The Wiz of Odds

Runner-up for Best Band Performance of Year

OK, nothing can top Hawaii's marching band forming a stick figure of a football player who marches and kicks a football, but the performance by the Notre Dame marching band at Yankee Stadium during last month's game between the Fighting Irish and Army is worthy of a post.

Academics Standing in Way of Playoff? Baloney!

Why no playoff in big-time college football? Talk to college presidents or chancellors — the people who have the ultimate say in the matter — and they'll tell you that a playoff would conflict with the academics of student-athletes.

If you believe that, I have land to sell you with a choice view of Chernobyl.

As Brent Schrotenboer of the San Diego Union-Tribune writes, many of the bowl games already cut deep into the academic calendar.

Twelve of the 14 teams playing in bowl games before Christmas had some kind of scheduling overlap with final exams and practices. Navy, which plays in Thursday's Poinsettia Bowl, had players practicing at 5:45 a.m. this week because final exams started at 7:55 a.m.

Brigham Young and Fresno State, which play Saturday in bowl games, had final exams Monday-Thursday of this week.

Bowl Championship Series title game participants Auburn and Oregon will have started their second semesters when they tee it up Jan. 10. Duck players will have missed a week of classes when the game starts.

Is Mike Leach About to Be Named Coach at Maryland?

He's rested, relaxed and ready to go. Mike Leach could be the next coach at Maryland.

Terrapin athletic director Kevin Anderson is expected to announce early next week the fate of Ralph Friedgen and reports indicate that the school is leaning toward buying out the last year of the coach's contract.

The move to possibly jettison Friedgen started a day after Maryland lost coach-in-waiting James Franklin to Vanderbilt. Anderson told reporters that Maryland did not make a counteroffer in an attempt to keep Franklin, who was named coach in waiting in February 2009 by former athletic director Debbie Yow. Yow is now athletic director at North Carolina State.

Even though Friedgen guided the Terrapins to an 8-4 record and was named Atlantic Coast Conference coach of the year, the team has had trouble selling tickets. Maryland fell $500,000 short of season ticket sales projections in each of the past two seasons and has been unable to sell all the suites at remodeled Tyser Tower, part of Byrd Stadium. That is a source of irritation to Anderson, who told the Baltimore Sun in October that leasing the suites needed to be a top priority.

That brings us to Leach, whose unconventional approach would likely reignite the Terrapin fan base.

Best Band Formation of the Year

Hawaii's marching band forms a stick figure of a football player who marches down the field and kicks a football. Not sure what game this is from but it's very cool.

Reporters Notebooks

Paul Zeise, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Pittsburgh has hired Michael Haywood of Miami (Ohio) as its coach. Haywood, 46, led the RedHawks to a 9-4 record this season. He will start his duties immediately and not coach Miami in the GMAC Bowl.

Joe Muench, El Paso Times: Ticket sales aren't going well for the New Mexico Bowl. As of Tuesday, only 9,740 tickets had been sold for Saturday's matchup between Brigham Young and Texas El Paso.

Darren Rovel, CNBC: The virtual yellow line that signifies where a first down is could be coming to a stadium near you. An inventor is trying to market a laser that can be attached to first-down markers and be seen by players and spectators.

Darren Everson, Wall Street Journal: Over the past 10 years, 41 teams have been double-digit underdogs in bowl games. The underdogs have a 26-14-1 record against the spread, including 12 who won outright.

Chris Dufresne, Los Angeles Times: Your bowl games preview, from BBVA to BCS.

Tom Hoffarth, Farther Off the Wall: Bowl naming rights. Either the giants of the Forbes 500 weren't bold enough to spend a little walking-around money and slap their logo on the midfield stripe, or this is an ingenious way for major corporate America to protest the whole postseason charade.

The Big Lead: The five most disappointing teams of 2010.

The Official Who-to-Blame List

Chances are nothing controversial will happen this postseason, but in case something does, Jon Solomon of the Birmingham News has a breakdown of the officiating crews for the 35 games.

The six Bowl Championship Series conferences rotate who works the title game, and a crew from the Big Ten will officiate the Oregon-Auburn game on Jan. 10 in Glendale, Ariz.

Working a bowl game is an honor for officials, who are graded throughout the season. The conferences then send their best to the bowls.

Officials are prohibited from working games involving teams from their conference and names of the officials are not released in advance.

Thanks to Image of Sport.