Greetings From The Big 10

BuckeyeT! That's a plume in your cap....unless they just wanted you for your football recruiting mojo!!

 

"I don't follow any of those minor conferences like the SEC. "

Hey....nice to see Florida win one for the little guys eh?

 

Nah....no such goodness. We had just stolen their women's basketball coach - a very good one I might add - and they hired our former President, Dr Gee, after his stint at Brown and I was thrown in as the player to be named later.....clearly we - the Buckeye Nation that is - got the better end of the deal..... :lol:

 

Hey do you have any interest in starting a SkyBox Mutual Fund and being the picker?

 

......sure thing - my past professional experiences have taught me it's always easier with somebody elses money!

My motto: Often wrong, never in doubt!

Any takers?

:lol:

 

hmmmm......would you open a margin account for me (say 100%) and I think I'll participate with my Bahamian Shell Corp!

Terry

 

Hmmmmm.....note to self, "never visit a dentist with an offshore company!"

You're scaring me TOK.....just when I've got to go get one of my last two remaining wisdom teeth yanked. I get one taken out every 15 years whether I need it or not.....!

 

Here's a sports writer's view of the Big 10 Commisioner's letter. Interesting that the NCAA academic rankings for football favor the SEC.


One Sportswriter's view

 

Whatever...talk about distorting what a guy says...

 

Good article...

 

"A coach who graduates 90 percent of his players and wins 40 percent of his games will be fired. A coach who graduates 40 percent of his players and wins 90 percent of his games will have the stadium named after him. If a player can deliver a national title, most fans don't care if he can spell "C-A-T" two out of three times."

Somebody finally said it out loud besides me. At a majority of these football factories it is a farce to call these kids "student athletes".

 

And whose fault would that be?

Fans like us, perhaps?

Sportswriters like him, perhaps?

 

Not my fault. Not once have I ever listened to an interview with a semi-illiterate football star and said, "Boy do I wish he was playing for Notre Dame".

That's OK. The world needs ditch diggers too.

 

I want my team to go after the best football players who can qualify.

Once in school I want my Head Coach to do everything he can to graduate his players.

 

It's the fans, we want a winner first and foremost. There are no doubt limits to how low we'll go, although Miami fans seem to have the lowest bar.

There was a discussion on InsideTexas over the Texas Grad rate and most fans there didn't really care, had all sorts of rationalizations as to why it's so low. Most had to do with the previous staff and expect it to rise as the NCAA stats reflect the Mack Brown classes. There were a few who were truly embarassed by the low grad rates, but they were definitely the few. Most wouldn't trade the 80% winning record under Mack for higher grad rates.

I remember VolJeff saying that while he'd like to see the Tenn grad rate rise, that he wouldn't want it to rise and have a worse football team either.

Notre Dame fans, Penn State fans, Boston College fans, Rice fans, Duke fans, Stanford fans, Northwestern fans are all very proud of their grad rates. I often wonder if they (we) would accept declining grad rates with terrific success on the football field. If Charlie Weis wins 80% of his games over the next 10 years and a Nat'l Championship, but the grad rates fall to the high 60's or there abouts, would ND fans be happy?

Terry

 

This fan would not be happy. I've never considered us in any way "superior" to any other school/football program in terms of our unique academic requirements, but I've always relished the challenge of achieving greatness while maintaining high academic standards. It's a tough challenge, and it's obvious from the football status of the schools Terry mentions in his post above mine that it's not easy to do both. ND has a football tradition which gives us a chance to accomplish both. At ND it's a well-balanced effort. If that effort were to become unbalanced in either direction, IMO it would compromise an essential element of ND's character. I don't want that.

In terms of the so-called football factories, it's just a matter of the culture some folks choose to be satisfied with. There is nothing wrong with that, and it certainly does not reflect on the entire university in my mind. Oklahoma is a football factory, but the entire university is a great school. Get my point? Well....Terry probably doesn't agree with this example. FWIW, I see schools like Texas the same way.

Public/state schools function under a completely different set of standards than private schools, and it's apple/oranges to try to compare the two types. However, I think most objective observers would agree that this difference makes it much tougher for private schools to reach the pinnacle in a sport like football.

This doesn't mean that I'm satisfied with 10-2 or 9-3 seasons. What it means is that I get excited that with the right coaching (which we currently have), we have a realistic opportunity to contend for the national championship, even though we are at a disadvantage to those teams whose academic requirements are not as stringent as ours. I will always believe in that line from our fight song......

 

I agree with that statement. I do wonder though what would happen if football players (or athletes in general) had to qualify for admission just like other students. It would certainly change things, flagship state schools like Texas, Texas A&M, Fla, etc wouldn't be able to field competitive teams. While other schools where there is a more or less open admissions would have terrific teams, I suppose!

I did read one time, that while the Ivies don't have scholarships, that athletes don't compete with the Math nerd for admission. That is that they don't just put up a notice that they are having football tryouts and take what shows up, they target kids with good academics for sure, but they do recruit athletes in that sense.

 

In a surprising move, Mack Brown has declined to offer the top RB in the state of Texas, he is possibly the top player in the state as well. Supposedly Mack did not like what he saw on his transcript. His name is Jermie Calhoun, he's a stud RB. He will likely end up in the SEC or at Oklahoma.

Terry

 

Terry, your comment reminds me of the time when Fr. Hesburgh himself during his presidency once made it clear that football recruits at ND, while required to meet the university's standards for admission, were not competing with other non-football applicants for admission. I recall the situation, but I'm fuzzy on exactly when he said it. It was in response to a publicized outcry by the parents of a HS student who had been denied admission. They claimed that their child had been cheated out of admission because football players were given "special status."

Fr. Hesburgh made it clear that a specific number of openings are held for football recruits and that these openings are not commingled with the openings for the rest of the applicants. In other words, the two groups are not in competition with each other.

I'm sure it's still the case today at ND and every other big-time college football program.

 

In some sense they do Sid. I think ND admits a class of 2000, that it's 2000 including athletes, and not 2000 plus athletes. So if ND dropped athletics all together there would be more slots in the class of 2000 for regular students.

But I do think Fr. Hesburghs explanation is a good one, I believe also that children of alumni compete in a different pool as well don't they?