IU and UVa agree to home-and-home.

A few weeks ago, South Florida opted out of its scheduled 2009 trip to Bloomington, and now Virginia has become the final piece of the football scheduling puzzle. IU heads to Charlottesville this season, and the Cavaliers come to Bloomington in 2010. No date was announced, and UVa's ACC games all are listed with dates to be determined, but the best guess seems to be that the game will be on October 10.

IU's schedule will be a bit tougher this season. IU still plays Division I-AA Eastern Kentucky, Akron (it's not clear if this game will be at home or on the road), and Western Michigan, but the addition of a BCS conference road game at least will keep us off the "worst schedule" lists. Also, IU drops Michigan State and Minnesota in favor of Michigan and Ohio State.

As for Virginia, former Jets coach Al Groh now is entering his ninth season in Charlottesville. Groh has won 56 percent of his games there, although he hasn't been quite as successful as his predecessor, the underrated George Welsh. Groh has led the Cavaliers to five minor bowl bids in his eight season there. After a Gator Bowl bid in 2007-08, UVa fell back to 5-7 last season. Groh is 2-2 against Big Ten schools, with a bowl win over Minnesota, a home win against Penn State, and road losses to Penn State and Wisconsin.

I have mixed feelings about this game. If IU, at this stage in the program's development, really wanted to play a BCS conference school, I would prefer a team in the Washington State or Iowa State mold. Still, if IU is a legitimate bowl contender, this is a winnable game. If it's not a winnable game, then IU probably isn't going anywhere anyway. Still, if IU is sitting a 5-7 with a 3 point loss at Charlottesville, there may be some second-guessing.

Signing day link.

IU is updating the official site as letters come in. So far, as of 9:38, IU has received 14 of its 18 expected letters of intent. No surprises either way so far.

UPDATE: As the link now reflects, this was an uneventful signing day by modern standards. All eighteen commits signed: no additions, no subtractions.

Signing day eve.

Those who have read this blog for a while know that I'm not much of a recruiting follower. For basketball, I can keep track to some degree, but for football, the sheer number of players recruited as well as the greater difficulty in evaluating football players makes it a mind-numbing exercise for me. That said, Wednesday's signing day looks to be IU's best in years. I've been quite critical of Bill Lynch and the performance of the 2008 Hoosiers, so it's only fair to note that despite the on-field downturn, Lynch managed to hold together a solid recruiting class. While IU did not land any of the highly coveted four star or five star recruits, 15 of IU's 18 recruits are three star recruits, according to Rivals.com. This doesn't put IU in the upper echelon (IU's class currently ranks #58 nationally and ninth in the big Ten, ahead of Iowa and Purdue), but is a dramatic improvement over IU's recent classes. Since 2002 (as far back as the Rivals ratings go,) IU's best haul previously was 7 three star recruits in 2003. In every other season, the number has been between three and five. IU fans often joke that the best way for a three star recruit to turn into a two star is to commit to Indiana, so it is to this staff's credit that this class looks so good on paper.

Also, there is no doubt that IU is employing a close to home philosophy. Of IU's 18 commits, 17 are from Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, or Michigan. The 18th is from Pennsylvania, within the Big Ten footprint. It will be interesting to see how IU under Lynch and Purdue, under new coach Danny Hope, compete both on the field and on the recruiting trail. From the looks of Purdue's class, they may not be moving in the same circles. Of Purdue's recruits, 13 are from Florida, none from Indiana, and a single recruit from Kentucky is the only Boiler commit who is from a state that is even contiguous to Indiana.

I don't mean to take this post in a "whose class is better" direction. IU's class is better in terms of star rankings, but there is such a glut of talent in places like Florida, Georgia, and Texas that many talented players are under the radar, and obviously Hope hopes that he has found those types of players. Still, I think Purdue's philosophy is good for IU. One of IU's great disadvantages has been being the #3 football school in a relatively small state. If Purdue simply declines to compete for Indiana kids, leaving IU as the first caller for good players who aren't quite good enough to get offers from Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State, etc., that's good. Again, that's not to say that one philosophy or the other is better. But it's long been conventional wisdom that it's tough for IU and Purdue to be good at the same time. In the last 25 years, Purdue was mostly horrible during the Mallory era, and IU was mostly horrible during the Tiller era. If Purdue is going to focus so heavily on outside recruits, that makes it more likely in my mind that both teams could be good at the same time.

Final Blogpoll ballot.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Florida	1
2	Texas	1
3	Southern Cal	3
4	Utah	4
5	Oklahoma	2
6	Alabama	2
7	Penn State	--
8	TCU	8
9	Ohio State	--
10	Oregon	4
11	Texas Tech	6
12	Boise State	2
13	Georgia	2
14	Mississippi	8
15	Virginia Tech	10
16	Oklahoma State	5
17	Oregon State	9
18	Iowa	8
19	Missouri	1
20	Florida State	4
21	Cincinnati	8
22	West Virginia	4
23	Michigan State	6
24	Georgia Tech	12
25	LSU	1

Dropped Out: Boston College (#19), Pittsburgh (#20), Northwestern (#21), Brigham Young (#23).

I'm all over the map on the lower end of the poll, which means I'm probably overvaluing bowl games. Oh well, does anyone care about anything but the top five at this point? If Oklahoma had won last night, I probably would have ranked Texas #1. As it stands, Florida's SEC championship game win over Alabama and last night's win, comparable to Texas's best win, gives the Gators the best resume.

I respect what Utah did, and if they had scheduled (and beat) the Michigan program they thought they were scheduling, I might have given them a look. But they played only three teams from the Sagarin top 30, and two of those were non-BCS conference programs. I have a hard time imagining that Utah could have navigated the gauntlet Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Missouri, and Texas Tech with the 3-1 record that Texas managed, let alone 4-0. Ditto the SEC schedule of Florida. Every team ranked ahead of Utah has a top 16 schedule per Sagarin. Utah is #56. Sorry, guys. Maybe you and BYU can talk the Pac-10 into becoming the Pac-12. Until then, it will take a special confluence of circumstances for a non-BCS program to become a national champion (of course, I'm so averse to the idea of a 2-loss champion that I probably would have voted Utah over LSU last year, assuming the Utes wouldn't have played in the championship game under that scenario).

Bad Boys.

I haven't done as much as I had hoped with this off week for the basketball team, although the Indianapolis Star managed to fill the void with its interview of Eric Gordon, who confirmed long-circulating rumors about drug use on last year's team. I gave an interview on this matter to Chadd Scott of Bustersports.com last night, and hopefully between all the throat-clearing and baby crying you will hear something coherent.

Of course, neither Gordon, nor Adam Ahlfeld, nor Jeff Rabjohns provided a ton of detail. I would be curious to know whether the problems related only to marijuana or whether they included hard stuff. Either way, if it was rampant enough to cause divisions between teammates, it was far too much, and yet another item is added to the bill of particulars against Kelvin Sampson. There is no college campus, and probably no basketball program, that is free of marijuana use (and that includes Knight's IU program), but again, there seems to have been a lack of focus by Sampson on anything outside of basketball. One of thing that I found refreshing about Sampson was that he wasn't a pretentious pseudo-renaissance man. For instance, Sampson would never appear in a credit coach claiming to be "a leader who happens to coach basketball." He was a pure gym rat who saw no dishonor in the title of basketball coach. But there is a flip side. This drug issue, and the phone calls, and the academic implosion of the program all show that he was doing a disservice to his players. Sampson was screwed as soon as the news broke in October 2007. But wouldn't Jamarcus Ellis, Deandre Thomas, Armon Bassett, etc. be better off if Sampson had cared a bit more about the other stuff?

Now, as if the football team was embarrassing enough on the field, redshirt freshman defensive back Cortez Smith was arrested for robbery. Unless this is a case of mistaken identity, it's safe to say that Smith's brief stay in Bloomington is over.

It would be nice to have something good to say about IU sports. I don't give much coverage to the women's basketball team, but they did recently finish the non-conference 7-2 and are ranked #23 in the RPI and #35 in the Sagarin. The women's team hasn't been to the NCAA Tournament since its surprising Big Ten Tournament championship in 2002 (still the only such championship by any IU team) and hasn't received an at-large bid since 1995. Given the lack of suspense regarding the men's postseason prospects, this is worth watching.

Blogpoll draft ballot, final regular season.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Texas	1
2	Florida	2
3	Oklahoma	--
4	Alabama	3
5	Texas Tech	1
6	Southern Cal	1
7	Penn State	--
8	Utah	3
9	Ohio State	1
10	Boise State	2
11	Oklahoma State	2
12	Georgia Tech	11
13	Cincinnati	5
14	Oregon	5
15	Georgia	2
16	TCU	2
17	Michigan State	3
18	Missouri	10
19	Boston College	2
20	Pittsburgh	4
21	Northwestern	1
22	Mississippi	3
23	Brigham Young	3
24	Florida State	3
25	Virginia Tech	1

Dropped Out: Ball State (#15), Oregon State (#16).

Here it is. I don't think the software is right. None of the up and down numbers make sense, as you will note if you scroll down and review last week's ballot. So, ignore the up and down numbers. As for my top four, I have Texas-Florida-Oklahoma-Alabama. My Big XII rationale is the same as last week. I don't think Oklahoma should have been in the title game over Texas, so I'm not going to give excessive credit for whipping a team that Texas whipped once and probably would have again. As I said last week, I'm a big believer in using head-to-head results among fairly comparable teams, and I'm also generally opposed to conference rematches in bowl games unless there is a really compelling reason. So, why Texas over Florida for #1? It could have gone either way. Each team's signature win was nearly identical to the other's: Texas beat OU by 10 on a neutral field, Florida beat Alabama by 11 on a neutral field. Texas Tech's loss, in the final seconds on the road against one-loss Texas Tech, was more excusable than Florida's loss at home to Ole Miss.

Blogpoll ballot, week 14.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama	--
2	Texas	--
3	Oklahoma	--
4	Florida	--
5	Texas Tech	1
6	Southern Cal	1
7	Penn State	--
8	Utah	3
9	Ohio State	1
10	Boise State	2
11	Oklahoma State	2
12	Georgia Tech	11
13	Boston College	4
14	Cincinnati	4
15	Ball State	--
16	Oregon	3
17	Georgia	4
18	TCU	4
19	Missouri	11
20	Michigan State	--
21	Pittsburgh	3
22	Northwestern	--
23	Mississippi	2
24	Brigham Young	2
25	Florida State	4

Dropped Out: Oregon State (#16).

Obviously, the key issue with this week's ballot concerns the one-loss teams, particularly Texas and Oklahoma. My placement is unchanged from last week and has as much to do with the nature of the Big XII triumvirate's losses more than anything else; in other words, I have ranked the three Big XII teams based on which is the closest to being undefeated. Texas lost at Texas Tech in the final seconds of the game; Oklahoma lost to Texas in a competitive but not down-to-the-wire game on a neutral field; Texas Tech lost badly at Oklahoma. Obviously, a review of the teams' nonconference schedule strength relegates TT a distant third among the group. Oklahoma, thanks to surprisingly good seasons by Cincinnati and TCU, had a tougher non-con than Texas, but not sufficiently tougher to override a 10 point win on a neutral field. I'm not entirely sure whether I should have TT behind Florida, but Florida's placement this week is academic: an SEC title game win over #1 Alabama would place the Gators in the top two, while a loss would take the Gators out of the top 5.

The more interesting question is what I would have done if Oklahoma had lost in Stillwater last night. Clearly, when head-to-head is taken out of the equation, I believe Texas has a resume superior to TT. Still, I'm a strong believer in the significance of head-to-head competition, sanctity of the regular season, etc., so I would have had to rank TT ahead of Texas (in that alternate universe, it would have been Alabama-TT-Texas-Florida). Texas would beat TT 7 times out of ten, but what happened happened. Of course, I may face this conundrum next week if OU edges ahead of UT in the BCS rankings and then loses to Missouri. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.