Alrighty welp I’m back for another week of actual Barspotting. Kansas City was nice and all but I’ve been to all the good bars up there and now I’m ready to hit (or find) the good bars down here in Austin. This week I’m going to try to get to Third Base. Hopefully, I can play my cards right and get there to brag about it all to you on Monday morning. From the looks of things it’s a hot spot to be at so I know it’ll be crowded with others when I get there. Come on and join me!
Tag Archives: Florida
PIck It and Stick It: Fling It Home
That’s right, I’ll be on a plane shortly but I want to get the picks up for the week. It’s hard to stay focused with the Big 12 in legal gridlock. You know, I thought professional wrestling was soap opera for guys but now I know that college football realignment is the real deal. No offense to the WWE, but this stuff is way better than the scripted stuff I used to watch. So as the conference turn, get your picks in and hope for the best.
Pick It and Stick It: Flick Me A Winner
- Link: http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/college/
- Group: 1943
- Password: gates
Barspotting: Kicking Off A New Town of Barspotting at Doc’s Backyard
Alrighty, football is here and you know what that means: Barspotting! For those of you not familiar with how Barspotting works, I basically tool around town and find places to watch college football then rate whether it’s worth it to check it out yourself. This year will be different because I’m in a whole new town. So I get to find a whole bunch of new bars review and also get the added benefit of finding my way around town. The first ever Austin edition of Barspotting will feature Doc’s Backyard in Sunset Valley, well, because they are real close to me. Not only that but they have a supposedly real tasty Chicken Fried Avacado. Let’s check out Saturday’s lineup. Continue reading Barspotting: Kicking Off A New Town of Barspotting at Doc’s Backyard
Crib Sheet: Giant Chocolate Egg
It’s warmed over, too. This week’s Crib Sheet celebrates Easter by dropping news eggs all over the place. Grab your basket and find them buried in the grass of the Crib Sheet. Don’t get your fingers messy:
- It looks like Texas new defensive coordinator’s had a weird upbringing in coaching terms. He’s been at ESPN first, then a video guy at Florida State, and then on to coaching positions. It also looks like he takes inspiration from other sports, too. Will this shake things up enough for the Longhorns and turn the defense around? We’ll find out.
- The Big 12 Conference announced a mega-deal with Fox for broadcasting rights. Dan Beebe was right. They reportedly negotiated a $90 million a year deal through the next 13 years. The big plus? Every home game will be on some form of television starting in 2012. Well that and each school has a the chance to kick up their own network.
- The officer who shot and killed the Pace University football player, Denroy Henry Jr., received the Officer of the Year Award from the police union where he works. Their reasoning is that the officer showed bravery through that time and all of his time working for the department. This angered alot of folks. It depends on who you believe on what happened. I just don’t like that it’s a union that gets to dole out the award.
- Not to be outdone by fellow conference fashionistas Oregon, Arizona State unveiled their new uniforms for the year. They will be changing colors left and right. On top of that, their helmets are new, with big giant pointy tridents. The Ducks did this and they won but they also hired the right coach. That’s the kind of makeover the Sun Devils could really use.
- In another case of me-too’s, Auburn will build statues for their Heisman Trophy winners, like what Florida did. The only difference is that there’s a darker cloud hanging over Cam Newtan than there is hanging over Tim Tebow. I wonder if they’ll add that to the design. Oh, and Nick Saban had his own statue erected, too.
- There will be even more Blubaughs in prison as Tom’s wife, Charlette, will get 57 months in prison for her role in the Kansas ticket scandal. I didn’t know women’s prisons had Blubaughs too. Maybe they should make a movie about it.
- Dennis Dodd of CBS has an interesting article on 7-on-7 leagues in high school. It seems they are the AAUs of football. Jay Paterno is correct about how coaches can’t tell if a kid can take a hit. I hope something gets down soon about these because I don’t want football to turn into a ballet. We could use a couple of big hits in a game.
- Now that the Fiesta Bowl is in trouble, they are scrambling to get money back from lawmakers who took the kickbacks from them. If it’s anything related to government, then it will take a long time before the Fiesta Bowl sees a dime.
- A couple of rule changes are coming down the pike for next year. The NCAA approved more stringent below the waist penalties and gave the option for teams to run 10 seconds off the clock on penalties within the final minute of the half. Nothing earth shattering but an improvement indeed.
- Notre Dame released the investigation report relating to Declan Sullivan’s death earlier this year. They found the no single person was responsible but there was a lax in safety. Apparently the weather data was out of date. This does seem kind of fishy, I hope the school pays tons of money to parents of Sullivan to avoid a lawsuit.
- There was a tussle online about the Boise State’s AD, Gene Bleymaier, and his fiery words about the BCS. That’s just talk. What’s more important to me is that the school trademarked the blue turf and will protect the likeness of the field in FBS terms, while allowing it to happen to divisions below. Since when is a blue field trademarkable? That seems a little too much to me. At least one coach in the Mountain West Conference, sees it as an unfair competitive advantage as well. San Diego State’s Rocky Long hates it and I suggest the Aztecs change their field to candy striped or fractal like patterns.
- So while the NCAA is busy messing up student athletes and their lack of scholarship funding, they find time to make some even dumber team name penalties. North Dakota passed a state law to keep the Fighting Sioux nickname but it will not stop the NCAA from administrating penalties because of their perception of the name. The NCAA considers it offensive and will take money away from the school. The deeper issue is that two tribes in the area are split over the decision. Why is the NCAA trying to influence an issue that clearly doesn’t involve them? Let the tribes and the state figure it out and get out of the way.
Crib Sheet: Tis the Offseason
Baseball’s right around the corner and I figured the news would be super quiet for college football. Boy was I wrong. There’s tasty chunks of news going around all over the place. I’m done salivating you taste buds, time to feast on this week’s Crib Sheet:
Crib Sheet: Signing Hype Day
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.
Crib Sheet: Coaches Go Right Round In the Bowls Baby Right Round
It’s the middle of the bowl season and we’ve had some great games so far. What’s cool about this time right now, is that coaches are making jumps left and right, either to the NFL or back down from the NFL. Players are also declaring their intentions for the big time as well. So while we try to keep up with who’s going where and who’s staying, we get some great bowl action left. Well, at least through Monday. Until then, here’s the Crib Sheet:
- So Kansas State got burned on an excessive celebration penalty in their loss in the Pinstripe Bowl to Syracuse. A simple salute to the fans cost the Wildcats 15 yards and a missed shot for a 2 point conversion to tie the game up. The officials had some lame-o explanation and because of that it may be reviewed next year. Overall the game was pretty sloppy for the Wildcats but you can’t end the game on a penalty.
- One of our favorite mascots, Georgia’s UGA (number VIII this time), missed the Liberty Bowl trip due to a sickness. Let’s wish him a good recovery. If you remember this UGA took over duties because to previous died at a very early age.
- Maryland met with our favorite coach, Mike Leach, but ended up choosing Connecticut’s Mike Edsall. The confirmation came soon after the Huskies’ loss to the Oklahoma Sooners in the Fiesta Bowl.
- Meanwhile, Kansas hired Illinois State’s AD Sheahon Zenger. It’s an upgrade for Zenger and we’ll see how he’ll weather the storm for the program in the next couple of years.
- Florida’s on a rampage. We know they got Will Muschamp from under Texas as their new head coach. Now they signed up Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Charlie Weiss. I figured Weiss was a short termer for the Chiefs but leaving so soon to go back to college is kind of a scratcher. Maybe he will have free reign?
- With all of these hirings, we need to also mention the hirings. Former new Pitt head coach Mike Haywood was let go from the team soon after his arrest for domestic battery. Ruh roh. You need to check yourself before you wreck yourself, Mike.
- The reports are that Rich Rodriguez is out at Michigan but the school has yet to announce anything.
- ESPN announcer Ron Franklin is out for calling a colleague “sweet baby” then an “a-hole” for objecting. I guess “sweet baby” is harassment these days. Hold your tongue around toddlers now.
- Missouri quarterback Blaine Gabbertt has declared himself for the NFL Draft. It’s like Missouri may need to find another 5-star to fill his shoes. That’s gonna be tough, actually.
Bowl Pick It and Stick It: The Bowl Nine Yards
Here we are in the middle of bowl season. I got some good gear for Xmas and I hope you got some too. The bowl action was light in the last week, but we are now ramping up into the meat of the schedule. Most of the Big 12 schools will be playing this week and there will be ample action in between. Meanwhile, I Bowl Pick It and Stick It standings are out are some peeps jumping out of the gate quick. Let’s look at that first:
Continue reading Bowl Pick It and Stick It: The Bowl Nine Yards
2010 Year End Reviewards
Yes, it’s the 2010 edition and first ever annual KC College GameDay Year End Reviewards! What’s a revieward? Welp, it’s a half assed attempt to round up the year in review and then dole out some nameless awards out to who or what I think mattered in the year of college football. It applies to the regular season only as I really don’t want to come back to this. At any rate, I’m shooting from the hip so all you midgets our there better watch your heads.
Crib Sheet: Season’s Greetings
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Happy holidays from KC College GameDay! It’s bowl season and I’ll do a couple of recaps in the next couple of days as well as run down some bowls I’m in to. In the meantime, we have a fat Crib Sheet so let’s get to it:
- Iowa’s Derrell Johnson-Koulianos got the hook by the police for a bunch of drug charges. It looks like he’s suspended from the Insight Bowl against Missouri. That should help out the Tigers defense immensely as Johnson-Koulianos was the Hawkeye’s all time leader in receptions and receiving yards. And yes, two of their running backs are out as well. It should be an easy game for the Tigers.
- Here are some national award winners from the Big 12: Texas defensive end Sam Acho won the William V. Campbell Trophy or the Academic Heisman. Oklahoma quarterback Landry Jones wins the Sammy Baugh Award for the nation’s best passer. Oklahoma State wide receiver Justin Blackmon won the Biletnikoff Award. Meanwhile, fellow teammate Dan Bailey wins the Lou Groza Award.
- Meanwhile, the Nebraska Huskers suspended defensive tackle Baker Steinkuhler for getting a DUI last week. He’ll be out of the Holiday Bowl and the Husker’s rematch against Washington.
- Even though I think Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany is evil incarnate, I do agree with him on holding back the college football playoff. His reasons come from a wealth of ego. Delany says that the Big Ten sacrificed enough by letting other conferences play in the Rose Bowl. There’s enough ego around other commissioners that there would be no way a playoff would bubble up.
- Urban Meyer resigned from Florida. The only reason this is news is that he should’ve stayed gone last year. Urban Meyer’s resignation was again due to health concerns. It seems as though this time, Florida didn’t give him a chance to second guess himself.
- Let’s take a look at how some Big 12 coaches voted in the final coaches poll of the year. Interesting stuff here, especially the one where Bo Pelini ranked his Cornhuskers #8 even though they lost to Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship Game.
- Speaking of coaches, the USA Today has a break down of some interesting contract provisions for some of the coaches out there. Bill Snyder 2.0 gets a free ride and tickets to basketball games. If Mack Brown resigns, he’ll be reassigned to another a part of the school. Mike Sherman gets a cool $100K for appearing or being named a national champion.
- Keeping with Bo Pelini, he had to shoot down rumors of taking the Miami job that’s up for grabs now. Usually, when rumors like that happen, it means that something is ticking. It makes sense, too. Miami got rid of an upstanding Randy Shannon because he wasn’t winning games. Shannon did turn around the program in terms of class act athletes. Bo Pelini coaches the opposite way.
- It looks like Missouri is putting on a cheap-o way to get down to the Insight Bowl. Bus rides and hotel stays abound! They are pulling hard to shake the no fan travel stigma. I hope it works.
- Conference expansion time! Hawaii is joining the Mountain West Conference for football only in 2012 and will be doing all other sports in the Big West Conference. It looks like the WAC is falling apart.
- Auburn quarterback Cam Newton won the Heisman Trophy. No surprise there. I watched him torch South Carolina in the SEC Championship game and knew then he had a lock on it. It didn’t stop the proud sports media to take pot shots at him. Some writers left him off completely and he was absent from the Football Writers Association of America’s All-American team.
- Okay, there’s been huge amount of coaching changes in the last week. Let’s run them down. Northern Illinois hired Wisconsin defensive coordinator Dave Doeren. Louisiana-Lafayette hired Mississippi State assistant coach Mark Hudspeth. The Miami Hurricanes notch down Temple head coach Al Golden as their new head coach. The biggest move, of course, goes to Florida hiring Texas defensive coordinator Will Muschamp as their new head coach. The Longhorns thought they had him next in line for whenever Mack Brown retires, but it looks like Florida was too big of an opportunity not to pass up. Texas had a down year this year and it looks like rebuilding may take longer than expected.
- The Big Ten unveiled it’s new logo and what the division names, the ‘Legends’ and ‘Leaders’, for next year when Nebraska joins the league. I’m glad they got rid of the eleven hidden in the logo. The color is a little bit lighter than I expected though.
- Just in case you were wondering, Oregon will have new digs for the BCS National Championship Game. Fashionable Ducks, they are.
GameDay: Money For Nothing
Okay, I have to take a couple of minutes to talk about the whole Cam Newton situation. It seems like in the last couple of weeks, there’s been a vendetta against this guy. Is it because he had a rough past? Or is it because the SEC can’t handle other teams doing well? At the end of the day, however, the discussion of players looking to get paid in college has come to a head. What I say is that you need to pay the players, even with more stipend or a more comprehensive scholarship.
Crib Sheet: Still Adjusting To Time
My body is still out of whack due to the daylight savings time change Sunday. Hey, at least I got an extra hour of sleep work in. It seems like some people around the college football landscape are also adjusting. Who knew that the loss to Kansas coupled with the time change forced Colorado to fire Dan Hawkins? That and many more half-asleep wackiness on this week’s Crib Sheet. Read on, my friends, read on.
Pick It and Stick It: It Hardens When It Gets Cold
Chilly times are ahead folks and its time to wrap yourself up into some nice and tasty picks. This week sees some hot action on the cold, cold fields of Lincoln, Nebraska. Will Missouri continue to roll or be tripped up by the scrappy Cornhuskers? No matter, we’ll be staying warm the best way we know. Hot chocolate helps. So does coffee or fried mac n’ cheese wedges. I’ll probably have all this Saturday. Grab your favorite warm-upper and check out the picks for the week. Remember, he colder and longer the season goes, the harder the picks get.
Continue reading Pick It and Stick It: It Hardens When It Gets Cold
Crib Sheet: The Road is Never Done
So I just found out today that I have at least 2 more road trips to go this year for the KCCGD crew. This year has been by far the most travelled and will be the most Stadiumspotted. It’s a nice change of pace from the last couple of years as we have begun to run out of new and cool places to Barspot. One of the new road trips just happens to be tomorrow night. Tune in tomorrow to find out here, but you won’t have to think hard if you want to guess. In the meantime, let’s catch up to the news items in this week’s Crib Sheet:
- Coach Mark Dantonio of Michigan State had his health issues and that apparently inspired a fan to postpone surgery to watch the battle for Paul Bunyan’s Trophy last Saturday. Major Hester put off getting a pacemaker installed to watch the battle. Okay, that’s hardcore. I would pick life over college football, but it would be close.
- Looks like the move to the Big 10 will support a stadium expansion for the Nebraska Cornhuskers. The newly approved plan will cost about $56 million and put the capacity at around 90,000 seats. How much do you want to bet that they will try to build Memorial Stadium up to be bigger than the Big House?
- Meanwhile, the Rose Bowl has expansion plans of its own. The $152 million expansion will keep the lease going with the bowl through 2043. They have an upcoming BCS National Championship Game so they need to spruce things up a bit.
- But while the two stadiums have expansion competition going, the locker room just got better for the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Ndamukong Suh donated about $2 million and as part of that, the players get iPads installed in the locker room. Man they need to put that in the toilet, not the locker. You’re not going to get much use out in the open with those things.
- Baylor receivers Willie Jefferson and Josh Gordon got busted with pot after they were found passed out in a Taco Bell drive through. The whole 4th meal thingy from the Bell targets potheads anyway so it was a no brainer that these guys were found with weed. They’ll more than likely miss a couple of games.
- Neither of those two were involved last week in one of the shortest kick returns in history. Texas Tech hit an onside and it didn’t go 10 yards. Terrance Ganaway nabbed it and ran 38 yards for a touchdown. It wasn’t the shortest, but it was awesome to see the special teams fail on the Red Raiders.
- Don’t dump on Texas Tech too much though, they are getting kick ass camouflage uniforms for a game against Missouri in November. Any kind of camo works for us as we miss the old Army ones. If you want to dump on uniforms, check out Texas A&M’s refresh. It’s almost exactly the same. Yawn City.
- Floida quarterback John Brantly played with broken ribs and thumb against LSU last Saturday. That’s pretty tough, especially for a quarterback. You know what’s tougher? Virginia Tech offensive lineman Greg Nosal didn’t realize he lost the tip of his pinky in his glove and continued to play the game until it was out of reach. His pinky tip was on ice and was reattached after the game. Football is tough, real tough.
- This bit of news is confusing so bear with me on this. A former agent said an agent friend of his, Gary Wichard, used ESPN’s Mel Kiper, Jr. to recruit college players. Kiper’s released statement says he talked to players by going through agents. I’m having a hard time finding where the fault is. I think it’s the fact that agents are pushing players to Kiper and his Big Board. But I don’t know it’s players after college or during. This does smell fishy.
- College football is cyclical. Power programs come and go and the traditional ones always swing around back into power. Much like the seasons, power programs have summers and winters. For Penn State’s winters, that also includes the usual cries for Joe Paterno to retire. This guy is going to die on the field, in anything to fulfill my prediction. He’s not going to retire and Penn State will be good in a couple of years.