It’s time to go camping! The teams are gearing up and we geared up for our own camp adventure last week. :
- The two biggest movers and shakers from the off season’s expansion bonanza might actually play each other. There was the talk of Notre Dame and none other than Texas will play each other in a couple of years. Good for both programs. If the Longhorns end up with an exclusive television station, this game might only be played on Longhorns TV and NBC.
- Assistant coach Bruce Walker from Missouri was arrested last week on a DWI. The coaches and some of their wives were coming back from a trip to the Lake of the Ozarks. Now we’ve been down there many times and we can say that more than likely you will be coming back drunk from down there. A cab was called, he should’ve taken it. But hey, Missouri’s used to making bad choices, right?
- Meanwhile, in Ames, Iowa State defensive back David Simms plead guilty to the credit card fraud charge. He sits out the first game against Northern Illinois. See kids? Crime doesn’t pay (kinda).
- Not only does Kansas have to deal with Holden Tharp’s year ending injury, but now they have to change the fight song! Colorado and Nebraska are somehow featured in the song and since they are high tailing out of the conference, new words must be had.
- The NCAA is on a tear. They’re dumping on West Virginia, which could affect current Michigan coach Rich Rodrieguez. The association is also hanging out on the North Carolina campus. Tennessee is getting a letter of inquiry by these bad boys. It seems like they are focusing on the south. It won’t be much longer before they spread out across the whole country.
- To no one’s surprise, Indianapolis will be the home of the Big Ten Championship Game.
- So while Boise State’s head coach Chris Peterson banned Twitter use for players, the player who incited the haymaker from LeGarrette Blount spoke up and let us know what he said. “How ’bout that (expletive)-whuppin?” So Blount was talking smack before the game and this guy threw it in his face afterward.
- Backup quarterback Sherrod Harris for the Texas Longhorns will skip his final season to focus on school. Huh? He must not be very good.
- The Bill Snyder 2.0 magic is in effect. The Kansas State Wildcats reported record contributions for the last year. It also helps that a very public blunder by Bob Krause fed the anxiety of said contributors.
- On the other side of the coaching spectrum, Florida head coach Urban Meyer closed all practices because of ‘Scumbags’ and ‘Internet People.’ Okay, so that might work for TMZ, but really Urban? Everyone?
- The USA Today Top 25 pre season poll is out! Top five in order are Alabama, Ohio State, Florida, Texas, and Boise State. Yes, a mid major is up there and TCU is not far behind. Big 12 wise we have Oklahoma and Nebraska at 8 and 9 respectively. How much will this change in the next couple months? We can’t wait for the season to get here.
- UCLA is falling apart right before Kansas State’s eyes. The middle game is gone with two season ending injures and an academically ineligible tag. We think Daniel Thomas is drooling just a little bit more at this rushing opportunity.
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:
- The Big House expansion set the new stadium attendance capacity at 109,901 for the Michigan Wolverines. Now all they need to do is actually when games to get it filled up.
- The hottest game coming into this year has to be Texas at Nebraska. David Ubben runs over the list of candidates for the name of this somewhat rivalry. Our pick? The Big Beef. The winner? The Big Beef.
- 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.
- Lambeau Field and the Packers want to host a potential Big 1o Championship Game. Okay, this would be sweet. Lambeau embodies the Big 10 better than Indianapolis by far. The closest next match is Chicago with Soldier Field, but we think a title game in icy weather trumps all.
- 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.
The year of Kansas State wasn’t so much of a year as it was an eternity. There were mediocre hopes going into the season, despair running through the season, mania during the end of the season and into the offseason, then back to a numbed out mediocre hope of building a solid team. There are still burn marks on my belly from the selt belt holding me in from the ride the Wildcats took me on in the last year. Right now, they are known as the Mildcats. They brought back an old legend to patch up the nuclear meltdown and now are looking to rebuild. Let’s take a look and see how they will stack up coming into the 2009 season.
Continue reading Kansas State Wildcats Football 2009 Preview: More Like Mildcats →
This weekend is the annual float trip weekend and we are super distracted. The annual event down in the Ozarks leads to all sorts of cathartic releases and gets us ready for the football season to come. For those of you not in the know, a float trip is basically an all day canoe or raft run down a river with food and beverages. This can be known as a Booze Cruise. This year it’s running a little late, but thankfully the weather isn’t too bad, sans any chance for rain. If you ever get a chance, find the closest river and spend a weekend camping. It’s a great way to get away. Here’s this week’s Crib Sheet:
- Right after the Crib Sheet say the Mountain West Conference’s beef with the BCS wouldn’t be over until the beginning of the college football, a new press release came out last week stating that they finally signed with the BCS on the new television deal. Wow that was fast. So they trotted the BCS out to Washington with Utah buddy Orin Hatch to shake them up before finally giving in and signing. Trying to save face much? Time to dust the hands off of this topic.
- Western Carolina junior defensive back Ja’Quayvin Smalls died after a voluntary workout last week. This may be along the lines of the sickle cell issue that have been the cause of the number one death among college football players in the last decade. Our condolences go out and we hope that this builds the case even stronger for mandatory sickle cell tests for colleges.
- We’ve usually ignore player arrests here on the Crib Sheet because, let’s face it, a player or two gets arrested every week. Let’s take a look at this. We’ll give a nice even 100 for the number of division I football teams. There’s about 50 players per team. Those are both conservative numbers. So there are about 5,000 football players. Take that and add in college life. There’s about 6 months in the off season. Two players arrested per week is about 48 players. Or less than 1% of the total amount of players. That seems reasonable to us for the college population as a whole. So while it makes news, there’s nothing exciting about it except that they play a big time sport.
- ESPN and ABC are switching up announcers this year. Michael Hiestand points out that Matt Millen will come to the fray and Paul Maguire will be out completely. WOO HOO! Maguire was about as bad as announcer as they come. There’s a reason they dropped him down on the field and didn’t allow him in the booths for the games last year.
- It looks like after the fiasco of the Bob Krause/Ron Prince fiasco last year and the massive audit fiasco involving the university, Kansas State and their new athletic director John Currie will do what they can to rebuild the fan base. One such way is to sell 1,989 tickets for $9 at the home opener this year in Massachusetts, in honor of Bill Snyder’s first game as head coach. It’s a nice little ploy, but the opponent and the number of tickets for sale don’t do much in terms of a rebuild. It’s a nice start, but they’re going against a weak non-conference team so chances of a sell out are nill. Currie and Co. have a long way to go but it’s a decent first step.
- Urban Meyer let the cat out of the bag this week and told the whole world he’ll never coach for Notre Dame. Never say never. Granted Charlie Weiss will have to make a bowl to keep the job, but with what Florida giving Meyer everything he wants, including national titles, an open Fighting Irish job and a pot of gold won’t be enough. Then again, he did say never.
Father’s Day is this weekend and we’d like to take a minute to thank all of the dads out there for being dads. One of the best father/son experiences you can have is watching your favorite college team take on a rival on a fall Saturday. Whether it’s running to fridge to get your dad a beer or arguing at each other who was a better college player over nachos, the experience helps cement the relationship so critical to a young boy’s (and girl’s) development. Here’s this week’s Crib Sheet:
- Tom Osborne will be the Athletic Director for Nebraska indefinately. He took over after the last guy got fired 2007 and was responsible for bringing in gum chewing Bo Pelini as head coach. Considering the slow turnaround they are experiencing, chances are Tom will stick around until a Big 12 title game and/or championship.
- Two long time administrators were suspended from the Kansas State athletic department Wednesday with no reason given. The speculation machine fired up and is pointing at the secret deal that former AD Bob Krause had with former coach Ron Prince. That’s probably why but it really does not matter now. What we’re wondering is if Ron Prince intentionally tanked the football season so he could get the long term pay out.
- News came out that now again Kansas State head coach Bill Snyder had a chance to run for office in Kansas in 2005. It seems Kathleen Sebileius tapped him for a lieutenant governer position and Bill considered it. Too bad, because he would’ve crucified Ron Prince and Bob Krause for the terrible job they did and for screwing over the Wildcats.
- Bob Frederick, former Kansas Athletic Director, died from complications due to a bike accident last week. It’s a shame he had to go that way. This is probably why Mark Mangino never took up bike riding, beside the obvious reasons.
- Somebody’s impersonating coaches up in Nebraska. Tim Griffin of ESPN reports that someone is hitting up a Kansas high school coach asking for recruiting information by stating they are offensive coordinator Shawn Watson. The coach was suspicious and phoned the proper authorities. It’s easy to fake identity online so it’s a good thing that the coach made the phone call. Remember, if the email is something like ‘[email protected]’ watch out.
- Chris Harper is transferring to Kansas State in the hopes of become the starting quarterback. He left Oregon due to the position being locked up there, and brings a couple of rushing and catching touchdowns with him. It should be an interesting camp when he vies for the position between Carson Kauffman, former South Florida quarterback Grant Gregory, and JuCo transfer Daniel Thomas.
- Charlie Weiss Twittered that he can’t use Twitter recruit. It’s a good thing he’s getting healthy use of the service. If they don’t make a bowl, heck a BCS bowl, this year he may need to use it to recruit himself for a new head coaching position.
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.
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.
College Sports, Kansas City style
