Reflection of the Blogging Experience

      Before I get started, I feel the need to tell anyone who clicked on this particular post to see a football discussion that they're out of luck on this one but there will be more in the near future.

      Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I begin with this deep (or not so deep) reflection. I'm a very opinionated person, so when we were assigned to keep a blog throughout the semester over any topic we chose I was pretty excited to get started. It was a very fun and entertaining assignment to participate in. At first, I tried to keep my posts mostly factual but that quickly got boring and really just didn't seem to encourage any feedback. So I shifted it to a much more opinionated blog and honestly it became much more fun to write. I love having a platform like this to voice my opinion to whoever cares enough to listen. Admittedly, my audience is pretty slim right now but I look forward to continuing this blog and possibly expanding to other topics within the sports world in order to get a wider audience. I love discussing sports and occasionally participating in heated debates because, of course, I'm never wrong and I'm always eager to point that out. Ha ha.

     A blog is a project that I honestly never saw myself doing; however, being handed this assignment over the semester has made me see how fun and interesting it can be. That is something that I probably never would have discovered without being forced to keep a blog and for that I need to thank you, Dr. Marlow. Web Based PR was a very enjoyable class and it gave me a lot of useful information that I'm sure I'll use as I graduate and move on to graduate school and the corporate world.

Randy Shannon to Arkansas?

Rumors have been flying around today regarding the possible hire of former Miami Hurricanes head coach, Randy Shannon, to be the new defensive coordinator at the University of Arkansas. Arkansas and Miami football message boards alike have been lighting up with the rumors; however, as of right now that's all they are: rumors. Nothing has been confirmed or denied at this point.

Rumor or fact, it's always fun to speculate when things like this come up. Personally, I would be very excited to see Shannon become the new Hogs' DC. Before becoming head coach at Miami, he served as the DC there from 2001-2007, including the 2001 National Championship team. In his 7 seasons as Miami's defensive coordinator, Shannon's defenses ranked 6th, 7th, 2nd, 28th, 4th, and 7th nationally. Obviously, if the rumors turn out to be true, Arkansas's defense is in for a major overhaul. This could potentially be the move that eventually brings the Razorbacks a national championship. The dynamic of Petrino's offense and Shannon's defense operating on the same team is simply insane. How can you stop a team that ranks in the top 10 nationally on offense and defense? The short answer may be that you can't. The only thing that's clear right now is that if these rumors turn out to be true, every other team in the SEC will definitely be on notice to watch out for the Razorbacks. Wooo Pig Sooie!

Big East Fighting for Survival

Pittsburgh, Syracuse, and West Virginia are out as the first two are headed for the ACC and the latter is heading to the Big 12. The Big East Conference is obviously determined to survive all of this conference realignment mess that the college football world is currently wrapped up in. With a recent announcement coming from conference officials, we all found out exactly how determined the conference is to continue operations.

In a statement made earlier today, the Big East is officially admitting 5 new members. Boise State and San Diego State will be added for football only while Houston, SMU, and Central Florida would be joining for all sports. I understand that the Big East is trying to survive, but how much sense does this move make? Obviously you're picking up two ranked teams, which could help your conference's credibility; however, if they prove to be unable to win consistently against tougher competition, the Big East will find itself in quite a mess and a costly one at that.

With this move, the Big East will become the first truly national college football conference, spanning coast to coast and encompassing 4 time zones. Conference commissioner John Marinatto is no doubt drooling over the thought of having back-to-back-to-back-to-back Big East games on any Saturday he possibly can but just think of the travel expenses these teams will no doubt have to shell out just for a conference game. Travelling 3,000 miles for a football game....potentially on a weekly basis? Bad idea. It's really funny to think about the fact that two of the teams, Boise State and San Diego State, will be joining a different conference for basketball. Boise will join the Western Athletic Conference and San Diego will join the Big West. Am I the only one seeing the irony in the fact that San Diego will play in the Big East for football and the Big West for basketball? If you ask me, I feel like the Big East is just flailing around, trying to find a permanent fix to ensure their survival and frankly I just don't see a future in creating a conference that spans the entire country. This isn't the NFL. College football wasn't meant to see conferences spanning the country. Regional pride is a big part of the sport. When that's taken away, what else is there? C'mon man!

As it Should Be

I know I'm about 5 days late on this, but I just couldn't miss an opportunity for an "I told you so" moment. If you've paid attention to many of my posts, you know good and well what I think of the Houston Cougars "impressive" undefeated season. The Cougars had posted a perfect 11-0 record and were ranked #6 in the BCS, a generous ranking considering their schedule. In these 11 wins, their most impressive was on the road against UCLA. UCLA? Really? I have a ton of respect for the Bruins and the history of their program but come on, they are certainly not what they once were. They finished the regular season with a 6-6 record which somehow got them into the Pac-12 championship game against Oregon even after being destroyed 50-0 to cross-town rival USC. The Bruins predictably lost the Pac-12 title game to Oregon and fell to 6-7 and had to petition to even receive a bowl game. So if you're Houston and you're hanging your hat on a 4-point victory over a team with a losing record, I don't know how in the world you could've ever been disappointed with a #6 ranking. Oh but word in Houston was their Cougars deserved a shot at the national championship. Who could argue? I mean when you play powerhouses like Georgia State, Marshall, and Tulane I guess strength of schedule is definitely on your side.

Just as I figured would be the case, the wheels completely came off the wagon last Saturday when the Cougars played the Southern Miss Golden Eagles for the Conference USA championship. The Golden Eagles were ranked #24 nationally and were the first ranked team Houston had played all season. As I expected, the Cougars couldn't get the job done even with the luxury of playing the Golden Eagles at home. Southern Miss stunned Houston, 49-28. I would love to know if anyone else saw this coming like I did. It was no surprise to me and I just don't know how anyone living outside of Houston could have been naive to think the Cougars had played a schedule that even remotely made them deserving of being in the national title conversation.

Mess in the BCS

It's no secret by now that the BCS is a flawed system. Its primary objective is to match the 2 best teams in the nation in the BCS National Championship Game. Admittedly, it accomplishes this goal every few years or so, but that's far from good enough. This year has arguably been the most chaotic for the BCS. For most of the season, it seemed like #1 LSU and #2 Oklahoma State were on a collision course for New Orleans. Both were undefeated and favored in the remainder of their games. However, chaos reigned 2 weeks ago as unranked Iowa State knocked off Oklahoma State in 2 overtimes. This opened the flood gates for a number of other 1 loss teams (and an undefeated Houston team) to stake their claims as deserving of a chance at LSU. As it stands, it seems that there will be an SEC West rematch between LSU and Alabama in the national championship game. Although I think LSU and Alabama are the two best teams in the country, other teams really do have an argument because LSU and Alabama have already played each other with LSU winning 9-6 in overtime. But let's be honest, no other teams have stepped up to the challenge. Is it time for a playoff system to be implemented? Is there even a way to implement a playoff system and keep the current bowl games intact? If chaos continues to reign in college football, we may find out sooner than later.

Big East Up for Grabs

Last night, the West Virginia Mountaineers went on the road and pulled out a 30-27 win over the South Florida Bulls on the leg of Tyler Bitancurt, who made a 28 yard field goal as time expired. This win moves the Mountaineers' record to 9-3, 5-2 in Big East play. Louisville also has a 5-2 record in conference play and holds the head-to-head tiebreaker over West Virginia, having defeated the Mountaineers 38-35 earlier in the season. However, Cincinnati and UCONN still have to play. A win by UCONN would make Louisville the champions of the Big East Conference and send them to a BCS bowl; however, if Cincinnati wins, they would also have a 5-2 conference record which would force a 3-way tie for 1st place. In that case, West Virginia would likely be the team with the highest BCS ranking and would therefore be given the conference title and get the BCS bowl bid. Regardless of the outcome, the Big East will either get a 3 loss or potentially a 5 loss team into a BCS bowl while many 1 or 2 loss teams from tougher conferences will miss out on the more prestigious bowl games. Is it just me or does the Big East seem to benefit too much from being an automatic qualifying conference? I mean come on, the highest ranked team in the conference right now is #23 and the typical cut off is #14 unless you happen to be the champion from your AQ conference. Last year, UCONN won the conference without even being ranked, the only time I can ever remember an unranked team making a BCS bowl. Predictably, they got completely outclassed by a dominant Oklahoma team in the Fiesta Bowl.