Well folks, Whiskey is AWOL, and while the cat's away, the mice will play... with this week's The Week In News. No word on the whereabouts of our fearless leader, though eyewitnesses have reported seeing Blackhawks hovering over the Pullman home of the Dread Pirate Mike Leach. This is in no way meant to be an implication that Whiskey has deployed Special Forces to give the Dread Pirate the ol' black hood, adult diaper, off-the-grid safehouse, waterboarding treatment to discover Leach's keys to running a successful organization. One Foot Down may have grown by leaps and bounds in 2011, but oh how we will we grow once we unlock the secrets that allow Mike Leach to install an entire offense in 4 days.
Whiskey or no Whiskey, we will start elsewhere and wrap up at ND. Some things are sacred.
We begin of course, in Dallas, where NCAA big wigs--handshake, handshake, backslap, golf, prostate--met to discuss the future of the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision's post-season. CBSSports.com surveyed the 11 FBS Commissioners and Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick on various and sundry college-football topics. The survey was anonymous, and a majority of the commissioners responded. The majority of the respondents favored a playoff:
The commissioners that responded favored playing the semifinal games on campus and holding the title game at a neutral site -- either an existing BCS bowl or letting cities bid for the title game. There was not much support for holding the semifinal games at neutral sites.
Montana Football is in the news. In related news, some Americans now know that Montana has a football program. Not shockingly, Montana Football is not in the news because of football, unless you consider crimes allegedly committed by the football team to be football-related. Sadly Montana is in the news after firing its head football coach Robin Pflugrad and Athletic Director Jim O'Day in the wake of a rash of at least 5 sexual assault cases involving football players from 2010 and 2011.
In other news, there is an NCAA Final Four. Kentucky is in said Final Four, and is good. Notre Dame is not.
In Fulmer Cup News, Georgia recently suspended linebacker Alec Ogletree and safety Bacarri Rambo. Rambo tested positive for "the reefer" after accidentally ingesting some suspicious brownies on spring break. Luckily team-rules violation suspensions don't affect All-Namerican Team eligibility.
SBNation's Dan Rubenstein and Spencer Hall broke down recent NCAA coaching hires this week. Check this out because it involves Spencer Hall. That is reason enough.
Craig James is running for U.S. Senate. So there's that. I honestly don't know how this has escaped the rapier wits of college football bloggers for so long, but it is true. I for one think Craiggie will fit right in in the U.S. Senate, as he shares the Senatorial values of never having done an honest day's work in one's life, getting your children out of ridiculous self-inflicted catastrophes, and not allegedly murdering multiple hookers. Mr. James even addresses the Texas Tech situation in a Youtube campaign ad. James endures a withering cross examination from... his daughter... James explains that he was simply protecting his son from a bully.
He just did what any rich, sports commentator, formerly NCAA-rules-violating parent would do. Use their job at ESPN to get on a pedestal and get a good D1 head football coach fired for telling their son to go sit in an air-conditioned shed after he acted like a tool.
This is pretty savvy campaign strategy. You're not the helicopter dad, but the martyred advocate for the day's hot-button issue: bullying. Honestly, where was all this bullying hubbub when I was in high school? That was the freaking Wild West of bullying and only the strong survived. Prison rules. Shank or get shanked. Well in any event it built character. Back to Craig James--well-played, Mr. James, or should I say Mr. James's campaign manager. The score may be Dread Pirate Leach 0, Craig James 2, but I still wouldn't want to be in Craig James's shoes, what with Whiskey's AWOL whereabouts and his well-known admiration for the Dread Pirate.
We end with our own Fighting Irish, who had probably their best Junior Day ever and notched an astounding 6 verbal commitments from some very elite players this week, including the number one dual-threat quarterback, a passel of big, mean bodyguards for him, the son of a future NBA Hall-of-Famer, and a cornerback who is a likely future All-Namerican. Our beloved commenters here at One Foot Down have been just crushing it, with veteran commenter leeND11 using a little-known thing called "science" to project Notre Dame commit Corey Robinson's probable maximum height. Unfortunately, lee's stupid "numbers" would appear to place young Corey's maximum height in the 6'5.5" range. Thanks for nothing, lee.