Dave in Green

OK, so now we're back to the original point that the current college conference realignment is likely being influenced by a free market system that has television networks competing for the best TV sports packages in the absence of any significant regulation that would discourage this from happening.The Big East rejects a $1.9 billion TV contract from ESPN as it shops around to see what it can get from other TV networks.Shortly thereafter, schools defect from the Big East to the ACC, making the Big East less attractive to other TV networks.The athletic director of a former Big East school that jumped to the ACC several years ago is quoted as saying: "We always keep our television partners close to us. ... TV -- ESPN -- is the one who told us what to do." This statement is later denied.Making the reasonable assumption that all the other schools and conferences are also consulting with their "television partners" to assure that they put together the best alignments to have the best possible monetary deals, the old adage of "follow the money" seems more than ever to define the current state of college sports -- especially football.So, those who believe that the market works best with minimal regulation should be pleased with everything that's happening, as it's nothing more than than the free market system doing what it does best.On the other hand, those who believe that the market works best with a reasonable measure of fair and balanced regulation might argue that there's something inherently wrong with the current situation that could be improved upon.This makes for interesting discussion.

My optimism gland has run out of juice.

It's been discussed in other threads that several tournament field projections, including the one on CBS Sports, show the Zips as the MAC representative. This is pretty standard for the smaller conferences. They just pencil in the previous season's small conference representatives until current season results start coming in. I guess a #14 seed is at least one step better than last season's #15 seed. But these projected teams and seedings will be changing from week to week all season.What I want to know is where the heck is GameChngr44? I expected she would have discovered this thread by now and be doing a little celebrating.

Which is totally irrelevant to the fact that the statement summarizes Paterno's testimony to the grand jury. By all publicly available evidence to this point, Paterno did nothing wrong.Buckzip, I know of all the people posting on this forum that you have shown the greatest concern over seeing a Big 10 coach unfairly accused of transgressions based on assumptions rather than clear and compelling evidence.

Paterno released a statement yesterday that addresses some of the comments made in this thread:"If true, the nature and amount of charges made are very shocking to me and all Penn Staters. While I did what I was supposed to with the one charge brought to my attention, like anyone else involved I can't help but be deeply saddened these matters are alleged to have occurred."Sue and I have devoted our lives to helping young people reach their potential. The fact that someone we thought we knew might have harmed young people to this extent is deeply troubling. If this is true we were all fooled, along with scores of professionals trained in such things, and we grieve for the victims and their families. They are in our prayers."As my grand jury testimony stated, I was informed in 2002 by an assistant coach that he had witnessed an incident in the shower of our locker room facility. It was obvious that the witness was distraught over what he saw, but he at no time related to me the very specific actions contained in the Grand Jury report. Regardless, it was clear that the witness saw something inappropriate involving Mr. Sandusky. As Coach Sandusky was retired from our coaching staff at that time, I referred the matter to university administrators. "I understand that people are upset and angry, but let's be fair and let the legal process unfold. In the meantime I would ask all Penn Staters to continue to trust in what that name represents, continue to pursue their lives every day with high ideals and not let these events shake their beliefs nor who they are."

And we don't know that Paterno did lose curiosity. He may have followed up and been told the matter had been investigated and resolved. All we've seen so far have been reports of a few details and not the whole story. Assuming the worst on insufficient data is always hazardous.

Of course media outlets can be regulated. They are, in fact, regulated by the FCC.Media outlets also do more than just "broadcast games." They are actively involved in influencing the planning and scheduling with their "partners" (schools and conferences) of the games that are broadcast. That element appears to be totally unregulated, and it appears to be part of the driving force behind the conference realignments.

@GP1, the point I was making about an unregulated free market is the impact of TV revenue on college football.Perhaps I should not have focused it all on ESPN, though they are apparently in a leadership role in terms of driving conference realignments. Let's include all the TV networks who pay schools and conferences to televise their sporting events.And perhaps I should have said lightly regulated, as both broadcasting and college sports in the U.S. are regulated to some degree.The key point is that I believe there are only minimal regulations on how much influence TV revenue can have on the landscape of college football. Therefore, the situation is roughly akin to an unregulated free marketThis type of market is driven by supply and demand. TV viewers demand college sports by virtue of tuning into games. TV networks make money from sponsors wishing to market to these viewers. The greater the demand, the more important it is for TV networks to have control over the supply, so they bid up the costs. To amortize the increased costs, they try to manipulate the supply to create more demand.What you're seeing now in college sports is, for better or worse, what you get from this type of arrangement.In a free market system with minimal regulation, everyone grabs for the money and the power with little regard for moral scruples. The strong come out on top and the weak fall by the wayside. To say that any of these people are "scumbags" sounds like an indictment of the free market system. All of these people are only doing what the free market system encourages them to do.If you want it to be different, you need more regulation. If you don't like regulation, there's no room to complain about what happens in the absence of regulation. That's the way the free market system works.

From all I've read, Paterno did not know a coach was caught having sex with a young boy in the team shower. Paterno knew of a single allegation made by a third party. He did the right thing to report it to his athletic director with expectations that his athletic director would handle the situation appropriately. Something in the chain of command apparently broke down.The grand jury obviously believed after a thorough investigation that Paterno had done everything he was supposed to do in a situation like this.The details will all play out on Court TV.

Zach, it would be really entertaining to hear your personal philosophy on cheerleaders.

Yeah, why do we do all that sissy sportsmanship stuff, anyway? Be manly. Kick 'em all in the gonads when they aren't lookiing.

This thread only exists because the football team is playing so poorly, so it's time for someone to blame this thread on Ianello.

As concerned as KD might feel about the Zips' play in their exhibition game, imagine how Bob Huggins feels right now.D-II N. Kentucky beats W. Virginia 77-74 in exhibition

And here's another one.Midwestern Gentleman ranks Zeke as 2nd Team All Midwest in their college basketball season preview, and the only center listed.College Basketball: The Best of The Midwest

And the pre-season accolades continue to roll in.ESPN's HoopSpeak names Zeke The Guy You Want Protecting the Paint among all mid-major players:See 3rd Player Named

Pomeroy is not credible on home court advantage. Zips will have to work hard to overcome huge VCU advantage. VCU players can relax and take it easy.

We've seen the occasional mention of Zeke on the mid-major sites. What we've all been waiting for is to see him acknowledged on one of the major national sports news sites.The time has finally arrived on CBS Sports:See Breakout Player #13

@Yaznasty and @Ada Zip, you both represent your opinions with dignity and class. You do not need to apologize to anyone for speaking out in that manner.I have thought a lot about the problem faced in America by good and decent Palestinians and other followers of the Islamic faith. America invested the lives of many of its citizens during World War II at least in part to stop Nazi Germany from slaughtering people of the Jewish faith. America supported the formation of the country of Israel at least in part to give people of the Jewish faith a home country where they could live in safety from persecution.America was founded on the principle of freedom of religion. There is no reason that this should not also extend to Palestinians and other followers of the Islamic faith. But the conflict between Palestinians and other Muslims with the ability of Jewish people to have freedom and security in Israel creates a huge problem for most Americans.Ideally, most Americans would want followers of both the Jewish and Islamic faith to be able to live together in peace as good neighbors. But we do not know how to make this happen. Each side tells us that the other side is evil and will not allow peace to happen. Who are we to believe?It's true that those of the Jewish faith are well represented in America, and they have spokespeople who represent their side in an effecitve way. This is not true of those who follow the Islamic faith. Instead of credible spokespeople trying to tell us their side of the story in a calm and reasoned manner, we have college professors standing up and yelling "Death to Israel!"This will not work in America, period, end of story.This is not only not productive, it is counter-productive. Yelling "death" to anyone or anything is just plain un-American.This suggests to Americans that Muslims are nothing but terrorists and killers, even though that is certainly not true.The truth is that there are terrorists and killers of every faith -- Muslim, Jewish, Christian, whatever. But the vast majority of each faith are decent, peace-loving citizens.Those of the Muslim faith desperately need a good spokesperson who represents the majority of decent, peace-loving Muslims. Muslims desperately need a peace-loving leader like Mohandas Gandhi, Nelson Mandella or Martin Luther King.I do not like to think of the consequences to the world if this does not happen.

The Zips marching band should be immune from criticism right now. They have consistently improved their performance.

Swiech is a great guy. All of his teammates and all of the fans loved him as a person. His great high school playing results just didn't translate to the college level.By the way, Districtballer, you can play down this season's VCU team as "inexperienced" all you want here. But your link to Pomeroy showing the Zips ranked #95 also reveals VCU ranked #68. So no one here is going to believe that the Zips will be anything but underdogs, even with the home court advantage.

Absolutely, the highlight of this football season for me has been the good folks I've met at the tailgates. I'm not going to make my final decision on season tickets until this season has ended and the new recruits have a chance to show what they've got in practice next year. But even if I decide not to buy season tickets, I would still want to go visit with the tailgaters.

So you guys are saying that my defense is better than the Zips' defense?

Does anyone else see the issue of ESPN's influence over the landscape of college football as a classic example of what happens, for better or worse, in an unregulated free market system?

My early evaluation of this season's edition of the Zips lies somewhere between GoZips' and akzipper's. My first observation of last night's game is that KD is one smart coach. JCU was the perfect team to schedule for the season-opening exhibition game. True to what KD told us after one of the practices, JCU played the kind of swarming defense he wanted to test his players against. The JCU players came in fresh waves with five subs at a time, and they played their guts out every second they were on the floor. If a team with taller, more talented players played like JCU, they'd run most teams off the floor. The fact that they are neither tall nor have D1 talent allowed the Zips to be tested without great fear of losing the game. But it sure looked ugly at times. I hope the Zips learned something about hustle from seeing what the JCU players accomplished.I'm surprised that no one has yet mentioned the key stat from last night: Rico played only 15 minutes, by far the least of any of the starters. That tells me that KD is desperately looking for one of the other guards to step up and claim the backup PG position. KD said in the post-game interview that the Zips are missing the presence of the freshman, so he's continuing with the theme that Ibitayo was close to winning the backup PG minutes. I'm not sure if that's 100% accurate, or if he's using that to try to motivate one of the more seasoned guards to elevate their PG performance. But whatever the answer, backup PG is looking more and more to be a critical area of the Zips' team performance this season. KD was pretty hard on Rico, probably because he knows the team is going to be relying so much on Rico's play until a backup is established.Walsh seemed to be a little uncomfortable handling the ball under the relentless JCU pressure. From what I had seen in practice, I had expected him to play more like a veteran. But PG is not his natural position, so I think we'll have to see how he adjusts. If Walsh doesn't step up at PG, Q would be the next logical player to fill that role. But that would require Harney to step up and fill more of Q's PT at wing forward. Harney is definitely talented, but still fairly raw. He needs to spend extra time after practice shooting free throws, because his style of play is going to draw lots of fouls. Right now he looks like a 50% free throw shooter.The next biggest challenge after backup PG, which KD also mentioned after one of the practices, is replacing Bardo. The Zips desperately need one or more big men beyond Zeke and the Serb who can bang under the basket, grab rebounds and play tough D. Egner continues to show flashes. His athleticism is obvious, but he needs to focus on beng smart and consistent. Tree also showed flashes in his 10 minutes of play. I was a little suprised at how quick Tree is on his feet. He moves more like a wing forward than a power forward. He's not only quick on his feet, but he can jump. He showed a lot of intensity while on court, and is obviously trying hard. He appears to be a little more raw than Harney. If Tree and Harney both take well to KD's coaching and develop quickly, overall team performance would shoot up dramatically.One thing that emerged from this game is that Gilliam's performance in Canada was no fluke. He is definitely the leading candidate to replace B. McKnight as the Zips' go-to scorer. Already his outside shot looks better than McKnight's, plus he can drive and score or dish. Gilliam is an exciting player like Q who makes things happen. He's going to be a fan favorite.Another positive was having Nitro at wing guard rather than wing forward, as wing guard appears to be his natural position. Even though Nitro's shooting was off, he played hard at both ends of the court and earned the most PT (27 minutes) of any Zip.It was pretty obvious that the Zips were not relying on Zeke to score lots of points over the much shorter opposition, but were calling more plays to see what the other players could do on offense. The one thing that concerned me about Zeke is that after a couple of balls bounced off of him and out of bounds, he made big displays of that old frustration with himself that we've seen the last two seasons. I really want to see a completely new Zeke out there who is so confident in his overall play that he shakes off the little things and focuses more on the big picture. I expect a lot more out of Zeke in the Mississippi State game. He does tend to play his best in the biggest games, and it had to be hard for him to get up for playing little JCU.Q played under control with no signs of the wild side we saw last season. He seemed to be content playing a secondary role in this game, but I have no doubt that he could take control of a game if the need arose. Q looks solid.Same with the Serb. He was cool, calm and collected the whole game. His extra long-range shooting practice showed up when he nailed his only 3-point attempt. I expect lots of good things from the Serb this season.One thing's for sure. The era of Steve McNees dribbling the ball outside the 3-point arc is officially over. There was much more passing and ball movement by the Zips. Overall, the team looked a little ragged, as might be expected. But at least the final results were better than what Arizona and Butler experienced in their exhibition games. More different lineups were tried than I could count. So most of the time there were combinations of players on the court who didn't have much game experience with each other. We all know they will get better. It's way too early to know how much better or how quickly.

I am here to defend the coaching and play of the Zips football team last night......Just joking.One good joke deserves another.