Thanksgiving Weekend Reading Room -- the BCS is a turkey

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. A holiday that encourages citizens to be grateful. It's a concept that has endured. Thankfully.

I'm thankful for plenty myself, including those of you who have become regular or occasional readers of the Hlog.

This Reading Room was assembled on Wednesday night. I'll be taking Thursday and Friday off, and recommend you do likewise if at all possible. I'm covering the Coe-St. Thomas NCAA Division III football national quarterfinal in St. Paul and will roll over to the Metrodome Sunday for the Bears and Vikings. Look for reports from both as well as whatever else comes to my attention this weekend. And now, on with the show.

This BCS business is confusing. Which bowl picks ahead of which bowl, etc., etc.?

Our friend Adam Rittenberg of ESPN.com has a succinct explanation of the situation right here.

Barring a Texas loss to Texas A&M today (Thursday) or against Nebraska in the Big 12 title game, the picks will be in this order: Sugar-Fiesta-Orange-Fiesta-Sugar-Orange. The Sugar will surely take the Florida-Alabama loser. Then is the pick we've all been waiting for, and will wait another 10 days to learn.

The daily newspaper of State College, Pa., is the Centre Daily Times. One of its sportswriters,Vinny Pezzimenti (one of the great sportswriting names in the Big Ten), takes a brave stand here and suggests Penn State doesn't belong in the BCS.

After the Nittany Lions put the finishing touches on a 42-14 victory over Michigan State on Saturday, their fans, stationed in a corner of Spartan Stadium, started a roaring chant of “BCS.”

Initial reaction: The BCS is a joke.

Final reaction: The BCS is a joke.

Lasting reaction: The BCS is a joke.

Sorry Penn State fans, the Nittany Lions don't deserve a BCS invitation. Neither does Iowa, but at least the Hawkeyes won the regular season meeting between teams - not only in convincing fashion but in Beaver Stadium.

Hmmm. I wonder what kind of reaction I would get among my fellow Iowans if I were to suggest Iowa doesn't deserve a BCS invitation. If the Hawkeyes get the call and an unbeaten Boise State doesn't . . . nah, won't go there. (Not this week, anyhow.)

Besides, plenty of others around the nation will be quick to take up that cause.

Pezzimenti wrote a good piece, in my opinion. This is sort of strong stuff for a college-town newspaper where the town isn't all that humongous:

Following Saturday's victory, Joe Paterno was asked about the injustice of Penn State possibly being selected to play in the Orange Bowl over Iowa.

His response: “Don't get me started with the ethics of college football.”

Why not? One would assume Paterno, a robust advocate for a playoff system in college football, would like to create more equality in the game. After all, he claimed it wasn't fair when three heavyweight teams - Southern Cal, Oklahoma and Auburn - finished unbeaten in 2004 but only two could play for the title.

Now that Penn State might be the Orange's pick because its passionate fan base equals dollars and cents for the Miami economy and Paterno's presence means TV ratings for FOX, and not because the Nittany Lions are a better football team, Paterno doesn't want to talk about it.

But that's college football. The name on the front of uniform means more than what's inside of it.

The knock on Penn State is that it hasn't defeated a top-25 opponent. The rebutting argument is that the Nittany Lions only played one such foe, Ohio State. Thus, we really don't know the true fabric of the team.

Who's fault is that? Penn State's, for scheduling a dessert cart of a non-conference schedule.

Then again, the Nittany Lions might very well be rewarded for their cupcake eating. One more loss would have eliminated them from BCS contention.

Why play anybody when you don't have to?

Good stuff, Vinny. And it's not an argument people can make with Iowa. Playing Iowa State and Arizona -- two bowl-bound teams -- in the non-conference is more than most BCS conference teams can say.

Mike Poorman of Statecollege.com is pretty insistent that the Orange Bowl will grab Penn State, which would leave Iowa out of the BCS mix. That can't happen if the Fiesta Bowl uses its first pick on the Hawkeyes, but Mike didn't mention that scenario in his essay. He also said Penn State and the Fiesta Bowl will not see each other.

The trip is too far for too many in this economy. And it's been 13 years since Penn State played in the Fiesta Bowl, so more than a half-generation of Penn State fans know nothing of the desert's charms.

And when it comes to students, there is a big reason that Penn State students are setting up Facebook groups and fan pages for the Orange Bowl faster than a keg is kicked at Phi Kappa Kega. They can drive to the game. In one car. With five people. While only stopping for gas. Only to arrive in Miami and have them all squeeze in one hotel room. With one bathroom.

Shed no tears for the Fiesta, though. It has had 24 of 25 sellouts in the past 25 years. So no matter who's on the field, the F-Bowl is full.

Poorman says he has a friend in Arizona who knows this bowl stuff. Says the friend:

“I also feel the Fiesta Bowl will have no problem inviting either TCU or Boise State. In the past few years the Fiesta Bowl has had good experiences with non-BCS conference teams -- notably Utah and that memorable Boise State win over Oklahoma a couple of years ago. The so-called BCS-busters appeal to the Fiesta Bowl's history of going against the grain, such as figuring out a way to bring two unbeaten independents -- Penn State and Miami -- together to play for the national title in 1987.”

Don't be alarmed, Iowa fans. Everybody knows somebody in Arizona, and everybody knows somebody who's a bowl-game "expert." But Poorman's not just any oaf with a blog (like, oh, I don't know . . .  me). He is a senior lecturer in Penn State's College of Communications and teaches a class at Penn State called "Joe Paterno, Communications & The Media."

Switching subjects, Kirk Ferentz isn't leaving Iowa. This is a recording. But Pro Football Weekly senior editor Eric Edholm still wrote about him Wednesday. A snippet:

NFL teams like Ferentz. Although he hasn't coached in the league since 1998, Ferentz has a reputation that exceeds most college coaches because of his prior NFL experience and his work with offensive linemen, which is notable.

Would he consider a job this offseason? Sure, the right one. He previously shied away from a lucrative offer from a very prominent NFL team before that team turned to another rock-star coach to be its savior. I'll give you a hint: It didn't work out.

My best guess is that Ferentz isn't going anywhere. But he would make a heck of an NFL coach if he so chose.

I assume Edholm meant the Miami Dolphins and Nick Saban. Maybe it was someone else. It doesn't matter.

Humans being what they are, they look ahead. The Big Lead is projecting five college football teams to watch in 2010. There's plenty of important 2009 season left, but hey, there are 2012 presidential candidates popping in and out of Iowa and 2008 just ended.

Anyhow, the fabulous five are Boise State, Oregon, Arkansas, Florida State and . . . Wisconsin. The Big Lead says:

Tolzien and Clay come back. The majority of the defense will too. They get OSU - a possible top-3 preseason team - to come to Madison. They visit Michigan, which might be a difficult by late 2010 (but probably won't be). They also visit Iowa. That game could decide the Big Ten for 2010. Wisco needs to shake the permeating notion in both of their money sports - football and hoops - that they're always one of those teams you keep your eye on, but never really take seriously at the end of the day. I love Bo Ryan's basketball teams. I love Bielama's football teams. I never expect them to take the next step, though.

So it really wasn't the most glowing tribute. The 2010 Wisconsin-Iowa game is in Iowa City, by the way.

Matt Roth, the former Iowa defensive star, was out of an NFL job for, oh, hours. Roth was released by the Miami Dolphins, and seemingly out of the blue, on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the fifth-year pro was awarded to the Cleveland Browns on waivers.

The Roth saga in Miami was weird this year, as this Miami Herald excerpt elaborates:

When Roth arrived for training camp this year, he blamed a failed conditioning test on being ill -- only to later come forward with an admission about a groin injury.

After trainers struggled to diagnose the issue, Roth was sent to Philadelphia to meet with a leading groin specialist, Dr. William Meyers. The evaluation did not reveal any significant issues, and Roth returned with what seemed to be an optimistic report.

But according to multiple sources at the time, Roth continued to sit out of practice. with no further explanation other than to say his groin was still sore. The strange situation caused the team to go forward without him, moving Jason Taylor into the strong-side linebacker role where Roth served as a starter throughout 2008.

On Oct. 31, Roth was reactivated to the 53-man roster, seeming to regain his standing with the team. That decision served as the last formal move until Tuesday's announcement by Miami that he had been cut.

Roth will be a free agent at season's end. He was drafted by Saban. A defensive lineman at Iowa, he moved to linebacker with the Dolphins.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune's Web site makes you click on three or four pages to read one column or story, but Patrick Reusse's annual Turkey awards are worth the hopping around.

Reusse's pick for Turkey of the Year is a certain coach who plies his trade in Minneapolis. He writes:

The Turkey of the Year is Tim Brewster , the Gophers football coach who established himself as a world-class blowhard on the day he was hired and has made it clear after three seasons that he's a sideline disaster.

The Turkey Committee had no choice but to give this 2009 honor to Brewster, since we couldn't risk having him escape as Gophers basketball coach Dan Monson had done previously.

Finally, I got wind of the following video from a Pete Carroll Twitter Tweet. Carroll joked that he needs to get this kid on his practice field. The kid is 6.