The Larry King-ish Stream of Consciousness Column for 10/2

In this edition of the LKSOC…the mess with UNC football gets worse, the worst moments of Tennessee DB’s are revisited and Barry Switzer shares some precious memories:

◊ It looks like John Blake was getting straight paid by Gary Wichard

The investigation into the funny business North Carolina football team has revealed that agent Gary Wichard of Pro Tect Management and former Tar Heel assistant coach Jon Blake were just a little more than casual acquaintances. Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! provides a few of the particulars right here:

Time and a slew of different investigative bodies will determine the extent of Blake and Wichard’s relationship and whether it involved the recruitment of Tar Heel players.  Yahoo! Sports reported Wednesday the existence of at least six wire transfers from Wichard’s private bank to Blake, a credit card from Wichard’s Pro Tect Management in Blake’s name and a personal loan given to the long-time college coach.  Blake previously worked for Wichard. (Yahoo! Sports)

C’mon Dan, you’re wondering whether or not Wichard’s relationship with Blake involved the recruitment of Tar Heel players?  Jesus, maybe you need a refresher course, it’s all ball bearings nowadays ($1 To Irwin Fletcher).  Why else would Wichard be funneling money to him?  Perhaps you need that stuff you referenced put together in bullet point format, you know, to make it more understandable:

• Six wire transfers from Wichard’s bank, The First National Bank of Long Island, to Blake

• A $45,000 personal loan to Blake from The First National Bank of Long Island

• A Pro Tect Management credit card that was issued to Blake

Here’s the problem facing UNC with this mess: this isn’t some agent who’s snooping around campus trying to entice football players to sign with him using $100 handshakes. This involved an actual, honest to goodness assistant coach who was on an agent’s payroll. If people thought the punishment USC got was harsh, wait until they get a load of the penalties that UNC football will be hit with down the road.

◊ Players’ lowest moments, saved for posterity

Guess who wishes YouTube (and by extension the interwebs) was never invented? If you said, “Tennessee defensive backs,” you’d be correct:

◊ Despite beating Texas, UCLA’s still pretty crappy

With a win over Washington State today, UCLA can do something I thought was impossible less than two weeks ago: they can move over .500 for the season. That’s yet another unexpected result to come out of the Bruins’ mindboggling road win over Texas this past Saturday.

But I’m not ready to check this one off in the “W” column for the Bruins just because it’s lowly Wazzu that’s coming to town. That’s because UCLA is still a football team with a one dimensional offense and a defense that’s yielding 4.6 yards a carry to the opposition.

I’m not backing off of my preseason bottom 10 ranking for Wazzu, because this is a team that most certainly sucks ass. But what better opportunity for a Pac-10 road win will Paul Wulff’s team have?

The glaring flaw thus far for the Cougars has been defending the pass. Washington State has the nation’s 116th-ranked pass defense, giving up 286.2 yards a game and 13 scoring tosses already this season. But UCLA isn’t really equipped to take advantage of that weakness, currently ranking 118th nationally in pass offense.

Will Wazzu have enough pride to suck it up, stuff the Bruin rushing attack and make this one interesting? Heck, might as well try to force a shootout, it’s the best approach to take.

◊ Sorry Glenn, there’s always someone with a camera

Remember rocker Glenn Danzig, the lead singer for the band that carries his name? If not, let me refresh your memory:

That was back in the early 90’s. Here’s Glenn today, wearing his own band’s t-shirt and lugging kitty litter to his car:

After seeing this, I’m convinced that somewhere there’s a picture of Dave Mustaine cleaning out a port-a-potty. Please, interwebs, give that treasure to me.

◊ Grab an older guy’s hand and avoid that shit on the ground

Here’s an epic excerpt from a Dallas Morning News interview with former Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer. Here he shares some of his fondest memories of playing Texas every year in the Cotton Bowl:

Well, it’s me telling those freshmen that have never been down that ramp to watch where Bevo’s been because it will be a big pile, and I don’t want you to step in it. I told the rookies to grab the hand of a veteran and they will lead you down, because there will be so many stars in your eyes that you won’t even look down to see all of that stuff.  To go on that field is a great excitement and atmosphere, but nothing tops being in the locker room after winning the ball game. (Dallas Morning News)

Now that I think about it, I guess getting shit on his cleats would be pretty damn demoralizing for an Oklahoma freshman participating in his first Red River Shootout.

In college football, stats don’t lie…but they can stretch the truth

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m often guilty of taking statistics in college football at face value when judging a unit. For example, I’ll glance at passing efficiency defense rankings, see a team putting up solid numbers, and think, “That’s a great team at defending the pass.”

However, I might forget to take into account that the team in question might be marginal in terms of stopping the run. If that’s the case, then the opposition might not even be emphasizing the pass. Hell, why fling it when you can run it? In such a scenario, you have to take stats with a grain of salt.

So I’ve come to have the belief that while stats don’t lie, they can definitely stretch the truth a little bit. A case in point is the Texas Longhorns’ run defense from a season ago.

After the final numbers were compiled, they were the nation’s stingiest run defense, yielding a paltry 72.4 yard per game on the ground. That came on 458 carries by the opposition through 14 games. Next in line was Alabama at 78.1 ypg on 395 carries in 14 contests.

There’s been an emphasis by Mack Brown in recent years to get his various defensive coordinators (Gene Chizik, Duane Akina and Will Muschamp) to get tougher on the run. The trend says that’s exactly what’s been happening:

2009: #1 at 72.4 ypg
2008: #3 at 83.5 ypg
2007: #6 at 93.4 ypg
2006: #3 at 61.2 ypg
2005: #33 at 130.9 ypg
2004: #16 at 107.4 ypg
2003: #58 at 152.5 ypg

It’s interesting to note that the Longhorns’ second worst recent showing in this category came in the national title year of 2005. However, that particular Texas defense ended up finishing 10th nationally against both land and air attack while the offense blew up with Vince Young at the helm.

Here’s an interesting factor concerning the run defense from that championship year: Texas played five teams that finished in the top 25 nationally in rushing (Ohio State, Rice, Missouri, Texas A&M and USC). Against that kind of competition, giving up 130 ypg on the ground was no crime at all.

So using that notion, that a very good defense still has trouble shutting down a very good running team, brings us to an obvious conclusion: the fewer solid ground games you face, the fewer yards you allow.

And as the decade has wore on, the Big 12 has fielded fewer solid ground games because no league in the country has embraced pass heavy spread attacks the way it has.

For example, take 2008, a year in which five Big 12 teams (including Texas) finished in the top ten nationally in passing offense. Total touchdown passes thrown by that quintet of squads? A mindboggling 208. Two hundred and eight.

The league’s shift toward passing didn’t generate quite the same kind of numbers last season, but the emphasis was still there. Big 12 teams in the top 25 in passing? Six. Big 12 teams in the top 25 in rushing? One.

But the dearth of Big 12 teams at the top of last year’s rushing rankings isn’t nearly as fascinating as the glut of teams at the other end of those rankings. Four league members - Kansas, Baylor, Colorado and Texas Tech - finished in the bottom top 25 nationally.

And guess who got to play them all? That would be Texas, and as you can expect, the result was pretty ugly: those opponents were credited with a combined 106 rushes for 89 yards. Yup, less than a yard a pop.

Compare that to the two occasions when Texas got most generous last season, against Texas A&M and Alabama. Those teams ran it a combined 91 times for 395 yards on the Longhorns. In the BCS title game alone Alabama notched four rushing touchdowns, which was one fewer than Texas had allowed going into the contest.

As mentioned earlier, Alabama finished second nationally against the run in 2009, but unlike Texas put those numbers up against running attacks that were statistically superior. The Tide played five teams that finished in the top 25 in rushing and it’s also worth noting that none of Alabama’s SEC compatriots finished in the bottom 25 nationally in this category.

Even with the addition of a grizzled SEC coaching veteran like Tommy Tuberville at a pass happy school like Texas Tech, I don’t expect the nature of the Big 12 to change much this season. This is still a conference full of schools that love to throw the football.

So if the landscape is unchanged, you have to be a little bit weary of Texas’ true ability to stop the run when it counts the most. That’s because the league in which stats are compiled is just as telling as the numbers themselves.