Wednesday's Skull Session will offer some commentary on things happening in the world of college football and Ohio State football. Fortunately, Ohio State fans can kick up their heels and relax a bit. It's a bye week for the Buckeyes. Today's Skull Session will look elsewhere in the world of football.
It's also a bye week for Illinois, Iowa (Ohio State's next opponent), and Minnesota. Illinois is using the bye to focus on recruiting, as well as its next game against Wisconsin (a primetime game in Champaign). Minnesota is using its bye to focus on administrative stuff, and, in particular, Jerry Kill. Kill had a seizure before the beginning of the Michigan game. His doctors are working with him on what exactly he can do to reduce the incidence of these events.
As for Iowa? My guess is it's negotiating another contract extension for Kirk Ferentz to not only guarantee he draws a salary for life, but in death as well. Ferentz is set to be paid $3.6 million per annum, through 2020.
LOUISVILLE IS TRYING TO PLEAD ITS CASE. I'm of the opinion that Urban Meyer can win his first 25 games as coach of Ohio State, following one undefeated regular season with another, and it still won't be enough to secure a spot in the BCS National Championship Game. The SEC has a birthright in the game now. Alabama can (and, who knows if it will) get to that contest with two regular season losses because no regular season loss for them, even if in November, matters for evaluating the Crimson Tide anymore.
Moreover, Ohio State's Big Ten affiliation will not help it. The Pac-12 is playing high quality football right now, complete with a 3-2 record against the Big Ten (even if Wisconsin was hosed by Pac-12 refs in Tempe). Ohio State would need the winner of the Oregon-Stanford game to get a loss somewhere else on its schedule. Further, the two ACC teams in question—Clemson and Florida State—would have better résumés if either one were undefeated in November. Clemson hosts Florida State next week, and both programs will have to travel to SEC stadiums to play their in-state rivals. Still, Ohio State needs some help.
Louisville needs even more help. Whatever we make of the Big Ten's reputation, Louisville's current conference, the former Big East and current American Athletics Conference, has a reputation of a dumpster fire. It was set when Rutgers lost at Fresno State and Cincinnati, a 10-win team from last year, was routed by Illinois. If Ohio State needs the aforementioned scenarios in order to secure a spot in the BCS National Championship Game, Louisville needs an Ohio State loss on top of that. In almost all scenarios, an undefeated Louisville team is on the outside looking in.
Charlie Strong knows this as well. It's why he's pleading with his team to use the upcoming game against Rutgers this Thursday night on ESPN as a platform.
“The national TV is big for us,” he said at his weekly press conference. “It gives the whole country a chance to watch us play. I keep saying it and I’ll always say it and I tell our team this: They have a chance to go watch the best team in college football play. That’s the way we have to go out and perform. The standard has been raised here. With us raising that standard, your performance has to get better. It gives us a chance for the whole national picture for everybody across the country to watch us play.”
[...]
“I tell my team that every day, that we’re the best team in college football,” Strong said. “I want them to understand that. You have to. What we have and the players we have, you don’t have to mince words with these players here.
“I just want them to realize that, whatever people say about our schedule, whatever people say, ‘You’re not really playing anybody,’ there’s enough negative stuff being said about them. Let’s give them a positive shot.”
We can laugh at that, but I'm sympathetic with his plight. Ohio State fans are in a similar position.
DAVID SHAW TAKES GUFF FROM NO MAN. 11W readers who may follow me on Twitter may know I'm somewhat infatuated by the Cardinal. A lot of that is because of Stanford's marching band, a ragtag group of future sociopaths and/or CEOs whose accomplishments include 1) being banned from the state of Oregon for 11 years for raising a collective middle finger to Oregon's timber industry, 2) skipping a field rehearsal for a game against UCLA in 1994 to serenade the Los Angeles County Courthouse during the O.J. Simpson murder trial with songs like "She's Not There" by The Zombies (partial video at 3:25 here), and, my personal favorite, 3) putting together a "Tribute to O.J. Simpson" for the 1995 game against USC.
This show, one of many "tributes" the band likes to do to various things (e.g. Joe Francis, square kitchen appliances, mayonnaise, etc.), was all of 3 minutes or so, featuring a blood-stained white Ford Bronco driving from one end of Stanford Stadium to the other. And that was it, and it was awesome for 11-year old me coming of age in Los Angeles. It gives me a perverse sense of pleasure that Stanford finally has a football team as good as its marching band is insane and dangerous.
I'm also a fan of David Shaw. It's a pleasure to hear him talk about football, either during the course of a college football season, or during the NFL Draft. Shaw is a regular on the NFL Network for one of the three days of the NFL Draft. He's brilliant, and it shows on and off the field.
Recently, Shaw has encountered some criticism from Steve Sarkisian, coach of the Washington Huskies. In no uncertain terms, Sarkisian accused Stanford of feigning injuries to slow down Washington's up-tempo offense. When Stanford's defensive players and assistant coach in question denied the claims and objected to this notion, Sarkisian stood his ground.
Shaw just addressed the issue during the weekly Pac-12 teleconference. Whereas most coaches would deny the matter in question and hope to move onto something more important, Shaw started swinging. It was a haymaker too.
"We don't fake injuries. We never have and we never will. I don't condone it, we don't teach it, I don't allow it. And I don't care what Steve Sarkisian thinks that he saw. We've never done it. We didn't do it against Oregon. So why in the world would we do it against Washington?"
"I believe it's unprofessional to call out an assistant coach on another team. It was unprofessional, it was disrespectful. The only D-line coach that I know of that's ever instructed players to fake an injury works at the University of Washington, not at Stanford.
"That's not calling a person out, that's stating a fact."
Pow!
The Washington coach Shaw references is Tosh Lupoi, who was at the center of a controversy for the 2010 Oregon-California game when he was caught telling his players to feign injuries to slow down Oregon's offense. Lupoi admitted to that strategy and was suspended a game for it. He's now at the University of Washington as Sarkisian's ace recruiter.
Too cool to play Kentucky. MUCH ADO ABOUT CLOWNEY. You guys may have also gathered that Jadeveon Clowney is a story du jour in college football as well. He started the calendar year with the iconic hit on Michigan's Vincent Smith, which defined the 2012 college football season and propelled Clowney into Heisman candidate status.
Anyone with at least half a working brain (e.g. me) could've cautioned against falling in love with Clowney as a Heisman candidate for several reasons. One, he's not that good of a football player, even if he is an exceptional athlete. Clowney disappears from games. Most people forget Michigan ran him over the next drive of that Outback Bowl for a touchdown. Two, that iconic hit in the Outback Bowl was more a function of a missed blocking assignment than it was a great football moment.
Finally, teams can just run away from him, or double him. That's largely what they've done. It's tough for a single defensive end to dictate the course of a college football game against exotic offenses that will try to get the ball out of the quarterback's hands before Clowney can get to him. UNC did this, to considerable fanfare (even if UNC lost). Georgia did this as well.
Thus, Clowney has not performed to the unreasonable hype afforded to him in the preseason. In fact, his highlight reel from 2013 is basically these two things.
- After the loss to Georgia in Week 2, Clowney criticized his defensive coaches about how he is being used during the course of the game.
- On the eve of the Kentucky game, Clowney removed himself from participation on the grounds of not being healthy enough to play. South Carolina eventually won this game 35-28.
This second incident infuriated Steve Spurrier. If you can look past Spurrier drinking from a Sprite can with his pinky up, you can sense the rage building in him over Clowney.
The popular suggestion now is that Clowney is treading new water for college athletes. The subject of a controversial question in the preseason of whether Clowney should "sit out" the 2013 season and prepare for the 2014 NFL Draft, he may now appear to be "tanking" his season toward that end. The logic is there's nothing Clowney can do during this season to improve his draft stock that he couldn't do in the NFL Combine. He would only be risking damage to his draft stock if he plays. Marcus Lattimore, his former teammate at South Carolina, is a cautionary tale.
Without getting too much into conspiracy theorizing, I'm inclined to believe it.
Kirk Herbstreit addressed the topic of Clowney yesterday on Sportscenter. I was not able to watch it, but an 11W reader mentioned it in the forum. Herbstreit's "hot take" appeared to have put Clowney on blast, arguing that several high school football players would give up their left nut to play major college football at an institution like South Carolina. Clowney is taking the opportunity, and his teammates, for granted.
While true from one perspective, Clowney should have the opportunity to pursue material self-interest. To that end, there's nothing inherently "wrong" with what he is doing. He's protecting his assets: himself.
That said, Spurrier also has to be mindful of his material self-interest: his job, and his team's fortunes this season. Clowney's positioning here could be construed as handicapping Spurrier's team or defying his authority. This makes it much more interesting. As much as Clowney is free to pursue his self-interest, Spurrier may feel that Clowney's free to do that off his team.
This might get much more interesting as the season progresses.
MISCELLANY. Stuff like this puts Matt Hayes beyond "bad journalist" and into "bad human being" territory... Remember former Penn State running back and NFL pro Larry Johnson Jr.? He's a strip club DJ now... Braylon Edwards, no longer in the NFL, is causing trouble at night clubs now... Snoop Dogg/Lion disses Lane Kiffin now that Kiffin is fired... Kentucky's High School Athletics Association bans post-game handshakes because it led to too many post-game fights... Most, if not all, things in Alabama are terrible, and this is no exception... Shame on Auburn for doing that thing that every other team in its conference does... Detroit Lion, and former Nebraska Cornhusker, Dominic Raiola is fined for his abuse of Wisconsin's band in Green Bay. He'll also make a donation to the band... Arizona State is trying to grow its brand in China... This week's "Bottom 10"... Not all former Florida Gators despise Urban Meyer. In fact, this former Spurrier-era player, and current professional wrestler, loves him and visits him whenever he's in Columbus...
