Quick Hits

According to www.Indystar.com--Purdue football ticket sales surgeand, really going out on a limb here, ticket sales will slump next year ()except for that November 1st game against Michigan. Why does it take a column to point out the obvious? See Ticket Futures--Purdue

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Benson: WAC has surpassed MWC amounts to, "We're #7 and we try harder." Both the Mountain West Conferences and Western Athletic Conferences play entertaining football so trying to pick your favorite is difficult. Okay, mostly the problem is that most fans aren't quite sure what teams are in which.
Sort out the conferences, it's like Jumble in the newspaper
Boise State, Brigham Young, Fresno State, New Mexico, Hawaii, Utah, Idaho, Louisiana Tech, TCU, Nevada, New Mexico State, Wyoming, San Jose State, Colorado State, Utah State, San Diego State, Air Force, UNLV
No shame (for you) in opening up another window to look up the answer. The shame is that these two conferences lack any real identity.

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No more Colt 45 for Mr. Slive of the SEC. Dennis Dodd print this quote from last weeks meeting, "When I talk to our coaches I try to use a metaphor. The SEC is like a big aircraft carrier, it was the preeminent aircraft carrier, then other aircraft carriers were manufactured that had funny names like the ACC and the Big 12. There was a lot of competition." BS-damus has taken note and likes the Naval reference and the oddity of the quote.

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Just the opposite of the Purdue situation the University of Pittsburgh's home schedule lacks both elements needed to sell tickets: a successful team and opponents that will sell tickets. With the likes of Eastern Michigan, Grambling, Connecticut, Navy (moved to Wednesday), Cincinnati, Syracuse and South Florida the tickets are now at buy one cheap $120 for all seven games and get a second for $10. While this shows some weakness it also shows that someone at Pitt realized that it cost next to nothing to for the second ticket so $10 is better than zero. While Mr. Smizik's Pitt football-ticket sales in bad shape, mocks the strategy he appears not to understand business.

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Uncomfortable might be the best description of the recent situation for Tom O’Brien the new head football coach for N.C. State. The recent article at Forbes.com tried to paint it as the problem of being picked last for the first time in his coach career (Temple and Rutgers really enjoyed the nice fruit baskets) but that is not what most of use would be made uncomfortable by. The elephant in the room at the ACC recent media day meeting was the slap in the face given to Boston College by Mr. O’Brien’s departure. The lateral move sent a message to BC, “I can be more success elsewhere (because the athletic department here is not committed to being successful.)”

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The Cotton Bowl was at all of the recent media days for the BCS conferences trying to sell themselves are relevant and ready to go if there is a new BCS game. See Faded Beauties.

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News Flash: U-M, Notre Dame to play through 2031--film at 11. Will the Michigan home games be on BTN?