Making Tuesday Fun Since 2006!

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A "weekly must-read"
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--- ESPN's Ivan Maisel asks what's next for the Big East?

The cascade of good news surprised even commissioner Mike Tranghese, who guided the league through the turmoil created by the loss of three strong programs. Tranghese said the answer to "Now what?" is "Life as usual." He believes the league's credibility is no longer an issue.

"If you win, they're gonna say this is a continuation of last year," Tranghese said. "But if you lose, then you're going to be criticized. But that's what you get for being one of the six conferences [that earn an automatic BCS bid]. This is what happens with the ACC, the SEC, the Big Ten. That's what we want. We want to be treated like the five of them are. "I think cyclically everybody is going to get bit," Tranghese continued. "But the difference is, if you get bit, it's not the end of the world. You know, the ACC struggled last year, but I didn't hear anybody saying that the ACC wasn't going to be in the football business. It was cyclical. We know the ACC is going to be good again."

Also: Five Big East Predictions and five Big 12 predictions

Also: USF quarterback Matt Grothe exudes old school cool

Also: Oklahoma can't keep the lid on DeMarco Murray

--- ESPN's Mark Schlabach finds Sam Keller getting a fresh start at Nebraska

--- ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit is back with his Seventh Annual Herbie Awards

--- ESPN's Todd McShay ranks college football's game-breakers and defensive game-changers. Juice Williams? I also didn't realize Sedrick Ellis played for LSU (?).

--- Sports Illustrated's Stewart Mandel finds the game-changers, the five elite athletes who redefine their positions and win games.

From Mandel's blog: Charlie Weis shows true colors with quarterback decision.

Besides, Weis has now given us plenty of reason to no longer believe much of anything that comes out of his mouth. As you may recall, the coach became very annoyed last spring when various news outlets reported that Clausen, ND’s much-touted freshman phenom, was suffering from bone spurs in his throwing elbow and would eventually undergo a surgical procedure. Despite the fact the reporters in question had spoken with a fairly reliable source –- Clausen’s own father -- Weis was aghast. "He's full-go, contrary to recent reports," Weis said of the freshman. "Just so we clear that one up, the only one who will answer for the health of our players will be me."
Last Friday, however, Clausen himself spoke for the first time, and, contrary to Weis’ contradiction, said, "Following spring practice, I had a procedure on my elbow to arthroscopically remove a bone spur. It was a minor setback, and I've been rehabbing ever since." Weis did not necessarily lie about the injury -- he merely insulted the intelligence of anyone with a brain.

--- Sports Illustrated's Cory McCartney says teams forge summer bonds in interesting ways.

Also: At Air Force, summer is about ingenuity and self-reliance.

--- CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd lists twenty-five things to watch this season. What the Pac-10's stance on a playoff has to do with other examples of mudslinging and a lack of decorum in the sport I have no clue.

Also: SEC Preview.

Also: Football 101 - college game beats the NFL (duh)

Jared Freakin' Lorenzen is in the NFL. Who knew? Last time I saw him, linebackers were catching rides on his ankles while J-Load set passing records at Kentucky.

In Lexington, Wendy's managers were sending limos to his apartment at lunchtime. He was bigger than his offensive line.

The Jared Lorenzen I knew was tons of fun.

You remember the jokes: How do you bring Lorenzen down? Answer: Tell him the cafeteria ran out of Twinkies.

In the NFL, the Round Mound of Touchdown/Hefty Lefty/Pillsbury Throwboy carries a clipboard. Occupies a roster spot.

And I am sad. Remember that scene in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest when Jack Nicholson gets the lobotomy? That's Lorenzen right now. Stripped of his personality and his meat hooks. It can't be true that Kentucky's Jared is channeling Subway's Jared because he ... needs ... to ... lose ... weight.

Curse you, Tom Coughlin.

But that's what the NFL does. It sucks the life out of you.

Also: Talent + Money + Obsession = dominant football in SEC

Once again an SEC discussion centered around things other than what's happening on the field.

--- The Sporting News' Matt Hayes says it was time for Miami to dump that dump (The Orange Bowl)

Also: Scouting the Pac-10

Also: What's the big secret with Notre Dame's quarterback?

Also: June Jones and Colt Brennan found more than paradise in Hawaii

Also: Breaking out the early BCS Bowl predictions

--- The Sporting News' Tom Dienhart ranks the non-BCS conferences

Also: Dumping the Orange Bowl will ruin Miami's mojo and squeezing out favorite Orange Bowl memories

Also: The top 25 college football questions

Also: Scouting the Big 12

Also: Nick Saban, the coach you love to hate

Also: College football soup - check out Boston College vs. North Carolina State

If you can believe it, 20 years have passed since the Mustangs were given the death penalty. There was no football in 1987-88 seasons. SMU has posted one winning record (6-5 in 1997) in the 18 seasons since the death penalty.

Hence, the school hasn't been to the postseason since 1984.

I sure hope SMU breaks through this fall for good-guy coach Phil Bennett, who some thought was going to lose his job after last season. The Mustangs went 6-6 in 2006 with two losses by a combined 7 points.

"I think we are a year behind," Bennett told me recently as he preps for his sixth season. "We should already have been to a bowl. We came close last year. We have a good chance to get it done this fall."

Also: Who has the easiest and toughest september

--- Yahoo! Sports' Terry Bowden talks about various college football themes heading into the final days before the 2007 season.

--- CSTV's Brian Curtis looks around the country for news items and finds USC's plethora of tailbacks dwindling.

We had an interesting conference call the other day involving members of our Crystal Ball production team as we talked about some upcoming storylines. Talk turned to Virginia Tech and what its opener against East Carolina on September 1st might mean to the community. One of my colleagues made a great point--we in the media are assuming that a football game helps the healing. But what about the victims' families and those left scarred by the bullets of a madman? Do they believe that a football game will make things easier? Will it make the school forget what happened? I understand that sports play a big role on university campuses around the nation and it is easy to add memorials, symbols and moments of silence to athletic events. But let's not go overboard with what football means to Virginia Tech. It still is just football, as my colleague noted. Great point.

--- CSTV's Trev Alberts answers his mailbag. Inside: Why USC's infractions issues are different from those at Oklahoma, whether Darren McFadden is on that greatness level of a Reggie Bush and the rising popularity of the spread offense in college football.

The spread offense puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the defense. You can sort of dictate to them what's going to happen by spreading the field out. And let's face it - every defense in college will have a weak link. What you're trying to do is get your difference makers, like West Virginia's Steve Slaton and Pat White, on an island with the other team's weakness. It's a way of getting speed on the field, but more importantly, it's about forcing the defense to defend the entire field. A traditional offense allows the defense to defend a smaller portion of the field. With the spread you force defenses to put themselves out there and then you create space for your difference makers between the tackles.

Often times you can let an inferior athlete compete with a spread offense, someone who's not a mauler and who is smaller and quicker and can use his athletic ability to just get in the way. The spread really gives you options. Now defenses are combating that by getting more speed on the field. Linebackers who used to weigh 250 pounds are now 205.

--- CSTV's Adam Caparell examines the new kickoff rule

Also: 2007 schedule planner - Week 14

--- The Rivals.com crew remains hard at work (August 21 to present)

--- Sun Sports TV's Whit Watson says adios to the Orange Bowl.

For 70 years, the Orange Bowl has been a living symbol of Miami -- the city, the school, and the football team. National championships. Orange Bowl games. The smoke. Sebastian the Ibis. "Hurricane warning" flags. Beyond that, five Super Bowls, and the last link to the Dolphins' perfect NFL season. The Orange Bowl is one of the few links to Florida's history that still stands. Around here, where the state animal is the bulldozer and the state song is "No Closing Costs," those links are precious. The outcry in South Florida, especially among those who have lived and worked there for any amount of time, is understandably loud. At this very moment, I guarantee you there's a developer in Miami eyeing the Orange Bowl property as a possible site for a condo-hotel, and it makes my skin crawl, even from 200 miles away.

But Miami did what it had to do. In the interest of competing in the ACC, competing on a national scale, and competing for fans in South Florida, Miami made the only call it could make. As a business decision, it's a no-brainer. But in the realm of public opinion, it was a tortuous choice, and that's why nobody is leaping forward to claim it.

Also: Artists and Mechanics 2007.

A great discussion between Watson and College Football Resource about Watson's Artists and Mechanics concept.

--- USA Today's Kelly Whiteside previews the SEC and looks at two unique Florida Gator players.

--- The New York Times' Pete Thamel profiles Hawaii quarterback Colt Brennan.

Brennan began chasing his dream early, working with the renowned quarterback tutor Bob Johnson in eighth grade alongside a high school star named Carson Palmer. Jordan Palmer, Carson’s younger brother, who is now a quarterback with the Redskins, remembers young Colt as hypercompetitive, talking trash through the most mundane passing drills.

“When we played baseball against each other,” Jordan Palmer recalled, “he was the kid standing on second telling the shortstop about how he’d steal third.”

Brennan attended Mater Dei, a large Catholic high school and state power in Santa Ana, in part, he said, for the chance “to be part of something bigger.”

His uneven journey to stardom began with Brennan playing backup quarterback on the freshman team, being the junior varsity starter as a sophomore and then Leinart’s backup as a junior.

“Colt loved football,” Leinart recalled, stretching out the word love. “You could just tell he was one of those kids who wanted to play and never wanted to give up.”

In Brennan’s only year as a varsity starter, Mater Dei began the season 1-3, which kept him out of the recruiting limelight. There was one play that stands out from an early loss that Brennan said demonstrated to him just how all-consuming football had become in his life.

With Mater Dei trailing late in a close game, Brennan lined up for a fourth-and-14. He remembers hearing the crowd noise pulsate through his helmet, feeling the pressure swirl through his head, the significance of the moment overwhelming him. Convert the down and Mater Dei could score and win. Lose and he would be the focal point of Mater Dei’s poor start. He skipped the ball to the turf, the crowd groaned and Brennan’s world collapsed.

“I loved the game so much, that it controlled my whole life,” Brennan said. “My whole life revolved around football. When I did good in football, I was happy. If I wasn’t doing good in football, I was miserable.”

Also: Eight ways 2007 will delive.  Obligatory Nick Saban "pointing" photo, I guess Urban Meyer's ceded that title.

--- The Dallas/Ft. Worth Star-Telegram's Wendell Barnhouse finds Florida fighting the hard stuff plus other news and notes.

--- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Tony Barnhart blogs away.

--- The Austin-American Statesman's Kirk Bohls likes Texas cornerback Brandon Foster and is buying what TCU is selling.

--- The Tuscaloosa News' Cecil Hurt is eagerly awaiting September 1.

--- The Birmingham News' Kevin Scarbinsky writes that Nick Saban shows who's in charge at Alabama.

Also: Florida State defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews remains tough in a tough time.

Also: Alabama faces decisions on recruit Josh Chapman.

Also: Terry Bowden aims to get back in the game.

"If somebody were to hire me Dec. 1, I would have a staff ready to go," Bowden said. "I would have an offensive and defensive system. I would have a recruiting system and a recruiting coordinator. I'd have a plan that minute."

It's opening week, and already people are guessing who'll be the first coach fired. Is it really possible, nine years after Auburn, Bowden could be the first one hired?

--- The Birmingham News' Ray Melick says a behavior change in college sports might affect wins.

Also: Nick Saban doesn't do Bear-like discipline.

Also: The Hoover High mess and the player who made it to Alabama after a grade change.

I do not know Chapman, so I can't speak to his motivation for attending college. But I have met many athletes whose primary interest in attending college was to get an education not in the classroom but in football or basketball. These athletes' ambition was to play sports at the highest level for as long as possible.

Is that really so wrong? No less than Princeton Athletics Director Gary Walters made the argument last spring that participation in athletics should be given the same status as playing in the band, or performing drama, or getting a degree in art - all endeavors in which students can take classes and get academic credit. Shouldn't football players, Walters seems to suggest, get some kind of academic credit for playing football?

Walters quoted Jon Veach, a starting tailback on the Princeton football team who wrote a paper that said: "The reason athletes put so much time and dedication into athletics is because the athletes do not view varsity athletics as simply an extracurricular activity but rather a vital part of their life and an intense learning experience. I have been an athlete since I was eight years old, and I can honestly say that the summation of my athletic experiences to this point has prepared me for the hard times of my life better than any other experience. Varsity athletics are imbedded with an abundant number of life lessons, values, and striking comparisons to the real world. I believe so strongly in these values that I feel varsity athletes should be given some type of academic credit for the countless hours of training and learning."

Of course, playing at Princeton is a far cry from playing at Auburn or Alabama. And the potential for abuse in rewarding academic credit for athletics - or even the idea of creating majors based on athletic participation - gives academicians the willies.

But if playing football is why some kids go to college, and the ability to play football is the primary reason many colleges award scholarships (and accept minimum academic standards in return), then is Walters' idea really so far off base?

Also: With Nick Saban, forget about X's and O's - it's about intangibles.

"Coach Saban has done a good job of emphasizing that we take nothing for granted," said receiver D.J. Hall. "We won't let up. He says you keep pounding and pounding till the clock says zero."

This staff leads by example.

"You wonder if they ever sleep," Caldwell said. "My coach works till 1 a.m. and comes back at 4 in the morning, and he's always wide-eyed. They take every practice like it's a game. The whole immediacy with this staff is really different."

It's been a wake-up call to everybody in the organization.

--- The Mobile Register's Paul Finebaum talks to USA Today oddsmaker Danny Sheridan.

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