Is it still Monday? Did I make it?
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Mountain West predictions brought to you by the associate editors of the national libertarian magazine Reason: Small. Local. It's a beautiful thing.
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The red carpet to the trophy case is only waiting on the emergence of a quarterback who won't blow the goodwill of writers (i.e., voters) who think the Frogs might be good enough to upset Texas and roll into the BCS, Boise State style, only with more hype and less skepticism. The win at Texas is synonymous with the hypothetical January payday, and this is also the point BYU would like to remind readers that actually winning the Mountain West is probably a key to that dream, too, and that - the consensus of close and excruciating examination notwithstanding - that title comes through Provo.
An associate editor at Reason magazine says: You have to admire the self-supporting logic of the Patterson administration's position towards public disclosure of its starting quarterback: The classified status is legal if it's necessary to protect strategic security, and the fact that we're not willing to discuss it shows it's necessary to protect strategic security. This combination of unilateralism and secrecy is handy for a football coach but dangerous for a constitutional republic.--Jacob Sullum.
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Max Hall earned the coveted "unsung messiah" jersey in the spring
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That said, I waffled on this decision because BYU has a great chance in the micro to beat TCU again, at home, in the November cold, when Hall has had some time to gel a bit. But in the larger picture, even if the Cougars do take out TCU, Beck is a potentially colossal loss whose absence is more likely to cost BYU at some other juncture.
This exciting moment in championship tension is brought to you bah VERSUS.
An associate editor at Reason magazine says: This oddly bifurcated view of an enumerated transitive logic helps explain why the frontrunner debate in this conference is so acrimonious. When one side considers the most recent head-to-head outcome a nullity and the other side thinks it counts for something, there is no safe middle ground for the courts in cases challenging the ban on previews that conceal the information.--Jacob Sullum
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The rub for the majority that doesn't seem to consider Utah quite in the BYU-TCU class is the defense and specifically the secondary, though the yardage totals matched up eerily with the Cougars' last year (Utah allowed only four more yards per game than BYU, but five more points, thanks largely to turnovers) and Utah has been stingier than BYU for years. The cool reception to the Utes' first place bid comes at least partly from the two frontrunners being on the road, and partly from their inconsistency and near-total absence from the race since the Meyer-Smith exodus, but I like Utah and think of them almost as a 1(c) option to the favorites if Johnson is healthy.
An associate editor at Reason magazine says: The exclusionary rule creates other problems in the replay system. True, cases of murderers and rapists going free because the evidence is dismissed on the proverbial technicality are fairly unusual, but what of early whistles on obvious fumbles? What's far more common is replay officials lying to cover up technical improprieties in a review, and coaches accepting these lies so as to avoid dismissing valid and reliable calls later in the game. But as a result, public confidence in replay credibility can be severely undermined. And sometimes--as in the Malakai Mokofisi case, when the linebacker entered the Wyoming backfield without a warrant on the blatantly false pretext of having seen the center begin to snap the ball--this lack of credibility can lead fans to suspect a frame-up.--Cathy Young
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Defenses struggled to get a grasp on Donovan Porterie. I know how they feel.
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An associate editor at Reason magazine says: Hardly anyone expects New Mexico to win the conference's Las Vegas Bowl nomination. The Lobos consistently poll in the mid-single digits, well behind the three front-runners. They have none of their interest group support either, and they haven't stood out in debates or in a six-game losing streak in bowls. But UNM is a strong contender for its home-state New Mexico Bowl nomination, and Long knows his libertarian approach to the "Lobo" position on defense has boosted his image. The "roving safety" brand still sells, whether or not the prognostoscenti itself is buying. --David Weigel
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An associate editor at Reason magazine says: Lubick's concern about humanity's alienation from the power running game has a long pedigree. The foremost philosophical proponent was Jean-Jacques Rousseau who argued that man's natural predilection for drive-blocking has been corrupted by civilization's myth of the "Noble Quarterback." Romantic poet William Wordsworth penned the lines, "Nature never did betray, The Fullback that Loved her." Lubick himself paints a picture of a prelapsarian idyll, but the former two-back adherents are voting with their playbooks. While some people may be pushed by poverty or drought, or by undersized linemen into the spread, most people today are pulled in by the prospect of reinventing themselves, escaping from the narrow strictures of the I, far-near and wishbone, and a shot at really making it.--Ronald Bailey
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An associate editor at Reason magazine says: The Bush administration recently released its mid-session review of preseason picks for football years 2004-06. The new data reveal that in spite of repeated promises of responsibility towards UNLV-based optimism by Athlon and its political benefactors, congressional Republicans, things are bad and getting worse. After years of overrating the Runnin' Rebels on the dubious merits of Jason Thomas and Rocky Long, it's time for small-government conservatives to acknowledge that the GOP has forfeited its credibility when it comes to forecasting breakout mid-major quarterbacks.--Veronique de Rugy and Nick Gillespie
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An associate editor at Reason magazine says: Wyoming boasts that, thanks in part to a 24 percent across-the-board reduction, total discretionary pass defense will grow by only 1.1 percent in FY 2007, which is below the likely rate of inflation following the repeal of Rule 3-2-5-2. This line of thinking, however, resembles the old joke about a man who fell out of a plane without a parachute. Fortunately, there was a haystack below him. Unfortunately, there was a pitchfork in the haystack. Fortunately, he missed the pitchfork. Unfortunately, he missed the haystack. Here, the Cowboys have again missed the haystack. Discretionary pass defense accounts for only a fourth of the total defense budget, and with an entirely new defensive line, the other three-fourths are growing.--Jonathan Rauch
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An associate editor at Reason magazine says: That San Diego State is a mess of an athletic department is an understatement. However, like many messes, it is a metastasizing one. SDSU quarterbacks have panicked in the past, and in so doing made many more mistakes than they needed to make, but head coach Chuck Long has the right instincts in believing that the only way to prevail amid desperation in a place like San Diego State is to make an open-ended commitment to one of the Kevins, with no talk of withdrawal.--Michael Young
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Granted, Shaun Carney is a little teapot. But a dangerous passer?
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An associate editor at Reason magazine says: It has been less than a decade since demonstrators clogged the streets of Colorado Springs, locking arms, blocking traffic, and accusing the U.S. of shoving the flexbone down the Air Force Academy's throat. But despite vague rhetoric of implementing more passing, as the latest round of strategic talks on balancing the run and pass collapses in Geneva, it's clear that the U.S. government is, in fact, one of the greatest institutional barriers to multiple receivers. Asked to choose between freedom and the hard-line option lobby, Washington will opt for reading the approach of the playside end almost every time.--Jesse Walker