You serious about that?

One shortcoming about blogging is that it’s hard to convey the proper range of sarcasm and parody sometimes.  So when I read this piece today from Andy Staples and Stewart Mandel in which they predict ten trends in college football over the next decade, I wasn’t sure if they were being entirely serious.

You see, tucked in among such cutting edge calls like “New star coaches will emerge” (gosh, when’s the last decade that happened) and “Football will become an ever hotter TV commodity” is this:

UCLA and Tennessee: The USC and Florida of the ’10s?

Now that is edgy.  They’ve caught something in Knoxville that only the most rabid Vol fan and Mike Hamilton know about, right?  And – get ready – here it is:

… Tennessee’s big break, however, will come a few years down the road when Florida coach Urban Meyer prematurely retires (again) and Alabama’s Nick Saban returns to the NFL (again).

Unlike every other team in the conference, I guess.

I can see why they co-authored this.  Each can blame the other for that bit of insight.

Portrait of a man mountain

Ole Miss has an offensive lineman who stands 6′ 11″ tall and weighs in the neighborhood of 400 pounds.  In other words, if Dexter McCluster had returned this season, he’d barely be able to see over this guy’s ass.

That’s big.

Given this summer’s weather, this actually makes sense.

Spencer Hall explains the “hot seat” meme.

… Georgia’s Mark Richt will continue to heat up his scorching hot seat by winning 10 games on the year. In Georgia, “hot” means “comfortably cool,” a confusion leading to many assuming the frigid city of Atlanta is in fact “hot.” This could not be further from the truth! Show up for summer visits in heavy wool. You won’t regret it.

College Football at Sports-Reference.com

All I can say is that this is one helluva reference site for college football.

Wednesday morning buffet

Feel free to indulge yourselves:

• At least 26 schools are adding football programs between 2009 and 2013.  Why?
• Georgia is 24th in ESPN’s preseason power rankings.  Just thought you’d like to know.
• Speaking of preseason power rankings, did you ever expect to see Tennessee listed at eleventh in the SEC?
• CBS Sports executive vice president of programming anticipates that TV viewership of SEC football may decline in the wake of the GPOOE’s™ departure.  Sad tears.
• Tommy Tuberville closes Texas Tech practices to the public, citing the “element of surprise”.
• Think the Gator media identifies with the program too much?  Check out this quote from Pat Dooley:  “… if Meyer had been hired from Bowling Green in 2002 and gone 9-3 Gator fans would have been all over him. So don’t talk about Zook’s tenure as a failure, but as a needed block in the foundation of the building we have today.” Who’s this “we” you’re referring to, Pat? (h/t ChicagoDawg)
• Doc Saturday takes a look at my favorite fourth quarter college QB, Ricky Stanzi.
• Pat Forde is pretty impressed with the SEC.
• Heisman Pundit is kinda, sorta impressed with the SEC.  At least for the moment.  But check back with him.  Because something might change.
• A sensible editorial about North Campus… which means it’ll be totally ignored by you-know-who.

Approval voting method to Mumme Poll madness

If you’re curious why we’re paring the Mumme Poll ballot down to ten teams with a single tiebreaker, this may give you a good idea:

… I also asked Thompson why the AFCA didn’t just go ahead and include all 120 FBS coaches in the poll to give every coach a voice. After all, this is a poll that, as part of the BCS rankings, helps determine which two teams play for the national championship.

He said, “For practical purposes, it’s hard to get 59 or 60 to vote each week.”

How many head coaches have the time and the resources during the regular season to research which team is the twenty-third best in the country?  Based on what a couple of former coaches had to say about the preseason vote, hardly any.

“[Preseason rankings] have one real value — it gets us all talking about it,” said College Football Hall of Famer John Robinson, one of 19 members of the Legends Poll. “But I don’t think anybody who votes on it does enough research to say specifically who is going to do what.”

That’s not a knock on the 59 head coaches who vote. Considering the limited information available at this time of year, hitting 60 percent isn’t bad. Basically, preseason magazines and last year’s memories are all the coaches have to analyze.

“You get a summer magazine, but you don’t devour it,” said former Washington coach Don James. “You focus on what is being written about your opponents. Outside of them, it’s hard to know a lot about the other teams across the country.”

It’s not much of an exaggeration to call the Coaches Poll farcical.  It’s certainly troubling that there’s so much riding on something that’s so shoddily organized.  Fix the damned thing.  And start by taking a close look at approval voting, fellas.