One more wild week of the craziest offseason that I can remember is in the books and the Fighting Irish start fall camp in two weeks. It is almost here! Below are the college football stories that I found most interesting this week.
The NCAA dropped a bomb on Troy and hasn't slowed down since. They took a swing through North Carolina and are now terrorizing the SEC. Over on Barking Carnival srr50 put together a great summary of where things were as of Tuesday with North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama and Florida. Since then Georgia also got thrown into the hopper and the rest of the country is likely scrambling to check their six behind closed doors. Like my favorite Aircraft Controller in Kuwait always said "Keep an eye."
On the Trojan front USC President Max Nikias started cleaning house this week in an effort to help their NCAA appeal clean up their program and avoid future issues. AD Mike Garrett was fired, Pat Haden was hired, and they announced that all traces of Reggie Bush and O.J. Mayo would be removed from the USC facilities before students are back on campus. That includes the biggest ticket item of all, Reggie Bush's Heisman Trophy. According to Kirk Bohls the Heisman Trust board will meet next week to determine whether or not Bush should be officially stripped of the trophy. Ouch. BTW how has Bohls not been run out of Austin yet?
The Trojans also had a run on dorm rooms this week as several Trojan players were apparently spotted moving back onto campus in the wake of being summoned to meet with the USC compliance officials. Bruins Nation reminds us that behind all the smoke and mirrors Pat Haden was very involved in the selection of Lane Kiffin as Head Coach, so he may not be the knight in shining armor that the Trojans would like us to believe. The full letter from USC President Max Nikias can be seen here.
As a side note NBC will now need a new sidekick for Tom Hammond to broadcast the ND games. Let's hope they send Hammond to cover figure skating full time and grab an entirely new crew.
In a final related side note Irish Creed went behind enemy lines on the USC campus and has a great post up displaying a highly amusing series of pictures that they took while there. Nice work.
Rest easy college football fans, your program is safe from certain destruction. Tyrone Willingham has officially retired from coaching.
The College Football Hall of Fame hosted their annual Enshrinement Festival last weekend. Tim Brown, Chris Spielman and John Robinson headlined the class.
Former Notre Dame Defensive Coordinator Rick Minter gave a very revealing interview to Darin Pritchett and Eric Hanson this week on Weekday SportsBeat. The audio of the full interview is available here and is worth a listen for any Notre Dame fan. Minter talked about all the reasons that he thinks Brian Kelly will be successful in South Bend and compared him to Lou Holtz on more than one occasion. He also made some interesting comments about coaching in the Weis regime.
Keith Arnold wrapped up his series on the top 25 Notre Dame players with installments on 10-6 and the Top 5. It was great to take in the different perspectives of all the great Notre Dame bloggers that contributed.
Notre Dame has officially renewed their series with Miami. The two teams will face off at Soldier Field in 2012 and follow up with a home and home to be played in 2016 and 2017. Need a reason to get fired up about playing The U? Just watch this and you will wish the game at Soldier Field was tomorrow.
We hit it up in the forum last weekend but 8 ND Football players were among 43 arrested for underage drinking at a South Bend house party last weekend. The up side is that the matter is being handled internally and it doesn't sound like it is going to be taken to the next level of ridiculousness.
Have a great weekend.