The Bible

After a wild goose chase of sorts, I found a copy of the Phil Steele 2007 College Football Preview magazine in town.  Last year I had the Florida edition.  I haven't moved, but apparently my town has: this year I'm in possession of the Alabama edition.

Whatever works.

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This OOC Stuff, It Matters

Many thanks to Georgia Sports Blog for sending this along: an analysis of schedule-making in this new era of 12-game schedules and increasing costs to booking creampuffs.

The lesson: it gets easy before it gets hard.  That is all very true but at the end of the day, some schools have figured out how to annually put together a respectable non-conference schedule, and many haven't.  The challenges are there and we can recognize them, but there's still a "if there's a will, there's a way" element involved here and many schools are given a pass.

I commend Georgia for ditching seven and eight game home slates in most years.  The right thing to do is to maintain that no matter what their SEC peers do.

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Minority Head Coaches

It's my opinion that it all starts with flooding the lower ranks with quality candidates who will then move up the system in solid numbers and end this sport's embarrassment.  We talked about this a little bit in my recent Pundit Roundup, and commenter Ltrain made this solid point:

for all that people seem to care about the diversity of college football head coaches, I haven't seen a really good systemic numerical look at the issue from other than at the top, or occassionally the coordinator level.
You don't fix the issue by nailing some quota number at the top level. I think a better analysis wold be as follows:

1) Where did all of the current D-1 coaches start at the entry level. (I'm sure a breakdown could be made);

2) Assuming the outcome of (1): most started as Grad.Assistants at the entry level (this assumption could be wrong, but bear with me). So, what is the racial breakdown at the GA level? At different points in time? (would show if "progress" has been made, whether or not the top level reflects the entry level, etc.).

3) Do the problems arise somewhere in the middle, or is the problem not enough racial composition even gets into the system to begin with?

I now direct you to this story: NFL minority coaching fellowships.  GREAT idea.  Now if only the colleges would figure out to do this in reverse, sending minority NFL coaches down to the colleges.    There are infinitely more coaching opportunities in college than in the NFL as there are 119 teams compared to 32 in the NFL, many with high profiles and good pay.

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BCS vs. Non

From USA Today:

Non-BCS schools will host BCS schools 31 times this year (schools from the Big Six leagues traditionally don't travel very often to schools in the other five I-A conferences). It was 24 last year after being at 26 in 2005 and 2004. In 2002 and 2003, there also were 31 such matchups. The rest of the history: 1997 (year before BCS instituted), 27; 1998, 29; 1999, 26; 2000, 22; 2001, 21.

This is a good thing.

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Stonewall

The Pac-10 is against a playoff.

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Golden Era

Times are good for Louisville football.  The question is whether they can parlay a great system, an elite quarterback, skill talent, quality defensive transfers and momentum into a national championship.