Wednesday, July 27, 2011

The New Frontier

Hey All,

With the conferences now having their media days across the country, I thought I'd take a few minutes here to look at the new frontier that is the college football landscape for 2011.

Get Your Conferences Straight!

Big Ten: The Big Ten now has 12 teams with the addition of the Nebraska Cornhuskers. The league is now split into two divisions with those said divisions carrying the awful names of "Leaders" and "Legends." Im just waiting for them to hand out a Lady Bing trophy at the end of the year. The league will have a championship game on December 3rd at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Here's how the divisions break down...
Leaders: Ilinois, Indiana, Penn State, Purdue, Ohio State, Wisconsin.
Legends: Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern

Big XII: The Big XII now has just 10 teams with Nebraska's aforementioned departure to the Big Ten and Colorado's leaving to join the new Pac 12. There will be no championship game for this league. However, the league has adopted a true round robin schedule. Yes, that means nine conference games for each team this year. Here's how the league breaks down...
Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas A&M.

Pac 12: The Pac 12 does have 12 teams as its' new name says. The former Pac 10 has added Colorado and Utah to its' ranks. Also, in another logical step, the league named their two new divisions sensibly with their now being a Pac 12 North and a Pac 12 South. The league championship game will be on December 2nd. It will be hosted by the team with the better league record.
North: California, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, Washington, Washington State
South: Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, USC, Utah, UCLA

Mountain West: A funny thing happened during Boise State's move to a tougher conference. Just when the Broncos declared that they were moving up to the MWC, two of the three top teams left the league with the third one announcing its' departue at the end of the 2011 season. BYU has gone independent, Utah has gone to the new Pac 12, and TCU will be a member of the Big East in 2012. Oh well, the Broncos will always have Air Force. Here's the league for this year...
Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State, New Mexico, San Diego State, TCU, UNLV, Wyoming.

WAC: Dead conference playing here. The league has lost Boise to the MWC. It will also lose Nevada, Fresno State, and Hawaii to the MWC in 2012. The WAC will have FCS teams Texas State and Texas-San Antonio step up to join the league in 2012, but these two can't make up for the loss of their big four schools. Here's the league in 2011...
Fresno State, Hawaii, Idaho, Louisiana Tech, New Mexico State, Nevada, San Jose State, Utah State.

The ACC, Big East, SEC, C-USA, MAC, and Sun Belt Conferences are all unchanged for 2011.

Schedules

From the important to the quirky, here's a look at this seasons' schedules in the FBS.

...The green, green grass is under their feet: Of the 120 FBS teams, only five will play all their games on natural grass. Those five are Clemson, Florida, Kentucky, Miami, and North Carolina..

...They say styles make fights in boxing, but this clash of styles will be just plain fun to watch. SMU will hook up with Navy again this year. Yes, It's the SMU Run-and-Shoot Vs. Navy's Option offense.

...Get ready for turf burn and turf toe and turf whatever: Four schools will play all their games on plastic grass. Akron, Bowling Green, Florida International, and Hawaii.

...Michigan opens up with five straight home games. They also only leave the state once in the first nine weeks of the season. The Wolverines won't leave the midwest all season.

...Bye-Bye-Bye: Army and Navy each have three bye weeks this year, with each school getting two weeks off before their annual clash.

...Just send us a postcard: Nevada opens up with four road games. The Wolfpack will go to Oregon, San Jose State, Texas Tech, and Boise State to start the year.

...No rest darlin': Colorado is the only FBS team without a bye this year.

...That Blue-on-Blue is so WAC: As a condition of their entry to the Mountain West Conference, Boise State had to agree to stop wearing all blue uniforms at home. The other coaches in the league claim that the all blue uniforms on blue turf was an unfair advantage for the Broncos. Yeah, that's it. It's the uniforms. It couldn't be the fact that Boise may have better talent that is better coached.

...No rest darlin' Part II: Not only do the Buffaloes not have a bye, they will also play an extra Pac 12 game that doesn't count. Due to a prior scheduling commitment, the Buffs will host California this year. The league has declared this a non-conference game and it will not count in the league standings.

...Time out for a cream puff break: Of the 66 BCS conference teams, 55 will have a an FCS (1-AA) school on their schedule. That's 83.3 percent of the teams for the math majors out there. North Carolina State gets special recognition here as they will play two FCS teams this year. USC, UCLA, and Notre Dame are still the only FBS schools to have never played an FCS school.

...Brain Bowl 2011: On September 9, Duke will host Stanford. What will be higher in this game, the number of future NFLers on the field or the number of future CEOs on the field?

...No favors for Lincoln: The Big 10 schedule maker did Nebraska no favors in their first season in the league. The Cornhuskers will play all the league's traditional powers. The teams not on their schedule are weak sisters Illinois, Indiana, and Purdue.

...Lucky Utes: Utah has a favorable first Pac 12 schedule as they will not face either Oregon or Stanford this year.

...Georgia on my mind: If there ever was a year for Georgia in the SEC, this may be it. If the Bulldogs get by Boise State in week one, they will roll into a conference slate where they don't play Alabama, Arkansas, or LSU. They should win the SEC East.

Rules, Rules, Rules

Here's a look at the major rules changes for the 2011 season.

Taunting: The new taunting rule will be enforced this year. That means if a player "taunts" any member of the opposing team before he reaches the endzone on any scoring play, the TD can be nullified and a 15-yard penalty assessed from the spot of the foul. Wow, Notre Dame may never lose another home game.

10 second run-off: Now, on penalties called within the final minute of each half, teams will have the choice of taking the yardage and a :10 run-off the clock , just the yardage, or declining the penalty.

Intentional Grounding: The college rule will now reflect the NFL rule. That means a receiver needs to just be in the area of the passed ball in order to avoid the call. The old rule stated that a receiver must have "a reasonable chance to catch the ball." Frankly, I think college refs have used the NFL reasoning for years already.

Blocking Below: Now, in yet another revision of blocking below the waist rules, players within seven yards of the center prior to the snap of the ball can block below the waist. However, they can only block below the waist going forward and then can only block toward the sideline they are lined up on. This rule is just plain dumb. Just eliminate blocking below the waist to everyone outside of the tackle box and get it over with!

No more 3-on-1: On place kicks, the defensive team can no longer use three or more players to take one player out on the kicking team while trying to block the kick.

Monitors: Coaches this year are now allowed to have monitors in the coaching booth. However, the monitors will be live feed only with no recording capabilities.

That's it for now folks, I hope this got everyone in the kickoff mood with a week or so to go before colleges start their fall camps.

-The Commissioner