Catching up wears jean shorts

Because they had to pick somebody: Matt McGloin will be Penn State's (probably crappy) starting quarterback this year. I know because Bill O'Brien announced it at a golf event (?) on Friday:

Penn State coach Bill O’Brien has named senior Matt McGloin the starting quarterback.

O’Brien announced his decision Friday at a charity golf tournament. McGloin, a redshirt junior, will top a depth chart that will also include Paul Jones and Rob Bolden. The Nittany Lions open the season on Sept. 1 vs. Ohio.

"We’ll probably release our depth chart on Tuesday morning," O’Brien said. "There won’t be too many surprises on there, I’m sure. But Matt McGloin will be our starting quarterback next year."

McGloin would fall into the "won't be too many surprises" category. He was the nominal starter for all but the first two games last season and was mediocre, which put him about three standard deviations ahead of Rob Bolden. Here are some numbers: 54.1 percent passing for 134 yards per start with eight touchdowns (three of which were against de facto bye week Eastern Michigan) and five picks. The latter ratio is fine but doesn't acknowledge that he went for under 100 yards three times in the last four games of the year despite averaging just over 23 attempts per game. That's pretty awful, especially for a guy with no real running ability, which is why he ended up 89th in the country in efficiency.

I thought Jones -- who was academically ineligible last year but was a relatively highly touted recruit in 2010 -- might get a shot based on potential; apparently not (not yet, anyway). McGloin is the most accurate of the three, which presumably will be of some benefit in an O'Brien passing game that shouldn't be as laughably bad as Penn State's recent versions.

It's not like there are traditions or anything: The SEC approved a new scheduling format Saturday that demonstrates exactly why superconferences suck. Here are the details:

The SEC announced Friday that it approved the 6-1-1 playoff format, which means each SEC team will play six divisional games, one cross-divisional rivalry game and one rotating cross-divisional game.

While the length of the 6-1-1 scheduling format has yet to be determined, commissioner Mike Slive said it will be around for at least three or four years, which opens a future door for a nine-game conference schedule.

Translation: SEC teams will play only one cross-divisional game each year, which means teams that aren't in the same division will play once every seven years. Georgia will play in Death Valley once every 14 years. Arkansas will play in The Swamp once every 14 years. Etc.

Going to nine conference games would make things better since at least you could rotate two non-rivalry cross-divisional games a year, allowing you to play everybody once every three years rather than once every seven, but it still wouldn't be optimal and probably won't happen anyway since it would eliminate one of the sacrificial-lamb home games everybody wants.

Really, anything beyond 12 teams basically stops being a conference and becomes two conferences that share a name and little else (like games). There will be a point at which expansion's monetary benefits plateau because interest has done the same with meaningful games fewer and farther between. I'm not sure all the guys running various conferences realize this but am honestly thankful Jim Delany does:

"One of the most underrated qualities about any conference is its stability and the glue that holds it together," he said on Monday's league conference call. "And I think whenever you go beyond a certain level, you're running into possible dilution issues. ... The larger you are, the less you play each other. The less you play each other, the less tradition you have and the less those games tend to mean, if they can't be repeated over and over."

 That's ... like ... yeah. Yeah!

Best arrest ever: Michigan defensive tackle Will Campbell was arrested in the wee hours of some morning last month, which would normally be cause for concern since he's a projected starter but instead has caused me to laugh continuously for about the last four days. This is why:

Michigan senior defensive tackle Will Campbell is facing one felony and one misdemeanor charge of malicious destruction of property stemming from an April 7 incident, according to court records.

According to Ann Arbor police, Campbell was arrested after attempting to slide across the hood of a vehicle at 2 a.m. on April 7 in the 600 block of Church Street. An officer in the area could hear the sheet metal on the hood of the car buckle under Campbell’s weight — he’s listed at 322 pounds — and arrested the senior, police stated.

I'm speechless. It should not be a surprise that the police report lists him as "intoxicated." That's probably the most concerning part since he doesn't turn 21 for another month.

Campbell was an uber-recruit four years ago who's done relatively little to date but will be starting (probably at the nose) this year as a senior, mostly because there are no other experienced options but maybe/hopefully because he's finally had a light-bulb moment under Greg Mattison and has figured out how to effectively use his ginormousness. Fortunately for me and Michigan's horrifyingly thin D-line, serious discipline sounds unlikely at this point since Brady Hoke has announced that there'll be no change in Campbell's status.

A slightly more amibiguous arrest: Ohio State's Jake Stoneburner (starting tight end) and Jack Mewhort (starting left tackle) were arrested outside Muirfield Village over the weekend for "interference with official business." That doesn't mean anything to anybody who's not a lawyer; word on the interwebs is that they were caught relieving themselves in a rather public location, and since it's on the interwebs, it must be true.

Anyway, whatever they were doing has resulted in this:

Ohio State issued a statement Monday saying that Meyer had suspended senior tight end Jake Stoneburner and junior offensive tackle Jack Mewhort after they were arrested by police on a misdemeanor charge of obstructing official business. The school said it had no further comment.

It probably goes without saying that indefinite suspensions for the starting left tackle and last year's leading receiver -- with 14 catches (!) for seven touchdowns (?!?) -- could be problematic. It also probably goes without saying that a suspension for a misdemeanor charge that stems from urinating on the outside of a building probably won't remain an indefinite suspension for very long, especially with Urban Meyer being the guy handling the discipline.

In the unlikely event that this actually produces something resembling missed playing time, Ohio State will probably survive the season opener against the Ohio version of Miami.

I will now go back to being amused by this response from Dominic Clarke, a potential starter at corner who got kicked off the team back in January following his second arrest in three months:

Sooo...lets see how urban meyer's bitch ass handles this one?

Yesssssss.

Jesse Scroggins to transfer: The lede pretty much says it all:

Redshirt sophomore quarterback Jesse Scroggins will be leaving the USC football program and intends to transfer to another school.

Scroggins was the No. 2 QB recruit in the country three years ago and was supposed to be Matt Barkley's backup/heir apparent last year before breaking his thumb and missing most of the season. He was still the nominal backup heading into spring practice but couldn't participate at all because he was academically ineligible; at that point, Lane Kiffin started saying ominous things about his future as Max Wittek and Cody Kessler (both former five-star-ish recruits, obviously) took most of the second-team snaps. Translation: This news surprises nobody since Scroggins was apparently losing his job and might not have been eligible anyway.

Assuming he gets his grades in order, he'll have some options; guys with his level of ability aren't typically available to schools that aren't USC. The limiting factor will be his class standing: He's already used a redshirt year, so if he transfers to another D-I school, he'll have to sit out the 2012 season and then will have two years left starting in 2013, at which point he'll basically be a juco transfer who has never played a meaningful down. No word yet on potential destinations.

Avert your eyes: Maryland has designed and is considering installing a black, turtle-shell-patterned field. I am not making this up. Here's a photo that may or may not be the unofficial rendering:

AAAHHHHHHHHHH!

And here's a little detail from the Washington Post:

This week, WUSA reported that “the turf being applied to the field will be either black or pewter,” according to “a source within the program."

A Maryland spokesman Friday disputed this report, saying that no decision has yet been made on the color or design of the field.

So it's not yet official, although that makes it no less disturbing. I'm assuming this is an UnderArmour project since I can't imagine anybody else (other than Nike) coming up with that. I mean, that thing (a) is literally painful to look at and (b) is gonna be SO FREAKIN' HOT in August/September; it'd be like playing football on a softer version of asphalt. No thanks.

My understanding was that the NCAA had passed a field-color rule back when Eastern Washington and Central Arkansas started doing inexplicably awful things with stripes and bright colors and whatnot; that apparently didn't happen, which means schools are free to do whatever stupidity draws attention.

Amazingly, installing a black field would not be the worst decision made by Maryland's athletic department in the last year and a half.

#andmikeleachwasavailable

I like you if you like me: Andy Haggard is still openly begging for a Big 12 invite for Florida State. This is not newsworthy in and of itself but is made newsworthy by this comment:

“We have not heard a thing, and we have not approached them and they have not approached us,” said Haggard. “If anybody approaches us, we are certainly going to listen to them. We have an obligation to Florida State to listen. You can't close the door.”

Interesting. Whether that means the Big 12 is not particularly interested in expanding or is just waiting until all the TV stuff gets finalized is impossible to know. It would seem that there's TV money to be had, but that money might not be super enticing if it comes at the expense of potential playoff revenue/access (in terms of fewer undefeated winners of a stronger conference). We'll see.

Dr. Saturday (no longer writing as Dr. Saturday) is back! Matt Hinton is now writing for CBSSports.com. I discovered this was going to be happening a couple weeks ago and forgot to mention it; he published his first column the other day, so I'll mention it now.

An excerpt from said column, which of course includes some useful data about the pointlessness of the ALL CAPS possible-playoff-scenario arguments:

For all of the head-butting and maneuvering and even my own personal preferences, I'm not really convinced that the eventual decision is going to make any difference. Since the inception of the BCS, the best four teams and the best four conference champions tend to be one and the same.

Read it.

This is so accurate: Via Black Heart Gold Pants' ongoing series of this-is-how-they-should-look Pro Combat mockups:

This is, without question, the best thing that has ever been posted on the internet. I will not debate this. It has everything.

Just because: This is from EDSBS (of course it is):

I have no explanation. And this is from the comments underneath that thing:

I dunno. I'm just giving you stuff.

The latest on the playoff stuff

According to the italicized text above the headline at the top of this post, it's June 3, which means it's supposedly 17 days (but probably 23) until some sort of playoff format will be finalized and recommended and all that fun stuff. I'm pretty sure I've written about this before; this post will be less comprehensive than that one but will include a few interesting playoff-related tidbits I have open in my ridiculously overloaded browser.

There are basically two things left to be decided from a logistical standpoint: (a) who gets to participate and (b) where the games will be played. I'm intentionally ignoring/deferring the issues of selection format and revenue distribution since I'm assuming* the exact details of those can be hammered out after the basic infrastructure is in place; keep in mind that this thing won't be starting until after the 2014 season.

Anyway, this first item is from CBS Sports and basically just confirms what was being reported a few weeks back about the affiliated-bowls-as-hosts plan:

Commissioners in the process of molding the first major-college football playoff are leaning toward floating bowl sites for the semifinal games.

In fact, the predetermined rotation of semifinal sites in the bowls was described as a “non-starter” to CBSSports.com. There are still discussions over the sites of the entire three-game playoff (in or outside of bowls), but there seems to be a growing consensus that the bowls will at least host the semifinals. ...

(The conference commissioners) do not want the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds having to “go on the road” in the semifinals. In other words, if the Sugar Bowl were anchored in advance to be a semifinal site, it would be possible that a No. 4 seed – say, LSU – would have the home-field advantage playing the No. 1-seeded opponent in the Superdome.

Brian at MGoBlog had the perfect reaction to that last sentence:

I have this crazy good idea for how to fix this: play the games on campus.

Lol yes. If only. But yeah, there seems to be a consensus about the semifinal sites: The two top seeds will "host" at their affiliated BCS bowls. Everybody seems to be on board with this even though it will undoubtedly result in the Big Ten champ "hosting" USC in the Rose Bowl at some point in the near future. Insert Jim Delany joke here

Speaking of the Rose Bowl, there were some rumblings last week from Larry Scott about a plus-one ...

"I'd say before Friday that idea of a plus-one didn't have much traction, but I think the announcement (of the Champions Bowl is) a game-changer," Scott said. "We're pretty far down the path on four-team playoff options, but given the very positive reaction to what the SEC and Big 12 have done, it's possible that (a plus-one) could get some traction."

... that horrified me because of the potential to erase whatever progress had been made on the straight-up-bracket plan. I really have no interest in a plus-one; there are just too many possible scenarios in which there are still more than two title-game-worthy teams after the BCS bowls. See: last year, when the LSU/Alabama/Oklahoma State thing almost definitely wouldn't have been resolved via the bowls since they all would have been split up because of tie-ins, or any year that featured an undefeated Boise/TCU/Utah playing somebody outside the top five. No thanks.

But I'm not particularly concerned about that scenario anymore since Mike Slive showed up at the SEC baseball tournament last week and told everybody that a plus-one is stupid (or something along those lines):

"It's interesting because clearly what we did (in introducing the Champions Bowl) created a lot of thinking by a lot of people," Slive said. "I appreciate people thinking about that. But I think what's in the best interest of college football is a four-team playoff. I think it's better for everyone involved in the game."

This backs up what Big 12 commish Chuck Neinas and ACC commish John Swofford said the week before:

"I think it's beneficial to go to the four-team playoff," Neinas said. "The public expects a four-team playoff, and also to be able to provide the access possibilities and everything else, we need to look at a four-team format."

Swofford also said he remains in favor of the four-team model.

"The momentum continues to be in that direction (a four-team playoff)," Swofford said. "The key is being able to build a consensus how to do it.

So there ya go. The playoff will be a playoff and not a plus-one; "traction" requires more than Larry Scott and possibly Jim Delany talking about something.

As for the "who gets to participate" thing, the SEC spring meetings produced ... umm ... something:

Florida president Bernie Machen said the SEC would not compromise on having the four highest-ranked teams in the playoff rather than a group of conference champions.

"We won't compromise on that," Machen said at the SEC spring meetings. "I think the public wants the top four. I think almost everybody wants the top four."

OK then. FYI, that was a statement made on behalf of the conference as a whole, with the school presidents/chancellors and athletic directors providing unanimous support. I agree with the top-four assessment 100 percent but also find the "won't compromise" part of the quote somewhat concerning.

Cartman explains why:


SI's Andy Staples explains why in more words:

At this juncture, such a bold statement raises some serious questions about whether conference leaders can reach a consensus. It's one thing for a league leader to say the conference prefers a particular model. It's quite another to eliminate all wiggle room on a particular issue. ...

At their meeting earlier this month, ACC athletic directors and coaches backed conference-champ priority even though Commissioner John Swofford had previously stated a desire for the top four. At the Big Ten meetings earlier this month, Commissioner Jim Delany voiced support for a "hybrid model" that would give preference to high-ranked conference champions but would also make allowances in case one league had more than one elite team. At this point, the factions seem to be a group made up of the Big 12, the SEC and Notre Dame (top four) and a group made up of the ACC, Big East, Big Ten and Pac-12 (preference for conference champs).

Yeah ... that's not exactly a consensus, which is kind of a necessity. Machen even said after his initial comments that, "I don't really know what happens if someone says no. It really does have to be a consensus model to work."

I don't know how this gets resolved but (a) really hope the SEC/Notre Dame/Big 12 contingent wins since I hate the conference-champions-favoring plan and (b) really wish the the Big Ten hadn't given up on on-campus semifinals since this would be a perfect quid-pro-quo bargaining chip (give a top-four selection system and get semifinals in places that might actually get snow more than once a century). Alas.

Staples makes a couple really good points in that column, BTW. I recommend reading the whole thing but have to blockquote this portion for its brilliance:

The argument against the hybrid model (three conference champs within the top six and a wildcard) is that the No. 3 team could be left out in favor of the No. 6 team. That may sound fine to Big Ten and Pac-12 leaders now, but what happens when one of their champs is sitting at No. 1 and one of their teams is sitting at No. 3? They seem so focused on putting up roadblocks for the SEC that they have lost sight of the fact that they also have strong leagues that might someday be as dominant as the SEC is now.

Yup. I would be amazed at the shortsightedness if not for the people involved. I mean, it seems entirely possible that the Big Ten could produce two teams in the top three OH WAIT IT JUST HAPPENED FIVE FREAKING SEASONS AGO:

... my personal favorite is 2006: No. 1 Ohio State, No. 2 Florida, No. 5 USC, and No. 6 Louisville are in. No. 3 Michigan (11-1 with a 42-39 loss to Ohio State) and No. 4 LSU (losses to No. 3 Auburn and No. 2 Florida) are out. So Michigan, which was No. 2 but idle on Championship Saturday and got leapfrogged by Florida by .0101 in the final BCS Standings, doesn't get in. But Bobby Petrino's Big East champions, whose best non-conference win was over a 7-6 Miami team, gets to be in the Final Four?

There's some saying about history something something doom something something.

Anyway, there's obviously some work to be done there in terms of determining the participants. For what it's worth (which is nothing), my guess is that there ends up being some sort of preferential treatment for conference champions, maybe in the form of limiting semifinal-hosting capabilities to conference champions in a top-four field. Notre Dame probably wouldn't love that scenario but doesn't have a true host-bowl tie-in anyway; it could be worked out.

There's an acceptable middle ground in there somewhere that can/will be found since nobody wants to renege now and both (a) deal with the public backlash and (b) walk away from the gajillions of dollars on the table in TV revenue.

Back to Staples for the win:

We probably should wait until the unseen hand in all this drama makes its moves. We know what the leagues want, but we don't yet know what television executives want. Their willingness to pay to televise the playoff hinges upon the quality of the matchups created. The better the matchups, the more money everyone gets.

So don't worry too much about the playoff falling apart, even if the rhetoric gets stronger in the next three weeks. Cash is the ultimate consensus builder, and it hasn't had its say yet.

Nailed it.

So ... that's where things stand. That was more writing blockquoting than I expected but hopefully provided a bunch of interesting information that will be outdated by, like, Wednesday.

*This could be a faulty assumption since there is already a "playoff revenue distribution subcommittee" in place. Still, I can't imagine that the money is gonna be a serious deterrent to getting a deal done; I'm with Staples in that I think the money is the thing that will ensure that something gets done because there's simply too much to pass up.

A glorious, self-congratulatory meta update

At some point between midnight and 2 a.m. this morning, this website hit 10,000 page views. The answer to the snarky question you definitely are thinking right now: No, they are not all mine since my own hits are excluded. There are, for whatever reason, actually people reading (or accidentally stumbling across) this site with some regularity.

It took 266 posts and 363 days; that's about 38 views per story and 28 per day. I'm not exactly Google.

Still ... I mean ... 10,000 is pretty decent considering my complete lack of a traffic-generating platform and the relative noob-ness of my site. I just gotta change that from 10,000 a year to 10,000 a day in order to quit my job and start producing hypothetically entertaining content on a much-more-regular basis. I'll work on that.

In the meantime, yay for something vaguely resembling a readership.

Yay.

ESPN needs to look up the definition of 'can'

I saw this feature called "20 teams that can win it all" start to pop up in various places on ESPN while I was on vacation. I did not read any of the team-specific pieces since I was busy hanging out at the beach and whatnot, but I was bored today and went back to check out the full list since I figured reading about actual football-type stuff (and not realignment) would be swell.

Here it is:

20. Texas
19. Clemson
18. South Carolina
17. TCU
16. Arkansas
15. West Virginia
14. Georgia
13. Wisconsin
12. Florida State
11. Boise State
10. Stanford
9. Ohio State
8. Virginia Tech
7. Oklahoma State
6. USC
5. Florida
4. Oregon
3. Oklahoma
2. LSU
1. Alabama

Lol wut?!? I mean ...

... yeah.

My laughing-pear reaction has nothing to do with being a Michigan fanboi and everything to do with the fact that Ohio State is the only team in the country that literally can not win it all this year. That inconvenient postseason-ban thing means they (a) can't win the Big Ten since there's a championship game now, (b) can't play in the BCS title game and (c) aren't eligible for the AP poll and therefore, by rule, can't finish No. 1 in any of the currently recognized ranking systems. They can not win it all this year. Can not. I don't know how to make this any clearer. Eastern Michigan should be higher on the list. Etc.

ESPN's lame explanation is that the rankings actually aren't projections for this year and are determined via some kind of weighted formula based on offensive and defensive drive efficiency from the last five seasons. The specifics:

The Program FEI (PFEI) ratings published on this site represent a rolling five year period of drive efficiency data, weighted for more recent seasons. PFEI has a strong correlation with next-year FEI ratings (.752) and is used as the baseline data for my annual FEI projections. For years in which drive data is unavailable, I have developed an Approximated Program FEI (APFEI) rating based on final scores instead of possessions.

I like the FEI drive-efficiency metric. It is very valuable in determining a team's relative quality during/after the season. It also tells me very little (in a specific sense) about future games; the writer cites a .752 correlation between program FEI and next-year FEI, which is nice but not close to being perfect (and correlation does not equal causation). It's a general guideline that basically demonstrates, in numerical form, that a team that has been cumulatively very good over the last five years is likely to be very good again the following year. Woo.

There's also this:

The national champion(s) in 23 of the last 27 seasons was ranked among the PFEI/APFEI top-20 at the start of the season.

That means there were four national champions that did not start in the top 20, which in turn means that the implication that the top 20 teams are the only 20 that can win the national title is stupid ... especially when one of those 20 teams literally can not win the title. What this should be called is, like, "20 teams that have the best five-year-average drive-efficiency numbers" or something; nobody would read it, but at least it'd be accurate.

Summary: I have a beef with an ESPN copy editor (assuming copy editors still exist, which is a questionable assumption). This is very important and totally worth the 600-ish words I just wrote only because I really wanted to point out that Ohio State can not possibly, under any circumstances, win it all. OHIO!

Please explain this illogical meme

 This is from a FOXSports.com piece published today and written* from the Big 12 meetings:

Once it’s decided whether the playoff will consist of the top four overall teams, only conference champions or some combination of both, another wild ride on the conference realignment carousel will begin.

“Obviously the decisions around the BCS, wherever that winds up going, could have other implications for some realignment moves,” NCAA president Mark Emmert said Thursday. “I’m sure there will be some more yet to occur.” ...

So while the Big 12 insists it is satisfied with 10 members and has not had any expansion talks with other schools, just wait until the details of the four-team playoff are finalized and the conference starts getting telephone calls.

I've seen this same thing implied in several other columns that I don't feel like pulling up and/or linking to, and I don't understand.

To be specific, what I don't understand is how/why a four-team playoff is going to set off additional realignment. I understand how/why money sets off realignment, but the above-quoted piece does not at any point reference TV revenue or profit or anything related to money at all; the point is that the implementation of a four-team playoff will, for some reason, set off this string of realignment-y events.

I think -- I'm not totally sure about this -- that the common misconception is that the four power-ish conferences are gonna somehow monopolize the playoff to the exclusion of the ACC, Big East, Notre Dame and various other teams that would never make it anyway. This is not possible. I know it's not possible because (a) there are about as many powerful people -- most notably Jack Swarbrick, ACC commish John Swofford, and whoever is officially in charge of the Big East -- who don't want that to happen as do want it to happen, and (b) that monopolization system was in place back in the original BCS days and then ceased being in place when the non-BCS conferences started threatening a lawsuit in 2004. That led to the advent of a fifth BCS game and two additional at-large spots rather than legal shenanigans since the Department of Justice's involvement wouldn't have been enjoyable for anybody other than the lawyers getting paid in Maseratis.

Translation: A four-team bracket built solely around the four power-conference winners probably wouldn't be legally doable even if it had mass support, which it doesn't since it would screw over everybody outside the four power conferences. Whatever playoff system gets implemented will, without question, feature some degree of access for non-BCS (or whatever you want to call them now) teams.

And going back to the point about the playoff potentially including only conference champions -- which is extremely unlikely now that the SEC has publicly declared that it "won't compromise" on a four-best-teams setup -- wouldn't that be a pretty good incentive to not consolidate into a loaded conference? I have to believe that the undefeated winner (let's say Florida State, hypothetically) of a meh ACC would be ranked higher than at least one of the power-conference champs unless it happened to be a weird year in which there was exactly one undefeated team from every elite conference. The strength-of-schedule factor would come into play, but not to the extent that it would eliminate the possibility of a non-Big Ten/Big 12/Pac-12/SEC team getting in the playoff since that would unquestionably produce another lawsuit explosion from the 60-70 teams not in the aforementioned conferences. In other words, it seems like being in a weaker (but not WAC-ish, obviously) conference and having a better shot to go undefeated would be preferable, although that's purely from a competitive standpoint and not a financial one.

Speaking of which, the piece I blockquoted above is specifically referencing the Big 12 and relies heavily on the assumption that there's no way it will continue as a 10-team league because of the need to be "proactive" and yadda yadda yadda. Question: What incentive would Texas or Oklahoma or even Oklahoma State to approve more members when the current setup allows them to bypass a conference championship game and thus have a better chance of finishing unbeaten and getting a spot in the playoff? There are obviously a few programs out there that would produce a revenue increase (and a conference title game would tack on a few more million bucks a year), but again, that's purely a money thing and not a playoff-induced thing.

I've been racking my brain and have come up with zero logical explanations for the playoff-generates-realignment theme; the stuff I've seen written (which is in line with the Big 12 piece) doesn't make sense, and everything that does make sense in terms of realignment wouldn't be generated by the implementation of a playoff. So I dunno.

Just remember the last two paragraphs as the major takeaway from what I've written here: There will be more realignment/consolidation (to some degree), but it will be because of the ridonkulous financial differential between the conferences with Scrooge McDuck-esque TV payouts and those without, not the playoff-type thing. I just can't figure out why the latter keeps getting cited as the lone explanation for whatever illogical thing will happen in the future when, in reality, it would actually seem to be a deterrent that'll just get ignored in favor of an extra drift of cash.

Because cash wins everything.

*FYI, that piece was written by Thayer Evans, who's normally pretty good. I don't think he's thinking this one through but also can't criticize him too much seeing as how he has a kinda-substantiating quote from Mark Emmert, who has zero decision-making power in all this but probably seemed like a good source since he's, you know, the president of the NCAA.

Catching up laughs at Craig James (as usual)

My impromptu road trip to Long Beach caused me to miss a variety of kinda-newsworthy things over the past several days. This is where I summarize all those things in one way-too-long post:

Miami is "committed" to the ACC: Yeah ...

Hurricanes athletic director Shawn Eichorst released a statement Friday saying, among other things, that Miami has "not engaged in any formal or informal discussions with any other conferences" and that the school continues to believe in the appeal and strength of the ACC.

The Hurricanes began play in the ACC in 2004.

"We could not be more proud than to call the ACC our home," Eichorst wrote in a statement. "We are confident in our progress and in our accomplishments, yet there is still much work to be done. We are committed to the ACC and to doing our part to continue the tradition of excellence across the board. In that regard, we have not engaged in any formal or informal discussions with any other conferences."

... until an opportunity for discussions actually presents itself or Florida State bails for the Big 12 or whatever. Present-tense phrases like "are committed" and "we have not engaged in any discussions" mean nothing about plans/intentions going forward and should be taken with a ginormous lick of salt.

Clemson isn't even pretending:

"We've not had any contact from any league," Clemson board chairman David Wilkins said Thursday. "If we receive a viable option, a viable proposal, that is presented to us by any league, we will consider it."

Translation: Looking for good home for Tiger-themed program with history of mediocrity but awesome pregame entrance. $20 million a year OBO.

To be honest, I have no idea what's gonna happen with the ACC but couldn't possibly be more skeptical of the things people say about commitment when money is involved. See: Coaches, all of them.

The Big West and the Big East all at once: Boise State is headed to the Big East. For real. Here's the update from the conference meetings:

Boise State, which has been in recent talks with the Mountain West Conference about staying in the league instead of leaving next year, has reaffirmed its commitment to join the Big East, a conference official told ESPN's Joe Schad on Friday.

This update has been brought to you by the Big West, which offered up a home for Boise State's non-revenue sports (they'll need one after the WAC is done falling apart), thus making Boise's decision a lot easier and making the Big East a much more viable conference than it would have been had Boise reneged and gone back to the Mountain West. In other words, everybody wins (except the Mountain West).

BTW, all the stuff I wrote a couple weeks ago about the cost-benefit analysis is much less relevant with the option to move only football to the Big East, which is minimally stronger than the Mountain West but will certainly bring in more money (probably about $5 million a year more) and might be able to retain its BCS autobid. I'll forgo the standard complaint about the absurdity of the Big East's geography and just try to ignore the even absurder absurdity of the Big East's best program being part of a school that's officially a member of the Big West.

Bill Stewart is gone: There's not much to say here. The guy was a well-liked but totally unqualified offensive line coach who had one memorable game as Rich Rodriguez's fill-in, a couple of predictably disappointing seasons and then one of the strangest, most awkward exit transitions in the history of ever. In other words, the meaningful portion of his career was short but eventful; he went 28-12 and died at the relatively young age of 59.

The good times:


It probably means something that the statements that came out in the days right after his death had nothing to do with that ridonkulous game and everything to do with the impact he made as a "person," a "friend," a "father" and an "inspiration."

Landry Jones needs a friend: This seems potentially problematic:

Oklahoma announced Tuesday that receivers Jaz Reynolds, Trey Franks and Kameel Jackson are suspended indefinitely for a violation of team rules.

It is unclear how long the suspensions may last. Jackson announced two days ago he was transferring, which seems to indicate he would not be back. Franks was already suspended last year for two games, and his return for the 2012 campaign seems on shaky ground. Reynolds was suspended one game last season.

The Jackson thing was obviously expected; the others not so much. Reynolds was third on the team last year with 41 catches for 715 yards and five touchdowns and would be a significant loss, especially with Ryan Broyles gone. Kenny Stills is pretty dang good and a legitimate No. 1 wideout, but depth might be an issue since Reynolds and Frank are the only other scholarship receivers on the roster who have ever caught a pass and might not even be on the roster by the time the season rolls around. This would be less of a concern if Fresno State transfer Jalen Saunders were eligible to play this year; he's not.

FWIW, OUInsider reported on the day of the suspensions that Franks is done for the year and Reynolds is out for seven games. There's been no official confirmation of that despite its odd specificity (seven games?).

Keep in mind that Landry Jones was flat-out not good last year after Broyles got hurt. Whether that continues with even less experience at receiver (at least for the first half of the year) remains to be seen.

It's Mississippi: This is the Ole Miss-iest news of the offseason:

OXFORD, Miss. (AP) -- Mississippi sophomore Nickolas Brassell has decided to transfer after losing his academic eligibility.

Brassell was a two-way starter (!) at Ole Miss last year as a freshman (!!!) after being a borderline five-star recruit who, like every other recruit who has ever had the chance to escape Mississippi, decided not to escape Mississippi. He had 24 catches for 336 yards and two touchdowns on offense (as a receiver, obviously) to go along with 14 tackles and five passes defended on defense. That's doin' work.

He'd be getting legit All-America hype right now if he could keep his grades in order, which he apparently could not. No word yet on where he's headed, but it'll presumably be a juco since he's not NCAA-eligible (it wouldn't make any sense to leave Ole Miss just to sit out somewhere else). Raise your hand if this surprises you at a school that prefers its recruiting classes as ginormous as possible since half the guys in them will never make it to campus. No hands? OK then.

A timely addition for TCU: Aaron Green was a mega-recruit last year (No. 11 overall in the ESPNU 150) out of Texas who went to Nebraska and got a couple carries per game as a true freshman behind Rex Burkhead and Ameer Abdullah. The couple-carries-per-game thing was apparently fine; what wasn't fine was when spring rolled around and Green realized he was still stuck behind the same guys, with one of them (Abdullah) also just a sophomore.

Result:

Nebraska sophomore Aaron Green has decided to transfer, his father told multiple media outlets Sunday night. Green, a San Antonio native, likely will move closer to home and select a Big 12 program.

That was almost a month ago but turned out to be pretty freakin' accurate:

Former Nebraska running back Aaron Green took to his Twitter account to announce his transfer decision.

“I will be finishing my Football career at Texas Christian University AKA TCU!! In Dallas/Ft. Worth Texas. Go TCU!! Go #Frogs.”

TCU has had a crapload of success over the last decade but hasn't (at least to my knowledge) gotten any recruit as highly touted as Green, probably because five-star dudes don't sign up to play in the Mountain West. I don't think the importance of the move to the Big 12 can possibly be overstated here, especially seeing as how Green's father specifically mentioned a plan to "select a Big 12 program." There are obviously major-conference benefits beyond the financial ones.

As for Green, he'll have to sit out this year as a redshirt but will have three years of eligibility left starting in 2013, at which point the only other experienced back on the roster will be current sophomore Waymon James (it's worth noting that Green could have been a comparable situation at Nebraska next year if he'd have stuck it out, but it's possible that there were issues other than playing time). TCU split carries three ways last year between James, Matthew Tucker and nominal starter Ed Wesley but will have to reconfigure things next year since Wesley just quit the team for "family reasons."

BTW, Wesley was a freshman All-American in '09 and a Doak Walker semifinals in 2010, so that loss isn't insignificant. At least there's depth and additional talent coming through the pipe.

R U SURE??? Rob Bolden is not transferring. Not today.

The rumor mill had been churning in high gear for the past several days that Penn State junior quarterback Rob Bolden would transfer.

But the Centre Daily Times reports that Bolden is staying with the Nittany Lions, quoting his high school position coach. Penn State officials also confirmed that Bolden was back on campus.

FYI, Bolden was as bad in the spring game (three picks?!?) as he was for most of last year (39.3 percent passing lol) and is probably gonna end up sitting behind Matt McGloin and/or Paul Jones if either one is capable of successfully completing a forward pass, which isn't a certainty but is more likely than Bolden suddenly becoming a competent quarterback. I have no idea why he's still at Penn State; he probably won't be by August ... or maybe tomorrow.

Settle down, USC: There will come a point -- probably in about 2015 -- when USC's depth will be craptacular because of the massive scholarship limitations. This is not debatable. Whether this craptacular depth will ever be relevant is another matter entirely since the chances of needing a third-stringer go down quite a bit when all the guys on the two-deep are eleventy-star high school All-Americans who had 43 billion offers.

Ty Isaac is one of those guys:

Ty Isaac, the nation's No. 1 running back, verbally committed to USC earlier today.

He made the announcement via Twitter.

"Committed to The University of Southern California," he tweeted shortly before 10 a.m. CDT this morning.

The 6-foot-2, 215-pound Isaac is the nation's No. 8 overall recruit.

Isaac's commitment in and of itself didn't mean a whole lot but was preceded by commitments from Justin Davis, another five-star running back who picked USC the day before Isaac did; Max Browne, the consensus top QB in the country; and overall-top-10 defensive end Kenny Bigelow.

USC has only seven 2013 commits yet has more Rivals 100 guys (six) than anybody other than Michigan and Texas, which is almost as laughable as the fact that USC had the highest average star ranking of any team in the country last year at 4.07 and has somehow gone up this year to an absurd 4.28. 4.28!!!

The NCAA wields a powerful hammer:

Powerful.

Asher Clark chose poorly: Asher Clark was kicked out of the Air Force Academy last week -- less than a week before graduation -- due to some drug-related shenanigans that are incomprehensible to me. Details:

Air Force tailback Asher Clark has been kicked out of school as a result of an investigation into illegal drug use, The Gazette of Colorado Springs has reported, citing unnamed sources. School spokesman David Cannon confirmed to the newspaper that Clark, a four-year starter for the Falcons, is no longer enrolled but would not comment further, referring to the Privacy Act.

According to The Gazette, the school said in January it had suspected at least 15 students were involved in illegal drug use, findings that stemmed from an academy investigation that eventually expanded to involve 31 cadets, some of whom were student-athletes.

This really has no bearing at all on Air Force football since he was a senior last year and would have been shuffling off the eligibility coil anyway; I'm just including it here because the story popped up on my headline feeds and I figured it was worth mentioning, even if just to point out the irrelevance in terms of football and the stupidity in terms of life.

Clark leaves school (involuntarily, of course) second on the school's all-time rushing list with 3,594 yards but with zero degrees. Ugh.

DeAnthony Arnett is good to go: The NCAA actually did something logical (!) last week, granting DeAnthony Arnett's request to play immediately at Michigan State.

A little background: Arnett was a relatively big-time recruit who went to Tennessee, caught 24 passes for 242 yards and two touchdowns last year as a freshman and then decided he wanted out of that tire fire in order to be closer to his grandfather, who lives in Saginaw (Sparty country) and is on dialysis. He transferred a couple months ago and filed a hardship waiver with the NCAA; the decision was the correct one given the family situation.

A quick glance at Michigan State's depth chart from last year shows the following at wideout: B.J. Cunningham (graduated), Keshawn Martin (graduated), Keith Nichol (graduated). The leading returning receiver: Bennie Fowler, who had two catches for 20 yards. In other words, playing time will be readily available, especially for a guy like Arnett, who became the most talented receiver on the roster the moment he transferred and should be the No. 1 guy for the next three years (barring injury or typical Sparty malfeasance).

Art Briles is a crazy dude: According to Kendall Wright, Baylor did not use a playbook last year. Here's the exact quote:

“We didn't huddle at Baylor and we didn't have a playbook. If we had a new play or something, we'd just draw it and go out there and run it."

 I have no idea how to react to that. Amazement?

Just because: The results from the Texas Senate race are in:

Hilarious. Please note that, based on the margin of error, Craig James might actually have finished with negative votes, which isn't really possible but might be if the candidate in question is as universally reviled as Craig James.

I cede the floor to Mike Leach (this is from a random Q&A he did a couple weeks ago via Reddit):

How much do you hate Craig James, I mean seriously?

I think my opinion is consistent with most of the rest of America's.

Yup.

Not this crap again

OH HAI REALIGNMENT I FORGOT HOW MUCH I HATED YOU. This is from some guy at College Football Today:

According to two people with the strongest ties possible to Florida State's Athletic Department, FSU fully plans on exiting the Atlantic Coast Conference. Florida State will begin its transition to the Big 12 Conference beginning this June. One source went as far as to say, "at this point the move is inevitable."

Ummm ... wow. That's a pretty big step considering that it was only eight days ago that school president Eric Barron was spelling out all the reasons not to leave the ACC, most notably the travel costs that would consume all (and more) of the $3 million gained via TV revenue.

The landscape obviously has shifted in the past eight days given the competitive/financial impact of the SEC-Big 12 bowl deal and, more specifically, who it leaves out of the games everybody's gonna care about. This is from my post the other day:

The ACC just got pwned. The issue isn't so much playoff access as it is general postseason interest and accompanying financial viability. Think about this: There hasn't been an ACC team in the season-ending top two in any season since Miami was The Best Team in the History of Ever back in 2002. In other words, in a George Lucas-directed scenario in which the bowls-as-host-sites plan were to be backdated to the beginning of the BCS era (or whenever), it'd have been a full decade since the ACC got to host a semifinal game and swim in a pool of corresponding TV revenue (I'm going on the assumption that the host sites and conferences will get a disproportionate amount of the annual distribution).

And the BCS consolation prizes won't be of much help since the two games most people will care about -- the Rose Bowl and the stupidly named Champions Bowl -- will have all their tie-ins locked up. All that's left for the ACC is a deal with the Big East (pfffft) in the Orange Bowl, which ... ummm ... gack.

If Florida State were still Florida State circa 1999 and destroying the ACC en route to a top-five finish every freakin' year, this would be less of an issue; the impending playoff will have to allow access to everybody at the risk of agreement-obliterating lawsuits. It's not 1999. Florida State is obviously still a very good and desirable program but can't just rely on its own on-field awesomeness to ensure financial viability and access to a postseason game anybody will be interested in watching or attending (not the Orange Bowl, to be more specific).

The loss of Florida State would not in and of itself be much more devastating to the ACC than what's already happened but would be compounded to the nth degree if DeLoss Dodds Orangebloods is right (unfortunately the link is paywalled) in its report that the Big 12 has also had preliminary discussions with Miami, Clemson and Virginia Tech.

All the stuff I wrote about the ACC getting pwned applies to those schools just as much as it applies to Florida State, and all have the competitive/regional attractiveness to make them relatively appealing to any conference wanting to expand. Insert complaint here about geographic awkwardness and my lack of interest in watching any of those schools play any of the schools that used to comprise the Big 12 North; geography obviously isn't much of a factor anymore (or at least is outweighed by all the other factors).

This is obviously very-early-stage stuff that might never happen despite the supposed "inevitability" of Florida State's move. I'm still pretty skeptical based on last year's ridiculousness. That said, in the hypothetical scenario in which the Orangeblood report actually becomes something more meaningful than "informal discussions," the ACC could not survive as anything other than a glorified mid-major; it'd be what the Big East was a couple years ago, essentially. The remaining schools in the ACC would be as follows: Boston College, Pitt, Syracuse, Maryland, NC State, Wake Forest, Duke, Georgia Tech, North Carolina and Virginia. That collection of football programs would not be of sufficient interest to retain the per-team payouts from its TV contract, which would just exacerbate the desire for any school with any appeal (the recent Big East defectors and Georgia Tech, mostly) to GTFO. It's not hard to envision the ACC either (a) completely falling apart, with its leftovers melding with the Big East somehow, or (b) being picked apart to the point that it's right about even with the Big East as a second-tier conference with an occasionally interesting team but little national relevance.

Exactly how much the Big 12 would end up benefiting is, IMO, a little less certain. Having 14 (mostly good) teams along with a pile-of-cash-generating conference championship game and probably an improved TV deal would be swell, obviously, but would also require actually getting the four teams listed above (or some similar combination). That's not a guarantee because of the SEC, which is sitting at 14 teams and allegedly has googly eyes for some of the ACC's Southern members. Long story short: If Clemson and Virginia Tech end up with offers from both the Big 12 and the SEC, the choice is easy for them and the situation becomes a little more ambiguous for Florida State and Miami, who presumably would be even more desperate to escape the imploding ACC but would be odd outliers in a conference centered entirely around Texas that might not see much of a TV revenue increase by adding two schools that don't have huge national followings. To be clear, I have no idea which schools (if any) the SEC would be most interested in adding and am just throwing out some cost/benefit scenarios that have been bouncing around in my big, useless head.

I'm not sure exactly what happens next and have little desire to mentally rearrange the various conferences based on nothing but my own speculation, but I will say this: The idea that there are gonna be four 16-team superconferences in the near future is faulty and probably wrong. I accepted it as a near-inevitability at one point but can't do so anymore. The reason: The quality teams simply don't exist to make it happen.

Tell me which school (other than Notre Dame, which lol no) the Big Ten could bring in that would (a) expand the footprint in a meaningful way and (b) add enough money to make it worth cutting one more slice out of its revenue pie. Syracuse? Rutgers? Virginia? Meh. I don't think there's any way any of those schools would get approved by the conference's current presidents, who'd basically be volunteering to give away a chunk of their own TV money (about $25 million this year) just to add a couple Northwestern-caliber football programs and let the conference change its slogan to "We have as many teams as the SEC!"

Same goes for the Pac-12. Find me a team west of the Mississippi that isn't part of the Big 12 or Big Ten and would generate anywhere near the necessary revenue for the conference to break even by expanding; I will laugh if your answer includes Fresno State and/or San Diego State. Boise and BYU might be plausible additions from a financial standpoint but would only be sufficient to create the Pac-14, and really, what's the point of going to 14? At least 12 has an obvious benefit (the conference title game) that directly produces more money for all 12 members; everything else just dilutes the money and the number of games between the best teams, which in turn dilutes national interest and network ratings and so on and so forth.

There's just no purpose in going to 16 unless it, like, betters the conference somehow, and the SEC is the only conference with the possibility of betterment because of the availability of the aforementioned ACC schools (which would presumably prefer the SEC for travel purposes and regional coherence). Everybody else is reaching peak financial value at either 12 or 14 teams and will have no real incentive to get larger unless, at some point in the relatively distant future, the playoff-type thing becomes a larger bracket that offers the potential for multiple guaranteed bids for each major conference; strength in numbers would at that point become a financial factor.

Anyway, I've kinda gone off on a tangent here and should circle back to the Florida State/ACC stuff before my train of thought has completely derailed. This could all be irrelevant if John Swofford has some secret stash of Cowgirl Jen-type females to sacrifice to the Florida State student body as an incentive to stick it out in the ACC. Losing two of the Virginia Tech/Miami/Clemson/Georgia Tech conglomerate wouldn't be devastating if the other "powers" (for lack of a better word) agreed to some sort of Big 12-type long-term commitment, especially since most of the ACC's current members have nowhere else to go anyway. That said, a commitment is pretty unlikely given the money that's (potentially) out there and the obvious desire to not be the one left out of whatever does end up happening.

The tl;dr version: Be prepared for the ACC to start bleeding out and thus become something far less relevant than the current ACC, be prepared for the Big 12 to get larger/better/more stable, and be prepared for pretty much all the nationally interesting/relevant teams to be consolidated into the four interesting/relevant conferences, almost none of which will have 16 teams (despite what everybody wants you to believe).

The only definitively good thing about all that: There will presumably be a point in the near future when something resembling stability will exist and I/we won't have to speculate about various head-shakingly nonsensical realignment-related rumors anymore. Yay in advance.