Categories
College Football

2nd Annual All You Need To Know About National Signing Day Rankings

Here’s the Second Annual “All You Need to Know About National Signing Day” recruiting analysis. I have rated the 25 best-named recruits in the country plus the five classes with the coolest names.

While there were no Shavodrick Beavers this year to pick from, there were a lot of solid names, some of which sadly missed the cut (Gifford Timothy, Fidel Montgomery, and Matt Pelesasa to name a few).

Anyway, here are the 25 coolest names for the College Football Class of 2014:

25. Forrest Hightower – San Jose State
24. Rowdy Harper – Houston
23. Jackson Kaka – New Mexico State
22. Johnathan Ragoo – Minnesota
21. Dwellie Striggles – Buffalo
20. King Holder – San Diego State
19. Kalafitoni Pole – Washington State
18. Chi Chi Ariguzo – Northwestern
17. Furious Bradley – Southern Miss
16. Munchie Legaux – Cincinnati
15. B.J. Chitty – Troy
14. Matangi Tonga – Houston
13. Deveon Dinwiddle – Kansas State
12. Storm Johnson – Miami (Fla.)
11. Happy Iona – Oregon State
10. Ace Sanders – South Carolina
9. Carrington Byndom – Texas
8. Braxton Deaver – Duke
7. Sharrod Golightly – South Carolina
6. Mike Bizzarro – Akron
5. Jaqwaylin Arps – Kansas
4. Tank Sessions – Florida State
3. Jose Jose – UCF
2. Mister Jones – Texas A&M
1. Wave Ryder – Utah State

Categories
College Football

Florida State Fired Bobby Bowden: He Was Graceful Enough to Accept

Let’s cut out all the wish-wash and euphemisms and get straight to the point. Florida State fired Bobby Bowden Monday morning, sacked him, canned him, showed him the door. Pick your phrase. But please don’t say Bobby Bowden retired.

Categories
College Football

Price Mike Locksley Paid Too Small for His Crime

I would have written this a few weeks ago if I anticipated its outcome correctly. Obviously, I did not.

I thought the University of New Mexico was suspending head coach Mike Locksley as a pretense to fully relieving him of his duties, the standard “We’re suspending you without pay until our lawyers tell us how to fire you the cheapest.”

But, on Sunday, Locksley returned to his office in Albuquerque, N.M., resuming his duties as if nothing had ever happened.

What happened, of course, was that Locksley attacked receivers’ coach J.B. Gerald, leaving Gerald with a split lip and the accusation that Locksley punched him.

Categories
College Basketball

Memphis, not Calipari, will be villified longer

Nice try, Gary Parrish. Very nice try.

But if I were to say you were wrong, it would very well diminish the meaning of “wrong” for future generations, and I don’t feel comfortable doing that.

You are past wrong, beyond wrong if you will. You are located somewhere between fool and foolish, probably closer to the previous than the latter.

Categories
College College Basketball

NCAA May Have Just Crossed the Line from Absurd to WTF?

This is the NCAA. This is the NCAA you and I pretend to love because, really, what would we do without college football? You breath and die by the fall, right? I know I do.

But I also know that this is the NCAA.

Categories
College Basketball

How’d it get so sunny in Philadelphia?

I used to (and still do) daydream about what would have happened if Joe Carter doesn’t hit that home run, if Ronde Barber doesn’t intercept that pass, if Robert Horry doesn’t make that three in game 2 of the 2001 Finals, if Scott Stevens doesn’t leave Lindros in a crumpled heap on the ice.  I daydream because I can only hope for those things not to have happened in a (better) alternate universe.

But now things are different.  I think about the wicked line drive off the bat of Zobrist that hangs just enough to settle easily into Jayson Werth’s glove.  In my nightmares, that line drive gets past Werth for extra bases.  I think about Levance Fields’ desperation 75 foot heave that clangs off the  backboard and  ricochets harmlessly to the floor.  In my nightmares, that ball goes straight into the hoop.

It’s so much better to imagine the worse case scenario knowing that in reality, the good guys win. As some wise man once said (on this site, no less), it’s easier to write joy and anger.

Categories
College Basketball

April is the Cruelest Month

By Ryan McGowan

If, as T.S. Eliot once wrote in The Waste Land, “April is the cruelest month,” then March is the second cruelest, but only if you happen to hate basketball.

(Which, since basketball was invented in Springfield, Mass., makes you un-American and probably a Communist.)

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Other College Sports

Root for a One-Legged Wrestler? Not Over My Boy

Great stories are great. Great stories are fun. Unless they have to go through your team.

Arizona State wrestler Anthony Robles was born without right hip bone, meaning he also was born without a right leg.

Maybe you have heard the story? It was reported all around the country: ESPN, Fox Sports, even Gregg Doyel of CBSSports.com wrote about him. I almost did myself, but his loss at the 2008 NCAA Wrestling Tournament one match shy of being an All-American left me too disappointed. He deserved his story to wait.

Categories
College Basketball

Breaking Down March Madness

This was my Monday night at Costco….

 

Meltable Cheddar Cheese……going to need some of that…….chili…..better grab three cans…..buffalo wings…..that’s a check……blue cheese dressing…..gotta go back and get some blue cheese dressing……hmmmmm….mozzarella sticks…welcome aboard…..jalapeno poppers….gotta get some sour cream…..tortilla chips….are we sure two bags are enough…..salsa…..a given…..guacamole…..that’s a check…..wow…….tough decision…….Yuengling……..Sierra Nevada Pale Ale……Yuengling…..Sierra Nevada…….Yuengling….Sierra Nevada……gotta go with the Yuengling…..better stop and apologize to the Sierra Nevada and promise them a trip to my refrigerator at the A’s impending World Series victory……..

Categories
College Football

Second Chances, Forgiveness, Not Applicable for Everyone

This is good news. Well, it’s bad news, but for me it’s good news.

I’ve never believed in second chances, at least not when you do something this unethical. Now I have a second story to back me up.