NCAA Football '11-'12

[Berkut]

Can we focus on Oregon and their upcoming sanctions please?

When and If the NCAA does something about it sure.

Pfft. We hardly have to wait for that to happen.

[sbr]

I didn't follow the news at all over the weekend and I still haven't read the latest Yahoo! article so I wasn't really aware of how bad this had blown up recently.  The local sports talk radio show's Poll Question of the Day is: 

Who will be Oregon's head football coach by the time the season begins?

Chip Kelly
Mike Bellotti
Other

Chip is leading at 66% at the moment, Bellotti has 14%.  They will be interviewing Will Lyles today at 5:00 today, I hope to remember to listen to it.

[sbr]

Can we focus on Oregon and their upcoming sanctions please?

When and If the NCAA does something about it sure.

Pfft. We hardly have to wait for that to happen.

You have to wait for the NCAA to do anything.  I would be surprised to see any NCAA action against Oregon this calender year, probably before the 2012 season starts though.  Kelly may pull a Pete Carroll and be gone before any sanction hit the Ducks though.

[katmai]

I didn't follow the news at all over the weekend and I still haven't read the latest Yahoo! article so I wasn't really aware of how bad this had blown up recently.  The local sports talk radio show's Poll Question of the Day is: 

Who will be Oregon's head football coach by the time the season begins?

Chip Kelly
Mike Bellotti
Other

Chip is leading at 66% at the moment, Bellotti has 14%.  They will be interviewing Will Lyles today at 5:00 today, I hope to remember to listen to it.

Isn't Bellotti now a broadcaster or something, left UO completely?

[sbr]

I didn't follow the news at all over the weekend and I still haven't read the latest Yahoo! article so I wasn't really aware of how bad this had blown up recently.  The local sports talk radio show's Poll Question of the Day is: 

Who will be Oregon's head football coach by the time the season begins?

Chip Kelly
Mike Bellotti
Other

Chip is leading at 66% at the moment, Bellotti has 14%.  They will be interviewing Will Lyles today at 5:00 today, I hope to remember to listen to it.

Isn't Bellotti now a broadcaster or something, left UO completely?

He was with ESPN last year, I am surprised he didn't get back into coaching this year.  I don't think he was ready to quit coaching when he did; the school knew Kelly would take another job if he didn't get the Ducks job soon so they forced Bellotti out.  A lot of people I knew were very happy about it but I was skeptical at first, Bellotti did a very good job with the Ducks Kelly had come out of nowhere just a year or two before.

I don't know if the bridges were burned beyond repair between Oregon and Bellotti, I would like to see him back though.

[katmai]

Just to make you feel better Berkie about a school that can't make the Rose Bowl, here is Seattle papers take on UO affairs.

How much drama is too much for Oregon football program?
Issue with Texas scout is latest in a series of off-field problems under coach Chip Kelly.


Bud Withers
Seattle Times colleges reporter

From the start, Chip Kelly seemed to be a step ahead of his rivals. The Oregon football coach ran practices differently, he exhausted defenses with his relentlessly brisk offense, he defied convention when his teams made two-point conversions with ridiculous ease.

Apparently, he's been imaginative off the field too.

Until last week's provocative Yahoo.com report, there was considerable belief that in their murky dealings with Texas scout Will Lyles, the Ducks were merely operating in a gray area — exploiting another loophole, as it were. They've claimed, in essence, to be country hicks for paying Lyles $25,000 for his scouting service, and getting a steaming mound of outdated boiler plate in return (right, the school that's cutting edge in marketing, uniform design and facilities was merely naïve in dishing 25 large to Lyles).

Still, that's plausible deniability, and these days, it goes a long way.

But today, even if Lyles' contention can be assailed that he was more influence-peddler than scout to the Ducks, it can't be comforting to Oregon to see that he provided to Yahoo phone records of 38 calls in an 11-day period in January 2010 when he connected with UO coaches and staffers.

That was when Lyles was orchestrating the end run of legal guardianship from running back Lache Seastrunk's mother to his grandmother. Mom didn't approve of his signing with Oregon, but Grandma did. And there's an email from an Oregon compliance officer proving the Ducks were eminently aware, even helpful.

There are several possible descriptions of Lyles — scout, agent, football gadabout. The one that has to chill the Ducks to the bone is: Oregon booster. That's what the NCAA will be sorting out. If the conclusion isn't favorable to Oregon, they could come to find that the NCAA hoosegow isn't nearly to the standard of their own facilities.

If I'm an Oregon administrator, there's a bigger issue here, bigger even than what the NCAA might do to the Ducks. As in, how much drama can you stand with your football program?

When the Ducks turned into the dictionary definition of a nouveau riche college-football program, there were murmurs of unrest from precincts like some of the Oregon faculty. But those were drowned out with the reality that athletic success is too important to too many people — university presidents, among them — to apply the brakes.

That much is understandable. It's not as easily sloughed off when you take stock of the legal issues and other indiscretions that have mounted in the Kelly regime:

• The infamous LeGarrette Blount punch.

• Jeremiah Masoli's conviction for misdemeanor second-degree burglary.

• LaMichael James' physical-harassment misdemeanor against a female.

• Involvement by a couple of players in a campus brawl in early 2010.

• The case of linebacker Kiko Alonso, who, after a season's suspension for DUI in 2010, got whacked in May with criminal trespass and criminal mischief for trying, in a stupor, to enter a house he mistakenly believed was his.

• Cornerback Cliff Harris' June citation for going 118 miles an hour on I-5, in a vehicle rented by a university employee.

Harris was going fast, much like the Ducks the past couple of years. The only thing more breathtaking than the Oregon offense is Kelly's plea to Lyles last winter, begging him to ship scouting materials, posthaste, when he knew media outlets were onto the $25,000 payment.

I wonder who's running the show at Oregon these days — besides Phil Knight, I mean. Including Bill Moos, who left in 2007, Oregon has been through a dizzying five athletic directors, none of whom gives the impression he's anything but intoxicated with the football program's success.

Last Friday, Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott was in Salt Lake City, welcoming Utah into the conference. But with the latest revelations in Eugene, it was hardly a feel-good day for the league.

In his two years on the job, Scott has worked at blinding speed. So too, Chip Kelly in his two, not always in a good way.

[Neil]

Wasn't there a State fan here at one point?



Who can spot it?

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?  Isn't that gone?

[Grey Fox]

nor do the Netherlands Antilles.

[Ed Anger]

Don't expect Michigan State people to know anything. If they was smart, they would have gotten into Michigan.

[grumbler]

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?  Isn't that gone?

Very good.  Now, if you had been careful enough to read MiM's post yesterday in which he already answered this question, it would have been even better.

[grumbler]

nor do the Netherlands Antilles.

Good catch, but the poster may be older than the dissolution of the N.A.

[Grey Fox]

nor do the Netherlands Antilles.

Good catch, but the poster may be older than the dissolution of the N.A.

It's very inclusive Poster. Even got Montserrat on there.

[MadBurgerMaker]

This chick here has been hired to do something for the Longhorn Network:



Good arm, needs to work on the celebration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMqvRPGtRzc

I approve.  Also, the Rice game and one Big 12 game are going to be on the network this upcoming season.

[Valmy]

Pretty excited about them hiring Kevin Dunn as well.  A big Texas baseball expert/fanatic like him bodes well for me.

[Ed Anger]

Ohio State vacated its victories last year.