Can be found here at The FanHouse.

…is here.

Greg Schiano deserves some kind of lifetime achievement award. He’s got to be a lock for College Football Coach of the Year, but that’s not enough. Give him the Heisman, too, a couple of Daytime Emmys, a purple heart, an Arby’s employee of the month, and he should fill in for Jeff Gordon on his honeymoon. He’s earned it.

Coaching accomplishments just don’t get any more impressive than what Schiano’s done at Rutgers. Winning a national title at Miami or Notre Dame or USC… that’s great. But I think it’s probably a lot harder for a coach to step into a near-hopeless situation and turn it around to the point it’s at right now. He built this thing from the ground up. Started with nothing. Rutgers is so new to winning that when they went to dump the Gatorade on Schiano, they ended up clubbing him in the head with the cooler. Schiano thought he was being attacked.

Even if they had lost to Louisville, all of this would still apply. And I don’t think this is something that isn’t going to last. You look at how Schiano’s built this team, and why they’re as good as they are right now, and it’s not because they lucked into having a couple of great athletes, and this is going to fade away when the leave. They’ve done it by becoming a tough, physical team that controls the line of scrimmage and hits hard on defense.

So where do you put them now, if you’re a voter? Well, if Louisville or West Virginia deserved the #3 spot, then I’d find it difficult to believe that Rutgers hasn’t earned the same thing right now. They’re not going to get it, of course. I’m sure they’ll still be below Texas, Auburn, Florida, and USC … probably Notre Dame and Cal, as well.

Where you end up often has a lot to do with your starting point, and Rutgers didn’t have a great one. That’s terribly unfair, but… that’s the system we’ve carved out for ourselves here. It’s not about their strength of schedule, or anything like that… West Virginia and Louisville played similar schedules, and they had that #3 spot. Rutgers won’t, and it’s about starting point. It’s about the educated guesses of sportswriters, before the season, about how good Rutgers would be. That’s why Rutgers won’t get there. That’s the system we have. Like Will Munny says, “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.”

I’ve gotta admit, though… while I’m enjoying the Rutgers underdog story as much as anyone… I couldn’t help but think, anytime ESPN had a crowd shot, that about 40,000 of those people are brand new Rutgers fans. Two years ago, for a game this time of year, Rutgers probably wouldn’t have had a crowd of 20,000.

I’m glad people are hopping on the bandwagon now, but… considering past attendance figures against current ones, I’m putting a little extra emphasis on the word bandwagon. I suppose I shouldn’t judge… I can’t say for sure what I’d have done if I was a Rutgers student that was there for two years when they were terrible, and now they’re good, but I don’t think I’d have just ignored them then and started showing up to games now.

A Raiders fan made the following touching music video about Randy Moss:

I commented on it in The FanHouse.

Color me impressed, because I didn’t think God would be the kind of cat that was even in a fantasy football league, let alone a league that started individual defensive players. I’ve been in a league like that. They’re no fun. God’s a trooper.

Anyway, the latest Sports Illustrated (which I, for some reason, don’t get in the mail until about three days after everyone else has it) has a long piece by S.L. Price about Ray-Ray and his Deion-like relationship with Christ. It puts me in a little bit of a weird spot, because I try to stay away from poking fun at peoples’ religious beliefs, but at the same time, I don’t like, and very much enjoy making fun of, Ray Lewis.

So… to hell with it. To make that omelet, we’re gonna have to break a few eggs. The article is here, but is available to SI subscribers only, I’m afraid.

Where to start… it’s sort of an unfocused article, and I don’t offer that as a criticism of the author, I think that’s a product of trying to understand Ray-Ray here. First, let’s start with the fact that Ray apparently thinks he’s, if not Christ, someone who lives in the same neighborhood.

…Lewis will tell you these days that he’s “anointed,” that he enjoys “favor,” that he is a “king” charged with fostering a national ministry on the order of Martin Luther King Jr. and that, once football is done, his mix of piety and street cred and that spectacularly nasty, Court TV-chronicled fall will drag even the most hardened hearts to the light.

If Ray Lewis is favored, anointed, or a king… I’m going to be pissed off, because I thought the meek were inheriting the earth. Ray Lewis is not meek (unless, of course, Rudi Johnson is barreling towards him at the goal line, and Ray’s got him wrapped up and dead to rights–then he sort of gets meek), and if any part of that is true, I’d like to fill out my application for anointed status. If Ray Lewis is getting in that club, so am I. and I don’t care who I have to shank to get there.

If Ray Lewis has found God, I think that’s fantastic. Really, I do. But it feels a little bit to me like Ray Lewis is one of those guys who can’t just do something–he has to do it better than anyone else alive.

If you were a kid on his block, and you told a story about how you made a three-foot jump on your bike, Ray had a story about his 10-foot jump. If you won a coloring contest, Ray stabbed a kid and used his blood to color with, just so he had a deeper shade of red. If you go to church and have a strong relationship with God, then Ray’s going to become the goddamn pastor and he will not only heal people with his bare hands, he will carry on the work of Martin Luther King Jr.

I just don’t know if it works like that. Again, I’m glad he’s got this in his life. But you don’t go from one second lying to the cops about your friend stabbing someone outside of a club just so it doesn’t get you in trouble before the Super Bowl… to suddenly becoming the holiest man this side of the Dalai Lama. Sometimes, it’s OK to sit in the back of the church and listen and contemplate. Someone else can lead the congregation. He’s like Michael Scott on the booze cruise. Let Captain Jack do what he does.

Maybe I’m being too cynical about this, and Ray not only is as chosen and Godly as he’d like to believe, but he will someday lead a movement that will bring peace, equality, love, and joy to everyone alive. But I remain skeptical.

Oh, and thanks to With Leather for bringing it to my attention to begin with; a blog that I’m ashamed that I have yet to mention here.

Or was killed, or suffered a career-ending injury, or got an apartment in Thailand with Gary Glitter, or whatever the hell happened to Cliff Stoudt.

Anyway… every night/morning, I go through all the posts at the NFL FanHouse and put the best/most notable ones into one handy little post that gets put up shortly before 9:00 every morning. It might make a comfy little daily destination, to catch you up on all the relevant NFL doings in one quick stop. I call it the Cliff (Stoudt) Notes.

Generally speaking, I feel like the quality of the NFL FanHouse has improved pretty dramatically since it first launched, so I’m a little more comfortable linking to it now, so that’s something I might to do more of. I don’t know… maybe. Also happening right now in the NFL Awards section is the handing out of some midseason awards, including worst coach, least valuable player, and best use of banned substances (and yes, it’s Merriman, you bastards).

I spent the evening working on a new batch of NFL Power Rankings. And just between us here… yeah, I’m fully aware that Power Rankings are worthless. But they can be fun. I hope. Here they are.