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Thoughts of the Day: April 10, 2012

  • A few thoughts for Tuesday morning:

    1. THE MEYER ERA: Matt Hayes painted a not so rosy picture of the Urban Meyer years at Florida but let’s get real, if the wheels hadn’t come off in 2010 would we be having this conversation? The answer is no. It’s easy to criticize after the fact and chances are that most successful college football programs aren’t a whole lot different than the one that Meyer ran at Florida. Was Urban perfect? The answer to that is no. Did he win? The answer to that is yes. Did he cheat? The answer to that is no although don’t think for one second that he didn’t play in the gray areas. Anyone who thinks you can recruit at the highest levels under the cumbersome NCAA rule book without delving into gray areas lives in a world that doesn’t exist. The successful coaches who run clean ships do delve into the gray areas, they simply make sure they don’t cross the line over to the dark side.

    2. THE MEYER ERA, PART II: Did players use drugs? The answer to that is yes. Were there players who had some serious issues? Again, yes. I’m not making excuses for Meyer or for the players, but you do not win – and I’m not just talking about winning championships, but simply winning – at the Division I level with Boy Scouts. You can point to Tim Tebow all you want and I’ll agree with you that Tim is that once in a lifetime kid who is almost too good to be true, but there aren’t enough Tim Tebows with the talent to win at the Division I level to go around. For every Tim Tebow that’s out there you have a thousand at risk kids for whom football is their way out, kids who couldn’t get into a school like the University of Florida if not for football bending the academic standards to let them in. If you’re a coach, you bring in kids who are totally unprepared for the world they’re about to be exposed to and you hope that they (a) adapt; (b) take advantage of the opportunity they have to better themselves; and (c) help you win football games along the way.

    3. THE MEYER ERA, PART III: While coaches like Meyer hope that the kids they bring in figure it out and become fine, upstanding citizens and terrific football players to boot, some of them don’t make it and it’s not necessarily their fault or the fault of the coaches. This is the dilemma of the college football world that we’ve created. We demand that the kids become model citizens in a world so many of them are unprepared for yet we live by an NCAA rule book that limits the personal contact the coaches can have with the kids once they’re on campus. If you want to point a finger, point it in the right direction – at the academics in their ivory towers who put continually push away what for many kids is the only positive male role model they have all in the name of “making them like any other student on campus.” Well here’s a clue for those guys: college athletes by and large aren’t like any other students on campus so why are they creating this impossible double standard?

    4. LAST POINT ON THIS SUBJECT: Any college football coach who doesn’t sit down with his players and give an honest assessment of where the kid stands on the depth chart and what his future is at the school isn’t doing his job. If a kid isn’t cutting it and has little to no chance to compete for playing time, he needs to know and should be given the opportunity to make a decision to transfer. This is where the rules need to change and change now. I agree with the concept of a 4-year scholarship and I don’t think any kid should lose his scholarship just because he can’t cut it on the field. However, there should be rules that allow a kid who isn’t making it at one school to transfer without losing a year and there should be rules that allow a coach to essentially cut a kid from the team without cutting his scholarship. Give coaches the equivalent of an inactive list. They have it in the NFL and it doesn’t count against the roster. Do the same thing in college football and let kids who aren’t cutting it have the chance to continue their education.

    5. THE LONG ARM OF THE NCAA LAW CATCHES UP WITH SCOTT DREW: The NCAA is about to drop the hammer on Baylor for a laundry list of sins. Some of them are ridiculous like penalizing women’s coach Kim Mulkey for talking to Brittany Griner’s parents when Brittany and her daughter played for some time on the same AAU team, but there are plenty of provable wrong-doings by men’s coach Scott Drew. I spend a lot of time at AAU events each summer and I hear the stories. Baylor’s men’s basketball program is so dirty that all the Ajax in the world can’t clean it up. When it comes to recruiting, the general feeling is that any time a kid signs with Baylor he’s been bought. When Perry Jones III declared for the NBA Draft Monday afternoon, my first thought was he’s getting out before the fingers start pointing in his direction.

    6. GOODELL DENIES THE SAINTS’ APPEAL: NFL commissioner Roger Goodell did the right thing Monday by denying the appeals of the New Orleans Saints, head coach Sean Payton, general manager Mickey Loomis and defensive coordinator Greg Williams. Their suspensions for a bounty program will stand which is what should have happened. Give Goodell credit for leaving the door open for the team to lighten some of its punishment such as financial penalties and loss of draft picks in exchange for full cooperation as the NFL digs further into this embarrassment. This is a very well thought out punishment and response by a commissioner who has shown he is not afraid of the union, the players or the billionaire owners.

    7. ANOTHER REASON TO LIKE ROGER GOODELL: LSU corner Morris Claiborne has documented learning disabilities, the kind that made taking a timed (12-minute) 50 question test difficult beyond description. Claiborne scored a 4 on the Wonderlich and immediately had folks howling about LSU and asking how a university could allow someone so dumb to attend school and play football? Well, the kid isn’t dumb. He’s just got a certified, documented learning disability. Goodell did the right thing when he sent out a memo over the weekend threatening any team that leaks Wonderlich scores with serious discipline. This is just another reason to like Goodell, who is the best professional sports commissioner by far. He’s all about doing the right thing, both on and off the field, and he’s actually doing something about cleaning up the NFL’s mess. You’ve got to like that.

    8. TOUGH DEAL FOR RONALD POWELL: Just when it seemed that Ronald Powell was about to become the player he was touted to be coming out of high school, he tore an ACL in the Orange and Blue game. In a few days when the swelling goes down, there will be another MRI to determine the extent of the damage and surgery to repair the tear. If it’s a minor tear, then there is a possibility that he could be back for some of the 2012 season but Gator fans should be prepared for a worst case scenario, which is a full 12-month rehab. This is a tough deal for Powell who, by all accounts, took a gigantic leap in maturity in the offseason and suddenly realized that it’s time to get the most out of his talent and be a good teammate. I hate injuries for any kid, but especially when they happen just as the lights go on. Here’s hoping the tear is minor, that the surgery goes well and that he will come back strong as soon as possible.

    PARTING SHOT: Although the fans seem split down the middle, 50-50, about whether to fire or keep Bobby Petrino at Arkansas, my belief is that it’s not a question of if he is canned, just a matter of when. I can’t see that there is any good reason to string this decision out. Make it quick and get on with the process of bringing in a new coach. If I’m Arkansas AD Jeff Long, I’ve got Charlie Strong on speed dial about now.

    This post was edited by Franz Beard on 4/10/2012 at 2:37 AM

    Email: franzbeard@gmail.com/Twitter: www.twitter.com/@franzbeard247

    Franz Beard

  • What happened to the STUDENT/athlete..isn't that what colleges should be about? IMO it is a shame that students with ACT scores of 28 and high GPA's while kids with inferior academic test scores can simply because they run a 4.5 40. I know it is too late to put the genie back in the bottle but college sports today are flat out filthy and becoming more like professional sports every day.

    SammyW

  • SammyW said...

    What happened to the STUDENT/athlete..isn't that what colleges should be about? IMO it is a shame that students with ACT scores of 28 and high GPA's while kids with inferior academic test scores can simply because they run a 4.5 40. I know it is too late to put the genie back in the bottle but college sports today are flat out filthy and becoming more like professional sports every day.

    While I believe that we should demand better academic performance before athletes get to college, if we go with your proposal there is no such thing as college football and basketball played at a high level. This is one of those trade offs that schools are willing to make for a long list of reasons such as providing a rallying point for students, alumni and community to come together. 90,000 people will come to The Swamp to watch football. You'd be lucky to draw 90 to watch a physicist test a new theory of earth's origins. And since private donation covers the cost of athletic scholarships the athletes aren't keeping any qualified students from admission.

    Email: franzbeard@gmail.com/Twitter: www.twitter.com/@franzbeard247

    Franz Beard

  • say what you want about Meyer-his last 2 years at UF he allowed the palyers to totally run the asylum and it began with his Circle of Trust. I cannot in amy way see Nick
    Saban allowing a player swat him on the ass on National TV without taking action. It was obvious to me that Percy felt his special relationship gave him carte blanche to do so. According to a former player that I happen to know-the locker room in 2009 was a mess and very fractured and the sense of entitlement by certain players was huge, and the birthday party was just the tip of the ice berg-stuff like this was going on all season as players thought they would just waltz into the MNC game once again. I actually think urbs health issues were a direct result of his knowing he had a situation were the inmates were running the asylum.

    Franz, you are correct to win big you have to take the bad boys and hope you can keep them in line- I can accept all that went on because it is past history-my only issue with urbs was that he should have stayed retired in 09- the guy who was on our sideline in 2010 was not the urbs we had from 05-09. The guy on th e sidelines in 2010, may have looked like urbs, but he was totally uninvolved in coaching th e team.

    This post was edited by g8orbill on 4/10/2012 at 6:22 AM

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    And that's a first down!

    g8orbill

  • Props to Goodell. good stuff Franz

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    I'm itchin for some 1 on 1's . . like I wanna line up a whole bunch of offensive lineman up and murk they ass - Dante Fowler

    mslugga35 ●

  • I kind of roll my eyes at Roger Goodell. His hand has been forced with a lot of this concussion stuff, and they're a little late to reacting to it all. I do appreciate his stance on the leaked test scores, though. Really felt bad for Claiborne.

    As far as Meyer, the only reason Hayes did this investigation is to find out why Florida football fell off the map. At least that's what he said yesterday on Finebaum. He said that, I think it was his editor, asked him why did Florida fall so fast? And he set out to figure it out. So that's part of why this wouldn't have mattered if Florida kept winning; the question wouldn't have been asked in the first place.

    This Meyer story really isn't anything different than what people have been hearing since he left, really. It just puts some sources to the facts and gives the rumors some credibility, but I'm sure it's not entirely accurate.

    David Nelson had a hilarious tweet regarding Meyer's alleged Circle of Trust: "FWIW.. In my 5 years with Coach Meyer, I never heard the term "Circle of Trust". This isn't 'Meet the Fockers'"

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    www.twitter.com/l_davis15

    Lance Davis

  • Franz is there any rumblings that Baylors bball commits will look elsewhere?

    dtwatersgator ●

  • Franz Beard said...

    PARTING SHOT: Although the fans seem split down the middle, 50-50, about whether to fire or keep Bobby Petrino at Arkansas, my belief is that it’s not a question of if he is canned, just a matter of when. I can’t see that there is any good reason to string this decision out. Make it quick and get on with the process of bringing in a new coach. If I’m Arkansas AD Jeff Long, I’ve got Charlie Strong on speed dial about now.

    If they fire Petrino I think Gus Malzahn would be a better choice than Charlie Strong.

    TPANOLE

  • The Hayes article is hardly the bombshell he seems to think it is. Certainly, there were issues with the team in 2010 carrying over to 2011, but that's hardly news. The Urban Meyer of 2005-2006 was in control of his team and would never have let things get out of hand. The Meyer of 2010 was burned out and couldn't keep people in line. When you lose as many leaders as we did after 2009, especially a guy like Tebow, it's hard to keep everyone together as it is.

    And what was the big revelation? Smoking pot? Hardly a big deal, and as the article makes clear, the players were punished.

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    Billy the Kid, age 47, 450 victories, 5 SEC Championships, 2 National Championships... and counting!

    Gotham Gator

  • The 2010 team was divided between upperclassmen and underclassmen, Team Brantley and Team Reed, AND the Players in the Circle of Trust an the players not in the Circle of Trust.

    EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF.

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    www.twitter.com/l_davis15

    Lance Davis

  • I understand the entitlement issues and special treatment for star players etc. I also understand that things just got out of hand and he lost control of the program. What bothers me is what Meyer did once he stepped down. Foley and Machen bent over backward to work with him and his health, and Muschamp worked with it as well trying to be fair. The school hires on the remaining members of his staff that couldn't find work elsewhere, and protects his image while he bails.

    Less than a year later he takes the same job at another institution, raids the staff and then go's after the recruits that Florida paid him to build a relationship with in the first place. That's just being an a**hole. I would understand if we fired the guy, but we gave him more room and respect than I've ever been shown by my employer, and all that got us was a BS call to Foley to say no hard feelings.

    Meyer did do a great job in his first four years, but he didn't win those championships by himself (Tebow, Strong, Mullen etc.) If he had taken the job at ND instead of Florida do you think he'd have 2 NT's?

    This post was edited by jmlives on 4/10/2012 at 9:56 AM

    jmlives ●

  • Nice post Franz. I understand your point regarding the transfer issue but I don't think the answer is allowing kids to transfer without sitting out a year at the Division 1 level. Reason being is every kid who is disgruntled will want to transfer out. Football and basketball will turn into free agency even more now than it was before. I'll use McCray as an example. He didn't get much PT his first few years. If that rule applied every coach in the SE would have been lighting up his phone saying he could come in and start day 1 at their school. Last year he played a big role on this team and this year he will be leaned upon even more with the loss of Powell. Therefore Florida will get 2-3 valuable years out of the kid. If he didn't have any restrictions on transferring we may never have gotten to see him mature into the player he is today. I don't think your point was to say that every single kid should be allowed to transfer if they aren't playing. But my point is where do you draw the line? Kid's like Jenkins would come in and demand immediate playing time or they would leave. The recruiting process would never end. That being said I do think they should eliminate the rule that a university can dictate which school a kid can transfer to. If they sit out a year they should be able to transfer to a school that puts them in the best situation to be successful on and off the field.

    Gator04

  • I've talked to enough players in the last 24 hours to get a pretty good clue and the consensus is there was no circle of trust. This is from both sides of the ball, some that played and some that didn't. There was a leadership committee but these were guys who were the most accountable and responsible guys on the team, for example David Nelson and Joey Sorrentino. They handled a lot of team discipline issues, some appointed and others voted by teammates. The circle of trust is a figment of an imagination per players I talked. Could they be covering? Sure but I don't think so.

    Email: franzbeard@gmail.com/Twitter: www.twitter.com/@franzbeard247

    Franz Beard

  • 2010 was a train wreck from day one.

    You had a quarterback getting hammered every night at La Cantina until the coaches made the place off limits for players.

    You sometimes had only two leaders show up for offseason workouts and one of those two wasn't always the quarterback. There were five guys who were supposed to lead.

    In offseason drills not everybody showed up every day.

    New coaches who players thought they could push around.

    A defensive coordinator who had been in the NFL for years who wouldn't listen to coaches like Heater and McCarney who knew the SEC.

    A wide receivers coach who was terrible.

    The coaches who had been the disciplinarians (Strong, Carter and Gonzo) were all gone.

    Urban was too busy trying to take care of his health.

    Addazio had too much on his plate.

    The freshmen came in feeling entitled.

    This is all fact.

    This post was edited by Phattus Maximus on 4/10/2012 at 12:07 PM

    Phattus Maximus

  • Phattus Maximus said...

    2010 was a train wreck from day one.

    You had a quarterback getting hammered every night at La Cantina until the coaches made the place off limits for players.

    You sometimes had only two leaders show up for offseason workouts and one of those two wasn't always the quarterback. There were five guys who were supposed to lead.

    In offseason drills not everybody showed up every day.

    New coaches who players thought they could push around.

    A defensive coordinator who had been in the NFL for years who wouldn't listen to coaches like Heater and McCarney who knew the SEC.

    A wide receivers coach who was terrible.

    The coaches who had been the disciplinarians (Strong, Carter and Gonzo) were all gone.

    Urban was too busy trying to take care of his health.

    Addazio had too much on his plate.

    The freshmen came in feeling entitled.

    This is all fact.

    You get a point for that one. A lot of very good info there ... and unfortunately all of it is true.

    Email: franzbeard@gmail.com/Twitter: www.twitter.com/@franzbeard247

    Franz Beard

  • SammyW said...

    What happened to the STUDENT/athlete..isn't that what colleges should be about? IMO it is a shame that students with ACT scores of 28 and high GPA's while kids with inferior academic test scores can simply because they run a 4.5 40. I know it is too late to put the genie back in the bottle but college sports today are flat out filthy and becoming more like professional sports every day.

    If that is your plan then you might as well scrap competitive college sports. Forget football and basketball for sure. You might as well just allow high school kids to go straight to the draft in every sport if you are going to expect them to have legitimate scores and gpa's.

    AtlGator ●

  • If Matt Hayes wanted to document why the Gator program fell off the map all he had to do was:

    1. Document coaching staff turnover

    2. Document NFL early entries

    3. Figure out why an Offensive Line Coach was also Offensive Coordinator

    Worst thing that ever happened (Finebaum said it yesterday - cant believe I'm quoting him) was taking Urban back after he quit the first time. The decision to quit was right. The decision to bring him back was wrong.

    Circle of Trust? What a load of hooey.

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    GreenNScaly ●

  • URBAN MEYER - While I agree that Meyer may be getting kind of a raw deal over this article, there is one important point that seems clear. And that is that Meyer let the players, most notably documented Harvin and Jenkins, take over control of the program.

    The white lies and the preferential treatment of star players and maybe even overlooking minor transgressions are pretty normal. I think those issues happen everywhere.

    But if the article is true, and I don't know for sure exactly how true it is, then Meyer did something that in my opinion is absolutely inexcusable and it's something that nobody seems to really be grasping. And that's the fact that he did not back his assistant coaches. He absolutely undermined them right in front of the players. If the story is true that Harvin physically went after Gonzalez and Meyer didn't punish him, then something is wrong. And if Harvin refused to do stadium steps and when confronted by more than one assistant coach, Meyer gave in and let the players play basketball for conditioning, that is absolutely wrong as well.

    Those 2 instances empowered the players against the coaches and more than likely the players knew at that point that they had control of the program. I would think that undermining those assistants might be the worst possible thing a head coach could do. That is the fatal flaw I see in what Meyer did.

    COLLEGE ATHLETES - I have to disagree with you on the issue of treatment of college athletes. In my opinion, these players are still college students FIRST and should be treated like regular students as far as academic expectations. If they can't acclimate to the college demands, then they shouldn't be in school, period. To me, getting a college education is a privilege. I really don't think these kids who in some cases are essentially being given an honorary degree in exchange for playing football are really being helped. But ...

    NFL FARM SYSTEM - One thing I've never really understood is why there isn't the equivalent of a farm system for the NFL, where kids who can't deal with the demands of college can still learn to play. They have it for baseball and hockey. Why not the NFL? There are a lot of really talented football players who hit a wall with the academics and are never given a chance. It's a shame because so many of these kids end up back on the streets. Why not have minor league teams for the NFL in second and 3rd tier cities. There may be a valid reason but I haven't heard it yet.

    PETRINO - I think you are right that Arkansas is really in a position where they have little choice but to fire Petrino. As much as it will hurt the football program, it would be a real PR nightmare, long-term, to keep him.

    But here's what I don't get. What is it that makes these coaches who want to cheat so stupid? Petrino is driving around town on a motorcycle with no helmet, in a place where everyone knows who he is, with a tall young blonde. Did he think nobody would notice? Did he think nobody would recognize him? Did he think that even if there wasn't a wreck that somebody wouldn't mention it to his wife? I mean at least wear the damn helmet to hide your identity.

    It's like when Pitino was having the affair in the restaurant. These morons are just asking to get busted.

    This post has been edited 3 times, most recently by AtlantaGator86 on 4/10/2012 at 4:58 PM

    AtlantaGator86

  • Atlanta,
    I never said that players should be given a free pass on an education. All I am saying is that we can't consider them to be just like every other student because (a) they aren't and (b) for the most part, they are playing catch up from the day they arrive at school. I think they must be held responsible and accountable for doing the work and earning a degree.

    That being said, if we want to field teams that are filled with kids who could get into school with the same standards as the rest of the student body, we go from Division I to Division III just like that. I'm in favor of the lowered standards for athletes but at the same time believe that it is up to the coaches and administrators to bring them up to an acceptable level so they can get a degree and become functional in society.

    I don't think that Meyer let Percy and Janoris Jenkins and those types take over the program. I think that he lost control of the program and a lot of that had to do with the huge turnover in the coaching staff starting in 2008.

    The Billy G incident with Percy was way overblown and that comes from several players who were there. If I had a dollar for every player that I know has been restrained or has made an attempt to go after a coach in all the years I've been writing sports I would probably have enough to spend a week in Cancun. It's football. Testosterone takes over.

    I know that Percy got punished ... a lot during his career. Was it enough? I can't tell you.

    Email: franzbeard@gmail.com/Twitter: www.twitter.com/@franzbeard247

    Franz Beard

  • so was the missed games by Percy for a supposed migrane really a suspension for failed drug tests

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    And that's a first down!

    g8orbill

  • The game at South Carolina in 2007 was because of the migraine because Percy was self-medicating but there were others that weren't. When he felt good he had a bad habit of stopping his meds and then would feel crappy, double up and get out of whack. He has the same habit in the NFL and it's driving the Vikings front office nuts.

    Email: franzbeard@gmail.com/Twitter: www.twitter.com/@franzbeard247

    Franz Beard

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