Does UCF have a shot at the College Football Playoff? Yes, I say

With Michigan losing to Ohio State last Saturday, after the three still-undefeated locks of Alabama, Clemson and Notre Dame, per ESPN, the rest of college football's power rankings is kind of unsteady.

Forget the Ohio State vs Oklahoma debate for the fourth playoff spot, assuming Bama thumps Georgia in the SEC title game.

Let's say Oklahoma and Ohio State, both known for not really having defenses, lose THEIR Big 12 and Big 10 title games to Texas and Northwestern, respectively.

Neither is at all outside the realm of probability.

Texas already trimmed the Sooners in the Red River Shootout. Northwestern and Ohio State haven't played, but the Wildcats could certainly take the Buckeyes.

So, what if all that happens and the Knights win the AAC title game against Memphis?

Will the CFP voters jump them into that No. 4 slot?

Personally, I would love to see this whole scenario play out. It reminds me a bit of BYU in 1984, finally hauling in a national title for a non-"major" conference, including being confronted by nobody more powerful than a 6-6 Michigan team wanting to play them in the Holiday Bowl. The playoff scenario was created to avoid this. If Oklahoma and Ohio State both lose, this is what should happen.

Kareem, Jacobin and NCAA athletes: Watch out what you're asking for

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar:
Socialist, or rather,
Capitalist in disguise?
Confused socialist?

Because, per the old phrase, you might just get it — with that phrase's implication that you might not like it, either.

Jacobin, the hot new mag for boutique socialism, has given Kareem Abdul-Jabbar a spot calling for a variety of things related to the NCAA money pie.

Some, due to the Ed O'Bannon et al lawsuit against the NCAA, from his college days, will likely be settled in court, to athletes' favor, in a few years. An appeals court has already indicated the athletes should get something; now the question is if either the athletes, or the league [sic, more below] don't like this. (Other lawsuits, over antitrust issues, have less chance of any level of success, in my opinion.)

Some (more in a minute) are noble, but likely won't be addressed by paying Bama Tide or Oklahoma Sooner tailbacks money.

Others? Will likely benefit participants in two NCAA men's sports, possibly in one NCAA women's sport, and hurt most other sports.

In short, Jacobin has given Abdul-Jabbar a venue to talk about a possible witches' brew of capitalism, socialism and general activism — and the three may be at loggerheads with each other.

Time to dive in.

Abdul-Jabbar speaks primarily from his experience as a men's basketball player at UCLA. Beyond that, when one things of dollar signs and college athletes, football most likely comes up.

And, in fact, a study done by the NCAA itself claims that only 20 Division 1 schools make money on football. I find that kind of hard to believe, and to the degree it's real, Abdul-Jabbar has the solution — stop paying coaches and ADs so much.

That said, this is a HIGHLY contentious topic. The Washington Post, in a long piece, notes that top schools are taking in more money than ever — and paying out more than ever. Solution? The one Abdul-Jabbar mentioned — share the pie more, and more equitably.

This, from that piece:

“College sports is big business, and it’s a very poorly run big business,” said David Ridpath, a business professor at Ohio University and board member for the Drake Group, a nonprofit advocating for an overhaul of commercialized college sports. 

“It’s frustrating to see universities, especially public ones, pleading poverty . . . and it is morally wrong for schools bringing in millions extra on athletics to continue to charge students and academics to support programs that, with a little bit of fiscal sense, could turn profits or at least break even.”

Is the centerpiece.

Of course, college athletic departments aren't alone. The neoliberalization of academia means that colleges and universities in general are big business — and often about as poorly run. 

There's a related issue — if one school makes $150M off athletes and another only $50M, will one school pay more than another to players? Right now, the NCAA's various conferences are kind of like the NFL, with at least partial revenue sharing. (Way back in 2008, for Twitter friend Howling Wolf, the Bama-Vandy gap in revenue was $123M/$55M, per an ESPN spreadsheet.)

Does Abdul-Jabbar want to end this? Does he want a more unfettered capitalism?

Art Briles, Baylor and Ken Starr

Political liberals remember Kenneth Starr as the seemingly overzealous late 1990s special prosecutor who stumbled on Monica Lewinsky's blue dress, combined with Linda Tripp's salacious brand of "conservativism," eventually introducing us to Bill Clinton's famous "I did not have sex with that woman," then parsing the definition of both "sex" and "is."

The fiasco ended with a failed, politically-driven impeachment of Clinton, the fall of Bob Livingston's bid to replace Newt Gingrich as speaker after his pecadillos were outed by Larry Flynt of Hustler fame, the seeming tawdriness of Starr on full display while he tried to pretend otherwise, and finally, the proving true, to large extend, of Hillary Clinton's claim about "a vast right-wing conspiracy" against her and her husband.

Lewinsky moved to Weight Watchers and other things. Tripp eventually moved to semi-obscurity. Hillary Clinton moved to the Senate, a failed presidential run, and then the State Department.

Starr became dean of Pepperdine's law school, then president of Baylor, which is where we are now.

It's clear that Baylor football coach Art Briles — who has brought the team to national prominence — is likely lying through his teeth about the details of accepting transfer student Sam Ukwuachu from Boise State.

Baylor's PR department, per this piece, has put out some standardized fluff about the situation, but Starr himself has maintained pretty much total radio silence so far. As I see it, this is Starr's one chance to prove that his ethics are actually ethics, and not politically selective ones.

(Update, Aug. 26: That all said, Boise State looks like Idaho raises a good crop of liars along with potatoes, itself.)

It's also a chance for Baylor to prove that it's moved beyond how it handled former basketball coach Dave Bliss.

And for both Starr and Baylor, it's a challenge to prove that they're not driven, at bottom line, by major athletic dollars. To me, this is the main angle. I have little doubt about Briles' ethics by now; let's see Starr's and Baylor's. Or not.

Update, Aug. 25: The Waco Tribune calls for an outside investigation.

And, Chip Brown has questions for Starr, too, noting that Baylor had a similar situation just one year ago.

Boo hoo for Baylor

Urban Meyer and Ohio State’s thrashing of
Wisconsin was the final piece to block the Big 12
from making the College Football Playoff, leaving
Art Briles (top right) and Gary Patterson (bottom
right) to coach their teams in other "New Year's Six"
bowl games. (AP and Waco Tribune Herald pix)

I can understand Baylor football coach Art Briles being bitter about not making the initial college football playoff, but he brewed up some fine whine in Waco, Texas over it. The local-level description of the winemaking is here.

Basically, he blamed everybody but himself and the Big 12 for that result.

Hey, Art? Grow a pair.

Better yet, get your conference and the commissioner who called you a co-champion (undercutting both you and TCU) to grow a pair of teams so you can have a conference title game.

Play a tougher nonconference schedule.

Note to Big 12: Don't ever change your storyline like you did this year. There's either one true champion (with the exception of a three-way tie in which head-to-head records are each 1-1) or there's not. If there's not, then get rid of the cheesy commercials.

And grow a pair. And grow two more teams.

So, boo hoo for the Big 12, too.

As for the Big 12 losing out on extra money?

Art Briles and the conference hotshots can blame Texas. Its greed with the Longhorn Network is why there's only 10 teams in the conference as we speak.

So, Art Briles? I suggest you drive down to Austin, find DeLoss Dodds and kick his ass.

Oh, and upgrade your 2015 nonconference schedule. Which, currently, sucks. As does 2016 and 2017. I mean, UT-San Antonio? Northwestern State? Liberty (as in Jerry Falwell U, I presume?)

Big 12 commish Bob Bowlsby has doubled down on teh stupidz by saying the conference won't add 12 teams just to have a championship game.

Why not?

Note to Big 12 ADs and presidents/chancellors: Not too soon to start looking for a new commish, is it? I mean, he was presiding just after the whole Longhorns Network fiasco; you've got a good excuse to make a move if he doesn't "get it" on the power of conference championships.

And, if you're an AD or president of a member school of another 4 of the "Power 5" conferences, you're going to tell the NCAA in no uncertain terms not to grant a conference title game waiver to a 10-team conference, aren't you?

On the other hand, conference title games as a fan draw seem to have lost their sheen.

Well, Horns fans, looks like Mack Brown is safe, at least for now

With the Texas Longhorns, massive underdogs in the Red River Shootout (I remember when it had no title, pre-DrPepper hype) upending the Oklahoma Sooners in Dallas today, it looks like Longhorn coach Mack Brown is officially off the hot seat for the rest of the year.

My previous 5-7 projection automatically updates to a minimum of 6-6, with a reasonable shot at going at least 7-5 and making a trip to the postseason.

That said, will he recognize he got lucky, or whatever, this year? That he's still coaching a program that's been struggling for multiple successive years and probably would be better without him?

I doubt it. Mack sounds like a stubborn man, even by the standards of NCAA Division I football coaches. That includes the fact that his contract doesn't expire until the end of the decade and he's already indicated he expects to be "taken care of."

Until recently, speculation was he would step up to the athletic director's chair once its current occupant, DeLoss Dodds, steps down.

However, per news of earlier this week, there's just one problem (other than Mack's potential "I'm still a good coach" vein of stubbornness) with this scenario. And, that's that UT administration may not have Mack in its sights.

Well, if UT is hiring an outside search firm to look for Dodds' replacement, this scenario might not be so true.

Of course, spending the money on the search firm, and possibly having to buy Mack out if he won't retire and they won't name him AD, while cutting 500 jobs, shows the ridiculousness of the power of college football.

===

Meanwhile, while I'm here, here's a quick hit look at the Big 12.

Baylor now looks to be the team to beat.

Oklahoma, which didn't look impressive against TCU, is in some sort of tie for second with Oklahoma State and Texas Tech right now. And, with the Horns, now 3-0 in district, they have to be considered at least near that mix now, too.

Instead of OU-Baylor being the hot game, it could be Baylor and the Longhorns. Or Baylor and the Cowboys.

Finally, I have to agree with Brent Musberger in the press box. Bob Stoops and staff called a poor offensive game. Why wasn't Bell running more from quarterback? And with that, plus the struggle against TCU a week ago, the second guessing can migrate from Austin to Norman. A pitiful offensive performance against a defense that had been getting maligned far and wide will draw that second guessing.

Is it #NCAA boycott time over #PSU and Sandusky?

Bobby Bowden's right — tear it down!
ESPN photo

Update, July 23: Yes, the NCAA penalty is strong, but is it strong enough. Time to boycott?

On the other hand, Yahoo's Dan Wetzel says it's worse than the "death penalty." We shall see.

That said, as I read more, I do think the NCAA was very serious. I like what I read; it's just too bad that Paterno isn't still alive himself to see all those wins vacated. At least his wife is.

Original blog follows:

I agree totally with the many commentators who say Penn State deserves, and needs to get, the "death penalty" from the NCAA for its football program. It deserves it far more than Southern Methodist University.

Hell, in this ESPN piece about college administrators versus college athletics, in the video at the top (sharing blocked right now) fellow NCAA coaching icon Bobby Bowden says Penn State should pull down its Joe Paterno statue. (Try this URL for just the video.) And, he's right — the man should be, if others get indicted, quite arguably be named as an unindicted co-conspirator, because conspire he did.

But, this is the NCAA we're talking about. Nobody's gotten the death penalty, or close to it, since SMU. And, so far, the NCAA has been mum about the Freeh report. And, it may well continue to be.

Is it possible that it will take the push of a threatened boycott of watching NCAA football, and maybe even a boycott of NCAA advertisers, to get it to do the right thing? Then, we need to start talking about that NOW.

And, if you're a serious college football fan, but a decent human being at the same time, you need to decide on which side of the bread your priorities are buttered.

And, beyond that, let's tell the NCAA it needs to engage in other massive housecleaning. If that includes revisiting the issue of pay for athletes, then that's what it includes. The NCAA must address ALL issues related to institutional governance and how best to improve them.

Finally, we know why Paterno's wife is lying about him. She's trying to protect her finances at least as much as his legacy.

Someone else not totally in the world of honesty? Joe Posnanski, who is actually trying to flog his new Joe Paterno hagiography, all while refusing to answer questions about the book or his book tour (which his publisher has scaled back).  There's bupkis about Paterno on his blog, too.

Oh, doorknob, #DavidBrooks is writing about the NCAA

Just when you thought David Brooks couldn't get more vapid and vacuous, he does. It's Bobo-esque, of course, in that it's just as firmly grounded in the 1950s as are his fictional suburbanites.

I have to quote this whole long string of stupidity to illustrate his use of straw men, too:

There were two sides to the amateur ideal. On the one hand, it was meant to serve as a restraint on some of the more brutal forces of the day. Social Darwinism was in full flower, with its emphasis on ruthless competition and survival of the fittest. Capitalism was rough and raw. The amateur ideal was a restraining code that emphasized fair play and honor. It held that those blessed with special gifts have a special responsibility to hue to a chivalric code. The idea was to make sport a part of the nation’s moral education.

On the other hand, the amateur code was elitist. It was designed to separate the affluent sports from the working-class sports, to create a refined arena that only the well-bred and well-born could enter.

Today’s left-leaning historians generally excoriate the amateur ideal for its snobbery and the hypocrisy it engendered. The movie “Chariots of Fire” popularized their critique. In the film, the upholders of the amateur ideal are snobbish, anti-Semitic reactionaries. The heroes are unabashedly commercial and practical. Modern and free-thinking, they pay people so they can win.

Thus did the left-wing critique welcome the corporate domination of sport.

Yeah, right, on that last graph.

First, left-leaning historians of sport (which aren't all left-leaning historians) find a variety of faults with amateurism of nearly a century ago. Second, the heroes are not "unabashedly commercial."

Third, WTF on calling "Chariots" a left-wing movie? I've always seen it 110 percent the opposite, as a gauzy conservative Christian paean to idealism.

And, speaking of paeans, Brooks offers a sweet wet kiss to the NCAA of today after that.

And, doesn't even understand the capitalism he claims to support.

He offers a "practical" objection to paying college athletes:

How exactly would you pay them? Would the stars get millions while the rest get hardly nothing? Would you pay the wrestling team, or any of the female athletes? Only 7 percent of Division I athletic programs make money, according to the N.C.A.A.; where would the salary dollars come from?

You would do exactly that, and they'd learn the capitalism you so tout, you freaking moron. That's why, in the (current official) pro ranks, we have baseball, basketball and football galore, but no wrestling, little female sports and such. Or, separate money-earning sports away from college. If wrestling, etc., don't make that much money, the programs can be cut back.

And, of course, Brooks doesn't realize how he kneecaps his own political beliefs, because he's still dreaming of "Boboes in college."

#ArlenSpecter — I solved #JFK case, I'll solve #NFL lockout

Actually, other than the Warren Commission getting the first and second shots of Lee Harvey Oswald's backward, and that thanks in fair part to John Connelly, it overall did a good job on Jack Kennedy's assassination.

That said, Arlen Specter rode his work as legal counsel to the commission to a 40-year political career and never stopped reminding us of it.

So, now when he wants the same Congress that got involved with MLB steroids to the laughability of Sammy Sosa forgetting English, Roger Clemens allegedly perjuring himself and Raffy Palmeiro doing so in spirit, to now "solve" the NFL lockout?

Can you say "three-ring circus"? Can you also say "lobbying extravaganza in the wings"? Can you say "lawsuit," Mr. Warren Commission lawyer?

That said, the comic value of Jethro Jerry Jones testifying before Congress could make this all kind of worth it, you know?

And, what the hell, Arlen? Why don't you hitch your wagon to that of Orrin Hatch and get Congress involved with the BCS shutting out non-Big Six conferences? We could have liars from Ohio State join those from the NFL. Maybe Jim Tressel could forget English along with Slammin' Sammy.

Boo hoo for the NCAA and BCS

A $1 million fine for the Fiesta Bowl for past misconduct? They'll make that up in new and more discreet ways in a year or two.

Now, if the NCAA suspended without pay for a year Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, then we'd know it was serious.

What is it with Congress and sports?

As if investigating steroids/Major League Baseball, and having Arlen Spector want to investigat the New England Patriots/NFL/Spygate, Congress has now decided it needs to stick its collective nose into the NCAA Division I football BCS bowl system:

Reps. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., and Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, are introducing a resolution rejecting the oft-criticized bowl system as an illegal restriction on trade because only the largest universities compete in most of the major bowl games. The resolution would require Justice's antitrust division to investigate whether the system violates federal law.

Lemme see. Hawaii? Undefeated until getting its ass kicked in the Sugar Bowl by Georgia? Georgia? A two-loss team that couldn’t get in the BCS title game. Idaho, the location of Boise State? Won its at-large Fiesta Bowl invite over Oklahoma the year before – the Oklahoma that’s had a lot of trouble winning bowl games since its last national title.