Well all the teams have now started their fall camps! Early on there is of course lots of optimism, players look great have gotten bigger faster stronger and ready for breakout seasons! Reality will set in sometime in the next month. Headlines are hard to come by, saw one where the headline was Alabama announces significant injury on defense. I thought wow 1 day of practice and somebody has blown out a knee, it happens. But instead, it was a former highly touted recruit who has had an unfortunate injury plagued career for the Tide having yet another setback before camp even started. All is smooth for the Longhorns and Sark after a couple of days, and Brian Kelly was positive in his opening press conference. NCAA issued Covid protocols, but they are not mandatory, each conference will make up their own protocols. Mostly depends on the Team Vaccination state and how that impacts mask wearing and other things for unvaccinated vs vaccinated. I saw where Dan Mullin has moved the Gators into a Team Hotel for the camp so that he can have better control of the players and hopefully keep them safe from Covid problems. There will be no rescheduling or postponing of games this season, you either play with what you have, or you forfeit. Last season a lot of the games on TV were done with the broadcast team not on the game site. I imagine that will change although for low viewership games they might choose to continue that way of doing the games save some money on the airfare, hotel, food for the broadcast crew.
ND QB battle is over this week as per Kelly. I'm not sure when the Texas QB battle will be over, it's highly ranked Hudson Card who is a RS Freshman vs Casey Thompson who came in to the 2nd half of the Alamo Bowl game vs Colorado and just torched them. Some have suggested that the loser of the battle is a high risk transfer. If Card wins, would Thompson stick around to back him up, and vice versa. Both have enough eligibility left that transferring would make some sense in today's college football world. Ohio State and Michigan have QB battles, Texas A&M has a battle and in an unusual move they have their 2021 QB Eli Stowers working as a TE. Eli Stowers, the Aggies’ 2021 quarterback signee, is working with the tight ends during training camp. With Calzada and King competing for the starting quarterback job, Dickey said, “We don’t want to have these talented guys that are over there watching,” so they’re giving Stowers a look at a new position. Clemson does not, Alabama does not, Georgia does not, I do noth believe that the Gators have one either. Miami's D'Eriq King is the solid starter. FSU probably not if McKenzie Milton the transfer from UCF is !00%.
NCAA is going to have a big convention this fall to look at reorganization, not just tweaking but a big reorganization. It's about time. The purpose of the special convention "is intended to propose dramatic changes to the NCAA Constitution," and will lead to proposals that are expected to be acted upon in January, according to the Board of Governors. With that goal in mind, a 22-person committee will be tasked with "identifying the core principles that define college sports and proposing a new governance model that allows for quicker change without sacrificing broader values." Overhaul of NCAA to begin with constitutional convention in November
With around 100 schools playing Div 1 (FBS) football and even more playing Basketball how would you come up with the kid(s) to represent all of those players?
A couple of early season games that just looking at them you'd think they were 'buy' games with the teams having no chance to win. ND v Toledo in Week 2. Toledo has 95% of it's offensive production coming back from last year. They are a very good MAC team. Irish better take them seriously or they could be in for a surprise. Texas vs Louisiana Lafayette (Rajun Cajuns)..was listening to ESPNU on this and they are a well coached team with Billy Napier a rising coach who will end up with a big time job. He's got 20 of 22 starters back from last year and are expected to be the top team in the Sun Belt this season. Longhorns better be ready as they have experience at every position. They aren't coming to Austin to collect a big paycheck and go home happy with a loss for it.
T, I have no dog in the hunt either way. The observation was in response to years of litigation that the athletes have been treated similar to indentured servants, and the movement to form collective interests against the "ruling class". My response was my prediction that without even an attempt at getting a viewpoint from the athletes, any new directives are quite likely to be received with suspicion and provide the framework of future dissatisfaction. It was an observation of the potential optics as perceived by the collective athletes, not commentary either of the NCAA's choices or the athletes positions. I have no opinion in any case, I'm just sitting here eating popcorn!
Coaches Preseason poll is out. RK TEAM REC PTS TREND 1 Alabama(63) 0-0 1621 NR 2 Clemson 0-0 1508 NR 3 Oklahoma(2) 0-0 1481 NR 4 Ohio State 0-0 1435 NR 5 Georgia 0-0 1386 NR 6 Texas A&M 0-0 1286 NR 7 Notre Dame 0-0 1139 NR 8 Iowa State 0-0 1131 NR 9 North Carolina 0-0 999 NR 10 Cincinnati 0-0 979 NR 2021 College Football Rankings for Preseason | ESPN
Not exactly for the college topic but involves Sam Ehlinger, former Texas QB. Terry, he's impressing the Colts coaches in practice and is splitting reps with Jacob Eason while Carson Wentz is out after foot surgery. He likely will split time with Eason in the first exhibition game. Thought you'd enjoy knowing that.
USAToday has it's preseason All American Team out. Clemson leads with 6 players, while preseason #1 Alabama has 4 on the team. No surprise that Spencer Rattler of OU is the 1st team QB. College football: Clemson leads 2021 All-America team with six players
On the NIL front a couple of QB's have gotten some big deals. Ohio State freshman, Quinn Ewers, has signed on with a Beverage maker. I've actually bought some of the products he is now endorsing. Ohio State quarterback Quinn Ewers has his first endorsement deal. The newly reclassified No. 1 overall recruit in the 2021 cycle released a 45-second advertisement on his Twitter page for Holy Kombucha, a Texas-based drinks company. Holy Kombucha, which is also partnering with Hope Squad for mental health and suicide prevention programs, was interested in signing Ewers according to a report from Pete Thamel of Yahoo Sports in late July. Also Clemson quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei has partnered with Dr Pepper and will appear in its Fansville ad campaign throughout the college football season, the company announced Wednesday. Uiagalelei will be the only active collegiate player featured in the Fansville commercials, which chronicle the lives of rival fans in a fictional college-football-obsessed town. Financial terms were not disclosed. This is the second deal Uiagalelei has secured with a big company since name, image and likeness legislation took effect on July 1. Last month, Uiagalelei signed a deal with Bojangles, a fast-food fried chicken restaurant based in Charlotte, N.C., to make appearances on the company's behalf and share content on his social media account. So kids are racking up some $$$ for sure.
Hmmm... the Aggies got 3 on that AA list. Guess that explains why we're #6 with no quarterback selected yet.
I saw an article in today's chronicle about the A&M QB situtation. Jimbo doesn't seem to be close to making a decision. He said both have NFL arms. COLLEGE STATION — For the first time in four Augusts, Texas A&M has a bona fide battle at quarterback in progress. It pits sophomore Zach Calzada and redshirt freshman Haynes King. “Zach is an NFL talent,” said A&M coach Jimbo Fisher, who’s shoved his share of quarterbacks to the next level. “(And) Haynes is an NFL talent.” That hardly settles that. Fisher has said time and again this summer the Aggies could not go wrong with either slinger, and both quarterbacks are earning snaps with the first team early in camp.
Let me know if you can read this article about Emory Jones our QB. https://www.gatorcountry.com/feature/emory-jones-more-than-just-a-runner/
I don't think there is any real competition at this point for the Gator QB. However our backup, Anthony Richardson, is getting plenty of reps in practice and I believe will play quite a bit during the season.
Will Muschamp is back on the field as an assistant at Georgia? One of their assistants took a medical leave and he has taken his place. Don't know if it will be permanent or not.