2010 College Football

[ghost]

Giving most of those kids a "free education" is like giving me a free Ford Mustang.  They don't want the education and I certainly don't want a Ford Mustang.

[Paelos]

Most college football players are already paid thousands of dollars a year in the form of a free education.

Most are. There are 100 potential players each year who are good enough to start in the NFL tomorrow. How those players are diivied up amongst the 100+ FBS colleges ain't equal. The current NCAA system completely ignores the fact that they are there, draw thousands upon thousands more fans wherever they are, and often when placed on the same team contribute to national championships and conference championships.

Recruiting doesn't ignore that fact, nor do agents, nor do boosters, nor do runners, nor do the media, nor pretty much anybody with half a brain.

[ghost]

Yeah, I understand that not a lot of guys actually go to the NFL or the NBA (and those are the two sports we're primarily talking about here) but when you look at the dismal graduation rates of some of the high profile programs that theory doesn't completely add up.  I understand that people use the scholarships for just that, scholarship, but until the NCAA gets serious about the "Collegiate" part of their name they are simply hypocritical.

[Paelos]

The NCAA won't change anything until the cash stops. To do that, all fans pretty much have to start boycotting bowls as the starting point. Most fans just accept that their guys are probably on the payroll, and they trust the coaching staff to do everything they can to cover it up. Notice how when people are caught, nobody at that school is outraged. They just shrug and go, well we got sloppy.

[ghost]

The NCAA won't change anything until the cash stops. To do that, all fans pretty much have to start boycotting bowls as the starting point. Most fans just accept that their guys are probably on the payroll, and they trust the coaching staff to do everything they can to cover it up. Notice how when people are caught, nobody at that school is outraged. They just shrug and go, well we got sloppy.

And see, I don't really have a problem with that stuff either.  I guess I get more irritated by the NCAA trying to enforce their rules which are pretty much bogus.  I loved football in the 80s and it was probably dirtier then than now, from the colleges' standpoint at least.  They certainly didn't have all this agent crap going on, which to me is a worse option.

[Nebu]

Giving most of those kids a "free education" is like giving me a free Ford Mustang.  They don't want the education and I certainly don't want a Ford Mustang.

That's a great statement.  Very true, particularly during my playing days back in the mid 80's.  When I was trying to decide where to play, the quality of education NEVER entered into the equation and I was a national merit scholar.  I still remember tossing materials from Dartmouth and Yale in the trash.  I wish I could have that decision back. 

Nearly every person I played with could care less about education and most saw it as a barrier to their athletic success.  This is a primary reason why I feel that things need to change toward an NFL farm system.  Those kids wanting to play need to maximize play and training time to become NFL caliber athletes.  They should be financially compensated in a meaningful way on the path toward that end.

[Paelos]

Get real, the NFL doesn't want a farm system. It would cost them money instead of just siting back and using the college game for free. The NBA is the exact same way, as they are the ones who had to force kids to go back to school. Remember, that's an NBA rule (not an NCAA rule) because it benefitted the NBA so much to do it.

I want to make sure this is very clear, The NFL isn't the problem here. The problem is totally on the NCAA, their application of their own rules, and the fact that they are now a billion dollar industry in their own right.

[Nebu]

Get real, the NFL doesn't want a farm system.

I know this.  I'm not stupid.  I want a farm system because it would benefit the players, not because I think it would ever happen.  The current model is so entrenched that I doubt it will ever change.  I just fail to understand why the NCAA continues to pretend to follow their fantasy rules.  The best players at competitive programs are already violating nearly every rule you could imagine.  The only reason the rules exist is as a smokescreen for the public and those parents deluded enough to believe their child wants an education. 

[Paelos]

If you put a farm system in place though, I don't think it would benefit anyone except the players. The schools would lose money and scholarships, and the fans would lose out on a good brand of football.

It would basically become the equivilent of Ivy League football mixed with college baseball.

[WayAbvPar]

Hey, I loved watching Miami in the 80s  

Also Oklahoma in the 70s and 80s.  

Edit:  In other news, Lame Kiffin is a huge douche

That word does not mean what you think it means 

[Paelos]

Kiffin continues to win friends and infuence people.

[Nebu]

If you put a farm system in place though, I don't think it would benefit anyone except the players. The schools would lose money and scholarships, and the fans would lose out on a good brand of football.

It would basically become the equivilent of Ivy League football mixed with college baseball.

To be honest, athletics are a zero sum game for universities in every regard except marketing.  The money that comes from the sports goes back into athletics.  The greatest benefit comes to the women athletes, most of which genuinely do care about education.  I guess in that sense, having the big college programs does have a little merit.

[Paelos]

True, and my female relatives have gotten a few scholarships based on that principle. Still, we shouldn't downplay the marketing side that a great football program can garner. The University of Georgia (due in large part to the HOPE scholarship, which offers free college to all in-state students) has had to raise standards to ridiculously high levels. Everyone wants to come to UGA for the atmosphere, the fact that it's the biggest non-tech institution, and the sports.

Most of the scholarships go to out-of-state participants for athletics, for that reason.

[ghost]

European universities seem to do very well without having huge sports programs. 

I certainly don't think we should get rid of college football or anything like that, but it would be nice to keep it all in perspective.  I just think the NCAA needs to figure things out and realize that most of this is about making money and entertainment, not education. 

[ghost]

More Tennessee turdburglar

[Paelos]

I'll cut Kiffin some slack on this one, because if it happened anywhere else to anybody else, nobody would care. That's pretty much the yardstick I use to determine if something is a pretty bad coaching decision. This boils down to the Titans getting butthurt over him not making a phone call. That's it. Obviously, the contract the Titans gave their RB coach sucked, or he wouldn't bail out of a job in the NFL for a college gig. Most guys are trying to get into the NFL, not out of it. Oh, and the outrage from the Titans?

Didn't they just fire their previous RB coach to get this new guy? Fired a runningback coach, I might add, when they had the best rushing game in the whole NFL. Yeah, that made sense. 

[ghost]

Well, maybe if he wasn't such a jackass they wouldn't have gotten a case of the ass.  Seriously, Jeff Fisher is a USC alum and a fan, so why wouldn't you call him?  This stinks of jackassery.

And yes, the lawsuit is completely frivolous, in  my opinion.

[Paelos]

Because Jeff Fisher would have told him to either cram it, or he would have told them that if he let him steal away his coach, the already pissed off Tennessee fans would turn on Fisher. Either way, Kiffin wasn't going to get the go-ahead, and they both knew it.

I mean really, they had just hired the guy. They weren't going to let him voluntarily be poached before he'd even coached a game. He would have had better luck asking to have unprotected sex with Fisher's daughter.

[Paelos]

36 days...

PAC-10 media days started, and the media is still projecting Oregon to be the front-runner, despite the fact that they have no QB. Last time I checked, the QB was probably the single most important thing to have in the PAC-10, but then again the media hasn't ever had an original thought in it's collective head. They won last year, so they must be good!

UCLA is switching to the pistol offense, which is that odd variation on the shotgun promoted by Nevada last year. The idea would be to put more pressure on the defense by running the ball a lot more, and that would require a very deft read by your QB and/or RB in the slots. Personally, I think it's a niche offense like the triple-option. You can certainly win with it because other teams just can't plan for it correctly. However, anybody coming off a bye week is going to smoke your ass given two weeks to prepare.

Oregon State seems to be piling it's hopes on their running back, Jacquizz Rodgers. I think that's a terrible idea in a QB dominated conference, but I will still root for them because I love yelling "GO BEAVERS!"

[ghost]

Oregon State seems to be piling it's hopes on their running back, Jacquizz Rodgers.

The guy's a stud though.  There are worse people to pin your hopes to.

[ghost]

Great read on the NCAA that sums up my feelings on the matter.
Gene Wojciechowski

[Paelos]

The bureaucracy is expanding to meets the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

[SnakeCharmer]

30 DAYS

[ghost]

Opening Week Schedule

Looks pretty dismal.  It's pretty sad when Ky-Louisville is one of the headliners.

Other games of merit:
1.  LSU-North Carolina
2.  Oregon State-TCU
3.  Purdue- Notre Dame
 

[WayAbvPar]

Opening Week Schedule

Looks pretty dismal.  It's pretty sad when Ky-Louisville is one of the headliners.

Other games of merit:
1.  LSU-North Carolina
2.  Oregon State-TCU
3.  Purdue- Notre Dame
 

KY is such an appropriate abbreviation with Pitino coaching basketball there.

[ghost]

Have you been reading the trial stuff?  It makes Pitino look fairly pathetic.  He should just hang it up.

[Paelos]

The opening of the college season is always tempered by the fact that 95% of the matchups are wretched. If the NCAA wanted to make the game better, they would quit headhunting for kids taking money, and they should bitchslap every university that pays a girl's charity school to play them during two-three games a year. This year UGA plays Louisana Lafayette from the Sun Belt Conference, and Idaho State who plays in the AA championship league. Both are home games that are shitting up my season tickets. I'm not even going to the home opener since I don't want to waste my entire Labor Day weekend by staying in Georgia.

Here is a smattering of the national contenders and some of the non-conference shit they play this year:

Florida - Miami of Ohio, Appalachian State (forget the Michigan thing, that ain't this team)
Alabama - San Jose State, Duke, and Georgia State (btw, Georgia State is starting their football program THIS YEAR)
Ohio State - Marshall, Ohio, Eastern Michigan
Texas - Rice, Wyoming, Florida Atlantic
Penn State - Youngstown State, Kent State, Temple
Virginia Tech - East Carolina, James Madison, Central Michigan

[Ingmar]

Eh, I wouldn't really get too pissed off about Texas playing Rice, that's a pretty traditional matchup, even if Rice does always suck. SJSU and Duke are bad teams certainly but they're still Division I, those games count for bowl purposes etc.

The ones that really annoy me are the games against I-AA teams or whatever they call that now (football championship league or something?) or division II teams.

[01101010]

Usually they are homecoming games. Typical throw away weekends.

[Paelos]

Throwaway weekends are fine when it's middle of the season and your team needs a break. There's no reason we should all have to put up with the first game of the season being a pattycake for everyone.

[Nebu]

Throwaway weekends are fine when it's middle of the season and your team needs a break. There's no reason we should all have to put up with the first game of the season being a pattycake for everyone.

Speaking as an ex Big 10 player, easy early games helped a lot in the preparation for conference play.  It's not all that different from NFL preseason in as far as shaking out a few last positional battles.

[ghost]

I don't have a problem with a game or two being a snoozer.  It seems as if Texas, Ohio State, Notre Dame and USC are the only big-name schools that are ready to man up and go after real teams.  Texas just signed a 4 year deal with Notre Dame and has had a home and home with OSU.  Of course they play a relatively weak conference schedule.  USC seems like they will traditionally play anyone anywhere.  I just wish we could see a little more of this.  This first weekend is a total turd.

[Nevermore]

Virginia Tech - East Carolina, James Madison, Central Michigan

East Carolina is a rivalry game for VT, one which the Pirates won a couple of years ago.

[Paelos]

The Pirates aren't terrible, and I hesitated for a second putting them on the list. However, facts are facts and while Conference USA is "getting better" in terms of having some respectable bowl games, they still got beat when they played a team from a real conference. I will give East Carolina props for making it close against Arkansas, but that team had NO defense and they couldn't score more than 17 points.

[01101010]

I don't think Temple is going to be a walk in the park. Of course, with my history of picks and what not, just saying that means they'll not only lose, but it will be a laugher.