Unverified Voracity Opens The Doors Of Perception Comment Count

Brian

Your bounty. The Shutdown Fullback has been created. Don't click it if you can't take jokes about Lloyd Carr's inability to gameplan from a Florida fan who clearly filed the most recent matchup of the two teams under "LSD-induced hallucination."

rogertrip1[1]

My name is Orson Swindle
I have taken LSD
Lloyd Carr is beating Tim Tebow by running a wide-open spread offense

PLEASE HELP ME

I mean… yeah. I get it.

Anyway:

Jason Kirk has started making meth with a former student of his. That is all.

That's not all. Final total for M: $6,316. Second place: Georgia with $1,318. OSU: $250. Rest of Big Ten combined: $600.

Screen_shot_2012-05-17_at_11.07.13_AM_medium[1]

YES THAT IS WHAT YOU SHOULD LOOK LIKE

Everyone hates it. Literally the only positive response to the Big Ten's recent smoochy session with the Rose Bowl I can find: Drew Sharp [for the love of God, don't click that]. That's when you know you've made a bad life decision. Drumroll…

Kyle Meinke opens with "all due respect, but have you lost your mind" and doesn't back off much from there:

"I’m a big advocate for playing as many games as possible on campus, but I’m also a realist to know when you get to the point where you got those kinds of national games, with teams coming to various regions of the country, playing outdoors in the Midwest in January probably is not going to be a salable option," he said.

Right. Because Lambeau Field and Soldier Field and Gillette Stadium and MetLife Stadium have such a hard time drawing fans for December and January games.

Of course, Delany revealed minutes later the Big Ten is interested in adding the Pinstripe Bowl to its postseason slate -- a game that's played in late December in New York City. So, apparently the Big Ten doesn't mind playing postseason games in the cold, as long as they're not playoff games.

And what about all the fans, who likely will be asked to travel to a Big Ten championship game, national semifinal and national title game within the span of a month?

Maize and Blue Nation:

If you were to ask me why Jim Delany and the Big Ten brass have, essentially, given up without a fight to be able to host semi-final playoff games on college campuses – I would not have a coherent answer for you.

Corn Nation, which doesn't have the lingering fondness of a Big Ten tradition:

I hate the Rose Bowl. I hated it before we joined the Big Ten, I hated it last year, and I'm going to hate it even more now. I don't want a college playoff system if it includes the existing bowl system. I don't care about Rose Bowl tradition.

I wanted to see a SEC team play in freezing temperatures in the snow some day before I die. Now it looks like I'm just going to have to live forever. Bastards.

Land-Grant Holy Land:

Yesterday, Michigan State's athletic director, Mark Hollis, informed us peasants about the death of on-campus semi-final games. The "value" of the Rose Bowl has to be maintained, you see. I guess I'm not surprised fossils are defending other fossils which make them money. It's a hell of a ruse, and I guess in the end, I have to tip my cap and wait for the Grim Reaper to do what he does.

Eleven Warriors:

To hide behind the fallacy that elite B1G teams set the Rose Bowl as their ultimate goal is a joke. That joke becomes the kind you don't deliver in front of women and children when you basically go out of your way to disadvantage your own teams by not pushing for warm climate schools to possibly play big boy football in football weather.

As icing on the cake, the decision makers put an even greater financial burden on fans who will be racking up a lot more air miles with no chance of a home semifinal or at least a semifinal potentially located within the conference footprint.

With self inflicted decisions like this, it's not hard to understand why the B1G struggles to be elite on the gridiron. But hey, at least we still have the Rose Bowl tradition.

Yay.

Get The Picture, a Georgia partisan:

I give up.  These guys really are that dumb.  If I were the folks at ESPN, once I got them signed on the dotted line for the next postseason TV deal, I’d invite ‘em all over for a friendly game of poker.  There’s no reason to leave them with any money in their wallets.

There was also the Wetzel piece, a Holdin' The Rope bit, and a bunch of other stuff I could keep linking for days. Everyone hates the Big Ten's meek-shall-inherit act.

Further statements to make your head explode. Urban Meyer:

"I would rather have neutral sites," Meyer said. "I'm not sure you can, on a crisp December day here in Columbus, have a Southern team come up to play. The Southern teams I coached [at Florida], I know it would be a problem."

AARGH

Meanwhile, I found the Brandon quote about fairness:

"I think there are two issues," Brandon said Wednesday after meetings with conference AD's wrapped up. "One is the salability of that to the other conferences in terms of whether that is a fair fight to bring somebody up in the snow of January from the South. Whatever system we come up with it has to be agreed to by everybody, so that is the practical reality."

ARGHHHHHHHH (The other issue is that players like free vacations.)

In other bowl news. The Big Ten is thinking about diversifying its bowl locations. Right now there's the Rose and then Florida Florida Florida Florida. Delany:

"When you have three bowls in Florida and you're a school that is constantly in that range for selection, your fan base could end up, in a five-year period, four times in the state of Florida," Delany said. "So does that depress the interest? Again, sometimes less is more. Is there a way to give them a taste of Florida and Phoenix and Texas and other places in California? We want to have the fan base excited about going, about who they're playing and about where they're playing.

Delany said they'd be interested in the Pinstripe Bowl in New York—probably the least-embarrassingly-named minor bowl around—and Graham Couch, the author of the above-linked piece, speculates that the Big Ten would like to move in on California bowls like the Holiday and the Fight Hunger Bowl. You may remember the latter as the host of the saddest game in the history of college football (Illinois-UCLA, featuring two fired coaches and zero winning records), but it's in San Francisco so at least it's somewhere interesting. I said my bit on this already; diversity is good, they should put one in Denver. Average temps there in January are in the 40s. Not exactly Frozen Tundra.

Minor violations ahoy. Another minor avalanche of secondary violations from OSU contains little of note except another screwup from Gene Smith, but I want to point out this guy:

…assistant coach Mike Vrabel [was] using smokeless tobacco on the sidelines during football games last season, which was noted and reported to Ohio State by a Columbus-area health teacher, and was a secondary violation of NCAA rules against using tobacco during games or practice.

Of course the guy ratting on Vrabel is a high school health teacher. Now let me tell you about these sexually transmitted diseases. Remember, kids, everything is going to kill you. Now read a book or die.

BONUS: article features Only Lawyer In America Michael Buckner.

"In general, if you're not reporting numerous secondary violations, then from the NCAA perspective, that could be considered a bad sign," Buckner said.

Someone find another lawyer. Surely we must have a second somewhere in this country.

Etc.: Big Ten to make title game tickets less deliciously scalpery. Michigan to spend a quarter of a billion dollars on non-revenue sports facilities over the next ten years. Even the Big Ten schools regularly hovering around 6-6 want bowl minimums increased. More Beilein transfer policy stuff. Staples endorses a committee. 2013 Scout Bball revamp moves Walton up, adds Donnall, still omits Irvin, confusing local observers greatly. Josh Levin says one-year scholarships are the "most evil thing about college sports" in Slate.

Comments

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

May 18th, 2012 at 4:50 PM ^

Massive disclaimer beforehand to prevent the wrong kind of argument: I say what I'm about to say in full agreement that Dave Brandon sounds really, really dumb when he says it's not fair that poor widdle Southern teams should have to fweeze their tootsies off.  And the people-in-charge sound really dumb 9 out of 10 times they open their mouths to give us moronic reasons why they're not playing on campus sites.

But the players do like bowl trips.  Who wouldn't?  Yet the bowl system comes in for scads of criticism, as does the idea they might play semifinals at neutral sites.  Even though the players like it.  Now, I thought the program was for the players.  That is what I keep hearing in uniform discussions.  All this really means to me is concrete, ironclad, unbreakable proof of what I've said (admittedly ad nauseum) in the past: that "the players like it" is only something that everyone hides behind until what the players like is no longer acceptable to the person making that argument.  Then suddenly what the players like is totally irrelevant.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

May 18th, 2012 at 5:46 PM ^

I think it could actually be argued that the players would be awfully disappointed if their hard work used to be rewarded with a trip to Florida or Pasadena or New Orleans and a whole mess of schwag and all the good times that go with a bowl trip.... and that was replaced with a game in the same place they always play and no goodie bag.

(This is why if I were in charge, the whole playoffs, no matter how big, up to the finals, would be on campus, and the losers got selected to bowls.)

But my argument there really isn't about what should happen in the playoffs, it's about the whole "players like it" line that gets tossed out far too frequently.  After all, the players like alternate uniforms, but what you said could easily be applied every time someone said "the players like it" about anything - for example they probably wouldn't be unhappy without alternate uniforms.  They certainly didn't used to be.

The FannMan

May 18th, 2012 at 6:20 PM ^

The Bowls, complete with trips and goodie bags and parades and dudes in yellow blazers,  would still exist for teams ranked 5 through how ever many make bowl games these days.

You would only miss a bowl if you finished the year ranked 1, 2, 3, or 4.  In the last 16 years, Michigan has had that happen twice.  Both the 1997 and 2006 teams would have gotten three years worth of trips to see Mickey Mouse and get a bag free stuff from Beef O'Grady's, Inc.  

For those whose carreers included 1997, they would have gotten to host a National Semi-Final against FSU while watching Nebraska do the same thing with Tennessee.  (Those southern bastards would have frozen their damn nuts off that year!)  Then, Michigan and Nebraska would have met in Arizona, or Texas, or Cali and settled the damn thing.

For those whose time in Ann Arbor included 2006, they would have still gotten a trip to Flordia while LSU went to C-bus.  Yes, there would have been no bag from the Polen Weed Eater Company, but going into the Swamp for a semi-final with the goal of redemption would probably have made up for it.

I am totally not buying Brandon's "But think of the Childern" line on this.

Edit - Sorry, Wahoo, I forgot the disclaimer.  This probably shouldn't be directed to you, but I just think Brandon's line on this is really weak sauce.

M-Dog

May 20th, 2012 at 10:33 PM ^

The only time they don't get to go somewhere warm is if they finish #1 or #2 AND they lose the semi-final game.  That's not going to be a frequent thing.  All other times they go somewhere warm.  It's not worth giving up a clear edge and a chance at a national title game for a once in a blue moon occurence. 

gbdub

May 18th, 2012 at 5:14 PM ^

The idea that players are the only ones whose happiness matters is silly. At a minimum, the other students ought to matter, and since the fans and alums support the program, they ought to have a say too. Anyway as cool as travel is, a semifinal in front of a half-empty nfl stadium crowd is pretty lame compared to a game at the Big House, and I suspect that that is equally true for both the athletes and the fans.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

May 18th, 2012 at 5:40 PM ^

The idea that players are the only ones whose happiness matters is silly. At a minimum, the other students ought to matter, and since the fans and alums support the program, they ought to have a say too.

I have always believed this.  Hence the disclaimer: I'm emphatically not arguing in favor of bowl-located semifinals.

Ed Shuttlesworth

May 18th, 2012 at 5:20 PM ^

There's a long way to go before the playoff setup is finalized.  Today's announcement of the new bowl game between the Big XII and SEC champs is intriguing and came out of nowhere.  There will never be a year where both of those league's champs aren't in the Top 4 so either it will never have the matchup they trumpeted so loudly today (*) ... or something else is going on.

(*) And the Cotton Bowl is already there to pair up the best non-BCS Big XII and SEC teams against each other ... so what's the need for this new bowl?

StateStreetApostle

May 18th, 2012 at 6:23 PM ^

From the article about UM spending $250 mil on non-revenue sports (linked above):

"Brandon said the end game is to make Michigan eligible to host postseason games and tournaments in every sport."

I S@#% YOU NOT HE SAID THIS

EVERY SPORT

EVERY SPORT EXCEPT THE ONE THAT PAYS FOR ALL THIS OTHER @#*%

I can't believe it.  I want to JERK THE WHEEL INTO A G D BRIDGE EMBANKMENT...

MFanWM

May 18th, 2012 at 5:36 PM ^

It can only mean that they brought in Gordon Gee to give PR instructions and training to those in attendance.  

Meyer claiming it would be too hard for southern teams to play in the actual weather conditions they will face in the NFL.  That should be an automatic man-card revocation.....I mean a football coach noting that all southern players are basically complete and total pu@@#$! when it comes to playing in cold weather games is priceless.

Brandon claiming it unfair is also just blatantly weak and amazing in it's approach.

Move everything to a sixteen game playoff, let all teams have a "bowl practice" period regardless of games to help develop younger talent, and play a seeded playoff at school sites.  How can every single division from FCS to Division III manage this type of format and FBS magically is concerned for the impact on the school during December.....at least give honest answers to the questions on why you are not fighting for home sites.....like we decided to mail our ball sacks to our counterparts in the other leagues and take whatever bone they will throw out way, regardless of the fact of our considerable weight in television and traveling fan bases.

Either that, or mandate that teams cannot play in bowl games in their own state unless seeding absolutely requires it......for example, Florida has to play in the Rose Bowl in a playoff vs. the Orange Bowl as a seeding requirement to eliminate home advantages all things being equal.

matty blue

May 18th, 2012 at 5:42 PM ^

YES IT WOULD BE A PROBLEM FOR SOUTHERN TEAMS TO PLAY IN THE COLD YOU DUMBFUCK THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT THAT ONCE IN A WHILE A BIG TEN TEAM DOESN'T STEP ON THE FIELD DOWN FOUR POINTS FROM PLAYING ON THE ROAD AGAIN SWEET HOLY HELL ARE YOU A COACH IN THIS CONFERENCE OR WHAT WHY THE HELL SHOULDN'T A SOUTHERN TEAM BE AT A DISADVANTAGE JUST ONE GODDAMN TIME.

ahem.

MFanWM

May 18th, 2012 at 6:41 PM ^

At some point you would also think that this is going to end up back in front of a political committee given the massive amounts of funding many of these schools receive on federal and state basis, as well as from student subsidies to maintain athletic departments.  

I just cannot see this "adjustment" to the current bowl system passing the sniff test when it comes to the first undefeated BCS non-power (Big10/12/Pac12/SEC) conferences and leaves out the ACC/BigEast/etc.  The amount of $'s these games could pump into local economies along with the very real fact that this really only amounts to another form of exlusion to the big game from the smaller conferences I would think would lead to some sort of legislative action.  

While the ADs and Conference Commissioners might not like to speak up, at some point the funding issues surrouding shipping teams across the country on student, state and federal funds while also creating a monopoly on the competition and excluding other conference champions is going to cause issues IMO.  

I saw one claim that the 5 BCS games generated close to $1.5B in revenue for the surrounding cities in hotels, restaurants, etc.  Why should that all be concentrated in southern and western states?  With the huge $$ losses for most participants at these bowl sites for mandatory hotel stays (hotels that pay the bowls commissions off the charges as well) to the food, the teams "selected" for these games will generate even larger gaps and losses.....and in many cases, taxpayer and student subsidies (most which are paid in the form of student loans which are about to have loan rates doubled.....another hot button)l.

The BCS currently doles out more than $150 million annually from sponsorship and television contracts for the series' five bowl games -- a guaranteed chunk of which would make for a pretty decent payday.  While economists have estimated the value of a playoff system at anywhere from $600 million to $1.5 billion, reports say, the lack of certainty surrounding who would get the money, and how much, is cause for hesitation among those conferences that are already profiting



Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/05/16/college-football-playoff-could-mean-philosophical-practical-shift-bcs#ixzz1vGQ8dOZq 

Inside Higher Ed 

 

 

But I aint a C…

May 18th, 2012 at 7:44 PM ^

If you fancy home-ish games in the B1G footprint,* you should like this "it's more fair to players from the South/West" "reason" for conceding home playoff games.  It's not the real reason the B1G is conceding, and that's why you should like it: The B1G is trying to change the terms of the debate and, if successful, could preserve a playoff game in the footprint, say at Ford Field or Lucas Oil Stadium.

The midwest in late December is a terrible vacation destination, and that's the B1G's Achilles heel. Alums, students and other fans of Southern and Western schools are less likely to travel to Detroit or Indy, in the dead of winter, than B1G fans are to travel to New Orleans or Pasadena.*  So if the debate over playoff sites focuses on ticket sales (i.e., whether "away" teams will sell their ticket blocks), the B1G probably loses.  That is, the B1G can probably sell their ticket blocks if the "away" game is in a warm climate, but the South/West Coast/Texas schools might not be able to sell its block if the game is in Detroit or Indy.  The B1G couldn't even sell out its first championship game!  But if the B1G focuses the debate on fairness-to-players, indoor stadiums in the footprint are still fair game.

*Of course, Brandon doesn't seem to fancy home-ish games in the footprint, but rather seems to fancy the current system that favors (1) fans who already live out of state and would prefer to travel to Florida sun over Ann Arbor grey, (2) local fans who prefer to spend winter break away from winter in Phoenix and (3) the players, band and athletic department staff who want a free trip to SoCal.

M-Wolverine

May 18th, 2012 at 8:40 PM ^

If they want a vacation, keep the bowls. It's a playoff game. No one cares where a playoff game is played in the NFL, or any other sport, "for the fans". It does t matter who travels....you have the home team. If the focus is selling "road" tickets, you're never going to get anyone to travel any distance to a semi-final game, because it's a semi-final game. Everyone will wait for the championship game. Which COULD be a vacation (and vacation destination) for the two teams who get there after home games.

harmon98

May 18th, 2012 at 8:27 PM ^

Methinks this whole skullduggery of the Rose Bowl being college football Valhalla has become a self fulfilling prophecy.

Well played swells.

I bet there's rich folks eating from a fancy dining car. They're probably drinkin' coffee and smoking big cigars.

MichiganManOf1961

May 18th, 2012 at 8:44 PM ^

My heart is pounding and straining more when I read the crap that comes out of Delaney's mouth than when my hippie grandson puts on MSNBC during happy hour... I can't stand the hypocrisy and lies that man throws out with a straight face.  Grow a backbone you ninny!

-Herm

MichiganManOf1961

May 18th, 2012 at 8:44 PM ^

My heart is pounding and straining more when I read the crap that comes out of Delaney's mouth than when my hippie grandson puts on MSNBC during happy hour... I can't stand the hypocrisy and lies that man throws out with a straight face.  Grow a backbone you ninny!

-Herm

MichiganManOf1961

May 18th, 2012 at 8:44 PM ^

My heart is pounding and straining more when I read the crap that comes out of Delaney's mouth than when my hippie grandson puts on MSNBC during happy hour... I can't stand the hypocrisy and lies that man throws out with a straight face.  Grow a backbone you ninny!

-Herm

MichiganManOf1961

May 18th, 2012 at 8:44 PM ^

My heart is pounding and straining more when I read the crap that comes out of Delaney's mouth than when my hippie grandson puts on MSNBC during happy hour... I can't stand the hypocrisy and lies that man throws out with a straight face.  Grow a backbone you ninny!

-Herm

MichiganManOf1961

May 18th, 2012 at 8:44 PM ^

My heart is pounding and straining more when I read the crap that comes out of Delaney's mouth than when my hippie grandson puts on MSNBC during happy hour... I can't stand the hypocrisy and lies that man throws out with a straight face.  Grow a backbone you ninny!

-Herm

MichiganManOf1961

May 18th, 2012 at 8:44 PM ^

My heart is pounding and straining more when I read the crap that comes out of Delaney's mouth than when my hippie grandson puts on MSNBC during happy hour... I can't stand the hypocrisy and lies that man throws out with a straight face.  Grow a backbone you ninny!

-Herm

MichiganManOf1961

May 18th, 2012 at 8:44 PM ^

My heart is pounding and straining more when I read the crap that comes out of Delaney's mouth than when my hippie grandson puts on MSNBC during happy hour... I can't stand the hypocrisy and lies that man throws out with a straight face.  Grow a backbone you ninny!

-Herm

Brown Bear

May 18th, 2012 at 9:04 PM ^

How is that Gene Smith Archie tape infraction not a bigger deal?? Those two both should know and the NCAA should act accordingly.
I can dream right? BS

His Dudeness

May 18th, 2012 at 11:03 PM ^

i didn't read all of the comments, but FYI Mattison chews. I chew. I know chew and I have seen pics of him chewing in practice. I had no clue chew was banned in practice. I think it is kind of crazy since I chewed IN CLASS in undergrad (albeit not at Michigan). I find it somewhat odd that smokless tobacco would be banned on a football field. Warren Sapp chewed during games... Gibson had a chaw in AD err D from what I remember. That is a far reach of a secondary violation.

MichiganManOf1961

May 19th, 2012 at 10:21 PM ^

If we played it in early December maybe the little-girl-sissies from the SEC wouldn't mind their toe-sies getting chilly to play some football.  Last time I checked, football was for grown men and freakishly large 18 year olds, not 8 year old ballerinas whose 108 lb. bodies get frostbite at the first sign of frost!  Pansies.

Danwillhor

May 19th, 2012 at 3:32 AM ^

What really bothers me is that Northern schools have to endure the negatives of the cold with recruiting.Further, we played bowl games for the last 100 years in a warm climate and often against a team so near the bowl game site that its practially a home game. Heck, anytime UCLA makes the Rose Bowl it is a home game againt a team that traveled 1000+ miles. USC is just as close. The Florida hostes bowl games often feature an SEC team, etc. I just dont see how its "unfair" or in any way anything BUT fair to finally have some of those teams play in the weather we do for half the year. I think that is only fair. You get the higher seed, you host the game, cold or not.

Mpfnfu Ford

May 19th, 2012 at 4:26 AM ^

...about the viability of much of the Big 10's footprint as a tourism destination. It's not JUST about "SEC schools don't like weather." Nobody from the other conferences will go along with a plan that has people coming to Madison, Wisconsin for major tourism. There's two cities in the Big 10's footprint that you could call "tourist friendly": Chicago (which has an old ass smelly stadium that can, at any time, become a trash tornado with no warning) and Indianapolis. Indianapolis doesn't have much to do, but damn it that stadium is nice and they are really convenient for people coming for a conference or similar such.

That's it for the Big 10. It's why people aren't exactly furious at the idea of playing in Denver, New York or San Francisco (very cold in the winter) but are pretty much willing to set fire to the entire world to avoid being in COLUMBUS or THE DETROIT AREA. 

Also, I really think you guys are assuming too much when you say "The Big 10 gave up the fight for on campus sites." I don't think they "gave up" so much as realized "they didn't and were not ever going to have the votes ever ever ever" and decided to just let it go. You can scream at shout at people if you want, but if they ain't changing their mind, you're better off just going with it and finding an alternative that works.

dahblue

May 19th, 2012 at 8:34 AM ^

"...playing outdoors in the Midwest in January probably is not going to be a salable option..."

You know, I heard that there was a hockey game at Michigan Stadium in the winter that did fairly well.  I think it even sold a few tickets.  That's right.  Hockey.  We're talking 'bout hockey.  A game that, in comparison to college football, nearly no one cares about and fewer people can play.  Hockey.  And yet, it was still a salable option.

samsoccer7

May 19th, 2012 at 8:37 AM ^

I can't stop staring at that still shot of Delaney and Rittenberg. Delaney looks like such a tool. But you know what's odd? If he shaved those side muffs he'd actually look kinda like a badass. Seriously. Can someone photoshop this please???

lhglrkwg

May 19th, 2012 at 11:04 AM ^

On that same note, we need to ban any Big Ten team from hosting a home game against a non-conference team because that is so UNFAIR! Imagine those poor teams having to come to our stadiums where

a) There are not any of their fans

b) Our fans aren't nice to them

THE INJUSTICE!

Also, all Big Ten games must be played in Puerto Rico because, obviously, all home games for Big Ten teams are unfair

...my head feels like it's going to explode

CO Blue

May 19th, 2012 at 11:26 AM ^

It seems to me that at this point, in the interest of "fairness," we should just do away with naming a "national champion." Clearly there is very little interest on the part of the conference commissioners to come up with a way to develop a system that removes any doubt from the fans' minds who the best team in the nation is any given year. How can we possibly identify one team, from a college system that permits individual institutions/conferences to operate under different guidelines, as being better than the others? Until all conferences and schools have the same guidelines and restrictions "fairness" will never be an option. 

I would prefer we just leave things as they were "back in the day" when the games were played for competition's sake and the rewards were the bowl games themselves.

Nick Sparks

May 19th, 2012 at 12:20 PM ^

That video made me j in my p's. 

I'm always incredibly proud to be a wolverine, but getting something like that made because of our abundant generosity (or abundance on blogs) is some sweet icing.