Not a huge Saban fan, but his comments helped me have an epiphany in understanding some of the reasons Harbaugh went NFL. I am college sports biased and have always had the opinion that being the head coach of one of the premier college programs was the apex of the football coaching world. After you have had some success at programs like Michigan, Alabama, TSDS, etc you would be fundamentally a deity around town and have all the trappings you could want. To the biggest trade off was balancing the vissitudes of recruiting 16 and 17 year olds and their whims, against the motivating and corralling the views of a bunch of millionaires. Now with NIL etc you trying to deal with the whims of 16 to 17 year male millionaires. That much money in the hands of arguably the least responsible demographic in the population would be living hell
Correction. To quote the late great Wayne Woodrow Hayes, football is not a contact sport, it is a collision sport. Ballroom dancing is a contact sport.
I could not disagree more with the fundamental premise of this piece. The damage of the new system far exceeds the "damage" (and I truly mean those quotes). First I will accept that the mobility afforded to the players is rational given the population that they are part of, college students. Nothing stops a chemistry major at Northwestern from packing bags and moving to Duke, especially if there is a material change in the circumstances that brought them there, perhaps the study contract for grad students is revised unilaterally. So a coaching change could be argued to be material change in the agreement between the school and the student, allowing for the change. That said the whole statement implying there was no compensation for this situation, is bogus. Yes Denard contributed to a entertainment package that brought $Millions into the system, some of which covered the six figure education package to which he had access, whether he took advantage of it or not. If you don't think it is real check out the dolts who took out six figures in student loans to prepare them for jobs that pay $50K and now they can't figure out how to pay their bills. I hav ebeen opining for decades that a cash stipend should be added to all college athletic scholarships to provide spending money to take some of the pressure off the student (and I include all sports in this) Keep in mind that many of the sports like softball and baseball seldom give out full rides like football. They are given half packages etc.
To me the real damage being incurred by the drive for a playoff to name a "true" champion in football is destroying everything that was special about college football in particular and college sports in general. Conferences and the rivalries engendered in them are becoming meaningless. One impact close to home is if I was running things I would immediately stop scheduling "The Game" as the last one of the regular season. The real possibility would exist of playing them the last week of the season, still being the top two in the conference and playing in the BIG Championship the next week, and then playing again sometime in the playoff. No big deal we'll get them later in the season ho hum. Further the utter destruction in the bowls i snot a good thing for the sport. While I admit I have a hard time working up much interest in the Weedeater Toilet Bowl between the Sisters of the Blind and Weak-kneed state, for those schools it might be a cool trip. I know here in Tucson they had been building the NOVAHome Loan bowl into a significant community event that was beginning to draw thousands of people around the game. I see that going away. Ask anyone who was in Pasadena this year if there wasn't a magical feel to being at that venue in that environment.
Further, the monster conference concept has ripped apart some long standing organizational relationships with the destruction of the Pac 12. Arizona v. UCLA a major deal in basketball and that is gone. The whole structure of West Cast Baseball and Softball has been taken apart as well.
I have decried the money influence, but it isn't money to the players, or coaches, or even the schools that is the problem. It is the influence of the gambling structure through the networks that is the problem. decisions are being made not in the best interest of the sport but of some very limited persons, who really don't give a rat's ass about things like the Little Brown Jug. Maybe you agree and so be it, but for me if you feel that way, be prepared to have the hose turned on you if you step on my lawn.
Since I identify as a geezer I will start with... now get off my lawn!!!
But seriously, this was the only obvious result as soon as the sport moved away from the old bowl structure. The bowls only existed as a reward for the better teams and specifically for conference champions (why was the 73 vote so devastating? because only one team from the Big ten went to a bowl) I like to joke that the only reason there is a Rose Bowl football game is that chariot racing didn't sell out in 1916. The game was just a small part of the larger Tournament of Roses event. There was a community involvement much bigger than the sport. Most of the bowls had that. Is there still a King Orange Jamboree parade in Miami? I have no idea, but I used to watch it. What is really dismaying is here in Tucson they were building the Arizona/Nova bowl into a real community event that brought people here and did good things for agencies in the area. That will be going away with this new structure.
The fact of the matter is when you talk about money in the sport it isn't paying the players or coaches or even the funds generated to the schools, it is the gambling money which is more closely tied to the TV revenue that most want to admit. There is no allegiance to anything other than the bottom line so the destruction of things like conference play and rivals based on archaic things like the Little Brown Jug and Floyd of Roseville is an irrelevance. Joel Klatt had it right during THE GAME when he observed that this would be the last time that it was played with anything nearly as important on the line. Same thing with the Rose Bowl this year. One of the reasons I am going. It will be probably the last time it has any meaning different from other post season games. Things like the marching band in the parade alumni groups traveling, hell the students who plan how to get to the game. With a potential three game post season how many students have the time and money to attend. I really see this as the destruction of a sport that has brought me a great deal of enjoyment throughout my life, and I feel sorry for those in school now and in the future as they will never experience the type of connection that most of those on this site did.
Sorry for this rant, and let this ole dinosaur crawl off to his cave and go extinct.
That retching sound you just heard is my high school chemistry teacher vomiting in her grave regarding the significant figures violation in this entire conversation. Given that the length of the kicks is in two digits, most of that decimal layout is meaningless. SO, the difference in conclusions becomes non-existant. Math can be a bitch in that regard.
I said it back before PSU game. Win out the season, crush the West division dwarf, and then have the team make the trophy presentation irrelevant by hoisting Harbaugh on their shoulders and march off to the locker room singing the Victors to celebrate together leaving the Big Ten dweebs looking ridiculous on the Dais with no one to present to.
Maybe have Santa go get the trophy later and comment how Michigan, Schembechler, Harbaugh, and Ufer never forget the impugning of our institution by an organization that couldn't find integrity in the dictionary if you spotted them the I N T E and G
I am so tired of the BS regarding alignments and conferences etc. The fact of the matter is college football is being destroyed by the money interests (and no it isn't player money or coaches money, it is gambling money. The drive to mega-conferences is a thinly disguised effort to create a wonderful gambling structure as a lower level NFL and the players and the schools are the pawns. Keep in mind that there are truly student athletes out there on the field, not all of them are playing to reach the NFL. They are getting screwed by this.
In any case for Michigan, here is my fantasy for the rest of the season.
We crush the Terrapins this Saturday
Run the school down south back south, crush whatever dwarf the west sends us, and at the end of the game the players hoist Harbaugh who has appeared on the sidelines, on their shoulders and march to the locker room singing the Victors leaving the Big Ten dweebs holding a trophy with no one to give it to. And then the next dayannounce either Pettiti goes or we leave the conference. Let all those idiots crying for our blood now figure out how much their pocketbooks will take the hit and see if they really want that. ( Yes I am a curmudgeon, now get off my lawn!!!)
Have to ask BfromK, are you out there now? I spent several stints out there for work, and considered taking a longer term assignment out there. Seemed like an interesting life.
Being raised in Virginia and taught to revere robert E. Lee as a military god, I was very much surprised when I read Grant's Memoirs. He went over his conversations with Lincoln during the period following Gettysburg and Sherman as he left the command in the west after chattanooga. It was clear to him that to defeat the ANV he needed to engage and then not let go, and let the North's material superiority tell the tale. There is an anecdote I was taught when I was a kid that following the battle of the Wilderness which was the first battle in the Overland campaign, Grant met the vanguard of a demoralized Army of the Potomac at a crossroads in Virginia. After years of meetign defeat (and many of the northern soldiers regarded the brutality of the wilderness a defeat) leading to a retreat to Washington for re-supply, there was a choice to be made. Go straight and back to Washington or turn right and move toward Richmond. Grant made it clear they were turning right and that they were never going to let go of Lee and his Army. Grant clearly understood the concept of the total war of attrition through is actions in Virginia in late 1864 and his instructions to Sherman in the west leading to the devastating march to the sea through Georgia
The original posters analysis is, as usual spot on.
Lived out in the LA area in the 80s and 90s and as another poster said about New York stumbling across the Famous (or Infamous) is not unusual. But two that were more memorable:
Working for the legacy company that built the plane, we were given the day off and passes to the opening of the Spruce Goose in its dome in Long Beach. Standing there looking up at this thing didn't notice a guy in uniform standing next to me until he said "sure is a big son of a bitch, ain't she?". Turned and found it was Gen. Chuck Yeager. We had a fascinating 10 minute conversation about the history of aviation until some media types saw him and pushed me out of the way.
I was really into beach volleyball, (back before they trashed the sport with point a serve and.... that is rant for another day) Was sitting in the sand watching the Hermosa Beach OPen wearing an Orange letter Tigers hat (had to keep the sun off my balding pate) when this guy comes up and says nice hat, where'd you get it? Told him Tiger Stadium and he sits down and tells me what a huge Tigers fan he is. So I got to watch the rest fo the match talking crap with Tom Selleck. Really a nice guy.
It is fascinating to me to hear about reactions to screen deaths of animals. The classic was in the Michael Douglas movie War Between the Roses where screening reaction resulted in a modification to the movie. Douglas' character accidently runs over the wife's cat, and everyone was OK with that. Then the wife serves him a pate' ostensibly made from his dog with the classic line "he was a good dog, good to the last bite, woof, woof!". The reaction to that was so negative that they added a scene of the dog hiding under a bush outside reacting to his scream of anguish, to re-assure hte audience that the dog was not served up as dinner. That made it again, OK. Our culture is so weird that predicting what will and won't work is a minefield
Its funny my kid asked me about this the other night and I wasn't aware of that close a connection. That was my freshman year and Dooley's was my bar of choice. Knowing this my son was "Dad,did you help beat up Ted Bundy?" While I would have loved to say yes, we were still on break and I was at my parents house watching the game with family.
We met country western dancing, so we had an outdoor BBQ style wedding/reception. Pretty casual. Catered BBQ with tubs of ice cold beer and soda. Hired the DJ from the CW nightclub to come and teach the two step and line dances good times. Wifes father assigned us a week at a time share in Cancun. So first night of honeymoon was spent sleeping on chairs in Houston airport waiting for th etransfer to Mexico. Advice for honeymoon, don't plan anything, just let it happen and respond to opportunities.
Marraige, I will give you tips for a happy marraige when I figure that one out. As someone else said, a sincerely delivered yes, you are right dear. Is important. Paying attention to what she is really saying is probably more important, and where I still fail after 30 years.
M_Born, thanks for the expansion on my thinking, I will need to incorporate in the future. Your point about not being an either/or condition is particularly valid.
That little triangle block has withstood the passage of time well. Pizza Bobs (nothing better than a sub and shake dinner). The Coach and Four on the corner . Remember in the misogynist past when they had Playboy as the reading material of choice on the waiting table.
I much preferred Campus Corner, being a South Quaddie,it was a great locale for halfbarrels for dorm parties, back in the unenlightened days when "gasp" alcohol was allowed in the dorms.
As a child of a grad student in the 60s and a undergrad myself in the 77-82, I see Ann Arbor in series of snapshot memorys. Waterman Gym and East U going through as a road gone, replaced by the now removed CCRB. Krazy Jim's (Blimpy if you must) moved, although I will give them credit for doing their best to take the hardware of the place with them. I enjoyed the gourmet dish of the day at Le Dog on Liberty. Dooley's was great place with many over-imbibing stories. The original Ulrich's (although I am told they are back as the bottom floor of a high rise. The hard wood floors there just screamed "College" to me when I went to get my books freshman year. As an Aerospace Engineering student the transition from central campus to one of only 4 or 5 buildings on North Campus (the small one with the wind tunnel) started while I was there. No the new building named for a classmate. When I have been back it is good to see some things still there like the The Jug, and Good time Charlies. SO for me I don't see the changes as good or bad, just the natural evolution of a place to try and meet the demands of the times. Of course since it takes a while to implement anything, you often see the demands of 5 years ago being met today.
This question fits into a theory I started developing years ago while working on my MBA. Specifically, it was aimed at the company perspective of retention, but it is equally applicable to the employee making a decision to stay. When companies decide to retain (or fire for that matter) they tend to think in terms of black and white tangible issues like pay and level of benefits (ex. weeks of vacation) Many employees do the same thing (gee I am up to 5 weeks off a year, and I would go back to 2). But, and sorry if this sounds trite to anyone, there a a great many intangibles in play that can have a much bigger impact (some negative in value) than the size of the check. One that is leveraged both ways, and as mentioned by another poster, is the sense of pride, I WORK FOR GM. Some may scoff at that kind of identification, but I have seen it manifest itself very strongly. Another factor, and from the employee point of view is probably the most relevant, is fear of the unknown. Risk aversion runs deep in many people and they will stay with the tormenting devil they know so they don't have to face the devil behind door number 2.
The thing about the intangibles is that they are very fluid, and very difficult to "quantify" in relation to the tangibles. Fundamentally though, everyone's total compensation is a stack consisting of both. Once the stack on the outside opportunity gets bigger than the one you have, the employee leaves (think about the factors that have to occur to reduce the impact of the risk aversion for that to happen).
I think one thing that is happening in todays work environment is stories of people going to new challenges more routinely is demonstrating to more and more people how fluid working really can be, reducing the fear or change.
In addition, many of the more experienced people are finding their market value and splitting. It is beginning to show dramatically where I work in an engineering company where in my department of 180 people (I work for a very large corporation) fully 80% have less than 5 years witht he company. While trying not to sound too ageist, this is crippling our ability to resolve problems as tribal memory is disappearing and experience in recognizing paths forward become less available.
Iwas trying to remember the goalie, thanks for pulling Frikcker out of the mist
As far as Bobby Hull, the group of players at the time like Orr, Howe, Richard, that was fun hockey to watch. I still have my Bobby Hull guide rod table top hockey game. It came with stamped metal players for all of the original 6 NHL teams. Tried to get my kids interested in that type of game, but their reaction was , meh.
As a long time denizen of South Quad (77-81) I fondly remember going down to Campus Corner on Thursday evening to procure the pony sized study aid. Also, the orders for 6 or 7 half barrels for major dorm parties were routine.
This may be way to anal about things, but if you haven't thrown it away. Years ago my folks had got a Rose Bowl ornament that got damaged before they gave it to me. My father, being the solution biased individual he was, got a styrofoam ball the size of the ornament and put the pieces around it usingt Elmers. I have that ornament to this day and damaged as it is, it really has meaning to me.
Since I live ou tin Pac 12 land, I get more of the weekly human interest stuff than maybe I care to. hat said, didn't really understand why Charbonnet bolted. Then the stories regarding his sister's illness came out, and I really respect the young man's choice. Don't know if we really miss him given what we have had the past couple years anyway.
I was and still am a big fan of Cade. Even in the difficult situation he found himself in at the start of this season, he behaved in the best interests of the team. I wish him a speedy recovery and I would thoroughly enjoy seeing him play a little more ball for us, but that is too far in the future and who knows.
One thing living out of the local area, I never heard exactly what his injury was, and what this surgery is, anyone care to enlighten me?
We had natural grass in Michigan Stadium in the 90s as I recall. It actually was a complex system because there is a spring located under the field, so the problem wasn't watering the field it was more "unwatering" the field to keep it from being a swamp. It seems to me that it was a mess and sometime around 2002 we gave up and went back to artificial. I remember one article that went into the detail of the 2-3 ft crown that was normal for an artificial surface to promote drainage, and it could actually affect swing passes into the flat as the runner would be moving downward as they went toward the sideline
Since you are taking the family, if you have a dinner opening, head up to the Amana Colonies. It is a German based enclave with family style restaurants (pick your main course and then the sides come non-stop). Interesting shops etc. About 1/2 hour from Iowa City. I agree with the other poster on Dyersville for the Field of Dreams. If you liked the movie the scene is cool to wander around. Make sure you bring your mitts and a ball so yo can toss it around on the field
The Loyola team debuted what became known as "Showtime" when Westhead coached the Lakers. It was a style of play that was soooooo seductive to the inner playground player in even the most disciplined team. I had the un-happy circumstance to be in attendance in Long Beach that day, and you could just feel the Michigan players trying to buy into pass-pass-shoot (just about that fast too), and not comprehending that since that was all that Loyola did they were going to get run out of the gym, and that is exactly what happened.
Work for a fairly large defense contractor, and we are having significant issues filling slots. On a blue collar level I cannot get home improvement contractors to come out and take jobs. They just do not have the workers to take on more business. We may have permanently damaged our employment structure.
I have been an advocate for an eight arrangement with the P5 champions and the "best" 3 remaining teams (Group of 5 or runners-up in the P5 conferences, or independent, I won't even say the name). Use the primary New Years Day bowls as the quarters and then neutral site the semis and final.
I would re-establish bowl tie ins Big Ten/Pac 12 to Rose, SEC and at large to Sugar, ACC /at large Cotton, Whatever takes the place of the pretty well dismembered Big 12/at large to Orange.
Having the assured entry by being the champion would have the benefit of allowing teams to schedule glamor non-conference matchups. Think of a Michigan non-con of say USC,ND, Texas. You could drop all three, but still make the playoffs by blasting through the Big Ten schedule.
Eliminate divisions and you effectively end run Title IX out the door. I am a big supporter of women's sports. I spent a great deal of time building up a fastpitch league to broaden the availability of competitive play outside of the club system here in Arizona. That said, from a physical perspective women's teams in most sports are, on a level of competitiveness only, one level below men's. By this I mean the top 20 men's college teams would have massively winning records playing against the WNBA, and I would venture the top High School men's teams would do the same against NCAAW. When someone asked Serena Williams how she would fare against the top men's players, her reaction was one of Oh, hell no!. Back in the day someone asked McEnroe whether Navratilova could beat him, and he said it wouldn't be worth his time as it would be 6-Love,6-Love, and she concurred. Even the King-Riggs match which was highly competitive was a travesty as you had a 50 something huckster playing the top woman of the day.
All this is not to deprecate women's sports. But, the physicality differences of men and women who are at equivalent levels of their sport are so great as to make mixed play destructive.
Ah yes, the "fairness" doctrine. Other than the coaching payroll, exactly who is making all this money. Institutions are not people so the revenue in is not going to personal accounts. For the most part the athletic budgets are supplemented by the revenue sports income to pay for the non-revenue sports scholarships and into the University general fund for building things like the Central Campus Rec Building (yes I am exposing my age as I think I heard that the CCRB had been replaced and torn down, just as Waterman gym was demolished before). Your comments about athletes getting their fair share, as someone who paid their own way through school, taking that burden off my shoulders sure as hell would have meant a great deal. Also, most scholarship athletes realize that college is the end of the road for sports paying the way. SO, we have agreed to destroy the structure of college sports to cater to that small percentage of players that rationally will go pro. I realize that this next statement will be so far out of line with this body as to be ludicrous, but I would be just as happy to have a lower "quality" (but competitive across the board) of play in college, and let the NFL and NBA worry about the 5*s who are in it to go pro
That tolling you hear in the background is the funeral dirge of college sports. Go ahead and wave the white flag and make the colleges the minor leagues for football and basketball. The fact of the matter is the athletes were being compensated in the six figure range, the net value of that compensation was completely within the control of the player. Be serious and get an engineering/law/pre-med degree huge future value, get an ethnic studies degree and join the teachers union wandering around wondering why the administrations were serious when they offered the salaries they do. For the non-revenue sports, well we will just try and figure out a funding profile that makes sense.
What you have just cited is a number of people expressing their position on getting the shot themselves. In virtually every case you cite they encourage the people to talk to their doctors do their own research and most critically "MAKE THE DECISION FOR THEMSELVES". WHen you pick out the disparaging quotes like Ivermectin.. commonly deployed...livestock, you are doing exactly what causes the lack of trust, as you leave out the part where the guy got a nobel prize for applying Ivermectin to people. Form my perspective the virtual news blackout on the impact of natural immunity due to previous infection is critical. Any reputable study would compare at least three groups, vaccinated, unvaccinated and previously infected (which anecdotally I think may be the majority of the unvaccinated), and unvaccinated and never infected. Report the data that way and you might get a better response. Instead you get responses from Fauci when someone actually askes the question of "well, that is a good question, maybe we will look into it
DO you really believe the numbers you spew. I won't argue about the American deaths (with COVID v. from COVID check out how Italy is now reporting), because it si terrible. But to even half ass accept the Chinese publishing of 4,500 deaths is astounding. I refer back to articles, in the main stream media, in April- May 2020 of plumes of crematoria fumes wafting over Wuhan in incredible volume, what the hell do you think they were burning. It wasn't "4,500" bodies you dolt.
A win this Saturday would be #3 all time in my book. The 97 Rosebowl (sitting 15 rows up in the endzone and watching Woodson rise up for the interception) is #1 and 69 OSU is #2.
But I can't fault anyones listings of games in this thread.
To go even more granular, epic plays?
Desmond and Woodson OSU punt returns. Desmond layout against ND. Of course Carter against Ind.
I admit to being a military history geek, and have been to as many battle sites at the time of year in which it took place to try and get a glimpse into what went on. Once Custer's brigade de-horsed, it was all over but the shouting. The sabers were still effective in open movement as in attacking the village that would have been on flat relatively open land. If you have ever been to Little Bighorn, you will see that it is such rolling country, with the exception the bottom land along the rivers, that any of the horse drawn wheeled conveyances were a real detriment. That was one reason why Benteen and crew couldn't move very fast to reinforce, well that and the fact they were getting attacked as well. But it left Custer's men with just the ammo they carried
Point accepted and concurred with. It was/is/always will be a de-humanizing act used to whip up violent behavior. My issue was with my perception of what was being said meant a one way behavior. It is a classic chicken/egg conundrum about who was first. My point is that once the violence had started both sides would head in that direction
Should just let this be, but it takes my mind off of whether the guys can pull it out on Saturday. There were a couple of equipment decisions made before the 7th left Ft. Lincoln You mentioned the Gatling guns, which would have been inconsequential against the Sioux tactics, also would have been impossible to drag through the hilly terrain they were traveling through. The bigger, and more devastating decision was to leave their sabers behind. The tactics Custer set up that day were exactly what had worked 2 years earlier, with a small blocking force on one side, and a saber charge through the village by the rest. Instead, Reno advanced to carbine range of the village, dismounted and started shooting. At first panic started to spread, but then they noticed, hey no one is getting hit. They gathered the men who were off to the west, attacked Reno, damn near wiping that brigade out, and then went looking for the rest. The standard saber charge by Reno would have dramatically altered the result. As far as Custer's estimation of how many people were there, part of that comes form the failure of Crook's column to the south. Another couple thousand troopers were supposed to be coming up form Ft Fetterman. They ran into some resistance, and went scurrying home. He didn't even send messengers out to the north to let Custer and Terry know there were big problems with the three pronged plan.
There is a great book by N Philbrick Custer, Sittng Bull and the Last stand that goes over the battle and also the following years for Sitting Bull. It isn't a Custer was a Brave man, who failed, nor a Custer was an idiot, but more of the effects of cascading decisions resulting in an outcome.
One little nuance form the book, taken form accounts from Sioux Warriors, apparently toward the end of elimination of Custer's brigade, there was one officer who jumped on his horse and made a break for it to the east. Somehow he got all the way through and got away a couple miles. But then, out of guilt sham whatever shot himself. Years later after a fire had swept throghthe area, they found a mans skull with a bullet hole in it. What stories we might have learned form him, oh well.
As far as the poster and the "vagina's hanging form their uniforms", keep in mind desecration of vanquished corpses has a long history amongst indigenous people all around the globe, and the Sioux were not adverse to the practice. I am not condoning the fact that troopers did it, but you are taking things way out of context to look at those behaviors now.
I'm with you on the 8 team format. I would further try to maintain the "glamour" of the biggest bowl games by making them the quarterfinals and re-establishing conference tie-ins Rose (B1G v. Pac), Sugar (SEC v Invite), Orange (Big12 v. Invite), rotation of Cotton, Fiesta, Peach (ACC v. Invite). I really like the fact that it re-establishes the importance of the conferences which is greatly diluted by the current trends, and as a team could afford to lose a couple non-conference games it would allow scheduling of tougher opponents in those games. I would contend that having 3 at large choices would provide enough room to accommodate the nonP5 schools (ala Cincinnati this year) as well as deserving teams which lost conference championship games (the undefeated team that loses in an upset etc).
Then you add a semis and final weeks at neutral sites . Still doesn't address a problem fo rme of divorcing the team form the school, but in that regard I realize that I am a dinosaur and that that ship has sailed.
Substitute 82 grad for 84 and i would have thought I wrote this post. You have expressed my thoughts perfectly, especially the comment about the cyan on Cade in one of my favorite pieces that is presented on the site.
I realize that money changes everything, and in these days of NIL and the portal college football is going to change, but we are still dealing with 18-22 year old young men, who are no where near finished growing up. Don't believe me, ask your local auto insurance agent. Let's keep things in perspective. To paraphrase the late John McKay from USC, gentlemen, win or lose, there are 1.4 billion people in China who are going to wake tomorrow and not care.
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Not a huge Saban fan, but his comments helped me have an epiphany in understanding some of the reasons Harbaugh went NFL. I am college sports biased and have always had the opinion that being the head coach of one of the premier college programs was the apex of the football coaching world. After you have had some success at programs like Michigan, Alabama, TSDS, etc you would be fundamentally a deity around town and have all the trappings you could want. To the biggest trade off was balancing the vissitudes of recruiting 16 and 17 year olds and their whims, against the motivating and corralling the views of a bunch of millionaires. Now with NIL etc you trying to deal with the whims of 16 to 17 year male millionaires. That much money in the hands of arguably the least responsible demographic in the population would be living hell
Great list of things Thanks, actually thanks to everybody who responded, this group never fails to provide a huge variety of thought.
Correction. To quote the late great Wayne Woodrow Hayes, football is not a contact sport, it is a collision sport. Ballroom dancing is a contact sport.
I could not disagree more with the fundamental premise of this piece. The damage of the new system far exceeds the "damage" (and I truly mean those quotes). First I will accept that the mobility afforded to the players is rational given the population that they are part of, college students. Nothing stops a chemistry major at Northwestern from packing bags and moving to Duke, especially if there is a material change in the circumstances that brought them there, perhaps the study contract for grad students is revised unilaterally. So a coaching change could be argued to be material change in the agreement between the school and the student, allowing for the change. That said the whole statement implying there was no compensation for this situation, is bogus. Yes Denard contributed to a entertainment package that brought $Millions into the system, some of which covered the six figure education package to which he had access, whether he took advantage of it or not. If you don't think it is real check out the dolts who took out six figures in student loans to prepare them for jobs that pay $50K and now they can't figure out how to pay their bills. I hav ebeen opining for decades that a cash stipend should be added to all college athletic scholarships to provide spending money to take some of the pressure off the student (and I include all sports in this) Keep in mind that many of the sports like softball and baseball seldom give out full rides like football. They are given half packages etc.
To me the real damage being incurred by the drive for a playoff to name a "true" champion in football is destroying everything that was special about college football in particular and college sports in general. Conferences and the rivalries engendered in them are becoming meaningless. One impact close to home is if I was running things I would immediately stop scheduling "The Game" as the last one of the regular season. The real possibility would exist of playing them the last week of the season, still being the top two in the conference and playing in the BIG Championship the next week, and then playing again sometime in the playoff. No big deal we'll get them later in the season ho hum. Further the utter destruction in the bowls i snot a good thing for the sport. While I admit I have a hard time working up much interest in the Weedeater Toilet Bowl between the Sisters of the Blind and Weak-kneed state, for those schools it might be a cool trip. I know here in Tucson they had been building the NOVAHome Loan bowl into a significant community event that was beginning to draw thousands of people around the game. I see that going away. Ask anyone who was in Pasadena this year if there wasn't a magical feel to being at that venue in that environment.
Further, the monster conference concept has ripped apart some long standing organizational relationships with the destruction of the Pac 12. Arizona v. UCLA a major deal in basketball and that is gone. The whole structure of West Cast Baseball and Softball has been taken apart as well.
I have decried the money influence, but it isn't money to the players, or coaches, or even the schools that is the problem. It is the influence of the gambling structure through the networks that is the problem. decisions are being made not in the best interest of the sport but of some very limited persons, who really don't give a rat's ass about things like the Little Brown Jug. Maybe you agree and so be it, but for me if you feel that way, be prepared to have the hose turned on you if you step on my lawn.
Interesting that our last two championships both have a song associated with them. The 1997 team had "I hope you dance"
All I can say is (over and over again)
It's Great, To Be, A MIchigan Wolverine !!!
It's Great, To Be, A MIchigan Wolverine !!!
It's Great, To Be, A MIchigan Wolverine !!!
It's Great, To Be, A MIchigan Wolverine !!!
Mr Butt seems to have a pretty sweet gig going on the BiG Ten Network
Learning hte words was the point. When I was there we always said that once you knew the words you had to leave school
Since I identify as a geezer I will start with... now get off my lawn!!!
But seriously, this was the only obvious result as soon as the sport moved away from the old bowl structure. The bowls only existed as a reward for the better teams and specifically for conference champions (why was the 73 vote so devastating? because only one team from the Big ten went to a bowl) I like to joke that the only reason there is a Rose Bowl football game is that chariot racing didn't sell out in 1916. The game was just a small part of the larger Tournament of Roses event. There was a community involvement much bigger than the sport. Most of the bowls had that. Is there still a King Orange Jamboree parade in Miami? I have no idea, but I used to watch it. What is really dismaying is here in Tucson they were building the Arizona/Nova bowl into a real community event that brought people here and did good things for agencies in the area. That will be going away with this new structure.
The fact of the matter is when you talk about money in the sport it isn't paying the players or coaches or even the funds generated to the schools, it is the gambling money which is more closely tied to the TV revenue that most want to admit. There is no allegiance to anything other than the bottom line so the destruction of things like conference play and rivals based on archaic things like the Little Brown Jug and Floyd of Roseville is an irrelevance. Joel Klatt had it right during THE GAME when he observed that this would be the last time that it was played with anything nearly as important on the line. Same thing with the Rose Bowl this year. One of the reasons I am going. It will be probably the last time it has any meaning different from other post season games. Things like the marching band in the parade alumni groups traveling, hell the students who plan how to get to the game. With a potential three game post season how many students have the time and money to attend. I really see this as the destruction of a sport that has brought me a great deal of enjoyment throughout my life, and I feel sorry for those in school now and in the future as they will never experience the type of connection that most of those on this site did.
Sorry for this rant, and let this ole dinosaur crawl off to his cave and go extinct.
That retching sound you just heard is my high school chemistry teacher vomiting in her grave regarding the significant figures violation in this entire conversation. Given that the length of the kicks is in two digits, most of that decimal layout is meaningless. SO, the difference in conclusions becomes non-existant. Math can be a bitch in that regard.
I said it back before PSU game. Win out the season, crush the West division dwarf, and then have the team make the trophy presentation irrelevant by hoisting Harbaugh on their shoulders and march off to the locker room singing the Victors to celebrate together leaving the Big Ten dweebs looking ridiculous on the Dais with no one to present to.
Maybe have Santa go get the trophy later and comment how Michigan, Schembechler, Harbaugh, and Ufer never forget the impugning of our institution by an organization that couldn't find integrity in the dictionary if you spotted them the I N T E and G
I am so tired of the BS regarding alignments and conferences etc. The fact of the matter is college football is being destroyed by the money interests (and no it isn't player money or coaches money, it is gambling money. The drive to mega-conferences is a thinly disguised effort to create a wonderful gambling structure as a lower level NFL and the players and the schools are the pawns. Keep in mind that there are truly student athletes out there on the field, not all of them are playing to reach the NFL. They are getting screwed by this.
In any case for Michigan, here is my fantasy for the rest of the season.
We crush the Terrapins this Saturday
Run the school down south back south, crush whatever dwarf the west sends us, and at the end of the game the players hoist Harbaugh who has appeared on the sidelines, on their shoulders and march to the locker room singing the Victors leaving the Big Ten dweebs holding a trophy with no one to give it to. And then the next dayannounce either Pettiti goes or we leave the conference. Let all those idiots crying for our blood now figure out how much their pocketbooks will take the hit and see if they really want that. ( Yes I am a curmudgeon, now get off my lawn!!!)
Who IS John Galt?
Got my vote in, Go Blake and Blue
Have to ask BfromK, are you out there now? I spent several stints out there for work, and considered taking a longer term assignment out there. Seemed like an interesting life.
Being raised in Virginia and taught to revere robert E. Lee as a military god, I was very much surprised when I read Grant's Memoirs. He went over his conversations with Lincoln during the period following Gettysburg and Sherman as he left the command in the west after chattanooga. It was clear to him that to defeat the ANV he needed to engage and then not let go, and let the North's material superiority tell the tale. There is an anecdote I was taught when I was a kid that following the battle of the Wilderness which was the first battle in the Overland campaign, Grant met the vanguard of a demoralized Army of the Potomac at a crossroads in Virginia. After years of meetign defeat (and many of the northern soldiers regarded the brutality of the wilderness a defeat) leading to a retreat to Washington for re-supply, there was a choice to be made. Go straight and back to Washington or turn right and move toward Richmond. Grant made it clear they were turning right and that they were never going to let go of Lee and his Army. Grant clearly understood the concept of the total war of attrition through is actions in Virginia in late 1864 and his instructions to Sherman in the west leading to the devastating march to the sea through Georgia
The original posters analysis is, as usual spot on.
Lived out in the LA area in the 80s and 90s and as another poster said about New York stumbling across the Famous (or Infamous) is not unusual. But two that were more memorable:
Working for the legacy company that built the plane, we were given the day off and passes to the opening of the Spruce Goose in its dome in Long Beach. Standing there looking up at this thing didn't notice a guy in uniform standing next to me until he said "sure is a big son of a bitch, ain't she?". Turned and found it was Gen. Chuck Yeager. We had a fascinating 10 minute conversation about the history of aviation until some media types saw him and pushed me out of the way.
I was really into beach volleyball, (back before they trashed the sport with point a serve and.... that is rant for another day) Was sitting in the sand watching the Hermosa Beach OPen wearing an Orange letter Tigers hat (had to keep the sun off my balding pate) when this guy comes up and says nice hat, where'd you get it? Told him Tiger Stadium and he sits down and tells me what a huge Tigers fan he is. So I got to watch the rest fo the match talking crap with Tom Selleck. Really a nice guy.
It is fascinating to me to hear about reactions to screen deaths of animals. The classic was in the Michael Douglas movie War Between the Roses where screening reaction resulted in a modification to the movie. Douglas' character accidently runs over the wife's cat, and everyone was OK with that. Then the wife serves him a pate' ostensibly made from his dog with the classic line "he was a good dog, good to the last bite, woof, woof!". The reaction to that was so negative that they added a scene of the dog hiding under a bush outside reacting to his scream of anguish, to re-assure hte audience that the dog was not served up as dinner. That made it again, OK. Our culture is so weird that predicting what will and won't work is a minefield
Its funny my kid asked me about this the other night and I wasn't aware of that close a connection. That was my freshman year and Dooley's was my bar of choice. Knowing this my son was "Dad,did you help beat up Ted Bundy?" While I would have loved to say yes, we were still on break and I was at my parents house watching the game with family.
We met country western dancing, so we had an outdoor BBQ style wedding/reception. Pretty casual. Catered BBQ with tubs of ice cold beer and soda. Hired the DJ from the CW nightclub to come and teach the two step and line dances good times. Wifes father assigned us a week at a time share in Cancun. So first night of honeymoon was spent sleeping on chairs in Houston airport waiting for th etransfer to Mexico. Advice for honeymoon, don't plan anything, just let it happen and respond to opportunities.
Marraige, I will give you tips for a happy marraige when I figure that one out. As someone else said, a sincerely delivered yes, you are right dear. Is important. Paying attention to what she is really saying is probably more important, and where I still fail after 30 years.
M_Born, thanks for the expansion on my thinking, I will need to incorporate in the future. Your point about not being an either/or condition is particularly valid.
well is it a girlfriend or as I use "the spousal Unit"
That little triangle block has withstood the passage of time well. Pizza Bobs (nothing better than a sub and shake dinner). The Coach and Four on the corner . Remember in the misogynist past when they had Playboy as the reading material of choice on the waiting table.
Today is not a waste after all. I now have a destination for my next trip back to AA. Thanx
I much preferred Campus Corner, being a South Quaddie,it was a great locale for halfbarrels for dorm parties, back in the unenlightened days when "gasp" alcohol was allowed in the dorms.
As a child of a grad student in the 60s and a undergrad myself in the 77-82, I see Ann Arbor in series of snapshot memorys. Waterman Gym and East U going through as a road gone, replaced by the now removed CCRB. Krazy Jim's (Blimpy if you must) moved, although I will give them credit for doing their best to take the hardware of the place with them. I enjoyed the gourmet dish of the day at Le Dog on Liberty. Dooley's was great place with many over-imbibing stories. The original Ulrich's (although I am told they are back as the bottom floor of a high rise. The hard wood floors there just screamed "College" to me when I went to get my books freshman year. As an Aerospace Engineering student the transition from central campus to one of only 4 or 5 buildings on North Campus (the small one with the wind tunnel) started while I was there. No the new building named for a classmate. When I have been back it is good to see some things still there like the The Jug, and Good time Charlies. SO for me I don't see the changes as good or bad, just the natural evolution of a place to try and meet the demands of the times. Of course since it takes a while to implement anything, you often see the demands of 5 years ago being met today.
Disagree on Bobby Fuller but..
While I hated it at first after a couple of listenings, Disturbed brings an edginess to Sound of Silence that S&G couldn't provide
This question fits into a theory I started developing years ago while working on my MBA. Specifically, it was aimed at the company perspective of retention, but it is equally applicable to the employee making a decision to stay. When companies decide to retain (or fire for that matter) they tend to think in terms of black and white tangible issues like pay and level of benefits (ex. weeks of vacation) Many employees do the same thing (gee I am up to 5 weeks off a year, and I would go back to 2). But, and sorry if this sounds trite to anyone, there a a great many intangibles in play that can have a much bigger impact (some negative in value) than the size of the check. One that is leveraged both ways, and as mentioned by another poster, is the sense of pride, I WORK FOR GM. Some may scoff at that kind of identification, but I have seen it manifest itself very strongly. Another factor, and from the employee point of view is probably the most relevant, is fear of the unknown. Risk aversion runs deep in many people and they will stay with the tormenting devil they know so they don't have to face the devil behind door number 2.
The thing about the intangibles is that they are very fluid, and very difficult to "quantify" in relation to the tangibles. Fundamentally though, everyone's total compensation is a stack consisting of both. Once the stack on the outside opportunity gets bigger than the one you have, the employee leaves (think about the factors that have to occur to reduce the impact of the risk aversion for that to happen).
I think one thing that is happening in todays work environment is stories of people going to new challenges more routinely is demonstrating to more and more people how fluid working really can be, reducing the fear or change.
In addition, many of the more experienced people are finding their market value and splitting. It is beginning to show dramatically where I work in an engineering company where in my department of 180 people (I work for a very large corporation) fully 80% have less than 5 years witht he company. While trying not to sound too ageist, this is crippling our ability to resolve problems as tribal memory is disappearing and experience in recognizing paths forward become less available.
Iwas trying to remember the goalie, thanks for pulling Frikcker out of the mist
As far as Bobby Hull, the group of players at the time like Orr, Howe, Richard, that was fun hockey to watch. I still have my Bobby Hull guide rod table top hockey game. It came with stamped metal players for all of the original 6 NHL teams. Tried to get my kids interested in that type of game, but their reaction was , meh.
As a long time denizen of South Quad (77-81) I fondly remember going down to Campus Corner on Thursday evening to procure the pony sized study aid. Also, the orders for 6 or 7 half barrels for major dorm parties were routine.
This may be way to anal about things, but if you haven't thrown it away. Years ago my folks had got a Rose Bowl ornament that got damaged before they gave it to me. My father, being the solution biased individual he was, got a styrofoam ball the size of the ornament and put the pieces around it usingt Elmers. I have that ornament to this day and damaged as it is, it really has meaning to me.
Since I live ou tin Pac 12 land, I get more of the weekly human interest stuff than maybe I care to. hat said, didn't really understand why Charbonnet bolted. Then the stories regarding his sister's illness came out, and I really respect the young man's choice. Don't know if we really miss him given what we have had the past couple years anyway.
I was and still am a big fan of Cade. Even in the difficult situation he found himself in at the start of this season, he behaved in the best interests of the team. I wish him a speedy recovery and I would thoroughly enjoy seeing him play a little more ball for us, but that is too far in the future and who knows.
One thing living out of the local area, I never heard exactly what his injury was, and what this surgery is, anyone care to enlighten me?
We had natural grass in Michigan Stadium in the 90s as I recall. It actually was a complex system because there is a spring located under the field, so the problem wasn't watering the field it was more "unwatering" the field to keep it from being a swamp. It seems to me that it was a mess and sometime around 2002 we gave up and went back to artificial. I remember one article that went into the detail of the 2-3 ft crown that was normal for an artificial surface to promote drainage, and it could actually affect swing passes into the flat as the runner would be moving downward as they went toward the sideline
Since you are taking the family, if you have a dinner opening, head up to the Amana Colonies. It is a German based enclave with family style restaurants (pick your main course and then the sides come non-stop). Interesting shops etc. About 1/2 hour from Iowa City. I agree with the other poster on Dyersville for the Field of Dreams. If you liked the movie the scene is cool to wander around. Make sure you bring your mitts and a ball so yo can toss it around on the field
The Loyola team debuted what became known as "Showtime" when Westhead coached the Lakers. It was a style of play that was soooooo seductive to the inner playground player in even the most disciplined team. I had the un-happy circumstance to be in attendance in Long Beach that day, and you could just feel the Michigan players trying to buy into pass-pass-shoot (just about that fast too), and not comprehending that since that was all that Loyola did they were going to get run out of the gym, and that is exactly what happened.
Work for a fairly large defense contractor, and we are having significant issues filling slots. On a blue collar level I cannot get home improvement contractors to come out and take jobs. They just do not have the workers to take on more business. We may have permanently damaged our employment structure.
I have been an advocate for an eight arrangement with the P5 champions and the "best" 3 remaining teams (Group of 5 or runners-up in the P5 conferences, or independent, I won't even say the name). Use the primary New Years Day bowls as the quarters and then neutral site the semis and final.
I would re-establish bowl tie ins Big Ten/Pac 12 to Rose, SEC and at large to Sugar, ACC /at large Cotton, Whatever takes the place of the pretty well dismembered Big 12/at large to Orange.
Having the assured entry by being the champion would have the benefit of allowing teams to schedule glamor non-conference matchups. Think of a Michigan non-con of say USC,ND, Texas. You could drop all three, but still make the playoffs by blasting through the Big Ten schedule.
Eliminate divisions and you effectively end run Title IX out the door. I am a big supporter of women's sports. I spent a great deal of time building up a fastpitch league to broaden the availability of competitive play outside of the club system here in Arizona. That said, from a physical perspective women's teams in most sports are, on a level of competitiveness only, one level below men's. By this I mean the top 20 men's college teams would have massively winning records playing against the WNBA, and I would venture the top High School men's teams would do the same against NCAAW. When someone asked Serena Williams how she would fare against the top men's players, her reaction was one of Oh, hell no!. Back in the day someone asked McEnroe whether Navratilova could beat him, and he said it wouldn't be worth his time as it would be 6-Love,6-Love, and she concurred. Even the King-Riggs match which was highly competitive was a travesty as you had a 50 something huckster playing the top woman of the day.
All this is not to deprecate women's sports. But, the physicality differences of men and women who are at equivalent levels of their sport are so great as to make mixed play destructive.
Ah yes, the "fairness" doctrine. Other than the coaching payroll, exactly who is making all this money. Institutions are not people so the revenue in is not going to personal accounts. For the most part the athletic budgets are supplemented by the revenue sports income to pay for the non-revenue sports scholarships and into the University general fund for building things like the Central Campus Rec Building (yes I am exposing my age as I think I heard that the CCRB had been replaced and torn down, just as Waterman gym was demolished before). Your comments about athletes getting their fair share, as someone who paid their own way through school, taking that burden off my shoulders sure as hell would have meant a great deal. Also, most scholarship athletes realize that college is the end of the road for sports paying the way. SO, we have agreed to destroy the structure of college sports to cater to that small percentage of players that rationally will go pro. I realize that this next statement will be so far out of line with this body as to be ludicrous, but I would be just as happy to have a lower "quality" (but competitive across the board) of play in college, and let the NFL and NBA worry about the 5*s who are in it to go pro
That tolling you hear in the background is the funeral dirge of college sports. Go ahead and wave the white flag and make the colleges the minor leagues for football and basketball. The fact of the matter is the athletes were being compensated in the six figure range, the net value of that compensation was completely within the control of the player. Be serious and get an engineering/law/pre-med degree huge future value, get an ethnic studies degree and join the teachers union wandering around wondering why the administrations were serious when they offered the salaries they do. For the non-revenue sports, well we will just try and figure out a funding profile that makes sense.
As a Southerner, all I can say is this..
Hail, the ultimate abode of William Tecumseh Sherman!
Sherman said war is Hail and then made damn sure it was!
Go Blue, Crush the dawgs.
What you have just cited is a number of people expressing their position on getting the shot themselves. In virtually every case you cite they encourage the people to talk to their doctors do their own research and most critically "MAKE THE DECISION FOR THEMSELVES". WHen you pick out the disparaging quotes like Ivermectin.. commonly deployed...livestock, you are doing exactly what causes the lack of trust, as you leave out the part where the guy got a nobel prize for applying Ivermectin to people. Form my perspective the virtual news blackout on the impact of natural immunity due to previous infection is critical. Any reputable study would compare at least three groups, vaccinated, unvaccinated and previously infected (which anecdotally I think may be the majority of the unvaccinated), and unvaccinated and never infected. Report the data that way and you might get a better response. Instead you get responses from Fauci when someone actually askes the question of "well, that is a good question, maybe we will look into it
DO you really believe the numbers you spew. I won't argue about the American deaths (with COVID v. from COVID check out how Italy is now reporting), because it si terrible. But to even half ass accept the Chinese publishing of 4,500 deaths is astounding. I refer back to articles, in the main stream media, in April- May 2020 of plumes of crematoria fumes wafting over Wuhan in incredible volume, what the hell do you think they were burning. It wasn't "4,500" bodies you dolt.
A win this Saturday would be #3 all time in my book. The 97 Rosebowl (sitting 15 rows up in the endzone and watching Woodson rise up for the interception) is #1 and 69 OSU is #2.
But I can't fault anyones listings of games in this thread.
To go even more granular, epic plays?
Desmond and Woodson OSU punt returns. Desmond layout against ND. Of course Carter against Ind.
Defensive side, Dadrion Taylor hit on the PSU TE
"cuz I couldn't go for three" - Woodrow Wilson Hayes
I admit to being a military history geek, and have been to as many battle sites at the time of year in which it took place to try and get a glimpse into what went on. Once Custer's brigade de-horsed, it was all over but the shouting. The sabers were still effective in open movement as in attacking the village that would have been on flat relatively open land. If you have ever been to Little Bighorn, you will see that it is such rolling country, with the exception the bottom land along the rivers, that any of the horse drawn wheeled conveyances were a real detriment. That was one reason why Benteen and crew couldn't move very fast to reinforce, well that and the fact they were getting attacked as well. But it left Custer's men with just the ammo they carried
Point accepted and concurred with. It was/is/always will be a de-humanizing act used to whip up violent behavior. My issue was with my perception of what was being said meant a one way behavior. It is a classic chicken/egg conundrum about who was first. My point is that once the violence had started both sides would head in that direction
Should just let this be, but it takes my mind off of whether the guys can pull it out on Saturday. There were a couple of equipment decisions made before the 7th left Ft. Lincoln You mentioned the Gatling guns, which would have been inconsequential against the Sioux tactics, also would have been impossible to drag through the hilly terrain they were traveling through. The bigger, and more devastating decision was to leave their sabers behind. The tactics Custer set up that day were exactly what had worked 2 years earlier, with a small blocking force on one side, and a saber charge through the village by the rest. Instead, Reno advanced to carbine range of the village, dismounted and started shooting. At first panic started to spread, but then they noticed, hey no one is getting hit. They gathered the men who were off to the west, attacked Reno, damn near wiping that brigade out, and then went looking for the rest. The standard saber charge by Reno would have dramatically altered the result. As far as Custer's estimation of how many people were there, part of that comes form the failure of Crook's column to the south. Another couple thousand troopers were supposed to be coming up form Ft Fetterman. They ran into some resistance, and went scurrying home. He didn't even send messengers out to the north to let Custer and Terry know there were big problems with the three pronged plan.
There is a great book by N Philbrick Custer, Sittng Bull and the Last stand that goes over the battle and also the following years for Sitting Bull. It isn't a Custer was a Brave man, who failed, nor a Custer was an idiot, but more of the effects of cascading decisions resulting in an outcome.
One little nuance form the book, taken form accounts from Sioux Warriors, apparently toward the end of elimination of Custer's brigade, there was one officer who jumped on his horse and made a break for it to the east. Somehow he got all the way through and got away a couple miles. But then, out of guilt sham whatever shot himself. Years later after a fire had swept throghthe area, they found a mans skull with a bullet hole in it. What stories we might have learned form him, oh well.
As far as the poster and the "vagina's hanging form their uniforms", keep in mind desecration of vanquished corpses has a long history amongst indigenous people all around the globe, and the Sioux were not adverse to the practice. I am not condoning the fact that troopers did it, but you are taking things way out of context to look at those behaviors now.
I'm with you on the 8 team format. I would further try to maintain the "glamour" of the biggest bowl games by making them the quarterfinals and re-establishing conference tie-ins Rose (B1G v. Pac), Sugar (SEC v Invite), Orange (Big12 v. Invite), rotation of Cotton, Fiesta, Peach (ACC v. Invite). I really like the fact that it re-establishes the importance of the conferences which is greatly diluted by the current trends, and as a team could afford to lose a couple non-conference games it would allow scheduling of tougher opponents in those games. I would contend that having 3 at large choices would provide enough room to accommodate the nonP5 schools (ala Cincinnati this year) as well as deserving teams which lost conference championship games (the undefeated team that loses in an upset etc).
Then you add a semis and final weeks at neutral sites . Still doesn't address a problem fo rme of divorcing the team form the school, but in that regard I realize that I am a dinosaur and that that ship has sailed.
Substitute 82 grad for 84 and i would have thought I wrote this post. You have expressed my thoughts perfectly, especially the comment about the cyan on Cade in one of my favorite pieces that is presented on the site.
I realize that money changes everything, and in these days of NIL and the portal college football is going to change, but we are still dealing with 18-22 year old young men, who are no where near finished growing up. Don't believe me, ask your local auto insurance agent. Let's keep things in perspective. To paraphrase the late John McKay from USC, gentlemen, win or lose, there are 1.4 billion people in China who are going to wake tomorrow and not care.