HEY...MUST BE THE MONEY!!!

This map will change more year after year, and there is no sight of ending soon

GUESS WHAT PEOPLE!!!  Here we go with more rumors of conference realignment.  You can thank the SEC for the trickle effect here.  SEC goes and gets Texas A&M and Mizzou.  The BIG 12 reacts by going after TCU and WVU.  The ACC wants to compete in the south with the SEC so they bring in Syracuse and Pitt.  The BIG EAST getting after the C-USA and nabbing Houston, UCF, SMU and Memphis.  Then BIG EAST, the Mtn West. AND C-USA also empty the cabinet with the WAC as the three take (excuse me, let me catch a breath here...) SDSU, Hawai'i, SJSU, Nevada, BSU, Louisiana Tech, Utah State, AND UTSA.  The conferences are constantly changing!  We all know that!  But now there is murmurs of Florida St., Miami and Clemson all would like to join what was seen as a weak conference and left for dead just over a year ago.

The schools are complaining that given what their current TV deals in the ACC are adequate compared to the new TV contracts that were completed with the PAC-12 and BIG 12 along with the money the SEC makes alone.  We just saw the BIG 12 and SEC come together to create another possible "post new years" bowl game to combat the Rose Bowl.  As the BIG 12 shows they are rising from the ashes and possibly establishing themselves again as a dominant conference again, the lack of exposure in the south with the ACC and a culture that is just driven by football, these three schools are looking at options.  Their names do draw attention, but remember in the early part of the college football season how big of a deal the OU v. FSU game was.  We saw how weak the Seminoles really were, but the revenue the school made of the game and the exposure they got surely made up for the "piss poor" performance that was put on.

Yes they did prove they deserved it, but think about it, how can you not even win your division and play for a title!

Down to the point, all of this movement is for conferences to try and keep their numbers up so that the major conferences can be considered "AQ's" for the BCS, or at the least hope to keep it.  It's interesting because we see the BIG EAST lose their teams and drop down to under 10 teams for the 2012 season and had to sweat it out with the BCS commission of losing their status quote with the BCS.  All this expansion is to try and stay relevant in the eyes of the BCS.

Now have heard that the BCS is strongly considering going to a 4 team playoff format, but can't decide oh how the teams should be determined and which bowls would participate.  I knew for the longest time that a road block in all of this would the Rose Bowl and trying to keep tradition of the name of the game.  The Rose Bowl committee did cave in and said they would be willing to work with the BCS in allowing the Rose Bowl be apart of the format.  I don't think that the BCS wants to lose the attraction that the Rose Bowl can bring, this is why the new bowl game between the BIG 12 and the SEC was created.  The BIG 12 is more so affected by this than the SEC, they don't have to worry about exposure, but being paired with the SEC boosts the BIG 12 and puts it right back up there as one of the elite conferences.  In doing so, it puts the Rose Bowl in a tight spot, putting them down on their knees and doing what the BCS asks of them.  The current contract with the BCS ends at the end of the 2014 college football season.

We do have a few years to figure out the format.  But how long has the public and some of these major schools been barking at the executives of the BCS about reformatting the process in which we can decide how a team can make a BCS game.  So if the Rose Bowl does play ball with the BCS, whats going to happen with this new bowl game?  This game was created with every intention of being apart of the BCS or at the least threaten the Rose Bowl.  If the Rose Bowl cooperates, this leaves two big games pairing the BIG 12 and the SEC (we got the Cotton Bowl, don't forget).  It wouldn't be a big deal to have some powerhouses play each other again, but just having the "BCS" label next to the name will just drive up money and dollar bill signs in the eyes of school presidents and A.D.'s all across America.  

The driving forces in the conversations in reformatting the BCS can't decide how the 1-2-3-4 format should look, some schools think that it should be the top four that's it, some think that there shouldn't more that one school from a major conference being able to play in the tourney, you shouldn't be able to not win your conference and have a shot at the title (I'M TAKING A SHOT AT YOU ALABAMA!), some think there should be a "wildcard", which in my mind should allow teams like Boise State and TCU from the last several years be allowed to have a shot at the game.  I have to agree with the idea for the last theory in which it does allow just about everyone a shot at the game.  Obviously we still have things to work out, but with conference realignment occurring ever summer, it's hard to put together the entire "Bible" if you will on what the new BCS format should look like.  Having said that, we have heard we are moving closer towards getting a playoff, but I think it it farther away then we are led on to believe.

What Was Once A Great Accomplishment...Now Seems Overblown

Coming off the heels of the 21st perfect game in Major League Baseball.  Chicago White Sox pitcher Philip Humber became a member of the perfect game club on April 21st against the Seattle Mariners.  You would think that with a perfect game being pitched, we would hear about it.  Well, that's not so much the case anymore.  Why is that?  I have looked into recent pitchers that have thrown no hitters and perfect games.  Combined, there has been 25 altogether pitched since 1999.  Here are the names of the last 25 no hitters and perfect games collectively.

Eric Milton, Hideo Nomo, Bud Smith, AJ Burnett, Derek Lowe, Kevin Millwood, Astros (The team collectively pitched a no hitter against the Yankees), Randy Johnson, Anibal Sanchez, Clay Buchholz, Jon Lester, Carlos Zambrano, Jonathan Sanchez, Ubaldo Jimenez, Dallas Braden, Matt Garza, Francisco Liriano, Ervin Santana, Philip Humber, Mark Buehrle (2), Justin Verlander (2), and Roy Halladay (2).

Looking at the list, there is a lot of name players on the list, and plenty of people you look at and think either a "has been or a never will be".  Even some of the guys that have thrown a no hitter and/or perfect game, you take a look at and their opponent was below the league batting average.  Lowe, Nomo, Burnett, Santana and Verlander did it against sub-par offensive teams.  But you also look though at their careers, they were dominant throughout.

So that brings me to this point, many of the guys that have thrown a no hitter or perfect game are no namers, and they are occurring at a higher rate against sup bar talent, and in this era of baseball, what is asked of the pitchers in their starts isn't like what it was in the past.  Lowe, Johnson, Lester, Zambrano, Halladay, Verlander and Santana have had a decent career to say the least.  The rest of the pitchers are players that had a promising career or were guys that caught a break against a terrible team.  The remaining names (18) I could justify had flashes of talent and just never panned out in the end.  10 of those 18 names, those pitchers went up against teams that had a batting average below the league average for the year.  For example, league average right now is .249.  Philip Humber pitched against the Mariners, whose 22nd in the MLB with a .239 average.  Another, Dallas Braden...remember him? (Don't lie, you really don't), yea he pitched a perfect game against the Rays in 2010.  The Rays average that year, .247, good for 27th in the MLB and ten points below the average, where did his career go?  Too many times, we see no namers pitch against weak offensive teams and catch a break and are never heard from again.

We can thank the media as well for blowing the idea of having a no hitter not really mean anything.  2010, we had six combined no hitters and perfect games.  When we start reading up on the ticker of a pitcher going six innings deep with no hits, should we really be really be put on alert?  The fact that at one point, there was such a focus on when the next no hitter would come down, it became ridiculous, and thus not celebrated as much as in the past.  Nine no hitters and/or perfect games since the start of the 2009 season and inferior talent doesn't help the fact that we are seeing these accolades be handed out like candy.

SO, how does this illustrious achievement get it's meaning back? Simple, pitchers that we can look to, who are going to be around and be dominant, make it happen from time to time, such as Verlander doing so in 2007 and 2011, Halladay twice in 2010 or you studs like Randy Johnson stepping up to the rubber and taking command.  Pitchers that have this breakout games and then disappear are apart of the reason why it has lost it's luster.