1. With Maryland having already committed to play for the Big Ten, the announcement that Rutgers would be following them was merely a formality. Yesterday, Rutgers made it official that it would be leaving the Big East for the Big Ten and the riches of its upcoming college football contract. With both schools brushing aside exit fees that were in the not too distant past considered exorbitant it raises the question of how high these fees will have to get to become a legitimate deterrent to schools considering an exit from their conference. Clearly $50 million isn’t enough — so with the size of these television contracts continuing to grow, fees may need to approach $100 million to keep future schools from leaving.
2. Now that he has finished informing the nation on which candidate would be our president for the next four years, Nate Silver is back to deal with the important stuff — sports. Yesterday, Silver looked at the potential impact of Maryland and Rutgers entering the Big Ten. Utilizing Google search traffic data for the search term “college football,” Silver looked at 210 major media markets and determined that Rutgers may actually be a more valuable commodity than Maryland, but not by as much as many are claiming due to its location within the New York market. Our issue with this analysis, which we think we have mentioned in this space before, is that hardcore fans aren’t searching for such generic terms, but he at least makes the effort.
3. Penn State struggled through much of last season, but the Nittany Lions were usually worth checking out on occasion because of Tim Frazier, one of the most dynamic players in the Big Ten. This year promised to be a better one for PSU, but now that Frazier is done for the year after rupturing his Achilles tendon the Nittany Lions may be in for another long season. Frazier, a first-team All-Big Ten guard last season, plans to apply for a medical redshirt. While we didn’t expect much from Penn State this season, the injury is a tremendous setback for Frazier’s chances of playing professionally. We wish Frazier the best of luck in his rehab and look forward to seeing him back in a Nittany Lion uniform soon.
4. It took a while for the national college basketball writers assembled in Brooklyn last night to realize it, but the biggest news of the evening had nothing to do with #1 Indiana’s overtime win versus Georgetown (and, seriously, how many different Georgetown columns can this group write?). Rather, it had everything to do with a 5’10” sophomore named Jack Taylor from Division III Grinnell College in Iowa. Playing in a wild offensive system (unimaginatively called “The System”) developed by head coach David Arseneault, Taylor hoisted 108 shots on his way to an NCAA record 138-point evening, going 52-for-108 from the field including a ridiculous 27 threes (on 71 attempts). Let’s hope that this kid is ready for the whirlwind because he’s already been on Sportscenter and all of the morning and late night talk shows surely can’t be far behind.
5. On Monday, we mentioned how ridiculous it was that North Carolina was essentially getting a free pass from much of the media surrounding its growing academic scandal. It seems like someone was listening. The only thing is that it was not someone at the NCAA, but instead a North Carolina state senator who is calling for a criminal probe into the situation. While we think that this merits a formal inquiry at the state level, we doubt that there will ever be any criminal proceedings as a result of it. Still, given the apparent breadth and reach of this sham, we would not be opposed to seeing a few heads roll at what is supposed to be an institution of higher learning.

nvr1983 (1398 Posts)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 21st, 2012 at 5:31 am by nvr1983 and is filed under morning 5, Regular Features. Tagged: grinnell, jack taylor, maryland, ncaa scoring record, north carolina, penn state, rutgers, tim frazier, unc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.