Things are heating up in the court room with the Ed O’Bannon vs. The NCAA lawsuit. With new info on EA SPORTS replicating student-athletes, it does not look good for the NCAA. This is one case I am paying close attention to this summer because it has the potential to change EVERYTHING in college football. College sports could officially turn into an official semi-pro or pay for play. It’s going to be interesting to see how far this case goes and what happens in the end. That is the major news of the week – now let’s get into some more thoughts and news from around the nation:
1. Just had to bring it up again, but Texas A&M wants their stadium expansion to be “So scary you wet your pants”. That is a nice thought but let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Aggie fans. You had one good year in a LONG TIME. Most of the time the Aggies have been ranked high and fail to live up to expectations. Let’s try for some sustained success. Johnny Football will not be there forever playing QB. Kevin Sumlin seems to be headed on the right track to have sustained success but time will tell.
2. The war of words seems to the issue this summer. Bob Stoops of Oklahoma called out the SEC and tried to ignore the conferences past dominance. In turn, Nick Saban said “he does not have time” for a reply. This in turn will cause an even bigger rise. With this little war of words going on, it feels like we have Lane Kiffin handling the off season news real in the SEC and BIG-12. I imagine this little “conversation” will go on for another week or so. If I was an SEC coach I would just say “Actions speak louder than words” and then point to the SEC dominance of winning the past 7 titles. When someone dethrones the SEC, then Stoops words will have some ground to stand on. Maybe Big Game Bob will finally get over the hump and win another national title. The BIG-12, Big-10, Pac-12, and Notre Dame could do nothing vs. the SEC. We will just have to wait and see how this season unfolds.
SEC dominates, just look at the trophies
3. The season is still 3 months away but we can still look into some great week one match ups. We will have a little Pac-12 vs SEC match up if anyone was paying attention. The Pirates of…I mean Cougars of Washington State will take on the Auburn Tigers. That will be an exciting game. We’re talkign the Air Raid vs. whatever Auburn calls their wacky offense. I expect a high scoring shoot-out in that game. We will also have North Carolina vs South Carolina. Clowney will have a chance to start his “Heisman” campaign vs a good opponent. Plus we will have Alabama vs. Virginia Tech, will the Tide start off with a bang or lose in week 1 and possibly derail their national title hopes right then and there? Plus Georgia vs Clemson and LSU vs TCU, by the look of it, most of the SEC seems to be setting up some big match ups for week one. Thank goodness for that, at least they will have a great week one opponent and not be stuck playing some MAC or D-II team. Seeing those games gets me excited for the start of college football season. Let’s hope with the playoff starting next year, we will see more and more match ups like this and not games like Florida vs Toledo or Oregon vs Nicholls State.
So I guess we are going to have a summer with “War of Words’ between coaches, a possible game changer of a lawsuit with EA SPORTS, and probably a lot of transfers and arrests. Until kick-off this fall and playoffs next year I will leave you with some highlights from one of the best games of the year. Whoever says we did not have a playoff, did not see this game. The SEC championship game seems to be a playoff with winner take all for the past few years.
NATIONAL NEWS:
1. Spring game impact players
2. Oklahoma QB arrested
3. Mt. Union coach steps down
4. Ohio State will win it all
5. College Athlete of the year
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Jeff Hostetler may not have won a Super Bowl with the Giants ( though his uncle of the same name did). He has been an obsessed college football fan living in Florida ever since the Gators beat FSU in the Sugar Bowl to earn the UF’s first national championship.
Ever since Jeff has immersed himself in everything possible related to college football. He enjoys watching, writing, playing, and otherwise obsessing over all things football. A graduate of the University of Florida, he brings a perspective to FishDuck free of our extreme green & yellow homerism glasses to look at the current landscape of collegiate athletics.