An easy way to decide who plays in the BCS title game

It's extremely simple. So simple that even people who espouse other approaches seem to implicitly accept its logic. Are you ready? Don't zone out, it's really short. Here goes: the two best teams should play in the championship game.

Got it? How about one more time: the two best teams should play in the championship game.

Nothing else matters. If someone puts a gun to your head and asks you to name the two best teams, the two teams you would take over any others on a neutral field, those two teams are the ones that should play in that game. Like I said, it's easy. Nevertheless, people find ways to screw it up, and are doing so rampantly as we approach the end of the 2011 season.

Why? Alabama. Everything is coming to a head here. Circumstances have forced Bama back to the top of the pile of one loss teams and a lot of people are upset. Oklahoma State just lost to a 26 point underdog. Oklahoma lost to an even bigger dog at home. Oregon and Alabama both lost to the same opponent, but Bama lost in overtime whereas Oregon was beaten soundly. Arkansas lost to Bama and is likely stuck in third place in the SEC West. An undefeated Houston team simply would not have the strength of schedule to justify inclusion.

So the natural response is to try and invent a bunch of arbitrary rules to keep the clear second best team out of the title game. If, after the next couple of weeks it becomes even clearer that Alabama is the second best team in America, it would be a damn shame if they were denied their rightful opportunity to play for a championship.

On Penn State

Voluminous ink has been spilled on this topic so I will stick to loosely organized observations without setting out the basic facts. McQueary is going to be the focal point of much of this, and his behavior is quite difficult to sort through, and I don't think it will be possible to simply blame the administrators for failing to act on detailed reports provided by him. McQueary is a part of the whole rotten system there and the more I think about it, the more I find it plausible that he either sugar coated his story or was nudged into downplaying what he saw. This is not to say that the administrators behaved correctly, merely that McQueary possibly didn't tell them the graphic details that he revealed to the grand jury.

Then there's the recent development of McQueary claiming in an email or some other medium that he actually did contact the police. To me this smells like a response to public criticism. It smells like an attempt by McQueary to retell history and to defend his actions. Just now I read a report that the police have no record of any report by McQueary or anyone else. So just what the hell was McQueary talking about?

At any rate, I'm sure all of the participants in this drama have lawyers smartly telling them to shut the fuck up in no uncertain terms, and already two of the critical figures have made public statements. Sandusky, for his part, gave a cryptic media interview via telephone that did nothing to help his case. Years from now when this thing is mostly sorted out I am confident that writers approaching the topic will find much symbolism and significance in that interview, none of it flattering to Sandusky or Penn State University.

And with Paterno, I'm not even sure what to say.

Mr. SEC runs down expansion candidates

This is one of the better treatments of the topic I've seen. Pay attention to the criteria, and note that these are averages of ranks so lower scores are better.

Will Mizzou get enough votes?

Reports are now that a vote by the SEC to extend an invitation to Mizzou has failed. The fallback for Mizzou would be a 10 team Big 12 with TCU replacing A&M. The fallback for the SEC is unknown, and this report shows that the problem of finding an acceptable 14th school is very real. Again, Mike Slive's "16 schools in 15 minutes" throwaway line comes to mind.

TSK speculates about which schools want Mizzou to join. Presumably A&M does not yet have a vote, and the article mentions that Alabama is against, and Auburn is for the addition. That means at least 3 or 4 schools are against the move, and it's quite hard to say which ones would be involved. Are some of the East schools afraid to play Auburn every year? Would they rather have WVU? Are some of the West schools afraid to open their recruiting grounds to Missouri?

Mizzou would be one of the stronger academic institutions in the SEC, so it is unlikely that schools like Florida, Vandy, and Kentucky would object on those grounds. I guess the knocks against them are twofold: first, their presence would disrupt existing rivalries and it would be cleaner to just add a school to the east side of the conference, and secondly they are not a top tier addition. They are merely adequate. They lack the muscle of A&M in the lucrative Texas market, and they lack the football brand name of a school like Oklahoma, Florida State, or Virginia Tech. Nevertheless, they may yet be invited. If no ACC schools will leave and if WVU is off the table, options are extremely limited at this point.

Eight Big 12 members vote to grant media rights

Missouri abstained. This comes today as there are reports that TCU has been invited to join the Big 12. Observers have pointed to the TV rights grant as the only way to save the Big 12. That process is happening right now, and with a couple of good additions the Big 12 could easily survive at least into the near future. Such a grant of rights would make departures by members impossible, and would end all rumors of Texas, Oklahoma or anybody else leaving the conference. Realignment rumors will shift to the Big East, which either needs to quickly expand, or which could cease to exist as a football conference, which has implications for Notre Dame as well, but that is a discussion for another time.

TCU is an interesting case because I expected them to uphold their promise to join the Big East even in the face of a Big 12 invite, but since Pitt and Syracuse have left the future of the Big East football conference in doubt, TCU may have to rethink their decision. The Big 12 is throwing them a life raft. They are no longer stuck joining the sinking ship that is the Big East. Even if the Big East somehow survives, it might not be able to guarantee BCS AQ status into the future, and that is a serious consideration for a school like TCU that wants access to an automatic bid.

The Big 12 is widely expected to look at BYU as a potential expansion partner, and if Missouri leaves, TCU joins, and BYU joins the Big 12 is back up to an even 10 teams and appears to be in solid shape going forward, but the Big East should be worried.

Thoughts on the Arkansas - A&M game

Coaches face a difficult optimization problem every day in that they have to decide how complex they wish to make things for their players. A more complex scheme has two major downsides: it is harder to teach, and it can confuse your players during the game. However, there is a possible big reward: outsmarting the other team.

In the A&M game, we saw the benefits of the opposite approach in the second half. Petrino simplified the pass protection calls for the offense and got a lot more productivity out of a simpler scheme. Credit the coaching staff for making the adjustment, but I certainly wonder if they were overwhelming the green Arkansas offensive line with too much complexity to begin with. Perhaps they eventually need to learn the more elaborate protections no matter what, so it makes sense to teach them and run them even if there are struggles. Nobody said being a head coach is easy.

If those protections had any downsides, the A&M coaching staff certainly didn't exploit them. Other reports show that the defense similarly changed to a different, simpler front that they ran in the first year or two of Petrino's tenure. That adjustment also paid big dividends.

Beyond that, I'd have to say that Broderick Green's return from the ACL injury was shockingly quick and it was good to see him in the game. The record setting performances by Tyler Wilson and Jarius Wright have drawn national attention. Going forward this team still has a lot of potential but something like 10 starters including multiple team captains have suffered meaningful injuries and that can be hard to overcome in the long run. It is certainly a good thing to beat A&M, but in the exuberance of that comeback it's easy to forget that the Hogs were absolutely torched in the first half, giving up 35 points in ugly fashion. It's also worth noting that they put up 20 first half points, a good output against a ranked team.

Auburn is next, and since I will be at that game in person I certainly hope for a win. Should be a shootout either way.

So where are we with that Missouri thing right now?

The Missouri Board of Curators, their oddly named board of trustees (apparently this is unique among American universities), will meet later this week to discuss changing athletic conferences. We might know more after that meeting. I don't have a read on what they might do. Frank the Tank has suggested that Missouri to the SEC will eventually happen. Perhaps by tomorrow evening we will know more.