Her Loyal Sons

A Notre Dame Football Blog

Home > Friday Roundup > Friday Roundup: The “Failing to Understand the Internet” Edition

Friday Roundup: The “Failing to Understand the Internet” Edition

by

Good grief, NCAA, where do I even begin with you this week?

In case you missed it, on Wednesday Jay Bilas partook in one of his favorite pastimes: dropping bombs on the NCAA’s head. He discovered that you could enter names of athletes the search feature of the NCAA’s store and actually find the “generic” numbered jersey that just so happens to match said athlete like say, Johnny Manzel, who is currently under investigation for taking payment for signing memorabilia:

But surely someone like Everett Golson who was dismissed from ND wouldn’t be included, right?

Ok, well that might be excusable due to laziness, I mean the NCAA would never sell anything from people they heavily punished, right?

Needless to say, this created quite a firestorm on Twitter, leading the NCAA to shut down the search feature of their website…or so they thought:

This lead to NCAA President, Mark Emmert, declaring that the NCAA store would no longer sell memorabilia and admitting the practice was probably a bit hypocritical of them.

While there is a whole separate debate to be had about jersey sales and whether member institutions should be allowed to continue to do so when the NCAA isn’t, the kicker for me was this:

So, clearly the NCAA must not understand how the internet works. That’s like me saying if you click one of our Amazon links, HLS would never see a penny.

How I InternetBeyond that, they thought removing a search box would remove search functions. Every search function on the internet, Google included, has a specific URL that goes in your browser address bar to make it work. Even if they somehow didn’t know that, during the Twitter shitstorm, people, like myself, were making fun of the NCAA by tweeting out these exact URLs so it’s all out in the open for everyone to see.

Removing that box was equivalent to being an ostrich and sticking their head into the sand.

I don’t expect the NCAA to be full of internet experts. Hell, I’m knowledgeable about it and still have issues that have been quite publicly displayed when HLS went boom multiple times. But the fact that they could overlook something this basic, do something so stupid to “fix” it, and then claim “well, gee, I don’t think we made any money anyways” is just laughable. They are either just that dumb or believe everyone is beyond stupid to not see through it.

Having this blow up in their faces after suspending players for selling their own memorabilia (Ohio State) and investigating someone for profiting of his signature (Manziel) makes the entire NCAA look like nothing more than a bunch of idiots throwing rocks in their own glass house.

/waits for karma to crash HLS

The Roundup

Speaking of internet things, here’s an update on HLS. Last week I moved us to a different host to try and stop the constant crashing of HLS. During the move, they did a review of the entire site and had no complaints. Hopefully this means that the last issues we saw before the move were the fault of the old host and not something I’ve done. After the move, I also saw we had quite the spam problem. I deleted over 3,000 spam accounts and installed some additional safeguards to prevent this from becoming an issue again. Hopefully, no legitimate accounts got nuked during this, but if it did and you can’t register again for some reason, please let us know.

Because the Johnny Football saga wouldn’t be over until the damn lawyers got involved. So Manziel hired the same attorney that represented Cam Newton and he made sure to proclaim that Johnny would without a doubt be playing when the season starts. You should really check out the attorney’s web site too. I mean, I’m a proud Texan and all, but cowboy hats, seriously?!

Two of the things I hate most in the sports world combined. New York Yankees’ Manager, Joe Girardi, spoke to Alabama. Roll vomit.

No shirt, no shoes, let’s coach practice. Never change, Steve Spurrier.

The OU game just got even more interesting. Their already thin defense just took another hit.

Finally, make sure to stop by the Subway Domer. They have a pretty badass printable ND schedule available.

The Beer

Believe it or not, summer is quickly coming to a close. I would be greatly disappointed in myself if I don’t recommend one of my favorite summer seasonsals before the season starts up: Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy.

Yes, it’s not exactly a “craft” selection, but it’s so damn tasty. I make no apologies.

Ryan Ritter
Latest posts by Ryan Ritter (see all)

About Ryan Ritter

Editor-in-Chief
Texan by birth, Irish by choice.

First-generation Domer and a former student manager, HLS podcast host, HLS Sim creator, Extra Life streamer, and technical problem haver. You can find more non-Notre Dame related writing on his Patreon.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. kyndfan

    That’s a great summer beer. No apology needed.
    Hopefully Girardi rubs off on bama. You know, since the yanks are no one to be feared right now.
    I’m just glad I can get on the site right now. Run hamsters run.

  2. trey

    Girardi also spoke to the Cowboys camp last week and I was torn about that one. I’m hoping he didnt give a ‘How to be a Real Winner’ speech and stuck more to a topic he is more knowledgeable about like “How to Wear Adult Braces Whilst Holding a Major Sports Job.”

    • NDtex

      Oh God, I completely forgot about that. I lost a bit more respect for Garrett when the Ticket mentioned he was a huge Yankee fan.

      In related strange cross-sport training camp events, Chris Paul visited a Cowboys training camp practice and called it “the greatest thing [he’s] ever done in [his] life” — WUT?!

      • trey

        Depends on where youre driving to/from. If youre coming from the south, it’s a welcome oasis after having to drive through the Sodom and Gomorrah that is San Marcos/Austin. If youre coming from Dallas, it is your last good stop before having to drive 4 straight hours through the same land of heathens(because God knows, you would dare step foot in that hell hole and if you did, you’d be stuck in Austin city traffic).

    • NDtex

      I’m really glad you posted this. I’m writing a piece and this article will fit perfectly into it!