And a follow-up to last year's article about the drug and gang money betting on little-kid football in Florida...

Please stop me if you're shocked about this AT -- ALL...

In May of 2011, ESPN Outside the Lines reported upon (and I posted it here) a widespread practice of drug and gang overlords betting on youth football games in Florida.

Well, it appears as if at least some of this has come to the light of the authorities and the arrests have begun.

Six months of investigation led ESPN to the report referenced in the post linked above.

The authorities tacked another year's-worth on to that, and, yesterday, arrested nine coaches/associates in a massive gambling sting.

Let's understand this:  These "men" are well-versed with the gang-types in Florida, and often would pay players to join their teams so they could be involved in betting on the games in what the ESPN article yesterday called a "system of rampant, elaborate and high-dollar gambling on little league football."

Basically, not only was drug and gang money being funneled into this crap, but, on top of it, you basically now have had kids, in the state of Florida, who've been playing professional football since the age of what?  12?  10??  YOUNGER???

Six of the nine coaches have felony records of their own.  This should not be surprising, after a short investigation of the coaches involved with the attack on the Florida youth football referee...

BUT WHAT IN THE HELL ARE THESE GUYS DOING AROUND KIDS?

IN ANY CAPACITY??

Do we have NO upstanding citizens who are willing to be coaches here?

If not:  No leagues, no games.  Period.

The Fort Lauderdale Hurricane had five coaches/associates arrested.

You gotta get a look at what ESPN uncovered on these guys...  (.PDF file)

Brandon B Bivins:  The Head Coach and President of this team...

• Two aggravated assaults with weapons in two years (1994 and 1996)
• One guilty on carrying a concealed firearm (1996)
• Twice on possession of cocaine -- with intent to deliver in 1996, without in 1999.
• 2002, uttering a forged instrument.  (Probably a forged check)
• and Grand Theft TWICE, 1999 and 2002.

For the dear love of God, what is this guy doing on the outside at all?  Yeah, I know it has been ten years since the last one they found, but this guy should well since have been three-struck for 25-to-life if Florida had such a law, or aggravated well beyond maximum by the time of, oh, his EIGHTH major felony or so??

Apparently, Bivins, through a classic barbershop of this culture, was running a back-room gambling ring with everything from youth games to the NFL!!

Darren Jerome Brown:  At least he's had nothing felonious since 1992, but I still question why he didn't do about 15 or so in the can for these three felonies:

• Grand Theft in 1989.
• Dealing Stolen Property the next year
• Delivery of Cocaine two years after that!

Vincent Gernard Gray:  Again, nothing since 2002, but STILL...

• Grand Theft in 1991 AND 1995.
• Uttering an altered instrument in 1995.  (Probably another rubber check.)
• Habitual Traffic Offender in 2002.

Here's a real trip:  This next one is on probation for a 2010 battery on a police officer!  Brad Donte Parker:

• Grand Theft in 1997
• Habitual Traffic Offender in 2006.
• Possession of Marijuana with Intent to Distribute in 2007.
• Battery of and Denial of a Communications Device to a Law Enforcement Officer in 2010.

The fifth Hurricane, an "affiliate" named Brandon Marlon Lewis, has no felony record.

But you have four men, on the same team, involved in this shit and they ALL had Grand Theft felonies, two of them TWICE, and NO ONE is going to bat an eyelash that these "men" are trying to mold kids into being better football players and better men...

The other four charged:

Darren LaShawn Bostic, Coach of the Deerfield Packer Rattlers and Dave Constantine Small, Coach of the Lauderhill Lions:

• Neither has a previous felony record.

The other two coaches are from the Northwest Broward Raiders:

La Taurus Tarmayne Fort:   If I had to guess, "La Taurus" was probably added to his legal name either in the joint or in his gang ties...

• All four felonies are for drugs:  One for cocaine use (1998), two for cocaine trafficking (2000 and 2010), and one for possession of marijuana with intent to deliver (2003).

Again, how is this guy not doing 20 or so for the second trafficking offense?

Willie Tindal:  OK, not since 1994, but that's an Armed Robbery...

---

Will someone please tell me why the police, and the other authorities as well who took part in this investigation, aren't simply shutting these leagues and teams down?

PLEASE...  And I don't want to hear this shit about protecting the children, especially after a cursory investigation (which anyone can do -- those records are available publicly, and I accessed them on the coaches in the referee attack!), with THIS KIND of malarkey going on.

I mean, SERIOUSLY...

A detective source said that a rivalry game involving seven of the nine men charged (Hurricanes vs. Raiders) had $20,000 of action on it, and the latest word on league championship action?  $100,000 ...

Basically, all the ESPN attention from May, 2011 did was take the underground action down several floors.

The coaches are setting the damn lines in multiple leagues!  This almost certainly implies massive match-fixing across the board in Florida youth football.

And if they're doing this in youth football, just think what they might be doing when they are being illegally recruited to many Florida _high schools_!!

It's time to invoke the Gordon Ramsay Philosophy on all of this youth football in Florida bullshit:

SHUT IT DOWN!!!

Catching up: Score Update Week 7

Not too many fines in the Fine Blotter either for week 7, so I'll get that taken care of later.

2012 Week 7 average:  43.85 for the 13 games that week.

Other than last year, about the lowest in 5-6 years.

7 week 2012 average:  46.18

About a point and a quarter a game over anything since 2001.

And today's "No Shit Moment of the Week" for the NFL...

A Sports Illustrated poll of 180 NFL players has named Tim Tebow the most overrated player in the National Football League.

*waits for dramatic effect*

*waits a bit longer*

NO...

SHIT...

SHERLOCK!!!!

It wasn't close, and his starter is #2, Mark Sanchez.

Can we finally get it straight and admitted that there is a homophobic, religious effort on the part of the National Football League to get God in the minds of the National Religion?

This goes all the way back to the anti-gay-marriage stand of Tebow and being allowed to have a Super Bowl commercial when he was coming into the NFL from Florida, while the NFL denies a pro-gay-marriage ad on the grounds of being "too political"!

The NFL and it's players are two of the most homophobic groups out there.  If you don't think the NFL wants to give "God's Quarterback" a title, you're real funny.  They rigged a three-win-level Denver team last year to a division title on the basis of Tebow alone.

Damn right, he's the most overrated player in the game.

Damn right, the guy in front of him is probably #2.

And you don't get WHY Tebow gets all the attention -- it's a political ploy to forward an agenda by the NFL.

Couple of side NFL comments...

Haven't done too much commentary in a bit, but I guess there's a couple of things that make me scratch my head:

First, with a tip to Brian Tuohy, did you know that the NFL office is actually supposed to be a non-profit corporation?

Now Tuohy likens it to the gladiators of Rome, as in that the government is openly funding it as a distraction.

Here's the fun part:  If he's right, it explains things like the New England Patriots dynasty perfectly.  The Roman gladiators were used as political pawns in the great Roman sphere of politics.  Emperors or other parties attempting to gain political power would often hold The Games to not only distract the public, but to effectively buy their votes!

What's to say that my old theory of "If you are a Patriot, you TOO are a CHAMPION!!!" may not well have come from the government, as I've thought for a long time?

---

Second, I think I may have figured out Roger Goodell and what he's doing.

Instead of concentrating on one team or a very few teams, could Goodell be basically overdoing "Any Given Sunday", not only as a matter of screwing the betting public, but also to maximize the number of relevant teams come about Week 16?

Remember, THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS.

Explain, otherwise, last Sunday night's result.

One more week 6 note -- the scoring...

Didn't seem that way, but Week 6 got to an average of 48.71 for the week.

That's over a field goal higher than any Week 6 since 2001.

That pushes the average for the 6 weeks back over the top to a record (at least since 2001) 46.52.

(About a point higher than 2011 and 2002.)

Fine Blotter, Week 6

• Two teams were fined for violations of injury policies.  Buffalo was fined $20,000 for failing to report treatment on Mario Williams' wrist.  Washington was fined $20,000 for reporting Robert Griffin III's concussion to the media in a proper manner.

Why?  So the betting lines would change at halftime or something??

• Detroit Lions:  Nate Burleson, $10,000 for using gun-like motions in his touchdown celebration.
• Houston Texans:  Danieal Manning:  $15,000 for throwing a punch in the game against the Packers.
• Minnesota Vikings:  Harrison Smith:  $15,750 for a horse-collar on Robert Griffin III of the Redskins.
• Seattle Seahawks:  Jason Jones:  $15,750 for a helmet-to-helmet on Tom Brady of the Patriots.
• New York Jets:  Quinton Coples:  $10,000 for unnecessary roughness against Andrew Luck of the Colts.
• New York Jets:  Aaron Maybin:  $7,875, same penalty, same target.
• Detroit Lions:  Lawrence Jackson:  $15,750 for roughing the passer, Michael Vick of the Eagles.

You notice:  There were seven player fines this week.  Only TWO did not involve cheap shots on quarterbacks!

Today's Contender for Frivolous Lawsuit of the Year...

We take you to New Orleans.

A Saints fan has sued the NFL and Roger Goodell for at least $5,000,000 for the dictatorial nature of the Commissionership, especially vis-a-vis Bounty-gate.

Here's the best punchline of the entire article:

"David Mancina filed a class-action lawsuit against the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell citing a claim that he and other season-ticket holders had the expectation that the league would help the Saints field “a contending team comprised of the finest athletes, and the best coaches.”"

When you're done laughing, I'll continue.

So he believes that the league has the expectation of the fans that they would help the team be competitive...

There's several problems with this:

• The most obvious one is Mayer v. Belichick, Patriots, and National Football League.  We already have effectively established legal precedent that says the fans have no guarantee to ANYTHING in a sporting contest but a seat to watch it.  Mancina could easily rail against the league, call for boycotts, etc. and so forth and so on.  But he has no right to a fair contest, or anything else, by the virtue of being a season ticket holder -- except the seat he is sitting in.
• There's the obvious one here:  If his legal contention is the case, expect another lawsuit in Cleveland/Buffalo/Tampa/Seahag/St. Louis any day now!
• And then there's the final one that only a conspiracy theorist like myself would come up with:  Isn't this effectively exposing the business here?  Aren't you basically implying, Mr. Mancina, that the league pre-determines all this, since it is the expectation of the fans that THE LEAGUE has anything to do with all this?

Really???

Really...

Good grief...

I have to play fair every once in a while...

Can't let this go without a pat on the back:

October 5, Dateline, Ohio.

St. Claresville of Ohio was about to put the finishing touches on a victory over rival Columbus Edison -- and it was going to be a highly-touted recruit running-back, Michael Ferns (committed to Michigan before the season started), who was going to do it.

In the clear, 20...  15...  10...  5....

Then he slowed, turned to the sideline, and walked out of bounds a yard out.  The refs were confused and had to be told by the team what was going on.  Two refs thought he'd scored anyway!

Now, most everybody who reads this blog probably thinks I'm going to blast the kid for taunting or somesuch.

Usually, you'd be right, but, as Paul Harvey used to say, The Rest of the Story...

A freshman reserve, Logan Thompson, lost his father in a sudden stroke two days before.

He suited up anyway, but never was expected to play...

Except that his coach had instructed his team to do exactly, should the situation come up, what Ferns did, so that Thompson could score on the next play.  He did -- the resulting reaction is in the picture accompanying the Prep Rally post on Yahoo!  St. Claresville won 56-27.

I can understand anyone who is skeptical, in today's culture of football, of that kind of a move.

However, I do have to play fair and salute a player putting over another player and his team -- and probably impressing the coaches at Michigan, because, IMODO, that probably shows he's coachable and not just looking out for himself.

Today's Insanity, Part Three: Said Quite Literally: Fuck off and die, Jerry Sandusky.

This isn't going to be for the kids, nor the faint of heart.

I don't think I need to rehash my anger at the whole Penn State fiasco, nor what I believe should happen to the parties involved, nor the parties whom I believe prevented the latter.

But the last couple of days have left me with two indelible images that lead me, in paraphrasing a wise man, to only one conclusion:

I want Jerry Sandusky motherfucking dead.

And the only reason I won't get a knock at the door from the police is that I truly believe a lot of other people want the same thing -- and quickly.

One:  The sentence itself was a joke, and an indication of the status (perhaps beyond simple celebrity, and almost to political demi-god) that his place in Penn State football, the culture of football in general, and the celebrity culture in this country have granted this pedophilic shithead.

Great example I was handed:  The mother in Texas who super-glued her child's hands to the wall and beat the shit out of the child got 99 years.

Sandusky gets 30-60 for child rape, pedophilia, and probably pimping the kids out.

All in the name of celebrity.


Granted through his status in political power.

The fact is that, with enough power, you can get away with ANYTHING.  In fact, your position of social power in this country (and that of any potential victim) determines which (if any!) laws you must abide by.

It is more acceptable, in our political eyes, that this pedophile raped kids, covered it up, and probably pimped kids to some very powerful people in Pennsylvania than for what that mother in Texas did to her own child (reprehensible though that is).

And then we get to the statements Sandusky has made.

This reprehensible piece of shit, in what I have been told (and can believe), actually believes it is normal to pin little boys to the wall, pull down their pants, and suck their dicks.

And then, when held to account, he goes off and questions motives, states about good times, slams the victims, and all that shit.

May he die.

May he die quickly.

May true justice be served from a population that does not take kindly to fucking (up) children.  Trust me.  I know.  I've been in the joint, and I've seen what can happen to these people.  There was a guy, just about when I got released from Rikers' Island, who was accused of raping not only an elderly woman, but a kid.

The guy would openly get punched, with no provocation and with no remorse -- and this was why there was still presumption of innocence.  He hadn't been convicted of anything yet.

Only THEN may we gain closure.

Post-script to Mark Emmert:  Culture of football really being de-emphasized over there, isn't it, big man?

Scoring Update and Fine Blotter, Week 5

After a 2011 Week 5 that averaged 50 points a game, the offenses took the week off this year!

2012 Week 5 average:  40.36

Lowest in almost exactly a calendar year (most recent lower was Week 6 of last year).

5 Week 2012 average:  46.12

Now second to last year's 46.31.

Now to the fines:

• New York Jets:  Matt Slauson:  $10,000 for an illegal block on Houston's Brian Cushing.  Cushing's season is over due to this illegality!
• Tennessee Titans:  Michael Griffin:  $21,000 for unnecessary roughness against Minnesota's Michael Jenkins.
• Green Bay Packers:  Nick Perry:  $15,000 for a quite brutal cheapie on Indianapolis' Andrew Luck.  (Sounds like he got off easy!)
• Seattle Seahags:  Chris Clemons:  $15,750 for roughing Carolina's Cam Newton.
• Arizona Cardinals:  Larry Fitzgerald:  $7,875 for offensive face-masking Janoris Jenkins of the Rams.
• St. Louis Rams:  Jermelle Cujo:  $7,875 for roughing the passer on Arizona's Kevin Colb.
• St. Louis Rams get another one for a cheapie on Colb:  Robert Quinn:  $15,750 for helmet-to-helmet on the QB. This makes Quinn a TWO-TIME LOSER.
• San Diego Chargers:  Melvin Ingram:  $15,750 for roughing the passer on New Orleans' Drew Brees.
• Indianapolis Colts:  Corey Redding:  $7,875 for unnecessary head contact to Green Bay's Cedric Benson.

Looks like only 9 players,  $116,875 is the total.

I have seen many ridiculous things in my day...

This is another example of the culture of football running fucking amok.

We now have a coach in Utah, a 45 year-old "man" who decided that it was so important for the team he was coaching to win that he charges a 13 year-old opponent, hits him with a forearm, knocks him out, and gives him a concussion and injures him for at least a month of down-time.

The link on Yahoo! Sports even has video of the incident.

When I was a statistician at my old high school, I had a collision like that.

You don't stick your forearm under the kid's chin, idiot.

In the immortal words of that former football coach at Oklahoma State:  "Why don't you come after me?  I'm a man!  I'm 40!!"

(Well, 43, but...)

You just have to be so into the bloodthirsty bullshit in football that you have to knock out and concuss a 13-year-old KID.

(Hat-tip to an anonymous friend who pointed out this latest insane bullshit to me.)

Today's Insanity, Part Two: Non-Sports Rig-Jobs -- one near-certain one, and one I wouldn't put past...

From time to time, I use this blog to expose various and sundry situations outside the world of sports.

I do this in recognition of that, whether it be sports, television, or other organized competitive events being manipulated (in reality, or the least of plausibility), it all comes from the same place.  The events, to the public, are considered entertainment in which money can be made from the corporate end of things.

Keep this in mind as I examine two events from last weekend -- one from across the pond, and one from the Internet.

First, The X-Factor in the United Kingdom.

We have our Controversial Contestant for this season, and, right off the bat in Week One, Rylan Clark, a 23-year old model, ramped the controversy to 11 with a rave-anthem version of Spandau Ballet's "Gold" in which what you could hear from him wasn't singing and it wasn't clear how much you could hear from him at all!

It was so bad that it almost appeared as if judge Gary Barlow was saying that he would quit the show, with what he did say was that he was having enough fun to justify returning after a tough season last year -- until Rylan started singing.

Rylan, predictably, was one of the bottom two contestants in the first week.

I need to put a number of bullet points out before you see how bad of a debacle this became:

• Each judge has three of the final-phase 12 acts to mentor.  Rylan's judge/mentor is recently-fired-former-US-judge Nicole Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls.  People in the US version from last year openly saw Scherzinger going into business for herself so badly that it was clear, by the end, she would not be asked back.
• This is not the first Controversial/Joke Contestant -- the last three years, Louis Walsh (another of the UK judges) had mentored Jedward (a pair of poor singers with enough personality to actually make something of themselves post X-Factor!), Wagner (an older male who just came off as awfully creepy, the longer the show went), and Johnny Robinson (a performing drag queen who could actually sing, but was more content to be funny and flamed out after some of his dirty laundry began making the tabloids).
• In a normal week, elimination goes as follows:  All acts except the bottom two are safe and declared to return next week.  The bottom two acts sing in a Showdown round.  The judges (including the mentor(s) of the two contestants) then can vote to eliminate one act -- as long as at least three of the four agree to do so.  Should a majority fail to do so, the judges are declared in Dead Lock and the public vote is revealed as to which was the lowest vote-getter, eliminating that act.
• Rylan's opponent in the Showdown was Carolynne Poole, a 32 year-old leader of the Carolynne Good Band, who appeared on a previous UK reality show (Fame Academy, placing third).  (One of the reasons all the similar shows are suffering fatigue is that it appears

But that's not all that was on the table last Saturday and Sunday night.

• Clark is gay and very out about it -- and has been the subject of both boycotts and threats for it.
• The public phone lines to vote were actually opened before the start of the show, not (as in past seasons) after all the performances had been shown.
• The main controversy, and the newest of many charges that the show is, in fact, rigged and manipulated, came from the Clark/Poole Showdown round.  A number of different entities reported effectively immediately that, while the two performers sang their songs, the main executive of the UK series was speaking with Louis Walsh.

When the judges were called upon to vote, this was the result.  You can tell by the YouTube likes and dislikes how it was received.

After being prompted 11 times to make his decision by host Dermot O'Leary, Walsh, as the last voter, appeared to vote to send Clark home, eliminating him three votes to one.

However, in a sudden 180, he yells to send the vote to Dead Lock (granting Poole the second vote to force a 2-2 draw), where Poole is eliminated by the public vote.

This prompted Poole's mentor, the same Gary Barlow, to storm off the stage in (at least staged) disgust!

Entertainment, just as the NFL...

Disgraced ex-contestant Johnny Cocozza (who, last year, became the first person ever disqualified out of the final phase for drug use and reference):

 "the X Factor just showed the whole country how set up it is, Not that we didn't know that anyway. The producers fucked it"

---

And then we get to the world of video games, and one where I'm not 100% sure exactly WHAT happened.

Tonight, as I type this, is the semifinals (and the remaining game of the quarterfinals) of the League of Legends $2,000,000 Season 2 World Championships.

The bad news was that these games were to be held last Saturday.

What made this happen is largely called the apocalypse of League of Legends.

Why?

There were two major problems.

First was the staging of the live set, where numerous pictures of the event showed conclusively that, had any player in the team booth chosen to do so, he could turn his head and see the other team's minimap, finding out the positions of all the other players, and acting accordingly.

(Yes, there were rules against it, but numerous online parties believed to have evidence that at least half (and probably more!) of the 12 teams in the Championship were taking advantage of this -- a clear disqualification offense...  if Riot (the game's maker, the company putting up the money, and the administrators of the tournament) chose to do so.)

That was bad.  What happened to stop play last Saturday was even worse!

The match in the quarterfinals which had to be rescheduled to finish tonight had to be suspended because the Internet was not able to stay up at LA Live to allow the contest to complete.

First problem:  Riot chose to put the game itself on the Internet, not (as is usual practice in e-sports) on a Local Area Network.

Second problem:  They were never really clear as to what the cause was, leading people to speculate a Distributed Denial of Service attack on the tournament!

And this is where (even as Riot now claims it was a "hardware problem") I begin to wonder openly, given some of the parameters of what was going on, and what we already know does go on in e-sports...

It appeared as if the interruptions, if they were of a nefarious kind (rather than a failure), could've been any of the following:

• Disgruntled contestant, railing against the peeking allegations.
• Disgruntled sponsor of an eliminated team, ditto.
• A sponsor of the losing team in the games/matches which were going on.
• Or, worse, since we know that e-sports matches are being bet upon (AND FIXED!) in various parts of the world, that a large-scale bettor learned of the vulnerabilities Riot put in when they left the tournament on the Internet and chose to tamper the result...
• Or it could've been Riot themselves!  They were certainly getting enough viewership of the tournament (Riot claimed that, at one point over the weekend, their LoL World Championship streams were taking up 5% of the entire bandwidth capacity in North America!) that they could've pulled an NFL and decided to orchestrate this (they certainly came across as inept or as incompetent as the NFL replacement refs did!) to get an extra night out of this...

But am I suspicious?  You betcha.

Do I know if something went down?  No.

Today's insanity, Part One: What should be consummate and final proof the Corporate Sports Machine works together to rig games...

Oh, yesterday was not a good one...

I'll get to the worst of it in about two posts.  But this to just whet the appetite -- a double-header from Brian Tuohy and his sources on his "News of Note" page:

First, Doug Gottleib, effectively admitting Tim Tebow is the new center of media attention in the NFL, and ESPN has made it part of it's Bible.  "You can't talk enough Tebow", was a response to a comment on the current state of the NFL and ESPN on the Dan Patrick Show recently.

If you think that ESPN doesn't have it's tentacles into determining the outcomes of professional games, with this kind of media manipulation running around, I don't know what to tell you.

But leave it to (CORRECTION -- hat tip to anonymous friend again!) Showtime's "Inside the NFL" to just completely blow the doors off of the situation.

On a recent edition, the show had on two former replacement NFL referees, and they had some rather...  interesting...  insights.

They had the referee from the Kickoff opener and the Seattle/Green Bay debacle on the show.

First off, they were instructed not to call pass interference on Hail Mary plays.

Now, think this through for a second:  Look at what's been happening in the national games this year -- most of them, and many of them being far beyond reason, have been close games.

And you, as the National Football League, are telling the referees NOT to throw flags for pass interference, even when it's as blatant as the Seattle/Green Bay disaster?

And you, as the National Religion, are basically telling the refs when to throw flags and when not to??

And you honestly believe it's conspiracy theory when people say your games are freaking rigged?

When you join the officials, the league, and the media in the same machine, you're going to have this ridiculousness.

So why expose it on Showtime and really get people talking?

Wow, I didn't know the infield went THAT FAR OUT into the grass...

The National League wild-card game was rigged, and the team $elig wanted to win, won.

Period.

What I saw in the eighth inning should've gotten the game forfeited for the 18-minute shit-fit which ensued.

That said, it was still a clear denial of reality.

It was a pop fly, but it was a good 50 feet into left field, and the call of Infield Fly was made by the Left Field Umpire only AFTER the ball had dropped between the shortstop and the left fielder.

At that point, that should've told you all you needed to know about last night's game.

Good job, Bud $elig -- you fucked up this year's playoffs already!

It is time to end the farce of "college" football -- no one is fooled.

There are occasions when a story comes out that is so obvious that it just boggles the mind that a person could be so idiotic as to not see it for what it is.

Ohio State third-string quarterback Cardale Jones provided us another of those moments.

In one tweet, he exposed the truth about big-time college football, the business it is, and the truth about what college football really is:

“Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL, we ain’t come to play SCHOOL classes are POINTLESS”

If that isn't the attitude, diction, grammar level, and mentality of a "man" who has been passed through everything in his life (including, almost certainly, his high-school cheerleading squad), I don't know what is.

Scariest thing:  He's RIGHT.  There's no way he passes college -- there's no way, even as corrupt as THE Ohio State University has become in college football, that he's going to last four (or more!) years at that institution with that attitude and not either get himself tossed for grades (even with the inevitable "help" he will receive to try to keep him eligible, legal and otherwise!) or for misconduct...

But the fact is that he is not there as a student.

We are not fooled.

He is only there to graduate magna cum laude with a degree in NFL Quarterback.

From there, he's one contract (he thinks!) from being set for life.

It's long past time, especially in the age of the corrupt BCS (and it's corrupt successor) and the owners of college football -- ESPN, to accept that this is not "college" football.

His attitude should get him smacked up side the head at the next practice, but I defy you to find five players at tOSU who really are there to get an education.

They want to play on Sunday...

Is it no wonder that this is the same school which got busted for selling likenesses for tattoos, etc.?

Scoring update and Fine and Suspension Blotter, Week 4

Scoring through four weeks:

Week 4 average:  46.6

4 week total average:  47.40, almost 2 points ahead of last year's record pace

---

And now to the Blotter:

First, one that makes me wonder why they don't just throw some of these idiots out of the league:

• Denver Broncos:  D.J. Williams was already suspended six weeks for violation of the league's drug policy by evasion of the drug test.  He has now added a DUI to his arsenal, to which the league has now tacked three more games onto his penalty.

Someone PLEASE explain to me how this guy is playing at all, especially this season!

He got a six-game suspension for, when he was called upon to submit a urine test under the drug policy, submitted a non-human sample.  Meaning that he not only evaded the test, but willingly evaded the test in a pre-meditated manner!

And NOW he gets three more games for an August DUI conviction!

I said it before, I'll say it again:  The players have no regard for their own safety nor conduct.  Period.  This crap has to stop.

Now to the normal Blotter with the normal sources (footballsfuture.com NFL News forum):

• Minnesota Vikings:  Chad Greenway, $21,000 for an unnecessary roughness penalty against the Lions.  Given the clip, sounds like the penalty was a shade harsh.
• Buffalo Bills:  Kyle Williams, $15,000 for a low hit on Tom Brady
• Green Bay Packers:  B.J. Raji, $7,875 for a personal foul against the Saints.
• Tennessee Titans:  David Stewart, $7,875 for unnecessary roughness vs. the Texans.  His play sparked complaints by the Texans.
• Arizona Cardinals:  Jay Feely, $7,875 for a late hit against the Dolphins.  Let that one process -- THE KICKER gets fined a late cheapie!!!
• New England Patriots:  Brandon Spikes, $21,000 for unnecessary roughness on Buffalo's Scott Chandler.
• Carolina Panthers:  Charles Johnson, $7,875 for a face mask on Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan.
• New Orleans Saints:  Malcolm Jenkins, same fine and penalty on Green Bay's Randall Cobb.

Sounds like the players were good in the return of the regular refs.  No multiple-offenders this week.  Only 8 fined this week.  $95,375 for the week,  $864,000 (at least) for the season.

Nights like tonight are one main reason that the real BS in sports means I can't enjoy it anymore...

3rd inning, scoreless game, mysterious timeout called right on the pitch.  No apparent idea as to who called it:  Pitcher pitched, batter swung for an apparent strike three, catcher caught.  No motion to call time was seen in the replay.  So who called time?

Next pitch?  Out of the park, 2-0 Atlanta.

Within an inning or two, it's 3-2 Cardinals, Braves up.  Batter swings, grounder to the left side, ball starts getting booted all over the stadium for at least one, if not more, runs.

Batter called out for interference -- well inside the grass.

THEN, 8th inning, 6-3 St. Louis, fly ball to the shallow outfield falls for a hit, ruled Infield Fly, all Hell breaks loose in the stadium, and the Braves go down without further fight.

Protest immediately lodged and denied.

----

Can I say for sure something was up?  No.

But the thing is that so much bullshit goes on in corporate sports, how can one tell otherwise?

This is why I rail on and on about it.

I mean, one cannot enjoy this when everything that goes on like this must then ask the question as to whether $elig has an agenda to determine who wins...