The Rest of College Football

[SeanB]

osu cheated. Tressel cheated. Make no mistake about it. Then they lied about it repeatedly.

They then lost a Heismann candidate QB (potentially), a legendary (if cheating) coach, an NFL caliber receiver for 10 games an NFL caliber RB for 6 (I think) and a few bit players and took a ton of PR hits.

Even in my maize-colored glasses, I can now see that is quite a lot. The fact they lucked into Meyer makes a lof of folks gnash their teeth, and they will gnash them again whe osu gets no further sanctions. What are we supposed to do about it?

Nothing. And I hope Hoke feels that way, too.

Get on with M football. Quit worrying about what we already know; osu cheated, lied and have paid some small penance for it. We'll see if there is more, but if not, at least Tressel is gone. He may have cheated, but he had M's number, too.

Doesn't matter now. In bucknut math, M is 1-0 against osu. It sure felt good to get that one, too.

[hack]

The only lasting impact is a permanent motivational tool for Hoke. They should be snorting fire every year, but when you have the knowledge that you're going up against a bunch of degenerate criminals on top of being your main rival, and that you play by the rules in a comparative sense, you have a little bit of extra desire to stomp them hard. This really needs to be leveraged.

[Optimus Prime]

We are in good hands, we just may have the best DC & recruiter in the game, at least Urban Meyer thinks so.

Urban Meyer has called Michigan defensive coordinator Greg Mattison the best recruiter in the country, and one of the college game's great defensive minds.
He would know better than most, considering he hired Mattison as his first defensive coordinator at Florida, where they won a national title together in 2006.

http://www.annarbor.com/sports/um-football/michigan-defensive-coordinator-greg-mattison-stays-mum-on-prospects-of-facing-old-boss-urban-meyer/

[Dr. Strangelove]

Punch to the gut for Pitt...Todd Graham bolting after only one season for Arizona State. Informs his players via text message. Ted Miller's embarrassingly apologetic post on the subject

http://espn.go.com/blog/pac12/post/_/id/31650/wins-not-loyalty-will-measure-graham-at-asu

[Jamie H]

Martin, the penny pincher, didn't allow RR to hire who he wanted as coordinators and had to settle for less than WV/Big East quality coaches/coordinators.

Were Mike DeBord and Ron English making tons of money in 2007? Maybe we should absolve every loss Lloyd Carr ever had because he wasn't allowed to spend more money on his coordinators.

It's just another excuse for a failure. Rodriguez actually hired a decent DC in Shafer, and then proceeded to completely undermine him and fire him after one season. Shafer was good enough to work for Harbaugh, who seems to know a thing or two about coaching. But he wouldn't run the f'ing 3-3-5 so Rodriguez canned him. That isn't Martin's fault.

[JRB]

I've heard rumors for years that Todd Graham and Rich Rodriguez did not get along at all during Graham's tenure at West Virginia. Once Rodriguez decided to hire Gibson, Dews, and Magee away from him, Graham may have decided that he wanted the opportunity to beat Rich Rodriguez every year.

[lineygoblue]

He will get his chance at AZ State. They usually recruit better than the Wildcats.

[Optimus Prime]

Wow, it appears Graham is "All Heart".

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that Graham sent a text message Wednesday morning to his players informing them that he was looking to be the Sun Devils’ coach.

Read more: http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-foo...#ixzz1gbq7XztK

"I have resigned my position at Pitt in the best interest of my family to pursue the head coaching position at Arizona State," Graham said in the text, per the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "Coaching there has always been a dream of ours and we have family there. The timing of the circumstances have prohibited me from telling you this directly. I now am on my way to Tempe to continue those discussions. God Bless. Coach Graham."

[hack]

It's just another excuse for a failure

Or an explanation for the success of this year. No doubt in large part due to Mattison, who gets paid roughly triple RR's coordinators. You're not really denying that, are you?

[SeanB]

Rodriguez actually hired a decent DC in Shafer, and then proceeded to completely undermine him and fire him after one season.

To me, this was perhaps Rodriguez's biggest failing. It's very interesting to juxtopose what happened at Syracuse and Michigan when GERG and Schafer basically switched spots. Sure, GERG ws the HC at Syracuse, but defense was his "thing" supposedly:

Total Defense Michigan Syracuse
2010 110th 7th
2009 82nd 37th
2008 67th 102nd

The trend is just staggering.

For the record, M was 18th this year in Total Defense from the sources I found, 7th in Scoring Defense (same as VT, interestingly enough).

The columns don't exactly line up, but you get the point!

[Jeff Buchanan]

On the crap that is the NCAA and the discussion that surrounds attempts by this inept organization to level the playing field:

There's a fundamental divide between schools that are unprofitable by choice and those that are inherently so, a fundamental divide between schools where mens' basketball and football players have economic value only the schools are realizing and those where every athlete is a net expense. Before you condemn the big ones, realize that it's the small ones and their futile attempt to maintain a "level playing field" that is preventing larger schools from making even token moves towards a fairer system.

Incredibly coherent statement from Brian at mgoblog. I believe that three key players (and probably now Neinas of the B12 now that Beebe is out), Slive, Delaney and Larry Scott have, as an underlying and unspoken goal of conference realignment, a break from the NCAA .... hoping probably beyond hope.

I'm not sure that the cards are falling where Delaney expected them to fall (reorganization of the BE .... as stupid as this league looks) because the BE will still claim some relevance and therefore a piece of the pie. I don't know where the ACC stands but probably on the margins.

I don't think a better thing could happen than the big schools that Brian alludes to above in his statement splitting off from the NCAA and letting all the schools who either choose to have their athletic programs be unprofitable or are unprofitable because they do stupid stuff (e.g., Kansas hiring Charlie Weis) fend for themselves. Frankly I don't care if some schools can no longer afford to field football teams. They need to get back to their primary mission then ..... education. Schools that have had profitable football programs should no longer have to fund failing programs.

[WM Wolverine]

WAC, MAC and Sun Belt need to drop a level, they aren't competing with the other conferences anymore... MWC & C-USA have been hit awfully hard by losses to expansion too and isn't in much better shape than the former three leagues...

The recent expansion has accelerated the divide between the haves and have nots; the valuable members of C-USA, MWC, WAC (Boise St, SD State, Houston, SMU, Utah, BYU, TCU, USF, etc.) have all been gobbled up by the Big East, Pac 12 & Big XII.

[Jeff Buchanan]

The recent expansion has accelerated the divide between the haves and have nots; the valuable members of C-USA, MWC, WAC (Boise St, SD State, Houston, SMU, Utah, BYU, TCU, USF, etc.) have all been gobbled up by the Big East, Pac 12 & Big XII.

I think this is by design (with Slive, Delaney pulling most of the strings). What I don't get is the BE and ACC. Wonder if the thought was to have the ACC absorb the BE and, instead, the BE is trying to survive and by default giving some voice to the have-nots.

[iam416]

I'm not sure if expansion is for the above-stated purposes. I think it's mostly for football reasons. The golden goose that the Universities still don't have is the NCAA tournament.

[entropy]

very smart of ISU>>>


Iowa State announced a 10-year, $20 million contract with Paul Rhoads on Friday, hoping to keep the promising young coach with the Cyclones for years to come.

Rhoads, who is completing his third year as coach of the Cyclones, said in a statement from the school that he was "appreciative and humbled."

His five-year deal that ran through 2013 paid him $1.15 million this year. The school said the total value of the new contract was $20 million, with specific terms to be released later.

"The support of everyone in Cyclone Nation has been fantastic," said Rhoads, who is 18-19 overall as a head coach, all at Iowa State.

Iowa State pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the season by beating then-No. 2 Oklahoma State. Iowa State (6-6) is ben writes about all things involving the Big 12 in the conference blog.playing in the New Era Pinstripe Bowl against Rutgers (8-4) on Dec. 30, the school's second postseason trip in three years.

The 44-year-old Rhoads is wildly popular in Iowa and fans broke a nearly three-decade old attendance mark this fall.

"Today is a great day for Iowa State University," athletic director Jamie Pollard said. "Paul Rhoads and Iowa State are a perfect match for one another and we could not be happier that he is going to be our football coach for the long term."

Rhoads was hired in December 2008 as Iowa State tried to pick up the pieces after a 2-10 season and Gene Chizik's abrupt departure for Auburn. Rhoads' teams have shown steady improvement and pulled off some huge wins behind his spread offense and stingy defense.

The victory over Oklahoma State was the program's first over a top 5 team in 59 tries. Earlier in Rhoads' tenure, Iowa State knocked off Nebraska 9-7 and last year won at Texas 28-21 -- the first road wins over ranked opponents in consecutive seasons by Iowa State since 1976-77. The Cyclones also beat Minnesota 14-13 in the 2009 Insight Bowl.

Rhoads grew up in Iowa and was a defensive assistant with the Cyclones at Iowa in the mid- and late 1990s. He later was defensive coordinator at Pitt (2000-07) and Auburn (2008), putting together aggressive units that ranked among the nation's best.

Now he is rolling in Ames. He helped the Cyclones overcome a number of distractions this season, including a quarterback controversy as junior college transfer Steele Jantz fizzled and was replaced by Jared Barnett.