Well, bully for the NCAA. It made three rules changes this week in college football, and at least two of them weren’t necessarily for the better.
Can you pick the one that made the game better?
1. Eye black with messages will be banned.
2. Wedge blocks will be illegal.
3. Taunting in the field of play will start costing teams points in 2011.
Yep, you got it: Elimination of wedge blocks on kickoffs, which reportedly are leading to head injuries. Under the new guidelines, when the receiving team has more than two players standing within two yards of one another, shoulder to shoulder, a 15-yard penalty will be called.
My only concern is whether the refs will be asked to carry a tape measure around their necks with their whistles. And would this lead to an instant replay appeal whereby the zebras will get out their measuring sticks to see if the players were actually 73 inches apart or 72?
You get the drift. Anyway, I’m for anything that helps protect against head injuries. I’m just not sure how picky this will become to call.
As for the other two, I double-dog-dare some ref to take the points away from a team which breaks out in spontaneous celebration – it’s so tough to call correctly already – and then changes the course of a championship game by taking points off the board. And if it does, I suggest officials have an armored getaway car standing nearby.
As for banning messages on eye black, I suppose it could have gotten out of control – but it never really did. Some may have been offended by Tim Tebow’s Bible messages (aren’t they always?) but somebody is always offended by something. Anything that drew 92 million hits on Google as did Tebow’s John 3:16 message at the BCS Championship Game against Oklahoma would seem to be worthy of embracing as a powerful marketing tool.
Bottom line: the NCAA needs to worry more about the black eyes than the eye black. The Reggie Bush case still hasn’t been resolved at USC and now there are cans of worms opening up in Morgantown, W.Va., and Ann Arbor, Mich., surrounding Rich Rodriguez. I’m not passing judgment on either, just saying let’s get some kind of resolution to these cases. Especially at Southern Cal, where Reggie Bush may have finished his career in the NFL by the time they get to the bottom of it.
QUICK JUMP STARTS
1. Sure, he’s entitled to due process, but after the mess Ben Roethlisberger has made – from his motorcycle accident, to the incidents in Lake Tahoe and Milledgeville, Ga. – there is no way he can’t be suspended for several games. That ticking sound you hear is the time-bomb lifestyle he lives.
2. The 2010 Kentucky Derby is weeks away and right now the early favorites are Line of David, Endorsement and Stately Victor, with Lookin at Lucky, Rule and Eskendereya moving up. Looks like a thin year for Florida-breds.
3. He is no doubt an explosive weapon and major league talent, and most of us are willing to give him a fresh start with the Dolphins, but there’s a reason Brandon Marshall is known as “Little T.O.” around the NFL.
4. Geez, Urban has gone and ruined a perfectly good rivalry – once considered as good as there was in college football. Used to be Florida-FSU was right up there nationally, but now the ‘Noles-Gators couldn’t even make the list of top non-conference games of the year.
5. Jerry Jones, think rehab.
WEIRDEST, YET FUNNIEST, POST OF THE WEEK
“Screw the press, they are the only poor people allowed at the Masters.”—Gatorboy
FROM WUERFFEL AND TEBOW TO … JAKE AND MATT?
Hoo boy, this really ticks off the Rocky Toppers. Another national championship for the Gators, won right there on the home lake of Tennessee, in a sport that is the state’s second most popular sport to football: Bass fishing.
“… a nail-biting finish for Florida’s Jake Gipson and Matt Wercinski. As the last team to weigh, Texas State needed 6 pounds and 13 ounces to take the win from the Gators. Once the scales had reached their verdict, the Aggies found that they fell short by a mere 9 ounces, giving the Florida Gators the first-ever college fishing national championship.”—From the Tennessee Journalist website.
THREADING THE NEEDLESS
1. How far they have fallen I: Ryan Leaf. Talk about a train wreck:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/14/ryan-leaf-sentence-no-jai_n_537775.html
2. How far they have fallen II: O.J. Simpson.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/15/oj-simpson-bored-out-of-h_n_538601.html
3. How far they have fallen III and IV: You know who … And then there is Tiger – on any given day. Elin is not only ditching Woods, but also his last name.
http://culturemap.com/newsdetail/04-15-10-elin-woods-dropping-her-last-name-for-a-swedish-manse/
4. Looks like with his marriage falling apart, Tiger is going to have plenty of time to play golf again.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hCA29EqrBkzJch4uWooIcVAb7-2wD9F3NJJ00
TODAY’S TRIVIA
While everybody was raving about LeBron James, 21-year-old Kevin Durant quietly became the youngest NBA scoring champion in history with an average of 30.1, edging James by .04 of a point. Whose record did he surpass as the youngest? (Answer below)
SHORT STUFF
Don’t read too much into the fact that Tim Tebow turned down an invitation to the NFL Draft in New York City. He was never going anyway because they would only allow four people to join him in New York and Tebow reportedly wanted his family with him. … Masters Connection: Phil Mickelson has reportedly become a follower of the Gators after meeting Tebow and often talks about them with his caddie, Jim “Bones” MacKay. … Sometimes I wonder if Gator fans appreciate the wealth of good quarterbacking they’ve seen for seven seasons, since Chris Leak started lining up behind center. Just consider what it’s like to be a South Carolina fan. Even now, going into his final season, Stephen Garcia didn’t get a vote of confidence from Steve Spurrier. … If this is April it must NBA Playoff time and in Saturday’s games I like the Bulls over the Cavs, Hawks over the Bucks, Celtics over the Heat and Nuggets over the Jazz. Eventually it’s going to boil down to a repeat of last year in the finals, Orlando vs. LA, with Kobe Bryant doing just enough to win it in six.
TRIVIA ANSWER
22-year-old Max Zaslofsky of the 1947-48 Chicago Stags.
AND GOOD MORNING …
… Phil Jackson. That was an expensive quote about Kevin Durant getting favored treatment by the NBA refs at $35,000 but you got off light compared to the $30,000 Urban Meyer gave up to the SEC for saying a lot less about the alleged late hit by Georgia on Tim Tebow.