Regular readers will have noticed that I have been out of the game a bit recently as a move and a new position have taken their toll on my normal writing routine. While I have a lot on tap that I would like to cover, it seems much, much easier to lean on the work of others as I return to posting content frequently. In different times, this may have been considered lazy, but the internet age has of course granted such practices enlightened status. This, shall we call it, path to plagiarism began this morning with a repost of an op-ed piece a former professor and good friend recently had published in The Washington Post. It continues here with someone of much the same status, a professor and mentor who subsequently became a good friend.
Here, John Stifler, a lecturer (and one of the best educators in the UMass system) discusses The U's leap to the football championship series (FBS) (which I still invariably call "D1") this upcoming season. While some teams have made the jump successfully in terms of wins and losses the past few years (Connecticut and Boise State come to mind) the move to the top division of the sport is not without its perils, and Stifler does an admirable job painting a balanced picture of the switch with the same brush he has wielded so elegantly throughout his writing career.
Those worried about the future of the site can take comfort; this is not just a case of me playing homerism and sneaking in a story about my alma mater. Switching to the FBS has legal, economic, social and community implications that make it a very good topic for this page. In addition, almost any topic in the college football world is fair game for a current events blog at the moment considering the recent sea changes in the college football landscape including the plus-one championship game and conference realignment. In short, this isn't the last time college football will feature on this page, just as it wasn't the first.
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