NCAA Football in the winter is just a game of rumors and other kinds of scandal. There are discussions of players and such, but those aren’t nearly as exciting, because most people have no idea whether so-and-so from Parkside High in Smallton USA is a good player or not. Occasionally there will be a phenom, but not so many. So we talk about the bad things people do. This time, it’s about oversigning players. Ole Miss and UNC are the examples here, but there are plenty more schools that deal with this problem in this way. It’s possible for them to have 80 people on the roster, through a kind of massaging of the numbers and changing the statuses of the players here and there. Read the whole article here because it explains the issue very well!

The University of Illinois team has had a rough go of it in the last few years. They haven’t really done that well in terms of bowls and the general record that they have. This weekend, one of their up and coming tackles was suspended until further notice after a DUI arrest. Josh Brent, a talented defensive player, is suspended from the team until they can gather the rest of the information about the circumstances and so on. Clearly he’s in pretty big trouble. He was arrested for a DUI after all and he’s in the process of getting charged, perhaps, and all these other things. We will see what the team decides to do, and whether he’s allowed to return for the next season.

Michigan is going to have some trouble this offseason, because they have too many quarterbacks. Most schools would hope to have more QBs, but Michigan has been in trouble since their miserable problems of last season. Suddenly, they have too many good quarterbacks, so Steven Threet has decided to transfer elsewhere. No one knows quite yet where he is headed, though he had contemplated going to Georgia Tech a couple years ago. He sat out the 2007 season and played 8 games last year. But last year wasn’t a great season for the team. This was the first time they didn’t make a bowl game in a long time. It’s not clear who the new QB will be, but since there are several options available, watch for an exciting competition.

Sports Illustrated has posted a reevaluation of the rankings they did at the beginning of 2006 as to which teams were the best. The way they do this is that they are trying to get the teams ranked for years into the future based on who they’ve recruited. Two years ago, they ranked several of the best teams much lower than they actually turned out to be. Florida and Oklahoma were two of the main underrated teams during these years. Both of these teams have dominated in their various ways during the last few years. Not that these rankings had any particular effect in the performance, but they’re working at making sure that their future rankings get better sometimes.

The BCS commissioners have decided not to think about change as people had been asking for over the last year or so. Here we are, the President has brought up the BCS system as something to change. The BCS bowls will remain in the same 4-bowl rotation. The ranking and placement system will remain as confusing as ever. And the board will also remain the same. It’s becoming hard to remember all the moving parts on this, so we’re keeping our eyes closely attached to it, to look for any signs of movement. Besides that, there isn’t a whole lot to talk about in the NCAA football world. It’s quiet and, like I mentioned before, the recruitment is in full swing.

The NCAA Football world is relatively quiet right now. As we mentioned recently, the Tennessee coach is making trouble by talking too much about things he didn’t know. But since it isn’t the playing season or the bowl season, it is only a the recruitment time of year. And it’s harder to see the recruitment side of things. It’s happening on college campuses and high schools across the country now. It’s kind of a boring time of year for us observers, but it would be very interesting to learn about the workings of that process.

At this time in the NCAA Football year, the time when they’re not playing football at all, you have to have your personal antenna up for anything titillating that you can find. And this week, it was handed right to me! The new coach for the University of Tennessee, Lane Kiffin, made a public fool out of himself. He was at a breakfast of alumni and others and said some interesting things. He accused the Florida coaches of violating rules by contacting a potential recruit, Nu’Keese Richardson, while he was visiting Tennessee. The problem is, that’s not actually against the rules. And the Florida coaches and organization did not hesitate to tell him that. So he had to apologize, which was poorly done, and he clearly wasn’t all that serious about it. He’s been put in his place by the commissioner, but that’s it. And it ain’t even March yet! Oakland Raiders, how could you have given up this kind gentleman?

The NCAA football page of ESPN has 10 commandments for recruiting high school students to college teams. This has become a big business in the last decade or so, checking out players during their early high school years, as well as later on. They also want to get the best people, people they can develop, as well as some people who already are pretty well perfect. The 10 rules aren’t really anything awful or unexpected. There are also a couple of new things dealing with new technology and such. For example, they should speak as though they are on the record at all times, because there are all kinds of recruitment websites, where parents and prospective players write in what they hear. Recruiters need to keep this in mind whenever they are talking. Take a look at the full set of rules.