College Football Preview: The End is Near

Oct 27, 2012; Lawrence, KS, USA; Texas Longhorns head coach Mack Brown (left) talks to Kansas Jayhawks head coach Charlie Weis (right) before the game at Memorial Stadium. Mandatory Credit: John Rieger-US PRESSWIRE

Dear BFA’s,

I never thought it would take until Iowa State to become bowl eligible, but here we are.  I thought this might be the week we put it all together and play a complete game, but this week we decided our error of the day would be costly penalties and giving up big huge third downs.  Ok, the last part is pretty common.  Kind of crazy that Oklahoma couldn’t touch Tavon, yet Iowa State fared much better isn’t it?  I predict that this week’s unforeseen downfall will come courtesy of a distraction.  That’s right, you heard it here first, holgo’s passe of strippers on the sideline will lead to huge drops on deep routes.

Alas, we get the worst team in the league this week, and that is by a landslide.  Seriously though, if we stay focused we should crush these fools.  In 8 conference games (8 losses), they have lost by just over 21 points on average.  The interesting thing is that in 4 of those, they have lost by an average of 7.75 points, which is skewed up by one 14 point loss, and the other 4 they have lost by 35.  What does that mean?  Overlook them and they will hang around.  Come out prepared, and have a little bit of fun at their expense.  Might as well get it in this week, because it is gonna be ugly when we head out to Phog Allen in the winter.

We have plenty at stake still as we are trying to avoid being placed in the Pinstripe bowl and get a legitimate holiday in the Holiday Bowl in San Diego.  More importantly though, we are going up against a team that is led by a man that is well known to be one of the biggest dicks in college football.  Many of the tenured readers here, know my distaste for Ole Charlie, or my love of ripping on him, as he is ripping open a bag of Doritos on the sideline.  Kansas just seems to have a thing for incredibly overweight assholes running their program.  Even Holgo ganged up on Weis this week, in hilarious fashion.  

“We’re going to be at a major schematic disadvantage going against their coaches,” Holgorsen said during Monday’s Big 12 conference call. “They’ve got coaches with tremendous pedigrees who have coached everybody in the world and coached for decades and decades. We’re going to have to regroup real quick.”

Anyone familiar with the infamous Weis quote, where he proclaimed he would have a “decided schematic advantage” over other schools, was just rolling on this diss.  Its nothing new for Dana to be a bit of an ass in press conferences, but this first time I’m aware of him channeling his inner Steve Spurrier and calling out another coach.  Heck, he didn’t even go for the easy kill on his hated foe Todd Graham, so I wonder whats up with Weis?  Not that I’m complaining; I was ecstatic when I heard this beautiful  trash talk.  My guess is that Dana holds himself as an offense innovator, while Weis is a failed college coach who walks around with a stick in his ass, sometimes mistaken as his cane, calling himself an offensive genius, which insults Dana.  Whatever it is, I hope it continues, great stuff.

Around The Nation

I truly do hate the Irish, but I have to give it up to them.  They went undefeated and no matter what you say, they do deserve to be in the position they are in.  Damn Pitt for not sealing the deal when they can.  Damn those Big Ten teams for being awful this year and the refs robbing Stanford.  But ya know what?  They always say to win a championship that you have to be lucky.  Notre Dame was, but also beat a lot of decent teams, more than Alabama and Georgia.  They beat 9 bowl eligible teams, Bama had 6, and Georgia 5.  I don’t like it, but have give it up to them.

If this were 2014 and we were staring down the barrel of a playoff, we would be looking at a Notre Dame, UGA, Florida, and Bama playoff.  If you thought this would open us up from SEC dominance, think again.  I have long stated that being a conference champion is very overrated when determining who should play in a title game and Florida exemplifies my argument.  Closing out the year by beating a top ten FSU team on the road, if you were to look at a blind resume of the Gators versus their conference foes who made the conference title game, Florida unquestionably has the superior resume.  The only thing that you can hold against them is low scoring, close wins against lessor teams like Louisiana Lafayette, Bowling Green, and Mizzou.  I’d urge you to read Stew Mandel’s synopsis of this, as it looks like we may see more scenarios of this with super conferences and unbalanced schedules.

If you didn’t, you are in luck.  The silly season is in full effect, and there are too many firings for me to list here, so here is a graph.  Tom O’brien was a bit of a shock, but couldn’t have happened to a bigger dick.  I would say the most drama this week though, came from Arkansas’ recruitment of Les Miles.  I am not sure that anyone really thought it would happen, and it did end up in Les just getting a pay bump, but that would be a crazy inter-conference downgrade.  Perhaps Miles just wanted to upgrade in office eye candy?  Across the SEC pond, its hard to know what to make of the constant Tennessee Gruden rumors, which makes this the best analysis I have seen.  Also in the You Got to be Friggin Kidding Me book, there are rumors that Mangino may be taking the Colorado job.  Seriously?  On top of the fact that he had a most justifiable firing, do we really think he won’t pass out during his first spring practice in the thin air???  Outgoing coach Jon Embree said that they couldn’t even afford water bottles for coaches or chairs for offensive lineman; how are they going to afford air tanks?

I hope you were able to absorb as much of the last great football weekend of the year this past weekend, because outside of the SEC championship game, there are a few okay games, and then nothing much else.  We wont have a solid slate of games again until we hit New Years Day.

Conference Realignment

God almighty has it cooked up again.  We now have Maryland, Rutgers, Louisville, Tulane, ECU, Middle Tennessee  and Florida Atlantic all moving to new digs.  There are rumors that the Big East will now be picking up University High in Morgantown.  Can we officially follow the Al Gore path and rename conference realignment to global conference shift??

The only pertinent question is how will this impact the Big XII.  The Big Ten is expected to reap mountains of cash in this deal upping its per team conference split to a reportedly $40 million plus figure.  If that is factual, you can bet your ass that the PAC 12 and SEC won’t sit by watching.  I thought we would stop short, but it is looking more realistic that we could migrate to 16 team power conferences.  So, how does this effect the Big XII?  I don’t think that it will unless someone can lure Oklahoma or Texas (that would create pandemonium).  First of all you need to look at the motivations of schools.  There are a few main components involved in a school moving on from their existing conference; money, disdain, and competitive edge.  All of the schools abandoning the Big East and ironically joining the Big East are all doing so to move up the food chain of competition in hopes that they survive in a competitive world.  Many of those same schools along with the ones leaving (rumored or already gone) the ACC are doing so to move up in Money (Maryland is broke).  Finally, schools like Nebraska, Colorado, and Tamu all grew tired of big brother Texas, the weak Big XII North, and the fact that there was uneven revenue sharing in the Big XII.  While the influence of Texas is undeterred, the old North and lack of even revenue sharing model are items of the past.  The schools left over seemingly have no gripes with the Big XII and are happy to be in a solid conference.  Lets be honest, WVU and TCU are ecstatic to be in the conference.  The other Texas schools do not share the angst that AM had, in that they knew they were the lessor schools, and are just happy to beat Texas every once and awhile, while eating at their table the rest of the time.  Oklahoma State is not leaving the side of their rival nor do they need money as they have one of the largest benefactors in college football.  The Kansas schools?  I just don’t see anyone really wanting those markets, not to mention that outside of KU bball and Kstate football (when Snyder is around), their athletic programs are very weak.  Kansas likely has no worries because they are very capable of being a powerful basketball independent if worst case scenarios arise. So . . . . all I am saying is that there does not appear to be a motivation for Big XII teams to leave.  I could see the Pac 12 being interested in a few of those teams, but I don’t think that they could guarantee the money that would make everything worthwhile.  It has been heavily rumored already, but if you like my chain of logic, the teams that would have motivation to move on, would be the football schools in the ACC.  I’d look for the Big Ten, SEC, and Big 12 to poach the likes of FSU, Clemson, Virginia Tech, and Georgia Tech.  Those schools would bring enough prowess or market share to be able to bring an additional partner without lowering the cash pot for the other members (think UVA to the Big Ten, a Carolina school to SEC).  Long story short, I think we will settle out just fine in the long run, unless someone makes a dream offer to one of the two big boys, which with the Longhorn Network, may be very difficult to find a good match.

Random

Not a lot of random stuff this week as the internet is busting at the seems with realignment and the coaching carousel spinning out of control.

If Wisconsin beats Nebraska in the Big 10 title game, Wisky will have the worst winning percentage for a Rose Bowl team since 1928.  I can get behind that!  Go Badgers.

Speaking of the Big Ten, here is some early Christmas cheer for Buckeye fans:

Oh, you silly Russians.  You remind me of Kazakhstan.

This is an excellent read on the mindset behind the future selection committee that we will be subjected to.  Amazing that they pick two teams that won’t even play for their conference title.  It will no doubt, be an extremely tough job, but I think that these guys have the right foundation.  I hope Ollie is our representative!  This type of writing is why I spend more time at SI than ESPN.

Hope you all have enjoyed the season,

Love Al