tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132Fri, 22 May 2009 21:14:54 +0000http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/noreply@blogger.com (sidotcom)Blogger260125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-1216339040874429247Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:52:00 +00002008-01-08T15:28:52.319-05:00Les Miles admires his newfound hardware.APNEW ORLEANS -- I can't speak for everyone, but I know one of the first things I inevitably do after covering a championship game is read what everybody else wrote. One thing stood out to me about the coverage of Monday night's game: People just pouring it on Ohio State.Among the monikers being thrown about out there: "the Ohio State Punchlines," "The http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2008/01/lsu-38-ohio-state-24-day-after.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)158tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-1856101783581967661Tue, 08 Jan 2008 02:56:00 +00002008-01-07T22:12:41.573-05:00LSU QB Matt Flynn (left) played a brilliant first half, throwing a pair of touchdown passes.Doug Benc/Getty ImagesNEW ORLEANS -- The first half of Monday night’s BCS Championship Game was itself a tale of two halves.Early on, Ohio State looked like the sharper, faster, better-prepared team, starting with Beanie Wells’ 65-yard touchdown dash on the fourth play of the game. Meanwhile, LSU -- the http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2008/01/halftime-lsu-24-ohio-state-10.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)63tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-4649779965832066989Mon, 07 Jan 2008 23:38:00 +00002008-01-07T19:19:24.559-05:00Ohio State fans have made their presence felt in New Orleans.APNEW ORLEANS -- At long last, the game is here.What’s felt like the longest, most turbulent season in college football history (to me, at least) will come to a (hopefully) climactic end tonight at the Superdome. While it’s been unusually quiet this week leading up to the BCS National Championship Game, the streets were a sea of giddy http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2008/01/yep-its-game-day.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-4474049504072440104Sun, 06 Jan 2008 22:29:00 +00002008-01-06T19:05:06.993-05:00Jim Tressel (left) and Les Miles were all smiles some 30 hours before kickoff.APNEW ORLEANS -- On the day before their teams are set to duel for the biggest prize in college football, LSU coach Les Miles and Ohio State coach Jim Tressel stood together behind the crystal coaches trophy, holding smiles as they posed for a paparazzi-like throng of photographers.The staged Kodak moment is an annual http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2008/01/ready-set-smile-games-almost-here.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-2615580604161381203Sat, 05 Jan 2008 20:27:00 +00002008-01-05T20:09:38.119-05:00Les Miles' hat -- or a lack thereof -- was a hot topic Saturday.APNEW ORLEANS -- In nine years of attending BCS title-game Media Days, I've found that 90 percent of the questions fall into one of two categories: The most obvious, beaten-to-death storylines (Saturday morning, I watched Ohio State tackle Kirk Barton answer three different questions about SEC speed -- including a question about http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2008/01/media-day-mystery-wheres-hat.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)54tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-7281298677713166176Fri, 04 Jan 2008 22:42:00 +00002008-01-04T18:19:32.098-05:00As one of the hardest runners in the nation, LSU's Jacob Hester has averaged five yards a pop this season.Doug Benc/Getty ImagesNEW ORLEANS -- It’s Day Seven for me here in the Big Easy, and I kind of feel like one of these LSU players here talking about how refreshed they feel following such a grueling regular season.Like them, I was feeling pretty “banged up” there in the days right before and http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2008/01/hester-cult-hero-osu-wrinkle.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)68tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-698752706020436765Thu, 03 Jan 2008 21:50:00 +00002008-01-03T17:23:59.240-05:00Bill Stewart went 8-25 as the head coach at VMI from 1994-96.APNEW ORLEANS -- I’ll get to Ohio State-LSU (the reason I’m here) in a second, but I have to take a moment to comment on West Virginia’s incredibly bizarre decision to promote interim coach Bill Stewart to head coach based solely on Wednesday night’s Fiesta Bowl rout of Oklahoma. It’s a fitting and, most likely, disastrous end to what http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2008/01/west-virginia-outdoes-itself-osu-lsu.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)94tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-7724508769112388058Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:10:00 +00002008-01-02T17:36:52.801-05:00Jim Tressel and the Buckeyes arrived in New Orleans on Wednesday.APNEW ORLEANS -- On the day after what Georgia coach Mark Richt appropriately dubbed “the longest game in the history of college football that didn’t go to overtime,” a changing of the guard was underway here at the Marriott. Moments after bidding adieu to one of Georgia’s beat writers as he toted his luggage to the elevator, I http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2008/01/transitioning-from-sugar-to-title-game.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)184tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-6717760318199129082Wed, 02 Jan 2008 01:25:00 +00002008-01-01T21:58:16.449-05:00NEW ORLEANS – We’re about a half-hour from kickoff here at the Sugar Bowl, but the Sugardome is already full and loud. Despite the impressive turnout from Hawaii, it’s still an overwhelmingly pro-Georgia crowd and they got mighty loud when the band played the school’s fight song.Warriors fans got pretty loud themselves, however, when the Hawaii players did their traditional ha’a war chant just http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2008/01/scene-before-kickoff.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-3380014150597047965Wed, 02 Jan 2008 00:11:00 +00002008-01-01T21:56:32.473-05:00Michigan players carried Lloyd Carr off the field following Michigan's 41-35 upset win over Florida.APNEW ORLEANS -- If ever you wondered just how much the BCS has affected college football, you should have been at the Gordon Biersch down the street from my hotel here during the second half of Tuesday’s Capital One Bowl.At tables all around me in the restaurant’s packed bar area, I watched http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2008/01/more-new-years-observations.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)331tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-5719005729986753648Tue, 01 Jan 2008 20:35:00 +00002008-01-01T21:59:17.068-05:00Mike Hart and the Wolverines were heavy underdogs coming into the Capital One Bowl.APNEW ORLEANS -- Well, this has been an unusual -- and pleasant -- New Year’s Day for me so far.Most years, I’m covering the Rose Bowl, which requires leaving the hotel about five hours early and is not exactly conducive to watching the early games. This year, it’s the Sugar Bowl, where kickoff is not until 7:47 http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2008/01/new-years-observations-part-i.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)89tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-705761934762985452Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:16:00 +00002007-12-31T21:14:25.580-05:00Thomas Brown will be the Bulldogs' starting tailback in the Sugar Bowl.Streeter Lecka/Getty ImagesNEW ORLEANS -- The Sugar Bowl head coaches held their final pregame press conferences here Monday afternoon, and Georgia’s Mark Richt raised a couple of eyebrows with a bit of “news” regarding redshirt freshman sensation Knowshon Moreno.While answering a largely innocuous question about Moreno’s http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2007/12/sugar-bowl-set-up-is-morenos-ankle-ok.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-992404622617292611Sun, 30 Dec 2007 19:28:00 +00002007-12-31T13:46:59.874-05:00NEW ORLEANS -- Happy bowl season, everybody.I come to you from the New Orleans Marriott/Convention Center, media headquarters for Tuesday's Sugar Bowl and next Monday's BCS Championship game -- and, in turn, my home for the next 10 days.My connecting flight from Houston on Saturday night was packed with giddy, green-clad Hawaii fans. Initial concerns from BCS folks about Warriors fans' http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2007/12/bowl-blog.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)83tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-1093365420833450953Mon, 17 Dec 2007 00:05:00 +00002007-12-16T19:34:45.519-05:00Rich Rodriguez is leaving his native West Virginia to succeed Lloyd Carr at Michigan.APHow big is Rich Rodriguez to Michigan? In terms of the ramifications for both program and sport, it's college football's most significant hire since Florida landed Urban Meyer. Michigan, one of the last bastions of smash-mouth football and 6-foot-5 pocket passers, just hired arguably the most renowned pioneer http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2007/12/michigan-scores-home-run-with-rodriguez.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)262tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-2952153326164464762Wed, 12 Dec 2007 02:04:00 +00002007-12-11T21:55:46.689-05:00From the outset, almost everything that could go wrong for Bobby Petrino in Atlanta did.APThere is much cause for celebration in Arkansas tonight. Eleven months of tested patience -- of star quarterbacks transferring and offensive coordinators resigning, of nasty e-mails and leaked cell-phone records, of one high-profile coaching rejection after another -- seem to have reaped a significant rewardhttp://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2007/12/arkansas-know-what-youre-getting-into.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)95tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-3297343270942482311Wed, 05 Dec 2007 22:59:00 +00002007-12-06T16:13:45.883-05:00Did Michigan athletic director Bill Martin botch the Les Miles situation on purpose?Tony Ding/Icon SMIThis week's Mailbag turned into an all-BCS edition, but there was at least one other newsworthy topic that generated plenty of questions like this one:Inquiring minds want to know: What the heck happened between Michigan and Les Miles? Was there ever really a "done deal?" Did LSU change his mind http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2007/12/where-does-michigan-turn-post-miles.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)241tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-8162283769000817843Sun, 02 Dec 2007 08:12:00 +00002007-12-05T23:45:19.611-05:00It's the question everyone's going to be debating for the next several days (and maybe longer than that). To find out who I think should face Ohio State in New Orleans, read my Inside College Football column.In the meantime, some closing thoughts on this most apocalyptic of Championship Saturdays:∙ If you didn’t stay up until 3:15 a.m. EST to see the final, climactic minutes of the 2007 regular http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2007/12/who-should-be-no-2.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)124tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-6124222032780159515Sun, 02 Dec 2007 04:22:00 +00002007-12-05T23:46:28.742-05:00Well … we’ve officially seen it all.The No. 2 ranking truly has been a curse all season. USC. Cal. USF. Boston College. Oregon. All of them lost to unranked teams.But the No. 2 team losing to Rutgers in mid-October is one thing. No. 2 West Virginia losing at home to 4-7 Pittsburgh the final weekend of the season with a national-championship spot theirs for the taking is only the most baffling http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2007/12/champ-saturday-observations-part-iv.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)314tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-663160452853622471Sun, 02 Dec 2007 02:30:00 +00002007-12-05T23:46:49.700-05:00Last week, West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez, referring to the implications of Saturday’s Pittsburgh game, remarked, “we’re in the semifinals.”He wasn’t kidding.As I write this, it’s halftime of the Mountaineers-Panthers game, middle-second quarter of the Oklahoma-Missouri Big 12 title game -- and it feels like I’m watching two Final Four games at once. I’ve got no vested interest, and even I’m http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2007/12/champ-saturday-observations-part-iii.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)203tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-7249777595248062598Sun, 02 Dec 2007 01:11:00 +00002007-12-05T23:47:23.982-05:00Les Miles and star DT Glenn Dorsey celebrate LSU's third conference title since 2001.APAfter all the pregame theatrics, it would have been pretty embarrassing if college football’s newest (rumored) $3 million man lost the SEC championship game. He can thank outgoing defensive coordinator Bo Pelini for keeping that from happening.With QB Matt Flynn out and backup Ryan Perrilloux himself playing http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2007/12/champ-saturday-observations-part-ii.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)83tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-946831506273699268Sat, 01 Dec 2007 23:43:00 +00002007-12-05T23:47:47.408-05:00We here at SI.com present you "team coverage" this Championship Saturday. My colleague Luke Winn is in Morgantown, W. Va., for tonight's West Virginia-Pittsburgh Backyard Brawl. Below are a couple pictures he sent of the pregame scene and some commentary. ...I spent about 45 minutes roaming around the lots outside Milan Puskar Stadium on Saturday. It's miserably cold up here in the Alleghenies --http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2007/12/scene-from-morgantown.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-7698091049915316520Sat, 01 Dec 2007 22:01:00 +00002007-12-05T23:48:21.191-05:00It was a wild Saturday for LSU coach Les Miles, even before the SEC title game began.Chris Graythen/Getty ImagesThe first bombshell of Championship Saturday took place not on a field, but in the bowels of the Georgia Dome. And it’s already sent shockwaves across the sport.Mere hours after a former Ohio State quarterback attempted to break the scoop about Michigan’s next coach, the man presumed http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2007/12/championship-saturday-observations-part.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)41tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-4038742522116557076Sat, 01 Dec 2007 05:17:00 +00002007-12-04T15:48:56.306-05:00Colt Brennan and unbeaten Hawaii will hold the BCS hostage until the conclusion of their game against Washington, which kicks off at 11:30 p.m. EST.Jordan Murph/Icon SMIChampionship Saturday.In only nine years’ time, this new-age college football “event” has become synonymous with suspense and controversy. Surely there will be more by the time this Saturday is through.What will it be this year? http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2007/12/championship-saturday-look-back.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-3686589842678317757Sun, 25 Nov 2007 22:53:00 +00002007-11-25T18:41:15.026-05:00Chase Daniel threw for 361 yards and three touchdows in the Tigers' win over previously unbeaten Kansas.G. Newman Lowrence/Getty Images1) That these are heady times for the spread offense. About three series into Saturday night's Kansas-Missouri game, I found that I was having trouble keeping up. The ball would be snapped and I'd still be writing down the results of the last play. That's when it http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2007/11/five-things-we-learned-this-weekend_25.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)330tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31139132.post-6985750440394138948Sun, 25 Nov 2007 02:47:00 +00002007-11-24T22:06:09.720-05:00Chase Daniel was 21-of-26 for 167 yards and two TDs in the first half.Jamie Squire/Getty ImagesKANSAS CITY, Mo. -– The team that never makes mistakes made a host of them in the first half here Saturday. That No. 2 Kansas only trailed No. 4 Missouri 14-0 at halftime was due in large part to the Tigers’ own self-inflicted wounds.After an unexpectedly slow start for both teams’ offenses -– the game’http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/football/ncaa/2007/11/halftime-missouri-14-kansas-0.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Stewart Mandel)50