Allen Kenney and Aaron Torres look back at all the big games from the third weekend of the 2011 college football season, including Oklahoma's big win over Florida State, Ohio State's dreadful performance against Miami and Florida re-emerges. Aaron and Allen also look ahead to some of the biggest games of the upcoming weekend, including LSU-West Virginia and Oklahoma State-Texas A&M.

Like CBR on Facebook

Follow CBR on Twitter

I had every intention of sitting down and penning a thoughtful, detailed perspective on Jim Delany fiddling while college football burns.  While the ACC, SEC, and Pac 12 were all appearing to make moves to expand to 16 teams and reach SuperConference status... the Big Ten was sitting on the sidelines.  Think about the madness we've seen in the last few days and imagine the impossibility of the Big Ten, the torchbearer of realignment, being involved in none of it.  

Pitt and Syracuse are moving from the Big East to the ACC.  UConn and maybe even Rutgers were rumored to be going too.  West Virginia was and then wasn't going to the SEC.  Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Texas Tech were all heading westward to the Pac 12.  What was left of the Big XII and the Big East were going to come together.  But, if the Big XII was going to be killed off, then Missouri was going to get a coveted SEC invite to be team #14.  Even Conference USA and the Mountain West wanted to get in on the action and merge, because hey, everyone else is doing it!  Due to contractual obligations with the BCS, Notre Dame's name has been tossed around as an expansion target, this time for the ACC.  Seemingly everyone including Cumberland College was involved in some sort of realignment rumor.

And yet, the Big Ten was nowhere to be seen.  Was Jim Delany too busy straining to come up with more stupid looking trophies or figuring out if he was more of a legend or a leader?  Was he having a staring contest with himself?  From afar, it was a strategic plan that didn't make a lot of sense...

With the impending era of the SuperConference, why wouldn't Jim Delany be proactive in expansion like he appeared to be during the first chapter of this drama?  What happened to the visionary behind the Big Ten Network and the upheaval of the NCAA?  In being passive through realignment, the B1G could get caught on the outside looking in.  What if Delany lost Notre Dame, Texas, Pitt, West Virginia, Maryland, Missouri, Kansas, and Rutgers as viable options.  (I never understood the Big Ten's reported infatuation with Rutgers and the New York media market... like Manhattan is populated with nothing but Scarlet Knights fans?  Really?)  If the SEC, Pac 12, and ACC and even the Zombie Big XII/East all reached 16 teams first, wouldn't Jim Delany and the Big Ten be forced to follow suit?  And if so, why settle for reacting to what the ACC does?  Why not make the other conferences react to you and strike with a vengance?  

I was all ready and willing to question this baffling lack of movement from the Big Ten and declare their future as the SuperConference version of the Little Sisters of the Poor.  Who would they grab to fill out the four slots - Iowa State?  Toledo?  Temple?  Mount Union???

And then, Delany's kindred spirit, Larry Scott, cut the red wire and disconnected the nuclear realignment bomb and by some sort of weird, twisted, detailed logic, made Delany look like a genius.  But we'll get back to Delany in another 800 words or so.  First, Scott announced the Pac 12 shockingly wasn't expanding in a message delivered late last night.  This statement was released...

Penn State's Joe Paterno once envisioned a super conference in the east and urged other programs to get on board with this idea. It turned out that schools such as Pittsburgh, Temple, Syracuse, West Virginia and Boston College liked his idea and rolled with it without Paterno to form the Big East. Many Penn State fans will tell you those old rivals did not want to be a part of a conference with Penn State because they feared the Nittany Lions would dominate in conference play. At the time these decisions were made, it made sense. Penn State was a power program and only Pittsburgh could legitimately hang with them on an annual basis.

Now all of those schools, except for Temple, are a part of one of the first of the emerging super conferences in the ACC (Pittsburgh and Syracuse wil join in 2014) and some are saying the Nittany Lions would be a great pick-up for the ACC in a move to 16 members. Andrew Jones of FOX Sports South and FOX Sports Carolina addressed the idea earlier this week by writing that the ACC should go after Penn State and Notre Dame.

Allow me to say this for the third time this week. It's not going to happen, but that doesn't mean it should. That's right, I fully believe that Penn State could be well off, perhaps better off in the ACC than in the Big Ten.

I have had a number of Penn State fans suggest to me that it is just not an academic fit for the school to be in the ACC. Penn State has established a number of valuable relationships in the Big Ten for research projects and funding and perhaps there would be a negative effect with switching conferences, but since when was it a bad thing to be in the same group as schools like Duke, Virginia, Wake Forest and North Carolina, just to name a few. According to the most recent US News college rankings, Penn State is the fourth highest in the Big Ten. They would be smack-dab in the middle in the ACC with the additions of Pittsburgh and Syracuse. Something tells me Penn State would still find a way to benefit academically in the ACC. And who is to say they could not continue some relationships with Big Ten institutions? It is not uncommon for universities to work with other schools affiliated in different conferences.

Oh yeah, I forgot. That is all about football, right?

Well let's talk about football.

Week three of the College Football Season is in the books and the week was highlighted by a great game between Oklahoma and FSU. Last week was week two of our Bloguin Heisman Poll as it made its debut here on Crystal Ball Run. The season is moving quickly and we realize it's a little bit early to start the Heisman discussion but there certainly seems to be a clear group of players separating themselves from the pack.

Here is what you'll see each week in the Bloguin Heisman Poll:
-The Top 5 total vote getters and quotes from bloggers in support of their candidates.
-A list of all players that receive votes in the Bloguin Heisman Poll
-Poll Notes that look at some of the interesting facts, figures, and trends of the poll.
-The BHP Roll Call of voters, the links to their respective blogs and their twitter accounts.

Without any further adieu, the Bloguin Heisman Poll...

It appears as though finally, mercifully, the massive college football realignment chatter that has plagued the airwaves for months is finally starting to piece itself together. No more conjecture, opinion and off the record comments. Just teams switching up conferences the way Derek Jeter does girlfriends. We are seemingly on our way to some sort of closure.

What started with Texas A&M’s move to the SEC last week, and Pitt and Syracuse to the ACC over the weekend took another step Tuesday, as it appears as though Missouri has been verbally invited to the SEC party, as the conference’s 14th member. Nothing is official, and it is all predicated on the final demise of the Big XII. But if (and likely when) that happens, Missouri will be joining their friends in the Southeast portion of the country.

no comments

With the LSU Tigers facing another big weekend test against West Virginia this Saturday, we decided to welcome Kris Brauner of the excellent LSU website SaturdayNightSlant.com for another round of Five Burning Questions.

This week Kris discusses the change in opinion on Les Miles, college football's deepest defense, and when LSU fans can start thinking about a chance to play for the Crystal Ball.

(Also, be sure to follow Kris for all sorts of LSU analysis on Twitter @SNSlant)

1. There are so many angles I could take with these questions, but let me start with this: Above all, I feel like the Oregon win (and obviously the subsequent victory over Mississippi State) has changed the "Les Miles narrative." For once people are forgetting about all the grass-eating, fake-field-goal-calling non-sense, and focusing on the fact that Les is just a really good coach. Do you sense the same? If so, are you happy that those headlines have changed? As someone who deals Les on a day-to-day basis, is it fair?

I do sense the same, and I do think it's fair.  Les has always been goofy.  That's part of his persona.  But he has also always been a good football coach.  For better or worse, a lot of that was hidden under his big hat due to quirky interviews and some legendary clock management blunders.  But at the end of the day, the proof of his coaching ability lies in his resume.  LSU has won 11 or more games in four of Miles' six seasons in Baton Rouge, including one crystal ball.  He's a great big game coach.  He recruits very well.  His players love him and play hard for him. 

no comments

It's all about survival.

If the remnants of the Big East and Big XII are going to survive, it appears likely the two BCS Conferences will need to merge—and then hope it can retain a spot at the BIG BOY table.

The new look Big East/Big 12 might have enough juice to retain some privileges. If no one else bolts—and we all know how unlikely that is—here is the likely division breakdown:

• Big 12 Division: Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri and TCU
• Big East Division: Cincinnati, Connecticut, South Florida, Rutgers, Louisville and West Virginia

It's not bad, but it lacks a big hitter. The major players (excluding Missouri, TCU and West Virginia) have been poached already.

Naturally, this is no SEC, Big Ten, Pac-12 or even an ACC. It is better than the Mountain West or even the potential merger of the MWC and Conference USA.

There's nothing gained by trying to place blame, but clearly we live in a copycat environment and with football driving the train money is more important than integrity and loyalty. no comments

This week's edition of Meeting of the Minds asks the CBR brain trust what the objective of the BCS should be.

Allen Kenney: Every week when writers/coaches/bloggers submit their ballots for the various top 25 polls, we see the same trend play out. Generally, it appears that what a team has actually done on the field is less important to voters than their opinion on how good a team really is.

My question is simple: At the end of the year in the BCS title game, which pairing would you rather see: the two teams that you think would beat everyone else, or the the two teams that you think accomplished the most during the season?

Michael Felder: Easy, the two best teams. Meaning teams I think would beat everyone else. That's what it is all about to me. That's why 2007 LSU was awesome to see and that's why I had a tough time moving 2007 USC, UGA and 2010 Bama down in the rankings.

I want to see the best teams play. Generally they also tend to be the most accomplished teams so that's a win-win situation for this guy.  

Kevin McGuire: Yeah, playing off what Michael said, I want to see the two best teams and more often than not the teams that accomplish the most on the field will be the two best standing at the end of the year. That said, I also wanted to see Boise State get a chance two years ago and TCU a chance last year as well. To me, winning every game on your schedule tells me you have accomplished everything you need to do in order to prove you are the best and worthy of a shot at a title. It happens, but Auburn and Oregon were the two best teams last year, and Alabama and Texas were the two best the year before. I can't argue with either match-up to be honest with you.

Lost in the shuffle of the Mark Richt hot-seat chatter of the last few weeks, is that there is another coach down in SEC country whose seat is just as smoldering as the maligned Georgia coach’s. That would be the man he’s facing this weekend, the Reverend Houston Nutt at Ole Miss.

And understand this: While the hotness of Nutt’s seat isn’t as apparent as Richt’s, it is there. After winning nine games in his first two seasons (thanks in large part to the bounty of talent that previous coach Ed Orgeron had recruited), the Rebels fell off the map last year, going 4-8. Included were just one conference win (against Kentucky), and even more embarrassingly, a season opening loss to FCS school Jacksonville State. Want to know the even scarier part? Had it not been for maligned Oregon transfer Jeremiah Masoli, things could’ve been even worse.

And this year things haven’t gotten much better, as the Rebels are off to a 1-2 start. The sole victory came over FCS opponent Southern Illinois (hey, at least they won their gimme FCS game this year, right?), which was sandwiched between losses to BYU on the opening weekend, and Vanderbilt Saturday. The loss to the Commodores was especially embarrassing, as the Rebels scored their only touchdown with just two minutes left in the game, after the final score was long in doubt. Again, against Vanderbilt, which- last time we checked- is hardly an SEC power.

All in all, Nutt’s time appears to be ticking in Oxford, and athletics director Pete Boone did little to quell the hot-seat talk, as he released a statement this afternoon.

So, is everyone sick of realignment talk yet? Well no need to worry, as there are some good old-fashioned NCAA violations just popped up for us to discuss instead!

All joking aside, the University of South Carolina was sent a pretty lengthy Notice of Allegations today, and quite frankly, things aren’t looking very good. The allegations center around discounted hotel room rates (where football players and other athletes lived), as well as impermissible benefits provided to recruits from a service known as the “Student-Athlete Mentoring Foundation.” The hotel discounts went on from May 2009 to October 2010 and the recruiting violations from the spring of 2009 through February 2011.

Of the two violations, the more serious one seems to be the hotel rooms. In total, 12 athletes received over $47,000 in discounts on the rooms, in large part thanks to the fact that some were given a rate of just $14.29 per night, which we can say with most certainty wasn’t the correct room rate. Some of the athletes received the rate longer than others, with the most egregious violators getting it for around 14 months (In total, the worst offender received over $19,000 in impermissible benefits in discounted room rates alone).

Im addition to all that, it should also be noted that of the 12 athletes, nine were allowed to defer their rent payment, which is of course, a violation in its own right. According to the Twitter account of South Carolina beat writer Josh Kendall, the manager of the Whitney Hotel, Jamie Blevins has been disassociated with the athletics program. So too were Kevin Lahn and Steve Gordon, who provided the impermissible recruiting benefits.

no comments