LSU Spring game

The LSU spring football game will be televised live tomorrow on ESPN at 3pm CDT.  Here is a link to the rosters.  Admission is free to the game.  I'm really looking forward to watching the game. This will be the nation's first look at the "new" offense for the Tigers after the addition of offensive coordinator Steve Kragthorpe.  There are plenty of things to look for during the game but a few will be:
1) The running game.   Who gets the bulk of the carries? How many yards from scrimmage will each running back get?
2) Quarterback rotation/playing time.  Which qb gets the most reps with the first string offense and who actually moves the ball? Also something to watch for is qb Jordan Jefferson's mechanics. Especially his footwork and timing with the receivers. That will be a very good indicator of improvement on the offensive side of the ball.
3) Injuries.  There are already quite a few minor injuries to key players. Those players will not be participating in the game tomorrow. These are players that need to be healthy by the start of the season in September. Hopefully we will not see any more injuries tomorrow during the game.
All in all this should be a good game and I'm can't wait to watch it. In case your going to miss the live airing at 3pm, the game will be replayed throughout the rest of the weekend on ESPN2 and ESPNU. Check local listings for times.

So U of Alabama is cheating... again.

Apparently, Jeffery Lee of Auburnsports.com  has accused an Alabama booster of paying a recruit to sign with the University of Alabama to play football.  The full story is at MrSec.com and the article goes on to list accounts of money and a car being given to the player and other recruiting misconducts. Alabama has been caught in this sort of behavior before, so it wouldn't surprise me if all this were true.  But the real problem isn't necessarily the universities, it seems to me that the problem is with boosters.  Too many die hard fans with a little too much money, so they want to ensure that their respective teams have good players for them to root for and maybe to brag to their close friends how they "got that player" on the team. The coaching staffs and universities for that matter have a hard enough time keeping track of all the incoming freshman, let a lone the boosters too. Often times college football coaches will pay recruiting services to provide game tape of potential recruits from other states to save on the costs of traveling to see the recruit first hand and to save time.  College football coaching staffs have a very busy schedule, they certainly don't have time to babysit every incoming recruit. But don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily defending this sort of behavior. This could certainly be some sort of loophole being exploited, and most likely is with some universities, so as to keep the university name and coaching staffs clean from an illegal recruiting activities. The boosters will end up with a slap on the wrist and be out whatever money they invested into the recruit should they be caught.  Right now the blame goes to the NCAA.  They will have to change rules regarding athletic scholarships to allow for some spending cash for players, much like many high end academic scholarships provide.  It won't have to be a lot of money, just enough for small stuff like a plane ticket back home once a semester/summer or a laptop or enough money to go out to eat every now and then.  Plus this might teach young athletes to be a little more responsible with their money in the future should they go pro. But only time will tell. Until then I guess it's Cheat Tide Cheat, or is it Roll? Either way, same difference.

Opening Day!

It's finally Opening Day for MLB. I don't know about you but I'm a little disappointed that there are only six games today.  I would really liked to have more games today but it is what it is.  Jeff Passan talk about it more in depth here. But I suppose some baseball is better than no baseball at all.  I hope everyone has their fantasy lineups set and are ready to enjoy another season of MLB.

LSU update

Here is an update on LSU football and baseball via Kris Brauner @ Saturday Night Slant concerning the baseball struggles of late and an important signing for the football team.  If you're an LSU fan and you aren't following him on Twitter I highly recommend you do.

The Upsets continue..

     (4)Kentucky pulls of the "upset" against (2)UNC even though latest betting lines via Betus.com had Kentucky as a favorite to win.  Even still, the win by Kentucky created a first for the Final Four of the tournament. This year will mark the first time there are no No.1 or No.2 seeds in the Final Four. More details on this unique Final Four in this article written by Jeff Eisenberg.
     This is the sort of stuff that the anti-BCS crowd looks for in college football.  The Cinderella team making a run at the National Championship.  A playoff system would give more hope to the likes of Boise St, TCU, Utah and other smaller conference teams to winning the championship. But is this also a reason to not have a playoff system in college football? I mean how many tickets could teams in the smaller conferences sell to road playoff games compared to the big time teams such as USC, Ohio St, Alabama, LSU, etc.?  And could those smaller conference teams sell out their respective share of tickets to road playoff games multiple times per post season should they win? These are probably reasons we won't see a playoff in college football anytime soon, but it sure would be fun to watch a playoff run by any team in major college football.

Upsets Galore, so far....

     In college baseball today, U of Georgia Bulldogs pulled off an upset of (10)LSU winning both games of a doubleheader.  Saturday's game was rained out, so they played two 7 inning games today on Sunday. UGA won game 2 of the series by the score of 9-5 and then won game 3 of the series 3-2. LSU won the opening game of the series on Friday by the score of 7-3. With the two losses today that brings LSU's record to 17-7 overall; LSU has lost 6 of the last 7 games. After losing the weekend conference series to UGA, LSU will certainly continue to drop in the rankings.  McNeese St is up next on the schedule for LSU, Wednesday night at 6:30 pm CDT. In other SEC baseball news, (1)Florida loses two of three to South Carolina, another surprise. Florida may drop in the rankings as well.
      And now on to the biggest upset of the day so far;  (11)Virginia Commonwealth University beating (1)Kansas in the NCAAB Elite Eight match up today by the score of 71-61.  This was VCU's first ever Elite Eight appearance as they move on to the Final Four to face (8)Butler on April 2nd. This is without a doubt the furthest a play-in team has advanced in the tournament. Now that the two remaining underdogs face each other, the winner moves on to set up a certain David versus Goliath match up against the winner of the UCONN versus Kentucky/UNC game.  Are there more upsets to come?  Only time will tell.

LSU Football Spring Practices

Read an article, spring-practice-notes, written by Kris Brauner of Saturday Night Slant containing some recent updates of LSU football. Seems as though spring practice is going well the the Tigers. I know I'm certainly looking forward to watching the spring game on April 9th. It will be televised on ESPN. I'll update with a more specific time and channel of the spring game as we get closer to the date.