Big Ten and Pac-10 Expansion: Mechagodzilla wonders what else he can shoot

I've had to go underground from the sports blogging scene because work/home life/blogging balance wasn't happening. Having my allergies flare up wasn't happening, either.

So naturally, when I head off for my mini-sabbatical, all hell decides to break loose. Of note to me:

1) The NCAA's new celebration rule, which I will get to tomorrow. Suffice to say, it won't be pretty.
2) The Big Ten conversation regarding expansion? Yeah, the time line may be accelerating a bit won't be accelerating after all, contrary to media reports.

Although no word came out of yesterday's meeting of the conference commissioners the time line isn't accelerating, that hasn't stopped, well, everyone who has access to a blog from chiming in. Check out this post from Rock M Nation (thanks, Bill C.!) for a list of what people have written over the last 24 hours or so.

As usual, I am fashionably late to the party, but let's take a look at what might happen if the Big Ten does decide to expand and idiotically chooses to go with a 16 team model.

Why do I think a 16 team model idiotic? Well, when you're trying to divide something up, it's much easier to swallow having to share with 11 other people than with 15 other people. Be it food or cash, no one really likes to share. Why else would ND be so adamant about touting their independence in football?

Oh, and a 16 team conference in football was tried once. It was just about 20 years ago that the Western Athletic Conference was 16 teams large. (Note that I said "large" and not "strong.") After three years of this super-conference, eight schools said screw it and split off to form the Mountain West. It was too unwieldy.

Granted, geography played a role in that, as the old Super WAC stretched from Oklahoma to Hawai'i. That kind of travel wouldn't exist for the super-conferences of this era, but I find it hard to believe that tension wouldn't eventually rip these leagues apart

I don't know many marriages that exist as a form of gold digging lasting that long, do you?

Let's being by getting the ball rolling by projecting who the Big Ten would take to raise their number to 16. They would need to add five teams, and while Notre Dame insists (for now) that they have no desire to join a conference unless their hand was forced, we will honor their wishes and leave them out of this little reindeer game.

The Big Ten would then look westward to the Big 12 North and pluck two teams: Missouri and Nebraska. Missouri brings the St. Louis TV market, decent academics and also a slice of Kansas City. Nebraska brings a lot of football tradition and the entire Sea of Red plus the state of Nebraska.

From the Big East, the Big Ten would offer Pittsburgh, Rutgers and Syracuse bids.

Meanwhile, on the west coast, the Pac-10, who is also looking to expand, might decide to go all in as well and jump from ten teams to sixteen. For the Pac-10, as they try to negotiate a new television contract, I think that what will matter most is trying to get the league recognized outside of the Pacific time zone.

The easiest way to do that might be to expand beyond the Rocky Mountains. Rumor has it that if the Pac-10 goes to twelve teams, that Utah and Colorado are the preferred targets.

However, if you're going to add more teams, why not shoot for the moon and invite four rivals from the now staggering Big 12? Forget about adding Boise State and TCU or BYU if you're the Pac-10; if you want to be relevant, go after the big fish and invite Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State? That would increase the profile of the league on the fields and courts and increase the visibility by now having a conference with brand names that spans across three time zones.

(Let me be clear here if you haven't already figured it out: I am completely guessing here. I have no inside information; this is all a product of an extremely fertile imagination trying to guess at what would be the most catastrophic scenario for some conferences.)

Now let us turn our attention to the south. I don't think that there is any way that the Big Ten and Pac-10 would expand and the SEC would stand pat. I just can't see that happening.

This is an arms race, and you'd better believe that the SEC will keep up. But I don't see them having to reach far to poach teams.

Dear ACC:
We would like Florida State, Clemson, The U and Georgia Tech. K, thanks, buh bye.
Love,
The SEC


Which would leave us with this Big Ten:
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Missouri
Nebraska
Northwestern
Ohio State
Penn State
Pittsburgh
Purdue
Rutgers
Syracuse
Wisconsin

somehow trying to fit a "6" into their logo

the Pacific-16:
Arizona
Arizona State
California
Colorado
Oregon
Oregon State
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Stanford
Texas
Texas A&M
Utah
UCLA
USC
Washington
Washington State

and the new SEC (no name change necessary):
Alabama
Arkansas
Auburn
Clemson
Florida
Florida State
Georgia
Georgia Tech
Kentucky
LSU
Miami (FL)
Ole Miss
Mississippi State
South Carolina
Tennessee
Vanderbilt

These three conferences would be at the top, and a decimated Big 12, an almost dead Big East, the three independent schools, a damaged ACC and the Mountain West minus the team that broke through the BCS glass ceiling.

In Part II, we will look at what the options are for the rest of the BCS leagues and the Mountain West, and wonder what Notre Dame will do?

Rich Rodriguez Is A Marked Man

I would hazard a guess that as far as coaching positions go, no job in sports has as hot a seat as the college football coach at a traditional power program.

No one today, though, probably has a hotter seat right now than Rich Rodriguez up at Michigan.

Coming in on the heels of Lloyd Carr’s retirement and after a catastrophic collapse against Pittsburgh in December 2007 (costing West Virginia the chance to play for the mythical national championship), Rich Rodriguez was brought in to bring his spread option style offense to Michigan, pulling the staid (and some would say stale) program into the modern era of college football.

Because Rodriguez was not from the coaching tree of the legendary Bo Schembechler (a “Michigan Man”), Rodriguez was viewed with suspicion by some Michigan fans and backers.

But he was hired by former athletic director Bill Martin to shake up the program.

And shake it he did, forcing some players to transfer. One such player, center Justin Boren, transferred to Ohio State and said that under Rodriguez, “family values [of the program] had eroded.”

Rodriguez has also been criticized by some former players now in the NFL such as New York Jets wide receiver Braylon Edwards and Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Dhani Jones.

The 8-16 record over two seasons hasn’t helped things for Rodriguez.

Nor has the fact that Michigan was stuck footing some of the bill for Rodriguez’s West Virginia buyout.

Did I mention that Rodriguez is being sued for being in default for a loan to build condominiums near Alabama’s football stadium?

And lest we forget the NCAA violations of practice time at Michigan.

Or the fact that it was announced earlier this week that the NCAA visited with West Virginia officials about possible rules violations for the football program. According to an ESPN.com report, a source close to the program said the allegations are related to Rodriguez.

Michigan recently hired a new athletic director. The new AD, Dave Brandon, is a former player under Bo Schembechler.

In other words, he is a “Michigan Man.”

And while Brandon has stated in interviews that he would be proud to play for Rich Rodriguez and has stated that Rodriguez will be the coach for the 2010 season, let’s say that Rodriguez’s tenure is tenuous at best.

If the NCAA sanctions are damning (which they probably won’t be) and the team continues to be a train wreck on the field, I would thoroughly expect Michigan to cut ties as soon as possible.

Sometimes, when things are a bad fit, you need to move on as soon as possible.

No one would fault Michigan if that’s what they did.

(A version of this piece appeared on Southern Pigskin.)

Mini Blog-cation

We will be taking a short break here for the next month or so because of the day job and an actual vacation in May.

We will be back in late May starting our run-up to the regular season with conference look aheads and some other previews.

I will still be writing on Thursdays over at Southern Pigskin, but that's all that you'll hear from me.

What Expansion Could Mean to the Big Ten, Notre Dame and the SEC

Although I wonder who is who in this scenario:

I think it's obvious that Starscream = SEC
But is Megatron/Galvatron the Big Ten and Unicron is Notre Dame?

My thought is that Unicron is the Big Ten, and Notre Dame is Megatron/Galvatron.

Either way, I needed to justify the clip:

I Doubt An Eagle Would Ever Do It With A Lion, But...

Located in Williamsburg, Virginia, the College of William & Mary is the second oldest institution of higher education in this country (after Harvard). Its undergraduate program is consistently ranked in the top ten nationally.

Until 1977, the athletics teams were known as the Indians. In 1978, the school changed the name to the less offensive Tribe, although they retained two feathers in the logo, harkening back to the school’s former nickname.

Then the NCAA stepped in and said that the feathers in the logo could be considered offensive to Native Americans, and the school’s appeal was denied. So the feathers went away and a new logo was revealed in December 2007.

In 2009, the current William & Mary president, Taylor Reveley convened a committee of current students, alumni, faculty and staff to spearhead the efforts to create a mascot for the campus. It was supposed to be a “unifying, fun figure on campus.”

The selection, which was unveiled on Tuesday: Griffin, a griffin.

A griffin, for those who don’t know their mythology, is a beast with the head of an eagle and the body of a lion.

According to Reveley, “With its arrival, we now have a mascot that unites strength with intelligence, recalls our royal origins, and speaks to our deep roots in American history.”

That sounds nice.

But it looks like a cartoony mess.

Personally, I don’t know if I would have gone in this direction, although I guess it beats the other finalists: A pug (!), a phoenix, a wren, and a king and queen.

I understand wanting to keep the nickname Tribe. It’s unique to William & Mary and fosters a sense of community for the campus.

But the mascot and accompanying logo are a serious fail.

As usual, the decision comes down to money. Just having the W&M on t-shirts was not moving enough product for the school, so they went ahead a created a mascot.

(Yes, I am aware that there was a costumed figure for W&M prior to Griffin called Colonel Ebirt that was running around campus during the early 2000s. He has been retired and he was unofficial anyway.)

Not every school is meant to have a logo and mascot. I think a school can survive without one.

But at the very least, if you’re going to go with a griffin, then I think you should go all in and change the nickname as well.

And the nickname I’m thinking of, while not wholly original, is fitting for a team in Williamsburg, Virginia:

The Colonials.

96 Team Tournament? Eh. I'm not bothered...

As we march inevitably closer to a 96 team field in the NCAA tournament, more and more bloggers, sports writers and fans are coming out against the expanded field.

I'm not as bothered by the expansion of the tourney. I'll have more thoughts on it later.

But what I wanted to share right now is how some of these folks are feeling right now. Based on how Twitter blew up this afternoon after the NCAA press conference at the Final Four, you would have thought R. Kelly was in the house:

Chappelle's Show
R. Kelly's "Piss on You" Music Videos
www.comedycentral.com
Buy Chappelle's Show DVDs Black Comedy True Hollywood Story

Of course, I can't share the first video without sharing this:

Arne Duncan's Heart Is In Right Place, But....

Arne Duncan, the U.S. Department of Education Secretary, wrote a very persuasive piece today for ESPN.com.

Duncan, who played basketball at Harvard, believes that it is imperative that colleges and universities should have to graduate 40 percent of their student athletes to be eligible for postseason participation.

This is in the wake of the report that came out around the start of the 2010 NCAA men's basketball tournament that indicated that there were some schools participating in this tournament that have not graduated any players recently.

The way that the NCAA calculates graduation rates is by giving student athletes a six year window to complete their bachelor's degree. Transfer out of a program and departures for early entry into professional leagues do not count against a team provided that the student athlete was in good academic standing at the time.

Look, I think Duncan's heart is in the right place.

But I fail to see how it is fair to ban current players for the sins of past players.

It's like when the NCAA implements a postseason ban to a current team for transgressions of previous administrations. What did the current players have to do with someone who was on the team over a cycle ago?

If, for example, I am a freshman on the Cal Bears right now, why should I have been banned because no one from the 2005 team has received their degree under former coach Ben Braun?

I guess that's a life lesson that Duncan and the NCAA can teach these athletes. As Scar from the Lion King said, "Life's not fair, is it?"

Look, I do think that reform is necessary in intercollegiate athletics. On many levels in the revenue sports, the dollar signs have taken over and that romantic, quaint notion of the student athlete in his varsity jacket, carrying a stack of textbooks under one arm has faded into that Norman Rockwell past.

The problem I have, though, is with the fact that some of these student athletes come to college not prepared to be there at all. That is the broken part of the system.

Just because you (or someone you pay) can take the S.A.T. and you receive your diploma from high school doesn't mean that you're prepared for college. It just doesn't.

There are countless tales of illiteracy among student athletes in college courses. Guys who can't read or write in English composition classes or in need of education in rudimentary math skills like addition and subtraction.

The system is set up to provide them with a means to an end: They go to college because they have to, not because they want to.

It's a miracle to keep some of the student athletes eligible, let alone on a path to graduation.

The emphasis on reform the intercollegiate athletic process needs to filter down to the middle and high schools. That's where the system, from my perspective, breaks down.

I would even go as far as to say that the AAU should require academic standards for participation.

No grades? No travel teams. No showcase games during the summer.

No grades? You don't get to go to the skills camps.

Make education matter long before they get to college.

Because you aren't necessarily going to flip the switch for motivation once they arrive.

I've come up with an apt description of Tim Tebow

So I don't write a whole lot about Tim Tebow for a variety of reasons. The main one being that I don't want my email box blowing up.

But as I thought about the latest controversies involving Tebow this week, plus the added rumor that Tebow might grace one of the covers of NCAA Football 2011 by EA Sports, my mind kept coming back to one thing: What product represent Tim Tebow the best?

Tim Tebow is Happy Fun Ball. Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball:

It's hard out here for a beat writer

I think I may have figured out what the toughest job in the SEC might be.

The toughest job in the SEC is beat writer for the Florida Gators.

At least if you work for the Orlando Sentinel.

That’s what Jeremy Fowler found out on Wednesday when he was confronted after practice by head coach Urban Meyer.

Meyer was upset about a piece Fowler wrote in which he quoted junior wide receiver Deonte Thompson saying that new Florida quarterback John Brantley was, “a real quarterback.”

You know what? That’s not being fair to Thompson. Here’s his full quote from Fowler’s story on Tuesday:

“You never know with Tim,” Thompson said. “You can bolt, you think he’s running but he’ll come up and pass it to you. You just have to be ready at all times. With Brantley, everything’s with rhythm, time. You know what I mean, a real quarterback.”

Now, when I first heard the quote and read it, my initial reaction was to say, “Okay, then.”

I didn’t think he was ripping Tebow. I saw it as a way to praise Brantley. Brantley is a more traditional quarterback, and I don’t think that anyone who saw Tebow play the last four years would even deign to think of him as a traditional quarterback.

He just wasn’t. That wasn’t his game.

So Thompson’s comments seemed innocuous enough, and several of the pieces I read from blogs and columnists said the same thing. No harm, no foul.

Unless you’re Urban Meyer, who yelled at Fowler after Wednesday’s practice for having the audacity to…quote Thompson?

Fowler wrote, “’If that was my son, we’d be going at it right now,’ said Urban Meyer, pointing his finger and singling me out in front of about 15 or 20 reporters gathered after Wednesday’s practice.”

According to Fowler, Meyer continued:

“You’ll be out of practice — you understand that? — if you do that again,” said Meyer, while a couple of spectators still sat in the stands. “I told you five years ago: Don’t mess with our players. Don’t do it. You did it. You do it one more time and the Orlando Sentinel’s not welcome here ever again. Is that clear? It’s yes or no.” (finger pointing toward the face)
“Urban, come on. Don’t make any threats,” I said. “That’s fine. I’ll play by rules. But all I was doing is quoting the guy. I don’t think I was the only one.”
“You’re a bad guy, man,” Meyer said. “You’re a bad guy.”

Look, I don’t know the full extent of the issues that Meyer has had with Fowler or other reporters from the Orlando Sentinel.

But it seems to me that Meyer is making a much bigger deal out of this than needed to be.

Defending a player is one thing. Mike Gundy was made famous (or infamous, as the case may be) for his rant defending Bobby Reid from big, bad Daily Oklahoman columnist Jenni Carlson.

But Gundy yelling in a press conference is one thing.

Meyer pointing a finger in a reporter’s face seems to be a bit much to me.

It’s great that Meyer defends his players (although I don’t know if he was defending Thompson or Tebow).

This act, though, seemed like a bit much.

Video of confrontation available here

UPDATE: Now embedded for your enjoyment:

Books that have influenced me

This idea came from a reader of Tyler Cowen's site Marginal Revolution. This is a list based more on my gut and what came to my mind stream of consciousness rather than trying to think too deeply about this list.

I admit that it was not instantaneous; I still had to think about books that mattered to me. While I've been a voracious reader in my lifetime, I still had to think about what books really touched me on some level or made a difference in how I viewed things.

Also, this list is in no particular order.

1) Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell — Not the first Orwell I read (that honor belongs to Animal House) but this was the book that stuck with me. I was in high school when I read it, and it is the kind of book I wish I was talented enough to write. On some level, that applies to all of these books, but this one in particular was an enthralling memoir about being poor in two of the most famous cities in the world in the early 20th century.

2) The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald — Chris over at Smart Football said this best: Fitzgerald is best read when you're young. The charming and mysterious Gatsby is truly a seductive character.

3) The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger — While probably not the best Salinger you can read (Nine Stories holds that honor), I think that most teenaged males feel like Holden Caufield on our best days — especially those of us at prep schools.

4) Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes — Tilting at windmills. Dulcinea. The concept of how madness can consume us when we're at our weakest. To me, on some level, this is the first modern novel. A classic work of art. I was introduced to it in Spanish class and then read it in translation.

5) Bald As I Wanna Be by Tony Kornheiser — Mr. Tony? Really? Yes, really. I could have put Dave Barry in here as well, but I was nearing the end of my college career when I came across Tony Kornheiser's radio show. While this is his second collection of Style section columns, I maintain that it's his strongest. I can have it on my bookshelf for two years without reading it, pull it down and laugh out loud.

6) I'm Just Here For the Food by Alton Brown — My patron saint of the kitchen, I fell in love with Good Eats while unemployed and living in Pennsylvania. Alton inspired me to do something with my downtime, and that was learn to cook better and more. This book helped diversify my skills and also taught me many things.

7) On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee — And Mr. McGee helped explain the science and some of the history behind what Alton was teaching me. A reference book that I can read again and again.

8) The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — "It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all of the evidence. It biases the judgment." Something that every journalist or researcher should keep at the forefront of their mind. I know I do whenever I am writing longer pieces for this blog.

9) The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka — Seventh grade. Starting to go through puberty. So naturally, this book about a major physical change resonated with me as I went through my own personal physical metamorphosis.

10) Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare — Not to be a contrarian, but I think Marc Antony's eulogy for Caesar might be even better than Hamlet's, "To be or not to be" soliloquy. Although really, the story is centered on Brutus's conflict of the good of the state versus his own friendship and what should matter.

Big Ten Expansion Speculation: Realignment into divisions

Because I love doing these speculative expansion posts in pairs, here's my thoughts on Big Ten realignment. Again, I see four possible scenarios, but unlike the Pac-10, where there appears to be two distinct rumored favorites, there are at least five contenders. I tried to incorporate all five into the different scenarios. Alignment one assumes that Missouri is selected and is based on an East/West split. Alignment two assumes that one of the other schools (Pitt, Rutgers, Notre Dame, Syracuse) is selected, but is still based on an East/West geographic split):

Alignment 1:
East
Indiana
Purdue
Michigan
Michigan State
Penn State
Ohio State

West
Missouri
Illinois
Northwestern
Iowa
Wisconsin
Minnesota

Alignment 2:
East
Michigan
Michigan State
Penn State
Ohio State
Indiana
Pittsburgh (or Syracuse, ND or Rutgers)

West
Illinois
Northwestern
Iowa
Purdue
Wisconsin
Minnesota

Alignments three and four as based on North/South divisions:

Alignment 3:
North
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Northwestern
Iowa
Michigan
Michigan State

South
Missouri (or Rutgers or Pittsburgh)
Illinois
Purdue
Indiana
Penn State
Ohio State

Alignment 4:
North
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Syracuse (or Notre Dame)
Northwestern
Michigan State
Michigan

South
Iowa
Illinois
Purdue
Indiana
Penn State
Ohio State

I don't see the Big Ten taking the radical step of just placing the teams into a hat and pulling names out and slotting them into divisions. The Big Ten is too traditional to do something like "Mountain" and "Plains" divisions; after all, this is a league that was still known as the Western Conference officially until sometime around 1987—even though they had had ten teams since the mid 1950s.

Progressivism is not their style.

Pac-10 Expansion Speculation: Realignment into divisons

As a strictly mental exercise, I wanted to think about how the Pac-10 would realign if they did expand. There are a couple of possible alignments to think about. There is the traditional East/West Alignment, where a line is drawn among the cities that make up the conference and voila!

Now, all of these alignment assume that the Pac-10 takes the two most viable candidates, which are Utah and Colorado.

Alignment 1:
East
Colorado
Utah
Arizona
Arizona State
Washington State
USC

West
Oregon
Oregon State
Washington
Stanford
Cal
UCLA

Of course, this would break up the Washington/Washington State and the USC/UCLA rivalries. So why not go East/West, but with a twist: Take each of the pairings and split them up not based on pure geographical location, but based on their location within the pairing:

Alignment 2:
East
Colorado
Arizona
USC
Cal
Washington State
Oregon

West
Utah
Arizona State
UCLA
Stanford
Washington
Oregon State

Of course, you can always go with the typical North/South geographic realignment:

Alignment 3:
North
Colorado
Utah
Oregon
Oregon State
Washington
Washington State

South
Cal
Stanford
USC
UCLA
Arizona
Arizona State

Of course, there is another option, which makes no regard for the actual geographical location. It's more about trying to balance out the divisions with regards to the perceived relative strengths and weaknesses of the football programs while trying to do some preservation of rivalries.

The rivalries for those who wind up cross-divisional can be handled within the scheduling structures that the conference would create. I believe that this is sort of what happened with the ACC, and why they call their divisions "Atlantic" and "Coastal"

Alignment 4:
Division 1
Oregon
Oregon State
Washington
Washington State
Cal
UCLA

Division 2
Colorado
Utah
Arizona
Arizona State
USC
Stanford

Again, this is all supreme speculation, as Pac-10 expansion is still a long, long way away for being a done deal. But it does make for some fun mental gymnastics.