Urban Meyer and the “plus one”

It’s all a matter of perspective, ain’t it:

Q. Last year it worked out for Florida and Ohio State to play for the national championship. There’s been discussion about a plus one format where one would play four, two play three, winner of those two games play each other. What’s your opinion about that?

COACH MEYER: Opinions are strong. At Bowling Green I stood in front of a team that was 8 3, 9 3 and had to tell them they weren’t going to go to a Bowl game when they deserved to go to a Bowl game. They were good enough to play in a Bowl game. I think they were better than some teams that played. So did other coaches. That’s one of the tragedies of the system.

I think the Bowls should open up and take the most qualified teams to go play. Then I go to Utah, we had a team that on any given day, with Alex Smith at quarterback and the way we play defense, could we survive an SEC, Big 12? I don’t know that. That’s all relative. But I don’t know if we could survive that, be in that situation.

Utah, 12 0. If there’s a plus one, you go play that game, you go play for a national championship. Who knows. You have a good day and that’s a life changer for a university and a group of players.

You get to Florida, play in a game removed from the other Bowl games. I thought the atmosphere was terrific. If you had to play one more game after that, I’m just glad I’m not faced with a guy that has to make that decision. It’s an imperfect system. I think it’s the best what we have.

As long as we don’t change that whole Bowl I think the Bowl experience is too good for the student athlete to change. But I think continual discussion is necessary, and I think we got the best of what’s working. But I think every year that needs to be evaluated.

Pretty good way to not answer your question, wasn’t it (smiling)?

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Wagging the dog.

The Big Ten Conference is considering expansion. Why? Because it will help the value of the Big Ten Network.

The creation of the Big Ten Network means conference officials likely will discuss expansion again, Commissioner Jim Delany said Wednesday.

“I think we need to look at it in the next year,” he said during a wide-ranging interview with Register reporters.

Adding a 12th team likely will be revisited because of the network, which is scheduled to launch Aug. 30, Delany said. An additional big-name university in a large television market means more exposure for the network and its sponsors.

“It changes to some extent how you think about it,” Delany said of expansion. “The broader (the network) is distributed, the more value (expansion) has.

Gee, maybe ESPN can buy a few universities and they can meet in the middle.

The network evidently changes Delany’s perspective on what schools might be suitable for admission to the Big Ten:

“Wherever,” Delany said when asked about specifics. “With the network — there’s a different element. It changes the dynamics.”

Get that? It’s not about academics, facilities or tradition at this point. It’s about “value”.

These guys are shameless.

CBS changes SEC kickoff times

In a move that I am guessing is for the benefit of West Coast viewers, CBS announced that it’s pushing back the start times for its SEC broadcasts by 90 minutes.

CBS changed the kickoff times for its weekly televised SEC games. They will begin at 5 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. That’s 90 minutes later than previously scheduled. CBS announced the changes on Wednesday. CBS’ first game of the season is Tennessee at Florida on Sept. 15.

It’s not easy being green.

Charlie Weis loses his malpractice case – and blames the outcome on his job.

I am proud to be the Head Football Coach at Notre Dame and this was certainly used against me in the trial.

Boo frickin’ hoo.

Meanwhile, read this slice and dice job on ol’ Charlie here. How would you like to be his wife and find out that hubby has confided in Tom Brady about risky surgery before telling you?

When Charlie Weis decided he had to have gastric bypass surgery in 2002, he first shared the decision with his then-quarterback, Tom Brady.

Only in the final stages before surgery did he divulge his plans to his wife, Maura.

Football first, family second.

Nice. Makes you wonder what kind of advice he gave Jimmy Clausen before the elbow surgery…

(h/t The Wizard of Odds)

We stayed in by the telly, although the room was smelly …

The SEC continues to eyeball the grand experiment known as the Big Ten Network. But don’t fret, SEC fans – they’re doing it for you.

“It’s a question of how best we can maximize for our fans the distribution of our games and other programming,” Slive said Wednesday at the SEC football media days. “There are different ways to do that, and one of those is our own network.”

The cynic in me suspects that the conference is hoping to maximize something entirely different, but, heck, what do I know?

If SEC TV does become a reality, Mergz at Saurian Sagacity gives me reason to think that we won’t be seeing too many Thursday night games there.

Unlike the ACC, of course:

Of the major conferences, the ACC seems more than willing to encourage its members to play non-Saturday contests. Of course, when you look at the average attendance of ACC schools, perhaps the “major conference” moniker is overstated. The aforementioned Clemson is the highest ACC school in average attendance, and the list looks as follows (with national ranking, and non-ACC school most closely comparable in attendance) –

Clemson – 14th (Wisconsin)
FSU – 17th (Notre Dame)
Virginia Tech – 23rd (UCLA)
Virginia -29th (Washington)
NC State – 32nd (Kentucky)
Georgia Tech – 40th (Texas Tech)
Maryland – 41st (Kansas St)
North Carolina – 42nd (Kansas St)
Miami – 51st (UTEP)
Boston College – 59th (Connecticut)
Wake Forest – 70th (Memphis)
Duke – 92nd (Toledo)

With NC State pulling less than Kentucky does, and Miami having poorer attendance than UTEP, perhaps the non-Saturday games make sense for the ACC.

Ooh, I bet that felt good to type.

Coaches’ corner

• Do you know me? Nine college football coaches made at least $2,000,000.00 last season. More than half of them have national championships on their résumés. All the others have to their credit conference titles in BCS leagues — which means BCS bowl berths — to go with multiple double-digit win seasons and years with one or no losses at their current school. Except for one.
• You knew the job was dangerous when you took it. Nick Saban’s not happy about that target on his back.
• “I guess everybody likes a soap opera.” I wouldn’t wish Houston Nutt’s offseason on anybody, but when Tom Lemming’s got your back… oof.
• WTF was I thinking?   You know UCLA’s Karl Dorrell’s got to be asking himself that today.  Often.  Of course, so will the media, since today is Pac-10 Media Day.  Timing is everything in life.