I'm with volsboy on that one...no administration has ever enforced the immigration laws.  Too much money is being made and it would be very costly to do so.  Something does need to happen, hopefully it will.

And now...back to sports.   

FWIW, I think our class is going to get much better in terms of quality, but the quantity won't be what it was last year.  There are a lot of highly rated guys that we either lead for or are in their final two.  Like last year, we'll probably lose some current commits and replace them with guys who are better.

As for bammer, of course they're cheating, but as long as Emmert is around nothing will be done about it.  So it's not worth losing sleep over.

Oh I know.  It just that, if you are mathematically inclined, the numbers are simply shocking.  It's like a team winning the Super Bowl ten times in a row or someone hitting 10 HRs in a row against good pitching.

will play Belgium next on Tuesday at 4. This is actually a decent matchup for us.

You think so?  Belgium has some good pro players...lots of Premier League, or so the announcers were saying.  But I hope you are correct.

Quick correction...I just checked Scout, and their numeric rating is not double of Rivals, it's only about 20% higher.  So I guess we could assume they used Scout for the comparison and make the difference 350 on Rivals, but I really need to find the blog.   

And in the way of disclaimer, the spread is less on Scout.  Bammer only has a 500 point advantage there, but that is still a substantial advantage.  Based on the study I mention above, it means that Bammer is an 80% favorite against ANYONE THEY PLAY, statistically speaking, based on 4-year averages of recruiting ratings.

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/recruiting/teamrank/2015/all/all

Good news...we are back up to 7.  I think we have been as low as 11 or 12.  Jones has the recruiting thing down, apparently, and the good thing is that it's good whether he gets us there or if the next coach just has a stable of talent to build on.  For the record,I think Butch will make us very competitive though I am not sure he can do the NC, but who knows.

So...to evaluate things like this, I use a blog that Revolver posted about 4-5 years ago that I can no longer find.  What I remember is that it was a guy who evaluated recruiting ratings over a four year average for about 10-12 years.  That is, in any given year he averaged the recruiting score for the previous four years, and then compared heads-up records between the teams.  What I recall is that he found that if a team had a 4-year recruiting record that was about 400 points better than their opponent, it started to make a HUGE difference.  Smaller differences matterd, but I think the study showed that the win % was over 80% if the recruiting advantage was 400 points.

Now, I don't recall if that was based on Scout or Rivals (and as an aside, if anyone has a link to the study, I would greatly appreciate it, thanks!), but Scout's scoring is higher than Rivals, so 400 points would mean less.

But...if it was 400 points in Rivals, then that would mean that Tennessee is in line with 2-15, and we don't have to worry about those teams getting a huge advantage on us or vice versa.  But since I seem to remember that spread being less, I am thinking that the 400 points was based on Scout and not Rivals and the equivalent would be maybe 200 points since Scout is roughly twice as high as Rivals.  So in that case, there would really not be much of an advantage for teams 5-9 compared to Tennessee.  That sounds more reasonable and what I seem to recall from the study.

So...just a good way to try and rationalize recruiting ratings and tie them to reality.  The Boss thought highly of it IIRC (not Bruce...Revolver  ).

One last point though.  If the correct number is 200, please compare no 1 to no 2.  IT'S A FREAKING ONE THOUSAND POINT ADVANTAGE!!!!!

And this happens every year.

But ... nothing unusual about that.  Nothing at all. It's just that Saban's winning personality lures recruits.   

This is what I mean when I say their success is shocking.  From no. 2 you have to go down all the way to 19 to have a comparable advantage.  Yeah, *I* could freaking win an NC at bammmer.  OMFG!   

I know I beat this horse to death all the time, but when I see the numbers, I just have to say something.  This is not like Lance Armstrong winning 5 Tour de France races in a row after having cancer, it's FREAKING WORSE.    Wow.

http://www.denverpost.com/broncos/ci_26017872/broncos-qb-peyton-manning-praises-vols-coach-butch-jones

Seems to think we are headed in the right direction   

How many SECs has (Saban) won there in eight years? He's won two. He's won three nationals, but he's only won two SECs in eight years. Now, if you had the No. 1 recruiting class every year and so forth, I don't know if he has maxed out potentially as well as he could."

Exactly!  Give ANYONE the talent Saban has and they will win.  In fact, you could make the case that he has underachieved, as SOS is.   

The OBC tells it like it is.   

http://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/6/23/5834882/steve-spurrier-nick-saban-alabama-south-carolina

The way I see it, for EVs (cars OR bikes) to go mainstream and not just be expensive commuter toys, they're going to have to solve three problems:

1. Number of public charging stations.  It's great to be able to charge your car in your own home, but if you want to take it on a longer trip, charging stations need to be at least as common as gas stations, and even more so until they get their range up to that of a gas powered vehicle.  This is probably a chicken/egg problem: people won't buy an EV unless there are more places to charge, but no one will build a large network of charging stations until there are more EVs on the road.

2.  As you said, range.  This is an area that is improving.  You still won't go 400-500 miles at a time like you can on gasoline, but the Tesla S can go about 300 miles at 60 MPH (or less if you go faster).  That would be acceptable, but...

3. It takes too long to charge.  If I had a Tesla and I wanted to take it to Florida, for example, I'd get about to Macon GA, and then, assuming I could find a charging station (see #1), I'd have to stop for about 6 hours.  That is unacceptable.  A charge needs to take roughly as long as filling a gas tank, or EVs are never going to catch on.  And I'm no engineer and have no clue of the technology involved here- but considering it still takes 2 hours or more to charge something as small as a cellphone, I would guess this is going to be toughest problem to solve.

Removeable batteries are an obvious solution.  The charging station keeps them charged, and you just swap.  You don't own the battery, you just lease it. 

Hey, I need to start a bidness.   

In spite of soccer's popularity, Lebron's news of opting out of his contract was number one news story of US Soccer team members. They were all over it on twitter.

Enough about LeBron.  Could give a rat's ass.

As for Mexico, if US employers were not addicted to cheap labor it wouldn't happen, and different ethnic groups throughout history have had economic success, so, "no", we won't be "north Mexico".

But yeah, I like Mexican food also.   

I used to walk home from school in Elementary, and in fifth or fourth grade a buddy of mine gave me a pinch.  I accidentally swallowed some and nearly threw up.   That was enough for me!   

Hope you can stay  on the wagon.   

 

That would be Mom's house.

That's hilarious.  I was going to comment that your housekeeping skills are far superior to mine.

Nice pooch.   

 

Note that Faulkner wrote no books about soccer.  He started a couple, but fell asleep after the first couple of pages.

Good one.  But you are correct, soccer was not his subject, it was rural culture as exemplified in "As I Lay Dying".  Which, if anyone has read that, they know what I mean.   

and yet once they graduate HS the interest dies.
I spent a lot of time in the Tampa-by-the-Bay region which is a hot bed of soccer.  There are multiple (good) traveling team organizations within the bay area, several of the local HS are always represented deep into the state playoffs (a few years ago Gaither and Bloomingdale were in the final 4 every year for several years).  Yet, except for a few adult teams, after HS there is no soccer.  Pro soccer failed miserably there as well.

As Bandit noted, it may be fun to play but is is boring as hell to watch and that is the death nell to the sport in this country

Well, from what I have seen, it's followed heavily by younger adults in their 20s and into their early 30s even.  The brewery I went to last night was simply packed and the great majority were under 35.  So I would disagree that they stop watching or following after HS.  Probably many do, but at least a substantial minority do not IMO.  Colin Cowherd made an interesting point on my morning drive, which is that since many soccer fans watch on other media such as tablets or smart phones and/or gather in groups at bars, the true ratings often are not reflected since ratings only monitor watching at home on traditional TV.

As for development, it is above the HS level that is really penalizing US soccer to this day.  There simply is no club level equivalent of minor league baseball in this country.  College soccer is not enough...the US needs more of a local club system to serve as a developmental league to MLS and overseas.   There has been an attempt to do this.  Huntsville has a minor league team (Rocket City United) that is reasonably well attended but it's still not enough.  Not sure what the solution is, but it may come in time.

And let me add...I am fizzleING SICK of hearing about Leeeebron.  The Spurs win in an amazing display, and the next day the lead on ESPN is "what do the Heat do now"?

 

So tired of the transparent promotion of big TV market teams over the integrity of the league.  "What sells" is a far cry from "what's right".

I just wish the freaking media would SHUT THE fizzle UP about that Leeebron because I fizzleING DON"t GIVE  fizzleING shizzle!!!!

(rant over)  

Doesn't care for the NBA, but the Heat are getting absolutely embrassed in the finals with the Super team they are supposed to have. I'm all Memphis Grizz and I probably should hate the Spurs , but I just like the way they handle themselves.

GO VOLS!!!   

I freaking hate the Heat, love the Pacers, and like the Spurs, so it was GREAT to watch that display.

That look on LeeeBron's face, when he got called for five OBVIOUS fouls in game 5 vs. the Pacers?  "Oh shizzle, Stern doesn't have my back anymore. Dammit!"

 

Oh no, but it's just that everyone is JEALOUS of Calipari and wants to bring him down.  There is no evidence of cheating at UK!  World Wide Wes is just an innocent bystander and Nike has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

But haters gonna hate, you know?   

Hang in there bro, prayers sent. 

If Amazon is going to make any sort of profitable bite into the smartphone market at this late stage of the game, it's going to take quite a significant uphill battle to do so. Given that, it's hard for me to wrap my mind around the notion that a business genius like Jeff Bezos would limit the Fire Phone to the Amazon app store rather than the full Google app store. You don't have to get past the fact that the Fire Phone won't support the YouTube app for me to decide that I'm not gonna buy it.

Ah, he's just getting cocky and sloppy.  Amazon is perpetually one of the least profitable companies in the world, yet investors continue to pour mountains of cash into it.  He is an amazing salesman is all.  When people stop buying his BS, Amazon will crash and crash hard.

IMO.   

Dam!  Crazy....but, sadly, it fits his previous behavior.   

No its basically a phone on steroids with links to Amazon that make it easier for you to buy from them......

The only drawback is that its AT&T only....I would not have AT&T as my cellular provider if it was FREE!!!!!!

I'm with you on that brother!  fizzle AT&T!!! They fizzleed me first, so....

Well, here's my somewhat "supernatural" theory.  Malvo was possessed by the devil or something all along.  I think they made that evident last week with his "I haven't had pie like this since the Garden of Eden" line.  When he stepped in the bear trap and suffered his crippling injury, the devil left his body in search of a new host.  Maybe that's why he didn't seem to recognize Gus, even when he told him that he had figured out his riddle.  

This series is supposedly going to continue, with a new story, new cast of characters, and a new locale every season.  But maybe the common thread will be whatever dark force was driving Malvo to commit his heinous acts.  

Hm.  Okay, that explains next season. I don't know about the supernatural part, but it does seem to fit the flow.  Interesting.

I thought it was fine. Two sorry deaths for two sorry individuals. It would been too easy to have them, especially Malvo, to die in some glorious Klingon battle.

But I understand your way of thinking. It seems that there's hardly ever a great show that ends totally satisfactorily. I guess we just expect too much.

I agree.  But I am thinking its a one off, right? I mean, what can they do now, other than start over with new characters?

I liked the end, and in fact thought the plot got out of hand and was actually glad they wrapped it up.  Yes, it was an anticlimatic end for Malvo, but the little fizzleer deserved anticlimatic.  What an ass hole!   

Soccer is amazingly boring to watch.  I don't watch it much myself, but I DO play it and even run a soccer league on the local military base.  It's a great way to stay in shape and really fun to play, I say.

As for watching it...even with the fact that I play it, I only watch it during USA national games, with rare exceptions.  LOL!  That speaks volumes.

But in the meantime, I had a great time at the local "Straight to Ale" brewery owned partially by a good buddy of mine, drinking some fine brews and cheering on the USA with about 500 other people, and I would not trade that experience for anything.   

As for the rest, of course American football and basketball are much more exciting to watch.  But I would put soccer ahead of baseball any day.  At least there is action and not a bunch of standing around!  Soccer is about even with hockey, and IMO since many more people play soccer it will or probably already has surpassed hockey for "no 4" (behind the "big three" of football, basketball, and baseball, and that's about all it can aspire to in this country, IMO, though it may eventually challenge baseball (by FAR the most boring game!) for number 3.

Having said that, I completely understand people not giving a shizzle about it, because it is rather boring to watch, though it helps if you understand the game, and how the flow actually resembles football drives, and that the scoring is like football in the 30s.  But ... yeah, it's pretty hard to watch most of the time!

In the meantime, Go USA!  I think we advance.