Pro-Style Offense

By Kirk Herbstreit
ESPN.com

While constant college football sounds like a great idea on paper, it is impractical to impose the will of huge media conglomerates, like us, onto the backs of unsuspecting student-athletes. The Wizard of Odds has a summary of Lloyd Carr's take on the sport's increasing expansion beyond the traditional season with the likes of weeknight games, extended schedules, and bowl games well into January. Coach hits the nail on the head when he becomes disgusted with the growing sacrifices programs are making in the name of television dollars. What's his solution to this growing problem? That's right, MORE GAMES.

How many luxury boxes do you shemales need?

Maybe I'm missing the sarcasm here, but Carr is proposing not 4, not 8, but a 16-team playoff structure with the top seeds hosting the first-round home games. What? 12 games is too many, but extending the post-season by three games for some teams is ok? It's not about the money, but I'm sure Michigan won't mind a 7th or 8th home game against soome smaller school, because that's what its all about right? The mid-major teams like Northern Illinois, Utah, and Fresno State deserve a shot at the big boys...by having to go through one, probably two, of some of the toughest home fields in the country just to get to the title game? After that, the system robs smaller schools from mid-tier bowl revenue. I'm sure theres a more sensible way to sort this out.

Let the Big Ten figure out how to get an undisputed champion first, then we can talk playoffs. The conference has already inked a deal for an exclusive cable channel, why not figure out a title game too? Maybe the money between the ABC deal, the DirecTV channel, and an inevitable championship game will be enough. Probably not, as the trend to make luxury boxes the new college football arms race is already under way. House Rock Built's own Dink and Dunk have already touched on the subject along with Trev and his crazy rennovation plans, but I did notice this latest development:

"With Friday's meeting the first since May's divided approval of the stadium plan, it seemed worth a walk to campus to see if the public comment period would reflect any real opposition to the stadium and/or criticism of the sneak attack nature of the decision.
Twelve people signed up to address the board, and 11 actually spoke.
Only one, Ann Arbor gadfly David Boyle, who speaks at almost every meeting, voiced opposition to the plan.
There were, for comparison purposes, five speakers urging the regents to be more supportive of the university's trans-gender community." (mlive.com)

Not to rag on Michigan too much more, but that's an interesting stat. I guess the college football landscape is changing more than I thought. Rennovating the Big House is easy, but you can't slip anything past the trans-gendered.

Kirk Herbstreit is an analyst on ESPN's College Gameday. He thinks transgendering is fine by him, its just not his bag.