Rutgers received a letter from the NCAA on Tuesday, and Myles Garrett will have one more outing for Texas A&M
As the 2016 calendar year comes to an end, we were treated to our latest edition of the NCAA coming down on a college football program for improprieties. Rutgers is back at the top of the college football news cycle, and it’s not for stinking up the joint on the gridiron.
That is where we start the College Football Blitz here for Dec. 20, 2016.
Rutgers gets some mail from the NCAA and it’s not a Christmas card
We talk a lot about the Rutgers football program throughout the season, but again, that’s usually because they’re so laughably terrible when it comes to playing football that you simply can’t look away. This, though, sort of made everyone forget that they were not so compliant with NCAA rules and the hammer could be dropping at any point.
Well that hammer was dropped on Tuesday, as we learned the program was officially served with their NCAA Notice of Allegations. There were seven possible violations in the notice dating all the way back to Greg Schiano’s final season with the school in 2011, all of which you can take a look at here.
Overall, this ended up being an 18-month investigation, which no doubt helped with the fact that we failed to constantly remember they could be hit ant any moment. Now that it has reached this point, Rutgers has done the right thing by immediately releasing a statement noting that they have already started looking into the information they were served with while also making it known they are cooperating with the NCAA. Good move — always cooperate with the suits in Indianapolis.
Final Thought: One of the people that I feel for in all of this is Chris Ash. Sure, he went just 2-10 in his first season, but look at what he walked into? And now he has to deal with this?
If anything, should Ash still show improvement with this football program despite these horrid setbacks, he may be afforded the opportunity to find a better job elsewhere and move away from the mess that is the Rutgers football program.
Oh yeah, and Big Ten: You’d better find that receipt on Rutgers already. Y’all got ripped off, but we all sort of tried to tell you this when you made the move. You weren’t getting Greg Schiano’s mid-2000s Rutgers.
It’s gonna be an interesting road for the Scarlet Knights ahead.
Myles Garrett will give it one more go for the Aggies, and sort of takes a shot at Leonard Fournette
Yeah, we’re all equally sick of hearing about it, but the overwhelming top story the past couple days not just in college football but sports in general, has been the decisions of Leonard Fournette and Christian McCaffrey to skip out on their respective bowl games. Instead, they will get themselves ready for the 2017 NFL Draft, sparking some much-heated debates across the sports landscape.
However, what might be flying a tad under the radar in all of this is that one of the top prospects in the 2017 NFL Draft pool will be playing at least one more game for his school. Texas A&M junior defensive end Myles Garrett announced through a release from the school on Monday that he will certainly be taking part in the team’s upcoming Texas Bowl against Kansas State on Dec. 28. And in the process of making this announcement, he was asked about the situation surrounding Fournette and had this to offer up:
Myles Garrett on Leonard Fournette skipping the bowl game: "Leonard's been trying to leave since sophomore year."
— Ben Baby (@Ben_Baby) December 20, 2016
OH SNAP! Although, some would tend to agree with the sentiment of Mr. Garrett here.
This is definitely good news for the Aggies as they look to end the 2016 season –one that had College Football Playoff aspirations at one point– on a high note.
Of course, though, the folks on the side of the McCaffreys and Fournettes of the world will be waiting for Garrett, a potential No. 1 pick next spring, to suffer the slightest injury to proclaim, “I told you so!”
Final Thought: We get one more game of this monster at the collegiate level. In my humble opinion, we all win in that regard.
Happy Holidays, Jimbo Fisher. Here’s an extension
For the second year in a row, there were theorists among us that were certain Jimbo Fisher would be saying goodbye to Tallahassee, Florida, opting to head back to LSU to take the head coaching reins of the Tigers. And for the second year in a row, Jimbo Fisher is not the head coach of the LSU Tigers, as the Baton Rouge institution promoted interim coach Ed Orgeron to the full-time position to the delight of many.
Could Fisher have gone to Baton Rouge if he wanted to? Maybe, maybe not, but because of his loyalty to the Seminoles, the national championship-winning coach was rewarded with an extension right before Christmas.
The extension carries Fisher through the 2024 season, and according to the Tallahassee Democrat, he will receive a bump in pay from $5.25 million annually to $5.5 million. This marks the fourth consecutive season that Florida State has handed out a raise to the man who took over for the beloved Bobby Bowden.
Final Thought: At this point, we all might want to consider that just maybe Fisher loves being the head coach of the Florida State Seminoles and has no interest in heading anywhere, especially the SEC. Will he maybe leverage his name being used in certain rumors to get some more coin from FSU in the end? Sure, but that’s just the smart move, especially if he ends up making more money at a place he genuinely loves. I mean, isn’t that what we all want in life?
Next: Best college quarterback born in every state
Bowl Game stat of the day
Miami Beach Bowl, D’Angelo Brewer and James Flanders: Both with 17 carries, both with over 100 yards
There are approximately 10 million bowl games –estimated– per year, so not all of them are gonna be pretty. Monday afternoon the Miami Beach Bowl bestowed upon us the first true obliteration of the 2016 bowl season, as Tulsa manhandled Central Michigan to the tune of a 55-10 final score.
The main talking point of this one was the two-headed monster at running back for Tulsa putting on one last show for us all this season. Senior back James Flanders and junior D’Angelo Brewer both finished with 17 carries in the blowout, with the former finishing with 100 yards on the ground and the latter just gaining the edge on his teammate with 105.
These two were a joy to watch this past season, and it was fitting that they teamed up for one more beatdown of an opposing defense. Flanders finished his senior season with 1,629 yards rushing and 18 touchdowns, while Brewer caps his 2016 with 1,425 yards and seven scores.