GP1

Not sure how to fix it. However, it is www.slate.com. The author is Josh Levin and the title of the article is "The Big East is a Failed Experiment." Readers should be able to search for that and find it easy enough.

Interesting

At this point, I could have used the word straw...or goats...or leaves...or Sweedish fish...or etc. They will take anything they get their hands on. Hell, the Big Ten brought in Rutgers and Maryland. If that isn't grasping for goats, I don't know what it. The disappointment of the MAC is they lost Temple and brought in UMASS. Losing Temple was a good opportunity to downsize the league in a way that would make it better and not worse. Think of it as a 10% drop in the stock market. The 10% drop is a natural correction and, if played properly, opens up the door for making a portfolio better and not bloated with bad stocks. It makes me wonder about the questions the leagues ask when they make decisions. One could ask about umass, "Does this make sense?" One could also ask, "How does this make sense?" I'm not certain ADs, league commissioners or university presidents ask "How?" because they want to give a one word answer....yes, let's add the team....boom, new resume line added. "How" makes a person think and respond with more than yes or no. If they ever asked "how", their answers would be such a bunch of hogwash that nobody would expand their league and have anything to put on their resume for their next job. TV ratings?...Hogwash. Exposure?....Hogwash, nobody wants to watch crap. Money?....Hogwash, most schools are bleeding money and states don't have the tax base to support nonsense. Improve the university experience?...Hogwash, kids would be better off drinking beer and trying to get laid than watching a crappy product. It's all a bunch of hogwash that I can't believe ADs around the country have snookered very intelligent university presidents into believing.

It warms my heart to see there are conferences out there actively trying to become worse than the MAC. Sometimes it pays off to not do anything and watch the competition destroy itself.

People from Manhattan don't go to Rutgers games because it is so hard to get there. The Duke Energy building in Charlotte lights up as well. For a small fee, you can have your colors put on the building for a short period. Don't let yourself get carried away by a building being lit up for a few minutes while a TV crew films it for a couple of promo shots on ESPN.

Your assumption is there will be enough people demanding the BT Network that local cable companies will be forced to pick it up. I would argue there won't be enough people who care enough about those teams to make a difference. More people will complain about a rate increase than fall for it. How many people are going to call up and demand to reach in their pockets and pull out money to sit at home and watch a horrible Maryland football team get beaten by the likes of Northwestern, Iowa and Minnesota? How many Maryland fans are going to do the same to watch the Terps play Iowa in lieu of UNC, Duke, NCState, etc in basketball. Here is a good article about the move. The AD at Maryland, already basically proven to be horrible at his job.......... One might even say he is the Wistrcill of the ACC....... Anyhow, the AD at Maryland is making this move and making a wish that it will all work out. My mother always told me, "Make a wish or $#!+ in your hat. See which one fills up first." It doesn't matter though, because the AD will be at another job and not have to live his mistakes. What few fans Maryland has will not have that luxury. PS. I think our good friend, Dave In Green, wrote the second to last paragraph of the above article and I would like to congratulate him for getting published.

Iowa's coach is getting looked at because he is a good coach who can coach pro offenses very well. I think they just finished the season with three wins. Rutgers has had one BCS appearance. It is the exact number as Wake Forest. If that passes for solid, I'd like to know what passes for bad. Rutgers coach is in the NFL because of his experience in the NFL along with that at Rutgers. He went 8-13 in his last three years at Rutgers in BE play. Financially, the move may make sense for Maryland...for now...or, it may not. ADs have a way of saying things and no reporter ever takes the time to see if they are full of crap or not so it becomes the truth. I don't see how Maryland will be successful in the Big Ten in football. These conference moves are being made for football because it is the one sport that can slow down the hemorrhaging of money these idiotic ADs have caused at schools. Maryland will actually become worse at football than they currently are. If they can't fill their stadium, it negatively impacts a direct revenue stream for the ongoing building processes these ADs undertake annually.

I'd like to jump on this idea that conferences should add teams based upon the television market that team is in. Big population does not equal big viewership of a local college team. NE Ohio sports fans are crazy about their pro sports teams and OSU. There is no television benefit of bringing in Akron to a conference. The same goes for the joke of the Big Ten adding Maryland and Rutgers. People in NJ don't really care about Rutgers, but they really care about the Giants, Jets, Knicks, Yankees, etc. and they watch them on television. Maryland struggles to draw large home crowds in a place that can be reached by the DC Metro...nobody cares and nobody is going to watch. The Big Ten added Rutgers and Maryland actually makes the conference worse in quality and adds very little in the way of television viewership. Rutgers is pathetic and pathetic organizations do pathetic things. The AD at Maryland is a moron and morons do moronic things. Rutgers jumped to the Big Ten because they had to get out of the Big East and the Big Ten is so desperate for relevancy they will try to pass off bringing in a bad team as a good idea because it "expands the Big Ten footprint" (I wonder if the people who run the Big Ten understand that when they expand the footprint, they are stepping into a pile of crap). Maryland is making a horrible move getting out of the ACC. The ACC is one of the few BCS conferences the Big Ten is better than and their football program just got worse.

Going to CUSA was a horrible move for Marshall and I said it on this board years ago. Marshall had everything it could want in the MAC. It was a big fish in a small pond that went bowling almost every year. Their fans had something to cheer about and going to Marshall games was a big deal for them. Now they are just another sad sack CUSA. Another AD strikes again.

I wonder if the exit fee was a $10 gift certificate to Jersey Mike's.

Law Journal Article Law journal on $50 million exit fee Maryland facing. May not hold up.

Some will say they are winning a lot against bad teams. Fair enough. I would say that before Kest, they would have started this season out at 1-5. Anyone who thinks the football team can never be at least average-good needs to look no further than the WBB program. They were absolutely horrible before Kest got there. I would go as far as to say they were DIII in nature before Kest. The WBB program pre-Kest was far worse than the program TB took over. Kest isn't a world beater as a coach, but she runs her program as a DI program should be run and she is finding some success. There is nothing wrong with demanding a high level of performance out of a group of young women.

There is a name coach around Ohio who came in second for the Miami job who would be a great fit for a school like BC. A better fit than any MAC coach right now. Has very good recruiting ties to the private schools around Ohio and could get just enough good players, with the brains to go to BC, to compete well in the ACC. It isn't hard to win in the ACC.

I hear he isn't aggressive enough at the line of scrimmage.... Makes too many plays too far behind the line.

Or, he is just a smart young kid who isn't mature enough to understand the business side of college athletics.

Are any of them in writing with a line to sign that would make it a contract to provide a scholarship? There are offers and there are offers...

How much would you be willing to bet that Monteroso ends up at a bigger school than Ferns? The best thing to happen to this Monteroso kid is the BC coach getting fired. It is his first lesson in understanding the business side of college athletics and can open up doors for him he may have shut by his own doing. Lots of kids get offers from big time programs during their junior seasons only to not have a piece of paper land in front of them on signing day from a BCS school. Young kids these days make a big mistake in committing to a school entirely too early in their high school years. Most fans don't realize that a verbal commitment to a school holds a much weight as marrying your high school girlfriend by giving her your varsity jacket. It's easy for both parties to walk away from that commitment.

I am. It's just going to be by way of Direct TV. I made a vow to go to Ohio in the winter under four conditions: 1. Death in the family. 2. Christmas every other year (doesn't even take me to Akron). 3. Zips playing in MAC Championship 4. Zips playing in Motor City Bowl or whatever they call it now. The Great GP1 has a 3:00 appointment on Friday with the television, a 6:30 appointment with the luckiest woman in the world, Mrs. GP1, at Ruth's Chris in downtown Charlotte and a 7:30 appointment at the Charlotte Symphony for a Christmas concert. Followed on Saturday with an appointment with the ACC Championship game at BOA.

I'll be watching the game this Friday on Direct TV.

Good post JZ84. Let's throw in Kentucky and Tennessee. I think Tennessee will play a key part in what happens to Hazell. There will also be BCS level coaches who leave to take one of these jobs. I could easily see the guy at Louisville take the job at Tennessee. The Auburn job is a dead end with NCAA sanctions coming down the pike. Hazell would be best served to take the L'Ville job IF it comes open. It is close enough to Ohio to take advantage of his recruiting base. It also provides a ready made good team with a QB who will be a junior season with two years starting under his belt. L'Ville can be a springboard to a better job as evidenced by the existing coach. Purdue is a career killer for coaches and Hazell should stay away from it. I have a brother who is close with staff members at OSU. The word is the kid from St. Clairsville will play at the BCS level and it is only a matter of where. The more coaches see him play, they more they like what they see. Tons of athletic talent, good hands, good intellect, an air of confidence that is needed in the big time and lots of potential. Probably not high level BCS like the SEC or PacWhatever or Big Whatever, but the Big Ten, ACC or Big East wouldn't be out of the question. I don't see him going to a MAC school. JD will land wherever he wants to coach and with who will have him. JD doesn't really need to work so he takes time off and lands in places he wants to work. Colorado was one of those draws for him since he grew up there. I don't see a gloomy midwestern city as a stop for JD.

I don't think the question of guarding McDermott centers around the head to head match up, but how, when and who to use on double teams.

The Blue Jays will be the best team with the best player the Zips play all season. I hope people around Akron realize what a big game this is.

Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, it doesn't appear as if their stadium renovations or playing this game in Columbus was really worth it. The wrong message was sent all around. More athletic director stupidity.

How many people were there?