I need some wheels.

Wonder what Andrew Zimbalist would say about this:

UW football players used scholarship funds earmarked for housing and food to purchase mopeds, and in some cases, cars.

Senior Jonathan Casillas told 27 News the practice of ciphoning money from room and board uses made sense.

“Once you get to your second, third year, you start learning what’s cheap (housing), what’s expensive.   Maybe live with somebody and split the rent.    And hopefully you can get a moped, or maybe even a car.   Some people got cars.”

Casillas told 27 News he bought his moped from a housing scholarship stipend.   Casillas was also arrested on that moped for alleged first offense drunk driving.   Casillas has a plea hearing scheduled for April 22.

Personally, I don’t have a problem with this (buying the moped, that is, not the drunk driving), as long as no rules are being broken.  Hell, these kids are learning how to manage their resources carefully.  Is that such a bad thing?

Head to head

One of the dumber things about the Chan Gailey regime was the head man’s apparent decision to downplay in state recruiting.  No doubt Richt and Garner made formidable opponents on the recruiting trail, but considering the amount of D-1 level talent that comes out of Georgia’s high schools every year, there’s more than enough to go around.  On top of that, Gailey had a gifted recruiter in Giff Smith.

Bottom line, you can’t be a credible state school program if you don’t make a serious effort to go after the better in state talent.

So I give credit to Paul Johnson for having enough sense to pull the program’s head out of its ass on this front.  And, as Michael Carvell notes in this post, it looks like Georgia and Georgia Tech may find themselves going after more of the same recruits as time goes on.

… It’s still early in recruiting for the 2010 prospects, but at least a dozen of the state’s top names sport dual offers from the rivals. Some of the headliners are M.L. King tailback Mack Brown, Booker T. Washington wide receiver Antonio Goodwin, Gainesville wide receiver Tai-ler Jones, North Gwinnett offensive lineman JaWuan James, Douglass defensive lineman Garrison Smith, South Paulding cornerback Ryan Ayers, Newnan safety Alec Ogletree, Warner Robins defensive tackle Jeffrey Whitaker, and Buford lineman Kolton Houston.

Now the reality is that given how different the offensive schemes run at the two schools are, there will always be a lot of kids that both programs won’t be seriously vying for.  But it will be interesting to see how things develop with regard to the battles over recruits who play defense.

By the way, Tech fans, does this mean that the academics excuse you’ve hidden behind for years is being exposed for the joke that it is?  Or have the high school kids in this state suddenly gotten a lot smarter?