The Long Snapper (2/19/10)
. Got that? Good. Kloss is a Bull and will not grayshirt, but will instead walk on to the football team in hopes of earning a scholarship sometime in the near future. Checking out some highlight tapes of Kloss, it appears he can be a successful kicker at the collegiate level. But kickers are hit or miss and seem to be a dime a dozen. Including punters, USF will have eight total kickers on the roster come fall. Impressive when you consider some teams have one guy assume all kicking and punting duties. USF, however, has struggled mightily with the kicking game in recent years, so the more the merrier.
The Athletic Department at USF recently started Bulls Pen Pals. The program puts kids in touch with various USF athletes and gives them the chance to write to one another. Each week, GoUSFBulls.com will highlight one contact and this week they focused on third-grader Khaleid and Bulls’ wide receiver Jason Sherman. Khaleid already has the confidence is takes to be a football player, telling Sherman he got more touchdowns than him, will get more yards than him, and is the fastest kid in his class. Confidence is not lacking in this one. No word yet on whether or not his family has been contacted by Lane Kiffin to discuss USC and a possible scholarship offer.
“Police say Clayborn got out of his car, walked back to the taxi and hit the man.” It sounds like this was such a calm, well thought-out action when put that way. A cab driver honked at him or yelled something Iowa defensive end Adrian Clayborn didn’t like, so Clayborn put his car in park, calmly undid his seatbelt and opened the door, walked back to the cab, said “how dare you insult me good sir,” and smacked the cabbie silly. You know, because road rage is always so calm and collected. Clayborn has decided to plead guilty for assaulting the cab driver. Or better yet, his attorney has advised him it would be a better idea to plead guilty. Clayborn is not a small individual, so he can probably handle a lot, but this is one of those situations where I wish we had the eye-for-an-eye judicial system. Let the cabbie get his and move on. Altercations happen in life every day. Sometimes the person affected just wants revenge. Then again, if rumors are true, the cabbie may have done more than just honk at Clayborn.
Texas leaving the Big 12 might not be as much of a long shot as people (read: me, myself, and I) may think. The Longhorns’ athletic department brought in more money than any other school in the nation during the 2008-09 school year to the tune of $138.4 million. The other nine schools in the top 10 all came from either the Big Ten or SEC. Being #1 in terms of revenues obviously means Texas is doing pretty darn good where it is right now, but think of how much better it could do in a conference with super-rich television deals. The Longhorn athletic department could bring in more money than ever imagined. Conference affiliations tend to make sense for the most part because of geographical considerations, but in today’s world, the location of the school may not matter as much. It’s all about the dollars and cents of it. If Texas feels it can make even more under a different conference name, school officials will definitely consider making a move. A move that would crush the Big 12 if it actually happened.
Has Boise State taken a leap forward in more ways than one? The Broncos recently added Bob Gregory to the coaching staff. Gregory has spent the last eight years as the defensive coordinator at Cal, a position it seems he won’t have with Boise State. At the moment, Gregory has been hired as a defensive assistant. Given that Broncos’ head coach Chris Petersen promoted defensive line coach Pete Kwiatkowski to DC, it seems like Gregory may have less of a role than he did at Cal. If the Boise States of the world are pulling assistant coaches from BCS conference schools, some of the balance may indeed be shifting. Of course there’s still that final hurdle of actually getting to play for a national title.