Weekly look at the issues off the field that affect the happenings on the field in college football.
The Smoking Crater that is going to be the North Carolina program – Recent reporting about the role of former assistant coach John Blake has uncovered lots of sordid details about what has been happening in the North Carolina. Among them are steering clients to agent friend Gary Wichard and benefiting financially from those arrangements under the table going back at least to the summer of 2009 meaning North Carolina is likely going to be vacating all of its 2009 wins in addition to whatever else comes down from the NCAA. The NCAA might show some leniency because the North Carolina program has been cooperative including the suspensions of most of the star players this season (many of whom still haven't been cleared), but I expect something similar to what USC got in probation and the North Carolina football program to be toast. They don't have the tradition or fan support in football needed to recover or stay competitive in the middle of and in the immediate aftermath of a probation like that. Also, Butch Davis should probably start polishing the resume to look for NFL jobs since he is toast as much for knowing nothing in this case and the academic fraud case as anything else.
Where should the Pac-10 Championship Game be held? - With Colorado officially joining the league next season to form the Pac-12, there are two issues to be handled. The divisional lineup will be discussed later since nobody knows what that is going to be other than hearsay about what it might be. For the championship game though, the Pac-10 is looking into sites including Las Vegas. Considering all of the options have drawbacks, the Pac-10 is in a tough place. Las Vegas is the most central place and the most logical if the Pac-10 wants to follow the SEC model of the same host city every year. The only problems is the lack of a stadium in Las Vegas. Sam Boyd Stadium, home of UNLV is decidedly small time with horrible locker rooms and a 40,000 seat capacity. It is, by any measure, a Mountain West stadium. This shows in the bowl tie-in for the Las Vegas Bowl. Considering it is Las Vegas, if the stadium could fit the people in it, the tie-in from conference would be much better than Pac-10 five versus Mountain West one. Other cities have the problem of not being central. If the game is held in Seattle and the matchup ends up being Utah against Arizona, its ACC stupidity with a less than half full stadium. Also, considering the prize for the game is the Rose Bowl, that isn't a particularly good option either. Maybe the Pac-10 should try and get Las Vegas to build them a stadium (believe me Oscar Goodman and the current regime running that city might be dumb enough to do it, even in this economy) or hold the game at the team with the better record in conference play.
The WAC is really stretching in its attempt to survive – Let's face it, there is no way the WAC is ever going to be relevant again. Once Boise St., Fresno St. and Nevada are gone, we will likely never see a top 25 outfit out of that league again, especially if Hawaii goes independent as rumored. It might actually be better for all involved to drop to the FCS level and scramble for new leagues there rather than try to survive and take beating after beating as the west coast version of the Sun Belt. I would prefer that also. It would keep the schedules overall much stronger. Much of the reason the Pac-10 as a whole plays such tougher non-conference schedules than the rest of the country is the strength of the WAC and Mountain West combined with a reluctance to schedule FCS teams (Washington until next season, UCLA and USC along with Notre Dame are the only schools to never play one). All of this of course means the WAC really should just go away. And Utah's St.'s president should be fired since he reportedly had the chance to join the Mountain West and didn't because he thought the WAC had BYU coming in for everything except football.
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