Preview magazines love Florida, ND's TV advantage and more (cont.)

Stewart Mandel's Mailbag

Submit a question or an opinion to Stewart.

Follow Stewart Mandel on Twitter

A week or so ago on Rivals Radio, I thought I heard one of the analysts say that the "era of parity" will soon be on the decline and the traditional powers will be reasserting their places at the top of the polls starting as early as this season. What do you think?
-- J. Scott, Houston

I wish I'd heard the comment myself, because I'm sure there was more to it than that. First of all, the "traditional powers" have yet to relinquish their stranglehold at the top of the polls. Sure, we're seeing some new names near the top of the polls (Missouri, Kansas, Louisville two years ago, Kansas State a few years back), but the actual national championship race still usually comes down to traditional programs like USC, Texas, Ohio State, et. al.

Now, perhaps said person was saying that specific traditional powers -- Alabama, Florida State, Miami -- were about to reassert themselves, which is entirely possible. But it's just as likely that other, as-yet undetermined powers might fall off. No program in the country has been immune from at least a temporary drop-off sometime over the past 15 years.

But it would be ludicrous to suggest that the sport's overall trend of parity, which has been growing pretty much continuously over the same span, is suddenly going to dissipate. If so, what are the variables that are going to suddenly start spinning in the other direction? The non-traditional powers aren't in any danger of losing their newfound TV exposure. Not with more games being added to the dial every year. (ESPN2 is even showing a I-AA regular-season game this fall.). And I don't think high-school players are suddenly going to become less skilled, thus reducing the overall talent pool, thus preventing teams like USF and Troy from continuing to load up on talented athletes that the more prominent programs in their state don't sign.

College basketball has the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, so I wanted to know what you would think of something like that for college football? Obviously it would be very difficult since teams don't play 30-plus games, but what would you think of some similar arrangement like that in college football?
-- Jarrett Yingling, Bellevue, Ohio

I'd love to see one, particularly between the Big Ten and SEC, since their fans are always yapping at each other. As a matter of fact, Doug Lesmerises, the fine Ohio State beat writer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, actually penned a detailed proposal for this very concept last season. As you can see, his plan involves an entire weekend of Big Ten-SEC doubleheaders played at neutral sites throughout both the Midwest and South. He even scheduled it for eight years down the road to account for non-conference deals teams may have already made for upcoming seasons.

Predictably, Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany shot it down.

Stewart: If you can't display bias and offer excessive analysis on your alma mater in late June, when can you? So give us Wildcats fans your prediction on how Northwestern will do this year? Can Pat Fitzgerald (with new coordinators and experience at the skill positions) take the Purple to Pasadena (or at least Orlando or Tampa)?
-- Chad, Chicago

I'm usually fairly accurate at predicting the type of season Northwestern will have, not out of "bias" so much as an unhealthily detailed knowledge of that program's history. Since 1995 (speaking of parity), Northwestern has been apt to pop up and make a bowl run every three to five years, and all their best teams were marked by a veteran quarterback (most recently Brett Basanez in 2005) and elite tailback (Darnell Autry, Damien Anderson, Noah Herron, et. al.)

The circumstances are such this year that anything less than a bowl season would be have to be considered a disappointment for that program. Considering the manner in which he was unexpectedly thrown into the fire, it was expected that Fitzgerald, now 33 (recently inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame for his exploits as a player, incidentally), would endure some growing pains his first couple of years, and that he did. But now he's got the benefit of an extremely experienced defensive coordinator, Mike Hankwitz (formerly of Wisconsin), and a senior quarterback (C.J. Bacher) and tailback (Tyrell Sutton) who fit the above descriptions.

With that in mind, I could see Fitz leading the Purple to ... Tempe, for the Insight Bowl.

What a load of crap the last Mailbag was! I waited two weeks for that? Senior writer of what? Jo Blo's toilet paper blog or SI.com? Come on!! The readers are bored out their minds and you give them ... a BORING MAILBAG!
-- Kevin, Vero Beach, Fla.

You would think I'd be bothered by this feedback, but I'm not. Kevin, I have to assume that your boredom derives from the fact that you're an incredibly intelligent person who needs something extremely intellectually stimulating to hold your interest. I can respect that.

With that in mind, I'm going to go ahead and give you fair warning that you'll probably find next week's Mailbag boring as well, seeing as it's going to revolve primarily around an interview with a pretty girl.