Vaya con dios, Mr. Strong.

It looks like Louisville is set to name Charlie Strong as its new head football coach today or tomorrow.  He deserves his shot.

Dawgnation’s reaction to the hire?  In the immortal words of Monty Python…

Except for one little nagging thing – Georgia has the ‘Ville on its schedule in 2011 and 2012.

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Mumme Poll, Week 14

Rank	Team	Votes (top five)
1	Alabama	212     (212)
2	TCU	212     (208)
3	Cincinnati	211
4	Oregon	210
5	Florida	209
6	Texas	208
7	Boise State	207
8	Ohio State	200
9	Georgia Tech	196
10	Iowa	173
11	Virginia Tech	120
12	LSU	119
13	Penn State	80
14	Miami	40
15	Pittsburgh	35
16	BYU	22
17	Nebraska	18
18	Oregon State	15
19	Stanford	14
20	Arizona	8
21	Clemson	6
21	West Virginia	6
23	Central Michigan	4
24	Mississippi	3
24	Oklahoma State	3

COMMENTS

• We lost a few more voters this week – about 10% from the previous week.
• The biggest story here is Texas, of course, as a few of our voters weren’t impressed with that last second win.
• I’m a little surprised seeing two-loss Oregon jumping Texas and Florida.
• On the MAC front, we lost Temple, but Central Michigan steps in as the highest rated team from the state of Michigan.
• Forty teams received at least one vote this week.  Only two teams appeared on every ballot.
• It’s weird seeing any top 25 poll without Southern Cal on it, isn’t it?
• Bias watch:  Georgia received two votes this week.  Both came from folks who are Georgia-affiliated.

That is the final regular season poll.  We will have a last vote after the bowl games are finished.  If you weren’t a participant last year, the process is slightly modified in that you’ll vote for a first place team, a group at 2-5 (both for tie breaking purposes) and a remaining seven.

Don’t think I’ve been ignoring anyone’s comments about the mechanics and procedures from this season’s voting.  Tidefan and I have been monitoring things carefully and will be weighing changes after the season is over (assuming there’s interest in having a 2010 Mumme Poll, of course).  So keep those cards and letters coming, folks.

The (playoffs) stoopid, it burns.

When Joe Barton speaks about college football playoffs, don’t expect logic to enter into the discussion.

Republican congressman Joe Barton, of Arlington, says he’s not for big government, but he does think Texas Christian University’s perfect season illustrates the need for government to get involved in the way college football champions are crowned.

I guess that means he’s in favor of semi-big government. (I had to get that Dan Jenkins reference in there, since Barton was talking to TCU fans.)

Meanwhile, for those of you who naively continue to insist that playoffs don’t necessarily mean extended playoffs, I’ve got news for you.  They do.

Talks are underway to move the NCAA “March Madness” basketball tournament to cable next year — and perhaps expand the number of teams, according to reports…

The proposal under discussion would increase the number of teams from 65 to 96 — adding another week to the competition, the report said.

The top 32 teams in the ranking would receive byes in the first round…

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice – well, you know the rest of that story.

Uncle Ron is coming to visit us.

On the one hand, it sucks that ESPN continues to relegate Ron Franklin to its lower tiered bowl broadcasts.  On the other hand, it’s great for us Dawg fans that the Independence Bowl is one of those lower tiered bowl broadcasts.  (h/t DawgsOnline)

The BCS gets what it pays for.

I’ve got a working theory that if the BCS does in fact go down one day, we’ll be able to trace its demise to the hiring of Ari Fleischer.  I mean, here’s a guy who’s probably the most disliked White House press secretary since Ron Ziegler and who’s associated with the political party currently out of power during a period when the BCS powers-that-be have grown concerned about political pressure for a D-1 football playoff.  All in all, it’s a remarkably tone deaf decision, one that could wind up ranking with rolling out the Edsel.

And it’s good to see that Fleischer is already living down to my expectations.

Take this Wall Street Journal piece that popped up last week.  It got some Internet chatter over Rep. Barton’s meaningless playoff bill possibly coming up for Congressional consideration, but nobody seems to have latched onto this quote of Fleischer’s that appeared near the article’s end:

“The more he dug into it – the more he realized the BCS is a moneymaking cartel,” said a spokesman for Mr. Barton, Sean Brown.

The reality of the BCS is “just the opposite,” a BCS spokesman, Ari Fleischer, responded. “There is more money to be made if we had a playoff, but the price would be a diminished regular season and the end of the bowls as we know them.” [Emphasis added.]

Taken as a whole, that is a lot of bovine fecal matter crammed into one sentence.  Look, I’m as anti-extended playoffs as anyone I know, but even I’m willing to concede that there are playoff formats that could be judiciously designed that wouldn’t negatively affect the regular season or the bowls.

But the kicker is his “more money” comment.  Either Ari is talking completely out of his derriere when he says that – no great surprise there – or he’s just conceded that his masters are full of it when they engage in their hand-wringing exercise over not killing the golden goose of college football’s revenue stream.  Given that it’s Fleischer, I’d bet on the former, but in any event he’s given playoff proponents a wonderful club with which to bludgeon the BCS brass.  If nothing else, he should make for an entertaining witness at the next Congressional hearing.  Even Joe Barton’s not dumb enough to miss on that one.

Tuesday morning buffet

Some nuggets to nibble on today…

• The governor of Florida is advising the Jacksonville Jaguars to draft the GPOOE™.  And to think there are people out there who purport not to understand why so many of us suffer from Tebow fatigue.
• If Steve Spurrier doesn’t work out in Columbia, there’s always the triple option.
• Now that rigor mortis has set in on Florida’s SECCG loss, Mergz does the autopsy.
• Here’s another example of how football can be hazardous to your health.
• The AP’s All-SEC vote is out.  Rex Robinson says Blair Walsh got hosed.  He’s right.
• The Wiz takes a deeper look at the final regular season Coaches Poll voting.
• Jamie Newberg weighs in on how Tennessee’s recruiting will fare in the wake of the departure of two assistant coaches.
• People in Utah are still pissed about the BCS.
• People in Alabama aren’t.

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UPDATE: Ed Gunther’s final analysis of the SECCG results is short and sweet.

… Think about it this way – Bama played they way they normally do, both on offense and defense. Florida played they way Alabama opponents usually do.