Around the Internets, Memorial Day edition

In no particular order, a few columns that caught my eye today:

• In what no doubt seemed like a great subject until he actually sat down and penned a piece on it, this writer for the Greenville News ranks the SEC schools in the order of post spring practice enthusiasm. Or something like that. Don’t miss the Georgia cheap shot. The irony of someone in South Carolina bitching about Georgia fans arrogantly thinking that their program “isn’t too far away from an SEC title” shouldn’t be lost on any Dawg fan.
• More rumblings here about Congress taking a look at the NCAA and the tax exemption. Actually, it seems like more of the same rumblings from Senator Grassley. Once again, there’s at least a whiff of jealousy from academia behind this: “Dr. James Duderstadt, president emeritus of the University of Michigan, said last week that the spending spree of big-time athletics department could be the ultimate downfall of higher education.” Who knew Mal Moore had that kind of pull?
• The Lincoln Journal-Star has an interesting article about scheduling problems the twelfth game presents for Big 12 schools. It’s something I’ve wondered about for a while, or at least since the New York Times published a piece about the rising costs of scheduling cupcake schools. Here’s it’s noted that the payout for such games has roughly tripled. More problematic is the fact that many mid-majors are asking for 2 and 1 deals, requiring the big boys to play one game on the road to get two at home. Not surprisingly, the BCS schools object to playing in a much smaller venue. Where this trend takes college football is uncertain right now, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see it lend support to adding an additional conference game to the schedule.

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I love Notre Dame, how ’bout you?

Notre Dame’s attempt to extort… er, uh, renegotiate its current deal with the BCS has drawn some fire.

Kyle King’s take on it can be found here. In reading it, I was reminded of an exchange from My Cousin Vinny:

Judge Chamberlain Haller: Mr. Gambini?
Vinny Gambini: Yes, sir?
Judge Chamberlain Haller: Mr. Gambini, that is a lucid, intelligent, well thought-out objection.
Vinny Gambini: Thank you.
Judge Chamberlain Haller: Overruled.

Then, there’s this somewhat more breathless post on what Irish AD Kevin White is up to.

Kyle likens the situation to welfare – “Notre Dame has been on the dole for too long without pulling its own weight, much less Charlie Weis’s” (great shot, by the way) – while Mr. Apple analogizes it to a spendthrift teenage daughter flunking out of college. Kyle is much closer to the mark, in my opinion.

Except this isn’t about performance on the field. It’s about putting asses in the seats (stadium and EZ-Boy recliners in front of TVs). As long as Notre Dame delivers on that in a way that no other school in college football can, it’s going to get special treatment.

The funny thing to me is that Notre Dame used to refuse to play in the postseason. And college football seemed to weather its absence just fine.