Peter Jackson and Rudy ain’t got nothin’ on that.

That’s clearly the Smoke Monster from LOST.

Do you read Andrew Sullivan or are these fantastic photos making the rounds? Seriously, I wonder because you and Andrew Sullivan are the only two blogs I read.

Well, isn’t god impressive.

Chile? Looks more like chili night at Chez Mangino.

1. Eff yeah that thing would make Rudy, Saban, Weis, and Peter Jackson take a beating and like it.

love that effin’ show.

I don’t think it’s either the smoke monster, or Saban’s new office. However, I would lay odds that right now Nicky Lou is trying to figure out a way to make this thing a gray shirt for next year. Look out corndogs!

I’m pretty sure that’ a picture of Mordor. Mt. Doom is there in the distance.

Dr Ray Stantz: I couldn’t help it. It just popped in there.

Dr. Peter Venkman: [angrily] What? What “just popped in there?”

Knight’s actual quote was “the NCAA is so mad at Kentucky that they just put Cleveland State on probation again,” but great column, nevertheless. (But the reference to my alma mater was salient… after all, my non-BCS school was put on probation and lost three schollies last year from players getting too many textbooks. Textbooks!)

As fans on mid-major boards have noted, the APR has merely opened up a new frontier of chicanery in major-college athletics. Not helping the NCAA’s case is the vague “sample size” forgiveness that allowed numerous BCS programs to escape penalties last year.

The lack of resources is always going to be an issue for those of us outside the BCS sphere, and we’ve learned to live with that. But getting squeezed out of scholarships and post-season opportunities merely because we don’t have the money to game the system (in a sport where the big boys already have everything else gamed in their favor) is a little much to swallow.

Yep – It’s Mount Doom!

Frooooo-doooooooo!

Papa Lou BSU

That is a quote from Jerry “The shark” Tarkanian, formerly of UNLV.

without knowing, I would say it is the Nick Saban CLOUD OF SUSPICION.

At some point, these proles are going to realize that they can’t compete with the oligopoly of the BCS conferences and wither away. The year – to – year APR score is just an indicator of how long it’s taking them to figure it out.

Is this the end? Am I seriously about to die? Shit, man.

I think it’s the valley of Ahm Shere from “The Mummy Returns.” We have seven days to destroy Nick Saban or he will bring forth the army of Anubis and destroy mankind. Only Brendan Fraser can save us now.

The Yellowstone caldera is not impressed.

What you have in that picture is an example of a meteorological phenonenon known as “condensation nuclei.” It’s when water droplets are attracted to fine particles of dust, or ash as is the case in this volcanic explosion. The water droplets begin to increase and an actual thunderstorm (pyro-cumulus) forms. The ash is electrically charged one way, the water droplets another…hence the attraction and rapid cloud formation and subsequent thunderhead. It’s quite an amazing thing. I’ve seen it happen in the everglades during a dry-spell when the wildfires can sometimes spark an immense thunderstorm on an otherwise hot, dry day.

Or, it could be photoshopped.

Back to the subject at hand. Orson, it is easy to criticize and abase a statute.

Instead of myopic ranting, double the height of your soapbox. Really, if we are in a “Hyde Park cyberspace”, what are your proposals/solutions?

No guys, what you are looking at is the locker room after the ULM game, and yes, that is what Nick Sabans
“Anger” looks like, behold, it’s fury and beauty are both repulsive and awe-inspiring….its something to watch, but you dont want to be in its path, and it can stretch to all front offices of the NFL, so if you dont put out, no matter who you are, you WILL NOT be drafted…So if you a non-believer in the power of Saban, call DJ Hall, I am sure he is at the house………..waitin

As far as the APR goes, I think its an excuse to fire people and clean house for some, and really crush up and coming programs……because, who really checks the NCAA? Even the police and government has some form of checks and balances, so who watches the NCAA to make sure they are correct? Seems like no one has the ballz to call “bullshit” on the NCAA on some items….If you have a kickass athletic dept and you have alot of players leaving early to go pro—-as in baseball, basketball and football——that counts against you? How did this come about and who said…“Brilliant!!! What a great idea!!” How many teams in the past would have cease to exist had this been around?

And from this storm is where we get our BCS rankings from . . .

And looking at that, it looks like the aftermath of that police chase I just finished in “GTA IV”…….I need help….I’m addicted….

Isn’t EDSBS live supposed to be tonight?

That’s not Saban. Only Jackie Sherrill could have an aura that evil.

Re #19: How about an MLB-style “luxury tax” on football budgets in excess of some percentage (say 250% for the sake of argument) of the all Division I-A average, with the proceeds to be funneled back into academic support programs at the HBCUs and other small fry?

If BCS ADs want to run athletic departments that look like they were operated by Mark Cuban or George Steinbrenner, then they ought to be willing to live with one more aspect of creeping professionalization.

The problem with a luxury tax like that is that many smaller sports porgrams at university are kept afloat by the profit made from football and men’s basketball. There is already a funneling of profits back into the non-spectator sports, so the NCAA’s applying of a luxury tax would really hurt those sports for the sake of UAB football.

i didn’t word that right, I mean that the Alabama women’s tennis team is funded by the Alabama football team. The money stays in each respective university, but goes back to not for profit, Title IX sports.

That’s why you levy the “luxury tax” on expenditures, not profits (a term the NCAA hates precisely because it’s so clear). If you don’t want to ship your money to UAB, you cut the football budget to the tax cap and spend more on your other sports.

That system, or a system like it, already exists, but I thought you were saying that the tax paid by Oklahoma would go to pay for La. Tech’s “Academic Support Center.”

I understand that the NCAA can do that with the money they make on TV contracts etc., but do they have the power to literally take money from a member institutions AD and redistribute it?
It wouldn’t surprise me…but I’m ignorant here.

I thought this article was a little light on the facts, compared to the usual swindle productions.

The schools that care about academics (Stanford, Rutgers, Duke) are on top…. it looks like the system works.

Are you seriously suggesting that there is a NCAA conspiracy against non-BCS teams?

Sorry, I keep misreading what you are saying.

 I get it now.

@ Mr. Pelican Pants #21

“Even the police and government has some form of checks and balances”

Where have you been the last seven years? Checks and balances in government are soooo 20th century. Dick Cheney and John Roberts don’t have time for that shit.

This picture really shows why the ancients thought that these instances were showing the moods of the gods. If I didn’t know any better, I would see that and think that I seriously pissed off some deity.

Pelican Pants,

The whole idea is that colleges shouldn’t be in the business of training future professional athletes, but educating students who just so happen to play sports in order to have their tuition paid rolls eyes until head starts to hurt The NCAA puts on this act that leaving school early for the NFL/NBA/MLB is baaaaad…otherwise Congress would yank their not-for-profit status.

Some of these so called Div 1A teams do not have the attendence at games, the capital, the fan base, or the tradition to even be in Div 1A. They become “tune up” or homecoming opponents for the “big boys” in the BCS conferences, Always playing on the road for the paycheck. I do see a problem with the NCAA’s enforcement of the APR rules, letting all but a couple of token BCS teams slide while penalizing the small schools, but then I have never known the NCAA to be fair. I agree with #35, except I wouldn’t say that college football on the BCS level is there to train future NFL players, it is there to generate huge sums of money. The NCAA could care less about the athletes.