Memorial Weekend Buff Bites

I hope you are all enjoying the extended weekend. I don't usually say or believe this but I hope you are somewhere outside of the Denver area because rain, rain, rain is in the forecast.

First and foremost, go Nuggets and our Buff Chauncey Billups tonight. It has been an incredible series and along with last night's Lebron buzzer beater, the NBA playoffs (minus the officiating) has been pretty spectacular to watch. For all your Denver Nuggets coverage head over to the well run Pickaxe & Roll site for previews and the evening game thread. Hopefully CBill keeps rolling off that 27 point effort and Melo continues his dominance.

Sometimes I just laugh at the NCAA and some of these violations that teams have to report. I know, these violations are in place to combat the much larger scandals that may be interpreted under said rules but still. Kyle Ringo of the BDC tells us, and he must have been laughing while typing this, about the 12 violations the athletic department had to report to the NCAA, albeit minor but pretty hilarious. As the article states, this is common practice in today's world with an ever increasing rule book thrown out by the NCAA. Who would have known late night movies and paper-type would be violations, what's next ?

None of the violations this year were serious enough to lead to any kind of long-term problems with the NCAA. The football program led the department with five violations, all minor in nature.

They included mistakes as trivial as an operations staff member using the wrong kind of paper (card stock) to photo-copy stationery coach Dan Hawkins gave to the high school coach of a recruit. Another violation occurred when two football assistants made phone calls to the same prospect in the same week, violating the one-call-per-week rule.

The football program also inadvertently violated a rule against providing entertainment for student-athletes on game days when late night movies rented for players at the team hotel the night before games ran beyond midnight.

I was hoping somewhere in this article we would hear about the Buffs taking the scholarship hit we were talking about early this week as the Buffs are short scholarship players this year and the future looks like it holds an NCAA sanction based on our four year academic APR score. Basically, we can afford to take a reduction in allowed scholarships.

Also at the bottom of the Ringo article he has some quotes from the Steamboat Pilot that lead me to believe that Colorado prep QB Austin Hinder will be leaving the state to attend Cal. The second rank quarterback in the nation according to rivals is supposedly deciding between three schools: Cal, Notre Dame and UCLA.

"I'm pretty hefty on Cal," Hinder told the Pilot. "I'm loving Cal. They have everything I could ask for in a program. They have the best quarterback coach in the nation, and their facilities and education are one of the best. I'm close. I have to call a few coaches and take a few more visits, but I want to get it over with pretty soon."

Many Buff fans were hoping that Jake Heaps, another highly rated quarterback from Washington state would commit to Cal, eliminating them from the Hinder sweepstakes but it looks like Hinder may be forcing the issue. All of this being said, while I don't think Hinder will change his spots like Nick Kasa did last year, I have learned my lesson and nothing is over until signing day with this coaching staff. In fact, if you look at the Toney Clemons commitment this week, it isn't over until the kid graduates from college.  A lot can change from now until then. The Buffs could get hot, win 8 or 9 and then who knows. Cal could still bring in two quarterbacks (not likely, with their current roster) and he may also see that they have five quarterbacks on the 2009 depth chart, four of which are freshmen and sophomores. The Buffs will have three, one of which will be a freshman or sophomore. Throw 8 or 9 wins in there, things may look a lot better to Hinder. Yes, Hinder does have connections to California, stronger connections than Kasa to Florida but you never know.

Neil Woelk wants the CU administration to increase the student athletic fee,  a measley $57 that goes to the athletic department compared to $144 for RTD, $400 in capital construction, $175 a year for the rec center and $700 for student activity fees...you pay these fees regardless of whether you use the gym or take that art seminar as a student activity. In Woelk's opinion, the $57 doesn't accurately reflect the attendance/interest athletic events receive compared to that "arts and cultural enrichment" statement:

Understand, all those fees are mandatory. Don't have time to use the rec center? You still pay. Not interested in "encouraging environmental involvement of the campus community"? You still pay. Ditto for those kids who aren't interested in "cultural enrichment," and don't forget to line the pockets of RTD even if you live across the street from campus.

Certainly the athletic department can be seen in the same vein. By no means are all 29,000 students at CU interested in athletics -- but CU regularly sells all 12,000 of its student football season tickets. That's at least an indication of relatively strong interest -- and we'd love to know about any "cultural enrichment" events that attract 12,000 students on a regular basis.

I agree. Something that will help in all of this budget talk is the Big 12's plans to distribute a record $130 million payment to the schools.

Some more Toney Clemons' tidbits and quotes from the Pittsburgh Tribune Review:

I will let my maturity carry me through (the year away)," Clemons said. "I feel I need the extra year, to get better and to heal up. It's not a year off. I want to improve as a route runner and as a student of the game."

Still strongly interested, Colorado was the first school to contact Clemons when it learned he was leaving Michigan in March.

"That's a funny story," Clemons said of the original scholarship offer from Colorado. "They offered me, but I just couldn't (make arrangements to) get out there. They were the trip after Michigan. But I couldn't get my mom out there, so it never happened."

...

But Clemons said Colorado assistant coach Eric Kiesau helped influence his decision to join the Buffaloes. He said it will be an "ideal situation" for him.

"It felt right to me," Clemons said of Colorado. "When he was at Cal (University of California-Berkley), coach Kiesau made some of the sharpest route-runners in the country."

That list includes current Philadelphia Eagles wideout DeSean Jackson.

"They are saying I can be what (Jackson) was to Cal," Clemons said.

This on Clemons from the Michigan site, Varsity Blue. Apparently, Clemons or TClem likes to rap. Just keep in clean TClem, no Josh Jarboe YouTube incidents.