The Week In News: A Rant, The Media and Fall Camp

You all know how this works. Starting elsewhere and ending in South Bend.

Every day I surf around a little bit to see what is happening in the world of college football. I have to say that at this point I'm completely exasperated by the number of Penn State related stories that are still out there. It would appear that everyone from the Paterno family to former players are going to appeal the NCAA sanctions. Now the board of trustees is talking about a federal lawsuit. Really? Unbelievable.

I even saw a photo of a T-Shirt in the Penn State bookstore referring to the NCAA as "communists" for "overstepping their bounds" and "punishing the innocent." I wish I was kidding. It's always good to take a page out of the Brian Bosworth playbook. That will help others to be more sympathetic to your plight. Didn't they essentially plea bargain their way out of the death penalty? I hope the NCAA answers their appeals by going ahead and dropping that on them. Just go away. Seriously. Apologies for the mini-rant. Moving on.

With all the Penn State talk few seemed to notice that the NCAA significantly upped the minimum academic standards required to be eligible for athletics. What does this mean for college football? Does this help Notre Dame? Land-Grant Holyland has a great post on the subject.

More after the jump.

Speaking of academics a High School coach in Pensacola, Florida claims that an Alabama assistant coach told his star defensive tackle to transfer to a high school in Foley, Alabama where they could help him with his grades. Oh Nicky.

"Darius came in the office one day during the summer after coach (Mike) Smith left and sat down and told me coach (Jeremy) Pruitt, who is the Alabama coach who was recruiting him, wanted him to go to Foley High School," Schellang told the Pensacola News-Journal. "Basically, he said (Foley High) could take care of him academically.

This SEC fan is less than impressed with new members Texas A&M and Missouri. I have to think that he isn't alone.

Texas A&M is the Johnny Drama of college football. They are the University of Texas' less talented, less interesting brother. It feels like they are always hovering around the 23 to "also receiving votes" spot in the rankings and that's mainly because they are consistently overrated.

Many Notre Dame fans are concerned about the October 27th trip to Norman. The good news is that the Sooners have been taking a lot of hits to some critical portions of their roster. The Oklahoma offensive line is particularly thin at this point. But they have Landry Jones! Louis Nix, Stephon Tuitt and Kapron Lewis-Moore wait.

Football Study Hall has a comprehensive collection of media guides linked on their site. It is pretty awesome. And yes they have the Notre Dame media guide. Go get it!

Andy Staples wrote a really interesting article this week about the relationship between TV and College Football. Miesle gave you a heads up about this but if you didn't read it then you should now. Great stuff. How television changed college football -- and how it will again

In the words of Tim Riggins "Texas Forever." They don't mess around down there. That is after all where I originally developed this addiction to the game of football. On the high school football stadium note MaxPreps put out a piece on the 10 high school football stadiums to see before you die. Very cool. OK back to college football!

Time to get to South Bend.

Bruce Feldman broke down the Top 10 most valuable non-quarterbacks in college football for this season. The #1 guy on the list was Manti Te'o. Nicely done Mr. Feldman, very nicely done.

Lisa Kelly has a great series running over on No Coast Bias where she interviews former Irish greats. Her piece this week was on former Irish Tight End Irv Smith. It is a great piece on Smith and also gives some interesting insight into the mind of Lou Holtz. He was so mean! That's a joke.

Steve Herring recently jumped into the Subway Domer empire but he still does podcasts with TNNDN. Last week he did a podcast where he had fomer Notre Dame teammates Kevin McDougal and Oscar McBride on the show. The two told the story of how McDougal became the Notre Dame quarterback in 1993 after freshman Ron Powlus went down with a broken collarbone. Herring Bone transcribed the exchange into a post on SD that is definitely worth checking out.

HLS is shut down for the weekend as they prepare to unveil HLS 3.0. They expect it to go live after the weekend.

Nobody analyzes short clips from practice like Keith Arnold. KA has skillz.

Have you been checking out all of Murtaugh's practice reports? If not just scroll down and catch up. The news is plentiful.

If you don't follow us on Twitter or Facebook you should. It is the easiest way to keep up with all of the goings on around here.

The comment of the week this week is brought to you by.....

New twist this week. We were short on green which tends to happen as the fall camp discussion trends towards more actual football talk. This is a good thing. I thought that Burg's post about All the Tight Ends was highly interesting as was the discussion below it. Go check that discussion out and think about all of the interesting things CBK might do with Eifert, Koyak and Niklas all on the field at the same time. Defend that!

Have a great weekend.