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Big 12 Notes – Fall Camp
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August 6th
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ESPN’s List of All-Time College Football Villains includes Coach Prime
From ESPN … Every great story requires a great villain. Darth Vader. The no-nosed wizard who fights Harry Potter. The “Get him a body bag!” guy from “Karate Kid.” The endless parade of bad guys whom Spider-Man is currently fighting in a theater near you.
As we near kickoff of college football’s 157th season, we all have our own personal lists of bad guys we would love to see melted into the floor like the Wicked Witch of the West. That scoundrel of a QB who torched your team in that bowl game your senior year. That dastardly DB who snagged the would-be TD pass that your alma mater needed in the closing seconds. That criminal of a coach who you know beyond any shadow of a sport talk call-in show doubt ratted out your favorite team to NCAA investigators.
But who among those devilish dudes ranks among the most abhorred heels in college football history? For those answers, warm up your “boo!” voice, stretch that middle finger, find some spare golf balls to fling from the student section and read ahead as we present our list of College Football’s All-Time Villains.
9. Deion Sanders
Deion Sanders is the only member of this list who has enjoyed two distinctly different villain eras, Prime Time at Florida State four decades ago and Coach Prime at Colorado in the here and now. I know of what I speak here, because I was at Clemson’s Death Valley in 1988 when No. 2 stood at the bottom of The Hill taunting the Tigers as they ran down from Howard’s Rock. He didn’t just relish the boos from the rain-soaked 80,000 fans in attendance; he bathed in them. Then he proceeded to talk smack to both the Clemson bench and head coach Danny Ford. And then he snagged a punt and returned it 75 yards for a touchdown.
Fast-forward to 2023, when Sanders moved from Jackson State to become Boss Buffalo. If anyone thought he was divisive as a pre-internet player, he damn near broke the internet every Saturday as Colorado won a lot early, which many celebrated, then lost a lot late, which even more celebrated. And just like that day at Clemson nearly four decades ago, he has relished that role, too.
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August 2nd
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College Football Jersey Patches (three Big 12 schools have signed deals to date)
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August 1st
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Federal Judge undercuts five-for-five rule, giving some players (K Alejandro Mata?) a potential additional season
From ESPN … A federal court dealt a perhaps chaos-inducing blow to the NCAA’s new eligibility rule Friday when it ruled that all high school class of 2022 athletes who exhausted their fourth season of college eligibility this spring are eligible for a fifth season in 2026-27.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney in Denver, expected to be appealed, undercuts the NCAA’s plan to have the so-called “five-for-five” rule go into play starting with athletes who enroll in college in fall 2027.
It also has the potential to wreak havoc on rosters across the country — for instance, opening the possibility that an undrafted player in an NFL training camp could try to head back to college for a fifth year.
In granting the preliminary injunction, Sweeney said the players “will suffer irreparable harm without” it. She did not sign on to the governing body’s argument that applying the new rule retroactively would create “roster chaos.”
But NCAA president Charlie Baker said it would in responding to the rulings while referencing a bill in Congress designed to provide the NCAA antitrust protection on the eligibility issues.
“Today’s rulings and the chaos they bring to college sports are exactly why it’s time to pass this bill,” Baker said.
… Continue reading story here …
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Too little, too late? Big Ten and SEC agree to support Protect College Sports Act
From the Associated Press … The Big Ten and Southeastern Conferences agreed Friday night to support a Senate bill that seeks to regulate college sports, ending a breakneck week of negotiations and pulling the bipartisan measure out of what looked like a certain death spiral.
School presidents from both conferences voted to back the bill after receiving last-minute concessions over language regarding third-party name-image-likeness deals and the so-called “associated entities” that often broker those arrangements between players and schools.
More details need to be worked out, but the headline is that the bill still has a chance to earn the 60 votes it needs to halt debate and head to an up-or-down vote before the Senate heads for summer break next Friday.
The summer recess is increasingly looking like an intractable deadline for the Protect College Sports Act, a bipartisan effort headed by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.
After the conferences, which had balked at large sections of the bill, put out a short release announcing they supported the act “as currently drafted,” Cruz put out a short statement on social media thanking the leagues and saying: “Let’s save college sports.” And Cantwell said: “Good. Now progress can be made in protecting women and Olympic athletes and moving the legislation closer to the President’s desk.”
… Continue reading story here …
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