Syracuse.com provides you with all the information you need

Syracuse.com had an article about the flagging attendance at the Carrier Dome during college football season. Attendance is actually improving, but it's still towards the the low end of college football's major conference. How do I know?
Because they listed out every team, stadium, capacity and even had a little video for a few of them. It's overkill for the article, but it's actually kind of cool, if you wanted to check it out.

Katie Nolan's jump from a sinking ship

When taken in the prism of cable sports networks, Fox Sports 1 has been a success, exceeding the scope and quality of NBCSN and CBS Sports. Unfortunately, when it was founded, FS1 was viewed as a challenger to ESPN and in that regard, it has been a failure.

The biggest problem with FS1 has been a willingness to copy ESPN, and a reluctance to stick with anything innovative. In a network that attempted to develop personalities at first seemed unwilling to give those personalities the chance to truly flourish, or at least, for the American Public to get to know them.

Jay Onrait and Dan O'Toole, extremely popular in Canada were to be the centerpieces of FS1's offering. They had developed a cult following in Canada, and were building their base in the US, however the network moved away from their quirky highlight show in the most apparent change in network strategy. The change was underscored by Fox importing high priced talent from ESPN.

Skip Bayless and Colin Cowherd came to Fox to host talk shows that mirrored their offering on ESPN, and were antithetical to what Fox promised at the outset, and to what had been offered up until that point. They wanted to make sports fun again, and didn't want to populate the airwaves with haughty blowhards.

The perfect analog for the network's trajectory is found in Katie Nolan's time with the company. She is one of the very few FS1 personalities that stuck it out from the launch of the network until now. Or at least, until a few weeks ago.

While several ESPN personalities, not the least of which were Cowherd and Bayless, made the jump to Fox, the talent flow has not been a two way street. It's hard to come up with a figure more prominent than Nolan that has made the switch over to the Worldwide Leader, where she now hosts podcasts and SportsCenter on Snapchat.

Nolan popped up first on Crowd Goes Wild, one of the original shows from FS1's launch featuring, anachronistically, Regis Philbin in the hosting role. After withstanding some internet insults from ESPN's Rick Reilly, Nolan rose to Regis' defense on Crowd Goes Wild, and star was born.

After Crowd Goes Wild went belly up, she was the only talent from the show to bounce back with a different role on the network. She collected her own show, Garbage Time, which was a vehicle for Nolan to do mostly what she pleased. It captured the essence of the network, which still sought to have fun and brought a genuine sense of giddy irreverence to sports, but was still trying to figure out the best way to do that.

FS1 wasn't the ratings rocket that Fox had hoped for. Their live events did well, but the programming built around it wasn't as successful. They went out and hired Jamie Horowitz away from ESPN, and he turned the network on it's head, abandoning the sports as fun concept, and "embracing debate," the mantra that ESPN had moved to under Horowitz's direction in the 2000's. This is when Cowherd and Bayless moved over and were given shows like they'd had on ESPN.

Perhaps because of the now bloated schedule and in deference to the bloated salaries of the new additions, FS1 found it difficult to find a spot for Nolan and the whimsical Garbage Time, and she was off the air for 11 months. Itching to leave, she put out feelers and ESPN gladly welcomed her aboard. It was a courtship long in the making, according to Nolan herself, as relayed on the Sports Media Podcast with Sports Illustrated's Richard Deitsch, and consummated only after FS1 ran out of things for her to do.

The arc or Nolan's career with FS1 is now complete. Her participation in Crowd Goes Wild, a rather off the wall show from FS1's launch introduced her to the masses. As the initial programming fell by the way side, she was one of the few survivors as FS1 started experimenting with new content. Then, she disappeared as FS1's transition into ESPN Lite was completed. 

Ironically, it seems as though ESPN learned the lesson as FS1 lost it's way. ESPN has embraced the arrival of Nolan, and placed her in several high profile roles that emphasize her ability to improvise and work off the cuff. FS1 has not only become a clone of ESPN, it's become a clone of the very version of ESPN it had originally sought to eradicate. 

How to manage your #1 pick, and how not to

After a 2-14 season in 2010, the Carolina Panthers stumbled into a quarterback that was considered to be a generational talent. There were some components already in Carolina, including Steve Smith, whose kick returns were the only reason the Panthers won any games. During Cam Newton's first NFL season, Peyton Manning suffered an injury, amd the rudderless Colts went on to go 2-14, and stumbled into a quarterback considered to be a generational talent.

The  Colts were only two years removed from a Super Bowl defeat at the hands of the New Orleans Saints, and a long string of Playoff appearances , so when Manning went down, there was collective surprise among the NFL. The team, apparently, thought that the solution was to add Andrew Luck and give him weapons, despite the presence of guys like Reggie Wayne on the roster.

There are two ways to make a qarterback play above his level: Give him an offensive line so he can remain upright and confident, or give him a defense, so he isn't always trying to keep up with his opponents. Skill positions can be elevated by the play of their quarterback. Look at Brandon Stokely and Austin Collie and tell me I'm wrong. 

We see how things have worked out. The Panthers, since drafting Newton, conserved draft picks and spent them, to a fault, on defenders. The Panthers had good linemen initially as Newton developed, and drafted defensive studs like Luke Kuechley and Kawann Short early in his tenure. The Panthers would ultimately make it to the Super Bowl, thanks to the well rounded roster.

The Colts watched Peyton Manning get throttled as his veteran offensive line departed and was replaced by whoever happened to be in the room. They drafted Anthony Castonzo the year before Luck arrived, but including the draft he arrived, only drafted 2 in the first three rounds since. There has been an effort to draft defenders, but that's mostly been a hapless midadventure.

While the Panthers have drafted skill players to compliment their team, or because they were bargainsm the Colts have lusted after them, as though they were the vital components to future success. The Panthers, since Newton was drafted, have selected Kelvin Benjamin, Devin Funchess and Christian McCaffrey early in drafts. The Colts drafted three skill position players in 2012 immediately after Luck. Later, they would add Donte Moncrief, in 2014. They also traded a first round pick for Trent Richardson and spent a first round pick on receiver Philip Dorsett. It's one thing to draft a receiver if it's good value, but Dorsett was the 6th receiver selected that year, in the first round. 

While the Panthers have bounced back and reached the playoffs, all but one year since 2013. The Colts, incapable of fleshing out a team to surround Luck, have missed the playoffs three years in a row. This year, because they have focused too much on skill positions over the years, their offensive line is one of the worst in the league. Andrew Luck was forced to sit all season, and in the purest of ironies, the Colts traded Dorsett for Luck's 2017 replacement. They could have cut out that step if they'd managed the draft like the Panthers. 

A Following the Compass Update

Whence last we checked on the annual Following the Compass activity, we had one game set: The Texas Tech Red Raiders would be hosting Lamar in Lubbock, for a bit of early season college football action. We still didn't know what to expect from the other team, the Syracuse Orange.
Well, thankfully, the ACC has finally released their 2018 schedule, and we know exactly where they will be playing for their 7th game of the season. The Syracuse Orange will be taking on the Pitt Panthers, in Pittsburgh on October 6th.
While this isn't one of the premier matchups of the ACC season, Syracuse and Pitt have similar track records. Both squads finished near the bottom of the ACC in 2017, though Pitt had a big win against Miami when they were ranked 2nd in the country, and Syracuse upended Clemson, when they were ranked #2. When they played last year, it was 27-24, in favor of the Orange.
The game will be played at Heinz Field, smack dab between some big matchups for both sides (Clemson and Florida State for Syracuse, and UCF and Notre Dame for Pitt). This might be the most competitive game I'll ever pull from the Following the Compass Archives, and hopefully it is just as exciting as it appears.

College basketball is weird this year

In a given season, I think we generally expect three of a group of 6, Duke, North Carolina, Arizona, Michigan State, Kentucky and Kansas to be near the top of the heap and earn tournament 1 seeds, with a second tier, including Syracuse, Villanova, Connecticut, Memphis, Louisville, UCLA, Florida and Gonzaga occupying several of the higher seeded spots, with maybe one or two upstarts filling in a final 1 seed, or claiming a stray 2 or 3 seed. This year, looking at the top 12 teams in the country, there are several new faces. Looking at the AP poll, those schools are
2 - Virginia - an ACC team usually forgotten behind the rest of a formidable conference, though resurgent in recent years
3 - Purdue - Despite my high regard for them, this is the best Purdue team in decades.
4 - Oklahoma - OU can usually recruit, and has the best freshman in the country, for the first time since the days of Blake Griffin.
6 - West Virginia - Bob Huggins is still coaching, but doesn't seem to be getting in as much trouble as he used to. He might just be good at his job.
7 - Wichita State - They even switched conferences to raise their profile. Mission accomplished!
8 - Texas Tech - what
11 - Xavier - The A-10's finest, which is usually only good for being ranked 20th or so.
12 - Cincinnati - By these rankings, Cincinnati isn't even the best team... in Cincinnati! And yet, they are the 12th ranked team in the country.

That's 75% of the top 3 seeds that would go to teams that most people wouldn't describe as blue bloods. That's going to make for an interesting tournament this year. (But it will probably be Villanova vs Duke in the championship game.)

The NCAA basketball "belt" Where is it?

A couple of years ago, I was talking to my friend Jon, speculating on what it would be like if college basketball passed around their championship like they do in combat sports. The championship, or the "belt" as it is in so many sports, transfers only when the top team is defeated, and then it goes to the side that bested them.
Given the tumult at the top of the rankings in a typical year, this seemed like a good sport to follow such a championship around. This year, with Purdue #3 in the country, it seems like a good year for me to try to track the belt.
Last year, for those that don't remember, the North Carolina Tar Heels defeated the Gonzaga Bulldogs to win the NCAA Tournament, so the belt starts with them.
Their first loss came in that PK80 tournament to the Michigan State Spartans, another blueblood in college basketball. Then, it changed hands only one more time. The belt is staying in the Big Ten until the tournament, as Ohio State, undefeated in the Big Ten to this point. There is a chance for Purdue to grab it on February 7th, assuming the Buckeyes don't lose it before then.

Now that it's 2018... here are the year's teams for Following the Compass

I've already updated this on the Following the Compass page, but I did want to alert all of my long time readers to the teams for our annual Following the Compass festivities. First off, what Following the Compass is:
In an effort to see the country and appreciate every team out there, I randomly select two games across the college and professional sports calendars, by first selecting a team and then picking a game off their schedule. This weighs things more towards college sports, which is fine, because that opens up more of the country to my inquiring mind. Last year, the two teams were NYCFC and the Toronto Maple Leafs, so every once in a while, so it's not all college teams all the time.
I try to then select a game, again randomly, off the schedule and try to get to the game. Failing that, I will watch the game on TV or online, and then follow the team for the rest of the year. I already said that it's not college teams all the time but of course this year, it is.
On the eve of the College Football National Championship, I am proud to say that both teams are college football teams. Team number one is the Texas Tech Red Raiders from the Big 12.

The Big 12 is a conference that releases schedules early. I picked the 2nd game off of their schedule, which in 2018 is a non-conference contest with Lamar, an FBS school located in Beaumont. The game will be in Lubbock on September 8th When I was interested in grad school many years ago, I took a swing by Texas Tech, considering it a candidate. I'm curious to see how it looks 10 years later.
The second team is out of the ACC. It will be a conference game, which is problematic, because their conference schedules aren't out yet. Game 7 on the season, which is what I drew, will fall in mid-October. This year, that game was against Clemson. The team I am interested in, however, is Syracuse.

When their schedule comes out, I will certainly keep you updated... eventually.