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Gyno
Guest
Lets discuss week 8 games..
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Gyno
Guest
I have a rule
"never bet against Oregon @ Autzen"
I might have too this week when Wash St comes to town.. 38 points is too much, Oregon is fresh off a huge win over Wash and Wash St is not a bad team. Oregon beat Cal by 39 and Wash St is definitely better than Cal. Thoughts?
I wish I would of taken Mich St @ -24.5
Purdue might not score, what will TT be?
"never bet against Oregon @ Autzen"
I might have too this week when Wash St comes to town.. 38 points is too much, Oregon is fresh off a huge win over Wash and Wash St is not a bad team. Oregon beat Cal by 39 and Wash St is definitely better than Cal. Thoughts?
I wish I would of taken Mich St @ -24.5
Purdue might not score, what will TT be?
GWarner27
Meatballin' in Celtics Stadium
I am looking to make my debut and currently eyeing Stanford off the loss and Arizona state. Anyone care to share some thoughts? Asu seems short to a scary degree and Stanford is exactly where I wanted them: less than a td but not too low like -3 or -3.5
price has never been that scary to me and Sark scares me most as a big dog winning SU not taking a coinflip. Never really thought ucla was that good and don't like Mora very much plus the Tree is one of my favorite teams to potentially back thanks to that punch you in the mouth style where backdoor covers aren't really an option thanks to run-run-run clock-eating 8-minute drives
thank you kindly
price has never been that scary to me and Sark scares me most as a big dog winning SU not taking a coinflip. Never really thought ucla was that good and don't like Mora very much plus the Tree is one of my favorite teams to potentially back thanks to that punch you in the mouth style where backdoor covers aren't really an option thanks to run-run-run clock-eating 8-minute drives
thank you kindly
Elbutre88
Pretty much a regular
i'm on UCLA, and i'll try and explain why.
stanford is damn good at playing a pro-style offense. i argue that runnin the ball effectively is more important to the offensive gameplan of a team like stanford than, say, a team runnin a variation of the spread. If UCLA has to, they can throw the ball. If this stanford defense loads the box, i'm willing to bet that hundley has grown up from last year and the int's don't come so quick. Also, UCLA's front 7 is legit. They're allowing 138 yards/game on the ground; (stanford only giving up 123.3) and If stanford can't get the run-game going, then that means 3rd and long. Kevin Hogan vs those creepy, freaky athletes on the defensive side of the ball that can fly to the qb?
whoever the dog is in this game, i was likely to bet on it if it was more than 3...and it was.
Henry Anderson is out for stan
Jordan Williamson, the kicker is questionable.
Guess my bet is it's gonna be harder this year for stanford to have those 8 min drives if their running game can't get going. GL Gdub.
RetroVK
This claim is disputed
Just curious .. why the hate on Mora?
Johnnyonthespot
CTG Regular
Anybody know what Pitt v. Old dom open at? I wanna play the dog. I see 19.5 now.
cxbbum
Kickball Investor
sportjunky
Follower of tha truddhist philosophy
free column from front page of stanford scout bootleg:
(this is an excerpt from that column)
A Decimated Defensive Line
Stanford's defensive success last season was rooted in dominance on the defensive front. When Henry Anderson routinely relocated the line of scrimmage in Eugene, a host of potential difficulties in defending the Ducks were rendered moot. But injuries have had a specific focus here in 2013, and it's fallen almost exclusively on the defensive line. The Farm Boys are now scrambling to replace Anderson (knee), a task which would be more manageable if David Parry were healthy.Instead, the nose tackle is playing through a lower abdominal issue while his back-up Ikenna Nwafor (leg) is shelved for several weeks. Meanwhile, defensive end Ben Gardner is battling through intense pain in his arm.
"It hurts like a son of gun," Shaw said.
Anderson, who was originally expected to miss 4-6 weeks, may miss slightly more time now: Shaw predicted Tuesday that he'll be back for either the Oregon game on November 7 or the USC contest November 16. The six-foot-six, 295-pound terror is expected to begin running and conditioning again this week.
Meanwhile, it appears that both Parry and Gardner will play through lingering issues for the indefinite future. Gardner undergoes frequent treatment for his arm injury, while the Cardinal is holding Parry out of practice until Wednesday for his body to at least partially recuperate. These nagging issues are compounded by a lack of trusted depth on the defensive line. Two weeks ago, defensive coordinator Derek Mason stressed to me that he "needed more" from youngsters Nate Lohn and Aziz Shittu so that he could employ a legitimate rotation. Shittu, however, saw action on only one unproductive play at Utah before being removed from the game. His development has obviously come along slower than Stanford's brass had hoped.
(this is an excerpt from that column)
A Decimated Defensive Line
Stanford's defensive success last season was rooted in dominance on the defensive front. When Henry Anderson routinely relocated the line of scrimmage in Eugene, a host of potential difficulties in defending the Ducks were rendered moot. But injuries have had a specific focus here in 2013, and it's fallen almost exclusively on the defensive line. The Farm Boys are now scrambling to replace Anderson (knee), a task which would be more manageable if David Parry were healthy.Instead, the nose tackle is playing through a lower abdominal issue while his back-up Ikenna Nwafor (leg) is shelved for several weeks. Meanwhile, defensive end Ben Gardner is battling through intense pain in his arm.
"It hurts like a son of gun," Shaw said.
Anderson, who was originally expected to miss 4-6 weeks, may miss slightly more time now: Shaw predicted Tuesday that he'll be back for either the Oregon game on November 7 or the USC contest November 16. The six-foot-six, 295-pound terror is expected to begin running and conditioning again this week.
Meanwhile, it appears that both Parry and Gardner will play through lingering issues for the indefinite future. Gardner undergoes frequent treatment for his arm injury, while the Cardinal is holding Parry out of practice until Wednesday for his body to at least partially recuperate. These nagging issues are compounded by a lack of trusted depth on the defensive line. Two weeks ago, defensive coordinator Derek Mason stressed to me that he "needed more" from youngsters Nate Lohn and Aziz Shittu so that he could employ a legitimate rotation. Shittu, however, saw action on only one unproductive play at Utah before being removed from the game. His development has obviously come along slower than Stanford's brass had hoped.
C-MAN
Pretty much a regular
Already on Cent Fla +13. Will add if I can get +14.5. Ville has not been tested yet this year. Throw out the Ohio game (Ohio forgot to get off the bus) and the two games they were 40+ faves and they are only averaging 27 pts/game. That will not be enough to cover a 2TD spread vs Cent Fla, the best team they have faced to date. Ville struggled in the 2H of last season losing 2x and pulling out a couple close wins. I expect a close game tonight. CF 3 losses vs big conference schools this year and last (SCar, Mizzu, @Ohio St) by avg 7.6 pts/gm. Lou defensive stats (rush D especially) are skewed because they haven't played an offense with a heartbeat yet.
s--k
Goodbye to Romance College Football
Ty Montgomery is doing everything he can at WR, but this offense has been so TE based for so long and now they don't have that capability. They are an offense in transition. Their running game isn't bad, but they aren't as good as they need to be vs the better teams.
I like UCLA, will take them, but am worried about going against Cardinal off the loss. Sense of urgency type thing.
I like UCLA, will take them, but am worried about going against Cardinal off the loss. Sense of urgency type thing.
G
Gyno
Guest
Would still be coach if hundley was there during his time. QB so vital in CFB.
RetroVK
This claim is disputed
What a horrible spot for Michigan state. If I had any faith in purdue ( which I don't ) I would have to bet them .... but I think the huge army of sparty backers are in for a burning ticket this week. Surprised situational cappers aren't on boilermakers more ,,, but maybe like m just feel they don't deserve the money. 28.5 would leave no choice in the matter though
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Gyno
Guest
If you're against horrible spots why were you on NW last week? Doesn't get much worse than that spot. Much worse than MSU's spot this week.
G
Gyno
Guest
Why is Michigan St in a bad spot? They played Iowa last week, now @ home vs Purdue and next week they go to Illinois.. Whats wrong with this spot?
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Gyno
Guest
I have a medium lean to BYU.. Would be semi floored if they lost even though houston is undefeated.. Just feel backdoor might be open.
G
Gyno
Guest
cant get that virginia game out of my mind.
spanishshark
Youngest guy on the forum
UCF has what it takes to keep this one close. Louisville shouldn't be favored by more than a TD.
G
Gyno
Guest
why is this louisville spread going up?
RetroVK
This claim is disputed
Well, I am not a spot handicapper and never have been. The two games are opposite in terms of line value from my PR. Unfortunate that NW lost both of their best players to injury that game incidentally... though not sure that it mattered as they were clearly flat ( so you and many others were right about the spot mattering there ). I am not sure why me making a bad bet is relevant to the MSU discussion, though.
Just pointing out a terrible spot and they are betting the fave .. in the nw game they had the bad spot and they bet the other way ( and were right ).
There is momentum with MSU as they seem to get better every week offensively.
This spot is horrendous though. Has Purdue quit?
PointX
Pretty much a regular
To entice the public that they're betting the correct side and draw more money? No idea. I made this around 9, so the line can keep moving up as far as I'm concerned. Though I think it hangs around 14 until around kickoff when an inevitable flood of UCF money hits.
RetroVK
This claim is disputed
They played Indiana last week, not iowa. So they had the tough game at Notre Dame, followed it up with the revenge game against Iowa and then the battle with Indiana .... the team has not had a bye week all year and does not get one until after the Michigan game. They have @Illinois and then their rival at home following the Purdue game .. and Purdue is sitting 0-5 vs. the FBS. I think they won by this much once in the last two years against FBS. Meanwhile, seems like the type of game Purdue would be interested like the way they were interested in the Notre Dame game, though maybe closer to "quit mode" now than then.. To me this is a horrible, god awful spot to lay a huge number in a conference game but I readily admit I suck as much as the next guy at capping "spot".
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Gyno
Guest
I meant Indiana, typo there...
I'm not condoning a wager on msu.. I do think purdue might get shut out..
Max they score is 10.. Can msu score 38?
I'm not condoning a wager on msu.. I do think purdue might get shut out..
Max they score is 10.. Can msu score 38?
RetroVK
This claim is disputed
Purdue can give up 38 to almost anyone if they are being shut out. I guess the key would be how they were being shut out ... if it is a bunch of three and outs then it would get ugly pretty fast. If they are getting a few first downs, punting and making MSU march then maybe they wouldn't reach 38. But it does bring up the idea of the total under as a way of backing spot without backing purdue too much.
Play2win
Mod by Monday Morning
this is from last week but mentions some of the spots:
#319/320 cant see much offense in this one
#340 Tex A&M if around my projected -13 or so, under 2 td's...Aub record misleading and this is only their 2nd road game
#341 Wash St guessing +24, Ore off of @ Wash and have Ucla and Stanford on deck
#348 Cal guessing +8, Ore St has Stanford and Usc on deck
#355 Washington not the best spot in the world going on the road after playing Stanford and Oregon but I really like this Washington team and expecting line to be PK
#376 Baylor guessing -24...will also be looking at tt...nice revenge spot - loss by 14 last season @ Iowa St...#1 pass O vs #64 pass D, #2 rush O vs #68 run D
#378 Kansas is awful but home plus 24 in what could be a bad spot on schedule for Oklahoma...off of vs Tex (Dallas), vs Tcu and @ND
#379 TCU guessing +4, Ok St off bye but I don't like this team at all
#381 Ucla double revenge from last season...really like this Bruins team and not as high on Stanford as others...guessing +5.5
#393 Vandy guessing +10, Vandy off a bye and playing 3rd straight home game...pre bye week for banged up and tired UGA team who had to play @ Clemson, vs S Car, vs LSU, @ Tenn, vs Mizzou to start season...now on road before bye that I bet their looking forward to...Vandy 12-5 L17 going back to last season
#319/320 cant see much offense in this one
#340 Tex A&M if around my projected -13 or so, under 2 td's...Aub record misleading and this is only their 2nd road game
#341 Wash St guessing +24, Ore off of @ Wash and have Ucla and Stanford on deck
#348 Cal guessing +8, Ore St has Stanford and Usc on deck
#355 Washington not the best spot in the world going on the road after playing Stanford and Oregon but I really like this Washington team and expecting line to be PK
#376 Baylor guessing -24...will also be looking at tt...nice revenge spot - loss by 14 last season @ Iowa St...#1 pass O vs #64 pass D, #2 rush O vs #68 run D
#378 Kansas is awful but home plus 24 in what could be a bad spot on schedule for Oklahoma...off of vs Tex (Dallas), vs Tcu and @ND
#379 TCU guessing +4, Ok St off bye but I don't like this team at all
#381 Ucla double revenge from last season...really like this Bruins team and not as high on Stanford as others...guessing +5.5
#393 Vandy guessing +10, Vandy off a bye and playing 3rd straight home game...pre bye week for banged up and tired UGA team who had to play @ Clemson, vs S Car, vs LSU, @ Tenn, vs Mizzou to start season...now on road before bye that I bet their looking forward to...Vandy 12-5 L17 going back to last season
Play2win
Mod by Monday Morning
random stuff from Steele:
Phil Steele <s>@</s>philsteele042 <small class="time">21h </small> Colorado St is 2-4 but has blown three 2H leads. They led 24-23 vs Colo in 4Q, 27-14 in 4Q vs Tulsa and 24-17 in 3Q vs San Jose St LW.
Phil Steele <s>@</s>philsteele042 <small class="time">21h </small>
Last week was already the 5th time in 6 games that Purdue was held below 300 yards offense!
Phil Steele <s>@</s>philsteele042 <small class="time">17 Oct </small>
Indiana lost 42-28 LW to Mich St but their 28 points tied for the most any team has put up on that Spartan defense in 26 games.
Phil Steele <s>@</s>philsteele042 <small class="time">16 Oct </small>
Kentucky's 4 gm stretch of L'Ville, Florida, SCar, Ala equally tough BUT they had a bye week in there where as Ark B2B2B2B.
Phil Steele <s>@</s>philsteele042 <small class="time">16 Oct </small>
In the summer I said that Arkansas current 4 gm stretch was the toughest of any team all year. TA&M, Florida, Scar and now Bama (ouch)!
Phil Steele <s>@</s>philsteele042 <small class="time">20h </small>
Eastern Michigan is having a "White Out" at home this week vs Ohio U for their 1:00 game. Don't think it will be as loud as Happy Valley.
Phil Steele <s>@</s>philsteele042 <small class="time">16 Oct </small>
Ole Miss plays their 4th ranked team in a row and their injury list is too long to fit into a tweet but they are banged up.
Phil Steele <s>@</s>philsteele042 <small class="time">15 Oct </small>
Kent St is on its 5th road gm in 6 wks probably without its starting QB and has to travel from Ohio to South Alabama which is off a bye.
Phil Steele <s>@</s>philsteele042 <small class="time">14 Oct </small>
Baylor came in avg 32 FD's and Bill Snyder and Kansas St held them to 15 FD's and 329 yds below season avg but Bears still 10 pt road win.
Phil Steele <s>@</s>philsteele042 <small class="time">21h </small> Colorado St is 2-4 but has blown three 2H leads. They led 24-23 vs Colo in 4Q, 27-14 in 4Q vs Tulsa and 24-17 in 3Q vs San Jose St LW.
Phil Steele <s>@</s>philsteele042 <small class="time">21h </small>
Last week was already the 5th time in 6 games that Purdue was held below 300 yards offense!
Phil Steele <s>@</s>philsteele042 <small class="time">17 Oct </small>
Indiana lost 42-28 LW to Mich St but their 28 points tied for the most any team has put up on that Spartan defense in 26 games.
Phil Steele <s>@</s>philsteele042 <small class="time">16 Oct </small>
Kentucky's 4 gm stretch of L'Ville, Florida, SCar, Ala equally tough BUT they had a bye week in there where as Ark B2B2B2B.
Phil Steele <s>@</s>philsteele042 <small class="time">16 Oct </small>
In the summer I said that Arkansas current 4 gm stretch was the toughest of any team all year. TA&M, Florida, Scar and now Bama (ouch)!
Phil Steele <s>@</s>philsteele042 <small class="time">20h </small>
Eastern Michigan is having a "White Out" at home this week vs Ohio U for their 1:00 game. Don't think it will be as loud as Happy Valley.
Phil Steele <s>@</s>philsteele042 <small class="time">16 Oct </small>
Ole Miss plays their 4th ranked team in a row and their injury list is too long to fit into a tweet but they are banged up.
Phil Steele <s>@</s>philsteele042 <small class="time">15 Oct </small>
Kent St is on its 5th road gm in 6 wks probably without its starting QB and has to travel from Ohio to South Alabama which is off a bye.
Phil Steele <s>@</s>philsteele042 <small class="time">14 Oct </small>
Baylor came in avg 32 FD's and Bill Snyder and Kansas St held them to 15 FD's and 329 yds below season avg but Bears still 10 pt road win.
Play2win
Mod by Monday Morning
Jake Trotter <s>@</s>Jake_Trotter <small class="time">14 Oct </small> OU will now be without its best DL and best LB the rest of the season. OU very vulnerable again the run w/o them vs Texas
Retweeted by Phil Steele
Retweeted by Phil Steele
Play2win
Mod by Monday Morning
Good read on Grambling:
GRAMBLING, La. -- Start with the floor.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Anyone who wants to understand why the players on the 0-7 Grambling State football team revolted this week -- walking out of a Tuesday meeting with the school's president and athletic director, boycotting practice and finally refusing to travel to Saturday's game with Jackson State -- should visit the weight room in the school's Stadium Support Building. Then look down.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Covering the concrete floor are large interlocking rubber tiles. They are light gray now but were almost certainly a different shade when they were installed years ago. Many of them curl at the edges or have corners missing, hazards that can cause an unsuspecting player to trip. In some areas, entire tiles are gone. Imagine hoisting 300 pounds while having to watch your step. In a sport where injuries are common, the last thing players need are physical hazards in their own weight room. That is how the Tigers' football players train.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> The floor is not the only sign of the building's decay. There is rust around some windows and insulation droops down from where ceiling panels are absent. Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) schools "are often asked to do more with less," says school president Dr. Frank Pogue, and that is indisputable. But the weight room floor represents more than the financial constraints that have long hampered Grambling and other historically black colleges. It also symbolizes the political infighting and mismanagement that have plagued the school in recent years, problems which precipitated the football program's rapid decline, and which helped spark this week's unprecedented protest by the players.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> How can a floor stand for so much?
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Near the start of the 2013 season, the Grambling Legends, a group unaffiliated with the school, put up the money to buy replacement flooring for the weight room. Doug Williams, then the Tigers coach -- as well as a popular alumnus, a former Super Bowl MVP and a member of the Grambling Legends -- helped arrange the purchase of the new rubber flooring, just as he had done earlier with new flooring for the team's locker room. Williams had a history of ruffling administrative feathers at the school -- in April 2012 he sued Grambling State for performance bonuses he says he was owed -- and he often circumvented the athletic department's chain of command. The funds to pay for the new weight room floor, which had not been filtered through the school's foundation as Pogue and athletic director Aaron James demanded, were yet another instance of that.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Pogue and James, however, refused to install the new floor and had it stored in another building near the team's practice field. A week after the large rolls of flooring were mothballed, they fired Williams from his job as the Tigers' football coach.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> The players, unaware of any administrative politics, knew only the basics: One minute they were getting a badly needed new floor in the weight room, and the next minute they weren't; and one minute Williams, who had led the team to a SWAC title as recently as 2011, was their coach, and the next minute he was not.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> The revolt of the Grambling players earlier this week was reportedly a protest of long bus trips, a lack of food on the road and a general decline in the university's support of the program -- and that is true. But as SI learned while with the Tigers as the events of the past week unfolded, the players' actions were also driven by the need for answers to questions they have long been asking: Why can't they get a new floor in the weight room, in addition to some of the other things they feel they need to win games? Why did Williams get fired? And, most importantly, What has happened to Grambling football?
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> *****
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> On one finger of each hand, senior safety Naquan Smith sports massive gold rings, one for each of the SWAC titles the Tigers have won during his career. In 2008, when Smith was a freshman and Rod Broadway was the team's coach, Grambling went 11-2 and won the conference title. When Broadway left for North Carolina A&T in 2011, Williams was hired and, after an 0-4 start, the team won seven consecutive games, culminating with a 16-15 victory over Alabama A&M in the SWAC championship game.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Since that victory, Grambling has gone 1-17, including seven consecutive losses this year. Theories abound as for why the team has struggled, with the team's youth commonly cited. There are only seven seniors on the current team and last year's squad had just two. But Smith and other players say inexperience is not the primary reason for the team's struggles. They say an erosion of support for the program has made it difficult for players to succeed. They lack adequate weight training equipment, they say, and the staff and materials to treat injuries properly. They don't even have enough supplements to replenish their bodies after workouts. "We got some Muscle Milk donated but we have to give it to certain people, like who needs it this week and who doesn't, kinda ration it," Smith says.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> The team is down to six full-time coaches after interim coach George Ragsdale (who was unpopular with the players) was fired Thursday and replaced by defensive coordinator Dennis Winston. Players say assistants are stretched too thin and can't adequately prepare the team. "Other schools have one [coach] for each position," says sophomore defensive back Dwight Amphy. "On defense, we have only three coaches working three different positions. Our defensive coordinator coaches the defensive line. We have a linebackers' coach and we have one coach who coaches safeties and corners. And two of those coaches also do special teams." Positions coaches are so busy that they have little time to meet individually with players. "You don't get that extra help you need to make yourself better," Amphy says.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Grambling now buses to games as far away as Kansas City and Indianapolis, 650 and 750 miles away from campus, respectively. For the latter of those trips, the team left campus at 6 p.m. on a Thursday night and did not arrive in Indianapolis until 9 a.m. on Friday. Not surprisingly, the players appeared unprepared and listless in a 48-0 loss to Alcorn State. "It does something to your body, being on the bus that long," Smith says. "We were kinda upset other team got a chance to fly there. It wasn't fair."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> "We knew what we were getting ourselves into when we came to Grambling. We knew we weren't going to have all this and that, the best stuff. We knew we weren't going to LSU," Amphy says. "But it could be better, even just a little bit better. Because it is not like we don't have the athletes to compete, not like we aren't trying to the best of our ability."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> The football program's decline has coincided with the fall of most of the school's 11 other sports programs. The men's basketball team was winless last season (0-28); women's basketball went 9-23. The women's soccer team amassed a 3-29 recorded over the 2011 and 2012 seasons and is 0-4 this year. The women's volleyball team is 9-48 over the last three seasons, including 2-11 in 2013. Other programs have similarly struggled; track & field is the one outlier.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> The men's basketball team has been hindered by penalties levied against the program due to a low Academic Progress Rate and the unrest that comes with having four coaches in a five-year stretch. The other losing teams suffer from the same ills as football, primarily a lack of staffing and financial support. The soccer team started several games last season shorted-handed, including a playoff game. (They also wore jerseys that were little more than T-shirts.) "Some games we had only eight players," says junior midfielder Robblyn Branch. "Without scholarship money it was difficult for people to pay for school so they left. Others got injured and couldn't play. There is nothing you can do but make the best of it."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> The tennis team has started matches shorthanded this year, and that program and others are also short scholarships. Further, almost all the programs are operating with at least one less assistant coach than would be preferred, making it more difficult for those teams to prepare for games and recruit reinforcements.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> "It is not just football. Everyone has been down," Smith says. "I've been asking myself since the start of last year, what is going on with all these teams losing. It affects the whole school, really. But football is kinda like the tone-setter. We've struggled and it is like everyone else has followed us down."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> *****
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> When the football players protested, some were quick to connect them with players at other schools who have put "APU" -- All Players United -- on their uniforms to advocate for NCAA reform. It is an imperfect comparison, however, as Grambling is not, say, LSU, a football factory that generates millions of dollars in profit while the athletes go unpaid. In recent years, Grambling's football program has run a deficit of between $1.2 and $1.8 million. That doesn't mean Grambling couldn't or shouldn't do more for its athletes, just that the image of school officials counting their millions while players bus 754 miles to a game is inaccurate.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Ask school officials why the football team and other programs are struggling and they quickly shift attention from personality conflicts and staffing decisions to the budget. Since 2007-08, overall state funding for Grambling has gone from $31.6 million to $13.8 million. The school has attempted to bridge that gap by increasing tuition, but it has fallen short, and cuts have been made across the board. Approximately 127 staff members have been laid off since 2008 and furloughs are common. Professors have also been asked to teach an extra class each year for free. Generally, the school has "cut to the bone," says Leon Sanders, Grambling's vice president for finance.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Athletics were mostly exempt from the cuts in the first few years of the recession, even as revenue generated by the department declined from around $8 million in 2007-08 to about $6.2 million last year. But that was unsustainable, school officials say. Like the rest of the university, the athletic department had to make sacrifices, and the sports programs are now feeling the pinch that the rest of the school has endured for years.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> "Losing that money shows up in everything. It shows up in your recruiting budget, in the hotel you stay in, in the food you get. It means you take a bus to games like last weekend [in Indianapolis]," says James, the athletic director. "We could have spent another $70,000 and taken a charter plane to Indianapolis or we can use that money to help some of the minor sports. Football coaches don't like that, they say they bring in the money and they want to spend it all, but we have to look at the entire athletic department."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Some accounting tricks have spared the athletic department even greater pain, at least for now. In past years, the school has moved about $3.4 million out of its operating revenue to help pay for athletics. This year, the school had only $1.8 million to transfer. The difference was made up, in part, by moving $1.2 million in auxiliary funds over to athletics, but that cannot be repeated next year, Sanders says. Unless new monies are found, athletics could see its budget shaved by more than a $1 million or more for the 2014-15 school year.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> "We are functioning now in a financial emergency," Pogue says.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> The school's plan to make up the difference relies on getting students to agree to a fee of $100 per semester that would go to athletics and also an aggressive campaign to get more donations from alumni. The same student fee initiative failed to pass last year, however, and the school admits that there isn't a "culture" of giving among its small alumni pool. "We don't even budget for donations," Sanders says. "Not a penny."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Financials only go so far in explaining the state of the athletic department. After all, a lack of funds isn't the sole reason the school has had three different athletic directors in the last four years. Pogue, who fired one athletic director he inherited and another he hired prior to James getting the position, says of those moves: "One of an athletic director's responsibilities is to make people work well together, and when you discover that people can't work well together or flatly refuse to work well together, you make some changes."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Pogue and James clearly couldn't work with Williams. They feuded with him over seemingly trivial matters; Pogue once showed up a practice to scold Williams for having put up signs that designated parking spots for coaches. He then had them removed. The lawsuit Williams filed against Grambling and the University of Louisiana system frayed relations considerably. In the suit, Williams alleged that he and his staff were not paid promised bonuses for winning the 2011 SWAC championship, and that Williams had been told that the money would only be paid if he signed a reduced contract. "A series of new contracts have been presented to Williams in which his pay is lower, bonuses are dropped and additional onerous provisions have been inserted," the suit alleged. "He has been told to 'take it or leave it.'" The lawsuit was settled when Williams signed a three-year contract before the 2012 season, about a year before the flooring dispute boiled over and he was let go.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> James and Pogue declined to discuss their handling of Williams, but when Pogue says that Grambling's next coach must be someone with a "willingness to honor university policies and procedures," it is clear why he felt Williams had to go. "The coach here is in employee of Grambling State University and the state of Louisiana," Pogue says. "He is not a free agent. He can't just do whatever he wants."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Asked if it is possible that he is difficult to work with, Pogue says he doesn't believe so, while adding that he has high expectations for his employees. Williams, when reached by SI, declined to answer the same question. His son, D.J., is the team's starting quarterback, and he says he wants to avoid and back and forth with schools officials. "This is Grambling, and I love Grambling. I don't agree with some decisions that have been made, but they are made and I have to deal with it," Williams says. "My biggest concern is for my son and the players. It has been an emotional time and some emotional decisions have been made."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> *****
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Adjacent to Grambling's administration building, in the school's old basketball gym, sits the Eddie G. Robinson Museum, a shrine to the winningest coach in Division I history and the person most responsible for Grambling's rich football history. Walking through the museum last Tuesday, across the pecan floors original to the building, Dr. Mildred Gallot, the head of Grambling's department of history for 20 years, reminisced about Robinson, who died in 2007.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Gallot once interviewed the legendary coach for four hours, listening as he spun stories, some of which have now become legend. There is the tale of how he had to beg Louisiana Tech to give him old uniforms for his team. There is the story of how the Grambling president who hired Robinson in 1941 told him that he would surely not win right away, then watched as Robinson went undefeated in his second season.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Asked what it would take for Grambling football to thrive again as it did under Robinson, Gallot rubs three fingers together and says, simply: "Money."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Money alone won't fix Grambling. A broke school that fired a legendary alumnus, which just had its entire team stage a revolt, isn't primed for a turnaround. And what if the financial crisis doesn't subside, if students don't agree to the athletics fee or athletic revenue continues to dip? What then?
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> At a hastily called press conference on Friday, Pogue said of Grambling's future: "It is likely that it could take years to ever get back to the Gambling athletic image that it once enjoyed."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> No one at the school is prepared to accept that Grambling may be changed forever and that there could be a time in the not-too-distant future when having a football program becomes financial untenable. For now, they've placed their hope in the search for a new coach, in the belief that it will turn up someone who can coalesce the players and the administration and the alumni, who can find new revenue streams, who can do more with less.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> What has happened to Grambling football?
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> It is has gone back to the start, hoping that someone like Robinson, another miracle man, will come walking through the door.
Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20131018/grambling-football/#ixzz2i74wsudO
GRAMBLING, La. -- Start with the floor.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Anyone who wants to understand why the players on the 0-7 Grambling State football team revolted this week -- walking out of a Tuesday meeting with the school's president and athletic director, boycotting practice and finally refusing to travel to Saturday's game with Jackson State -- should visit the weight room in the school's Stadium Support Building. Then look down.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Covering the concrete floor are large interlocking rubber tiles. They are light gray now but were almost certainly a different shade when they were installed years ago. Many of them curl at the edges or have corners missing, hazards that can cause an unsuspecting player to trip. In some areas, entire tiles are gone. Imagine hoisting 300 pounds while having to watch your step. In a sport where injuries are common, the last thing players need are physical hazards in their own weight room. That is how the Tigers' football players train.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> The floor is not the only sign of the building's decay. There is rust around some windows and insulation droops down from where ceiling panels are absent. Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) schools "are often asked to do more with less," says school president Dr. Frank Pogue, and that is indisputable. But the weight room floor represents more than the financial constraints that have long hampered Grambling and other historically black colleges. It also symbolizes the political infighting and mismanagement that have plagued the school in recent years, problems which precipitated the football program's rapid decline, and which helped spark this week's unprecedented protest by the players.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> How can a floor stand for so much?
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Near the start of the 2013 season, the Grambling Legends, a group unaffiliated with the school, put up the money to buy replacement flooring for the weight room. Doug Williams, then the Tigers coach -- as well as a popular alumnus, a former Super Bowl MVP and a member of the Grambling Legends -- helped arrange the purchase of the new rubber flooring, just as he had done earlier with new flooring for the team's locker room. Williams had a history of ruffling administrative feathers at the school -- in April 2012 he sued Grambling State for performance bonuses he says he was owed -- and he often circumvented the athletic department's chain of command. The funds to pay for the new weight room floor, which had not been filtered through the school's foundation as Pogue and athletic director Aaron James demanded, were yet another instance of that.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Pogue and James, however, refused to install the new floor and had it stored in another building near the team's practice field. A week after the large rolls of flooring were mothballed, they fired Williams from his job as the Tigers' football coach.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> The players, unaware of any administrative politics, knew only the basics: One minute they were getting a badly needed new floor in the weight room, and the next minute they weren't; and one minute Williams, who had led the team to a SWAC title as recently as 2011, was their coach, and the next minute he was not.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> The revolt of the Grambling players earlier this week was reportedly a protest of long bus trips, a lack of food on the road and a general decline in the university's support of the program -- and that is true. But as SI learned while with the Tigers as the events of the past week unfolded, the players' actions were also driven by the need for answers to questions they have long been asking: Why can't they get a new floor in the weight room, in addition to some of the other things they feel they need to win games? Why did Williams get fired? And, most importantly, What has happened to Grambling football?
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> *****
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> On one finger of each hand, senior safety Naquan Smith sports massive gold rings, one for each of the SWAC titles the Tigers have won during his career. In 2008, when Smith was a freshman and Rod Broadway was the team's coach, Grambling went 11-2 and won the conference title. When Broadway left for North Carolina A&T in 2011, Williams was hired and, after an 0-4 start, the team won seven consecutive games, culminating with a 16-15 victory over Alabama A&M in the SWAC championship game.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Since that victory, Grambling has gone 1-17, including seven consecutive losses this year. Theories abound as for why the team has struggled, with the team's youth commonly cited. There are only seven seniors on the current team and last year's squad had just two. But Smith and other players say inexperience is not the primary reason for the team's struggles. They say an erosion of support for the program has made it difficult for players to succeed. They lack adequate weight training equipment, they say, and the staff and materials to treat injuries properly. They don't even have enough supplements to replenish their bodies after workouts. "We got some Muscle Milk donated but we have to give it to certain people, like who needs it this week and who doesn't, kinda ration it," Smith says.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> The team is down to six full-time coaches after interim coach George Ragsdale (who was unpopular with the players) was fired Thursday and replaced by defensive coordinator Dennis Winston. Players say assistants are stretched too thin and can't adequately prepare the team. "Other schools have one [coach] for each position," says sophomore defensive back Dwight Amphy. "On defense, we have only three coaches working three different positions. Our defensive coordinator coaches the defensive line. We have a linebackers' coach and we have one coach who coaches safeties and corners. And two of those coaches also do special teams." Positions coaches are so busy that they have little time to meet individually with players. "You don't get that extra help you need to make yourself better," Amphy says.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Grambling now buses to games as far away as Kansas City and Indianapolis, 650 and 750 miles away from campus, respectively. For the latter of those trips, the team left campus at 6 p.m. on a Thursday night and did not arrive in Indianapolis until 9 a.m. on Friday. Not surprisingly, the players appeared unprepared and listless in a 48-0 loss to Alcorn State. "It does something to your body, being on the bus that long," Smith says. "We were kinda upset other team got a chance to fly there. It wasn't fair."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> "We knew what we were getting ourselves into when we came to Grambling. We knew we weren't going to have all this and that, the best stuff. We knew we weren't going to LSU," Amphy says. "But it could be better, even just a little bit better. Because it is not like we don't have the athletes to compete, not like we aren't trying to the best of our ability."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> The football program's decline has coincided with the fall of most of the school's 11 other sports programs. The men's basketball team was winless last season (0-28); women's basketball went 9-23. The women's soccer team amassed a 3-29 recorded over the 2011 and 2012 seasons and is 0-4 this year. The women's volleyball team is 9-48 over the last three seasons, including 2-11 in 2013. Other programs have similarly struggled; track & field is the one outlier.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> The men's basketball team has been hindered by penalties levied against the program due to a low Academic Progress Rate and the unrest that comes with having four coaches in a five-year stretch. The other losing teams suffer from the same ills as football, primarily a lack of staffing and financial support. The soccer team started several games last season shorted-handed, including a playoff game. (They also wore jerseys that were little more than T-shirts.) "Some games we had only eight players," says junior midfielder Robblyn Branch. "Without scholarship money it was difficult for people to pay for school so they left. Others got injured and couldn't play. There is nothing you can do but make the best of it."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> The tennis team has started matches shorthanded this year, and that program and others are also short scholarships. Further, almost all the programs are operating with at least one less assistant coach than would be preferred, making it more difficult for those teams to prepare for games and recruit reinforcements.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> "It is not just football. Everyone has been down," Smith says. "I've been asking myself since the start of last year, what is going on with all these teams losing. It affects the whole school, really. But football is kinda like the tone-setter. We've struggled and it is like everyone else has followed us down."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> *****
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> When the football players protested, some were quick to connect them with players at other schools who have put "APU" -- All Players United -- on their uniforms to advocate for NCAA reform. It is an imperfect comparison, however, as Grambling is not, say, LSU, a football factory that generates millions of dollars in profit while the athletes go unpaid. In recent years, Grambling's football program has run a deficit of between $1.2 and $1.8 million. That doesn't mean Grambling couldn't or shouldn't do more for its athletes, just that the image of school officials counting their millions while players bus 754 miles to a game is inaccurate.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Ask school officials why the football team and other programs are struggling and they quickly shift attention from personality conflicts and staffing decisions to the budget. Since 2007-08, overall state funding for Grambling has gone from $31.6 million to $13.8 million. The school has attempted to bridge that gap by increasing tuition, but it has fallen short, and cuts have been made across the board. Approximately 127 staff members have been laid off since 2008 and furloughs are common. Professors have also been asked to teach an extra class each year for free. Generally, the school has "cut to the bone," says Leon Sanders, Grambling's vice president for finance.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Athletics were mostly exempt from the cuts in the first few years of the recession, even as revenue generated by the department declined from around $8 million in 2007-08 to about $6.2 million last year. But that was unsustainable, school officials say. Like the rest of the university, the athletic department had to make sacrifices, and the sports programs are now feeling the pinch that the rest of the school has endured for years.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> "Losing that money shows up in everything. It shows up in your recruiting budget, in the hotel you stay in, in the food you get. It means you take a bus to games like last weekend [in Indianapolis]," says James, the athletic director. "We could have spent another $70,000 and taken a charter plane to Indianapolis or we can use that money to help some of the minor sports. Football coaches don't like that, they say they bring in the money and they want to spend it all, but we have to look at the entire athletic department."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Some accounting tricks have spared the athletic department even greater pain, at least for now. In past years, the school has moved about $3.4 million out of its operating revenue to help pay for athletics. This year, the school had only $1.8 million to transfer. The difference was made up, in part, by moving $1.2 million in auxiliary funds over to athletics, but that cannot be repeated next year, Sanders says. Unless new monies are found, athletics could see its budget shaved by more than a $1 million or more for the 2014-15 school year.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> "We are functioning now in a financial emergency," Pogue says.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> The school's plan to make up the difference relies on getting students to agree to a fee of $100 per semester that would go to athletics and also an aggressive campaign to get more donations from alumni. The same student fee initiative failed to pass last year, however, and the school admits that there isn't a "culture" of giving among its small alumni pool. "We don't even budget for donations," Sanders says. "Not a penny."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Financials only go so far in explaining the state of the athletic department. After all, a lack of funds isn't the sole reason the school has had three different athletic directors in the last four years. Pogue, who fired one athletic director he inherited and another he hired prior to James getting the position, says of those moves: "One of an athletic director's responsibilities is to make people work well together, and when you discover that people can't work well together or flatly refuse to work well together, you make some changes."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Pogue and James clearly couldn't work with Williams. They feuded with him over seemingly trivial matters; Pogue once showed up a practice to scold Williams for having put up signs that designated parking spots for coaches. He then had them removed. The lawsuit Williams filed against Grambling and the University of Louisiana system frayed relations considerably. In the suit, Williams alleged that he and his staff were not paid promised bonuses for winning the 2011 SWAC championship, and that Williams had been told that the money would only be paid if he signed a reduced contract. "A series of new contracts have been presented to Williams in which his pay is lower, bonuses are dropped and additional onerous provisions have been inserted," the suit alleged. "He has been told to 'take it or leave it.'" The lawsuit was settled when Williams signed a three-year contract before the 2012 season, about a year before the flooring dispute boiled over and he was let go.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> James and Pogue declined to discuss their handling of Williams, but when Pogue says that Grambling's next coach must be someone with a "willingness to honor university policies and procedures," it is clear why he felt Williams had to go. "The coach here is in employee of Grambling State University and the state of Louisiana," Pogue says. "He is not a free agent. He can't just do whatever he wants."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Asked if it is possible that he is difficult to work with, Pogue says he doesn't believe so, while adding that he has high expectations for his employees. Williams, when reached by SI, declined to answer the same question. His son, D.J., is the team's starting quarterback, and he says he wants to avoid and back and forth with schools officials. "This is Grambling, and I love Grambling. I don't agree with some decisions that have been made, but they are made and I have to deal with it," Williams says. "My biggest concern is for my son and the players. It has been an emotional time and some emotional decisions have been made."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> *****
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Adjacent to Grambling's administration building, in the school's old basketball gym, sits the Eddie G. Robinson Museum, a shrine to the winningest coach in Division I history and the person most responsible for Grambling's rich football history. Walking through the museum last Tuesday, across the pecan floors original to the building, Dr. Mildred Gallot, the head of Grambling's department of history for 20 years, reminisced about Robinson, who died in 2007.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Gallot once interviewed the legendary coach for four hours, listening as he spun stories, some of which have now become legend. There is the tale of how he had to beg Louisiana Tech to give him old uniforms for his team. There is the story of how the Grambling president who hired Robinson in 1941 told him that he would surely not win right away, then watched as Robinson went undefeated in his second season.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Asked what it would take for Grambling football to thrive again as it did under Robinson, Gallot rubs three fingers together and says, simply: "Money."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> Money alone won't fix Grambling. A broke school that fired a legendary alumnus, which just had its entire team stage a revolt, isn't primed for a turnaround. And what if the financial crisis doesn't subside, if students don't agree to the athletics fee or athletic revenue continues to dip? What then?
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> At a hastily called press conference on Friday, Pogue said of Grambling's future: "It is likely that it could take years to ever get back to the Gambling athletic image that it once enjoyed."
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> No one at the school is prepared to accept that Grambling may be changed forever and that there could be a time in the not-too-distant future when having a football program becomes financial untenable. For now, they've placed their hope in the search for a new coach, in the belief that it will turn up someone who can coalesce the players and the administration and the alumni, who can find new revenue streams, who can do more with less.
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> What has happened to Grambling football?
<!--startclickprintexclude--> <!--endclickprintexclude--> It is has gone back to the start, hoping that someone like Robinson, another miracle man, will come walking through the door.
Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20131018/grambling-football/#ixzz2i74wsudO
s--k
Goodbye to Romance College Football
I think that NIU may have gotten to the point that only certain games really get their juices flowing. They love playing BCS conference teams and really want the MAC Title. CMich isn't viewed as a threat to the MAC, but because CM has had some success vs them it should have their attention related to how it effects their conf record. They know that CM can beat them and should have full focus unlike a fringe or sub .500 opponent might. I like NIU. Either that or somehow CMich has their number and the spread is high enough to allow for CM to cover. Just see potential for Huskie A game vs Chips A game and that shouldn't be close...if Chips bring the A game again, they had it last week and I don't think they are good enough for too many A games in their gun.
s--k
Goodbye to Romance College Football
I like that game as a potential springboard this week for Hoosiers. Even if you take away the fluke Coleman 60-something yard TD run...21 pts to me is still impressive for IU against that D.
Well there will only be 500 people there so..
Did you guys hear that an Eastern Michigan receiver was found dead this morning?
L
Lareux
Guest
Maybe you've lessened your stance on this a bit since the pictures have come out of the mold. We're not just talking mold in the facilities....there is mold on the players' equipment ffs. That and the fact that the students have to buy their own Gatorade and Muscle Milk has me siding with the players. Since they cannot have jobs when they play football, and they don't get paid to play football, where are they supposed to get the money to buy things that the million dollar making school should be purchasing for them?
Also, Grambling State has fired and/or suspended the student journalists who tweeted the photos of the mold at their athletic complex and on their equipment. What? At least they'll have some money to settle the lawsuits since they don't spend it on the football team.
