The Kevin Bacon BCS

Michigan's loss to Appalachian State, followed by Appy State's loss to Wofford this week, has no fewer than two College Football News writers musing sarcastic on the chain of logic implications of evaluating teams based on who beat whom. Matt Zemek uses this to show Wofford beating Penn State, and Pete Fiu prognosticates that Central Florida, NC State, Wofford and Appy State should all now be ranked in polls ahead of Penn State and Michigan.

Clever.

But I found the Mother or All Kevin Bacon Seperations from last season. A few more steps than seven, but considerably more ambitious...

1. Grand Valley State won the 2006 Division 2 National Championship, norrowly beating NW Missouri State in the national championship game.

2. NW Missouri State narrowly beat D-2's Chadron State College in the D-2 playoffs on the way to the title game. This was Chadron's only loss of the year.

3. Among Chadron's 12 wins was on the road in the regular season over Division 1-AA Montana State.

4. Montana State was no pushover. They went two rounds into the 1-AA playoffs, getting knocked out by the eventual national champs, Appy State. But weirdly enough, they started the season by going on the road to Boulder and somewhat famously upsetting Colorado... the 1-A team that plays in the Big 12.

5. Colorado won only two games all season. One of them was over Iowa State.

6. Iowa State had only four wins. One of those was against Missouri.

7. Missouri crushed Mississippi (see where this is going?).

8. Mississippi beat Vandy.

9. Vanderbilt beat Georgia (and I should add that Colorado nearly beat Georgia as well, which would have truncated this chain by whacking out stages 6-9).

10. Georgia went on the road and destroyed Auburn.

11. And, of course, Auburn was famously the only loss suffered by Florida.

So there you have it. Eleven degrees of seperation -- a direct line of victories putting undefeated 2006 D-2 champs Grand Valley State (and NW Missouri State, the runner up) on top of the 2006 BCS champs.

Who needs 1-A playoffs? Just send Florida's crystal trophy to Grand Rapids.

Urban Meyer is a caring, compassionate man

The question of an early signing period was discussed today at the SEC coaches' meeting. The recruiting year typically ends in early February.

Leading the charge against an early signing period was Urban Meyer, who made out like a bandit during the end of the 2006-7 recruiting year by poaching a number of other teams verbal commitments. Meyer stated that "I think we should know their families. I think they should meet my family. That's when you usually get a good deal going. If you have an early signing period, that's not going to happen."

Color me skeptical. Meyer coaches Florida. Florida, unlike places such as East Lansing, Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and South Bend, Indiana, happens to be warm in January and February when many highly rated football prospects are making their decisions. An early signing period would negatively impact this current advantage. (I haven't really thought about whether such a period makes sense otherwise).

So maybe, just maybe, getting Shelley's input isn't really the foremost of Urban's concerns.