Shakedownsports.com

San Jose State coach Dick Tomey was unhappy with how his team played in Saturday’s 37-0 loss to Stanford. Extremely unhappy. After the game he went on a tirade that let everybody know about it.

“We were awful, we were badly coached,” Tomey said. “We were a bunch of prima donnas. We just don’t compete.”

Wow. You’d have to be a pretty big prima donna to end up at San Jose State and still be a prima donna. One would think being passed over by every single PAC-10 school would put a dent in somebody’s arrogance.

Tomey wasn’t done yet.

Tomey, whose team fell to 0-3 for the first time since 2001, said he will begin the repair job at 6:30 a.m. today in full gear. “Anybody who is not there is cut and any coach who is not there is fired,” Tomey said. “We’ve got a short time to put this thing together.”

That’s harsh. Even Tom Coughlin thinks cutting somebody for being late is going a little overboard. Hopefully somebody will show up at 6:32 and we’ll get to see whether Tomey is a man of his word.

No Comments »

The NCAA has a tough job to do. They have to oversee the recruitment and eligibility of thousands of athletes while hundreds of seedy coaches and agents attempt to circumvent their rules. With that said, the NCAA screws up a whole lot when attempting to enforce those rules—most notably when Rick Majerus and Utah faced possible sanctions for providing the team with milk and cookies at a film session.

Well, the NCAA is at it again. Two weeks ago it suspended Texas receiver Billy Pittman three games for borrowing a car from a friend. That’s all he did. Borrow a car from a guy who had no affiliation with the University.

What if Pittman had to move? What if he had to pick his grandmother up at the airport? If Pittman lets somebody help him carry his groceries home is that an NCAA violation? I guess it’s possible the “friend” could have been an agent or a pimp or a dogfighter, but that seems unlikely. There’s no good reason why this warrants a three game suspension. Even a slap on the wrist seems excessive.

The most ridiculous part of the story is how Pittman’s egregious transgression was discovered.

The UT compliance office received an anonymous tip and began conducting its investigation, a person with knowledge of the situation said.

I can just picture a shady man in a trench coat meeting a UT official in a parking garage and revealing the startling news. “Billy Pittman borrowed a friend’s car.”

This whole thing is ridiculous. I suppose there could be more to the situation than meets the eye, but if not, the NCAA might want to take a look at the rules that made Pittman’s suspension possible.

No Comments »

This stuff really ties the room together…

–Barbaro has a brother, and he costs about as much as Tony Romo. (Baltimore Sun)

–A trailer for the new Donkey Kong movie. (Ghosts of Wayne Fontes)

–Pat Summerral is back, this time in internet radio form. (Charlotte Observer)

–The WAC won’t give Hawaii football players the freedom to dance. Jerry rice and Emmit Smith are outraged. (Larry Brown Sports)

–Steve Spurrier does not buy into the Georgia Bulldog hype. (Loser With Socks)

–Rutgers fans are starting to act like they’re part of big time college football program (that’s not a good thing). (The Star Ledger)

–David Boston likes to rock the party. (The Big Lead)

No Comments »

(Every week there are a number of stories slip through the cracks here at ShakedownSports. These are just a few of them.)

Dikembo Mutombo has announced that he will sign with the Rockets and play one final season in the NBA. Mutombo’s decision could lead to another State of the Union appearance where President Bush commends him for not “cutting and running” from the struggling NBA.

A Russian Judge has awarded former NHL star Pavel Bure over $2,600 in damages after British Airways prevented him from boarding a flight. The incident in question took place last October when Bure was attempting to fly from Moscow to London, but wasn’t allowed on a flight because a pilot reportedly mistook him for a soccer hooligan. I guess the pilot’s cable package doesn’t carry Versus.

In light of Appalachian State’s win over Michigan last Saturday, the AP has announced that I-AA schools will now be eligible for its top 25 poll. In a related story, the Sports Network has announced that Michigan will now be eligible for inclusion in its I-AA poll.

Former Knicks guard Allan Houston says that he is now “90 to 95 percent” sure that he will return to the NBA this season. Houston will hold a private workout for NBA teams next week, but all 30 teams say they are “90 to 95 percent” sure Houston is an old washed up stiff who will never convince a team to sign him.

No Comments »

I don’t mean to rub salt in the wounds of the Wolverine faithful—well, actually I do—but Michigan could have easily avoided last week’s loss to Appalachian State. All they had to do was agree to play Hawaii.

Before he even spoke to Appalachian State, Michigan AD Bill Martin contacted the University of Hawaii about this season’s opening game. Martin and Hawaii AD Herman Frazier are old friends and Martin offered Hawaii $600,000 to come to the Big House. It seemed like a done deal but Lloyd Carr eventually nixed the game, most likely because he feared it would make his team’s schedule too tough.

Nobody can accuse Carr of dodging tough non-conference opponents—the Wolverines play Notre Dame and Oregon this year—but in retrospect he probably should have just agreed to the Hawaii game and prayed his team didn’t get upset. By trying to protect his team Carr ending up allowing the crushing loss he was trying to prevent.

All of this has been music to ears of Frazier, a man who has been griping about BCS schools refusing to play Hawaii for quite some time. Now he is making sure everybody knows Michigan passed them up. The funny part is that it’s almost as if Frazier is downplaying the skill of the Hawaii team in order to convince school’s to play them. It’s like he’s telling other schools “If Michigan had agreed to play us, they wouldn’t have lost. You don’t want to make the same mistake as Michigan. Play us and you’ll definitely win.”

Of course in reality Hawaii is a very dangerous team, and for now they’ll just have to hope that Appalachian State’s win helps them by making schools more wary of playing teams they don’t think are dangerous, and less wary of playing teams they think are dangerous (such as Hawaii).

No Comments »

The University of Maryland quarterback situation has been cleared up with the help of a pop quiz. Former Florida transfer Josh Portis was expected to get plenty of playing time later this season, but after he was caught cheating on a pop quiz the school has suspended him for the rest of 2007. Portis’ answers to the quiz were extremely similar to the student sitting in front of him, and their answers to one question were the same word for word.

This is completely unacceptable behavior from Portis. The first rule of cheating on a quiz is that you never copy something word for word. That’s a lesson kids learn in elementary school. If Portis didn’t learn it there he certainly should have learned it in high school. Somewhere along the way this country’s school system failed Josh Portis by not teaching him the proper way to cheat.

Meanwhile, the student (a kid named Brandon Bullock) claims he had no idea that Portis was copying off of him. Part of me wants to believe him. Another larger and much more rational part of me thinks that it’s pretty hard to copy something word from word if both parties aren’t aware of it. Bullock also sounds like somebody who thought it would be pretty cool if he helped the school’s quarterback cheat on a quiz—just as long as the quarterback would take the blame if they got caught.

You’re not fooling anyone Brandon Bullock. It takes two people to cheat. And while there’s nothing wrong with cheating on a pop quiz, there is something wrong with screwing it up and getting the school’s quarterback suspended.  Shame on you.

No Comments »

Remember Timmy Chang? The former Hawaii quarterback is still the all-time NCAA Division I leader in total offensive yards, but that distinction is mostly attributed to the pass-oriented system he played in at Hawaii. That, along with his lack of arm strength has keept Chang from getting a shot in the NFL. This season Chang caught on with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the CFL, and he finally got his first start this week. Unfortunately, things didn’t go too well.

Chang lasted just one half — going 5 for 15 for 44 yards with one interception and no touchdowns — as the Toronto Argonauts (3-6) beat Hamilton (1-8), 32-14, yesterday in Hamilton, Ontario. “I played horrible,” Chang was quoted by the Canadian Press.

Well, I guess it was the system after all. It’s either that or Chang is still getting disoriented by the 55 yard-line.

2 Comments »

I don’t know why, but this story just made me laugh. A diehard BYU fan recently bought a new car. Unfortunately, the Utah license plates on the car read “441 UTE”, making them appear as though they were paying homage to Utah, BYU’s archrival. Unless he’s willing to pay for a vanity plate he’s now stuck with looking like a Utes fan.

I feel like these are the kinds of little things that eventually make a person go insane. Having to see those plates every single day cannot be good for this man’s mental health. If I were in his family I would keep an eye on him.

No Comments »

The internet can be used for many things. Those things include stalking a neighbor, looking at porn, and reading the news. Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh uses the internet for something else (in addition to porn, stalking, and news). Harbaugh uses the internet to hire his assistant football coaches.

Harbaugh had never spoken to Scott Shafer when he pulled up last year’s NCAA statistics on the Web. But he knew what he was looking for. Harbaugh wanted to lure a coordinator from one of the top-rated defenses.

There, at No. 11, was Harbaugh’s man. Last year, Shafer’s defense at Western Michigan was ranked 11th overall, sixth against the run and first in sacks and interceptions.

“I was real happy at Western Michigan,” Shafer said. “But Jim called, asked if I was interested, and I said, `Heck yeah.’

And he didn’t even need to post his resume on careerbuilder.com.

No Comments »

The public memorial service for Bill Walsh will be held this Friday at Monster Park, and the master of ceremonies will be none other than Chris Berman. That’s right, on Friday Bill “Don’t call me Steve” Walsh could…go…all…the…way…to heaven. He will be back, back, back, back, gone from this earth. You’re with me pine.

All joking aside, Berman does have a very good serious side and he should do a nice job overseeing a somber event such as this. He’s also one of the few currently renowned sports personalities who was actually around during Walsh’s heyday. The ceremony will include and NFL Films video tribute, and former 49ers Joe Montana, Steve Young, Roger Craig, Jerry Rice, and Roger Craig are scheduled to attend. Dan Snyder isn’t involved, and so parking and admission are free.

1 Comment »