Kickoff Zone College Football Blog

As most of our readers probably know by this point, Brigham Young University announced that it will leave the MWC and declare itself an independent last night.

It wasn’t a logical move.  I mean… to put it bluntly… who cares?  BYU is not Notre Dame.  They don’t have the Catholic appeal that would attract an NBC to cover their home games, their program does not have the tradition of Notre Dame, nor do they have the backroom muscle of the Irish to strongarm BCS officials into accepting them into a major bowl game.

Even the hometown Salt Lake Tribune seems to be a bit lukewarm on the matter.  Personally, I can’t decide if they are just delusional or delusionally arrogant. 

Don’t get me wrong, BYU has some tradition and history, and can boast of a national championship and stars such as Steve Young and Jim McMahon. 

Our latest issue of the Kickoff has some interesting statistics concerning the winningest programs of each of the past four decades, and if you look at BYU, you just don’t see the type of authority they need to be taken seriously as an independent.  They were the 3rd winningest program of the 1980s, but during that run, they were nationally ranked only 81 out of 159 AP polls that were released during that time period.

In other words, the 3rd winningest program of the 1980s was only ranked in the Top 25 roughly 50% of the decade.  Compare that to Ohio State, the 16th winningest program of the 1980s, but were ranked in 110 out of the 159 AP polls that were released during the decade.  BYU won 79.1% of their games in the 80’s, but were ranked in 50% of the polls.  In comparison, Ohio State won 69% of their games, but were ranked in 69% of the AP polls.  The University of Southern California were the 18th winningest program of the 1980s, winning 67.9% of their games in the 1980s, but were ranked in 72% of the AP polls released.  Even Southern Methodist University were ranked for roughly the same amount of time during BYU’s winningest decade, and SMU had to deal with being handed the “death penalty” by the NCAA during that timeframe.

The point of these statistics is this…  if you don’t have enough respect on a national level, nobody is going to pay attention to you when you aren’t winning conference championships.  Look at the Army and Navy football programs. 

Yes, the ultimate goal of the BYU program is to gain acceptance into the Pac 10, and by becoming an independent, they likely want to prove to the conference powers that be that they carry enough weight on their own to warrant an inclusion.  However that may play out, I don’t see it ever happening.

Tags: BYU, Brigham Young University, College Football Picks, College Football Power Rankings, Mountain West Conference, NCAA, Notre Dame University, Preseason Prognostications, Schedule, Top 25, bcs, expansion, recap, rumor mill by Tommy
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As if on cue, former Notre Dame coach and current star of late night ESPN television Lou Holtz has done a 180 on the idea of Notre joining the Big Ten.

From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

Lou Holtz changed his mind. He thinks Notre Dame should join the Big Ten.

“I’m an old man, and all my life I’ve said that Notre Dame should remain independent because it’s a national school,” said Holtz, a former Fighting Irish coach who was in the Twin Cities last weekend. “We played the very best in the country from Texas to Tennessee to Miami of Florida to Southern Cal.

“However, two days ago was the first time I’ve ever said that I think Notre Dame ought to seriously consider joining the Big Ten.

I’m willing to bet that Mark “my homeboy”  May is saving this for ammunition come football season.  Of course, if Dr. Lou finally decides to run for congress, his opponents can use the always lethal ”flip flop” charge.

Tags: Big 10 Conference, College Football, Conference realignment, NCAA, Notre Dame University, Schedule, bcs, expansion, rumor mill by Tommy
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There is a great article that was published by the Chicago Tribune yesterday concerning Notre Dame and their stubborn, yet proud, assertion of their own independence.  It can’t be argued that the Irish still carry a great deal of influence within the ranks of college football.  If Texas has taken over the number one ranking on the “behind the curtain” college football power ranking system that I discussed yesterday, the Irish haven’t fallen that far behind them. 

The Golden Domers still wield a big stick financially, but are mediocre on the field.  The facts are that the Irish haven’t won a National Title in 22 years, and haven’t put an above average football team on the field since Lou Holtz left after the 1996 season.  Since 1994, they are 1-9 in bowl games- their lone victory coming against the University of Hawaii in a minor bowl.  For a team that carries as much influence as Notre Dame off the field, that’s downright embarrassing.

Asserting your independence is always admirable, but their supporters shouldn’t expect for their program to be respected when their product on the field is never more than mediocre.  Until then, they shouldn’t be considered national title contenders, their star players shouldn’t be on any short list for the Heisman Trophy, and they shouldn’t be talked about for at large BCS Bowl bids when all they are going to do is embarrass themselves on the field because of their talent deficiency. 

Seriously… just because Beano Cook thinks Ron Pawlus is a perennial Heisman frontrunner doesn’t make him one.  Jimmy Clausen was hyped as a potential number one draft pick, but then dropped to the middle of the second round before finally being selected.  Why?  Well… because it’s not really all that impressive when you put up big numbers against mediocre competition.  At the present time, close games against the University of Michigan does not seal legendary status across the nation.  Nobody is buying the hype that comes with playing at Notre Dame anymore.  If they want that respect, then join the Big 10.  Compete against Penn State, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, etc… on a yearly basis.  Army and Navy are traditional rivals, but don’t expect the country to take notice when victories over them are the highlight of the season.

Notre Dame’s biggest problem is that outside of their sizeable fan base.. nobody really cares that much any more.  Nobody considers a victory over the Fighting Irish all that much of an accomplishment anymore.

Tags: Big 10 Conference, College Football, College Football Power Rankings, Conference realignment, NCAA, Notre Dame University, Schedule, bcs, rumor mill by Tommy
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Andy Staples, of Sports Illustrated, highlighted that college football is ultimately ruled by the “golden rule,” but not the one that your parents taught you as a child.  According to Staples, “… conference realignments have always been governed by the Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.”

Hopefully, we can put rest to all this talk of conference expansion shortly and focus on the upcoming football season, but I gotta tell ya, this soap opera has been so entertaining that it’s hard not to write about it.  It’s the worst kind of politics played out in the college arena, complete with shady backroom deals, intimidation, strong arms, arrogant administrators, “the little guys” standing up to “big brother,” lying, backstabing, and everything else usually reserved for sleazy politicos and bad daytime television.  At the same time, it puts a whole new spin on the term “power rankings” when it comes to college football.  In other words, this type of power ranking has nothing to do with on the field play.

In a sense, being ranked in the top 25 of a preseason poll has little bearing on who really is in the top 25 of a true “power ranking.”  Think about it… as we head into the 2010 college football season, some teams that will be nowhere near the top of the preseason polls undoubtedly rank near the top of this power ranking system.  This isn’t about sportsmanship, but about which programs wield the most power to force the men in charge into swift action.  Jeff Jacobs (of the Hartford Courant) shares a similar viewpoint as I do, stating that, “Armageddon is avoided and Texas bullets to No. 1 in the real college power ratings.”

It’s  likely for the best that this came to a standstill with minimal disturbance for the time being (Nebraska’s move not withstanding).  From the LA Times:

The Pac-10’s failure to execute, in a fallout twist, may have been the best thing that could have happened.

Not for the Pac-10, maybe, but for college football.

Imagine if Scott had succeeded. The creation of the Pac-16 would have triggered a chain reaction that probably would have caused conferences to crumble.

The Southeastern Conference was not going to idly watch a super conference rise in the West. The SEC made that clear by making a late play for Texas A&M, a move that may have spike-stripped Texas’ package deal plans to join the Pac-10.

To get even with the Pac-16, the SEC might have raided the Atlantic Coast, possibly of Florida State and Miami, Georgia Tech and Clemson. And the ACC might have countered by raiding the Big East.

The Big Ten might not have stopped not at Nebraska and moved to pick off three or four Big East schools.

The result could have been four 16-team conferences and tombstones for the Big 12 and the Big East. The gap between the haves and have-nots would have been greater than it is today.

But it didn’t happen.

Incredibly, though, once it was safe to uncover your eyes, there was remarkably little blood spilled.

Dan Wetzel, who last week wrote what may be the definitive piece regarding college football expansion, has published a follow up that sheds more light on why the Pac 10 ultimately failed in its quest to expand to 16 teams.

With Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe in charge, a furious weekend of phone calls, planning sessions and analysis reports allowed the league to secure a potential television deal, a revenue sharing plan and new sales pitch that proved tempting enough to stop lynchpin Texas from jumping to the Pac-10.

The TV contract, which like some other details hasn’t been formalized, promises Texas and Oklahoma an oversized share of revenue that could reach over $20 million per year, on pace with the industry-best Big Ten. League schools are also free to start their own cable networks which could prove worth up to another $5 million annually for UT and OU, the league’s two most popular teams.

Armed with a strong position in the Big 12, Texas returned to the Pac-10 and asked for a similar deal – the right to its own network (not just part of a Pac-16 channel) and an oversized revenue share, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. Larry Scott turned it down.

In the end, Pac 10 czar Larry Scott actually comes out looking better than I thought he would because of his refusal to cave in to the University of Texas’ demands of special treatment.  Texas, on the other hand, will be seen as saviors of a dying league by their fans, but will likely have a rather large target on their backs for the rest of the country.  They are now likely to be viewed in similar fashion to USC and Notre Dame- loved by their fans, but reviled by the rest of the nation.

Hopefully in the next few days, the media will be able to put this topic to bed, for the time being, and shift its focus to what really matters, the upcoming season that will be played on the field.

Tags: Big 10 Conference, Big XII Conference, College Football, College Football Power Rankings, Conference realignment, Hot Seat, NCAA, Notre Dame University, Oklahoma University, Schedule, Southeastern Conference, Texas A & M University, Texas Tech University, Top 25, University of Texas, bcs, coaching carousel, pac 10, recap, rumor mill by Tommy
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With the news that the University of  Texas has spurned the Pac 10 and will remain in the Big XII, it looks as though quite a few folks have egg on their face. 

Here are some basic points to understand all the chaos that has been going on for the past few weeks:

1.  The Big XII is not going anywhere. 

With the commitment of four of their major programs, including Texas and Oklahoma, the Big XII will be fine.  They have the option to replace the departed Colorado and Nebraska with possibly a TCU or a Houston, or they can stay with their current ten teams for the time being.

2. The Pac 10 has “massive egg on face.” 

When Pac 10 commissioner Larry Scott got the OK to pursue expanding his conference, I would be willing to be that the University of Colorado would be “the jewel” of the expansion crown.  If you’re going to walk the walk, you gotta talk the talk, and the Pac 10 now will likely have to accept a school like Utah or UNLV to reach the 12 teams required to form two divisions.  BYU would be a logical choice, but the word is that their are some egos on California’s Berkely campus that would rather chew broken glass than accept a religious university into their ranks.

3.  The Big XII will survive, but they got played.

The Big XII will be around for years to come apparently, but who knows how these other schools will react to the way the University of Texas strong armed the conference into special treatment.  The arrogance with which their institution behaved throughout this whole process should be quite insulting to a school like Oklahoma, whose football program has more Big XII championships over the last decade, and who arguably have one of the most successful programs in the history of NCAA football.  The folks in Norman have to be quietly fuming at the notion that their football program is apparently a 2nd class citizen in a conference that they have dominated since it’s formation in 1996.

4.  The Big Ten and Nebraska come out of this winners, but where will they go from here?

While the Pac 10 looks like a bunch of buffoons and the Big XII celebrates their own survival, the Big Ten has added a traditional powerhouse to their ranks.  The question is where will they go from here?  It’s no secret that they want to increase their number of schools to 16, but where will they find these schools?  The obvious choice would be the University of Notre Dame, but the Irish have so far withstood all pressure to give up their independent status.  The University of Pittsburgh would be a nice addition, but other than that, there aren’t really any major programs that would be willing and available.  It remains to be seen whether or not the University of Cincinnati will be able to maintain their recent success now that coach Brian Kelly has moved on, and I don’t see much enthusiasm for adding schools like Rutgers or Miami (OH).  It would be a letdown after the hype following Nebraska.

Tags: Big 10 Conference, Big XII Conference, College Football, College Football Power Rankings, Conference realignment, NCAA, News, Notre Dame University, Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma University, Schedule, Southeastern Conference, Texas A & M University, bcs, pac 10, recap, rumor mill by Tommy
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