Big Ten integrity at work

Here’s Jim Delany ringing in a happy new year for Ohio State:

… He said reports indicating he lobbied for the five suspended Ohio State players to be eligible for the Sugar Bowl are not true. He said he didn’t even know there was a precedent for such a delayed-penalty ruling until an NCAA official informed him.

And here’s Mr. Delany today.

Jim Delany just told us "if we'd known what we know now," he would not have advocated for OSU players participting in Sugar Bowl.—
Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) April 28, 2011

You tell me – is there a difference between “lobbying” and “advocating”?  Because if not, somebody’s FOS.

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Oversigning power struggle?

Just one more reason not to expect much to come out of next month’s SEC meeting:

jbcarol (hogville)

Chris, what if anything will come of the “oversigning” movement apparently being spearheaded by some Ohio State folks?

Chris Low

  (1:31 PM)

We’ll find out a lot more at the SEC spring meetings in Destin, Fla., but I can tell you that a number of SEC coaches have made it clear to their ADs and to SEC commissioner Mike Slive that managing numbers in terms of scholarships has been one of the best things the SEC has done in football and a big reason the league has had so much success. In other words, the coaches will fight any kind of hard cap (similar to what the Big Ten does) in a big way.

Here’s your real plantation.

Presenting Roger Goodell’s biggest nightmare (h/t Chris Brown):

… In the union lawyers’ world, every player would enter the league as an unrestricted free agent, an independent contractor free to sell his services to any team. Every player would again become an unrestricted free agent each time his contract expired.

Yeah, that free market’s a biotch, alright.

That’s the same mentality which prohibits college athletes from pursuing a professional living merely because of when they finished high school.

You want to do something concrete about student-athlete slavery?  How ’bout telling Goodall and the NFL owners they’re the problem…  Yeah, that’s what I thought.

“He washed his hands of me.”

When you’re someone who’s used to seeing certain behavior treated one way and then all of a sudden things go very differently, I can see how that would be a little disconcerting.

Also, given his track record, I’m not sure this is Jenkins’ best strategy going forward:  “My next step is to make the best decision I can make.”

Skin in the game

Urban Meyer, 2006:

”If they do that [rematch], there should be a playoff system next year,” Meyer said Sunday. “I think if that [rematch] happens, I think it’s over. All the presidents would need to get together immediately and put in a playoff system — like now!”

Urban Meyer, 2011:

Q: Now that you’re part of the network that broadcasts the BCS, are you a BCS guy? A playoff guy?

UM: “I’m a BCS guy. It’d be really difficult to put together a playoff system. The way the BCS does it is fine. To be honest with you, I go back and forth on it a little bit, but I kind of like the way it is.”

It’s not the change of heart that’s amusing here.  It’s that we keep asking coaches for their opinion on the subject.

Mark Shurtleff changes everything. No, really.

Dan Wetzel sure pins a lot of his hopes and dreams on a lawsuit for which the Utah AG can’t muster a single co-plaintiff.  And it’s not like Shurtleff hasn’t been trolling for partners.

I’m trying hard to take this seriously.

Sure, this is going to go well.

For those of you who have long wondered what the NCAA can do to reign in bowl excess, we may be about to find out.

NCAA president Mark Emmert has called a teleconference Thursday to discuss “bowl football licensing issues.”

Can the Fiesta Bowl cobble a “we didn’t know” defense together quickly enough?

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UPDATE:  Another task force.  I’m not kidding.

Those were the days.

If you think one measure of a program’s level of talent is the number of early round draft picks a school generates, then this Chris Low piece should be of interest to you.  Georgia has certainly cranked out its fair share of talent during Richt’s career:  29 first, second and third-round selections over the last 10 years (most in the SEC); 10 first, second and third-round selections in the past 5 years (fourth-best in the conference).

And if you’re looking for an area of concern, maybe it’s this:  over the past ten years, Georgia’s had 10 of its players turn into first round draft picks, but only two of those, Moreno and Stafford, were from the past five seasons.  (That latter figure is tied with Vanderbilt.)  Whether that decline is due to recruiting or player development, I couldn’t say.  But I don’t think anyone would argue with the point that élite talent has been missing on the defensive side of the ball for a while now.

Put on notice

For Mark Richt, this is harsh:

“Washaun has a ways to go still to show me that he deserves to start or even play right now,” said Richt, who was asked about Ealey during the question-and-answer session at the end of the program. “He has a ways to go in my book. We’ll see. I love him, though.”

“Or even play right now”?  The doghouse Ealey occupies is a lot bigger than I thought.  And I’ve got to think a certain incoming freshman has something to do with the floor plan.

I confess that I’ve taken Richt’s words about Crowell being in the mix to start as more about motivating the guys already on campus than as a prediction of Crowell’s future this season.  But I’m beginning to change my mind about that.  Notwithstanding that King and Malcome showed me flashes at G-Day, right now I’d put Crowell’s chances of starting in the Georgia Dome on September 3rd at 60/40.  And it’s Ealey’s future this season that’s in question now.