http://bleacherreport.com/articles/39077-four-college-football-conferences-id-like-to-see Part of being an amateur sports blogger means I am free to write about whatever I want. As you might have guessed, I get bored a lot. So what's a sports geek to do on a Friday night? Write about college football and some new radical changes I would make if I were the merciless God of the College Football Universe! 4. The SEC sans Vandy. What to do? Who replaces them? We can trade them to the ACC for either Clemson or Georgia Tech. We can trade them to the Big East for Louisville. Maybe even swap them to the Sun Belt conference in exchange for Troy. 3. Notre Dame, Army, and Navy all move to the Big East. Kick the competition up a notch. Have two geographical divisions: The Big East East and the Big East West. It's time Notre Dame learned they're not so special and should play a conference schedule like everyone else. They can still have some decent non-conference games, and since they play Navy every year anyway, it's not really that much different. 2. The BOMC: Battle of the Mascots Conference On one side, we have the more vigorous names. They can be teams named after incredibly vicious animals like the Michigan Wolverines or Wisconsin Badgers. They can be teams named after natural disasters like the Iowa State Cyclones and the Miami Hurricanes. I think it'd be good to have teams named after angry ethnicities such as Notre Dame or the UL-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns. I'd also like Duke Blue Devils and the Arizona State Sun Devils, as I have this thing for semi-blasphemous team names. On the other side are teams whose mascots couldn't punch their way out of paper bags. Teams named after inanimate objects like Ohio State, or Stanford and their illustrious Tree, which is certain to cause arborphobic teams to quake with terror. Also included are some of the wimpier bird names like the Temple Owls (this is football, not the Secret of NIMH), Oregon Ducks, and the Louisville Cardinals. I'd also like to add the Wake Forest Demon Deacons. Even with "Demon" added to the name, you can't help but think of some guy in a suit on his way to church. A stipulation in this conference is that any win may be contested by the losing team and it immediately goes into a literal sudden-death overtime. During this portion of the game, gladiatorial combat ensues between mascots. We know what Hurricanes do to tree, but have you ever stopped to think about what a snarling, hissing badger would do to a duck? bleacherreport 7/18/08

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/sports_college/2008/07/new-rule-change.html SEC associate commissioner Charles Bloom said Friday that the conference will implement three new rules to its football games in 2008. Bloom, speaking on behalf of the conference at the Florida Sports Writers Association media days in Tampa, said the primary changes include: The clock entering a 40-second count after the referee calls a dead ball; penalties assessed for grabbing the horse collar of a player (unless a quarterback or a runner is in the tackle box) and field goals will be reviewable. "The rules will provide expediency to the game and get it done quicker," Bloom said. "It's a way to manage the game in a certain time frame. Most people look at 3 hours, 15 minute or 3 1/2 hours for a game." Bloom said TV stations have expressed interest in expediting college games that tend to sludge along. Speaking of TV, Bloom said the SEC Network -- a conference-owned station dedicated strictly to SEC sports -- is still a possibility. orlandosentinel 7/18/08

http://blog.nola.com/lsusports/2008/07/lsu_football_adjusts_roster_sc.html BATON ROUGE - Kickoff for LSU football is more than a month away but things began shaking out in the program Thursday with the announcement offensive lineman Jarvis Jones had been tossed off the team. The decision by head coach Les Miles essentially came out of nowhere as Jones had not been involved in any embarrassing off-field incidents that might have made his future as a Tiger shaky. But after playing in seven games last year as a true freshman, Jones appeared to have lost a battle this spring with classmate Joseph Barksdale for a starting job at tackle. With most of that unit returning, the tackle position opposite junior Ciron Black was the only starting opening on the line in 2008. A Texas native, Jones had already returned home Thursday, LSU officials said, and the school will forfeit his scholarship. Several people associated with the football program said they had no clue what lay behind Jones' dismissal, and Miles did not elaborate in a statement issued by LSU. "The issues we had with Jarvis were internal and ones that we dealt with within the framework of our team," he was quoted as saying. "However, we just felt like it was time to go in a different direction. We wish him well in any of his future endeavors." The future endeavors of the team, meanwhile, also got shuffled a bit this week. The 2010 game against Louisiana-Lafayette was moved to 2009, leaving one opening on next year's schedule and two in 2010. times-picayune 7/18/08