It’s an easy method to take advantage of. Yesterday in my Dart Picks for the year, I explained that I was too busy/lazy to get anything together. That helped me avoid the blowout out by (shudders) Kenny Football and Texas A&M over South Carolina. I’m already up on the year! Let’s see what that cache will garnish me here for the rest of the kickoff weekend. Continue reading Pick It and Stick It 2014 Week 01: I Saved Faced By Waiting Until Today
Tag Archives: Nick Saban
Purple Yeti Roar 99: We’ll Miss You Mack
Yup, Mack Brown resigned from Texas. Speaking as a K-Stater, I will miss him. He was so easy to coach against. Watch me talk about that, Nick Saban, BCS National Championship Game, Sugar Bowl, Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl, Alamo Bowl, Oregon, Kansas State, Michigan, Brady Hoke, Devin Gardner, Daniel Sams, Jake Waters, Oklahoma, Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma State, Big 12, SEC, and Jamies Winston. Continue reading Purple Yeti Roar 99: We’ll Miss You Mack
Pick It And Stick It: The Unofficial Start Of The Weekend
I can’t ever remember having this many contests going on for a Thursday night like this that meant so much. So now we have it. We get Baylor taking on Oklahoma and then Oregon taking on Stanford. What a meaty plate. It’s good thing we’re getting a day’s rest on Friday before another serving Saturday. That plate won’t be light either, with Kansas State cow cooking and some SEC sausage to gnaw. Why am I so hungy? I should be out on the unofficial start of the college football weekend. Continue reading Pick It And Stick It: The Unofficial Start Of The Weekend
Pick It and Stick It: Dangling Game of the Century
It’s a little late but I’m back for some predictions and nose flickings by the way of Pick It and Stick It. It’s been a roller coaster year for my team, Kansas State, but we also have some peaks and valleys for others. I’ll predict just what will happen going into the weekends with no accountability attached to it. Yes, I’ll talk about this week’s Game of the Century as well. Continue reading Pick It and Stick It: Dangling Game of the Century
Purple Yeti Roar 81: I Did Not Get Paid To Do This
Yup, this week was all Johnny Football again, but with some more news of him potentially getting paid for autographs. Lots hypocrisy going around on that. We’ll talk that as well as Nick Saban, TCU, Joel Hasley, NCAA, Jeremy Hill, Les Miles, Gary Patterson, Miami, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Kansas State, Daniel Sams, Jake Waters, Billy Snyder, and Texas. Continue reading Purple Yeti Roar 81: I Did Not Get Paid To Do This
Purple Yeti Roar 51: Loose Ends and Looking Forward
The season is over and I’m already looking forward to September again. We got some recruiting and coaching hot talk to dish first. Well that and some rebounds by players in the naughty box. Look for some talk on BCS National Championship, Alabama, Notre Dame, Nick Saban, Brian Kelly, Kansas State, Daniel Sams, Case McCoy, Texas, TCU, Casey Pachall, NCAA, Miami, Big Ten, Maryland, and Rutgers. Continue reading Purple Yeti Roar 51: Loose Ends and Looking Forward
Purple Yeti Roar 50: BCS Bust
Yeah it was a bust of a game for the BCS National Championship. Notre Dame proved it didn’t belong in any league and Alabama pushed the boot down harder on the neck of college football. Don’t fret, there were some highlights in between the ho hum week of college bowls. The highlights include Oregon, Kansas State, Fiesta Bowl, Chip Kelly, Bill Snyder, Collin Klein, Cotton Bowl, Arkansas, Nick Saban, Michigan, South Carolina, Javon Clowny, Outback Bowl, Baylor, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, and Johnny Football. Continue reading Purple Yeti Roar 50: BCS Bust
Purple Yeti Roar 29: Biggest Landing In History
It’s time to pause and reflect on one of the great moments in history. No, it’s not the most recent curious Mars landing, it’s the start of college football season! What, you ask? Just watch me explain and I’ll also go over things like Penn State, Silas Redd, Oklahoma, Texas, Notre Dame, Rutgers, TCU, Casey Pachall, USA Today Coach’s Poll, Kansas State, Monte Ball, Wisconsin, Nick Saban, Sporting News, and Alabama
Continue reading Purple Yeti Roar 29: Biggest Landing In History
Crib Sheet: Coaches Poll Leaves No Surprises
The ESPN/USA Today coaches preseason bowl came out and there’s no surprise with Oklahoma notched at number 1. That happened a couple of years ago and they lost their first game. Yup, it doesn’t matter who’s where right now, but what matters is that it’s the horn blasting the announcement that the college football season is ramping up for real now. Another thing to note, the Big 12/0 has half of their teams in the Top 25. Usually they have 6 but since a couple of teams left, they can only muster 5. Fair enough, on to this week’s Crib Sheet:
Continue reading Crib Sheet: Coaches Poll Leaves No Surprises
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.
Big 12 , er 11, er 10 Predictions for 2010
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).
Crib Sheet: Nobody Saw This Coming
Okay this close to the season and we still have major, er mid-major, moves regarding conference expansion. So BYU started to teeter and now the WAC blew up. Further out west there are questions of Pac 10 allegiance. Please, will the powers that be put all of this on lockdown so we can focus on actually playing football instead of this crap. The season is about 2 weeks away! We’re not sure they’re listening so in the meantime, everyone else clue them into this week’s Crib Sheet:
- You know, we liked Missouri’s handshake better. Better than ‘Get Money!” That’s what they are using to denote big plays now. That sounds like something you say on a game show. Better yet, why not say, “No Whammies! No Whammies! No Whammies! Stop!”
- Bo Pelini is banning reporters from practice so they can’t compile injury reports. Nebraska’s already had some season ending injuries on the team so far so it makes sense that Pelini want to keeps things quiet for a couple of days. Well, quiet enough that everyone can hear him chew gum with his mouth open.
- Out of nowhere, BYU begins to mull leaving the Moutain West Conference. Their reason points to being left at the alter when the Pac 10 came calling. They believe they can go the Notre Dame route and go independent for football and do the WAC for other sports. The Mountain West does not like this and has already invited both Nevada and Fresno State to join. Reports are showing that they both accepted, too.
- Looks like Colorado will play Ohio State in 2011, and for a hefty sum of $1.4 million.
- Meanwhile, a former UCLA chancellor is petitioning Pac 10 officials to stop Colorado and Utah from coming into the conference. It seems some sort of tradition is still kicking out west. We know now that Colorado won’t be in the Pac 10 until 2012 so they have some time on them.
- That little news bit makes this next one more sensible. 8 Big 12 athletic directors met (including Colorado) to discuss licensing with Learfield sports as well as the potential to create a television network. Texas was not there, of course, but Colorado being there seems a little weird.
- It looks like an Oklahoma themed license plate for Texas is creating a lot of commotion in the Lone Star State. On one hand it’s for a team not even in the state, on the other there are plenty of Oklahomans that live in the state. If Texas does it, they should make some bank off of it.
- In starting quarterback news, Kale Pick is your starter for the Kansas Jayhawks. Tyler Hanson is your starter for Colorado. Looks like Dan Hawkins finally benched his kid Cody, even though he is a team captain this year. Taylor Potts mans the helm for Texas Tech’s opening game.
- New Kansas State Wildcat Bryce Brown answered some questions from the NCAA about his time at Tennessee and former head coach Lane Kiffin. What he said? We don’t know. We just hope that he doesn’t flake out like he did for the Volunteers.
- Texas and BYU will play a home and home in 2013 and 2014. It likes the bulk is continuing for the Longhorns while BYU looks to follow in the quasi-independent step.
- From the dumb scholar department, Oklahoma kicker Matt Moreland will miss the rest of the season due to academic issues. Come on, Matt! You’re a kicker, you can study just a little bit harder.
- Looks like the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover spied on Paul “Bear” Bryant and his civil rights fenagling in the late 1960’s through the 70’s. It’s creepy to think the FBI had a file on that guy. Of course, today the FBI probably has a file on everyone.
- The injury bugs are biting everyone. Nebraska’s Dreu Young had back surgery and is more than likely out for the season. Kansas Jayhawk Rell Lewis is out for the year due to a bum knee.
- Police ticker time. Missouri backup linebacker Wil Ebner got a DWI. Yet, he’s back on the practice field. Oregon State offensive lineman Tyler Patrick was kicked of the team after he was arrested for trespassing while being naked and drunk. Yeah that’s a way to go out.
- Even though the college football industry is a multi billion dollar one, only 14 schools were profitable last year. Big 12 wise the obvious one, Texas, was there but Missouri ended up being a surprise. No wonder the Tigers yell, ‘Get Money!’ now.
- Bessemer, Alabama mayoral candidate Dorothy Davidson photoshopped herself into a Nick Saban photo for a flyer and got busted for it. Hey, politicians lie all the time and it’s terrible, but this is pretty funny because it is so damn obvious.
Crib Sheet: (Not So) Secret Agent Ban
Apparently there’s still some fallout from the NCAA’s investigation of schools regarding sports agents and football players. Read all about it below. Our take on the whole thing? The times they are a changing and much like any other huge organization, change comes slow. This week’s Crib Sheet points out that while the NCAA is running around doing investigations, they are cutting drug testing budgets. We think the NCAA needs to lean down more and seriously reconsider just how sports are played today. On the Crib Sheet:
- It looks like alot of big name players are going down at Nebraska and Missouri. Mike Smith broke a leg for the Cornhuskers and Jerrell Jackson broke his left wrist. Will this potentially blow open the Big 12 North? The bigger injuries usually happen during the season.
- Well well well, it looks like Bryce Brown IS coming to Kansas State. That is, until Derek Dooley releases him from his scholarship at Tennessee. Brown’s had some trouble there and decided to bolt after Lane Kiffin did. Bill Snyder 2.0 should help clean him up after this blows over.
- The bowls are changing from this year to next, take note.
- As more and more reports of paid trips come up, Nick Saban closes camp to scouts and then grabs some of his buddies on a call to the NFL regarding ways to stamp out the rampant sports agent issue. It’s alright that Saban is trying to clean things up now, but we’re thinking he’s getting ahead of it to take advantage of it later on down the road.
- The crash that took Senator Ted Stevens also took William Phillips, who had 3 sons that played football at three different universities. Our condolences go out to them and their family.
- New Mexico football players can’t tweet. Now we loves the Twitter and we see no harm in kids doing the same thing socially that their peers are. If DeWayne Walker was smart, he would cryptically recruit via Twitter.
- Playboy picked Ohio State to win it all. Is Playboy even relevent anymore. They used to have it big but now it just seems they are a glorified New Yorker. Even the nudity isn’t intriguing anymore.
- So the media circus that was Mike Leach is now replaced with a reality show. Yup, Texas Tech decided that the pirate attention was not enough and will document the team throughout the season in a reality show. Hard Knocks this won’t be. But hey it already sounds better than Jerzey Shore.
- Iowa State will be a little bit behind schedule as they are busy laying sandbags and not practicing in their flooded facilities. Last year was a turnaround type season for the Hawkeyes, but now it looks like a setback of unnatural proportions has hit them hard.
- Sprint’s Football Live app now does college football. Yes, all of you smartphone subscribers out there will now get a chance to watch ESPN college football games as well as the Notre Dame home games. Very nice indeed.
- Even though the conference was about to blow up, the Big 12 still leads in ticket prices for football games. This year will be massive because of the farewell tours coming from Nebraska and Colorado.
- The NCAA is cutting costs related to drug testing. Gone comprehensive tests, Ephedrine, and advance notice to schools. What stays are the high risk drugs and an easier path of get away with taking performance enhancing drugs.
- TCU announced a $105 million dollar stadium expansion. The Horned Frogs are looking to capitalize on the big time and make their stadiums tops in the country. Because of that, the Armed Forces Bowl will move to SMU just for next year.
- Renee Gork was fired from her sports radio job in northwest Arkansas for wearing a Florida Gators hat. Well, duh.
Crib Sheet: Tasting a Buttload
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.
Crib Sheet: Post April Fools Yucks
April Fools came and went and we here at the KCCGD headquarters want to share a few of our favorite tricks. The first one: cover the laser part of a laser mouse with a piece of tape or Post It note. Watch as the unsuspecting fool tries to use the mouse and bangs it on the table! Har Har! Next up: keeping with the tape motiff, tape down the latch to your office mates’ phone. Watch as they try to call, or better yet someone tries to call them, and phone won’t unhook from the latch! Comedy gold! Okay, enough yucks. Here’s this week’s Crib Sheet:
- Wow that was fast. Nick Saban wins a BCS National Championship for Alabama and then gets a bronze statue erected in his honor. So if he wins it again, what will happen? A whole new stadium in his honor? How about a permanent seat in Alabama’s government? They do eat, sleep, and breath football down there.
- A highly touted recruit for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish fell to his death last Friday. Matt James was in Florida on spring break when he fell from a hotel balcony. Apparently he was drunk when it happened.
- Georgia linebacker Montez Robinson was kicked off the team after an arrest related to battery charges and domestic violence. S0metimes kids are still kids and they don’t realize that they can’t get away with stuff like that. If you were wondering, this was the second time he was arrested.
- Texas Tech quarterback Talyor Potts will have surgery on his injured hand. He will be out about 8 weeks. Not a good start for Tommy Tubberville. But hey, maybe he can install a real running game while Potts is out.
- Kansas Associate Athletic Director Ben Kirtland resigned Monday with no reason given. Hrm. Either something bad happened or this was the fallout from the Jayhawks not getting far in the basketball tournament.
- While he’s not busy hanging in Key West being a pirate or suing the pants of another school, Mike Leach is consulting. More specifically, consulting on the installation of his offense at Oklahoma State. Any type of offensive knowledge that he can implant at that school could only help. Just make sure he doesn’t send a cowpoke to the outhouse.