Here are some pieces you may have missed:
- This one was crazy for me. The kid I drank Mad Dog 20/20 with in high school is now sipping coffee with millionaires; our Kyle Rowland interviewed Hokies coach Frank Beamer and toured Virginia Tech. (Please believe there's a Flickr album.)
- Young John Brandon used numbers and facts (two things I try to eschew) on how good Ohio State's offensive line has been under Ed Warinner. (Spoiler: They're even better than you think.)
- Is that Stone Cold Ramzy Nasrallah's music?
- A former Tatgate investigator now admits the initial broken rules were "a bit silly."
- Alabama, owner of the 95th toughest 2014 schedule, replaced a 2016 date against Michigan State with a game against Western Kentucky.
- Et tu, Onion Brutus? (Please don't sue me, OSU trademark lawyers.)
BRAXTON WILL RACE YOU, BRO. Do not challenge Braxton Miller's athleticism, Hakeem Bailey:
@_Haskeem: lol this man @BraxtonMiller5 really run a 4.3 pic.twitter.com/7nDdvp1F3h you wanna race?
— BRAXTON MILLER (@BraxtonMiller5) June 4, 2014
(Here's an expanded view of the 40-yard dash records.)
I don't want it to seem like I'm challenging Braxton — we all know there's a resplendent canyon between our respective athletic talents — but it's well-known the clock on these dash times is pretty loose.
But look at ol' Doran Grant. He's going to blow up this year, and his exaggerated 40-yard dash has little to do with my "thinking."
Bring it home, Johnnie Dixon:
Kids lacking respect #BuckeyeNation
— Johnnie Dixon (@MakeHistory_JD) June 4, 2014
SMH, PURDUE. Gimmicks are the ploy of the underwhelmed and desperate, Boilermakers:
WAIT...@BoilerFootball wants YOUR picture on their 2014 helmet? http://t.co/j1ZNz0FzSb pic.twitter.com/kRajSbY9Se
— Doug Samuels (@CoachSamz) June 4, 2014
I'm glad they at least limited this promotion to Purdue students. Although, it's probably still going to get trolled to the ground. It got killed on #socialmedia:
http://t.co/ZFRJTtJRk0 pic.twitter.com/7gtbkKeqnf
— Jason Kirk (@JasonKirkSBN) June 4, 2014
BO PELINI SAYS SCRAP SIGNING DAY. Ever since Bo Pelini proved to be a fellow Starcat guardian, I have found myself wondering why this man doesn't hold a more prestigious title within the republic than"Coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the Year 2014."
Here's his latest idea, courtesy of Adam Rittenburg of ESPN.com:
Pelini thinks high school players should be able to sign with teams as soon as they receive scholarship offers. If coaches choose to offer scholarships to freshmen and sophomores -- an increasingly common tactic -- they have to be prepared for those players to sign on for the distant future.
"If somebody has offered a kid, let him sign, it's over," Pelini told ESPN.com on Wednesday. "That will stop some of the things that are happening -- people just throwing out offers, some of them with really no intention of taking a kid."
[...]
"Why does there have to be one specific day? And it will get rid of some of the stuff that goes on, kids pulling the hats and so forth."
I agree, Bo. Football recruiting is getting ridiculous — even Ohio State recently offered an 8th grader — and it's only going to get worse unless there's a drastic change. This would be a drastic change.
GEORGE O'LEARY GOES THERE. SEC fans can talk that trash about football all day, but if the conversation ever leaves that realm, they're coming up more empty-handed than a toddler who just sunk $10 of his parents' money into a suburban Pizza Hut's claw-machine.
Mike Slive said at last week's SEC spring meetings that if the NCAA reforms targeted by the SEC and the other Power 5 conferences -- like, say, the equally-angsty Pac-12 -- weren't put into place, the league would support the movement to break those conferences off into a new NCAA Division 4.
[...]
"They sound like the South during the Civil War," O'Leary said. "If they don't get their way, they're going to secede and start their own country … I think college football is in real trouble."
"The thing that's disturbing is that college football has been fighting for years to create a level playing field and now they're trying to go the other way and create an even wider gap between the haves and have-nots," O'Leary added. "I think some of these schools have forgotten where they came from."
This reminds me of a time Kyle and I went to Chattanooga, Tennessee for an FCS Championship between Montana and Richmond. We were at T-Bone's — a true boss saloon — and I was arguing with a Tennessee fan.
He doing the typical Tennessee hustle, claiming patches on his older brothers' bomber jackets. So after a while, I clocked him with the B1G's undefeated record against the SEC in Civil Wars.
It was the perfect troll. "We ain't talking about no Civil War!" he howled.
In a similar situation, ESPN's professional southern belle, Wright Thompson, blocked me when I asked what the South hangs its hat on outside of college football.
*daps O'Leary*
Sometimes the only way to fight (single fire emoji) is with (five fire emojis).
WAZZOU WADES INTO THE FACILITY WARS. A quirky thing about college football is it's "illegal" to give a player $200 for groceries and pocket money, but it's okay to give hundreds of millions of dollars to institutions.
Washington State — the school that hasn't been relevant since Ryan Leaf was throwing darts — has unveiled their new facilities:
Here's The Spokesman Review:
Mike Leach's office is nicer than my apartment. Don't laugh, it's probably nicer than your house. It's a corner office on the top floor overlooking Martin Stadium. It's got a conference room (QB position meetings will happen there), a bathroom with a shower, a kitchenette, and is entirely made out of some very expensive looking wood.
And here's the video tour:
THOSE WMDs. Neymar gets busy vs. Panama... #RelationshipGoals... The police report from the night that spawned Taylor Lewan's assault case... How Jurgen Kilnsmann plans to make US Soccer better... Here's Kenny G practicing with his new team... Boiling Coca-Cola turns the soda into this gross black goopy tar... 10,000 galaxies... How pro footballers got bigger over time... College Football Playoff may force broader look at officiating... Internet = series of underground tubes...
