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The week in news- Weed, A Bootlegger and Jimmy

Athletes getting busted for smoking weed is becoming more and more prevalent all the time. From Mike Vick to Michael Phelps the range on the "type" of athletes in question is broad. Generally speaking little comes of these cases. Santonio Holmes got busted last fall and was MVP of the Super Bowl just a few months later. I’ll avoid the social commentary but I would throw out there that if you are an elite NFL prospect heading to the combine where you know that you are going to be tested and still pop positive you are not real smart. Drink a beer or something. Florida’s Percy Harvin and North Carolina’s Brandon Tate most likely cost themselves some serious cash with their positive tests at the combine. As we say in the business "below for headwork."

Speaking of weed, on April 4th I linked and commented on an espn.com piece that said former Boston College Defensive Tackle B.J. Raji had tested positive for drugs at the NFL combine. That story has since been debunked. My apologies to Raji & B.C. for linking a story that turned out to be BS. For the record the hat is still off to B.J. for torturing me last fall when he dominated the line of scrimmage vs. ND in one of the most painful games I have watched in some time.

Florida State filed an appeal to the NCAA in an attempt to recover Bobby Bowden’s soon to be vacated wins. The gist of their reasoning is that they cooperated with the investigation. Just let it go. Be thankful they didn’t bust you for something worse in your heyday. Speaking of potential NCAA sanctions…..

Snoop’s buddy Sneaky Pete is the modern day poster boy for running a shady as all hell program while consistently whipping up on opponents with crazy deep talent. He plans to release a book appropriately titled "Win Forever" that is due to hit the shelves this spring. The article includes this gem of a quote. "The book will include previously untold details and anecdotes about USC football, as well as Carroll's advice for building teams that stick together and consistently outperform expectations." I could go off on a tangent here for a while but I’ll stop. Apparently Pete is either very confident that the rumors of potential NCAA sanctions surrounding the program won’t materialize or he just wants to turn a quick buck beforehand. If you want to read a decent book by a truly shady bastard then I would suggest "Bootlegger’s Boy" by Barry Switzer. At least he didn’t try to package it under some BS smokescreen like "Win Forever". If you are going to be shady then just own it.

The Mitch Mustain dream has come to an ugly end. Mitchie and his Mom are now officially buried on the depth chart at USC. All he has left to do is hold a clipboard on the sidelines and watch Jimmy Clausen and Ryan Mallett highlights on ESPN at night while pondering what might have been.

Speaking of The Jimmy both he and Charlie Weis are on the cover of the latest edition of The Sporting News with the headline "Coach Weis will not be fired because of me". The boys on unhd.com already summed it up nicely but I'll throw my two cents in as well. I think that Clausen and Weis are a perfect match. They both bring a lot to the table and from a personality standpoint I think they are the one and the same. They are both fiery competitors that will most likely succeed in righting the ship in South Bend. But until that happens I would prefer they not publicly talk about it. I’m glad they feel this way hell I hope the whole team feels this way but don’t put it on the cover of a magazine. If you win 10-11 games this fall then talk about how you both believed it was going to go down like that all along. Calling your shot is rarely a good idea under any circumstances. Ballsy. Stupid but ballsy.