The NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics has proposed a ban on the use of male practice players for women’s teams. You might or might not know that it’s a common practice to augment the practice squads of women’s teams (mostly basketball, but others do it also) with men, usually volunteers, in order to improve the level of competition in practice.

That’s apparently an abomination.

The thing about this recommendation is that the committee seems so rabid about the gender issues involved that they completely missed how these practice squads are used. Coaches and players from across the country have chimed in over the past week setting the record straight. The opposition is nearly unanimous. Did the CWA even research the issue?

I’ve seen Georgia practices where there were only eight or so scholarship players, and the managers and coaches – male and female – had to be pressed into service while the starters and reserves rotated in and out. Even when there are enough players for two squads, you want your starters and reserves running your plays while a practice squad simulates the opponent. You also have to consider that you often won’t have a full squad able to go full-speed in every practice because of injury or fatigue. This isn’t football where you have entire practice squads of freshmen and walk-ons. Either the reserves must take time away from their development to be the practice dummies, or you can get outside help. Why not use women volunteers? Quick – find a female on campus to simulate Candace Parker. You won’t find many men who can do what Parker does, but at least you might find a few 6’4" guys with decent basketball skills. Any female who fits that bill is probably already on the team.

Don’t take my testosterone-clouded word for it. How about two women who have been advocates of the game for decades? Ask All-American Ivory Latta. "Love ’em. That’s how they make us better. They give us attitude. They give us the killer instinct." Even the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association, hardly timid when it comes to sticking up for the women’s game, is opposed to the proposal. "It’s mind boggling that this is what’s getting all the focus,” said WBCA president Beth Bass. But of course they’d oppose the proposal. The WBCA represents the coaches – the people who understand how these practice squads are actually used.

The CWA’s response to the criticism is hilarious. "There are many ways (training, nutrition, etc.) that female student-athletes can work on getting faster and stronger," they replied. Sure. You can also build strength by chopping wood, but most student-athletes prefer the weight room. Coaches and players in the women’s game have found a technique which they feel best trains them. The CWA continues, "Athletes at every level have continued to evolve through drills and practice without including bigger, stronger and faster opponents in these drills." Right again. But when those "bigger, stronger and faster opponents" are available, you’d be a fool not to make use of them.

For the sake of gender purity and not equity this committee would retard the growth and development of female athletes and women’s sports. This is what happens when you have academics and social scientists making uninformed policy decisions for athletics. They’re willing to deny a proven and valuable training tool in order to address a problem that doesn’t exist – as if there were scores of female student-athletes sitting wistfully a few rows up in the gym every day wondering if this might be the day that Coach lets them practice. Of all of the issues facing women’s sports, they’ve chosen to attack a positive force helping the development of those sports. Michigan State coach Joanne McCallie is exactly right: "It’s absolutely absurd. It’s short-sighted. It’s got nothing to do with equity and everything to do with politics." It makes you wonder what kind of research and thought went into some of the other regulations that govern college sports.

Anyone familiar with – scratch that – anyone who has heard of Arkansas football knew four things were true about the Razorbacks entering this season:
1) They were absolutely loaded in the backfield with Darren McFadden – the SEC freshman of the year – and Felix Jones.
2) Arkansas ran the football because they could.
3) Their returning quarterbacks weren’t very inspiring. The job might be handed to a true freshman right out of the gate.
4) When they did throw the ball, there was a very capable (and very tall) guy named Marcus Monk already established as the go-to guy.

Now armed with that information, any drooling ward of the state could figure that Arkansas would probably still run the ball a bit this year. Yes, they had a nice haul of receivers and a QB in the most recent recruiting class. Usually, it’s understood that it takes a year or two for most newcomers, even potential stars, to make an impact. Not so with three Arkansas freshmen. Now all three played as true freshmen which says a lot in itself. And it’s not like they didn’t contribute. Mitch Mustain started more games than any other Arkansas quarterback. Damian Williams was second on the team in receiving…as a true freshman. But that wasn’t good enough. The players grumbled because Arkansas won with their strengths in the backfield and not on recruiting promises. Williams will transfer, and the parents of the players have embarassingly inserted themselves into the story.

Coach Nutt wonders if he can be in charge for a while.

Two of the parents opened their mouths and showed us the real source of the problem here.

• Rick Cleveland. He’s the father of tight end Ben Cleveland. His greatest contribution to this story? This line: “Our boys are used to catching 60 passes a year.” Do you know how many SEC receivers caught 60 passes this season? Five. Total. Marcus Monk, the junior already established as Arkansas’ leading receiver, caught 49 passes this year in 13 games. Rick Cleveland believes that these incoming players were sold “a bill of goods” as a result. Yes, Mr. Cleveland…Arkansas will shelve the Heisman runner-up to have a true freshman throw the ball 60+ times to your son and some other true freshman.
• Finally, we have Beck Campbell, Mitch Mustain’s mom. She makes a very profound statement that will surely affect the coach-parent relationship everywhere. “It was agreed by all parties involved that the head coach has the valid right to determine the direction of the program and the manner in which the team would develop.” I’m glad the parents had that meeting to iron out what every other coach, player, and parent has accepted throughout the history of organized football. In the words of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, ” Well thank you very much! Can I be in charge for a while?”

With parents like that, is it any accident that their children are throwing tantrums?

I’ve only been marginally paying attention to the offseason coaching carousel. It’s reason enough to stop and appreciate Mark Richt. Wasn’t he a sure thing to run off when Miami came calling? Oh, nevermind.

• Arizona State will retread Dennis Erickson. He’s had success at other schools, and we’ll see if he can sort through the mess in Tempe. The Dawgs will face Erickson’s Sun Devils in his second year, so we’ll keep an eye on his rebuilding job next year.
• How often do we see a coaching search where the main criteria seems to be "the exact opposite of the last guy?" The last coach was too dull, so let’s get a personality in here. The last guy was married to the option, so let’s open up the passing game. That seems to be the case at NC State. Chuck Amato was quirky, eccentric, flashy, erratic, and his teams were known for their undisciplined play. Tom O’Brien might or might not be the right coach for the Wolfpack, but the former Marine major projects an image that’s everything Amato wasn’t. Will that matter when it comes to bringing a higher level of consistency to Raleigh?
• Count me among those unimpressed with Miami’s hire. Shannon’s biggest job will be to convince the local goldmine of talent to believe that a coach from the former failed staff can restore the image and attitude of "the U".
• So Alabama is still without a coach. When Georgia was looking for a coach after the 2000 season, I wrote that firing the existing coach was the easy part. The decision to replace the coach can’t be evaluated until we see how the replacement does. Everyone now looks back on the decision to replace Jim Donnan as a no-brainer, but that’s only because we hit a home run with Mark Richt. The Dawgs could have likely ended up with Ray Sherman or even, yes, Chan Gailey. Every coaching change is a big risk from replacing a guy leaving on his own terms to getting rid of someone not performing to expectations. The saving grace for Bama is that as messed up as things appear now, the next coach won’t be judged based on how smooth the selection process went. If he succeeds, no one will care about the public process. If he fails, it wouldn’t matter if Bama ran the model coaching search.

As much as I didn’t want to see Florida in the national title game, I should be consistent and say again that a rematch for the national title is wrong in the current system. Is Florida the best possible opponent for Ohio State? Who knows. They’re as flawed and as good as anyone. I do note that many of the people discussing the relative merits of Michigan and Florida bring up what I called the "king of the mountain" view of college football – Michigan got their shot at knocking off #1 and now someone else gets a shot. I was also glad to see the attention given to Florida winning their conference. Conference champions form the core of my ideal playoff, so it’s positive to see it as a point of emphasis now. We can play parlor games with playoff ideas later, but I guess we’ll live with this cluster#^@& for now. Florida belongs in the game, and I hope they face a Nebraska-style beating again.

A concept that’s so universally accepted in this process that we don’t even discuss it is the number of losses as an absolute measure of strength. Everyone horse-whipped Florida last week for their weak out-of-conference schedule relative to Southern Cal. So much for that. It’s clear that the criteria for a title contender from a BCS conference are, in this order, 1) number of losses, 2) winning your conference, 3) schedule and everything else. Would Florida be a much different team had Jarvis Moss not gotten his paw on a South Carolina field goal? Nope. But it certainly would have disqualified them from national title consideration. Does that seem a little silly to anyone else?

Now we’ll start to hear from some Georgia fans who think we should pull for Florida because they’re an SEC school and "it makes us look good." How sickening. I want Florida and any of our rivals, especially those against whom we recruit directly, to lose as much on the other 364 days as I do when we play them.

PS…Did Georgia keep Auburn out of the national title discussion? Excellent.

Congratulations to Wake Forest for winning Region 4-AAA. Hopefully they’ll play in front of a larger crowd this weekend in the Georgia Dome for the GHSA semifinals.

One of the best parts of being a Georgia fan this year is seeing the implosion in the Georgia Tech program that began with the win in Athens a week ago.

Georgia faced the same situation earlier in the season. They didn’t just lose to divisional rivals Tennessee and Florida; they also lost to Vanderbilt and Kentucky. Fans were beside themselves, coaches were feeling the heat, and both the offense and defense were facing a big crisis of confidence as receivers dropped passes and opponents drove for game-winning scores. At 6-4 with games remaining against ranked teams Auburn and Georgia Tech, a 6-6 finish was not only possible but seen as likely by many. Comparisons to 2005 Tennessee were made as everyone waited for the meltdown.

The Dawgs were able to come together and close out the regular season with two wins. The finish doesn’t erase the tarnish of those midseason losses, but instead of packing it in and waiting for a sweep of coaching changes to start fresh next year, Georgia began building behind a new quarterback and will have a chance to claim quite a bit of momentum heading into next season if they can get past a very quality Virginia Tech team in its bowl game.

Tech was riding high two weeks ago. They had wrapped up their ACC division with weeks to spare and had won four in a row after stumbling at Clemson. Calvin Johnson was magnificent, Tashard Choice was peeling off 100-yard games, and the defense was dominant. Then they played Georgia. Even with a spectacularly bad performance from Reggie Ball, the running of Choice and the defense seemed enough to win that game until Matthew Stafford found Mohamed Massaquoi for a touchdown with less than two minutes remaining.

The loss to Georgia started the grumbling, and the Tech community moved on by noting that they were still playing for a conference title. Oops. Ball followed up his Georgia performance with another so bad that it has his coach considering replacing the four-year starter in the bowl game. Johnson was held without a touchdown catch for the third time in four games. The defense played well most of the afternoon but gave up a pair of long passes that led to two second-half Wake Forest field goals.

With the rare expected win over Georgia and a shot at the ACC title gone, the finger-pointing has begun in earnest. Most noteworthy are statements from defensive leaders KaMichael Hall and Joe Anoai. "It’s a lack of offensive production. The defense can’t do everything," Anoai said. Those senior leaders leave no questions about their frustrations with the offense. The defenders aren’t alone; Choice has grumbled about not getting carries late in the game.

Tech still ends up playing on New Year’s Day as the Gator Bowl must take the ACC runner-up. It sounds as if they’re really thrilled to be headed back to Jacksonville. "Whatever," said Choice. Gator Bowl officials are poised to jump from Jacksonville’s Hart Bridge unless West Virginia brings half the state with them. Without an improbable attitude reversal, Tech will go into the bowl game with a defense distrusting of its offense, an offense at odds with itself and without a leader under center, and an offensive coordinator with one foot out the door as he eyes the Tulane job. Fans jaded by losses to Georgia and Wake Forest will likely pass on another trip to Jacksonville for a game in which they will be clear underdogs. All the while, twilight begins on the Calvin Johnson era and a possible championship and ten-win season.

Georgia came together; Tech is still coming apart.

Hate it for them, I really do.

• Can’t wait for Army-Navy tomorrow. It’s not relevant at all and pretty one-sided lately, but it’s still must-see football on the first Saturday in December.
  
  
• I have to join those congratulating Oklahoma for a fine season despite losing Peterson and Bomar. They aren’t the only team to fight on through attrition, but they’ve come through it better than most and have a shot at the BCS. Unfortunately, the popular telling of their 2006 story has been to whitewash the end of the Oregon game. They didn’t lose just because of a blown call. The call certainly was central to the outcome, but let’s not forget the defensive and special teams meltdowns that defined the last few minutes of that game.
  Take this absurd line from the AP: "Oklahoma is 9-2, but would be 10-1 and possibly a part of the national championship discussion if not for the officiating errors at Oregon." Are they serious? Oklahoma led 33-20 with 90 seconds left. Granted that the game would have been over with the right call on the onside kick, they still had to allow another Oregon touchdown plus get a reasonable 44-yard field goal attempt blocked in order to lose. Oklahoma is 9-2 and playing for the Big 12 title. Take it.
  
  
• Has anyone in a major conference ever had a more anonymous 11-win regular season than Wisconsin?
  
  
• With the (temporary) rise of Ohio State to #1 in both football and basketball polls, it reminds me of the list of schools that comes up when people discuss whether or not it’s possible for a "football school" to have a successful basketball program (or vice versa). Can we now please officially drop Michigan from that list? When was the last time they were relevant in college basketball? Actually, I think the most schools can hope for along these lines is a good run now and then. Michigan had its run in basketball. Ohio State is just starting its run. Texas had/is having its run. UNC had a couple of periods of good football. There really aren’t many schools, if there are any at all, who can sustain success in both.
  
  
• College football fans love to talk about the absolute importance and vitality of the regular season, and I don’t disagree. I live for the entire football season. I think an argument can be made though that for someone who really enjoys college basketball, the hoops regular season actually offers more high-quality regular season matchups. The other night, #6 North Carolina beat #1 Ohio State. Big deal, you say – Ohio State’s football team went out of conference to play Texas. But the tOSU – UNC basketball game was remarkable because it is routine. This weekend, Carolina will turn around and host Kentucky. They have already played Gonzaga. Last weekend, Florida and Kansas clashed. UCLA has already played Kentucky and Georgia Tech. It’s just another autumn in college hoops. Dream matchups like those in college football are the exception and the stuff of weeks of hype.
  Note I didn’t say more meaningful matchups. That’s the tradeoff – because these early-season games aren’t actually deciding anything (other than style points when it comes selection/seeding time), the casual fan doesn’t really begin tuning in until after the Super Bowl. The first Duke-Carolina game is the unofficial start of the college basketball season for a lot of people. If meaning is what does it for you then, yes, February and March is your time. For good interconference basketball, this time of the year is second only to the NCAA Tournament. It makes you wonder that if a single loss didn’t put you in such a really tight spot in the college football national picture, how many more teams would be willing to take a few more chances in the quality of their nonconference scheduling?

’tis the season to start hearing some very dumb statements from college football fans.

• "There are just too many bowl games."
• "Teams with (x) wins don’t deserve a bowl game."

Once you get beyond the BCS championship game, almost every other bowl game from the Rose to the GMAC is an exhibition game. The only variables are the payouts, dates, and media coverage. There are surely historical and traditional contexts that make some bowls more important or prestigious than others. Occasionally a bowl game might serve as a shot in the arm going into the next season for a team or a Heisman candidate, and the undecided recruits might pay a little attention to your final ranking. Still, there’s not much more than pride at stake in any game outside of Glendale.

It hasn’t always been this way – the Bowl Alliance / BCS and its other iterations have guaranteed irrelevance for most bowls. Remember the Cotton Bowl? In 1983, it was part of the national title picture as Georgia upset Texas 10-9. Now it’s a consolation prize for SEC and Big 12 teams played in a dilapidated stadium. In the 1990 season, the Citrus Bowl was in the national spotlight. Soon after, it became a punchline as Steve Spurrier tweaked Tennessee. Even the other BCS bowls suffer from diminished relevance. In 1996, viewers jumped With the mission of the BCS to match #1 and #2, it has concentrated all postseason relevance in one or very rarely two games.

But enough history and back to the point. If only one game is really relevant and the others aren’t playing for much of anything, it makes no difference how many bowls there are. If two teams are willing to get together, if a sponsor is willing to make a stadium and a payout available, and if there’s a network willing to send its sixth-string announcing team, who does it hurt to play the additional games? At worst, they are watched by 5 people and the outcome echos into empty space. Even at the risk of losing money by traveling, smaller programs would and do fall over each other to get national exposure on ESPN. The real benefit of a bowl game to most programs is a couple of weeks of extra practice – it’s essentially a jump on spring ball and player evaluations for the next year. Early enrollees even get to participate in bowl practices. What program doesn’t want that?

Dwelling on what teams "deserve" also doesn’t make much sense. Bowls are and always have been business arrangements between schools or conferences and the host committees. If a town thinks that Miami will bring fans (yeah, right) and make sponsors and merchants happy, they’ll get a bowl invitation with six wins regardless of what some talking head thinks they deserve. Occasionally teams will decline bids, but let’s leave that up to them. I’m not even sure if the six-win benchmark is appropriate. If someone wants to put up the cash for two winless teams to play in the Toilet Bowl, go for it. Of course it would be ridiculous, but it would be no more or less meaningful than the Gator Bowl.

What’s always been strange to me is why college football fans would have a problem with more college football. Bowls in general might be anachronistic, and the lesser bowls might be boring, ugly, mediocre, or all of the above, but they’re still football. If you’re not that much of a fan of the game, watch something else. So San Diego State vs. Ohio University isn’t Southern Cal vs. Ohio State. It’s another four hours that poker isn’t taking over actual sports programming. Play on!

Going into Saturday’s Michigan-Ohio State game, I gave the Wolverines the slight edge. I thought their run defense would be good enough to make the Buckeye offense rely too heavily on the pass. I also thought that a healthy Hart would give Michigan the balance they needed on offense. I was right about Michigan’s offense. Hart ran well, and Henne played a fair game. But he and the Michigan passing game were not spectacular, and Troy Smith and his receivers were.

But what I really missed on was discounting Ohio State’s big play threat at tailback. Antonio Pittman has been a dependable back this year, rushing for over 1,000 yards. Chris Wells is a typical freshman superstar – electrifying but inexperienced and mistake-prone. They’re both very good players who would probably be standouts on other teams. I, and probably many others, just didn’t expect them to be able to gash a top rush defense. Each had a touchdown run of over 50 yards, and those two touchdowns plus a solid afternoon from Smith & Co. were too much for any team to overcome. Credit Michigan for even coming close.

The final margin ended up being three points, but this felt like a two-score win for Ohio State. After Michigan’s initial touchdown, the Buckeyes grabbed control of the game early in the second quarter. Each time Michigan scored and found life, Ohio State responded to keep the Wolverines at a comfortable distance. Even when Michigan scored late and brought it within three points, you never really felt the urgency because you knew, if it really mattered, Ohio State would simply answer again.

Michigan is a fine team. The score doesn’t bother me – it was a slugfest just as last year’s Rose Bowl was, and it doesn’t mean that anyone’s defense is suddenly terrible. Ohio State simply had the means to attack Michigan and keep the foot on the gas. If your team has a Heisman front-runner at QB, an elite receiving corps that runs three or four deep, and two tailbacks who can take it to the house, you might too.

The talk quickly turned to a rematch in the national title game. Those on Michigan’s side claim that the Wolverines showed that they are worthy of the #2 spot and another shot on a neutral field. I’m sure that Ohio State fans feel that they’ve already proven that they can beat Michigan. And of course others in the Florida and SoCal camps claim that it’s wide open now and time for another team to get a shot. Though the BCS standings disagree with me, I have to side with those who don’t want to see a rematch.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with a rematch for the national title. It happens all the time in playoff systems. It even happens sometimes in college football, especially in conferences which have championship games. Georgia and LSU met during the regular season in 2003 and also played for the SEC title. Had Georgia won the December game at the Georgia Dome, they’d have been SEC champs despite losing earlier in the year at Baton Rouge. That’s a fact of life that we proponents of a playoff system must live with. Does it make the regular season game "meaningless"? Not really, in that regular season games determine the shape of the postseason. We recognize though that the postseason is a different stage on which teams have to prove themselves again.

But if we’re not going to have a playoff in college football, then rematches seem improper. Instead of a postseason where we reseed teams and start a new season, the college football regular season resembles one big game of "king of the mountain" that continues on for one more game in the bowls. A team starts the season at #1 and remains there until they are knocked off. There are a select few who get a direct chance to knock #1 from the top. If they can’t do it, they’ve had their shot, and it is appropriate for a different team to get the opportunity. People like to talk about a playoff diminishing the importance of the regular season, but let’s set up a BCS rematch that says Saturday’s loss by Michigan has no consequences.

Though he agrees with me, it’s amusing to hear the criticism of a rematch coming from Florida’s Urban Meyer. Though Meyer was not Florida’s coach in 1996, the Gators’ championship came in a rematch against FSU. Florida wasn’t even the #2 team entering their bowl (this was still pre-BCS). It took a combination of events including an upset in the Big 12 title game and an Ohio State comeback win over Arizona State in the Rose Bowl to make that UF-FSU rematch a default national title game. Meyer’s pretzel logic explaining why Florida has a better case than Arkansas is also good stuff. The Hogs will have their chance to say something about that in two weeks.

Former Michigan coach Bo Schembechler is dead at age 77. We know this will hit the Michigan family hard, so our thoughts are with them.

It’s anyone’s guess how this will affect the game. Will Michigan be stunned, or will they ride the emotion? I think that something like this means a lot more to the fans and coaches than the players – Bo hadn’t had much of an official position at Michigan since the early 1990s. We saw this ourselves earlier this year when Erk Russell passed away. Fans still talk about it, but other than a helmet sticker it hasn’t had a tremendous impact on the team. But surely Michigan will get caught up in what the fans and media are going through, so they will have plenty of emotions to handle.

Before Schembechler’s death, I had a slight edge to Michigan in this game. I think they have the better defense and a more well-rounded offense (given the running game behind Hart). But Ohio State had the homefield and the ridiculously good WR corps and QB. Now…who knows?

If 2003 and 2004 were instances where some people said we needed one more game to decide things (the “plus-one”), is this year a case of needing one fewer game?

I mean if we’re not going to have a playoff, if the regular season means everything, and if the goal of the BCS is to match the two best teams, aren’t we pretty much done after this weekend? Is there something that the second tier of teams can show in the next three weeks that would convince pundits and pollsters that the two best teams aren’t playing in Columbus this weekend?

We’re cynical and hardened here in SEC country. Where college football has become big business, every play and decision is scrutinized like a performance metric. Wins aren’t impressive enough, losses aren’t acceptable, and the CEO coach goes from hero to bum from week to week and season to season. It’s not an entirely irrational reaction – the investment put behind these programs is serious stuff, and the passion behind it all is second to very little. When a program with the capital and human resources, talent base, and expectations that Georgia has loses to a program with much less in all of those areas, it leads to questions about how well those resources are being used. Business metrics again, and every fan is a McKinsey consultant with an answer.

Every so often though we’re reminded that all of this overhead is about a game played by college students. Complex thought behind schemes, state-of-the-art training methods, millions of dollars in investment, and huge national audiences all come down to how well 85 college students execute. That unpredictability is a lot of what makes college sports so maddening and also so enjoyable and superior to anything else.

We saw the kind of innocence and pure joy that just comes from winning that those of us who treat each game as an exam forget about. The fans had fun, not giving up on their team after a 15-point deficit. They unashamedly sang "We Will Rock You" as if hearing it for the first time. The players swelled with pride and emotion.

We see that kind of environment a lot in "traditional power" land, perhaps enough to dull us. Georgia might be down this year, but the environment for the Tennessee game earlier this year was as good as it gets in college football. The West Virginia game last year was just another game, but to the Mountaineers, it was everything – and they played like it. The hustle and passion shown by Rutgers last night is what impresses people more than a complicated scheme or true superstars.

We see this kind of story a lot in sports when fans get treated to a rare taste of winning. Atlanta went nuts over the Braves in the early 90s. Now they yawn and barely notice when they don’t make the playoffs. Kentucky beat a 6-4 Georgia team, but they tore down the goalposts in jubilation as if they had beaten Ohio State. Georgia baseball fans made Kudzu Hill a household name in 2001. That kind of pure enjoyment in the new experience of winning is what we saw last night, and it looks great every time we see it because we remember when we’ve had times like that. It’s what it felt like to be at Auburn in 2002 or in Jacksonville in 1997. Over time, we become used to or harden to those experiences and lose just how much it meant to have that innocent and even naive moment of pure joy after a win. It will be interesting to see how Rutgers fans go through this process in the coming games and seasons.

But what few are talking about while enjoying the Rutgers movie-script season is the complete collapse and bed-wetting by Louisville. Their 25-14 halftime lead wasn’t insurmountable, but any team worth a spot in the national discussion can’t let that get away. Louisville’s most frequently-used play in the second half was "QB scramble for his life left". They had a double-digit lead and one half separating themselves from a good chance at a spot in the national title game.

How fleeting it all is. Lousiville has a staff full of Certified Offensive Sooper-Geniuses™, but their unit looked lost and impotent in the second half. Even Jeff Bowden was chuckling. This week, he Again, full credit to Rutgers and their coaches and players. They had to make the plays and, most importantly, not fold early when they got embarrassed a bit in front of the home crowd. Once they settled down and were able to channel the evening’s emotion, they were fine. Now Schiano is the "it" guy…enjoy.

How would this be – say home field holds and West Virginia beats Rutgers in the last week of the season. Who wins the Big East and goes to the BCS?

Last night’s events certainly gave new life to many teams and threw open endless national title scenarios. Florida especially has to perk up at the prospects of moving up to #3. But Mark May’s caution is very apt here – there’s a ton of football to play yet. Call it the Virginia Tech rule – how many times in recent years have we seen them start out undefeated and then swoon in November? Or name it after Tommy Tuberville whose Auburn team got drubbed the week after complaining about the BCS. Play the games. There’s likely to be controversy this year, and that’s a topic for another post, but the cast of characters will surely change and be thinned between now and then.

And goes for a week – through November 15th. Several sports will add players, but basketball is the most high-profile sport with a signing period tomorrow.

Georgia men’s basketball team expects to sign four:

• 6’8″ F Chris Barnes
• 6’7″ SF Jeremy Jacob
• 6’9″ F Jeremy Price
• 6’1″ PG Zac Swansey

The women also expect to sign at least three:

• 5’9″ G Brittany Carter
• 5’6″ G Angela Puleo
• 6’3″ F/C Nicole Stroud
• 6’2″ C Jasmine Lee

I was listening, as I often do, to the Colin Cowherd show this afternoon. Love the college football talk. The whole Big East/BCS discussion came up, and he said that if finishing undefeated were all that mattered, then Texas could assure itself of a national title berth every year by playing four nonconference cupcakes. He gave Texas credit for having the “courage” to schedule Ohio State.

The question should be, “why did Texas schedule that game?” Where would Texas be right now had they scheduled Ohio University instead of Ohio State? Right – they’d be undefeated and awaiting the winner of the tOSU-Michigan game for a chance to defend their national title.

I don’t deny the importance of schedule, but give it the proper relative importance. The first order of business is almost always finishing undefeated. You can start backtracking on that as soon as the Big East and the usual “BCS busters” come into the discussion, but there is no way that an undefeated Texas (or SoCal or Auburn or Wisconsin) would be left out of the national title game if they were one of two unbeaten teams at the end of the year.

The importance of scheduling comes into play when you must choose between two similar teams with identical records, but teams like Tulane get left out when they go undefeated. Texas doesn’t. Having more than two unbeaten major programs happens so infrequently in college football that scheduling becomes such a secondary objective versus running the table.

The question shouldn’t be why don’t we have more series like Texas-Ohio State…it should be why those teams with real national title aspirations seek those games out. I’m not saying I like avoiding those kinds of games, but that’s what the system – as it is – rewards. I continue to say that a playoff system would encourage many more interesting nonconference games (just see the December basketball slate) rather than the current system where you must balance the subordinate strength of schedule criteria with the clear primary objective of finishing undefeated.

So what do I think about the Big East? I agree with a great line I heard on ESPN over the weekend, and I wish I could remember its source. I don’t think the Big East champion could have as good a season going through the grind of a more demanding conference, but I wouldn’t count Louisville or West Virginia out when it comes down to an individual game.

(As an aside…how does West Virginia’s destruction of Maryland and Mississippi State look after the past weekend?)

There’s only one game of national significance in the SEC this weekend, but there aren’t many dogs either.

Mississippi State @ Alabama: Lincoln (12:30)

Alabama has struggled a bit recently. Aside from their decent showing at Tennessee, they have let Ole Miss, Duke, and FIU hang around far too long. The Alabama offense isn’t putting anyone away. The Bulldogs on the other hand have shown a bit of life on offense. Back-to-back 24+ point performances against Georgia and Kentucky have put MSU in two nail-biters. They’re still seeking the breakthrough win though. The Croom-Bama relationship always plays a part in this game. While I think Bama holds serve at home, they might be in trouble or at least in for another cardiac test if MSU can get over 21 points for the third straight week.

Florida @ Vanderbilt: Lincoln (12:30)

Last year’s narrow escape in the Swamp is the storyline for this game. The Florida squad will no doubt remember the embarrassment of nearly losing to Vandy (trust us, actually losing is no fun either). With the BCS standings giving Florida new life in the national title picture, this is a big "leave no doubt" opportunity for the Gators. Florida’s defense should keep the Vanderbilt offense more or less under control, but the real question is the Gator offense. Scoring under 23 points per game in SEC play (and that includes defensive scores), I’m among those starting to wonder if Florida has a big number in them. Style points will count if the SEC has any hopes for its fleet of one-loss teams.

Arkansas @ South Carolina: ESPN (7:45)

The Hogs take their perfect SEC mark nearly 1,000 miles east. They’ve treaded water with some easy wins since their decisive win over Auburn. South Carolina got a dose of reality last weekend in their loss to Tennessee. The Gamecocks have started to find some answers on offense. Arkansas should expect to run well with the league’s top rushing attack against a run defense rated in the bottom third of the SEC. The Columbia crowd is always a factor, but Arkansas has already been road-tested at Auburn. This is the kind of game that Arkansas has to win if they have a chance of winning the West – Tennessee and LSU are right around the corner.

Georgia @ Kentucky (no TV)

The passing games of both teams will be in the spotlight here. Kentucky has the SEC’s third-most productive passing offense, and Georgia’s defense has taken its licks through the air. Wildcat quarterback Andre Woodson is big and mobile and a much improved player from the shell-shocked kid we saw a year ago. Georgia turned up the heat last week against Florida with decent results. They’ll need a strong performance from the defensive line against a banged-up UK offensive front. On the other side, Georgia’s Matthew Stafford continues to develop under center, and he’ll go up against the conference’s most generous pass defense. The one gotcha for Stafford is turnovers. Kentucky is right near the top of the league in turnover margin, recovering an SEC-best 11 fumbles. They have only turned the ball over ten times. Georgia has turned it over ten times in just the past two games. Georgia’s 16 takeaways are middle of the pack, but their 22 giveaways result in the SEC’s worst turnover margin. Worse, many of Georgia’s turnovers have set opponents up deep inside of Bulldog territory.

LSU @ Tennessee: CBS (3:30)

This is the big SEC game of the week. Tennessee is coming off of two very emotional games. They won in a comeback over arch rival Alabama, and then they put the Fulmer vs. Spurrier game behind them last week. They’ll have to gear up for a third straight week against an LSU team that’s been flying under the radar a bit and no doubt stewing about this game since their loss at Florida. There’s also the emotional baggage from last year’s game. LSU roared out to a big lead in their first post-Katrina home game, but Tennessee fought back for their only win of consequence in 2005. LSU’s defense surely remembers how Erik Ainge folded spectacularly against their pressure in that game. The difference between home and away has been night and day for LSU. In their five home games this year, LSU hasn’t scored fewer than 45 points. In their two road games, they haven’t scored more than 10 points. That those two road games were at Auburn and Florida has a lot to do with the disparity, but Tennessee is also a tough place to play. LSU has a big job to prove that they are more than paper tigers away from home.

It’s been since 1997 that the “other” Bulldogs came to Athens. Georgia won 47-0, and the big story was all about a steamroller. More construction equipment is in order this week as Georgia begins the rebuilding process behind freshman QB Matthew Stafford.