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A Possible Replacement for Hazell at Purdue October 17, 2016
Posted by intellectualgridiron in Sports.
Tags: ad, athletics, B1G, Big Ten, Brian Kelly, Buffalo, coach, college, Darrell Hazell, Dave Wannstedt, director, FBS, FCS, football, Jim Colletto, Jim Harbaugh, Kansas, Les Miles, Michigan, Mike Bobinski, Morgan Burke, NCAA, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Purdue, Turner Gil, Youngstown State
Remember me, Big Ten?
Coach Darrell Hazell has been fired at Purdue. Yes, it was highly commendable how he made lots of friendly gestures in reaching out to the football alums; how well-behaved and polite his kids are; how he preaches morals and good conduct to his players. As a person, Hazell was a very good man. As a coach, he was a charlatan.
We were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt after his first horrible season (2013). The blowout loss at home to then-No. 2 Ohio State on Nov. 2 of that year was an affront to the university, to the Purdue program, to say nothing of all the Purdue football alumni forebears who had to watch such a disgraceful showing. Little did we know that plenty more disgraceful showings were to come in the course of almost four seasons. Those of us who have followed Purdue football for two decades or more know only too well what a disastrous coach Jim Colletto was, but at least the guy could recruit. With Hazell, we have lacked even that silver lining.
It turns out that Hazell was former AD Morgan Burke's parting "Gift." The humor is in understanding the double entendre, for the word "Gift" in German – hence the capitalized noun, a constant in that language – means "poison". In fact, that disastrous hire has permanently tainted Burke's legacy as an athletics director. Rightfully so, too. This is what happens when you continually hire coaches on the cheap, withhold needed administrative support and resources, then act like you're going to pay the new head coach real money (actually, not so much, comparatively speaking), only to hire a charlatan who fooled you with one good season at a bottom-feeding MAC program. We saw this scenario before with Turner Gil having one good season at Buffalo, making the gullible think that he was the next Jack Welch. How well did that hire work out of you, Kansas?
To put it another way, Purdue paid Darrell Hazell roughly $1 Million more than they paid Danny Hope per year, even though the former finished with a 9-33 record at that school, while Hope went 22-27 with two bowl appearances. Nothing like paying more for a much worse performance, no?
Thankfully, we now have the prospect of being spared future embarrassments in the seasons to come…provided that new Purdue AD Mike Bobinski makes the right hire. In the college game, hiring the right coach makes all the difference in the world. Just look at Michigan. All of us left that program for dead…or, least for permanent diminished relevance. Then they hired Jim Harbaugh, and in his second year, they are already a national championship contender.
Granted, Purdue is not Michigan, neither in terms of tradition, resources, or recruiting channels. But that is not to say that there is potential to hire a good coach to not just give the program the shot in the arm it needs, but also, immediately give the program the electric shock paddles just to get its heart to beat again.
But who? Several ideas have been tossed out in the comment section of the most recent Hammer and Rails articles. Many of the faithful, for example, seem fixated on Les Miles. Honestly, that would be a pleasing hire to me. He would be effective in shaking up the culture, and would attract lots of eyeballs and thus attract some good recruits. My purpose is to offer an additional idea; not to say it is THE only idea to be considered, but that it is AN idea to be considered. Here it is:
Bo Pelini. There are three major upsides with this possible hire. For one, he is currently coaching at Youngstown State, which is an FCS school. That's right, he's not even coaching at an FBS school after Nebraska fired him. It would therefore not be a hard sell for him to come to Purdue for a Power Five FBS job. Indeed, given his current predicament, a salary just slightly higher than Hazell's might suffice.
Second, Purdue is a Big Ten team, same as his former team Nebraska, who did him dirty. Those idiots fired him for going 9-3. Who in their right mind would do such a thing? Given his reputation for intensity – something Purdue's program desperately needs, obviously – it would stand to reason that he would not be a "forgive and forget" type. Thus, the opportunity for revenge against those in the conference who wronged him would make Pelini coming to Purdue an even easier sell.
Third, he clearly has recruiting contacts. One would need that in order to be able to win nine games a year in a state that produces zero NFL talent, save for the occasional offensive lineman. His is clearly a name recognized throughout the conference regardless, and that is the most key item.
Indeed, regardless of who becomes the new coach, it is an absolute requirement that he be a recognizable name. We cannot roll the dice with a coach from the MAC again. We already made that mistake. We need a "big name" to show that we truly are committed to not only righting the ship but making sure that it stays on course for the long haul and does not hit a reef again. Bo Pelini would be such a name. If not he, then Les Miles should do just fine, or even Dave Wannstedt, for that matter. If Notre Dame is foolish enough to fire Brian Kelly this year (don't put it past such a delusional fan base to call for something that monumentally insane, either), then by all means should Purdue empty the bank for him. Morevoer, if such a scenario were to take place, by all means, forget Pelini go all-in on Kelly!
If nothing else, Mike Bobinski ought to heed that last bit of advice, as his young legacy as the new AD at Purdue hangs in the balance with this critical decision. Either Purdue gets a name guy with a proven history, or they will stay in the outhouse forever, reaching for the "flush" handle.
College Football Week 6 Awards 2016 October 9, 2016
Tags: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Army, Auburn, B1G, Baylor, Big Ten, Bret Bielema, BYU, Charlie Strong, Charlotte, college, Darrell Hazell, Florida, Florida International, Florida State, football, Houston, Hugh Freeze, Hurricanes, Illinois, Kansas, Kansas State, Ken Niumatalolo, Kevin Sumlin, Larry Fedora, Louisiana Tech, Louisville, Lovie Smith, LSU, Mark Dantonio, Mark Richt, Miami, Michigan, Michigan State, Mississippi State, Navy, NC State, NCAA, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Purdue, Red River Shootout, Rutgers, Stanford, Tarheels, TCU, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, Tom Herman, UMass, USC, UTEP, Virginia Tech, Washington, Washington State, Wisconsin, Wolfpack
(Note: All rankings are current AP [week 6] unless otherwise noted.)
Wish I were him: Kevin Sumlin, Texas A&M
Glad I'm not him: Charlie Strong, Texas
Lucky guy: Darrell Hazell, Purdue
Poor guy: Lovie Smith, Illinois
Desperately seeking a wake-up call: Tom Herman, Houston
Desperately seeking a P.R. man: Ken Niumatalolo, Navy
Desperately seeking sunglasses and a fake beard: Larry Fedora, North Carolina
Desperately seeking … anything: Mark Dantonio, Michigan State
Thought you'd kick butt, you did: Michigan (defeated Rutgers 78-0)
Thought you'd kick butt, you didn't: TCU (defeated Kansas 24-23)
Thought you'd get your butt kicked, you did: Rutgers (see above)
Thought you'd get your butt kicked, you didn't: Kansas (see above)
Thought you wouldn't kick butt, you did: Auburn (defeated Mississippi State 38-14)
Dang, they're good: Washington
Dang, they're bad: Rutgers
Can't Stand Prosperity: Houston
Did the season start? Texas
Can the season end? UTEP
Can the season never end? Texas A&M
Play this again: No. 8 Texas A&M 45, No. 9 Tennessee 38
Play this again, too: No. 23 Florida State 20, No. 10 Miami 19
Never play this again: No. 4 Michigan 78, Rutgers 0
Close call: TCU 24, Kansas 23
What? BYU 31, Michigan State 14
Huh? No. 23 Florida State 20, No. 10 Miami 19
Double-Huh? Washington State 42, No. 15 Stanford 16
Are you kidding me? No. 25 Virginia Tech 34, No. 17 North Carolina, 3
Oh – my – God: Navy 46, No. 6 Houston 40
(rankings are current AP, week 6 rankings until further notice)
Ticket to die for: No. 1 Alabama @ No. 9 Tennessee
Also: No. 2 Ohio State @ No. 11 Wisconsin
Best non-Power Five vs. Power Five matchup: Mississippi State @ BYU
Best non-Power Five matchup: Navy @ East Carolina
Upset alert: Kansas State @ No. 20 Oklahoma
Must win: No. 17 North Carolina @ No. 10 Miami also: Stanford @ Notre Dame
Offensive explosion: UCLA @ Washington State
Defensive struggle: Northwestern @ Michigan State
Great game no one is talking about: USC @ Arizona
Intriguing coaching matchup: Hugh Freeze of Ole Miss vs. Bret Bielema of Arkansas
Also: Larry Fedora of North Carolina vs. Mark Richt of Miami (FL)
Who's bringing the body bags? Kansas @ No. 13 Baylor
Why are they playing? Lafayette @ Army
Plenty of good seats remaining: Florida International @ Charlotte
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? Louisiana Tech @ UMass
Week 6 Take-aways:
Nothing like the remnants of a hurricane to throw game plans out of whack. In September of 2002, for example, the remnants of a tropical storm descended on Louisville, and a Thursday night game between an unranked Cardinals team and No. 5-ranked Florida State became one to remember. The rain seemed to level the playing field to the point where the underdog Cardinals upset the highly-favored Seminoles in overtime.
This time, Hurricane Matthew wreaked havoc with records and schedules alike. In the case of the LSU @ Florida game, it has been postponed with no make-up date set as of now. The Georgia @ South Carolina was postponed for just one day. In the state of North Carolina, both games played as scheduled, and with surprising results. The NC State Wolfpack help visiting Notre Dame to just three points (!), allowing their only 10 points to prevail in the game. In nearby Chapel Hill, the No. 17 Tarheels were also held to three points, while the No. 25 Virginia Tech Hokies nevertheless managed to score 34 in the downpour.
Meanwhile, with Texas, it was the same result, different day, this time to their most bitter rival in Oklahoma. The game was high-scoring, 45-40, showing once again that the Longhorns' defensive issues have yet to be resolved. Indeed, Texas had given up a total of 620 yards (!) of offense in that game. The hotseat upon which Charlie Strong has found himself has just gotten even hotter.
Where has Michigan State's offense gone? First they score only six points in a debacle against Wisconsin, then they lose on the road to lowly Indiana. Now, they managed to score only two touchdowns at home against BYU. Mark Dantonio seemed to have the program rolling, what with a playoff berth last year. After a team like that, surely some rebuilding would have been in order, to be sure, but this? All of us are left scratching our heads.
Don't look now, but Stanford is in free-fall. What I surmise is that injuries have taken their toll. Unlike other major programs, Stanford lacks the depth of talent in their back-ups that other teams would take for granted. This is the proverbial gap in the armor of a school where academics are taken as seriously as they are with the Cardinal. Might it stand to reason that Notre Dame secretly suffers from the same handicap?
Meanwhile, the Toilet Bowl, B1G edition, is fast upon us next week when Rutgers and Illinois butt heads. How it works with these bottom-of-the barrel matchups is that the loser is branded with the ignominy of being the worst team in the conference for this year. The winners consolation is that they can point at said loser and say, "See? At least we're not as bad as those guys." Be quiet, Illinois: you have no right to complain about this designation. You lost to Purdue.
As things now stand, Washington is in the driver's seat for the Pac-12 North, and Tennessee's loss to Texas A&M could potentially complicate things in the SEC East. Meanwhile, Louisville's strength of schedule could potentially be compromised with Houston's unexpected loss to Navy. That said, their big win over Florida State remains of considerable quality with their upset win over host Miami. Perhaps these two upsets might cancel each other out in that arcane regard. We shall see, as the stakes increase as the new month of October progresses.
College Football Week 2 Awards (2016) September 12, 2016
Tags: Akron, Alabama, Arizona State, Arkansas, Auburn, Baylor, Bob Stoops, Brett Bielema, Brian Kelly, BYU, Cincinnati, Clemson, college, Darrell Hazell, Florida, Florida State, football, Gamecocks, Gary Patterson, Iowa State, Kalani Sitake, Kent State, Kentucky, Kyle Whittingham, Louisville, Mark Dantonio, Mark Stoops, Michigan, Michigan State, NCAA, Nebraska, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss, Oregon, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Purdue, SEC, South Carolina, Stanford, TCU, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, UCLA, USC, USF, Utah, Virginia Tech, Wildcats, Will Muschamp, Willie Taggert, Wisconsin, Wyoming
COACHES Wish I were him: Kyle Whittingham, Utah
Glad I'm not him: Kalani Sitake, BYU
Lucky guy: Brett Bielema, Arkansas
Poor guy: Gary Patterson, TCU
Desperately seeking a wake-up call: Pat Fitzgerald, Northwestern
Desperately seeking a P.R. man: Willie Taggert, South Florida
Desperately seeking sunglasses and a fake beard: Mark Stoops, Kentucky
Desperately seeking … anything: Darrell Hazell, Purdue
TEAMS Thought you'd kick butt, you did: No. 3 Florida State (defeated Charleston Southern 52-8)
Thought you'd kick butt, you didn't: No. 2 Clemson (defeated Troy 30-24)
Thought you'd get your butt kicked, you did: Akron (lost to No. 10 Wisconsin 54-10)
Thought you'd get your butt kicked, you didn't: Nicholls (lost to Georgia 26-24)
Thought you wouldn't kick butt, you did: Nebraska (defeated Wyoming 52-17)
Dang, they're good: Michigan
Dang, they're bad: Kentucky
Can't Stand Prosperity: Oklahoma State
Did the season start? Northwestern
Can the season end? Miami, OH
Can the season never end? Wisconsin
Play this again: Arkansas 41, No. 15 TCU 38
Play this again, too: Utah 20, BYU 19
Honorable Mention to play again: South Carolina 13, Vanderbilt 10
Never play this again: No. 20 Texas A&M 67, Prairie View A&M 0
What? East Carolina 33, N.C. State 30
Huh? Arkansas 41, No. 15 TCU 38
Are you kidding me? Illinois State 9, Northwestern 7
Oh – my – God: Central Michigan 30, No. 22 Oklahoma State 27
Told you so: Arizona State 68, Texas Tech 55
(rankings are current AP (post-week 2, pre-week 3)
Ticket to die for: No. 2 Florida State @ No. 10 Louisville
Also: No. 3 Ohio State @ No. 14 Oklahoma
Best non-Power Five vs. Power Five matchup: UCLA @ BYU
Best non-Power Five matchup: No. 6 Houston @ Cincinnati (Thurs.)
Upset alert: Auburn @ No. 17 Texas A&M
Must win: Iowa State @ TCU
Offensive explosion: No. 22 Oregon @ Nebraska
Defensive struggle: No. 1 Alabama @ No. 19 Ole Miss
Great game no one is talking about: Pitt @ Oklahoma State
Intriguing coaching matchup: Mark Dantonio of Michigan State vs. Brian Kelly of Notre Dame
Who's bringing the body bags? South Carolina State @ No. 3 Clemson
Why are they playing? Ohio U @ No. 15 Tennessee
Plenty of good seats remaining: Monmouth @ Kent State
They shoot horses, don't they? Georgia State @ No. 9 Wisconsin
After such a spectacular opening week in college football the previous Saturday and surrounding days, this weekend was a considerable let-down. The noon timeslots were mediocre, save for the decent matchup of Penn State vs. Pitt. The 3:30 timeslots were positively atrocious, where the best game was arguably Kentucky vs. Florida, and that game turned out to be a 45-7 blowout in favor of the Gators. All the good games were crammed together in the evening, where I found myself wearing out my TV's remote by switching around to the games of Arkansas @ TCU, Tennessee vs. Virginia Tech (at the Bristol, Tenn. Motor Speedway), BYU @ Utah, and occasionally South Carolina @ Mississippi State.
After this mediocre lineup of games for this week, one thing that has festered for a while has become even more clear. Two teams that continue to suck with overpaid coaches who are out of their depth are both Darrell Hazell of Purdue and Mark Stoops of Kentucky. The latter is another case, apparently, of where the only Stoops brother who has the skill set to be a legit head coach at the big boy level is Bob, not brother Mark. We might recall that the other brother, Mike, flamed out at Arizona. Concerning brother Mark, who apparently has had all these great recruiting classes while at UK, lost to lowly Southern Miss last week and this week was demolished by a recovering Florida, 45-7. His predecessor, Joker Philips, went 13-24 (4-20 SEC) after three seasons. Stoops is currently 12-26 (4-21 SEC) after the second game in his fourth season of tenure at UK. The Kentucky faithful would do well to ask themselves: is this progress?
The former had only one good year at a middling MAC program (Kent State), and the powers that be at Purdue were suckered in by this limited success to offer him the Purdue job, paying him $2.2 Million annually, or about $1 Million more than his predecessor, Coach Danny Hope. Hazell is thus far 7-30 since the 2013 season at Purdue, while Coach Hope went 22-27 in four seasons there. Doing that math, that amounts to paying an addition $4 Million for 15 fewer wins. For an athletics department that ostensibly prides itself on operating in the black, those numbers simply do not add up. Moreover, it makes one wonder how much better Hope would have performed had he been given those extra resources that Hazell currently enjoys (meager as they still are compared to true big boy programs).
Meanwhile, on a totally unrelated note, Mississippi State gave the impression that they have righted the ship after their embarrassing upset at home last week to South Alabama. They defeated South Carolina this week, 27-14. Conversely, the loss on the part of the Gamecocks' gives those who doubt the wisdom of the hire of head coach Will Muschamp further credibility.
All this aside, there are some outstanding matchups awaiting us this upcoming weekend, namely:
Michigan State @ Notre Dame; Texas A&M @ Auburn; Pittsburgh @ Oklahoma State; Oregon @ Nebraska; Alabama @ Ole Miss; UCLA @ BYU; Houston @ Cincinnati (Thurs. evening); USC @ Stanford; Ohio State @ Oklahoma; and of course, Florida State @ Louisville, which could potentially be the best game of the year thus far. I for one am already chomping at the bit, especially for the latter game!
On Morgan Burke and Purdue February 19, 2016
Tags: ad, Appalachian State, Arena, athletics, B1G, Big Ten, Brian Kelly, Danny Hope, Darrell Hazell, David Boudia, director, Drew Brees, EKU, Golden Flashes, James Franklin, Jim Harbaugh, Joe Tiller, Kent State, Mackey, Mark Dantonio, Morgan Burke, NCAA, Purdue, Ross-Ade, trustees, Urban Meyer
Morgan J. Burke has been the Athletics Director at Purdue University for more than 20 years. On Thursday, Feb. 11, he announced that he would retire from this position, effective June of next year. During his lengthy tenure, he has garnered a reputation amongst his peers as one of the most competent AD's in major college athletics, especially in terms of finances. With so many AD's spending money as if their budgets were bottomless pits, Burke has been very fiscally sound, and has enjoyed the deserved reputation as a prudent business manager as a result.
When he took over as the top athletics administrator in 1993, Purdue had the absolute worst athletics program in the Big Ten. Hammer and Rails has an article that puts this in perspective, including that fact that the football program only had five (yes, five) bowl appearances total in its history, and was in year eight of a 12-year bowl game drought. The schools' baseball, ahem, "stadium" would have been considered poor by high school standards. The swimming and diving teams' home pool was in some hidden location underground at Lambert Fieldhouse. Ross-Ade Stadium was practically falling apart. In short, the department itself was operating on a shoestring budget with awful facilities and teams badly-performing as a result.
In the span of Burke's tenure, Ross-Ade received much-needed renovations, including leading the way in building an aircraft carrier-sized press box on the side of one's football stadium. The football team has enjoyed 12 bowl appearances between 1997 and 2012, including an elusive and prestigious Rose Bowl berth. Mackey Arena has also enjoyed major upgrades, along with being home to a men's team that has delivered four men's basketball Big Ten titles and a women's national championship. For what it's worth, women's golf brought home the national title in 2010. A nice, more comprehensive list of all that Burke has done well can be found here.
Moreover, (again, for what it's worth), women's soccer, softball, baseball, and tennis all have new facilities. The new swimming and diving pool, opened up ca. 2000, is considered one of the finest college natatoria in the whole country. While not exactly on most people's radar screens, Purdue has become a diving powerhouse (e.g., David Boudia, 2012 Olympic gold medalist).
And yet, to speak with the Purdue University faithful these days, the firm impression is that the athletics department is in an absolute shambles. Sure, it's all well and good that the softball, baseball and soccer teams have wonderful facilities, and a fine reflection on the university that the swim teams have a jewel of a pool to call their own. But there are problems afoot with the two highest-profile programs, those being football and men's basketball.
The latter has been performing very inconsistently as of late, what with promising recruiting classes that fail to live up to their potential. But even worse and more urgent is the absolute disgrace of the football team. Coach Joe Tiller's teams' performances started waning during his last few years, especially since the 2005 season. When former assistant coach to Tiller in Danny Hope took over (he had been the head coach at Eastern Kentucky University from 2003 through 2007), things kept declining further (5-7 in 2009, 4-8 in 2010). Coach Hope enjoyed only two bowl appearances after going 7-6 in 2011 and 6-6 in 2012. Ironically, he was fired despite a bowl berth in 2012.
Herein lies a symptom of a systemic problem. Purdue has been NOTORIOUS for not paying its coaches even average market value. Coach Tiller was one of the lowest-paid football coaches in the conference for one, and that did not change when the torch was passed to Coach Hope. In college football, it's all about the coach and the kind of playing talent that coach is able to recruit. Just see what Brian Kelly has achieved at Notre Dame, in this era's Sunbelt-dominated era of college football, or how Jim Harbaugh has been turning things around at Michigan to illustrate this crucial point.
Basically, Burke tried to make things work with Coach Hope while giving him a shoestring budget. Coach Hope in turn did what he could with such a dearth of resources, but his performance on the field reflected the fact that he was not getting the type of support he needed to compete effectively in major college football. Firing him became tantamount to killing the messenger.
But there are other dimensions to this problem. Before and during the Coach Hope era, Purdue's reputation for under-paying its athletic personnel was well-founded and deserved. Even competent, ambitious people who worked on the administrative side of the department would leave for better pay at other schools, even to the intra-conference competition. That especially went for assistant coaches who were worth a thing in the sport; after a few years of building a reputation at Purdue, they would soon leave for greener pastures. As Fox Sports' Colin Cowherd often reminds us, "[C]oaches do not care about your fight song: PAY them!"
Burke seemed to have gotten that memo when searching for a new football coach in the wake of Coach Hope's departure. He announced that he was raising additional funds to try to attract a better coaching talent. Eventually, the searched settled on Darrell Hazell, then the head coach at Kent State who had a good year with the Golden Flashes (as an aside, snapping up a MAC coach who has had only one or two good years there into a Power Five Conference team is always a risky roll of the dice). Case in point: while Coach Hope's base salary was $925,000 a year, Coach Hazell's base salary was $1,750,000. Better, but still not enough to attract talent on par with, say, James Franklin of Penn State or Mark Dantonio at Michigan State, let alone Urban Meyer or Jim Harbaugh.
Moreover, when the bigger players in the B1G are searching for their new coach, they never seem to have to announce some fundraising effort to be able to offer a big-name, proven winner of a coach a competitive salary. Yet Purdue had to announce such an effort just to be able to pay its coach $1.75 million, which is still sub-average among the Power Five.
Before drilling even deeper to the root problem, let us keep things in perspective for now. Burke has been proven that he is among the best AD's in the country in terms of two things. One is operations. Having attended the Big Ten wrestling championships, hosted in Mackey Arena on March 3, 2012, I can personally attest that they were carried out flawlessly.
The other is financials. The Big Ten is home to some gigantic athletics departments that include both Michigan and Ohio State, both of whom have a figurative license to print money. Purdue, meanwhile is at a systemic disadvantage in that its athletic department receives ZERO money from the university. Despite that handicap, Burke has led a very financially-sound department, with each fiscal year ending in the black.
But Burke's weakness has been talent acquisition, which, frankly, is 90% of his job in the public's eye. He lucked out with Coach Tiller, who in hindsight had a limited shelf life of effectiveness without Drew Brees. He tried going cheap with Coach Hope after Tiller, and that ended up crippling the program. Although he doubled the head football coach's salary at Purdue, he has wasted it on Darrell Hazell. Granted, Hazell is a fine man who has raised outstanding kids and has done everything beyond reproach. Moreover, he has done wonderful, marvelous things in reaching out to football alums.
Yet despite being a fine gentleman off the field, Coach Hazell's on-the-field record has been only 6-30 in three seasons. This dismal performance has led to a damaging effect on Purdue's athletic and thus academic reputation to average people. It has in turn led to major frustrations on the part of the Purdue alumni and related faithful. Since Burke hired Hazell, a good bulk of this frustration has understandably been laid at the feet of the AD.
Thus, the initial reaction to the announcement of Burke's eventual retirement: why wait so long when a changing of the guard appears to be in order? Sixteen months seems like a long time to wait to take the program into a new direction. More to the point, is the change desperately in order? Answer: yes and no. A two-decade tenure for an athletics director is long enough. After that lengthy span of time, new blood is needed, with new leadership to take the department in new directions. Given the current, disgraceful abyss of the football program and the inconsistent performance of men's basketball, that new direction is obviously, desperately needed.
But will a changing of the guard at AD really help beget that? After extensive deliberation and searching of perspectives, I am led to conclude that a new AD alone might not help bring about the change Purdue desperately needs. Perhaps Burke's ineptitude at hiring a proven, big-name coach was a symptom of his being hamstrung by the Board of Trustees.
Most universities "get it." That is, they understand that college athletics, and football in particular, are front porches to their universities. Meaning, the trustees of most major universities understand that football is the primary marketing tool, and they thus see the football team as a way of leveraging and building the schools' entire reputation in the eyes of the general public. Purdue, in contrast, sees athletics as a secondary mission, and has historically chosen to put academics first. While this is noble, it is also short-sighted, given the context of today's society, where we accept the use of a school's football team as the primary promotion tool as normal and indeed, expected.
When podunk Appalachian State was vying for three consecutive national titles as the FCS level in football last decade, it was a huge shot in the arm for that school. During a home game in the playoffs in 2007, the university's president was on the sidelines wearing an ASU football jersey, joyously telling the sideline reporter for ESPN that applications for potential students to attend that university had skyrocketed. Enough said.
Thus we are led to the core problem at hand: why do the members of Purdue's Board of Trustees fail to grasp this? As long as they fail to understand this basic, modern tenant of university promotion, it might not matter how capable Burke's replacement at AD will be.
College Football Week 10 Awards November 9, 2015
Tags: Alabama, Arizona State, Art Briles, Baylor, Bob Stoops, Butch Jones, BYU, Charlotte, Clemson, Colorado, Dabo Swinney, Darrell Hazell, Duke, Eastern Michigan, Florida, Florida State, Gary Patterson, Houston, Justin Fuente, Ken Niumatalolo, Kentucky, Kevin Sumlin, LSU, Mark Dantonio, Memphis, Michigan, Michigan State, Missouri, Navy, Nebraska, North Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Oregon, Pittsburgh, Purdue, Rutgers, San Jose State, Stanford, TCU, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, Tigers, UMass, UTSA, Vanderbilt, West Virginia
(Note: All rankings are current CFP [week 10] unless otherwise noted.)
Wish I were him: Dabo Swinney, Clemson
Glad I'm not him: Gary Patterson, TCU
Lucky guy: Butch Jones, Tennessee
Poor guy: Mark Dantonio, Michigan State
Desperately seeking a wake-up call: Kevin Sumlin, Texas A&M
Desperately seeking sunglasses and a fake beard: Justin Fuente, Memphis
Thought you'd kick butt, you did: Michigan (defeated Rutgers 49-16)
Thought you'd kick butt, you didn't: BYU (defeated San Jose State 17-16)
Thought you'd get your butt kicked, you did: Colorado (lost to No. 11 Stanford 42-10)
Thought you'd get your butt kicked, you didn't: Vanderbilt (lost to No. 10 Florida 9-7)
Thought you wouldn't kick butt, you did: Oklahoma State (see below)
Dang, they're good: Alabama
Dang, they're bad: Purdue
Can't Stand Prosperity: Memphis
Did the season start? Texas A&M
Can the season end? Rutgers
Can the season never end? Clemson
Play this again: No. 1 Clemson 23, No. 16 Florida State 13
Never play this again: Arkansas 63, UT-Martin 28
What? Auburn 20, No. 19 Texas A&M 10
Huh? Navy 45, No. 13 Memphis 20
Are you kidding me? No. 12 Oklahoma State 49, No. 8 TCU 29
Oh – my – God: Nebraska 39, No. 7 Michigan State 38
(rankings are current CFP (post-week 10, pre-week 11)
Ticket to die for: No. 10 Oklahoma @ No. 4 Baylor
Best non-Power Five vs. Power Five matchup: BYU @ Missouri
Best non-Power Five matchup: No. 25 Memphis @ No. 16 Houston
Upset alert: Oregon @ No. 8 Stanford
Must win: Pittsburgh @ Duke
Offensive explosion: Memphis @ Houston
Defensive struggle: Kentucky @ Vanderbilt
Great game no one is talking about: Texas @ West Virginia
Intriguing coaching matchup: Art Briles of Baylor vs. Bob Stoops of Oklahoma
Who's bringing the body bags? Kansas @ No. 13 TCU
Why are they playing? Western Carolina @ Texas A&M
Plenty of good seats remaining: UTSA @ Charlotte (also: UMass @ Eastern Michigan)
They shoot horses, don't they? North Texas @ Tennessee
Week 11 Take-aways:
Two quick notes. One, it might time to put the expression "[I]t's time to put "Clemsoning" to bed" to bed. "Clemsoning," if you'll recall, refers to the Tigers usually choking (horribly at that) in big games. They always coughed it up to the then-stud teams of the ACC, especially Florida State. A few years ago, they went to the Orange Bowl to play West Virginia, and lost…horribly! That was early January of 2012. By the time the Tigers – at No. 12 — returned to the Orange Bowl two years later, this time to play No. 7 Ohio State, the situation was considerably different. In what cannot be ignored as a statement game, Clemson beat the Buckeyes 40-35, and have not looked back since. Now they currently sit at the top of the College Football Playoff poll. Bully for them!
The other quick take-away is that it is now November. Teams are what they are at this point in the season. But more to the point, these next few weeks, including this past weekend, will be one of separation. Teams that were hitherto unbeaten – or at least ranked in the top ten – will now start to butt heads. Separation shall thus ensure (read: Alabama's dominating win over LSU). Indeed, it hath already begun. What a glorious month of college football this shall become!
College Football Week 4 Awards September 29, 2015
Tags: Alabama, Arkansas, Arkansas State, Art Briles, Auburn, Baylor, Brent Musburger, Bret Bielema, Brian Kelly, Butch Jones, BYU, Cal, Central Florida, Cincinnati, Clemson, college, Dabo Swinney, Darrell Hazell, East Carolina, Eastern Kentucky, Eastern Michigan, EKU, FIU, Florida, football, Gators, Georgia, Horned Frogs, Hurricanes, Jim Mora, Kentucky, Kliff Kingsbury, Louisville, LSU, Mark Helfrich, Memphis, Miami, Michigan, Michigan State, Missouri, N.C. State, NCAA, Notre Dame, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss, Oregon, Purdue, Rice, San Jose State, SEC, Sonny Dykes, South Carolina, Southeastern Conference, Steve Spurrier, TCU, Tennessee, Texas, Texas Tech, Tigers, UCLA, UMass, Utah, Virginia Tech
Tennessee lost a heartbreaker to Florida this past Saturday. They shall continue to lost more close games until they learn how to close, so to speak. Photo by John Raoux of the AP.
Wish I were him: Jim Mora, UCLA
Glad I'm not him: Bret Bielema, Arkansas
Lucky guy: Jim McElwain, Florida
Poor guy: Butch Jones, Tennessee
Desperately seeking a wake-up call: Gary Patterson, TCU
Desperately seeking a P.R. man: Sonny Dykes, Cal
Desperately seeking sunglasses and a fake beard: Mark Helfrich, Oregon
Thought you'd kick butt, you did: Baylor (defeated Rice 70-17)
Thought you'd kick butt, you didn't: Oklahoma State (defeated Texas 30-27)
Thought you'd get your butt kicked, you did: UMass (lost to No. 6 Notre Dame 62-27(
Thought you'd get your butt kicked, you didn't: Texas (lost to No. 24 Oklahoma State 30-27)
Thought you wouldn't kick butt, you did: Iowa (defeated North Texas 62-16)
Dang, they're good: UCLA
Can't Stand Prosperity: BYU
Did the season start? Auburn
Can the season end? Arkansas State
Can the season never end? Utah
Play this again: No. 3 TCU 55, Texas Tech 52
Play this again, too: Florida 28, Tennessee 27
Never play this again: No. 4 Baylor 70, Rice 17
What? East Carolina 35, Virginia Tech 28
Huh? Kentucky 21, No. 25 Missouri 13
Are you kidding me? Michigan 31, No. 22 BYU 0
Oh – my – God: No. 18 Utah 62, No. 13 Oregon 20
Told you so: Memphis 53, Cincinnati 46
Ticket to die for: No. 6 Notre Dame @ No. 12 Clemson
Also: No. 13 Alabama @ No. 8 Georgia
Best non-Power Five vs. Power Five matchup: Miami (Fla.) @ Cincinnati
Best non-Power Five matchup: Air Force @ Navy
Upset alert: No. 24 Oklahoma State @ Texas
Must win: Arkansas @ Tennessee
Offensive explosion: Texas Tech @ No. 5 Baylor
Defensive struggle: South Carolina @ Missouri
Great game no one is talking about: Louisville @ N.C. State
Intriguing coaching matchup: Kliff Kingsbury of Texas Tech vs. Art Briles of Baylor
Also: Dabo Swinney of Clemson vs. Brian Kelly of Notre Dame
Who's bringing the body bags? Purdue @ No. 2 Michigan State
Why are they playing? Eastern Michigan @ No. 9 LSU
Plenty of good seats remaining: FIU @ UMass
They shoot horses, don't they? San Jose State @ Auburn
Tennessee lost a heartbreaker on the road to Florida, thus continuing a losing streak to the Gators that started in 2005. Earlier in the season, they lost another heartbreaker at home to Oklahoma. What is so heartbreaking about both of these losses is that the Volunteers were in the lead for most of the game, until blowing the lead late in both games. Butch Jones is continuing to improve the program, gradually bringing it back to its blueblood status in the conference. But they're clearly not there yet, and shall not be "there" until they learn to "close the deal," which is to say, they must learn to finish the games strongly. It is still early in the season, so still time to salvage things.
Speaking of salvaging, Steve Spurrier seemed to have salvaged things reasonably well when his team beat a deceptively good Central Florida squad. Next week, though, they travel to a Columbia, Mo., to take on a similarly-ailing Missouri Tigers team, in what one can easily surmise is a must-win game for both.
Why are both aforementioned teams ailing? They both lost to Kentucky, for goodness sake!
Speaking of UK, given that the Wildcats have W's over both the Gamecocks and the (Mizzou) Tigers, and they face a relative cupcake in the EKU Colonels this Saturday at home (a quasi-body bag game), the possibility that they could become bowl-eligible in the brutal SEC is not a remote one. Granted, they face a brutal stretch after the EKU game, facing, in order, Auburn, Mississippi State, Tennessee, then Georgia, but then have a two-week respite with Vanderbilt and then a gimme with Charlotte before concluding the season against improving Louisville. It could be a 6-6 year, which, for UK, is an improvement.
Utah and Michigan started the season playing each other. Though the former beat the latter convincingly, both teams are rolling right now. Funny how that works out.
TCU beat Texas Tech in a high-scoring game that went down to the wire. The Horned Frogs are supposed to be a top-five team, so how does one account for this narrow victory in a shootout? Let us not forget that this TCU team also squeaked by Minnesota at the beginning of the season. Are the Frogs overrated? The upcoming home game against a gradually-improving Texas team could be a referendum.
The only regretful thing about this delightfully intriguing matchup between Notre Dame and Clemson is that Brent Musburger will not be calling the game!
College Football Week 8 Awards October 19, 2014
Tags: Alabama, Appalachian State, Arizona, Arizona State, Arkansas, Art Briles, B1G, Baylor, Big Ten, Bobby Petrino, Boilermakers, Boilers, Boise State, Brian Kelly, Bruins, Buffaloes, BYU, Cal, Central Florida, college, Colorado, Darrell Hazell, Doc Holliday, FIghting Irish, Florida, Florida Atlantic, Florida International, Florida State, football, Furman, Georgia State, Golden Bears, Golden Gophers, Indiana, James Franklin, Jerry Kill, Jimbo Fisher, Kansas, Kansas State, Kentucky, Louisville, LSU, Marshall, Miami, Michigan State, Minnesota, Mississippi State, NCAA, Nevada, North Carolina State, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss, Oregon State, Penn State, Purdue, Rutgers, Seminoles, SMU, South Carolina, TCU, Temple, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Troy, UAB, UCLA, Urban Meyer, USC, Utah, UTEP, UTSA, Virginia Tech, Washington State, West Virginia, Will Muschamp
Wish I were him: Jimbo Fisher, Florida State
Glad I'm not him: Brian Kelly, Notre Dame
Lucky guy: Jerry Kill, Minnesota
Poor guy: Darrell Hazell, Purdue
Desperately seeking a wake-up clue: Bobby Petrino, Louisville
Desperately seeking a P.R. man: Doc Holliday, Marshall
Desperately seeking sunglasses and a fake beard: Art Briles, Baylor
Desperately seeking … anything: Will Muschamp, Florida
Thought you'd kick butt, you did: No. 8 Michigan State (defeated Indiana 56-17)
Thought you'd kick butt, you didn't: Louisville (defeated North Carolina State 30-18)
Thought you'd get your butt kicked, you did: Colorado (lost to No. 22 USC 56-28)
Thought you'd get your butt kicked, you didn't: Kansas (lost to Texas Tech 34-21)
Thought you wouldn't kick butt, you did: No. 7 Alabama (defeated No. 21 Texas A&M 59-0)
Dang, they're bad: SMU
You know, they're not so bad: Minnesota
Can't Stand Prosperity: Baylor
Can the season end? Georgia State
Can the season never end? Florida State
Play this again: No. 2 Florida State 31, No. 5 Notre Dame, 27
Play this again, too: No. 20 Utah 29, Oregon State 23
Never play this again: South Carolina 41, Furman 10
What? Nevada 42, BYU 35
Huh? No. 14 Kansas State 31, No. 11 Oklahoma 30
Are you kidding me? No. 7 Alabama 59, No. 21 Texas A&M 0 (the shear blowout)
Oh – my – God: West Virginia 41, No. 4 Baylor 27
Ticket to die for: No. 3 Ole Miss @ No. 24 LSU
Best non-Power Five vs. Power Five matchup: (none, notwithstanding the "Why Are They Playing" entry)
Best non-Power Five matchup: Temple @ Central Florida
Upset alert: Texas @ No. 11 Kansas State
Must win: No. 22 West Virginia @ Oklahoma State
Offensive explosion: No. 15 Arizona @ Washington State
Defensive struggle: Miami @ Virginia Tech
Great game no one is talking about: BYU @ Boise State
Intriguing coaching matchup: Urban Meyer of Ohio State vs. James Franklin of Penn State
Who's bringing the body bags? No. 1 Mississippi State @ Kentucky (also: UConn @ No. 18 East Carolina)
Why are they playing? UAB @ Arkansas
Plenty of good seats remaining: UTEP @ UTSA
They shoot horses, don't they? Florida Atlantic @ No. 23 Marshall
Week 8 Random Thoughts:
While Michigan State is a solid choice for the "Thought you'd kick butt, you did" weekly award, the truth is, a number of teams ended up kicking butt, that in hindsight made sense that they would. Start with South Carolina (see: last week's "Why are they playing?" nod), who beat relatively hapless Furman 41-10. In hindsight, a resurgent Ohio State team against a Rutgers team still learning to navigate the terrain of the Big Ten was also a clear would-be drubbing (result: 56-17). Even more obvious was the Colorado @ USC match-up. The Buffaloes still cannot get things together, while Steve Sarkesian is slowly building the Trojans back to national prominence. The 56-28 result, therefore, came as not surprise.
While Alabama could not be a more obvious choice for the weekly "Thought you wouldn't kick butt, you did" award (59-0 over Texas A&M, their biggest lopsided shutout in 35 years), other games would have been decent choices as well. Start with Marshall's butt-kicking of Florida International, 45-13. Even more of a surprise, though, was TCU's drubbing of Oklahoma State, 42-9. On paper, these were closely-matched teams (No. 12 vs. No. 15, respectively). Turns out that in reality, they were not that close in terms of competitive prowess after all. Further down the food chain, Appalachian State – a newcomer to the FCS – beat up on Troy unexpectedly, 53-14. Sounds like the latter is a "Can the season end?" candidate. Stay tuned.
Last night's Notre Dame @ Florida State slugfest is already an instant classic. Clearly one of the biggest, best games of the season thus far, it wins the "Play this again" award hands down. That said, despite some lop-sided victories in football this past weekend, plenty other games merit a second look nevertheless. Start with the late Thursday night game on the West Coast, Utah @ Oregon State. The Utes went into Reser Stadium, took the Beavers into overtime, and walked out victorious. Speaking of the West Coast, take a look at the final score between UCLA @ Cal (spoiler alert: 36-34). Consider that you have the Bruins vs. Golden Bears, and two different shades of blue and gold going head-to-head, in the same conference, no less. With such similarities, such a score result is only fitting. In the Big Ten, one was able to enjoy an interesting matchup between Minnesota and Purdue. On one hand, the Golden Gophers have quietly risen to the top of their division in the conference, while Purdue has quietly improved from their doldrums. Indeed, the Boilers almost won on the road.
Notre Dame remains an enigma. After so many close calls against inferior teams, surely they would not have played No. 2 Florida State as closely as they did on the road. Not when having to result to strokes of luck to win against Stanford. Not when allowing Purdue to play them as closely as they did in Indianapolis. Yet on Saturday night, they played in Tallahassee like they deserved to be the 5th-ranked team in the nation. Further monitoring of the team will be in order to make sense of this inconsistent behavior. Fortunately, the schedule is such that it will allow for further clarity to be reached as it plays out. The Fighting Irish journey to Tempe, Ariz., to play Arizona State in three weeks, followed by Northwestern and then Louisville at home. Then, they cap off the season in Los Angeles against USC. One takes any one of those teams lightly at his own peril (translation: if the Irish fail to bring their A-game to any one of these matchups, they're doomed).
As an aside, part of Ole Miss now being taken seriously in the national rankings (No. 3, currently), is that their defense is given plenty of respect with an up-and-coming brand: the "land shark" defense. One must admit, that has a nice ring to it!
Tags: Air Force, Al Golden, Alabama, Appalachian State, Auburn, Baylor, Bo Pelini, Boilermakers, Boston College, Braxton Miller, Buckeyes, Buffalo, Butch Jones, BYU, Central Florida, Chattanooga, college, Colorado State, Darrell Hazell, Florida, Florida State, football, Georgia, Georgia State, Gus Malzahn, Houston, Idaho, Indiana, Jimbo Fisher, Kevin Wilson, Kyle Flood, Louisville, LSU, Marshall, Memphis, Miami, Michigan, Michigan State, Missouri, NCAA, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nick Saban, Northern Illinois, Ohio State, Ohio U, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Old Dominion, Oregon, Oregon State, Purdue, Rod Carey, Rutgers, Southern Miss, Stanford, Temple, Tennessee, Texas Tech, UCF, UConn, Urban Meyer, USC, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech, Wisconsin
(Note: All rankings are current AP [week 10] unless otherwise noted.)
Glad I'm not him: Mike Riley, Oregon State
Lucky guy: Bo Pelini, Nebraska
Poor guy: Kevin Wilson, Indiana
Desperately seeking a clue: Kyle Flood, Rutgers
Desperately seeking a P.R. man: Rod Carey, Northern Illinois
Desperately seeking sunglasses and a fake beard: Butch Jones, Tennessee
Thought you'd kick butt, you did: Ohio State (defeated Purdue 56-0)
Thought you'd kick butt, you didn't: Rutgers (defeated Temple 23-20)
Thought you'd get your butt kicked, you did: Purdue (lost to Ohio State 56-0)
Thought you'd get your butt kicked, you didn't: Boston College (defeated Virginia Tech 34-27)
Thought you wouldn't kick butt, you did: Marshall (defeated Southern Miss 61-13)
Dang, they're good: Ohio State
Good Bounce-Back: Missouri
Did the season start? Mississippi State
Can the season end? Memphis
Play this again: West Virginia 30, TCU 27, OT
Play this again, too: Georgia 23, Florida 20
Never play this again: No. 4 Ohio State 56, Purdue 0
What? USC 31, Oregon State 14
Huh? Boston College 34, Virginia Tech 27
Are you kidding me? No. 22 Michigan State 29, No. 21 Michigan 6
Oh – my – God: No. 18 Oklahoma State 52, No. 15 Texas Tech 34
(rankings are current AP (post-week 10, pre-week 11)
Ticket to die for: (tie) No. 2 Oregon @ No. 6 Stanford (Thurs.), and No. 12 LSU @ No. 1 Alabama
Best non-Big Six vs. Big Six matchup: BYU @ No. 22 Wisconsin
Best non-Big Six matchup: Ohio U @ Buffalo
Upset alert: Tennessee @ No. 10 Auburn
Must win: Houston @ No. 21 Central Florida
Offensive explosion: No. 15 Oklahoma @ No. 8 Baylor (Thurs.)
Defensive struggle: Vanderbilt @ Florida
Great game no one is talking about: No. 24 Arizona State @ Utah
Intriguing coaching matchup: Butch Jones of Tennessee vs. Gus Malzahn of Auburn
Who's bringing the body bags? No. 16 Louisville @ UConn
Why are they playing? Appalachian State @ Georgia
Plenty of good seats remaining: Air Force @ New Mexico
They shoot horses, don't they? Old Dominion @ Idaho
Week 10 Random Thoughts:
I have come to the conclusion that these "body bag" games, such as the Purdue-Ohio State debacle I personally witnessed yesterday, are really glorified scrimmages. Case in point: the Buckeyes were already up 42-0 on the Boilermakers at halftime, and no sooner did the third quarter begin that they took out starting QB Braxton Miller and put in the back-up (#13). A prudent move, for who in the their right mind would subject the beating heart of their offense to further risk of injury when the game is already comfortably in hand? One would think at one point that Urban Meyer would send an emissary in the form of a ball boy (or somebody) to Darrell Hazell, asking him to run an "X-dig" pass play or a run play off tackle so his defense could better hone their craft in reacting to such maneuvers from the offense.
At least it was a conference game. Most of these "body bag" games have been essentially dial-up "W's". Check out half of the home games for the SEC teams, if you don't believe me. The next time Nick Saban grouses about the fans leaving the game early, maybe he ought to schedule better home games than Colorado State, Georgia State, and Chattanooga.
College Football Opening Weekend 2013: What to watch August 29, 2013
Tags: Aaron Murray, ACC, Alabama, Arkansas, Arlington, Atlanta, Auburn, B1G, Bayou Bengals, Bearcats, Big 10, Big East, Big Ten, Bobby Petrino, Boilermakers, Brent Musburger, Brian Kelly, Bulldogs, Butch Jones, BYU, Cal, California, Cincinnati, Clemson, college, Cotton Bowl, Cougars, Cowboys, Crimson Tide, Dabo Swinney, Dallas, Dan Mullen, Darrell Hazell, FIU, Florida International, football, Fort Worth, Gary Patterson, Georgia, Giants, Golden Bears, Gus Malzahn, Herbie, Hilltoppers, Hokies, Horned Frogs, Kentucky, Kirk Herbstreit, Les Miles, Louisiana Tech, LSU, Mark Richt, Mark Stoops, Maryland, Mike Gundy, Mike Leach, Mississippi State, N.C. State, NCAA, New York, North Carolina, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Oklahoma State, Oregon, Pac-12, Pat Fitzgerald, Peach Bowl, Penn State, Purdue, Rose Bowl, Seahawks, Seattle, SEC, South Carolina, Syracuse, T. Boone Pickens, TCU, Tennessee, Tigers, Tommy Tuberville, USC, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Washington State, Western Kentucky, Wildcats
Note: Rankings are based the ESPN-Coaches Poll, not the AP Poll as is usually the case on this blog.
Though many good games kick off the season on Thursday (hello, North Carolina @ South Carolina!) and Friday, the real action begins, as it always does, on Saturday (Aug. 31, in this case). Let us cut through the clutter and focus on the good games to watch.
Noon (12:00 PM, EDT): Let's face it; in recent years, most noon games have been throw-away games (generally, lots of lower-tier Big Ten, ACC and Big East matchups). This seems to be mostly the case this time around, too (case in point: Florida International @ Maryland, which makes Louisiana Tech @ N.C. State look like a marquee game). Yet one game in this time slot is rather intriguing, that being Purdue @ Cincinnati. Both programs have new coaches. Purdue's Darrell Hazell is working diligently to breathe new life into a program that has underachieved since the 2003-2004 season. Meanwhile, U-Cincy brought in Tommy Tuberville to provide some stability to a program that lost Brian Kelly to Notre Dame after the 2009 season, and just lost Butch Jones to Tennessee prior to this upcoming one. From a business managerial standpoint, the two new coaches make for an interesting study in contrast in that Hazell's role is clearly turnaround CEO, while Tuberville's role is that of caretaker to a program that Kelly built up quite well and Jones did reasonably well in maintaining. Talent-wise, it ought not to be close, as odds are the Bearcats could dust the Boilermakers. Nevertheless, this game is far more interesting than the rest of the game fare offered at noontime, and it goes without saying that this game merits a nod for "Intriguing Coaching Matchup" award.
3:30 PM EDT: Normally, one can always look forward to at least one strong SEC matchup during this time slot, but there are none to be had on this date. Syracuse @ Penn State makes for a poor substitute indeed. BYU @ Virginia is for more intriguing than that. Still…next!
With that said, a potentially good game that few people are talking about occurs at this same time, that being Mississippi State at Oklahoma State. The Bulldogs have grown in strength under head coach Dan Mullen, while the Cowboys have also grown in stature under Mike Gundy's leadership (not to mention T. Boone Pickens' money). Seeing these two teams butt heads could be very engaging.
5:30 PM EDT: Granted, this is not your traditional time slot for a Saturday game, but it's the opening weekend, so who cares? If anybody doubts that Atlanta is one of THE epicenters of college football, then they would be well-served to take not that No. 1 Alabama opens the season in the Georgia Dome against Virginia Tech. On paper, it's a decent matchup in that a top-tier SEC team is about to take on an upper-tier ACC team. But as decent as the Hokies are, the game could very well be a bloodbath, as odds are the Crimson Tide is going to roll. Still, it's better than the 3:30 PM options.
7:00 PM EDT: Washington State @ Auburn — now we're getting somewhere. We the fans are not treated to SEC vs Pac-12 matchups enough, in my estimation, so when it happens, it is always something to be relished. What makes this game especially interesting is that the dread pirate Mike Leach is trying to turn around the Cougars program while Guz Malzahn has just been brought in to revive the Tigers' very quick fall from grace. Could be interesting, especially when one considers how a Pac-12 team not named USC can handle a hyper-hostile SEC stadium crowd.
The other interesting game that evening is the Western Kentucky vs. Kentucky game in Nashville, Tenn. This too merits an "Intriguing Coaching Matchup" nod in that it also pits first-year coaches at both schools, both of whom came there under radically different circumstances. Mark Stoops took the UK job as a top-rated assistant coach at Florida State, with the mission to turn around a perennially struggling Wildcats squad. Thus far he has made lots of recruiting hype, but the actual product he can deliver on the field remains to be seen. On the Hilltoppers' end is Bobby Petrino, one of the best coaches in the business, but left his CEO job at Arkansas in disgrace and scandal. The WKU job is a rung or two down the ladder from the jobs he has previously had, thus is objective is twofold: maintain what predecessor Willie Taggart had already built (something at which he is more than adept), and also rehab his reputation. Look out for a possible Hilltopper upset over the Wildcats, as it is always dangerous to give Petrino more than a week to prepare for a game.
8:00 PM EDT: No. 5 Georgia @ No. 8 Clemson — easily the biggest game of the day, if not the whole weekend. Head Coach Mark Richt takes a loaded Bulldogs team led by talented QB Aaron Murray (no relation, sadly) in to Clemson to take on a Tigers program that Dabo Swinney has slowly yet quietly strengthened over the past several years (they did beat a strong LSU team in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl, after all). This will be a great opening test for the Bulldogs, who are no doubt looking to eventually unseat Alabama at the number one spot in both the conference and the nation. Odds also are that you will be "looking LIVE, at Memorial Stadium in Clemson, S.C.," as in all likelihood this will be the game that Brent Musburger calls along with Kirk "Herbie" Herbstreit, folks!
9:00 PM EDT: No. 12 LSU vs. No. 20 TCU in Dallas (Arlington, Texas, specifically). Just as Atlanta has its season kickoff Peach Bowl with a SEC-ACC game, over the past few years, Dallas has endeavored to do the same thing with a season kickoff Cotton Bowl of sorts, usually bringing in an SEC and a Big XII team (though there has been the occasional SEC vs Pac-12 game thrown in sometimes, read: LSU vs. Oregon in 2011) as is the case this time. Les Miles almost always has the Tigers up for big games, while it will be a quasi-home game for the Horned Frogs as they have but a half-hour drive (at the most) from their home base in Fort Worth. Moreover, Gary Patterson has built up a strong program over the course of more than a decade, even recently taking TCU to a Rose Bowl just a couple of seasons ago. Moreover, though the Horned Frogs are ranked lower than the Bayou Bengals, they have the good fortune of playing LSU at the beginning of the season, which is historically when the team is most vulnerable to a loss.
10:30 PM EDT: No. 22 Northwestern at California. Normally, the only game one might find on the cable tv guide this late at night is a home game at Hawai'i. Not this time, though. This time, head coach Pat Fitzgerald takes his nimble Wildcats westward from Evanston, Ill., to the west coast. The rankings could be deceiving. Yes, on paper, Northwestern could possibly crush Cal. But that could easily be nullified because of geography. Take a team in the eastern or even central timezone out to the Pacific timezone, and strange things happen to them. Pro teams do not have this issue (say, the New York Giants journeying out to Seattle to play the Seahawks), because they're older, more mature, and, well, professionals. But in the college game, folks*, you're dealing with 19-20 year-old kids, who are far more apt to be out of their element when traveling such a distance. Let us also not forget that Northwestern's internal clock will still be on Chicago time (9:30 PM), not San Francisco time (7:30 PM), which could also make a difference. One could therefore expect a close, hard-fought game, if not even an upset by the Golden Bears. That said, Pat Fitzgerald is one of the most underrated coaches in the business, and has proven to be very adept, time and again, at not only recruiting decent players into a school with the most academically-rigid standards in the Big Ten Conference, but also coaching them up to be competitive in that conference and in bowl games, too. No doubt he'll have a trick or two up his proverbial sleeve to try to nullify the problems of geography and time discrepancy. We shall see soon enough, as that is why they line up and play.
* Another Musburger-ism, in case you missed the reference!
2012-2013 Bowl Games of Some Interest December 15, 2012
Tags: Alamo, Arizona, Arizona State, Arkansas State, Auburn, Baylor, Belk, Big East, Big XII, Boilermakers, Boise State, Bowl, Bronx, Buffalo Wild Wings, Chris Ault, Colin Kaepernick, college, Commodores, Copper, Cotton, Cowboys, Darrell Hazell, Dave Doeren, Earl Scheib, East Carolina, FBS, Fight Hunger, football, GoDaddy, Gus Malzahn, Heart of Dallas, Horned Frogs, Huskies, Insight, Ka'Deem Carey, Ken Niumatalolo, Kent State, Kraft, Land of Enchantment, Las Vegas, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisville, MAACO, Michigan State, Mountain West, Mountaineers, MSU, Music City, N.C. State, Navy, NCAA, Nevada, New Mexico, New Orleans, North Carolina State, Oklahoma State, Orange, Pac-12, Pinstripe, Purdue, Silver, Spartans, Stefphon Jefferson, Steve Sarkesian, Syracuse, TCU, Texas Tech, Todd Graham, Tom O'Brien, Vanderbilt, Vandy, Washington, West Virginia, Wildcats, Wolfpack, Yankee Stadium
As mentioned in the previous installment, I have ranked the bowl games by category, with the major criterion being level of desirability to view, partly on my end, partly on the end of the average viewer who is NOT a certifiable college football addict like yours truly!
To find a complete bowl game schedule where each game is found in order of date and time each game is to be played, go here.
This second installment is of bowl games about which I am rather interested, which is, to me, higher than "moderately interested:"
New Mexico Bowl (Albuquerque, N.M.), Sat., Dec. 15, 1:00 PM EST
Arizona (7-5) vs. Nevada (7-5)
Chris Ault leads the now-Colin Kaepernick-less Wolfpack back to a bowl game to take on the rejuvenated Arizona Wildcats in a fairly evenly-matched game in the Land of Enchantment. Speaking of which, Enchantment Bowl has a nicer ring to it than New Mexico Bowl, doesn't it? But I digress. What makes this game truly interesting is that there will be lots and lots of yards gained on the ground by both sides. How do I know? Both teams each have some of the leading rushers in the FBS this season, in Ka'Deem Carey (is the apostrophe really necessary? Then again, the name is already made up, so might as well be stylin' while we're at it!) for Arizona and Stefphon (sic) Jefferson for Nevada (one too many consonants in that first name, don't you think?). Moreover, both teams also sport mediocre run defenses. It all adds up to lots of rushing yardage gained on both sides of the ball, with an inability to stop each other on the other side. Think: the equivalence of Baylor-Texas Tech, ground game edition! The fact that the hilarious writers at EDSBS referred to both of these two teams as the plague monkeys of their respective conferences is the icing on the cake!
New Orleans Bowl, Saturday, Dec. 22, 12:00 PM EST
East Carolina (8-4) vs. Louisiana-Lafayette (8-4)
If I miss this game, it won't be the end of the world. It used to be that we CFB fans would look forward to this game because it kicked off bowl season. Now, it's just another bowl. Still, it pits two solid teams within their respective conferences against each other, which was my rationale for designating this game the "Best Non-Big Six Matchup" for this set of bowl games.
MAACO Bowl (Las Vegas, Nev.) Saturday, Dec. 22, 3:30 PM EST
Washington (7-5) vs. No. 19 Boise State (10-2)
This used to be called the Silver Bowl, but that was before sponsorship took over bowls big time. Soon, they renamed this game after a slightly classed-up version of Earl Scheib. That notwithstanding, this could be a decent match-up. On one hand, Steve Sarkesian has worked diligently to bring the Huskies back to respectability. On the other hand, Boise State has had a slightly down year compared to their last several. Could be interesting.
Pinstripe Bowl (Bronx, N.Y.), Sat., Dec. 29, 3:15 PM
West Virginia (7-5) vs. Syracuse (7-5)
Old conference rivals reunite in this bowl game, between a squad that hit the wall when they reached the real meat of their schedule, and a team that gradually improved throughout the year. On paper, the Mountaineers are more talented than the Orange, but will the former have time to regain their energy? Plus, the game is in [new] Yankee Stadium: how cool is that?
Fight Hunger Bowl (San Francisco), Sat., Dec. 29, 3:15 PM
Navy (8-4) vs. Arizona State (7-5)
So which is it going to be, the Pinstripe Bowl or this one? I choose this one, my "intriguing coaching matchup" bowl game pick, and for multiple reasons. For one, you have one coaching philosophy of pounding the rock vs. the opposing one that amounts to a watered-down "west coast" offense. But that's not all: on one side is Ken Niumatalolo and his apparent philosophy of family, loyalty, dedication, etc., and in the opposing corner is the notoriously mercenary, leave-in-the-dead-of-night Todd Graham. Very intriguing indeed!
Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl (Tempe, Ariz.), Sat., Dec. 29, 10:15 PM
TCU (7-5) vs. Michigan State (6-6)
(What used to be the Insight Bowl, and before that, the Copper Bowl) Okay, so the Spartans have been no team to write home about this year, given their inability to, you know, score touchdowns. Meanwhile, on TCU's side, their performance this year has been one of peaks and valleys. Where the Horned Frogs are with respect to their highs and lows will determine whether they mop the field with MSU, or the game remains a defensive struggle. What could really set things off, though, is if the two teams show up in their chrome purple and green helmets, respectively (oh boy, oh boy!)!
Music City Bowl (Nashville, Tenn.) Mon., Dec. 31, 12:00 PM
North Carolina State (7-5) vs. Vanderbilt (8-4)
Last year, the Wolfpack was in the Belk Bowl, and defeated a young Louisville team. It looked like they were really up-and-coming. They return to a bowl game this year, and fire Tom O'Brien. It makes no sense. Will head coach-in-waiting Dave Doeren lead the team, or will Tom O'Brien play out the string? Or will the assistant coaches be left to watch over this mess before Doeren comes in to right the ship? All this will be moot anyhow, since this is a glorified home game for Vandy, who by all rights should kick N.C. State's butt. And that's what's really enticing; would it not be grand to see the Commodores win a bowl game? Goodness knows they have earned it!
GoDaddy.Com Bowl (Mobile, Ala.), Sun., Jan. 6, 9:00 PM
No. 25 Kent State (11-2) vs. Arkansas State (9-3)
College football on a Sunday night instead of pro football? Yes, please! Plus, this game is my "intriguing no-coaching matchup," given that Kent State's erstwhile coach Darrell Hazell took the Purdue job and Arkansas State's erstwhile coach Guz Malzahn bolted for Auburn.
Heart of Dallas Bowl (Dallas), Tues., Jan. 1, 12:00 PM
Purdue (6-6) vs. Oklahoma State (7-5)
Okay, how on Earth did this become a New Year's Day bowl game? I know that the Cotton Bowl is no longer played in the Cotton Bowl (stadium, that is), but that does not mean that this manufactured bowl game deserves to be on the same day as the Capital One, Outback, Rose, and other bowls that have earned being on this date. That aside, this game is a rematch of the 1997 Alamo Bowl. Just don't expect the Boilermakers to beat the Cowboys 33-20 like they did 15 years ago. In fact, expecting the score to be reversed in the Pokes favor might be an overestimation. Still, Purdue is playing in it, so one has to watch it.


This classic dark grey marl sweatshirt features subtle Indian Motorcycle® branding across the front in dark gray applique and black embroidery. A small logo embroidery is placed at the back neck, and a leather patch is added to the front hem.
Wash garment inside out. Use colour care detergent. Wash with like colours. Cold rinse, short spin. Do not bleach. Iron garment inside out. Low iron. Tumble dry low.


text:
About MRC
About Research at HMC
Outcomes of Research
Education and Research Medical Research About MRC About Research at HMC Submit Your Research Grants and Funding IRB Outcomes of Research
About IRB
What needs IRB Approval
IRB Review Process
Does my research need IRB approval?
All research involving human subjects that meets the criteria set forth in (45 CFR 46.102 (d) and (f)), irrespective of funding and/or funding source, conducted at HMC must be reviewed by the HMC Institutional Review Board (IRB). No research activities involving human subjects may commence until the IRB has reviewed and approved the protocol and issued a written notice of approval.
Any research that involves human subjects conducted in HMC shall be under the jurisdiction of the IRB. The IRB is responsible for determining and assuring the following:
The welfare and rights of human subjects are adequately protected and informed consent obtained, if necessary.
Human subjects are not placed at unreasonable physical, mental, or emotional risk as a result of research.
The necessity and importance of the research outweighs the risks to the subjects; and
the researcher(s) is/are qualified to conduct research involving human subjects.
Not all research submitting to MRC require review from the IRB if it meets the following conditions:
Although some research projects include evaluation, where a project is considered to be solely audit or service/therapy evaluation, it will not be managed as research within the HMC. Such projects do not require ethical review by HMC - IRB Research Ethics Committee or management permission through the MRC office. Under these circumstances, there is no need to submit applications to the MRC or IRB approval.
If the project is audit, service evaluation or public health surveillance, or some other type of non-research activity such as case study, system/equipment testing or satisfaction survey, you should check with the clinical governance office for the site/hospital facility what other review arrangements or sources of advice apply to the project.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
2010 Fall Visiting Scholar
Director and Professor of Social Science, Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA)
Dr. Vivek Bhandari is the Director and Professor of Social Science at the Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA) in India, is an alumnus of St. Stephen's College, Delhi, and the University of Pennsylvania. After earning his doctorate from Penn in 1998, he became a faculty member in the School of Social Sciences at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. In this capacity, Dr. Bhandari also taught and researched collaboratively at academic institutions in the Five College Consortium located in Massachusetts. He has been in his present role since 2007, when he moved to India after fifteen years in the US.
Dr. Bhandari's writings in the fields of comparative history, international political economy, historical sociology, cultural studies and peace studies have appeared in journals such as the Journal of Asian Studies, Comparative Studies of South Asia,and Africa and the Middle East, in edited volumes, and reference works such as theInternational Encyclopedia for the Social Sciences and the Encyclopedia of Modern Asia. He has also participated in conferences at numerous American and Indian academic institutions. In his capacity as a public intellectual, he has provided on-air commentary on NPR, as well as Indian media. Most recently, as a co-author of "The State of Panchayats Report: An Independent Assessment, 2007-08," India's first macro-study of institutions of local self-governance in India, Dr. Bhandari has taken a particular interest in the study of social and community mobilizations in India, and exploring strategies for mediation between the state, and extremist movements.
Dr. Bhandari serves on the boards of numerous professional and academic institutions, as well as committees convened by the Indian government on matters pertaining to rural development. His work as a professor and the director of IRMA involves an in-depth engagement with the changing character of rural India, and the role that academic and civil society organizations can play in shaping the country's fast-unraveling rural transformation. In 2008, Business Today magazine included him in its list of "India's Top-25 Young Executives under the age of 40."
We are pleased that Dr. Bhandari will be in residence at Penn as a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Advanced Study of India from September through November 2010.


text:
El término Dana puede referirse a:

Mitología y religiones
 Dana, diosa de la mitología celta, fundadora del Tuatha De Danaan.
 Danu, diosa de la mitología hinduista.
 Dana, rey corintio hijo de Sísifo y Mérope, en la mitología griega.
 Dāna ('caridad' en sánscrito), una de las paramitas (virtudes budistas) y una de las virtudes hinduistas.

Nombre de persona
 Dana, nombre de origen hebreo.

Personas
 Richard Henry Dana (1815-1882), abogado y político estadounidense, famoso por su libro Two years before the mast.
 Dana abreviación científica correspondiente al geólogo, mineralogista, zoólogo, y botánico estadounidense James Dwight Dana (1813-1895).
 Viola Dana o Viola Flugrath (1897-1987), seudónimo de Virginia Flugrath, actriz de cine mudo.
 Dana Andrews (1909-1998), actor estadounidense.
 Dana (1939-2003), seudónimo de Danais Winnycka, música ucraniana, líder espiritual de la banda argentina de rock de los años sesenta Arco Iris.
 Dana (1951-), seudónimo de Rosemary Scallon, cantante católica irlandesa ganadora del Festival de Eurovisión 1970, actualmente política.
 Dana Gould (1964), actor, comediante y guionista estadounidense.
 Dana International (1972), seudónimo de Sharon Cohen, cantante israelí.

Personajes de ficción
 Dana Scully, personaje de ficción en la serie estadounidense de ciencia ficción The X-files.
 Dana Fairbanks, personaje de la serie estadounidense de televisión The L word.
 Dana, personaje protagonista de la saga Crónicas de la Torre de Laura Gallego García
 Dana, muñeca de My Scene.

Ciencia
 DANA (Depresión Aislada a Niveles Altos), llamada en meteorología gota fría.
 Dana, género de anfípodo.

Empresas
  DANA Connect, Software as a service (SaaS) de automatización para la industria financiera.
 Dana, marca deportiva argentina.

Música
 Dana, banda cubana de rock.
 «Blues de Dana», canción de la banda argentina Arco Iris, dedicada a la gurú Dana (1939-2003).
  Dana Dana , Now United

Publicaciones
 Dana, revista irlandesa de librepensamiento.

Militar
 ShKH vz. 77 DANA, un cañón-obús autopropulsado checoslovaco.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
The CEO of a premium stock-picking service says buy these 3 names to invest in the 3 most disruptive technological trends today
Lisa Kailai Han
Simon Erickson believes that investors should look "outside of the herd" for the biggest opportunities.
Andrew Bret Wallis/Getty Images
7investing CEO Simon Erickson thinks that investors should look "outside of the herd."
He believes that "buy now, pay later," quantum computing, and gene editing are disruptive sectors.
Erickson revealed his top investment choices within each sector on a recent podcast appearance.
Simon Erickson, CEO of premium stock-picking service 7investing, believes that the biggest opportunities for investors today are found by searching for innovative companies "outside of the herd."
"[Disruptive innovators] can completely topple those existing incumbent players, completely change markets," he told host Nathaniel E. Baker during the November 1 episode of the "Contrarian Investor Podcast." "We've seen it time and time and time again. If you find those early on as an investor, those are the ones who can return 10 or 100 times your initial money."
Erickson shared the top three sectors he believes will be the most transformative for our world today, and within each sector he also revealed his top stock pick.
Erickson's first pick was the "buy now, pay later" (BNPL) sector, which he believes will be extremely disruptive to traditional credit card companies.
According to Erickson, every year in the US credit card companies charge $125 billion in interest, with an additional $15 to $20 billion coming from unexpected late fees.
"A lot of times, those fees are rewarding the credit card companies for giving credit cards to people who then do bad behavior [like] buying things they shouldn't," he said. "Then they can't pay it off, and there's a lot of problems that happen downstream of that."
Erickson believes that BNPL solutions are innovative because they disclose, "right up front, what all of the installments and the interest payments for those are going to look like."
The BNPL model allows customers to pay for an item in installments, oftentimes free of interest and other fees. After paying the first installment at checkout, the customer receives the item immediately, while the rest of the payments are then billed to a debit or credit card later.
"You make a mortgage for a consumer payment of any type, of any amount, and make sure you're finding the right consumers and the people that can responsibly pay it off," Erickson continued.
With only a few personal data points, BNPL companies are able to run a credit check and customize the terms and interest fees for each customer. Upon checkout, BNPL companies pay merchants in full and charge a certain additional percentage for taking on the consumer's credit risk. They're then solely responsible for collecting back payments on the item.
Within the sector, Erickson's favorite company is Affirm (AFRM), which he calls the "quintessential example" of BNPL. He particularly likes the name because cofounder Max Levchin also cofounded PayPal.
"[Levchin's] made a name for himself over decades of finding the needles in haystacks of the outliers," Erickson said. "Now he's on a new quest to figure out who are the outliers that really shouldn't be getting out these kinds of loans."
Besides helping consumers fund purchases, Erickson says that Affirm benefits merchants by giving them access to a new pool of consumers. Affirm also helps retailers make additional offers with the same BNPL system, such as suggesting a nightstand to go along with an already-purchased mattress.
Erickson firmly believes that BNPL systems are here to stay and will evolve over time.
"The disruptive part of this is we're trying to wean ourselves off of interest payments," he stated. "If we're doing installment plans, we can still use credit cards. That's not fixing the fundamental problem that people shouldn't be borrowing that money in the first place. It needs to come directly debited from your bank account, and we need to know that it's a credit-worthy borrower."
Difficult problems, quantum solutions
The second sector that Erickson believes will disrupt modern systems is quantum computing.
Quantum computing is exponentially faster than classical computing and based on a "completely different, fundamental science that's built upon quantum mechanics and quantum physics," he explained.
According to Erickson, quantum computers are used to solve extremely complex problems, such as simulating molecule reactions in drug development and modeling climate change scenarios across the globe. They can even aid in material design, such as solving range anxiety in electric vehicles, by figuring out the perfect storage capacity in a battery.
Firms that specialize in quantum computing have market caps that can exceed their sales by "several hundreds, if not thousands, of times," Erickson stated on the podcast.
"These are companies that maybe will have $10 million in revenue this year if everything goes well, and they're selling at a $2 billion market cap ," he said. "That's a head-scratcher for anybody who's a value investor saying, 'how can you possibly pay that much for a company like that?'"
While quantum computing is early enough in its infancy that any kind of prediction is "one of many dart throws," Erickson says these valuations make sense when compared to manufacturers of classical CPUs such as Intel and Nvidia.
"If they crack the code and this actually becomes a standard, you could have $100, $200, $500 billion market caps on these companies," he said. "The contrarian in me recognizes that even if these valuations seem super expensive right now, maybe they really aren't."
Within the sector, Erickson likes the pure play company IonQ (IONQ), which merged with a SPAC in October.
"They believe that their ion trapping technology is completely disruptive to anything else that's going on out there," he stated.
It's in the genes
Finally, Erickson identified the field of gene editing as a potential disruptor.
"The healthcare system that we have traditionally is built around sick care," Erickson explained. "The disruptive angle of that is, what if you could actually go upstream of treating a condition that started manifesting, showing symptoms, and actually fix the fundamental problem itself?"
With gene editing, the idea is to actually go down to the molecular level and repair the DNA causing a certain condition or disease. Use cases are still years out, since many of the potential long-term side effects are still unknown, and there's many regulatory protections and ethical debates surrounding the technology.
While gene editing is still a novel concept, Erickson says that certain breakthroughs have already caught the attention of investors. His top pick in the sector is Intellia Therapeutics (NTLA), which uses the CRISPR technique.
"Gene editing as a whole, it's kind of like in vitro fertilization, which was really controversial decades ago and now is generally accepted by most places," said Erickson.
"Will gene editing follow a similar approach where something that's very controversial today gains societal acceptance to really phase out a lot of diseases and a lot of conditions that are causing a lot of problems and suffering for people out there? To be seen."
More: Investing Technology Technology Industry
disruptive tech
Tech stocks
buy now pay later Affirm
BNPL
stocks to invest in
stocks to buy now


Brian is an Associate based in our Glasgow office and is part of the Dispute Resolution and Litigation team. He joined Lindsays in 2014 after training with an established specialist litigation firm. He has represented clients in Sheriff Courts throughout Scotland for over 4 years.
Managing a diverse commercial caseload, Brian can advise on several key areas of commercial dispute resolution, including: debt recovery and enforcement, commercial property disputes, professional negligence, actions for interdict and inter-company/ partnership disputes.
He has also acted for private individuals in a range of areas, including actions for defamation, neighbour, residential property and rural disputes.
Brian combines his litigation experience with drive and commitment to provide all of his clients with tailored pragmatic advice in order to achieve practical solutions in a range of disputes, both in and out of court.
12 successful appeals by summary application under Section 129 of The Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 against demolition orders at the instance of Inverclyde Council in connection with a major housing estate in Port Glasgow.
Successfully obtaining interim interdict for commercial clients in 3 separate actions involving disgruntled former employees.
Acting in several actions in the Commercial Court of the Court of Session, including, commercial disputes valued in excess of £1 million.
Advising in a dispute regarding the termination of high-value commercial lease, including, providing an opinion on professional advice in connection with the validity of a notice.
First successful appeal against an order under the High Hedges (Scotland) Act 2013.
Conducting a successful appeal resulting in a published decision in the Sheriff Appeal Court.


text:
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="../../css/geniblocks.css">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="meiosis.css">

        <button id="breed-button">Breed</button>

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
The Stubborn Optimist: Following the Persevering Example of the Writer and Activist Grace Paley
Nicholas Dames
Writer, poet, college teacher, political activist, peace agitator and feminist,Grace Paley was a well-known and highly respected commodity to those of us active in left protest during the 1960 and much later. This new collection of her writings should remind us of what we justifiably admired most, not just her talent as a writer but her commitment to the struggle and the long haul.
image credit: Eleanor Davis // The Atlantic, .,
A Grace Paley Reader: Stories, Essays, and Poetry
Kevin Bowen and Nora Paley, editors
Macmillan/Farrar, Strause and Giroux, 400 pages
Hardcover: $27.00
It is the early 1930s. A girl in New York City, just tall enough to see over her family's kitchen table, catches a moment of tacit communication between her parents. The mother pauses in her reading of the newspaper to say to the father: "Zenya, it's coming again." Even the young girl, Grace Goodside, knows what "it" means: Hitler's rise to power. The "again" was more mysterious-more compelling-both for the girl and for Grace Paley, the writer and activist she became, who retold this memory. The 1905 pogroms that killed her uncle and drove her parents from Russia to the United States were only dimly known to her as a child. A penumbral and weighty silence, common to refugees from politically murderous areas of the globe, covered much of the family's past in the old country. A lesson emerged from that parental shorthand "again"-namely that nothing, even the worst, was entirely new. Politics was a matter of taking the long view and enduring.
Paley never forgot the rebuke her parents' wariness offered to American innocence, but she lived to shatter the silence with the volubility of an American child. From her Bronx childhood to her maturity in Greenwich Village's radical heyday, lasting to the Vermont retreat of her old age and her death in 2007, Paley was a fearless and unflagging arguer. She was someone who gained energy through the give-and-take of political debate, whose brash, blunt New York manners made the tacit sayable. A co-founder of the Greenwich Village Peace Center and a noted member of the War Resisters League whose pacifism was rooted in a continually evolving feminism, Paley blended the socialism of her secular Jewish upbringing with the unruly passions of the left during and after Vietnam: The civil-rights, antiwar, and environmental movements each counted her as an ally. Much of her arguing happened on the ground-at protests, at the constant meetings that her life as an activist demanded, during visits abroad to nations that her own country was spending its young men and money ravaging. But from the 1950s until the 2000s, much of it also happened in writing: in poetry, in essays and political reportage, and in short stories, where her brilliance found its best outlet.
Politics is a matter of taking the long view and enduring.
Paley's oeuvre isn't large. Years raising children, and many more years as a committed political actor, limited the extended solitude that writing demands. The short stories came out in three books published over two and a half decades, while the essays and poems were scattered over a longer period of time. The career can fit between two covers, as in a multi-genre anthology like A Grace Paley Reader. If the Reader was intended as a memorial, published a decade after her death, it now seems more pressing - a necessary antidote to the current demoralization of the American left and the disorientation of what remains of the country's center. On the one hand, Paley's durable, disabused optimism and the resilience of her fiction's women, "the soft-speaking tough souls of anarchy," as she called them in the story "Friends," will catch you up short. On the other hand, so will her wary fatalism, the voice that lingered from her parents, reminding her how "it"-illiberalism, authoritarianism, the scapegoating of the most vulnerable-always might, and usually does, come again. When that happens, as it now seems to be happening, Paley has a way of reminding us how to be stubborn.
Paley's initial stories, slowly written during the 1950s and collected in The Little Disturbances of Man in 1959, received the kind of attention that launches careers. It is not hard to see why. They are masterpieces of voice, stunning ventriloquisms of women who, telling their life stories, refuse to be taken for suckers in a man's world. A streetwise Russian-Jewish Bronx patois is the general dialect, but every utterance of her characters promises to take an idiosyncratic, poetic swerve. The 14-year-old narrator of "A Woman, Young and Old," on her mother's taking a new lover: "Living as I do on a turnpike of discouragement, I am glad to hear the incessant happy noises in the next room." The middle-aged Aunt Rose of "Goodbye and Good Luck," remembering taking up piecework flower-making to earn some money as a young woman: "This was my independence, Lillie dear, blooming, but it didn't have no roots and its face was paper." With stony bravura, "An Interest in Life" opens: "My husband gave me a broom one Christmas. This wasn't right. No one can tell me it was meant kindly."
The milieu is the New York City immigrant world that muddled along before and during World War II, and then lurched unpredictably into middle-class prosperity. The voices are unapologetically female, speaking as if woman-to-woman. Men are transients and incidentals, "till time's end, trying to get away in one piece," Aunt Rose comments. Crowded multigenerational homes and thin walls make sex a common preoccupation. Patriarchal rules, inevitable and sublimely ridiculous, turn women into rugged survivalists. By 1959 this display of voice-the comedy of white ethnic life-was somewhat recognizable territory. Still, Paley pulled it off with so much panache that it gained her a following. The rueful honesty of her female narrators gave the stories a political charge, but they could be read as merely brilliant, wicked mimicry, a kind of amusing tourism, their feminism latent.
Late in The Little Disturbances, however, Paley found the key to transcending comic-ethnic ventriloquism: the recurring character Faith Darwin Asbury. While Paley's other narrators speak as if unconscious of their picturesque wit, Faith-a single mother of two boys, juggling petit bourgeois drudgery in increasingly bohemian times, putting no stock in men or their work-is her author's equal. The joke is no longer for the reader; it might even be on the reader. From her first appearance in "Two Short Sad Stories From a Long and Happy Life," when she names her first and second husbands Livid and Pallid, Faith has a self-awareness that makes it impossible to laugh at her:
Truthfully, Mondays through Fridays-because of success at work-my ego is hot; I am a star; whoever can be warmed by me, I may oblige. The flat scale stones of abuse that fly into that speedy atmosphere are utterly consumed. Untouched, I glow my little thermodynamic way.
On Saturday mornings in my own home, however, I face the sociological law called the Obtrusion of Incontrovertibles.
Faith invites and refuses confidences in the same sentence: "I rarely express my opinion on any serious matter," she tells us, "but only live out my destiny, which is to be, until my expiration date, laughingly the servant of man." If the admission seems like a bitter acceptance of things as they are, it is also the beginning of a refusal. It is a bulletin from a developing front.
Through faith, Paley discovered her great subject: the evolving political engagement of the generation of women who came of age in the shadow of World War II. The stories Paley wrote after The Little Disturbances are ever more plotless. They are snapshots of female community-in particular, the group of Greenwich Village women early to the postwar quest for feminist consciousness-or, in Faith's own words, "a report on . the condition of our lifelong attachments." Paley borrowed the method of linking characters across a story series from Isaac Babel, one of her lodestars. But unlike Babel's Odessa stories - or, for that matter, Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio - Paley's stories about Faith extend the timescale well into adulthood. Faith and her friends age, shedding lovers and children and parents, and finding new objects for their political passions. It turns out that rather than voice, Paley's true subject was time.
Put another way, her theme was how the ethical aspirations of political life extend over time: how they survive inevitable disappointment; how they steel themselves into endurance. Paley's second collection, 1974's Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, was like nothing else in American writing then. Especially startling was the way the stories handled the question of time. "Faith in a Tree," one of the volume's showstopping pieces, starts as a gently meandering account of a Saturday afternoon in Washington Square Park, where Faith observes other mothers, the new generation of fathers performing parental attentiveness, the hesitant mixture of races, the urban gossip and sexual competitiveness. Faith's voice is mordantly witty but sympathetic. The park is, as she puts it, "a place in democratic time," and there is love blended with Faith's quiet acerbity.
The story seems for a while like the kind of observational vignette that might have made its way into William Shawn's New Yorker, a poignant display of modern manners in the style of Irwin Shaw or John Updike - and then the story tears itself apart. A small procession of families enters the park making noise and carrying signs protesting the napalming of Vietnamese villages. A picture of a "seared, scarred" baby is borne aloft. A policeman forces them out of the park. Faith fails to intervene on their behalf; her older son accuses her of timidity. In a moment, everything is different: "And I think that is exactly when events turned me around, changing my hairdo, my job uptown, my style of living and telling . I thought more and more and every day about the world."
The story doesn't merely explode the comfortable confines of white-collar realism. It refuses the blandishments of postmodern irony, another popular narrative mode in 1974. After all its emotional indirection and leisured byplay, its well-mannered literariness, Faith's last words register with a stunning, almost embarrassing directness. The story lingers, and then pounces, transformed into a confrontation with a political fact; one moment expands suddenly into years, pulling us into a future of continual preoccupation. More and more, starting in the late 1960s, Paley's stories worked like this-embedding us in slow daily time in order to confront us, obliquely or directly, with urgent historical time. They depict the frictions of changing social norms, but they also preach, particularly the virtue of endurance. It is Paley's emotional signature: how to wait patiently, stubbornly, but not passively.
"My husband gave me a broom one Christmas. This wasn't right."
The transformation from the early stories is remarkable, a pivot from wit into something like a steady and intelligent earnestness. Earnestness, above all, is durable. Hate burns itself out and exhausts; indignation yields eventually to acclimatization; hope is bound to be disappointed. Earnestness expects to be around for a while, and knows it won't have it easy. This is the theme of Paley's essays, which offer plainspoken accounts of resistance: a jail stint for civil disobedience; a 1969 trip to North Vietnam to escort three American prisoners of war home; protests at the Seneca Army Depot, at the Pentagon, on Wall Street. The essays are not rousing, precisely, or in any way histrionic. They are steely. In their own way they too are about the long game, the lifelong project of change.
At the Seneca protest in 1983, Paley, then 60, musters one more act of exhilarating athletic defiance and climbs a fence around the Army depot. She is arrested for it, but claims no special virtue for the effort. "There was a physical delight in the climbing act," she reports,
but I knew and still believe that the serious act was to sit, as many women did, in little circles through the drenching night and blazing day on the hot cement in front of the truck gate with the dwindling but still enraged "Nuke Them Till They Glow" group screaming "Lesbian bitches" from their flag-enfolded cars.
There are no easy conversions here, and while Paley has a stern understanding of her political enemies, she refuses to soften into acceptance. Instead she dwells on protracted acts: long, difficult conversations; long, painful vigils; many drenching nights and blazing days without obvious results. They are what the stories give us, fragmented into brief, vivid glimpses. Of the voices of mid-century American radicalism, few could ever make perseverance seem so vital.
[Reviewer Nicholas Dames is the Theodore Kahan Professor of Humanities at Columbia University and the author of two books on Victorian fiction.]
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Join Simon Ambrose, CEO of the National Trust of Australia, Victoria (NTAV) for a lecture sharing the heritage of Australia – from past to present to future. The NTAV has played a key role in the protection of Australia's legacy. After celebrating their 60th anniversary in 2016, Simon and his team have begun charting a vision for the future and a road map to achieve it. During this lecture, Simon will outline some of NTAV's plans.
Australia's heritage is an amalgamation of socialisation, environment, buildings, bridges, roads, gardens, trees, landscapes – everything in and around us. The NTAV is an independent non-profit supported by a large community base and is the premier heritage and conservation organisation in the state. The organisation's role is to not only plan for the future but preserve the vibrant past of the community.


Departmental oversight - $80 million.
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) received a separate appropriation of $6 million to carry out oversight activities of the expenditure of these funds.
The OIG's plan for oversight is to conduct work in phases over the period during which Recovery Act funds will be expended.
Phase one addressed how DOL is planning its administration and oversight. The OIG's work during this phase included assessing how DOL planned to account for Recovery Act funds, how it provided guidance to states and grantees, how it established performance measures for Recovery activities, and whether DOL had develop the required reporting requirements.
Phase two is focusing on how DOL awards funds to grantees and contractors. Of the $4.5 billion in grants, approximately $3.5 billion is formula and $1 billion is discretionary. Formula funds were awarded in FY 2009 while discretionary funds must be awarded by June 30, 2010. The OIG will look particularly at how discretionary grants are selected. During this phase the OIG will also review contract award decisions by Job Corps.
Phase three will assess how grantees and contractors performed and what was accomplished with Recovery Act funding. Formula grant funds must generally be spent by 2011, while discretionary grant funds will generally be spent through 2013. The OIG will audit states' utilization and accounting for the Federal share of unemployment benefits. Funding for unemployment benefits is through December 2009. Finally, the OIG will audit construction and rehabilitation contracts awarded by Job Corps. Job Corps funding is available through June 2010. This phase will also include a review of DOL's oversight of grantees and contractors.
The OIG has a team of OIG auditors devoted to ARRA oversight. Moreover, the OIG is supplementing its own audit staff with independent audit firms. Finally, the OIG hired 2 full-time auditors to oversee these contracts as well as supervise work the OIG will conduct with its own appropriation.