Tennessee football in a word
Which way Wednesday starts this way:
Which word best describes the Tennessee football situation? I thought of this during the onslaught of flummoxed, frustrated and flat-out ticked-off Johnny Vols Fans who pulled up a chair and rang up the hotline on Tuesday’s Press Row.
Show producer and UT fan Wells Guthrie used “tired.” Regular caller Robert used “predictable.” There was “embarrassing” and someone dropped “disgusting.”
I can see all of those after the 38-30 loss to Georgia State.
Here’s another one:
Costly.
Not just for Jeremy Pruitt, who moved to No. 1 spot on the CoachesHotSeat.com.
How painful and expensive is this going to be for the city of Knoxville, which budgets every year on making tens of millions on every home football Saturday?
How about the program as a whole, which needs the ticket revenue to help fund those projects for facilities and recruiting as well as the others sports in K-town?
How about for the admissions? As we detailed last week in the mailbag, the impact of Saban’s success on the University of Alabama as a whole is staggering and undeniable. That must mean the reverse can be true as well, no? A team that once had a proud football program stagnating and stumbling could hurt admissions as a whole, no?
That was a costly loss – for way more folks than just the coaches, friends.
Coaches – and NCAA – celebrating
There’s going to be some day drinking going on in Auburn, Ala. And Baton Rouge. And Tucson, Arizona. And, well, just about everywhere with a major college basketball program and a coach who may or may not take some liberties with the rules of the NCAA.
According to Dan Wetzel, who has been covering the FBI investigation into college hoops better than anyone else – feel like there may be a Wetzel book in the works on this one – a federal judge ruled Tuesday night to deny the NCAA access to the FBI evidence in the corruption trials across college basketball.
So lift your glass, Bruce Pearl. And Will Wade, Sean Miller, Bill Self and every locale that had an FBI satellite office set up between the vape store and the tanning salon in the strip mall off the highway.
In fact you start listing the folks breathing easier, and you must include the NCAA, too. In no way does the NCAA want actual proof that every program with a deal with Nike, Adidas or UnderArmour is cheating their sneakers off.
Absolutely no way.
Because proof would lead to actions by the NCAA, which long ago quit investigating and now is only reactionary in the most benign ways against the ATM programs because the tail is wagging the dog and we all know it.
Let’s review the facts. Everyone cheats. Everyone. Yes, Dickie V, Duke and Coach K do, too. Because if UK or U of L or UCLA or anyone this side of the University of Phoenix offered Zion Williamson $50K to play hoops, do you think Zion picked Duke for that super-high-quality one semester education he got? Right.
OK, that’s the baseline. Everyone cheats, and more importantly everyone knows everyone cheats. And as crazy as it sounds, the fact that everyone cheats – and in turn the star players who are not getting an education and are generating billions for the sport and tens of millions for the star-studded coaches – may be the most redeemable thing about college basketball ethically. At least that way, the stars like Zion Barrett or Coby White or Tyler Herro or whomever get paid. Paid slave wages by comparison – If Zion got, say $100K last year for one season, what did he generate for Duke, Coach K, the sport, the NCAA, ESPN and CBS, et al., $250 million? – but wages nonetheless.
So with that baseline, the NCAA knows two things first and foremost and everything it does is traced back to these two simple, fundamental and undeniable truths:
– The NCAA men’s basketball tournament is the golden goose for all of college sports. The NCAA does not exist without it, and all the championships and postseason tournaments are funded by it through the NCAA office. (Yes, football pays the bills at the programs, but March Madness writes the checks for everything done on a national scale.)
– Any punishment – be it football or hoops – to a true revenue-generating program that could a) cause a true blue blood not to be in the NCAA tournament or b) cause a Power 5 conference to start exploring whether the big boys should take their balls and go somewhere else must be weighed with extreme caution and be completely justified.
Because, in scenario a) you cannot have March Madness without the Dukes, UKs, UNCs and Kansases. This is not debatable, because as much as we all love our brackets and our upset picks, you never have a David-over-Goliath story without David. And no one gives two rips about David beating David. That’s the A-Sun tournament, for Pete Newell’s sake.
And scenario b) is obvious. If the Power 5 pulls out, then the rest of college sports as we know starts the death spiral. How will the Group of 5 survive? How would the Southern Conference survive? Because if the Power 5 formed its own championship level organization, how much would CBS be willing to pay the next time the NCAA tournament deal – with consistent No. 1 seeds Gonzaga and Villanova dominating selection Sunday – runs out? Nickels on the dollar by comparison. It would be the NIT within five years.
(Can you guess how many non-Power 5 programs were a top-5 seed last March? Three. Gonzaga was a 1, Houston was a 3 and Marquette was a 5.)
So as Pearl and Wade and Self and the coaching crews across the land are lifting a champagne glass at 7:30 a.m., Mark Emmert and his boys in Indy are just as giddy.
Because without access to the evidence the FBI unearthed that confirmed arguably the worst-kept secret in modern sports, the NCAA can go right along putting its head in the sand and listening to Dickie V talk about how great and noble and pure everything is come March.
NFL power poll
Gang, I will continue our NFL power poll this year. It will still go on Tuesdays. (In truth, I forgot yesterday. Hey, whatever.)
Side note: We will have our NFL preseason picks for the awards and team finishes in Thursday’s 5-at-10. Deal? Deal.
Also, side Press Row note: We are going to try to have a fantasy football expert on most Thursdays in the 3 o’clock hour this season. Part of that will be a rapid fire at the end, and if you want to submit a very specific roster question about your team, add it to the comments below or email me at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com and we will ask him. If we get more than we have time for, it will be on a first-come, first-serve basis. Deal? Deal.)
Quickly, let’s do our NFL power poll, and as always, this is based on the here and now.
Powerful
1. New England. Duh, and yes, I have them one even if the Chiefs have passed them as the betting favorite to win the whole shebang.
2. Kansas City. Love the conversation about whether Patty Mahomes can top his 50-TD, 5,000-yard season. Well, here’s a thought that without Kareem Hunt, the Chiefs may actually need him to throw it more. Speaking of fantasy, here’s betting that sooner rather than later a) Sammy Watkins, the Chiefs’ No. 2 WR and number 3 option in the passing game, will be a hot fantasy prospect, and b) in deeper leagues Mecole Hardman, the former Georgia speedster the Chiefs drafted in April because they thought Tyreek Hill was going to be suspended, will become a valuable asset.
3. Philadelphia. The roster construction may be the best in the NFL.