The way it began, the NCAA’s wide-raging investigation into player contact with agents, involving teams from across the South, seemed like it was going to end up as a big class-action style ruling hitting a number of programs. For a while, South Carolina looked like it dodged a bullet, but that’s no longer the case. The NCAA is taking closer scrutiny over the behavior of Gamecock tight end Weslye Saunders.
South Carolina tight end Weslye Saunders was questioned about his connection to an agent a few weeks ago by the NCAA. The questions came from a trip Saunders took to South Florida in the spring with Tarheel [sic] football player Marvin Austin, who has been under NCAA investigation.
The NCAA is planning a second trip to Columbia to speak to Saunders. They’ve already visited North Carolina for a second time.
All we can say is good luck to Saunders. Hopefully his friendship with members of the North Carolina football team didn’t screw over the team and the university he represents on Saturdays. But now might be a good time to circle the wagons and get ready for some penalties.
Nice job, North Carolina, at trying to hang with the big boys. In our lifetime we know two “‘Heels,” which is how’d we refer to anyone in periwinkle, that were halfway decent in the pigskin. That would be Natrone Means and Dre Bly. But it’s not like UNC could beat Alabama in the Gator Bowl or anything like that, which must have started all that Rick Fox love.
Regardless, UNC, y’all had a decent time in the ’90s as Florida State’s bridesmaid. That’s going to look beautiful to what’s coming, which is some mean-ass probation and hateful scholarship restrictions. We’d say we’re sorry, but we’ve hated UNC since moving to Winston-Salem in 1992 and, well, fuck you guys anyway.
Three sources close to an NCAA probe into the University of North Carolina football program told Yahoo! Sports that investigators are focusing on ties between assistant coach John Blake and prominent NFL agent Gary Wichard.
The sources said the NCAA’s inquiry into Blake has focused on his one-time position as vice president of football operations for Pro Tect Management – an agency founded and run by Wichard since 1979. Blake is now a defensive line coach for the Tar Heels, and oversees All-ACC tackle Marvin Austin, who is also facing NCAA scrutiny.
The sources said the NCAA is investigating trips Austin took to Florida, as well as his travel and training in California in the summer of 2009, when he worked out at Proactive Sports Performance with former Tar Heel and current Wichard client Kentwan Balmer.
The NCAA’s inquiry at North Carolina is one of multiple investigations underway at several institutions. The association’s enforcement staff has been in contact with at least nine Division I football programs since June, in what appears to be a more aggressive posture following major agent-related sanctions against the University of Southern California.
Who else is in trouble? Oh, that couldn’t be those toothless meth addicts from East Tennessee, could it?
The NCAA has broadened the scope of its investigation of the Tennessee football program beyond the appearances of recruiting hostesses at high school games, sources told ESPN.com on Friday.
Tennessee officials acknowledged last December that the NCAA was investigating the school’s use of female students as hostesses for football recruits, with some traveling to South Carolina and Georgia to attend prospects’ games. Since then, sources said investigators have looked into whether assistants under former coach Lane Kiffin had improper contacts with high school players at an all-star game and whether coaches improperly interacted on players’ Facebook pages.
A source close to the investigation said such actions could be considered secondary in nature “but if you look at it all together, [it] looks like there was not a sense of adhering to all the rules all of the time,” which could result in a “major violation” classification.
Tennessee has acknowledged it committed at least six secondary violations during Kiffin’s tumultuous tenure.
According to sources, the Vols’ football program is expecting a letter of inquiry from the NCAA before the start of the 2010 season.
Then there’s, you know, the people who always knew were fucking criminals. The University of Miami.
The University of Miami is being investigated by the NCAA for recruiting-related text messages by coaches in various sports — including football, women’s track and possibly baseball, three sources told The Miami Herald.
UM initiated the process by self-reporting the infractions to the NCAA.
Two UM athletic department sources said they believe the infractions are not considered severe.
Another source with knowledge of the investigation said it was launched in January.
Though individual text-messaging episodes would normally be categorized by the NCAA as secondary violations, collectively they could be considered a major violation, which is believed to be the case for the UM program.
See you in another 20 years, Vols, Canes and Heels. We never liked you assholes anyway.
We’ve given a damn about the Heisman and the Maxwell trophies for a very few seasons — 1994 (Alabama WR/KR/RB/QB David Palmer), 1999 (Alabama RB Shaun Alexander) and 2009 (Alabama RB Mark Ingram). Only last season was a Tide player able to get to the foulest of the foul who decide which very young man is considered the best of major amateur football athletics. We’d say that Alexander should have won both, while Ingram should have been left off until this season, but that’s not here or there.
What matters is that Monday, the organization that gives out the Maxwell Award and the Chuck Bednarik Award — the Maxwell Football Club — just about admits that the top athlete will be an offensive player, restricting the Bednarik Award to only defensive players. Those in the college football blogosphere know that the keepers of the Heisman are right bastards when it comes to use of the name, so they discuss the Maxwell Award in its place.
In the last season, though, the Maxwell winner was Colt McCoy, the senior quarterback for Texas who got knocked out of the game by Huffman High School product Marcell Dareus. The Bednarik Award went to a guy who simply played on a team that — sniff, sniff — just wasn’t good enough, Ndamukong Suh.
The Maxwell Award has been presented to the outstanding collegiate football player in America since 1937 and is named in honor of sportswriter Robert W. “Tiny” Maxwell. The Chuck Bednarik Award has been presented to the nation’s top defensive player since 1995. Mr. Bednarik is a member of both the College Football Hall of Fame 69′ and the NFL Hall of Fame 67′.
Colt McCoy of the University of Texas was the recipient of the 73rd Maxwell Award and Ndamukong Suh from the University of Nebraska was awarded the 15th Chuck Bednarik Award for their outstanding performances during the 2008 season. The two men were selected by the Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions respectively in this April’s NFL Draft.
So, yeah.
Anyway, this year, the SEC/Clemson watch list looks thusly:
MAXWELL
Mark Ingram, RB, Alabama
Julio Jones, WR, Alabama
Greg McElroy, QB, Alabama
Stephen Garcia, QB, South Carolina
Kyle Parker, QB, Clemson
John Brantley, QB, Florida
Jeff Demps, RB, Florida
Randall Cobb, WR, Kentucky
Washaun Ealey, RB, Georgia
A.J. Green, WR, Georgia
Ryan Mallett, QB, Arkansas
BEDNARIK
Marcell Dareus, DE, Alabama
Dont’a Hightower, LB, Alabama
Mark Barron, S, Alabama
Stephon Gilmore, CB, South Carolina
DeAndre McDaniel, S, Clemson
Ahmad Black, S, Florida
Josh Byrnes, LB, Auburn
Justin Houston, LB, Georgia
Pernell McPhee, DE, Mississippi State
Patrick Peterson, CB, LSU
Kelvin Sheppard, LB, LSU
Jerrell Powe, DT, Ole Miss
When we first heard about a deep NCAA investigation into impermissible agent contact, extra benefits and the like involving the North Carolina football program, our first thought was, “Oh, shit.” These sort of blindsiding revelations rarely happen in a vacuum and can end badly. By ending badly, we mean phrases like “major infractions,” “lack of institutional control,” “scholarship restrictions” and “five-year probation.” Then the virus spread. Patient Zero, UNC defensive tackle Marvin Austin, was interviewed by the NCAA. He probably mentioned a few things.
Like a trip to Miami.
A trip to Miami that involved parties. There was likely women and booze, but you can find that on campus. What isn’t usually found on campus are the leaches, the agents, the agent’s representatives that can finish off nearly a decade of respectability in an athletic program if a 20 or 21-year-old college student violates enough bylaws after being helped along by these people.
USC tight end Weslye Saunders is pals with Austin. He went down to Miami. He’s talked to the NCAA. Could Carolina be under the crosshairs? That’s unknown at this point, but what is known is that the infection is spreading, and confirmed our worst suspicions, as it broke late Tuesday that Alabama defensive end Marcell Dareus went to the party in question on South Beach. Tide coach Nick Saban said that university compliance officials are investigating the matter, but it doesn’t appear that the NCAA wants to talk to Dareus just yet.
Considering this happened after the season, there would likely be no big penalty, though if a serious enough infraction were made, Dareus could be ineligible for this season. We sincerely hope not, since he comes from our old neighborhood in Birmingham and is damn well the best down lineman returning this year. Needless to say, Alabama and the Southeastern Conference have been getting pretty experienced about these matters.
“Right now, agents are screwing it up,” Saban said. “They are taking the eligibility of players. It’s not right that those players do the wrong thing. We have a great education process here. We have a full-time worker who meets with players and their families and does everything else.”
In an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday in advance of SEC media days, conference commissioner Mike Slive said that he would like the NCAA at some point to consider changes to rules involving agents.
“The agent issue is one that’s been of concern not only to us but I think to everyone associated with intercollegiate athletics and I do think it’s time to re-examine some of the NCAA rules that relate to agents,” he said. “I have felt for a long time that it would be helpful to be able to provide student-athletes with more information and more opportunities to learn what their professional potential might be than is currently allowed by NCAA rules.”
Slive said the SEC had already taken steps to help member schools deal with agent issues before the recent NCAA investigations. The league brought in consultant Joe Mendes earlier this year to meet with officials at all 12 institutions, “and several have retained him to help provide the kind of information and knowledge that our student-athletes need to make good decisions about their future,” Slive said. “And to do it the right way and not in violation of NCAA rules.”
We’re hoping this summer’s example of the NCAA feeling its oats is more of a prelude to developing new rules to protect athletes and less of a carpet-bombing of athletic programs.
That’s all she wrote, folks. Major college football, as you knew it from about 1996-2009, is over. The Big XII is done. All that’s left is the finalization of moves from outside the conference and what ends up as some truly bizarre scheduling in the 2012 season. Today, early movements in conference realignment went into overdrive.
Perhaps you heard that the Big Ten and Nebraska are now getting together. Conventional wisdom had previously held that Missouri would go, too, putting seven in the imagined Big Ten West and six in the Big Ten East. Add, say, Iowa State and Pitt and, oh, Rutgers, and you have a 16-team league. Word now is that Missouri and the Big Ten isn’t happening. Iowa State (and Kansas, too) are left in the cold. Any other expansion from the conference is also up in the air.
[Ed. note: Apparently we deleted a whole portion relating to the Pac-10 before publishing on the evening of June 11. Oops.]
Right now, Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Colorado are joining the Pac-10. That’s 15, brother. There’s got to be one more in the mix to balance the divisions.
Think it’s Texas A&M? Former Aggies player, coach and national championship-winning Alabama coach Gene Stallings, who is a regent, is reportedly pushing hard for A&M to be the seventh team in the SEC West. Stories coming out have it that A&M has been given a 72-hour deadline to decide if it’s going to make the Pac-10 move. If you can predict what will happen there, you’re a better person than we are.
More word out today is that Miami and Virginia Tech have not been in talks with the SEC, which means that if A&M joins, the best chances for an addition to the SEC East fall to Georgia Tech, Clemson, Florida State and Louisville. If A&M does join, the SEC will likely end expansion at 14 teams. We really doubt there’s any desire to add Baylor, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, SMU or TCU to the West. Each of these teams haven’t been that good, consistently, for a while, or bring money to the conference. Except for TCU, which, while small, has the DFW market to bustle in.
Yet, there’s another problem with the Great Gallopin’ Horny Toads. They’re in the Mountain West, with Utah. And another major move happened, with Boise State leaving the WAC for the MWC. As it is, TCU can stick where it is and do well, especially if the MWC absorbs the Big XII leftovers.
All of the above isn’t even considering rumors that Conference USA will help finish off the Big East as a football conference. Or that if the SEC goes take a team or two from the ACC, that the ACC will go back and take a few more from the Big East.
Ain’t the off-season fun?
Alabama won its first Southeastern Conference championship in a decade during the first week of December, and is the odds-on favorite to beat Texas (for the first time) and win the program’s 13th national championship. Like we did for the outset of the season, each week leading up to the game we’ll recap the best of the Crimson Tide, captured so ably by the University of Alabama athletics department’s creative media department.
An eye to the past, looking toward the future
Virginia Tech
Florida International
Arkansas
There are 34 bowl games this year, and we’re picking every damn one of them (probably with 60-70 percent success). You can follow the progress or join up and do battle with us through ESPN College Bowl Mania. We’re in “The League” and “The War Against Tebow.” TWAT (jokes!) is the brainchild of decamped S.C. blogger and good time Johnny, Micah Snead, so go there. But beware — Snead’s dad is a total ringer and will probably take the title by 20 points.
Dec. 19, 4:30 p.m., ESPN
Fresno State v. Wyoming
Dec. 19, 8 p.m., ESPN
Central Florida v. Rutgers
Dec. 20, 8:30 a.m., ESPN
Southern Miss v. Middle Tennessee State
Dec. 22, 8 p.m., ESPN
No. 18 Oregon State v. No. 14 BYU
Dec. 23, 8 p.m., ESPN
No. 23 Utah v. California
Dec. 24, 8 p.m., ESPN
Nevada v. Southern Methodist
Dec. 26, 1 p.m., ESPN
Marshall v. Ohio
Dec. 26, 4:30 p.m., ESPN
No. 17 Pitt v. North Carolina
Dec. 26, 8 p.m., ESPN
Boston College v. No. 24 Southern Cal
Dec. 27, 8:30 p.m., ESPN
Kentucky v. Clemson
Dec. 28, 5 p.m., ESPN2
Texas A&M v. Georgia
Dec. 29, 4:30 p.m., ESPN
UCLA v. Temple
Dec. 29, 8 p.m., ESPN
No. 15 Miami v. No. 25 Wisconsin
Dec. 30, 4:30 p.m., ESPN
Bowling Green v. Idaho
Dec. 30, 8 p.m., ESPN
No. 20 Arizona v. No. 22 Nebraska
Dec. 31, Noon, ESPN
Houston v. Air Force
Dec. 31, 2 p.m., CBS
Oklahoma v. No. 21 Stanford
Dec. 31, 3:30 p.m., ESPN
Navy v. Missouri
Dec. 31, 6 p.m., NFL Network
Minnesota v. Iowa State
Dec. 31, 7:30 p.m., ESPN
No. 11 Virginia Tech v. Tennessee
Jan. 1, 11 a.m., ESPN
Northwestern v. Auburn
Jan. 1, 1 p.m., CBS
No. 16 West Virginia v. Florida State
Jan. 1, 1 p.m., ESPN
No. 13 Penn State v. No. 12 LSU
Jan. 1, 4:30 p.m., ABC
No. 8 Ohio State v. No. 7 Oregon
Jan. 1, 8:30 p.m., Fox
No. 5 Florida v. No. 3 Cincinnati
Jan. 2, Noon, ESPN2
South Florida v. Northern Illinois
Jan. 2, 2 p.m., ESPN
South Carolina v. Connecticut
Jan. 2, 2 p.m., Fox
No. 19 Oklahoma State v. Ole Miss
Jan. 2, 5:30 p.m., ESPN
Arkansas v. East Carolina
Jan. 2, 9 p.m., ESPN
Michigan State v. Texas Tech
Jan. 4, 8 p.m., Fox
No. 6 Boise State v. No. 4 TCU
Jan. 5, 8 p.m., Fox
No. 10 Iowa v. No. 9 Georgia Tech
Jan. 6, 7 p.m., Fox
No. 25 Central Michigan v. Troy
Jan. 7, 8 p.m., ABC
No. 2 Texas v. No. 1 Alabama
Between the orange, the tigers and the fact that it’s an ag school, we have never been big fans of Clemson (hence why we transferred from VCU to Carolina). But we think it’s only a matter of time until the Taters are regulars in the Top 10. Why? There’s a number of reasons. One of the major ones is that the head coach graduated from Alabama. If you don’t think that’s a big deal, say hello to Frank Howard, Charley Pell and Danny Ford.
Then there’s what coach Dabo Swinney said after losing a tough ACC Championship Game.
A small trophy — Spiller’s ACC title game MVP award — sat in front of them, thanks to Spiller’s dazzling 233-yard, four-touchdown rushing effort, but it was hardly what they’d traveled all this way, sweat and worked so much to claim.
They wanted Clemson’s first ACC championship since 1991, but that was headed towards Atlanta with Paul Johnson and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, thanks to a 39-34 win and 336 rushing yards in Saturday night’s ACC championship game.
The Tigers were left with an empty feeling, which Swinney called “sickening.”
If your coach is that upset over losing a big game, the next year is going to feature a juggernaut (see: Saban, Nick; 2008 SEC Championship Game).
Here we go. With the conference championship games over, and only Army-Navy left on Dec. 12, bowl bids are going out hot and heavy. There are some things that were expected, some surprises and — oh man — Clemson totally got jobbed.
BCS National Championship Game
No. 1 Alabama v. No. 2 Texas
Sugar Bowl
No. 5 Florida v. No. 3 Cincinnati
Capital One Bowl
No. 12 LSU v. No. 13 Penn State
Cotton Bowl
Ole Miss v. No. 19 Oklahoma State
Outback Bowl
Auburn v. Northwestern
Chick-fil-A Bowl
Tennessee v. No. 11 Virginia Tech
Music City Bowl
Kentucky v. Clemson
Liberty Bowl
Arkansas v. East Carolina
Independence Bowl
Georgia v. Texas A&M
Papajohns.com Bowl
South Carolina v. Connecticut
Definitely some interesting matchups — Georgia and Texas A&M are a couple big name teams for a small bowl, so that should be good. In other bowls, the Gator Bowl gave a big, wet, sloppy kiss to Bobby Bowden by inviting Florida State and West Virginia. Travesty. Though it was technically OK, Miami and Boston College were higher up in the selection order in the ACC. Southern Cal, the over-hyped 8-4 team, is going to play the Eagles in the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco.
Ooh! There are other BCS games?
Fiesta Bowl
No. 6 Boise State v. No. 4 TCU
Rose Bowl
No. 7 Oregon v. No. 8 Ohio State
Orange Bowl
No. 9 Georgia Tech v. No. 10 Iowa
With two weeks left, and Alabama staring at a trip to Auburn and the SEC Championship Game, Crimson Tide running back Mark Ingram still isn’t letting go of first place in the Heisman Trophy race. Against UT-Chattanooga, he was pulled with 10 minutes left in the second quarter, but still put up 102 yards rushing on 11 carries with two touchdowns.
The other major contenders, Texas quarterback Colt McCoy and Stanford running back Toby Gerhart, can’t seem to make the jump to force Ingram out of the top spot. Considering the next two games for Ingram are big ones, and Ingram tends to perform on an exceptional level in big games, could spell the end of the race. However, the Tide need to keep winning. A big showing against Auburn on Friday and besting Florida’s tough run defense would sew it up.
HeismanPundit.com
1. Mark Ingram, Alabama, 58 (10)
2. Colt McCoy, Texas, 40 (1)
3. Toby Gerhart, Stanford, 33 (1)
4. Tim Tebow, Florida, 20
5. C.J. Spiller, Clemson, 13
ESPN.com Heisman Watch
1. Mark Ingram, Alabama, 73 (13)
2. Toby Gerhart, Stanford, 47 (1)
3. Colt McCoy, Texas, 32
4. C.J. Spiller, Clemson, 24
5. Kellen Moore, Boise State, 20 (1)
CBS Sports Heisman Watch
1. Mark Ingram, Alabama, 44 (3)
2. Toby Gerhart, Stanford, 34 (1)
3. Colt McCoy, Texas, 28 (1)
4. Kellen Moore, Boise State, 10
5. C.J. Spiller, Clemson, 6
Of course, Sports Illustrated isn’t doing anything to help the matter, laying the dreaded SI jinx by putting Ingram on the cover and giving him a five-page feature in the magazine.
