Rating the Maaco Bowl: Boise State is so money (and Vegas knows it)

Bowls: There are a lot of them. As a public service, the Doc is here to rank each game according to five crucial criteria, with help from the patron saint of the game in question. Today: The MAACO Las Vegas Bowl!

Teams. Boise State Broncos (11-1) vs. Utah Utes (10-2).
Particulars. Dec. 22 (Today), 8 p.m. ET on ESPN.
Favorite: Boise State (-17)
Aviator, engineer, industrialist, film producer, film director, philanthropist and all-purpose wacko Howard Hughes, who checked into the Desert Inn for a 10-day stay on Thanksgiving Day 1966 and refused to leave for over a year, eventually buying the hotel for twice its estimated value and converting the top two floors into the center of his Vegas empire and his personal residence. From there, he bought a half-dozen local hotel/casinos, including the Silver Slipper, in order to reposition a flashing neon slipper that kept him awake at night.

• Locale. Sam Boyd Stadium a) Is located on the very edge of the valley, a stone's throw from the desert and well out of view of the Strip; b) Has hosted off-brand professional teams known as the "Posse" and the "Outlaws"; c) Currently hosts one of the United States Hot Rod Association's largest annual monster truck rallies; and d) Was once known as the Silver Bowl. Last year, 40 mph winds gusting through the open end zone wreaked havoc, including a 6-yard punt by Oregon State. Tonight's forecast is for a downpour. The Jerrydome, it ain't. We're talking survival of the fittest, man.

    More 2010 Bowl Ratings
  • Dec. 17: New Mexico Bowl
  • Dec. 18: Humanitarian Bowl
  • Dec. 18: New Orleans Bowl 

• Tradition. The Las Vegas Bowl began in 1992 as an interesting champion-on-champion clash between the best of the MAC and the now-defunct Big West, which included Toledo finishing off an unbeaten season in the first overtime game in NCAA history in 1995. Unfortunately, the game abandoned that niche two years later for more generic pairings of assorted Western also-rans, the most notable of which was probably an obscure USC team that fell to Utah, 10-6, to finish 6-6 under first-year head coach Pete Carroll in 2001. And even that was only notable in retrospect, in the wake of the Trojans' rise into the kind of juggernaut that wouldn't be caught dead in the Las Vegas Bowl again for the next decade.

Most recently, it's been the BYU Bowl. Before this year, the Cougars made five straight holiday trips to Vegas to take on five different Pac-10 also-rans, winning three of the last four to cap 10-win, top-25 seasons. Fortunately, Utah coach Kyle Whittingham was available this year to fill the role of "uncomfortable Mormon" at the annual showgirl shoot.

• Swag. This being Las Vegas, and the title sponsor being an auto body repair chain, the unspecified contents of the "gift suite" handed out to players could conceivably include just about anything: Jewelry, a video slot machine, gift certificates for an insane paint job, a moderately attractive but slightly unhinged divorcée, a bachelor's degree from UNLV, 10 free Elvis impersonations at various social events, a replica Sphinx, etc. It could also be, like, $25 worth of poker chips and half a pack of cigarettes. The only limit is your imagination, in either direction.

• Sponsors, trophies and other ambiance. Nobody's broken out the fatigues yet, but things started off chippy enough over the weekend, when players got into a shoving match Sunday that resulted in "some dishes broken" and Utah players moving to a different level of the Hard Rock Café to avoid a full-on brawl. Then Utah receiver DeVonte Christopher upped the ante on his Twitter feed:

Christopher, a Canyon Springs High School graduate, posted on Twitter: "I can't wait to get out here wit these Boise State or should I say Girlse State they a bunch of cheerleaders…lol."

"LOL," for those who don't know, is Internet shorthand for "laugh out loud."

Thank you, Las Vegas Review-Journal, for the clarification. And thank you, DeVonte Christopher, for likely getting Utah players banned from Twitter for the foreseeable future.

• This year's match-up. Utah-Boise joins Florida State-South Carolina in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl as the only clash of ranked teams prior to New Year's Day, and matches the Sugar and Orange bowls for the highest combined winning percentage between both teams (.875) of any game this side of the Rose Bowl and BCS Championship Game. Both teams were ranked in the top 10 at Halloween, when Utah-Boise State would have had the ring of a BCS game, and it's still a gem for Dec. 22.

The other side of the coin, as the gaping point spread indicates, is that Utah has given no indication it can hang for four quarters with an outfit of Boise State's caliber. The Broncos rank in the top six nationally in almost every conceivable category – passing offense, pass efficiency, total offense, scoring offense, rushing defense, pass defense, pass efficiency defense, total defense, scoring defense, sacks, sacks allowed, angry blog comments generated, you name it. They've also beaten a pair of currently ranked teams, Virginia Tech and Hawaii, the latter by 35 points. There's a reason this team was considered a serious national contender right to the end.

The Utes, on the other hand, were run out of their own stadium in their only game against a ranked team (a 47-7 trouncing at the hands of TCU), and consistently struggled against other respectable opposition: They were blown out at Notre Dame a week after the TCU debacle, and barely escaped against fellow bowlers Pittsburgh (27-24 in overtime), Air Force (28-23), San Diego State (38-34) and BYU (17-16, with the help of a controversial call and a blocked field goal on the last play). With starting quarterback Jordan Wynn likely out with a bum shoulder, it may take Utah's best game of the season just to keep Boise from covering the spread.

• Star power. Kellen Moore and Titus Young were easily one of the most prolific quarterback-receiver connections in the nation, hooking up 65 times for 1,151 yards, nine touchdowns and the would-be season-saving bomb at Nevada – and that's just a hair down from their 2009 production. Young and receiving mate Austin Pettis are both off to the draft after tonight, leaving Boise with at least 415 catches, 5,690 yards and 63 touchdowns to their name over four years, and Moore with a brand new set of targets to break in next fall as a senior.

Final rating: out of five.
To the extent Utah can keep it close, Vegas is an appropriate setting for a match-up that looks like an oasis amid a desert of mediocrity. At the very least, it's a great lead-in to the holiday weekend.

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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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Headlinin': Taylor Martinez's dad is up in Nebraska's business (literally)

Making the morning rounds.

• Father dearest. The L.A. Times, in one of a pair of stories on native son Taylor Martinez and his father, has confirmed the longstanding rumor that the on-camera tongue-lashing Martinez endured from coach Bo Pelini during Nebraska's Nov. 22 loss at Texas A&M was sparked by a locker room phone call between Martinez and his dad after the younger Martinez left the game with a foot injury in the first quarter. Cell phones on "company time" are a violation of team rules, and Martinez didn't help his standing by skipping a "voluntary" treatment session the next day. His future in Lincoln after tonight's Holiday Bowl is still anyone's guess. [L.A. Times, Lincoln Journal-Star]

One small detail that might affect his decision to stay or go: The elder Martinez secured a licensing deal with Nebraska nearly a year before his son committed to play there. Casey Martinez owns Corn Fed Clothing ("Our Land … Our Brand"), which sells t-shirts and other merchandise to reflect "the pride of America's traditional values that evolved in Mid America," such as "hard work, family fun, outdoor sports and freedom." (The company also has licensing deals with Iowa, Iowa State and Northern Iowa.)

How does the NCAA feel about a prospect signing with a school that does business with his father? They're pretty much fine with it, especially considering Nebraska's cut of the deal has amounted to less than $500 over three years, according to a university spokesman. [L.A. Times]

• And this will be your office. On the same day outgoing Maryland coach Ralph Friedgen was closing out his tenure with a 51-20 rout over East Carolina in Washington, D.C., prospective successor Mike Leach was on campus in College Park, where he's expected to interview with the UMD search committee today. Leach and Auburn offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn remain the odds-on favorites to assume Friedgen's chair as Head Terp. [Washington Post]

• We hardly knew ye. Whoever takes the Maryland job, he'll be working without All-ACC wide receiver Torrey Smith, who took to his Twitter account following Wednesday's win to publicly declare for the NFL Draft. Smith goes out on a quiet note in the bowl game, but won't have to answer for a lack of production after racking up 1,055 yards and 12 touchdowns on 67 catches for the year [@TorreySmithWR]

Per ESPN's Joe Schad, Smith may be followed into the pros by Southern Miss receiver DeAndre Brown, a former five-star signee who's never fully recovered from the gruesome broken leg he suffered in the 2008 New Orleans Bowl. With his prototypical size, Brown was always considered a likely "three-and-done" player, and apparently will be, despite the injuries, steadily declining production and frequent visits to coach Larry Fedora's doghouse since a spectacular freshman season. [ESPN]

• Another night at the awesome office. Speaking of wide receivers in the draft, Oklahoma State's Justin Blackmon didn't do anything to hurt his prospects Thursday night, when he became the most open receiver ever on a non-trick play against Arizona:

Blackmon added another touchdown to a nine-catch, 117-yard night, his 12th straight game with both 100 yards and at least one touchdown, an NCAA record. Overall, the Cowboys' top-ranked offense was held to a season-low 312 total yards and still put up 36 points en route to their 11th win, the best mark in school history. [Associated Press]

• We got off on the wrong foot, and stayed there. One explanation for West Virginia's sluggish turn on offense this season: Quarterback Geno Smith played the entire year on a fractured foot, which seems to have never completely healed following surgery to repair the foot after last season. He'll undergo another surgery in January, and may be forced to sit out the first spring practice under new offensive coordinator/coach-in-waiting Dana Holgorsen. [Charleston Gazette]

Quickly… Jim Harbaugh does the cha cha with his future at Stanford. … Mike Stoops blows Arizona's end-of-half clock management. … Former quarterback Kodi Burns reaps the rewards of perseverance. … Ohio State gets the New Orleans treatment as it arrives for the Sugar Bowl. … Joe Paterno fights an old grudge on behalf of his offensive coordinator. … Employers of Syracuse fans: Read this. … And even at the national championship, Oregon players can't escape the classroom.

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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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Brian Curley: 2010 Masters Champion

Join Brian Curley, the 2010 CrossFit Games Masters champion, as he discusses the background and training that led to his win.

Curley started with personal training by CrossFit New England’s Ben Bergeron, who introduced him to CrossFit. Curley admits the transition to CrossFit from more traditional working out was difficult for the more technical movements.

“The intensity, too, was something that was an interesting transition,” he says.

But the workouts kept him coming back for more.

“When you’re my age or even younger—once you get out of college and you’re an adult—it’s hard to find things that scratch that competitive itch,” Curley says. “You can be really competitive here without being obnoxious.”

His road to the 2010 Games started with the sectionals, and his training included CrossFit Endurance and working on his weaknesses. After a third-place finish as a masters athlete at his regional, Curley was on his way to the Games—and victory.

16min 41sec

Video by Again Faster.

Additional audio: CrossFit Radio Episode 147 by Justin Judkins, originally aired Nov. 24, 2010.

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Rating the Holiday: Huskers, Huskies star in deja vu for masochists

Bowls: There are a lot of them. As a public service, the Doc is here to rank each game according to five crucial criteria, with help from the patron saint of the game in question. Today: The Insight Bowl!

Teams. Nebraska Cornhuskers (10-3) vs. Washington Huskies (6-6).
Particulars. Tonight, 10 p.m. ET on ESPN.
Favorite: Nebraska (–13½)
Patron Saint: Late World War II paratrooper and p Don Coryell, widely considered one of the fathers of the modern passing game after two high-flying decades as head coach of San Diego State and the San Diego Chargers. Coryell took the Aztecs from a small college obscurity to a legitimate West Coast presence in the late sixties and early seventies, before moving on to build six playoff teams in 14 years in the NFL, smashing most of the league's passing records in the process.

• Locale. Qualcomm Stadium is more than just a football stadium: With "numerous clubs, lounges, and restaurants," you can host parties there, conferences, meetings, bar mitzvahs – even get married in front of an audience of up to 70,000. Even if you're looking for something a little more … quaint, don't let a little water or tens of thousands of empty seats looming over your cherished vows as they echo throughout an aging, corporately-named edifice ruin the greatest day of your life – rent today!

    More 2010 Bowl Ratings
  • Dec. 17: New Mexico Bowl
  • Dec. 18: Humanitarian Bowl
  • Dec. 18: New Orleans Bowl
  • Dec. 22: Maaco Bowl Las Vegas
  • Dec. 23: Poinsettia Bowl
  • Dec. 24: Hawaii Bowl
  • Dec. 26: Little Caesars Bowl
  • Dec. 27: Independence Bowl
  • Dec. 28: Champs Sports Bowl
  • Dec. 29: Texas Bowl
  • Dec. 29: Alamo Bowl
  • Dec. 30: Pinstripe Bowl
  • Dec. 30: Music City Bowl

• Tradition. The bowl existed for 20 years (1978-97) as the destination of the WAC champion, which – prior to the league’s ill-fated expansion and fragmentation in the mid-nineties – almost always meant BYU: LaVell Edwards’ Cougars played in the first seven and eleven of the first sixteen Holiday bowls, winning five and securing an eventual national championship by beating Big Ten also-ran Michigan in 1984.

There was the wild BYU comeback over SMU in 1980, the second in a nine-year stretch in which the game was decided by four points or less seven times, but the Holiday really earned its high-scoring rep in the late eighties, when Oklahoma State, Penn State and Texas A&M scored 62, 50 and 65, respectively, in consecutive blowouts of Wyoming, BYU and BYU again from 1988-90. Cue Barry Sanders in 1988:

See also: Here, here, here and here, none of which contributed to Sanders' record-breaking season total on the ground.

Also of note: the Holiday is where jilted BCS contenders go to die – Texas in 2003, Cal in 2004 and Oregon in 2005 all thought they deserved the bigger bucks in January, and all subsequently flopped against underdogs (Washington State, Texas Tech and Oklahoma) in San Diego. If Nebraska has any notion that it deserved more courtesy from the heavy hitters, it should keep quiet about it.

• Swag. In addition to a Fossil watch, sweatshirt and cap – not to mention trips to SeaWorld and the San Diego Zoo, which are nothing to sneeze at – players receive a Best Buy gift card for an undisclosed. That's not quite the shopping spree afforded to participants in the Capital One and Champs Sports bowls, but don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

• Sponsors, trophies and other ambiance. Sadly, longtime sponsor Pacific Life Insurance has yielded to a new corporate overlord, San Diego-based Bridgepoint Education – a private, for-profit company offering post-secondary degrees through two subsidiaries, Ashford University and the University of the Rockies – likely signaling the end of the most consistently snigger-worthy trophy in sports: The Pacific Life whale. Okay, seriously, it's not funny. It's really not. I mean, maybe sometimes. But otherwise, grow up, man.

• This year's match-up. Either oddsmakers are reading Washington's three-game winning streak and Nebraska's simultaneous offensive slide as signs that the gap between these teams has narrowed since September, or they think the 56-21 beatdown the 'Huskers delivered in Seattle on Sept. 18 was a serious fluke. Nebraska thoroughly dominated that game in every sense, killing Jake Locker's Heisman campaign in a matter of hours while unleashing its own star, Taylor Martinez, for a breakout afternoon.

Nebraska ended the regular season averaging 50 yards more per game than Washington, and allowing almost 100 less; the 'Huskers outscore U-Dub by 10 points per game on the scoreboard, and allow two full touchdowns lesson the season. If these teams were five touchdowns apart in September, it's hard to see where the Huskies are supposed to have come up with the other three that the 14-point spread reflects in the meantime.

• Star power. Martinez thoroughly outplayed Locker the first time around, and even then, it may have had more to do with the relative strength of the defenses (Nebraska finished in the top 10 nationally in total, scoring and pass efficiency D for the second year in a row) than the merits of the quarterbacks. But both are anxious to go out tonight with a bang – Locker to redeem his dreadful effort in September and salvage as much of his tarnished draft stock as possible against a top defense in his final college game, Martinez to prove that he can still generate the fireworks that made him one of the breakout stars of the first half of the season.

Between injuries, diminishing returns and some ugly transfer rumors, Martinez has had a rough two months – he hasn't passed for a touchdown since the Oct. 30 win over Missouri, and hasn't run for one since gashing Kansas State for four scores on national television on Oct. 7. Tonight, with the nagging injuries behind him, is the time for the real Martinez to show himself.

Final rating: out of five.
There's a good chance Washington will be far, far more competitive tonight, in its first bowl game since 2002, than it was back in September. And that could still amount to a 17-point 'Husker win.

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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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Chick-fil-A Bowl: South Carolina vs. Florida State

Bowl: Chick-fil-A Teams: South Carolina (9-4) vs. Florida State (9-4) Toasting Town: Atlanta Vintage: 1968 Alternate Name: Please Change It Back To The Peach Bowl Baldwin Level: Alec The Chick-fil-A Bowl is what a non-BCS bowl should be. It?s an intriguing matchup of deserving, evenly matched teams, one I would make time for during the [...]

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Welcome, Ralph Friedgen and friends, to the Discarded Coaches' Club

To the surprise of no one, Maryland confirmed coach Ralph Friedgen's exit this afternoon, drawing the curtain on a solid decade at his alma mater. He'll coach the Terps in their Military Bowl date with East Carolina next week, after which the school will terminate his contract, pay the remaining $2 million for the remaining year and begin its pursuit of Friedgen's presumed successor, Mike Leach, in earnest.

Presumably, first-year athletic director Kevin Anderson would have set Friedgen adrift if he'd had the chance last year, when Maryland could at least chalk his exit up to "What have you done for me lately?" in the wake of a 2-10 debacle that sucked any sense of optimism or progress out of the air. This year, though, he has done something for the Terps lately: The team rebounded to 8-4, and Friedgen was voted the ACC's Coach of the Year. Of the 14 coaches who have ever left a job immediately after winning their conference's coach of the year award, he's the first who was fired.

This year, though, he's not alone. Just up the road, Pittsburgh dumped Dave Wannstedt, and West Virginia effectively fired Bill Stewart with 365 days notice, both of them coming off their third consecutive winning season. (Technically, though UConn earned the Big East's automatic bid to the BCS, the Panthers and Mountaineers also shared the conference championship.) Combined, Friedgen, Stewart and Wannstedt are 143-92 (.609) over 19 years with 12 winning seasons, six top-25 finishes and three conference titles – at Maryland, West Virginia and Pitt.

How many coaches get the guillotine with a conference championship and a .600 winning percentage to their name? Enough to fill a small graveyard every decade or so. By my count, Friedgen, Wannstedt and Stewart following eight other … let's say, questionable terminations in the BCS era:

• John Cooper, Ohio State (Final season: 8-4 in 2000). Before he was a punchline for his lame record against Michigan, Cooper was an architect of a string of first-rate, national championship-caliber squads from 1995-98 that always managed to spit the bit in one fashion or another. The Buckeyes slipped to 6-6 in 1999, and a rebound to 8-4 in 2000 couldn't save him.

• R.C. Slocum, Texas A&M (Final season: 6-6 in 2002). The Aggies won four straight Southwest Conference titles under Slocum from 1991-94, and staked an early claim in the Big 12 with a South Division title in 1997; they stunned No. 1 Kansas State for the conference championship a year later. Four years after that, Slocum got the boot for finishing three straight seasons outside the top 25, on the heels of resurgent powerhouses Oklahoma and Texas.

• Frank Solich, Nebraska (Final season: 9-3 in 2003). The other Oklahoma/Texas victim. Solich, hand-picked successor to Tom Osborne's 'Husker dynasty, had a Big 12 title to his name in 1999, and a trip to the de facto BCS championship game in 2001. He rebounded from a 7-7 collapse in 2002 to win nine in 2003, but there was no patience in Lincoln for Alamo Bowls.

• Paul Pasqualoni, Syracuse (Final season: 6-6, Big East co-champs in 2004). Pasqualoni's resumé over 15 years included seven top-25 finishes, at least a share of four Big East championships and only one losing season, in 2002. Three years of stagnation got him fired in '04, but after four years under Greg "Gerg" Robinson, stagnation never looked so good.

• Gary Barnett, Colorado (Final season: 7-5, Big 12 North champs in 2005). Barnett was done in by a renegade program as much as his record, though it didn't hurt that his last team lost its last three games by a combined score of 130-22, including a 70-3 humiliation at the hands of Rose Bowl-bound Texas in the Big 12 Championship Game. In the big picture, though, Barnett – fresh off his miracle-working stint at Northwestern in the mid-nineties – ended CU's decade-plus title drought with a Big 12 championship in 2001, the first of four North Division crowns in five years.

• Larry Coker, Miami (Final season: 7-6 in 2006). Coker is the rare coach fired after delivering a national championship, in 2001, and he almost brought the U another one in 2002, if not for the overtime Fiesta Bowl loss to Ohio State that snapped a 24-game win streak to kick off his head coaching career. It was downhill from there, but there was still another Big East championship, BCS berth and top-five finish in 2003, before the walls started to crumble around him in the transition to the ACC.

• Phillip Fulmer, Tennessee (Final season: 5-7 in 2008). Fulmer is the only other BCS-winning coach later thrown to the dogs, and only a year removed from an SEC East title in 2007 – the Vols' third surprise trip to the conference championship game since 2001. The final collapse in '08 was only the final straw in a long pattern of diminishing returns.

• Tommy Tuberville, Auburn (Final season: 5-7 in 2008). Tubs' ouster a few weeks later was more abrupt: Since surviving an attempted coup in 2003, he'd taken the Tigers to four straight top-15 finishes in the final polls and a 13-0, SEC championship run in 2004 that would have ended in a BCS title shot in almost any other season. His murky exit still makes a lot more sense as a resignation.

The lesson: Old bulls get a short leash when boosters start to grumble and attendance starts to slip. The other lesson: Be careful what you ask for – five of the eight successors to the coaches on this list were fired themselves within five years, and another (Lane Kiffin at Tennessee) bailed on a depleted roster after just one. The new must replace the old, but it doesn't always amount to progress.

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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.

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SWOLF: Improving Swimming Efficiency and Power

Swimming is as much about efficiency as it is about power output. More efficient swimmers are able to swim faster while using less strokes per lap. One way to calculate a swimmer’s efficiency is to find his or her swimming golf or “SWOLF” score. The SWOLF score combines a swimmer’s 25-yard swim time with the number of strokes he or she takes.

In this video, the CrossFit Endurance team takes a group of athletes through four 25-yard swims where they try to improve their SWOLF score on each swim. CrossFit Endurance coach Brian Nabeta says there are several ways to get a better score, but the ultimate goal is simply to go faster while using less strokes.

8min 21sec

Additional Video: Yards: Swimming With Champions by Sevan Matossian, published March 9, 2010.

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