Damn Good Dawg on hiatus

Vast, loyal readership, you may have noticed that there has been a lack of recent posts, this is because the times they be crazy. College football season has wrapped up (with a nice SEC National Champ) and the recruiting craziness is nearing completion. Damngooddawg.blogspot.com will be going on a little hiatus for an undetermined time, maybe forever, maybe for a few weeks, who knows. If you feel a void in your life due to the absence of an up-to-date blog, please comment and I'll check every now and then to see if our thoughts are missed. So until the next post, if there is a next post, thanks for reading-it has been interesting.

So what HAS CMR been doing the whole time?

It looks like the main change to be implemented in Athens is CMR's increased focus on studying football and the changes in the game. To me this begs the question of what the hell has he been doing besides that!? Filming Ford commercials? This upcoming season the job is on the line, CMR and the rest of the Dawgs need to shape up, I think they are more than capable of doing so, but time will tell-I bet Boise State is already game-planning for the opening game.

• In recruiting news, hopefully some good news will come from good news will come from tonight's Under Armor Game, by way of commitments. Still waiting for Isiah Crowell to make up his mind, maybe Richt will do some studying and realize that the Dawgs could really use Crowell.

AJ Green "Stay or Leave" Update

It appears that "sources"have reported AJ will forego his senior year at UGA and enter the NFL Draft. HOWEVER, AJ has tweeted that he has not made a decision and that the reports are false. While we have all been duped by tweets before, I am really holding out that there is some truth to AJ twitter proclamation. Whether or not AJ will leave for the draft or stay a Dawg for one more year is still to be determined, but I officially think he will be playing in Sanford next year-and I hope I am right.

Caleb King and Two other Dawgs out for the Liberty Bowl

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, and John I hope you got that Beiber album you wanted. Some Dawgs did not have a great Christmas; it appears that Caleb King has trouble keeping appointments. He can't make it to court dates, he can't make it to "hold on to the ball" meetings, and his latest snafu involves missing academic meetings. King missed his fifth academic-related meeting, and as a result has violated UGA Athletic Association policy. Two other players, Cornerback Derek Owens and o-tackle A.J. Harmon, will also miss the trip to Memphis due to academic reasons. The loss of the latter two players likely won't affect the Dawgs too much, but King's absence could potentially hurt the Dawgs, if not for solely depth-chart reasons. I think Caleb King's latest screw up could help the Dawgs in one way though. If Isiah Crowell is sitting at home reading the newspaper, or this blog, then he may be thinking to himself, "I can step right in there and do work, cause King ain't do nah nuthin'." This also will make it easier for the UGA coaches to tell Crowell that, yeah you can be the man next year. Who knows if King's absence from the Liberty Bowl will hurt or help the Dawgs more, but I am guessing it helps more.

More on "Tat-gate" and a UGA slant



Probably only worth a small dragon tat.



It is semi-official, Stewart Mandel probably has damngooddawg.blogspot.com on his favorites list. Stewy wrote a pretty good article on "Tat-Gate" that references some of the things I touched on an earlier post. Recent releases from Ohio State mention that the school will appeal the 5 game suspension handed down by the NCAA, and that isn't abnormal. As Stewy pointed out in his article, the Athletic Department pretty much threw the compliance office under the bus by claiming that the players "didn't know they couldn't do that." Here is a little legal information for the vast readership, ignorance of the law is not a defense-that means "I didn't know I couldn't do that" doesn't hold a lot of water.
  Anyways, what I will be looking at in the future will be whether the time between the handing down of the sanctions and the actual enforcement will heal the wounds and result in a reduction of the suspensions. If the suspensions are reduced, such an action would be a travesty and directly in conflict with precedent set in the AJ case. Remember, AJ came was fairly straight forward with the investigators and still had to serve out the full 4-game suspension; these Buckeyes committed the violations even before AJ sold his jersey-so there should be no reduction whatsoever. Now this likely won't be an issue when the sanctions take effect because the most "talented" of the offenders will probably declare for the NFL draft and avoid any suspension whatsoever.

The Buckeyes might be in a little trouble (UPDATED)

It seems as though the NCAA compliance officers have dug in up in Columbus, Ohio to investigate alleged violations spawning from Ohio State football players deep desire to get tatted up. I will tow the company line on this one an say that these are mere allegations, and the players may be completely inconvenient, blah, blah, blah. But seeing as how this is the Big Ten and we are dealing with Legends (or are they Leaders?) at Ohio State, mt SEC bias inclines me to assume that these players probably screwed up. If this investigation leads to the suspension of any number of Buckeye players it certainly won't help the squad overcome its typically anemic performance against SEC teams in BCS bowls. Information is still coming out with what I will term "Tat-gate" (be on the look out for other media outlets coping my phrasing) but I think this situation is more likely to result in a suspension a la AJ Green, rather than freedom a la Cam Newton. Giving up NCAA merchandise for services (akin to memorabilia for money) is a no-no and could be an Uh-Oh for the O.
UPDATE...
Well the NCAA has dropped the hammer...I guess. Five Buckeyes, Dan Herron, Mike Adams, Terrelle Pryor, DeVeir Posey, and Solomon Thomas, have been suspended for the first five games of next season, not the Sugar Bowl. I am very curious as to why the players aren't suspended for the Sugar Bowl especially when these violations occurred last year, and not just recently. What is particularly striking about the suspension taking effect next season, and not for the upcoming Sugar Bowl, is that several of these players including overrated talent Terrelle Pryor can declare for the NFL Draft after this season and effectively escape any punishment for their actions. It isn't like there is no existing precedent that says players don't get suspended for bowl games, take a look at what has transpired in Iowa. Granted, those suspensions where handed down by the team, not the NCAA; but, I would be surprised if Jim Tressel did the right thing and suspended these players for the Sugar Bowl. I can't help but think there is some sketchy dealings going on here with television ratings, BCS interests, etc. deeply involved. Also, there must have been pretty damning cut-and-dry evidence against the above players for the sanctions to come so quickly after the story broke.

Airing of Grievances

Since this is the Festivus time of the year, I want to commence the Airing of Grievances with some NFL related news that has been bothering me for a long time. My main grievance is directed at NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. Have y'all heard the joke about the NFL Rookie who was arrested for sexual assault and was punished by not being able to start a game? Yeah, it isn't a joke, it really happened/is happening. Perrish Cox, formerly of OK State fame-and who was suspended for last season's game against the dogs, is the NFL rookie, and sexual assault is the alleged crime. The punishment handed down (by the Broncos, not Goodell) was a non-start in a game, not a no-play, a no-start! Mr. Cox was not only accused of this crime, he was also arrested and charged for the crime. If y'all are wondering why this bothers me, the answer is because it is another instance of Goodell's inconsistent enforcement of his own precedent. Ben Roethlisberger was suspended for 4 games (originally 6) for exercising bad judgment in conflict with the personal conduct code of the NFL. Big Ben was not charged with a crime, nor was he arrested for any crime. However, he did use poor judgment and probably deserved some form of suspension. BUT so do some of these other players who have not only been exercising poor judgment, but have been arrested for such decisions. The following is a list of some players who have likely broken the NFL personal conduct code in some way shape or form lately, and the punishments handed down for the violations. I have heard that DUIs and the like are not listed under the personal conduct code, but rather the substance abuse code-I am still listing some such cases because the players were actually arrested for committing crimes.

• Perrish Cox - arrested for alleged Felony Sexual Assault - no NFL imposed suspension
• DJ Williams - arrested for alleged DUI (second DUI arrest in 5 years) - no NFL imposed suspension
• Vince Young - cited for misdemeanor assault (caught on tape) - no NFL suspension, (probably because his play alone is worthy of benching)
• Shaun Rogers - possession of firearm at Airport - no NFL suspension (but fined-ohhhhh)
• Tony McDaniel - charged with domestic battery - suspended for 1 game
• Jermaine Phillips - arrested for felony domestic assault - suspended for 1 game (but reason not listed!?)
• And of Course the gunslinger himself Brett Favre - general bad judgment with cell phone - NFL currently tip toeing around the issue.
• Ben Roethlisberger - accused of sexual assault (not arrested or charged) - suspended for 4 games

This is just a nice little sample of some of the infractions committed by NFLers in the year 2010, and the subsequent suspension or lack thereof. This website has a pretty complete list of bad deeds over the past year. Hope y'all enjoyed the Tuesday morning Airing of Grievances.