The countdown has more than begun. The next college football season in 2013 will be the last year for the BCS.

In 2014 the new 12-year contract with ESPN for the 10 FBS-level conferences will go in to effect. According to USA Today Sports, an anonymous source (due to subject sensitivity) gave them the information that about $400-600 million will go to these 10 conferences annually…and that’s not including the sales coming from tickets and merchandising from the championship game.

Since this revenue is going to be drawn out over the 12-year contract, numbers on how much goes to whom are yet to be decided. It’s being estimated that the revenue total will actually be less than $400 million during the first year but will progressively grow throughout the life of the contract to up to $600 million for the last year of the contract in 2025.

After expenses, here’s an estimated list of how the annual revenue is planning to be split:

• “Power” Conferences – 71.5%
• “Group of 5” Conferences – 27%
• Notre Dame – slightly less than 1%
• Remaining FBS Independents – .5%

To give a brief idea on about how much revenue that could end up being, we’ll use $500 million as an example figure. After all expenses taken into consideration, about $350-375 million would be left to spread across the 10 FBS conferences (not including revenue from the contracts with the Rose, Sugar and Orange Bowls). Read the rest of this entry »

In the world of college sports, back-to-school time truly only means one thing… college football season is on its way. USA Today has released their annual coaches poll for the top 25 teams for preseason college football rankings.

In the Southeastern Conference, seven of their teams made the top 25, and five of those are in the top ten. In the last six consecutive years, the Southeastern Conference has managed to take every BCS title. Leading the preseason rankings in the number spot is last year’s SEC champion LSU, followed by Alabama who beat out LSU for the BCS title.

This year is the first time since USA Today Sports started their coaches poll in 1991 that the team seated in the number one spot had fewer votes than the team placed in the second spot. Another record in this year’s preseason rankings is the tightest spread of 15 points among the top three teams in the poll.

The number one team, LSU, will be returning 15 of last year’s starters as well as 41 team members who lettered last year. Coach Les Miles was quoted as saying the team is fortunate to be in a place that allows them to compete for such a spot. “We recognize that it is more of a reflection of a body of work and understand that right now, it’s a spot that we hold and not one that has been earned. It’s a position that we enjoy. Now we have to go out and play in order to keep it,” he said.

There are six teams in the top 25 rankings that come from the Big 12 Conference, including the conference’s newcomers. Among those are last year’s preseason number one Oklahoma and newcomers TCU and West Virginia. After losing two key players to the NFL draft, Oklahoma State University has dropped to number 19, even after finishing last year’s season as the number three team in the country. Read the rest of this entry »

Patrick Foss is a typical high school student. He plays soccer, has friends, and hopes to attend the University of Virginia after he graduates from high school. However, there is one difference between Foss and his neighbor, another young athlete who plays for his high school’s basketball team: Foss can’t play for a high school team because he is home-schooled.

“My parents pay the same exact taxes as my next-door neighbor who plays varsity sports,” Foss said. “I just want to be part of the community. You shouldn’t have to pick between athletics and academics.”

Foss says he would like to try out for the kicker position on Freedom High School’s football team. Sadly for Foss, that has not been an option in the past. However, a new bill is sitting before the House of Delegates in Virginia’s General Assembly that could change this fact. If it passes, this bill would be a victory for home-schooling advocates who want to allow their students more access to extracurricular activities at local public schools.

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Many college students would gladly welcome a few days off from classes in order to attend the Super Bowl; however, for students at Indiana University Purdue University – Indianapolis, this is what is happening, but they are not happy about it. The school recently announced that it will be selling 4,000 parking spots on its campus on the days surrounding the Super Bowl and that they will also be canceling some classes so that students and staff members can enjoy the festivities.

“I think the Super Bowl is great for the city,” said Chris Gault, a student at IUPUI. “I just think that it shouldn’t hinder our education. It seems the school is putting the outsiders and the Super Bowl attendees before the students and their educations.”

For some students, another major offense in this issue is that they will lose their parking spots for a few days. Parking at IUPUI is notoriously difficult, so I can understand why the students would be upset about losing ¼ of their 16,000 spaces.

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“There’s no way I’d eat that old piece of cheese in the refrigerator that has mold growing on it. I bet $10 you wouldn’t eat it either.”

Challenges like this one are quite common among college students and their friends. Often, they include money or bragging rights as the reward for a task that is completed. However, sometimes the debts go unpaid and the victor does not receive any spoils for the accomplished challenge. This is where Stupidbetz.com comes into the equation.

“Friends and buddies are always daring each other to do stupid things, like eat a stick of butter or something crazy like that,” said Chris Beauchamp, the founder of the website. “We’re opening up those challenges to anyone across the world. And unlike your cheap friends who never actually pay up, you can cash in through the website.”

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Five years ago, Eddie Delaney was a freshman at the University of Albany. Like many young men, Delaney had played football in high school and wanted to continue playing the sport now that he was in college. So, Delaney and his father made an appointment with the university’s football coach, Bob Ford. Although Delaney had been a team captain in high school, Ford had some reservations about him.

“We were concerned about his hand,” Ford said. “I guess probably 70 percent of the coaches in the nation might have said, ‘No, you can’t do it.'”

Wait, why would a football coach be concerned with a player’s hand? Oh, I guess I forgot to mention one important fact: Delaney was born with only one hand.

Luckily, Ford did allow Delany to join the scout team as a walk-on defensive end player and Delaney practiced against the first-string offensive line. The Great Danes went undefeated in conference games that year. During this time, Delaney gave everything he had to the game.

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It sounds like something out of Footloose, but unfortunately, this did not happen in a movie. Last week, police in a small town in Utah used pepper spray on high school students when the students began dancing a Haka celebration dance following a football game victory.

According to the Associated Press, a group of students and young adults who were related to a football player at Roosevelt Union High School started celebrating the team’s win by performing a traditional Maori dance. Evidently, the dancing occurred in a location that blocked the exit and prevented other people from leaving the field. Police asked the celebrators to move so that players and other fans could leave the field. However, they refused, so the police began using pepper spray in order to displace the crowd.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Jason Kelly, a fan of the Roosevelt Union High football team. “It was totally unprovoked.”

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Are you ready to kick-off the 2011 college football season? Once your team shirt has been chosen for game day, snacks planned, and tailgate location secures, maybe consider socializing with your team! Many college football teams interact with their fans via Facebook and Twitter. We took a look at the 20 colleges with the highest following on Facebook, and then compared that to Twitter and school population, as well as Heisman wins and national championships.

It’s already shaping up to be an exciting season with last year’s conference realignment finally in play.

Embed this infographic on your site!

Facebook data from Booshaka on July 21, 2011. Twitter follows pulled on July 21, 2011. All other data researched via school web sites and Wikipedia.

Although it hasn’t been confirmed, rumor has it that Texas A&M will be joining the SEC. An official announcement will probably be made around August 22.

So when would the Aggies make the move? Some say that it could be as early as 2012. The official deadline for changing football conferences was July 1, 2011, which means that the deadline has already passed for the team to change, but it is still possible for the SEC and Big 12 to settle the issue, probably if Texas A&M pays a larger exit fee.

Part of the reason that the Aggies might be switching conferences can be traced back to the Longhorn Network, a new television network that only airs University of Texas sporting events. Evidently this really upset the Aggies, which could have spurred their decision to change conferences.

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The long-term effects of concussions and head-trauma have gotten a lot of attention over the past year, but current student football players may have less to worry about. A concussion test is being researched for its potential use by coaches during games. According to a 2009 study, more than 40 percent of high school students return to action too soon following a concussion.

Known as the Kind-Devick (K-D) test, the diagnostic tool uses single digit numbers displayed on index-sized cards to measure eye movement, attention and language. Players would take the test once at the beginning of the season to get a baseline reading. In the event of a concussion, the amount of time it take to complete the test decreases. Researchers say the K-D test is less subjective than other exams.

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