Good morning fellow Buckeyes, and don't forget that it's Friday! It's March! It's below freezing outside! But no matter the weather, your Friday Skull Session will always be served hot and fresh.
Now, we've all heard the saying, "No news is good news," yes? Well, there's not much going on in the calm before the Buckopalypse on Sunday. However, while I was busy not going out and having fun last few nights, the universe decided to declare March 3rd Scandal Explosion Week. For those of you not spending your pre-spring break nights buried under a pile of textbooks and notebooks, tirelessly scanning the internet for ways to do anything but what you need to, last week was like a sleezy vortex of shadenfruede. In this case, lots of news is kind of awesome news.
A master of the missionary position. . . While not the freshest of news, and not really much of a scandal anywhere outside the confines of Provo, Utah, BYU forward and leading rebounder Brandon Davies was booted from the team this week due to apparent fornication. At first I imagined that there must be crack squad of a Mormon secret chastity police, riding their bikes in camo short sleeve button-up shirts and steathily peeking into dorm windows to make sure it all stays on first base. Sadly, they do not exist (that I know of). Instead, the rumors floating around now say a pregnancy was involved, which makes Davies' choice to confess a little easier to understand. ESPN's Pat Forde thinks it shows admirable integrity on the part of BYU to follow through on its Honor Code and kick out an integral part of their storybook season weeks before the NCAA tournament.
It's certainly true that most programs fail to uphold their own, much more lenient, codes of conduct, but it also seems rather unsavory for a University to insert itself so deeply into a persons private life (innuendo only 33% intentional). Davies knew what he was signing up for when he became a Cougar, but I can't help but feel that destroying the dreams of he and his eleven innocent teammates seems needlessly excessive and intrusive. Is following through with a bad promise a good thing? I suppose that's up to the administration, coaches, families, and fans of the team to decide. Here, enjoy this video about Mormon delinquincy.
He was in the room, but he was humming really loudly so he couldn't hear. Venturing deeply into the territory of actual, potentially ground shaking scandal, a radio host in Alabama claims to have tapes confirming that Cameron Newton was in the same room as his father Cecil when the latter asked for $200,000 in exchange for his son's commitment. It's a radio host, and apparantly a Crimson Tide fan, so one wonders about the veracity of the story, but he claims to have the physical tapes and the mainstream publications are credulous enough to suggest there might be something to this. That was Wednesday.
Today, the Clarion Ledger claims that it's a fake. That doesn't mean a tape doesn't exist, as John Bond has claimed that it does, merely that the one being passed around by the disk jockies isnt it.
You mean Nike Corp might be dirty? Oregon, flush with the love only the children toiling in a Vietnamese sweatshop can provide (re: lots and lots of Phil Knight's money), may have decided that it was high time they engage in some good, old fashioned philanthropic activity. The Ducks paid a Texas-based scout $25,000 for his services. Every program employs scouting services, but no program is quite so generous. Oregon paid the man five to ten times the going rate, inevitably leading people to wonder why. As one scouting agent put it, "for $25,000, it better provide a hell of a lot. . ." As of now, there's not a whole lot of information other than people around the situation wrinkling their nose and complaining about the smell. Still, while this could be nothing, it has all of the hallmarks of a "gift that keeps on giving." I wouldn't be surprised to see related scandals flare up over the next few months like a kind of College Football Scandal Herpes, or Scerpes.
It's Sometimes Sunny in Philadelphia: The biggest news of the day, however, isn't even a scandal at all. Sporting News is reporting that the Big East is very close to finalizing Villanova's move to the FBS. The Big East is looking to stabalize itself through expansion, and it began by adding TCU in 2012. Villanova, as an FCS program jumping to the FBS, would likely be prohibited from competing for championships by the NCAA as it adjusts it's schedule, but by 2014 we may be looking at a 10-team Big East. Whether the addition of TCU and Villanova will be enough to keep it's automatic bid, I don't know. What I do know is that Villanova is obviously chomping at the bit for a chance to pay BCS bowls millions of dollars to purchase its own unsold ticket alottments.
