Okay it’s not as exciting as signing day or the first day of summer practice, but it’s enough to get us here at the KCCGD excied for some more college football! This week’s Crib Sheet dives into cracks and pulls up some loose change and football news. It doesn’t matter, it’s great to see the kids on the field getting ready for another season. We’re saving the change for stadium popcorn. On to the Crib Sheet:
- We’re heard stories about college players getting arrested for drug and/or alcohol related crimes, but we haven’t heard the story about other players removing student newspapers that feature such crimes on the front page. Welp, it happened in Texas and the coach is backing his players for the removal. Is it suppression of free speech? Or is it a team rallying together? We don’t know, but we do that a campus full of students walked into class that morning without a crossword puzzle to distract them and that’s just wrong. At any rate, the coach later apologized.
- Dan Beebe told everyone to chill about the permanent championship homes for the Big 12. At least not until June. It looks as though the rumor was Football in Jerryville, Baseball in OKC, and Basketball at the Sprint Center in KC. Maybe he’s holding out for more money from Jerry Jones, but my guess is that the Big 12 can get more from each city in the Big 12 area when putting the location up for grabs each year.
- The Notre Dame athletic director, Jack Swarbrick, let slip the possibility that the Fighting Irish may have to join a conference and lose its independence if expansion happens all around them. This could be a bad thing for the Irish and a great thing for the conference that nabs them.
- Coaches in Texas and Maryland get a one year reprieve from the new rule that limits successors in waiting to recruit for the team. The gates are open, boys, take as much as you can before the clock runs out!
- Speaking of Notre Dame and Maryland, they will be playing each other at FedEx field in 2011. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish will be the home team. Huh? FedEx field is IN Maryland. Okay now we see why this independence is going away for the Irish. That’s just ridiculous.
- President Barack Obama honored the Alabama Crimson Tide at the White House this week for winning the BCS National Championship. It must be be tough for a Big 10 guy to honor an SEC team, but hey, he’s a politician and he rolls with the tide.
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4980678&campaign=rss&source=NCFHeadlines
Hey guess what? The Crib Sheet is BACK for the regular season. We enjoyed digging up some tasty news nuggest during the offseason so much that we are going to roll it into the regular season rotation. That’s great news alone. So for those of you not familiar with the format, let us explain what the Crib Sheet is all about: We scour the interwebs for stories not hears too well and stories that are local to the Kansas City area, adding our unique twist on it. So rejoice in its return and enjoy this week’s Crib Sheet:
- Indiana is cashing in big time by giving up a home game in 2010 and playing Penn State at FedEx Field, home of the NFL Washington Redskins. It looks like this trend is here to stay with college teams playing in pro football (and baseball) stadiums. I guess it will work out for schools that get major payouts, $3 million for Indiana, but it still sucks that hometown fans have to travel or miss out on games.
- Tennessee running back Bryce Brown is cleared of any NCAA violations for questions in his recruiting process. Now he can focus on becoming yet another highly touted athlete with a dark, questionable past. Sometimes the news just writes itself.
- John Malkovic: Actor chimes in on the upcoming college football season. He doesn’t say anything too outrageous and we’re glad to see that hoity toity actors can enjoy the grid iron as well. We’re not so sure, however, how coaches turned actors will fare. Yikes!
- So, everything is big in the new Cowboys stadium. Check. Tons of college football teams are playing there as well. Check. The Oklahoma vs BYU game is sold out. Check. $25 for outside concourse access only. WHAT? We get that the mega stadium will draw mega bucks, but when you’re not even in the dang stadium, you shouldn’t have to drop that chunk of change just to be there.
- Mike Gundy’s blackout to prepare for Georgia led to an arrest for one player and another leaving the team. Doh! It looks as though locking things down loosened up the team a bit. Will they get it together before their big opener? Tune in this weekend.
- St. Paul, a division II school, canceled its season opener because they don’t have helmets or pads. WHAT? It’s not that they couldn’t afford it, but the numnuts who ordered waited a little bit too late. They should put that guy in a tackling dummy and let the team try out the new gear on him.
- Blaine Gabbert locked up the starting job at Missouri. Now the fight for number 2 just got easier. The other Blaine, Blaine Dalton, was booted off the team for a DUI arrest. That’s alright, though, as it sounds like the Tiger’s focus this year may be more running intensive.
- The Alamo Bowl replaced the Big 10 opponent in favor of a Pac 10 number 2. That should heat up the competition for the Big 12 and give more legitimacy as big time conferences for both parties involved.
- Apparently Jim Harbaugh, with help from a booster, now has a $50-$70k toilet to do his business in at Stanford. So I guess when their season goes into the crapper, at least it will be comfortable and plush.
- Bill Snyder 2.0 named Carson Coffman as his starter going into the opener for the Kansas State Wildcats. Competition is a good thing, but he’s being consistent on this one. If anything, Snyder 2.0 is known to switch things up and play people in rotations. Grant Gregory, you still have a shot.
- Rich Rodriguez is taking it from all sides these days. We find out that current and former players are complaining about working too many hours for the football team, even though everyone does it and they he has an ally in Ohio State Buckeye players. An investigation is coming to get to the bottom of a rule no one follows. Now we hear him getting sued in a failed deal for land development in Virginia. Notice that the piece came from the Ann Arbor news website. Seriously, wait until half the season is over when they are looking to finish the same way they did last year. By then RichRod won’t be able to fight back the tears.
College Sports, Kansas City style
