I don’t usually venture out onto the ledge.
It’s just not a place I like to go.
But I found myself there on Friday.
The view is amazing but the foundation is way too wobbly.
You’re welcome to it.
My trip lasted only an epi-second, about the same amount of time as you saw the devil in “The Exorcist.” Frightening. Sobering. Gone just like that.
Thank goodness.
What caused it? Overload. It was a day spent wondering what was next. Just as I began to digest the mess at Miami, the LSU suspensions unfolded. And then there was the appearance of Danny Sheridan on ESPN’s Outside The Lines. Sheridan was talking about knowing the name of Auburn’s bagman. And then the NCAA, which never responds to anything, responds to Sheridan with unprecedented anger.
That’s when it happened.
“I’m done with college football.”
I said it in my head. I’m better now. It was scary. A future of Saturdays spent in malls and at movies flashed in my head and then I was better.
I’m not going to let the actors ruin the play. I’m going to hang in there with the sport. I hope I don’t have bad dreams tonight.
I don’t want to go back to the ledge.
Was Sheridan’s makeup person an embalmer ?
Pat, congrats on your recovery!
We ve lost alot of nice people out their!
I understand your concern… brutal fighting and penalties from that are one thing but if SCum gets off I may go over the ledge… watch the 30 for 30 thing again then read the yahoo 14 pager and tell me thug u hasn’t been seriously breaking the rules for 20 years. The death penalty is to good for them and if someone digs deeper imho they would find plenty of other stuff notwithstanding the new cone of silence rather than basically bragging about their crap in an espn documentary. The NCAA has HAMMERED individuals and schools for much less and unless they send a serious message to the SCum the ledge is where many may go. Ask your colleagues from the Herald how they are being shut out from the mildest of questions now about anything and tell me how they deserve anything less than death!
One of the best blogs I’ve ever read, Pat! Look forward to your show and your and Robbie’s pre- and post-game webcasts.
Plato
Look at you…Step back but don’t step away. Florida was once in the soup. Yes, it could happen again, God forbid, but we were in the soup. We decided to be pro active. Even if we were pro active, with a former NCAA enforcer leading our efforts [thanks Jaime] we worry. You need not. If something goes ubba dubba then we may have an issue. But we have been working it hard for so long. It is time to cover THE SPORT of college football. Trust Will Muschamop to lend some intensity and some common sense to Gator Football that will allay your fears.
One week and counting
rj
Actually, a lot of Gators would be happy if you just followed through on this one, for a change. I’ll try to put this as nicely as I can: you strike me as more of an NFL-guy, Pat. Everything is SUPPOSED to be paid for over there, bought and sold. Too many ambiguities in College Football today–and they are all coming to the fore at once, it seems. You and a crusty collection of hide-bound old-timers at the NCAA, Bowl-reps and their Chamber-of-Commerce buddies, and the media and journalistic Old Guard continue to fight the future, tooth and nail. You are by habit uncomfortable with the inevitable, as an entrencjed status quo always is. Scaled player-remuneration and a breakaway “College Football Championship Association”, comprised of perhaps 50-to-60 top programs, will come to exist, it is just a question of when.
DRU I hope you are wrong. Pro sports stink. People with your attitude are the ones who are trying to send college sports the same direction. The wrong direction.
The NCAA didn’t and doesn’t need Danny Sheridan or any information he claims to have. They had enough information to suspend Cam Newton based on existing rules, but chose not to do so. They knew, by admission, that Cam’s father solicited payment as a quid pro quo of getting the student athlete to attend the school. The fact that the deal may not have been consummated by or with Mississippi State is a ultimate red herring. But hey, that was last year. A week from this moment, you will wake up, rub your eyes, leap out of bed, and the sun will have risen on a brand new era of Gator football.
You read it here first, Pat! You are officially an “old timer!” It’s heck getting older, ain’t it?
Plato
The reason why the NCAA is mad is because Sheridan himself said his information came from within the NCAA.
Consider this: Here is a gambling/odds guy, who makes a fortune advising clients on whom they should bet, who has a direct link to inside the NCAA. That’s serious stuff, Pat. That’s where the real story is and everybody is afraid to touch it.
Write the story about the inside-the-NCAA/gambling connection, and you’ll become a national celebrity very quickly.