Author Archives: Kent Sterling

Indiana Sets Scoring Record as Hoosiers Throttle Indiana State 73-35 in Opener

by Kent Sterling

Well, that was different. Indiana has never piled up that many points in the history of Memorial Stadium, and had a legitimate chance to ring up Indiana State for the most points ever scored by an Indiana team. Class prevailed, and IU tooknees inside the Indiana State 10 with under 3:00 to play.

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Tonight’s game wasn’t without a little drama as Indiana allowed Indiana State to cut its 45-7 lead to 17 points at 45-28. Those three touchdowns were scored in just 1:02. Whatever emotional hiccup that brief lapse represented, it passed quickly, as Sycamore gunner Carlos Aviles launched his helmet into the head of defenseless punt returner Shane Wynn after he called for a fair catch.

That ignited a brief burst of aggression as IU scored with precision after two deep throws by quarterback Nate Sudfeld, who looks like a solid choice to start if coach Kevin Wilson decides to ride the hot hand.

So what did we learn about this Hoosier team?

They are either a hell of a lot better, or Indiana State is a lot worse than the two teams that played in last year’s 24-17 IU squeaker.
Tevin Colemen is really fast and elusive. Way too fast for ISU. We’ll see what he does against a Big Ten Team.
There are still flaws – too many missed tackles, and a few mental lapses, but that’s why the games early in the season are against non conference opponents.
Ted Bolser is a horse of a tight end. He looks like an NFL tight end to me, but against Indiana State, there are probably a lot of guys who would.

Next week, Indiana goes toe to toe with a Navy team that runs an option offense that the Hoosiers don’t face otherwise, then Bowling Green. After that, the opponents that matter start showing up – Mizzou, Penn State, Michigan State and Michigan.

The sweetness of this win shouldn’t linger too long because the road only gets tougher.

Another Season of Indiana Football Brings Back Years of Memories

by Kent Sterling

The view of my old room at Briscoe is a hell of a lot better than my view of the stadium was from inside that room.

Memorial Stadium looks a little bit different. The north end zone has been closed, and I’m sitting on the other side of the bleachers now, all the way up in the press box I used to find so mysterious. But everything is so familiar it feels like yesterday that I was part of this madness as a student.

And it was madness.

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What was on the football field was quite ordinary. I came to IU the year following the joy of the Holiday Bowl win and finished the year before Bill Mallory got the ship righted. What happened in between did a lot to keep students like me from entertaining the notion of actually watching the games.

Lee Corso’s endless pacing was monotonous and of no use. The one year Sam Wyche era was grueling, and the year following that saw IU put up a total of zero wins. My six autumns (if you could spend six years as a student at IU, wouldn’t you?) at Indiana had a little bit of everything but winning football. There were good grades and bad, great decisions and stone cold idiotic ones. There was a basketball national championship, and a trip to the NIT. I met the woman who remains my wife, and there were a couple of others who didn’t pass muster on any level that preceded her.

From my seat tonight at the home opener, I can see the window for my dorm room at Briscoe Quad. I remember laying there between the moments of laughter and debauchery wondering just what the hell I was doing in this huge place with all these strange people. Little by little, I figured out that I was becoming an adult – not a fully functional adult, but enough of an adult that I could fake it until I fully made the leap around my 30th birthday.

While others might envy the students and their carefree lives, I sure as hell don’t. College was very difficult for me. I had no idea what I wanted to do or what classes to take. Having so many damn options was paralytic for me.

What I left IU with was a wife, great friends, and a deathly fear of sleeping through a test at Ballantine Hall.

I look at that window of Briscoe 930-B and think about the knucklehead who used to stare out the other side wondering when he might figure out what the hell he was supposed to do with tomorrow – and all the other tomorrows that were ahead, and I wouldn’t swap places with him now for Mark Cuban’s money.

That he wound up sitting here all those years later is the type of upset Kevin Wilson and the Hoosiers will try to pull off on November 23rd against Ohio State. Maybe that’s a little dramatic, but the road from there to here was a hell of a lot farther than the quarter mile west on 17th Street between there and here.

Wait a minute. The first thing I did when I got to the press box was gorge myself on the free spread for media folks. The second thing was laugh at inappropriate comments made by some friends I ran into. The third thing if I hadn’t been up since 4a this morning would be to head over to Nick’s for some postgame laughs and a jar of whatever poured easiest. And the final thing is get a Dagwood’s Supreme delivered to wherever I was.

Christ, not a damn thing has changed.

NFL Gets Off Cheap in $765 Million Head Injury Settlement

by Kent Sterling

Here’s a helmet that can help prevent concussions, but few players will wear it.

More than 4,000 retirees and families from the NFL will share in a $765 million settlement of a lawsuit against the NFL brought by those who have suffered long-term head trauma playing pro football.

That’s roughly $180,000 each, minus the attorney fees. If someone offered you $180K to live with dementia, would you do it? Didn’t think so. Now, if you were a lawyer and got one-third of $765 million and your clients lived with dementia, that’s a pretty good deal.

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This post isn’t about how first we kill the lawyers, like Shakespeare suggested. My son is one week into law school, so my opinions about the nobility of the profession are mellowing. After all, these former players weren’t clever enough to anticipate the collective negative effects of repeated concussions, how big a check could they have gotten the NFL to write left to their own devices?

Helmets are flawed technology, and the NFL knows it. They can’t admit it, or they open themselves up for future liability. They also can’t mandate the use of a safer helmet like the Xenith X2 because that would require their admission that the current helmets protect players from skull fractures and nothing more.

Many players won’t wear the Xenith because they don’t look cool enough. I spoke to a former Pro Bowl defensive tackle who said that even knowing what he knows now about head trauma and helmet technology, he would choose to wear the same helmet he played in.

This wasn’t some addlepated boob of a former player, this is a guy who is enjoying an outstanding post-NFL career and shows all the signs of being a very intelligent man.

As long as players refuse to acknowledge and embrace their responsibility to their own health, there will continue to be head injuries that cause minor problems during their careers, but have the potential to be major health issues down the road.

The NFL has enacted rules to curb head-to-head contact as well as the practice of tackling by leading with the head, but football (especially at the professional level) is a collision sport that can cripple, maim, or cause a good man like Dave Duerson to slowly lose his mind until he can no longer tolerate living.

Our ability to enjoy any portion of life is determined by the functionality of our brains. Without them, the party is over. Losing a kidney, spleen, appendix, gall bladder, or having lung or heart disease wouldn’t keep me from laughing at “Caddyshack.” Screw with the hard wiring of the brain, and you stare puzzled at Rodney Dangerfield’s antics. To what extent the NFL owes former players a cash dividend on their lost health is debatable, as the risks were patently obvious all the way back to 19th Century football, but to pay each player a net of just over $100K for their trouble seems unjust in the same way the NCAA suspending Johnny Manziel for just one half is. Either Manziel took cash or didn’t. Saving face with a first half against Rice penalty is bureaucratic nonsense at its most nonsensical.

Responsibility is an all or nothing game. Either the NFL is accountable for the lasting effects of its employees, or it is not. There should be no kind of, halfway, maybe, half-assed, toe in the water, non-admission admission.

Whether the NFL knowingly head back science, or purposely put players in harm’s way is debatable, but what is beyond argument is that roughly $120K is nowhere near adequate for a portion of the long term care necessitated by the repeated head trauma suffered by these 4,000-plus men whose efforts put billions in the pockets of owners who only wear hats to look stylish.

Armen Keteyian and Jeff Benedict Peel the Onion of College Football in “The System”

by Kent Sterling

The NCAA dangles on the brink of irrelevance after it’s 1/2 game suspension of Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel, and now with the release of “The System”, a bevy of additional questions will be asked as to why the organization exists at all as an oversight authority in the world of big time college football.

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People go on the record in a way that has never before been seen, heard, or read. There is the story told by the father of Texas A&M running back Ricky Seals-Jones about his being offered $600,000 by several other schools to commit to them, recruiting hostesses flirting (and more) with prospective student-athletes, tutors completing homework (and much more) for athletes, and the transcripts of the Tattoogate interviews by the NCAA with then Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel and AD Gene Smith.

I can’t wait to read it when it’s released September 17th, but I’ll bet the NCAA is not looking forward to its publication. The two reporters who wrote it are Armen Keteyian and Jeff Benedict, and they are beyond reproach as investigative journalists. Claiming they got it wrong will not be an acceptable response.

This book will prompt questions like, how in the hell can reporters get subjects to happily talk on the record about the corruption we all know exists in college football while the NCAA can’t get information out of anyone.

With every allegation, assertion, and first person story of misconduct, the canard that college athletics and amateurism have anything to do with one another is further exposed. This book might cause the scales of justice that the NCAA purports to hold to collapse under its own uselessness.

The time is coming for the NCAA to either completely replace its rulebook to allow the kind of violations that are a regular part of college football and men’s basketball (I might be naive in thinking it stops there), or cease to operate as an organization with oversight responsibilities.

Not to give the NCAA an easy out, but the corruption that is detailed in “The System” has been ongoing since the beginning of college athletics. There are movies like the 1938 non-classic “Hold That Co-ed” with John Barrymore and the Marx Brothers “Horse Feathers” (1932) that deal with fixing football games by paying players.

The NCAA is not built to keep universities from defying its rules, and I’m skeptical that given subpoena power and a brute squad of hundreds of eager young investigators that they could change the landscape. “Cleaning up” college sports would require NCAA President Mark Emmert to put the brakes on corruption that started long before the first rules on recruiting restrictions were enacted in 1939. Fighting that kind of inertia is not only impossible, but unwise.

College football works, and messing with it is bad practice and bad business. Logic is calling the NCAA, but no one is answering. It wants to say that regulating college football as a purely amateur endeavor is a lost cause – as it has always been.

“The System” will peel layers from the facade of what many believe happens regularly in college football, and the pressure on the NCAA to bludgeon member schools who are indifferent to its rules will increase. The time is coming for reality to be accepted by fans and administrators that where there is value, people will be compensated, and where good grades are needed to ensure eligibility, schools will provide the means for student-athletes to obtain them.

Former Indianapolis Colts Center Jeff Saturday Shines in New Role as ESPN Analyst

by Kent Sterling

This tender moment elevated Jeff Saturday from little known offensive lineman to nationally famous and tender leader.

At the end of the NFL Lockout in 2011, former Indianapolis Colts center Jeff Saturday gave New England Patriots owner a hug and thanked him for his role in ending the work stoppage. It became the money shot for the biggest sports story of the year, and Jeff Saturday became a star.

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Two years later, the recently retired Saturday is a regular on NFL themed ESPN programming, and he is excelling very early in his second career. He regularly provides the most coherent and well-reasoned thoughts on the NFL for the sports leader. Others blather about what they have been told by their sources. Saturday shares what he believes.

Saturday personifies the most important trait needed to succeed in media – authenticity. He’s had it for a long time.

In the summer of 2000, WIBC radio in Indianapolis was looking for a Colts player to join the morning and afternoon shows for that season. We had a run of uneven luck with players – Joe Staysniak was good for us, Tony Siragusa was a hilarious FCC violation waiting to happen, Trev Alberts was not a good fit, and Ken Dilger was quite solid.

We met with several Colts, and all seemed to be trying to sell themselves. None would have been terrible, but they didn’t have that thing that would compel an audience to listen. Then we met with Saturday.

He sat down in program director Jon Quick’s office and behaved. There was nothing contrived about him. The group just kind of hung out. Saturday had a good laugh, was an excellent listener, and turned a meeting into a social event.

No one was certain that Saturday would start at center for the Colts in 2000. He had started only two games in 1999, but he was such a no-brainer as a human being that 30 seconds after the meeting ended the decision was made to hire him.

That made for one of the easiest and best decisions made at WIBC during my time there. Saturday told the truth in a way that didn’t piss anyone off. A nice guy to his core, Saturday is the type of person you feel you know well and like five minutes after meeting him.

For people who want a great recipe for finding talent, that’s it. There are people you just know have that thing, and Saturday is full of it. It’s not charisma as much as absolute believability.

Of course, Jeff Saturday is a success on ESPN. He’s unafraid to show who is he is, and that is a likable guy who tells the truth.

Yesterday, he showed comfort during an interview with his old quarterback Peyton Manning. Saturday asked Manning about the Broncos decision to run the read-option this year. It showed Manning at his non-corprorate and funny best – just what a good interviewer should. It was great TV, and Saturday made it look easy.

Look for Jeff to have a long and successful career in media for as long as he wants one because “real” works.

Johnny Manziel Beats System – Earns First Half Suspension vs. Rice

by Kent Sterling

“Spring Break” Johnny makes the NCAA wince, blink, mumble, and collapse in pain.

The sound you just heard was anything within arm’s reach being thrown against the walls of every building in Columbus, Ohio.

Johnny Manziel will sit for the first half of the Texas A&M vs. Rice as the punishment for whatever the NCAA’s findings are in their investigation into whether Manziel was compensated for signing autographs.

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Lying sucks, but lying in the face of an organization with rules that aren’t rooted in reality or morality achieves the right result. “The ends justify the means” is the credo of the irretrievably corrupt 99-out-of-100 times, but every once in awhile, it’s a moral imperative. If Manziel lied, good for him.

The NCAA has looked ridiculous throughout this drama, and the result has reduced them to the paper lion they have always been. Many powerful people have called for the NCAA to enforce its rules, but the problem with enforcing rules is that when the rules aren’t just, the system fails. And it has failed here.

Somehow, the NCAA has turned a self-centered beer/Crown Royal swilling boob of a quarterback into a folk hero for making a cash grab, if reports are true, in south Florida prior to the BCS National Championship game for signing a bunch of swag. Manziel is Willie Nelson in a helmet, and Mark Emmert is the IRS.

In Columbus, football players traded autographs for tattoos. They lost half a season. Coach Jim Tressel lost his job after looking the other way, and ultimately school president Gordon Gee was removed from office. The reasons were many, but the ball started rolling during his flippant press conference performance when he famously said, “I’ll be lucky if (Tressel) doesn’t fire me.”

In College Station, Texas, the appearance of taking a lot of cash for a lot of autographs nets Manziel sitting for one half of a meaningless game.

The NCAA is a trainwreck headed toward either a massive reorganization or its doom. Instead of being feared or respected, it’s morphed into a laughingstock.

It’s a shame because college athletics need oversight. The appearance of competitive balance needs to be preserved or all is lost. It’s hard to know where the blame for this mess lies – with Texas A&M, the NCAA, or society as a whole. The vibe from the NCAA offices is one of a defeated organization that is just hanging on until the O’Bannon suit is either settled or goes to trial. After that…

As Hunter Thompson wrote, “The hog is in the tunnel,” and the administrators in Indianapolis are poorly pretending otherwise.

Manziel gets to play, which is right. Ohio State still suffers from the madness of Tattoogate’s farcical fallout, which is wrong. And the NCAA is fumbling for its teeth like a 90-year-old with glaucoma, which is sad.

Indiana University Basketball Schedule Released – Tough Enough Preseason; Really Tough Big Ten Season

by Kent Sterling

If these five banners are going to welcome a little brother, a lot of very good things need to happen on the schedule below.

Railing about the preseason schedule of whatever team you back is as much a part of the August and September lives of major conference basketball fans as watching them during November and December, but I’m not doing it.

Criticizing a program for only sporadically challenging itself with NCAA Tournament bound competition is ridiculous when a ten-week murderer’s row awaits beginning on New Year’s Eve.

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Sure, watching Indiana play Chicago State, Stony Brook, and Samford (no relation to Fred, Lamont, and Aunt Esther – it’s spelled differently) isn’t nearly as much fun as watching them play Duke, Texas, Xavier, or Kentucky, but wearing out your team in December isn’t going to make the Big Ten season a lot of fun either.

The schedule has some interesting games that will generate huge interest, as though Indiana Basketball doesn’t already. Watching Indiana try to attack the 2-3 zone of Syracuse again will be fascinating. Last year’s Sweet Sixteen tilt made the Hoosiers look like they had never seen a 2-3 before. It might that they had never seen one executed so well.

There was also a moment last year when I thought Indiana lost its legs. Down 28-25 entering the second half against Ohio State in Bloomington on March 5th, Indiana played with crispness for the first five minutes of the second half to take a 39-34 lead. Then they hit a wall, and were outscored 33-19 over the last 15 minutes. They were a shell of the team that lost only three games through the huge 72-68 win at Michigan State on February 19th. Over the next nine games, the Hoosiers lost four, including the game against the Orangemen.

The thing that’s tough about coaching a team that earnestly works its ass of day in and day out is that they will never hold anything back, and if a coach isn’t careful, they will burn through their legs. Last year’s IU team was earnest and diligent. And legs sometimes don’t come back. The Hoosiers aren’t likely to be as top heavy this year, so that might not be a problem.

I also have January 14th and February 25th circled, and you can bet Tom Crean does too. Indiana plays Wisconsin on those two nights. ESPN loves those matchups and will broadcast both. Crean has never beaten Bo Ryan, and those two don’t play golf together, or socialize on any level. The handshake at the end of the game will be worth watching, regardless of the outcome.

How this roster comes together should be fascinating. Lots of youth, and a new cultural leader or leaders. Victor Oladipo, Cody Zeller, Jordan Hulls, Christian Watford, Maurice Creek, Remy Abell, and Derek Elston are gone. Remaining are Yogi Ferrell, Will Sheehey, Hanner Mosquera-Perea, Peter Jurkin, Taylor Wayer, Raphael Smith, Jeff Howard, and Jeremy Hollowell.

The preseason features, Washington, Notre Dame, Syracuse, and either Boston College or UConn. Those four games are challenging enough before the Big Ten season gets rolling on New Years Eve.

I have no idea whether this team will win 16 or 30. Should be fun.

DATE

November 8 vs. Chicago State, 7p
November 12 vs. LIU Brooklyn (2K Sports Classic), TBA
November 15 vs. Samford, 7p
November 17 vs. Stony Brook (2K Sports Classic) 5p

2K SPORTS CLASSIC BENEFITTING WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT (Madison Square Garden)

November 21 vs. Washington (@Madison Square Garden), 9p
November 22 vs. Boston College/UConn (@Madison Square Garden), 5p/7p
November 26 vs. Evansville, 8p

BIG TEN/ACC CHALLENGE

December 3 at Syracuse, 7:15p
December 7 vs. North Florida, 7:30p
December 10 vs. Oakland, 7p

CROSSROADS CLASSIC (Bankers Life Fieldhouse)

December 14 vs. Notre Dame, 3:15p
December 20 vs. Nicholls State, 7p
December 22 vs. Kennesaw State, 12p

BIG TEN

December 31 at Illinois, 3p
January 4 vs. Michigan State, 2p
January 11 at Penn State, 12p
January 14 vs. Wisconsin, 7p
January 18 vs. Northwestern, TBA
January 21 at Michigan State, 7p
January 26 vs. Illinois, 3p
January 30 at Nebraska, 8:15p
February 2 vs. Michigan, 1p
February 8 at Minnesota, 8:15p
February 12 vs. Penn State, 7p
February 15 at Purdue, 4p
February 18 vs. Iowa, 9p
February 22/23 at Northwestern, TBA
February 25 at Wisconsin, 9p
March 2 vs. Ohio State, 12p/4p
March 5 vs, Nebraska, 7p
March 8 at Michigan, 6p

BIG TEN TOURNAMENT (Bankers Life Fieldhouse)

March 13-16

NFL Season Preview – NFC West – Watch Out for the St. Louis Rams

by Kent Sterling

There is a lot of talk about the NFC West being the best division in the NFL, and it just may be. If you take the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks of 2012, and add what many expect are going to be two of the most improved franchises in the St. Louis Rams and Arizona Cardinals, the expectation of excellence can be justified.

Others are going to look at the West as a copy of what fans saw in 2012 – 49ers, Seahawks, Rams, and Cardinals.

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But the 49ers and Seahawks are not the same as they were last year. The quarterbacks are young, but the tools around them are not. The defenses are stout, but aging in spots. The running backs are productive but aging, and the receivers are ordinary.

The Rams are young, aggressive, and fast, while the Cardinals are in a state of flux that might coalesce into a formidable group, but likely will be among the lesser teams in the NFC.

St. Louis Rams – 11-5

The Rams are likely to be the youngest team in the NFL again in 2013, and young teams tend to win when they’re talented, and the Rams are talented. Yeah, I’m picking them to win the division, and that will put me on an island about as heavily populated as the one Tom Hanks shared with his best friend the volleyball, but I think they look a lot like the 1984 Chicago Bears.

Schedule – The Rams would argue this, but the schedule sets up very nicely for them. The opener against the Arizona Cardinals should be a divisional win. That’s followed by road games against the Falcons and Cowboys. Two home tilts against the 49ers and Jaguars follow. The schedule finishes – again – in Seattle, so if the Rams are going to qualify for the postseason, they better wrap things up prior to December 29 as the Seahawks were 8-0 at home in 2012.

Offense – As is the case across all 32 NFL teams, as the quarterback goes, so goes the offense. Sam Bradford was the top pick of the 2010 NFL Draft and through three years, his performance has been mediocre with a career quarterback rating of 77.3. ESPN’s QBR rating had him at 51.6 in 2012 – a rating of 50 demonstrates average production. The excuses given have always been a lack of continuity in the offense as his offensive coordinators have changed annually – from Pat Shurmur to Josh McDaniels to Brian Schottenheimer. Well, Schotty is back for year two, so let’s retire that. A lack of dynamic weaponry was also accurately listed as a reason for Bradford’s standing in the bottom half of the NFL’s QBs. The Rams have used high picks on fast guys with good hands over the past two drafts to correct that. They also made a bit of an under the radar free agent signing in tight end Jared Cook, who should be a perfect fit with the Rams, after being miscast in Tennessee last season. If Bradford doesn’t show the Rams something this season, I’m not sure he ever will.

The rushing offense will miss Steven Jackson, who left after becoming the Rams all-time leading rusher with 10,135 yards, but both second year backs return. Daryl Richardson averaged 4.8 yards per carry as he accounted for 23% of all carries. Isaiah Pead carried the ball only 10 times, but showed flashes of the potential that led the Rams to take him in the second round of the 2012 draft. The receiving corps is young but talented, and is led by Tavon Austin, who was drafted eighth overall in this year’s draft. Both he and second year player Chris Givens can take the top off defenses.

The offensive line should benefit from the signing of dominant-when-healthy left tackle Jake Long. That slides Rodger Saffold to RT, giving the Rams bookends who have graded very well. Both have shown a recent propensity for injury, but if healthy, Bradford should have plenty of time to stand ramrod straight in the pocket waiting for receivers to break open without fearing for his life.

Bradford has the ability to look good, and the ability to look lost. Franchise quarterbacks don’t look lost very often. Andrew Luck is in his second year under his second OC, and he never looks like Bradford does. Still, if the starting offensive line can stay on the field together, the Rams have a chance to be productive.

Defense – This is where the Rams will either sink or swim, and they are talented almost everywhere, as the offense isn’t good enough yet to carry the team. The front four is young, deep, and aggressive. The Rams had trouble stopping runs between the tackles in 2011, so they drafted Michael Brockers 14th in 2012. They had trouble finding a weakside linebacker in 2012 who could make plays, so they took Alec Ogletree with the 28th pick. Robert Quinn is entering his third year as a speed rushing defensive end, and appears ready to explode as an elite athlete.

The Rams were wretched at cornerback in 2011, so they signed Cortland Finnegan and drafted Janoris Jenkins. Despite a behavioral hiccup by Jenkins in San Francisco last year, the Rams CBs went from weak to strong overnight. The safeties are unproven, and will provide the biggest question mark for what – on paper – appears to be a group capable of making plays. Third round pick T.J. McDonald, Darian Stewart, and Rodney McLeod will have to raise the level of their game to avoid being successfully targeted as the weak link. If Quinn, Chris Long, and Brockers can put enough pressure on opposing quarterbacks, it may not matter.

Seattle Seahawks – 11-5

Schedule – The Seahawks are almost unbeatable at home. Last year, they were 8-0 at Century Link Field. If teams in the West want to keep the Seahawks from running away with the championship, they better hold serve at their place. Their wild card games are at the Giants and at home against the Vikings. Look for Adrian Peterson to run the ball relentlessly in that game, and whether the Seahawks make the playoffs will have a lot to do with those two games. Peterson vs. Lynch could be a battle for the ages.

Offense – Russell Wilson might wind up being the best of the four-man rookie quarterback class of 2012, or maybe he was a flash in the pan. Part Flutie and part gunslinger, Wilson was a statistical beast last season – ranking in the top ten in many categories (passing TDs – 9th, Passer rating 4th, yards per pass – 4th, game winning drives – 3rd, yards per completion – 5th). He throws every ball well, and has mobility combined with size that makes him tough to catch.

First team All-Pro workhorse Marshawn Lynch adds the kind of running game that makes coaches feel pretty good about facing third-and-two. Among all running backs, he was 5th in touches, 6th in touchdowns, 7th in all-purpose yards, and 3rd in rushing yards – averaging just shy of 100 yards per game. The receivers Wilson has to work with are Golden Tate and Sidney Rice. Percy Harvin may miss the season with a surgically repaired labrum. He was expected to bring some life to a return and receiving game that is productively nonelectric.

The offensive line is an uneven bunch that was not upgraded during the offseason. Some guys are good run blockers, while others can pass protect. None do both exceptionally well. There needed to be a chink in the armor somewhere, and as you’ll see, it sure isn’t on the defensive side of the ball.

Defense – Man. Where to even start with this group. They are really good. One weakness last season was the pass rush other than by Chris Clemons. The Seahawks turned to free agency to bring in Cliff Avril and Michael Bennett. The free agency spending was made possible in part by paying an elite quarterback less than $1-million. That helps a ton compared to the giant dollars being made by guys like Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, and even Sam Bradford, who was the #1 overall pick during the last draft where contracts for picks were negotiated without restrictions.

The cornerbacks are deep and excellent. The starting combination of Richard Sherman (eight picks) and Brandon Browner were statistically the best in the NFL, and they added Antoine Winfield to provide depth. The safeties are also top-notch with Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor. The defensive tackles are a concern as Brandon Mebane can be great one game and not so good the next. Alan Branch and Jason Jones are gone, replaced by Tony McDaniel, who is not as good as either. Weakside LB spot with Malcolm Smith is a question mark, but Jeez, you can’t have All-Pros everywhere.

The Seahawks were special at home, and ordinary on the road. As silly as it sounds, travel can wear on a team. It seems illogical to pick the Rams ahead of the Seahawks, but I think Pete Carroll will have trouble beating them. The division will come down to the final game of the season, and I think the Rams will win it.

San Francisco 49ers – 9-7

Schedule – The first five games are brutal, and could see the 49ers with a hill to climb. All but the Rams made the playoffs last year, and that game at St. Louis will be a redux of a loss for the 49ers in 2012. They host the Packers, travel to Seattle, host the Colts, head to the Rams, and finally host Houston. They could be winless after that gauntlet.

Offense – The strength of the 49ers on the offensive side of the ball is in its line, and as long as that group is healthy, they should be able to keep quarterback Colin Kaepernick upright. If Kaepernick gets hurt, the 49ers are looking at a long season, although that’s losing a starting quarterback would be fatal for every decent team in the league. Colt McCoy and Seneca Wallace are not going to keep many defensive coordinators up late.

The running game is Frank Gore running behind Joe Staley, Mike Iupati, Jonathan Goodwin, Alex Boone, and Anthony Davis. Gore turned 30 in May, and that is never a good thing for running backs, especially a guy like Gore with 1,911 career carries behind him. If Gore can be as eerily consistent in 2013 as he was in 2011 and 2012 (1,211 and 1,214 yards rushing respectively), the 49ers will have a chance to remain a dynamic offensive team.

The primary problem with the offense is injury to productive wide receivers. Both Michael Crabtree and Mario Manningham may be lost for the entire season, which would cost the 49ers 127 catches, 1,554 yards, and 10 TDs. That leaves Anquan Boldin and Vernon Davis – both of whom are special. Boldin is going to turn 33 in early October, but his primary weapons are hands and body, not speed.

Defense – Talk about weapons, the 49ers have some. Justin and Aldon Smith, Patrick Willis, NaVorro Bowman, and Ahmad Brooks are dynamic. The secondary could be a problem with Dashon Goldson and Chris Culliver gone. There is a name lurking on the depth chart at safety that could bring real trouble for offenses that are capable of throwing it over the top. Former Giants and Rams safety Craig Dahl is listed right behind Donte Whitner, and he had the best looks at Rams opponents’ touchdowns last season than anyone.

I don’t list special teams on these previews because writing about kickers is normally a waste of time, but in the case of the 49ers, an exception must be made. David Akers was brutal last year kicking field goals beyond 40 yards, making only 9-of-19, and overall only hitting 69%. Akers cost the 49ers two wins against the Rams – one resulted in a tie. If he makes a missed kick in each of those games, the 49ers finish the season 13-3 instead of 11-4-1. Phil Dawson replaces him, and that should represent an upgrade.

Arizona Cardinals – 4-12

It’s easy to overlook the Arizona Cardinals as the fourth best team in this division. New coach. New quarterback. Coming off a season that ended by losing 11-of-12 games. Bruce Arians takes over as head coach, which might be good, and might be bad. B.A. has been an assistant in the NFL for a very long time (began as an NFL assistant in 1989), and was never hired to lead a team until he was asked to keep Chuck Pagano’s seat warm in Indianapolis last season as Pagano battled cancer.

Schedule – They need to survive four of six on the road to start the season – @ Rams, @ Saints, @ Bucs, and @ 49ers, while hosting the Lions and Panthers in weeks two and five. Hard to even fathom a guess as to what might happen in those six as the Cards have so many variables. If they come out of there 4-2, they have a chance to raise a little hell, but it could turn into an extension of how 2012 ended.

Offense – Lots of change, beginning with the hiring of Arians. He likes to throw it deep, and new quarterback Carson Palmer likes to throw it deep. Special receiver Larry Fitzgerald likes to catch deep balls. Can the line keep Palmer clean long enough to get vertical. I was surprised to find that Palmer is only 33. He plays more like 37.

Fitzgerald will turn 30 on August 30th, and while last year saw his stats go into the crapper, his demise was likely the fault of the woefully flawed quarterback situation in Arizona. John Skelton was not nearly ready to inherit the reins from Kevin Kolb when he was lost for the season. In 2011, Fitzgerald was elite with 80 catches for 1,411 and eight TDs. In 2012, 71 catches on 153 touches – exactly the same number as he saw in 2011 (and 2009 for that matter) – but for only 798 yards and four TDs. On the other side, Michael Floyd opens his second year. Whether Floyd is going to take a step forward really isn’t debatable – he will if only because Skelton is no longer throwing to ball in his general direction.

The running game should improve with a hopefully healthy Rashard Mendenhall as the primary back. Arians was the OC for the Steelers as Mendenhall became a very solid back, and he should flourish in Phoenix.

The offensive live of the Cardinals allowed a mindboggling 58 sacks last year, and while that unit should improve – because getting worse is impossible with Pro Football Focus ranking them dead last in the NFL – it’s filled with okay players who hope to become good. A terrible line led to QBs lost, which led to abject failure late in the season.

Defense – The defense was the only reason that last year’s Cardinals weren’t a historically poor team in 2012. Ray Horton’s group had talent and played hard. Unfortunately, when Horton was passed over in favor of Arians for the head coaching position, he bolted for Cleveland. Not sure he gave that a whole lot of thought, or else he doesn’t enjoy golf.

Safeties Adrien Wilson and Kerry Rhodes are gone, and Honey Badger Tyrann Matieu will see some playing time in their stead. Worse, Jerraud Powers is competing to start at cornerback. There is a reason that Powers is no longer in Indianapolis, and it has nothing to do with Powers aversion to the shrimp cocktail at St. Elmo’s. Some of the good is that Calais Campbell is a flat-out beast.

Karlos Dansby and Sam Acho were productive last year, but whether that was a result of Horton’s scheme or their innate talent is TBD.

The more you dig into the Cardinals, the worse they appear to be. There is a lot of hoping going on, and the media, as always, is transfixed by change. If all that was needed to change a loser into a winner was to punt the coaching staff and front office staff, any chimp could do that. Unfortunately, the replacements need to be better at their jobs – not better than those they replace, but of those against whom they compete. Arians needs to be a better head coach than Jim Harbaugh, Jeff Fisher, and Pete Carroll. And new GM Steve Kelm needs to be a better GM than Trent Baalke, Les Snead, and John Schneider. Those are two serious hills to climb.

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Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” Turns 50

by Kent Sterling

Sports is a meritocracy. Good is good. Great is great. And bad is bad. The belief systems of those watching has no bearing upon the analysis of productivity. So sports was always ahead of the curve in race relations.

Long before Dr. King’s milestone prayer that one day his children would be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin, sports was integrated – minus several outposts of ignorance like the University of Kentucky basketball team and other southern athletic programs.

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For a long time, progress in race relations seemed to move at a glacial pace. Regardless of right and wrong, belief systems tend to die rather than consciously evolve, and it’s taken the death of the most virulent racists to move the needle forward. The easily led continue to see people as colors rather than human beings, but with every decade the schism narrows between the enlightened and the ignorant.

There are still small and strange examples of benign racism in sports, like the difficult to otherwise explain robust and vocal love for NBA players like Chris Anderson and Tyler Hansbrough.

Racism lives or dies one moment at a time, and the “I have a dream” was a big moment. The words were delivered with passion, but without anger. There was great opposition to King’s words that seems today to be ridiculous. It was ridiculous then too, but because there was more of it, people who voiced it didn’t sound quite as dumb to one other.

My Dad always explained his lack of racism by saying, “There are plenty of reasons to dislike people before I get to their color or religion.” Like many, he occasionally indulged in jokes that were based in race or religion, but he judged people without any genuine rancor because of surface issues like skin color.

My education about race was rooted in sports. There were no blacks in the town 35 miles north of Chicago where I grew up. Of 5,000 people, there were no blacks. Zero. My exposure to blacks was limited entirely to the Cubs, White Sox, Bears, and Bulls. Ernie Banks and Gale Sayers were heroes. They were the best at what they did, and I wanted to grow up to be just like them. It never occurred to me that all black people weren’t just like Banks and Sayers, or that they were different from my neighbors.

I have never heard my son mention race. It has never been discussed in our house, and thinking about it, that’s kind of odd. He went to a preschool in Chicago that served the children of employees at Illinois Masonic Hospital, and it was a Noah’s Ark of nationalities. There were kids from countries I’ve never heard of in his class. If the UN needed a group of children to discuss global policies, this place would have been perfect.

That’s how racism has been conquered – mostly – through generational attrition and evolutionary enlightenment. It wasn’t that people listened to King and decided, “Well, I can’t argue with that!” But the words stand as a testament to the bravery of a man who spoke an unpopular truth at a time when it needed to be heard. The speech has stood for 50 years as a guidepost for our society as it has emerged from ignorance to wisdom.

Generations have passed, and the idea of prejudice in 2013 seems insane. It seems the product of an evil mind that belongs in a work of fiction. That’s a long road from where the collective mind of America was 50 years ago today, but racism isn’t quite consigned to the dustbin of our history yet. There are still places where color matters, and there are religions that proudly claim that only their members will be allowed in Heaven.

Maybe my son’s kids will have a better handle on that idiocy. Until then, we can celebrate a man who put together words in a magical and divine order that continue to echo in our consciousness and drive our wisdom 50 years later.

Sports teams – particularly baseball and basketball – feature a panoply of nationalities, colors, and religions that represent the diversity of humanity. They are judged by their on-field and on-court work, just as they should be.

That’s the enlightened land where the rest of us are headed, and hopefully it won’t take another 50 years to get there.

Indiana Football – Cheat Sheet for Cheering During the IU vs. Indiana State Game

by Kent Sterling

If IU AD and football coach Kevin Wilson, all these people will have good reason to take their party into Memorial Stadium.

If I recall correctly from my extended stay as a student on Bloomington Campus of Indiana University, the powers that be do not condone cheating. The only class in which I took such liberties was Geology, and that was only because it was a rite of passage at the time.

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For those who will attend the Indiana vs. Indiana State fracas on Thursday, you will likely require the use of a cheat sheet to behave with the uniform enthusiasm for which the athletic department is striving. There will also be some video help, and because there is no way to fail as a football fan, cheating is encouraged.

Because we aim to meet the market demand for such items at kentsterling.com, please feel free to clip and save this invaluable primer:

Yell “Hoosiers” when the ball is kicked off
When the Hoosiers earn a first down, yell “First Down Hoosiers”, and point in the direction they are moving.
The Hoosiers score a touchdown, fans march in place.
On defensive third downs, band plays “Jaws” theme, and does chomp clap.
Defensive stops are now called “tap-outs.” When the Hoosiers earn a tap-out, fans make an X with their forearms.
Be loud in any way when the opponent is running offense in their red-zone.

There are also some statistical thresholds that will earn discounts:

If the Hoosiers score 50+ points, discounts at both Kilroy’s (both Bloomington locations) and Papa John’s
8 or more tap-outs, discount at Kilroy’s
If both – free hotdog at next home football game

A couple of more items to look forward to:

There will be fireworks – exceptionally loud fireworks – during the National Anthem that will be alert tailgaters that there are approximately 15 minutes to get to your seats.
More stats, scores, and replays on the Jumbotron.
New helmet giveaways
Fireworks before the second half kick to alert fans when the game is ready to re-start.

Not too complicated, but a little different, and more fun. Memorial Stadium has never been a den of iniquity for opponents, and hopefully these efforts will help facilitate making it an inhospitable destination for opponents much as many other stadia are.

Getting off to a good start Thursday night and throughout the rest of the first five games – all of which are at home would help build enthusiasm in ways these devices can’t. The goal is to fill the place for games other than Ohio State’s visit, and making the game experience more fun is a great start.

The key will be what happens between the lines.