A lot of people are already all over the news that Oklahoma quarterback Rhett Bomar has been dismissed from the team, allegedly for receiving "payment over an extended period of time in excess of time actually worked".

Certainly this story has implications everywhere from the national title hunt to the Heisman to at the very least the struggle for control of the Big 12 South.

The story demonstrates that discussions of amateurism and eligibility aren’t necessarily black-and-white. Of course we want student-athletes to work in order to earn spending money just like any other student. On the other hand, we don’t want rogue boosters paying them $10k+ for work they didn’t do. So we have oversight and rules. But it can (and should) be argued that this is much more a question of competitive fairness than it is about amatuerism.

Side note…it’s good to see Mark Schlabach in the middle of the story. He’s one of the better college football journalists (vs. columnists) out there.

HeismanPundit lists some early Heisman odds. Among them…Reggie Ball at 75-1. I’ll let HP’s comment stand alone:

Good Lord, he should not be anywhere near this list.

The length of college football games isn’t a problem. If you attend a game at a smaller school that isn’t broadcast on television, you’ll find that the game moves right along and is done in three hours or so. But televised games, particularly on a certain network, routinely last four hours and longer. Each change of possession is cause for a full-length timeout. There is nothing better nor more exciting than the score-commercial-kickoff-commercial-three and out-commercial sequence. Great for the guy watching at home with the small bladder, not so great for everyone else. I have no problem against football games that last all afternoon – I’m there; I’m a captive audience. Play all day, go 17 overtimes. I do mind when much of my time in the stadium is waiting for the guy on the sideline dressed in all white to signal the end of another TV timeout.

Instead of dealing with the root cause of lengthy games, the NCAA chose to address the "problem" by altering the nature of the game. Change of possession will likely still result in minutes of television commercials, but the clock starts as soon as that commercial is over and the ref blows the whistle to start the play clock.

Back during the World Cup, a lot of people noticed how nice and quick the broadcasts were without commercials. A full 90-minute game was over in about two hours or so (three hours tops if the game went to penalty kicks). I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to suggest that continuous action was a good way to move college football games along. Soccer is broadcast worldwide, presumably at a profit for the broadcast outlets. I’ve seen more regional soccer coverage, and the ads are a bit more intrusive on the screen, but it’s still tolerable. If they can figure out a way to stay out of the way of the game’s flow, broadcasts of college football should be able to do the same.

EDSBS suggests something like this today, in their own way of course. Their conclusion is exactly correct: "The rules don’t innovate; if anything, they point to a failure of imagination on the part of advertisers and the rules committee." You can tell us that television revenue is the fuel of this exploding cash cow and that the NCAA and the schools that benefit from TV money will do what it takes to keep the money coming in. (Ironic given the lip service paid to amateurism, but that’s another post.) EDSBS’s bottom line still stands – the NCAA through its lack of creativity has spoken clearly and chosen to gut its own product instead of reign in advertisers.

Better things to do in Ponte Vedra than this.

Good for Chan Gailey. While a lot of people are giving him a hard time about refusing to sign the hat of a young Georgia fan, I give him credit. Keep the rivalry alive. Gailey’s job might be on the line this year, and a big part of the pressure is his 0-4 record against Georgia. He knows where his bread is buttered, and the Georgia rivalry is the most important thing in the lives of Tech fans. Don’t underestimate this story’s chance to score some big points with the constituency. They’ve noticed. This is what you call win-win in rivalry land. Gailey gets a pat on the back from his base, and young Jordan Rich gets an invaluable lesson about the meaning of rivalry.

Look, there are times to put aside the rivalry. Tech was gracious after last week’s death of Kevin Brophy, and they sent some people to the memorial service (including some Australian student-athletes). Very appropriate and appreciated. But the ACC football media meetings are not one of those times. What the hell is someone other than a heckler doing at an ACC gathering with a Georgia hat? Why does he approach Chan Gailey of all people for an autograph? I don’t blame the kid – who puts their kid in that position?

If some sniveling little nerdling showed up at an SEC event and asked Mark Richt to sign his mustard yellow cap, I’d be disappointed if the kid didn’t get sent home crying (or at least a nice huge "51-7" scrawled on the hat). But of course Richt would never do that, and that’s why he gets nice things like this written about him.

The SEC coaches have released their preseason all-SEC teams, and Georgia has placed 12 players on them. Auburn leads all teams with 14 selections. Interestingly, there was only one unanimous first team selection (Mississippi LB Patrick Willis). The SEC is waiting for some stars to step up.

Several of the selections were quality players who will be coming back from serious injury. It would be an amazing story if Prothro played this season. Broussard is a key for LSU. Andre Caldwell was scary good early last year. Can they overcome those injuries to play at an all-SEC level this year?

As expected, DE Quentin Moses leads the Bulldog delegation on the first team. Surprising to some might be who joined him on the first team. The supposedly-depleted Georgia offensive line placed C Nick Jones and OT Daniel Inman on the first team. Former walk-on Tra Battle is a first-team safety.

I know some will be upset that Thomas Brown was the only Dawg RB on the list, and he was only third-team. Blame it on the rotation or whatever you’d like, but the backs as a unit or as individuals have to be more productive and consistent to move past the other guys on the list.

Some might also wonder where Massaquoi is. He wasn’t among the top 10 in RPG or YPG. He also had very few impact/highlight catches that would get the attention of voters. You have to do more than get 3 or 4 catches a game and 50-60 yards. Good hands guy as a freshman, and there we are.

Now as a more experienced player he should expect more chances each game and the opportunity to have a bigger impact on games. It’s not automatic though as he’ll face double-teams and tight coverage until other threats step up.

UCF, for a paltry $10k cancellation fee, has backed out of their September 29th game at Tennessee. The Vols travel to Athens the next week. Tennessee has replaced O’Leary’s team with Louisiana-Lafayette, and the Ragin’ Cajuns should put up much less of a fight while Tennessee gears up for the Dawgs.

I’ve only skimmed the now-infamous New York Times story about alleged academic fraud at Auburn. I find it hard to get interested in off-the-field stories, and one of the favorite offseason pasttimes in the SEC is hoping that this year’s allegations against your rival(s) will finally nail them good. Still, the story leads to a few thoughts.

We put up with a certain amount of hypocrisy to support college sports. Schools across the board from Georgia to Stanford lower their admission standards for athletes. We admit guys and gals with triple-digit SAT scores alongside the cream of the academic crop and expect our athletics programs to graduate people at a rate equal to or greater than the rest of the student body.

In order to resolve that apparent incongruity, there is an entire academic support system beneath the surface whose job it is to keep student-athletes on track and, at the minimum, eligible. From coaches to adminstrative staff to academic professionals, most of these people do their jobs well, above-board, and they contribute to the education of those in their charge. But when this system fails, things can quickly become ugly.

Problems occur when the support systems we all know and accept get taken too far. Tutors are great. Having tutors allegedly write your papers isn’t great. All students can appeal and discuss grades, but few have an academic support team preparing and pleading their case before a professor or department. Grades get reconsidered all the time. Intimidation and outright grade fixing isn’t so hot. All schools have certain easy classes and professors, and students know how to seek them out. Special treatment for athletes in those classes or abuse such as that alleged at Auburn isn’t kosher.

The pressures are intense, and the system gets bent very far at most every school with a major athletics program. It’s there, and it’s not something we like to talk about. We know that a disproportionate amount of athletes have declared certain majors, and we joke about Underwater Basketweaving courses knowing that it’s not far from reality. We like a great steak, but we don’t want to see the inside of the slaughterhouse. We want top-level sports teams, and we don’t really care to see the messy details of how marginally qualified athletes remain eligible and graduate. When a Kemp or a Bensel-Myers or a Gundlach comes along and shows that a line has been crossed, we get exposed to a part of college sports that we realize is there and omnipresent but is still distasteful.

All that said, there are still some basic guidelines, and the "everybody does it" excuse can only be stretched so far, especially when used in a progression of rationalizations that usually goes a little something like this:

1. We didn’t do it.
2. You can’t prove we did it.
3. Even if we did it, it’s not against the rules.
4. Even if it’s against the rules, it’s not a big deal.
5. Everyone does it.

You can’t help but laugh that this kind of behavior led to triumphant announcements about Auburn’s academic standing alongside schools like Duke and Boston College. But that’s what the APR rewards. Keep ’em eligible, keep ’em graduating. Remember basic principles – whatever gets rewarded gets done.

OK, I know Dennis Dodd probably had a deadline and it’s the slow preseason months. But naming the all-decade team of the 2000s before 2006? It’s not that I disagree with his point that we’re in a great age of college football. If anything, that just makes me look forward to what the next few years might produce. The traditional powers are strong, there are lots of interesting upstart programs looking to break through, and there is no shortage of talent coming into the game.

Just a sampling of players who might not have made a college football “best of the 1990s” list compiled right before the 1996 season:

• Peyton Manning
• Ron Dayne
• Peter Warrick
• Michael Vick
• LaVar Arrington
• Jevon Kearse
• Ricky Williams
• Andy Katzenmoyer
• Charles Woodson
• Takeo Spikes
• Plaxico Burress
• Corey Simon
• Champ Bailey
• Hines Ward

Imagine John Elway throwing a punch in his final Super Bowl. Imagine Roger Clemens’ swan song being a pitch at someone’s head in the World Series. Imagine Michael Jordan doing his best Ron Artest impersonation in the NBA Finals. Imagine sprinter Michael Johnson using those golden shoes to trip the guy next to him during the 1996 Olympics 200 meter finals.

If you can imagine all of that, you might understand how Zinedine Zidane decided to exit international soccer: with a vicious head to the chest of Marco Materazzi during the World Cup final in the last game Zidane will ever play for his nation. Provoked or not, part of being the star is being the statesman. This isn’t Zidane’s first explosive outburst in high-profile games. In most any other context he’d have the stigma of a hothead or a sideshow like Dennis Rodman. Instead he’s celebrated, gushed over by the rudimentary ABC broadcasters, and even awarded the Golden Ball award as the tournament’s most outstanding player. Yes, I realize that the media vote on the award before the final, but FIFA needs to step in and strip the award. Zidane deserves a kick in his Golden Balls before he receives that honor. His career was going to be remembered for the 1998 title and the amazing resurgence during this year’s tournament. Had he remained in the game, he certainly would have participated in the penalty kicks and possibly even changed the outcome. Now he’s a punchline and will leave the world stage with as much scorn as admiration.

I’ve played, coached, and refereed soccer. I’ve watched and followed the game for most of my life. The World Cup is supposed to be the world’s greatest sporting event, but nothing has done more to turn me off to the game than the past month. This is the “highest level” of the sport? The great stories like Ghana and the other underdogs or the German youth movement or Zidane’s tournament prior to the final have been overshadowed by dives, questionable refereeing, and prima donna sportsmanship. ABC and ESPN covered the tournament with the grace of Weird Al’s UHF station.

Look at it this way: while Italy celebrates a well-deserved championship, the nation awaits the consequences of a game-fixing scandal which could affect the careers of several participants in the World Cup championship game. Is this really what international soccer is all about?

OK…last soccer post for four years. American sports isn’t without its needless drama. We have owners screwing up NBA Finals, shoddy refs in the Super Bowl, and baseball looking the other way on steroids. Still, as much as I like and will always respect the World Cup as the planet’s biggest sporting stage, I saw nothing over the month that even came close to the Texas-USC Rose Bowl. Less than a month ’til practice starts.

With the Big 10’s announcement of their own TV network (wonder if it will be on channel 11), other conferences naturally have been asked their plans for television networks. The AJC reports that SEC-TV is “likely to become a reality”, and even Georgia has been approached about their own network. Of course the bottom line is viewership. Is there enough of an audience to support a 24/7 SEC or even UGA channel? Florida found that it could sustain such a channel, so the Sunshine network has become a nice outlet for local sports there.

As much as I would love a channel dedicated to SEC sports, a few concerns pop right to the front about this being an SEC venture.

I have a problem with the SEC or NCAA getting into the content distribution biz. This seems like a throwback to the days before Oklahoma and Georgia challenged the NCAA’s stranglehold on football broadcasts. Quasi-political organizations like the NCAA or the SEC must serve many masters, and the viewing public is way down on the list. Conference commish Mike Slive told the AJC, “One of the things that is attractive about (SEC-TV) is the potential for showing off so many of the other attributes of our institutions. Symphonies, convocations, major speeches — not just athletic events — could be shown to our fans.” Riiiiiiiiight. Sorry, Mike, SEC “fans” aren’t going to tune in for convocations. Bear Bryant’s observation that 50.000 people don’t show up to see a math exam applies here. They’d be more likely to watch the 1998 Alabama-Tennessee game.

But the conference must patronize the University presidents, and so its TV network would have plenty of token self-aggrandizing programming that is even more insipid than the endless “going pro in something other than sports” commercials. Fans will still subscribe because the one game they really do want to see makes it worth it, and they will suffer through the conference’s idea of well-rounded programming. Do us a favor, Mike. Conferences exist in their present form to serve athletics. The SEC is a powerful entity and marketable brand not because of its convocations but because of its first-class sports. It’s great the the conference has many members with outstanding academic reputations, but please don’t delude yourself that people will seek out SEC-TV for any reason other than sports programming.

In a region where conference membership is more or less homogenous, a conference network makes more sense. But in a region like the southeast, interests and rivalries are so interwoven among several conferences that a regional channel makes more sense than a conference network. For example, fans in Atlanta are probably more interested in UGA, Georgia Tech, and schools from Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, and the Carolinas. Fans in Memphis probably have different tastes and want to see teams from Mississippi, Memphis, Arkansas, Missouri, and so on. Instead of networks-by-conference, we need regional college networks. SportSouth before it got all Fox-ized was a good start, but drop the Braves and Hawks. Focus on college sports in the region. I believe, especially in the South, that demand exists to support such an idea.

I can see why the SEC might oppose a regional conference-neutral network. That network, done well, could become a virtual conference with quite a bit of clout of its own. So if we’re stuck with the idea of a conference network, ideally the SEC would lend its brand (for a nice royalty of course) to a private company that knows how to produce sports programming and then step aside. It’s how things work now among the individual sports. I’m just not looking forward to missing a good spring baseball game because SEC-TV has to show Kentucky’s graduation ceremony or missing a women’s hoops battle because the LSU wind symphony is in concert.

Yes, that many Auburn fans really did get tickets.

Georgia Tech’s Bobby Dodd Stadium seats about 55,000 people. You would think that a name like Notre Dame coming to town (not to mention Miami later in the year) might cause demand for season tickets to go through the roof. Nope…remember, this is Tech. Tech will release 7,000 tickets for its opener against Notre Dame to the general public on July 1st. 7,000 tickets represents over 1/8 of this stadium. That is what remains after all season tickets, student tickets, comp tickets, and the visitor allotment have been handed out. To picture 1/8 of Sanford Stadium empty, imagine the visitor allotment for a big SEC game completely empty. Of course they will force those who buy one of these 7,000 tickets to purchase tickets to two other Tech games, ensuring sections of empty seats as people (surely most will be Notre Dame fans) eat those other tickets. Notre Dame will become the latest school to thank Tech for expanding its stadium to accomodate more visiting fans.

I’ll even pump Tech up here for a second (and then promptly shower). They haven’t missed a bowl game since 1996 (thanks to Chan’s uncanny ability to consistently achieve college football’s room temperature of 6 wins). They have played well in season openers lately against teams like BYU and Auburn. They beat Auburn and Miami last year. They have arguably one of the nation’s most exciting and gifted players at receiver. Have I mentioned that Notre Dame is coming to town? Yet tickets remain.

I shouldn’t be surprised. We’re all familiar with the three-game packages we had to buy to see Georgia and the various other marketing plans Tech has come up with for lesser opponents. Still…the words “tickets remain” and “vs. Notre Dame” should never appear in the context of college football.

Tim Dahlberg probably doesn’t make a huge salary. Few journalists do, even those who work hard and become the best at their craft. I doubt that even the impressive job title of “national sports columnist for The Associated Press” bumps his salary close to the range of those he covers in the sports world.

What does that matter? Dahlberg’s latest column tries to take down Dallas owner Mark Cuban for his behavior during the NBA finals, but he can’t seem to keep an extraordinary amount of bitterness and jealousy over Cuban’s wealth out of the piece. He obsesses over Cuban’s wallet, and it prevents him from getting very far towards his point.

Go ahead. Read the column. Count the uses of “billionaire”. Marvel over the lengths Dahlberg goes to take a shot at “the big HD televisions that must line every wall in (Cuban’s) Dallas mansion.” Can someone please give this guy a raise so the wealth envy becomes a little less overt in his supposedly AP-worthy analysis of national sports?

The funniest line is the predictable, “Shouldn’t billionaires have deeper things to worry about?” Bill Gates spends a lot of time and money fighting global health issues, and Cuban is wrapped up in his basketball team. Uh, Tim…you’re a sports writer. Your job exists because a lot of people, Cuban included, find sports and entertainment a worthy investment of money and attention. If you want to mock Cuban for considering the performance of his multi-million dollar investment a “weighty issue”, go talk to your editor about covering Gates and AIDS in the developing world.

It’s unfortunate that Dahlberg’s screed is so diluted by this envy, because he gets so close to a decent point with which I could agree. Cuban let himself become the story in the NBA Finals, and it cost his team their edge and a title. This beautiful, talented team was second-best.

I know where Cuban is coming from. He is at his core a fan, his team is playing for the ultimate prize, and fans do what fans do in these situations – they become overemotional, superstitious, and jittery. If I were scrutinized for every outburst, nervous habit, or superstition during Dawg games, I’d make Cuban look like a wine-and-cheeser. I’m generally on Cuban’s side and love that he puts it out there on his blog and really seems to get this medium. It’s just so unfortunate that it blew up as it did in the Finals.

But of course he’s not just a fan, and as the series wore on and Dallas encountered some adversity, it seemed as if the team and even the Dallas fans began to take on the personality of the team’s owner. Any sense of composure Dallas had was shot by the end of Game 5. By that point in the series, everything from the Heat to the refs to Stern to the media were in the heads of the Mavericks – everything except their focus on playing the outstanding basketball that got them to the Finals and their focus on winning the title. The bottom of this descent into self-pity and distraction came after Game 6 in the form of loser Dallas fans who stuck around just to boo Stern as he conducted the awards ceremony.

Cuban is fond of saying, “right is its own defense.” If that’s true, then wrong is its own executioner. Cuban let Stern, the league, and the refs become the enemy over the past week instead of the Heat. If right is its own defense, what does the storyline and outcome of the NBA Finals tell us?

Very disappointing news. The ABH reports today that Georgia remains without a satellite radio deal and will remain one of the few holdouts for at least the short-term.

“We’re probably in the best position as that goes right now because we’re not locked in one way or the other,” says assoc. AD Alan Thomas from Athens, well within range of 960 WRFC AM and WGMG 102.1 FM. Thomas goes on to show how great this position is by noting that Georgia and Arkansas are the only SEC schoools still on the satellite sideline. Those foolish ten SEC schools who chose to serve their fan bases must be incredible suckers.

There are several sticking points. Will satellite deals in the future be arranged on a conference basis as TV deals are, or will they be handled by individual schools as radio deals are? Also, Georgia would like to make sure that any satellite partner carries the Georgia audio for all games instead of choosing one broadcast or the other when both schools are carried by the satellite network. That’s reasonable; we all expect to hear Munson, but it doesn’t seem like enough of a showstopper to keep Georgia off the satellites.

I’m especially frustrated because I’m in the market for satellite radio, and I am/was waiting on Georgia’s decision to influence mine. Georgia always seems to be behind the technology curve whether it be streaming media, online ticket ordering, or even Web sites (this very site was launched in 1995 partly out of frustration over Georgia’s meager online presence at the time). I guess I shouldn’t expect anything different on the issue of satellite radio. Georgia is approaching the choice of a satellite radio network as if they were signing away Herschel’s first-born.

Meanwhile, Georgia continues to pocket nice G-xtra subscription fees for those out-of-towners who want to listen in. And WSB/Cox, who look to renew their radio contract with the University soon, certainly won’t mind the lack of satellite competition for listeners for their only remaining sports programming.

TANGENT: I’ve been very grateful to the CSS network for doing a lot for University of Georgia sports. We watched with envy as the population of Florida supported the Sunshine Network, but the combination of Fox Sports South (or whatever they call themselves now) and CSS has done reasonably well to serve UGA fans. Given the passion and admitted provincialism of college fans in the South, I think a network dedicated to SEC and ACC sports could do well. I wonder what Fox has in mind with the recently-acquired Turner South network.

Marc Weiszer in today’s ABH has a nice rundown of news from the SEC spring meetings going on this week in Destin. A few comments on each item…

• It’s obvious that the drums are beating louder for the indoor football facility. The relatively minor upgrades to the Butts-Mehre facility are all necessary but are in a different class of magnitude. As the beautiful basketball and gymnastics facility takes shape within sight of the football offices, the drive to make the indoor facility our next major capital project will only increase. It’s interesting to see Richt back off his vision of the facility a bit. Where earlier reports had more of an “all-or-nothing” tone for a grandiose football office and practice facility that would also house indoor track events, Richt concedes now that “some things may be done in phases”. Is that a concession to move things along?
• Georgia can’t seem to ever get an off week before the Florida game, but at least the SEC has ensured that no team will have the advantage of a week off before the SEC title game.
• There was only one change among the SEC’s football and basketball coaches this year. You have to get a chuckle out of Phil Fulmer’s comment on that news. “That’s good,” he said. “I hope it’s the same thing next year.” LOL. I’ll bet you do, Phil. If there’s one high-profile SEC coach starting to feel some heat, it’s Fulmer.
• The mystery conference for the SEC basketball challenge is a poorly kept secret. Bring on the Big East. Better than the ACC-Big 10 Challenge? That would be something. At any rate, such a matchup would be another reason why the basketball regular season is so underrated. You’ll never see such a group of quality nonconference regular season games in football.
• Great to see that the falling-out-of-bounds timeout is on the way out. This practice was the “intentional grounding” of basketball – a bogus way of turning around a bad situation. Make plays within the white lines.

The Redcoats are currently on a two-week tour of China and have done everything from call the dawgs atop the Great Wall to enjoy rockstar treatment at all of their tour stops.

The AJC has a short photo gallery up from their stop in Chengdu.