Recruit them while they're young?

Lane Kiffin is making the news again, and this time it’s by recruiting a 7th grader. According to this article (linked below) from ESPN by Ramona Shelburne, 13 year old David Sills committed to play for USC when he graduates high school……in six years.

This brings up an issue I have with college recruiting today in basketball and now football. We have heard stories of basketball coaches offering 8th graders scholarships and now it’s in football. The problem I have with this is that to me it seems like your putting pressure on a young kid to make a decision at a young age. How many decisions did you make that would make an impact in your life at age 13?

Another problem with coaches doing this is you don’t know if that kid will be good at the next level. For example, a kid on the 8th grade basketball that is 6 feet tall is obviously going to be good considering everyone around him is maybe 5’4’’ 5’5’’. Sills is said to be 6 feet which is tall for a 7th grader in my mind of course he’s going to look good. What if these kids don’t grow, that 6 foot basketball player may only grow another inch or two and becomes over matched by the time he is a senior in high school, doesn’t look so good now does he.

The other problem with recruiting this early and having them commit early is that these athletes still have time to change their minds. We see it all the time with IU football recruits, a good recruit that commits when he is a junior and by the time he is senior he realizes that better schools are recruiting them so they go their instead, or they just decide they don’t want to go to IU anymore. We see these athletes change their mind constantly (Jeremy Finch).

It was tough enough for non athletes to make a decision on where to go for their education. What if these coach stop recruiting for this one position cause an athlete commits as a junior and the coach thinks he’s a lock, that athlete could change his mind and now the coach is stuck with nothing (Bruce Weber).

The point being is that there is a problem with recruiting an athlete when he is young and sometimes really young as it is in this case. Recruiting an athlete for any sport men’s or women’s (however I’ve never seen this problem in Women’s collegiate sports) that just became a teenager is wrong in my opinion and needs to be addressed by the NCAA. My way of fixing this is maybe making a rule where you can’t start recruiting (by this I mean showing interest) a kid till maybe after his/her freshman year and can’t offer a scholarship till he/she is a junior in high school. That is just my opinion, anyone else have any thoughts about this?


http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/ncf/news/story?id=4888515

MF's Post of the Year

Some of my personal favorites...

BEST PICTURE (my article division): Kevin Shaffer, new Bears tackle.
BEST ARTICLE NOMINEES:

My Number Nine Sports Moment - March Madness YogiStyle - Not only was this an awesome day, but I had fun writing about it. Someday, we'll go back and finish that Top Ten Sports Moments list.

Five Reasons to Love the NIT - Back in the day, when I wasn't too lazy to put a ton of hyperlinks into my articles.

New Years Day Live Blog - Seriously, this was one of the tougher things I've done in writing. I have a ton of respect for people that live-blog games on the regular.

IU All-Decade Team - Classic 'research project' type piece that got my inner history major going.

The Armchair Superstar Mock Draft (collaboration with Snuffles) - We need to do more of these. Too bad the Bears decided they don't need or want any more draft picks, ever.

Tom Crean Year One in Review - My first piece as a B/R featured columnist for IU basketball.

Anyway, enough memory lane. I honestly don't know which one of these to pick!

A couple more favorite pics...

Purdue Gives Hope for Indiana

Indiana and Purdue had a game that makes this rivalry so much fun. Purdue is clearly the better team, but played a back and forth game with the upstart Hoosiers. I know it was a frustrating loss for the Hoosiers, but hope is just on the other side of the floor.

Matt Painter took over in 2005, he played out Keady's players and then started bringing in his own great recruiting classes. These teams were young and talented but couldn't put it together. Now look at them, they are all upper classmen and making big plays in big moments.

This is going to be the Hoosiers in two years, everyone is good, but not too good to jump to the NBA. This team is going to grow up together and learn from tough losses like this. In two years, I fully expect this IU team to be making a Final Four run just like i expect this year's Purdue team to do the same.

I have talked to my Dad about games like this. It's frustrating to loose them, but we have to remember, they are young and inexperienced. These games are no where near as frustrating as the Marco, DJ or Eric games where we knew our team was better then they were playing.

Don't be down Hoosier fans, hope is on its way, and we can look to our biggest rival for hope.

World Cup 2010: Fantasy Draft

Fodor and I were discussing this earlier and we are both in, I want to see if any other ACSS readers want to be in.

The event would involve 8 people. Each person puts in the same amount and then an order is chosen 1-8. Then each person drafts a Country in a draft in snake order. Whatever person drafts the winning team wins.

I think this is a great idea for very novice soccer fans as it will give them a reason to watch and a team to cheer for. This can allow anyone to get into the world cup.

Fodor and I are going to be in, anybody else out there intrested? Let us know

2010 NBA Free Agency

Well, here we are about half way through the NBA season and the biggest story isn't the Lakers, Cavs, Magic, Celtics, or any other team. It is what is going to happen this offseason. The free agent market is PACKED with Super Stars. You have:

Amare Stoudamire (If he opts out of his current contract)
D'Wayne Wade
Lebron James
Chris Bosh
Joe Johnson
Ray Allen
Paul Pierce
Dirk Nowitzki
Yao Ming
Kobe Bryant
Carlos Boozer

While many of these players do have player options or early termination options, this is still quite an impressive list. The Bulls easily have room to sign one of these guys, the question becomes if the Bulls get rid of Luol Deng, Kirk Hinrich, or John Salmons, will they have enough money to sign two of these guys?

I think yes. Ideally, with the group of players that they have already, which two should they sign? I don't know. If this was an ideal world, which it's not, I would hope they go with the two best players available IMO. And that is D'wayne Wade and LeBron James. I know, I know, the Bulls need low post scoring. However, you don't need anything when you have these two. That team would probably look like this:

Derrick Rose PG
D'wayne Wade SG
LeBron James SF
Joakim Noah C
Taj Gibson/Tyrus Thomas PF

However, if you are building a complete team than I think the Bulls should go Lebron and Bosh. Imagine if somehow a miracle occurred and the Bulls got rid of Hinrich and Salmons for expiring contracts. This would be their team:

Derrick Rose PG
LeBron James SG
Luol Deng SF
Chris Bosh PF
Joakim Noah C

That is a championship winner right there. There is way too many weapons on that roster. However, what I really think will happen is the Bulls will sign one max free agent and settle for someone like a Joe Johnson (which I have no problem with).

Derrick Rose PG
Joe Johnson SG
Luol Deng SF
Chris Bosh PF
Joakim Noah C

That is a team that can win the East if you ask me. However, I'm still going to hope and pray that the Bulls go balls out!

Armchair Superstar Turns 1

One year ago Mark Fodor and myself decided to embark on an adventure to have our own sports blog. ACSS is what has become of this idea. As of writing this we have had 19,519 hits for our page (so close to 20,000). We all know that 90-95% of these hits are Mark and myself, with the other 5% coming from Mark’s mom (who never posts any comments). It’s been a fun year and it’s time to look back and see some of the good, and not so great moments. Needless to say, enjoy the post, re-read some of the old posts, it’s amazing how good, bad and funny some of the things we have posted on this site. That was the best part of creating this post, just seeing what we were talking about at different times of the year last year.

Stats on Posts

We currently have a stable of 10 different posters who have posted a total of 360 different posts, just shy of Fodor’s year goal for 365. Now, I bet you are wondering, who had the most posts for the year. Including this post Mark Fodor and I are tied at 155.5 (we co-wrote one piece together) posts for the year. Fodor has led the blog in total posts for most the year. I passed him once in the last full week of October, only to have him reclaim the lead the next week. I have caught up to him again at this tie. Here is a breakdown of posts by writer.


Fodor 155.5
Noffke 155.5
Ryan 23
Tim 5
AJ 5
Alec 4
Dan 4
Colin 3
Derek 3
Ben 2

Fodor led the blog with the most posts in one month with 20 posts in February 2009. Who said sports is dead in February? I hold the record for most post in a week with 10. This happened on 11/08-11/15. This is also the record week for ACSS with 18 posts. The ACSS month with the most posts was October with 40. The ACSS record for week with most different posters was 08/30-09/06 where we had 5 different people post an article.

In honor of our one year anniversary I decided to hand out some awards for the blog. I have named the awards the ACeSS (pounced Aces)






Worst Writer of the Year!

The Winner is…Stephen Noffke

I clearly win the award for worst writer. Leaving aside the inconsistent posting with few post over a couple a weeks, one need to go no further then this post to figure out why I am the worst writer. I have 0, that’s right 0, grammar skills. I couldn’t form a cohesive sentence to save my life. We also can’t forget about the numerous typos that are any given post. On top of all this, I also have an inability to finish what I started. Fodor and I did a countdown of our Top 10 sports moments, I stopped at 5. I also was going around the NFL to name which players on each team’s roster would have their number retired or make the hall of fame. I got through 2 of the 8 divisions. So clearly I earn this award.



Laziest Post of The Year!

The Winner is…. Important Story I Can’t Get Through by Mark Fodor


Instead of reading the story, Fodor read the first little bit of it, got bored, and posted it on the website hoping someone would explain. Luckily the ACSS future writer Ryan is in law school and was able to break it down for him. Bravo for Fodor to be too lazy to read the article, and barely explain anything in your post.



The Article with the most Comments!

The Winner is…. A tie Urlacher Out For Season: Paging Derrick Brooks? , posted by Fodor, and Random Trivia of the Week, RB College , posted by me, with 7 each

I would like to give extra credit to the Urlacher post because the Trivia encourages people to post, while the Urlacher post just led to many comments.



Best Pictured Posted

The Winner is….



This picture is found in the Depressing Landscape of College Football by me. I really like this picture, the way it uses all the different football helmets to show where each team is located. I know most of you will not agree with me, but oh well.



Article with the best Pictures Posted

The nomiees are…

Would You Rather: See Notre Dame or Chicago Bears Win this Weekend By Stephen Noffke

Dissecting ESPN’s Scouts Inc. NFL Rankings By Position: The Quarterbacks by AJ Etsch


Dissecting ESPN’s Scouts Inc. NFL Rankings By Position: The Running Backs By AJ Etsch


Dissecting ESPN’s Scouts Inc. NFL Rankings By Position: The Wide Receivers By AJ Etsch



The Winner is…. Dissecting ESPN’s Scouts Inc. NFL Rankings By Position: The Quarterbacks
By AJ Etsch

This one wins by a landslide. The array of comical and painful pictures (depending on who you cheer for) are in a beautiful mix. I believe this article also has the most pictures with help. I honestly couldn’t help but laugh at each and everyone of these pictures.



Best Link Posted

If you have ever read this blog, then you know what choice I am going to go with. The clip of Super Bo on Super Techmo Bowl. This clip has been posted numerous times by myself.




Best Video Posted.

The Nominees

College Baseball Dance-off by Mark Fodor

Miami Dolphins fight song by T-Pain in This One’s for Fodor by Stephen Noffke

Peyton Manning Yells at his Protection By Stephen Noffke


The Winner is…. Miami Dolphins Fight Song!

The song is amazingly catchy, and can easily get stuck in your head. I know it’s been the most listed to song and most watched video we have ever posted.

The other two are solid contenders. The College Baseball Dance-off is hysterical at points and just ok at other. Peyton swearing on TV is also a classic moment.




Most Inappropriate Writer

The Nominees

Ryan Parrent or AJ Etsch

The Winner is….Ryan!

Ryan has gone out of his way to call ESPN mentally challenged (in not as pc ways) numerous times. The entire purpose of this post was to show the picture of Spider-man doing his best Peter North impression. He has used angry and sometimes foul language in his posts and comments, and even a letter he sent to David Stern.

AJ does use a lot of rough language but is not as over the top as Ryan is, congratulations Ryan!




Most Unbelievably Timed Post

The Nominees

Big Ten Expansion By Stephen Noffke

Hard Luck NFL Fans By Stephen Noffke



The Winner is… Big Ten Expansion By Stephen Noffke.

This article wins the award because about a month after I posted this, the Big Ten announced plans to look into expansion. The crazy thing is, I had started this article in June, and put off finishing it forever. One day I decided to do finish it, and couldn’t have timed it better.

The Hard Luck fans had lucky timing too because a week after I posted my article, the Sports Guy posted his.



Longest Article of the Year

The Nominees


Steve’s Bracket by Stephen Noffke

Armchair Superstar Mock Draft By Stephen Noffke and Mark Fodor

Retro Diary: Classic College Football on BTN Illinois at Indiana 1999 By Stephen Noffke

27 Up 27 Down By Stephen Noffke


Outback Bowl – Live Blog Madness By Mark Fodor



The Winner is…. Outback Bowl – Live Blog Madness By Mark Fodor


Technically Fodor split his live blog into two separate entries, but since they were basically one continual entry he gets the nod. The Longest single post was the Retro Diary, and the Longest no diary was Steve’s Bracket. Here is a word count of each article



Finish
Outback Bowl – Live Blog Madness By Mark Fodor 3,640
Retro Diary: Classic College Football on BTN Illinois at Indiana 1999 2,853
Steve’s Bracket: 2,516
Armchair Superstar Mock Draft 2,428
27 Up and 27 Down 2,210





Most Heated Post

Letter To David Stern by Stephen Noffke

This article as well as it’s follow up got more heated debates between ACSS writers, friends and family then any other post of the year. Obviously it wasn’t as much about the post as it was about the NBA lack of actions. This article would be the first of many NBA bashing the website would do. Which leads us to




Most Target Topics for Rants

The nominees

College Football Scheduling

NBA Refs


ESPN Hating Jay Cutler


The Winner is…. NBA Refs

NBA Refs took more of a beating throughout the year from our posters and comments then anything else. You can find shots at NBA refs from March through December, even when the NBA was in the off-season. ESPN hating Jay Cutler lead to a lot of other heated posts of its own from multiple sources including some less then flattering words from Ryan (see inappropriate awards). College Football Scheduling was some I personally ranted on a lot but did often enough to make this list.

Now we come to the final two awards; Writer of the Year and Post of the Year.



Writer of the Year:

The Nominees

Mark Fodor

Stephen Noffke

The Winner is…. Mark Fodor

Mark started the blog and convinced me to join. He is tied with me for the most post for the year, but didn’t rely as heavily as I did on posting a link or a trivia questions (Total “Short Posts” as I called them: Noffke 50 Fodor 29). Fodor also got ACSS onto Bleacher Report where he also landed a columnist job for Indiana Basketball. With out Mark Fodor there would be no ACSS so congrats to Mark.

(Editor’s Note: I was going to pick myself, but I don’t think anyone enjoys my writing as much as I do myself)




Post of the Year

I ran into a dilemma with this. When flipping through for Post of the Year, I noticed a trend that every one of my nominations was an article that I had written. It’s not that I don’t enjoy reading everyone else’s articles, it was just that I was clearly biased in liking my articles because I know what it took to write them, how long it took to write and they were about topics I liked. So instead of doing Post of the Year, I am going to do Stephen Noffke Post of the Year and leave the other writers to have their own if they so choose.


Stephen Noffke Post of the Year

Nominees

Sports Stigmas

Case for POY: I felt like this was my first really good article I had written for the site. I had the idea in my head for a few years and finally got the idea on paper. The article discusses a sensitive issue but I think gives everyone a different view of how we look at sports.


How to Pick a Bracket

Case for POY: I did a statistical breakdown of every Final Four since 1985 to prove my point. I have long held onto this theory and finally had the stats to back me up. I though the piece had a good flow to it, a serious, but not too serious tone of suggesting to take it’s advice On top of that, it was proven correct on both accounts this year.


Problems with College Football Schedules and College Football: A Depressing Landscape of out of Conference Games(I know these are two different articles, but they were a few days apart and basically one long rant)

Case for POY: This topic just got me fired up. I have discussed this with friends for years, and I am sure I will continue to rant on the site about this. Both articles had good information and good flows to them.


Home Field Advantage for the World Series

Case for POY: This article got me the best compliment I ever received. While waiting for a movie, I had Jamie read this piece on my Blackberry. Once she was done she noticed my name at the bottom and said, “O you commented on this article.” She didn’t realize until I told her that I wrote this piece that it wasn’t from a major website. I also really liked this article because it was so easy to write; it just came to me naturally and flowed off my fingertips onto the page.

Ode to College Football

Case for POY: I love this article because I couldn’t tell you one reason why I love College Football, so I listed off as many reasons as I could, and I still don’t think it gives it justice. It makes me excited for football every time I read it and I can’t wait to experience more college atmosphere’s live compared to on TV.

Big Ten Expansion

Case for POY: The timing of this couldn’t be beat. The fact I spent so much time on it, and almost everything I discussed in this article has been discussed by every other article I have read about Big Ten Expansion post announcement. I got tons of great feedback on it and how much people enjoyed the in depth look at each team as well as the reason behind the expansion and the problems with it.

Hard Luck NFL Fans

Case for POY: I originally thought this was going to be a throw away article. An article I just write real quickly to get some quick though provocation and then it’s gone. I was surprised how much everyone told me they liked this article and how it was clear to see the amount of research that went into it. Then Sports Guy’s article a few days later made me smile


And the Winner is….

This was such a tough choice; I kept going back and forth between Ode to College Football and Big Ten Expansion I liked each for different reasons. In the end I chose Ode to College Football because I didn’t stop writing it for 3 months like I did with Big Ten Expansion. It took me about an hour to write and I tried to list off everything I love about College Football and what everyone else around the country loves about college football and that’s what came up. It was a close race, but I loved all these articles for different reasons and I think they are all winners.


So there you have it, the ACeSS. Was my choice for POY your favorite too? Did I mess up any other awards? Did I complete forget about some? Am I going to agree with my own awards in 24 hours? Probably Not. Comment or Post away with your thoughts.

Finally, Thank You to all our Readers out there (all 3 of you!).

Predictions

If you have watched ESPN at all you probably have heard about 20 different superbowl predictions. Mel Kiper says that Reggie Bush is going to have tha game of his life. Mark Schlereth seems to think that the game will be dominated by the Colts defense and Manning will pick apart the Saints.

All of these opinions seem to have some merit, however, this is my 2 cents on the superbowl.

The Colts gave up only 10 sacks all season, which lays out a challenge to New Orleans. However, if you look at the last 2 games the saints have played they have knocked 1 quarterback into retirement and the other into his psuedo-retirement (which may be the norm for Favre now). Even though the Colts O-line is phenomenal I predict that the Saints will get to Manning 2-3 times legally, and probably 1 other time that will cost them 15 yards. Despite getting hit I predict Manning will throw 2 TD's and have only mild trouble with the Saints defense. Tack on a TD on the ground and the Colts offense looks pretty good.

To the other side of the ball, the Colts also have a great defense, however, in my mind it isnt as great as the Saints high powered offense. I believe that Brees will have no trouble at all moving the ball down the feild especially if they decide to spread it out early. The only way I forsee Reggie Bush having the game of his life is if Indianapolis blitzes far to often and Bush is on a short screen route every time. I predict that Brees will throw for 3 TDs and Bush will not score.

After looking at both sides of the ball, I believe that both teams will reach the end zone three times, and that the game will come down to special teams. In the special teams category I have to give the slight advantage to New Orleans. Which makes my final score prediction. 27-24 Saints in either OT or in the closing minutes.