Bob Bowlsby sweats it so we don’t have to.

The Big 12 Commissioner wants to make sure you hear it from him first.

But his most eye-opening comments came in relation to ongoing legal battles about what athletes can receive while playing college sports and the recent effort to allow Northwestern University scholarship football players to unionize — an effort that ended last month when the National Labor Relations Board decided not to accept jurisdiction over petition to let those players organize.

“I’m glad the unionization process has cooled for right now,” Bowlsby said. “But the fact is — and it probably will be in the sport of men’s basketball — there will be a day in the future when the popcorn is popped, the TV cameras are there, the fans are in the stands and the team decides they’re not going to play. Mark my words. We will see that in the years ahead. We saw some of it for other reasons in the ’70s, but I really believe that we aren’t finished with the compensation issue or with the employee-vs.-student issue.”

Wow.  That sounds pretty imminent.  Should we be very worried?

Bowlsby later said he doesn’t think such an action is close to happening, “but the tension in the system isn’t going to go away anytime soon.”

Oh.  Well, it’s a concern, anyway, right?

That point was re-emphasized later in Bowlsby’s presentation when he spoke about a recent visit he made to a college class that happened to include a men’s basketball player. Bowlsby said he ended up asking the player whether he felt like an employee, and the player responded that he did.

Bowlsby said he asked the player why he felt that way, and Bowlsby said the player replied, in part: “My time is not my own. … I don’t have any control over where I go, what I do, how I work out, how long I work out, what I eat, where I eat. … That sounds like an employee to me. … I’m grateful for what I’m getting, but you asked me if I feel like an employee — and I do.”

Bowlsby then added: “I’ve thought about a lot since then and I’m going to ask that question of others as I go around. … In the end, I guess it doesn’t really matter what the courts say about employee status if the student-athletes feel like they’re involved in a situation where they lack control over what it is they can do or can’t do — and Lord knows we’ve got lots of rules that govern them from a grade-point standpoint and from a name, image and likeness standpoint. I probably would have felt differently if I still was on campus, but in listening to student-athletes, in some ways we’re putting them in untenable situations.”

Asked after his presentation whether he was surprised by the athlete’s comments, Bowlsby told USA TODAY Sports: “Yeah, I was surprised. Because of how frank he was. I don’t know that it alters the bottom line for me, but it certainly gives me more to think about.”

So, yeah, sucks for you, but I’m not gonna lose any sleep over it – that’s all you got here, Bob?  Man, that’s a real crisis.

There’s a part of me that thinks he’d be happy if there were a player strike in hopes the public would blame the kids and by extension make folks like Bowlsby look better.  Major league baseball showed that crapping on the product is always a winning marketing strategy.  I’m not surprised that what passes for keen intellect among the people running college sports would think similarly.

‘You finally got that 300-yard game…’

Seth Emerson has a good piece on what’s changed for Greyson Lambert.  Lambert, not too surprisingly, says not much.

People in Virginia are still keeping an eye on Lambert too. Last Saturday, as his historic game was unfolding, the reaction among Virginia and ACC watchers could be summed up thusly: Where was this last year?

“It’s not like these types of performances weren’t in me last year. It’s just a lot has to happen,” Lambert said. “Like coach (Mark) Richt’s been saying, for the O-line to do their job the way they did it and kind of dominate the line of scrimmage. And for there not to be just a drop. A lot of stuff has to happen. It’s not like I did something spectacular. The whole offense did something spectacular that game, that doesn’t just really always happen. It was a full offensive effort to get that stat.”

However, even he acknowledges there has been some adjusting.

Regarding his mechanics, Lambert said there were only “little tweaks here and there” since his Virginia days. Mostly, he had to work on taking snaps under center, since Virginia was so shotgun-oriented. So Lambert has put in a lot of work refining his drops, footwork and ball-handling that comes with taking snaps under center.

Schottenheimer also worked with him on getting more legs into his throws. Lambert described it as “a little more bounce with my hitches.”

But it’s the next thing he says that’s most telling:  “I guess it just comes from experience and trust what I see,” Lambert said.

The mental aspect of trusting the system and the talent had to be a hard thing for Lambert to accept, given his surrounding cast last season.  But he appears to have done so, with bells on.  That wasn’t merely a big jump in his mindset from year one of starting to year two.  It was a big jump from week two to week three.  Good on Lambert to absorb that so quickly… and great on Georgia’s coaches to bring him along so well.  Now, keep grinding, y’all.

It’s a fantasy, alright.

It looks like college sports has found its next crusade.

How to legislate the participation of collegiate athletes and staff in fantasy leagues turned into a hot-button topic Tuesday as NCAA Division I athletic directors met in Dallas.

With the legality of daily fantasy sports being examined by lawmakers at the state and federal levels, Oliver Luck, the NCAA’s vice president of regulatory affairs, told athletic directors that the NCAA feels fantasy leagues fall under its gambling rules. NCAA Bylaw 10.3 stipulates that an athlete who is found to have participated in any gambling activity, in any sport, college or pro, will lose one year of eligibility.

Of course, the devil’s in the details, since the feds don’t define daily fantasy as illegal gambling.

Plus, money.

Scott also said the Pac-12 Network would not accept ads from DraftKings or FanDuel, but Pac-12 spokesman Erik Hardenbergh later clarified to ESPN.com that it was, in fact, still running daily fantasy advertising within its game broadcasts, including this weekend.

Yeah, this is going to end well.

For his next trick, Nick Saban announces a cure for cancer.

Hey, remember when Nick pushed for that 10-second substitution rule ’cause he was all concerned about player health and stuff?

Saban said the committee’s study of no-huddle teams revealed that an average of four snaps per game came within the first 10 seconds of the play clock. The threat of it, though, puts a limit on how a defense can adjust, Saban said.

“You’re not really affecting how they play, but what keeps you from being able to ever take a defensive player out, whether he’s hurt, pre-existing condition, whatever it is — is the fact that they might snap the ball,” he said. “So you can’t do anything. You’ve got to call timeout to get a guy out. And if you tell a guy to get down, that’s really against the rules, and they boo him out of the park.”

Well, somehow he’s managed to put aside his qualms.  With a vengeance.

Alabama averaged nine more offensive plays per game in 2014 than it did in 2013. Last week, Alabama ran 100 plays to Mississippi’s 65.

Through three games, Alabama has run 249 plays — one more than Oregon (!), and more than spread programs such as Texas A&M (234), Arizona (231), California (227), Clemson (225), Texas Tech (218) and Auburn (188).

It’s a miracle!

Agent Muschamp just got a little dumber.

It’s getting buttah and buttah on the Plains, as Gus announces that stud defensive end Carl Lawson will miss “an extended period of time” because of a hip injury.

Somewhere out there, Ellis Johnson is nodding and smiling.

“We know we are coaching the right guys. They just need more work.”

With Saturday’s game, Georgia has now played a whopping 21 true freshmen this season.

Gosh, think Richt’s changed his roster management philosophy much?

Keep your seats!

You gotta love this.

That was clearly Georgia’s intent when it signed a contract to host Southern University and its famed marching band for Saturday’s game at Sanford Stadium. UGA has three contracts committing to host nonconference opponents this season — the others are Louisiana-Monroe and Georgia Southern — but only one mentions the visiting team’s band.

Written into Georgia’s contract with Southern is language stipulating that “the band of the visiting team agrees to perform at halftime of the game,” and it is set up that way for good reason…

…“Normally a stipulation for visiting band attendance is not included in game contracts,” Georgia spokesman Claude Felton said. “However, the Southern University band is nationally known for its performing excellence and will provide a unique entertainment experience for our fans.”

What are we supposed to do with those “Jeremy Johnson for Heisman” t-shirts now?

Johnson’s moved to the back of the Gus Bus and replaced by a redshirt freshman for this Saturday’s game against Mississippi State.

Game on

Here’s the full Georgia-South Carolina game for your viewing pleasure:

See you in a couple of hours…

ESPN haz a sad.

Hey, who’s this “we” you speak of, anyway?