Clarion Content

This weekend provided the perfect demonstration of why schools from mid-major conferences should never sniff the college football national championship game until there is a playoff¹. People say all the time that the so called mid-major football schools like Boise State and TCU have no idea how tough it would be to play a real conference schedule.



This weekend was ample demonstration. The bottom dwellers in powerhouse football conferences, like the SEC and the Big 12, provide an unprecedented degrees of difficulty for schools used to beating up on the little sisters of the poor in conference. Last year while whining about missing out on a BCS bowl, TCU beat New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado State and UNLV en route to winning the Mountain West Conference.

Yesterday in their first season in the Big 12, TCU got beat by Big 12 doormat, Iowa State. Just to give you some perspective, Iowa State is 27 up and 40 down since 2007, and hasn't had a coach finish with a winning record at the school since Earl Bruce, who's tenure ended in 1978. Yet in big time football conferences, everybody is trying to improve every year, and Iowa State has been getting incrementally better under Coach Paul Rhodes.

Hey TCU, this is what big boy football looks like. And Boise State, you are an even bigger joke who would struggle to finish .500 in the PAC-12, let alone the SEC. So please, be quiet and enjoy the Poinsettia Bowl.

We also have a remarkable note from the least of the "big time" football conferences, the ACC. Duke football is 5-1 overall, 2-0 in conference. You want to talk perennial football doldrums?!? Duke hasn't been 5-1 since this year's freshmen were a mere one and two years-old, 1994, when they were still coached by Steve Spurrier. As Mel Allen would say, "Now how about that?"


Notes
¹Where if they can earn their way in with victories, more power to them.

Labels: college football, NCAA, sports

Special to the Clarion Content...

Open letter to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill fans, alumni, students, faculty, administrators, and staff:

When I moved to North Carolina in 1997, transplanted as it were, with a girlfriend attending UNC Law School, I found out rapidly that as an avid sports fan, it was necessary to choose sides. [Or at least be able to make a good case why you hadn't.]

I grew up in New Jersey. I went to college at Indiana University. Naturally, I chose Duke. Duke is the state university of New Jersey of the South. Coach K was weaned under legendary Indiana Coach Bob Knight.

My UNC friends said, fine, or more accurately, "Whatever!!"

They reminded me, don't forget us. We're special. We're different. We do things the Carolina Way. I respected Carolina, but I didn't really know what they meant. When I arrived in the area the Dean Smith era was ending, I didn't appreciate the concept.

Since I have been here, I have seen the highs and the lows athletically for University of North Carolina as an institution. In football, from the depths of the Carl Torbush era to the heights of Mack Brown's run. In basketball, from the depths of the Guthridge-Doherty transition to the heights of two national championships. Carolina is always in the running for what used to be known as the Sears Cup, which is awarded annually to the university with the most success overall in collegiate athletics. All this warranted respect. And I respected Carolina.

Yet, I never truly understood what was meant by the Carolina Way. I knew the connotation of the Carolina Way was deeper than winning. Sometimes to see things clearly it takes a crisis.

This year, during the heart of a football scandal that enveloped the school, I finally started to get it. The recent counter-example of how a similar football scandal was handled at The Ohio State University this year hammered the point home. The Carolina way meant appreciating the fundamental Nixonian and Judeo-Christian lesson. It is the cover-up, not the crime.

All of us, as humans, are fallible. It is not whether or not we will fail, it what we do after the failure. President Nixon was disgraced and forced to resign his office in shame, not so much for the crime, as for repeatedly lying to the American nation about it. The Judeo-Christian culture and American society are very forgiving of our politicians, athletes, celebrities and frankly, each other. It is a bedrock of who we are. But forthrightness, honesty, a willingness to admit wrongdoing is the key.

Last season, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was embroiled in a football scandal and media maelstrom near as sketchy sounding as the one that has enveloped Ohio State. It was agents, assistant coaches and loose money in Chapel Hill, tattoo, cars and cash for uniforms and access at Ohio State.

U-G-L-Y.

In both cases.

But how did these two universities proceed to handle these crises?

The University of North Carolina preemptively suspended twelve football players for the opening game and arguably the biggest game of its regular season against top-tier program LSU. The suspensions included several players who were ultimately cleared by the investigation.

The Ohio State University petitioned the NCAA to allow five players who have been shown to be in the middle of the dirty dealings that the coach knew about at the time to participate in the Sugar Bowl.

The University of North Carolina extended and expanded its review as fully and completely as possible.

The Ohio State University limited the scope of its investigation and prematurely attempted to clear their coach.

The University of North Carolina thoroughly interrogated their football coach, Butch Davis, and ultimately elected to go forward with him.

The Ohio State University initially suspended their football coach, Jim Tressel, two games, a wrist-slap, then a further half-measure, making the suspension five games, before ultimately facing it had to fire him.

The University of North Carolina's Athletic Director Dick Baddour pushed the investigation in an attempt to find and expunge any and all dirt. Compare; Baddour, "it is likely that the review would extend beyond the start of the season...as an institution, we must learn from these mistakes and work with the NCAA and others who love the game of football to repair the environment in which they occurred."

The Ohio State University's Athletic Director Gene Smith gushed over his coach and attempted to quash the investigation. Compare; Smith, "Wherever we end up at the end of the day, Jim Tressel is our football coach. All the speculation about him being terminated is pure speculation. This case, in my view, does not warrant it...He is our coach and we trust him implicitly."

What about the university's respective leadership?

The University of North Carolina's Chancellor Holden Thorpe, in the beginning,

"We will find out what happened. We will do everything we can to keep it from happening again. And we will not let these mistakes define our university and what we stand for."

and in the end,

"We pledged that we would go where the facts took us, that we would find out how this happened, and that we would do everything we could to figure out how to keep it from happening again. In crises like this, it is tempting to come up with a quick fix, but it is almost always better to endure the speculation while the facts are gathered...we have found no information that Coach Davis was involved in any of the problems that surfaced...All along, my chief concern has been protecting the University’s academic integrity..."

The Ohio State University's President Gordon Gee made clear where he stood in the hierarchy when asked in March about firing Tressel, "No, are you kidding? Let me just be very clear: I'm just hopeful the coach doesn't dismiss me."

UNC fans, alumni, students and administrators, hold your heads high. The Carolina way really is different, even if it took the Ohio State University for this Duke fan to see it. You should be proud of your distinction. The right way is not synonymous with the easy way. We all do wrong, the measure is in what do we do after we do wrong. The University of North Carolina did not shy from its mistakes and missteps. It plunged in and met the challenge head-on, in the process doing much to secure its deserved reputation as a place of honor.

Keep up the good work. Much respect.

Aaron Mandel
Durham, NC

Labels: college football, corruption, Pop Culture, sports, thought

The SEC can always be counted on to top itself, that is to say, when you think that you have seen just how slimy it get can get, the SEC is happy to demonstrate it can go lower still. So in off-season where March saw four Auburn football players charged with first degree robbery, in an incident where students in an off-campus house were robbed at gunpoint, the University of Georgia is angling to beat that standard.

The Auburn robbers included the leading tackler on the national title team. UGA can trump that however, because this week they demonstrated that they like players who are criminals while they are still star high school recruits. Over at Auburn and Alabama, you have to wait until you get into school to become a felon, not at Georgia.

Seven Georgia players were the victims of locker-room thefts of iPods, iPhones and other small electronic devices. Whodunnit? Allegedly, three top Georgia football recruits who stole the items during an open house event at the Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall. Because the value of the property stolen did not exceed $1,500 the recruits in question were only charged with misdemeanor theft, clearly, leaving Alabama and Auburn free to argue that they recruit guys that are harder than that...

As ESPN SEC blogger Chris Low notes, this likely will hardlly even slow the recruiting of these kids in the scum filled pond that is SEC football, "Talent usually wins out, even when a kid has a troubled past." So that even after word of this incident broke, two of the three recruits involved were invited by Nick Saban and Alabama to attend their Spring football game.

Labels: college football, Ethically questionable, NCAA, sports, Sports Economics

The ink was hardly dry on the Clarion Content's last critical post about Auburn football, four of their players were charged with armed robbery and kicked off the team, before HBO was airing a scandalous documentary about the university.

HBO's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" aired an episode that included four former Auburn football players saying they were paid during their time at the school. Does this shock anyone? Is their any meaning left in the phrase institutional control when it comes to the state of Alabama, home of the last two college football national champions?

Labels: college football, Ethically questionable, NCAA

Very legitimate...

Well, well, well we can hardly believe what we are reading on ESPN.com this morning. Four players from Auburn's football team were arrested for five counts of first-degree robbery, one count of first-degree burglary -- both of which are felonies -- and one count of third-degree theft. Reportedly, three men entered a house off-campus, displayed a gun and robbed the residents.

Their vehicle was stopped by police, a pistol and stolen property were recovered, and the four players were taken into custody. They are being held on $511,000 bail. Three of them were part of Auburn's 2010 recruiting class. The fourth was their leading tackler in the national championship game last year. All four have been kicked off the team.

Read more here.

Labels: college football, Ethically questionable, NCAA

We ran across an article in the San Francisco Chronicle that cited a wonderful little piece of investigative journalism by The Sports Business Journal. Did you know, dear readers, that twenty-three of the college bowls are ostensibly non-profit foundations? Nonprofit organizations like those that operate the bowls are not allowed under the federal tax code to give excessive salaries or perks could be seen as using charitable funds to enrich private individuals.

Yet The Sports Business Journal found that:

the Outback Bowl paid Jim McVay $808,032
the Sugar Bowl paid Paul Hoolahan $645,386
the Sugar Bowl also paid Jeff Hundley $398,023
the Chick-fil-A Bowl paid Gary Stokan $504,444
the Chick-fil-A Bowl also paid David Epps $210,013
the Cotton Bowl paid Rick Baker $419,873
the Alamo Bowl paid Derrick Fox $419,045
the Fiesta Bowl paid John Junker $415,118
the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl paid Gary Cavalli $377,475
the Orange Bowl paid Eric Poms $357,722

These bowls are all ostensibly non-profit organizations!

And the Obama administration just agreed to extend all these guys tax breaks.

The societal train has jumped the tracks.

Labels: college football, Ethically questionable, NCAA, Sports Economics

The Clarion Content has long been a vocal opponent of ACC expansion. We do not believe in diluting one's core brand, in this case outstanding basketball, for the vain hope of improvement in something that has never been a core competency, football. The ACC has been a classic case for our point of view. The new schools (Va Tech excepted) have not made the ACC any better at football. In fact, the ACC has dragged Florida State and Miami, once perennial college football powers, down to its level of mediocrity.

Now the second stage is kicking in, loss of focus has gradually damaged ACC basketball. The last two years of ACC basketball, save at the very top of the conference, have been some of the weakest ACC basketball in its history. More than once, a .500 record in league play has not been good enough to qualify an ACC team for the Big Dance. In the league's heyday, as the nation's premier basketball conference, that never would have happened. This year, the ACC is even worse.

For the first time since the poll's inception, the ESPN/USA Today Coaches' Poll this week has not only just one ranked ACC team, #1 Duke, but beyond that, not a single other ACC team so much as received votes. None. That had never happened before; Duke stands alone. How the mighty have fallen!

Labels: college basketball, college football, Duke, sports

Curious what Oregon football is about? They will be playing in the National Championship game versus the cheaters from Auburn. Michael Sokolove wrote a fascinating profile in the New York Times Magazine last month.

Oregon's Coach Chip Kelly told Sokolove, "If someone says to me, 'What do you stand for? I should be able to invite them to practice and in five minutes, they’d say: 'I see it. I get it.' They stand for playing hard and playing fast."

Sokolove notes John Wooden, the legendary U.C.L.A. basketball coach, was known for fast-paced practices that reduced the need for aerobic training. Kelly has taken a page from Wooden's playbook. Oregon may ride that vision all the national championship.

Read the whole article here.

Labels: college football, sports

We said it over on our Twitter feed, but it bears repeating. The NCAA drove another nail into the coffin of its demise with the capricious, arbitrary ruling it issued yesterday on the eligibility of Auburn quarterback Cam Newton.

For those of you not familiar with the story, in brief: Newton's father, a minister, solicited $200,000 from Mississippi State University in an effort to influence his son's decision about where he might play college football. (Oh and theoretically attend classes.) Mississippi State balked. The scam was outed in recent weeks. The NCAA, despite rules explicitly stating the opposite, said yesterday that because it had no evidence that the younger Newton and Auburn knew about the attempted racketeering of father, Cam Newton would be eligible to play.

This is all relevant because Newton's latest (he also attended Univ. of Fl., and a junior college in his illustrious academic career) school, Auburn, is vying for the BCS National Championship of college football. The whole enterprise could hardly be more corrupt. But that is not the issue today, the issue today that has folks up in arms, especially USC and UNC supporters is the utter hypocrisy of the NCAA. The NCAA previously severely punished USC despite the university's lack of knowledge about its star recruit's parents' extortion. UNC withheld football players from participating in games for much smaller offenses, to its own detriment.

The NCAA's ruling on Auburn not only kicks sand in their faces, but costs them money. Lots of money.

Their supporters are livid, as is every college football fan who is not an Auburn undergrad or alum.

The NCAA was already going to be dissolved in the next not so many years because the big football schools did not want to divide the football revenue pie so many ways. The Clarion Content noted this during the college football preseason when conference expansion and realignment was all the talk. Yesterday's ruling on Cam Newton just pushed forward the date this epic realignment and finally a college football playoff arrive.

Labels: college football, discrimination, Economy, Predictions, sports

As we warned in our post the other day, the end zones set up for college football at Wrigley Field looked mighty risky. The Big 10 decided at the last moment they agree. The game will be played with one end zone.

Yep you read that right, dear readers. One end zone. Never seen that before. What is this high school inter-murals? Are we talking about practice?

Nope it is the real deal. Here is the summary of the rules changes from ESPN.

All offensive plays will head toward the West end zone, including all extra points and all overtime possessions.

All kickoffs will be kicked toward the East end zone.

After every change of possession, the ball will be repositioned for the offense to head toward the West end zone.

Wow. Hard to imagine.

Labels: college football, Pop Culture, sports

Mama said knock you out! Oops upside the head, said oops upside the head.

Why are these are things that the announcers at the Illinois-Northwestern college football game might say this weekend? To lighten the mood?

Illinois and Northwestern are playing at Wrigley Field.



The famous baseball diamond with its ivy covered brick walls. Said brick walls are, approximately, twelve inches behind the back of the end zone at some points under the rightfield grandstand.

The other end zone along the third base dugout is no peach either. They cribbed the let's host a college football game idea from Yankee Stadium, but Wrigley looks great.

They have added extra padding to the brick outfield walls. With all the concussion discussion that has been in the air in recent months, we here at the Clarion Content, hope they carefully weighed the players well-being and safety against the value of the all-mighty dollar.

Playing at Wrigley Field will most definitely sell some ducats.

Labels: college football, sports, Sports Economics

Stevie Johnson is the Buffalo Bills rookie sensation at wide receiver. He has had a monster start to his career, with six TDs and nearly 600 yards on a struggling team, in just the first ten weeks. It turns out, however, Mr. Johnson, aka Steve Styles, is multi-talented.

We heard our man free-styling on Jim Rome today and had to dig a little deeper. Check him out. He has got some skills.

Labels: college football, NFL, Pop Culture

Early leader for ACC player of the year? Duke's Sean Renfree

Once again the ACC football programs started the season highly regarded, five teams ranked in the top 25. There is exactly one left, Miami at #17. The Clarion Content has beat this drum for ages, but expansion not only hurt the existing ACC football programs, it dragged perennial national football powerhouses Florida State and Miami down to the ACC's level: craptastic.

This week saw a plethora of losses for the ACC. Miami, formerly known as the "U", lost on the road to #2, Ohio State. Back in the day, this would have been a speed match-up, and Miami would have blown by Ohio State. Recruiting in Miami is not the same since they joined the ACC.

Florida State got spanked at #10 Oklahoma. We guess classlessly running Bobby Bowden out of town did not do them any good.

Georgia Tech helped Kansas break an eight game losing streak. The week previous Kansas and Clarion Content fave, Turner Gill, could not beat North Dakota State, managing only three points. Georgia Tech was the cure they needed.

Virginia Tech coming off a thrilling game, but last minute loss, to BCS pretender Boise State, got beat by Division I-AA James Madison. AT HOME!

League doormat Virginia actually had a good showing, losing a close game to a down USC program. North Carolina State won at Central Florida.

Not very impressive as a league. Why do people keep buying into ACC Football? It is far and away the worst BCS conference.

Labels: college football, sports

These beavers may not be as innocent as they appear...

That's right sports fans, Oregon State Beaver alumni could not be prouder today. They are trying to move their football team to the same level as the Oregon Ducks, a program that has recently burst on the national scene, both for their on-field ability and for the off-field likelihood of their athletes ending up in the slammer.

The incident: A drunk, naked Oregon State offensive lineman, Tyler Patrick Thomas, broke into the home of a thirty-two year-old woman in Corvallis, Oregon. Illegal and unimpressive, however what happened next is about the wackiest college football arrest since Lawrence Phillips of Nebraska fame broke into his ex-girlfriend's house and "made a tail."

According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the nineteen year-old Thomas, who hails from Kalispell, Montana was ordered by the police to get down on the floor. The bare ass Thomas assumed a three-point football stance and charged in his birthday suit at the cops. They tasered him into submission and took him into custody. He was charged with first-degree criminal trespass, second-degree criminal mischief and resisting arrest, as well as possession of alcohol by a minor.

Ooops.

He has been kicked off of the Oregon State football team.

Incidentally, Lawrence Phillips, who played parts of two seasons with the Rams and was the reason why the team gave away future Hall of Famer, Jerome, "The Bus" Bettis to the Steelers, is now serving thirty-one years in California State Prison for various violent crimes.

Ahhhh, college football season.

Labels: college football, Ethically questionable

The BCS was always BS...

Talk of the consolidation of college football's major conferences has been all the rage this week. Today it looks as if it is becoming official, with University of Colorado's announcement that it is joining the PAC-10 and the University of Nebraska announcement that it is bolting the Big 12 for the Big 10. This will very quickly make the Big 12 no mas, as most of the remaining teams will seize the opportunity to make the PAC-10 a sixteen team league.

As wily observers know this is all about the haves and have-nots amongst the college football power players. The expansion of PAC-10 to a sixteen team league will be followed in short order by the Big-10 and SEC expanding to sixteen team leagues. The ACC will also be reluctantly forced to do so to ally with the college football superpowers. This will allow these four conferences to sideline the NCAA, as well as the BCS and have their own college football playoff. It is all about the dead presidents and there is no reason for the college football programs with the juice to split the Division I-A college football revenue pie one-hundred and eleven ways when they can reduce that split to sixty-four.

There is an interesting analysis about how this came about by Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports here. However that is looking backward, the Clarion Content is more fascinated by how things will turn out going forward. Our prediction is it will not be long before the Big East is a basketball only league again. Villanova, St. John's and Georgetown will not mind. The question is what happens to the storied and not so storied programs from the current BCS conferences that end up on the outside looking in at the money. Our speculation on the schools that might end up on that list would include Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State and UConn. These schools along with the already jilted: Utah, Utah State, Boise State and Fresno States of the world may be made enough to actually get congressional action this time.

Have the college football commissioners warned the university presidents that their radical schemes for the future might bring about anti-trust lawsuits and Department of Justice maneuvering. President Obama signaled way back in the election campaign that he was pro-college football playoff, but by any means necessary?

The Clarion Content is pro-college football playoff too, but it is easy to feel genuine concern that money has distorted the system so badly that these schools are losing track of their education mission to their student bodies and their duty to the college athlete. And maybe this was already so under the corrupt and co-opted NCAA, but will this consolidation make it any better? Quien sabe?

Labels: college football, Ethically questionable, Politics, Predictions, sports, Sports Economics

One of our loyal Ohio readers forwarded along this video clip which roasts former Tennessee Volunteers coach Lane Kiffin to the tune of Runaway Train by Soul Asylum.

Labels: college football, Ethically questionable, Pop Culture, sports

The best team in the country was???

The Clarion Content was just excoriating the Obama administration last week on our politics page for its failure to object to the merger between two existing harmful monopolies, Ticketmaster and Live Nation. There is better news out of Washington, D.C. today. While the President was courtside watching the Duke game yesterday afternoon, with Veep Joe Biden who looked like he couldn't tell the teams apart without a program, the Justice Department was indicating its preliminary willingness to look into a harmful sports monopoly, the college football Bowl Championship Series (BCS).

The BCS is, of course, prima facie an anti-competitive system. It is deliberately designed to exclude and minimize opportunities for schools not in the six "power" conferences. The BCS worked just as its designers intended this year when it denied undefeated Boise State and Texas Christian a chance to compete for the national title. In fact, it not only excluded these schools from a national title game or any opportunity to play in one, but in a fit of extreme protectionism, it refused to allow them to play any team from the so-called power conferences in a BCS sanctioned bowl.

This behavior is monopolistic and highly objectionable. It would be bad enough if it were perpetrated by a private entity, but coming from an organization that includes many public universities, it is genuinely perverse. We agree, of course, that there are far bigger problems facing the country. However, we are glad to see the Obama administration is at least on the right side of this anti-trust issue. Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote in a letter to Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, a leading rabblerouser on the topic, that, "This seemingly discriminatory action with regard to revenues and access have raised questions regarding whether the BCS potentially runs afoul of the nation's antitrust laws...The administration shares your belief that the current lack of a college football national championship playoff with respect to the highest division of college football ... raises important questions affecting millions of fans, colleges and universities, players and other interested parties."

Is it going anywhere? Probably not, much more likely it is strictly for public consumption, and the Obama folks showed their true colors in raising nary an objection of significance to the merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation which will raise the already ridiculous prices for concert tickets even higher. The BCS signaled its inclination to continue to ignore any and all objections in a statement released by its chairman, "This letter is nothing new and if the Justice Department thought there was a case to be made, they likely would have made it already."

Labels: college football, Ethically questionable, sports, Sports Economics

Who's ready to take on the Trojans?

We could not have said it better than ESPN columnist Pat Forde did, "Paris Hilton has paid more dues than Lane Kiffin."

We are predicting that Lane Kiffin does about as well with USC football as Tim Floyd did with USC basketball. USC Athletic Director, Mike Garrett, can take credit for both hires. For those of you who do not recall, Floyd's Trojans looked good for a minute, making it all the way to the Sweet Sixteen (once). Unfortunately, four years after his arrival Floyd resigned as the head coach, USC vacated its 21 wins from the 2007-08 season, and ordered self-imposed sanctions which included withdrawing from postseason consideration (including the Pac-10 tournament) for the 2009-10 season.

Kiffin leaves Tennessee fourteen months into a five year contract, one game over .500, with a string of "minor" NCAA violations in his wake.

Smooth move, Ex-Lax, errrr, AD Garrett.

Labels: college football, Ethically questionable, sports

They are dusting off the name of John Cappelletti this weekend. Who is John Cappelletti you ask? He was the tailback and one of the leaders on Joe Paterno's undefeated 1973 Penn State Nittany Lions. On a 12-0 team, Cappelletti rushed for 1,522 yards and 17 touchdowns in 1973. He closed the season with three straight 200 yards rushing games, including 220 against the North Carolina State Wolfpack.

Cappelletti, from Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, won the Maxwell Award, the UPI College Football Player of the Year, and the Walter Camp Award. He was also the 1973 Heisman Trophy winner. This weekend they are dusting off his name because of what he has in common with one of the leading candidates for the 2009 Heisman, Stanford running back, Toby Gerhart.

Gerhart led the NCAA Division-I in rushing this year with more than 1,700 yards. He also led the country in touchdowns with 26. He won the Doak Walker award, annually given to the best running back in college football. He faces some stiff competition in New York tonight. Florida quarterback Tim Tebow is seeking to join Ohio State legend, Archie Griffin, as the only two time winners. Nebraska defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh is seeking to become the first defensive player to win since Charles Woodson in 1997. (Woodson also returned punts and played a little wideout, meaning Suh could become the first exclusively defensive player to win the award.)

Gehart, should he win would become the first PAC-10 winner from a school not named USC since 1970. He would also become the first player to win the Heisman from a four loss team since 1969. But neither of these are his connection to Cappelletti. Gehart, should he win tonight, would be the first white running back to win the Heisman since his Penn State predecessor.

Labels: college football, sports

This weekend is a perfect exemplar of the good and the bad of college football. In Durham, North Carolina, the staff of the Clarion Content is hanging on breathlessly hoping that somehow, some way the Duke Blue Devils can pull out a road upset against the all-world athletes of Miami of Florida. Were Duke able to pull off the win, they would remain bowl eligible going into their final game of the season against Wake Forest.

This is the good. The argument is that every game matters. Michigan versus Ohio State today, records aside, the game still has serious bragging rights at stake. Just because coach Rich Rodriguez is a trainwreck at Michigan does not make the game less valuable to the Big Blue alumni. You think Ohio State's fans want to win any less just because Michigan is terrible? The fact that Michigan is about to complete it's first back to back sub .500 seasons in more than 40 years would just make it all the more frustrating for Buckeye backers were their team to lose.

Despite our interest here in Duke, and the great rivalry game the midwest, or even other matches of consequence like North Carolina vying for bowl seedings versus Boston College in Chestnut Hill, or Arizona and Oregon meeting in a PAC-10 match-up, there is a problem. It does not infect the great PA battle between Lafayette and Leigh, which has the Lafayette Leopards hoping for a big win to secure an at-large bid into the Division I-AA, playoffs. And there it is! The geniuses that run the BCS refuse to allow any semblance of on the field battle for the national championship of Division I.

This beauty contest/gymnastics/figure skating method of voting for the best team rather than deciding it on the field incentivizes awfulness. This weak, whoops, week, #1 Florida is playing Florida International of the Sun Belt Conference. #2 Alamaba is playing Chattanooga of the Southern Conference. As of this moment they lead by a combined 80 to 3. Cupcakes for all! Even Texas with a potentially more legitimate opponent from the Big 12, has lucked into, the 1 up and 5 down in conference, Kansas Jayhawks. There is but a single match-up of top 25 teams, the Stanford-Cal game. This is the bad of college football. And its pretty putrid, because...

The faux national championship is securely in the hands of the judges. Boise State and TCU may be preemptively ruled out. Sorry. The winner of SEC conference title game is guaranteed a spot, allegedly. Cincinnati is be punished for being from the least favored of eligible conferences. Who is the best team? How would anyone know?

The Clarion Content would love to watch the coaching savvy of Georgia Tech's Paul Johnson in an eight team playoff. Too bad.

Labels: college football, Ethically questionable, sports, Sports Economics