The news came out late last week that an elite athlete can’t participate in his sport for a year. That’s hardly uncommon: heck, it even happened more than once last week alone, but things tend to get weirder and more unusual when you’re talking about college sports, though, and that’s what makes the case of Everett Golson stand out. It all begs the question of what role academics ought to play in the NCAA.

Brett Favre was a lot of things to a lot of people, but especially to the rabid Wisconsin faithful. Josh Koebert, one of the many inspired football afficianados who can attribute their passion for the game to the franchise-changing quarterback, weighs in on the man’s exodus, eventual retirement and potential return to the place he became a legend.

Titus Young was arrested for a third time in a span of a week recently, a concerning feat that’s had the sports blogosphere quipping ever since. As Andrew Bucholtz explains, however, given the possibility of mental illness – or even traumatic brain injury as Young’s father claims – the case in general is one that the football community is going to have to find a better way of dealing with.

This year’s NFL draft starts on Thursday, and it may begin with a selection that’s more remarkable than it seems. The prevailing consensus amongst draft experts is that the Kansas City Chiefs will take an offensive tackle first overall, either Texas A & M’s Luke Joeckel or Central Michigan’s Eric Fisher. At first, that might appear to be a dull story: many see going for an offensive lineman with the top pick as both a safe move and a reflection of the lack of elite quarterback prospects in this draft. However, taking an offensive lineman first overall is highly unusual in the NFL’s recent history, and that represents an important story in its own right.

What the hell, if anything, is going on at Auburn University? It’s some kind of mess and in the end, Mike McNeil will have pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery and will serve three years in jail. But if that’s how it ends, it’s sure tough to know exactly what happened that lead to this. McNeil […]

Football coaches everywhere should be keeping a close eye on the story of Mike Rice. The former Rutgers men’s basketball coach was fired this week after video evidence of him physically and verbally abusing players surfaced, and the scandal has since engulfed athletic director Tim Pernetti (who resigned) and school president Robert Barchi (who’s still there, for the moment). It’s a story that could go well beyond basketball, though, and there are plenty of implications for football, a sport where many coaches have long been known for being hard on their players.

I’ve never hidden the fact that I love the New England Patriots franchise. My Twitter background has the Patriots logo image. My Google+ profile – not that I use it regularly – says that the only thing that I prefer to the Patriots is The Wire, and that the only thing I prefer to The […]

Running back has long been an important position in the NFL, but as a title, it’s a bit of a misnomer. In reality, the position’s often about much more than just running ability, especially in today’s league where there’s such an emphasis on passing. This year in particular, with a new head coach on board in Chicago, Bears’ RB Matt Forte stands to cash in on the air game.

While the upcoming NFL draft is full of prospects whose potential draft position feels all over the place thanks to off-the-field issues, including infamously-catfished Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o and infamously-undisciplined Georgia linebacker Alec Ogletree, there’s one player in particular who sparks notably different opinions of him based solely on his on-field performance. That would be West Virginia quarterback Geno Smith.

Nobody seems to know what to make of Manti Te’o. He had a historically great season as the leader of a Notre Dame defense that led the Irish back to national prominence and he finished as the runner-up for the Heisman trophy, becoming the closest thing to a purely defensive player the award in history… but then the National Championship Game and offseason happened.