You never know who might be reading your Twitter feed.

Somehow, I can’t imagine this exchange ever taking place between Aaron Murray and Mike Bobo.

Joe Cox would like this post.

Chase Stuart, in a post about pick six rates in college, compiles this chart:

Year	Pick 6	INT	Att	INT Rate	Pick 6 Rt
2012	159	1532	54545	2.8%	10.4%
2011	159	1490	51339	2.9%	10.7%
2010	159	1589	49776	3.2%	10%
2009	158	1537	49872	3.1%	10.3%
2008	162	1606	49828	3.2%	10.1%
2007	167	1711	52993	3.2%	9.8%
2006	163	1569	46011	3.4%	10.4%

You know what’s striking there?  In an era of ever more wide open offenses, interception rates have declined.

There are some good quarterbacks and coaches out there these days.  Vince Dooley may have to revisit his mantra of what can happen when you throw the ball.

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Giving back to the school

Now here’s a story that deserves more attention. Kentucky is embarking on three major on-campus building projects, none of which involve funding from the state legislature.

• A $65 million renovation and expansion of the Gatton College of Business and Economics. The $65 million project will be initially funded with $25 million in gifts and $40 million in agency bonds, approved by the legislature.

• The $100 million construction of a Science and Academic Building. The 263,000 square foot building will be funded by agency bonds and is the result of a partnership with athletics unlike any other in the country. UK Athletics will fund 65 percent of the building’s debt service ― or, in total, about $65 million.

• A $110 million renovation of Commonwealth Stadium and the Nutter Training and Recruiting Center. The project ― which will add suites and club seating, while improving the fan experience throughout the stadium ― will be paid for by agency bonds and funded through the construction of suites. UK already has a waiting list for suites.

Note that second item carefully.  The athletic department will fund almost two-thirds of the cost of an academic building.  As The Business of College Sports (h/t Kristi Dosh) puts it,

The first thing that stands out is an athletic department building announcement, particularly one from a major program, being included in an announcement of general university projects. Yes, all of the projects were approved on the same day but it is rare to see a university present such a united front with its athletic department. Keeping with that theme, the second bullet point contains an incredible nugget: the athletics department will fund over half of the cost of a campus building completely unrelated to athletics. In fact, all three projects will be funded by the university without the use of state funds. The project is being called BBNUnited. BBN, of course, stands for Big Blue Nation, the common nickname for Kentucky’s fan base. While many athletic departments donate money to their university (often to the general scholarship fund), very few make the sort of commitment that Kentucky has.

This is the sort of creative funding I expect to see more and more of as the era of dwindling state financial support for state universities gets into full swing.  We’ll see plenty asked of a college athletic department, like funding a major stadium expansion with its own resources, and even more given.  (“In addition to support of the new Science and Academic Building, UK Athletics contributes millions of dollars each year to academic scholarships and programming. In fact, in total, UK Athletics spends more than 25 percent of its revenues back on campus for university needs.”)

All of which leads me to ask Jim Delany another question:  how many Division III athletic departments fund construction costs for a $100 million Science and Academic building these days?

The ACC’s emerging split personality

Coach K has had it up to here with this football crap.  It’s time for the ACC to get back to its roots – from being a mediocre football conference that cares about the sport to being a mediocre football conference that cares about basketball.

For all these schools that have joined, it makes us the most powerful basketball conference, I think, ever.  And I hope our league is able to understand the assets that we’ve accumulated and what it does to the assets we already have. I think if positioned properly, it sets us apart from anybody.  And we shouldn’t look at where football is or whatever.  We have the best assets as a result of Louisville, Syracuse, Pitt, Notre Dame, and the assets we have — we’re joining together.  I mean, we better know how to make use of it.  [Emphasis added.]

Now the interesting thing about this round of conference expansion is that in Duke and Louisville the ACC has two of the few programs that make more money on their basketball programs than they do on their football programs.  So when Krzyzewski goes on to say this…

I think (it’s a matter of) how you use your assets, how we position them TV‑wise. Does our conference develop its own TV network? Where we play the tournament — when do we play the tournament?  How do we position our regular season?  How do we have the teams play schedules that are worthy of being considered for NCAA consideration? In other words, (we need) to take a real close look at our league with the new members and say: Why are we different, why are we better, and how can we be the top league?

And if we don’t do that, then we’re negligent, to be quite frank with you. We’d be negligent. We’d miss out on a great opportunity. These schools shouldn’t be coming in just because we want to do football.  Our league was founded on basketball, and that doesn’t mean football isn’t important. It is important. I like it. I want it to be great. But I want ACC basketball to be the best. And we have a chance to do that again.

… it’s not crazy.  It’s revealing.  This is what a man who resents the direction the conference took when it expanded to twelve schools and split into divisions says.  And even though I’ve never been a fan of the man, there’s a certain amount of fuzzy nostalgia in that I find appealing.  But, then again, I’m not the AD at FSU, Miami or Virginia Tech.  If I’m any of those folks, I’m not going to welcome the possibility of that mindset being embraced in the league office.  (And if I’m Jack Swarbrick, I’m going to keep a careful eye on developments, that’s for sure.)

It’s hard to say how much effect Krzyzewski’s position will have, but it will be interesting to see what happens if Maryland is able to significantly reduce its exit penalty of $50 million.  If it does, Coach K may be giving another roots speech sooner than he expects.