Louisville coach Rick Pitino said he will never schedule a non-conference game against new Big East football-only members San Diego State and Boise State according to ESPN's Andy Katz. Last month Big East commissioner John Marinatto stated contractually that the Big East would negotiate in good faith with Boise State and San Diego to schedule home-and-home basketball agreements with member schools with a goal of four games per year — two home and two away. On December 6, Pitino couldn't praise Marinatto's negotiations enough in adding Boise State and San Diego into the Big East Conference and even mentioned that SDSU would "be a nice place to go" for basketball.

But now that the ink has dried on the agreement, Ricky is suddenly singing a different tune: "We would never schedule San Diego State or Boise State," Pitino is saying now. "We’ll play someone that makes sense geographically like Indiana."

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In his news conference Wednesday, Big East commissioner John Marinatto touched on further expansion in the Big East Conference. He said the Big East has pondered a football conference with 14 or 16 schools. The league initially wanted to expand to 14 or more teams, but the BE Board said in essence, "let's stabilize and get to a 12-team model first, then we can look at further expansion." With the ACC and SEC going to 14-teams, every indication suggests the Big East will expand in that direction as well and Marinatto said as much.

The expansion plan would help avoid future instability like the realignment events of the past few months. Those raids by the ACC and Big 12 rocked the Big East Conference with the recent defections of Syracuse, Pittsburgh, TCU and West Virginia. That instability is something the Big East administrators will be trying to avoid in the future and could lead to further expansion. The prediction is they might eventually try to get to 14 or even 16 members to add depth that would allow other teams to leave the conference without such devastating consequences.

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Boise State has announced that Mark Coyle will be the new Athletic Director to replace former AD Gene Bleymaier who was released from the postion in August. Coyle, 43, will be the fourth athletic director in the school’s 44-year history and will formally assume the duties from interm AD Curt Apsey after moving his family from Lexington, KY. Coyle has an extensive background in sports marketing, and a career that includes four years at the University of Minnesota, and a six-year stint at the University of Kentucky. At Kentucky he served as the Wildcats deputy director of athletics.

Coyle has good fundraising skills and they will come in handy when he takes over the program in January. His appointment comes at a challenging time in Boise State history. In addition to overseeing an athletic department comprised of 17 mens and womens sporting teams, he will have to cope with three years of NCAA probation, continuing the on-going stadium expansion, and paying for the rising costs of the Broncos athletic department. He also comes to Boise State at a critical time when Broncos football head coach Chris Petersen’s name is once again being circulated as a coaching candidate at such schools as North Carolina, UCLA and Arizona.

I know this petition I set up will do absolutely nothing, but just for the heck of it I am curious how many people I can get to sing the petition I set up at Change.org to say that Craig James should be fired. There are a ton of examples to how he is a terrible AP voter and overall basher of non-BCS.

But just for fun share on twitter, Facebook, Google+ or even on your own blog, just spread the word. I want to see what numbers could be reached by this.

One of my all-time favorite stupid comments was last year during one of the BCS shows where James said that playing bad Big 10 teams were better then playing good non-BCS teams just because of that the recruited talent to places like Illinois and Northwestern were better than say Nevada or Air Force even if the latter two schools were having a much better season. Just crazy.

Also, he hired a PR firm to help get Mike Leach fired at Texas Tech and complained to Leach about his son not getting playing time. All the long ESPN stood by him for some unknown reason. He also got suspended and essentially forced out a great college football writer in Bruce Feldman. Here is some audio from Feldman on the Dan Patrick show blasting James and ESPN.

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Yes, I included basketball that is because UNLV is taking on the North Carolina who are the No. 1 team in the country this evening. There are some other games as well in basketball, but the UNLV vs. UNC is the best game.

The game with the most tangible reward for a win is Air Force who can become bowl eligible if they can defeat Colorado State. The rest of the teams are jockeying for bowl position and Boise State is still fighting for an at-large bid to the BCS.

Mountain West football:

Wyoming Cowboys at No. 7 Boise St. Broncos 2 p.m. ET (The Mtn)

Air Force Falcons at Colorado St. Rams 6 p.m. ET (The Mtn)

San Diego St. Aztecs at UNLV Rebels 10 p.m. ET (The Mtn)

Mountain West basketball:

UNLV Rebels vs. No. 1 North Carolina Tar Heels at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas  10:30 p.m. ET (ESPN2)

TCU Horned Frogs at Houston Cougars 8 p.m. ET (C-USA Digital Network)

Northern Illinois Huskies at Boise St. Broncos 9 p.m. ET (NONE)

Md.-Eastern Shore Hawks at Wyoming Cowboys, 9 p.m. ET (NONE)

San Diego St. Aztecs at UC Santa Barbara Gauchos 10 p.m. ET (Big West TV)

Future Mountain West teams:

Nevada Wolfpack at Utah St. Aggies 2 p.m. ET (ESPN3)

San Jose St. Spartans at Fresno St. Bulldogs 8 p.m. ET (none)

Tulane Green Wave at Hawaii Warriors 11 p.m. ET (ESPN3)

National games of interest:

Ohio St. Buckeyes at No. 15 Michigan Wolverines 12 p.m. ET (ABC)

No. 13 Georgia Bulldogs at No. 22 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets 12 p.m. ET (ESPN)

No. 19 Penn St. Nittany Lions at No. 16 Wisconsin Badgers 3:30 p.m. ET (ESPN)

No. 17 Clemson Tigers at No. 12 South Carolina Gamecocks 7:45 p.m. ET (ESPN)

No. 2 Notre Dame Fighting Irish at No. 6 Stanford Cardinal 8 p.m. ET (ABC)

 

First off sorry about no show tonight, I know EVERYONE was waiting for a show, but I am sick and Jacob had something last minute as well. However, even if I wasn't sick I would have had to cancel since I had to go to the ER for Deeds who fell in the driveway and a few teeth were pushed back. He is fine we are going to the dentist tomorrow for some x-rays.

However, the main point of this post is that I want to thank everyone who helped spread the word and donate for my little boy Deeds get his service dog. A local news channel came to film JD and his dog Magpie, so I wanted to share with all and thank everyone.

The news of course makes it sound over dramatic with JD's brain damage, which we found when he had his first seizures about a year ago and he his high functioning in regards with his autism but none of that is really shown. The dog can sense seizures and let me and my wife know by barking, nudge JD if he does repetitive motions plus can track and find JD if he wanders off by himself.

There is a 15 second or so ad before the actual video.

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We all know the events that occurred at Penn State which ultimately led to the firing of Joe Paterno. However, over SB Nation's Penn State blog Black Shoe Diaries, they are turning the events into awareness of the situation and help others in need. I was given a lot of help in the past from this community helping spread the word and donate for my son's service dog (more info here on that if you care).

I will let BSD explain what they are doing:

Jerry Needel (Class of 1998) contacted several of us with the urge to channel this mess into something positive. As a result, Jerry and his wife, Jaime, turned to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) to begin to mobilize the Penn State family in order to be sure that the kind of incident that happened here never happens again.

Proud to be a Penn Stater (#ProudPSUforRAINN) is the result.

The #ProudPSUforRAINN campaign has a stated goal of raising over $500,000, one dollar for each of the 557,000 Penn State alumni. Don't take my word for it. Hear from Jerry Needel himself:

"After having so closely identified with all things Penn State over the past 15 years, the recent events have shaken my beliefs - and those of other alumni - to the core. Simply put, Penn State is way bigger than the alleged actions of a few people. Will you join me in showing the world what being a proud supporter of Penn State really means by making a donation to RAINN and by adding your name to mine below?"

- Jerry Needel, Penn State '98

So, this is a great thing they are doing so spread the word on your Facebook, Twitter or even this new thing called Google+.

The pay-for-play for NCAA sports has been a hot debate over the past few months, but now it is official that the NCAA approved $2,000 to be paid to NCAA athletes (emphasis mine):

The Board also adopted legislation giving student-athletes who receive full athletics scholarships the opportunity to receive additional athletics aid up to the full cost of attendance or $2,000, whichever is less.

The working group that made the recommendation told the board the $2,000 figure is meaningful in addressing the miscellaneous expenses student-athletes now have. Institutions will not be required to offer the benefit, but conferences are encouraged to consider common application within their membership.

This is all well and good, but if not all schools are required to pay this then some will not. Just look at the state of Nevada or Colorado who have had state budget issues with Colorado having issues buying out the Colorado Buffaloes head coach or the Nevada Wolfpack who had serious thoughts about dropping football all together. So, would those schools not offer that $2,000, because I am sure that some players would rather go to a school that offers that money than one that does not.

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