Only a little over three months to go before our favorite time of year starts up again!

Sorry that our Ops system went down recently.   I’m now getting back into the swing of things…Our 2016 schedule is looking pretty intact right now and we even have plan in place for our bowl season with the announcements of the dates and time for most of them to be played.  Check out our 2016 schedule tab.  We’re now just waiting for a few game time announcements to see if we can finalize attending a few more games.  We see that the Davidson at Georgetown game precludes us from adding that as our fourth game on opening weekend where we have a Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday noon kickoff with Fordham at Navy.  The Wildcats and Hoyas will be kicking off at 1 pm at Cooper Field in D.C.  They’re out!   There’s still a possibility that we can add a game later in the day as Holy Cross will be visiting Morgan State at Hughes Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, home of the Bears.  We are waiting to see if Princeton will host a Friday night game on their soon to be announced schedule to add a game if convenient for a Friday night tailgate. I work nearby now.  On November 5, we’re waiting for the start times of Indiana at Rutgers and Kean at Rowan.  We’re committed to attending the New Jersey Athletic Conference D3 contest if there’s a conflict between the two.  One of my former LL baseball players, Matt Hill, will possibly be the starting NT for the Kean Cougars as a senior this year. We look forward to seeing him play.  There may be a few other opportunities as well as start times are announced for other potential games that can possibly be added…

For the second year in a row, Delaware will start our season for us.

The Big Game just got a little more interesting as far as the competition goes.  We look forward to seeing RB Christian McCaffrey of Stanford perform in his final regular season PAC-12 game as he is expected to be a Heisman contender.  Stanford’s Big rival, the Cal Bears, lost QB Junior Jared Goff to the LA Rams in the recent 2016 NFL draft.  However, the Bears picked up an experienced and talented graduate student from Texas Tech who plays QB to possibly replace Goff.   Webb Davis, who has 5,557 passing yards, 46 TDs, and 22 INTs during his college career.  He steps in from the Red Raiders pass-happy attack from behind current starter Patrick Mahomes, a potential pro prospect.  Bear HC Sonny Dykes hired QB coach and Offensive Coordinator Jake Spavital who engineered offenses under Head coaches Kevin Sumlin, Cliff Klingbury,  and Dana Holgerson at Houston, Oklahoma State, West Virginia, and Texas A&M.  The move caught Davis’s attention as he will now be competing for the starting job at Cal-Berkeley this fall.  It could make our first Big Game a lot more interesting than what we originally anticipated. It’s just a start for HC Sonny Dyke’s program who will also looking to replace his two key receivers from a year ago to be more competitive. In Jared Goff’s three years as a starter for the Bears, his record was 0-9 against fellow PAC 12 teams from the Golden State… Satellite camps: only a few teams were doing them.  Michigan in particular was in the spotlight. Then the NCAA decided they were banned primarily influenced by the SEC.  Then the NCAA said, never mind. They must have finally decided they are for the good of the prospective student-athletes.  And now everybody’s planning to have them. They seem fair to the prospective players for sure, but with social media and today’s technology, aren’t most of the top players pretty much identified without them?  How many diamonds in the rough will actually be found? It seems like another money-making deal by the coaches to me.  Anyway… On June 3, the big satellite camp story here in New Jersey is that Jim Harbaugh of Michigan will be running one at Paramus Catholic HS along with several other college coaches.  Harbaugh’s former recruiting coordinator and current LB coach, Chris Partridge, was the former HC at Paramus Catholic. Michigan Junior RB Jabrill Peppers and Junior OL Juwann Bushell-Beatty played high school ball there at PC for Partridge.  This year, with Partridge’s influence, Harbaugh recruited at least five top players from the Garden State after spanking Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey, 49-16.  Harbaugh saw the opportunity and the players from NJ took advantage of it.  So what does new RU HC Chris Ash do to fend off the Michigan influence in the Garden State?  About 20 miles from Paramus on the same evening, he scheduled a satellite camp at the D-3 campus of Fairleigh Dickinson Universtiy in Florham Park. The former Ohio State DC also invited Ohio Stat HC Urban Meyer and Temple HC Matt Rhule to his camp to attract talent away from that crafty Harbaugh.  He’s already gotten the support of many of the head coaches of Catholic high schools in NJ who already attract most of the best talents in the state (that whole scenario is pretty pitiful in my humble observations of the state of HS football in the once very fertile recruiting grounds in the Garden State) who disliked the antics of Partridge when he was HC at Paramus Catholic.  They are encouraging players to attend the camp at FDU and to avoid the PC camp.  What I find difficult to understand, that if RU really wants to find some players in this camp, why would you let the foxes like Meyer and Rhule into your hen house?  I understand they’ll attract more or certain players, but Meyer has more capabilities to attract the top players away from RU he’ll want, and Rhule has done an excellent job over the years finding mid-level talent in NJ and making them better players. He’ll find those diamonds in the rough and make a team out of them.   I think Ash could have gotten the high school coaches’ influences without bringing in these two just from the disdain of Partridge to offset Harbaugh. I think he’s made a mistake by bringing in more competition to take talent from his program.  I’m thinking I may go over to observe this camp located in my local stomping grounds. As a matter of fact, I may even put on my spikes and shorts for a try-out. Many years ago, back when I transferred from the Naval Academy where I played lightweight football (I’m much heavier now) to D-3 Juniata College, the NCAA had a stupid rule that anyone transferring anywhere has to sit out a year before playing.  Eventually, somebody woke up and they decided that if you transferred from an FBS program to a lower level, you could play right away.  Finally, a good decision by the NCAA, but way too late for me.  I was ineligible to play that first year, but I still practiced as part of the sub-squad running plays against the first team defense Mondays through Thursdays (I tore up my knee badly the following spring playing club lacrosse to get in shape for the following fall).   I think the NCAA owes me a year of eligibility.  I still have good hands. I think I can surely hold for PATs, but nobody better fall or run into me, or we’re both going to be in big trouble! With an MBA already, I just have to find someone willing to give me a scholarship to pursue a PHD while holding for PATs.  Ohio State?  Temple?  That’s only about an hour from work. C’mon Matt, I was you play at PSU!

Ohio State and Michigan will be battling it out in Jersey on June 3 not on the gridiron, but on the recruiting trail.

… Speaking of NCAA rules, does it make sense that Alabama (and others in the past) should be offering eighth graders like Jesus Machado a scholarship already? The young LB hasn’t even take a college prep course in high school yet no less a PSAT, not that some schools even consider the SAT any more.  What a waste of time and what pressure to put on a young kid and his family. Verbal offers are non-binding, and written offers cannot be made until senior year of high school.  How about ending this ridiculousness and focus on the kids you need to bring in in 2017? Life is too short to be rushing kids through their teenage years.

Did I mention that our favorite time of the year is only a little over three months away?