Slow States

Yep. Recipe from Jasmin at 1finecookie, who can bake for us anytime. (via.)

Braves and Birds flags this item regarding the salaries of college football assistant coaches, which is the new, if underreported, NCAA arms race. Turns out the Big Ten ($187,055) ranks fourth in average assistants’ salary, behind the SEC (duh.), Big 12, and ACC. Says Braves and Birds:

So let’s see. The Big Ten rakes in as much revenue as any other conference. Its schools sit in states that were never that great at producing football talent and that situation has gotten worse as population has continued to head south. Nevertheless, Big Ten schools don’t spend their lucre on the coaches who would allow them to make up for their lack of proximity to talent. Are Big Ten fans so stupidly loyal that they will watch whatever mediocre product the Big Ten Network chooses to show? Do Big Ten fans overlook the fact that the conference has fallen so far behind the SEC because they can tell themselves that schools in the South oversign and pay their players? There is a perfectly legal way to spend money to improve the product on the field and the schools in the conference refuse to take it. Is the Big Ten a conference of Pittsburgh Pirates?

Granted, I ran these numbers back in 2008, but this is parochial nonsense to a rather large degree, isn’t it? It’s another example of how Ohio State’s high-profile failings against the SEC have tarnished the conference’s reputation at large, further perpetuating the Southern Speed myth (although the name of this site isn’t helping, we know). It’s extrapolation to a silly degree.

The SEC plays the best football in the country right now, while the Big Ten’s power programs are in various stages of rebooting. I think reasonable people can collectively reach that conclusion, but it’s certainly not because a few schools moronically overpay for Steve Kragthorpe and Charlie Weis.

(“Never that great at producing football talent”? Seriously?)

We forget that Clarence Clemons was almost an NFL offensive lineman. When the clock is turned back to 1980, it’s not so hard to imagine.

“Luck” is a difficult concept to quantify, but our man Patrick gives it a whirl over at BHGP.

(It’s a fun read, even if this BHGP comment sums up my Malibu Stacy mindset in the post title. I’m operating on low sleep and low caffeine this afternoon.)

Looks like the NCAA is snooping around South Florida for recruiting violations, but it has nothing to do with Miami, Florida State, or Florida:

NCAA investigators are coming to South Florida this week to look into the recruiting of several high-school football stars and the methods of several colleges in doing so, according to a source.

Among the schools whose recruits are in question: Ohio State, Louisiana State, Auburn and Tennessee.

Yes, rest easy, Miami, Florida and Florida State fans. This isn’t about you. The schools involved have been successful for years in getting players out of South Florida, and enough red flags have been raised about money changing hands in the recruiting process to merit the investigation, the source said.

High schools officials, street agents, seven-on-seven tournaments – they’re all going to be asked questions by the NCAA.

Interesting.  Didn’t see that coming. If I didn’t know better, Tim Curley was hoodwinked and thought he was scheduling Duquesne.  Or maybe Pittsburg State.

One of the nation’s fiercest football rivalries is set to be renewed, as old rivals Penn State and Pittsburgh will meet again on the gridiron in 2016 and 2017.

Tim Curley, Penn State Director of Athletics, and Steve Pederson, Pitt Director of Athletics, made the announcement today that the long-time rivals are scheduled to meet September 10, 2016 in Pittsburgh and September 16, 2017 in Beaver Stadium.

“We are very excited about renewing our rivalry with Pitt,” Curley stated. “We have worked our schedules to play some of our neighboring rivalries like Syracuse, Rutgers and Temple and are glad to have identified dates that worked for our schedules to play Pitt. The Penn State-Pitt game was one that football fans across the Commonwealth have been passionate about. There have been many memorable Penn State-Pitt games, featuring outstanding players and coaches, and we look forward to playing the Panthers again. ”

The Nittany Lions have met the Panthers more than any other opponent – 96 times – with Penn State owning a 50-42-4 series advantage. The teams first met in 1893 and played every season from 1900-31 and 1935-92, often in a compelling final game of the regular season. The teams did not meet from 1993-96, when Penn State began play in the Big Ten Conference, and then played a four-game series from 1997-2000, with the Nittany Lions winning the first three games. The Panthers won the last meeting, 12-0, in Three Rivers Stadium 11 years ago.

Penn State owns a 17-6 record against Pitt in State College, while the Panthers have a 34-28-4 advantage in games played on their home field. Penn State leads, 5-2, in neutral site games, the majority of which were played in Pittsburgh.

I’m decidedly meh about this (no sense getting worked up about the 2016 schedule without knowing what else is on it, right?), but it certainly holds our collective interest more than games against Syracuse, Temple, and Rutgers. If it gives me an excuse to revive this footage in five years, that’s not totally a bad thing.

Annual Canadian rapper quota: met.

Official site. Buy tracks at Band Camp.

Whoa.  Vijay’s back? Let’s hope he sticks around a while. As someone who frantically discussed college football online with guys like Vijay (and the hilariously insightful Mark Hasty) in the mid-to-late 1990′s — trust me, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a smarter guy talking college football.

[M1EK was there too, he had blue hair, and starred in the same pond-dynamiting role you already know and love/loathe.]

A funny wrinkle to the Chris Cicero story is that he wasn’t actually acting as Eddie Rife’s attorney when he fed Jim Tressel information about Ohio State players’ involvement with Fine Line Ink.  Turns out the Ohio Bar’s Disciplinary Board doesn’t really care about that:

Even when no client-lawyer relationship ensues, a lawyer who has had discussions with a prospective client shall not use or reveal information learned in the consultation.

With incremental nodding and winking from the NCAA (not to mention the simple economics of lower-tier FBS teams insisting on $750,000 or more for a three-hour road flogging), games against wholly overmatched FCS opponents have become a regular part of September college football. In the Slow States, the MACrifice has been replaced by much cheaper options from the Big South and Missouri Valley, among others.

Analyzing non-conference schedules can be a bit tenuous, given that many agreements between BCS-level programs are scheduled 4-8 years in advance. Programs can go south in a hurry, much like Syracuse (luv ya, GERG) did after Penn State locked them up for a future series following the 2001 season.

Scheduling the FCS schools, though? Much more short-notice in nature. Which Big Ten teams are scheduling these abject patsies? In 2011, all of them except for Michigan and Ohio State:

(Scrumptious pastry in bold)

Illinois: Arkansas State, South Dakota State, Arizona State, W. Michigan
Indiana: @Ball State, Virginia, S. Carolina State, @North Texas
Iowa: Tennessee Tech, @Iowa State, Pitt, Louisiana-Monroe
Michigan: W. Michigan, Notre Dame, E. Michigan, SDSU
Michigan State: Youngstown State, Fla Atlantic, @Notre Dame, C. Michigan
Minnesota: @USC, New Mexico State, Miami (OH), N. Dakota State
Nebraska: Chattanooga, Fresno State, Washington, @Wyoming
Northwestern: @BC, E. Illinois, @Army, Rice
Ohio State: Akron, Toledo, @Miami (FL), Colorado
Penn State: Indiana State, Alabama, @Temple, E. Michigan
Purdue: Middle Tennessee St., @Rice, SE Missouri State, Notre Dame
Wisconsin: UNLV, Oregon State, N. Illinois, South Dakota

(What have I learned?  There’s a North Dakota, North Dakota State, South Dakota and a South Dakota State buzzing around FCS football.  Knowledge.)

Best of the sacrificial lambs?  South Carolina State has enjoyed a lot of success recently, including a conference co-championship last year.  Southeast Missouri woke from a long slumber to make it to the 2nd round of the FCS playoffs, where they lost to eventual champion Eastern Washington.  And it doesn’t matter if South Dakota State is any good — they’re okay, incidentally — with mascot like the Jackrabbits, there are no losers here.

Worsties?  Penn State scheduling Indiana State is an abomination.  The game was announced in June 2009.  The Sycamores had gone 1-32 the previous three seasons, with winless seasons in 2007 and 2008.  No excuse, Penn State.  I don’t care if ISU went 6-5 in 2010, they make Tennessee Tech look like the ’01 Miami Hurricanes.  Total disgrace.

There are enough Terrelle Pryor career eulogies and autopsies floating about The Series Of Tubes that it seems nearly pointless to pile on. Shocking as the constant trickling of allegations remains, practically everybody who watched Pryor’s recruitment and subsequent behavior at Ohio State knew there was a substantial possibility of this happening to Buckeye fans prior to the scheduled end of Terrelle’s eligibility:

Most predictable flame-out ever? Unfair possibly, but it’s not surprising in any way. Star athlete of questionable awareness is represented by a “handler” (I’ll say it again, if Ted Sarniak wasn’t old and white, he’d be labeled a “street agent”). He ends up at a wildly-successful program in the most populated, football-crazy college destination in the Midwest, providing innumerable temptations by sycophantic criminals with ill intentions. He’s not smart enough to even attempt to cover his tracks, gets so caught, then is unceremoniously discarded and villified as The Disease because nobody particularly cared to stop him from self-destruction.

It was as unpredictable as a Lifetime movie plot.

High Stakes Poker has a different meaning in the Slow States.

Brian Hamedl was playing poker in an all-night game with Kyle Tarboro at a Bethlehem Township home April 1, 2010, when he told Tarboro he had urine stored in his vehicle that Tarboro could use to cheat on a drug test.

They bet $300 on whether Hamedl actually had the urine, and when the poker game wrapped up, Tarboro demanded the money or the urine. When Hamedl told him the bet was absurd, Tarboro allegedly delivered a beating that left Hamedl in the hospital for four days and stole a roll of cash from Hamedl’s pocket.