Utah Gains PAC 10 Invite
It’s official. Utah has been invited to the PAC 10. While the offer hasn’t been accepted yet, is there any doubt that Utah will leave the Mountain West Conference for the PAC 10?
This offer makes sense in a number of ways. First of all the “PAC 11″ really needs to get to an even number. Twelve is a good number for a Conference Championship Game. Secondly, Utah will give newcomer Colorado a traveling partner. While the divisions in this potentially new arrangement haven’t been sorted out yet, one could expect that Colorado and Utah would likely join Arizona and Arizona State, plus possibly USC and UCLA in an eastern/southern pack while Cal, Stanford, Oregon, Oregon State, Washington and Washington State would fit a western/northern grouping. Thirdly, adding Utah may take some investigative heat off of the BCS.
There is currently an effort by the Utah Attorney General’s office to take the BCS to court for antitrust violations. Meetings are scheduled with the U.S. Department of Justice in July over this matter. Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff may continue his fight against the BCS, even if the University of Utah was to be admitted to the PAC 10. In a statement to the media Shurtleff exclaimed, “We’re convinced the system as set up is anticompetitive. It goes way beyond the University of Utah.”
U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah also has a hand in the fight against the BCS. Last year, state legislature drafted a resolution that demanded a playoff structure for college football. This move was fueled by the BCS snub of Utah after the university was kept out of a National Championship game for two times in five years. In 2004, Head Coach Urban Meyer and QB Alex Smith led the Utes to a 12-0 record and a Fiesta Bowl win over Pittsburgh. In 2009, Utah went undefeated again at 13-0 including a Sugar Bowl win over Alabama. Neither time did the BCS see fit to consider Utah for the title game.
Utah can finally get a legitimate shot at a national championship, but the in-season competition will get a lot tougher. Bye bye Air Force and Brigham Young, hello Cal and USC!
BCS Football Doesn’t Want a Butler at the Party
Butler advances to the 2010 National Title Game (Mark J. Terrill/AP Photo)
Where would a school like Butler be in the NCAA Football post-season? Buried… for all of the wrong reasons.
Watching Butler advance to the National Championship Game in Basketball was beautiful. The game was hard fought, the sportsmanship was solid, the fans were enthusiastic, the winners and losers were both gracious. For the first time in school history, Butler will go to the National Title game in Basketball.
NCAA Basketball will soon expand their playoff field to 96 teams. Whether you like the idea or not, you have to admit that March Madness is exhilarating. The ceremony, the upsets and the fever of the fans makes the entire month special. While college bowl season is wonderful, you’ll never capture the same passion during late December and early January until something changes.
Yes, basketball is different from Football. It’s easier to field a competitive basketball team. As long as there are 85 man rosters and the financial disparity between BCS schools and everyone else, there will be few “mid-major” underdogs in college football, unlike college basketball. In football it’s just too hard to gather together enough high quality players to compete with the depth that BCS teams can put on the field. Boise State and Utah have done it recently, but it’s tough to do.
Then there’s the scheduling. With no playoff, there’s no incentive for elite BCS teams to play competitive non-BCS teams. Because of the bowls and the polls, there’s little incentive for a Top 25 team to play a schedule any tougher than they have to. If team starts the season in the Top 25 and can win every game in their schedule, they’re likely to compete for a national title under the current system. It’s a beauty contest. At the least, an undefeated BCS team can complain that they were unjustly disrespected if they finish undefeated and don’t get a Championship Game bid. If a non-BCS team finishes undefeated, they won’t get a crack at a Championship Game. Why? Because they haven’t played a tough enough schedule. But who will schedule them? Do you see Alabama, Florida, or USC lining up to play Boise State as an out-of-conference game? At least Virginia Tech has stepped up and scheduled Boise State to start the 2010 season.
BCS schools have everything to lose and nothing to gain by giving viable non-BCS schools a shot at knocking them off. Without a playoff system in College Football, we’ll never know if the football version of the Butler Bulldogs would have a shot at winning the National Title.
Here’s the biggest travesty. The Football Postseason isn’t even controlled by the NCAA. Yes, they have a hand in it, but not like the College Basketball postseason. The bowl games run the Football postseason. What runs the bowl games? Sponsor money and bowl committees designed to keep things the way they are.
It’s time that the NCAA took back the College Football Bowl Season and it’s time to run it the way it ought to be run. Give the little guy a shot! College Football is about tradition, blue bloods, and Rose Bowls with USC and Michigan. College Basketball is also about tradition, blue bloods and Final Fours with Duke, Carolina or UCLA. Sponsors still pay and viewers will still watch with Butler in the final on Monday night. America loves an underdog, especially one they’ve gotten to know in the tournament. If Utah Football had an “unbelieveable” post-season run of wins against teams like Oregon, Ohio State and Florida in order to get to the title game, don’t you think that fans would tune in to see a Utah vs. Texas title game?
College Basketball has it right. The NCAA is missing the boat by letting the bowls control the Football postseason.
Pinstripe Bowl Details Unveiled
The bowl once called the ”Yankee Bowl” has been unveiled. Details for the Pinstripe Bowl have been announced.
The first annual New Era Pinstripe Bowl will take place on December 30, 2010 and will be played at Yankee Stadium. The contest will feature the #3 Big East team against the #6 Big 12 team (excluding BCS teams) and will be televised by ESPN. The first football game scheduled for Yankee Stadium will take place this season when Notre Dame plays Army (of nearby West Point) on November 20. Future dates for the bowl have not been scheduled yet, but it was announced Tuesday that the game would always be scheduled between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.
If the game had been held this past bowl season, Rutgers and Texas A&M would have been the participants.
News of the new bowl game begs the question, “Have we already reached the point where there are too many bowls?” We regularly have six win teams reaching bowl games. Some teams come into a bowl game with a 6-6 record, have lost their bowl game and finished the year with a losing record. Almost every team in Division I-A schedules a Division I FCS team in hopes of an easy win and an easier path to bowl qualification.
The Pinstripe Bowl won’t suffer much because it enters the Bowl Parade with enough clout to schedule a good matchup. Considering that the NY Yankees are involved, it shouldn’t be difficult to keep the Pinstripe Bowl matchup strong year in and year out. The growing glut of bowls will certainly affect the lower tier bowls that will end up scraping to come up with bowl eligible teams come December. This is not moving big time college football any closer to a playoff. It’s only adding to the number of hands that will be in the pot if a playoff system is ever created.
BCS Conference Expansion Rumors Abound
It started a few months ago with the Big 10 talking about expanding to 12. They already have eleven teams, but the “Big 11″ just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
The logical choice for the Big 10 would be to add Notre Dame, but Notre Dame has already rebuffed them. The Big 10 has since turned its eyes toward the Big East. That has the Big East looking to defend itself by adding teams ASAP.
What’s driving all of this? Money of course. There’s big money in season ending championship games and the television money that comes along with BCS prominence. In order to secure their position and take a bigger slice of the pie, the Big 10, Pac 10 and Big East are all angling to build their conferences and hold a championship game that would determine the conference’s top team.
The Big East is in the most complicated position since they currently have a 16 member conference where all schools play basketball but only eight members play football in conference. The easiest solution might be to separate the BCS football schools from the non-Division I-A football schools, but from there who would get the Big East name? The heritage basketball programs such as Villanova, Georgetown, Providence, St. John’s and Seton Hall could easily lay claim to making the Big East a household name. After all, most of the football schools are “Johnny Come-latelys” when it comes to building a name for the Big East. Under the current circumstances, the eight football teams at least want to add another football school so that they can have a more complete round-robin schedule and only have to schedule four out-of-conference games each year. That ninth football member would make for an uncomfortable 17 in most other sports.
The Big 10 can call its own shots. If the Big 10 were to add a team to get to 12, it’s been rumored that they’d turn to Pitt, Syracuse, Louisville or Rutgers in order to round out their conference. Pitt provides an in-state partner for Penn State and is a geographic fit. Syracuse is an academic and geographic fit. Louisville would extend the conference’s footprint into Kentucky. Rutgers is the most intriguing option because it would not only expand the conference eastward, but it would also give the Big 10 exposure in the country’s #1 media market: New York City.
On the other side of the country, the Pac 10 is discussing expansion as well. The addition of two teams gives them a logical two division format like the Big 12, SEC and ACC and gives them an opportunity to stage a conference championship. The Pac 10 has numerous choices for expansion, but eyes Texas as their number one target. UT won’t be easy to woo since they rule the Big 12 as it is now and get more than their fair share of revenue from the conference. Texas turned down Pac 10 membership in the mid-90s and will likely do so again. That decision may have already been made. Texas’ revenues from Football are the largest in the country. Why would they mess with a good thing?
That leads the Pac 10 to look at other avenues. Media market size is still important so you can count Boise State out of the mix. In fact, as important as football programs are, it will be media market that drives the train. Without the addition of the University of Texas-Austin, adding a Texas school is geographically improbable. That means TCU is likely out. Looking at it from a media market standpoint, the states of Utah and Colorado make the most sense for expanding the Pac 10′s presence. Pulling Colorado from the Big 12 might not be too difficult. Picking a Utah school might be obvious as well. If the Pac 10 membership can get past any ideological differences with BYU, the Cougars’ program might be a good pick. Otherwise, look to the University of Utah to pull the Salt Lake City market and the rest of the state into the Pac 10. Adding Colorado and a Utah school also makes sense from a time zone standpoint. In conference game time starts would only be an hour off when schools travel to a different time zone. The Pac 10 already has two Arizona schools that are in the Mountain Time Zone for part of the year.
One conference has to make the first move. If the Pac 10 picks up Colorado, then the Big 12 would have to pick up a team. Missouri has been rumored to be listening to offers from the Big 10, so don’t rule that out either. If the Big 12 loses one or two teams, they’d likely look to Arkansas of the SEC. While the SEC’s ESPN deal might prevent anyone from leaving, Arkansas does have an old rivalry with Texas and they’d love to play regular games against some of the other Big 12 schools.
If the SEC lost a team or two, you can bet they’d look to bolster their presence in Florida before they’d pick up schools like Memphis or West Virginia. Miami and Florida State might be ideal targets for the SEC. If those schools bolted, then the ACC would have to pick up schools. Losing Miami and Florida State would take the state of Florida from the conference. Would they add a school like UCF just to get their Florida presence back? Would the ACC look to West Virginia? Virginia, Virginia Tech and Maryland would likely welcome the Mountaineers into the fold. The SEC could also look at doubling down in Kentucky by adding Louisville.
So we’re back around to the Big East again. The Big East could lose West Virginia in the ACC scenario. They could also lose Pitt, Syracuse, Louisville or Rutgers. It’s been mentioned that Boston College is unhappy in the ACC because they are by far the furthest north. Even if the Big East splits along football lines, Boston College is a better fit in the Big East. Villanova just won the DI-AA championship and could very well be encouraged to make the leap to Division I-A football. Memphis, East Carolina, Marshall and UCF from Conference USA are desperate to move into a BCS conference. The Big East would be weakened by losing a team to the Big 10, possibly one to the SEC and one to the ACC, but if the Big East could pick up Boston College, Villanova (for Football), Memphis and East Carolina, they’d be on track for maintaining their BCS status.
One other scenario is still in play. Congress is considering legislative action against BCS schools. If Congress is successful at pressuring the NCAA and its BCS members, you could see the BCS grow in two ways. All schools may be forced to grow to 12 team status and a new BCS conference could be formed by the smaller institutions in the west who have routinely busted the BCS in recent years. Schools like TCU and Boise State could force their way into the party. A premium edition of the WAC/Mountain West would include Boise State, TCU, Brigham Young, Air Force and Nevada, and that merged conference might just push its way into BCS inclusion. If the Pac 10 were to add Utah, that would blunt some of the WAC/MWCs efforts to become big time.
The dominos are going to start to fall and the first move could come as soon as this spring. All it takes is one conference to push the first domino toward another.
College Football Shifting South
U.S. Population is shifting south. The game is shifting south as well.
This season has been interesting for following recruiting. Every year is different, but this season has provided more twists and turns than most.
Coaching changes have impacted the recruiting game more than ever before. Big names have committed to big coaches only to reconsider after the coaching situation changed. Look at Notre Dame, Texas Tech, Kansas, Cincinnati, Louisville, Tennessee, USC and others as examples of that.
Non-BCS teams had a successful season on the field. Boise State and TCU had to face off against each other in the Fiesta Bowl, but that BCS bowl appearance was a landmark for non-BCS teams. Both teams were undefeated going into that game. Utah had an extremely successful season once again. Even with that success, non-BCS schools are typically left with the BCS leftovers when it comes to recruiting.
Years from now, we may be able to look back on this off season as a pivotal one in college football and recruiting. Will blue chip recruits begin to resist the glitz and glamour of BCS programs for an equal opportunity to win at non-BCS programs? If a kid has a chance to start at a non-BCS winner, why go to State U. and ride the pine behind a glut of blue chip atheletes? Look at Mitch Mustain. He picked Arkansas out of high school but left because Houston Nutt’s offense was designed to run the ball successfully behind the strength of two future NFL running backs. Mustain left Arkansas for USC, only find himself buried on the depth chart. Now he may finish his college career as one of the most promising quarterbacks never to contribute significantly to the college game, all because of depth chart circumstances and transfers.
In recent years, we’ve also seen a trend for high schoolers seeking warmer climates for playing football. Northern kids often go south but few southern kids go north to play ball except when they go to bigger schools. This trend is helping schools in the south. Most of the talent rich states are southern. Colleges travel nationally to recruit kids from Florida, Texas, and California. The deep south (Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana) also produces a great number of players. More populated northern states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio that are rich in football tradition also feed many college programs. Population trends and a desire to live in warmer climates may continue to yield consistently better recruiting classes at southern non-BCS schools.
Which programs stand to gain? A good recruiter in a winning program can often overcome population trends, weather concerns and so forth. Don’t take this as a death knell for schools like Northern Illinois, Buffalo, Central Michigan or Idaho. There is reason to believe that the south will continue to reap the benefits of location and population however. The SEC continues to get stronger. They’ve produced the last four national champions. Other southern schools will benefit as well. Don’t be surprised if Sun Belt region schools (not necessarily Sun Belt Conference schools) start rising up over the next decade or so. They just have to put themselves in a position to win with good facilities and good coaching.
TCU has accomplished much. USF has risen from nearly nothing to BCS level prominence. East Carolina has seen a lot of success recently. Don’t be surprised if schools like Louisiana Tech, Memphis, Middle Tennessee, Troy and UCF begin to prosper more steadily over the next decade. Even here in southeastern Virginia we’ve seen Old Dominion University begin its ascendancy.
There may be a big BCS conference shakeup on the horizon. The Big 10 is talking expansion. The Big East may expand or contract. Conference affiliations will likely change in the next few years. One change is already happening. The center of gravity for college football is shifting south.