College Football 2010: So it begins

[SlowwHand]

Pac 10

[Guynemer]

Indeed. The new presumptive Heisman frontrunner was arrested earlier this year for assaulting his girlfriend.

If only Michigan's defense wasn't so horrific, maybe D-Rob could fill the void.

[SlowwHand]

Seriously, how short-sighted is it for a player that anticipates being a pro athlete to take money in college? It's not like they walk around broke.

[H Tower]

Oh, snap.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=5786315

Please, God, let there be tapes.


Are we at the "where there's smoke, there's fire" point yet? Cause there appears to be a metric ****-ton of smoke coming from SEC country.

Just be careful if Bruce Pearl made the tapes.

[MRT144]

Seriously, how short-sighted is it for a player that anticipates being a pro athlete to take money in college? It's not like they walk around broke.

How awful is it if it is their parents doing this money taking for them? Cecil Newton is despicable. He is using his son as a rented mule!

[Tupac Shakur]

This is one of the dumbest things I've read in a while...

College football wears its lack of a playoff as a badge of honor. The sport sells the BCS with an ingenious argument: Every Game Counts. The opener in September is as important as the last game in December.

The idea that Every Game Counts is effective spin. But there is a corollary to that spin that is also true: If the early-season games count more, then the late-season games count less. The schedule is a zero-sum affair. College football might have the best regular season in sports. But for a team that doesn't begin to find itself until Halloween, college football provides the worst return on that success. ...

But big college football has no playoff. Texas A&M found a new quarterback six games into the season. The Aggies (6-3, 3-2) have won three consecutive games and returned to contention in the Big 12 South. This is familiar territory for coach Mike Sherman. In 2004, his Green Bay Packers began the season 1-4. They won their next six games, finished 10-6 and won the NFC North.

Six years later, Sherman is coaching another late-blooming team. The Aggies won't make the playoffs. There are no playoffs to make.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/story?columnist=maisel_ivan&id=5787144

How exactly do late-season games in college football count for less than early-season games? Maisel's own example demonstrates how playing well late in the season can get a team back into contention for their conference championship; they're also playing for a better bowl game. Are we supposed to cry for Mike Sherman because his three-loss team is denied a chance at a national championship and can only hope for a conference championship and BCS appearance?

Florida began the season at No. 4, pretty much equivalent to starting on the front row at Daytona. After extensive time in the pits, the No. 22 Gators are 6-3 and two big wins removed from a three-game losing streak. They will play No. 23 South Carolina on Saturday for the SEC East title. But the opportunity to play for a third national championship in five seasons is long gone.

Boo ****ing hoo. Jesus, I hate sportswriters...

[SlowwHand]

What's wrong with that synopsis?

[Tupac Shakur]

I'm not surprised that you can't see the logical shortcomings of that piece.

[SlowwHand]

Florida began the season at No. 4, pretty much equivalent to starting on the front row at Daytona. After extensive time in the pits, the No. 22 Gators are 6-3 and two big wins removed from a three-game losing streak. They will play No. 23 South Carolina on Saturday for the SEC East title. But the opportunity to play for a third national championship in five seasons is long gone.

What do you find untrue about it?

[Boris Godunov]

Indeed. The new presumptive Heisman frontrunner was arrested earlier this year for assaulting his girlfriend.

That's a very simplistic summary. The details:

http://www.kval.com/news/local/87482557.html

Not innocent, certainly, but it's not as bad as it sounds when one hears "assault."

[Tuberski]

Florida began the season at No. 4, pretty much equivalent to starting on the front row at Daytona. After extensive time in the pits, the No. 22 Gators are 6-3 and two big wins removed from a three-game losing streak. They will play No. 23 South Carolina on Saturday for the SEC East title. But the opportunity to play for a third national championship in five seasons is long gone.

What do you find untrue about it?

A team that loses, once, early in the season, has a far better chance of making the championship game than a team that loses, once, late in the season.

So late season games are more important than early season games, in the popularity contest that is the BCS.

ACK!

[Solomwi]

What are everyone's take on all the Cam Newton allegations coming out recently? Besides the alleged $200,000 recruitment bribe, now it has been leaked that Newton was on the verge of expulsion from Florida for putting his name on someone else's paper and then submitting a paper he purchased on the internet.

While I wouldn't mind if he lost out the Heisman race to James or Luck, it does seem a bit too convenient that these accusations are surfacing right now. Although, the suspicion that Urban Meyer himself leaked the cheating accusations is ridiculous.

Lot of things not making sense about the stories as they stand, and as they develop. Without trying to do an exhaustive catalog, I'll note a few. First, Chizik wasn't high on the idea of offering Newton in the first place, due to questions about his character. Gus Malzahn went out on a limb and convinced Chizik to meet with Newton, after which Chizik decided he had cleaned up his act and okay'd the scholarship offer. I don't think he'd have gone from on the fence to willing to pay $200,000 that quickly. OU, the third major player in his recruitment, already had Landry Jones, and thus no need to pay a JUCO QB six figures. Incidentally, Newton's been a model citizen at Auburn, right down to regularly visiting a local elementary school. Second, the recruitment story keeps changing. It was originally Rogers contacting Bond, then Rogers going through two intermediaries to contact Bond, now it's that the Newtons were dealing directly with MSU coaches.

Now, somebody did something on the MSU end to spark the SEC investigation in January. The SEC looked into it over the summer, as did the NCAA and Auburn on its end, and none of the three came up with even a question about his eligibility. This, keep in mind, was before anybody knew just how good Newton would turn out to be. For the record, Auburn's compliance director isn't the type to burn his career by letting a coach play somebody who may not be eligible, regardless of how many more wins it may mean. Unless and until some even faintly damning evidence about Auburn or the Newtons comes out, the simplest and most likely explanation is somebody, presumably Rogers, trying to run a con on MSU and the Newtons both.

On the academic story, if true, I hate to hear it, but so what? It doesn't affect his eligibility and came before his "road to Brenham" experience. On the other hand, he has transferred twice since then, to Blinn and then Auburn. Both schools needed transcripts from UF for that to happen, which UF wouldn't have released if he were facing expulsion-level accusations and bolted. For that matter, when's the last time a professor let somebody make up a paper after he put his name on someone else's? They tend to at the very least give the student a zero. All of it adds up to an awful lot of leeway for a third-team quarterback taking a redshirt. The only possible effect the story could have is to make people think Newton's a bad guy, which, along with the poor sourcing, connections between the guys writing the stories, reputations of those same guys (especially Thayer Evans), etc., makes me lean toward the "vicious smear job" side, bias notwithstanding.

I'm not saying Meyer authorized the leak (I don't think he did), but his incentive comes in the form of a bunch of Bull Gators seeing a three-loss UF and an undefeated, Heisman frontrunning former UF QB, and wanting answers about why Meyer let him get away. Here's another spot where, AFAIK, Bond has changed his story: from having a conference call with Meyer and Mullen, where Mullen wanted to drop the issue and Meyer wanted it public, to no such call taking place.

Right now, I'm just hoping the other shoe doesn't drop. This kind of thing even tangentially touching your program has no silver lining. But until that shoe drops, I'm enjoying the season and **** everything else. I will say that I've never seen such a galvanized response to a potential scandal as this. Lots of people have gotten on the same page who wouldn't necessarily be expected to, both in and out of Auburn.

Guy, nothing's come out of Auburn this week except repeated assertions that Newton will play Saturday. I'll be as shocked as anybody if he doesn't.

EDIT: Sorry for the wall of text, but as you might imagine, it's been an all-consuming ****storm down here. Oh yeah, and if the name Jody Wright comes up, it's probably spreading to Tuscaloosa, and out of Gainesville, at least somewhat.

[Solomwi]

http://www.chadgibbs.com/2010/11/11/yesterday-according-to-espn/

[Solomwi]

And now we apparently know what's on "Bill from Destin's" tapes: a voicemail from Kenny Rogers (per Rogers on Ian Fitzsimmons' radio show). Good lord.

[Guynemer]

The worm turns. As I said, it was just a fast-flying rumor the other day re: Cam sitting.