Junket to Piscataway

The Orange Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, the Gator Bowl, the Sun Bowl -- all in town to watch Rutgers play football....Representatives from six bowl games were hosted by athletic administrators over the past couple of days.

The atmoshpere at the Louisville V. Rutgers game was electric as anyone in their living room watching the game could tell. Yet for some reason officals from the above bowls and several others were in attendence. What was the reason for the trip?

Do they care about seeing the campus? Maybe sit in on a class or two? Check out the facilities? Hear from the fans? Tailgate in the parking lot?

If you were running a bowl what you want to know? Three simple things: Will your fans travel? Will you deliver TV ratings? Given your reputation and poll posatition do you bring prestige to my game? All of which can be answered without a visit to a game. The first two in the case of Rutgers can be answered by looking at last years Insight Bowl TV ratings and ticket sales. The last is a judgement call and will depend on the remaining game.

An interesting a disheartening comment towards the end of the article, "This is a very good football team. CBS would like to have them; they're a great story." Ah, that new trend in football where there is a need to have some kind of story to tell. We cannot rely on the entertainment value of the game on the field rather a subplot to hook in the causual viewer. Maybe they could paint ther Scarlet Knights as the Charlie Brown of college football and endlessly show a clip of Lucy pulling the ball away. And then somtimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Bristol's Revenge

Partnership works until you hit a speed bump and at the point of conflict what is important becomes evident. Parteners, working together is the plans until there is a divergence in self interest and then suddenly the self-importnat memeber starts acting like the school yard bully because things are not going his way.

In this case Disney Sports has shown themselves as a combination of the bully and spoiled brat throwing a tantrum when Boise State University said...no. Imagine the indignation in Bristol,(the language has been cleaned up feel free to add your favorite explatives) "Who do they think they are dealing with!...Don't want to move the Nevada game. We'll show them! Cancel that ESPN2game on November 11."

There's a C note to anyone that can prove this cancellation had nothing to do with BSU's refusal to be a good little partner.

Use of Time--Grad School

Posting to this blog has been limited lately by other commitments and excessive consumption of college football.

The Problem with New Money

A graduate of Harvard, Princeton, or Yale has instant credibility in the workplace over most others. The reputation of those institutions adds significantly to the opinions voiced by the graduate. Further the connections made are of vast value as well. Look at those in high elected office and then look at those put in cabinet positions and you will see the dominance of Ivy League types with the other elite colleges put in. This is not without merit given the caliber of the applicants the output is bound to be excellent.

Matt Zemek has put his finger how this relates to college football in his preview piece on the West Virginia v. Louisville game of November 2, 2006 when he referred to the teams as “nouveau riche.” The pedigree programs in college football are the usual suspects from the established BCS conferences: Bigger 10, SEC, PAC 10, Big 12 and to a lesser extent ACC. Just like when a Yale grad falls onto hard times the assumptions is that they are from a good family and will recover soon. Consider how the Nebraska Cornhuskers (#19 preseason ranking) are treated even though they have not been a factor in the Big 12 for going on ten years they are given instant respect on early season wins but at 3-2 in an average Big 12 are forgotten.

Notice the manner Florida State and Miami are being treated by the press as compared to a rolling of the eyes by John Saunders of Disney Sports at the prospects of an undefeated Rutgers form the Big East being considered for a trip to Glendale. Rutgers has neither the conference connections nor the reputation to be considered for such lofty places much the same as the brilliant kid that has a degree from the “wrong” school.

There is a point to this skeptical view of the nouveau riche as their money may disappear like those of Silicon Valley in 2000. The likes of Google, Cisco, Oracle, and Amazon have overtime proven themselves and changed the face of business. Perhaps the same can happen in college football.