Tye & Tommy on Hunter Yurachek’s comments on Finebaum, CFB news, plus John Kincade!
National Radio Host John Kincade joins the Morning Rush
John Kincade, host of ATL’s Buck & Kincade on 680 The Fan and The John Kincade Show on CBS Sports Radio, joins The Morning Rush to discuss the current climate of college football, and what it is like to co-host a podcast NBA Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal! A great interview! Check it out now!
Yurachek, Pittman weigh into #WeWantToPlay movement gaining momentum
In the wake of the news the Big Ten was planning to cancel the 2020 football season, Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence started a social media movement #WeWantToPlay and Arkansas athletics director Hunter Yurachek was the first to join Monday morning.
On behalf of the @RazorbackFB team (that includes my son) and each of @ArkRazorbacks student-athletes that I represent, serve, support, care for, fight for and love. #WeWantToPlay
— Hunter Yurachek (@HunterYurachek) August 10, 2020
Razorbacks coach Sam Pittman, who hasn’t even been able to have a single real practice with his team after taking the job in December, joined in later.
The way our student athletes have handled these uncertain times is incredible and our staff is so proud of them. As the Head Coach of @RazorbackFB #WeWantToPlay
— Coach Sam Pittman (@CoachSamPittman) August 10, 2020
Some of the national media noticed.
Big news here. Arkansas AD endorses #WeWantToPlay. More ADs & coaches need to join the players and do the same. https://t.co/OeigGRmBPw
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) August 10, 2020
It has started a tidal wave across college football as athletics directors and players have reacted to the news that broke Sunday about the Big Ten cancelling the season and the Pac 12 expected to go along.
Some of the knee-jerk national media jumped in and expanded it to all of college football.
Yurachek started it and now even the athletics directors and coaches in the Big Ten have weighed in joining the movement.
On the Paul Finebaum Show on Monday afternoon, Yurachek indicated nothing had been decided yet.
Back in, I think 1918 or 1919, some schools played four or five games, some schools seven, or eight or nine games. I don’t know that they definitively declared a national champion, but they played college football. We’ve played college football… Last year was the 150th anniversary of college football. College football has survived a number of things during the past 150 years, and I truly believe that college football in some way shape or form can also survive what we’re going through right now. It may survive without all the teams in the Power 5 or the FBS participating this year, but college football will survive.
Based on what Yurachek said, reports of the SEC planning (at least now) to cancel the season is greatly exaggerated.
“We’re continuing to proceed,” Yurachek said on the show. “We’re obviously proceeding with caution, but we feel like we have a really good plan that started back roughly two weeks ago when we announced a 10-game conference only schedule.”
Like he has tried to do throughout the coronavirus pandemic that has now dragged on for five months, he is preaching caution.
“There’s no need to rush into making those decisions,” he said Monday.
He’s not jumping on the prediction train that picked up momentum Sunday with national media predictions of the season being ended. Some have even speculated about a spring season that has so many problems it probably will never be realistic at the Power 5 level.
“We’re ready to get started with practice next Monday,” Yurachek said. “That can continue to change, but our student-athletes, Coach Pittman and I meet with them on a regular basis.”
And it’s not just football. Apparently athletes in other sports are starting to hop onto the movement.
“They want to play, and not just in the sport of football, but that goes for women’s soccer and volleyball,” Yurachek said.
Before there’s quick reaction that he’s wanting to “force” the players into doing something that is dangerous, he has a vested interest. His son is on the team, another that’s a grad assistant and a third one that started high school practice last week.
“My wife and I both feel comfortable with them participating based on what we know,” Yurachek said.
Probably no one in the media has a more vested interest in the safety surrounding college football — or other sports — than he does.
Whether they want to admit it or not.
Steele thinks Hogs schedule ‘probably’ toughest in college football with additions
When the SEC added Georgia and Florida to Arkansas’ SEC West schedule it “probably” gives the Hogs the toughest schedule, Phil Steele told Derek Ruscin and Zach Arkansas (Ruscin & Zach) on ESPN Arkansas on Monday afternoon.
O’Gara on fast-moving developments in world of college football
ON HALFTIME: Connor O’Gara of Saturday Down South talked with Phil Elson, Matt Jenkins and Matt Travis on ESPN Arkansas after crazy 24 hours in college football.
How Arkansas media’s numbers guy put together more balanced SEC schedule
Andrew Hutchinson of HawgBeat.com didn’t have the army of people the SEC office did putting together SEC opponents but he did a better job in a couple of hours.
Is no one interested in hearing from ones most affected by decisions?
While many in the sports media are rushing to prove they care more for the players than they do themselves, Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence may have started something from the players.
They pretty much all want to play. The players are the ones most at risk.
And if you think anybody has more at stake than Lawrence, well, you are wrong.
I don’t know about y’all, but we want to play.
— Trevor Lawrence (@Trevorlawrencee) August 8, 2020
— Trevor Lawrence (@Trevorlawrencee) August 9, 2020
People are at just as much, if not more risk, if we don’t play. Players will all be sent home to their own communities where social distancing is highly unlikely and medical care and expenses will be placed on the families if they were to contract covid19 (1)
— Trevor Lawrence (@Trevorlawrencee) August 9, 2020
While a lot of buzz was being made over the Big Ten having what could be a knee-jerk reaction to the MAC cancelling fall sports on Saturday, you have to wonder if anybody is even listening to the players.
You can’t say “they’re just kids, they don’t know any better,” then say they have a point in terms of being adults and getting more than the current compensation for playing sports at a major college.
In Arkansas, there hasn’t been much coming from the players except indications from them they understand the risks involved and are ready to play.
The survival rate in the state is 98.9% regardless of age or previous health condition. No one under the age of 25 has died. The list of other things that can cause future complications or carry more risk is almost endless.
My father was in a boat and watched atomic bombs drop on Japan. He felt the waves and had stuff dumped all over him. Everybody said it was going to cause premature deaths, but he lived another 66 years.
Nobody knows what will happen down the road. Not even the national experts, some of whom have been wildly wrong on every prediction they’ve made for nearly 40 years, but they are still considered experts.
ESPN’s Peter Burns on Sunday made the most logical comment of anyone in the media:
How I would handle CFB?
9/26 start for all conferences
Gives you 6 weeks to gather more info on how schools do with the return of students on campus & full practices
If outbreaks occur, move to online classes…creating a bubble & let schools decide if they still want to play
— Peter Burns (@PeterBurnsESPN) August 9, 2020
If there is a mass wave of players opting out, okay, take another look at things.
At some point you wonder if the college administrators are actually going to listen to the people risking the most.
Across the nation, 99.5% of the college football players have NOT opted out of playing this season as of early Sunday evening. No, I would never knock any player if he wants to sit out. That’s a personal decision and no criticism either way.
But it’s interesting to note the low percentage of players that are not ready to cancel the season.
Lawrence is correct pointing out players are safer having football than not having it. The risk is incredibly low for serious problems and the science of it is nobody will know the percentage of long-term health effects the virus can cause.
Players are wanting their voices heard. That has become clear over the last week.
And if administrators are not going to listen to them on this, does anyone really think they will listen to the players on any other issues?
This is a chance for colleges and universities to let the players know they actually have a voice.
So far no one seems particularly interested.
ESPN reporting emergency meeting of Power 5 commissioners on football
There may not be college football this fall, according to a report at ESPN.com on Sunday about the commissioners of the Power 5 conferences held an emergency meeting on Sunday.
Saturday, the Mid-American Conference cancelled the entire fall season, including football and that touched off the latest round of media predicting it was the first conference to fold amid concerns about the current coronavirus pandemic.
Several sources have indicated to ESPN the Big Ten is ready to pull the plug on everything but want to hear from everybody else before making any announcement.
None are required to follow along and cancel fall sports.
“It doesn’t look good,” one Power 5 athletic director was quoted in the story by ESPN.
The presidents and chancellors of the Pac-12 are scheduled to meet on Tuesday.
Over the past 48 hours, ESPN is reporting “several sources” have said cancelling the football season seems inevitable.
Heather Dinich, Adam Rittenberg and Mark Schlabach contributed to the story at ESPN.com.
SEC shows it wants teams at top to stay there regardless of league balance
Whether there is a football season or not, the SEC showed in the juggling of schedules Friday they have zero interest in fairness when it comes to college football.
Or any respect for Arkansas.
Commissioner Greg Sankey allegedly didn’t do it. He said the league’s chief financial officer, Mark Womack, was going to be handling the scheduling.
What he didn’t say was the league apparently was going to do everything it could to make sure they had one or maybe even two spots in whatever college football playoff might happen.
It was clear, though, the SEC has zero respect for the Razorbacks. Missouri should feel the same way. If you say it doesn’t matter because they probably won’t play any games then you’re making excuses for the incompetence of the league office.
The league issued the additional two conference opponents for teams and gave the Hogs Georgia and Florida — two teams ranked in the preseason in the Top 10 by everybody — to a schedule that already has Alabama, Auburn, LSU and Texas A&M by default.
For a team that would not have a win in the league since 2016 if not for a miracle finish against Ole Miss in 2017 the league appeared to be more interested in keeping wins for teams expected to be strong than general fairness.
Sankey stood by handing out politically-correct statements while a member institution was basically told they want to further stomp on a program that is on the bottom.
Hogs coach Sam Pittman will be positive about it because there’s not really a whole lot for a head coach to say who has never even been able to hold a practice of any big time college football team.
At least Missouri’s coach had a year of being a head coach in a smaller conference.
Hunter Yurachek still has to deal with Sankey so he probably can’t say publicly what he would like to say about the whole deal. That’s college sports politics.
Which is why Sankey will probably either say nothing or a long-winded press release where he effectively says absolutely nothing.
On a weekend where other issues sorta swallowed up the SEC’s scheduling bias, Sankey can completely dodge the whole issue. That may be why the release came so late Friday afternoon.
Sankey doesn’t have to admit Andrew Hutchinson of HawgBeat.com (who is really the numbers nerd for all of us covering the Hogs) produced a schedule in 24 hours for the entire league that was more balanced.
Yeah, he came up with this using a blank Excel spreadsheet and a little common sense to balance schedules. He’s not some high-priced CFO with a battery of people and computers at his disposal.
That team of geniuses in Birmingham came up with defending national champion LSU getting Missouri and Vanderbilt.
Speaking of the Tigers in Columbia, they should be as upset as Hog fans. They get Alabama and LSU in the whole deal, but then they have Vanderbilt automatically on their schedule, so at least they have that.
Granted, Arkansas’ schedule is bad mainly because they can’t play themselves and have it count. That’s nothing that was caused by the SEC but by the Hogs having incompetent leadership under Jeff Long that dug the deep hole football now finds itself.
It was going to be impossible for the Hogs to avoid getting at least one high-caliber team. Getting two is kinda like kicking a guy when he’s down, which probably shouldn’t be that surprising.
Remember, this juggling of the SEC schedule wasn’t done by Sankey, but the CFO of the entire conference. That’s the guy who oversees the finances for one of the top cash machines in college sports. Feel free to draw your own comparisons.
There are some that will say Arkansas wants to play the best. Several clichés around that, most of them we heard for two years from the previous coach.
Pittman has correctly said the SEC West is the best conference in all of college football. He then adds that’s where Arkansas belongs.
The only way that works out, though, is getting some wins.
Sankey and the SEC made sure that won’t be easy.
