The Wiz of Odds

Reporters Notebooks

Neill Woelk, Boulder Daily Camera: Is it time for a new super league, free and clear of NCAA constraints? The new league would consist of eight conferences with eight teams and would lose current Bowl Championship Series members Duke, Iowa State, Kansas State, Cincinnati, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Connecticut and Washington State. Joining the group would be Utah, Texas Christian, Brigham Young, Boise State, East Carolina and Tulsa. Each team would play seven conference games and four nonconference games. Eight conference champs and eight runners-up advance to a 16-team playoff.

Berry Tramel, Oklahoman: College football has changed, and offensive line play isn’t as valuable as it once was.

Eric Crawford, Louisville Courier-Journal: Kentucky has taken billboard mania to new heights. Drive by selected billboards around the state, including one not far from Louisville campus, and tune to the right radio frequency, and you'll hear the Kentucky fight song blaring from your radio.

Michael Hiestand, USA Today: ESPN/ABC has announced its broadcasting lineups for the fall. Doug Flutie and Bonnie Bernstein are gone and Paul Maguire's role has been decreased. A look at the lineups.

Connor Ennis, New York Times: A look at ESPN's schedule of Thursday night games.

Gordon Monson, Salt Lake Tribune: What was the rush? The Mountain West should not have signed the BCS deal with ESPN.

When It Comes to the BCS, Money Talks, B.S. Walks

No wonder half the college football world refuses to take the Western Athletic and Mountain West conferences seriously.

On the table Wednesday was the Bowl Championship Series' new four-year deal with ESPN, which will pay roughly $500 million for television, radio and digital rights to BCS games beginning after the 2010 regular season. Even if none of their teams made it to a BCS game, the WAC and Mountain West each could get about $11 million over the life of the deal, which in reality amounts to table scraps.

By refusing to agree to the deal, WAC and Mountain West teams would not have been allowed to participate in the five BCS games and would not have been eligible for a cut of the yearly $125 million payment. But credibility often comes with a price, and the leagues would have gained considerable clout in their fight to change the system by saying no.

Instead, they decided to take the money and run.

"The repercussions were just too dramatic and too costly," Boise State president Bob Kustra said. "Can you really take that chance?"

The answer is yes, you take that chance.

Reporters Notebooks

Brent Schrotenboer, San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego State is paying an outside consultant $125 per hour to work out a settlement with former coach Chuck Long. The contract with consultant Dan Kelley, a former labor relations manager for the city of San Diego, runs from June through Oct. 31.

Frank Deford, SI.com: Instead of wasting time on the Bowl Championship Series, perhaps lawmakers should take a look at the NCAA, the evil overseer of athletic minions.

Matt Hinton, Dr Saturday: Why can't Utah be Nebraska? It's because Nebraska won't let them.

Joe Henderson, Tampa Tribune: Does the BCS really need an act of Congress?

Steven M. Sipple, Lincoln Journal Star: Former Nebraska defensive coordinator Charlie McBride, who will vote in the Harris Poll, on the talking heads at ESPN: "Those guys are performers. [Kirk] Herbstreit and the guys [on ESPN], they do a good job. But in reality, it's all prepared. One guy picks a certain team, another picks another one. That kind of stuff."

Will the WAC and Mountain West Say No to the BCS?

We're about to find out how serious the Western Athletic and Mountain West conferences are in bringing about change to the Bowl Championship Series.

Utah Senator Orrin Hatch held a hearing Tuesday into possible antitrust violations by the BCS, but the attention now turns to the 18 presidents of WAC and Mountain West schools. Brian Murphy of the Idaho Statesman reports that the presidents must decide by Thursday afternoon whether to sign a new agreement between the BCS and television partner ESPN that goes into effect after the 2010 regular season and runs for four years.

The WAC and Mountain West are the only Division I-A conferences that have not signed the deal. If they don't sign, the leagues risk millions in hopes of changing the system to improve access and payouts for their schools.

"There are really two choices: not signing it at all or signing it with a statement saying we're signing it under duress," Boise State president Bob Kustra said.

Boston College's Slick Marketing Campaign

The competition for the sports dollar in Boston is among the fiercest in the land. For starters you have the Celtics, Red Sox, Patriots and Bruins. Somewhere down the list is Boston College football. It's a tough sell in a tough market.

But Boston College has a clear winner in its latest campaign to sell tickets. The marketing department has put together an interactive experience that is worth a look. Input your information and see what happens. As stated by Eagle in Atlanta, this is a harmless exercise and not some Internet scam, so give it a try.

Reporters Notebooks

Paul Finebaum, Mobile Press-Register: You can call Urban Meyer lot of things. He's arrogant. He's cold blooded. He recruits like a serial killer. But he's not stupid. Meyer doesn't have to study history to understand that staying in Gainesville would be the wrong move.

William McGurn, Wall Street Journal: Tuesday, the Senate antitrust subcommittee will hold hearings on perhaps the only American institution less popular than Congress itself: the Bowl Championship Series. In one corner there's Congress with its 18% approval rating, according to the latest Rasmussen poll. In the other sits the BCS, which is preferred by only 15% of fans, according to a 2007 Gallup poll.

John Feinstein, Washington Post: BCS: Where money talks and hypocrisy walks.

Tony Barnhart, Mr. College Football: Whether or not you like the BCS, it created something that didn't exist before: A mechanism to match the No. 1 and the No. 2 teams for the national championship.

Kurt Kragthorpe, Salt Lake Tribune: Beware Utah fans, a playoff system may not be so Sugary.

Jay Drew, Salt Lake Tribune: Typically frugal Brigham Young fans are gobbling up high-priced tickets for the Cougars' Sept. 5 game against Oklahoma at the new Dallas Cowboys stadium in Arlington. Fans at the game will be able to purchase alcohol until halftime. Conversely, alcohol will not be available at a Nov. 28 game between Texas Tech and Baylor, a Baptist university.

Reporters Notebooks

Dick Harmon, Deseret News: This week Senator Orrin Hatch will either trigger a meaningful debate on the legality of how our college football system works, or he'll be castigated as a grandstanding gasbag crying foul because a team from his state didn't play for a national championship in January.

Andrew Logue, Des Moines Register: Jewel Hampton, Iowa's starting running back, reportedly sustained a knee injury during non-contract drills Friday.

Katie Thomas, New York Times: Former Nebraska and Arizona State quarterback Sam Keller on his class-action lawsuit against EA Sports and the NCAA: "We signed a paper at the beginning of college saying we couldn't benefit from our name. So why was the NCAA turning a blind eye to this and allowing EA Sports to take our likenesses and make big bucks off it?" Plus, an interactive graphic.

Nick Sunderland-Saied, Capital Times: Wisconsin officials want to put a stop to students scalping their season tickets.

Brian Dohn, Los Angeles Daily News: Former Notre Dame tight end Joseph Fauria is transferring to UCLA.