The Larry King-ish Stream of Consciousness Column for 10/26

In this edition of the LKSOC you’ll learn how to tell your ass from a hole in the ground, read about a cowbell conundrum and meet the world’s most dangerous pepper:

◊ Another season of painful irrelevance for Notre Dame

Here’s a great little factoid you can share with your friends and relatives: After last Saturday’s 35-17 victory, Navy has won 3 of the last 4 against Notre Dame after losing its previous 43 vs. the Irish dating back to 1964.

Think about that for a second.  Even in the darkest days of the Gerry friggin’ Faust regime, Notre Dame still found a way to beat Navy.  Hell, even if you include the 18-17 nail biter back in ‘84, Faust beat Navy by an average score of 30-11 in his five games against them as Notre Dame’s coach.

Now, the more knuckleheaded of you out there will probably counter that this is a pretty good Navy team under the direction of Ken Niumatalolo.  You’ll also offer up Midshipman quarterback Ricky Dobbs as one of the more under-appreciated talents currently toiling in college football.

I won’t disagree with any of that, but at the end of the day, it’s still NAVY.  An undersized team from a Service Academy shouldn’t be whipping a team that has its own television contract and recent recruiting classes that were pretty highly regarded by multiple scouting sites.  Hell, even Georgia Southern held Navy to 13 points earlier this season.

Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly is in his first year on the job, so I understand he needs to be cut a little slack.  After all, it took him a couple of years to whip Central Michigan into shape.  But did anyone think his first Irish team would be sitting at 4-4 with a pretty solid shot at finishing 6-6?   I sure didn’t.

Adding to Kelly’s woes is the fact that at least one of his players decided to be a world class a-hole during that loss to Navy.  In the video below, pay close attention to #56, Irish linebacker Kerry Neal:

Remember what an unruly douchebag Lou Holtz became back in ‘91 when Huntley Bakich started fighting with a Michigan State player after the whistle blew?  Bakich’s indiscretion didn’t just result in a personal foul penalty, it also resulted in Holtz leading him toward the bench by his facemask and giving him one of the greatest in-game dress downs ever caught on film (YouTube has most everything else, but not that one).

Kelly took no such action with Neal, maybe because he didn’t see the incident or maybe because Neal wasn’t whistled for a penalty on the play.  But if Kelly doesn’t give that kid the business this week in practice, then he and Notre Dame deserve to wallow around in the putrid stench of mediocrity that’s settled on the program.

Oh, and leave it to one of the least accomplished football writers on the interwebs to miss a dirty play even after IT’S PUT IN SLOW MOTION.  Fox’s Lisa Horne weighed in on the video above with the following:

Geez, Lisa, you can’t be a homer for both Southern Cal AND Notre Dame, that’s just insane.  But all that aside, let me help you figure out how to assess the obvious by recommending the following book:

◊ The great cowbell compromise is at an end

The SEC banned the ringing of cowbells at league stadiums way back in 1974.  But the rule really only applied to Mississippi State, where the practice had been a decades long tradition.

I can only assume the action was taken because Bear Bryant bitched about it.  I bet the ringing sound in his ears reminded him too much of the hundreds of Sunday morning hangovers he’d endured dating back to his days at Maryland.

Well, despite the rule, the practice pretty much continued on unabated until this year, when the SEC said in June, “Remember that cowbell stuff from 1974?  Let’s revisit that.”  I don’t recall the ringing of cowbells at Mississippi State home games having been a hot button issue, but who knows, maybe they had run out of things to talk about at the SEC summer meetings.

The Great Cowbell Compromise of 2010 basically said that Bulldog fans could ring them before the game, at halftime, during timeouts and after scores.  But c’mon, if you’ve gone to the trouble of sneaking a cowbell into a game, are you really going to adhere to those rules?  If it was me, I would ring it continuously as if I had a Salvation Army donation kettle next to me.

Now that Mississippi State fans have apparently violated the Great Cowbell Compromise of 2010, the league is threatening to get tough:

The Southeastern Conference has told MSU officials of violations of legislation the school introduced in June that allows cowbells to be used during certain times during games at Scott Field.

The SEC is expected to levy financial penalties against MSU at the end of the year, MSU athletic director Scott Stricklin said.

Stricklin says fans “have not managed it right to this point,” when discussing cowbell etiquette during MSU’s first two SEC home games.

The fine structure penalizes MSU $5,000 for the first offense, $25,000 for the second offense and $50,000 for the third offense. (Jackson Clarion-Ledger)

Am I the only one who finds the term “cowbell etiquette” to be absolutely hilarious?  In closing, because it’s an unwritten rule that any story related to cowbells in any way must reference a certain SNL skit, here goes:

◊ Going DEEP into the depth chart

What does a team do when it loses its top three quarterbacks to injury?  In the case of Richmond, you trot out an 18-year old true freshman who’s at the school because a former NBA player recommended it to him.

The quarterback in question is Montel White, who also played basketball last year at Surry County High School with Johnny Newman Jr.  It was the senior Newman, a Richmond grad whose NBA career spanned an impressive 16 seasons with multiple teams, who strongly recommended his alma mater to White after hearing the school was recruiting him.

Most of the other schools pursuing him backed off when White suffered a right knee injury while making a tackle as a safety.   But Richmond persisted and he signed his letter of intent with the school this past February.  With USC transfer Aaron Corp and the experienced John Laub ahead of him on the quarterback depth chart, White settled in to what appeared would be an uneventful season as a fourth stringer.

However, when the guys ahead of him started falling like flies, White was forced to start two Saturdays ago on the road at UMass. For the first 58 minutes of that contest, he attempted exactly one pass that really wasn’t a pass at all.  It came when White lateraled the ball out of bounds to avoid being sacked.

But with 1:51 left and his team down by a 10-5 count, White did what appeared to be unthinkable to that point: he completed a pass.  And then another.  By the time the drive was over, he’d found Tre Gray in the end zone for a 15-yard touchdown pass with only nine ticks remaining.  Richmond pulled out an 11-10 win on a drive in which White completed 4-of-5 passes after not having attempted a legitimate one the entire game.

This past Saturday, he got the call again and led Richmond to a 28-6 homecoming win over Towson. While his throwing stats weren’t impressive (6-of-10, 73 yards and 1 TD), the number that most matters is his 2-0 record as a starter.

It’s unclear at this point whether Richmond coach Latrell Scott will have third string quarterback Nick Hicks available for this week’s Colonial tilt with Villanova.  Hicks has been nursing a concussion since a 17-0 loss to New Hampshire on October 9.  But if White does get the call and leads Richmond to victory, he’ll pretty much become a cult hero to Spider fans.

◊ Why’d you have to throw it at THAT guy?

As a Bears fan, it pained me to no end to watch Jay Cutler throw four interceptions in that 17-14 loss to Washington this past Sunday.  But you know what made it hurt just a little more?  The fact that all of those picks went to that insufferable shit DeAngelo Hall.

I would rather be strapped to a chair Clockwork Orange style and be forced to watch Darrell Green’s punt return TD against the Bears in the ‘87 playoff loss on a continuous loop than have to watch another replay of any of Hall’s picks.  Thanks a bunch, Jay.

In case you don’t recall, Green tore rib cartilage on that return…and stayed in the game. I tend to forget what a stud that guy was.

◊ My bout against the ghost pepper will take place this week

Late in the summer, I planted some ghost pepper seeds in a container to see what the fuss is all about. Despite some cold nights, I’ve got two of these bastards that are almost ripe. But I’m still not sure if I should even try to add these to my chili recipe. Watch this and you’ll understand my trepidation:

The Larry King-ish Stream of Consciousness Column for 9/28

In this edition of the LKSOC…Notre Dame can’t stop anybody, the Segway guy meets his end on a Segway and the new Terry Dean:

◊ The generosity of the Irish

Notre Dame has played three teams this season that are currently ranked (Michigan, Michigan State and Stanford). In those contests, the Irish rolled up an extremely robust 1,347 combined yards of total offense (449 ypg). What do they have to show for that fine body of offensive work? An 0-3 record in those games.

That’s because Notre Dame hasn’t come close to stopping any of the aforementioned teams. Total yards per game allowed against that trio? 471. Total yards per play given up to those same teams? A brutal 6.0 per snap.

It’s the same old same old in regard to Brian Kelly-coached teams playing ranked opposition. Last season, his Cincinnati Bearcats averaged 447.5 ypg of total offense against three ranked opponents but also yielded 472.7 ypg in those same games.  To take the next step, Kelly’s got to figure out how to slow down good teams.

◊ Who NOT to hug after a big win

Word of advice to Auburn quarterback Cameron Newton…after winning a big game, try to refrain from hugging the referee like you did as the clock ran down to 0:00 in your team’s 35-27 victory over South Carolina.  It just looks, well, sort of odd:

◊ I know why the caged Stephen Garcia sings

When does one generation end and the next one begin?  I ask this because we’re not that far removed from Steve Spurrier tossing Terry Dean aside in favor of Danny Wuerrfel.  So is it too soon to call Stephen Garcia this generation’s Terry Dean?  Or should I just call him Terry Dean Part 2?

This past Saturday, Garcia looked pretty damn masterful in leading South Carolina to a 20-7 lead over Auburn.  But after he caught a case of the fumbles that Auburn took advantage of, Spurrier yanked him in favor of true freshman Connor Shaw.  Of course Shaw proceeded to throw two interceptions, because that’s what a wet behind the ears kid does when he’s thrown into the fire that way.

The funny thing is, the move was such a head scratcher that a friend of mine who was surfing multiple games texted me to ask how Garcia got hurt.  You know, because that’s the only logical reason why a true freshman would have replaced him at that point in the game.  My reply?  “Hurt?  No, Garcia just got Terry Deaned.”

Jesus, OBC, I know you were pissed at Garcia, but in lieu of taking it out on him the way you did, why not wait until the next practice to scream at him in front of the team?  Instead, you chose to take away your team’s best chance to win a meaningful SEC road game.

I know people want to knock the production of Spurrier’s quarterbacks at South Carolina and imply that means that the studs he had at Florida were infinitely better.  While that’s true to a point, I also think defenses back in the 1990’s were slightly less evolved than they are now.  Back then, a Spurrier quarterback could just throw the skinny post at will.  Today, they just can’t, and the last person who seems to understand that is Steve Spurrier.

In regard to Dean, here’s a fascinating quote from Spurrier from 1994:

“I’ve done a lousy job coaching Terry Dean, and I felt like at this time Danny deserved a chance to be our player based on performance,” coach Steve Spurrier said Tuesday.  “I just haven’t been able to get Terry to play the way I’d like him to. I just haven’t done a very good job preparing him.” (Orlando Sentinel)

If Shaw assumes the starting quarterback job on a full-time basis, expect a very similar quote from the OBC in about a month regarding Garcia.

◊ Would this be like Burger King’s CEO choking to death on a Whopper?

Talk about a screwed up way to meet your end: Jimi Heselden, the owner of the company that manufactures Segways, died after driving his own personal Segway over a cliff.  This picture from the Daily Mail provides all the details you need to know:

◊ A big road test = a first for an awful lot of Volunteer players

As if you need any more proof that Tennessee’s football program is essentially starting over from scratch, Volunteer coach Derek Dooley dropped the following nugget concerning his team’s trip to LSU this coming Saturday:

“The bigger challenge besides that is it’s going to be the first road game for almost half of our travel squad. I think I counted about 30 guys out of the – we’ll probably travel 66 to 68 guys — 30 of them have never even been on a road trip at Tennessee. So we’ll have to talk a lot about that and how we handle it professionally and how we handle the crowd, and a hostile environment. So a lot of challenges this week.” (Chattanoogan.com)

◊ The Big 12 race is interesting again…maybe

This Thursday night’s contest between Texas A&M and Oklahoma State is mighty intriguing on a couple of levels.  First off, if you like points, this one should have plenty of them: OSU is currently first nationally in total offense (596 ypg) while Texas A&M checks in at #10 (501.3 ypg).

The second is that the Big 12 is suddenly a helluva lot more wide open than it initially appeared to be.  With Texas getting kicked in the teeth by UCLA, Oklahoma not exactly looking invincible and Nebraska looking to be very good but not quite great, who’s to say an A&M or OSU couldn’t make this thing very interesting by season’s end?  Hell, even K-State is 4-0 right now.

A road win over OSU might give Mike Sherman the in with Aggie fans that he’s so desperately wanted.  Is it just me, or have they wanted him fired since BEFORE he was actually hired?  It’s hard to tell who Aggie fans dislike more, Sherman or Mack Brown.

As for Oklahoma State, how about the season Brandon Weedon’s been having at quarterback?  I know, I know, there are 6-A schools in Texas high school football that have played a tougher schedule to this point, but try to turn your nose down for just a second and give the kid a break.  He’s averaging 325 ypg passing on 9.7 yards an attempt, and unlike Houston’s Case Keenum, Weedon doesn’t keep throwing it to the other team.

◊ Calipari’s silly excuses

Here is an excerpt of John Calipari’s interview with Jon Soloman of the Birmingham News this week:

Calipari suggested Kentucky lost to West Virginia in the Elite Eight last season in part because the Wildcats were looking ahead to Duke in the Final Four.

“Do you know how badly we wanted to play Duke?” Calipari said. “I think that’s why we played so badly against West Virginia. We wanted Duke so badly we couldn’t see straight.”

Kentucky shot 4 of 32 on 3-pointers in the loss to West Virginia. (Birmingham News)

That’s a pretty good excuse…except for the fact that at the time of his own team’s loss, Duke hadn’t played Baylor yet in its own regional final.  Kind of hard to look ahead to playing a team that hasn’t yet advanced.

◊ This and that

LSU is apparently staying with Jordan Jefferson at quarterback.  Yeah, as if there’s a more attractive option on the depth chart…Talk about a couple of teams that dodged bullets this past Saturday: UCF had Kansas State dead to rights before losing, and UAB was shoveling dirt on Tennessee’s coffin before letting that one slip away…Speaking of ones that got away, what a couple of batshit stupid 4th quarter throws by Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett in his team’s narrow loss to top ranked Alabama.  Heisman my ass…Because no intraconference play has yet to begin in the Big East, the overall records of its teams are used to sort them out in the standings.  So as of right now, Syracuse sits atop the league at 3-1 while Cincinnati is 1-3 and in last place.  It’s still VERY early, but what a difference a season makes.

Notre Dame loses to Michigan but out-red, white and blues them

On this most somber of anniversaries, many college football coaches across the country remembered 9/11 by adding a dash of the American flag to their baseball caps.

Most design changes in the hats were subtle, with only the school’s logo being retooled.  But Air Force went the extra mile and dropped some Old Glory into their helmet logos for today’s game against BYU. With the school being a Service Academy, I think Air Force should consider keeping this as its default helmet design, it’s pretty damn cool:

The hat Rich Rodriguez sported in Michigan’s tilt with Notre Dame today featured a subtle remix of the school’s iconic “M” logo.  But while he preferred to go with a dash of patriotism, the Irish went all Lee Greenwood on us:

I’m not taking Notre Dame to task for being excessive, not by any means.  Hell, on this day, more power to them if they had run out of the tunnel wearing red, white and blue uniforms.

No, the thing I find perplexing is that both of these schools are outfitted by adidas.  With that being the case, why didn’t they both get the same treatment?  Hmmm…

Turning back to the game itself, Michigan needed a late touchdown to secure a highly entertaining 28-24 victory.  And in my opinion, Michigan quarterback Denard Robinson damn near locked up the Heisman in the process.  He ran for 258 yards and threw for 244…that’s 502 yards of offense he accounted for.  502. What absolutely sick numbers this guy is putting up.

Mormons and Catholics unite in independence

In a move we knew was pretty much inevitable, BYU’s newly independent football program has inked a deal with staunchly independent Notre Dame to play a six-game series that Baptists won’t give two shits about.

Not to be outdone by their Catholic brothers in South Bend, Boston College has announced that they have signed a six-game women’s soccer series with BYU-Hawaii.  At this rate, HBO’s “Big Love” will have a storyline that has the Henricksons (all wives included) vacationing in Vatican City.

Wow, this new college sports landscape sure does make for strange bedfellows.  But here’s a union that’s not so strange: BYU and ESPN.

The two sides have entered into a agreement whereby ESPN gets exclusive rights to BYU home football games across all its channels from 2011 through 2018.

It’s a solid deal that guarantees BYU visibility while the school navigates the waters of independence.  However, it’s not the massive windfall that some predicted would happen if the school kept all its games on its own BYUtv network.

Also, the deal doesn’t mean that BYU will get showcased on ESPN the way Notre Dame sits front and center on NBC.  The terms of the agreement say that in contests where BYU is the designated home team, an annual minimum of three games will be on ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC, with those games being broadcast on Thursdays, Fridays or Saturdays.

There is also an annual minimum of one game on ESPNU with ESPN3 and ESPN GamePlan having the right to simulcast any ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC telecast involving BYU.

So in years where a few of BYU’s juicier games might be on the road, ESPN could opt to only show the Cougars four times the entire season, and not necessarily in the choicest time slots.  BYUtv would pick up the other games that ESPN bypasses.  Like I said, this isn’t the tulips and lollipops scenario that some people told me would come to pass.

But in the end, BYU is way ahead of where it was with that crappy TV payout the Mountain West was giving its teams (but not making SEC or Big 10 money).  So far in this evolving realignment saga, BYU has come out looking pretty damn good.

College Football News’s Notre Dame preview goes horribly wrong

When Pete Fiutak sat down to write his preview of the 2010 edition of the Fighting Irish for CollegeFootballNews.com, he had no idea he’d end up in the middle of a shit storm because of it.

Once his preview was posted, it’s only natural that the folks from the Notre Dame blog HerLoyalSons.com would stumble across it and give it the once over.  Not only did they find incorrect names (Nate Montana was referred to as “Nick”) and some questionable analysis (Fiutak tabbed the Navy game as being Notre Dame’s most important of the season), they also found this:

New recuit Matt James might not be an elite prospect, but he was on everyone’s list of the best tackles of this year’s recruiting class with the size and frame to sit at one tackle spot for 4 years. At 6-7 and 291 pounds, the Cincinnati native followed Brian Kelly to South Bend and will get a long look at playing time right away on the outside. Even though he’s tall, he’s physical for the ground game and does a good job of shoving people around. (CollegeFootballNews.com)

Here’s where the preview went off the rails, because Matt James passed away this past spring after a fall from a hotel balcony in Panama City, FL.  It was sort of all over the news, everybody involved weighed in on it at the time.

Of course, you can imagine the roasting that ensued in the Twitterverse.  All of this prompted Fiutak’s CFN colleague Matt Zemek to go into full damage control mode:

If you clicked on the CFN link above you can see that any reference to James has been edited out.  As for Fiutak, word is that his 2010 Heisman watch list will be out soon.  He really likes Nebraska’s Tommie Frazier, but he’s touting Michigan State’s Lorenzo White as a serious dark horse.