YouPlusDallas staffers bow down to the literary greatness that comes with this article.  Roger Clemens is one of the greatest pitchers ever to grace the mound.  This article cleverly pokes at the fundamental flaws of each and every party associated with this mess.  Well done article on a sordid part of baseball history.

This is a work of imaginative fiction. Courts determine guilt or innocence.

**

A gavel pounds out its steady cadence, the sound echoing through a packed courtroom nestled between two clouds and presided over by a dignified man resembling Morgan Freeman. A thin layer of swirling mist covers the floor.

Do all of you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you Me?

It depends on how you define those words and nebulous concepts. We kinda do.

If you don’t, your torments will be eternal for bearing false witness.

Whoa.

Seriously. It’s real. Look around. You know where you are. This is it.

We’ll tell the truth. Can you lower the volume a bit, Big Man?

The court calls Roger Clemens.

Roger, why are you here?

Well, back in 1996, I was 33 years old and after 13 very good years with the Boston Red Sox, I found myself in the twilight of my career, having just endured two back-to-back subpar seasons. I (allegedly) started using HGH, extended my career another 11 years in Toronto, New York, and Houston, padded my career stats with another 162 wins, and put myself into the conversation as the greatest pitcher ever.

During the same era, most of the elite hitters in the league used HGH, steroids, or testosterone, and erased long-standing records. Hell, my wife took HGH injections in her stomach right before a 2003 Sports Illustrated cover shoot. My name came up in a report to Congress about steroids in baseball and I launched an aggressive public campaign of denial against my former trainer’s accusations that made Congress invite me to testify before them. There, I denied everything.

Why would you do something so foolish?

Ever since I was a teenager, people have always catered to me; I’m a famous athlete living in a star%#$@ing culture. I’m surrounded by yes-men, so I never receive natural checks to my behavior, and I suffer from what the ancient Greeks called hubris and what modern psychiatry calls narcissism. I thought I could win through sheer force of will. The same will that made me one of the greatest pitchers to ever stand on raised dirt. Do you think it’s just about talent? It’s imposition of will. If I can do it to a hitter, I can do it to anyone.

Americans are forgiving and have bad memories. Why not admit it and move on?

In my mind, I’m innocent.

You’re guilty.

Well, I’m guilty of (allegedly) doing what my watermelon-headed, 20 inch bicep wielding, 500 foot home run hitting peers did. And I did some law-breaking. But I’m cosmically innocent. This is about fighting for my legacy and halting the denigration of what I achieved. I had the balls to do what was necessary to play this game ’til age 44 and the guts to work my ass off. I’m not bowing to the rules of lesser men who wouldn’t put their body on the line for greatness. I have 7 Cy Youngs. That lives forever. What have any of you done?

Piss on fair. That’s the loser’s lament. That’s what I believe.

The court calls Brian McNamee.

Why are you here?

I’m the typical sycophant that people like Roger attract. Incapable of personal fulfillment in my own life, I’m a remora to the greatness in others; doing their bidding, indulging their tantrums, and helping them achieve their goals. I shot Roger up with steroids for a few years. Then when the accusations started flying around in baseball, and knowing Roger’s selfishness, I thought it would be a good idea to cover myself by saving some syringes in a beer can. It’s my stained dress. Maybe it would give me some leverage over him and you never know how that might pay off. Like all sycophants, when the love stops, I respond by trying to kill the light that first drew me.

The court calls Congress.

You spent time and money adjudicating steroids in baseball while the country was in a international war with global jihadists; engaged in two ground wars whose outcomes have geopolitical implications for the next century; and America faces global economic threats to its hegemony. Domestically, the country is in a massive fiscal crisis, still incurring massive debt on deficit spending, and the land seems to be devolving into petty fiefdom’s of distrust and mutual apathy.

Yeah, that’s about the size of it. Talking honestly is rarely rewarded at the voting booth. We were all attracted to politics because it’s the best way to achieve power without merit. We’re mostly lawyers, many of us are mediocrities, and those of us who are really smart or capable are inordinately burdened with major personality defects and shocking arrogance – much like Mr Clemens. There are some good people among us, but people generally get the leaders they deserve.

Do you honestly believe that Americans want you dealing WITH BASEBALL? It’s bread and circus.

So is politics. We get on camera. We act outraged. We wag our fingers, make clucking sounds, say things like, “if you think you can lie to the American people, then you have another thing coming.” Real Aaron Sorkin stuff. Sometimes I get aides to hand me papers while I’m walking. Then I rip off my glasses and say,”This is serious.”

It’s my Verizon bill.

Why not concentrate on real problems?

Real problems are hard. People disagree about them and it might force us to discuss actual ideas instead of doing politics. Very few good ideas rhyme. Expressing ideas bravely makes people yell at us. Also, we’d have to learn things like how much government takes in and how much we spend, and that’s math.

The court calls Sports Media.

What do you have to say for yourself?

We don’t know. We feel so betrayed. By our athletes. By our Congress. We are innocents. We speak for the people! We are their voice! The valued fourth estate. We should be asking the questions. Where are you, Joe DiMaggio?

Do I need to remind you of your oath?

Sorry.

Why are you here?

Because we profit from ‘roided out athletic freaks. They grow children’s games into economic juggernauts that pad our salaries and bolster our importance. Until we eventually turn on them, feigning betrayal. We want athletes to be important because it makes us important since we write about them, and when they get just important enough, we cut them down by pointing out how unimportant they are and how shallow our society is. We are made important for pointing out their unimportance by using their importance. Unless we do the role model thing, and then we emphasize their importance. The point is, we think everything is important, and mostly that we’re very important, – even though we know at some level that it’s not important – but sports being important is important to our personal importance. So we have to work through some stuff.

You have issues.

Most journalists are writers without much talent or imagination. And of the journalists, sports media are the least respected. We write about groin pulls. We’re aware of this and it bothers us.

There’s more, isn’t there.

Yeah. Most of us are not physically imposing or particularly athletic and we get to act out some of our nerd rage from high school by simultaneously worshipping and resenting the dumb, popular kids who bully us, but that our livelihoods depend on. When that dumb, popular kid is as big an asshole as Clemens is, it’s game on.

I’m proud of all of you. This was refreshing. I find that you are all totally unsympathetic. You can all go home. I’ve got a meeting with my agent.

Wait. What? Agent? You’re not God?

No, I’m Morgan Freeman. You’re on a set. I just wanted to get the bottom of this.

McNamee – bring my car around front. Chop chop. And stop collecting my toenail trimmings.

Consider this the optimist’s companion piece to my friend Peter Bean’s What Could Go Wrong post in which he lays out the plausible worst case scenarios for the 2012 Texas Longhorns. His list makes a lot of sense, but I can imagine scenarios for a successful season even with one or two of his concerns eventuating. Like Eric Idle, I’d rather look on the bright side of life. With the right improvements and a smidgen of luck and good health, the 2012 Longhorns are fully capable of not only winning 10 games and contending for the Big 12 title, but perhaps putting together an unanticipated special season – which is the most enjoyable fan experience you can have. See the beloved 2008 squad.

Ride with me (side-saddle!) on a herd of unicorns shitting jellybeans through a meadow of licorice and penny candy as we explore what goes right in 2012.

1. Offensive health. You might be tempted to say team health and that’s fair, but I have a more focused proposition for you – 90% of our offensive improvement and 75% of our total team improvement rests on the health of five players. If – in order – QB David Ash, LT Donald Hawkins, RT Josh Cochran, #1 WR Jaxon Shipley and Trey Hopkins (de facto #3 OT, best interior OL) remain healthy, our offense will be substantially improved. Normal wear and tear in the interior OL, TE, and at RB can be absorbed without crippling our ambitions and a repeat of three significant injuries to the RB position is improbable. Our defense has the lion’s share of our best players, and it also has the best depth. That means most of our seasonal beta probably rests on the health of five guys. They stay healthy, we win a lot.

2. Ash gets better. A true freshman QB who spent most of the Fall camp getting third team reps asked to carry the team surrounded by subpar receiving options, injured RBs, and bad OL play against good opponents, struggled badly. I am shocked. Yet, history tells us that QBs who gain experience, with actual starter’s preparation and good coaching, comfort with scheme, and improved personnel around them tend to get significantly better. That hypothesis was put to the test at the end of the season when Ash showed what he’s capable of against Cal. 2375 yards passing, 7.7 YPA, 19 TDs, 11 ints isn’t crazy talk. It’s likely. And it’ll do.

3. The defense dominates. We return eight starters. Several of them will be in the NFL one day. We’re markedly improved in the secondary with experience and athletes at every position, our front four will be very good and surprisingly deep, and LB is loaded with raw talent. Our DC is top notch and installation, assignments, and teaching basic concepts now gives way to more specific game planning and kick-ass exotica. Offenses will score less, gain fewer yards, and we’ll create more cheap touchdowns with Pick 6s and forced fumbles. LSU and Alabama wonder if this is a winning formula.

4. Schedule. We’ll play several good teams, but the order in which we play them, our non-conference ramp up, even our mix of home vs. road games is pretty much ideal for building confidence and dividing the season into tidy sections. Three winnable non-cons (Wyoming, New Mexico, @ Ole Miss) to get the offense rolling and the defense feeling their oats against spread teams gives way to a two week break for reassessment and game planning for the next stretch against: an inexperienced OSU offense in Stillwater, a welcome to the Big 12 statement game at home against West Virginia, and in Week 7 of the college football season (our 6th game) – OU in Dallas. Immediately after, we taper down with four very winnable games against Baylor, @ Tech, @ Kansas, Iowa St,; get another two week break to lick wounds and game plan for a two game finale of TCU and Kansas State. A final stretch in which I fully expect to be in contention for the Big 12 title. BTW, OU’s last three games: @ WVU, OSU, @ TCU. If you can draw up a Big 12 schedule better suited to our needs, I’d love to see it.

5. Expected improvements in Year 2. Mack Brown, complacency-o-holic, made the choice to get better. It hurt to see the butcher’s bill continue to roll in based on past behaviors and it will continue for some time, but every day of complacency sobriety has us looking and feeling better. Real S&C should show up on the field; another year of experience makes exploitable freshman into dangerous sophomores; Year 2 in better schemes means players think less and do more; sulks and under-performers are on notice or already gone; fans will embrace the momentum of a fast start and promising early returns – creating its own reciprocal momentum for the team; more veteran OL will start to finally blossom; solid offense will stop hamstringing good defense as it did in 2010/2011. The kicking game is a worry, but good kickers coming from nowhere at Texas has heavy precedent (what’s up Micheal Pollak?) and the talent level in our coverage personnel is markedly better. Besides, going for it on 4th down in a number of traditional field goal or punting situations is the right call. So let fear do the work of reason.

**

Is anything on this list nuts? It doesn’t take much (or any) imagination to conjure very realistic scenarios in which this team kicks some ass in 2012.

Cheer up, Peter. We’re gonna make it after all.

Editors Note:  At YouPlusDallas, we love to read  everything from our friends at Frank the Tank.  We are also Texas grads, A&M grads, …  smu grads.  So it comes at no surprise that we might disagree with some of what “Frank” has to say here.  We in Dallas, Austin, Houston, and San Antonio like the idea of the Seminoles playing in Texas and visa versa.  Take a read, and consider the possibilities.

For long-time readers of this blog, you know how important that I consider TV rights to be in shaping the world of sports, both college and pro.  It has driven conference realignment the past couple of years, convinced the reactionary leaders of college football to finally institute a playoff, turned the NFL into a financial juggernaut and exacerbated the differences in the fortunes of franchises in the NBA and Major League Baseball.  From the first post that I had in writing about Big Ten expansion, I emphasized how important that the TV revenue from the conference’s deals with ABC/ESPN and the Big Ten Network would be in luring a football power when most fans only thought about geography and historical rivalries.

However, it feels as though the world has gone in the other direction where even hardcore football fans seem to believe that TV revenue is all that matters in conference realignment.  That’s not quite correct, either, as I also tried to indicate in that original Big Ten Expansion post.  Factors such as academics and cultural fit matter if a conference wants to be strong for the long-term as opposed to just the length of the current TV contract.

So, it was quite amazing to me to witness Andy Haggard, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Florida State spew out inflammatory comments against the new ACC television deal with ESPN and suggest that the school should explore options with the Big 12.  Never mind that Haggard was wrong about the details of that TV deal that he was complaining about, which was subsequently corrected by Florida State president Eric Barron and caused Haggard to somewhat backtrack from his initial comments.  The damage is done – the Florida State blog and message board crowd, to the extent that they didn’t already believe that they weren’t getting screwed by the Tobacco Road crowd, are now wholeheartedly ready to sign over the deed to their athletic department to DeLoss Dodds.

Before I get into my opinion, I’ll give credit to The Dude from Eerinsider.com for writing about his belief that Florida State would be going to be Big 12 for several months.  Frankly, I still don’t know how people from West Virginia could know more about the intentions of schools such as Texas, Florida State, Clemson and Louisville than those schools’ own respective insiders and beat reporters, but The Dude has certainly been unwavering in his beliefs and deserves some kudos for, at the very least, socializing the idea that Florida State going to the Big 12 is viable.  I know that I and many others have been dismissive of that speculation, so I’ll need to eat some crow for that.

As for my opinion: if Florida State is seriously considering leaving the ACC for the Big 12, then that would be incredibly short-sighted.  This is the ultimate “penny wise and pound foolish” move.  Eight months ago, the world was discussing whether the Big 12 would even exist going forward.  Texas or Oklahoma sneezing gives the entire Big 12 pneumonia and that’s something that’s never going to change.  Regardless of how large and long the new Big 12 TV contract might be, the one thing that you know about the ACC is that its core of North Carolina, Duke and Virginia aren’t interested in going anywhere.  Maybe the ACC can be weakened on the football front by defections by the likes of Florida State, but the league is going to live on.  In contrast, the biggest flight risks in the Big 12 are the members of its core itself: Texas and Oklahoma.  A blue blood athletic program like Kansas was talking to the Big East back in 2010 for fear of not having a place to land.  As a result, any complaints from Tallahassee about the supposed power of Duke and UNC over the ACC ring hollow for anyone that can remember only eight months back to the primary example of what happens when a school truly runs a conference.  The Big 12 is a power conference that has cheated death twice in two years.

This isn’t a criticism of Texas: the Longhorns have the most powerful college sports brand outside of Notre Dame, so they’re wisely leveraging the assets that they have.  Any school would have taken ESPN’s offer for the Longhorn Network in a heartbeat.  The skepticism comes in as to whether the “third tier” TV rights that are now the subject of so much consternation really have that much value for schools other than Texas.  As Matt Sarzyniak noted, the definition of “third tier rights” is vastly different depending upon the conference.  (Note that it is difficult to find accurate information about the value of third tier TV rights alone.  Many third tier media rights calculations include radio rights, coaches’ shows and Internet streaming capabilities, which all of the major conferences, including the ACC, allow schools to keep for themselves.)

Is it reasonable to assume that Florida State would automatically garner $5 million extra or more per year from selling its third tier TV rights, or is that number going to be mixed in with radio rights that the Seminoles are already selling, so the additional dollars that would be garnered in theory by going to the Big 12 isn’t as much as it would seem?  I don’t have an answer to that question, but it’s not nearly as simple as, “Texas is getting $15 million for its third tier rights, which means that Florida State has got to be able to make at least half of that amount.”  The Longhorn Network is such an outlier for third tier TV rights that it can’t really be used for comparison purposes.  In fact, the best comparison for Florida State would be what Texas A&M made off of its third tier rights in the Big 12 as school that is #2 in its home state with a large and loyal fan base.  My understanding is that amount really wasn’t that much (which is partially why the Aggies had such an issue with the Longhorn Network in the first place).  The third tier TV rights disparity ended up driving Texas A&M away from the Big 12 and now it’s being argued as a lure to draw Florida State in.  (Note that the SEC still reserves third tier rights for individual schools in a similar fashion as the Big 12, so A&M might be seeing better revenue from those rights in its new home.)  It’s fascinating to see that turn of events.

The bottom line: Florida State would be leaving the ACC for the Big 12 solely for money.  That’s the entire argument.  Now, that certainly can be a persuasive argument that will rule the day.  However, in every other major conference move, there was something more than money at stake.  Nebraska got a better academic home in the Big Ten, Colorado culturally fits better in the Pac-12, Texas A&M and Missouri received stability in the preeminent football conference in the SEC, and Pitt and Syracuse and West Virginia and TCU left even more unstable situations in the Big East for the ACC and Big 12, respectively.  Even if you were to argue that money was the driving factor in all of those moves (and without a doubt, it mattered a ton), there were still other holistic arguments that could be made to respective universities that could convince the ivory tower types that there were positives beyond the value of the current TV contract.  That simply isn’t the case when comparing the situations of the ACC and Big 12.  Academically, the ACC is higher-rated than the Big 12 and is the only power conference besides the Big Ten with a research consortium.  Stability-wise, the ACC has stayed together since 1953 with only one defection (South Carolina to the SEC became independent in 1971*) compared to the musical chairs in the Big 12 over the past two years.  Geographically, Florida State goes from a contiguous coastal conference to one that starts looking like a big budget version of the Big East.  Market-wise for recruiting and TV, Florida State would get access to Texas but lose all of the other fast-growing states in the ACC’s southeastern footprint.  Culturally, for all of the talk about the ACC being a “basketball league” and the Big 12 being a “football league”, the ACC added Miami and Virginia Tech purely for football purposes (and drawing the ire of the supposedly almighty Duke and UNC) while pure football schools Nebraska and Texas A&M couldn’t leave the Big 12 fast enough.

(*EDIT: South Carolina joined the SEC in 1992.)

I know that plenty of fans will continue to believe that factors such as academics don’t matter and that it’s simply about the money.  Heck, even Haggard himself believes that when he said, “No FSU graduate puts on his resume or interviews for a job saying they are in the same conference as Duke and Virginia.  Conference affiliation really has no impact on academics.”  That’s an understandable position and considering how much university presidents are searching for every penny these days, it’s not surprising.  However, the people running universities day-to-day certainly don’t believe that, as Barron stated in a memo that the “faculty are adamantly opposed to joining a league that is academically weaker.”  My much more connected SEC expansion counterpart, Mr. SEC, also says that academic prestige is a massive issue with actual decision-makers in conference realignment.

Look – I have no skin in this game.  I’ve stated many times before that few things would make me happier than Duke being relegated to the Southern Conference.  There is no personal affection for the ACC from my end at all.  I’m just looking at this from an outsider’s point of view.  If Florida State absolutely needs the short-term revenue boost from the Big 12 (and that could certainly be the case with the school’s athletic department deficit), then I understand the Seminoles jumping.  I’m past the point of being shocked that a school would move for a few extra TV dollars.  However, I would still be surprised if they defect on the basis that every single other factor for Florida State (academics, stability, geography, markets) points to staying in the ACC, which is unlike any of the other power conference moves over the past two years.  Long-term, the TV money difference between the Big 12 and ACC on its face isn’t enough to discount all of those other factors.

The irony is that for all of the complaints that Florida State fans might have about the supposed basketball focus of Tobacco Road, if the Seminoles had performed half as well in football as they have had in basketball recently (four straight NCAA Tournament appearances, a Sweet Sixteen run and an ACC Tournament championship), no one would be talking about a “weak” ACC football league and ESPN probably would have thrown even more money toward the conference.  Regardless, don’t just look at the TV money, as important as that might be.  Nebraska would have gone to the Big Ten even if there wasn’t a clear increase in TV money.  For that matter, West Virginia would have gone to the Big 12 regardless of the TV contract.  However, the answer isn’t clear that Florida State would ever choose the Big 12 over the ACC if the TV money wasn’t a factor.  There’s a difference between taking money for the short-term (and in college sports parlance, a 13-year TV contract can definitely still be “short-term”) and determining the best choice for the long-term.

A few minutes which City took full advantage of, scoring two goals to win the match 3-2, and bring the title to Manchester’s second club for the first time in 44 years. It was an absolutely unbelievable finish, and the reaction of commentator Paul Merson (an ex-Arsenal midfielder) captures it well:

The full few minutes are worth watching, as well, particularly when spliced with the Man U players and fans learning of the defeat.

The outcome is notable for several reasons:

• Abu Dhabi oil money breaks Man City into the small club of Premier League winners. Make no doubt about it, this title was bought (just like Chelsea’s have been) through the purchase of an entire team’s worth of players. Let the debate begin about whether that matters.
• Mario Balotelli, so often the bad guy for Man City this season, supplied the assist for the winning goal, perhaps buying himself more time at the club, but also proving that beneath his immaturity, stupidity and awful haircuts, there’s a world-class player.
• Man City enjoyed a goal difference (goals scored minus goals conceded) that was five goals better than Man United at the end of the day. The score when City embarrassed United at home in the fall? 6-1.
• It’s a bit of melodrama to say an entire season of 38 games came down to just 2 minutes, though it’s somewhat true. The 6-1 result mentioned above played a big part; as did United losing to Wigan and drawing with Everton a few weeks back as well. But let’s not forget the role of one Joey Barton: the QPR midfielder got himself sent off for elbowing City’s Carlos Tevez in the face, but despite playing a man down, his team still managed to go 2-1 and hold onto that lead for nearly half an hour. It wasn’t the red card that did the damage, it was Barton hanging around after the fact for a few more minutes, during which he also kneed Aguero in the back of the legs and head-butted Vincent Kompany. Had Barton — never one for going quietly — not pulled his usual tricks, the trophy might have headed to the other side of Manchester.

YouPlusDallas Editor’s Note:  ”Whip me Beat me Call me Edna!”    Take a read from our friends from BC.

Last week on the heels of Bob Bowlsby joining as Big 12 HMFIC, the FSU to the Big 12 rumors were flying left and right. DeLoss stepped up and said there was no basis in any of it.

DeLoss Dodds on Big 12 expansion rumors: “I don’t think the Florida State-Clemson thing has any basis at all.”

— Chuck Carlton (@ChuckCarltonDMN) May 11, 2012

Florida State athletics director Randy Spetman also shot down the rumors saying his programs were “committed to the ACC” and that any conversations about the school switching conferences is pure nonsense.

“We’re in the ACC. We’re committed to the ACC. That’s where our president and the board of trustees has committed to, so we’re great partners in the ACC.”

Then somebody decided to throw some dynamite around. That man is Andy Haggard.

Haggard is an FSU Trustee and has leapt into the fray with great panache by blasting the ACC and saying he is in fact interested in hearing what the Big 12 has to say.

“How do you not look into that option? On behalf of the Board of Trustees I can say that unanimously we would be in favor of seeing what the Big 12 might have to offer. We have to do what is in Florida State’s best interest.”

More great quotes from haggard here. Sounds like the Tier 3 set up favors hoops schools, not football, and that has him a bit riled up.

Dan Wetzel added this:

Big 12 source on whether league would be interested in Florida State. “I can’t imagine how we wouldn’t be interested in Florida State.”

— Dan Wetzel (@DanWetzel) May 12, 2012

Weeeeeeeeee!!!!!!! Texas to the MAC!

Follow along with all the twists and turns with this handy dandy StoryStream.

Texas & Oklahoma have officially signed on to continue to play in the Cotton Bowl throughout the rest of the decade.

Last week the City of Dallas agreed to spend another $25 million in improvements to the Cotton Bowl to keep the game as part of the State Fair. The two schools are paid $500,000 each annually for the game, and that will not change. The money will be used to improve the press box, add new club seating below the press box, upgrades concourses and improve concessions areas. The city has already spent over 57 million on the stadium including the addition of 16,000 seats.

The new renovations will begin in December of 2012 and should be completed by September, 2013.

However, some recent rumors suggest that other Texas schools probably aren’t our ultimate concern.

A reader with some connections in the Pacific Northwest e-mailed me a sampling of the chatter from various UW sources that Hall’s family may be trying to get back to Seattle and, should that happen, Daeshon will open up a West Coast recruitment to Washington, Oregon, and USC.

Whether that ultimately bears out or not, it’s not unreasonable to think that Hall is currently exploring his options and may be experiencing commitment remorse. Should he decommit, expect Texas to redouble their efforts on Prevot, take another look at the 2013 DE class in-state, and start exploring OOS options.

Results for Week 18

#	School	Points/blog	SD	Delta
1	LSU Tigers (13)	24.09	0.89	1
2	USC Trojans (14)	23.88	1.32	-1
3	Alabama Crimson Tide (6)	23.03	1.40	–
4	Oregon Ducks (1)	21.35	2.40	–
5	Oklahoma Sooners	19.82	4.00	–
6	Georgia Bulldogs	19.00	2.34	1
7	Michigan Wolverines	17.32	3.07	1
8	Florida St. Seminoles	15.91	3.67	1
9	South Carolina Gamecocks	15.21	4.79	1
10	Arkansas Razorbacks	14.56	5.68	-4
11	West Virginia Mountaineers	14.56	3.41	–
12	Wisconsin Badgers	12.09	4.47	2
13	Michigan St. Spartans	11.85	5.30	-1
14	TCU Horned Frogs	11.50	5.31	-1
15	Kansas St. Wildcats	9.68	4.53	3
16	Clemson Tigers	9.44	4.78	–
17	Virginia Tech Hokies	8.97	4.38	-2
18	Nebraska Cornhuskers	7.76	3.88	-1
19	Stanford Cardinal	6.74	5.71	3
20	Ohio St. Buckeyes	6.32	5.56	1
21	Texas Longhorns	6.12	3.83	-2
22	Boise St. Broncos	6.00	5.22	-2
23	Oklahoma St. Cowboys	4.76	4.78	–
24	Notre Dame Fighting Irish	2.74	3.30	1
25	Washington Huskies	2.50	4.18	-1
Others Receiving Votes: Florida Gators | Louisville Cardinals | Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets | Missouri Tigers | Utah Utes | Auburn Tigers | Texas A&M Aggies | Cincinnati Bearcats | Penn St. Nittany Lions | Illinois Fighting Illini | Baylor Bears | Iowa Hawkeyes | BYU Cougars | South Florida Bulls | Louisiana Tech Bulldogs | Central Florida Knights | Southern Miss. Golden Eagles | Syracuse Orange | Toledo Rockets | Virginia Cavaliers | Fla. International Golden Panthers | Vanderbilt Commodores | Rutgers Scarlet Knights | SMU Mustangs | Miami Hurricanes | California Golden Bears | Purdue Boilermakers
Updated: May 9, 2012 9:37 AM PDT

SB Nation BlogPoll College Football Rankings 2011

Some thoughts after the jump….

LSU at #1 is basically evidence that voters value a starting QB who won’t cry through saucer-sized eyes during the 1st quarter of the national championship game. Zach Mettenberger can’t be worse than Jordan Jefferson under the spotlight, but LSU’s atrocious game planning and eroding team unity may well be constant. The defense is loaded and the offense should be improved.

Overvalued:

Alabama at #3 with several #1 votes demonstrates Saban worship in full flush. Or laziness. The Tide have to replace most of their defense and are relying on AJ McCarron’s arm to get them through the first half of the season. They look like a 2-3 loss team reloading for 2013.

Arkansas saw a slight dip in voter perception with the Petrino debacle, but are still in the Top 10. A top 5 finish or a 6-6 debacle seem equally plausible.

That Oklahoma State finds themselves ranked in the Top 25 after losing another spectacular receiver and a QB who DVR’ed Murder, She Wrote is testament to the respect that Gundy has built, but 4-5 conference losses seems plausible. Also, they will be QB’d by something called Wes Lunt.

One of West Virginia, TCU, is probably going to crap the bed. Which?

Baylor won 10 games in 2011; Oklahoma State won 12 games: which team has the greater decline in wins?

One of Arkansas, South Carolina, Georgia is going to disappoint. Which?

Undervalued:

Texas checks in at #21 and we’re undervalued if you believe our offense will improve from 2011. Move the needle from 28 ppg in 2011 to 34 ppg in 2012 and Texas wins 10+.

Utah isn’t ranked. Utah returns 17 starters, QB Jordan Wynn is healthy, and they have their sea legs in the Pac 12. They look like a ranked team to me.

Interested in your thoughts.

The past week has featured more conference realignment moves and rumors in quite some time.  Seven schools switched conferences last Friday, all of whom are really pawns in the college sports game of double chess.  Stewart Mandel has pointed out that ever since the Big Ten announced that it was going to expand back in 2009, 25% of all FBS schools (31 in all) have changed leagues.  Inspired by the use of a classic presciently-titled Beatles song* (along with an appearance by Mr. Belding from “Saved by the Bell”) in “Mad Men” this past week, let’s look into the future** by answering some questions that I’ve been seeing from a lot of readers lately:

(* The cost for “Mad Men” to use an actual Beatles master recording as opposed to a cover version: $250,000.  It was well worth every penny.)

(** As the friendly posters at TexAgs seem to enjoy reminding me about once a month, I had this doozy of a wrong prediction last year.  I’m certainly not a soothsayer.  However, what I hope that readers will appreciate that I try to dig a little deeper than the surface level view to get them to think about the issues of the day in a different way.)

1. Does the removal of AQ status and resignation/ousting of Big East commissioner John Marinatto mean anything for Boise State and San Diego State? – Not really.  BCS auto-qualifier status in and of itself would have been nice for Boise State and San Diego State, but they were well aware months ago that such designation was on its way out the door.  What’s more critical for those two schools is the amount of the next TV contract for the Big East, which should be substantially more than what they would have received in the Mountain West Conference even in the worst case scenario.  The main issue for Boise State will be whether the WAC will continue to live on as a non-football league for the Broncos to place its basketball and Olympic programs.  As long as there’s some home for Boise State’s non-football sports, they’ll be in the Big East (meaning that San Diego State will be there, too).

2. Does the removal of AQ status and resignation/ousting of Big East commissioner John Marinatto mean that the Big East will split? – No.  If anything, it’s a sign that the conference is going to be sticking together for the foreseeable future.  This was a move that appears to have been driven by the Catholic members of the conference and the football members ended up agreeing.  As I’ve stated in prior posts, the Big East isn’t going to be getting a bonus from a TV network for its football league just because it’s an all-sports league as opposed to a hybrid league.  The value of the Big East football side is what it is regardless of the conference’s structure.  In contrast, it’s really the value of the basketball side of the conference that’s the variable and it’s clear that keeping Georgetown, Villanova, St. John’s, et. al will garner a better per school package than a split league.  As USA Today reported today in an otherwise somber assessment of the future of the Big East:

The conference could begin television negotiations as early as September. College football officials inside the league and out, and others well versed in TV negotiations all said the league would be best served if it stayed together, even in its unwieldy current configuration.

Even if no one in their right minds would create the Big East as currently constituted from scratch today, the Catholic and football members of the conference are still more valuable together than they are apart.

3.  Is the Big 12 raiding the ACC? – I don’t believe so (and you can refer back to my post from February on some of the reasons that I think still stand today).  Sometimes, I feel like I’m a crotchety guy constantly throwing a wet blanket on rumors that the Big 12 is going after the likes of Florida State and Clemson, but everything that I’ve heard on this topic has either originated from not-quite-reliable locales and rooted in what sound like football fan-focused concerns as opposed to university president-focused.  For instance, I see a lot of comments that a school like Clemson would want to join the Big 12 because of the “football culture” compared to the Tobacco Road dominated ACC, yet that belies the facts that (1) Nebraska and Texas A&M, two of the most football-focused schools in the country, couldn’t run from the Big 12 fast enough and (2) the ACC didn’t exactly decide to add Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College back in the day due to hoops prowess.  That’s what I mean by a “football-fan focused concern”.

Now, TV revenue disparity is certainly a university president-type concern that could make the Big 12 attractive compared to the ACC on paper.  The Big 12 reportedly has a verbal agreement with ESPN to kick up its total annual TV rights revenue to approximately $20 million per year per school.  (That figure would be the combination of ESPN first tier and Fox second tier TV rights but doesn’t include third tier TV rights controlled by individual schools, such as the Texas deal with ESPN’s Longhorn Network.)  However, it’s still unclear what ACC will end up after its renegotiation with ESPN.  There was a SportsBusiness Journal report in February that each ACC school was looking at around $15 million per year, yet that hasn’t been finalized.

Here’s one thing that’s clear to me, though: ESPN has zero incentive to see the ACC get raided.  None.  Nada.  Unlike its contracts with every other power conference, ESPN has complete top-to-bottom control of all ACC TV rights.  This means that ESPN has more of a vested interest in the survival of the ACC specifically over every other conference – it’s the one league that the people in Bristol aren’t sharing with Fox, CBS or the Big Ten Network.  In fact, think of it in these terms:

The ACC is the single largest content provider to all of the ESPN networks, whether college or pro.

Let that sink in for a moment.  The ACC provides more live content to ESPN than the NFL, Major League Baseball, NBA, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12.  So, do you really think ESPN wants the ACC to lose anyone, much less actually enable another league (the Big 12) to poach Jim Swofford’s gang?  Is ESPN going to want to trade an entire slate of Florida State games that’s guaranteed annually in order to receive only a handful of tier 1 Seminole games that’s variable from year-to-year?  Well, for all of the talk about how sexy of a matchup Florida State vs. Texas would be, check out the number of times that FSU vs. Miami appears on the list of highest rated games in the history of ESPN.  Since many sports fans tend to forget the existence of anything that happened beyond one year ago, they have forgotten how strong the ACC has been as a TV property over the long haul.

No one knows how much ESPN can single-handedly shape conference realignment more than the Big 12.  There’s one reason why Texas and Oklahoma aren’t in the Pac-16 today: the Longhorn Network.  ESPN was willing to pay Texas $15 million per year alone for bottom-of-the-barrel TV rights just so that its limited tier 1 Big 12 package would be kept alive.  So, my educated guess is that ESPN is going to be more than willing to throw at least an extra $30 million per year toward its single largest content provider of the ACC to make it at least revenue neutral on the TV front (where it’s close enough to the value of the Big 12’s TV deal that any difference would be offset by higher travel expenses) or even more to remove any doubt that the ACC is on equal standing with the other power conferences.

As I’ve stated in prior blog posts, I’m not saying this out of any love for the ACC.  Personally, there’s nothing that I’d love more than to witness those douchebags from Duke get relegated to the Southern Conference.  However, I try my best to separate what I want to see happen from what I believe will actually happen.  In this case, I believe that ESPN is going to end up paying the ACC enough to remove TV revenue as a reason for any school to leave that league for the Big 12.

4. Is the Big 12 going to expand with non-ACC schools such as Louisville? – I find this scenario to be much more likely than any type of Big 12 raid on the ACC, but the issue that the options for the Big 12 besides Louisville are limited.  BYU has been brought up on several occasions as a possibility, but the Cougars have such stringent requests regarding its own TV packages that even Texas says, “Damn!  You’re giving us nothing!”  Cincinnati is a geographic bridge between Louisville and West Virginia, yet their fan base size and football stadium situations aren’t making the heads of anyone in the Big 12 turn.  Rutgers and/or UConn are intriguing options for the Big 12 in my personal opinion, but that hasn’t been validated by anyone that’s actually associated with the conference.

Unfortunately for Louisville, they need a twelfth school to join them, as the Big 12 isn’t going to add them alone as number 11, and there isn’t anything close to a consensus on who that twelfth school should be.

5.  How are the non-power conferences going to end up? – The non-power conferences are in a worse position than they were 4 years ago.  While they will have more access to the new college football playoff on paper, they have few (if any) programs that have the resources to legitimately challenge for one of those 4 playoff sports on a consistent basis.  At the same time, those depleted leagues will likely be giving up any access to the other lucrative BCS bowls, which are going to be even more geared toward contractual tie-ins and a free market system of choosing the most popular schools that draw TV ratings and sell tickets.  To the extent that the Big East might get raided again by the Big 12, the Big East can then turn around and poach from the Mountain West and Conference USA even further (so fans from those conferences should not get any joy in any manner from all of the Big East doomsday stories).

If there’s one rule in conference realignment, it’s this: Shit ALWAYS rolls downhill.  When you’re at the bottom of that hill, you’re the WAC.

Good news from the lad.

Everything is all good. Nothing happened.. Total misunderstanding

— Kenny Dwayne Vaccaro (@KennyVaccaro4) May 8, 2012

And a personal pledge after the jump.

Won’t be standing in line for pizza ever again!

— Kenny Dwayne Vaccaro (@KennyVaccaro4) May 8, 2012

If Vasherized ever finishes his dissertation on Frosts’ Mending Wall and builds our T Shirt store, there will be a Free Kenny Dwayne T shirt.

If the guy wasn’t arrested for disposing of Ryan Swopes’ body, can’t figure this to be a big deal.