Fanshots

Bill on Solid Verbal

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I always enjoy chatting with Dan and Ty. There's just enough book talk for me to justify putting it on the Study Hall hub, though there will likely be another appearance in another month or so.

Compu-Picks 2013 Spring Preview, Free Sample

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Free Sample of the 2013 Compu-Picks Spring Preview, featuring the Alabama Crimson Tide and TCU Horned Frogs.

We Have Been Arguing About The Same Things In College Football For 75 Years

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Kleph and Todd from Roll Bama Roll put together an interesting couple of posts (here's kleph's) regarding controversial bowl selections in the mid- to late-1930s. All we're missing is a reference to a four- or eight-team playoff, and we will officially have been arguing about the same thing since before World War II.

Promotion And Relegation In College Football

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It's Relegation Week at SB Nation! I contributed a seven-year promotion-and-relegation simulation today at the mothership at the link above. It was way too much fun and took up way too much time. Now it's back to Mountain West team previews...

The Strategic Legacy of Greg Cook

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A look at the strategic legacy of Greg Cook. Its much greater than you would expect for player with a brutally short career [Bumped to the Front Page. Nice piece.]

The Historical: The Black Knights of Red Cedar and the Brawl in Bowling Green

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The Historical moves from its home here at Football Study Hall to SB Nation's main college football page. This week find out about Michgan State's stunning upset of the 1934 defending national champion Wolverines as well as the Toledo vs. Bowling Green brawl in 1951 that cost the Rockets' head coach his job.

Statistical Snapshot: Alabama's Target & Catches

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Kleph takes a look at Alabama's receiver data. Looks like Marquis Maze is probably getting a few too many targets, and the tight ends are doing pretty well.

Pac-12 Receiving Stats: Levine Toilolo Is The Nuclear Option

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Over at SBN's Pacific Takes, Avinash Kunnath used the targets-and-catches data below to take a really interesting look at Pac-12 receivers. Hint: Robert Woods is really, really good. Anyway, write a post of your own about this, and if I see it, I'll front-page it here.

College Football's Last Frontier: Better Food

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The Wall Street Journal has a great story on the advancements of the "training table" and how the top programs are using it to gain an competitive edge by ensuring players follow an optimum nutrition plan. One interesting aspect of this development is how the use of the training table is now a commonly accepted practice. At one time, it was seen as just one more symptom of a corrupt sport run amok. Tales of schools providing steaks and beer to lure athletes to play on their teams abounded in the early era of the sport. Even without excesses the training table was a major asset for top programs. In 1893 the single largest portion of Harvard's $18,750 football budget was for the training table - almost $3,500. The 1929 report by the Carnegie Foundation into the growing concerns of excesses involving college athletics specifically listed the training table as a policy abused by schools and controversy dogged the practice for decades. Today, the NCAA allows each institution to provide, as part of an athletic scholarship, sufficient funds to cover three meals each day including one meal served by the athletic department training table to student-athletes receiving aid. And, on occasion, schools still fall afoul with the training table regulations. For a fantastic breakdown of the NCAA regulations covering the training table, SB Nation site covering all things Clemson, Shaking the Southland, discussed it exhaustively in a post last year.

Moneyball In College Football: Markets, Statistics And Hal Mumme

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Self-share! Here's a look at how Moneyball finds its existence in college football and asks what a statistical revolution might look like.