Urban Meyer letting Storm Klein back on the team isn't surprising

Urban letting Storm back on the team isn't surprising. Just like Jim Tressel, UM3 doesn't give up on his players
and knows the best way he can influence a player is when they are on the team. Every good coach feels the same way and only boots a player when their actions give them no other choice. None of us know the full details but I'm sure Urban knows everything he needs to handle Storm accordingly. 
I read a good article at Bourbon Meyer (Florida website) that describes Meyer's philosophy when he was there:

Avery Atkins: Not every Gator fan knows who he is, but Atkins was a 4 star recruit at corner and a part of Urban Meyer’s first recruiting class. Atkins started in 3 games in 2005 and was the projected starter in 2006 when everything fell apart for him. He was dismissed from the team and left the University of Florida after charges of domestic battery on the mother of his child.He enrolled at Bethune-Cookman College, where he played three games in 2006 before leaving the team.
In January 2007 he enrolled at Florida again, but dropped out after only a few weeks and returned to Daytona Beach. On July 5, 2007, he was found dead in his running vehicle in his garage.Autopsy later determined the cause of his death as drug overdose. Ecstacy, to be specific. Atkins life was littered with problems stemming from some emotional and financial distress connected to his young child and the child’s mother.

I introduce you to Avery because he is likely a strong reason for the way Urban Meyer handles discipline on his teams. It is important to know that, some of the kids Meyer recruits don’t come from great backgrounds or neighborhoods. Moving to a campus and University culture is a huge adjustment for some of them. Meyer’s record of player behavior while at Florida is, at best, unflattering in its sheer numbers. However, if you look at what the instances and allegations are, you can see that some things are just “things college kids do”, and some are crazy stuff. The kids who did crazy stuff were typically suspended or removed from the team.
In a moment of truth, Urban might tell you that he wished he could have done more for Avery. He did all that he could by allowing him to come back and enroll at Florida and get a second chance at it, but Avery was too far gone.
Meyer’s philosophy is that, while not pretty all the time, some of these guys are better off on campus and under the supervision of himself, coaches, and advisors at the University with all of it’s resources, than they would be left to their own devices at home, where they may be nothing productive for them. Ever since Avery died, Coach Meyer has had a significantly more difficult time removing a guy from the program. Unless of course, it’s crazy, crazy stuff (like firing AK-47’s on Univ. Ave or stealing your teammate’s deceased girlfriend’s credit card and running it up)

Leaving the NCAA. Is it possible?

Another of my cleaning out my drafts column.  Never completely finished but the point was that there are probably 40-50 teams that would make sense to join but conference affiliation makes it impossible.  Unless the college players form a union and force schools to separate football as a separate entity I don't see it happening.
-----------------

Any time a big time school is under investigation by the NCAA penalties decry the inequity of it all and suddenly you see statements by fans that say their team should leave the NCAA.  Some of this is just frustration that their team is about to be hit with penalties but it's also because the whole system is set up on the backs of 20 year old men so bad decisions on their part are to be expected.  The NFL doesn't have to worry about illegal payments, only that their players stay out of jail.

Most major college make tens of millions of dollars on the backs of their student athletes.  Texas, Alabama, Florida, and Ohio State all make between $50-80mm from their football programs will spending about $20-30mm to support them. The profit for each of these universities is used to support the other programs at the school.  The problem is that more and more people are coming after this money and while the total revenue for all schools continue to escalate that isn't going to continue forever.  With costs continuing to rise it is only a matter of time before the big schools do something to protect this income.

Could the big schools leave the NCAA?  

The first question is how they leave.  Many suggest that it should be made up of the conferences with automatic qualifition in the BCS while others feel a more selective process should be used.  I'm a big proponent of the second method but lets look at both:

BCS Conferences (B1G, Pac12, Big12, SEC, BE, ACC)

There are currently 66 schools in the BCS system with the SEC/B1G the strongest and the B12/BE the weakest.  68 schools is too many especially since so many schools have differing level of support.  Here's the attendance numbers for each conference for the 42 schools with more than 50,000 in attendance (with teams over 65,000 in red):

Big Ten (8/7)

1. Michigan 111,825

2. Ohio St. 105,278

3. Penn St. 104,234

11. Nebraska 85,664

16. Wisconsin 79,862

19. Michigan St. 73,556

21. Iowa 70,585

38. Illinois 54,188

SEC (11/9)

4. Alabama 101,821

6. Tennessee 99,781

7. Georgia 92,746

8. LSU 92,718

9. Florida 90,511

10. Auburn 86,087

18. South Carolina 76,668

22. Arkansas 68,932

25. Kentucky 66,070

35. Mississippi 55,898

37. Mississippi St. 54,999

Big 12 (6/3)

5. Texas 100,654

12. Oklahoma 84,738

13. Texas A&M 82,477

26. Missouri 61,540

32. Texas Tech 57,108

41. Oklahoma St. 50,812

Pac 12 (6/2)

15. Southern California 79,907

23. Washington 66,264

28. UCLA 60,376

29. Oregon 59,398

31. California 57,873

36. Arizona 55,408

ACC (6/3)

17. Clemson 77,469

20. Florida St. 71,270

24. Virginia Tech 66,233

30. North Carolina 58,250

33. North Carolina St. 56,877

39. Miami (FL) 52,575

Big East (3)

34. West Virginia 56,325

40. Pittsburgh 52,165

42. Louisville 50,648

Independant (2/1)

14. Notre Dame 80,795

27. BYU 61,381

As you can see  most conferences have a few dominant players with many others schools that don't have close to the same resources.  This system is a bit symbiotic as the top schools get wins and the bottom schools get money.  This has worked well in the past but the question is will it work if they break ties with the NCAA and the answer is mixed.  It can for the big conferences but not for the smaller conferences.  

That's why I think the answer is a combination of the B1G/SEC/B12/Pac12 along .  You could make an argument that the B12/Pac12 shouldn't be included but both serve a geographic area with huge college football traditions.  To these 4 conferences I'd add Notre Dame/BYU/Florida State/Miami/Virginia Tech.  

There are many obstacles in the way but the biggest is political and I think it is impossible to exclude the ACC if you include schools like Indiana and Vanderbilt.

Buckeye Confidential

I was cleaning out some of my old drafts and found this that I never published last summer.  It's funny to read now a year later.  The month of August was a lot different last year.
--------------------------------------------------
The past week has seen a flurry of articles that are positive about the Ohio State Buckeyes like this one at Theclevelandfan and this one at the Ozone.  Add to that the positive news from the BMV and the report from the board and this has been the best week since the whole thing started in March.  Add to that the fact that the NCAA has left campus and the fact that their has been no amendment to the NCAA's Letter of Allegations or a change in the August meeting date and Buckeye nation is positive that the pundits are going to be sadly disappointed when the ruling comes out this fall.

I am trying to keep an open mind but numerous allegations have been thrown at the school and been dis-proven time after time.  I'd bet most pundits don't realize this but the only allegations that we know are 100% true are the things that were disclosed in the initial report to the NCAA.  Those are Jim Tressel's coverup and the 6 players that sold items for tattoos.  Those are still serious allegations and as a result we have lost a coach / quarterback and will face sanctions from NCAA.  My personal opinion is we will see a reaffirmation of the 5 game suspension, a loss of the 2010 regular season, and a 2-3 year show cause penalty for Jim Tressel.  This thought is common by other Buckeye fans and while it could be a case of Buckeye mass delusion it has led to an increase in posts that the leaders at Ohio State are cowards and should have backed Jim Tressel.

I love Jim Tressel.  I respect Jim Tressel.  Jim Tressel made a huge mistake but I know he is an honorable man.  I'd love to have Jim Tressel at coach as he's taken the team to a height that few other programs reach.


https://web1.ncaa.org/LSDBi/exec/miSearch?miSearchSubmit=publicReport&key=691&publicTerms=THIS%20PHRASE%20WILL%20NOT%20BE%20REPEATED

But he made a mistake and he had to go.

Most Fans of College football want a 16 team playoff (which prove most fans are dumb)

Graham Watson at Yahoo Sports has done a series of blogs about the discussion BCS conferences and how they are most likely moving to a playoff involving 4 teams.  He asked the fans what they wanted and the overwhelming response was summarized by one response.

"A 4 team playoff would be really weak, barely better than what there is now," wrote Andrew from College Station. "8-12 is better, but it would still find ways to snub teams."

Overwhelmingly, those who responded seemed to be in favor of a 16-team playoff (an idea that I liked) that would include all 11 conference champions and five at large teams.

"I would propose a 16 team playoff with each conference champ included," wrote Chris from St. Louis. "The remaining 5 at-large bids would go (to) teams with (the) highest ranking. Would almost always have the top 8 - 10 teams included and give the little guy a shot. Makes winning a conference championship worth something."

I hate this idea because with 5 at large teams it makes the regular season meaningless.  I also hate it because there is no way the MAC, Sunbelt, WAC, Big East, Mountain West, or Conference USA should get an automatic bid.  More than that though it is naive and ignores some really big issues.

Logistics
Currently the college football season starts the last week of August and continues for 14 weeks (12 games and 1 bye plus one week for the conference championships).  To have a 16 team playoff you'd need a 4 week playoff.  Many that propose this system say you should put the conference championships the week after Thanksgiving.  Using this season as an example this would be the schedule:

Start of college football season: August 25th
End of college football season: November 17th
Conference championships: November 24th
1st Round: December 1st
2nd Round: December 8th
Semifinals: January 1st
Championship: January 8th

This would mean a few things.

• The start of camp would be moved into July meaning players which is a time when many of them are taking classes which allows them to take a lighter load during football season.  
• Fans expect the season to start in early September after Labor Day.  Moving it earlier could affect ticket sales/viewing (though I admit this is a weak argument)
• College football's regular season would end on November 17th and bowl bound teams wouldn't have another game for well over a month.

None of these individually is a deal breaker but will be a concern for the presidents/commissioners that run college football.  This will be used as a smoke screen for the bigger issue in the next section.

Revenue Sharing
Most people believe that the only reason the BCS commissioners are meeting is because the BCS system isn't giving us a true champion.  That is important to the commissioners but it's about 10th on their list of importance.  Things above it are all about protecting the regular season, protecting the bowls, and protecting the BCS conferences share of the money.

I've touched on it in other articles but the main reason the commissioners are meeting is 1) the BCS contract is up in 2 years and they need to develop a new one, 2) they are tired of inroads the small conferences have made into college football, and 3) they are worried that the government is going to get involved and force them to do something they don't want to do.

The ratings in the last BCS bowls were terrible and that caused ESPN and the NCAA to panic.  That is why they are meeting but if you think we will ever have a 16 team playoff you are dreaming.

My solution to Penn State leaving the Big Ten

Ever since Penn State joined the league I've heard them complain that they aren't a good fit in the conference.  That their 'East Coast' mentality doesn't mesh well with the Midwest.  I know they say that as a slight as somehow the east coast is better than the Midwest but I think they are forgetting one big factor.  They aren't on the east coast.

It's 230 miles from Penn State to New York and 200 miles to Philadelphia.  They are an East Coast school like Columbus is on Lake Erie.  I remember back in school my teacher explained the East coast culture as the area that stretched from Boston to Washington DC.  She had a specific name for it – the Megalopolis.  The area was one continuous city and as of the 2000 census had 17% of the country’s population squeezed into 2% of its land mass.  The population density was over 900 people per square mile. 

This area had the nation’s government and financial capital along with many of the cultural trendsetters.  The packed in nature of the megalopolis created a situation where conflict and compromise were part of everyday life as people literally lived on top of one another.

Let’s compare that to Penn State.

Note that the East coast megalopolis is evident in this picture too.  I’ve included the Big Ten geography as well so you can see how it looks.  From Pittsburgh to Cleveland, Columbus to Cincinnati, west to St. Louis and Kansas City, north to Detroit and Chicago, and even further to Milwaukee and Minneapolis, the Midwest has some of the greatest American cities.  Despite the decline of the industry many have remained and eventually will turn their economies around.  Work ethic is the cornerstone of the Midwestern mythos.

 

Note that between the start of the highly populated purple area in Pittsburgh and the eastern megalopolis there’s a large green area with one blue dot in the middle of Pennsylvania. That blue dot is Penn State.

Fans of the school complain they don’t fit into the Big Ten and they are right.  But they don’t fit in the east either.  People from east and Midwest go to Penn State but they aren’t truly part of the culture.  The culture is made by the people that live in that area and there culture has a different name.  Appalachia.

 

Appalachia is the name given to the area dominated by the Appalachian Mountains and is mostly rural in nature.  Historically “endowed with abundant natural resources, Appalachia has long been associated with and struggled with poverty. In the early 20th century, large-scale logging and coal mining firms brought wage-paying jobs and modern amenities to Appalachia, but by the 1960s the region had failed to capitalize on any long-term benefits from these two industries.” ¹

Popular culture has made fun of this area and it’s historically backward ways.  Pennsylvania and Penn State specifically have avoided being lumped in with the states to their south main due to their proximity to the major urban centers like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

The recent Sandusky scandal has changed that to some degree.  Where many saw Penn State as a great institution that happened to have a great football team, now many are seeing the school as full football crazy lunatics.  The truth is most of the people that go to Penn State are great citizens.  Penn State fans on the other hand suffer from the fact that live in that area is difficult economically and Penn State football is one of the true joys they have in life.

Living in Columbus and being close enough to Appalachia to be able to take a day trip on my bike there, I know full well the dangers of a fan base that takes the game too seriously.  What Ohio State and Columbus have to keep us in check is a media glare that shows our idiocy which creates good local debate.  That doesn’t happen in State College.  Add to the mix a coach that is deified by many and you have a situation ripe for abuse.

But I digress.  Penn State has said they want to get out of the Big Ten and many feel the ACC would be a good fit.  While it might be better than the Big Ten they are missing the point.  What I propose instead is the Appalachian Conference.  This conference would be made up of schools that would make them feel right at home.

Penn State, West Virginia, Marshall, Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee, Middle Tennessee State, and UAB.

12 Teams.  All in Appalachia.  Let the couch burnings begin!

(This post is somewhat in jest as I’ve met many people in Appalachia and they are great people that live in a difficult area of the country to make a living.  Most aren’t like what we’ve seen portrayed in the news at Penn State but I would argue that fans that live in Appalachia have a higher percentage of idiots than fans in other parts of the country.  I include Ohio State in that designation as we’ve always been a little crazier than the rest of the B1G).

¹ – From Wikipedia entry on Appalachia

The Browns draft Josh Gordon in the 2nd round of the Supplemental Draft–Was it worth it?

I wrote this a few weeks ago and forgot to post it.
--------------
Yesterday the Cleveland Browns selected Josh Gordon with their 2nd round pick in the supplemental draft.  The pick was actually 2nd pick in the 2nd round as the supplemental draft is run similar to the NBA lottery and teams with 6 wins and under get put into a hat and picked at random.  Buffalo had the first pick.
Before this draft many people were claiming the Browns needed to go after him.  The other expected teams interested were the Bills, the Dolphins, and the Redskins.  He was projected to go in either the 3rd or 4th round but the Browns chose him in the 2nd so this obviously was a bad move.  Right?
What many people are forgetting is the NFL draft isn't always about how good teams expect a player to perform.  It's about the value other teams place on where that player will be picked.  An example would be if you have done your study and feel 100% confident that a player is a future all pro.  That usually equates to a 1st round pick.  The projection services and 'experts' have them ranked in the 3rd round so the question is:
Do you draft them in the 1st?
Of course not.  You draft the player you want a round before you think someone else will take them or in this case a 2nd round pick.
The experts have all given Gordon glowing rankings and that may be because this was a draft of one person.  After all, who's going to read an article that says a player is bad and people should ignore them.  Many columnists write what they think people will want to read, not their actual opinions.
There are many people interested as summarized in this post that puts Gordon anywhere from mid 1st to late 2nd if he declared for the 2012 draft.

If the name Kendall Wright sounds familiar, he's the player the Browns had targeted at the 22nd pick in the first round in 2012 but he was taken at 20.  That caused them to take Brandon Weedon as they wanted to take QB/WR in their 22nd and 37th picks and felt they couldn't afford the change that someone else would take Weedon.
There's only so many players that can help your team and the rest are marginal prospects that end up on the bench or cut.  Once Wright was gone the Browns front office felt there weren't any other great WRs.  Weedon was the only QB left that could beat out Colt McCoy.  That's how the draft works.  Luck and timing have as much to do with a good draft as skill and the key for the Browns is they are in desperate need of help at WR.
The Browns were snake bit this season.  They really wanted Robert Griffin III and offered this years 1st, next years 1st, and this years 37th pick for him.  It was a huge gamble but the Redskins upped the ante and gave their next three #1 picks to move up.  That's why the Browns ended up with Weedon who would have been ranked as high as RG3 if he wasn't 29.  That made them take the best player available in their mind of Trent Richardson.
Going into the draft they needed RB, RG, QB, and WR in no particular order.  As things turned out the only position they weren't able to fill was WR which is why Gordon was so intriguing to the team.  When the supplemental drafted, the Browns front office had a difficult decision.  Risk that Gordon is going to be available at their spot in the 3rd or take a risk at 2nd.  Most experts ranked him as a late 2nd rounder at worst.  He is no doubt raw and won't be able to step in right away but you can't teach his combination of size and speed.  In his one year at Baylor 42 catches for 714 yards (a 17-yard average) and seven touchdowns.  He was better, faster, and biggest then Kendall Wright that was just picked 20th.
The Browns chose him and I feel good about the pick.  He’s raw but look at his size and speed.

Good hands, good speed, good size. A definite lack of experience but the athleticism is evident.

The Browns had a stellar defense in 2011 but not many noticed as the offense kept them on the field most of the game.  The biggest flaw on offense was any resemblance of a passing game.  The issue on offense is directly related to the 2008(?) draft where the Browns took two wideouts in the 2nd round.  2nd round picks are expected to have long careers and they missed badly on both Robiskie and Massaquoi.  With other issues on the team, they couldn’t afford to spend more picks on a wide-out and bet these players would develop.  Last season it was obvious that was never going to happen which is what lead to their decision which some might see as desperation.
There’s no doubt that drafting Gordon was a risk and will set the team back a few years if he turns out to be a bust like the 2nd rounders from a few seasons ago.  It’s still a risk I like.  If he develops along with the other incoming top picks, the Browns will surprise this season and be playoff contenders next.

Ignoring Specific Posters on the O-Zone Forums using Google Chrome & Tampermonkey

Repeated comments from certain posters on the O-Zone forum got me thinking about switching back to Firefox so that I could use Zanzibar’s Greasemonkey script. He created this a while back so forum users could ignore specific people. Before I took that drastic step I decided to see if someone had created something for Google Chrome that would do the same thing.
Fortunately there is an app called Tampermonkey that works easily with Zanzibar’s script and I thought I’d share how to install it.
Here’s a screenshot of the board on a typical morning (the images came out a bit lo-res due to the way I uploaded them -- they still should give a good idea of what to do):

To add Tampermonkey in Google Chrome click on the following to see your extensions:

Once you’ve done that, click on ‘Get More Extensions’ at the bottom of the page:

That takes you to the Chrome Web Store. Do a search on ‘Tampermonkey’ and you should see the following:

Click on ‘Add to Chrome’ on the right side of the page and you will see:

Click ‘Add’ and you will get the notification that it has been added along with a new icon.

Now we need to use Zanzibar’s script. Go to this link à http://forums.the-ozone.net/gm/ to see his tutorial on using Firefox and go to Step 2. Click on ‘click here’ to install.

Alternatively you can go to this address -> http://forums.the-ozone.net/gm/o-zone_forum_ignore.user.js but you should go to his tutorial as it goes into more detail about the script.
Once you click on his script you will see:

Click on ‘OK’ which will give a followup message:

Click on ‘OK’ again. Your screen should looks something like this:

Left Click on the Tampermonkey icon in the upper right corner of the screen on then on ‘Add a new script’

Click on the tab on the right side called ‘Installed userscripts’ and you should see the following:

Click on the name ‘O-zone forum ignore’ and that will bring up the editor so we can add specific names. You should see a screen like this.

There’s a few options here and Zanzibar explains it much better so I suggest you goto his Firefox page @ http://forums.the-ozone.net/gm/.
If you look closely you can see that I added two lines:

• Under the ignoreAuth section I added - “if (auth.match(/^Bucksmba/)) return 1;” -- This ignores Bucksmba
• Under the wantHighlight section I added – “if (auth == 'Wake Forest Buckeye') return 'silver';” -- This highlights posts made by Wake Forest Buckeye in the color of my choice (Silver).

Save your changes by clicking on the save icon on the upper left side of the screen and after clicking ‘OK’ on this prompt you are done.

When you refresh the O-Zone forum and you will see something like the following:

Notice the difference from the original at the top of the post. Wake Forest’s posts are now highlighted and the posts in the thread started by Bucksmba are gone (no offense - you just happened to have the post under Wake). You can do the same thing using email for people that like to ghost as well but once again, I strongly suggest you read Zanzibar’s Firefox tutorial if you want to know more.
All credit for this goes to Zanzibar and if you read this, feel free to take any image for your own use.
Enjoy!