Gary’s Friday Thoughts (09/07/17)

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This weekly Thursday post (yes, it’s going to be on Thursdays – this week it’s Friday) is exactly what it says it is: my thoughts on stories that have popped up through the week.

The best thing about this piece is that there’s no set number of topics I have to cover, and I can talk about anything that is entertaining, regardless of whether or not it is sports-related (although I’ll always attempt to keep it limited to the realm of sports).

There are tons of stories out there that I could write individual articles on, but I’m not interested in writing an entire post on things that have already been well covered by other media outlets.

If there is a topic that is not being covered adequately, then I’ll research it and write about it.  But for this weekly post, I’ll give my opinion on what I think is interesting, and we’ll go from there.

 

1. Possible New Rule Allowing Transfers to Play Immediately

Article: www.saturdaydownsouth.com/sec-football/first-10-ncaa-considering-rule-change-that-would-change-college-football/

This has to be a joke, right?

Ok, first off, I understand that this would be great for the kids.  If they get into a bad situation – coach leaves, school isn’t as good as you thought, your girlfriend on campus is hooking up with some other dude – then they can immediately leave and start playing somewhere else.  And there’s always that whole thing about “HEY MAN!  COACHES CAN LEAVE WHENEVER THEY WANT!  WHY CAN’T THE PLAYERS?”

Let’s look at it from the other side.  Can we all just agree that everybody cheats?  Everybody is paying players under the table.  Imagine a small school that gave a kid his only opportunity to play, and he develops into a monster after his first season.  Then you’ve got all these SEC, ACC, Big 10 schools coming to him – through 3rd parties, like boosters, etc – telling him what all their school can offer, and that they’d love to have him.

It’s recruiting season all over again.  Every. Single. Year.  Do you know how stressful that is for kids?  It’s like free agency in the NFL, NBA, MLB, etc.

I’m on the side of making a player sit out unless they’ve graduated.  Sitting out for a year is a small price to pay for graduating, and it gives you a pause about moving to another school.  You can’t just up and leave over something small.  A player has to REALLY want to get out of there before he’s willing to give up a year.  As it stands, there is no rule blocking transfers.  Sure, a coach can only release you to certain schools, but if you leak that to the public, the media will jump on the side of the kid, and he’ll get to transfer where he wants.  It happens in football and basketball all the time.

If a school loses, or fires, a coach that everyone wanted to play for, but he wasn’t getting the job done, those players, that have already enrolled, can transfer and follow that coach, wherever he ends up, with no penalty.

Be smart about this, NCAA.  Don’t make it the wild wild west out there.

 

2. Hurricane Irma’s effects on football this weekend

Article: www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/hurricane-irma-tracking-college-football-schedule-changes-for-week-2/

Last year, Hurricane Matthew forced the postponement of LSU/Florida, which led to the game being played in Baton Rouge, and LSU having to play 2 straight years in Gainesville, starting this season.  Hurricane Irma is about 3 times the size of Matthew, and it’s headed directly for Florida, so it, obviously, was going to have more of an effect on college football on the state.

I never expected this, but I completely understand it.

Governor Rick Scott closed all public schools K-12 and all colleges on Friday, and basically all games are being canceled, either in state, or involving state teams, so they can prepare with family, evacuate, etc.  Here are some of the games that were canceled: USF @ UConn, Memphis @ UCF, Northern Colorado @ Florida, ULM @ Fla St, Miami @ Arkansas St, among others.

For some reason, FIU and FAU did not cancel their games.  I haven’t quite figured this out.  FIU is hosting Alcorn St, but they’re playing at Legion Field in Birmingham.  FAU is still traveling to Wisconsin, and we had to expect that since Lane Kiffin wouldn’t even cancel a game at home against Navy last week after a 3rd lightning delay, even when they were down 42-19 in the 4th quarter.

What is the difference in these schools here?  I don’t have an answer to that question.  I genuinely wanna know.  One side of me believes that it would be a welcome distraction for victims of the storm to be able to sit in whatever hotel room (or wherever they evacuated to) and cheer for their state teams.  The other side, which my wife pointed out, is that these kids have WAY more on their minds right now than football.  Miami hasn’t even practiced since Tuesday – school’s been out since then to give people time to evacuate.  The entire state is under siege, so I get it, but it sure would have been nice to see some of these games.  Some things are bigger than football.

 

3. Barstool Sports is launching their own version of College Gameday with Facebook

barstool tailgate showArticle: www.forbes.com/sites/markjburns/2017/09/06/barstool-sports-inks-partnership-with-facebook-for-college-football-campus-show/#1001bb155011

Dave Portnoy and Pat McAfee prove, again, that Saturdays Are For The Boys.

Barstool inked a deal with Facebook for a live show on FB’s new TV platform (called “Watch) from a big college football game every Saturday this season.

This is a match made in heaven.

The first one is this Saturday, and it starts at 5pm CT, live from Columbus, OH for the Ohio St vs Oklahoma game.  Barstool completely understands the college guy perspective, and their brand has grown exponentially recently.  They have some of the biggest podcasts in the country, they’ve got deals with all sorts of companies, and their fan base is absolutely massive.

I can’t wait for this.  Guaranteed, I’ll be tuning in to watch this on Saturday, and every Saturday from here on out.

 

4. FootballScoop fixed the SEC’s scheduling issues

Article: footballscoop.com/news/fix-secs-scheduling-problems/

The way the SEC Football schedule is setup, Georgia will not visit Texas A&M but once every 12 years.

That’s insane to me.  It’s similar in other conferences, but they have a more regular rotating schedule, so you see more of these matchups more often.

FootballScoop.com jumped on the bandwagon with us, and redid the SEC schedule, mainly because Arkansas AD Jeff Long came out this week and discussed the need to move Missouri into the Western Division because the Tigers are the closest SEC school to them.

Last December, we were looking at moving from the Power 5 to the Power 4, but the principal is still the same.  7 teams in a division is too many, especially with permanent cross-division rivals.

Their setup is pretty easy, really.  The SEC does away with divisions, and each teams has 3 permanent opponents in the conference.  That leaves 5 rotating teams every other year.  So the way this works, you would have 5 completely different opponents every other season.

You’ll lose some yearly matchups (does anybody care if we see Missouri vs Florida every year?), but you’ll get more of a round robin, and every player will play in every SEC Stadium within his 4 seasons, if he stays that long.

For instance – Alabama’s 3 permanent rivals could be Tennessee, LSU, and Auburn.  With the scoop’s setup, Alabama would play South Carolina, Florida, Vanderbilt, Arkansas and Texas A&M in even-numbered years, and Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Kentucky, Missouri and Georgia in odd-numbered years. Home-and-away would flip-flop as it does now.

So, if this started in 2018, Alabama could get Auburn, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt, and Florida at home.  Tennessee, LSU, South Carolina, and Arkansas could be on the road.  In 2019, the home schedule would be Tennessee, LSU, Ole Miss, and Missouri.  Road schedule would be Auburn, Georgia, Mississippi St, and Kentucky.

That schedule would be immensely more entertaining, and it would give us the 2 best teams from the conference in the championship game every year.

 

5. The GET THAT MONEY Gambling Picks are up!

Article: winningcureseverything.com/get-that-money-gambling-picks-90717/

We’re going 16-0 this week, baby.  10 CFB Games, and 6 NFL games between myself

 

 

Gary Segars

Gary began his first website in 1998 as a sophomore in high school, writing reviews of cds and live shows in the Memphis area. He became editor of his college newspaper, then moved towards a career in music.He started the infamous MemphisTider.com blog during the 2006 football season, and was lucky enough to get into blogging just before the coaching search that landed Nick Saban at Alabama. The month and a half long coaching search netted his site, which was known for tracking airplanes, over 1 million hits in less than 90 days. The website introduced Gary to tons of new friends, including Nico and Todd, who had just started the site RollBamaRoll.com.After diving into more than just Alabama news, Gary started up his first installment of WinningCuresEverything.com in 2012. After keeping the site quiet for a while, it was started back up in April 2016. Gary then joined forces with high school friend Chris Giannini and began a podcast during the 2016 football season that runs at least 2 times a week, focusing on college football, NFL football, and sports wagering, and diving into other sports and pop-culture topics.E-mail: gary@winningcureseverything.com Twitter: @GaryWCE