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Watching UFC 194 last night was such a fitting end to the 2015 football season

GurskyT

VaPreps All Region
Aug 11, 2005
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Ocean Lakes. South County. Lake Taylor. Riverheads. L.C. Bird. Massaponax. Tuscarora. Colonial Forge.

As the playoffs have progressed this year all the way up to the outcomes of the state championships yesterday, I really look at 2015 as the season where undefeated favorites went down, reigning state champions were stymied, and top seeds were upset.

To me, it all starts with an Ocean Lakes team that was ranked very high nationally and completely dominated their schedule, as most probably saw them coasting to the 6A title game. Heavily favored heading into the Oscar Smith game, and all the sudden bam, Oscar Smith pulls the upset and Ocean Lakes is done.

L.C. Bird had also dominated their schedule and I remember seeing the thread by Giliam listing some of the eye-popping regular season statistics that L.C. Bird had racked up. Honestly, my only thought after seeing that thread was that they were heading to a fourth straight state championship. Although Hermitage was seen as a good match and more than capable of handing L.C. Bird the loss that they did, it was still surprising to see the three-time defending state champion out early in the second round.

Undefeated South County lost to Westfield by 32 points in the semi-finals, a team that they had defeated 26-19 in the regular season. A four-loss Stone Bridge team ended the seasons of the top two seeds in 5A North, Riverheads was defeated by a four-loss Galax team yesterday, and #8 seed Riverbend upsetting the #1 seed Colonial Forge in their pod kind of kicked off the surprising defeats of the playoffs. Then, Salem earned their redemption getting the victory over the favored 4A defending state champion Lake Taylor.

Jose Aldo. Ronda Rousey. Chris Weidman.

After spending the day in Charlottesville watching the 5A and 6A games, I headed to a friend's house to catch UFC 194; I thought it would be a nice cap to the day and man I was right. Two title fights on the line. In the co-main event, Chris Weidman was undefeated at 13-0 and has been the man since knocking out Anderson Silva in their first fight, but Luke Rockhold came in last night and finished Weidman to claim the middleweight belt with a 4th round TKO. After watching this fight and remembering how hard Ronda Rousey went down recently, I started to think about the 2015 playoffs and the trend of heavy-hitters falling.

I had yesterday planned out for months: The appetizer would be the 5A state championship in the afternoon, 6A state championship in the evening as the main dish, and finally the Jose Aldo Vs. Conor McGregor fight as the dessert. Aldo had not lost in a decade, and was the only featherweight champion that the UFC has known. A lot of hype and trash talk had built up this fight for the entire year and anybody who follows UFC would know what I am talking about. When they came out and touched gloves, I was excited to see what would happen, and to see if this "trend" would continue of champions and favorites going down in the world of UFC and Virginia high school football.

We were barely given enough time to blink. 13 seconds. Stunned. First round knockout and fastest finish of any title fight in the history of the UFC. Conor McGregor crowned new featherweight champion handing Jose Aldo his first loss in 10 years.

Watching the UFC title fights last night and changing of the belts was once again a fitting end to the 2015 football season with all of the upsets and surprise defeats that occurred. It is always amazing to see how on any given day any one or any team can win or lose. Much respect to all who go out there, compete, and give it 100% regardless of the outcome.
 
It was a really, really exciting season. Who would've thought that when it was over that Magna Vista would be the one that would repeat?

My computer gets a lot of crap, but it never was sold on Phoebus, like everyone else and actually had MV bouncing in and out of #1 down the home stretch. My computer also popped Highland Springs to #1 after Bird struggled with Cosby (a 4 TD win, but not what it should have been if Skyhawks were going to win title) and never moved the Springers out of the spot.
The computer also was the first one to drop Lake Taylor out of the 1 spot and it called the Salem win. My computer also loved Galax all year and I really got a lot of crap about them being in my top ten for 1A when they were 1-4. Computer also jumped on Appomattox VERY early in the season and they see-sawed with Richlands all year for the #1 spot.

Westfield would be the one team I wouldn't say the computer did any better than the "Conventional Wisdom." You could kind of see it building up as they seemed to be getting better offensively every week, but my computer still wanted them around 4 or 5 all year, not #1.

I don't think anyone came close to touching the computer's win loss record in the playoffs.

Still, I'm not sure I'll return to it next year. I had some frustrating computer problems right here at the end of the season when I was most excited, and it never seemed all that popular this year. I really got very little feed back on it and the number of hits on the website was probably only about 20% of what it was the first year I did it back in 1999 even though no one the Internet back then.

I probably will do it again, if only because my statistics classes seemed to love it when I would give them problems from the site, but it's a lot of work. It does make the season more enjoyable for me, but when you're coaching another fall sport at the same time, it's a chore.

Five more years until I retire, then maybe I will have my masters degree in Statistics and I can do stuff like this full time.
 
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