College Football SuperBus!!!!

Ok, so there's a shitton of college football shit, shit!  Here goes...



http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=5880993

Cam Newton is found eligible to play football, even though he was temporarily ruled ineligible.  You see, the rule is that a player becomes ineligible if it was found out either that player has solicited money for play, or money was solicited on the player's behalf.

Apparently he was ruled eligible due to a loophole where he was found (at least at the moment) to be unaware of money being solicited on his behalf by his father.  So even though his father solicited money for his son to play for Mississippi State, a school he ultimately did not attend, because he did not know about it, it's ok.

I find it fishy though, that he would attend Auburn after being spurned as such by Mississipi State, both teams were at the time mid-low level SEC teams, and arguably the pay for play scenario would exist for both schools -- especially for a first year coach coming from a few very unsuccessful years at Iowa State.

In other news, Auburn made millions of dollars in promotions and endorsements because they appeared in the SEC championship game, and will make even more as they appear in the bcs championship game.  Meanwhile, a big deal is being made of a player's services being offered for a hundred thousand dollars or two -- a drop in the bucket.

While I do believe the NCAA should take a harder line on Newton, as per enforcing the rules which everyone else ostensibly follows, the hypocrisy is huge.

Anddddd

The bowl schedule has been released...

Basic overview (since there are wayyyyyy too many bowls)

Firstly and most importantly ... The Beef 'O' Brady's St. Petersburg bowl, one of three bowls to be played in a baseball specific park, will feature a tough matchup of Southern Mississippi vs Louisville.  This may be my favorite nonsensical current bowl game.  When one goes about creating a bowl game and aligning sponsors, one of the first things a promoter or marketer probably thinks of is -- is this fun? (after all, football is entertainment).  Well, what could possibly be more fun than an chain Irish Pub that doesn't serve alcohol?

the championship game -- I don't really care where it is ... one of the side effects of moving it around willy nilly etc.  Anyways, it features the aforementioned Auburn against Oregon, both of whom are undefeated.  I don't know how they decided to eliminate TCU fairly, but whatevs, they'll  have fun going undefeated and still not going to the title game on account of their weak schedule (but they'll have a guaranteed bcs berth) when they join the Big East.

Speaking of TCU, they play Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl sponsored by "insert sponsor".  Wisconsin lost one game, and that automatically eliminated them.

Of the 10 bcs bowl slots, 8 actually went to the "top 10", the other two going to automatic qualifiers from the Big East and ACC, who had 4 and 3 loss seasons, respectively.

Michigan State got left out for some reason, mostly because any conference that doesn't have a championship game pretty much has a cruddy tie-breaking system (though arguably there are cruddy tie-breakers for deciding who goes to said games ... whatevs).  So Michigan State is going to the top non-bcs Big Ten bowl game -- what used to be called the Citrus bowl.  A similar 3 way tie occurred for Big Ten teams ranked 4-6.  Penn State got the lucky draw and got the next "best" bowl berth, the Outback Bowl, against Florida, two traditionally good teams with shitty years.  Personally I think the Outback Bowl should be played on a field in the Australian Outback, but that's just me.  So somehow, despite having a shitty season, Penn State still ends up with a New Years day bowl.  huh.  Iowa got the next best bowl bid, followed by Illinois (who had an additional out of conference loss).

Anyone else notice ... the bowl schedule ... there are precisely 2 bowl games that are not in the ESPN family of networks.  Yes, clearly they shall be honest and tell us why we don't need a silly playoff to decide the champion.  And clearly, there is only one award which is meaningful to a college football player of any position, and that would be the Heisman...

-- Knuttel