I’m kicking of the festivities early this year and celebrating Independence Day a little early. Why you ask? Well, it could be that after all of the NCAA playoff announcements, Notre Dame will still be independent. Or it could be Erin Andrews heading to Fox Sports to host a college football pregame show. Or it could be that West Virginia and TCU are officially in the Big 12. Nope. It’s that Texas A&M and Missouri are gone from the Big 12. Happy Days! Time to celebrate with some Colorado Buffalo beer. Continue reading Purple Yeti Roar 24: Celebratin’ ‘Merica and Happy Things →
So the deed is finally done. Texas A&M and the SEC made it official. Now last week, we found out that the Big 12 was staying together. We also found out that Dan Beebe resigned, at the request of Oklahoma and some others. Connected sports guy Chuck Neinas was setup as the interim Big 12 Commissioner. What else? The 1st and 2nd tier television rights are on the table. That’s fine for Texas because the LHN is 3rd tier, noinch! The athletic directors all met and were saying they are committed to keeping the Big 12 alive. Although, it seems Missouri’s foot is still out of the door. Worse yet, the reason Oklahoma wanted the Big 12 to stay alive was because they couldn’t swing a deal with the Pac 12. So is it safe? I guess it is for now. I’ll be certain of it when somebody actually joins the conference instead of leaves it. Until then, here’s another installment of the Crib Sheet: Continue reading Crib Sheet: Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself →
Here we go on my annual predictions for the upcoming college football season. I peer into my crystal viking horn and blow out what I think will happen for the year 2011. From the BCS Championship Game to what color socks Oregon will wear in week 10, I throw it all on the board and see what makes triples and doubles. So what do I think will happen? Let’s find out:
- Going big, the BCS Championship Game will be between Alabama and Oregon. Alabama’s avoided the NCAA cartel but Oregon hasn’t as much. I’m taking a risk on Oregon, but I don’t see any other team outside of the SEC that is title worthy. Sure there’s Oklahoma but man I’ve been burned by them before.
- Texas A&M will leave the Big 12 to go the SEC. The SEC will poach and ACC, probably Florida State. The Big 12 stays in Texas and nabs either SMU or Houston.
- Mike Leach will show up in a pirate outfit on Halloween. I’m not sure where, but it will be damn scary.
- The NCAA hires enough people for them to actually do their job. This is a big guess.
- The first ever Big 10 Championship Game will feature new member Nebraska and current NCAA crosshairs, Ohio State. Ohio State wins it and causes everyone to freak out.
- Like I said before, Oregon will win the inaugural Pac 12 Championship Game against Arizona State.
- Tyler Gabbert will not be a starting quarterback.
- In my Big 12 preview, I picked Oklahoma to win the Big 12 but they will not be undefeated and will choke against somebody.
- Super recruiter Willie Lyles will be paid even more money by selling recruiting tapes of a young breakout by the name of Hershel Walker.
- I have no friggin’ clue who will win the Heisman this year. Probably LaMichael James, he was a finalist last year. Yeah, so was Andrew Luck but I’m picking the Ducks over the Trees this year.
- Notre Dame gets on the winning track this year by displaying a tall video tower at the end of the opponents field for each home game. They may, by the grace of God, make a BCS bowl this year.
- Penn State head coach Joe Paterno will NOT die on the field this. I’ve tried hard with this in the past but I need my prediction average to go up.
- Kansas fans will start asking about basketball season after the 1st quarter of the first football game this year.
- The Longhorn Network will not be successful to begin with. Texas finishing in the middle of the Big 12/10/9 will force ESPN to dump a bunch of infomercials on it. Hook ‘Em Horns Turbo Snakes anyone? There’s already Snuggies.
- TCU will step on Boise State’s neck the only year they are together in the Mountain West Conference.
- This whole mess with players not getting enough resources to go through college will stop. We’ll see at cost scholarships show up so the players can get a stipend to pay for laundry and lap dances.
- One of the Brown brothers will do good, the other one will be mediocre for Kansas State. Still, the Wildcats make a bowl.
- Craig James will still be a douche.
- Erin Andrews will get bumped off the top sideline hottie list. At least there’s naked pictures of her online.
- The Ivy League, after limiting collision practice and targeting head injuries, will be the first conference to go all flag football. No one will care.
- And finally, I will get used to being in a different town. Kansas City was nice and Austin is turning out to be pretty cool. I also predict that I will not miss the snow but will miss the snow days.
It’s national signing day! Okay, so it’s not that exciting, but we have some Big 12 updates flying in and I don’t want to take away from the exciting coverage. Usually half the kids that are worth something don’t pan out anyway. It’s a good thing that ESPN covers this overhyped event in the only way that ESPN can over hype. Now on to the Crib Sheet:
- Another person involved in the Kansas ticket scandal, Charlette Blubaugh, plead guilty in court. Her husband will soon plead guilty as well. It looks like legal system works in the case of these folks.
- The Iowa Board of Regents ordered into an investigation as to why 13 Iowa football players were hospitalized after offseason workouts. The news just keeps getting worse up there. Take an investigation on perhaps illegal medical record access? It’s not the first time school athletes had this issue, either.
- Nebraska ended it’s apparel deal with quarterback Taylor Martinez’s dad, Casey. It was all on the part of Casey, too. Hey when your son is the starting quarterback for a school you just so happen to have a licensing deal with, things tend to look too fishy.
- Bill Snyder 2.0’s son, Sean, will coach the special teams as Associate Head Coach for the Kansas State Wildcats. Nepotism? Well, he was an All-American punter for the ‘Cats and was a staff member on the team for a very long time. How long? 17 years. He’s worth it.
- ESPN’s Erin Andrews is kind of a freak of media exposure. By exposure I mean the nude video taped in the hotel room that begat her appearance on Dancing With the Stars. Now, she’s taking that controversy and lackluster sideline reporting to Reebok. Some journalists are complaining that this throws the ethics out the winder but I’m afraid they forgot that Andrews is more of a pretty face than an actual sports reporter.
- Florida State quarterback Christian Ponder looked great in the Senior Bowl as he led the South over the North in a 24-10 victory. Texas A&M’s linebacker Von Miller had the defensive tops as well.
- USA Today talks about the trend of colleges oversigning players. Schools will dole out scholarships only to revoke them later for someone else or make kids ‘greyshirt’, which means have them enroll in January instead of the fall. Florida president J. Bernard Machen agrees that greyhirting blows. They talk about how the kids are the victim of this. It looks like one more reason to pay the kids that play big time ball to me.
- A bunch of Missouri players sold tickets to former footballs players in 2009. So the current players got a cut of the kickback for them. That’s a secondary violation for the NCAA. Yet another why the NCAA is useless.
The heat is on. It’s on the street. Oh Glenn Fry, you save us from the sultry steam of summer with your cool saxaphone riff and Eddie Murphy praising rock music. Yes, the heat is mos def on as we hit our first hot spot of the summer. It’s just in time, too, as the rain left us watching the Beverly Hills Cop series 10 times over, including the terrible 3rd part. Cabin fever, indeed. So we’re hitting the pool this week and dreaming of the new college football season while laying in our floaties sipping some cold beverages. Hit up the Crib Sheet then do the same.
- The Kansas ticket scandal has a couple of new charges against former athletic department staffers Brandon Simmons and Jason Jeffries. They both were dinged with a count of misprision of a felony. It seems they are lining up the small bananas to get to the big gorillas in the case.
- Even if USC goes undefeated this season, they will not be ranked in the USA Today Coaches Poll. This is what happens when you have recruiting violations. Lane Kiffin has a long time to wait to rebuild the program.
- ESPN and the ACC agreed to a 12 year deal which has links to all football games, including some basketball and other non revenue making sports. This looks like something that the Big 12 (10) will get into once they start negotiating their deals.
- Alabama moved its game against Georgia to a Thursday night and now because of that change, the students get a day off. Education is way more important than football. Well, not in Alabama we guess.
- Okay, here’s the Crib Sheet’s weekly police blotter: Iowa defensive end Broderick Binns arrested for drunk driving, Tennessee players Da’Rick Rogers and Darren Myles Jr. got charged for assault after a bar fight, North Carolina’s Quan Sturdivant was arrested last Saturday for possession of marijuana, and Georgia’s Dontavious Jackson and Tavarres King were arrested for drunk driving and MIP, respectively. The Bulldogs kicked the last two to the suspension dog house.
- Erin Andrews shook her almost clothed tail and now will be joining the College Game Day crew with her newly resigned contract for ESPN. If you remember, Andrews was the penultimate sideline reporter babe that ran into some peeping issues and used it to get onto Dancing With the Stars. Let’s hope she wears the same clothing for the football show.
- The gates are about to flood open with Big 12 (10) schools launching their own television networks. Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri of all schools are looking to make some cash off their own television rights. Will this set the trend for the rest of the schools across the nation? Tune in to find out.
- ESPN’s Big 12 blogger David Ubben talks about the uphill battle that Turner Gill has with his offensive line, now that starting junior tackle Jeff Spikes injured his Achilles tendon and is out for the year. I would for Kansas to fill out the bottom the Big 12 (10) North this year. The new coach has way too many broken parts and the once touted line is now depleted.
- This is a college football blog so we would be remiss not to mention that George Steinbrenner died of a heart attack this week. He used to be an assistant football coach for Northwestern.
- Kansas athletic director Lew Perkins is too busy preparing for retirement to pursue the charge of blackmail against William Dent. His job is saved and will be cruising toward closing the door on his career late next year so he really doesn’t need to recoup anything from this guy.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=5363743
What’s wrong with a little celebration? We here at the KCCGD like to shimmy and shake here after an especially tasty nacho dip or greasebuger. So why is it so hard to let the college football players jump up and down? Granted we don’t zebra striped dudes follow us to the Golden Tee table and inspect our reaction to making a great save putt. But that’s where the problem is. The referees are subjectively deciding whether or not the celebration might be offensive to him or the other team. That seems just a bit too wacky. There’s already enough pressure on the refs for actual blown calls. Don’t let them blow it on stupid rules.
- Looks like there’s a chance that LeGarrette Blount may be reinstated sometime this year. He cold cocked a Boise State player during one of the first games of the year and was subsequently suspended for the rest of the season. Similar infractions in different conferences only yielded a game or two suspension. It looks like he’s taking the right steps to get back on the field.
- Kansas University police will open up an investigation to the fight that took place between the football and basketball players. The media hype around this is now big enough for some posturing by the law enforcement there. So a hand will be slapped and money will be given under the table to keep this guys on the field.
- Texas Tech’s Taylor Potts suffered a concussion last week and he may be out this Saturday for their game against the Kansas State Wildcats. The stars may be aligned for the Wildcats as they are coming off their last second win against Iowa State and Farmageddon. Good thing suspended offensive lineman Brandon Carter is back. Hmm maybe that’s why Potts got banged up?
- It looks like they nabbed the guy accused of filming ESPN’s Erin Andrews nude. They dude’s an insurance salesmen and pretty well off. Go figure. The most surprise part of the article is that there are eight videos. We thought there was just one.
- ESPN’s Chris Low has an interesting piece about how Gene Chizik left football desolation at Iowa State for big powerhouse Auburn. Guess what? Chizik’s got the Tigers undefeated and #17 in the country, proving yet once again that bringing in talent helps more than just coaching up your kids.
- Oklahoma Sooners’ Ryan Broyles is out four to six weeks with a broken shoulder. Broyles is their leading wide receiver. Oklahoma’s BCS chances are pretty much shot and least injuries will be a sufficient excuse.
- The SEC admitted they blew the excessive celebration call against Georgia when they took the lead over LSU with about 1:05 to go in the game. LSU came back and won. Now Georgia should’ve stopped LSU, but their chances were seriously hurt with the penalty. What’s up with refs deciding outcomes for more important teams? Indiana’s screwjob at Michigan and now this? It’s like the refs want the bigger names to win for the conference. If Georgia won the game, would we see this much hype for LSU and Florida this weekend? You know stuff like this makes me think twice about how clean these conferences really are.
- Speaking of this week’s Florida vs LSU matchup, it seems the Gator players are getting threatening texts from LSU fans. Ho boy, let the hype machine crank up to full power. JK LOL!
It’s another week of college football news and we are getting into a rhythm. Most of the news churns up and out on Saturday and Sunday now. I would say the amount of news tripled since the start of the season. But we are taking it all in and making some sweet music for you to kick back and zone out on. Let’s just consider this the greatest hits collection from the week. Like any good compilation we have peaks and valleys then finish off with a strong note. And no Kanye. Now that’s what I call Crib Sheet! Rock on below:
- Steve Sipple from HuskersExtra.com talks about how the Cornhuskers are scheduling weak opponents and acceptance of such philosophy. Welcome to what the Kansas State Wildcats did every year. Now everyone is doing it. Hey, at least they fill a slot in with a quality opponent. They have Virginia Tech coming up.
- Speaking of the Wildcats, Bill Snyder 2.0 just inked a 5 year, $10 million dollar deal with program. They had to sign a new one with the new school president and athletic director. But five years? He can probably leave whenever and take a paper pushing job with the department when he’s done. Hopefully he will have turned the program around in three.
- Apparently swine flu is breaking out all over on football teams across the country. They need to start washing their hands and behind their ears before practices and such. Weren’t players supposed to be bigger, faster, and tougher in the new millennium? Since when did a flu cause a freak out? Man up, players (but don’t shake my hand).
- Erin Andrews, resident ESPN sideline hottie, told her story on Oprah last week. For those of you who don’t know, or listen to the news, Andrews was filmed nude by a peeping tom in some hotel room a couple of weeks ago. She stated that she thought her career was over. Um, she’s seriously mistaken. If anything her nudity made her more popular. Just talk to every Hollywood actress out there. They dip into the nude pool when their careers are threatened.
- Just in cased you missed it, Stephen F. Austin barely beat Texas College 92 – 0 last weekend. That’s right. Not 9, not 2, but 92 points. It’s nice to see some joystick scores on the field every once in awhile but this is ridiculous. Texas College should’ve hit the restart button.
- The power went out before the half of the Montana vs UC-Davis game over the weekend too. It took some time for the UC-Davis staff to get it up and going. The home field advantage wasn’t enough, however as Montana went on to win 17-10.
- Even though highly touted Colorado is 0-2, Dan Hawkins job might be safe. ESPN Big 12 blogger Tim Griffin talks about how broke the Buffaloes are and why buying Hawkins out could hurt more. That’s real good news for every other team in the Big 12 North.
- You’d figure after losing a close game that you can talk about it with a little class. But Notre Dame’s Charlie Weiss dashes all hopes of respectfully losing by blaming the Big 10 officials in their last second loss to Michigan last week. The schedule is weak enough for the Domers to finish with a double digit win record. Focus on that Weiss.
- Oklahoma fans from around the globe are supporting Landry Jones and his pencil thin mustache. Even the American Mustache Institute chimed in for their support of the molestache. Considering how he’s played on the field so far, there shouldn’t be any complaints about that mouth hugger.
It seems recovery from the float trip took longer than expected. Well, that and KCCGD headquarters purchased a new laptop that’s in the middle of indoctrination. The radio shows are starting to talk more college ball and the preview magazines are popping up on the stands. We have about a month and a half to go for the big show and the new laptop will help us in getting ready for the relaunch. In the meantime, here’s this week’s belated Crib Sheet:
- Looks like people are making bank from student athlete autographs on eBay. The NCAA is trying to lock it down but we don’t see the issue. They are already building a fortune off of these kids, why not let some other small entrepreneur make a couple of bucks from an autograph?
- As expected, the cheap ticket deal for K-State and Bill Snyder’s return blew up all over. John Currie commissioned more tickets and it looks like they were snatched up fast too. I’ve been to games there and a $9 ticket versus a $50 tickets makes a world of difference. Currie should really do more tickets because the game wouldn’t sell out otherwise.
- Erin Andrews will now skirt the sidelines in video game form for EA’s NCAA College Football 2010. Apparently she spend days recording insightful comments to be dropped during the game. That’s great. We wonder if they did her up a 3D modeling suit for better precision on microphone holding. Oh to be that suit…….or in the hotel room.
- Graham Harrell is heading to Canada. After not getting a sniff from the NFL, he will be smelling the brisk Canadian air for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Many say he’s a product of the Texas Tech system but we’d like to think his career path is going down the same road that Warren Moon went.
- Get your tickets fast, folks, Notre Dame will play Army at Yankee Stadium. This has been rumored before and now they will play in 2010. Around the Kansas City area, Arrowheads plays host to some college games as well as the Big 12 Championship every once in awhile. Hopefully this will lead to more and more big time games being played in a large enough stadium.
- University of South Florid kicker Maikon Bonani fell 35ft off a Busch Gardens ride. An employee was injured too while holding on to the door that he thought was unlocked. Apparently the ride took off and Bonani and the employee fell. Yeah, the Purple Yeti will not go on roller coaster rides.
- Ron Simmons, former WWE and WCW wrestler, is now in the college football hall of fame. He used to play for Florida State and ended up being an All American. We here at the KCCGD congratulate Ron and wish him a big ole DAMN.
College Sports, Kansas City style
