Al Golden has the utmost respect for the NCAA

I'm tired of writing about NCAA violations, etc., and therefore won't spend very much time on this right now. But ... I mean ... WHAAAAA???

Less than one week after the University of Miami hired Al Golden as coach, members of Golden's coaching staff began using Sean "Pee Wee" Allen – a then-equipment manager and onetime right-hand man of convicted Ponzi schemer Nevin Shapiro – to circumvent NCAA rules in the recruiting of multiple Miami-area players, Yahoo! Sports has learned.

Golden, hired by Miami in mid-December 2010, had direct knowledge of Allen's improper involvement with Miami recruits, according to a former Hurricanes athletic department staffer and federal testimony given by Allen in Shapiro's bankruptcy case.

There is evidence. A lot of it. Most of it consists of phone records between Allen and various recruits and/or Miami assistants; the rest is federal testimony from the Nevin Shapiro thing. Al Golden rejects this reality and substitutes his own ...

"I have been a college football coach for more than 18 years and I am proud of -- and I stand by -- my record of compliance over that span," Golden said in a statement. "As my colleagues and players on all of my teams can attest, I believe strongly in doing things the right way with the best of intentions. ...

"The inferences and suggestions in the Yahoo! Sports story that my conduct was anything but ethical are simply false."

.... probably because the idea of stepping into an epic violations-fest and continuing said violations-fest is pretty much incomprehensible. Y U DO THAT?

The best-case scenario here is that this is Butch Davis-type stuff, by which I mean Golden was unaware that a couple of his assistant coaches were living totally outside the realm of the NCAA and using a recently fired guy as an "off-the-books recruiter" for eight months at the exact same time as a related investigation into one of the most ridiculously massive extra-benefits scandals in the history of ever. The worst-case scenario here is that this is SMU without the cash but with some benefits of various degrees. "Major violations? Meh. Continue."

Hey, remember when "death-penalty-worthy stuff" was descriptive of things like program-approved benefits/violations layered on top of previous benefits/violations rather than, like, child rape? Good times.

Jim Delany gets ALL OF THE POWER (not really)

This is the headline on every story about the Big Ten's allegedly insane rules proposals:

Big Ten Commissioner Wants To Have Power To Fire Coaches

This is accurate only in the most general sense, and by "accurate only in the most general sense" I mean "not very accurate." The proposal itself is hidden behind a Chronicle of Higher Education paywall (and thus totally hidden) but is summarized on the organization's website as follows:

The idea comes from an 18-page proposal being circulated among Big Ten leaders on the heels of the Penn State scandal. The proposal, which has not been approved by the league, would give the commissioner and a group of powerful presidents the authority to penalize, suspend, or terminate the employment of coaches whose behavior damages the league’s reputation.

Note the first eight words of the bolded-for-emphasis portion: "the commissioner and a group of powerful presidents." The formation of a God-like committee that includes Jim Delany is not the same as "DELANY WANTS TO BE GOD."

And my understanding -- based on the various quotes circulating from Big Ten athletic directors -- is that the commissioner/committee wouldn't have unilateral firing power but would have some sort of disciplinary power that would resemble the NCAA's (the NCAA's version of employment authority: a show-cause that doesn't technically represent a termination but makes the employee in question all but unemployable). Said quotes (or summaries of said quotes):

Minnesota President Eric Kaler said he doubts that individual schools would be willing to give up control to the conference on such an issue of firing a coach.

"A lot of things have been discussed, but I have not been party to any conversation that would suggest the commissioner would have unilateral power to fire coaches," (Michigan athletic director Dave) Brandon told the AP. "That's kind of out of left field, and I don't think the commissioner would want that kind of power."

Illini athletic director Mike Thomas called the proposal "a work in progress." Thomas wasn't prepared to endorse the idea of coaches or other officials potentially being fired by the commissioner.

So yeah. The plan/intent is not to make Jim Delany omnipotent.

That said, there is/was a potentially horrifying subsection ...

In the event of a major incident that "significantly harmed the reputation of the league," the commissioner would be able to take matters into his own hands. ...

In certain circumstances requiring "immediate and decisive action," the commissioner would have unilateral authority to "take any and all actions" in the best interest of the Big Ten.

... that (a) the Big Ten has already publicly backed away from and (b) would be totally unnecessary anyway. As far as I can tell, there's never been an event in Big Ten history that would've warranted the implementation of martial commissioner-al law; nobody knew about the Penn State thing until everybody knew, at which point everybody involved was fired immediately and whatever power had been granted to the almighty overseer would've been rendered irrelevant. The only power that would be relevant here would be the power to remove/suspend Penn State from the conference entirely, which currently requires eight votes, but I can't imagine a scenario in which half (or more) of the conference presidents would veto something massive like that and Delany would approve it anyway (keep in mind that his employment status is determined by the presidents as a collective).

As for the committee's usefulness, I also can't really envision a scenario in which a show-cause-type penalty for a still-employed coach would be necessary since the coaches who "damage the league's reputation" to the extent that devastating penalties are appropriate just don't survive. Evidence: Joe Paterno got fired. No other evidence necessary.

In summary, something something barn door something horses. I think the idea here is to feel warm and fuzzy about an adequate contingency plan that probably will never be needed except maybe in the event of that one thing that already happened and kinda necessitated said contingency plan. My level of concern about a potential abuse of power in the event of something totally horrifying: close to zero. It's so close to zero that I can't believe I just wrote/typed 700 words about it, thus limiting the time I'll have this evening to question Al Golden's sanity.

Catching up plays in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl

Obligatory Penn State mention: Mark Emmert is saying ominous things about (insert team here) Penn State that kinda/sorta give the impression that (a) he gets it and (b) hoo boy this could be really bad for Penn State:

The president of the NCAA says he isn't ruling out the possibility of shutting down the Penn State football program in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

In a PBS interview Monday night, NCAA President Mark Emmert said he doesn't want to "take anything off the table" if the NCAA determines penalties against Penn State are warranted.

Emmert said he's "never seen anything as egregious as this in terms of just overall conduct and behavior inside a university. ...

"This is completely different than an impermissible benefits scandal like (what) happened at SMU, or anything else we've dealt with. This is as systemic a cultural problem as it is a football problem."

And the nut graf (in quote form):

"There have been people that said this wasn't a football scandal. Well, it was more than a football scandal, much more than a football scandal. It was that but much more. And we'll have to figure out exactly what the right penalties are. I don't know that past precedent makes particularly good sense in this case, because it's really an unprecedented problem."

The bolded-for-emphasis comments there indicate a pretty obvious stance on jurisdiction ("a football scandal ... but much more") and a pretty obvious stance on the irrelevance of precedence from one of the few guys whose stances on said things actually matter. I still don't think the death penalty (the freakin' death penalty!) is likely but can't totally dismiss it at this point.

BTW, Penn State president Rodney Erickson said Tuesday that he's "already started the process of starting to compose that response" now that he's consulted with a team of 873 lawyers and will have a response finished "over the course of the next few days." Whether that response will include any proposed penalties is unknown. Also unknown: What the NCAA's timeline will look like with an investigation already having been done for them. I'm no Michael Buckner but have to believe that the scenario in which Penn State doesn't field a team this year (or doesn't get to play nonconference games or whatever) is a pretty unlikely one considering that the season starts in, like, a month.

And one more: The important people in important positions within the Big Ten are considering this-is-serious-stuff-guys consequences:

The Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting Big Ten leaders are weighing a series of proposals in an 18-page plan prompted by the current situation at Penn State. Among the ideas being thrown around include removing the university from the conference.

The Big Ten handbook requires at least a 60 percent vote from the league's Council of Presidents and Chancellors to expel a member, although a Big Ten spokesperson told the Chronicle that number will rise to 70 percent for 2012-13.

Add this to the "unlikely but can't be totally dismissed" category.

We must protect this house: The likelihood of the bowl-eligibility threshold shifting from six wins to seven has gone from "high-ish" to "basically zero." This is from Jim Delany ...

"I thought there was an emerging situation among all the conferences to move it to 7-5. And what I've learned in the last 30-60 days is that a number of the major conferences are wanting to keep it at six. If that's the case, that's probably where it'll stay. It's the major conferences that will be losing slots as a result of going to seven. It's status quo, 6-6, unless there's a compromise." 

... and this is from Football Bowl Association director Wright Waters ...

Waters said that several conferences, after consulting with their ADs and presidents late this spring, didn't want to reduce the pool of bowl teams by increasing the demands to get there. Major conferences that have recently expanded, such as the SEC and Big 12, have reservations about changing a rule that would send fewer of its teams bowling.

Of course they do; it's sooooo important that Missouri be eligible for the Craptacular City Bowl after inevitably going 3-6 in SEC play (insert "Texas Tech" in place of "Missouri" and "Big 12" in place of "SEC" if west of the Mississippi).

Horrifying tidbit from CBS Sports: 19.2 percent of all bowl teams the last two years went 6-6. That's almost 20 percent!!! UGHGHGH. The bottom 10 or so bowls are leeching off the relevant-but-thoroughly-mediocre teams in order to sustain their collective existence; that's lame but won't stop as long as the relevant-but-thoroughly-mediocre support said existence in order to sell some crappy t-shirts, create a witty hashtag and claim "SEASON: SUCCESS."

Possible mitigating factor: The conferences' takeover of some bowl TV rights and (in the case of the Champions Bowl) ticket guarantees might eventually extend to the bottom-of-the-barrel bowls, at which point the leeching will no longer be an issue. The only issue at that point will be an ROI one: It'll be up to the conferences to decide whether it's worth the cost to put on a game featuring one 6-6 team playing another 6-6 team in front of 23,000 people in Albuquerque.

Bye bye, Ray-Ray: The spectacularly named and always entertaining Ray-Ray Armstrong is done at Miami:

The controversial career of Ray-Ray Armstrong is officially over at the University of Miami.

The school announced the star safety's dismissal from the football program in a news release Wednesday morning. The statement said Armstrong had the option to remain at the university under scholarship or transfer with a full release of his scholarship. UM gave no specific reason for the dismissal.

Armstrong was one of the Nevin Shapiro dudes and thus was suspended for four games at the start of last year; he also sat out the Florida State game after a dinner-paid-for-by-a-friendly-agent thing. In between, he was pretty good: He was nominally a backup but had 34 tackles and a pick after racking up 79 and three as a sophomore starter. And he would've started again this year with JoJo Nicolas gone; talent was never an issue.

The issue: He's only got a year of eligibility left and can't stop doing stupid things. If you're thinking "Alabama State," I'm thinking "you're right."

As for Miami, there will be a drop-off (of some degree) at strong safety; seniors with legit NFL talent and a year and a half of starting(-ish) experience aren't entirely replaceable. A.J. Highsmith is a junior who arrived with some recruiting hype, has accumulated a whopping 12 tackles in two years and probably will take over the starting job by default. Good news: The secondary as a whole will probably be fine with Vaughn Telemaque being Vaughn Telemaque and Brandon McGee holding down one of the corner spots. It's also worth noting that Miami won't be winning anything of significance this year, which makes trying to determine an exact WAR-type value for a now-departed senior a relatively pointless endeavor.

Going to class is necessary (even at Alabama): Duron Carter -- probably better known as the son of Cris Carter -- left Alabama this week for reasons unknown. An amazing and academically blissful history: Carter went to Ohio State as a relatively big-time recruit in  '09, had 13 catches as a true freshman, flunked out, went to Coffeyville Community College for a year, transferred to Alabama, was academically ineligible last year and might have been academically ineligible for the fall (Alabama's not saying and never will now that he's gone).

He reportedly wants to transfer to Florida Atlantic and get a waiver to play immediately, which ... ummm ... good luck with that (barring some unknown family crisis, which is basically what's required for most waiver approvals). And a waiver wouldn't be relevant if he's academically ineligible; that's an NCAA guideline that applies everywhere. Maybe there's more to the story; we'll presumably find out.

FYI, he has two years of eligibility left (but no redshirts if he can't play this year).

The Big East has money but no (relevant) teams: WOO BIG EAST LAW-TALKIN' GUYS. First was this ...

The Big East reached an agreement Monday with Syracuse University, allowing the Orange to leave the league a year early for the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Syracuse announced last fall its intention to join the ACC, but under Big East bylaws the school needed to serve a 27-month exit period. Instead, the Orange will now be allowed to leave on July 1, 2013 and will have to pay a fee of $7.5 million to depart. That's $2.5 million more than specified in the conference bylaws.

... and then this ...

Pittsburgh's bitter breakup with the Big East finally has an official separation date.

Pitt and the conference announced Wednesday that the school will pay $7.5 million to join Syracuse in leaving the Big East for the Atlantic Coast Conference on July 1, 2013.

... and then this:

The Big East dropped its lawsuit against TCU on Wednesday and will receive the $5 million it was seeking from the school after it bailed out on a commitment to join the conference, according to a report by The Associated Press.

Upshot: Pitt, Syracuse and TCU have their freedom and the Big East has (or will have) $20 million. I'll tell ya what I'd do with $20 million, man:


I'd do nothing. Obvsly.

Onside kicks not so much: The rule change of interest back in February was the kickoff-related one (kickoffs are moving to the 35 and touchbacks are moving to the 25, which will seem totally insane for about six weeks). This change generated zero publicity at the time but is ... ummm ... interesting:

After a kickoff hits the ground — specifically on a one-hop onside kick — the receiving team gets an opportunity to fair catch that ball. "A lot of our coaches," Shaw said, "have said that will almost take that one-hop (onside) kick out of the game."

Whaaaaa? That Shaw guy (SEC coordinator of officials Steve Shaw) is right: That will almost take the onside kick out of the game. The "almost" qualifier is only necessary in that it might be tough to make a fair-catch signal on an unexpected onside kick that's gonna go from foot to an unsuspecting player in the span of about a second. But the expected onside kicks will now rest entirely on the hopes of a crazy bounce off a receiving-team player, something that does happen occassionaly but will probably happen with less frequency given the option of zero kicking-team interference. Perfect assessment:

Eliminating onside kicks, which happen maybe once a game, is sacrificing that small element of "what if" that goes through your head and sometimes comes to spectacular fruition so that a maximum of twelve plays a year are marginally less dangerous.

Yup. Boo-urns.

A totally accurate summary of SEC media days

There are media days. Ohhhhhh there are media days; so many media days. They really serve no purpose other than to provide the requisite quotes for the fluff-tastic previews that will fill the ether between now and six weeks from now (!!!) and thus must be taken very seriously.

This is exactly what happened today (in my mind):

Kevin Sumlin: "Coachspeak coachspeak coachspeak coachspeak. Exciting coachspeak. Up-tempo coachspeak. Coachspeak coachspeak coachspeak coachspeak coachspeak coachspeak coachspeak coachspeak coachspeak coachspeak coachspeak coachspeak coachspeak coachspeak coachspeak coachspeak."

Les Miles: "Gox in socks. Pancakes. Roller derby. Gunner Kiel rabble rabble. HAHAHA! Any questions?"

John L. Smith:


Nick Saban: /holds mind-blowingly smug smirk for 12 consecutive minutes without blinking or breathing or showing any visible signs of human life.

James Franklin: "I just saw Erin Andrews. Nice."

Steve Spurrier: "Ole Miss blows." /outsmirks Nick Saban

Mark Richt: "I'm not Mitt Romney and strongly resent your implications otherwise."


Gene Chizik: /drops Bobby Lowder's checkbook
/picks up checkbook
/runs from dais

Will Muschamp: "AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! I JUST ATE KEVIN SUMLIN'S FACE!!!"

Derek Dooley: /fired

Gary Pinkel: "Tee hee hee." /passes out

Hugh Freeze: "Aaaand YOU get an offer and YOU get an offer and YOU get an offer and YOU get an offer and YOU get an offer and YOU get an offer and YOU get an offer and YOU get an offer and YOU get an offer and YOU get an offer."

Dan Mullen: "Thank the Lord I didn't take that Penn State job, amirite?"

Joker Phillips: "..."

Moderator: "Thank y'all for coming. Enjoy Hoover (pffffft)."

Probably the greatest EDSBS post ever

Todd Graham. NCAA '13. EDSBS. There's really nothing more to be said.

We attempted to simulate being current Arizona State coach and former Pitt, Tulsa, and Rice coach Todd Graham. The rules were simple: we would make every promise to every recruit possible. In these promises, we would lean on "coaching stability" and "coaching prestige" even when it made absolutely no sense to do so. Finally, at the end of the season, we would openly lobby for other jobs whenever possible, and then take the first job we could take no matter the terms or situation.

Perfect. This goes exactly as awesomely as expected ...

As you can see, NCAA 2013 knows exactly what's up with Todd Graham and ASU's rep. Still ...

... you haters will never know until you try, and that's why you're haters. BELIEVE! 

... and ends almost as awesomely as possible (no spoiler alert necessary):

Amazingly, the expectations were so low going into the season that Graham rides high at a 63% security ranking, just behind Lane Kiffin and ahead of almost every other coach in the conference.

With job security like this, and the Todd Graham Protocol engaged, it can be time for only one thing. 

Click here. DO IT.

You stay humble, Charlie Weis

Just Weis bein' Weis:

"Brady (Quinn) could have been a starting quarterback for me in the NFL," Weis told Rustin Dodd. "Go back and look at those numbers for the two years he played for me. He was great. He wasn't good. And I know if I had him as a quarterback, I would have felt very comfortable that I could have won no matter where we were."

Obviously. Strategic advantage and all that. To recap:

“They’re going to have to learn about us, OK? Let them try to stop a pro-style offense, which has multiple personnel groups and multiple formations. Let’s see how they are going to do. They’ve had their advantage because I’ve come into recruiting late. Well, now it’s X’s and O’s time. Let’s see who has the advantage now.”

"So let me just say people better enjoy it now, have their fun now.”

“Every game, you will have a decided schematic advantage.”

“No one will want a piece of us in 2009.”

“I’ve never lost to Pete Carroll and I’m not gonna start now.”

Charlie Weis: So much humility in such a hilariously ginormous package.

The Big Ten will just play by itself then

A moderately interesting and sad-face-inducing news-type thing came out Friday and thus was overlooked amid the PENN STATE OUTRAGE: The Big Ten-Pac-12 scheduling dealie that was supposed to start in 2017 will instead start never.

Details from ESPN:

The scheduling partnership between the Pac-12 and Big Ten won't happen after all.

The conferences said Friday that their agreement, announced in December and set to begin in 2017, has been called off because of football scheduling issues involving several Pac-12 schools. A round-robin football schedule, featuring 12 games per year between Big Ten and Pac-12 teams, had been the cornerstone of the pact, though it also included elements involving other sports and the two leagues' television networks.

Reaction: Lame. And I can't even blame Jim Delany since it was the Pac-12 that apparently didn't vest this thing and then had to back out after a bunch of members (and by "a bunch of members" I mostly mean "USC and Stanford and possibly Utah") bitched about it:

ESPN.com has learned that the Pac-12 approached the Big Ten in March and said several of its members had reservations about a mandatory scheduling agreement. The main problem: The Pac-12 currently plays nine league games per season, while the Big Ten plays only eight. Pac-12 members such as USC and Stanford, who both also have annual games against Notre Dame, would have added a Big Ten opponent to an already taxing slate.

The leagues worked on several models, including an initial agreement featuring 10 or 11 games a year in 2017-20 with the idea eventually to reach 12. ... All Big Ten schools were on board with the collaboration.

At least four Pac-12 schools ultimately decided they would not accept mandatory scheduling, ESPN.com has learned. One proposal called for eight matchups per year, featuring the willing Pac-12 schools, but the Big Ten wanted a complete collaboration or none at all.

Argh. The nine-game thing is a legitimate hindrance but probably not as much of one as the desire to be uber picky in nonconference play; USC used to have a big-time-ish nonconference opponent on the schedule every year but has scaled back to play Minnesota and the like for the past couple years, and Stanford's nonconference schedules of late have been Wisconsin-esque (Sacramento State, San Jose State, Wake Forest and Duke just rotate between the three sacrificial-lamb spots). The story also mentions Utah's deal with BYU, which would be of note if it didn't end after 2016 and become totally irrelevant (pending an unlikely renewal) to the Big Ten proposal.

So yeah ... playing Notre Dame/BYU, Cupcake State and Cupcake Tech apparently is preferable to playing just one school from the Cupcake system and one Big Ten school of a variable difficulty level. Insert standard complaint here about scheduling/money. Fans rabble rabble money rabble. At least they've got the nine-game-schedule thing goin' on.

Related good news (!) ahoy:

If the agreement moves from "suspended" to "scrapped" -- and that seems likely, considering the reason this thing is off the table is the Pac-12's desire to maintain a nine-game season -- then it's possible the Big Ten will add a game to its current eight-game league season.

Keep in mind the league already agreed to expand to a nine-game conference schedule by 2017 in August, although the plan was tabled after the Pac-12 agreement surfaced in December.

Delany said in May he would still favor adding a ninth Big Ten game if it weren't for that agreement.

"You know, if we hadn’t done the collaboration, we’d do nine," Delany said of the Big Ten's league slate. "If we do the collaboration, we’ll do eight. So, we’re able to attract a higher quality of game. We’re not expanding the number of games, we’ll still play 12.

"The question is, are you gonna play eight quality conference games and assure there’s a ninth quality game in the mix, one way or the other? ... The idea was to upgrade the quality of the schedules, either through nine or through the collaboration.”

That last sentence is the whole thing summarized in a ... umm ... sentence. I'd prefer the variety and national interest generated by a Pac-12 rotation/assortment but would be fine with an expanded Big Ten schedule that would allow more games with Penn State (assuming Penn State still exists) and Wisconsin and the like. Most of the Big Ten presumably feels the same way; there are only so many MAC-rifices you can put on the schedule before people stop shelling out a bajillion dollars for season tickets. I mean ...

IOWA 2012 FOOTBALL SCHEDULE

Sat, Sept. 1 vs. Northern Illinois*
Sat, Sept. 8 vs. Iowa State
Sat, Sept. 15 vs. Northern Iowa
Sat, Sept. 22 vs. Central Michigan

... yeah. Two MAC schools + one FCS school + one nominal BCS-conference rival that might go .500 =/= TICKETS PLZ.

A little more on that from MGoBlog:

I'm guessing everyone outside of the Purdue/Northwestern/Other Teams For Whom Bowl Eligibility Is A Big Deal athletic departments is in favor of expanding the conference schedule again, and even teams who frequently find themselves on the bowl eligibility bubble seem to be less desperate for their minor prestige these days. Unfortunately, I can't find it anymore but there was an article in which Northwestern said they were in favor of moving the bowl eligibility line to 7-5.

If you don't care about getting to your very-likely-unprofitable bowl game when you''re not that good, then it's just a matter of figuring out what's more likely to sell tickets: a Big Ten game or the #3 nonconference game you can scrounge up.

Yup. Hooray for real* (read: competitive) games that mean something.

*The added benefit of having more relevant games: The divisional races will be WAY more balanced. The current arrangement, with one locked-in cross-divisional game each year, has Michigan playing Ohio State every year and Michigan State playing Indiana every year. Advantage much? The same goes for Wisconsin (in whatever the division is that includes Ohio State) getting Minnesota. Adding one more cross-divisional game to the schedule across the board will mitigate a lot of that inequality.