That Mike Leach leadership seminar is gonna be lit.
As part of the application process, students will be asked to address the following two essay questions, which will be reviewed by Leach and Baumgartner. There is a 200‑word limit for each of the essay question responses.
- Can the British strategy in the Malaya insurgency be used today?
- Is the wishbone a potentially viable offense for the NFL? Why or Why not?
I am assuming that’s the first time those two questions have ever been pitched in the same course.
Oh, and best of all…
The seminar’s final session will take place April 23 and will be livestreamed online for public viewing. The livestreamed lecture will summarize the four previous lectures and will culminate in a live question-and-answer session. [Emphasis added.]
You’d best watch. There will be a test at the blog afterwards.
Filed under Academics? Academics., Mike Leach. Yar!
This Sally Jenkins piece on Zion Williamson’s injury is so good, I could blow it a chef’s kiss. It deftly turns the NCAA’s bullshit entirely on its head.
Exposure and mortification are what they deserve for cheapening a freshman year at Duke into nothing but predatory lending. This is what happens when everyone gets paid but the guy who is really earning the money. If Zion Williamson were allowed to be paid like he damn well should be by Nike, a faulty sneaker would not be quite so future-threatening, because, see, he was getting paid to wear it. It’s all very straightforward and simple. Pay him. But the men with no fingerprints won’t permit it, those athletic directors and presidents who have subverted college athletics into a rake-off while pretending to govern them.
When the sole separated from the shoe, it all became clear. The NCAA has managed to turn a Duke education into a risk that a talented kid just can’t afford to take.
What does that tell you? What does it say about the degradation of the NCAA, that it has made college so profitless for great athletes that it’s just not worth pursuing?
And, boy, do I love this part:
Duke Athletic Director Kevin White, a member of the NCAA oversight and basketball committees, certainly got his: He is reputed to be the highest-salaried athletic director in the country at $1.4 million a year, one of 17 athletic directors who make more than $1 million a year and one of 50 who make more than $500,000, according to USA Today’s database. ACC Commissioner John Swofford really got his: He rides on the backs of athletes to the tune of $3 million a year.
And, of course, Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski and North Carolina Coach Roy Williams got theirs, multimillions in salary and apparel contracts. That, you don’t mind so much. They sweat and stress on the sidelines and take the public hits for losses or improprieties and have discernible talent, unlike those men with no fingerprints. There is a market for Krzyzewski and Williams, no matter who is on their rosters.
But without the Zion Williamsons, where is the market for a Kevin White?
Think about it. What is a college athletic director worth, without great athletes willing to serve as unpaid labor? Where else would he even be employable? Maybe the U.S. Olympic Committee — the only other organization that steals athlete sweat like this.
Maybe instead of asking what that second string offensive guard would be worth in the absence of amateurism, we ought to be asking that question about Greg McGarity.
Final point:
The irony here is that their pure greed may have finally become self-defeating. Williamson’s gasp-inducing close call on the court probably will cause the NBA to lower its age limit, something it reportedly proposed to the union long before Wednesday night. That means future players with Williamson’s ability won’t have any incentive at all to enroll in a Duke and adorn the NCAA landscape.
If the NCAA would give up its decades-long clench-fistedness, its mean-spirited court battles to control the earning ability of athletes, the Zion Williamsons would have major incentive to enter the collegiate system not just for one year but for multiple years. By all accounts, Williamson, a good student who came out of a Spartanburg, S.C., high school that sends all of its grads to college, is not just a guy who is walking through his university experience.
Instead the NCAA has made it too unworth it. If you’re a 17-year-old or his parents and you saw that injury, why would you willingly enter the NCAA maw? Why on earth would a great young player commit to playing collegiately under the current circumstances if he could go straight to the NBA? Because he wants to do his part to make sure Kevin White and John Swofford can order from the top shelf?
This is what the NCAA is selling to us — that an economic system is more attractive, more entertaining to fans than elite talent. I throw snark at folks like Larry Scott all the time, but, shit, that’s the bottom line reason he’s getting paid. Shame on his enablers.
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UPDATE: Mr. Conventional Wisdom linked to this piece with approval. It contains what may be the most absurd rebuttal imaginable.
So those advising Zion to “shut it down” are being irrational.
And, thus, they’re being irresponsible.
Because if you advise a young man to give up an activity he clearly is enjoying and obviously loves, there ought to be some sort of reward for him in making that sacrifice. Ceasing to play for Duke offers none.
He’s an amateur playing college sports, but if he walks away, it should only be if he’s rewarded for doing so. Sheesh. Oh, and by the way, if he renounced his eligibility today, he’d sign a monster shoe contract within 24 hours. Sounds like a pretty good reward to me.
Filed under The NCAA
When it’s on the subject of doing it for the kids, of course.
Intentionally misleading? Why, I never.
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UPDATE:
The NCAA’S legal interest is in immunizing eligibility rules from antitrust challenge. The NCAA, like the defendant-appellant National Football League (the “NFL”), adopts rules and regulations governing athletic competition between its member institutions. The district court’s fundamental misapplication Of the antitrust laws to the NFL’s eligibility rule may, if followed, have sweeping adverse consequences for all league sports governing bodies, including the NCAA. If allowed to stand, the district court’s ruling could impede any such sports league governing body from adopting eligibility rules, which would undermine each association’s definition of its unique model of competitive athletics.
Tl;dr version: letting the NFL sign football players regardless of age would screw with our business model.
Filed under The NCAA
Leave it to Roll ‘Bama Roll to cast the upcoming Auburn-Georgia game shift in an entirely different light.
For the Bulldogs, the schedule becomes an outright disgrace down the stretch. A century-plus of SEC tradition versus two rival programs will be jettisoned by the league, making UGA’s already-cupcake November softer than a toddler’s diaper after a chili dog.
A Varsity chili dog, I hope. He’s just getting started, though.
Alabama on average has, and will continue to have, the hardest November stretch of the four teams. Auburn is a very close second, and some years has the more difficult November. LSU is reliably almost always behind those two. However, facing four SEC teams in a row at season’s end, with Alabama usually beginning the month, is nothing many coaches are going to sign up for. We’ll give them a slight pass here.
Georgia has by far the weakest schedule here: it already has a scornful November slate: one that boils down to a one-game month — perennial cellar-dweller Kentucky/Mizzou, outmanned Georgia Tech, a body bag game, and then one meaningful opponent, Auburn. In fact, had LSU’s opponents Arkansas and Tennessee both not cratered in 2017, resulting in new coaches, Georgia would have had been dead-last in opponent quality every single year…and by a wide-damned margin.
The righteous indignation, she burns.
The best part is the assumption that Georgia has been playing three-dimensional chess with the SEC.
Alabama on average has, and will continue to have, the hardest November stretch of the four teams. Auburn is a very close second, and some years has the more difficult November. LSU is reliably almost always behind those two. However, facing four SEC teams in a row at season’s end, with Alabama usually beginning the month, is nothing many coaches are going to sign up for. We’ll give them a slight pass here.
Georgia has by far the weakest schedule here: it already has a scornful November slate: one that boils down to a one-game month — perennial cellar-dweller Kentucky/Mizzou, outmanned Georgia Tech, a body bag game, and then one meaningful opponent, Auburn. In fact, had LSU’s opponents Arkansas and Tennessee both not cratered in 2017, resulting in new coaches, Georgia would have had been dead-last in opponent quality every single year…and by a wide-damned margin…
For the first time since the Bridge era, Georgia has a reasonably comparable SEC West slate to finish the season, and even then, is is because that SOS is largely buouyed by a cross-division matchup with A&M. Yet, this is what Georgia was eager to flee? This is what the SEC was quick to agree to? The possibility that Auburn plays as tough a final schedule as Alabama? That Georgia may, just may have scheduling parity with the West by season’s end?
And, if it is because of the ND intersection game, why then is the conference rewarding a self-inflicted wound?
Georgia was “eager to flee”? When did that happen? And, why? Why? Thus we come to the dramatic conclusion.
The problem isn’t Auburn’s schedule as presently constituted, it’s Georgia; it has always been Georgia — and this proposal will only make the matter worse.
The problem — sorry, Alabama’s problem — isn’t Georgia’s November schedule. Alabama’s problem is that Georgia has become a formidable SECCG opponent.
Filed under Georgia Football, SEC Football
Phil Steele looks at every team in the country — because that’s what Steele does — and measures its offensive and defensive performance in the context of where it sits in the opponent’s season.
A couple years ago during the season I was wondering how certain offensive and defensive performances that a team had vs a particular opponent stacked up on how the other opponents fared against that team. Not every performance as far as yards gained and given up is created equal due to the quality of opponent played. So to the right of the net yards and points columns, you will see an offensive vs foe and defensive vs foe numbers. The first # is what that performance ranked compared to every other team their opponent allowed throughout the year (#1 being the best, with #12 being the worst since most teams play 12 games) while the second column contains the number of yards positive or negative against their opponent’s average.
I have broke down the offensive and defensive averages and in today’s blog I took all those averages (both offense and defense) and combined them to come up with the most impressive teams in the country compared to how they fared against their opponent. Here is a ranking of all 130 teams and how they did. This list does take out Garbage yards that may occur during overtime and/or blowout wins/losses.
As far as it goes, then, that’s a relatively neutral method of analysis, relative because not all schedules are equal. Dominating a lineup of MAC opponents isn’t the same as doing so in the ACC or Pac-12.
Still, it makes for an interesting top twenty in certain ways.
![Screenshot_2019-02-22 College Football Offensive and Defensive YPG vs Opponents avg thru the National Championship – Phil S[...]](https://blutarsky.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/screenshot_2019-02-22-college-football-offensive-and-defensive-ypg-vs-opponents-avg-thru-the-national-championship-e28093-phil-s....png?w=500)
More confirmation, as if we needed any, that Clemson and Alabama were the two best teams last season. Georgia’s fourth is no real surprise, either. Nor is Oklahoma’s defense, or Ohio State’s, to a lesser extent.
That Mississippi State defense, though… I knew it was good, but not that dominant.
Filed under Phil Steele Makes My Eyes Water
Another day, another legislative shot fired across the NCAA’s bow.
Filed under Political Wankery, The NCAA
This is the kind of thing you expect from a guy who thinks he’s the smartest person in the room.
It does hold down buyout exposure, but it may not work out so well when it comes to his assistants’ complacency for staying in Austin.
If you liked what Brett McMurphy had to say about Zach Smith/Corch, you’re gonna love his CFP prediction.
Filed under Georgia Football, Media Punditry/Foibles
It’s been a little funny seeing the conspiracy theory takes on Georgia’s generous gesture allowing the Auburn and Tennessee games to be switched for the 2020 season without any apparent consideration. Nefarious motives have been attributed to all sorts of folks — CBS, ESPN, the SEC, Greg Sankey personally, just for starters — although the suggested rationales for their actions remain a bit murky.
To those folks, I offer a gentle reminder. Greg McGarity has a track record, and it’s not one of being a genius super-villain. Need proof?
Lucky for Greg he’s earned some brownie points with the conference in agreeing to move the Auburn game, because he’s going to need every one of them when he lobbies the SEC over Georgia’s October schedule. The sad thing to contemplate is what he’ll throw in the pot when Sankey’s office stops laughing and asks him what else he can do to make that work.
Maybe that’s why he’s working under a one-year contract extension.
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UPDATE: I know we call him Mr. Conventional Wisdom around here, but I won’t argue the point that Tony Barnhart is wired into the SEC office. This is worth reading.
So Greene had talks with the SEC office trying to get some relief.
Now understand how the football scheduling process works in the SEC. Each school has its priorities of what it wants out of a football schedule. Example: For the 2019 season Georgia wanted its two open dates to fall on Sept. 28 (after Notre Dame and before Tennessee) and Oct. 26 (the week before Florida in Jacksonville).
Every school makes its priorities known to the SEC office which begins to circulate drafts of future schedules to the schools. The athletics director at each school consults the coaching staff for its input. Any concerns from coaches are then sent back to the SEC and the process continues until the final schedule is released in September, about a year in advance.
The No. 1 rule of football scheduling in the SEC is: Nobody gets everything they want.
And that’s what happened with the Georgia-Auburn game. The SEC gave Georgia a draft of the schedule that had moved the game to September or October. McGarity sent it to the coaching staff to study. Smart had said at the 2018 spring meetings at Destin that he would like to get some relief from playing both Auburn and Georgia Tech on the road in the span of three weeks every other year.
So at the end of the day, Smart felt the schedule was one he could live with.
Still not seeing a quid pro quo there. Which isn’t to say Barnhart doesn’t see one.
But why, the angry fans want to know, didn’t Georgia just say no? Why didn’t they fight? Why should Georgia do ANYTHING to help the SEC help Auburn? Nick Saban wouldn’t do it. Why should WE do it? What’s in it for us?
Again, let’s take another deep breath.
The answer is the Southeastern Conference asked for help. Georgia is a member of the Southeastern Conference. And it never hurts to have the SEC owe you one. And Georgia was getting something out of the deal by not having to play both Auburn and Georgia Tech on the road in a three-week span.
Those angry Georgia fans have suggested other means to that particular end. Not that it matters.
The real news Barnhart drops comes at the end, and it’s something I immediately wondered about when I first heard about the move Wednesday night.
And let me share this and it is strictly an opinion: The next big battle involving the Georgia-Auburn game is not WHEN it will be played but IF it will be played on an annual basis. I’m getting some rumbles that more and more athletics directors in the SEC are hearing from their fan bases who want to a better variety of conference games in the season ticket packages.
Example: On Nov. 23 Texas A&M will play at Georgia for the first time since the Aggies joined the conference in 2012. If the current scheduling model (which expires in 2025) stays in place Texas A&M will not return to Athens until 2029.
One way to speed up that rotation is the elimination of permanent crossover games from each division. Each team in the SEC plays a permanent team from the other division and the other rotates on a five-year cycle. Georgia’s permanent crossover opponent is Auburn. Alabama’s is Tennessee. LSU’s is Florida (and they ain’t happy about it).
Do away with these permanent crossovers and teams would play against each other on a much more frequent basis. But SEC fans would have to give up Auburn-Georgia and Alabama-Tennessee on an annual basis to do it. That will be an interesting fight.
One man’s opinion is another man’s favor. That has all the earmarks of running an idea suggested by the conference up a flagpole to see who salutes. My bet is that the permanent divisional crossover game is already on very quiet life support. Could saving the series be Georgia’s quid pro quo for the move?
Filed under Georgia Football, SEC Football
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