Finally the wait is over. Tomorrow night we kick off another great year of college football! It’s been what seems likes ages since the end of last season and now we have another year of the most pristine competition we’ll ever see on the field. Sure the offseason provided plenty of drama, with coaching changes and conference expansion, but we’re done with the talking and we’re ready to strap it on. The helmet that is. So here’s the last Crib Sheet before the new season:
UCLA’s Jeff Baca is too dumb to play football this year. He was the left guard for the Bruins and this will most certainly affect the start of the season, when they face the Kansas State Wildcats in Manhattan.
Rumors had BYU staying in the Mountain West after all. Check and mate for the speculation hounds. They are actually going to the West Coast Conference for everything except football, where they will be independent. We’re not sure they hype is big enough for another religious school but hey would could be wrong.
We love Twitter, like we always say, and ESPN Big 12 blogger David Ubben loves them too. Check out his list of must follows for this upcoming season of Big 12 football.
Texas is still ramping up the huge home and homes. This time it’s USC and they will play each other in 2017 and 2018. They are lining themselves up greatly for a marquee Longhorns Network owned football game.
Beau Brinkley, Missouri’s long snapper, was snapped up last week for a DWI. This marks yet another drunk issue for the Tigers, on top of Derrick Washington’s heavy touch. Gary Pinkel came out and said he was truly embarrassed about the ordeal. Maybe because it was too close to the start of the season?
David Ubben pointed us to this fascinating story of how the Nebraska to Big 10 shakedown took place. Things were going a mile a minute when it was happening and this recounting of the events points out just how much we don’t know what’s going on in the background.
Man what a crazy roller coaster of an offseason for the Big 12. Who would’ve thought a year ago that the Big 12 would be rocked to its very knees and survive probably one of most weirdest advances in college football history. It was like a whacked out game of Axis & Allies. Welp Germany didn’t win and neither did the Big 10. So here we are going into what is the last season we will ever see for this 12 conference league. Who will come out on top? Roll dice to find out (er read below).
Here we go with the final week of mascots we’ve yet to touch that fall in Phil Steele’s Pre Season Top 40 and the #2 ranked Ohio State’s Brutus Buckeye. We’re not sure if it’s the excitement of football season kicking off this Thursday or the fact that we are closing out another seasons of mascots but we are feeling good about this one. Brutus is a giant buckeye. We’ll find out this week just what the heck it is and gauge whether the returning Terrelle Pryor will help lead his team to BCS Championship Game. We’re chomping at the Buckeye Bit so let’s get rolling.
The beating heat of the summer is getting to us. We’re producing an inordinate amount of swass underneath while compiling this week’s very beefy Crib Sheet. We’re going for some lemonade and to air our sweat regions. Here’s the Crib Sheet:
It’s official, via text message, that Bryce Brown will not be coming back to Tennessee. Will he land at Kansas State? The way Daniel Thomas is looking might draw the Wichita, Kansas native back home to the Wildcats. Tennessee will not release him from his scholarship so that will slow him down.
Big 12 Media Days for Kansas was all about Turner Gill. He landed a great hire at offensive coordinator and Chuck Long. It’s a rebuilding year and they are trying to stay focused on the field and not with all the crap that happened off of it.
Colorado’s Big 12 media day was not as exciting as leat year’s. Oh, they’re stoked this year but we got the sense that they are distracted about moving to the Pac 10. One thing is for sure, if Cody Hawkins starts for the Buffaloes, they will lose every time.
Oklahoma, on the other hand, spent the day talking about the huge expectations they have. Yes, they had a ton of injuries last year. That means that the younger kids have more experience and more time with each other. They should be tough, but we’re not sold yet on national title tough.
Texas A&M’s media day was unheard of. You’d think the cash they got in the expansion deal means that they command more respect at the podium but apparently not.
Texas Big 12 media days was alot like just hanging out. Coach Mack Brown handled the alignment talk well and also took care of the Nebraska contigent in a subdued kind of way.
The assistant coach who took a punch from head coach Mike Locksley sued both him and New Mexico for the fight. We’re thinking he lost the actual fight and is now taking it to the courts.
So assistant coach Mark Nelson of East Carolina resigned because of NCAA allegations that he evaluated players in off-season workout and conditioning drills. Huh? Coaches evaluate all the time. That’s what they do. The NCAA is beginning to be irrelevant and completely out of touch.
Oklahoma running back Mossis Madu got a DUI. He’ll probably be benched for the half of the first game.
ESPN is going 3d! They will broadcast a couple of college football games in the new tech as well. Check out the list here.
IMG bought ISP Sports and now is the mega daddy of all agencies that license pro and college sports media to outlets. These guys will have some major pull when it comes to bringing in more bucks from the supposed holy grail of television deals for college athletics.
Former Oregon quarterback Jeremiah Masoli is walking on to Ole Miss in the hopes of still playing football. He was booted off the Ducks for burglary and weed smoking. We all believe in second chances right? This second chance will have a short leash.
Iowa State defender David Simms plead guilty to credit card fraud that he originally denied. It looks like his career might be over up there.
Bill Snyder 2.0 goes old school with his scheduling philosophy for the Kansas State Wildcats. They had Oregon on the schedule, but now they are off. The excuse was the new 9 team schedule for the conference coming up. It was also mutual. So will Miami be next off the list?
We’ve been sacked from the Big 12 Media Days on this week’s Crib Sheet. We’ll go over the last media day next, as we have a major pile of news dump on you. Here we go:
The Big 12 Preseason media poll is out and we have ourselves a rivalry game for the Big 12 Championship. The sports media picked Nebraska in the North and Oklahoma in the South, with Missouri and Texas shortly behind in both divisions respectively. Speaking more locally, Iowa State’s big season last year didn’t improve their status as they were voted last. Kansas and Kansas State are neck and neck for the middle of the pack, with the benefit of the doubt going to the Wildcats and its coaching experience. Usually the sports media is wrong so we’re anxious to see how it plays out this season.
Meanwhile the All Big 12 Preseason was announced as well. Two Missouri kids, one Kansas, one Kansas State, and a whole bunch of Texas and Oklahoma kids make up the team. That pretty much tells you what the sports media thinks of the talent in the conference. Pretty obvious too.
Iowa State defensive back David Simms looks to be under the police gun for a stolen credit card number and is charged. They haven’t filed charges yet, but the police did search his place. We’ll see if he was the culprit or one of his buddies.
Kansas Frosh Jeremiah Evans’ career is officially over due to his worsened heart condition. It sucks when you can’t get on the field due to health issues and we wish him the best in whatever he decides to do with his life.
Lane Kiffin ticked off Tennessee Titans head coach Jeff Fisher by hiring his running back coach for his USC team. Fisher calls it unprofessional, we think it’s the next step in coaching evolution. Courtesy calls are out the window if you want a guy bad enough. It’s dog eat dog out there. The Titans apparently think that USC broke the law too.
Back in his NCAA days, Dan Beebe wanted to contract sports agents with universities so everything could be on the table. If a violation was found, the agent could lose potentially millions and the university may not be on the hook as much. Beebe is looking better and better every week.
Ron Prince’s side of the story was obvious, as a deposition revealed. He was guaranteed money and now he wants it. There was even a napkin thrown in by former Kansas State athletic director Tim Weiser. It’s another he said she said, with a “Memo of Understanding” between the two. The courts will take this one over and we’ll see who gets the dough.
Missouri has some beef left over from last year’s Navy blowout. Blaine Gabbert looks to be the guy and Derrick Washington looks to be his running buddy. The Tigers have a couple of chips including being picked behind Nebraska and not being invited to the Big 10.
Okay the holidays are over and we are in the middle of summer. College football is so close right now we can taste it. You know how we can tell? We have a buttload of news to go over in this week’s Crib Sheet. So enough jibba jabba, here’s the sheet:
Speaking of the one time rivalry, Nebraska removed the end part of the video they put out earlier this year for their fan video. It said “Beat Texas.” The smack talk is already beginning and it’s not even the start of training camp yet.
Dontavius Jackson will be transferring from Georgia after summer school following his DUI arrest. Goes to show folks, don’t get caught breaking the law if you are a football player. You might get your scholarship dumped.
The two Kansas dudes who were indicted last week have plead guilty in court for the ticket scandal they covered up. Hopefully for Jayhawk fans, this will blow over and they can start focusing on rebuilding for the football season. Or focus on the start of basketball season.
We’ve been trying for the last couple of days to come up with something exciting to attach to the release of EA Sport’s new NCAA College Football 11 game. It’s out. That’s it. Nothing exciting here.
Bob Krause, former Kansas State Athletic Director, described in a deposition how he got duped by Ron Prince at the last second, which then gave Prince a tasty buyout from his contract. So Krause was out of his league big time and now we see why.
Ex Florida Gator Maurkice Pouncey was the subject of an investigation that addressed and allegation that he took about 100K from a middle man to an agent. If the investigation finds it to be true, Florida could lose the Sugar Bowl victory last year. It doesn’t matter to Pouncey because he is in the NFL right now. It seems agents have found a loophole to exploit kids in their senior year. The kids get paid and leave before any repercussions. Kinda like pulling a Pete Carroll. Stewart Mandel points this out and we just found out from Nick Saban that Alabama is investigating its own issue too.
Missouri linebacker Tyler Crane was kicked off the team for violating team rules. Neither Crane or Missouri will say just what he did. It seems like he was a back up so it shouldn’t affect the Tigers this year that much.
11 Notre Dame athletes were arrested for underage drinking at a party last week, including Joe Montana’s son Nate. Doh! It’s nice to see the Fighting Irish are with the times in terms of off the field troubles. This tells us that they might be competitive this coming year.
It seems an investigation will open in Arizona to see if current and former Fiesta Bowl employees made campaign contributions to politicians whom supported the bowl. The major issue is not the contribution but the reimbursement from the bowl. Ya, that’s a no no.
It’s almost July and it’s time to start getting serious about football. For the last couple of months we’ve been going back and forth on conference expansion and raiding. Now that it’s all over (hopefully), we can start getting juiced up for the major competition on the field. The Crib Sheet has its cleats on so you should too. Here we go:
The major sanctions against USC hit former running back and current New Orleans Saint Reggie Bush. Bush was reportedly in on the scandal part but now he vows to help with the appeal for USC to the NCAA. Maybe his Heisman Trophy is in trouble?
It looks like Pac 10 went from the Pac 11, with the addition of Colorado, to the Pac 12 with the addition of Utah. Mormons invade the conference as the Mountain West Conference powerhouse moves in on the big boys. Will the Pac 12 have a title game now? Does it seem weird that both the Big 10 and Pac 10 will have title games and now the Big 12 will not? Meanwhile the Mountain West will stay at 9.
The Big East Commissioner sent 20 roses (10 white and 10 red) with ‘Unity’ written on the card to the Big 12 (10) offices. It seems the Big East and the ACC should be thankful that the Big 12 didn’t blow up and ruined college football.
Andy Staples talked about the BCS and how it’s super solid for now, even though people are still complaining. One side you have the director, Bill Hancock, and on the other you have Texas Rep. Joe Barton and Utah Senator Orrin Hatch. Yeah, so Utah goes to the Pac 10 and Hatch still wants to take down the BCS. If Utah ends up undefeated again, will he be so loud?
Mizzou Chancellor Brady Deaton is your new chairman of the Big 12 Board of Directors. This might be part of the maneuvering to keep Mizzou in the Big 12 (10). It also seems kind of flimsy.
Bill Snyder 2.0 weighs in on the expansion movements and laments the fact that a Big 12 (10) may not have a title game. His solution? Two 5 team divisions and a title game. It makes sense for a small school like K-State to go for that but we don’t think this will happen just yet. It could bring in more money, however.
Colorado is in some financial hot water right now and leaving the Big 12 (10) will put them in a deeper hole. Will they ever crawl out of it? First they need to win and second they need to ride out the changes over the next couple of years. With Dan Hawkins as the coach, the Buffalo fans out there might have to wait a good 10 years before that program makes money and wins championships.
Texas saved the Big 12, or what we are going to call it: the Big 12 (10). The Pac 10 wouldn’t let Texas have its own network so the Longhorns opted to stay. When the Big 12 (10) first started years ago, it was because of TV and money. They led the way into the new television era and now they are doing it again. In the future, you will see each school have its own television network and it will start with Texas and the Big 12 (10). Okay, maybe Notre Dame. At any rate, Texas, Oklahoma, and Texas A&M are getting more money to stay now. Apparently, it’s status quo time as no real commitment will be required and they are basing staying together by some magic coalition of insiders and outsiders. It’s a 10 team league with no potential for a championship game and more round robin type play on the field. Most importantly, Kansas City has some life in its sports scene now. So let’s all take a breath and check out this week’s Crib Sheet:
The Oregon Ducks dismissed quarterback Jeremiah Masoli for drug possession and other citations. It looks as though this is no LeGarrette Blount situation. Masoli is out for good for the Quack Attack.
Kansas athletic director Lew Perkins is cleared for any wrongdoing in the blackmail of equipment case. His job is safe for now, but he still needs to clear the hurdle on ticket scandal.
Missouri got the could shoulder big time and the local indie newspaper The Pitch talks about how hard they go the shaft. Poor Tigers. They’ve been talking smack the loudest in all of this and now they’ve been reduced to abandonment. At least they are used to it.
Chip Brown, the guy who broke most of the actual news in this expansion talk, confirmed that last Friday was the day that Nebraska went official and joined the Big 10. It’s still early to tell, but this guy has been the one who has called it so far so we’ll trust him when he says something else is up.
Boise State will now be in the Mountain West Conference. They were tired of dominating the WAC for so long and decided to up the competition by playing TCU and Utah every year. Will this be enough to put the Mountain West on the BCS map? Well, considering the Big 12 (10) is still around, they will have a much harder time getting there.
Here’s the preliminary Big 12 (10) television schedule. Interesting match ups include the UCLA at K-State, Florida State at Oklahoma, and the losers leave game with Colorado and Nebraska taking each other on.
So the Pac 10 lost out on some Big 12 powerhouses and we’ve learned that commissioner Larry Scott flew to Texas and Oklahoma, but was also scheduled to make it to Kansas City. Was Kansas a backup plan? We don’ t have to worry about it for now.
Stanley Ikenberry, interim president for Illinois, says that 12 is a good number for the Big 10. After all that’s happened so far, we think that he means that it’s good but it could get better. Don’t be surprised if the Big 10 starts going on the hunt again, maybe even real soon.
Dan Beebe in his working with keeping the Big 12 (10) alive, knocked his hometown conference’s fan allegiance. He says that they are about as fair weather as Missouri fans when it comes to athletic competitions. Man he pulled out all the punches for this one.
Speaking of Missouri, Governor Jay Nixon ran his mouth off again dissing outgoing schools Colorado and Nebraska. This guy pretty much shut out the Tigers from going to the Big 10 and now his state’s school needs to rebuild some bridges burned. That means he needs to get out of this and let the school handle it, please.
The Oklahoma Sooners are interested in a television network, too. You know, instead of conference wide networks, it makes sense to do school specific. It’s the next natural progression and would benefit each school in showing other athletic events and possibly cultural and governmental ones too.
Welp, Armageddon has come. Nebraska is going to the Big 10. After the speculation, the rumors, and the threat of the Big 12 South going to the Pac 10, we have our first major move in the modern era of expansion. The Big 12 meetings last week provided some ultimatums and some wishy-washy talk. Now it looks as though Friday is the day for the official announcement from the Cornhuskers. After that, it seems the Big 12 South, sans Baylor and including Colorado, will be going to the Pac 10. The rest of the teams, well, they are left behind. Kansas City will become a ghost of a sports town. Besides all of this depressing talk, there was other news this week. Here’s the Crib Sheet:
The SEC and its head coaches laughed off any expansion talk during their meetings last week. You know it seems they have been the quietest in all of this. Will they invite anyone else? They’ve won 7 BCS Championships so I guess they won’t have to.
Boise State is left at the altar while the Mountain West sees what the fallout will be from the expansion bonanza. This won’t be cleared up for a while and the Broncos will just have to wait it out.
The current UGA is too young to be on the field and that’s the delima Georgia has going into this year. The sudden death of the last UGA means that the next-in-blood-line gets called up to the majors early. Will they stand the young pup up or will they opt for a veteran replacement?
So the athletic director and coaches meetings for the Big 12 are in Kansas City this week and the Crib Sheet is here to fill you in. We’ll start out this week with the beginnings of the meeting and then wrap up Thursday’s and Friday’s talk next week. Dan Beebe held a press conference to field questions about the first day of talks. The big picture? The league is heading into media negotiations with excitement next year because of the money the ACC got from ESPN. But they need to stay together and Beebe would like to know if they are a soon as possible, even though he knows it won’t happen. Among his case for staying together was that potential for more money, the disruption of balance in the league that could force some regulatory structuring, and that the Big 10 could very well do nothing. Beebe says it’s a young conference and would like to see it grow old together with the members. Will it happen? We’ll find out next year, but in the meantime here’s this week’s Crib Sheet:
The Big East wants the NCAA to study whether or not the on field head official should be in charge of overturning instant replay calls instead of the in-booth official. We don’t think this works out to well because even though the head official is in the flow of the game, the in booth official has better looks at close plays.
Dennis Dodd over at CBS Sports reiterates what we have been saying about Rich Rodriquez: he’s on the hot seat big time this season. Dodd puts the odds at 8-4 and a bowl appearance for him to keep his job. Any takers?
The cause behind the Urban Meyer drama last year finally came out. Meyer stated he had esophageal spasms and that he has some meds to take for it. The pain from the spasms made it ultra painful to eat. Hopefully the medication will work and he can continue on in his work.
The latest road block from Texas Tech didn’t work. The judge in the case states that Mike Leach can move forward in his lawsuit against the university for his firing late last year. Notch one win for the pirates. It’s going to be quite the naval battle between these two.
Even though Oklahoma is under some potential violations, the Sooners sent a letter to the NCAA stating that they meet the requirements set by the NCAA for their probation. A probation period that came from recruiting violations and is expiring soon. So they are out of the woods but could be right back in it soon.
Some officials from Kansas are caught up in a ticket scandal that diverted a couple of million in tickets to 3rd parties for personal gain. Most of the 6 officials involved have either left or been fired. Meanwhile, athletic director Lew Perkins stated he didn’t know it was going on. This shouldn’t hurt the athletics department in terms of probation and what not, but Perkins image is damaged and the school has not only money to recoup but the Feds sniffing around for more.
On to football, the Big 12 meetings this week let loose some football schedule nuggets. The Border War will be on Fox Sports Net on November 27th at 11:30 am. The Sunflower Showdown moved from Saturday to Thursday night October 14th on Fox Sports Net at 6:30 pm. Mark your calendars. Also, note that it’s exclusively on Fox. Testing for media numbers for the upcoming negotiations anyone?
Apparently some exercise equipment loaned to Kansas athletic director Lew Perkins has come around to bite him in the form of a blackmail scheme. A former disgruntled employee, Bill Dent, tried to extort money in exchange for keeping quiet about the equipment. Dent also says that Perkins received the equipment in exchange for tickets. We’ll find out what happens here. Perkins says he is a victim, because the company that loaned the equipment went under and didn’t recover the gear.
Meanwhile at the Big 12 meetings this week, Lew Perkins talked about that as well some talk about the expansion speculation. The big takeaway? He says expansion is a super serious threat and that Kansas may or may not have been contacted by the Big 10. Diversion tactic is a go!
Okay, we are begging to plug up the hole speculation regarding the Big 10 expansion. Our series covered what we think and we’ve had just about enough talk to last us awhile. It’s time to start focusing on real football and clean up for the mess left behind from the slick speculation. Don’t worry, we’ll leave the camera on while we do it. We’ll also leave it up to the Crib Sheet if you need your fix. Here ya go:
Where Joe Paterno wants the Big 10 Conference to expand, his kid Jay doesn’t. His major point is the erosion of rivalries that kept the league strong for so many years. You’d think the tradition argument would come from the old Paterno and not the young one.
BCS Commissioner Bill Hancock responded to Congress’ questions on the BCS with a 5 page letter basically telling them to back off. Money’s at play here and it looks like Washington wants to step in an regulate some flow their way. Is this really the right way to get to a college football playoff?
Tulsa World columnist Dave Sittler layed the smack down on Missouri athletics last week. The Tigers spend more money than five schools in the Big 12 and only has 8 championships to claim. That’s the lowest in the conference. Does the Big 10 really want to invite a traditional loser?
A bunch of big wigs piled onto both Texas Tech and former head coach Mike Leach for the handling of concussed daddy’s boy Adam James. House Judiciary Committee member Linda Sanchez and NFLPA doctor Thom Mayer both were wondering why the injury was hidden and not available for doctors to treat. Nasty drama aside, the doctor’s should be there to help treat players if they get a concussion.
Remember all of the hub-bub about Michigan getting in trouble over practicing players too much? Well, today the university self-imposed restrictions to head off and NCAA troubles. Essentially they are cutting back practicing hours and shrinking down some of the coaching staff. Will this affect the Wolverines play next year?
Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops weighed on the expansion speculation, telling reporters that the Sooners would be a good fit anywhere. Way to really stand out on the ledge Bobby. Sure the Sooners would be great anywhere, how does that add any more insight into the expansion talk? What we have here is coach talk 101. You say your team is the best no matter the scenario.
Okay, we’ve reached the final showdown for our week-long series on the Big 10 Expansion. Please take a moment to read up on all of the poststhatledus tothispoint. All of the information we dumped the last 7 days will show what we think will end up happening, as well as what we wish to happen. It’s been a bumpy ride, but it’s only going to get bumpier. We know change is coming, and now we will call out our cards and show you what our predictive hand plays, all in for the pot.
Okay, we talked about the Big 10 expansion with all of the goodbits on the business side of things, but what about us? What about the fans? How will the average stool jockey be affected if and when the Big 10 decides to expand out beyond its current bounds? From the Trojan sporting LA type to the gator chomping tanned Floridian, the effect could be small. Or it could be big. The closer the proximity to the Big 10, the more the fans will experience change, especially right here in Kansas City. Let’s see what can happen as we narrow the focus down to right here at the KCCGD headquarters.
So who all will fit in the glass slipper that the Big 10 is dangling out in front of the college football landscape? In our series, we talked about how the traditional Big 10 aims to scratch their expansion itch and what could happen to every conference around them when they do. Today we look at the candidates either actively or inactively campaigning to be ones who get the golden ticket of an invite. There are oddball choices as well as solid, sensible choices in this competition. Not all will be covered, but we’ll see the ones that matter. Then after that, the swimsuit competition! On with the show!
We laid the foundation with our last 3 post for the Big 10 expansion. Now let’s talk about how other conferences are reacting. Some of them could be massively depleted whereas others are moving to counteract the possible Big 10 growth. Every major BCS conference has about two cents to toss in and little brother mid major conferences are chirping in as well. It’s time for the conferences to lay down their tiles and see just how much they could change.
