Variety Pack: The Citadel’s uniform follies, another transfer, a tough loss ESPN left out, Plant of the Week

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Sandlapper Spike

Yes, it’s another edition of the Variety Pack, a new TSA series that debuted a couple of weeks ago.  The idea is to write briefly (I hope) on a few different topics without having to be mindful of the 140-character limit of my Twitter tweets.

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Last year, I wrote what amounted to a manifesto on The Citadel’s uniform history.  I concluded the screed with this:

To sum up:  simple is best, get the name of the school right, and don’t screw up the colors.  That’s all.

I haven’t seen pictures of this year’s jerseys/pants yet, but according to some folks in the know who post on TCISN, The Citadel will feature (at least in some games) navy jerseys this year, with light blue numerals and “CITADEL” across the front in white.  I would like to think this isn’t true, but I’m sure it is, since North Carolina wore a similar jersey last season.  (We are apparently one year behind UNC in all things Nike-related.)

Navy is an accent color for The Citadel’s athletic teams, not a primary color.  Light blue and white are our primary athletic colors.  Last season, of course, the football team broke out navy pants, wearing them with both white and (most memorably) light blue jerseys.  This season the Bulldogs will apparently have the opportunity to wear an all-navy ensemble on occasion (with a light blue helmet).

Basically, it’s the exact opposite of what I would have liked.  The Citadel will have uniforms that do not include the proper school name, and that do not feature the appropriate school colors.  I apologize in advance if I’m jumping the gun on this, but that’s the information I have at present.

Tangent:  speaking of UNC, I’m not sure why that school is so willing to move away from its traditional color combination, which is very popular. I guess there is money to be made in mixing it up a little, but I think it detracts from a classic look.

As far as the helmets go, some pictures of the new helmet design popped up earlier this spring on TCISN.  The “regular” one reminds me of The Citadel’s helmet design during the Charlie Taaffe era.  It’s not bad, and in fact is a probably a little better than the Taaffe helmets.  You could do worse (and The Citadel certainly has).

There will also be a special helmet for Homecoming featuring “Big Red”.  I like the concept and the execution isn’t terrible, but it’s basically a copy of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers helmet.  I could do without the sword (incorporating a rifle might have been a better idea).  You can see pictures of both helmets on this thread.

You know, if you wanted to design a distinctive jersey to go with the special Homecoming helmet, and you wanted to also honor the past, this photo might be a good place to start.

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When I wrote about graduate student transfers a few weeks ago (and I appreciate the comments, by the way — always good to get feedback), Chuck Driesell had just signed a transfer from Belmont, Mike Dejworek.  Evidently Driesell was not satisfied with just one European-born grad student big man named Mike, because a couple of weeks later he brought in another.

Morakinyo “Mike” Williams is an Englishman who started his career at Kentucky (recruited by Tubby Smith) before transferring to Duquesne, where he played one season before moving again, this time to The Citadel.  Not everyone at Duquesne was expecting his latest move.

It will be interesting to see how Williams does.  He reportedly did not get along with former UK coach Billy Gillispie, which is probably a positive.  I think it’s safe to say that he will be the first player in Bulldog hoops history to have previously been deported from the United States (that had to have been tough).  Also, in his year at Kentucky he picked up a nickname — he was known as “The Member”.  I’m afraid to ask.

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ESPN.com, setting the stage for another college football season, ran a series last week called “House of Pain”, featuring the 50 toughest losses in college football history.  It wasn’t a bad list, but there were two minor problems with it (in my opinion):

1)  It focused a little too much on recent history.  It wasn’t terribly slanted, but there was some TV-era bias.  I’m sure Beano Cook would agree (although I was glad to see that the Boston College-Holy Cross game from 1942 made it; an underappreciated game with an epilogue worthy of O. Henry).

2)  More importantly, most of the losing teams involved in the games on ESPN’s list could always take solace that on other occasions they had won the big game.  Maybe Miami and Ohio State and Alabama and Nebraska and Southern Cal have all lost tough games — but they’ve also won big games, on multiple occasions.  To me, a truly tough loss is when a school with limited success has a chance to climb the mountain, and then falls flat on its face.

West Virginia losing to Pittsburgh a few years ago was a good example, and made the list.  Another game that made the list, but which should have ranked much higher, was Missouri-Iowa State (from 2004).  How often are the Cyclones going to have a chance to play in a conference title game?

The game I immediately thought about when the list began to be released, though, is nowhere to be found….this one.

Navy 38, South Carolina 21.  November 18, 1984.

South Carolina was, incredibly, 9-0.  Black Magic!  The Gamecocks could have accepted a bid to the Sugar Bowl after beating Florida State the week before, but held out for a trip to the Orange Bowl and a potential (mythical) national title game.  All they had to do to clinch the Orange Bowl was beat a Navy team coming off a 29-0 loss to Syracuse.

It didn’t happen.  South Carolina lost the game, the chance to be ranked #1 for the first time (which would have occurred had the Gamecocks won), a shot at a national title, and a berth in a major bowl for the first time in school history.

Twenty-six years later, and Gamecock fans are still waiting for their first ticket to a major bowl.  That game is the very definition of a painful loss.

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Finally, it’s time for the Plant of the Week.  This week’s honoree is the Rubrum Lily, which made its way to Europe from Japan in 1830 (or thereabouts).

Until next time…

Rubrum Lily

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Variety pack: Triple Option, The Citadel on TV, college baseball on the clock, Plant of the Week

Posted on July 24, 2010 by Sandlapper Spike

This is going to be a grab-bag type of post, a variety pack if you will.  I may do this sort of thing periodically, as I really need to blog on a more regular basis.  I look at this as a way to make shorter comments on various issues, mostly about sports (including sports at The Citadel), with a few other odds and ends that catch my eye.  Think of them as Twitter entries that are longer than 140 characters.

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Speaking of Twitter, my latest tweets can be seen on the left side of this page.  If anyone hasn’t noticed and is halfway interested in following me on Twitter, the location is http://twitter.com/SandlapperSpike (my tweets feature links/comments on a lot of stuff, including up-to-the-minute updates on Bulldog sports, baseball, football, and soccer, among other things).

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As The Citadel counts down to kickoff against Chowan (as of today, T-41 days!), it’s time to focus on the Bulldogs’ new offense, which may be a little like an old offense, namely Charlie Taaffe’s wishbone attack.  However, it appears that Kevin Higgins may intend to run more of a “spread” triple option than Taaffe’s offense.

With that in mind, it might be a good idea to take a look at what the folks at Navy (and Georgia Tech, with Paul Johnson’s arrival in Atlanta) have been doing, particularly since Higgins apparently told one of our quarterback recruits (Ben Dupree) that The Citadel would be running a “Navy-style triple-option offense.”

Another reason to pay attention to the triple option is that Georgia Southern is also going to start running the offense this season, in a return to its roots.

For those interested in a breakdown of the nuts and bolts of the triple option, then, I cannot recommend highly enough a visit to The Birddog, the blog of choice for Navy football (and lacrosse).  The Birddog does a great, great job of illustrating (with video!) the intricacies of the triple option attack.

I’ve picked out four posts that I think serve as a good introductory primer for what the offense is all about.  (I hope I’ve chosen correctly.)  While reading these, just in case anyone gets confused, keep in mind that Paul Johnson is the former head coach at Navy (and Georgia Southern, of course) and is now at Georgia Tech.  The current Navy head coach is Ken Niumatalolo, and his offensive coordinator is Ivin Jasper.

Reading Is Fundamental

The Science and the Art

The Midline Option

Other People’s Rivalries And The Futility Of Defending Against the Wishbone

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As of today, only one of The Citadel’s football games is scheduled to be televised (at Wofford on October 30).  There is always a chance that a local station (either in Charleston or another SoCon town) will elect to broadcast a game, although that is unlikely.  Other than that scenario, there are only two other games that could be televised.

It is possible (but doubtful) that SportSouth will pick up the November 20 game at Samford as part of its “SoCon Saturday” package, as the last two weekends of the regular season are “wild card” weekends — basically, the network will televise the most attractive matchup that week, based on the teams’ records to that point in the season.  Admittedly, very few prognosticators are going to bet that a game between Samford and The Citadel will have serious repercussions in the league standings, but you never know.

However, there is a decent chance that The Citadel’s game at Arizona on September 11 will be televised by Fox Sports Net Arizona (FSN-AZ), a regional sports network received by cable subscribers in Arizona (and I believe parts of California and New Mexico), and also available as part of DirecTV’s “Sports Pack”.  Arizona has asked the Pac-10 (and the league’s TV partners) for a waiver in order for the game to be broadcast.

The reason a waiver is needed is because there are already two Pac-10 games scheduled to be televised during the same time period, and that league’s national cable partners have television exclusivity rights for those games.  In other words, a local/regional broadcast can’t take place at the same time as a nationally televised league TV game.  If another Pac-10 school wants its game on television, it has to play in another time slot.

However, Arizona and Arizona State have been given waivers in the past because home game time slots for those schools are limited, especially early in the season. You just can’t play a football game in the desert in the midday heat.

(Matt Sarzyniak was nice enough to explain the Arizona/Arizona State waiver issue to me, which I appreciate.)

We’ll see what happens.  I am cautiously optimistic that the game will be televised.

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The NCAA Baseball Rules Committee passed legislation that, if approved, will establish a time clock in college baseball.  The committee is basically incorporating the rules employed by the SEC for its 2010 conference tournament.

The 20-second rule for throwing a pitch was already on the books, but now it will be enforced with a timer, as will the amount of time allocated between innings.  I’ll be interested to see how the Southern Conference handles this; will it have a visible clock, with a timekeeper in the press box monitoring it?  Or will it just have an umpire carrying a watch?  I’m guessing the latter, for financial reasons.

The committee also modified the obstruction rule, which got a lot of notoriety in the Southern Conference tournament thanks to the second-round game/brawl between The Citadel and Elon.  That was the second-wildest fight I’ve ever seen at the SoCon tourney (nothing compares to the epic Raleigh/Piepenbrink donnybrook in 1990, though).

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Not about sports:  you can be assured that I will never quote from or link to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.  Why, you ask?  This is why.

Link 1

Link 2

I sincerely hope that the Review-Journal goes bankrupt sooner rather than later.  Also, the photo of the CEO in the first link — doesn’t he look like a guy who hopes you throw something at him, so that he can sue you?

I have a great deal of respect for copyright law.  I think this guy and the Review-Journal (which is funding him) are abusing copyright law.

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Not about sports:  I really enjoyed this article in The New Yorker on the identification and authentication of artworks.  It’s a long piece, but worthwhile.  I won’t spoil it, but there is a major twist halfway through.  The bottom line:  if P.T. Barnum had been more familiar with the art world, he would have said “there’s a sucker born every 15 seconds.”

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Finally, a new feature, the Plant of the Week.  That’s right, plants.  As I’ve said elsewhere on the blog, I consider gardening a sport.  In honor of this being the first edition of the PotW, I will honor not one but two plants in my garden.  Both are crinums. Feast your eyes on a Powelii (Cecil Houdyshel) and a Herbertii (no common name).

Until next time…

Filed under: Baseball, Gardening, Special Topics, The Citadel | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »