The BCS argument for Sparty over Brutus

Assuming they win out, the argument for picking MSU over Wisconsin for a BCS bowl is simple. MSU beat the Badgers head to head. Plus, it doesn't really come down to an argument because that's the tiebreaker if just MSU and UW are tied atop the Big Ten.

But what if MSU, Wisconsin and tOSU all three win? Well, then it goes by BCS standings and Bucky Badger is almost certainly is headed to Pasadena.

So how could Sparty jump the Buckeyes, and is there an argument to be made for that happening?

In his weekly online chat, I asked ESPN Big Ten Blogger Adam Rittenberg (arguably the finest reporter covering the Big Ten not named Joe Rexrode) what MSU's argument should be over Ohio State. Here's the exchange.

DW: Is there any chance a bowl picks MSU over OSU for an at-large bid? And if you were Mark Hollis/Dantonio, what would your argument be to the Orange/Sugar/Fiesta bowls?

AR: Very little chance, Derek, because bowls like sure things, and Ohio State is a sure thing. If I'm Dantonio or Hollis, I point out the fact that Michigan State hasn't been to a BCS bowl since 1988. I point out how exciting Michigan State has been to watch with all the wild plays. I really emphasize the Wisconsin win. Still, it's a very tough sell.

Unlikely then, but he's sayin' there's a chance...

MSU-Texas Tech Lights Up TV Ratings

Sorry I didn't get to this earlier, but it's worth mentioning: The 2010 Valero Alamo Bowl was the most-watched bowl game in ESPN history.

Pick your reason why people tuned in - Mike Leach being fired that week, the Adam James scandal overall, the 14 players MSU suspended or the game itself. But they stayed for a great game between two schools that battled until the very end.

About 5.6 million viewers saw the MSU-Texas Tech game, which has to be a good sign for MSU given the good showing we put up under difficult circumstances.

We'll be doing a full Alamo Bowl recap on Monday, so watch for that.

ESPN 3D Coming in June - With Plans to Cover College Football

ESPN will launch ESPN 3D this June at the World Cup, providing the first sports network with full 3-D coverage of games. The move is a follow-on to limited testing done during the USC-Ohio State football game this year which apparently "wowed" the audiences.

The plan is to broadcast some games in the World Cup, the X Games and then college football and basketball. Given that ESPN/ABC holds the primary contract for Big Ten football, it's quite probable that an MSU game may be broadcast.

Even better, the schedule sets up very well for that to happen.

The technology is expensive - it has been compared to how broadcasting in HD was far more expensive than regular definition when HD first rolled out on a wide level - so expect ESPN to only use it for the biggies.

Speaking of... MSU hosts Notre Dame and Wisconsin, and travels to Michigan, Iowa and Penn State. Given how good those respective teams are expected to be (not Notre Dame, but the Irish are always good for decent TV ratings), there's a high chance that the Spartans will wind up on ESPN 3D at some point.

I can't wait.

An Ethical Question for ESPN and Craig James

By now, you probably know that Texas Tech fired its head coach, Mike Leach, over allegations that he had ESPN analyst Craig James' son (a Tech WR) locked in a confined space for hours on end amidst questions of whether the younger James was really as concussed as he and a physician claimed.

This being a blog about off-the-field things, I won't really get into how much I think this will hurt Texas Tech (a lot, given Leach called the plays), or how this affects the matchup (definitely helps MSU). I want to focus on something that hasn't gotten a lot of play.

Craig James was scheduled to call the Alamo Bowl before all this mess broke. Not before it happened, mind you, not before an internal investigation began. Just before it broke. Of course, as soon as the news broke, ESPN pulled James from the broadcast.

Here's my question: Why in the blue hell was James scheduled to call this game at all? Your son's at the heart of an investigation you very well know could cost the coach his job (which it ultimately did). Your subsequent comments to the media show you obviously think Leach was abusive towards some of his players - your son for one - and that he needed to get canned for the protection of the rest of the men on the squad.

That is a stunning conflict of interest. For one, I don't think parents should call their kids' games. But ESPN obviously thinks that's OK. Set that aside for now though.

As a professional journalist, I can tell you that one of two things happened. Either James didn't tell his assignment editor that this was going on, before or after he got picked to work the game, or the editorial staff at ESPN didn't care.

Michigan State fans who watch the game from home deserve a neutral broadcast booth. Texas Tech fans deserve analysts who aren't out to get their coach. ESPN almost failed their audience and really lucked out that they didn't. Fans deserve more from the "worldwide leader".

I've e-mailed a copy of this post to ESPN's ombudsman, Don Ohlmeyer. If he responds to me or on his blog, I'll be sure to post that.

A New Argument for Notre Dame to Join the Big Ten

After yet another season of mediocrity, a Chicago Sun Times columnist has taken an interesting tack to the question of whether or not Notre Dame ought to swallow their pride and join the Big Ten.

The argument in many ways makes sense, and it's what you've heard before. It's better for the non-football sports - especially men's and women's basketball. It's better for academics.

But as veteran writer Herb Gould points out, the best incentive for joining the Big Ten is that it would reduce the pressure on Notre Dame. "At Notre Dame, having no conference pretty much puts the Irish on a jittery tightrope from the opening kickoff every season. The Subway Alumni need to realize the days of Rockne and Leahy and Ara -- and even Holtz -- are over. Everybody's on TV. Everybody can recruit and play a national schedule."

Gould said the money issue with NBC could be worked out, and there's a really sensible way to do that. Give NBC the option on taking the #1 Big Ten game every week that Notre Dame is at home, and first choice of Big Ten games that don't involve the Irish when they're on the road. NBC would pay more and, in return, get the occasional Michigan-Ohio State, Penn State-MSU or Iowa-Wisconsin, big games that drive national ratings.

That said, Gould also calls for ND to fire Charlie Weis and hire Cincy's Brian Kelly (the guy MSU would have hired had it not been for one M. Dantonio). And that would make sense - so don't worry about that happening. Still, we can dream can't we?

Coverage Map: MSU-Penn State

Michigan State's regular season-ending clash against Penn State will be the national game across most of America Saturday, the only exception being a small swath of ACC country from Georgia to Washington D.C.

The battle for the Land Grant Trophy is the ABC national game in most major alumni markets like Michigan, Chicago, Orange County, Texas, Denver and New York. Alaska and Hawaii, not pictured at left, will also get MSU-Penn State on ABC.

ESPN will carry the game for the rest of the country, but strangely enough, only in standard definition. ESPN News will run on ESPN's HD channel.

I don't really understand that call, but apparently someone in Bristol thinks the rest of the country doesn't need to watch football in high def, but needs their studio news recap in crystal-clear HD.

FYI, the game opposite ours is Virginia @ Clemson.

The SEC and the Future of College Football Coverage

A battle over the future of media coverage in college football is being fought in the Southeastern Conference and the results will be felt in every stadium across America.

At issue is the SEC's new credential agreement, something each media organization must agree to before accepting press credentials. Those include:

• No audio or video highlights on any newspaper websites (something the Lansing State Journal does regularly)
• Time limits on photo and video use for everyone else
• No archiving or selling game photos - but the SEC is allowed to do that with the media photos and keep the proceeds
• No live blogging

Under a strict interpretation of rules like these, WLNS couldn't do a year in review of MSU football, the LSJ's photo shop would be sliced and diced and both the LSJ and Free Press' game day blogging operations would end. And rest assured, if the SEC gets away with this, there will be nothing to stop every other major conference from doing exactly the same thing.

It's not that schools want to restrict coverage. It's more that they want the media to pay for the privilege. Television and radio rights are very expensive, but there's nothing really like that for rights to highlights or print coverage. Live blogs, in some folks' eyes, take away the exclusivity of the live broadcast deals, and by blocking them the hope is that said deals will become even more exclusive (read: expensive). And who knows, maybe you could sell the live blogging rights?

But the new SEC credential rules haven't gone over well with some titans of media, like the Associated Press and Gannett, the nation's largest newspaper chain (Full disclosure: My former employer, the LSJ, is a Gannett paper). Both mammoth news organizations have refused to sign on so far, saying the rules are overly restrictive and onerous.

The move has teeth because Gannett owns some of the biggest papers in the SEC footprint. The (Nashville) Tennesseean, Louisville Courier-Journal, Jackson (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger and Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser are all Gannett papers - and I'm sure the folks at Tennessee, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Alabama and Auburn want their biggest area papers to cover their games. And most of the other papers in the SEC's footprint, as well as most national sports websites, rely on the Associated Press feed for coverage.

Again, consider Michigan State as an example. Can you imagine gameday coverage with no Detroit Free Press, Lansing State Journal, or WZZM-TV (Grand Rapids)? All are Gannett properties. And just try reading about MSU on national websites like ESPN.com or CBSSports.com without the AP. Except for the biggest games, there would basically be the Detroit News, Booth Newspapers, local TV and nothing else. No Joe Rexrode, no Shannon Shelton, none of that.

The battle lines have been drawn. The SEC wants greater control of their games, and the ability to make more money off it. The media folks want to be able to control their coverage, understandable since they're paying people to cover games.

We'll be following this case, because whatever happens will have huge ramifications for college football teams and coverage across the nation.

MSU Makes College GameDay Roster

Michigan State's men's basketball squad will grace ESPN College GameDay's prestigious stage this season, officials at the network have confirmed.

The game will take place Feb. 6, when the Spartans play at Illinois. It's one of seven men's basketball games, and one women's game, College GameDay will attend this season - and the only tilt involving Big Ten teams.

MSU has a somewhat prestigious history with College GameDay, as one of just 14 schools to host the football and basketball versions. This will be State's fourth appearance on the basketball show, the third time as the visiting squad. MSU played at Ohio State and hosted Indiana in 2005, and then at Indiana in 2008.

State's inclusion on the GameDay list reflects media expectations for the coming year, with a top-10 showing expected despite losing three centers and all-world defensive guard (and the team's heart and soul) Travis Walton.

It also reflects the prestige the Spartans' program has earned because, quite frankly folks, they ain't going to see the Illini. That's not a dig at Bruce Weber's team, or the tradition at Assembly Hall. Rather, its a note that State has elevated itself into the rarefied air of a national basketball program that people from coast to coast want to watch. We're not UNC, Duke or Kentucky yet, but exposure-wise, we're getting close.

As for the football version of College GameDay, MSU's chances of making it this year aren't that great. MSU's four football GameDay appearances have involved Michigan (1997 and 1999), Notre Dame (2004) and Penn State (2005), as well as students throwing various and sundry projectiles at Lee Corso when he inevitably picks against Sparty.

Unlike its basketball counterpart, the football GameDay program doesn't make its location picks until 1-2 weeks before game time. This season's first two games are the only ones set so far - Alabama @ Va Tech in week one, followed by USC @ Ohio State.

The trouble for State is that the schedule realistically doesn't set up for an appearance this year. The two MSU-Michigan games were when both teams were ranked in the top 15. The 2004 match against Notre Dame was only broadcast on GameDay because Hurricane Ivan threatened the previously-scheduled LSU @ Auburn game. And the 2005 Penn State game was broadcast because of the storyline surrounding Joe Paterno and how the Nittany Lions turned around their program.

Here are the games there's a chance for, and why it likely ain't gonna happen:

@ Notre Dame - NBC owns the rights to games in South Bend, and ESPN isn't going to feature a game it can't broadcast.

vs. Iowa - This should be a great game, but unfortunately neither State nor Iowa are the "national powerhouses," and there's almost an unwritten rule that one team in the game should be - especially early in the season.

vs. Michigan - Frankly, they won't be good enough.

vs. Penn State - This is the best chance, and only if the game will decide the Big Ten championship. Working against us: The fact that GameDay loves a night game, and Big Ten rules prohibit November matches starting in the 7 p.m. window. They'd have to run a 3:30 p.m. game, which isn't unprecedented, but isn't the favorite option.

If you like the shows, head to Champaign-Urbana. Because unless miracles happen, that's the only time you'll see MSU and a GameDay crew in the same building this year.

ESPN's New World Order

ESPN this week has been playing with the idea of a New World Order in college football, pairing down the 120 FBS teams to 40 teams who can actually compete. Just a couple years ago, there would have been no chance for MSU to be included on this list. But welcome to the big time MSU!

In ESPN's official draft of college teams, MSU was taken with pick #34 of the 40 picks in the draft. Too low? Remember that another 80 teams didn't get picked at all, including five Big Ten squads. ESPN cited our "great fans" and our strong ticket sales even through those long, hard football years, as well as our more recent success under Coach Dantonio as evidence we belong in the new top subdivision.

Other good news? ESPN put the same question to the general public, and MSU made the cut there too! In fact, the fan vote had MSU at #22 with 31.8% of the ballots including MSU in the 40 to make the cut (as of this post). This is just more evidence of the strong national perception that Coach Dantonio has brought to East Lansing.

Final Four Friday: Media Innovations

For today's Final Four Friday, I wanted to take a look at what we consider to be the biggest innovations in media coverage of Michigan State athletics over the past year.

And the nominees are...

ESPN.com launches its Big Ten blog

About a year ago, ESPN.com, the nation's premier sports website, plucked a young sports reporter from the Arlington Heights Daily Herald in Illinois and gave him a blog. Now, Adam Rittenberg's Big Ten blog is an absolute must-read on MSU and Big Ten athletics. You might accuse me of hyperbole here, but it's probably the biggest thing for Big Ten coverage to happen since the launch of the Big Ten Network. Simply put, this amount of Big Ten news coverage had never before been available all in one place - now it is.

Facebook redesigns its status feed

Sure, we could talk about other microblogging websites - Twitter comes to mind - but the much-despised recent Facebook layout change has most changed how Spartan fans watch sports. I watched the national title game against North Carolina at home, laptop in front of me, putting out status updates on my reaction to the game as several friends did the same. It's like watching a game in one giant online living room.

Live blogging of MSU games

The Detroit Free Press is at the forefront of this, with Shawn Windsor tackling MSU games and Scott Bell taking on U of M. The two live blogged football and basketball, as well as the odd Lions, Pistons, Tigers and Red Wings games. Their analysis is on point and, best of all, they're knowledgeable enough about the teams to know, for example, if the third string tight end is primarily a run or pass blocker. It may be a bit too detailed for some, but I'd rather have Shawn and Scott doing in-game commentary than Brent Musberger. But that's just me, moving on...

Comcast caves on Big Ten Network

The nation's largest cable provider and the Big Ten Network announced last June that the two had come to an agreement for Comcast to carry BTN nationwide - and on expanded basic in most of the Big Ten footprint markets. And while the 2007-08 season saw fans grumbling about not being able to see games, 2008-09 saw every football game and all-but one basketball game live on television.

And the winner is...

I'm a big Rittenberg fan, but the whole point of the Big Ten Network was that more people would see Big Ten games. Now in Baltimore, I've been able to keep up with not just football and men's basketball, but women's basketball, wrestling and hockey too. Games that would never have been televised have been, and that exposure is great for the league.

MSU's Draft Legacy

Michigan State has become legendary in the first round of the NFL draft, but not in the way most Spartans would like. Unlike schools like Southern Cal and Miami, which are known for phenomenal first round successes, MSU has developed a reputation for high-profile draft busts.

As proof, I give you ESPN's Mock Draft for the Ages: A hypothetical account of how an NFL draft, with every player throughout history available, would go today based solely on their own draft stock coming out of school. MSU was the only school with two top-10 picks. State tied USC for first with three first-round picks. But ugh, what picks.

Pick 3 (Chiefs) - Bubba Smith, DE

This is the one slightly redeeming pick of the three. Smith played nine seasons in the NFL, going to two Pro Bowls and winning the 1970 Super Bowl with the Baltimore Colts. It's a very good career. A career most NFL players would kill for. Hell, he's still a legend among older football fans in Baltimore. A solid if not spectacular pick at number three, given that Smith didn't quite have a Hall of Fame pro career.

Pick 6 (Bengals) - Tony Mandarich, OT

Had it not been for a certain young whippersnapper from Washington State named Ryan Leaf, Mandarich might be viewed as the biggest draft bust of all time.

Mandarich was a beast in college. 6'6, 320 pounds of pure brick muscle. He flattened opposing players. He flattened opposing players while they were doubling him up.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, he did it all while ingesting enough steroids to stun a dead mule. And then there's the pain killers and booze he turned to in a futile effort to dull the constant pain in his freakish body. Mandarich told ESPN in a recent article (see link above) that he was drunk each and every day for four seasons with the Green Bay Packers and taking in up to 70 painkilling pills a day. That's a little more than an ENTIRE BOTTLE of pills each day.

Suffice it to say, NFL scouts aren't high on drafting the next Tony Mandarich.

Credit to Mandarich though, he eventually got his life back in order. He made a comeback with the Indianapolis Colts and now is trying to convince young people to not go the same route he did.

Pick 20 (Lions) - Charles Rogers, WR

I think this is ESPN's idea of a sick joke at the expense of Lions fans everywhere. Rogers, who at just 27 years old is in his prime as a receiver, should have spent late March and early April this year getting ready for the upcoming season. Instead, he spent it in the Oakland County jail for violating probation in a domestic violence case.

It's the latest in a long storied fall for Rogers, the "fire" part of the ill-fated "Smoke and Fire" partnership between himself and QB Jeff Smoker at the end of the infamous Bobby Williams era. Both dealt with drug problems in their own way - Smoker got suspended from State, came back and is now playing in the Arena League. Rogers got suspended in the NFL and, well, never made it all the way back.

The drug and behavior problems, his oft-injured collarbone, it all adds up to a big-time NFL draft bust.

It's not that MSU hasn't had good pros. Joe DeLamielleure is a Hall of Famer. Flozell Adams may get there. Morten Andersen is the best kicker in NFL history. Plaxico Burress, despite his recent dalliances, gave the Giants their last Super Bowl win. But we'll need a sure-fire first round stud or two to shake the Mandarich-Rogers legacy.

Photo courtesy of Sports Illustrated

Missing Media: Part Two

The only speed bump the Lansing State Journal and I ever encountered during my reporting on our "Spartan Experience" series in 2007 - our online coverage of everything involving MSU football that wasn't on the field - was when we asked for credentials. It was an unusual ask, to be sure: A twin pair of passes, one for the press box and another for everywhere in the stadium bar the field.

Oddly enough, the second bit was easy, but the first, I was told, would be tough. "There may not be enough room in the press box" was the message back from MSU athletics. After a bit of haggling we finally got it secured, but with a message back to me and my editors: We'll approve this one, but you all need to know that you're asking a lot.

It turned out that they could have given me a whole row to myself without displacing anyone. That's because we weren't in the dingy, cramped, old MSU football press box, we were in the new Spartan Stadium press box, a gorgeous two-sided cathedral of media heaven complete with cushy seats, outlets galore and uninhibited sightlines.

Only trouble is, it was built for a press corps that doesn't exist anymore.

There are three rows of seats in each of the Spartan Stadium press boxes. The north side, or "home" side, is, on average, packed. Or, at least compared to the south side.

On row one of the north side sits the print media, starting with a bank of seats for the most regular outlets, like the Lansing State Journal, Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, Associated Press and State News. The second row is for "others", various producers, TV folks who weren't involved in live coverage and the occasional guest of University Relations staff.

The third row seats, well, I have no idea. That's because almost no one ever sits there. And unless it's a big-time, out-of-state opponent like Ohio State, the visiting side is even more barren.

Football isn't the only sport to suffer an absence of coverage. Time was that three reporters would show for almost every Spartan volleyball home game. One from the Spartan Radio Network, another from the LSJ and a third from the State News. Now, the voice of the Spartans on radio sits alone.

Likewise women's basketball, which had begun to build a traveling press corps, has seen its numbers shrink. No one sent a reporter to Cancun for an early-season tournament during the 2007-08 campaign aside from Spartan Radio Network, which is paid to broadcast it. It's not because Cancun's not a nice place, it's simply a matter of dollars and sense.

However, that's not to say that coverage of all Spartan sports has declined. In fact, I'd argue that coverage of the big two - football and men's basketball - has actually improved.

Once upon a time, stories that were big enough went in print. Those that weren't died, unless someone wrote a years-back retrospective. Now, every minute detail about the two kingpin sports is chronicled in outlets like LSJ ace Spartan reporter Joe Rexrode's blog, SpartanTailgate.com, MLive's Gang Green blog, ESPN's Big Ten football blog and on this blog.

MSU had just one men's basketball game not televised this year. One. I got to see women's basketball and MSU hockey in Baltimore thanks to Big Ten Network. And I love listening to John Kreger's call of Spartan volleyball (most underrated broadcaster in the state of Michigan, in my book) from miles away thanks to my internet connection.

If anything, MSU sports actually gets more play now than it ever did before - just not through the traditional outlets.

Now, it's worth noting one point. MSU, like many universities, has a policy against credentialing online-only news sources. If you're a reporter for ESPN.com, your credential is issued because of your TV affiliation, regardless of the fact that your article will likely be one of the most read of any produced in the nation that day. I'm sure the policy has been overruled once or twice, though for the life of me, I don't recall it during the 2007 season.

Given the troubles print and local TV are having - and the success of online - that policy may need to be reviewed soon.

Coming Wednesday: It's undeniable that print coverage of MSU athletics has changed. But what, will this mean for the fans at home? Will you even be able to get a keepsake newspaper the next time MSU wins a Rose Bowl?