FanHouse Notre Dame

So this is how it's going to be for Charlie Weis from now on. Urban Meyer here, Urban Meyer there. The dark cloud that is Meyer has been hovering over Weis since he first started failing as Notre Dame's coach. Now, with Weis on his last chance, Meyer keeps looming even more than ever as a reminder.

Steve Spurrier was probably just trying to do his usual, sticking him thumb in someone's eye, in this case his former employer. Meyer has taken over his spot not only as Florida's coach, but also as the nation's top name. So Spurrier, now the South Carolina coach, was on the radio the other day, when he just so happened to bring up Florida and Meyer.

Nothing like having two defensively challenged teams facing each other to provide entertaining -- if one-dimensional -- basketball. Notre Dame and Providence offered just that as the Fighting Irish got only their second Big East road win, 103-84.

Both teams were looking for a big win to get them into the bubble argument. Providence may be over .500 in the Big East, but they have just three wins against teams in the top half of the conference. Notre Dame lost a lot in a brutal Big East stretch. They especially show incompetence on the road, so they need anything away from South Bend to help their case.

For the better part of three seasons, Notre Dame's ability to handle business at home was less a statistical trend and more a law of physics.

The Irish would rack up a score higher than a Saturday golfer at Augusta, mix in a pinch of defense and march on to the next game.

Expecting otherwise would be like biting into a popsicle only to scald your tongue. It simply didn't make sense. Forty-five times in a row it worked to perfection.

Every Thursday, Pickin' on the Big Ten breaks down action across the conference.

ABOVE: The average college football fan's perception of Ohio State's reputation after last Saturday's USC game.

College football needs better villains.

In the wake of Ohio State's soul-shredding loss to Southern Cal last Saturday, the Grave Dancers' Union has been establishing new locals in 49 of the 50 states. It was a terrible performance by a team that was supposed to be better than they've looked so far, but why all the glee? Because the Buckeyes got humbled? I'd say the last two title games were humbling enough. Because the Big Ten got drug down? Here's a message for you, SEC Fan: We get it. We got it two years ago.

Right now hating on the Buckeyes is as useless and wasteful as hating the Buffalo Bills for losing four straight Super Bowls. It might ultimately prove as pointless as hating the New York Yankees has been for the past few seasons. The Yankees really aren't good enough to hate any more, and the Buckeyes might not be the best team in the Big Ten.

So there's no reason to act like Clubber Lang just got knocked out by Rocky Balboa. If OSU was your idea of a college football villain, what are you going to do when a real villain (think Erickson's Hurricanes, Spurrier's Gators, Switzer's Sooners) shows up?

End of rant. On to the games!

Around this time of year two summers ago, the Tampa Bay Lightning were boasting about their commitment to sponsor a brand spankin' new annual four-team college hockey tournament:

"As we prepare to host the NCAA Frozen Four in 2012, we look forward to establishing a regular college hockey presence in Tampa Bay," said Ron Campbell, president of the Tampa Bay Lightning and the St. Pete Times Forum.

That was then, and this (via INCH) is now:

The Tampa Bay Lightning has zapped the Lightning College Hockey Classic.

Two and out... classic indeed (for the record, Notre Dame, which has co-hosted the event since its inception, and UMass will go down in history as the only two teams to ever win the event).

The NHL's current Collective Bargaining Agreement created incentive for U.S. college players drafted by professional franchises to join their development systems as soon as possible. The general salary cap immediately emphasized younger and cheaper over old and bloated, causing affiliates in minor leagues like the AHL to reach out to a slew of prospects whose roster spots may have previously gone to journeymen. As College Hockey News pointed out, a reduced rookie salary maximum actually encouraged teams to aggressively court college players without as much financial risk as in the past.

For college players, that financial incentive has caused waves of prospects to leave school early; as a result, some of the most storied programs in collegiate hockey have taken a hit as star underclassmen bolt for the minor leagues. It's all part of a time-honored hockey life-cycle: "The NHL robs from the college and the college robs from the juniors and the juniors robs from the high school," Minnesota coach Don Lucia told the Wisconsin State Journal.

It's one thing to say that the NHL has made it sexier for blue-chip draftees to bolt college for the tough road from bush league hockey to the big show. It's another to say that the CBA actually "discourages graduation," which is what South Bend Tribune writer Steve Wozniak spells out in an article this week about University of Notre Dame ice hockey:

With top ten teams falling like the stock prices of subprime mortgage companies this season, the college football world has come to learn the word "schadenfreude"--a German expression for taking pleasure in the pain of others that is compounded for the nation when those others happen to be Notre Dame.

Want to know how far the Irish have fallen during their 1-6 season? While their seamstresses are pulling out the 1977 green jerseys for this weekend's match against Southern California, hopeful Irish are hoping to stir the echoes of of 1963, when the Irish's two wins were at UCLA and against USC at home en route to a 2-7 finish.

Hat tip: TrojanWire

The Arizona State Sun Devils are not--repeat ARE NOT--talking to anyone wearing green these days.

ASU denies reports by Hawaii's athletic director that it had offered the Sun Devils to test out the new Dennis Erickson regime in an October 20th matchup in Honolulu. When Michigan State opted out of its game against Hawaii-paying the Rainbow Warriors a quarter-million dollar cancellation fee, Hawaii went looking for an opponent that Heisman Candidate Colt Brennan show off against. Hawaii had reportedly offered seven-figures to entice the Sun Devils but to no avail. I think this may be the first time anyone has turned down a million-dollar payday to make a trip to the Islands.

What's more, Arizona State was not made an offer by Notre Dame to be part of its "America is Our Home Stadium" series for 2017. The Irish have been adding "home games" all across the country at neutral sites. That game will be played in South Bend, home of the actual University of Notre Dame.

With all these non-denial denials, I wonder...am I the only one who thinks that Baghdad Bob has become athletic director in Tempe?

Really, I am sick of the whole "gotcha" game of secondary recruiting violations. The NCAA has so many different, niggling little rules that coaches trip over all the time. From not mentioning recruits by name, until they sign to contact hours, to phone call limits. None of them are really a big deal unless they reach epic proportion and pattern. Every fan of another team is looking to show that someone else is cheating.

Sometimes it can be amusing, but more often, it just becomes a waste of time. Joe McKnight at USC seems like a waste of time. So was the Joe Paterno-Penn State thing.

Larry Brown tipped me to the the latest non-controversy involving Notre Dame and Charlie Weis. It seems Mike Golic, Jr. in a warm, private moment with his dad talked about his commitment to ND on the Mike and Mike Radio Show.

The younger Golic said on radio (paraphrasing here) that he received a phone call from Charlie Weis inviting him to become the first player to commit to Notre Dame for the '08 season.

Mike Sr. quickly corrected his son, saying that Mike Jr. was the one who called Charlie Weis.

When I heard this, I immediately thought that Mike Sr. realized his son screwed up by saying something that could get the program in trouble (here are the NCAA rules for phone calls), and that he was trying to cover things up. The situation reminded me of the alleged illegal phone call received by Joe McKnight from Pete Carroll and Reggie Bush.

I called another friend who was listening to the show - and he too confirmed that Mike Jr. indeed said he received a phone call from Weis. However, my friend thought it was more of a young kid trying to sound cool telling a story like, "Yeah, I was hanging out at the Leaning Tower of Pisa and got a call from Charlie Weis," it was pretty cool.

Larry noted that in a news story about the verbal, it was Golic, Jr. who did call Weis. Essentially making it a non-story, but none of that matters. You know that plenty of people will pile on about how ND cheats. It just goes on and on.

Someone alert Les Miles so he can drop an f-bomb: LSU recruit Terrance Toliver, a Texan who is one of the top wide receivers in the country, was apparently the subject of frequent negative recruiting from the Florida Gators:

"Every time (Florida recruiters) came, they just said LSU doesn't qualify their players," Toliver told FOX 26's Mark Berman Wednesday. "About (how) their academics are not all that. It kind of had me confused."

Eventually a bewildered Toliver asked his football coach Rick Sargent and Hempstead instructional coordinator Tina Johnson to go to Baton Rouge to find out the truth about LSU. The two went last weekend. "They went and checked (LSU'S) academics out and their facilities," Toliver said. "They just came back and told me whatever Florida was saying about the academics wasn't true."

I'm shocked, shocked that there's negative recruiting going on in the SEC, but what is interesting is that recruits are becoming more open about it. The Toliver accusations were preceded by a Washington Post article on Illinois recruit Arrelious Benn, who received a series of insulting text messages from then Notre Dame QB coach Peter Vaas:

"FYI, ILL is telling Robert Hughes that they will build their offense around him? Didn't they tell you that? Coach Vaas," Vaas wrote Benn on Dec. 17.

Earlier that month, Vaas left this voice message on Benn's phone: "You don't want to do anything except bury your head in the sand. . . . I guess you're not tough enough to compete at the big level."

...against all the service academies instead of, you know, Michigan and Ohio State.

Moral of the story: be prepared to have kids rat you out if you're a poopyhead.