Only this time it’s smaller. Presidential hopeful Rick Perry open his mouth and pulled a Jay Nixon by saying that there are talks between Texas A&M and the SEC for a big move. Next thing you know, the whole damn college football world is on fire. Red fire! I’ve chosen to stay out of this one over the weekend. If I learned anything last year, it’s that nowadays rumors are 95% of the ‘reports’ out there and the other 5% has a shred of truth to it. So as of right now, the SEC is staying chill, The Texas A&M president has power to explore realignment as well as take his time, the NCAA may get involved, and Rick Perry now says he doesn’t expect Texas A&M to leave. If you’re asking me what will happen, I’m saying that A&M is out at the end of the BCS contract (2014). Why? The Big 12 will blow up after the restructure of the BCS and somehow, sadly, Texas finds the vacated ‘Notre Dame Automatic Bid’ and dumps the conference. The rest of the teams fill out the Mountain West, Big 10, and SEC.
The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, is this week and we here at the KCCGD have always enjoyed getting our game on. News wise there wasn’t anything too exciting in terms of college sports going on down there. Wii Sports Resort looks pretty good and the UFC game coming out also looks pretty tight. We waggle our joystick to the great EA College Football game and there’s a soft spot in the heart for USC because of the National title run we had way back in 2004. Now let’s waggle our joystick for college football news:
- ESPN College Football Analyst Lee Corso recovered from a minor stroke due to small blocakge in the artery. He issued a press release filled with many of his coaching quips. My guess is all of the mascot heads he put on in his career let to the stroke.
- Colorado lost a big time receiver Josh Smith to the lure of big time hip hop. It seems everyone wants to be a star and apparently the shine is on music instead of football. Let’s face it, he was playing at Colorado. No offense there.
- The rivalry for Mizzou against Illinois will stop in 2010. Apparently Illinois doesn’t like the neutral site aspect of the series. Either that, or they’ve been getting walloped in the series. It’s not good news for Mizzou because that game was a rivalry they could actually win.
- To help with the economy, Kansas will have split season tickets available this year. This is something the Kansas City Chiefs started doing a couple of years ago and look how it turned out for them. Uh Oh.
- Big time Missouri recruit Sheldon Richardson will be heading to a Juco this year due to really bad grades. Seeing as everyone either graduated or jumped to the draft, the Tigers will be weak this year. It might be a good time to sit out a year and beef up for next year.
- A small change in the BCS that goes into effect after the 2010 season means that if either a Pac 10 team or Big 10 team gets to the BCS National Championship Game, they have to give a Rose Bowl slot to a Mid Major Conference. This is a peace offering for the yelping we’ve been hearing about the BCS and mid majors recently. Whether or not it’s a big deal, we’ll find out. At this point it’s fine because the both conferences don’t have a conference championship.
It was a big week of news and the Crib Sheet is back this week to tell you what mattered. It was Signing Day last week and the ouija board nearly broke from producing signatures sprinkled out across the whole nation. There were some surprises, but most of what was expected came to be true. We mixed in some political goobery and a little bit o’ smack talk to keep things fresh. My guess is the next couple of weeks are going to be dry news wise, so let this be the spike before the long lull. Here’s the crib:
- Newly appointed Jesus of Tennessee Lane Kiffin is crying wolf over Urban Meyer trying to hit up one of his recruits. Lane still got the guy, but maybe the rub off from Al Davis’ fragile shoulders are showing up in Volunteer-land. It’s nice you got the recruit, Lane, but talking smack on Urban will produce some nasty results. Just talk to Georgia. Oh and he apologized.
- Kansas State expectantly showed weakly recruitng wise. Ron Prince poisoned the recruiting and Bill Snyder is going to have an uphill battle for the Wildcats. It’s going to be a big time reboot in Manhattan
- Kansas on the other hand, nabbed a couple of quarterbacks and some other high profile recruits to lead into their highest rated recruiting class ever. Will it show up on the field? Mangino’s shown that he can recruit well and make some talent pay off so look out of the Hawks in the next couple of years.
- Missouri too, had a pretty good recruiting class. They promised some tight end play to Sheldon Richardson but realy this kid is defensive tackle all the way. At any rate, look for them to compete for the North and then choke at some point.
- Nebraska signed about 21 kids to fill out the black shirts. Look out for these guys. With the walk on program back on and some key pick ups, Nebraska will be well on their way to almost going back to the Big 12 Championship game.
- Conference wise, Texas and Oklahoma went 1 and 2, again. Hey they do that every year so get used to it. Colorado had a top 4 conference recruiting ranking last year and look at how they finished. Sleep tight, Texas A&M.
- Bryce Brown is hanging out and making everybody speculate the hell out of him. Everybody else is down and signed but this guy just likes making everyone wait. Also, the big rumor is he might turn pro in some other league. Really, Bryce is a huge tease.
- James Franklin, the Maryland offensive coordinator, was named last Thursday as the successor to Ralph Friedgen. Overlooking the fact that Maryland has done crap the last couple of years, this pick makes sense. If the school is satisfied with mediocrity then they should continue in it.
- Mike Leech is culling his old lawyer skills and is still banging out a contract with Texas Tech. So the Red Raiders are apparently pulling a Boston College and telling Leech he can’t talk or interview with other teams during his contract. If they break off now, look for him to be somewhere else after this year. Come Texas Tech, fumble this one away!
- Okay, this is getting redonkulous. Now all of Utah’s lawmakers are sending a resolution to PrezBama to blow away the BCS and give in to the power of playoffs. Now with football players on hand! Please somebody tell the whole state of Utah to get over it and focus on getting the Mountain West the automatic bid. Going the political route won’t work.
- Missouri pulled in LSU tight ends coach Josh Henson. It looks as thought some SEC cred might be seeping into the Big 12. Recruiting wise, this will help out the Tigers immensly. Tim Griffin’s already saying they’re going after Bryce Brown too.
- Dana Dimel is coming back to K-State. So he did a great job for Mike Stoops and reviving some offense and it looks like he’ll be doing the same at K-State. Let’s hope that it will be more than Ron Prince’s “Throw-everything-up-and-see-what-sticks” offense.
- In sign of bi-partisanship, Rep. Joe Barton (R) from Texas is siding with PrezBama in setting up a college football playoff. Does he really need the votes? Plus, this guy’s an Aggie. Shouldn’t he be working more toward making Texas A&M a real football team instead of playing up to the playoff people?
College Sports, Kansas City style
