The disillusionment of Stewart Mandel

You know, a few weeks ago, suddenly realizing that my old Twitter intro about the Coaches Poll was anachronistic, I updated it with this sentiment:

Sometimes it feels like college football is that girlfriend you were crazy about who dumped you for some rich dude nobody really liked.

Events of the past week or so haven’t improved my mood.

It appears I’m not alone in feeling like that, as evidenced by Mandel’s open letter to college football.  I won’t say he’s as far along in his pessimism as I am – I don’t know how anyone can characterize conference realignment as a harmless development that “didn’t make tailgating on a fall Saturday or watching 14 straight hours of football any less enjoyable” – but there’s much of what he says that resonates with me, including this beauty:

And you know what’s really maddening about college athletics leaders? That some are more willing to forgive a football player for striking a woman than they would if that same player wanted to transfer to another school.

Some second chances are better than others, as long as it’s a coach making the decision.

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Now Baylor is concerned about the victims?

You will be shocked, shocked to learn that the school’s interim president David Garland announced today that the Pepper Hamilton report will not be released in its entirety to the public.  Why?  If you picked for the most cynical reason possible, give yourself a cigar.

We respect survivors’ freedom to choose whether, when and how to share their experiences and will support survivors who choose to share their experiences publicly. The details of these individuals’ experiences will not be discussed publicly by the University.

That is so nice.  Too bad the school wasn’t as sensitive when it really mattered.

Of course, when it comes to a full report, the joke’s really on us.

Pepper Hamilton’s report was delivered in the form of an oral presentation that fully and comprehensively presented the individual and aggregated findings and the evidence supporting the findings.

I guess we’ll have to take his word on that.

“It was smooth. It was gentlemanly.”

I wouldn’t have expected any less from Uncle Verne.

… For the past few years during the Masters golf tournament Lundquist and McManus would take a ride in a golf cart, sit by the Par 3 course, and talk about the future.

“I had said to him a number of times, ‘hey, when you think you are ready just let me know,’” McManus said. “We talked about it (in 2015) kind of generically. I just said ‘at some point we’ve got to make this move but we are only going to do it if you are ready and you feel right.’”

At the same time, McManus was thinking about Lundquist’s successor. Internal candidates were considered and Nessler “was the guy we were going to go after from the outside (ESPN).”

Tastefully, too.

He’s just an excitable boy.

Al.com has a slide show of 2016 CFB rules changes here.  If there’s a common theme running throughout, it’s player safety, although there are a couple of clock management items tossed in.

There is this one, though.

Any coach who commits two unsportsmanlike fouls in the same game shall be disqualified.

And here’s your poster boy.

If it happens, at least we’ll be sure he got his money’s worth.  Can you imagine the crowd reaction if Boom gets tossed on the road?