Anyone who has been watching football for more than about 30 seconds should realize that if you can't keep other teams from scoring, you'll eventually lose a shoot-out. When you do, your championship hopes take a huge nose-dive.

ESPN, though, found some commonalities between some of the recent BCS Title winners. Among them, a receiver averaging 15+ yards-per-catch, the team racking up 33 sacks, and a quarterback passing for 3,000 yards. Mergz at Saurian Sagacity thought, to be polite, that their method was nonsense.

Today he posted a fairly detailed analysis of team averages in statistical categories for BCS winners. The conclusion? There are only a few categories where BCS Champions share high rankings consistently. They're all defensive categories and the most pronounced among them is scoring defense.

Big shocker, there. Nevertheless, a good read. Go check it out for all the nuts and bolts.

It's fashionable these days to decry the terribleness of the pre-season poll. After all, it is a travesty that young men like those on Auburn's 2004 team can best every challenge laid before them, and then be denied the right to play for the national championship because, before they had even stepped on the field, some voters didn't think they were going to be very good.

It's an easy argument to make. So easy, in fact, that most folks don't give the other side of it any thought at all. Unfortunately, the challenges encountered by Auburn in 2004 are present every year, and while it's easy to point the finger at early polling, it's really just a symptom of a much larger problem with the whole polling system.

When last we heard from rap impresario Josh Jarboe, he was being dismissed from the Oklahoma football team for having bad timing, questionable rapping skills, and a moron of a friend who posted the rap video on YouTube. Fine, Oklahoma felt they took a chance on the kid after an arrest for having a firearm. He showed more bad judgment in rapping about more firearms and using foul language, embarrassing the school and football program. Okay, time for everyone to move on.

Well, Jarboe did. He decided to go play for Troy in the Sun Belt Conference. Closer to home. Less attention. In a way, it makes sense as Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops in the announcement that Jarboe was dismissed from the football team said, "We hope he can move forward in a positive manner."

Probably not a bad idea. Of course, Oklahoma isn't making it that easy.

According to Troy coach Larry Blakeney, Trojans wide receiver Josh Jarboe currently is not eligible to play this season after transferring from Oklahoma earlier this week.

Because OU told Troy officials that they didn't refuse him admission for the fall, Blakeney said, Jarboe is now being treated as a transfer student by the NCAA, with this season being his sit-out year.

Nice. Technically the NCAA rules are the problem, and Troy is appealing to the NCAA. After all,the NCAA is so reasonable about these things.

Still Oklahoma doesn't seem too interested in making it easy for Jarboe to "move forward in a positive manner." They dismissed him from the team -- which means losing the scholarship -- but also says since he was admitted, he is a transfer.

Again, he was dismissed from the football team. He didn't quit the team. No scholarship. Left Oklahoma before the fall semester as expected. So, now he's a transfer. Kafka sends his regards.