The Swamp

Too early? Hell no!

Billy Napier is on fire recruiting the 2024 class (currently ranked 3rd in the country). Let's hope he can keep them committed after what is sure to be a challenging season. The QB cupboard is beyond bare in Gainesville. The 2024 schedule was released and it's a doozy.

Miami, Samford, UCF, Georgia, FSU, Kentucky, LSU, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Miss St., Tennessee, and Texas. Murderer's fucking row, that.

And this season, USF faces Owls three home games in a row (Rice, FAU, Temple).

govmentchedda wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2023 1:29 pm And this season, USF faces Owls three home games in a row (Rice, FAU, Temple).

This stretch of the schedule sponsored by Eeylops Emporium.

govmentchedda wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2023 1:29 pm Too early? Hell no!

Billy Napier is on fire recruiting the 2024 class (currently ranked 3rd in the country). Let's hope he can keep them committed after what is sure to be a challenging season. The QB cupboard is beyond bare in Gainesville. The 2024 schedule was released and it's a doozy.

Miami, Samford, UCF, Georgia, FSU, Kentucky, LSU, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Miss St., Tennessee, and Texas. Murderer's fucking row, that.

And this season, USF faces Owls three home games in a row (Rice, FAU, Temple).

Overlooking McNeese State this season.

This is now the longest CMU has ever gone between conference titles (14 years). McElwain is on notice.

Probably the wrong place to put this, but since we don't have a new NCAA Football thread, yet...

Happy we finally banned sancarlos from starting new threads.

Yeah, I thought about starting a 2023 thread, but


I got nuthin’…

govmentchedda wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2023 1:29 pm Too early? Hell no!

Billy Napier is on fire recruiting the 2024 class (currently ranked 3rd in the country). Let's hope he can keep them committed after what is sure to be a challenging season. The QB cupboard is beyond bare in Gainesville. The 2024 schedule was released and it's a doozy.

Miami, Samford, UCF, Georgia, FSU, Kentucky, LSU, Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Miss St., Tennessee, and Texas. Murderer's fucking row, that.

And this season, USF faces Owls three home games in a row (Rice, FAU, Temple).

It's like you have me on block, Pat.

Shit I think the search function has you blocked. I looked for a new thread.

To be fair, it took me a while to go find it myself. Was on like page 8 of my posts.

sancarlos wrote: ↑Fri Jul 07, 2023 4:24 pm Probably the wrong place to put this, but since we don't have a new NCAA Football thread, yet...

I'm seeing reporting/Tweets that there is a picture from the lockerroom that clearly talks about Shrek, which was the name given the hazing stuff, with player names and very specific hazing rituals to be carried out.

Middle of the lockerroom for at least 2, maybe 3 years according to the player who took the picture.

I don't think Fitzgerald is going to be employed there much longer. Hazing is straight trash at the most "whatever" schools... But at NW? While it's different now than it was way back in the day, NW's administration tolerates athletics, it certainly isn't going to put up with this level of nonsense.

He's far and away the most successful coach in their history, but he's 4-20 in the last two seasons and half his wins in the last four years came when he went 7-2 in the COVID year. The school should be happily running him out of town instead of lifting a finger to hang on to him.

Do the worst of the worst public relations people end up in college athletics? No school's athletic department seems remotely capable of handling any sort of scandal (I speak from plenty of experience).

I often wonder about that. At one point, one of my regrets in life was not going down the SID route, but... To your point, I'm constantly amazed at how hamfisted ADs are when it comes to even the most routine "crisis" situations.

Which got me thinking... In politics, folks know that there's a point where the "expert" in communications should be brought into the situation at a certain point and listened to (at least the well run shops)... I got to thinking that collegiate set-ups are so deferential to the administration and/or coaches that the PR ppl are just not brought in at the appropriate time and/or aren't listened to enough.

A lot of toxicity, it appears.

Reading up a bit more this morning... Fitzgerald either knew what was going on (obviously fireable) or he didn't know what was going on (again, bye-bye).

The notion that this has been going on for over 5 years and the coaching staff didn't know is pretty dubious and/or frightening. PF gets paid $6M/season. C'mon man.

Nonlinear FC wrote: ↑Mon Jul 10, 2023 10:00 am I often wonder about that. At one point, one of my regrets in life was not going down the SID route, but... To your point, I'm constantly amazed at how hamfisted ADs are when it comes to even the most routine "crisis" situations.

Which got me thinking... In politics, folks know that there's a point where the "expert" in communications should be brought into the situation at a certain point and listened to (at least the well run shops)... I got to thinking that collegiate set-ups are so deferential to the administration and/or coaches that the PR ppl are just not brought in at the appropriate time and/or aren't listened to enough.

A lot of toxicity, it appears.

I think a lot of it is deference to power and probably originates in how many things have successfully been buried in the past. I expect someone, or several someones, in the decision-making process at Northwestern suggested "just ignore it, it'll go away" before they ever hired the outside firm to investigate. As soon as you announce the investigation, you're committing to announcing the results. Can't just "Friday news dump" that away.

It is a running joke among a circle of my friends about how inept the Syracuse athletic department is at some of this stuff, particularly in light of there being a public relations major in the communications school.

If you smell smoke tonight, it's probably coming from Evanston and it's not just from the former football PR flack racing out of town.

Fitzgerald fired at Northwestern.

Good lord... the student newspaper will FUCK you up, man.

Should go in the "not quite the end of journalism" thread.

Nonlinear FC wrote: ↑Tue Jul 11, 2023 9:09 am Good lord... the student newspaper will FUCK you up, man.

Should go in the "not quite the end of journalism" thread.

Maybe hold off on starting that thread, considering the LA Times eliminated much of their sports section and the NY Times dropped their entire sports department in the same weekend.

Yeah, local sports sections are a mess. Like Ratto pointed out the other day, newspapers set the cut off time so early that you get news about baseball games two days later. Who gives a fuck at that point? The only thing I’m getting from the SF Comical at this point is a little local news, the comics and sudoku. (I’d unsubscribe but the wife is adamant about staying.)

See it’s not just Baylor! Even prestigious Big 10 schools have fucked up fans who want to ignore their coach ignoring sexual assault.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/s ... azing-case

Shit is going to get VERY ugly in Evanston.

Giff wrote: ↑Sat Jul 15, 2023 5:02 pm See it’s not just Baylor! Even prestigious Big 10 schools have fucked up fans who want to ignore their coach ignoring sexual assault.

There are always going to be people on the wrong side of history. The question is whether it's a few outliers, or if it's the preponderance of the fan base. And at the end of the day, it's really kind of like stabbing jello. It's also not important.

What's important is what the university actually does about it and is there any lasting change to the culture and the policies.

Nonlinear FC wrote: ↑Tue Jul 18, 2023 9:11 am https://www.espn.com/college-football/s ... azing-case

Shit is going to get VERY ugly in Evanston.

Ben Crump does NOT fuck around.

This is the last time I'll post about this unless there is another article at The Athletic on NW and Crump had a press conference today with actual players and, man, it is horrible.

Article also revealed that the softball team has players coming forward with terrible allegations of sexual abuse. So, add that to the football/baseball pile.

Nonlinear FC wrote: ↑Tue Jul 11, 2023 9:09 am Good lord... the student newspaper will FUCK you up, man.

Student paper at Stanford took down the President...

This one sticks in my craw because her LinkedIn also lists that she was a communications intern with the Northwestern athletic department.



I'm having a hard time with taking her seriously because she worked for the athletic department while this was going on, knew about it (her own words in the tweet say "heard about it... not a secret"), and... nothing until when it was time to piggyback off the work of others a decade later. I actually replied to her tweet to ask why she did or didn't report on it at the time, to no response.

I'm just going to say it:

I've been in a lot of locker rooms (soccer and baseball). The idea of, like... touching another guy while soaped up and naked is so fucking weird to me. I find it REALLY fucking weird that the self-professed most manly guys on the planet are engaging in all this homo-erotic stuff to be just off the charts fucking weird.

I know I'm captain obvious here, but it is just very strange to me.

DSafetyGuy wrote: ↑Thu Jul 20, 2023 10:22 am This one sticks in my craw because her LinkedIn also lists that she was a communications intern with the Northwestern athletic department.



I'm having a hard time with taking her seriously because she worked for the athletic department while this was going on, knew about it (her own words in the tweet say "heard about it... not a secret"), and... nothing until when it was time to piggyback off the work of others a decade later. I actually replied to her tweet to ask why she did or didn't report on it at the time, to no response.

It seems like it would have occurred to her at some point while working at SI or Defector to have at least asked around.

A_B wrote: ↑Thu Jul 20, 2023 10:40 am

DSafetyGuy wrote: ↑Thu Jul 20, 2023 10:22 am This one sticks in my craw because her LinkedIn also lists that she was a communications intern with the Northwestern athletic department.

I'm having a hard time with taking her seriously because she worked for the athletic department while this was going on, knew about it (her own words in the tweet say "heard about it... not a secret"), and... nothing until when it was time to piggyback off the work of others a decade later. I actually replied to her tweet to ask why she did or didn't report on it at the time, to no response.

It seems like it would have occurred to her at some point while working at SI or Defector to have at least asked around.

Or she likely was friendly enough with another student or students who wrote for the paper from her interactions with them while working in the athletic department to say, "Hey, there's this thing going on that you might want to look into."

More or less started here, and I don't think we have a dedicated thread for "NCAA/Its Member Institutions Are a Fail Pile"

Getting to the point where NOT having hazing be part of a teams' culture at NW is the exception.

Wild.

It seems like this almost intentional? Like, the theory is that you hire "hard asses" as coaches so you toughen up these "soft" rich, elite school kids? Maybe?

Nonlinear FC wrote: ↑Mon Jul 24, 2023 2:12 pmIt seems like this almost intentional? Like, the theory is that you hire "hard asses" as coaches so you toughen up these "soft" rich, elite school kids? Maybe?

I don't think it has anything to do with the kids.

I think a lot of it is most high-level college coaching positions come with power that cannot be challenged by either athlete or administrator due to success, salary, etc. It is also easier/cheaper for the athletic department/institution to ignore/bury any problem, especially because so many of them come originate with allegations where it is one person's word against another.

I mean, Syracuse has had varying issues with six of their 18 sports in the last 15 years, just that I can remember. Coaches were prominently involved in five of the six and the sixth involved bringing in a kid who had significant issues at his first college as a transfer who would go on to have significant issues at Syracuse.

There's something going on with the culture within the frat bro guys that sit on NW's board. I'd have to go hunting down comments on the MI board I visit to be more specific.

Totally agree about the types of folks involved in coaching at the D1 level, but to reiterate, I think this is something that is being driven by a loose strategy.

NW's reputation is, generally, that of being soft in B1G circles. It would not surprise me on any level if recent hires were made with this in mind. The baseball coach, in particular, was brought in carrying a decent amount of crap in his luggage.

Saw a liberty bowl replay the other night. QB from Kansas looks good

Not great timing for Pac 12 who are still trying to nail down a TV rights deal. Could be a death knell unless they start thinking outside the box. Big 10 has its eyes on Cal and Stanford which is well known. Big 12 might end up picking at the scraps.

Pac 12 should start tearing out biggest media markets from
Mountain West right now - SDSU, UNLV and Boise State to start. Maybe even New Mexico.