2012 College Football

[Paelos]

The hits just keep on coming for my Bulldogs

Chase Vasser, the Junior OLB is now suspended for 2 games for a DUI arrest in May. That's now 4 of our defensive starters that will miss the Mizzou game. Ugh.

[ghost]

I would honestly expect Richt to have a little bit better control of his team than he seems to.  You guys are always getting players in trouble for something.  It's not what I expect from Mark. 

[Paelos]

Mark likes to turn the other cheek a lot, so the players take full advantage. However, once it becomes painfully obvious they won't get any better, we dump them in a very public fashion.

[ghost]

Yeah, but it's still not what I expected of him.  I expect that of Urban Meyer or Bobby Petrino or Gene Chizik, but Richt seemed to be cut from a different cloth than those dudes. 

[Paelos]

Honeybadger dismissed from LSU for violation of team rules

When asked, he said he doesn't give a shit.

[Ingmar]

Oh man, that's what, *one day* after ESPN did a big feature article on him on their site? Lawl.

[WayAbvPar]

How badly do you have to fuck up to be that good and still get kicked off a mercenary team like LSU? Jesus.

[01101010]

Honeybadger dismissed from LSU for violation of team rules

When asked, he said he doesn't give a shit.

I'll be at the bar for the rest of the season.

[ghost]

How badly do you have to fuck up to be that good and still get kicked off a mercenary team like LSU? Jesus.

This is exactly what I was thinking.  I imagine the real story will come out soon.  Undoubtedly drugs or firearms or both. 

[Paelos]

Early word is another failed series of drug tests.

[01101010]

Early word is another failed series of drug tests.

LSU (NCAA rule?) has a three failed and you are gone rule. At least Les didn't try to skirt the rule. Sadly, he didn't do that last year with Jordan 'useless' Jefferson after he was literally thrown in jail.

[Chimpy]

Bet he is wishing he had left early for the NFL, eh?

[01101010]

Bet he is wishing he had left early for the NFL, eh?

Technically he couldn't being only a soph.

[caladein]

Oh man, that's what, *one day* after ESPN did a big feature article on him on their site? Lawl.

It's from the magazine so a bit farther than that, but yeah...

[ghost]

Wow.  Just wow.  Julius Peppers got a mind boggling 1.824 GPA at UNC, and apparently most of the grades that he needed to stay eligible came from the African American Studies department at UNC (this is the one that has been causing them so much grief). 

It's going to be really interesting to see what comes of this once it's all said and done, but I have to believe that the new-look kick your ass NCAA that stuffed Penn State's head up their ass is going to not be too kind on UNC. 

[cmlancas]

They weren't kind to UCF either.  And UCF was really, really guilty.  The kind where even the sports reporters and talking heads were like  .

Can the NCAA really take specific actions against schools for academic transgressions?  I mean an obvious case is someone taking a test for someone else.  But, what happens when an athletic program gets wind of an easy course or god forbid a major?

Hell, my university had Jazz Appreciation and Issues in Sports -- both four credit classes that essentially asked you to fog a mirror for an A.

[ghost]

There's already evidence of academic wrongdoing at UNC. They've already gotten a bowl ban and lost some scholarships for transgressions under Butch Davis.  The bigger question is whether or not there was an issue with the basketball program (or a bigger issue with the football program than was indicated by the initial investigation).  The original investigation only went back to 2007.  Many members of the Sean May national title team were in the same classes that got the football team in trouble......

Addendum-  I have to say that I find it fairly reprehensible that the NCAA goes bonkers on something that is not precisely in their rulebook (PSU scandal) and seems as though the organization is going to stick its head in the sand over academic fraud at a member institution.  The NCAA has certainly raised the bar of expectation with the PSU ruling, and while I don't think it's an unmerited punishment for Penn State, they need to look closely at the facts in this UNC case.  This is probably going to end up being the most well documented case of rampant institutional academic fraud in history.  I know that the big players (Bama, USC, Florida, Ohio State, Michigan, etc.)  probably have similar programs set up for their athletes, but this is out in the open.  The NCAA should dole out significant penalties for Miami and UNC. 

[Ingmar]

It isn't what I would have expected from:

1) a school as good academically as UNC in general
2) a public school
3) a school that really doesn't have any kind of decent history of doing well at football

So yeah the big uh-oh is going to be if this touches the basketball program.

[cmlancas]

It isn't what I would have expected from:

1) a school as good academically as UNC in general
2) a public school

The thing is, I think the schools some folks would "expect" this at, such as Florida, Ohio State, Michigan, and USC, are extremely strong schools academically.  Yes, UNC is in the triangle, but many top athletic schools have excellent academic programs as well.

(I'm not saying you said this, just using your post as a springboard)

[Ingmar]

You shouldn't say such things about the University of Second Choice.

[cmlancas]

You shouldn't say such things about the University of Second Choice.

The most respected scholar in my field teaches at USC.  Getting on any paper with him is a guarantee for a tenured position at the public university of your choosing.

Undergraduates who complete programs and work with him gain entry to the grad school of their choosing with a letter of recommendation from him.

Yes, his work is that big.

But, I'll admit, UC Berkeley is my third love, after USF (hail, alma mater!), and Duke (hail, summer programs!).

[01101010]

You shouldn't say such things about the University of Second Choice.

The most respected scholar in my field teaches at USC.  Getting on any paper with him is a guarantee for a tenured position at the public university of your choosing.

Undergraduates who complete programs and work with him gain entry to the grad school of their choosing with a letter of recommendation from him.

Yes, his work is that big.

But, I'll admit, UC Berkeley is my third love, after USF (hail, alma mater!), and Duke (hail, summer programs!).

Important people actually are Gamecocks? Who knew?! 

[Trippy]

You shouldn't say such things about the University of Second Choice.

The most respected scholar in my field teaches at USC.  Getting on any paper with him is a guarantee for a tenured position at the public university of your choosing.

Undergraduates who complete programs and work with him gain entry to the grad school of their choosing with a letter of recommendation from him.

Yes, his work is that big.

But, I'll admit, UC Berkeley is my third love, after USF (hail, alma mater!), and Duke (hail, summer programs!).

Doesn't change the fact that it's still the University of Spoiled Children

[cmlancas]

You shouldn't say such things about the University of Second Choice.

The most respected scholar in my field teaches at USC.  Getting on any paper with him is a guarantee for a tenured position at the public university of your choosing.

Undergraduates who complete programs and work with him gain entry to the grad school of their choosing with a letter of recommendation from him.

Yes, his work is that big.

But, I'll admit, UC Berkeley is my third love, after USF (hail, alma mater!), and Duke (hail, summer programs!).

Important people actually are Gamecocks? Who knew?! 

I was speaking about University of Southern California, but since you asked, yes.  A very famous and wonderful Hemingway scholar named Carl Eby teaches there.  He's a super guy (and amazingly talented).

As a side note, somehow I am derailing this thread.

GO BULLS!  Win the Big East, also known as the conference even cable TV can't seem to give a shit about.

[Paelos]

You shouldn't say such things about the University of Second Choice.

The most respected scholar in my field teaches at USC.

Who is that?

[cmlancas]

You shouldn't say such things about the University of Second Choice.

The most respected scholar in my field teaches at USC.

Who is that?

Richard E. Mayer

[K9]

You shouldn't say such things about the University of Second Choice.

The most respected scholar in my field teaches at USC.

Who is that?

Richard E. Mayer

I thought you were a butcher?

On another note, why does this matter? Why does the NCAA care about these people pretending to be academic when everything about them says otherwise?

[ghost]

This says he has served as faculty at UCSB since 1975, not USC. 

[cmlancas]

This says he has served as faculty at UCSB since 1975, not USC. 

Hmm.  Let me double check.

Nope.  I stand corrected.  Well played, sir.

And if you check the butcher thread, I said I took a promotion and I'm in the Instructional Technology field now.

Hooooooray derail.

So, who thinks Skip Holtz keeps his job after this year?  Wait, maybe I should start with who knows who Skip Holtz is?

[Paelos]

Why does the NCAA care about these people pretending to be academic when everything about them says otherwise?

Good question, and I'm glad you asked. Here's why. In the long run, this will cost them money. They know it. They have numbers right now that attendance is down, TV is taking over, and the schools are recruiting people who are barely students to fill rosters. The problem is that people/fans/customers get tired of the mercenary aspect of the sport and the off-the-field issues that come with hiding this crap under a rock.

The main draw of college football isn't how good the players are. The main draw is rivalries, connecting with your past, and connecting with a locale. If people start to feel like the system is all about money, and they sacrifice rivalries and one of those two important connections, people will stop showing up. The economy, the conference realignment bullshit, and the ridiculous thuggery we've seen in the last 3 years have damaged college ball a lot economically. You would have NEVER seen them talk about a playoff 10 years ago. Now you can because the dollars aren't as rosy as they'd like them to be. Even though teams are getting more money from TV dollars, they are starting to lose it at the gate.

[ghost]

There's also their mission statement to consider- 

“Our mission is to be an integral part of higher education and to focus on the development of our student-athletes.”

One would think that, if it weren't for academics, that the NCAA would have no reason to exist at all.  They state as much in their Priorities statement.

"The priorities are student-athlete well-being and protection of the collegiate model that we all know and feel viscerally about, but that which we have to convert into language and actions that are meaningful to a public that doesn’t quite understand it – or if they do, they don’t always believe us. We have to fix that. The stronger the link is between our athletics programs and our academic programs – the more those athletics experiences are incorporated into the academic experiences – then we don’t have to talk about athletics and academics as separate entities but as part of the whole academic experience.”

Office of the President. 

Also, Mark Emmert is a douchebag. 

[Khaldun]

USC went on a buying spree for faculty starting about ten years ago, they got a lot of pretty cool people. I think they're still waiting for that to change their student body... 

I don't know why anyone is surprised at the UNC stuff. I know I was ranting about this a while back but with any of the really major football and basketball programs, I 100% guarantee you there is something going on like what Nyang'oro was doing. Michigan had a much quieter scandal of this kind a couple of years ago when it came to light that there was a professor who was doing a fuckton of individual tutorials at 1 credit per for athletes. I think most programs are either better at hiding it with clever titles, a larger number of complicit faculty, etc. or are more ruthless at keeping this kind of practice from coming to light. (One way to do that, for example, is to direct athletes to courses taught by adjunct faculty, who know that if they rat out the program or fail to cooperate with greasing the eligibility wheels, they can be fired at will, unlike tenure-track faculty. Syracuse did that for a while until a woman who didn't get with the program and got canned went to the press.)

[ghost]

I don't think the issue is that anyone is shocked by the UNC academic scandal.  Most reasonable people would assume that some form of grade doctoring is going on at some level for every institution with high power athletic programs.  Make no mistake, however, that this is the largest and most egregious form of grade fraud that has occurred to date.  This dwarfs the rules violations that occurred at Florida State about a decade ago, which was to that point the largest such violation to be discovered.  My own issue with the situation stems more from the complete disregard that the NCAA seems to have with its own rules and mission statement.  Now that the UNC thing is out in the open they should be obligated to do something with UNC, i.e. proper punishment, and to make rules that might clean up college athletics.  But they probably won't because the NCAA is a terribly corrupt organization. 

[Paelos]

My brother in law is a UNC grad and I can confirm that he found one of these classes. During drop/add he happened upon a class for African studies that qualified for his elective credit late in his senior year. He was just looking for easy crap to finish out the college career since he already had a job lined up.

He went into the class the first day, and it was him, a few other dudes he didn't know. And the entire baskeball team. The entire grade was based on attendance, taken on random days. Just so happened the only days the team showed up were the days the teach decided to count.

[ghost]

Here's an interesting article on ESPN about the quandary that the NCAA is dealing with in enacting harsher requirements for eligibility. 

Except for these simple questions: Will these rules effect that change? Can you legislate academic preparedness? Or will these rules merely pull out the college rug from a large percentage of athletes?

The numbers suggest the latter. According to the NCAA's research, 43.1 percent of men's basketball players, 35.2 percent of football players and 15.3 percent of all student-athletes who enrolled as freshmen in 2009-10 to play Division I sports would not have met the 2016 standards.

The fact that almost half of men's basketball players wouldn't meet the standards that they've set up is a telling statistic.  There are a lot of ethical quandaries involved with this, but at the end of the day I feel that the universities should decide if they are going to place academics ahead of athletics or let athletics run the show.  The US has a long history of attempting to integrate athletics and education (from early school ages on through university) and has let the athletics start to lead in importance.  Hell, kids are in athletics all year round now and high school football starts weeks or even months prior to the academic school year.  What's more important?  I think it's sending a bad message.