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Quick hits from Friday/Saturday AM

Buckeye News

• The players named in the SI Article met with the NCAA yesterday, and feels that there’s nothing for the student athletes to be worried about-

“There is no scintilla of evidence related to 90 percent of those kids listed in the Sports Illustrated article that they did anything wrong,” James said. “That’s the way it’s going to turn out, I believe. It’s just irresponsible reporting.”

• In addition, the owner of one of the tattoo parlors mentioned in SI’s story says that the allegations regarding his former establishment are not true; and is backed up in this by at least one former employee.

NCAA News

• The University of North Carolina expects to get their Notice of Allegations from the NCAA in June, stemming from the issues that surfaced last summer.  This says two things to me; either UNC’s situation is really significant and it’s taken a long time to root it out, or Ohio State has done a great job at working with the NCAA to address the issue (discovered in January/NOA a few months later).
• The big news yesterday was the SEC’s decision to change their recruiting guidelines. First, the good- Medical exemptions will be reviewed at the conference level (say goodbye to Dr. Saban’s practice). Also, transfers of graduate students will not be allowed if they only have one year of elligibility remaining (No more Jeremiah Masoli to Mississippi situations). Finally, they’ve opened the door for a “national conversation” rather than just a “conference by conference”.  More on this in a bit.
  
• And now, the bad- The conference voted to reduce the “signing cap” from 28 to 25. While this was hailed as big news, the fact of the matter is that a team with only 10 available scholarships shouldn’t be able to sign 25 student athletes- as our friends at Oversigning.com point out. Huge kudos to their work- it’s only because of media pressure that this is even being discussed.
• Jeff Shultz from the Atlanta Journal Constitution agrees that the SEC’s “decision” is mostly just PR:

Let me translate: Coaches now have a lower limit as to how unethical and morally reprehensible they can be. Feel better? This was sort of like the real SEC passing a rule: “We recognize that insider trading is a problem. So we’re going to cap profits from said illegal transactions at $2.7 million.”

• And for your daily dose of arrogance:

“So I’m very pleased that the league is where it is today, and I’m proud of the step we’ve taken really in a leadership role nationally to deal with this bigger concept of roster management.”

Actually, the leadership role in this was taken in 1956, when the Big Ten banned signing more recruits than a team had openings for. Fifty five years ago.

Tags: Jeremiah Masoli, Nick Saban, North Carolina, Oversigning, SEC, Tattoo Gate
Categories: College Football, NCAA Investigations, Ohio State Football, Recruiting

Yup, it was a difficult weekend… but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a spot of fun, right?

Not a good Saturday around the old Casa Del Mali, which started when Nebraska found out that the option doesn’t work against a defense with speed. This would normally be the part where I pointed out that having a freshman quarterback as your starter is never a good idea, but I really like not sleeping on the couch. What was particularly surprising was the successes that the Longhorns had against the Blackshirts- and this is a rebuilding year for Mack Brown’s team.

The missus was able to keep her sense of humor throughout, though, commenting that she wished that there were three more Acho brothers playing so there could be Acho Cinco. Your humble correspondent is grateful that his internal filter kept the “Nebraska can’t block the two that do exist” comment inside his head.

Wait- I just typed that. Crap. Well, the couch is closer to the TV…

Also in LaLa land, Southern Cal absolutely destroyed Cal. Bears, are you sure you want to cut baseball and your national champion rugby program to save this? I’d love to see the Trojans back into a conference title, which would make the bowl ban that much sweeter. Although, I’m sure that we’d see some “undefeated in bowl play” t-shirts around the beaches and traffic jams. Read More

Tags: Alabama, BCS, Cal, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Jeremiah Masoli, Kentucky, LSU, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio Dominican, Polls, Purdu, Rutgers, South Carolina, Southern Cal, Southern Idaho State, Tate Five-cier, Texas, Tim Brewster, TWTW
Categories: College Football, Humor

Late Sunday/early Monday during the season (what can I say- west coast timezone), tBBC will be bringing you reflections on that week’s game. And, since it’s always great to have mood music to read to, let’s start with this clip from Pitchfork’s top ten videos from the ’90′s

All is right with the world- football is back, baby! And what a slate of games we had… although, for Buckeye fans, it all seems anticlimactic after Thursday night, amiright?

Ignore Akbar at your peril

In case you’ve forgotten, Houston Nutt has a penchant for overtime games, being on the sidelines for several of the longest contests in history while at Arkansas.  The one thing, though- he needs to remember how to “win” in OT and not just “play for OT”, as the Rebels were upset Saturday by the Gamecocks of Jacksonville State. As a public service announcement, tBBC would like to remind you that Jeremiah Masoli is now 0-2 in his last two games. Best part? Ole’ Miss paid $300,000 for the pleasure of the upset. Almost as much fun as my favorite season opener ever.

We talked about Mich1gAAn during the livechat, and will do so again later on Monday. I will say this; their version of the wildcat offense looked pretty good. And UConn’s defense and offense looked pretty terrible. In my opinion, the highlight wasn’t the running game but something far more significant.

Kentucky’s new coach beat Louisville’s new coach, in the first match up of these two teams while each had an African American at the helm.  Interestingly enough, Kentucky’s three major programs (UK, UofL, WKU) are all led by African American head coaches- there are only nine others in Division 1A (FBS, whatever). For the Kats and Cards, it’s probably exciting to talk about coaches and not use the word “investigation” or “payoff“.

Late Saturday night “Ohio’s BCS Team” gave up a late comeback to lose to Fresno State… Are we sure they didn’t import the entire Western Michigan team along with their coach? In addition on Thursday, The Utes upset the Pitt Stachers, in overtime. Let’s see- UofL, UC, UConn, Pitt all blow opening weekend games… Yup, Big lEast it is. I hope Jim Delaney was watching as he ponders even more expansion options… each of these teams has a chance to win that conference. Read More

Tags: Air Force, Alabama, Arizona State, Baylor, Cincinnati, East Carolina, Florida, Fresno State, Houston Nutt, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Jacksonville State, Jeremiah Masoli, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisville, LSU, Miami of Ohio, Michigan, Michigan State, Missouri, Nebraska, Nike, North Carolina, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Old Miss, Oregon, Oregon State, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Purdue, Sam Houston State, Southern Cal, Texas, Texas Christian, Tulsa, TWTW, UCLA, UConn, Utah, Vanderbilt, Week In Review, Wisconsin
Categories: College Football, Humor

Since the news is coming in fast and furious, let’s use this as a dumping ground for all non-expansion chatter.

• Yawn- ESPN: USC will respond to NCAA findings on Thursday. Wake me when it happens...
• UPDATE- USC? You’ve been served. And now, we await the press conference.
• C to the Izzo- Tom Izzo as the new coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers? Cavs fans and fans of Big Ten Basketball, discuss…
• Duck!- Rose Bowl QB Jeremiah Masoli has been dismissed from the Oregon football team. Which may mean that he’ll be starting by the second game of the season, to be Blount.

Tags: Jeremiah Masoli, Michigan State, Oregon Ducks, SBP, Tom Izzo
Categories: College Basketball, NCAA Investigations