Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: Johnny Manziel Edition

Johnny Manziel is getting a lot of attention today after allegedly flipping the bird in an NFL game. Yep, that looks like the bird all right …

Tweet of the Morning

As they wheel me into the emergency room: "Sir, what happened?" "I– met Calipari…" To which the doctor responds, "He's a goner."

— Uncle Buck (@ThomasJ_adams) August 19, 2014

Heh. Love it.

Your Quickies:

Kentucky football

• Kentucky loses a running back recruit to Pitt for 2015. If Damien Harris comes, that won’t matter at all.

• Jojo Kemp is trying to make sure the freshmen focus at all times.

• Tom Leach’s take on the Patrick Towles selection for starting quarterback.

Kentucky basketball

• Will Coach Cal be using platoons this year? He seems to think so.. Eamonn Brennan is excited to see it.

• Willie Cauley-Stein’s prom picture is just as awesome as you’d expect.

• Tom Leach reflects on the Big Blue Bahamas. This one is particularly noteworthy:

  As exciting as Ulis’ play was in the Bahamas, it’s important to note that Andrew Harrison was OUTSTANDING at the point. He’s really grown in his ability to make the right “reads” of what plays to make, as he rarely forced much action in those games. And his brother, Aaron, has added an off-the-dribble element to his game that will make his jumper even more hard to guard.

  I think this is right. Andrew was a pretty good combo guard last season. This year, he’s a point guard.

Other Kentucky sports

• UK divers Christa Cabot and Lindsay Keahey both finish in the top ten at the USA Diving Championships.

Links posts

• John Clay’s Big Blue Links

• The Leach Report: Wednesday Wildcat Links

College football

• The University of Hawai’i might drop football because of Big Five autonomy. This was inevitable, and Hawai’i won’t be the last to consider, or even actually do it. Hat tip: Real Clear Sports.

• Thayer Evans and Pete Thamel, two of the most loathsome representatives of the sports journalism world (at least from my point of view), team up again with this piece about the new College Football Playoff:

  The space between No. 4 and No. 5 – a subjective choice likely between two one-loss teams from different leagues – quickly becomes the biggest gap in all of sports. And with the nebulous selection criteria for the committee still leaving many around college football skeptical – how much will strength of schedule really matter? – the fine line between No. 4 and No. 5 ends up leaving teams a galaxy apart. Many around college sports expect the playoff to be more controversial than the muddled polls and constantly changing formulas that made the BCS a cauldron of controversy since 1999. The new playoff’s model has an inherent tilt toward exclusion that is going to lead to hurt feelings, bruised league reputations and, as the years pass, pressure for expansion to occur.

  There will be pressure to expand, of course — already is, even before the first one has been played. But the idea that the playoff “has an inherent tilt toward exclusion” any more than the previous system isn’t just absurd, it’s risible. Just call down to Auburn University and see what they think about that. How it is possible for the CFB playoff to be more controversial than the mess that was the BCS is something you can find only in Thayer and Thamel’s tiny little minds, and then only with an electron microscope cranked up to full suck:

  At least in this one they’ll be arguing about the fifth entrant, not the second.

• Heh. Bobby Petrino is not yet beloved at Louisville, or with his assistants. Hat tip: Arkansas Fight, which you should also read in full, because it’s awesome.

  Who knew Bobby Petrino was such an unrepentant, socially incompetent jerk? Oh, that’s right — everybody in America. But I guess “He’s a football genius” makes up for his embarrassing lack of … well, almost everything else good and desirable about humanity.

• In more Louisville news, they’ve hired a consulting firm to help their players pick an agent. I didn’t know it was that hard. Then again, money is something has plenty of due to their sweetheart deal with the Yum! Center arena authority. Gotta spend it somewhere, I guess.

• Buckeyes lose their starting QB for the season. I really hate to hear that.

College basketball

• Sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll? No, just another Vanderbilt player making headlines.

• Sexual assault violations alleged in suit against Tulsa, and that the school violated Title IX in its response.

• For some of us, it already has. Well, not officially…

  Only 44 days until college basketball season officially begins......#countdown

  — Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) August 20, 2014

  
  

• NIU has a basketball court only a graduate could love.

• Arkansas gets a four-star guard for 2015.

Other sports news

• Maryland offers lifetime scholarships. I think this is a fine idea, and I hope UK does the same.

• Boomer, tell us how you really feel, bud. And what are you going to say if it doesn’t happen? Wait, Boomer, you don’t think the NFL needs Johnny? WTF?

• Is the NFL really asking their halftime act to pay for their slot?

• Wow. I wonder if Balmer acted like this at Microsoft?

• James Harden has no problem with self-esteem.

• Joel Embiid — weird-funny or just plain weird?

• I have no words for this sculpture of Kobe Bryant, except… unconventional.

Other news

• This is really sad. A young man gets engaged while rock climing in Yosemite, then falls to his death.

• Bon Apetite’s top ten best new restaurants in the USA. I haven’t had the pleasure of eating at any of these.

• How patent trolls destroy innovation.

• From fission to fusion: the need for a quick transition. The bottom line is that having both fission and fusion power plants around at the same time creates the opportunity for nuclear weapons proliferation.

  Faster, please. Hat tip: Slashdot

• Retiring overseas: Is it for you? Those of you near retirement should as Wild Weasel about that.

• This article is, in my point of view, mind-bendingly stupid. Oh, it’s well intended, no doubt, but displays the same kind of bizarre “hurry up and say something, even if it’s wrong and you’ll live to regret it” mentality that pervades Twitter and Facebook and has enabled more social media fails than I can count with a supercomputer.

  Why should professional athletes interject themselves in the ongoing Ferguson, MO debacle? What are they going to do, come out in support of civil rights only to find out later that the shooting was justified? What then? Call for restraint and “peaceful protest?” Do athletes and actors really believe that the folks tearing up Ferguson will listen to them? Here’s a hint — they won’t. But if the athletes/actors wind up on the wrong side of the issue, it might be a damaging hit that they struggle to recover from.

  Athletes, and actors, and all other public figures who are not in position to accurately offer informed comment on the events in Ferguson should take a cue from most of the rest of us who view the situation with alarm — shut up about it until we have enough facts to offer an informed opinion. This isn’t rocket science — it’s Life 101, a.k.a. how to live it without being a busybody and looking like an idiot. In other words, Abraham Lincoln’s famous admonition; “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.”