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?

Dubai is compelling.

Just so we’re clear here..

UT AD Steve Patterson told us “unless there is a compelling reason,'' the football series between Texas and Texas A&M is dead.

— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) April 25, 2014

… fan interest doesn’t qualify as a “compelling reason”?

Steve Patterson really is a national treasure.

“Now that we went 4-8, we’re out of control.”

Agent Muschamp insists he’s got a handle on things.  And Mike Bianchi is in his corner.  (Gratuitous, but wholly expected Corch shot: “When Urban Meyer was coaching UF to national championships, Gator fans scoffed at those of us in the media who pointed out the number of Meyer’s players who were getting arrested. Only in Meyer’s final days – when the program started to unravel and Meyer ultimately bailed out – did fans turn on him.”)

Damn, if Boom didn’t exist, we’d want to invent him.  He’s on track to join Reggie Ball in the Georgia Opponents Hall of Fame.

The Fridge

One guess whose supply this is.

Michigan gets Houstoned.

Just when you think the NCAA can’t get any NCAA-ier, it does.

A ludicrous situation on so many levels, stupidity like this has the effect of making you sympathetic to the union argument.

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UPDATE:

On the positive side, there's at least one NCAA appeals staffer finally over losing the girl to the basketball player in HS now

— Brett Thiessen (@The_Mathlete) April 25, 2014

More scheduling angst

Okay, back to cynical mode.

One of the questions Seth Emerson addresses in his most recent mailbag is what’s going on with conference scheduling, in particular the fate of the crossover divisional rivalry games.  Part of his answer intrigues me.

Slive is good about not showing his cards, but if I had to guess he’d personally vote to go to nine games, which would keep the two major cross-division rivalries. But if he doesn’t get the votes for that – and I’m not sure the votes are there – then I know Slive is sensitive to the perception that he would be presiding over the end of two more storied rivalries. Slive doesn’t like that Texas and Texas A&M don’t play anymore, nor that Missouri-Kansas has ended. Those aren’t necessarily his fault: Missouri and Texas A&M wanted in the SEC, and those were the consequences. But losing the Georgia-Auburn and Tennessee-Alabama rivalries would be more on Slive’s watch.

Now, first, I don’t doubt Seth’s guess about Slive’s preference there.  If you’re not a head coach or an athletic director, a move to a nine-game conference slate makes way too much sense.   In terms of broadcast inventory and attractiveness to the playoff selection committee, it’s close to a no-brainer for a conference commissioner who’s paid to look at the bigger picture.  Slive’s always been pretty good at leading his presidents where he wants them to go, so I can see him pushing an expanded schedule as a compromise between the block that wants to keep the permanent cross-division rivalries and the one that wants to ditch them.

But what if he’s not convincing enough?  It’s pretty clear there’s a lot of resistance to adding that ninth game from the coaches and the ADs.  And the restrained comments we’ve heard on the Georgia side about the Auburn game lead me to think our administration already knows the votes aren’t there to keep the status quo.  So those of us who want the Auburn-Georgia series to be maintained have to hang our hats on Slive’s concern for his perceived legacy?  I know Seth speaks pretty clearly about what appears to be on Slive’s mind, but, dang, so much tradition has already been trashed on Slive’s watch – true, not all his fault – that I question if there really is a bridge too far here.  There are plenty of ways to rationalize the decision if it comes to that.

I don’t know; maybe the compromise will be to stay at eight games, keep the two permanent cross-division rivalries intact and let every other cross-division matchup float.  That’s a scheduling nightmare – for one thing, it will mean long stretches when Georgia doesn’t play certain teams from the West – but as the current mess in basketball indicates, the SEC seems to have a great deal of tolerance for nightmarish scheduling.

What I feel certain of is that fan preference isn’t driving this bus.  I’m just hoping they do enough to let us have a comfortable seat on it.  After all, we’re the ones paying for the ride.

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UPDATE:  If Slive is looking for some more ammo for an argument to go to a nine-game schedule, he might want to take a look at this.

“Once you’re a Bulldog, you’re always a Bulldog.”

As easy as it is to wax cynical about so much of what goes on in college football, there is something authentic about Mark Richt that is always worth appreciating.

Four months and two days away

CFN has a list of all the action for the first week of the college football season.

Can it get here soon enough?