Dr. Saturday

There's an interesting intersection between this Orlando Sentinel article on sports psychology -- specifically re: bridging the gap between young players and aging coaches -- and the indispensable Smart Football's take on the split-second decisions athletes have to make more or less without consciously thinking. Chris's post should strike a chord with anyone who, like me, has tried to play a sport while lacking not only size and speed but also, at least as importantly, total abandon, that instinctive, subconscious ability real athletes have to make their bodies do what they want them to do with no hint of the hesitation, uncertainty and regard for their own well-being that prevents normal people from being good at, say, dragging another person to the ground without his consent. The most remarkable thing about real athletes is that, for all the intricacy of strategies and techniques, they never seem to be thinking about what they're doing at all, only acting, which can seem like a kind of vacuousness but is actually what I think is meant by focus. (A state with which I cannot identify in any respect and doubt sports psychologists, despite their confidence, can actually teach. But that is not a scientific skepticism.)

The Sentinel's generation gap, though, that the shrinks seem to have a better hold on -- at least, with most of their clients, if they're willing to admit (like Kentucky's Rich Brooks, who laments the modern player's "sense of entitlement") that their charges have changed over the years. With others, though, getting through may be slightly more difficult (emphasis added):

"These kids come into my office, players, whether it's 55 years ago or last week, (a) player walks into my office, I look at him ... (it's the) same sweet kid," [Bobby] Bowden said recently during one of his spring booster tour stops. "Same sweet, innocent boy. You know it? Only his hair is longer. Or he's got earrings ... and he wears his underwear outside instead of inside.

"But he's still the same sweet kid (as) that kid I had 50 years ago."

I'm not really up on the styles of Florida teens, but unless Bowden has been belatedly recruiting Rey Maualuga -- who, in addition to his, uh, personal style, certainly understands the concept of "abandon," even if only subconsciously -- it seems Bobby has grossly misinterpreted his players' fashion choices. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, as long as they remain such sweet, innocent boys.)

Note also that Bowden apparently once called for a win by forfeit after losing to an ineligible quarterback. But those were totally different circumstances than Florida State's current appeal to keep victories vacated for use of ineligible players. Totally different. What was that first stage of grief, again, doc?

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Hat tip: Blutarsky.

Tomorrow’s All-Americans Today

Here are the rules for this team: All players are second or third-year guys -- no incoming freshmen or junior college transfers -- set to start for the first time this year, or otherwise to contribute heavily after a redshirt year or a season (or two) as a backup. No one on the team was feted with awards or freshman All-America notices, and none has more than a couple career starts; most have none. Because they weren’t "instant impact" types, you won’t find many of these guys near the top of the preseason position lists, but you should expect to be well-acquainted with all of them by this time next year.(Check my record on these matters against last year's team at my old site.)

If your team’s budding star was left off, it’s probably because we know too much about him already. And what’s the fun in that?

Quarterback: Andrew Luck • Stanford
The obvious choice here would be further south, where Aaron Corp inherits the fame, babes, automatic Heisman contention and future fortune that comes with winning the starting role at Southern Cal. But that's too easy, for me and for Corp. With neither having taken a meaningful college snap, Luck looks like practically the same player, anyway, coming in with identical guru ratings as a recruit and about 20 more pounds on the same 6'4" frame. And where Corp reportedly won his job by playing it close to the vest and avoiding mistakes, Luck spent the spring dropping bombs all over his fellow Cardinal and forcing his coach to tell reporters, "Luck is going to be a star. It's undeniable."
Honorable Mention: Aaron Corp (USC), Blaine Gabbert (Missouri), Jordan Jefferson (LSU), Ryan Mallett (Arkansas).

Running Back: Jermaine Thomas • Florida State
By the numbers, it looks like Thomas should have earned way more than 69 carries last year as a true freshman -- he broke five runs for 20 yards or longer, had 226 yards on just 20 carries in back-to-back games with Georgia Tech and Clemson and finished the season averaging a hair below seven per carry, more than two and a half yards better than starter Antone Smith. Thomas takes over full-time this year with no obvious competition for carries, pending the arrival of a couple well-regarded freshmen next month.Read More >>

• Happy birthday, USA. Two-hundred thirty-three years ago, it went exactly like this:

I heard Jefferson was more of a tenor, but otherwise, spot on.

• We hold these truths to be pursuant to the future profitability of Tostitos. Treading solemnly in the footsteps of the hallowed founders, the modern incarnation of the Congress is providing for the nation's common defense next Tuesday by challenging the BCS as a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, as in the latest issue of the noted policy journal, Sports Illustrated. The Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights announced the witness list for the hearing on Thursday, including University of Utah president Michael Young, University of Nebraska chairman Harvey "I Swear I Will Turn This Car Around" Perlman and antitrust lawyers Barry Brett and William Monts III.

This sets up as the same 2-on-2 format we saw the last time the Series was called to Capitol Hill, with Perlman and Monts (who, according to the Deseret News, has said the BCS doesn't violate antitrust laws) on the side of the status quo and Young and Brett playing the dogged freedom fighters -- uh, minus the usual car bombs and ethnic cleansing, hopefully. The proceedings will be Webcast on the Judiciary Committee's site at 2:30 p.m. ET, if you're interested; no word on C-SPAN.Read More >>

It's been a long, long time since the NCAA handed down really serious sanctions on anyone, so long that an entire generation of fans -- and player, and most importantly, caches -- has come up more or less in their complete absence. The last BCS conference team kept home from a bowl game by Association fiat was California in 2003, one year after a bowl/championship ban prevented Alabama from claiming the SEC West title it won on the field in 2002. That's five years with no major teams feeling that kind of bite, and you have to go back another decade, to the penalties against Florida, Texas A&M, Auburn and Alabama again, just to name a few, to dredge up notable sanctions prior to that.

Either athletic departments have become remarkably cleaner over the last 10 years -- an unlikely proposition -- or the NCAA has grown so squeamish since dropping the bureaucratic equivalent of a nuclear bomb on SMU in 1987 that it lacks the will -- or the power -- to cause anything in the vicinity of that kind of turmoil again.

Most observers seem to presume the latter. Three weeks ago, when Alabama was slapped on the wrist for its third "major" offense in a little over a decade, Sports Illustrated's Andy Staples wrote that the tepid response proved the NCAA won't hold the heaviest hitters' feet to the fire. Old Auburn hat Pat Dye (who knows from NCAA violations) said essentially the same thing to The Sporting News: "There's no question it has changed. ... They didn't punish them very much. In the past, the school had to pay for their mistakes. This is not going to affect (Alabama) in terms of winning games." Dye's contemporary at Ole Miss, Billy Brewer, told TSN lesser-known schools seem "more susceptible" than bigger programs; Washington legend Don James called the Huskies' stint on probation during his tenure as the NCAA's effort to be "holier-than-thou" with a national power, but he "[doesn't] see that happening much anymore." Other than the residual effects on Bobby Bowden's legacy in the record books, the recent rap against Florida State for "widespread academic fraud" falls into the same category of cosmetic chiding -- and it's not guaranteed to hold up, like Oklahoma's order to vacate wins for fielding ineligible players in 2006 didn't hold up.

TSN's Dave Curtis seems to be thinking along the same lines today about the spitballs lobbed at 'Bama and FSU, but he comes to the exact opposite conclusion about what that recent leniency means for the next behemoth lumbering into the NCAA's sights:Read More >>

Everybody loves Texas this summer, for obvious reasons -- namely, it's likely to take 35 points to beat the Longhorns, and the only two teams that hit that mark on them last season finished first and third nationally in scoring offense. (And it still wasn't enough to put Oklahoma over the top.) Still, every giant has his Achilles heel, and as hard as it is to find fault with an offense very likely to top 40 points per game again, in the case of Texas' offense, the target is a fat one: The running game. Quick -- name the 'Horns' starting running back this fall. Even Texas fans might be slow on the draw with that question because it's not clear that they have one, or, after their performance in last year's underwhelming rotation, that one will emerge.

It's also not clear that it matters, given the absurd heights of the passing game, which incorporates plenty of safe throws of the "long handoff" variety. I went much further in his critique earlier this season:

... the Longhorns' backs certainly don't want a repeat of last season, when quarterback Colt McCoy pulled a Vince Young and led the ground attack with 561 yards and was the only member in the backfield to have 100 carries, with much of his run production coming primarily on scrambles in the spread attack.
[...]
It's understood the Longhorns will have to make a dramatic improvement running the ball this season if they seriously hope to compete for a national title. Their inability to effectively run and possess the football was probably what stood between them and the BCS title game last season.

The no-name running backs are fair game for skepticism, but both of those assumptions seem a little out of place when referring to a team that a) Presumably has "a serious hope" of competing for a national title even without dramatically improved rushing numbers, because it seriously competed for a championship last year despite mediocrity on the ground, and b) Finished second in the Big 12 and eighth nationally in time of possession, holding the ball for 15 minutes longer than Oklahoma, 13 minutes longer than Missouri, seven minutes longer than Oklahoma State, five minutes longer than Kansas and Texas A&M and almost 17 minutes longer than Baylor. The game Harris cites as a failure of the Longhorns' ability to control the clock with the run, the loss at Texas Tech, was one in which UT was scrambling to make up a 22-6 deficit at the half, after the Longhorn defense allowed Raider drives of 37, 52, 96, 83 and 46 yards that ate more than 20 minutes off the clock. After the 'Horns' first carry of the game -- a missed assignment that led to a Red Raider safety, and a subsequent Tech touchdown that put UT two scores in the hole after a single offensive snap -- the "ball control" approach wasn't exactly viable.Read More >>

• Planning for everything. It's no secret that Florida will carry last year's No. 1 ranking into the fall, and might be a double-digit favorite in every game. In that position, every game is a "trap game," which led the Orlando Sentinel to ask on Wednesday, which game is the more dangerous "trap" for the Gators, LSU or Georgia? Like the Sentinel's Jeremy Fowler, I think LSU in Baton Rouge is the obvious answer; but then, I'm unusually high on the Tigers for a team that was 3-5 in the SEC last year and lost to UF by 30 in Gainesville.

With a team that looks as far ahead of the pack as Florida does coming into the year -- this is a team that returns almost everybody from a mythical championship winner that led the nation in margin of victory, and probably opens with the most feared offense and defense and special teams in the country -- I think the question is not "Who?" but "How?" Last year's loss to Ole Miss (which was also the only close game Florida played in the regular season) was unusual in two ways, namely that the Rebels a) Forced three fumbles and finished with a plus-2 turnover margin (Vanderbilt, at plus-1, was the only other team that finished in the black against the Gators), and b) Hit Tim Tebow, sacking him three times and holding him to seven yards on 15 carries. The teams that beat Florida in 2007, too -- Auburn, LSU, Georgia, Michigan -- are the ones that put the most heat on Tebow. A) is not really replicable (it's not predictable, anyway), but b) is, so if you're asking, "Who has the best chance of beating Florida?" the best answer is probably "Whoever has the best pass rush." In the regular season, that's probably LSU, or maybe ... Arkansas? A Razorback upset would make more sense than Ole Miss last year -- and they've even got the golden boy transfer at quarterback!

• Can't we somehow combine him with the other guys? The ACC may not have much star power at quarterback, but it does have one of the most interesting QB situations in the country thanks to Vic Hall, tentatively projected starter at Virginia, who ended his string of 24 consecutive starts at cornerback to run for 109 yards and two touchdowns out of the shotgun in the Cavs' near-upset of Virginia Tech last November. Improbably, it looks like Hall is sticking at quarterback after spring practice, despite losing the element of surprise that helped stun Tech and his obvious deficiencies as a passer -- he's only 5'9", missed on his only pass against the Hokies and, you know, played cornerback for two years despite a sensational high school career at quarterback, a good indication that coaches were terrified of what might happen if the ball left his hands. Not that any of that is bothering Hall himself, according to the local Charlottesville Daily Progress:Read More >>

A random, too-soon look at the Razorbacks' prospects next fall, sans the inevitable injuries, suspensions and other pratfalls of the too-long interim.

What's Changed. So strong is Bobby Petrino's reputation as a passing puppeteer that it survived even the purgatory of Casey Dick, starting quarterback, which is no small task. True, Dick's completion percentage and overall efficiency were roughly steady from his junior season under the run-based mantra of Houston Nutt, with more interceptions and fewer touchdowns. But the Razorbacks actually moved the ball through the air, which hardly seemed possible with Dick at the helm from 2005-07 -- consider that Dick had exactly two 200-yard passing games in 23 starts under Nutt, compared to an average of 235 yards per game last year, including three 300-yard games, a 282-yard effort in a near-upset against Ole Miss and a 197-yard, two-touchdown, zero-INT performance off the bench against LSU, ending with a 24-yard game-winner on the final throw of his career.

Dick's competence in Petrino's system only increases the salivation accompanying the ascendency of Ryan Mallett, the prodigal blue-chip who probably ranks as the most physically imposing passer in school history. Mallett has the size (6'6", 250-ish), the borderline illegal arm and the hype of prototypical draft bait like JaMarcus Russell and Matt Stafford. He also had a forgettable debut at Michigan as a true freshman in 2007, finishing with a wretched 43.3 completion percentage and a horror show of a performance in his only road start, a 37-21 loss to Wisconsin that featured open confrontations with coaches and receivers on the sideline. (Yes, Mallett threw three touchdown passes in that game, one an improbable 97-yarder to Mario Manningham. But I also watched that game in its entirety and read trustworthy accounts that described Mallett as "deranged." He completed 11 of 36 passes with two picks. It was a very, very ugly display.) Mallett was quickly branded as a malcontent in Ann Arbor and was a transfer candidate even before Rich Rodriguez's system made him a square peg in a round hole; a February arrest for public intoxication, though his first bit of bad press at Arkansas, did not boost his reputation.Read More >>

BCS apologists -- and sometimes critics, or mere observers -- like to point out that, whatever its flaws, at least the Series is obviously better than the mishmash of split champions and frustrating conference tie-ins that preceded it. So heinous was the old way of doing postseason business that Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman, new chairman of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee, possibly feeling the heat emanating from Congress again this week, trotted out its corpse during a local interview as the ultimate warning to BCS critics:

What I think most people don’t understand is that the alternative to the current system is not a playoff. The alternative to the BCS is going back to our traditional relationship with our bowl partners.

Oooh, you're scaring us, Dr. Perlman. Run for your lives -- it's the ghost of Robbie Bosco!

Of course, this is an idle threat: The BCS, or whatever it morphs into under external pressure, isn't going anywhere. Still, I put the question, "BCS: Better or worse than the old chaotic bowl system?" to two esteemed blogging colleagues, and got back two wildly divergent answers: One said "much better" -- "Before, the two best teams were eyeballed. At least some quantification goes into the process now," and that process is more interesting than the pre-BCS days. The other, to my surprise, said "worse" -- The current system "guarantees a wide array of wildly uninteresting and lopsided games."

The last two years -- featuring maybe two quality BCS games, last year's Florida-Oklahoma championship and the Ohio State-Texas Fiesta Bowl, and declining TV ratings -- have made it pretty hard to argue with either of those adjectives.Read More >>

A cursory examination of D-I's lesser-known elements. Today: The Nevada-Las Vegas Rebels.

You may remember them from: If you're anything like me, your main experience with UNLV is via multiple aborted attempts at leaving Vegas in a state of near-death on a Sunday morning, leading to an embarrassing number of wrong turns that divert you through campus before finally setting wheels on I-15.

UNLV also sticks out in our collective consciousness thanks to its employment of a replica howitzer as the trophy in their rivalry game. The 545-pound Fremont Cannon is awarded to the winner of the annual showdown between UNLV and the villains from Nevada-Reno, who've held it since ending a five-year losing streak to Vegas in 2005. Sadly, no current member of UNLV's team, including coach Mike Sanford, has had the pleasure of standing astride the gun in triumph.

Previously on: The 2008 squad was a bit of a mixed bag -- the usual losses to such luminaries as Iowa State Air Force, Colorado State and San Diego State were interrupted by a September victory over then-15th-ranked Arizona State, the Rebels' first victory over a ranked team this decade. (Oh, the irrepressible Mountain West!) A sixth-place tie in the MWC against a 5-7 overall record may not be anything to crow about on the surface, but after five straight last-place finishes, it's the baby steps that count. The next step now that they're out of the cellar: A bowl bid, last heard from in these parts in 2000.

Possible Encounters: Chances for national exposure for the Rebels are few and far between, even for a middling team in a mid-major conference -- an early date with Oregon State and October meetings with BYU, Utah and TCU are the only chances at catching the Rebs on your moving picture boxes, and that's only if you can actually find one of the obscure channels that carries Mountain West games. Short of that, you'll have to enjoy the contact high of Sam Boyd Stadium -- the Field on the Edge of Civilization -- when it hosts the Las Vegas Bowl in December.Read More >>