Greg Schiano's decision to stay at Rutgers means that he is:

A. insane; B. a baby; C. afraid; D. the next head coach at Penn State or E. none of the above

Okay SAT mavens, first eliminate the obviously wrong answers.  Well he's given no other indications of insanity. (Unless you consider turning down Miami last year an early symptom).  No, this answer is the product of overly sensitive Michigan fans.  The thinking goes, the Michigan job is the best football job in the world for everyone, and if you turn it down you are insane.  These people also came up with the "He's waiting for Joe Paterno to die" excuse.  Wrong.  If Schiano won't go to Michigan, he's not going to take a step down and go to Penn State.  No, Schiano is sane.  He just has another job higher on his list.

He's a big baby, who's throwing a hissy-fit because NJ just yanked a 30M loan to expand Rutgers stadium.  The thinking here is he only interviewed with Michigan to get back at the state of New Jersey, who reneged on  a loan to get the stadium enlarged.  So anyone who listens to a job proposal from anyone other than their present employer is a big baby?  Schiano debunked this one himself.  He asked the sportswriters, if Sports Illustrated offered them interviews would they be "big babies" for listening to an offer? Schiano has every right to listen to job offers as does any other person.

He's afraid he'll buckle under the pressure of being Michigan head coach.  Hmm here's a guy who's coached at Rutgers, Penn State, Miami, and the Chicago Bears.  Somehow, I don't think he'd curl up into the fetal position and wimper if the going got tough.  This is another wounded Michigan fan excuse.

The correct answer is E. none of the above and here's why.  Schiano has been quite clear in his goal.  This is nothing short of winning a national championship at Rutgers and elevating the program to place among the elite schools.  It's ok to laugh.  But a lot more people were laughing in 2000 when Schiano first said this.  Fewer are laughing now.  Schiano sees that if he can keep NJ talent home, and continue to poach a little Florida talent,  he can create the only successful Division I program within 70 miles of the media capital of the world.  He's been successful so far.  I haven't seen the Empire State Building illuminated in LSU or Michigan colors lately.  Les Miles didn't throw out the first ball at a Yankees/Mets game this year.  New York is a sports-crazy town that has at least two of each professional sports team but no college football team, until Rutgers.  If he pulls this off, this puts him in the league of Rockne, Bryant, Devaney, Wilkinson, Royal, Neyland, etc, coaches that are synonymous with their programs.  Can he do it?  It won't be easy, especially with reneging politicians like Gov. Corzine.  But he apparently would rather work for this goal instead of becoming the next in a long line of Michigan or Miami coaches.  My hat's off to him for sticking to his goal instead of taking the easy road of going to Michigan.

Conventional wisdom has Rutgers headed to the International Bowl in Toronto for their New Year's festivities.  But wait, Greg Schiano still seems to be a bit cagey about the Knight's ultimate destination.  What's to be cagey about? West Virginia's in the BCS, Connecticut has agreed to the Meineke Car Care Bowl and Cincy has committed to the papajohns.com bowl.   Everyone believes the Sun Bowl will take South Florida, which is the highest ranked Big East team after the Mountaineers.  So that leaves the International Bowl for Rutgers right?

During his radio show last night, Schiano wouldn't quite say that this was the case.  He mentioned again that there might be the possibility of some kind of "bowl trade" with a bowl that doesn't have enough bowl eligible teams.  He noted that this should definitely be sorted out by Saturday.

So which bowls don't have enough bowl eligible teams?  Only two. The Texas Bowl in Houston,  this year pits Conference USA against the Big 12  which may not have enough bowl eligible teams.  The Armed Forces Bowl, in Fort Worth, featuring the Pac-10/Mountain West, may not have a bowl eligible Pac-10 team.  Rutgers won the Texas Bowl last year so a return there would be unlikely.  The Armed Forces Bowl however is slated to serve up Air Force as an opponent.  The Falcons are presently ranked 29th by the BCS, which has pegged Rutgers at 35.  None of Rutger's potentional MAC conference foes in the International Bowl are ranked by the BCS.  Could Schiano be angling for an invite to the Armed Forces Bowl to complete a service academy sweep? (RU beat both Navy and Army this season).  Could be.  Rutgers would improve its final ranking much more with a win over Air Force than an unranked MAC opponent. 

 Schiano's comment that this should play out by Saturday is also illuminating.  If Rutgers beats Louisville on Thursday, they'll finish at 8-4.  That's one game better than Purdue, which is presently being touted as an Armed Forces Bowl participant, who finished the season at 7-5.  So here's the prediction.  If Rutgers beats Louisville they head south to the Armed Forces Bowl. (My apologies to Fort Worth for the "border" comment.  I know you guys are a good distance from Mexico, but it made for a good headline!)  If Rutgers loses and finishes 7-5, get out the dogsleds because it's Toronto for the Knights.  So the result of the Rutgers/Louisville may not be as "meaningless" as the pundits profess.  We'll see!

After blogging with a Mountaineer fan about my dream FCS playoff setup (See notes to last blog), I wondered how many FCS teams out of 119 don't have the "privilege" of playing in a conference that gets an automatic BCS bowl berth for its champion.  Would you believe 56? This means that almost half of the Division 1 teams in this country could have undefeated seasons and not make a BCS bowl game because a bunch of sportswriters, former coaches (of BCS eligible teams of course), and other supposed experts, along with a bunch of computers think that beating Boise State or Hawaii is not as important as beating Notre Dame.

This, to me, is unpardonable.  To tell half of the teams in the country, yeah even if you do win all your games, you can't win a national championship because, well we don't like your schedule, seems more like something you'd hear from a Soviet Bloc, state-sponsored sports machine than an association of American colleges.

But methinks the times may be changing. Ten, twenty years ago the traditional football powers (aka FOGHORNS), were able to dictate how things were run in the NCAA. But it seems there are a lot more barbarians at the gate these days.  Just look at the Big East.  Ten years ago Connecticut and South Florida were not division one teams.  It seems more schools are wanting to make the jump to Div 1.  Let's hope so.  Because if enough schools are getting screwed by the BCS setup, the more noise they make and maybe eventually the NCAA does something about it.  Isn't there something traditionally American about the Cinderella story?  Would say a Marshall or a Bowling Green making a title run in football be any less exciting than the Princetons, Indiana States, and Gonzagas of basketball?  So to all the teams in the WAC, Mountain West, MAC, Conference USA, Sun Belt I say MAKE SOME NOISE!!!  I can't believe some Congressman who wants to make a name for himself hasn't taken this on.  Or maybe we'll see that other great American pastime, the lawsuit.  How long until it takes a college or a conference to sue the NCAA over prohibiting a team to compete in the national championship just because of the conference they're in? Let's hope it's not long.  Championships decided on the field.  What a concept!

More bad news from the frontier of the Holy Roman College Football Empire. Four barbarian tribes are now attacking the outposts of our revered Bowl Championship Series.  Outpost #13 has sent word via messenger that it is being attacked by barbarians with huge dogs.  Originally thought to be the Huns, it was later discovered that this bloodthirsty pack of savages was named for it's dogs, the Huskies.  This group of despicable outlanders was previously seen raping and pillaging our sister empire, the Holy Roman College Basketball Empire.  No one beiieved that they had the heavy cavalry necessary to take on the Football Empire.  We will closely monitor this situation.

Nearby  Outpost #14 reports successful attacks by a ruthless horde of Warriors, dressed in nothing more than shorts and  flower necklaces.  They are led by a fierce chieftain named after a horse, who apparently can throw a spear unbelievable distances.  These man-beasts also are known to attack with twirling torches, lit at both ends.

Scattered reports of seperate attacks at outposts  numbers 18 and 22 have also been received.  Outpost #18 has undergone sporadic attacks by a nomadic tribe that rides bulls into battle.  This is the same group of outcasts who overran and held outpost #2 for an entire week before retreating after being driven off by a group of Knights.  Last week it appears that this bullriding group of pillagers was decimated by the Husky tribe noted above.  It is not yet clear whether they are retreating or merely regrouping.

Finally, Outpost  #22 reports the reemergence of  the Boise Visigoths who were responsible for the sack and massacre of Oklahoma last year.  The commander of Outpost #22 noted that these villains are presently at work building a statue similar to the horse statue  used by the Greeks at Troy.  However, this new construction more closely resembles the Statue of Liberty.

The Holy Roman Football Empire has called upon all Football Old Guard Heroes of Righteous Normalcy (FOGHORNs) to assemble immediately and disperse these vandals.  Presently under consideration are defensive measures such as 1)Allowing no one to enter the Bowl Championship Series unless they can produce the official talisman with the Big 10, Pac-10, Big 12, SEC, or ACC emblem on it.  and 2)Simply changing the BCS bylaws to allow no entry to the Bowl Championship by any team that has not had at least one recruiting, burglary, bar fight, or rape scandal.

A representative of the barbarian tribes opined that these measures even if adopted, were unlikely to stop the onslaught.  "We're barbarians," said the spokesman.  "We don't believe in laws."  More on this story later tonight on The BCS Evening News with Dan Blather.

Usually I find the my conference is better than your conference argument to be pretty lame.  I mean, when's the last time a conference played a bowl game? But something grabbed my attention about the SEC the other day.  Let me start by saying there are a hell of a lot of good teams in the SEC, no argument.  The boards are full of passionate SEC fans arguing, not without support,  that theirs is the toughest confernce.  But here's my question SEC fans. 

How come your SEC teams rarely play any out of conference road games?

It dawned on me that I can't remember often seeing  SEC teams visiting a major out of conference school. I looked at the schedules of all the SEC teams this year and found two decent out of conference road games: Tenn v. Cal,  and Miss. St. v. WV.  Yeah, there's GA v. Ga. Tech which is a tradtional rivalry and SC v. NC (also traditional?).  But it seemed that the SEC teams just never leave the South.  So I looked at last year's schedules for Auburn, Alabama, and LSU, and lo and behold, found the same thing.

So SEC fans my question is, why is this?

I looked at Big 10, Big East, ACC, Big 12, Pac-10 schedules too.  It seems they always have about one out of conference road game per team against a substantial division one school.  If the SEC is at dominant as its fans believe, why don't they head to California more often to kick the snot out of Pac-10 team?  Maybe prove once and for all that the Big 10 is overrated by annihilating a Wisconsin, a Michigan, a Penn State or an Ohio State in a snowstorm?  Go smack some Big East pretenders like West Virginia or Rutgers around on the East Coast?  Or if you don't want to travel that far, kick around some ACC or Big 12 teams?

SEC teams are willing to play some of these teams at SEC stadiums.  The SEC champ goes to New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl.  Why not take to the road once in  a while?  I often hear the argument, that this Big East team would only be a mid-level team in the SEC.  So why not schedule them and pick up a win?  Or send a Mississippi up to the Big 10 and beat up a Purdue or an Indiana?  (my respect does go out to Mississippi St. who agreed to play WV at Morgantown, and still managed to beat Kentucky and Auburn).

To me, part of the beauty of a nationwide game like college football is to see how teams from different areas stack up against each other.  Would Ohio State melt in the Swamp in September?  Would LSU freeze in Boston in November? Wouldn't it be a hoot to find out?Just think of the benefits recruiting wise if  Alabama flew into LA and stomped SC.  By staying home, it raises the question does this SEC brand of football not travel well? Are they aftraid to schedule out of conference teams?

I've posed this question on some of the boards, but these are so full of trash talk, it's never really answered.  Is it scheduling problems because of the number of teams in the SEC? But the ACC and Big 12 can do it.  I would love to see the Gators, or the Tigers, or the Tide or the Vols in NJ.  But it never happens.  Can anybody tell me why?  Is it stadium capacity? I'm sure they could move it to Giants Stadium or Foxboro, MA or some other large venue.

Travel was an issue last century.  Knute Rockne obviously took one too many plane trips.  But it's the 21st century now and I just can't explain why the rest of the country doesn't see more of the SEC teams.

Am I missing something here?  Let me know.