Brooks and Reed preview CFB week 1 (a little late)

Brooks: So, what games are you most excited about this weekend?


Reed: For me the weekend's most exciting game, if not the season's, is the matchup betweenBoise State and VPI. As an unabashed BCS-basher (can you be an unabashed basher?), I will be fully on board the Broncos bandwagon in 2010. After 3 years in SEC territory I would love to see a team from outside the purported conference to end all conferences take the title. It would be even better if they could take down an unbeaten Alabama squad, both because Nick Saban sucks at life and because it would be the ultimate tool with which to shut up the SEC fans who cling to conference dominance as a remedy for their own teams' mediocrity.

So Boise MUST win on Monday. Nobody expects them to lose a game in conference, so this represents the biggest challenge on their docket. Yet despite the handicaps against them (cross-country flight to what is basically a road game), Boise is favored. That shows the respect that has developed for this team over the past few years among opposing coaches and AP-voting reporters, if not the talking heads and the proverbial man on the street (unless that street is in Boise, ID).

What about yourself?


Brooks: I think Boise State-VT is definitely the game of the week, and not just because ESPN tells me it is (though it's mostly because ESPN tells me it is. Da-da-da, da-da-da). I'm obviously watching Michigan-UConn this weekend. RichRod needs a win here to cool the heat that has been on him since the allegations of practice violations first broke last September, and realistically he needs to win this game and Notre Dame next week on the road if he's going to have any chance of 7 wins and keeping his job. On the other side of the field, Randy Edsall is riding high from his win over the S-E-C, S-E-C in his bowl game, so another big win over a major Big 10 program will truly announce UConn's arrival and their assuming the title of favorite in the Big East.

One other game for you-- Oregon State-TCU. TCU is the forgotten BCS buster, but they return just as much as Boise, plus they have the schedule int the Mountain West with games against Utah and BYU to also make a run both to the BCS and the National Title Game. We also really should not sleep on the Rodgers' brothers and Oregon State. In a wide open Pac 10, they can ride a big opening win against TCU to a conference title and a BCS berth. Also, remember they take on Boise State in three weeks. If both those programs win in week 1 and go into that game 2-0, that could be another battle between Top 15 teams with huge bowl implications.

Since I have tickets to the Chicks-Bil-A's game Saturday, what do you think about the UNC investigation and suspension of 12 players for week 1?


Reed: I love what's happening to them. Not only because I love seeing Chapel Hill fans squirm even more than SEC fans (and we should see plenty more of that this winter - stay tuned), but because they elected to play in said Chic-Fil-A game and eschew their commitment to open the season against South Carolina in Williams-Brice. Not that the Gamecocks are clean, but they're certainly cleaner than UNC right now, and it would have helped USC jump up into the top 25 a lot sooner had they beaten a top 20 team down last night instead of Brett Favre U. And of course, I'm very much a law-and-order guy when it comes to NCAA rules, because the players should know what's right and wrong, and if I hear Dan LeBatard talk one more time about how amateurism is meaningless and should be thrown out, and criminals are good for a football program, I'm going to throw up. I may also throw up because I was awoken this morning to the sounds of my roommate's guests hooking up on our couch, but that's another story.

Let's hit a happier subject: Most reporters have Terrell Pryor as the Heisman favorite and Jake Locker as the presumptive #1 pick. Instead of those flawed titles, let's decide who will be the ACTUAL best player in college football this year, without regard to conference, chance of winning the BCS, pro potential, position, or east coast bias (which, by the way, I recently decided was my favorite band name that has yet to be used).


Brooks: That's a really good question, because I agree with you that it looks like this year it really is going to be all about QBs and RBs both for the Heisman and the #1 overall draft pick. To be perfectly honest, I have absolutely no idea who I would pick right now. Mark Ingram is the reigning "best player in the nation," but I don't even think he's the best running back on his own team since Trent Richardson is just that good. Pryor will have some great highlights, but DE Cameron Heyward is the best player on Ohio State and probably the best player in the Big 10. I haven't had the chance to see a lot of games live, but I have to say no player has impressed me live more than AJ Green of Georgia last year. He showed during the game that not only was he the best wide receiver in the nation, but he was also their best running back and blocked a potential game winning field goal. I know you want to push a lineman here, but I'm sticking with a skill position guy I guess. Who's your pick?

Also, is there anything worse than Mark May?


Reed: You are close. [Linemen] are near and dear to my heart but having no actual football experience it's hard to tell which of them is elite, unless and until somebody jumps off the screen like Suh did in the Big 12 title game last year. My real favorite position, however, is linebacker, and this year my favorite player has to be Stanford's Owen Marecic (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/michael_rosenberg/08/31/marecic/index.html?eref=sihp). I don't know if he'll be the best player in the country, but you have to love his resume: Starting inside linebacker and fullback (the only 2 way starter in 1-A) and has close to a 4.0 as a Stanford premed (his specific major is "human biology concentrated in infectious disease, national security and international health"). He's basically Myron Rolle on a team with a chance to win the Rose Bowl.

There's plenty of stuff in the college football universe that's worse than Mark May: Starting College Gameday on ESPNU at 9 and then switching to ESPN at 10; Kirk Herbstreit's hair; people who think tailgating revolves around bad alcohol (as opposed to good food). But worst of all are the cupcakes. Not actual cupcakes, those are delicious. But these early games really are dreadful. Youngstown State at Penn State? Coastal Carolina at West Virginia? San Jose State at Alabama? The lack of integrity in 1-A football is really appalling. Letting these power-conference teams scheduld 1-AA schools is criminal! How on earth can the talking heads say with a straight face that Alabama's schedule is difficult compared to Boise State, TCU et al when they have 7 or 8 home games each year and inflate their stats with these cupcake games. Wake me on Thursday, when real football starts.


Brooks: Trick question. While your list is certainly valid, the only thing worse than Mark May is the fact that he is now teamed up with Craig James. This is [my] nightmare, people!

An Open Apology to the Fans of West Virginia

To all fans of the West Virginia Mountaineers:

I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry. The last 3 years I have made some bitter comments on this blog and otherwise about you, and similar schools to you, but I owe you an apology. Your behavior was justified, and really, we should all applaud you on your restraint.

I owe this apology because of the rash of comments I have made, justifying Rich Rodriguez's decision to leave West Virginia for the greener pastures of that pristine land known as Ann Arbor, Michigan. West Virginia fans were angry. They were really angry, and they let RichRod, his family, the state government, ESPN, everybody know they were angry. For some reason, I mocked these fans for their behavior. I told them to suck it up, this is the way it is in college sports-- big time coaches start at lower programs, build them up for a couple of seasons, then bolt for big money, big stadiums, and big exposure. It's the way it works in academia in the classroom and on the athletic fields-- professors bolt out of Knoxville to New Haven, coaches leave Lousiville for South Bend.

I was wrong. I was conceited, stuck up, self-centered, and ignorant. I was so selfish and excited about my own team that I did not begin to think about what you were going through. RichRod was one of you. He's a bit of a hick who takes "country twang + aww shucks= people's hero" to levels even a politician would envy. Most of all, he was one of you. He was a walk on player, won a bowl game and had an interception in it, and came back home to do good. He revolutionized the offense and made people forget about Major Harris and the '88 Mountaineers, which was also the last time WVU was considered a "great" program. RichRod took WVU back to national prominence, winning 2 BCS games and even putting them 30 minutes from the 2008 National Title Game. If you were a WVU fan, you had to be beside yourself. Here was a coach not only taking your team to the top, but also a guy you didn't have to worry about bolting. The school was showing cash, renovating the stadium, and he was one of you. I'm sure he made you unbelievably proud of your team, school, and to be a 'Neer. He would make you a dynasty. After all, for most schools, it only takes one iconic coach to take a school that was a second thought and transform them into one of the most desireable jobs in college sports. Just look at Bear Bryant at Alabama, Steve Spurrier at Florida, they made those jobs nationally known.

And then he left you. That was it. Sudden, unexplained, and holding nothing but vacated hopes, dashed dreams, and bitterness. Oh, the bitterness. The kind of bitterness that consumes you. The kind that makes you hate your coach. The kind that makes you hate the media for justifying, even encouraging, the coach's decision to leave. You hate everyone else's fans who laugh at you, when you know deep down they are all deathly afraid that their coach will bolt for another team or another league. And most of all, you hate sports. You hate that you care, you hate that it means so much to you, you hate that you are bitter in the first place.

This is where I am now in life. Here we talk only about college sports, but since I went to a small school as an undergrad. I may love college football and the Michigan Wolverines, but at the end of the day, it doesn't consume me. My hometown of Cleveland, on the other hand, is a different story. I love my city, and even though I'm in Atlanta and haven't really lived full time in Cleveland since I graduated from high school ten years ago, it's still "my" city. When I introduce myself, I still say "I'm from Cleveland, but I live in Atlanta." It is an essential element to understanding who I am. In college, I used to give the book Crooked River Burning, a book about growing up in post-industrial Cleveland and the tragic horror of watching your city's identity as a steel producing power die as you grow up, to my closest friends so that they would understand why I am the way I am.

Now that I have left Cleveland, my only true links to the city are 1) my parents and 2) my love for their sports teams. Even though I left, I feel like if I root harder and care more about the teams, somehow I make up for the fact that I am the classic example of the brain drain that is killing the city. When I defend my city and my teams to some Southern doucher who can't understand why I care so much about pro sports, or some East Coast asshole who can't understand why I root for teams that don't have the payroll to compete annually, I feel like I'm repaying the city the debt I owe it for raising me and letting me leave. It makes me feel like an ambassador to the city-- someone who defends it in foreign territory, that gives people a face to think of when when Cleveland comes up rather than Jay Leno's weak ass jokes. "Ha, their river caught on fire in 1975, coincidentally the last time that I was culturally relevant! The Tonight Show, tonight at 11 on NBC!"

So now I am in a similar position of West Virginia fans were in 2008. Tomorrow, the single greatest athletic specimen of our generation and arguably the greatest raw athletic talent to ever come out of the state of Ohio is announcing on national television where he will play NBA Basketball for the next 3-6 years, depending on the contract he wants. In one way, however, it's vastly different from the WVU-RichRod experience. RichRod went from not even in the running to being announced as coach in 48 hours, I remember getting the text that he was interviewing with Michigan while I was at Browns game, and if I remember correctly he was the coach by the next day. I. on the other hand, have been bracing for this moment for years. In fact, I specifically remember when it started. 5 years ago, I started teaching in the summers at a boarding school. My first summer was the first time LeBron was a free agent. I frantically checked espn.com all day on July 1 to see what he would do as a free agent. When he said he was going to resign, I immediately called Hoogs, overjoyed. The next day, however, LeBron announced he was only signing a 4 year deal, and not the max 7 year deal. People immediately assumed it was because he wanted to leave Cleveland early, and most assumed, it was to leave for the Knicks. That rumor started in July. July of 2006.

So, for four years, I've had to listen to people talk about what will happen when he's a free agent. For four years, I've listened to jokes from friends in bars asking me, "So, what will you do when LeBron becomes a Knick?" just to see me throw stuff. Four years. Four years.

So, now it is finally happening, and it's even more miserable than I could have imagined. My whole sports life, I have only known heartbreak. I'm not going to do the typical Cleveland fan's blog routine of listing all the horrible sports moments, but if you Google "Cleveland Sports Tragedies" you get a mere 322,000 hits. I have seen every sports team of mine fail every time. The first Browns game I remember is "The Drive," watching at home with my Dad. I didn't understand it, I was 4, but I knew at the end I was supposed to cry. The two greatest sports years of my life as a fan-- the '94 and '95 Indians-- were ruined first by a strike the ended the first Indians winning season in 50 damn years in '94, then losing in the '95 World Series to Braves fans who didn't even sell out the clinching game 6 followed the next month by the Browns announcing they were moving to Baltimore.

Oh my god, the Browns moving. I was in 8th grade, and it was the first moment that I learned that Cleveland was not the city I grew up thinking it was. I grew up thinking Cleveland was a great city, arguably the best place to live in the world. I thought it was a city people respected. That was when I realized it wasn't. That was when I learned that people don't get the city, that no one outside of it understands why anyone would choose to live in Northeast Ohio, and most of all, that people justify anyone leaving the city. People criticized Art Modell, but no one stopped him from leaving or publicly criticized him (other than Pittsburgh and Buffalo, our Rust Belt brethren who I will always respect for that), and now they even want to put that greedy, incompetent, stupid piece of-- shut yo mouth!-- in the Hall of Fame. Two years after the Browns came back, I was pledging a fraternity and the Ravens made the Super Bowl. I had to wear a Raven's championship shirt for an entire month. I honestly thought I was going to kill someone, and spent the month going through all the things I would do to the shirt. Needless to say, it ended up in a very large, very hot fire. I never thought anything could be worse than that.

But I apparently was wrong. If there is one thing that Clevelanders should have learned by now, it can always get worse. What could make the city's economy worse than the American steel industry dying in the 70s? Don't worry, in twenty years the auto industry will die as well! Don't worry about the Browns leaving, or the Indians selling off back-t0-back Cy Young Winners CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee in back-to-back seasons, there's still "The Announcement."

So LeBron James is going to announce his decision. Nothing in my history as a fan gives me any hope for this day. I have spent 28 years constantly having my sports teams give me hope, make me excited for next year, only to see it come crashing down in some horribly unpredictable and public manner. LeBron James seems to know exactly how this should all go.

I think I need to explain what he and this decision mean to me as a fan, however, before we get going. Cleveland, in it's 100 year sports history, as only been able to say it's had a "great" twice. We had Bob Feller, and Indians pitcher in the 30s and 40s, and we had Jim Brown who retired in 1965. That means the last time we had a great, transcendent, or even just "good" player was 1965. The best since 1965? In all honesty, it's either Bernie Kosar or Sandy Alomar, neither of whom is exactly beating down the door to the Hall of Fame. But LeBron was different. LeBron was something that we had never seen before. Never in my life had I seen celebrities show up for Cleveland games and be there to watch a Cleveland team. Sure, we get Ben Affleck, but only when the Red Sox are in town for the playoffs. But people came to see LeBron. People came to Cleveland. And as LeBron's game grew, as he grew physcially, as his billboards around the city grew, it seemed the city did as well. For a city that has been shrinking steadily for four decades, this was unimaginable.

What made it even better? He was ours! Indians fans have always hated the Yankees, because they rely on free agency and their huge payroll and not their farm system to be dominant. Year after year, we watch our great players in Cleveland tryout for the day they will be good enough to get Yankee money. They don't earn it, they buy it. Therefore, we have always taken an irrational pride in not "buying titles." And with LeBron, we weren't. He was completely homegrown. My sophomore year of college, the Cleveland paper was already following LeBron weekly. That year he had won the MVP award at the Adidas ABCD camp, beating out the entire Top 5 of the NBA Draft that year-- at 16! I tried to explain how good this kid was to my friend Grieco, and he didn't believe me. He mocked me. A month later, LeBron made his first cover of SI, as a high school junior. A year later when he played Oak Hill Academy on ESPN, I invited friends over and cleared my schedule to watch it. Not because it had even crossed my mind that he would someday be a Cav, but because he was a Clevelander and he was the best. The jokes stopped with him. That year, my fraternity all gathered in Logs' room in the Lodge to watch the lottery picks come out. I didn't, I sat alone in my room, unable to watch. I heard updates, I heard cheers, and finally I peeked my head in when they pulled out the card for the #2 pick. It was the Pistons (From Memphis). We had the #1 pick, and I just lost it. I screamed, I ran around the hallways of our upstairs, and I cheered. I remember watching as the Cavs owner, Gordon Gund, ended all suspense by announcing at the lottery selection that LeBron was the Cavs first pick.

He was the hometown boy, and he was the hometown boy who did right by the team. He took us back to the playoffs for the first time in a decade. He opened schools, he financed PE programs, he started basketball camps that attracted the best players in the country to come play in Northeast Ohio. He accepted his MVP's at his old high school, for god's sake. On the court, he was even better. He won our first playoff series since the early 90s. He took us to the NBA Finals in 2007. But most of all, he was transcendent. Every year in the NBA he has played at a higher level than people expected, and he was without a doubt the most highly hyped player of all time. And we idolized him. He was exactly what we all as Clevelanders wanted to believe we would be in his position: we would ignore the attraction of other areas, ignore the snickers people on the coasts make about you being in the small market, and instead be the greatest ever and make Cleveland a destination again.

So when the Cavs announced their slogan to keep LeBron, "HOME: More Than A Player," that was not hyperbole. He means much, much more to the city than what you see on the Court. Cleveland has seen no hope-- politically it is hopelessly corrupt, economically it's still hoping for the 1940s and wartime spending to return, socially its population is fleeing so fast it's giving officials whiplash-- for forty years. But he represents hope. In a struggling economy nationally that is even worse in Cleveland, LeBron sells out luxury boxes and seats night after night, and gives people a reason to return to downtown Cleveland. He provides the example that we can make it, that for the first time, things can get better. He's more than an athlete to us because he is from Cleveland, so he represents way more than wins and titles. He inspires people to try and rebuild downtown-- afterall, selling people on watching LeBron for the next ten years is special enough that they will relocate to be closer to greatness. Seems ridiculous, but it's not. On Sunday the Cavs put one of the videos they showed James in their pitch to him on their website. They didn't have a single person talk about him as a player, no stats, no promises of the future roster. Instead, it was people talking about what he meant to the city. Cliche? Yep. So cliche I found myself saying, in dead seriousness, "If you come back, I promise I will move back to Cleveland before your contract is up. If you can rebuild the city, I will come back and help."

Moreso, he's more than a player because of what it means if he leaves. If he leaves, and all signs surely point to that, it's game over for Cleveland. What other people, or those outside the rust belt, cannot understand is what it's like to fear whether or not your city will literally be there year-t0-year. If he leaves, I do not see how Cleveland will come back from it. I truly believe that tickets sales to the Cavs will be so low that they will either fold or move out of the city in 5-10 years. Whatever downtown revitalization in the works will halt. The city will lose it's identity as a "major sports town," since it will only be able to afford 2 sports teams, which will further hurt their ability to entice new businesses to Cleveland and downtown specifically. Most of all, it will only further prove to everyone growing up in Cleveland that if you're smart, if you're talented, and if you have ambition, what the hell are you doing in Cleveland? If you want to be great, get out while you still can. After all, even someone as great as LeBron, someone who could have been great anywhere in the world, and could've been the consummate teammate to the city by bringing it up with him, got the hell out of dodge when he was ready to take the next step.

Am I proud that a 24 year old deciding which team has the right to pay him $100 mil means that much to me? Hell yes! It's awful, it's pathetic. I'm grown. I'm a man, almost 40 (metaphorically). And that only makes it worse. Now I not only hate the media, hate New York, hate the NBA, and hate everyone that doesn't get why I care so much, I also hate myself for caring so much. Helplessness, rage and self-loathing are a dangerous combination because they constantly feed on one another. Worst, it really does make you hate sports. Cleveland will never have a LeBron James in my lifetime, and certainly not on the Cavs roster. This will mark the end of the NBA for me. I will never, ever again sit down and watch an NBA game. Other people may put it on in the background when I'm around, but it will never again be must see TV. In all honesty, no sports will be on my radar screen for a couple of months. I will just hate them too much, and that's really terrible because normally they are my escape. I apologize for the typos and misspelled words, but I honestly don't think I can proofread this. It was hard enough to write, I can't put myself through it again to edit.

So tomorrow I will watch. Tomorrow I will turn off my computer, my phone, and sit in the corner of a bar alone, and I will watch. When he announces his decision, regardless of whether its Chicago, New York or Miami, I hope you now know why I will not talk to anyone that night, and why I will not visit those cities possibly ever again. More than a player.

My Assorted Thoughts on Expansion

Greetings from the 9th circle of hell, Columbia, S.C. No doubt you have wondered why no-one here at Office Tailgate has weighed in on the ongoing talk of expansion of some of the marquee conferences of the NCAA’s Division 1-A. And you’re probably upset that we’ve only had 2 or 3 posts since the middle of last football season. Well, it’s a blog. It’s free. Nobody’s holding a gun to your head, so get over it. Having said that I felt the need to collect my thoughts on the matter that has the potential to be the single biggest development in college sports since ESPN began broadcasting the early rounds of the Men’s D-1 Basketball Tournament.

To recap, this all started with our man JoePa. Paterno (correctly) wondered aloud why the Presidents of the Big Ten (11) weren’t trying to add a 12th member, seeing as how the conferences which have a title game seem to be held in higher esteem, correctly or incorrectly, by the national media. Since the selection process for the BCS is, ultimately, subjective, any such disadvantage is bad for a conference. Well, the Big Ten paid attention and started leaning on Notre Dame.

Now, as Gardner will no doubt recall, this is hardly the first time that these great Midwestern institutions have tried to seduce the Domers. But all the previous times, Notre Dame felt they were better off on their own. After all, the very reason that Notre Dame cultivated a national identity as a football power was their independent status and globe-trotting nature. And it was that “play anyone, anywhere” m.o. that lead to Notre Dame’s more important journey from rinky-dink catholic school to an academic powerhouse. So independence is in a very real sense a part of the school’s identity. So once again they appeared uninterested.

Now, the Big Ten wants Notre Dame bad. Real bad. Sure, they’d have problems figuring out the divisions, specifically how to preserve the significance of Michigan-Ohio State, but come on, do any of the other “candidates” (Syracuse, Rutgers, Texas, AC Milan) really sound like Big Ten schools? No chance. Notre Dame fits the mold: Classically Midwestern and doesn’t give a shit about anything but football.

Here’s where the tale gets interesting. The Big Ten starts floating all those ridiculous rumors that they’re going to essentially destroy the NCAA as we know it by kicking off a domino effect. For those who need a refresher, it would go as follows: 1) Big Ten (11) becomes Big Ten (16) by picking up 5 schools from the Big East. 2) Big East dies, everybody goes their separate ways. 3) ACC picks up a bunch of the Big East rejects, probably something like Syracuse, UConn, Georgetown, and Louisville, to also reach 16 teams. 4) Pac 10 and SEC both panic, worrying they’ll get left behind, and essentially split the Big 12 between themselves. The result: The Pac 16, Super SEC, Super ACC and Big Ten (16). All the rinky-dink conferences (yeah I’m talking to you Mountain West, show me something other than some meaningless exhibition game wins and the career of Keith van Horn and we’ll talk) stay the same but obviously have no chance of competing with these guys in ANYTHING, not just football.

So, the conspiracy theory goes, what incentive would these 4 conferences (apx. 64 schools) have to stay in the NCAA? It’s a completely voluntary organization. They could leave and start a new one. Hell, in essence they already have – the football “national champion” isn’t the NCAA champion – that’s Villanova. No, Alabama is the BCS champion. And once these 4 mega conferences have totally ensured that nobody from outside the club could ever beat them, why do they need to be hamstrung by rules intended to honor that quaint concept (it’s just so 20th century) of the student-athlete? So they break off and convert the BCS from one to all sports. You say you liked the basketball tournament when it was just 64 teams? Well, you’ll love our new tournament – there are only 65 teams eligible in the first place, so EVERYBODY makes the Big Dance! No coaches can get fired! Isn’t it great?

The conspiracy theory has been shaken up in the last week by the suggestion that it won’t be the Big Ten who acts first, but the Pac 10. Already tired of being shat on every year by America’s college football sportswriters and radio call-in mopes (“MY TEAM SUCKS SO I’M GOING TO SCREAM MY HEAD OFF ABOUT HOW GREAT THE CONFERENCE ‘WE’ PLAY IN IS AND HOW MUCH THE PAC 10 SUCKS!!!”), the left coasters didn’t want to be left holding the bill when this is all said and done. So they went after the most coastal school of all – Texas! FYI, I drove all around Austin last weekend and saw exactly 0 members of the Beach Boys, so something here doesn’t quite sound right to me.

That, of course, is because all this is about is money. The ingrates who wax poetic about the majesty and tradition of college football are getting fleeced by the powers-that-be: The heads of ESPN and the BCS. They sell that autumn leaves/girls in sundresses/rah-rah-sis-boom-bah bullshit to try to line their own pockets, not because they give a good god damn about you or what you love about the game. If they cared about “tradition,” I can pretty much guarantee that you wouldn’t be hearing 1 word about the University of TEXAS in the PACIFIC ten!

So after this new association starts up, what happens to what’s left of the NCAA? Answer: It dies. Much as I hate to admit it, all the money the NCAA uses to put on its championships is made from their contract with CBS for the basketball tournament (something like 5% of that figure pays for ALL the D-II and D-III postseasons). Once the BCS schools leave, so too does the money. And the rest of the colleges either get used to much, much worse championship events, or none at all. Don’t worry, it wouldn’t be that hard to get used to…after all, D-1A football fans seem to love not having a champion!

If you’re like me, this isn’t the result you want to see. Then again, you’re probably not like me because you probably don’t actually care whether college athletes LEARN anything, so long as they’re winning. But just indulge me while I note the possible light at the end of the tunnel: What if Notre Dame changed their minds? In this article fanhouse.com reports that the Domers are once again open to negotiations with the Big Ten. Why, you ask? Evidently Notre Dame realized that if the dominos start falling the way people are saying they might, they’d be left out in the cold, no better than your average member of Conference USA. Loathsome as the idea of joining a conference might be to them, if they had to do it at least the Big Ten makes some geographic and cultural sense.

Mike Golic predicted a few weeks ago that the way the Big Ten could force Notre Dame’s hand is by trying to make it appear that the Big East is about to fall apart. The Big East sees it’s only way out as getting Notre Dame to join for football, so they threaten them with expulsion for everything else unless the Irish join in full. Notre Dame vomits at this thought, so they turn back to the Big Ten, thereby saving the Big East. And lo and behold, that may be more or less what is about to happen, albeit by the Pac 10 threatening the Big 12 with extinction instead. The fanhouse article also surmises that, should the Big Ten expand to South Bend, they’ll back off their threat to expand to 16, and stick at 12. That’s all you need for a title game, so if it’s a Big Ten (12) with Notre Dame, they’d be satisfied. I guess Notre Dame > Syracuse + Missouri + Rutgers + Pitt + Nebraska.

Here’s where it gets good: If the Big Ten doesn’t go beyond 12, the other conferences might be less inclined to expand, too. Sure, it looks like the Pac 10 is definitely going to do so, but what if they just grabbed Utah and BYU to reach 12? They’d maintain their character by being relatively Pacific, and having an in-state rival for every school. Seems workable to me, but what do I know. At any rate, that would give all the BCS conferences enough schools for a title game (exc. the Big East, but they’ll probably force Georgetown to step it up any day now). Everybody has a Scrooge McDuck-like swimming pool of gold coins, and the fans continue to use the games as an excuse to get sauced.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to take in some good old fashioned, uncorrupted, truly amateur athletic competition. The only sport that hasn’t yet been ruined by money…cup stacking.

Forde Needs a Bailout

Whenever there is a coaching change, a lot of fans go overboard. At Tennessee, they apparently have mistakenly confused Knoxville with Poland circa 1989. Impressive show of Solidarity, though. Ha!

So, thank goodness national media figures like Pat Forde are here to calm everyone down and to bring perspective to this situation. Pat Forde, that voice of reason, who only got his job because he was the guy at the Lousiville-Courier who broke the 2003 story that then Louisville-coach Bobby Petrino was interviewing for the Auburn job before it was even open, certainly wouldn't do anything crazy like exploit and add further fuel to this fire. No way. He'd just write something like this. In case you can't read, and I'm looking at you Tennessee fans and "alumni", don't worry, he also appeared on the Doug Gottlieb show on ESPN Radio and PTI on ESPN (that's a television channel, Rocky Top Nation. It's like a radio, but with pictures!).

If you don't feel like reading senseless drivel, and I know you probably do on a Friday morning, let me paraphrase for you: Lane Kiffin is a worse version of Hitler and Darth Vader combined.

In lieu of writing an actual, coherent essay, allow me to follow my own lead from the post-national title game hubub and just respond point by point to some of Forde's assertions.

1. Lane Kiffin is a horrible person for taking this job

And we open up 0-1. Alright, I am supposed to believe that Lane Kiffin is a horrible person for taking this job? This job that he never went on a Saban-esque rant swearing he wouldn't take, because no one ever asked? The job that he told his AD, on Saturday when USC called, that if he got the offer he'd take? Gasp, betrayal!

I know a lot of people have jumped on Kiffin for this, both in and outside of the mainstream media, but let me try to break this down. Lane Kiffin was offered a pay raise. He was offered a pay raise at a school that has a better history, reputation, and talent on the roster than his current roster. He was offered a pay raise at a school that is without a doubt the most prestigious school on the West Coast. He was offered a pay raise to leave a school that he had no ties to, to return to a school that he coached for for four year. He left his job in Knoxville to take a job in Southern California. He left the job for a pay raise at a school that plays in a conference that gives him a better shot at a conference and National Title game.

Listen, it's cruel if you are a Tennessee fan, but this job is a promotion. USC is a better job than Tennessee. This also leads me to my next point

2. Lane Kiffin is a horrible person for breaking a contract

Let me poke holes in this argument in two ways. First, his contract included a clause that declared if Kiffin was fired or if he resigned before the end date of the contract, the party that terminated the contract would owe the other party $800,000. This means that from the first day of the f-cked up marriage, both sides had already planned on divorce. So the idea that Kiffin "betrayed" the university is ridiculous. It's also hypocritical. No school, other than Notre Dame, is ever lambasted for firing a coach early. So, Tennessee could have declared this season's 7-6 result "unacceptable," fired Kiffin and no one in the media would care after a day. Or, if Pete Carroll had called Tennessee last weekend and said, "I want a new challenge, and you're it," they wouldn't have dropped Kiffin like Tupac dropped albums after he died (tragic)? Kiffin didn't break the contract, he followed the rules of the contract and terminated it early. If I was Jemele Hill, I would find some cool way to phrase this view, but sadly I can find no clever way to work Marlo Stanfield shouting "My name is my name!" I wish Cleveland was more street.

Second, the reality is that there is a hierarchy in academia. In the NFL, you have an equal chance to win with all 32 franchises. Everyone spends the same amount of money, so being in one market or another, one division or another, doesn't make certain jobs more attractive than its peers. That's why you don't see coaches leave one job for another mid-contract. In college, it's different. If you are tenure track at Tennessee, then the school has given you a lifetime contract. No one would ever fault a professor at Tennessee for leaving his tenure track position for the same position at Harvard. Harvard means better pay, better resources, smarter students, better location, and better publishing deals for your work. Sure, you could build up your program at Tennessee, and maybe even occasionally have a groups of students that rival Harvard's. But at Harvard, you would consistently do better with less effort.

It is the same thing with college football. USC is an Ivy League school of football. It has the best resources, best athletic pool, and the best financial capital. Going there is a no brainer as a coach. You get paid more to win more with less hassle.

3. He didn't earn this!
This argument is based on Kiffin's career record: 5-15 with the Oakland Raiders and 7-6 with Tennessee. I'm not exactly sure what an NFL record has to do with college coaching, after all, Pete Carroll was barely better than .500 in the NFL and Bill Callahan took a team to the Super Bowl. Besides, who the f-ck wins in Oakland?

So, let's look at Lane's college track record. He was a highly successful recruiter for USC as an assistant. He was a decent play caller as offensive coordinator, if decent is having an offense in 2005 that averaged 45+ points per game and made it to the national title game. He was the right hand man for five years for arguably USC's greatest coach. At Tennessee, he took a five win team and in two years, brought in one top 10 recruiting class, improved the team to seven wins a took them to a bowl game, drastically improved an awful quarterback in Jonathan Crompton by making him servicable, and had more or less locked up another top 10 recruiting class. If he had been hired in 2006 when he was still at USC, people would've thought it made sense. When the king leaves, you promote the heir.

He doesn't have a strong sample size, but to say he didn't "earn it" is pretty weak. Mark Richt didn't "earn" the job at Georgia, since after all he had never coached a winning team, but he's worked out great. Carroll hadn't "earned" it since he had never been a head coach in a college game or coordinated a recruiting season. Flipping out about Kiffin's experience is pretty ridiculous, and only looking at the evidence that proves your flimsy point is lazy and poor journalism.

4. He is a dirty recruiter, which is the last thing USC needs
Well, now that is completely correct. He was a lead recruiter when USC brought in Reggie Bush, which is like marrying the person you have an affair with-- you know they'll do it again, but it's your fault for not seeing it coming. In light of Kiffin's own repeated secondary violations at Tennessee, it's an incredible display of hubris to hire him one month before they go before the USC with the threat of the "lack of institutional control" penalty out there. Ahh, hubris.

Also, if Kiffin's lead recruiter Ed Orgeron really was calling players that were already on campus in Knoxville to follow him, that's beyond low. And, unlike John Calipari apparently, Kiffin will be held responsible for his assistants.

And Around and Around We Go

Wow.

Wow.

Wow!

When I woke up on December 30 to watch some low level bowl games, I was excited for two things: the Jan 1 and BCS bowls, and how the recruiting season would shape up in January. I was convinced that was all that was left to look forward to until next summer, since not even I can get up for watching 7 v 7 and tackling drills on ESPNU during the spring. Unless Saban's on, in which case I watch to see if he can make another player cry and to see whether or not it's true that he gets his coaching genius from constantly drinking a flask filled with mountain gorilla hair and lemur eyes.

Since then, we had a major scandal. Mike Leach was fired over a disagreement between him and the administration about whether or not Adam James was a douche before or after his concussion (I hear it from reputable doctors, who do not exist nor having medical degrees, that the answer is both). The real stunner, however, was the Texas Tech pulled in a big time coach-- former Ole Miss and Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville. While there are certainly questions about this hiring-- most notably, how a coach that fired his last spread-based offensive coordinator and built his reputation on the power running game will handle a roster built for Leach's "air raid" passing attack-- but the positives far outweigh the negatives. He is a national name that coached at a football school in a BCS conference, won their and made a serious run at a national title, and owned his rival school by going 8-1 against Alabama. He still has ties in the South after being a SEC head coach for 13 years, and now can recruit the rich state of Texas. Texas Tech made the Big 12 South interesting under Leach. While there will be growing pains in the next four years as Tuberville turns over the roster, in five years I would assume the program will be in even better position than it is today.

And then Friday happened.

The college football world was rocked when the best coach in America (best defined as: national titles, recruiting prowess, record in bowl games and against rivals, and having fully functional heart valves) jumped ship to the NFL. When Pete Carroll left USC, it was a big deal because it not only took possibly the biggest fish in college football out of the ocean, but it also suddenly opened one of the premier jobs in college football, and certainly the premier job in the West. This move, in and of itself, raised amazing questions that make college football rumor mills and In Touch magazine so much fun: what will happen their recruits? will Matt Barkley transfer? is he leaving because of inevitable NCAA sanctions?

The answers: who knows, but it'll hurt; no; and the court of public opinion says definitely yes.

But we didn't even get to the major question: who will replace Carroll at USC? Well, after such big time college football names as Mike Riley (woo! and he was the most qualified), Jeff Fischer, Jack Del Rio, and every college football fans greatest wish-- Herm Edwards, USC finally found a coach. Denying all logic, they got a coach with actual college football experience. The man they found? Lane Kiffin. Yes, that Lane Kiffen. Yes, the Tennessee coach. Yes, that Lane Kiffin. Yes, that Lane Kiffin. Yes, that Lane Kiffin (looks like plenty of eye candy in Los Angeles. Finally, that city has been ugly as shit for too long). More importantly, all rumors say that defensive coordinator Monte Kiffen, recruiting coordinator Ed Orgeron, and his incredibly hot MILF of a wife are all going with him to SoCal. Yes, that Mrs. Kiffin.

This is amazing. This, combined with the fact that Mark McGwire admitted publicly that he did use steriods while he played, has to be a wet dream for the four menopausal men that sit on the sports reporters. For the first time in two decades, Mike Lupica won't need 2 Cialis and a longing stare at the picture of Dick Schaap on his bedside table to get a hard on. Vilifying head coaches that leave their players in college football is better than a 3 way for those guys, AND they get steriods? Not even the BCS announcing a 100 year, $2 tril extension with ESPN, with a clause that forever forbids places for non-BCS teams and the word "playoff" to be used ever again on the network would make this show as enjoyable for those over the hill, irrelevant douchers.

So . . . how can Tennesee possibly top this drama? Lord knows they'll try, I can't wait to see. Top two choices, if I'm the UT AD? Duke Head Coach (and former UT OC) David Cutcliffe or Texas Defensive Coordinator Will Muschamp.

And 'round and 'round we go again.

2009 National Title Game and the Asterisk Argument

Last night's game was awesome. It was a game that featured big plays, big injuries, and a big win for a coach who has big contract over a big coach that has an even bigger contract.

It's time to celebrate Alabama and Nick Saban's 3 year turnaround of a perennial power that had been dormant for a decade? A starting QB that hasn't lost a game since middle school? A running back that became the first player since Matt Leinhart to win the Heisman and National Title in the same season?

Nope.

No, we have to have the "asterisk" argument. Why? Because of articles like these. And these. And these.

So, allow me to respond to the following points. Before I begin, let me say this: my heart goes out to Texas fans. As a Cleveland fan, I have always been amazed that my teams find new, interesting, and increasingly unpredictable and inexplicable to lose big games. Watch the Shot, the Drive, the Fumble, the Stop, the 9th, etc. It is frustrating. It makes you want to cry. It makes you break beer bottles, windows, and car windshields. I have done two of those, and seen one. It's horrible.

It doesn't change the fact that you lost, fair and square.

Point 1: With Colt in, clearly Texas would have run away with that game. After all, they only lost by 16 with a true freshmen!

False. I'm certainly not going to argue that Colt playing wouldn't have been better for Texas. He's a great player. But to say definitively that he would make a 16 point difference is ridiculous. If he was in the game, might they have scored a TD on that second possession? Yes, it's possible. But, equally possible, is that Alabama could have still held them to a field goal and actually gotten a bigger momentum swing from holding Texas to a FG. Or, since they never would have ran the ball inside the 5 with Colt, there is also a possibility that Alabama could have intercepted McCoy, who knows, maybe even could have ran it back for a TD. What would have happened for the rest of the game if Alabama actually went up 7-3? To say if we changed the past in this one way, this exact result would have happened, is ridiculous and faulty. Could Texas have won with Colt in the game? Yes. Could Colt have also played so bad, that he was yanked and Gilbert would have ended up playing anyway.

The other problem is that we have no idea what the coaches would have done had McCoy stayed in the game. Obviously, Texas would have been much more aggressive, that's a given. Alabama probably would have also responded by blitzing more, but bringing up a safety to bracket Shipley rather than playing cover 2 to avoid the big play. Who would've won that battle-- we'll never know. Likewise, would McElroy had only thrown the ball 11 times all game had McCoy stayed in the game? Probably not, and probably would have gotten the ball to Julio Jones more than once. Texas' D looked great in the second half, but it is also easy to look good when every sequence is "run, run, play action pass on 3rd and long."

Point 2: Ok, but you have to admit, with Colt playing the game, Texas never would have looked that sloppy

Sorry, but they would. The sloppiness argument really does not hold weight. It's a bowl game. The BCS Bowls always have this problem-- it's a natural consequence of not playing a game for over a month. When you don't play, you get rusty. No amount of practice, scrimmaging, or drills can prevent it. Think back to week one, and how bad and out or sorts good teams looked. That was after 5 weeks of practice, but it wasn't enough. The same thing happens with bowl games. Rust leads to miscommunication, dropped passes, blown coverages, blown protections-- all the stuff we saw last night. One player getting injured isn't what caused this problem. The problem is the bowl games in general. We saw it in the Rose Bowl, Orange, and Sugar. I mean, look back to last year's National Title Game. Florida was stagnant on offense, Bradford looked completely out of sync with his receivers, and it was sloppy. Second half-- a little better by both teams. This year's game, more or less the exact same formula. It was foolish to expect this year's game to be any different on either side.

Point 3: Whatever, dick. Alabama may have won, but it was without Colt. Therefore, it's not a real win. It's an asterisk

You have got to be kidding me. Injuries happen. They are part of the game. If you are a good team, you rebound and recover. If not, you struggle. Was Colt's injure at an ideal moment? Nope, it came at a horrible time, but that's the game sometimes. This is not the first time it has happened.

What about Ohio State in 2006? They go down 7-0, Ted Ginn, Jr. then returns the kick off 100 yards to tie the game, showing he's by far the fastest and arguably most athletic player on the field that game. When he teammates jump on him, they accidently break his foot. Without him, Ohio State no longer has any deep threat to challenge a weak Florida secondary, which allows Florida to rely on single coverage on the WRs, bring a safety up to stop the run, and blitz with impunity to prevent Troy Smith from ever setting his feet. Did Ginn make a big difference? Huge, I know because even though he didn't have many big catches against Michigan that year, he attracted so much attention it left huge wholes in Michigan's defense for other receivers to get open and the running game to attack. Let's put an asterisk next to Florida, since Ginn was actually a better player arguably than McCoy, since he was a Top 10 pick that year and now McCoy has a 2nd round grade from some people. I've never heard anyone argue this, other than idiot rednecks in Gnaddenhutten, OH (real place, google earth it).

Or what about last year? I don't see anyone giving Utah an asterisk for their Sugar Bowl win last year after Andre Smith was suspended the week of the game, giving him replacement virtually no time to prepare and the offensive line even less to gel? Cohesion is essential to any offensive line, and no matter how good your QB or running back may be, without the big uglies helping them out up front they aren't going anywhere. Left tackle anchors any offensive line, which means as much as any other player on an offense, so asterisk? Why don't we take that win away from the Mountain West, or try to discredit or discount it?

Or, even better, let's look at Texas' own experience this season. I don't remember hearing any Oklahoma fans say at the start of the Red River Shoot Out, "You know, if Bradford gets hurt in the first drive of this game, that would actually help open up our game plan." Oklahoma lost 16-13 that game. Is Sam Bradford 3 points better than Landry Jones? Probably. Would Texas have made it to the National Title game without that win? Probably not. Either undefeated TCU or Cincinnati would have made it, or even a 1 loss Florida would have gone in. After all, Oklahoma was still one of Texas' better wins this year, and losing that game would really have hurt their BCS rankings.

The same thing is true with the title game. Alabama is a team built on its front 7, so just imagine how good they would have been had starting LB Dont'a Hightower not been lost for the year in September. Would Texas have been able to score even 21 points with that full defense on the field?

I can't say it enough: injuries happen. They suck, it is frustrating and infuriating when it happens to your team, but they are part of the game. To discount your opponent's victory in a title game is weak. Be upset, be frustrated, but at the end of the day admit the truth.

What I'm Watching For, Week 4

As we finish the first month of the season, we have a lot to look forward to: some non-conference match ups, the start of play, and most importantly, no longer having to hear about how awesome USC is. What is amazing is that some people think Matt Barkley would have made a difference last week-- umm, really, what Ohio State game were those people watching? The kid is still a freshman, so regardless of talent, he's mediocre at best right now.

On to week four

1. Royster in the Spotlight: One of the day's marquee match ups is Penn State v. Iowa in Happy Valley. After surviving a scare against Northern Iowa, the Hawkeyes have turned in back to back performances against Iowa State and Arizona. The weather is supposed to be iffy, Iowa has a great front 7 that has forced 7 turnovers in its last 2 games, and Penn State is missing two starters on defense. That means that Penn State is going to need a big performance from RB Evan Royster. While Penn St QB Daryll Clark is great, in the Big 10 if you can't run you won't be able to set up the pass.

2. Let Down Week: Washington has spent the past week basking in the glory of its return to the Top 25, and consequently, its return to the Top 25. Now they travel to Stanford to play a Cardinal team that has emerged as a pretty good offense under sophomore QB Andrew Luck, who is completing 62% of his passes and has a 2:1 TD-INT ratio. Also, we saw how last week that Pete Carroll's teams tend to get really up for a big game, then have an immediate let down. Washington Coach Steve Sarkisian's mentor? Pete Carroll. Watch for the Cardinal to pull off the upset at home and for Washington to again be expelled out of the polls.

3. Magic Number is 31: I don't know the last time we saw a regular season game that pitted ranked, conference opponents that play such sharply different styles of football than Virginia Tech and Miami. After beat Georgia Tech at home, Miami showed that is is again a high-octane offense under QB Jacory Harris, who has completed almost 70% of his passes and 5 TDs in two games. Also, ESPN has drooled about how Miami has "its swagger back," because they challenged almost everyone short of the Dolphins after their big win last Thursday. Virginia Tech, on the other hand, showed last week that under Beamer Ball they can beat a ranked opponent while only having one competent drive on offense all game long. The Magic Number is in this game is 31: if the two teams combine for 31 points or fewer, advantage Virginia Tech. If its more, then look for Miami to win in Lane Stadium.

The same is true in the SEC, where defensive mastermind Nick Saban welcomes offensive genius Bobby Petrino and QB Ryan Mallett to Tuscaloosa. The difference in this game? Alabama can also score behind RB Mark Ingram and WR Julio Jones on a porous Hogs defense that just gave up 40 point to Georgia. 30 is still the magic number in this game, but it's a spread and not an over under. How many scoring drives can the Hogs actually pull off against Alabama and Mount Cody?

4. Next Big Upset?: We already read RAE's account of the week's big upset, unranked South Cakalaki beating #4 Ole Miss at home. The question is, who is the next team to lose? Iowa knocked Penn State out of title game contention last year, and seemed poise to white Penn State out of the championship again. Cal has the dreaded "trap game," as they travel to Eugene to play unranked Oregon in between match ups against Minnesota and USC. Ohio State hosts Illinois, a team that knocked off the Buckeyes at the 'Shoe two years ago under then sophomore QB Juice Williams on their way to the Rose Bowl. Houston plays Texas Tech at Cougar Town, one of the few teams that can match the Cougars in terms airpower.

My pick, though? I'm calling Mississippi State over LSU. I personally thank LSU is way overranked right now, MSU is putting up more points than ever under new coach Dan Mullen, and LSU already showed its defense can be gashed for big yards when they gave up 400+ against Washington. MSU will at least cover the spread, but I think LSU is going to be in trouble come the end of the day today.