Maybe he needs a raise. USA Today has published their annual cost per win breakdown, dividing a head coach's salary by the number of wins on the field. This year's ignominious champ is former Longhorn assistant coach Tim Brewster, who guided Minnesota to one win. His price? A cool million. Number two, not surprisingly, is Nick Saban who earned $583,867 for each of the Crimson Tide's six wins.

Mack Brown? Only sixteenth with his $305,667 per win, two spots behind Bob Stoops, who netted $329,091 for each of his 11 wins.

The lesson is clear: We're not paying Mack Brown enough money.

Ain't nothin' in a name no more. Kirk Bohls has been watching the 2007 coaching carousel and concludes that the landscape in college football is changing. Bohls' thesis is that there exists less and less incentive for coaches to jump "up" to a Big Name program. As less traditional schools continue to raise salaries and the mine of talented players wanting to see the field right away increases, parity - the argument goes - is setting in.

Perhaps, but it's worth asking if the 2007 season was more aberration or, as Bohls suggests, indicative of a more fundamental shift in the game. At least in terms of winning the biggest prize, I tend to think this season was a bit of a fluke. Though West Virginia and Missouri had a title game berth within their grasp, at the end of the day we're left with LSU and Ohio State. Hawaii was eliminated before the season even kicked off. The 10 BCS National Champions? Tennessee, Florida State, Oklahoma, Miami, Ohio State, LSU, USC, Texas, and Florida.

The deck is essentially stacked before the season begins, and barring total chaos, the odds of an underdog getting its day in the sun are relatively paltry. Unless, that is, Bohls is right and we're shifting into an era of greater parity in which games like Stanford over USC become more and more commonplace. Or, of course, we get a college football playoff. Then all bets are off.

Buck up, Big 10. Speaking of the national title game, I'm going to be curious to see how the spin cycle goes on this one. A prediction: After the onslaught of "Ohio State can't match the SEC speed" takes we'll hear, there will be a wave of pundits looking to take the contrarian view and we'll see a rash of pro-Buckeye sentiment.

Though LSU hasn't played great football in a long time now, there's no question in my mind they should be solid favorites in this one. And when you hear the talking point that Ohio State is 7-10-1 all-time against the SEC, remember that six of those wins came against Vanderbilt and Kentucky. Assuming LSU is fully healthy for the title game, my early feeling is that I won't be surprised one bit if the Buckeyes are in for more than they can handle.

With that in mind, Big 10 fans who spend 365 days a year hating Ohio State need to bite the bullet and cheer for the Buckeyes this time around. Another embarrassment for Ohio State in the title game will scar the conference for the next few years, to the point where any time the title game berths come down to a beauty contest for the voters (which is most every year), the Big 10 won't get the benefit of the doubt. The Big 10 needs this one.

Bowl Mania! Reader chief was kind enough to set up a bowl pick 'em league for BON. Click through for details. We'll have some sort of prize for the winners.

--PB--