Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Maybe a personal assistant will write this blog one day

Sorry to be blogging a little later than usual today - just got done with Steve Spurrier's weekly press conference. He provided the perfect example of why the coaches poll is a sham, by the way. When asked whether it was him who voted for Duke this week, Spurrier said to ask Jamie Spernois. Speronis has been Spurrier's right hand man for years, but he is not a football coach. Unlike most other coaches, Spurrier's honest enough to admit he doesn't vote himself. The "coaches" poll should have never been allowed to become part of the BCS.

Speaking of dishonesty, I meant to post this column from Yahoo's Dan Wetzel last week. Wetzel points out the NCAA has basically taken the last two years off with regards to enforcing the rules against almost anyone. With the money for winning bigger than ever (and the pressure to do so even larger) no one in their right mind believes there's no cheating anymore. The NCAA doesn't like it when they get called out like this. If you're an FSU fan, this is a very bad time to have your team sitting out there waiting to be made an example of as a result of the academic fraud mess. I don't think they're going to take the suggestion of Ron Morris, columnist for the State here, and give FSU the death penalty, but it could still be a rough next couple of years in Tallahassee.

One of the lesser known but interesting college football ratings I keep an eye on comes from the Las Vegas Sports Consultants. These guys can see all the games and with money on the line they have every reason to be brutally honest in what they see when they size up the teams. So where does Florida rank this week after Saturday's loss? Number five - higher than everyone in the SEC including Bama. A lot of people are freaking out after the loss, but I'll reserve judgement on where this team is until I see them two weeks from now against LSU.

Torii Hunter of the Angels believes the reason no one hit the forty homer mark in the American League this season was because of expanded steroid testing. Gee, you think?

One of my favorite things to do whenever I go to a city is read the local alternative weekly and get a feel for whats going on there. Creative Loafing has been based in Tampa for a quarter century and does an excellent job of covering the local scene. They had editions in Atlanta and Charlotte doing well too, but then they bought prominent papers in Chicago and D.C. last year. Combine the meltdown of the newspaper industry's advertising base and the recent economic crisis, and say hello to Chapter 11.

1 comment:

jeffyablon said...

So: How do you foresee a VA writing that for you? I mean . . . WOW!

Jeff Yablon
President & CEO
Virtual VIP