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Happy Friday everyone (well it's already Friday out in the East Coast at least). Ryan will have the preview of our baseball Super Regional against Cal State Fullerton later this morning (I doubt we are going to move past the Super Regional). In the meantime wanted to share few interesting articles that bubbled up to our attention in recent days that may be worthy of taking note.
I will start with what else, another national take on Eddie Vanderdoes' recent commitment (sort of pseudo transfer) to UCLA. This time Greg g Doyel of CBS chimed in who was not impressed with Brian Kelly for playing "hardball" with Eddie V:
Kelly left Cincinnati in December 2009. After Cincinnati had gone 12-0 in the regular season, but before the Bearcats played Florida in the Sugar Bowl. Cincinnati had a shot at perfection, at magic, but Kelly was gone. Why? Because he could. Because the system let him. Because Notre Dame was a better job and who cares if Cincinnati was in the middle of its season?
Brian Kelly didn't care.
Now Eddie Vanderdoes would like to play this season at UCLA. He told Notre Dame in June. That gives Kelly time to find another defensive lineman, if he feels he needs one for the 2013 season. Will that lineman be as good as Vanderdoes? Of course not. Vanderdoes is considered the best recruit at his position in the country.
Not the point. Point is, Kelly thought it was fine to leave Cincinnati between games, but he doesn't think it's fine for Eddie Vanderdoes to leave Notre Dame before he even reports to Notre Dame. So Vanderdoes can't play in 2013 for UCLA. And he loses the year of eligibility.
Kelly wins, but only because of a broken system that rewards craven men like himself, and punishes confused kids like Eddie Vanderdoes.
FWIW I am still conflicted about this. I agree that the system is not fair to these student athletes and it's especially hypocritical for coaches making millions of dollars who bail on their programs in moment's notice to take a position like this. But, I wonder what would Jim Mora would have done if someone like Priest Willis were to have made a similar move like Eddie V and wanted to enroll at a school like Ohio State in the last minute. Would Mora have let him out of the NLI in that situation? I don't know.
Few other interesting (primarily) football notes that are worth of tracking:
- Randy Spetman, the Athletic Director of Florida state is out. The reactions in the comment thread in the Tomahawk Nation (awesome SBN blog) are interesting. Looks like lot of fans were not impressed with the work he was doing in Tallahassee. Whatever it was Florida State decided not to sit around and take action. FSU becomes the third D-1 school this off-season following Rutgers and Colorado to let their AD go. Hmm ...
- Will Eric Kendricks lead Pac-12 in tackles in 2013? Ted Miller discusses the possibility on ESPN's Pac-12 blog. Kendricks is one of the big reasons Miller thinks UCLA has the third best defensive "three headed monster" in the league. Obviously Anthony Barr is a member of that troika? Who is the third? Find out here.
- On the other side according to Miller UCLA has the fourth best "three headed monster" on offense primarily due to perhaps having the best college QB in the West Coast.
Lastly, this week Steve Alford decided to join Twitterverse (looks like he ended up jinxing the Kings). Not everyone is impressed with Alford joining Twitter (emphasis mine because the first sentence is pretty damn cool):
UCLA is the Mozart of college basketball. Too bad the man leading their program has the character of Ozzy Osbourne.
I guess he wasn't impressed with the memo from Chianti Dan.
GO BRUINS