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February 05, 2010
When Players Don't Think Of All Aspects Of The Game...
By SportsPants
This is just too bad. These guys are in the middle of a game and they're trying to sort out the next defensive series. Meanwhile snarky a-holes like myself make fun of them for their last names. It's just wrong. And yet you're smiling....
January 15, 2010
Now Ain't The Time To Be Safe
By SportsPants
I'm sure by now you've read all about Lane Kiffin's sudden departure from Tennessee for Southern  Cal. It was an embarrassing moment in Knoxville to put it mildly. Here was a coach who arrived just 14 months earlier and began running his mouth as fast as his receivers run 40's. He rammed the Vols right into the middle of controversies and secondary NCAA violations. He raided SEC rivals for coaches, then bragged to everyone about how he just made Tennessee better while his opponent got weaker. He fired random underlings who did anything to upset him and he blatantly sent out young hostesses to "woo" incoming recruits.
And that was the stuff we knew about.
Inside the program, things were even worse. Apparently Kiffin was still in love with his old team at USC. He began shunning Tennessee traditions in order to make Knoxville into USC east. Pictures of former Vol greats were replaced by pics of Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush. In short, Kiffin didn't immerse himself into the Knoxville setting where he could use his surroundings to lure in recruits. Instead, he throttled the traditions and stripped Tennessee of its identity.
Continue reading "Now Ain't The Time To Be Safe" »
January 12, 2010
Lane Kiffin Is Such A Loser
 By Jordan Bernfield
The title of this post is direct, but really, you can't disagree. Lane Kiffin is such a loser. I understand he's left his job at Tennessee for the job that he's probably always wanted, to be the head football coach at Southern California. But just three days ago, he was out recruiting in San Antonio telling kids how great they'd have it on Rocky Top. Now, I'm sure he'd tell you they'd look much better in Los Angeles. The problem is, you can't totally fault the guy for talking this opportunity. How many of us would turn down our dream job if we had the chance to get it, even though we might be perceived poorly by the people we left behind? I can tell you this, for a few select jobs, I'd drop anything to take them, at a moment's notice, regardless of backlash, with the hoping my former employer would understand. It's different for a college football coach, however. If I stop broadcasting in one place and leave for another, not a lot of people care. Kiffin is delivering a stunning blow to a lot of fans donning the orange in Tennessee.
Kiffin came to Knoxville last year with a ton of fanfare. It was with the baggage of Al Davis's pointed comments regarding Kiffin's character. It was with Kiffin making ridiculous claims about singing Rocky Top and beating Florida. It was Kiffin accusing Urban Meyer of cheating in his recruiting pursuit of Nu'Keese Richardson, when in fact Meyer wasn't cheating and Kiffin didn't know the rules. Speaking of Nu'Keese, it was he and two of his Volunteer teammates that will be volunteering in the community after they were arrested on counts of robbery. But Kiffin deserted the school he spent a mere fourteen months at, in a sudden move. He's taking daddy with him to be his defensive coordinator, and also his master recruiter Ed Orgeron. If I were a Vols fan right now, I'd be ready to spit.
Continue reading "Lane Kiffin Is Such A Loser" »
December 28, 2009
Did The Crazy Pirate Go Overboard?
By SportsPants
Mike Leach has been a godsend for Texas Tech football. His offense is entertaining and he manages to make stars out of his quarterbacks even though he can’t usually get the big time recruits away from schools like Texas and Oklahoma. His quirky personality makes him a local celebrity in West Texas.
Yet just like former Big XII coaches Bob Knight and Mark Mangino, Leach is finding out he does not have free reign over his football program. The university has suspended Leach indefinitely after he allegedly mistreated an injured Tech player by putting him in a dark closet for hours.
It’s been a tough year for Leach and his team with a fall back to earth from last year’s 11-1 juggernaut, a Facebook controversy that ended with Leach forbidding the use of social networking sites for his players, and now the suspension.
Leach’s job is still not in jeopardy because he brings more money and recognition to the university than any football coach before him. On the flip side, Leach should want to stay at Texas Tech because the school accepts his fascination with pirates and his occasional outbursts to the media.
As we’ve seen with Knight though, no matter how entrenched a coach gets at a university, he can’t get away with anything he wants. Leach needs to remember that as he continues to captain the Tech program. He’d better keep winning because people will stop looking the other way if the losses pile up.
December 01, 2009
Remembering Ole Bobby
By SportsPants
Those of us who are under the age of 45 probably know Bobby Bowden as the big southern old man who has wandered the Florida State sideline since the dawn of time.
He's had success, but Florida State has fallen on hard times lately and they're currently the third place team in their own state. It's time for ole Bobby to step down and let go.
Yet, I think a lot of people don't give Bowden enough credit for what he did at Florida State. Sure, you hear announcers fondling themselves as they talk about how awesome Bowden is and he has two National Championship rings to prove he had some success, but that's just the tip of iceberg for accolades he should receive as a football coach. To fully appreciate BobbyBowden, you have to go back to the beginning.
Florida State wasn't a terrible team in the early 1970's. They finished a few times in the top 25, but the team was never a real threat to win a title. The Seminoles had only won one bowl game and the school still had that stigma of being an all girls school until World War II.
It takes an intrepid coach to build up a football program without a built in history to recruit players. Bowden arrived in 1976 and proceeded to build one of the powerhouse programs in college football.
Continue reading "Remembering Ole Bobby" »
Charlie Weis Out, Next Hire Needs To Be a Home Run
 By Jordan Bernfield
For the record, I can't stand Notre Dame football. They drive me nuts. Their fan base is intolerably arrogant, and they receive far too much attention for being an average football team. Their time was in the past, and now they're just a very popular after thought. That said, the coaching situation there fascinates me. It's fascinating, because there are so many elements that must be factored into their next hire. Charlie Weis was shown the gate today, as if there is any surprise in that. Following a 6-6 season and blowing the Stanford game on Saturday, Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick showed Chaz the gate after five seasons in which he probably regrets firing Ty Willingham. The University is swallowing nearly $20 million in salary to Weis and his assistants, as part of an absurd contract they offered him seven games into his tenure in South Bend with Willingham's players. Now, they better hit a home run with whoever they bring in, considering their decision to eat eight figures worth of cash to get the old regime out of dodge. A few questions come to mind here, before I offer potential candidates. Is Notre Dame still a viable place to win college football games? Does it still have the same cachet it did twenty or thirty years ago? Is the job too much pressure to be worth it?
Continue reading "Charlie Weis Out, Next Hire Needs To Be a Home Run" »
November 24, 2009
I Don't Think That's What The Gipper Had In Mind
By SportsPants  The Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Whether you love them or hate them, they have a lot of tradition. Generally, Notre Dame is known for it's Catholic education and rigid schedule that produces martinets for alumni. It's Brady Quinn telling us in a commercial how he worked 14 hours a day between football and school work because "that's how it is at Notre Dame."
It's annoying and the golden domer holier than thou attitude always rubbed me the wrong way, yet I always respected them. A Notre Dame fan generally understood sportsmanship. They weren't a group of drunk morons who didn't care if the linebacker raped a woman last week as long as he led the team in tackles. They had dignity.
Either I was wrong or losing took that away too since Notre Dame fans are apparently acting just like the idiots at any state university.
Continue reading "I Don't Think That's What The Gipper Had In Mind" »
November 17, 2009
Was It Worth It Lane?
By SportsPants
 Remember nine months ago when Lane Kiffin called out Urban Meyer for cheating? To refresh your memory, Kiffin was recruiting a blue chip player on the Tennessee campus when said player got a call from Meyer down at Florida. For some reason, Kiffin thought that was cheating and he gleefully told a group of Vol boosters that the player had signed with Tennessee despite Meyers attempts to cheat.
That got Kiffin into trouble with the conference and he was forced to issue an apology for being a dumbass. Clearly unfazed by his mistake, Kiffin has perseverated his headline making ways through this season.
Maybe now he'll be speechless.
Continue reading "Was It Worth It Lane?" »
October 22, 2009
Official Disgrace
By SportsPants
 Okay Arkansas fans, calm down. Yes, I know about the officials during your close game against the Gators this weekend. Some of you have written me to inform me of these controversial refs.
For those of you who don't know, a Southeastern Conference officiating crew called a very debatable personal foul penalty against Arkansas in a close game. This sent the Razorback fans into a tizzy.
The problem is I've already written about SEC officials, apparently not aesthetes  to the emotional volcano of college football, who have ruined close games by calling killer penalties on kids who genuinely get excited when they make a big play.
Guess what? The refs that ruined that earlier game between Georgia and LSU by calling an unneeded excessive celebration penalty are the SAME refs who dropped an unwarranted penalty on Arkansas during the game against Florida! I guess it's good that they're consistent.
Southeastern Conference executives apparently noticed these refs as well because the officiating crew has been suspended until November 14. Maybe now teams might be able to actually play a full game without having it decided by controversial calls.
These games pack enough pressure already. Let'em play ref.
October 14, 2009
Name Dropping
Anyone out there heard of Rachel Glandorf? If you say yes, you're either a obsessive T  exas Longhorns fan, or you're a compulsive liar. Until today. Rick Reilly wrote an article about Texas quarterback Colt McCoy today during the build up to the big Texas/Oklahoma clash this Saturday. During the article, he felt the need to mention Colt McCoy's girlfriend by name and let us know that she's as hot as Indian food. He even gets her take on her boyfriend's popularity around the city of Austin. If she were just another college student, you might think that this could lead to unwanted publicity and harassment by the press.
Continue reading "Name Dropping" »
October 09, 2009
Thanks, But No Thanks
By SportsPants  When Deion Sanders played defensive back in the NFL, he made life miserable for wide receivers. He's keeping that streak alive today.
Sanders has become a mentor to many young football players coming out. He holds a Deion camp to prepare players for the NFL Draft and he invites different players in college and the pros to his home for convivial activities. In this process, players have grown to trust Deion's counsel as that which is in their best interest. They might want to rethink that.
Two different players, both wide receivers, have made the news recently for their involvement with Sanders and is wasn't good news in either instance.
Well, it was good news for 49er first round pick Michael Crabtree in that he finally signed his contract to end the longest holdout of this year's NFL draft picks. The bad news for Crabtree is the he got about the same amount of money he would have gotten if he had just signed back before the season like every other draft pick did.
Continue reading "Thanks, But No Thanks" »
October 06, 2009
Be Careful What I Wish For
By SportsPants:
Human 1: Did you know Texans owe their lives to Oklahoma?
Human 2: They do? Why?
Human 1: Because Texas would have fallen into the ocean long ago if Oklahoma didn't suck so much.
As most of you know, I'm a big Texas Longhorns fan. This inherently means that I hate the Oklahoma Sooners. I wish nothing but failure on the team and often wonder aloud why Sooner fans are spread throughout Texas like a flu virus if they love Oklahoma so much. I can't help it, I was brainwashed by my family at an early age to become a burgeoning Texas fan/Sooner hater.
Continue reading "Be Careful What I Wish For" »
October 05, 2009
Sportsmanship? Try Disgrace
By SportsPants
Another game ruined by the refs.
You 'd think the esurient NCAA executives would want as much entertainment value for their gazillion dollar college football enterprise as possible. Instead, they harp on the issue of sportsmanship and use that word to suck all of the fun out of games.
College football referees are told not to allow excessive celebrations when touchdowns are scored. This rule is intended to cut down on the "look at me" attitude displayed by players and the taunting that used to go on. Basically, the sportsmanship rule was put in place to counteract the gong show that took place at the University of Miami. Those Miami teams of the late 80's and early 90's looked like a who's who of police reports with assaults, guns, rapes, drugs, and all sorts of neat stuff.
But the excessive celebration rules have gone too far the other direction. The Georgia/LSU game this weekend proved that. Georgia scores a potential winning touchdown with one minute left and the receiver who scored runs and jumps into the arms of his teammates in pure ecstasy.
Continue reading "Sportsmanship? Try Disgrace" »
September 29, 2009
Lord Leach?
By SportsPants  Football coaches are generally a miserable lot after a loss. They are cranky, cantankerous, short-tempered....it's like having an angry teenager and a petulant toddler in one body.
Texas Tech coach Mike Leach has added the word "oppressive" to that mix of adjectives.
Leach decided to ban his players from using Facebook or Twitter after their loss to Houston this weekend. Apparently the way for him to ameliorate his team is to ground the players from any sort of social media.
According to the Lubbock-Avalanche Journal, one player tweeted his disgust that the coaches were late for a meeting while another posted on his Facebook account that Tech's two loss start was not the way he thought the season would go.
Next thing you know, the pages are taken down and Leach is announcing the social media ban.
Continue reading "Lord Leach?" »
September 28, 2009
A Case For The Heisman
By SportsPants  A lot can happen during the sinuous road of a college football season. It's pointless to even think about handing out season awards until after Halloween. But terms of the Heisman Trophy, here's a candidate who won't show up on any preseason All-America lists. His team won't show up anywhere in the title hunt either.
Yet quarterback Case Keenum has led the Houston Cougars to an undefeated record so far with three wins including two upsets. Keenum is the engine that makes the Cougars high powered offense go with both his arms and legs. He his averaging 386 yards passing (many times scrambling to open up plays), and has eight touchdowns to only two interceptions. He has also rushed for a touchdown in each game.
This was supposed to be the year of the big named quarterback, but Oklahoma's Sam Bradford injured his shoulder in an opening loss, Colt McCoy of Texas has yet to relax and just let loose with the football, and the college football deity named Tim Tebow just concussed his head and had to be hospitalized (he's OKAY people, I repeat, Tebow the great is OKAY. Please continue on with your lives.)
Continue reading "A Case For The Heisman" »
September 26, 2009
The Lumps Keep Coming For The Big 10
By SportsPants  As if the Big Ten conference needed more problems.
The most maligned of the major college football conferences now has to deal with another injury.
Charissa Thompson, sideline reporter for the Big 10 network apparently broke her ankle doing step aerobics. She's a trooper though. She'll still do games in a walking cast, so Big Ten games WILL CONTINUE TO BE BROADCAST. Thompson isn't about to let Erin Andrews be the only sideline hottie.
Keep heart Charissa, you'll make it through this thing yet. Ride this gig out until you turn 40 and get dumped for a younger woman.
September 24, 2009
The Spread Gets Shunned
By SportsPants  Anyone who has watched college football for the past five years (Scott Spinelli just stopped reading this article) knows the en vogue offense is the spread attack. Whether it's a run based spread used by Rich Rodriguez at Michigan, or the pass happy spread used by Mike Leach at Texas Tech, the spread has...well, spread...to every part of the college football landscape.
But if you're a quarterback with pro ambitions, at least one NFL legend says you should use your assiduous studying time on a different playbook.
Joe Montana recently said at a speaking engagement that quarterbacks who run spread offenses in college will have difficulty in the NFL. "You can see the evidence with the guy in San Francisco (that would be Alex Smith, apparently Montana doesn't keep up with the 49ers anymore) and with a guy as talented as Vince Young." Montana continued that Texas Tech quarterback legend Graham Harrell "threw for nine million yards, but no one would take a chance on him. Why's he in Canada?"
Continue reading "The Spread Gets Shunned" »
September 08, 2009
Titanic Sooners May Have Hit An Iceberg
By SportsPants  Wow, that was fast. Just a week ago, the Oklahoma Sooners were the third ranked team in the nation and a championship contender. The team had a returning Heisman trophy winner and a nasty defense.
A week later, the sparkle of a season that seemed so refulgent has disappeared quicker than Mel Gibson's career. One game. That's all it took. Don't laugh, it could happen to your beloved team next.
Oklahoma was supposed to handle BYU. It might have been close for a half or three quarters, but the Sooners were to pull it out pretty easily. And the game was played in the new Dallas Cowboys stadium, so all the talented high school football recruits in the Lone Star State could see how great Oklahoma was. Great tactic by Sooners coach Bob Stoops in his constant battle to recruit Texas talent.
Continue reading "Titanic Sooners May Have Hit An Iceberg" »
September 05, 2009
Not a Good Start...But Keep Going
 By Jordan Bernfield
The line that serves as the title of this post is how the Big Ten players and coaches must be rationalizing their first week of football. (It's also a line from Ron Burgundy in Anchorman, if you didn't get it.) And that's still what they're likely saying after going 10-1 as a league this weekend. The conference that is a power conference by name and reputation but not by recent bowl success should win the overwhelming majority of its first week games, given its schedule. The only team that lost from the Big Ten was Illinois, and that was on a neutral field against a quality team in Missouri. The rest of the Midwest teams played weak opponents across the board. Yet while they won the games, a few of the supposed "power teams" atop the conference nearly lost. Ohio State needed Navy to make a costly mistake late in the game to win its game, at the Shoe. Brian Rolle returned an intercepted 2-point conversion attempt 100 yards to earn the two points for the Buckeyes in a 31-27 win. Should Navy have converted that 2-point attempt, they would have tied the game in the final minutes and likely forced overtime. And the Bucks are really the 6th best team in the country? Iowa, supposedly the country's 22nd best team, needed to block two field goal attempts, yes two, in the final seconds to survive their game against Northern Iowa. And yes, the Panthers, who are normally a surprise team in the NCAA basketball tournament because they have some good white shooters. And yes, it was at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City. Pathetic.
Continue reading "Not a Good Start...But Keep Going" »
August 31, 2009
Call Me Crazy, But...
 By Jordan Bernfield
Is it me, or does this alleged violation against the Michigan football program not that bad? They practice too much? That seems like a good problem to me.
I realize that there are rules to achieve competitive balance and that they are supposed to be followed. I also realize that these are "student" athletes and as  "students" they are supposed to be allotted time for studies and other activities while they're in school. Furthermore, I realize that if the "student" athletes are overworked, certain health risks can be presented. Obviously, I would never advocate for anything that jeopardizes an athlete's health. But if you want me to condemn Michigan for over-practicing their players in an effort to get better, I won't, unless they overlooked something dangerous.
Whether or not Wolverines second year head coach Rich Rodriguez "knows the rules", which he said in a recent news conference in which a reporter described him as appearing "glassy eyed", if he's trying to make his team the best it can possibly be, I understand that. There is an enormous amount of pressure on Michigan to be one of the best teams in college football year in and year out, and after a 3-9 2008 campaign maybe they need a little extra work. Then again, maybe they were so tired that's why they stunk. I can't wait to read that on Michigan message boards.
Continue reading "Call Me Crazy, But..." »
August 28, 2009
College Pants Preview
By SportsPants  I'm well aware that there a some of you out there like myself who get all sorts of delectation out of watching college football. Any major team will do. If it's a big game, let me at it.
Then there are those of you like Spinelli who have difficulty caring one bit about college football. Call you when these guys get to the NFL.
Most of you are in between. You follow your alma mater/state school passionately, but if you live in Nashville, you really don't care what happens in the big west coast game unless it affects your team.
Well, I say enjoy it. College football has just as many storylines as the NFL and while the NCAA is not nearly as clean in picking a champion as the pros are, that makes the arguments that much more interesting. Florida loses a game and suddenly five other teams have a claim to be number one.
Continue reading "College Pants Preview" »
August 11, 2009
Looking For The Pat Boone Of Blogging (Who's Pat Boone?)
By SportsPants  First things first: If you don't know who Pat Boone is, he's a nice conservative, Christian, white boy who in the 1950's, covered the hits by black artists like Fats Domino and Little Richard. Record companies decided that white America wasn't ready for the black folk, so the great white hope was sent out to make the soul hits more.....honkyesque.
But that was in the 1950's. Today with all of the different information outlets opened up, people have stopped trying to force feed people what they think you want to hear, right?
Wrong.
University of Colorado officials decided to create a blog profiling a member of the Buffs football team. They settled on senior defensive back Ben Burney who would blog about the life of a CU football player throughout the season. I thought it was a great idea.
Then Burney wrote his first blog entry. Shockingly, college football players sleep with women.
Continue reading "Looking For The Pat Boone Of Blogging (Who's Pat Boone?)" »
August 04, 2009
Trimming The Fat
By SportsPants  No one has ever accused college football of being in equipoise. In fact, it probably has the least competitive balance of any sport in America. It's a neo-conservative dream sport where the rich constantly get richer and the teams with less rarely compete. Change is bad; tradition is good.
ESPN columnist Pat Forde has taken that sentiment a step further and has suggested that college football actually cut down the bowl system teams from the current number of 120 to a leaner and meaner 40. Forde wants to create four different super conferences each featuring 10 powerful teams.
His point is to have Texas vs. Oklahoma or Florida vs. Georgia every week of the college football season. No more Ohio State vs. Western Ohio joke games that end up in a 56-13 blowout.
I actually agree with Forde on his point. I would like to see the number of teams in Division I cut in half from 120 to 60 because it's near impossible for a smaller school to effectively compete with the big guns of college football. I know this because I went to a small school. It's a great place for education, but it was a private school with 4,000 students. The big football schools have 80,000 seat stadiums that are filled to capacity each week. It's just too much to expect from a smaller university.
Continue reading "Trimming The Fat" »
July 31, 2009
Enough Please
By SportsPants 
I have nothing against college quarterback and world savior Tim Tebow. He's a great player and natural leader who has a nose for the goal line. Off the field, he seems to be a genuinely nice guy who does good things in the world and won't be arrested for playing with firearms at two a.m. in front of a strip club.
But I'm begging people to please stop talking about him as this sui generis being sent from the football heavens to grace us. The more articles I read about Tebow's greatness, the more I dislike him.
Tebow himself has done nothing wrong (apparently ever), but from the moment he announced he was returning for his senior season, Tebow has overshadowed every other part of the college football off-season.
Heisman trophy winner Sam Bradford is returning for his senior season? Who cares, let's talk Tebow!
Colt McCoy has returned to help Texas avenge last year's BCS debacle with Oklahoma? Whatever, Timmy Tebow is still around!
USC might get busted for a legion of NCAA violations? Let's see, does Tim Tebow live in California? Then forget about it!
Do I sound like some bitter college fan who is just jealous? Probably. I don't begrudge Tebow his off-season in the sun, I just don't like the fact that he suddenly seems to be bigger than college football. It's as if the game has never seen anyone great before.
Continue reading "Enough Please" »
July 28, 2009
College Football At Wrigley Field?
 By Jordan Bernfield
Recently it was announced that Notre Dame and the Army are working on a deal to bring college football to Yankee Stadium. Could the same thing be happening at Wrigley Field next season? According to multiple sources, the Universities of Illinois and Northwestern are working on a deal that could bring college football to Wrigley Field. The two schools have had ongoing discussions with the Chicago Cubs to bring their annual Big Ten bout to the Friendly Confines as soon as late next season. Football has not been played at Wrigley Field since the Chicago Bears called the historic ballpark their home as late as 1970. Illini coach Ron Zook said one of the end zones might be a bit cramped but that the field would fit into the outfield. Otherwise, he said he'd love for his team to get the opportunity to play there. Similar sentiments were expressed by Wildcats coach Pat Fitzgerald.
This is another great idea, if you ask me, and I think more teams should consider special events like this despite the beating the baseball field might take for the event. The naysayers will express their concerns about the health of the playing surface, but I say it's another great marketing strategy that will make for a great television event. As Scott and I have discussed in the past, hockey's Winter Classic has been a great success, as both games have been among the sport's highest rated events in decades. With college football already an exciting and highly rated sport as it is, imagine the intrigue there would be for a game at Wrigley Field, or a game at Yankee Stadium. I hope both these deals get done and we get some college football at Wrigley and in the Bronx. I'd love to watch them. Wouldn't you?
July 24, 2009
Let The Southern Fried Madness Begin
By SportsPants  How retarded are the good ole' boys for their SEC football? The front page of the Florida Times Union online has a big picture of TimTebow attending the three DAY SEC media conference. THAT'S the big news of the day.
The top story? The soap operaesque event of how former Flordia legend and current South Carolina head man Steve Spurrier didn't vote for Tim Tebow as a pre-season all conference quarterback. Mind you, Tebow is still the pre-season all conference quarterback, he's just not a UNANIMOUS decision.
Continue reading "Let The Southern Fried Madness Begin" »
June 11, 2009
Enough Is Enough
 By Jordan Bernfield
I feel like every other day I'm writing something related to yet another NCAA violation by some college football or basketball program. It's getting ridiculous. The latest is the Alabama athletic department, which had, get this, sixteen teams put on probation for three years for major vioations due to "misuse of free textbooks". In case you're wondering what the heck that means, basically 201 athletes in the sixteen sports used their scholarships to get free textbooks for students that would have had to pay for them. And yes, the football team is included in those sixteen, just in case you thought they were running a squeaky clean operation. (in which case, I'd laugh at your naivete.) The NCAA has ruled that because of this textbook violation, the university must forfeit all the wins the football team racked up with the players involved in the scandal. At this point, we don't know how many games will be affected, but let's just say this appears to be a widespread issue, and there should be plenty of wins lost. There were seven players affected between 2005 and 2007, according to reports. The teams did not lose post season eligibility nor did they lose any scholarships, but now any false move and they're nailed. Why can't these schools police themselves a little bit better? How could the university not have known that there was nearly $44,000 worth of fines? I went to college where plenty of this stuff went on, and I'm not dumb enough to think that this kind of thing doesn't happen anywhere. It probably happens everywhere. But it shouldn't, when the schools know the rules. They should try to follow them sometimes. It makes you lose faith in college sports when this stuff continues to happen time and time again. It's like every time you see a team succeed you wonder what illegal strings they had to pull for the teams to succeed. I'm not saying I don't understand the pressure these schools are under economically for their sports teams to succeed, but the system needs to be changed if we can't just once have a team that's devoid of scandal win something. In the words of Ron Santo, gee whiz.
June 09, 2009
Further Evidence That Lane Kiffin Is A Clown
 By Jordan Bernfield
Funny how Lane Kiffin critizes others falsely for recruiting violations when he may have committed his own. And, this isn't even the first, second, or third time that he's been suspected of a violation.
Tennessee is looking into whether its new football coach has committed yet another NCAA violation by allowing media to be in on a meeting between himself and recruits. They were identified as such on an ESPN "Outside The Lines" special that aired Sunday. According to an Associated Press Report, NCAA Recruiting Rule 13.10.1 states "A member institution shall not permit a media entity to be presented during any recruiting contact made by an institution's coaching staff member." ESPN's show, which documents Kiffin's first six months as the head football coach as the Volunteers head man, shows Kiffin in a meeting with recruits. Uh oh. A team spokeswoman declined to comment on the situation but did confirm that the university was reviewing his transgressions. I mentioned early on in writing this blog that I thought Kiffin was a moron and day after day Al Davis continues to be right on the money about his allegations for Kiffin. Kind of like Jose Canseco, we learned later that Davis was right and should have been trusted more when he made the statements in the first place. Kiffin needs to learn what the rules are, and he needs to stop violating them, or getting himself into any trouble. He hasn't even played a damn game yet and already he's been in the news time and time again. The guy is a complete lunatic, and if I were the administration at Tennessee I'd already be regretting hiring him in the first place. He better win a lot of games this year. He just better. Because it would seem the leash is getting shorter and shorter with this loose cannon who apparently threw out his NCAA rule book. He's already got Florida going after hm, and now he's got the NCAA after him. Good luck this year, Lane. You're going to need it.
May 14, 2009
Sloppy Seconds
 By Scott Spinelli
Greg Paulus had his opportunity to play at Syracuse University four years ago. He said, flatly, no thanks. In fact, he'd had his opportunity to play football at SU or Notre Dame or Miami (all had offered scholarships and would've likely allowed him to play both basketball and football). Instead, he decided to pursue basketball at some school in North Carolina. Now, he's back in town. The former Christian Brother's Academy standout and Gatorade National Player of the Year in his senior year has decided he wants to compete for (read: win the) quarterback job for the Orange. Not that it should be much of a contest, the only thing standing in his way is redshirt freshman Ryan Nassib. Granted, Paulus hasn't played much (or, at all) since high school, but so long as he hasn't forgotten what a football looks like, he should be good enough to win the job. In a teleconference, Paulus said "My heart and my gut told me Syracuse was the best place for me." Or, tryouts with the Packers and official visits to way better programs like Michigan and Nebraska just didn't go the way you'd hoped so you crawled back to the last place you'd hope to play college football. Either way. Still, it's exciting for any of the remaining Syracuse football fans left out there, those that haven't converted completely to a life of prayer and reflection after the last few years of paper-bag-over-the-head-type football. The kid that went big time for roundball on Tobacco Road comes home to play the sport he dominanted a few years back. Sure, it took a few years longer and several terrible years more than the locals would have liked, but they finally got the local boy back.
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