Mr. Redding, and a fifteen-second reminder of what’s coming Saturday.
Daily Archives: April 7, 2015
Envy and jealousy, making the NCAA look good edition
Jon Stewart, on the Indiana religious freedom law, for the win:
Stewart pointed to the NCAA’s opposition to the bill as a turning point in the state.
“When you’re being criticized by a company whose entire business model is based on exploitation…” he said. “‘You can’t discriminate against gays. You can profit on their likeness without compensation. Here’s how you can get away with it: Just call them student-gays.'”
When you make Mark Emmert look broadminded, you’ve lost. Sorry, Hoosiers.
Filed under Envy and Jealousy
“Really, nobody cares how you determine your champion.”
Dennis Dodd is reporting that the NCAA expects to pass legislation in 2016 “deregulating” conference championship games. According to Bob Bowlsby, the ACC may take that authorization and run with it.
“I think there’s some belief that ACC would play three divisions, have two highest ranked play in postseason,” said Bob Bowlsby, chairman of the new NCAA Football Oversight Committee.
I can’t wait for the year the ACC has, say, three teams ranked in the top six and argues that the team that wins its championship game and the team that didn’t play in it both deserve slots in the national semifinals.
By the way, I put “deregulating” in quotes, because this line from Bowlsby is state of the art bullshit:
“This isn’t really changing the [conference championship game] rule, it’s deregulating.”
Houston, I think we’ve got a new buzz phrase.
“We’re not really changing quarterbacks. We’re deregulating the position.”
Filed under ACC Football, The NCAA
The real amateurism problem
You just had your big ticket item, NCAA, your billion-dollar jewel, close out the season with this takeaway:
All that money, and you can’t be bothered coming up with competent officiating for your organization’s annual biggest night on the stage? What, you didn’t know it was coming?
It’s not just the NCAA, of course. The P5 conferences won’t make the effort to professionalize their football officials either.
Maybe they all think the fans like crappy refs.
Filed under College Football, The NCAA
Take a hike, son.
The genius sputters about the Roquan Smith signing. And it’s pretty funny.
“I don’t see that going anywhere,” Johnson told the AJC. “I don’t think anybody is going to allow that. They (colleges) are going to tell kids that if they don’t want to sign their NLI then I’m going to the next kid. It would be chaos. It would be crazy. There would be no signing thing. It would just be nonstop year-round.
“… Some of the stories that I followed with the financial aid, there’s a lot of misinformation out there anyways. Because once you go to that school, you’re still bound to that school. You get around to the same rules as everybody else. What it does is make the recruiting process go longer, just like the academies (such as Army and Navy). They have that at the academies, and it’s ridiculous. You recruit all summer. The academies are different because they don’t have a set number of scholarships. You’re not trying to hit a target number.
“If you’re trying to hit 85, it would be chaos. Because nobody would have an idea of who is going where until school started. Guys would sign two or three different financial-aid agreements. You wouldn’t know if they were going to enroll here or there. You’d be disingenuous waiting on them. That would be chaos.”
Chaos, he tells ‘ya. Chaos! And Paul Johnson doesn’t do chaos, damn it.
The Tech coach was also asked this question: What would you have done if a players like quarterback Justin Thomas or the Austin twins had told you that they promised they were coming to your school but that they felt uncomfortable with signing an NLI?
“I would’ve went on to the next guy,” Johnson said.
Sure thing. ‘Cause if there’s one thing we know about Georgia Tech recruiting, it’s that there are always plenty of four-star fish left in the sea if you have to toss one back on signing day.
Filed under Georgia Tech Football, Recruiting
It’s not about closing the borders.
It’s about getting a guard at the right gate early.
Despite being 2,800 miles away from Athens, Eason understands the importance of helping recruit players from the state of Georgia. After all, over one-tenth (31) of the ESPN Junior 300, is made up of players from Georgia. Obviously, Georgia won’t be able to take them all, but targeting the right in-state players is critical for future success.
“We know we have a tremendous talent base in this state and if we get the best ones, we are going to be in really good shape,” Richt said “We also know that there are more than we are allowed to take so we are not going to be able to get them all. We have to do a good job of targeting the right guys and getting after them.”
One of Georgia’s top overall targets, athlete Mecole Hardman, said some of the Georgia coaches have tried to sell him on the opportunity to play for the home-state team.
“I hear it all the time from Coach [Jeremy] Pruitt and Coach Richt,” said Hardman, who has a top three of Georgia, Tennessee and Auburn. “They say, ‘Hey, it’s your home state — come play for your home team.’ Georgia, in my opinion has the best talent in the nation as I see it. They try to sell us on getting everybody together in Georgia to come play for Georgia. We definitely hear that stuff a lot.”
It just feels like Georgia’s done a nice job of late adapting to the current realities of football recruiting. And, again, you have to give Richt a certain amount of credit for remaking his approach to a key factor in program success. Now, let’s see some dividends from it.
Filed under Georgia Football, Recruiting
Keep shooting the messenger.
If at first you don’t succeed in getting the evaluation you need to eviscerate your football program, try, try again.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham has hired another sports consultant to produce a new study about the decision to cut football, bowling and rifle. If you’re keeping score at home, it’s the same firm that a UAB athletics task force initially decided not to pick.
UAB announced Monday that its task force has selected College Sports Solutions (CSS) to produce by May 15 what figures to be a highly-scrutinized report. Because the university dropped football, UAB’s future membership in Conference USA remains in doubt. Conference USA’s presidents meet shortly after the May 15 date the report is due.
Last month, CSS lost its bid to become UAB’s new consultant to review the work by previous consultant, CarrSports. UAB’s task force announced in early March the hiring of consultant OSKR after a unanimous vote.
But UAB’s administration cited perceived biases by OSKR because of articles written by its co-founder and eliminated the company from consideration. UAB owes OSKR $22,400 for work the firm did after initially getting approval, AL.com reported.
So the UAB administration overrode the task force’s decision, because Andy Schwarz had the temerity to note that the emperor had no clothes.
I guess the new guys know what they need to do.
Tuesday morning buffet
A little of this, a little of that…
- This is awkward.
- A.J. Turman’s good spring is getting him some attention.
- Florida is now down to six healthy scholarship linemen for the final three spring practices, including the spring game Saturday. Maybe Boom can make another crack about McElwain’s dog.
- You don’t like how Georgia’s spring scrimmages have gone? Check out Missouri’s.
- Speaking of scrimmages, it sounds like Auburn’s got a ways to go to meet it eight bombs a game goal.
- The Pac-12 ponders furthering its academic mission by going into competition with the likes of IMG.
- Seth Emerson looks down the stretch of Georgia’s spring practice.
Filed under Gators, General Idiocy, Georgia Football, Pac-12 Football, SEC Football
Get The Picture 