So how badly do we want to keep this rivalry, anyway?

I’m a little surprised Gus Malzahn didn’t smack this suggestion down more forcefully.

It’s possible Auburn and Georgia could agree to a non-conference game if the cross-divisional match-up is removed from the schedule, but the schools have not entertained that option.

“You know, we haven’t gotten that far but that’s very important to our fan base and Georgia’s,” Malzahn said.

Okay, that’s not a “yes”, but that’s also not a card you want to concede could be played until you don’t have any other option left.

A “non-conference” conference game is oxymoronic. In today’s SEC, there’s no reason to volunteer a course of action that lets others dispense with the oxy.

Pleading poverty

The NCAA is appealing the O’Bannon case.  Wait, you say, did I miss something?  Has there already been a trial?

Nah, but why should that stop anything?  Other than the trial’s start, of course.

Lawyers for the NCAA on Friday night filed two motions that could further delay the start of a long-awaited trial in a lawsuit relating to the use of college athletes’ names and likenesses and the association’s limits on what major-college football and men’s basketball players can receive for playing sports.

Every day of delay is another day the schools don’t have to cut the student-athletes in on the deal.  And that deal is looking more lucrative by the day.

Negotiations for the next Big Ten television contract haven’t started, but that hasn’t stopped the league from projecting revenue for the 2017-18 academic year — the first year of the new deal.

In a document obtained by the Journal & Courier through an open records request from Purdue University, 12 of the 14 schools are projected to receive $44.5 million each through the league’s distribution plan.

My fingers and toes don’t work as well as they used to, but that looks like a contract running north of half a billion smackers a year for the conference.  And Jim Delany would have you believe his guys would walk away from that kind of money in a heartbeat if student-athletes get some.  Division III, my ass.

We get the conference schedule we deserve.

Ole Miss’ athletic director has some interesting priorities.

Ole Miss is in favor of eight-plus-one — eight SEC games, plus one game against a team from one of the other four major conferences.

“Then you control your destiny in your nonconference scheduling, so that’s more important for us,” Bjork said.

Sometimes I wonder if these guys get the point to a conference.

The kids should act like adults, but nobody cares how the adults act.

One of the side issues in this whole debate about student-athletes’ rights/concerns/compensation/unionization that strikes me as remarkably two-faced is this assumption that amateurism implies kids should be held to a higher standard than the adults around them.  That’s the reasoning (using the term in its loosest sense) behind this absurd Matt Hayes column in which he argues that as a result of unionization and compensation, college athletics should impose a zero tolerance policy on its student-athletes for rules violations.  That’s a level of accountability nobody, including Hayes, has seen fit to apply to other moneymakers in the arena, like coaches (hi, Bruce Pearl!) or schools.

Or take the reprimand the Big 12 solemnly handed out to Texas’ Steve Redmond for saying Baylor was “trash”.

“Mr. Edmond violated the Conference rule that prohibit coaches, student-athletes, athletic department staff and university personnel from making negative public comments about other member institutions,” said Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby. “Consistent with our standard for such violations he is being issued a public reprimand.”

Very noble.  Except that same standard didn’t compel Bowlsby to speak out when nationally renowned asshole Jeff Orr admittedly called OSU basketball player Keith Marcus Smart a “piece of crap” (or worse, if you believe Smart and others) and generated an ugly incident.  At least not about Orr.

“Mr. Smart’s actions were a clear violation of the Big 12 Conference’s Sportsmanship and Ethical Conduct Policy,” Bowlsby said in a statement. “Such behavior has no place in athletics, and will not be tolerated.”

Or this – and I know citing Colin Cowherd is like shooting fish in a barrel:

“…I don’t think paying all college athletes is great, not every college is loaded and most 19-year-olds [are] gonna spend it–and let’s be honest, they’re gonna spend it on weed and kicks! And spare me the ‘they’re being extorted’ thing. Listen, 90% of these college guys are gonna spend it on tats, weed, kicks, x-boxes, beer and swag. They are, get over it!”

True ‘dat, Colin, because we all know that adults in the real world are totally practical in how they spend their money.

Double standard much, fellas?