Making Tuesday Fun Since 2006!

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There's two full weeks worth of catching up to do, are you ready?

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--- ESPN's Bruce Feldman lists his top 10 "buzzworthy" spring performers.

There's some names you might not have heard of like Oregon defensive end Brandon Bair.  I've been curious about Clemson's quarterback battle and Feldman says it looks like Cullen Harper's taken a lead.

From the "Random Stuff" section of Feldman's entry I like this admission about Jim Harbaugh's recent comments about Michigan's academics:

My three cents: Harbaugh's right on. From my research for Meat Market, I'd say with the exception of Stanford and the Academies and perhaps Duke, no other I-A programs really are that choosey when it comes to their actual admission standards. I was actually amazed to see some of the kids with GPAs in core classes that hovered around 2.0 were getting recruited and accepted by programs that supposedly don't take such students.

Also: Friday Mailbag.

Also: Florida State tight end Brandon Warren talks about his messy transfer situation.

Also: Biggest spring football myths.

Or: the silly things coaches and the media convince themselves.  Lots 'o cliches.

Also: Opening up the mailbag.

Also: Trading emails with USC assistant Rocky Seto in honor of Asian Pacific Heritage Month.

An interesting tidbit in the 'Random Stuff" section after the Seto interview:

The father of 2008 FSU football commit Vincent Williams has a blog -- "Pork Rib Seminole" -- that apparently has stirred up some things in Florida.

"I spoke with the FSU compliance office today and was told the following:

"I can do this blog, but I cannot allow comment posting on this site. I am not allowed to interact on here with the readers. Also … Vince cannot have anything to do with the Blog site (and he doesn't)."

This is just another instance of technology keeping colleges and the NCAA up at night.

--- ESPN's Ivan Maisel responds to whatever's interesting in his in-box.

We've got a real thinker here:

From Matthew in Columbus, Ohio: I just read about the episode at Penn State and it made me think: With the uniformity in rules on the field, should there be a uniform code of punishment for incidents off the field?

It's called the courts and the law.  Bone up.

Can we also get off this "deserving" kick?  Observe:

From Ed in New Jersey: After going 11-2 last season, with numerous returning starters, how do you think Rutgers will do this season? If they go undefeated, do they deserve to play in the championship game?

Ugh.  Beat the crap out of everyone in your league, beat someone big outside of it and then let's talk.  This whole "deserving" thing is so ridiculous.  I assume that by going undefeated Boise State "deserved" to be in last year's championship game but I also feel strongly they weren't one of the top two teams in the country.  Ability trumps "we were undefeated", as it should.  Ask Auburn.  Who cares if they deserve it if they aren't good enough to merit mention in the first place?

Also: brief recollections about this year's College Football Hall of Fame inductees.

--- Sports Illustrated's Stewart Mandel answers his own mailbag (after 800+ emails).

Reasonable conference rankings ... that's a good start.  Plus: did you know Miami cornerback Glenn Sharpe --- phantom Fiesta Bowl pass interference Glenn Sharpe --- is still eligible to play another year of football?  Amazing.

This was an important exchange:

Your criticism about Chan Gailey got me thinking. Do you think a head coach in the NFL has an advantage coaching at the college level over his counterparts? He usually has a poor history in the NFL or he'd still be there, so what makes the Pete Carroll's do so well and what's your prediction for Bill Callahan at Nebraska?
--Mike Burr, Chicago

This is turning out to be a Callahan-heavy Mailbag. But that's OK, because Mike brings up a topic I've formed some pretty staunch opinions about within the last year. Of all the head coaches who have made the transition from the NFL to college in recent years, the only one who's had any raging success is Carroll. And I've always found it interesting that many of the very things that worked against Carroll in the pros -- his rah-rah personality, his player-friendly approach and his aggressive schemes and play-calling -- have been his biggest sources of success in college. This tells me there's almost no correlation between success at the two levels, and that in fact NFL experience may actually work against guys in college. Why? Because in college, unlike the NFL, it doesn't pay to be conservative.

Think back to last year's bowl season. Florida won a national title running an offense in which the backup quarterback was the top running back. Boise State won a BCS bowl running trick plays no NFL coach would dare run in a million years. USC won the Rose Bowl by literally abandoning any notion of offensive balance. College football has become increasingly synonymous with unconventional strategy. But NFL-bred coaches like Gailey, Callahan, Dave Wannstedt and Karl Dorrell tend to be among the most conservative in the nation. (Remember last year's Cotton Bowl?) They may win some games that way, but you don't win championships in college by playing not to lose.

Gotta be different.  Conventional can only take you so far most years in college football.  Schemes differentiate teams.  It's dynamism at work, Friedman approved.

--- Sports Illustrated's Arash Markazi has details about an upcoming movie about the life of Syracuse Heisman Trophy winner Ernie Davis.

Filming has begun on The Express, a movie about the life of Ernie Davis, the first black Heisman Trophy winner and the first overall pick in the 1961 NFL Draft who never played professionally after being diagnosed with leukemia and dying two years later at the age of 23.

The film, which features Rob Brown as Davis, Dennis Quaid as Syracuse football coach Ben Schwarzwalder, Charles S. Dutton as Davis' father and Aunjanue Ellis as Davis' mother, is being filmed in and around Chicago by Universal Pictures.

Football scenes are being shot at Jorndt Field at Amundsen High in Chicago as well as Northwestern's Ryan Field. They will also film on the Syracuse campus, where Davis, nicknamed "The Elmira Express," led the Orangeman to a national championship in 1960. The movie, which is being directed by Gary Felder (Runaway Jury), is scheduled to be released in 2009.

This will be a second college football movie for Dutton as he also had a hand in 1993's Rudy.

--- CBS Sportsline's Dennis Dodd writes Hawaii will endure despite the facilities complaints lodged by quarterback Colt Brennan.

Also: the annual coaches hot seat list, with a twist.

Also: Top five's, with sponsors.  This is the slooowwwwwww season, sheesh.

--- Yahoo! Sports' Terry Bowden says coaches don't know the meaning of the word 'offseason'.

--- The Sporting News' Matt Hayes answers mail about the '07 college football season.  New unis for Oregon State?

Also: ranking the top five offensive and defensive players at each position.

Also: Hayes married a Buckeye fanatic.

Also: Inside Dish.  Recruit Terrelle Pryor, Notre Dame's top two quarterbacks and frosh receiver Demaryius Thomas at Georgia Tech.

Also: contrasting hotshot West Virginia recruit/commit Noel Devine and former hotshot recruit Jason Gwaltney as part of the West Virginia model.

Also: Inside Dish.  Nebraska gets a big-time quarterback commitment, quarterback worries at Kansas and the new offense at Oregon.

--- The Sporting News' Tom Dienhart ranks the non-BCS coaches.

TCU's Gary Patterson at No. 1.

Also: college football's kings of spring.  Jake Locker (Washington), Antone Smith (Florida State), Ricky Sapp (Clemson), Arrelious Benn (Illinois), Kenny Phillips (Miami) and Jeff Byers (USC).

Also: SEC East will be a beast on the football field.  They can thank Vandy and Kentucky, sayeth Dienhart.

Also: breaking down the Big Ten schedule.  Cool feature, and kinda sorta similar to my OOC breakdowns for the various conferences.  Have fun with the Big 12 schedule breakdown as well.

Also: a blue-chip quarterback will make things fun at Nebraska again.

--- The Sporting News'/Rivals.com's Mike Farrell says Howie Long's son Kyle - a big-time football and baseball recruit who recently committed to Florida State and may never play a down of college football - should be playing football.

--- The Dallas/Ft. Worth Star-Telegram's Wendell Barnhouse has a lengthy Mountain West conference spring football wrap-up.

There hasn’t been a spring like this in Colorado Springs in ... well, more than two decades. After 23 years with Fisher DeBerry coaching Air Force, Troy Calhoun is the now the coach. The changes include switching from DeBerry’s triple-option attack to a multi-set, I formation scheme. The new look includes Air Force quarterbacks in an unfamiliar place — in the shotgun. The Falcons also will use an aggressive 3-4 defensive set that replaces the 4-3. The Falcons are 13-21 over the last three seasons.

“We’re going to spread it around a lot more and it’s going to be that way all year,” senior quarterback Shaun Carney told the Denver Post. “It’s going to be hard to prepare for us because there’s the option and all the other things we do. We’re going to be very versatile.”

--- Sun Sports TV's Whit Watson examines the roots of passion in relation to the big three Florida schools.

I asked my dad, who is strictly and solely a college guy, to name the Florida pro franchise that has the most passionate, loyal, and demanding fan base.

Without hesitation, he said "the Dolphins," which is the correct answer.

Why?

Because they're the oldest pro franchise in the state.

--- The Mobile Register's Paul Finebaum says college football's 12th game costs fans.

The NCAA allowed college football teams to begin playing a 12th game on a regular basis in 2006. On paper, it looked a great idea. More football. More big matchups. More great games to watch on the tube.

And the theory was wrong on just about every point.

Instead of playing more important games, most schools -- particularly those in the SEC -- have just added more patsies to the schedule. The little schools are getting richer, to say nothing of big-time SEC schools getting more home games. And the fans continue to grow poorer in the process.

Yet another OOC breakdown similar to CFR's.

Finebaum argues that the 12th game is a missed opportunity because teams, particularly in the SEC, used it to schedule a creampuff at home instead of someone bigger out-of-conference and possibly on the road.

I think the 12th game was and is a great addition to the game.  The problem is the 12-team conferences.  For whatever reason conference play in the super conferences is treated as "tough enough" and many of their best teams are leery of scheduling many quality OOC dates.  I wish we could reduce conference size because it would encourage legitimate round-robin league play (as seen in the Pac-10) and also create real opportunities for interesting OOC matchups.

The 12-team conferences (SEC, Big 12, ACC) make a lot of money but they've been a complete disservice to the game.  I doubt we can return to small sized conferences, but it's a worthy thought.  In the meantime the 12th game remains an extra opportunity to do good things for the game.  Blame the institutions, not the extra game itself, for failing the sport in that regard. 

Also: playing the "what if?" game.  What if Alabama had hired Bobby Bowden over Bill Curry 20 years ago?

We'd be talking about Alabama as the pre-eminent team in all of college football instead of them having to share fame as one third of college football's "Holy Trinity".  Oops.

However, in recent memory, the one question that I cannot escape is this: What if Alabama had hired Bobby Bowden 20 years ago instead of Bill Curry?

The Alabama native desperately wanted the job. He interviewed for the post. Yet it went to the former weekend sports anchor turned football coach from Georgia Tech, who scampered out of town after three tumultuous years and an 0-3 mark against Auburn.

The question isn't whether Bowden would have won a national championship at Alabama, but how many?

That's letting a big fish get away.

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To read articles and blog entries from many other college football writers, be sure and visit CFR's "The Punditry" links.  You can either bookmark that link or find it via CFR's College Football Links section on the menu at left.