January 1, 2011:  Happy New Year:  Skinning the pig of college football

Today's the onslaught of college football bowl games, and this time of year brings painful reminders of how universities and colleges often look foolish with their balancing acts with athletic programs.

The University of Pittsburgh had to fire their new coach, a man they praised for his integrity, of 19 days because he was arrested for domestic battery.  There is a chance, of course, that he will be found not guilty.  Pitt wasn't going to wait around for that.  The university clearly wanted to take a stand.

Instead of taking a stand, the NCAA has shown no backbone in dealing with controversies of star athletes, including the Heisman winner and five Ohio State players.  While the NCAA's lack of significant penalties in these cases might be frustrating, even more exasperating is the Commissioner of the Big Ten publicly spouting off about the preferential treatment given to the Heisman winner, then turning around and lobbying for the five players from his league to be able to play in their bowl game.

It was Ohio State University's president who had to publicly denounce teams from smaller conferences as not being worthy of playing in the BCS title game.  Somehow one would hope he had more important things to address than whether TCU, which beat Wisconsin today, deserved to be in the title game.

Don't feel too bad for TCU.  It's breaking its ties with the smaller conference and moving in two years to the Big East conference.

Of course, many argue the Big East doesn't deserve the automatic qualifier to the BCS bowl games.  After all, their league champion, Connecticut, had four losses this year, and at the time of this blog, is losing to Oklahoma in its bowl game.  The only ranked team from the Big East, West Virginia, has already lost its bowl game, an event perhaps overshadowed by the hiring of a coach-in-waiting who will serve under the coach-on-the-way out for a year.

Can't wait to see what 2011 rolls out!