TERRY MOSHER
JAKE BROWNING
It’s a beautiful day in the Pacific Northwest. The sky is blue, the sun is coating us with a warm glow, leaves are turning colors and the high school basketball season is looming.
I heard that North Kitsap, Kingston and Port Angeles are the early favorites in Olympic League basketball. Don’t go betting on that, but it sounds about right. I know that Scott Orness is a good coach and he will have his NK Vikings ready to compete at a high level.
There is a lot of talk among sports shock jocks on radio that the Washington Huskies got the short end of the stick when the first championship football playoff rankings came out and they were fifth, one spot from the final four that make the championship tournament.
It’s too early to get bummed about that. The Huskies are a very well-balanced football team – offensively and defensively – have a star quarterback in sophomore Jake Browning and are a rising power among the five so-called power conferences. But let the season play out before you start complaining. As the shock jocks are saying, if the Huskies win out they will be in the top four.
What I would like to see is a more comprehensive playoff system, and I think in time the lure of money will get the powers-to-be there. I would lean toward a 16-team playoff system among the 10 D-1 FBS conferences and the four independent teams – Army, Massachusetts, BYU and Notre Dame with seeding based on computer rankings that would take in several factors, including strength of schedule.
I would give 10 automatic bids to each conference champion and then the next six would be at-large bids determined by the computer rankings. It would take four rounds to determine a true champion. Playoffs would start the second weekend of December and wind up with the title game on Jan 1.
Where the 15 games are played shouldn’t be that difficult. I’m sure there are willing locations that could be bought with the proper amount of money, which is the DNA of life.
If somebody suggests having a 16-team playoff system takes away too much school time for players, I would point them to D-2 and D-3 playoff systems that seem to work without flunking everybody out of school. Those playoff systems are even larger, too.
Besides, the very talented football players don’t go to school to get educated. They go to get enough experience and exposure so they can be drafted by the NFL and make millions of dollars, which as I explained above is the DNA of life.
I’m only being half-sarcastic here. Some players do go to school for the education. I saw one last week.
Is Washington capable of winning a national championship in football this year? Sure. But it’s not likely. Alabama, no matter how much you dislike the Tide because they are always very good, is good enough to win the championship without too much difficulty. Michigan, for me, remains their only real threat.
I’m having a tough time believing Washington is physically tough enough to stand up to Alabama or Michigan. It took Don James a lot of years before the Huskies were truly a dominant team that could consistently play with anybody in the country, and he was one heck of a good coach. His 1991 team that had Steve Emtman torching everybody in his path was the best college football team I ever had the pleasure of being around.
I could be mistaken, though. Maybe the Huskies are already tough enough to be dominant. We’ll see soon enough. They play a pass-happy California team Saturday night and if they can slow down the Bears, I might change my tune. If they win that game, they then face an improving USC team at Husky Stadium on Nov. 12 and that is shaping up to be a donnybrook, just like in the old days when James’ was on the sidelines and Trojan teams were the model that James hoped his teams would be like.
Anyway, that’s enough for today. I got to get out in the sun. We don’t see enough of it this time of year and when we get it, we need to get out in it. So I’m outta here.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.
