Nick Saban makes lemonade.

Alabama may not be in a BCS game this year, but that hasn’t stopped Nick Saban from maximizing the opportunity he’s been presented with.

While you’re at it, think about Jesse Palmer as the new QB coach.

It’s probably too much to hope for, but Temple University may be on the verge of performing a national service.

… The real surprise, however, is the third reported finalist.  Again according to the Patriot-News, current ESPN analyst Bob Davie has been interviewed twice for the job and rounds out the finalists being considered by the school.

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UPDATE: Oh, well.

Just received confirmation that Steve Addazio is the new head football coach at Temple.

— Robbie Andreu (@RobbieAndreu) December 22, 2010

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Hey! Only we can talk about our coordinators like that!

Spencer Hall celebrates Steve Addazio’s rumored change of address with a rim shot directed Athens’ way:

TODAY…IS OUR INDEPENDENCE DAY. The informal understanding that Steve Addazio, excellent offensive line coach and horrendous playcaller and offensive coordinator, will be fired after Muschamp hires his own offensive staff remains. His landing place was a mystery until yesterday, thus ending Temple fans’ morbid curiosity/horror at the possibility of having the Divemaster command their football team. Addazio will be the offensive line coach, something he excels at, for the Texas Longhorns. No, really, he’s quite good at that. We’re not lying. We have no reason to do this, since you’re not in the SEC and therefore not in the perpetual web of mindgames and lies with our rivals we call “conversation.” In an unrelated note, man, that Mike Bobo is a helluva coordinator.

Nicely played, but it’s worth mentioning that Bobo’s offense rolled up more yards on the Gator defense than any other team did this season.

We keep saying it. You just won’t listen.

From Michael Elkon today:

… One argument in favor of the way that championships are awarded in college football: the two best teams of the past decade were the ’01 Rams and the ’07 Patriots and neither team won the Super Bowl. In both instances, those teams lost the Super Bowl to opponents with demonstrably inferior records whom the ’01 Rams and ’07 Pats had beaten on the road during the regular season. It strains the meaning of “champion” to assign that title to the ’01 Patriots and ’07 Giants. I remain in favor of a small college football playoff; four teams would be good, six teams would be very good, and eight teams would be OK. However, we shouldn’t ignore the fact that the absence of the playoff reset button in college football is a good thing in a significant way.

Feeding the biggest beast in the room

I suppose I was aware of this in the back of my head, but still, this is pretty jarring to read:

Of the 35 bowls, 31 of them are on ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU. The four others? The Sun Bowl has been on CBS for years. The Cotton Bowl is tied in to FOX. And in the ultimate symbol of how the bowls have shifted from network to cable, ABC, which is also owned by Disney, has only the Rose Bowl and the Outback Bowl on a Saturday afternoon.

Of course, I’m grateful that Thom Brennaman’s access to my eardrums is limited at this time of year, but do those numbers (along with the fact that the WWL owns several bowls outright) complicate the debate about a D-1 football playoff?  Would having to placate ESPN’s likely concerns that any playoff format might eventually lead to a situation where the bowls cease to be played factor into the equation?

It’s one thing to threaten members of the Kiwanis Club trying to keep a bowl game in Shreveport going.  It’s another to upset the 800-pound gorilla of college athletics.

The secret of their (lack of) success?

I think it’s pretty much a given that a 6-6 regular season showing after being ranked in the preseason qualifies as underachieving, so it’s not like I need independent validation to know that Georgia’s 2010 season stunk on ice.  (On that point I’m not alone.)

Still, I’m a little surprised by the near universal acknowledgement of Pro Football Weekly’s All-America team, which includes five Georgia players,  as evidence of that.  First off, how relevant is their criteria – “determined based on considerable feedback from NFL evaluators taking into consideration a player’s pure talent and contribution to his team. Unlike many other teams rewarding the best college football players, PFW places an extra premium on true talent and draft value in the selection process” – to being a success on the college football field?  Cam Newton isn’t PFW’s first team quarterback, which may be understandable if you’re looking at how he may play on future Sundays, but looks silly if you consider how he played on Saturdays this season.

And in Georgia’s specific case, well, it looks a little silly, too.  The A.J. Green who played in the last eight games will be a terrific player on the next level, but the A.J. Green who was suspended from play in the first four games didn’t do his current team a lick of good.  Nor did the Cordy Glenn who clearly struggled early on from the effects of a bout with mono.  Drew Butler turned in another solid season, but I don’t know too many people who would seriously argue that a program’s success turns on its punter.

Color me unimpressed.

Bill Snyder is amused by Stewart Mandel’s shocking discovery.

Stewart Mandel believes he’s stumbled on to college football’s latest sin:  ageism.

Generally speaking, there’s only one thing a head coach must do to keep his job: win. But if the 2010-11 coaching carousel has taught us anything, it’s that some athletic directors are adding a caveat: win, and don’t be old.

As proof, he offers us the cases of Bill Stewart, 58, and Ralph Friedgen, 63.  Both do have one thing in common, besides being over 55.  They both led programs to winning records in less than strong conferences this season, but weren’t able to win the conference title outright (in WVU’s case) or play in the conference title game (Maryland) in a weak setting.  Is that enough to justify canning them?  That’s not for me to say, but if you’re an athletic director who thinks his football program should be able to play in the ACCCG or a BCS bowl, it’s certainly enough to question if you’ve got the right guy at the helm for that.

Which leads me to one little detail that Mandel mentions but completely glosses over.  Perhaps you see it, too.

Here’s Hint #1:  “West Virginia AD Oliver Luck, who started on the job last June…”

And here’s Hint #2:  “Maryland AD Kevin Anderson, meanwhile, inherited an admittedly awkward situation when he arrived in September.”

Maybe the real trend here is that if you’ve compiled a mediocre record and the AD who hired you is no longer your boss, you’d best quickly figure out a compelling justification for your continued employment in the same position.  Which is nothing new, if you think about it.

The science of calibrating the gift of body art

I’m curious:  in a world where punching the wrong button on your cell phone can be an NCAA rules violation, where does trading autographs for tattoos rate on the “I sold my signed jersey and all I got was this lousy four-game suspension” scale?