Power Lunch: Chat with Jenni Carlson
Big 12 Reform: Commitment of Rights Is Big
The conference realignment news has been fast and furious in recent days.
Giving every angle it’s due is nearly impossible.
Which brings me to commitment of rights.
Yes, it sounds like something lawyer-ey, and frankly, it is a bit of legal mumbo jumbo. But it might actually be the thing that binds the Big 12 together like nothing else can.
I talked a bit about it during a radio interview Wednesday night with Jeff Culhane, who hosts Husker Sports Nightly in Lincoln, Neb. — you can listen to the whole interview below — but that got me thinking that this is one area that really hasn’t been given its due.
A commitment of rights from each of the schools is something that the Big 12 doesn’t have right now. If agreed upon by the schools, what it would do is require each one to give all their game revenues to the Big 12 during the agreed upon time. A high-ranking source from Oklahoma told me that they want to push for a commitment of rights for more than five years, an issue that will be discussed during the Big 12 board of directors teleconference this afternoon.
Committing their rights would make Big 12 schools moving to other conference nearly impossible during the agreed upon time.
Why?
Because if, say, a school that had agreed to a commitment of rights decided to move to the SEC, it would still have to give every last penny of its game revenues back to the Big 12 until the agreed upon time was up. Do you think the SEC, or any other conference for that matter, would want a school that couldn’t give anything to the conference? That would be reaping the benefits of being in the SEC but not contributing anything to the league?
Doubtful.
Enacting a commitment of rights in the Big 12 would be like having a massive buyout clause that no one would want to fool with. It would bind the Big 12 together in a way that it has never been tied.
Now, is it a little bit of forced togetherness?
Sure. It’s a little bit like saying, “We’re going to get along. We’re going to be so happy together. And just to make sure of that, we’re going to chain ourselves to one another and throw away the key.”
It’s not a perfect method, but I think it could be a legal way of keeping the conference together the schools work out their trust issues. This is a conference that has a lot of broken relationships right now. Repairing those will take time.
Commitment of rights just might buy the Big 12 time to heal.
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Revisionist History by OU, OSU? We’ll See
A high-ranking source at Oklahoma told me earlier today that the school has been working with Oklahoma State behind the scenes on reforming the Big 12 and that OU and OSU used their seeming interest in the Pac-12 as leverage in those discussions.
Sounds like spin, huh?
What else would they say after the Pac-12 shut the door on expansion Tuesday night, only a day after it sounded like the Sooners and Cowboys were as good as gone?
Listen, I’m a reporter who hears all sorts of stuff, so believe me, my spin detector was high as I listened to the story of what happened. I know it could be revisionist history. I understand that it could be a source trying to make OU and OSU look as good as possible.
But here’s the thing — there’s a truth serum for all of this.
The Big 12′s board of directors is meeting Thursday afternoon. The board, which consists of the schools’ presidents and chancellors, will consider half a dozen issues, including the ouster of Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe and the adopting of common rules for any individual network such as the Longhorn Network. If OU and OSU have really been working behind the scenes, if what that high-ranking source said is true, there will be some major decisions at the board meeting and some major reforms in the conference.
After all, there’d been no talk in the Big 12 until recent days about major reform. It had all been about expansion. Add a team or three. Keep doing business as usual. That sums up the “fixes” that had been discussed.
But now, we’re hearing talk about real and meaningful change, reform that might actually fix this broken conference.
And sources are saying that OU and OSU have been the ones working to make it happen, that they have favored such reform in the Big 12 instead of moving to the Pac-12.
Either way, we’ll know it tomorrow afternoon.
That board of directors meeting will be all-telling. If it brings about a bunch of the changes that OU and OSU seem to be behind, then we’ll have a pretty good idea that all of this has been more than talk. But if not, if that meeting is a dud, if nothing major is adopted, then we can chalk all this up as revisionist history.
I’m not ready to say that OU and OSU saying that they preferred the Big 12 all along is spin doctoring.
I’m not ready to say it isn’t either.
That board of directors meeting will be our litmus test.
OSU Football: Mrs. Weeden, is that you?
A week ago tonight, I had the good fortune of watching the Oklahoma State-Arizona game with Melanie Weeden.
The wife of Cowboy quarterback Brandon Weeden has a perspective like no other, and I wanted to share her unique story with our readers. She was nice enough to oblige my request.
As we hashed out details of the evening ahead of time, she told me that her seat in the family section had been selected in advance. Usually, as players’ families pick up their tickets at the will-call window, they just receive the next seats in the section. The athletic department might start handing out the tickets in front first or they might start in the back or they might start somewhere in the middle. It just depends. That means that where she sits usually isn’t known.
The difference in the Arizona game?
ESPN was considering sending its sideline reporter into the stands to interview Melanie, so the network wanted to know where she was sitting.
She was given an aisle seat — seat 50, row 8 in section 209.
I found her there, and because the row was pretty packed and because everyone stood up most of the time anyway, I was mostly in the aisle. But when Ty Weeden, Brandon’s brother, decided to go find some friends, it opened some space on the row. I hung with Melanie for about three quarters, and most of the time, I had a place to sit during timeouts and a place to stand where I was out of the aisle.
The seat?
You guessed it — seat 50, row 8 in section 209.
Now, if you’ve seen Melanie, you know that she has long brown hair and is about 5-foot-6 or so. And if you’ve seen me, you know that I have long brown hair and am about 5-foot-5.
Earlier today, I got a message via Twitter from Melanie.
“Ha!” she wrote. “A guy interviewing Brandon from ESPNU asked him a question about his wife taking notes at the games! He must have seen you in my seat!”
Me: “Please don’t tell me the guy asked that on live TV!”
Her: “Ha! No, I think they’re shooting stuff to play during the TU game. I’m sure B looked at him like he had 10 heads. He knows me better than that!”
At least they didn’t show “Mrs. Weeden” taking notes during the live broadcast last Thursday.
Whew!
EJ Manuel: Running quarterback? Maybe not
Florida State University's EJ Manuel out runs Florida's Ahmad Black for a first down in the fourth quarter of an NCAA college football game which Florida State won 31-7 on Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010, in Tallahassee, Fla.(AP Photo/Steve Cannon)
Frank Alexander has seen as much of Florida State quarterback EJ Manuel in the past week as any player.
The Oklahoma defensive end’s take after watching hours and hours of film in preparation for Saturday’s showdown in Tallahassee?
“He’s an athletic guy,” Alexander said, “but I think he prides himself on pocket passing.”
Passing?
Wait. Isn’t Manuel supposed to be this great dual-threat quarterback? A completely different player and wholly different challenge than Seminole quarterback Christian Ponder was a year ago?
Alexander admits that Manuel is different than Ponder.
“He’s more stable back there,” Alexander said of Manuel. “He doesn’t get rattled as fast. If he sees a blitz, he’ll step up in the pocket and still try to make a throw.
“With Ponder last year, he’d get rattled … he’d take it and run. He’d pull the ball down and run. I think EJ Manuel wants to be a great pocket passer.”
Sooner defensive coordinator Brent Venables backs that up.
“Christian would pull it down a lot more than Manuel,” he said. “They have design QB runs. They have the option and everything else.”
But just taking off?
“He doesn’t get antsy like Ponder would get antsy,” Venables said.
Those assessments of Manuel may fly in the face of just about everything you’ve been lead to believe about the Seminole quarterback, but the numbers back them up. In Florida State’s first two games, Manuel has completed 66.7 percent of his passes for 581 yards and six touchdowns.
His rushing numbers?
He’s only carried the ball 10 times for 30 yards.
Not exactly Michael Vick stuff.
“From the film I’ve watched on him, whenever he had the opportunity to run, he didn’t run,” Alexander said of Manuel. “He’d scramble a little bit and look for an open man to throw the ball.
“I feel like he can run all day. He’s a big guy, a real athletic guy. I feel like he can get out there and run. But I think he wants to let the world know that he can be a passer, too.”
Advantage, Sooners.
Against offenses that have a true dual-threat quarterback, OU has had its struggles over the years. Just look at last year’s games. Against option-running quarterbacks from Utah State and Air Force, OU had two of its closest calls of the season, winning those games by a combined 10 points. Nebraska quarterback Taylor Martinez also gave OU fits in the Big 12 championship game, when the Sooners squeaked by the Huskers by only three points.
Now, I’m not saying that the fact that Manuel is more pocket passer than dual-threat guy means the Sooners are going to roll to an easy victory in Tallahassee. But Manuel being more of a passer gives the OU defense an advantage.
Sure, Manuel may burn the Sooners on a run or two, but every quarterback does that from time to time.
OU is preparing for him much like it’s prepare for Brandon Weeden at Oklahoma State or Ryan Tannehill at Texas A&M.
“With not having a threat of him running, you can be a lot heavier on your rushes,” Alexander said. “When you have a running quarterback, you’re always taught as a defensive lineman not to run behind the quarterback. With him staying in the pocket, that’ll make our rushes a lot more efficient.
“I feel like we don’t have the big threat of him running.”
I’ll say it again — advantage, Sooners.
Scholarship for Dom Whaley? Get ‘er done
Another week, another Oklahoma running back transfer.
Last week, it was Jonathan Miller who decided to leave the Sooners for a school closer to home and a program with more playing time for him.
This week, it’s Jermie Calhoun. The former Parade All-American never became the standout that folks expected he would be, and frankly, with Dominique Whaley’s recent emergence, Calhoun had to see that his opportunity to play had shrunk even more.
Speaking of Whaley, how ’bout a scholarship for the walk-on?
I know he’s had just one game for the Sooners, but listen, there’s little reason to think that what we saw from Whaley against Tulsa is some sort of aberration. The guy is legit. Now, I’m not saying he’s going to score four touchdowns this weekend at Florida State, but by all accounts, he’s every bit as good as the scholarship running backs that the Sooners have, if not better than them.
So, why not get him on scholarship?
With Miller and Calhoun leaving, it looks like the Sooners have scholarships available.
I’m actually awaiting an email from the OU compliance office about how that all works when players leave during the semester. Does their scholarship become immediately available? Or is there some sort of waiting period before another guy can get that scholarship which counts against the Sooners’ maximum of 85?
But even if there is a waiting period, why not go ahead and promise Whaley a scholarship? Give him the peace of mind that a scholarship is on its way? Even if he never has another multi-touchdown game for the Sooners, he’s earned as much. He earned it on scout team last year. He earned it in the spring. And he definitely earned it this fall.
Heck, the Sooners have 17 kickers on campus who are on scholarship. No reason Whaley shouldn’t be.
OK, OU might not have 17 kickers on scholarship, but it has a bunch. And I promise, Whaley has done way more for the Sooners than a vast majority of those guys.
Last week after practice, Whaley was talking about his life as a walk-on, and he was asked if he’d had to get a job to help pay his way through college. He said that he’d worked the Subway that used to be located near the corner of Lindsey and Jenkins but that he wasn’t working right now.
As he was talking about finances and how difficult it was to make ends meet as a walk-on, a look of realization came over Whaley’s face.
“I need to get another (job) soon,” he said.
No, what he needs to get is a scholarship.
He deserves it.
***
UPDATE, SEPT. 14, 9:48 a.m.
Just wanted to update everyone on the scholarship count at OU.
Spokesman Kenny Mossman said that scholarships cannot be re-awarded until the following academic semester even if an athlete leaves the team. That includes players who leave school or stay at OU.
In the case of Miller and Calhoun, Mossman tells me that both of those players are still on campus. And because of the Academic Progress Rate, an NCAA formula that tracks players’ academics and penalizes teams with too many players who are lagging behind, I’m sure OU wants those guys to finish the semester strong. Keep the grades up. Leave the school in good academic standing.
So, where does that leave Whaley?
Without a scholarship still.
But as I said before, if I were the coaches, I’d be telling this guy that a scholarship was on the way. I’d promise him that help once I had a scholarship to give him at the start of the spring semester.
Listen, I understand that plenty of Sooner walk-ons have gone longer than Whaley before they’ve gotten a scholarship. Trent Ratterree and James Winchester come to mind. And while it might cause some hurt feelings in the locker room if Whaley was awarded a scholarship, I suspect it might cause more hurt feelings if he isn’t. If he’s out there running the ball 20 times a game, getting whacked by defenders pretty much every time he does, what kind of message does it send to the rest of the guys that one of the workhorses of the offense isn’t on scholarship?
Whaley deserves that scholarship, even if he can’t get it until the spring.
OSU-Arizona: Watch the Battle Up Front
Talking about the offensive line isn’t sexy.
But when Jody Oehler interviewed me yesterday on his drive-time sports radio show in Tucson, the Arizona offensive line was a big topic of conversation.
(You can listen to the entire segment below; it’s always interesting to hear what media from the other team’s market wants to discuss.)
The Wildcats have a brand new offensive line. They lost every last starter from the team a year ago, so they are breaking in a bunch of newbies to protect quarterback Nick Foles, who has shown he can throw for a bunch of yards.
But as Cowboy fans know well, the OSU defensive line is the most up-in-the-air area on this team. The Cowboys lost both of their starters on the interior, and both depth and talent are big questions.
The OSU front did well in the opener, and they did so without much blitzing or stunting. Cowboy defensive coordinator Bill Young said after the game that he went vanilla. Three- and four-man fronts. Limited blitzing. You have to think he’ll throw out some different things against Arizona.
You also have to think Arizona’s offensive line, albeit inexperienced, will be better than Louisiana-Lafayette’s.
The battle between Arizona’s offensive line and OSU’s defensive front is definitely worth watching tonight.
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Boren’s Pac-12 Comments Still Causing a Stir
When Oklahoma president David Boren stepped out late last week and indicated that the Sooners were focused on heading to the Pac-12, it caused shock waves in these parts.
Apparently, the reverb is still being felt.
I went on The Barnhart and Durham Show this morning. The sports talk show airs on 790 The Zone, the big sports station in Atlanta, and it pairs two of the South’s bigger sports media personalities, Tony Barnhart and Wes Durham.
(You can listen to the entire segment below.)
The guys couldn’t get over some of the things that Boren had said last Friday. And truth be told, it was truly shocking how much Boren shared after being practically mute on the Big 12 brouhaha up until that point.
But as I told Tony and Wes, I think Boren and Co. have simply grown weary of trying to play peacemaker. A year ago, they worked hard to keep the Big 12 together when Nebraska and Colorado decided to split. They did their darnedest to make the league viable for the long term. They pledged their allegiance along with the nine other teams to do everything in their power to keep the league together.
Recent events, though, have shown that everyone else wasn’t as committed.
Texas started The Longhorn Network, and even though ESPN is calling the shots for TLN, the network just keeps pushing limits and pushing buttons. Just when things would simmer down, it would stir things up again.
Texas A&M wanted to bolt a year ago, but even though it said it would work to keep the Big 12 together, there was always a feeling that the Aggies had their eye on the door. Now, they’ve not only turned the knob and opened the door, but they’ve also got one foot out.
Amid all of this, I suspect OU tired of trying to hold together teams that seemed to be doing everything in their power to push away their conference brethren. Why keep fighting for the Big 12 when so many are fighting against it?
No doubt Boren surprised many with his comments. Probably even frustrated some folks, too. But it’s safe to say no one is more frustrated than Boren, frustrated that the Big 12 seems destined to dissolve, frustrated that all of OU’s efforts have been for naught.
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Power Lunch: Chat with Jenni Carlson
Remembering Lee Roy Selmon: Close Bond Went Beyond Brothers to All Selmon Siblings
Only a couple weeks ago, Lucious Selmon was inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame.
No doubt he was excited about the honor.
But he was more excited about having all eight of his siblings there to share the night with him.
I was reminded of that this weekend at the news of brother Lee Roy’s massive stroke. Family members raced to the Oklahoma legend’s bedside on Friday after he was found unconscious and rushed to a Tampa-area hospital. They dropped everything they were doing and got there as quickly as they could.
I pray all eight of the Selmon siblings got there before Lee Roy died on Sunday.
Much has been written and said over the years about the Selmon clan. They were raised on a farm by God-fearing parents. They went to church together. They did chores together. They laughed and cried and did pretty much everything together.
That bond is still strong today.
And not just between Lucious, Dewey and Lee Roy. Everyone knows about the three football-playing Selmons, the defensive linemen who played side-by-side-by-side for the Sooners and created one of the most fearsome fronts that college football has ever seen. Their bond was obvious on the field, and in the years since, it’s been even more obvious off the field.
But the truth is, all of the Selmons are as tight as Lucious, Dewey and Lee Roy were.
As I stood talking to Lucious before the festivities got under way on the night of the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame inductions, I asked him how many of the Selmon siblings would be in attendance.
“All nine,” he said.
All nine?
“All nine,” he confirmed with a smile and a twinkle in his eye.
He told me proudly that they needed three tables just to hold all the family members. You could see on his face and hear in his voice that he was pleased as punch that his induction was cause for an unofficial Selmon family reunion.
When he spied brother Dewey coming through the door, Lucious broke into a huge grin. The men bearhugged and started swaying back and forth, almost dancing together out of the joy of being together.
And here’s the thing, I suspect Lucious would’ve acted the exact same way for any of his siblings. Elmer. Charles. Chester. Shirlene. Joyce. Margaret. Dewey. Lee Roy. Any of them would’ve gotten the same love.
It is obvious — family is paramount to the Selmons.
That’s why I hope all of the siblings made it to Florida before Lee Roy died. The pain that they’re feeling now can’t be diminished, but maybe, just maybe, the first balm in their healing is that they were able to be together again one last time.
