Happy Saturday everyone, and welcome to your morning Skull Session. Skull Sessions can be a pain in the butt to make for me due to having to aggregate 12 or so different links that haven't already been posted to the site, which can take a while. With that said, one thing that I do really like about Skullys is that they provide us with a soapbox in these first few paragraphs to talk about what we're chewing on lately, and this week I'm gonna go full Andy Rooney.
See, recently there's been this big flap about the USA Olympic uniforms being made in China, not the US, and as a result designer Ralph Lauren is getting a ton of flak. Frankly I really don't care where they're made, but I also am beefin' with Mr. Lauren, and it's the same beef I had 4 years ago when our national athlete representatives came out during the opening ceremonies.
My problem is this: you can have people wear ascots, berets, whatever those shorter than pants but longer than shorts things are called, I don't care. But what bothers me is that on a stage where the idea is to project a national identity and unity, there's a big freaking Ralph Lauren polo playing dude on every bit of clothing.
I know this is probably the stupidest thing to complain about, but I hate that the most prominent thing on these (admittedly very dumb) uniforms is an advertisement for a clothing company. It feels completely antithetical to what the Olympics are supposed to be about. And yes, if I were in charge, the uniform would be a camo cowboy hat, a white tank top, and cut off jean shorts. But the first thing I'd change would still be that damn label.
OLDBROS I don't like Bobby Bowden; aside from being a figurehead coach who ended up hanging on for way too long, I think the dude was a snake oil salesman who tried to project a certain image to appeal to the media while simultaneously breaking several of his own stated rules on a regular basis whenever it suited his needs. All of which still makes him similar to Joe Paterno, except for the fact that Bowden never covered for a rapist and has no real insight into anything about the PSU situation. But, like Paterno, he's old and won a lot of games so ESPN interviewed him anyway.
Bowden's argument for taking down the Paterno statue is actually a pretty good one; it's never going to be looked at as something inspirational ever again. Anyone who sees it will immediately associate Paterno with the Sandusky scandal, and it'll become a focal point for people looking to make a statement about it. Bowden also seems fairly disappointed in his old friend, but honestly if I were him I would be furious that Paterno got to be considered a saint almost until the very end, whereas all of his failings (which pale in comparison to what Paterno did) were repeatedly made public.
URBAN MEYER + LANE KIFFIN = ???? Gregg Doyel wrote something fairly dumb about Lane Kiffin, who seems hell-bent on rehabilitating his image now that USC is allowed a greater NCAA profile:
"As I look back -- and you're not going to agree, but hang on -- I was being un-selfish," Kiffin says. "Everything I was doing, I felt it was all about the program, all about the team. All I was concerned with were three groups: the administration, the fans and the players. And as far as I know, at the time, those groups loved it. ...
He thinks about it now, and knows it's too late. There are people who will never like him after the way he acted at Tennessee.
"I was an idiot," he says.
Hard to disagree -- but it's also hard to keep hating a guy so willing to take the blame.
Really Doyel? Because nowhere in your entire fluff piece on Kiffin does he even attempt to explain the numerous NCAA rule violations or his abrupt, childish departure from Tennessee with anything other than a shrug and a "my bad." Urban Meyer forgiving Kiffin for him acting like a jackass years ago doesn't say anything about Kiffin, it just means that Meyer really doesn't care anymore. After all, Lane isn't his problem.
Let me put it this way: I don't find it at all hard to keep hating a dude who left a team in shambles and under sanction while he falls into one of the absolute best coaching situations in the country despite essentially no credentials. Don't get me wrong, the guy can coach, but it's not often a dude is rewarded with so much after being that big of an idiot.
An old dude from NYC I actually likedSO YOU'RE TELLING ME THERE'S A CHAN-OH. RIGHT. It's college football preview season here on the internet, and today's OSU preview comes from SBN. The offensive side of the preview basically amounts to "Urban Meyer spread Braxton Miller Jordan Hall foot tight end uuuhhhhhhhh????" BUT one thing that I am glad they talked about was Braxton's propensity for getting sacked. The amount of yardage lost through sacks last year was staggering, and they have to cut down on that this year.
Defensively there's a lot of concerns about depth, and that's valid, especially with the loss of Storm Klein. I actually think that the secondary should be better this year in general, primarily safety-wise, or at least that's what I'm hoping. I'll set the bar even lower: I just don't want to see Travis Howard get turned around and be forced into a PI penalty because he had no hope of defending the receiver more than like two or three times this season. That'd be cool by me.
OH, JUST ONE MORE THING... When people talk about the potential for the PSU football program to get the death penalty, things like this are why I say they're crazy. This is much, much bigger than football, and because of that the punishment needs to expand beyond that scope. The AP has a good breakdown of how and why, should Paterno still be alive, he could potentially be facing major charges of child endangerment and conspiracy. This is a good lesson for anybody following this scandal: it's not a sports issue when it comes to something like this. It's a moral and societal issue.
OPEN THE DOOR GET ON THE FLOOR EVERYBODY LINK THE DINOSAUR Cute kid... Wow that is pretty innocent... Sarah Hardy frowned skeptically in her underground lair... Boooooorrriiiiinnnggg... We live this every day... See, instead of peeing in public he's TEE-ing in public. That's the joke... Adam Dunn is the Bizzaro Superman of Sabermetrics... Hello yes this IS dog
