The heavy loaded week of allergies couldn’t stop the KCCGD crew from sneezing and coughing their way through another week of news. We’re loaded up on all sorts of over the counter goodies to help bring you the latest in the greatest sport ever, college football. Bring some kleenex, because either the fantastic writing or huge pollen count will bring tears to your eyes. We hope its the former. Here’s this week Crib Sheet:
Ron Prince, former Kansas State head coach, must be laughing pretty heartily right now. Kansas State made known the details of a ‘secret agreement’ that would dump an extra $3.5 million on a company that Prince created in the case that he would be fired without cause. This was signed with his contract extension last year by former athletic director, Bob Krause. Krause resigned because of the situation. Prince’s lawyer says the lawsuit is without merit, and Prince couldn’t be contacted for comment. Because you can’t really talk while gut-laughing to the point of puking. This whole situation makes me want to puke. Wefald’s legacy is tarnished and K-State as he gave his ‘old friend’ the job in the first place. What ‘old friend’ keeps this part of the deal secret? I talked about how much of a dunderhead Krause was when they fired Prince and know we’re seeing just how far and deep his ineptness set the program back. The Kansas City Star also has filings. It’s sad day to be a Wildcat fan.
The Big 12 athletic directors (the real ones) met last week and decided to punt the 3 way tiebreaker rule that the coaches passed to them on. So it seems the rule is here to say, while they open up for more discussion and waffling on the issue. The chance is so small anyway that once the season starts and ends, people will forget about the unique rule.
Meanwhile, the SEC coaches are bickering down in Florida for their annual meeting. The main mouth work comes from Tennessee’s Lane Kiffin and South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier. Yes the New Ball Coach versus the Ole Ball Coach. They are still duking it out over the cheating question Spurrier asked. The other coaches ducked and it seemed like they were heading to the bars to scope out the chicks or something. Very strange comradery indeed. Time to circle the matchup on the schedule.
Looks like the Big 12 won’t sit down the officials if they perform poorly. That’s a shame really because after the last couple of years of bad calls, the Big 12 could use some consequence over there.
The Big 12, however, will pay out a record $130 million earned last year in athletic payouts. It seems being the 2nd best conference in football and having a national champion in basketball helped. Let’s hope they use that money to make them number 1 in football.
The final USA Today coaches poll next year will be anonymous. Typically that final vote helps to decide who will play in the national title game. Chances are that’s a good thing for the coaches. It will help avoid any death threats for deciding votes.
This Memorial Day we figured we would take a look back into one of the oldest mascots while paying our respects to the military with a retrospective of the Army Black Knights mule and the more recent Blackjack. The prospects of Army playing at the new Yankee Stadium also influenced our pick this week, admittedly. The inclusion of the mule for the Black Knights football team is a great story and the addition of a costumed mascot is a nice side dish to the main mascot course. KCCGD pays its respects and we hope you take some time today to do as well.
Not much happening this week in the ways of college football. The kids are graduating and commencement speeches are happening all over. That just means we are a few more months away from some serious college football. Speaking of the football side of college, some players have left and more of the bigger named ones are coming back. What does that mean? A potential repeat of last year’s championship game. Or Texas might slip in and take on Florida again. Who knows? We’ll have our predictions coming up later. For now, congrats to the graduates as you take a new step into the real world and out of the 4 year party that is college. The hangover will be real short, trust me. Here’s this week’s news:
Greg Paulus made up his mind and he’s heading to Syracuse to be an Orangemen. The rumor, along with other rumors and visits, started when the hype around this guy did. I’m sure he’ll be happy for a year out in the Big East. And no, Syracuse doesn’t matter anymore. He might show some flashes but he’s really just Syracuse’s main recruiting tool now.
The guff Big 12 officiating has gotten in the last couple of years may have an old solution, thanks to Nebraska athletic director Tom Osburne. He wants to introduce and old Big 8 rule to bench officials that are performing poorly. If the stripes know they could get benched and docked a week’s worth of pay that may help them pay just a little more attention to the action on the field.
John Currie is your new Kansas State athletic director. Straight out of Tennessee, Currie brings some youth and vigor to the position that was briefly held by an internal, pencil pushing, bumbling amateur in Bob Krause. Hopefully Currie will make his mark when he helps choose Bill Snyder’s successor in a couple of years.
The old ball coach in Steve Spurrier is jabbing a spur in the saddle of both his former employer’s coach Urban Meyer and current Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weiss. Surrier went on radio and seeded the rumor that if Meyer has another big year, he may take over as the head coach in domerland. We already laid down the ultimatum on Weiss and this little double jab only deepens the severity of Weiss’s challange this year, lest he be heckled by President Obama or they erase his history. Now whether Meyer will actually do it is another thing because he turned down the offer before. But if Tim Tebow reigns in another title there may be nowhere else to go for glory.
So some news outlets are saying that May is the black hole of news for college football. We here at the KCCGD are diligent in digging up interesting news and actually found enough to fill a column this week. We’ll weather this storm together and hopefully ride out into June when practices start. For now let’s do our best to ignore all of this lame-o baseball, weak basketball and hockey playoffs, and a post NFL draft hangover. Here’s this week’s ration:
Holey Toledo! Some football players including some basketball players from the University of Toledo were indicted on point shaving charges. Nobody likes to see players go at it light. Especially if they are getting paid for it. Okay, I give in. I just wanted to say Holey Toledo!
The Big 12 coaches decided to keep the tie breaking rule. Huh? Bo Pelini goes on the comment about how no matter what the 3rd team left out will get the shaft. Okay, that’s understandable. Is there a better way to break the tie? We say rock, paper, scissors.
It looks like the Utah Attorney General is trying to push for a Senate run with his latest comments about the BCS. Let’s look at it from a point of view perspective. An undefeated team in football and no national title. They have the right to be upset. The way they are going about it? Mmmm not so much. A more clever way would be to rally support from all the non BCS conferences and begin to push as a whole on the BCS conferences. If you really wanted to shake their boots, don’t schedule games with them. Play outside of the BCS. The BCS conferences would then freak becauces of the lack of weak team warm ups at the beginning of the season.
Sam Keller, a football alum from Nebraska, is suing EA Sports and the NCAA for using the likeness of athelets to make money off the games. This is a hard one to call. More and more the argument is growing for student-atheletes to be paid for promoting the school through sports. While there is a pandora’s box of enabling that, surely the least they can do is up the stipend in terms of the scholarship and toss in a couple of Xboxes to boot.
ESPN blogger Tim Griffin takes us on a trip to the past and review a lesson taught to us by Mark Mangino of Kansas. The old quote talks about how Mangino wanted to keep the spirit of the rivalry in tact. Now that the tables are turned it seems that maybe this rivalry will be alive an well in Manhattan this year. Snyder and Mangino go at it again. I was at the game last year and as a Wildcat fan it stung hard. Now there’s a fresh start and we hope that at the very least it is competitive because Kansas is the definite favorite.
So someone is selling a 2005 Rose Bowl ring belonging to former Texas Longhorn lineman Austin Sendlein on eBay, including his 2004 ring. It looks as though he left it in the hotel room he was staying at in Columbus, Ohio to watch his brother play. Seems that Buckeye fans don’t take to kindly to Longhorn folk. Although he did goof and leave it in the hotel room. Linemen are supposed to be smart.
The whole family’s here this week as we dive deep into the rich lineage of the Nebraska Cornhusker’s mascots. From the various large headed and skinny legged characters to the current duo, we can see that in the state where college football is a professional and state wide spectacle, the spirit that drives the spectacle shows up in the form of some tacky looking mascots. There is some redemption involved toward the end of this ride, but we still ask, “Do they allow art in Nebraska?” Let’s take a long hard look at Herbie Husker and Lil Red.
For some reason this week people are scared of the swine er h2n1 flu. It’s a flu, usually if you are really young or super old it will hurt you bad. The oncoming pandemic only points out that yes, the United States is a clean nation. Thanks to all of the pump bottles of disinfectant gels pushing out the very lifeblood of our safety, we can be fully prepared for a Real American Flu. Not some cheap Mexican knock off. So I say, lick and finger everything is sight! It’s okay! And while you’re at it, suck on this week’s Crib Sheet:
Looks like LSU head football coach Les Miles will be a Twittering away on the sidelines this year. He says it’s for a straight up recruiting hit. That make sense. The kids these days with their tweeting and twatting. My guess is this time next year Twittering will be banned for coaches.
Not to be completely hypocritical, but Congress last week rolled the BCS to tongue bath them in absurdity, trying to intimidate them to change the system for playoffs. Many, and we mean many, articles splashed across the net talking about this one. Here’s the gist: It’s about money and Congress doesn’t have time to do it. Even if they did, they would break current contracts. This of course was in between all the politiking and grandstanding.
Maybe while they’re down there, they can figure out why they play only 22.9% of their non-conference games against teams from other BCS conferences, the lowest among BCS conferences. Oh wait, most of the coaches in the league come from the Bill Snyder trunk of coaching. And Bill Snyder is back. Looks like weak schedules are here to stay. It’s really all about the conference competition. Seriously.
It’s a draft frenzy this week for the Crib Sheet. Weeks after signing day, college football rosters and chopped down when the big ole NFL axe comes to cut away talent for the next level. Not many surprises in this year’s draft. We didn’t get caught up in the fanfare this year and all we really did was thumb through the pick run down. Maybe next year something crazy will happen but for now we’re happy that it’s one more milestone away from the holiest of holy seasons that is college football. Here’s this week’s news:
Looks like Greg Paulus will land in Syracuse next year. It seems the hometown team exhibited more interest than the Michigan Wolverines did. So when he lines up for the Orangemen next fall and then fall flat on his face, remember that we called it here. He should have a shot in NBA when he’s through. But wait! There’s more! Lincoln Journal Star reporter Brian Christopherson says Paulus might drop by this week to talk to Huskers.
The Topeka local tv station put a post previewing the Kansas State Football season. The run down pretty much talks about Josh Freeman leaving and some movement of positions for some players. They have a long way to go and we won’t see them bowl bound for a good 4 years.
Colorado QB Tyler Hansen broke his throwing hand thumb at the Buffalo spring game. He traded snaps with the coach’s kid Cody Hawkins last year. Whether or not it will affect him later this year we don’t know. What we do know is that it will affect a Colorado turn around next year.
The swell is starting to bubble over on the “Will Bill Snyder turn it around, again?” question in the sports media. They’ll review is mutant work ability and then wonder aloud what kind of clean up they have to do after Ron Prince. Already, the scheduling knock is coming with rumor of Kansas State wanting to bail on their home game against UCLA in 2010. So for the story to happen again, they need a weak schedule and that’s getting lined up. But they also need another 6 years from Snyder and he does not have that in him.
The NFL Draft was last weekend and ESPN’s Tim Griffin has a nice run down on his Big 12 blog. The big news around the area is that Mizzou had a record number of players to go, Josh Freeman from Kansas State was nabbed by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Kansas was skunked. Out of all who got drafted, I think Jeremy Maclin will do the best.
Are we feeling teh Twitter storm yet? Apparently big time college football coaches are. It seems the likes of Ron Zook and Pete Carroll have signed up on the new online trend and are looking to nab some college ball players the ole internet fashion way. T-minus 1 year before they ban this as well. If you want to know what the hub bub is follow us at twitter.com/kccgd.
Cody Glenn just admitted the suspension he got last year at Nebraska was not for selling tickets. He won’t give it up but he must’ve done something naughty to keep it quiet between him and Bo Pelini. We’re not sure if the Washington Redskins care so much after they just drafted him.
In case you didn’t notice, the professional baseball season is under way. Isn’t that great! Just like what Beano Cook says, it just means that the football season is getting closer! We here at the KCCGD do not cover college baseball but we’re sure it’s really exciting. If the major leagues didn’t draft all of the real talent first, we’re sure it would be better. This is the same problem basketball suffers from. Which we don’t cover too (yet). At some point, once the staff gets filled out, we’ll cover the more important college sports for the Kansas City area. Until then, here’s this week’s college football news:
The vaunted, Charlie Weiss led, Notre Dame Fighting Irish Football Head Coach, er, Charlie Weiss confirmed that we was thinking about leaving the program. He asked his family about after weighing options and a major lumping from USC to close out last season. Last year, they were 7-6. If they can bump that up a win or two and win the bowl, he should be safe. If he dips, he’s a goner.
Michigan was offering Greg Paulus a chance to vie for quarterback this year. Paulus, who didn’t even toss a ball around when he was visiting the campus, now has the option to join the graduate program and the football team. This is turning into a crazy situation. Is Rich Rodriguez desperate? Or does he see a golden opportunity. This story wasn’t done, however. Paulus skipped the Wolverines and now is visiting both Nebraska and Syracuse. Good luck to whoever wastes their time on the guy.
The Big 12 comes in at number 3 in terms of attendance broken out by conference last year. It’s a 3% jump whereas number 1 SEC grew by about 2% and number 2 Big 10 dropped by about 1%. It looks like that trend may continue next year, which will keep this writer happy and bring hope to eventually passing the Big 10 in attendance.
Oklahoma can’t surf the internet as much, due to NCAA voliations and a new policy from the administration. If you are an Oklahoma Sooner, athlete or alumni, this site is safe to use. Tell your friends and family. We are So0ner friendly. Kinda.
Colby Whitlock from Texas Tech gives major props to wrestling, as Tim Griffin writes. As a former high school football player/wrestler I can attest to how much more an athlete can gain by participating a wrestling. Balance, speed, and endurance will raise up, which is important for the the fat middle guys like myself. The actual wrestling part I didn’t like, but the condition part was great.
There’s not much in news this week as we have college basketball and March Madness to fight with. I’m also fighting a nasty food poisoning bit. That said, some news eeked by and we scooped them up. It’s short and sweet but will give you something to stare at besides all of the red ink on your bracket. Here’s this week’s news:
Charlie Weis is going old school and calling plays from the sideline for Notre Dame this season. Well if you’re gonna go out, you might as well do it swinging from the sidelines.
To no one’s surprise, Kansas State is looking to get out of a tougher schedules in Miami for the next couple of years. Looks like Bill Snyder 2.0 is alot like the 1.0 version.
The Senate is reviewing whether or not non BCS conference schools are at a competitive disadvantage when qualifying for a BCS bowl game. Hey guess what? Orin Hatch is leading the cause and he’s from Utah! They still won’t get over it. Jinkies.
What is with the Crib Sheet coming out after major late night holidays? First it was Fat Tuesday, which prompted a cold, and now we have St. Patrick’s Day. The Hooley over at Lew’s Grille and Pub was rocking last night as the beer was flowing and the babes were showing. The traditional corned beef and cabbage was again very tasty but Disco Dick and the Mirrorballs disco sucked. The week of college football news did not suck, however.
It seems Colt McCoy is pulling a Tim Tebow and doing charity work in his offtime. This should help him out on his campaign for the Heisman Trophy this year. Although seriously, if Tim Tebow is coming back, there might be a chance the Tim will win a 3rd time in a row. Bolster those resumes!
Some smart folks over at the University of Kansas did a study about true home field advantages and discovered that Nebraska has the largest of them all. That makes sense considering the whole state goes to the games. My problem is, advantage or not, their home record wasn’t the best in the time of the study. Still, it’s pretty cool to play with numbers.
And a new four year deal hit the BCS with the four big daddys (Fiesta, Sugar, Rose, and Orange Bowl) agreeing to a four year extension. Expect to hear the sports media complain about it for a couple of weeks and then fall back on it, say, about the middle of the season. No surprises here.
Huzzah! An Ohio State Buckeye cheerleader, the captain nonetheless, is trying out for the football team. Looks like he can run fast. I bet he can jump pretty high. I’m thinking that the huddles might be a little too annoying. Maybe he can help them come up with better endzone celebrations.
Missouri finally settled with Aaron O’Neil’s family after his death on the practice field before the season started in 2005. I guess they had to wait a bit for the program to generate some money through the athletics before they could write them the check. Meanwhile, the family of a student, Erek Plancher, will file suit against the University of Central Florida after he collapsed and died on the field last year. It seems like the condition drills always take out some kids like that. The large heads of the coaches is the issue here. They don’t want thier kids to be soft and go the ultra pushy machismo way to do it. Maybe legal action should be allowed against the coaches in the scneario? Jail time possibly?
The Bryce Brown lottery is over with double B picking Tennessee. Okay so he had visits to the Vols the last week or so but was nice enough to keep Kansas State in the running. Don’t fret! It’s time to celebrate the last mention of Bryce for a long time.
Another week is rolling by and the Crib Sheet is on full tilt. We are doing our best to ignore the upcoming Juggernaut that is March Madness, until we get enough staff around the KCCGD to cover college basketball. In the meantime, there’s still some football news to cover. Spring practice is opening up and the recruiting carousal is about over. We’re still waiting on Bryce Brown to sign, but at this point the stock is almost completely gone. With that, here was the week in college football:
On a sobering note, Oklahoma redshirt freshmen Corey Wilson is paralyzed from the waist down from the accident he had last week. The worst part is he was a redshirt and didn’t get a chance to play. Let’s hope he recovers the best that he can.
The University of Texas President William Powers is scared silly about losing college football. Huh? Yeah apparently automatic enrollment for smart kids will fill up the school so much the dumb jocks won’t have room. Don’t worry, Boosters will take care of those kids under the table like we all know.
Flo’ Rida State lives up to tradition and gets probation for their players cheating on online tests. There will be some vacated victories and lost scholarships on this doozy. One on hand, you athletes cheating. On the other you have them taking ONLINE tests. It’s incredibly easy to cheat if you have facebook up with your playas and it’s multiple choice.
Jerry Jones’ new stadium in Texas will play host to 3 Big 12 games when it opens. It really has nothing to do with the news. I just wanted to mention that I’m drooling over this stadium and pray one day I can go down there to watch a game. Maybe even the K-State win the Big 12 there.
Tim Griffin tells us that the Houston Chronicle’s study on TV viewership for the Big 12 cities show that sports is king. As a matter of fact, Kansas City ranks second of the cities. No surprise here at the KCCGD seeing as the local schools are doing well and we’re so well mixed in KC. Somebody should start a blog on it…..
March madness is fully underway and this week again we check out a school that has some aspirations this year in the tourney. We also have the added benefit the mascot and school being more topical because of the news they created in college football for that last couple of months. That’s right, this week we are all about the University of Utah’s Swoop! There’s not much to chew on history wise, so we’ll write some up as we look at this fresh young entry into mascot-dom and maybe learn a little something about being big time.
Wow, we’re still feeling the effects from last week. As a matter of fact, last week’s festivities led to a nasty little cold. That’s better than some of the after effects some college football players ran into last week. Never fear, the Crib Sheet remedy is here! We’re dropping this in some Sprite and popping some NyQuil so hold on and go for the ride. Hopefully we’ll be 100% next week.
In the descendant department, Joe Montana’s kid Nick tackled some scholarship offers from Alabama, Flordia State, and Notre Dame. The son of a qb who’s a qb too might get better luck if he goes somewhere other than the Fighting Irish. The shoes would be too big to fill and so far the quaterbacks coming out of dome town aren’t living up to the past. Nick Cool doesn’t work, how about Nick Sweet?
Somehow Columbia, Missouri landed in the top 10 on Forbes list for top college sports towns. Well I guess Lawrence was too pretentious and Austin is more of a party town. Manhattan doesn’t even come close. I guess it’s cool that they are on the list, but they need to win a championship somewhere to deserve top 10 status.
The Bryce Brown saga continues after a couple of swerves. The NCAA is investigating Brian Butler, the mentor for Brown, to figure out if he’s more of an agent than a mentor. The former rapper has been representing Wichita football players and pimping them on his website. Not sure there’s much mentoring there. Meanwhile, some rumor mongering points to Oklahoma being on the sweepstakes for Brown. I’m not sure they’ll pull him in late, but the fact that Kansas State is on the list still is laughable. Maybe Brown will lose so much cred out of this that he’ll walk on to Wildcat territory, only to regain his rep. In my dreams. In my dreams.
Speaking of Wildcat territory, it seems some old friends are coming back to Manhattan to help Bill Snyder 2.0 out. Jonathan Beasley and Joe Gordon are coming back to fill out some spots left open by some movements. Thankfully, Bill is going to former players to help rebuild the tradition (however small it may be) of the Kansas State Wildcats.
So a Division II school in Newberry dropped their mascot name, Indians, under pressure from the NCAA. That’s fine and all, but where is the pressure for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish? If the NCAA is going to go with regulating names then it needs to be consistent across the board. Now Illinois dropped it, but Florida State got the write from Indians to use it. So is it really worth going after, or is it a PR stunt to make everyone feel good about themselves?
Let me tell you somethin’ dude, the Kiffster is gonna run wild over you! Well, maybe not that but one of the tactics he’s using at Tennessee is encouraging his coaches rip off their shirts a-la Hulk Hogan. So whatcha gonna do? WHATCHA GONNA DO?
What’s up with all of the footballplayersbeingarrestedin theoffseason. Yeah they’re young and in college, but they’re the leaders of the campus. There’s a time to party and a time to get ready for some football. The way I see it, the only players that can party now are the ones from Florida.
So we finally figure out why Andy Ludwig left Kansas State after 2 months to go back to Cali. His family all lives on the coast out there. I would call shenanigans if Tim Griffin didn’t point out that he’d be eating some salary in the deal (cost of living wise). Oh well.
Last night was Fat Tuesday and I’m still wiped out. The scene at the Power & Light district was much like a Baylor home football game. Desolate. The relocation to Westport served us right as we had our choice of primo talent floating around there. While we’re in the college football offseason, it seems some primo football talent likes to float around between commitments as well. But they all aren’t as floating as I am after inhaling the kalidescope of meds to make it through the day.
The recession is hitting everybody, including college football. Some schools won’t print media guides, some are taking the bus, and poor Ohio State’s coaching per diem went down from $65 to $45. I guess we all have to tighten our belts a bit and I look forward to seeing Jim Tressel grabbing a Whopper.
So Texas Tech and Mike Leach finally got it done. Leach will have to notify in writing about interviews with other teams and there’s no bank on the buyout. Good. Great. Rad! Wonderful! I was getting tired of writing about this.
Lou Holtz is turning Japanese and heading to Tokyo with a bunch of Notre Dame Legends to face an All-Japanese football team. Good luck to those guys, I hope they don’t break a hip or eat bad poi. This kinda reminds me of how Mick Foley went to Japan to help ressurect his career, if I may expose my wrasslin’ fandom.
Missouri’s Defensive Coordinator Matt Eberflus could be upgrading to the NFL in the form of linebackers coach for the Cleveland Browns. Um, the Offensive Coordinator I can understand leaving, but the Defensive Coordinator? Welp he’s not going to be an NFL coordinator so I guess I can see it. Still, Missouri’s defense is pretty weak.
We all know that Utah got hosed again this year, but the Mountain West Conference just won’t let it go. The conference commish rolled into Washington to raise awareness about how the BCS is flawed. Okay. We get it. But trying to use Congress in this economic time seems just a little too classless. Stop whiningn before you lose more precious cred that you just built up, Mountain West Conference.
In other coaching moves, Andy Ludwig was going to be the Offensive Coordinator for Bill Snyder at Kansas State, but after six weeks on the job, he took a similar position at California. Oh well, I’ve seen faster moves. Even Jolly clocks in at 3 days for a job. Hopefully the Wildcats will nail down a coach before spring practice.
But at least their schedule for the 2009 season is filled, as ESPN blogger Tim Griffin reports. Look out Tennessee Tech as your fearsome FCS status will be prepared to be rolled by Kansas State on September 26. Um yeah, actually this should be close.
The Mangino Baby makes a return as for some reason the Lawrence Journal World decided to do a follow up on the lil tyke. Basically, the kid was born huge and looks like Mark Mangino from Kansas. The picture itself is hilarious, but like all things Mangino, Kansas fans seem to embrace it and use it more as inspiration than poking fun at a fat guy. It usually helps when you win the Orange Bowl.
There’s some weird things going down in Nebraska. First, Patrick Witt’s transferring out of there because Bo Pelini couldn’t guarantee he could be the starter this year. To even things out, David Oku (a high running back recruit) enrolled at a school in Lincoln, Nebraska even though he supposedly committed to Tennessee. Welp a running back for a quaterback is not that bad but the way it happened was just plain ridiculous.
We’re getting close to some March Madness around here (even though we don’t cover basketball yet) and we hear at the KCCGD figured it would be a good time to check up on the Tourney perennials from the Missouri Valley Conference. After inadvertently chuggin some Pabst’s Blue Ribbon, rocking out to some Slayer, and working on an ’85 Camaro, we felt the Saluki from Southern Illinois was the way to go for this week’s mascot. A Saluki is a dog, but not just any ole dog. This one has bite and will bark about it on his way to the biker bar, brother.
