As the weather in northern Indiana deteriorates from mildly intolerable to permanently gray and electron-stopping cold, talk of the bowl season begins to be heard from those tongues not currently affixed to flagpoles. True, after personally witnessing last year's loss to the Naval Academy, I readily admit that nothing is for certain. However, with upcoming contests against a now-weakened Navy team and the Greg Robinson death-watch formerly known as Syracuse, it appears almost certain that the Irish, even in the most pessimistic of scenarios, will be playing in college football's version of the NIT: a non-BCS bowl.

Unless something miraculous were to occur in Los Angeles, Notre Dame will most likely find itself in Jacksonville, Florida on January 1st, playing in the Gator Bowl against the ACC numero dos. This is so because Gator Bowl gets to choose between the Irish and the runner-up in the Big East conference, a spot currently occupied by Connecticut. I doubt that there would be much, if any, agony over that decision on the part of the selection committee.

WWL Big East blogger Brian Bennett has already started contemplating the hissy-fit to be thrown by conference fans upset that Notre Dame would be "stealing" one of "their" bowl bids. Bennett offers the justification for Notre Dame's inclusion in the Big East conference bowl tie-ins given by commissioner Mike Tranghese:

"What we've found is that, by bringing Notre Dame into the mix, that gave us an opportunity to make much better deals," Tranghese said. "When we made our last agreement, people didn't even know who was going to be in our league, because Boston College, Virginia Tech and Miami had just left. If we didn't include Notre Dame in our contract, the games that we currently have don't exist. I know fans and sometimes our own coaches don't want to hear that, but it's true."

So the logic, then, is fairly simple: ND keeps its football independence while still getting a shot at a New Year's Day bowl during non-BCS years, and the Big East gets more prestigious bowl slots. It's an arrangement that has worked out pretty well for a conference that is only tenuously designated as BCS-grade. Notre Dame hasn't "stolen" a bowl from the Big East since 2002. And that fact was probably something the conference had in mind when it signed the arrangement. They figured that a traditional power like Notre Dame will be competing for a BCS bowl game most years, and thus Big East teams would only rarely be squeezed out of the Gator and other bowls.

Of course, simple logic eludes simple minds, as the comments following Bennett's post evince. A sampling:

"Notre Dame SUCKS!!!!! They should be treated like any other Independent. Work for their bids."

"You know what, It's damn time to either get Notre Dame in all the way or kick them out all the way. I fail to see what exactly the Big East has to gain from the current arrangement. It always seems that Notre Dame is on the winning side of the deal."

"Notre Dame needs to poop or get off the pot."

You can't argue with such people. You can only crown them as asshats, and pray that they don't poop on the carpet.


Big East

Labels: Asshat of the Week, Bowls, Excellent Logic

Halloween came early for the Fighting Irish last weekend.

But putting aside the five turnovers committed by ND on Saturday, there was something even scarier looming in the background for Charlie's Weis's squad. In keeping with the horror theme, "Consider the following…"

- a plucky and up-and-coming program in search of a "signature win" who is a decent team but won't threaten for a BCS game
- an atmosphere of anticipation and lead-up as big any yet this season
- a game played in the Southeast, in front of a largely hostile crowd
- a Notre Dame team looking to "finally" grab the mantle of legitimacy
- a highly skeptical sports media

That's right, kids. We may have just lost our 10th straight bowl game last weekend.


























I don't want to sound hysterical or anything, but I don't think my speculation is too far off. As it is, more than a few pundits are already (and consistently, lately) projecting the Irish as accepting a bid to the Gator Bowl this year, likely to played against another rising ACC team: the Seminoles of Florida State. The match-up between the two erstwhile dominant national powers is looking more and more plausible with every passing week, and Notre Dame's latest performance certainly augurs ominously should that bowl pairing materialize.

For whatever reason, the Irish have struggled mightily in recent years when playing quality opponents away from the ethanol-kissed air of South Bend. The good news is that when Notre Dame does eek one out, it comes in an even-numbered year: Georgia Tech in 2006, Tennessee in 2004, and coincidentally, Sugar Bowl-bound Florida State in 2002.

I remain a firm believer that opponents "get up" to play Notre Dame more so than they would any other team, but this alone does not excuse the Irish collapse that has usually followed under these circumstances. It really wasn't always this way. We used to intimidate opponents because of what they thought we might do them. Now teams beat us and proclaim it to be a program-making/saving/legitimizing victory. Unfortunately, Irish teams of years past, most notoriously in bowl games, have repeatedly failed to step up and deliver under pressure by defending Notre Dame's hard-earned reputation. There's almost an element of dishonor to it.

Focusing on the affair in Chapel Hill for a moment, I must deviate from the conventional wisdom of "win as a team, lose as a team". Admittedly, no Irishman had a perfect day. But...

We had more total yards, first downs, and third down conversions. We committed fewer penalties. The defense allowed only 22 points. And, we were not out-coached. There is really only one man I can lay the blame off this loss directly on, and this time, he has no more hair to shave off.

Sorry Jimmy. You're a great player, and in the future you will probably single-handedly win us many games. But on Saturday, you lost us one. Indeed, Clausen was responsible for 3 of the 5 turnovers (and all of the ones that mattered). Two of those turnover led to Tarheel touchdowns. And then, there was that one turnover…

Clausen's first pass of the second half can only be described, for lack of a more elegant term, as a big smelly brain fart. (Perhaps, a "substantial odoriferous cerebral flatulent emission"?) He stared down Kyle Rudolph like he was Sarah Palin in a two-piece. While this interception was the most egregious exercise of bad judgment, there were several other throws Jimmy made that were more questionable than the authenticity of Joe Biden's hair. (We are equal time!!) I think it's fair to say that with each game up until the last one, Clausen had improved tremendously. But against North Carolina, he regressed and cost his team the game.

Fortunately, Clausen has a chance to redeem himself in Seattle against a Washington defense that has given up about as many points as the Dow Jones Industrials did last week. But in the meantime, all Notre Dame can do is brood over what might have been. Unless you think the Irish can pull off a miracle in Los Angeles, or consider BC to be a better team than North Carolina, ND will not get another chance to prove its big-game mettle in a road game until bowl season. They had better be more prepared than they were this weekend.

Labels: Bowls, Jimmy Clausen, Really Bad Movies

What follows is my plan to reform the college football postseason, to include a tournament. My goal throughout was to create a system that could actually be accepted by the current actors in college football (i.e. the conferences, the bowls, the bowl locations, the networks, and the fans).

I first published this plan last December on my personal blog. I republish it now so that it may be subject to scrutiny from more advanced football fans.

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The need for a tournament in college football is so obvious that I need not delve deeper into that question. But how might/should a tournament work? Many say that it is impossible for various reasons ranging from scheduling to stubbornness by the bowls and the conferences.

Wrong.

I present to you the best way to satisfy all parties involved: the fans, the teams, the conferences, and the bowls. Call it the Bowl Tournament Series, or perhaps the Tournament of Bowls.


Size/structure:

- 8 teams. This requires a total of 7 games played over 3 weeks (4 quarterfinal, 2 semifinal, and the national championship game). The 4 major bowls; Fiesta, Orange, Rose, and Sugar; would host the quarterfinal games and the semifinals and championship game would rotate between those locations as well but would not have bowl names. The major bowl locations get more overall games each year and would thus have financial incentive to follow this system. Further, each named bowl matters equally in the first round of the tournament because the victor of each advances in the tournament.

Selection/bowl pairing:

- The top 8 teams in the BTS rankings would be entered into the tournament. It's that simple. No exceptions. This would afford little argument for lack of fairness or saying that certain teams do not belong (e.g. what some people are saying about ND and Wake Forest this year).

- The tournament would not be seeded! This is the critical compromise of my system. Rather, the bowls would choose teams from conferences aligned with them (e.g. the Rose Bowl picking the winners of the Big 10 and PAC-10), but only if those teams are included in the top 8 of the BTS rankings. If there is not a conference champion available for a bowl, that bowl shall pick from the available teams, and multiple bowls needing replacements shall pick in an order that rotates each year.

- The key advantage of this is that the bowls could maintain much of the tradition they have held from the beginning of college football. They'd be giving up little more than they already give up in the BCS. This setup is ultimately better for the conferences as well. While they might resist because all of the 6 majors would not be guaranteed representation in the tournament, most years would see 4-6 represented and the financial incentive would actually be greater for the conferences. Yes, a conference is not guaranteed a spot, but it could also get more than 2 teams (as is the cap now) in the tourny and rake in more money that way. Also, the tournament's 7 games amounts to 2 more games than are currently played in the BCS. That's $30-40 million additional in funds to be spread around to conferences that advance each year.

Ranking:

- The BTS rankings could work very similarly, if not identically, to the current BCS rankings. Incorporating some aspects of the BCS would ease the transition to the new Bowl Tournament System. I would, however, tweak the rankings to give the computers equal weight again. Also, I would include the AP poll on the human side in order to give the human side even more diversity. Finally, I'd narrow the selection of the computer models to ones that placed additional emphasis on strength of schedule.

Schedule:

- Scheduling, actually, is not a challenge at all. The season would not have to be shortened and the conference championships could remain. Like this year, the final weekend of non-bowl football would include the conference championships and would need to be the first weekend in December. The tourny-bound teams would then get 3 weeks off to devote towards academic finals. The first round of the tournament would then be held in the weekend closest to Christmas. This year it would fall on Friday, Dec. 22 - Saturday, December 23. Play two bowls each of those days. This would put the National Championship game in the New Years week.

- The downside for players is that some of them will be playing very near to Christmas. But come on, it's not like they're free all break as it is now. Also, many sports play on holidays. For the fans it would be a major plus. Imagine having the tradition of watching college football on or near Christmas! Awesome.

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Thus, the Bowl Tournament Series would be a win-win system for all. Fans would get the tournament they have been crying for. Bowls would maintain their tradition and get increased revenue. Conferences would likely see an increase in revenue. Teams and players would have a fair system.

Labels: BCS, Bowls, polls