I can’t imagine anyone who follows college football at this point (with more than ½ a brain) can believe that the system we have now is a good one. It is a joke that we are going to now have 5 teams with legitimate reasons to be in the National Title game and we have to pick 2. Why pick 2? Why not just have a playoff system? It really is not as difficult as the NCAA and the presidents would want you to think. You could even include teams from the lower conferences, so they won’t complain. Here it goes, my solution to this problem known as the BCS.

1. Move the season up one or two weeks depending on whether you want a bye week at the end of the season before the playoffs start.

2. Play the season as it is being played right now, no changes to conferences, conference championships, or anything like that.

3. At the end of the regular season, you take the winner of each BCS conference. This season that would be LSU (SEC), USC (Pac-10), Ohio State (Big 10), Oklahoma (Big 12), Virginia Tech (ACC), and West Virginia (Big East).

4. Also, you include the winners of the non-BCS conferences. This season that would be Central Michigan (MAC), UCF (Conference USA), BYU (MWC), Hawaii (WAC), and Florida Atlantic(Sun Belt).

5. Then the five highest rated teams that are left are added as at-large teams, but not more than one at-large per conference. This season they are Georgia, Missouri, Arizona State, Boston College , and Illinois.

6. Then you seed them with the BCS conference champions taking the first 6 seeds and then the last 10 seeds would be split among the other conference champions and the at-large teams. This season that would be something like Ohio State, LSU, Va. TEch, Oklahoma, USC, West Virginia, Georgia, Missouri, Hawaii, Arizona State, Illinois, BC , BYU, Central Florida, Central Michigan,  and Florida Atlantic.

7. The first 3 rounds are played directly following the season, before the bowl season begins. This leaves the championship game to be played, as it is now in early January. The teams that are left will be filed into the other available bowl games depending on how they fair in the playoffs. If you wanted a bye week in between the end of the regular season and the playoffs, the season would need to begin closer to the beginning of August. You could also get rid of the twelth game that was added a couple years ago.

Now that would leave us, with a system that allows teams to play it out on the field, brings in more revenue for the NCAA, does not leave the little teams out, or eliminate the bowl system. I’m sure there are flaws to this systems and I would love to know about them so I can tweak this accordingly. I hope that many of you agree with this idea because if nothing else, it’s better than the #### we have now.

    The team everyone loves to hate lost for the fourth time in a row for the first time since the ’95-’96 season. They’re not ranked for the first time since ESPN became affiliated with the coaches’ poll. They’re not ranked in the AP poll for the first time in 200 polls. Some people are saying Coach K has lost his touch, and that Roy Williams is beating him with the same youth. Journalists are saying that Duke is done, and won’t even make the Big Dance. To say Duke is not worthy of participating in the greatest spectacle in sports is an embarrassment to sports as a whole.

    Duke is currently 18-7 and 5-6 in the ACC. For Duke this is the worst season in the 11 years. For many other high-major programs, this would be an accomplishment worth noting in programs for years to come. Air Force is probably having its best season in 10 years, ranked 17th, at 21-4, but Duke beat them handily. Duke amassed quality victories throughout their non-conference schedule, while playing one upperclassman. People are saying Duke’s remaining schedule is too tough, with too many games on the road. Let’s run through these remaining games quickly. They’ve beaten Boston College once this season, by 14. They beat Clemson by two, when they were still playing well. (Yes, I know they got extra time.) They lost to Georgia Tech, but now get them at home, where they notoriously underachieve. They will then play St. John’s, a team struggling to remain above water in the under-achieving Big East. Their two biggest tests come at the end of the season, in Maryland, at home, and UNC, on the road. No one can tell me they’ll not win 4 or 5 of those games, which would leave them at a highly possible 23-8, and 9-7 in the conference. Duke is definitely a middle of the road ACC team, but given the strength of the ACC this season, that puts them in the top ten percent in the nation.

    The main thing that people are overlooking about Duke is that they can’t get much worse and they are still barely losing games. Maryland aside, they could have beaten Virginia, Florida State, and to a lesser degree, North Carolina. For a team with zero seniors and one junior, that’s pretty good. This team is still learning, trying to figure each other out. Yes, North Carolina looks great being so young. What everyone forgets is that every sophomore on North Carolina played last year, and is essentially experienced. Josh McRoberts and Greg Paulus, while starting last year, relied on three seniors to carry the load. Most people are not born to lead. UNC is blessed with great talent and leadership on both ends of the court. I would want nothing else, but success for UNC because without them, this rivalry wouldn’t exist. But, for right now, can we please let go with the comparisons between the two programs. They are at two completely different levels. Duke relates better to the 8-20 North Carolina team than the one from this year or last year.

    Duke is Duke, and they will make the NCAA tournament and I’ll go on record right now, saying they will shock at least one team in the tournament and advance to the Sweet 16, which for a team everyone has already written off, is pretty damn good. No, this is not the end of the era, just the start of a new generation.

Michelle Wie will try again this week to win another Men’s Event. Oh wait not “win”, make the cut and not “another”, just her first one. Yes that’s right; the main sports story of today is that a 16 year old who has never won a professional tournament of ANY KIND will try to beat half of the men who have gone through the trials and tribulations of tournament play for years; Not all of them, but half. How far has sports fallen when this is a lead story?
I like Michelle Wie, I do, but she has no business playing with men twice her age and twice her skill level. I haven’t looked at a scoreboard today, but I predict that she’s probably struggling to make the cut. Hopefully she’s not embarrassing herself. Against anybody her own age and I do mean anybody, male or female, she would dominate. She can even compete against females of any age. Michelle Wie is capable of hitting about any shot in the book, but she does not have mental toughness to compete. The mental difference combined with the lack of power in comparison with grown men is what brings her up short.
Wie wanted to go pro at a young age, but she’s sixteen and way too young to handle the pressure of a pro. She does not seem sixteen on TV, but if you watch her play the last 9 holes of a major tournament, she always seems to crack. Skip Bayless, in his article, pointed out that it’s because she was never prepared on the Amateur Circuit and while this may be much of the problem, I think there is a bigger issue: Michelle Wie tries too hard.
Wie wants to be successful. She wants to win now and win big. She wants to be the one everyone fears on a golf course. Her agent has done a great job at making her popular in the media and with all the young girls across the country, but she still has to win. You could see the pressure getting to her down the stretch of the US Open as she failed to stay with Sorenstam and Hurst. You probably could see it today if you watched the John Deere Classic. She can’t handle the pressure, she places on herself. She does not seem to be having fun in these big tournaments. The sooner she has fun, the sooner she wins on any tour.
What Michelle Wie needs is a win. Any win, even a win on a putt putt course against her dad perhaps. She reminds me of Phil Mickelson before he won a major, he was uptight and cracked under pressure. Maybe Wie and Mickelson should talk and he could talk to her about the pressure and how to handle it and then she could tell him not to hit driver on a hole where you could have hit iron and won.
Now that I write all this, Michelle Wie will probably win the John Deere classic and I’ll look like an ####, but I’d bet good money she doesn’t win all this year. So Michelle please relax and win a tournament for all your fans that adore you, so that they can stop wondering when they will get to cheer your victory and so I don’t have to jab my eyes out when I watch you choke again.

    When, If people think of Charleston sports, they usually think of the College of Charleston basketball teams that shocked teams like North Carolina in the early 90s under the Charleston legend, John Kresse. He took the basketball program from an NAIA power to a Mid-Major school to be feared. He took the team to postseason after postseason and built up all CofC basketball fans to inevitably be let down. That is the time, that Charleston fans find themselves now. After firing a coach in Tom Herrion, who went 80-38 in his four seasons at the school. Charleston officials cited the lack of postseason appearances as a reason for firing him. Never did they address the players that Herroin recruited as a reason to fire him. Herrion would take any player he could get his hands on, criminal record or not. Genius, don't ya think? On the court the Cougars were as undisciplined as they were talented. Attendance has been down and fans have been unhappy.

    Enter Gregg Marshall, head coach of the Winthrop Eagles, and protege of John Kresse. The supposed savior of the flagship sport of the College of Charleston. The man that would return the sport to the glory days it enjoyed under Kresse. The man who is now despised by every CofC basketball fan because of his flip-flop. One night he's the savior of a program, so in need of guidance, and the next night, he's back at Winthrop leading a Mid-major power. The question is whether the fans have any right at all to hate him. My answer is a resounding no.

    There are 3 main reasons why no one should be shocked that Marshall decided last minute to return to Winthrop:

       1) He already bulit a Mid-Major power in Winthrop. Why would he want to                 leave? Winthrop returns four of five starters from a team that should have             beat Tennessee in the NCAA tournament last year. This team could be the             best one he ever had. There is little to no pressure at Winthrop, where he is         adored for what he's done, not for what he's expected to do. The College of         Charleston job was a homecoming of sorts for him, but the pressure would             have been too much in the long run for someone who nearly broke down             after the heartbreaking loss against Tennessee.

       2) The type of team and facilities that Herrion left behind. This was a team of             hooligans that never played well together ouside of a few exceptions. The             facilities were in Marshall's word like he'd "never left". This is a guy who has a         well-disciplined group of guys who he loves like family and top-rate facilities.         The college has been promising a new arena for years now and even after             back to back years of tuition hikes, they still aren't backing that promise up.         These two things combing probably laid a few doubts in his mind

    3) The person that Gregg Marshall is would not allow him to leave behind his             players, staff, and city. His family loves it in Winthrop and he chose to be true         to his family over the mere $20,000 increase in base salary. I have a hard             time trying to find fault with a man who is so close to his family and friends.             Gregg Marshall would have never been comfortable in Charleston this time             around, and would have never been able to turn this program around the             way he did at Winthrop.

    In the end, I have always had the same view of Gregg Marshall. He is an incredible basketball coach that has his priorities in order. I understand College of Charleston fans being hurt and confused by what took place over the past two days, but to blame Gregg Marshall is unfair. He did not come back to Charleston to hurt a program that spurned him during the coaching search that eventually chose Tom Herrion. He was just as confused as we are now, but he did what we need to to: Sit and think about what really happened. No one is to blame here, it was just not the right fit for Marshall and it is better he left now than later.