NCAA announces athlete payments of up to $2,000, new standards for postseason play based on APR
This announcement came as a surprise to me. Team Speed Kills does a great job of breaking down exactly what this means, but the bottom line is that schools will be able to offer student athletes up to $2,000 per year on top of tuition. The decision appears to be at the conference level. Some conferences will be able to afford this and offer it, while others won't. Will this further widen the gap between the haves and the have nots? What side of the line will Boise State fall on?
Additionally, the NCAA has approved multi-year scholarships instead of single year scholarships that are currently awarded. This could be a trump card for schools like Boise State. Right now, if you were to be recruited by Alabama, play a year, and a better recruit comes behind you, Nick Saban has the option to pull your scholarship. A school like Boise State can offer a guaranteed four year scholarship. A school like Alabama might not be as inclined to offer the four year commitment because they want the flexibility of cutting players to make room for better recruits.
Doug Martin is a physical freak
Fox Sports' Thayer Evans does a profile on our favorite Muscle Hamster and it includes this great quote from Coach Pete:
Doug Martin is the Kellen Moore equivalent at running back in terms of being an awesome player
Well that about sums everything up ever.
Arizona Western College of Yuma is number 30 in the Massey computer rankings this week
In case you haven't heard of the Arizona Western College of Yuma, they're a junior college and their ranking of 30 is good enough to be ahead of Ohio State, TCU, Houston and Florida State. They only come in at 88 in the rankings that Massey is allowed to submit to the BCS, but still the fact that a JC is included should raise some eyebrows towards his fuzzy math.
Big East officials met with Boise State in Boise Thursday
It's good to be wanted and recruited and from the sounds of everything, the decision rests with Boise State. The decision could come down to TV money. And if it's a penny more than the MWC television contract, I'd say this is an easy choice.