Doing things right

There were a couple of noteworthy hirings this week that were somewhat lost in the bowl shuffle:

• LSU hired John Chavis (formerly of Tennessee) as defensive coordinator
• Auburn hired Gus Malzahn (formerly of Tulsa via Arkansas) as offensive coordinator

While Les Miles has plenty of enemies, few can argue that he's been extremely successful, and the primary reason for that has been his ability to delegate. Look at the coordinators he has hired in his time at LSU: Gary Crowton (former Oregon offensive coordinator and BYU head coach), Jimbo Fisher (now offensive coordinator and coach-in-waiting at Florida State), Bo Pelini (now head coach at Nebraska), etc.

Miles has consistently identified the best and brightest assistants at the national level, brought them to Baton Rouge and allowed them to do what they do best. His failure to bring in a quality successor for Pelini is what led to the Tigers' struggles on defense this season, as it quickly became clear that the combo of Bradley Dale Pevoto and Doug Mallory wasn't getting the job done. As usual, though, Miles identified an elite candidate (Chavis) to shore up a struggling area and got him locked up before anyone else could. This is why he has been consistently successful despite his, um, difficulties with clock management.

While Tennessee has struggled the last few years on offense, Chavis hasn't had the same issues. In nine of his 14 seasons as the Vols' defensive coordinator, Tennessee ranked among the top three in the SEC in total defense (that's how you keep your job for 14 years).

As for the hiring of Gus Malzahn at Auburn, Gene Chizik hit the jackpot. Malzahn -- mostly known for bringing Mitch Mustain, Damian Williams and an assortment of other high school stars to Arkansas and then aiding in the development of the Wildcat formation with Darren McFadden -- is the type of coordinator Auburn was looking for when Tony Franklin was hired last year.

The reason that the Franklin hire failed is that he was never given a chance to run his patented "Air Raid" offense. For whatever reason, it appeared evident that Tommy Tuberville was set on a more run-focused philosophy, as the Tigers' offense last year resembled in no way the offense Franklin developed, taught and ran everywhere else he had coached.

Malzahn clearly favors the passing game, but his is quite a bit different than Franklin's, as discussed in this article at Smart Football. His offense is unique in that it is based more on a no-huddle tempo than on a particular scheme, but in general, Malzahn prefers extensive use of vertical routes and downfield passing, and not always out of a typical spread formation with four or five wide receivers. In other words, Malzahn's offense is closer to what you see at Oklahoma than what you see at Texas Tech.

But most importantly, just take a look at what Malzahn has done as offensive coordinator at Tulsa. You can argue about Conference USA's general lack of defense if you like, but the numbers speak for themselves:

• 2008: 2nd in total offense, 2nd in scoring offense, 8th in rushing offense, 7th in passing offense, 3rd in pass efficiency
• 2007: 1st in total offense, 6th in scoring offense, 41st in rushing offense, 3rd in passing offense, 4th in pass efficiency

The guy knows how to run an effective offense, and if given a chance -- which I have to imagine he will be, as Chizik knows how important it is for Auburn to quickly establish an offensive identity -- this could be one of the best hires of the offseason.

Something to think about

In my "What if?" post from a few days ago, I talked about the plays or moments that can determine a game and how attempting to use just the final result to judge the participants (as well as coaches, conferences, etc.) is impractical.

I read a similar post by Brian at mgoblog after Florida's obliteration of Ohio State in the BCS championship game two years ago that explained things really well -- and included charts! -- so I'd like to grab a couple of excerpts from it to emphasize my point (I've enhanced the image for visibility purposes).

This was in the aftermath of some Purdue-Michigan game or another that ended 31-3 in favor of Michigan. Attempting to cope, some engineer or another doodled out this ASCII image of Gaussian football genius:

He then explained: the two uncapped pyramids are normal distributions of overall performance labelled "P" and "M"; On a good day for Purdue and a bad day for Michigan, Purdue could win. On an average day, they would lose, but not by four touchdowns. The assumption that the winner of any particular game is obviously the better team is just that, an assumption. When the score is 31-3 or 41-14 you can be fairly certain that assumption is a good one. But never sure.

This post was in reference to the BCS, and basically criticized the idea of choosing two teams -- based on very sparse data -- and assuming that those teams and only those teams are deserving of playing for the national title.

My post was more in reference to making judgments based on an individual game, but the premise is the same. You can't automatically assume that you know which team is better just because of one result, and attempting to determine things such as a team's ranking or a coach's future based on a handful of mostly arbitrary outcomes is a foolish endeavor.

The original basis for Brian's post, an article from SMQB, explained this better than I will ever be able to:

But what SMQ would most like to point out in light of Monday's merciless pantsing of the team officially earmarked as the "best" in America through the three-month regular season is not that Ohio State was "exposed" or that Florida "proved" to humbled skeptics the indomitable essence that dwells eternally in its collective soul of souls.

Rather, he'd like to defend the conviction that Ohio State really was, in fact, the "best" team in the nation from September through November, in the sense the Buckeyes' cumulative performance over that span deserved by all available evidence to be considered superior to that of any other team, and offer the untimely demise of that perception Monday as evidence there is nothing dwelling in the blood pumping through a team's metaphorical veins that can tell us anything about any single performance outside of itself; that is, what occurred in the championship game, like any other, was representative only of the championship game, and should inform our opinions about its participants only as an addition to the months-long whole.

A prominent addition, of course, but by no means the all-defining one or, very importantly, one that can be extrapolated to prove great inner truths about certain conferences or larger trends within -- unless, of course, you're willing to argue the relative merits of Ohio State's "speed," however that is supposed to be measured, and by extension that of Michigan, Iowa, Penn State and Texas, in relation to the bodily-kinesthetic intelligence of Vanderbilt and South Carolina, which each fared exponentially better against the Gators than the Buckeyes. Sometimes, this game makes no sense.

Well said.

Notes and stuff

A few observations from this week's games and news:

* Congrats to Pat White, who became the first QB in NCAA history to finish his career 4-0 in bowl games with West Virginia's 31-30 win over North Carolina. The Mountaineers had a moderately disappointing season, but that's a heck of a way to go out. White also finished his career as the all-time leading rusher among quarterbacks, and there are some pretty good players behind him on that list.

* Speaking of West Virginia and North Carolina, the Meineke Car Care Bowl's first quarter was phenomenal. Five touchdowns were scored in a span of six minutes, and there were no punts or incomplete passes until the middle of the second quarter. White finished the game with 322 passing yards and three touchdowns, and Tar Heels receiver Hakeem Nicks had 217 receiving yards and three touchdowns.

* Army could not possibly have selected a better coach than Cal Poly's Rich Ellerson. He's a triple-option mastermind who helped Cal Poly finished first in the country in scoring offense and total offense, he has a direction connection to West Point (his father and brothers were cadets) and he has already helped develop a successful program at a level with fewer resources. In other words, Ellerson is everything the administration could have been looking for in its next head coach.

* Wisconsin wrapped up a poor season with a pathetic effort in the Champs Sports Bowl, giving up 42 points to Florida State's mediocre offense and managing only two field goals until well into garbage time. I don't know what happened to the Badgers this year, but when your quarterbacks struggle all season and your defense -- supposedly Bret Bielema's specialty and one of the team's strengths -- completely falls apart, that's not a good combination. Wisconsin finished 43rd in rush defense, 75th in pass efficiency defense, 38th in total defense and 67th in scoring defense. The Badgers held only two opponents under 20 points after the start of conference play and gave up 30 points or more five times, including the final three games of the season.

* Notre Dame finally put things together offensively in a dominating win over Hawaii. The talent gap was huge, so I'm not sure there's much use in analyzing the numbers, but considering the way the Irish played down the stretch, their first bowl win since 1993 will make the offseason a whole lot easier on Charlie Weis. In the big picture, Jimmy Clausen finally got some time to throw and looked like the QB everyone thought he would be. If -- and this is a big if -- the offensive line consistently protects him and receivers Michael Floyd and Golden Tate continue to develop, this could be a pretty good offense. There's still no running game, but at least there's something build on. And don't look now, but with next year's schedule unusually light on quality opponents, this could be a nine-win team with even minimal improvement.

* Cal running back Jahvid Best has to be the least-talked-about superstar in college football. Best finished fourth in the country in rushing -- yes, fourth -- with 1,580 yards, and averaged 203.5 rushing yards in the final four games of the season, including 186 in the Golden Bears' 24-17 win over Miami in the Emerald Bowl. He also averaged 8.14 (!!!) yards per carry for the season. Oh, and he'll only be a junior next year.

* Dan Wetzel at Yahoo has an excellent article on Utah coach Kyle Whittingham, who happens to be Mormon and a BYU alum. This column is a bit older, but it's worth reading because it's one of the few sane pieces I've read on the struggles endured by successful programs during coaching transitions.

* Looking ahead, don't miss the Alamo Bowl (Missouri and Northwestern) on Monday or the Holiday Bowl (Oklahoma State and Oregon) on Tuesday, which are two of the best offensive matchups of the bowl season.

What if?

Everybody does it. You think back to that play -- a dropped pass, a fumble, a questionable call -- and you wonder: What if?

It's funny to think how thin the line is between great and ordinary, between praised and hated, between coach of the year and out of a job. With so many thousands of plays in a given season, it's easy to look past the few that truly determined the outcome of a game (or more). Or, as a coach would say in an effort to deflect criticism from a single player: One play doesn't decide the game.

Except sometimes, it does. And sometimes history changes with it. A recent Yahoo article looks back at some of the fortune-changing moments from this season, as well as a few of the "what if" scenarios that could have significantly altered the college football landscape.

Tennessee, for example, lost to UCLA (the Volunteers lost a fumble at UCLA's 6-yard line in a 27-24 overtime loss), Auburn (the Tigers recovered a fumble in the end zone for a touchdown in a 14-12 victory) and Wyoming (the Cowboys returned an interception for a touchdown for the winning margin in a 13-7 victory).

Tennessee finished 5-7 and dismissed coach Phil Fulmer. Without those three costly turnovers, the Vols would have finished 8-5 and Fulmer would have been contractually guaranteed a raise and a contract extension.

Did Fulmer suddenly lose his status as a good coach because of three fluke plays? Tennessee seemed to think so.

Another perfect example: Texas freshman safety Blake Gideon dropped an easy interception off a deflected Texas Tech pass in the closing seconds of the Longhorns' only loss. If Gideon holds on, Texas finishes undefeated, wins the Big 12 and is preparing to play Florida for the national title right now. Oh, and Colt McCoy wins the Heisman. There's no way a QB with McCoy's numbers -- playing for the only major undefeated team and a unanimous No. 1 -- doesn't win the award.

West Virginia lost three games in overtime or in the final minute of regulation. Buffalo won three games in overtime and one on a hail mary on the final play of regulation. These are the differences between a disappointing season and a conference title.

This makes sense, right? Yet I constantly read about how Ohio State shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the national title game for the foreseeable future or how Oklahoma can't win a big game. Those conclusions are made based on microscopic sample sizes -- one game -- from different years.

If LSU doesn't put together a 21-point second quarter in last year's BCS title game, Ohio State is your defending national champion. If Boise State's tight end drops that fourth-down touchdown pass in the '07 Fiesta Bowl, all the talk of Bob Stoops' failures in BCS games (which is ridiculous to begin with) goes away.

Basing the strength of a conference, a coach or a team on one particular result (or a small set of results) just isn't going to provide you with an accurate analysis -- there are simply too many games that are arbitrarily decided by a single play, providing you no real information about which team is better.

Judgments like those are for bad columnists and talking heads who don't understand how thin that line is. All you have to do is look at the examples above and say to yourself, "What if ... ?"

NCAA's dilemma

Pretty much everything coming out these days related to NCAA academics will tell you that based on record graduation rates, the establishment of APR requirements and the never-before-seen expenditures on academic centers and tutoring, today's student-athletes are better off than ever.

But are they?

I've long wondered how people come to the conclusion that because more athletes are graduating, more athletes must be getting a quality education. Isn't it possible that athletes are simply getting an unreasonable amount of "aid' or flexibility on the school's part, allowing them to gain degrees while actually getting less of an education?

I'm not saying this is the case everywhere, of course. It might not be the case anywhere. But it certainly seems worth considering.

The Associated Press put together an outstanding piece last week on this very subject, with many school representatives decrying the current state of academics because of the ridiculous lengths to which schools will go to get athletes "help" -- and by help, we're talking about pretty much whatever it takes to keep an athlete eligible.

The following quote comes from Kenneth Holum, a veteran University of Maryland history professor and chair of the faculty senate, in regard to the standard manner of assisting student-athletes:

“They’re steered to the courses that they know they can pass,” Holum said. “If the effort is to keep them eligible, they’re being shortchanged.”

That's really the crux of the issue here: Are students actually getting a better education, or are schools just doing a better job of figuring out how to keep athletes eligible?

It's common knowledge that at a large majority of schools, being a football player and attempting to major in certain subjects is a nearly impossible combination. But when the school obviously pushes these student-athletes into certain groups of classes -- commonly called "clustering" -- there's an obvious conflict of interest.

In some cases -- such as the recent academic scandal at Florida State -- it goes beyond a conflict of interest and into the realm of full-blown fraud. Jason Lanter, a former academic adviser at Maryland who worked with student-athletes, remembers similar problems:

He recalls student-athletes coming to him with course cards written in someone else’s handwriting.

“It’s pretty easy to read between the lines that the athletic counselors are just putting standard courses down,” said Lanter, now a professor at Kutztown University and the president-elect of The Drake Group. “I’m not saying everybody did this, but it was enough for it to be an issue for concern for me. It’s just frustrating when I don’t think the athletes are receiving the education they were promised as part of their scholarship.”

I disagree a bit with the last portion of that quote -- you can get as much or as little out of your college education as you want, in my opinion -- but if the school is simply standing aside as those who don't care about their education "earn" a tainted degree, that's where things are breaking down.

What I'm trying to say here is that there should be suspicion, not blind praise, when a school graduates an unusually high percentage of its players. And yes, that's a sad statement about society, but it is what it is. College isn't easy. Going to college and playing sports at a Division I level is even harder. Attrition should be a natural part of the process.

I fully support getting students the help they deserve, but why are millions and millions of dollars being spent annually on athlete-only academic centers? We all know the answer, but no one's willing to speak up.

These schools have too much riding on the academic success of their athletes, and they'll do whatever it takes to get to those magic APR numbers and ensure that the steady stream of NCAA money continues to flow in their direction.

The entire issue was summarized perfectly by David Ridpath, a former compliance director at Marshall who now heads The Drake Group, a watchdog that has proposed doing away with stand-alone support centers and moving athletes into the normal academic advising system.

“The big problem with these academic centers for me is very clear -- and only because I lived it and I can say this from experience,” he said. “The goal is to keep the kids eligible, and there’s a big difference between keeping kids eligible and helping them get a viable college education.”

Bingo.

Mystery man

While it's been widely assumed that Michigan will fill its vacant defensive coordinator position by promoting linebackers coach Jay Hopson (formerly the defensive coordinator at Southern Miss), Rich Rodriguez's comment today in an interview during the Motor City Bowl would seem to imply otherwise:

"I'm putting that on hold until after the bowl games ... A lot of the guys who might be interested are preparing for them right now."

It's possible that Hopson will still end up as the pick, but it's obvious that Rodriguez at least has some other names in mind as far as guys he's interested in talking to.

One person who's been mentioned prominently since Scott Shafer resigned is West Virginia defensive coordinator Jeff Casteel, who turned down the chance to join Rodriguez at Michigan last year. Other potential candidates include John Chavis (D-coordinator at Tennessee under Phil Fulmer), Ron Vanderlinden (linebackers coach at Penn State and a former Maryland head coach and Northwestern D-coordinator who spent time as a grad assistant at Michigan) and Rocky Long (former New Mexico head coach).

One other name -- which I hadn't seen anywhere before this week -- also seems to have jumped into the discussion.

Rick Smith, the secondary coach at East Carolina, apparently is the running. Smith would seem to be an out-of-the-blue candidate, but a brief investigation reveals the following connection to Rodriguez:

1997-1998 Defensive Coordinator & Secondary Coach Tulane

Rodriguez, of course, was the offensive coordinator for Tulane in 1997 and 1998, when the Green Wave finished 7-4 and 12-0, respectively, under Tommy Bowden. Those seasons were the program’s first above .500 in a decade, and propelled Rodriguez and Bowden to greater heights.

Smith, on the other hand, is a bit of mystery. After the 1998 season, he took the D-coordinator position at Cincinnati, which he held for two years, then served as assistant head coach and recruiting coordinator at Kentucky for two years. Since then, he's seemingly gone backward (or sideways, depending on your opinion). He was co-defensive coordinator at Louisiana Tech and then secondary coach for the Berlin Thunder of NFL Europe before getting back into the college ranks with his current position at East Carolina. He is now 60 years old.

This obviously brings about some questions as to why he was never able to move up the way his colleagues did, and makes it a bit odd that he's suddenly in the running for a coordinator job at a place like Michigan.

I haven't heard anything specific connecting him to the D-coordinator opening (other than the previous relationship with Rodriguez), so at this point, I'm having a hard time believing that this is anything more than an unsubstantiated rumor.

Based on Rodriguez's comments from his Motor City Bowl interview, it seems very likely that he's interested in a few guys who are a bit more well-established at the D-coordinator level -- if he wasn't, Hopson probably would have already been promoted. The only real question now is whether he can get one of them.

Something's missing

A few days ago, I linked to an ESPN video review of the "12 Bowls of Christmas," a fantastic compilation of some of the greatest bowl games ever (condensed to about 15 minutes each).

Some of the choices were fairly predictable. The 2006 Rose Bowl between Texas and USC is No. 1, followed by the 2003 Fiesta Bowl between Ohio State and Miami at No. 2. No problems there.

Also included were a couple of great back-and-forth games such as the 1997 Rose Bowl between Ohio State and Arizona State (No. 8) and the bizarre 2001 GMAC Bowl between Marshall and East Carolina (No. 10). Both deserve to be on the list.

But there's one glaring omission that I simply can't get over. You probably remember this particular game ...


Yup, that's right. The 2007 Fiesta Bowl failed to make the list. I can understand missing out on No. 1 or No. 2, since the games that were placed in those spots both determined a national championship -- but not in the top 12???

Taking a look further down that list, I just don't understand how the Oklahoma-Boise State game could miss out on the top three, let alone the entire thing.

I guess all I can say is that if you don't consider that to be one of the most memorable bowl games of all-time ... well, you must not have been watching.