Making Tuesday Fun Since 2006!

Special two-week edition since last week's Pundit Roundup was never published. 

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Victors Valiant?

There's a new sheriff in town at Ann Arbor.  A million dollars alone are being invested in a new weight room.  Players are exhausted from workouts.  Dire predictions of Michigan's worst record in a generation are being floated around as the team adjusts to an entirely new offense and defense.  And then there's that hyper-talkative strength trainer Mike Barwis.

Catch up on the transitioning Wolverines with ESPN's Ivan Maisel 

Fun, But Foolish

You know where I stand on this: college football doesn't need a playoff.  College basketball is not the model to follow, either.  It's deeply flawed, and The Sporting News' Tom Dienhart does a good job of taking apart the sham claim that it is somehow a real championship.

Don't believe it.

Oh, the thrills and chills stuff is real. But we likely won't know who the best in the nation is.

That's right. The notion that a season-ending, one-and-done playoff delivers us the best team is false. Heck, the NCAA Tournament is flawed from the start because it doesn't even feature the 65 best teams in the nation.

But, it's too late. The NCAA and CBS already have you hooked and hoodwinked.

As the NCAA hoops tournament shows us each year, any team can beat any other team on any given day.

But why should a team that loses one, two or three games during the regular season be forced to prove itself all over again in a three-week playoff?

Conversely, why should a team with an average or losing record be allowed the chance to compete for a championship?

Get on your knees and thank the gridiron gods that college football isn't polluted by a playoff. And I hope it never happens.

A championship title -- or the right to compete for a championship -- should be based on what a team did during the course of a long, hard season. College football's regular season acts as a de facto playoff, rewarding teams that take care of business week in and week out. There's no way to save your season after slacking for three months. And that's how it should be.

That's why every single weekend matters in college football. Every upset in September and October is huge news. And when a top-five team loses in November, it rocks the sport to its core.

With conference tournaments followed by the NCAA tourney, college basketball has sold its regular-season soul for a March tourney that rings hollow, too.

It all boils down to this: A champion shouldn't be crowned based on who gets hot over a three-week period. And, really, that's all a playoff tells us: Who got hot. Not, who is best.

Is college football's BCS formula infallible? No. But it's at least a darn good approximation for finding the two most worthy teams of playing for the national title.

No Job Is Safe

If he does nothing else in his life, Stanford quarterback Tavita Pritchard will be remembered for defeating USC last year.  Not only did he beat the Trojans, he beat them with the league's worst team.  Against arguably the nation's best team the last six years.  In their home stadium.  Ending their 30+ game home winning streak.  After completing just 11 passes all game.  Two of those passes, however, were a 4th and 20 conversion and the game-winning 4th down touchdown pass.

Now he's in a heck of a fight just to be Stanford's starting quarterback against two solid competitors.  What have you done for me lately, huh?  Although that's the way it should be.

ESPN's Pac-10 guru Ted Miller has the rest of the details

Ok Maybe This Job Is Safe

Joe (Paterno) won't go.  He's running out of options, thanks partly to his cantankerous ways and partly to several modest seasons since the 2005 Orange Bowl and various off-field transgressions embarrassing the dignity of the program.  I've given up trying to figure out when (if?) he'll leave.  Every couple years someone is convinced this is the year the Paterno reign ends.  And then he soldiers on.

Here's the latest effort from CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd. 

Opium For The Masses

There's certain games that aren't played that leave you scratching your head.  Number one on the list is Pitt/Penn State.  Joe Paterno is flat-out wrong in finding every reason not to play this series.  He's let the people of Pennsylvania down.

The Sporting News' Tom Dienhart recommends several other games that need to be played 

Burning Spear

The Sporting News' Tom Dienhart went to Tally to figure out what went wrong at Florida State.  Here are his findings, in three parts:

• Fall from greatness
• Myriad causes
• Jimbo Fisher to the rescue

Another Workout Death

This is a sensitive issue, since unknown pre-existing conditions are quite often to blame when a young athlete dies during drills.  However I can't fault Yahoo! Sports' Terry Bowden for asking some good questions and doing the research that finds only seven times since 1966 has there been a year without a non-contact football death (1999 the most recent).

Sometimes bad things just happen.

Sometimes people die for no good reason at all.

But why does the sometime in college football almost always seem to be during some form of offseason conditioning? If football practice is supposed to simulate the actual intensity of a game, and the level of effort demanded in a mat drill is no different than that what is expected on the playing field; then why are kids dying in March and not in September? Unlike mountain climbing and auto racing, there is no reasonable expectation of death while playing football. So why are lives being lost preparing for the game?

Maybe these tragic deaths are not inevitable. Maybe it’s time to start asking ourselves different questions. Are we demanding much more from these athletes than is required to safely play? Are we spending enough money on testing for pre-existing conditions that lead to deaths? Could either of these factors have contributed to the death of any of these student-athletes?

These are tough questions.

But they are not nearly as tough as what Enock and Gisele Plancher are going through this week as they prepare to bury their son.

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Quotable

Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez

"If they had ever set a stat for spring practice sacks allowed, we would have broken it, and it would never be broken again," Rodriguez said. "I mean, I can remember our first spring game at Tulane. We had a little intrasquad scrimmage. It was so bad offensively that the defensive coaches let one of the female student trainers call defenses. And I still didn't get a first down."

Former Florida State running back Lorenzo Booker

"You're losing and coming into meetings hearing how it's your fault," says former FSU running back Lorenzo Booker. "But I always wondered, 'What are the coaches doing to get better?' It's a two-way street. We felt it was us losing the games, not the coaches.

"It was like they had no part in any of it. It was like they had no accountability. It was like Jeff Bowden was untouchable. It was like no one on the staff could criticize him. The defense always did its job. The guys on defense would get mad at us. But after a while, they understood."

CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd re: much-hyped Ohio State quarterback commit Terrelle Pryor

In one sense, Pryor can't possibly live up to the hype, can he? If he wins a national championship, that's what he was supposed to do. If he wins a Heisman, well, it's been done before in Columbus.

Terrelle Pryor

"Troy Smith ran some zone-read stuff early in his career, and then he developed into a pocket passer and did a lot of stuff out of the shotgun," Pryor said. "He became a better quarterback -- not just an athlete -- by the time he was done. I feel I can do the same. Both schools said they would utilize my athletic ability in the offense, but I think I can be more well-rounded at Ohio State."

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Miscellaneous

. . . USC coach Pete Carroll is working towards 'A Better L.A.' (Bruce Feldman/ESPN) . . . Quarterback Nate Davis and Ball State teammates are the MAC's new golden boys (Bruce Feldman/ESPN) . . . I-Formation (Ivan Maisel/ESPN) . . . He said/she said and improprieties the story of Nyan Boateng's rocky college career (Ted Miller/ESPN) Georgia, Missouri and Wisconsin must navigate the expectations dance (Mark Schlabach/ESPN) . . . Ray Ray McElrathbey's lost scholarship story: it's complicated (Mark Schlabach/ESPN) . . . A wise marketing gimmick by Florida coach Urban Meyer: race the team, win a scholarship (Dennis Dodd/CBS Sports) . . .

. . . Inside Dish: USF dishes on how to beat the Rich Rodriguez offense (Matt Hayes/The Sporting News) . . . Nice guys like Tyrone Willingham finish last (Matt Hayes/The Sporting News) . . . Bubblegum pop and college football don't mix (Tom Dienhart/The Sporting News) . . .  Casting a College Football Hall of Fame Ballot (Tom Dienhart/The Sporting News) . . . Football is all about contact, but safety is still a huge priority and some new NCAA rule changes addressing safety are welcome (Terry Bowden/Yahoo! Sports) . . . Previews, everywhere (Rivals.com) . . . History tells us Notre Dame must wait (Olin Buchanan/Rivals.com) . . .

. . . Disgust with the game's excesses (Tony Barnhart/Atlanta Journal-Constitution) . . . Erack Plancher's death brings tragic end to a life full of promise (Mike Bianchi/Orlando Sentinel) . . . George O'Leary's tough-guy rep bends to a broken heart (Mike Bianchi/Orlando Sentinel) . . . Nick Saban is still a big deal in Louisiana (Paul Finebaum/Mobile Press-Register) . . .

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