sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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Welcome to American Circus Day!
American Circus Day takes place on the anniversary of the first circus performance in America, which occurred on today's date in Philadelphia in 1793. The modern circus had been created just decades before, by Philip Astley in England. He had opened a horse riding school in London in 1768, where he taught during the day and performed riding tricks in the afternoon. His building had a circular arena called a circus, which was later known as a ring. Equestrian feats were the focus of early circuses, but in 1770, Astley added acrobats, jugglers, rope-dancers, and clowns to his show, to perform between the main horse-related acts.
British equestrian John Bill Ricketts came to America and debuted the circus in Philadelphia on April 3, 1793. The circus was held in a roofless arena that had 800 seats. George Washington attended one of its early performances, later that month.
SU News
Syracuse football great Tim Green publishes children's book with Derek Jeter (DO; Lehner)
Shortstops and linebackers don’t usually work together. One has a knack for fielding ground balls; the other likes to shed blocks and force fumbles.
When the objective is authoring a children’s book, though, common ground can be found.
Former first-round NFL draft pick and Syracuse University alumnus Tim Green recently proved just that, releasing the second installment of his collaborative book series with New York Yankees legend Derek Jeter in March. The collaboration has proved beneficial and enlightening for both former sports stars.
“Double Play: Baseball Genius 2” follows Jalen DeLuca, a young boy with the ability to predict a pitcher’s throw before he even winds up. In the first book, released in March 2017, DeLuca used his talent to help save the career of aging New York Yankee JY Yager. In “Double Play,” both characters are shunned by their respective teams and must prove that they possess the baseball gravitas necessary to stand out among their peers.
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Syracuse Uplifting Athletes Orange Circle Award
Syracuse's chapter of Uplifting Athletes, led by football's Zack Mahoney, and former Orange football student-athlete Rob Long received Syracuse University's Orange Circle Award for service.
FSU Football: Top 4 ACC football realignment options that make sense (chopchat.com; Parker)
Option 1
East Division: Boston College, Duke, Miami, North Carolina, N.C. State, Syracuse, Virginia
West Division: Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest
The Seminoles would get rid of long trips to Boston and Syracuse that happens once a year and get a chance to go back to playing in Atlanta on a consistent basis, so this would be one of the better options for the penny pinchers in the conference as long as you don’t count Miami’s trips to the northeast that would replace what the Noles have been doing for the last five seasons.
On the other side, you are keeping the best teams in the current Atlantic Division – including FSU football, and making it even tougher by getting a Virginia Tech team over for yearly meetings. At this point, you would just be giving the Miami / N.C. State winner a ticket to Charlotte ever season while the new version of the Atlantic would become even more of a slaughterfest.
Option No. 2
North Division: Boston College, Duke, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech
South Division: Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Miami, North Carolina, N.C. State, Wake Forest
If you are one of those who is all about saving a few bucks, this is going to be the winner as the Seminoles would never have to travel north of the state of North Carolina more than once in a given season depending on who there are playing in the cross divisional setup – this would be the divisional set up that most of the other power conferences use to keep the teams close together.
It would also be one of the most balanced options as both Clemson and FSU football get rid of playing Louisville and don’t have to worry about Virginia Tech on a yearly basis. It would also remove the ‘Canes as a cross divisional rival and allow the Noles to see more of the current Coastal Division teams more often.
Cross Division Games: Boston College vs. Georgia Tech, Duke vs. Wake Forest, Louisville vs. Clemson, Pittsburgh vs. N.C. State, Syracuse vs. Florida State, Virginia vs. North Carolina, Virginia Tech vs. Miami
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2018 ACC spring football games schedule: Dates, game times, TV channel, how to watch online (diehards.com; Holcomb)
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2018 ACC spring football game dates, times, TV channels
All spring practice game times, dates and TV channels are subject to change.
Team Spring Game Date Time (ET) TV Channel
Boston College April 14 11:30 a.m. ACCNExtra
Clemson April 14 2:30 p.m. ESPN
Duke April 14 1 p.m. ACCNExtra
Florida State April 14 6 p.m. ACCNExtra
Georgia Tech April 20 7 p.m. TBA
Louisville April 14 1 p.m. TBA
Miami April 14 6 p.m. TBA
N.C. State April 7 1 p.m. ACCNExtra
North Carolina April 14 TBA TBA
Pitt April 14 1 p.m. TBA
Syracuse April 13 7 p.m. ACCNExtra
Virginia April 28 TBA TBA
Virginia Tech April 14 3 p.m. TBA
Wake Forest April 7 3 p.m. TBA
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What a football officiating alliance means to the ACC - ACCSports.com (accsports.com; Powell)
The ACC made a little bit of officiating news in March, as the league announced a new alliance with the American Athletic Conference (AAC). The stated goal of the officiating alliance is to create a deeper pool of officials at the disposal of both leagues, while also promoting more efficiency and consistency in training and evaluation.
The idea is that refs in both the ACC and the AAC will have more eyeballs of fellow trained professional officials evaluating their work. They will get more advice, more criticism. More ideas on how to improve the quality of their officiating.
They will get more feedback on things like positioning. How to make sure you’re in the right place at the right time as an official. And precise explanations on the ever-evolving rule changes that come with each new season. These rule changes are a subtle but annual rite of passage each summer for college football officials to thoroughly learn and understand.
Deeper pool of referees
One of the big theoretical benefits of this alliance is that both the ACC and AAC will be better covered for its expansive roster of games. College games are being played these days on Friday nights and even occasional Monday nights, such as Labor Day, along with the traditional Saturday and Thursday contests. With a deep bench of AAC officials available, the concept is that the ACC won’t be spread quite as thin as they may have been in the past. They will also be better prepared for games that wind up getting rescheduled for natural disasters like hurricanes, which affected multiple ACC teams last fall.
Another potential advantage of this new alliance is the concept of variety and diversity.
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ACC Football Rx: Links, news and rumors - 3/30/18 (accfootballrx.com; Hokie Mark)
Michigan cancels 2020, 2021 games with Virginia Tech
The Wolverines will pay a $375,000 cancellation fee to Virginia Tech for the games. The series was announced in May 2013, and the games would have marked the first regular-season meetings between the schools... Michigan is replacing the 2021 Virginia Tech game with Arkansas StateTotally understandable - I'd be afraid to play the Hokies too if I were in Ann Arbor. After all, they can't count on another bad call to save them again...
From the Hokies point of view, this is not going to be a problem. They still have Penn State coming to Blacksburg in 2020, and 2021 is now more manageable with "just" two P5 games remaining (at WVU and hosting Notre Dame). I would think the 2020 opening in particular might be a good opportunity for a neutral site game, whereas 2021 sounds like a G5 home game to me...
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ACC Football Rx: Phil Steele's 2018 SoS (accfootballrx.com; Hokie Mark)
Which ACC teams have the toughest (and easiest) schedules for the 2018 season? Phil Steele ranked them in terms of their opponents' 2017 win% - and he added the number of opponents who were ranked or played in a bowl game, too...
Rank / Team Name Opp Win% Top 25 Bowl
1. Florida State 63.40% 5 10
7. Pittsburgh (Pitt) 60.00% 5 8
9. Georgia Tech 59.70% 5 8
17. NC State 58.30% 1 10
18. Boston College 58.20% 4 9
26. Duke 57.30% 4 7
38. Virginia 55.80% 3 6
39. N. Carolina 55.70% 4 6
45. Notre Dame 55.20% 4 8
49. Louisville 54.90% 3 9
52. Syracuse 54.30% 3 7
61. Clemson 53.30% 1 9
65. Miami (FL) 53.00% 2 8
65. Wake Forest 53.00% 3 7
103. Virginia Tech 47.30% 2 6
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ACC Football Rx: Atlanta - Capital of CFB? (accfootballrx.com; Hokie Mark)
From ESPN: Peach Bowl makes $8 million investment in Hall of Fame
Peach Bowl president Gary Stokan still sees the College Football Hall of Fame as the key to Atlanta's goal of becoming the "capital of college football"...
The Peach Bowl on Thursday extended its partnership with the Hall of Fame for 10 years with the new investment. The $8 million follows the bowl's original $5 million commitment when the hall opened in 2014.
The Hall of Fame, which moved from South Bend, Indiana, is located in downtown Atlanta, adjacent to the Georgia World Congress Center and near Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Philips Arena, Centennial Olympic Park and other tourist attractions.
The Hall of Fame will host the annual college football awards show on ESPN for the fourth consecutive year after the 2018 season and will be home to the Southeastern Conference football media days for the first time this summer.
"We believed things would start to come to Atlanta around college football because we built this facility," Stokan said. "The vision has come to reality."
Atlanta hosted two college football kickoff games, the SEC championship game, the Peach Bowl and the national championship game last season.
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Other
A list of nightmares that will come true if you eat in class (DO; Mann)
When people talk about how hard their classes are, we assume that they’re talking about the class’s content. But classwork is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to a course’s difficulty.
The truth is that students experience a load of awkward tension within classrooms. Or, at least I do. You see, for some odd reason, whenever I’m in class, I get really hungry, thirsty and need to cough and pee at the same time. Why this happens, I don’t know. I think it might have to do with PowerPoint though.
Mainly, I just hate eating in class, and for several reasons. In order to explain said reasons, I could just list them out, but that would be boring. We don’t want that! Instead, I will go through each reason as its own nightmare.
If you get scared easily, please make sure you are aware of the nearest exits of the room you’re in, and station yourself next to someone who knows CPR. This could get really spooky.
Nightmare 1: The Deafening
It’s a Tuesday afternoon. You have class in about 15 minutes and are feeling pretty hungry, so you stop and grab a bag of chips out of the nearest vending machine.
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