54 days until college football season....

.....just sayin'.

BOWL SEASON IS HERE!

Bowl season is upon us! And you know what that means! ERIN ANDREWS FRONTAL!!!


ERIN ANDREWS BACKAL!!!


ERIN ANDREWS SIDE-AL!!!


Did we mention Erin Andrews, BACKAL?


ERIN ANDREWS GETTING UP ON A HOAGIE!!!


And just double checking, we did mention FRONTAL, right?



....and Backal?


SO HOLD ON TIGHT!!!!


...and get your GAME FACE ON!!!


Because it's gonna be a fun ride!!!

SEE YA NEXT TIME!!!

BCS War of Attrition

It all seemed so simple. Two evening games on Saturday would decide which two teams would meet in New Orleans on January 7. One game was a marquee event, Missouri vs Oklahoma for the Big XII title. (The fact that "marquee event" and "Missouri" are appearing together in a sentence pertaining to college football shows you how utterly ridiculous this season has been.) The other was a given. A blowout. Something to switch over to during commercials of the OU-Mizzou tilt. It was West Virginia taking on Dave Wannstedt and the Pitt Panthers in Morgantown. West Virginia has a backfield whose average 40 time is roughly 1.3 seconds. Pitt's entire team is basically LeSean McCoy. And Wanny's halfstache. Can't forget the halfstache, the most intimidating piece of facial hair this side of Rollie Fingers handlebar 'stache (or ANY handlebar 'stache for that matter).

So it was simple. West Virginia hangs 60 on Wanny, and then the Mountaineers would either take on Missouri on January 7 or (if Oklahoma beat Mizzou) they would take on Ohio State, who last played a game sometime in 2005. Well, for the love of Appalachian State, anyone who has watched college football in 2007 knows that nothing is simple. 2007 is a brave new world - a world where Notre Dame gets manhandled by Navy and Air Force and where Ron Zook is considered a cross between Bear Bryant and Tony Robbins (with a sprinkling of Mr. Belding paternal giddiness mixed in). So when it came time for someone to totally screw up the BCS title game once and for all, the gods picked the perfect guy for the job. They chose somebody who has made screwing things up look routine. They chose Wanny. The final score -- Pittsburgh 13, West Virginia/the refs/what was left of our sanity 9.

So now where do we go? We are basically assured of a TWO LOSS team in the BCS title game, and there is a better than decent chance that said two loss team may not have even won its division of its conference. That's right, it may be deemed that a team that was just good enough to be second in its division of the SEC is worthy of holding up the big glass egg on January 7. As Little Carmine Lupertazzi would say, "What a fucking stagmire."

And for all of you who were touting how this was the "best college football season ever" -- well, I hope you're happy. Just to be clear, a whole bunch of upsets doesn't mean that a season is the "best ever". It means that there are a whole bunch of teams that are quite flawed. More flawed than we thought. It also means that the end game in this whole thing is a January 7 clusterfuck pitting a team (Ohio State) who basically watched all of the other teams step on their own dicks for two weeks against a likely two loss team who (a) didn't even play in its conference title game and/or who (b) backed into the title game because Rich Rodriguez was outcoached by the village idiot, and against Oklahoma Chase Daniel finally turned into the pumpkin whose body shape he has been sporting all season. Best season ever? No. "Best seasons ever" have a few memorable upsets, a smattering of regular season classics, and culminate with two clear cut, traditional power houses squaring off for all of the marbles. 2005 was a "best season ever". 2007 is just a good reason to drink.

So who will Ohio State play? When we all woke up this morning, the BCS Rankings looked like this:

1. Missouri
2. West Virginia
3. Ohio State
4. Georgia
5. Kansas
6. Virginia Tech
7. LSU
8. USC
9. Oklahoma
10. Florida
11. Boston College
12. Hawaii

So let's do this. Let's assess who Ohio State should play and then I'll predict how the BCS bowl scene will shake out. As mentioned earlier, Missouri and West Virginia both spit the bit tonight. Other results: Virginia Tech over BC, LSU over Tennessee, USC over UCLA, and Hawaii (the only undefeated team left) hung around long enough for Ty Willingham to channel his inner Wannstedt. The Warriors came back from a 21-0 deficit to beat UW, 35-28.

Eliminating Boston College and Florida (both 3 loss teams), and assuming that there is no chance in hell that Missouri or West Virginia are part of the conversation with losses on Saturday, that leaves us with the following:

4. Georgia
5. Kansas
6. Virginia Tech
7. LSU
8. USC
9. Oklahoma
12. Hawaii

I have a huge problem with a team not winning its own conference and then being allowed to play in the BCS title game. It's happened twice (2001 Nebraska, 2003 Oklahoma) and I still can't believe a bylaw hasn't been passed by the BCS preventing this from happening again. A team is not even the best in its conference (or in the case of Georgia and Kansas, their division of their conference) and they have the inside track on the game for the whole enchilada? Since this is about who I think should play Ohio State, I am going to kindly ask the two Marks (Richt and Mangino) to step aside.

Also, while Hawaii has managed to navigate its entire schedule successfully (12-0), their schedule is ranked dead last in Sportsline's strength of schedule rankings, 119th overall. I could almost forgive that if they were blowing people out, but they've had a handful of close calls this season against the likes of Louisiana Tech (who LSU beat soundly by 48) and San Jose State, and in their only game against a BCS conference team, they needed 59 minutes and a last second pick to knock off 4-8 Washington. (Side bar - While Ty Willingham has only won 11 games in three years at UW, it's worth noting he has molded nearly 50 young men! Because that's what he does. He molds young men!) I digress ... my point with this paragraph was to basically say "Hey Hawaii, congrats on 12-0, enjoy the Sugar Bowl, you don't deserve a shot at the title". Also, I wanted to take a gratuitous pot shot at Ty Willingham. So we're good on both counts.

So that leaves us with Virginia Tech, LSU, USC, and Oklahoma. All of them are champions of their respective conferences, so we're good there. All of them have essentially the same won-loss record (USC played one less game since the PAC-10 has no title game.), with each having lost two games. Let's examine them all, shall we? (For moniker purposes, we'll label these four "The Contenders".)

(Notes: "BCS Ranking" is as of 12/1/07; "SOS" is the strength of schedule according to Sportsline.com as of 12/1/07; "Conf Rank" is the rank of the team's conference according to Sagarin as of 12/1/07; rankings of opponents in "Top 25 Wins" and "Losses" is their ranking at the time the game was played. Record in parentheses after each "Top 25 Win" and "Loss" is the opponent's final 2007 record.)

CONTENDER #1
VIRGINIA TECH (11-2, ACC Champion)

BCS RANKING: 6
SOS: 11
CONF RANK: 5

TOP 25 WINS: 10/6 @ #22 Clemson 41-23 (9-3)
11/24 @ #16 Virginia 33-21 (9-3)
12/1 vs #11 Boston College 30-16 (10-3)

LOSSES: 9/8 @ #2 LSU 48-7 (11-2)
10/25 vs #2 Boston College 14-10 (10-3)

ARGUMENT FOR: Tore through the ACC with the only loss a last second loss to then #2 Boston College ... remaining games were all wins and all but one by double digits ... avenged their only conference loss in the ACC title game ... has longest winning streak to end the season of any of the Contenders ... both losses were to teams that were in the top two at the time the game was played

MITIGATING FACTORS: Lost head-to-head in Baton Rouge to LSU in September ... check that, got their heads handed to them by LSU in Baton Rouge ... ACC was generally considered the weakest BCS conference for much of the year

BCS TITLE GAME FORECAST: Overcast, slight chance of rain
_____________________________________________________________

CONTENDER #2
LSU (11-2, SEC Champion)

BCS RANKING: 7
SOS: 27
CONF RANK: 1

TOP 25 WINS: 9/8 vs #9 Virginia Tech 48-7 (11-2)
10/6 vs #9 Florida 28-24 (9-3)
10/20 vs #17 Auburn 30-24 (8-4)
11/3 @ #17 Alabama 41-34 (6-6)
12/1 vs #14 Tennessee 21-14 (9-4)

LOSSES: 10/13 @ #17 Kentucky 43-37, 3OT (7-5)
11/23 vs Arkansas 50-48, 3OT (8-4)

ARGUMENT FOR: Won the nation's toughest conference in a year where the conference was probably its deepest from top to bottom ... have most impressive non-conference win of any of the contenders (48-7 vs VA Tech) ... both losses were in triple overtime ... most Top 25 wins of any of the Contenders

MITIGATING FACTORS: Walked a tight rope all year with close games ... could've gone 13-0 as easily as they could've gone 8-5 ... defense never seemed to find itself the second half of the season ... when they needed a win in November to stay at #1, they lost at home to Arkansas (gave up 385 yards rushing)

BCS TITLE GAME FORECAST: Partly Sunny and mild
____________________________________________________________________

CONTENDER #3
SOUTHERN CAL (10-2, Pac-10 Champion)

BCS RANKING: 8
SOS: 74
CONF RANK: 2

TOP 25 WINS: 9/8 @ #14 Nebraska 49-31 (5-7)
11/10 @ #24 California 24-17 (6-6)
11/22 @ #6 Arizona State 44-24 (10-2)

LOSSES: 10/6 vs Stanford 24-23 (4-8)
10/27 @ #5 Oregon 24-17 (8-4)

ARGUMENT FOR: Finished season on convincing four game winning streak, including 20-point win at #6 Arizona State ... only team to defeat Oregon State after September ... arguably the most talented team in the country ... Trojans don't duck anybody, scheduled Nebraska and ND out of conference (who knew they would both implode?)

MITIGATING FACTORS: Among the four Contenders, has by far the worst loss (Stanford at home, 24-23) ... only one truly impressive win, considering how all of their foes ended 2007 ... computers are killing USC, so any pickup with the human polls will likely be cancelled out by poor computer ranking ... weak non conference schedule, but not for lack of trying to "schedule up"

BCS TITLE GAME FORECAST: Rain, lots and lots of rain (beware of mudslides)
___________________________________________________________________

CONTENDER #4
OKLAHOMA (11-2, BIG 12 Champion)

BCS RANKING: 9
SOS: 59
CONF RANK: 4

TOP 25 WINS: 10/6 vs #19 Texas 28-21 (9-3)
10/13 vs #11 Missouri 41-31 (11-2)
12/1 vs #1 Missouri 38-17 (11-2)

LOSSES: 9/29 @ Colorado 27-24 (6-6)
11/17 @ Texas Tech 34-27 (8-4)

ARGUMENT FOR: Most impressive of all of the conference title game winners, blowing out #1 Missouri ... maybe most complete team in the country on both sides of the ball ... of 11 wins, 10 were by double digits and 7 were by 20+ points

MITIGATING FACTORS: Other than wins against Missouri, only other Top 25 win was against a marginal Texas team on a neutral field ... losses were both to unranked teams ... Texas Tech game was not as close as final score ... didn't play Kansas ... non conference schedule was weak ... the computers hate OU even more than they hate USC

BCS TITLE GAME FORECAST: Thunderstorms, maybe some hail

____________________________________________________________________

Assessing all of the empirical arguments for and against (i.e. whose body of work most justifies their going), and combining that with the "eyeball test" (i.e. my own semi-educated opinion on who I think is the best equipped to and most deserving of playing in the BCS title game), I would rank The Contenders in the following order:

1. LSU
2. Virginia Tech
3. Oklahoma
4. USC

Ironically, if I were coaching Ohio State I'd probably be more concerned about playing USC or Oklahoma than LSU or Virginia Tech simply because of the pure horse power they each have on both sides of the ball. Plus, USC and OU have both been very impressive the last couple weeks of the season. That said, the bodies of work that LSU and Virginia Tech have put together over the entire season are both more impressive than USC and Oklahoma (and the BCS rankings bear this out somewhat as the computers are not big fans of USC or Oklahoma and their weaker non-conference schedules). LSU has navigated the largest number of difficult games of any Contender, and Virginia Tech is actually playing the best football since November 1 (no losses). Both LSU and Virginia Tech played harder schedules and their two losses were not nearly as bad as the two losses USC and OU each incurred. LSU lost two games in triple overtime, and Virginia Tech lost two games to #2 teams in the country at the time (and avenged one of those losses in the ACC title game). On the other hand, USC lost to a 40 point underdog at home and OU lost to two unranked teams, one (Colorado) on a last second FG and the other (Texas Tech) in a game that was not as close as the final score would indicate.

I think LSU and Virginia Tech deserve to be in the conversation more than USC or OU. So I needed to pick a winner between LSU and Virginia Tech. In the end, the tie breaker for me is that these two teams played each other in September, and LSU won handily 48-7. Since that time, Virginia Tech has improved and LSU has probably slid back a little, but not enough either way for me to ignore the result of that game. If it was a last second field goal that propelled LSU, maybe we put the result aside. But for something this important, a shot at the national title, a team should be rewarded for a convincing head-to-head win. We spend all of this time complaining how the BCS selection process is so subjective and teams don't decide it on the field, and yet here we have an actual game that was played between the two teams to help light the way. I'll take it.

The 800 pound gorilla in the room is the fact that we are counting on the coaches and the Harris poll voters to actually do the "right thing" and jump one of The Contenders over Georgia and Kansas. Keep in mind, the coaches are a group that vote each week without having seen a lot of these teams even play (other than highlights), and the Harris poll voters I'm pretty sure include Richard Simmons, Drew Carey, and the chick who played Rudy Huxtable on "The Cosby Show". Counting on these folks to do the sensible thing is like counting on Britney Spears to wear underwear. This is all my way of saying that I can't shake this horrible feeling that we're going to see Ohio State vs Georgia on January 7, to the point where I'd say it's a coin flipper. I hope I'm wrong.

So how should the BCS play out? In my opinion, like this:

BCS TITLE GAME - Ohio State vs LSU
ORANGE BOWL - Virginia Tech vs West Virginia
FIESTA BOWL - Oklahoma vs Kansas
SUGAR BOWL - Georgia vs Hawaii
ROSE BOWL - Illinois vs USC

Virginia Tech and West Virginia would be a nice old school Big East, pre-ACC defections matchup. OU and Kansas actually didn't play this year so we could actually get a chance to fill in the one remaining Big 12 gap from the regular season. And the Rose Bowl will protect the Big 10 vs Pac-10 property at all costs.

How will the BCS play out? I'm going to stand by my opinion that the coaches and Harris poll voters are all braindead and go with this:

BCS TITLE GAME - Ohio State vs Georgia
ORANGE BOWL - Virginia Tech vs Kansas
FIESTA BOWL - Oklahoma vs West Virginia
SUGAR BOWL - LSU vs Hawaii
ROSE BOWL - Illinois vs USC

I hope I'm wrong. It didn't have to be this way. Damn you, Wanny. The blood of this stagmire is on your hands.

Coaching Carousel Begins

I hope everyone had a very happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday. Now we approach that time of year where colleges and universities go through the time honored tradition of purging their athletic departments of defective football coaching staffs. It's as much a part of December as white lights, dradles, and final exams. We here at the Sports Kolache (and by "we", I mean basically me, Sean Thomas Pendergast) will be watching the coaching carousel closely throughout the coming weeks and bringing you copious updates on all of the tomfoolery.

A few observations on the heels of the first few coaching transactions:

LES MILES

With Lloyd Carr retiring at Michigan last Monday, all focus has been on LSU's Les Miles as his possible successor. The possibility of Les leaving bayou country so moved the Tiger faithful that they organized a "March for Miles" last Wednesday, with a few thousand of Louisiana's finest delusional, purple clad freaks walking Les to his weekly talk show at Walk-On's in a show of support.














Forty-eight hours later, after Darren McFadden was finished marching through the LSU defense like the Germans through the Champs Elysee, LSU fans felt a little differently.














TEXAS A&M

A good weekend in Aggieland as the Agro's get a win over the Longhorns and Coach Fran's resignation. Nice exacta!! (Degenerate side bar - how much would the "deposed coach getting an improbable win" money line parlay have paid out with Fran and Houston Nutt on Saturday? $100 would've paid around $1500. Of course, the temptation to mix in Callahan and go for the big payout would've killed the whole thing. What's my point? I'm a degenerate, that's my point.)

Say hello to your new coach, Aggie Fan! Sherman ..... SHERMAN!!! WAKE THE HELL UP!!!!















BYE BYE, COACH O

Unfortunately for Ole Miss head ball coach Ed Orgeron, the hot Rebel co-eds were not deciding his fate, because we all know that if they were, Coach O would be getting a five year extension. I'm truly hopeful that Ole Miss' firing of Coach FOOTBAW doesn't mean that we have seen the last of him. I'm sure he'll land somewhere, but I think I speak for Youtube viewers everywhere when I say it better happen sooner rather than later. YAW YAW YAW YAW YAW YAAAW..... YAW YAW ..... FIRED!!

Weekend Thoughts 11/11/07

I hope everyone had a good weekend, and that those of you who were able to partake in Juegopalooza managed to shake off the rust in time to take in all of the football action. As I type this, I am sitting at the Buffalo Wild Wings in midtown (taking in the Gametime show with David Nuno on 1560 The Game) with two big screens in front of me. On one screen, Green Bay Packer RB Ryan Grant is running over various Minnesota Vikings on his way to a touchdown this afternoon and on another screen is a highlight of Illinois coach Ron Zook getting the Gatorade bath after the Illini's 28-21 upset over #1 ranked Ohio State.

Understand that if someone had bet you at this time in 2004 that either of these things would ever occur, let alone both on the same weekend, you would have gotten odds of roughly 1,000,000,000,000 to 1. You see, at this time in 2004, Ryan Grant was a backup RB on a somewhat brutal Notre Dame football team (as opposed to the otherworldly brutal current version) who was about as elusive as a Winnebago and who would go down half the time after minimal to no contact. It was also about this time in 2004 that the Zooker was getting run out of Gainesville in favor of wunderkind Urban Meyer (and rightfully so) and was a mere few weeks away from thanking folks for the kind welcome at his introduction presser at the "University of ILLINOISE". (Yes, the Zooker pronounced the silent "s" at the end of Illinois.) And now one of them is the starting RB for an 8-1 NFL team, and the other one is going to be coaching in a New Year's Day bowl game.

And the scary thing is that these things rank only as #541 and #767 respectively on the list of unlikely occurrences that have actually happened this football season.

Other thoughts from the weekend.....

ROCK, CHALK, MANGINO!

Go ahead and count me among the believers in Mark Mangino and the Kansas Jayhawks. What a contrast between those two teams last night in Stillwater. Kansas was able to minimize penalties (3 for 18 yards for the game) and protect the football (no turnovers), while Oklahoma State played with a lack of discipline that you would expect from a team coached by a guy who has a propensity to become a bit unhinged sometimes -- poor tackling, untimely penalties, four turnovers, and a seemingly insatiable need to talk shit to their Jayhawk counterparts after every four yard catch. In short, one team played smart and the other one played stupid. And yes, Mike Gundy, I realize that I am writing this about children who have mothers -- mothers who probably have my blog bookmarked in their Netvibes, and that now you hope that my kids come home crying because they're fat, or something like that. Yes, I realize that I am crap ... and that the administrator of Google who allowed me to register my blog is crap. And you are 40. And a man. A man who coaches a team that should be 8-2 right now, but instead is 5-5. But a man nonetheless.

Now, you have to wonder about Kansas and where they deserve to be if they win out. Right now, it would seem that on the heels of this weekend with Ohio State losing, the best they can hope for right now is a #3 BCS ranking behind LSU and Oregon. I would contend that if that Kansas is able to win out the rest of the way (including the Big XII title game), and LSU and Oregon win out as well, that the Jayhawks would deserve to leapfrog one of them (likely Oregon) and go to the BCS title game. The reasons behind my rationale:

1. Going undefeated through the Big 12 this season is an accomplishment that deserves to be rewarded. Kansas will have taken care of all their business this season, while LSU and Oregon (and everyone else in BCS conferences will not have).


2. If the polls had Ohio State as such an overwhelming #1 before their loss to Illinois, it would seem logical that Kansas, with a resume that would include a comparable schedule at this point to Ohio State's PLUS wins over likely top ten teams in Missouri and Oklahoma (Big XII title game), would deserve a ranking in the top two.

At this point, Kansas is being penalized somewhat for a weak non-conference schedule but moreso for "being Kansas" and starting the season outside the polls (and, in turn, being forced to play leapfrog over teams in front of them). The fact of the matter is also when you look at this Kansas team, they just don't look like a Top 3 team. I don't mean that as an insult, they just don't have nearly the number of athletes that pass the "eyeball test" as do LSU or even Oregon (or Oklahoma State, for that matter). I mean, Brandon McAnderson just doesn't look like a big time college RB. Joe Mortensen doesn't look like a starting middle LB for an undefeated Big XII team. But it works. Because the Jayhawks don't beat themselves and they play with a chip on thier shoulder. And they have a coach who is fat and, therefore, merry. Most of the time anyway. There was that one time he wasn't merry....

But we can forgive that. I've said many times, I like college football more when the traditionally elite programs are the ones vying for the big prize. But I have to say, a BCS game involving Kansas intrigues me. And it's always more fun when the token fat guy is at the party. At least that's what I gather from the number of times I've arrived at parties and people tell me how badly the party sucked until I got there.

GOOD RIDDANCE, OB!

And while the Kansases and Illinoises of the world continue their assault on college football's upper echelon, some traditional powers continue to stumble. If you didn't see it, the University of Miami turned out the lights on the Orange Bowl this weekend, but not before the Virginia Cavaliers decided to show up at the party and drink all of the Canes' beer, eat all of their food, and deflower all of their lady folk. Wow, what a way to close the OB. I couldn't help but take some pleasure in watching the Cavs have their way with the Canes (to the tune of 48-0), seeing as "da U" and they're band of thugs (who doubled as really good football players back in the day) was directly responsible for many hours of therapy during my childhood and collegiate years, culminating with this. The building itself, though, was haunted. As you can tell from this clip, the Canes didn't even need to be present for the OB to suck worse than a torn groin muscle for a Notre Dame fan.

Anyway, while the OB was a cradle of spine-tingling memories for many college football, NFL, and Ashlee Simpson fans, by all accounts it was falling apart at the seams (Mike Patrick actually called it a "dump" during his broadcast last night on ESPN, presumably when he wasn't waxing poetic about Britney Spears) so good riddance, OB! Don't let the wrecking ball hit you in the ass on the way out!

Question though -- is Lamar Thomas going to be as protective of the Canes new house?


SPEAKING OF TRADITIONAL POWERS....

Let me first say that I am a Notre Dame graduate, and I like Charlie Weis. I think he is a good and generous man, a fine representative of the University of Notre Dame, and by all accounts one of the hardest workers in the college football head coaching business. While I wasn't shouting from the rooftops in 2004 for the university to fire Tyrone Willingham, I did think it was a very defendable move and had no problem with it. Anyone who followed the program any closer than watching highlights (the few that there were) in 2004 knows that the direction of the program was headed decidedly downward with Willingham. Recruiting was at an all-time nadir (which is manifesting itself in part this season), talent was not being developed, and Willingham was steadfast in his refusal to make changes to his coaching staff, most notably his bizarre desire to keep offensive coordinator Bill Diedrick, whose idea of "creative playcalling" consisted of fifteen bubble screens per game. Notre Dame was not going to ever get near a BCS bowl with Tyrone Willingham as their coach -- not in 2005 nor 2006 (when they did make BCS bowls with Weis) nor any other season. Never, ever, ever. I will debate this with anyone who would like to do so.

Now, all of that said, what's happening on the field in South Bend this season is a complete and utter disgrace. I don't care if you have junior and senior classes full of two-star and three-star recruits. At Notre Dame, you should not be losing to service academies at home in November. Period. Not in 2007, not ever. We hear a lot about how young this Notre Dame team is, and it's true. A sizable portion of their two deep on both sides of the ball consist of freshmen and sophomores; not coincidentally, most of the raw talent on this team is in those classes as well. (For what it's worth, Weis currently has the #1 recruiting class in the country for next season as well.) However, youth is not an excuse for the number of missed assignments on the offensive line -- not this late in the season against inferior athletes. Youth is not an excuse for putting the ball on the ground a ridiculous number of times; last I checked, they didn't start teaching ball security in college. I do believe there are high school and Pop Warner teams that work on this skill in practice. Understanding the snap count would seem to require mere listening and counting skills, yet watching this ND offensive line you'd think it required a masters degree as well.

Weis has shown he can recruit. He's also shown that he can take experienced talent and show them the way (the Quinn/Samardzija led teams in 2005 and 2006). However, he hasn't shown he can develop young talent. That's on Weis and his staff and has nothing to do with Willingham. The team is 1-9 right now, and I'm guessing they're not done losing yet. Unlike Willingham, I don't expect Weis to stand pat. He's already shown he'll make changes when he let Rick Minter go this past winter, and he hired Corwin Brown as his defensive coordinator. Expect more changes. The question is how damaged is this group's psyche now? And how many of the recruits will jump ship? (None yet, but it's early.) Weis' recruiting and ability to sell the school have bought him time. But there are some serious chinks in the armor now. The clock is ticking....

TIME KILLERS

• Maybe the best Tom Cruise impersonation ever. [I Am Bored]
• In case anyone was wondering whose huddle it is in Boston now.... [YouTube]
• If Mike Gundy were to channel his inner Al Roker. [Wizard of Odds]