RAVEN MACK is a mystic poet-philosopher-artist of the Greater Appalachian unorthodox tradition. He does have an amazing PATREON, but also *normal* ARTIST WEBSITE too.

Monday, November 30

J.J. Krupert Top 13 Countdown - November '09

Parametric brain of mine with thousands of self-prescribed rules, right inside the interweb for anonymous fools. This be last month's list done this month, yet I pre-date it like I used to post-date checks before electronic disbursement in reversal made floating along the poverty line a little harder to do with multi-generational ease. But we are survivors, and we adapt, grow thicker skins where new-fangled cuts from senseless cravings get us good, and try to chop at it all with a samurai sword of attitude. They say keep it positve, manifest destiny, utilize the power, and it all comes back, or happens, or whatever, but to maintain positivity at all costs is unbalanced mentality. What the fuck am I saying? I don't know, hardly ever do, but music is the background for every day of my life. Someone bought me a widescreen high def monstrosity and video game nonsense and I still barely cut it on and have it on mute half the time to hear the music coming from the kitchen speakers. Here are the songs most played inside the J.J. Krupert gaypod last month yall, yes yes yall...
#1: "Feel Like Going Home (demo version)" by Charlie Rich - In my personal experiences, Charlie Rich was the dude who did "Behind Closed Doors" which was awesome in the context of Every Which Way But Loose and Philo Beddoe kidnapping an orangutan for Clyde to fuck in the cheap hotel because that's what was right. Apparently, from nerd music blog world though, that '70s era Charlie Rich country mainstream hit status is beyond the low point of his career, where a music industry that doesn't understand anything ever compromised Charlie Rich's innate perfection, best exemplified by '50s shit he did on Sun Records. Of course, upon listening to that stuff, to me, a lot of it sounds like any '50s Sun Records shit, and I'm so averse to rockabilly dudes that I don't even like to admit I own a Sun Records patch, much less actively listen to that type of shit. That being said, this song, which I got off of an Oxford American music issue sampler, is one of the greatest fucking things ever. It's like that sad reflective type shit, but without regret, and I'd say I'd want this played at my funeral, but I always say that. But really, this would be what I'd want played as the pallbearers lowered my pinebox into the ground by ropes and then the immediate family would all take turns shoveling a bit of dirt on me, to let them let me loose from their emotional attachment. As for me, I'll be dead, and getting blowjobs in Heaven already.
#2: "Underdog" by Sly & The Family Stone - I thoroughly enjoy the fact Sly Stone was gone for so long everybody thought he was dead, and then he showed for like four days, including that Grammy's show where he had a blue mohawk but bailed out before his song was even done, and has been disappeared again ever since. If ever there was someone who was probably still freebasing in a cooked cracked world, it would be Sly Stone, a true throwback.
#3: "The Deadbeat Heartbeat of a Hobo" by 1000 Feathers - This is a hobo rap song that I started as a country song, writing in the truck with my oldest daughter, and I was about to abandon it, but she really liked it, so I finished writing it. I dig old school country music metaphor styles mixed into rap music, which tends to be pretty formulaic, even when it's the alleged creative types. I've been listening to a lot of camper shit I did late last year lately because I need to start doing some music again. My outlets have been plugged up for a while and I'm feeling the recklessness build.
#4: "Adam & Eve" by Ani Difranco - Look, I'll be honest with you... I've been listening to a shitload of Ani Difranco lately. Used to be, the first time me and my wife were dating when I screwed it all up, Ani Difranco was what she'd play when I was zonked out in the passenger seat of her Jeep Cherokee on pills or something, and it has that background, "I suck, don't I?" thing to it for me until recently. But man, I can dig on some Ani Difranco... not at all, but a lot of it, the old shit at least. Not to sound too corny and like some homo music review dork with one of those haircuts purposely made to look like I didn't take care of it, but she is some folk ass music that never could've happened before hip hop took over the earth. She plays an acoustic guitar angry as fuck, and I can dig on it. I just stole her lesbian album off the internet and have been playing that a whole lot lately. I also like cunninglinguing women.
#5: "Paycheck to Paycheck" by Corntooth - I know I wrote about this at some point, but this is a country band too good to be stifled by that stupid alt.country label that features dudes who have been involved in shit like Gwar and Lamb of God and my old roommate Matt and his ol' lady Janey, and it's good fucking shit. The mp3 of this is somewhere inside the internet for downloading for free but I'm too lazy to go find it as I already have it stored inside my miniscule robot music devices. Fend for yourself.
#6: "Motorhead" by Hawkwind - I'm a huge mark for Lemmy's last little stint with Hawkwind, and I wish he would've done a space rock "Ace of Spades" at that point as well. I could play this every day of my life and never tire of it.
#7: "Cell #33" by David Allan Coe - More prison record era David Allan Coe that amazes and sounds like Jerry Lee Lewis on angel dust in West Virginia because Nashville is for faggots.
#8: "Master of Puppets" by Metallica - Some homeboys of mine hooked us up with tickets to see Metallica recently, backstage passes and all, and it was kinda funny, because apparently Metallica (meaning mostly Hetfield and Lars) clear the hallways backstage 15 minutes prior to going onstage because they don't want to make eye contact with anybody as they make their way to perform. Oh man, really everything I saw just affirmed everything you'd think seeing that documentary about them. But me and the wife got drunk as shit, staggered our way back to my truck late as fuck, didn't wreck on the way home, and it ended up some girl disappeared at that show and that's been the biggest news story locally ever since. Her parents hired PR firms and created a logo for their disappeared daughter like two days after she disappeared, and it seems kinda creepy, not because she disappeared but because her parents are way too overbearing about it all, speaking about her in third person and shit. I have secretly assumed for a while now that the chick dumped her cell phone and split and is probably hanging with crusty punks in Portland, Oregon, right now, splitting a case of Meister Brau, but I've not told anybody this for fear of the internet secret police thinking somehow me and my wife had something to do with it, although with all my tools in the backseat of my truck, a third person would never fit in there at all. To Metallica's credit, they bountied up some reward money for someone to find the missing chick. To their discredit, seeing them live, Lars is a fucking dumbass. You are a drummer dude; sit the fuck down and play the drums.
#9: "Black Stars" by Sway - Big World Cup draw on Friday, and we shall all see how the Black Stars of Ghana are set up to do Africa proud. Did you know the black star on the Ghanaian flag is there because it was the first country on that continent to gain its independence? Did you know that a wonderful Christmas/birthday present for me this year would be the Extreme Canvas book about Ghana movie posters handpainted on potato sacks?
#10: "Iron Leg" by Mickey & The Soul Generation - From some sort of soul compilation I dl'ed at some point, and this track has a wicked ass loop towards the beginning, so when it shows up on my gaypod, I tend to repeat three or four times and freestyle about new moons and the crooked axis of earth skewing our collective logic and making squirrels be born albino in Illinois.
#11: "Wagon Wheel (live)" by The Porch Loungers - Missed Newportfest this past year, and keep missing going by my homey D's house to get my very own Porch Lounger t-shirt that's been sitting at his house for a while now. I have more versions of "Wagon Wheel" than a solitary dude should ever have, but it's a good song. Knowing the whole Bob Dylan outtake tape then wacky newgrass dude writes the rest of the song story made it even cooler for about a week, but then I didn't give a fuck and wished I had never heard that. It's a good song. I'm not the biggest Bob Dylan fan, but between his involvement in this song and him being in Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid movie, he's semi-directly been involved in me deciding to get drunk more than a handful of times.
#12: "God Only Knows" by The Beach Boys - I am highly conflicted internally about whether The Beach Boys and Brian Wilson are really wackily awesome or really fucking stupid. But the internal conflict confuses me enough to enjoy them far more often than I ever would've even five years ago. Perhaps I'm getting old and soon I'll be sitting on a lawn chair at a Beach Music Festival held at an abandoned airplane hangar.
#13: "Issues" by Finale - No one has ever heard of this Detroit rapper, and I think he might be one of my favorite rappers going nowadays. Of course, if he became famous, I would be all like, “You should’ve heard his older shit, it was way more real. His new shit is kinda wack.”

Sunday, November 22

"Pigs" by Cypress Hill

Went to our friend's corn maize they run in soulless sprawling northern Va. today, and ended up bringing home a back end of a Subaru full of pumpkins, which made the all wheel drive drift and shimmy as all I could afford (credit check wise) was two new tires on the balded front ones last time and let the back ones ride. I told them dudes to move the back to the front but they didn't, fuckin' assholes. Anyways, brought the pumpkins home, took the kids inside and put them to bed and as the wife nursed the baby to sleep, instead of rushing to get inside and sit at the teat of the television, I carried the pumpkins, two at a time, across the yard to the stone altar, and set them up in a circle around it. Then went in and got the wife and lit a tea candle, to manifest the magic.
Blog will probably take a turn for something else in the coming future, as I always set up these odd parameters and this week, I got burned on the parameters. Things are moving right now for me, in a direction where I'm less likely to swallow a hollow point by the river one morning. At the same time, I've been faking the funk a bit. Shit man, I can think words in strange circles all day long inside my brainframe, but don't always put it inside this robot at the right angles. But I've been trying to focus on real things that bring me real satisfaction anyways. Life is short, and I've wasted a fat chunk of it with accumulated soul clutter. Trying to shake it off, and some days the thickets of brush around the edges of my brain are too thorny and thick to chop at, but I'm trying to get at it. But putting pumpkins in a circle around a strategically stack of stones seems right underneath the stars and the cool autumn air, and that type of shit has tended to reap better rewards in my life than any credit check ever did.

Saturday, November 21

NFL WEEK 11: NFC North & East teams

Hey, let's talk about football again. I have not been doing bloggish things because life is full of realish things, but I have been watching football, and keeping up my nonsense mathematical calculation of team power codes, so let us get back to listifications and opinionizing like nothing ever skipped a beat. So here are the teams of the National Football League National Football Conference North Division and East Division, in full detail...

#1: MINNESOTA VIKINGS (8-1, 4th overall) - Man, I can't even take Brett Favre games seriously as they have Favre cams and analysts actually say "love of the game" and "gunslinger" and it's like a Mr. Show skit and I laugh and laugh and laugh and suck on my big balloon full of nitrous oxide I stole out the dentist's office because he doesn't lock his back door and only has the one ADT wire in the front part of his Main Street spot.

#2: DALLAS COWBOYS (6-3, 6th overall) - It's amazing how many games the Cowboys have won this year with Ralph Wiggum being allowed another year of "coaching" this team by Heath Ledger's last performance as owner. I will say this though, there are lots of players who get lots of hype that I don't like much for really no real good reason at all, and I will say derogatory things about them. But in my short lifetime of experiences, I have ran wide circles with many varying crowds, and you learn to not necessarily judge people but prepare yourself for them by the look in their eyes. It is the window to the soul. When I look into Tony Romo's eyeballs, even on the television, you see a man who is denying his true self and is a dishonest and probably self-abusive individual. He is the most obvious closeted, even to himself, gay man the NFL currently has, which is why T.O., a more flamboyant version of the same, had such a problem with Romo and Jason Witten being such "boys" and almost killing himself. Man, Dallas left behind the Jimmy Johnson era of drug addicted sodomites, but it seems their sodomite influence is as strong as ever. Has there ever been a professional sports franchise with such a rich and long history of sexual perversion?

#3: NEW YORK GIANTS (5-4, 13th overall) - As a Redskins fan, the Giants are like third-place rival, behind the obvious Cowboys and the Eagles (with their retard fans), so when the Giants do good, ehh whatever. And when they do bad, it is also like whatever. Really, this is a boring fucking football team. Eli Manning is like the most Phil Simms vanilla ass bitch you could probably still find in post hip hop America in the year 2009, and really, is there even a remotely interesting personality on this team left this year (other than obviously Osi Umenyiora, since there really aren't that many people who are stoked to piss on others for sexual gratification anymore)?

#4: PHILADELPHIA EAGLES (5-4, 15th overall) - Look, I will be serious for a second here... Bryan Westbrook has been one of those solid dudes who even though they play for a division rival or your favorite team, they do it without ego and without bullshit swagger yet they fucking kick ass, including your favorite team's one, on the regular. But it's hard not to like that type of guy. This multiple concussion shit is something that even five years ago no one would've thought twice about, and shit man, honestly, I've had four or five concussions in my life, including a couple of really good ones that knocked me goofy for a few days. Usually, alcohol was involved, so you can blame the concussion effects on detoxing after a heavy drunk, but the last one I got there was no alcohol involved, so I felt the full effect of being knocked stupid because my brain had gotten swolled up inside its shell. It's some crazy shit, mostly because we study our brains as humans with our brains, so everything we "discover" has to be taken with a grain of salt. Still, you hate to see a dude like Westbrook be done because of rattled brains. But at the same time, maybe a solid dude would get out while he's still solid, ala Barry Sanders, instead of perpetuating the bullshit machismo football player stereotype and playing until they forcibly remove him from the league.

#5: CHICAGO BEARS (4-5, 18th overall) - Oh man, Jay Cutler is hilarious, with a natural born poutface tossing mad interceptions like he's your 8-year-old cousin playing you in Madden. I would have to assume somewhere along the way there was some sort of curse that has doomed Bears QBs to be retarded even when quite possibly good. This means two things... Firstly, no new QB will ever be good enough, especially after Bears fans were lining up to fellate Jay Cutler when he got traded there. And secondly, if you factor in the Bears Curse quotient, in actuality, Jim McMahon must've been better than Joe Montana, and would've won four Super Bowls, but he got stuck in Chicago inside their QB curse. Odd how they would always have awesome middle linebackers and terrible quarterbacks, like their heritage is full of pride for not losing too badly.

#6: GREEN BAY PACKERS (5-4, 19th overall) - The Packers one week will be the best team in the NFC, and the next week they lose to the Browns or some shit like that. There is no identity, which I guess, sad as I am to make this statement, that's what made Brett Favre great. He might fuck up, or he might not, but you knew what was gonna happen every week. You don't really know what you're getting with this Packers team week in week out. Granted, their O-line is decimated to fuck, so the fact Aaron Rodgers can even do what he's done makes him a thousand times better than say a David Carr or Patrick Ramsey, and honestly, Brett Favre probably would've been crippled by now anyways and Rodgers would be their QB anyways.

#7: WASHINGTON REDSKINS (3-6, 26th overall) - I am a Redskins fan, and I know there are lots of politically correct websites like buyoutsnyder.com or snydersucks or whatever about Dan Snyder not owning this team anymore. But I am a realistic man, and also not ashamed at all to just outright say, I hope Dan Snyder dies. I am a conscious man, so hopefully it's natural and mostly pain-free, but still, die Dan Snyder die. I'm sure this would be shocking to many, but really, if I can't wish death upon those that infringe upon a perfect Sunday for myself, then can I really call myself American? Am I truly free if I have to stifle these feelings of hatred for a little-dicked miniature man who has ran my one emotionally-important sports team into the worst years of my life? And I don't really want him to die, if he sells the team. But if he still owns them, then yes, I want him to die.

#8: DETROIT LIONS (1-8, 32nd overall) - Man, they were ranked last according to my methods last year, obviously, and somehow they've slipped back down to the last overall spot again this year. It makes me feel bad for Lions fans. Hell, they just sold the Silverdome for like half a million, which was the big sports talk radio bit of the day, but really, that's crazy as fuck. Like, where I live, the economy sucks, but the local redneck family who made a fortune building logging equipment, half a million is something they could pull together easily. They could've bought the Silverdome for a private members only mud bog club, except the Silverdome is in Michigan, where I guess people are way more fucked than here. Which I guess is also how I should look at my Redskins - we are a long way's from being the Lions. In fact, even if we sucked every year from here till my death, it still wouldn't be as bad as being a Lions fan.

Tuesday, November 3

S14: Worst College Football Teams

Here are the still the worst college football teams left in the ranks...

#1: TEXAS COLLEGE STEERS (0-9, 42.111 avg. margin of defeat, #1 last week) - Lost 28 to 20 last week hosting the Southwestern Assemblies of God University, which had not won a game before that, so Texas College may have blown their best chance at not going 0-fer the year.

#2: SOUTHERN VIRGINIA KNIGHTS (0-7, 39.143 avg. margin of defeat, #3 last week) - Had the week off to let that 65 to 0 loss to Gardner-Webb percolate a little while before travelling to Webber this week. Southern Virginia only plays two home games all year long, for some reason. Probably, they don't want to watch them at home.

#3: BECKER HAWKS (0-9, 37.667 avg. margin of defeat, #2 last week) - Oh man, hosted Castleton this past week, who is in their inaugural year of football, and lost a shoot-out, 49 to 44, meaning, with one last game left against Husson, the Hawks are probably gonna wrap up 0-10.

#4: ROCKFORD REGENTS (0-8, 37.500 avg. margin of defeat, #4 last week) - A 32 to 6 loss to Benedictine keeps Rockford down, heading into their road game at equally bad Maranatha Baptist Bible College this weekend.

#5: ANNA MARIA CATS (0-9, 36.889 avg. margin of defeat, #7 last week) - They ended their first season of football hosting Gallaudet last weekend, and losing 56 to 7. Now, there is only next year, and hoping not too many teams ahead of them on this list get a win to move them up to one of the worst college football teams in all divisions.

#6: HIRAM COLLEGE TERRIERS (0-8, 34.375 avg. margin of defeat, #8 last week) - A somewhat respectable 38 to 6 home loss to Ohio Wesleyan, who looked as if they could put a severe stomping on Hiram. I guess at this point, you have to feel sorry for a team still without a win. The Terriers have two more shots, both on the road, at Wabash and at Oberlin.

#7: TRINITY INTERNATIONAL TROJANS (0-10, 33.700 avg. margin of defeat, #12 last week) - A solid 48 to 12 loss at Malone helped the Trojans of Trinity International University shoot up the Shit List five spots. They have only one more game against Walsh to solidify how bad they truly can be.

#8: LOCK HAVEN BALD EAGLES (0-9, 33.667 avg. margin of defeat, #13 last week) - A 47 to 6 home game loss to Slippery Rock helped the longtime inept Lock Haven team shoot five notches up the Shit List as well. It really is too bad they don't get to play Cheyney this year.

#9: MARANATHA BAPTIST BIBLE COLLEGE CRUSADERS (0-8, 33.375 avg. margin of defeat, #6 last week) - A 19 to nothing shutout road loss to Lakeland, though bad, was close enough to help them move down three spots. But this week, it's all about Rockford coming to town next weekend, and I am sure Watertown, Wisconsin, will be rocking with Jesus freaks excited that two never-won teams will come into town, but only one will leave still without a victory.

#10: NEWPORT NEWS APPRENTICE SCHOOL BUILDERS (0-7, 32.571 avg. margin of defeat, #5 last week) - At Webber, Apprentice only lost 17 to 14, helping themselves not seem so ghastly. Only two games left, both at home, and one against Southern Virginia in two weeks. Things are looking up for the Apprentice School.

#11: IDAHO STATE BENGALS (0-9, 31.889 avg. margin of defeat, #14 last week) - The road game this past week against Montana State was supposed to be Idaho State's easier game of the coming weeks, yet they dropped it 41 to 10. Now they get to go to Missoula this weekend to take on the undefeated Montana Grizzlies, a I-AA powerhouse for years now. By the way, in true football nerd fashion, I will now call it Division I-A and I-AA. Fuck all that BCS and FSBCS nonsense.

#12: DANA VIKINGS (0-9, 31.111 avg. margin of defeat, #11 last week) - 0-9, 31.111 avg. margin of defeat, #11 last week) - Before last weekend against Concordia, Dana had not held a team under 35 points this year. They kept Concordia's offense in check, only allowing 13 points. Their own offense didn't help any though. In fact, the only score they got was a safety by the defense, to lose 13 to 2.

#13: RICE OWLS (0-8, 30.625 avg. margin of defeat, unranked last week) - Rice actually had the week off last weekend, but by virtue of other teams not being as bad as they usually are, the worst team in Divsion I-A football crept into the bottom part of this Shit List this week.

#14: CULVER-STOCKTON WILDCATS (0-8, 30.625 avg. margin of defeat, #10 last week) - A heartbreaking 20 to 15 home loss to Graceland College last week for the Wildcats of Culver-Stockton, leaving only two more chances to get off the goose egg.

Gone From This Last Week: New Mexico Highlands Cowboys (on Halloween day in Las Vegas, New Mexico, the Cowboys beat the Fort Lewis Skyhawks, 39 to 35).

Monday, November 2

S14: Best College Football Teams

So let us once again this week go through a mostly unchanged list of the Top 14 Teams in College Football aka The Bully List according to who has the least losses and then ties broken by highest average margin of victory, and then my personal preference if necessary...

#1: SIOUX FALLS COUGARS (9-0, 46.222 avg. margin of victory, #1 last week) - The #1 ranked team in NAIA football crushed Northwestern University of Iowa on the road last week, 49 to 14. Northwestern is no slouch, coming into the game 7-1. One more week of this nonsense, then they have their showdown with Morningside, then the NAIA playoffs.

#2: MORNINGSIDE MUSTANGS (8-0, 43.375 avg. margin of victory, #2 last week) - The Mustangs crushed Doane last weekend, 78 to 14, its largest points total since 1933. They are currently ranked #4 in the NAIA poll and haven't been below #5 all year.

#3: MONMOUTH FIGHTING SCOTS (9-0, 37.889 avg. margin of victory, #4 last week) - After dispatching of Illinois College, 44 to 17, Monmouth rose to #8 in the NCAA Division III poll, with only one more regular season game left.

#4: LINDENWOOD LIONS (8-0, 36.250 avg. margin of victory, #3 last week) - Lindenwood had their closest game of the year last weekend, edging Benedictine College, 41 to 31, at home, and holding their #3 ranking in the NAIA football rankings.

#5: ST. XAVIER COUGARS (10-0, 34.400 avg. margin of victory, #5 last week) - St. Xavier beat Walsh, 34 to 17, last week, to remain undefeated, and clutch a #6 NAIA ranking. This weekend, they host in-state conference rival St. Francis, who is 7-1 themselves, in a potential first-loss game for the Cougars.

#6: WISCONSIN-WHITEWATER WARHAWKS (8-0, 34.000 avg. margin of victory, #6 last week) - The Warhawks continued their romp through regular season Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference play, stomping on Wisconsin-Stevens Point, 41 to 12, with only Oshkosh and La Crosse left. They are #2 in the NCAA Division III rankings.

#7: MOUNT UNION PURPLE RAIDERS (8-0, 33.125 avg. margin of victory, #10 last week) - A 56 to 7 stomping of John Carroll at Carroll's home field Halloween day helped the mighty Mount Union Division III juggernaut (and #1 ranked team) move up this Bully List this week. The last two weeks, they've outscored their opponents 112 to 7. Only two home games left, against Otterbein (ranked 15th in Division III) and Marietta, before they make another run at another national championship in the Division III playoffs.

#8: WITTENBERG TIGERS (8-0, 32.125 avg. margin of victory, #7 last week) - Won at Denison, 41 to 7, on Halloween night, and have only allowed 37 points all season long. Two games left before making a run at their third ever Division III national championship (won previously in 1973 and 1975).

#9: CASE WESTERN RESERVE SPARTANS (8-0, 29.375 avg. margin of victory, #8 last week) - Won at Chicago College last week, 38 to 24, in their second closest game of the year.

#10: WESLEY WOLVERINES (8-0, 29.375 avg. margin of victory, #9 last week) - The #3 ranked team in NCAA Division III football beat Salisbury easily last week, 30 to 12, and clinched an Atlantic Central Football Conference title as well.

#11: NORTH ALABAMA LIONS (10-0, 28.300 avg. margin of victory, #11 last week) - The #1 team in NCAA Division II football beat Arkansas-Monticello, 27 to 13 in Arkansas last weekend, and only has a home game against West Alabama left before playoffs start. West Alabama is a team that gave one of the teams on the never-won list their first win two weeks back.

#12: TEXAS LONGHORNS (8-0, 28.125 avg. margin of victory, #12 last week) - Texas crushed Oklahoma State in Stillwater this past weekend, 41 to 14. I know Oklahoma State is not what it was last year, but still, Texas is dialed in right now, stomping on Big 12 competition, and looking like the team to beat this year for that stupid crystal football trophy they give to the Division I champions.

#13: OTTAWA BRAVES (8-0, 28.000 avg. margin of victory, #13 last week) - A 42 to 10 win over Kansas Wesleyan helps Ottawa stay at their spot, and keep the changes very fucking minimal in this list this week. Why did I decide to do this weekly this year?

#14: BOISE STATE BRONCOS (8-0, 27.375 avg. margin of victory, unranked last week) - Boise State is commonly overlooked as a national title contender, thus showing why there needs to be a playoff system or something. I guess this is as a perfect a time as any, because my method is perfect, like everybody else's, even though no one will read this one. Basically, you do the same bullshit BCS computer rankings like they do now, putting all that stuff together for a list, and no conference is automatic at all, but at the end of the year, you take the top six Division I conference winners on the list, so that if a Boise State wins their conference and is ranked a better team than say the ACC champion, Boise State gets in. Then you give two at-large bids to the top two ranked teams not a conference champion, except each conference already in is limited to only one at-large team, so that you don't get three teams from the same conference. A 3rd team doesn't deserve to get in from any conference. One thing they mistakenly do with March Madness is have teams assume they should be in the field because they are one of the best 65 teams in the country. The tournament is not designed to find the best 65 teams in the country, but the best team, so a conference champion from shitbag confernence has a more legitimate claim to a shot at that than the sixth best Big East team. Same thing here. This year, you'd probably be looking at Florida, Texas, Iowa, Oregon, Cincinnati, and Boise State or TCU as automatic winners, with Georgia Tech being left out. Then Alabama and most likely whichever of Boise State or TCU wasn't in already in as an at-large. Who the fuck can complain then?

Gone From This List From Last Week: Cincinnati Bearcats (beat Syracuse, 28 to 7, which was not enough to hold the last spot on the list, but did make Syracuse's star player quit the team this week).