Odds & ends you may have missed over the past week:
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Rutgers is planning on a 12,000-seat stadium expansion. It comes at a price, though. Students who want to shout obscenities at the opposing team might now have to pay for the privilege.
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Ball State will host Navy football next year. After that, they’ll start a series with Army. In case you care.
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Dayton and Xavier tell ESPN The Magazine “no thanks” to an offer to be included in a section entitled, “Eight things you didn’t know about a mid-major.” The reason? They don’t consider themselves “mid-major.” Good for them. The “mid-major” label is damaging and completely arbitrary. Ask 5 different fans to define it, and they’ll give you 5 different responses. I could go on & on, but I’ll spare you.
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Before you send Chet Gladchuk an e-mail containing your wish list of teams you want to see Navy play, consider this article by Tony Barnhart about the difficulties of football scheduling.
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The bad news: Baltimore was passed over for the 2009 NCAA lacrosse final four in favor of Boston. The good news: Navy will again host a quarterfinal. Thank God for Fieldturf. Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium should be a quarterfinal site every year.
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Speaking of lacrosse, the Washington Bayhawks will play their home games at George Mason in 2008 except for one game, which will be at NMCMS. I wonder what the odds are that the one game in Annapolis will outdraw the combined attendance of the 5 games at George Mason?
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TV Voiceover Guy: Zerbin Singleton! You are a certified badass who scored 10 touchdowns this year, won the Wide World of Sports Spirit Award and the Orange Bowl Courage Award, and was named second semester brigade commander! What are you going to do next? Zerb: I’m going to Disney World!
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Paul Johnson thinks his offense is going to work. Not sure where he got that crazy idea. In other news, Shaun Carney is arrogant.
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Colgate was named one of Inside Lacrosse’s 2008 “Dark Horse Teams.” But is there any Patriot League lacrosse fan that didn’t expect them to contend this year?
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For the wrestling fans: some mention of Navy freshman Joey Boone in this Union-Tribune article.
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Losing to Navy was apparently the last straw… People are starting to notice that Holy Cross isn’t very good anymore. People like The Mid-Majority.
The Birddog 
haha, so you slam on the “mid-major” tag then link to a site about the mid-majors where the second story is about……..Dayton and Xavier…….and the title of the blog is “mid-majority”
I’ll tell you how I and everyone else in the world who doesn’t hold some grudge against ESPN defines mid major – you’re not a powerhouse conference that consistently produces multiple top 25 and sweet 16 teams and has a legitimate shot at getting a team into the final four without the need of a George-Mason like run…the consistently is the key here
and I don’t think it’s damaging. it’s a tag that says you produce some quality teams, but your conference can’t compete day in and day out with the likes of the ACC, SEC, Big 10, etc. It’s pretty sad that they think being in the top 1/3rd of the conferences makes them a major conference. would they prefer second tier? because there is no way anyone with a brain would put the entire conference up against any of the big boys
i could go on and on
I can’t help what the name of that blog is. The term is in widespread use, so it isn’t as if I can cherry-pick blogs that refuse to use it.
And I’m not sure what ESPN has to do with it, either. It isn’t as if they’re the only ones who use the term. They just happen to be mixed up in this particular affair. If you read the article you’ll see that Rivals is too. I wouldn’t presume to speak for “everyone else in the world,” either. Just about everyone calls C-USA a “mid-major” conference, but point out that Memphis is the #1 team in the country and the typical response is “they don’t count” or something to that effect.
And of course it’s damaging. It makes them an unofficial “minor league,” and it’s already led to the creation of the ridiculous play-in game just so one more 18-12 BCS-conference “powerhouse” can be squeezed in as an at-large bid. Not only that, but perception is a HUGE issue when it comes to marketing and recruiting, and having a “mid-major” label slapped on you makes that virtually impossible to overcome. You can’t get any home games against “major” teams because they see playing you as being too risky. Even if you, as a coach or an AD, are doing everything you can to put the same kind of effort and resources as “major” teams into making your program better, it doesn’t matter. Dayton and Xavier are basically held accountable for St. Bonaventure, when a school like Michigan State doesn’t have to answer for Northwestern.
Birddog good article on PJ. I laughed at the comment that many school felt PJs offense was boring. Over the last 6 years I saw plenty of big plays both running and passing. If scoring nearly 40 points a game (like last year) and going to 5 straight bowl games is boring I ‘ll take it anyday.
Since the PJ era is over I’m glad this perception existed that PJs offense was 3 yards and a clod of dust . If people had actually WATCHED Navy highlights (or one of your awesome highlight packages- I love the 2006 preseason one) we probably would have lost PJ after the 2004 season
Jim
Re: Barnhart’s scheduling article…..
He does a nice job of laying out the complexities but pretty much glosses over one other BIG factor in getting the schedule completed. The BCS teams don’t want to play against a quality, out of conference team (unless its a natural rival). That’s why Michigan turned down Hawaii. He lists 10 BCS teams that are looking for games. The obvious answer is for any of them to play each other if they can find a date that works. They won’t do it because a loss could kill a BCS bowl bid. The Ohio State-Texas series from a few years ago won’t be seen again.
Sure it will. Well, from Ohio State anyway. Other than that you’re mostly right. But Ohio State has been signing all these big-name OOC games for their schedules. I think they play USC this year. I know they just announced a series with Oklahoma for the (distant) future, like in 2016 or something. But I think they try to schedule one big OOC game each year.
Some more on the “mid-major” label:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/bill_trocchi/01/24/a10.midmajor/index.html