He just wants to sue somebody, damn it.

Even as it looks like the BCS is going to be superseded by another postseason format, Mark Shurtleff is still making plans to file his antitrust case.

With the possible end of the BCS on the horizon, Mark Shurtleff still remains determined to see the sun set on the 14-year old system.

The Utah attorney general is forging ahead with his year-old and often-delayed plans to sue the BCS. Shurtleff’s legal strategy actually now accounts for the possible dissolution of the Bowl Championship Series at the same time commissioners decide on college football’s postseason future beginning in 2014. His office recently posted online detailed requests for proposal soliciting law firms to assist in his anti-trust challenge of the BCS.

Among those to be considered as “possible adverse parties” in any future legal action, according to the document, are the NCAA, BCS, the BCS bowls, the six BCS conferences and any radio or TV partner.

He’s turning into college football’s Hiroo Onoda.

What’s a little money between buds?

I’m someone who’s long thought that the NCAA is wrongheaded to prohibit student-athletes from signing with agents, but even I’m a little uneasy with Andy Staples’ enthusiastic approval of former agent Josh Luchs’ proposal for the NCAA to let agents sign and loan money to college athletes.

I get the “better to have ‘em pissing inside the tent than outside pissing on the tent” aspect of Staples’ argument and it’s good that Luchs wants to structure these loans so that they’re only repayable if the kid ultimately lands a professional career, but there’s something about the easy assertion that “(t)his way, no one gets sued or shaken down after failing to reach his potential” that I’m a trifle shaky about.  These are agents we’re talking about, after all.  It’s not like some of them don’t have a propensity for skirting rules they find inconvenient.  Not to mention possible conflicts of interest between what a school demands from a kid both on the field and in the classroom and what an agent thinks is best.  Each party has skin in the game, but whose direction is the student-athlete more likely to follow?

And let’s not even get into what happens when an 18-year old kid fires an agent to whom he owes money.

I continue to have this nagging feeling that in the name of being fairer to the kids, we’re making things more complicated than they should be.  Letting college players have representation?  Sure.  Making agents into personal bankers?  Eh, not so much.  Wouldn’t it be cleaner to let these kids have marketing access to their names and likenesses as every other person on the planet does so that they can have money in their pockets without having to borrow it?  (And isn’t earning instead of borrowing a better lesson for these kids to learn about getting ahead, anyway?)

Of course, the cleanest thing of all would simply be for the NFL or somebody to create a paying alternative for those 18-year olds who don’t want to play college ball for nothing more than a scholarship.  (Along those lines, see this provocative post from John Infante.)  I know, I know…

That equestrian program ain’t free.

For fiscal year 2010-11, Georgia’s athletic department turned a $53 million dollar profit in football… and a $9.5 million profit overall.

Divisional bling

https://twitter.com/#!/Brandensmith1/statuses/182610198291165186

Georgia players received their Southeastern Conference Eastern Division championship rings on Wednesday.

“We got a little bling, bling, you know,” senior safety Bacarri Rambo said. “I’m going to wear mine around campus tomorrow. We know we’ve got to show them off. I’m not going to have my hands in my pocket at all. I’m going to walk with my hands by my side the whole time and let it shine in the sun.”

One thing I’ll always be grateful for.

Thank Gawd cell phones didn’t exist when I was in college.