Dave Wannstedt back in college football — as TV analyst

By John TaylorJul 23, 2014, 9:39 PM EDT
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For those college football fans who’ve yearned for the return of the mustachioed Camaro man, today’s your lucky day.

Since “resigning” — winkwinknudgenudge — as Pittsburgh’s head coach December of 2011, Dave Wannstedt has served as an assistant at the professional level, spending two years with the Buffalo Bills and 2013 with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  Now, however, he’s back in college football, albeit in a slightly different capacity.

In an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Wannstedt revealed that he will serve as a television analyst for the 2014 season.  The long-time coach will be a part of FOX Sports’ college football pregame, halftime and postgame shows along with co-hosting a weekly show on the Big Ten Network.

“I guess I am moving to the dark side, so to speak,” the coach told the Post-Gazette. “I reached out to several media outlets to see if I could get into the TV side of things and Fox offered me this job after several discussions.

“I have always had it in the back of my mind that this is what I wanted to do and now I have the opportunity and it should be really a lot of fun and I think it is something that will be a challenge but that I’m really looking forward to.”

The paper writes that Wannstedt “will be based in Chicago but will fly to Los Angeles for the Fox Shows each weekend.”

The 62-year-old Wannstedt didn’t state either way whether he’d like to continue his coaching career.

Big Ten revenue distribution hits $51 million

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By Kevin McGuireJun 21, 2018, 5:09 PM EDT
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The Big Ten continues to roll in gigantic piles of money. Details on the Big Ten revenue distribution for the past year were uncovered from a budget spreadsheet from the Michigan Board of Regents, in which it was revealed Michigan received a revenue distribution of $51 million from the Big Ten for the past fiscal year.

It is currently projected the Big Ten distributions will rise to $52 million for the next year, according to Detroit News reporter Angelique Chengelis (via Twitter).

That’s a nice payday for all parties involved and was to be expected given the recent changes to the Big Ten media partnerships. Last year, the Big Ten began making regular season games available to FOX in addition to its current partnership with ESPN and, of course, the Big Ten Network. That expansion of the media deal appears to have paid off for the Big Ten and should continue to fuel the revenue allotment for the next year as the deals with FOX and ESPN continue. The Big Ten’s revenue distribution the previous year was $36.3 million.

The Big Ten revenue distribution of $51.1 million eclipses the average $41 million distributions received by SEC members. It also continues to pace well ahead of the other power conferences; Big 12 members received $36.5 million, ACC members received between $25.3 million and $30.7 million, and Pac-12 schools received $30.9 million. For the sake of comparison, the American Athletic Conference recorded a total conference revenue of $74.47 million for the past year.

It’s good to be in a power conference. It’s even better to be in the Big Ten and the SEC, apparently.

UPDATE: As a reminder, Maryland and Rutgers will not receive a full revenue distribution until the 2020-2021 year. Nebraska was eligible for a full distribution for the first time as a Big Ten member, however.

Bowlsby suggests we may not actually be getting “more” bowls in 2020

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By Kevin McGuireJun 21, 2018, 4:42 PM EDT
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The college football bowl schedule may see some new bowl games beginning with the 2020 season, but Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby says that doesn’t necessarily mean there will be more bowl games on the schedule. In a podcast interview with the Associated Press, Bowlsby noted the bowl structure is being worked on in order to raise the standards for a bowl game to exist and reflected on how recent changes to the bowl system could impact the current or future bowl line-up.

“We want ti to be an open marketplace. We want the market to dictate how many bowl games there are,” Bowlsby said to AP college football writer and AP Top 25 College Football Podcast host Ralph Russo. “We think it will arrive at a place of equilibrium. I think it a local organizing committee of a bowl would be very poorly advised to go into a season with one side of their game or both sides of their game open, but there are some circumstances under which that could exist.

It was recently reported three new bowl games could be added to the 2020 bowl calendar, including potential bowl games in Chicago and Myrtle Beach. As Bowlsby explains, just because a bowl game or two (or three) could be added, that won’t necessarily mean the number of bowl games will increase. Some bowl games currently in existence could cease to operate in the future due to the NCAA’s modified bowl certification process.

Bowlsby stressed the changes being made to ensure a bowl game is able to operate without digging any holes for the bowl committee and local community. Bowlsby also emphasized the recent limits on how many bowl tie-ins a conference can lock down and how that may impact how a bowl game manages itself.

The ACC and SEC are limited to 10 bowl tie-ins, the Big Ten limited to eight, and Pac-12 gets seven and the Big 12 is restricted to six bowl tie-ins. Limits for the non-power conferences have also been established. On top of that, the Pac-12 recently made a conference rule that will prohibit 5-7 teams from participating in a postseason bowl game even if a school would be invited due to APR scores to fill any vacancies.

“We think we are going to be less likely to go into the 5-7 pool than we’ve been in the past.”

Basically, if you see a bowl game struggling to draw ratings and sell tickets, it could be in some danger.

You can listen to the full interview to hear Bowlsby discuss the bowl future as well as the new transfer rule HERE.

Former Michigan, Notre Dame WR Freddy Canteen lands at Tulane

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By John TaylorJun 21, 2018, 3:45 PM EDT
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Maybe the third time will be the charm for Freddy Canteen?

Canteen spent the 2014 and 2015 seasons at Michigan before transferring to Notre Dame.  After spending the 2016 and 2017 seasons at Notre Dame, the wide receiver announced on Twitter last month that he would be transferring from the Fighting Irish as well.

Wednesday, Tulane confirmed in a press release that Canteen has been added to its 2018 football roster.  As a graduate transfer, Canteen will be eligible to play for the Green Wave immediately in 2018.  In fact, the upcoming season could be the first of the receiver’s two years of eligibility he’ll have available, although that has yet to be confirmed.

Canteen was a four-star member of U-M’s 2014 recruiting class, rated as the No. 45 receiver in the country and the No. 4 player at any position in the state of Maryland.

In the span of 15 games and three starts in two seasons with the Wolverines, Canteen caught six passes for 22 yards.  After sitting out the 2016 season, Canteen played in just three games for the Fighting Irish this past year — one catch for seven yards — before suffering what turned out to be a season-ending shoulder injury.

Oregon State officially loses Mike Riley to spring football league

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By John TaylorJun 21, 2018, 2:18 PM EDT
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With summer camp set to kickoff in less than two months, Jonathan Smith officially has a hole to fill on his Oregon State coaching staff.

Wednesday, it was reported that Mike Riley was expected to be named as the first head coach of the Alliance of American Football’s San Antonio franchise.  Thursday afternoon, it was confirmed by the spring pro football league that Riley had indeed been hired to guide the fledgling team.

“There already is tremendous interest from coaches around the country to join our team,” the Beavers head coach said in a statement. “We will hire the right coach who will help us build on the significant momentum we have underway in recruiting and student-athlete development.

“I want to thank Coach Riley for his contribution to our program and wish him best in his new challenge.”

Riley, who spent two stints totaling 14 years as OSU’s head coach, returned to Corvallis in December of last year, two weeks after he was fired as the head coach at Nebraska.  He was hired to serve as the Beavers’ assistant head coach and tight ends coach, for which he would be paid the princely sum of $50,000.