Yesterday, my girlfriend was kind enough to bring me the Sunday Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Having had lots of things to do yesterday, including watching old episodes of “The Office”, playing Madden and watching a 2-hour Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, I did not have the time to read said paper. So as I’m sitting here reading yesterday’s paper, I came across an article by Tony Barnhart, the AJC’s primary college football reporter.

The article talks about the rules made by the NCAA last year to make games faster, rules that included a running clock at rather inopportune moments, i.e., when a change of possession occurs. The article quotes several prominent coaches (Steve Spurrier, Mark Richt, Ralph Friedgen, Tennessee offensive coordinator David Cutcliffe) as saying that what the new rules are really doing is hurting the game from a strategic standpoint as well as from the vantage point of the fans.

First of all, I’m not sure who was complaining about the length of college football games. Compared to the NFL, college football games are quick. The truth of the matter is that the game on the field wasn’t and isn’t making the game longer, it’s the commercials and TV timeouts. And that has absolutely nothing to do with the game.

The article says that despite a survey that said 57 percent of Division I-A coaches wanted to go back to the old rules, the new rules weren’t likely to change.

Barnhart quoted Dennis Poppe, the NCAA’s managing director for football as saying, “I think we could see some modification at the end of the half and the end of the game,” Poppe said. “The key is whether or not this change impacts the integrity of the game and the way it’s supposed to be played. If there is a good reason to make another change, we’ll make it.”

What’s disgraceful about this is that the rule change was never meant to benefit or improve the integrity of the game.

So let me get this straight, the coaches think the rules are hurting the game and actually lessening the integrity of the game but the NCAA essentially has no intention of changing them. So if the NCAA isn’t acting on behalf of the “student-athletes” or on behalf of the coaches, who are they trying to protect? The answer: the networks, the conferences and their respective wallets.

Here’s a link to yesterday’s AJC article.

Because I live in the South, I was unable to get the Illinois/Indiana game on CBS on Saturday, instead getting an UCLA/West Virginia game that turned out to be a classic.. still I remained uninterested and didn’t watch it.

After reading articles about the game in the Chicago Tribune, Sun-Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Indianapolis Star I think I got a pretty good feel for how the Hoosiers played and how Hoosier Nation greeted Bruce Weber.I think it’s safe to say that this is the rivalry that Hoosier fans and the team can hang its on. I’m not sure how Champaign will greet Eric Gordon when he steps foot in Assembly Hall but my guess is that it’s not going to pretty. But I think that the Hoosiers have their Darth Vader… he’s smug, unlikable… and he whines. They have a villain.

The traditional IU rivalries, Purdue and Kentucky have fizzled of late and Hoosier Nation needs someone to hate. And they’ve found that someone…

You think IU fans believe in their new coach?

National Signing Day, which one sportswriter ridiculously compared to the Super Bowl and the first two days of the NCAA tournament, has come on gone.

On that day of days, I read any number of stories from newspapers across the country about any number of recruits to any number of schools. Without a doubt the biggest surprise was the draft class that Illinois and Ron Zook were able to snag on Wednesday. I read a story in the New York Times in which former Michigan State coach John L. Smith essentially accuses Zook and his staff of recruiting violations.

“Where there’s smoke, there’s probably fire,” Smith told The Times.

The main question is how could a program like Illinois, void of a rich football tradition of any kind, recruit four-star kids from Metro areas, other than Chicago? And since there’s no reasonable answer.. he must be cheating.

While I don’t think Zook is the most competent coach on the planet, the guy is one helluva recruiter. Even when he took over a Florida program that wasn’t fantastic when Spurrier left to coach the Redskins, the guy still pulled down impressive recruiting classes year after year after year, classes that included Chris Leak, Dallas Baker and other members of the Gators team that won the National Championship.

In a story today in the Chicago Tribune, Zook wonders aloud who these rumors may have come from. And he’s got a pretty good feeling that they started with a man who tucks half of his stomach into his pants — the snot-sicle king himself, Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weis.

Notre Dame and Illinois competed for many of the same prospects including Arrelious Benn and Martez Wilson. Weis just couldn’t seem to understand why anyone would want to go to Champagne when they could wake up the echoes at Notre Dame.

Until something is proven that demonstrates Zook’s guilt, I think the reality appears to be that Zook is a fantastic recruiter. He had a good track record at Florida and it appears that it’s continuing at Illinois.

Here’s a link to the Tribune article today.

As I work my way up my news reader, I happened across an article about Chicago Bulls rookie Tyrus Thomas. I had heard grumblings yesterday about comments Thomas made to a reporter from the Chicago Tribune about his desire, or lack thereof, to compete in the NBA’s slam dunk contest during All-Star weekend.

Thomas was quoted in the Tribune as saying, “I’m just going to go out there, get my check and call it a day.”

When asked if being around some of the game’s greats could be beneficial for a rookie, he responded, “I’m just into the free money. That’s it. I’ll just do whatever when I get out there.”

In a follow-up to that story, Thomas appears to have taken a stand-up attitude about the whole thing. He didn’t claim he was misquoted by the reporter but rather said that he’s going to use this as a lesson that he needs to be careful about what he says and how he says it and that he couldn’t fault the reporter for doing his job.

I’m mildly amused by Thomas’ comments because I think this is a reflection of what the slam dunk contest has become. Everything that can be done, for the most part has been done. The only innovative thing I’ve seen recently was when Steve Nash demonstrated his soccer skills in helping teammate Amare Stoudemire in the dunk contest. I think the dunk contest needs to be discontinued and replaced with a skills competition or something of that ilk. I know it will be hard to part ways with the dunk contest because of the nostalgia and great moments attached to it (see, Jordan and ‘Nique, Dr. J., Cedric Ceballos dunking blindfolded, etc.) but I think the times has come to move forward and start a new tradition.

In today’s piece in the Chicago Tribune, Thomas said he was going to donate any slam dunk winnings or additional money he would receive for participating in the dunk contest to his high school. That is something I don’t believe for a second. Maybe I’m a little cynical but I firmly believe that had this story not come to fruition and had Thomas not described his slam dunk contest check as being “free money”, that check would be finding it’s way to the Tyrus Thomas pocket fund.

Thomas has since found out some of that “free money” from the dunk contest is now going back to the Chicago Bulls who have fined the rookie from LSU for his comments.

Here is the link to the Chicago Tribune article today….

Today, I happened across a really interesting piece in the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville, Florida. Chase Goodbread’s piece talks about football recruiting, particularly in the state of Florida, and how often times when a recruit gives a verbal committment to a school, the recruiting of that player by others schools usually doesn’t stop.

On first gleen, my thoughts were ‘the NCAA must do something about this.’ I thought this because it seems to me like when a kid makes that choice, he’s making it for a reason and that decision is presumably well-thought out. And on a personal level, I was disappointed when hearing that Jerimy Finch, a standout safety from Indianapolis-Warren Central, is back on the fence between Michigan and Indiana after de-committing to Michigan to become a Hoosier in the fall.

But on the other day, isn’t it a kid’s right to change his mind as long as he hasn’t signed on the dotted line? I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t time for the NCAA to begin forcing kids to sign written committements when they make verbal committments. In other words, should the NCAA have a rolling committment deadline with the drop-deadline being Feb. 7.

I’m interested in hearing some opinions about this… but I think that the verbal committment has been rendered essentially useless because they’re not binding in anyway.

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/020607/hig_7815562.shtml.. here’s a link to Times-Union piece.