I'm reading the reaction to Kevin Weiberg resigning as Big 12 commissioner. Leave the guy alone. Not only did he help the conference reap record revenues ($106 million in the past year), he lost his nephew in the Oklahoma State crash and guided the league through the Baylor scandal.

Weiberg wasn't as outgoing as other administrators, but he guided with a steady, classy hand. The league will be lucky to get someone like him.

Which leads us to the leader in the clubhouse. Current Big 12 associate commissioner and CEO Dan Beebe is the favorite to take over. Not only is Beebe a former enforcement officer, he has 14 years experience as a commissioner (Ohio Valley 1989-2003) and is a lawyer.

Beebe interviewed in 1996 when Steve Hatchell, the first Big 12 commissioner, was hired. According to one league AD who was on the search committee, Beebe "blew everybody away." Look for the former Cal Poly Pomona football captain to take over for Weiberg.

• Juicy tidbits from Nick Saban's contract thanks to Crimson Chatter:

The eight-year, $32 million deal escalates from $3.275 million this year to $3.975 million from 2012-14. The breakdown:

2007: $3.275 million
2008: $3.525 million
2009: $3.675 million
2010: $3.875 million
2011: $3.925 million
2012: $3.975 million
2013: $3.975 million
2014: $3.975 million

Where does the $4 million per-year average come from? There are lots and lots of perks. Everything from $75,000 for playing in the SEC title game to $400,000 for winning the BCS title game. There's a nice, tidy $100,000 bonus if the grad rate is in the top four in the SEC.

The most interesting clause is the one stating there is no buyout. If Saban leaves, he gets nothing. If he is fired, he gets the remainder of his salary.

Saban agrees not to share any "confidential information" about Alabama if (when?) he takes another job.

• Ran into some Bluffton players in one of the souvenir tents at the College World Series. If you've forgotten their tragedy, the team bus crashed in March in Atlanta killing five players. Their trip to Omaha was paid for by a local booster. The players weren't talking the media. That's easy to understand.

You might have heard about the Louisville Courier-Journal reporter who was kicked out of the press box for blogging. You might not care.

You better.

It was beyond a First Amendment issue when Brian Bennett was rudely ejected of the box at the Louisville super regional. It was a violation of common human decency.

This is college baseball, not a Senate committee hearing. I've long called the College World Series the best unknown sports event in the country. Not anymore. Now the country is wondering why a reporter who wasn't drunk, high or belligerent was kicked out of a college baseball game.

Was Bennett warned? I'm not talking about a memo that was passed through the press box on Friday. Why was that to be believed when bloggers had existed to that point? I was following Missouri's progress earlier this month via a blogger who covered the team.

Hell, I've blogged Final Four games for the past three years.

Please find the word "blog" in the baseball rights agreement. From what I've seen, it doesn't exist. The NCAA's decision to ban blogs was arbitrary and capricious. Where, by the way, was the language about cell phone cameras? I'm sure more than a few fans took pictures of the games and favorite players.

Could it be the NCAA wasn't interested in strong-arming thousands of paying customers across the country? Ah, but it could flex its muscle against a beat writer. It is a Media-vs.-Association conflict that simmers below the surface. The NCAA, on its website, has taken to putting its own spin on stories written about it.

That's fair.

But so is holding the NCAA accountable. The public, without knowing it, is losing access to sports. The idea these days is to control the message. The NFL has its own network. The Big Ten is about to launch one. Both entities eventually want you to pay extra for the content. A lot of you will, proving there's a market for Purdue vs. Indiana in football.

That's fine, just don't control the public's right to get all sides of a story.

That's where the First Amendment comes in -- and then goes out the window. The CJ is talking tough about a lawsuit. I doubt we'll see it. The CJ is owned by Gannett which isn't exactly known for its lavish spending.

Pity. Editors and journalists' organizations talk tough until it's time to go to the wallet.

Look folks, we're (media) the only group that watches over the NCAA. No one else, including you the public, seems to care. Because it is protected as a non-profit entity it is not subject to things like taxes and the First Amendment. Thankfully, there are a lot of people that don't buy that. The NCAA is currently fighting a couple of lawsuits because someone out there thinks it might overstep its boundaries from time to time.

A lawsuit over the true cost of tuition -- Surprise! Athlete-students don't have enough money to live -- could cost the association $300 million if it goes to trial. Advice from this media hack: Please settle, NCAA.

Was the NCAA even thinking in this case? Bennett was booted by baseball committee member Gene McArtor. Gene is a kind, decent man but he is also the former coach at Missouri, the team that Louisville had eliminated the previous weekend.

That looks even worse.

An NCAA spokesman said, " ... reporters covering our championships may blog about the atmosphere, crowd and other details during a game but may not mention anything about game action."

Huh? Please define "atmosphere, crowd and other details". Does that mean I can describe how beautiful the ball looks, but not the fact that it went over the fence for a game-winning homer? Is it treading lightly to describe why, if their team is losing, Oregon State fans are leaving?

Someone bungled this badly, and just when you thought the NCAA was getting it. A bunch of us were invited to Indianapolis in February to go through a mock selection bracket for the NCAA Tournament. We were there for 11 hours and were led through the entire process. The NCAA didn't have to do that, but it did.

After covering the NCAA for more than 20 years, I really thought the walls of the Kremlin were crumbling.

You'd think the NCAA (and its baseball teams) would want as much attention as it could get for a sport that ranks somewhere below beach volleyball in the minds of sports fans.

Instead, it played thug.

(There goes my credential for the CWS.)

I suspect that complaints came from ESPN or CSTV. Both have rights deals for the NCAA baseball tournament. They didn't want their store-bought blogs to be overshadowed by independent blogs.

Way to show us who's boss, fellas.

If we (media) had any guts, we'd get up after the national anthem prior to Friday's opener and stage a walk out for the first couple of innings.

Does college baseball still happen when there isn't an independent press there to cover it? You betcha, as long as the rights fees are banked.

Let's see the official NCAA baseball blog describe an empty press box.

Oh wait, it wouldn't.

As long as we're talking about Vanderbilt, let's engage in a little fantasy football. This is kind of a big deal to Vandy fans because the program hasn't been to a bowl since 1982.

Sept. 1 -- Richmond

Comment: Can't afford to lose to this I-AA program that shut out Duke at Durham last season.

Sept. 8 -- Alabama

Comment: This is a referendum on the state of both programs. Commodores almost upset the Tide in Tuscaloosa last season. Nick Saban will be looking to make a statement.

Sept. 15 -- Mississippi

Comment: Since 1999, Vandy has won twice. Only one of Ole Miss' victories in that span has come by more than seven points.

Sept. 29 -- Eastern Michigan

Comment: A layup, even for Vanderbilt.

Oct. 6 -- at Auburn

Comment: The teams haven't met since 2003. The series is tied 19-19-1 only because Auburn has won the last 12. Vandy last won this game in 1955.

Oct. 13 -- Georgia

Comment: Dawgs were embarrassed at home last year. Looking for revenge in Nashville.

Oct. 20 -- at South Carolina

Comment: For some reason, the Gamecocks dominated this series, winning the last seven meetings by an average of 16½ points.

Oct. 27 -- Miami (Ohio)

Comment: RedHawks usually play "up" well with four victories against BCS schools since 2002.

Nov. 3 -- at Florida

Comment: Could be a shootout with the Gators losing nine defensive starters.

Nov. 10 -- Kentucky

Comment: SEC's best quarterback, Andre Woodson, comes to Nashville.

Nov. 17 -- at Tennessee

Comment: A rivalry that usually isn't. Vandy's 2005 win broke a 22-game losing streak to the Vols.

Nov. 24 -- Wake Forest

Comment: In this battle of the think tanks, Commodores have won the last four.

Bottom line: With 17 starters returning for Vandy, it's easy to find the six victories needed here for a bowl game. Well, not easy. It has been 25 years since a bowl game. The swing games are Ole Miss, Miami (Ohio), Kentucky and Wake Forest. Win those and Vandy can get to six by beating Richmond and Eastern Michigan. In the powerful SEC, that should get the Commodores a bowl.

The Big Ten-SEC rivalry continues: You probably missed this nugget from Phil Fulmer during the SEC meetings last month.

Considering a playoff, Fulmer told the Memphis Commercial-Appeal:

"There's a lot of physical pressure and attrition by the end of a long season. Who's playing for you and who's not? If you lose two great players near the end of the year, are you one of the best teams at that moment?

"The regular-season conference schedules we play in the SEC are very difficult. Maybe some of the other conferences have teams like Michigan that play just two or three tough conference games a year."

• Your serve, Jim Delany. If you'll recall, the nouveau rivalry started Jan. 8, the night Florida waxed No. 1 Ohio State.

There's little question for some that the NCAA has been more liberal in awarding hardship waivers for an extra year of eligibility. NCAA president Myles Brand's platform has been about helping the athlete.

"I can't say that definitely," said one major-college compliance director. "They still do a lot of due diligence. They're not hardcore like needing a third cardiologist (for a medical hardship waiver)."

That same compliance director said it gets more than uncomfortable when an athlete implores him to help get an extra year of eligibility.

"Sometimes you fear for your life," the compliance director said. "I've been out the back door ... Sometimes you feel like you're taking away a dream of a lifetime."

• An interesting leftover from Tuesday's Joe McKnight story ...

McKnight got himself and USC in a bit of trouble in February when he said he listened to a phone conversation between Reggie Bush and Pete Carroll. If it happened, the act could be interpreted as improper contact by USC during the recruiting process.

McKnight's high school coach, John Curtis, said the NCAA already had interviewed him.

"We had a nice visit with the NCAA," Curtis said.

McKnight reiterated to SportsLine.com that the contact with Bush and Carroll never happened. Carroll has denied it also.

"I really can't be angry," McKnight said. "I misspoke. I tried to correct it on a radio interview. It just got out of hand."

• This fifth year of eligibility thing has been floating around for so long it's become like a re-run of Friends. You know what's going to happen. In this case, it's going to be shot down.

The subject of an extra year of eligibility is an annual topic at coaches' meetings. Of course, coaches support an extra year of eligibility. It allows them flexibility on their rosters. If any of their trained seals would actually find his way to a degree with an extra year, all the better.

But how about some flexibility for players? Give the coaches their fifth year but guarantee the scholarship for the first three years. One of the great inequities in sports is that scholarships are renewable year to year.

• Another reason why this space loves Fresno State's Pat Hill. "Media coaches" were allowed to go through full day of spring practice with the team. Everything from meetings to film sessions to practice.

The media coaches were allowed to call all the defensive and offensive players for the final series of the spring scrimmage.

Sort of a bring-your-hack-to-work day. It's also the kind of outreach we'd like to see from more coaches whose salaries and attitudes have separated them from the little people.

And as we know, the media represents the little people.

One last piece of Vandy trivia ... Number of coaches since the program last went to a bowl -- five Number of Miami national championships since Vandy last went to a bowl -- five. ...

Pray for Kelsey Smith. As I write this, they've just arrested a guy who is suspected of murdering the Overland Park, Kan., teenager Saturday night.

The case made national news. Those of us with teenage daughters are a little bit more wary and protective these days.

Gary Bettman is ruining hockey for me.

It's not just me. It's also guys like me who go into sports bars these days and ask for the hockey game to be put on. First, there's the look of disdain you get from the bartender, then the ridicule you risk when hockey comes on the big screen.

Quick story: My son and I walked into a Bennigan's on Saturday night when Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals was on network television (NBC).

It took the hostess three tries to find it.

The sport is crumbling around him; meanwhile, Bettman, the NHL commissioner, talks of the sport's "50 million fans." More people would be laughing except that they didn't see the quote. Only nine of the league's 24 markets are represented by newspapers at this year's Finals between Ottawa and Anaheim.

A lot of newspapers are to blame. Trying to figure out the Internet and 24-hour cable sports, they're cutting back to the equivalent to community weeklies in many cases. But you've got to give the media a reason to cover your sport.

Hockey is easy to cut out of the budget. Bettman has made it easy.

(Fortunately, CBS SportsLine.com realizes that covering any major pro sports league's championships is a must. You're missing something if you aren't reading Wes Goldstein during the Finals.)

Another league's commissioner once told me that the worst thing that can happen is they don't care about you. Make them love you, make them hate you. Any publicity is good publicity.

Unless no one cares.

The source was Bill Kentling, the former commish of the Major Indoor Soccer League during the 13 minutes when it actually mattered in the 1980s. Those boffo game presentations in the NBA? Credit Kentling. Wacky halftime gimmicks? Credit Kentling.

The MISL was first with smoke machines, music during play and mascot races. Except that back then, the main-line sports called it low-rent and cheap. Then they adopted the whole deal when the MISL folded.

Yes, indoor soccer was ahead of its time. Off the field. Then people finally woke up and realized there were better things to do than watching a bastardized game played by second-tier Euros on a carpet-covered hockey rink. Kentling, though, made his mark. More than Bettman has in his 14 years.

All I know is what I see and I don't see the NHL as often as I used to. Versus? A rumor on a lot of cable systems. The tipping point was a couple of weeks ago when NBC broke away from an overtime game between Ottawa and Buffalo.

Broke away early, contractually bound to show the Preakness pregame show. We're not talking the NFL, NBA or Major League Baseball -- or even horse racing itself.

The NHL got pre-empted for the lead-in show to aristocracy's equivalent of dogfighting.

If only the NHL got that much jack bet on it.

How does that happen, unless Bettman agreed in the contract to let it happen? By signing his name to the document, he confirmed how far his sport had slipped.

There were other ominous signs. Empty seats began to appear at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit during the playoffs. Hockeytown became Disinterestedtown. I don't buy the auto industry downturn excuse. Detroit has ebbed and flowed for years, and the Red Wings still sold out. Now, even the most die-hard fans in the sport are beginning to question it and the cost of watching it.

It's too bad because hockey players are the most noble in sports. There is nothing harder in pro sports than winning the Stanley Cup. Teeth are lost, concussions are suffered, checks stop coming. That's right. NHL players don't get paid extra for the playoffs. They are playing strictly for the quest of the Cup.

You probably don't know either that hockey has the most marketable player in pro sports -- Sidney Crosby. When was the last time you saw him in a commercial that wasn't on Versus?

This hurts because hockey is my favorite sport. I've covered national championships, Final Fours and an NFC championship game. None of them can compare to two career highlights: Spending two weeks on the road with Devils and Avalanche during the 2001 Finals and covering hockey at the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Twice during Bettman's reign of error, there have been work stoppages. When the game was shut down for a season two years ago, it made networks, newspapers and fans realize they could get along without the NHL.

I'm not going to tell you what the right solution was to instituting a salary cap, but I do know the wrong one. Taking hockey away for a season. Even baseball didn't do that.

A decline was inevitable. The future of the league is becoming tenuous. Franchises are beginning to relocate. Pittsburgh came damn close. Might as well shutter the Predators in Nashville. They're going to Canada or Kansas City.

Next, they'll start folding, just like the MISL.

Bettman is fighting all of it. He wants stability. As a wise man once said: That horse is out of the barn.

Running all the way to the Preakness, for all we know.

There might be a reason that Lloyd Carr is so guarded when it comes to the media.

Don't forget the job came open because of his good friend Gary Moeller's failings. The media can't be blamed for reporting Moeller's drunken outburst at an area restaurant in 1994. But it's easy to understand why Lloyd doesn't allow media to peek inside his program.

1) It's Michigan, it will be rich and win football games with or without the media. The Wolverines on TV more than Will and Grace re-runs anyway. Those are three-hour commercials for the greatness of Michigan.

2) To Carr's way of thinking, letting anyone look inside the curtain violates some sort of privacy. Moeller embarrassed himself and the school, but you never stop loving a friend.

Moeller and Carr coached from 1980-89 under Bo. Moeller's son Andy coaches Michigan's offensive line.

• I'm told the Schembechler family is upset that Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh has what are believed to be three existing copies of a set of Bo's pregame speeches. They found out about it, apparently, in my story and blog in March.

I transcribed part of the recording after Harbaugh let me listen to a CD recording of Bo before the 1988 Notre Dame game. It was awe-inspiring, frankly. Current Dolphins coach Cam Cameron made the recordings when he was on the Michigan staff toward the end of Bo's career.

The family is upset because Bo never wanted his pregame speeches recorded. Blame Cameron, though, not me.

The third person to have a set of the recordings? I don't know for sure but I'm told he is a major-college head coach with a Michigan background.

• Some quotes that didn't make it into the Friday column:

Lloyd on visiting Russell Crowe's rugby team in Australia: "The thing I didn't understand (is) the game is won or lost on the ability offensively to get the ball in play quickly and defensively and trying to keep them from getting it in play.

"They don't have officials to spot the ball, there's no line of scrimmage. ...

"We spent a lot of time together. (Crowe's) a very passionate guy. He's passionate about film and acting and he has the same passion for this rugby team he has. He also has a band. He's got two kids who are young."

On the BCS and last year's disappointing finish: "My position was we have a system. The system is not perfect but the system worked. I have absolutely no complaint. The system will be under constant review. There's already been changes since 1998 when it started.

"What I hope we can do is avoid the campaigning. Other than that, I think the system worked. We had a great championship game."

Dodd note: Lloyd was clearly referring to Florida's Urban Meyer making his case on the floor of the Georgia Dome after winning the SEC Championship Game.

"The expectations for every program has changed. The BCS has changed everything. I can remember taking the team in 2000 to the Orange Bowl. And everybody, the fans, the focus was on the national championship game. The focus is on one game. You almost have to be undefeated to get there.

"The beauty of the game is you're playing for the championship every week. That creates tremendous interest. ...

"The coaches are compensated extremely well. I just look at it as, it's a great challenge to try to win another national championship. Anybody who has won one knows how hard it is. To do it twice is really hard. But once you win one, the expectations are raised.

"The beauty of it, is once you win one that's what motivates you. Bill Parcells talks about the addictive nature of it. It's challenging, it's difficult, it's fun."

Former fullback Brian Thompson on training with Crowe's rugby team:

"They're fearless. The sport is so much different. ... They've got a mouthpiece and that's it.

"Their biggest difference is endurance. (Their game is ) 80 minutes, non-stop running. ...

"We had no idea going in about the rules. They wanted us to jump in the drills with them. Shoot, I don't even know how to play the game. We sat out and watched about two practices and third practice we jumped in, started running plays with them."

Quarterback Chad Henne on Lloyd: "I think he's mellowed down throughout the years. He's still very intense. ...

"He has a book club, you can join his book club. They're stories about life and incorporating them with the game."

"It's a big learning process. When you first get here, you really don't know all the tradition that goes into it. Even when we (quarterbacks) run our laps, we always kind of want to be in the front. There are things that go along with how you lead the team."

On Tom Brady, who recently visited campus for the 10th anniversary of the 1997 national championship: "It's eye opening how fast it goes here. You never know what's going to happen at the next level. He's definitely an icon for all the quarterbacks here and even across the country."