I'm a joiner

Okay, over at Fire Mark May they are hosting a blogosphere "round table" on college football - Even though I'm a day late, I really couldn't help myself. HT Run up the Score


Your Home Field Advantage

Give the more zealous portion of your fan base a religion. What's this cult following? Feel free to give the splitters a derogatory nickname.

I really hate calling myself names. But seriously, for me it’s an east coast “they might be bums, but they’re our bums; never underestimate your opponent; Joe Paterno is not (although he is the same age as) God” loyalty.

For me, I call those who blindly follow Coach Paterno and his cronies “uninformed” -

Your biggest rival is in town, and College Gameday is coming....to your citaaaaaaay... Create a blatant corporate sellout promotion to appeal to the mass unwashed.

Eh, probably my favorite tailgating gear - EZ up Canopies. “Like Corso - We’re...”

Add one local delicacy to your stadium's concessions. Post-tax pricing is optional.

What we really need is a “snack food alley” - there a bazillion brands and varieties of packaged snacks in Central PA. My personal favorite is Middleswarth - although Hartleys and Martins are tasty as well.


With an unlimited AD budget, add or subtract one thing to your school's gameday experience that has nothing to do with football.

Evil parking attendants/parking authority. The current trend at PSU is to stifle/”phase out” (exact term used by parking attendant) tailgating. Apparently, we’re too intoxicated, messy, loyal, friendly, etc. for the powers that be. After the Michigan game last year, there was a uproar (ha ha Lions roar) over the amount of trash that was left behind after the weekend. Hello? It was PSU/um, a 8pm start, with tailgaters in cow pastures where virtually no refuse receptacles are provided. Tailgating is the backbone of the PSU football experience (we’ll say that the football is the spinal cord) - when times were rough (I mean terrible) fans kept coming to Happy Valley - to TAILGATE. At the final game of the 2003 season, a guest at our tailgate, a Nebraska grad, asked how we felt about “our” current record - my response was “we might not have had the results on the field, but we’re undefeated in tailgates!”

You ruin that, my administrative monkeys, and you ruin Penn State football.

OH! and ABSOLUTELY NO DEFENSIVE CHEERS (ie the Wave) during offensive drives. NONE!

General NCAA questions

Coin a hilariously unrealistic stereotype that you would like to "make stick" for this upcoming season.

The clock at the Big House works perfectly.

Redesign your conference or independent schedule with reckless abandon. Be prepared to include compensation for jilted schools and conferences in your explanation.

Ah, the Big te(leve)n - what to do; what to do. Personally, I like playing Big Ten Teams - they have great fans and there’s real competition every week. So I’m going to flake out on this one.

Following up on your new realignment, blow up the BCS and devise a national playoff system, money grabs and missed exams be damned. Using your new fantasy conferences is optional.

Similar to RUTS - I’d use a “formula” based on an average of rankings, recalculated (actuary powers activate!) strength of schedule, cutest quarterback, etc. Regardless of Conference alliance - the top 8 (or 16) teams would be invited. (then again, I may change that - with all those SEC teams playing each other in southern venues - the speed on the field might be too great for digital and HD tv signals to keep up)

All non-invited teams would be free to play in the non-participating bowl games. Bowl games would be scheduled as usual.

In the beginning - there would be 8 teams. 4 round one games 2 round two games and 1 championship game. The games would be played at the following bowl sites -

Permanent venues (can you guess?):

Fiesta Bowl
Orange Bowl
Rose Bowl
Sugar Bowl

Rotating sites:

Citrus Bowl (yes, we’re going old school)
Cotton Bowl
Peach Bowl
Holiday Bowl
Gator Bowl
Liberty Bowl

Any bowl game that is scheduled for a round one game has the option to “pass” (in a timely manner) on hosting the game that year to host their “regular” bowl game instead. In such event an alternative site will be designated.

Once the masses have accepted their fate - we’ll expand it to a 16 team (not 88) field - with the first round being played at the higher seed’s home field (brrr it’s cold out here).


Elect one public figure to replace NCAA president Myles Brand. Anyone with proper name recognition is eligible.

it’s such a bogus job - really, they’re just a figurehead - so how about W? I’m sure he could find time between exercise and nap time.