What a tedious week of discussion this has been

Brandon Spikes sitting out the second half of the Vandy game is the right call for a lot of reasons, although it would have been a better choice if it had been announced that way from the start. Spikes has been bothered by a groin issue anyway, so what would the point have been of putting him out there in the second half of a game UF should be controlling? Vanderbilt is going to start a redshirt freshman at left tackle due to an injury, the first time Ryan Seymour will have started in his career. His thoughts on the matchup...

"Dunlap and Cunningham are big guys like me. They're not going to be the fastest guys I've seen all year. "

I thought you had to be smart to go to Vanderbilt, but apparently they make exceptions for athletes.

People who complain there are too many bowl games make no sense to me. If you don't want to buy tickets or watch them, no one's going to force you to. It's still a chance for the kids to play one more game and go have a good time somewhere new for a few days. Especially for smaller schools, a trip to something like the GMAC Bowl in Mobile can be a huge deal. MAC or C-USA schools with good records would get shoved aside in a heartbeat for .500 BCS conference teams under a new proposal from the Big 12 though. As things stand, .500 teams can already go to a bowl as long as a league tie in needs to be contractually filled. Once in a great while, like what happened to South Carolina in 2007, a team goes 6-6 and finds that its conference has more eligible bowl teams than bowl slots assigned to their league. As a .500 team SC couldn't get a bowl bid over any available teams with a winning record, and there were enough of them to fill all the open slots. If this rule was in effect, could the Gamecocks have gotten a spot in the International Bowl over Ball State that year? Of course, had the school pledged to buy tickets in big enough numbers. Would their players have appreciated the experience as much or deserved it more than Ball State? Not a chance. This Big 12 proposal is a terrible idea.

It amazes me sometimes just how spoiled fans have gotten across the country. It honestly seems no one can deal with the idea that someone has to lose games, and occasionally it'll be the team they root for. This column from a North Carolina paper notes that Jim Grobe may look to leave Wake Forest because the fans there don't feel his program is living up to their expectations. They just lost to Miami by a point. Think about that - WAKE FREAKING FOREST fans think it's unacceptable to lose to MIAMI. Grobe has been to bowls the last three years, including taking Wake Forest to the Orange Bowl as ACC Champs. The last coach with a career record over .500 at the school left in 1950 - Grobe could lose every game next year and still finish at .500. He's a terrific football coach and has been loyal to Wake Forest despite having plenty of chances to leave. God only knows who the idiots complaining about Grobe think wants to be the coach at the school with the smallest enrollment of any BCS team. I hope Grobe leaves - they deserve what they'll get if he does. Maybe they could get Al Groh back.

The "ooh, it's Michael Jordan's son!" factor better be off the chart when it comes to UCF basketball attendance this season. That's because Marcus Jordan wearing Air Jordans in the Knights first exhibition game just cost the school its deal with Adidas. That's roughly three million dollars gone, as well as the free apparel, shoes and equipment for every UCF athletic program through 2015. Since they don't seem to move much merchandise, I have no idea why Adidas thought UCF was worth a deal like that. Unless MJ pulls some strings no one else is going to feel they are, especially in this economy. UCF coaches wanted to keep their promise to Marcus Jordan, but that shouldn't have come at this high a cost.