Even if you follow the Oklahoma Sooners in passing, you already know that during a Bob Stoops depth chart means about as much as Jim Tressel's signature on a statement to the NCAA.
And that's during the regular season. In the spring? Get outta here.
Still, OU released its pre-spring drills depth chart today, so it's at least worth a look. Some observations off the top:
New site College Football Matrix promises "a fresh, unemotional perspective on college football predictability." Founder David Bartoo stops by to break down his statistical model for college football projections, as well as what his system is predicting for the 2011 season.
David and I cover:
(Subscribe to the podcast through iTunes. Rate the podcast with iTunes, too, if you get a chance. Thanks.)
*ESPN.com's Bruce Feldman wonders if college football is out control. The answer to that question depends on what you expect out of the game.
Every time one of these scandals hits the airwaves, the hemming and hawing over the state of the game revs up for a few days. However, as I discussed with Paul Myerberg of Pre-Snap Read a few weeks back, college football has sustained some major black eyes during the last year. The hits just keep on coming in what seems like an unprecedented avalanche of unseemliness.
Don't expect the bad news to end anytime soon, either. The College Football Angel of Death says he has more stories in the hopper, including one that he says will register a "10" on the public Richter scale.
*The Oklahoma coaching staff is making its annual tour of spring camps with a stop at Boise State. Can't imagine why Bob Stoops would want a little extra insight into the Broncos offense.
*The actress who played bad girl Snoop on "The Wire" got pinched in a drug bust this morning. If you're familiar with Snoop's background, then this should come as no surprise. She might have been reading lines, but she wasn't really "acting."
(I was on a flight to Baltimore one time with Andre Royo, who played Snitchin' Bubs. We talked about the show for about 10 minutes. Good guy.)
*Farhad Manjoo of Slate argues in favor of eliminating anonymity from commenting systems on the web. As a purveryor of web content, I tend to agree that it elevates the level of discourse when commentors can't hide their identity. I'll take that over mindless smack-talking any day.
*Recording a podcast tonight with the creator of College Football Matrix. Hit me up with any questions.
*Two games against Akron and Toledo. A $250,000 fine for a guy who makes somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 million per year.
Ohio State can't be serious with that "punishment" for Jim Tressel, can it? If so, Gordon Gee should send the script to Hee Haw.
I suspect the Buckeyes are making the equivalent of a lowball offer to the NCAA. As Stewart Mandel of SI.com notes, harsher penalties for Ohio State and Tressel almost certainly are on the way. Given the way Tressel strong-armed star quarterback Terrelle Pryor and the Tattoo Five into coming back for another year, Sweater Vest deserves more than a couple games off and some chump change.
(I'm sure those copies of Life Promises for Success are just flying off the shelves now. Worst book title ever.)
*In the curious case of the Villanova Wildcats' freefall, pundits (e.g., Jeff Eisenberg of The Dagger) have arrived at the consensus that VU is suffering from a crisis of confidence and lack of leadership. That may be true, but I think Villanova's implosion illustrates the importance of depth in sports.
The 'Cats have four players averaging at least 30 minutes per game, three of whom are averaging 33 minutes. That's a sure sign to me that coach Jay Wright has no faith in his bench.
Teams that thin struggle with more than just fatigue. They have to avoid fouls, which means slowing down the game. They don't have as many options to jumpstart the offense when shots aren't falling. It's just a losing proposition from the start.
*Speaking of college hoops, it appears as though Jeff Capel is treading on thin ice at Oklahoma. Frankly, I've never thought he had the chops to make the Sooners an elite program – his Xs-and-Os are just so subpar. Really, it's just a matter of time before athletic director Joe Castiglione cuts bait. If not now, Capel won't make it past next season.
*Dr. Saturday previews Nebraska and the Cornhuskers' place within their new Big Ten digs. Definitely going to be interesting to watch.
*Umair Haque of Harvard Business Review explains how Charlie Sheen makes an apt metaphor for the demise of the American economy.
*Mack Brown dishes to The New York Times on Texas' offseason transition and what has changed within the program. It feels like I've written enough about Mack lately, so I'll leave this one alone.
*Budget cuts and an evolving news cycle mean that quality investigative journalism, especially in sports, is a luxury most newsrooms can no longer afford. That makes the work Yahoo! Sports has done in recent years uncovering college sports scandals all the more impressive.
Does that mean Charles Robinson and Dan Wetzel have Senator Sweater Vest dead to rights with their report that the Ohio State coach knew about the memoribilia caper months before the Buckeyes reported it? No. But Yahoo!'s recent track record should have people in Columbus feeling pretty uneasy.
*Columinst David Brooks has revived his blog on the NYT website. As a "moderate conservative," Brooks tends to look at modern-day social and political problems through a unique lens. His writing style may come off as overly pedantic, and he tends to overgeneralize, but his columns always bring cause for reflection.
Hopefully, Brooks' blog can inspire more of this kind of discussion with writers like Ezra Klein of The Washington Post.
*Tulsa World columnist Dave Sittler looks at the success of Bill Self at Kansas, where he has won the Big 12 regular season title in seven of eight years in Lawrence. I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise, but I didn't realize KU has been that dominant under Self.
*"Likely, they will beat us more times than not, but anything can happen in a one-game series."
Oral Roberts coach Scott Sutton probably didn't mean to undermine the legitimacy of college basketball's tournament fetish. But his quote about the Golden Eagles' matchup with Oakland tonight in the finals of the Summit League tournament illustrates the fallacy in the argument that a playoff determines a "true" champion.
Hi, I'm Blatant Homerism, Oklahoma Sooners fan and interested observer of such classic college football scandals as "Switzer's Sins" and "Honk if You're Horny: The Big Red Sports/Imports Story." Dealing with an NCAA investigation into your favorite team can be stressful for anyone. If the amateurism police dogs have picked up your squad's scent, you may be wondering:
With the recent news of potential trouble for their programs, the good people at the University of Oregon and Ohio State asked me to put together this instructive article on how to save face when an NCAA waterboarding is looming. Here are some best practices for firing back against holier-than-thou opposing fans who are reveling in your team's misfortune.
*Bill Simmons typically doesn't do nuance all that well, but I thought his latest column hit at the heart of the NFL owners' stance in the ongoing labor negotiations. Shockingly, Mike Lupica didn't write something completely asinine on the matter, either. I actually do think public opinion is starting to shift strongly against the owners in this dispute, but last week's court decision will ultimately have an even greater effect on their bargaining position.
*Senator Blutarsky hits on the latest uproar over schools taking a bath on trips to bowl games. This is a big talking point for the pro-playoff crowd, but Senator isn't swayed.
*Ah, city politics. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up. Tommy Carcetti would be proud.
*ESPN draftnik extraordinaire Mel Kiper ranks John Elway as the best No. 1 overall pick ever. Can't say I disagree. I always feel like Elway gets underrated in the pantheon of NFL greats. I'd probably put him in the top five players I've ever seen.
*Tyler Cowen, one of my favorite economics bloggers, writes on the "fiscal illusion" plaguing the political discourse on budget deficits.
*I find it hilarious that the West Coast Conference plays its conference tournament at the dilapidated Orleans in Las Vegas. These aren't vintage versions of Gonzaga and Saint Mary's, but I love watching these two rivals tussle.
A couple weeks back, quarterbacking guru Patrick Johnston of InTheBleachers.net informed us that contrary to conventional wisdom, college quarterbacks generally don't improve as they get older. Based on Pat's innovative Positive Impact Factor (PIF) measure for evaluating QB performance, he concludes that what you see early on is likely what you're going to get.
Had the Oklahoma Sooners seen the same Landry Jones in 2010 as the one who took the field a year before, Bob Stoops might have had more to think about when Florida came calling in January. Fortunately for Sooner Nation, The 'Stache proved to be the exception to the rule.
| Comp. % | Yds/Att | INTs/Att | Passing Efficiency | |
| 2009 | 58.1 | 7.1 | .031 | 130.82 |
| 2010 | 65.6 | 7.6 | .019 | 146.30 |
Another promising sign: Jones made those strides playing against some tough defenses. Brian Fremeau of Football Outsiders noted recently that when adjusting for quality of competition, Jones' passer efficiency ranking for 2010 climbs from 24th nationally to 13th. (I followed up with Brian, who told me that Jones ranked sixth among quarterbacks returning in 2011, behind (in order): Kellen Moore, Andrew Luck, Brandon Weeden, Terrelle Pryor and Aaron Murray.)
So, how high can 'Stache fly?
Jake Trotter of The Oklahoman writes that the news of defenisve back Marcus Trice's decision to leave the Sooners shouldn't come as a surprise, noting that the "consensus among various sources" is that Trice blew the whistle on the coaches last year during Workout-gate.
Even though I really don't like this kind of reporting, I understand its necessity. However, it would have been nice for Trotter to give Trice a chance to defend himself against a bunch of nancies whispering off the record.
Credit John Hoover of the Tulsa World for tracking down the now ex-OU defensive back to get his side of the story. Trice denied that he had turned in the coaching staff for excessive workouts.
Frankly, this controversy is just worn out. Knowing that the team has already served its punishment for the violations renders all the speculating and finger-pointing even more useless. Oklahoma fans should just give it up and move on.
(Editor's Note: I'm going to try to make the "Linking Up" posts into something closer to a daily feature. This might help for passing along quick-hitters and items of interest that I don't have time to write about more extensively. I don't want this to steal time from my more in-depth articles, so consider this a trial run.)
*Stewart Mandel of SI.com argues that the onus is on university presidents to "clean up" bad behavior off the field in college football. I hope to write more on this later, but let me start by saying that I thought the SI's expose on thuggish college football players was bunk of the highest order. I'll allow Spencer Hall and Ty Duffy to explain.
*The Solid Verbal podcast tackles the new allegations against Oregon with Bryan Fischer of CBSSports.com. Co-host Dan Rubenstein, a noted Duck homer, told me via Twitter that he actually found the conversation "reassuring." Again, I hope to write something more involved here later, but, at first glance, if UO really did pay this joker $25,000 for his "scouting services," that should be a damning indictment of the athletic department's competency. Either way, the Ducks come off looking bad here.
*Mike Silver of Yahoo! Sports says today is close to all-or-nothing in the NFL labor talks.
*The whole Charlie Sheen "winning" meme might have set a record for jumping the shark.
*I came across this site yesterday which has some intriguing stuff on projecting college football records. I think I'm even more interested in the methodology than I am the actual results.
