Who hasn't gotten something from the Fiesta Bowl?
The NCAA put together an 11-member panel to determine if the Fiesta Bowl will get to keep its license and therefore continue to operate. Turns out, nine of those members went on a retreat called the "Fiesta Frolic" back in 2008. Want to see the Fiesta Frolic itinerary? It's nothing but free food, free resort hotel accommodations, free golf, and free gifts.
Actual business supposedly got conducted at this thing, but this is a lot more lavish than, say, renting a couple conference rooms at the local Marriott.
SI's Andy Staples took his outlet's latest mock draft and compiled the recruiting rankings for all the players involved. Everyone in the top ten got at least a four-star rating from someone at some point, and only two players failed to get a three-star rating from someone (both linemen, one offensive and one defensive). As much as we like to gripe about the relative accuracy of recruiting rankings sometimes, they aren't too bad as a whole.
SBNation's Mocking the Draft blog has its latest up on the mother ship. Four of the first five players are from the SEC, and it projects five trades in the first round.
"A 38-person panel consisting of our analysts, studio hosts, play-by-play announcers, bloggers, researchers and production team members" at ESPN all voted on a preseason poll that released last Friday, even though some spring games hadn't been played yet. It's never too early for a too-early preseason poll, eh?
It's a bit of a mess, though it does include seven SEC teams. South Carolina and Florida are a bit high for my taste at No. 8 and No. 18, respectively, while Auburn is in and Georgia is out. Oklahoma, unsurprisingly, is the top team.
One time four-star recruit QB Barry Brunetti transferred from West Virginia to Ole Miss, and the NCAA has granted him a waiver to the rule requiring transfers to sit out a year. He made the move to be closer to his mother in Memphis, as she is dealing with complications from injuries sustained in an automobile accident in 2002. We rag on the NCAA when it does dumb things, but this is a decision it got right.
Brunetti is expected to challenge Randall Mackey for the starting job this fall.