Coach O didn’t stop there though. He said Texas pulled the same stunt on Louisiana Tech. In fact, he called them to scout the conditions and brought extra blower fans to combat the under-handed tactic.

Problem is that Skip Holtz, head coach of Louisiana Tech, said that Coach O never called him and he had no recollection that Texas attempted to stoop so low.

Texas of course denied all the allegations and athletic director, Chris Del Conte, launched–and I can’t believe I’m about to write this–an internal investigation on their HVAC functionality. The report came back stating the A/C was working just fine and–I also can’t believe I’m about to write this–those records were FOIA’d:

But don’t worry, y’all, we can get dumber. Because our Austin correspondent and fellow degenerate game picker, NDEddieMac, received third-party confirmation from…*checks notes*…a BBQ vendor:

Friendly reminder, LSU won this game.

For some reason though, Coach O decided to go down this fabricated rabbit hole. Why? I honestly have no clue. It was originally triggered by questions about his players cramping on the field, which, you know happens in upper-90-degree Texas heat. He didn’t even have to mention this insanity at all.

But nope, here we are, complete with spreadsheets and BBQ joints calling bullshit.

Never change, college football. Ever.

The Roundup

Note: Some links are from The Athletic and require a subscription to read. These are denoted with ($). If you are considering a subscription, please use our discount!

Friendly reminder if you are looking for ND/SC tickets: HLS is doing a charity silent auction for a pair. Details are here.

Winning is hard, but losing is harder. And losing so badly that it’s clear the season is done after just a couple of weeks? That’s a whole other level ($).

California passed a bill that would allow players to profit of their image and likeness. So, naturally, the NCAA responded to this first domino of the Olympic model falling by calling the thing unconstitutional and threatening to kick all California schools out of the NCAA. Makes sense.

Tennessee finally got a win. In response to the news that a Florida boy found himself bullied because he made his own Tennessee shirt since he had none, Tennessee not only sent him a care package of swag, but are now selling the very shirt the boy designed to benefit anti-bullying groups. They are selling like hotcakes with over 16,000 sold as of Tuesday.

Mark Richt has lost control of giving a single, solitary fuck:

Want to read a story entirely about an epic punting performance? You know you do ($).

RIP, T. Boone Pickens. While many know him for his contributions to Oklahoma State, it’s well worth reading more about one hell of a full life that includes him going to the grave with a promise that 90% of his wealth will go to charity.

Opponent Watch

Regardless if he’s on the sidelines or not, this weekend is about Bob Davie. While his tenure at Notre Dame absolutely went south, the coaching staff that he had here was nothing short of incredible ($) and all the more maddening that it never worked. While I’m happy to hear he’s recovering from his undisclosed health issues, it is worth bringing up his rather rocky legacy that includes unceremoniously firing Joe Moore and orchestrating a spying operation.

And always remember, now and forever, the hot dog machine incident.

The post Friday Roundup: The HVAC Edition appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

There’s about 40 seconds left in the second quarter. It’s 2nd-and-10 from Ohio State’s 15 yard line. Notre Dame’s DeShone Kizer is flushed from the pocket, makes a move on a defender and heads to the corner of the end zone. He extends the football to try and score and, as he does, Vonn Bell launches himself in Kizer’s direction and lowers his head…right into the quarterback’s helmet.

TARGETING REVIEW

Today, the NCAA’s football rules committee will begin its three day conference to discuss, among other things, the controversial – but vitally important – targeting rule.

In 2013, the committee – in an attempt to enhance player safety – increased the penalty for targeting to 15 yards and an automatic ejection of the offending player. The rule leans on the side of player safety: “When in question, it is a foul.”

The Associated Press says: “The committee will consider giving replay officials more flexibility in how they review targeting penalties and allowing them to call fouls that are not called on the field.”

If this tougher penalty is to discourage headhunting and protect players, why is there a loophole that stymies replay officials? The on the field official was looking at Kizer’s hand in relation to the pylon; he missed Bell’s hit. Why couldn’t the replay booth act as a second set of eyes?

Targeting is two things. It’s hitting an opponent with the crown of your helmet. It’s also hitting a defenseless opponent on his head or neck with your helmet, forearm, fist, elbow or shoulder.

The application of this rule has been maddeningly inconsistent. Look at these two instances:

Top was called #targeting & overturned after review (QB was carted off, btw); bottom resulted in an ejection. @NCAA? pic.twitter.com/pWmVMP6YYY

— Mitch Wilcox (@mitch_wilcox) October 19, 2015

In the Michigan-Michigan State game, Wolverines linebacker Joe Bolden (#35) is ejected for targeting. I’m not sure what you see, but I see Bolden being manhandled by Sparty’s offensive lineman Jack Conklin. Bolden falls on Spartans QB Connor Cook, who has slid and their helmets make contact.

Is this targeting? Yes, according to the rule. Does it feel like targeting? Of course not.

Ohio State defensive lineman Joey Bosa was ejected from the game for targeting Notre Dame quarterback DeShone Kizer. (Photo: Rob Schumacher/azcentral sports)

If the sole concern is player safety, then there should be zero objective standard. Anything that meets the statutory definition of targeting will result in an ejection (including the hit on Cincinnati’s Gunner Kiel in the top video).

However, this will forever alter the game. Defensive backs will be hesitant to hit a receiver after he’s made a catch but not yet “had time to protect himself.” Linemen and linebackers will try to figure out ways to tackle a quarterback who is deciding between running and making an awkward, last-second slide.

There will be plenty who say, “Let the players play and stop over-legislating the game.” It’ll surely slow down the game and cause important players – like Bolden and Ohio State’s Joey Bosa – to miss big games, which will diminish the excitement.

The committee needs to decide: Is the objective of the targeting enhancement to discourage dangerous hitting and make the game safer? Or is that just one priority among many others, which includes the bottom line?

—

Thanks to @SupermanTDJesus for the Vonn Bell video.

The post Targeting Rule Needs Rethinking appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

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:

Go to http://t.co/qpH4tNnIpH, type in "Manziel" in upper right search box, hit enter. This comes up. pic.twitter.com/N7KNvXIu24

— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 6, 2013

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

Even suspended, http://t.co/qpH4tNnIpH will sell your stuff. Notre Dame's Everett Golson is still for sale. pic.twitter.com/gY6vRDJCK1

— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 6, 2013

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

NCAA Shop site selling Joe Paterno 400-Win gear: http://t.co/fG5cmer80a The "culture of football" ain't so bad when you profit off it, huh?

— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 8, 2013

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:

http://t.co/qpH4tNnIpH can still be searched by typing "/search/braxtonmiller" in the URL. This comes up. Have fun. pic.twitter.com/8Zp4Iza6jt

— Jay Bilas (@JayBilas) August 6, 2013

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:

Emmert says his understanding is NCAA made no money off that online store. Was an aggregator site.

— Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) August 8, 2013

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.

Beyond 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.

The post Friday Roundup: The “Failing to Understand the Internet” Edition appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.

It’s definitely a mixed bag. On the one hand, it gives us all here at HLS time to breathe a little bit without having to worry about the next game or being ready to analyze a recruiting class at the drop of hat. On the other, we will all go a little stir crazy while waiting for the Blue/Gold game.

Despite that, the Roundup will still go strong, grabbing on to every last piece of football news while we await for the next kickoff. And this week, the signing day craziness brings us quite the solid haul, so let’s get to it.

The Roundup

Before National Signing Day happened, the NCAA fell on their face. Their VP paid the lawyer of Miami booster, Nevin Shapiro, to grill him in order to gather evidence against Miami. The Hurricanes have a legitimate beef about this because these actions have opened up a giant can of worms.

Even Michigan players really don’t like Michigan. I’m sure Skunkbear fans were thrilled to hear one of their recruits will be a Buckeye fan until the day he dies.

Urban Meyer isn’t impressed, Big Ten. I really want to be a fly on the wall for the Urban Meyer Recruiting 101 session during the Big Ten meetings. It’s going to be even better if the Big Ten steps up their game only to have Meyer steal their most prized recruits.

File this under the craziest story for this year’s signing day. Mother steals son’s LOI, son gets father to help him actually sign LOI, and mother hires lawyer. These are all things that actually happened.

Clemson really loves Twilight y’all. I’m not even sure what to say about this.

Remember when Tommy Tuberville bailed on a steak dinner with a recruit and then took the Cincinnati job? Texas Tech fans sure didn’t. Their response? Send Tuberville a menu! I tip my hat to my fellow Texans on this one.

Finally, here’s EDSBS’ breakdown of signing day. Because the entire circus needs a little bit of humor.

The Beer Booze

So it’s my birthday today, and while I love beer, I’m calling an audible. Bring on the whiskey.

The post Friday Roundup: The “And Now the Offseason Really Begins” Edition appeared first on Her Loyal Sons.