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The Daily Digest for Thursday, October 18, 2007 |
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October 18, 2007 |
≡ Interim Report ≡
 Franchione: he's no. 1! |
= Program Note =
We expected that TheGoodSportsNetwork.tv would be up and running on Monday, September 24, but the site is still not live. We have been told that TheGoodSportsNetwork.tv site will be up soon, but no firm date has been given.
While we wait, we’ll continue posting a weekday note and sending out the Tip Sheet to keep you informed. Stay tuned, and hope for the best.
= Tonight’s Menu =
>> Cleveland’s surprising Indians can close out the American League Championship Series and go to sleep for six days by beating Boston tonight at Jacobs Field. Leading 3-1 in the series, the Tribe will send C.C. Sabathia (20-8, 3.49 ERA) to the hill against Boston ace Josh Beckett (22-7, 3.13). The weather forecast is for 66-degree temperatures and showers, but Beckett and the Sox are favored: it takes $115 to try to win $100 on the Red Sox, but a $100 wager on the home team could return $115.
>> The darlings of the BCS so far, South Florida (6-0) faces a tough test tonight on the road at Rutgers (4-2). The Scarlet Knights average 490 yards a game and 37.2 points a game, but are only 3-2 at home so far this year, losing to Cincinnati and Maryland. So the Bulls are a shaky, two-point favorite with the over-under at 52, so South Florida is favored to escape with a 27-25 win.
>> The Kings (2-5) are playing in Calgary (2-2-1) tonight and you get one guess who’s favored. Right. End of story.
= L.A. Stories =
>> What’s Bruin: See our daily blog on UCLA sports at LATimes.com!
>> Laker Lines: From the Dallas Mavericks’ Jason Terry, rumored to be part of a trade package that would bring Kobe Bryant to Dallas, on the possibility of Dirk Nowitzki and Bryant playing together:
“Maybe I need to go try that on my NBA Live video game,” he told Jeff Caplan of the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. “Definitely don’t want to see that happen [in real life] though.” Because he wouldn’t be on the Mavericks anymore.
>> Talk of Troy: Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis told reporters that the Irish will be wearing green jerseys this week when USC comes to South Bend. He thinks the green shirts are ugly, but acknowledges that the players like them. Then-Notre Dame coach Dan Devine switched switched jerseys just prior to gametime in 1977 and the Irish defeated USC, 49-19, on its way to the national championship.
= Panorama =
>> NFL Hoopla: Even though it wasn’t shown in Los Angeles – which got the Raiders and Chargers instead – the New England at Dallas match-up of unbeatens on CBS had an astronomical audience of 29.1 million, the biggest viewership for a Sunday NFL regular-season game since the Cowboys and San Francisco played on November 10, 1996.
The game not only won the week, but was the most watched program of the season so far.
>> NFL Moving Van: As Louisiana prepares to elect a new governor, New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson is waiting to find out what incentives (if any) he will be offered to keep the team there. The team’s lease agreement expires after the 2010 season and Benson could be free to pick up and move without penalty.
But if the Superdome, renovated to the tune of $211 million, isn’t good enough, then where?
>> College Gridiron: It’s hard to know which side to root for in this weekend’s clash between No. 1 Dennis Franchione of Texas A&M at No. 2 Bill Callahan of Nebraska. That is, these coaches are ranked first and second by FootballRumorMill.com as most likely to be fired at the end of the season. Maybe it could be called the Buyout Bowl.
But Franchione and Callahan (and their assistant coaches) aren’t the only ones on the hot seat. After just seven games of his first year as coach, Louisville “fans” have posted fireKragthorpenow.com, dedicated to getting rid of Steve Kragthorpe, who replaced now-Atlanta Falcons coach Bobby Petrino.
Why blame Kragthorpe? Why not blame Petrino for taking another job?
Oh, yes, here’s another stat of interest: according to Ted Miller of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer,, 56 of the 120 Division I-A programs have changed coaches since the end of the 2004 college season!
>> College Coaching Carousel: While Nebraska fans are happy to have Tom Osborne back as interim athletic director, they’re likely to be equally happy with his likely choice to head up the football team next season.
Without any inside knowledge, we think the best candidate for Nebraska could very well be current Buffalo coach Turner Gill. He’s a former Nebraska quarterback, of course, was an assistant under Osborne and has done a terrific job with the Bulls, who have a 3-4 overall record, but are 3-1 in the Mid-American Conference’s Eastern Division. Gill took over a program that was 1-10, 2-9 and 1-10 in the three years prior to his arrival and suffered through a 2-10 season last year. Suddenly, this year, he has Buffalo in the chase for the Eastern Division title halfway through the season.
>> College Hoopla: Just in case you missed, former Washington State, then Oklahoma and now Indiana coach Kelvin Sampson just lost $500,000 in salary for making some phone calls.
To his bookie? A lady perhaps? Nope.
Some recruits!
Sampson came to Indiana with sanctions already having been levied against him for recruiting violations at Oklahoma. But he either forgot or ignored them in the process of having ten three-way phone conversations with an assistant coach and a recruit and his assistant coaches had another 35 or so calls with recruits which were barred his sanctions on Sampson from his Oklahoma days.
So Indiana punished itself – and hopes to escape further NCAA punishment – by saving $500,000 of Sampson salary for a year, tossing away one scholarship for a year and imposing its own restrictions on recruiting that go beyond the existing NCAA sanctions on Sampson and his staff.
The NCAA found that while at Oklahoma, Sampson “fostered an environment of deliberate noncompliance.” But Indiana was smart about this current mess. It found the violations during an internal audit; it reported the infractions to the NCAA right away and hired an outside investigator to find out the extent of the infractions. And it imposed some serious-looking penalties.
But the Hoosiers have nine underclassman on their 14-man roster and of the five seniors, only one (D.J. White) is a returning All-Big Ten selection and only three others played significant minutes last season. And the men’s basketball program grossed $10.3 million in the 2005-06 season. So why not give back a scholarship and impose some recruiting restrictions? Will it really hurt the Hoosiers in any way?
That’s what the NCAA has to look at.
>> Kicker: Even though England still has a shot to qualify for the 2008 European Championships, odds are now being posted on whether coach Steve McClaren will be fired. And the helpful (?) folks at the Sun are posting odds on possible replacements plus a list of three “McClamities.”
And you thought things were tough in College Station and Lincoln!
~ Rich Perelman
>> Have an opinion? You can send it using the “Comment” button below!
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