So who’s first and second?

Since May Pre-Snap Read has been reviewing the 120 Bowl Championship Division football teams. (New Mexico was 116 and New Mexico State 115.) With Nebraska Saturday, Oklahoma early today and Ohio State just now, he’s down to the top two (play begins Thursday).

Looks like 1 and 2 are Alabama and —

wait for it

— Boise State.

Or maybe 1 and 2 are Boise State and Alabama.

Click the link above for the list. Here’s the rest of the Pre-Snap Read top 10.

3. Ohio State
4. Oklahoma
5. Nebraska
6. T.C.U.
7. Virginia Tech
8. Oregon
9. Iowa
10. Florida

Boise State and Virginia Tech play Monday at FedEx Field.

Buffaloed

Colorado has joined the Pac 10 11.

Who will make it the Pac 12? 13? 14? 15? 16?

Best line of the day

“I’m a Nebraska native, and when I first heard rumblings of a conference switch, I thought, well, it’s only a number; in my youth, the Big 12 was only the Big Eight. And it’s all about money, anyway.

“But this realignment disrupts rivalries that are central to the pleasure sports give to fans—especially Nebraska fans, who are inoculated with an unusually pure strain of fandom. As far as high-profile sports go, the Cornhusker football team is literally the only game in town. At school on Mondays after a Saturday loss, everyone was still a bit depressed. And I’m talking about elementary school. …”

Kelly Bare : The New Yorker

The Best College Football Stadiums in America

Pre-Snap Read has a great photo essay.

Ouch!

Pre-Snap Read is ranking the 120 Division 1 college football teams from number 120 up. They got to New Mexico and New Mexico State in the first six.

(P.S. Elise is right.)

Ranking every FBS team from 1 to 120

SI.com ranks all 120 of the Football Bowl Subdivision schools.

It looks like a very long autumn in New Mexico (UNM #111 and NMSU #118). The Quad Blog has them #106 and #118.

Just four more weeks of waiting

USA Today preseason football coaches’ poll:

1. Florida (53)
2. Texas (4)
3. Oklahoma (1)
4. Southern Cal (1)
5. Alabama
6. Ohio State
7. Virginia Tech
8. Penn State
9. LSU
10. Mississippi

A long way to go for the Lobos

The Quad Countdown ranks the New Mexico Lobos 106th of 120 Division I Football Bowl Schools for the upcoming season. Sad, but likely true.

The Quad Countdown

For the second straight year, Paul Myerberg is counting down all 120 Football Bowl Subdivision teams in preparation for the college football season. We know, we know. Baseball hasn’t reached the All-Star break, the N.B.A. and the N.H.L. are making their way through the playoffs, college lacrosse hasn’t even reached its Final Four. But there’s never a bad time to start getting ready for the football season. So why not begin here? Paul will be back every day with a new team, providing some gridiron knowledge to help you make it through the days until the season kicks off.

The Quad Countdown starts with No. 120, Western Kentucky.

The Quad Countdown: No. 119 Idaho.

The Quad Countdown: No. 118 New Mexico State.

First time

Oklahoma and Florida have never played each other in football before.

On the other hand:

It means nothing because the BCS has no credibility. Florida? Oklahoma? Who cares? Utah is the national champion.

The End. Roll credits.

Argue with this, please. I beg you. Find me anybody else that went undefeated. Thirteen-and-zero. Beat four ranked teams. Went to the Deep South and seal-clubbed Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. The same Alabama that was ranked No. 1 for five weeks. The same Alabama that went undefeated in the regular season. The same Alabama that Florida beat in order to get INTO the BCS Championship game in the first place.

Yeah, that’s how it is now in the shameful, money-grubbing world of college football. If you’re Florida and you beat Alabama, you get a seat in the title game. If you’re Utah, you get a seat on your sofa.

Rick Reilly – ESPN The Magazine

Reilly’s rant continues.

This isn’t a national championship—it’s a big-money waltz

Bill James urges his colleagues to boycott the BCS. An excerpt from a piece that really requires you to read it all:

It is inherent in the nature of sports to seek a clear resolution of the competition. You have two football conferences, two basketball conferences, two baseball leagues—you want to know who the best team really is. That doesn’t come from anywhere; it’s integral to the sport. It’s like a movie; either the boy gets the girl, or he doesn’t. Either the cop catches the killer, or he doesn’t. Either the hero wins the battle, or he dies on the battlefield. That’s just the way it is, whether it’s Shakespeare or schlock. Leaving the situation unresolved is unpopular because it’s unnatural.

Best line of the week, so far

“BCS commissioners propose two-team playoff.”

Sportspickle.com via Sideline Chatter

As Title Game Approaches, What About Utah?

But in an open letter to the 72 members of the media who choose the Associated Press No. 1, the Washington Post’s John Feinstein makes a strong case for them to place undefeated Utah at the top of their ballot.

“The reason to vote for Utah is simple: This is the one and only way you can stand up to the BCS bullies — the university presidents, commissioners, athletic directors and the TV networks who enable them — and, to renew a catch phrase, just say no,” Feinstein argues. “Say no to this horrible, hypocritical, feed-the-big-boys system. Say no to the idea that fair competition doesn’t matter. Say no to all the hype surrounding the power conferences and power teams. To co-opt yet another catch phrase, say yes to change.”

The Daily Fix

Does BCS violate anti-trust laws?

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah’s attorney general is investigating the Bowl Championship Series for a possible violation of federal antitrust laws after an undefeated Utes team was left out of the national title game for the second time in five years.

Attorney General Mark Shurtleff contends the BCS unfairly puts schools like Utah, which is a member of a conference without an automatic bid to the lucrative bowl games, at a competitive and financial disadvantage.

Shurtleff said Tuesday that his office is still in the initial stages of reviewing the Sherman Antitrust Act to see if a lawsuit can be filed. To succeed in a lawsuit, Shurtleff would have to prove a conspiracy exists that creates a monopoly.

SI.com

Big Ten’s play not worthy of BCS

“There are a lot of little things that go on in there,” Paterno said following the loss. “I think in all fairness without, again, being a crybaby, I think in all fairness when you play Southern Cal, they’re home and they practice where they normally practice. It’s a lot easier for them to get ready.”

If the traveling parameters are too much for the conference, then perhaps the Big Ten should pull out of the BCS altogether and commit its conference champion to the Motor City Bowl.

Drew Sharp — Detroit Free Press

I say the BCS should be like European futbol — realign after each season and throw out next year’s automatic bid for the conference that performs worst. Out with the Big East, in with the Mountain West. Out with the Big 10, in with the WAC.

• The Big Ten is winless in six Rose Bowls this decade, losing by almost a two-to-one margin in those defeats — 219-121.

• It’s now lost its last five BCS games by more than a two-to-one margin — 198-97.

• The Big Ten’s BCS record of 4-10 this decade is the second-worst winning percentage of the six major conferences.

Anybody think Ohio State is going to improve upon that against Texas tonight?

In B.C.S., Dollars Are the Only Relevant Numbers

. . . Under the rules, the championship teams of the Atlantic Coast, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pacific-10 and Southeastern Conferences go to the B.C.S. automatically. This season, the first team in each conference to qualify receives $18 million — win, lose or draw — and that money is distributed in that team’s conference. If a second team from a conference qualifies, the conference shares an additional $4.5 million.

But the rules for the other five conferences are different. One champion from one of the non-B.C.S. conferences gets in if it is ranked in the top 12 or ranked in the top 16 but higher than a B.C.S. conference champion. That is how Utah, ranked sixth, found its way to the Sugar Bowl against Alabama and an $18 million payday, to be shared among the five smaller conferences.

But no other small-conference team made it. Boise State went 12-0, won the Western Athletic Conference and finished the regular season ranked ninth in the B.C.S. For this, the Broncos earned a trip to the inventively named San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl and collected $750,000 — a set of steak knives compared with the Cadillac that is a B.C.S. berth, even after sharing the revenue. Boise State lost that game to Texas Christian, another non-B.C.S. program. The Horned Frogs finished second to Utah in the Mountain West and ranked 11th in the final B.C.S. standings.

Boise State and T.C.U. ranked higher in the B.C.S. than the Orange Bowl participants: No. 12 Cincinnati, winner of the Big East, and No. 19 Virginia Tech, winner of the Atlantic Coast. For their efforts, the Bearcats and Hokies came away with $18 million each for their leagues to share. Strange? It becomes even stranger.

Notre Dame, an independent, goes to the B.C.S. if it ranks eighth or higher in the standings — not a consideration this year because the team made no one’s top 25. But no matter: Notre Dame gets an automatic $1.3 million payout whether it makes it to the championship series or not.

Keeping Score – NYTimes.com

What Did He Mean line of the night

“Alabama is not built to come from behind, but they don’t have to.”

Daryl “Moose” Johnston, Fox broadcaster during the Sugar Bowl. The score at the time he made this comment was Utah 21 Alabama 0. So I guess Moose meant they (Alabama) didn’t have to come from behind unless they wanted to win the game.

Best line of the day, so far

See, John Parker Wilson stands at a bar at Bourbon Street, and he’s wondering what to drink. There’s a lot of beers, see. Tons of them. There’s Abita Amber, Abita Turbo Dog, Bud, Bud Lite, Corona, Coors Light, Harp, Guinness, PBR. So many options! He’s just about to decide, he’s looking, he promises he is and he’s looking….he reaches his bruised arm into his pocket to get money.

The bartender asks: “What do you want?”

And in the moment, just when John Parker Wilson is about to decide, he is tackled by three defenders wearing Utah jerseys. They take his money and mock his bangs before heading to Pat O’Brien’s to drink Hurricanes until their eyes cross.

From EDSBS (Every Day Should Be Saturday). Awesome win Utes, 13-0. The nation’s only undefeated Division 1 football team.

Football national champions

The Richmond Spiders defeated the Montana Grizzlies 24-7 Friday evening to win the national championship of the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA). Richmond finished the season 13-3, Montana 14-2.

It’s Richmond’s first national championship in football. They defeated three-time defending national champion Appalachian State in the quarter finals. Montana has won the national championship twice; this was their fourth time as national runner-up.

Sixteen teams competed in the FCS playoffs, which began November 29th. There are 122 FCS schools.

Meanwhile back in the Bowl Championship Subdivision, Saturday will feature BYU 10-2, Navy 8-4, four teams that are 7-5, and a couple of teams that are 6-6 in four meaningless bowl games.

Richmond is the alma mater of Byron, one of the two official sons-in-law of NewMexiKen.

The best piece on the Heisman

“The lunacy of the Heisman Trophy” by Allen Barra, first published in 2003 and still right on. Key excerpt:

The Mackey, the Lombardi, the Outland, the Biletnikoff—there are more than a dozen college football awards, and all of them taken together don’t generate one-tenth of the ink given to the Heisman Trophy. Why, exactly? What is particularly puzzling is that the Walter Camp Award, presented to the “nation’s top player” by the Walter Camp Foundation, has never caught on, considering that it is named for the father of football, the man without whom none of the other awards would exist. But then, the Walter Camp Foundation is in New Haven, Conn., and the Heisman Trophy is presented by the Downtown Athletic Club in New York. Which, come to think of it, probably answers the question right there….

And, by the way, why not present the Heisman sometime in mid-January, after the bowl games have been played? Why continue the pretense that the bowls aren’t part of the “season”? Since the bowl games determine the national championship and final rankings, why do the various groups and foundations that give out trophies pretend that the biggest games these kids will play don’t matter?

Every year, sportswriters wail and wail for a Heisman overhaul, and still nothing changes. So here’s a more feasible remedy. College football would gain some credibility by simply acknowledging that modern football is a division of labor among specialists. Gather up all the various year-end awards, including the Heisman, rent a ballroom, and present them all on the same night. If we can’t get the best players checked off on the Heisman ballot, maybe we can at least get them all in the same room.

Hey Coach

As NewMexiKen was leaving the restaurant this evening, newly hired New Mexico Lobos football coach Mike Locksley was walking in — Albuquerque is a small town and it’s a well-known restaurant.

Anyway, it was too sudden for this season ticket holder to react, but I wish I had.

“No damn screen passes, Coach.”

Locksley is one of just four African-American coaches among the 119 Division I-A schools. He’s more recently an assistant at Illinois and Florida.

Woof. Woof.

Best line of the day, so far

“Who knows if President-elect Barack Obama will someday blow up Iran, but the good news today is this: He wants to blow up the BCS.”

Mike Bianchi

What President-elect Obama said on 60 Minutes:

I think any sensible person would say that, if you’ve got a bunch of teams who play throughout the season and many of them have one loss or two losses, there’s no clear, decisive winner, that we should be creating a playoff system. Eight teams, that would be three rounds to determine a national champion. It would — it would add three extra weeks to the season. You could trim back on the regular season. I don’t know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this. So I’m going to throw my weight around a little bit. I think it’s the right thing to do.

Not much fun (to watch)

When it got to 49-0 we left. It was halftime.

New Mexico beat San Diego State this evening 70-7; a 4-4 team over a 1-6 team. You’d think it would be fun to see, but somehow you just knew from the first touchdown it would be a blowout.

Indeed, I have witnesses to my prediction there would be 69 points just like USC over Washington State. I made my prediction when it was still only 14 to nothing early in the first quarter.

I hope the New Mexico players enjoyed themselves more than we did.

Stupidest, least self-aware, line of the day

“We had guys out of position. It has to do with our structure and getting our kids prepared. I think our coaches have to take some of the responsibility for that.”

Arizona football coach Mike Stoops.

Yes coach, structure and getting the kids prepared is pretty much up to the coaches. Are you just figuring that out after going 21-31 over 4-1/2 seasons?

The second least competent person in Tucson is Coach Stoops. The least competent person is Tucson is the guy that didn’t fire Coach Stoops last November.

Tough schedule

Number 5 Texas plays #1 Oklahoma, #2 Missouri, #17 Oklahoma State and #7 Texas Tech in the next four weeks. I’m wondering if anyone has ever played four ranked teams in four weeks before (and three of them top 7 teams).

Rankings from USA Today poll. Texas also plays #15 Kansas later in the season.