The passion of southern football

Golden has made an interesting post discussing the source of southern passion for college football. His argument can be pretty simply summarized:

TO WHITE SOUTHERNERS, COLLEGE FOOTBALL IS A WAY TO REFIGHT THE CIVIL WAR.

He does a good job explaining what it meant to grow up in the post civil war south, and the combination of pride, guilt, and anger that many southerners felt about the civil war, and how southern football heros of the past, such as Bear Bryant filled the need for a hero and some redemption against the focal point of much of that anger, Northerners.

Leaving aside the political incorrectness of this argument (good luck finding any SEC coach to admit they are refighting the civil war), he glosses over one major point against his premise: Most players students, and fans of SEC teams can not trace their family back to the Confederacy. In fact it is not a stretch to say that most people who live in the most populous places in the south were born or grew up somewhere else. In 1960, none of the southern states that contain the SEC schools had more than 5 million people in it, and the total population of the conference footprint was approximately 26 million. By 2007, Florida and Georiga alone had 27 million people. While Golden's point was certainly true 30 or 40 years ago, it has less relevance today. I highly doubt that Glen Dorsey or Early Ducet feel any connection to Robert E. Lee. Certainly the best coaches in the SEC (Saban, Meyer, Miles), who were all born in Ohio, feel no need to fight for the stars and bars

So why is the passion for college football so great in the SEC? Because for the better part of the last century, college football was the only game in town. For me, growing up in Ann Arbor, as much as I loved Michigan football, I always looked forward to going to Tiger games, or following the Wings or the Pistons in the playoffs. There is a shared history for Michigan residents with these teams, just as there is with Michigan football. To a typical SEC fan, there are limited sports options outside of college football, and those options that do exist don't have the history that helps to ignite and maintain passion. There are only 18 major professional teams in the SEC footprint, and only six of them (Dolphins, Bucs, Falcons, Saints, Braves and Hawks) have been in existence for more than 20 years. None of them predate 1960. In contrast, there are 28 professional teams in the Big Ten footprint, and only three of them (Blue Jackets, Timberwolves, and Wild) are less than 20 years old. Many of the baseball teams are more than 100 years old. SEC spring games get 50,000 fans because there are no major league baseball, basketball, or national hockey league games to draw fans.

The passion of SEC fans is about history, but not the history that Golden refers to in his post. It's the history of organized sports in the south, and the absence of any real alternatives to college football that make such a big deal.

The Rose Bowl & Tradition

In his most recent biased opinion, Golden objects to language used by Brent Mush-burger in promo for the upcoming USC slaughter of Illinois: "The Rose Bowl. The way it was meant to be. Pac 10. Big 10".
To Golden this promo, which he surmises was written by the Tournament of Roses people, is a slap in the face to all other football fans:

"...the Rose Bowl apparently believes that only Pac-10 and Big Ten teams and fans can appreciate the pageantry of the Rose Parade and the beauty of the area. Yokels from Oklahoma, Texas, Georgia, or Missouri need not apply."

First off, he should know better than to take any bowl hype seriously. This game has few selling points other than tradition, so ABC is trying to play up that angle. Secondly, there are plenty of fans who remember the old days of the bowl system with some fondness (myself included). Doesn't mean we don't appreciate different match ups, or want a real postseason, it's just that there is something special about Big Ten/Pac Ten Rose Bowls. It's the same with the Sugar Bowl and the SEC. Was Georgia the best at-large team? If the Sugar had selected West Virginia or Virginia Tech, don't you think that the SEC slappies would have been howling? The bowl system is imperfect, and outside of the championship game, each of the bowls has to do whatever they can to market their match up. Appealing to people's fondness for yesteryear is one way to do that.

The SEC and the BCS

Golden recently referenced an "excellent" article by Yahoo Sports' Dan Wetzel that talks about the Miles to Michigan rumors, and compares the SEC to the Big Ten, among others. The article is pretty much your run of the mill article this season: SEC rocks, Big Ten sucks, yada yada yada. While the general tenor of the article is antagonistic, it's hard to argue with most of the assertions in the article: Right now the SEC is a better conference than the Big Ten, it is easier to get through the Big Ten to a title game than the SEC, and LSU has a lot to offer a head coach that Big Ten schools don't.

But where the argument goes astray is when Wetzel argues that the BCS is somehow bad for the SEC. Nothing could be further from the truth. The BCS, and the bowl system it is helping to prop up, maintains the current balance of power in college football. The BCS conferences got 44 of the 64 bowl bids last season and a lion’s share of the prize money. It would have been more if not for a new NCAA rule, which forbid power conference 6-6 teams from getting at-large bids over 7-5 or 8-4 teams. For the first time last year both the MAC and Sun Belt got at-large bids to bowl games. With more money, and the extra practice time that is permitted with a bowl game, the power conferences have a stranglehold on success in college football. There are no Gonzagas or George Masons in football.

Furthermore, the current system helps the southern power structure of the game. The bowls create a large amount of revenue for southern and western cities. Most of the bowl games are played in the south; most of the bowl games are won by teams that are closer to the bowl. How successful would the ACC be in basketball if all NCAA tournament games were held in Chicago or Kansas City? The reason the BCS was created by an SEC commissioner and is still run by a former SEC commissioner is that the SEC has more to gain with the continuation of the current system that just about any other conference. 18 of the last 29 national champions came from the south. In contrast, in I-AA(sorry, FCS), the last 29 years of playoffs, where teams play on campus, have resulted in 15 southern championships, and 14 northern championships. A playoff system would level the playing field and would take away the built in advantage that SEC, ACC and to a lesser extent, PAC 10 teams currently hold.

A playoff system wouldn't help the SEC as much as it would help the WAC, the CUSA, or the Mountain West. Look at Boise State last year. Do we know for certain that they weren't the best team in the country last year? We have a pretty good idea based on watching teams play, but if there had been a playoff, would a Boise State run to a championship have been any more surprising than the first Gonzaga run to the Elite Eight a few years back? No, the SEC, like the Big Ten, and the other BCS conferences will protect the BCS at all costs. That's why Florida president Bernie Machen went into the SEC spring meeting touting a playoff and came out saying:

"They are persuaded, and I am now persuaded, that the best way to proceed is to work within the BCS structure and make some changes to make it better. That seems to me to be a very good way to go, and being that we are the leading football conference, we'll be able to be heard in that regard.''

The other presidents showed him the books and told him not to bite the BCS hand that feeds them. Wetzel, and Golden to a certain extent, both want you to believe that the SEC is a paragon of virtue, fighting for a playoff, while the big bad greedy Big Ten won't let it happen. The truth is, the SEC has its snout buried in the bowl system trough as much as anyone.

Waking up the Echos...

of Gerry Faust that is!

Saturday was a extremely delightful day at the Big House. From the very first play of the game, just about everything that could go wrong of Notre Dame did, and just about anything that could go right for Michigan did.

A few observations on the Michigan performance:
-The defensive play calling was excellent. It was blitz heavy, they disguised their coverages, and it didn't feature any instances of Johnny Sears one-on-one on a much faster receiver.
-Although Slocum, and Mouton didn't play, Brandon Graham did and was outstanding with 3 1/2 sacks. His presence allowed Shawn Crable to move back to his natural LB position, and was also excellent with 4 TFLs.
-The tackling was one thousand times better. There was probably fewer missed tackles in this game than there was in about six or seven individual plays in the Oregon debacle.
-A lot of my hopes for the offense revolved around mixing up the play calling, keeping the defense honest. They didn't do much of that, because they didn't need to. What's the point of play action pass when they can't stop the run even when we telegraph the play.
-I was pleased with Mallet's performance, and I hope they give him a few more opportunities to throw next week, as I anticipate the Penn State to be a little tougher to run on.
-What can you say about Mike Hart. I heard one of the talking heads on Gameday refer to McFadden of Arkansas as the best pound for pound player in the country. He's not. He'd have to be one and a half times better to beat our Hart. He is a vision, power, and a refusal to be tackled. He must have broken 50 tackles in 35 carries yesterday. He moved into third on the all time rushing list at Michigan, he'll be number one before the season is over. The most unfortunate thing about our season opening losses is that he won't be in the Heisman hunt, and he's easily the most valuable player in the country.

I'm not sure how much the performance means for next week or the rest of the season, because the team they beat is quite possibly the worst team I've seen in Michigan Stadium in 25+ years of games. Their offensive and defensive lines have the consistency of jello. There were a number of times when every single O-lineman was beat by the man they were blocking. The d-lineman knew Hart was running left behind Long on four out of every five plays and still couldn't stop them. Their WRs have little to no speed. Their DBs were burned deep a couple of times, but chose to shove the Michigan WRs for the PI. Jimmy Clausen looked unimpressive, but its hard to tell how much was his fault. He definitely has a cannon, but it seems to me a couple of times he held onto the ball too long trying to make a big play. I don't think they have one player on their team that would start for Michigan. I was kinda shocked at just how bad they are. Considering that Notre Dame fired Ty Willingham after three seasons, despite him exceeding expectations off the field, and Weis' recent struggles. he should be feeling some heat if things don't improve soon. With USC, UCLA, BC, MSU, Purdue, MSU still to come, the likelihood of them making a bowl is slim to none. Heck they might have trouble wining even four game.

Some other observations from yesterday's games:
-Yikes, the big ten is putrid. Iowa lost to Iowa State who had shown nothing in losses to Kent State and Northern Iowa. Kirk Ferentz is officially off my wish list.
-How much does Minnesota miss Glen Mason? OT games against Bowling Green (loss), Miami (win) and a not as close as it looked loss to Florida Atlantic show that maybe Tim Brewster, who had never been a head coach or coordinator of anything wasn't ready for the job. Seriously, the Florida Atlantic might be the only FBS non conference win the Sun Belt gets this year. Too bad they can't play Syracuse.
-Northwestern's loss to Duke might be the worst of all the losses. Duke has lost 22 straight games. The last time they beat an FBS team it was still known as I-A and the president's approval rating was above 40%.
-You could hear the cursing from the Plains all the way up here when Alabama pulled out the win over Arkansas. The tide (pun intended) has already turned in that rivalry and we're not even out of September.
-The Florida/ LSU is starting to look like a a national semi-final game, unless Alabama, South Carolina or Georgia can throw a wrench into it. The other spot looks like USC's to lose.
-Florida State has lost almost all of the mojo, sex appeal, pizazz, whatever you want to call it, that they used to have in their 14 year run of top 5 finishes. Their game against CU in Boulder was an absolute snooze-fest.

Golden cites another article from a New Orleans paper talking about Miles to Michigan. This one includes a quote from Jim Carty of the AA News talking about Miles' desire to come back to Michigan. That quote from Carty is a little out of date, and Golden might want to check out a recent blog entry from Carty chastising the NO papers for the Miles to Michigan thing.
Golden has also published his conference standings from the Golden rankings for the first time this year. I will post the standings from my modified Golden rankings (including all Division One teams) later in the week, along with a brief explanation of the differences between our two rankings.

Les Miles and more defense

As our dear friend Golden mentioned a few days ago, and as I have mentioned here before, I don't think that Les Miles to Michigan is the slam dunk everyone seems to think it is. Internet rumors are shaky at best, but often times if you see similar type things being hinted at in different places, there is some measure (albeit a small one at times) of truth that can be taken from them(i.e. the old smoke fire thing). The stories being hinted at concerning LSU current football coach revolve around personal and professional transgressions when he was on the staff here at Michigan. Whether the stories are true or not isn't as important as the impression that there are some people at the University who might not want to bring him back. His two biggest selling points as a potential UofM coach are his habit of hiring good assistants and his familiarity with the school. If there are people who don't want him here, that cancels out one of his two assets.

Miles has to be careful here that he doesn't get Glen Masoned. When the OSU job was open before Tressel was hired, Mason made no secret about his desire to return to his alma mater to coach. When the job went to Tressel, Mason lost a lot of credibility at Minnesota. You can bet right now that Saban, Meyer, and other coaches are contacting every one of the LSU's recruits and telling them Miles is as good as gone.

The bottom line, I think, is that the start of the season has given the AD, Bill Martin (who wasn't here when Miles was here) more freedom to hire whomever he feels is the best candidate, regardless of their connections to the university. I don't think Miles will be that candidate unless they miss on some other choices.

Plus One analysis

Golden Football Rankings has done an extensive analysis of how the last ten years might have shaken out in college football if we had either a Plus-One format or a Final Four without the bowls. He also offers his conclusion that either plan should not be limited to conference champions, and should take the top teams according to the rankings. He also concludes that any plan adopted should be flexible enough to allow movement of teams to avoid regular season rematches.

Setting aside the notion that neither of these plans have a snowball's chance in Columbus of being implemented, these sort of formats are fun to think about. Some additional things to consider:

1) In its ideal world, the rose bowls wants a Pac Ten / Big Ten match up every year. Even if its a Purdue / Washington State match up, that's preferable to bringing in other BCS conferences.

2) While a final four playoff would be better than the current system, matching up the #1 and #2 teams before a championship game would be unfair to those teams. Why should Texas play another game in '05 after beating USC in one of the greatest games of all time?

3)The final four or plus-one formats do not include enough teams, and do not address the biggest issues surrounding college football's current system. Nor do they effectively reinstate the tradition that surrounded the bowls in the pre-ESPN era.

(climbs on soapbox)
To me the biggest issue with our current system is that not every team in I-A (or FBS) football has the same shot at winning a national title. Major college football is the only sport where at least half the teams start the season with no mathematical chance of winning a national title. Eastern Michigan (for example) has no realistic chance to win the NCAA basketball tournament next year, but their coach can tell his players (as can every coach outside of college football) at the start of the year that if they win every game, they'll be champions. In college football, teams like Eastern have no such chance. The could go 4 years without losing a game, and still not win a mythical national championship.
For this reason, college football has a class system that is more rigid than any other sport. MAC teams will never be able to beat Big Ten teams for bowl games, recruits, or television revenue.
In an interesting paradox, this class system is both what fans enjoy about college football, but also prevents it from being even more enticing to more fans. Fans enjoy knowing that the same teams will be good year to year, but also abhor the scheduling of tomato can opponents that comes from this system.

IMO, the ideal playoff system would help to level the playing field by giving all teams in I-A a chance to participate. The two systems that would do this are as follows:
1) 8 team playoff, conference champions only (with some sort of clause allowing an independent to play if they are above a certain level)
2) 16 team playoff, all 11 conference champs, and 5 at-large teams.

In both scenarios, you play first round games on campus, and the rest at bowls. The rest of the games at bowl sites. The fact that you are guaranteed a spot as a conference champ would allow BCS teams to be more adventurous with their non-conference scheduling. It would also allow the Boise States or Utahs of the world a real shot at the national title. The limited amount of at-large bids would not cheapen the regular season, but would allow for seasons where two top teams are from the same conference.

(climbs off soapbox)
Of course none of this will ever happen, too much money involved in the current system to ever change.