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Looking at the First Week of ACC Football
by T.H. on Sep 2, 2010 9:26 PM EDT
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Up until last year, I approached previewing the ACC football season in a rather strange way. I picked the winner of all 96 games. Of course, if you ever went back and actually graded my picks, I'm sure I'd fall below the Mendoza Line, but it gave me the chance to write about the thing that interested me about each team without being riveted to a specific format. And I always enjoyed seeing what records I came up with at the end.
I no longer have the time to do so, and I'm leaving to spend Labor Day weekend doing a pretty hellish run as soon as I finish this post. (Don't worry, the laptop comes along.) But there's no reason not to look at the first week of the schedule is there?
Let's get one thing out of the way at the start. D1-AA opponents are not worthy of our attention, unless UNC is involved or someone loses. So those nine (nine!) games will not be mentioned here. Come talk to us when you have a real team across the line of scrimmage from you.
Virginia Tech vs. Boise State: Far be it for me to say an ill word about Virginia Tech – I typically spill my ill words for them in bunches of 500 or more – but few teams have as many slow starts to the season as the Hokies. Their past two seasons have started with losses to Alabama (Respectable!) and East Carolina (Less so!), but the problem goes back further. They only put up 17 points in a 2007 win of ECU, barely squeaked by N.C. State in '05, and lost to Southern Cal to kick off '04. Now the recent losses have a one thing in common. Both years the Hokies were breaking in completely green running backs in Ryan Williams and Darrell Evans; this season both are back and experienced. Of course, they also have Tyrod Taylor, whose never been as good as everyone likes to think he is, a very inexperienced defense and a receiving corps that still pretty young, if not as young as UNC's. There's a reason VT is the lower ranked team here.
Navy at Maryland: This, oddly enough, maybe one of the most pivotal ACC non-conference games of the season. On one side you have the Terps, who hit rock bottom last season and if they want any chance of saving Ralph Friedgen's job need to contend and contend well this year. On the other Navy, in their third season removed from Paul Johnson and now shedding most of their Johnson-recruited players. That means all of their starting linebackers, starting running game, and most the offensive line. Maryland has a lot more coming back, but looks to be really weak in the secondary, and that's where they'll probably get burned. It won't be as bad as last season's opener against Cal, but I have to go with the Midshipmen.
North Carolina vs. LSU: Ah, the game everyone's putting off writing about, because no one has any clue who will be starting for UNC. Austin's out, which is a blow, but an expected one. He's been practicing with the second team, while his backup, presumably Jordan Nix, has taken the first team reps. That's a drop of 25 pounds and two years of experience, but it's not deadly against an LSU offensive line that was UNC-level awful last season. If the Heels are going to succeed on the offensive side, however, it will probably be on the ground, the side of the offense not affected by scandal. This game is going to come down to whether UNC can regroup from whatever personnel they're denied for this game or LSU can overcome their own youth. It's the preseason, when my Carolina optimism runs rampant; I'm going to pick the Heels to win, tutors, suspensions, and the Curse of Chick-Fil-A aside.
Great Moments in Press Release Idiocy
by T.H. on Sep 2, 2010 8:53 PM EDT
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I get a fair number of press releases in my inbox, most of which I promptly ignore. (Hey, gambling site that's e-mailing me daily, that means you. Stop.) But there was one today that seemed interesting. And not just because it asked me to "Please share this exciting news with your readers as many will probably be headed to the game this weekend!"
Really? Carolina fans are headed to the game? How come nobody told me? I totally would have tried to cadge a ride.
Anyway the exciting news is that Natrone Means will be fielding questions outside the stadiumfrom 5:30 to 6:30 in the Georgia World Congress Center, Building C, as part of an insurance-sponsored day of festivities prior to the game.
But wait! At the bottom of the e-mail, there's this:
The information in this e-mail, and any attachment therein, is confidential and for use by the addressee only. If you are not the intended recipient, please return the e-mail to the sender and delete it from your computer. Although the Company attempts to sweep e-mail and attachments for viruses, it does not guarantee that either are virus-free and accepts no liability for any damage sustained as a result of viruses.
So I am putting myself at grave legal risk to bring you this press release. That they want me to share. But don't, because it's for me only. I'm so confused.
Marvin Austin Suspended Indefinitely for Matters Entirely Unrelated to Everything Else Going On
by T.H. on Sep 1, 2010 7:42 PM EDT
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Butch Davis finally came out with the announcement UNC fans have been dreading for months – Marvin Austin has been suspended indefinitely. For what, you may ask? Not anything agent-related, and not for any tutor misconduct either. Take it away, Butch:
"This decision is not a result of the ongoing NCAA review," says Davis. "Marvin has violated team rules and has neglected his responsibilities to the team."
And it's at this point I just throw up my hands and give up. I understand not talking about the agent investigation while its ongoing; the NCAA doesn't allow it. And I approve of not talking about the academic investigation, as it too is ongoing, and being related to academics probably falls under a couple of state privacy laws. But a generic announcement of an indefinite suspension with no explanation more than "team rules" and "responsibilities" is just stupid. Austin did something wrong and is being punished; to not say what that misstep was is just fuel for baseless speculation and further puts the program under a cloud.
So let's engage in some baseless speculation, then. We can toss out the agent-scandal possibility, and Austin was still practicing with the second team and not the scout team before his suspension, so the tutor problems are right out. Something criminal would have been public information that would have been reported, so we're clear there. Quan Sturdivant's misdemeanor possession charge hasn't warranted a suspension, nor did Jared McAdoo's misdemeanor for possession of a BB gun. TE Rashad Mason was suspended indefinitely for, again, violating team rules – he later transferred to Alabama A&M, where he failed to become academically eligible – while Donte Paige-Moss got one game for getting into an altercation with a State player. (And no suspension for assaulting a fellow UNC player.)
If I had to guess then, the duration and the wording would point to problems in the classroom, unrelated to the tutor thing. Summer school ended back at the end of July, and classes just got underway last week, so I don't know how the timing works out, but if I was a betting man that's what I would go with. Although I wouldn't have to speculate at all if the athletic department was a little more forthcoming.
Edited to add: I forgot about Cooter Arnold, who was also suspended indefinitely around the same time of year in 2007, for reasons that were "partially because of academic issues," he later said. He returned after five games and went on to have his greatest moment be a 66-yard touchdown pass to Hakeem Nicks. So there may be a chance of Austin returning mid-season.
A Look Back at the 1961 Game Against LSU
It went poorly, to say the least.
On Marvin Austin's Facebook Posting
by T.H. on Aug 31, 2010 8:12 AM EDT
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I'm surprisingly sympathetic to this view of Marvin Austin's weekend Facebook post of frustration, although it overstates its case. Austin has become the face of both the South-wide agent scandal and the tutor thing by virtue of everything being started with his tweets. It's worth pointing out though that reports have him still practicing with the second team, as opposed to the scout team currently playing host to those suspected of academic impropriety. Add to that the fact that every indication points to any improper benefits Austin received came from former teammate Kentwan Balmer, not an agent; while still possibly against the rules, it's much more of a gray area than a clear-cut case of right and wrong.
Austin has spent the summer subjected to a wave of accusation and speculation that he's facing suspension for months now, and not being able to defend himself has got to chafe. So while his comments are overly self-pitying, Austin is still fast becoming one of the more sympathetic people in this entire story.
(UNC, of course, responded by updating their social networking policy. I pity the coaches assigned monitor duties.)
#1 UNC, #2 Stanford Play Rematch of Last Year's Women's Soccer Championship
Game ends in a 2-2 tie. It's officially on like Donkey Kong. (Also, this is only the third time UNC has failed to win their home opener.)
Also, Newspapers: You're Still Doing It Wrong
by T.H. on Aug 28, 2010 12:12 PM EDT
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The decline quality of the News and Observer over the last ten years is legendary in journalism circles. And this isn't a "The newspaper people were mean to by sports team rant!" – I haven't had a problem with their coverage of UNC's recent troubles. The journalists do the best with what they have, but budgets have been slashed, and corners cut, and it shows. Literally, in the case of the corners, in fact. Pull out a copy of the paper from the nineties if you have one celebrating a UNC championship or something and lay a modern copy on top of it and see how thinner the page is.
The N&O has been owned by the McClatchy Co. since the mid-nineties, one of a bunch of media companies that decided that massive expansion was a smart thing right as the Internet was destroying their business model. Bureaus are now being dropped left and right, with more and more content being provided by wire stories and content shared across papers. Which brings me to a little thing I've noticed lately.
I read a lot of stories on Butch Davis yesterday, so when it came time to link to a couple at the beginning of the last blog post, I just typed "Butch Davis" into Google News and waited for the big ones to come up. I assumed the N&O articles would be near the top, because hey, local paper, in-depth coverage, yadda yadda. Let's take a look a what you find:
See the N&O stories? They're actually there, if you read the paper well enough to recognize the names of the reporters. There's Robbi Pickeral's piece halfway down the page, who's been at the paper since I started blogging, a Caulton Tudor's near the bottom, right above Backing the Pack's piece. But Pickeral's listed as writing for the Sacramento Bee, and Tudor the Merced Sun-Star, both McClatchy papers in California. Now ask yourself, if you were quickly skimming Google for UNC news, would you turn to a couple of minor California papers, or would you just click on the Fox Sports or ESPN piece?
You see, McClatchy publishes it's articles across all of its papers to make up for how bare-bones its operations is, ignoring the fact that it's pushing articles about UNC on an uninterested Merced audience. But having the same content across a bunch of websites makes the content look less important. It's spamming Google, so Google downgrades it and sticks whatever paper wins the SEO game on the middle of the page. The paper comes across as irrelevant, and the articles – which again, are good! – don't get read.
McClatchy seems to think that everyone hits the front page of their local website and just stays there, reading everything like it's a Sunday morning. But the whole point of the web is that you don't have to do that. You can get alerts for whatever interests you and skip the boring crap. It's time t accept the fact that your readers realize your a chain. They can tell when news is local or something that was just written in Miami and irrelevant to them. Admit it! If you think the folks in Merced want to read about Marvin Austin, have the paper link to the N&O site. You still get the ad revenue, the reader knows it was written by someone at the scene, and you actually come across as a far-reaching news organization, rather than a motley collection of stringers hanging on for dear life to a publishing model that used to work. And people will actually be able to find your work in Google and read it.
The Best Case for the Innocence of Butch Davis Is How Quickly Everything Went to Pot
by T.H. on Aug 28, 2010 11:35 AM EDT
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The world of sports journalism had no shortage of recrimination for Butch Davis yesterday, after Thursday's press conference announcing academic misconduct. Phrases like "tarnished legacy" and "lack of institutional control" were being thrown around, and until the full investigation is concluded, there's going to be a lot of that, and deservedly so. (There's also going to be a fair amount of hackwork, like this Dennis Dodd column, which ignored the actual facts of the case to make Mary Poppins and Nanny McPhee jokes, which I'm sure were right in the wheelhouse for a bunch of college football fans.) I don't know what's exactly going on inside the program, and there could be large-scale malfeasance with regard to academic integrity, or it could be one idiot tutor that doesn't understand plagiarism.
The criticism I don't understand, but is popping up on a lot of message boards, is "This is how Davis was able to bring such a good defense to Chapel Hill." Don't forget, this was his first recruiting class. You really can't go into a job, set up ways to cheat, and then entice players to come there based on said cheating, all before ever taking the field. I'd be more suspicious if Davis had struggled for a few years and then started pulling in high-profile recruits. Generally folks don't start looking for ways around the rules until they've failed to succeed within them. That things have so quickly gone south may actually be one of the better arguments that's there's no institutional-wide problems.
Of course, if you'd prefer to just keep casting aspersions, here are a couple of articles on Austin's signing with UNC back in 2007. Given extensive credit is, of course, John Blake. To wit:
"He quoted Bible verses, spoke about how to invest money and knew I'd learn a lot about life and football. We have a father-son relationship," Austin said.
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