Bowls, Polls, and Tattered Souls , livre ebook

Turner Publishing Company - Stewart Mandel

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152 pages

English

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SI.com "College Football Mailbag" author Stewart Mandel tackles the ten issues that confound college football fans--with a new chapter on the 2007 season.

"An intricate tour through the ills of the college football world (and there are many), but still manages to take on a breezy, airy tone."
--The Quad, NYTimes.com

"Stewart Mandel writes about college football's major controversies with a wit and depth of knowledge that will impress even the most obsessed fans. And because he's both fair and objective, there is something in this book to infuriate nearly everyone."
--Warren St. John, author of the bestselling Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer: A Road Trip into the Heart of Fan Mania

"In a book dripping with sarcasm, Stewart Mandel plays tour guide on an interesting ride through the college football nuthouse."
--Bruce Feldman, author of Meat Market and senior writer for ESPN the Magazine

"If you're confused by the world of college football, particularly the BCS and how the present polls are conducted, then I will recommend to you Bowls, Polls & Tattered Souls."
--Football Outsiders

"Presents history and insights on all aspects of the sport, from recruiting to the bowl system to why certain teams play in certain conferences. A great read for fans with thirty days or thirty years of experience."
--Orlando Sentinel

If your heart beats faster on Saturday afternoons as your team takes the field, this book will give you new insight into the fanaticism and chaos that characterize college football today. Stewart Mandel takes a provocative, hard-hitting look at the hot-button issues: the controversial BCS; the polls and their largely arbitrary rankings; the ego-inflating recruiting craze; cheating and recent scandals; the huge pressures and salaries heaped on coaches; the Heisman hype-fest; the NFL draft; the clunky conference expansions; privileged Notre Dame, college football's greatest juggernaut; and the proliferation of bowl games. You'll get behind-the-scenes insights on how the issues evolved and why some are almost impossible to resolve in a book that's as entertaining, passionate, and thought-provoking as the game itself.

Sujets

Sport

Sports collectifs

Rugby & Football américain

Sports

National Football League Draft

Poll

Recreation

Bowls

Boulingrin (jeu)

Football

ESPN

Rugby

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Publié par	Turner Publishing Company
Date de parution	01 août 2007
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781620458617
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0798€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Bowls, Polls Tattered Souls
Tackling the Chaos and Controversy That Reign over College Football
STEWART MANDEL

John Wiley Sons, Inc.
Copyright 2007 by Stewart Mandel. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada
Wiley Bicentennial Logo: Richard J. Pacifico
Design and composition by Navta Associates, Inc.
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Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and the author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
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ISBN 978-0-470-04917-4
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Introduction
1 One Nation, Under the BCS
2 Pulling Rank
3 He Won the Heisman?
4 FireMyCoach.com
5 What s the Deal with Notre Dame?
6 Invasion of the Recruiting Geeks
7 How Boston College and Clemson Became Neighbors
8 Tonight, It s the MPC Motor City Car Care Credit Union Bowl
9 That s Great, Now Run a 40
10 Everybody Cheats-Just Not My School
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Index
Introduction
What do you do for a living? Me? I deal with confused people. Lots of them. All day. Every day.
It s true I also attend football games, conduct interviews, and write stories. But the confused people-they re the one constant throughout. Their bewildered queries, their pleas for clarity await me nearly every time I check my e-mail, filling my in-box by the hundreds. Their messages often start the same way: How can you possibly explain , Am I missing something here, or ?, Maybe you can help me figure something out , or, my personal favorite, How can you be such an idiot?
I cover the great sport of college football for SI.com and Sports Illustrated . Anyone who s ever spent a Saturday in the Horseshoe (Ohio State) or the Swamp (Florida), the Big House (Michigan) or Death Valley (LSU), knows well that what makes college football so special is not necessarily the action on the field but the collective energy of the ninety thousand diehards in the stadium surrounding it. The depth of passion among college football fans is unlike that of any other American sport, surpassed in intensity perhaps only by that of other countries soccer fans. Though many college football fans are certifiably nutty, fortunately, they ve yet to reach the point of assassinating a quarterback. (Riots, on the other hand, are not out of the question.)
Since 2003, I ve been interacting with these fans on a weekly basis, thanks to the Mailbag column I pen for SI.com . The idea of the Mailbag is to answer several reader-submitted questions, usually pertaining to particular events in the news that week. Most readers, understandably, are primarily concerned about their own favorite teams and are seeking my opinion about something. Do I think they ll win this weekend? Do I think their coach is the right guy for the job? Do I think their star running back has a chance at the Heisman? And, of course, the obligatory, Why don t you give my team more respect? College football fans seek validation for their teams from the national media the way a two-year-old seeks attention from his mommy. They can t help it-they re an extremely proud bunch.
They re also, as I ve found out, an extremely confused bunch, and to be honest, I can t say I blame them. If you stop and think about it, not much about college football makes a lot of logical sense, from the way its champion is determined to the schedules the teams play to the fact the coaches can make $4 million a year while the players scrap for laundry money. Truth be told, the entire sport is basically a season-long exercise in chaos, which is why, when I filter through several hundred Mailbag submissions each week, there are a host of recurring questions that continually come up. Like, say, why is college football the lone remaining sport on the planet without a playoff? And while we re at it, why the need for thirty-two bowl games? Why does the Big Ten have eleven teams? How does recruiting work? Who exactly votes for the Heisman Trophy? And why do so many Heisman winners flop in the NFL? Why is it that a team like undefeated Boise State does not even get the chance to play for the national championship? Why does Notre Dame get its own TV contract?
And, oh yeah-tell me again why we don t have a playoff?
I occasionally take stabs at these and other similar topics in the Mailbag, but the reality is, most are extremely complicated issues that cannot possibly be summed up in a couple of paragraphs. And that s why I wrote this book. I figured it was long past time that somebody with firsthand knowledge of the situation sat down and took the time to explain, in detailed yet still (I hope) easy-to-understand terms, why exactly college football is the way it is. Each chapter of Bowls, Polls Tattered Souls tackles a different hot-button issue that I know from reading all those e-mails is a source of much consternation, confusion, and, in some cases, even anger and resentment among fans from Miami to Minnesota, Cal to Clemson. The much-despised BCS is obviously the most pervasive and divisive of all college football topics, which is why it s also first on the list of chapters, but in truth, there s almost no element of the sport that does not generate its own share of controversy.
Before we get into the meat and potatoes, I think it s important to understand one underlying truth about college football that digs to the heart of the sport s prevailing sense of chaos. And that is: Nobody s in charge. I m serious. There is no commissioner in college football like there is in professional sports. There isn t even one central office or organization that oversees the sport. You might think it s the NCAA, but that s not true. While all of the schools that participate in football are NCAA members that abide by its rules and participate in its championships for every other sport, football is the one sport that has managed to basically remain a free-for-all.
Think about it. At the start of the year, Major League Baseball draws up the season schedule for all thirty teams, which all play an equal number of home and away games. In college football, each conference constructs its schedule differently depending on the number of teams, and each school decides for itself whether to play a hard or easy nonconference slate. Some teams open against Texas A M and Clemson, others against Texas State and the Citadel. There s no confusion in the NFL as to how the playoffs work-the owners of all thirty-two teams agree to the rules and the league office administers them. The BCS, on the other hand, is basically run by the six richest conferences, much to the chagrin of the other five. When a brawl breaks out during a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden, it s NBA commissioner David Stern who levies the suspensions. When a brawl breaks out during the Miami-Florida International game, it s left to the two teams and their conference to decide what s a fair punishment, and one side s assessment may be completely different from the other s.
Complete chaos, I tell you.
The most glaring recent example of college football s decentralized nature one could possibly imagine occurred on September 16, 2006. It was a much-anticipated Saturday that included seven games between ranked opponents, including Nebraska at USC, Michigan at Notre Dame, and Florida at Tennessee, but one, number 15 Oklahoma at number 18 Oregon, wound up overshadowing all others because of a truly bizarre and unfortunate ending. After scoring a touchdown with 1:12 remaining to cut the Sooners lead to 33-27, the Ducks lined up for an onside kick, their last remaining hope of winning the game contingent on recovering it, which they did-at least according to the officials. Since 2005, the NCAA has allowed conferences to employ an instant-replay system, much like the NFL, in which an advisory official in the press box with access to television replay angles can adjust or overrule a call on the field if deemed incorrect. The process usually holds up the game for several minutes. Such was the case with this call. As sixty thousand spectators at Autzen Stadium waite