Unverified Voracity Desires Legislation
Attribution note: The Manny Harris image that opened "Reality Chuck" came via flickr user jmcmann.
Accidental news. Buried in a local-kid-does-good article on Junior Hemingway was this significant piece of news:
Hemingway, who was red-shirted this past season after suffering an acromioclavicular (AC) joint sprain in his shoulder and then getting sick is looking forward to helping Michigan overcome a dismal 3-9 campaign this past season.
A month or so ago I noted a change in the redshirting rules that would allow Hemingway to claim a his; without that change he would have been SOL.
Yes, please. Rich Rodriguez is probably in favor of this piece of legislation coming to college football conferences around the country:
The American Football Coaches Association has forwarded a proposal for an early signing day for college football recruits and it wil [sic] be reviewed by conference commissioners this Thursday.
"We're looking for an early signing day in the third week of December," Rob Ianello, Notre Dame assistant and head of the AFCA FBS Assistant Coaches Committee, said at the coaches convention in Nashville. "There are more than 1,000 verbal committments [sic] right now, and about 15 per school. Why not sign them? Is it a reservation or a committment [sic]? What we're seeing is oversigning and late switches. An earlier signing day would also be cost effective."
Not sure what an early signing period would do to stem oversigning, which South Carolina and North Carolina are now enthusiastically participating in, but Ianello's point on some "commitments" being more like reservations and not, you know, mutual is well made. I don't think there can be a whole lot of complaint about the date proposed, as it's not all that early: virtually all coaching switches will have taken place by that time.
Also, Joe Schad needs one of those red-squiggly spell-check things.
Mid-CSB. The NHL Central Scouting Bureau's midseason rankings are out and a number of future Wolverines are listed:
- NTDP forward Chris Brown is #29
- NTDP forward Kevin Lynch is #83
- NTDP forward AJ Treais is #205
- USHL defenseman Lee Moffie is #210 (last).
The CSB produces separate lists for North American and European skaters, so mentally add about 50% to everyone's ranking for their projected draft slot. Brown looks like a solid second-rounder, Lynch should go in the middle rounds, and Treais and Moffie are likely to go undrafted.
Departures of note. A host of early departures and transfers have gone down; these have been noted on the sidebar, but a recap of the departed:
- Draft: Wisconsin RB PJ Hill, Ohio State RB Beanie Wells, PSU DE Aaron Maybin (maybe)
- Transfer: Iowa QB Jake Christensen
A few more Penn State and Ohio State players are expected to declare before the January 15th deadline.
There is also everyone's favorite: a Notre Dame player leaving school for "personal reasons" but expected to return after those personal reasons get some flimsy grades at a JUCO. This time it's sophomore CB Gary Gray.
Juxtaposition. I've always thought of Gregg Doyel as a Christopher Hitchens for sports, except with severe brain damage where Hitchens keeps his cigarettes and vast hatred of the Catholic church. This is a pretty awesome demonstration of that idea:
This game will be sensational, that’s all I know. But the arrogant assumption that Florida’s defense will be the difference makes me giggle.
Because the truth is, the difference really could be Florida’s defense.
After it gets its ass kicked by the best offense in college football history.
Florida, of course, got its ass kicked to the tune of 14 points.
Is Doyel stupid enough deploy those one-sentence paragraphs following that shot at an "arrogant assumption" without it being an attention-getting schtick? Eh… no. Doyel, more than any other sportswriter I've had the misfortune to stumble across, seems to glory in the hatred of all things.
So, yeah, Boston College fans should cower at this bad boy:
So stop the bellyaching about civil liberties and Boston College's intolerance and poor little Jagodzinski's rights and boo and hoo. Stop it right now. If you've already bitched to someone, you sound ridiculous. Shut your mouth and don't make that mistake again. If you've not bitched about it, consider yourself fortunate. It's not too late to change your mind, or in lieu of that, it's not too late to just sit this one out. Shut up. Keep your opinion to yourself.
Because you're wrong.
Jagodzinski was wrong.
This is the problem with legacy media on the internet: when you attack a ridiculous strawman like "people are whining about Jeff Jagodzinski's civil rights" without so much as a single link an example, you look like an idiot. You confirm that by following your ridiculous strawman with those two beauty one-sentence paragraphs, and you chisel it in stone if you marshal these two examples as evidence:
Florida bent over while Billy Donovan flirted with NBA jobs, took the Orlando Magic job, and then changed his mind and came back to school. Apparently he had it pretty good in a beautiful college town where he had won back-to-back national championships. Who knew?
Florida is… uh… 14-2 at the moment.
Louisville bent over while Bobby Petrino batted eyes at every school that could find his phone number -- and then, after redoing his contract and giving him every little thing his heart could desire, Louisville watched him leave for the Atlanta Falcons.
…and Agrokrag, his replacement, is 11-13. In Petrino's final season at Louisville—which AD Gregg Doyel would never have given him—the Cardinals were… uh… 12-1 and won the Orange Bowl. Not so much on the good examples there.
Is he supposed to be important?
Because until you posted this today Brian, well, I had never ever heard of him before.
I've read the other comments and most seem to have the opinion that Mr. Doyel is not to be taken seriously.
"Aw God it's so damn hot! Milk was a bad choice."
When Carcajous Attack!
http://whencarcajousattack.blogspot.com/
...much like Bleacher Report. The puzzling thing is that Doyel has a job with CBS Sports online.
So we can finally fly off into NASA
What can you say? Gregg Doyel is an idiot. You should see some of the venom he wrote during the BCS controversy in 2006. IIRC, it wasn't like, "Florida should go," but more along the lines of, "Michigan sucks. Michigan fans are arrogant and suck." chitown is right: Doyel is a very bitter man indeed, but also very stupid. Doyel is kind of like a very evil version of Pat Forde. It's a shame that the media has to rely on instigation to get readership, but then again here we are, talking about the article. Kind of like what Toyota did with Saved By Zero, when you think about it.
(And no, Jay, I did not say whether or not Michigan should have been in the championship game, so shut yer friggin mouth.)
So we can finally fly off into NASA
All signs point to Maurice Evans going pro from PSU. Losing both Maybin and Evans will definitely hurt their d-line. Navarro Bowman (sp?) may also be going pro. But, they will get Sean Lee back from injury so that will soften that blow.
For OSU, Hartline has been rumored to be leaning pro, and I think Kurt Coleman may also be inquiring about his draft position. Coleman would be a big loss b/c unless there freshman DB's make an immediate impact, I could see their secondary struggling next year. Chekwa, Washington and Anderson Russell are nothing to write home about. OSU's dline should be the best in the conference, though.
I have heard the same thing re: Hartline and Coleman. Apparently there is some sort of new salary cap coming (or at least rumored to be so) that will greatly reduce the contracts of mid-round guys. Hartline, Coleman and others are apparently reasoning that they're always going to be middle round picks and so they might as well leave now and make more money. Coleman also got back an evaluation from the NFL saying he'd be about a 4th rounder, which he was pleased with (said so on local TV down here, if I remember).
"That's horrible"
"Terrible is what it is."
There shouldn't be a cap issue this year, and if it is, it's because the juniors are getting bad info. In fact, Roger Goodell was so concerned about it he made a public statement a week or two ago to the effect of, "the rookie contracts available in 2010 should look just the same as they have in years past." The thinking is that, if a new CBA is done, it won't be done in time to affect the 2010 draft. It will, however, affect 2011.
That said, some juniors could be misinformed about this issue.
That makes sense (because Hartline leaving early, otherwise, does not).
Re: Hill. Agree that he's a middle-tier BIG 10 back (let alone, in the overall draft), but dude's stock won't get any higher when he loses the bulk of his carries to Clay.
Gregg--
What BC did sounds like good business to older folk, but it's this kind of thinking that is dooming those peoples' businesses.
Like college coaching, the reality is that few of the really talented workers you can find today are going to want to stick around one place for their entire career.
I have no problem whatsoever when my magazine serves as a springboard for young journalists, and I consider it a mark of pride for my company when they find greater successes.
It's much, much messier, I agree, than the security of long-term or even lifetime commitments. But we get better work. My people don't worry about "company time" or someone looking over their shoulder reading their e-mails or message boards. They don't have to punch in and punch out. Their performance is based on whether the work gets done, how well it gets done, and whether they meet our high standards of ethics. They don't have to kiss ass or lie to bosses to look good to someone in charge of promoting them; they're motivated to do good work because that becomes their currency for growth.
As Bo might say it: "The work! The work! The work!"
When we started working like this six years ago, we were about to go under. Now, we're rolling while the tough times are nailing our competition, because we cornered the market on dynamic, self-motivated staff.
How does this translate to college football? The big boys are doing the same thing -- taking advantage of the carousel of top-echelon coaching to bring in a guy at a talent level that a certain program might not have otherwise deserved. BC isn't Michigan or Notre Dame anymore than I'm the New York Times or WaPo. And yet they got a guy like Jago.
The tradeoff of retaining better talent is that you can lose him when a better opportunity than you can provide comes along. Unless you're Duke basketball or something, you can't go around turning down recruits because they won't promise to stick around if the 1st Round of the NFL draft comes calling.
The old way wasn't bad; I too miss the security and continuity. But that's how we play football in the NFL these days.
This team is under construction. We thank you for your patience.
As a huge fan of Christopher Hitchens, (and a Catholic! Shhhhh)I find your comparison of the two simply untenable. When you referred to Doyel as a legacy journalist? I thought for sure I was going to click that link and find out that the drivel was written by Luke Russert. Thank God for small favors!
...is shipping guys off to a JUCO for the spring/summer to get their grades up enough to be eligible?
Aside from Gray and Pat Kuntz, what players have taken this path under Weis?
I just want to know how useful this point will be as a retort when some ND poster gets smug about their graduation rates.
Who else from OSU is expected to declare? God I hope they fall off next year. Their heads are way to big right now.
the SEC.
M'Dog
Angry writers are great if they bring intelligence, wit, and common sense to their writings, along with the venom.
Doyel's problem is that he starts with anger, mixes it with arrogance, lays down a thick frosting of stupidity, and finishes with a heaping sprinkling of ignorance on top.
why? why do commentators like Mark May, Dennis Dodd, Greg Doyel, and Drew Sharp have jobs when there couldn't fail to be thousands of people who would love to have those jobs, and who would do them better? this is a tragic failure of the market.
Wow - Greg Doyel is an angry, angry man.
PJ Hill declared for the draft? Is that a joke? He's like the 5th best RB in the Big 10.
I like Jonathon Clay a lot more that Hill. Love that kids game......in that bowl game, FSU caught Hill from behind on what should have been 2 TD runs.
Clay takes both those to the house, but Bielema did not play him as much that night.....perhaps showcasing Hill for the draft?
I cant recall their 3rd TB's name, but I liked what I saw out of him more than Hill as well.
But that Clay kid is ready to be the league's best tailback next year.....well, second best after Brandon Minor, natch.
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