College Football Notebook – May 22, 2013

The American wants a bowl game too

If baseball won’t fill the seats, might as well give football a shot.

The SEC and Big 12 have their deal with the Sugar Bowl. The Big Ten and Pac 12 have the Rose Bowl. The ACC has a deal to stay in Miami with an Orange Bowl spot reserved. Now The American wants to stay in Miami as well, despite being essentially locked out of the Orange Bowl. With no spot available in the Orange Bowl, The American is looking to create a brand new bowl game, with Marlins Park potentially serving as the host site according to a report by Tampa Bay Times reporter Greg Auman.

The idea would mean we would have four bowl games being played in baseball stadiums. The Pinstripe Bowl (Yankee Stadium), Beef O’ Brady’s Bowl (Tropicana Field) and Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl (AT&T Park) have proven that hosting bowl game sin baseball venues is possible, and Marlins Park should be more than big enough to host a football game if this plan gets that far.

But two bowl games in Miami? That is an idea that may need a little more support from the city, although multiple bowl games in the same city is certainly nothing new. New Orleans will host up to three bowl games in some years between the Sugar Bowl and New Orleans Bowl and a BCS Championship Game every now and then. Orlando also has hosted multiple games with the Russell Athletics Bowl and Capital One Bowl. The odds of playing a second bowl game in Sun Life Stadium, the home of the Miami Hurricanes, Miami Dolphins and the Orange Bowl, are probably slim. This makes Marlins Park the obvious choice.

It also makes it the most likely to receive support from the city of Miami, which forked over a large sum of tax payer dollars to construct a baseball stadium that struggles to see 14,000 fans show up on a  regular basis. If baseball is not going to fill the seats, you might as well find as many ways to pack the seats as possible.

Whatever happens with a bowl game in Marlins Park, please do not let Jeffrey Loria have any role in it. … Continue Reading

2012 Big East championship rings for Rutgers

The final year of Big East play in football ended with a four-way tie for the conference championship. Louisville came out on top withe tiebreakers awarding the Cardinals with the conference’s automatic BCS berth, sending Louisville to the Sugar Bowl to take on the SEC’s Florida Gators. To get there Louisville needed a second-half rally on the road against future Big Ten member Rutgers.

Rutgers still managed to finish in the four-way tie with Louisville, Cincinnati and ACC-bound Syracuse though, and they rewarded their team appropriately with championship rings.

Rutgers 2012 Big East championship rings.

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Cincinnati shows off Belk Bowl helmet

This must be the reason Butch Jones left Cincinnati for Tennessee, right?

While these specially designed Cincinnati helmets are being shown off and receiving great praise from the Bearcat faithful leading up to the Belk Bowl, I regret to say I can not hop on board with this one. Hey, to each their own.

Truthfully, these are not the worst helmets we have seen come through the college football fashion turnstile, but this just seems to me to be one of those old 3D images where you have to cross your eyes and focus beyond the surface to reveal the true image, which in this case may be the Cincinnati logo.

Take a look…

Via Cincinnati Athletics

Check out a few more images after the jump… … Continue Reading

College football’s least Googled searches of 2012

Every year around this time we see reports on the most searched items of the year, according to Google and Yahoo! This year, the folks at Sports Pickle took a different approach by listing some of the least-searched items on Google this season.

Notre Dame was anything but a laughing stock this season, going undefeated with the inspirational story of linebacker and Heisman finalist Manti Te’o. As you might expect when the Fighting Irish go 12-0 in the regular season to clinch a spot in the BCS championship game, we all sort of ran out of reasons to tell any Notre Dame jokes with our friends and online. USC on the other hand…

No Notre Dame jokes to be found here…

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Lost faith in college football coaches? Charlie Strong will save you

If you have lost faith in the state of college football, with coaches on the go from one place to another in search of more money,Charlie Strong is here to calm your nerves.

Strong held what can probably be best described as an emotional press conference Thursday morning to confirm his loyalty to Louisville, explaining why he decided to stay with the Cardinals instead of moving on to Tennessee. Reports yesterday suggested Strong was mulling the decision to stick with Louisville, fresh off a Big East championship and BCS berth or take over Tennessee, a program willing to shell out some significant money to have Strong lead a revitalization project for a once-proud football program.

When it came time to make a decision on his coaching future, Strong reflected on the support and faith many had in him. That support spanned from his boss, Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich to the city of Louisville. … Continue Reading