The Rest of College Football

[WM Wolverine]

What's left of the Big East, in football:

*Rutgers, WV, UConn, Louisville, Cincy & USF...

Not a BCS automatic qualifier after their deal expires in '13. This is before any Big XII, SEC, ACC or B10 raids. Only WV & Rutgers were in a BCS conference in 2003, most of these schools were C-USA or Div I-AA then...

Of these they aren't an attractive bunch to the other BCS conference. Louisville is a great basketbal draw and building a solid football program; academics (commuter school mostly) leave them only with a potential Big XII invite... UConn is another very good basketball draw, good academics (but not AAU status yet) and just moved (back?) upto Div I football, I could see interest from the ACC if they (ACC) get rejected by Notre Dame... Ditto for Rutgers except they don't have the basketball but they do provide a nice market (New Jersey, toe in NYC) for the ACC. Would give the B10 and PSU a more eastern feel but they'd never get an invite unless they were school #14 and #13 was ND...

USF is another school that just jumped from Div I-AA, lots of talent in Florida but they are a very distant #4 football program in Florida. I don't see them fitting anywhere unless they are a replacement for the ACC losing a Florida team (FSU) to the SEC; likely they are headed back to C-USA... West Virginia brings in a lot of recent football success, a strong basketball program, a rabid fan base and an athletic department that is willing to spend money on its athletics. If they can sustain success, I could see them invited along with Louisville to the Big XII... Cincy doesn't really have a place where it can go, some good basketball there when they were 'hiring' players, lousy academic and rep as a commuter school. Football is a very distant #2 in-state and not much above its MAC neighbors. Likely back to C-USA.

[hardtimesjake97]

SMU is screaming begging and crying to the Big 12 and SEC right now (why in the F they really want to get hammered every week in the SEC is beyond me though). This is bullshit there needs to be a playoff. This is about education at some point right?

This garbage needs to be properly regulated regionally. Because waht's about to happen is this. The last conferences standing in the big football leagues are gonna secede from the NCAA and take ALL the money. However this is America.....

[WM Wolverine]

That is when congress WILL get involved and stop such a scenario from happening, right now the BCS conferences are plucking up all the top non BCS schools (Utah, TCU, we'll see if Boise gets any attention) in affect taking any momentum the non BCS leagues might've gained...

WAC, Sun Belt & MAC clearly are a couple levels or more below the BCS conferences and the gap is widening in terms of power/money. In those conference [WAC, Sun Belt, MAC] I imagine its tough to support a football program and I think we'll see quite a few teams drop out of Div I/FBS.

[UMStan White]

Purdue up 31-0 onMinn in the first half. Says a lot about Minn. They've given up almost 90 points without scoring one. If I were Kill I'd check myself back into the hospital.

[Paul L]

This new excessive celebration rule is ridiculous. The LSU punter fakes it, scores a TD, and does a minor arm-waving celebration before crossing the goal line.

Points come off the board and a 15-yard penalty.

Guess they want a bunch of emotionless robots out there.

[Jamie H]

It was a stupid rule on paper and it's even a more stupid rule in practice.

As for Minnesota, I would pretty much ignore our beatdown of them. They could be the worst BCS conference team in the country. Ok, maybe the worst ignoring the Big East.

[JRB]

I don't mind that sort of call when there's taunting directed at the other team, and I thought the punter crossed that line there. I don't like the excessive celebration rule either-- never have-- but at the same time, wait to celebrate until you've actually scored. The punter made a great play on the check to the fake, but I thought he deserved the penalty just for being stupid.

[Paul L]

I don't mind that sort of call when there's taunting directed at the other team, and I thought the punter crossed that line there. I don't like the excessive celebration rule either-- never have-- but at the same time, wait to celebrate until you've actually scored. The punter made a great play on the check to the fake, but I thought he deserved the penalty just for being stupid.

Good points, JRB. Just fear the day that something like this happens, say, in one of the Championship games, M/o$u, etc. and would hate the outcome to be decided on something as silly (IMO) as a "premature celebration".

[Jamie H]

It's dumb to take points off the board. By enforcing it on the kickoff it is already a big enough penalty.

[Paul L]

It's dumb to take points off the board. By enforcing it on the kickoff it is already a big enough penalty.

Exactly; it's more severe than if you were to spear a guy with a head-to-head hit or take a guy's knees out after the TD is scored.

[UMStan White]

Holding used to be enforced from the spot of the foul. Now it's only from the spot of the foul if it's beyond the line of scrimmage. Can anyone say with a straight face that "taunting an opponent" is more egregious than holding? Should Anthony Carter been flagged for high-stepping into the end zone against Indiana in '79? It's the most ridiculous rule in college football because it has no effect upon performance in or outcome of the game.

[Jamie H]

It's the "grumpy old man" rule.

[entropy]

SCANDAL: ESPN Told The ACC Which Teams To Take From Big East Conference
David Luckie, I Bleed Crimson Red | Oct. 9, 2011, 9:56 PM | 601 | 1

David Luckie

David Luckie is a Business Insider College Sports Columnist

When the Atlantic Coast Conference announced that Pittsburgh and Syracuse would be leaving the Big East and joining the ACC, it was seen as a logical move to expand the league’s footprint in the Northeast.

But as details on the backroom negotiations emerge, it is clear that the “worldwide leader” was a behind-the-scenes worldwide schemer, exerting its influence and driving the ACC toward the programs it wanted to have in the league.

The Boston Globe’s Mark Blaudschun has a story in today’s print and online editions outlining the process by which the decision was made to include Pitt and Syracuse and exclude UConn, despite the Huskies’ recent success in both football and basketball.

The money quotes:

BC athletic director Gene DeFilippo, who was part of the 12-member ACC expansion committee, adamantly denied that the move was dictated by basketball interests, but he did concede that the effects of it may boost that sport more than football.

“It had nothing to do with basketball,’’ said DeFilippo. “It was football money which drove expansion. It was football money and securing our future.’’

DeFilippo said the move was dictated in part by the expansion of the Southeastern Conference to include Texas A&M, which prompted the Big 12 to inquire about Pittsburgh, which is in the Northeast, an area in which the ACC felt it necessary to expand.

…
The ACC just signed a new deal with ESPN that will increase the revenue for each school to approximately $13 million. With the addition of Pittsburgh and Syracuse, said DeFilippo, another significant increase will come.

“We always keep our television partners close to us,’’ he said. “You don’t get extra money for basketball. It’s 85 percent football money. TV - ESPN - is the one who told us what to do. This was football; it had nothing to do with basketball.’’

Why is Disney – via ABC and ESPN – instructing a conference expansion committee on which teams to include and which to leave out? The Big East has been the victim of ACC poaching in the past. Boston College, Miami and Virginia Tech all defected amid very bad blood and rather ugly legal disputes. The current round of hunting on posted land lands a historically powerful but recently weak Pitt football program and a Syracuse program that’s had only flashes of success. Left behind was UConn.

UConn has won a few titles in men’s and women’s basketball and while they lost millions on the trip, the football team earned a BCS bid after the 2010 season. With the Big 12, the Big 10 and even the SEC said to be interested in Big East schools, the conference is on the verge of implosion.

Basketball drives the Big East. Football is important, but there are seven members of the league that don’t play FBS football. Blaudschun suggests that those schools may break off and form a basketball only conference with Notre Dame.

What happens to UConn then?

Automatic BCS qualifying conferences poaching members from one another is a zero sum game. Someone has to lose for someone else to win. For the Big East to survive, it would have to either draw programs playing FBS football in another automatic qualifying conference, or offer someone in a non-automatic qualifying conference an upgrade. That opens up the possibilities for Conference USA, the Sun Belt, the MAC and other mid-major type conference schools to move up into a league with an automatic bid to a BCS bowl. But such a move would also hurt the image of a league already seen by fans as the least powerful of the BCS conferences.

Could the ESPN meddling have been a retaliatory move? Remember, the Big East turned down a $1.9 billion offer from the worldwide schemer and is said to be entertaining offers from NBC, CBS and FOX for its next media contract. ESPN is currently the first tier media partner for the league, but after helping the ACC decide which teams to kidnap from the Big East, an over-the-air network getting the deal of a lifetime is a fair bet.

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[entropy]

Stewart Mandel: Reality Check Weekend offers rude awakenings for Texas, others

Texas thought it belonged among the nation's top teams, but Oklahoma had other ideas. Stewart Mandel touches on reality checks, Nebraska's comeback and more in CFB Overtime.

More...

[geo weidl]

While watching that okie/tejas game on Saturday, noticed there were quite a few plugs by brent regarding the longhorn network.