Meet the face of the enemy- Oklahoma University President David Boren. One of the many university presidents standing in opposition to a playoff in college football. Boren was quoted today in an AP report spouting off incoherently about this and that. And like many other university presidents before him, he has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.

Among the many things that Boren said was this gem:

“First of all, I’d say we didn’t determine the rules, the rules were determined before I became president of the university, before Bob Stoops became our coach, before the current commissioner of the Big 12 became the commissioner. The rules were all set up before, so you live by the rules.”

Congratulations Oklahoma- I’m sure that’s the type of un-progressive thinking you want running your flagship university. And quite a work ethic he’s displaying- secondarily admitting that the system is screwed up but that he’s just not that motivated to fix it.

He continued…

“I think we are an academic institution, and you have to weigh the disruption of the academic program and you also have to be fair to other sports,” he said. “Football dominates for so long, for so many weeks, it really also takes away from the emphasis on other sports.”

Glad to know he’s got the moron president talking points. Funny, I didn’t hear anything about the “disruption of the academic program” when an additional game was added to the regular season. And regarding football taking away from other sports- lets get something straight- football pays for most of the other sports. Without football, the other sports are barely intramural. According to Oklahoma’s own athletic budget, football generates 70% of the revenue while only creating 30% of the expense.

To add insult to his mis-speaking, he said:

“The polls and computers are always going to lead to disputed outcomes,” he said. “You can argue all these things from different points of view.”

Which is precisely why we need a playoff Mr. Boren. Because polls and computers will always lead to disputed outcomes. And that is the most damning of all- he recites the root cause of why the current system fails and he doesn’t even realize it. And to he and all his like-minded peers- thanks for continuing to line your pockets and mar the greatest sport on the planet.

At least one part of the University of Tennessee constituency is in support of the Lane Kiffin hiring. The creepy wife-stalker contingent (roughly 22% of the total). “I would do Layla Kiffin.com” is online and ready for orange-checkered visitors. The site creator seems equally excited of the prospects that Lane’s father Monte Kiffin may be joining the Vols as well. Let’s just hope alluring photos of him don’t surface anywhere:

AP photo - Chris O’Meara

There’s also a Facebook page up with the tag line “our coach’s wife is hotter than your coach’s wife”. There’s 2,331 members on that already.

For more on coaches wives, go here and here.

Finally, if you want to see a video of Layla Kiffin, but would rather get rickrolled, click here.

You’re welcome.

Time for a little college football fun. I’ll give you the resume of a college football team and you see if you can guess who it is.

This team is one of the four undefeated teams in the country. The opponents of this team have a combined record of 66 wins and 76 losses. Of the teams this team has beaten, only one is currently ranked in the top 25 of the BCS. This team beat a 2-10 Tulane team by 14 at home.

Think you’ve figured it out?

This should help you figure it out if you haven’t yet; here’s the full schedule of the team I’m describing:

It’s #1 Alabama. And all of the above is part of why Alabama is #3 in the computers including 5th in one and 4th in two. By record, Alabama’s schedule ranks as the 88th most difficult in D-I football; Jeff Sagarin ranks it as the 73rd most difficult schedule. That will get a healthy bump after playing Florida this weekend, but hardly what you would expect playing in “the toughest conference in college football”.

We know Alabama is undefeated. We know they played one monster half of football against Georgia. Mississippi is improved, but Alabama only beat them by 4 points. The truth is we don’t know a whole lot about how good Alabama is, at least vs. quality competition. Evidence definitely indicates the SEC is having a down year, despite the half-life on its’ national reputation and the fact that they’ve won the last two national championships.

The collapse of Tennessee and Auburn plus the high expectations not met by Georgia are a big source of the problem. That, coupled with the obvious five-loss disappointment at defending national champion LSU, and a poor showing against the ACC in the final week of the regular season.

The fact is that the SEC only has three teams currently ranked in the top 25, and half of the conference is .500 or worse. Contrast that with the lowly Big Ten who has four teams in the top 25, the ACC who has four teams in as well, or the WAC who has three teams in. That’s not a sign of southern dominance. And that hasn’t gone unnoticed.

And yet somehow, with all this evidence, 107 of 113 Harris Poll voters have Alabama #1. All because they’re undefeated I suppose, although so is Utah, Boise State, and Ball State. The non-BCS teams don’t seem to get the same “undefeated” benefit of the doubt (not that anyone should). Nor should anyone should have faith in the Harris poll after this story.

The problem that college football continues to have is that it uses a comparative system while the data points are scattered and diverse, and even when data points do coincide (like shared opponents), there are so many other variables involved (location, injuries, prior games, weather, etc.) that comparisons there don’t work. The system is flawed and no amount of “tweaking” will provide the solution.

Should Alabama beat Florida and go on to beat Oklahoma, than we can be fairly certain they’re the best team in the country or one of the best two. Should they lose to Florida or Oklahoma though, than we’ll be left guessing with whatever and whomever is still left standing, and will only have the bitter optimism of a shared AP national title for someone to provide some sense of “fairness”. And that’s no way to end a season.