All you need to know is right here...

My God, people got bent out of shape quickly about Tim Tebow and his faith. They even took shots at him being homeschooled.

I didn't have much of an opinion before the Heisman presentation. Now I'm a Tim Tebow fan. He strikes me as gracious, humble and honest. He's quick to credit things outside of himself. That's called selflessness and in my book, that's a good quality to have.

Tim Freakin' Tebow.

The Exclusion Bowl™

No one is invited to the Exclusion Bowl. That's because it's so exclusive and choosey, no one meets its lofty standards.

However, we feel badly about this, so we have also created:

The Inclusion Bowl™

Everyone is invited to the Inclusion Bowl. Everyone gets a trophy. Everyone's a winner. We'll also do a parent tunnel after the game that the players can run through.

Here's the simple story regarding how the Orange Bowl went down. Big XII rules regulate communication between the bowls and member schools. Click here to view the regulations.

Here are the relevant provisions beginning on page 42:

Bowl Communications and Ticket Rules


The Big 12 Conference values its postseason bowl relationships and this communications policy is intended to ensure that
those relationships are effectively fostered and developed to their fullest extent. It is acknowledged that inaccurate and
inappropriate communications may potentially harm those relationships.

Communications

• It is not permissible for an athletics director or any institutional staff member to initiate communications with a bowl
  representative for purposes of expressing institutional preferences related to the selection process. If contacted by a
  bowl representative, the athletics director or staff member shall not negatively influence the selection process by
  indicating to a bowl executive director or team selection committee member that the university is not interested in
  attending a certain bowl game.
  
• The preference of member institutions to participate in a particular bowl shall be expressed only through a formal
  process for discussion. That process will involve the Commissioner or Senior Associate Commissioner, or both.

Ticket Rules

• It is not permissible for athletics directors or other university representatives, or others acting on their behalf, to
  guarantee or otherwise commit to the purchase of tickets above the contract amount without the prior consent
  of the Conference.

KU athletic director Lew Perkins is candid about his all night conversations with various bowls.

The questions are two-fold: 1. Was the communication compliant with the above rules?; and 2. Did KU make a promise regarding ticket sales?

The national furor over the Orange Bowl picking KU over Mizzou makes it obvious that something smells. Did Lew Perkins involve the Big XII commissioner in a formal process of communication as required? What was said to influence the decision to KU over the obvious choice of Mizzou? What promises (if any) were made? Did Lew Perkins initiate any communications?

Something isn't right about this and I just hope it all comes to light. The purpose of the communications rules as stated above is to protect the relationships the Big XII has with the various bowls. It can be harmful to have an overzealous, rogue athletic director lobbying a bowl behind the scenes. It taints the process and is against the interest of the Big XII to ensure a fair process to all of its member schools.

KU has a history of playing fast and loose with the rules to get an edge. Remember, "compliance doesn't sell tickets."

Frauds. Cheats. Pretenders. KU didn't earn the Orange Bowl on the field. They stole it in the back room. Now they're basking in Mizzou's accomplishment, enjoying Mizzou's rightful place in a BCS bowl.

So who is KU?

• KU is that kid who cheated on a test and then proudly accepted his gold star
  
• KU is the last guy to jump on the pile in a football game after the play is over and then jump up growling at the crowd
  
• KU is the guy who never served, but wears war medals he bought on ebay
  
• KU is that fat guy who says he invented the internet
  

KU's house of cards is about to fall. Their false run to the top of the football world came first by feasting on cupcakes, then by stealing the prize and glory. Nothing KU has done this year has earned them what they have today.

But as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for. KU won the battle, but now they have to play an actual legitimate team. This is the silverlining in this fiasco. If nothing else, the ire of an entire nation will be on Kansas next month, hoping, begging and pleading for a complete KU slobberknocking. Glory is earned, Kansas. So is hate.

Labels: cheaters, fraud, kansas, KU, pretenders, slobberknocking

Feed the Mangino! To help with KU's lagging Orange Bowl ticket sales, I've come up with this marketing campaign inspired by the Tree of Lights campaigns you see this time of year. It's Mangino's Tree of Oranges.

Don’t be this guy, Missouri. He’s the OU fan from the series of pictures below. Notice the visor? That’s right, he has taken on the persona of Bob Stoops, equally reliant on emotional outbursts and perpetually thirsty for a war of words with opponents. That’s not Missouri and it’s certainly not soft-spoken Gary Pinkel.

Until this week, you rarely heard much chest thumping from the Tigers. Then the #1 ranking came along and Chase Daniel started moaning about disrespect. If you haven’t figured it out yet, Bob Stoops and the Sooners thrive on conflict. They look for it as a key motivator. Last year the Sooners circulated a fake set of Gary Pinkel quotes and say the quotes motivated them in the game. This year Daniel made some fairly benign comments about Missouri’s mistakes in the first game versus the Sooners and Bob Stoops went bananas. Daniel upped the ante by declaring the betting line “disrespectful” toward Missouri, the #1 team in the country. During the game on Saturday night, Daniel and an OU player had a little spat and OU said it was the turning point in the game for them.

My suggestion to the team is don’t play the disrespect game. I don’t even think it’s an actual word. Don’t become Oklahoma. Don’t be Bob Stoops who is equally a sore winner as he is a sore loser. Don’t rely on the reactions and words of opposing players and fans to strive to be your best. That’s not what got Missouri to where it is. Let Oklahoma be the unsophisticated loud mouths. Be Missouri.

For the third time in the brief 12 year history of the Big XII (25% of the time), the championship game has cost the league a team playing in the title game...this from the same league that wouldn’t allow two Big XII games to be broadcast at the same time, guaranteeing half of the conference to be without television coverage on any given week.

It’s time for the league to wise up and protect its own by either eliminating the championship game unless other leagues agree to have one or to allow a team to opt out. Had Missouri been allowed to opt out this week, they would be playing in New Orleans. I’m not really for this. I’d rather see a uniform policy among all of the BCS leagues. But until that happens, the league would do well to protect its own and fulfill its intended purpose of promoting the league.

“The lesson, little Lisa...never try.”

--Homer Simpson


6th ranked Missouri was snubbed by the BCS. For who? 8th ranked KU with their 109th strength of schedule, their zero wins against a team receiving even a single vote in the final top 25 and their loss versus Mizzou just a week ago. Other beneficiaries of the BCS aka Bull Crap System were the likes of Ohio State who didn’t even play this week and 9-3 Illinois who Missouri beat earlier in the season.

The BCS is about who more than anything else as in "who are you?" and "who is making the decisions?" Missouri's BCS fate was in the whimsical hands of Orange Bowl CEO Eric Poms (far right) who chose Kansas because they didn't lose on Saturday. Oh yeah, they didn't play, either.

I've come to realize the real mechanics behind the BCS. Teams are selected by the following factors in this order:

1. What some hotdog eating sports writer thinks of you as he ponders your football program in a Starbucks (team reputation); 
   
2. What a single person thinks of your football program as they ponder it in their home theater (see Orange Bowl CEO Eric Poms); 
   
3. What your program did 50 years ago (see ‘traditional powers’); 
   
4. Your team’s record.
   

Missouri’s sin is it played for the Big XII championship. While Missouri was battling OU, KU was impressing Eric Poms by sitting at home watching the game on tv. Mangino and his team have a severe case of the smugs today, declaring they’ve earned the Orange Bowl. No thinking man (which rules out Kansas) can make a straight-faced argument that Kansas should go ahead of Missouri.

We can conclude three things from this season: 1. You can lose, just don’t lose late; 2. you’re better off not playing than taking a chance at losing; and 3. outside of the 1st and 2nd spots, the BCS rankings are pointless.

The conclusion of this season has reinforced Mark Mangino's strategy to avoid all comers. Avoid them like the plague. Kansas is like the kid in dodge ball who managed to blend into the background and avoid attention until it was down to the last couple of players. How Mangino pulled that off is a freakin' miracle.

Congratulations to all of the idle teams that are being rewarded tonight by the BCS. The lesson, Kansas Jayhawks, is never try.

Here's a series of pictures I took of a Sooner fan antagonizing all of the Mizzou fans around him. It was like watching a spider monkey on crack...

Here he is sad after OU had to punt:



Here he is saying "I'M RIGHT HERE! COME AND GET SOME!"



Now he has decided to go after some guys a few rows up:



The dude on the left is the guy he wanted to fight. It would have been a mistake, but thankfully the police bailed him out:



And off to jail he goes...



Unfortunately I missed the best picture. He was laid out right below me with 3 or 4 cops holding him down and my dang camera wouldn't take the picture. BOOMER!!!

No such thing. These fans are simply unbelievable.

Our lack of one cost us a tremendous amount of field position.

We also had no pass rush. Chase ran for his life with little blitzing.

With no inside linebackers, yet I can't remember running between the tackles.

OU has a running game, so the play action works.

I said this earlier, but there is no one in the middle for OU. We need to go down the middle.

They're holding a funeral on Mizzou's sideline. Get it within 7 by the fourth and it's anyone's game. The inability to run is killing us.

The sound system here is ridiculously loud. It's almost unbearable.

Folks, there are a ton of empty seats. At least a few thousand. If we win this game, run over your own grandma to get to New Orleans. We could have used you tonight and it's a great time.

I mean BRILLIANT!!!

OU has no safety on most plays. There's no one in the middle at all.

We have to establish a running game. They're rushing four and have their linebackers wide to shut down the pass.

Can't wait to upload the pics. Some Spooner got into it with a bunch of Mizzou fans and got hauled away by the police.

This place is a nuthouse.

70:30 Spooners. the Tiger faithful are LOUD!

We are grossly outnumbered here at the dome. I'm puttint it at 85 to 15 percent.

What a crowd here at the Alamo Dome. Mizzou has a huge showing. As I type this, I'm tailgating with my cousins and a bunch of other Texas fans here to root against OU. Think KU-Mizzou. There is big hostility toward the Spooners here in Texas.

This has had a big game atmosphere all day. The River Walk is packed with tens of thousands of fans split pretty evenly.

I head into the Dome in about an hour...

I spent the evening last night on the infamous Riverwalk. It was easily 10:1 Spooners. Riverwalk itself is like a mini Venice minus the cool, interesting, historical and beautiful parts. However, it's what Laclede's Landing always aspired to be.

I kept myself amused by randomly yelling out BOOMER followed by people yelling SOONER followed by a confused look by them.