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Success With Hyperlinking Wants You To Meet "Bizzaro Franklin"

If you were one of the lucky few at last night's Coaches Caravan stop, you probably saw James Franklin's "Bizzaro World" counterpart, much like in that famed Seinfeld episode.

By Tim Aydin
Matthew O'Haren-USA TODAY Sports

Here's The Real Highlight of Opening Night of the Coaches' Caravan

Nick P. was our roving Twitter reporter for last night's Coaches' Caravan event at Pegula Ice Arena, which kicked off the first of a 17 stop bus tour spanning all across Pennsylvania and parts of the New York/New Jersey/Baltimore/DC area. As a couple of Nick's tweets below show however, the biggest highlight of the night didn't involve anything James Franklin, Russ Rose, or Bob Warming said at the podium...

That's right ladies and gentlemen, you are witnessing the birth of the Twitter legend that is "Bizzaro Franklin."

B1G $pending

Scott Dochterman at The Iowa City Gazette put together an eye-opening article highlighting the fact that the Big Ten has seen a 57% increase in recruiting spending in the last two years. You can thank the influx of new coaches, particularly those with SEC backgrounds such as Urban Meyer and James Franklin in part, for that increase, as well as the realization that the B1G is going to have to spend at SEC levels in order to better compete with their schools across the board. Also noticeable is the fact that PSU's spending on recruiting nearly tripled from $258.8K in 2011 (the last year of the Paterno era) to $736.7K in 2013. Also noteworthy on the PSU end of things is this little tidbit:

In 2010, a Penn State assistant coach served as recruiting coordinator but the school listed no recruiting support staff. Under new coach James Franklin, the Nittany Lions have a director of player personnel, a recruiting operations assistant and two assistants that serve as recruiting coordinators. Rivals lists Penn State second nationally in its 2015 recruiting rankings.


We're Talking Semantics

The College Football Playoff committee has revealed its criteria for how it will select its four playoff teams. Aside from the usual suspects that you see in the NCAA basketball tournament's selection process (i.e. SOS, head-to-head and record vs. common opponents, overall record, etc.), the playoff committee also emphasized that it would select the most 'deserving' as opposed to the 'best' team, which has set off alarm bells amongst college football fans. Confused? Kevin Trahan at the mothership explains:

It may seem like a technicality, but those words — "best" and "deserving" — are very different. For example, in a resume-like system that forces the committee to follow the criteria of record, strength-of-schedule, conference championships, etc., it would be very hard for, say, 10-2 Alabama to jump an 11-1 Washington team that has a better strength-of-schedule. But by allowing the committee to choose the team it thinks is the best, members have the freedom to say, "Well Washington has had a better season, but come on, we all know Alabama is a better team."

This will certainly be something to watch for this season, especially once the committee releases its first set of rankings on October 28th.

Other Quick Dumps:

Also, if you haven't done so already, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE help our hard-working BSD staff get over the funding hump by giving some of your hard-earned money towards funding the best PSU summer football preview magazine out there by clicking on that picture of Christian Hackenberg below. We are less than $2,000 away from reaching our goal of publishing an e-magazine and there's only 8 days left, so time is of the essence here, people...

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