critical post is very much in a summer 2005 mindset. The old arguments on all sides have since been scrutinized, amended, and improved, but that doesn't stop some people from disingenuously acting like the actions from that point onward never happened.
Orson's inclusion of a 3-zoned map of the "United States according to HP" is right out of the dumb playbook. It's satire, but still dumb. It conveniently ignores HP's general appreciation for teams whatever the region. I guess we've now somehow ignored all the kind words about Louisville, West Virginia, Florida, Ohio State, Notre Dame and several others all in the so-called "barrens" of zone 3.
It also ignores HP's response to SMQB where he expresses surprise that the Pac-10 was in fact on top of the rankings.
I was shocked, frankly, that the Pac-10 finished where it did. I went in expecting the Big Ten to be No. 1
That and much more, conveniently ignored---in other words, "cherry-picking facts delivered with blather and ostensible objectivity."
Just don't let that get in the way of a good time.
EDSBS does great work, but this attack missed badly. In their haste to score points against HP standard ethics of argument were ignored and their own catty rules broken.
Mencken was a pundit, too
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Reader Comments (15)
"Building on #11…don’t be afraid to say bad things about people. It helps if they’re true."
For what its worth, the PAC10 is probably near the top, but getting that answer out of HP would be like getting a "SEC is the best" out of EDSBS, a "Big 12 is the best" out of BoN, or a "Independents are the best" out of an ND blog.
The Pac 10 Bowl lineup makes it appear that the Pac10's #2 and 3 teams are the equivalent of the #5 or 6 teams in the Big 12 and Big 10.
All he did was rank the conferences for 2006 under a method with criteria he's long espoused.
SMQB had a nice rebuttal, but it wasn't a skewering by any means. His response boiled down to "you're ignoring defense" and HP responded with "creative offenses make for better defenses because they force a defense to handle more and more looks presented to it".
I'd call that a draw, pard'ner.
As for the Pac-10, its commish is a career bureaucrat (Tom Hansen).
He's withdrawn from the football operation based on the bowl matchups and TV deals.
It is their problem and by not fixing it in over a decade its hurt their perception and recruiting, certainly.
fc,
I defended HP because EDSBS' post was nothing but a ridiculous attack, a hatchet job. The merits were not left to the reader, only a catty rehash of old arguments that don't really fit HP's profile.
I didn't respond to the SMQB reply because for the most part it was a fair-minded response, for example.
Finally, let's avoid talk of circle jerks. That's just... not appropriate here. Save the sarcasm and juvenile humor for another site that caters to that.
"This is the heart of antipunditry, a practice you can see on display at SMQ, on Feldman’s blog at ESPN, or most anywhere you look in the college football blogosphere. We’re biased, we know it, and we let events dictate the drift of our thoughts in between sodomy jokes, high-tech Microsoft Paint slander, and calling people dumb."
I think it really speaks to the development of the different blogs you laid out last week, CFR. I spend 5 mins of HP and I learn something new, I spend 2 hours on EDSBS, and I've lowered my IQ by 30 points, but at least i got a laugh.
I just think ranking the conferences is such a risky proposition. I think Ivan Meisel tried to a few weeks ago on ESPN, and was said on the Podcast he was just hammered with emails. Anyways, shows how far offseason football talk has come, like the humor, like the analysis, good stuff all around.
As for EDSBS, well there was some funny stuff posted over there even HP had a good natured post which shows he's not so thin skinned. All in all it got the conversation started and that's a good thing.
I know everybody likes them and I do too but sometimes being an idiot and tapdancing over one's own silly rules is going to get you a reprimand from over here.
I called him about it, trust me it's not a case of deciding the conclusion ahead of time.
The guy's been on the Big 10 train lately, I don't think he was anticipating the Pac-10 coming out on top.
He's got a forum to quibble with his rankings, take it up there.
The disdain is not a cyclical occurance. Even if the OOC schedules are improved, there's still that matter of having a goon squad of national media (Craig James, Tim Brando etc.) taking as gospel that the SEC is No. 1 (something a Vegas guy, Phil Steele, doesn't believe most years he looks back on the seasons).
Oh, and that whole bifurcated conference thing isn't going away, either. Until the SEC, B12 and ACC each remove two teams and go round-robin there's going to be problems from many of us. It's a cheap trick to game the system and get 9-10 wins for teams that otherwise would have 8-9 and not be in the top 10.
So no, its not cyclical.
We can acknowledge when the SEC has good years, but we're also going to call it straight and not take as gospel the BS that's been sold to people the last 20 years. I have two SEC teams in my top five this year, for example. We'll see what they do, but you guys are so thin-skinned about the conference that you confuse skepticism for intellectual dishonesty.