Posts tagged Mike Slive is Don King
Hoops, a Hack, and a Legend
Feb 13th
I hope all have dug out from the snow. Thankfully, Valdosta was spared. The weathermen proved to be as reliable as BCS pollsters.
Hoops
Big Day for Coach Mark Fox’s Dawgs. As if Devan Downey does not pose a large enough challenge on his own, Coach Fox has to deal with the psyche of his team following an embarrassing loss on the plains and the distraction of a 2-year old warrant served upon Albert Jackson yesterday morning.
That’s why you get paid the big bucks, Coach.
Here’s to hoping the snow will not prevent the Steg from being full. Lord knows, our boys can use the support.
Hack
About that rule the NCAA is considering to allow points to be taken off the board for excessively celebrating, I am against it. After reading Dennis Dodd’s column on it, I am confused, though. Agreeing with Dodd scares me, even in matters as obvious as the potential nightmares this rule may bring.
Dodd is against the rule, but he blames the rule on a game and team from long ago. He credits the Miami Hurricanes of yesterday for tomorrow’s problem. Who does this man have pictures of that allows him to stay employed?
The NCAA basically had enough after the 1991 Cotton Bowl when Miami beat Texas in more ways than one. The 46-3 Hurricanes victory was secondary to the 16 penalties for 202 yards.
"They said we’ll give ya’ll the penalties and still beat you," Texas’ Grady Cavness said after the game.
"That’s probably what tipped the scales, finally," said Dave Parry, the NCAA coordinator of football officiating.
Miami’s conduct that day basically is contained in today’s rulebook definition of "unsportsmanlike acts."
Obscene language … pointing the fingers … taunting … baiting … ridiculing an opponent verbally … inciting an opponent … simulating the firing of a weapon … delayed, excessive, prolonged or choreographed act … to focus attention upon himself (or themselves).
Talk about slow moving bureaucracies! After 19 years I wonder how we ever survived without these men of action?
Perhaps the most head-shaking quote to come from Dodd’s column is this:
"Here’s really the crux of it," said Dave Parry, the NCAA coordinator of officials. "Players and coaches don’t like the judgment calls of officials. Well, don’t bring the judgment of the officials into it when you cross the goal line. Make it easy and don’t do anything. I think that’s where it’s headed."
Dodd could have been of more service to his cause had he focused on that quote alone and left the trip down memory lane out of it.
Dave Parry’s quote along side a video of the call made against AJ Green following his touchdown against LSU and the case is made.
Legend
Buck Belue sums up Spring Ball for the Dogs. He touches on the new defense, Richard Samuels move to LB, and the Quarterback competition. Buck is as efficient with his blog as he was with a championship offense. He provides more information in fewer words than any other blogger I know of.
The best advice I could give these 2 young quarterbacks is this: 1- Step into the huddle and take charge. Project confidence. 2- Execute the offense. Limit the mistakes. Show them you are serious about winning.
All 3 quarterbacks will benefit from the experience and solid play of the other 10 guys. That should make it easier to perform at a high level. Stay tuned. Spring ball in less than 3 weeks.
Prepare for Marc Curles to Nuke Your Team
Feb 12th
After a year in which SEC football officiating crews exerted their will on the outcome of more football games than I can ever remember, the NCAA wants to make it worse.
The NCAA Football Rules Committee endorsed a proposal Wednesday that penalizes unsportsmanlike conduct as a live-ball foul beginning in the 2011 season.
The change would mean, for example, that if a player makes a taunting gesture to an opponent on the way to scoring a touchdown, the flag would nullify the score and penalize the offending team from the spot of the foul.
Penalties for dead-ball misconduct fouls (for example, unsportsmanlike behavior after the player crosses the goal line) would continue to be assessed on the ensuing kickoff or the extra point/two point conversion attempt.
The proposal to penalize unsportsmanlike acts as live-ball fouls received near-majority support in the committee’s annual rules survey and during discussions at the American Football Coaches Association convention in January.
“Our committee firmly believes in the team concept of college football,” said Mike Bellotti, chair of the committee and athletics director at Oregon. “Taunting and prolonged individual acts have no place in our game, and our officials have generally handled these rules well. This is just another step in maintaining our game’s image and reflecting the ideals of the NCAA overall.”
This will give Marc Curles and his ilk the post facto ability to take points off the board, based solely on their judgment. That this would even be considered is frightening.
BCS: Senator Hatch v. Senator Blutarsky
Jan 30th
I have no doubt Sanford’s Senator Blutarsky is diligently penning a post that will somehow compare efforts to create a legitimate champion in college football’s highest division akin to making the sun rise in the west and set in the east.
There is no arguing that politicians have greater challenges to address than America’s finest sport. The same cannot be said, however, for the Department of Justice.
Tradition and creep, as in the number of playoff participants will surely grow endlessly, will be early arguments presented. Tradition is always a tough argument to win, but those arguments have often been won, and we are better for it. Playoff creep, like any hypothetical, is another difficult argument because the facts and realities exist only in the BCS defender’s mind.
To truly “get the picture”, one must acknowledge the BCS, or any bowl system that gives undue weight to subjective polls and computer programmers, is the errant exception. The rule for deciding a champion is a post season playoff.
A playoff is as normal and logical as the sun setting in the west.
• Encouraging the NCAA to take control of the college football postseason. Now we’re talking. From the beginning, the great divide between college football and every other university-sanctioned sport has been the NCAA’s total lack of control over the gridiron postseason, except to set embarrassingly low minimum standards for bowl games to exist for teams to become eligible to play in them. The Association’s absence from the “championship” system is also the source of the longstanding legitimacy problem of crowning “the national champion” — as far as the NCAA is concerned, in major college football, there has never been any such thing. (It’s telling that it renamed the two divisions within Division I the “Bowl Subdivision” and the “Championship Subdivision,” specifically reserving the latter distinction for the lower tier that competes in a playoff.) An official, undisputed NCAA champion — by any means — would change the entire dynamic of crowning No. 1.
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