It's Not Plagiarism If You Link To It is BHGP's regular news roundup. Send all tips to any of the email addresses at the bottom of the page. Seriously: any and all tips are appreciated, although not all tips will necessarily get used in INP.
DO NOT TRY TO FIGHT THE GUY WHO CUTS IN FRONT OF YOU AT PANCHERO'S. It will not end well.
Sometimes it's better to wait for karmic justice to play out rather than attempt to mete out your own vigilante justice. (H/T to Scott B.)
En garde. The National Duals, a wrestling event that ought to be more important than it's been, is getting an overhaul over the next few years, going from an eight-team event held in Cedar Falls to a twenty-four team event split into four regionals and held over two weekends. The regionals for 2011-2012 have just been announced:
- Midwest (host TBD), Iowa, Iowa State, Oregon State, Virginia Tech, Wisconsin and Northern Iowa.
- Cornell (confirmed), Central Michigan, Oklahoma, Purdue, Illinois, and American.
- Rutgers (confirmed), Minnesota, Kent State, Michigan, Missouri, and Cal Poly.
- Oklahoma State (confirmed), Boise State, Ohio State, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Tennessee-Chattanooga.
Hmm. Iowa? Check. Iowa State? Check. Cornell? Check. Minnesota? Check. Oklahoma State? Check. Boise State? Ohio State? Nebraska? Oklahoma? Check, check, check, and check. I can't put my finger on it, but it seems like there's someone missing from that list.
Oh, right, that would be the defending national champions. Still, at least Cael & Co. won't be twiddling their thumbs while the rest of the wrestling world tries to determine a true dual meet national champion: they've got a barnburner against Utah Valley scheduled for 2/11/12 and a meet with Pitt the following weekend. Good work, bros. (For the record, I didn't like it when Iowa skipped out on the event last year, either, and was critical of Brands' decision then. An event with a loaded field featuring the best teams in the sport is is good for everyone: for the sport, for the fans, and for the competitors. There will be a slightly hollow feeling for whoever wins the title this year.)
Watching nonsense. Hlas makes the all-too-obvious (but still oh-so-relevant) point: college football awards watch lists are really, really dumb.
I went back and checked last summer’s Maxwell, Walter Camp and Davey O’Brien watch lists. Auburn’s Cam Newton wasn’t among the players listed for any of them. Yet, he won them all. Yet, he won it in December. Teammate Nick Fairley wasn’t on the 2010 Lombardi watch list last July. Yet, he won the award in December. How could this have happened?
Oh yeah, now I recall. They played the games.
As he notes, they exist for the same reason that preseason polls exist: because the hype machine must be fed, logic and patience be damned. At least the awards are smart enough to recognize that the only thing that really matters is the play on the field during the season; preseason polls retain their importance far into the season (sometimes 'til the very end), despite the frequent disconnect between pre-season hype and on-field reality.
A new branch. We already knew that the Hayden Fry coaching tree was one of the most impressive in the history of the sport -- and now we can add another minor branch to it in the form of Bo Pelini, hired by Fry as a graduate assistant in 1991. Which means one-quarter of the current Big Ten head coaches owe their careers (in some capacity) to Fry -- not too shabby, that. Fry also spilled the beans on Ferentz's early days at Iowa:
"It's really interesting how I hired him at Iowa," Fry recalled. "I interviewed quite a few coaches for that (offensive line) job. Some of them had been in the NFL. A couple of them had been head coaches on the college level. But when I interviewed Coach Ferentz, he was by far the best communicator of the whole group.
"I had all of my candidates go to the blackboard and go through their technique of instruction. He had been a graduate assistant at the University of Pittsburgh. He was so organized and had such great ability to explain what he wanted done from an offensive lineman. I hired him right on the spot."
Given Ferentz's track record of success with offensive linemen in both of his stints at Iowa and his time with the Browns/Ravens, Hayden was certainly on to something there.
MOON SHOTZ
* Our blog-buddies at OTE make more way-too-early bowl projections (hope you like the Gator) and discuss the over/under on win projections. Plus: Power Rankings with a Game of Thrones flavor.
* If you want tickets to the Black Friday Iowa-Nebraska game, you are shit out of luck unless you want to sell a few organs or children to finance a Stubhub purchase.
* Per Doc's "who do you hate" poll, Iowa's most reviled football rival is... Wisconsin? Really?
* James Morris is not only a mighty fine linebacker -- he's also an artiste.
* Following up on the discussion of Brandon Scherff in this week's Assume The Position, Mas Casa tabs him as one of the guys poised to break out in a big way in 2011.
* Athlon ranks the Big Ten football coaching gigs.
* The best studio show in sports just got even better: Shaq is joining Inside the NBA. You know, whenever the NBA opens its doors again.