No, he’s not.

I know there’s a lot going on right now, but I would be seriously remiss if I didn’t mention the quote of the day, from ABC/ESPN’s Chris Spielman, who had this to say about Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops:  “He may be a brilliant coach, but he’s not stupid.”

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It’s a nice moment.

I haven’t a clue as to whether Georgia gets the opportunity to play for the MNC, but the angst on the Georgia Tech message boards right now is everything a Dawg fan could cherish… and more.

The earth just shifted on its axis.

Despite the worst intentions/incompetence of the Big East refs, Pitt pulls the upset, in one of the ugliest games of the year, 13-9.

Ohio State… is in.

The Dawgs?

No-shows at the ACCCG: it’s not Georgia Tech’s fault this year.

If you didn’t get the chance to observe the color of the seats at Jacksonville Stadium when you watched the WLOCP earlier this year, you have the opportunity to catch up by dialing up the ACCCG on ABC right now.

#6 is playing #11 in a championship game and there are bunches of empty seats?  ACC – you go, girl!

You can’t blame this one on the weather.

Excuse me for a minute while I get my stories straight.

Dennis Dodd, on the BCS/playoff debate, November 30, 2007:

I never was necessarily a playoff guy. BCS either. If that’s fence-sitting then that explains why my backside was so sore.

Ha, ha.

Dennis Dodd, on the same subject, April 12, 2007:

From: Joyce

Absolutely LOVE the idea of scrapping the BCS and turning the playoffs over to a corporation! IMO, the idea would actually bring in MORE money than the present bowl system–because of the HUGE NATIONAL interest it would bring.

You could keep the bowls like they are now–but have three or four host the playoffs each year. It seems like that would pay HUGE dividends money!! Please do whatever you can to promote and advertise this idea!!

Playoff Honk:

I already have. [Emphasis added.] Dr. Machen wanted the numbers of television executives to contact about his idea. When I got home from the Final Four, I forwarded those to him.

It looks like he needs to come up with another theory as to why his derriere hurts.

Mike Slive on the BCS status quo

Mike Slive sat down for a Q & A session with the AJ-C’s Tony Barnhart.  Slive is both the SEC commissioner and the BCS coordinator.

Here’s the gist of what Slive had to say about the D-1 postseason:

1. There will be no uniformity among the conferences as to how each determines a champion.
2. In order to accommodate the relationships between the bowls and the conferences, the rule permitting no more than two schools from a given conference to participate in a BCS game will remain intact.
3. The presidents have zero interest in an eight or sixteen school playoff.  (It’s interesting to note that Slive said nothing about their position on a four team playoff, though.)
4. Because of Auburn 2004, there is some sentiment to explore the possibility of a “plus-one” game after 2010.  The big issue would seem to be if the top four teams in the postseason would be seeded leading into the “plus-one” game.

In essence, the powers that be are happy with the current setup, other than what happened to 13-0 Auburn.  The craziness of this year doesn’t seem to have any impact on their thinking.  If you want to sum it all up in one quote, here’s Slive:

When Auburn was left out, the question I raised then, and still raise now, is this: “Are one and two enough?” If it’s not enough, what can we do to improve the BCS within the framework the presidents have given us? We have to protect the regular season because it is the best of any sport. We have to protect the bowl structure because it has been very good to college football. And we can’t go into the next semester. Can we do all that and improve on what we have?

Sending out an SOS

The debate I’m seeing about which schools are worthy to play for the MNC and which aren’t seems to be swirling around relative strength of schedule. WVU and OSU, in particular, seem to be getting smacked around pretty good on this front.

I thought I’d take a look at the strength of schedule for the top 10 ranked schools. I looked at four computer rankings (Coffey, Colley, Massey and Sagarin) and took an average for each team. For a suckiness baseline, I’ve compared them to a program that everyone in the western world agrees has a horrible strength of schedule this year, Hawaii.

Here’s what I got:

School*****Coffey***Colley***Massey***Sagarin***Avg.

Missouri………36…………….51…………..42………………34………….40.75

West Va……….38……………44…………..41……………….35…………39.50

Ohio State……59……………67……………55………………56………….59.25

Georgia………..9……………..20…………..13………………22………….16.00

Kansas………….85…………..89…………..71………………90………….83.75

Va. Tech……….43…………..38…………..28………………45………….38.50

LSU……………..25……………23…………..17………………26………….22.75

USC……………..39……………61…………..46………………33………….44.75

Oklahoma…….62……………64…………..54………………67………….61.75

Florida…………..2……………..1……………..1………………..5…………….2.25

Hawaii………..119…………..127………….132…………….142……….130.00

Keeping in mind that we aren’t looking at how close the wins and losses were for each of these teams, (or who the wins or losses were against, for that matter) what do those numbers tell us?

• Starting with the one loss group – Missouri, West Virginia, Ohio State and Kansas – only the latter’s SOS seems truly sub-par.   OSU’s number is basically average.
• Taken together, the two loss group – Georgia, Va. Tech, LSU, USC and Oklahoma – sports stronger SOS numbers than does the one loss group.
• Three loss Florida’s SOS average is impressive, no?
• No school on this list has a Hawaii-bad strength of schedule. Even Kansas’ weak number is some 50 slots above the Warriors.

Bottom line, based on SOS considerations alone, what I’d conclude from looking at these numbers is that Kansas is ranked too high, LSU too low and Mergz is spot on when he argues that USC is being taken more seriously than it should be. As for the others, you can nit pick over who should be ranked where, but I don’t see any school in the top 10 other than Kansas that should be disqualified from consideration for the BCS title game purely on the basis of its schedule strength.

(For another point of view on this, have a look at CFN’s Pete Fiutak’s piece on how the BCS teams would perform on Missouri and WVU’s schedules.)

I’ll do a follow up post looking at the schedules more closely after today’s games play out.