Sources: Nebraska to the Big Ten, Colorado to the Pac 10

(All this c/o the most excellent Dr. Saturday)

So the disintegration begins. The Chicago Tribune:

The Big Red will be joining the Big Ten.

A source with knowledge of the expansion talks has confirmed to the Tribune that Nebraska will be invited to apply for Big Ten membership, a mere formality in the process. An announcement is expected Friday.

The league has not determined, the source said, whether it will remain at 12 schools or expand to 14.

For every action, there is more grist for the San Jose Mercury News' Jon Wilner:

Just got off the phone with a source familiar with the negotiations between the Pac-10 and Big 12 schools, who said:

* Colorado “is likely to formally accept” an invitation to join the Pac-10 on Thursday.

Repeat: Colorado to the Pac-10 on Thursday.

At that moment, it will become the Pac-11.

* Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State are committed to joining the Pac-10 if Nebraska joins the Big Ten … and they might do it even if Nebraska doesn’t join the Big Ten.

On the home front, here's Red Raiders.com:

When Nebraska leaves the Big 12 Conference this week, so too will Texas Tech, Texas and Texas A&M, a high-ranking Tech official confirmed Wednesday.

The official said those three Texas universities have vowed to stick together through any major conference upheaval, which — according to multiple reports from reputable newspapers across the country — Nebraska will trigger this week.

The University of Texas, along with Tech and A&M, should soon be leaving the conference to join the Pacific-10 Conference, according to the source.

Meanwhile, the Houston Chronicle says that Texas and A&M may actually go their separate ways, with the Aggies going to the SEC.

UPDATE: edited out statement by Captain Obvious that, if Nebraska gets the 12th Big 10 invite, then Mizzou isn't. It was early in the morning.

"the timeline could be affected"

From Matt Hinton:

Saturday, Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott reportedly presented a handful of options to conference presidents, chancellors and athletic directors for pursuing expansion. Today, Scott said he'd been granted authority by the membership to pursue any and all of them...

To recap, according to both ESPN Los Angeles and Orangebloods.com, the four options Scott laid on the table on Saturday ran as follows, from least to most dramatic:

• Retaining the current 10-team structure, unchanged since Arizona and Arizona State joined the Pac-8 in 1978;
• Adding Colorado and Utah to form a 12-team conference with two six-team divisions and a championship game, a la the SEC, Big 12 and ACC;
• Brokering a merger with six Big 12 schools, as reported by Orangebloods on Thursday, as long as one of those schools is Texas; or
• Brokering a full merger with the entire Big 12, creating an unwieldy, 22-team behemoth that would completely redefine the concept of a "conference" in college sports.
...
While "by the end of the year" is certainly technically correct, and in keeping with the conference's initial 6-to-12-month timeline for considering expansion options, every indication over the last 72 hours suggests the strike is bound to come by the end of the month, if not by the end of the week.

Reacting to this news (and to contact from the Pac 10 assuring them that there will be an invitation incoming), the Big 12 has presented an ultimatum to Nebraska and Missouri to declare their intentions to stay in the Big 12 or listen to the Big 10's siren song by the end of the week.

For the Big 10, who had been planning on settling on a plan in November or so, "the timeline could be affected," as Big 10 commish Jim Delany put it.

If you remember, the Big 10 is not only courting the Tigers and Huskers, but also still has its designs on Texas, though the Texas legislature's insistence that any conference who wants the 'Horns also take A&M and Tech is a problem for the Big 10. Thus, if Delany wants Mizzou and Big Red, he's got to give them assurance of invites this week, and if he wants even a shot at Texas, he needs to send them an invite this week as well, which means clearing the way for Texas Tech through Big 10 presidents that don't think the Red Raiders meet the Big 10's academic standards.

So my thought: where is Notre Dame in all this? Do we have a plan of action in case the Big 12 falls apart this week? If the Pac 10 becomes the Pac 16, the Big 10 will become the Big 16. You can take that to the bank. I'm guessing we don't want to be left out of that?

Doug Gillett had a great post on why ND is independent several months ago, and it's worth looking at again. Of course, alumni cares aside, it's a money thing, specifically our sweetheart BCS deal and our even sweeter NBC deal. Gillett shows, however, that conference schools in the SEC and Big 10 have done comparably well with conference TV contracts, and actually gotten a much better payout from the BCS than ND overall (like 10 to 20 times as much).

Plus, of course, that sweetheart deal with NBC is increasingly unlikely to be renewed in 2015 as ND continues to stagnate in football and NBC struggles with, well, everything. Sure, Brian Kelly may pull off the great Return to Glory, but when your master plan for maintaining current revenue includes "winning a national championship" as a prerequisite, you don't have a good plan.

If Delany gets the Texas schools, ND is screwed. The Big 10 is actually 11 schools, plus the Texas 3 plus Mizzou and Nebraska = Big 16, with no room for the Irish. I don't think this is going to happen, though, because there are too many hurdles for Delany to clear with too many people to get those invites out this week. He's been outmaneuvered by the Pac 10.

There's a pretty good chance, I think, that the Pac 10 will raid the Big 12 South and the Big 10 will make off with Mizzou and Nebraska, leaving 3 schools left for the Big 10 to grow into the Big 16. Supposedly Syracuse, Rutgers, and UConn are being courted to become the last 3.

Again I ask: do we have a plan?

the new Tim Tebow

Color me deeply, deeply skeptical.

To summarize, the problem for Tebow is that, because Florida placed so much stock in his running game, they never really developed some fundamental skills a quarterback has to have in the NFL, where being a rushing quarterback is not an option. Tebow took all his snaps from the shotgun, so his footwork on the 3/5 step drop is terrible.

And then there's that throwing motion.


Quarterbacks hold the ball at chest level after the snap. With most of them, when their man is open, they pull the ball back and up behind their ear, and from there go into their forward throwing motion. Tebow drops the ball down below his waistline and winds way back and up, doing a full 360 degree motion with his elbow. What that means is that Tebow holds onto the ball much longer than his peers and (supposedly) delivers a much lazier spiral. In a league where there's only a split second window where your man is open and you have to get him the ball in the blink of an eye, an elongated throwing motion can be a killer.

Of course, a similar critique was leveled at Vince Young, and it stopped him neither from getting drafted early in the first round nor from performing relatively well as an NFL quarterback (after some fits and starts, anyway). Admittedly, Tim Tebow is probably better than Young was. Maybe Tebow will come out of this training a fully formed NFL quarterback, but my guess is he's still a pretty major project for an ambitious coach with a healthy if aging franchise quarterback.

NCAA: celebration penalty may negate touchdowns next year

From AP(via Matt Hinton):

If passed, players who draw flags for taunting gestures on their way to a touchdown would have the penalty assessed from the spot of the foul, taking away the score. Penalties that occur in the end zone would continue to be assessed on the extra-point attempt, 2-point conversion try or ensuing kickoff.

The change would take effect in 2011 and on the NCAA's web site, a release said the proposal received near-unanimous support.

"Taunting and prolonged individual acts have no place in our game, and our officials have generally handled these rules well," said former Oregon coach Mike Bellotti, the committee chair. "This is just another step in maintaining our game's image and reflecting the ideals of the NCAA overall."

My opinion on rules in games is that you shouldn't adopt a rule you don't intend to enforce. More specifically, you shouldn't adopt a rule if you aren't willing to change the outcome of the game over it.

In the last season or two we've seen multiple instances of celebration/taunting calls that gave the other team a chance to win after the fact, and the outcry was so intense in one case (A.J. Green's go-ahead TD against LSU) that the SEC fined one of its own refs and forced him to apologize. Imagine for a second the outcry if such of touchdown were called back outright and the other team holds on to win. Imagine that happening in the final minutes of the SEC championship or the Rose Bowl or, God forbid, the National "Championship" Game.

I get that this is a rule specifically against taunting, rather than the general endzone merriment and evil, evil ball tossing of the Jake Locker variety, but Green's infamous unsportsmanslike conduct flag was supposedly for taunting en route to the goal line. Even by the standards of college football rules, taunting is in the eye of the beholder, especially considering the trash talking and psychological warfare that likely goes on out of earshot of the microphones.

This rule is just dying to cause the NCAA more headaches.

Tim Tebow: even his ads prefer procreation

Apparently there will be a second, pre-game version of the already infamous Tebow/Focus on the Family Superbowl ad:

There's a new Super Bowl surprise from Focus on the Family: a second ad.

The evangelical group that bought ad time in the CBS game telecast will announce today that it has bought time in the pregame show to air a second ad four times.

The new ad also features star quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam. It was filmed in Orlando last month at the same time as the group's controversial — though yet unseen — in-game ad.

Apparently they will both be of the "choose life" message variety that, though intended as a witty riposte from the anti-Roe crowd, has on occasion been embraced by members of the other side as a message that still preaches choice.

I'm increasingly skeptical on that point, but the heretofore detente on that message is important to point out here.

Also important to point out, however, are the implications of the Tebow ad outside of those considerations. For those who don't know the story, I'll quote his Wikipedia page:

Tebow was born on August 14, 1987 in Makati City in the Philippines, to Bob and Pam Tebow, who were serving as Christian missionaries at the time.[1][7] While pregnant, Pam suffered a life-threatening infection with a pathogenic amoeba. Because of the drugs used to rouse her from a coma and to treat her dysentery, the fetus experienced a severe placental abruption. Doctors expected a stillbirth and recommended an abortion to protect her life.[1] She carried Timothy to term, and both survived.

So Mrs. Tebow essentially undertook a significant risk to her own life to have Tim. It's moving, and of course things worked out wonderfully for her and we're all very happy for her. She's very lucky.

Nevertheless, is it really responsible to advocate for women to hold out on life-saving procedures on the off chance that they'll both survive anyway and have super-moral, Heisman-winning sons? The Tebows rolled the dice on her life to save his, and happened to win big that time, but many others wouldn't be so lucky. I wonder if Mrs. Tebow or any of the people who are using her story to push their political agendas have considered the possibility of some woman in her position acting on her advice, and instead of delivering the next Tim Tebow, dying from complications while giving birth to a stillborn baby. God does not save every woman with a placental abruption, let alone every baby.

you see what God did to us?

Some of the best commentary on the championship game. I've been a fan of Colt McCoy since his freshman year when he gave the Buckeyes a fight at the Horseshoe, and what happened to him last night, after having spent pretty much his entire life preparing for that game, is a devilishly cruel twist of fate even by sports standards. I know reporters are supposed to talk to the main players about what happened after the game, but neither Colt nor we should have been subjected to this:

Perhaps the issue of Colt's personal misery could be held off for another day, or at least you could maybe have a little tact when you pick at that fresh wound next time?

Poor kid. I choked up a little watching him struggle for words. I'm truly impressed that he could hold himself together long enough to get away from the vultures.

Friday Night Lights

Thought I'd give it a shot considering all the stellar reviews it's gotten over the last several years. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it really is an outstanding show. Definitely lacking the gritty realism of a show like "The Wire," and isn't quite as intelligent, but that's an awfully high bar. It's interesting how the show painted a bland, very stereotypically "football show" portrait in the pilot, and has spent every episode since then filling in interesting details and adding color. It sketches out the small Texas town with striking clarity and honesty, letting you see right through the Broderian heartland rubbish into a place that really exists (or at least seems to).

A little personal note about it: my high school played the school the show is based on once or twice while I was there. We got smoked.

Kelly "on brink" of becoming next Irish coach?

Does God love us this much?

Kelly held a meeting last week about the opening with representatives of Notre Dame within days of Cincinnati's Big East championship game against Pittsburgh, the Tribune has learned.

Talks progressed well enough that the official announcement Kelly will be Charlie Weis' replacement could come as early as Friday -- anytime after Cincinnati's football banquet Thursday night.
...
ESPN.com reported "things are heating up" between Notre Dame and Kelly.

Final details over a contract remain, but the university had no plans to deviate from its traditional stance of signing new football coaches to five-year deals, a source said. Asked if Kelly would accept an official offer to coach Notre Dame, a coaching friend of Kelly's answered, "I have no doubt he'd take the job.''

Let's all hope this isn't just another coach using ND's interest to get a better contract from their home school. Brian Kelly has taken three shitty schools and made them champions. Grand Valley State is still a major Division II power, and Central Michigan has had an iron grip on the MAC since 2006, his third year. Cincinnati's the Big East champion for the second consecutive season and playing in the Sugar Bowl because of this guy, kids. Cincinnati.

And check out this nugget from his Wikipedia page:

Among the honors that UC football team has achieved in 2009 is the highest academic rating among teams in the top 10 of the current BCS standings, according to the latest Graduation Success Rates, released Wednesday by the NCAA. UC, which is fifth in the BCS standings, checked in with a 75 percent NCAA graduation rate and a 71 percent federal government rate, the only team in the BCS top 10 to surpass the 70 percent plateau in both.

If he can't right this ship, then the problem is not with coaches.

BOTH Clausen and Tate entering draft

Thanks, Clausen-punching irate fan! Idiot.

Seriously though, this is a serious setback, to be sure. Of the two, Tate is probably the toughest hit since no one else appears to be at his level to balance Michael Floyd, while Dayne Crist showed promise in his limited playing time, injury notwithstanding.

Still, imagine for a second what Brian Kelly could have done with Jimmy Clausen and Golden Tate.

so much for BCS gate-crashing

Every year for the past 3 or 4 years there has been a great undefeated team from the non-BCS conferences that has crashed the gates of the BCS. Even more embarrassing for the BCS, these mid-major upstarts actually have a pretty good record against the BCS' elite. This year things looked to get even worse with not one, but two such revolutionaries having the audacity to go undefeated, with one of them even knocking off the eventually PAC 10 champions along the way, each one demanding the opportunity to play with the big dogs.

The BCS' answer? Turn the Fiesta Bowl, traditionally the home turf of the Big 12, into the Separate But Equal Bowl. So I guess that makes the new guiding principle of BCS bowl selection "damage control." Matt Hinton of the brilliant Dr. Saturday blog (formerly Sunday Morning Quarterback) doesn't smell any conspiracy:

It's not really that sinister: The Fiesta Bowl made the picks itself, one undefeated upstart (Cincinnati) still has its chance to make good against a powerhouse (Florida) and the only options beyond the championship game and the Gators would have been matching the Frogs and Broncos up with almost equally surprising outfits from Georgia Tech and Iowa. It's not a conspiracy; as with so often in the BCS, the setup ensures that somebody is always getting screwed.

I find it almost inconceivable that the Fiesta Bowl would willing choose both Boise St. and TCU over its birthright, Big 12 representatives Iowa. Nor would I be surprised to find that the BCS is more than confident in Urban Meyer and Tim Tebow's ability to put down the 3rd undefeated pretender.

It's shameful.

It's time for a change, ladies and gentlemen. I present to you the Wetzel plan, 2009 edition. It's a playoff of the same sort played all the other NCAA sports, including Division II football, so I don't want to hear a word about kids playing too many games. All 11 Division I conference champs + 5 at-large bids, with higher seeds getting home field advantage. The bowls can still invite people and play if they want, but they don't take part in the tournament; otherwise, home field advantage would be pointless. There are plenty of reasons to back this system as laid out by Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports. If none of that convinces you, though, just take a gander at what this season would look like under the Wetzel plan:


Almost brings a tear to your eye, doesn't it? Right out of the gate in week 1 we get Iowa at Pac 10 champions Oregon, Georgia Tech on the road at Ohio State, Virginia Tech on the blue turf of Boise State, LSU crossing the Sabine river to TCU, and, hoo boy, 2 great powerhouses you never see together: Penn State at Florida.

It's already got more and better matchups than the BCS this year, and we're just on the first Saturday.

Imagine the likely week 2, and you've got the winner of Iowa-Oregon traveling down to Austin to play Colt McCoy and the Longhorns. Cincinnati gets the winner of Va Tech-Boise St. at home. A couple hundred miles south will be a likely match between the Ohio State Buckeyes and Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa.

Boise St, TCU, and Cincinnati all get legitimate shots at the Mythical National Championship (as well as East Carolina and several other smaller outfits), but TCU, the one with the highest seed, would have to get past LSU, Florida, and probably Alabama. Boise St. would have to beat Va Tech, Cincinnati and Texas.

This needs to happen. Sooner or later, it will happen. It's inevitable.

Stanford

Wait... what the f**k just happened?

the Plus-one, or an alternative to the playoff

We've heard a bit of talk the last year or two about the possibility of moving to a "plus-one" system in college football (rather presumptuously referred to here as the "Mandel plan"). Under a plus-one system, the bowl system remains intact except for the BCS bowls themselves, two of which shift to a 4 team playoff with no. 1 and 2 hosting, an extra BCS bowl to keep 10 BCS bids (not sure why that matters), and a 6th BCS championship game a week later. Using Mandel's example for this year's teams:

• Jan. 1 Rose: No. 8 Oregon (Pac-10 champ) vs. No. 11 Penn Sate (replacement)

• Jan. 1 Sugar: No. 1 Florida (SEC champ) vs. No. 4 Cincinnati (Big East champ)

• Jan. 2 Cotton: No. 5 Alabama (first at-large) vs. No. 6 TCU (third at-large)

• Jan. 4 Fiesta: No. 2 Texas (Big 12 champ) vs. No. 3 Iowa (Big Ten champ)

• Jan. 5 Orange: No. 10 Ga. Tech (ACC champ) vs. No. 12 USC (second at-large)

• Jan. 12 title game: Sugar Bowl winner vs. Fiesta Bowl winner

This has one advantage over the current system: it at least allows the top 4 teams a shot at the championship, rather than just the top 2. That makes it better than the current system.

Of course, this setup is still worthless compared to an actual playoff with more than four teams. For one thing, non-BCS teams still have virtually no chance at getting into the playoff, despite the obvious silliness of handicapping teams like Boise St. and Utah who have made quite a name for themselves humiliating top 10 teams. There's also still a high probability that national championship contenders even from BCS conferences will be snubbed. Last year, for instance, there were 7 undefeated or one-loss teams just in the BCS games, including Southern Cal, Penn St., Utah, Alabama, Texas, Florida, and Oklahoma. How many of those do you think there will be at the end of this season?

Essentially, the plus-one still allows very little margin-of-error for an evaluative system (BCS rankings) that is highly, highly flawed and subjective.

"this week's game will be telling"

One always has the tendency to see the next game as one that "will really tell us where the team is at," especially throughout the first half of the season. Thinking about it, though, the last 4 games (Michigan, Michigan St., Purdue, Washington) I think established pretty clearly where we're at: roughly in the middle of the Pac 10 and Big 10. On par with the Spartans and Huskies, potentially dangerous to good teams but probably not a real threat to a team like the Tide or the Longhorns.

I hate to say it, but I think we know all too well who these two teams are that are playing in two weeks; we're just slow to admit it. I would be very surprised if we played at all competitively with Southern Cal. SC loses to an unranked team every year, usually right before they leave blue and gold splatter marks all over Notre Dame Stadium. Last year's Trojan D only allowed four Notre Dame first downs, and this year's D looks very similar so far. Yes, SC occasionally drops one to middling teams, but the better team is still more likely to win any given game.

I think we're started to get a sense of how the season is going to pan out for the Irish. In all likelihood, ND will finish its next game 4-2 with Pitt, UConn, Boston College, and Stanford as the remaining teams to beat. Last season ND went 7-5, meaning we'll have to beat 2 of these teams to show continued progress.

I hate to say, but things look pretty bleak from here for us, and even bleaker for Charlie Weis.

it's the system

Dan Wetzel unloads on the BCS, and it's only week 4. Florida, Alabama, and Texas haven't even lost yet.

Gonna be a fun year for college football, my friends. And by "fun," I of course mean "infuriating."

just one more weakness in the NCAA's ranking system

When efforts like this from Texas Tech against a top 5 team yield no gain in rankings whatsoever. One of the most baffling weaknesses in the system is in its inability to contextualize losses. Teams may lose ground for winning badly against supposedly inferior teams, but nobody ever gains ground for losing well against great teams.

The unranked Red Raiders outgained the #2 Longhorns in nearly every category, in Austin, but lost the game on a punt return and a nasty hit on the quarterback resulting in a fumble. For that, Texas Tech lost votes.

This is one of the big reasons, perhaps even the biggest single reason, why we have to spend the first 3 weeks of every season watching the big teams beat up on I-AA schools and the doormats of the MAC. All that matters is "the W."

College Football Hall of Fame going to Atlanta

It was only a matter of time, really.

the rise of the Washington Huskies

Heh. Southern Cal drops one every year, and usually it's just due to the Trojans not taking the game seriously enough until it's too late. This year, though, you have to wonder when that same fluke winner also scared the hell out of LSU.

I gotta admit, I've been quietly rooting for Washington for several years now, and watching for Jake Locker to mature into the primetime player he has the capacity to be. The kid could have gone anywhere (and I believe was pursued by Pete Carroll), but chose to stay with the home team and help rebuild it. In this era of the mercenary athlete, I have a lot of respect for the few who can show a modicum of loyalty and hometown pride.

Plus, he's fun as hell to watch.

the problem is not with the rivalry

It is with the paper.

Home Plus is us

Heh. Hehehe. Heh.

25 random things about the Super Bowl

King Kaufman in fine Facebook form. My favorite ones:

14. Tomlin, not Whisenhunt, got the Steelers job because he blew the brass away at his interview. He may have gotten that interview in part because of an NFL rule requiring teams to talk to at least one minority candidate for any head coaching job. That's the rule the Detroit Lions flouted when they hired Steve Mariucci in 2003. It's known as the Rooney Rule, after the Steelers owner, Dan Rooney, who headed the committee that introduced it.

15. It would be overly simplistic, maybe even downright juvenile, to say, "See for yourself how following or not following the Rooney Rule has worked out for the Lions and Steelers." But see for yourself.

Rooney's vocal endorsement of Barack Obama also may have a key factor in John McCain failing to make up enough ground in western PA to offset Barack's crushing majorities in the Philadelphia area. There are a couple of Steelers fans reading this who should feel pretty proud, no matter what happens on Sunday.