Story, or a feeling? I still think the most natural place for him is Texas A&M
Sources are saying it’s pretty much a lock now. Florida even cleared it with the SEC.
You mean athletic director? College teams don’t really have general managers. And no, they won’t.
My jokes are not working today.
Man what a week of college ball. How about that thriller between underdog Alabama vs powerhouse Mercer? Topped only by Clemson shocking Citadel I say.
Crazy week of exciting matchups.
Navy nearly beat Notre Dame, Hail State beat Arky on the last play of the game damn near and sealed BB’s fate, Stanford beat Cal by a field goal, USC and UCLA played a hell of a football game that the Spoiled Children won, Aggy beat Ole Miss by 7 with the Rebs driving on the last possession, Mizzou sealed a comeback from a 1-5 start to earn a bowl berth against Vandy.
Why you gotta hate on my Trojans bro?
Seriously, dude - referring to the University of Second Choice as the University of Spoiled Children is just plain rude.
And I’m a USC fan! Have an autographed picture of me and USC alum Lynn Swann at my brother’s SC commencement in '79 or '80 (forget which).
UCLA fired Mora today.
My wife figures Jimbo Fisher isn’t far behind.
That would be insane. Their starting quarterback went down! Did Jimbo do something else wrong?
Teams lose qbs all the time. In college, they ought to have recruits stacked 2-3 deep. Going to be their first time without going to a bowl in 35 years.
Dude is less than 5 years removed from a title. That’s crazy.
Missing a bowl is pretty bad I guess. I do wonder about QB depth though. These days it seems like kids would rather transfer elsewhere than be a backup.
Not surprising, given the way these things work in terms of NFL chances, exposure, and publicity. Big football programs don’t seem to have any QBs that aren’t capable of starting somewhere decent, so for those guys, what is the incentive to be a backup? In the old days, half the varsity might be guys who had no shot in the NFL, but had a lot of school pride/loyalty. Now, it’s pretty much a minor league for the pros.
That’s basically the story of Oklahoma’s Heisman candidate Baker Mayfield. Mayfield was a walk-on at Texas Tech at a time when their new coach, former Texas Tech star Kliff Kingsbury had been hired away from A&M having been the offensive coordinator during the time of Johnny Manziel. At the time Kingsbury was trying to run two quaterbacks at the same time, and Mayfield was a third wheel. Despite literally being handed the same situation he found himself in with Manziel (a superstar playboy quarterback), Kingsbury didn’t seize the opportunity, and Mayfield left for Oklahoma. Now a couple years later Mayfield is a top tier Heisman candidate and Kingsbury’s wretched season will probably get him fired.
Mayfield is the one-in-a-thousand success story where that works.
There are a lot more where it ends up being a trap. Take Gunner Kiel (“Who?” you say…)
Kiel was a QB who really wanted to go to Mizzou and had offers, multiple visits and loved the passing offense. Unfortunately, Mizzou was recruiting two QBs that year, and the other – Maty Mauk – jumped on a commitment first. Kiel didn’t want to compete with him and said no thanks. (Mauk’s career and life blew up within two years, and Kiel would’ve been starting regardless…)
Kiel then nearly committed to Alabama, before finally saying he was committing to LSU. But then LSU signed two QBs, and Kiel backed off and said he was going to Indiana. The IU coaches were thrilled, but apparently told Kiel he’d still have to work his way up the depth chart and climb over three other QBs, and Kiel decided that if he was going to be a 3rd-string freshman his first year in college, it wasn’t going to be for a team like the Hoosiers…so after all that he ended up enrolling at Notre Dame. Where he sat on the bench for two seasons, got disillusioned by it all, and transferred out, this time to Cincinnati. Sat out his year for the transfer, and then finally managed to play in all of 6 games his senior season for the Bearcats.
That’s it. 6 games.
For most players, transferring is a trap that reveals more about the player than the program transferred out of or into.
While I won’t argue that Gunner Kiel certainly screwed his own career opportunities by school hopping in an effort to be “the man” somewhere, he actually did hold that position for a couple of seasons with the Bearcats. Gunner was our starting QB in 2014 and 2015, and in his final “senior” year of eligibility in 2016 (his 6th actual year in NCAA football by this point) took a back seat to Hayden Moore and only played in 6 games (mostly sparingly) last season. Kiel’s Career Stats as a Bearcat:
GP : 29
Passes ATT/COMP : 833/505
Passing Yards : 6835
Passing TDs : 56
INTs : 26
Rushing Yards : 165
Rushing TDs : 3 (yeah, he was NOT a running QB at all)
Interesting stat : Over his 29 games played Gunner had 4 punts. One for touchback and the other three inside the 20, with an average of nearly 43 yards per punt.
Ah, OK. I thought he kept transferring himself into sitting things out. My bad!
Good on him then that he managed to get three seasons in.