Olin Buchanan.....moronic mediot of the day.

It's May, there's no college football games to write about and nothing to really breakdown. I'm just as desperate for the season to get here as anyone. Since there's no game to breakdown, no teams to praise or trash, we'll take a shot at any idiot that writes a completely moronic college football article from now till kickoff. Olin Buchanan......come on down!

Olin writes for Rivals.com, now owned by Yahoo.com and gives us one of those "Trends" articles in which he uses some statistical analysis to give you the teams most likely to win a national title this season. It would really make more sense to just say "looking at the stats, I've deciphered that Georgia and USC have the best chance at winning a title". I don't really like either team, but you cant deny they are the most loaded and talented teams coming into the season. Instead of doing that, Olin (really, we are getting sports news from a guy named Olin?) breaks it down into 5 categories that are either so obvious my dog could have picked them out, or so absurdly stretching that they are beyond worthless. Here is the breakdown and my take on how these points make me laugh.

1. Be from a BCS conference - Really?....Really? I never would have guessed it. Are you serious Olin? You've done the diligent work that says a National Champion will most likely come from a BCS conference....congrats. NASA will be calling you soon asking you to join their staff of crack researchers. Again, here's one my wife could have found with 5 minutes of looking into it. I wonder if he had 4 points and his boss told him 5 sounded better. This wins the "Worthless Point of the Month" award. I'm working on your trophy right now Olin....it will be out sometime after I have Mexican for lunch.

2. Post at least seven victories from the previous season - Again, not rocket science. Generally teams that either failed to make a bowl game or lost in the Liberty, Independence or Motor City Bowl are not likely to make my list of title contenders. The really funny thing about this one is the low standard that Olin set....7 wins. He points out that two previous BCS champs out of ten had 7 wins in the previous season and that's his rationale for keeping it that low. Here you are trying to narrow down a national field and you keep dozens of teams in the debate because of 20%? That seems a little far fetched. I'd argue that his end result after all 5 standards have been filtered through would be better if it had been set at 10 wins (which seems to be much more the realistic level you'd set being that 6 of 10 champs have had 10 or more wins previous seasons). By that standard you'd eliminate mediocre teams that everyone outside of their fan base is laughing at being in the national title hunt (Alabama, Rutgers and Wake) according to Olin. You just cant do an article that includes those three teams and be taken that seriously. In that group is a loss to Louisiana-Monroe and non-bowling Louisville and Nebraska teams that couldn't beat anyone.

3. Win your previous year bowl game - Olin points out that half the BCS title winners have done this.....half. So what is statistically a 50/50 coin flip situation has now become a category for eliminating teams from the "Buchanan Cup". How many times does a 10-2 or 8-4 regular season team go asleep behind the wheel during a bowl game that doesn't really matter to them? By this rationale, a very talented Florida team is stricken from the list and Tim Tebow is doing 500 extra push ups after he reads Olin's taunt. Unreal. Cant even write anymore about how utterly stupid this is. It's beyond words. This is how this guy makes a living...wow.

4. Have a junior or senior QB that has at least some starting experience - Seems to make some sense on the surface, until you start to look a little deeper at who this eliminates and who it propels. Had Oklahoma not been eliminated by the obviously important bowl win(insert sarcasm button here), Sam Bradford (that nations leader in passing efficiency) would have been eliminated by this standard. Lets offer up a question.....Do you want Sam Bradford leading your team, or Alabama's John Parker Wilson (a kid that was getting hammered by everyone in the state of Alabama a year ago and looked absolutely horrible in the seasons final 4 games)? Olin, are you telling me that because a guy like Bradford is a second year player and guys like Wilson, Canfield and Crompton have more years in school that they give their teams a better shot? No way. I take Bradford over 90% of this list, even if he did have a rough bowl game.

5. Return at least 6 starters from a top 40 defense - Lets see, make sure you return 55%(that's slightly better than half for those reading in Tuscaloosa or Starkville) of starters from a defense that finished in the top 34% of defenses in the nation. Yeah, that one is pretty obvious. If you had a defense that ranked outside the top third or you lost more than half of the starters from your defense I'd be concerned. The only problem I have with this one is "who" you lost....and stats just don't account for that. USC is talented enough to make up for it, but they lost some absolute studs on defense that have been playing snaps in that system since they were freshmen. If that was any other squad left on Olin's list, they'd be looking at a complete rebuilding project after those guys left. It also doesn't account for guys that have played at a high level, but might have been behind All-American or All-conference type players.

The real point of breaking down Olin's article is this.....stats can tell you anything you want if you manipulate them enough. Olin was smart enough to tweak his formula so it wouldn't eliminate the Trojans or Bulldogs, knowing his analysis would be worthless if he did. We'll see a hundred more articles like this because people like Olin work for sites and companies that make tons of money off football-crazed people like you and I. I'm sure I could come out with a formula tomorrow that could show you why Ohio State could beat any SEC team in the title game....but we all know what would really happen when the ball was snapped.