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Name: T. Kyle
Country: United States
State: Georgia
Metro: Atlanta
Interests: When not spending time with his family or concentrating on Georgia Bulldog football, T. Kyle King is actively involved with the Henry County Bar Association, the Hampton United Methodist Church, the Southlake Kiwanis Club, the South Metro Bulldog Club, and the Phi Kappa Literary Society.
Expertise: Kyle doesn't know as much about college football as he thinks he does, but he tries to make up for it by offering creative statistical observations and obscure cultural references---sort of Bill James meets Dennis Miller. Professionally, Kyle is engaged in the general practice of law with Hodges, McEachern & King in Jonesboro, where he concentrates in the areas of estate planning and probate matters, civil litigation, general business and family law, and real estate matters. Kyle has no official connection to the University of Georgia or its athletic association and the opinions expressed in his weblog reflect only his own views. Kyle retains the copyright on all original material contained herein.
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Member Since:
7/16/2005
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| I interrupt the build-up to college football season with a report of some sad news. Those of you who knew Bruce Davis will know why I feel the need to spend a few moments remembering him and I ask for the understanding of those of you who did not know him.
Bruce Davis passed away on Sunday, July 24, at the age of 84. I had the privilege of knowing Bruce over the last several years, since shortly after I began practicing law in Jonesboro, through our mutual membership in the Southlake Kiwanis Club.
My father, Wilton King, belonged to that same Kiwanis Club twenty years before and Bruce was a fixture in the local civic organization then, as well. At lunchtime today, I went to what I believe was the first Southlake Kiwanis meeting I have ever attended without Bruce there, and I suspect Dad never went to a club meeting from which Bruce was absent, either.
Ed Brock, a reporter for the Clayton News Daily and a fellow Kiwanian, wrote a tribute to Bruce in today’s newspaper, which I could not, and will not try to, surpass. I will, however, note a few of the facts Ed brought out in his article, which deserve our recognition.
Bruce was a longtime resident of my hometown of Morrow, where he once served on the city council. Before that, he spent twenty years in the U.S. Air Force. During the Second World War, Bruce was a B-17 bomber pilot. After being shot down over Germany, Bruce spent a year and a half as a prisoner of war.
Even if you knew Bruce, you probably wouldn’t have known those things about him unless someone else told you. He wasn’t one to turn the spotlight on himself, even though his experiences fighting for his country earned him the gratitude of anyone who is glad to be living in the world we have instead of the world an Axis victory over the Allies would have created.
What Bruce liked to talk about was his family, his church, his Kiwanis Club, and his sports teams. If you had lunch with him every Tuesday, you might not have known he was a veteran, but you knew about the accomplishments of his children and grandchildren. Every year, on his wedding anniversary, he reminded everyone how long he and his wife, Elizabeth, had been married. If you didn’t know how the Braves and the Bulldogs were doing when you arrived at Kiwanis, Bruce made sure you had that information before the meeting adjourned.
Bruce took a back seat to no one in his love of Bulldog football. Whenever Georgia played Kentucky in Lexington, he made the trip to the Bluegrass State to see the game. Naturally, although we were separated by an age difference of nearly 50 years, Bruce and I had our team loyalty in common and I always enjoyed talking football with him.
The Bulldog Nation is a poorer place for Bruce Davis’s passing, but so is the American Nation for which he fought. His funeral will be held at 1:00 p.m. tomorrow, July 27, at the First Baptist Church of Morrow. Because of Bruce’s long association with the civic organization, the members of the Southlake Kiwanis Club have been made honorary pallbearers for the occasion.
There will be an empty chair at the Southlake Kiwanis Club every Tuesday and an empty seat in Sanford Stadium every Saturday. All who knew him will miss Bruce Davis and I would ask each of you to keep his family in your thoughts and prayers.
In memory of Bruce Davis, I close this posting the way he would have opened a football season to which I know he was looking forward: “Go ‘Dawgs.” | | |
| It is time yet again to address our weekly preseason college football question. Much has transpired since last the pigskin traveled along the gridiron and it is appropriate to use the time leading up to the kickoff of the 2005 campaign to address some of these changes.
For instance, did you know that C.B.S. has announced that its new fall lineup will include a spinoff called "C.S.I.: S.E.C."? In this new hour-long drama, police will investigate crimes allegedly committed by football players at the University of Tennessee and the University of South Carolina. Unfortunately, there are only 22 episodes in a T.V. season, so they won't be able to cover all of the crimes allegedly committed by Volunteer and Gamecock athletes in the past year, but they'll get to as many of them as they can.
For now, though, we once more find ourselves concerned with offseason coaching changes in the Southeastern Conference and we turn to an issue that has caused many a denizen of Bulldog Nation much existential angst. Therefore, we wrestle this week with the following inquiry:
Is it all right for me to like Urban Meyer?
No, it isn't.
Several people have commented to me that Urban Meyer seems like a decent enough fellow and, clearly, he is an excellent football coach. His name lends itself to a natural (if somewhat premature) nickname ("Urban Legend") that is so blatantly obvious that it occurs even to University of Florida graduates. As blasphemous as it sounds, I even had someone tell me that Urban Meyer came across as "another Mark Richt."
Yeah, well, there once was a "Star Trek" episode that featured "another Mr. Spock," only this one was from an alternate universe and had a cool-looking goatee. The only problem was that his employer was evil incarnate. (I'm sorry, but I felt the need to work in a "Star Trek" reference, in honor of the late James "Scotty" Doohan, whose recent passing was reported at http://entertainment.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=196936.)
It was all right to like Coach Meyer when he was a rising star at Bowling Green and Utah. However, there are two very good reasons for disliking Coach Meyer now.
First of all, he turned down the head coaching job at Notre Dame. Now, I hate Notre Dame like every good Protestant American should, but Coach Meyer is a Roman Catholic. He is, in fact, named after a Pope, not after a major metropolitan area or a video rental category including movies by Spike Lee.
When your religious faith is headquartered in Vatican City, your first football loyalty has to be in South Bend. I'm a Methodist, but even I know that a Catholic who shuns Notre Dame is going straight to Hell like the protagonist of a Drivin' 'n' Cryin' song. Some would say that, since his mailing address is now in Gainesville, Coach Meyer has been sent to Hell already.
That brings us to the second reason for disliking Urban Meyer, which I have chosen to sum up in a little song I like to call "Oh, I Wish Urban Meyer Was Not a Weiner." Every citizen of Bulldog Nation should sing it repeatedly while in Jacksonville and it goes something like this:
My opponent has a first name.
It's U-R-B-A-N.
My opponent has a second name.
It's M-E-Y-E-R.
Oh, I'd love to beat him Saturday,
And, if you ask me why, I'll say:
"'Cause Urban Meyer works today
For F-L-O-R-I-D-A."
Maybe Urban Meyer is a good guy, but, as Jackie Gleason said in "Smokey and the Bandit 2," there's an old saying in law enforcement: when you raid a house of ill repute, you arrest the piano player, too. When Coach Meyer stopped wearing red and started wearing orange, he lost all claim to our affection, our admiration, or our willingness to hit the brakes if we happened to see him crossing the street.
Case closed. Next question?
Actually, before we move on to the next question, we still have a question remaining unanswered, don't we? Last week, I posed an odd college football question to the group, asking what I would have in common with Hines Ward, the former Georgia Bulldog and current Pittsburgh Steeler, if I were to appear as the 12th Man at a Texas A&M home game. The keys to the question are Hines Ward's current N.F.L. team and the fact that I would be taking the field for the Aggies in College Station. (The answer also involves phonetics.)
Texas A&M plays its home games at Kyle Field. The Steelers play their home games at Heinz Field. The answer, therefore, is that each of us would have taken the football field in a stadium bearing the same name by which he is called.
Go 'Dawgs! | | |
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From July 16:
Another week has passed and we arrive once more at the time to address a burning question that has arisen during college football's interminable offseason.
A week ago, I addressed the matter of Steve Spurrier's return to the S.E.C. and predicted that the Evil Genius would improve the Gamecocks to the level of consistent mediocrity. Since then, though, the news has broken that (as was the case at Florida fifteen years ago) the guy Darth Visor just replaced has gotten the school into hot water with the N.C.A.A. (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2107170).
With any luck, probation will help knock South Carolina down a notch or two; if I were picking a coach upon whom and a program upon which to wish a string of 4-7 seasons, I couldn't pick a coach more deserving than Steve Superior or a squad more deserving than the Palmetto State Poultry. Given that South Carolina's fan base has the S.E.C.'s least favorable ratio of arrogance to achievement, I'm rooting for the N.C.A.A. to drop the hammer on the Dirty Birds.
One side effect of this, however, is that it may cause me to be proven wrong in my measured confidence in the Ol' Ball Coach's ability to turn things around in Columbia. Since I may have lost ground in that regard, I will be focusing now on a matter of greater historical significance than coaching changes or conference realignment. This week, we will tackle an age-old debate as we attempt to answer the following inquiry:
Historically, what are the all-time top 25 programs in Division I-A college football?
This question was presented to me earlier this summer by an old friend of mine, Chad Tiller, who is from Georgia but who has lived in Texas for the last several years. He recently was listening to sports talk radio in the Lone Star State when a Texas A&M fan called in and referred to the Aggies in passing as a major college football program. This started an on-air discussion over whether Texas A&M truly qualified as a major program, considered in the light of the entirety of college football history.
Chad wrote to me to ask that I compile an all-time top 25 list of major college football programs. Having done so for him, I decided to share the results with all of you, in the hope of settling or starting an argument, depending upon your preference.
I did not attempt to rank the top 25 all-time college football programs from first through 25th. Instead, I went conference-by-conference through the 2004 members of the A.C.C., the Big East, the Big Ten, the Big Twelve, the Pac-10, and the S.E.C. and made note of the obvious teams that unquestionably made the cut. I then went back through and looked at the ones that were debatable. Some "mid-major" conference teams were given consideration in the second round of selections, but it seemed abundantly clear that none warranted inclusion the first time through the line.
Through no design of my own, my initial list of teams that undeniably qualified as top 25 all-time college football programs included 24 teams. In alphabetical order, these are they:
1. Alabama
2. Arkansas
3. Auburn
4. Clemson
5. Florida
6. Florida State
7. Georgia
8. Georgia Tech
9. Iowa
10. Louisiana State
11. Miami (Florida)
12. Michigan
13. Michigan State
14. Minnesota
15. Mississippi
16. Nebraska
17. Notre Dame
18. Ohio State
19. Oklahoma
20. Penn State
21. Southern Cal
22. Tennessee
23. Texas
24. Washington
Seriously, it is absolutely inconceivable to me that anyone could quarrel with any of the teams listed above.
That left just one spot on my countdown up for grabs and open for debate. It seemed to me, on my second run through the lists of contenders, that there were eight teams with an argument for inclusion. Those eight teams are as follows:
1. Brigham Young
2. Miami (Ohio)
3. Pitt
5. Texas A&M
6. Texas Christian
7. U.C.L.A.
8. Wisconsin
Personally, I think I would have to give the nod either to Texas Christian or to Syracuse. Admittedly, much of this is on gut instinct, so my mind might be changed about which of the foregoing eight qualified for the final spot in the all-time top 25, but, as I say, I cannot imagine that any honest college football fan would find fault with my top 24. (I hope my attempt to be unbiased is evident from the fact that I included nine of Georgia's conference or other longstanding rivals in my top 24.)
Because the question of the Aggies' all-time stature sparked this discussion, I should point out that, in my estimation, the list Texas A&M really belongs on is the list of teams whose fans think they're an all-time top 25 college football program but whose fans are just plain kidding themselves.
This places Texas A&M in a club with Boston College, Cal, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, N.C. State, Oklahoma State, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, Virginia Tech, and the service academies. (Kentucky's and Maryland's unconvincing argument for inclusion, by the way, sounds a lot like Texas A&M's: "We had Bear Bryant once!" Yeah, and the Atlanta Falcons had Dan Reeves and Brett Favre, too, but that doesn't make them a top 25 N.F.L. franchise.)
Between the bonfire, "The Aggie War Hymn," the 12th Man, the marching band, and the yell leaders, Texas A&M is not only a top 25 school, but a top five school, where school spirit is concerned. Unfortunately, the primary criterion for inclusion on the list of all-time top 25 college football programs is performance on the field and the Aggies fall somewhat short in this regard. A hundred years of 7-4 doth not a major program make. (Yes, I know there were years in which the Aggies were a Southwest Conference power. Many, if not most, of those years coincided with the period during which the S.W.C. couldn't so much as score a touchdown in the Cotton Bowl.)
While we are talking about Texas A&M, though, I offer the following trivia question for your consideration. If you answer it correctly, you get nothing except the satisfaction of having been right (which, really, has always been quite good enough for me), but you are ineligible to enter the contest if you have ever co-hosted a local cable access television show with me. The question is this:
If I were to appear in a Texas A&M home game as the 12th Man, what would I have in common with Hines Ward, the former University of Georgia standout and current Pittsburgh Steeler?
Go 'Dawgs! | | |
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From July 9:
As promised, I will be addressing a question of interest to college football fans each week until the start of the 2005 season. For this week's question, I turn to matter of local concern and will attempt to address the following inquiry, which has been the source of much offseason buzz, both in the Southeastern United States and at the Bristol, Conn., headquarters of E.S.P.N., which, evidently, is Spanish for "The Steve Spurrier Channel."
The question, of course, is this:
Will Steve Spurrier be able to take South Carolina to the next level?
Yes, he will.
However, we must remember that "the next level" is a relative term. If you get onto an elevator at the ninth floor, "the next level" is the tenth floor, but, if you get onto an elevator in the lobby, "the next level" is the second story. The Gamecocks are boarding the elevator in the basement.
Over the whole course of their football history, the Palmetto State Poultry have been able to claim the twelfth-best tradition in the Southeastern Conference. The only reason South Carolina ranks as high as twelfth is because Georgia Tech left the conference in the '60s, although the Gamecocks might have surpassed Tulane had the Green Wave stuck around. Maybe.
South Carolina won a league title in 1969 in the pre-Georgia Tech, pre-Florida State, pre-Miami, and pre-Virginia Tech A.C.C. In the only conference championship season in school history, the Big Chickens posted a 7-4 record, lost the Peach Bowl, and were blown out by the Bulldogs, 41-16, in a non-conference game.
After that, the Gamecocks put together a solid season in 1984 and managed to steal what should have been the first of Herschel Walker's three Heisman Trophies when, in 1980, George Rogers (a Georgia native whose position coach was a University of Georgia graduate) walked away with the hardware. Aside from that, though, the East Coast U.S.C. has so little about which to brag that they consider a recent 17-7 run "the glory days."
Yes, it's true that South Carolina came close to being a solid team last season. The Poultry fell just short a few times along the way, losing to Georgia by four, falling to Ole Miss by three, and hanging with Tennessee for much of the game. The Gamecocks' 6-5 season easily could have been a 9-2 campaign.
Close, though, doesn't count. In 2004, another Eastern Division squad with postseason aspirations dropped its fair share of nailbiters along the way, losing to Ole Miss by three, Navy by three, Rutgers by three, Kentucky by one, and Tennessee by five.
That team was Vanderbilt. The 2-9 Commodores lost five games by five or fewer points and led the Rebels, the Midshipmen, the Scarlet Knights, and the Wildcats in the third quarter of games in which they came up short. Vandy missed a 7-4 record by that much last year. Does anyone think an offseason switch from Bobby Johnson to Steve Spurrier would have put the 2005 Commodores in contention for an S.E.C. title?
Many college football fans consider Steve Spurrier a miracle worker for what he accomplished in Gainesville. While, obviously, the Evil Genius brought unparalleled success to his alma mater, it isn't as though the Gators were entirely lacking in laurels when the Ol' Ball Coach returned home.
The year before Darth Visor made his debut as U.F.'s head coach, the Gators' leading rusher was Emmitt Smith. Just five years prior to Steve Superior's arrival on the Florida sidelines, the Gators had been ranked No. 1 in the country during the regular season. (They lost to Georgia the following Saturday, 24-3, but that is a separate conversation.)
In the ten seasons immediately preceding Coach Spurrier's return to Gainesville, U.F. attended seven bowl games, won eight or more games five times, won seven or more games eight times, and never finished below .500. In the seven seasons between 1984 and 1990, the Gators finished first in the S.E.C. standings three times but were denied the conference championship by N.C.A.A. sanctions.
In short, the Florida program was a sleeping giant in 1990; the same cannot be said for the South Carolina program today. The Gamecocks may be as lawless as the Gators once were, but South Carolina has yet to contend for a league championship or even a division crown. In the tumultuous decade just prior to the Evil Genius's hiring at U.F., the Gators accomplished more on the field than the Gamecocks have in their whole history.
It is fair to say that Steve Spurrier will take South Carolina to the next level, just as his two immediate predecessors did. Brad Scott took the Gamecocks from being consistently awful to being only usually awful. Coach Scott even managed to lead South Carolina to its first bowl victory.
Lou Holtz, playing Annie Sullivan to the Gamecocks' Helen Keller, raised the S.E.C. East also-ran from being usually awful to being sporadically mediocre. Coach Holtz came to Columbia with a most impressive resume, but his stay in Gamecock country served mostly to remind us that Lou is the first syllable of loser. What does it say that the most successful head coach in the history of the program had a career record hovering around .500 over his tenure there?
Now, Coach Spurrier is poised to knock the lid off of the program by guiding South Carolina from sporadic mediocrity to consistent mediocrity. Gamecock fans, get ready for a steady diet of 6-5 seasons and prepare to breathe the rarefied air of being a perennial bowl bubble team. Dare to dream of spending the postseason in Nashville or, with a few lucky breaks, even Shreveport.
Let's get serious here. South Carolina is a consistent fourth-place finisher in a division that includes three great programs (Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee) and two lousy programs (Kentucky and Vanderbilt). The Gamecocks could get a lot better and still not be able to finish in the top three in the East. By the same token, they could get a lot worse and still not slip as far as fifth place.
South Carolina is competing with the middle of the Western Division pack in its efforts to move up in the postseason pecking order, but that's about the extent of it. In 1990, the Gators were ready to growl, but, in 2005, South Carolina is just being cocky.
But perhaps I am selling Georgia's division rival short. One day, probably one day soon, two or three seasons down the road, Steve Spurrier will have the South Carolina Gamecocks playing beneath the roof of the Georgia Dome . . . in the Peach Bowl, where some team from the upgraded A.C.C. is going to take the title sponsor's advertising slogan to heart and eat more chicken.
Anything beyond that, though, is just wishful thinking in Columbia, the epicenter of college football's Bermuda Triangle.
Go 'Dawgs! | | |
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From July 4:
Happy Independence Day!
The Bulldogs' season opener against Boise State is still 61 days away and, although it is hardly football weather here in Hampton, Ga., it won't be football weather in Sanford Stadium on Sept. 3, either . . . as the Broncos are going to find out the hard way. (In Idaho during football season, "humidity" is a synonym for "snow." They have no idea what Labor Day weekend in Athens is going to be like.)
Since kickoff will be here before you know it (did I mention that the season opener was 61 days away?) and since there has been much to discuss this offseason, I have decided to commence my regular college football postings slightly in advance of the start of the season. Many of you have been asking me questions during the lengthy lull since the new year dawned, with regard to the sport, to the S.E.C., and to the 'Dawgs. Over the next several weeks, I will attempt to address these questions, including the question posed below, in order to offer my take on the issues confronting college football, the Southeastern Conference, and the University of Georgia as we head into the 2005 campaign.
Before we get to this week's question, though, I thought I should provide everyone with an update, since many of you may not be current on all the news from our neck of the woods. Susan, Thomas, and I moved in mid-May. Although we no longer reside within the city limits, we continue to have a Hampton mailing address and, according to Mapquest.com, we are just over three miles from our old house. Thomas celebrated his second birthday on March 19 and he is enjoying the summer immensely. (Earlier today, in commemoration of the Fourth of July, he insisted that Susan make cupcakes and that we sing "Happy Birthday, America.") Since the first of the year, I have become the treasurer of the Henry County Bar Association and gone through the training process to become a local church lay speaker at the Hampton United Methodist Church.
The big news for you football fans, though, is that "The Dawg Show" has been placed on what is known in the T.V. industry as "hiatus." As you are aware, my co-host, Travis Rice, and his wife, Jeannie, welcomed the arrival of a new baby, Drew, into their home last October. Drew is Travis's and Jeannie's third child, joining older brother David, who turned three in May, and older sister Kate, who turned 13 in May. Add to that the fact that Travis also began a new career (teaching) last year and will be starting a new job (at Luella High School) in the fall and it is easy to see why a seventh season of "The Dawg Show" was not a practical possibility for him for 2005.
Truthfully, though, the decision not to do the show again this year was a mutual one, as both Travis and I have gotten a little "burned out" by the responsibility of doing a weekly T.V. show from just before Labor Day until just after New Year's Day, as we have done for the last six years. When we first started doing the show, in 1999, Travis and Jeannie had a seven-year-old daughter and Susan and I had not yet started a family. The sacrifice involved in devoting an entire evening during the week to taping the show was not as great then.
Although the show remains a great deal of fun to make, it is more difficult now, when remaining on the air means that, for three and a half months, there will be one day every week on which neither of us sees our sons awake. "The Dawg Show" is not dead, but, for now, while there are small children in each of our households, we are taking a break to recharge our creative batteries and focus on more pressing concerns in our households and in our careers.
Nevertheless, even though "The Dawg Show" will not be appearing on local cable access in Henry County, Ga., this year, you will still be receiving your regular college football-related e-mails from me throughout the 2005 season. We commence, therefore, with the first of several offseason questions in need of answering as we prepare for another autumn in the Empire State of the South.
Here is this week's question:
Can you help me keep up with conference realignment?
No, I can't.
Seven of the eleven Division I-A college football conferences will feature a new look in 2005. Eighteen teams will be playing in different leagues this year from the ones in which they were playing in 2004. To top it all off, only one of those eighteen teams is joining a conference I care about in the slightest and neither that team (Boston College) nor that conference (A.C.C.) rates highly on my list of priorities.
So, no, as a matter of fact, I cannot help you keep up with conference realignment, which is every bit as convoluted and difficult to follow as the continuity problems between the first three "Star Wars" movies and the last three "Star Wars" movies (or is that between the last three "Star Wars" movies and the first three "Star Wars" movies?). There seems to be neither rhyme nor reason to many of these moves, unless, of course, it is all part of the N.C.A.A.'s secret plan to have every Division I-A conference include at least one team from Louisiana by 2011.
Then again, I'm already this far into the e-mail. Oh, all right, what the heck, I'll give it a shot.
We all know that, last year, Miami and Virginia Tech bolted for the A.C.C., which officially welcomes Boston College this season. This gives the league a twelfth team and allows the conference to split into two divisions, imaginatively named the Atlantic Division and the Coastal Division. (I shouldn't criticize, since I grew up following a sport that is divided into the American and National Leagues.) The addition of B.C. to a league that already included Duke, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Virginia, and all those schools from North Carolina establishes beyond doubt that the A.C.C. is second only to the Ivy League as the nation's snootiest college football conference. Fortunately, the A.C.C. also counts Clemson, Florida State, Miami, and Virginia Tech among its member institutions, so the conference is redeemed by the inclusion of a handful of schools that lack an overinflated sense of their own academic merit and, therefore, are able to concentrate on playing quality football.
The Eagles' departure for greener pastures, coupled with Temple's temporary return to independent status (before officially joining the Mid-American Conference in 2007, which will be an embarrassment both for the M.A.C. and for the Owls), means the Big East has lost four founding members in a two-year span, obligating the weakest B.C.S. league to saddle up the horses and go on a late-night raid like Woodrow Call, Gus McCrae, Josh Deets, Pea Eye Parker, and Jake Spoon at the start of "Lonesome Dove." Rather than crossing into Mexico in search of stolen horses, though, the Big East poached some of the top teams in Conference U.S.A., snaring Cincinnati, Louisville, and South Florida.
Conference U.S.A. was hit hardest by conference realignment, not only losing the Bulls, the Bearcats, and the defending champion Cardinals to the Big East but also seeing Army declare its independence and Texas Christian make the jump to the Mountain West, which will be the Horned Frogs' fourth conference in a decade.
To their credit, the founders of Conference U.S.A. had the forethought to choose an all-encompassing moniker which enables the league to bring in new members without being embarrassed by geography (as when Arkansas, a Southwest Conference school, suddenly qualified for Southeastern Conference membership) or by mathematics (as when Penn State became the eleventh member of what was still called the Big Ten). Barring a second attempt at Southern secession (which seems unlikely on this, the 142nd anniversary of the fall of Vicksburg), any football team north of the Rio Grande that plays on a field marked off in yards rather than in meters could qualify for admission. Conference U.S.A.'s five departing members were replaced by six incoming institutions: Central Florida and Marshall from the M.A.C. and Rice, Southern Methodist, Texas-El Paso, and Tulsa from the W.A.C.
These latest defections caused the next domino in the line to fall, necessitating that the Western Athletic Conference find replacements for the teams it was losing. Looking further down the college football food chain, the increasingly marginalized W.A.C. snagged Idaho, New Mexico State, and Utah State from the Sun Belt Conference, which hitherto had existed largely for the purpose of providing non-conference schedule fodder for the S.E.C.
Left with nowhere else to look, the Sun Belt (a/k/a "The League That North Texas Built") opted to admit Florida Atlantic and Florida International, both newly arrived from Division I-AA. What, you may wonder, is the difference between F.A.U. and F.I.U.? The short answer is: a vowel. The long answer is: students at the former university go to Waffle House, whereas matriculants at the latter institution prefer I.H.O.P.
Confused? You won't be after this week's episode of "Soap" . . . or after you've reviewed the attached guide. We may be thankful that the Big Ten, the Big Twelve, the Pac-10, and the S.E.C. all stood pat, so it isn't complete anarchy in the world of sport, but your retooled 2005 conferences look like this:
Atlantic Coast Conference:
Atlantic Division:
Boston College
Clemson
Florida State
Maryland
N.C. State
Wake Forest
Coastal Division:
Duke
Georgia Tech
Miami
North Carolina
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Big East*:
Cincinnati
Connecticut
Louisville
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
South Florida
Syracuse
West Virginia
* Eight other teams, including Notre Dame, are members of the Big East in other sports, so half of the teams in the league don't play football as members of the league, even though some of them play football. If you think that makes sense, you probably also think Sandra Day O'Connor's replacement isn't going to be asked what he thinks about Roe v. Wade.
Conference U.S.A.:
East Division:
Alabama-Birmingham
Central Florida East Carolina
Marshall
Memphis
Southern Mississippi
West Division:
Tulane
Tulsa
Mid-American Conference:
East Division:
Akron
Bowling Green
Buffalo
Kent State
Miami (Ohio)
Ohio
West Division:
Ball State
Central Michigan
Eastern Michigan
Northern Illinois Toledo
Western Michigan
Mountain West Conference:
Air Force
Brigham Young
Colorado State
Nevada-Las Vegas
New Mexico
San Diego State
Texas Christian
Utah
Wyoming
Sun Belt Conference:
Arkansas State
Florida Atlantic
Florida International
Louisiana-Lafayette
Louisiana-Monroe
Middle Tennessee
North Texas
Troy
Western Athletic Conference:
Boise State
Fresno State
Hawaii
Idaho
Louisiana Tech
Nevada
New Mexico State
San Jose State
Utah State
Now, do you think you have all of that straight? Me, neither, but we'll have to do the best we can as the season gets underway.
If it's any consolation, most of these games won't matter, anyway, and, if you're like me, you're going to watch the A.C.C. and Conference U.S.A. championship games, no matter how indifferent you are to the outcome, because, hey, college football is better than not college football.
I'll be addressing another offseason inquiry next week. In the meantime, I hope all of you have had a happy Independence Day weekend.
Go 'Dawgs! | | |
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