And now for something unexpected

I give Larry Scott plenty of crap when he deserves it, so it’s only fair to dish out some praise when he turns up on the side of the angels.

The Pac-12 will shorten halftime and reduce the number of commercial breaks during its non-conference schedule this season as part of a trial program to reduce the length of its football games.

Halftime will be 15 minutes long, cut down from the usual 20-minute break. The number of commercial breaks will be reduced and they will be shorter in length, Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said Wednesday.

Scott announced the initiative as the Pac-12 kicked off its media days in Hollywood. The experiment is intended to shorten ballooning game times in an era of up-tempo offenses running more plays and the increased scoring that comes with it.

Let us hope this experiment succeeds beyond our wildest dreams.  Attaboy, Larry.

Advertisements

Today, in Larry Scott is a true genius.

The Pac-12 commissioner is being paid nearly $4.2 million a year, more than any of his peers, to oversee a revenue gap between his conference and Jim Delany’s that amounts to a $228 million, single-year conference-wide deficit.  Nice work, if you can get it.

In my next life, I want to come back as a P5 conference commissioner.

War of words

Willie Taggart’s gotten off to a rocky start at Oregon for, among other things, some trouble with the strength and conditioning program that resulted in the S&C coach being suspended for a month and Taggart losing direct control over the S&C program.

Taggart has responded in the most professional way he could.

Head coach Willie Taggart, whom Oregon hired to replace Mark Helfrich in December, said he is no longer speaking to The Oregonian reporter who broke the story, claiming that the reporter’s characterization of the workouts as “grueling” and “akin to military basic training” were inaccurate, unfair and directly contradicted what Taggart told the reporter before the story was written.

Keep in mind that the words used by the reporter were suggested to him by several sources and that a faculty athletics representative who investigated said the story was fair and that coaches made mistakes in the first workout.  Oh, and let’s not forget that three players were hospitalized due to the workouts.

So when you boil it down, Oregon’s head coach has decided to get pissy with the paper covering his team over semantics.  That certainly bodes well for his public relations skills.  Better win big and win fast, my man.

Not so fast, friendo.

The University of Colorado’s Board of Regents, not wanting to be tarred with the same brush as Baylor, has delayed considering Mike MacIntyre’s $16.25 million contract extension while the school reviews the coach’s handling of domestic abuse allegations levied against a former assistant coach.

Not sure where this is headed.  Regents run the risk of looking like they’re rubber stamping if the investigation is done merely to provide cover for the school.  But MacIntyre won 10 games last year and coached in the conference title game.  Colorado posted a grand total of 11 wins in the four previous seasons, so how hard do you want to make his life?

Friday morning buffet

A few scraps rounded up for the buffet line…

• The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled collegiate athletes cannot be considered university employees and, thus, are not eligible for minimum wage pay.  The reasoning was circular, but interestingly, the case didn’t involve athletes in a revenue producing sport and one of the appellate judges appeared to indicate his decision might have been different in that setting.
• Larry Scott isn’t happy with ESPN’s attempt to create a little drama with the fourth spot in the CFP.
• Back up quarterbacks ain’t played (f0r) Alabama, PAWWWLLL.
• Meanwhile, Nick’s gonna check out playing a little Second Chance U for another former Georgia player.
• Tony Barnhart manages to boil playoff expansion down to a simple question:  “What’s worse – leaving out one deserving team or putting an undeserving team (or two) in?”
• Schools crapping all over former coaches seems to be a real thing now.
• Two Georgia freshmen make the Freshman All-SEC team.  Nauta was an obvious candidate before the season started.  Blankenship wasn’t obvious a quarter of the way into the season.

The opposite of “Anchor Down”?

Apparently, this is what passes for a catchy slogan at Arizona State these days.

Forks Up #committed pic.twitter.com/buQWSnOuex

— B² (@Blake8Barnett) December 6, 2016

“Forks Up”?  Sounds like people getting ready to attack their dinner. Was “Fork You” already taken?

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Oregon fired its head coach yesterday.  Given that Mark Helfrich was just two years removed from coaching in a national championship game, the move had a real SEC flavor to it.

But Oregon managed to elevate the situation with some first-class dickishness. Check out what the school sent out yesterday.

Jeez, this Oregon press release just throws Helfrich under the bus over the last 4 paragraphs. Don't let the door .. https://t.co/Dyb9BvKa3X pic.twitter.com/sIzi0d9z9j

— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) November 30, 2016

Nice.  I’d throw out some “stay classy, Oregon” advice, but that train appears to have already left the station.  If there were any justice, that would chill the bidding for Helfrich’s replacement, but let’s face it — the Ducks can throw enough money around to make anybody swallow their qualms about that.