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The tallies from the first day of the EDSBS/Fanblogs Charity Drive are in, and the SEC and Big Ten lead the way: Team Donation Standings: 1) Michigan - $1,000 Conference Donation Standings: 1) SEC - $1,315 Today is the final day for donations to count in the positive for your team or conference, so get them in today to one of the three highlighted charities: the American Red Cross, the International Rescue Committee, or CARE. All three are engaged in the very serious business of relief for the tornadoes in Georgia and Oklahoma and typhoon relief in Burma, and all three are quality organizations with excellent ratings in terms of operating efficiency. (Check for yourself at Guidestar.) Tomorrow: Spite Against Blight, where your charitable contributions (reported to kevin@fanblogs.com) count against the team of your choice. Never has athletics-based animosity been turned to such a good end, dear reader. Excellent NFL Minor League; terrible BCS squad. The ACC is a muddled middle of parity, but it at least does the NFL draft well: The NFL draft is what gives the ACC credibility these days. Commissioner John Swofford spoke to the ACC's coaches Monday and told them that the ACC's 25 first-round picks the past three years are more than any other conference had over the same period. "If you're looking for the validation of football and the quality of the conference, that's a pretty good statement," North Carolina coach Butch Davis said. "The draft pretty much tells you where the talent is." Mm-hm. The same conference loaded with NFL talent also finished 12-13 in bowls over the past three years; either it's a daming indictment of moribund ACC coaching, or NFL scouts hate to travel off the eastern seaboard. Rick Neuheisel explains it all. He, like, owns the freaking Rose Bowl if you listen to him talk about it. "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air lives across the street." He had some trouble back in Philly, mind you, so he had to move out to LA to live with his auntie and uncle in Bel-Air with his amusingly articulate cousin Carlton. SMQ highlights something else people neglect in their calculations re: strength of schedule: the bearish slate Georgia faces in the SEC could, when pitted against a slighter undefeated schedule coming out of the Big Ten or Big 12, likely tip the scales in favor of the Bulldogs if/when bowl slots and national poll jockeying begins. USC does it by stacking their out-of-conference schedule and it pays off; Georgia's doing it, too. If properly executed, you have to be perfect to trump it in the polls, and even then it's a tough pick between a three-balled one-loss campaign and a nutless but undefeated run. Australia: it's beer for "country." |
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