It’s March. You know what that means.

We’re about to be subjected to a bunch of March Madness vs. BCS punditry over the next few weeks.

An early example comes from the Mobile Press-Register’s Tommy Hicks.  But after reading this…

In truth, there a touch of madness — both good and bad — to both national championship-determining methods. Both sports could learn something and should take a little something from the other. Basketball has the office bracket pool and the interest that creates with even the casual fan, and football has its “every game matters” persona.

… let’s just say I’m underwhelmed.

On a related front, Brian McCormack has a great post up at his blog concerning the Mountain West’s quixotic quest for a permanent seat at the BCS table.  His main point – that the conference needs to walk (i.e., have a credible income-producing TV contract) before it can run – is hard to argue with.  Of course, that may mean selling its soul to Disney.

Brian sarcastically offers our Congressional geniuses a way to fix the MWC’s problem.

… If Congress wants to get involved and regulate college football they might want to start with assuring equal television exposure. Yes, a return era to the equal time. Organize the Fall sports schedule towards make sure that we get to see Wyoming, Troy, and FIU in prime time. While we are nationalizing the banks, maybe we can nationalize cable TV. And start by moving the masters of Bristol to the shores of the Potomac.

I find it’s never wise to give those folks any bright ideas, personally.

Oh, and I would be remiss if I failed to mention that the Orlando Sentinel’s Tim Stephens still believes in the playoff fairy bringing lots of money to put under universities’ pillows.

… Nowhere is the separation between have and have-not in college football more evident than in coaches salaries. We’ve seen egos drive facilities upgrades and head coaches salaries. Now it is fueling bidding wars for assistant coaches. South Carolina this week approved $2 million for assistant salaries for 2009, including a $250,000-a-year salary for its offensive line coach. That’s more than the base salaries for seven Division I-A head coaches. And it’s not even one of the higher salaries for SEC assistants.

You probably can guess correctly that the head coaches are in the MAC and Sun Belt. When you get to the coordinator level in leagues like the SEC, you start passing head-coach salaries in the Mountain West, WAC and C-USA.

As Machen said, bailout could be spelled p-l-a-y-o-f-f, which is why Congress might be a fitting place to forge college football’s future…

Right.  Because SEC schools can be counted on to share their TV revenues with a host of conferences that don’t draw a third of the attention.  Actually, that probably does make sense to some members of Congress.  Sheesh.

“We are the notorious Block N’s.”

USA Today has a story about the three NCAA programs that currently don’t have official nicknames.  One of the three, Hollins College, is a women’s school that has never had a nickname.  (Now there’s a great trivia question for you.)  The other two were among several schools that were directed by the NCAA to drop references that were deemed hostile or abusive to Native Americans.

They’ve taken their time finding a replacement.  And judging from this list, they’ve been wise to do so.

Petrino vs. Mallett

Ryan Mallett, who’s been anointed the starting ’09 quarterback at Arky since he stepped off the Michigan campus, got in a wee bit of trouble this weekend.

Fayetteville police arrested Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett on a public intoxication charge early Sunday outside of a nightspot near campus.

The 20-year-old Mallett was booked into the Washington County Jail at 3:47 a.m. after Fayetteville police arrested him on Dickson Street. Mallett was released on bond about an hour later.

His coach promised that Mallett “would be disciplined”.

“I am very disappointed that Ryan Mallett put himself in a situation that doesn’t reflect positively on him or on our program,” Petrino said. “All members of the Razorback football team have a responsibility to conduct themselves in an appropriate manner on and off the field. While the legal process has not yet taken its course in this matter, Ryan will face internal team disciplinary action for not representing the Razorbacks in a way that is required of our student-athletes.”

Mallett is basically the only option Petrino has at QB this season, so I’m sure the kid is quaking in his boots about what he’s facing.  In fact, judging from his booking photo (h/t MGoBlog), he’s seems to be all et up with worry.

He lives at 970 Sports Fan Drive. Is that an address or a radio station?

That is one smug looking kid.

Oh, and about that discipline – at Georgia, he’d be gone for 1-2 games, no questions asked.  Will that be the case in Fayetteville?  The reason I ask is that Arky’s second game of the season is against… Georgia.