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Showing posts with label BCS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BCS. Show all posts
Friday, August 28, 2015
Monday, January 5, 2015
Requiem for SEC's 'Decade of Dominance'
After the SEC's disastrous bowl season, college football's cognoscenti are all rushing to write the obituary of the conference's dominance. In fact, make that two disastrous bowl seasons.
The SEC is the only conference not to win a BCS/CFP bowl in the last two years, going 0-5. The much-acclaimed SEC West went 2-5 this bowl season, with only bottom dwellers Texas A&M and Arkansas winning their bowl games.
But could it be that this "SEC Dominance" is more myth than reality?
Sure, the SEC did win seven consecutive BCS titles. It even managed to stage the only BCS championship game featuring teams from the same conference. But did the SEC really "dominate" as much as it (and its media acolytes) say it did?
The BCS was very much an SEC creation, designed by former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer and refined by retiring SEC commissioner Mike Slive. It helped to raise the profile of an also-ran regional league devoid of major media markets into the premier conference in college football.
The SEC was assisted ably in this venture by ESPN, which now co-owns and operates the nascent SEC Network. ESPN has come to dominate college football - it owns the CFP broadcasting rights for its 12-year duration as well as all but one of the 38 bowl games this season. That the SEC's rise coincided with ESPN's growing monopoly on the sport was hardly an accident.
The key to the SEC's ascendancy was the relentless shaping of media perception. It began with Florida's 2006 campaign to dislodge Michigan for a spot in the BCS title game and has continued ever since. It crescendoed with the absurd 2011 title game featuring two SEC teams as Alabama became the first non-independent team to claim a national championship without winning its conference since 1936.
The strength of the SEC essentially became a self-perpetuating myth. Every year, SEC teams would crowd the top of the polls. When an SEC team lost to another, it didn't hurt the losing team much but it really buoyed the winning team. That was never more evident than earlier this season when Texas A&M vaulted into the top 10 after beating preseason top 10 South Carolina - both teams, as it turned out, struggled to be even bowl eligible.
A key ingredient in driving the SEC dominance narrative is its clever scheduling. It plays only eight conference games and almost always lards up the non-conference schedule with cupcakes. It also rarely ventures out of its footprint for any high-profile OOC games.
How much of an advantage does the SEC gain from scheduling? Enormously.
Not only does the SEC avoid seven additional losses by not playing a ninth conference game, it dramatically improves its teams' chances to stay up in the polls (on the top end) or gain bowl eligibility (on the bottom end). Compare the SEC's 2014 scheduling to that of the Pac-12, which plays nine conference games plus a title game - you can see how the SEC has rigged the system perfectly:
* Only three SEC teams (Georgia, Alabama and Missouri, the latter two with the help of being in the SEC title game), played 10 Power 5 opponents before the bowls. Ten Pac-12 teams played at least 10 games against Power 5 teams, the exceptions being Oregon State and Colorado.
* Power 5 teams constituted just 73 percent of all SEC regular-season opponents, as compared to 83 percent for the Pac-12.
* Add teams from the Mountain West and American, the two quality Group of 5 conferences to the scheduling mix and the contrast is even more stark. SEC teams played 78 percent of their games against Power 5 plus MWC and AAC teams; 92 percent of Pac-12 games were against Power 5 plus MWC and AAC opponents.
* All 14 SEC teams played one FCS opponents each, including six that did so in November, which worked out to be not much more than glorified scrimmages. Only eight Pac-12 teams faced FCS teams, and none after September. USC and UCLA (along with Notre Dame) are the only schools that have never played an FCS opponent in history.
The SEC played the scheduling and associated poll advantages to the hilt, resulting in basically guaranteed berths in the title game in the latter eight years of the BCS' 16-year run. The BCS standings were revamped in 2004 and from that point on, opinion polls accounted for two-thirds of the formula. With those standings in place, no team that finished either first or second in the two human polls ever not played in the BCS title game.
We'll never know if the 2007-08 USC teams, 2011 Oklahoma State, 2012 Oregon and 2013 Michigan State should've been the rightful champions. They never got to play in the BCS title games despite having the same number of losses as the SEC teams that got in. SEC teams won seven BCS titles in a row (including one all-SEC affair) but you can't win it unless you're in it.
The BCS went away after last season and just in the nick of time. Had it still been in place, Alabama would've faced Florida State in the title game and the Crimson Tide likely would've swiped their fourth title in six years. Oregon and Ohio State, two teams that would've played in a consolation Rose Bowl under BCS rules, instead will get to compete and see who's the legitimate national champion after getting a reprieve from the four-team playoff.
That the SEC will be missing from the inaugural title game in the Playoff era is actually a very good thing for college football. It helps to slowly unravel a myth and finally moves the sport into truly settling its champion on the field.
The toughest conference in college football, at least in 2014, isn't the SEC. We now know that for a fact.
The SEC is the only conference not to win a BCS/CFP bowl in the last two years, going 0-5. The much-acclaimed SEC West went 2-5 this bowl season, with only bottom dwellers Texas A&M and Arkansas winning their bowl games.
But could it be that this "SEC Dominance" is more myth than reality?
Sure, the SEC did win seven consecutive BCS titles. It even managed to stage the only BCS championship game featuring teams from the same conference. But did the SEC really "dominate" as much as it (and its media acolytes) say it did?
The BCS was very much an SEC creation, designed by former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer and refined by retiring SEC commissioner Mike Slive. It helped to raise the profile of an also-ran regional league devoid of major media markets into the premier conference in college football.
The SEC was assisted ably in this venture by ESPN, which now co-owns and operates the nascent SEC Network. ESPN has come to dominate college football - it owns the CFP broadcasting rights for its 12-year duration as well as all but one of the 38 bowl games this season. That the SEC's rise coincided with ESPN's growing monopoly on the sport was hardly an accident.
The key to the SEC's ascendancy was the relentless shaping of media perception. It began with Florida's 2006 campaign to dislodge Michigan for a spot in the BCS title game and has continued ever since. It crescendoed with the absurd 2011 title game featuring two SEC teams as Alabama became the first non-independent team to claim a national championship without winning its conference since 1936.
The strength of the SEC essentially became a self-perpetuating myth. Every year, SEC teams would crowd the top of the polls. When an SEC team lost to another, it didn't hurt the losing team much but it really buoyed the winning team. That was never more evident than earlier this season when Texas A&M vaulted into the top 10 after beating preseason top 10 South Carolina - both teams, as it turned out, struggled to be even bowl eligible.
A key ingredient in driving the SEC dominance narrative is its clever scheduling. It plays only eight conference games and almost always lards up the non-conference schedule with cupcakes. It also rarely ventures out of its footprint for any high-profile OOC games.
How much of an advantage does the SEC gain from scheduling? Enormously.
Not only does the SEC avoid seven additional losses by not playing a ninth conference game, it dramatically improves its teams' chances to stay up in the polls (on the top end) or gain bowl eligibility (on the bottom end). Compare the SEC's 2014 scheduling to that of the Pac-12, which plays nine conference games plus a title game - you can see how the SEC has rigged the system perfectly:
* Only three SEC teams (Georgia, Alabama and Missouri, the latter two with the help of being in the SEC title game), played 10 Power 5 opponents before the bowls. Ten Pac-12 teams played at least 10 games against Power 5 teams, the exceptions being Oregon State and Colorado.
* Power 5 teams constituted just 73 percent of all SEC regular-season opponents, as compared to 83 percent for the Pac-12.
* Add teams from the Mountain West and American, the two quality Group of 5 conferences to the scheduling mix and the contrast is even more stark. SEC teams played 78 percent of their games against Power 5 plus MWC and AAC teams; 92 percent of Pac-12 games were against Power 5 plus MWC and AAC opponents.
* All 14 SEC teams played one FCS opponents each, including six that did so in November, which worked out to be not much more than glorified scrimmages. Only eight Pac-12 teams faced FCS teams, and none after September. USC and UCLA (along with Notre Dame) are the only schools that have never played an FCS opponent in history.
The SEC played the scheduling and associated poll advantages to the hilt, resulting in basically guaranteed berths in the title game in the latter eight years of the BCS' 16-year run. The BCS standings were revamped in 2004 and from that point on, opinion polls accounted for two-thirds of the formula. With those standings in place, no team that finished either first or second in the two human polls ever not played in the BCS title game.
We'll never know if the 2007-08 USC teams, 2011 Oklahoma State, 2012 Oregon and 2013 Michigan State should've been the rightful champions. They never got to play in the BCS title games despite having the same number of losses as the SEC teams that got in. SEC teams won seven BCS titles in a row (including one all-SEC affair) but you can't win it unless you're in it.
The BCS went away after last season and just in the nick of time. Had it still been in place, Alabama would've faced Florida State in the title game and the Crimson Tide likely would've swiped their fourth title in six years. Oregon and Ohio State, two teams that would've played in a consolation Rose Bowl under BCS rules, instead will get to compete and see who's the legitimate national champion after getting a reprieve from the four-team playoff.
That the SEC will be missing from the inaugural title game in the Playoff era is actually a very good thing for college football. It helps to slowly unravel a myth and finally moves the sport into truly settling its champion on the field.
The toughest conference in college football, at least in 2014, isn't the SEC. We now know that for a fact.
Saturday, December 27, 2014
When Little Guys Still Had a Chance
SAN DIEGO - Thirty years ago on this field, in this bowl game, BYU became the last team not from the current power five conferences to win college football's mythical national championship. We pay tribute to that occasion because something like that probably will never happen again.
The No. 1-ranked Cougars, the only unbeaten Division I-A team not to lose a game before the bowl season in 1984, were by conference rule obligated to play in the Holiday Bowl instead of a more prestigious New Year's Day bowl game. Their opponent certainly had brand recognition, but its 1984 squad was far from vintage.
The 1984 Michigan team turned out to be the only team in the Bo Schembechler era not to post a winning record. No Michigan team in fact compiled a worse record in the 30-year period between 1968-2007 after it lost to BYU in the Holiday Bowl to finish 6-6.
Even after winning the game, 24-17, BYU had to sweat it out for 12 long days. Because of their narrow victory, there was rampant speculation that the Cougars might be jumped by No. 2 Oklahoma if the one-loss Sooners could handle No. 4 Washington in the Orange Bowl. But thanks in part to the infamous Boomer Schooner incident that wiped out an OU field goal, the Huskies went on to win 28-17, handing BYU its only national title.
The Cougars swept both the AP and UPI (coaches') polls, but the legitimacy of their "undisputed" championship has been questioned ever since. It's certainly inconceivable today to believe an undefeated mid-major team would have a chance to finish No. 1, ahead of one-loss conference champions from the Pac-10 and SEC, but that's exactly what happened in 1984.
Certainly a confluence of events helped BYU's cause. One-loss Washington was relegated to the Orange Bowl because it lost head-to-head to Pac-10 co-champion USC, which won the Rose Bowl but had three losses. Florida won the SEC with a 9-1-1 record, but it was ineligible for a bowl because of NCAA sanctions and its conference title was vacated six months later. The champions from the ACC, Big Eight, Big Ten and Southwest Conference all had at least two losses.
BYU also had worked on putting itself on the map for nearly a decade. In 1984, the Cougars were playing in their seventh consecutive Holiday Bowl, having split the previous six against major-conference opponents. And along the way, they were cementing their reputation as Quarterback U by sending their record-setting passers to the NFL, one after another.
Coached by the legendary LaVell Edwards, the Cougars had their first breakthrough in the 1980 Holiday Bowl, when they rallied from a 20-point deficit with 2:33 remaining to stun SMU on a Hail Mary pass by Jim McMahon. Three years later, Steve Young threw a TD pass, ran for a TD and then caught the game-winner in a 21-17 victory over Missouri.
In the Edwards era that spanned from 1972-2000, BYU had its share of star quarterbacks that also included Marc Wilson, Ty Detmer and current USC coach Steve Sarkisian. In fact, Sarkisian credits the grit that Detmer displayed in a Holiday Bowl loss to Texas A&M in the 1990 game as the reason why he chose to play for BYU.
"I have a lot of great, vivid memories of the Holiday Bowl," Sarkisian said before the Trojans beat Nebraska, 45-42 Saturday night in a game reminiscent of the shootouts that the bowl used to be known for. "But I especially remember Ty Detmer separating his left shoulder against A&M, and then separating his right shoulder, but he hung in there. I grew very fond of Ty after that game - he was one tough customer."
Detmer claimed BYU's only Heisman Trophy during that 1990 season, but it was Robbie Bosco who led the Cougars to their only national championship.
Like Detmer, Bosco played hurt in the Holiday Bowl, hobbled by leg and ankle injuries. But he told quarterbacks coach Mike Holmgren that he wasn't leaving the game, gutting it out with 343 passing yards and two TDs, including the game-winning 13-yard toss to Kelly Smith in the final minute.
Had the playoff committee existed in 1984, BYU wouldn't even have made its top 10 rankings, let along winning the national championship. Before the bowl game, the Cougars' best wins were 30-25 over 8-4 Air Force and 18-13 over 7-4 Hawaii. Nine of their 13 wins were against teams that finished .500 or worse.
But in 1984, "game control" and "quality loss" were lexicons that haven't been invented yet. To the voters in the two major polls, BYU passed the eye test. It helped that the Michigan team was playing out the season without sophomore quarterback Jim Harbaugh, who is now poised to return to his alma mater after it suffered a third losing season in the last seven years.
While that Holiday Bowl game was a forgettable chapter for Michigan, it was a momentous occasion in college football history, one that's unlikely ever to be repeated again.
“It’s still very special 30 years later,” Edwards told U-T San Diego in a recent interview. “They will probably still be talking about it (30 years later), and debating whether they should or shouldn’t have made us No. 1.”
The No. 1-ranked Cougars, the only unbeaten Division I-A team not to lose a game before the bowl season in 1984, were by conference rule obligated to play in the Holiday Bowl instead of a more prestigious New Year's Day bowl game. Their opponent certainly had brand recognition, but its 1984 squad was far from vintage.
The 1984 Michigan team turned out to be the only team in the Bo Schembechler era not to post a winning record. No Michigan team in fact compiled a worse record in the 30-year period between 1968-2007 after it lost to BYU in the Holiday Bowl to finish 6-6.
Even after winning the game, 24-17, BYU had to sweat it out for 12 long days. Because of their narrow victory, there was rampant speculation that the Cougars might be jumped by No. 2 Oklahoma if the one-loss Sooners could handle No. 4 Washington in the Orange Bowl. But thanks in part to the infamous Boomer Schooner incident that wiped out an OU field goal, the Huskies went on to win 28-17, handing BYU its only national title.
The Cougars swept both the AP and UPI (coaches') polls, but the legitimacy of their "undisputed" championship has been questioned ever since. It's certainly inconceivable today to believe an undefeated mid-major team would have a chance to finish No. 1, ahead of one-loss conference champions from the Pac-10 and SEC, but that's exactly what happened in 1984.
Certainly a confluence of events helped BYU's cause. One-loss Washington was relegated to the Orange Bowl because it lost head-to-head to Pac-10 co-champion USC, which won the Rose Bowl but had three losses. Florida won the SEC with a 9-1-1 record, but it was ineligible for a bowl because of NCAA sanctions and its conference title was vacated six months later. The champions from the ACC, Big Eight, Big Ten and Southwest Conference all had at least two losses.
BYU also had worked on putting itself on the map for nearly a decade. In 1984, the Cougars were playing in their seventh consecutive Holiday Bowl, having split the previous six against major-conference opponents. And along the way, they were cementing their reputation as Quarterback U by sending their record-setting passers to the NFL, one after another.
Coached by the legendary LaVell Edwards, the Cougars had their first breakthrough in the 1980 Holiday Bowl, when they rallied from a 20-point deficit with 2:33 remaining to stun SMU on a Hail Mary pass by Jim McMahon. Three years later, Steve Young threw a TD pass, ran for a TD and then caught the game-winner in a 21-17 victory over Missouri.
In the Edwards era that spanned from 1972-2000, BYU had its share of star quarterbacks that also included Marc Wilson, Ty Detmer and current USC coach Steve Sarkisian. In fact, Sarkisian credits the grit that Detmer displayed in a Holiday Bowl loss to Texas A&M in the 1990 game as the reason why he chose to play for BYU.
"I have a lot of great, vivid memories of the Holiday Bowl," Sarkisian said before the Trojans beat Nebraska, 45-42 Saturday night in a game reminiscent of the shootouts that the bowl used to be known for. "But I especially remember Ty Detmer separating his left shoulder against A&M, and then separating his right shoulder, but he hung in there. I grew very fond of Ty after that game - he was one tough customer."
Detmer claimed BYU's only Heisman Trophy during that 1990 season, but it was Robbie Bosco who led the Cougars to their only national championship.
Like Detmer, Bosco played hurt in the Holiday Bowl, hobbled by leg and ankle injuries. But he told quarterbacks coach Mike Holmgren that he wasn't leaving the game, gutting it out with 343 passing yards and two TDs, including the game-winning 13-yard toss to Kelly Smith in the final minute.
Had the playoff committee existed in 1984, BYU wouldn't even have made its top 10 rankings, let along winning the national championship. Before the bowl game, the Cougars' best wins were 30-25 over 8-4 Air Force and 18-13 over 7-4 Hawaii. Nine of their 13 wins were against teams that finished .500 or worse.
But in 1984, "game control" and "quality loss" were lexicons that haven't been invented yet. To the voters in the two major polls, BYU passed the eye test. It helped that the Michigan team was playing out the season without sophomore quarterback Jim Harbaugh, who is now poised to return to his alma mater after it suffered a third losing season in the last seven years.
While that Holiday Bowl game was a forgettable chapter for Michigan, it was a momentous occasion in college football history, one that's unlikely ever to be repeated again.
“It’s still very special 30 years later,” Edwards told U-T San Diego in a recent interview. “They will probably still be talking about it (30 years later), and debating whether they should or shouldn’t have made us No. 1.”
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Welcome to College Football's Playoff Era
Playoffs? You want playoffs, and finally, you've got playoffs.
Nearly a century-and-a-half after the first college football game was played in 1869, a playoff will decide the national champion in college football's highest division. In this, the inaugural season of the College Football Playoff, a four-team tournament will be held at the end of the season to determine the 2014 champion.
Bill Hancock, the executive director of the CFP, is understandably stoked.
"The playoff will be extremely popular, the fans will love it," Hancock predicted when he spoke to Bleacher Report. "It's a joy to be involved in something that will be an iconic event."
A New Era:
Hancock mentioned the "bracket" aspect of the CFP, which is no doubt foreign to top-division college football but familiar to all NCAA championships, particularly the men's basketball tournament, which he ran for more than a decade. The CFP won't be March Madness, as it's only a four-team, three-game tournament, but it's a significant departure from what decided the mythical national championship in the past.
College football is used to having polls crown its annual champions. The Associated Press writers poll was founded in 1936, followed by the coaches poll with its various sponsors beginning in 1950. The Bowl Championship Series, which began in 1998 and lasted 16 years, pitted the purported top two teams in the regular season in a one-game championship showdown.
The BCS used a combination of polls and computer rankings to determine its top teams, a practice that will be discarded by the CFP. Instead of 170-plus voters and six computers, a 13-member selection committee will decide which four teams play in the playoff, as well as eight other teams for the four prestigious CFP bowls.
The Committee:
The 13-member committee includes five current athletic directors representing the five power conferences as well as retired administrators, coaches and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. They are to serve two- to four-year terms, as the committee membership will eventually have turnover on an annual basis.
How It Will Work:
A protocol has been set up for the committee members, who will vote each week beginning the last weekend of October to determine their collective rankings. These rankings will be made available to the public each Tuesday until the final weekend of the regular season, when the playoff field as well as the other CFP bowl participants are announced.
"I feel very comfortable with the selection process and the transparency of our setup," said Hancock, who along with committee chair Jeff Long will be the lone voices of the committee during the season. "I really believe the committee's protocol is excellent and our recusal policy is even a little more stringent than for the NCAA tournament."
Nine committee members must recuse themselves when their respective institutions are discussed during their weekly meetings in Dallas. The committee will take a series of votes to settle on the pecking order of the teams under consideration each week.
The actual process is a bit complicated and perhaps unnecessarily convoluted:
Every week, each committee member will submit a "best 25" ballot in no particular order, then another series of balloting will narrow that down to six, and finally three. These steps will be repeated until all 25 teams are seeded.
The committee members will be tasked to pay close attention to all major matchups each week in order to be prepared for the balloting. While no computer rankings will be used to determine the rankings, the CFP has contractually enlisted the services of SportSource Analytics, which will provide numerous data sets at the disposal of the committee members.
But ultimately the final choices will be at the sole discretion of the 13 members, whose balloting each week will be anonymous and each is sworn to secrecy on how he or she voted.
This year, the final pairings will be revealed on Dec. 7, and there will be controversy. Whereas during the BCS era the No. 3-ranked teams were usually the aggrieved, in the CFP regime that snub will be keenly felt by No. 5 instead.
That's OK, Hancock said, as the committee will be fully prepared to defend its decisions. Besides, debates and arguments are simply part of the very fabric of college football.
"We wouldn't have it any other way," Hancock said. "Sure, teams will be disappointed, especially those that came very close, but there will always be debates, as that's a reflection on the popularity of college football. That'll never change, and we don't want it to change."
Nearly a century-and-a-half after the first college football game was played in 1869, a playoff will decide the national champion in college football's highest division. In this, the inaugural season of the College Football Playoff, a four-team tournament will be held at the end of the season to determine the 2014 champion.
Bill Hancock, the executive director of the CFP, is understandably stoked.
"The playoff will be extremely popular, the fans will love it," Hancock predicted when he spoke to Bleacher Report. "It's a joy to be involved in something that will be an iconic event."
A New Era:
Hancock mentioned the "bracket" aspect of the CFP, which is no doubt foreign to top-division college football but familiar to all NCAA championships, particularly the men's basketball tournament, which he ran for more than a decade. The CFP won't be March Madness, as it's only a four-team, three-game tournament, but it's a significant departure from what decided the mythical national championship in the past.
College football is used to having polls crown its annual champions. The Associated Press writers poll was founded in 1936, followed by the coaches poll with its various sponsors beginning in 1950. The Bowl Championship Series, which began in 1998 and lasted 16 years, pitted the purported top two teams in the regular season in a one-game championship showdown.
The BCS used a combination of polls and computer rankings to determine its top teams, a practice that will be discarded by the CFP. Instead of 170-plus voters and six computers, a 13-member selection committee will decide which four teams play in the playoff, as well as eight other teams for the four prestigious CFP bowls.
The Committee:
The 13-member committee includes five current athletic directors representing the five power conferences as well as retired administrators, coaches and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. They are to serve two- to four-year terms, as the committee membership will eventually have turnover on an annual basis.
How It Will Work:
A protocol has been set up for the committee members, who will vote each week beginning the last weekend of October to determine their collective rankings. These rankings will be made available to the public each Tuesday until the final weekend of the regular season, when the playoff field as well as the other CFP bowl participants are announced.
"I feel very comfortable with the selection process and the transparency of our setup," said Hancock, who along with committee chair Jeff Long will be the lone voices of the committee during the season. "I really believe the committee's protocol is excellent and our recusal policy is even a little more stringent than for the NCAA tournament."
Nine committee members must recuse themselves when their respective institutions are discussed during their weekly meetings in Dallas. The committee will take a series of votes to settle on the pecking order of the teams under consideration each week.
The actual process is a bit complicated and perhaps unnecessarily convoluted:
Every week, each committee member will submit a "best 25" ballot in no particular order, then another series of balloting will narrow that down to six, and finally three. These steps will be repeated until all 25 teams are seeded.
The committee members will be tasked to pay close attention to all major matchups each week in order to be prepared for the balloting. While no computer rankings will be used to determine the rankings, the CFP has contractually enlisted the services of SportSource Analytics, which will provide numerous data sets at the disposal of the committee members.
But ultimately the final choices will be at the sole discretion of the 13 members, whose balloting each week will be anonymous and each is sworn to secrecy on how he or she voted.
This year, the final pairings will be revealed on Dec. 7, and there will be controversy. Whereas during the BCS era the No. 3-ranked teams were usually the aggrieved, in the CFP regime that snub will be keenly felt by No. 5 instead.
That's OK, Hancock said, as the committee will be fully prepared to defend its decisions. Besides, debates and arguments are simply part of the very fabric of college football.
"We wouldn't have it any other way," Hancock said. "Sure, teams will be disappointed, especially those that came very close, but there will always be debates, as that's a reflection on the popularity of college football. That'll never change, and we don't want it to change."
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
SEC Can Thank UCLA for BCS Dominance
The SEC dominated the second half of the BCS era, winning seven championships and firmly establishing itself as the premier conference in college football. That has led to an expansion of its footprint, added riches from television contracts, and a nascent network to be launched this August.
But none of it happens without the biggest upset in BCS history, a game that took place on the West Coast on the final day of the 2006 regular season. The end of one dynasty beget another.
USC entered its annual rivalry game in 2006 ranked No. 2 in the BCS standings. The Trojans were poised to appear in an unprecedented third consecutive BCS title game and all they had to do was handling their downtrodden, 5-6 crosstown rival. And why not? USC had won seven straight in the series and mauled the Bruins the year before, 66-19.
A simple USC victory would've set up a BCS title game against Ohio State, leaving Florida (and the SEC) on the sideline. It would've been an eighth consecutive season without an undisputed national title for the conference. After Tennessee won the first championship of the BCS era in 1998, the SEC only appeared in one title game in the subsequent seven seasons, and that resulted in LSU's split title with USC in 2003.
There was little doubt that USC would go on to trounce the Buckeyes in the BCS title game as Florida eventually did. The Trojans would've won their third national title in four years and left little doubt as to who truly rules the BCS. They likely would've gone to another one or two BCS title games in the following two seasons.
But that dynasty inexplicably got derailed on that December afternoon at the Rose Bowl by the underdog Bruins. USC's high-powered offense was totally stifled and shut out in the second half. It was the only time in Pete Carroll's final eight seasons at USC that his team would be held under double digits.
USC's 13-9 loss not only opened the door for the SEC to return to the BCS title game, but it gave birth to a new narrative. After Florida ascended to No. 2 and then routed undefeated Ohio State for the national championship, the argument that the SEC as "the toughest conference" began to take hold.
That in no small part contributed to the SEC's earning a spot in the BCS championship game for both 2007 and 2008. In both seasons, the SEC won the title after sending a second-ranked team that edged teams from other conferences with the same number of losses.
In both seasons, one of those teams was USC. Had the Trojans won the 2006 title, it's easy to see how the narrative and argument would've gone very differently. USC probably would've been the one that beat out the other two-loss teams for No. 2 in 2007. And in 2008, the one-loss Trojans might've gone on to play in their fifth consecutive BCS title game.
The SEC can thank Karl Dorrell and DeWayne Walker, whose game plan in that fateful 2006 game teed up the conference's enduring run in the second half of the BCS era. They're both actually working in the neighborhood now as Dorrell is now the offensive coordinator at Vanderbilt and Walker the defensive backs coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars.
But none of it happens without the biggest upset in BCS history, a game that took place on the West Coast on the final day of the 2006 regular season. The end of one dynasty beget another.
USC entered its annual rivalry game in 2006 ranked No. 2 in the BCS standings. The Trojans were poised to appear in an unprecedented third consecutive BCS title game and all they had to do was handling their downtrodden, 5-6 crosstown rival. And why not? USC had won seven straight in the series and mauled the Bruins the year before, 66-19.
A simple USC victory would've set up a BCS title game against Ohio State, leaving Florida (and the SEC) on the sideline. It would've been an eighth consecutive season without an undisputed national title for the conference. After Tennessee won the first championship of the BCS era in 1998, the SEC only appeared in one title game in the subsequent seven seasons, and that resulted in LSU's split title with USC in 2003.
There was little doubt that USC would go on to trounce the Buckeyes in the BCS title game as Florida eventually did. The Trojans would've won their third national title in four years and left little doubt as to who truly rules the BCS. They likely would've gone to another one or two BCS title games in the following two seasons.
But that dynasty inexplicably got derailed on that December afternoon at the Rose Bowl by the underdog Bruins. USC's high-powered offense was totally stifled and shut out in the second half. It was the only time in Pete Carroll's final eight seasons at USC that his team would be held under double digits.
USC's 13-9 loss not only opened the door for the SEC to return to the BCS title game, but it gave birth to a new narrative. After Florida ascended to No. 2 and then routed undefeated Ohio State for the national championship, the argument that the SEC as "the toughest conference" began to take hold.
That in no small part contributed to the SEC's earning a spot in the BCS championship game for both 2007 and 2008. In both seasons, the SEC won the title after sending a second-ranked team that edged teams from other conferences with the same number of losses.
In both seasons, one of those teams was USC. Had the Trojans won the 2006 title, it's easy to see how the narrative and argument would've gone very differently. USC probably would've been the one that beat out the other two-loss teams for No. 2 in 2007. And in 2008, the one-loss Trojans might've gone on to play in their fifth consecutive BCS title game.
The SEC can thank Karl Dorrell and DeWayne Walker, whose game plan in that fateful 2006 game teed up the conference's enduring run in the second half of the BCS era. They're both actually working in the neighborhood now as Dorrell is now the offensive coordinator at Vanderbilt and Walker the defensive backs coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Monday, May 19, 2014
Big Ten Is Still College Sports' King of Cash
The Big Ten pays Jim Delany nearly $2 million a year for his work as conference commissioner, and he's worth every penny.
Under Delany's stewardship since 1989, the Big Ten has been and continues to be the richest conference in college athletics. Even though it has not won a national championship in football since 2002, the Big Ten still rakes in more cash than any other conference, including the SEC.
According to tax returns made available to USA Today, the Big Ten brought in $318.6 million in revenue for fiscal 2013. Nearly $298 million of that was distributed to its 12 members, with each school receiving between $23-$26 million (except Nebraska, which won't receive full shares until 2017-18).
Contrast that with the SEC, which is the second-richest conference despite being far more accomplished on the football field. In fiscal 2013 the SEC made $314.5 million, with its 14 member schools each receiving around $21 million (and a bit less for newcomers Texas A&M and Missouri).
So how did Delany get his conference schools more money than anybody else? And how did he do so despite the Big Ten's 1-2 record in BCS championship games and a losing record (13-15) in BCS bowl games during the 16-year run of the BCS?
The simple answer is television. Delany figured out how to leverage the large viewership of his popular conference to maximize revenue.
The 12 Big Ten schools occupy 10 of the 35 largest media markets in the United States (according to the 2013-14 Nielsen Media Research)—as compared to six for the SEC, which includes the marginal SEC markets of Houston and St. Louis. All Big Ten schools except Iowa and Nebraska dominate at least one, sometimes several of these top-ranked markets.
Delany's decision to launch the Big Ten Network in 2007 also turned out to be a stroke of genius, even if he was second-guessed at the time—especially after the BTN failed to corral all the cable providers in its first year. The BTN has grown to be a model for all other conferences, with the Pac-12 following suit two years ago and the SEC due to begin its own in August.
That's why while Delany's decision to add Maryland and Rutgers was met with widespread derision—especially given those schools' complete lack of athletic prowess in recent years—it might turn out to be another shrewd maneuver.
With Maryland and Rutgers in the fold (beginning this fall), the Big Ten adds three more top media markets (No. 1 New York, No. 8 Washington, D.C. and No. 27 Baltimore) into its already formidable lineup. This will force television providers in these markets to add BTN into the basic tier while allowing the conference to establish a firm presence on the densely populated eastern seaboard.
Delany is already looking ahead. After alternating the Big Ten basketball tournament between Chicago and Indianapolis, the 2017 tournament will be played at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. Don't be surprised if the Big Ten's football title game shows up at either FedEx Field in Maryland or MetLife Stadium in New Jersey sometime soon.
“Moving into the eastern corridor, that’s the new Big Ten,” Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez told CBSChicago's Chris Emma. “We all have to accept it, and our fans have to accept it. We want to welcome our two new members in Rutgers and Maryland, and we want a presence in the East. We want to take advantage of us expanding into the East.”
That's why as much as Maryland and Rutgers are the butt of jokes in college football, fans only laugh at Delany and his vision at their own peril. He and the Big Ten are laughing all the way to the bank.
Under Delany's stewardship since 1989, the Big Ten has been and continues to be the richest conference in college athletics. Even though it has not won a national championship in football since 2002, the Big Ten still rakes in more cash than any other conference, including the SEC.
According to tax returns made available to USA Today, the Big Ten brought in $318.6 million in revenue for fiscal 2013. Nearly $298 million of that was distributed to its 12 members, with each school receiving between $23-$26 million (except Nebraska, which won't receive full shares until 2017-18).
Contrast that with the SEC, which is the second-richest conference despite being far more accomplished on the football field. In fiscal 2013 the SEC made $314.5 million, with its 14 member schools each receiving around $21 million (and a bit less for newcomers Texas A&M and Missouri).
So how did Delany get his conference schools more money than anybody else? And how did he do so despite the Big Ten's 1-2 record in BCS championship games and a losing record (13-15) in BCS bowl games during the 16-year run of the BCS?
The simple answer is television. Delany figured out how to leverage the large viewership of his popular conference to maximize revenue.
The 12 Big Ten schools occupy 10 of the 35 largest media markets in the United States (according to the 2013-14 Nielsen Media Research)—as compared to six for the SEC, which includes the marginal SEC markets of Houston and St. Louis. All Big Ten schools except Iowa and Nebraska dominate at least one, sometimes several of these top-ranked markets.
Delany's decision to launch the Big Ten Network in 2007 also turned out to be a stroke of genius, even if he was second-guessed at the time—especially after the BTN failed to corral all the cable providers in its first year. The BTN has grown to be a model for all other conferences, with the Pac-12 following suit two years ago and the SEC due to begin its own in August.
That's why while Delany's decision to add Maryland and Rutgers was met with widespread derision—especially given those schools' complete lack of athletic prowess in recent years—it might turn out to be another shrewd maneuver.
With Maryland and Rutgers in the fold (beginning this fall), the Big Ten adds three more top media markets (No. 1 New York, No. 8 Washington, D.C. and No. 27 Baltimore) into its already formidable lineup. This will force television providers in these markets to add BTN into the basic tier while allowing the conference to establish a firm presence on the densely populated eastern seaboard.
Delany is already looking ahead. After alternating the Big Ten basketball tournament between Chicago and Indianapolis, the 2017 tournament will be played at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. Don't be surprised if the Big Ten's football title game shows up at either FedEx Field in Maryland or MetLife Stadium in New Jersey sometime soon.
“Moving into the eastern corridor, that’s the new Big Ten,” Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez told CBSChicago's Chris Emma. “We all have to accept it, and our fans have to accept it. We want to welcome our two new members in Rutgers and Maryland, and we want a presence in the East. We want to take advantage of us expanding into the East.”
That's why as much as Maryland and Rutgers are the butt of jokes in college football, fans only laugh at Delany and his vision at their own peril. He and the Big Ten are laughing all the way to the bank.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Playoff Era and College Football's Brave New World
A sensational story making the rounds last week claims that a Chinese miner was found alive after living 17 years underground following a mine collapse. He had been trapped since 1997 and subsisted on limited fresh water and whatever critters he could find to eat.
Of course, the story turned out to be a hoax, as it was propagated by a site that's the Israeli equivalent of The Onion. But let's just pretend that Mr. Cheung Wai is for real, and he's a huge college football fan (hey, it's my story now, so I'm going with this). The first thing he asks after seeing daylight is: Who won the Rose Bowl last year?
Mr. Cheung must've been utterly confused when he's told that Michigan State won the Rose Bowl, but Florida State won the national championship at the Rose Bowl. Yeah, if you've been living under a rock for the last 17 years, as Mr. Cheung did, college football has been radically different—and will be even more so starting in 2014.
The advent of the BCS was the first monumental change in the way college football's champions are decided. Though its predecessors the Bowl Coalition and Bowl Alliance tried, it wasn't until the BCS when all traditional bowl tie-ins were loosened and all teams were free to meet for a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup.
But the leap from the BCS to the College Football Playoff, due to debut in the 2014 season, trumps the introduction of the BCS.
After all, the BCS preserved and relied on the traditional poll system and merely made an accommodation to make the No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup possible. During its 16-year run, only three times (2000, 2001 and 2003) did the BCS title game not feature the top two teams in the final regular-season polls—and none after the standings were fixed in 2004 to heavily favor the polls.
The College Football Playoff, on the other hand, will obliterate the clout of the polls, which go back to at least 1936, when the AP poll came into existence.
With the 13-member committee making the calls on not just the four-team playoff field, but also berths for the four other most lucrative bowls, the significance of the polls will be marginalized. The committee members will rely on many data sets to form their decisions, with the polls being just one of the tools.
This setup will prompt several significant changes in college football in the coming years:
1. It will place more importance on winning the conference championship than even during the BCS era. The odds of getting a shot at the national championship for a major conference winner has just improved from (at best) 33 percent to up to 80 percent.
2. It will force top teams in the "Group of Five" conferences to schedule up. They will need to do that not just for a slim shot at making the playoff field, but also jockey to be the team to claim the only guaranteed spot for non-power-conference teams in the CFP bowl games.
3. Depending on how the committee behaves this season, it may even force top teams in power conferences to beef up their own schedules. After all, one major champion will still be left out every year, and the key factor most likely will be strength of schedule.
4. The PR games of lobbying will continue, but will probably not be as intense as they've been in the BCS era. Instead of trying to sway some 170 voters, there are only 13 people who are theoretically more informed, more savvy and have more data at their disposal. This will lessen the influence of talking heads of TV networks, particularly ESPN and also CBS.
But as Mr. Cheung settles into his comfy chair and knocks back his first cold brew in 17 years, he'll know just as much as we do about how the selection committee will go about its business. Such is the brave new world of college football.
Of course, the story turned out to be a hoax, as it was propagated by a site that's the Israeli equivalent of The Onion. But let's just pretend that Mr. Cheung Wai is for real, and he's a huge college football fan (hey, it's my story now, so I'm going with this). The first thing he asks after seeing daylight is: Who won the Rose Bowl last year?
Mr. Cheung must've been utterly confused when he's told that Michigan State won the Rose Bowl, but Florida State won the national championship at the Rose Bowl. Yeah, if you've been living under a rock for the last 17 years, as Mr. Cheung did, college football has been radically different—and will be even more so starting in 2014.
The advent of the BCS was the first monumental change in the way college football's champions are decided. Though its predecessors the Bowl Coalition and Bowl Alliance tried, it wasn't until the BCS when all traditional bowl tie-ins were loosened and all teams were free to meet for a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup.
But the leap from the BCS to the College Football Playoff, due to debut in the 2014 season, trumps the introduction of the BCS.
After all, the BCS preserved and relied on the traditional poll system and merely made an accommodation to make the No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup possible. During its 16-year run, only three times (2000, 2001 and 2003) did the BCS title game not feature the top two teams in the final regular-season polls—and none after the standings were fixed in 2004 to heavily favor the polls.
The College Football Playoff, on the other hand, will obliterate the clout of the polls, which go back to at least 1936, when the AP poll came into existence.
With the 13-member committee making the calls on not just the four-team playoff field, but also berths for the four other most lucrative bowls, the significance of the polls will be marginalized. The committee members will rely on many data sets to form their decisions, with the polls being just one of the tools.
This setup will prompt several significant changes in college football in the coming years:
1. It will place more importance on winning the conference championship than even during the BCS era. The odds of getting a shot at the national championship for a major conference winner has just improved from (at best) 33 percent to up to 80 percent.
2. It will force top teams in the "Group of Five" conferences to schedule up. They will need to do that not just for a slim shot at making the playoff field, but also jockey to be the team to claim the only guaranteed spot for non-power-conference teams in the CFP bowl games.
3. Depending on how the committee behaves this season, it may even force top teams in power conferences to beef up their own schedules. After all, one major champion will still be left out every year, and the key factor most likely will be strength of schedule.
4. The PR games of lobbying will continue, but will probably not be as intense as they've been in the BCS era. Instead of trying to sway some 170 voters, there are only 13 people who are theoretically more informed, more savvy and have more data at their disposal. This will lessen the influence of talking heads of TV networks, particularly ESPN and also CBS.
But as Mr. Cheung settles into his comfy chair and knocks back his first cold brew in 17 years, he'll know just as much as we do about how the selection committee will go about its business. Such is the brave new world of college football.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Pac-12 Should Makes Its Move to Levi's
Larry Scott is mulling a move to put the Pac-12 football championship game at Levi's Stadium.
To borrow a phrase from the benefactor of one Pac-12 powerhouse: Just Do It.
The Pac-12 commissioner told Pete Thamel of SI.com via a text message on Thursday that, after three years of hosting on campus sites, the conference is considering a neutral site for its championship game.
Levi's Stadium, the 49ers' new home in Santa Clara, Calif., could host the game as soon as the upcoming season on Dec. 5.
It just makes too much sense.
After expanding to 12 teams in 2011, the Pac-12 has been staging its title games on the campus stadium of the team with the best regular-season record. The results have been a haphazard mess, with swaths of empty seats and schools scrambling to get tickets sold on short notice. As a result, the game severely lacked the profile of the SEC title game, held annually in Atlanta's Georgia Dome.
The move to Levi's Stadium would remedy nearly all the problems that have plagued the game thus far, so let's count the ways:
* Once the site is chosen, the conference can sell tickets for the game year-round and gain additional revenue from Levi's Stadium's 165 suites and 9,000 club seats. Currently, the hosting institution has only a few days to distribute tickets and most campus stadiums have only a small number of suites and boxes.
* Levi's Stadium is a state-of-the-art facility and the most wired one in the country, befitting its location in the heart of the Silicon Valley. Hosting a game there will immediately give the Pac-12 a high profile for its championship game, especially in the stadium's inaugural season.
* The Bay Area is the geographic center of the Pac-12 conference, with two schools located there and a short, non-stop flight from the rest of the campuses. And it's home to large alumni bases for nearly all conference schools.
* The conference, with its headquarters in Walnut Creek and San Francisco, will have the benefit of being able to easily manage the event from the build-up to the actual game. A Pac-12 game between Oregon and Cal will be played at Levi's Stadium on Oct. 24, allowing the conference to study the logistics in a live-game setting.
Scott has already made a bold move by relocating the conference basketball tournament to Las Vegas two years ago. It has been an unqualified success, with huge fan support and sold-out championship games as opposed to the half-empty Staples Center where the event was held for more than a decade.
With that in his back pocket, moving the football title game shouldn't be a tough sell to the conference's school presidents, who will ultimately vote on the decision at their annual meeting in June. As the Pac-12 tries to gain a foothold in the brave new world of College Football Playoff, the relaunching of its title game would be a nice start.
To borrow a phrase from the benefactor of one Pac-12 powerhouse: Just Do It.
The Pac-12 commissioner told Pete Thamel of SI.com via a text message on Thursday that, after three years of hosting on campus sites, the conference is considering a neutral site for its championship game.
Levi's Stadium, the 49ers' new home in Santa Clara, Calif., could host the game as soon as the upcoming season on Dec. 5.
It just makes too much sense.
After expanding to 12 teams in 2011, the Pac-12 has been staging its title games on the campus stadium of the team with the best regular-season record. The results have been a haphazard mess, with swaths of empty seats and schools scrambling to get tickets sold on short notice. As a result, the game severely lacked the profile of the SEC title game, held annually in Atlanta's Georgia Dome.
The move to Levi's Stadium would remedy nearly all the problems that have plagued the game thus far, so let's count the ways:
* Once the site is chosen, the conference can sell tickets for the game year-round and gain additional revenue from Levi's Stadium's 165 suites and 9,000 club seats. Currently, the hosting institution has only a few days to distribute tickets and most campus stadiums have only a small number of suites and boxes.
* Levi's Stadium is a state-of-the-art facility and the most wired one in the country, befitting its location in the heart of the Silicon Valley. Hosting a game there will immediately give the Pac-12 a high profile for its championship game, especially in the stadium's inaugural season.
* The Bay Area is the geographic center of the Pac-12 conference, with two schools located there and a short, non-stop flight from the rest of the campuses. And it's home to large alumni bases for nearly all conference schools.
* The conference, with its headquarters in Walnut Creek and San Francisco, will have the benefit of being able to easily manage the event from the build-up to the actual game. A Pac-12 game between Oregon and Cal will be played at Levi's Stadium on Oct. 24, allowing the conference to study the logistics in a live-game setting.
Scott has already made a bold move by relocating the conference basketball tournament to Las Vegas two years ago. It has been an unqualified success, with huge fan support and sold-out championship games as opposed to the half-empty Staples Center where the event was held for more than a decade.
With that in his back pocket, moving the football title game shouldn't be a tough sell to the conference's school presidents, who will ultimately vote on the decision at their annual meeting in June. As the Pac-12 tries to gain a foothold in the brave new world of College Football Playoff, the relaunching of its title game would be a nice start.
Monday, May 5, 2014
Pac-12 Determined to Reverse Fortunes in CFP
Pac-12's coaches are mad as hell and they're not gonna take it anymore!
At least David Shaw of Stanford is hopping mad, while his confederates are willing to march behind him to provide at least moral support.
"I've been saying this for three years now: I think if we're going to go into a playoff and feed into one playoff system, we all need to play by the same rules," Shaw said last Thursday during a Pac-12 coaches teleconference. "Play your conference. Don't back down from playing your own conference."
Shaw's fire was directed at the SEC, which voted last week to keep playing eight conference games while most of the other power conferences have decided to play nine in the upcoming College Football Playoff era. The Big Ten will move to a nine-game conference schedule in 2016 while the ACC is scheduled to hold a vote in mid-May.
"I don't think I was surprised (by the SEC's decision)," said Oregon State Coach Mike Riley. "But I don't think it's right. There's got to be some equity here."
If the Pac-12 seems particularly obsessed with the SEC, it's for a good reason. If the SEC is the greatest beneficiary of the BCS during its 16-year run, the Pac-12 may be rightly viewed as its biggest victim.
The Pac-12 played in a scant three BCS title games, winning just one (USC in 2004). After the Trojans lost the epic 2005 championship game to Texas, the Pac-12 appeared in just one title game in the last eight years of the BCS, while the SEC appeared in all eight, winning seven.
To be sure, the Pac-12 is determined to reverse that trend heading into the CFP. The conference has been on a hiring spree that landed such high-profile coaches such as Chris Petersen, Mike Leach, Jim Mora, Todd Graham and Rich Rodriguez over the past three seasons. At the same time more than a billion dollars were spent by schools to upgrade stadiums and facilities, including Washington, Oregon, Cal, USC and Arizona.
The Pac-12 is hoping the conference's improved competitiveness—on and off the field—will pay off in finally corralling the elusive national championship.
In 2014, the Pac-12 will be the only power conference that plays nine conference games plus a conference championship game. While there's little it can do about the scheduling of other conferences, it will have a chance to make a statement to the selection committee by performing well in a number of key nonconference games.
Oregon will host Rose Bowl winner Michigan State and UCLA travels to Texas in early-season showdowns while Stanford, Arizona State and USC all face Notre Dame. These games will help shape public opinion—and by extension, the selection committee's view—on the strength of the conference.
The Pac-12 might even have an advantage when it comes to the selection committee. At least five of its 13 members have ties to Pac-12 schools, and though Pat Haden and Condi Rice can't vote for USC and Stanford, respectively, they may still advocate on behalf of the conference's other teams.
Pac-12 coaches are emphatic that they wouldn't water down their schedules just to improve their odds of making the four-team playoff field. They have, for the most part, accepted that all they can do is to take care of business on the field and hope that the system gives them a fair shake. Maybe.
Kyle Whittingham, whose Utah team trounced Alabama in the Sugar Bowl but did not win the national championship despite being the 2008 season's only unbeaten team, got right down to it.
"There is nothing fair in college football," he said. "That's just how it is."
At least David Shaw of Stanford is hopping mad, while his confederates are willing to march behind him to provide at least moral support.
"I've been saying this for three years now: I think if we're going to go into a playoff and feed into one playoff system, we all need to play by the same rules," Shaw said last Thursday during a Pac-12 coaches teleconference. "Play your conference. Don't back down from playing your own conference."
Shaw's fire was directed at the SEC, which voted last week to keep playing eight conference games while most of the other power conferences have decided to play nine in the upcoming College Football Playoff era. The Big Ten will move to a nine-game conference schedule in 2016 while the ACC is scheduled to hold a vote in mid-May.
"I don't think I was surprised (by the SEC's decision)," said Oregon State Coach Mike Riley. "But I don't think it's right. There's got to be some equity here."
If the Pac-12 seems particularly obsessed with the SEC, it's for a good reason. If the SEC is the greatest beneficiary of the BCS during its 16-year run, the Pac-12 may be rightly viewed as its biggest victim.
The Pac-12 played in a scant three BCS title games, winning just one (USC in 2004). After the Trojans lost the epic 2005 championship game to Texas, the Pac-12 appeared in just one title game in the last eight years of the BCS, while the SEC appeared in all eight, winning seven.
To be sure, the Pac-12 is determined to reverse that trend heading into the CFP. The conference has been on a hiring spree that landed such high-profile coaches such as Chris Petersen, Mike Leach, Jim Mora, Todd Graham and Rich Rodriguez over the past three seasons. At the same time more than a billion dollars were spent by schools to upgrade stadiums and facilities, including Washington, Oregon, Cal, USC and Arizona.
The Pac-12 is hoping the conference's improved competitiveness—on and off the field—will pay off in finally corralling the elusive national championship.
In 2014, the Pac-12 will be the only power conference that plays nine conference games plus a conference championship game. While there's little it can do about the scheduling of other conferences, it will have a chance to make a statement to the selection committee by performing well in a number of key nonconference games.
Oregon will host Rose Bowl winner Michigan State and UCLA travels to Texas in early-season showdowns while Stanford, Arizona State and USC all face Notre Dame. These games will help shape public opinion—and by extension, the selection committee's view—on the strength of the conference.
The Pac-12 might even have an advantage when it comes to the selection committee. At least five of its 13 members have ties to Pac-12 schools, and though Pat Haden and Condi Rice can't vote for USC and Stanford, respectively, they may still advocate on behalf of the conference's other teams.
Pac-12 coaches are emphatic that they wouldn't water down their schedules just to improve their odds of making the four-team playoff field. They have, for the most part, accepted that all they can do is to take care of business on the field and hope that the system gives them a fair shake. Maybe.
Kyle Whittingham, whose Utah team trounced Alabama in the Sugar Bowl but did not win the national championship despite being the 2008 season's only unbeaten team, got right down to it.
"There is nothing fair in college football," he said. "That's just how it is."
Thursday, May 1, 2014
CFP Protocol: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The College Football Playoff management committee hammered out a series of protocols over a two-day meeting in Dallas that concluded Wednesday. The 10 FBS commissioners, along with Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, laid out procedures for the 13 members of the selection committee as the CFP begins its inaugural season in 2014.
Until Wednesday, how the 13 members should go about their business was mostly guesswork. Now at least we have some clarity, as the CFP power brokers should be commended for their decision to strive for transparency.
That said, there remains many other questions and challenges ahead. Here's my look at what the committee did right and where it might have left itself open to criticism:
The Good
Weekly standings: The committee, after all, decided to go with a weekly release of its own top 25 poll starting Oct. 28 and then every Tuesday until the final matchups for the two playoff games and four other CFP bowls are announced on Dec. 7. The standings will air live on ESPN at 7 or 7:30 p.m. with chairman Jeff Long on hand to explain the rankings.
The data: The CFP has retained SportSource Analytics to provide the data platform for the committee. The members should have a wealth of statistical information to help them with ranking the teams as opposed to be the selection committees of other NCAA championships who lean heavily on the unreliable Ratings Percentage Index (RPI).
The Bad
Five-step procedure: The committee laid out an extremely convoluted protocol where it takes at least four votes and most of the times many more to establish the top 25 rankings that it will release every Tuesday. This is an unnecessarily cumbersome procedure that doesn't actually enhance the strength of the rankings.
Tuesday release: Whereas the BCS standings were released each Sunday night in the second half of the season, the CFP will wait an extra 48 hours to unveil its rankings. While the fact that committee members will meet in person each week (sorry, Skype) has merit, the real reason why we must wait until Tuesday night is without a doubt television. ESPN has a Monday night football game to broadcast.
The Ugly
Recusal policy: Though most committee members have ties to at least one (and most several) FBS programs, the protocol bars them from voting for schools they current draw a paycheck from. This decision actually puts six teams at a distinct disadvantage: USC, Stanford, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Clemson and Arkansas. I had advocated and maintain that stance even more now: There should be no recusal policy at all.
The "best four teams": These are allegedly the teams that will be put into the CFP playoff field, according to Long, and at least that vernacular goes against the committee's previous commitment to reward conference champions. The nebulous concept is exactly what gave us the all-SEC debacle in the 2011 BCS title game, and the committee would be better served not to give in to this and stick with its original plan.
Overall, the committee has shown itself to be sensitive to public opinion as best attested by its decision to release a weekly ranking. But even the best-intentioned plans are just that—an idea—until it's put to test in a true trial-by-fire inaugural season of 2014.
Until Wednesday, how the 13 members should go about their business was mostly guesswork. Now at least we have some clarity, as the CFP power brokers should be commended for their decision to strive for transparency.
That said, there remains many other questions and challenges ahead. Here's my look at what the committee did right and where it might have left itself open to criticism:
The Good
Weekly standings: The committee, after all, decided to go with a weekly release of its own top 25 poll starting Oct. 28 and then every Tuesday until the final matchups for the two playoff games and four other CFP bowls are announced on Dec. 7. The standings will air live on ESPN at 7 or 7:30 p.m. with chairman Jeff Long on hand to explain the rankings.
The data: The CFP has retained SportSource Analytics to provide the data platform for the committee. The members should have a wealth of statistical information to help them with ranking the teams as opposed to be the selection committees of other NCAA championships who lean heavily on the unreliable Ratings Percentage Index (RPI).
The Bad
Five-step procedure: The committee laid out an extremely convoluted protocol where it takes at least four votes and most of the times many more to establish the top 25 rankings that it will release every Tuesday. This is an unnecessarily cumbersome procedure that doesn't actually enhance the strength of the rankings.
Tuesday release: Whereas the BCS standings were released each Sunday night in the second half of the season, the CFP will wait an extra 48 hours to unveil its rankings. While the fact that committee members will meet in person each week (sorry, Skype) has merit, the real reason why we must wait until Tuesday night is without a doubt television. ESPN has a Monday night football game to broadcast.
The Ugly
Recusal policy: Though most committee members have ties to at least one (and most several) FBS programs, the protocol bars them from voting for schools they current draw a paycheck from. This decision actually puts six teams at a distinct disadvantage: USC, Stanford, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Clemson and Arkansas. I had advocated and maintain that stance even more now: There should be no recusal policy at all.
The "best four teams": These are allegedly the teams that will be put into the CFP playoff field, according to Long, and at least that vernacular goes against the committee's previous commitment to reward conference champions. The nebulous concept is exactly what gave us the all-SEC debacle in the 2011 BCS title game, and the committee would be better served not to give in to this and stick with its original plan.
Overall, the committee has shown itself to be sensitive to public opinion as best attested by its decision to release a weekly ranking. But even the best-intentioned plans are just that—an idea—until it's put to test in a true trial-by-fire inaugural season of 2014.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Other Conferences Should Boycott Scheduling SEC
The SEC wants to have its cake and eat it, too. The other conferences shouldn't lend it a fork.
The SEC's long-awaited resolution to its scheduling question is to not do a dadgum thing. It will continue to play eight conference games with just this one caveat—each school is mandated to play another Big 5 conference team each season beginning in 2016.
But why should the other four of the Big 5 conferences accommodate this? What's in it for them?
By the 2016 season, the SEC will be the only one of the Big 5 conferences to play only eight conference games. The ACC also plays eight, but five conference members must play Notre Dame each year, so technically that makes it 8.35. The Pac-12, Big 12 and Big Ten will all be playing nine conference games by 2016.
Our previous extensive study of the 2014 out-of-conference (OOC) schedule already revealed that, across the board, the SEC plays the weakest non-conference games. Each of its 14 members plays one FCS team in its four OOC games and six of them don't play any OOC games on the road. Four SEC members have OOC schedules ranked in the bottom 10 among 124 non-independent FBS teams.
By keeping the the eight-game conference schedule, the SEC essentially tips the competitive scale in its favor for both the top and bottom teams. For teams vying to get into the four-team College Football Playoff field, they improve their chances by needing to win fewer games against top competition. For the cellar dwellers, they may qualify for a bowl berth with a mere 2-6 conference record.
So what's the incentive for the other conferences to help out the SEC by scheduling OOC games? So the SEC can make sure its top team—or even a second team—make the CFP field annually? So the SEC can have more bowl teams? So the SEC can have more attractive games in its inventory for the nascent SEC Network?
The commissioners of the other Big 5 conferences should issue an edict telling their member schools that, aside from existing contracts, they should not schedule SEC teams for OOC games in the future, unless they're extremely high-profile games approved by the conference offices.
Jim Delany should make sure to tell Maryland and Rutgers: You like the $45 million TV money that'll soon fill up your coffers annually? Good, don't you dare be a patsy for some SEC powerhouse.
The reality is that most Big 5 conference teams already play at least one fellow Big 5 OOC opponent—in 2014 only 10 teams won't do that and four come from the SEC. Essentially the SEC is preferring the status quo that made it the undisputed on-field powerhouse during the BCS era and enriched it through television and postseason revenues so it now out-earns all other conferences except the Big Ten.
And the other conferences should just like it and ask for more of the same?
The SEC's long-awaited resolution to its scheduling question is to not do a dadgum thing. It will continue to play eight conference games with just this one caveat—each school is mandated to play another Big 5 conference team each season beginning in 2016.
But why should the other four of the Big 5 conferences accommodate this? What's in it for them?
By the 2016 season, the SEC will be the only one of the Big 5 conferences to play only eight conference games. The ACC also plays eight, but five conference members must play Notre Dame each year, so technically that makes it 8.35. The Pac-12, Big 12 and Big Ten will all be playing nine conference games by 2016.
Our previous extensive study of the 2014 out-of-conference (OOC) schedule already revealed that, across the board, the SEC plays the weakest non-conference games. Each of its 14 members plays one FCS team in its four OOC games and six of them don't play any OOC games on the road. Four SEC members have OOC schedules ranked in the bottom 10 among 124 non-independent FBS teams.
By keeping the the eight-game conference schedule, the SEC essentially tips the competitive scale in its favor for both the top and bottom teams. For teams vying to get into the four-team College Football Playoff field, they improve their chances by needing to win fewer games against top competition. For the cellar dwellers, they may qualify for a bowl berth with a mere 2-6 conference record.
So what's the incentive for the other conferences to help out the SEC by scheduling OOC games? So the SEC can make sure its top team—or even a second team—make the CFP field annually? So the SEC can have more bowl teams? So the SEC can have more attractive games in its inventory for the nascent SEC Network?
The commissioners of the other Big 5 conferences should issue an edict telling their member schools that, aside from existing contracts, they should not schedule SEC teams for OOC games in the future, unless they're extremely high-profile games approved by the conference offices.
Jim Delany should make sure to tell Maryland and Rutgers: You like the $45 million TV money that'll soon fill up your coffers annually? Good, don't you dare be a patsy for some SEC powerhouse.
The reality is that most Big 5 conference teams already play at least one fellow Big 5 OOC opponent—in 2014 only 10 teams won't do that and four come from the SEC. Essentially the SEC is preferring the status quo that made it the undisputed on-field powerhouse during the BCS era and enriched it through television and postseason revenues so it now out-earns all other conferences except the Big Ten.
And the other conferences should just like it and ask for more of the same?
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Pac-12 Running Out of Time to Get on DirecTV
DirecTV just brought The Weather Channel to its knees. Will the Pac-12 follow suit and beg for forgiveness?
The Pac-12 Network is about to enter its third year of existence, yet there are no signs that it soon will be carried by DirecTV, one of the nation's top programming distributors—and the major one among sports fans. The two sides haven't even had any tangible discussions in 2014, so a resolution to the impasse is anything but imminent.
And that's very bad news for the Pac-12.
With the SEC Network about to enter the fray in August, the Pac-12 can ill afford being shut out of DirecTV for a third year and likely beyond. Should the SEC join the Big Ten to launch its network on DirecTV, it'll further cement Pac-12's status as an also-ran with its TV network further marginalized.
The biggest mistake the Pac-12 and its commissioner Larry Scott made was not to bring DirecTV into the fold when the network was launched in August 2012. And soon after the initial talks fell apart, the Pac-12 carried on a confrontational tactic that asked its fans to switch from DirecTV, with conference athletic directors leading the charge, including this one from Sandy Barbour:
The Weather Channel used the same playbook when it was dropped by DirecTV in January, taking out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal to taunt DirecTV. Scott should ask David Kenny, the CEO of TWC's parent company, how that worked out. Kenny finally got TWC back on DirecTV on April 9 by pledging to cut back on reality TV shows and issuing a humiliating apology.
Make no mistake: DirecTV is in no rush to make a deal with the Pac-12. It has already sustained whatever loss of subscribers it was going to be hit with over the past two years and is not at risk to lose a chunk more. It also needs to prioritize whom it needs to make a deal with in an increasingly crowded and expensive sports programming market.
With more than 20 million subscribers around the nation and nearly two million in its base in Southern California, DirecTV is currently embroiled in a spat with Time Warner Cable, which launched a new Dodgers channel this spring. All major carriers in SoCal so far have resisted Time Warner's fee demand of nearly $5 per subscriber and having the channel placed on the basic tier.
On a different front, DirecTV is actively in negotiations with the SEC Network ahead of its Aug. 14 launch. DirecTV has to seriously engage the SEC after its opening gambit was met with tremendous blowback from SEC fans, as well as the fact that the SEC Network is co-owned by ESPN, the most powerful entity in sports television.
The Pac-12, on the other hand, has no such clout. By deciding not to take on a partner, the conference left its network with no leverage whatsoever. And since the Pac-12 fanbase is not as rabid as SEC fans and the conference footprint contains six NFL franchises, massive fan defection from DirecTV just hasn't materialized. DirecTV remains the exclusive provider of the NFL Sunday Ticket through 2014.
Being shut out of DirecTV for two years has hurt the Pac-12's recruiting and branding, not just in football but also other sports, particularly men's basketball. This past March, a majority of the Pac-12's conference tournament games were available only to a fraction of the national audience, when every other major conference had every game on TV.
The endgame here isn't going to be pleasant for Scott, who must compromise way more than DirecTV would be willing. The Pac-12 needs to lower its demands and perhaps offer give-backs to other distributors that already carry the network.
Time is of the essence. Once DirecTV cuts a deal with the Dodgers and the SEC, there will be little to no room left for the Pac-12.
The Pac-12 Network is about to enter its third year of existence, yet there are no signs that it soon will be carried by DirecTV, one of the nation's top programming distributors—and the major one among sports fans. The two sides haven't even had any tangible discussions in 2014, so a resolution to the impasse is anything but imminent.
And that's very bad news for the Pac-12.
With the SEC Network about to enter the fray in August, the Pac-12 can ill afford being shut out of DirecTV for a third year and likely beyond. Should the SEC join the Big Ten to launch its network on DirecTV, it'll further cement Pac-12's status as an also-ran with its TV network further marginalized.
The biggest mistake the Pac-12 and its commissioner Larry Scott made was not to bring DirecTV into the fold when the network was launched in August 2012. And soon after the initial talks fell apart, the Pac-12 carried on a confrontational tactic that asked its fans to switch from DirecTV, with conference athletic directors leading the charge, including this one from Sandy Barbour:
The Weather Channel used the same playbook when it was dropped by DirecTV in January, taking out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal to taunt DirecTV. Scott should ask David Kenny, the CEO of TWC's parent company, how that worked out. Kenny finally got TWC back on DirecTV on April 9 by pledging to cut back on reality TV shows and issuing a humiliating apology.
Make no mistake: DirecTV is in no rush to make a deal with the Pac-12. It has already sustained whatever loss of subscribers it was going to be hit with over the past two years and is not at risk to lose a chunk more. It also needs to prioritize whom it needs to make a deal with in an increasingly crowded and expensive sports programming market.
With more than 20 million subscribers around the nation and nearly two million in its base in Southern California, DirecTV is currently embroiled in a spat with Time Warner Cable, which launched a new Dodgers channel this spring. All major carriers in SoCal so far have resisted Time Warner's fee demand of nearly $5 per subscriber and having the channel placed on the basic tier.
On a different front, DirecTV is actively in negotiations with the SEC Network ahead of its Aug. 14 launch. DirecTV has to seriously engage the SEC after its opening gambit was met with tremendous blowback from SEC fans, as well as the fact that the SEC Network is co-owned by ESPN, the most powerful entity in sports television.
The Pac-12, on the other hand, has no such clout. By deciding not to take on a partner, the conference left its network with no leverage whatsoever. And since the Pac-12 fanbase is not as rabid as SEC fans and the conference footprint contains six NFL franchises, massive fan defection from DirecTV just hasn't materialized. DirecTV remains the exclusive provider of the NFL Sunday Ticket through 2014.
Being shut out of DirecTV for two years has hurt the Pac-12's recruiting and branding, not just in football but also other sports, particularly men's basketball. This past March, a majority of the Pac-12's conference tournament games were available only to a fraction of the national audience, when every other major conference had every game on TV.
The endgame here isn't going to be pleasant for Scott, who must compromise way more than DirecTV would be willing. The Pac-12 needs to lower its demands and perhaps offer give-backs to other distributors that already carry the network.
Time is of the essence. Once DirecTV cuts a deal with the Dodgers and the SEC, there will be little to no room left for the Pac-12.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
What a 16-Team CFP Playoff Would've Looked Like
The Oklahoma Sooners, your 2013 college football national champions!
Would you have a problem with that?
If you don't, then you must have loved the NCAA basketball tournament, where a fourth-place team from a slightly-less-than-power conference just won the national title. If you do, perhaps you're more of a college football purist who think regular season should matter—a lot.
Either way, we're not here to take sides. Rather, we're here to present some hypotheticals mixed in with facts. Transitive property is used—but not too liberally—to advance a scenario where the Sooners would've won it all last season.
Pundits and critics who disliked the BCS have long advocated for a playoff that involved more than two teams, and they're not even close to being satisfied with the upcoming four-team College Football Playoff. At a minimum, they want 16 teams.
So they'll get 16 teams in our model, and it works because proportionally it best resembles the basketball tournament:
Now, this is how the playoff field at the end of the 2013 regular season would've looked like after the selection committee picked six at-large teams to go with 10 conference champions and then seeded them. The only restriction is that no conference may place more than two at-large entries:
First Round (campus sites)
1. Florida State (ACC) vs. 16. UL-Lafayette (Sun Belt)***
2. Auburn (SEC) vs. 15. Rice (C-USA)***
3. Michigan State (Big Ten) vs. Bowling Green (MAC)***
4. Stanford (Pac-12) vs. Fresno State (MWC)**
5. Baylor (Big 12) vs. Central Florida (AAC)*
6. Alabama (at-large) vs. 11. Oklahoma (at-large)*
7. Ohio State (at-large) vs. 10. Clemson (at-large)*
8. South Carolina (at-large) vs. 9. Oregon (at-large)**
South Carolina just edged Missouri for the last at-large spot from the SEC because it won head-to-head and had a much better out of conference schedule.
Based on results from actual games (*), use of transitive property (**) and simulation (***), these would've been the quarterfinal matchups. We decided to use an NFL-style format where the highest-seeded team always plays the lowest-seeded team instead of using a rigid bracket:
Quarterfinals (campus sites)
1. Florida State vs. 12. Central Florida***
2. Auburn vs. 11 Oklahoma**
3. Michigan State vs. 10. Clemson**
4. Stanford vs. 9. Oregon*
The winning teams then would take a week off before heading to the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl for the semifinal games:
Semifinals
1. Florida State vs. 11. Oklahoma (Sugar Bowl)**
3. Michigan State vs. 4. Stanford (Rose Bowl)*
Championship
3. Michigan State vs. 11. Oklahoma (AT&T Stadium)**
The Sooners, pulling off a string of upsets thanks to the hot hand of freshman quarterback Trevor Knight, advanced to the national championship game in Arlington ... er, North Texas. In the same JerryWorld where UConn's basketball team completed its improbable run, OU would upstage Michigan State for its own national title.
Is this a just outcome? You decide. Vote in our poll and comment below.
Would you have a problem with that?
If you don't, then you must have loved the NCAA basketball tournament, where a fourth-place team from a slightly-less-than-power conference just won the national title. If you do, perhaps you're more of a college football purist who think regular season should matter—a lot.
Either way, we're not here to take sides. Rather, we're here to present some hypotheticals mixed in with facts. Transitive property is used—but not too liberally—to advance a scenario where the Sooners would've won it all last season.
Pundits and critics who disliked the BCS have long advocated for a playoff that involved more than two teams, and they're not even close to being satisfied with the upcoming four-team College Football Playoff. At a minimum, they want 16 teams.
So they'll get 16 teams in our model, and it works because proportionally it best resembles the basketball tournament:
Now, this is how the playoff field at the end of the 2013 regular season would've looked like after the selection committee picked six at-large teams to go with 10 conference champions and then seeded them. The only restriction is that no conference may place more than two at-large entries:
First Round (campus sites)
1. Florida State (ACC) vs. 16. UL-Lafayette (Sun Belt)***
2. Auburn (SEC) vs. 15. Rice (C-USA)***
3. Michigan State (Big Ten) vs. Bowling Green (MAC)***
4. Stanford (Pac-12) vs. Fresno State (MWC)**
5. Baylor (Big 12) vs. Central Florida (AAC)*
6. Alabama (at-large) vs. 11. Oklahoma (at-large)*
7. Ohio State (at-large) vs. 10. Clemson (at-large)*
8. South Carolina (at-large) vs. 9. Oregon (at-large)**
South Carolina just edged Missouri for the last at-large spot from the SEC because it won head-to-head and had a much better out of conference schedule.
Based on results from actual games (*), use of transitive property (**) and simulation (***), these would've been the quarterfinal matchups. We decided to use an NFL-style format where the highest-seeded team always plays the lowest-seeded team instead of using a rigid bracket:
Quarterfinals (campus sites)
1. Florida State vs. 12. Central Florida***
2. Auburn vs. 11 Oklahoma**
3. Michigan State vs. 10. Clemson**
4. Stanford vs. 9. Oregon*
The winning teams then would take a week off before heading to the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl for the semifinal games:
Semifinals
1. Florida State vs. 11. Oklahoma (Sugar Bowl)**
3. Michigan State vs. 4. Stanford (Rose Bowl)*
Championship
3. Michigan State vs. 11. Oklahoma (AT&T Stadium)**
The Sooners, pulling off a string of upsets thanks to the hot hand of freshman quarterback Trevor Knight, advanced to the national championship game in Arlington ... er, North Texas. In the same JerryWorld where UConn's basketball team completed its improbable run, OU would upstage Michigan State for its own national title.
Is this a just outcome? You decide. Vote in our poll and comment below.
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Michigan Seeing the Light at the Big House
For only the third time in its venerable history, Michigan Stadium will host a night game. When the Wolverines take on Penn State on Oct. 11 at 7 p.m., it will be the first Big Ten game to be played entirely under the lights at the Big House.
It's about time.
Night games are a fact of life now in college football, and there really isn't anything wrong with that. Saturday is the ideal night to stay up late anyway. You can sleep in the day of and after the game, still catch the late Sunday Mass or service and be awake enough for the first NFL kickoff at 1 p.m. This isn't like starting a World Series game at 8 p.m. on a school night.
As for Michigan and the Big Ten, it's a sign of the times.
Though its Big Ten title drought has now reached a decade, Michigan is still among the five most powerful brand names in college football. The Big House, with its 109,901 seats, is still the biggest stadium in the land. Having games played in primetime under the lights is an important part of staying competitive and relevant in the 21st century.
The SEC has made Saturday night games an attraction during the BCS era, with a few epic battles between LSU and Alabama coming immediately to mind. The Pac-12 has also used night games to get increased face-time, with a built-in time-zone advantage as those primetime games start at a not-so-late 5 p.m. kickoff time.
The Big Ten—particularly Michigan—has resisted playing at night until recent years, with tradition and weather the primary considerations. The Big House finally hosted its first night game in 2011, when Michigan rallied to a miraculous win over Notre Dame. The Wolverines repeated that feat last year with another electrifying win over the Irish.
The choice of Penn State as the foe for the 2014 night game is inspired. While the Nittany Lions are still on probation for the Jerry Sandusky transgressions, they're also one of the marquee names in college football. These teams, who have not met in Ann Arbor since 2009, are now division rivals in the realigned Big Ten.
Perhaps the most memorable Michigan-Penn State game ended under the lights, even though it didn't start at night. In 2005, Mario Manningham caught a Chad Henne TD pass on the game's final play as Michigan handed the Lions their only loss of the season, one that denied them a shot at the BCS championship.
Michigan coach Brady Hoke endorsed playing under the lights, according to a statement released by the school:
"The night game atmosphere created by our fans has been electric and we expect that same type of energy for our first-ever conference night game against Penn State. Our players really enjoy playing in primetime at Michigan Stadium."
The 2014 game will be televised on ESPN (or ESPN2) as part of a revamped primetime schedule for the network. The Wolverines have been a Bristol favorite for Big Ten night games, though until the coming season they've always played on the road.
About the only thing to spoil the idea is a lack of moderation. As long as Michigan plays only sparingly at night and never past mid-October, the Big House under the lights will be a welcome new sight for college football.
It's about time.
Night games are a fact of life now in college football, and there really isn't anything wrong with that. Saturday is the ideal night to stay up late anyway. You can sleep in the day of and after the game, still catch the late Sunday Mass or service and be awake enough for the first NFL kickoff at 1 p.m. This isn't like starting a World Series game at 8 p.m. on a school night.
As for Michigan and the Big Ten, it's a sign of the times.
Though its Big Ten title drought has now reached a decade, Michigan is still among the five most powerful brand names in college football. The Big House, with its 109,901 seats, is still the biggest stadium in the land. Having games played in primetime under the lights is an important part of staying competitive and relevant in the 21st century.
The SEC has made Saturday night games an attraction during the BCS era, with a few epic battles between LSU and Alabama coming immediately to mind. The Pac-12 has also used night games to get increased face-time, with a built-in time-zone advantage as those primetime games start at a not-so-late 5 p.m. kickoff time.
The Big Ten—particularly Michigan—has resisted playing at night until recent years, with tradition and weather the primary considerations. The Big House finally hosted its first night game in 2011, when Michigan rallied to a miraculous win over Notre Dame. The Wolverines repeated that feat last year with another electrifying win over the Irish.
The choice of Penn State as the foe for the 2014 night game is inspired. While the Nittany Lions are still on probation for the Jerry Sandusky transgressions, they're also one of the marquee names in college football. These teams, who have not met in Ann Arbor since 2009, are now division rivals in the realigned Big Ten.
Perhaps the most memorable Michigan-Penn State game ended under the lights, even though it didn't start at night. In 2005, Mario Manningham caught a Chad Henne TD pass on the game's final play as Michigan handed the Lions their only loss of the season, one that denied them a shot at the BCS championship.
Michigan coach Brady Hoke endorsed playing under the lights, according to a statement released by the school:
"The night game atmosphere created by our fans has been electric and we expect that same type of energy for our first-ever conference night game against Penn State. Our players really enjoy playing in primetime at Michigan Stadium."
The 2014 game will be televised on ESPN (or ESPN2) as part of a revamped primetime schedule for the network. The Wolverines have been a Bristol favorite for Big Ten night games, though until the coming season they've always played on the road.
About the only thing to spoil the idea is a lack of moderation. As long as Michigan plays only sparingly at night and never past mid-October, the Big House under the lights will be a welcome new sight for college football.
Friday, April 4, 2014
Selection Committee Doesn't Need Recusal Policy
The College Football Playoff committee, charged with selecting the four-team playoff beginning in the 2014 season, has put together a recusal policy for its 13 members. The proposal is now being considered by the 10 conference commissioners for approval.
Let's hope that policy proposal is just a blank piece of paper.
Why? Because frankly the committee should not need it. And having a recusal policy is worse than not actually having one.
The recusal policy is a copycat legacy from the selection committees of other NCAA sports, particularly basketball, where committee members have to excuse themselves when their institutions are up for discussion. It's there to give an air of transparency and propriety.
But it doesn't really work.
While it's a nice cover, most of the time the recused member often returns to the room only to find that his school was treated fabulously by his cohorts. It's not hard to figure why—when you have to spend 72 hours breathing the same stale air and eating day-old cold pizza, you're not going to antagonize your fellow inmate if you don't have to.
And the concept of a recusal policy particularly is ill-suited for the College Football Playoff committee.
Unlike the selection committees for other sports, this committee is composed of an eclectic assortment of individuals, not just a bunch of athletic directors and conference commissioners. Only five of the 13 members are active ADs, and a majority of them don't currently work in college athletics.
They come from diverse backgrounds, often with a long list of employment history. Most of them have advanced degrees and attended multiple colleges. It would be absurd to ask them to recuse themselves just because somewhere along the road they once drew a paycheck or earned a diploma from an institution in question.
Take Tyrone Willingham, who's been a head coach at three schools and an assistant at a handful of others. If he has to leave the room every time one of those schools comes up for discussion, he might as well find a sofa in the hallway and get comfortable.
And where do you draw the line beyond employers and alma maters? Archie Manning's son Peyton went to Tennessee, whereas Oliver Luck's son Andrew went to Stanford. How about the chair, Jeff Long, who was a high school teammate of Michigan coach Brady Hoke and whose wife is from Ann Arbor?
The bottom line is that these are grownups who have over 100 years of experience in college athletics, not to mention government, military, business, law and journalism. They should know how to handle themselves even in a messy situation—that's why they're on the committee in the first place.
If a playoff spot is up for grabs involving one of the schools near and dear to a committee member, he or she should stay in the room and be part of the discussion. The committee then should be able to rigorously and intelligently defend its decision, without the cop-out of a recusal policy.
We expect nothing less.
Let's hope that policy proposal is just a blank piece of paper.
Why? Because frankly the committee should not need it. And having a recusal policy is worse than not actually having one.
The recusal policy is a copycat legacy from the selection committees of other NCAA sports, particularly basketball, where committee members have to excuse themselves when their institutions are up for discussion. It's there to give an air of transparency and propriety.
But it doesn't really work.
While it's a nice cover, most of the time the recused member often returns to the room only to find that his school was treated fabulously by his cohorts. It's not hard to figure why—when you have to spend 72 hours breathing the same stale air and eating day-old cold pizza, you're not going to antagonize your fellow inmate if you don't have to.
And the concept of a recusal policy particularly is ill-suited for the College Football Playoff committee.
Unlike the selection committees for other sports, this committee is composed of an eclectic assortment of individuals, not just a bunch of athletic directors and conference commissioners. Only five of the 13 members are active ADs, and a majority of them don't currently work in college athletics.
They come from diverse backgrounds, often with a long list of employment history. Most of them have advanced degrees and attended multiple colleges. It would be absurd to ask them to recuse themselves just because somewhere along the road they once drew a paycheck or earned a diploma from an institution in question.
Take Tyrone Willingham, who's been a head coach at three schools and an assistant at a handful of others. If he has to leave the room every time one of those schools comes up for discussion, he might as well find a sofa in the hallway and get comfortable.
And where do you draw the line beyond employers and alma maters? Archie Manning's son Peyton went to Tennessee, whereas Oliver Luck's son Andrew went to Stanford. How about the chair, Jeff Long, who was a high school teammate of Michigan coach Brady Hoke and whose wife is from Ann Arbor?
The bottom line is that these are grownups who have over 100 years of experience in college athletics, not to mention government, military, business, law and journalism. They should know how to handle themselves even in a messy situation—that's why they're on the committee in the first place.
If a playoff spot is up for grabs involving one of the schools near and dear to a committee member, he or she should stay in the room and be part of the discussion. The committee then should be able to rigorously and intelligently defend its decision, without the cop-out of a recusal policy.
We expect nothing less.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Why 4-Team Playoff Is Good Enough
What if last season's college football playoff yielded this quartet of teams vying for the national championship: Florida State, South Carolina, USC and Vanderbilt?
Would you be OK with that?
That's exactly what the basketball Final Four has given us, if we line up the teams according to the official rankings given by the selection committee (for basketball) against the final regular season AP poll (for football).
The parallels are pretty apt, actually. We have a consensus No. 1 (Florida/Florida State), a very good team from a top conference that didn't win its title (Wisconsin/South Carolina), an extremely talented team that underachieved for part of the season (Kentucky/USC) and a middle-of-the-pack team from a power conference (UConn/Vandy).
But unless Florida wins the basketball title as Florida State did in football, would anybody say the NCAA Tournament gave us the best team of the season?
No, it'd have given us the best team in a six-game stretch, a mere 15 percent of the year.
This is why when someone clamors for a full-blown "playoff" for college football, you should climb to the peak of the nearest mountain and yell "stop!"
College Football Playoff will debut next season and give us a four-team playoff. That is going to be good enough. Any more it will significantly reduce the importance of the regular season. A 16-team playoff, as some have proposed, will render it nearly meaningless.
As it is right now, a 16-team playoff will allow 13 percent of all FBS teams to have a shot at the national championship. That's only slightly lower than the 19 percent of Division I teams that gets to play in the 68-team NCAA Tournament.
Why does college football want to emulate that model? Does a team that finished ninth in its conference with a .500 record really deserve to be crowned "national champion" as UConn was in 2011? That would be like allowing Vanderbilt or Texas A&M to win last year's football title if they were to get hot in a playoff.
The thing is, college football's extremely narrow path to the national championship—from the poll era to the BCS and now the CFP—makes for the most meaningful and rigorous regular season. Except for rare cases such as 2003 and 2011, there really is no such thing as a "meaningless regular-season game" for any team with aspirations for the national title.
In American sports, pro or college, there is no regular season that is remotely close to college football's in terms of integrity. There will never be a game where a title contender gets to rest its starters in preparation for a playoff game (OK, those late-season SEC vs. FCS games excluded, but that's a different issue).
Any playoff that's more watered down than the four-team version of the CFP will do irrevocable damage to the regular season. If you want to observe what a meaningless regular-season game looks like for a title contender, just tune to any NCAA basketball game that took place before the show on Selection Sunday.
Does college football want that?
Would you be OK with that?
That's exactly what the basketball Final Four has given us, if we line up the teams according to the official rankings given by the selection committee (for basketball) against the final regular season AP poll (for football).
The parallels are pretty apt, actually. We have a consensus No. 1 (Florida/Florida State), a very good team from a top conference that didn't win its title (Wisconsin/South Carolina), an extremely talented team that underachieved for part of the season (Kentucky/USC) and a middle-of-the-pack team from a power conference (UConn/Vandy).
But unless Florida wins the basketball title as Florida State did in football, would anybody say the NCAA Tournament gave us the best team of the season?
No, it'd have given us the best team in a six-game stretch, a mere 15 percent of the year.
This is why when someone clamors for a full-blown "playoff" for college football, you should climb to the peak of the nearest mountain and yell "stop!"
College Football Playoff will debut next season and give us a four-team playoff. That is going to be good enough. Any more it will significantly reduce the importance of the regular season. A 16-team playoff, as some have proposed, will render it nearly meaningless.
As it is right now, a 16-team playoff will allow 13 percent of all FBS teams to have a shot at the national championship. That's only slightly lower than the 19 percent of Division I teams that gets to play in the 68-team NCAA Tournament.
Why does college football want to emulate that model? Does a team that finished ninth in its conference with a .500 record really deserve to be crowned "national champion" as UConn was in 2011? That would be like allowing Vanderbilt or Texas A&M to win last year's football title if they were to get hot in a playoff.
The thing is, college football's extremely narrow path to the national championship—from the poll era to the BCS and now the CFP—makes for the most meaningful and rigorous regular season. Except for rare cases such as 2003 and 2011, there really is no such thing as a "meaningless regular-season game" for any team with aspirations for the national title.
In American sports, pro or college, there is no regular season that is remotely close to college football's in terms of integrity. There will never be a game where a title contender gets to rest its starters in preparation for a playoff game (OK, those late-season SEC vs. FCS games excluded, but that's a different issue).
Any playoff that's more watered down than the four-team version of the CFP will do irrevocable damage to the regular season. If you want to observe what a meaningless regular-season game looks like for a title contender, just tune to any NCAA basketball game that took place before the show on Selection Sunday.
Does college football want that?
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Groundhog Day: NCAA vs. Big Time Football
Imagine that there's only one college football game on TV every Saturday. Just one.
Imagine that your favorite team can be on TV only once all season. Just once.
This isn't some doomsday scenario on some parallel planet. This was reality only about 30 years ago.
That only changed—so now you have an embarrassment of riches as far as televised games go—because big-time college football programs took the NCAA to court. And won.
In the landmark NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 1984 against the NCAA, a decision that freed the big-time college football programs to cut their own TV deals and opened up the cash flow spigot. There is nothing that has done more to transform college football into a money-making machine that it is today.
Outraged by the NCAA's 1970s TV policy that they viewed as an illegal restraint of trade, the big football powers of the day formed the College Football Association to take on the governing body. The 64-member CFA consisted of the Atlantic Coast, Big Eight, Southeastern, Southwest and Western Athletic conferences, plus major independents including Notre Dame, Penn State, Pitt and the service academies—curiously, the Big Ten and Pac-10 declined to join.
With strength by numbers, the CFA aggressively confronted the NCAA, which haughtily threatened the members with various forms of sanctions. The jousting finally reached the courts, with the universities of Oklahoma and Georgia taking the lead. When the Supreme Court sided with the schools, the NCAA effectively lost all control of the financial windfall that soon flooded the coffers of major Division I-A football programs.
Now history is on the verge of repeating itself.
With the NCAA under siege from various lawsuits all relating to the issue of player compensation—mostly in football and men's basketball, the only real revenue-generating sports—the "Big Five" conferences are mulling another split from the NCAA. Thirty years ago it was about finances, this time it's about governance.
These 65 schools (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC, plus Notre Dame) understand the current compensation model is unsustainable and probably won't stand up in court. While the programs are reaping millions from television contracts, apparel deals and ticket and merchandise sales, the players are punished for receiving even the most inconsequential fringe benefits.
The drive to split the revenue-rich power programs gained momentum early this year when the majority of an NCAA seminar attendees voted in favor of granting them more autonomy. Thursday's ruling by the National Labor Relations Board to allow Northwestern football players to unionize will only accelerate that process.
These institutions simply make too much money to not allow the labor (ahem, "student-athletes") to have a piece of that financial pie. The lower-rung Division I programs (both FBS and FCS), on the other hand, are constantly in the red and cannot afford to increase the aid packages their players receive. This schism is what caused the NCAA to table a $2,000-per-player stipend proposal in 2012.
But they can't kick the can down the road for much longer. The financial wellbeing of all these schools—founded on winning the NCAA v. OU case—is now being threatened by lawsuits filed by others. They understand that in order to preserve most of the riches, they must share some of it with those who contributed all the sweat labor—broken bones, torn ligaments, concussions and all.
The NCAA is headed toward the ash heap of history. Big-time college football can't save the NCAA (or maybe they don't want to), so its best bet is to abandon the sinking ship instead of going down with it.
Imagine that your favorite team can be on TV only once all season. Just once.
This isn't some doomsday scenario on some parallel planet. This was reality only about 30 years ago.
That only changed—so now you have an embarrassment of riches as far as televised games go—because big-time college football programs took the NCAA to court. And won.
In the landmark NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 1984 against the NCAA, a decision that freed the big-time college football programs to cut their own TV deals and opened up the cash flow spigot. There is nothing that has done more to transform college football into a money-making machine that it is today.
Outraged by the NCAA's 1970s TV policy that they viewed as an illegal restraint of trade, the big football powers of the day formed the College Football Association to take on the governing body. The 64-member CFA consisted of the Atlantic Coast, Big Eight, Southeastern, Southwest and Western Athletic conferences, plus major independents including Notre Dame, Penn State, Pitt and the service academies—curiously, the Big Ten and Pac-10 declined to join.
With strength by numbers, the CFA aggressively confronted the NCAA, which haughtily threatened the members with various forms of sanctions. The jousting finally reached the courts, with the universities of Oklahoma and Georgia taking the lead. When the Supreme Court sided with the schools, the NCAA effectively lost all control of the financial windfall that soon flooded the coffers of major Division I-A football programs.
Now history is on the verge of repeating itself.
With the NCAA under siege from various lawsuits all relating to the issue of player compensation—mostly in football and men's basketball, the only real revenue-generating sports—the "Big Five" conferences are mulling another split from the NCAA. Thirty years ago it was about finances, this time it's about governance.
These 65 schools (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC, plus Notre Dame) understand the current compensation model is unsustainable and probably won't stand up in court. While the programs are reaping millions from television contracts, apparel deals and ticket and merchandise sales, the players are punished for receiving even the most inconsequential fringe benefits.
The drive to split the revenue-rich power programs gained momentum early this year when the majority of an NCAA seminar attendees voted in favor of granting them more autonomy. Thursday's ruling by the National Labor Relations Board to allow Northwestern football players to unionize will only accelerate that process.
These institutions simply make too much money to not allow the labor (ahem, "student-athletes") to have a piece of that financial pie. The lower-rung Division I programs (both FBS and FCS), on the other hand, are constantly in the red and cannot afford to increase the aid packages their players receive. This schism is what caused the NCAA to table a $2,000-per-player stipend proposal in 2012.
| School | Revenue* | Expenses | Profits |
| Texas | $103.8 | $25.9 | $77.9 |
| Michigan | $85.2 | $23.6 | $61.6 |
| Alabama | $82.0 | $36.9 | $45.1 |
| Georgia | $75.0 | $22.7 | $52.3 |
| Florida | $74.1 | $23.0 | $51.1 |
| Notre Dame | $69.0 | $25.8 | $43.2 |
| LSU | $68.8 | $24.0 | $44.8 |
| Oklahoma | $59.6 | $24.1 | $35.5 |
| Ohio State | $58.1 | $34.0 | $24.1 |
| Nebraska | $55.1 | $18.6 | $36.5 |
* Data from U.S. Department of Education (2011-12 academic year)
But they can't kick the can down the road for much longer. The financial wellbeing of all these schools—founded on winning the NCAA v. OU case—is now being threatened by lawsuits filed by others. They understand that in order to preserve most of the riches, they must share some of it with those who contributed all the sweat labor—broken bones, torn ligaments, concussions and all.
The NCAA is headed toward the ash heap of history. Big-time college football can't save the NCAA (or maybe they don't want to), so its best bet is to abandon the sinking ship instead of going down with it.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Notre Dame Enters CFP Under Cloud of Uncertainty
Notre Dame will enter the College Football Playoff era with a boatload of cash.
The Irish last year signed a 10-year extension with NBC, worth a reported $15 million per year, that will run through the 2025 season—effectively the entire length of the initial CFP deal. In January, the school inked the biggest apparel contract in college sports history, a 10-year deal with Under Armour for a reported $90 million.
Forbes valued Notre Dame's football program to be worth $119 million, behind only Texas. The school is swimming in so much money that it's taking on a $400 million renovation project to greatly expand and enhance the area in and around Notre Dame Stadium.
While its bank account is healthy and robust, can the same be said for Notre Dame's football program?
The BCS era certainly isn't one to write home about for the Irish, who went 0-4 in BCS bowl games during the 16-year span—the only winless program with three or more appearances. In their only national championship game appearance in 2012, they were thoroughly outclassed by Alabama in a 42-14 rout. Notre Dame finished in the top 10 of the final AP poll just twice during the BCS era.
And the BCS had provisions that were much more friendly to Notre Dame's interests. The Irish were guaranteed a spot in a BCS bowl if they finished in the top eight of the final BCS standings. Twice they were picked for BCS bowls despite not finishing in the top 10 and were selected over more deserving teams.
In the CFP, Notre Dame might not get such breaks.
There is no guarantee for Notre Dame to be picked for any of the four bowls if it fails to make the four-team playoff. The Irish will have a spot in the Orange Bowl only if they were deemed to be ranked higher than the top teams from the SEC and Big Ten not involved in the four-team playoff—as determined by the selection committee.
The 13-person committee will have sole discretion on the playoff teams, their seeding and the other eight teams in the lucrative CFP bowls. While the Irish appear to have a couple of "friendlies" on the committee—former coach Tyrone Willingham and former U.S. Secretary of State Condi Rice, who earned a master's degree in South Bend—they're not due for any preferential treatment.
Such is the predicament for an independent team in the era of super power conferences.
By the 2015 season, after Navy joins the American Athletic Conference, there will be just two other independent teams—Army and BYU. And the Cougars just might be plucked before long by another power conference, most likely the Big 12.
Notre Dame sought to forestall a scheduling nightmare by signing up with the ACC, parking its Olympic sports teams in the conference while getting five ACC football games a year. But by remaining independent, Notre Dame still does not get the benefit of playing for a conference championship, which the committee has said it will consider with prejudice.
The Irish have made their bet by sticking with the independent path. While the decision has continued to reap financial rewards, it has not translated into glory on the football field. Notre Dame is staring at a future prospect that's as vexing as that other iconic American football brand—the Dallas Cowboys—famously rich but competitively irrelevant.
The Irish last year signed a 10-year extension with NBC, worth a reported $15 million per year, that will run through the 2025 season—effectively the entire length of the initial CFP deal. In January, the school inked the biggest apparel contract in college sports history, a 10-year deal with Under Armour for a reported $90 million.
Forbes valued Notre Dame's football program to be worth $119 million, behind only Texas. The school is swimming in so much money that it's taking on a $400 million renovation project to greatly expand and enhance the area in and around Notre Dame Stadium.
While its bank account is healthy and robust, can the same be said for Notre Dame's football program?
The BCS era certainly isn't one to write home about for the Irish, who went 0-4 in BCS bowl games during the 16-year span—the only winless program with three or more appearances. In their only national championship game appearance in 2012, they were thoroughly outclassed by Alabama in a 42-14 rout. Notre Dame finished in the top 10 of the final AP poll just twice during the BCS era.
| Season | Record | Bowl | Final AP Rank |
| 1998 | 9-3 | Gator Bowl (L) Georgia Tech | 22 |
| 2000* | 9-3 | Fiesta Bowl (L) Oregon State | 15 |
| 2002 | 10-3 | Gator Bowl (L) N.C. State | 17 |
| 2005* | 9-3 | Fiesta Bowl (L) Ohio State | 9 |
| 2006* | 10-3 | Sugar Bowl (L) LSU | 17 |
| 2012* | 12-1 | BCS Championship (L) Alabama | 4 |
| 2013 | 9-4 | Pinstripe Bowl (W) Rutgers | 21 |
And the BCS had provisions that were much more friendly to Notre Dame's interests. The Irish were guaranteed a spot in a BCS bowl if they finished in the top eight of the final BCS standings. Twice they were picked for BCS bowls despite not finishing in the top 10 and were selected over more deserving teams.
In the CFP, Notre Dame might not get such breaks.
There is no guarantee for Notre Dame to be picked for any of the four bowls if it fails to make the four-team playoff. The Irish will have a spot in the Orange Bowl only if they were deemed to be ranked higher than the top teams from the SEC and Big Ten not involved in the four-team playoff—as determined by the selection committee.
The 13-person committee will have sole discretion on the playoff teams, their seeding and the other eight teams in the lucrative CFP bowls. While the Irish appear to have a couple of "friendlies" on the committee—former coach Tyrone Willingham and former U.S. Secretary of State Condi Rice, who earned a master's degree in South Bend—they're not due for any preferential treatment.
Such is the predicament for an independent team in the era of super power conferences.
By the 2015 season, after Navy joins the American Athletic Conference, there will be just two other independent teams—Army and BYU. And the Cougars just might be plucked before long by another power conference, most likely the Big 12.
Notre Dame sought to forestall a scheduling nightmare by signing up with the ACC, parking its Olympic sports teams in the conference while getting five ACC football games a year. But by remaining independent, Notre Dame still does not get the benefit of playing for a conference championship, which the committee has said it will consider with prejudice.
The Irish have made their bet by sticking with the independent path. While the decision has continued to reap financial rewards, it has not translated into glory on the football field. Notre Dame is staring at a future prospect that's as vexing as that other iconic American football brand—the Dallas Cowboys—famously rich but competitively irrelevant.
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