College football coach rankings: Alabama’s Nick Saban tops list of 124 coachesSporting News has ranked the 124 FBS head coaches by conference. Now it’s time to see how they rate overall.

First, some notes about our list:

— The Big 12 coaches have by far the best average ranking: 27.2, which crushes the second-best SEC’s average ranking of 43.3. Next in line: the Pac-12 (43.8), ACC (45.6) and Big Ten (46.8).

— Of course, the Big 12 has only 10 teams. Compared with the top 10 rankings by conference, it falls slightly below the SEC’s average of 26.6. The Pac-12 still ranks third at 34.5, followed by the Big Ten (35.9) and the ACC (37.0).

— The SEC is the only league other than the Big 12 whose lowest-ranked coach isn’t in the 100s. Tennessee’s Derek Dooley, the No. 14 SEC coach on our list, ranks 99th overall.

Read more: aol.sportingnews.com

COLLEGE FOOTBALL NEEDS A COMMISSIONER

College football is the most nakedly self-interested of all the sports we love.

That’s why it’s failings are the most human, the most susceptible to special interest capture, the least logical, a banana football republic.

Most sports have a common interest that unites them in pursuit of a common pot of championship gold, college football does not.

read more: outkickthecoverage.com

Irish payout to Weis keeps piling up

While it played football in 2010, Notre Dame paid men who ran the program a total of $4,949,867 — one to coach the team and one not to coach it.

That figure includes the first look at compensation for Irish coach Brian Kelly and continued payments in the buyout for former coach Charlie Weis — a sum now approaching $8.7 million and counting, according to federal tax documents the Tribune obtained Tuesday.

The totals for Kelly and Weis are revealed on Notre Dame’s Form 990 it must submit to the Internal Revenue Service that was made available to the Tribune upon request. In essence, Notre Dame paid in excess of $618,000 for each of its eight victories in the 2010 season.

read more: chicagotribune.com

WHAT IF TELEVISION EXECUTIVES COULD SET UP A 16 TEAM FOOTBALL SUPER CONFERENCE?

Television is driving all of conference realignment.

Whether it’s the Longhorn Network that precipitated last year’s slate of realignment or the massive rights deal recently inked by the SEC that set rights fees soaring into the stratosphere, television is the driving force behind the seismic shifts in college athletics.

But most of these shifts are relatively small, that is, most conferences have plenty of anchor teams that clearly aren’t going to relocate for a bigger paycheck.

read more: outkickthecoverage.com

“Third-Tier Rights” Defined & Perspective on Their Value

Tremendous confusion exists among college football fans regarding “third-tier rights.”  Simply put, third-tier rights are games not desired or contracted for broadcast by a conference’s first and second-tier media rights holder which then become property of the individual schools which may broadcast or sell them as they see fit.  As an example, Texas bundled its third-tier rights, partnered with ESPN, and formed the Longhorn Network about which I’ll discuss in further detail.

What each conference provides to its member institutions as “third-tier rights” varies greatly from conference to conference and here is where much of the confusion rests.

read more: chuckoliver.net

Florida State president weighs in on Big 12 rumors

As Florida State’s future in the Atlantic Coast Conference continued to fuel plenty of rumors and speculation Monday, FSU President Eric Barron spent at least part of his day trying to deliver a message to the university’s alumni, fans and other stakeholders.

read more: usatoday.com

USA TODAY Sports’ College Athletics Finances

Air Force	Mt. West	$39,823,782	$39,430,241	$25,736,400	64.6%
	Akron	MAC	$25,583,730	$25,344,459	$19,356,378	75.7%
	Alabama	SEC	$124,498,616	$105,068,152	$5,235,300	4.2%
	Alabama A&M	SWAC	$6,003,172	$6,980,583	$4,513,325	75.2%
	Alabama at Birmingham	CUSA	$25,690,048	$25,224,426	$16,624,135	64.7%
	Alabama State	SWAC	$10,614,081	$10,614,081	$8,084,904	76.2%
	Albany	Am East	$14,808,197	$14,808,197	$12,444,324	84.0%
	Alcorn State	SWAC	$5,995,743	$5,576,931	$4,160,650	69.4%
	Appalachian State	Southern	$17,748,605	$15,454,170	$8,886,750

Read more: usatoday.com

‘Is it warm in here or what?’ The 10 college football coaches on the hottest seats

Now that spring practice is over (well, expect for UCLA, which finishes Saturday), it’s time for fans to truly turn their attention to the fall and wonder what could be.

The 10 guys we’re spotlighting today should be especially nervous about what could be, as they make up our list of the coaches sitting on the hottest seats in the nation.

read more: sports.yahoo.com

Here’s all you need to know about the playoff discussions at this week’s BCS meeting

After a century-plus of pushing, the immovable object has been nudged out of its entrenched position. Now it’s time to get that sucker rolling.

That’s the mindset as college football power brokers descend on south Florida this week for the annual BCS meetings. The beginning of a sea change in the game’s postseason is at hand.

Read more: sports.yahoo.com

Alabama’s Nick Saban favors a plus-one postseason model

Add Nick Saban to the list of major coaches who believes that the plus-one model appears to be the way to go in deciding the future of college football’s postseason.

Speaking during Tuesday’s SEC spring football teleconference, the Alabama coach was asked his opinion on what he would like to see come from this week’s meeting between conference officials in South Florida.

“On the outside looking in, I’ve always thought that having the bowl system intact as much as possible is probably healthy for college football,” Saban said.

read more: blogs.orlandosentinel.com