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Spanning the College World: another look at the world around us

A short hiatus, but we return with things to pique your interest and enlighten you to.....sports stuff

By rvc73

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Mitch Stringer-USA TODAY Sports

Power....it's not just for politicians and gazillionaires anymore

We all love Jim Delany.  And so do the people who think great thoughts, like who has the most power in college sports.

For any number of reason, including bringing Rutgers into his special club, "Jim Delany has cemented himself atop Forbes list of most influential people in college sports."

What kind of people make the list?  A wide range, indeed.

Our list includes: six athletic directors (No. 4. Kevin White, No. 7. Jack Swarbrick) six conference commissioners (No. 5. Bob Bowlsby, No. 8 Larry Scott), three head coaches (No. 15 Nick Saban, No. 17. Urban Meyer), two full-time attorneys (No. 18 Jeffery Kessler, No. 23. Donald Remy), as well as two billionaire apparel executives (No. 12. Kevin Plank, No. 16. Phil Knight) among others. The latter two also have the widest age difference on the list of 34 years. Just two women make our list (No. 20. Val Ackerman and No. 24. Sandy Barbour), while 21 of the 25 hold advanced degrees.

By the way, Plank is in the photo above with Twerp AD Kevin Anderson.  Look at No. 24: Sandy Barbour is the Penn State AD, on the job there for just over a year and she makes the list.  What's the over/under on Pat Hobbs making it next year?

Money....it's not just for the rich anymore

Just enter promo code Punt.  Well, not for the CFP games.

CFP executive director Bill Hancock and an ESPN spokeswoman confirmed the decision not to air the ads during the national semifinals or championship game.  ESPN said they would not be airing such ads on other bowl games as well.  At least ESPN got that right....thank you!

NCAA....it's not just for integrity anymore.....it was at one time, right?

You may not be a fan of Pete Carroll as a coach, either in the NFL or college.  And you may believe that he got out of town - LA, specifically - just before the NCAA cracked down on USC.  But the NCAA found itself on the other end of the punishment stick regarding USC and Reggie Bush.

From the USA Today story:

The NCAA disregarded the truth in the Reggie Bush case to reach a "predetermined conclusion" against the USC football program, casting new doubt about whether the Trojans should have been slammed with penalties in the case, according to a ruling Monday by a California appeals court.

The NCAA bent the rules to fit their view of the world.  Wow! I know, you're as shocked as I am.

Too many bowl games?  Not if your team is going.

Forty bowl games.  Eighty teams, some with losing records.  And we could have been one of them.  But even with ESPN broadcasting bowl games 36 hours a day, there actually is a game that is not on TV!

First off, the two teams are both from the Mountain West.  And no, they didn't play each other during the season. And the bowl itself is trying to promote the no-TV situation as "the first-ever bowl game to have a digitally-focused broadcast strategy".  Yeah, right.

Take care of your own folks, buddy

Not sure how this one started but Pitt sports writer Chris Dokish threw this out on Twitter.

From looking at his Twitter site, he is a self-proclaimed Pitt homer and has no basis in reality for his predictions and comments.  Anyway, one of our readers, Brian Bonder, responded to Dokish and it go me thinking, could Pitt be drawing worse than fellow Big East escapee Syracuse? Well, the answer is no.  Less than Rutgers?  Yes.  But here you have an 8-4 bowl-bound team that, with the exception of the Notre Dame game, steadily drew fewer people to Heinz Field as the season wore on.  And you can guess how many Domers occupied the stadium that game.

TV:  Big Ten or SEC?

In prime time, the Big Ten Championship game between Iowa and Michigan State drew a 5.7 rating, equating to about 9.8 million viewers.  Just prior, with a 4 pm start time, the SEC title game saw 12.7 viewers.

In defense of the B1G, it was sharing the time slot with the ACC title game between Clemson and UNC.

Student-Athlete.....if they want to be called that

The 2015 IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum had a number of high profile folks speak, including Tim Pernetti and the aforementioned Sandy Barbour.  And there were lots of interesting comments. Though I found one by UConn AD Warde Manuel interesting. The term student-athlete gets bandied about a lot, and there are more than a few people who question the legitimacy of the term.  Brad Wolverton covers sports for the Chronicle of Higher Education - yes, they do mix - and he tweeted this from the Forum:

Maybe that was just too honest.  We offer athletes value in the education they receive....if they value it. Says a lot, doesn't it.