Welcome to the week in news. There are a few things I wanted to mention before the NCAA committee on infractions announces its findings on USC tomorrow and sets the web on fire.
For starters Reggie Bush isn’t worried about it. Why should he be? This is one of the biggest down sides to any potential sanctions against the Trojans. Those most directly responsible are no longer in the line of fire. In the end this is one more reason recruits should choose their affiliations wisely. Those parties at Uncle Luke’s house will come to an end eventually.
I have discussed the art of oversigning from time to time over the last couple of years. As most of you know there are a few schools that are masters at this and several of them reside in the SEC. The gents at oversigning.com have done some very interesting data mining on the issue. Check out this post where they track programs that will need to make cuts to get down to 85 scholarship players for 2010. According to their data Alabama leads the charge as the Tide have signed an impressive 113 players in the last 4 years. Fear Little Nicky.
The NCAA will study giving the final say on replays to the referees on the field. I don’t know what the right answer is here but it seemed to me that way too many replay officials blew calls last season. I am still riled up about them overturning Armando Allen's TD at Michigan. Not that they guys on the field would have done better, they made plenty of bad calls themselves. What do you think about the replay officials?
A Texas Judge ruled that Mike Leach is cleared hot to continue his lawsuit against his former employer. Stand by for eventual plank walking in Lubbock.
The Big 12 meetings are in full swing and reporters are bending over backwards to dig up news on how the conference will fare in the inevitable realignment. The FanTake network has produced several posts filled with quotable quotes over the last few days but for a great catch all check out Better Off Red. They have nice wrap-ups for each of the first two days.
On that note the evil genius known as Sailor Ripley turned me on to this highly interesting piece from The Wiz via the Better Off Red forum. It chronicles all of the reasons that Nebraska sees Texas as the "Axis of Evil."
*Late Edit- On another Big 12 note a few hours after initially posting this edition of TWIN I saw the latest rumor to enter the always interesting off season realignment discussion. Barking Carnival presents The Pac 16. This might be the Jager shot that takes the realignment party to a whole new level.
I failed to mention that the College Football Hall of Fame announced the class of 2010 last week. Pat Tillman, Desmond Howard, Barry Alvarez and Gene Stallings headline the class.
Notre Dame Athletics Director Jack Swarbrick discussed several things with NBC Sports this week. The topics included Brian Kelly, the Michigan series, the 7-4-1 scheduling model and of course conference realignment.
Subway Domer has the details on the new Notre Dame jerseys. The changes appear to be relatively minor but the interlocking ND has returned to the sleeves. Since you can't see the back in this latest photo I can't tell if they are exactly the same as the one that surfaced a few weeks ago.
Apologies for things being a little slow around here the last few days. I am in the final stages of packing up the team to move OFD headquarters back across the country to the West Coast. Good times. At least I will be doing it in June which tends to be the deadest period of the off season. I will definitely carve out time to discuss the Trojans tomorrow and hope to get in another post or two prior to shoving off next week. At a minimum I will post a gone fishing sign before I throw my laptop in the truck. That said if anyone knows of any must stop eateries along the D.C. - Blacksburg – Little Rock – Dallas – Lubbock – El Paso – San Diego route let me know. I have family and friends at all of those stops save Little Rock but I am always game for stopping to eat lunch with the locals.