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.
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.
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.
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.
Nebraskasigned 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?
