The Rest of College Football

[entropy]

He said what?

Posted by: Steve Sipple on June 2, 2012 at 8:09AM CST

We got a peek into James Franklin's soul this week.

Many folks no doubt were repulsed by what they saw.

Granted, you may not have even heard of James Franklin. Well, he's the head football coach at Vanderbilt. The fact he ascended to such a prestigious position at such a prestigious university gives one pause.

The guy evidently is about as shallow as they come.

Franklin, during a radio interview earlier this week, said one of the first things he does when looking at perspective hires is size up their wives.

"I've been saying it for a long time, I will not hire an assistant coach until I've seen his wife," Franklin told the radio show. "If she looks the part, and she's a D-I recruit, then you got a chance to get hired. That's part of the deal."

Franklin apparently formed this line of thinking from the movie "Moneyball" in which Brad Pitt quips: "Ugly girlfriend means no confidence."

You need confidence to recruit players effectively, Franklin said.

"I've been saying this for a long time ..."

Well, he won't be saying it anymore, at least not publicly.

The coach apologized Thursday in a string of comments on Twitter, saying he regrets how he conveyed his message and that his foot doesn't taste too good.

Vanderbilt vice chancellor David Williams said in a prepared statement that he and Franklin discussed ''how inappropriate and offensive'' Franklin's comments were ''no matter his state of mind or intent.''

Safe to say Franklin lost a lot of fans, assuming he had any in the first place.

[entropy]

http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/8000546/sec-lenient-discipline-marijuana-investigation-says

SEC lenient on drug suspensions

[entropy]

Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany and the league's presidents and chancellors left their sand bags, stone tablets and megaphones at home Sunday.

Unlike the SEC, the Big Ten likely won't emerge from its presidents' meeting drawing lines and making bold, rigid statements about a college football playoff. All indications are there will be no official position when Delany, University of Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman and Indiana University president Michael McRobbie address reporters Monday morning. The Big Ten brass will narrow down its ideas and desires, but it welcomes more dialogue during the rest of June, when three key meetings take place -- June 13 (BCS) and June 19-20 (all NCAA Division I commissioners) in Chicago, and June 26 (BCS presidential oversight committee) in Washington -- that should shape the postseason model.

Big Ten officials are well aware that making bold statements during an ongoing negotiation can end up backfiring, and unlike the SEC, they don't want to go there. University of Florida president Bernie Machen, a member of the presidential oversight committee alongside Perlman, said last week that the SEC "won't compromise" on the best four teams model, and that the Big Ten has "got to get real."

The Big Ten has taken a measured approach since May 17, 2011, when it first discussed a new postseason model with its football coaches at the spring meetings in Chicago. The league went into the process with two objectives: be open to outcome and protect the Rose Bowl as much as possible. That's it.

Since that initial discussion, the Big Ten has had more than 50 playoff meetings and conference calls, both internally and externally with other leagues, bowl officials and the like. Aside from needing to protect the Rose Bowl partnership, the Big Ten hasn't taken a firm position, which has created mixed messages and confusion outside the conference. But no doors have been closed.

There's support in the Big Ten for a playoff model that includes the top three rated conference champions -- as long as they're rated in the top 6 -- and a wild card spot for a worthy non-champion or independent like No. 2 Alabama last season. The league views this model as the closest to the playoff models used in professional sports.

As SI.com's Stewart Mandel pointed out last week:

In the 14-year BCS era, 42 of the 56 teams that finished in the top four of the BCS standings won their conference championship. That's 75 percent, which is the same exact number a three-and-one system would guarantee. Only five times in 14 years would a top four team have been left out for failing to win its conference, and all five occasions involved flipping the No. 4 and 5 teams. There would never have been a No. 3 left out or a No. 6 let in.


Still, the Big Ten isn't completely wedded to the "three-and-one" concept.

This much is known: the Big Ten strongly favors a selection committee to determine the playoff participants. Eliminate bogus polls. Eliminate most if not all the computer rankings. Assemble a group of senior officials with strong representation throughout college football who meet and decide the four teams.

Bottom line: the human element should be paramount.

The league wants the committee to enter its deliberations with some instructions, much like a jury has during a trial. The Big Ten wants the committee to value league championships, head-to-head results and strength of schedule, much like the NCAA men's basketball tournament selection committee does. The committee wouldn't write off non-champions or non-division winners, but those shortcomings would impact a team's r?sum? or potential tiebreakers between two teams.

One big question: Would the committee enter the room with a clear directive (i.e. pick the top three league champions and one wild card) or suggested guidelines?

While some Big Ten teams have been criticized for soft nonconference scheduling in years past, the league, like others, is adamant that schedule strength be a huge factor in determining playoff participants. The "best four teams" model, which sounds great in principle, could allow teams to live on their league's past reputation and avoid scheduling tough nonconference foes. That is, unless a selection committee could penalize a team for having a soft slate. Locking in some conference champions would encourage teams to challenge themselves outside their conference and not be penalized for it.

In other words, last year's Oregon squad wouldn't pay the price for opening its season with a loss to LSU, winning the Pac-12, crushing Stanford at Stanford Stadium but slipping behind Stanford in the final BCS standings because of a late-season loss to USC. Oregon's league championship would take precedence in the final evaluation.

No league should want its champion left out of a playoff in favor of a team it outclassed between the lines. Again, this isn't about No. 2 vs. No. 6, where the separation is clear. It's about No. 4 vs. No. 5.

Other items you should know:

While the initial model could be decided by the end of June, some important elements might not be determined until the fall, when the BCS begins television negotiations.
Although there's some support for a "plus-one" model among Big Ten and Pac-12 presidents, it still seems likelier they adopt a true four-team playoff.
TV likely will have less influence on the playoff model than many believe. The TV folks want great games, and none of the models being discussed would impede this.


We'll have more on the playoff topic and more after Delany, Perlman and McRobbie talk with reporters, so stay tuned.

[whodean]

Delany says he agrees w SEC that the four best teams should comprise the Final Four

[hack]

The human element should be paramount? Stupid. This'll be another short-term thing until somebody rigs it, blows it up or lobbies it into silliness like with the current system.

[lineygoblue]

The media will scream like little girls if they don't have a way to jerry-rig the playoffs to their own liking. Screw what the fans want. Its all about the media.

[entropy]

Espn will cry the are not deciding.

[Wild Hoss]

It seems as though the Big Ten's position is changing by the day. Shit needs to be gotten together, starting with the idea that the league's relationship with the Rose Bowl is not the most important thing in this entire dicussion.

[entropy]

[Mike]

Reading the Big East column had me laughing my ass off! Especially with regard to "leverage".

[Tony G]

stole that. good one

[lineygoblue]

They forgot the "independents" column

[THE_WIZARD_]

They forgot the Notre Dame column.

Fixed that for ya

[entropy]

It would probably read.. "hello, we're still here.. hello.."

[lineygoblue]

Thanks, Wiz