Hmmm… wonder if Nebraska Regent Hal Daub had as much of a problem with Lawrence Phillips suiting up as he has with the three Nebraska players who dared exercise their freedom of speech.
Category Archives: Political Wankery
Meet “the athletics director of Congress”.
Texas Republican Rep. Roger Williams has found another way to bring his love of sports to his work in Congress — this time teaming up with Alabama Democratic Rep. Terri A. Sewell to launch the College Football Caucus.
What, might you ask, is this caucus likely to be up to? Nothing much, it turns out.
The caucus gives members a platform for talking smack.
“No longer are we talking about the economy, no longer are we talking about terrorism, no longer are we talking about social issues,” Williams said. “We’re talking about my team is going to beat your team and it brings smiles on people’s faces. And I think that kind of thing is needed.”
Before you mock, at least it’s keeping these members of Congress off the streets and out of trouble. Now that I think about it, maybe they should meet more often than just once every three months.
Filed under Political Wankery
For some people, running a football conference is just like Sesame Street.
Fer Gawd’s sake, man, show a little dignity here.
Don’t these people have more important things to worry about than Bob Bowlsby? Then again, Kermit the Frog might make a helluva conference commissioner, now that I think about it.
Filed under Big 12 Football, Political Wankery
The NCAA takes a bathroom break.
North Carolina had to know this was coming.
Basketball-crazed North Carolina has lost its next chance to host NCAA men’s basketball tournament games along with several other championship events due to a state law that some say can lead to discrimination against LGBT people.
And the fallout may not be over.
After the NCAA announced it is pulling seven championship events from North Carolina for this year, Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner John Swofford – whose league hosts many sporting events in the state, including its football championship game – said the ACC’s council of presidents were set to discuss the law at a previously scheduled meeting later this week.
Without NCAA cover, you’d expect the ACC to follow in its footsteps. Banning the ACC basketball tourney from the state, even the watered down version that exists today, is gonna sting.
The cognitive dissonance in the corner of the law’s defenders is about what you’d expect.
Of course, he might be complaining about more than just who’s going to which bathroom with that.
HB2 was signed into law by Republican Gov. Pat McCrory earlier this year. A spokesman with McCrory’s office couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Monday evening, but a spokeswoman with the state Republican party blasted the NCAA’s decision in a statement, saying it is “so absurd it’s almost comical.”
“I wish the NCAA was this concerned about the women who were raped at Baylor,” spokeswoman Kami Mueller said Monday night.
I bet you do, girl. It’s probably a coincidence that I can’t find a single other public utterance of your concern about what happened at Baylor.
But now that you mention it, Baylor canned its president, AD and head coach in the wake of its scandal. What’s North Carolina got to offer to get the NCAA off its back?
Filed under ACC Football, Political Wankery, The NCAA
Thanks, Obama.
Heh.
College football is back. Finally, a chance to step away from the maelstrom of campaign news for a few hours and focus only on the glory and struggle of sport, free of any political implications whatsoever.
Dream on.
As it turns out, even football games affect the way we evaluate politicians, at least in the short-term. New research by three Northwestern University political scientists finds that when a team wins a big game, its fans’ euphoria translates into higher approval ratings for the president. The loser’s fans, however, take it out on the president, evaluating him less charitably.
That’s probably enough to make some of you to wish Georgia struggles this season.
Filed under College Football, Political Wankery
Saturday morning buffet
Time for a little college football nosh.
- Sam Cunningham reminisces about Southern Cal’s 1970 win over Alabama.
- The death of rivalries: “Know what? The people counting the viewers and signing the massive network television deals could not care less.” True dat.
- Ole Miss bans ‘Dixie’ at home football games.
- “Before the injury, Chubb had averaged 149 yards and 1.4 touchdowns per game through five games, and that includes a 146 yards and a 7.3 yards per carry performance against Alabama. If you extrapolate those numbers across a 13-game season, Chubb finishes 2015 with 1,937 yards and 18 touchdowns.”
- Today, in Baylor, part one.
- Today, in Baylor, part two. (Friend of the blog Ed Kilgore ponders what Starr could do, now that he has some spare time on his hands.)
- If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to plan your SEC game of the week watching around matching recipes, Southern Living is there for you.
Monday morning buffet
More for the chafing dishes…
- Meet this year’s crop of first-year head coaches.
- CFN posts Georgia at 19 in its preseason rankings.
- You know why I can’t get on board the Gus Bus yet? The quarterback situation: “After the first two weeks of preseason camp, Malzahn’s early “sooner rather than later” comment has been replaced with his “we want to be sure” statement after the second preseason scrimmage this past weekend.”
- Bill Connelly’s Tennessee preview comes down to one word — “if”.
- Jacob Park, from backup quarterback at Georgia to backup quarterback at Iowa State.
- Nebraska is the latest program to adopt rugby-style tackling.
- Ed Aschoff looks at the evolution of the middle linebacker in today’s SEC.
- Tim Kaine thinks he’s just the guy to bring the Border War (Kansas-Missouri) back to life. After reading this blog post, it sounds like he’s set himself a tough task.
