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Thursday Night Bites: Oregon at Arizona State; Houston at SMU (FAQ)

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Two FBS football games grace your Thursday night television schedule. We’re sure you have so many questions, and that one of them is, “Can we see that Duck Gangnam Style video again?” You sure can!

Houston @ SMU

• What information do I, the discerning consumer, require in order to consume this game? The Cougars and Mustangs kick off at 8 p.m. ET in Gerald J. Ford Stadium in Dallas. The game will be televised on FSN.

• Why am I spending my Thursday night watching a 2-4 team play a 3-3 team, one of which has already lost to Texas State and one of which has lost to Tulane? Far be it from us to tell you what to do with your free time, but the hours between now and that 9:00 p.m. Pac-12 kickoff loom long. (If you must watch at least one winning team, take in some FCS ball. North Carolina Central hosts Hampton at 7:30 p.m. on ESPNU.)

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  • Published On Oct 18, 2012
  • Designated Read: AA so passé? We say nay!

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    Umm, it’s called the Football CHAMPIONSHIP series for a reason. HelLO. (AP)

    • Think we’ve solved this thing. The entity we are apparently still insisting on calling the FCS wants to rebrand itself, and is endeavoring to do so with the NCAA’s help:

    CAA officials are not revealing the cost of the plan, nor do they want to end the suspense by releasing a recently completed consultant’s report.

    But it’s about more than just a name, NCAA spokesman Damani Leech said. ”There’s other things related to branding. There’s the strategy behind it. There’s the actual messages,” Leech said. “It’s more than just what you call yourselves, but it’s what you say about yourself and how you talk about yourself.”

    For free, we will now fix this problem: Return to I-A and I-AA. AA is, like, a whole ‘nother A, you guys. Americans are not super great at applying basic math to real-world problems. Ride that. In many high school football systems, a greater number of A’s affixed to one’s team signifies a larger program.

    Act larger. Swagger taller. Send your best teams to the Sugar Bowl and demand they take the field. Based on our previous experiences in the Superdome, it is entirely possible this might be allowed to happen. Your destiny is exactly that: yours.

    • And now, the weather. From the “Tropical Storm Isaac, College Football And You” Department: Tulane moves the Green Wave to Birmingham to ride it out; LSU has closed school today and tomorrow with Saturday’s opener with North Texas still planning to go ahead, and last we heard from Louisiana Tech, the Bulldogs and Texas A&M were still scheduled to convene in Shreveport Thursday night.

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  • Published On Aug 28, 2012
  • Designated Read: Doesn’t make it a good idea

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    Armanti Edwards dives over Michigan — and expectations! See what we did there? (AP)

    • Beep beep, Freep. The Detroit Free Press headline “Michigan AD Dave Brandon: We have to play Appalachian State to ‘pay them back’” is baldly misleading, but got us to click through, so job well done, we guess? We’ll save you the trouble of reading the article and point out that “pay them back” was indeed uttered by Brandon — as one of a series of reasons he hears from a fanbase wanting to face the Mountaineers again.

    This is not a new sentiment, but we’ll take this moment to reiterate what a bad idea this 2014 rematch is from a football standpoint. It’s a clever way to ensure robust ticket sales against an FCS opponent, but if the Wolverines wreck ‘em, so what? They can boast only of having run it up on a program with a fraction of their resources and move to 1-1 in the series. If they win an ugly game, that’s just sad and weird. And while it’s highly, highly unlikely that they’d drop another one, well, how unlikely was that first loss?

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  • Published On Aug 23, 2012
  • 17 days to the 2012 season

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    In two weeks and three days, Arizona State will be suiting up for its season opener. Todd Graham will probably still be the Sun Devils’ coach. (We wouldn’t keep making these jokes if it weren’t totally possible for him to leave ASU in the next two weeks. Adventure!)

    17 days.


  • Published On Aug 13, 2012
  • Designated Read: Now shave in a Super G

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    • Mark Richt remains firmly in control of his facial hair. Who are we to question Lady Richt, really?

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  • Published On Aug 09, 2012
  • Weekend Whimsy: All hail the Cupcake Wars Bowl, presented by Food Network

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    It’s easy to imagine NCAA president Mark Emmert gesturing to his face to explain how future minor NCAA infractions might be met by a court of a coach’s peers screaming, “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOUR FACE?” at the offending party. (Getty Images)

    Lovingly curated light reading to speed you through your Friday:

    • That this bowl is imaginary doesn’t make its specter any less real. A 6-6 record appears likely to remain the bar to clear for postseason eligibility, and you can sort of see around the edges in these quotes to where people are thinking that hey, it’s all about the bowl tycoons raking in the cash while the kids rake in the commemorative keychains, right?

    “Thirty-five bowl games can be a lot, but certainly those games provide an opportunity for a lot of student-athletes to experience the postseason,” Womack said.

    All we ask is that all social media channels for any future bowls be run by the Florida Citrus Sports team.

    • Slapping with trout added as penalty for butt-dialing. NCAA bigwigs are getting behind a new penalty structure, which will have four tiers of violations. We have helpfully named them for you: primary, secondary, tertiary and what’s-wrong-with-your-faceiary.

    Just an aborted attempt to helicopter Tee Martin off the deck of a cruise ship, no big deal. Lane Kiffin recounts USC’s madcap pursuit of Silas Redd.

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  • Published On Aug 03, 2012
  • How deep is your love? Your bile?

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    Could Kyle Brotzman’s notorious miss against Nevada in 2010 be a boon for Boise State? (Peter Read Miller/SI)

    Stanford’s offensive coordinator position was recently endowed by an anonymous donor to honor Andrew Luck (gross autoplay video alert at that link). The donation got friend of the program The Gurgling Cod thinking about how to turn this into a rivalry game:

    Monied fans, you have your marching orders. Our previous bloggy home has just wrapped up an annual charity drive in which donations are given to match rivalry scores (say, $70.33 for enthusiastic fans of January’s Orange Bowl outcome), but an endowment? Oh, that’s a gift that lasts and lasts. We have 10 modest suggestions for our readers overburdened with spite and disposable income:

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  • Published On May 24, 2012
  • Sun Devils ad eases coaching transition

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    Arizona State has released a new commercial for its football program. We’ve heard some grousing that the ad is not as captivating as it could have been, but this is actually quite a canny move on the part of the ASU administration. Because Arizona State is playing host to the Todd Graham Show this season, which means the tent could fold up and move on at any moment.

    And if you watch the video carefully, you’ll note that Graham is only shown in situations where he could be easily replaced in future ads through the magic of digital image manipulation, at little cost to the program. Observe!

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  • Published On Apr 26, 2012
  • He sets ‘em up, we knocks ‘em down

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    Good morning! Here is Todd Graham attending an Arizona State “basketball” game. The bold print on his shirt reads, “I AM A SUN DEVIL.”

    The fine print at the bottom: “Right now. I’m pretty sure.”

    Screencap via the essential Gifulmination.


  • Published On Mar 05, 2012
  • Sporting Valentine’s Day wishes from Campus Union

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    Happy Hearts Day, from our families to yours.

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  • Published On Feb 14, 2012


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