Baseball losses the 'Big Mo' in October

One week into autumn, we're about to turn the page on September, and yet the "Fall Classic" isn't even close to getting underway.

Major League Baseball, unlike its football counterpart, is a marathon not a sprint. But that marathon is finishing well past the point where anyone can remember summer. People aren't tuning in, and aren't getting excited about the pennant races.

SI.com's Tom Verducci wrote at the beginning of the month "for the second straight September, baseball offers the resistance of a lack of pennant races and national narratives." Verducci thinks there are too few teams competing for a just couple playoff spots come September. Why his fix is interesting, adding a second wild card entrant, there's a problem with his premise.

Baseball is taking too long to play its season.

Yes, most of the pennant races get wrapped up in mid-September (or earlier). But when some of the most meaningful games are being played this weekend, most people will be tuned into a slate of giant college football games (Stanford-Oregon, Alabama-Florida, Texas-Oklahoma those are off the top of my head).

The final weekend of baseball in October isn't buzz worthy enough in to keep sports fans collective conscious off pigskin. But if the League Championship Series' were wrapping up or the World Series starting, that would be another story.

August is prime real estate for baseball's pennant races and they need to capitalize on it. Cutting games, say eight, and playing double-headers could achieve this without taking much away from the rest of the season.

A finale coming in the second week of September means baseball could hold more interest and momentum as they play on the field for title, and compete on the screens for fans.

The ALL-American conference

The days of small college athletic conferences seem numbered. The Pac-10 is becoming 12, the Big Ten (which actually has 11 schools) is expanding.

In the age of conference cannibalism the mid-majors should position themselves for survival, and join forces.

Conference USA is vulnerable. It's already been raided once by the Big East. If the major conferences try for mega-expansion, C-USA looks ripe for the picking again.

Out west, the Western Athletic Conference is a dead conference walking. On the verge of a coup, adding BYU in non-football sports, the Mountain West stole Nevada and Fresno State leaving it for dead.

This week the WAC membership committee will hear from the first of several schools looking to move up from I-AA to I-A. That's one option to survive.

Instead of trying to nurture new I-AA schools the WAC should set sail and push full throttle the radical idea of creating a true ALL-American conference, with teams from the Carolina coast to Hawaii and everywhere in between.

An 18-team mid-major conference would be a power player in the college landscape, able to leverage big TV deals and possibly able to negotiate a seat at the BCS table.

Here's how the true C-USA could work. There would be two separate 9-team divisions, basically a split down the Mississippi River.

The "Pacific Division" would include the Texas schools west: Hawaii, San Jose State, Idaho, Utah State, New Mexico State, UTEP, SMU, Rice, Houston.

The "Atlantic Division" would be every school to the east: Tulsa, Louisiana Tech, Tulane, So. Miss, UAB, Memphis, Marshall, East Carolina, UCF.

Do the math and the farthest schools would have to travel out west is probably Houston to Honolulu. In the east, it's Tulsa to Greenville, NC. That true east-west split will help cut down travel costs, something that hurt the first mega-conference, the 16-team WAC.

Each division crowns its own champion through playing eight other schools. Then the only cross-over between east and west would be for the championship game, which could rotate between favorite bowl locations including Hawaii and Orlando.

That intra-division play, would set up a dynamic title game. Much like the rumors swirling now about C-USA and the Mountain West setting up a championship showdown, the true C-USA would pit two of the best mid-majors against each other on that final weekend.

That meaningful championship would give the schools one last shot to impress voters, which matters.

College football is all about big money and the BCS. And a true USA conference would not only survive but could thrive in today's game.

Parity reigns supreme on college gridiron

Watch the scores rotate on the bottom of our TV screen this college football season, and they will raise some eyebrows.

There's a growing list of BCS schools falling victim to lowly I-AA (or FCS) squads. In just two weeks, six I-AA teams have defeated their higher division opponents, none more shocking than James Madison's 21-16 upset over then No. 13 Virgina Tech at Lane Stadium.

Others are the Ole Miss Rebels home loss to Jacksonville State 49-48 in double overtime, North Dakota State upset at Kansas 6-3, South Dakota trouncing Minnesota 41-38, Gardner-Webb knocking off Akron 38-37 in overtime and Liberty defeating Ball State 27-23. That doesn't including some close calls experienced by Washington State, Purdue and Temple, all who eeked out W's.

Add it up, and after a handful of schools like Alabama's, Oklahoma's and Ohio State's, it's a muddled middle of parity where any school can win on a given Saturday.

And the great equalizer in the college game is television.

Just look at the number of games carried by ESPN on a weekly basis, it's in the dozens, not to mention other cable and network outlets. Prep stars realize if they want to play and move onto the NFL, it can be anywhere, because you'll get five or six games on TV minimum. That phenomenon is starting show in the NFL.

Look back at last NFL Draft results. Sure there were plenty of players from the blue blood schools drafted, especially in the first 10 picks. But two players were taken in the first round from Idaho WAC schools, multiple late-round picks came from I-AA schools like James Madison and a few picks were made from the D-II ranks like Hillsdale and Indiana (Pa.).

After his team's upset, James Madison coach Mickey Matthews said "the dirty little secret is the top six to eight teams at our level (I-AA) can play with anyone." I'm not so sure that's a secret anymore.

With sports, it's still crazy

Admiral Ackbar is back!

Unfortunately, it's not because he's going to be named the official mascot at the University of Mississippi. Lucasfilm killed that idea, disallowing the famed Star Wars General's likeness to be seen on a college football sideline near you.

However, ESPN generally knows a good story when they see one and is telling the Ackbar story in commercial form. What's not to love really?

The Ole Miss mascot search continues, and they will probably settle for mascot likeness such as a bulldog, or tiger, or bear, oh my!

Anyway, here's the extended version of ESPN's Ole Miss/ Ackbar commercial (the shorter version first aired during the Boise State-Virginia Tech game):