“They went from eating Caesar salad to prime rib.”

The NCAA cracks down some more on those “diploma mill” prep schools:

In perhaps its most significant move to deter diploma mills, the N.C.A.A. will limit high school students to one core course that would count toward college eligibility after a student’s four-year high school graduation date.

They’re saying all the right things in the article…

“We’re not shutting out opportunity, we’re encouraging better behavior,” Lennon said. He added that “legitimate prep schools in the business of preparing students for college and wanting to improve their academic portfolio” would continue to be able to do so.

… but you wonder about how it turns out in the real world.

The complaints in the article come from basketball coaches, but we’ve seen abuse on the football side, too. If you are a Georgia fan, you have to wonder what kind of impact this will have on kids that wind up at Hargrave.

Sounds like jucos will benefit:

Byrnes also said those benefiting the most from this rule were junior colleges.

“They went from eating Caesar salad to prime rib,” Byrnes said.

Junior college basketball programs were virtually gutted in the past decade as students took fifth, sixth and sometimes even seventh years of prep school as alternatives to using two years of eligibility at a junior college. The last star players to go through junior college and play at four-year colleges were Steve Francis and Shawn Marion.

“This puts the focus back on junior college again, where our people are prepared to help these kids,” said Steve Green, the head coach at South Plains College, a junior college in Texas.

And maybe one other group stands to benefit.

“In theory, this thing is probably the right idea,” said Bill Barton, the coach at Notre Dame Prep in Fitchburg, Mass. “But the reality is that you’re hurting a wide spectrum of kids that come from different backgrounds, but most are minority kids from the inner city. There has to be a lawsuit in here somewhere.”

Doesn’t there always?

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Admittedly, the weather is nice.

I know I’m going to come off sounding like a whiny ass for posting this, but them’s the breaks.

Tavarres King, a sought after wide receiver recruit, is weighing a choice between Georgia, Florida and Clemmins.  Here’s what he had to say about his suitors:

“It’s kind of neck and neck with all three teams,” King said. “My dad played at Clemson and I’ve had this dream of playing there. Georgia has done a great job of recruiting me. And Florida throws it around the yard, and the weather is great.” [Emphasis added.]

For what it’s worth, here are some numbers from last year

• Clemson, 25.15 pass attempts per game
• Florida, 28.50 pass attempts per game
• Georgia, 26.31 pass attempts per game

If King is making his decision based on 2 or 3 pass attempts per game, Urban Meyer has shown himself to be a good salesman, that’s for sure.

Compare and contrast.

Light Bulb Goes Off Department: It finally dawns on Stewart Mandel that LSU underachieved last year under Les Miles: “… how did last year’s obviously ultra-loaded squad — a No. 1 QB and two first-round receivers — lose two of its first six games?”

Good question! It was a good question last fall, too, Stewart.

Meanwhile, Pat Forde has a much more insightful column up about a trend that isn’t good if you’re a football coach at a mid-major school – namely, that the rich are getting richer.

… Being selected 28th also made Staley the lowest first selection from outside the college game’s power elite since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970. That’s a point of concern for everyone who doesn’t have an automatic spot at the BCS money trough.

After the free-flowing festival of projection and prognostication all weekend, here’s the one hard-and-fast fact to come out of this draft: The NFL has never been less interested in spending top dollar on low-profile football players from low-profile programs than it is right now. [Emphasis added.]

The old NFL saying is, “If you can play, we’ll find you.” Well, either the collegians outside the BCS conferences cannot play, or the league is no longer trying as hard to find them. Because the trend is to use top picks on the glamour boys from the glamour teams in the glamour conferences.

Last April it took 27 picks to get a non-BCS draftee: Memphis running back DeAngelo Williams. That was the record — until this year, when Staley slipped one slot lower…

If you consider that getting to play on Sundays is a major consideration for many recruits, should this trend continue, it’s going to be a harder sales job to get a lot of those kids to look at a school that’s not in a BCS conference. As Forde puts it, “(t)he path to the first round is straighter and narrower than ever. For better or worse, it rarely detours through the smaller schools anymore.”

The article is definitely worth a read.

You’ve got to pay for Jimmy Clausen.

Matt Hayes reports that we should

(l)ook for Notre Dame A.D. Kevin White to renegotiate the Irish’s deal when the BCS and FOX open contract talks–possibly as early as this summer. As it is now, Notre Dame gets $4.5 million in years it goes to a BCS bowl (compared with $17 million for each BCS conference champion) and $1.3 million when it doesn’t. That deal was made during the Ty Willingham era and probably cost the Irish about $12 million last year. . . .

“$1.3 million when it doesn’t”?   That sounds like getting paid by the government not to grow a crop.

Seriously, this is just part of the puzzle that has to be accounted for if you’re a playoff proponent.  And Notre Dame won’t be easily dealt with.

All this attention for a school that’s dropped its last nine bowl games in a row…