The father of Iowa running back Jordan Canzeri confirmed to Hawkeye Insider Thursday night that an MRI performed on his son revealed that he tore his ACL.
"Dr. (Ned) Amendola said it was the ACL, but the good news is that the rest of the knee is solid," Brian Canzeri said. "He's going to have surgery next week and hopes to get back into practice in September."
Brian Canzeri said that he expects his son to ease into things when he's cleared to practice and will most likely redshirt for the 2012 season.
This is just getting ridiculous. The Black Heart Gold Pants post on the subject is titled, "Jordan Canzeri Tears His ACL Because We Can't Have Nice Things (Or Running Backs)," which yeah, pretty much.
Canzeri has been the only guy on the roster with any meaningful experience since Marcus Coker left either voluntarily or not so voluntarily following a sexual assault accusation right after last season. Coker became the starter when Adam Robinson got booted after a drug arrest. Brandon Wegher would have been there to to take over if he hadn't been arrested and suspended; he ended up transferring to Oklahoma. Robinson took over the starting job when Jewel Hampton tore his ACL for the second time. Etcetera.
Summary: Iowa hasn't had a running back not suffer a career-ending medical/legal situation since the Shonn Greene era (!) ended in 2008. Again: This is just getting ridiculous.
Here's a disturbingly hilarious rundown from BHGP that was posted back when the Coker news came out:
That's fourteen defections by twelve players in seven classes of recruits, and that list doesn't even include Class of 2011 defector Mika'il McCall or Rodney Coe, who failed to qualify. Coker's class still includes De'Andre Johnson; should he leave, that would make it seventeen consecutive defections from fifteen consecutive players.
This is no longer funny. This is a plague, and it has no rhyme or reason beyond its indiscriminate effect on running backs.
Correction: This is no longer funny for them. The best part about the Canzeri thing is that it was so incredibly predictable that the now-tweeting AIRBHG (yup) declared its inevitability like four months ago:
Amazing. BTW, that Twitter account is utterly awesome. Location: "Everywhere." Avatar: epic. Responses: hilarious. Here are a couple choice Canzeri-related tweets from Friday:
Yesssssssss.
As for Iowa ... umm ... yikes. A cursory glance at the roster shows a grand total of 28 career carries for 99 yards between everybody labeled with an "RB." In case you're wondering, 18 of those belong to junior De'Andre Johnson and 10 belong to sophomore Damon Bullock, who is now listed as the starter but will presumably be struck down by a bolt of lightning or whatever. Moderately highly touted recruit Greg Garmon might see the field ASAP if he comes in physically ready to play, although it should be noted that he just recently recovered from cancer (he also watched his family's house burn down several years ago and clearly was destined to play running back at Iowa).
I'll cede my closing remarks to BHGP:
Ah, Iowa running back: where opportunity is always knocking. But don't answer: it's AIRBHG and he has a crowbar aimed right at your knee, you sad, hopeless bastard.
Robert Nkemdiche to Clemson: Clemson's annual inexplicable recruiting jackpot: Robert Nkemdiche, a defensive end out of Georgia who's the consensus top recruit in the country and therefore probably worth mentioning here. Details from ESPN:
Robert Nkemdiche, the No. 1 prospect in the ESPN 150 from Loganville, Ga., committed to Clemson on Thursday during an expected three-day, unofficial visit to the ACC program.
"I did commit," Nkemdiche said. "I love Clemson.
The 6-foot-4, 270-pound defensive end at Grayson High School picked the Tigers over offers from programs across the country, including Alabama, Georgia, LSU and Ole Miss.
Nkemdiche emerged as a five-star prospect after an 18-sack sophomore season and followed it up with another 18 sacks for the undefeated Class 5A state champion Rams while scoring 17 touchdowns at running back as a junior.
The surprising thing isn't necessarily that he picked Clemson but that he didn't pick Alabama (the presumed favorite because of being Alabama) or Georgia or even take his official visits, instead making an out-of-nowhere announcement almost eight months before Signing Day. Possible explanation: Two of his high school teammates/buddies recently committed to Clemson, which says something about Dabo Swinney's recruiting intuition and something else about the weirdness of spending a crapload of time figuring out what's most enticing to 17-year-olds.
As for Clemson, this random commenter's analysis wins the internet:
Clemson gonna Clemson ... and by that I mean Clemson will get some crazy good recruits, have a nice 9-3 year, build-up lots of hype for the next year, get epically blown out by someone, lose a few games inexplicably, and finish that season 6-6. Repeat until world ends.
Perfect.
Of course: Relatively highly touted running back Greg Garmon signed with Iowa in February. You know what comes next:
Iowa incoming freshman running back Greg Garmon has been charged with misdemeanor possession of marijuana in his hometown of Erie, Pa., according to multiple media reports.
The Erie Times-News reported that police stopped Garmon's car on June 1 and found a small amount of marijuana in the vehicle. Garmon also was charged with driving with an expired registration.
Iowa has yet to comment on Garmon's legal situation.
Derp. The charges themselves aren't that serious but will be problematic for a freshman with a legitimate chance to start, a chance that exists because Macus Coker got dismissed transferred to Stony Brook, Mikail McCall left school and Jordan Canzeri had his knee destroyed by AIRBHG. And all that happened after Adam Robinson got dismissed, Brandon Weghter transferred after being suspended, Jewel Hampton tore his ACL (for the second time) and so on and so forth.
In other words, the depth chart is nonexistent. The healthy-and-not-suspended alternatives on the roster include sophomore DeAndre Johnson, sometimes receiver Damon Bullock, fifth-year walk-on Jason White (not that Jason White) and incoming (but not as highly touted) freshman Barkley Hill. FWIW, Johnson had 18 carries last year (Bullock and White have 16 combined in their careers) and therefore is the nominal leader in the clubhouse.
The inanity of APR: Just to clarify that APR is not nearly as correlated with actual academic success as the NCAA likes to pretend it is:
In the latest figures from the NCAA, Ohio State football’s four-year average APR — capped by the 2010-11 school year, Tressel’s last — was 988. It was the third-highest among major programs nationally and second only to Northwestern in the Big Ten.
Ummm ... yeah. On a related note, Kentucky's basketball program hasn't graduated a guy in roughly 18 years but has posted a 979 in each of the past two years, tying with Vanderbilt for the highest score in the SEC last year.
The thing about APR is that it's not really a measure of academic quality or success as much as it is a measure of player eligibility and retention (transfers and draft entries are counted as ineligibles if the relevant players don't finish the semester), and it should be obvious that keeping guys eligible is not necessarily an indicator that they're getting a quality education; in some cases, it's just the opposite. Insert Andy Katzenmoyer joke here.
Speaking of Ohio State: BHGP finished its epic Pro Combat mockup series this week with a complete obliteration of all things Ohio State. A visual sample (the detail doesn't make much sense without the key at the bottom of the post but is truly amazing):
And a written sample:
"It is a truth universally acknowledged that hell is other Buckeye fans," says Christopher Polyblend as he takes a sip from his espresso at a corner table in Le Canard de Nuit, the Nike designer's favorite Eugene eatery. "Overbearing, arrogant, entitled, they are just ..." -- Polyblend shakes his head -- "They are just the worst. Everyone knows this."
The brilliantly named Christopher Polyblend speaks the truth. Enjoy.
The Pac-12 allegedly has a network: The Pac-12 Network released an early-season TV schedule the other day that includes a couple games of potential interest, most notably Arizona-Oklahoma State in Week 2 and Cal-USC in Week 4. So that's nice ... but visibility is gonna be pretty limited seeing as how the Pac-12 does not have a distribution deal with either Dish Network or DirecTV. The Big Ten Network had similar distribution issues early on (I believe Dish was the only major provider, even among cable companies, that carried the BTN in its first season), and that was a massive pain in the ass about three times that season.
It's nice that literally every football and men's basketball game will be available online if you're a subscriber to any of the affiliated providers -- if you have internet through Cox, for example -- but that won't be of any help to most of the people who can't watch the games on TV and therefore would be the main demographic looking for the games online. FWIW, my understanding is that the ESPN3-type deal is viewed as more of a long-term investment based on increased mobile usage. People who work on Saturdays and own a smartphone will be most appreciative.
Anyway, be prepared to find a bar/friend's house/whatever if you have satellite (like I do) and would like to watch any of the Pac-12 network games (like I will). Argh.
Former USC quarterback Jesse Scroggins is transferring to El Camino College, Warriors coach John Featherstone confirmed to ESPNLosAngeles.com Thursday.
Scroggins announced he was transferring last month after being buried on the depth chart following two seasons with the Trojans. He'll compete to start at El Camino this fall with the plan of then moving on to another four-year school in January, with two years of eligibility remaining.
Scroggins was the No. 2 QB recruit in the country a couple years ago and should have some options if he can get his grades together at El Camino; talent isn't a problem since he'd probably still be Matt Barkley's backup if not for the academic issues at USC. As noted above, he's a redshirt sophomore this year, which means he'll have two years of eligibility left at whatever FBS school he ends up at in 2013.
Banner derp: North Dakota received an awesome FCS championship banner from the NCAA last week, which was probably pretty surprising since North Dakota did not win the national championship. The winner: North Dakota State. Oops.
According to a report in the Grand Forks Herald, the enclosed letter was signed by Kelly Dodds, the assistant director of the NCAA's Hall of Champions, and read:
"Dear Mr. Faison:
"Enclosed find your 2011 championship banner that hung in the NCAA Hall of Champions. I hope your team, faculty, staff and students can now enjoy it as much as our visitors did."
"Mr. Faison" is Brian Faison, the athletic director at North Dakota (which is not North Dakota State). Clerical errors FTW.
Anyway, Faison said he plans to send the banner to its appropriate home at North Dakota State, which wasn't even aware it was supposed to be getting a banner and really has no idea what's going on.
Ryan Perrault, the associate director of athletic media relations at NDSU, said that the school only learned about the error today. In fact, it was only vaguely aware that the banner even existed, completely clueless that it was in transit to North Dakota.
"It's not something that we ordered," Perrault said.
It seems like this could have been avoided if only the banner weren't so ambiguous:
Yeah.
The UGA cake: A Georgia Tech fan put together the greatest/most disturbing wedding cake in the history of wedding cakes. Proof:
AAHHHH! The realism in the entrails is truly impressive and horrifying, as is the attention to detail in the wrinkly skin and facial features and whatnot. That's some serious "Cake Boss" stuff.
As for the disturbing part, the original photo on Reddit is referred to as "tasteless," which duh; the expectations for inappropriateness are high for dudes who matriculate from a school with a fight song that includes "to hell with Georgia," six other profanities and a request for a college bell in which to mix rum and 3,000 pounds of sugar.
The running back exits continue for Iowa, as freshman Greg Garmon has decided to transfer from the team. There's nothing official from Iowa, but Garmon told multiple media outlets that he asked for and received his release from head coach Kirk Ferentz on Wednesday.
Garmon was a moderately highly touted four-star dude last year who ended up with 38 carries for 122 yards and eight catches for 57 yards, with most of those touches out of necessity since obviously. Recruiting rankings aside, he was the No. 3 option for most of the year behind walk-on fullback Mark Weisman and converted receiver Damon Bullock; interpret that as you will.
"This had nothing to do with my grades or getting in to any trouble at all. I just didn't feel comfortable here anymore with the offense. It is a power offense and I am not a power type of a back. I'm more of a scat-back type guy. I can run, but I like to catch the ball out of the backfield and do different things."
Iowa runs a power offense? Surprise! It's almost like recruits don't really know anything about the systems they commit to play in. Or something. I dunno.
Anyway, seeing as how Weisman, Bullock and Jordan Canzeri (who made his first start in last year's Insight Bowl and played decently but then tore his ACL this spring) will all be back next year, Garmon was unlikely to be a significant part of the offense next year regardless. Except he undoubtedly would've been since those guys will all be struck down in inexplicably vengeful fashion. BHGP summarizes:
Garmon is the third running back to transfer out of the Iowa program in this calendar year, the fourth to leave the team. He is the sixteenth consecutive running back to leave the program early; the last Iowa running back to actually complete four years with the program remains Damien Sims, who graduated in 2007. In the last four years, Iowa has signed four Rivals.com four-star running backs. All four of them left the program before the beginning of their third year in the program.
The Hawkeyes' running back depth chart is now a converted two-star wide receiver, a walk-on fullback who transferred from Air Force, and a two-star scatback who spent the season recovering from a torn ACL.
Fun times in Babylon, indeed.
Indeed. But it's OK because Greg Davis will fix everything.
I bet they used the Tigerettes in this recruitment: Auburn recovered nicely from the Mark Stoops thing this week by hiring spectacularly mustachioed Falcons defensive coordinator Brian Van Gorder, who was not in danger of getting fired after his D finished 12th in yardage and 18th in scoring this season. Getting a quality NFL defensive coordinator to be a college coordinator = win.
He also gets bonus points for being a former SEC guy: Van Gorder was the D-coordinator at Georgia from 2001-04 and won the Broyles Award in 2003, the middle year of a three-year stretch in which Georgia had a top-15 defense ever year. He then took an assistant job with the Jaguars, left to be be head coach at Georgia Southern for a year and then we back to the NFL with the Falcons, where he's been DC for four seasons. Fun fact: Van Gorder actually started his coaching career as defensive coordinator at Grand Valley State alongside Brian Kelly. #themoreyouknow
Anyway, Auburn's defenses were not particularly good the last couple years under Ted Roof (this year's version was downright bad at 79th in scoring and 81st in yardage), and Van Gorder would seem to represent significant improvement. Here's an odd tidbit from the AJC story:
In college at Georgia, he had a penchant for blitzing. But during his Falcons tenure, his unit played mostly zone coverage.
Those things aren't mutually exclusive, Guy Who Thinks He Knows About Football. The book is that his run defenses are swell and his pass defenses sometimes have issues, but that shouldn't be much of an issue in the SEC (zing!).
I've seen nothing about salary so far, but given that he just left a decently paying and decently successful NFL job for a college one in Pressureville, Alabama, I'm willing to bet he'll be raking in over a million bucks a year. Must be nice to have Bobby Lowder subsidizing an unlimited payroll.
Ted Roof's lengthy tenure at UCF is over: Speaking of the guy who wasn't very good at Auburn, Ted Roof's long and distinguished one-month career at Central Florida came to an end Tuesday when Penn State came calling.
Multiple sources confirmed to the Orlando Sentinel Ted Roof is leaving UCF after 33 days to take over as Penn State's defensive coordinator. UCF is holding off on officially confirming the news until Penn State formally introduces all its new assistant coaches, including Roof, later this week.
New Penn State coach Bill O'Brien and Roof worked together on (George) O'Leary's staff at Georgia Tech and at Duke. O'Brien and Roof remain very close friends.
So there ya go. That pretty much answers the question of whether he was forced out at Auburn or just had some fascination with working for O'Leary in Orlando.
I was still a big Roof fan a couple years ago but can't really get past the mediocrity at Auburn the last two years in an SEC full of crappy offenses. For a comparative point, consider that this year's D was 11th in the SEC (?!?) in both yardage and scoring (only the tire fire at Ole Miss was worse). That's bad. Roof does have one Big Ten data point: He was DC at Minnesota in 2008 and had a defense that finished 80th in yardage and 61st in scoring, numbers that are pretty good by Minnesota-in-the-2000s standards (that team went 7-6, BTW). That team also ended the year on a five-game losing streak in which the defense gave up 37 points per game against a murderer's row of bad offenses that included Northwestern, Michigan and Iowa.
Penn State has been very good for years almost solely because Tom Bradley is one of the best D-coordinators in the country; Roof probably was in that group seven or eight years ago but isn't anymore. Penn State will probably regress significantly on defense over the next couple years, even if it's by default, and only a major offensive epiphany is going to be enough to counter that.
As first reported by Norman's Dean Blevins, former Arizona Wildcats coach Mike Stoops will be reunited with his brother Bob Stoops on the Oklahoma Sooners coaching staff, Joe Schad confirmed Wednesday. He'll reportedly take over as co-defensive coordinator, with Willie Martinez' exit making room on the staff.
No surprise there. BTW, Martinez (Oklahoma's secondary coach) is reportedly leaving to pick between the D-coordinator jobs at Kansas and Illinois.
Stoops was DC at Oklahoma back in the golden days of 1999-2003 before taking the head job at Arizona, and those defenses were good ... almost exactly as good as they've been under Brent Venables. Venables isn't super popular right now after the Baylor and Oklahoma State debacles but is still pretty highly regarded around the country and will probably be running his own program within the next two years. Here's some mandatory reading from Sooner Nation (gotta have ESPN Insider, though) about the oversimplification of the criticism by the torch-and-pitchfork crowd that wants Venables' head. Keep in mind that Oklahoma's pace of play (which has gradually increased to "ludicrous speed") and the general offensive explosion in the Big 12 skew the numbers a bit toward the negative for Venables.
In other words, Oklahoma will have two hilariously overqualified defensive coordinators. Whether that results in notable improvement remains to be seen, but I'd definitely take my chances if I could Mike Stoops on my staff as an assistant (to the) defensive coordinator.
Jeff Casteel is headed to Arizona (it's officially official): Best coordinator hire of the offseason? Maybe. Casteel is that good and that important to Arizona's big-picture success since having a good defense (the 3-3-5 being RichRod's preference) is kinda important. This is taken directly from the section of my Rodriguez-to-Arizona novel about the disaster that was Michigan's defense under Rodriguez:
Jeff Casteel could have changed that. A large part of West Virginia's awesomeness under RichRod was a kinda-unique 3-3-5 stack D that didn't get much recognition but was actually pretty good; they've now finished in the top 15 in total defense three times in the past six years and have been in the top 40 every year but one since Casteel became the full-time D-coordinator in '05. The guy knows what he's doing. He also had a deal in place with Michigan (just like every other member of that West Virginia staff other than totally illogical replacement Bill Stewart) before bailing at the last minute when Stewart offered him a significant raise and a three-year guarantee, something Michigan wouldn't match because Michigan is just so awesome that everybody should coach there for free (duh). If Jeff Casteel ends up at Arizona next year, there's a good chance I'll throw something at the wall and start questioning my existence. There's also a good chance Arizona will be really good in the near future.
My head would be asploding right now if Michigan hadn't just won a BCS game.
As for Arizona, Greg Byrne deserves some credit for being willing to pony up (insert Jeff Casteel's salary here) to get the guy RichRod spent the last three years wishing he'd have demanded, and I guess RichRod deserves some credit for demanding him and getting him. UA now has one of the top three coaching staffs in the conference. The "really good in the near future" thing might be overly optimistic but doesn't seem unreasonable with the guys Alabama wanted before hiring Nick Saban.
Marcus Coker is definitely gone: As you may or may not recall, Iowa suspended Marcus Coker indefinitely before the Insight Bowl loss to Oklahoma. He was dismissed this week, which ... I mean ... obviously. Starting at running back for Iowa guarantees doom (there's a reason BHGP has an "Angry Iowa Running Back Hating God" tag).
Iowa running back Marcus Coker played the final five games of the regular season while police were investigating an allegation that he sexually assaulted a woman, authorities acknowledged Wednesday.
Weeks after authorities decided not to pursue the case, the 19-year-old sophomore was suspended. And this week, he abruptly left the program.
Authorities said they decided to drop their investigation into Coker sometime in late November or early December. While they can bring charges even if victims do not cooperate, Johnson County Attorney Janet Lyness said it is her office's policy to defer to alleged victims and the woman "did not wish to pursue charges."
Hoo boy. That's not so good. It's a little unclear if he was actually dismissed or left somewhat voluntarily; the only person commenting publicly is Coker's attorney, who's assuredly unbiased and has no reason to spin anything.
Asked whether Coker's decision to leave was linked to the public release of the incident report, Coker's attorney paused.
"Any decision like this is bound to be complicated and thoughtfully considered," Spies said.
No doubt. Regardless, Coker's done at Iowa and there is no viable replacement because there are simply no running backs left. This rundown from BHGP is absurd and ends with a horrifyingly ridiculous summary:
That's fourteen defections by twelve players in seven classes of recruits, and that list doesn't even include Class of 2011 defector Mika'il McCall or Rodney Coe, who failed to qualify. Coker's class still includes DeAndre Johnson; should he leave, that would make it seventeen consecutive defections from fifteen consecutive players.
This is no longer funny. This is a plague, and it has no rhyme or reason beyond its indiscriminate effect on running backs.
Redshirt freshman Jordan Canzeri, who has 31 career carries (22 of them in the Insight Bowl for a whopping for 58 yards), is the nominal backup. As noted by BHGP, DeAndre Johnson also allegedly exists. That's the extent of the depth chart. Yikes.
Michael Dyer is headed to Arkansas State: As expected. I wrote about the Auburn impact last week, but as for Dyer, he'll have to sit out the 2012 season (unless he gets a hardship waiver) and then should dominate the Sun Belt for a year or two given. The guy was starting for Auburn as a freshman and will have more experience with Gus Malzhan's offense than anybody else on the team, even after sitting out for a year.
Speaking of which, Arkansas State went 10-2 last year to win the Sun Belt and now has Auburn's offensive coordinator, Pitt's defensive coordinator and the 2010 SEC Freshman of the Year at running back. That doesn't seem fair.
Brian Kelly is probably safe: Notre Dame gave Brian Kelly a two-year contract extension Tuesday. Contracts mean almost nothing in the world of coaching but do serve as a PR indicator of satisfaction, and the consensus among ND fans since the end of the regular season had been that Kelly would need a pretty good (like 9-3 or better) 2012 season to save his job. The extension means that's probably not the case, nor should it be given the schedule:
Sept. 1 Navy (Dublin, Ireland) Sept. 8 PURDUE Sept. 15 at Michigan State Sept. 22 MICHIGAN Oct. 6 MIAMI (Soldier Field, Chicago) Oct. 13 STANFORD Oct. 20 BYU Oct. 27 at Oklahoma Nov. 3 PITTSBURGH Nov. 10 at Boston College Nov. 17 WAKE FOREST Nov. 2 at USC
Great googly moogly. ND will be favored in about half of those games and doesn't have a MAC-caliber team on the schedule. That's impressive from a scheduling standpoint but has to be horrifying from Kelly's standpoint since finishing somewhere in the neighborhood of 7-5 is likely.
Whether the extension means he's definitely safe is unknowable as of right now. I can't see him surviving a total disaster (like 4-8), which isn't out of the question given the schedule and the quarterback situation, but I think there's enough administrative support that even a crappy bowl game would be sufficient to keep him around for 2013, when the schedule eases up and anything short of a BCS bowl game will be UNACCEPTABLE RABBLE RABBLE. It'd probably be better for him to just win nine or 10 games this year and not have to find out.
The guys are leaving: ARGH SO MANY GUYS (and this list doesn't include the ones I've already mentioned) : Robert Griffin III (officially), LaMichael James, Luke Kuechly, David Wilson, Alshon Jeffery, Jerel Worthy, Donte Paige-Moss, Jayron Hosley, Ronnie Hillman, Brock Osweiler, Chris Polk, Bernard Pierce, Edwin Baker, Peter Konz, Ronnell Lewis, Orson Charles, Dwayne Allen and some others.
The list is currently at 41, which means we need about a dozen more to get to the typical low-50s quota. The deadline is January 15.
I will never understand how Les Miles didn't either (a) get up and leave or (b) let loose with a string of horrifying profanities. I award him 1,000 meaningless points for not exploding. BTW, standard media rules do not apply to Bobby Hebert. He's just that ... umm ... special.
Angry Iowa Running Back Hating God is becoming ever more vengeful:
Amazing. BTW, that Twitter account is utterly awesome. Location: "Everywhere." Avatar: epic. Responses: hilarious. Here are a couple choice Canzeri-related tweets from Friday:
Yesssssssss.
