sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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- Aug 15, 2011
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Welcome to National Potato Day!
National Potato Day is August 19, so if you like spuds, this one’s for you! Never celebrated this tasty tot before? Good news, we have the lowdown on how to do things up right with facts and links to turn you from couch potato to party animal.
Potatoes have been a popular food for centuries so it’s about time we recognize this versatile and ap-peeling favorite. Mashed, smashed, chipped, or covered in cheese, potatoes can be eaten with just about every meal — or as a meal! — making these starchy veggies a delicious and easy way to get iron, potassium and vitamin c. The puns are just baked right in! Now just fry and stop us from telling you the whole scoop on what makes National Potato Day so …spudtacular.
SU News
Liberty’s testing was ‘deeply troubling.' UNC shows why players sat out practice (PS; $; Mink)
Syracuse players delayed the start of much-needed practice time earlier this month out of concern other schools won’t be as careful taking precautions against the novel coronavirus.
In response, Syracuse’s administration strengthened its in-season, Covid-19 testing protocol and said it would lobby its Atlantic Coast Conference colleagues to do the same, hoping to land at a uniform set of rules by the time the games start.
Two weeks later, the progress toward uniformity has been laid bare: There is none.
North Carolina, the school that on Monday announced all undergraduate classes would be moved online after spikes of Covid-19 cases when students returned, put the conference’s testing protocol under the microscope.
North Carolina football coach Mack Brown told reporters Tuesday that UNC will continue to test its players weekly, including once a week during the season. That’s all within the rules set by the ACC’s medical advisory group, but it falls short of meeting the concerns raised by the Syracuse players, who are worried opposing schools might be less diligent in keeping the virus under control.
Syracuse is scheduled to open the season Sept. 12 at North Carolina.
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Mack Brown: UNC football will continue to test once per week - ACCSports.com (accsports.com; Geisinger)
Amid the on-campus chaos, as the university pivots to fully online undergraduate class for the fall semester due to pockets of COVID-19 cases, the UNC football continues to press on.
During a Zoom call with the media on Tuesday, head coach Mack Brown remained steadfast in his belief that a 2020 football season will take place. (As any other rational human being could understand, Brown was unsurprised by the COVID-19 outbreaks on campus this week. It should also be noted that the university’s decision to bring students to campus during a pandemic will have consequence for the surrounding communities, too.)
Brown also stated that UNC football will continue to test once per week for the remainder of the 2020 football season.
Mack Brown now on Zoom with reporters says UNC will continue testing once a week through the remainder of football season. Currently on Mondays, but likely to shift to Wednesday/Thursday as the season approaches.
Most importantly: finally getting tests back in 24 hours.
— Brendan Marks (@BrendanRMarks) August 18, 2020
Brown has handled the last few months with patience and critical restraint; however, these testing standards get at one of the key issues facing the ACC. There’s a lack of congruency throughout the league.
Last week, Syracuse football players sat out of practice while athletic director John Wildhack called on other ACC programs to do as Syracuse has done: commit to testing football players at least twice a week. (Wildhack also expressed concern over Liberty University’s testing policies, or lack thereof, for its football. Syracuse and Liberty are still scheduled to play against one another Oct. 17, though.)
Testing athletes once per week also runs counter to what other Power Five leagues — ones that intend to play football this fall, too — have committed to doing.
NFL testing every day. Big 12 moving to three a week. SEC 2-3. https://t.co/eNDsrI8QkL
Images from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and rising case counts at North Carolina and at Notre Dame appear to show such concerns are valid as students return to campuses across the nation thi
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SU Top 100: #4 Floyd Little – Orange Fizz – Free Syracuse Recruiting News (Orangefizz.net; Aki)
We move inside the final four of our SU Top 100 list by honoring one of the many backfield greats in Orange history. Floyd Little’s presence at Syracuse stretches far beyond his play on the field, his number in the rafters or his name in the record books.
Little grew up in Connecticut and had numerous high level football offers coming out of high school. Notre Dame came calling. West Point tried recruiting him with General Douglas MacArthur. But it was a former Heisman winner out of Syracuse that ultimately convinced Little to turn Orange and etch his name in program history. Ernie Davis sold Little on becoming the next great SU running back. Since then, their lives have been forever intertwined. Although Davis died at the way too young age of 23 from Leukemia, Little often refers to Davis as the most influential person in his life.
When he arrived on campus, Little tried to emulate Davis’s game. A big part of that entailed donning the number 44. While matching Davis’s career seemed like an impossible feat, Little produced one that definitely would have made Ernie proud.
Little remains the lone 3-time first team All-American running back in Orange history, a feat that may never be topped. As a junior, he led the nation in all-purpose yards (1,990) and touchdowns (19). All of that led him to a fifth place finish in the Heisman Trophy race.
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Predicting Notre Dame Football's ACC slate (fightingirishwire.usatoday.com; Chen)
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December 5th vs. Syracuse
The regular season finale should be a final tune-up for a rematch with Clemson the following week, with the Orangemen not posing much of a threat to the Irish. Three of their wins last year came at the hands of FCS schools and this year they won’t have to extra padding on their schedule. Notre Dame handles Syracuse 45-14, finishing the regular season with a 9-1 record en route to a berth in the ACC Championship Game.
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ACC Panic Room: Transparency key to playing football decision (wralsports.com; video; Brownlow & Ovies)
Lauren Brownlow and Joe Ovies discuss how UNC's decision to go full remote learning might impact the ACC's decision making process to play football.
Who will FSU schedule to replace Samford? (tomahawknation.com; Marchant)
A few weeks ago the ACC released a revised 2020 schedule which included one non-conference opponent. For Florida State Seminoles football, that was set to be the Samford Bulldogs on September 19th.
But just a few days ago, the Southern Conference, to which Samford belongs, canceled their 2020 fall sports season.
There was initially some confusion about whether individual teams would still be allowed to play a non-conference game like the Southland Conference is doing, but it was eventually determined that Southern Conference teams could play non-conference but that Samford would not, leaving FSU with a hole in their schedule.
Given Florida State’s difficult ACC schedule and the likely desire to open the season with a game that would allow the players to work the kinks out for their first live action in a new scheme, it stands to reason that FSU would look to see if they can replace Samford with another FCS opponent.
Assuming FSU is looking at the same date of September 19th and not for one of their byes on October 3rd or 31st, who could be a the potential replacement?
All thirteen FCS conferences have canceled or postponed their seasons, but below are the ones that would allow non-conference games as of August 14th.
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Links, news and rumors - SEC edition - 8/19/20 (RX; HM)
Links, news and rumors - SEC edition - 8/19/20
From "College football schedule takeaways: SEC additions, the Notre Dame experiment and more" by ESPN...
The author also points out that, with more conference games and no/few easy non-conference wins...
He's probably right - teams which would've gone 6-6 (including 3 or 4 cupcake wins) will now likely go 4-6 or even 4-7.
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What's a Football Player Worth? (RX; HM)
What's a Football Player Worth?
Why would ACC schools be willing to spend so much money on COVID-19 testing for players?
From 2019 USA Today Financial Report:
| Virginia Tech | Revenues |
| YEAR | 2019 |
| TOTAL REVENUES | $96,772,489 |
| STUDENT FEES | $10,275,759 |
| SCHOOL FUNDS | $2,579 |
| w/o Student/School | $86,494,151 |
| 80% from football | $69,195,320 |
| per FB player (/85) | $814,062 |
| TV-only (no fans in stands): | |
| RIGHTS / LICENSING | $39,467,945 |
| 80% from football | $31,574,356 |
| per FB player (/85) | $371,463 |
| Possibly lost revenue: | |
| TICKET SALES | $20,543,204 |
| CONTRIBUTIONS | $18,897,304 |
| OTHER | $7,585,698 |
Where Each Football Conference Planning to Play Stands (SI; Forde & Dellenger)
With the SEC, Big 12, ACC, AAC, Sun Belt and Conference USA all still planning on a fall season, let's take the pulse of each league.
Call them what you want—the Stubborn Six, the Steadfast Six, the Patient Six—but they represent the last hopes of having a fall college football season.
Midway through August, six of the 10 FBS conferences plan to move forward with having a 2020 fall season: SEC, Big 12, ACC, AAC, Sun Belt and Conference USA. While four of their brethren sideline themselves, the six leagues aren't out of the woods yet. In fact, plenty of obstacles dot their paths, including one of the biggest tests of the pandemic: thousands of students returning to campuses across the country.
Most recently and ominously, North Carolina shut down in-person classes Monday after outbreaks during the first week of class. The UNC athletic department issued a statement saying it intends to continue with its sports teams for now.
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ACC
Membership situation: Everyone is proceeding with practice, but the wide variance in geography corresponds with a wide variance in outlooks. In the Northeast, Boston College and Syracuse are both are in states that have travel restrictions on the books.
How they got here: The ACC waited to gauge the commitment level of the Big 12 last week before making its own commitment to stay in the game alongside the SEC. With a majority of the Power 5 leagues still going forward, the ACC was comfortable with the strength in numbers. “I do believe you can sufficiently mitigate the risk of bringing COVID onto the football field or into the training room at a level that’s no different than living as a student on campus,” Dr. Cameron Wolfe of Duke, who chairs the ACC medical advisory team, told Sports Business Daily.
What’s in store for this week: There is a regular Wednesday presidents’ meeting, plus an array of league calls for athletic staffers. There are expected updates from each school on how the return of students to campus has been going. North Carolina’s situation in particular will likely be a topic of conversation.
Outlook on 2020 fall: This is the most fickle of the three Power 5 conferences still planning to play, so any further Carolina-level disruptions among the student body could be a challenge to the ACC’s willingness to keep going. For now, ACC kickoff is set for Sept. 10, with UAB visiting Miami. The ACC format calls for 10 league games and one non-conference opponent, and that game must be played within the home state of the ACC team. All non-conference opponents have been set except Clemson’s (which is expected to be The Citadel). Both Syracuse and North Carolina State have voiced testing concerns regarding non-league opponent Liberty. With Notre Dame playing a full ACC slate for the first time, the season takes on added luster.
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Other
How a cardiologist may have saved the college football season (PS; Tatty)
Michael Ackerman isn’t a college football fan.
The Mayo Clinic genetic cardiologist has been to two college football games in his life.
But if we have college football this fall, Dr. Ackerman will be one of the reasons why. His perspective on myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart, helped the Big 12 hold off on canceling its season, which would have set off a string of dominos that could have doomed college football last week. Without the Big 12, the ACC would have likely dropped out, and it would have been increasingly difficult for the SEC to move forward alone. The fate of the 2020 season hinged on the biggest wild card of the Power 5 conferences.
The Big 12 brought in Ackerman for its Tuesday call last week amid a Sports Illustrated report the conference was split on what to do. The Big Ten and Pac-12 had already announced their plans to cancel the fall football season, citing myocarditis as a primary factor in those decisions. Before the Tuesday call, Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby told the Dallas Morning News, “You’d be less than forthright if you didn’t acknowledge between the myocarditis and some of the other things that are new, it hasn’t raised the concern level.”
In two weeks, it went from a secondary issue to the topic that created considerable concern among Big 12 university leaders after multiple recent national stories detailed the risks involved. With the season hanging in the balance, myocarditis was poised to be the issue that pushed the Big 12 into the same fate as the Big Ten and Pac-12.
Enter Ackerman.
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