It looks as though the NFL cracked down on concussions and big time hits, doling out suspensions for head on collisions now. What does this mean for college football? Probably the same type of suspension. I’m not sure they will completely lock down like they do in the NFL. I’m guessing that this sport may be going away in the next 15 years, or at least it will turn into more of an arena style of play. Even for the colleges. Now check out the Crib Sheet:
Looks like Kansas State’s leading receiver Brandon Smith is out for the year with a broken leg suffered from last week’s Nebraska schilacking. Chris Harper will have to step up to fill the role. We’re going to wait and see about the Oregon trasnfer.
We’ve heard of backups on the field, but backups for mascots? That’s what Georgia had with “Russ” when UGA VII died unexpectedly. Welp last Saturday saw the return of the starter in UGA VIII. He’s officially registered as “Big Bad Bruce” but he’ll be UGA VII for everyone here on out.
Right before his potential start in the NFL, Colt McCoy will have his jersey retired at Texas. He’s the sixth player from Longhorn country to get his jersey retired and it may be the last one for awhile. Even though the guy never won a national championship, he has won more games in 4 years than any other in college football history. That deserves the rub.
Your new Ole Miss mascot is: The Rebel Black Bear. Okay, so it was from a William Faulkner story and he went there so it makes sense. We can’t help but think that Admiral Ackbars would’ve been a better fit. Oh, and there is some controversy with the name still.
Another coach banned Twitter for his football players. This time it’s Butch Davis and North Carolina. He needs to ban them from talking to sports agents. While he’s at it, he needs to ban assistants from talking to sports agents, too.
Get your claws ready, Missouri Tigers fans, ESPN College GameDay is heading to Columbia. Did you know it’s the first time they’ve been there? It’s about time, too, as I think they’ve been to Manhattan and Lawrence before.
Rutgers defensive tackle Eric LeGrand was left paralyzed from the neck down due to a tackle he made against Army last Saturday. It really sucks when this happens but players have walked again from this kind of injury. Let’s hope he can get up off the chair real soon.
Pace University football player Danoy Henry was killed by the police in a freakish accident. The police were saying that Henry tried to escape the police and ran into another officer, which led to officers firing into the car and killing him. The other side says that the cop jumped on the hood and fired. We may not know whatever happened and this is certainly a tragedy.
It’s that time of the year people! No, not when we break our backs raking leaves, but the time when the BCS Stadings start coming out! For those of you that follow the blog religiously know that we like to take some time out of the heated Pick It and Stick It Standings to go over the BCS fight as well. We’re in week 7 of the picks and there’s a large gap between #2 and #3. Will it grow or shrink in the weeks to come? Meanwhile, the first BCS Standings show that computers are way smarter than people and they also like surprises too.
This is another Monday where I get to talk about a game I saw on Thursday night. Last time was in Manhattan and this time it was in Lawrence. Things could not have turned around on a hard 180 degree twist for the Kansas State Wildcats. For the Kansas Jayhawks, unfortunately, things remained the same. I didn’t get a chance to take in the Lawrence like I did Manhattan, but the town and the game was great none the less. For a quick road trip in and out of Memorial Stadium, I can say that the memories will last a long time.
While I was chilling out at Memorial Stadium Thursday night, I couldn’t help but think for a moment about the Colorado fans storming the field against Georgia a couple of weeks ago. Kansas State was well on its way to a victory and not once did you see any fans for the Wildcats try to storm the field. It seems nowadays, however, that storming the field is the easy thing to do after a victory. I want to take this time to talk to every student, fan, or objective observer. Stop storming the fields. Just stop it.
Another Friday and another day after for me and some Stadiumspotting. Last week didn’t go to well for me but this week was the complete opposite. The college football season is full of ups and downs and it can change every week. With this weekend, we will be about halfway through the football season. The time is running down for more great games and for even more great picks. The field’s thinning at the top and the clock is starting to run down. Let’s go over this week’s Pick It and Stick It to see how the downs can turn into ups:
We said we had one more trip left in us and I was wrong. We have at least two! So tonight starts another familiar trip out west to Stadiumspot. We’re not going all the way to Manhattan, however. We are heading to Lawrence to watch the Sunflower Showdown. Kansas comes off a beating from the Baylor Bears of all teams while Kansas State said goodbye to Nebraska by getting their asses kicked. Both teams need a win and there’s nothing like notching a rivalry win to pick things up. I don’t know who’s going to win this one but I hope that it will at least be competitive.
So I just found out today that I have at least 2 more road trips to go this year for the KCCGD crew. This year has been by far the most travelled and will be the most Stadiumspotted. It’s a nice change of pace from the last couple of years as we have begun to run out of new and cool places to Barspot. One of the new road trips just happens to be tomorrow night. Tune in tomorrow to find out here, but you won’t have to think hard if you want to guess. In the meantime, let’s catch up to the news items in this week’s Crib Sheet:
Coach Mark Dantonio of Michigan State had his health issues and that apparently inspired a fan to postpone surgery to watch the battle for Paul Bunyan’s Trophy last Saturday. Major Hester put off getting a pacemaker installed to watch the battle. Okay, that’s hardcore. I would pick life over college football, but it would be close.
Looks like the move to the Big 10 will support a stadium expansion for the Nebraska Cornhuskers. The newly approved plan will cost about $56 million and put the capacity at around 90,000 seats. How much do you want to bet that they will try to build Memorial Stadium up to be bigger than the Big House?
Meanwhile, the Rose Bowl has expansion plans of its own. The $152 million expansion will keep the lease going with the bowl through 2043. They have an upcoming BCS National Championship Game so they need to spruce things up a bit.
But while the two stadiums have expansion competition going, the locker room just got better for the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Ndamukong Suh donated about $2 million and as part of that, the players get iPads installed in the locker room. Man they need to put that in the toilet, not the locker. You’re not going to get much use out in the open with those things.
Baylor receivers Willie Jefferson and Josh Gordon got busted with pot after they were found passed out in a Taco Bell drive through. The whole 4th meal thingy from the Bell targets potheads anyway so it was a no brainer that these guys were found with weed. They’ll more than likely miss a couple of games.
Neither of those two were involved last week in one of the shortest kick returns in history. Texas Tech hit an onside and it didn’t go 10 yards. Terrance Ganaway nabbed it and ran 38 yards for a touchdown. It wasn’t the shortest, but it was awesome to see the special teams fail on the Red Raiders.
This bit of news is confusing so bear with me on this. A former agent said an agent friend of his, Gary Wichard, used ESPN’s Mel Kiper, Jr. to recruit college players. Kiper’s released statement says he talked to players by going through agents. I’m having a hard time finding where the fault is. I think it’s the fact that agents are pushing players to Kiper and his Big Board. But I don’t know it’s players after college or during. This does smell fishy.
College football is cyclical. Power programs come and go and the traditional ones always swing around back into power. Much like the seasons, power programs have summers and winters. For Penn State’s winters, that also includes the usual cries for Joe Paterno to retire. This guy is going to die on the field, in anything to fulfill my prediction. He’s not going to retire and Penn State will be good in a couple of years.
This week’s standings are in and we are still figuring out just how to work the angles. Starting out, it made sense that we made the picks a little more hardcore. Picking just one team over the other seemed way to simple to the kind of fans that lurk around these parts. Oh, we’re glad we set it up the way we did, but we sure are reminded today that we can’t fall asleep at the wheel. The weekly picks by design are supposed to affect the overall but it doesn’t seem that way. Much like Les Miles crazy fake field goal that eventually put LSU over Florida. Pick It and Stick is part design, part luck.
The drive down to Manhattan last Thursday was fairly quick. The more than likely last ever game between Kansas State and Nebraska took place and it was not all I hoped to be. But the electricity from the radio on through the fans as well as the pageantry leading up to the game made the trip more than worthwhile. There’s nothing like revisiting your old stomping grounds and enjoying everything great about what it was like to be there. The whole day fittingly ended Nebraska’s presence in Wildcat Country.
I’ve been on a ton of road trips the last couple of weeks. Wichita, Des Moines, Minneapolis, and Manhattan all were recorded in the log book. I’ve noticed some things on the road and want to share it with you. From what to eat to how to beat the casino, these tips will help you get more out of your college football road trip. I’ve heard of people road tripping every week for football and dismissed them as being crazy. The last month’s events just made me a little crazy for the road.
The big game last night didn’t end up so well for this Kansas State fan. Hey, that’s okay. We tooled to Aggiveille and hit up the Hibachi Hit, which later lead to the vaunted Hibachi Butt. Maybe it was the mixture of great cajun food and the Carbomb we had at O’Malley’s Alley. Who knows? But it was great to see the old stomping grounds, even though the Wildcats were run over by Taylor Martinez and the Nebraska Cornhuskers. More on that with Monday’s post. Until then, we have some picks for the weekend we need to go through. The healing process begins with pickens.
This will be the first off day stadiumspotting for us and we’re super excited. Kansas State hosts Nebraska for probably the last time ever and they are both undefeated. The electricity will be huge in the Little Apple and we will be there to cover it. Chances are we will make our way back to a bar Saturday but we’ll go ahead and tweet the location when we decided where. Until then, it’s half day action at work then a split time of driving and football watching. This Purple Yeti is more than pumped for the biggest game of the year for the Wildcats.
A very special lady sprung on me some tickets to the Kansas State and Nebraska game going on tomorrow. So we’ll do some Stadiumspotting there as well get you stoked for this week of football. First thing is first, though. This week’s Crib Sheet goes over some of the hottest news items of the last week. We have some spicy giblets ready to feed ya and then we’re gonna get the car ready for the impromptu road trip. On to the sheet:
