college football under quarantine

i used to spend a lot of time around a major D1 baseball program when i was a kid & one time after a game i peeked into the locker room and one of the players was in there on the floor w/ no clothes on wrapped up in athletic tape as some of the other players like pelted stuff at him. to be clear i'm not excusing pat fitzgerald, just that in a larger sense that focusing on him or framing it as some sort of issue w/ northwestern or w/e obscures the real issue of... locker room sports culture in general -- especially, i would imagine, college locker rooms, where the only actual adults in the room are the ones looking the other way

i don't really disagree, but i think what administrators are willing to brush off has changed pretty radically since you were a kid, and fitzgerald is accused of doing a bit more than looking the other way.

Fitzgerald's tenure unwound after a former player, who has since transferred, reported the program's hazing activities to the school in late 2022. The former player, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told ESPN on Sunday that hazing was organized and widespread in Northwestern's program, often led by a group of older players called the "Shrek gang." The group would lead a hazing activity called "running," usually against freshmen or younger players who had made mistakes in practice, he said. According to the former player, older players wearing masks would restrain the victim in a dark locker room and engage in sexualized behavior. The former player said he was "run" as a freshman and also said Fitzgerald signaled for players to be added to "Shrek's list" with a specific clapping motion during practice. He said he saw Fitzgerald make the motion at least five times since the 2020 season.

i think the key there is 'sexualized behavior'. like, you can make kids run extra sprints or whatever, but after sandusky and nassar you cannot do anything along those lines.

nor is northwestern the kind of school where the football program basically owns the administration. fitzgerald was the best coach they ever had, but they went 1-11 last year. lots of people can do that without getting the school sued straight to hell.

Shrek's list

oh i think everything that has happened to fitzgerald since the news started leaking has been entirely predictable & justified. this was only ending one way

but to my point about how focusing on fitzgerald runs the risk of not addressing the larger issue at hand, northwestern has announced that they're retaining all of his assistants. it's not hard to understand from a logistical standpoint why they made this decision (hiring an entire football staff in july is probably next to impossible) and i'm sure all those guys will get cycled out when they hire a new coach, but the implication that fitzgerald was solely responsible for the culture of hazing is of course farcical. i guess we're supposed to believe that the hazing there will now cease because the rest of the coaching staff will have been scared straight or something?

lol at northwestern's entire athletic department -- apart from chris collins! -- being exposed/fired during the handful of summer days when essentially nothing else is going on in the usa

also lol at the corruption that's going on in athletic departments elsewhere that actually have good players

should have thrown their one win of last season to keep suspicions low

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/38156010/georgia-fires-staffer-survived-fatal-crash-sued-bulldogs

It's probably safe for me to ignore college football for the rest of my life

looking forward to 66 big ten schools battling it out with 67 SEC schools to determine -- What we all want, right? -- the Best of the Best

folks, let's see what right honorable justice clarence thomas thinks about today's showdown

fair enough! i don't think nebraska can consistently throw the ball either. who wants to Feed Him Shit via our exclusive deal with fanduel? i'm sure those randy vandy fans have other ideas, if no particular reason to escort a supreme court justice around the country. BOOM

Only took one night of college football for some social media person to get fired pic.twitter.com/H7jsITbCoW

— Zac Jackson (@AkronJackson) September 1, 2023

what a gratuitous joek

coach prime was right

travis hunter is an absolute freak

yeah that was extremely impressive. his INT was crazy

not sure i can handle several months of coach prime hype

also the wolverines' various tributes to jim harbaugh are embarrassing

I watched that documentary on Florida off Netflix this weekend. That movie makes me embarrassed for humanity. Football is so f'd up.

mookie

el KO

i was all like, why is clemson only favored by 12

embarrassed for dabo

One of my favorite things about the impending chaos of the in-state rivalry gang (which isn't of course isn't THE rivalry) is that students always paint bedsheets with messages belitting harbaugh for petty imagined offenses and hang them on the front of their houses - like "harbaugh drives with his mask on" or "harbaugh posts 'how to open pdf' on facebook".

I want to make one this year that says "harbaugh allegedly committed 'Level II: Significant Breach of Conduct' and 'Level I: Severe Breach of Conduct' violations of NCAA rules"

"Harbaugh wants you to carry your pregnancy to term."

"and then Harbaugh will take your baby"

They added the Feinbaum show to the local ESPN radio a few months back. Sports talk radio is filled with clones and crazy takes but those regulars on that show are something else. It makes Rome's show sound like NPR.

Nebraska's offense is about as competent as the Carolina Panther's last year. That QB was having all sorts of problems with the fumbles. Their D held up pretty good for a good part of the game with Colorado until they ran out of gas being on the field all day.

Be interesting to see if Colorado looks past Colorado St to their match-up against the Ducks, which will be a better thermometer of how good they might be. They definitely got a few players that are really talented, but I kinda doubt they are ready for prime time.

good lord the degree to which the Badgers are getting jobbed out of this game

LSU managed to cover the 56.5-point spread at home against grambling, so i assume brian kelly's bayou accent will become more pronounced this week

i would never actually root for texas but that will not prevent me from being all lol bama

i hate to *not* blame matt rhule, but nebraska has been bad for a long time now and they are not the team to beat coach prime in boulder

unfortunate about appy state

ex-Stanford coach David Shaw breaking down the death of the Pac-12 was pretty interesting to me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MB_5nuvD8A

They definitely got a few players that are really talented, but I kinda doubt they are ready for prime time.

Coach Prime: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force."

mizzou walks it off with a 61 yard field goal

Watched the last quarter and a half of Colorado and Colorado St. game. It was pretty entertaining. Sanders pretty much put the team on his back and got them a win. Took a nasty hit near the end of the game. I guess the hit on Hunter early on in the game was bad too.

I had not heard that Cal and Stanford were going into the ACC. College sports is so fuct up, that is hilarious.

They should call it pro sports and tax the fuct out of the lot.

xp That hit on Hunter was a total cheap shot. The guy who took it should have been ejected.

Now, Hunter is out for some weeks due to an undisclosed injury. I'm guessing it's a bruised sternum, maybe a broken rib or two? Hopefully nothing more serious.

awful that he'll likely miss oregon and usc

colorado snapping back to reality

Getting hit in the face with it, more like.

This could really end up ugly, college football quite often don't put on the breaks.

I remember back in the old days that Switzer at Oklahoma used to just love absolutely destroying teams, like going for it 4th and short up 50+ points.

seemed pretty obvious something like today would happen

The weaknesses of the Colorado offensive line and secondary were pretty apparent even against weaker opponents. Their run defense has been nonexistent today. It’s as though they forgot how to tackle.

Marvin hurt himself holding too hard

one of the best catches in all of history

OH MY!!!! WHAT A CATCH @S1ickSzn 😳

💻 ESPN+ pic.twitter.com/4zzupSxOfJ

— Florida Gators Football (@GatorsFB) September 23, 2023

Right knee down

almost impossible for me to choose between ND and OSU but sufjan + green unis swayed me towards the papists

sorry man

it's ok. Was our best shot. Glad the game was classic.

and thank you, mookie. Glad we were on the same side in football for a night <3.

I once heard a man scream "it's ohio vs the world!" because they were removing him from a Cici's pizza for trying to fill a backpack with slices.

Ohio State fans are the WORST, a buckeye is a worthless nut.

it's the mookiebowl, baby

Got to like seeing the Gators getting the ball run down their throat by Kentucky. 329 yards rushing to only 69 yards passing beating them 33-14. That would be 3 in a row by UK over Florida (admittedly after the Gators owning the Wildcats for like 30 years.) Still 4 out of 6 since the streak ended is pretty good.

I wish we had a wide receiver

Game perhaps decided on a targeting call where the defensive player hit the qb's leg. So they kicked out the tackler while saying it was really for his protection.