Something About College Football

Blame it on Alabama. University of Alabama became the second team, after LSU tigers, to claim the national title three times under the BCS system, replying on an NFL coach Nick Saban with a $5.5 million salary. His bonus for 2012 over $1 million.

Scott Hirko of Central Michigan University found coaching salaries had been raising 10 times faster than academic instructional salaries since 2006. Seventy-seven schools offer their football coach salaries above $1 million in 2013. With shrinking federal and state contribution and looming economy, critics doubts the wisdom of school's investment in football programs.

A recent study conducted by Doug J. Chung, an assistant professor at Harvard University vindicated administrator's favoring of college football programs. Chung found a 17.7 percent boost in applications after a successful football season. To achieve a comparable bump, the university would have to either decrease tuition by 3.8 percent or attracting higher caliber faculty with 5.1 percent higher salaries.

Well, Chung did not mention anything about increasing existing faculty's salary, perhaps that's why administration did not do that.

To Hell with LSU

The student government at the University of Mississippi passed a resolution to change the chant at the end of football fighting song from "South will rise again" to "To Hell with LSU". The old chant is seen by some as having implication in racial relations. A few years ago, the University quietly removed it's mascot of a Colonel Rebel. A black student commented to the Clarion Ledger, "You know, the South won't rise again."

The Ole Miss game has always been the biggest rivalry for LSU. Any incoming LSU coach is informed in orientation that they won't afford a loss to Ole Miss. However, With former head coach Saban jumping boat to Alabama, now the biggest rivalry is leaning to the Tides.

The two teams will play on Nov 21 in Jackson, Mississippi.

An Interesting Ranking of World Research Universities

Wuhan University published a "2007 Ranking of World Universities on Research Competitiveness"

Rank	Institution	Country	Score
1	Harvard	US	100.00
2	University of Texas	US	87.49
3	University of Washington (Seattle)	US	72.39
8	University of Tokyo	Japan	69.19
11	University of Toronto	Canada	66.90
17	University of Cambridge	UK	62.93
18	University of Minnesota	US	62.80
45	University of Helsinki	Finland	49.54
47	University of Munich	Germany	48.92
53	University of Utrecht	Netherlands	48.40
58	Hebrew University Jerusalem	Israel	47.04
59	University of Lund	Sweden	47.00
60	Eth Zurich	Switzerland	46.95
71	University of Sydney	Australia	44.94
73	University of Milan	Italy	44.89
75	Seoul National University	South Korea	44.65
77	University of Amsterdam	Netherlands	44.60
83	University of Sao Paulo	Brazil	44.16
84	University Paris 6	France	44.08
92	University of Vienna	Austria	43.23
97	Catholic University Leuven	Belgium	42.37
99	University of Copenhagen	Denmark	42.04
100	Louisiana State University	US	41.88
101	Hokkaido University	Japan	41.63
116	National University of Singapore	Singapore	40.48
119	Moscow MV Lomonosov State University	Russia	40.28
125	University of Barcelona	Spain	39.86
135	National Taiwan University	China-Taiwan	38.90
146	University of Oslo	Norway	37.87
149	University of Hong Kong	China-Hong Kong	37.73
161	University Nacl Autonoma Mexico	Mexico	36.61
192	Beijing University	China	34.57
196	Tsinghua University	China	34.31
198	Chinese University Hong Kong	China-Hong Kong	34.30
200	American College of Cardiology	US	34.29
201	Indian Institute of Technology	India	34.26
233	University of Auckland	New Zealand	32.06
248	Zhejiang University	China	31.03
252	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	China	30.67
257	Fudan University	China	30.45
271	Nanjing University	China	29.87
273	University of Science & Technology of China	China	29.86
286	Hong Kong University of Science & Technology	China-Hong Kong	29.16
288	University of Buenos Aires	Argentina	29.05
295	National Cheng Kung University	China-Taiwan	28.56
300	University of Houston	US	28.38
301	University of Toulouse 3	France	28.38
307	University of Warsaw	Poland	27.80
308	University of Athens	Greece	27.68
320	City University of Hong Kong	China-Hong Kong	27.20
353	University of Cape Town	South Africa	25.78
357	University of Chile	Chile	25.61
367	Hong Kong Polytech University	China-Hong Kong	25.15
382	Jilin University	China	24.29
387	National Tsinghua University	China-Taiwan	24.16
393	National Chiao Tung University	China-Taiwan	23.82
398	University Ljubljana	Yugoslavia	23.60
400	University of Bremen	Germany	23.49
401	Shandong University	China	23.45
404	Tianjin University	China	23.29
408	Nankai University	China	23.23
413	Sun Yet-sen University	China	23.03
416	Wuhan University	China	23.00
422	Sichuan University	China	22.78
439	Huazhong University of Science & Technology	China	22.40
451	National University of Ireland University College Cork	Ireland	21.83
452	Lorand Eotvos University	Hungary	21.80
456	Hacettepe University	Turkey	21.63
467	University of Zagreb	Czech Republic	21.27
470	National Central University	China-Taiwan	21.13
483	Xi'an Jiao Tong University	China	20.63
486	Harbin Institute of Technology	China	20.50
494	Lanzhou University	China	20.42
498	University of Alaska	US	20.26
499	University Instelling Antwerp	Belgium	20.25
500	James Cook University North Queensland	Australia	20.24

The distinctive feature of this ranking, in many ways sharply different than man other existing rankings, is the fact that it weighs objective measurements （such as patents or cited papers) only. For example, there's no weight for peer reputation or amount of endowment. Consequently, this ranking does not award a school for its traditional heritage or cultural impact. It reflects more ongoing active research rather than a school's potential capacity.

Using publications as the dominant factor makes this ranking favors schools that are strong in humanities and natural sciences, where people tends to publish more. This is not surprising given that the sponsoring agency, Wuhan University, belongs to this category.

National Champions 2007: Geaux Tigers!

Congratulations to LSU football program, who won the national champion after a roller coaster season. In the final game played at the New Orleans Superdome, they routed the No. 1 ranking Ohio State like chopping tofu with a sharp knife. They made the legend of becoming the first team to take two national champions in the BCS history. They wrote the history of a 31 answered points in any college football national title games. Bravo LSU Tigers!

LSU for NC Game, It's Official

LSU fighting tigers will play in the National Championship Game of the NCAA College Football on January 7th, 2008 at the super dome of New Orleans.

In a magic-making evening for many, both #1, and #2 teams lost, and pushed couch sitting hamburg eating Ohio State to the #1 spot on BCS standing. (#5 (AP) | #7 (Coaches)) LSU ascended to #2 after beating #14 Tennessee 21-14 in the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta.


Luckily enough, LSU becomes the first time to play in the BCS title game with two losses. In the ESPN fan poll, however, LSU was seen by most, with sole exception of folks in the state of Ohio as the dominant team entering the national title game.

During the regular season, LSU fought 7 ranked teams, and beat 6 of them (lost to Kentucky on the road). Another team LSU lost to was unranked Arkansas. Topping #1 LSU made them a spot on both polls (#25 (AP) | #24 (Coaches)). While both losses happened after triple overtime plays, another record made by LSU in the season was unbeaten in the regulation. Despite a strong opening, LSU did not win all games easily. There were memorable nights. The tigers caught up a 3 points deficit in the last quarter in the game against Alabama coached by former LSU coach Nick Saban. And the 22 yards touch down with 1 second left that saved LSU against Auburn will surely be a unfading legend in the football history. Head coach Les Miles was honest and frank enough to admit that he was not aware the time left when he made the call.

What a year, what a show!

Geaux Tigers.

If We Don't Catch It, Nobody Does

"If we don't catch it, nobody does."

With 8 seconds left in the game and 1 point behind, LSU made a 22 yards filed pass for an ultimate super mega touchdown to win the game. They had a timeout, but didn't use it; instead they threw a 40 yards field goal. It doesn't matter anymore what in their mind, or are they crazy. What matters is that LSU beat Auburn Tigers 24-23. After a lost to Kentucky last week, LSU's national title aspiration is still alive.

Yet another memorable night in the Death Valley!

LSU's Computing Program Ranked 38th in the Nation

A study (1) published in the June 2007 issue of the ACM communication ranked LSU's computing graduate program the 38th in the nation, echoed a 1996 study (2) which placed LSU the 40th using different ranking methods.

• 1 MIT
  
• 2 U of Maryland
  
• 3 Carnegie Mellon University
  
• 4 Georgia Tech
  
• 5 Stanford
  
• ........
  
• 10 UC Berkeley
  
• ........
  
• 20 U of Minnesota
  
• ........
  
• 38 LSU
  
• ........
  
• 41 Harvard
  
• ........
  
• 50 New York University
  

Reference:
1.Ren and Taylor, Automatic and Versatile Publications Ranking for Research Institutions and Scholars, Commun. ACM, 50, 6(2007), 81-85;
2. Geist, Chetuparambil, Hedetniemi and Turner, Computing Research Programs in the US, Commun. ACM, 39, 12(1996), 96-99;