![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_9813-225x300.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nAnother dive into the notebook for a selection of random notes.<\/p>\n
Shockwaves went through college sports last week when UNLV quarterback Matt Sluka, who tore up KU in week three, announced he was sitting out the remainder of the season so he could transfer and retain a year of eligibility. He claimed that UNLV had not lived up to their NIL agreement. UNLV fired back that they had provided everything promised and he was looking for a better deal elsewhere because of his hot start.<\/p>\n
Before we get to the NIL angle, there\u2019s actually another dumb thing that needs to be addressed. In college basketball, if you play one game, you have burned your eligibility for that season. In football, players can appear in as many as four games and maintain their redshirt option going forward.<\/p>\n
That is one of the stupidest rules the NCAA, an organization with a lot of dumb rules, has instituted. Before NIL you would occasionally see a player decide after week four he was shutting it down so he could jump to another program. Khalil Herbert did that at KU a few years back, running all over Boston College one week then not playing again that season before jumping to Virginia Tech. I think this might sneakily be the most destructive element of the modern, free transfer era. It\u2019s bad enough coaches have to re-recruit their own players every year. Now you have to worry about whether they\u2019re going to make a business decision before week five that wrecks your season.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m all for player power, but I think they have too much power in this situation.<\/p>\n
Back to NIL proper. I just laugh at this, and know more of it is coming. For the 100th time on this site, let me remind you that the NCAA could have nipped this in the bud 20 years ago. All they had to do was share a fraction of the money they made from using players\u2019 names in video games, which was the right thing to do on every moral and legal level imaginable, and then allow schools to throw kids a few bucks when they sold jerseys with their names and numbers on them. But, no, they insisted on protecting the \u201csanctity of amateur sports,\u201d when college football and basketball decidedly hadn\u2019t been amateur at the highest level for at least a generation, and refused to allow any of that to happen. Now we\u2019re in a wild west where the NCAA has no rules or control and no higher authority is interested in stepping in to create ground rules. The result is kids getting paid flatly to play at specific schools rather than profiting off the use of their name, image, and likeness as was supposed to happen. Boosters are funneling money into NIL collectives rather than university booster organizations or general funds.<\/p>\n
Congrats, NCAA! You managed to both destroy college sports while trying to protect it, and create a significant financial shortfall for universities at a moment when they face increasing budgetary hostility from the legislatures that fund them. That is some amazing work!<\/p>\n
Pretty much every game I watch these days refs make terrible calls. WNBA refs might be the worst I\u2019ve ever seen, worse even than high school refs. At least high school refs are out-of-shape, thin-skinned, semi-pros so you expect them to suck. I think WNBA refs make up the rules as they go some nights. Twice in their playoff series the Fever had to use a challenge in the first quarter because the referees assigned a foul to the wrong player. In each case it was obvious an error was made, but the refs made no move to correct their call, forcing the Fever to burn a challenge early. Fortunately, in each case they won and the call was changed. ESPN\u2019s Rebecca Lobo blasted the refs and league for putting the Fever in that situation. A referee mistake should not force a team to burn their challenge.<\/p>\n
Refs suck. You know what else sucks? Replay. In so many ways.<\/p>\n
We can see a replay on TV and often in five seconds know if a call was right or wrong, then we sit around for three minutes while the refs try to figure it out. And then sometimes the refs still come up with the completely wrong call. The worst is in college basketball, where they will review an out-of-bounds call, realize the initial call was wrong, in the process see there was a foul that went uncalled, but can only change who has possession, not assign the foul that caused the turnover.<\/p>\n
Then there are all stupid rules about what is and is not a catch in football. Or how in baseball a player\u2019s body coming a fraction of an inch off the bag for a fraction of a second somehow means he was out. And so on.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019ve suggested this before but I think replay review should only be shown at real-time speed. We don\u2019t need to slow it down to one frame per second to analyze whether a ball moved a fraction of an inch when a receiver hit the ground. If we\u2019re checking the refs, we need to check them at the same speed they made the call.<\/p>\n
Yeah, folks will throw a fit if slow-mo shows detail that real time does not. That\u2019s a downside I\u2019m more willing to live with than how replay is used now.<\/p>\n
And every review should be a coach\u2019s review, with a limited number of challenges per contest. Give us back our games!<\/p>\n
I forgot to mention the M got her sorority Little last weekend. It was the girl she\/we expected, an architecture student from California. They both looked excited in the pictures we saw, so that\u2019s good. We were worried the new girl wouldn\u2019t be as into the process as M and her Big were last year. Looks like she can at least fake it.<\/p>\n
We submitted C\u2019s two college applications she plans on sending Monday evening. One to IU, her top choice, and one to UC. M got her acceptance letters from both schools in mid-November of her senior year, so we should know fairly soon.<\/p>\n
Our mailbox has been flooded with promotional material from schools for both C and L. This week C got a package from High Point University. When we opened it up, this book was inside.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a legit, hardback book. She hasn\u2019t checked a box expressing any interest in them, so I assume thousands of these went out unsolicited. I guess at a hair under $70K a year, before aid, they can afford to send some books out. Seems like a weird choice for 17\u201318 year olds, though.<\/p>\n
L has been sick for a couple weeks. It\u2019s been so bad that she\u2019s had to skip a few morning basketball workouts. We\u2019re are pretty sure she had\/has mono, but when we had blood work done last week, somehow the mono test got lost. There were other indicators that suggest mono so we\u2019re going with that. Official basketball practice begins in three weeks, hopefully enough time for her to start feeling better.<\/p>\n
The alleged World Wide Leader is having rough times. Last week they laid off Zach Lowe, one of the best sports writers\/analysts across all sports, and the finest basketball analyst they had. Another sign all they care about is the hot-take side of \u201canalysis\u201d that can be chopped up into Tik-Tok videos.<\/p>\n
Also, last week I was sitting in a waiting room reading their story about the final home game for the Oakland A\u2019s. It was a great story, and proof that ESPN does still allow some long-form journalism to take place under its watch.<\/p>\n
But check out how user-hostile the reading experience was.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_9807-473x1024.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve noticed this a lot lately. You get roughly halfway through a piece and this footer filled with disclaimers, etc pops up. You can\u2019t dismiss it. You can scroll up and it will disappear, but when you scroll back down it returns. It remained on my screen until I finished the article. It\u2019s not even a freaking ad, just a bunch of legalese that the reader should be allow to dismiss, or better yet, should auto-hide after a few seconds.<\/p>\n
Finally, multiple times Monday ESPN showed graphics for the baseball playoffs that were completely wrong. One had the Royals and Tigers flipped, the Royals playing Houston and Detroit going to Baltimore. At least this one you could kind of explain away. The Royals and Tigers finished with the same record, the Royals getting the five seed thanks to winning the season series with Detroit. Obviously someone didn\u2019t know the tie-breaker rules and either gave Detroit the higher spot because of alphabetical order or because they had a better record over their last 10 games. Or because they didn\u2019t bother to look at MLB.com to get the official bracket. Still super dumb, but understandable since ESPN, like much of sports media, has fired many of their experienced editors and replaced them with cheap talent that doesn\u2019t understand context.<\/p>\n
Later in the day, though, they flashed a graphic that had Oakland in the playoffs. The A\u2019s finished 17 games out of the final Wild Card spot. Worse, they had them playing the Padres\u2026on the National League side of the bracket. I guess leaving Oakland means the A\u2019s are also switching leagues?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another dive into the notebook for a selection of random notes. College NIL Shockwaves went through college sports last week when UNLV quarterback Matt Sluka, who tore up KU in week three, announced he was sitting out the remainder of the season so he could transfer and retain a year of eligibility. He claimed that UNLV had not lived up to their NIL agreement. UNLV fired back that they had provided everything promised and he was looking for a better deal elsewhere because of his hot start. Before we get to the NIL angle, there\u2019s actually another dumb thing that needs to be addressed. In college basketball, if you play one game, you have burned your eligibility for that season. In football, players can appear in as many as four games and maintain their redshirt option going forward. That is one of the stupidest rules the NCAA, an organization with a lot of dumb rules, has instituted. Before NIL you would occasionally see a player decide after week four he was shutting it down so he could jump to another program. Khalil Herbert did that at KU a few years back, running all over Boston College one week then not playing again that season before jumping to Virginia Tech. I think this might sneakily be the most destructive element of the modern, free transfer era. It\u2019s bad enough coaches have to re-recruit their own players every year. Now you have to worry about whether they\u2019re going to make a business decision before week five that wrecks your season. I\u2019m all for player power, but I think they have too much power in this situation. Back to NIL proper. I just laugh at this, and know more of it is coming. For the 100th time on this site, let me remind you that the NCAA could have nipped this in the bud 20 years ago. All they had to do was share a fraction of the money they made from using players\u2019 names in video games, which was the right thing to do on every moral and legal level imaginable, and then allow schools to throw kids a few bucks when they sold jerseys with their names and numbers on them. But, no, they insisted on protecting the \u201csanctity of amateur sports,\u201d when college football and basketball decidedly hadn\u2019t been amateur at the highest level for at least a generation, and refused to allow any of that to happen. Now we\u2019re in a wild west where the NCAA has no rules or control and no higher authority is interested in stepping in to create ground rules. The result is kids getting paid flatly to play at specific schools rather than profiting off the use of their name, image, and likeness as was supposed to happen. Boosters are funneling money into NIL collectives rather than university booster organizations or general funds. Congrats, NCAA! You managed to both destroy college sports while trying to protect it, and create a significant financial shortfall for universities at a moment when they face increasing budgetary hostility from the legislatures that fund them. That is some amazing work! Replay\/Refs Pretty much every game I watch these days refs make terrible calls. WNBA refs might be the worst I\u2019ve ever seen, worse even than high school refs. At least high school refs are out-of-shape, thin-skinned, semi-pros so you expect them to suck. I think WNBA refs make up the rules as they go some nights. Twice in their playoff series the Fever had to use a challenge in the first quarter because the referees assigned a foul to the wrong player. In each case it was obvious an error was made, but the refs made no move to correct their call, forcing the Fever to burn a challenge early. Fortunately, in each case they won and the call was changed. ESPN\u2019s Rebecca Lobo blasted the refs and league for putting the Fever in that situation. A referee mistake should not force a team to burn their challenge. Refs suck. You know what else sucks? Replay. In so many ways. We can see a replay on TV and often in five seconds know if a call was right or wrong, then we sit around for three minutes while the refs try to figure it out. And then sometimes the refs still come up with the completely wrong call. The worst is in college basketball, where they will review an out-of-bounds call, realize the initial call was wrong, in the process see there was a foul that went uncalled, but can only change who has possession, not assign the foul that caused the turnover. Then there are all stupid rules about what is and is not a catch in football. Or how in baseball a player\u2019s body coming a fraction of an inch off the bag for a fraction of a second somehow means he was out. And so on. I\u2019m pretty sure I\u2019ve suggested this before but I think replay review should only be shown at real-time speed. We don\u2019t need to slow it down to one frame per second to analyze whether a ball moved a fraction of an inch when a receiver hit the ground. If we\u2019re checking the refs, we need to check them at the same speed they made the call. Yeah, folks will throw a fit if slow-mo shows detail that real time does not. That\u2019s a downside I\u2019m more willing to live with than how replay is used now. And every review should be a coach\u2019s review, with a limited number of challenges per contest. Give us back our games! Kids I forgot to mention the M got her sorority Little last weekend. It was the girl she\/we expected, an architecture student from California. They both looked excited in the pictures we saw, so that\u2019s good. We were worried the new girl wouldn\u2019t be as into the process as M and her Big were last year. Looks like she can at least fake it. We submitted C\u2019s two college applications she plans on sending Monday evening. One to IU, her top choice, and one to UC. M got her acceptance letters from both schools in mid-November of her senior year, so we should know fairly soon. Our mailbox has been flooded with promotional material from schools for both C and L. This week C got a package from High Point University. When we opened it up, this book was inside. It\u2019s a legit, hardback book. She hasn\u2019t checked a box expressing any interest in them, so I assume thousands of these went out unsolicited. I guess at a hair under $70K a year, before aid, they can afford to send some books out. Seems like a weird choice for 17\u201318 year olds, though. L has been sick for a couple weeks. It\u2019s been so bad that she\u2019s had to skip a few morning basketball workouts. We\u2019re are pretty sure she had\/has mono, but when we had blood work done last week, somehow the mono test got lost. There were other indicators that suggest mono so we\u2019re going with that. Official basketball practice begins in three weeks, hopefully enough time for her to start feeling better. ESPN The alleged World Wide Leader is having rough times. Last week they laid off Zach Lowe, one of the best sports writers\/analysts across all sports, and the finest basketball analyst they had. Another sign all they care about is the hot-take side of \u201canalysis\u201d that can be chopped up into Tik-Tok videos. Also, last week I was sitting in a waiting room reading their story about the final home game for the Oakland A\u2019s. It was a great story, and proof that ESPN does still allow some long-form journalism to take place under its watch. But check out how user-hostile the reading experience was. I\u2019ve noticed this a lot lately. You get roughly halfway through a piece and this footer filled with disclaimers, etc pops up. You can\u2019t dismiss it. You can scroll up and it will disappear, but when you scroll back down it returns. It remained on my screen until I finished the article. It\u2019s not even a freaking ad, just a bunch of legalese that the reader should be allow to dismiss, or better yet, should auto-hide after a few seconds. Finally, multiple times Monday ESPN showed graphics for the baseball playoffs that were completely wrong. One had the Royals and Tigers flipped, the Royals playing Houston and Detroit going to Baltimore. At least this one you could kind of explain away. The Royals and Tigers finished with the same record, the Royals getting the five seed thanks to winning the season series with Detroit. Obviously someone didn\u2019t know the tie-breaker rules and either gave Detroit the higher spot because of alphabetical order or because they had a better record over their last 10 games. Or because they didn\u2019t bother to look at MLB.com to get the official bracket. Still super dumb, but understandable since ESPN, like much of sports media, has fired many of their experienced editors and replaced them with cheap talent that doesn\u2019t understand context. Later in the day, though, they flashed a graphic that had Oakland in the playoffs. The A\u2019s finished 17 games out of the final Wild Card spot. Worse, they had them playing the Padres\u2026on the National League side of the bracket. I guess leaving Oakland means the A\u2019s are also switching leagues?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[52,26,27,14,24],"class_list":["post-15761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-college-sports","tag-family","tag-media","tag-parenting","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15761"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15768,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15761\/revisions\/15768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}