College Football '10 - Conference switching chaos!!

[Grandpa Troll]

David

I have been managing people for 25 + years. I can say for sure that off duty/off field occurrences usually roll over into work related slowdowns/poor performance.

I am not against a person celebrating, however, I have family in that area, it would be something if no one took a stance about off field activities and turned a blind eye to "policing" those in their realmn.

If a person get hurt and they have displayed a history of such activities, say in this case, if no check and balance occurs, they will continue to get away with it.

Im not disputing your opinion, your one of the few here that actually has common sense and knows how to talk to people respectfully.

I just think as a society we have let so much go unpunished that too many people get away with activities and know as long as they have power,prestige and money they will normally get a walk.

Urban Meyer suspending him, says he is more concerned about the negative impacts on not only other peoples lives, but hopefully upon his life.

Might or might not help him in life, I hope it does.

Gramps

[David Floyd]

Im not disputing your opinion, your one of the few here that actually has common sense and knows how to talk to people respectfully.

First off, wow - most people here wouldn't agree with that statement

Secondly, again, I just think we turn sports figures into role models unnecessarily. That isn't what they are expected to do, or at least not what they should be expected to do. In other words, a DUI or an assault charge shouldn't disqualify a player from a game. On the other hand, if I was a head coach, an intentional facemask or other acts of general thuggery would place the player responsible indefinitely on the bench, and maybe cut from the team.

[SlowwHand]

First, you've gotten to be a better thinker over the years, rather than just being a malcontent.
Second, in college, athletes have perks. Right or wrong, they do. If they have enough talent, they'll go onto millions. If they don't, alumni to the rescue.
In any case, they're role models, which isn't always easy. Comes with the turf.

[Drake Tungsten]

First, you've gotten to be a better thinker over the years, rather than just being a malcontent.

Short Bus Sloww thinks you've become a better thinker, DF. You might as well just kill yourself.

[David Floyd]

In any case, they're role models, which isn't always easy. Comes with the turf.

But that isn't fair to them. **** what the public thinks, that's part of what's wrong with our HR/appropriate conduct-driven society. What real fan gives a ****? Oh, sure, their wives may care, and their pastors may care, and if anyone else cares, it's only because the media turns it into a big deal. Sports players are sports players - if you want a role model, look elsewhere. And teach your kids to do the same.

[SlowwHand]

**** what the public thinks? Who set them up in their life? You think it might be the public?
I'm all for what you say, in theory. Would you care to join me in boycotting all sports events for one year? That would cripple sports. One week would be devastating. Are you in?

[David Floyd]

I'm up for boycotting taking any action based on public opinion. Really? The public isn't going to watch football? ****, that's ridiculous. The only reason people care about athletes misbehaving is because the media makes it a big deal. Politicians misbehave all the time, and still get voted into office - despite what the media does! Why would sports be any different?? Conduct clauses and decisions based upon that kind of thing are just plain stupid, and promote the wrong type of environment.

[SlowwHand]

"Conduct clauses and decisions based upon that kind of thing are just plain stupid, and promote the wrong type of environment."
I may be taking back the good things I said.

What makes you think that if it happens in politics, that's OK? Did I say that at any time? No, I did not.
If you had a construction company or a manufacturing facility or a Best Buy franchise or whatever, you're telling me that no matter how an employee conducts themselves off work is of no matter to you? Count on your business failing.

[David Floyd]

If that's the case it's only because of unreasonable and irrelevant expectations. It should not reflect in any way on the value provided by my hypothetical company, if an employee acts in a certain way outside the scope of his job, while not representing the company. An attempt to link the job and the conduct outside of the job is very simply put, just a way for Human Resources hacks to keep their jobs. No one actually ****ing cares, unless or until it gets spun to them in a certain way.

For example, let's say an employee of mine does a great job at work, customers love him, he sells his ass off, etc., but he gets into a car accident because, while drunk, he was letting a girl go down on him in the car. What the **** does that have to do with his job performance, or my company? Answer: Nothing! If it does have an impact (say, showing up drunk) then it gets dealt with. Otherwise, any potential impact is simply a manufactured impact, by a media with nothing better to do, or an HR hack trying to justify her job.

Seriously, we enable this kind of irrelevant bull****, simply by caring. If we stopped caring, all this **** would go away.

[SlowwHand]

It absolutely does. He represents your company, if he's that well known.
I guess it just depends. Al Davis doesn't care. I don't guess you have to care. Davis has been wildly successful lately, hasn't he?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Of course Floyd would say **** what the public thinks... of course the problem here is that the public OWNS the team. It's a state university.

[Ben Kenobi]

My landlord was like that. My old boss didn't really care about the personal side of things, and he was awful. The funny thing is that he didn't care about his personal crap, but he did care about how his personal crap was an issue for me. He would pay him for doing construction work, but he didn't want me to live there (despite the fact that he set it up in the first place), once word got out that he was beating his gf.



I don't work for my old boss anymore because of this. Seriously, he only started caring when I was working for him.

[Drake Tungsten]

Hi Stewart, one of the things I love about your columns is that you tell readers, especially those who root for "down" programs, to always remember that college football is cyclical. Yet, you seem to think it's impossible for Notre Dame to ever be "on top" again. Why are the Irish exempt from the cyclical nature of the sport?
-- Dan, Toronto

Regarding the Notre Dame program: Isn't the problem just that it has hired a bunch of mediocre coaches of late? It's not like Bob Davie or Tyrone Willingham left ND to have greater success elsewhere. Doesn't the fall and resurrection of schools like Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas and USC show that, with the right leadership, programs once left for dead can spring back to life?
-- Tom Geraghty, Charleston, W.Va.

I understand the comparison between Notre Dame and Alabama/Oklahoma/Texas/USC. They share similarly rich histories and national recognition. However, that's where the commonalities end. Notre Dame operates differently than all other former and current powerhouses, and while the school's commitment to maintaining its unique status is certainly admirable, it puts it at a significant disadvantage to those other schools. The sport has changed drastically over the past 20 years, but Notre Dame hasn't changed with it. That's where its "cycle" breaks.

Twenty years ago, the Irish were not alone among major independents, but by 1993, Florida State, Miami and Penn State had all joined conferences. Is it a coincidence that 1993 was also the last time Notre Dame came close to a national title? As I wrote Monday, today's blue-chip football prospects grow up watching certain conferences. Kids in Georgia and Louisiana dream of playing in the SEC. Kids in Texas dream of playing in the Big 12. Besides the South Side of Chicago and certain Midwestern Catholic conclaves, not a lot of kids today grow up specifically watching Notre Dame. So not only does the school have to recruit nationally, it has to sell prospects on why playing for Notre Dame is better than playing in a certain conference. Weis was able to sell Jimmy Clausen, Michael Floyd, et. al., on his pedigree as an NFL offensive Yoda, but I'm not sure what incentive he could offer to comparable defenders.

Fifteen years ago, Notre Dame's NBC deal truly was unique. It solidified the Irish as a true national program. But guess what? Today, pretty much every Florida/LSU/Ohio State/USC game is on national television, too. Heck, all but one Northwestern game this season was available in my New York City living room if I so desired. Chuck that one-time advantage out the window, too.

And then there are the academic restrictions. My friend John Walters, an ND alum, pointed out this week that the potential Heisman Trophy winner, Toby Gerhart, plays for Stanford. That's true. But Gerhart also plays for an 8-4 team. As I wrote earlier this season, today's Notre Dame's program is a lot closer to Stanford's than Southern Cal's. In fact, the Irish played about as well as they have all season against the Cardinal, and it was an evenly matched game. Notre Dame had too much talent to go 6-6 this season, and the blame for that falls squarely on Weis and his staff. But 8-4 was probably its logical ceiling. And 8-4 isn't good enough for most Irish fans.

Has Notre Dame flubbed its last three coaching hires? Absolutely. Notre Dame should never go 16-19 over a three-year period as it has under Weis. It needn't suffer regular five-win seasons like it did under Davie and Willingham. With the right coach, there's no reason the Irish can't win seven or eight games annually, and rise up to the 10-win, BCS-bowl level every three or four years. But it's unrealistic to think the Irish will stockpile elite players and finish in the top 10 every year like they did once upon a time.

In his article, Walters cites Alabama's long spat of mediocrity before hiring its home-run coach, Nick Saban, as a comparison to Notre Dame. But unlike Saban, Notre Dame's next coach can't sign 30-plus players knowing some won't qualify. He won't be able to land 95 percent of his roster from within the Southeast. That's why Alabama (and Florida, and Texas) will never stay down for long, and that's why coaches like Saban, Urban Meyer and Bob Stoops don't view the Notre Dame job with as much allure as its history would seem to warrant.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/stewart_mandel/12/02/bobby-bowden/index.html?eref=sihp#ixzz0YYa19dRo

[SpencerH]

It will be difficult, if not impossible, for ND to ever have the success it once had. ND players have to actually attend classes which means that the universities without such 'problems' will take more of their share of the best players who are poor students. Add to that the fact that in general the southern highschool football programs are much better than their northern counterparts. For example, my local highschool (i.e. Hoover from "Two a day") has better facilities than some northern universities I've seen. We get 12-15000 rabid fans for a regular game. In addition, our highschool players are 'selected' to the best programs by virtue of the movement of talented players into the school districts with the best teams. Very few of those elite highschool players want to attend a northern school (why would they?) so southern universities recruit from a bigger pool of more experienced players.

[DanS]

Drake: Typical Northwestern grad anti-ND FUD.