If you haven't read Ian Boyd's Louisville-Auburn preview yet, change that.
Luke Winn's latest college hoops data work (part 1, part 2) for SI is fascinating, but especially the couple of tidbits that relate to Louisville.
Louisville, despite having the same head coach (Rick Pitino) for the duration of the survey, had the second-highest assistant turnover rate (5.4 over any four-year span). Missouri, meanwhile, is the school with the most volatile four-year span: a Tigers player who stayed from 2011-12 to 2014-15 would have endured nineassistant-coaching changes.
The full data on outliers is below:
The study data offers proof of benches in flux: of college basketball in an era with a growing transfer rate among players, which has been outpaced, in most seasons, by the turnover rate of head coaches, which has been outpaced, significantly, by the turnover rate of assistant coaches—the people who develop the deepest recruiting relationships with the players while they're in high school. In school-hopping, just as it is with program-building, instruction and game-planning, coaches are the leaders.
And then remember the other day when you were asking about the definition of irony?
Thirty-four players in our study made a verbal commitment in a calendar year at least three years prior to their arrival at college. Eighteen of them (52.9%) went on to decommit, and of the non-one-and-done players, 48.1% of them went on to transfer colleges.
Elite recruits from the class of 2015 mostly avoided extremely early commitments. The earliest verbal pledge was by No. 83-ranked Maverick Rowan, who committed to Pitt on June 2, 2013; he decommitted in 2014 and is making his college decision this week. Among the classes in our study, 2015 also had the highest volume of players (11) who waited until April or later of their senior year of high school to make their first commitment.
The Orlando Sentinel has Louisville at No. 51 in its preseason college football rankings, one spot ahead of Appalachian State. I disagree.
When John Calipari shows up at Steelers camp, William Gay will let him know what the deal is.
We already talked about the men's soccer team's presence on ESPN3 in 2015, but the Cardinal volleyball team will also be appearing on the network 10 times this fall.
The Michael Bush/Brian Brohm highlight reel from the 2002 Paul Hornung Award banquet is quite entertaining.
Speaking of Brian Brohm, he is expected to be the starter at quarterback tonight for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. It'll be his second start as a QB in the CFL.
A quartet of key players for Ohio State will be out for the Buckeyes' season-opener against Virginia Tech.
Big news for the 2015-16 U of L women's hoops team, as Emmonnie Henderson has announced that she is taking a year away from basketball to focus on making the 2016 Olympics in track and field.
A good story from WLKY on DeSales kicker and Louisville commit Austin Johnson, who is raising money for pediatric cancer research this season.
The picture is pretty awesome, but the best part about this tweet is without question Bobby Petrino hashtagging his own name.
Auburn may be ranked No. 7 in the USA Today preseason poll, but the Tigers still feel like they have a significant amount to prove defensively.
Over the years the Tigers developed a reputation as one of college football's most physical teams with the defense leading the way. In recent seasons the Tigers have not played that way and a major theme for new coordinator Will Muschamp is to put a group on the field that is aggressive and hard-hitting for four quarters of every game. If the Tigers can accomplish that goal, they will be well on their way to improving on last year's five-loss season.
Being a physical defense starts up front and that is where the Tigers are counting on a lot of inexperienced players to step in and become major contributors. Overall, it looks like Muschamp and his defensive line coach, Rodney Garner, will have a more athletic group to work with this year, which is a good thing, especially with rushing the passer being something the Tigers didn't do well last year. However, early in the season it will be worth watching to see if inexperience is an issue.
The only way to become a physical football team is to practice that way, which is a big concern for a squad that is short on depth at a position or two as is the case with the Tigers. This year's team has a chance to be improved in the secondary with a combination of athletic and experienced returning players, but there is virtually no proven depth at the cornerback or safety spots so keeping the front-line players healthy needs to happen for this team to reach its potential.
And finally, major congrats to our good friend Howie Lindsey who will be joining 93.9 The Ville full-time starting Monday, as the Howie Lindsey show will be on every day from 10-12. Howie joined us for the first half of today's Ramsey & Rutherford, which also featured a 20-minute interview with a fired up Tom Jurich. I'll have the podcast up on the site as soon as the show wraps.
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If you haven't read Ian Boyd's Louisville-Auburn preview yet, change that.
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