From to time I like to share some thoughts on the latest happenings related to UK, the SEC, the NCAA or sports in general. I have racked my brain for hours on this, but I just can't come up with a spiffy title. So I'm going with the curiously bland, dubious fit of "TALKING POINTS," because it's intentionally vague enough to give me the leeway to do whatever I want with it. If this generates discussion I'll try to do it more often. If not, it'll go by the wayside.
Don't think that you have to comment on what I've written. Ramble and toss in your own disjointed thoughts on the day's events as well.
Ole Miss is screwed...big-time. Commence the collapse.
Almost everybody I've come across in recent years who follows college football just assumes Ole Miss is cheating. Big-time. You don't beat Alabama the way Ole Miss has beaten Alabama, during this Alabama run, if you're Ole Miss. That's not really fair and it's definitely not conclusive, but there's a whole lot more to it than, "They couldn't possibly be that good," speculation.
Read about the issue at greater length here, where RebelGrove.com's Neal McCready lays out what's happening (from an Ole Miss angle) in pretty ominous terms. There will be, as there always is, a contingent of the unmoved Ole Miss faithful who are going to obfuscate, play the moral equivalency game and try to tie the NCAA up in knots so that nothing more comes of this. But it sure seems like there are concrete details here that are either verifiable or close to being so.
There's talk Hugh Freeze may be targeted with a show cause penalty. I'll be interested to see how deep the loyalty and indebtedness to Freeze runs among the ranks of the faithful in Oxford. He's done some phenomenal things (elevating their recruiting, possibly by cheating, to a level nobody thought possible and beating Alabama), but it's also true that every breakthrough has been accompanied by a setback or a failure to breakthrough the next wall.
With all the talk about NCAA stuff at UNC and Louisville, where I think the issues are actually worse than what's been alleged thus far at Ole Miss, what differentiates the Rebels' case is that it seems much more easy to prosecute according to the NCAA's own norms, and it seems like Freeze may be more easily implicated in a very personal way. Lack of institutional control, yeah, but what screws the Rebs is the details.
This has a direct impact on Kentucky, of course, because the Rebels travel to Lexington this year. Since the offseason began I felt like that would be a very winnable game for Kentucky. In fact, NCAA issues and dark cloud aside, ESPN's FPI rankings place Kentucky 34th and Ole Miss 39th going into 2017. Given what's happened this week I'm moving this game firmly into the "Kentucky lean" category and I'd be surprised if the Rebels salvage a decent season. There will be attrition, there will be distractions, there will be chaos, and it's going to get a lot worse before the inevitable additional penalties even come down.
Have we expected too much from Isaiah Briscoe?
I went on T.J.'s radio show today and we had an interesting discussion about Briscoe, and whether folks have been too hard on him during his and the team's struggles over the past two months or so. I went back and forth, waffling, because on the one hand, yeah, he had to be the X-factor, the intangible guy, the warrior, the talented veteran that pushed and drove the younger guys with incredible skill. And as his confidence has waned even his greatest strengths have become, well, not so strong.
But the more I thought about it the more I came to believe that we've expected too much from him. Sophomore slumps are nothing new in college basketball. I'm not saying they're the norm and they might be overblown, but just as freshmen at Kentucky are held to an impossible standard (thanks to KAT, AD, Wall, etc), I think some sophomores at Kentucky are (in some real cases and hypothetically, you could imagine) held an impossible standard.
I think the common assumption was that Briscoe, because he passed on the draft, would come back and be a transformed player or at least a much better player. Because we're so accustomed to seeing guys show up and leave as soon as they've arrived, I think we've sometimes forgotten that a player's improvement from freshman-to-sophomore year is really not all that spectacular, and sometimes that Year 1-Year 2 improvement doesn't keep pace with how much opponents have caught onto them through competition and film study. In the case of a player who is maybe a little more physically limited like Briscoe, a below the rim player without great quickness and a middling shot at best, I think this frosh-to-soph leap definitely would seem to favor opposing defenses learning to disrupt the things that he does well. In short, I can only speak for myself, but "telling" on myself here, I think I subconsciously sometimes assumed Briscoe would play like a senior rather than a sophomore who didn't really have the elite athleticism to make a major leap forward.
That doesn't excuse some of the worst aspects of his play, or explain all of it, but it gives me a little perspective on my expectations maybe being out of whack.
New contracts on the football side
Derrick LeBlanc: $300K, Matt House: From $275K to $650K, Eddie Gran: From $650K to $825K (rising to $850 then $875K), Dean Hood: $350K.
Not really surprised by the numbers, although I do think it's a good look for Kentucky to dish out that kind of money for a coordinator (it's about time). Matt House will probably do something nice for his family with that first new paycheck.
As has been said elsewhere, what's interesting is, for instance, the $150K that would be owed to UK if Gran were to leave for another position. I don't think that would be a huge stumbling block if he found the right job. But, as I've said, I think what this new contract does is give Gran all the incentive he needs to be patient. He doesn't need to chase head coach money. The only thing he has to tell himself (as he's said he has), is that he doesn't need to just chase the HC job.
With the money he'll be making there won't be much incentive to take some job that's a graveyard for coaches that nobody wants. Who knows? At one point I wouldn't have thought it would have been likely for an OC at Kentucky to possibly even bypass the G5 route altogether and get a P5 job, but it's not impossible to imagine a program on a prestige par with Purdue, Iowa State, Wake Forest, etc., giving a really good, highly-paid UK OC with a track record a shot.
I've said this on a couple of podcasts today, but again: We talk a lot about Gran's play calling last year (which I thought was good), the way he adapted the offense to a severe change behind center in the season, and the way he has recruited in South Florida. All important things. All things that help justify the raise.
But I think by far the most important thing Eddie Gran does as Kentucky's OC is he allows Mark Stoops to be Mark Stoops. Gran has given Stoops his confidence, he's helped Stoops have the freedom and empowerment to meddle in the defense (as opposed to meddling in the offense), and I think the value of that is impossible to quantify. When your head coach doesn't trust a coordinator, loses faith in him, etc., your head coach isn't himself. He's coaching out of character and it makes him a worse coach. I think Gran makes Kentucky's offense better, but I think more importantly he makes Stoops better.
Don't think that you have to comment on what I've written. Ramble and toss in your own disjointed thoughts on the day's events as well.
Ole Miss is screwed...big-time. Commence the collapse.
Almost everybody I've come across in recent years who follows college football just assumes Ole Miss is cheating. Big-time. You don't beat Alabama the way Ole Miss has beaten Alabama, during this Alabama run, if you're Ole Miss. That's not really fair and it's definitely not conclusive, but there's a whole lot more to it than, "They couldn't possibly be that good," speculation.
Read about the issue at greater length here, where RebelGrove.com's Neal McCready lays out what's happening (from an Ole Miss angle) in pretty ominous terms. There will be, as there always is, a contingent of the unmoved Ole Miss faithful who are going to obfuscate, play the moral equivalency game and try to tie the NCAA up in knots so that nothing more comes of this. But it sure seems like there are concrete details here that are either verifiable or close to being so.
There's talk Hugh Freeze may be targeted with a show cause penalty. I'll be interested to see how deep the loyalty and indebtedness to Freeze runs among the ranks of the faithful in Oxford. He's done some phenomenal things (elevating their recruiting, possibly by cheating, to a level nobody thought possible and beating Alabama), but it's also true that every breakthrough has been accompanied by a setback or a failure to breakthrough the next wall.
With all the talk about NCAA stuff at UNC and Louisville, where I think the issues are actually worse than what's been alleged thus far at Ole Miss, what differentiates the Rebels' case is that it seems much more easy to prosecute according to the NCAA's own norms, and it seems like Freeze may be more easily implicated in a very personal way. Lack of institutional control, yeah, but what screws the Rebs is the details.
This has a direct impact on Kentucky, of course, because the Rebels travel to Lexington this year. Since the offseason began I felt like that would be a very winnable game for Kentucky. In fact, NCAA issues and dark cloud aside, ESPN's FPI rankings place Kentucky 34th and Ole Miss 39th going into 2017. Given what's happened this week I'm moving this game firmly into the "Kentucky lean" category and I'd be surprised if the Rebels salvage a decent season. There will be attrition, there will be distractions, there will be chaos, and it's going to get a lot worse before the inevitable additional penalties even come down.
Have we expected too much from Isaiah Briscoe?
I went on T.J.'s radio show today and we had an interesting discussion about Briscoe, and whether folks have been too hard on him during his and the team's struggles over the past two months or so. I went back and forth, waffling, because on the one hand, yeah, he had to be the X-factor, the intangible guy, the warrior, the talented veteran that pushed and drove the younger guys with incredible skill. And as his confidence has waned even his greatest strengths have become, well, not so strong.
But the more I thought about it the more I came to believe that we've expected too much from him. Sophomore slumps are nothing new in college basketball. I'm not saying they're the norm and they might be overblown, but just as freshmen at Kentucky are held to an impossible standard (thanks to KAT, AD, Wall, etc), I think some sophomores at Kentucky are (in some real cases and hypothetically, you could imagine) held an impossible standard.
I think the common assumption was that Briscoe, because he passed on the draft, would come back and be a transformed player or at least a much better player. Because we're so accustomed to seeing guys show up and leave as soon as they've arrived, I think we've sometimes forgotten that a player's improvement from freshman-to-sophomore year is really not all that spectacular, and sometimes that Year 1-Year 2 improvement doesn't keep pace with how much opponents have caught onto them through competition and film study. In the case of a player who is maybe a little more physically limited like Briscoe, a below the rim player without great quickness and a middling shot at best, I think this frosh-to-soph leap definitely would seem to favor opposing defenses learning to disrupt the things that he does well. In short, I can only speak for myself, but "telling" on myself here, I think I subconsciously sometimes assumed Briscoe would play like a senior rather than a sophomore who didn't really have the elite athleticism to make a major leap forward.
That doesn't excuse some of the worst aspects of his play, or explain all of it, but it gives me a little perspective on my expectations maybe being out of whack.
New contracts on the football side
Derrick LeBlanc: $300K, Matt House: From $275K to $650K, Eddie Gran: From $650K to $825K (rising to $850 then $875K), Dean Hood: $350K.
Not really surprised by the numbers, although I do think it's a good look for Kentucky to dish out that kind of money for a coordinator (it's about time). Matt House will probably do something nice for his family with that first new paycheck.
As has been said elsewhere, what's interesting is, for instance, the $150K that would be owed to UK if Gran were to leave for another position. I don't think that would be a huge stumbling block if he found the right job. But, as I've said, I think what this new contract does is give Gran all the incentive he needs to be patient. He doesn't need to chase head coach money. The only thing he has to tell himself (as he's said he has), is that he doesn't need to just chase the HC job.
With the money he'll be making there won't be much incentive to take some job that's a graveyard for coaches that nobody wants. Who knows? At one point I wouldn't have thought it would have been likely for an OC at Kentucky to possibly even bypass the G5 route altogether and get a P5 job, but it's not impossible to imagine a program on a prestige par with Purdue, Iowa State, Wake Forest, etc., giving a really good, highly-paid UK OC with a track record a shot.
I've said this on a couple of podcasts today, but again: We talk a lot about Gran's play calling last year (which I thought was good), the way he adapted the offense to a severe change behind center in the season, and the way he has recruited in South Florida. All important things. All things that help justify the raise.
But I think by far the most important thing Eddie Gran does as Kentucky's OC is he allows Mark Stoops to be Mark Stoops. Gran has given Stoops his confidence, he's helped Stoops have the freedom and empowerment to meddle in the defense (as opposed to meddling in the offense), and I think the value of that is impossible to quantify. When your head coach doesn't trust a coordinator, loses faith in him, etc., your head coach isn't himself. He's coaching out of character and it makes him a worse coach. I think Gran makes Kentucky's offense better, but I think more importantly he makes Stoops better.
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