Category: College Football (Page 62 of 296)

Mark Cuban seeks to create college football playoff

April 10, 2010: Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban during the game between the Sacramento Kings and the Dallas Mavericks at Arco Arena in Sacramento, CA. Ben Munn/CSM.

After two failed bids to buy a baseball team, Mavs owner Mark Cuban has now set his sights on fixing the college football postseason.

“The more I think about it, the more sense it makes as opposed to buying a baseball team,” said Cuban, who tried to buy the Chicago Cubs and Texas Rangers within the last few years. “You can do something the whole country wants done.”

Cuban said he envisions either a 12- or 16-team playoff field with the higher seeds getting homefield advantage. The homefield advantage, Cuban said, would ensure the college football regular-season games would not lose any importance.

The bowl games could still exist under Cuban’s plan, but he said he would make it more profitable for programs to make the playoffs than a bowl.

“Put $500 million in the bank and go to all the schools and pay them money as an option,” Cuban said. “Say, ‘Look, I’m going to give you X amount every five years. In exchange, you say if you’re picked for the playoff system, you’ll go.’ “

I think 12 or 16 teams is too aggressive too early. In my proposed eight-team playoff, all of the teams that would miss the playoffs (Michigan State, LSU, Arkansas) had an opportunity to seal a bid earlier in the year, but failed to do so. This ensures the regular season keeps its importance, which is something that BCS apologists bring up every time they attempt to defend their flawed system.

Other than that, I’m glad to see Cuban focusing his efforts on this, because a college football playoff seems to be going nowhere fast. Maybe throwing money at the problem will convince schools to go to the playoff instead of the BCS, but it’s going to take a lot of convincing.

College football bowls: A reason to watch them all

Bowl season is upon us, which is a good and sad thing all at once.

It’s good because we get football on a lot of days that we normally wouldn’t get football. And it’s unpredictable football, at that, where games that look like complete mismatches could be close just because one team decided not to show up.

It’s sad because it means college football is about to be over, and we have a very large, nine-month void in our lives that’s about to start. You could create and have a child in the span between the national title game and the next year’s season opener (coincidentally, most non-human mammals can create and have babies in the span between the final regular-season games and the title game. You’re just going to have to trust me on that one).

I know that you’re looking at some of these games and thinking they’re completely pointless, and you‘re right. You’re probably also thinking that there is no reason to watch some of these games. Well on that one, you’re wrong. There’s at least one reason to watch every one of the 30 non-BCS Bowl games (the BCS games speak for themselves. Yes, even Oklahoma vs. Uconn. Well, maybe not. But we’ll talk about those later.) and I’m here to give you those reasons. Continue reading »

Would Chris Petersen leave Boise State to coach at Florida?

Nov 6, 2010; Boise, ID, USA; Boise State Broncos coach Chris Petersen during the game against the Hawaii Rainbows at Bronco Stadium. Boise State defeated Hawaii 42-7. Photo via Newscom

If this were Bobby Petrino, it would take him all of four minutes to clean out his office at Arkansas and be on the first plane to Gainesville.

But Bobby Petrino Chris Petersen is not. To Petersen, loyalty still means something, which is one of the reasons he may stay right where he’s at in Boise.

Since Urban Meyer stepped down at Florida, Petersen’s name has been brought up in connection with the Gators’ open head coaching job. And why not? He’s compiled a 60-5 record at Boise State and has turned the program into a yearly national title contender (even though the BCS would never allow the Broncos to actual contend for a championship). He should be the type of coach that Florida wants to replace Meyer. He has a great work ethic, his players love him and perhaps no coach in college football gets the most out of his recruits as Petersen does at Boise State.

But would he even want to leave Idaho? The assumption is that every head coach wants to land a bigger and better job, but the SEC is a different animal. If he took the Florida job, Petersen would have to recruit in the SEC (something he’s never done) and coach SEC-caliber talent (another thing he hasn’t had to contend with at Boise). Former Bronco coaches Dirk Koetter and Dan Hawkins also struggled when they left Idaho, so that’s something to consider as well.

That said, it would be insane to think that Petersen couldn’t recruit in the nation’s best conference or that he couldn’t handle blue chip prospects. But maybe he doesn’t want to either. He has long stated how happy he is coaching at Boise and seeing as how he’s not Petrino, I tend to believe him.

Petersen has a good thing going at Boise and it’ll be interesting to see if his name grows synonymous with the Florida job over these next couple of months. For right now though, it seems likely that he’ll stay put.

Cam Newton says he chose Auburn “the right way,” is already using third person like a champ

ATLANTA - DECEMBER 04: Quarterback Cam Newton  of the Auburn Tigers stretches before the 2010 SEC Championship against the South Carolina Gamecocks at Georgia Dome on December 4, 2010 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Mike Zarrilli/Getty Images)

Cam Newton recently told ESPN that Auburn was “best for Cam Newton” and that’s why he chose to play there and not Mississippi State. Not because his dad shopped around his services to the highest bidder.

“I had no dealings with nobody at Mississippi State during the time that I came to Auburn,” Newton said. “But Mississippi State knows it was between Mississippi State and Auburn. And if you’ve been following this, there’s no secret. But I felt that, as a whole, Auburn possessed what’s best for Cam Newton, and that’s why I decided to come here on my decision.”

He said telling Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen — who had been an assistant at Florida when Newton went there two years prior — he would be going to Auburn was difficult. ESPN reported Nov. 9 that Newton had told a Mississippi State recruiter that his father had chosen Auburn because “the money was too much.

“I’m not here to talk about any reports,” Newton said.

“I called Coach Mullen. I told him what I had in my heart at the time. I talked to him and his wife, Miss Megan, and we had an excellent conversation. They wished me the best, and I wished them the best.”

Uh, huh.

Newton may be telling the truth but a couple of things don’t add up here. First of all, did he tell a Mississippi State recruiter that his father had chosen Auburn because of the money or not? If he didn’t and he has nothing to hide, why not deny the report? Instead, he skirts the issue by saying he’s “not here to talk about any reports.”

Granted, maybe somebody instructed him to say anything but I thought honesty was always the best policy? If you have nothing to hide, then scream it from the rooftops until somebody listens.

The other thing that doesn’t add up is why he chose Auburn over Mississippi State. It’s not like Auburn was a powerhouse program before he got there and he already had a relationship with Bulldogs’ coach Dan Mullen. So why Auburn? Was it money perhaps?

Anthony Stalter is having a hard time believing that Cecil Newton didn’t ask Mississippi State for cash and when they didn’t deliver, he turned around and got something from Auburn instead. That’s just one outsider’s opinion, but it’s not difficult to connect the dots. The sad part is that Cam is now caught up in something from which he may or may not have benefited. Anthony Stalter is not suggesting he’s innocent, but it sure sounds as though Cecil was the catalyst for this entire situation.

And shame on him (Cecil, not Anthony Stalter) if he was.

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