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Last week, I asked you to tell me which under-the-radar sports are uniquely popular at your school. The most frequent response was Washington rowing, followed by Cal rugby and Notre Dame fencing. (Some of your entries were a bit above the radar, though I congratulate your programs all the same.)
I should make sure everyone knows the local treasures that are Alabama wheelchair basketball, Illinois State circus, Kansas State crop-judging, Montana State rodeo and UC Santa Barbara frisbee. Thanks to all for writing in. That was enjoyable! 😃 Now let’s talk about media days. 😩
Talkin’ Season: It just means more to everybody
Amid SEC coaches griping in Tampa about everything under the sun — the Playoff committee might not respect our game against Notre Dame, even though the committee just stole a Playoff spot from Notre Dame and gave it to one of our teams — commissioner Greg Sankey made a point that’s both rare and important.
On the subject of the ever-theorized SEC breakaway from the rest of the NCAA, Sankey described his semi-apex-predator conference as being just one part of a college sports ecosystem.
“In all of our states, there’s more colleges and universities in Division I beyond just our SEC members.
“We also have Division II and Division III members whose championship support structure doesn’t exist without March Madness in Division I happening. March Madness has an American culture expectation of automatic bids, of Cinderella stories and upsets. …
“And that multiplies into college baseball, where there’s a breadth of access.
“I think we have the largest amount of HBCUs in our footprint.
“Those relationships, that’s important.”
Yes! Let’s hear much, much more of this kind of talk.
All of that is relevant to Sankey for a bunch of reasons, one of them being “state governments that wouldn’t be pleased if one SEC school did something that harmed other schools in the state,” as our news story put it.
Way too often, the power conferences (and especially the Power 2) have presented themselves as if they’re the only game in their respective towns, perhaps believing in a Fox Sports-style view of college sports, where only the very biggest games matter at all.
Trying to burn down the entire rest of the ecosystem might profit the SEC or Big Ten and their television superiors in the short run, maybe even the long run. But there are a thousand schools that play college football (let alone other sports), and they’re all part of a machine that funnels talent and interest upward.
The rich schools actually cultivating the ecosystem that has long benefitted them would be nice, but now we’re aiming high. If nothing else, they should be wise enough not to try to become LIV Golf.
More from SEC media days, with the Big Ten next week:
Quick Snaps
👴 A tradition that might never be the same again, due to new NCAA eligibility rules: the annual All-Geezer Team, celebrating this season’s players who’ve managed to stick around for as many as eight years. Four 2019 freshmen, still in FBS!
💪 More spinoffs from our QB Tiers project, ranking all 138 FBS starters:
🐴 “The first active college football player to have a piece of his team’s facility named after him while he’s still a student.” A creative idea by SMU, to say the least.
📰 News:
📆 Which Power 4 teams have the most (or least) navigable schedules? Stewart Mandel assesses each conference. Hard times for Mike Norvell and Bill Belichick … and lemme also point out Arkansas’ peril in Year 1 for Ryan Silverfield.
Cignetti Era: Now Indiana recruits blue-chips?
Since the advent of the digital recruiting rankings era (2001 onward), Indiana has never signed a football player ranked in the top 70 of the national consensus. Therefore, no five-stars, and only one player (2022 safety Dasan McCullough) who ranked in an overall top 100.
Let’s also note there wasn’t a horde of blue-chip football talent flooding Bloomington before 2001.
Well, as noted last week, 2027 five-star Monshun Sales is now months away from likely becoming by far Indiana’s highest-rated signee ever. The Indianapolis receiver, who ranks No. 7 in the 247Sports Composite, committed to the Hoosiers over Alabama, LSU, Ohio State and Texas.
If the “Indianapolis” part sounds like it must have been an insurmountable advantage for the Hoosiers, remember the state has long been dominated by Notre Dame, sits in the middle of the Big Ten and is frequently raided by other powers. Twice each in this millennium, North Carolina and Tennessee landed Indiana’s top recruit, compared to the Hoosiers’ zero … for now.
But wait, there’s more.
Yesterday, 2028 four-star quarterback Lukas Prock of New Jersey committed to Indiana over Florida, Michigan, Notre Dame and Ohio State. Among players entering their junior high school seasons, he’s currently rated as the Composite’s No. 6 QB.
Potentially signing the two highest-rated players in program history, all while employing the universally acknowledged best coach in all of college football? Things are looking up, somewhat.
The Hoosiers have recruited pretty well at times in the past, sure. Parts of Curt Cignetti’s championship roster came from Tom Allen’s No. 21 class of 2022. But the average class from Indiana’s pre-Cignetti decade ranked just No. 52, and by that standard, this 17-man class’ No. 31 ranking is lofty.
The days of Cignetti winning with only seven blue-chippers on the entire roster are done. You know, since he was taking it a little too easy on everyone else.
And if we’ve all decided recruiting rankings no longer matter in the portal era, then let’s remember the reigning national champion — Indiana is the reigning national champion?? — just brought in the No. 2 transfer class. So the rest us are apparently all doomed either way.
Also, on the subject of whether Indiana is a basketball school or football school now, reader Tyler sent in some considered reflections:
“WINNING THE (expletive) NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP IN (expletive) FOOTBALL IS THE GREATEST SPORTS EXPERIENCE OF MY ENTIRE (expletive) LIFE. I COULD NEVER WATCH ANOTHER IU BASKETBALL GAME, AND MY LIFE WOULD STILL BE FULFILLED JUST BASED ON THAT ONE MAGICAL RUN TO MIAMI.”
Thanks, Tyler. Now we turn to a program that used to be better than Indiana, and could perhaps regain that status some day. From Stewart Mandel’s mailbag:
Mandel’s Mailbag
What on earth is happening in Ann Arbor? Spending $12 million on an investigation, only to not publish the results? Why force AD Warde Manuel to step down, only to let him stick around for another five months to assist in changing the culture? Have you ever seen anything like this before? — Mike J.
Oh, sure. Pretty much every College Sports Internal Investigation boils down to three core principles:
Finding just enough evidence to avoid paying someone’s buyout without incriminating anyone else.
Making sure we don’t get sued.
Making sure we can’t get FOIA’d.
While unsurprising, it’s still insulting that Michigan’s strategy was to delay announcing anything until after its public board meeting last week, and then, when it did, to issue just a few vague bullet points about the findings with no real details. It’s only a major public university with 700,000 alumni who deserve answers.
My alma mater, Northwestern, tried this approach three years ago during its hazing investigation, sending out a two-page news release over a holiday weekend announcing Pat Fitzgerald’s two-week suspension. Within a few days, an anonymous whistleblower came forward with a range of allegations. Social media erupted, the school president reversed course and fired Fitzgerald, whom he’d previously absolved, and the school is now paying out hundreds of millions in settlements to its former coach and some former players.
Here’s wishing you better luck, Michigan.
Reading between the lines, the investigation didn’t find the smoking gun Michigan needed to avoid paying Manuel the three-plus years remaining on his $1.9 million-a-year contract, so they presumably negotiated a reduced buyout that included a softer exit plan. Given Manuel’s intimate knowledge of the athletic department, it’s probably better to pay him than end up in a lawsuit that involves discovery.
Almost all the coverage of this story has focused on who knew what, and when, about Sherrone Moore’s affair with a subordinate. Understandably so. But the moment I’ll remember most from Manuel’s tenure was the scorched-earth statement he released at the height of Connor Stalions Gate calling the Big Ten’s three-game suspension of Jim Harbaugh “completely unethical” and “an assault on the rights of everyone (especially in the Big Ten) to be judged by a fair and complete investigation.”
It was the most high-profile embodiment of Michigan’s “F all of you, we want our banner” mentality during the Harbaugh/early-Moore era. Three years and $12 million later, someone in charge finally said, “Maybe we should try to start following the rules.”
Back to me, Jason, linking Stew’s complete mailbag again and saying goodbye. One week until we enter the month when college football starts.
Oh, and in case you haven’t seen yet, LeBron is going to … Philly?
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