The Aim of Targeting Needs Further Examination

Trying to limit helmet to helmet collision is a good thing in theory....

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

It’s an old proverb or aphorism. One way to interpret it is that even though an idea may look good or may have a noble intention, it can have unforeseen negative consequences.

The current approach to targeting in collegiate football is a prime example of this aphorism in action.

The spirit of the rule is, without question, a positive thing. Yes, football is a collision sport, with bodies flying around at an impressive rate of speed. Given the spate of head injuries, and the idea of CTE being a real thing that can affect lifespan and quality of life after playing days are over, doing something to minimize major concussions is a good thing.

However, when the idea of trying to minimize injury is affecting the on-field product, well, that is troubling.

This is one isolated instance from a game two weeks ago. The Michigan defender was blocked into the Michigan State quarterback who was lying on his back. Their helmets met facemask to facemask. Granted, Michigan State partisans will say that he was intentional in how he landed on Connor Cook; it appears to have been an accident. Upon review, the targeting call stood and the Michigan player was ejected.

Here is a video from 2014 showing a couple of accurate calls in conjunction with an absolutely awful application of the rule to a Clemson player.

Now, this is not to say that player safety is not important. That is not the case I am making at all.

(Although to be fair, there is just as much damage done from sub-concussive blows as from large, "He got blowed up!" kinds of hits. There is still more research to be done, obviously, but the issues related to head trauma from collision and contact sports seems to be taking more of cumulative effect approach.)

The initial rule was a personal foul penalty and an ejection. Upon review the ejection could be rescinded but not the penalty. That was changed a couple of seasons ago to allow for the rescinding of the penalty and the ejection. Which was a move in the right direction for sure.

However there still seems to be too much gray area and subjectivity as to what is targeting or not targeting. (Much like what is a catch or not. But that's another blog post.)

I would prefer it being two personal fouls and you're done for that game.

Or another option would be a point system like with technical fouls in the NBA. Let's say that your first targeting that's upheld is a 15 yard penalty. Second one is a penalty and you miss the balance of that game (no carryover). If you get popped for a third in a season you miss the rest of that game AND all of the next game.

It's not perfect, and it's a plan that needs ironing out. Maybe, though, it could serve as a jumping off point to revise how the rule is applied.

PODCAST: The Final Timeout

A lot has happened over the last couple of days, and so I decided to try and use some of my skills to cover everything.

So let me introduce the inaugural "The Final Timeout" podcast.

I decided to start by discussing Kyle Flood's suspension, SMU's reviewing of prospective student athletes' social media accounts, and the termination of Steve Patterson as AD at Texas.

Enjoy!

Brian Kelly Is Wrong. And He's Right, Too

Caught an interesting quote from Notre Dame head football coach Brian Kelly in this story from ND Insider (h/t: SB Nation). In it, Kelly states that basically, all of his football players are probably at-risk students:

I think we recognized that all of my football players are at-risk — all of them — really. Honestly, I don’t know that any of our players would get into the school by themselves right now with the academic standards the way they are. Maybe one or two of our players that are on scholarship.

So making sure that with the rigors that we put them in — playing on the road, playing night games, getting home at 4 o’clock in the morning, all of the demands that we place on them relative to the academics and going into an incredibly competitive academic classroom every day — we recognize this is a different group.

And we have to provide all the resources necessary for them to succeed and don’t force them into finding shortcuts.

I think we’ve clearly identified that we need to do better, and we’re not afraid to look at any shortcomings that we do have and fix them, and provide the resources necessary for our guys. Our university has looked at that, and we’re prepared to make sure that happens for our guys.

There's quite a bit to unpack there. Some hyperbole, and some truth.

Make Sure You Fit As A Coach

Lots of jokes have been made about Larry Brown’s wandering eye.

Yahoo’s Pat Forde called Bobby Petrino “The Disingenuous Drifter” at one point for interviewing for job after job after job.

I even wrote a piece commenting on Mike Anderson leaving Missouri for Arkansas and mentioned the numerous flirtations he had racked up during his tenure in Columbia.

And each time the coaching carousel spins in college sports, the conversation about what is a good job/great job/best job in college football or basketball comes up.

I would not wish the itinerant wandering by most of the coaches upon anyone. Looking at the work histories of some longtime assistant coaches is enough to make you feel for them and their families, and the lack of roots somewhere is horrifying in many respects. It’s a hard life, no matter how much they may be compensated for the experience.

A Letter to ESPN

Dear ESPN,

I'm probably long overdue in writing this missive, and for that I should apologize. Although I am sure that by now, you must have realized that this letter was coming. I know from my perspective, the writing has been on the wall for some time now, but events over the past few months have forced my hands to the keyboards.

I probably shouldn't beat around the bush anymore, so here it goes:

I think we should start seeing other people.

It's not you. It's me.

No, no. That isn't quite right; I would say that both of us are probably to blame for the change in this relationship. And sometimes that happens; people change. They drift apart. Interests that used to be shared just aren't there anymore. Quite frankly, I don't think that carrying on this long-term relationship is mutually beneficial anymore.

I know I've changed. I've discovered new outlets for accessing information, as SI.com and Yahoo! Sports have become much, much stronger voices in the sports media, with killer investigative reporting and feature writing. From a different perspective those lines, blog networks like Bloguin and SB Nation allow more fan voices to speak through, and the analysis that takes places on some of the fan sites on these networks outstrips a lot of the work that is done by ESPN.

(Disclosure: I am an author for a site on SB Nation's network of college blogs, Rock M Nation.)

My local sports radio station here in Las Vegas is one of the best sports radio stations in the country, and the mid-day shows Gridlock and DC and the Sunshine Man cover national sports with more edge than I could ever expect from Mike and Mike and with an intellectual honesty that is sorely lacking from the likes of Colin Cowherd.

My tastes have changed. The way I want to receive information has changed. The type of people I want to receive that information from has changed. But you have changed as well.

One of the things that made me realize exactly how far apart we had grown was when the book about ESPN by James Miller and Tom Shales came out in May and I had less than zero interst in the book. I mean, less than zero. Years ago I would have rushed right out to a bookstore and snatched up the first copy I could get my grubby little hands on. Now? I don't even want to look for it a the local libraries.

The second thing that made me realize how small a role ESPN plays in my life now is the fact that there are only three shows I watch on ESPN regularly that are not live sports: Pardon the Interruption, College Gameday (for football) and College Football Final. That's it, that's the list. I don't remember the last time I watched a whole SportsCenter from start to finish; it seriously might have been 2003. That was not the case years ago.

The third thing was when I logged onto ESPN.com and didn't realize that you had shifted some of the bloggers around to different beats and had actually added some new staffers. That blew me away.

The last thing that made me realize that we might have reached the end of the road was the situation with Bruce Feldman. I've never met Bruce Feldman, but I have been reading his writing since the nascent days of ESPN.com (back when it was still ESPN Sportszone). I've always found his reporting and writing to be solid; the essence of professional, quality sports journalism. Feldman is one of the few people that work for ESPN that, off the top of my head, I would love to meet and talk with.*

With that being said, the way that your organization treated him last week was unconscionable, and the bullshit spin that you put out after Twitter exploded with the #freebruce hashtag was abominable.

If Feldman was "never suspended" as your p.r. flacks and the terse, three sentence release stated, then a) why didn't you say so when contacted by other journalists Thursday night and, b) why did your statement mention Feldman was "resuming duties?" There is nothing to resume if there is nothing that was interrupted, which is what a suspension would have done.

Additionally, why was Bruce not allowed on his Twitter account and why was his chat skipped without explanation on Wednesday? Why did it take you a day to say he wasn't suspended if, he, in fact, wasn't suspended?

To an outsider, it looked petty. It looked small-minded. It looked wrong. It looked like it was badly mishandled by management.

Sadly, you've become a network that has little relevance in my life at this point, with few broadcast personalities that I care about or even pay attention to, and a management that (allegedly) treated one of their veteran writers harshly only to be rebuked publicly through blogs and social networks into (allegedly) reinstating him from a suspension that never happened. It's a tough pill to swallow, and quite frankly, I don't need that much drama in my life.

I'm moving on, although I hope that we can still be friends in the fall (for college football) and in the late spring/early summer (for the NBA Finals). Maybe you can put your money into reaching someone younger who is willing to overlook the flaws you have, and I'll find comfort in the arms of a wider variety of information sources.

Good luck, ESPN. I wish you the best.

Sincerely,
The Pigskin Pundit

(* The other ESPN folks I want to meet [in no particular order]: Kornheiser, Wilbon, Forde, John Anderson, Scott Van Pelt, Bob Valvano.)

Brain Trauma and Football: Reform Of Some Kind Is Needed

My son was born on September 8, 2007, which I remember not just for his birth, but also because it was the day that Dennis Dixon ran wild against Michigan in the Big House on the heels of Appalachian State stunning the Wolverines a week earlier.

Now, in 2007 most of us football fans hadn’t yet heard of the term chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. We might have heard of punch-drunk syndrome, which CTE is a variant of, but CTE itself was not really on the radar screen.

Well, over the last couple of years, thanks to the efforts of Dr. Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist in Pittsburgh, this condition is now known and public. CTE recently re-entered the news in football as Chris Henry, the former West Virginia Mountaineer and Cincinnati Bengal, was diagnosed as having the condition. Henry died last December when he fell from the back of a pickup truck during an argument with his fiancée.

One of the thoughts about what causes CTE is repeated blows to the head. They don’t have to be full on, diagnosed concussions, though; rather, a person can have lots of smaller blows to the head that cumulatively damage the brain.

Remember, the brain is not right up against the skull. There is a space between where the brain is located in the skull and the edge of the skull. Brain injury results from the brain hitting the skull with force.

According to Dr. Omalu in an article by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Chris Henry’s brain “didn’t look like the brain of a 26 year old.”

(Picture from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

And keep in mind, Chris Henry was a young wide receiver. Not a retired offensive lineman like Pittsburgh Steelers Mike Webster or Justin Strzelzcyk. Not a retired safety like Philadelphia Eagle Andre Waters. Henry was an active player who had less than 60 NFL games played. Also, Chris Henry, for all of his issues, never missed a game with a diagnosed concussion.

That makes this an issue that should cut across all levels of the sport. Do I think that football should be outlawed? Not at this time. Obviously, a lot more research needs to be done, but some changes do need to be made in the short term with regards to equipment and the (sometimes) false sense of security it can provide. Also, changes probably need to be made to how the game is administered on game day and also during practices and the teaching of the game at the high school and lower levels.

Change is going to need to come and be driven by individuals within the game. It is one thing to play a high risk sport. But with lives potentially on the line, I know in good consciousness I couldn’t allow my boy to play the game as it is right now.

NCAA Tournament Expansion: 68 is a magic number (For Now)

And up with the puff of white smoke, there is expansion news in college sports.

But it's the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament expansion that is the news of the day before the NFL Draft consumes all sports news like Galactus.

The men's tournament will expand to 68 teams next year, getting to a number that is at least divisible by four unlike the awkward 65 that has been in place since 2001.

That gigantic whooshing noise you heard was from many college basketball fans who were petrified that the tournament was going to swell to 96 teams for 2011 and ruin the perfect balance of an 8 1/2" by 11" sheet of paper that has lines for 64 teams.

If you are one of those people, I've got news for you:

68 is just the starting point.

Look back in history to when the tournament first started to evolve to the allegedly perfect 64/65 and you will see an interesting metamorphosis:

1978 - 32 teams
1979 - 40 teams
1980 - 48 teams
1983 - 52 teams
1984 - 53 teams
1985 - 64 teams
2001 - 65 teams

Let's disregard 1984 and 2001, since those expansions led to only one extra bid.

Between 1978 and 1985, in a span of 7 years, the tournament doubled in size.

Now, going from 65 to 96 would not be a doubling in size, but adding 33 percent more teams.

Can't you see that happening by 2017? I know I can. And, quite frankly, it probably will — especially because we could see some radical realigning of conferences on the horizon that will reshape the college athletics landscape.

If the shuffling of deck chairs happens on the football side, it will definitely affect the NCAA tournament. If the Big Six BCS leagues consolidate as some of us think they will, the men's tournament will have no choice but to expand because of the imbalance of power and the almighty dollar.

So sleep well tonight, those of you who are against tourney expansion.

Your nightmare may not begin for another 12-18 months.

Big Ten and Pac-10 Expansion: Mechagodzilla wonders what else he can shoot

I've had to go underground from the sports blogging scene because work/home life/blogging balance wasn't happening. Having my allergies flare up wasn't happening, either.

So naturally, when I head off for my mini-sabbatical, all hell decides to break loose. Of note to me:

1) The NCAA's new celebration rule, which I will get to tomorrow. Suffice to say, it won't be pretty.
2) The Big Ten conversation regarding expansion? Yeah, the time line may be accelerating a bit won't be accelerating after all, contrary to media reports.

Although no word came out of yesterday's meeting of the conference commissioners the time line isn't accelerating, that hasn't stopped, well, everyone who has access to a blog from chiming in. Check out this post from Rock M Nation (thanks, Bill C.!) for a list of what people have written over the last 24 hours or so.

As usual, I am fashionably late to the party, but let's take a look at what might happen if the Big Ten does decide to expand and idiotically chooses to go with a 16 team model.

Why do I think a 16 team model idiotic? Well, when you're trying to divide something up, it's much easier to swallow having to share with 11 other people than with 15 other people. Be it food or cash, no one really likes to share. Why else would ND be so adamant about touting their independence in football?

Oh, and a 16 team conference in football was tried once. It was just about 20 years ago that the Western Athletic Conference was 16 teams large. (Note that I said "large" and not "strong.") After three years of this super-conference, eight schools said screw it and split off to form the Mountain West. It was too unwieldy.

Granted, geography played a role in that, as the old Super WAC stretched from Oklahoma to Hawai'i. That kind of travel wouldn't exist for the super-conferences of this era, but I find it hard to believe that tension wouldn't eventually rip these leagues apart

I don't know many marriages that exist as a form of gold digging lasting that long, do you?

Let's being by getting the ball rolling by projecting who the Big Ten would take to raise their number to 16. They would need to add five teams, and while Notre Dame insists (for now) that they have no desire to join a conference unless their hand was forced, we will honor their wishes and leave them out of this little reindeer game.

The Big Ten would then look westward to the Big 12 North and pluck two teams: Missouri and Nebraska. Missouri brings the St. Louis TV market, decent academics and also a slice of Kansas City. Nebraska brings a lot of football tradition and the entire Sea of Red plus the state of Nebraska.

From the Big East, the Big Ten would offer Pittsburgh, Rutgers and Syracuse bids.

Meanwhile, on the west coast, the Pac-10, who is also looking to expand, might decide to go all in as well and jump from ten teams to sixteen. For the Pac-10, as they try to negotiate a new television contract, I think that what will matter most is trying to get the league recognized outside of the Pacific time zone.

The easiest way to do that might be to expand beyond the Rocky Mountains. Rumor has it that if the Pac-10 goes to twelve teams, that Utah and Colorado are the preferred targets.

However, if you're going to add more teams, why not shoot for the moon and invite four rivals from the now staggering Big 12? Forget about adding Boise State and TCU or BYU if you're the Pac-10; if you want to be relevant, go after the big fish and invite Texas, Texas A&M, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State? That would increase the profile of the league on the fields and courts and increase the visibility by now having a conference with brand names that spans across three time zones.

(Let me be clear here if you haven't already figured it out: I am completely guessing here. I have no inside information; this is all a product of an extremely fertile imagination trying to guess at what would be the most catastrophic scenario for some conferences.)

Now let us turn our attention to the south. I don't think that there is any way that the Big Ten and Pac-10 would expand and the SEC would stand pat. I just can't see that happening.

This is an arms race, and you'd better believe that the SEC will keep up. But I don't see them having to reach far to poach teams.

Dear ACC:
We would like Florida State, Clemson, The U and Georgia Tech. K, thanks, buh bye.
Love,
The SEC


Which would leave us with this Big Ten:
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Missouri
Nebraska
Northwestern
Ohio State
Penn State
Pittsburgh
Purdue
Rutgers
Syracuse
Wisconsin

somehow trying to fit a "6" into their logo

the Pacific-16:
Arizona
Arizona State
California
Colorado
Oregon
Oregon State
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Stanford
Texas
Texas A&M
Utah
UCLA
USC
Washington
Washington State

and the new SEC (no name change necessary):
Alabama
Arkansas
Auburn
Clemson
Florida
Florida State
Georgia
Georgia Tech
Kentucky
LSU
Miami (FL)
Ole Miss
Mississippi State
South Carolina
Tennessee
Vanderbilt

These three conferences would be at the top, and a decimated Big 12, an almost dead Big East, the three independent schools, a damaged ACC and the Mountain West minus the team that broke through the BCS glass ceiling.

In Part II, we will look at what the options are for the rest of the BCS leagues and the Mountain West, and wonder what Notre Dame will do?

Big Ten Expansion Sidebar: A preliminary list?

The company that the Big Ten hired to help them determine whether or not to expand and who to look at has come back and said, "Yep. Expand."

Interesting piece by Teddy Greenstein in the Chicago Tribune today with his thoughts about who would be the best fit for the conference.

Teddy cites the following factors as being important in his view:

1) Revenue. Football stadium size, basketball arena and (most importantly) TV market
2) Geography to keep travel costs down
3) Academics
4) Recruiting (fertile recruiting area)

The winner, according to sources?

The consensus among Big Ten sources, officials from other conferences and TV executives is that Rutgers offers the best package. Missouri is second and Pittsburgh third.

Why Rutgers? It doesn't hurt that the New Brunswick, N.J., campus is less than 40 miles from midtown Manhattan. Or that the state of New Jersey alone would be the nation's fourth-largest television market -- after New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

The New York market has 7.5 million TV homes, and the Big Ten Network would love to get them on expanded basic cable rather than forcing subscribers to pay extra via a sports tier.

Rutgers just completed a $102 million renovation of its football stadium that added more than 12,000 seats, 1,000 club-level seats, a $5 million recruiting lounge -- and earned the ire of opposition groups. Capacity is up to 52,454 with an option for building a third deck.

Rutgers will play the first ever major-college football game (vs. Army) at the new Meadowlands Stadium, a $1.4 billion facility that will open for the Jets and Giants this fall. Think there's be any trouble selling out the 82,500-seat stadium for a Penn State-Rutgers game? Or when Ohio State or Michigan visits?

The Newark Star-Ledger reported in January that the school also plans to overhaul its outdated Rutgers Athletic Center, a 32-year-old facility that holds 8,000 for men's and women's basketball.

The New York/New Jersey area feeds the nation's top-rated basketball conference, the Big East, much of its talent.

Four other factors can't hurt Rutgers' cause:

• Newark Liberty International Airport is 23 miles from New Brunswick, making Rutgers more accessible than many Big Ten campuses.

• Rutgers calls itself "The Birthplace of College Football." It beat Princeton in what must have been a thrilling contest in 1869. Final score: 6-4.

• Delany hails from the Garden State -- South Orange, N.J.

• By leaving the Big East, Rutgers could quadruple its annual TV share to more than $20 million. Meaning that unlike with Texas and Notre Dame, an R.S.V.P would be a mere formality.

Yes, there are other schools that need to be considered that aren't being mentioned. Rutgers, Missouri, Pittsburgh, Notre Dame and Syracuse are simply the obvious suspects.

But quite frankly I don't see too many other teams that fit the profile and would make the impact that these five would.

Frankly, I'm not 100 percent sold on the Rutgers angle just yet.

Yes, New Jersey has been a good solid recruiting area for football talent and some basketball as well.

But I still find that "New York market" argument to be weak.

Sure, the Big Ten would love to expand their footprint and get the Big Ten Network into those homes.

But I don't know if Rutgers has the pull make that happen.

College football is still a novelty in the NYC area for most folks who are NY natives.

And for college basketball, NYC is Big East country.

Yes, you might be able to capture the alums from Northwestern, Michigan and Penn State and have them reconnect with their teams.

But frankly I don't see Rutgers as drawing eyeballs to the screen on Saturday afternoons simply because they are on.

They have to win games to make that happen, and the step up in weight class would make that a daunting effort, I would say.

Guess What? Maybe Your Team Isn't That Good

So March Madness is upon us with the flipping of the calendar page yesterday, and with the change of the month comes the annual rites of Spring:

1) Conference Tournaments
2) The CBS Selection Show
3) The Filling Out Of The Brackets and Entering Of The Pools
4) The Bitchfest Of Snubbing

Actually, the bitching usually starts well before the tournament, as bracketologists find their email boxes, their Facebook walls and their Twitter feeds bombarded by folks wondering how come "my team" isn't in the NCAA tournament.

(Although I would also hazard a guess that some of these folks that feel marginalized also are against tourney expansion, but I digress.)

Only slightly less annoying than these folks are the ones who complain each week about whether or not their basketball team is ranked.

I maintain that you shouldn't care about where your basketball team is ranked.

Unlike in college football, where the rankings play a huge role in which postseason game you may or may not play in (because of the BCS formula), in college basketball the weekly polls really don't matter.

Don't worry about being ranked in the Top 25 in February.

Just make sure your team is considered one of the 65 best come mid-March.

But I want to expand out to a larger point, and this point is about what people perceive to be media bias against your team:

Maybe, just maybe, your team is not as good as you think it is.

From a national perspective, on TV or Radio, not everyone is going to get equal time.

Sorry, that's just a fact of life.

It doesn't mean that your team hasn't done good things.

But the need to have the sports cognoscenti brand you as worthy is something that I find hard to swallow.

Look, ESPN, NBC Sports, Fox Sports and CBS Sports are looking to drive the biggest amount of eyes and ears to the different platforms and products that they produce. That's a fact.

And like in most businesses, if you're a newcomer, it takes some time to make your way in the market and break down those barriers.

It seems that the time line in sports is about a decade (see: Boise State in CFB and Gonzaga in CBB; see the MWC in CFB AND CBB).

I think in CBB, though, it's even harder to get representation.

While we profess to love Cinderella, she's not worth talking about most of the rest of the season.

We are a society that prefers blue bloods, so those teams are naturally going to dominate the airwaves more.

But in this era, it's not like you can't find coverage of your team.

So if you think you're not getting a fair shake from the big boys, guess what?

Hit Google and find some favorable coverage.

It's not rocket science.

And as your team improves, and maintains that improvement, the accolades will fall your team's way.

As usual, patience is a virtue that gets rewarded in the end.

A Thought on National Signing Day

I can't be seduced by the coolness.

I refuse to get swept away in the hype and the drama.

Look, I love college football as much as the next person. Even though I didn't grow up watching the sport, I fell in love with it when I set foot on campus 14 years ago.

But this whole National Signing Day frenzy?

It makes absolutely no sense to me.

There are lots of writers that I admire that cover college football and I'm following on Twitter. Most of the action on my CFB Twitter feed today is about National Signing Day and the reports of where kids have faxed their letters of intent.

If someone gets off a good line I'll comment.

But I find it hard to get breathless about where someone is going to school.

I think I'm more of games person. I want to see them play before I have any man crushes develop.

Perhaps it is because my high school didn't have football that I find it hard to feel the excitement.

Maybe it's because I find it hard to get inside the heads of 17-19 year olds, some who flip flop more than a fish on a hot dock.

Or maybe I'm just cynical about the whole industrial complex that, again, is treating 17 to 19 year olds like the second coming for some of these colleges and universities, and continues to cocoon and coddle some (not all) of these kids, sheltering them from the realities of what they truly need to be successful in college and in life.

Okay, enough of my grumpy old man rant.

I'll go back to bitching about the BCS soon enough.