Oh, You're Bunny? And The Dude. And Walter. And Everyone Else. Tara Reid, of all people, gives us the trailer for The Big Lebowski 2.
Long Division. There have been suggestions by Jim Delany and his ilk for some time, but we now have formal confirmation: There will be no basketball divisions in the new Big Ten. In men's basketball, the league will maintain the 18-game schedule it began using four years ago, with each team playing seven schools twice and four schools once per season. Schedules will be set for two years, with a home-and-home series for each single-game set of opponents. Women's basketball will also maintain its longstanding 16-game schedule. Matt Painter was so inconsolable over the news that Purdue wouldn't be Iowa's most hated rival in basketball that he nearly moved to Missouri, and still might. Obligatory Iowa joke: Painter's arrival in Missouri would double the number of people who can read in Missouri.
Caring Is Creepy. A bunch of small recruiting stories surfaced over the past two days, none bigger than the news that DeMatha (MD) Catholic High head football coach Bill McGregor is leaving the school after 29 seasons. McGregor went 280-39-3 in his tenure at the DC-area powerhouse. More importantly for the purposes of Iowa football, his program has become a pipeline in the last two years, providing the Hawkeyes with presumed starting halfback Marcus Coker, defensive tackle Darian Cooper and defensive back Jordan Lomax (and nearly offensive tackle Cyrus Kouandjio) in this year's class, and a host of potential players in 2012. On Tuesday's edition of the Tony Kornheiser Show on ESPN 980 in Washington, DeMatha grad David Aldridge said he believed the new head coach would come from inside the current staff; hopefully that translates to a continued relationship between the programs.
In other recruiting news, Iowa added JUCO cornerback Gavin Smith of Iowa Central Community College as a preferred walk-on in the 2011 class. Smith, a 2009 graduate of Iowa City West High, becomes the sixth walk-on in this year's class. At 5'10" and 175 pounds, he's a little small, but Iowa's history with ICCC players in general (and cornerbacks in particular) is good enough for us to have a little optimism.
On the basketball side, things are fortunately quiet. Spring signing period and 2012 recruiting continues in earnest, with plenty of lines in the water from the Iowa staff. One big fish who has not been pursued: Former Hawkeye Brennan Cougill, who left the program and enrolled at Kirkwood Community College last spring after being found academically ineligible. His current coach speculates that McCaffery may be waiting on the Dessert Fox's spring grades before extending an offer, but given both the number and type of post players the Hawkeyes are pursuing, it appears far more likely that Cougill Town simply doesn't fit the new Iowa system. Cougill has received offers from South Dakota State and Wisconsin-Green Bay. The Sioux City Journal can't understand why John Calipari isn't in hot pursuit, and blames it solely on his own ignorance of the greatest high school basketball player in the history of the state.
He Partied. Karamu'd. Fiesta'd. Forever. As you've surely read, Fiesta Bowl CEO John Junker was fired yesterdayafter an investigation uncovered he and his cronies had been using the bowl to do exactly what we expected a bowl executive does: Party at golf courses, party at strip clubs, party at extravagant birthday parties, party all day every day. As we discussed on Slow States, it's not as if the extravagant spending and partying of a bowl executive is breaking news. What is news, however, is that the Fiesta Bowl's charmed existence as a member of the BCS is in serious jeopardy; BCS director Bill Hancock (seen here after hearing the news) has already called the bowl's status in the top tier into question:
"The BCS group takes this matter very seriously and will consider whether they keep a BCS bowl game, and we will consider other appropriate sanctions," Hancock told The Arizona Republic. "If the bowl does remain a BCS bowl its handling of thing will be closely monitored going forward."
The Fiesta Bowl has always been an odd fourth in the BCS group; it has nowhere near the history of the Orange, Sugar, or Rose Bowls (or the non-BCS Citrus or Cotton Bowls, for that matter), and took its place largely based on money and location. It's not a certainty that the Fiesta will be dropped for another game; the Citrus Bowl is still played in a decrepit stadium in Orlando, and the Cotton Bowl could run into the same Texas political problems that everything football-related seems to find in Texas. Still, a blow has been struck to one of the big names in the bowl system, which gives all those working for its demise some hope.
BLURBZ:
Ricky Stanzi toes the company line on rhabdo (saying the players involved were "out of shape") and praises Marvin McNutt in an interview with Randy Peterson of the DMR. There's nothing here that we didn't expect, but Stanzi is Stanzi; expected does not necessarily mean boring. Also, in rampant speculation news, San Francisco is sending scouts to the second Iowa pro day to watch Slick Rick.
Fox has announced that FX, already dominating the market on things that are awesome, will broadcast thirteen football games from the Pac-10, Big XII, and Conference USA next season. Broadcast teams are not yet known, but will likely be drawn from Fox's deep pool of talent currently on Big Ten Network and its regional offerings.
College Football High School returns on Maize n' Brew. Iowa is basically turning into Judd Nelson.
And it's CLEVELAND vs. CLEVELAND on Hail to the Chief...to the Death this week. The winner is you. The loser, as always, is Cleveland.