Sprints Works Hard to Become a 'Heisman' Next Year // 01.14.13

Mike Stoops tries to remove foot from mouth
Mike Stoops, Johnny Manziel just dropped 41 points on your football team and was responsible for more than 500 yards of total offense. Your reaction?

"They're gonna be tough to deal with," he said. "If they can keep him out of jail or keep him eligible, he's gonna be pretty good."

Ah, well then. In fairness, Mike Stoops did make some unqualified and complimentary remarks about Johnny Manziel in the same interview, but you can already figure out which ones got the most attention over the weekend.

Listen, it's all well and good for coaches to break out of the coachspeak, as someone pointed out to me on Twitter over the weekend. But there's a line between breaking out of coachspeak and launching what appears to be a personal attack on a 20-year-old college student, and Mike Stoops crossed it. Let us bloggers make the jail time and eligibility jokes, Mike, and instead just be glad that you don't have to face Johnny Football every year.

Of course, it didn't take long for Stoops to kinda sorta apologize.

Stoops reached out through an OU athletics department spokesman late Friday to indicate he regretted his radio comments and has the "utmost respect for Texas A&M and Johnny Manziel."

As long as he stays out of jail, of course.

Meanwhile, in College Station ...
Not that A&M is going to be ignorant of Manziel's interesting way of handling his newfound fame. In fact, they've created a whole new classification for the phenom.

"I told them he's no longer a freshman, and he's no longer a sophomore, junior or senior," Hyman said Sunday. "He is a 'Heisman.'"

Hyman does not specify in the article how many hours of college credit one has to achieve to be a "Heisman," or how many years of eligibility a "Heisman" retains for NCAA purposes. Mike Stoops just hopes it's not enough to make Oklahoma face A&M again while Manziel is there.

Les Miles is not Robespierre
Not because he doesn't want to behead tyrannical aristocrats, because you can totally see Les Miles being down with that. No, it seems like there's a reason for all the LSU players going to the NFL: Green. (No, not that kind of green, Tyrann -- money.)

In fact, we're on a pace for an all-time record in underclassmen declaring for the draft this year, and it has to do with cash, notably under the new collective bargaining agreement. Basically, the NFL has made it far more profitable than it used to be for a player to be a third-round pick or later, or at least made it more risky to stick around for the additional money that will be available if you're a first- or second-round pick.

"More and more you are going to see middle-round juniors entering the draft because of the new pay scale from the new CBA," Detillier said.

What? You mean the NFL is acting in a way that doesn't take into account the effect its actions will have on college football? Get out.

Casey Pachall is back with TCU
Which is actually something that's really good to hear, even if it means that LSU will have a harder time handling the Horned Frogs in the season opener if Pachall ends up as the starting quarterback -- and he probably will.

"He finished all of his in-patient work and has been in out-patient work up until Friday," Patterson said. "He did everything we wanted him to do."

Some free advice for Mike Stoops: Leave this one alone.

Miami's long national nightmare is about to get even worse
The NCAA is getting close to issuing penalties. Given that the Hurricanes have already voluntarily given up going to the postseason for two straight years, one can only conclude that this will not be pretty.

Jerry Jones is going to have to pave half of Arlington to beat this
Death Star, move over -- UNLV is about to blow JerryWorld right out of the water. No, you did not read that wrong (though it might be a bit of an oversimplification). The Rebels are about to have a stadium with a 100-yard-long video board, and that's not even all of it.

The stadium, scheduled for completion in 2017, features a retractable roof, two clubs, six 300-seat mega-suites and more than 50 standard suites.

At 100 yards, you don't even really have to play the game there. Just play the game somewhere else and pump it in on the video board. Maybe you could get a hologram set up, like CNN did on that one election night with will.i.am.