Florida's Minor Violation
In case you missed it, the beloved NCAA finished up an investigation into the football program at Florida about a recruiting violation from a year ago. It involved Joker Phillips, who many remember as the failed Kentucky head coach, who was an assistant to the team at the time. He apparently conversed with a recruit during the "dead period" which is not allowed and somehow gave him a leg up on the competition. The NCAA must have not realized that it didn't matter when the recruit was spoken to there wasn't much that could be said to bring any recruit to Florida while Muschamp was still the head coach. Regardless of that, when Florida figured it out they suspended Joker on their own and then he resigned due to personal reasons not too long after that. It was determined by everyone's favorite authority figure, the NCAA in case you're lost, that the self-imposed penalties were enough to suffice and they wouldn't be punished any further.
I mean I get it. I really do. But this was literally one of the smallest recruiting violations that could have ever happened. I mean it's not like he wasn't in the wrong but let's be real here what harm could it really do? The kid is going to pick Florida over an Alabama, Auburn, LSU, or even Ohio State or whatever other team could have come calling, just because Joker Phillips shows up at his school, says hello, and gets his Facebook URL? Come on. Give me a break. The off season is also great for seeing what the NCAA is going to do since they're obviously bored and need someone or something to pick on until the real fun starts again. I know that they had to do something because it is a violation, whether it was a really important and necessary violation or not, it was still a violation. So in order to assert their dominance they must investigate and annoy and eventually punish if they deem it necessary to do so. In this case, I think it's fairly decent, and not like them, to let Florida off. As we've seen with other teams before self-imposed violations don't necessarily mean that it will shake the NCAA (see Miami). However, sometimes even after the NCAA investigates and punishes it doesn't mean that it will stop the team from doing wrong things again (see SMU). More recently teams that self-imposed violations have avoided the swing of the hammer from the NCAA, see Syrcause basketball, so Florida did well to get off the hook. I, personally, don't think that it gave Florida any more of a shot at landing the kid than it did anyone else, but hey, I'm not the NCAA. I still don't understand why college players shouldn't get money when people use their likeness and their signature for monetary gain. There's a lot I don't get about the big business of college football. I love it, but I don't get it.
Lorenzen Strikes Again
So everyone probably has heard of Jared Lorenzen at some point if you like football. He was a larger than average QB once upon a time who played and played well at Kentucky. He defied most of the conventions surrounding how a quarterback should look and weigh, and he had one heck of an arm while he did it. Anyway when the picture of the voluptuous Jameis Winston surfaced, Lorenzen simply couldn't resist having his say about it. He posted this lovely number on his Twitter:
In honor of #FatTuesday I will play "who looks better?" P.S. The answer is obvious. #biggerisbetter #22 pic.twitter.com/2PXjLl9r5K
— jared lorenzen (@JaredLorenzen22) February 17, 2015
I swear this made me laugh so hard when I read it. I've read a lot about Jared Lorenzen and he seems like a cool guy and this sort of affirmed that for me. Picking at Jameis about that photo by a famous fat quarterback is just wonderful. As we all know by now the photo of Jameis isn't exactly true to his measurements and so it's not something to get worked up about. However, I still love this post. It's always nice when you can have a sense of humor about something that most people will despise you over. Anyway just a fun little story to cap the blog this week. Until next I write, see ya football lovers.
