College Football: Illinois in rough waters and other topics

Note: most photos from yahoo.

Michigan 31 Illinois 14

How bad was this game? Judge for yourself (first half drive logs)

The score was 14-0 at the half; Yards were 231-8 after 1 quarter, 295-19 at the half.
Or I’ll put it another way: Michigan broke a 68 yard off tackle run on the second play from scrimmage; that was more than triple the yards that Illinois was to get in the entire first half.

There was still some hope after the first half; Illinois did stuff Michigan on 4′th and inches at the goal and Michigan missed a short field goal (very windy day).

The teams traded fumbles:

But the stadium was dead, dead, dead.

The third quarter saw Michigan pull out to 17-0, but then Illinois went to a “hurry up” tempo and then appeared to block better. A nice long drive saw Illinois cut it to 17-7.

Then the defense got a stop and Illinois started to drive! But with 11:50 to go in the game, UM intercepted a pass and ran it down to the Illinois 22. The fans started to leave right then! 10 points down…11:50 to go, and many of the fans gave up!

Eventually Michigan punched it in to push it to 24-7.

Still, Illinois drove it 80 yards to pull to 24-14 with just over 3 minutes to play. Then Illinois tries an onside; Michigan recovers and then scores on a run to push it to 31-14 and put the game away.

My analysis
True, the offense has yet to score a first half point in any of their previous 4 games. The totals have been 7, 14, 7 and 14 points. The offense looked good three times: against I-AA (ok, FCS) South Dakota State and against Northwestern (67′th on defense, gives up 29.1 points per game) and Indiana (110′th in defense, 37.7 points per game). They looked ok against Arkansas State (Sun Belt first game with a new coach) and Western Michigan (89′th in defense, gives up 32.1 points per game).

They struggled against Ohio State, Purdue, Penn State and Michigan. The Arizona State game was the team’s best win, but that was lead by the defense.

To me this means: it is the competition.

The offensive line: is struggling. They don’t give the quarterbacks time to throw and they don’t open holes…at least they didn’t until Illinois went to a “hurry up”. I wonder if this is the result of a bad blocking scheme, a lack of execution of the scheme (inexperience?) or the athletes getting overwhelmed. I don’t know enough to draw an accurate conclusion; I do know that there aren’t many holes and that both Illini quarterbacks are under constant pressure.

ND-Maryland

I listened to much of this game on the drive back and saw some at the end.

Maryland is not playing especially well at the moment but this was still a nice win for the Irish. Note: the Irish have gone to weird helmets, rock music and are pushing for more things. This is probably a step in the right direction.

Yeah, I heard about “tradition” but let’s face it: what is now tradition was an innovation at one time. And let’s remember that Knute Rockney was a great innovator; in fact he probably would have lead the way with these reforms.

SMU-Navy
(photos from here)

Navy got out to a 24-10 lead and held on to beat SMU 24-17. Remember that the Ponies beat TCU earlier this year; this was a nice win for Navy. President Bush attended this game.

UT-Missouri
UT didn’t have a good offensive performance and only scored 5 points against a mediocre Missouri team. Texas can gash a bad defense though.

Books on evolution, jobs for veterans and demotivational posters

Books on Evolution

Larry Moran (biochemist) has compiled a short list of books on evolution:

There have been lots of new books about evolution in the past decade or so. I tend to divide them into three categories:

1. The Standard View: These are books that basically support the Modern Synthesis with some small tweaks here and there. They do not advocate major shifts in the way we look at evolution. Books by Richard Dawkins (The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution), Jerry Coyne (Why Evolution Is True), Sean B. Carroll (Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom, The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution), and Ken Miller (Only a Theory) fall into this category.
2. The New View: Some books make the case for a new way of looking at evolution. I’ll call it the “New View.” Many of Stephen Jay Gould’s books fall into this category (The Structure of Evolutionary Theory). He refers to it as extending the modern synthesis. Most of the “extension” is based on a pluralist, rather than an adaptationist approach but other modifications are important. Two recent books by Michael Lynch (Origins of Genome Architecture) and Eugene Koonin (The Logic of Chance: The Nature and Origin of Biological Evolution) fall into this category. It’s a view that I share.
3. The Radical View: Some books advocate a more-or-less complete overthrow of the Modern Synthesis, replacing it with the author’s pet theory. Examples are: Marc Kirschner, and John Gerhart (The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin’s Dilemma), James Shapiro (Evolution: A View from the 21st Century), Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan (Acquiring Genomes: A Theory Of the Origin Of Species), Massimo Pigliucci and Gerd B. Müllerand (editors) (Evolution – the Extended Synthesis), many others.

This is something to check out if you are shopping.

President Obama’s weekly address

Social/Education
Do you have thoughts on this picture?

I got this from here.

I think that one’s reaction is a product of one’s life experiences. My wife didn’t like this at all; she saw the “women are dumb” aspect. Personally, I saw this as a generic cry of anguish that I know that I get when I get stuck or frustrated.

But I can see how others might see this differently.

Windy Illinois

How windy was it this morning? I walked 8 miles on a flat course; the first 1.05 miles out was 15 minutes; the same 1.05 mile back was 13:10; same effort in each case.

But it was a nice 8 mile walk on a surprisingly warm day. Lots of sunshine and leaves.

Time for New Shoes, Maybe?

Hmmm, today’s run was a bit rough; the knees ached at times and it took me 1:24 to run the hilly 8 mile course (4 cornstalk loops in Bradley Park). The temperature was fine but the wind picked up a bit.

But it is probably time to retire these shoes to “light chores” duties; I have new shoes waiting in the wings.

Keyboard Heroes and the Penn State Rape Scandal

In case you haven’t heard, on 1 March, 2002 a Penn State football graduate assistant walked in on a assistant coach raping a child in the shower. He reported what he saw to head coach Joe Paterno, who then reported it to his superiors. No one called the police.

So, this came to light recently and the Penn State athletic director, president and, yes, Joe Paterno were fired.

No problems with that (the firings). Yes, some of the officials face perjury charges, among others.

But now, on the internet, I am reading about how others “would have done this and that” had they been that graduate assistant who walked in on the rape. Note: the grad assistant is was/is a strapping young man and former varsity football player; he is no wimp.

But you know what? These “keyboard heros” that “wouda/couda/shouda” probably wouldn’t have done jack.

Remember that the young man who saw the incident was probably in shock; it wasn’t just how heinous the incident was but rather WHO was doing it.

I get the sense that most of the keyboard heroes are imagining themselves walking in on a stranger doing the raping rather than walking in on someone that they deeply respect and admire doing the raping.

Of course, I do fault the grad assistant and Coach Paterno for not calling the police that day; THAT was inexcusable.

But their not doing so…..perhaps understandable (even if completely wrong and inexcusable?)

One of our local sportswriters wrote and excellent blog post on the matter that I can highly recommend. Here is a bit from Kirk Wessler of the Peoria Journal Star:

[...] We are appalled. But as the shock wears off, we should not be surprised.

Three factors loom large in the Penn State story. They are present throughout society, but they run at especially high intensity in sports.

The corrupting nature of power.

The culture of the closed group.

Our instinct for self-preservation.

Over 62 years at Penn State, the last 46 as head football coach, Joe Paterno became the most powerful man on his campus. As the decades rolled by, he won games and national championships, he raised money for the school library, which was named for him, and his reputation for morality and integrity became legend. What parent would not want their son to play for Joe Pa?

At some point — who knows when? — Paterno became bigger than life. He could not, would not be replaced. He could not, would not die. And nothing would tarnish the proud image of the Nittany Lions. Joe Pa could not, would not allow it. He knew people, the right people. Problems did not exist at Happy Valley. They simply went away. Paterno was invincible, because he did things the right way. And nobody was more convinced of this than he.

Around Paterno, there were his teams, filled with players he recruited, mentored by his hand-picked assistants. The very concept of the team is magnificent: a group of individuals, working together as one to achieve a common goal. The best teams are like families. They argue, they fight, but in the end, blood rules. Win or lose, they stick together.

Then, at some point — who knows when, exactly? — it’s not just win or lose, but right or wrong. The lines are drawn from inside, always. Insiders are the only ones qualified to make those judgments, and all judgments are in the best interest of the team. The team is forever right. Therefore, whatever a member of the team does to protect another member of the team … that, too, must be right.

These things are human nature.

A person of power will be inclined to preserve that power. A person who has built something great will be inclined to maintain that greatness and protect it from assault. He will be inclined to do these things, no matter what it takes.

Members of a family group, a team, will be inclined to preserve the group. The tighter the bonds between members, the greater the sense of preservation. When faced with a decision involving the team, the inclination of one member will be loyalty to the group and its members, above all else.

And this, too, is human nature. We are inclined, first and foremost, to save ourselves. That inclination is not necessarily what we would prefer. It is not always right. But it is the basic, prevailing instinct of our beings.[...]

Read the rest.

With that, I can recommend this Scientific American article by Karen Schrock:

[...]
According to psychological theory, every person has a social identity, which depends on being a member of various groups. “The social groups you belong to become a part of the very essence of who you feel you are,” explains psychologist Adam Galinsky, a professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. These groups can include our families and circles of friends; the clubs, churches and schools we attend; our race, ethnicity and nationality; and the list goes on. The more strongly we identify with a particular group, the more vehemently we defend its members and ideals—a trait that experts think evolved along with early human society. Banding together and protecting one another allowed our ancestors to survive, and so to this day we are quick to cheer on our comrades and feel animosity toward rival groups. Many scientists think this in-group psychology explains prejudice, racism and even sports fandom.

Most of the Penn State students who rioted Wednesday night have social identities that are built around a lifelong allegiance to the school. If you attend Penn State, Galinsky explains, “Penn State is you, it’s part of you, it’s such an important thing.” And nothing symbolizes Penn State more than Joe Paterno, head football coach for 46 years. Many of these distraught young adults chose to attend the university because of their love for the Paterno’s team—not the other way around. And they rioted because “the person that symbolized the school they go to, that’s given the school stature, that’s made their own selves have meaning and purpose, has now been taken away from them in an aggressive and sullied way,” Galinsky explains.

[...]

Our Sesame Street Society

Workout notes Weights plus swimming.
Weights: same old, though sit ups were three sets of 40 (levels 1, 2, 3) and bench presses were 10 x 135, 4 x 165, 4 x 165, 2 x 155. On the 165, I thought that I had 170 but I forgot to put a 5 on the right side; hence I wondered why my left warm was weak.

Swimming: 10 x 50 (fist/free), 10 x 50 (free/back), 10 x 50 (5 catch up/free, 5 3g, free), 10 x 50 (5g/free), 200 pull.

Our Watered Down Society
This is a “serious” candidate for the presidency:

Debates
Huffington Post compiled a set of “debate failures”. Yes, my favorite drunken ladybug was featured. But what struck me most was this one:

Note the tone and the way that the candidates answered the questions. Things have slipped since then.

Science and Education
An article talks about how we are losing science students because, well, there is some drudgery to get through if one is to obtain science competence:

After studying nearly a decade of transcripts at one college, Kevin Rask, then a professor at Wake Forest University, concluded last year that the grades in the introductory math and science classes were among the lowest on campus. The chemistry department gave the lowest grades over all, averaging 2.78 out of 4, followed by mathematics at 2.90. Education, language and English courses had the highest averages, ranging from 3.33 to 3.36.

Ben Ost, a doctoral student at Cornell, found in a similar study that STEM students are both “pulled away” by high grades in their courses in other fields and “pushed out” by lower grades in their majors.

MATTHEW MONIZ bailed out of engineering at Notre Dame in the fall of his sophomore year. He had been the kind of recruit most engineering departments dream about. He had scored an 800 in math on the SAT and in the 700s in both reading and writing. He also had taken Calculus BC and five other Advanced Placement courses at a prep school in Washington, D.C., and had long planned to major in engineering.

But as Mr. Moniz sat in his mechanics class in 2009, he realized he had already had enough. “I was trying to memorize equations, and engineering’s all about the application, which they really didn’t teach too well,” he says. “It was just like, ‘Do these practice problems, then you’re on your own.’ ” And as he looked ahead at the curriculum, he did not see much relief on the horizon.

So Mr. Moniz, a 21-year-old who likes poetry and had enjoyed introductory psychology, switched to a double major in psychology and English, where the classes are “a lot more discussion based.”

It seems to me that, at least in this instance, the system worked rather well. I don’t want this sort of individual in science and technology.

But Larry Moran points out something more important about this article:

Here’s the problem. “Science” is NOT the same as “technology” and not the same as “engineering.” There’s a big difference between learning science and learning how to build things. The purpose of a degree in technology and engineering is obvious—it’s job training. The purpose of a science education is quite different—it’s supposed to teach you how to think critically.

But that distinction seems to have been lost on politicians, the general public, the media, and—most disappointingly—my fellow scientists.[...]

The real cost, in my opinion, is that we are “training,” rather than educating, a whole generation of students who don’t understand the basic concepts and principles of their discipline because professors don’t know how to teach. The sad thing is that we now have a whole generation of educators who can’t tell the difference between science and technology. They agree with John that lab experiences are the “only serious training for STEM students.”

Science is not technology.
Theory and ideas are important.
Classroom teaching must be better.

Physics is not about sending spaceships to Mars.
Geology is not about finding oil.
Chemistry is not about better plastics.
Biology is not about drugs.
Science is about undertanding the universe and how it works.

And I’ll add something else: learning is sometimes bloody hard work, and no, it isn’t a thrill a minute. And yes, it involves frustration and, yes, FAILURE (at times).

As far as why theory is important: we are always being pushed to “use technology” in the classroom. And yes, I am teaching a numerical methods class; we had a long section on differential equations.

If you are interested in the topic, you can read the details here. But one of the problems I gave my class was this one: a solver provided this direction field for the differential equation and plotted these specific solutions. Do you trust this output? Why or why not:

Note: one could tell from the differential equation that the solution curves ought to have a derivative that was greater than or equal to zero everywhere and that the differential equation met the “uniqueness of solution” criteria everywhere but on the axis.

Do you see a problem here (or more than one?).

Anyway, the students have to understand the theory if they are to use the computer properly.

Mike Tyson as Herman Cain…

Knee Pain and Running/Walking

Workout notes Yoga with Ms. Nancy followed by a 6 mile (10K-ish) run. It was about 1:07 worth; it was just above freezing and windy.

Knee pain: I have to remind myself to lift the knees and to not over-stride; when I go slower I tend to lumber. Walking: I have to make myself bend my knees when I am driving the leg forward; I tend to look too “tin-soldier-ish” especially when I go slowly.

Yoga: went fine, except for the “sit on your heels” stuff; my knee struggles with that.

College Football, Penn State and Joe Paterno

I haven’t weighed in on this. So here goes: Penn State did the right thing in firing coach Paterno.

I am not a Paterno hater and never have been. For one, he has done an excellent job at helping his players graduate year after year.
Example

GoPSUSports.com reports that Penn State and Stanford have tied for the highest graduation rate among AP Top 25 football teams. The Nittany Lions’ graduation rate is also second in the Big Ten, behind Northwestern. Here are the top 10 Graduation Success Rates among FBS teams.

1. Notre Dame
2. Northwestern
3. Boston College, Duke, Rice
6. U.S. Naval Academy
7. Rutgers
8. U.S. Military Academy, Miami (Fla.)
10. Penn State, Stanford

A number of Penn State football players earned Dean’s List honors last year.

That is just one year, and it is not at all atypical.

His on the field record; sterling.

He started as head coach in 1966…when Vince Lombardi was coaching the Packers….the FIRST year of the Super Bowl.
He went: 24-12-1 in bowls
He had 5 undefeated teams
He had 6 one loss teams
He had 9 two loss teams
He won 2 national championships
He won 3 big 10 titles (remember Penn State joined the Big Ten in 1990).

And yes, he compiled these records against stout opposition; don’t take my word for it. Go to the historical results and judge for yourself.

Time and time again he matched football wits with coaches like Lou Holtz and Jimmy Johnson…and frequently bested them.

I admire his success on the field and his graduation rates.

But when he has one of his graduate assistants report directly to him that one of his coaches was raping a kid…and he doesn’t call the police?

The University couldn’t afford to have him on the sidelines representing the university in such a public way.

Believe me, as a football fan, I am saddened by this. Of course, I am more sad for the victims…much more sad for them. Here, one victim (of another pedophile) speaks out; he was a former Notre Dame and Green Bay lineman.

Oh, the Hermanity! – The Daily Show with Jon Stewart – 11/09/11 – Video Clip | Comedy Central

Luckily, Herman Cain still has one important person in his corner. Airdate – 11/09/11

Oh, the Hermanity! – The Daily Show with Jon St…, posted with vodpod