Mailbag 5/18

Bill Brockman: Any surprise that Stetson Bennett apparently matriculated at dwag u. for seven years and somehow didn’t graduate? Didn’t they hire Kirby to get the graduation rate up?

Ben: I think it’s more interesting that he was a former walk-on who then proceeded to not graduate.

Chris: It’s honestly impressive. Since they didn’t announce how many credits short he was, I am forced to assume that it was well short because he didn’t meet the yearly minimum and therefore those championships are null and void.

Jake: I thought there were minimum progress requirements, so I have to assume those were met. I would say I’m generally still surprised, though. Otherwise, would he be ineligible?

gtbadcarma: There is definitely 7 teams that are making noise to leave the ACC. I know the grant of rights is fairly strong; however, there does seem to be a way to alter the grant of rights if all the schools agree which could provide a better path forward. Would it be wiser schedule the leave of all 7 schools to allow 1 or 2 schools to go a year and be able to replace those schools (contract slightly if necessary) or is it inevitable for us to see the bitter end of the ACC (no way the conference can survive 7+ schools leaving when the GOR is up)?

Ben: I don’t think it matters what way forward is necessarily “wiser.” I think the schools in the ACC will do what is best for them, personally. That means that the ACC will probably go down in flames at some point.

Chris: Agreed with Ben, this feels kinda like the beginning of the end for the ACC. We could maybe try to replace teams with upper echelon G5s, but that feels like a halfway solution that’s just going to lead to a disjointed conference with nothing tying the schools together (not like there’s anything doing that now I guess).

Jake: I agree with Chris, it would be very disjointed. I think that, long term, the schools that haven’t been bandying about, asking for more money, and whatnot have the leverage and the contract on their side, but I also suspect that everyone on some level is doing their due diligence. If anything, I think that the ACC would be due quite a bit of money were schools to leave, and will instead leave you with a plug for this week’s episode of the podcast, “where we discussed this a bit more at length”: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scions-of-the-southland/id1434933932?i=1000613315574. Also, this is the first time I’ve attempted including a link from Chorus Mobile, so hopefully that doesn’t render too weirdly.

DressHerInWhiteAndGold: “Justified: City Primeval” 7/18/23; what say we all?

God get at’cha boy….

Ben: I’ll be honest. I had no idea what that was before I googled it! I guess it looks interesting. I like Timothy Olyphant. But yeah, I’m probably not gonna go out of my way to watch it.

Jack: Similarly also love Olyphant and likely won’t get around to watching this immediately. But it definitely will be on the “to watch later” list.