Brian at Mgoblog (I will not link there, you know where it is anyway) often says stupid things. Recently he said smart things about Saban's penchant for over-signing though, so we know he CAN be rational at times, despite his misguided love for skunkbears. But today, he said another stupid thing. And since there's NOTHING going on in college football right now, I'll just call him out on it. Then we'll get a few Michigan (sucks!) fans who will come over here and yell "3-9!" and "you suck!", and similar such sentiments which will have nothing to do with the argument presented below. Then I'll point out their idiocy and then we'll all move on to the next moronic thing that a skunkbear fan says. Fun.
Brian's post is about a potential scandalistic-type-thing coming out of Michigan. Something around academics and all that. We don't know what it is yet, but we're excited to learn about it. I know it's kind of piling on with all of the DickRod issues and all, but it's really just kind of fun.
Michigan loves to toot its horn about its academic integrity and all that, but it's all very selective. They love to ignore their graduation rates for African American players, for example. Anyway, I digress. Kind of.
The line in the post with which I take issue is in the following quote:
There is the separate question "should athletes be taking independent study classes en masse," the answer to which is definitely "no." But that's life when you have players spending something like 40 hours a week year-round on their chosen sport.
C'mon now Brian! Seriously. For a dude that espouses the academic rigor of his alma mater, and the high standards to which the institution holds its athletes, this is absurd. The first part is good - you don't think your football players should all be taking cake classes ('independent study'). That's good! Good! Now, we all know that they are taking those cake-walk classes, but that's another discussion. You get a point for WISHING your school did it the right way at least. Congratulations.
It's your next line that's the problem: But that's life when you have players spending something like 40 hours a week year-round on their chosen sport. No, that is NOT life!
That's MICHIGAN when you have players spending something like 40 hours a week year-round on their chosen sport.
MICH-I-GAN. That's not "life" at Notre Dame. That's not "life" at a number of schools that do it the right way.
For a guy that spends so much time calling out other schools for their lack of academic rigor, you should do some looking in the mirror. After all your attempted attacks of ND's academics as they relate to athletics (which is just funny and lame -my favorite is when you say that ND must be EASIER for student-athletes because they actually graduate) and pumping up of how much the skunkbears REALLY DO STUDY, shrugging your shoulders at this kind of academic laziness and irresponsibility is hypocritical, and just simply weak.
Pure Skunkbear.
By Kilted Domer February 21, 2008 - 2:38 pm
This is especially interesting when the NCAA has a limit on the number of hours that players can spend in practice each week. I believe the number is 20. Of course, that rule is frequently loopholed with time spent studying film, etc.
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By The Biscuit February 21, 2008 - 3:12 pm
I don’t think he was implying that it’s 40 hrs formal practice time, but you raise a good point KD. I think that the time spent outside practice is pretty standard across BCS programs though – I doubt teams could remain competitive with just 20 hrs/week in total time dedicated to football. It’s an interesting issue though – I may dig around a bit to see if there’s any data on time spent outside of practice time. Though I’m sure it’s undocumented…
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