Happy Friday everyone, and welcome to your morning Skull Session. As you've no doubt read below, Ohio State was yet again tattooed (see what I did there?) by the NCAA for numerous NCAA violations that ranged from "haha really??" to "okay, that was pretty dumb." These violations are sure to have a lasting impact on the integrity of the program, as OSU staff and players struggle to answer questions such as "Vrabel: Skoal or Red Man kind of guy?" and "Why didn't you hire an official intermediary whose sole job it is to send texts to parents to let them know which gate to enter for a scrimmage?"
Of course, as Jason pointed out, the video with Gene Smith and Archie Griffin is pretty stupid; there's really no excuse for that kind of obvious potential violation. Still, the idea that the NCAA is concerned with recruits spending between 1 and 5 dollars over their allotted amount on a recruiting visit strikes me as one of the more Felix Ungar-y things I could possibly think of. Fnneehh! Text instead of an email?? PFFNNNEEHHH!
Anyway, just scroll down a bit if you'd like to see to exactly what kind of minutiae the NCAA will get its collective panties in a wad about, and silently grin to yourself as you start to realize just how much trouble the University of Miami is eventually going to get in.
WE JUST WANT SOME FRIENDS :( That's basically what Purdue AD Morgan Burke is claiming the reason is behind the ol Bee One Gee deciding to throw any amount of goodwill they might've accumulated back in the face of fans by leading the charge against home playoff games for college football.
Asked if the Big Ten fought hard enough for campus sites, Burke replied, "We have, but there's also got to be give and take. Jim has tried to step back. He has been around the longest of all the commissioners. So you've got to be a little bit careful now. You've got to let others get into the debate at the table, so that they feel like you're not just trying to shove something down their throat."
Look, I get it. Everybody wants to be popular. Everybody wants to be the cool kid. So if the Big Ten ADs were a bunch of 12 year olds instead of grown adults who should be able to make their own decisions and act in their own interests, maybe I might understand this. The thing is though, a playoff is inevitable at this point; the powers that be in the B1G aren't doing anyone any favors by acquiescing to a stupid demand from conferences that already play effective home games in almost every bowl they play in.
So yeah, maybe we come out of this a little more popular. But popular for what, being known as the giant crybaby who gets attention by doing everyone else's homework? That's great, I can't wait to exchange that popularity and goodwill for frequent flier miles and several hundred dollars in other expenses that I'll have to pay should OSU ever make the plus one ga-I mean, Bowl Site Four Team Playoff.
FLIP FLOP YOU DON'T STOP THE BOOGIE Oh no! Urban Meyer said something! And then six years later said something else! Essentially the flap here is that while at Florida, Urban Meyer said that college football needed a playoff, and this was supposedly because an OSU/Michigan rematch would've effectively screwed Florida out of a chance at the National Championship. Well, obviously that didn't happen as Urban's Gators beat the living hell out of OSU in a game that some Buckeyes fans are still holding a grudge about for some insane reason, and NOW Ohio State Coach Meyer is saying that he's not a big fan of a playoff.
The crux of his argument is that he feels that the current system has done a good job at finding the right champion (huh I wonder why a two time BCS National Championship winner would say that?), but he also says that if it has to happen, he wants it at neutral sites because "I'm not sure you can, on a crisp December day here in Columbus, have a Southern team come up to play. The Southern teams I coached [at Florida], I know it would be a problem."
Of course it would be a problem, that's the entire point! Can someone give me one, ONE, good reason as to why southern teams are allowed an inherent advantage in the most important games of the year? Let them freeze.
Beat the Marx brothers and we can get you into the Sun BeltRELEGATION REVELATION For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of relegation, it's a system used most famously in European soccer leagues where you have several tiers of skill levels, and teams can go up and down those tiers depending on how well they perform during a season. It's an interesting concept that theoretically could allow for a local B-league team consisting of your drunk uncle's factory buddies to work their way up to international competition (which it should be pointed out will never in a billion years happen but it's fun to think about anyway).
So, SBN decided to take the next logical step and apply this concept to college football. It's a terrific idea, provided that we had an actual playoff system in place, and in any event the results are fascinating. You can really see the movement that comes with some teams, and the drama as some teams fight and claw their way up to tangible respectability is pretty great.
THREEBALLIN Over at SI, the always excellent Luke Winn analyzes the different approach that some teams have taken to defend the three, and which ways seem to work the best. There's a lot of great research and numbers and analysis going on here, but as sometimes ends up being the case, it's hard to argue with a time tested approach to a game that's becoming increasingly scrutinized by sabermetrically inclined observers.
Basically the solution is: make 'em take difficult shots. Most of the time they'll miss. The end.
WEASELS LINKED MY FLESH! This is very unfortunate... Lazy, lazy coaching... The Ecstasy of (Au)gmentation... Gonna be a hot weekend... Oh, Maru... Bayern-Chelsea gonna be off da chain
