ncaa: the hypocrisy and how to fix it

Things discussed:

  • Harbaugh returns. At this point they're probably close on an agreement and have recruiting to worry about.
  • Broncos were definitely interested, but this is just a return to status quo from last year.
  • Contract will matter. Harbaugh clearly has NFL interest still, also has interest in being paid like a top-5 coach for respect purposes. Not about respect though: Saban's contract, Day's contract, Mel's contract: they all say the same things, which is this guy is staying.
  • Ono: Very different experience for an athletic director. Did he cut Warde's legs out or is this just how he operates?
  • NCAA investigation: Somebody there has a bug up their ass, and is clearly an incompetent idiot who's exposing the depth of his organization's fecklessless.
  • Seriously, what they're doing here is the equivalent of trying to get Harbaugh for perjury for telling the officer he doesn't remember if he was going 35 or 30 in a 25 zone. Nobody does that unless they clearly shouldn't be in a position to do so.
  • Weiss: Was hacking emails but for what? This could be really nothing but it also could be REALLY bad. Normal people don't do that, and when they do it's often for a very nefarious purpose. They've already ruled out some of the more awful stuff, but he could be harassing, covering something up…there are a lot of very bad reasons to be hacking email accounts and no good ones.
  • QB analyst Kirk Campbell, Gattis guy, Michigan might be looking at him as on-field guy.
  • How does this affect Jadyn Davis? Sam admits Davis's dad told Weiss he's a bad recruiter, but also they have a very good relationship now.
  • Basketball: Praise for the two-bigs lineup, no praise for the tiny Big Ten, which Brian calls an "NIT league."

[Hit the JUMP for the player, and video and stuff]

"free hugs" -OL going up against Hutchinson [Patrick Barron]

Sponsor Note. If you've got a business to incorporate or help run or sell or divide or recombine or create and elaborate series of shell corp… okay maybe not that last one uh what

Right! Richard Hoeg.

hoeglaw_thumb

He will do all of those things for you except probably the last one. We do not need to send the authorities on a wild goose chase only to find out that the final shell corporation is named "You've Wasted A Lot Of Time LLC." They have important things they should be doing instead. Come on, man.

They're employees, for now. The National Labor Relations Board has been weirdly relevant to college football over the last few years, first shooting down an attempt for players to unionize and now throwing the doors wide open:

College football players and some other athletes in revenue-producing sports at private universities are employees of their schools, the National Labor Relations Board's top lawyer said in a memo Wednesday that would allow those players to unionize and otherwise negotiate over their working conditions. … Abruzzo notes that the act and NLRB law "support the conclusion that certain players at academic institutions are statutory employees, who have the right to act collectively to improve their terms and conditions of employment."

The NLRB tends to change radically depending on which party is in control of the executive branch so anyone fixin' to have a union should get on that horse as fast as possible and try to get something that can't just be swept away in the event the NLRB gets turned over and decides to reverse itself yet again.

As a bonus this lawyer bombed the most gag-inducing term in college sports:

NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo also threatened action against schools, conferences and the NCAA if they continue to use the term "student-athlete," saying it was created to obscure the employment relationship with college athletes and discourage them from pursuing their rights

I like this person.

This opens the door to seismic changes that will cause administrators to wail about the destruction of college sports while the general public says "Roll Tide" with little to no awareness of what the financial particulars are.

[After THE JUMP: good news and bad news from NFL Draft projections]

none more iowa [Patrick Barron]

The most Iowa thing ever. The Athletic has an article in which old coaches are interviewed abut their recruiting stories. It starts off by asking about the biggest recruiting wins these guys ever had, and it's a litany of names you know: Orlando Pace, Jadeveon Clowney, Ray Lewis, Champ Bailey. And then you get to former ISU head coach Dan McCarney, who was an assistant at Iowa:

the one that had as much to do with us turning the program around at Iowa was Reggie Roby. … It came down to Iowa vs. Wisconsin at midnight the night before signing day. …I felt at the time he might have as much to do with us turning that program around as anybody we could sign. In 1981, we had one of the best defenses in the country, and offense, that was OK. And we had Reggie Roby flipping the field like nobody had seen in decades. In my career, the two best punters I’d ever seen were Ray Guy and Reggie Roby.

A punter. Big Ten! Note that I'm not explicitly not making fun of this after RON COLUZZI IS A GOLDEN GOD cost Michigan a game in Iowa City. I post out of respect and fear.

In general, McCarney seems like a guy you'd like to be regaled by. On the "arms race" in CFB:

McCarney: (Laughs) I would have liked to have been in an arms race. The early days at Iowa, Wisconsin, Iowa State, I’d have loved to have been in an arms race.

On whether rules are being broken more now or more back in the day:

Now, guys go past the visit rule or the old bump rule, that thing was ridiculous. The bumps used to last half an hour to 45 minutes. Oh OK, I just bumped into you. Why were you in the room with the door shut for 45 minutes? That’s a long damn bump.

Put this man on TV with a gin spritzer.

[After THE JUMP: wacky football play]

In which someone is described as majestic 

real ish, he bowdlerized  

my wife thinks a clogged gutter is tea

name and image turns into a destiny's child song 

Jeff Capel will be tarred and feathered any day now 

cows! also coronavirus : ( 

oafish man fired 

on the bright side here's a cool matchbook?

C is for Congress.

you should incorporate "owlish" into your everyday vocabulary posthaste