Alabama Fans Cannot Think Logically, But You Knew That Already

Swearing herein. Save the children.

Wednesday: at the Fanhouse I pick up an article from Tim Gayle and expound, once again, on the dodgy practice of oversigning, using Alabama's class as an exemplar of shady behavior. The past two days: everyone in the state who can write and has an internet connection responds.

Awww, that's not fair. I can't make a joke about Alabamans' inability to count or read when the Joe Cribbs Car Wash put up an excellent post about the situation. No, it appears the disease is restricted to Tide fans. Maybe that's why they have numbers on their helmets.

There are two separate issues here.

Issue #1. Alabama is unlikely to actually have the nation's top recruiting class because a large chunk of it isn't going to get to campus. This is an irritation I have with the guru rating services and not an issue with Alabama per se. The best example of this phenomenon was Auburn's class last year, thirty-strong and top-ten on signing day but reduced by a third by the time fall practice rolled around and decidedly not top-ten.

This is indisputable. We even looked up the numbers last year. SEC teams often sign guys with little or no chance to qualify, and their swollen classes end up looking better than they actually are. The average SEC team experiences an attrition rate double that of the average Big Ten team, but this is not accounted for.

Issue #2. Nick Saban has taken the concept of oversigning and stretched it unto its breaking point. This is a nasty, filthy practice only undertaken by a program that couldn't really give a crap about the idea of a mutual commitment between player and school.

Issue #1 is a personal quarrel with the recruiting sites and doesn't have anything to do with Alabama. Some of the angry hornets went "LOL" and contested that in unconvincing fashion; I'll let that drop. Issue #2 is what really riled, and I'll attempt to address some of the claims put forth by "coachbots," as the JCCW eloquently dubs them.

I don't see any substantive points in the posts at Third Saturday in Blogtober, the Capstone Report, or Tide Druid and won't address them directly. Since they're all chock full of personal insults and insights into my "obsession" with a guy who coached Michigan's third-biggest rival a decade ago, let me point out that each of the above-linked posts is a tribute to Alabama's fine educational system and its constant focus on things like grammar and knowing how to use spell check. Gentlemen, there are typos and there's you.


The voodoo math over at Roll Bama Roll, however, deserves a response:

Actually, this class really only included 30 signees, not 32. See, this is where, you know, actually following Alabama football closely -- as opposed to following it via the headlines and then heading off to your computer to piss and moan on your AOL blog -- really pays off. Two of our signees, wide receiver Chris Jackson and kicker Corey Smith, graduated high school early and actually enrolled this past January. Those two signees are thus back-counters, and are part of the 2007 recruiting class, not the 2008 class. As a result, just doing the basic math, our 2008 class effectively consists of 30 signees, not 32.

I love it when someone condescendingly makes a moronic "point." Yes, early enrollees are permitted to count against the previous class. No, that does not mean they are fairy players who don't take up a scholarship spot. The issue is Alabama loses fifteen seniors and brings in thirty-two players. This means 17 slots have to appear from nowhere. Early enrollment doesn't help that.

And that is even if you don't consider the fact that Wesley Neighbors may very well end up on a Bryant scholarship -- since he is most likely not going to play in his first two years on campus anyway -- and therefore he will not count against the scholarship limit this year. If that is indeed the case, as many expect, this class suddenly goes down to 29 players.

Anyone on scholarship and on the football team counts against the 85 limit.

Moreover, you act like Alabama and Miami are the only two programs to sign that many players, completely ignoring the fact that signing 30 or more players is a relatively common occurrence. This year alone, aside from the aforementioned two schools, Florida State, Virginia Tech, Minnesota, Ole Miss, and Kansas State also signed 30 or more players. In 2007, Tennessee, Auburn, and South Carolina all signed over 30 players, just to name a few. In other words, if you really think signing that many players is an aberration, you haven't been paying attention.

The fucking point is that fucking Alabama is going to kick kids off the fucking team for no fucking reason. The point is not that violating the NCAA's made-up limit is evil. The NCAA limit is there because the NCAA would like you to not kick kids off the fucking team, but for various reasons the rule's pretty easy to skate around. The issue is not 32 > 25. The issue is that 70 + 32 > 85.

There's more not easily blockquoted, but OTS contests the idea that many kids won't qualify by saying that "everyone has a very legitimate chance to qualify" and then immediately asserts three or four won't make it, then further asserts later that the estimate -- Tim Gayle's estimate, not mine -- that four to six guys won't qualify is "completely bogus" and "laughable."

Attention asshat: five players in this Alabama class will not be on the team this fall. That's that NCAA maximum thing. Maybe there's a grayshirt or two in there, but a about a sixth of the class is going to JUCO... whether they qualify or not. More kids qualifying only makes the oversigning dirtier.

There is a stupid paragraph about medical scholarships intended to combat the idea that they're shady, something I never advanced and don't think.

And then there's this:

And "forcibly extracted"? What are we doing here, pulling teeth? It sounds like it, anyway, with terms like that. In reality, players are going to leave and we all know it. Many of the former staffs' previous signees, particularly on the defensive side of the ball, do not fit with the current scheme and may very well end up going elsewhere. I guess since you are a Michigan blowhard, we'll call this Ryan Mallett Syndrome so it will hit a little closer to home. Others will simply leave because they cannot handle the Fourth Quarter Program. Either way, no one is being "run off" or anything sinister of the sort.

There is a difference between what's likely to happen at Michigan after spring practice -- a few transfers from kids that no longer fit in the offense -- and what has to happen at Alabama. Michigan will be operating under the 85 scholarship limit this fall and has every incentive to keep those players around. They will be leaving of their own volition. Alabama has every incentive to dump guys. They flat out have to. If a kid is struggling with his academic eligibility how motivated will Alabama be to help him? If a player commits a petty offense how eager will Alabama be to boot him? If Nick Saban knows that by August he has to say goodbye to six kids and it's July and he's only got four down, then what?

I'll tell you what: someone gets it right in the ass.

That's why oversigning* is scummy. Attrition is bad, but tolerable when it's clear a kid who's transferring away is doing so voluntarily. If Mallett transfers to Arkansas because he likes the offense better, fine. Without oversigning we know that if he stayed the scholarship would be there for him. When you have to cram 91 kids into 85 spots, the very real specter of a push hovers over every jumper.

Though all scholarships are technically one-year commitments, in practice players are guaranteed four years as long as they remain eligible and keep their noses clean. There is one legitimate way to remove a kid from your team without some sort of malfeasance on his part: fourth-year juniors are commonly not offered a fifth year unless they are contributors.

'Bama has a few of these, but some of them are already accounted for and others are obviously going to return. By situation:

• Ezekiel Knight, Will Oakley, and BJ Stabler are all mentioned as medical scholarship candidates by Gayle; the six scholarship gap is only a mere six because they've been removed from the calculations already.
• Rashad Johnson, Nick Walker, and Antoine Caldwell are starters and will be back.
• OL Cody Davis is a candidate.
• WR Jonathan Lowe has academic issues; he's a useful returner who would normally return.

I went over the roster closely; these appear to be the only redshirt juniors on scholarship. Potential non-shady departures not already accounted for are, at most, two.

So what's Saban's motivation here? He has somewhere between five and a dozen scholarships to free up (the latter will only happen if the NCAA repeals the limit next week and OTS's prediction that I'll "eat my words" about players failing to qualify comes true). Is he going to help Lowe stay eligible? Is he going to shuffle the deck so that guys who could be eligible this fall are not?

The JCCW sums up:

So unless six guys have a fantastic conversation with a representative from their local congregation of Latter-Day Saints and take off for a two-year mission in Estonia, Saban's going to have to, well, tell six guys they're now responsible for their own $12,000 a year if they would like to continue receiving a college education from the University of Alabama. Given that any player Saban chooses to cut is likely to also be the sort of player he can't find a use for on the field (given that if you are useful, he will find a way to get you on the field, by golly), those scholarships and the education attached possibly carry even greater importance to the players in question than most of the team.

(And should take heart that the "whoops, seeya!" given to four Auburn players isn't as bad as it looks, as three of the four are fourth-year juniors.)

Maybe oversigning by one or two is reasonable, but not in the quantity seen at Alabama.

Now, Saban is not alone in this. In the blog post by Bruce Feldman cited in the Fanhouse post, Feldman asserts that schools can make incoming kids ineligible if they want to. I know of at least one player this happened to: erstwhile Michigan defensive end Eugene Germany, who signed a letter of intent with USC but "didn't qualify." He did nothing the fall semester, then USC asked him to take some classes at a local JC. He declined, did nothing further, and enrolled at Michigan the next fall. Germany got jacked because USC ran out of spots.**

This is a widespread issue. Unfortunately, I do not have convenient summary articles for Miami or LSU or USC. Oversigning should be halted. You should not be able to sign a player to a letter of intent unless that player is qualified and you can demonstrate where his scholarship is coming from. No one should ever be locked into a commitment that doesn't go both ways.

Does this happen in the Big Ten? Not really. Though oversigning was sort-of approved, you have to explain where the scholarship is coming from:

When the Big Ten made the change in 2002, it instituted a policy where teams could oversign by no more than three players, and DiNardo said a detailed explanation behind the oversigning had to be submitted to the Big Ten. The SEC is among the conferences with no guidelines.

As a result, very few Big Ten teams even attempt to oversign, and none by the margins seen here. (Minnesota and Illinois have brought in large classes the last couple years but had been operating well short of the scholarship limit before that.)

This should be universal NCAA policy, and already is in some sports: Michigan hockey could not sign probable first-round pick Brandon Burlon to a letter of intent this fall because they could not demonstrate where the scholarship money would come from. Football should follow suit. Now.

*(just to be clear for any morons reading this, we're not talking about going over the NCAA limit here, we're talking about signing so many guys that you are forced to remove a number of players from the team to meet your obligations.)

**(Germany got tackled from behind by a cop after stealing some chick's phone and then had a series of team rules violations; he transferred to a JC and is now at Arizona State, but he could have gotten his malfease on at the same time the rest of his high school class entered school.)

You'll See What You Want

Update: Don't read this. Read this. I am full of fail.

Swearin! Keep the kids away!

I'm still trying to figure out whether or not this Black Heart, Gold Pants post is entirely in jest or not, because the options here are either 1) it's really poorly phrased satire or 2) it's epically dumb. Neither of these things are expected from BHGP, even if the guy writing the piece is the one who flung Hawaii in the top ten of BHGP's blogpoll ballot for most of the year. How did that work out? About as well as Jake Christensen oh snap.

I think I've settled on 2 with a side of 1 when it comes to the accusations of islamo-fascism. If there are any islamo-facists in this kerfuffle, they're the jihadists from Morgantown. So, then, I have been Called Out and it is time to Throw Down because when you Mess With The MGoBlog You Get The Virtual Horns.

Step to it. Fisk style.

For the record, we were cautiously terrified of Rich Rodriguez to Michigan. But we made that calculation back when we thought Rodriguez was a football coach and not, well, a sleazebag.

I'm sure there will be plenty of awesome reasons to back up this "sleazebag" assertion.

First, RichRod bolts out of Morgantown in the dead of night like the bastard stepson of Art Modell.

(All these links point to MGoBlog posts, btw.) Yes, in West Virginia "the dead of night" is somewhere between 7 and 9 PM. The entire state, wreathed in a deadly black cloud of coal dust, gets three hours of sunlight a day and generally resembles Mordor. The departure was so secretive that fatwa-bearing jihadists who, judging from their message board posts, take three hours to read a road sign were there to chant O-H-I-O at him and take blurry pictures to post at Fatwa Central.

This accusation boils down to "took the Michigan job... and decided to go to Michigan to do so."

Then RichRod goes on Jim Rome (yeah, I know) and slams Ryan Mallett because the kid had the audacity to consider transferring out of a system that relies on a running quarterback and is actively pursuing Terrelle Pryor.

This is the "slam" of Ryan Mallett contained within that post:

"I believe he's going to transfer," Rodriguez said. "He has not told me specifically and he's told other folks in the program. I talked to him a couple times, again, before the bowl game and once after the bowl game and gave him our spiel. But, again, if he chooses to leave, he's going to make a choice that's best for him, and we'll be OK."

"I talked to him and all the quarterbacks about how our system can adapt to the quarterback because we've had throwing quarterbacks in this system that have had great careers and gone on to the NFL and all that," Rodriguez said. "But I did it a couple times (with Mallett.) I recruited him once, I recruited him twice and after the third call, I'm thinking okay, three calls is enough for me. It's a great institution and if somebody doesn't want to be here that's already here, you wish them well and move on."

"He's going to make a choice that's best for him!" "If somebody doesn't want to be here that's already here, you wish him well and move on!" What an asshole!

Obviously something is seriously wrong with Iowa. If this qualifies as a "slam," Hawkeye State will keel over dead upon reading this post. We should probably just eject the state and all its testosterone-free girl-men into space, where they can suffocate like the prancing nancies they are.

Those moves really just make you a dick.

Indeed. Going to the place where you are employed and wishing a departing player well: total 100% dickitude.

But we aren't done; apparently, on his way out of Morgantown, RichRod did his best Arthur Andersen impersonation: [long excerpt from the WVU article highlighted yesterday excised]

This is specious to say the least. Recruiting and summer camp notes? Financial records? Booster rolls? Training schedules and results? The training notes are especially intriguing, given Michigan's new S&C coach and his love of "bioenergetics":

"The science of bioenergetics is the basis of our conditioning program. It's all designed scientifically to meet the end needs of an athlete who plays in a given position under Rich Rodriguez."

Sure thing, Victor Conte.

Bold words from a fan of a team that pumped Robert Gallery so full of testosterone you could shove him into Roger Clemens' ass. (They probably extracted it from the general public; this explains the fainting belles that comprise the rest of the state's purported male population.) And yes, it's "specious" if, in fact, the allegations are entirely true and not 90% made up by lunatic jihadists from the Black Lands. Which they so obviously are, you daiquiri-sipping pansy. Sure, there are no computers and no copies of these critical files. Sure, there's no backup system whatsoever. Sure, completely awesome head coach Bill Stewart who totally deserves the head coaching job has no idea how to "log up". Sure, all these ludicrously implausible things put forth by insane rednecks are obviously true.

While the rest of the football world gave a collective "Whawhawhaaaa?", MGoBlog,* not exactly a rock of journalistic integrity, spent most of the day on other Rich Rodriguez matters.

For the record, those links have between them 459 words of non-quote content, an average of 115 each. MGoBlog more than doubled that.

As for the shredding, Brian is curious but hardly worried:

Why would Rodriguez shred all this stuff?...Michigan fans: because he knew crazy WVU officials/FOIA-toting fans would go over the documents with a fine-toothed comb and attempt to nail him on every piddling recruiting violation like "called five minutes late."

Yeah, or he wanted to destroy all evidence of a continuing scheme under which Rodriguez would take booster (read: Arab oil) money, funnel those funds through tax-free municipal bonds, then send the now-clean cash to trainer Brian McNamee so WVU players could spend their offseasons getting "the Roger Clemens treatment."

You prick. You ballet-dancing, View-watching, Sara Jessica Parker-adoring skirt. I have been mostly joking in this post, but this is a complete misrepresentation of that portion of my post. Here it is in full:

Why would Rodriguez shred all this stuff? (Ohio State fans: because he's a dirty cheater covering his tracks. West Virginia fans: because his one goal in life is to destroy us. Michigan fans: because he knew crazy WVU officials/FOIA-toting fans would go over the documents with a fine-toothed comb and attempt to nail him on every piddling recruiting violation like "called five minutes late.")

What is obviously being communicated: different fanbases will leap to different conclusions because of their inherent biases. What the snipped version communicates: MGoBlog is hopelessly biased.

We ... had the audacity to ... dick ... Arthur Andersen.

Whoops! Bad snippage. My bad. Although this obviously proves Black Heart, Gold Pants is gay for Arthur Andersen.

The kicker, IMO, is that the post is titled "You Can't Spell "Myopic" Without "Michigan Wolverine Football... Yup"; this aggression will not stand coming from a fan of a program who's coach makes six quintillion dollars a year but still places his kid -- already on football scholarship! -- in federally-subsidized low-income housing. Oh, and:



Ten percent of Ferentz's team was arrested for Serious Business this year, and the Hawkeyes have suffered a 44% attrition rate (hey, what do you know: a link that actually points to a post that says what you imply it says) since 2002. Myopic? Myopic? Look in the mirror. You'll see tears and smeared mascara, but only very vaguely because you have astigmatism all up in your ass.

Who's the dick now, dicks?

Les Miles Isn't a Candidate for Anything

The argument that Michigan is a weird place, relatively speaking, that does things differently than most athletic departments is one that you can get a lot of traction with since it has the benefit of being true. There's no other major program in the country that would have a serious undercurrent of panic in its fanbase at the prospect of a man who went 12-34 in the MAC ascending to the head job. In other places, guys who win one of four games at non-BCS schools and are immediately followed by another guy who is so successful he springboards to a better job within three years are put in charge of special teams and forgotten about. But Michigan treasures loyalty, continuity, and propriety above all. So when Jim Carty says this...

Overall, Michigan is a unique situation. Don't underestimate how much that will matter.

It's a place where the next coach will not only need top-tier football coaching and recruiting skills, but a background that shows he can navigate an elite academic institution. It's also a place where hundreds of former players are actively involved with supporting the program. Those players, and Carr, will have a voice at the table.

...he's right. Mike Debord does have a shot at the job despite his unpalatable resume.

Too bad he's talking about Les Miles, who does not and, even if he does, should not. "Michigan is a unique situation" is not an argument for your most successful collegiate coaching alumnus, a guy who is currently at major SEC program that just got done hosing Notre Dame. Miles is the obvious 1A candidate based on his resume. Most places would snap him up without blinking. But Michigan is a unique situation and Miles is, um, unique too.

First of all, the guy has a verbal diarrhea that fits in at Michigan about as well as John L Smith controlled his emotions. This very week Miles said a bunch of intemperate things about the Pac 10 on a radio show that stand in marked contrast to Carr's reticence to do anything that could be construed as campaigning during the Michigan-Florida election window last December. A few months ago he told an alumni gathering that LSU has "a new rival in fucking Alabama," which is not only a sentence that can change directions radically based on punctuation ("we have a new rival in fucking: Alabama!") but the sort of public utterance that would cause the Michigan establishment to get woozy and collapse, Southern Belle style, into Mary Sue Coleman's arms. All it took for Gary Moeller to get fired was one bad night at a restaurant. Les Miles has bad nights twice a year.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. When Mike Gundy replaced Les Miles as coach he instituted, um, something other than anarchy:

"Several players said the day [new OK State Coach] Gundy replaced Les Miles as head coach he established guidelines that players attend class, be on time for team meetings, adhere to workout routines, represent the program well and play hard."

Nine kids thought these were ridiculous guidelines and left the team. And though CoachRatings.com is anything but scientific, the difference between Carr and Miles is illuminating. Carr scores a 9 of 10 and is described as a "mentor/role model" or "well respected" by eight of ten rankers; the other two went with "assertive." Miles scores a 4.4, the worst of any coach on the site save Rich Brooks and 0.5 points lower than John Mackovic, a man who had a full-scale revolt on his hands at Arizona. Five of eight players described Miles as "corrupt." Corrupt. Not mean or stupid or smelly. Corrupt.

So, yeah, it's pretty ironic that Carty links a Motown Sports Revival post and bashes it for being unrealistic. (Especially because the MSR post is explicitly presented as one man's wish list.) Rich Rodriguez has "never worked with the sort of academic restrictions he would have at Michigan," but the Okie State-LSU doubleheader qualifies Miles. Anyone with a "passing knowledge" of Bobby Petrino's background and personality knows he's not a fit for the Michigan job, but a guy who can't go two months without embarrassing himself and his school is AOK.

Lloyd Carr may not be in a position to designate his successor a la Bo, but if he says "over my dead body," that guy is out. I have a better chance of being Michigan's next head coach than Les Miles does. But it is a "unique situation," according to Carty, and Miles' "unique qualifications" make him a strong candidate. There are things that are wrong at 90 degrees to right -- orthogonal wrong -- and then there are things that obviously dropped in from a mirror universe. This is the latter. Stick to selling delcious sandwiches, Subway Jim.

I Find The Productive Conversations We Are Having To Be Very Productive And Conversationy

Yeah, the post headers are broken in Firefox. Dunno why. Looking into it.

Everything about the Big Ten Network is productive. They have conversations which produce things. Not, like, agreements with major cable providers, sure, but expensive lunches, fan anger, and inexplicable fawning from Free Press employees. Mark Snyder's latest is... um... weird. I'd gotten used to Snyder as a news-guy who brings information and does not offer opinion, and now we have evidence as to why. His latest "blog" -- sorry about the scare quotes, but the Free Press doesn't even make any pretense, they just throw up a story and label it a blog -- is a stunningly Pollyanna thing that seems like it came directly from the mighty PR bowels of the Big Ten office.

Now is the time on Sprockets when we fisk.

The upcoming Big Ten Network is an outstanding idea.

From the moment it was announced last summer, it seemed ideal, filling a void that has existed since the explosion of cable televised sports in the past decade.

Wait... what void? Virtually every Big Ten game of import is televised nationally on ABC or basic cable. Basketball fans can catch any game that's not against Maryland-Baltimore County or equivalents on local syndication. Anyone out-of-market can buy ESPN's Gameplan for a reasonable price and get every game his team plays. The 95% of Big Ten fans who don't care about hockey should have absolutely no quarrel with the current state of coverage.

The next few months will be rocky if the large cable deals aren’t signed. Fans will start to worry about missing college football games and likely blame the network.

...yes, they will. Because it will be the network's fault. This is the ideal blame situation, when you can blame the thing that is at blame.

But that will be a temporary blip and Silverman knows it, that’s why his patience is impressive.

Justification for this is... what? His "patience" is impressive? This sound exactly like "we are not going to be on cable this fall" spun 180 degrees. Bill Martin wants to end the ND series! Patience is a virtue when it comes to getting on basic cable, because Lord knows we don't want to rush into something like having people watch our channel. I have patience, too. It expires the first time Michigan is shoehorned onto the Big Ten Network and I have to scramble to find it.

The network’s long-term future should withstand any early frustrations because, unlike CSTV and ESPNU, the Big Ten will have significant content from the start.

Guaranteeing at least two appearances by every conference football team was perfect. That way they’re not debuting with only second-tier events and appear legitimate. Much like the NFL Network's securing late-season football telecasts, fans will chase their teams wherever they are -- as long as they don’t have to pay extra for the privilege.

This is terrifying to me. In the latest chat on the Big Ten Network's official site:

Question: If we have already contacted our local cable provider and they have told us that they have no plans to carry the Big Ten Network this fall, what are we as fans to do at this point? Comcast is telling inquiring customers that they have no plans to carry the network.
Posted By: Tom from East Lansing, MI
5/24/2007 12:49:01 PM

And wait... perfect? Much like the NFL Network's brilliant plan to force cable operators to carry them by getting exclusive rights to a few NFL games? That worked so brilliantly that the NFL Network got on basic cable... nowhere. And they're charging 70 cents instead of the preposterous $1.10 the Big Ten Network has been demanding.

His track record includes launching the ESPN Zone restaurant chain -- an unqualified success -- so he has a feel for the people‘s wishes. That’s why he plans to be available with online chats at www.bigtennetwork.com, including the first one this Thursday at 1 p.m.

Online chats! This is definitely on the right track!

What the network realizes, and is lost on CSTV and ESPNU, is that college sports rarely have national appeal during their seasons. Only at the very end -- with college football being the lone exception -- do fans care about more than their conference and their team.

What does that even mean? CSTV and ESPNU are low-cost, no-access channels with no compelling programming, granted. Given that "patience" is now being espoused, it appears that the BTN will be a high-cost, no-access channel with compelling programming like Michigan-Appalachian State. Both situations suck, but only one is suffused in the gasoline of hubris, ready to be lit aflame in fall when football fans can't get the games they would have if this channel did not exist. I thought the whole point of the Big Ten Network was to increase access to Big Ten sports to fans; the way this is going there will be a net decrease. Fewer games will be shown nationally. Each team will have two games relegated to a regional cable ghetto.

Snyder makes no sense here. The big draw he has just espoused is football. He praises the Big Ten for "understanding" the provincial nature of college sports and their lack of widespread appeal mere paragraphs after praising the Big Ten for creating "compelling" programming by... locking away football games.

The Big Ten Network brass already understands the challenge of stability is for a long-term deal, not simply a rush to line it up for Sept. 1. That’s why they’ll wait until they can reach the widest audience possible.

We are screwed. The Big Ten Network understands that they can force cable providers into a deal they don't want to accept because they're obviously more important than the NFL.

Silverman and his staff will hear your complaints. They just may not deserve it.

Yeah... wow. An embarrassing shill job.

About this chat thing. It's totally awesomely useful:

WHAT IS THE STATUS OF YOUR NEGOTIATIONS WITH DISH NETWORK?

negotiations are moving along very well with all satellite and cable providers.

You say you have reached an agreement with 40 cable companies. Which companies are these.

these agreements will be announced as the contracts are signed over the next few weeks

We have heard that the Big Ten Network will be a good thing because it gives fans more access to Big Ten programming. However lets say you are unsuccesful with distribution and only people with DirectTV can see it. What are your plans in this case so millions of loyal fans in the region don't miss games.

we are working hard to make sure all big ten fans can see their teams play. It is very early in the distribution process and we are making great progress with distributors.

And this... is just... I don't know what it is:

Question: Will you show video's of boys climbing ropes. I used to really like that about gym class and would love to relive the moments. I mean there's nothing like a good old time rope climb to lighten the spirits. I do say I'd really enjoy a show about boys climbing rope
Posted By: Billy from Cicero, IL
5/24/2007 12:18:55 PM

Mark Silverman - Big Ten Network President's Response: we will have 35+ HD football games, well over 100 HD basketball games, not to mention olympic sports and women's sports.

BOYS! CLIMBING ROPES!

!!!

Question: I am pessimistic about your negotiations with Comcast considering their history with sports networks, i.e. a long delay to add FSN Detroit HD, moving ESPN Classic to digital, moving NFLN to the sports tier, not including ESPNU and CSTV in the sports tier, etc. Why should I be optimistic?
Posted By: James from Detroit, MI
5/24/2007 12:22:15 PM

Mark Silverman - Big Ten Network President's Response: we think the big ten network has a unique appeal that doesn't compare with other networks. we have over 40 cable deals agreed to on terms that we think are fair and reasonable and we believe we will continue striking agreements as we continue.

What is the possibility Time Warner Cable will carry The BTN? We have not had much success getting them to carry NFL Network, so I have concerns they won't carry the BTN either.

we have had very productive conversations with time warner and all cable/satellite providers.

Myself and a lot of friends have Dish Network. We are die hard Illinois Fans and we want to be able to see all the games. how close is Dish Network to signing the Big Ten Network?

we have had productive conversations with dish network.

Well, all my concerns have been assuaged.

This has disaster written all over it. When the Big Ten Network was announced, I thought it was a great idea given the following assumptions:

• The existing ESPN-ABC setup, which is very kind to the Big Ten, would remain untouched.
• Football on the network would restricted to Michigan State-Indiana, Illinois-Northwestern, and the like, giving those mediocre games a place to go other than ESPN+ syndication.
• The network would, like, you know, be available.

In an outburst of stunning hubris, the Big Ten has horned in on the ESPN distribution, in some weeks grabbing the second-best game available, guaranteed that every team is exiled to purgatory at least twice, and made demands not even the NFL could pull off. Even basketball coverage will get hurt if they maintain their exclusivity and don't get on basic cable, as ESPN+ syndication that got those games on locally will evaporate.

There's still time for the BTN to find itself on cable providers. And as long as I get it, even on a digital tier, I'm fine with that. But if it is relegated to the CSTV/ESPNU land of satellite-only access, there will be a conniption fit here and across the Big Ten region, and it will be deserved. Silverman's vague claims of productivity and "40 cable providers" seem intentionally misleading, which makes me think that things are going poorly. Snyder's breathless praise of Silverman's "patience" -- not a virtue in this situation -- makes me think things have reached an impasse and that the public rhetoric is changing in preparation for an August controversy.

google image search + "sweet pig justice" == guinea pig Damien

It's times like these I wish we were all Arkansas fans, because nobody screws with Arkansas fans without some sweet pig justice coming the other way. Heck, you can get to the SEC championship game and still receive sweet pig justice. They're itching to dispense it. If we were Arkansas fans, Jim Delaney would be hiding out in an Afghani cave and Mark Silverman would be a quivering hobo trying to trade sneaky rhetoric for booze. Also we would be really into fishing, if my one brief visit to a Natural State gas station/restaurant/fishing supply store is any indication. But wouldn't have to deal with this.

Stewart Mandel Wants To Be Troy Smith's Bridget Moynahan

No one lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.

Fish in a barrel! (Nietzche Family Circus @ right randomly and serendipitously generated.)

I've had this Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article about Troy Smith's falling draft stock open in my browser window the last couple days in case I bothered to do a Fanhouse post about it. I won't now -- dated -- but it's given us all so much more, as Stewart Mandel saw it and immediately rushed off to pen an epically stupid column that gets the Fire Joe Morgan treatment below.

Let's hit it.

Classic combine confusion

Scouts foolish to ignore QB Smith's college success

I suppose there might be an argument in here, albeit one whose primary adherent appears to be Matt Millen.

For all that Troy Smith accomplished the past two-plus years at Ohio State, I don't think I've ever been more impressed with him than I am right now. After I read the various reports out of last weekend's NFL combine in Indianapolis, it's become apparent that Smith managed to win a Heisman Trophy, rack up ridiculous passing stats and lead his team to 20 straight victories in spite of the fact he's a crappy quarterback.

Note: no one has ever claimed Troy Smith is a crappy quarterback. Crappy quarterbacks do not get taken in the NFL draft, let alone in the third or fourth round. Many, many good to great collegiate quarterbacks have done worse than that, including the man who knocked up the woman you aspire to be.

Yep. You read that right. The NFL cognoscenti have spoken. After eyeballing Smith in shorts and watching him throw 18 practice passes against no defense, the connoisseurs with the clipboards and the stop watches have decreed that the former Ohio State quarterback, to put it simply, stinks. Once considered a late-first or early second-round pick, Smith will now be fortunate to land in the third or fourth round based on the buzz in Indy.

The next paragraph will make it clear that Mandel's getting all of this from the aforementioned Journal-Sentinel article, so it might be useful to bring in the thing he's cribbing from:

Two days before Smith won the Heisman Trophy by landslide in early December, two executives in personnel for NFL teams projected him as a second-round draft choice. Another personnel director went so far as to label him a mid- to late first-round selection.

Do you know what two major events happened between the projections Mandel holds dear to his heart and the combine? The MNC game and the Senior Bowl. Smith's combined numbers across those two games: 9 for 29 for 87 yards, one touchdown, one interception, and one back-breaking fumble. At the Senior Bowl, Smith practiced and played in front of NFL scouts from every team in the league for a full week. None were particularly impressed. Both of these things had a much greater impact on his draft stock than a few balls thrown at the combine, but let's not let actual facts get in the way here.

Also: "stinks" again, when clearly they're going to draft him somewhere.

As one AFC personnel director told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "He's six feet tall, he's not a super fast guy and he's not super athletic. ... I don't think he's horrible. He's just a guy."

These are all reasonable criticisms.

See what I'm saying? How can you not admire a guy who's short, slow and unathletic yet managed to win the most prestigious award in college football?

Jason White.

It's like someone who can't act winning an Oscar.

Charlie Ward.

Or someone who can't sing winning American Idol.

Eric Crouch.

We already knew about everything Smith overcame in his childhood and early OSU years to achieve gridiron glory, but the fact that he managed to do all that despite being "just a guy?" Wow. I can't even begin to imagine what his stats would have been if he was actually a stud.

"Just a guy" in NFL does not equal "just a guy" in college. For an example, pick just about any player ever. I know the idea that the NFL is harder to play in than college must have filtered into your skull at some point.

Before I continue, let me just make the disclaimer that I have never considered Smith to be a sure-fire Hall of Famer. I realize he has his limitations. For months, however, I've maintained that, if given the opportunity, Smith would establish himself as a solid NFL starter. How did I reach this conclusion? Umm ... by watching him play?

And of course none of the NFL scouts who are paid to do this -- and are much, much smarter than you when the topic is football instead of, say, "looking like a fatter version of Subway Jared" -- bothered to watch his games. Or those Senior Bowl practices. And they have no idea what players are likely to fit into the systems employed at a higher level of play.

But now it seems that Smith is being lumped in with the Gino Torretta/Chris Weinke/Eric Crouch/Jason White class of Heisman-winning quarterbacks, destined to flame out at the next level. Here's the thing. Torretta was barely a top-20 passer his senior year. Weinke was 87 years old. Crouch ran the option. White had no functioning knees. About the only thing Smith has in common with those guys is the trophy they won.

The same trophy which was the linchpin of your argument mere paragraphs ago. Perhaps the fact that all these quarterbacks are supremely unsuited to sit in the pocket and rifle balls over the outstretched hands of defenders but managed to win the award is an indication that the Heisman trophy is more of a joke than the idea that an attractive 23-year-old will sleep with you at said trophy's ceremony because "You're Stewart Mandel... THE Stewart Mandel"*.

*(This actually happened according to a friend of mine who was part of the media for the event.)

Well, and one other thing: The national-championship game flop. Smith's nightmare performance against Florida is when all this backlash started.

I wonder why?

Because he's "just a guy," Smith was unable to escape oncoming Gator pass-rushers/freight trains Jarvis Moss and Derrick Harvey as they routinely plowed through Smith's blockers like they were made of cellophane. As we all know, JaMarcus Russell or Brady Quinn would have spun free of those defenders and completed 70-yard passes.

With such considerable evidence against Smith's worth as a quarterback, I figure there's only one possible explanation for how he won all those games in college: He's an illusionist. Yep. A full-on David Copperfield/David Blaine-caliber performer. All those times you thought you were watching Smith pick apart Texas or throw the game-winning touchdown against Michigan? He was actually throwing incompletions at his receivers' feet. He fooled you.

This is just awful. I don't know where to begin. First: more arrogant assumption he knows more than NFL talent evaluators because he sat on his couch cramming donuts into his face and went "wow... Troy Smith" this fall. This sort of hard-hitting analysis you can get from literally anyone with a TV. Second: a third attempt to convince you that a quarterback who is an ill fit for the NFL game who will be drafted in the third or fourth round has been retroactively declared a crappy college player. Third: none of this is funny in the slightest.

These NFL scouting guys, however, they don't fall for that stuff. They're too smart. These guys get paid the big bucks precisely because of their ability to spot the previously undetected imperfections of college players that we lay people miss.

This attempted sarcasm is absolutely correct.

And boy do they earn every penny, whether by determining Mario Williams to be a better pro prospect than Reggie Bush,

...or that Mario Williams was easier to sign and played a position that the Texans had greater need of...

that Vince Young won't be able to make the transition to the NFL,

...the NFL was so sure Vince Young couldn't make the transition to the NFL that he fell all the way to the THIRD PICK IN THE DRAFT...

that Ernie Sims would be more valuable to the Lions than Matt Leinart

...Matt Millen may actually be stupider than you...

or that Drew Brees was only worthy of a second-round pick.

...Brees was the first pick of the second round and the second quarterback selected behind Michael Vick. This is not exactly a strident condemnation.

I mention Brees, the former Purdue quarterback-turned-New Orleans Saints Pro Bowler, because he happens to suffer from the same, career-jeopardizing affliction as Troy Smith: Being 6-feet tall. This, according to the scouts, is the single biggest reason Smith might not succeed in the pros. "That's the only negative on the guy," Chiefs president Carl Peterson told the Journal Sentinel. "And [defenders] get bigger every year. It gets more and more difficult to look over guys."

I mention the thousands of thousands of failed six-foot quarterbacks because there's such a thing as a "heuristic" that does very well for drafters of all sorts.

You see, this is why I could never hack it as an NFL personnel guy.

No, the reason you couldn't hack it as an NFL personnel guy is that you are incapable of understanding logic, probability, statistics, history, or football.

Here I was, thinking that most men reach their adult height by the time they're 17 or 18, meaning that if Smith could throw over, say, 6-4 Texas defensive end Tim Crowder in the Buckeyes' game against the Longhorns last September, it stands to reason he would be able to do the same thing when the two face each other in the NFL next season. But according to Peterson, NFL defenders just keep getting bigger. Presumably, in a few years, Crowder will be 7-2, and by then Smith simply won't stand a chance.

As noted, the Buckeye offense revolved around outside routes, rollouts, and the shotgun in an effort to take advantage of Smith's particular skills and de-emphasize his height disadvantage. (I thought you "ummmm... watched him play"?) NFL teams don't run that sort of offense because long experience has taught them it doesn't do very well for whatever reason. A team is forced to do one of two things: attempt to fit Smith into its offense or completely revamp it for a rookie who isn't a walking pile of impossible like Vince Young. Note the above "just a guy" mention.

"You [reporters] make it seem like being 6 feet is a disease or something," Smith said at the combine. "I stand before you now wanting to talk about some of the positive things that are going on, but yet still we keep on talking about the negatives. I don't understand."

What's not to understand, Troy? The experts have spoken. You're short. You can't throw. And your entire college career was a lie. Enjoy wearing that baseball cap on the sideline next season while charting plays for some undrafted free agent your employer just loves because they don't have to pay him anything and because he's got "tremendous upside."

A second mindboggling contradiction: the NFL hates the undrafted free agent more than Troy Smith. That's why the undrafted free agent was undrafted and not picked in the third or fourth round like Smith. But all of a sudden the NFL team "just loves" him even though they decided not to expend even a seventh-rounder on him.

Don't feel too bad, though. You'll always have that Heisman Trophy. Maybe one day, when your playing career is over, you can let us in on the secret of how you managed to win that thing despite a lack of any discernible talent. Boy -- you sure got us good.

God. Fat Jared, I hate you. This whole thing is suffused with sarcasm you have no right to wield against people who know way, way more about football than you. (To be fair, this is a vast array of people from Bill Polian to John Madden to Tony Blair to Richard Nixon's corpse all the way down to Matt Millen; chances are whenever you attempt to be sarcastic you are talking to someone who knows more about football than you.) NFL people do think that Troy Smith is an exceptionally talented quarterback for a six-foot guy who operated mostly out of the shotgun and had an offense built around dealing with his shortcomings, pun not intended. That's why they're willing to draft him in the third or fourth round. But make no mistake, his physical stature will be something teams have to work around and he'll be very lucky to be Drew Brees instead of the myriad other short quarterbacks who have failed.

But this isn't really about Troy Smith. He'll get drafted around where he deserves to be drafted. This is about you and your inability to use sarcasm well. Here are some tips:

• Try to have an actual point to make. Sarcasm is much more effective when you're trying to establish something like "Stewart Mandel writes dumb things" than "Troy Smith should be drafted higher" because the former has a wealth of evidence more detailed than "ummm... I watched him play."
• Don't go after people who are smarter than you. You'll just look clueless. See our previous contrast.
• Hire some joke writers or something. Seriously.
• Start eating one six-inch veggie sub for lunch and dinner every day.

Backlash Backlash Backlash

Sorry about late/crappy content today. I plead nasty cold/wake up late.

So BGS posted this thing. And I find it really irritating because it encapsulates much of the deeply irritating things about the nuttier outposts of the Irish worldview, which somehow manages to simultaneously claim that Notre Dame is the most important program in college football, citing copious media coverage, and that anti-ND bias is incredibly widespread and a major reason for everything wrong with the program. As someone who follows the exploits of more than one college football team and reads articles about teams other than Michigan, it seems clear to me that the reason it seems that lot of dumbly negative articles get published about Notre Dame is that a plurality of columnists can't do anything except write dumb, negative articles. Add in the natural tendency of fans to link anything negative wrote about their rivals or themselves and stupid negativity is the best way to get attention. (Anyone seeking confirmation of this in the wild need only go back a year or so to the Great Sissy Boy Blogger Slapfest.)

As a fan of a preseason top-5 team that finished 2005 7-5, let me reassure any ND fans out there that this happens to any prominent team or player that doesn't meet expectations. Poor Steve Breaston.

Anyway, the main thing I hate is dishonesty and the BGS article is dishonest. It starts with a brief intro and the Heisman results, then gets into its arguments that there was a concerted media backlash against Quinn because he's a very pretty man from Notre Dame:

Pundits engaged in a lot of purposive data-mining to criticize Quinn, while failing to mention glaring issues with other candidates. For instance, I can recall several talking heads arguing that Quinn played poorly against Southern Cal because he completed less than 50% of his passes. Anyone making this argument is either stupid or disingenuous. First, Quinn was barely under 50%, and had even one of the dropped passes that he laid in a receiver's hands been caught, he would have been over 50%. Second, Quinn put up 348 yards of total offense and three touchdowns without a single turnover.

Pot, this is kettle. Accuse away. Anyone arguing that Quinn performed adequately is either stupid, disingenuous, or high off paint fumes (Brent Musberger). One wonders if BGS bothered to watch the USC game -- it would have been reasonable not to given the results of Notre Dame's previous expedition against quality competition -- as Quinn's late surge towards respectable numbers came entirely in garbage time. Notre Dame got the ball back down 20 points with 7:30 left, a perfect prevent situation in which the defense doesn't really care if you score as long as you do it slowly. Notre Dame obliged, driving for a touchdown. Brian Cushing returned the ensuing onside kick for a game-sealing touchdown, then Quinn went to work again, game long decided.

Before the USC defense found itself in a situation where it didn't really care what ND did, Quinn's numbers: 13/31 for 163 yards, plus a mindblowing 60-yard scramble. Pretending that all yards, no matter how meaninglesss, are created equal is "purposive data-mining," not reasonably asserting that Quinn was something less than spectacular against the Trojan defense. Granted, Rhema McKnight is the suckiest suck who ever sucked and granted that a lot of quarterbacks have struggled against the Trojan defense, but the Heisman isn't an award for the most valiant struggler.

And when someone disregards the events on the field in favor of a pretty box score, no matter how shaky its meaning, you don't have to wonder at motivations. Note the artful insertion of "total offense," which helpfully includes Quinn's anomalous quarterback scramble that any quarterback faster than John Navarre could have accomplished. Also note the strawman: Quinn isn't competing for the award against Nate Longshore.

What are these glaring issues with the other candidates, I wonder? Smith didn't have a great game against Illinois or Penn State, but Quinn's main contribution against Georgia Tech was running the ball and he has those two clunkers against Michigan and USC. And while McFadden was roped in from time to time this year, he also drove a team with no passing game to the SEC title game. This is an accomplishment.

The same people that searched so hard for Quinn's flaws were just as quick with excuses for his competitors. That Darren McFadden could only manage 36 yards against USC on 11 touches was blamed entirely on his (self-induced) injury, if it was acknowledged at all. You would be hard pressed to find media criticism of Troy Smith's performance against Illinois, though it was statistically worse than the performance against Michigan that hung around Quinn's neck like a millstone.

There is a natural tendency of overlook Smith's ugly performance against Illinois (and don't forget Penn State) or McFadden's against USC when the two of them clearly dragged their teams forward the rest of the year. The Heisman is mostly about a player's performances in the really big games, and McFadden and Smith delivered multiple times this year (Auburn, Tennessee/Texas, Michigan). Quinn did not.

The suggestion that Quinn's wretched performance against Michigan shouldn't be a millstone around his neck -- he rifled the game's first pass high, inside, and hard, leading to a Michigan touchdown and setting the tone for the day, he led his team to something like two first downs before the two-minute drill at the end of the first half, he WOOP WOOP WOOP Lamarr Woodley touchdown -- is preposterous, especially when put into direct contrast with Smith's surgical dissection of the same defense. Of course it's relevant, far more so than an Illinois game that Ohio State wasn't really threatened in. More fuel for the fire that ND fans only tolerate the rest of college football because without other teams there would be no vehicle via which to glorify Notre Dame. If you watch the games and understand the context of the events in them (Arkansas goes from hopeless to the SEC championship game on the strength of Humanity Advanced, Smith lazily shreds a Michigan defense for the ages, leaving me speechless at halftime). If all you do is watch Notre Dame and look at boxscores, then, sure, Quinn has an argument.

Midway through the season, many commentators (including one ESPN Heisman Watch writer) offered Smith's superior TD-INT ratio as proof that he was the nation's best QB. When Quinn ultimately finished ahead of Smith in this statistic (recording the fifth best such ratio in CFB history), I can't recall the stat's previous champions acknowledging this.

Probably because that whole destroying-Michigan thing removed the need for a rickety justification like TD-INT ratio. And as long as we're going to statistical measures of quarterback play, we may as well take a look at quarterback rating:

• 4. Troy Smith
• 14. Brady Quinn

Statistician, heal thyself.

But what really gets me is the venom directed at Quinn. In a field of candidates that included an admitted NCAA rules violator and convicted criminal (Smith) and someone who put FnDC -- Fightin' 'n Da Club -- before his team (McFadden), many commentators acted like Quinn was the asshole, an overrated impostor who scammed his way into the conversation by virtue of his good looks and the ineluctable star power of the Notre Dame brand.

In a field of candidates including an admitted black guy and someone who put being black before his team, many commentators refused to acknowledge that Quinn was white!

Also: Irish fans are always talking about how they "are" college football, or the center of college football, or whatever, and then freak out when someone points out that maybe the disproportionate amount of media attention paid to ND has something to do with the prominence of a quarterback who wouldn't be anywhere near the Heisman converation if you changed his named to "Ian Scrofolski," transported him to Washington State, and had his team go 10-2 with two humiliating losses against the only above-average teams he faced all year.

Quinn's stumbles (or stumble, singular) was cause for great celebration. You might remember this representative article from Mike Freeman of CBS Sportsline, back in September:

C'mon, be honest. You chuckled when you heard Notre Dame got beat by Michigan one cajillion billion to seven, didn't you? You laughed. You giggled and burped. You frolicked around the house like you were being tickled on the feet by a supermodel in her skivvies. You spit mustard and bratwurst all over your shirt when you saw Brady Quinn's face planted in the turf and throwing sloppy interceptions like Kerry Collins. I can tell you loved it. I still see the smirk cemented on your face.

Introducing Brady Quinn. Fine gentleman, future NFL quarterback, and the most outlandishly overrated player in the history of college football...If I ask who the best college quarterback in the nation is right now and you answer Quinn and not Smith, then you are a brainwashed fool.

Furthermore, while Troy Smith's early indiscretions were being recast as an inspirational story of redemption -- look at what he had to overcome! -- Quinn's four-year odyssey from Diedrickian punching bag to the top of the Irish record books was all but forgotten.

We need to introduce the Freeman corollary to Godwin's law: Whenever you cite Mike Freeman as a representative sample of anything, you lose. Mike Freeman writes dumb columns for attention. He is, in internet terms, a troll. Earlier this year he wrote a story claiming that Chris Leak should be furious at Urban Meyer for denying him a chance at the Heisman by bringing in Tim Tebow.

Also, one article is not a trend.

During his time under the microscope at ND, especially during a rough and tumble two years where he was repeatedly thrown to the lions, Quinn never faltered or pouted. Whether he was taking his lumps under Willingham or besting Peyton Manning's marks under Weis, Quinn always carried himself with aplomb. In the volumes of quotes the media extracted from Quinn, you won't find a single damning word. He was never in trouble off the field. He was a good student.

And for such a well-known celebrity, he was exceedingly modest. When Chris Fowler greeted Brady on stage to present him the Maxwell Award, the first thing out of Fowler's mouth wasn't "Congratulations", but, "So, do you consider this an upset, since everyone expected Troy Smith to win?" Quinn might have been shocked, and he might have been forgiven for snapping off some snide retort. But he humbly deflected the slam, and instead praised Smith, calling him a "great player" and saying that "he should do just fine for himself" on Saturday at the Downtown Athletic Club.

Aaand now the Heisman is recast as some sort of Academic All-American award that cares about what you do off the field; McFadden and Smith are recast as unworthy of the award because of minor indiscretions in their past -- Smith's last misstep was over two years ago.

That combination of stellar talent and grounded character is so rare in a sport where it seems just about everyone

...is black?

has a checkered past. Quinn's everything you'd want in a college football player, both on and off the field.

Unless you want to stay within 20 of a major opponent.

Everybody, regardless of alma mater, would love to have this guy on their team, wouldn't they? In our "Villains" piece, we stated that we had to respect John McKay because the only reason he gave to dislike him was the success he had against the Irish; he was a consummate class act. I would have thought fans of other programs would feel the same way about Quinn, but obviously I was wrong.

You mistake disdain for dislike. Arguing that Quinn doesn't deserve the Heisman is not dislike. It is not venom. (Note that hell, yes, there is venom here about Quinn, but we aren't arguing about me. Also, there would be venom about Smith... but what am I supposed to say? "I'm taller than you" is about all I can come up with.)

Such was the season for Notre Dame in the media: we really took it on the chin, over and over.

They don't call it "Weis media bukkake" for nothing.

The voters who put ND way up at #2 at the beginning of the season and the reporters who touted Brady as the preseason Heisman leader fell over themselves to tear Quinn and Notre Dame from that perch when the season didn't go as predicted. The national mood changed almost immediately as the season began, and it never recovered. As ND struggled (but won) against Georgia Tech (and Ohio State was busy beating Texas), that #2 ranking suddenly seemed terribly undeserved, even if it were the writers and voters who put the Irish there in the first place. The Michigan loss sealed it.

The backlash was ferocious, a negative feedback loop that devoured itself. An offhand comment by Charlie to local reporters about ND's place in the BCS rankings turns into a full-fledged brouhaha, with Charlie portrayed as a big whiner; when Urban Meyer goes on the PR offensive to lobby for the Gators, he's praised for being the squeaky wheel that got the grease.

Yes, Urban Meyer's proactive media stance was met with nothing but effusive praise.

While many top BCS squads are feasting on vastly inferior teams (including some really embarrassing matchups, like Florida-Western Carolina), it's ND that's pilloried for playing -- stop me if you've heard this -- three service academies in one year. The Heisman race becomes a zero-sum game; it is not enough for Troy Smith to win, but Brady Quinn must lose (in fact, it is not enough for Brady Quinn to lose; he must be eviscerated in the process).

The "evisceration" is an article by Jemele Hill about how Troy Smith should be the top pick in the NFL draft. There is a section comparing Quinn and Smith. This is your "evisceration":

On the other side of it, Quinn's coach and his offensive system are already the most overrated traits of any prospect. I'm not trying to take anything away from Quinn, who put up the numbers to justify his being the No. 1 pick in April, but there were very few games in which his presence alone was responsible for the Irish's winning. You never got the feeling he won the game.

If this serves as evisceration, then Jack the Ripper lurks in every graf that mentions the Irish.

Other teams lose to inferior opponents on their schedule and suffer lesser consequence; Notre Dame loses to two of the top five teams in the country and is saddled with disdain. And when that 10-2 Notre Dame team gets selected for a BCS bowl, it is, of course, unfair; yet by the BCS's own rules Notre Dame is a clear and proper choice for selection. Such was 2006 for Brady Quinn and the Irish.

But the book on the season isn't closed just yet. There's one chapter left. Maybe a win over LSU will knock the anti-ND narrative off its rail, and recast this Irish team as something more worthy in the eyes of the college football punditry. Oh wouldn't it be nice...

On the other hand, who cares. To hell with the pundits. Let's win it for the only group that matters. Let's win it for us.

It would. Because LSU is badass, and Weis beating LSU would give him a win over a ranked team (his first). The reason so many are skeptical about Notre Dame is this: two non-competitive losses versus USC and Michigan. Two miraculous wins over mediocre opponents in MSU and UCLA. A narrow win over a team quarterbacked by Reggie Ball. Only the PSU win gives an indication of much quality.

Anyway: any team in the country could have composed a flimsy bitch about media bias like this if the author chose to cherry-pick negative articles after a disappointing season.