The Week In News: Cheating, Coaching Moves and Combine Results

This story about Johnny Manziel and his corporation just continues to get more interesting. Earlier this week people were buzzing that Manziel may be exploiting a loophole through which boosters could funnel him cash. Big piles of cash people. Andy Staples tells us that the NCAA has closed said loophole.

"They specifically called that out," Texas A&M vice president of business development Shane Hinckley said. "If it was an orchestrated event between a student-athlete and a booster, then that would fall under the enforcement arm. So that's pretty much out."

What do our resident lawyers think about all of this?

Right on cue our friends over at Barking Carnival dusted off a few cheating related old posts that you might enjoy. Swing by there and check out The History of Cheating in College Football Recruiting.

Before we leave the great state of Texas I've got one for you that Murtaugh will appreciate. New Tejas Tech front man Kliff Kingsbury apparently now has complete control over the Texas Tech uniforms and wants to go full on Oregon with the helmets. What do you all think of this new helmet collection?

Elsewhere Nick Saban continued to manage his roster in Tuscaloosa. Those four Bama players that got in trouble a few weeks ago are now gone. Saban then moved on by offering a schollie to an 8th grader. In his defense Leslie Miles had already offered the kid last summer. I'm sure this will work out well for everyone involved. Especially the kid...

Our buddy Lane Kiffin finished re-configuring this staff this week with his fourth new hire of the off-season. Whatever. Right around the same time he blamed the 2012 Trojan Defense, and inadvertently his father, for the way that Trojan fans feel about Matt Barkley.

"If Matt Barkley had the defense that Matt Leinart and Carson Palmer had, Matt Barkley would have won the Heisman Trophy just like they did. He would have had the winning records they had."

What does Pat Haden think about all this? We don't know that but Haden was spotted at a USC basketball game getting his Harlem Shake on while sporting a matte black Trojan football helmet. I wonder if we'll see the Trojans rocking those next fall?

Mark Dantonio hired former Ohio State offensive coordinator Jim Bollman to be his new OC at Michigan State. Tressel ball.

Dana Holgorson isn't immune to coaching changes either. Mountaineer running backs coach Robert Gillespie bolted for Tennessee this week. Holgorson will now have 5 new assistants heading into the 2013 season.

Mark Mangino is back in the game people. He has returned to his alma-mater Youngstown State where he will serve as the Assistant Head Coach and Recruiting Coordinator.

The NFL combine wrapped up earlier this week and it seems like there are an infinite number of stories about it.

Pat Forde did some combine math where he compared the Sagarin Rankings of schools to the total number of combine participants. The results are somewhat interesting.

Have you all seen this business where former West Virginia quarterback Pat White is trying to resurrect the NFL career that he never really had? He thinks the recent arrival of the running NFL quarterbacks might help his chances.

Notre Dame players were a mixed bag at the combine but we already beat that up in the comments earlier this week. The HLS crew has a nice consolidated post on their individual results. While Tyler Eifert cemented his first round status the lingering story continues to be anything related to Manti Te'o. Keith Arnold has a post on the continued trolling of Te'o that includes a great Brian Polian quote from this Peter King article in SI.

"The reason I've been so upset at how Manti has been portrayed is that I know him. He doesn't conspire to trick anyone," Polian told King. "The people who would be so cynical, so jaded or such Notre Dame-haters simply don't know him. You have to see how he grew up. He lived in a little town on the North Shore, where everyone knows everybody. Then he goes to a prestigious private school and, I'm not going to lie, he was sheltered. Then he goes to Notre Dame, and there aren't many places that protect and shelter their students like Notre Dame. This whole story happens, and he's guilty of one thing: trusting some sicko, because that's what he does, he trusts people. He's not jaded, he's not worldly, he's naïve. So he trusts someone who doesn't deserve to be trusted, then he's totally embarrassed by it when he finds out it's phony. Really, what is this kid's crime?"

Comment of the Week

This could have been pretty much anything under Joe Schu's Fan Post on the post season basketball uniforms. There was a fair amount of green underneath that post but I personally got a bigger kick out of this comment from KG when these uniforms first surface in the TWINDA comments. This set off a Twitter debate about ND's flavors that was pretty entertaining.

Adidas, you suck.

Seriously. The pants for all of the teams are awful. The rest would be okay, but then you get to our pastel green nastiness. Since when is lime sherbet one of ND’s colors?

I started at 221.6. I'm got down as far as 196.2. I'm now a little bit over that, but headed back in the right direction. This will stay in my sig line until I am 190.
The Japanese History Podcast
Random thoughts on Japanese and military history

by Kelly's Gyros on Feb 28, 2013 8:24 AM PST up reply Unrec? Delete Hide 2