NCAA Football '11-'12

[OttoVonBismarck]

StubHub cannibalizes a lot of sales from the universities as well. Obviously if you're looking at a bowl game over a thousand miles away, there is going to be some number of your fans who make every home game who may not be able to make the bowl game. Maybe they don't have the money, maybe they can't get off work, or maybe they just aren't big enough supporters to travel even though they have season tickets and never miss a home game.

If you're a school with a large travelling fanbase, and especially a national appeal (like Notre Dame) you're going to be able to sell out your allotment and probably the rest of the stadium any bowl game you go to. I think the schools that can do that are probably less than 5 in the whole country.

For a school like Virginia Tech, bringing 45k fans is pretty good, and I've seen Tech with that many fans in bowl games before. However, just because the number of fans you bring > allotment, doesn't mean all or even a large portion of those fans bought their tickets from the school's allotment. 5-6 years ago it probably did, but in the last few years I think a lot of fans have gotten tired with how the schools sell tickets. It genuinely kind of sucks, you go to the schools website and you get to pay $120-165 for vaguely defined seating areas. You can select "Upper Level" "Lower Level" or "Mezzanine" with no explanation as to where you are in relation to the football field, all these tickets could be in the far corner but you know some of them aren't, unfortunately there is no way to specify what section you want in or anything like that. With StubHub you can get in whatever section you want.

The last time I went to a bowl game I bought through StubHub, the price premium was modest and in comparison to the plane ticket, hotel room for two nights, restaurant and etc honestly paying $250 for a $120 face value ticket seemed like a very small extravagance, when you got guaranteed good seats and knew exactly where in the stadium you would be sitting a month in advance.

[MadBurgerMaker]

   Well, two out of the first three bowl games were pretty good. 

[OttoVonBismarck]

I don't watch a bowl game held before 12/25.

[MadBurgerMaker]

I don't watch a bowl game held before 12/25.

Sucks to be you.  You've missed quite a few good games if you actually do that, including two last second Ws yesterday. 

[Eddie Teach]

I mostly only watch games that I can be bothered to care who wins. Though I'll watch the LSU-Tide rematch anyway.

[PDH]

I don't want to talk about anything.

[Valmy]

I don't want to talk about anything.

Got it

[grumbler]

Hey grumbler, did you read "Three and Out"?

It is getting a lot of positive press on the Arizona board, including plenty from a batch of Michigan fans who've shown up recently...

Finally got around to this.

A fairly good book, though the author had some strange writing "tics," like always using "successor" when he meant "predecessor" and vice-versa, and the descriptions of game action are confusing and disjointed (several times he forgets to mention the final score).  The mere existence of the book says some good things about Rodriquez:  he was an open coach, and just insisted that the story be the truth.  Rodriguez got the right to read the book and comment on it before publication, but expressly eschewed the right to insist on any changes.

The author is obviously pro-Rodriguez, but that's understandable; he owed RR a lot simply because RR gave him unrestricted access to all things to do with the program; Bacon could attend any meetings, meals, practices, games, press conferences, and whatnot he chose to attend, and talk to anyone he wanted to.  He spent a lot of time with RR, and so naturally sees things through RR's eyes.   This doesn't spoil the book or make it hagiography, though.  Bacon is quite critical of many of RR's decisions and approaches to problems, and in particular notes blunders he made in dealing with the press (which Bacon could pick up on when RR couldn't, Bacon being a former journalist himself). 

As I noted, Bacon doesn't handle the actual football game stuff itself very well.  He's not a former football player, and so he didn't really understand a lot of what was happening on the field.  Not a big issue, though; that's not the focus of the book.  It would have been a better book, though, if he had been in a better position to understand just why the team did so poorly on the field.  Ultimately, that's what got Rodriguez fired, after all.

The portions of the book about why Rodriguez left WVU and why he wasn't accepted well by the Michigan "faithful" are the best parts of the book.  WVU comes out looking like shit, which pretty much comports with what we knew at the time.  Carr's actions (and inactions) were new to me.  I hadn't realized the extent to which he undercut Rodriguez simply by denying him the support Bump Elliot had given Bo, and Bo in turn gave to Carr.  Carr encouraged players to depart when Rodriguez took over, and encouraged the ones who stayed to visit him (he was an "Associate Athletic Director" and had an office in the sports complex) to complain about RR.  He refused nine times to speak to the players before games.

Exactly how it was that RR became the coach was also interesting.  Carr had a personal dislike for Les Miles, who had agreed to become Michigan's next coach but wouldn't publicly confirm that until LSU's bowl game.  In the interim, Carr contacted RR, and then convinced UM President Mary Sue Coleman and AD Bill Martin to offer RR the job before LSU's bowl game.  He thus got what he wanted:  Les Miles out of the picture.  He didn't actually want RR, and proceeded to undercut him, but he made sure Les didn't get the job.

The guy who comes out of this looking worst is Bill Martin.  No surprise to anyone who follows Michigan sports.  Martin was a genius at business, but was no kind of leader at all, and never saw his job as AD as anything but a temp gig designed to allow him to oversee the renovation of the sports complex (which he did brilliantly, by all accounts).  He completely fumbled the new coach search, alienating the search committee that was supposed to be overseeing the process by repeatedly ignoring their recommendations (to a man, they wanted Miles first and Brady Hoke second) and going off on his own to talk to candidates they hadn't even considered (he really wanted Greg Schiano or Kirk Ferentz).  Eventually, the school's president had to take over the search process.

I think you might like the book, and it certainly covers Rodriguez's strengths and weaknesses.  He is a great scheme guy, and his strength and conditioning program (which you are going to get at Arizona) is second to none.  He is heavily reliant on (and perhaps too deferential to) his assistants, though, and you have them, as well.  They don't teach fundamentals as well as they need to, and the game day play calling is weak.  Rodriguez is a good recruiter, but places too much emphasis on a prospective player's ability, and not enough on his character.  RR had massive attrition issues (including losing, in 2008, the only two 5-star recruits he had for the defensive backfield, one because he couldn't qualify and the other because he wouldn't take on the strength and conditioning requirements).  Tate Forcier had one good year and then flunked out of school because he didn't think he needed to go to practice).  RR placed much greater emphasis on class attendance and grades than did Carr, which surprised me. 

Practicegate, the NCAA violations that put Michigan on probation, was largely a crock of shit.  The only part that RR was responsible for was that the compliance staff (who worked for a compliance officer who reported to the AD, and not for RR at all)  were, as ex-football players themselves, helping some of the players with techniques.  Even that would have been okay, except that they needed to be doing this for other programs, and not just football.  The "extra practice time" issue revolved around whether stretching counted as "practice" or merely practice preparation.  The rules were not clear on this.  Clearly, RR didn't enforce the rules as well as he should have, but the guys violating the rules were the ones supposed to be enforcing them, and they didn't work for RR.  Communications between RR and the Director of Compliance were strained (as is often the case between those positions, it seems). RR made the faulty assumption that they knew and followed the rules.  On their part, the compliance staff just thought they were putting in their own time voluntarily to help the kids.  How all this ended up as "major violations" is beyond me.

The one phrase you will read over and over, and that might well be the best one-sentence summary of this situation, is "if Bo was still here, none of this would have happened." 

[dps]

They don't teach fundamentals as well as they need to, and the game day play calling is weak.  Rodriguez is a good recruiter, but places too much emphasis on a prospective player's

I'm not really in a position to comment on how well they teach fundamentals, but from watching WVU games when RR was there, it was pretty obvious that while they had a good offensive scheme, actual game-day playcalling wasn't a strength for him and his staff.

[Eddie Teach]

  Tate Forcier had one good year and then flunked out of school because he didn't think he needed to go to practice).

[MadImmortalMan]

The Buckeyes will run Meyer's spread offense, but it won't just be a spread. Meyer said attacking the perimeter of a defense is key, but that's not all you have to do in the Big Ten. "Ohio State's still Ohio State," he said. "We're going to turn around and smack (people) ... That will be a part of who we are, probably more than we've done, because of who we have." Meyer said he would incorporate the I-formation in his offense and that he likes new offensive coordinator Tom Herman because Herman is open to ideas instead of married to his own system.

Getting closer...

[MadImmortalMan]

At first I thought, this Tom Herman guy was the OC at Iowa? 


Oh no wait, it was Iowa State.

[Valmy]

At first I thought, this Tom Herman guy was the OC at Iowa? 


Oh no wait, it was Iowa State.

Wait what is so great about Iowa this year that would make you go at hiring their assistant coach?  Didn't they lose to Iowa State this year?

Not to mention losing to Minnesota which was one of the worst teams in major college football?

Also why the crap directed at Iowa State?  Paul Rhoads and his staff are doing a great job.

[MadImmortalMan]

I was hoping for a pro style OC to offset Meyer and balance things out. Iowa runs the kind of offense I like. ISU passes for seven thousand yards a season.

[Valmy]

I was hoping for a pro style OC to offset Meyer and balance things out. Iowa runs the kind of offense I like. ISU passes for seven thousand yards a season.

Heh they wish.  But fair enough.