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.
Okay so it isn’t Monday, but the excuse is worthy. Let’s call it a double dose of food poisoning and checking out Ratatat in Columbia Tuesday night. At any rate, this week we’re are offering up some advice to all of the teams (including 3 Big 12) teams some advice. It’s getting down to the final whistle and we here at KCCGD think it’s time to remind the teams of what not to do. So this week we are gonna look at the Grays Harbor Community College’s Charlie Choker.
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.
March Madness continues here as we just got finished here at the KCCGD headquarters reading up on who got in and who bubbled out in the NCAA Tournament. In celebration of this anti-climatic event, we’ll turn our focus this week to a school which lacked success both on the basketball court and the football for a long time now. Cy the Cyclone from Iowa State has a major job in lifting the school spirit of a university who continues to fumble around its athletics. We learn some about Cy’s history and his recent success. We also wonder how amalgamations work in mascotdom.
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.
We’re heading to the Big East this week and in the spirit of march madness coming, we here at the KCCGD are picking a traditionally powerful basketball school in the University of Connecticut Huskies. Even though their football program seems to be turning the corner, sharing a conference championship in 2007, the Huskies enjoy a dominant basketball team, with coach Jim Caple nabbing his 800th win last week. But we won’t check the facts about Jim and instead turn our attention toward Jonathan the Husky. The average requirements are covered with Jonathan, even though what the Huskies evoke are memories that are not too average.
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.
You know, we here at the KCCGD figured that the college football off season would be dank with news but after this last week, we can say that there always something to talk about. We’ve got contract negotiations, run ins with the law, rule changes, and even where are they nows (or end ups). The biggest of the bunch being the Mike Leach contract talks. But we will never, ever talk about the Nebraska spring practice game. Here’s what happened in the last week:
So there’s a proposition floating around to make pre endzone celebrations penalized and points taken off the board. I guess the treat of points slipping from the board will make players think twice, but I would go with the penalty first and if that doesn’t work then hit them up with points.
Kansas coach Mark Mangino promoted a couple of coaches. When it rains, it pours. The success of the Jayhawks goes around for everybody on the staff. Although when it rains on Coach Mangino, I bet his feet never get wet.
In Big 10 land, Iowa re-upped Kirk Ferentz’s contract with more dough going into his pockets. A little rumor goes a long way. When the Kansas City Chiefs fired Herman Edwards, on of the replacements on the list was Kirk Ferentz. Kirk needs to send Scott Pioli a fruit basket.
The vaunted, Charlie Weiss led, Notre Dame Fighting Irish will now be more lead by Chuck as he’s taking over on offensive play calling. They had a bowl year last year to save his butt, but taking over on calls makes me a little worried. I’m gonna go dust off the clock on his hot seat right now.
Be ready for some Mizzou mania early on in the year on ESPN. They are playing the Big 12 opener against Nebraska on Oct. 8. Which means we get the game against Nevada and the season opener against Illinois on TV as well. The earlier the better, as this year will be an off one for the Tigers.
I’m trying really hard not to talk about baseball in any form, but when they are recruiting 12 yeard olds it gets to be too much to handle. Please oh please don’t be like baseball and take the fun out of the game at young age. Let the kid grow up some first before buying him an iPhone.
Ivan Maisel reminds us that the BCS won’t change for awhile. He goes on to talk about Jerry Jone’s mega dome and how it could be the potential home for the Sugar Bowl. That would make it more of a player than the other BCS bowls. Tune in next four years as the BCS turns.
Taking his ball and going home, Ron Prince will be named the new Associate Head Coach at Virginia. Welp he had a 3 year run as a head coach, ruined a program, and is pretty much right back where he started. Good luck and good riddance.
This week’s Mascot Monday takes us to the deep south of the Big 12 and the Baylor Bears. We’ll go over what keeps the weakest team in the South going spirit wise while taking a peek back at the history of the mascots. It’s not B.J. and the Bear or Hardcastle and McCormick, but Judge and Bruiser! Not really as seen on TV but close enough. Just don’t sit too close to the screen or you’ll ruin your eyes.
It was a big week of news and the Crib Sheet is back this week to tell you what mattered. It was Signing Day last week and the ouija board nearly broke from producing signatures sprinkled out across the whole nation. There were some surprises, but most of what was expected came to be true. We mixed in some political goobery and a little bit o’ smack talk to keep things fresh. My guess is the next couple of weeks are going to be dry news wise, so let this be the spike before the long lull. Here’s the crib:
Newly appointed Jesus of Tennessee Lane Kiffin is crying wolf over Urban Meyer trying to hit up one of his recruits. Lane still got the guy, but maybe the rub off from Al Davis’ fragile shoulders are showing up in Volunteer-land. It’s nice you got the recruit, Lane, but talking smack on Urban will produce some nasty results. Just talk to Georgia. Oh and he apologized.
Missouri too, had a pretty good recruiting class. They promised some tight end play to Sheldon Richardson but realy this kid is defensive tackle all the way. At any rate, look for them to compete for the North and then choke at some point.
Nebraskasigned about 21 kids to fill out the black shirts. Look out for these guys. With the walk on program back on and some key pick ups, Nebraska will be well on their way to almost going back to the Big 12 Championship game.
Conference wise, Texas and Oklahoma went 1 and 2, again. Hey they do that every year so get used to it. Colorado had a top 4 conference recruiting ranking last year and look at how they finished. Sleep tight, Texas A&M.
Bryce Brown is hanging out and making everybody speculate the hell out of him. Everybody else is down and signed but this guy just likes making everyone wait. Also, the big rumor is he might turn pro in some other league. Really, Bryce is a huge tease.
James Franklin, the Maryland offensive coordinator, was named last Thursday as the successor to Ralph Friedgen. Overlooking the fact that Maryland has done crap the last couple of years, this pick makes sense. If the school is satisfied with mediocrity then they should continue in it.
Mike Leech is culling his old lawyer skills and is still banging out a contract with Texas Tech. So the Red Raiders are apparently pulling a Boston College and telling Leech he can’t talk or interview with other teams during his contract. If they break off now, look for him to be somewhere else after this year. Come Texas Tech, fumble this one away!
Okay, this is getting redonkulous. Now all of Utah’s lawmakers are sending a resolution to PrezBama to blow away the BCS and give in to the power of playoffs. Now with football players on hand! Please somebody tell the whole state of Utah to get over it and focus on getting the Mountain West the automatic bid. Going the political route won’t work.
Missouri pulled in LSU tight ends coach Josh Henson. It looks as thought some SEC cred might be seeping into the Big 12. Recruiting wise, this will help out the Tigers immensly. Tim Griffin’s already saying they’re going after Bryce Brown too.
Dana Dimel is coming back to K-State. So he did a great job for Mike Stoops and reviving some offense and it looks like he’ll be doing the same at K-State. Let’s hope that it will be more than Ron Prince’s “Throw-everything-up-and-see-what-sticks” offense.
In sign of bi-partisanship, Rep. Joe Barton (R) from Texas is siding with PrezBama in setting up a college football playoff. Does he really need the votes? Plus, this guy’s an Aggie. Shouldn’t he be working more toward making Texas A&M a real football team instead of playing up to the playoff people?
This week we go with a traditional power house of mascot-dom with the University of Southern California Trojans. Every time we see the beginning pageantry at a USC football game, we are always shown some guy stabbing the field. It’s a long standing tradition and for some reason riles up the crowd. After researching the Trojans on the terms of mascots, I’ve come to find a couple of facts I did not know about the USC Trojans. And no, one of them is not Will Ferrell being a mascot.
It’s signing day and the Crib Sheet is trucking along. Apparently this is like the NFL draft for colleges. What I’m thankful for is Mel Kiper is busy preening his hair to care about the high school kids. This is the first time we’re covering signing day and there is an interesting culture surrounding the event. One thing I noticed was how the scouting reporter guys on the sports radio all sound like they lived in the trailer next ot Randy the Ram from the movie The Wresltler. Here’s the sheet:
Bobby Bowden’s got another year in him. Florida State made it to a bowl this year and things are looking up. His contract expired and they brought him on for another year. But seriously, I think it’s some kind of sick bet between Bobby and Joe Pa to see who will kick the bucket on the field first. Tune in next year I suppose.
Jim Halley reminds us signing day is more like signing year. The interesting thing to note is that the number one recruit for running backs, Bryce Brown, committed to Miami o’ Florida, but he’s still shopping around colleges. Yup he’s from Wichita, so K-State still has a chance. I’m not holding my breath.
Another violation by Sarkisian and Washington. They’re saying that this time it’s minor but the demerits are already piling up. Yeah the Huskies were winless last year, but are they going to be handcuffed from winning a game next year?
Walk ons are back for the Nebraska Cornhuskers agian. It’s good to see they are bringing back that tradition. It’s no Rudy, but hey, the whole state is Big Red so you might as well bring some kid on that has the passion.
Now that Bowden’s back, the players are celebrating in the tradition of Florida State football players and getting arrested. Preston Parker fell asleep at the wheel in a McDonald’s drive thru around 5am on January 24th. He blew under the limit, but admitted being drunk and stoned to the cops. He didn’t hurt anybody so this is hilarious.
The Sporting News counted down the top recruits for 2009. Bryce Brown is number one and no one else close to the KC area is in the Top 25. We should be seeing many of the top guys sign today but rumor has it Bryce is holding out a little bit longer.
Ohio State lineman Alex Boone pulls a ‘Don’t Tase Me Bro!’ after yielding a tow truck cable tyring to break stuff. Yup he was D-Runk. I’m not sure if this guy’s stock will fall in the draft this year. Maybe the Dallas Cowboyws will pick him up.
A clinical study shows that football players out of high school are getting bigger, the Homer Simpson way. Instead of doing the GNC Multi Grain Protein Gut Buster, they’re pigging up on fatty food. Unless they’re doing the Atkins, the study says they are on the way to big time shock. Good thing college programs straighten out. Still, the graph’s pretty cool about how big theses guys are getting
Condi Rice says no to the Pac 10 and keeps making the cheddah on the speaker circuit. That makes sense, get money for fluff instead of defending the ridiculous position on the Rose Bowl year in and year out. Please let’s keep politics out of college football. I’m looking at you President Obama.
