Only in Knoxville

Ah, hell, why not?

Vol football players stick together.

When a woman accused A.J. Johnson of rape, teammate Geraldo Orta stood by him.

When another teammate helped Johnson’s accuser call police, Orta called that teammate a traitor.

Four years later, Orta’s traded his helmet and pads for a police badge and uniform.

Orta entered the Knoxville Police Department’s academy three years after the rape accusations against teammates A.J. Johnson and Michael Williams. He’s assigned to the KPD Teleserve desk, where he takes reports and draws a salary of $39,922.21 per year, city records show.

That ought to come in handy at some point.

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Nick Saban, fan advocate

As much shade as we throw Saban’s way, there’s one topic for which he deserves unabashed credit for being on the side of the angels.

“I think somebody needs to step up in college football and get ahead of dwindling attendance and people not coming to games — too many games that people are not interested in,” Saban said. “I think every player in the SEC should play every team in the SEC in their career and we don’t do that since we expanded to 14 teams and we only play eight SEC games. I’ve been for that for a long time.”

Yes, he has.  And it’s clever on his part to pitch this as a value-related matter.  Better games mean more ticket sales.

Saban also calls for playing only Power-5 level schools.

“So, when people go to buy tickets and you have to pay premium for all of that, they are not seeing Division II schools,” Saban said, “they’re seeing, oh we’re playing five SEC schools and Oklahoma this year at home. I think it’s a good thing for college football. It’s a good thing.”

…

“I just think from a big-picture fan standpoint, playing a bunch of games nobody is interested in is not good for the game,” Saban said. “And, you know, players, when you’re playing SEC games, they’re not interested in playing somebody that doesn’t matter.”

I didn’t know the players felt that way; I kind of assumed that second and third stringers liked the occasional cupcake game so they’d get a chance to play.

In any event, this is why I tend to brush off articles that criticize Alabama’s scheduling.  To borrow an analogy, Saban’s not going to pay any more taxes than he has to.  But he’s more than willing to pay his share if the law is rewritten.

The cost of doing amateurism

What an effing waste…

NCAA has wired nearly $44.5 million to Hausfeld law firm as satisfaction of legal fees and costs award to plaintiffs' attys in Ed O'Bannon antitrust case, new court filing shows. NCAA booked this as expense in 2016 fiscal year, recently lost appeal it had filed with 9th Circuit

— Steve Berkowitz (@ByBerkowitz) July 24, 2018

All that and NCAA Football canned, just so Mark Emmert wouldn’t have to share with players.

The brackets, they creep.

Jim Harbaugh has a vision.

On if an 8- or 16-team playoff would water down the regular season: “The 1-AA teams have been very successful at that model. If my math is right, right now if you played through a national championship game that would be 15 games. If there were a 16-team playoff, it’d be 16 games under the current model. You’d probably take away the league championship game, put it at 16 games and only the two teams in the national title game would play that many. … Most teams would still play 13.”

Note that he never answered the question.

If you want to know what he’s thinking about…

Harbaugh pointed to how the Football Championship Subdivision playoff “model has been successful.” The FCS has a true tournament feel and has grown from its initial four teams in 1978 to 24 teams since 2013.  [Emphasis added.]

Maybe it’s just me, but “a true tournament feel” and “water down the regular season” sure seem to have something in common.  But y’all go on and keep telling me how the FCS is different from the FBS because whatever.

Postseasons grow because there’s money in it, pure and simple.  Deny it all you want, but D-1 football isn’t immune from that.

Imagine

Rough time for Mark Bradley, who typed this in his Georgia Tech preview:

And I know Paul Johnson is 3-3 against Georgia in Athens, but it’s hard to imagine this year’s Bulldogs – who might not lose a regular-season game – losing to Tech anywhere.

Eh, give him time and he’ll try.

Well, now we know what it takes.

Presented without comment…

This is Urban Meyer's 17th season as a head football coach. Today, Zach Smith became the first assistant coach he's ever fired.https://t.co/vK94BnTXYa pic.twitter.com/zvtjrKyHwm

— Eleven Warriors (@11W) July 24, 2018

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UPDATE:  Sure, Corch.

Urban Meyer told a few reporters this morning he was aware of Zach Smith’s arrest in 2009 at UF, but was not aware of 2015 incident at Ohio State I reported on Monday. Meyer will speak at B1G media days at 9:30 a.m. CT

— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) July 24, 2018

It all depends on what your meaning of zero tolerance is, amirite?

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UPDATE #2:  Oh, brother.

Meyer said he was aware of the 2009 incident involving Zach Smith and his then-pregnant wife Courtney. Meyer said he gave the information to his bosses at Florida and they suggested the couple go into counseling.

— Kyle Rowland (@KyleRowland) July 24, 2018

What BS.

“Dancing with the Tigers”

Boy, I bet there were a few “tight end” jokes being cracked during this.

A lot of money was raised to battle breast cancer last Saturday in Clemson at the 2018 Dabo Swinney Ladies Clinic. Plenty of eyebrows have also been raised after racy video and pictures from the event were shared on social media.

Members of the Clemson Tigers college football team are pictured dressed in their underwear or rolled-up shorts, and a video shows star defensive lineman Christian Wilkins performing a striptease around a seated woman.

In the video, Wilkins guides one of the 3,000-plus participants in the event to a seat on the floor of Littlejohn Coliseum, as a crowd of women look on in the background at an event where the university invited female fans to participate in drills, meet coaches and players.

While holding her hand, Wilkins guides the woman to a seat, which she takes with dramatic flair. As Wilkins circles the woman a number of times, she playfully reaches for him.

He eventually tears off his tank top and begins to briefly dance in front of her, then drops to grind on the ground. He rises and approaches the seated woman in an embrace before circling her again and draping a leg over her shoulder.

The video ends as Wilkins and the woman swap positions, with her rising to face him as he sits in the chair.

Is it worth bothering with a “stay classy, Clemson” here?

The perfect topper to this would be if the woman tipped Wilkins and the school had to report that as a secondary violation.

Musical palate cleanser, guitar god edition

If you like a slow, steady build up to guitar pyrotechnics, then “The Storm Won’t Come”, from Richard Thompson’s upcoming 13 Rivers, will be right up your alley.  Make sure you stick around ’til the 3:55 mark.

Wowsah.