Bowl Week, an ESPN broadcast bonanza, is well underway, but I can't confess to being terribly interested. When last I wrote for SC, I ranted and raved about the state of college football.
That was before the Associated Press pulled an end around on the Bowl Championship Series of the future, and all but assured that beginning in 2006, the attendees of the "national championship game" would be chosen by committee.
That was before LSU's already millionaire head coach Nick Saban told the Miami Dolphins he would change addresses if they would "show him the money." Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga did indeed show him the money, and Saban gave the Dolphins a Christmas gift by announcing his decision after Christmas dinners had been eaten and rum-infused eggnogs widely ingested.
That was before Notre Dame hired New England Patriots offensive coordinator Charlie Weis to their head coach.
That was before LSU came knocking on Bobby Petrino's door.
If I were the athletic director at the University of Louisville, I think I would fire Petrino. The man has absolutely no intention of staying at Louisville. This despite the fact that the Cardinals become a Big East school next season, and are already odds-on favorites to win the conference. Instead, UofL signed Petrino to a slightly sweeter deal than the one he had previously, in light of the fact that Petrino had been on the short list at big time vacancies Notre Dame and University of Florida.
Petrino's success rate is, well, debatable, in my opinion, because his longest tenure anywhere in his travels was three years as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Utah State and QB coach and OC with the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars. He's been all over the map, but while there's little to be argued about the abilities' of his offense to score points (he did, after all, turn Chris Redman into something approximating an NFL QB in one season; Redman turned out to be a mirage), there's absolutely no record of his ability to recruit. His teams at UofL built off the success of John L. Smith's recruiting capacity.
Don't forget, this is the guy who happily met under not-completely secret circumstances with Auburn's boosters, AD, and university president last offseason, a debacle that ended in Auburn coach's Tommy Tuberville's contract extension and the dismissal of the AD and president. While it's difficult to pin blame on Petrino, one wonders just how much class he has meeting with university officials regarding an opening that doesn't yet exist.
Expect LSU to land him. They'll show him the money, and he'll head to the Bayou having completely forgotten that he said just a week ago that Louisville, "Is the place I want to be. This is the place my family wants to be."
When Notre Dame hired Charlie Weis, I was pleased for selfish reasons. The Pittsburgh Steelers could only benefit from the Patriots' OC being distracted by his Notre Dame duties. While there's been no real proof that this has happened yet, an AFC championship showdown would take place merely two weeks before college football's Letter of Intent day. And I bleed Black and Gold.
Overall, I think this is a poor hire by Notre Dame. The Irish QB Brady Quinn appeared to be settling into the Tyrone Willingham system, and now he'll have to learn an entirely new system, an incredibly complicated system that will take away any confidence he had built, and likely crush Quinn's college career.
Weis is a strong offensive mind. He's creative, but he's also pass-happy. He sometimes tends toward over-coaching, and that won't win games in college. He won't trust Quinn to truly run his system till years after Quinn's left. And if Notre Dame follows the precedent they set with Willingham, Weis should be unemployed in three years, because I doubt very strongly that he'll win. But, that's just my unsolicited opinion.
What can you say about the Associated Press? There's certain hypocrisy to their announcement from two weeks ago. They never granted the BCS permission to use them to anoint national champions, but the AP has been anointing its own (see last year) national champion for eons. The AP's announcement won't keep it from continuing that practice, either.
And I feel relatively certain that the playoff-desiring AP sports writers would happily throw their votes back in if they got their way and the university presidents announced a playoff system was in the works. And the media claims that they only report the news. What poppycock!
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