iPad2 Leather Smart Case

If you have an iPad2 but can’t find a case that fits your rugged style fear no more. TempleBags.com has and iPad 2 leather smart case that you’ll love if you wanna ditch that generic sleek look that just doesn’t scream you.

The price is a bit high at $199, but  you can tell it’s a quality case that will last. Besides it’s pretty unique when you check out all the pictures.

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So can fans, players and coaches of the Utah Utes, Arizona State Sun Devils, and possibly Arizona Wildcats and UCLA Bruins.

The Trojans will serve out the final year of their ban from the conference title and bowl game. They will hope that the stock piling athletes in the past two signing classes will allow them to thrive despite the imposed reduction of scholarships over the next three years.

USC naturally expressed disappointment and issued a statement that the school “vehemently” disagreed with the decision. The people who run show at USC had to know this was coming. Continue Reading…

Big East expansion will be the next big decision, and three days of face-to-face discussions didn’t provide any clarity. In fact, the meetings yielded rumors swirling around several non-Big East teams they might consider for expansion in the next year – Houston, East Carolina, Army, Navy and Central Florida. Wow.

When TCU joins the Big East for football in 2012, the Big East will have nine members. According to reports coming out of Ponte Vedra Beach, FL, there are as many school officials that want to soldier on and continue expansion as there are that don’t.

And, oddly, you can count TCU head coach Gary Patterson in the latter category.

So, what to do? Well, let me help the Big East make the decision.

You’re easily the No. 6 BCS conference. You’ve landed one of the top, if not the top, non-BCS team to join your league. TCU bolsters any TV negotiations the Big East enters into. But you’re not safe by any stretch and you can improve your positioning by making bold decisions now, when you have some control, and not when there’s another round of conference realignment and you’re desperate for scraps. Ask the Western Athletic Conference how that’s going.
Continue Reading…

And when TCU begins Big East play, there will be a new palace for the Horned Frogs to play in. Well, it’s not exactly new. But it will feel that way.

Back before Dallas and Fort Worth were Dallas-Fort Worth, there was an intense rivalry between the two cities, one that has softened in recent years. The driving force of that rivalry in Fort Worth was Amon G. Carter. Carter started the city’s television station and newspaper. He’s also the namesake of Amon G. Carter Stadium, where the Horned Frogs play. Continue Reading…

"this guy still has two years of eligibility left, a live arm and experience at a big-time program"

A couple of months ago I wrote that Tate Forcier should not be a Miami Hurricane. In fact, I wrote rather in-depth about the fact that there was plenty of competition (Jacory Harris was the returning starter, but there are four others chasing him, including recent transfer Ryan Williams form Memphis), an offense that I thought was unsuitable for him and the lack of a NFL-experienced quarterback tutor. It now appears that Forcier agreed with me. Well, maybe not that, but I think he saw the writing on the wall when it came to playing time.

Forcier hasn’t come out and said it yet, but several reports last week related that Forcier would not be at Miami in the fall. A reporter verified that Forcier had not enrolled at Miami and hadn’t spoken to anyone in the Miami program in six weeks. A source within the Miami athletic department told the Washington Post that Forcier told the school that personal issues were overshadowing football. No one in the Forcier household is returning phone calls right now and there’s no timetable for whether Forcier will make a decision about his future. Continue Reading…

Spring is usually a time of renewal when it comes to college football. For Alabama, spring football has given way to spring upheaval.

Alabama offensive lineman Aaron Douglas turned up dead in a Fernandina Beach, FL, home on Thursday morning. Local law enforcement is working on the cause of death, but authorities know that Douglas was seen alive as late as 2 a.m. Thursday. Beyond that, they’re still piecing it together. Continue Reading…

So this morning before work, I found myself sitting on the couch, drinking a cup of coffee and watching the Travel Channel. Perhaps subconsciously I was hoping that if I watched it long enough, I’d forget that I live in L.A. and would soon have to drive down 605 freeway yet again, like my own little version of groundhog day. Thankfully, BBQ Paradise was on and I literally escaped into a world of southern bbq (at least for a few moments). In fact, I loved the show so much I thought, why not go on a BBQ roadtrip? People go on road trips for sports, so why not BBQ? Whether I’ll actually go through with this idea is yet to be known. In the meantime however, the video below from Travel Channel’s Chowdown Countdown is just a fraction of what I got to enjoy this morning.

Recently I wrote an article about the potential for Sun Belt Conference expansion. In that article I suggested that if the SBC’s expansion plans pan out by 2013, it would need only one more team to reach 12 teams in football, which reaps obvious benefits. I suggested in that same article at PigskinU.com that Georgia State, which just started its football program in 2009 and plans to start in FCS with the Colonial Athletic Association in 2012, might make sense as a potential member.

Well, that article caught the attention of the hosts of Barnhart and Durham in Atlanta, and my appearance caught the attention of Ben Moore, who writes for Pride of the Panthers blog. The blog follows everything GSU, especially football.

After the interview, Ben posed some questions to me about parts of my article that I wasn’t able to talk about on B&D. It allowed me to get a little more in-depth about my logic and why the stop to FBS might make as much sense for Georgia State as it would for the Sun Belt.

Ben posted our conversation on his blog today. Click here to access the interview.

Also, if you missed my appearance with Barnhart and Durham, click the player below.

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Officiating Can Be A Learning Experience

The worlds of college and professional football are pretty secretive and regimented. I learned that covering the NFL for four years. You talk to players when the team lets you talk to players (unless you’re with the major papers, and then you can get their agents or, sometimes, even the players via cell). It’s even worse at the college level, where you get player availability about once a week and sports information directors continually guard the players’ privacy. I know college writers who have players’ cell phone number and get called to the carpet by SIDs once the writer uses the number.

Understandably, those who work for teams and sports leagues want information released on their own terms, not the media’s. So there’s a constant tug of war. When I was in Tampa Bay – during the days of Jon Gruden and Bruce Allen – the team typically won that battle. And they kept track of everything. One day, during a casual conversation with a team official, I found out that the PR staff kept a file of every writer’s clips and that the GM looked at all of them. I could tell when one of the other writers had written something critical of the team. His access seemed to diminish, even if ever so slightly. Continue Reading…