Running back beauty is only skin deep.

Maybe I’m just getting overly sensitive in my old age, but I find some curious phrasing in Edward Aschoff’s take on Phil Steele’s running back rankings.  Sure, Georgia’s first and Gurley and Marshall are a formidable duo, but he tempers that with the observation that ”(t)here isn’t much behind these two…”  Meanwhile, number two Alabama seems just fine, even though one back is coming off a serious injury and uber-recruit Derrick Henry has his own injury issue to deal with.

I know ‘Bama signed half of the entire national class of backs this year, but it’s not as if Georgia did poorly in that department with Turman and Green.  So what’s with the depth crack?

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“If four is good, eight is better.”

Dennis Dodd tells me that the war is over and I’ve already lost.

Remember all that hand-wringing over impacting the regular season? In the era of conference championship games, league titles already have been devalued. Divisional play has seen to it. In leagues with conference championship games — only the Big 12 won’t have one by 2014 — a conference’s best team doesn’t necessarily play in that league title game…

… The sanctity of the regular season isn’t so sacred after all: We’ve already told you about how divisional play has stolen some drama from the regular season. The game has survived, even thrived. Now think of Ohio State and Michigan being locks for an eight-team playoff as they meet in late November. How would that steal the hype one bit from “The Game”?

Because both teams would still be in the postseason and, if things break right, might face each other again in a game that would mean more than The Game?  Oh, never mind – we’ve still got something to comfort us.

One concern in that scenario is teams resting players. Maybe, but this is college where the rivalries are so much larger than those in the NFL. They’re so much larger than the coaches and players themselves. I can’t envision Urban Meyer resting Braxton Miller against Michigan because he has a playoff berth sewed up, can you?

Seriously, playing the tradition card?  In a world which has already ditched the Nebraska-Oklahoma game, do I think a guy as smart as Urban Meyer (who’s been at Ohio State a whopping couple of seasons) might rest a dinged-up quarterback in a rivalry game in order to save him for a rematch in the national playoffs?  Does a wild boar pee in the woods?  Maybe Dennis ought to ask himself how OSU fans would feel if a healthier Miller was the key to their beloved Buckeyes winning the national title.  My educated guess is all would be forgiven.

Sadly, while this pisses me off, I can’t say Dodd’s wrong about where this is headed.

Are we ahead of ourselves? Absolutely. Do eight teams make total sense before four teams even kick off? Absolutely.

All we had to do was ask.

So when do you think they’ll go to twelve or sixteen?

Tuesday morning buffet

Tasty nibblets abound this morning.

• Just when you thought the NCAA/Nevin Shapiro mess couldn’t get any weirder, it does.
• Pete Fiutak thinks SOD failed at UT because he “was way too nice and way too decent to be able to crush and kill in the cutthroat world of the SEC.”  So how come he had a losing record at La. Tech?
• Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t find this list convincing.
• Mark Emmert goes on record saying a fourth college subdivision for the haves could work.
• Brian Cook looks at Big Ten recruiting and finds that Kentucky and Tennessee are wrecking havoc.
• Michael Elkon rips Tony Barnhart’s selection committee proposal.
• Wisconsin’s 2015 conference schedule is a piece of work.  At least fans will be able to stay home and see what’s on the Big Ten Network.

Feel the Lesmentum!

Well, looky here – Kevin Scarbinsky and Andy Staples follow in Matt Hayes’ footsteps and come out in favor of Les Miles’ campaign to end the SEC’s permanent cross-division rivalries.  It’s a veritable media groundswell.  It’s kind of funny watching the same institution that’s routinely mocked Miles for some of his less than brilliant game management at times find wisdom in the man’s judgment now.  (If Chris Huston is the next to chime in favorably, I quit.)

The funny thing about all this is that Miles has said embarrassing stuff about scheduling for years.  But now he’s being taken seriously.  I don’t get it.

Scarbinsky’s piece is easy to dismiss.  It’s more of a giant “boy, do Auburn and Tennessee really suck these days” wankfest than anything else.  Staples takes a more thoughtful approach, although in the end, it doesn’t get him to a different destination.

The SEC has tossed tradition before, and sometimes with happy consequences. Florida and Tennessee played quite irregularly before the divisional split. From 1992-2006, theirs was the league’s most exciting rivalry. South Carolina and Georgia, who played some fun games when South Carolina was an independent, have become excellent border-state rivals. Besides, the Iron Bowl, the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party and the Egg Bowl remain untouchable thanks to divisional alignments. So the league can still cling to some traditions while also ushering in a bright — and lucrative — future with a scheduling philosophy that gives teams a more even road to the SEC and national titles.

If you’re Mike Slive, “bright” and “lucrative” are redundant terms.

I know Andy’s a Florida guy so ignoring pre-1990 SEC history is wired into his DNA, but that Florida-Tennessee reference is too brief.  In the old days before divisions, conference teams never played round robin schedules, so yes, some matchups were infrequent.  But others were forged over a long period to become part and parcel of the SEC’s identity.  And even though the ’92 expansion was a money grab at its heart, Roy Kramer was smart enough to know that it was important to preserve the legacy of games like Alabama-Tennessee and Auburn-Georgia because they helped define the conference even as it changed.

Behind Miles’ complaint is a pernicious attitude that winning the SEC should be viewed as little more than a means to an end and that the only goal of scheduling should be as a useful tool to help the powerhouse schools find their way into the national postseason picture.  Now he’s a coach, so I get where he’s coming from.  But as a fan and as someone who appreciates the history behind the Oldest Rivalry in the South, that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

And Staples is kidding himself with his “cling to some traditions” silver lining.  Because if there’s one thing we know, it’s that we all know what the SEC will do with its scheduling in the end – carefully weigh all of its options and choose the one that makes the most money, history be damned.  As I’ve said before, that’s the only tradition the SEC believes in these days.

****************************************************************************************

UPDATE:  Barnhart reiterates why we can’t have nice things.

I can tell you that the last time this issue was seriously discussed in Destin it was very contentious. Missouri and Texas A&M were coming into the conference and one side felt strongly that at 14 teams, the SEC couldn’t afford to hold on to the old scheduling model for the sake of those two traditional rivalries. The old model survived but there was an understanding that the issue would be revisited.

He says LSU doesn’t have the votes for change.  That may be, but this issue isn’t going away.  And you can thank the lack of thought that went into the last round of conference expansion for that.

The buddy system

As deferential as Tony Barnhart can be on many issues, he’s always been credibly consistent with his criticism of the flaws in the Coaches Poll.  (If you’re a longtime reader here, no doubt you’ll remember an old Barnhart column on the subject served as the inspiration for the Mumme Poll.)

So it’s no surprise that he bats down David Cutcliffe’s suggestion that the coaches continue to have a say in the composition of the postseason field.  Nor is it a surprise that he mines the last Coaches Poll for another blatant example of a conflict of interest.

Remember that at the end of last season Northern Illinois (12-1), the MAC champ, needed to finish No. 16 or better in the final BCS Standings to earn an at-large spot, probably in the Orange Bowl. If Northern Illinois finished No. 17, then it was all but certain that No. 11 Oklahoma (10-2) would get that Orange Bowl bid as an at-large team. So every single vote counted.

An analysis of the final vote in the Coaches poll (the only one that is made public) by Steve Berkowitz of USA Today, revealed that four Big 12 coaches (Oklahoma is a member of the Big 12), including Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops, either voted the Sooners No. 6 or Northern Illinois No. 24. Stoops did both.

Maybe I need to rename the MP.

Of course Barnhart can’t resist pulling a punch or two.  After reciting the usual trinity of why the Coaches Poll as it’s now configured is problematic – bias, conflicts of interest and lack of time to research the field thoroughly – plus a bonus pot shot at Junior, he thinks there should still be a place in the room for Big Game Bob’s, um, perspective.

The coaches will continue to do their poll. I like the idea of not releasing the first poll until mid-October. But that poll, and no other human polls, will be in the room with the selection committee.

I’ve already suggested putting Grant Teaff, the executive director of the AFCA, on the selection committee to represent the coaches. Teaff would get input from his coaches and meet with his board of directors before the selection process and then serve as their voice in the room.

I’m not really sure what that accomplishes.  If there’s a poll, warts and all, the committee would be able to see it without the need for Teaff’s presence.  All that’s likely to occur with him being in the room is that the coaches lobby Teaff and Teaff in turn lobbies the committee.  Is there any reason to think that, behind closed doors, he would serve as an effective filter of the bias and conflicts that corrupt the poll?  Given that Teaff has long fought making the Coaches Poll more transparent, I’m skeptical.

If the coaches want to make a credible pitch to be included in the discussion, they need to clean their poll up first.

Monday morning buffet

It’s the start of a new week.  You need to eat.

• If this is the kind of stuff I’m missing, I could get used to the AJ-C‘s new paywall real fast.
• When I say it’s not easy being a mid-major, this is what I’m talking about.
• Todd Grantham’s not worried about his young safeties.  We’ll see if he feels the same way after the Clemson game.
• It looks like Mike Slive’s got more catching up to do on the commissioner pay front.
• Bernie’s a braver Dawg than I am.
• Most surprising thing about this poll?  That better than forty percent of the participants aren’t willing to pay more on their cable bills for the SEC Network.  Least surprising? That more than a quarter of them would be interested in a Finebaum show on the network.
• Do you care about this?  I don’t.

Hell is Seat 37-F.

Hands down, this is the most Bianchi-ist thing Mike Bianchi has ever written.

Everybody knows Nick Saban is not really the devil.

Urban Meyer is.

He was only half kidding.

A different view of Florida

I read this analysis of LSU’s 2013 schedule out of interest to see what the beat writer had to say about the Georgia game, but here’s the part that really caught my eye:

5. FLORIDA, Oct. 12 – I’m not saying TCU is better than Florida, but the Tigers get the Gators at home and not in the season opener. The Gators were one of the few teams in the Miles era to out-physical LSU in last year’s victory against the Tigers. But this year they limped out of spring practice and didn’t have enough bodies to close out with a game, opting for a practice instead. The roster is still in transition from the Urban Meyer days. QB Jeff Driskel is mismatched for the offense and the Gators don’t appear to have the passing game up to speed. Leading rusher Mike Gillislee is gone and the defense replaces seven starters, but Florida is still Florida and will show up with excellent athletes, and Coach Will Muschamp’s mentality.

Color me floored.  Not because it’s inaccurate.  Quite the contrary; he hits on every flaw and still gives credit where Florida deserves it.  It’s just that I haven’t seen anyone else in the media look at the Gators as dispassionately.

Florida will be a tough out this year.  But to me the Gators look like a team in transition that used every drop of what they had last year to get to 11 wins (again, Muschamp turned in a good coaching job).  A lot of holes remain and to this point they don’t all seem to have been filled.  So it’s weird for even a short description like that to read so differently from what the media consensus has been.

Once again, when you’ve lost Tony Barnhart…

Mr. Conventional Wisdom backs Mike Slive’s play for increased player compensation – and the likely consequences of such a move.

Don’t stay in school, kids!

I’m having a hard time understanding the hard-on the press has gotten recently about star college players going pro as soon as possible.  There was the Lattimore injury which led to a bunch of discussions about whether Clowney ought to sit this year out to preserve his big pay day in the 2014 draft, for instance.

Now it’s Matt Barkley falling to the fourth round of the draft.  Matt Hayes wants us to believe That Changes Everything.  And you know why?  Because an agent told him so.  No shit:

“The days of players coming back for the love of the game or winning a national championship are over,” said one NFL agent.

My first thought upon reading that – well, actually my second thought, as my first was why an agent thought it was prudent to give that quote without allowing a name to be attached – was to wonder whether somebody’s been paying attention.  This past draft was chock full of juniors who elected to leave early, many of whom left teams with legitimate chances to challenge for a national title.  Nor is that anything particularly new.

There have been and will always be players who go to college to get ready to play on the next level and leave as soon as they have a shot at a pay day.  (Same with agents who want more clients.)  Just as there have been and will always be those like Aaron Murray and Jake Matthews, who, contrary to Mr. Anonymous, do get something out of the college experience and choose to stay, regardless of what happens to the Matt Barkleys of the draft.

The only thing that seems to be different these days is that the press is more willing to call into question a kid’s judgment for not doing everything he can do to take the money and run.  That strikes me as a funny way to cover a sport.