One sign you’re at a basketball school

Duke gets its spring football game in before the start of March Madness.

I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture …

And Judge Wilken has just ordered one in the O’Bannon case.

Delany’s latest idle threat

Look out, boys, he’s pretending he’s serious again!

Delany said if college football players were able to unionize, the NCAA would likely seek congressional guidance to help determine the future of college athletics.

Orrin Hatch and Joe Barton are standing by, ready to help, Jim.  Just give ’em the heads up.

Advertisement

Okay, maybe they were a little young.

The interesting thing about the chart in this Athlon SEC East preview is that Georgia has somehow managed to combine losing the most departing seniors with having the most returning starters in the division.

I wonder how often that happens.

Don’t know much about geography.

Butch Jones draws his own maps.

“We treat Georgia as a home state for us. You look at the proximity from Georgia to the University of Tennessee. This is home territory for us, and I think we’ve proven we’ve had great success with players from the state of Georgia…”

Sounds like another UT coach of recent memory.

Dooley and company want to recruit a five-hour, 300-mile radius from Knoxville and treat everything in that circle as “in-state” for UT.

Continuity, bitches.  Maybe that explains the back-to-back losing seasons.

Somebody needs a big ole steaming mug of STFU.

Barry Switzer goes from calling Johnny Football an “arrogant little prick” to, well, I don’t know… full-blown crank with this gem:

“I’ve always said I’d never recruit a white quarterback. The only way I’d ever recruit a white quarterback to play for me is if his mom and daddy would both have to be black, and that’s the only way I would do it. My quarterback is a quarterback-fullback offense – how the wishbone was. I’d have to have a Jamelle Holieway, J.C. Watts and Thomas Lott (former Oklahoma quarterbacks who are all black). Those guys are gonna be my quarterbacks – great runners, great ball carriers and be able to pass. Those guys could throw and run.”

Geez, maybe somebody should get his opinion on Michael Sam.

The “settling it on the field” dilemma, in two sentences

The NFL is pondering the expansion of its playoffs by adding two more teams to the field.  Why, you may ask?

As if you didn’t know.

In any event, the league is trying to make it sound as if postseason expansion is not inevitable.

Some owners are apparently wary of the potential for de-valuing a playoff spot by allowing too many teams into the postseason. But such concerns could be offset by the potential for increased TV revenues.

Delany and Slive couldn’t have expressed that more delicately if they tried.  Which they will, in a few years.

Honey, they’re playing our song!

I don’t know whether Greg McGarity is simply screwing with us now, or if he’s sincerely concerned about what he perceives as a big problem facing the football program.  Either way, I think this qualifies as a just shoot me now moment:

“We don’t have a go-to song,” McGarity said. “We don’t have a song right now that our fans, when they hear it, act like some of the fans of other schools when they hear their songs. We’ve never really had a go-to song or something people hear that makes them react in a certain way.”

You’ve never really had something people hear that makes them react in a certain way?  Oh, I don’t know about that.

When 4 tickets, 4 hot dogs, 4 cokes ain’t gettin’ it done.

What the AJ-C refers to as Georgia Tech’s “season-ticket strategy”:

The ticket office also came up with a clever incentive, two movie screenings to be held at Bobby Dodd Stadium in July for season-ticket holders only. Fans will be allowed to watch the movies – “Muppets Most Wanted” and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” if you’re wondering – on the field. It’s a unique experience and, perhaps best of all for the athletic department, the cost is fairly negligible.

Why Tech doesn’t simply give in to the inevitable and offer a discount to Dragon*Con as part of its season ticket package escapes me.

“It’s gonna look out of the ordinary.”

Rogers Redding isn’t used to backpedaling and it clearly shows as the NCAA Football Rules Committee is in full retreat on the 10-second substitution rule proposal.

It’s likely the rules committee will also consider unofficial feedback, including the results of an anonymous survey of FBS head coaches conducted by ESPN.com. The survey of 128 coaches showed overwhelming opposition to the proposal. Ninety-three coaches (73 percent) were opposed; 25 (19.5 percent) were in favor of the proposal; nine (seven percent) were undecided.

“It’s a piece of information that people are gonna be interested in,” Redding said. “Whether it would sway anyone, it’s another data point. I wouldn’t be surprised if it (had an impact).”

I think I’m gonna have to appropriate “it’s another data point” as a brush off response.  Although I suppose it beats saying, “yeah, this has been a real clown show”.

And once again, Saban proves he’s the smartest guy in the room by not commenting publicly.