College Challenge 07!

It’s almost here!!!

Although most people in the world think we should just send the trophy to U$C right now, we’re going to go ahead and play the game. It’s more fun that way.

Get in the action now:
http://games.espn.go.com/cpickem/group?groupID=1774&password=Bu$h

Game Front: http://games.espn.go.com/cpickem/frontpage
Group: Lost in LA LA Land
Password: Bu$h

Strict ESPN Rules- we’ll have a ‘points’ and ‘picks’ ranking system again, but if you miss the deadline, you miss the deadline. Pleas pay attention- there are a lot of games being moved to Thursdays and Fridays and Sundays….

As always, there’s a weblog to track all of the random stuff that happens in our league (instead of sending emails with notes) and in college football overall. You can find it here: http://cfmusings.blogspot.com/ If you have a favorite CF site that you’d like added to the sidebar, let me know and I’ll update it!

• What stories will develop this year: Will Arkansas just put Mc Fadden at QB and be done with it?
• What will the Jimmy Clausen era look like at Notre Dame?
• Can Carrie survive actually attending an Ohio State game with her husband?
• How will the love spat between Les Miles/Nick Saban impact the SEC? Will Urban care?
• How will the upcoming baby Strawn and baby Gross impact their parents’ picks?
• Who will come out of the Big 12 north as cannon fodder for the championship game?
• What crappy Big LEast team will make it to the BCS?
• What will be the coolest trick play to happen this seaon?
• Will Tressel finally let Lllloyd win one and keep his job?

Anything could happen… Sign up now!

More on Bu$h and U$C

Waaaay back in January, we were covering the "Reggie Bush Situation", where allegations were made regarding the former USC star and Heisman Trophy winner received (or his family received) benefits while he was in college.

Let me be clear- this is not "financial aid", but money and other things based solely on his athletic ability; particularly with the hopes that Reggie would return the favor once he went pro.

ESPN has another update today, stating that Bush (and family) received $280k while he was a student.

Here's my take (for what it's worth):

If Bush took the money, U$C should forfeit games and he should have to give up the Heisman (which Vince Young won on the field anyway).

If U$C coaches knew about this, there should be NCAA Sanctions against the program.

These sanctions are not fair, as they punish student athletes who had nothing to do with the violation.

These sanctions will not happen, or if they do, they won't be significant. This is because U$C is the only major program west of Denver, and there's too much national television revenue that would be lost if they were significantly impacted.

There's precedent for this: the University of Miami should have been given the "Death Penalty" for the levels of egregious behavior on and off the field, but were instead given a lighter set of sanctions which allowed them to continue to play (and benefit television executives). Oklahoma should have also received these types of sanctions recently and in the past, as should others.

But it's not going to happen, for the same reason there's not going to be a Division 1A ("Bowl Subdivision") playoff- Money.

Again, this makes perfect sense...

ESPN and Yahoo! Sports are reporting that there's more smoke around the U$C "lack of institutional control" fire.

Continuing the OJ Mayo saga, seems that U$C Coach Tim Floyd may have paid a "handler"$1000 to obtain this student athlete's services with the Trojans.

On top of the ongoing Reggie Bu$h and friends investigation, this seems to be a pattern.

So, the NCAA responds by, you guessed it, penalizing the University of South Alabama's men's tennis team.

The payments in question are only $12,000, so it seems that U$C got the better deal. Well, except for the $200,000 plus that Reggie's family received.

Finishing Touches

Sorry it's been so long in updating here- but we're one week away from kickoff, so it's a good of a time as any to jump back in the fray.

First, catching up with the "news": Seems that the winners of the USC/tOSU and Georgia/Florida games will have the inside track to the Mythical National Championship Game that's held in a warm state. USC has been fighting some injuries of late, but I wouldn't scratch them off my list just yet. Reggie Bu$h still hasn't been held accountable by the No Clue At All, but they're getting closer. Fewer NCAA Division 1 head coaches of African American heritage this year, and that may drop even lower depending on the "Revenge in Seattle" game.

So- where were we? Oh yes, the BC$ System and how to fix it.

Well, you remember that we first started the discussion with the history of bowls and the National Championship ideology. We then covered the financial implications- that you're actually better off being in a BCS conference and not going to a bowl game. Last time, I talked about what "champion" means, and if it's even important and relevant.

To summarize- The old bowl system (PreCS) was flawed in it's ability to create a national champion, since it didn't exist for that purpose. The original purpose was money; tourism, money for sponsors, etc. It will be impossible to lose this system and start from scratch because of the "tradition", the money, and the fact that the NCAA has been told in federal court that they cannot legislate post-season activity. So, we may always have a debate about who's best, but my opinion is that this is good for the game and part of the experience.

But- Let's say we COULD change things? How would we do this, and under what criterion? Like a friend of mine says, "Anyone can smell a rotten egg, but it takes someone special to lay a golden one".

First, the ground rules.

We have to keep money in mind; both for the sponsors and for the institutions. As such, a lengthy playoff won't work- most schools don't have the resources for a long post season like they do at other levels of NCAA Football, and the fans (true fans, not rich boosters or hangers on like you see at the Super Bowl) don't have the funds either.

Second, we need to keep the bowls around and use them as best as possible. They do have great tradition, and (as a mid-western guy) provide ideal vacation spots in January. But, we should also seek to remove the home field advantages that occur, as best as possible. This means that, while the bowls would still be an important part of this discussion, conference ties would need to be dissolves (and yes, I'm looking at you Pasadena).

A third major change would be the end of the pre-season poll. Other people have said this much better than I could (Heisenberg principal? Wow...), and even point out that the BCS numbers use the Harris poll which does not release rankings until late September, after teams have actually played. Pre-season AP polling impacts national opinion, and takes away from the "win it on the field" idea that a playoff would allegedly correct.

Fourth major change: Conferences. There would need to be six 12 team conferences, meaning that the Big T1e1n, Big East, and Pac-10 would need to add members. These could chose to do so from the smaller conferences (WAC, Conference USA, etc.) around them. As a corollary, major independents would need to join a conference. While this would kill Notre Dame (who would finish in the middle of the Big 10 most years), it would level the playing field and give us a chance to compare similar schedules. These conferences would need to add a championship game as well; if that means scheduling like the Big 12 and SEC does (east/west, north/south), so be it.

Also, conferences could change memberships once every five years, but only by adding teams that are not in another BCS conference. For instance, the SEC could drop Vandy (and see their academics tumble) and add a Conference USA team; the Big 12 could dump Iowa State and pick up someone from the WAC or Mountain West. The advantage would be that these teams could make the conference stronger, and might impact ranking and seeding later on.

Yes, I know that this screws with tradition and schedules that are set for 20 years- you wanted me to be creative; here you go.

Fifth, schools would need to go back to only playing 11 games a season. Again, this hits the pocketbook; most institutions have used the extra games to schedule cupcakes at h0me for the ticket revenue (which is funny when it backfires). Scheduling changes should also be made to ensure that seasons start and end at the same time, and that schools only have one bye week a year (unlike some folks).

So- with those things in mind, here's what we do:

On the first weekend of December, the 6 major conferences play their conference championship games. Winners will be placed in a playoff along with two additional teams based on some sort of polling/statistical data. These would either be the champions of the 'lesser' conferences or would be another team from a major conference, if there was good cause. For instance, the SEC might lobby to have Georgia be an "at large" team last year based on their record and the fact that scheduling kept them from playing in their title game. Two caveats: only two teams per conference, and no team that loses it's championship game can go to the "tournament". Consider the conference championship the first round of a single elimination tourney- but they can go to any of the other 8 billion bowls. Additionally, if a conference sends two teams to the playoff, those teams are required to play in the first round.

These eight teams would play four games during "Bowl week", and would include three "traditional" bowls and a new one rotated between Minneapolis, Detroit, and St. Louis (to eliminate home field disadvantage for the Big T1e1n, half of the Big 12, most of the Big East, and some of the ACC). Rankings would be used for seeding purposes in regions for this first round- North, West, Central, and South.

Two weeks later, the winners would face off in Pasadena and Miami, and two weeks after that the winner would be crowned at a new bowl in either Dallas or Indy's new stadium. The "Championship" is played during the week before the Super Bowl.

What might this look like? Let's use the rankings and the end of the 2007 season as a guide.

Championship weekend: December 6th, 2008

• SEC (Atlanta): Tennessee and LSU
  
• ACC (Tampa): Boston College and Va Tech
  
• Big 12 (St.Louis): Oklahoma and Missouri
• Pac 10 (Candlestick Park): USC and Arizona State
  
• Big T1e1n (RCA Dome): Ohio State and Illinois (not going to happen again)
  
• Big East (Giants Stadium): WVa and UConn
  

The two at large teams would be Georgia and Hawaii, based on their final ranking

Playoff first round: January 1-4, 2008

• West Region: Fiesta Bowl (Arizona)- USC and Hawaii
  
• South Region: Sugar Bowl (Louisiana)- LSU and Georgia (LSU has a home advantage, but must play Georgia first)
  
• Central Region: Cotton Bowl (Dallas)- Oklahoma and WVa
  
• North Region: Corn Bowl (Minneapolis)- tOSU and BC

Playoff second round: January 15, 16, 2008

• Rose Bowl (Pasadena)- USC and WVa
  
• Orange Bowl (Miami)- LSU and tOSU

National Championship Game : January 25, 2008

• Indianapolis- USC and LSU (NCAA created, sanctioned, and sponsored- if you can't beat 'em, join 'em)

Those are my thoughts- it ends up adding one extra game for some teams (currently, LSU, Tennesse, Missouri, and Oklahoma played 14 last year), gives the NCAA some regulatory ability, uses the current bowls, takes away some of the home field advantage issues.

It would still be a problem for fans to travel to these extra events, would also impact academics (going an additional month into spring semester/quarter), and would not totally remove the debate aspect (who's the at-large teams? Are seedings and regions fair?). But, these issues seem to not be much of a concern during basketball season, so I'm sure we'd get over it. Plus, it allows for other teams to still be involved in the pagentry of December/January football.

Like I said, though, this requires a lot of change, and I like the old system better.

And the fun begins on Saturday!

OK, this is ridiculous...

There's an old joke about the NCAA finding that a major program (for giggles, let's say "Alabama") has committed various violations of their draconian rules. As a punishment, they sanction Ohio Northern.

Ha, ha, ha.

Today, we discover that humor is based in reality, as Ball State University receives a 2 year probation for providing $26,944 in textbooks to 89 student athletes, a rate of $302.74 per.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Reggie Bu$h is alleged to have received $280,000 while he was a scholar athlete for the Trojans. And the investigation is "ongoing"... for two years.

Yup... No Clue At All.

FERPA and You

For those of you who don't work in Higher Education, you've probably never even heard of FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. But, if you're a sports fan, you have been impacted by it's reach, at least according to the Columbus Dispatch.

The law, intended to keep student's personal matters private, limits the circumstances under which an institution can release information about that student. It also places parameters on who this information can be released to.

So where do you come in? There's concern that this is being used by Athletic Departments to thwart investigations into their practices and into the choices/actions of the student athletes at major programs.

The whole article is worth a read- to ensure that I"m not being to homerific, here's the link to two sub-articles about tOSU: Violations and Processes. Seems like they do a better job than most at self reporting the things that do happen, even if they tend to side with the student privacy end of the spectrum.

As a side note- Ohio State has the largest athletic department in the country, offering twice as many sports as most other institutes. With the labyrinthine and ridiculous amount of NCAA guidelines, violations are going to happen. The issues are: 1) repeated mistakes and 2) failure to respond.

Along those lines, there were a great series of articles in the LA Times regarding the U$C/Bu$h situation that we've covered before. Give it a read: USC Stays Silent and The Silence is Deafening

Again, when issues come up do you respond proactively or close ranks and play defense? Seems that the Trojans have chosen the latter...

If it walks, talks, swims, and flies like a duck

While not technically a football post, today's ESPN front page has a story of interest for those of us on the Left Coast.

Seems that former U$C super- frosh, the "one and done" OJ Mayo, took cash and gifts while a Trojan. Allegedly, this was part of a promise to an agent that Mayo would sign with him when he chose to go professional. And, according to ESPN, this "generous individual" had a history of this with previous USC athletes.

Hmmm... Sounds familiar, right?

So, today's question- how exactly does the NCAA define "lack of institutional control"?

In related news, the lawsuit involving Reggie Bu$h begins in March 2009.

UPDATE: for some historical perspective, check out the East Coast Bias' coverage. They, along with WILLisms brought this graphic to my attention:

I won't point to SMU as the doppleganger for the current U$C mess- either Switzer's Sooners, Tarkanian's UNLV Rebels, or the Miami Hurricanes circa late 80's through mid 90's are better matches.

In other words- it's only a matter of time.

Some 'Splaining To Do...

Oh, yeah. It's on.

Not only does this story on the Reggie Bu$h situation (remember?) explain a bit, it also talks about what looks to be the end of these shenanigans.

On Friday, one of the two partners in the sports marketing agency meets with the NCAA to discuss these allegations. While some believe that this is only an attempt to get Bush to pay up and settle, there are those that see this as bing a crucial part of the lawsuit- publicity on the entire situation.

In another article, we also get some answers about what's taking so freaking long. Other institutions have had allegations turn into sanctions relatively quickly; this has gone on for about a year. Part of this is because Bush and his agents settled earlier with the other partner of New Era Sports- a settlement that included prohibition to speak with the NCAA. Remember, the NCAA has no official power to subpoena witnesses in these types of "internal" matters, but they can access documents and statements from other legal proceedings.

So, unless Bush (and/or U$C- don't think that they don't have an investment in this process) finds a way to settle this financially by Friday, we're going to hear an awful lot more about it.

Not that I have any vested interest in seeing the Trojans on probation.