Arkstfan

I have really mixed emotions on this issue. The NCAA standards are minimal to prevent schools from admitting athletes who have little chance of academic success. Schools may set higher standards for admission or continuing eligibility. For example ASU requires greater progress toward a degree than the NCAA does for continuing eligibility. You should be able to say that everyone who is enrolled at an institution and completes a degree there have met a certain performance level but a person with a different background and skill set does broaden the university experience. It is however hypocritical to say that person A is worthy of the educational experience because he can drain the three or knock 285 pound guys on their duff while person B who has a better academic record and has broad life experience of working on worthy civic projects isn't worthy. Alumni and students have a right to expect that students admitted are of roughly similar capability. The University of Arkansas has turned out two professional players who later admitted to being unable to read. Students and alumni deserve to have the value of the education upheld, not devalued by such scandal. I think it would be a heckuva a lot easier for Spurrier if he'd just figure out what the criteria is special admission and recruit accordingly, but by the same token the admissions people need to set forth a clear standard as well stating what the minimum is special admission.

I don't trust those characters. There was a TV show once where a guy had some asian characters as a tatoo. He thought it said "Firey Strength" and a chinese guy saw it and started laughing at it. He found someone who read chinese who laughed and said, "It says you are someone's b!tch". Checked with another guy who said it doesn't say you are someone's b!tch, it says "When two men love each other, you are the girl".

OK I'll play. Mizzou goes to the Big 12. First call is to Arkansas, I think they say no even though it makes better geographic sense because the difference in revenue more than covers it. Big 12 comes out ahead most likely. Second call is to BYU to see how firm they are on "never on Sunday". If the church suddenly makes the decision that Sunday play is OK, BYU goes to the Big 12 (look at the numbers no one not in a BCS league has better attendance or a better television following). Big 12 again comes out no worse than they are, maybe better. If BYU is firm on never on Sunday choices get pretty bad. TCU, Houston, UTEP, Colorado State, Utah, Memphis. Not a choice there that puts the Big 12 back in as good of position as they are currently in. Going to 14 makes the situation worse because they aren't in a financial position to raid the Big 10, SEC or Pac-10. You have to stretch all the way out Louisville or Cincinnati to get a really good choice that doesn't hurt the Big 12. Let's say BYU and the LDS repeal never on Sunday. MWC doesn't HAVE to expand but really needs to. Pool is pretty small. Boise State, Fresno State, Hawaii, and UTEP. My guess is Boise State either alone or with one of the others, with Hawaii possibly in the worst position because BYU was rumored to be their strongest support in the MWC. Let's say its Boise and another WAC team. The WAC is now short one team from being a I-A league. Options? Not many. Some talk that the WAC has long-term interest in UC Davis. Portland State is the eternal fart in a skillet about moving I-A putting Texas State's on/off history to shame. No reason to think Montana is suddenly interested in FBS football. Could approach the Sun Belt about merging into a 16 team football alliance question would be how do you make it work because divisions of 8 requires either UNT or ULL to align west with La.Tech or create a bizzaro unbalanced divisional alignment. All-in-all few decent options. So what if it is Boise State alone? WAC maybe does nothing and waits out to see if one of the western I-AA's is serious about moving up. If it is Boise and UTEP? Could be very interesting. Memphis and UAB opposed going to 12 last time around. It seems apparent that East Carolina isn't wildly interested in playing western schools and has advocated a big expansion. The math in this situation gets quite interesting. CUSA is at 11 with a UTEP departure and some interest in 16 so that there is little to no east/west crossover. The WAC would be at 8. Five Sun Belt teams takes CUSA to 16. Four Sun Belt teams takes the WAC to 12. 5+4=9 which just happens to be the total number of Sun Belt football schools.

I thought there was a Federal moratorium on realignment talk during the period between football players reporting and the horn sounding at the end of the Final Four.

People just don't get that when the Sun Belt started play you had three programs at about the bottom of their history. ASU since WWII has posted a two year combined win total of 3 only three times (2000-01, 1990-91, 1992-93) the first two times were the I-A transition years and first I-A seasons. ULL's Jerry Baldwin was securing his place as having the worst career record as head coach ever at ULL. ULM's Keasler (let go part way through 2002) posted the worst career record of any ULM coach ever and his replacement Collins (fired before the 2003 season due to a DWI charge) posted the second worst. While none are where they want to be ASU has posted 6 wins three times under Roberts. ULL has posted 6 wins twice under Bustle. That same season you had two more opening new chapters in their history. That 2001 season when UNT opened up with a loss at TCU, future member FAU was playing its first college football game EVER. Troy was not defending its Southland Conference title as it played as a I-A transition team. Then you had a team with no history FIU was still a year away from playing its first college football game. The 2009 season we will finally have a majority of our teams being schools that have been I-A (ack FBS) for 10 seasons. Or for a difference perspective. When Howard Schnellenberger left Miami only one current Sun Belt member was I-A and one was Division II, two didn't play football, four were I-AA. When he left Louisville only two were I-A and two were in transition, two didn't play football, two were I-AA. When he left OU three were I-A and one was in transition, two didn't play football and two were I-AA. ULL is the only school that has been I-A for the entire lifetime of the freshmen who reported this week.

Misprounced Texarkana on the Arkansas preview and called Little Rock Central, Central Little Rock.

Every school is going to have off-field problems. The difference is in how they deal with those players.

Record changes of teams after a coaching change in Sun Belt play 2001 ASU 2-9 under Hollis, 2002 6-7 under Roberts 2005 MTSU 4-7 under Andy Mac 2006 7-6 under Stockstill 2001 ULL 3-8 under Baldwin 2002 3-9 under Bustle 2002 ULM 3-9 under Keasler/Collins 2003 1-10 under Weatherbie

You might want to check this out. http://www.arkst.com/?p=66

There is no dispute who won the tournament, doesn't mean there still isn't talk about who was better. Villanova was 1-3 vs. Georgetown the season they won the NCAA Tournament over Georgetown. Most would contend that Houston was the better team and would have taken a best of series against NC State.

That was a weird circumstance. The win over Michigan was BYU's 24th consecutive win. They beat a terrible Pitt team that had gone to three straight major bowls (Cotton, Sugar, Fiesta). How did BYU get the title? 1. Bad candidates Only two contenders made it through with less than 2 losses. In the AP the number #2 team was Washington who lost to USC which gave three loss USC the Rose. #3 was Florida who lost to Miami and tied LSU to start the season and was on probation. In the coaches poll #2 was the same #3 was two loss Nebraska who lost to Syracuse and OU, giving OU the Orange Bowl. So the only serious contenders were three teams who had failed to take their conference (Washington losing to USC, Nebraska losing to OU, Florida being declared ineligible). 2. The era Part of the problem was the era. 1982, 1983, 1984, & 1985 only one team finished a season unbeaten and untied, the 1984 BYU team. That was the era immediately after I-A membership was slashed from around 130-140 to 105. Having the patsies shipped off to I-AA increased losses. How bad was it? Florida State at 7-3-2 was 19th in the coaches final poll (17 in AP), 8-5 yes 8-5 Miami was 18th in the AP. 3. Bowl cowardice. BYU was contractually bound to the Holiday Bowl. Florida was bowl ineligible and Washington declined a Holiday invite to go to the Orange. Washington had a choice to play the #1 ranked team and turned it down. Nebraska could have gone to the Holiday and turned it down to go the Sugar to play LSU. Boston College turned down an invite to go to the Cotton. 9-2 Oklahoma State turned it down to go to Gator and so on. I think the poll voters were turned off by teams that supposedly wanted to be national champion who refused to go to San Diego to face BYU. Michigan finally took the challenge and they had beaten ranked Miami and had only lost to #2 Washington by 9.

College football made it from 1869 through 1997 without a mechanism to pit the purported #1 and #2 against each other and had a dang good product. Right now pretty much nothing is determined on the field in post-season. The pairings are based on the weird voodoo of polls and computer rankings. Then we have this freaky month plus break between games. It is rare for a college team to take two consecutive weeks off in season and now they pause for five weeks or more? Florida went 36 days between their final game and the BCS game, Ohio State went 50 days. All that is determined is who wins the game between the top two teams according to the voodoo. So what that there were undefeated teams in Cotton not facing an undefeated team in the Rose? Since the BCS has started I can think of six teams that finished undefeated who didn't get a chance to play in the 1-2 game. I'd rather see the polls split on the champion than have a #3 or #4 rated team that is undefeated be totally shut out of claiming a mythical championship.

I don't like the current system, dislike a playoff even more but don't think a playoff ruins college football. The game is more about the Thursday before Labor Day to the first Saturday in December no matter what happens. Personally I liked the old system. Big 10 vs. Pac-10 in the Rose, SEC in Sugar, Big 8/12 in the Orange, SWC in the Cotton and the remainder of the bowl scrambling for the best match-ups. Going into New Year's Day with 3 or more teams capable of crowing that they were national champs was fun. It wasn't uncommon for 1, 2, 3 not be playing each other. Normally you figured 1 just needs to win but other schools still had a shot. I loved it. Eventually dollars will trump tradition (can you say MLB wild-card) but when it happens I want a fair shot.

And if you do like Auburn and end up undefeated with several others, playing a weak schedule to stay home and print money will cost you a shot.

Why doesn't the NCAA step in and replace the BCS? Two bodies set the policy for FBS post-season. Management Council 18 votes for the BCS auto berth Conferences 8 votes for the other five conferences. Board of Directors (final say) comprised of 6 presidents from the BCS auto berth conferences, 5 from the other conferences. In the event of an override, one school, one vote BCS auto berth 65 votes, rest 54. Plus 1 requires authorizing an extension of the season and Board approval. Unless there is a massive share of the money trickling to the five non-auto members they've no incentive to vote for it and with lobbying from the Pac-10 can likely block it. If there is a massive share of money flowing down, it probably doesn't generate enough interest among those other five leagues to support it either. The University president or chancellor is the most powerful element of the NCAA. Remember Florida's president publicly advocated a playoff. He went to the SEC presidents meeting and became a fan of the bowls. Remember that the conference commissioners and athletic directors on the Management Council adopted new FBS membership criteria that required 15,000 BIS every season and required 5 FBS home games. Once the presidents and chancellors saw what was happening they weakened those rules giving schools time to adapt, changing butts in seats to paid attendance and making attendance a once every two years element. If the commissioners and AD's ran the show, we'd likely have a playoff already and probably 75 to 100 schools in FBS, but the presidents run the show.

The Pac-10 and Big 10 don't need the BCS http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=2749584

Glad to amuse you. Sad that it took Tech letting their program play in facilities ULM would sniff at to ever get around to doing something.

Not really have you seen the web site that details their problems? Bleachers at the track that are roped off because they are condemned. Grass growing in the cracks at the tennis "facility", rusted chain link fences, etc, etc.

And you think the folks at ASU are going to listen to us? They are already talking about hiring a marketing consultant.

Wanting to make sure someone has worse facilities?

Unless the Big 10 starts having some better luck getting cable systems signed up, they may be the only conference with a channel. As I mentioned to someone else, why you want to start from scratch? In the Little Rock area we get Fox SW and CSS with most packages and then can add more Fox Channels. In Louisiana many cable customers already get Fox South and either Cox Louisiana or CSS. In Florida you could potentially have Sun Sports, Fox Florida, and CSS. I know in Colorado they get Fox Rocky Mountain and Alititude. Why try to break into these deals where many cable customers already have 2 regional sports nets, plus the demand for ESPN, ESPN2 and the whole mess over ESPN U and CSTV. It used to be that one regional would have one or more MLB team, NBA and NHL. Now its pretty common for the local pros to be split among at least two channels. If I were commissioner of the SEC, why would I want to start my own channel from scratch? With an NBA team you will have maybe 60 games available that are of interest in that local market. But if you are the SEC during league play you have six games each weekend. One is going to CBS, one maybe two is going to ESPN. You are going to build a channel around three games that CBS and ESPN have already said thanks but no thanks to AND give up my lucrative one or two syndicated games shown on TV stations all across the market over the air, no cable needed? In the SEC's shoes I'd come closer to buying an interest in a channel like CSS than trying to start from scratch with a channel that has zero live SEC games in any sport in May, June, July, and August.

The Big 10 is taking us a new direction. They own their own sports channel and have dumped the ESPN agreement that had several morning games running on the various regional sports nets. They may still sell some games that way but may hold some back to increase demand for the Big 10 Channel. If an expansion team can increase the profitability of the B10 Channel they may rethink expansion, but its still way too early to make decisions based on the channel.

I think Big 10 is a couple years at least from thinking seriously about expansion but Syracuse and Rutgers would be logical choices, I'd expect Syracuse because of longer record of success in football and basketball. I'm not sure though that there aren't a few schools that the Big 10 could lure away. There had been noise about Nebraska. They don't bring much media market but a crazed fan base spread across several states that will pay any price to see them on TV. Missouri has the academic fit and in theory two television markets of note (St. Louis and KC). Kentucky or Louisville could be in the mix though I don't think Louisville would get Big 10 attention, UK might because they two have a dispersed fan base that will pay any price to watch UK basketball. Maryland would be a school that could get a look they have a decent following in DC and Baltimore. Virginia not quite as attractive in market but if they had a chance to bail after having Va.Tech forced down their throat. Something on those lines could create an interesting situation. If the ACC were lose a team they would almost certainly focus on Syracuse or Louisville. If the SEC lost a team I think they would look hard at Louisville or Virginia Tech. The Big 12 would probably call Arkansas first but I don't know that they would be receptive. After that pickings get slim. Utah doesn't have the following that BYU has but BYU's schedule policy isn't compatible with the Big 12. Then you are looking at a TCU or Houston. My head hurts.

Shot? How is voting UNT 7th a shot at UNT? You've got a ton back on defense but the offense isn't just going with a new look but an entirely difference approach to the game, but with most everyone on offense recruited to be part of a ball control time chewing offense. UNT could be very good this year but you don't pick a team high when there is that much of a change in store especially when there are so many other teams with so many returning starters who are in the same system as last year.

I doubt Roberts voted ASU first, but I wouldn't be shocked to learn that Blakeney voted ASU first. We return a bunch of starters and he hasn't beaten us in the three tries in league play.