The Guys Who Follow College Football’s Coaching Legends

We’ve all heard it a million times: “You don’t want to be the guy who follows a legend; you want to be the guy who follows the guy who follows the legend.”

It makes intuitive sense, and it certainly would seem true. Urban Meyer is the guy who followed the guy who followed the legend at Florida, and things have worked out quite well for him so far. Then again, Bill Callahan was the same at Nebraska, and the fans were ready to run him out of town two years before he finally got the axe.

To see how true this adage is, I’ve looked at some coaching legends and the guys who followed them. They are as follows, in chronological order from when the legend was hired:

OKLAHOMA

Legend: Bud Wilkinson, 1947-63, 145-29-4 (.826); 3 national and 14 conference titles

Follower: Gomer Jones, 1964-65, 9-11-1 (.452); 0 national or conference titles

Next: Jim Mackenzie, 1966, 6-4 (.600); 0 national or conference titles

This is somewhat of a bad example to start off with, since Mackenzie sadly passed away due to a heart attack after his first season.

Jones definitely had a difficult time following Wilkinson though, having not been able to break even in his two years. Wilkinson is the coach who led Oklahoma to its famed 47-game winning streak, and he failed to win the Big 8 title in only three of his 17 years.

AUBURN

Legend: Shug Jordan, 1951-75, 175-83-7 (.674), 1 national and 1 conference title

Follower: Doug Barfield, 1976-80, 29-25-1 (.536), 0 national or conference titles

Next: Pat Dye, 1981-92, 99-39-4 (.711), 0 national and 4 conference titles

Jordan held the job for 25 years and the stadium is named after him, but his .674 winning percentage is lower than any of the other legends on this list. Barfield followed him up with 5 forgettable seasons, with 8-3 being the best record he posted.

Dye had the most success in his tenure of the three, though he was forced out of his coaching and AD position when it was revealed that assistant coaches and boosters had paid a player. He still is fondly remembered, though, as the field at Jordan-Hare stadium was named after him in 2005.

OHIO STATE

Legend: Woody Hayes, 1951-78, 205-61-10 (.761), 5 national and 13 conference titles

Follower: Earle Bruce, 1979-87, 81-26-1 (.755), 0 national and 4 conference titles

Next: John Cooper, 1988-2000, 111-43-4 (.715), 0 national and 4 conference titles

Earle Bruce did an admirable job in following Woody Hayes after Hayes’ unexpected meltdown and firing. He did not see the same success however, though he nearly won the national title in his first year.

John Cooper is a goat in OSU annals, having posted a 2-10-1 record against Michigan and having presided over numerous academic and discipline problems.

TEXAS

Legend: Darrell Royal, 1957-76, 167-47-5 (.774), 3 national and 11 conference titles

Follower: Fred Akers, 1977-86, 86-31-2 (.731), 0 national and 2 conference titles

Next: David McWilliams, 1987-91, 31-26 (.544), 0 national and 1 conference title

Akers did a much better job than McWilliams did. Akers caught flak though for losing bowl games and in his final few years having bad records against Oklahoma and Texas A&M.

McWilliams’s 1990 SWC championship year looks like a fluke in light of the rest of his seasons, with the 7-5 record in his first year being the second-best record he had.

ALABAMA

Legend: Paul Bryant, 1958-82, 232-46-9 (.824), 6 national and 13 conference titles

Follower: Ray Perkins, 1983-86, 32-15-1 (.677), 0 national or conference titles

Next: Bill Curry, 1987-89, 26-10 (.722), 0 national and 1 conference title

Perkins left the New York Giants to coach at his alma mater, and he left four years later to take a rich contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. An incident where a former player that he had recruited claimed he was paid led to the school being placed on probation in 1995.

Curry was doing well in his three years, though he was 0-3 against Auburn. He didn’t like the contract offered to him in 1990, so he left to coach Kentucky.

GEORGIA

Legend: Vince Dooley, 1964-88, 201-77-10 (.715), 1 national and 6 conference titles

Follower: Ray Goff, 1989-95, 46-34-1 (.574), 0 national or conference titles

Next: Jim Donnan, 1996-2000, 40-19 (.678), 0 national or conference titles

Neither Goff nor Donnan panned out for the Bulldogs. They both failed to win even an SEC East title, and both were used as Florida’s whipping boy. Goff is perhaps most famous for being called “Ray Goof” by Steve Spurrier.

MICHIGAN

Legend: Bo Schembechler, 1969-89, 194-48-5 (.796), 0 national and 13 conference titles

Follower: Gary Moeller, 1990-94, 44-13-3 (.758), 0 national and 3 conference titles

Next: Lloyd Carr, 1995-07, 122-40 (.753), 1 national and 5 conference titles

Moeller is a controversial figure for Wolverines due to his messy departure following a drunken altercation at a restaurant. Some argue his best years were already behind him; some argue that he was trying to modernize the program and that Carr won his national title with Moeller’s players.

Carr is one of the few followed-the-guy-who-followed-the-legend guys who actually won a national title. His legacy will remain mixed due to his futility against Jim Tressel and the loss to Appalachian State.

BYU

Legend: LaVell Edwards, 1972-2000, 257-101-3 (.716), 1 national and 19 conference titles

Follower: Gary Crowton, 2001-04, 26-23 (.531), 0 national and 1 conference title

Next: Bronco Mendenhall, 2005-present, 28-10 (.737), 0 national and 2 conference titles

Crowton won the MWC his first year with Edwards’ players, but failed to reach .500 in his remaining three years. Mendenhall has put together consecutive 11-win seasons, winning the MWC title each year. His 2008 team is expected to contend for a BCS bowl.

NEBRASKA

Legend: Tom Osborne, 1973-97, 255-49-3 (.836), 3 national and 13 conference titles

Follower: Frank Solich, 1998-03, 58-19 (.753), 0 national and 1 conference title

Next: Bill Callahan, 2004-07, 27-22 (.551), 0 national or conference titles

Solich is probably the source of the modern “You don’t want to be the guy who follows a legend” movement, having been fired after a 9-win season. Callahan ended up being a disaster, and will probably be despised by Husker fans forever.

FLORIDA

Legend: Steve Spurrier, 1990-2001, 122-27-1 (.817), 1 national and 6 conference titles

Follower: Ron Zook, 2002-04, 23-14 (.622), 0 national and conference titles

Next: Urban Meyer, 2005-present, 31-8 (.795), 1 national and 1 conference title

Zook was doomed from the beginning, having been a fallback choice for the coaching position and having never been a head coach before. He won games he shouldn’t have, but lost games he shouldn’t have too. He also presided over an explosion of off-field issues, including Zook himself being involved in a fight at a frat house. Some Florida fans still defend him, but the overall sentiment is that his hiring was a mistake.

After doubts about his offense abounded in his first year, Meyer solidified his position in his second by winning a national title. Some fans are uncomfortable with his highly aggressive recruiting tactics, which have drawn scrutiny from other coaches and the NCAA, but otherwise Gators are more than happy with his job so far.

*   *   *

Following a legend, regardless of place in line, is not easy. Only Pat Dye clearly surpassed his legendary predecessor’s accomplishments, but his departure was not the stuff of legends.

None of the followers distinguished himself after leaving, though Earle Bruce had a nice run with Iowa State before coaching the Buckeyes. Ron Zook still has time to carve out his legacy at Illinois.

The book is still open for Mendenhall and Meyer, but both appear to be in good shape. Despite their records, most of the coaches in that coveted “guy who followed the guy who followed the legend” role didn’t fare much better than the guy who did follow the legend.

There is some truth to the adage, but in the end good coaches will succeed in good situations regardless of who came before.

More Academic Trouble at FSU

It is somewhat ironic that on the day the NCAA’s Academic Progress Report was released, FSU announced its former starting left tackle will be transferring to a JUCO after being declared academically ineligible.

Daron Rose started 11 games for the Semis last year, but was suspended in the academic scandal that hit the FSU athletics program last December. It’s a case of “when it rains, it pours” for a program that lost projected starting linebacker Marcus Bell when he was released from his scholarship on Monday and still is without WR/RB Preston Parker who by school rules cannot participate in athletics due to an outstanding felony charge.

It would be easy to take some cheap shots at the school over these matters, but it’s almost a case of old news since Rose and Bell both were suspended in the academic scandal. Plus, college football players being charged with felonies is nothing new. The real problem is the way the school dealt with the fact that some key players will be suspended for the first three games next year due to that academic scandal.

FSU chose to have its schedule begin with not just one, but two I-AA teams in Western Carolina and Chattanooga. And it’s not just that they’re I-AA teams - they’re bad I-AA teams. They went a combined 3-19 last year. FSU’s scout team could probably win those games.

It effectively turns the sanction into a one-game suspension, with the game against Wake Forest being the only team with a pulse that the penalized players will miss. It’s one thing to have a mid-season suspension conveniently line up with a game versus a bad team; everyone does that and if it’s not a coincidence, you can at least make up a plausible lie. There’s no way to frame structuring a schedule around a suspension without it being a completely overt weasel tactic.

The sad thing for a once-proud program is that it will need those wins. The Semis will probably lose to Wake Forest due to missing those suspended players, and the Deacons have had FSU’s number as of late anyway. Florida never wins easily in Tallahassee, but the Gators are a lot better and a lot deeper than FSU is and will almost certainly win.

Of the remaining schedule, Colorado, Miami, Virginia Tech, Clemson, and Boston College will be as good or better than FSU at full strength will be, so the Semis will need to 4-1 in those games to have a chance at the ACC championship game. A 3-2 mark would mean missing a January bowl yet again.

In the end, though, wins are a Pyrrhic victory if the academic side of things doesn’t get back in order. That’s not an impossible task considering plenty of schools keep their players in good academic standing without any shenanigans. Perhaps with new AD Randy Spetman and the eventual takeover of Jimbo Fisher, FSU can once again be a winner, only this time without any dark clouds of controversy.

Surfing Through the SEC Football Schedules

The Gainesville Sun’s Robbie Andreu put out his preliminary projections for the SEC, and it got me thinking. I am not ready to put out my projections yet, mainly because there are too many good teams in the conference just to throw an order together right now. Projecting the SEC finish will take a lot of research.

I did end up looking at each school’s schedule, mainly focusing on the non-conference games. If you haven’t yet done that, you’ll be glad to know that the SEC schedules this year are less cupcake-y than past years.

For the record, I am fine with schools raiding the bakery for fundraiser games a couple times a year, but I do expect BCS schools to play at least one BCS opponent. I also think playing I-AA teams is inexcusable except for the very best I-AA teams, like Appalachian State, which are better than the Utah States and FIUs of I-A anyway.

Here’s a rundown of the SEC non-conference schedules, in alphabetical order:

ALABAMA

BCS Opponent: @ Clemson (Aug. 30)

Cupcakes: Tulane (Sept. 6), Western Kentucky (Sept. 13), Arkansas State (Nov. 1)

ARKANSAS

BCS Opponent: @ Texas (Sept. 13)

Respectable Non-BCS: Tulsa (Nov 1)

Cupcake: Louisiana-Monroe (Sept. 6)

I-AA: Western Illinois (Aug. 30)

AUBURN

BCS Opponent: @ West Virginia (Oct. 23)

Respectable Non-BCS: Southern Miss (Sept. 6)

Cupcake: Louisiana-Monroe (Aug. 30)

I-AA: Tennessee-Martin (Nov. 8 )

FLORIDA

BCS Opponents: Miami (Sept. 6), @ FSU (Nov. 29)

Respectable Non-BCS: Hawaii (Aug. 30)

I-AA: The Citadel (Nov. 22)

GEORGIA

BCS Opponents: @ Arizona State (Sept. 20), Georgia Tech (Nov. 29)

Respectable Non-BCS: Central Michigan (Sept. 6)

I-AA: Georgia Southern (Aug. 30)

KENTUCKY

BCS Opponent: Louisville (Aug. 31)

Cupcakes: Middle Tennessee (Sept. 13), Western Kentucky (Sept. 27)

I-AA: Norfolk State (Sept. 6)

LSU

Respectable Non-BCS: Troy (Sept. 6)

Respectable I-AA: Appalachian State (Aug. 30)

Cupcakes: North Texas (Sept. 13), Tulane (Nov. 1)

OLE MISS

BCS Opponent: @ Wake Forest (Sept. 6)

Cupcakes: Memphis (Aug. 30), Louisiana-Monroe (Nov. 15)

I-AA: Samford (Sept. 13)

MISSISSIPPI STATE

BCS Opponent: @ Georgia Tech (Sept. 20)

Cupcakes: Louisiana Tech (Aug. 30), Middle Tennessee (Oct. 25)

I-AA: Southeastern Louisiana (Sept. 6)

SOUTH CAROLINA

BCS Opponents: NC State (Aug. 28), @ Clemson (Nov. 29)

Cupcake: UAB (Sept. 27)

I-AA: Wofford (Sept. 20)

TENNESSEE

BCS Opponent: @ UCLA (Sept. 1)

Cupcakes: UAB (Sept. 13), Northern Illinois (Oct. 4), Wyoming (Nov. 8 )

VANDERBILT

BCS Opponents: Duke (Oct. 25), @ Wake Forest (Nov. 29)

Cupcakes: Miami University (Aug. 28), Rice (Sept. 13)

* * *

Only LSU doesn’t have a BCS opponent. Alabama, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt do not have I-AA opponents. LSU should not lose anything for playing Appalachian State, though, especially because Mountaineer fans have already begun predicting a victory on Charlotte sports talk radio.

LSU’s slate is the only one I’d call “shameful” in the bunch, though I am not happy about all of the non-App State I-AA teams you see listed. However, until the NCAA reverses the rule and stops allowing wins over I-AA teams to count towards bowl eligibility, those games are sadly inevitable.

One More Reason the BCS is Bad for College Football

Playoff opponents use many arguments against a playoff. One is that a playoff is of no use because naming a champion is too dicey a proposition. Another is that it breaks with the tradition of the game. A third is that if college football really needed a playoff, wouldn’t it have collapsed by now?

Well, I’m not going to argue the playoff part. With 120 teams each playing 12 games against wildly different schedule strengths, it’s a stretch from a theoretical and mathematical standpoint to say you can pick a “true” champion with a couple more games at the end.

As to the other two points, they miss why college football is popular. It’s popular because people like football. Colleges play every other sport you can name, but none are as popular as football is because people like football.

The traditions, the rivalries, and everything else enhance the game on the field, but in the end, it’s the game on the field that matters. Case in point: the annual Florida/Florida State game used to be appointment TV for everyone nationally. ESPN College GameDay visited the game 5 times in 6 years from 1995 - 2000.

Thanks in part to Ron Zook but mostly to FSU’s decline, GameDay has visited the game just once since. At this point, even Gators are much more fired up about Georgia, a team they didn’t care so much about in the 1990s.

If you need another example, consider that the team with the most history and pageantry, Notre Dame, pulled just a 1.8 average rating on NBC this season.

It should go without saying that football is at its best when you have good teams playing good teams. College football’s popularity wasn’t built on the back of Iowa State versus Kansas.

It also goes without saying that great out of conference games don’t happen as often as we’d want them to during the regular season. Big money programs need home games to fund their empires and the current system doesn’t adequately reward the risk of playing more than one non-conference team with a pulse.

The post season does provide that reward. The games between good teams generate enough money to make it worthwhile to the power schools to play in them. There’s also more prestige on the line, which gives a bigger reward for the risk of playing them. Fans also win because they get to see more good football.

This is where the BCS comes in. Under the BCS, the best teams in college football can play a maximum of one post season game. A post season tournament may not solve many championship disputes, but it would provide more games with great matchups.

That’s what makes college football great - good teams playing good teams. The BCS prevents that from happening as often as it could, so that’s another reason why the BCS is bad for college football.

Why Florida Will Pound Hawaii

I was out of town all weekend, so I am woefully behind on news and current events. In lieu of anything on Ryan Perrilloux being kicked off LSU’s team or Ryan Mallet having to redshirt at Arkansas (both of which were inevitable, really), I offer you this really early analysis of the Hawaii at Florida game on Labor Day weekend.

Florida will pound Hawaii. It won’t be close. Florida could sit Tim Tebow out for the game and it still would be ugly.

Now, Hawaii’s new head coach A. Nonymous Whatshisface (actually, promoted defensive coordinator Greg McMackin) says the Warriors are not rebuilding and that they plan on playing like the WAC champions they are. He is keeping as much continuity as he can while imposing his personality on the team. He should know how to do this from his previous head coaching job at… Oregon Tech?

Yeah! Goooooo… wait, does Oregon Tech even play football anymore? (answer: no)

Yes, that Oregon Tech. At the very least he has the Warriors convinced they’re a good defensive team, having placed 34th in total defense a year ago. I guess he left out the part about posting that against the 111th rated schedule.

So, back to Florida. The reason the Gators would decimate Hawaii even with one arm tied behind their back is this: the game is taking place east of the Pacific time zone. Hawaii is awful east of the Pacific time zone. To wit, here are Hawaii’s last several games played in the Mountain time zone or farther east against notable teams:

• Georgia 41 - Hawaii 10 (2007) - In fairness, Georgia was really good the second half of last year
• Boise State 41 - Hawaii 34 (2006) - Boise did break through to the BCS, so props for a close game
• Alabama 25 - Hawaii 17 (2006) - Bama went 6-6 and fired its coach in 2006
• Michigan State 41 - Hawaii 14 (2005) - MSU went 5-6 and nearly fired its coach in 2005
• Boise State 69 - Hawaii 3 (2004) - Sure Boise went 11-1 that year, but look at that score!
• UTEP 51 - Hawaii 20 (2004) - UTEP was only 8-4 that year; not a juggernaut or anything
• Rice 41 - Hawaii 29 (2004) - This was no miracle year for the Owls; Rice went 3-8, but one of those three was a demolition of a Hawaii team that beat Northwestern at home the same season

If you go even farther back, you find losses at Boise State, USC, BYU, Michigan State, and Navy as well as a 5-point win over a 4-7 Rice team in 2002. The wins in this category are generally over bad teams like Louisiana Tech, Utah State, and Idaho.

The pattern with the Hawaii Warriors is pretty clear: if they go east of the Pacific time zone and play anyone with a pulse, they get smoked. The close games were against a conference rival they knew well (Boise State) and against a lifeless Alabama team with an atrocious offense. They even lost to a normal (read: pitiful) Rice
team by two scores.

The travel involved from the islands to the mainland must be killer, so its understandable to a degree. However, when Cam Newton is playing target practice in the late third quarter on August 30th, don’t say you weren’t warned.

Bissinger v. Leitch

Much has been made of the dustup on Bob Costas’s show between Will Leitch of Deadspin and Buzz Bissinger, sportswriter and, most famously, author of Friday Night Lights.

Much has been said already at every other sports blog on the web, so a recap should be easy to find.

The central issue seems to be the meme that the mainstream media (MSM) is dying and that its members lash out at bloggers in fear and anger.

That is certainly what Bissinger did, taking full advantage of the fact that HBO is not censored. He trotted out the standard material we’ve all heard: that bloggers are the rabble of the earth, living in their mother’s basement and “spewing” out invective by the truckload.

There also has been talk of a generation gap effect, and that’s part of it. Leitch isn’t doing much novel work over at Deadspin, though, as his site is basically a sports tabloid with humor articles sprinkled in. It just happens to be online instead of on the newsstand.

The core of the conflict is between those who understand the Internet for what it is, and those who don’t.

A Brief History of the Internet

The Internet grew out of the US military’s reaction to Sputnik. As time grew on, it became more and more academic, and later, social.

By the end of the 1980s, the most popular part of the Internet was Usenet, a distributed system of newsgroups where people exchanged messages. Someone would post something he thought was interesting, and people would discuss the topic by replying to it. Usenet is where a lot of Internet culture was born, including concepts such as FAQs and spam.

Usenet was divided into categories, ranging anywhere from academic discussions of science and math to discussions of nonsense and unspeakable horrors. It was where the things such as the World Wide Web, Linux, and Mosaic (the first graphical web browser) were originally announced to the world. It was the main influence for message boards and chat rooms as we know them today.

For the most part the Internet was a place of libertarian ideals, where there was no censorship, a naturally-occurring etiquette and slang, and in most places, no one to chide you for being profane.

It was its own little world; aside from a few kooks and trolls, no one bothered it and it didn’t bother anyone. Whether you wanted to be rude or civil, there was a place for you.

That still remains true today. Many of the people who have shaped the Internet along its journey through the Endless September and corporatization grew out of that culture.

Many of its most popular destinations, from Something Awful to 4chan to Fark, follow those same veins of discussion without censorship. They are bastions of poor taste and lively discussion, where ideas, regardless of what they are, flow freely. You really have to have a thick skin to get through it all.

Blogs

If you’re unfamiliar, the word “blog” is just a shortening of “weblog.”

The practice predates the term, as it began mainly as people keeping online diaries or routinely updated special-interest sites. I can remember there was a big debate in high school shortly after the turn of the century about whether LiveJournal or Xanga was better.

It was another way for people to communicate, and people have always been communicative creatures.

Blogging began to hit the mainstream around 2001, and mainly in the political category. The first time many mainstream outlets covered their existence was in the reaction to Trent Lott’s infamous statements about Strom Thurmond.

It should not be surprising that politics was where blogging hit its stride, as that arena tends to provoke some of the strongest feelings and most heated debates.

Most of the popular sports blogs (such as Deadspin, EDSBS, and SMQ) began in 2005 and 2006. It was only natural as sporting endeavors also provoke strong debate. Sports also lends itself to satire and poor taste, so that trifecta is right up the Internet’s alley.

The Inflection Point

I don’t have any hard evidence, but I believe the real inflection point in the mainstream media’s reaction to blogs was when Dan Rather got fired.

It’s one thing when people are being immature, trading funny pictures and throwing barbs at each other for dozens of pages. It’s another thing entirely when the anchor of a Big Three network’s evening news is fired over a false story that was exposed mainly by bloggers.

Dan Rather had been a staple of the traditional 6:00 news for decades, but some random person on the Internet brought him down by exposing a story Rather ran as a fraud.

The correct reaction would have been to marvel at the speed of information exchange and try to figure out a way to harness the masses of educated people who now had a voice. The reaction instead has been to periodically attack what they don’t understand.

Sports

The sports media in particular should have seen this coming. I’d argue that a forefather of sports blogging is George Will, a political journalist and commentator who is also a skilled baseball writer.

If a political columnist could be a good sportswriter, why couldn’t a lawyer be one too? Or an English major? Or an IT worker? Or anyone else? Heck, Warren Buffett is one of the most highly regarded writers in America today, and he’s a full-time investor and financier.

Whether he realizes it or not, Leitch is simply following in the 30-year-old tradition of the Internet. In pseudo-Usenet terms, he’s running the “rec.sports.deadspin” newsgroup where only a small number of people can post news but anyone can reply. There is no censorship, a naturally-occurring etiquette and slang, and no one complains about profanity.

The big change of course is the scale. More people read Deadspin in a month than were probably even on the Internet for much of the 1980s.

Sometimes blogs break news; that fact shouldn’t be too surprising since traditional media outlets have only so many eyes and ears out there. Some major sports sites, such as Fox Sports and the Sporting News, have even integrated blogging by fans as a part of their sites.

Conclusion

As I said at the beginning, I think core conflict is between those who understand the Internet for what it is, and those who don’t.

I don’t know if Leitch consciously knows the history he’s perpetuating, but he certainly feels it intuitively. Bissinger, Costas, and a bewildered Braylon Edwards all clearly did not.

The Internet is truly a libertarian’s dream. Everyone has a voice, and the marketplace of ideas lets the cream rise to the top. Bissinger and Costas lamented the large volume of bad writing on the Internet, but those who understand the Internet for what it is know how to use search engines, social networks, and link aggregators to find that cream.

Leitch runs a well-written supermarket checkout tabloid for the sports world. He provides gossip, paparazzi-style photos (usually from Facebook or MySpace), humor, and some real analysis.

It’s not Pulitzer material, but it never claims to be. It has its place in the world and it occupies it with glee.

I wish though that the majority of the sports bloggers out there would get over themselves and this mythical battle with the mainstream media for The Future that they keep talking about. They are not the Future, but today’s embodiment of the Internet’s past. Plus, there’s no Future that can realistically exist without professional journalists anyway.

Besides, worrying about the future is for business analysts and actuaries. The greatest cultural achievements that people make usually are those that come naturally as a result of people scratching an itch to satisfy themselves and their inner drive, not those looking to cement something for future generations.

Just keep reading and writing. Just keep exchanging your ideas. If you’re worth it, your message will be heard. If not, then at least you tried.

BCS Plus One Proposal Fails, but Why?

Unsurprisingly, there will be no plus one system added to the BCS for the 2010 season. It always was a non-issue since the Rose Bowl contract with ABC goes through 2014. Any big changes like a plus one system will have to come when all of the TV rights expire in the same year.

Beyond that though, the Big Ten and Pac 10 were never going to allow it to happen. Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delaney loves being the playoff villain. He has stated on the record that a playoff could be good for college football as a whole, but adds, “I don’t work for college football at large.” His goal is to advance the Big Ten brand, and he sees tradition, the Rose Bowl, and a TV network as the way to do that.

Pac 10 Commissioner Tom Hansen has also said that the Pac 10 would rather secede from the BCS than have a plus one system. The ACC, Big 12, Big East, and SEC were willing to discuss the matter at the BCS meetings this week, but the Big Ten and Pac 10 had no plans for giving it a fair chance. Only the SEC and ACC were fully committed to the plan.

I keep hearing the same arguments over and over about why there shouldn’t be a plus one system. I will now address them one by one.

A Plus One system will inevitably grow

Not necessarily. Major League Baseball, having had playoffs since 1903, kept a four team playoff up until 1994. The only reason it expanded was because of expansion of the league. It stands at 8 teams currently, and there are no plans for the foreseeable future to change that.

Compare that with the hallowed bowl system, which has now expanded to 34 in total. That means 68 teams, or about 57%, of the 120 Division I-A teams will be going bowling. In the two years that wins over I-AA teams have counted towards being bowl eligible, 73 and 71 teams have made the 6-6 threshold. That’s cutting it awfully close.

Also, thanks to 6-6 teams losing bowls, we now have bowl teams finishing under .500 for the year. Is that really what people want? And what if there aren’t 68 bowl eligible teams in a season?

The arrangement only encourages more I-A teams playing I-AA teams, which weakens the regular season. I thought that’s what we were preserving…

A playoff dilutes the regular season

No, extra-long regular seasons dilute a regular season. Let’s go back to baseball. When only 4 teams made the playoffs every year, did anyone care about May baseball games? Of course not. There were a million other ones leading up to October. I also hear about how March Madness killed the college basketball regular season. It didn’t; everyone playing 30+ games before March killed the college basketball regular season.

Before there was a national title game in college football and teams just played to get to bowls, college football had a great regular season. Once a national title game was established, it made it even better because the competition suddenly expanded beyond conference borders.

Somehow, these BCS proponents think that everyone competing for 4 spots instead of 2 will instantly kill the regular season. That it will make Florida and FSU fans suddenly get along because who needs a rivalry now that four teams have a shot at winning it all at the end of the year instead of two? That Sooners and Longhorns will do the same, or that a September match up of USC and Ohio State will be not be as exciting.

You know how much a difference there is between two teams and four playing for the national title at the end of the year? It’s 1.67% of all I-A teams, or 3% of all BCS conference teams. No, giving four teams a chance to win it all doesn’t devalue the regular season because the scarcity of regular season games will still be there, and an very small percentage of teams will actually be playing for the title.

A playoff devalues the Rose Bowl

Here’s a hint: when the Rose Bowl joined the BCS, it gave up all claims to tradition. The only thing that makes it special over the other BCS bowls anymore is that it’s older than them. That’s it and that’s all.

The final ship to sail in this argument shoved off when Texas beat USC in the 2005 Rose Bowl to win the national championship. It should have become clear right then and there that the Rose Bowl is a great site to hold a game, but it’s the meeting of two great teams that make the game great.

This year’s Rose Bowl just further illustrates the point. We had a Big Ten/Pac 10 meeting, and it was a horrible game. Ohio State’s performance against LSU indicated that had OSU met USC instead of Illinois playing the Trojans, it wouldn’t have been much different. Great games are made by great teams, not stadiums. What happens on the field is what matters, not what occurs on Colorado Boulevard.

Ratings and revenues are up; the BCS must be what fans want

People like college football. That is what people want. They will pay to watch it in person regardless of the postseason format. They will watch it on TV regardless of the postseason format.

Let me tell you a story. The iPod mini was once the best-selling iPod of all time. It was even the best-selling portable audio device in the world in its day. In September 2005, Apple made a bold move and replaced it with the iPod nano. It was a risk because of the enormous popularity and revenue stream the mini had. The nano ended up being even more popular, selling a million units in just 17 days.

In short, this argument is a non sequitur. Correlation does not equal causation, and the BCS format isn’t driving the rise in ratings and revenues. The popularity of football as a whole is.

A playoff would make football a two semester sport

With spring practice, football already is a two semester sport.

Ignoring that for a moment, I don’t see how a plus one makes the postseason any longer. The 1-4 and 2-3 games would happen on New Years, and the title game would happen a week later. That’s the same timing that we have with the current BCS bowl arrangement, so this one is nothing but hot air.

It kills the tradition of the bowls

Too late. By segmenting off the BCS games, we already have tiers in the postseason. Besides, once we got bowls in Shreveport, Detroit, and especially Toronto, they no longer were about giving teams a reward for a good season by getting to play a game in nice locale.

Besides, not one playoff proposal I’ve seen, Mike Slive’s included, has proposed killing off all of the bowl games in favor of keeping only a playoff. No one is suggesting that, and having a plus one system will not diminish the prestige of the Papajohns.com bowl. It never had any in the first place.

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I welcome any comments/discussions on the topic. If there are any other objections about a having a plus one system in college football, I’d love to hear them. It just infuriates me to no end to know that the people in charge of the system are getting rich off of fan dollars while not delivering what the fans want.

The Magic’s Closeout Of The Raptors Is More Than a Just Series Win

With a 102-92 win, the Orlando Magic closed out the Toronto Raptors to win their first playoff series since 1996.

On the face of it, that’s only a somewhat remarkable statement. Most franchises have gone that long without winning a playoff series. It’s also not the case that the Magic have been terrible all those years; they made the playoffs six times in those 12 seasons. They even finished a just one game out of the playoffs in the Heart and Hustle caimpaign of 1999-00, which has to be the best rebuilding year ever.

It means an awful lot to the team and the city though. There are still hard feelings about the way Shaq left, and it didn’t seem fair to watch him collect ring after ring. The city and community also made a huge investment in the team this year by agreeing to build a new arena, despite Orlando being one of the hardest hit areas in the country by the real estate bust.

Everyone needed this. The Magic organization needed it to confirm its new direction and the investment in the new arena. Orlando needed it to give the community a rallying point in the midst of tough days. Dwight Howard needed this to solidify his standing among the new crop of stars in the league, as true validation comes in the postseason.

It no doubt felt good for Stan van Gundy, who was robbed of the chance of winning a title when Pat Riley forced him out of Miami. It’s only sweeter that the win happened on the same day that Riley once again resigning from coaching duties. Stan is a good man and an excellent coach, and he deserves this.

It is also fitting that the win came on the same day that Hedo Turkoglu was named the NBA’s most improved player. The story of his career so far has been one of unfulfilled promise, destined never to be bigger than the routine salary cap exception pickup that he was for Orlando. Something finally clicked this year, and he nearly capped it off with a triple double in the series clinching game.

The player that has benefited the most is perhaps Jameer Nelson. After the NBA changed its hand check rules a few years back, the league became more and more point guard-driven. There have been concerns that Nelson is not the long term answer for the Magic, and rightfully so with his tendency for over-dribbling and turning it over a few too many times.

Nelson had a superb series however, averaging just over 17 points and shooting over 50% from the field and from three. He keyed fourth quarter runs in multiple games, and the one game he was hampered by back spasms was the game that the Magic lost. Dwight Howard is undoubtedly the straw that stirs the Magic’s drink, but Nelson showed something this series. The Magic wouldn’t be close to the playoffs without Howard, but they would not have won the series without Nelson.

Speaking of Howard, what more can he do? He became the only the third player ever to average 22 points, 18 rebounds, and 3 blocks in a playoff series. The other two guys? Moses and Kareem.

Of course, blocks only became an official stat in the 1972-73 season, but surely one day he will be known as just “Dwight,” since all the greats go by just their first name. He will need to keep it up, though, as Toronto has the least physical frontcourt of any of the playoff teams. Howard has plenty of years left to make his name and build his legacy, but continued success this year will show that he’s ahead of schedule.

The Magic have now won the series that received the least attention of them all this postseason. More of the games were locked away on NBA TV than were not, and the prevailing wisdom was that the winner got the right to lose to Detroit in the second round. But with the way the Pistons have been playing as of late, is it really that unreasonable to think that Orlando couldn’t beat them too? As old as the Pistons are, a win by the Magic could signal a passing of the torch in the Eastern Conference.

Sure, the Magic aren’t a perfect team. They need a real power forward, and for that matter, a backup power forward while they’re at it. They still play a lot like a college team, with one good rebounder surrounded by three-point bombers. Overpaying Rashard Lewis handicaps them in free agency.

None of that matters at the moment. That’s offseason stuff.

Right now, the Magic are playoff winners, and it feels wonderful to be able to say that again.

No One Drafted From Alabama? Really?

Mike Shula was the head coach at Alabama from 2003 to 2006. He had one good year, a 10-2 season in 2005, but was fired for the mediocrity of the other three. Most people around the country saw the hiring as a bad move, and the truth in that could not have been clearer this weekend.

Not one single player from Alabama was drafted. That fact boggles the mind, because it’s Alabama. The program is not what it once was, but the Tide being shut out on draft weekend is inconceivable. For comparison, Florida hasn’t been shut out of the draft since 1951, and only once since then (1977) has a Gator not been selected in one of the first seven rounds of a draft.

It really is.

The fourth and fifth year seniors on that 2005 team were recruited by Dennis Franchione in 2002 and 2001. The real leaders on that team weren’t Shula’s recruits. The fourth and fifth year seniors on this year’s team were Shula’s recruits, having come to campus in 2003 and 2004. I’m going to give those years a look to see how it’s possible that Bama could have no one drafted this year.

His first class in 2003 (numbering 19) had only one player drafted: DT Le’Ron McClain in the fourth round last year. Granted, Tyrone Prothro probably would have been drafted if not for the nasty string of injuries he went through. It is worth mentioning though that the injury that started it all was sustained in the fourth quarter of a blowout (in 2005 over Florida), and he should not have been playing that late in the game in the first place. Well done, Mike.

I’ll give him a pass in 2003 though, since Coach Fran left unexpectedly and classes during transitional years tend to be rough anyway. If you want a comparison, though, Florida’s 2002 class, despite Steve Spurrier leaving a month before signing day, had four of its 23 players drafted from it. I’ll now look at Alabama’s 2004 class.

Of the 27 recruits, nine are listed on Alabama’s spring football roster. Four were listed as potential draftees on ESPN. None were listed as potential draftees in 2007. That means of the 18 that are gone, 14 weren’t even serious candidates to be drafted. Those 18 players had an average star rating of 2.79 (according to Rivals), with just two 4-star prospects among them.

Wake up, Mike. It’s time for good football.

The nine remaining players are a mixed bag. Antoine Caldwell became a permanent captain, an honor that got his name misspelled in cement but is still prestigious at the school. John Parker Wilson has played a lot of games, but “infuriating” doesn’t come close to describing his inconsistency. Beyond them, only DL Lorenzo Washington (3 sacks) and TE Nick Walker (2 TD receptions) made any significant plays last season.

It’s just astonishing that Alabama could have had such a bad class. Even that 2002 Florida class had a decent number of players considered draftable in 2006 and 2007. With all of the financial and tradition-based advantages the school has, it makes no sense for Alabama not to have anyone drafted in a particular year. Since Derrick Harvey and Andre Caldwell could have left last year, Florida almost had no one drafted this year. However, that would have been caused by extreme amounts of early entries not two consecutive bad recruiting classes.

In 2008 Appalachian State, Bentley, Coastal Carolina, Delaware, Eastern Kentucky, Furman, Gardner-Webb, Grand Valley State, Hampton, Idaho, Jackson State, McNeese State, Middle Tennessee State, Montana, Mount Union, North Dakota State, Northwest Missouri State, San Diego, Washburn, Weber State, and Winston Salem State all had at least one player drafted. Alabama did not.

Wow.

The Draft: How Did the Bucs Do?

First Round: Aqib Talib, CB Kansas

The Bucs definitely had a need at corner, and on the field Talib fits in well with Monte Kiffin’s Tampa 2 scheme. He tends to take some chances, but the safeties will be there to erase mistakes. He has the potential to be a playmaker and really rack up interceptions.

So why was he still around at 20? The all important character concerns. He’s failed drug tests, been late to meetings, and shown an all around lack of maturity. The Bucs once upon a time took a chance on a guy like that, and Warren Sapp turned out all right.

If the organization can get his head screwed on straight, Talib could be a mainstay of the defense for many years. If not, he’ll be a total headache, and the fans will probably complain about them not taking CB Mike Jenkins from USF.

Second Round: Dexter Jackson, WR Appalachian State

The last Dexter Jackson to play for Tampa Bay went on to become the Super Bowl MVP. This one has a long way to go before he gets close to that, but he’ll get a shot at playing since the team had a need at wide out.

He comes into the NFL with two strikes against him - he went to a smaller school and he played in a read option spread offense. The former is not as big a concern since App State was better than a lot of I-A teams. The second is more significant. The pure West Coast Offense that Jon Gruden runs is incredibly complex, whereas the read option is a very simple offense.

Jackson has the speed to become a productive slot receiver, but I would not expect him to become that yet in just his rookie season.

Third Round: Jeremy Zuttah, OG Rutgers

You can never have too much depth on your offensive line, and you could do a lot worse than a guy who’s been opening lanes for Ray Rice the past couple years. He played both guard and tackle in school, showing some versatility. As I understand it, he’ll need to bulk up and get stronger to become a starter.

It probably would have been better to take a higher quality lineman in the second round and pick up a receiver in the third. It was clear that receivers were undervalued in this draft since none went in the first round. The team should have realized that a future slot receiver like Mario Manningham, Early Doucet, or Andre Caldwell would be available with this pick. All but Doucet were still there when the Bucs made this selection.

Fourth Round: Dre Moore, DT Maryland

I don’t know much about this guy. He’s big, but apparently he’s got no consistency, technique, or instincts. But hey, he’s got a burst!

Defensive line depth can always help, especially when blitzes are so infrequent in the Tampa 2. Kiffin has a good track record on drafting linemen, so I’ll trust him on this one for now.

Fifth Round: Josh Johnson, QB San Diego

I know there needs to be a long term plan for succession of Jeff Garcia. Chris Simms is not the answer; neither is a McCown brother. I also suspect neither is a guy from San Diego taken in the fifth round. I’m sure he’s a nice guy, but I have no idea what this pick was for.

Maybe Gruden saw that he’s a mobile quarterback and decided to take a flier on him. The whole point of my satirical piece about his secret draft card, though, was to make fun of his habit of stockpiling QBs. I never expected him to actually take one. Looks like the joke is on me.

Sixth Round: Geno Hayes, LB Florida State

You can call me a homer for not liking this pick, and that’s fine. I don’t care. I just don’t want a guy who antagonizes his biggest rival’s quarterback and then forgets to show up for the game. He had only one tackle against Florida, and he got to watch the guy he talked trash about account for 5 TDs in an easy 45-12 win.

I’m sure he played well over his career, and the Neanderthal offenses he saw in the ACC are what he’ll see in the pros. Still, he’s an idiot. I don’t want idiots on the Bucs.

Seventh Round: Cory Boyd, RB South Carolina

He’s a tough guy, and he can play. He won’t be a lead running back, but he’ll probably play a part in the committee that will end up at the position when Cadillac Williams inevitably gets hurt.

What I don’t get is this: if you wanted a backup running back, why not draft Mike Hart in the sixth round? He’s a tough runner, a class act, and he fumbled once in his entire college career (not counting the Citrus Bowl against Florida). He’s also not an idiot, which Geno Hayes most certainly is.