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.