Phil Steele: Pre-Season God Of Obsure Stats

Steele brings the funky knowledge that Lindy's and Athlon can only fantasize about. What I love about Phil's mag, is that in this day and age of extreme CFB oversaturation, where we pretty much know 5 minutes after our favorite safety prospect blows a .114 in a stolen car while driving without a license, and the mugshot is subsequently hitting 112 different blogs within the hour...In days where we get constant videos and in-depth reports of every spring practice and at least two first-hand accounts detailing any situation where a 4-star recruit may or may not be scratching his balls.

"Could it be Crabs?! Does his baby's momma know??"

In days such as these, I love that Phil Steele actually manages to tell me stuff I don't know about my team. You know...The one I'm obsessed with. The one I already spend countless hours wasting productivity senselessly studying and dissecting meaningless BS. And he does that for all 119 fanbases out there. Plus the neanderthal followers of Ohio State.

You gotta respect that.

I was at Publix yesterday picking up some bacon, and I happened upon Steele's SEC Preview. (I tried to finagle a copy a couple months ago "as an SEC blogger/promoter" but Steele's email Nazis weren't buyin' it...something about actually updating the site???)

Anyways, In his "Best Case/Worst Case" stat he talks about close wins and close losses from 2008.

I find it interesting that last season, Ole Miss' best case scenario was 13-0 (because the Rebs never got beat by a large margin) and our worse case was 7-6 (because they only won two close games: Ark and Florida)

On the other hand, Alabama's best case is 12-2 (their actual record) because they had two big losses to close the season. Their worse case was was 9-5 as they had three close wins (Kentucky, LSU, OM).

What are the chances of Alabama achieving their best case scenario again? Usually the truth lies somewhere in between worst and best. These people calling for Alabama to go 12-0 again (#5 in the coaches? how so?) are effing crazy. In my mind, they're like Mississippi state in 2008: The year before, all the breaks went their way, and they made the Liberty bowl. Well, the next year, the ball didn't bounce their way near as often. (4-8)

Ole Miss won 2 of 6 close games last season. Lets say win conservative 4 of 6 (.667) this season. I'd be ok with a 10 win regular season.

Again, if you want real insights into college football, look no further. If you want to rely on a bunch of glorified PE Teachers who don't watch the games, don't do their homework and most of the time don't even do the effing voting, check out the new pre-season USA Today Poll.

LSU at #9 above Ole Miss, really??

The Jerrell Powe Circus

The Road Goes On Forever And The Party Never Ends

It appears that Ole Miss and Powe's personal lawyer are appealing the NCAA's bat-shit crazy ruling. Here's a slight taste of the fall out. By the way, who's writing the damn book? (Me? ok.) Cause if you thought "The Blind Side" was a page turner...

Great Quotables:

"The NCAA just established a new category of qualifier today," Jackson said. "There are qualifiers and non-qualifiers, and today the NCAA just established a new category - call it the Jerrell Powe category."

- Don Jackson (Powe's real lawyer - Sorry Jackie)

"I've been saying for years that it would be only a matter of time until the NCAA tried to make a statement by indicting the educational system in some states," Jackson said. "They just did that today when they refused to accept work from Wayne County high school."

- Don Jackson

"We think it's important for Jerrell to be a part of the team," Boone said. "In our experience, the support that Jerrell would receive from teammates and coaches would help him succeed in the classroom."

- Pete Boone (Ole Miss A.D.)

Above quotes and image via Rebelsports.net

The Oxford Square Reacts (aka Nafoom.com):

• Bring on Jesse Jackson
• Casting "The Legend of Jerrell Powe"
• Arts and Crafts Time: A Picture Tribute to Powe and the NCAA

Update: Some Quality Stuff from The Clarion Ledger...

"At the core level," Jackson said, "the NCAA's actions in this case and in all of these 'diploma mill' cases demonstrate an institutional belief that African-American prospective student-athletes are incapable of improving themselves academically. That's what this is all about. And at the very core, that's racist as hell, because inherent in that is the belief that these young men who are struggling academically cannot improve themselves. And there is a belief that if you did improve, you either cheated or cut corners to get there."

Informed of Jackson's comments, Osburn (NCAA Rep) said: "The fact of the matter is, it's a decision about one student-athlete and his academic record, and at the end of the day he's able to go to school and get an education on scholarship. The only thing that's being asked of him is to demonstrate that he's able to meet the time demands of college before he plays football."


This shows how the NCAA has overstepped its role. They are not in the position of saying we think you are capable of going to school but we do not thnk you can handle football and school. This is not their role. They are there to say you can go to school based on your record or not. No grey area. This will be won by Powe very soon. They have no grounds for this type of ruling. In effect they gave him a license to drive a car and said you have done what you need to do to get behind the wheel, but we will not let you actually drive because we think you might reck the car while trying to drive and listen to the radio.

The NCAA Hates Jerrell Powe

photocredit: James Bryant - Rebelsports.net

Powe Denied College Football For the Third Straight Year

The NCAA ruled that Powe will be allowed to receive athletically related financial aid to attend classes. However, he will be ineligible for practice and competition until meeting NCAA and institutional academic requirements in college.

"The idea for determining if student-athletes are academically eligible to participate in college sports is to ensure that the rigors of practice and competition do not interfere with the primary reason student-athletes enroll in college -- to get an education," said Kevin Lennon, NCAA vice president of membership services. "Mr. Powe has not achieved sufficient academic success under NCAA rules to permit athletics participation."

WTF?!? I hope Myles Brand gets unceremoniously butt raped... repeatedly for this. Basically, the NCAA gets to avoid the public relations nightmare of "denying a poor black boy an education" while they get to f. around with Ole Miss and the Powe family. Newsflash: Jerrell Powe is not in College to get an education, you Ass-Hats. Jerrell Powe is in college so he can play football and make a living in the NFL. You're not doing anybody a favor. You're just playing God. Have some balls about you and make a real decision. What a bunch of pricks.

How does the NCAA justify putting a student on athletic scholarship when he's not even allowed to play athletics? Brilliant!

ESPN via the AP