The Rest of College Football

[Dr. Strangelove]

That's just some random dude's fever-dream. Put aside the ridiculousness of a 24 team conference, Notre Dame would never join a conference that forced it to play NINE conference games, none of them (except Navy) their current rivals.

[Hannibal]

This is a good weekend to earn marital capital and get out with the wife and do stuff. This is possibly the worst weekend in the history of college football. What a terrible lineup of games. Very few look like they will be worth watching.

For all of the chatter about how great the SEC is this year, it is as top heavy as it has ever been. There has yet to be a featured contest that has been competitive and interesting to watch. The past few weeks it has been Alabama or LSU destroying somebody. Interestingly, the 'Bama-Penn State game doesn't look as indicative of those two conferences as it did at the time. 'Bama dominated Arkansas and Florida in that same manner. So what does that mean? The situation in CF this year appears to be that there are six or seven totally dominant teams spread out across various conferences and a big reversal in the parity trend of the past decade. The Big 12, Big Ten, Pac 10, and SEC all have one or, at the most, two dominant teams that are overwhelming favorites to win thsoe leagues.

[whodean]

LSU, Alabama and Oklahoma look head and shoulders above anybody else out there to me, though I haven't seen Stanford.

[Hannibal]

LSU, Alabama and Oklahoma look head and shoulders above anybody else out there to me.

Me too. I would put LSU and 'Bama a notch above the Okies. They don't have a very good running game. I might also put Wisky equal to them. If they lose in the Big Ten it will be a massive upset. The PAC 12 is Oregon, Stanford, and then a bunch of crap. I feel a little better about the Big Ten than I did a month ago.

[whodean]

We'll know more about Wisky after this game, but I don't see their defense on the same level with those top 3.

[WM Wolverine]

I have Wisky, Boise & Stanford a full tier below LSU, Bama and Oklahoma...

[Jeff Buchanan]

The decrease in parity across the list of 115 some Division I teams begs the question why is this? After at least a decade of trying to build parity under the guidance of the NCAA from the building blocks of a handful of elite teams and then the rest, it seems to me that nothing has changed.

The circumstance is even more stark in the AQ conferences. One, maybe two really good teams at the top of each conference and the rest crap or almost crap. Makes one wonder what the keys to achieving success and staying there are. What is the one common denominator of teams that achieved success in the modern era of football, advent of the BCS and stayed there for more than a few years?

[Dr. Strangelove]

There is more parity today than there was in the 1970's, when the first scholarship limits were put in place and the NCAA started making real attempts at enforcing parity.

In the 70's the same 10 teams made up the Top 10 nearly every year: Michigan, OSU, Notre Dame, Penn State, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, USC, Alabama, and one other rotating SEC team.

[Rocky Bleier]

To quote Archie and Edith Bunker, "Those were the days!"

[entropy]

ESPN

The NCAA's Division I Football Licensing Task Force made numerous recommendations on Thursday involving oversight and certification of bowl games, including stronger academic standards that may make it tough for some schools to become bowl eligible.

Co-chaired by Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman, the task force has proposed a ban from bowls for Division I teams that don't reach 930 -- out of 1,000 -- on the Academic Progress Rate, which measures academic performance through eligibility and retention.

Perlman said the new standard could make it tough for the NCAA to fill slots for all 35 of its bowl games. The NCAA already has adopted the benchmark for basketball and other sports, though no timetable for implementation has been established.

The task force also is recommending a new certification process that would put more responsibility on the CEOs and boards of the sponsoring bowl organization, with the NCAA staff conducting periodic audits to determine if the criteria are being met. The proposal would mean an end to the NCAA Postseason Bowl Licensing Subcommittee, which has licensed bowls since 2004.

The task force has also called for all bowls to be played during a three-week window to fall in line with the academic calendar so student-athletes don't miss as much time in class, along with policies to regulate advertising and to look at whether to continue the three-year ban on new bowls.

The task force, formed in April by NCAA President Mark Emmert in response to the Fiesta Bowl's myriad of problems, will report its recommendations to the Division I Board of Directors on Oct. 27 in Indianapolis.

[entropy]

The governing board of the University of Missouri unanimously gave its chancellor the authority Friday to move the school out of the Big 12 Conference.

More...

[lineygoblue]

... and the blocks keep tumbling ...

[Jamie H]

Where is Missouri going? SEC?

[WM Wolverine]

They've got two options; stay in Big XII or SEC. Their actions seem to say they want in the SEC.

[entropy]

Does the SEC want them?