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Loose-leaf observations from a tight-bound notebook…

Nov 192012

SEC vs SEC title game scenario. Because you know it’s going to happen.
- ND loses to USC.
- Alabama, Georgia and Florida win their last respective games to finish at 11-1.

SEC Title game: 11-1 Alabama vs 11-1 UGA.

BCS National Championship: 12-1 SEC title game winner vs 11-1 Florida.

Bam. Done. You’re welcome, CFB nation.

Does this mean I have to root for ND to beat USC just so that we have some variety? Yikes. ND is already a lock for a BCS bowl game and deservedly so but they’re going to get waxed by any of the other contenders.

Brian Kelly is a dbag but man, can he coach. I said it when he left Cincinnati that he would reawaken the echoes. Looks like he has done that.

Maryland and Rutgers to the B1G. Makes financial sense for both but athletically, they’ll be whipping boys going up against those huge schools.

I don’t regret one bit that Maryland and Rutgers might be going to the B1G while Pitt is going to the ACC. The B1G was a pipedream of Pitt fans for many years but we fit better athletically within the ACC.

If ever you doubt that college football is more innovative and interesting than pro football, check out Chris Brown’s site, Smart Football.

You Never Should Have Been

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Jul 242012

Yesterday when the NCAA announced its sanctions on the Pennstate football program, I watched Facebook, Twitter, ESPN.com article comments and other sources to gauge the reactions of Pennstaters to this apparently devastating hit to their once-proud football program.

I’m not sure I read anything from a Pennstater agreeing with the penalties. Not a one. Many said that the full story hadn’t been written, that the NCAA should have waited until the trials of Spanier, Curley & Schultz had laid out more evidence. A few continued to stress that the NCAA had no jurisdiction to sanction the football program. Some concentrated their wrath on the media for its supposed feeding frenzy. Others lashed out at the current administration for copping out to the NCAA. And so many many others simply screamed into the void, “We are [still] Pennstate!”

I have to ask, what penalties, if any, would they have accepted as fair? 2-year bowl bans, 5 scholarship reductions/year, no monetary fine? Only a monetary fine? More NCAA oversight? Or perhaps, nothing.

Surely, nothing better is going to come to light after the verdicts for Messrs Curley, Spanier and Schultz. Joe Paterno is not going to be magically exonerated. The culture of Pennstate’s all-power, all-encompassing football institution, whose power engendered this cover-up, won’t be seen in a softer light. And make no mistake about it, Pennstate football was and is an institution, not just a program.

I don’t think the public can be expected to believe Pennstate’s own proclamations that it’s reforming its culture and so should be left alone. Oh so, Curley, Spanier and Schultz are gone or placed on leave. Paterno was fired. Maybe the Board of Trustees will be the next to go. Well bully for yinz gahz.

Every measure taken that even tangentially touched the football program or the culture that Paterno fostered has been fought. Fire Paterno – riots. Take down the Paterno statue and people go nuts. Rename Paternoville to Nittanyville and Facebook explodes. The Freeh report itself was commissioned by PSU’s own administration and many Nitters still don’t believe it, whether about Paterno or the football institution.

We (myself included) trusted Pennstate for decades that their “success with honor” motto was real and tangible; that the sanctimony, however annoying, might be earned. No more. Welcome to the club of ordinary universities, Pennstate. You don’t get the benefit of the doubt anymore.

Hey Pennstate, stop trying to make everyone linebackers!

College Football, Football 2 Responses »

Jul 192012

Talent as much as hard work perseveres in college football. Many of the great high school athletes play two positions in high school – RB/LB, WR/LB, QB/DB, etc. They then pick one position for college. It’s up to the college coach to put his players in a place to success but the truly gifted can probably still get by on talent in college. Some let the coach pick, others insist on a particular position.

Sometimes selfishness pays off. Pitt great Larry Fitzgerald recently revealed that he was nearly swayed by the grand experiment, the “success with honor” bullsh*t peddled by Joe Paterno at Pennstate. He nearly became a Nittany Lion linebacker.

More than 10 years ago, this [numbers-first] attitude led to a life-changing decision. He said no to Joe Paterno, who wanted Fitzgerald to play linebacker, to be part of a great Penn State tradition.

“I played linebacker all the way up to my senior year in high school,” Fitzgerald said. “I was heavily recruited as a defensive player. I had about 25 to 30 offers coming out, and probably 70 percent of them were defensive offers. I grew up watching Penn State, and was really enamored by the defense at Linebacker U.”

Except Fitzgerald was chasing something else, and he did something rare. Like Tony Dorsett, he chose the University of Pittsburgh instead, where Fitzgerald would be the team’s star wide receiver, catching 34 touchdown passes in two seasons before jumping all the way to the NFL.

Despite their well-worn reputation as “Linebacker U”, perhaps Pennstate should stop trying to turn every great athlete into a linebacker!

LaVar Arrington was a RB/LB in high school. In fact, he was known as much for his running skills at Mars & North Hills High School so it was a surprise to me when he switched over to LB fulltime at Pennstate. Paterno may have gotten it right on this one but I’ve always wondered how Arrington would have done at running back.

Pro football Hall of Fame Quarterback Jim Kelly grew up in East Brady, PA, in the heart of Pennstate country. He always wanted to play at Pennstate. The only thing he wanted to do more than play at Pennstate was to play quarterback. But Joe Paterno wanted him at LB. So Kelly chose to go to the University of Miami instead. Bam.

Former Pitt QB Rod Rutherford was one of most sought after recruits in the country during his days at Perry Traditional Academy. Almost no one thought he would end up at Pitt, especially after the sainted Paterno paid an in-person visit to the Rutherford house. But Pitt coach Walt Harris did what Paterno wouldn’t do. He promised Rutherford the opportunity to play offense, namely QB, not linebacker or safety. Two years later, Rutherford scampered 60+ yards for the only touchdown in the last game Paterno ever coached against Pitt. For his career, Rod Rutherford finished with 458 completions in 840 attempts, passing for 6,725 yards and 60 touchdowns.

Photo Credit: John Beale, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

[As an aside, I don’t really feel like commenting on the whole PSU/Paterno/Sandusky conflagration. So instead, I’ll rip on Pennstate in the way they’ll best understand, on the gridiron].

The Big East Was Doomed Years Ago

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May 092012

Or… Why Joe Paterno is Laughing Himself Silly Down in Heaven

In the wake of Big East Commissioner John Marinatto’s (forced) resignation, there’s been a lot of revisionist history about what should have been done to strengthen the league. I don’t think anything substantive could have been done post-2004; certainly nothing that would have prevented further defections.

It’s been written that the conference dithered too much in the wake of the 2004 ACC defections. The additions of Louisville, Cincinnati and USF stabilized the league but that was it. UCF or Memphis might have been decent additions at the time but no available school would have radically shifted the balance of power nor provided the anchoring presence that the University of Miami once did.

A league needs an anchor tenant (or two) around which to build its brand. The ACC already had a high mid-level brand in Clemson and got an anchor tenant when they admitted Florida State in 1992. Prior to 2004, the Big East wasn’t the clear-cut worst BCS conference; it was relatively on par with the ACC in football and could have even tried to poach FSU and maybe UMD and UVA, two decent mid-level brands. But instead, the ACC acted boldly and snagged the Big East’s anchor tenant (Miami), a high mid-level brand (Virginia Tech) and a large market (Boston College).

So I would contend that the Big East as a major football league has been doomed to die a slow death since losing the Hurricanes. I, for one, am very relieved that Pitt is off that sinking ship.

Is Bigtime FBS Football a Reach for Rutgers?

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Jan 262012

With the news coming out that head coach Greg Schiano has bolted Rutgers for the supposedly greener pastures of the NFL, the immediate concern for Scarlet Knights fans focuses on the program’s future relevance. BCS concerns aside, can Rutgers continue to field even a modestly successful football program (defined here as at the very least an average of 6-8 wins/year).

The historical answer, pre-Schiano/post-1978, is a resounding no. Except for Greg Schiano, no other coach has won big at Rutgers. Except for Greg Schiano, no other coach has gotten a firm commitment (read: financial) from Rutgers’ administration to field a winning big-time program.

I didn’t realize this but apparently Rutgers was once an academics-first/only institution. As opposed to fellow northeastern schools Pitt and Pennstate which both boast outstanding academics but also strive to run with the big boys in college football, Rutgers didn’t even put itself in the game. This was the eye-opening passage for me from CFT’s Matt Hinton:

Traditionally, Rutgers belongs to the class of academically oriented schools in the Northeast that disavow the corrupting influence of big-time football: Before Division I was split into “I-A” and “I-AA” classifications in 1978, its schedule consisted overwhelmingly of teams from the Ivy League and the kind of wannabe-Ivy schools that would go on to form the Patriot League — that is, second and third-rate programs that care so little about sports that most of them still don’t offer athletic scholarships.

And Rutgers were mostly successful in that setting. 7, 8, 9-win seasons weren’t uncommon. It was only after trying to join the big boys post-1978 that Rutgers became a laughingstock of a program. In fact, in 1976, Rutgers went 11-0… against a lineup of Navy, Bucknell, Princeton, Cornell, UConn, Lehigh, Columbia, UMass, Louisville, Tulane and Colgate. Four of those schools were non-IA. That team didn’t even go to a bowl game.

By comparison, the 1976 National Champion, who went 12-0, played a schedule consisting of Notre Dame, GA Tech, Temple, Duke, Louisville, Miami-FL, Navy, Syracuse, Army, WVU and Pennstate with a Sugar Bowl win over Georgia. That team was Pitt. (Hail).

Beano Cook once wrote that if you’d asked him in the early 1970’s to name the programs with the most un-tapped potential, he would have named Miami-FL (duh)… and Rutgers. The strength of northeastern teams from Pitt to Pennstate to Syracuse has often been supplanted with the fantastic talent that comes out of the Garden State. Greg Schiano tapped into that base, to a degree, and it helped him build a modestly successful program. Whether another coach can build on that legacy or even sustain it is debatable.

My guess is that Rutgers fades into semi-irrelevance; partly by choice of not paying ridiculous huge sums to keep up with the Ohio States of the world and partly by being excluded from the big boy conferences upon the demise of the Big East.

Photo Credit: Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

MST: Duke and Coach K say yes to Pitt/’Cuse. Rest of ACC says NO!

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Sep 182011

The college sports world was thrown into turmoil this weekend when it was revealed Pitt and Syracuse had applied for and been accepted for membership in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Speaking to Andy Katz of ESPN, Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski said that adding the Panthers and Orangemen would be a coup for the ACC.

“It’s actually pretty exciting,” Krzyzewski said. “I think it’s great for our conference football-wise, even better basketball-wise. Wherever this is going to end up, four big-time conferences or five, whatever it is, you want to be perceived as No. 1 in football and basketball.”

It is widely known that Duke and Coach K opposed the ACC’s previous expansion plans, a position that solidified the other universities’ resolve to add Miami-FL, Virginia Tech and Boston College. So even though Pitt and Syracuse bring top-notch basketball programs to the ACC, Krzyzewski’s remarks still caught ACC administration off guard.

MST has since learned that the ACC’s Presidents and Athletic Directors have had a sudden change of heart upon hearing of Coach K’s welcoming words. Using a little known by-law known as the We Hate Duke Corollary, they have since re-voted to reject Pitt’s and Syracuse’s applications to the conference. The ACC’s expansion focus will now shift to schools that will most definitely piss off the Blue Devils.

“It’s actually pretty exciting,” Krzyzewski said. “I think it’s great for our conference football-wise, even better basketball-wise. Wherever this is going to end up, four big-time conferences or five, whatever it is, you want to be perceived as No. 1 in football and basketball.

Replacing Paterno

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Aug 092011

Joe Paterno broke’d himself the other day. And predictably, many were led to question his ability to continue on in the same capacity as he has for the 45 years at Pennstate.

Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn about his supposed frailty. The man can still coach. Even including last year’s disappointing (yet foreseeable) 7-6 record, the State Penn logged 58 victories over the latter half of the last decade, including two trips to BCS Bowl games.

What fascinates me is the never-ending speculation over who will/should take over for the legend once he’s done. It’s a pretty common sentiment here in W. PA that that man should be current PSU defensive coordinator Tom Bradley, a well-respected coaching mind and an ace recruiter. I think that would be a big mistake.

I’m not trying to rip on Bradley, whom I would have loved for the Pitt job, but he’s too close to the trees to see the forest (or vice versa?). Pennstate will need new blood, new thinking, much like they got when Galen Hall came aboard in 2004. It’s no surprise that his addition sparked the Spread HD offense, which has been so successful for PSU.

Had Bradley left the farm, either for Pitt or UConn or some other school, he would eventually have gained valuable experience and become an excellent candidate to succeed Paterno. Or he would have failed in which case PSU would know he’s not the right guy to man their helm. No less an authority on good coaching hires than the Steelers have eschewed the easy choice by going outside the family. I’d say Mike Tomlin has worked out quite well for Steelers Nation.

When the time comes for PSU to replace JoePa, I hope they don’t stay in-house. I don’t expect Paterno to be around in 2016 when PSU deigns to play Pitt again. But as for the new guy-to-be – no to JayPa (hah, that would be hilarious), no to Galen Hall, no to Tom Bradley. Paterno has worked hard to make PSU into a destination job. New blood should help keep it there.

http://www.altoonamirror.com/page/content.detail/id/552577/Latest-setback-puts–another-cloud-over-JoePa.html

MST: NCAA Sanctions Miami of Ohio Football to Punish Jim Tressel

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Mar 102011

Since SMU football received the NCAA Death Penalty, there’s been a saying in college sports that any time an Alabama or a Kentucky commits major violations, an East Tennessee State or a Montana will get slapped with NCAA sanctions.

MST has learned that the NCAA has indeed levied sanctions against Miami University of Ohio in order see that justice be done in the case of Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel lying about his knowledge of “Tattoo Gate”. In an ingenious twist, the NCAA will use time travel, not to levy actual sanctions against the University, but will instead seek to sully and damage the school’s reputation. Actual far-reaching sanctions, as we all know, are not what the NCAA is all about.

By “arranging” for the University of Pittsburgh to hire away then-rising star Mike Haywood as its head coach while simultaneously trumping up charges of domestic battery against Haywood, Miami(OH)’s vaunted reputation as a cradle of coaches will be sullied and Haywood’s career ruined. The Redhawks are left wondering what might have happened had Haywood had not left Oxford, Ohio. In addition, a joint sting operation between the NFL and NCAA will see to it that the (already sketchy) reputation of Steelers QB and Miami of Ohio product Ben Roethlisberger is battered to pieces by allegations of sexual misconduct.

Now you’re probably wondering why the NCAA wouldn’t just ‘let’ Haywood stay at Miami(OH) and then humiliate the school with his scandal. But that would be a logical move. And we’re talking about THE FUCKING NCAA, HERE!!

Collegiate Expectations

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Mar 072011

Being a fan means that we have expectations of the teams we follow, be it a professional or college team. There was once a time when we held different expectations of even our major college teams than of our professional teams.

A professional athlete, at least by definition if not by attribution, plays the game for a wage; he has on-field metrics to attain, the loftiest of which is to win a championship. I think it’s fair to hold most professional athletes to this standard. Though we may praise them for noteworthy efforts in defeat, ultimately, such outcomes are a failure.

A major college athlete, however, is still an amateur. I know that in today’s cynical world, we like to deride the corruption and avarice of major college athletics. I’ll not demure from such characterizations but I’ve known a few who played college football and I can vouch that they saw the importance of getting on with their “life’s work” (as Chuck Noll called it) faster than we, the jaded public, may give them credit. No, such individuals didn’t morph into Rhodes Scholars or lead perfect lives but they took their courses of study no less seriously than the non-athlete students who have always known they were destined for the cubicle farms of modern workaday America.

So, if we allow that the vast, vast, vast majority of college athletes are truly amateurs, then the expectations we place on them must be reasonably commensurate with that amateur status, even for major athletics programs. The lofty olden goal of the college athlete has always been to grow as a person, to use athletics as a past-time and as a means to earn a college degree and prepare for a non-football future. Winning is important, as it is in the real-world, but there were different levels of winning.

The stated goal of Michigan’s legendary head coach Bo Schembechler was to win the Big Ten title and anything that happened in the bowl game afterwards was gravy. Schembechler was 5-12 in bowl games, 2-8 in the Rose Bowl and never won a National Title. Such an absymal bowl record would probably have gotten him fired at Big Blue these days. In 1963, Pitt football compiled a 9-1 regular season record and earned the #3 poll ranking. When they were shut out of the so-called National Title game and offered to play in a lesser bowl game, the athletes declined. Because that bowl game interfered with Finals week.

As I survey major college basketball around this time every year, I hear talk about the “next level” and what type of results in the NCAA Tournament would make for a successful year. For the minnows, it’s just getting into the NCAA Tournament. But for most high-major programs, the goal is to win the National Championship and less is often considered something of a failure. There’s nothing wrong with expecting to win a National Championship. I would hardly call Duke’s program corrupt for holding to such a standard.

Coaches today will talk the same game. No less than Pitt’s Jamie Dixon has stated that winning a National Title, not just breaking in to the Final Four, is Pitt’s true goal. As a Pitt sports fan, I do love that statement. But even though the Final Four and the Elite Eight and even the Sweet Sixteen are largely ESPN-marketing driven creations, they still serve as reasonable levies against what is otherwise our just-win-baby culture. Yet coaches successively come under fire when their programs somehow can’t get thru the Sweet Sixteen, then the Elite Eight, then the Final Four, then the National Championship. If it took the greatest college basketball coach of all-time, John Wooden, 15 years to get UCLA to a Final Four and 16 years to win a National Title, I’m ok with keeping my college sports expectations in check.

Institutional Advantages, Part II

College Football, Football, The Bigger Picture 3 Responses »

Sep 212010

I’ve written before about the importance of pedigree in college athletics, specifically in football. Historically low-grade schools can break into the high-end of the pack for a time through great coaching but most will fall back to their customary place. Because of coaching. The hot coach will eventually leave for a program that is considered to have the necessary pedigree to sustain big-time excellence. Part of that pedigree relates to greater financial resources. But it also deals with history and therefore the school’s attractiveness (no, not of the co-eds).

The distinction I’m trying to make is whether a football program is defined by its coach or whether the football program defines its coach. At places like Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State, Texas and USC, the institution matters more than the coach. I won’t belabor the point further; you can check out the original article.

We’re now entering a couple test cases at different stages in the road.

Cincinnati and Louisville, which lost very successful head coaches in recent years, will have to prove that the program matters more than the coach. So far, not good. I should hasten to add that even a bad coach can derail a program-first school, as evidenced by the abysmal tenures of Ron Zook and Mike Shula at Florida and Alabama, respectively. No educated college football fan thinks that Michigan can’t get back into the big picture if Rich Rodriguez is fired. But that question legitimately hovers over the Bearcats and Cardinals.

Louisville came within a hair of playing for the national title under Bobby Petrino after weathering the departures of program-builders Howard Schnellenberger and John L. Smith. After Petrino himself left, the hiring of Steve Kragthorpe proved to be a disaster and now the Cardinals are hoping once again to have struck it rich with Charlie Strong. I happen to think that Strong will make an excellent coach. The question is whether they’ll be able to hold onto him if a big-name school comes calling. A program-first school will serve as a destination for hot head coaches, rather than having to continually hire the next up-and-coming assistant coach.

The state of Kentucky has never been a college football hotbed as evidenced by the desultory record of its flagship school, the SEC’s University of Kentucky. The Bluegrass State’s best prep stars probably prefer to go to football-first schools like Tennessee, Alabama or Georgia. But this does present an opportunity for Louisville to become more of the state’s football school, despite its own hoops heritage. Louisville just completed upgrades to its facilities, including an expansion of PapaJohns Cardinals stadium, so it’s showing it has the resources to play the college sports arms race.

Cincinnati is hoping to continue its run with Butch Jones after the departures of successful head coaches Mark Dantonio and Brian Kelly. So far, not good for as the Bearcats are 1-2. I’m not trying to write off Butch Jones just yet but the school’s task to become program-first is a tall order.

I have my doubts about whether Cincinnati can become that school. It’s a commuter school, with one of the smallest budgets in the BCS. It plays in a 35,097-capacity stadium which it struggled to sell-out even last year and despite the most successful seasons in school history, it has struggled to raise enough money for facilities’ upgrades as well as an expansion for Nippert Stadium. It faces the same struggles as any other city school to attract fans who have grown up as NFL/Pro-sports fans first. Until last year, Cincinnati had never even been in the discussion for a national title, much less having won multiple championships like the behemoth in whose shadow it lives, The Ohio State University. I used to believe that with the talent that comes out of Ohio, it could afford to field two high-profile college programs. I still believe that but I have my doubts as to whether Cincinnati can overcome its structural deficiencies to join the Buckeyes or even the likes of Pitt and West Virginia in the college football consciousness on more than a 3-4 year basis.

Photo Credits: Unknown, Brett Hansbauer/UC Sports Communications

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