Golden Football Rankings: Football Opinions 6

Biased Opinion 4/2/08: Perrilloux Again

Why is Miles still putting up with Perrilloux? First he would join spring practice, now he's out again. Supposedly he has missed class but gives the excuse that his girlfriend gave birth to their child two months prematurely. And then there's a mysterious restaurant incident in which Perrilloux, according to the story you choose to believe, (a) hit a waiter or (b) threw water in his face or (c) just said something mean and was asked to leave. I return to what was said in this space in January.

Perrilloux is too unreliable to lead an SEC team.

Perrilloux is too dumb to lead an SEC team.

"Dumb" in this sense has nothing to do with IQ but everything to do with common sense. Part of common sense is learning from your mistakes and he hasn't.

However, Miles told the father of a QB who signed this past February that he was "fed up" with Perrilloux because of his misbehavior and also because he can't remember the plays anyway. (Is that why the offense was simplified when Perrilloux started?)

Is Miles waiting for the end of the semester to terminate Ryan's scholarship when he may very well be ineligible academically anyway? Is Les crossing his t's and dotting his i's so that his revocation of Perilloux's Grant-in-Aid will stand up to an appeal?

In the meantime, we also have LB Shomari Clemons getting arrested for fighting with police. Clemons is considered a promising LB. While Perrilloux has not done anything serious enough to warrant arrest, how can Miles expel Clemons from the team for one offense when Perrilloux has been forgiven numerous infractions?

Finally, is this going to be a pattern now that the last of the team leaders that Saban recruited have left?

Addendum [4/4]
My friend Ned in BR thinks the "Lester Earl Theory" may be at work here. Namely, that Miles has to handle RP with kid gloves because cutting him loose could lead to RP talking to the NCAA about inducements he was offered to sign with LSU. I hope that's not true but must admit that it would explain much of what has happened in this sad saga.

Biased Opinion 2/8/08: Plus-One Chances

From SN's "Inside Dish" on college football (2/4/08 issue):

BCS sources say a plus-one championship model is viable but rudimentary – and nothing close to the "Final Four" idea being tossed around. The process ... currently looks like this: a championship game at the end of the bowl season – instead of being part of that season – with two teams selected by the current ratings system after the bowl games are played. The four BCS bowls are intrigued by the idea because it places greater emphasis on their events, which become de facto playoff games even though voting ultimately will decide the championship game participants.

Here are my reactions to this "inside dope."

If the report is true, the Big Ten and Pac-10 commissioners must be taking a less harsh stance in private than they have in public. That may be because the proposal being circulated within the BCS restores the conference bowl tie-ins so that the Rose Bowl is guaranteed the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions every year. This is also why the proposal will not include a true Final Four, which would require #1 to play #4 in whatever bowl gets to host that game in a given year and #2 facing #3 in the other chosen bowl.

Again, if the report is true, the bowls are softening their opposition to any system that would offer bowl victors an additional game. This is another reason why the Plus-One approach can only fly if it guarantees the traditional conference affiliations. The Sugar Bowl will accept the new system if it is assured of getting the SEC champion every year. Bowls have worried that teams playing a semifinal game would bring fewer fans and those fans would stay at the bowl site fewer days in order to save money for a possible appearance in the championship game. Maybe the bowls (a) see the handwriting on the wall with the national push for a better post-season system or (b) expect that the increase in TV revenue from the Plus-One model will offset any loss of tourism dollars or (c) believe fans of the teams most likely to be at the top of the rankings (the LSUs, Ohio States, USCs, Oklahomas, etc.) will come in even larger droves since the game is a stepping stone to the championship or (d) all of the above.

I think the bowls and conferences will also be placated by elevating a fifth bowl to BCS status. This would keep the number of BCS slots at ten since the championship game counts for two positions in the current system. This would allow teams like Kansas and Illinois from 2007 to continue to get the big BCS payoffs. When the current system (with the championship game separate from the bowls) was announced four years ago, the Cotton, Chick-fil-A, Capital One, and other bowls leaped at the chance to put together a bid to become the fifth BCS bowl. Instead, they were headed off at the pass by the original four BCS bowls who instead convinced the commissioners to let them rotate hosting the championship game in addition to their bowl games. It will be interesting to see how the BCS will allot the championship game in a Plus-One setup with a fifth bowl added to the mix. Will the Rose, Sugar, Orange, and Fiesta Bowls continue to take turns hosting the championship game or will the fifth BCS bowl be added to the rotation, which would mean New Orleans, say, would host the championship every fifth year instead of every fourth year? The fact that the Sugar Bowl will always be a meaningful game in the new system because the winner might go to the championship game may increase revenue enough to offset getting income from the championship game every fifth year instead of every fourth. And from point of view of the BCS (i.e., the six conferences), the bowls bidding for that fifth BCS game will be able to put together a stronger financial package if their sponsors know they will host the championship game every fifth year. Another possibility to think about: would the BCS let different bowls rotate, one year at a time, being that fifth game? Cotton Bowl one year, Capital One the next year, and so on. I would doubt this would happen, but you never know.

Adding a fifth BCS bowl would probably mean that the new contract among the conferences, bowls, and TV networks would be for five years instead of the current four.

I'm still skeptical about the Big 10 supporting a plan that would require their champion to win two games for the national title. Oh, they'll talk about not wanting athletes to miss still more school and about how they're concerned for the safety of the players with a 14th game. But competitive disadvantage will be the unspoken reason. Pete Carroll openly talked about wanting to be in the group of teams that has a shot at the championship each year. So USC may push the Pac-10 to be more sympathetic to changes.

One commentator has said that the determination of college football's national champion has been held hostage to the Rose Parade. Would the Big Ten and Pac-10 pull out of the BCS and go back to their long association with the Rose Bowl? The other four conferences could implement the Plus-One plan by agreeing to let their champions play a second game for the championship. In fact, with the Big Ten and Pac-10 removing their champions from the mix, the other four conferences would have a 50-50 chance of getting their winners in the big game. However, they wouldn't earn nearly as much money from TV without the major markets covered by the Big Ten and Pac-10 and the championship game would continually be ridiculed because it doesn't include the Rose Bowl winner. So those are negative factors for the ACC, SEC, Big East, and Big 12. For the Big Ten and Pac-10, resigning from the BCS means that a second Big Ten team, like Illinois in 2007 and Michigan in 2006, would never get a shot at the big money BCS payouts. And do you think the Ohio State or Michigan fans would tolerate the conference unilaterally depriving their teams of any shot to win the "official" BCS championship? So there's pressure on both sides to keep the six conferences (and let's not forget Notre Dame) together in whatever plan is adopted. The bottom line is whether the conferences can make still more money from the revised system.

BOTTOM LINE: Even the "rudimentary" (non-Final-Four) Plus-One system is better than the current system because it pits top teams against each other in the BCS bowls and then uses those results to determine the championship game participants.

If the Plus-One system had been in place for the 2007 season, the bowls might have gone like this.

Rose Bowl: USC vs Ohio State

Sugar Bowl: LSU vs Hawaii

Orange Bowl: Georgia vs Virginia Tech

Fiesta Bowl: West Virginia vs Oklahoma
After all bowls were played, a final BCS ranking would have been computed and the teams finishing 1-2 would have met for the championship. Assuming the teams listed first above won, the championship game would have pitted LSU (rising from #2 to #1 in the post-bowl rankings) against USC (which would have leapfrogged Georgia to #2 after beating #1 OSU because the voters were itching to give the Trojans the opportunity to prove they were the best team). Georgia would still have bitched, but the same argument would have been thrown back at them – you didn't win your conference. (It will be interesting to see whether the new BCS plan will require the championship game participants to be conference champions. I'm guessing it won't. What conference wouldn't love to fill both championship slots as LSU and Georgia might have done this past season?)

For an analysis (from last summer) of how a Plus-One system would have played out in each of the previous BCS years, click here. The proposal referred to in the Sporting News item is #3 in my list ("Bowls Plus One"). Notice how that plan would not have settled the controversies at the end of the 2003 and 2004 seasons.

Biased Opinion 1/12/08: Follow Up to 1/4/08 Biased Opinion

This Biased Opinion is a reply to Maize and Blue's Response to my previous opinion.

First of all, I commend him for his well-researched views. I agree with the gist of what he says which I summarize as follows.

The South has changed greatly since 1960. So viewpoints of white males in their 60's don't prevail any more.
African-Americans certainly do not have the same feelings about the Civil War that white Southerners do.
The southeast US loves college football more than any other sport because for most of the 20th century it was the only game in town. The North had major league baseball, football, basketball, and hockey for 50+ years before the South had any big league pro teams.

I agree with every one of his points. In fact, I included the first two in the last part of the opinion. I said that younger generations (both white and black) don't see the issue in such stark terms. However, I would add two points in rebuttal and clarification.

You are a product of your culture and the history of your region whether you fully understand that culture and history or not. So an LSU or Alabama or Florida student may laugh when you suggest they are refighting the Civil War. However, their intensity to the point of obnoxiousness toward non-Southern teams derives from generations of antipathy.

The absence of high-level professional teams explains why SEC country loves college football so much more than any other sport. However, responding to the Cleveland writer's article, I explained why SEC fans love to beat Yankee teams so much. That's where 150 years of American history comes to bear.

Biased Opinion 1/4/08: The Real Reason the SEC Loves to Beat Yankee Teams

As a Southern football fan, I have had this Biased Opinion in mind ever since I started this site in October 2006. Now an excellent article by Doug Lesmerises of the Cleveland Plain Dealer in the New Orleans Times Picayune has galvanized me into action. In New Orleans for the BCS Championship Game, he discusses the passion of SEC fans compared to Big Ten fans. An example that epitomizes the difference involves patrons at a Birmingham sports bar dressed in Alabama, Auburn, and LSU garb chanting S-E-C! as Florida crushed Ohio State in last year's championship game.

While Doug does a good job of highlighting the differences through interviews with fans who have come south to live or attend a game (including an Oklahoma couple who had a very upsetting week at the 2003 Championship Game against LSU in the Dome), he still doesn't understand the history that underlies the Southern passion for football. So I'll lay it bare here.

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

And, since the 1970s, fight The War USING OUR ENTIRE POPULATION.

Growing up in the Deep South in the 1940s and 1950s, I was suffused with the combination of pride, shame, and anger that white Southerners (especially males) felt about the Civil War and its aftermath. Pride in the way our troops (players) fought so bravely for our armies (teams) against great odds. Pride in our great generals (coaches), epitomized by Robert E. Lee (the Bear Bryant of his time), who won victories against larger, better-equipped Union armies (Yankee teams). Shame in our defeat. (Before Vietnam, the South was the only part of the nation that had ever lost a war.) And shame because of The Cause that led to the war – slavery. Anger against the Damn Yankees for attacking the Confederate States, pillaging our land and confiscating our property. (My ancestors lost a tobacco plantation in Louisiana.) Anger because of Reconstruction. "Scalawag" and "carpetbagger" were odious terms for people who capitalized on our devastation. Anger that we were doomed to be the poorest region of a prosperous nation for over a century. Anger/shame that our segregated "way of life" was condemned by the Northern-controlled media (as if blacks experienced the Promised Land in Northern cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Pittsburgh – clean up your own act before pointing the finger at us).

Athletics – specifically football – provided another source of anger. Anger at college leaders in the East and Midwest who openly disdained the academic credentials of our universities. Anger at the contempt Ivy League and Big Ten schools showed toward the SEC since its formation in 1933 because Southern schools gave athletic scholarships and sent their teams to bowl games. (Until 1946, the Big Ten didn't allow its teams to go to any bowls, then only the Rose for 25 years.) Anger at the hypocrisy of the Big Ten and Notre Dame when they decided money was more important than principle and joined the SEC in emphasizing football and sending teams to bowls – all while sanctimoniously proclaiming their dedication to "academic integrity." Anger at the media that always ranked Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State, or USC ahead of the best Southern team.

Do you folks from outside the South now understand now why SEC fans love it when any of our teams beat Yankee teams? As in the Civil War, we can't match the population and wealth that have enabled your educational systems to excel. But, by God, we can whip your ass on the gridiron. Bear Bryant is the pride not only of Alabama but of the entire south because he showed us how to do it. (When Bear integrated his teams, the rest of the South quickly followed suit.)

Younger generations of Southerners may not be cognizant of all the history and emotion I've traced here. And certainly African-American Southerners (who comprise the vast majority of the players) aren't motivated by the same factors as the white population. White youth may not know all the reasons behind it, but they do know they want to whip non-Southern teams because the us-against-them attitude has been passed on to them. Sure, Big Ten fans want their teams to win bowl games against teams from other conferences. And lately they've had extra incentive against the SEC because of the media hyping it as the "best" conference. But they don't conceive of their teams as representing "the North" or even "the Midwest." They don't think of a football game as a way to rewrite history. By contrast, Southern teams are fighting to redress evils for an entire region. We're passionate to excess because there's so much more at stake than just a bowl win or even a national championship.

So in conclusion, Buckeye fans, your ancestors invaded the land of our ancestors. And we will never forget.

Maize and Blue's Response to This Opinion