Boycott the BCS Advertisers: Our Only Shot at Ever Ending the BCS
Here’s one of my 2009 New Year’s Resolutions a couple of weeks early: I hereby resolve not to consume the products of any company that advertises during the BCS Games for the entire month of January....
Auburn Hires Gene Chizik; Big 12, SEC Laugh Together
Later today Auburn will introduce Iowa State coach Gene Chizik as their replacement for Tommy Tuberville. Yep, the same Gene Chizik who went 5-19 in two seasons at Iowa State....
USC Wins Hypothetical Playoff According To Vegas Odds
Leave it to Las Vegas to sate all our needs. Even those we didn't know we had before. (I'm looking at you midget escort service.) Everyone knows that the idea of a playoff is so awfully complicated that it would require a Manhattan Project-level commitment before anything could happen. Or, you know...
College Football Roundup: The Big 12 Meets the SEC
It's Oklahoma and Florida for the BCS Title—an imperfect end to a season when no football team was perfect. Except, you know, Utah and Boise State. But they don't really count. What with their small conferences and even smaller media markets and exposure. The BCS is fair and impartial. Except, you ...
College Football Preview: Why Conference Championships Suck Edition
Of all the ridiculous aspects of the BCS system, the conference championship game pisses me off more than any other because it points out the flagrant hypocrisy of the college presidents. In the same time period when they've fought a college football playoff because of the time it would add to the ...
Layla Kiffin Is Turning Into A Very Popular Woman
Remember back when www.fireronzook.com was the height of internet genius? Now we've moved on to a coach's wife. And by we I mean anonymous internet web sites. In the wake of Lane Kifffin's introductory press conference, Layla Kiffin has received an ample amount of attention. How much? On Monday aft...
College Football Roundup: Every Game Counts...Except When They Don't and Texas Gets Messed With
Oklahoma beat Oklahoma State late Saturday night 61-41. This score was enough to vault the Sooners ahead of Texas in the BCS Standings and, as a result, send them into the Big 12 Title Game against Missouri courtesy of the fifth tiebreak. (The sixth tiebreak was, in a nice nod to BCS totalitariianis...
Lane Kiffin Hiring: A Volunteer Fan's Perspective
In a move that proves he has gigantic balls of steel, UT athletic director Mike Hamilton has replaced a national championship winning coach with an all-time record of 152-52 who graduated from and played for his university with a 33 year old who went 5-15 in 1.25 seasons as the coach of the Oakland...
College Football Preview: In-State Rivalries Take Center Stage
Texas beat Texas A&M 49-9 yesterday. They're now 11-1. But unless you were in Texas you had no idea this game was happening. Even I didn't think to check this score until late Thursday night. That's because I spent Thanksgiving with family. Included in part of my day was a trip to Ford Field to wat...
Exploring the ESPN Business Model (Hint: It Involves Swimming In Piles of Cash)
By now everyone knows that ESPN paid $100 million more than Fox could afford for the rights to the BCS games beginning in 2009. Cementing, to a great degree, ESPN's status as a post-season college football monopoly (they now control 29 of the 34 bowl games). And we've also noted that this increasing...
College Football Roundup: At Least You Don't Live In Michigan Edition
Yesterday I landed in Detroit for Thanksgiving. Our first stop upon arriving was an Italian restaurant where my wife's grandmother was celebrating her 80th birthday. I'm standing at the bar watching the the Titans-Jets game on the television and occasionally a sports fan from Michigan wonders by to...
College Football Preview: I've Got a Crush on Mike Leach
I've got a crush on Mike Leach. I don't want to go on a date and eat cheese fries with him and watch planes take off from Lubbock or anything but I'm not going to pretend I don't like him anymore. We aren't in 8th grade. So I'm coming clean. My football team, the Tennessee Vols, has never had a coa...
Thursday Night Preview: #23 Miami at Georgia Tech
These Thursday night ACC Football previews are starting to have a Groundhog Day quality about them. (Insert team here) controls their own destiny unless they lose in which case the same scenerio repeats itself again, and again, and again. Shoot me now. This is why we need a college football tsar (o...
ESPN Extends BCS Nightmare By Ponying Up More Cash Than Fox
Since 2007 Fox has broadcast the BCS Games. Sure, this was a little awkward because Fox didn't carry college football on the network during the regular season, but it worked. Kind of. Now, ESPN has done what ESPN usually does — gone and outbid the competition for the rights. (Doesn't it kind of mak...
College Football Roundup: Barack Obama's New Southern Strategy
The most interesting thing about this weekend was Barack Obama continuing his jeremiad against the BCS. At first you thought his Monday Night Football interview with Berman was probably just a flippant aside. But now he's carried the anti-BCS flame into office and laid out an 8-team playoff plan. Al...
College Football Preview: Avoiding Landmines Edition
Now that everyone knows exactly what's going to happen with the rest of the college football season, this is when something inevitably blows up. Because if there's one thing we know about the convoluted BCS system, it's this: nothing is certain with three weekends to go. Alabama still has to get pa...
Thursday Night Preview: Virginia Tech at Miami
Virginia Tech at Miami (-4)-Tonight Virginia Tech and Miami continue the trail of tears-esque march towards crowning an ACC Champion. Miami has won 4 in a row (3 of them ACC games) and hasn't played since November 1 when they won an overtime game at Virginia. Since that time, as evidenced by the ab...
Kerry "the Crooning Cannon" Collins Is a Country Music Songwriter
Lost in the bedlam that has overtaken my hometown over the Titans 9-0 start and Kerry Collins becoming an MVP candidate is this fact: Kerry Collins has written a country song. Which is entertaining on several levels, but not nearly as entertaining as the title: "It's Not Hard to Be Happy When I'm L...
College Football Roundup: The Hailey and Hanna Nutt Edition
In honor of BCS clarity arriving (thanks to Iowa we now know that the Big 12 will play the SEC for all the gold in Zimbabwe—that isn't already smuggled to Zurich), we bring you two striking young lasses who recently transferred from Arkansas to rejoin their daddy at Ole Miss. Meet Hailey and Hanna ...
How Much Do LSU Fans Hate Nick Saban? The Coonass Bowl Is Upon Us
Wright Thompson of ESPN hung out with some LSU fans two weeks ago for the Georgia-LSU game. Not surprisingly LSU fans were focused less on Georgia and more on their hate for Nick Saban. The result is a rollicking story of what happens when you get dumped for a hated rival and then your former coach...