Welcome to August. It feels like this is going to be an important month. As Pat Hughes, the radio voice of the Chicago Cubs, always says, "Buckle your seat belts."
1. Early this week, the Southeastern Conference is expected to release the 2020 schedule. It will begin on Sept. 26, consisting of 10 games, all against league foes. The season is set to end on Dec. 5, with the SEC Championship Game scheduled for Dec. 19.
There is an open date built in for every team, and the Dec. 12 open date is reserved for make-up games.
Who will Ole Miss open with? What teams will be added to the Rebels' schedule? I don't know. There are rumors of an opener against LSU and against Mississippi State, but I'd submit it doesn't matter.
Ole Miss isn't a title contender in 2020. My expectation is most bowl games won't happen. This season is about two things: Getting to the starting line and making it to the finish line. That's it.
This season is about mitigating loss. It's about fulfilling a television contract, hopefully playing games in half-full stadiums, slowing the financial bleeding and living to get to what everyone hopes is a "normal" 2021 season.
That's not what fans want to hear, and it's certainly not the exciting rhetoric that usually accompanies the sport when August rolls around, but it's the truth.
2. As of late last week, the feeling was SEC teams would open fall camps as scheduled, meaning Aug. 6 or Aug. 7.
If that holds, it does basically allow Lane Kiffin and his coaching staff to replace the missed spring training that occurred in March and April. From a competitive standpoint, a seven-week fall camp should allow the Rebels to be far more prepared for their opener than they would have been for the scheduled opener in Houston on Sept. 6. That game, of course, has been canceled.
Seven weeks of prep allows for evaluation, installation and acclimation, all while having built-in time should the program have any COVID-related setbacks.
3. Speaking of, there is still plenty of concern among SEC players regarding playing amid the pandemic.
In a story in Saturday's Washington Post, several SEC players, including Ole Miss linebacker MoMo Sanogo, had questions for SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and health officials during a call Friday.
I don't want to minimize the virus, nor do I want to belittle the concern of players and coaches concerning playing football during an unprecedented crisis. However, there's a simplicity to this as well.
If a player isn't comfortable playing, he can and should opt out. There is no penalty, no lost scholarship, no lost year of eligibility. If you don't feel safe, don't play. A few fans will judge, but most won't.
"Why have students been allowed to come back on campus if we're trying to have a football season?" Sanogo reportedly said during the call. "I have in-class classes. I've got four classes a week, all of them in-class, all of them four hours long. These students have nothing to lose by getting COVID. They get to miss class."
With respect to Sanogo, that's crap. There are thousands of students who would kill to have in-person classes this fall. They're paying for a college experience -- and an education -- they're not receiving. The moment a college campus closes to regular students to create a bubble for football players, many of whom wouldn't be in college if it were not for football, is the moment alumni, faculty and students should launch into full revolt. College campuses are bigger than the football programs that represent them. That equation simply can't be reversed.
There is no way for schools or leagues to guarantee 100 percent safety. It's simply not possible. In Ole Miss' case, some 90 percent of the school's classes are going to be virtual this fall. Those that meet in-person are going to be socially distanced and masks will be required. As one professor at Ole Miss told me over the weekend after learning that his 15-person class will be taught in a 102-seat lecture hall, "I think we'll be OK."
Of course, there's a real chance that's not really what all of this concern is about. It's possible -- admirable, if so, frankly -- that the players are preparing to exercise their leverage. ESPN.com reported Saturday a Pac-12 player group is threatening to opt out, listing a series of demands it wants met. On Sunday, the demands were released and boy oh boy, there are some doozies.
"Neither the Conference nor our university athletics departments have been contacted by this group regarding these topics," a Pac-12 statement said. "We support our student-athletes using their voice,and have regular communications with our student-athletes at many different levels on a range of topics. As we have clearly stated with respect to our fall competition plans, we are, and always will be, directed by medical experts, with the health, safety and well being of our student athletes, coaches and staff always the first priority. We have made it clear that any student athlete who chooses not to return to competition for health or safety reasons will have their scholarship protected."
Ramogi Huma, the founder and president of the College Athletes Players Association, is assisting the players in organizing the potential boycott, sources told ESPN. Huma, a former linebacker at UCLA, has been an advocate of college athletes' rights.
A staff member at a Pac-12 football program told ESPN that the movement is "real" and involves potentially hundreds of players.
A UCLA player contacted by ESPN said Bruins team leaders planned to meet and discuss the potential boycott Saturday.
A person familiar with the Pac-12 campaign said players from Cal, Oregon, Stanford and UCLA and other schools are involved. The person said at least a few of the league's head coaches were aware of the potential boycott and have independently gauged their teams' involvement, which has varied from campus to campus.
Among the players' concerns are that they are being brought back to campus for practices and games when a handful of Pac-12 schools, including Cal, UCLA and USC, have told most, if not all, of the student body to stay home and take classes online this fall because of the coronavirus pandemic. Stanford is bringing only half of its undergraduates back to campus for the fall quarter.
In the end, however, I come back to one simple conclusion: They can walk away. It's really that simple.
3b. I suspect we will talk a lot about the Pac-12 players' demands on podcasts this week. I've got a lot of thoughts and I need time to sort through them. However, I'd like to remind some of the Pac-12 the players of this:
You're not starting at zero. Some of you -- and that's likely being kind -- are attending prestigious academic institutions you couldn't get into if it were not for your athletic abilities. You are getting free educations at institutions that others, many of whom far more accomplished academically than you, are going into decades of debt to attend. You are getting stipends for lodging and food. You are getting free tutoring. As the father of a college sophomore who does not get free lodging, food and tutoring, I can put a dollar figure on those things. It's more than zero. It's a lot more than zero.
This is a conversation that has been coming for a long time. I'm fascinated to see how it turns out.
4. Don't be surprised if the SEC's TV partners, ESPN and CBS, really like this 10-game conference format.
Further, don't be shocked if there's some pressure applied by future TV partners to make this a permanent arrangement.
It's my opinion that, should this season occur as scheduled, this is the beginning of the end of the current college football hierarchy. I've always thought the Power-5 would break away and form its own league. This season, I suspect, will expedite that.
For the TV people, this is a far more attractive package. Gone are the Southeast Missouri at Ole Miss-type games, replaced by games such as Ole Miss at Tennessee or Georgia at Ole Miss. The networks might not be willing -- or eager, at the very least -- to go backwards after this.
5. Further, this conference-only arrangement could be the impetus toward getting rid of buy games.
Power-5 programs pay seven-figure payments to Group of Five schools (and below) to play games that neither the fans nor the TV networks care anything about. By playing nothing but league games this year, the consensus opinion is the SEC schools won't owe those teams the agreed-to money for their buy games.
The more I think about it, the more I believe the Power-5 breakaway could be coming sooner rather than later. Suddenly, there is some evidence to that end.
From Sports Illustrated's Ross Dellenger:
In anticipation of the NCAA Board of Governors potentially canceling or postponing fall sports championships, Power 5 conference leaders have begun exploring the possibility of staging their own championships in those affected sports, multiple sources have told Sports Illustrated. This could be seen as a first step toward a long-theorized breakaway from the NCAA by the 65 schools that play college sports at the highest level.
The Board of Governors, comprised primarily of university presidents and chancellors from all levels of the NCAA, has a meeting scheduled for Tuesday. At that time it is expected to make a decision on the fate of fall sports championships other than FBS football, which has a championship outside the NCAA structure. However, the board also could delay action until later in August.
In recent days, Power 5 conference officials began seeking feedback from their members about the feasibility of staging their own championships during the fall, sources told SI. When asked if such a move away from the NCAA championship structure could be seen as a precedent-setting rift between the national governing body of college sports and the Power 5, one athletic director said, "If I were (NCAA president Mark) Emmert, I'd be really worried about it. He's got to keep the Power 5 together."
Another Power 5 athletic director said he thinks the chances of breakaway fall championships are remote, but added, "I think this is representative of the poor relationship between the (NCAA) national office and our conferences."
"We're all trying to think, hey, what can we do for our kids, so they have a season and a chance to compete for a championship," one Power 5 athletic director said. "And, quite frankly, how can we justify playing football?"
I've long thought this split was inevitable. I suspect COVID-19 and all the complications that come with, combined with looming NIL issues and players banding together almost as a union will create a fissure the NCAA won't be able to contain. I'm not alone. Again, from SI and Dellenger"
One veteran college administrator described the NCAA and Power 5 as having long been embroiled in an "existential crisis," and wondered whether this fall sports gambit could be "the crack in the armor" that leads to an eventual split.
"Is this the final break?" The source asked. "You could have two championships: one from the (Power 5) and potentially some Group of 5s joining them, and a second one for everybody else in the spring. ... It's going to be real strange."
6. If most of the members of my field ever had to replace Punxsutawney Phil, we'd all guaranteed two extra months of winter every single year.
My God, no one is more scared of his own shadow than the typical sports writer. Wolken, who is very clearly clouded by a political agenda, one that is shared by the overwhelming majority of the field, had the audacity to accuse a sitting SEC athletics director of not doing his homework vis-a-vis the virus. That's simply ridiculous. College athletics directors have obsessed over this topic day and night for four-plus months. If anything, they've reached paralysis by analysis.
In reality, Bjork has been leaning on one of the people who wrote the national pandemic plan for George W. Bush. That plan, by the way, never called for a complete lockdown of society. Instead, it called for the U.S. to isolate those at-risk and exercise safety protocols, ramp up testing and medicine, all while allowing society to move forward.
To accuse athletics directors and commissioners of not taking the virus seriously is a joke and an insult.
7. Saturday was a big day in recruiting, as it represented the first day official offers -- and not the ridiculous verbal offers that screw up so many prospects' recruiting process -- could be extended.
For Ole Miss, those offers came one day after the Rebels picked up verbal commitments from a pair of defenders, Dink Jackson and Jibran Hawkins.
Those two pledges moved the Rebels up to No. 70 in the Rivals.com 2021 class rankings. They came amidst a NCAA-mandated recruiting dead period that has been going since March and will almost certainly extend to the end of the calendar year, meaning prospects can't take unofficial or official visits this fall.
The NCAA very clearly has its hands full, but it should suspend the December signing period until February, and then extend it again if prospects can't take visits in January. Picking a college isn't something that's meant to be done virtually. Young people and their families need to see schools in person, get a feel for the environment and have face-to-face conversations with potential instructors and coaches.
The transfer portal is crowded enough already. Allowing prospects to sign in December and potentially forcing them to sign sight unseen in February is only going to exacerbate the crowded nature of the portal.
Personally, I think kids could safely take visits now, but if the NCAA disagrees with me, it should postpone signing day until a time period has taken place that allowed for a prospective student-athlete to take several visits.
8. Even though the NBA and NHL resumed their seasons late last week in bubbles in Orlando and Canada, respectively, all eyes were on Major League Baseball as it tried to navigate through COVID-19 issues in a bubble-less world.
As of this weekend, several teams -- the Miami Marlins, Philadelphia Phillies, Washington Nationals, St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers, among them -- had been severely impacted by COVID-related incidents. The Marlins and Phillies haven't played in a week, and the Cardinals-Brewers series scheduled for Miller Park in Milwaukee never got underway.
Still, it appears, much to the chagrin of some of the "cancel it now" types, baseball plans to soldier on and continue the 2020 season. Doubleheaders consisting of seven-inning games are on the docket, and I'm cool with them in a one-off year.
Much like will be the case for college football, Major League Baseball's goal this year is to get to the finish line. That's it. It's not about fairness or competitive equality. It's about making it to the finish line, slowing the bleeding and living to play a "normal" 2021.
The Phillies, who opened the season against the soon-to-be-COVID-stricken Marlins, haven't played in a week. On Monday night, the Phillies will face Gerrit Cole at Yankee Stadium. Per The Athletic:
Their hitters will have two practices to prepare after a week without actual games. Their pitchers? “I’ve heard of guys throwing baseballs against mattresses and brick walls on the outside of their homes,” Girardi said. He could not name Monday’s starter yet because he needs a better read on how ready everyone is.
This isn’t a disadvantage?
“We have 57 games left, and I think there’s 56 days left in the season,” Phillies manager Joe Girardi said. “I don’t know how that’s going to play out. But it seems the landscape of our game is changing every week and we’re having to overcome some hurdles, so we’re not in this alone. I trust that baseball will do the right thing.”
The Phillies can begin to consider tactical decisions because the team’s health is stable. The two positive tests from Wednesday’s batch, announced Thursday, were what postponed this weekend’s series against the Blue Jays. Both of those people — a coach and a home clubhouse attendant — were said to be asymptomatic the entire week, according to team sources. The club conducted contact tracing with fears that the Marlins’ outbreak played a role. Some inside the organization were concerned about a chain reaction because the Phillies coach had close interactions with many of the players last weekend and had participated in the team’s only workout during the week.
But when two subsequent tests of the coach and the home clubhouse attendant returned negative, health officials advising the league were convinced that rapid testing had led to false positives.
“Well, I know one thing: I would rather have a false positive than a false negative,” Girardi said. “Because if we have a false negative, we’ve seen what happens once it gets in a clubhouse.”
He added: “I’m not frustrated that we had to shut down because of that. Because the alternative that we don’t is you could infect 20 people.”
Baseball marches on. It has to. NFL training camps are next. They'll have COVID issues and player opt-outs. But getting to the finish line is critical and as long as everyone takes that goal seriously, it's a manageable task.
9. Let's eat. Here's our resident Parisian chef, Burton Webb, with Taste of the Place, Lesson 47 -- Caesar dressing.
Sometimes you need to know how to make a homemade dressing. Not because of course, you can’t buy it at the store: but because it is fresh and it doesn’t have preservatives in it. Yes, I said it. Why not make something that tastes great and is better for your body?
With the temperature outside blistering, you need to think about not cooking heavier meals even at night time. A good way to go about this is to make an easy salad for you and your loved ones. For this dressing, it can also be used to make a wrap with chicken or steak. Both are very good by the way. So let’s get into the tidbits.
Tidbit #1: To break from the folklore, this dressing was actually created in Mexico. Caesar Cardini was an Italian immigrant who lived in Tijuana back in the 1920s.
Tidbit #2: Originally there were no anchovies included in the dressing. Trying to get anchovies in Mexico, is a little bit of a different story.
Tidbit #3: If you don’t like anchovies, you can go the route of incorporating capers instead. The saltiness of these adds to the flavor profile and is quite delicious. You will need to add 4 Tbsp of lemon juice to help cut the saltiness with the acidity.
Things you will need:
3-4 People
A glass of Sauvignon Blanc
15 Minutes to goodness
Equipment Needed:
1 Work surface with a chef’s knife
1 Electric hand-held mixer
Measuring cups of 1 cup, 1/2 cup, 1/4 cup, and 1 tsp
1 Digital scale
1 Box grater
1 Metal whisk
1 Small mixing bowl
1 Medium mixing bowl
1 Rubber spatula
Plastic wrap
1 Refrigerator
Ingredients needed:
5 Garlic cloves
3 Ounces of anchovies
1/2 Cup of grated parmesan
2 Tsp olive oil
1 Cup sour cream
4 Cups of mayonnaise
1/4 cup + 1 tsp of cider vinegar
1 Cup buttermilk
1 Tsp salt
1 Pinch of white pepper
Directions:
Step 1: Measure out your anchovies using the digital scale and small mixing bowl. Transfer to the large mixing bowl along with the garlic cloves and parmesan cheese.
Step 1.1: Use the electric mixer to make a paste of the ingredients in the medium mixing bowl. Add the olive oil after.
Step 2: Add the sour cream, mayonnaise, vinegar, and buttermilk to the medium mixing bowl. Use your whisk to blend everything together, for about 1 minute.
Step 3: Add your salt and white pepper to the bowl. Whisk 10 times and then let sit for 10 minutes at room temperature so that the flavors can marinate. Use the rubber spatula to transfer to a smaller container. Put plastic on the top of that container if need be, and place it in the fridge.
Step 4 (Bonus): If you would like a spicier dressing, add about 8-10 splashes of Tabasco sauce accompanied with the juice of 1/2 lime. It is fantastic. I hope you all are enjoying the dog days of summer. From the Mississippian in Paris, bon appétit!
10. We'll have coverage of stuff this week on RebelGrove.com. Until then, here are some links of interest to me -- and hopefully, to you -- for your reading pleasure:
Jonathan Isaac Stands For God While His BLM Critics Burn Bibles And Feign Confusion
How Chris Paul ran point during the pandemic — The Undefeated
‘I can take two steps and dunk’: The art of being Giannis Antetokounmpo – The Athletic
A Partnership in Peril | Bleacher Report | Latest News, Videos and Highlights
Rosenthal: MLB's shifting approach raises questions around the sport
Brewers support Lorenzo Cain’s decision to opt out, will ‘miss his talents’
MLB suspects Marlins broke COVID-19 protocols, but doubts nightlife to be cause – The Athletic
Wish You Were Here: The oddity of debuts without fans – or family – in the stands – The Athletic
A 5-day break then 7-inning games? The Phillies’ season reaches peak weirdness – The Athletic
How the Bears are preparing to play in the middle of a pandemic – The Athletic
Remembering D.J. Looney, one of the most beloved coaches in college football – The Athletic
Maven executive suggests SI/Maven channel staffers create burner accounts - awfulannouncing.com
66% of Twitter Voters Believe Sports Media Is Rooting Against Sports Returning – OutKick
Opinion | Scared That Covid-19 Immunity Won’t Last? Don’t Be - The New York Times
Hydroxychloroquine: The Narrative That it Doesn’t Work is the Biggest Hoax in Recent Human History
