This is of course the time of year of lots of schlocky pre-season annuals, rankings and conjecture, but it is also a time when more sophisticated news sources navigate the domain of sycophantic college football fans, bloggers and parasitic pundits to put together their own analysis. After all, it is their weekly rankings that comprise the AP Poll and not (much to their chagrin) the bloggers of the CollegeFootBlogospher (who may know better on both counts).
If these pinnacles of print journalism are going to add any value to the already over-populated dialog, much of it increasingly insider informed, it may be their commitment to dispassion and pure cold facts. Many of these turn out to be interesting and can be taken home for future consumption, which all blogging merits aside, is more than I can say for most of what I read out here on the Internets.
To wit,
The Washington Post, who ranks Boise State a safe but respectful (read: cowardly) 25 in their Top 25 list includes this fascinating factoid:
*Boise State at 44th is now the highest-rated non-BCS school in the Collegiate Licensing Company's latest rankings of royalties reported over the last year. The school earned $512,000 in royalties during that period, school officials said, which is up 56 percent from the previous year.
What is the standalone value of a fact? I don't know, but for me, this has it. And maybe that's only because it dovetails neatly with my reigning and advancing view that the WAC is where it's at in the non-BCS world.
Seeing this controversial statement of the Pac-10's mettle over the Big Ten by ESPN's so-called 'experts,' a seam of white-hot rage woke Switters (erstwhile co-blogger of this blog) from his silent slumber.
