construction

Brian and I toured Michigan Stadium with assorted members of the media, and all we got was this stupid t-shirt photo gallery: Also, we got some details:

• Both the suites and the club seating are reserved to about 70% capacity.
• The suite have their own indoor concourse with air conditioning. The suites themselves are also air conditioned.
• The new press box will have seating for 224 reporters.
• Michigan Stadium was down to 106,201 seats last year (from 107,501), making it the second-highest capacity stadium in the country (though more people strolled through its gates than #1, Penn State's Beaver Stadium). When the new structures are complete for the 2010 season, capacity will be around 110,000.
• Over the next few years, the aisles will be widened in phases. Final capacity of just greater than 108,000 will be reached in about the 2013 season.

Jihad part II. The offseason saw the return of Barwis Porn, much to everyone's relief. Now another old friend is back:

Barwis' final employment agreement with WVU, drafted in July 2005, said Barwis is to pay WVU a $50,000 buyout for terminating his contract without cause by the university. Sources said university officials are now looking to collect, but a lawsuit is not presently in the works.

That's right: West Virginia Buyout Wrangling with its sidekick, Accompanying Hysteria. I can't wait for the newspaper column describing the vast damage this upcoming dispute will do to the university's reputation.

(HT: Big House Blog.)

Close but no dice. One of the common anti-playoff arguments is basically "The Cardinals." IE: one of the costs of a playoff is that sometimes it throws away the much more reliable results gathered from a regular season of 16 or 162 games and gives you the Cardinals, be they the 9-7 variety from Phoenix slated to participate in the upcoming Super Bowl or the 83-78 variety from St. Louis that won the 2006 World Series.

Such champions are not particularly fulfilling, and they throw the whole playoffs thing into doubt. Get The Picture applies this to college football:

Make the postseason pool big enough and you’ll get your Cinderellas every year, in one form or fashion.  Statistical anomalies mean more in the postseason.  But some of that success, while inspiring in the short term, often winds up being little more than a mirage.  That’s a helluva tradeoff for a diminished regular season.

This is an accurate complaint when leveled at the 12th best team in a league of 32 clawing to the championship or a system which throws away 162 games in which you're doing stunningly well to win 62.5% of them in favor of brief, near-random playoff series. It is not when applied to college football, for the following reasons:

1. Any playoff field would be dramatically more restricted than that of most professional leagues. There are about 120 D-I college football teams, and even if you toss out 50 or so as not serious contenders (ie, most of the MAC, CUSA, Sun Belt, WAC, and Mountain West) an eight-team playoff contains approximately the same percentage of teams as a four-team NFL bracket would. The Cardinals problem does not occur in a world where the entire bracket is Pittsburgh, Tennessee, New York, and Carolina.
2. Any reasonably-constructed CFB playoff champion has, basically by definition, the most impressive resume. College football programs play so much creampuff and have so few opportunities to play real teams from any other conference that a three-game win streak over elite competition—coupled with losses from the rest of that elite competition—would render the playoff result un-controversial. IE: even if the playoff was mere exhibition with no official bearing on who gets a crystal football, the playoff winner would virtually always be voted #1 anyway, especially if lower-seeded teams have to play on the road, auto-bids are not handed out to weak conferences, and the field is constructed with byes.

As an example of #2, put together any reasonable pre-bowl eight team field from this year (1 Oklahoma, 2 Florida, 3 USC, 4 Texas, 5 Penn State, 6 Utah, 7 Alabama) take your worst-case #8, which this year would be Cincinnati (other contenders: OSU, Boise, Texas Tech) and give that worst-case scenario road wins over any three of the above teams. You've assembled the best resume in college football.

The Cardinals issue does not apply to college football. It, perhaps alone amongst American sports, would have a much more legitimate champion every year if it had a playoff.

(BTW: European soccer has a great compromise where there are no playoffs—except for the last promotion slot in lower leagues—but there are, simultaneous to the regular season, a number of single-elimination knockout competitions of varying prestige.)

Basketballin'. I'm late on this, but, yes, the regents gave preliminary approval to a 23 million dollar basketball practice facility to be built adjacent to Crisler. Beilein boilerplate:

"Having our coaches' offices, strength training, video theatre, training room and practice court all connected to Crisler Arena will only enhance student-athletes' development and our efficiency as a staff," Beilein said. "Having consistent practice times will assist players academically in terms of scheduling their classes and allowing them to choose any major of interest to them. We are obviously thrilled with the positives this new facility will bring, and appreciate the support of President Mary Sue Coleman, and the hard work of Bill Martin and Mike Stevenson in making this project become a reality."

Martin's forging ahead with the project despite not having a major donor:

"We want to get this done, so we're getting the word out that we're going for it," Martin said, saying a practice facility is overdue. "I couldn't wait any longer. We don't have a major donor for this project, but the regents all understand the value. I'm pleased we're able to move on this."

That's a commitment to the basketball program, and yet another chunk of Martin's legacy salted away. When he steps down as athletic director he'll have quite a list of accomplishments to point to, especially if (when) Beilein and Rodriguez work out.

It's like a laser. Smart Football considers Curtis Painter and Purdue's notable inability to do anything against actually good teams in the waning years of the Tiller administration, and in doing so reiterates a theory from 2006:

The offense has arguably become the opposite of an equalizer, it has become an amplifier: if you are talented you can really rack up the points because no one can cover Vince Young, Ted Ginn or the like one-on-one, but if you're not, you just get sacked and no one gets open.

Extremely prescient, and you're already replacing Vince Young with Nick Sheridan in your head and possibly trembling. In this we might have a general theory about why the first year of Rich Rodriguez has been such a disaster every time: it's not like Dantonio's caveman offense that shortens games and, even when bad, isn't bad quickly. The spread, when bad, is bad fast, allowing more time for the opponent to implode your head.

Well, we could be. For some reason, Varsity Blue just tackled Dan Wetzel's column comparing Michigan and Alabama from October. They attempt to tamp down expectations, which is good. Because for Michigan to be "this year's Alabama" they would have to improve their record by 4.5 games, which would get them from 3-9 all the way to 8-5.

Suffice it to say this would probably not be met with the hosannas Nick Saban has received in his second season.  Also, Alabama QB: senior multi-year starter. Michigan QB: either sophomore Steven Threet or a true freshman. Or a suicidal kitten.

Getting out of this hole is going to take some digging.

Etc.: The NYT finally has their ombudsman tackle the ridiculous Jamarcus McFarland article. Texas blogs, as you might expect, are not impressed.