Sometimes having this tasty looking Crib Sheet in the middle of the week can be a curse.  Sometimes it can be blessing.  It’s a little bit of both right now.  So last Friday Missouri pretty much said that they were leaving the Big 12 (again) and snuck out the back door to wash their cold feet.  This week it appears that West Virginia is leaving the Big East for the Big 12, with some contingencies attached.  I think when this is all over, everyone will have a ‘win-win’ situation, except for Kansas City.  The soul is slowly being sucked away from that town, and this kind of conference nonsense stretches that hole out for a faster escape.  I guess that’s part of why I left.  Hey, it’s all about ups and downs, blessings and cursing.  Here’s this week’s pre-Halloween creepy Crib Sheet:

• Apparently the athletic director for Notre Dame does not like the enthusiasm the rest of stadium has on Saturdays.  Jack Swarbrick wants the old farts with season tickets to stand up and bring the noise.  I for one agree.  It’s your home team, you gotta yell loud and not sit there like it’s a tennis match.
• Ouch.  The Big East was working on a new television deal when all hell broke loose.  That’s what you get for advertising yourself as a basketball conference.  Football rules all and now you have to suck it up and try to save face.   If I could put odds on who would die first between the Big 12 and the Big East, the Big East would eat it first because of their basketball centric nature.  Mabye that meeting with Conference USA and the Mountain West will keep it hobbling around for a couple of more years.
• Another politician wants to investigate college sports on antitrust issues again.  I think they are sniffing the money and want a cut.  Seriously, pay the players first and then tell the politicians to looks elsewhere, they have bigger problems to deal with first.
• The NCAA, in the meantime, wants to bump up the requirement for teams getting into bowls.  They are looking to move the APR to 93%.  That means a higher standard of academic success.  That seems fair, but it also means that there could be less teams going to bowls.  It may be a well spring for smaller colleges.
• The players suspended last weekend for LSU’s game tested positive for synthetic pot.  I didn’t even know that could be faked.  I’m dumbfounded.  It didn’t slow down the Tigers as they still whooped up on Auburn.
• The Texas associate athletic director who was canned for sexual harassment, Cleve Bryant, cost the university about $400K.  They settled out of court to the harassee.  Man, that’s a chunk of change to keep someone quiet.  I’m sure that information will leak out eventually about this transgression, though.
• A body was found in the bleachers before the Ohio game last Saturday in an apparent suicide.  That’s really creepy.  I’m not sure what causes people to go over the board like that but I wouldn’t figure a football stadium would be the place do it.  Maybe for ex players but for real students?
• So a streaker who got onto the field dressed as a referee disrupted the UCLA vs Arizona game last week.  That was hilarious.  What wasn’t was the fight that broke out shortly after that.  Streaker into bench clearing fight is a first one for me.  As expected, the Pac 12 handed out about 10 suspensions due to the fight.
• But that wasn’t the biggest number of suspended players due to fighting.  I think the Southwestern Athletic Conference takes the cake by doling out 41 due to a fight between Southern and Arkansas-Pine Bluff.  Man, that’s a big number.  The kids need to learn how to control themselves.
• That’s not stopping a coalition of student athletes from signing a petition sent to the NCAA requesting a cut of the television money the schools make on the games.  I was wondering why it hasn’t happened sooner.  Their angle is some kind of petty money type situation mixed in with a potential payout at the end of their college career.  It’s an interesting setup but I’m having a hard time seeing a couple hundred students influencing anything right now.
• Not to be outdone, a group of school administrator types sent a letter to NCAA head honcho Mark Emmert asking for more radical changes in college athletics.  Among the items for change is to treat football players differently than every other athlete.  That’s gonna be a tough sell for the gender sensitive types.  We’ll see how far some of this stuff goes after the football season.
• A couple of Montana players were tazed last week because of some loud noise and assaulting of police officers.  Yeah, the last thing you want to do if your buddy is getting arrested is to try and push around a cop.  Dumb ass awards abound for these guys!
• Minnesota head coach Jerry Kill signed a 7 year extension to his contract earlier this week.  What an electric event.  I mean I’m shaking all over.