But if you try some time, you just might find, you get what you need.

Good work, (most) conference commissioners.  First round's on me if we ever meet.

I love it.  No other sport has this kind of dialogue and passion.

The great Wizard of Odds has published a study this morning analyzing average game length by the various broadcasters.  Memo to SEC fans unhappy about never-ending games: exclusive SEC broadcaster CBS is the runaway favorite when it comes to long games.  We all know the reason why: commercials.

I'm not here to complain about commercials - they pay the bills.  However, looking at Wiz's data its obvious that long games aren't universal.  Not every network carries a nearly four hour broadcast.  Game time continues to be a function of the run/pass nature of competing teams, the efficiency of the game officials, overtime, replay review and ... commercials!

It's a little unfair of the networks to demand changes in the game without determining new ways to reduce their own burden.  Maybe the solution is to encourage the game to be even longer and more compelling.  That creates even more opportunities to sell ads and commercials and pushes college broadcasts further into the day and night.

I don't know about you, but on some of the smaller networks when the game ends they go right into 90 minutes of infomercials or other dead weight Saturday programming.  If I'm a network, I'd be trying to figure out ways to prolong games and the more serious ad revenue they bring in rather than cut them short to rush into worthless programming.

Onward ...

Another towering giant of the college football blog community MGoBlog's Brian Cook says at FanHouse that maybe we need to hold our fire.

Here's the claim from the NCAA rules committee:

NFL studies showed that adding the 25-40 clock will actually add 4 to 5 plays per game based on consistent pace of play. BCS Football and officials themselves were for this change. With the ready for play, live ball out of bounds rules, (This happens about 12 times per game, with on average 3 of those in last 2 minutes) we should get the same amount of plays in a time span that is a few minutes shorter. For the record it is BCS football, TV, Conference Commissioners with lengthy seasons and television that leads the push for faster games. The Committee's stance is that the game has given about all it can give back without a negative influence on product. Next move will have to be from Administrators or Television themselves. It is still a great game. MC.

 Sunday Morning Quarterback then replied with: "again, I disagree"

Any guess that the 40/25 clock will somehow increase plays is based on teams moving to the line quickly - "on consistent pace of play," in the words of the NCAA rep who responded to Orson's readers - but there is no incentive for offenses to take any less time than the rules afford. There's no way to predict the future with certainty, but the data from our "control group" (the NFL) indicates the number of plays will go down.

And Cook continues to assert that this might all work out.  After some math, the following:

The main reason the NFL features far fewer plays than the college game is not the length of the playclock but the running clock after a first down. That difference is not up for review, and the assertions made by the rules committee are therefore well within the realm of the plausible. Any difference wrought by the 40-second playclock will be small.

Where do I stand on this?  Hell if I know, but someone backed up by serious math is wrong.  Regardless, scrutiny of this rule change *proposal* absolutely must be intense.  There's little folly in raising alarm.

The Rules Committee screwed up big time with 3-2-5-e, and the motives behind that change are still guiding the current proposal.  If not for intense public scrutiny, extensive documentation of 3-2-5-e's failures and massive carping from coaches, we'd still have that rule on the books.  The college football public must continue to have its guard up when potentially hazardous rules come up for review.

I will continue to stand against anything that reduces the actual number of plays and possessions in college football games.  For the sake of the Rules Committee they better be right about it. 

SMQB breaks down the depressing numbers.  Conservative estimates point towards a loss of three possessions per game.  Not good.

Here's my two efforts at FanHouse talking about the proposed rule changes, and the problem with one specific change.  It could be worse than 3-2-5-e.  If so, it would behoove the powers-that-be to summarily reject this measure.

Ever the watchdog, The Wizard of Odds is all over this thing.

Finally, for the engaged citizens among us:

Michael Clark is the committee head. Here’s his email address: mclark@bridgewater.edu. Oh, and here’s his office number: 540-828-5406. Give him a call, write him and email, and tell him how hard this rule sucks, and will suck until it fails and is revoked next year.

Here's my take at FanHouse

Background articles: Rivals.com and AP

The Wizard of Odds: "NCAA Tries to Again Shorten Games"

What say you?

I'm still convinced that USC - UCLA is the most purely bitter (not necessarily the best) animosity-filled rivalry in college sports.

HOWEVER

For singularly ridiculous and almost unbelievably ill mannered partisanship, this Missouri - Kansas thing may take the cake.

You can have your Ohio State v. Michigan or Alabama v. Auburn, but the last time I checked nobody from Columbus ever went to Ann Arbor and systematically executed every man they could find while burning the town to the ground. And certainly nobody made t-shirts later celebrating that fact.

But that did happen in 1863 in Lawrence, KS when William Quantrill led his band of "Bushwackers" to the "Jayhawker" stronghold and went on a 4 hour rampage that would become known as the "Lawrence Massacre" - one of the ugliest episodes of the brutal 10+ years of fighting along the Kansas and Missouri border. While the Civil War has become the South v. the North in most people's minds, the fighting in fact began as a violent guerrilla conflict between the abolitionists in Kansas and the slave holding Missouri settlers (more or less, like many guerrilla campaigns there were quite blurred lines at times). In many ways, those old wounds have never quite healed - Grandpa Simpson will be be deep in the cold, cold ground before he recognizes Missour-ah as a state, for example.

Those t-shirts seen above that some Missouri fans are making for the showdown at Arrowhead in two weeks are celebrating the Lawrence Massacre and in fact have Quantrill's visage and slogan emblazoned on the back - "Raise the Black Flag and Ride Hard Boys. Our Cause is Just and Our Enemies Many". Talk about going straight past normal levels of fan behavior and making a hard right turn into loony land, that might be the single most offensive gameday t-shirt I've ever seen. Kansas fans are now responding with t-shirts sporting noted violent Kansas abolitionist John Brown (who led a massacre of his own and the 1859 Harper's Ferry raid that really kicked off the Civil War powder keg) with the slogan "Keeping America Safe From Missouri Since 1854" - a mock-up of those t-shirts can be seen here.

On the one hand, this is cool because there's some true blue (ugly) American history linking those towns that host the colleges.  On the other hand ... there's so many things wrong with it.  So very, very wrong.

Shirt?

Shirt

Is now posted at FanHouse.

Finally getting back into the swing of things.  I've got a BCS revision idea near the bottom that might be worth discussing.

Is now posted at FanHouse.

Is now posted at FanHouse.  I hope y'all caught that LSU - Auburn game.

Is now posted at FanHouse.  Lots of good pictures this week, thank you Getty.

Is now posted at FanHouse.  Down goes Troy.

Is now posted at FanHouse.  What an incredible weekend, huh?

Week four is in the books.  Check it out over at FanHouse.

Too much beer football! 

^{_{Clara Natoli, MorgueFile.com}}

Added on Monday.  Arrrr ...

Posted at FanHouse. 

Sunday College Football Hangover: Week Two is now up over at FanHouse.

Two thousand words and plenty of pictures - enjoy. 

"The Next Reggie Bush"

FanHouse's Miss Gossip interviews Greg Oden.  OUT-standing.

"I wasn't drunk, I was perfectly sober!  She was just ... backing it up real good"

I wonder what will be in store for 2007?

Here's a look back at the top 10 college football moments from 2006 to whet the appetite a bit.

Say what you want about his championship game performance, Troy Smith's play against Penn State was sublime. 

Looks nice!

Why not?

First item up: coaches' tenure and BCS appearances.

Ok, so this is a little late, but Georgia Sports Blog went to the trouble of determining the BCS conference coaches with the most tenure who have yet to make a BCS bowl game appearance.  Take a look.

Arkansas' Houston Nutt is atop the list, having coached since 1998.  Last year was his best chance but that kind of fell by the wayside.  Nipping at his heels is Clemson's Tommy Bowden whose team had a late collapse of its own.  A particular burr in this saddle is Cal's Jeff Tedford, tied for 7th longest wait.  He's been coaching since 2002 and would have gone to a BCS game in 2004, but Mack Brown happened.

GSB's Paul Westerdawg also lists BCS appearances by conference teams.  The Pac-10 leads the list, of course, with seven teams appearing in a BCS game.  As noted above it should be eight but Texas two-stepped Cal out of the way in 2004.  The Big 10 is tied with the Pac-10 but also has one more institution.

The ACC is particularly woeful with just four of its 12 institutions collecting BCS cash.  The snag, of course, is that Miami is counted with the Big East, having last entered a BCS game before the whole ugly ACC seduction of several Big East powers.

***
Now, for a moment of Heisman talk.  Heisman Pundit's released his "Winter Top 20", a list of the 20 players who will "at least get a whiff of legitimate consideration".

It's good to see West Virginia's Pat White crack the top ten at No. 6.  He doesn't get enough credit for his contribution to the West Virginia offensive machine.  HP's taken some flack for placing John David Booty at No. 1 but it's hard to argue with a winning, good-stat USC quarterback at the moment.  It's a little like center field for the Yankees, what can you do about it?

***
And now, some entertainment from the FanHouse.

---Top 10 cheerleader videos (???).  The Kelly Ripa one's comical.

---Domestic violence charges won't be filed against Cal's Marshawn Lynch.

---Auburn Tigers: 2004 National Champions? Yeh. Freakin'. Right.  Patrick, this is why it's so easy to take jabs at Auburn on here.

---Hippies get in the way of Cal's new stadium.  The bums lost, Lebowski!  Except, this time they won.  Dammit.

---Troy Smith exacts his revenge on Chris Leak.  Not really.