There’s something about Eight.

Rivals’ Olin Buchanan mentions a weird fact today about MNC winners. Schools that win MNC’s in years ending in “8” suffer long droughts before winning another (if ever).

• 1938 – TCU wins AP title. No MNC since.
• 1948 – Michigan wins; next MNC won in 1997 (shared with Nebraska)
• 1958 – LSU; next MNC won in 2003
• 1968 – Ohio State; next MNC won in 2002
• 1978 – USC; next MNC won in 2003 (or 2004, depending on your point of view)
• 1988 – Notre Dame. Still waiting.
• 1998 – Tennessee. Nada since.

Pretty strange, hunh? Would you want Georgia to win this season if you knew the wait for the next one would be lengthy?

More random, tasty ‘Net bites

Again, with March Madness fully underway, the pickings are kinda slim right now, but there are still some items worthy of your attention.

• Sunday Morning Quarterback takes an early look at Auburn. He’s got the Tigers pegged at 9-3, but getting there looks to be half the fun, per Tony Franklin: “We’re throwing the ball all over the place, and then we pound it at them.” Also, pom poms are for sissies.
• David Ching has announced that he’ll be moving to Athens to cover Georgia sports on a year round basis. Combining his current thoroughness with that kind of proximity to the program will mean that you’ll never need to read anyone else’s blogging to get the good poop on what’s going on there. Er, wait… that’s not what I meant.
• Groo mentioned that Sports Illustrated now makes its archives available online. If you haven’t checked out SI Vault yet, do so. It’s damned impressive. Easy to get lost there.
• And Penn State intends to offer a course called “Joe Paterno, Communications and The Media.” The class is supposed to focus on “the evolution of sports journalism into today’s fast-paced, Internet-driven media marketplace” (maybe they should call it “From Papers to Pajamas”) through the perspective of JoePa. Evidently, the course’s designer thinks it’s significant that Paterno used to know the names of the beat reporters who covered Penn State football, but no longer does. I’m not sure how much of that is the result of evolution and how much of that is just the natural state of mind for an 81 year old cranky gent. In any event, it’s likely that said cranky gent has the best perspective on this: “What would they want to possibly do a course about me for?”

Only in Tuscaloosa

If, as the old joke goes, cocaine is God’s way of telling you you’ve got too much money, what does paying a tight ends coach $290,000.00 a year say about you?

Last in frequent flyer miles, or traveling is overrated.

With the discussion generated by Michael Elkon’s post on Georgia’s scheduling, I thought I’d take a look at one final item – travel.

Not that I think it’s that big a deal overall in determining a school’s strength of schedule, but when’s the last time each SEC school went outside of the Confederacy to play a regular season road game against a school from another major/BCS conference?

Here’s the list:

• Alabama: 2002 (Oklahoma)
• Arkansas: 2005 (Southern Cal)
• Arkansas: 2002 (Southern Cal)
• Florida: 1991 (Syracuse)
• Georgia: 1965 (Michigan)
• Kentucky: 2005 (Indiana)
• LSU: 2005 (Arizona State)
• Mississippi: 2006 (Missouri)
• Mississippi State: 2007 (W. Virginia)
• South Carolina: 1991 (W. Virginia)*
• Tennessee: 2007 (Cal)
• Vanderbilt: 2006 (Michigan)

*not a member of the SEC that year

Yeah, that 42+ year thing kinda jumps out at you. The good news is that the streak will end in ’08, as the Dawgs are one of three SEC teams leaving the friendly confines of the South to play schools from other BCS conferences (Auburn and Tennessee are the others). That will leave Florida and South Carolina (which has never played outside of the South as a member of the SEC) at the top of the leader board.

One other thing: the SEC’s record in those games is 2-10. The only two winners were Georgia and LSU.