1. By now everyone has heard that if there is a three way tie in the Big 12 South the highest ranked team in the BCS will play in the Big 12 Championship Game. That means the humans (66% of the BCS Poll) will determine the Big 12 South representative. Let’s assume Oklahoma sinks the pirate ship at home next week. Try to sway the pollsters by arguing which team you think should face off against the Big 12 North.
Fair enough. We'll take this step-by-step.
1. Head-to-head: Basically a draw, but you have to give Texas a slight edge since their big win in the three-way tie came at a neutral venue while Tech and Oklahoma will have both needed home field advantage to get their big wins.
2. Big 12 schedule: Texas in a walk, since they drew Missouri and the other two didn't.
3. Nonconference schedule: Oklahoma, also in a walk. TCU and Cincy are both miles better than anyone the 'Horns scheduled and I hear Tech's noncon slate killed at the Comedy Club last week.
So who comes out ahead? Not Tech, that's for sure. And if you're picking between the Sooners and the 'Horns ... uh, shouldn't you go with the team of those two teams that beat the other team? If by the time they've finished with Tech and Oklahoma St. Oklahoma has a decisive edge in Sagarin's overall schedule rating--which at the moment is all Texas-- well, maybe you say that the three-way head-to-head tie just ought to be broken that way. But otherwise (and I suspect the final math will indeed be "otherwise") the 'Horns ought to get the benefit of the doubt. (Too bad there's basically no chance it works out this way.)
2. ESPN is aggressively bidding on the rights to the BCS when Fox’s contract expires after the 2009 season. (Which they've since won--ed.) My half baked theory is if they do win the rights they will push for a +1 system. Lucrative television deals have landed ESPN in bed with each of the BCS conferences. The revenue a playoff would generate could be a huge motivator for the four letter to be the common denominator and unifier among the conferences that finally helps them all to see the light of why a playoff would be good for college football. Help expand upon or debunk this theory.
I don't think even the might of the House of Mouse will strongarm the mules in the Pac-10 and Big-10 into a plus-one until the new contract expires, unless possibly an undefeated USC or perfect Penn St. wind up playing third fiddle to undefeated SEC and Big 12 teams. We get that scenario a time or two, and I suspect the timetable accelerates substantially.
But when that contract does expire (in 2015, sigh), yeah, I could see ESPN playing the hero's role (of all things) in bringing us the playoff-like substance we so desperately need. Not necessarily for their ability to tug on the ears of the principals involved alone, but because when they do tug on those ears, they'll have something practical to say into them: namely, exactly how many gazillions of dollars they'll be willing to pay for a four-team playoff of some kind.
That, finally, should at some point be enough to convince everybody on board.
3. Rivalry week is around the corner. How do you think your team will fare? Feel free to talk a little or a lot of trash.
Well, pretty much the sole purpose of this blog over the next week-and-a-half will be to answer this question, so for now I'll just say:
until proven otherwise.
4. And now for a little fun… Assemble your dream announcing team. Pick a play-by-play announcer, color commentator, sideline reporter and for the hell of it celebrity guest that drops on by.
Now this is a question. Let's break it down bit by bit ...
PBP: I've got a ton of sympathy for the perennially underrated Sean McDonough, who deserves much, much better than the random midday ESPN2 games he's stuck with. A couple years back Mike Tirico always did a bang-up job on ESPN's Thursday night games in my opinion; naturally, he's since been assigned to NBA-only duty. I'd take those two guys over Chris Fowler or Brad Nessler, but you also have to respect that Fowler and Nessler bring the professionalism on a week-by-week basis even as they're paired with the likes of Craig James and Paul Maguire.
Of course, the only actual choice here is Ron Franklin. No one else comes close.
Color: Typically, good color guys go through several phases in their career
1. Lots of nuts-and-bolts analysis, perhaps a little wooden on the mic, difficulty getting their knowledge across
2. More seasoned communicator, but still with incisive observations and quality information
3. Analysis begins to be lost in haze of producer-driven storylines and exclusive focus on stars, but still some shreds of insight
4. Useless blithering pap
Phase No. 2, obviously, is the announcing sweet spot and we have precious few college football color guys currently operating in that phase. Guys like Danielson and Davie are well on their way to Phase 4 (where Maguire already dwells); Spielman and Griese's best days are behind them; Herbstreit can't turn off his Gameday bobblehead persona long enough to do any real X's-and-O's.
Which is why while I'm supremely hopeful for the Trev Alberts experiment, right now there's really only one choice at color as well: Todd Blackledge, who once-upon-a-time was joined with McDonough at CBS to create the best CFB broadcasting team I've ever had the pleasure of listening to. Now he's saddled with Mike Patrick and still he manages to say a few insightful things each game he calls. He's the best.
Sideline: If we have to have one at all, I'd take Holly Rowe circa 2004-2005. But even Rowe has offered far too many "Let me tell you about this crazy and/or humorous and/or touching anecdote that is in no way related to the current action on the field"-style reports the past couple of seasons and not enough actual news. I'm assuming this is because her bosses are idiots. If I can get the one that asks actual questions of coaches at halftime and reports actual news, I guess I'll take her.
Celebrity: Charles Barkley can drop in for five minutes. That's it.
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