I wonder what that He-Man is up to...Happy Tuesday everyone, and welcome to your morning Skull Session. I don't know what it is about summer. Everything about it makes me feel like I'm trapped in the house of a great great aunt who I've never met for her 97th birthday. It's hotter inside the house than out, there are lace doilies everywhere, and the only food not made primarily from bologna in the building is a bowl full of ten year old butterscotch candies, sitting on top of a table decorated with her late husband's World War II unit citation (for 3rd Mississippi Maintenance Regiment, Concrete Buildings and Lavatories Unit) and a faded picture of a chubby baby glaring angrily into nothingness.
What I'm saying is that I'm not a huge fan of summer. Never have been. Even when I was a kid, the only things I enjoyed about it were being on the swim team (an excuse to spend 20-30 hours a week in a pool) and baseball (an excuse to watch Sportscenter recaps and memorize box scores). Soccer was there too, but soccer in the months of July and August meant conditioning and me bringing two extra shirts to two a days because of how much I sweat.
Still, thankfully and mercifully, in their infinite wisdom, our Founding Fathers saw it fit to create our great nation at a time when summer malaise is at its height, giving all Americans an excuse to blow things up semi-legally at a time when we'd be starting Whiskey Rebellions otherwise. Hopefully we here at Eleven Warriors can help sustain you in your time of need until the glorious 4th.
Butch And John, Best Friends 4 Eva Butch Davis should be fired. Actually, let me rephrase. Butch Davis should already be fired. The problems going on at the University of North Carolina have been pretty extensively covered, and at the center of it is an assistant coach named John Blake, a man Butch Davis has known for around 40 years now. CBS Sports has a pretty good profile of the guy who hopefully will cause a good friend of his to lose his job, and given his "resume" it's at once both hard and easy to understand how he was able to get the jobs that he did.
Short answer: he knows people. Everything in sports seems caricatured to a ridiculous degree sometimes, and obtaining a job is no exception. If you know a dude who becomes successful, you can get a job. That's not to say that Blake was ineffective at what he did; he was, as Davis introduced him, "a terrific recruiter." He just did it in violation of NCAA rules, over and over again. It's a testament and a damning example of the strength of cronyism in sports that a guy like Blake was able to last as long as he did.
So Good He's Named After Two Sports Companies As you probably already know, Russell Wilson, former NC State QB, has ended up at Wisconsin after a short stint playing some baseball. Bucky's 5th Quarter is optimistic about their new acquisition, and while it is undeniable that Wilson is a terrific talent who has the potential to make the Badgers much better than they might've been otherwise, I'm not as convinced he's going to be the guy to make them the outright Big Ten favorites.
Most of my apprehension has to do with Wilson being able to gel with his new team, not his ability. The timeframe from transfer to starting QB is perilously short for him, and he is not going to have a lot of time to adjust to not just Big Ten football, but football in general. Everyone else will have had a spring and summer of practice and conditioning under their belts, and ultimately having Wilson be the opening day QB carries some risks. September 10th against Oregon State looms large.
Twitter And Facebook, The Downfall Of Man I feel bad for C.J. Johnson. He was the #2 rated inside LB in the country before ultimately committing to Ole Miss, and just wanted to kick back, relax, and enjoy life while graphically describing sex acts on his Twitter account. And really, is that too much to ask? Is that so wrong? Well, apparently to his university, yes. Yes it is.
Look, you will probably never see a description of acts of a carnal nature on my Twitter, or a long string of curse words unless Joey Votto breaks his arm or something. But the point is that me doing either of those things is irrelevant, because nobody cares. For college athletes, the idea that there are now people who will constantly monitor their online activity has got to be a jarring realization.
Just ask James Louis, after he reads part one of my six part series about his various tweets about his hatred of cats and birds pooping on him.
This One's For You, Jimmy T I'm generally not a fan of Florida State, but I am absolutely a fan of quality punting. So in case you forgot, this is how a punter wins the MVP of a bowl game. It is probably the single most ridiculous display of punting and big time theatrics I have ever seen in a college football game. Graham Gano, you brilliant and devious bastard; you earned this.
