Denard, Usain Bolt and a bunch of math

So Denard (there's only one) made a seemingly-not-very-serious comment at Michigan's media day thing over the weekend that he could take Usain Bolt in the 40. Here's the exact quote:

"I've watched him run, and I'm pretty sure I can beat him in a 40-yard dash," Robinson said at Michigan's media day on Sunday. "I'd get a better start, and I could take him.

"At 60 yards, I'd be in trouble, and at 100 meters, he'd be gone, but I could get him in a 40."

This has resulted in people all over the internet being stupid since that's what people on the internet do. I do not like stupidity and prefer numbers, so I went seeking numbers and will now use them to produce a guesstimation (of undetermined value) as to whether Usain Bolt would only probably beat Denard in the 40 or would totally destroy him in the 40. The baseline hypothesis will be the latter since ... I mean ... obviously.

Disclaimer: I am not a physicist. But I do have a pretty good idea of how to work with numbers and like to actually use numbers/data rather than just making blanket statements that defy all logic because MORAN RABBLE. I also stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. So yeah.

There are basically two things to figure out. The first: How fast would/does Usain Bolt run the 40? The second: How fast would/does Denard run the 40? Figuring out the question(s) isn't difficult.

Let me start with this: Usain Bolt is very fast. He is the fastest man in the world at 100 meters and 200 meters and everything in between. He also isn't a great starter, which is backed up by the IAAF splits from the the last two Olympics. I haven't been able to find a 40-yard split (rather than a 40-meter one) from London, but I've got the raw numbers and can therefore produce a reasonably accurate one.

I'll even show the math. To start with, the Olympics people use meters and not yards; 40 meters obviously isn't the same as 40 yards, so some translation is necessary. Since a yard is 0.9114 meters, 40 yards is 36.576 meters. That's the distance we're looking at for an estimated 40-yard split. As for time, his 40-meter split won't do much good since that'd be too big; what I'm gonna do is start with his 30-meter split (3.765 seconds) and then get an as-close-as-possible time for the last 6.576 meters.

The IIAF numbers show he went from the 30-meter mark to the 40-meter mark in .87 seconds, but it's not realistic to use that number to calculate an average for only the first 6.576 meters because he was accelerating throughout; for reference, he ran the previous 10 meters in .90 seconds. Since I don't remember the calculus to get an exact acceleration number, I'm gonna figure that about the first half of an overall 0.87 split -- which, again, came right after a 0.90 split -- was run at an extrapolated 0.885 seconds. I realize that's not perfectly accurate, either, but it's the best I can do given my decade of removal from graphing calculators and whatnot, so that's the number we'll use to get a time for those 6.576 meters (again, this is a guesstimation since Bolt wasn't actually running the 40).

So if his extrapolated time for that subsection of the larger 30-to-40-meter section was 0.885 seconds, he'd have run those first 6.576 meters in 0.5819 seconds. And when added to his 30-meter time, that produces a 40-yard (not 40-meter) time of ... 4.347 seconds.

Given that Speed Endurance had previously calculated his Beijing split at 4.35, I'm satisfied with that as a realistic result. Bolt has been running the 40 (as part of the 100) in about 4.35 seconds.

BTW, this ESPN Radio guy is unequivocally wrong when he says Bolt could run a 3.73 hand-timed 40. No. The IAAF actually includes reaction times in the splits, and Bolt's was only 0.165 seconds; subtract that from his estimated time and you get about a 4.19 (more on that momentarily), so unless the guy doing the timing was drunk and/or full of Vicodin, the result would not be anything close to a 3.73 under any circumstances.

But here's the thing: Denard has never run an "official" 40, although his undoubtedly fake reported time coming out of high school was a 4.32. He also ran track his first couple years at Michigan, but he only ran the 60 meters and doesn't have publicly available splits since there aren't 7,000 cameras and IIAF monitors at a Big Ten track meet.

Could he run a 4.35? Probably. Chris Johnson ran a 4.24 at the combine back in '08, and freakin' 15 guys have run an official 4.3 flat or faster in the last dozen years. There's obviously a significant difference between the 40 and the 100; just take a look at those Bolt splits and realize that he reaches top speed at about 60 meters and then doesn't slow down at all until about the 90-meter mark.

But there's also a difference in timing, as mentioned above: The combine 40 times are electronic but are based on first movement, which eliminates reaction time. Cut reaction time off of Bolt's time and you get a probably-not-attainable-for-a-football-player 4.19 seconds. But (but but but) sprinters also use starting blocks; the guys at the combine don't. Those are obviously of some acceleration value that I can't calculate or even find, but it's not unreasonable to assume that they produce 0.1 seconds of an advantage (just imagine the hilarious unfairness if one of the eight guys in the 100-meter finals didn't get to use blocks).

With no better number to go off of, let's just use that as a ballpark figure for the blocks advantage and add it to Bolt's not-including-reaction-time number of 4.19 to try to replicate combine conditions. The result: 4.29. I feel pretty comfortable saying that his 40 time, in combine conditions and based solely on his 100-meter history, would be somewhere between 4.29 and the above-cited 4.35, give or take a couple hundredths of a second. So that's that.

Speaking of the 100-meter thing, Matt Hinton is a great writer but, IMO, kinda missed the point when he wrote this earlier today:

But even if you do fall for the superhuman times attributed to football players, the comparison to elite sprinters falls apart when you consider how much faster the latter could potentially cover that distance if they trained specifically for it, as football players do before the combine. ...

If Robinson and Bolt raced head-to-head, Robinson would likely fare much better over the first 40 yards of a 100-meter sprint than in a straight-up 40-yard sprint. But no coach anywhere would give him decent odds of actually winning at any significant distance.

The first sentence of that second graf is wrong. Bolt isn't pacing himself for the first 40 meters of the 100; he's just not nearly as fast out of the blocks as he is once he gets his gazelle legs going. That won't change regardless of whether it's a 40-yard dash or the first 40 of the 100, which is why Bolt actually specialized in the 200 before doing both.

As for the last sentence, that's exactly what Denard said: There's no way he'd beat him at 60 meters (Denard's best time of about a 6.81 would be almost a half-second back of Bolt's split of 6.45), and it wouldn't even be close at 100 meters (duh). The distance in question is 40 yards (which Bolt doesn't train for), and going back to the hypothesis-type thing toward the top of this post, a 40 time somewhere in the 4.29-4.35 range would definitely not fall into the "totally destroy him" category. It might even fall into the "lose to him" category, which was not what I expected when I started this exercise.

Unless I'm significantly off on some of my numbers, the fastest of the fast of the NFL dudes, most of whom ran short-distance track in college, could at least challenge Bolt and the other elite 100-meter guys in a one-off 40-yard dash. Justin Gatlin would probably back me up: The guy won gold in the 100 in '04 and won bronze last week and ran a 4.42 at the '08 combine in between, which provides a little reasonable-ness to my calculations above. Gatlin is world-class fast in the 100 and ran a 40 time that wouldn't have been among the top five at any combine in the last decade.

Whether Denard is one of those aforementioned fastest-of-the-fast guys isn't entirely certain without a 40 time, but Mythbusters would call this one plausible. Bolt probably would not. Either way, I'd be down to watch* and would even be willing to contribute to the Dave Brandon Memorial Give Michigan All Of Your Money Fund to do so.

*I'd even watch the two of 'em in the 100 just to have my mind blown by the reality of Denard looking like Rich Eisen.

Catching up isn't really in SEC country

The other poll: According to Jon Wilner, the Associated Press (which hasn't yet released its entirely meaningless poll but has already collected ballots) is requesting new and still-entirely-meaningless ballots following the Tyrann Mathieu crap. The deadline is Monday; expect a new poll Tuesday or Wednesday that will probably look almost identical to the coaches' one except with LSU third, which means Alabama will probably be first and USC will probably be second. The other one was close enough that even a couple votes here and there with LSU at No. 3 will be sufficient to make that happen.

On a related note: Mathieu apparently is going to one of the HBCUs and therefore the FCS:

Former LSU cornerback and 2011 Heisman Trophy finalist Tyrann Mathieu is considering enrolling at McNeese State, a source told ESPN on Saturday.

Former LSU kicker Josh Jasper caused a stir when he tweeted that Mathieu had already transferred to McNeese State, where he could play immediately, but that is not the case, sources said.

Mathieu also is considering Jackson State and Prairie View A&M after ruling out Southern because he wants to leave Baton Rouge.

Whateva. He'll probably be an FCS All-American but will be of no real interest until next April, when somebody takes him in the middle of the draft and ESPN shows all the videos that remind of what he was/should have been.

UCLA gets it over with: The moderately entertaining Kevin Prince era ended Friday when Jim Mora Jr. decided to stop pretending that there's a legitimate quarterback competition at UCLA:

What was clear about freshman Brett Hundley on the field is now official on the UCLA depth chart. He is the Bruins’ No. 1 quarterback.

Hundley, who sat out as a redshirt last season, was told Friday he would be UCLA’s starting quarterback, the school announced. He will assume that role the next time the Bruins take the field.

Hundley would've started last year if he knew the offense; UCLA instead redshirted him (which will be really nice in 2015) and gave Prince and Richard Brehaut a chance to stop being totally mediocre, which played out pretty much as expected.

FYI, Hundley was a relatively big-time recruit who's a dual-threat-ish guy at 6-foot-3 and about 220. I saw him in high school a couple times; he's got legit talent. UCLA might have a decent offense between Hundley and Johnathan Franklin, although Hundley's gonna have to create a lot on his own in the passing game given that only Shaq Evans returns from last year's top four wideouts (Nelson Rosario, Josh Smith and Taylor Embree have all graduated). Regardless, getting him some meaningful snaps in anticipation of being competitive a couple years from now makes a lot more sense than letting Prince get injured again play out the string for a team headed for an inevitable 6-6 finish.

Classic Kiffin: So ... Lane Kiffin hadn't done anything really obnoxious in a while and was kinda drifting to the back of the unlikeable-coaches pack until this happened:

Earlier this week, Kiffin said he "would not vote" the Trojans No. 1 overall when told that Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez mentioned he did. When USA Today caught wind of Kiffin's comments, the newspaper revealed Kiffin did vote USC No. 1, citing his providing of "false or misleading information" to the public and a desire to "set the record straight to protect the poll's integrity."

USA Today FTW. And blatantly lying (which was totally unnecessary anyway) apparently wasn't sufficient; USC released a response Thursday that called the USA Today story "disappointing," and Kiffin answered the inevitable follow-up questions Friday by bitching about an invasion of privacy that was only necessary because of a non-lack of through-his-teeth lies:

"Nothing stays private," he said. "This didn't stay private. They say it does, but it doesn't." 

That's clearly the problem. Only Lane Kiffin (and probably Nick Saban) would respond to getting caught in a flat-out lie by complaining about the ethics of the person/organization doing said catching. Derps gonna derp.

The Penn State awfulness: The Penn State trustees who aren't complete morons have had enough of being grouped together with the ones who are and would like to put an end to all the appeal nonsense:

The Penn State University board of trustees will hold a special meeting Sunday and is expected to formally ratify the consent decree of sanctions agreed to last month by university president Rodney Erickson and the NCAA, "Outside the Lines" has learned.

Board chairwoman Karen Peetz called the meeting "so that there can be no misunderstanding as to where we as the board stand."

The resolution the board will consider states "the process followed by the (NCAA) was unfortunate and the punitive sanctions are difficult," and refers to the consent decree as "binding."

The outcome of Sunday's meeting seems almost certain, sources told "Outside the Lines," because two straw polls about whether to appeal the sanctions were taken by a quorum of trustees during a conference call Tuesday.

Clarifying that the four noobs who are promising a federal lawsuit (which would go nowhere anyway based on the Jerry Tarkanian ruling back in 1988) do not represent the board as a whole seems like a pretty wise move, which would be the first of those by anybody at Penn State in a while.

It seems to me that the only real debate is whether Erickson, as the interim school president, had the authority to sign the NCAA's consent degree without board approval. That's undoubtedly an interesting legal discussion to be had between a bunch of guys making $1,000 an hour but is purely a Penn State issue that has no bearing whatsoever on the NCAA (unless he didn't have that authority, in which case Mark Emmert could either unilaterally impose the planned four-year death penalty and let Penn State deal with it or offer the same settlement package and let the Board of Trustees vote on it). There is no scenario in which this gets better for Penn State.

Speaking of which:

Both the FBI and a criminal investigative division of the United States Postal Service are looking into the possible existence of a pedophile ring that involved Jerry Sandusky sharing boys with other men connected to Penn State.

Sandusky was recently convicted on 45 counts of child sexual abuse. "Investigators have interviewed at least one man who claims to have knowledge of Sandusky and a very prominent man, with strong ties to Penn State, both sexually abusing a boy." 

Ughghgh. I didn't think it was possible for The Stuff to get significantly worse; I was wrong. I don't even know what the reaction/result would be if it turns out Sandusky was in fact involved in a child sex ring featuring major donors/boosters, which is what the story implies. The death penalty would be guaranteed but not even relevant since the Department of Education and Department of Justice would decimate the university entirely. I don't even know what else to say except that I hope (for the sake of the people allegedly involved) that the details in that story aren't accurate. Sadly, they probably are.

Alabama loses a couple guys: Alabama lost one guy permanently and one guy temporarily this week. The first:

Alabama freshman wide receiver Chris Black will have shoulder surgery and miss 3-4 months.

Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban said Black was injured in Sunday's open practice at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

Black was one of the top five-ish receiver recruits in the country last year but wasn't high on the depth chart (he was even with a couple other freshmen on the third unit) despite the fact that both Darius Hankins and Marquis Maze have shuffled off the eligibility coil. Kenny Bell, DeAndrew White, Kevin Norwood and Christion Jones should be the four guys getting regular playing time on the outside; Black might have been of some value in the slot but won't really be missed this year. 

The second:

Travell Dixon has decided to leave Alabama Crimson Tide for family reasons. The junior college transfer from East Arizona Community College confirmed to TideNation his intent to transfer.

Dixon's loss is slightly more significant: He was a highly touted juco guy and thus was expected to contribute right away, being listed second to Dee Milliner at one of the corner spots going into camp. Deion Belue, another juco guy, is gonna start at the other spot, but after him, there's only one other corner with any experience on the roster (junior John Fulton). The depth is somewhat lacking. Alabama's pass D will probably still be respectable or something.

Louisville ouch: One of Louisville's top wideouts is done for the year:

Louisville wide receiver Michaelee Harris will miss the season after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.

Coach Charlie Strong said Harris was injured in practice Thursday.

Harris tore his right ACL in December and had been attempting to fully recover in time for the season opener against Kentucky on Sept. 2.

Yeesh. Somebody get that guy a knee, stat.

Anyway, Harris had 37 catches for 455 yards and two touchdowns last year, which made him the obvious No. 1 guy heading into camp. The other projected starters coming out of spring were Scott Radcliff on the outside and Devante Parker in the slot; sophomore-to-be Eli Rogers had gotten bumped down the depth chart (despite putting up a pretty comparable 41 catches for 454 yards and a TD last year) and will likely just move over to Harris' spot, so the drop-off shouldn't be massive. It will still be something since Harris was the only unquestioned starter at the position throughout the offseason.

It's probably worth noting that Louisville was voted at media day as the favorite (by a lot) in the not-very-good Big East.

SEC woooo: Auburn freshman Jovon Williams, a top-100(-ish)-overall guy and a top-10-ish running back, may or may not have actually done anything in high school:

Auburn freshman running back Jovon Robinson is being held out of practice while the NCAA investigates allegations that his high school transcript was falsified.

Memphis City Schools said in a statement that NCAA officials contacted the school district Tuesday regarding allegations involving a former Wooddale High School athlete. The statement said schools superintendent Kriner Cash ordered an immediate investigation when a school guidance counselor resigned after admitting to creating the fake transcript.

Oh. OK then. I'm totally shocked that this happened at a Memphis school. This is my shocked face:

Anyway, it seems reasonable to assume that Robinson is gonna end up ineligible and therefore not at Auburn. Outside of losing a talented guy who might have been in line to start in a couple years, the damage should be minimal. This year's carries will presumably go largely to some combination of Onterio McCalebb, the not-quite-as-tiny Tre Mason and Florida transfer Mike Blakely, who sat out last season but was a relatively big-time recruit a year and a half ago. In the event that the ball needs to go to somebody who weighs more than 120 pounds, Corey Grant will probably be the guy.

And the down-the-road depth chart won't be totally lacking, either. Auburn already has four-star Jordan Wilkins in the 2013 class and is probably the favorite for borderline five-star guy Greg Bryant, who recently decommitted from Oklahoma.

So yeah: The Robinson story is probably more amusing from an "lol SEC" standpoint than it is from a meaningful-for-Auburn standpoint.

Oh that's OK I didn't want to watch anyway: The Pac-12 Network(s) acknowledged Friday that they probably won't have any deals in place with satellite providers by the start of the season.

"I don't expect all of them will be on at launch. I do believe that as we talk about our content over time, our fans that are customers of those distributors will get what they want."

Translation: Be prepared for lengthy negotiations that could easily last until next year, which is exactly what happened with the Big Ten Network when it was launched back in '07.

The rest of the quotes in that story are very corporate-y and not very informative; just know that if you have any intention of watching a lot of Pac-12 football beyond whatever games ABC picks up, you should either (a) have Cox/Time Warner/Comcast or (b) go to a place with one of those providers. My Dish Network ALL OF THE SPORTS package will be useless, which is pretty inconvenient since watching Arizona and Arizona State is kinda relevant to my job.

Big Ten humor: ESPN's Big Ten bloggers are in the middle of a series of polls of various Big Ten players from 11 of the 12 teams (Penn State isn't included because some of the questions are related to the Penn State awfulness). One of the questions: Who's the dirtiest player in the Big Ten? The results -- with former players removed since, I mean, they're former players -- are awesome:

Michigan State defensive end William Gholston -- 2 votes
Wisconsin linebacker Chris Borland -- 2 votes
Illinois' offensive line -- 1 vote
Iowa's offensive line -- 1 vote
Illinois center Graham Pocic -- 1 vote
Indiana center Will Matte -- 1 vote
Anyone on Michigan State's defense -- 1 vote
Anyone on Purdue -- 1 vote
Nebraska defensive end Eric Martin -- 1 vote
Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o -- 1 vote
No one/don't know/declined to answer -- 12 votes 

Yesssss.

Ballsy: This is a pretty inconspicuous sign in the middle of Austin:

Sure it is.

The television thing: Andy Staples put together an extremely long and equally fascinating story about the history of TV deals and their weird reversal in value over the 25-ish years since the legally mandated end of the CFA. I don't have much to say about it but highly recommend it if you've got some time to kill. Read it. Do it.

No more Honey Badger

Wow: Tyrann Mathieu is gone.

LSU has dismissed Heisman Trophy finalist Tyrann Mathieu from its football program for violating school and team rules.

"We extended ourselves personally and professionally to him," LSU coach Les Miles said at a news conference Friday. "He has really improved and has a chance to take some steps as a person.

"We extended ourself to the full length of the policy."

Miles would not specify the reason Mathieu was kicked off the team.

Wow? Wow.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume (which I can do since I'm not an LSU-credentialed press member) that the only thing that would qualify under both "school and team rules" and a specific "policy" would be drugs. Reminder: Mathieu and a couple other kinda-important LSU dudes were suspended for the Auburn game last year for failing drug tests that were presumably at least their second each based on this drug policy:

• First failed test: No suspension
• Second failed test: Suspended for 15 percent of that season's games
• Third failed test: Suspended for one year

So yeah. Y U SO DUMB ARGH. The timing (from a personal standpoint) couldn't possibly be any worse since he missed the supplemental draft by like two months and can't transfer anywhere in the FBS without sitting out a year, a pretty impractical option (even though he's got a redshirt year available) since he could go to North Alabama or wherever and be eligible for the draft after this season. In other words, the meaningful portion of his college career is almost definitely over.

BTW, this ESPN poll question ...

Tyrann Mathieu's dismissal has sent shockwaves through the college football community. Did LSU just cost themselves a shot at a title?

... is similarly dumb. LSU didn't cost itself a shot at a title by dismissing a guy who's presumably failed three-plus drug tests; Mathieu might have.

As for LSU ... ummm ... ouch. Ouch a lot. Mathieu was personally responsible for eight turnovers (!!!) and four touchdowns last year, two of which were HUGE in games LSU was trailing early because of a complete lack of offense yet went on to win by multiple touchdowns. Remember this?


I have no idea how to quantify WAR-type numbers for an individual player with that; suffice it to say his would've been ginormous. And what the removal of that hypothetical WAR-type number means for LSU this year is even harder to say. The defense will be OK given the hilariously talented front seven and Tharold Simon as the No. 1 corner (keep in mind that he's taking over Morris Claiborne's spot and not Mathieu's), but the drop-off at the other spot will be massive: The depth chart goes 2011 Heisman Trophy finalist, redshirt freshman Jalen Collins, freshman Jalen Mills. All ur freshman-y Jalens belong to us. They (and whoever is supposed to take over on punt returns) are probably talented but won't be comparable to the sophomore version of Tyrann Mathieu, who was in turn comparable to the junior version of Charles Woodson.

Big picture: The offense will probably be better and the defense will probably be good but won't have that guy who produced almost a turnover a game and regularly put up points by himself last year when nobody on offense was capable of doing so against legit teams. I still think LSU can win it all but would definitely rank Alabama and USC (in some order) higher given the stuff I wrote in the previous paragraph.

So ouch a lot. Exactly how much "a lot" translates to will be determined in about three weeks (well, six weeks really since that's when SEC play gets real).

  

Hot and cold and a game I barely remember

There are very few things I remember with any specificity from my school days. One of those very few things: standing at the bus stop. It was the worst. It was the worst because I lived in a place where it was below freezing on about half the days I had to drag myself out there in a pre-7 a.m. stupor.

I hated it. I hated the physical discomfort that accompanied sub-20 degree temps (toe numbness was a regular feature) and the social discomfort of shivering in silence with a bunch of equally uncomfortable and awkward teenagers and that feeling when the bus I thought was my bus would turn a couple streets beforehand, meaning my bus was still somewhere in the distance and not close to salvaging my toes from gangrene.

The way I passed the time was kinda like the way Peter Gibbons wanted to pass the time in Office Space ...

... except I didn't pretend to be fishing so much as I imagined being somewhere/anywhere hot. My brain typically interpreted "hot" as "a beach with the sun beating down just enough to compensate for that amazing beach-y breeze" since that seemed preferable to being lost in a desert or whatever, but anything beach-like would have done the job.

And that kinda worked. It didn't work for very long -- any horrifyingly high-pitched sound reminiscent of a school bus' 60-year-old brake system or any contact with an air particle whose temperature had dropped to roughly 0 kelvin would bring me back to the awfulness of reality -- but it helped kill some of the soul-crushing time spent standing there waiting for a freakin' bus.
. . . . .
It was hot out yesterday. It was disgustingly hot out yesterday. It was the kind of hot that results in instant sweat immersion upon the opening of any orifice built into whatever dwelling or work establishment you happen to be inhabiting at any given time. In other words, it was the same as every other day in this desert since the end of May.

One of the things I've discovered in the (almost) decade I've lived in Arizona is that the thing I used to do when I was waiting at the bus stop works reasonably well in the inverse: Thinking about being borderline-uncomfortably cold helps mentally mitigate that feeling of turning into a rotisserie chicken that's inevitable if standing outside at any point between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.

So I thought yesterday about being cold. And that wasn't hard seeing as how I've got a good 20 years (or at least the October-to-February portion of each of those 20 years) of experience of being cold to draw from.

. . . . .
My time as a student at Grand Valley State was relatively uneventful. I was hilariously unprepared (from a life-skills standpoint) to be a college student and really had no idea what to do with myself when I wasn't plowing through math/physics/engineering-related numbers. I went to a couple football games and a couple parties at which I was painfully uncomfortable; that was about it.

It wasn't until I was a sophomore that I knew enough people to actually, like, do anything other than hang out in my dorm and be pathetic. The timing was convenient since this was when Brian Kelly was coach and Curt Anes and David Kircus were putting up mind-blowing numbers and roughly 60 points a game. The entertainment value at football games went up significantly that year; my attendance did the same, especially late in the year when there playoff games (OMG ON-CAMPUS PLAYOFF GAMES) that promised something resembling competitiveness and meaningful results.

And so it was that three friends and I decided to tailgate before the national semifinals, which were at Grand Valley since GV was No. 1 and whoever else was not No. 1. The location: the back of my truck in a parking lot across the street from some academic buildings and kinda close to the stadium. There was a grill and there was plenty of meat to put on it: hot dogs, hamburgers, etc. Adult beverages were available but limited since we were in a very public place that wasn't as crowded as you're imagining. The only entertainment: a football that was used for about a two-hour-long game of catch to kill the time between talking about physics/football/whatever and kickoff.

And it was cold. It was December in west Michigan; of course it was cold. It was the kind of stupid cold that makes the snot in your nose start to come out but then freeze before it actually gets anywhere (you either know exactly what I'm talking about or have no idea what I'm talking about). It was cold and it was windy, which was a definite problem when trying to light the grill. I'm gonna guesstimate that it took us 20 minutes to figure out how to keep a match lit long enough to make use of it.

But here's the thing: The cold didn't matter when we were grilling and drinking and running imaginary routes in a parking lot and whatnot. The cold mattered a lot a couple hours later when I was sitting/standing in the endzone bleachers and that stupid wind was hitting me and hitting me and hitting me and hitting me. It was ... ummm ... something other than totally enjoyable.

I remember literally three things from that game: (a) Grand Valley won, (b) Curt Anes blew out his knee on a quarterback sneak at the end of the first half when Grand Valley was already winning by like three touchdowns, which resulted in a devastating title-game loss by a score of something like 19-16 and (c) AAAHHHH I CAN'T FEEL ANYTHING BECAUSE ACCORDING TO THE WEATHER THINGS ON OUR AMAZING NEW PHONES IT IS ZERO DEGREES FAHRENHEIT WITH A WINDCHILL OF MINUS-40. Yeah. That's right. Don't act like you're not impressed.

I don't even know what else to say about that. Minus-40 is ... I mean ... it's minus-40 (and don't give me any crap about windchill and temperature and yadda yadda; I know what I felt). I'm not sure when I lost feeling in my toes but know for sure that I couldn't move my jaw effectively by kickoff and couldn't feel my fingers by halftime. And none of those things were even unusual given the distances I had to walk to my classes across a campus designed specifically to produce a wind tunnel generating maximum velocity directly into your face at all times.

I don't remember getting home or thawing out or really anything after halftime, possibly because my brain function had ceased.

. . . . .
That was the last Grand Valley game I attended before moving to Arizona (Tempe, to be specific). That was also the coldest I've ever been in my life under any circumstances. It was minus-40; there are no other comparable circumstances since I don't live above the Arctic Circle and go entire months without seeing the sun.

Voluntarily spending five hours in it was undoubtedly stupid and probably unhealthy but does give me something to think about when I step outside and it's a hundred and whatever, with the "whatever" not even mattering since everything over 100 is similarly disgusting. I know: It doesn't make much sense to try to replace that stupidly hot feeling with a stupidly cold feeling that I just described as "something other than totally enjoyable" about four paragraphs ago; I can't really explain that except to say that I would pick a memory that involves less numbness if that memory weren't largely a good one. I mean, I know what numbness feels like but don't remember the numbness as much as I remember that I was there for the numbness and the tailgating and the football and the WOOOO and whatnot.

That probably makes either no sense or a lot of sense; hopefully it's the latter.

Catching up is outta here

More Penn State guys are gone (to other places): Breaking news: Some guys are leaving Penn State. The good news is that "some" is not "a ton." The bad news is that "some" does include a handful of starters and other young guys who could/would have been multiple-year starters on a team that will have zero depth in about 2015 because of the scholarship limitations.

The first guy out the door this week: Khairi Fortt, a one-time big-time linebacker recruit who's already signed his paperwork to transfer to Cal (short trip, yes?). Fortt's a junior who had been a rotational guy at Penn State but was supposed to compete for the starting job in the middle this fall if he had fully recovered from knee surgery. Sounds like that's not a definite:

Fortt said he is leaving for Cal Sunday. Still recovering from knee surgery. Still possibility he could redshirt.

FYI, he never took a redshirt at Penn State and thus does have one available. Cal doesn't necessarily need him right away -- there's sufficient depth at linebacker with Cecil Whiteside's return from a malfeasance-related suspension -- but the guys other than Whiteside (Cal plays a 3-4) have a combined nine career tackles and obviously don't have the meaningful game experience Fortt has.

Next: kicker Anthony Fera, who went 14 of 17 last year, was a semifinalist for the Groza Award and was the second-team All-Big Ten punter. He's good. He's also headed to Texas for his junior year to take over for the departed Justin Tucker. The kickers-are-flaky-and-meaningless meme doesn't apply here from a Penn State perspective seeing as how Fera easily scored more points than anybody else on the team last year and probably would've been even more valuable this year. A team without an offense generally benefits from having a good kicker and a good punter; it's problematic when those guys are the same guy and said guy leaves. FWIW (which is nothing), his replacement at kicker will presumably be walk-on sophomore Sam Ficken, who went 1 for 2 last year, and his replacement at punter will be walk-on junior Alex Butterworth, who has an uninspiring 37.5-yard average on eight career punts. I know: You don't care.

Next: Ryan Nowicki, a moderately touted O-lineman who was part of the Penn State's class, redshirted as a freshman and will be taking four years of eligibility with him to Illinois. I'll say it again: These guys with tons of eligibility are the guys Penn State couldn't afford to lose since they don't have the scholarships to replace them. Senior losses would've been more problematic this year but far less painful going forward. As for Illinois, the O-line is severely lacking talent but probably not to the extent that a redshirt freshman steps into a starting job; he'll get a chance, though.

And the last guy (from a chronological standpoint): senior wideout Justin Brown, who would've been by far the top returning receiver (35 catches for 517 yards and two TDs last year) but instead is transferring to Oklahoma. It's probably not a coincidence that Kenny Stills is literally the only scholarship receiver on the Oklahoma roster who hasn't been suspended; Jaz Reynolds and Trey Franks will be out "multiple, multiple games," according to Bob Stoops, which means Brown will most likely be stepping into a starting job for at least the short term (and I wouldn't count on Reynolds' immediate return since he's already been suspended four times). Either way, Oklahoma will get some desperately needed help at wideout and Brown will get to (probably) catch a lot more than 35 passes since he'll actually have, like, a functioning quarterback. Everybody wins ... except Penn State, obviously.

On a related note, Rob Bolden finalized his transfer to LSU the other day and has already started practicing. He actually requested his release before the sanctions came out but will still be eligible immediately to do some fine clipboard holdin' for Zach Mettenberger.

That should be the extent of the damage for Penn State. A summary of the nine Lost Souls: three All-Big Ten-level starters, one potential starter/regular contributor (Fortt), a redshirt freshman tackle (Nowicki), a freshman defensive tackle (Jamil Pollard), a sophomore tight end (Kevin Haplea) and only two guys (Bolden and walk-on safety Tim Buckley) who had basically no bearing on either the present or future. Yeesh.

Sammy Watkins is gone (for two games): Sammy Watkins' arrest for smoking pot while driving while carrying non-prescription painkillers in a car with a temporary tag at some point between midnight and 3 a.m. back in May netted him a two-game suspension that was announced Friday. Those two games: Auburn in Atlanta and Ball State (lol).

I'll now refer back to what I wrote at the time of his arrest:

An any-game suspension is meaninful since the Auburn game is sitting there as a potential loss; anything beyond that but short of four games is essentially meaningless since the rest of the September schedule is cupcake-tastic.

Yup. the second game is an autowin; the first isn't but is probably winnable against a team with a couple new coordinators and a mystery spot at quarterback. The hard-to-answer question is how much Watkins' absence will affect an offense that got him the ball a ton last season. Reminder: He had 82 catches for 1,219 yards and 12 touchdowns last year as a freshman (!!!) despite not having a single game with more than 155 yards or two TDs. He's good and kinda important. Clemson did play one game without him last year and beat a blah NC State team 37-13; take that for what it's worth. They also beat Auburn (in Death Valley) by two touchdowns in a game in which Watkins had 10 catches for 155 yards and, um, two touchdowns. So yeah.

Greg Reid is gone: What the headline says:

Florida State cornerback Greg Reid has been dismissed from the team, according to a statement from Jimbo Fisher on Wednesday morning.

Reid, a senior, chose to return to FSU for his last year rather than declare for the NFL draft. Along with Xavier Rhodes, he was set to be one of FSU’s starting cornerbacks as well as punt returner.

Ouch. Flashback: Reid was arrested about a month ago and charged with possession of marijuana, driving with a suspended license and a seatbelt violation (his fifth seatbelt violation, which lol). The charges in and of themselves were relatively minor but also constituted his third screwup in the past year; he was arrested last September for lying about a stolen scooter (?) and then was suspended for one game due to a super-specific violation of team rules. Jimbo Fisher said "no mas."

As for Reid, he's undoubtedly headed to the FCS since his options are (a) the FCS and (b) doing nothing until next year's draft. As for Florida State, losing a slightly above-average starting corner might be less significant than losing arguably the best punt returner in the country. Xavier Rhodes will still be the top cover corner; the replacement on the other side will be either Tyler Hunter (last year's nickel guy), Nick Waisome or Keelin Smith. Wideout Rashad Greene was the backup return guy last year and probably will be again this year, but there's nobody on the roster with a career 12.5-yard average and three touchdowns on runbacks.

DeAndre Johnson also is gone: AIRBHG wins. He always wins.

Head coach Kirk Ferentz announced Wednesday afternoon that sophomore DeAndre Johnson has been dismissed from the team. This comes after Johnson was ticketed for maintaining a disorderly house on Thursday -- a charge Ferentz initially laughed off during Big Ten media days -- and then got in trouble again Saturday when he allegedly sped his motorcyle through a 25 mph zone and failed to pull over right away for cops.

A little context from my post last week on Johnson's spectacularly amusing string of arrests:

That leaves spring co-starter Damon Bullock and his 10 career carries as the only available back who has ever accumulated a statistic in a college game. There's also relatively highly touted freshman Greg Garmon, who was arrested last month on a misdemeanor marijuana charge but avoided a suspension.

Hilarious postscript: Johnson is the fifth (!!!) Iowa running back arrested/injured/dismissed this offseason.

It never ends. Paging Paki O'Meara.

Wisconsin WTF: Montee Ball will be unavailable for the start of camp after getting randomly attacked last week on campus, which raised some questions about why a bunch of large dudes at Wisconsin would wanna attack a guy who (a) ran for a billion yards and a million touchdowns last year and (b) has numerous buddies in the 6-foot-7, 320-pound range.

The answers to those questions are ... ummm ... ambiguous:

Police in Madison, Wis., have found new evidence in the Montee Ball battery case that determines there was a fight the night before Ball was attacked involving Wisconsin football players with Ball present.

According to the police report on the City of Madison police website, there is no evidence Ball was involved in the fight, but there are leads on suspects that are not being released.

Madison police, "through information developed by detectives, have determined that there was a fight that occurred Friday night (July 27th-28th) which involved UW students, members of the UW football team, and other individuals that were not affiliated with the University of Wisconsin's Athletics Department," said the report, issued by officer Howard Payne. "We have also determined that Montee Ball was present at the location of that fight, but we have no information that leads us to believe that he had any involvement in that particular event."

Police on Friday were investigating comments made by a witness, who reportedly said one of the assailants said something like, "One down, nine to go," Central District Capt. Carl Gloede told the Wisconsin State Journal.

The police's version of events makes a little more sense than "hey look it's a Heisman Trophy finalist let's murder his ass." That said, Ball reportedly will be fine and isn't even alleged to have been involved in the hypothetical fight that prefaced the beating; the chances that he'll miss any meaningful time are nil (this is Bret Bielema's team, after all). Whether that extends to the guys who "had any involvement in that particular event" is impossible to say without knowing whether that particular event actually happened and what it entailed. We'll see.

An unfortunate ending: Oklahoma center Ben Habern is now former Oklahoma center Ben Habern:

Oklahoma's starting center has decided to quit football because of lingering neck and back concerns.

Coach Bob Stoops announced Wednesday that Ben Habern was calling it a career after starting 30 games for the Sooners. Habern, who would have been a senior, had sat out spring practice after a career marred by injuries. He broke his left leg as a freshman in 2009 and missed part of last season with a broken right arm.

"Lingering neck and back concerns" sound not fun; he apparently was planning to play through them but decided shortly after media day that he just couldn't do it. Unfortunate.

The good news (from Oklahoma's standpoint, anyway): Gabe Ikard filled in last year after Habern broke his arm and thus has some experience, which can't possibly be understated at center. There will still be a drop-off seeing as how Habern was named to the All-Big 12 first team and was probably the team's best lineman.

More center devastation: Boise State center Cory Yriarte is out for the year -- which would have been his sixth year because of two previous torn ACLs -- with a knee injury that may or may not be related to the others. His career is presumably over.

Insightful analysis: Returning senior starters (especially at center) are kinda valuable. Yriarte started the last 11 games last year (after sitting out all of 2009 and '10) but missed the opener, which was started by then-sophomore Matt Paradis; he's expected to take over the starting job and has at least played in a moderately meaningful game.

Also of note for Boise: No. 3 wideout Geraldo Boldewijn is out for the first four games because of a stupid NCAA rule he violated when he (a) used "a car and driver’s insurance coverage provided by his host family" while he was a foreign-exchange student in high school (he's from the Netherlands) and (b) received financial help to book a plane ticket home for Christmas (he has already repaid that money). Guh.

Anyway, Boldewijn averaged about two catches a game over the final two months of last season; he's replaceable in the short term since Matt Miller and Mitch Burroughs are the starters and consume a large majority of the catches. Guys who will presumably get more playing time in his absence (which should only be relevant in the opener against Michigan State): Kirby Moore, Dallas Burroughs, Chris Potter, et al.

Read more here: http://voices.idahostatesman.com/2012/08/03/ccripe/boise_state_football_loses_center_season_wide_receiver_four_game#storylink=cpy

Good news for Northwestern: Former USC uber-recruit Kyle Prater is eligible at Northwestern:

Northwestern received some good news on Tuesday when the NCAA announced that wide receiver Kyle Prater, who transferred from USC earlier this year, will be eligible to compete for the Wildcats when the 2012 season opens Sept. 1.

Prater was given a residence waiver from the NCAA allowing him to bypass the one-year wait period traditionally required of transfers in FBS football.

Prater was the No. 3 player overall (!!!) in the 2010 class but redshirted as a freshman and then got stuck behind Robert Woods and Marqise Lee and Brice Butler and maybe George Farmer last year. Not being as good as Robert Woods and Marqise Lee and a junior Brice Butler doesn't necessarily mean he's not good; it just means he's not one of the three best receivers on a team with a bunch of hilariously talented receivers.

Northwestern does not have that problem. Three of the top five receivers from last year are gone or no longer playing receiver (Kain Colter is the full-time QB now), so it will not be a surprise if Prater is starting by the opener, especially since Northwestern's receiving corps is somewhat lacking for 6-foot-5 guys with freakish talent.

Oklahoma State ouch: More data to add to the "Oklahoma State won't be going 13-1 this year" pile:

Oklahoma State offensive lineman Michael Bowie, who was projected to be the Cowboys' starting left tackle in 2012, is no longer with the program after violating team rules, coach Mike Gundy announced Wednesday.

Bowie was a part-time starter last year who was gonna be taking over on a full-time basis for Levy Adcock, who basically bounced back and forth between the two tackle spots depending on the opponent. Without him, there will be three new starters on the O-line this year (although one guard comes back from injury to make that number effectually two). Mind-blowing stat: Oklahoma State allowed 12 sacks last year. Yeah. I know. Probably not happening this year.

Parker Graham was basically a right-side version of Bowie last year (six starts and a bunch of mop-up duty) and will step into that spot, but the only other tackle who has actually played in a college game is redshirt sophomore Daniel Koenig; the alternatives are redshirt freshman Darian Davis and a couple incoming freshmen who I can assure you are not physically ready. Depth: There is none.

Unsurprising and surprising news of the day: Zeke Pike had a pretty successful career at Auburn:

AUBURN, Alabama -- Auburn coach Gene Chizik said Wednesday that freshman quarterback Zeke Pike is no longer a member of the football team and will transfer.

Pike was sent home to Kentucky (over the summer) after being arrested for public intoxication.

I've mentioned this before but will repeat it anyway: Pike was a big-time QB recruit whose offer list started going backwards when he started doing a bunch of stupid things at about the time he committed to Auburn. He got kicked out of a seven-on-seven camp for allegedly throwing the ball at an official, got into a bunch of stupid Twitter wars with Alabama fans, got suspended for his senior-year season opener as punishment for an ejection in the previous year's playoffs and then got suspended for his team's playoff loss for undisclosed reasons (woo maturity!). He then enrolled early and looked OK in spring but came out of it third on the depth chart behind co-starters Kiehl Frazier, a sophomore, and Clint Moseley, a redshirt junior who was limited by a shoulder problem in the spring but is reportedly healthy now.

Auburn will be fine; Pike might have been the QB of the distant future but might not have been worth the hassle, either. And in the short term, it's not like he was gonna salvage the season if forced onto the field via injury or incompetence or whatever.

As for Pike ...

Informed sources tell AuburnUndercover.com that former Auburn quarterback Zeke Pike will transfer to Louisville. Although Louisville's players have reported, Pike is not expected on campus until next week.

Pike will not play quarterback for the Cardinals. Instead, he will line up at tight end.

... ummm wut? Seriously: wut? The Louisville thing makes some geographical sense; the tight end thing makes no sense whatsoever seeing as how he was purely a quarterback coming out of high school and had offers from just about everybody before all the shenanigans. A four-star quarterback who's 6-foot-6 and has a rocket arm and decent athleticism can find a place to play quarterback. I mean ... yeah. I don't get it.

Sorry, Liberty Bowl: UCF won't be going to a bowl this year because of some serious shenanigans:

The NCAA's Committee on Infractions has banned the University of Central Florida from postseason play for one season in football and men's basketball because of major rule violations in both sports.

Central Florida, which appeared before the infractions committee in April, also was fined $50,000 and placed on five years' probation. In addition, the university was cited for a lack of institutional control.

At issue was the university's involvement with Ken Caldwell, a Chicago man with ties to a sports agency who helped steer several prospects to Central Florida. The report states that third-party individuals provided more than $16,000 to three prospects and two Central Florida student-athletes. They provided travel expenses, cash, tuition and a laptop computer. ...

Athletic director Keith Tribble and assistant football coach Kelly resigned after they were accused of taking part in inappropriate recruiting practices. The NCAA imposed a three-year show cause penalty against Tribble. Kelly received a one-year show cause penalty.

The problem wasn't so much that Caldwell was steering prospects to UCF but that he was steering prospects to UCF at the discretion of the athletic director, an assistant football coach and the basketball coach. That's SMU-type stuff (or at least Miami-type stuff) except with recruits instead of active players. And UCF was already on probation for not-substantially-different violations! Amazing.

The result: a one-year postseason ban (that's being appealed, of course) and some self-imposed, relatively minor scholarship reductions in both sports. The guy at the Bylaw Blog is shocked and appalled:

What UCF was accused of was, on its face, one of the worst packages of NCAA violations in recent memory. Not only were both of its revenue sports using a runner (among others) to help recruit athletes and that runner was providing benefits to student-athletes, but all of this was with the knowledge, encouragement, and even active participation of the athletic director.

For all that, UCF got off relatively light. ... The NCAA would have been justified in laying to waste both of UCF’s most prominent sports for the rest of the decade.

Yup. Take note when trying to project the decimation at North Carolina and Miami; there won't be much unless the proposed this-is-serious-stuff-guys punishment structure gets implemented before their cases go to committee.

As for Central Florida, the postseason ban isn't totally meaningless: They went 5-7 last year but were picked to win their division in the Conference USA preseason poll and had five votes in the coaches' poll.

Speaking of bowls: The NCAA's Board of Directors has made it nominally possible for a 5-7 team (but only one with a top-five APR score) to be selected for a bowl game if there are literally no other eligible teams. I hate the idea of 5-7 bowl eligibility with a fiery passion but don't know what the alternative would be in the ever-more-likely scenario in which there aren't enough teams to fill all 48,377 bowl games. I mean, the good alternative (hacking the bottom-feeding bowls that only survive via the ticket guarantees that require the participating the schools to take a loss) isn't really an alternative as far as the NCAA is concerned and thus will never happen.

Good news: There are so many qualifiers before the 5-7 tiebreaker kicks in that it should never be relevant. Bad news: There will be more bowl games (the Champions Bowl and maybe a Big East-affiliated one) by 2014, at which point it will probably be relevant. #getoffmylawn

Mandatory reading: ESPN's Don Van Natta put together a really interesting investigative-type story with all the details on the Penn State negotiations, starting with the initial contact between Mark Emmert and Rodney Erickson and continuing through the post-presser tantrums by everybody on the Board of Trustees. I highly recommend it. Read it.

Relevant points: (a) Penn State agreed in advance that the Freeh report would precede and/or replace an NCAA investigation, (b) it was Emmert who backed away from the death penalty after a consensus-type thing from the Division I Board of Directors and (c) that backing away took a lot of persuasion on the part of Erickson and Penn State counsel Gene Marsh.

Reasonable reactions FTW: Oh I feel so bad for him oh wait lol no I don't:

Jerry Sandusky is distraught over the NCAA penalties issued to Penn State's football program ... 

OH NOES.

Settle down, Dan Mullen: This also seems like a totally reasonable reaction:


Mmmkay.

TCU yikes: Casey Pachall wasn't directly involved in that whole TCU drug-sting thing but apparently wasn't totally clean, either:

FORT WORTH, Texas -- TCU starting quarterback Casey Pachall admitted to police that he smoked marijuana and failed a drug test in February, two weeks before his roommate was arrested during a drug sting.

The revelation was in a Feb. 15 police report obtained Friday by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and first reported by TCU360.com, the university's student media website.

The report said that Pachall also stated that he used cocaine and ecstasy in the previous year.

Don't do that. For serious.

There is a poll; let's react

The totally meaningless preseason version of the not-totally-meaningless coaches' poll was released today, which makes this a good day to point out that the season starts in exactly four weeks (woooo!!!!!). No other introduction necessary:

1. LSU (18) 1403
2. Alabama (20) 1399
3. USC (19) 1388
4. Oklahoma 1276
5. Oregon 1258
6. Georgia 1061
7. Florida State 1055
8. Michigan 1023
9. South Carolina 981
10. Arkansas 948
11. West Virginia 833
12. Wisconsin 743
13. Michigan State 717
14. Clemson 598
15. Texas 549
16. Nebraska 501
17. TCU 499
18. Stanford 497
19. Oklahoma State 476
20. Virginia Tech 461
21. Kansas State 398
22. Boise State 271
23. Florida 250
24. Notre Dame 166
25. Auburn 66

Obligatory observations:

There are three favorites but no favorite: There are three teams at the top that are (a) within 15 points of each other and (b) a mile ahead of everybody else. By first-place votes, LSU is third; by total votes, LSU is first. Crazy. There hasn't been a preseason poll in the BCS era with three teams that close. And, based solely on the points gap, I'm not sure any of those teams are catchable if they go undefeated (which only two of the three can possibly do, obviously, since LSU and Alabama play each other).

The top 10: It's pretty much a consensus top 10 since there's a a points chasm between Arkansas and West Virginia and then another between West Virginia and Wisconsin and then another between Michigan State and Clemson. That appears to be the "screw it, these teams are all about the same" threshold.

Some things never change: Florida State is seventh. This gives Phil Steele a happy but gives me a tee hee since Florida State hasn't lived up to its preseason hype since Michael Vick was doing ridiculous things at Va. Tech. That said, I have looked at the defense (maybe the best in the country) and the schedule (one of the easiest in the country among BCS-conference teams) and thus will end up predicting something regrettably optimistic when it comes time to predict things. Resistance is futile, etc.

It's not 2011: Boise State is No. 22, which is ... ummm ... not in the top 10. Also, Oklahoma State and Stanford probably won't be finishing third and fourth this year. The coaches' poll was not necessary for that observation but serves as a reminder that Andrew Luck and Coby Fleener and David DeCastro and Jonathan Martin and Brandon Weeden and Justin Blackmon (and so on) will not be entirely replaceable.

Michigan woo: Michigan is the nominal Big Ten favorite (!!!) by a crapload of points. I ... uhh ... no comment.

The dancing helps with the cynicism and whatnot.

Oh hai you're not in the Big East: West Virginia and TCU are both in the top 17 and are ranked second and fourth, respectively, in the Big 12. Decent acquisitions, those. I'm not sure the 10-team Big 12 has any less depth than the 12-team one did now that Oklahoma State is a legit, nationally relevant program and K-State and Baylor are in the competitive-to-good range.

Where's Ohio State? Oh yeah ineligible lol wwwhheeeeeeeeee!!!

The Gary Danielson bit: SEC dominance top 10 rabble rabble seven teams rabble rabble.

Four weeks: Four weeks.

Notre Dame's by-default quarterback decision

I've been skeptical since spring (when Brian Kelly was saying very ominous things about eliminating any experience-related advantages) that Tommy Rees would end up as Notre Dame's very tentative starting quarterback going into the season. He will not:

Notre Dame will have a new starting quarterback when it kicks off the 2012 season.

Incumbent signal-caller Tommy Rees and linebacker Carlo Calabrese both have been suspended for the Irish's Sept. 1 opener against Navy in Dublin, Ireland, coach Brian Kelly announced Tuesday. Neither player will travel for the game.

Both players were arrested May 3 outside an off-campus party.

Cease speculation. Somebody other than Tommy Rees (probably Everett Golson) will be starting against Navy and probably making Brian Kelly's face do this:

Like I wasn't gonna include that. Psshht.

Anyway, I say "probably Everett Golson" because his spring-game performance (11 of 15 for 120 yards and two touchdowns to go along with 25 yards rushing) convinced all Notre Dame fans everywhere that he's the greatest thing since mass. As I pointed out afterward, he's also never taken a snap in an actual game, which means all those infuriating turnovers from the past couple years will totally/definitely/absolutely go away this year!

There was also a minor play-clock thing in the Blue-Gold game that was easily fixable at the time but won't be so easily fixable in games in which Kelly doesn't control the clock:

He had so many delay of game penalties that the play clock had to be turned off.

That sounds entertaining and not at all infuriating. There will be face purple-ness and there will be a point at which Golson takes a seat because of either (a) total unpreparedness in terms of game management or (b) the inconsistency that accompanies all freshman-like starters and will be exacerbated by a schedule that gets horrifying after the first two weeks; after Navy and Purdue, the schedule goes at Michigan State, Michigan, Miami, Stanford, BYU, at Oklahoma, etc.

I'm also not convinced Golson is better than Rees was for an offense that's based on a four-verticals, downfield-oriented passing game rather than the read-option and whatnot, but I gotta cede that decision to Kelly and actual on-field happenings; Vince Young and Cam Newton made a lot of things work after they figured out what they were doing (disclaimer: I'm not saying he is either of those guys but am saying that Kelly would probably like to find out if he could be either of those guys).

With that said, I do think Rees will end up getting snaps this year (either that or transferring if he gets bumped to third string behind Golson and Andrew Hendrix, in some order). But it won't be right away, which means the experience and learning he's accumulating via two years of eventfulness probably won't be of any use unless/until Notre Dame's offense (and thus season) has hit a desperation point or the first game is such a debacle on offense that Kelly has no legitimate alternative.

It's all on Golson (and/or Hendrix after him). No pressure or anything.

Closing item that serves as potentially optimistic caveat: An August 1 decision that nobody really expected until September 1 means a crapload of snaps and similarly relevant preparation for Golson, which should help mitigate some of the aforementioned issues and have him a lot more ready than he would've been if he'd have been splitting snaps with two or three guys for the next month (although I'm sure Hendrix will get some, too); it seems safe to assume Rees will get bumped down the depth chart since he's not a candidate to start the opener. So there's that.