bcs

Unattributed from Colley Matrix computer poll / Archived from MGoBlue.com

Earlier this week Brian discussed the latest iteration of college football's playoff structure. While the commissioners try to get a ratification whip count from the states and techs etc., we're now left with a far narrower scope of playoff possibilities to argue, opine, and get ignored about. The number of teams is probably four. The parameters:

• Site: Current bowls or home games for higher seeds.
• Decision Process: BCS-like system or committee

At the moment I'm much more concerned with the first. Fortunately we have an entire BCS history's worth of trials to test these things. So let's just imagine that a four-team playoff was instituted in 1998 instead of the BCS.

Actually I did something similar last December to decide how big the field should be (answer: six). The point of this exercise is a little different in focusing on a four-team system; hopefully it'll give us a preview of what we're getting into. Perhaps by running through BCS history we can anticipate the kinds of controversies a four-team playoff will generate, and which iniquities of the current system will be eradicated.

Fortune Favors Where the Heart Is

Brian's all for home games and so am I, but that's because I'm a college football fan who likes campuses and pageantry and bands playing associative 19th century marching tunes and sidelines where the subs aren't $3.99 sandwiches. Fortunately money is on the side of home games too. Travel costs are at least halved, yes, but the capacities also increase by an average of 10,000 per game.

I got that number by re-seeding the last 14 years of BCS playoffs as if it was a four-team instead of two-team playoff, and showing the capacities of the home stadia they might have played in versus the bowl games they would have been assigned via a host's tie-in system:

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* Miami finished 4th and Washington 3rd in the BCS standing, but I swapped them to avoid an FSU-Miami rematch.

† 10-1 Washington is in over 10-1 VT and 10-1 Oregon State.

‡ Nebraska/Colorado/Oregon is a mess. I figured 2 losses mean Colorado takes the back seat, and Oregon gets screwed by the committee who don't want a game in Eugene if they can avoid it.

§ Another mess. The committee could as easily put USC here to face Michigan.

‖ Texas and Cal were both ranked higher than Utah, but Utah gets nod so that 4/5 undefeated teams are in the playoffs Boise State is out.

¶ I put Michigan as the No. 2 and host since bumping Florida no longer avoids a rematch.

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And the numbers:

In 1998 a difference of 10,000 seats might have been made up for by the bowl venues because of their luxury boxes and better concessions, but since then the big-time collegiate venues, i.e. the ones most likely to be ranked in the Top 2 at the end of the regular season, have more than caught up to the pros in every regard except in-stadium advertising (for good reason). Meanwhile the only bowl venue comparable to the homes of D-I power programs is the Rose (a college stadium).

There were some calls I had to make in there, for example LSU won't increase its capacity to 99,500 until 2014 (they're at 93,000 now). And U-Phoenix Stadium was listed at its maximum football capacity to date, not the one they say they can get to with their ultra-hydro-matic seating expansion system™, because if they couldn't whip them out for the Superbowl why would they have them for an NCAA semi-final?

Sanity-checking, I did this initially using real numbers—taking the largest announced capacities for each host's and bowl's venue for that year (example: Neyland Stadium's 107,653 in 1998 is from the '98 Florida game)—and the numbers barely moved. Avg. capacity for home games: 88,489; Avg. capacity for bowls: 77,877. Same difference.

Future-proofing the dolla dolla bill y'all advantage, college football stadiums are growing in capacity while the bowl stadiums aren't.

I emphasize this because the bits of conversation leaking from the commisionerati keep fearing things like Cincinnati (Nippert Stadium: 35,097) finishing in the Top 2. Looking above there are just four games in 28 in which a stadium of under 80,000 capacity would have hosted: Autzen's 54,000 once, Virginia Tech's 66,000 once, and two games at Miami (YTM)'s home, which is the same place they play the Orange Bowl.

This is our concern Lebowski

I don't believe the dreaded small venue is that much of a threat. Paul Brown Stadium is three miles away from Nippert and is tapped often for "big" games like West Virginia and Louisville. TCU is in Fort Worth, spitting distance from JerryWorld. Boise State sneaking in after trouncing the now mid-major Big East is the real concern, but they've been handily kept out of the Top Two so far; if it actually comes down to undefeated Boise getting a home seed, either suck it up and let them have the most important event in Idaho history they deserve after being so good so long, or find a way to slide a 2-loss SEC team ahead of them and ride out the now-standard outrage.

Brian mentioned the bowl games aren't worried about selling out since they sell mostly to scalpers who then assume the risk/reward of the eventual matchup, but this also creates a middle-man scenario. The reason scalpers do this is the market is almost always higher than the face value once the teams are decided, with fans commonly paying three times the initial value. If you want to know how to flow this price variance to the athletic departments instead of the scalpers, just have Dave Brandon give his seminar on Creating the Future™ to ADs; a huge donation to get on the waiting list for season tickets feels like fleecing, but if I'm paying $300 on Stubhub now, why wouldn't I donate $200 to the university to reserve my $100 seat?

There Is a Downside to Home Games

And I just hinted at a big one just now: any controversy a four-team field avoids over a two-team field, it gains back again by having either pollsters, computers, or committees parsing between nearly identical seasons to decide who hosts the #2-#3 game. All it takes is one petulant Dantonio (or Urban Meyer PR campaign, or Fulmer with Heisman envy) to swap Gators in the Big House for Wolverines in the Swamp.

Add that to the fact that you just swapped the "who's in" wrangling from 2-3 to 4-5, and now there's at least two teams every season likely to believe they got screwed. Neutral site games at least neutralize any advantage gained by being #2 rather than #3. Of course it also neutralizes the advantage of being #1 versus #4 (except for a vaguely easier matchup in the first round). There is a possibility of a compromise solution here where #1 plays #4 at home but the 2-3 game goes to a predetermined neutral site. Of course now you're just shifting that argument to 1-2.

Another advantage of using the bowls—to the ADs, not the fans—is that home games at college stadiums invite the nasty beast of student tickets. Students pay more now than they ever did (my senior year was $85) but it's still way less than alumni. Make them buy general admission for a semifinal game and you invite the inevitable Daily column and Diag outrage. Give 'em the student discount and you just wiped out much of your 10,000-toushie advantage. Go to a bowl and the question is moot.

ADDED: I forgot (and meant to) mention that another consideration against home sites is that the teams themselves would probably rather travel. The big schools use their bowl trips and bowl swag to reward the players and recruit new ones. Roy Roundtree (just using him as an e.g. senior everyone likes) would probably take the free trip to Pasadena over another home game in Ann Arbor if you put it to him that way. The big thing the bowls have going for them is that the teams themselves love traveling to the bowls.

A Few Case Studies

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What happened: Tennessee came in 12-0 and an obvious No. 1, but there was some debate about who should play them. Florida State, near the peak of their powers, was the most sensible pick. Other claimants included one-loss Kansas State and Ohio State, both behind FSU more for the timing of their one loss than anything else. Tulane went undefeated spread 'n shredding a Conf-USA schedule. Arizona and Wisconsin also went 11-1.

And then we had a big debate about: Mostly that Kansas State wasn't invited to any BCS bowl; they ended up losing to Purdue in the Alamo.

If we had a playoff: Tennessee hosts Ohio State, Kansas State visits Tallahassee, and nobody complains but Tulane. The normal tie-ins for bowls fit just as nicely.

Outcome: Few thought Ohio State or Kansas State were better than Florida State so this works out either way.

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What happened: Oklahoma was undefeated and an obvious #1. After that it was an inbred mess of one-loss teams. Florida State's loss was to one-loss Miami (YTM), as was V-Tech's only loss. Miami only lost to Washington, who only lost to Oregon, who had two losses one of which being to Oregon State, who only lost to Washington. FSU got the nod because they're Florida State.

And then we had a big debate about: If only Henson had been healthy all year. And the whole head-to-head-to-head thing.

If we had a playoff game: Well you leave out Oregon State and VT, though everyone but the fans of those teams could be down with that. But now you need to do some fiddling to avoid a rematch in the semifinals. For this reason you want FSU playing Washington, but which one hosts? Probably Florida State, and Miami has to be content with facing Oklahoma when they thought they should be hosts themselves.

Outcome: This illustrates the playoff problem of rematches, which if not controlled by a committee of sorts would become twice as likely now that twice as many teams are in the playoffs.

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What happened: Similar situation as the previous year, fewer teams, more debate. Miami was obviously #1 and mentioned among the best teams ever. Nebraska thought they might be in that conversation until losing to Colorado, who went on to win the Big XII championship but had two losses. And then there's Oregon, as justifiable and as ignored in the year-long, racial-overtoned Huskers vs. Canes fest as Joey Harrington's Heisman-level campaign. Nebraska got the nod, and got demolished.

And then we had a big debate about: If you don't even win your conference… Nobody mentioned Oregon, which I thought was very weird and spent most of a night trying to convince the Daily sports editor to back over Colorado.

If we had a playoff game: Hooray they're all in. Again there's the rematch situation that's easily solved by having Colorado be the fourth seed and Oregon visit Nebraska. We all win.

Outcome: Here we see how a neutral site isn't necessarily a home game, since a Miami home game and the Orange Bowl are the same thing. On the other hand you're trading Tempe for Nebraska in early January.

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What happened: There were three viable one-loss teams and only two spots. The BCS used computers to judge the strength of a season to make up for pollsters' obsession with shiny things and whatever happened three seconds ago, and this resulted in LSU and Oklahoma playing with USC left out despite being #1 to both polls of people who are easily distracted by Reggie Bush. The AP rebelled and said it would stick with USC if they beat Michigan in the Rose Bowl.

And then we had a big debate about: How computers and statistics and the hard realities of the world around us are not nearly as important to the greater human experience as the world that we perceive, that what makes us human is this capacity for fallibility, that we can make choices of the heart even in the face of concrete logical evidence. If you think otherwise then you're a pointy-eared bastard.

If we had a playoff game: Well there's three one-loss teams and then a whole slew of relatively even two-loss teams. However the 5th ranked one had just lost to the 4th ranked one, which was Michigan. So John Navarre and co. travel to Norman while USC faces LSU.

Outcome: I actually like our chances against Oklahoma. Not love, but like better than USC. Oh right, hypothetical. Well USC going to Baton Rouge instead of staying in L.A. because of a computer would bother them just as much as going to New Orleans instead of the Rose Bowl because of a computer.

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What happened: Virtually the same thing, different result. Three undefeated teams on top plus two undefeated mid-majors, and two one-loss teams between them.

And then we had a big debate about: How Auburn could be left out because pollsters don't care about strength of schedule and the computers were neutered.

If we had a playoff game: Well now Auburn is in but who plays USC? Can Mack Brown downvote Cal to get the Longhorns into the playoffs instead of the Rose Bowl? Or do they take the Bears for having lost only to USC (and do they play at USC again, or do we move the #1 seed so now Auburn's playing USC? Or do we take 11-0 Utah and skip the be-loss'ed teams? Then what about Boise State? Eh, screw Boise. Oklahoma gets Utah and Auburn visits USC.

Outcome: This is a classic example of how odd numbers screw with playoffs. A two-team playoff left out Auburn; a four-team playoff now elevates the Texas-Cal dishonesty to playoff proportions. That's why I said they ought to take Utah. What I don't want to see is for the system to force them to take an undefeated 6th seed over a 1-loss four-seed. I'm pretty sure by this point that I'm for a committee, not a ranking system, determining the seeds.

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What happened: You already know about [deep echoey voice] FOOTBALL ARMAGEDDON and the result.

And then we had a big debate about: You know that too.

If we had a playoff game: Now the question is which two-loss team between LSU and USC? And down the line there's still one-loss Louisville, one-loss Wisconsin, and undefeated Boise State. This time I invite the Broncos, because there's such a clear line between Michigan's season and LSU's (at this point anyway).

Outcome: Here's the 2 or 3 problem. We know Florida got in when Michigan's prima facie case was far stronger, but that was to avoid a rematch of [deep voice] FOOTBALL ARMAGEDDON. Would they do the same just to avoid a January date in the vicinity of Great Lakes?

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What happened: Final BCS Standings: 1. Oklahoma (12-1), 2. Florida (12-1), 3. Texas (11-1), 4. Alabama (12-1), 5. USC (11-1), 6. Utah 12-0, 7. Texas Tech (11-1), 8. Penn State (11-1), 9. Boise State (12-0)

And then we had a big debate about: All of the things.

If we had a playoff game: Half of the things.

Outcome: Expanding to four teams does not guarantee a national champ.

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What happened: Five teams finished undefeated, and Florida had only lost to Bama in the SEC championship game. Since only two of the undefeated teams were from real BCS conferences (We had to be reminded multiple times that season that Cincy was in the Big East. q.v.) it was an easy choice.

And then we had a big debate about: How mid-majors who play perfect seasons always get screwed, even after they are careful to add at least one football team to their schedules full of Rocky Mountain mime schools.

If we had a playoff game: Boise still gets left out, Bama and Texas munch on snackycake undefeated teams before the inevitable matchup between them.

Outcome: You got the idea awhile ago. The following year TCU was undefeated and left out of an otherwise obvious matchup of Auburn and Oregon.

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What happened: LSU was 13-0, and had already beaten No. 2 Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Okie State and Stanford made one-loss runs that nobody thought were as good as Bama's season. So we played the rematch nobody wanted to see outside the SEC, and horror of horrors the original loser won by enough to win the battle of "my win over you was better than your win over me, let's lolz at everyone else who is puny for not cutting their bad players and replacing them with robots! lolz lolz lolz S-E-C!"

And then we had a big debate about: How we need a playoffs.

If we had a playoff game: For the first time it would have been almost perfect.

Outcome: As with every other BCS season, the perfect system for any given year is the one implemented next year.

1999, 2000, 2002, and 2005 are examples of when a four-team playoff would have overly complicated a relatively simple field of two. This ought to be a greater concern than whether a school that seats 35,000 and doesn't have access to an NFL venue nearby will end up ranked in the Top 2. I believe an option to skip the semifinals in obvious situations would ensure they have the right playoff every year, but that creates its own problems.

Birthday shout-out to my little brother. You're getting MGoShirts again.

…says Bill Hancock! But they're doing it anyway.

If Michigan can't host at Michigan Stadium this is the second-best option.

Stewart Mandel is the latest guy to throw his sources in the ring in re: what the exact specifics of the Four-Team Event shall be. His version of reality is this:

Multiple sources with direct knowledge of last week's discussions in South Florida have confirmed to SI.com that the new favored proposal for a four-team playoff within the bowl system would place the two semifinal games at the traditional anchor bowls of the No. 1 and 2 teams' conferences. For example, No. 1 Alabama of the SEC would host the No. 4 team in the Sugar Bowl, while No. 2 USC of the Pac-12 would host the No. 3 team in the Rose Bowl.

This would have blown up the traditional Rose Bowl in five of the last 14 years, six if you want to throw Nebraska's presence as the Big 12 North Division Co-Champion in the mix. That's nearly half the time and is the kind of thing that makes Jim Delany's fists open and close helplessly.

Home sites are still in the running, though:

That said, it's no certainty the conferences will opt for bowl-hosted semifinals. Contrary to some reports, on-campus sites remain "very much alive," according to two sources. One said the commissioners left the meetings split about "60-40" in favor of using bowl sites. They will present all remaining proposals to their respective conference presidents, athletic directors and coaches at league meetings in late May and early June to gauge their preferences before reconvening June 20 in Chicago.

There are five conferences who matter. You can guess the 40% opposed to the bowl sites right now. For a lot of reasons—amongst them a desire to maybe not have to fly across the country to see a bowl-type event and a belief that bowls are institutionalized stealing from unpaid student athletes—I'm with them.

Q: Can Jim Delany actually pull off the home sites plan? He stared down Comcast, won, and got the Big Ten their massive pile of money that no one save Michigan and Ohio State is bothering to use. ("Oh, hai, I'm Tim Beckman. You may remember me from that one screen Eric Page took for 70 yards on Tuesday night, and by 'one' I mean 'six.'")

Here's he's got one ally-type substance in the Pac-12, two conferences content to leave the status quo as is because it's generally beneficial (SEC, Big 12) to them… and then you've got the ACC and maybe Big East.

Does anyone care about the Big East? Unknown. If they did have a vote you'd think they lean towards home games. Home games would be nice in the event one of their teams ever makes it into the top two; perhaps more importantly for them, sucking four teams out of BCS bowls makes it likely even their oft-tattered champion is attractive enough most years.

As for the ACC, they're in an odd spot because two of the teams expected to be relevant here are in Florida. The other is Virginia Tech. The rest of the conference is flung up and down the eastern seaboard, and will be more so when Pitt and Syracuse join. Here, too, you'd think a majority of schools would prefer hypothetically getting a local game instead of being on foreign turf. The conference might not like the idea of seeing their banner teams travel north, but here too the benefits of sucking four teams out of the sexy bowls would seem to be a big draw. The ACC hadn't gotten a second BCS bid in forever before Virginia Tech was selected for the Sugar last year.

Q: Does Delany have the chutzpah to take his ball and go home? Or threaten to? Probably not. If the Big Ten and Pac 12 walk, things will go one of two ways: 1) Delany gets his way, or 2) the league is fffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuu after having balkanized itself out of a Four Team Event that kinda pretty much is the national title. The Rose Bowl is great, but I don't think the kids are going to be down with that particular sickness. With their hippin' and their hopping, they don't know what the jazz is all about. /shakes fist at lawn

Q: Does this actually make sense for college football? Well, at least they're bidding out the final. They aren't concerned about selling out since it'll quickly turn into a Final Four/Super Bowl type event where it just sells out and then scalpers take on the risks and rewards of properly pricing the thing. So then you've got either a guaranteed sellout in a stadium that averages 80k+ over the years or some version of the current system except that the #2 game matters a lot more and fans are staring down the prospect of back to back trips.

Inevitably the travel will suck money that otherwise could have been given to college football—ticket prices go up, more get sold—and put teams in a spot where they're spending massive amounts of money on the same sorts of scams bowls are currently running. So, no. The whole will suffer to maintain the location bias that the South currently enjoys.

The most confusing thing in all of this is the persistent notion that the bowls have any leverage. Mandel:

An obvious hitch with the anchor-hosting proposal is that based on history, certain bowls would host semifinals far more often than others. For instance, had this concept been in place all along, the Sugar Bowl (SEC) would have hosted six straight semifinals from 2006-11, the Fiesta Bowl (Big 12) five of seven from 2003-09. The ACC, on the other hand, has not produced a No. 1 or 2 team in 12 years, meaning no semis for the Orange Bowl.

The Orange Bowl is upset. So? What is the Orange Bowl going to do, defect to lacrosse? No. They can only steal money from college football. They'll deal.

Q: Strength of schedule! That's not a question, or a thing that will happen. Maybe it will happen…

As for selecting the teams, the commissioners are a ways away from deciding whether to use a revised BCS formula, a selection committee or some combination of both. "The whole topic of selection and who would get in is something that we've really parked for now," said Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott. "We realize that's going to require a whole lot more debate and study." If they do employ a formula, sources said there's a near-universal desire to emphasize strength of schedule. One source said the commissioners also aren't keen on preseason polls, which could signal an end to using the USA Today Coaches' Poll.

…but as soon as this SOS component causes the system to pick someone other than the poll-anointed, it will be declared incorrect and dropped. See: the past.

Q: Will you take it? Yeah. Arguments that moving the line from two to four doesn't reduce controversy have always been ludicrous. Multiple undefeated top five teams have been given zero chance to win a national title in the BCS system. At the very least a four team playoff prevents the Auburn/TCU/Utah/Boise screwjob from ever happening again. Anything is better than what we've got now.

Mandel says he was never a fan of a playoff because it would make the NCAA an "NFL clone," which… 12 of the 32 NFL teams get in the playoffs. An equivalent NCAA playoff drawn from the five major conferences is 24 teams. Anything eight or below maintains almost all of the importance of the regular season to be okay.

Also, in the system Mandel details above the chances Hypothetical Host Big Ten team gets a virtual road game are low. Unless USC finishes in the exact spot to force a matchup, anyone going to that game will be flying. So it could be worse. Could be better. Could be worse.

Q: What happens if the Big 10 and Pac 12 are one-two? Or if there's a repeat of last year, when the top two teams are in the same conference? In the former situation I'd just run a Rose Bowl per normal. In situation two, I don't know, put it in Glendale or something. I'm vaguely hoping that Jerryworld pirates the Big 12 affiliation from Glendale and relegates the Fiesta Bowl to the status of the old Cotton Bowl.

On "Ohio" (not that OHIO). In 1995, Ohio sued OHIO(!!!) so they could use "Ohio" on shirts and stuff. Sweet Jesus that's a confusing sentence. A little clarity:

On Dec. 16, Ohio State University filed a petition with the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel Ohio University's trademark of "Ohio." The trademark, which was granted by the federal trademark office in 1995, applies to what is called a "secondary use" -- a use limited to university athletic events, entertainment and apparel.

In an op-ed run by The Dayton Daily News and The (Toledo) Blade, Ohio University Vice President for University Relations Adrie Nab said: "CNN, ESPN, the wire services, USA Today and most other national media refer in sports stories to Ohio University as 'Ohio,' just as they call Indiana University 'Indiana,' just as they call the University of Michigan 'Michigan.' The University of Michigan has a trademark for 'Michigan.' Indiana holds a trademark for 'Indiana.' Why shouldn't Ohio University hold a trademark for 'Ohio'?"

So call Ohio Ohio all you want. After all, Ohio tried to claim Ohio for its own, even taking it to the legal system when OHIO(!!!) wouldn't let them use "Ohio" for Ohio's desired purposes.

I'm going to lie down now and breathe into a paper bag.

LeVert visit. OHIO(!!!) decommit Caris Levert has scheduled some initial visits. There are three to Dayton, Purdue, and Michigan. "Xavier and maybe others" are also on the docket with a decision scheduled within a month. A Rivals dude claimed M, Purdue, and Iowa were LeVert's top three a couple days back.

Um… okay. An addendum to the BCS's anti-home-game arguments:

Where are people going to stay if Oregon hosts a semifinal game? In Portland?

Wherever they stay now? Also Portland is two hours away. I think people can deal. The BCS thinks this is an insurmountable logistical disaster.

Jason Kirk has some more details on the average capacity of a home semifinals, FWIW. Elsewhere, Dan Wetzel bombs the BCS boondoogle. This is a small portion of the money college football is burning by letting blazer-clad stripper enthusiasts run their postseason:

Major bowl games have the money. The most recent federal tax filings of Sugar Bowl Inc. show it ended its fiscal year with $34.2 million in assets, including $12.5 million in cash and $20.8 million in publicly traded securities. CEO Paul Hoolahan pocketed $593,718 in total compensation.

While financial numbers from this year aren't publicly available, the last time the Sugar Bowl "double hosted" – it's namesake game and the BCS title game – it did $34.1 million in revenue and turned an $11.6 million profit. Since the game enjoys a 501 (c) (3) non-profit status, that was all tax free.

The Sugar Bowl ran a 34% profit margin that year. I bet a dollar none of the four teams made out so well.

Compher impresses. I've been throwing links on the sidebar detailing the performances of Jacob Trouba and JT Compher at the U18 world championships that the USA just dominated to win their third-straight gold medal. Both impressed. Trouba was expected to, but as an underager no one really knew what to expect from Compher. They got a performance that belied his years:

J.T. Compher — The 1995-born center was a revelation in the tournament. His high-energy style, speed and grit make him a versatile threat. Not only does he possess the qualities of an energy-line type player, he also has offensive touch. Compher scored two goals, each coming in big games. He scored Team USA’s first goal in the semifinal against Canada and its third in the gold-medal game against Sweden. Compher has a good shot and decent enough puck skills, but he creates with his power and speed. His forechecking led to a few U.S. goals and his line with Frankie Vatrano and Matt Lane was probably Team USA’s most consistent in the tournament. It’s hard to believe Compher was an under-ager with the way he played this year. Draft eligible in 2013. Committed to the University of Michigan.

I still wish Michigan could pick up some of the little scoring dynamos Miami is bringing in. They had two in this tournament, one for 2012 and one 2013. Midgets with a mid-round NHL grade are a great opportunity to have a high-talent guy the NHL is willing to leave in college.

An odd path. Michigan fans were introduced to walk-on QB Alex Swieca when he came on late in the spring game. He's an interesting guy who took a path to Michigan football odder than anyone in recent memory:

With a passion for football that dates back to his early childhood, the Manhattan product started playing flag football in third grade and attended numerous tackle football camps as he got older. Growing up on the upper East Side, he had long desired to play collegiate football.

His aspiration to play tackle football was initially hindered when he entered the Frisch School, a Jewish day school in New Jersey that didn’t have a football team. Swieca decided to wrestle during his four years at Frisch, to quench his competitive drive. He continued to play football in recreational leagues, and attended camps during the summer.

After high school, Swieca deferred his enrollment to Michigan, opting to take a year to study in Israel. With the suggestion of his brother, Mike, Alex joined the Judean Rebels of the Israel Football League — a four-year-old amateur tackle football league in Israel that plays eight men on each side.

While taking academic courses during the day, Swieca traveled to Jerusalem twice a week for practice and traveled all over the country to play weekly Thursday night games.

He'd probably start at an ACC school with that Thursday night experience. Also I think the Judean Rebels should rename themselves the Judean People's Front as soon as possible.

NIT opponents, possibly. Other headliners in the Preseason NIT are Pitt, Kansas State, and Virginia. If that seems kind of weak, yeah. Michigan got a 4-seed last year, Kansas State an 8, Virginia a 10, and Pitt did not qualify for the tourney.

Despite losing Frank Martin, K-State does return almost everyone else, losing only a 6'7" guy who played 60% of KSU minutes. Virginia loses Mike Scott, a KPOY contender, and a starting guard. Pitt loses two starters as well. Pitt does have a strong recruiting class.

Even so, Michigan should be looking to win this thing.

JIM DELANY POWER RANKINGS.

1. Jim Delany again recounts the tale of the BTN's formation in which former ESPN CEO and notable failure Mark Shapiro taunts the B10 into action.

JIM DELANY FINGERBANG THREAT LEVEL: Shapiro sat across the table, smirking. Again. The little brat had just proposed a game show in which Big Ten coaches would perform Fear Factor-like stunts for the privilege of getting off ESPNU. "Take it," Shapiro said. "I can't guarantee this deal will be here tomorrow. You only have to wear the organ grinder outfit on gamedays."

Delany stares back blankly. Under the table, a fist with two raging fingers extended. The other hand soothingly caresses it. Soon, Delany thinks. Soon. Shapiro smirks. He has no other facial expression.

Yet.

Etc.: Brandon also shoots down the idea Michigan will return the Fab Five banners. Terry Richardson seems a bit more amenable to the idea of a redshirt these days. Witnesses seem to confirm the ballad of Josh Furman's lawyer. I'd guess he gets acquitted or whatever sticks is so minor it won't affect his availability this fall. UPDATE: Furman acquitted.

Zak Irvin scouting video.

Pulling guards are key for play action. Michigan did that plenty last year, but you kind of have to get a guy blocked to make it work.

It appears that conference commissioners are against home games for a four-team college football playoff. Since it's tough to think of a valid reason to be against them, the commissioners have to make up bad reasons. Bad reasons like "they play basketball at neutral sites" that ignore things like the NFL and every other playoff in the country that is not NCAA hockey.

That only is the third-worst argument.

The second-worst is "what if Cincinnati gets a bid?" Here is a complete list of teams that would have hosted first-round games if a four-team playoff had been instituted in 1998, the year of the BCS's inception:

• Tennessee [102,455]
• Florida State [82,300]
• Virginia Tech [66,233]
• Oklahoma [82,112]
• Miami [74,916]
• Nebraska [86,304]
• Ohio State [102,329]
• LSU [92,542]
• USC [93,607]
• Texas [101,624]
• Florida [88,548]
• Alabama [101,821]
• Auburn [87,451]
• Oregon [53,800]

All but three of those stadiums have capacities above 82,000. The exceptions are Miami's Your Name Here Stadium (75k), VT's Lane Stadium (66k) and Oregon's Autzen Stadium (54k). Each would have hosted once. Since the capacity of the Fiesta Bowl is 63k and the Orange Bowl is held at the same place Miami plays home games, stadium size cannot be a reasonable objection. In the event a tiny stadium would get to host, make them move the site to a reasonably close stadium of appropriate size, or just count your money from the many, many times college teams with capacities 20k larger than the biggest pro stadiums have hosted. Problem solved.

So that's a bad argument. But it's not the worst. This is the worst:

BCS executive director Bill Hancock has said there are questions about whether some college campuses had the infrastructure necessary to accommodate the crush of fans and media attending a college football semifinal.

"The infrastructure needed on campus is significant," Hancock told the Associated Press. "That's a factor. That's just one example of the intricacies that are part of this."

Bill Hancock wonders if college football stadiums have the infrastructure to host college football games.

You can't make this up, because if you did people would hit you really hard with rolled-up socks.

This sounds like a snarky college applicant's answer to the "who would you invite to dinner?" question, but it's real: you can actually pay actual-ass money to have actual dinner with the actual Coach Carr, Coach Hoke, Dhani Jones, and Mike Martin. Plus the money goes to a good cause, helping markw and rest of a community service student organization fund their 2012 projects.

Speaking of Projects, you gotta see this Multi-Parter by crex that goes over every BCS year to figure out from available evidence how many teams need to be in a playoff in order to make sure those with a strong claim always get in. He has a few different conclusions than my Museday a few weeks ago on this. Read 1998 through 2011, then Part II is 2002 to 2005. More to come. Crex is your diarist of the week. And he didn't even have to embarrass his wife for this one!

Maize_in_spartyalnd followed that up with a study on the bowl payouts in-conference accumulated over the same time period. The Big Ten splits all of this but it's kind of interesting to see the numbers. Ohio State is out-contributing Indiana at more than $100 to the dollar, not that this surprises you. Did we really just get $6 million for being in the Sugar Bowl?

Did you know ESPN is actually really good at picking out overrated Michigan recruits? A study by blueloosh only went through 2008 and 2009 to see which of ESPN, Rivals and Scout were better at predicting how M's recruits would fare. The study is not at all conclusive—the final tally is too close to call and the transfers don't help.

Ace's Recruiting Corner of Funny Names

So we have a 2013 recruit named Courtney Love. It is at this very moment that I am happiest Brian and Ace have to do the recruiting posts—and the heavy Googling that entails—around here. In fact Heiko and I are having a little G-Chat party right now. More funny names interviewed were James Onwualu, an athlete from Seantrel Henderson's school, and OL Cameron Dillard, who—get this—is working out with Barwis. Current conference class rankings are current.

This is Pretty Much My Daily Inner Monologue:

Awesome job done again by Six Zero on the t-shirts. Let the world know what you're thinking. And while we're on Six, the adventures of The Blockhams continue. That link isn't to the diary but his site and the newest comic with bow ties in it, because I like that one better.

Etc. Video of Michigan vs. MSU in a sport we consistently beat them in these days. And credit to Yesman2221 for his OSU preview, posted four (to one) scores, and four (to nothing) scores ago. LATE BREAK: His Notre Dame Preview is up.

Quiet Best of the Board.

Here's to you, Friars singing Here's to You, Denard Robinson.

The fun begins 2:00 in.

A Wisconsin fan says Michigan is their biggest rival. I wouldn't scorn this like Illinois; Badger fans have had it in for us ever since we were doing things like keeping Dayne under 50 yards and a few other preposterous things (punt hitting a gunner's foot, David Terrell leaping over double-coverage) when a Michigan loss might have been the difference between a Rose Bowl as Big Ten Champ, or an outside shot at a No. 2 ranking and BCS bid. There are exactly two things we can hate them back for: 1) You can tell their O-Line are all going to the NFL because they hold every freaking play, and 2) They can't remember a time when their current RB wasn't the best back in the country. Come to think of it that is actually kind of adorable in a provincial sort of way. Change my 2) to Bielema's nose. That or the grand-transfer quarterbacking. But you kept State out of a BCS bowl without fighting us for recruits, and for that we thank you.

In the wake of another ho-hum defeat of MSU in basketball, a posbang thread ensued.

OTHER BLOGS, TWEETING HERE

aquaman2342 of TreMendOus enlisted the board's help for today's interview with Brandy. MFR interviewed Michael Hutchings of Cal-De La Salle; apparently this name is far too normal for Ace. Last time I checked up on De La Salle they still hadn't lost a football game ever or something, but this was when Matt Gutierrez was their QB.

people who like the BCS: no people

Would be this: A dull blowout that invalidates the regular season and proclaims a second-place finisher in their own division a national champion when other one-loss teams are shut out because of… stuff. And things. Afterwards, a system designed to protect the sanctity of the regular season above all causes the winners of that blowout to print up shirts declaring "we won the one that counted."

This makes people upset. A foaming Dan Wetzel is still being chased by a helicopter containing men with tranquilizer guns:

Miles even made the case postgame that LSU should be in consideration for the AP title based on its season-long body of work, including the previous triumph over Alabama.

“That’s for the voters to figure,” Miles said.

When the coach of a team that was shut out in the championship game is arguing that he should win the championship anyway, the system is an unqualified disaster.

The sport’s power brokers will meet here Tuesday to discuss the future, and many have predicted significant changes. If there is one positive from this tractor pull, it’s that it should help continue the groundswell toward a playoff, even if it’s just four teams to start.

See also a suicidally depressed Michael Weinreb and a puzzled Brian Phillips.

BCS ratings are collapsing along with attendance in an era when football is thriving. Average bowl attendance hit a 30-year low, and that's based on increasingly fictional announced numbers. Clemson and West Virginia played the least-watched BCS game ever. Moving to ESPN has caused ratings to shrink 21% from two years ago. The BCS has finally pissed off too many people to be permitted to live. So says just about everybody.

Except Jim Delany, obviously.

“There’s a real concern about a slippery slope and what a playoff means to college football,” Delany said.

If he said it again, I'll say it again: you should have thought about that in 1998. It doesn't matter. Now that college football postseason's horrendous structure is hitting the big guys in the wallet, change is coming.

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The NYT says "change to the current structure of college football's post season [is] imminent" based on interviews with everyone, with a four-team playoff the most likely outcome. Matt Hayes quotes the usual high-ranking official saying simply "It gets done."

The logistics are uncertain since there are apparently "50 to 60" ways you can structure a four team playoff, and by God these bowl games fleecing us yearly are valued partners. The way to do it is to cut them out of the picture and maximize the piles of revenue by assuring sellouts: home games. On New Year's day, if you like, with Pasadena waiting a week or so later, on an actual Saturday maybe.

That won't happen because the Fiesta Bowl will throw a hissy fit, but whatever half-ass change to the BCS college football's power brokers come up with to prevent the torches and pitchforks from reaching their door will actually, finally be a meaningful expansion of opportunity for the two to three schools that get screwed every year there isn't a USC-Texas matchup, which is 90% of years. It will be maybe three quarters of an ass.

As long as they start detaching themselves from their parasites, this is a major step towards sanity. If the boring regional wank-fest that was the national championship game had been preceded by LSU and Alabama wins over Oklahoma State and Oregon or Stanford, oh well. They earned it. Instead they were handed it. That's a bridge too far for a sport already under siege for being fraudulent.