SB Nation User Blog: guttylittlebruins

The Injury Clinic

guttylittlebruins — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 05:58:45 -0000

is the coolest friggin thing I've ever seen in a sports blog.

That is all.

Please don't kill me: Trojan fans, read this.

guttylittlebruins — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 02:32:50 -0000

I run the guttylittlebruins.com website. No, I'm not here to insult you. I actually want some feedback.

I wrote an article on my website and from the data I've gleaned, I, as objectively as a bruin fan could be (which may not be too objective at all) think USC is pretty screwed.

I haven't heard the other side. Am I wrong? Are you guys screwed? Am I missing something important? If i missed something I want to edit the article and make a note of these counterpoints.

I've reproduced the entire article below so you don't have to visit my website. However there are some pictures and youtube videos on there and the formatting isn't perfect here, so if you want to see it, go here:

http://guttylittlebruins.com/editorial/pete-carroll-nfl-hintreggie-bush/

"Blame it on Bush: Why Pete Carroll is Leaving for the NFL"

In my crazy little head, I think Pete Carroll is as good as gone. The entire landscape of the Pac-10 is about to change.

First, I recognize all the reasons Carroll might want to stay at USC. He's from California, has the "dynasty" thing going for him at USC, he's well respected, the weather doesn't suck in LA, and, if he wants, he's got the job for life.

Or does he?

Everyone has heard about the Reggie Bush scandal, but there are still a lot of really important aspects of this that have not been flushed out:

Even if Bush did what Yahoo! Sports is alleging, is there anyway for the NCAA to prove it? You have to realize that the NCAA isn't a government institution. They can't force anyone to speak, they can't subpoena witnesses, they can't demand credit card statements or depositions...they're pretty much privy to the same information as you and I. Which, in this situation, can be quite crippling.
How much did USC know and does it matter? If Bush is ruled ineligible, what does that mean? What if he's ruled ineligible and USC knew nothing? What if he's ruled ineligible and USC knew everything?
Does the NCAA have the balls to take down the the Trojan/ABC/ESPN empire? Yes, it may be news to some, but USC ABC and ESPN are all in bed together. There's a reason why Herbie, Corso, and Mark May don't shut up about the Trojans:

Oh, it is all about the Benjamins
Oh, it is all about the Benjamins

You know whats pathetic? I looked at that picture and smelled money. At the end of the day, that's what its all about. I'm not saying ESPN College Sports Analysts get direct payouts from SC/ESPN/ABC...just that they're probably told to be very friendly to USC. Anyone else notice how Herbie was pumping the Rose Bowl game during...I think it was the USC/UCLA game?

Seriously. I'm not crazy. Look at this site:

USC and ESPN/ABC are in bed together? DERRRRRR
USC and ESPN/ABC are in bed together? DERRRRRR

The point is, the NCAA sorta needs ESPN/ABC/USC. They don't want to piss them off. Sending USC back to the stone age will not send a strong message of cooperation. I think this is a very important point. So, anyway, here are some answers:

1) Can they prove anything against Reggie? While it's pretty tough to find such evidence, I think they've already found it. This article discusses concrete documents that Yahoo! has in hand as well as recorded conversations and testimony from Lloyd Lake and his family with respect to dealings with Reggie's own family. Here's a snippet:

Barbara Gunner and Lisa Lake met with the NCAA on Tuesday and the organization met with Lemuel Campbell on Wednesday. Gunner is the mother of Lloyd Lake. Lisa Lake is Lloyd Lake's sister. Campbell is Lisa Lake's ex-husband, who was expected to be an officer in New Era.

Gunner and Lisa Lake spoke to the NCAA about how they helped Lloyd Lake by lending him money to get New Era started. They also discussed their encounters with Bush and his family, including stepfather LaMar Griffin and mother Denise Griffin.

In November, the NCAA interviewed Lloyd Lake, listening to a portion of the recordings he made of conversations between himself, Bush and LaMar Griffin.

Yahoo! Sports, which in April 2006 broke the story of Bush receiving benefits, has also heard a portion of the recorded conversations.

Yaeger is a former writer and editor for Sports Illustrated who has written 14 books. Henry is a sportswriting veteran of more than 20 years with The St. Petersburg Times, The Tampa Tribune and The Tallahassee Democrat.

Beyond the transcripts of the recorded conversations, the book will include extensive interviews with Lloyd Lake, Gunner, Lisa Lake and others.

Yaeger said he believes the book could prove significant in pushing forward the NCAA investigation and ultimately lead to Bush losing the Heisman. No player has ever been stripped of the award. The Heisman Trust would decide Bush's fate. This year's Heisman will be presented Saturday in New York.

"My belief is that Heisman voters will have another decision to make in the near future," Yaeger said.

Henry said after he listened to the recorded conversations and examined documents, he was convinced Bush and his family received the improper benefits.

"At the end of the day I asked myself did I believe Lloyd Lake and his family. The answer was yes," Henry said.

Lloyd Lake filed suit against Bush in San Diego County Court in October, alleging Bush, his stepfather and mother promised to repay money that was advanced to them.

According to sources and documents obtained by Yahoo! Sports, Bush agreed to join New Era in exchange for the benefits and partial ownership of the company. But he reneged on that agreement and then never repaid what he was advanced, sources said. Bush reached a settlement with Michaels in March 2007, paying Michaels between $200,000 and $300,000.

There's a boatload more available in this book:

BUSTED
BUSTED

So I think the evidence is there, and more importantly, readily available to the NCAA.

2) What did USC know and does it matter? As far as I know, if Bush is ineligible, then he's ineligible. USC forfeits every game he played in while he was getting money/benefits. That's if USC know's nothing:

Those allegations first came to light two years ago and the NCAA and Pac-10 have launched their own internal investigation of the matter. If they prove true, USC could be forced to forfeit games during the time Reggie Bush was with the USC football team, and he could also lose his Heisman Trophy. And if it turns out that the coaches knew about the benefits Reggie Bush was receiving, the school could face even more sanctions.

Could you imagine what would happen to the USC program if they can't even keep a single national championship? I can. It ain't pretty. Again, that's if USC knew nothing...

Well, here here (emphasis mine):

Yahoo! Sports also previously reported that sources claim USC assistant Todd McNair knew of Bush's relationship with both Michaels and Lake. Moreover he spent a night out in San Diego with Bush, Michaels and Lake and knew Bush was staying the night in a $500-a-night suite at the city's Manchester Hyatt.

Yahoo! Sports obtained a receipt for the stay that was paid for by Michaels' credit card. USC refused to allow Yahoo! Sports to interview McNair.

Those bits alone, especially if Lake provides details, could prove to be damning blows for the Trojan program.

The potential for greater trouble looms in what USC hasn't released publicly.

That includes phone records, emails and internal correspondence of all USC athletic department staffers from athletic director Mike Garrett on down. It would also include all compliance department files on Bush plus the Trojans complimentary ticket lists, gate passes and locker room/sideline access lists. USC refused to turn over those items to Yahoo! Sports on a Freedom of Information Act request citing its status of a private school.

But as a member of the NCAA, USC must (and may already have) provided all of that information and anything else the NCAA thinks up. Again, it isn't just what USC was suspicious of, but what the NCAA believes it should have been suspicious of.

We're not even talking suspicion here. We're talking KNOWLEDGE. Knowledge is power, as they say, and in this case the knowledge here might be just powerful enough to transform the football program of USC's into Utah State's.

Ouch.

3) Does the NCAA have the chutzpah (I love that word) to go after USC? They did go after Oklahoma:

The Oklahoma football program must forfeit its wins from the 2005 season and will lose two scholarships for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years.

The penalties, announced Wednesday by the NCAA, stem from a case involving two players, including the Sooners' starting quarterback, who were kicked off the team for being paid for work they had not performed at a Norman car dealership.

The Sooners went 8-4 and beat Oregon in the Holiday Bowl to end the 2005 season. Records from that season involving quarterback Rhett Bomar and offensive lineman J.D. Quinn must be vacated, the NCAA said, and coach Bob Stoops' career record will be amended to reflect the forfeitures, dropping it from 86-19 in eight seasons to 78-27.

But Oklahoma isn't USC. As far as I can tell, there is no Oklahoma ESPN affiliate website. The power of ABC/Disney/ESPN can't be underestimated here. These dudes are number 63 on fortune 500, yo. And everyone has to read this article: "The Reggie Bush Investigation: ESPN Ignores Potentially the Biggest Story in College Football History. I'm not going to excerpt from it, because I'm making you go over and read it.

So as to number 3? Who knows...I think if they could get away with it, they would, but can they? I don't think so...it's too obvious. The evidence is too strong and if they go easy on USC, EVERYONE is going to cry foul. The wrote a friggin' book about it for cryin' out loud.

So you're Pete Carroll. You're not an idiot. What do you do in light of all this evidence?

Run

For Illustration purposes, the cheetah is the NCAA and Reggie Bush's transgressions. The gazelle is Pete Carroll's career.

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Haha. didn't see that coming did you? I'm just happy the metaphor still works (kinda).

So we're hearing a lot of reports of interest in Pete Carroll, particularly Atlanta.

If he gets the chance, he's gone...along with the program he's built for the last seven years.

Poll

(for fun) What was your first thought when seeing the title to this title entry?

Let's kill him.

8 votes

Something else.

12 votes

20 votes | Poll has closed

Dorrell and Football Recruiting Reflections

guttylittlebruins — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 02:47:21 -0000

Coming into his fifth year, Dorrell's offensive recruiting has still been below what we expect, but one has to admit, UCLA has outdone itself every year since he has been here.

So far we have bateman, aundre dean, jerry johnson, and antwon moutra, and Nick Crissman All who will be 4 stars in due time. I'm especially fond of Crissman as a quarterback.

This year is an offyear in recruiting for both quarterbacks and O-lineman. Picking up crissman is a good pickup, but I hope UCLA can get a few bluechippers on the o-line.

UCLA also leads for Nelson Rosario, a 6'5 4.4 running reciver who will also probably end up a 4 star.

UCLA will also probably pick up a commitment from milton knox, another 4 star running back.

This class is turning out to be fantastic. Though offensively it still has a way to go, One could make a very strong argument that we not only have caught up to USC on defense, but have outrecruited them and have certainly outrecruited them in LA (thank you DeWayne Walker and Eric Scott).

This will be a top 10 recruiting class. easily.

Though I still don't think Dorrell should be coaching UCLA, I'm one of those that think DeWayne Walker and Eric Scott could be the ucla wave for the future and should Dorrell go to the pros after this year, I would love it if dewayne walker stuck around. How he did what he did with the personell he had is nothing short of amazing (to me). I already explained on another post why he struggled with the spread (personell, not coaching issues) and I think he will solve them this year. At least I hope so...

Howland the Prophet

guttylittlebruins — Thu, 10 May 2007 16:45:48 -0000

Remember a few days ago when I said Malcolm lee was the #20 player in the country? and that Jerime Anderson was the #42 player in the country?

Well, it wasn't always that way. When they first committed, (a long time ago) one of them was barely in the top 50. Howland, somehow, had a feeling about them and here they are # 20 and #42 with stock soaring.

Whoops, look like scout just updated their rankings.
Lee? #13, #2 5 star point guard in the country. Anderson? #3 point guard, high ranked four star, #23 player in the country. How high ranked of a four star you ask?

#22 is a 5 star.

Whoda thunk????

Howland. For all those complaints about how he can't recruit the big guys, it obviously doesn't matter if he can show them the glory of ben ball before anyone else even gives them a ring.

Oh yeah, he recruited Kevin Love and Drew Gordon. I hear they are pretty big gets, literally and figuratively.

N likes to say, "I will never get tired of saying 'Thank God for Ben Howland.'"

Well, Thank God for Ben Howland.

Howland lands 5 star Drew Gordon

guttylittlebruins — Mon, 07 May 2007 21:41:18 -0000

From the diaries. The hits just keep coming from the best basketball coach in America. GO BRUINS. -N

Just a little while ago, Drew Gordon, the number #8 Power Forward and the twentieth ranked player in the class of 2008 committed to Howland and the Bruins. He's already a great player with fantastic potential.

Malcom Lee - five star player, # 3 ranked point guard, #19 player in the country

Drew Gorden - five star player, number #8 power forward, number #20 player in the ocuntry

Jerime Anderson - very high four star, number #5 point guard, number #42 player the country (not to mention that his stock is currently soaring.)

What a fantastic class...

Now that we got Drew, lets get Jrue...

DeWayne Walker and Eric Scott are...

guttylittlebruins — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 05:12:37 -0000

Fantastic.

DeWayne Walker: I think he gets way more criticism on this site than he should. You could say he struggles with the spread but I honestly think its less him and more the personel. I am smitten with this guy and I'll be happy to tell you why.

Our defense made unbelievable strides on the defense and I won't rehash the statistics because we know them all: they are fantastic. We almost went up 100 freakin spots for chrissakes.

It's the attitude on the defensive side that really matters though. Many on this site (including myself) and others cast off Walker's talk of a revitalized defense last year as BS. "Yeah, we've heard this all before." I thought the excitement on the defensive side was palpable. You could tell how excited the players were. And we saw the results.

Now we know how Walker struggles with the spread, but, again, I thought it was more an issue with personnel rather than coaching: I don't think there was sufficient depth in the defensive backfield to really challenge a good spread. Most of the damage in the spread was done in the air and not on the ground. With Norris and Kibble hurt last year, there was a big hit. I also don't think the depth at corner, especially, was good enough. WIth Norris coming back and Viney being as good (and disciplined) as he is, I expect to see better performance in the crucial one on one situations that ultimately make or break the success of a spread defense.

That being said, I'm sure you know how terrific of a recruiter Walker is. Most of these defensive recruits for this year and last year are there because Walker knows how to bring them in. There are three CB's already coming in for 2008, and all of them are blue chippers. Also, Moore is probably going to be a five-star while aaron hester is due to recieve an offer from 'SC. Just these two recruits are the best in the Dorrell era (and maybe a tiny bit before). Besides the CB's the other recruits are all fantastic too, many of them also holding offers from SC. Should Dorrell get the axe, I would LOVE to see Dewayne Walker be a head coach. This guy has balls, is running a great defense, and can recruit.

Eric Scott is also an unbelievable pickup for UCLA. I actually had a chance to talk with him on the phone and I insantly fell in love with this guy. If you talk to any of the newer recruits, you'll hear how much they love both Scott and Walker. Scott will motivate and teach our recievers this year, I guarantee it. He will rejuvenate an underachieving recieving group in the same way that Walker rejuvenated the defense. Scott is also primarily responsible for bringing in the WR's in the 2008 class. Kemonte Bateman is a fantastic pickup and Jerry Johnson, also being recruited from SC, should also be pretty sick.

I wouldn't call Norvell a retread: I think Nebraska did pretty well last year with a subpar QB. Sure Norevell didn't ever call plays, but neither did Walker. I'm not saying Norvell will be good or great or terrible. I'm just reserving my judgment.

Expecting some criticisms, so bring em on...

and GO BRUINS!

Rumors: Collison, Shipp May Test NBA Waters

guttylittlebruins — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 21:36:37 -0000

From Draft Express:

According to multiple sources we spoke with today, it's not only Arron Afflalo that UCLA will almost certainly be losing, despite his quotes just moments after their loss in the Final Four to Florida, but also the rest of their starting backcourt. Sophomores Darren Collison and Josh Shipp are both expected to put their names in the draft this year, without hiring an agent in order to preserve their college eligibility. Collison is on pace to graduate next year as a junior, but will take a look at where his stock lies in order to gauge whether he should come back and complete his degree.

I think Collison is as good as gone. I think, even now, he's a first round pick. Shipp might be too as he's probably got a bigger upside than Afflalo. I don't know if Shipp'll get a first round guarantee but I think it would be funky as hell if Collison doesn't get one.

Obviously, this would suck for next year. RW is our only point guard, meaning we would probably have Abdul-Hamid backing him up (a walk-on). We REALLY NEED Collison back and I think he could use another year to get stronger and improve even more. With Afflalo gone, Shipp would probably be our best pure scorer. Can you imagine if Afflalo, Shipp, and Collison left?

That would make our starting five: Love, Mata, Luc, Westbrook, and Roll. hmmmmm. oy.

"Just Like Basketball. Just Like Football. JustSC." - A photomosaic by blackjack

guttylittlebruins — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 23:08:27 -0000

Just Like Football.
Just Like Basketball.
JustSC.

Some of the pictures are from 12/2/2006, some are from 1/13/2007.

In at lease some sense, we dominated in all of them.

-blackjack.

USC will host basketball tournament on ESPN?

guttylittlebruins — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 04:43:13 -0000

From Scott Wolfe's blog (Inside USC):

With heralded recruit O.J. Mayo on his way, ESPN wants USC to headline an eight-team, three-game tournament in Anaheim next season. The Trojans would play the prime-time game each night.

I know Scott Wolfe isn't exactly Mr. Reliable, but if this is true, this would really really really really really really piss me off. Um...isn't ESPN forgetting that there is another program in Los Angeles? A much more storied program with 10 more national championships than USC? Hmmmm...let's see, if we go to ESPN's top college basketball recruits coming in...who is number one on the list? Kevin Love??? Where's that guy going? Oh...thats right...UCLA.

I really can't stand the bias. It's really beginning to get on my nerves. SC blows. And ESPN is nothing but a bunch of ass-clowns.

Heart and Soul

guttylittlebruins — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 00:27:57 -0000

Bumped. GO BRUINS - N

"I don't care how bad or good I've been playing, I'm going to find a way to get that ball at the end."

-Arron Afflalo, after the Oregon game.

Beautiful in so many ways.