Posted in On the DL Podcast
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09/7 2010

DL428: Back to School! College FB, Helmets, Hard Knocks Scoops, Chocolate

Posted by Dan Levy.

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Nick and I go back to school. Wait…Nick and I talk about football teams that have gone back to school! (That feels like less homework).

We go up and down the Boise State win over Virginia Tech. Is Tech’s dream of a national title over ALREADY and does that mean that their season is over already? Sure an ACC title would be great, but a team in the top ten to start the season has to have national title aspirations. So, see ya next year?

Also, does Boise State’s win crush any chances of TCU getting to the national title game? TCU is sixth, and they play NOBODY the rest of the year. If Boise State runs the table, having been ranked 3/5 to start the season and just beaten at top-10 team on the road, where does that leave a potentially-undefeated TCU team? There is NO WAY the BCS will have two non BCS conference teams meet for a national title. It just won’t happen.

We try to stay away from the playoff debate, but do lament the need for pre-season rankings. What helps interest for Boise State and TCU may hurt Utah. They beat a top-15 team, but started the season un-ranked. If they were ranked 6th, would we have cared more? Do numbers really mean something or are pre-season rankings completely arbitrary? To answer the rhetorical, they are more than arbitrary in that they do, in fact, shape interest. They may not make a team play better (or be better) but they do create a lot more buzz around a game.

Next, UNIFORM TALK. We liked VTech’s helmets but hated their uniforms. And Boise State’s helmet with a logo on only one side was a huge design error. Look, they are a national program now, but still nobody really knows anything about them. They need to get their identity — their logo — on TV as much as possible. Why, then, would they wear a helmet that doesn’t show the logo for half the game? Going left to right, all we saw was a generic blue helmet. A lot of teams are blue, and as good as Boise State is, they aren’t at the level of color recognition (Penn State’s white helmets or Notre Dame’s golden domes).

It was a huge design flaw in an otherwise fantastic night for Boise State’s program.

NFL TALK:

During ESPN’s report on Darrelle Revis signing with the Jets and reporting to camp, Sal Paolantonio mentioned that he didn’t know when Revis was going to show up, but talked to the camera guys for HBO Hard Knocks and they were told it could be any minute (at the time of that report). Sal Pal laughed it off, but seems noticeably frustrated that he had to get information on when a player was arriving from the film crew that’s been hired to record everything about the Jets. Sure it’s two days later, but Hard Knocks is, in a way, breaking news because of their access.

Now, their extra access is through the league or, at the very least, approved by the league and filmed by the league’s affiliated media company in NFL Films. Is preferential treatment to a media company in this case (remember the show gets turned around within a week, not after the season) different than what Tennessee got crushed for by offering more access to writers the coaching staff liked?

At the very least, it was interesting to hear ESPN talk about Hard Knocks on SportsCenter twice in two minutes.

HOUSEKEEPING:

We take a look at the up-to-date MLB standings, talk about the New TOcho show and discuss the Hershey Chocolate World where you can make your own candy bars. It’s as delicious as it sounds.

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Posted on September 7, 2010 at 10:31AM

 

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  1. Max Power
    09/7 2010

    I’m glad to see you had a blast up in my neck of the woods. For older kids, I would also recommend going to the Hershey Story Museum downtown (although it is clearly not free like Chocolate World). But if you want more of a hands-on experience with your chocolate you can take classes in the Chocolate Lab located there to learn to make it from scratch (among other things).