Just haggling over the fee

Gag me with a spoon:

The conference commissioners and college administrators who oversee college football’s new championship format, which will begin in 2014, expect to unveil its name and logo at their meeting in Pasadena, Calif., next month, executive director Bill Hancock said.

That title, Hancock said, will not include a sponsor.

“It won’t be ‘The Vizio Championship Tournament,’” Hancock said, using the Rose Bowl title sponsor as an example. “The Final Four doesn’t have one. The Masters doesn’t. The Super Bowl. That’s the kind of event we have.”

The group has narrowed the candidates for the name to a “small number,” Hancock said. It will be simple, straightforward and, as he described it, “not cutesy.”

So, the man who said we didn’t need the event now says the event doesn’t need a sponsor.  This is just an oblique way of saying “nobody’s offered us enough money – yet.”  One day, somebody will.  And I’m sure it will be totally classy.  Bill will let us know that.

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Open bar at Texas!

Today’s load of bull comes, appropriately enough, from DeLoss Dodds, as Texas considers selling beer and liquor at football games:

The thing I will say is that it’s not a money thing. If we did do it, people would say that they they’re just doing it for the money. It’s not a money issue. It’s a do-the-right-thing issue.

Yeah, sure.  That’s why you’ll be giving drinks away.

By the way, what’s the over/under on the year booze comes to Sanford Stadium (outside of the luxury boxes, that is)?  You’ve got the money angle and the give the people more of what they get at home angle.  Plus, it’ll generate more, um… opportunities for Jimmy Williamson’s boys.  That’s a win-win-win in my book.

Big 12 championship – it’s not us; it’s you.

Big 12 commissioner attributes conference’s decision to back off holding a championship game to ratings/attendance concerns over other conferences’ championship games rather than acknowledging the stupidity of such a game for a conference with a round robin regular season schedule.

It’s the singer, not the song.

Jim Delany, December 8, 2011:

Delany then launched into an explanation of why a playoff would be bad. He brought up potential risk of injury (which no one cared about when schools approved a 12th regular-season game for all FBS schools), potential devaluation of the regular season (wouldn’t happen) and his league’s longstanding love affair with the Rose Bowl (a perfectly legitimate issue). He then described the plus-one — the four-team playoff that has received increased support since the all-SEC BCS title game was set on Sunday — as a “slippery slope” that would lead to an eight- or 16-team playoff. On that point, he is 100 percent correct. In the end, Delany could think of only one good reason for a playoff. “The only strong argument you can make for it is financial,” Delany said. “I don’t think the other arguments for it are very strong.”

Fast forward to yesterday.

“The commissioners and presidents wanted to go long because they wanted to stop further speculation about eight teams and 16 teams,” Skipper said. “They put a stake in the ground that, for 12 years, it’s going to be the same. I don’t think there’s any contemplation that there will be any change to that.”

Hancock: “They’re [commissioners] committed, and the presidents are too,” Hancock said Monday morning at the annual Football Writers Association of America breakfast. “I tell you on Jan. 7, 2013 I don’t see anything that would change.”

Bets, anyone?

Ooh, ooh, that smell

What’s that coming from Mike Slive’s mouth?  Why, it’s total bullshit.

Q: Should we be worried that with realignment, conferences might be losing their cultural identity or diluting their brand?

A: I’m not sure ‘worried’ is the word I would use. In the context of changing times, change is hard. And I don’t want to speak for any particular conference and its needs, but I do think we have a responsibility to think about the game as a whole. I’ve thought that during the discussions on the BCS, that each of us brought to the table in those discussions the need to advocate for what’s in the best interest of our respective conference, but never to lose sight of the fact that in some ways we were handed the stewardship of college football. We didn’t ask for it, but it became (ours). So to that extent we have a responsibility to the game.

So in answer to your question, I hope within the context of individual conferences and their respective needs, that we can all keep the question of what’s good for college football long-term at the forefront of our thinking and act in accordance with that, as well as in accordance with our own individual needs.

Q: But has some of that already happened?

A: I can’t speak to anybody else. We’ve expanded, too, and people can be critical of the fact that some great rivalries have been lost as a result of that. So I’m speaking from being maybe one of the folks that has been criticized for that. But I still think we all have an obligation to maintain our dual responsibility.

There isn’t a single thing in college football today that doesn’t have a price tag attached to it.  For Slive to act otherwise, or to pretend that the SEC is somehow righteously above the fray, even if it’s just to a degree, is utter nonsense.  The only way he’ll ever care about his conference losing its cultural identity is if that turns fans off from paying as much money for his product.  And by then, it’ll be too late.

C’mon, Corch.

This is just all made up and flagellant.

“The days of anybody really just rolling over someone is more and more difficult than it ever has been,” said Urban Meyer, who makes his debut as Ohio State’s 24th head coach today against Miami (Ohio). “Because there is parity in college football.”

Right.  That’s why there’s exactly one team in the preseason top 25 that isn’t in a major conference.  And that team lost last night to a Big Ten school.

Coaches to NCAA: help us to help you.

You just have to chuckle at reasoning like this.

Currently, only head coaches or assistant coaches can participate in the selection and evaluation of recruits. The NCAA Rules Working Group has proposed that this rule be eliminated, allowing staff members now known as directors of operations or directors of player personnel to watch film of a prospect or to contact a prospect’s coach or guardian…

Some coaches interviewed for this story said that, should the current rule be eliminated, teams could form a staff position designed solely for the purpose of overseeing day-to-day recruiting operations, just as general managers in professional sports handle the evaluation and acquisition of talent.

Virginia Tech football Coach Frank Beamer, for one, said he thinks the rule change would allow the NCAA to spend more time worrying about serious infractions. It would also allow his assistants to spend more time on game preparation and player management.

“Rather than trying to say, ‘Who made the call? Was it this guy, or was it that guy?’ I think we’re getting into the more serious stuff that really does make a difference,” Beamer said. “Keeping that under control really makes it a level playing field.”

Well, except for Nick Saban.  He’s too busy calculating how many more analysts he’ll need to add to the Alabama staff to keep ahead of everyone else when the rules change.

SOD’s spin

Tennessee missing a bowl for the second time in four years?  No big deal.  In fact, Derek Dooley needed the time he would have otherwise spent in preparation for the game to do better things.

But much of the work came in December. While the Vols’ season-ending loss to Kentucky kept them out of a bowl game, it also gave Dooley some time to set the framework for an offseason that would lead into his all-important third season in charge of the program.

“All of that time in December where you’d have spent some energy on bowl prep,” Dooley said, “[we] put a lot of time into sort of redefining our offseason and taking a hard look at some of the things we need to do differently going into next season.”

Maybe if the Vols finish 6-6 this year, SOD will turn down a bowl invite so he can divert that energy into more useful pursuits.  Like preparing his resume.

Judging from this, though, he’s not using any of that energy to deal with certain players not following directions.

Dooley declined to go into Da’Rick Rogers’ reported absence from a portion of the offseason program. The receiver from Calhoun was absent for more than a week of morning workouts after an incident of insubordination to the strength and conditioning staff, according to reports and two sources inside the football program.

“I’m not going to go into all the individuals,” Dooley said. “We had a lot of guys that missed a workout or two for different reasons, whether it’s academics, whether it’s discipline, whether it’s injury. We had a ton of that. It’s managing 100 guys, and every day’s a challenge. I just don’t want to go into and revisit our last eight weeks.”

You get the feeling that if things get off to a rough start this season, the wheels could come off SOD’s wagon very quickly.

Big Ten integrity at work

Here’s Jim Delany ringing in a happy new year for Ohio State:

… He said reports indicating he lobbied for the five suspended Ohio State players to be eligible for the Sugar Bowl are not true. He said he didn’t even know there was a precedent for such a delayed-penalty ruling until an NCAA official informed him.

And here’s Mr. Delany today.

Jim Delany just told us "if we'd known what we know now," he would not have advocated for OSU players participting in Sugar Bowl.—
Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) April 28, 2011

You tell me – is there a difference between “lobbying” and “advocating”?  Because if not, somebody’s FOS.

“It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”

Mark Twain’s advice should be ringing in Bill Hancock’s ears right now.

… On the Sugar Bowl benefiting from Ohio State’s suspended players being able to play in the game: “I think even if those players had not played, the stadium was almost full and I think it would have been even if they hadn’t played. I think the national interest in the game would have still been the same. I just don’t buy that there was any benefit to the game significantly or to TV or to college football in general from them having been there as opposed to not playing.”

Delusional or cynical, take your pick.