Jan. 29, 2007

By Brian Jones

Special to CSTV.com

	BRIAN JONES Brian Jones is a football analyst for CSTV and CSTV.com. E-mail here!

        ---   Column Archive   --- 1/17: Good Call For Some 1/8: Prognosticating Failure 1/8: LSU's Defense The Real MVP 1/3: Oklahoma Flat Out Whipped 12/18: Postseason Pontification, Edition '08 12/5: Final Thoughts - I Think - On 2007 11/28: What A Hoot 11/20: Love And Hate 11/13: Jayhawks Are For Real 11/05: Heisman Hosses 10/29: Corn-shucked 10/15: Nation Who Loves To Hate 10/9: No Love In The Heartland 10/1: Lessons For Professors 9/24: Say What? 9/3: NCAA Alphabet Soup 9/1: Questions On Defense Bit Wolverines 7/24: SEC Breakdown 7/16: Pac-10 Breakdown 7/10: Big East Breakdown 7/03: ACC Breakdown 6/25: 'Big 11' Breakdown 6/19: Big 12 Breakdown 5/14: Who's That 4/30: BJ's All Hi-Def Defense 4/27: `Twas the Night Before The Draft 4/23: Picture Perfect 4/6: Coach Robinson, We'll Miss You 4/3: BJ's 32 3/19: The Deserving Hall of Famers 3/5: Dreaming of December Delirium 2/26: Spring Cleaning 2/19: Gay or Straight, It Shouldn't Matter 2/13: Steroids Were Once Part of The Game 2/7: A Walk Down Recruiting Memory Lane 2/5: Longing For The Day When Race Doesn't Matter 1/29: Old Ways Need to Change 1/22: Change For the Better 1/15: No Problem With Ginn, Peterson Going 12/18: Postseason Pontification 12/12: Season Superlatives 12/4: Handicapping the Heisman Race 11/27: Rutgers Better Lookout For Stewing WVU 11/20: Got To Like Booty And USC 11/13: It's All About The D For Michigan 11/6: Knights Will Be Hard-Pressed to Stop Cards 10/31: Win in Cards For Louisville

1. There are only seven minority head coaches in the Bowl Subdivision - five percent of the coaches in the country - and I think that is ridiculous. I don't think anything is going to change until we have a colorblind society or we get more black athletic directors and presidents. When we get more people of color in those decision making positions then you'll see the numbers go up because people are going to hire people who look like them.

People are going to hire who they're familiar with, who they're comfortable with. That's not only the case in college football, but in the pros and in business. That's why there's such a wide disparity. They can't say there aren't plenty of qualified coaches out there because there are. They always keep changing the benchmarks. They say there are no black offensive coordinators or defensive coordinators; that was the excuse in yeas past. What's the excuse now? There shouldn't be any.

Until you have people not seeing color anymore, until you get some minority candidates in those decision-making positions, we're going to have the same problems. You see that in the NFL and everyone points to Matt Millen with the Detroit Lions and the hiring of Steve Mariucci when he didn't bring in a black coach in for what would have been a token interview.

But the "Rooney Rule" that mandates NFL teams to interview a minority candidate has helped diversify the pros. Maybe the NCAA should try a similar rule and tweak it a little bit. The big question is whether a candidate can get a legitimate interview.

It'd be great if they could legislate the hirings, but then you'd be forcing people to marry people they don't want to marry. To have more minority candidates be part of the process, I think is going to outweigh the chances of not having legitimate interviews. 

2. Games were on average about 15 minutes shorter than 2005, with fewer plays and fewer points scored, and, looking back, I had no problem with last year's rule changes affecting the clock.

Everybody was complaining about it all year long, but I was thinking, "You're crazy." You're not guaranteed a certain number of plays, even under the old clock rules. You need to go out and play, and if you play good defense, you'll get the ball back and if you play good offense, you keep the ball. That's the way I look at it.  

Texas Tech's Mike Leach was out front talking about that. He was one of the coaches most staunchly opposed to the rule. Everyone was saying it limited the number of opportunities. That's bull. You make your opportunities. You have to stop people to make opportunities.

If they tweak anything with the rule, it should be on kickoffs. They should change it back to where the clock starts on kickoffs when the ball is received, not when it's kicked. But I don't have a big problem with the rule, not even after Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema's episode against Penn State where he purposely had his guys offside on the kickoff so the clock would run out. I think that was smart. That was using the rules to your advantage.

I think you could see them change some of these rules. The first year is always going to be hard to adjust to anything that's new. I can understand the first year being difficult, but I think this year and next year people will finally get used to it. When the ball changes possession you need to run out there and get moving.

I'll tell you what they need to do if they want to shorten the game: shorten halftime. Halftime takes forever in the college game. Especially in the bowl games. It's too long.

3. My pick for the best senior available in the draft is Louisville's Amobi Okoye.  

He's smart as hell. He graduated in three years and is only 19 years old. He has more upside potential than anyone. He's a defensive end, which is a premium position, has a good motor and is smart as a whip. Scouts have to be licking their chops thinking about getting that guy.

The cat's grown up real fast. He'll get beefed up to NFL standards and his age just means he is just going to play a long, long time. I don't worry about age.