Weeks 1 & 2: Ramblings

Aaaaaahhhh. Good to be back. Perhaps you're wondering: "Bones, where did your trademark psychotic rambling go? I need it to put people to sleep so I can steal their things."

To that I respond: Fear not, dear reader! I have returned to rambling. There was a slight delay caused by the return of this "school" place where I work, so we'll just breeze over the first week's games and couple some observations from week 2 in there as well. Follow me? Good!

*The ugliest story in college football this year, and possibly ever, is the Penn State case. The only thing that remains to be said about that is that I feel sorry for these players. Staff and others associated with the team have to live with themselves and what they knew and didn't tell, but the players who stayed in Happy Valley didn't have a part in Sandusky's crimes. They (and pretty much no one else up there) deserve better than an 0-2 start.

*Savannah State's schedule maker is a sadist. That is all, move along.

*Memo to Missouri players: Criticize your opponents after you play them. No "old man football" labels if you can't beat Georgia.

*So...Arkansas? A Sun Belt team? Hey, better schedule someone from the Southern Conference next year, since 1-A opponents appear to be a bit much to handle.

*South Carolina edges Vandy (with a questionable call) then beats ECU like a drum...gonna be an interesting year in Columbia.

*Southern Cal crushed Hawaii then looked unimpressive against Syracuse. ESPN has treated the coming USC/Stanford game as the big test on USC's schedule. Technically it is, since they don't play another non-sucky team until late October. Still isn't much of a test, since Stanford is a shell of itself. Exhibit A: a 3 point defeat of San Jose State. No, the Duke game doesn't count.

*Oregon still scores lots of points, but their schedule is more of a joke than USC's. And that is depressing.

*Florida State is touted as the ACC's best shot at a title contender. I'll buy that more once they play a team that is part of the FBS (Division 1-A). Right now all FSU is proving is that they're better than 1-AA teams. Hooray.

*Oregon State upsets Wisconsin, UCLA knocks off Nebraska, Alabama kills Michigan, Arizona State blows out Illinois, Penn State's 0-2. Yup. The Big 10 is back!

*Speaking of Alabama: Nick Saban. Still the devil.

*Yay! Virginia Tech beat its 1-AA foe after playing a 1-A team on Monday. A departure from last time!

*Seriously, what sense does it make to play a divisional game in week one? Condolences to Georgia Tech, who basically have a 2 game hole to make up to start the season.

*Arizona upset Oklahoma State after OSU thrashed Savannah State. Further proof of the joys of actually having a defense.

*Is it vindictive of me to hope Mike Leach fails at Washington State? Yeah, probably, but I'm still gonna hope that. Wazzu should actually win their next 2 games, then get put back into their place by Oregon. And it will be lovely.

*Kansas State killed Miami (FL). Somewhere, dozens of South Florida Internet Trolls went into hibernation until next August, when they'll type again that "Da U" is back. Just like they have for the past 6 years.

*Notre Dame beats Navy and Purdue. Wake me when that matters.

*Sleeper pick for the year: Louisville. Calling it right now (aaaaand they're gonna lose to Carolina because I said that)

*Whole host of other things, but we're nearing the 600 word mark in a disorganized post. Let's all bask in the first glorious weeks of football, especially since we have a pretty good looking week coming up!

Ripping Recruiting

"As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly."

-Proverbs 26:11

Sorry, I don't normally go Biblical until at least the second paragraph. Still, avid college football fans (or anyone who watched ESPN for 30 seconds this week) know that Wednesday is National Signing Day. Every year signing day gets bigger and bigger, with more and more focus being poured onto the actions of high school seniors scribbling onto pieces of paper. And every year, we hear about how a few teams have crushingly good recruiting classes that will lead to inevitable greatness in a few years. And then we forget about all that coverage and wind up in the same place the next year, which is sad because we should look up and say, "Wait a minute...[school name here] turned their Top 10 recruiting class from 4 years ago into a 7-5 season. Maybe we shouldn't put so much emphasis and sink so much time into staring at recruiting numbers." But no, we choose to fall into the trap again and again and again.

For those of you who typed "recruiting science" into google and decided to go to the very last result, allow me to explain: National Signing Day is the day on which top recruits, having been promised fame and fortune if they go and play football at various universities, can finally sign a letter of intent to play football for one of those schools. Mind you, the name is sort of misleading, since a player can choose to sign days or weeks after signing day. But Wednesday, February 2 is the day on which most of the top recruits in the nation will sign a legally binding contract and shackle themselves to a given college for at least one academic year.

Recruiting, however, is so rife with filthy policies and outright lies told by coaches and boosters, that glorifying it for the better part of a month is the equivalent of praising a tapeworm inside the stomach of a woman you love. Just because the packaging is attractive doesn't make it a good thing. Furthermore, ranking recruiting classes is such a crap shoot that you might as well just make a dart board with the top 50 teams in the country and start chucking.

There are dozens of examples I could use, but since you don't want to read 7 pages of frankly repetitive bile, I'll try and keep it short. Let's start with a look at one conference, the ACC. I know, I know, not a power football conference, but you're reading a post by a guy from North Carolina. Geography trumps all, and this is ACC country. Any hoo, ESPN's ACC football blogger Heather Dinich did most of my job for me by posting this article about how many of the Top 150 recruits were landed by ACC teams. The list goes back to 2006. The team that's easily landed the most "high brow" recruits in that time, Miami, has gone to precisely 0 ACC Championship games. They haven't even won their division in that time span. Folks, if you land top recruits year in and year out and can't win the 2nd worst AQ conference, then either your coaching sucks or recruiting rankings are off.

Looking more closely at the ACC stats reveals further disturbing numbers: Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech have had a combined 9 "top recruits" come to their schools, yet they are the only representatives that the Coastal Division has had since the ACC Championship Game came into existence. Now, you can credit coaching consistency at Virginia Tech, but Georgia Tech has had two different head coaches running two completely different offensive styles, yet they've had two more championship appearances than the much more "loaded" Miami Hurricanes. Rivals.com's recruiting class database goes all the way back to 2002. They rank Miami's recruiting class in the Top 10 five times between 2002 and 2010. Miami finished in the top 20 class rankings every single year during that time span, but they finished in the top 20 in the rankings only 5 times. There's a disconnect there, and it's high time that someone recognized that recruiting doesn't need to be as highly touted as it is.

Some might accuse me of Miami bashing. I am, but that doesn't mean I'm not right. Still, let's look at a team I have no real bias for or against: the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Notre Dame had top 10 recruiting classes in 2006, 2007, and 2008. Most of their starters in 2009 and 2010 would have come from those highly ranked classes. Yet in 2009 and 2010, Notre Dame went a combined 14-11, with one win over a ranked team.

Perhaps the most extreme example is this: The USC Trojans had the #1 overall class from 2004-2006 according to Rivals. Both Rivals and ESPN say that Southern Cal had a Top 10 class from 2006-present. Yet last season, stocked to the gills with Top 10 recruits, they went 9-4. This year, ineligible for postseason play due to the Reggie Bush affair, they went 8-5. All ye disciples of recruiting, explain this!

So why all the inaccuracies? Well, there's a number of factors that make accurate recruiting numbers a virtual impossibility. First off, recruiting class rankings basically entail trying to predict the future 3-4 years in advance, which is how long it will take for most recruits to see decent playing time. Sloppy did a good piece on the accuracy of preseason predictions. If the experts were wrong about the best teams 4 months ago, why place so much stock in what they say will happen in 4 years?

Secondly, the recruits we're talking about are overwhelmingly high school seniors. High school is nothing like college (no matter what Degrassi tells you). And high school seniors, as a rule, are unpredictable. Most 18 year olds are! A high school senior who seemed to be a rock solid, straight A student might discover Professor Jim Beam in his first week of school. Then your 5-star recruit becomes a walking hangover who gets cut from the team. Or that five-star recruit might turn into a whiny little so-and-so who demands play time. Or, he might get arrested and transfer out. It's not the fault of recruiting prognosticators for not seeing these events coming, but it is our fault for pretending like a #1 recruit tag means a Heisman in 4 years. Sometimes it means a mediocre, injury-riddled career. And if your coach says he will take control and keep the players in line, then he's probably wrong. Urban Meyer, with 2 national titles under his belt, thought he could. It didn't work well.

The final reason (at least that I see) that recruiting predictions are pure bunk is this: According to the diverse and wildly varying stats I got in a google search, there's somewhere in the neighborhood of 26,000 public high schools in the US, with about 10,000 more private ones. Now, I know many of those schools don't have football programs, but even if you cut those numbers into 1/3rd, that's still around 12,000 football programs. Far, far too many to hope to analyze successfully with the relatively small staffs available to recruiting websites. Even if you cut that number in half, or into quarters, you're still looking at far too many players for recruiters to analyze. Tell me, how many times have you heard the phrase "former walk-on" when watching college football? Any time you hear that, you're hearing about a player who was good enough to play college football at the highest of levels, yet "bad" enough in high school that he did not merit a recruit ranking.

Put another way, there are dozens of lists out there ranking draft busts in the NFL. (Look it up yourself, pro football isn't the purpose of this site.) Those "busts" are the missed predictions of only 32 teams picking up just a few hundred players total. How much more inaccurate will the rankings of 120 teams pulling in thousands of players be? And yet every year fans decide to compare and drool over their recruiting classes, eagerly awaiting that National Championship in 4 years.

Look, I'm not going to lie: Recruiting is important. Necessary, even. Most of the teams in the national title hunt each have had at least one top 10 recruiting class. It's impossible to win without talent. Bear Bryant in his prime could not take the talent at Western Carolina University and win a national title. However, we must not place too much emphasis on recruiting, because it's a woefully inexact science. Claiming that a top 10 class means anything before the players hit the field is sheer folly. Drooling over recruits before they produce results is a one-way ticket to Disappointmentville. So don't get worked up about the recruiting bonanza. If your team is in the Top 50 or so, they'll be fine. And whatever you do, do not watch the 10 hours of recruiting on ESPNU. Unless, of course, you want a pile of vomit to return to...

Saturday in Review: Conference Championship Edition

At some point in college football's long and storied history, someone said, "Hey, you know how we could make more money? We could have a championship game between the winners of our conference's two divisions! That way, even though sometimes one division of the conference is way stronger than another, the weaker division still has a chance to totally screw up the larger team's season. In the meantime, ticket sales and TV revenues will ensure that we can line our pockets!"

The people who were with this person shook their heads sadly. They admired his attempt and finding a clear-cut conference winner, but knew that it was a gesture designed more to make money than to promote clear outcomes. After all, how could one declare an 8-4 team champion if they beat a 11-1 team? There was still a 2 game difference. So these other people simply shrugged and went on with their lives. That one guy, however, went on to start a major corporation, make millions, and be put in charge of a college football conference, where he created the first conference championship. And that leads us to today. Sure, there were some other games from other conferences, but we all know where the real show was on Saturday. And Friday, in one obscure case.

SEC Championship

#1 Auburn-56, #19 South Carolina-17

Well, sometimes history repeats itself less dramatically. As everyone knows (and if you didn't, how did you get Internet under that rock?) South Carolina and Auburn played one another earlier in the season. In that game, South Carolina jumped out to an early lead and failed to hold it. In this game, Auburn jumped out in the lead, South Carolina hung around for about a half, Auburn scored a last minute Hail Mary TD, and South Carolina decided to go home after the first half, allowing Auburn to hammer them in the second half.

In short, this game was nothing it was supposed to be. It was mostly dull, one-sided, and didn't even come close to providing the #1 team in the land with a good game. Guess we'll have to wait until January for that to happen, because...

#2 Oregon-37, Oregon State-20

You know, Oregon State never really got knocked out of this game. They never looked to be in it (aside from the 1st quarter, obviously) and yet they were never kicked out of the game completely. 17 points isn't a huge win, especially when you consider that we're talking about the #2 team in the country beating a squad that wound up 5-7. I know the rivalry factor is fun, but still, this raises some pretty important questions about the Ducks. Neither they nor Auburn have looked invincible this season, and I think we could have a pretty dang good national title matchup on our hands. Mind you, there's a team from Ft. Worth that would disagree with me...

Big 12 Championship

#9 Oklahoma-23, #13 Nebraska-20

Well, Nebraska's last Big 12 game didn't go quite the way the Huskers wanted. At least there weren't any super-controversial officiating decisions. No, this one was mostly a case of Oklahoma making some good changes and keeping Taylor Martinez and the Nebraska offense off balance for much of the second half. Nebraska jumped out to a 17-0 lead, and then the wheels came off of the Big Red Machine. Wait, that's the nickname for Cincinnati's baseball team from the '70s. Let's just move to the next paragraph.

Nebraska now goes to the Holiday Bowl--again. They'll be playing a rematch between themselves and Washington, which will likely look like last year's Holiday Bowl. Nebraska will then leave the Big 12 to become the 12th team in the Big 10 (ironic, right?), thus ending a season full of backbiting and controversy on the part of the Big 12 and Nebraska. I honestly don't know what the big deal is. Maybe it's the belief that Nebraska stabbed the Big 12 in the back. While there's something big to be said about a sense of honor, please don't kid yourselves about the cleanliness of college football. This is a sport with a non-satisfactory championship system, rampant recruiting violations, a "look the other way" policy on high-profile arrests, and athletic departments that have ballooned to utterly ridiculous sizes; the Big 12 conference officials can be offended by Nebraska's departure, but the average fan (even of a Big 12 school!) shouldn't be worried. Nebraska's leaving their old home for a variety of reasons, but let's not delude ourselves into thinking that money isn't #1 on the list. If they felt they could get more cash playing in the WAC, they'd have tried. I mean, come on, the Big 12 itself was born out of the collapse of the Southwest Conference. The more profitable schools in the conference got to jump to the Big 12 (Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M) while smaller schools went to lesser conferences (SMU, TCU, Houston, Rice). And Baylor went to the Big 12, too, but every rule has an exception. So fault Nebraska if you must for players drinking and semi-abusive coaching, but don't fault them for leaving the Big 12.

As to Oklahoma, what is there to say? Congrats to the Sooners for winning the conference title, keeping it in the South Division for the 7th straight year. Barring some conference expansion for the Big 12, that would appear to be where the trophy is staying for the time being. OU looked to be dead in the water after losing two of three back in October/November, but they are now BCS-bound, where they should have no trouble breaking their BCS bowl losing streak, considering that they'll be playing the Big East Champion UConn Huskies. (That's right kids, a team in this week's Bottom 95 will be getting a $17 million payday, while the #8 ranked 11-1 Michigan State Spartans will be getting just over $4 million to play in the Capital One Bowl. Guess they should have just been ranked higher in the preseason and this wouldn't have happened!)

Utah State-14, #11 Boise State-50

I will admit that I am somewhat proud of the BCS computers and voters. I fully expected them to drop Boise State to at least 15th. But they didn't and that is somewhat commendable. For their part, the Broncos surprised no one and went out and crushed Utah State this week, thus earning the right to split the WAC title with Nevada.

In addition, whatever group selects bowls did blogs everywhere a service by denying Boise the right to play an AQ team in their bowl, instead choosing to shoehorn Boise and Utah together where they can't hurt any of the big boys' pride. In other words, it's a whole lot like last year. And then, after the season is over, people can say that Boise State only played Virginia Tech and Oregon State--and Virginia Tech lost to James Madison and Oregon State went 5-7, so Boise clearly wouldn't have made a deep run in a playoff like, say, Butler did last friggin' year in basketball. But, no, fans of the Big 10, SEC, Pac-10, Big 12, ACC, and Big East can just keep grinning and claiming plausible deniability (look it up!) Oh, and about that Virginia Tech team that Boise beat earlier in the year...

ACC Championship

#21 Florida State-33, #15 Virginia Tech-44

I'll start with Florida State. The Seminoles enjoyed a pretty good turnaround this season, and they look to continue that going into next year. They'll be the only big name school in Florida (apologies to USF and UCF, but it's true) that's not looking for a coach, thanks to Pope Urban leaving and Randy Shannon getting canned. The Seminoles also have the advantage of playing in the weaker of the two divisions of the already-weak ACC, so they have real potential to be a fixture in the ACC Championship Game for years to come. Consider also that Florida State's quarterback E.J. Manuel is a sophomore, and you have a recipe for success in Tallahassee. So good for Florida State, and good luck in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl.

As to Virginia Tech, I had a lengthy bit of season summary stuff to type here, but I think I'll just post a link to the bottom of this game's section. There will be time for typing about the Hokies in the Orange Bowl Preview.

Now, the link I'm about to post isn't for everyone. You don't have to click it if you're not on the list of people it's for. So who is this for? Well, it's for the UVa fans who swore this would be their year to beat the Hokies. It's for the ECU Pirates who were sure they would make Virginia Tech lose 3 straight. It's for the idiots who chant "JMU" on message boards, as though that will somehow change the fact that Virginia Tech just won the conference. It's for all the fans of all the other ACC schools who beat their 1-AA cupcake and mocked the Hokies for failing to do so. It's for those same fans who are now looking up at Virginia Tech, the first team to go undefeated in conference play since 2000. It's for the Florida State fans who bought their Orange Bowl tickets before the ACC Championship Game. It's for anyone who still thinks Virginia Tech ruined Boise State's season. It's especially for the Miami fans who call Virginia Tech "second rate" while Miami fills half its stadium, goes 7-5, and fires its coach. It's for anyone, anywhere, who thought or hoped that Virginia Tech would give up after Week 1 of the season. If you're on that list then this link's for you!

#17 Nevada-35, Louisiana Tech-17

Nevada admirably didn't let their success go to their heads, avoiding the "week after" letdown that so many schools have suffered this season. That's really all I got.

Arizona State-30, #23 Arizona-29

I only included this game to make a point: Why, after 3 straight losses, was Arizona still ranked? Yes, they were to two now-Top 5 teams with Southern Cal sandwiched in the middle, but why was Arizona still hanging out in the Top 25? Texas lost to lowly UCLA, then narrowly lost to Oklahoma and they got dropped from #7 to unranked. How come Arizona lost to Stanford, USC, and Oregon and only fell 8 spots (15 to 23)? Is the bottom half of the Top 25 that bad? Just askin'.

Oh, and if you haven't seen the highlight package of this game, look it up now. Two blocked extra points made the difference in this one, which is a wonderful sight for those of us who think special teams isn't emphasized enough.*

Rutgers-14, #24 West Virginia-35

First off, welcome back Big East! We've missed you here in the Top 25! Mind you, I sort of wonder what the computers and voters are thinking right now. The lone ranked team in the Big East isn't the team that won the conference title. Oh, sure, West Virginia has a share of the title with Pitt and UConn, but only the Huskies are going to a BCS bowl. Heck, the Huskies beat the other two teams on that list. So why aren't they ranked? OK, the losses to Michigan and Temple look a heck of a lot worse than a loss to LSU, but the bottom line is that West Virginia will almost certainly finish ranked ahead of a team that not only beat them in conference, but also beat them head-to-head. In fact, virtually the only way that WVU finishes below UConn is if the Mountaineers lose to unranked NC State and the Huskies pull off the upset of Oklahoma. If only one of those things happens, then West Virginia finishes ahead of UConn. Again, don't look too hard at college football's inner workings--you might notice the little man behind the curtain.

MAC Championship

#25 Northern Illinois-21, Miami (Ohio)-26

Waaaaaay back at the start of the season, I mocked Miami of Ohio for being "the bad Miami." I officially, publicly, in front of the 3 people who will read this, recant that statement. The game in which I mocked Miami was their game against the Florida Gators, a team which finished 7-5--worse than the RedHawks. The school with which Miami shares a name, Miami University (in Florida) also finished 7-5. Neither one of the Florida schools won their conference, something that Miami of Ohio did on Friday night. So, RedHawks, I'm sorry. Have fun at your extremely obscure bowl, which is named and sponsored by a company known primarily for its sexually explicit ads about website domain registration.

Meanwhile, you have to feel for Northern Illinois. They had gone on an impressive run, stuck with Illinois early in the season, and reeled off 9 straight wins before they were bested by a tipped pass at the last second in their conference championship game. At least they're in the MAC, so very very few people actually saw them lose. Plus, they were ranked this week, which means they avoid going into 2010's last edition of...

Tales from the Bottom 95

Congrats to UConn, who went from "the team that got killed by Michigan to start the year" to "the team that got killed by Michigan, but benefited from being in a horrible conference and will now be going to a BCS bowl game." What a difference a season can make...I know it's not technically about this Saturday, but I have to mention the single greatest injustice of the season. How, with 35 bowl games (not an exaggeration), was there not room for the Temple Owls in the postseason? They're 8-4. They stuck with Penn State at Penn State. They beat UConn. That's right, a team which went 8-4 and beat a BCS bowl participant isn't going to a bowl game. It's not like there's not room somewhere, either! The Pac-10 has 6 bowl tie-ins and only 4 bowl eligible teams! Bump someone up, please! Don't fill the gaps with mediocre AQ teams! Let Temple play!...I know, I know, follow the money. That's why Tennessee's going bowling and Temple isn't...In actual football news, Illinois lost to Fresno State, thus allowing Illinois to keep their streak of .500 or worse seasons alive! Live the dream!...UCLA lost to Southern Cal in a game that lost all of its meaning when UCLA became bowl ineligible last week...Washington beat Washington State, proving nothing, but hopefully raising Jake Locker back into Heisman contention...Cincinnati followed up their 2 straight Big East titles by going 4-8 in Butch Jones's first year...Finally, UNLV lost to Hawaii. Those poor UNLV players, leaving Las Vegas to go to Hawaii and then come back to Las Vegas. I feel really sorry for Hawaii, whose players must make a return trip next season!

That's all for the Conference Championship breakdown. Stay tuned for the bowl previews, thoughts on Urban Meyer leaving, and the inevitable victory of Cam Newton in Heisman voting.

*-"Those of us" are basically just Virginia Tech fans and former kickers. Don't tell anyone.

Saturday in Review 11/20/10

There are times where a guy has to challenge himself. This week, the challenge is to pretend that anything interesting happened in college football. To that end, I aim to make this week's Saturday in Review an exciting, thrill-a-minute palooza of pure joy. I'm going to cut to the quick, and tell you exactly what was interesting in each and every game from the Top 25. Let's begin, shall we?

Fresno State-0, #4 Boise State-51

What was interesting: The fact that this game was on Friday! And the fact that the top 3 teams in the nation had the week off. Congratulations, Boise State, for biting the bullet and actually playing a game in late November. That was very noble of you! Also interesting, the fact that this game is Boise's 4th highest point total on the year! So congrats to Fresno State, who held the Broncos to fewer points than Idaho, New Mexico State, or Toledo!

Ole Miss-36, #5 LSU-43

What was interesting: When isn't an LSU game interesting? They successfully beat Alabama, went down to the Swamp and beat Florida, and narrowly clipped mediocre Tennessee at home. Heck, they struggled with McNeese State for about a half. I'm really hoping that the Arkansas game this week goes into double overtime and LSU wins on a fumbled extra point that the long snapper picks up and lugs into the endzone. Hey, a guy can dream.

#6 Stanford-48, Cal-14

What was interesting: The fact that Stanford's mascot is the Cardinal. That's singular! They're one of a very few teams whose mascot doesn't end in "s." And that's about the only thing that's interesting about a 48-14 game, especially one that was 45-0 going into the 4th quarter.

#7 Wisconsin-48, Michigan-28

What was interesting: What's interesting? Well, I get to write a letter! That's interesting, dang it!

Dear Michigan,

Hey, it's me again. You never respond to my letters. I originally thought it was because you were so busy with that tough schedule that includes nonconference giants such as UConn and UMass and Bowling Green. Any hoo, I'm glad that you made it out of the nonconference slate untouched by defeat, because it meant you only had to win 2 conference games to make a bowl. You did, so congratulations. But you still haven't replied to any of my letters! You still have yet to explain exactly why you fired Lloyd Carr. Was it because he lost that one game to App State? Because since then you guys are undefeated against 1-AA schools, so I guess that's an accomplishment. Mind you, you've only beaten two ranked teams since the '07 season, and neither of those schools finished the season in the Top 25. You have no defense and your offense tends to fall apart against teams that are even remotely decent at defending. In short, you have successfully attained mediocrity. I really can't wait to read the newspaper articles in 2011, proclaiming that you are back and that Denard Robinson is going to lead you to a Big 10 title in 2011. Until then, enjoy your trip to the Big Al's House of Staplers Bowl in Paducah, Kentucky.

Swarthily,

Bones

PS: Wisconsin...keep winning! I really really really want to see how the BCS explains Ohio State leapfrogging you for the conference title!

#8 Nebraska-6, #19 Texas A&M-9

What was interesting: Conspiracy theories! Crummy offense! Bo Pelini looking like the villain from a poorly made Sci-Fi film! (Full disclosure, that picture is from the '08 Virginia Tech game) Plus, the lone Top 25 upset of the week! This was a great game. Unless of course you like to watch halfway decent offense or good officiating. In that case, the game was more infuriating and less entertaining. Also of interest, one of my first truly random stats o' the year:

Nebraska's record against teams in the state of Texas: 0-2

Nebraska's record against teams from anywhere else in the country: 9-0

Here's hoping for the Huskers that they don't get TCU in their bowl game...

#9 Ohio State-20, #20 Iowa-17

What was interesting: I had a full writeup of this planned, then Ohio State's president said something impossibly stupid. So you know what? As much as I am pained to do it, I will be cheering for Michigan this weekend. It beats listening to this tripe.

#10 Oklahoma State-48, Kansas-14

What was interesting: Oklahoma State's presence in the Top 10 is pretty dang interesting. In the sense that they're there because no one else can say "we only have one loss." Kansas is also interesting, in the same way that a train wreck is interesting.

Purdue-31, #12 Michigan State-35

What was interesting: Purdue almost ruined my dream of a three-way Big 10 tie! And Michigan State looked horrible for three quarters, something they can't afford to do against a Penn State team that isn't great, but much better than Purdue.

#13 Arkansas-38, #21 Mississippi State-31 (2OT)

What was interesting: Double overtime in the SEC? Hey, man, that's pretty exciting! Mind you, thanks to our current system, no one out side of the deep south legitimately believes that this game had any effect on anything. If Arkansas can beat LSU this coming weekend they may sneak into a BCS bowl. Yeah, try that on for size...

#14 Oklahoma-53, Baylor-24

What was interesting: I can't use the "Baylor's back to being Baylor" joke 3 times in a row, can I? Yes, I can. If this game with this score had happened last year, it'd be totally unremarkable. I'll put this another way: Anyone remember '08, when Vandy climbed into the top 15, then finished by barely making a bowl game? Yeah, that's this year's Baylor squad. Also interesting: The fact that Oklahoma could still conceivably make the Big 12 title game and a BCS Bowl by beating Oklahoma State this weekend. Frankly, I hope it happens so people will stop acting like the Big 12 is a power conference...

#15 Missouri-14, Iowa State-0

What was interesting: Iowa State stuck with the Missouri and the only other ranked team in their division of the Big 12 (Nebraska). It's weird, because they seem to be right on the cusp of having a great season (or a decent one) but they never seem to get above .500. They ended this season at 5-7, though, so no bowl for the Cyclones. Missouri, meanwhile, has to beat Kansas and hope that Colorado upsets Nebraska. In other words, there is a major battle going on out in the states that only about 12 people live in. Yeah, I might have East Coast Bias, but that's just because I can't watch any games from West of the Mississippi...

#16 Virginia Tech-31, #24 Miami-17

What was interesting: I've spent some time on the ESPN forums. It was a mistake, but I did learn something critical: Miami fans still think their program is legitimate. I swear, it's true! Hey, man, it's funny to me, too. Miami, which hasn't come close to winning a title since their last one, has a fan base that still thinks they should be in the title chase year in and year out. At what point do they qualify as Notre Dame South?

Other interesting bit: The last time Virginia Tech won this many games in a row was in 1999, the only year the Hokies have ever been to the National Title game. Sad that this year it came after 2 straight losses.

Last bits of interesting bits in this game: 1) Virginia Tech clinched their division of the ACC, 2) those Miami fans that think they're relevant are the same ones who left their stadium 3/4ths empty by the end of Saturday's game, and 3) there's still quite a bit of lingering hatred between Virginia Tech and Miami fans, just in case you couldn't tell.

Troy-24, #17 South Carolina-69

What was interesting: That SEC teams are allowed to do this in November. (See also: The Alabama game that I refuse to write about because it's a travesty. No, I'm not even going to provide a link to it.)

New Mexico State-6, #19 Nevada-52

What was interesting: Not much. This game sets up a big matchup between Boise and Nevada to end the season. The BCS is praying that the Wolf Pack stay in the game. I guess it's also interesting that D-1A (FBS) programs in New Mexico are a combined 3-19. That is...remarkably bad.

#23 Utah-38, San Diego State-34

What was interesting: Well, a team from Utah beat San Diego State without having alumni in the replay booth. I guess that's newsworthy. Also newsworthy are the Aztecs, who have gone from 4-8 to 7-4. Those four losses are by a combined 15 points. That, my friends, is a pretty impressive turnaround. In the interest of equality, congrats to Utah for pulling out of that 2 game skid. If the Utes beat BYU this weekend, they should be able to go to a halfway decent bowl game! Hooray!

#25 Florida State-30, Maryland-16

What was interesting: Surprisingly, this game was only blown open when Maryland threw a pick-six in the red zone with under a minute left in the game. That loss knocked Maryland out of the hunt for the ACC Championship game. That's right, the ACC was bad enough this season that MARYLAND was in the hunt for the conference title until the second to last game of the year. Also interesting: Florida State has gone from "Beat Maryland, beat Maryland, beat Maryland!" to, "Go Terps, go!" If Maryland wins this weekend, the 'Noles go to the ACC Championship game. Otherwise, NC State will play Virginia Tech in Charlotte on December 4th. Either way, it will be a matchup to determine who goes to a BCS Bowl. (That sound you're currently hearing is the collective vomiting of fans of SEC and Big 10 schools whose Top 10 ranked squads won't get into BCS games because of the Big East and ACC Champions. You're welcome, kids. Got a problem with it? Change the system!)

So that's all for the interesting stuff. Now, let's get vindictive with...

Tales from the Bottom 95

First off, apologies to Sloppy whose article about this Saturday used the term "uneventful." So I wrote this whole thing with my tongue firmly in my cheek, to prove how "eventful" even a boring Saturday can be...In actual sports news, NC State beat Carolina in a thriller. Well, a thriller so long as you were willing to ignore the fact that it was ACC football..Also, I can't believe I didn't note that this was the 4th straight Saturday in Review without a single mention of the Big East. Seriously, unless they go undefeated in the bowls, the Big East might consider relinquishing BCS status. At least the ACC has 2 ranked teams. Heck, at least the ACC has more than one team with 3 losses or fewer...For now...Tennessee beat Vandy, meaning the Vols are one win away from another crummy bowl!...Special thanks to Oregon State for smacking Southern Cal around...Florida beat App State 48-10, in a battle of teams that I'm Constitutionally obligated to despise...Georgia Tech attained bowl eligibility by beating Duke by 10 at home. O! How the mighty have fallen!...Eastern Michigan picked up their second win on the season, so a non-sarcastic congrats to the Eagles...The San Jose State Spartans, owners of a murderous schedule, are 1-10 following a road loss to Hawaii. Oh, well, at least they got to go to Hawaii...

And I was going to type something about the game at Wrigley, but ESPN pounded us over the head with that one so much that I no longer care. Oh, well. See you next Saturday!

Oregon vs. UCLA

UCLA-13, #2 Oregon-60

Well, let's not mince words: Oregon's offense is unreal. I mean, if you're looking for an offense that is just plain fun to watch (so long as you're not on the opposing team) then look no further. Right now the 2 of you who willingly slog through my novel-sized Saturdays in Review are saying, "Bones, last week you whined and complained like a pathetic little schoolgirl about the Auburn/Arkansas score because you claim to like 'defensive football.' Now you're telling me that this fifty some-odd point per game offense is 'fun to watch.' You're a hypocrite who uses too many run-on sentences and/or sentence fragments depending on the week!"

Allow me to address these complaints: First off, hi, Mom. Sorry about all of the misplaced commas.

Secondly, I did not say that I don't appreciate a good offense. I just hate watching bad defense. 65-43 is not good offense. It's really just awful defense on both sides' part. Oregon's offense takes good defenses and shreds them. UCLA didn't look bad on defense. Their players were doing everything they needed to, tackling and going to the football with speed and aggressiveness. They were actually tackling for the most part (no team does 100% of the time). The Ducks were just finding holes in the UCLA line, and the game was out of hand by the end of the first half.

I know I'm gonna sound like Lee Corso here as I point out the stupidly obvious, but every defense has holes. It is a physical impossibility for a defense to cover all 53.3 yards of the field's width AND however many yards of the field's length lay between the line of scrimmage and the goal line. The best defenses cover their general area, and they slow down or stop offenses by knocking down passes and tackling running backs as quickly as they possibly can. Unless a defense is playing a team that is utterly inferior to them, they won't hold their opponents to 0 yards or less. It happens, but it's rare. So rare, in fact, that even slaughter games usually feature at least some offense of some sort from the team on the losing end. The Alabama Crimson Tide, for example, have a top-10 defense in terms of points and yards allowed. Yet even lowly Duke scored 13 on the Tide starters in a 62-13 snore fest.

To put it another way, defenses are the equivalent of playing with the black pieces in chess. For you non-chess players out there, black goes second. The black pieces are forced to be reactionary until white makes a mistake and black is able to take the initiative. Defense is, by its very nature, reactionary. The offense determines the style of the game; a triple option offense forces the opposing defense to play differently than they would against a spread. A 4-3 defense does not make a triple option team begin passing the football. Furthermore, a quick offensive change will normally net points or yards and force a defense to make changes, whereas a quick defensive change might net points, but will usually just create a stop or cause a turnover. That's certainly not a bad thing, but it doesn't show up on the scoreboard, which means that the average fan who just looks at scores for teams that he doesn't root for will not really notice it. Even the most mediocre offenses will score (Last place San Jose State scores about 9 points per game), and even the best defenses will allow points (Sheer coincidence: 1st place TCU allows about 9 points per game).

Somewhere in there, there's a point. And that point is that an offense like Oregon's is not remarkable because they score, but because of how much they score. (Duh.) They find holes like no offense I've seen, and in doing so they make the defenses they face look silly. Oregon's backups scored a touchdown in 4 plays on UCLA's starters in the 4th quarter. The Ducks didn't punt until 6:31 in the 4th. Most terrifying of all, the Ducks' defense is good, too. They're not big, but they're quick. Oregon is the front runner in a good Pac-10, but the road is not without pitfalls. Next Saturday's trip to Southern Cal, a game against a good Arizona squad, and the rivalry game with Oregon State are all big games for the Ducks, but there's a very real chance that Autzen's favorite team could play in the National Title game. There's also a chance they wind up in the Holiday Bowl if they lose all 3 of those games, so I guess we'll all just have to wait and see.

Some random notes from the game: Oregon's uniforms are still ugly...UCLA did do one thing offensively: they finally scored on Oregon in the 4th quarter. Mind you, that was against the Ducks' backups, but life's little victories are what keeps us all going...Does it seem cruel to anyone else to make the Duck mascot do pushups for every point?...Why do commentators insist on reminding us that Southern Cal has "found their rhythm?" What sense does that make? Yeah, they've lost 2 of their last 3, but they beat a .500 team in Cal! Southern California: football powerhouse. Give me a break!...And that's it for now. Sorry to any UCLA fans who are offended by their team's 4 mentions in this 900 word article, but if your team had shown up I wouldn't have had to write all about Oregon. Here's looking forward to Saturday!

Coaching Carousel, 2010 Edition

So, the season is fast approaching and it's time to get a little bile out. The preseason magazines are out, spring games are long since past, and the prospect of stadiums filled to capacity with screaming fans is tantalizingly close. But this blog isn't about the glories and revelry of sport. If it were, I'd be employed as a legitimate writer. And, as my bowl fiasco proved, this blog isn't very good at predicting outcomes of games of any sort.

No, this blog is about being angry about minuscule details regarding the second most popular form of football in the country. And the easiest targets for anger are (you guessed it!) coaches. So without further ado, here's an overview of all 22 coaching changes in college football between the end(-ish) of the 2009 season and the beginning of the 2010 season, each one with a prediction of how much more successful the new guy will be than his predecessor...

Akron
Departing Coach: J.D. Brookhart
Arriving Coach: Rob Ianello

Review: I have no idea why the heck I'm reviewing this one, though it's first because the list I found on wikipedia is listed in alphabetical order by school. Akron is barely a blip on the college football radar screen, whose last winning season came 5 years ago. The Zips play in the MAC, a conference with minimal importance, and they have the misfortune of being located in the gargantuan pit that is the state of Ohio. The advantage of the job? If the coach is a colossal failure, no one outside of Akron will care. Actually, since LeBron James bolted Ohio, no one in Akron will care either.

Likelihood of Success: Slim. Akron's not a Mecca for football fans anywhere, but improving on a 3-9 season might not be too rough, especially with Syracuse and Gardner-Webb to open the season. As stated above, however, even if he doesn't improve, no one will care.

Buffalo
Departing Coach: Turner Gill
Arriving Coach: Jeff Quinn

Review: It's good to see Turner Gill get a big time job, especially after he turned the Buffalo Bulls program around. It'll be interesting to see if Jeff Quinn can continue that level of success in the frozen north. Quinn's an interesting example. The guy has coached a grand total of 2 games: both of them bowl games coached in the wake of Brian Kelly leaving the school where he and Quinn were stationed. In fact, this will be the first season in 6 years where Kelly and Quinn aren't at the same school. Quinn's big problem, as near as I can tell, will be getting halfway decent players up to Buffalo. Turner Gill won more games in his last 3 seasons (18) than the team had won in the previous 9 years, and I have an unsettling feeling that hiring an offensive coordinator as the new head coach will hurt the Bulls. After all, last season they scored at least 17 points in all but three games, but they still finished 5-7. In other words, offense wasn't the problem, defense was. And, as experience has proven time and time again, offensive coordinators don't run good defenses. Duh.

Likelihood of Success: Again, slim. Buffalo, like Akron is obscure enough that a flameout here won't really condemn Quinn to a life of middling coaching jobs, but success will propel him to new heights (see Turner Gill). Once again on the bright side, Buffalo's not going to attract too much of a spotlight, so if Quinn crashes and burns there won't be a major amount of fallout on a national level.

Central Michigan
Departing Coach: Butch Jones
Arriving Coach: Dan Enos

Review: For its second straight coaching change Cincinnati has purloined a Central Michigan coach. Central Michigan really didn't suffer mightily after Brian Kelly left them, as Butch Jones led them to 3 straight winning seasons. Central Michigan has had winning seasons every year since 2005, which is a fairly major thing when one considers that they play in a non-major conference and they don't get much pull from the national media like Boise State and TCU. In all fairness, part of their lack of press is due to a lackluster schedule year in and year out, coupled with the fact that they do not dominate their conference every year like Boise does. Still, this school's in better shape than many of the others on this list, largely because of the fact that they aren't getting a new coach because they sucked last season. They're getting a new coach because they did well for three years (and because Brian Kelly exhibited loyalty to Cincinnati at a similar level that Benedict Arnold exhibited loyalty to America).

Likelihood of Success: Relatively high. Look for a dip in performance this season because of a lack of Dan LeFevour, the do-it-all quarterback who holds the NCAA record for touchdowns scored by a single player. Still, proper management coupled with a fan base that might just be tolerant enough to see a coach through a bad season or two means that CMU could very well stay near the top of the MAC in the coming years. This review, however, contained actual analysis, no cynicism, and almost no trace of anger. No worries, though, Cincinnati's next...

Cincinnati
Departing Coach: Brian Kelly
Arriving Coach: Butch Jones

Review: For every dynasty in college football there are at least 3 mini-dynasties who briefly take their place during down years. Michigan, Southern Cal, Notre Dame, Florida, etc. are examples of true dynasties. Hawaii's brief flareup at the top in 2007, those years where BYU was considered a legitimate National Championship contender, Georgia Tech once every 20 years (cheap shot!), and now Cincinnati. Cincy has done quite well in recent years, winning their pathetic little conference twice in a row. Prior to that win streak, however, the Bearcats were not just a middling team but, until 2004, they were a middling team in the non-BCS Conference USA. This past year Cincinnati came one second away from playing in the National Title game. It's fair to say that, along with that '07 Hawaii team, the 2009 Bearcats were among the most overrated teams in recent college football history, and if you'd like to argue that point with me, I will gently inform you that Cincy failed to go undefeated without the help of the officials and that they got skulled by Florida in their bowl game. I will also inform you that a pretty underwhelming Virginia Tech team beat the 2008 Big East Champion Bearcats in their bowl the previous season. So, frankly, it's around that time for the Bearcats to begin slowing down. Especially since the guy who led them to the top of their conference is gone for greener pastures (Ha ha it is a pun ha ha).

Likelihood of success: Moderate. Butch Jones is taking over a program that's had a good run, and it's hard to knock a pattern, since the same situation basically presented itself at Central Michigan around 3 years ago. Still, the temptation is there to say that Cincinnati, being in a conference that is in the BCS, will go downward. I'm not sure Jones is going to set the world aflame, and I have real problems believing that the Bearcats will compete once again for the National Title. Then again, they ARE in the Big East. So, flip a coin. Heads, Cincinnati's good, tails Cincinnati's bad.

East Carolina
Departing Coach: Skip Holtz
Arriving Coach: Ruffin McNeil

Review: It's always sad to see a coach leave the team he lead to national prominence. Case in point: ECU. This team was pretty much a backwater hole in the ground (much like Greenville, NC, which the Pirates are forced to call home) where coaches' careers went to die prior to Skip Holtz's arrival. Sure, it's fair to say that the Pirates had a comparatively down year in 2009 in light of the 2008 campaign where they beat #17 Virginia Tech and #8 West Virginia. But I don't think people in Greenville will be happy to see Skip leave. The guy left the school in a much better position than he found it in when he arrived in 2004, and I think he'll help out quite a bit at South Florida (more to come).

Likelihood of success: Well, it's hard to say. ECU has been boom and bust when it comes to coaches. The coach before Holtz was a nightmarishly bad coach. The coach before him led the Pirates to several upsets and more than a few bowl games. If the pattern holds, then ECU might be poised for a fall. Still, it's tough to argue that a team with 4 straight bowl appearances (not that that means much anymore) will be poised for a hard fall.

Florida State
Departing Coach: Bobby Bowden
Arriving Coach: Jimbo Fisher

Review: It's impossible to review the scope and scale of Bobby Bowden's coaching career. He deserved better than the end his career ultimately had, and he certainly deserves more than a few sentences on one of the 10 most unimportant blogs on the internet. (Least important blog on the Internet can be found here: link) Suffice it to say that Bowden's head coaching career started the year my mother was born, and he started coaching at Florida State in 1976, 10 years before my birth. Bowden's career did have some ups and downs, and the fact that he was fired after 2 National Championships, a bowl streak stretching back to 1981, and a string of winning seasons going back to 1977 is only indicative that he might have set the bar too high. Yes, his last few years were nowhere near as great as the highs of the 1990s. Yes, his teams often had all the discipline of a psych ward at San Quentin. Yes, he was forced to vacate 12 wins and his dream of defeating the corpse of Joe Paterno in the all-time wins category, but come on! Bowden's the last of a dying breed! Here we have a coach who spent 34 seasons in the same place! Some coaches (I am looking at you, pretty boy) have trouble staying anywhere for one season. So, seriously, hats off to Coach Bowden. For better or worse, the game won't be the same without one of the greats.

Likelihood of success: After all the oozing and gushing and sucking up to Bobby Bowden I just did, allow me to temper that with some good ol' fashioned hypocrisy. Because even though Bobby Bowden was one of the greats, he hasn't really been in charge down in Tallahassee for a few years. Sure, Bowden at least kept the illusion of coaching by wearing a headset, unlike Paterno, who wanders the sidelines (or booth) like an escapee from a retirement home. Someone should really reign him in before he breaks a hip. Oh, wait...

Hm. I had a point in here somewhere. Oh, yeah, Florida State. Look, Jimbo Fisher's been running that team for at least 3 years, ever since the time he was announced as "head coach in waiting." Thus, the "likelihood of success" is more of the same. There's an off chance that we'll see improvement in the Seminole program since the facade of Coach Bobby is gone. Look for a pickup in wins during the 2011 season, especially since the better teams in the ACC are senior heavy this year. So, I'm of the opinion that Florida State will be back atop the ACC shortly. As a Virginia Tech fan, however, I wouldn't complain if I was wrong. As a blogger, I won't complain if I'm right. Ha! I win either way! Moving on...

Kansas
Departing Coach: Mark Mangino
Arriving Coach: Turner Gill

Review: So Mark Mangino departed from Kansas, eh? I've mentioned my issues with Mangino being called out now instead of during the 12-1, Orange Bowl winning, 2007 season. In retrospect, it would seem that firing an abusive coach after his record went south on him was a theme this year (see also: Texas Tech) (It's further down the page, genius). Look, if abuse is happening at Virginia Tech, Florida, Alabama, Texas, etc. I want to know now. Because the reality of the situation is that most of the players on the field on Saturday will not spend their lives playing football at the professional level. College football is a game. And having a 12-1 record or even a National Championship while abusing players who aren't being paid to play is totally unacceptable. Nothing is worth the well-being of young men, many of whom wouldn't be in college if they couldn't run really fast while holding an oblong object in their right hand.

Coach Mangino apparently had a history of abusive behavior, a history that Kansas was apparently willing to ignore (or that players/boosters were unwilling to report) during the years he was bringing in $17 million in BCS money. I guess I should look on the bright side: he didn't eat anyone.

Likelihood of success: Turner Gill really turned around the Buffalo program, and it makes sense to think that he can succeed at Kansas. It will be interesting to see how he does with a program in a major conference, especially since (after this season) he won't have to worry about playing his old school Nebraska. Still, the key for Gill will be defeating the two giants of the Big 12: Texas and Oklahoma. The great news for Kansas? The only way they'll play OU or Texas is if they go to the Big 12 Championship game. This season's an excellent year for Kansas to try and find its groove under Turner Gill, especially since they only have Georgia Tech and Nebraska as major hurdles. To be fair, they're also coming off a year where they went 5-7 with a 1-7 record in conference play. And yet, in an uncharacteristic fit of optimism, I am ready to declare that Kansas will have a better year than last. There, I said it.

Kentucky
Departing Coach: Rich Brooks
Arriving Coach: Joker Phillips

Review: You know, it's hard to take a school that willingly hires a man named "Joker" to lead its football program seriously. It's also hard to take the whole "Head Coach in Waiting" thing seriously. If I were a coach in waiting who happened to be, say, an offensive coordinator at the school that was going to let me coach, I'd tank at my job so that I could be head coach sooner. Yes, this might backfire, but I have no idea why you'd tell a guy "Hey, you'll be head coach once this guy wrecks the program enough to get fired or decides to resign, the likelihood of which is fairly slim."

That said, Rich Brooks is leaving a program that's in reasonably good shape. They've made a bowl for the past 4 years, and Brooks has taken an historical loser and made it a, well, still nowhere near championship caliber team, but better than Vandy.

Likelihood of success: Here's the thing: Kentucky could magically become twice as good as they currently are and still not win their conference. Kentucky's in the SEC, a conference with more than its fair share of good teams. Add that to the fact that Kentucky's not in great recruiting territory and you have an ideal recipe for things to stay just the way they are...Yee-haw

OK, done with some of the big schools. Let's fast forward things a bit:

Louisiana-Lafayette
Departing Coach: Charlie Weatherbie
Arriving Coach: Todd Berry

Review: ULL is...bad. That's really the only way to describe them. They're even bad for a Sun Belt team, which is actually sort of an accomplishment.

Likelihood of success: They just hired a guy who went 5-36 in 3 and a half seasons at Army. You draw your own conclusions. The only good news is that no one expects anything.

Louisiana Tech
Departing Coach: Derek Dooley
Arriving Coach: Sonny Dykes

Review: Louisiana Tech isn't great, nor is it a great spot to try and pull in recruits, considering that only kids who couldn't get into a Big 12 or SEC school will consider playing for the Bulldogs. Plus, LTU has to compete with the elephant in the conference that is Boise State. Dooley did a decent job of holding the Bulldogs together, but aside from scaring LSU last season, there wasn't much worthy of note about LTU's 2008 season.

Likelihood of success: Considering that the only way to really be considered successful in a conference as tiny/obscure as the WAC is to either turn around a perpetual loser or win the conference championship, then the likelihood of success is quite slim here. LTU isn't the pit of awfulness, but they also have basically no chance of winning the WAC championship. So...enjoy your obscurity Coach Dykes.

Louisville
Departing Coach: Steve Kragthorpe
Arriving Coach: Charlie Strong

Review: Louisville's another one of those little mini-dynasties mentioned above. The Cardinals were one field goal away from being undefeated in 2006. That season seems light years away after 3 horrific seasons under Kragthorpe, whose last name I will really miss, as it sounds and looks like a name from some cheap Star Wars knockoff. But, to be frank, Louisville doesn't interest me that much, so let's just keep cruising right along to the stupid "likelihood of success" section, like I have any freakin' idea of what's going to happen.

Likelihood of success: Well, Bobby Petrino proved that Louisville can climb to great heights, especially in a conference with an automatic BCS berth and no great team. Mind you, Bobby Petrino is a backstabbing son of a you-know-what who probably sold his soul to the devil for that 2006 season and whose "payment" for his soul was that horrible season with the Falcons and an eternity of mediocrity at Arkansas. Oh, and I think that Charlie Strong can't do any worse than Kragthorpe did at Louisville, so I believe that if you define "success" as "a better season than the last 3" then the likelihood of success here is high. Just don't look for some sort of mega-season with a great run leading to a national title. That'd be absurd.

Marshall
Departing Coach: Mark Snyder
Arriving Coach: Doc Holliday

Review: This is going to sound harsh, but most college students these days would not know anything at all about Marshall football were it not for the 1970 plane crash that killed 75 people, 35 of whom were members of the team. Actually, thanks to the general stupidity, hedonism, and ignorance that have gripped American collegiate culture in recent years, I think it's actually more fair to say that most college students wouldn't know about Marshall football were it not for the movie about the 1970 plane crash. Marshall, after some serious success in the early 1990s, moved up to D-1A and, thus, obscurity, in 1997. Since then they've had some decent seasons, but the overall theme (especially in recent years) has been mediocrity. Snyder lost his job mostly due to his overall record (22-37) rather than a particularly bad 2009 season. Oh, wait, he "resigned." And if you buy that, then I've got some great beachfront property in North Dakota that I would love to sell you.

Likelihood of Success: Well, the good news for Doc Holliday is that he has a kickin' nickname. Wait, I mean, he has a fairly bad conference sitting in front of him. ECU has a new head coach, Houston can't play defense, and Southern Miss is a shell of what they once were in C-USA. Mind you, Marshall isn't great, and it's unfair to expect anything more than a repeat of 2009's .500 year. I would still say Marshall might be on the upswing for the next few year, just because new blood and a coach with a history of being around decent to good teams is a recipe for success. To be fair, 5 years ago I would have written the same thing about Charlie Weis, so what the heck to I know?

Memphis
Departing Coach: Tommy West
Arriving Coach: Larry Porter

Review: Do you care? No, I can virtually assure you that you don't. Even if you think you care, you really don't. Memphis wasn't bad (read: better than 3-9) in 2007 and 2008, but their 2009 season was really really bad. So they hired a new coach. I mean, it's really that simple

Likelihood of success: Is the new coach's name John Calipari? Can he unscrupulously bring talent to an otherwise barely footnote worthy school? Well, since the answers to those questions are: "No" and "Probably not," I'd say the odds of Memphis appearing as anything more as a blip on the college football radar are slim to none. Oh, but at least the football team won't have to forfeit its Final Four appearance a few years down the road.

Notre Dame
Departing Coach: Charlie Weis
Arriving Coach: Brian Kelly

Review: It's hard to feel sorry for Charlie Weis. The man made millions of dollars doing a mediocre job at a school where (in theory) doing a good job shouldn't be as difficult as having 6 consecutive 10 win seasons at a school in an obscure little hovel in southwestern Virginia (Coach Beamer, I'll take cash or check). That said, it's also hard not to feel sorry for Charlie Weis. The man lived for at least 4 years with his job being threatened. He was frequently ripped by the national media, and was occasionally burned in effigy by this blogger (<-not true, added for humor). He was just expected to have a national title at a school that hasn't won an outright national championship since 1988. I was 2 at that point in time. Colorado and Washington have won a National Championship more recently than Notre Dame. Sorry, but it's just not fair to expect that sort of thing from any coach at any school at any time. National Championships in a sport as competitive as college football don't just fall out of the sky! Oh, well. Charlie's back in the NFL and dang it I'm tired so let's move to the surreptitious part of this little overly long thing:

Likelihood of success: Look, the last 3 coaches at Notre Dame have been busts. Bob Davie led Notre Dame through 5 seasons of mediocrity before getting fired. Tyrone Willingham (who many people thought got a bad rap because he was black until he screwed over Washington and everyone realized he just sucks at coaching) and Charlie Weis both disappointed, and Notre Dame hasn't had a "Notre Dame-like" (<-Read "good") season since 2006, and they haven't won a bowl that more than 17 hula dancers care about since 1993. It is very difficult to rebuild any program to national prominence after 3 straight lemon coaches, so Brian Kelly certainly has his work cut out for him. But if anyone's cut out to lead the Irish out of the wasteland then it's Kelly. Kelly still has yet to prove he can perform in a major bowl game, but thanks to the fact that Notre Dame is independent, he can make it all the way to the BCS playing the likes of Navy and Washington State. I'd say look for the Irish to bounce back from punchline status in the 2011 season after a fairly rocky 2010 year.

San Jose State
Departing Coach: Dick Tomey
Arriving Coach: Mike MacIntyre

Review: Dear reader, if I had put two realistic-looking, but fake, names up there in the Departing/Arriving Coach blurbs, would you have known? If I had put "Jackson Hargreaves" and "Shawn McGrady" up there you would have had no idea. That is the level of relevance of San Jose State football right now.

Likelihood of success: SJSU is in the WAC, meaning they have to overcome the Boise State hurdle. On the bright side, unlike the previously mentioned and maligned Louisiana Tech Bulldogs, they had an awful 2009, going 2-10. Thus, if Coach MacIntyre is able to go, say, 5-7, he'll put himself on the radar for a much better job. Which would really be good, because coaching for San Jose State is going to suck.

South Florida
Departing Coach: Jim Leavitt
Arriving Coach: Skip Holtz

Review: South Florida has lost the only football coach it has ever known. Jim Leavitt led the team from the time it was a theoretical entity up to the 2009 season. During that time the squad went from 1-AA to 1-A (still not FBS) and joined an Automatic Qualifying conference. In 2007, the Bulls rose to #2 in the BCS rankings before plummeting back down to a 9-4 season. Ever since then South Florida has hung around the middle of the Big East, which would be more of an accomplishment if it weren't the Big East. But then, tragedy struck. Well, more accurately, Coach Leavitt struck. A player. In the locker room. Then he lied about it. So, yeah. Kinda awkward there. Leavitt was unceremoniously dropped from the team he had basically created, and South Florida was left looking for a coach, whom they found in the form of Skip Holtz.

Likelihood of success: Look, never bet against the Holtz's. Yes, I do have some sort of weird "thing" about Lou Holtz, but seriously, Lou is one of the all-time greats, and Skip turned ECU around after two consecutive seasons that can only be described as "godawful". The pieces are all in place at South Florida: Good coach, reasonably good players, good recruiting grounds, and a weak conference. Look for USF in a BCS bowl sometime very, very soon. Not this year though. This year they'll go 9-3 and play in some mid-level bowl game.

Tennessee
Departing Coach: Lane Kiffin
Arriving Coach: Derek Dooley

Review: One mediocre season after taking over the Big Orange, Lane Kiffin bolts in uber-weasel fashion. Sorry, but I can't say anything positive about the way Kiffin left and tried to take some of his best recruits with him. No worries, though, as Lane and his little band of ship-jumpers will spend 2 glorious bowl-free years at Southern Cal watching schools like Wyoming get to have all the post-season fun. Tennessee, meanwhile, has a mess to clean up, and one can only hope that the fans in Knoxville are willing to sit through at least one more season of mediocrity before getting some results

Likelihood of success: Dooley's dad had success at Georgia. So much so that it might create unfair expectations for his son. The big challenge at Tennessee is to get over the hump in the SEC. Being a middle of the road SEC team is akin to being a good ACC or Big East team. The problem is beating Florida or Alabama or LSU. The likelihood of that happening in the near future? Not good...

Texas Tech
Departing Coach: Mike Leach
Arriving Coach: Tommy Tuberville

Review: It's good to see Tuberville getting a job. It's even better to see a guy who locked a kid with a concussion in a closet gone. To be fair, like most twentysomethings I get most of my sports from ESPN, meaning that the reports were probably a bit biased considering the kid in question was analyst Craig James' son. The counterpoint to that is that Leach's "walk the plank" attitude probably merited a firing before he stupidly abused a kid with direct access to the world's largest sports media outlet. Oops.

Likelihood of success: Well, Tuberville has taken over a team that ran an unbelievably pass heavy spread for the last 9 years or so, and the last time he was on a team running a spread offense didn't go so hot. As a matter of fact, the little experiment cost him his job eventually. That said, Tuberville's genius lies in defense, an area in which most Big 12 teams are sorely lacking. The result? Well, it could mean that given enough time to retool the team, Tuberville could have great success. The only other team to claim to be defense heavy in the Big 12 in recent years has been the Nebraska Cornhuskers, a team that went from punching bag to one-second away from the BCS in the span of 2 seasons. This year could be rough in Lubbock, but given enough time Tuberville will turn it around.

UNLV
Departing Coach: Mike Sanford
Arriving Coach: Bobby Hauck

Review: UNLV isn't even popular in its own city, so the advantage here is that sucking won't attract too much attention. The disadvantage of coaching in Las Vegas, obviously, is getting a bunch of teenagers and 20-22 year olds to concentrate on football in a city renowned for drinking, gambling, and cheap buffets. Sanford couldn't do it; he went 16-43, having one season with more than 4 wins in 5 years at the school.

Likelihood of success: Not good at all. As if the distractions of Las Vegas weren't enough, the coaching staff also has to compete with TCU and Utah and BYU in what easily the best non-Automatic Qualifying conference. So, good luck Coach Hauck. If you go to the casinos alot, I'd bet on whoever's playing UNLV that week...

USC
Departing Weasel Scumbag: Pete Carroll
Arriving Weasel Scumbag: Lane Kiffin

Review: Since most of the last post was about this, and since this post is like 18 pages long, I am of the opinion that I can be fairly light on this topic right now. Suffice it to say that Southern Cal was caught cheating, and Pete, being a rat, jumped off of the sinking ship as quickly as he could. The one tiny bit of vindication here is that his protege is now stuck with the sanctions for cheating that the NCAA leveled against the school. Which seems a bit odd, as Pete got off completely free. Well, he does have to coach the Seahawks now. That might be punishment enough.

Likelihood of success: None. When you're used to competing for national titles and conference championships, a 2 year ban on postseason play means that you've already failed in 2010 and 2011. Check back slightly before the end of the world in 2012.


Virginia
Departing Coach: Al Groh
Arriving Coach: Mike London

Review: Coach Groh bowed out from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville with extreme grace. Probably more grace than was deserved by those tie wearing snobs. (Sorry, Hokie fan writing, excuse the bias.) Coach Groh will be missed by Virginia Tech fans, not least because the Hokies had an 8-1 record against him. On a serious note, Coach Groh was amazingly gracious and kind to Virginia Tech after the horrific events of April 16, 2007. He never could lead Virginia to an ACC championship, and his coaching was sub-par for most of his career at UVa. He's an alright guy, though, and for that he will truly be missed.

Likelihood of success: The ACC isn't overly good, and Mike London led the Richmond Spiders to their only NCAA Championship thus far. Putting two and two together, here, UVa has a very real chance to be good in the near future. Virginia will still have to get the pieces in place, as their defense bled points for most of the 2009 season. London, however, is a defensive guy, so look for the Cavaliers to make noise in the ACC sometime around 2011 or 2012.

Western Kentucky
Departing Coach: David Elson
Arriving Coach: Willie Taggart

Review: THIS is how I have to finish my labor of love? Well, crap. OK, here: WKU was a good 1-AA team that moved up and immediately did one thing: lose. They lost frequently, and they haven't won a game since September of 2008. Color me unimpressed.

Likelihood of success: Well, the good news here is that you can't do any worse than last season. Don't look for Western Kentucky in the polls. Actually, don't look for Western Kentucky at all, as doing so would require you to go to Kentucky...


Aaaaand that's it. An overview of all 22 of the coaching changes in college football between the 2009 and 2010 seasons. Hope it's enough to tide you over until someone writes something stupid for me to mock before the season starts...