While We’re Waiting… Belliard and Thome to L.A., Rich Rod’s Leash, and More on Ryan Tucker
Written By: Scott | Category: Best of the Web | Comments: 17While We’re Waiting serves as the early morning gathering of WFNY-esque information for your viewing pleasure. Have something you think we should see? Send it to our tips email in the sidebar.
Hey look, two more ex-Indians are heading to the Dodgers. Mr. I remembers Ronnie Belliard while Lets Go Tribe, The 700 Level and Mouthpiece Sports discuss Jim Thome. And since I know you’re interested, a pitcher that the White Sox just acquired from Colorado is Brandon Hynick of North Royalton, Ohio. See, it all ties back to Cleveland… [Mr. Irrelevant] [Lets Go Tribe] [The 700 Level] [Mouthpiece Sports]
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Since I can’t get enough of this situation: “How does a storied mystique, built and buffed over the better part of four decades, implode in just one year? Michigan football has been an esteemed slice of maize-and-blue Americana, all about winged helmets and “The Victors,” home to a stadium so massive and breathtaking that it stands alone in lore as The Big House. Even when Notre Dame waned, we could entrust the Wolverines to remain a gold-standard pillar in college football. Right? Until Rich Rodriguez arrived, that is.” [Jay Mariotti/FanHouse]
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Big props to Mark “Munch” Bishop for breaking the story that OL Ryan Tucker had been released. Not surprising in that the team has yet to confirm the report, even though his locker has been removed… [Steve King/The OBR]
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And a follow-up to the Stephen Jackson news from this weekend: “Many Cavaliers fans high on the possibility of Stephen Jackson seem to brush off the fact that the disgruntled Warriors swingman mentioned “anywhere in Texas” in addition to the Cavs as a preferred destination from Golden State. Well, that puts three more franchises in the running (assuming that the Cavs are even in this race to begin with, which so far it seems like they aren’t), and the Dallas Mavericks have clearly jumped ahead of the pack.” [Cavalier Attitude]
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In four days, the Ohio State Buckeyes will get their look at Navy’s Triple Option [Doug Lesmerises/Plain Dealer]
Author: Scott
Scott is a co-founder/editor of Waiting For Next Year who resides in Cleveland, Ohio. Feel free to follow him on Twitter or email him at scott@waitingfornextyear.com.Scott has written 1700 articles for Waiting for Next Year.
As someone who grew up in Ohio and an ND Alum, I am almost giddy over how terrible Rich Rodriguez is for UMich.
I couldn’t agree more about not getting enough of the Um situation. This sums it up nicely:
[Sporting News]
As RR slowly leads Um down the road to Laughingstockville, I wonder at what point Um’s ineptitude gets attached to the rest of the B10 and we all get lumped together.
I understand getting a little entertainment out of UM doing poorly. I don’t understand actively wanting them to be terrible.
This conference needs UM to be respectable, now more than ever. It’d also help if Iowa and Illinois step up and win their OOC and Bowl games.
Ha ha ha, up in that Great Gridiron in the Sky, Woody is busting Bo’s chops about RR, and Bo is steamed!
Agree with Denny – I’m a Buckeye fan and alum – I want UM to be good.
It makes beating them all the better. Was there any better feeling than beating them in the #1 vs. #2 matchup in 2006?
I couldn’t care less what the rest of the Big Ten does–the Buckeyes need to step up and start winning the high profile games if they want national respect. USC plays in the soft PAC-10, but they take care of business on the big stage, and I’d say they are doing just fine in the court of public opinion, not to mention recruiting and the polls. The school up north and the rest of our conference are our rivals (to varying degrees), and I wish no good will toward any of them–least of all U of M. I refuse to be a conference honk like every SEC fan out there. There are few things more annoying than having to listen to a Mississippi State or Kentucky fan go on and on about the greatness of the SEC and how superior it is during bowl season when their teams are regular doormats in that conference and barely even qualify for one of the 300 bowl games available. I am a fan of a team, not a conference.
Agree with Denny. It’s fun to be able to laugh at the ineptitude, but it’s always more fun when Michigan is 10-0 and losing to us ruins the season.
I never understood hating on other big ten teams. Only time I hate is when we’re playing. I’ve always said them playing well makes us look better, that is painfully obvious now.
It’s been a really strange year for waiver activity. I can’t recall ever seeing names like Thome and Kazmir moved after the trading deadline — usually it’s the Pavanos and Carrols of the world that get shipped past July 31. I assume that much of this has to do with the economy, as there are fewer teams willing to submit a waiver claim and risk having the player’s contract thrust on them, making it easier for contending teams to claim players. Perhaps the fact that a relatively small number of teams is still in contention also has something to do with it.
The Thome deal is particularly strange. He certainly makes for a high-priced pinch-hitter, though if the Dodgers make it to the World Series, he’ll be an improvement over many of the impromptu DHs we’ve seen from the NL over the years.
At this rate, MbM will get his alleged wish of being reunited with all his former teammates, just not in Cleveland.
Since when has UM really done anything that warrants a banner of “Pillar of Doing Things Right?”
Their grad rates are pathetic, especially when sliced for minorities.
They consistently direct athletes (minorities especially) into General Studies, Physiology, and Family Resource Mgt majors and fill elective classes with GPA boosters like the ones uncovered by the Detroit Free Press. This is tip of the iceberg stuff too.
When athletes are treated differently academically from the university, the university ceases to uphold its agreement in the scholarship offer.
@ Matt C – let’s not kid ourselves and assume that any other school does things any differently. I know OSU doesn’t. While there isn’t a “general studies” major, there surely are plenty of athletes who are undecided until they HAVE to declare, and then they end up in “Family studies”.
I was one of about 5 non-athletes in my sign language classes at OSU as well – people know what classes to find, and athletes are second in the scheduling hierarchy, after disabled students.
UM runs a largely clean program – they’re never Fulmer Cup contestants, to be sure. Not often there’s a big scandal there – yes, they kicked a kid off the team for selling coke. But that was one incident. Yes, Mario Manningham had a domestic disturbance against him – but so did Troy Smith and Santonio Holmes when they were freshman.
These things happen – UM hasn’t dealt with Florida State type scandals, where their ENTIRE athletics program is under scrutiny. They haven’t had a Rhett Bomar type incident that makes the school and boosters look terribly stupid. They run a clean program, per NCAA guidelines. While this in itself may be a bit of a farce, it’s what they’re required to do. In my mind they were very much a model program under Coach Carr. Whether or not that has continued under RR is something we’ll see with time.
@ Denny – well said…as much as I love the Bucks…its like the Steelers- Browns rivalry…its essentially non-existant since theyve kicked our butts for the past however many years….the rivalry with UM is only as good as they teams they put on the field…I have a friend or two that graduated from UM way back when…both are docs and both say that they are surprised by the recent turn of events…they are both heavy donation-type alums and say that they are reserving judgement until the NCAA makes things official…
@ Denny,
I’m no tOSU fan either. I think they have a host of issues as well and I think its ridiculous that players have this transactional relationship with their school in general. The college game is NOT an NFL development league, no matter what the NCAA allows or how it’s pitched to recruits.
I know first hand of a school that chooses to accept no less of its athletes than it does the rest of its student populous. I took classes with athletes within my major, some of whom were football players (starters, too). I’m proud to say that they did their work and while not as intrinsically gifted academically, they performed to the level that was expected of them. Also, we had a highly ranked undergrad program, so its not like they skated by.
Bottom line: college football has become too big for its own purpose. 18 year old kids (and their parents) are sold on the minority percentage of those who make millions when the probability is less than 5%. We make too many concessions with the thought that it will produce wins on the gridiron. I see no reason why we shouldn’t expect kids to be good students, good citizens, and good athletes. This is a HUGE topic, and we’d only touch on a handful of issues with days to talk about it. Thank you for providing a forum for this, I love this site.
@ Denny, BTW, EDSBS is a great site too – I love the Fulmer Cup reference. It’s a place I go daily and anyone who considers himself a fan of the sport in general owes it to their sense of humor to check out the site. I’ll let you plug them…
@ MattC – well, I for one love college football (though I sense you do as well). In terms of it being as big as it is, I love the exposure and the fact that I can spend a Saturday watching nothing but college football in HD all day.
And I am a significant fan of tOSU – graduated 2006. Best time of my life. That being said, I can see the issues that are there and point them out. College football is my jam. There were athletes at OSU that did very well in their respective majors, and others that did what they needed to do. That’s the lay of the land, and in my opinion to think otherwise is obtuse. And if you’re obtuse you get sent into the hole for a month.
And Orson makes me giggle every day at least once.
>> USC plays in the soft PAC-10
Yes, the soft PAC-10 that won all five of its bowl games this past season. Also the soft PAC-10 that has been responsible for USC’s last 5 losses (last non-conference loss was to Texas in 2005; USC has played Nebraska (home and away), at Arkansas, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio State, Penn State, and Notre Dame (3 times) since then). Big 10 fans should not be hassling the Pac 10.
You mean the PAC-10 that went 1-6 against the Mountain West in ‘08? The one whose 4th and 2nd best teams got matched up with stellar opponents like Miami (sixth best in the ACC–I’m overwhelmed) and Oklahoma State (4th best in the Big 12) respectively? At least they managed to get a win against a MWC team in a bowl game. And forgive the Big Ten for having partnered with more significant bowl games and thus more talented opposition than what the west coast boys get against 6-7 Maryland in the vaunted Emerald Bowl. And if you’re gonna brag on OOC schedule, I wouldn’t get all high and mighty about beating Notre Dame any amount of times—that hasn’t been impressive since the days of Rocket Ismail.
Pac 10 teams that played against the MWC: Arizona (twice), Arizona State, Cal, Oregon, Stanford, UCLA, Washington
MWC teams that played the Pac 10: Utah, BYU (three times), UNLV, New Mexico, TCU, Colorado State
Some of those losses are embarassing (Arizona vs. New Mexico), but you’re generally taking the worse Pac 10 teams and playing them against the better MWC teams. Oregon played Utah, who are pretty legit, I’d say; Cal won its game. Other than that, four of the bottom five Pac 10 teams lost the four of the top five MWC teams. Matching the conferences up top to bottom (i.e. #1 vs. #1, #2 vs. #2, etc.) would produce very different results.
Additionally, we might look at where the Pac 10 played the Big 10:
MSU @ Cal (Cal wins)
Oregon @ Purdue (Oregon wins)
Oregon State @ Penn State (PSU wins)
OSU @ USC (USC wins)
Penn State @ USC (USC wins)
So in the imperfect world of football statistics, the Pac 10 won the head to head contests four out of five times. Of course, the competition was generally the better Pac 10 teams, but OSU and PSU aren’t slouches. This season, Arizona plays at Iowa, Cal plays at Minnesota, Purdue plays at Oregon, and USC plays at OSU.
As to the bowl games, Miami isn’t exactly great, but Oklahoma State was ranked top 10 during the previous season, and Oregon was down a couple quarterbacks. It’s not always a perfect setup around bowl time. But the Pac 10 won its matchups. If other conferences want to prove themselves against the Pac 10 in the postseason, maybe they should schedule better matchups, because they sure didn’t prove it last season.
And I have no idea why you’re taking a Big 10 has “more significant bowl games” tactic. The most significant Big 10 bowl game is of course the Rose Bowl — and oddly, the Pac 10 is the other partner. While I think it’s nonsense that Big 10 teams are essentially playing on USC’s home turf every year, that’s unfortunately how it is until USC gets picked to play in a national championship game. As far as other bowl games farther down, I don’t know how they match up and you don’t really seem to have proven anything.
As to Notre Dame — one of those teams USC beat was ranked #6. And Notre Dame has a pre-season ranking of #23 this year. Notre Dame isn’t as stellar as it used to be, but it generally isn’t a perennial slouch either. USC plays a variety of decent teams in its OOC schedule.