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
Signing Day is upon us! Today is the day of the year when high school kids across the country pick their football mates and spurn others. The ritual goes on for years, sometimes, and the final chapter only begets a new book in life. So congratulations to all the kids across the USA who not only get to play big time football, but also get a big time scholarship. Maybe they can become meterologist or study something failry easy like communications. Here’s our communications thesis, the Crib Sheet:
- A new award for the most versatile college football player was announced last week. It’s the Paul Hornung Award, named after the former all around guy and Notre Damer. We doubt any lineman will be getting this one.
- Due to the open records act for state of Texas and Texas Tech University, we now find that Craig James threatened to sue Texas Tech if Mike Leach’s actions taken for his son Adam were not investigated. So now it is confirmed that Craig James was trying to pull some weight around there. On the other hand, it is his kid and he was worried about his kids health. Any father would want to protect his kid from injury. The problem here is the action taken was just sending him away from the team. Nothing physical. Nothing really mentally debilitating. Fathers take note: don’t be a douche like Craig James.
- We now know that Turner Gill will be making about $2 million per year from his contract, gathered from the release of they detail of his contract. He’ll have a tall order to rebuild (already) a busted up Kansas team. Hey, if he can do it he deserves and then some.
- Speaking of Kansas, the Gridiron Club plans appear to be dead in the water. The initial project fulfills the need to stack some rich people high up in new luxury suites and toss free food and drink down their throat. Too bad the team tanked this year, as if they had actually been competitive, they might have had a shot of following through on this thing.
- In what looks like to be a ploy to somehow win back some people, the Justice Department responded back to Senator Orrin Hatch’s request to investigate the legality of the BCS system in college football. The Obama administration wrote in a memo detailing options on what it could do to help resolve the issue if it so inclined to get involved. We’re not sure if the administration is placating Hatch or not, but one thing is for sure, if they spend too much time on this issue it will backfire for them.
- The much ballyhooed Senior Bowl came and went. Nothing happened. Okay, well, Tim Tebow played really bad and we’ll see him running the ball or holding the clipboard next year in the NFL. LeGarrette Blount ran for a touchdown so his draft stock went up. Outside of that, just another football game. Hey, at least those kids were trying versus the big boys in the Pro Bowl.
- The recruiting trail is heating up and there’s one big commitment that new Kansas coach Turner Gill just landed. Brandon Bourbon was going to go to Stanford, but Gill influenced the four star recruit to become a Jayhawk. This was much needed for Gill as he lost a couple of four star guys when Mark Mangino got fired. We wonder what type of whiskey Brandon drinks.
- ESPN blogger Tim Griffith points to an article breaking down hometowns of the nation’s football recruits. While he finds most of the kids that play in the Big 12 come from Texas, the more surprising stat is that Kansas City is number 3. Way to go, local kids, now stay in the local area schools.
We have a full plate here this week on the Crib Sheet so in the interest of avoiding any more food references we stuffed into the last couple of posts, here’s this week’s Crib Sheet:
- Steve Spurrier, South Carolina head coach, complained about tape on the field after their shilacking they took from Alabama last week. So Alabama head coach Nick Saban says they won’t do it again. The kickers were using to place kicks and now the need some other guide to help the ball find the way. Southeastern Conference: Home of the Ticky Tacky Whining.
- Orrin Hatch is poking an prodding his trident in the direction of the Justice Department and President Obama, trying to get a probe of the BCS system again. Hey, it’s an easy target in Utah and we hope he gets relected for all of this posturing and grand standing. Once again, this shows that people from Utah suck.
- The officiating crew from last week’s Florida and Arkansas game were suspended due to a blown personal foul call against an Arkansas player. When you are Florida and on top, the calls will go your way. Southeastern Conference: Home of Protecting the Frontrunners.
- While LeBron James is busy kicking out professional football players, he’s also giving advice to Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor. James says he’s trying to help Pryor handle being a super star athelete. What? You have to win games, and more importantly championships, to be a super star. Right now Pryor is the head guy for a lame-o offense. An offense that just got upset by Purdue.
- When Texas Tech loses bad, count on Mike Leech to say something witty about it. This time, it was something about fat girlfriends. We love him even though his team usually rolls Big 12 North teams.
- The Dallas Fort Worth airport and American Airlines are now doing direct flights to Manhattan, Kansas. What does that mean? Recruiting trips for Kansas State will be less of convenience. The Wildcats had to cut costs for private flights which meant planes going to Topeka or Kansas City held recruits. Will this help? Who knows.
- Goldy Gopher got the slap down for mocking prayer at the beginning of a game last week. I can see that happening if they played Notre Dame or Boston College, but doing it before a Penn State game is a little ridiculous. His punishment? 10 Hail Marys and a bad football team.
- Bob Griese will have to sit a game for making a taco joke on a latino NASCAR driver. Was it because it was racially insensitive or because it was a really bad joke? Griese did get his education at Michigan, you know.
- Speaking of Michigan, there’s a letter of inquiry from the NCAA about the whole practicing too long trouble some players kicked up a month ago. How could the Wolverines be practicing too hard? They’re terrible. Maybe if they were undefeated but they stink too much to be practicing too long. If anything, they are not practicing enough.
- Much to no one’s surprise, Sam Bradford will have a season ending shoulder surgery and then enter the NFL draft. It seemed a little awkward when Bradford left the Texas game a couple of weeks ago. The hit wasn’t as massive as the first injury. Right then I think we all knew Bradford wasn’t gonna chance it. So will he do well in the NFL? Tune in and find out if we ever kick up a KC GameDay blog.
- Iowa Governor Chet Culver goofed up and congratulated only Iowa in a historic win over the weekend. Yes, the Hawkeyes are 8-0 for the first time in forever, but it seems he forgot the Iowa State win over Nebraska in Nebraska for the first time since 1977. If the Cyclones make a bowl, this guy will be elected out of the office.
- John William Lomax III will be charged in the murder of UConn football Jasper Howard. He went to the party but his lawyer says he has nothing to do with it. We’ll find out in court just what happened.
- The NCAA ruled that Oklahoma State wide receiver Dez Bryant will be suspended for the rest of the season. He lied to the NCAA when they went sniffing around a visit he had with Deion Sanders. This seems a little harsh. With other players punching people and coming back, you’d figure they would let him come back and play. To bad for the Cowpokes as they could use him against Texas this weekend.
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
