Okay, after a rough week of moving and celebration, we are back in the swing of things at the KCCGD headquarters. This week’s Crib Sheet reminds us that politics and law cover college football like a blanket during the night-time of the offseason. Sure once the sun rises in September and the action goes back on the field, it will all be forgotten. For now, let’s take this week’s edition to plod through the behind the scenes maneuvering that will most certainly shape the year to come.
It’s the middle of May and many of the big time conferences are in the middle of meetings. Athletic directors and coaches nationwide are now meeting to check up on things and discuss to goings on of their respective schools. Now usually, this will blow over with not much of a drop of news to report. This year, however, it’s getting bigger attention because of the expansion talk coming from the Big 10. Where last year there might have been one or two beat writers covering the meeting, this year it’s a media hoopla. No, the KCCGD Crib Sheet did not travel to the Big 10 meeting, but the Big 12 one is in Kansas City next week so we may crash that party. In the meantime, read up on our Big 10 expansion series and check out this week’s Crib Sheet:
- Blair Kerkhoff speculated last week how Kansas City could be affected with Missouri and/or Nebraska leaving the conference. We’ll cover it later this week, but this is a nice roundup of how serious of a move this is for the local area.
- Rivalries could be affected as well, especially with Kansas and Missouri. Lew Perkins hinted heavily last week that Kansas might have a hard time doing a rivalry game if it wasn’t in conference. Big time decisions with consequences are fun for Missouri right now.
- Mike Sherman’s been away to Iraq talking to Aggie troops. He went out there for the Aggie Muster, which is a roll call of fallen Texas A&M soldiers on April 21. He ended up being late and had to stay later due to the Iceland volcano blowing ash. Sherman’s got our respect here for spending his own dough and sticking through to keep up the tradition.
- Notre Dame and Miami are looking to renew their rivalry. Sounds good to us. Back in the day, this game meant national championships. Today, well, these teams are struggling to get back to the big time. Maybe this renewed tussle will help them get back on the track.
- It seems like there is some trouble going on over in Lawrence. We might have not mentioned it before, but there is a big brewhaha over former fundraiser Rodney Jones’ abuse over tickets and plane ride solicitations. On the field, first stringer defensive tackle Jamal Greene is off the team because of his arrest for a little breaking and entering and armed robbery. At least they are cleaning things up now.
- The speculation for the Big Ten expansion now grows toward the Sun Belt, according the head honcho Jim Delany. Let the fake reports triple because of this.
- Bennie F. Abram, the Ole Miss player who collapsed and died on the field during a workout, had the sickle-cell trait. The enlarged heart due to that caused the seizure. When will the NCAA institute a rule that monitors this disease in football players? Every year there’s a new kid that dies because of this. Where is the clamor?
Here we go people! We’re strapping on the helmet and hunkering down for another season of college football. To get us ready, we have a cavalcade of previews and a new redesign coming down the pipe. Until then we’ll produce another news heavy Crib Sheet for all of you to digest. Depending on the schedule, we may be dropping the Crib Sheet here and there during the season. There’s always news to munch on. So grab a bib and some silverware and chow down on this week’s Crib Sheet:
- It’s the wave of the future for the Texas Longhorns and monitoring football players. They make select players swallow temperature pills to make sure their body temperature doesn’t get too high during practice. The NCAA should take a look at these little doo-wops for all of the players that have a high risk for sickle cell disease.
- There’s a big jumble and shuffle going down in Manhattan. Kansas State coach Bill Snyder is moving around transfer Daniel Thomas from quarterback to running back, among other movements that also saw running back Logan Dold moving to safety. It seems that ‘Wildcat’ might mean more than just a team this year in Snyder-land.
- It seems Florida State is getting a head start on the 2 game series with Oklahoma by being the snitcher on old guy type linebacker Mike Balogun. Balogun is suing the NCAA for eligibility because of some issues with semi-pro playing before he joined Oklahoma. One of the Seminole officials noted the story of Bolgun during last year’s national championship game and dug further after the Big 12 was okay with Oklahoma’s ‘light’ investigation. Ruh roh. Seems like there will be some major unsportsmanlike penalties in this two game series.
- Oklahoma State has gone dark until the week of their opener against Georgia, at least to the media. They need to prepare all they can for the big game because it will set the tone for the Cowboy’s whole season. It should be a great game and has the potential for being the game of the week.
- Oklahoma backup linebacker Tom Wort went down with an ACL injury and is out for the season. Combine that with the questions of Tom Balogun’s eligibility and we’re looking at a depleted linebacking core for the Sooners. This may affect their chances of going all the way this year.
- Joseph Kassanavoid, redshirt freshmen quarterback for Kansas State, up and got arrested for domestic battery. Officials for Kansas State stated that the incident will be handled internally. We won’t be surprised if this guy gets booted from the team. Tune in to find out.
- The Associated Press Top 25 Preseason Poll came out over the weekend and in the biggest non-surprise of the year, the Florida Gators are number one, followed by the Big 12’s Texas and Oklahoma. Everyone and their mother are picking the Gators but the ball is up in the air for who will meet them in the title game. We’re not sure who will be there, but tune in for our preview in the next couple of days.
- Meanwhile, Lou Holtz gives his analysis on the AP poll and pulls a prediction of all predictions out of his always sounding drunk mouth. According to Holtz, Notre Dame will be in the national title game. Give to Lou for being a homer. He makes a good case pointing to 11 returning offensive starters, 7 home games, and a weak opponent’s schedule. The schedule is going to kill them and we’re not to sure they are that big on offense. Nice to hear Lou slur his words again, though.
- Husker running back Quentin Castille was dismissed from the Nebraska squad due to team rule violations. That’s a shame as it will hurt their chances to live up to the preseason Big 12 North title prediction. Even ESPN Big 12 blogger Tim Griffin is switching his prediction. Indeed, maybe the media were drinking the red kool-aid, but there are questions all over the North this year. Again tune in for our Big 12 predictions in the next couple of days.
This weekend is the annual float trip weekend and we are super distracted. The annual event down in the Ozarks leads to all sorts of cathartic releases and gets us ready for the football season to come. For those of you not in the know, a float trip is basically an all day canoe or raft run down a river with food and beverages. This can be known as a Booze Cruise. This year it’s running a little late, but thankfully the weather isn’t too bad, sans any chance for rain. If you ever get a chance, find the closest river and spend a weekend camping. It’s a great way to get away. Here’s this week’s Crib Sheet:
- Right after the Crib Sheet say the Mountain West Conference’s beef with the BCS wouldn’t be over until the beginning of the college football, a new press release came out last week stating that they finally signed with the BCS on the new television deal. Wow that was fast. So they trotted the BCS out to Washington with Utah buddy Orin Hatch to shake them up before finally giving in and signing. Trying to save face much? Time to dust the hands off of this topic.
- Western Carolina junior defensive back Ja’Quayvin Smalls died after a voluntary workout last week. This may be along the lines of the sickle cell issue that have been the cause of the number one death among college football players in the last decade. Our condolences go out and we hope that this builds the case even stronger for mandatory sickle cell tests for colleges.
- We’ve usually ignore player arrests here on the Crib Sheet because, let’s face it, a player or two gets arrested every week. Let’s take a look at this. We’ll give a nice even 100 for the number of division I football teams. There’s about 50 players per team. Those are both conservative numbers. So there are about 5,000 football players. Take that and add in college life. There’s about 6 months in the off season. Two players arrested per week is about 48 players. Or less than 1% of the total amount of players. That seems reasonable to us for the college population as a whole. So while it makes news, there’s nothing exciting about it except that they play a big time sport.
- ESPN and ABC are switching up announcers this year. Michael Hiestand points out that Matt Millen will come to the fray and Paul Maguire will be out completely. WOO HOO! Maguire was about as bad as announcer as they come. There’s a reason they dropped him down on the field and didn’t allow him in the booths for the games last year.
- It looks like after the fiasco of the Bob Krause/Ron Prince fiasco last year and the massive audit fiasco involving the university, Kansas State and their new athletic director John Currie will do what they can to rebuild the fan base. One such way is to sell 1,989 tickets for $9 at the home opener this year in Massachusetts, in honor of Bill Snyder’s first game as head coach. It’s a nice little ploy, but the opponent and the number of tickets for sale don’t do much in terms of a rebuild. It’s a nice start, but they’re going against a weak non-conference team so chances of a sell out are nill. Currie and Co. have a long way to go but it’s a decent first step.
- Urban Meyer let the cat out of the bag this week and told the whole world he’ll never coach for Notre Dame. Never say never. Granted Charlie Weiss will have to make a bowl to keep the job, but with what Florida giving Meyer everything he wants, including national titles, an open Fighting Irish job and a pot of gold won’t be enough. Then again, he did say never.
It’s Independence Day weekend coming up and we’re getting ready to rock out and blow up some cans with Black Cats. So in preparation of the the fireworks menagerie, we’re gonna give you more bang for your buck on this week’s Crib Sheet. Before everyone goes out to stick explosives into other containers and shoot bottle rockets off, please remember to be careful, especially your hands. They need to be healthy to handle the frosty beverages over the weekend and later on in the fall for college football. Now here’s this week’s Crib Sheet:
- Mark your calendars, the Michigan vs. Notre Dame game September 12 at 3:30 pm ET. Both programs are looking to rebound and we should be witnessing a treat as two boisterous head coaches fight for their jobs.
- To no surprise, the BCS rejected the Mountain West’s proposal of an eight team playoff. Hopefully this will end the playoff talk for awhile. We all know this is not going away forever.
- Texas student assistant coach Matt Nader got a big ole gun pulled on him at the golf course last week. Apparently he was arguing with a Texan and he later showed up with a gun ready to go. Seeing as this all took place in Texas, I’m not too surprised. Crazy thing was the gun toting Texan was 73, talk about a cranky golfer.
- After another death and settlement from complications due to sickle cell traits at Rice University, the NCAA will start recommending that test for sickle cell issues be conducted at universities. After this and the death of former Missouri Tiger Aaron O’Neil, it would make more sense to require the testing of players for these issues. The NCAA and schools make bank off of these kids, let’s make sure they get taken care of while they promote the schools on the field.
- Look out Missouri Tigers, the kid of a maybe future NFL Hall of Famer is coming your way in Derrion Thomas. He wasn’t high up on anyone’s radar due to only one year of playing high school ball, but he does look and play like his dead dad. Let’s hope this walk on will do well over in Columbia. My advice to Derrion: remember to wear a seat belt.
- USA Today has a profile of Kansas quarterback Todd Reesing. It looks like it’s another one of those, short Big 12 quarterback come from behind stories. The difference this time is Kansas might actually have what it takes to win the big game. They did it on the Orange Bowl, maybe it’s their year this year. Sorry Chase Daniels, have fun trying to play for the Redskins.
College Sports, Kansas City style
