Daily Archives: June 8, 2019
A year without the rabbit’s foot
From Bill Connelly’s spreadsheet to Gawd’s ears:
You know, I could live with that. Quite easily, in fact.
Filed under Auburn's Cast of Thousands, Stats Geek!
“Everything’s important when it comes to Jimbo.”
This is about as all in as a school can go on a football coach.
When Texas A&M hired Jimbo Fisher to be its football coach, the university clearly indicated its commitment of resources to ensure Fisher’s success.
In addition to a friendly 10-year, $75 million guaranteed contract, A&M also paid top dollar for Fisher’s 10 assistants, his new strength coach and an expanded recruiting budget. But even all of that fails to show how much A&M has invested in its football coach.
That became evident during the hiring process for new athletic director Ross Bjork, who was introduced at A&M on Monday. Along with A&M president Michael Young, Fisher was also involved in the search for Scott Woodward’s replacement.
On top of the millions of dollars that have poured into the football program since Fisher’s arrival in 2017, the level of commitment from A&M includes being consulted on key decisions about the program’s future…
And while Sharp and Fisher both cited Young as the key person responsible for hiring Bjork, who spent the last seven seasons at Mississippi, Fisher also played a key role in the process.
That says as much about how beholden Bjork is to Fisher as it does about what kind of AD Fisher wants. Those aren’t necessarily good things, but nobody can claim the TAMU oars aren’t rowing in the same direction for now.
Filed under SEC Football
You can’t tell the players without a (portal) scorecard.
Two schools jump out there: Arkansas, which is obviously using the portal to remake its roster in an accelerated manner, and Missouri, which, despite facing serious NCAA sanctions, hasn’t lost a single player yet.
Filed under SEC Football, Transfers Are For Coaches.
The future’s so bright, I gotta wear bi-focals.
Trust me, when you’ve got to parse Bill Connelly’s S&P+ numbers this deeply in search of a fifth win, it’s gonna be a long year.
Filed under Georgia Tech Football, Stats Geek!
No rhyme or reason
Shot.
The NCAA doesn’t typically reveal why it grants some waivers of the mandatory “year in residence” for transfers and denies others. Illinois tight end Luke Ford is one player left wondering why his waiver request was denied.
Ford — the top-rated recruit in Illinois in the Class of 2018 — transferred from Georgia to Illinois in January, citing his grandparents’ failing health and his desire to play closer to home. He’s from Carterville, Ill., which is about 190 miles south of Champaign, and Illinois is one of the closest major football programs to his hometown.
The NCAA in 2012 established a distance limit of 100 miles in cases like Ford’s.
An Illinois spokesman said in a statement Wednesday that the program is disappointed in the decision to deny Ford’s waiver request and plans to help him appeal.
“My Waiver got denied,” Ford tweeted Wednesday. “Thanks for all your support. It’s all in the Lord’s timing.”
Apparently, it’s also up to the NCAA’s whims.
The NCAA also this week denied a waiver for immediate eligibility for offensive lineman Brock Hoffman, who transferred from Coastal Carolina to Virginia Tech to be closer to his mother. She had surgery in 2017 to remove a brain tumor and now struggles with facial paralysis and hearing and eyesight loss, but Hoffman said on Twitter that the NCAA denied his request because his hometown is five miles outside the 100-mile radius and because it said his mother’s condition is improving.
Chaser.
I don’t care which side of the transfer waiver divide you stand on, if you’re a fair-minded person, this has to be nothing but rank bullshit. It comes off as little more than a random exercise of power over young men’s lives, young men who are already troubled with family problems. To insist on enforcing some arbitrary measure is cruel.
I’ll say it again — just give every kid one bite at the immediate transfer apple and be done with it. What the NCAA has done with these two, especially in light of the Martell decision, seems little better than the pre-portal days when coaches could arbitrarily block players’ movement. Very sad for Ford and Hoffman, who deserve better.
Filed under The NCAA, Transfers Are For Coaches.
Get The Picture 