“I worry about that and so does Percy…”

I love watching Percy Harvin play – one game a year excepted, of course – so I’m sorry to see that there’s been a bit of a setback in his rehab from his heel surgery.

But it’s weird to see this question asked of another Gator offensive player.

One thing that’s noticeably different about Harvin this year is that he’s weighing more than 200 pounds and looks like an NFL running back. Can he take that kind of pounding, if the Gators choose to hand him the ball even more this season?

Where have we heard this before?  These guys are beginning to sound like a collection of the most fragile players in the history of college football.

It’s dicey enough that even Meyer himself can’t predict the future on this.

“You look at him now, and he’s a solid, strong guy,” Meyer said. “I think he’s that good, and I think he’s that competitive. Is he that durable? I don’t know that yet.”

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This has got to be a metaphor for something.

You know it’s bad when a state school is prohibited from using the state’s initials as a logo, but if that could happen anywhere, you know it would be at the University of South Carolina.

And so it has.

The University of Southern California has been ruled to have more legal right than the University of South Carolina to use the “SC” logo. (The decision does not affect the “USC” logo.)

The decision comes from the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Maybe they could read "SC East".

As the post goes on to say,

… The hat above depicts South Carolina’s baseball logo, which the appeal board decided was legally identical to California’s (right). The board says the marks cause confusion and both schools can’t have it.

Incredibly enough, or maybe not – this is South Carolina, after all – it turns out that the school abandoned the use of the initials “SC” for ten years.

The topper to all this is that South Carolina’s use of the initials “USC” is maintained by virtue of an agreement with Southern Cal.

1. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA shall not object and hereby consents to the use by SOUTH CAROLINA or its licensees, distributors or other lawful designees of the designation USC on and in connection with educational and related services as well as consumer products of varying description. …

2. SOUTH CAROLINA shall not object and hereby consents to the use by SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA or its licensees, distributors or other lawful designees of the designation USC on and in connection with educational and related services as well as consumer products of varying description. … [Page 40]

In other words, if Southern Cal ever yanked its consent, South Carolina couldn’t use either set of initials to identify itself.

(h/t HawgDawg @ DawgRun.com)

By the way, there’s more on the trademark battle here, including this little blurb…

Earlier this year, the USC Gamecocks altered their official school color because of similarities with the USC Trojans. Both schools used the exact same manufacturing color codes for a varient of red known here in Los Angeles as “cardinal.” While the change to another shade of red was subtle, school officials reportedly made the switch after research showed they had lost the brand identity battle in the eye of the public — even in South Carolina…

which makes this story complete bullshit.

Those who do not study history…

Tulsa head coach Todd Graham makes his case.

“Why wouldn’t we have that goal? You look at what Boise State and Hawaii has done, that is definitely our goal,” Graham said. “We haven’t done anything to boast or brag or to be talked about in that manner. But on the same hand, if you ask me what our goals are, that’s what they are.”

Goals are fine.  But if the BCS and the poll voters haven’t learned anything from last year’s experience with Hawai’i, then they’ll richly deserve all the contempt likely to be thrown their way by putting Tulsa in the BCS.

Why?  First, check out this year’s Golden Hurricanes schedule.  There’s only one game against a BCS conference team – and that’s a mediocre Arkansas.  It’s better in one way than Hawai’i’s ’07, though, in that there’s only one 1-AA school on the slate.

Plus, these guys play atrocious defense.  Looking at last year’s stats, there’s no need to sugarcoat here:  Tulsa was 108th in total defense, 90th in rushing defense, 100th in passing defense and 100th in scoring defense.

The thing is, if these guys run the table, they’ll probably get some talk about being in the mix.  Big mistake.

Let’s get rr-r-r-random!

A few things of note to throw at you:

• I’d say Ohio State had better win that Southern Cal game, don’t you think?  (By the way, “J. J. Joe” is my new favorite college football name.  That sucker just rolls off your tongue.)
• HeismanPundit does a little cherry picking with the SEC.  If he’d have only gone one click further…
• I know some are going to consider this heretical, but I just don’t get all the love for Bobby Johnson.  Yeah, I know it’s Vandy, but this guy’s had an NFL first rounder at quarterback (which body part do you think Croom would sacrifice for that?) and a pretty stout defense and still hasn’t been able to cobble together enough for a postseason trip to Shreveport.  By going conservative, he mismanaged two games last year (Georgia and Tennessee)  which should have resulted in wins that would have made his team bowl eligible.  Sorry, but especially when I look at what Grobe has been able to do, it’s hard to get worked up about this guy.
• I’m not sure I would have picked the Dick Nixon imagery, but farewell to Sunday Morning Quarterback and best of luck to Mr. Hinton in his new career at Yahoo!.

College football recycling

You gotta love the efficiency of this:

Former LSU offensive lineman Jarvis Jones has transferred to Oklahoma. Sooner coach Bob Stoops confirmed the transfer today (August 7).

As the AP notes, the slot for Jones opened up as a result of Stoops’ dismissal of Josh Jarboe.  One door closes, another one opens, and all that.

No word on Jones’ musical/poetic tastes, though…

Next up: a fantasy drinking game

There is so much rank hypocrisy surrounding the NCAA’s struggle with the role that beer advertisements should play in promoting college sports, starting with the idea that there’s a “struggle” in the first place, that it could drive a person to drink.  There’s simply way too much money involved for the NCAA to give serious consideration to weaning itself off that particular teat.

And while I think it’s something of a joke to argue that eliminating beer advertising will have a noticeable effect on alcohol consumption by college students, those who argue that in accepting it, the powers that be in college football undercut the message that they disapprove of college drinking, have a valid point.

“Alcohol and college sports are a bad mix,” the letter said. “Beer promotion during college sports telecasts undermines the best interests of higher education and compromises the efforts of colleges and others to combat sometimes epidemic levels of alcohol problems on many campuses today.”

Yeah, but there’s all that money.

If nothing else can convince you of the utter cynicism of the NCAA’s position on this, just look at who delivered the message that the status quo must be maintained.

“We want to be very conservative with this,” Georgia president and committee chairman Michael Adams said of the beer ads.

“Though we don’t think this type of advertising is appropriate (for college sports), we have tried this once before in this country and it didn’t work very well.”

Who knew the man had a libertarian streak in him?  Next thing you know, he’ll be partying with us in the lots in Jacksonville at the WLOCP.

“I think we’ve taken a very sensible, very rationale, very conservative approach and we’ve asked that any company that advertises (alcohol) during our games continue to include the message ‘drink responsibly’ on its ads,” Adams said. “I think we’ve taken about as a conservative an approach as any sport in the country. While not everyone agrees 100 percent, I think we represent what is a good balance in that opinion.”

You left out “very profitable”, sir.

Speaking of which, does anybody not see the writing on the wall regarding the future of fantasy sports in the wake of the 8th Circuit’s decision?

“Our bylaws lump together names, images and likenesses and the names are being used now, so we’ll have to go back and look at this,” Brand said. “We will need to go back and look at our options. We certainly are not giving up our model of amateurism.”

Cha-ching!