ncaa

Football Is a Joke.

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

It’s time to lighten it up a bit.

One of our faithful readers forwarded the quotes and jokes about the game of football below.  We blatantly copied nearly all of them for you.  Enjoy as the season is but three games from being over.

First, here are the quotes.

“I make my practices real hard because if a player is a quitter, I want him to quit in practice, not in a game.”
– Bear Bryant / Alabama

“It isn’t necessary to see a good tackle, you can hear it!”
– Knute Rockne / Notre Dame

“At Georgia Southern, we don’t cheat.
That costs money, and we don’t have any.”
– Erik Russell / Georgia Southern

“The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely to be the one who dropped it.”
– Lou Holtz / Arkansas – Notre Dame

“When you win, nothing hurts.”
– Joe Namath / Alabama

“A school without football is in danger of deteriorating into a medieval study hall.”
– Frank Leahy / Notre Dame

“There’s nothing that cleanses your soul like getting the hell kicked out of you.”
– Woody Hayes / Ohio State

“I don’t expect to win enough games to be put on NCAA probation I just want to win enough to warrant an investigation.”
– Bob Devaney / Nebraska

“In Alabama, an atheist is someone who doesn’t believe in Bear Bryant.”
– Wally Butts / Georgia

“I never graduated from Iowa. But I was only there for two terms – Truman’s and Eisenhower’s.”
– Alex Karras / Iowa

“My advice to defensive players is to take the shortest route to the ball, and arrive in a bad humor.”
– Bowden Wyatt / Tennessee

“I could have been a Rhodes Scholar except for my grades.”
– Duffy Daugherty / Michigan State

“ Always remember Goliath was a 40-point favorite over David.”
– Shug Jordan / Auburn

“I asked Darrell Royal, the coach of the Texas Longhorns, why he didn’t recruit me “
He said, “Well, Walt, we took a look at you, and you weren’t any good.”
– Walt Garrison / Oklahoma State/Dallas Cowboys

“Football is NOT a contact sport, it is a collision sport.
Dancing IS a contact sport.” –
Duffy Daugherty / Michigan State

After USC lost 51-0 to Notre Dame, his post-game message to his team was;
“All those who need showers, take them.”
– John McKay / USC

“ If lessons are learned in defeat, our team is getting a great education.”
– Murray Warmath / Minnesota

“The only qualifications for a lineman are to be big and dumb.
To be a back, you only have to be dumb.”
– Knute Rockne / Notre Dame

“We didn’t tackle well today, but we made up for it by not blocking.”
– John McKay / USC

“I’ve found that prayers work best when you have big players.”
– Knute Rockne / Notre Dame

Ohio State’s Urban Meyer on one of his players:
“He doesn’t know the meaning of the word fear.
In fact, I just saw his grades and he doesn’t know the meaning of a lot of words.”

And, now a few jokes.

Why do Auburn fans wear orange?
So they can dress for the game on Saturday, go hunting on Sunday, and pick up trash on Monday.

What does the average Alabama player get on his SATs?
Drool.

How many Michigan State freshmen football players does it take to change a light bulb?
None. That’s a sophomore course.

How did the Auburn football player die from drinking milk?
The cow fell on him.

Two Texas A&M football players were walking in the woods.
One of them said, ” Look, a dead bird.”
The other looked up in the sky and said, “Where?”

What do you say to a Florida State University football player dressed in a three-piece suit?
“Will the defendant please rise?”

How can you tell if a Clemson football player has a girlfriend?
There’s tobacco juice on both sides of the pickup truck.

University of Michigan Coach Jim Harbaugh is only going to dress half of his players for the game this week.

The other half will have to dress themselves.

How is the Kansas football team like an opossum?
They play dead at home and get killed on the road.

How do you get a former University of Miami football player off your porch? 

Pay him for the pizza.

 

Have another good one?  Drop it in the comments!

 

 

Opt out? Cop out?

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Is opt out the new cop out?

Ben McDonald, former Baltimore Orioles pitcher turned SEC Network analyst, feels strongly that when it comes to a football bowl game that it is.

His Friday tweet read, “Hot topic again!  Players that opt out of bowl games!!  Can we please call it what it is?  Nobody opts out…they Quit! They quit on their teammates, coaches, and university!  That’s the bottom line.  Here’s the dirty little secret…they will do it at the net level too!  GM’s beware!”

Before the 2020 season started in year one of the coronavirus, the NCAA allowed a player to not play, not lose their scholarship, and not lose any eligibility if they felt like sitting beat possibly catching the dreaded illness.  Sounded reasonable then.

But, opting out now has spread like the Delta variant did in early 2021.  Running second team?  Opt out.  Coaches running you too hard?  Opt out.  Running from a girlfriend?  Opt out.  Running to a new coach at a new school?  Opt out.  NIL money better across the way?  Opt out.

Opting out and heading to the transfer portal is as easy as Alabama beating Rice.  Just say the word.  Heck, if you don’t like how your season is going, opt out.  If your coach gets fired, opt back in.

The counter to the complaint is that coaches leave for greener(read that as money) pastures all of the time. Players aren’t getting paid to play, so why shouldn’t they as well?

The counter to the counter is that now players are getting paid to play in addition to a paid-for scholarship.  Note, scholarships are paid for, not free.

So what is their obligation?  Where does the NCAA(if it exists in three years) draw the line?

The genie is out of the bottle.  And, it has granted too many wishes.

The landscape of college sports is changed forever.  That is until the next change moves it in another direction.

But back to McDonald’s rant, we go.  If you’ve toiled for a team, why leave before a bowl game?

Well, if the star QB is likely to get drafted you say “why should he risk injury, curtailing, or hurting his chances of getting the big bucks?”  When then does playing make more sense than not?  Maybe quit three games into the season?  Six?  Nine?  Before the bowl?  Why play in all-star bowls?  Why play ever?

Matt Corral played.  He barely avoided serious injury.  It meant something to him.

Ah, but if you’re in the playoffs (Alabama, Michigan, Georgia, Cincinnatti) those are meaningful games says the current sentiment.  Opting out of those would be moronic and you’d be labeled a quitter.  Hmm.  Where to draw that pesky line?

Skip the meaningless Continental Tire Bowl last Tuesday in depressing downtown Detroit and who cares?  Maybe your teammates care that you don’t?  If they don’t maybe they shouldn’t be on the team either?

Since there are plenty of “I’s” now in “team,” where oh where do you draw the line?

The NCAA took Bob Barker’s advice years ago and got neutered.  But it could grow a pair and put stipulations into the scholarship offers and NIL restrictions/ opportunities going forward if it chose to.

You’d have to play to get paid.

You certainly do at the next level.

Old Ben McDonald once threw 159 pitches in an NCAA regional final in early June to get his baseball team to the College World Series. He was drafted two weeks later in round one.

He knows a thing or 159 about loyalty.  And, he didn’t get paid a dime to do so.

 

The Music Never Stops

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

In the game of musical chairs when the music stops there is always one chair too few.  In the college football coaching version where the music never stops there is always one chair too many.

When a school’s AD tosses a contestant out (coach) he opens his chair.

This year it started as it always does, with the first open chair.  That was USC.

Others followed.  Washington State.  LSU.  TCU.  Washington St.  Virginia Tech.  Washington.  Florida. Temple.  Connecticut.  Louisiana Tech.

A few filled quickly in season.  Many others remain open.

But a few things stand out to this year’s game within the game.  One, the team names on the chairs seem bigger and more plentiful than usual.  Two, the cost to throw a chair into the game got more expensive.  Three, some bigger coaching names suddenly have moved on from big-time, coveted programs to other big-time, coveted programs.

What’s driving all of this?  Remember the tried and true answer to most any question?  Money.

Conference realignment is here again, and the rich are getting richer.  It’s called capitalism even though some purists resist the conference changes that bring more pocket change.

Lincoln Riley got the keys to a Lincoln and then some so to speak.  USC is reported to be buying both his homes in Norman for $500,000 over asking, adding up to a $1 million bonus; buying a $6 million home for their new head coach in Los Angeles; and allowing unlimited use of the private jet 24/7 for him and his family.

Those are just the perks.  Toss in a roughly $10 million/year salary and it’s good work if you can get it.

We’ll soon know what LSU is going to pay Brian Kelly to leave the sacred grounds where Touchdown Jesus keeps his eyes on things.  Our guess is it more salary than Riley with fewer perks.

And the bands play on.  Now the Oklahoma and Notre Dame jobs are open.

Riley was sitting on the doorstep of the playoffs till Saturday came and went.  Kelly got closer because of the Saturday outcomes and might have gotten in depending on this Saturday’s outcomes.

Never mind that, mine gold.  You can’t spell team without me.

The purists also don’t like the recent NIL deal.  Your name, image, and likeness can pay you money while playing college sports these days if you “earn” it.  Coaches mentor kids don’t they?  What’s good for the goose……….

There seems to be no supply chain shortage of coaches.  The NCAA, like the Feds, is printing money.  And, wage inflation is rampant.  Do you think ticket prices might go up some?

In college coaching musical chairs, the music never stops.  And there seems to always be an open chair.

Who gets the last laugh all of the way to the bank? Nick Saban.  His Alabama contract calls for him to be perpetually the highest-paid coach in all the land.  He doesn’t have to leave to chase the gold, it chases him.

Besides, he’d never leave, would he?

“Coach, you’ve got the Notre Dame AD holding on line one.”

 

 

Ten Piece Nuggets-Life and Sports

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

BBR’s fall Board of Directors meeting starts tomorrow in an undisclosed location in the Deep South.  This AM we are emptying our files, folders, creatives, thoughts, and tidbits to provide ten very random nuggets.

We’ll likely be dark until Friday when Abby gives us the weekend’s winners.

Business meetings aside, beaches, booze, and ball games beckon.  After all, someone once said all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  Who is this Jack person?

  1.  NFL Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker’s 66 yards long, best-ever field goal beat the Detroit Lions 19-17 yesterday at the game’s end.  It bounced on and then over the crossbar.  The 19-17 final is the same score that the Saints beat the Lions on a 63 yarder at the game’s end by Tom Dempsey 51 years ago.  The Ravens overcame a fourth and nineteen on the last drive to get in range.  They also avoided a blatant delay of game penalty.   Detroit losses in “oh so Detroit” fashion once again.
  2. Aaron Rodgers needed a mere 37 seconds to brilliantly drive the Packers to a final game-winning field goal as well.  After the ugly loss to the New Orleans Saints to open the season, Rodgers has thrown six touchdowns without an interception over the past two weeks.  A few years back he asked everyone to relax after a mid-season loss.  He even spelled it out for reporters. R-E-L-A-X!  In today’s world of instant overreaction, fueled by social media, we forgot to learn that lesson yet again.
  3.  The Raiders, Broncos, Panthers, Rams, and Cardinals are the lone undefeated teams after three weeks.  If you picked that three weeks ago you are one smart, or very very lucky, individual.  The Tampa Bay Bucs lost to those Rams late yesterday breaking a 10 game winning streak.
  4.  “Da Bears” invested the second pick overall last April in Justin Fields and yesterday decided to make him their starting QB.   He was sacked nine times while only throwing six completions versus the Browns for a putrid 68 yards.  Three games in the Bears are 1-2 and have scored a total of 40 points.  Can Head Coach Matt Nagy survive the season?  Doubtful.
  5. That thud that woke you up Saturday night was Clemson dropping to #25 in the AP Top 25 after its second loss of the early season.  North Carolina St. did the deed after Georgia held Clemson to three in the Labor Day weekend opening loss.  Clemson is still ranked, but on reputation only.  The reverberation that you felt was Arkansas pushing Texas A&M around.  A&M fell from too high #7 to #15.
  6. If you haven’t watched the Hogs play, you’re missing the best story of the football year.  Sam Pittman and his fine staff have the Razorbacks at 4-0 and ranked #8. They come at you for 60 minutes and from every angle.  They’ve beaten Rice, Texas, and Texas A&M all thoroughly along the way.  Maybe Friday Night Lights should be filmed in a different state?
  7. Let the annual debate of “does Notre Dame belong in the playoffs” begin.  They started the season slowly but are 4-0.  They started the game in Soldier Field slowly too, but closed strong, beating Wisconsin 41-13.  The Badgers scored a total of 23 against Penn St and ND in two early-season losses against quality opponents.
  8.  Turning to the world that we live in, guess which US state has the highest rate of new infections from the coronavirus?  Alaska.  Cases there have ratcheted up while the south seems to be past the latest peak.  So much for social distancing helping out.  And, you can read all of the state-by-state infection rate blame game info that you want.  The virus doesn’t see, know, or care about state borders.
  9. In fact, it doesn’t care about which country it is in either.  Norway joined Sweden and Denmark in removing all restrictions.  “It has been 561 days since we introduced the toughest measures in Norway in peacetime,” Prime Minister Erna Solberg said in a Friday news conference. “Now the time has come to return to a normal daily life.”  561 days.  What happened to two weeks to flatten the curve?
  10.  Where’s Brian Laundrie?  “No buzzards, no body,” says Florida cattle rancher Alan McEwen.  He has spent nearly every day of the last 30 years navigating the woods where Brian Laundrie is suspected of hiding and says it’s not conducive to habitation.  “There’s no surviving out here, I don’t know how to say it,” he continued.  Did Laundrie’s parents give the FBI and local officials a head fake when they retrieved the car from the entry point to his hiking in the preserve?  You have to think so.  Laundrie is either alligator food or never was hiding in the swamp.  A really sad story has turned beyond bizarre.

Poof!

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Want to see a quick magic act?  Watch closely as three letters (NIL) will make four letters (NCAA) disappear.

Abracadabra alakazam!  And so it is, and so it will be.

Name, Image, and Likeness is a money-making opportunity for NCAA “student-athletes” that is monetizing rather quickly.  The possibilities are endless and the money plentiful.

For the NCAA, it’s too many holes in the dam to keep the water out.  So, early this week NCAA President Mark Emmert stated publicly that he thinks that the individual conferences should self-monitor the do’s and dont’s of the new frontier.

Alabama Head Coach Nick Saban responded to an SEC media days question Wednesday by announcing that his 2021 first time starter to be Bryce Young has inked deals that approach a total of seven figures.

And, the rich are about to get richer.  Texas and Oklahoma are chatting with the SEC about joining and expanding the conference to sixteen heavyweights.  More super teams in a super conference mean much more TV money.

In college tennis, all of the above would be called game, set, and match.  In NCAA football, the real moneymaker, all of that is called a game-changer.

Eighteen-year-olds from coast to coast who might be “taking their talents” to this university or that one, are also now increasingly verbalizing that they are “working on their brand.”  The truth is they aren’t a brand.  But the best ones, or the ones who go to the college that can best exploit/promote them, can resemble an ATM.

And last evening ESPN ran a story about high schooler Mickael Williams (the next Michael Jordan?) inking a NIL deal or three as he and his marketing team “work on his brand.”

You might be wondering, where does it stop?  The answer is that it doesn’t really.  It will seek its level much like under the table money does.

If you’re that good, you’ll get paid.  If you’re not, the money will go away eventually.

For every Air Jordan “brand” there are thousands of air balls.

Five-star yesterday, NIL money today, and not drafted tomorrow is always a possibility.

But for the current makeup of the NCAA it’s here today, and gone tomorrow.

 

Raising the Bar

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

Setting goals is a tricky business.  Set them too high and you’ll disappoint yourself and those that bought into the false hope.  Set them too low and achieving them isn’t really a success nor a motivator.   Setting goals for sport teams is equally tricky for the exact same reasons.  Fan support and donor support hang in the balance.

Let’s use a Gamecock as a Guinea pig for an example.  What is a realistic yearly goal for Head Coach Will Muschamp and his South Carolina football team?

SC competes in the SEC East.  They play Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt each year in the east.  They have Texas A&M from the west as their designated rivalry yearly game and rotate among Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Mississippi St,, Ole Miss, and Arkansas as their other west opponent.  You have four SEC games at home, and four on the road each year.   They select/control who their four out of conference opponents are and where they play those games.   One choice that they always make is Clemson.  The instate rivalry “Palmetto Bowl” is 115 games old and counting.

It should be noted that this year’s schedule rotated in the west to a tussle with Alabama.  All of the above makes one wince.  Survive that gauntlet and the reward is the SEC Championship Game against the best from the west and a to be determined bowl game.  SC joined the SEC in 1970.  A championship still escapes them.

Ready to set the goal to keep everyone moving in the same direction to achieve it?  Good luck.  Good luck unless some realism, if not publicly stated, is at least privately understood.

After being impatient in latter part of the 20th Century,  SC has been patient in the 21st.  Lou Holtz in 2000 gave way to Steve Spurrier in 2005, who retired in 2015.  Enter volatile Will Muschamp.  Four years later SC competes hard on the field.  Their upset of Georgia in Athens two weeks ago proves that.  The report card for Holtz was a 45% winning percentage turning around a downtrodden program in four years, 63% under the ole ball coach, and 55% for Muschamp’s tenure.

Is Oklahoma St. or Texas Tech the SC of the BIG 12?  Is Michigan St. or Minnesota the SC of the BIG 10.  Is Washington St. or California the SC of the PAC 12?  It seems so.  So do you accept the bar and try to shimmy over it more than not?  Or do you raise the bar and attempt to do what you haven’t done in a long, long time or even forever?

How do you move up to that higher bar?  Money, cheat, culture, system?

Okie St. chose the money route thanks to T. Boone Pickens.  Mike Gundy’s team has had a few moments, but no breakthrough yet.  Tillman Fertitta is pouring money into Houston to try the same from a lower bar.

Ole Miss chose the dishonest route.  Hugh Freeze’s college coaching career is on ice because of it, and Ole Miss is fighting to stay out of the cellar in the SEC West.

Mike Leach brought his fun and gun system and mentality to Wash St.  It’s been fun, but it too hasn’t broken through.

Dabo Swinney changed the culture and expectations at Clemson though they had a more storied past to recapture the magic v. establish it.

We think that a game Muschamp is going the culture route hoping recruiting and money will follow.  His 3-4 record season to date matches his recruiting rankings relative to his competition thus far.  A season ending date with Clemson still looms.  Jeez.

There’s much satisfaction and financial reward for whomever can sustainably break through to challenge the big boys.

It’s an admirable goal.  Is it realistic?

 

 

 

 

Ten Piece Nuggets-Sports

Posted on by thependulumswings staff

It’s a new week and the key to it’s success is getting it off to a good start.  The key to getting Monday off to a good start lies below.  A sports Ten Piece Nuggets is served.

  1. The Houston Astros beat the Baltimore Orioles 3-2 last Friday night and 23-2 on Saturday.  The “23” is no typo.  It is, though, the most runs ever scored by the 52 year old franchise.  Houston shortstop Carlos Correa, hit a 474 foot home run during the obliteration.  It’s the longest ever hit in the 27 year history of Camden Yards.
  2. So, Sunday, Las Vegas made the Astros a huge favorite to win the third and final game of the series and sweep the lowly 39-77 Orioles.  Cy Young former winner and possibly this year’s favorite, Justin Verlander, was on the bump for the 77-40 Astros.  A $100 bet on the lowly Orioles would pay you $420.  And a walk off, two out, two strike homerun by Rio Ruiz gave Baltimore the win.  It was the largest MLB single game upset v. the betting odds in 15 years.
  3. Despite the loss the Astros have a quite comfortable 10 game lead over the Oakland A’s in the AL West with about 44 regular season games left to play for most teams.   The NY Yankees have a quite comfortable 8.5 game lead over the second place Tampa Bay Rays in the East.  But the Central Division is shaping up as a “down to wire” two team horse race.  Cleveland and Minnesota are tied for first there with identical 71-47 records.  The playoffs only have room for three of Minnesota, Cleveland, Oakland, and Tampa Bay.  The Central winner sits home while the runner up falls to a one game wild card playoff situation as it stands today.   That’s huge for both teams.
  4.  Meanwhile in the NL the Los Angeles Dodgers can start printing home field advantage playoff tickets.  Their 79 wins are nine more than East Division leading Atlanta.  And, it’s a ridiculous 19 games over 59-59 Arizona, second in the West Division.  The Braves are clear of Washington by 6.5 games.  Like the AL, the NL horse race is in the Central where only 2.5 games separate the division leading Chicago Cubs over Saint Louis and Milwaukee.  And from the back of the pack comes the hard charging NY Mets.
  5. Do you know what happened on this August 12th date in MLB in 1994, 25 years ago today?  Nothing.   Players, under the threat of a salary cap, went on strike.  A month later Commissioner Bud Selig announced that the owners voted to cancel the season.  The dark ballparks were symbolic of some of the darkest days of “America’s Game” history.
  6. NCAA football stadiums won’t be dark for much longer.  It’s under two weeks and counting until teams the country over kickoff.  Twenty coaches enter year two with their teams.  It’s usually the year that programs under new coaches make the biggest leap if they are going to turn around the direction for which they were hired to begin with.  Turnover, transfers in and out, philosophy, culture, and two recruiting years take hold.  Or, they don’t.  Last year Ed Orgeron went from a too soon hot seat in year two to a ten win, top ten finish in year two.  Tom Herman guided Texas back into the final top ten standings for the first time in nine long(horn) years.
  7. Who might make that leap this year?  Let’s look west.  How about Herm Edwards at Arizona St?  BBR says meh.   Kevin Sumlin at Arizona perhaps?  No.  Chip Kelly is in year two at UCLA.  We doubt it.  But in Eugene, Oregon we like Mario Cristobal to get his Ducks in a top ten row.
  8. The SEC is brutal, but teams that go 8-4 or a tad better can get to the top ten with a an impressive bowl win to conclude 2019.  Five choices are available.  Joe Moorhead leads Miss St into year two.  We think they regress actually.  Chad Morris at Arkansas is rebuilding in his image from the ground up and has zero chance.  Jeremy Pruitt volunteered to engineer a turnaround at Tennessee.  They’ll be better, but Florida, Georgia, and Alabama and  one or two others will visit the orange and white checkerboard end zone too often still.  Dan Mullen is a rather underrated coach.  Florida could make that leap.  They return an improving Felipe Franks at QB as well.   But, we like Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M the most.  They return an improving Kellon Mond at QB, and Jimbo is a QB Whisperer.  The schedule is brutal.  They tangle with Alabama, LSU, and Auburn in the west and Georgia in the east.  Oh, and out of conference they have the Tigers from Clemson.  Brutal.  It says here that they will go 9-3 or better.
  9. Peyton Manning is doing 100 short feature stories for ESPN+ to celebrate the first 100 years of the NFL.  Peyton’s Place.  If you haven’t seen any, you must catch up.  They are a trip down memory lane, some obscure, all interesting, and quite humorous.  We think Peyton had a great past and we think Peyton has a great future wherever that takes him.  Meanwhile he has a great feature story run.
  10. Another great quarterback is on the move as well.  Tom Brady and his family listed their Brookline, Massachusetts home for a cool $39.5 million last week.  Keeping it under $40 million is quite the value pricing move.   Meanwhile, most of New England area went into full meltdown as to what this meant to his future and the future of the Patriots.  Brady’s restructured deal has team opt outs for 2020 and 2021.  Is this the final season of the longest running hit show in NFL history?  Calm down says Tom.  “You shouldn’t ready into anything.  My house is a little bit of an expensive one, so it doesn’t fly off of the shelf in a couple of weeks,” he advised.  Ya think?  “I love playing for the Patriots.  This is where I want to be.”  Sounds like he might become a commuter.

Hang in there, Tuesday is but a day away.