Did Chizik beat Meyer to high road?

There’s a right way and a wrong way to handle things, and Birmingham News columnist Kevin Scarbinsky says Auburn’s Gene Chizik has an edge over Florida’s Urban Meyer, at least in the way in handling criticism. While Meyer has made some missteps, Chizik has handled himself with class. “It’s just another example, like the quality staff he assembled and the innovative way he dispatched them on the Tiger Prowl, that Chizik so far has outperformed his reputation,” wrote Scarbinsky. The punch line to Scarbinsky’s column: “Of course, this isn’t the first time Meyer has come up short in comparison with an Auburn coach. Remember, on the field, he was oh-for-Tommy Tuberville.” – Birmingham News

Alvarez in Wisconsin power struggle

There is no doubt the past 20 years have been the golden age of University of Wisconsin athletics. But at what cost? The battle brewing on campus regarding the level and method of control that should be exerted over the UW Athletic Department is a sign that the brainiacs who run the university have once again failed to strike a proper balance between handcuffing the department and giving its administrators the power to operate as they please. The latest debate began when the UW Athletic Board, which is charged with overseeing the athletic department, unanimously endorsed the recommendation of a self-study committee that significantly altered the relationship between the board and the department by reducing the board’s role in personnel matters. Their reasoning was that the department, which has grown into an $85-million-a-year business, needs the flexibility to make timely decisions on hiring and firing coaches and that such matters should be left to the athletic director and chancellor. Opposing that viewpoint is a group of faculty members led by Bruce Jones and Jeremi Suri, former athletic board members who took issue with the self-study when it was presented to the UW Faculty Senate in April. They say the faculty policies and procedures document, which dates to the 1930s, stipulates that personnel decisions involving UW coaches must get athletic board approval. Some saw the whole thing as a power play by athletic director Barry Alvarez to gain even more authority. Alvarez has rarely heard the word “no” since he arrived in Madison as UW’s football coach in 1990 and even ignored state laws — with the approval of then-chancellor John Wiley — in 2005 when he named Bret Bielema his successor in football without following proper hiring procedures. There are further indications Alvarez has been operating without adult supervision. Jones was chairman of the athletic board when Bielema was hired, yet he didn’t learn about the hiring until about two hours before the press conference to announce the news. Some faculty were also concerned in 2007 about the board’s lack of input regarding UW’s contract with the Big Ten Network and again in 2008 when Alvarez announced that embattled women’s basketball coach Lisa Stone would have her contract renewed without even discussing it with the board. – Wisconsin State Journal

January 2 Will be Big Day for Bowl Games

Remember when Jan. 1 used to be the most crowded day on college football’s bowl calendar? No longer. Next year there will be five bowl games on Jan. 2 — the same number as on Jan. 1. One of the reasons is that the NFL has a Dec. 28 Monday Night Football game that bowls want to avoid. In addition, Jan. 2 falls on a Saturday, which makes it more attractive to broadcasters. Rick Hill of the Alamo Bowl, which made the move, says both these factors were motivations. The other four are the Cotton, Liberty, International and Papajohns.com bowls. – Wall Street Journal

ACC Anxious for Title Game Move to Charlotte

With Jacksonville abandoned after three years of hosting the Atlantic Coast Conference championship football game and Tampa a dismal failure in its first attempt last year, ACC officials don’t have many specifics for how they will try and sell more tickets and generate more interest in this year’s game at Raymond James Stadium. And they might simply shrug their collective shoulders and wait for 2010 and 2011, when the game is played in Charlotte, N.C., a location more geographically central to the ACC and in the middle of the conference’s traditional base in North Carolina. “Charlotte is more in the middle of our footprint,” North Carolina State athletic director Lee Fowler said Monday following meetings involving ACC athletic directors, football coaches, basketball coaches and faculty representatives, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Amelia Island. “We’ve tried Jacksonville, and we’re trying in Tampa. I’d like to see how the game performs in North Carolina.” – Florida Times-Union

ACC’s Plans for Realignment Not on Agenda at Spring Meetings

In an e-mail he wrote in February to Florida State Athletic Director Randy Spetman, Andy Miller, the president of Seminole Boosters, Inc., urged Spetman to lobby the Atlantic Coast Conference to realign its divisions in football. “Please do what you can to realign the conference,” Miller wrote in the e-mail, obtained recently by the Sentinel through a public records request. “Put Georgia Tech in [the Atlantic] Division. Give them Maryland.” Along with other ACC coaches and officials, Spetman and the rest of the league’s athletic directors have convened this week for the conference’s annual spring meetings. And if there were a movement afoot to realign the Atlantic and Coastal Divisions, it would likely be discussed here today and on Wednesday. Instead, conference officials spent Monday morning discussing league-wide budget concerns, among other issues, and divisional realignment doesn’t seem likely to come up during the next two days. Mike Kelly, the ACC’s associate commissioner for football, said realignment could be feasible after the 2015 season, which he said is the last for which schedules have been formatted. – Orlando Sentinel