A few last words (for now) on Penn State

I'm gonna be honest: I don't really care about the Joe Paterno statue. It's a weird, uncomfortable thing that I'd prefer not to look at as a attendee (even a neutral one) but could justifiably* be left up since the guy coached there for 50 years and basically built the thing that is Penn State football.

The "justifiably" qualifier in the previous sentence does not cover this:

The embattled members of Penn State's Board of Trustees quietly have decided to leave Joe Paterno's statue standing, according to sources with firsthand knowledge of the trustees' private discussions this week.

The trustees' reluctance to remove the statue is motivated, in part, by a desire not to offend alumni and students who adore the late coach despite the damning findings of his role in the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse cover-up detailed in the Freeh report, the sources said. ...

"The statue represents the good that Joe did," a trustee said. "It doesn't represent the bad that he did."

As for the second bolded portion: Oh, that's how it works? Gotcha.

As for the first bolded portion: The implication that the "desire not to offend alumni and students who adore the late coach" is more important than the desire not to offend, ya know, the victims of a child molester is an implication that nobody has learned anything. Penn State football is still PENN STATE FOOTBALL and thus more important than doing things that make any sense within the general construct of society. And that's why Penn State football needs to cease existing for a little while.

I said "I just don't know, man" a couple days ago but now know because of the quote provided by the above-cited anonymous trustee. This excerpt from a death-penalty debate in The Atlantic pretty aptly summarizes the cultural thing in a way I've been unable to:

Some observers think the NCAA should punish the university's football program for a lack of institutional control, perhaps levying the seldom-used "death penalty." Right idea. Wrong executioner. I say leave NCAA sanctions -- lost scholarships, television bans, blah blah blah -- out of it, and just shut down the team altogether. Permanently. The lesson of the Freeh report isn't just that Paterno and others didn't do enough; it's that everyone else loved Penn State football too much. Loved it so much it became a totem, an identity, an entire culture. Not just a game. Not just a silly diversion. Something people were far too afraid to cross. Something people remain far too afraid to lose.

In his Thursday press conference, Freeh mentioned Penn State janitors who saw Sandusky molesting a boy in the shower. One, a Korean War veteran, called the scene "the worst thing I ever saw." Nevertheless, he and the other janitors decided not to report it. They didn't want to get fired. "If that's the culture on the bottom," Freeh said, "God help the culture on the top." Yes. A thousand times yes.

I disagree about the "permanently" part (I rarely advocate for permanent anything) but agree with everything else. It was always about football; that won't/can't change as long as Penn State has a football program since said program will always be The Most Important Thing. I know it will always be The Most Important Thing because the trustees are responding to something that's making everybody with a conscience question the existence of ivory-tower morality by saying, "yeah but JoePa!" No.

I could link to/opine on literally 100 well-thought-out pieces here or turn this into a thread that would generate an unending string of back-and-forth responses about the devastation of the death penalty and whether it hurts the wrong people and whether it would destroy Penn State's nonrevenue programs and what would happen to the Big Ten and yadda yadda yadda. But here's the thing: I don't wanna spend the foreseeable future writing/reading/hearing about Penn State and The Stuff. I don't. The applicable lessons should be obvious and the punishment should be sufficient that the people who still don't get it will get it via forceful reprioritization (be it at Penn State or anywhere else with a similarly skewed structure and thus the potential for similarly horrifying complicity). And that should be it; everything thereafter should be an Iraq-style** cultural rebuilding in a way that doesn't allow (to whatever extent possible) either The Stuff or the incomprehensible responses necessitated by the current culture/structure.

The end. Everything else is just reflection/inflection/judgment-tion that I really don't have the desire or level of willpower to continue participating in (yet can't avoid due to pure volume).

Caveat: It won't happen. The NCAA doesn't have the authority (the death penalty is only applicable to a program that's tagged as a repeat offender) and Penn State doesn't have the ... ummm ... anything; the program is the statue to the nth degree. So whether it will go away and whether it should go away (at least temporarily) are two different things. There will be games and there will be all the things that accompany games and there will be a lot of awkwardness/discomfort both during and in between those things that must be overlooked so as not to offend alumni and students who adore the late coach the program. Priorities and all that.

*The not-totally-insane justification would be the one at the end of my lede: The guy had 40-ish years of (presumably) laudable program-establishing success prior to the awfulness. I wouldn't really agree with that justification but would at least be able to recognize the logic that produced it.

**No political-policy support/dissent intended.

Something about Joe Paterno and outrage

Malcolm Gladwell wrote a piece for the New Yorker way back in the day (2003, to be specific) about the power of hindsight. The premise: Looking back at a horrifying thing and connecting the dots while knowing the outcome is not the same as being able to connect said dots in real time in advance of knowing the outcome.

A useful summary/example:

For example, on the eve of Richard Nixon's historic visit to China, the psychologist Baruch Fischhoff asked a group of people to estimate the probability of a series of possible outcomes of the trip. What were the chances that the trip would lead to permanent diplomatic relations between China and the United States? That Nixon would meet with the leader of China, Mao Tse-tung, at least once? That Nixon would call the trip a success? As it turned out, the trip was a diplomatic triumph, and Fischhoff then went back to the same people and asked them to recall what their estimates of the different outcomes of the visit had been. He found that the subjects now, overwhelmingly, "remembered" being more optimistic than they had actually been. If you originally thought that it was unlikely that Nixon would meet with Mao, afterward, when the press was full of accounts of Nixon's meeting with Mao, you'd "remember" that you had thought the chances of a meeting were pretty good. Fischhoff calls this phenomenon "creeping determinism"-- the sense that grows on us, in retrospect, that what has happened was actually inevitable--and the chief effect of creeping determinism, he points out, is that it turns unexpected events into expected events. As he writes, "The occurrence of an event increases its reconstructed probability and makes it less surprising than it would have been had the original probability been remembered."

That's a long paragraph with a relatively logical and easy-to-follow conclusion.

I'm gonna be honest here: I expected the Freeh report to represent a sort of creeping determinism regarding a general lack of oversight (or whatever you wanna call it) at Penn State that allowed The Stuff to continue for years and years and a disgusting number of years. What was actually produced was something much worse that basically established all the worst-case scenarios as facts (or at least an Occam's Razor type of these-are-the-only-reasonable-conclusions-possible facts).

The money graf:

"It is (reasonable) to conclude that, in order to avoid the consequences of bad publicity, the most powerful leaders at Penn State University – Messrs. Spanier, Schultz, Paterno and Curley – repeatedly concealed critical facts relating to Sandusky's child abuse from the authorities, the Board of Trustees, Penn State community, and the public at large. Although concern to treat the child abuser humanely was expressly stated, no such sentiments were ever expressed by them for Sandusky's victims."

Joe Paterno knew everything. He knew about 1998 and knew everything about the 2001 investigation and knew about the Second Mile weirdness. He knew and did literally nothing until something seemed inevitable, and then he did worse than nothing:

"Based on the evidence, the only known, intervening factor between the decision made on February 25, 2001 by Messrs. Spanier, Curley and Schulz to report the incident to the Department of Public Welfare, and then agreeing not to do so on February 27th, was Mr. Paterno's February 26th conversation with Mr. Curley," the report wrote.

That's so, so much worse than nothing. Consider this tweet from some insightful guy ...

@bubbaprog: Realize Paterno's nonchalant response to McQueary in 2001 is due to him having known Sandusky abused kids for three years.

... and this tweet from Stewart Mandel:

@sImandel : Penn State received word that the indictment was coming around Oct 27 last yr. On Oct. 29 Sandusky attended PSU game, in Nittany Lion Club

ARGH. Louis Freeh called it "an active agreement to conceal" at his presser Thursday and was totally right. Paterno knew everything and did nothing because either (a) he could not reconcile his image of Penn State football with the image that would be created via the public knowledge of the reality of Penn State football or (b) he could not allow the image of Joe Paterno to be an image that included (even if on the periphery) a child molester. There's some irony in that now.

This is from one of the many very good things that was written today by one of many people better at writing than I am (via MGoBlog):

If Penn State had not been posited as a Grand Experiment, it's possible that one of the four adult-type substances who could have put Sandusky's second career to a stop a decade before it did would have had more regard for the possibility children would be raped than for what people would think about them. It's too late for all of them, perpetrator and victims alike, now. But to me the lesson is to shut up about yourself and get on with it. It will help you not make terrible mistakes because you are trying to preserve what people think about you in the face of what you really are.

The "Grand Experiment" thing has been around forever but really only matters within the current context because of the thing Paterno wrote right before his death that got circulated everywhere on the interwebs a few days ago.

A particularly relevant portion:

"Let me say that again so I am not misunderstood: Regardless of anyone’s opinion of my actions or the actions of the handful of administration officials in this matter, the fact is nothing alleged is an indictment of football or evidence that the spectacular collections of accomplishments by dedicated student athletes should be in any way tarnished."

That was the important takeaway for Joe Paterno. Read that paragraph again. Head asplode.

He's right about the latter portion (the "dedicated student-athletes" had nothing to do with anything) but so disgustingly wrong about the first portion that ... I mean ... guh. Everything alleged was an indictment of football because everything that happened/didn't happen happened/didn't happen because of football. Go back up to the part about the "active agreement to conceal" and Paterno's reasons for said agreement, which were the image of the football program and the image of Paterno that was created entirely by his inescapable intertwinement with the football program.

This is where the NCAA thing becomes relevant. I don't know whether Penn State deserves the death penalty. I don't know because ... I mean ... I just don't know, man. There are totally coherent and logical arguments for the freakin' death penalty (those are pretty self-explanatory) and there are totally coherent and legal arguments for no NCAA penalties at all (everybody involved is dead, gone from the university and/or going to a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison); those arguments are both right. Whether one is more right is pretty much a matter of one's fundamental belief about fairness. I will say this: Think about the reaction at Penn State when JoePa (back when he was still JoePa and not just Joe Paterno) got fired and then think about the reaction at the highest levels of the institution when Jerry Sandusky should have been fired for raping children on campus (!!!); the culture/atmosphere/whatever you wanna call it at Penn State was/is skewed in a way that might not be fixable via the removal of five people. And the thing I said at the end of the previous paragraph about the Paterno/Penn State intertwinement works both ways: Penn State football is only Penn State football because of Joe Paterno. What's the appropriate punishment for that?

That's a rhetorical question the NCAA would like to answer, probably with something other than "the death penalty" unless the death-penalty subsection (currently reserved for repeat violators) is rewritten explicitly for this investigation; that seems unlikely but might not be that unlikely given the level of OUTRAGE.

My level of related outrage has gone up only marginally, but that's because I was realistic about Paterno's level of involvement/knowledge (and, by proxy, the Penn State administration's level of involvement/knowledge) back in November. This is what I wrote when Paterno died:

There's a sidebar on ESPN right now with the headline, "Legacy outweighs scandal." I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. First of all, how do you define a weight to what just happened when it's both so morally horrifying and so recent? And secondly, I don't think the two can be separated like that. The scandal is a ginormous part of his legacy now. Whether it's the most ginormous is a matter of debate, but it's definitely up there. The way I see it, the only way in which that headline is accurate is this one: Joe Paterno will always be the legendary Penn State coach (first and foremost) whose career ended because of his role in some unspeakable awfulness. The "Penn State coach" part has to come first because it's what Joe Paterno was, is and always will be. I literally cannot envision Joe Paterno doing something other than coaching Penn State or wearing something other than his typical sideline attire. He'll forever be attached to Penn State, which is obviously uncomfortable right now for some people at Penn State but isn't a choice. ...

His legacy is what it is, ending included.

The postscript: Everything that happened after 1998 happened only because it was allowed to happen. You can distribute the blame however you see fit but must acknowledge that allowing a child rapist to continue being a child rapist solely to avoid personal notoriety is a disgusting thing, and I use "disgusting" as my adjective of choice only because I can't think of anything else more appropriate to summarize all the awfulness that happened (or didn't happen) over the past 14 years.

Catching up howls at the moon for some reason

Storm Klein dismissed ... probably: Ohio State booted spectacularly named linebacker Storm Klein the other day after he was arrested and charged with assault and domestic violence. Details:

According to Columbus police, Klein "violently and purposefully" grabbed an ex-girlfriend – the mother of his child – by the arms and threw her against his apartment door during an argument, resulting in an abrasion and swelling on her forehead and abrasions on both forearms.

Klein was held overnight without bail on Friday, and ordered at his arraignment on Saturday morning to stay away from the woman (as well as alcohol, drugs and firearms) per his bond conditions.

Yeeeaaaaaah that sounds pretty bad. There's apparently a little more to the story, though; Klein claims the woman refused to leave his apartment (the "it was all her fault" defense works every time) and has a hearing later this month at which he'll be represented by attorney Larry James, who's making lots of confident remarks reminiscent of his defense of Terrelle Pryor (hahahahaha).

That might be relevant since Urban Meyer explicitly said in his press release that the dismissal will become something other than a dismissal in the event of a legal resolution:

"It has been made very clear that this type of charge will result in dismissal. If there are any changes in the charges, we will re-evaluate his status."

Whether Klein would be relevant in the event of a return is less explicit. He started 10 games last year as a junior and had 45 tackles but was generally regarded as a starting-by-default starter, and he lost his job in spring ball to Curtis Grant. Also complicating matters is the existence of 2011 uber-recruit Etienne Sabino, who would ideally be on the field somewhere on a somewhat-regular basis.

Translation: Klein was unlikely to be more than a part-time player this year regardless of legal standing.

The Robert Nkemdiche ultimatum-type thing: So ... this happened:

"I am waiting on Clemson to offer (teammate Ryan Carter)," Robert Nkemdiche told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "When that happens, it's locked ... it's a done deal ... it's over."

Nkemdiche "committed" to Clemson not even two weeks ago. Making said commitment dependent on an offer for a borderline high school teammate who has offers from only a handful of mid-major-ish schools was either a reasonable leverage move in a slanted system or the worst thing that has ever been done. I tend to lean slightly toward the latter; a commitment isn't a commitment if there are conditions that must be met in order to make it "a done deal," and there's a Spam-lubricated slope there related to big-time recruits demanding an offer for Teammate X and/or Friend Y since that could become demanding playing time or whatever else a couple years from now. I mean, if a guy makes it clear from the beginning that he wants to go to school with so-and-so, that's his decision, but presenting a public quid pro quo to a school that's already accepted your commitment just makes things really awkward if that guy isn't (a) worthy of a scholarship to the relevant school or (b) at a position of need.

FYI, Clemson already has four of Nkemdiche's teammates in its 2013 class; one more means a full 25 percent of the class will be let's-ride-the-big-guy's-coattails recruits. It seems to me that there's a value judgment to be made: How many scholarships is the No. 1 dude in the country actually worth?

As for Nkemdiche, he removed some of the awkwardness Sunday when he told the New York Times that he'll honor his commitment regardless of what happens with Carter:

"Of course I would want to play with him,” Nkemdiche said of Carter. “But if it doesn’t work out, I’ll still go to Clemson. ...

"I didn’t give Coach Swinney an ultimatum about anything,” Nkemdiche said. “I hope he doesn’t feel obligated to offer anybody a scholarship because of my commitment."

Fair enough.

You're still around? Montel Harris is probably (pending a knee that's made of paper mache) one of the top 10 running backs in the country and has reappeared at Temple after briefly dropping off the face of the Earth:

Former Boston College running back Montel Harris has transferred to Temple and is eligible to play this season. He arrived on campus Sunday and is enrolled in summer classes, which began Monday.

Interesting tidbit: Harris is the NCAA's active rushing leader with 3,375 career yards. The guy has legit ability. He also has played less than one full game since 2010; he hurt his knee at the end of the '10 season, blew it out in the first game last year and got a medical redshirt, hurt it again this spring and then got kicked off the team at Boston College in May because of repeated rules violations (whether those were of the weedy variety or related to a dispute over full-contact practices is a matter of debate). Word on the interwebs is that he was interested in Temple -- which is back in the Big East this year, according to the Big East -- because of the recent hiring of former BC assistant Ryan Day as offensive coordinator.

What makes this news particularly interesting (IMO) is that Harris will be eligible immediately because he's already gotten his degree. That's pretty convenient since Bernard Piece left early for the draft; the hilariously tiny Matt Brown has gotten pretty regular carries the last two years and has done pretty well for himself in the MAC but is no Montel Harris (at least not a healthy Montel Harris).

The Big East is slightly tougher since it had five of the top 20 rush defenses in the country last year, although how much of that was quality rush defense and how much of it was generally inept rush offense is hard to quantify. Regardless, Temple -- which finished seventh nationally in rushing yards per game last year -- should be able to move the ball on the ground pretty regularly.

Somebody actually gets a waiver: Philip Sims had his hardship waiver approved by the NCAA on Wednesday and will be eligible to play at Virginia immediately. I'm gonna be lazy here and Ctrl+C/Ctrl+P a paragraph from the thing I wrote when Sims left Alabama a couple months ago:

What happens next is hard to say given the presence of Michael Rocco, the returning starter who's of debatable quality (awful for the first half of the year, pretty good for the second half) and presumably has a much lower ceiling.

FYI, Rocco's also a sophomore, so regardless of whether or not Sims gets a hardship waiver for this year, they'll be in the same class going forward.

Sims was a big-time recruit (obviously since he went to Alabama) a couple years ago and played in eight games last year as the mop-up guy; he went 18 for 28 with no touchdowns and two picks while A.J. McCarron pretty well took hold of the starting job by, ya know, winning a national title. He might still be really good; there's just no meaningful data either way.

As for Virginia, they won't go 9-3 again this year but appear to be approaching consistent competitiveness in the ACC. Getting Sims some meaningful playing time/snaps this year would make sense in anticipation of upperclass years that might be of national relevance.

What's the problem, officer? Greg Reid channeled his inner Isaiah Crowell late Tuesday night and got himself arrested and hit with an amusing combination of charges:

Greggory Lamar Reid, Jr., age 21, from Tallahassee, FL was arrested Tuesday night in Lowndes County by the Georgia State Patrol during a traffic stop at the intersection of Georgia Highway 376 and Georgia Highway 7. A trooper stopped his 2000 Mercury Grand Marquis for window tint and seat belt violations around 8:45 p.m.

During an inventory of the vehicle, a suspected marijuana joint was located in a cup holder.

He was arrested and taken to the Lowndes County Jail. Mr. Reid is charged with possession of marijuana (less than an ounce), driving while license is suspended or revoked and seat belt violation.

Nice. Hilarious background info: Reid has been cited for seatbelt violations five times (!!!!!) in the last two years. I'm pretty sure that's impossible.

Reid is a pretty good corner and an utterly awesome return man; he's averaged 12.55 yards per return with three touchdowns in his career. I'm not expecting significant punishment for a couple misdemeanor charges -- not having a concealed/altered weapon in a school zone makes him not Isaiah Crowell -- but would probably advise him to start wearing his seatbelt and stop smoking weed while driving.

Speaking of Isaiah Crowell: The running back class of 2011 (the guys who showed up on campus, like, 11 months ago) is in pretty good shape. Via Matt Hinton:

Beware, Malcolm Brown (or beware Malcolm Brown, no comma).

This probably would have worked: An open-records request and a corresponding interview with Sun Belt commissioner Karl Benson revealed the following hilarity:

The same presentation included several maps of potential conference mergers -- one of which was titled “Makes Too Much Sense” and proposed a 33-school superconference combining the Sun Belt, C-USA, WAC and Mountain West Conference.

“I had very quiet inquiries with (Mountain West commissioner) Craig Thompson and (C-USA commissioner) Britton Banowsky to see if, ‘Hey, would you be interested?’” Benson said. “But that was dismissed quickly. No interest."

No? Karl Benson gets all of the points for creativity and loses all of the points for ridiculousness. I actually kinda wish this would've happened if for no other reason than Hawaii and Florida International nominally being in the same conference.

A recognizable name?!? The game that used to be the Insight Bowl is now the Valley of Sun Bowl. There's been no official release about this, but a Google search turns up an option to buy tickets to the "2012 Valley of the Sun Bowl" on the Fiesta Bowl's official site and an FBA release that includes the "Valley of the Sun Bowl" on this year's list of approved bowls.

A couple observations: (a) yay it's a game with a non-sponsor-y, geographically meaningful name and (b) that probably means it is lacking financial support and thus will cease to exist by 2015. This would only be problematic on a personal level since it'd mean one fewer local (and Big Ten-affiliated) bowl within 45 minutes of my house.

Boo for rivalry hiatuses: Utah and BYU won't be playing in 2014 (or '15) for the first time since 1946. They will play again in 2016 but have nothing scheduled after that; Utah doesn't seem particularly interested in continuing things now that there's a Pac-12 schedule to deal with and nah nah nah nah poo poo.

On the schedule to replace BYU: Michigan, which is gonna have some weird nonconference schedules (basically a bunch of random Pac-12 opponents leading up to that whole Big Ten-Pac-12 scheduling thingy) in the relatively near future and doesn't play Notre Dame in 2018 or 2019. The same two-year gap was written into the contract in 2000 and 2001, BTW; that does provide some precedence but doesn't make it any less lame.

I hate you: Stop it. Stop it right now.

Mountain West Conference commissioner Craig Thompson sees positives in the recently announced four-team college football playoff, but said Tuesday he believes it will expand to eight teams sooner rather than later.

"I know we're saying four teams for 12 years," Thompson said. "But I don't see it as a four-team playoff for 12 years. I just don't see it. If there is success with four, I think we will go to what is most ideal, which is eight. That would double the access points."

The problem isn't so much that eight teams would be awful but that immediately expanding to eight would mean immediately taking a step toward 12/16/24/EVERYBODY, which would be unquestionably worse than what we had before. DO NOT WANT.

I'm also not taking Craig Thompson too seriously since the commissioner of the Mountain West has an obvious vested interest in expanding access as much as possible. Pro tip: Making it sound inevitable does not make it any more desirable (except to the stupid people who comprise 98 percent of the population).

Blair Holliday is in a coma: What the headline says:

Duke wide receiver Blair Holliday is in critical but stable condition after suffering head injuries in a jet-ski accident at Lake Tillery in central North Carolina on Wednesday.

According to Art Chase, Duke’s media relations director for football, Holliday collided with teammate and fellow wide receiver Jamison Crowder, who was not treated for injuries. Holliday was airlifted to the University of North Carolina Trauma Center where he remained Thursday night. Both players were riding jet skis.

Holliday was listed in critical condition in Duke’s initial news release Thursday afternoon, but was upgraded to critical but stable.

Yikes. He's since improved to the point that he has blinked; that's about all the info that's been provided thus far by his family (understandably). FYI, Holliday's a sophomore who had three catches last year and was listed as a starter on Duke's spring depth chart.

I have no idea what's going on here: I seriously have no idea what's going on here, what this is, why it exists or where it came from:

Explain, plz.

The playoff gaps: They're getting filled in

The past couple weeks have been pretty slow outside of a steady stream of tweets (mostly) and buried stories (a few) about playoff details that hadn't been finalized when the original announcement was made. Since I have nothing better to do and have a crapload of tabs open in my browser with various things I've been wanting to mention, I'm gonna go ahead and compile them in one place.

Commence data dump about things that will be happening as of 2014.

A name: It "probably" has one. According to incoming Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, the Bowl Championship Series will cease to exist in favor of ... wait for it ... the National Championship Series. Settle down, creative monkeys.

The BCS NCS bowls: There will be six. Two of them will host the semifinals (on a rotating basis, obviously) and the other four will, um, not. As for the participating bowls, the Rose Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Cotton Bowl (more on that momentarily) and the Orange Bowl will unquestionably be a part of the rotation since they have or will have tie-in deals with all the relevant conferences; that leaves two spots, with the Fiesta almost definitely taking one of those and the Chick-Fil-A probably getting the other since it's been trying to get into the BCS forever and offers (a) a relatively big-money payout and (b) another Southeast-ish location.

As for the Cotton Bowl, word on the interwebs is that it will alternate Champions Bowl hosting duties with the Sugar Bowl; basically, whichever one isn't hosting a semifinal game that year will host that Champions Bowl. That would give both bowls an SEC/Big 12 tie-in and thus a guaranteed spot in the rotation (which Jerry Jones will just buy anyway if the aforementioned deal falls through).

The rotation: It might not be a true rotation since that would be simple and logical. The Rose Bowl and Champions Bowl are both being stupid and trying to get out of hosting a semifinal every four years because of (a) the Rose Bowl's absurd insistence on a Big Ten-Pac 12 game at the expense of everything else, including relevance, and (b) the determination by the SEC and Big 12 that the Champions Bowl will be more valuable -- in terms of TV revenue -- as their property featuring their teams than it will as a semifinal game featuring two random teams with no affiliation. I'm skeptical of that. I'm also not clear exactly how two games rotate between six sites when two of the six sites don't want to be regular hosts; maybe they each get a game every four years instead of every three (if that's even possible mathematically)? That'd be a pretty sweet deal for the other four bowls, especially the Chick-Fil-A one since that isn't even a major bowl right now but might be hosting a national semifinal two out of every five years starting in 2014.

The rankings: They will matter. How much they will matter is not entirely clear. According to Bill Hancock, BCS/NCS bowl selection will be based strictly on rankings, which means the top 12 teams in whatever formula/system is in place will be the teams eligible for the above-named bowls ... maybe. According to the Rose Bowl/Champions Bowl/Orange Bowl contractual arrangements, a conference that loses its champion to the playoff can assign a replacement regardless of ranking. This is an SI.com breakdown of what a hypothetical 2011 playoff would've looked like:

• Dec. 31, 1 p.m. Chick-fil-A: No. 11 Clemson (10-3) vs. No. 13 Baylor (9-3)
• Dec. 31, 4:30 p.m. Cotton: No. 9 South Carolina (10-2) vs. No. 7 Boise State (11-1)
• Dec. 31, 8 p.m. Fiesta: No. 2 Oklahoma State (11-1) vs. No. 3 Alabama (11-1)
• Jan. 1, 1 p.m. Sugar: No. 6 Arkansas (10-2) vs. No. 7 Kansas State (10-2)
• Jan. 1, 5 p.m. Rose: No. 5 Stanford (11-1) vs. No. 8 Wisconsin (11-2)
• Jan. 1, 8:30 p.m. Orange: No. 1 LSU (13-0) vs. No. 4 Oregon (10-2)

Obviously, it's impossible to say exactly how the committee's rankings would have differed from the BCS standings, but I elevated Oklahoma State (from No. 3 to No. 2), Oregon (No. 5 to 4), Wisconsin (No. 10 to No. 8) and Clemson (No. 15 to No. 11) for their conference championships and/or head-to-head wins over similarly ranked foes and downgraded Boise State (from No. 7 to No. 10) for poor strength of schedule. We also don't know if there would be an at-large selection order or a teams-per conference limit (the SEC placed four in this lineup).

Please note Baylor's presence and ranking; that's not a top-12 team, obviously. What that means -- if accurate -- is that the whole AQ/non-AQ thing won't entirely cease to exist. The question is whether there will be any overriding eligibility requirements so that a hypothetical (and by "hypothetical" I mean "2011") Boise State team that goes 11-1 and is ranked seventh or eighth or whatever won't get stuck in the Las Vegas Bowl playing a craptacular Arizona State team so a not-quite-as-craptacular-but-still-pretty-meh Baylor team can have a guaranteed spot just because it's a member of the Big 12. I have to imagine there will be since the alternative allows for the possibility of four contractually mandated selections (if the four playoff teams are from four different major conferences), any/all of which could be from outside the top 12, and thus only three total at-large spots for qualifying teams.

BTW, there are no circumvent-the-rankings exceptions for Notre Dame.

The committee: It probably will be constructed similarly to the NCAA tournament committee, which is comprised of totally unbiased athletic directors and conference presidents. This is a (really long and edited-for-clarity) tweet from Joe Schad:

Possible Football Selection Committeee members could include members of the current BCS AD Advisory Group:

Members: Jeremy Foley (UF), Dan Radakovich (GT), Barry Alvarez (Wisconsin), Joe Castiglione (OU), Pat Haden (USC), Tom Jurich (Louisville), McKinley Boston (NMS), Rick Greenspan (Rice), Dean Lee (ASU), Jim Livengood (UNLV), Mike O'Brien (Toledo)

I don't see how this solves the problems inherent in the coaches poll; the biases and politicking will be an issue unless/until the selection committee is filled with people who aren't directly associated with the schools and conferences involved. I'd prefer national media members from a variety of outlets and areas but won't be getting that no matter how many times I write it. I haven't yet seen an estimate of how many people will be on the committee; for reference, the NCAA tournament committee has 10 members.

As for its specific tasks, there's some ambiguity that exists between the contractual tie-ins and this note from the Big Ten Network:

The selection committee will also play a part in creating matchups for the games at the four sites that do not hold a semifinal in a given year.

I don't think that's entirely accurate. Based on the contracts, the Rose Bowl and Champions Bowl are guaranteed to be filled by their conference affiliates in their non-semifinal years; that means only the two other non-semifinal bowls will have any at-large openings and thus any matchup flexibility. Not that it matters much anyway; to me, bracket flexibility (as in the playoff bracket) is the real benefit of a selection committee.

The schedule: It will be glorious for those of us who inherently associate New Year's-related holidays with football engorgement. There will be three games on December 31, including one semifinal in primetime, and three games on January 1, including the other semifinal in primetime. The Rose Bowl undoubtedly will be the New Year's Day late-afternoon game from now until the end of time (when it's not a semifinal, anyway); the Orange Bowl (locked in via contract) and Champions Bowl (allegedly) will be the other games that day, which leaves the other three -- including the Fiesta -- for New Year's Eve. That gives you a pretty good idea of how the semifinals will rotate since there'll be one each day.

I cannot underestimate the awesomeness of this takeover. Last year was inexplicably awful because New Year's Day fell on a Sunday and thus was ceded to the NFL, which resulted in me arising from a slumber and yelling profanities at the TV when I realized that there were not seven Big Ten-affiliated bowls to flip between while consuming appalling amounts of food. THIS MUST NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.

And this is typically great insight from Matt Hinton:

Aside from USC's insurgent victory in the 2004 Rose Bowl, the annual Jan. 1 smorgasbord hasn't featured a game with any sort of national championship implications – insurgent or otherwise – since 1998, when the newly formed BCS began spreading the major bowls thin across the first week of January. Since the addition of the fifth big-money bowl, the BCS Championship Game, in 2006-07, the winner-take-all, 1 vs. 2 showdown for the title has come at least days into the new year, and has naturally tended to blot out the sun for everything else that happens between that date and the end of the regular season. The result has been increasingly pathetic ratings across the board, culminating last year in record lows for both the title game and the Series as a whole.

In summary: Everybody wins.

Conference calls: There will be many, and they will decide all the other things related to the selection committee's formulation and the new rankings and revenue distribution and blah blah blah. So expect another one of these (probably with fewer categories) at some point in the relatively near future.

Isaiah Crowell is decisive if nothing else

Isaiah Crowell just completed the fastest dismissal/transfer/enrollment process in the history of ever:

Former Georgia running back Isaiah Crowell has decided to transfer to Alabama State, Hornets coach Reggie Barlow said Thursday.

"We got an opportunity to recruit Isaiah, and I imagine a lot of other teams were recruiting him as well," Barlow said. "But his family, they've made a decision that they are going to come to Alabama State University. He has been admitted into the university. He's registered for class and he will be starting class on Monday."

Alabama State is a Football Championship Subdivision-level program, so Crowell will be eligible to play this season instead of sitting out the required year if he had transferred to another Football Bowl Subdivision school.

OK then. I was pretty close when I "penciled him in as North Alabama's next salvation project," yes? Rhetorical answer: yes.

Whether he actually ends up playing this fall isn't a matter of eligibility but is a matter of, like, not being incarcerated; he's facing three felony charges and is gonna have some negotiatin' to do if he wants to get out of that with just probation/community service/whatever. A related and super-convenient update from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Law Offices of Steve Sadow:

Crowell has retained high-profile Atlanta criminal defense attorney Steve Sadow to represent him on weapons charges.

Reached by telephone Thursday, Sadow said he will be representing Crowell “pro bono,” which means he won’t be charging for his services. Sadow has represented such high-profile clients as the rapper T.I., and defended former Georgia basketball player Tony Cole on a rape charge, which was eventually dismissed.

Sadow said he reached out to Crowell via social media after reading reports of his arrest and seeing “some serious problems with the search” of Crowell’s vehicle that resulted in his arrest.

I bet. I'm just gonna assume Sadow looks like this (please don't correct me if this is wildly incorrect, which it is):

Anyway, assuming that all gets worked out, Crowell should destroy the FCS (pending Alabama State having a respectable offensive line and whatnot, which seems likely for a team that went 8-2 against the rest of the FCS last year). The guy wasn't a bust from a talent standpoint; he was the top-ranked running back in the country coming out of high school, started at Georgia as a true freshman and put up 91 yards a game and five touchdowns in his nine full games amid various team-rules-related shenanigans.

He's good. He'll probably end up playing in the NFL if he stops doing stupid things. It's just unfortunate that nobody outside of Whereversville, Alabama, will get to see him in the interim.

Catching up has a ginormous pile of money

Boise makes it official: Some conference-affiliation ambiguity was cleared up Saturday night when Boise officially withdrew from the Mountain West about three hours before a deadline to do so without incurring a $5 million withdrawal penalty. Translation: Boise will be a member of the Big East starting in 2013.

The reason for said ambiguity: Boise's nonrevenue sports, which were adrift in the wind pending the WAC's extinction. My understanding was that the Big West had offered a home for those sports, just as it did for San Diego State; that apparently wasn't a for-sure offer but a "why don't you apply and see what happens" offer. The Big West will be comprised entirely of California schools and Hawaii, and some of the California schools weren't super thrilled about the idea of adding a lengthy trip to Boise. It sounds like that'll get resolved, though:

The school announced Sunday that it was in ongoing discussions with the Big West to make that conference the home for the majority of its other sports. The Big West will hold a meeting of its presidents before the upcoming academic year to make a decision on Boise State's membership in the conference beginning July 1, 2013.

A Big East source told ESPN.com that Boise State will receive financial help to pay the Big West for travel costs. San Diego State has been lobbying Big West schools to invite Boise State, as well, since the Aztecs need and want a Western partner for their football presence in the Big East.

It should be noted that the Big East was so desperate to get Boise that it agreed to indirectly pay the Big West for its members' nonrevenue-sports travel costs to get to Idaho. Whatever. I guess getting Boise was pretty much a necessity in order to maintain the illusion of being a major-ish conference. And as for Boise, the alternative was sticking it out in the Mountain West and playing a blah schedule that would've made getting in the playoffs about as likely as getting in the BCS championship game in the current system.

So ... as of 2015, the Big East will be complete and consist of the following football programs: Boise State, San Diego State, Temple, Memphis, Central Florida, Houston, SMU, Rutgers, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Louisville, South Florida and Navy. Woo.

The Orange Bowl really wants to be relevant: The ACC champion will play in the Orange Bowl from now until a long time from now:

The Discover Orange Bowl will be played on New Year's Day at 1 p.m. ET and annually feature a team from the Atlantic Coast Conference beginning after 2014, results of a 12-year agreement announced Tuesday by the ACC and the bowl's committee.

The game will feature the champion of the ACC, unless that team is chosen to play in the newly announced four-team playoffs. In that case, a replacement team from the ACC would play in the Orange Bowl. The ACC team playing in the Orange Bowl is likely to face a highly seeded at-large team in the annual game, sources told ESPN's Joe Schad.

The announcement wasn't at all surprising but was still noteworthy since there was some uncertainty about whether the Orange Bowl would be one of the bowls included in the future six-bowl BCS rotation. Interestingly, the ACC took advantage of that uncertainty by taking over the game's TV rights ...

Sources told Schad that the ACC will negotiate and sell the Orange Bowl TV rights and plans to keep at least 50 percent of the revenue. Whatever network gets the Orange Bowl will get to broadcast it, even when it's a semifinal.

... although I'm a little unclear as to exactly how that works within the overall postseason-rights package. Regardless, the Orange Bowl previously had those rights and now doesn't, which means the bowl committee is about to get squeezed out of a big chunk of revenue (last year's payout to the ACC was about $22 million). That continues a trend started by the Big 12 and SEC via the Champions Bowl, which will be run by the conferences rather than a bowl committee and thus eliminate the typical ticket guarantees and hotel requirements and various other needless expenses that usually make a bowl trip a maybe-break-even-if-you're-lucky venture. This probably goes without saying, but anything that removes power/money from the bowl-committee leeches and redistributes it to the schools/conferences is a good thing (especially in the case of the somewhat-tenuously-held-together ACC).

Also of note: The ACC will reportedly be playing an at-large team rather than a probably uninspiring Big East champ, as has been the case since 1998. I'm gonna assume that "at-large team" is the approved phrasing for "Notre Dame," which hasn't finished in the top 10 since about 1836 but still draws eyeballs and, most importantly, doesn't have a tie-in deal with any of the bowls that will definitely be a part of the New Postseason Order. All things considered, just having the option to take a qualified Notre Dame team is probably worth more in TV negotiations than any deal that could've been put together for a second- or third-place team from the SEC/Big Ten/Big 12/Pac-12.

No word yet on exactly what happens with the Big East champ; expect a deal with one of the better bowls that ends up getting left out of the BCS rotation (maybe the Liberty Bowl or whatever the Champs Sports Bowl is becoming).

So much money: The playoff thing will produce money. A lot of it. Like a ridiculous, incomprehensible amount of it.

This is from The Sporting News:

A new four-team, three-game playoff could be sold to television for as much as $5 billion over a 10-year deal, a BCS source close to the process told Sporting News.

The 2011 BCS contract paid out $174 million, and the newly restructured postseason would nearly triple that number.

Great googly moogly. Exactly how that gets split up is yet to be determined; the one certainty is that it'll be disproportionately distributed to the five power conferences before everybody else gets a split of the leftovers.

CBS Sports has a piece on an actual proposal featuring a distribution model based on each conference's number of top-25 finishes in the BCS era (that's based on current conference alignment, obviously). The breakdown:

1. SEC 1,054
2. Big Ten 860
3. Big 12 816
4. ACC 673
5. Pac-12 671
6. Big East 240
7. Notre Dame 73
8. C-USA 49
9. MWC 48
10. BYU 45
11. MAC 21
T12. Sun Belt 0
T12. WAC 0

A couple observations: (a) lol at the bottom of that list and (b) there's obviously a massive chasm on either side of the Big East. As for what that means:

One unknown isn't whether the Big East will get an equal share as the other AQ conferences -- the Big East won't -- but rather will the Big East get the same share of the other former non-AQ conferences, or somewhere in the middle between the former-AQ and non-AQ leagues

"It's possible the 'Big Five' get treated in one manner, the Big East in another manner, and the remaining conferences in another manner," a commissioner said.

Makes sense.

BTW, the above-cited list is a data-fied encapsulation of the distribution of on-field power in the FBS. Consider this: The meh future version of the Big East owns almost twice as many top-25 finishes in the BCS era as Conference USA, the Mountain West, the MAC, the Sun Belt and the WAC combined. That's ... like ... wow/

That must have been a for-real cut: Jordan Hall has a serious owie:

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Jordan Hall, No. 1 on Ohio State's depth chart at running back, will be out for about 10 weeks after undergoing surgery on Friday for a cut on the bottom of his right foot.

Hall, with 817 career rushing yards, is a senior who first-year coach Urban Meyer had singled out as one of the team's top potential playmakers.

He was walking in grass outside his residence in Columbus when he cut his foot.

FYI, Columbus grass is made of beer-bottle shards and used syringes and whatnot.

Hall is/was supposed to be the starter with Boom Herron gone and the other options on the roster being bigger guys who aren't particularly well suited to being the feature back in that offense, which makes this update all the more problematic:

Ohio State believes the foot injury suffered by running back Jordan Hall is "significant" and the best-case scenario is he will return by Week 3, a source told ESPN's Joe Schad.

The Buckeyes are prepared for him to take a medical redshirt if necessary, the source said.

I see. A relatively brief absence would definitely be manageable; Ohio State opens with an underwhelming nonconference schedule that features Miami (Ohio), Central Florida, Cal and UAB. The first two games after that: at Michigan State and home against Nebraska.

If it's a long-term thing, the running game will suffer -- at least to some extent -- because of a general lack of guys with Hall's skill set. Junior Carlos Hyde (106 carries last year) and redshirt sophomore Rod Smith (29 carries) both have some experience but are also 230-plus pounds, and incoming freshmen Warren Ball and Brionte Dunn are both five-stars but without the experience and with the 200-plus-pound frames. Percy Harvin they are not.

It's obviously possible to run a zone-read-type offense with the running back as the power guy and the quarterback as the edge threat (think Michigan the last two years), but Meyer's preference in the past has typically been the opposite, so it'll be interesting to see exactly how he deploys the Braxton Miller/power backs combination.

We still don’t know ye (and might never know ye): Tom Savage was really good as a freshman at Rutgers a couple years ago. He also was kinda crappy at the start of his sophomore year and lost his starting job, at which point he became a vagabond. He transferred to Arizona, sat out last year and then decided he wanted to be closer to home and left school. He tried to transfer back to Rutgers but was turned away after he had a hardship waiver denied by the NCAA, meaning he'll have to sit out next season because of a second transfer, and is now enrolled at Pitt, according to ESPN and the Twitters:

"Moving to Pittsburgh tomorrow... Nervous and excited... next chapter in my life," Savage wrote Saturday on Twitter.

Savage was a freshman All-American after being a legit four-star recruit who picked Rutgers (over Michigan, Penn State, etc.) back when it wasn't cool to pick Rutgers; he has the talent to play pretty much anywhere. Default starter Tino Sunseri will be a senior this year and thus vacating the Pitt starting job next year, which would seem to make Savage the obvious replacement if not for the existence of (relatively) highly touted incoming freshman Chad Voytik and this weirdness:

The Big East has a rule in place that may keep Savage from playing for Pitt in 2013. Conference rules state that once a player has signed and competed at one league school, as Savage did at Rutgers, he cannot compete at another league institution. Pitt has filed a lawsuit to get out of the Big East to join the ACC in time for the 2013 season. If that does not happen and Pitt is stuck in the Big East for 2013, Savage would not be eligible to play.

That would be ... umm ... inconvenient. Pitt has every intention of being in the ACC next year and probably will be, but the possibility exists that Savage will never play another game. He's apparently not that concerned since he has other priorities, the specifics of which haven't ever been made public:

"If I had to make the decision again (to leave Arizona), I’d make the same decision," Savage told the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger in January. "It’s my family. Football is just a game. I had to step up and be a man and be there for my family and help out. It’s a tough decision (by the NCAA), but it’s not the end-all, be-all right now."

Good for him, I guess.

Shayne Skov is still at Stanford: What the headline says:

STANFORD, Calif. -- Linebacker Shayne Skov has been reinstated to the Stanford football team and will serve a one-game suspension this season after he was arrested and jailed earlier this year for driving under the influence.

Skov was nominally suspended after the aforementioned arrest, which was significant because he was unquestionably one of Stanford's better returning players; he actually led the team with 84 tackles and 7.5 sacks two years ago and was an All-Pac-10 first-team pick, then tore his ACL early last season and sat out the rest of the year. He's supposedly healthy now and will be back for all the meaningful games this year (the opener is against San Jose State, which hahaha).

BTW, Stanford's linebacking corps should be pretty good between Skov on the inside and Chase Thomas (a first-team All-Pac-12 guy last year) and Trent Murphy on the outside. So that's nice.

Zeke Pike has some issues: It apparently is possible to get arrested/cited for public intoxication in Alabama:

Auburn freshman quarterback Zeke Pike was arrested for public intoxication in Lee County on Saturday night and later released on a $300 bond, according to multiple reports.

Derp. Pike was a big-time QB recruit whose offer list started going backwards when he committed and started doing stupid things: He got kicked out of a seven-on-seven camp for allegedly throwing the ball at an official, got into a bunch of stupid Twitter wars with Alabama fans, got suspended for his senior-year season opener as punishment for an ejection in the previous year's playoffs, then got suspended for his team's playoff loss for undisclosed reasons (woo maturity!). He then enrolled early at Auburn and looked OK in spring but came out of it third on the depth chart behind presumptive starter Kiehl Frazier, a sophomore, and occasional 2011 starter Clint Moseley, a redshirt junior.

Whatever punishment he gets will be irrelevant in the short term (he'll probably redshirt barring a quarterback disaster reminiscent of last year's) but potentially problematic in the long term; Pike is the best passer on the roster in an offense that's about to become much more pro-style-ish under Scot Loeffler, and even Auburn can handle only so much malfeasance. They'd probably prefer it if he'd stop getting suspended and stuff.

More on drunk quarterbacks: Tommy Rees has been cleared to return to practice, according to Brian Kelly, although his legal status won't be resolved until a hearing on July 17. A let's-all-laugh recap of the charges:

Notre Dame quarterback Tommy Rees has been charged with four misdemeanors after allegedly raising his knee and knocking the wind out of a police officer following an off-campus house party early Thursday.

The St. Joseph County Prosecutor's Office says the 19-year-old Rees was charged with one count of battery, two counts of resisting law enforcement and one count of illegal consumption of alcohol by a minor.

Rees was among about five people who jumped a backyard fence and ran after officers arrived to break up a loud party several blocks from campus about 12:30 a.m. following the last day of Notre Dame's spring semester classes, Trent said.

When an officer caught up with Rees, the 19-year-old raised his knee into the officer and they both fell down, Trent said. Rees continued to resist, so the officer pepper-sprayed the quarterback so officers could handcuff him, Trent said.

Good times.

I still have no idea what to make of Notre Dame's quarterback situation but now have to account for Rees as part of said situation, which wasn't a certainty until a few days ago. I'm skeptical that he beats out Everett Golson since I don't think Kelly wants him to beat out Everett Golson, but he'll probably end up getting some playing time after Golson starts and does a bunch of infuriating, freshman-y things.

ALL UR SEC FLAMEOUTS ARE BELONG TO US: Remember David Oku? He was supposedly awesome when he committed to Tennessee after some hilarious and memorable recruiting indecisiveness but did nothing other than return kicks for a couple years and is now headed to Arkansas State:

JONESBORO, Ark. -- Former Tennessee tailback David Oku has signed with Arkansas State. ASU coach Gus Malzahn announced the signing of the former standout from Midwest City, Okla., on Wednesday.

Sports information director Jerry Scott said Oku will have two years of eligibility remaining and can play immediately because he sat out the 2011 season.

I would like to point out that I once wrote this about Oku and Bryce Brown when they both committed to Tennessee despite having seemingly little interest in committing to Tennessee:

What are the odds one of these guys transfers by his junior year? 99 percent?

BOOM NOSTRADAMUS'D.

Anyway, Oku is a ridonkulously shifty guy who might be able to do some damage in the Sun Belt despite getting buried at Tennessee ... and he might not even be the starter this year since Michael Dyer is already on the roster after putting up 1,200 yards at Auburn last year and has applied for a waiver so he won't have to sit out a season (the NCAA hasn't yet ruled on it). Crazy statement: Arkansas State might have the best backfield in the SEC. Both guys have two years of eligibility left; the question is whether those two years will be spent together or if there'll be one year with just Oku (in 2012) and one year with just Dyer (in 2014) sandwiching one together. I'm guessing the offense will be OK either way since (a) Gus Malzahn seems to be decent at this coaching/coordinating thing and (b) quarterback Ryan Aplin is the reigning Sun Belt Player of the Year after putting up some ginormous numbers in an offense that didn't have a running back worthy of 10 carries a game.

In summary, it will be a traveshamockery if this team doesn't win its crappy conference.

UPDATE: Dyer's waiver request was denied Monday. Good timing.

Marquise Goodwin WOW: Marquise Goodwin is apparently quite good at jumping long distances:

Texas wide receiver Marquise Goodwin has qualified for the Olympics and will compete in the long jump for the U.S. Olympic track and field team.

Goodwin set a personal best with a jump of 8.33 meters at the Olympic trials. That's 27 feet and 4.25 inches for those of us not on the metric system.

Dude ... like ... yeah. That's freakin' impressive, especially for a guy who's a legit football player (30-plus catches in each of his first three years) and not just a track guy playing football.

I really have nothing else to say here but would like to reiterate that Texas has a 5-foot-9 receiver who can jump into the end zone from just beyond the 9-yard line. Amazing.

Woo America

Because nothing says "U.S.A., No. 1" like Iowa winning the Orange Bowl.


Actual content coming tomorrow (for real this time). Today: laziness and fireworks. It's what America does.