If it'll help you find these Saturday Skull Sessions any more enjoyable, just know that this feature will be replaced with game previews and afternoon open threads in just over three months. As it is, we'll talk about some miscellanous news items here and there in the wide world of college sports.
MAURICE CLARETT TRYING HIS HAND AT RUGBY. File this under the category of things of which Ohio State fans have known for some time. However, national media is picking up with this story on Maurice Clarett and running with it, so we can talk about it.
Relax: it has nothing to do with a stolen car from ten years ago, nor should it make Kirk Herbstreit afraid to send his hypothetical college age children to Ohio State to play football.
Though Maurice Clarett had a stint with the UFL's Omaha Nighthawks for two years following his release from his prison, his gridiron days may be coming to an end. Clarett is 29 years old, which is an advanced age for a professional football running back. Clarett takes diligent care of himself and the time in prison equates to less figurative tread on the tire, but that does not change his position much. As a result, Clarett is trying to make it in a similar sport: rugby. He announced not too long ago that he was serious about being an Olympian in the sport. The upcoming 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro will see rugby debut as a medal-awarding sport.
Yesterday, the Columbus Dispatch announced that Maurice Clarett will be playing in the Tiger Rugby-sponsored Ohio Rugby Sevens Invitational in Mechanicsburg on May 25. Tiger Rugby is the rugby development program, based in Columbus, Ohio, that has the task of selecting a team to represent the United States in Rio in 2016.
We obviously wish Maurice Clarett well as he pursues this shot at glory in 2016. He will be 32 going on 33 when the Rio games come, but this age should mean less in rugby than in professional football. What's more germane to the conversation is learning the differences between the two games that belie their prima facie similarity.
Really, one wonders if this is the next step for former college football players and NFL washouts. Professional football has no real development program like Major League Baseball's farm system, nor does it have the multi-layered hierarchy of professional squads like European soccer. If players don't land one of 53 roster spots on a given NFL team, the options are UFL, Arena League, or Canadian Football. This would be acceptable if college football wasn't churning out prospect after prospect every year. This could become a new thing, provided there is sufficient fan interest in rugby across the United States to keep the enterprise afloat.
YOU NEVER HAVE AS MUCH MONEY AS YOU THINK YOU DO. Did anyone watch ESPN's 30 for 30 titled Broke? ESPN's 30 for 30s (for me) are a curious block of programming on the network. Namely: they're not inexcusably terrible like most of ESPN's other programming. In fact, they're routinely very good. Okay, some of them suck out loud and should not have been done.
Further, this particular installment featured Darren Rovell, and his presence on that film did not make me want to punch him in the face. One of the things he mentioned on that 30 for 30 is that athletes (and NFLers especially) never like to hear that the smartest and most efficient thing they can do with their $10 million dollar contract is invest it wisely so that it grows to $11 million.
Instead, athletes invest in high risk ventures like car dealerships and sports bars and compound the problem by giving money to every family member or "friend" that sees them as a cash cow. It's how, among other things, athletes like Andre Rison, featured prominently in that 30 for 30, can go from a one-time $17 million dollar contract with the Cleveland Browns (over 5 years) to having no money.
This week saw a few more cautionary tales emerge to the fore, namely in the form of NFLers still on lucrative rookie contracts who have family members and "friends" who are already asking for money, or extorting it.
Tyron Smith, a former right tackle for the USC Trojans, was drafted ninth overall in the 2011 NFL Draft. He signed a four-year, $12.5 million dollar contract with the Dallas Cowboys. Shortly thereafter, his family came calling and demanded their cut. Deadspin abbreviated Tyron Smith's allegations against his family as follow.
- Smith says he gave his family a "substantial" amount of money, but after the last of the agreed-upon installments, they almost immediately began demanding more.
- Smith alleges that his family stole more than $1 million from him, money that just disappeared out of the account kept by a financial planner they had recommended.
- Smith had to file a restraining order against his mother and stepfather, after they "threatened the physical well-being of Tyron and the life of his girlfriend."
- In training camp, a brother that Smith hadn't spoken to “in a long time” showed up at the Cowboys facility, and had to be removed by security.
- While Smith was on the road for a game, two of his sisters showed up at his home and confronted his girlfriend. She called 911, and the police report says they were there to “harass and torment” Smith “in the pursuit of collecting financial gain.”
Tavon Austin, arguably the darling of college football fans watching this year's NFL Draft, could be next in line for this horror story. No one who's followed Tavon Austin in college at West Virginia, or in his preparation for the NFL Draft, had anything bad to say about his character. The worry wasn't that Austin would find trouble, but trouble would find him in the form of he people he knew from his old haunts in Baltimore. Austin, who is scheduled to sign a rookie contract worth $12.6 million dollars (including a $7 million dollar signing bonus) is finding out that he has a lot of "cousins" in Baltimore.
But, more than anything, the biggest adjustment has been dealing with everyone that comes out of the woodwork when fame and imminent fortune show up on the doorstep.
“Just people,” Austin said. “Everybody expects a lot of things from you as far as money. Everybody wants to be around you. My phone doesn’t stop ringing now. It feels like they’re counting my bank account now. So that’s probably the hardest thing for me right now, just people.
“I’ve got a lot of cousins now. The whole (city of) Baltimore is my cousin now. We’re going to just try to keep focused and let my mother and all of them handle it.”
The Broke 30 for 30 might be a cautionary tale, but hardly one stationary in time. There are lessons to learn from it for the athlete. However, there are few lessons applicable to the people proximate to an athlete who see a lucrative professional contract as an interest-free loan or gift.
Wes Lunt finished 81/131 for 1108yds as QB.SO WHERE CAN WES LUNT GO? It's almost trivial to argue that restrictions on transfers in college football are silly. Nick Saban can club-hop with the best of them, Rich Rodriguez can leave West Virginia on the altar for That Team Up North, and Lane Kiffin can be Lane Kiffin -- all with basic impunity. However, a college football player wants to leave a program to explore other options, and then there are problems.
Alas, I won't bore the reader any more with that argument, but I will bring up the latest college football player to be added as a footnote in this argument: Wes Lunt.
Wes Lunt was a true freshman quarterback for Oklahoma State in 2012, having graduated from high school in December 2011. He replaced the outgoing Brandon Weeden as Oklahoma State starting quarterback, which is no small feat.
He started his collegiate career with an 11/11 129yd performance in an 84-0 win against Savannah State. He followed that with a 37/60, 436yd, 4 TD, 3 INT performance against Arizona, albeit in a losing effort.
He injured his knee on the 4th play of the next game against Louisiana Lafayette and played in only two games thereafter. He asked for a transfer after the season after recognizing the logjam at quarterback entering the spring.
Mike Gundy has granted that transfer, but only on the following conditions: Wes Lunt cannot transfer to a team in the Big XII, the Southeastern Conference, or the Pac 12. Wait, it gets better. Wes Lunt is forbidden from transferring to Southern Miss and Central Michigan. Eastern Michigan? Fine. Central Michigan? DENIED.
Ostensibly, Gundy is blocking Wes Lunt from transferring to schools in the same conference (understandable), or teams from conferences with which the Big XII shares its two most prominent bowl arrangements (Cotton Bowl [SEC], Alamo Bowl [Pac 12]). As for why not Southern Miss or Eastern Michigan? No clue, dude. Central Michigan does play two games against Oklahoma State in 2015 and 2016, though.
The announcement of this restriction list comes as it seemed that Wes Lunt was eyeing Tennessee and Vanderbilt as possible destinations. For all intents and purposes, Mike Gundy basically constricted Wes Lunt's choice set to just Illinois, which now seems like the odds-on favorite to land Lunt. Lunt is from Rochester, which is an hour and a half from Champaign. I-L-L, I-N-I, Mike Gundy.
MISCELLANY. Copa del Rey silliness... Related... "Aggravated robbery", of a $447 bong. Go Zips... Titus Young's situation is no longer funny... Sacramento Kings aren't going anywhere, if you're into that kind of thing... Steve Alford and New Mexico agree on the terms of his buyout...
PROGRAMMING ALERT. Ohio State Men's Tennis gets familiar foe in NCAA Quarterfinals: USC... That match is this evening at 5pm ET... Men's lacrosse plays Cornell in NCAA Quarterfinal... That game is 12:30pm ET and can be seen on ESPN2... Baseball hopes to split the season-ending series against Indiana, which won in extra innings last night. The Big Ten title is on the line. That game will be on BTN at 4:05pm ET. Go Bucks.
