Recruiting for players is a whole other story.  The top recruits get the pampered life.  They have high profile coaches flying in to see them.  People are asking for their autograph.  Requests for interviews upon interviews to try and uncover any sort of information that they’ll divulge.  It is almost seems like the recruits can do whatever they want and there isn’t any consequences for their actions.  Now most of what they do is fine. Let them have some of the limelight; get a little taste of success.  My problem with recruits is decommittals.  Every year there is an abundance of players who verbal agree to come to a school and then decommit due to they changed their mind or another coach persuaded them to change their mind.  This is a tough decision in these players’ lives, but they are also young adults who have to take some responsibility for their decisions.  There are probably multiple ways that college football can change the recruiting landscape, but one simple way to help improve it would be to have an early signing period.  The early signing period would allow recruits to sign  before the usual signing day and then they would be contractually obligated to attend the school.  The early signing period would not only benefit the school, because they know the recruit is coming, but also the recruit, because other coaches couldn’t try to recruit them anymore.  This is only one route that recruiting needs to turn to because the state of recruiting in college football is not only hurting programs who thought they had committed players, but the players as a whole as well.  A player that takes up a scholarship and then decommits is essentially hurting other players who could’ve had that scholarship.  Recruiting needs to change to help college football as a whole.

Now here’s where I’m really coming from.  The first two weeks of the show had Rampage in control of the fights.  Now of course everyone is going to think that he will setup the perfect fight for Kimbo in one of the first two weeks, but instead he pulls the better maneuver for the show and uses up one of the best wrestlers on the show the first week and one of the better fighters on the show the second week, which then limits who Kimbo could face in his first round matchup.  At the end of last week Rashad gets control of the fights and puts Roy “Big Country” Nelson up against the one, the only, Kimbo Slice.  Now I know Roy is probably the most experienced there, but this has to be the best fight for Kimbo.  If there’s someone you want Kimbo to fight it would be the fat guy.  Kimbo will probably knock him out tonight and if not then Kimbo can easily out endure him.  It just seems a little too obvious that this would be the setup fight from the beginning and airing it week three gets the viewers to watch for a couple weeks and then finally get what they want.

Only time will tell if my inkling is correct or not, but I wouldn’t blame Dana White if it was.  I don’t think the fights are rigged, but the matchups could easily be setup.  The UFC has a large fan base, but I don’t think they’ve really found the next way to expand.  It seems like every pay-per-view they are getting about the same buy rates and they also seem like they are having a problem building up new superstars.  Brock Lesnar is a huge superstar because he came from WWE and then turned into a champion.  Other than him there really aren’t many new, up and coming fighters that semi-fans of UFC would recognize.  UFC needs someone to be another face for the UFC, someone who people will want to see, and someone who is recognizable to more than just UFC fans.  Kimbo Slice is that guy; and I think that guy has his trail mapped out to at least be in the finals of the Ultimate Fighter.  Either way, I’ll be watching!

#10 – Students Need Time To Study for Finals
Can people finally come to grips that these players are athlete students and not student athletes?  Let’s just think of the travel schedule as an educational field trip.  Other students travel abroad to further their education, which in turn, furthers their career outlook.  Players can do the same thing by gaining more exposure and traveling with their teams.  They will still have a chance to study and if they’re like most students then they won’t study until the week before anyway.  There’s so many ways to rectify this issue that it should really be a non-issue.

#9 – A Playoff Would Leave Legit Teams Out
Every playoff is going to leave some teams out that people would like to have in.  That’s the nature of having a season and being on the cusp.  The difference is that at least multiple teams would have a chance and it would truly be a national championship and not a two-team championship.  Currently teams benefit if they lose early on and are punished if they lose towards the end of the season.  There’s a reason it’s called a season and not called survivor pool.  Teams will be left in, but the majority of the correct teams will be in.

#8 – The Season Would Be Too Long
I haven’t heard any athletes say that playing a maximum of three or four extra games would be too much for them.  Most these athletes are well prepared for a long, enduring season and adding additional games wouldn’t cause as many problems as people think.  Yes, there is the chance of more injuries, but that’s a risk for any sport.  Are any NFL teams complaining that they make the playoffs because their players are more at risk for injury?  I don’t think so.  These players can handle it.

#7 – Conforms to Other Sports
Numbers seven, six, and five on this list kind of coincide together, but each is their own issue in separate ways.  Yes, college football is different than any other sport.  There’s a reason it’s different, because the people in charge are idiots.  No other college sport or professional sport doesn’t have some sort of playoff.  Division III?  Playoff.  Division II?  Playoff.  Division I-AA?  Playoff.  So how can anyone contend that the issues above are actual issues when the same sport, just different division has a playoff?  The issue isn’t about conforming it’s about what’s doing what’s best for the sport anyway.

#6 – Ends Tradition
Here comes the traditionalist rally cry.  A playoff system would end traditions like the Big Ten champ playing the Pac-10 champ at the Rose Bowl.  First of all, the tradition has already been broken with the BCS because anytime a Pac-10 Team or Big Ten team is playing for the national championship then it may not be against the Pac-10 champ and it usually isn’t being played at the Rose Bowl.  Secondly, I don’t think anyone of either fan base would rather see a meaningless Rose Bowl matchup then have a chance for their team to try and get to the national championship.  Do you think USC was excited to be playing Penn State last year and not be in the national championship?  Traditions are great, but new traditions can be formed.

#5 – A Playoff Messes Up The Bowls
Not many people care about the smaller bowls anyway unless your team is involved.  I’m sorry; I just don’t care to watch the Roady’s Humanitarian Bowl or the R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl.  I care about the four BCS games and the national championship.  Even if you have an eight team playoff then that causes seven games to be humongous draws.  There’s always a shot at an upset and it will make you want to watch any of those seven games.  The rest of the bowls can still be around for traditions sake or for Notre Dame fans to be happy that they finally won one after going 6-6.  Either way, it will only increase audience viewership and become better for the bowl sponsors.

#4 – Money From Bowls
The bowls are about money; actually everything’s about money.  Some BCS fans think that having a playoff system would end sponsorship to other bowl games.  That’s not the case at all.  Anytime football is on television, people will watch; when people watch, sponsors will come.  Now I’m not sure if rates would stay the same, but until there is a playoff in place then you can’t really determine if viewers will drop or not from other games.  I do know that viewers will increase for the playoff games, which would allow the NCAA to charge even more money for sponsorship of all the playoff games.  Most conferences split the money from bowl games anyways and this would just increase the money coming to the conferences because the further you go along in the bowl games then the more money for your conference.  Some proposals for a playoff system were said to increase revenue by at least double of what it currently is.  I don’t think money is a problem in this debate.

#3 – Fan’s Won’t Travel
I can’t believe people actually think that fans won’t travel to the playoff games.  They will.  The best scenario would be to place the highest ranked seeds and have them play at the closest location.  This would be similar to what college basketball does in the first couple rounds of their tournament.  A playoff system would be a major event, similar to what college basketball has in respect to hype before the tournament.  Many of the tickets would be purchased by corporate sponsorships and the remaining tickets would go to the schools.  The stadiums would be filled and people will attend their team’s playoff games no matter where they are at.  Once again, there are playoffs and tournaments in other collegiate sports and fans travel all around for those events.  This would be much of the same.

#2 – Cupcake Schedules
People think having a playoff would make teams more likely to have cupcake schedules just so they could get into the playoffs.  I differ greatly with this opinion though.  Currently there are cupcake schedules because you can’t lose a game.  By allowing a team to still have a chance with a loss, teams would be more likely to have better opponents on their schedule because one loss wouldn’t be as damaging to them.  If there’s a playoff system it’s still going to ultimately come down to winning your conference first and then there would be some at-large bids so people would boost their out-of conference schedule to help them in their seeding later on if they win their conference.

#1 – Every Game Matters
The #1 argument that I disagree with the most is that every game matters in college football.  This is ridiculous on two accounts.  In the current state of college football if you lose a game then your chance at a national championship is basically over.  This means that after the first week of the season 171 different programs seasons are basically over.  You can’t tell me that every game matters when if a team loses the game then the season is basically done.  There’s a reason it’s called a season.  You need to play through the ups and downs to see who the best at the end is.  There is basically no reward for winning your conference if you have a loss other than going to a BCS game that at the end of the season means you still don’t have a shot to win the national title.  I guess every game matters until you lose one game.

The other part of this is that every game would actually matter during the season.  Every in conference game would be more and more important if winning the conference would get you into the playoffs.  Big games are still going to be big games at the beginning, middle, or end of the season.  There will still be the same amount of drama involved at the end of the season, if not more, because now teams are vying for a playoff spot and more teams will be on the edge to get in and every game will matter instead of only two or three teams really having a shot at the end of the year.

So I’ve been ranting and ranting and ranting about how bad college football rankings are, that they really don’t mean anything and are pointless, and are just made up for television purposes.  Wow, who would’ve thought how far RIGHT  I was!  I mean at this point in the season I’m righter then Glenn Beck at an anti-ACORN rally.  I don’t know how this year compares to year’s past, and I’m not going to spend my time like the Schwab researching stats all day to figure it out, but every week the rankings seem like we just take the top 25 teams, put them in a bowl, and pick a new number.  We had #4 Ole Miss lose on Thursday to South Carolina and #5 Penn State lose to Iowa.  Everyone’s bandwagon team, the U, got beat up by Virginia Tech.  #6 Cal got crushed by Oregon.  Morale of the story; rankings don’t mean a team is actually good and they don’t mean that the game is going to be good.  The best games of the day were Michigan/Indiana and Purdue/Notre Dame.  Last little note about college football and rankings.  Can we please just have a playoff? On my drive down to State College I heard one moron radio announcer repeatedly try to defend college football and the BCS.  This guy was speaking more garbage then Kadafi speaking about jet lag.  I’d like anyone to give me some legit reasons for not having a playoff and I’ll refute them for you.

So since the whole season of college football is basically a farce let’s get to the NFL.  Yesterday I told you to not jump to conclusions.  Welp, I think I’m turning into a lemming because I’m about to jump.  The Jets looked good, really good.  Those are three solid victories, with a rookie quarterback leading them, and they are getting the job done.  I was so far off on the Jets!  Congratulations to Jets fan you finally have a quarterback.  Denver’s 3-0 (Still iffy on them), Vikings 3-0 (more about them later), Saints 3-0 (Offense wins championships), Colts 3-0 (never doubt them), and is Baltimore 3-0 (Flacco is a beast).  All these teams look pretty impressive.  Denver’s defense is looking solid, but I want to see some better competition before I’m on the Bronco’s saddle.  I mean they got the fluke win against the Bengals, who should be 3-0, then they beat the Chiefs and Raiders.  The NFL is just great this year though.  Not many teams are terrible except the Cleveland Browns, St. Louis Rams, and the Washington Redskins.  The Redskins amaze me every year.  They waste their money on these horrible free agent signings and they continuously suck every year.  They lost to the Lions!  Yes, the previous year’s 0-16 Lions finally got their first win in 20 games.  The Browns might be in contention with Oakland for the worst run franchise in the NFL.  Not only do they have a horrible offense and their starting QB gets  benched after going 6-8 with one interception to be replaced by the backup who throws three interceptions, but pretty much every player on the team hates the coach and are filing complaints against him for fining them over a grand for not paying for a $3 water at the hotel.  The team should fine him for being a horrible coach.  The Steelers may be 1-2 right now after two miserable losses in the last second, but at least we get to play the Browns twice a year.

Now to the biggest story of yesterday.  The man we love to hate.  Brett Favre.  The San Francisco 49ers and Vikings game was a great matchup between two very solid and balanced teams.  The 49ers had 3-0 in their sights until the one, the only, Mr. Wrangler pulled out the trickery, snapped back, and fired a bullet down the field, which allowed Greg Lewis to make a great catch and gave the Vikings the victory with only 0:02 sec. remaining.  Can any Vikings fans even pronounce Ta-var-is anymore?  I think they made wise choice.  So far.

Another great weekend and more to come next week.  In college football be on the lookout for # who cares Ohio State vs. Indiana, LSU/Georgia, and the late game, Oklahoma versus Miami.  On Sunday we get to watch Baltimore versus New England and then the game of the weekend New Orleans Saints versus the New York Jets.

QB:

Byron Leftwich (Buccaneers) – Leftwich has been up some solid numbers so far this season, but since the Buccaneers suck most people aren’t viewing Byron as a legitimate QB.  Leftwich goes up against the Giants this week and will then get to take on the Philadelphia Eagles in week 4 and Carolina Panthers in week 5.

Kerry Collins (Titans) - The Titans play the Jets this week and we know the Jets will want to stop the run.  This will allow Collins to open up the passing game and get Nate Washington involved.  Next week they got Jags and then the Colts who they’ll be able to pass and run over so watch for Collins to get some solid fantasy points.

RB:

Justin Forsett (Seahawks) - The Seahawks running game is not too good so they will continually keep trying new backs to try and fill the gap in their offense.  Forsett may be picked up already, but if not then look for him to become the new top guy on the totem pole soon and grab him up.

WR:

Mike Sims-Walker (Jaguars) - Sims-Walker had over 100 yards last week and is becoming a main target for David Garrard.  The Jags will have to get their passing game going against the Texans this week and the Titans next week.  Following those two tough games the Jags play Seattle and St. Louis, which will make Sims-Walker a great pickup.

Pierre Garcon (Colts) - Garcon showed glimpses of greatness last game when he used his speed to grab a late TD and give the Colts a win on Monday night.  Peyton can get the ball to any receiver and with the new confidence he has in Garcon and Anthony Gonzalez being injured for awhile, Garcon becomes a definite pickup, especially with the Colts playing Arizona, Seattle, and then Tennessee.

TE:

Todd Heap (Ravens) - Todd Heap used to be a top 5 TE and then he kept getting injured.  Now he seems to be a favorite target for Flacco, especially in short range.  The Ravens will crush the Browns this week and Heap will be the hot TE after the weekend.

D/ST:

Buffalo Bills - Everyone seems hot for the Broncos D/ST, but I think the best pickup is the Bills.  The Bills have a solid secondary to try and neutralize the pass and they can get turnovers.  I see a contested matchup with the Saints this weekend that will make everyone believers and make the Bills defense a must pickup since they will be playing the Dolphins in week 4 and the Browns in week 5.

Kicker:

Rian Lindell  (Bills) - Were going back to Buffalo on this pick because Lindell is getting off to a great start. He is 5/5 on field goals this year and has been putting up solid points.  Buffalo looks like they are moving the ball now and this will set up Lindell with some great field goal opportunities.

The biggest debates come from fans of neither school.  Maybe they don’t understand the legend of each coach.  For some reason they think that having a “figurehead” as your coach who doesn’t do the typical coaching duties is such an injustice to college football that they need to make it known to everyone who will listen to them.  I think it’s amazing that both schools still are contenders every year, still get great recruiting classes, and still have two of the biggest fan bases with a coach that always has the uncertainty if this will be their last year or not.  It’s a sign of how much farther along the programs are over other schools that this still works.  The coaching world in modern times is grim.  It’s usually succeed or get fired or succeed and move on.  Most coaches want their dream jobs at schools that are already prominent.  Will we ever see another coach who has done what Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno have?  Not just in team wins, but in the way that they took over a program and stayed with it for decades to bring it to a level that no one could ever have dreamed of when they hired either coach.  We should be praising the accomplishments of both coaches instead of trying to push them out the door.

I’m not sure how Florida State home games are, but me being a Penn State graduate, I can ensure everyone that the Nittany Nation takes pride in our football weekends.  We want the best team, best tailgate, best student section, best crowd noise, and best of anything else related every time there is a home game in Happy Valley.  This weekend you will see the Iowa Hawkeyes enter Beaver Stadium with a target on their back after they ended Penn State’s perfect season last year in Iowa.  I know for a fact that the entire crowd will be going crazy for this night game and to ensure that the same result doesn’t happen this year.  College Gameday will be in State College this weekend to not only experience 110,000 fans clad in white, but they will also get to see the first ever College Gameday Whiteout.  Now I’m not sure how large the effort will be for this or how it will end up looking, but just the effort put forth by students and fans to come together and try and distinguish themselves as the best fan base is unseen by most programs.  This effort continues year in and year out because of one person, Joe Paterno.  JoPa turned this program into what it is today and he’s the reason why Saturday’s at Beaver Stadium are so special.  So let’s enjoy the man who rolls up his pant legs, wears four inch thick glasses, and sometimes is a little crazy to listen to.  So let’s stop trying to push these two legends out the door and start embracing the one given that actually makes college football better.