Spring games? Bah, humbug.

I understand that what Florida substituted for its annual spring game left something to be desired, but so do Pat Dooley’s musings on what to do about spring games.

… I’m not sure what the answer is to spring games, which are getting to be less and less entertaining because coaches — understandably so — worry about injuries. Perhaps the NCAA should allow an extra practice as long as that practice involved no pads and was used as a skills challenge of some kind. My friend Marty Cohen of GatorBait suggested they turn it into a carnival celebrating Gator football. That’s not bad. Of course, in the end we all have to realize that spring practice isn’t for the media or the fans, it’s for the coaches.

Yeah, heaven forbid those who turn over their coin every year to support a football program should get a little pleasure out of spring ball.

Perhaps he can explain why a scrimmage in front of fans is more likely to lead to injuries than one played without a public audience.  Because otherwise I can’t figure out why old farts like Dooley always seem to insist that the best option for the sport is one that delivers less to the fans.

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Monday morning buffet

You might as well fill up… we’ve got almost five months before we get some live football again.

• John Adams on the current state of Tennessee football:  “An offense seemingly bereft of playmakers struggled. While the defense looked both faster and more physical than last season’s bunch, that’s not necessarily a glowing recommendation in that the 2012 defense was the worst in school history.”  Ouch.
• Phil Steele predicts the SEC will place five teams in the AP’s preseason top ten, six in the top twelve.
• Anybody remember Josh Jarboe?
• Seth Emerson reviews the unresolved questions coming out of Georgia’s spring.  Let’s just say they pale in comparison to UT’s issues.
• And David Paschall looks at what’s up in the air with the Dawg offensive line.
• Grantham sounded satisfied that the Red team’s second G-Day try at a two-minute drill ended less successfully than did the first try.  (Of course, some of that can be chalked up to Murray quarterbacking the first one and LeMay handling the second one.)
• “James DeLoach is a guy that, when you’re talking about newcomers, has done a nice job…”
• Rivals buys into the “de-commitment is a problem” meme, blames it on great recruiters who confuse the recruits.  Just wonderin’ – how much less product would Rivals have to sell if some kids didn’t de-commit?
• If you’re interested, here’s a virtual look at the new College Football Hall of Fame, currently under construction.

Sacrilege! Heresy!

Glenn Guilbeau, you are not welcome at my G-Day tailgate this Saturday.

“If no one had spring football, everyone would be even, and it would not be missed.”?  It’s a damned long stretch from April to September, brother.  You think nobody will notice if you make it even longer?

Thursday morning buffet

If you’re hungry, grab a plate.

• Georgia Southern is moving to the Sun Belt Conference.  That’s good news for Georgia, as it means there will be one less FCS opponent on future schedules.
• Evidently, we think college players shouldn’t be paid, but college coaches should be paid more.  Weird.
• Speaking of paying college players, this is some well-played snark from the AJ-C, of all places.
• The media’s strange fixation with what it thinks Jadeveon Clowney ought to be doing with his football career goes in a new direction.
• John Infante thinks a little sunshine would work wonders on SEC oversigning.  Methinks Nick Saban could care less about that.
• March Madness usually inspires some really stupid thoughts about what college football can take from the basketball tourney, and CFN delivers, in spades.
• If you’re a Vol fan living in a certain place, Charlie Pierce describes how the Georgia-Tennessee water war could lead to your worst nightmare.

“It’s such a disruptive model.”

A couple of eagle-eyed readers pointed me to a story in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal about Verizon FIOS’ attempt to come up with a new pricing strategy for content that would involve customers paying for channels based on the number of subscribers who actually watch them, and not a set rate.

The story itself is behind a pay wall, so no direct quotes, but the gist of things is that Verizon is looking at a business model that would involve putting a box on a subscriber’s TV that would measure viewing time.  The customer would only be charged based on usage that crossed a certain time threshold.

This is coming from Verizon, mind you, so I’m not convinced this would benefit the consumer in terms of saving money.  But it clearly indicates that providers are increasingly worried about the impact on-line video outlets are having on the market.  And that’s not all.  According to the article, ESPN draws less viewers than the USA Network, yet distributors paid ESPN an average of $5.04 a month per household last year, compared to the 68 cents a month USA received.  If you’re somebody stuck in the middle like Verizon, you can see where moving to a model based on actual usage has the potential to be an attractive way to avoid price fights with certain content distributors.

The catch is that you can also see how that might not be so great for sports network providers who are pushing product in markets where there isn’t that much interest in the product, say, like the Big Ten Network in the greater New York area.  The problem won’t be unavailability.  Rather, it’ll be that the price will go up if the customer base interested in the product is small.  And that’s got the potential to create a negative feedback loop, as prices go up and fewer people are willing to pay to watch.  (Although maybe Jim Delany can figure a way to threaten a few viewers in Brooklyn to keep them in line.)

Right now, it’s hard to say whether this is a canary in the coal mine story.  But it bears repeating that the content delivery world is under pressure and it’s more likely that things will change than that they won’t.  And that’s something network-owning football conferences should be mindful of.

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UPDATE:  More from the Washington Post on this.

“This is the beginning,” said Gene Kimmelman, a former senior antitrust official at the Justice Department. “If the conflict between cable distributors and content owners persists and prices keep rising, there will be enormous market pressure to begin unbundling offerings, give consumers more choices and, from my perspective, ultimately let consumers control what they buy and how much they pay.”

Target this.

The NCAA has officially approved the new ejection for targeting rule.  Therein lies the rub.

One area of concern, though, is how exactly to define the targeting of a defenseless player and how different officiating crews may interpret the NCAA’s own definition.  In an attempt to alleviate some concern on that front, the oversight panel accepted the rules committee proposal that any targeting penalty be subject to immediate video review.  The release states that “[t]he replay official must have conclusive evidence that a player should not be ejected to overturn the call on the field,” which of course brings additional subjectivity into the mix.

A bug for some, a feature for Penn Wagers.

‘Who wants to defend this?’

Revealing nugget from Jon Solomon’s piece on former NCAA infractions committee chair Jo Potuto, who, by the way, as one of the few people associated with the NCAA who doesn’t appear to have her head stuck up her ass, ought to be in consideration should the day ever come when Mark Emmert is deposed:

Top NCAA leaders have privately debated for years how to defend its model as the games became more commercialized. Their answer for keeping it: Losing the amateurism component loses operating as a nonprofit with tax benefits and control over policies.

“If it becomes a version of the professional model, why would you go see an athlete in college who looks like a pro when the pros play better?” Potuto asked. “If they’re college students, that has to mean something.”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen the gap between what the suits want and what the fans want described better.  And in a mere two paragraphs!

Potuto – gasp! – is even willing to entertain the heretical notion that college players should be able to profit off their names.  She’s unconvinced it will be the end of the republic.

“I don’t know that it would be such a terrible, dramatic, awful thing,” she said. “We should look at what it looks like and talk about what maybe the consequences might be. If boosters involves themselves in ways that tilt things, maybe you say the players can’t get the money until they leave school. I think it’s worth looking at seriously instead of worrying the house will fall down.”

On the other hand, Potuto believes economists should create a model that accurately shows the monetary value of college players.

“”What I think we would find, to the chagrin of a lot of college athletes, is their value in name likeness is not a whole lot, and a lot of it comes from wearing the name of their school on their shirt,” Potuto said.

Clearly this woman is too reasonable to be entrusted with a position of responsibility governing college athletics.

Amateurism, with a twist

It sounds like Johnny Manziel will be spending more of his offseason time with a quarterback coach in San Diego than he will on campus with his fellow Texas A&M students.

But he feels like a “normal” student.  So there’s that.

Spring football is just around the corner.

Or here, if you happen to play for Army, believe it or not, where practice started last Tuesday.

Here’s the comprehensive list of start dates for practices and spring games. (Georgia’s are March 2 and April 16 6, respectively, if you’re too lazy to click.)

Thirteen

Honestly, I’m surprised in this age of conference expansion and networks that this question isn’t being asked more often.

I bet it will be, though.