Spring is in the air and unfortunately, some of it stinks. Now I could be talking about the Fiesta Bowl scandal or perhaps the NFL lockout. Nope, it’s none of that. It’s the fact that I have to suffer through another summer of baseball before the real American pasttime takes the stage. Fortunately for me I have the Crib Sheet to keep my occupied. Oh and thank you Beano Cook for being awesome.
- Now that the Fiesta Bowl report came out and the bowl’s CEO John Junker got canned, people are speculating about the BCS and its ties with the Fiesta Bowl, including David Ubben. It seems that the Cotton Bowl and its home, the Jerry Jones Cowboys Stadium spectacular, would be a great fit for the BCS. It is the largest football stage out there. If the BCS moves forward with Cotton, then this report and subsequent firing will also seem a little to coincidental. The real loser here is the cancelled spring retreat for the Fiesta Bowl. Well, that and the FEC complaint against the Fiesta Bowl filed by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. It’s nothing a meeting with the NCAA can’t fix.
- A former Texas A&M coach said that Willie Lyes, the same guy who was paid $25,000 from Oregon and is under NCAA investiagion, approached him and stated that he had beat $80,000 for a star recruit. With all of this money blowing up and flowing around college football, it was onlya a matter of time that recruitment services looking to get a cut of the pic made moves like these.
- Former Kansas assistant athletic director Rodney Jones gets 4 years in jail for the $2 million dollar ticket scandal involving him and some other cohorts, including Kassie Liebsch who got 3 years. I’m pretty sure he’s going to get the fluffly white color crime prison and not the dark, stank, blue collar crime prison. Still, he was all Niagara Falls during the sentencing. Yet, ticket scalpding still goes on.
- The Pac 10 is open for business and they’re letting the world know it. The exclusive negotiating rights for Fox expired and now it’s time to shop the conference across all of the television networks. Oh, they’ll get bank. It’s the big time now.
- ESPN filed suit against Conference USA for dipping into the FX deal for prime time football games. It’s always cute when television stations and football conferences fight.
- Soslan Gagloev was a Russian in Japan’s waters and kicking it sumo style. And he was winning. But he was busted for weed and now he’s playing some college football at Webber International Univeristy. Defensive back he ain’t. That said, sumo and any other kind of wrestling requires leverage work and that applies fantastically to line work in football. He should do alright.
- Here’s a shocker: drug policies across all facets of college sports completely varies in policy. I think the AP suggests to streamline the whole process.
- Colt McCoy’s younger brother, Case, is looking to take the reigns for the Texas Longhorns. He had a stellar spring practice. Who knows? Maybe that magic can happen again.
- Speaking of Texas, their new network will be called the ‘Longhorn Network.’ There’s no deal for satellite deistributors but I’m guessing that it will blow up once they annoucne a couple of football games on the network.
Another regular season over and another bowl season is set. I like the matchups for the Big 12 this year. Yes, no two teams are in BCS bowls but there is a chunky 8 teams going bowling. I don’t want to hear the yipping from Missouri fans this year as their game against Iowa is way bigger than the game Nebraska has against Washington. Kansas State’s in the first ever Pinstripe Bowl against Syracuse. That should be a fun one too. We have the Army vs Navy game and then the week after is all bowls. Right now, it’s the Crib Sheet:
- Oklahoma State wide receiver Justin Blackmon is your Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year and Oklahoma defensive end Jeremy Beal is you Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year. I knew about Blackmon’s dominance but wasn’t so sure about Beal’s. Congrats to both.
- I was ignoring it but, but now I can’t help but comment on the Miami coaching situation. Randy Shannon was canned and a couple of candidates have cropped up. That’s not exciting. What IS exciting is that Donald Trump wrote a letter to Miami to hire Mike Leach. The U might just become pirates.
- Beano Cook is the 2011 recipient of the 38th Bert McGrane Award, which I guess goes to football sports writers each year. I listen to him on the ESPN College Football Podcast each week and has quickly become one of my favorite sports media personalities. Congrats to him too.
- Cam Newton is cleared of any allegations by the NCAA. Looks like his dad can’t hang around the program now, though. It looks like the sabotage job by Mississippi State didn’t work too well. I’m now pegging Auburn as the favorite to win the BCS title game.
- I didn’t pay attention to the RichRod situation at Michigan until now. He’s crying again and this time it’s about how happy he is being the head coach for the Wolverines. I ignored the talk before because I thought he was pretty much safe, but this latest crying makes me wonder if he’s in trouble. He may be.
- It’s one thing when an undefeated non-AQ conference team doesn’t make a BCS Bowl, but it’s another when a 6-6 AQ conference team like Arizona State gets denied a bowl appearance. I thought the slots were so abundant this year that there might have been a 5-7 team in a bowl? Oh well, it looks like they needed one more game.
- The site for a new College Football Hall of Fame will be by Olympic Park in Atlanta, Georgia. It will open around March of 2013. Make plans now!
- Just in case you were wondering, the expansion search committee for the Big 10 that they will not actively engage in expansion for awhile. Yeah, right.
- The Cincinnati Bearcat was citied for starting a snowball fight during the Pitt game last Saturday. It’s a good thing they had a backup mascot ready for the rest of the game.
- The Bowls are set! Here’s the Big 12 version. I wonder how many Missouri Tigers fans will complain. Oh I know Nebraska fans will, but they are gone after this game so their voice is a little quieter.
- Coaching changes are starting to fire up now that the regular season is over. First off, outgoing Colorado hired from Washington Redskins assistant coach and alumni Jon Embree. On the flip side, long time Texas offensive coordinator Greg Davis resigned due to the poor performance on the field that saw the Longhorns miss a bowl for the first time in forever.
- Rob Long of Syracuse has a benign brain tumor and will undergo surgery. He will not play the Pinstripe Bowl. As being someone who’s had someone close go through the same thing, all I can say is that my thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family.
- I was wondering when this would happen: two men stole the mascot head of Lee Corso. It’s now back and the dudes are in trouble.
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.
- The Mountain West Commissioner did a song and dance to argue for the proposed playoff structure for the BCS. It seems Utah won’t let this go. Hopefully a nice little press release will send this one away. Methinks it won’t go, but one can hope.
College Sports, Kansas City style
