The world according to Jim:
• Remember my suggestions that college football might someday be headed for a Super League concept, with promotion and relegation and a clear demarcation between the haves and the have-nots?
It’s creeping closer. And if the latest proposal for a 16-team College Football Playoff – along with the recent Southeastern Conference meetings – are any indication, it will be sooner rather than later. …
• We are already seeing the SEC and Big Ten, backed by ESPN and Fox, throwing their influence around with the proposal that those conferences between them would divvy up half of the automatic slots in a 16-team field. In fact, the SEC people are making noises about turning their conference championship weekend into a play-in round for their league’s third and fourth automatic qualifiers, and can we assume that the Big Ten will follow suit? …
• Meanwhile, the Big 12 and Atlantic Coast Conferences – third and fourth among “equals” – get two spots each. Notre Dame, with no reason now to ever join a conference for football, is seemingly assured of a spot if the Irish don’t trip over their own shoelaces. That leaves three at-large spots, including one token berth for whichever Group of Six team is highest ranked. …
• But wait: It gets crazier. The House v. NCAA settlement still hasn’t been approved yet, but programs from coast to coast are trying to figure out how to share whatever profits there might be with the athletes – or if there will be anything available to share, in the case of the coupon-clippers among the NCAA membership – while certain voices are pleading for Congress to give college athletics antitrust protection. …
• And now, this headline spied on the AL.com (Alabama News Group) website Thursday, quoting the SEC commissioner: “Greg Sankey: SEC prefers to remain in NCAA, but wants more power.” And this didn’t just come out of nowhere. Sankey told reporters covering the conference meetings: “I’ve shared with the decision-making working group that I have people in my room asking ‘Why are we still in the NCAA?’”
Bottom line: Sankey discussed a membership structure where the four autonomous conferences would stand alone. But given that the recent football proposal has created a schism and basically led administrators in the ACC and Big 12 to declare that they don’t trust those in the two larger conferences, how’s that supposed to work? Especially when a Big 12 athletic director, not for attribution, was quoted by Yahoo’s Ross Dellinger as saying of the football playoff concept, “I guess we’re going to war.” …
• Oh, by the way, NCAA president Charlie Baker picked these moments to talk about expansion of March Madness. If the NCAA tournament goes to 72 or 76 teams, how many will the two behemoth conferences demand? (Hint: There are 34 teams in those two conferences combined.) …
• And we thought the uproar over the future of the USC-Notre Dame football rivalry was loud. (Which it is, and which it should be.) But cheer up: Once everything shakes out, maybe the Trojans and Irish will wind up in the same Super League division.
Trust me. At this rate, it’s coming. …
• The Dodgers are asking for patience with Tanner Scott while he sorts things out, as noted in Bill Plunkett’s off-day story. But fans are notoriously not patient, especially with a guy who signed a four-year, $72 million contract and has five blown saves before we’ve even gotten to June, three of them in the last five appearances. And so the question: How loud will the boos be when he comes out of the bullpen at home? …
• The greater problem: Most of the Dodgers’ leverage bullpen arms are still on the injured list. Acquiring Alexis Diaz from Cincinnati, after he’d been demoted to Triple-A, is a stopgap move. Diaz will work out first at Camelback Ranch, and ideally he’ll get to L.A. in time to catch up with his brother, Edwin Diaz, who will be in town with the New York Mets next week. …
• Today’s quiz: Which L.A. coach/manager uttered the words “Go, and don’t dance” to one of his players? Answer below. …
• Shall we pause for a moment of sympathy for our friends from New England? The Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy noted that his region had 13 pro sports championships this century, but in the middle of this decade the Celtics seem to be headed from banner to rebuild and everyone else is, as he put it, in “Loserville.” Shaughnessy wrote that the Celtics’ championship last year was the region’s only title since 2020, though he skipped over two Major League Rugby crowns by the New England FreeJacks the last two years. (That would give the region 15.)
Meanwhile, Southern California has 24 this century – Lakers 6, Galaxy 6, Sparks 2, Dodgers 2, Kings 2, Ducks 1, Angels 1, LAFC 1, Rams 1, and the late lamented rugby Giltinis 1. Since 2020 alone, we have six (Dodgers 2, Lakers, Rams, Galaxy and Giltinis 1 apiece). But nah, we’re not bragging. …
• For what it’s worth, New York/New Jersey has 10 titles in the 21st century and four in the 2020s, one each in the WNBA, NWSL, MLS and Major League Rugby. (But New England still has the clam chowder edge over Manhattan, so there is that.) …
• Quiz answer: Don Perry, who had been coach of the Kings 19 days when he was suspended by the league for 15 days (and six games) in 1982 for uttering those words to journeyman forward Paul Mulvey, after a brawl had broken out during a game in Vancouver a week prior. Mulvey, who interpreted those words as an order to fight, refused to leave the bench, was subsequently told to stay away from the team and then was sent to the minors. That, in turn, reignited the debate over fighting in hockey.
Perry, who passed away in 2019, went on to coach one full season and parts of two others in L.A. – and he was behind the bench that April for the Miracle on Manchester, the Kings’ comeback from a 5-0 third period playoff deficit against Edmonton.
jalexander@scng.com
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