A Letter to ESPN

Dear ESPN,

I'm probably long overdue in writing this missive, and for that I should apologize. Although I am sure that by now, you must have realized that this letter was coming. I know from my perspective, the writing has been on the wall for some time now, but events over the past few months have forced my hands to the keyboards.

I probably shouldn't beat around the bush anymore, so here it goes:

I think we should start seeing other people.

It's not you. It's me.

No, no. That isn't quite right; I would say that both of us are probably to blame for the change in this relationship. And sometimes that happens; people change. They drift apart. Interests that used to be shared just aren't there anymore. Quite frankly, I don't think that carrying on this long-term relationship is mutually beneficial anymore.

I know I've changed. I've discovered new outlets for accessing information, as SI.com and Yahoo! Sports have become much, much stronger voices in the sports media, with killer investigative reporting and feature writing. From a different perspective those lines, blog networks like Bloguin and SB Nation allow more fan voices to speak through, and the analysis that takes places on some of the fan sites on these networks outstrips a lot of the work that is done by ESPN.

(Disclosure: I am an author for a site on SB Nation's network of college blogs, Rock M Nation.)

My local sports radio station here in Las Vegas is one of the best sports radio stations in the country, and the mid-day shows Gridlock and DC and the Sunshine Man cover national sports with more edge than I could ever expect from Mike and Mike and with an intellectual honesty that is sorely lacking from the likes of Colin Cowherd.

My tastes have changed. The way I want to receive information has changed. The type of people I want to receive that information from has changed. But you have changed as well.

One of the things that made me realize exactly how far apart we had grown was when the book about ESPN by James Miller and Tom Shales came out in May and I had less than zero interst in the book. I mean, less than zero. Years ago I would have rushed right out to a bookstore and snatched up the first copy I could get my grubby little hands on. Now? I don't even want to look for it a the local libraries.

The second thing that made me realize how small a role ESPN plays in my life now is the fact that there are only three shows I watch on ESPN regularly that are not live sports: Pardon the Interruption, College Gameday (for football) and College Football Final. That's it, that's the list. I don't remember the last time I watched a whole SportsCenter from start to finish; it seriously might have been 2003. That was not the case years ago.

The third thing was when I logged onto ESPN.com and didn't realize that you had shifted some of the bloggers around to different beats and had actually added some new staffers. That blew me away.

The last thing that made me realize that we might have reached the end of the road was the situation with Bruce Feldman. I've never met Bruce Feldman, but I have been reading his writing since the nascent days of ESPN.com (back when it was still ESPN Sportszone). I've always found his reporting and writing to be solid; the essence of professional, quality sports journalism. Feldman is one of the few people that work for ESPN that, off the top of my head, I would love to meet and talk with.*

With that being said, the way that your organization treated him last week was unconscionable, and the bullshit spin that you put out after Twitter exploded with the #freebruce hashtag was abominable.

If Feldman was "never suspended" as your p.r. flacks and the terse, three sentence release stated, then a) why didn't you say so when contacted by other journalists Thursday night and, b) why did your statement mention Feldman was "resuming duties?" There is nothing to resume if there is nothing that was interrupted, which is what a suspension would have done.

Additionally, why was Bruce not allowed on his Twitter account and why was his chat skipped without explanation on Wednesday? Why did it take you a day to say he wasn't suspended if, he, in fact, wasn't suspended?

To an outsider, it looked petty. It looked small-minded. It looked wrong. It looked like it was badly mishandled by management.

Sadly, you've become a network that has little relevance in my life at this point, with few broadcast personalities that I care about or even pay attention to, and a management that (allegedly) treated one of their veteran writers harshly only to be rebuked publicly through blogs and social networks into (allegedly) reinstating him from a suspension that never happened. It's a tough pill to swallow, and quite frankly, I don't need that much drama in my life.

I'm moving on, although I hope that we can still be friends in the fall (for college football) and in the late spring/early summer (for the NBA Finals). Maybe you can put your money into reaching someone younger who is willing to overlook the flaws you have, and I'll find comfort in the arms of a wider variety of information sources.

Good luck, ESPN. I wish you the best.

Sincerely,
The Pigskin Pundit

(* The other ESPN folks I want to meet [in no particular order]: Kornheiser, Wilbon, Forde, John Anderson, Scott Van Pelt, Bob Valvano.)

Michigan needs victories, not mascots

Even though my background is in higher education administration, I have had the pleasure of spending time around business majors and business professors. In addition, I have plenty of friends who work in business, marketing, advertising.

As a communications major, and as a cynical person, I believe that nothing good can ever come from the words, "youth demographic." Especially as it relates to sports.

So imagine my surprise when I read a story in Michigan Today, which contained those ill fated words in connection to...a costumed mascot at the University of Michigan. From athletic director Dave Brandon:

"I'm struck by the fact that when opposing teams come to our stadium, and they bring a mascot, all of our young fans are lined up to see if they can get a picture taken with it, whether it's the Penn State Nittany Lion or Sparty," Brandon told Michigan Today. "That's a little annoying to me.




"You can't get your picture taken with a Block M. Mascots are really embraced by the youth demographic and we want to take advantage of that, for all the reasons that are obvious...Our history and our tradition is great for those of who were there to experience it, or remember it...but there's a generation coming up and you've got to connect with them and keep them excited."

I'm not like ESPN's Michael Wilbon, who detests most mascots and would rather see them banished from the sports landscape. My alma mater has a costumed mascot, Truman the Tiger. Named after President Harry Truman, who was from the state of Missouri. I've been down with Truman for about a decade and a half at this point.

Mascots can be fun, mascots can be entertaining for the kids. I know that when I take my son to events out here at UNLV, he likes seeing Hey Reb around and giving him a high five.

So I totally get what Brandon is talking about.

But I agree with Michigan alum and NFL Network broadcaster Rich Eisen. Michigan should be a mascot free zone.

Part of what makes Michigan, well, Michigan are the maize and blue colors, "The Victors" fight song, the winged helmet (which was not originated at Michigan but is a part of the iconography of the school) and the distinct lack of a mascot.

Nine of the twelve Big Ten schools have on field mascots. Hell, newcomer Nebraska has two with Lil Red and Herbie Husker. Illinois used to have one until the NCAA forced Chief Illiniwek into retirement (and that's a whole other story). So the clear lack of a mascot is a relatively unique position in the conference and on a national level as well.

You know what I think will make Michigan football exciting for the "youth demographic" that Dave Brandon is desperate to reach? It's not a mascot, or "retro-inspired uniforms" or finally playing a night game (although that may help a little bit more than anything else).

It's winning. (Duh!)

Win.

Win often and win big. Beat Ohio State. Beat Nebraska. Beat Michigan State and Penn State. Win your division, win the conference and compete not for Rose Bowl appearances, but for actual BCS Title game appearances.

Because not having a fuzzy mascot like Willy the Wolverine (an attempt that some enterprising Michigan students tried in the 1980s) isn't what will lose you traction with the almighty "youth demographic."

Not having won a national title since 1997 is a much, much bigger ailment.

Housekeeping: Guest spot this week

I'll be doing a guest spot tomorrow over at Blatant Homerism, an Oklahoma blog with the Bloguin network. It's "Best of Week" and I highly recommend you check out the other stuff over there. The guys do good work on Oklahoma football and college football in general and is in my must read rotation of blogs.

Why Playing Spot The Violation is a Problem

Let's Take A Quiz - Phineas and Ferb Lyrics + HQ (MP3 Download) (via PhineasandFerbSongs)


Yes, let's take a quiz. Presented by Bill Lubinger of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and with a tip of the hat to Mizzou alumnus Graham Watson of Yahoo! Sports for linking to it originally. Let's look at four scenarios in this case study. For each one, I want you to determine if it is an NCAA violation or if it is something that is permissible.
Again, you only have the information laid out in each case; no additional information for the presented scenario is forthcoming:

1. A "super fan" of the local college or university team is having a dinner for one at the local sports bar. He notices that a couple of the guys from the basketball team are sitting a few tables over watching a game. The guy calls the waitress over and orders a pitcher of soda and a bucket of wings to be sent to the guys. This guy is just a "super fan"; he is not an official booster. Violation or permissible?

2. The star middle linebacker has been invited to speak at a local Pop Warner football league's year end banquet. He is not being paid for this speaking engagement. He attends and gives a rousing speech. The grateful parents who are organizing the dinner invite the linebacker to stick around for dinner. They are serving chicken, scalloped potatoes, salad and chocolate cake. Violation or permissible?

3. Before the linebacker headed off to the banquet, he stopped by the football offices to chat with his head coach. The coach suggests that the player wear a tie for this speaking engagement, reaches into his desk and pulls out a tie for the player to wear that evening. Violation or permissible?

4. The compliance office receives an anonymous call from a potential tipster. This person is calling the compliance office because they have learned that the university is paying for contact lenses and braces for student athletes. Violation or permissible?

I'll give you the answers, provided by the compliance officers at the University of Akron and at Kent State University at the end of this piece.

But let's look at the above scenarios for a second and think about this. In each of these four scenarios, something that most folks would perceive as relatively innocuous is occurring, right? Buying a round of drinks and some food for basketball players. Contact lenses and braces (while not cheap are not as expensive as a customized low rider). A catered meal as a way of saying thanks for speaking tonight. Loaning a tie to someone who forgot to put one on.
I'm not going to say that those who were in the Tat Five are blameless, or that they shouldn't have been suspended. Nor am I going to say that Jim Tressel shouldn't have "resigned." The circumstances surrounding what's going on there, or what went on at North Carolina with Marvin Austin and company last season are different, and each case should be examined in detail for what is available.
On the whole, though, I wonder if it isn't necessary to do a full examination of the rule book. It might be time for an overhaul, because, quite frankly, there's no way that the average student-athlete (or even coaches, for that matter) is going to be able to know everything that is in there.
This link will take you to the latest edition of the Division I manual. Go check it out. It's free to download (and I do every year). It's a 444 page PDF, and quite hefty if you have a paper copy (I have an old paper one from about 2005).
It is dense, it is verbose, it is not easy to read and interpret unless you spend a lot of quality time with it. I am increasingly finding it harder and harder to say that as a student-athlete you need to be familiar with the sections that apply to you and you need to know them forwards, backwards and sideways.
Yes, I know that compliance and life skills are there to help with the interpretation of rules and policy for them, and that they do educate student-athletes on the issues that are relevant to them at the beginning of the year.
But there also has to be a reason that lots of schools pile up secondary violations out the wazoo; it isn't easy to keep this crap straight.
I think that the retreat that Mark Emmert has called for August 9-10 is good on its surface, and I'll have more on it later this summer. Part of reforming intercollegiate athletics, to me, involves looking at the rule book and deciding how much of this is actually viable and realistic in the 21st century and what rules make sense.
Let's not focus solely on enforcement; let's look at holistic reform from the ground up. It's time for a new model.
Answer key:

1. Violation. The student-athletes should say "No, thank you" to the soda and wings. It would constitute an extra benefit because they would be receiving it because of their athletics status and because free wings and soda are not generally available to the public. Also, you could argue the person may not have been a booster before, but is one now. Per an NCAA bylaw, he "provided benefits to enrolled student-athletes." By triggering that status, he now retains it eternally.

2. Permissible. The student-athlete can accept actual and necessary expenses for participating. He is also allowed to receive a meal for his participation, so the cost of the meal is not an issue. Interacting with the banquet attendees would not be an issue, either, since they are not of prospect age and the player is not a coach. If the parents insist the player join them for dinner some other time outside of the banquet, he can accept an occasional meal in the parents' home. Institutional discretion sets the definition of "occasional." At Akron, for instance, the definition is once a month, on average.

3. Possible violation. A tie, or other dress clothes for that matter, could be bought by the student-athlete using the Student Athlete Fund -- a fund provided by the NCAA to help them cover the difference between their scholarship and the cost to attend school. However, institutions are not allowed to loan dress clothes. If a school requires a suit/jacket and tie, the items would have to be bought through the fund. Even if the linebacker returned the tie after the event, it could still be viewed as a violation.

4. Permissible. Those items could be considered necessary for participation. Since they are medically related, they would be permissible if the school's budget and policies allowed for them.

Jim Tressel and the Wise Monkeys: When Players Try to Get Paid, Who Should Be Blamed?

(This piece originally was posted on Rock M Nation.)


My son turns four just after the first game of this coming season. Unless some weird recessive genes kick in, he probably won't be playing Division 1 FBS football when it's time for him to go to college. (And unless some other things about the game change, he won't be playing football at all. But that's another topic.)

If he does somehow manage to become a football star, though, my wife and I will have to be very careful in the vetting process. We'd want him to go someplace where he can be successful, a place where he'd enjoy the campus life (but not too much), a place where he can get a good education in a field he wants to study. And selfishly, it would need to be somewhere his mother and I would enjoy visiting a few time a year.

I'd want him to play for a good coaching staff. I want his position coach to be someone we really connect with and that he connects with as well; a coach that we'd trust our son with.

I'd want his head coach to be someone we could connect with as well; he should also be someone we would feel comfortable entrusting our son with.

Oh, and that coach should also be brilliant during game days and have a little of the three wise monkeys in him the rest of the week.

Yeah, the three wise monkeys. Mizaru, Kikazaru and Iwazaru. "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."

I mean, what program doesn't want a head coach that sees nothing going on that's wrong, hears no malfeasance and doesn't say a word about wrongdoing because, well, there's nothing wrong.

Isn't that how this is supposed to work? Aren't head coaches supposed to be kept out of the loop when players are driving fancy cars or showing up with a lot of tattoos when you know that said players isn't from a background that can afford new cars or (literally) thousands of dollars of tattoos.

I have one tattoo. It's not small, and it's on my right bicep. I live in a not that cheap part of the country, and my simple tattoo cost $100. Even allowing for things to be cheaper in Columbus, Ohio than they are in Las Vegas, there's no way that somebody on the Ohio State coaching staff shouldn't have caught on to the fact that their players—many of whom are from disadvantaged or highly disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds—suddenly had half or full sleeves of ink.

It's not like they were saving up refund checks from their scholarships.

Yes, Ohio State is an easy target because they are in the news right now. But look around at any of the FBS programs. Don't tell me that athletes aren't trading on their name recognition. Given the way that the system is setup for some of them now, it's the only thing that they have to use.

Does that make it right? No. Even if the rules that are in place are crappy, that doesn't mean you have the right to go around breaking them and flaunt the fact that you're breaking the rules.

But for a coach to act like the three wise monkeys, or even worse, act shocked that there is gambling going on in here, is even more worrisome to me. Does all of the detail work that goes into film study and game planning, the work of hiring a staff and working on recruiting, helping to gladhand alumni and do media appearances...does all of that detail work and micromanagement leave one blind to the fact that players are accepting graft from a variety of sources?

The question, I guess, is this: Who should ultimately be held responsible when players get in trouble for selling memorabilia and merchandise? Does it strictly depend on who is doing it? Or, if it's been going on for almost a decade and the coach(es) either actively or inactively turned a blind eye to what was going on, do people higher up the chain need to be held accountable?

Lost Soul, Empty Vest

(This column originally appeared on Southern Pigskin)

He was the Senator. The Sweater Vest. The Righteous One who did things “the right way.”


In the end, though, he turned out to be a lost soul in an empty vest.

Jim Tressel “resigned” Monday. Walked away. Or maybe he ran. Perhaps he was pushed as more and more details from this sordid affair continue to dribble out of the holes from sources along the Olentangy River in Columbus.

He might hate this characterization, but Tressel was somewhat deified. That is something that is to be expected of a coach’s fanbase to be sure, especially when that coach does what the previous coach never seemed to do—in this case, beat Michigan.

To a certain extent, though, Tressel was also godded up by a complicit coterie of media and analysts eager to find what I would call the “anti-Saban.” A coach who wasn’t unnecessarily bristly with the media, with a certain amount of charm and charisma who could field a national title contender just about every season with something resembling balance in his life. It wasn’t just football 24-7-365.

Wow. Looks like a lot of folks were fooled.

It’s hard not to be cynical in this day and age when covering or following college football. It’s not like scandals are something new that popped up today; one of the most famous cases (the SMU “Death Penalty”) happened 25 years ago. Every few years, there seems to be some kind of tale.

Hell, during last season we had the North Carolina Agent-gate situation, with several overlapping suspensions derailing what should have been an ACC-title for the Tarheels.

Oh, and there was that little situation with the preacher’s son and a transfer of schools and $180,000. I wonder what the resolution of that case was?

But this time it is different. This is Ohio State, members of the illustrious Big Ten Conference—a conference that would never have one of its members stoop so low as to besmirch themselves with even the hint of a scandal. Let alone a scandal of this proportion.

Things like this don’t happen with Big Ten teams, where players are getting tattoos in exchange for trinkets or game-used gear. The Big Ten doesn’t have players and their families getting access to nice cars under questionable circumstances.

Quarterbacks of Big Ten teams don’t get caught driving multiple cars over a three year period because their car is “in the shop” or because they want “to get the opinion of their family” about a car and yet they never seem to commit to a new ride.

Maybe we all should have listened when Maurice Clarett spoke up in 2003.

Turns out that much like Jose Canseco, even whistleblowers with checkered pasts can be right.

B-U-S-T-E-D!

(This column originally appeared on Southern Pigskin)

Legacy is an interesting word. For Ohio State's Jim Tressel, his legacy involves Marurice Clarett, Troy Smith and now Tatgate. But hey, he beats Michigan.


If there is one maxim that web 2.0 has taught us here in the 21st century it is this:

You can’t take anyone being a “good guy” on faith anymore.

Sure, there may be people that do good things, but it is becoming harder and harder to find a good guy.Don’t believe me?

Look at what is happening right now in Columbus, Ohio.

Oh sure, Jim Tressel has had a bit of a reputation outside of Ohio as a shady figure, a “Teflon coach” to a certain degree.

Maurice Clarett’s situation. Troy Smith being suspended for a bowl game for improper benefits. Tatgate.

But Tressel has managed to escape having anything stick to him until this week, when Ohio State was forced to admit that Tressel knew about the situation with the Ohio State players (including star quarterback Terrell Pryor) receiving improper benefits in the form of tattoos by trading or selling various awards and trinkets.
Ohio State reported the violations in December 2010 and the players were still allowed to play in the Sugar Bowl this past January before serving out suspensions at the start of the 2011 season.

Apparently, Jim Tressel found out about the situation and what the players were doing…in April of 2010.

April 2010?

Yes, April 2010. That means that Tressel knowingly played players that should have been suspended pending investigation. Hell, use the catch-all “suspended for violating team rules” line until the investigation is complete and call it a day.

How would that have been any less damning that what has happened over the past three months?

Did I mention that on September 13, Tressel signed an NCAA Certificate of Compliance that stated that he had reported any known violations to the NCAA?

Whoops. That means that not only did Tressel lie to his own athletic director and compliance department, he also lied to the NCAA.

When Bruce Pearl was caught in lies regarding improper recruiting, he was suspended by Mike Slive for half of conference play and fined $1 million by Tennessee.

Ohio State suspended Tressel for two games and fined him $250,000.

I’m sorry, but that’s not enough.

Ohio State had a chance to make a stand and didn’t. If some of the players involved in this situation got suspended for five games, Tressel needed to be gone for at least as long – if not longer.

He is the head coach. Ostensibly, he is the man in charge (and if Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee is to be believed, he is truly the man in charge at Ohio State – even above him) and he should be held to a higher standard.

If you write books about leadership, and talk and preach about instilling integrity in the men that you are leading and then don’t walk the talk, you should be punished accordingly.

Let’s see if Jim Delany or the NCAA will do what Ohio State’s leadership was too spineless to do.

I don’t have a whole lot of faith, though.

Where I spent my spring hiatus: Looking for paid work and getting a wonderful unpaid offer

This hiatus was not fueled by wanderlust, or boredom as much as it was fueled by a need to focus on finding gainful employment for myself in my current field.

As the end of my contract arrives in two weeks, I have to date been unsuccessful in securing a new position, so a major transition is on the horizon unless a deus ex machina arrives by Thursday, June 30 at 5pm PDT.

So there hasn't been too much writing going on for me at all. At least, not until a couple of weeks ago.

A long time friend of mine, Bill Connelly of Football Outsiders and Football Study Hall, co-manages an SBNation site called Rock M Nation. It's a blog for Mizzou fans (my alma mater). He asked me to come aboard as an author for the site, covering national college football issues. I eagerly accepted without hesitation (once I got the emails and Twitter DMs).

Um...wait. Isn't this already a national college football blog? And don't you do something similar for Southern Pigskin already? Don't the call you their "National Football Columnist" when you go on The Fan Sports Radio in Coastal Georgia?

Yes, yes this is already a national college football blog, and yes, I do write a national column for Southern Pigskin. And I plan to continue this blog, and that column for Southern Pigskin in addition to the work I do for Rock M Nation.

I've still got to figure out the rhythm of things, but once the season starts, Tuesdays will probably be my day at Rock M Nation (it's floating right now), Thursdays will typically be my day at Southern Pigskin, and the rest of the time I will be here.

It'll take me a little time to get reorganized here; I was away a lot longer than I initially planned. But once I shake the cobwebs out we should be back in business for a good while.

In the meantime, I will post the work I did for Southern Pigskin and for Rock M Nation. Those will roll out later today.

A brief blog hiatus

I've been pretty sparse here for the last couple of months, but I am formally taking a break from the blog and from college football until May.

I'm not a big college recruiting guy anyway, so it's not going to cut into anything I wouldn't have been covering anyway. But I have some work and family issues to deal with, and another writing project that I haven't been able to focus on, and desperately needs to get done.

So I will turn off the lights for now, and may show up for an occasional bit of dusting during this break.

Instant Feedback: Auburn 22, Oregon 19

I'm not one to be hyperbolic about calling the most recent thing I've seen "the greatest."



Oregon and Auburn staged a decent game in the desert of Arizona Monday evening. I won't call it great.
There was the requisite drama, with Oregon scoring a touchdown with less than three minutes remaining in the game to force a tie.

There was a game winning kick by Wes Byrum with no time left on the clock, giving the Southeast Conference claim to the fifth straight Bowl Championship Series title (the fourth school to win during this streak) and running the SEC's record in BCS title games to 7-0.

There was Chip Kelly, playing the role usually reserved for Les Miles with a two-point conversion try completed on an option toss from the holder to the kicker, and there was a fake punt in Oregon territory to extend a drive late.

But there were also mistakes by both teams. Oregon had an interception in the red zone early, got stopped on fourth and goal from the one, and also gave up a safety after holding Auburn out of the end zone.
Auburn appeared to have the game in hand before a Cam Newton fumble (forced by Oregon linebacker Casey Matthews) gave the Ducks the ball late in the fourth quarter leading to the game tying drive.

But there was still some magic left for Auburn, with stud freshman Michael Dyer being reminded by an alert Auburn sideline to keep running after he appeared to be stopped for a modest gain. Dyer’s knee never went down on the play, and his 37 yard run put the Tigers deep into Oregon territory, eventually setting up Byrum’s chip shot.

The story of the game, though, was the Auburn defensive front. The Tiger’s front seven, led by stud defensive tackle Nick Fairley, held the Oregon Ducks, who averaged over 300 yards per game on the ground during the regular season, to 81 yards rushing for the game.

Auburn made Oregon look tentative on offense at times, forcing quarterback Darron Thomas to make some incorrect reads in the option game and picking him off twice. Thomas did pass for 363 yards, but the tempo and rhythm of the Ducks’ attack never seemed to be there.

Over the last five years, challengers from the Big 12 (Oklahoma/Texas), the Big Ten (Ohio State) and the Pac-10 (Oregon) have faced the SEC in title games. None have come out victors.

There have been offensive explosions and slugfests. It is becoming harder and harder to deny this: the SEC, right now, is king.

Bowl Season Priorities? Not watching too many games

Okay, so let’s start today by mocking, I mean, discussing the new names for the division of the Big Ten, and why they are nonsensical. “Leaders” and “Legends?” Was that focus group tested? And the new logo looks like something that was sketched up in MS Paint in about fifteen minutes.

Excuse me?

Yes?

You’re not going to talk about bowl games?

I was hoping I wouldn’t have to answer this question. No, no I am not.

May I ask why? It is after all, the most wonderful time of the year. It’s a veritable smorgasbord of games featuring teams that wouldn’t normally schedule each other any other way. It’s a bevy of riches.

Well, since you asked, I’ll be blunt: There are only two bowl games that I directly care about: my alma mater’s game in late December and the BCS Championship game on January 10. Oh, and the Sugar Bowl, but that’s because I’m married to an Ohio native. So I guess it’s three that I care about.

What? You only care about three bowl games? Isn’t that un-American? Why aren’t you dedicating more of your life the next three weeks to watching games, damnit?

Well, I have family visiting, and there’s Christmas coming up and I have to work the week after Christmas. Look, it’s not like I don’t want to watch the games; I am something of a college football addict and will acknowledge that. But circumstances don’t allow for me to fill time with 35 bowl games. So I’m picking and choosing.

But don’t you love the bowl system. As Sports Illustrated’s Stewart Mandel told you on Twitter, “[T]hey're fun… they distinguish college from NFL, because thousands make an annual vacation out of it.”

Yes, they do distinguish college from the NFL. But given that intercollegiate athletics are a multi-billion dollar industry in its own right, and the arms races in certain conferences where it is rumored that a guy who was a high school coach six years ago is being offered head jobs for $3 million a year, that wall is crumbling just a bit, no?

I also can’t argue that they aren’t fun. Some games are thrilling, to be sure. Hell, one of the most exciting games from last season was an early bowl game between Idaho and Bowling Green.

But this idea that thousands make an annual vacation out of it? I don’t know how much water that actually holds. Some do; no question about that.

It’s not that easy, though, to get a flight at the last minute that isn’t going to run you hundreds of dollars – even with carriers like Southwest. And travel during the holiday season is always going to be a cost prohibitive measure because everyone wants to fly hither and yon, so room rates will go up in warmer climates (which is where most of these bowl games are).

Oh, and if you want to buy your ticket through your school, there is a chance you’ll be gouged on the price of the ticket, paying more than the value than you could get on a site like Stubhub.

Why would you want to buy your ticket through your school? Well, you want to do that so that you school won’t be forced to eat the cost of the unsold tickets and have those unsold tickets count against the bowl payout.

So you’d rather deny those hardworking student athletes a reward for a good season?

Nope. Not saying that at all. However, if we are going to keep this bowl system in the name of almighty tradition, we need to shore some things up, and mainly keep it as a reward of sorts. If you have a mediocre season, I don’t see that as being a reason to get sent to a bowl game – especially since it’s not like all of the bowls are in warm weather destinations. I grew up in New York City; it was never warm in December. Granted, it might be warmer than Syracuse that time of year, but I have feeling that Manhattan, Kansas and the Bronx are probably about a draw.

We’re not rewarding success with 70 bowl games; we’re accepting mediocrity and it’s getting close to the point of having participatory trophies for simply showing up for 12 games a season. I would rather see the number of bowls cut down, only 8-4 teams or better being allowed to go, and an adjustment to how the payouts are done so as not to hold an institution hostage and force them into the red for a glorified exhibition game.

Anyway, that’s why I’ve only got three bowl games that are appointment viewing. I might check in on the others, but like I said earlier, I’ve got plans. If you want to watch them all, feel free. But I won’t be glued to my television set.

The Woodchipper

With the breaking news of Urban Meyer's second resignation from the Florida Gators dropping today (courtesy of Brett McMurphy of AOL Fanhouse), and due to a discussion on Twitter with BCSChick and Lonely Tailgater, I decided to run through the coaching database and come up with who has been coaching at their current institution for at least ten seasons, so the line of demarcation is 2001.

There are a few special circumstances, where coaches left programs and returned. But in that case, if their total years add up to 10 or more, they were included.

Without further ado, listed in alphabetical order by institution (Coaching years in parentheses):
Randy Edsall - UConn (1999)
Howard Schnellenberger - Florida Atlantic (2001)
Pat Hill - Fresno State (1997)
Mark Richt - Georgia (2001)
Kirk Ferentz - Iowa (1999)
Bill Snyder - Kansas State (1989-2005; 2009-present)
Ralph Friedgen - Maryland (2001)
Gary Pinkel - Missouri (2001)
Chris Ault - Nevada (1976-1992; 1994-1995; 2004-present)
Jim Tressel - Ohio State (2001)
Bob Stoops - Oklahoma (1999)
Mike Riley - Oregon State (1997-1998; 2003-present)
Joe Paterno - Penn State (1966)
Greg Schiano - Rutgers (2001)
Mack Brown - Texas (1998)
Gary Patterson - TCU (2000)
Larry Blakeney - Troy (1991)
Frank Beamer - Virginia Tech (1987)
Jim Grobe - Wake Forest (2001)