This is going to be a small one, but there is still some Jayhawk-action taking place. Somewhere...
Apparently, the Kansas Athletic Office is afraid of breaking the rules. Instead of putting a little extra money into a new facility, or an extra scholarship for an athlete, they have decided to instead devote it to complying with NCAA rules. Not to say I don't agree with the decision, especially in this day and age it is always key to stay legal and out of trouble, as numerous programs can attest to. Apparently, following our loss of scholarships in both basketball and football and "public black eye" fans are more interested in whether the Jayhawks follow the rules or not. As long as we stay legal, I'm happy.
In news more interesting to the vast majority of fans, three Jayhawks are All-Big 12 material according to media. CB Aqib Talib and DT James McClinton are easy and obvious choices, but OT Anthony Collins also received honors. Collins has been largely overlooked by many of the MSM previews, it is good to see that at least local and semi-local media recognizes his talent. Those 3 selections were the most any team north of Oklahoma, every other North Divison team had 2 or less selections the the First Team. Suckers.
In more team-specific news, the Jayhawks were selected to finish 4th in the Big 12 North this season. Not the 5th many works are slotting us at, but 4th. Honestly, I think 4th is the lowest we can go and I don't think it is unrealistic to see us finish 2nd. My prediction? Well, you're going to have to wait. Let's not get ahead of ourselves, in July it is merely my job to criticize others' opinions, not formulate some of my own ; ).
The excellent Kansas State blog K State CatZone had a post regarding the best of the Big 12. I am a little late to the party, but there are a couple Kansas mentions on there (as there should be) including Crimson and Blue as the 2nd best song in the Big 12 and the Bordeer War between Kansas and Muzzurrah the best rivalry in the Big 12. I'll take it, especially from a Wildcat fan. Even before that, he started a tribute to all of the Big 12 fan bases, including this one about Kansas. While it is naturally biased as always involving analyzation of a rival school, it has some funny parts. Especially regarding tearing down the goalposts, what's up with that? I'm all for excitement and passion at football games, frankly we need a little more of it at football games, but tearing the goalposts down 6 times since 2003? That might be going overboard, and we have now officially reached the point where a win over Muzzurrah does not qualify as tearing-down-goal-post-worthy.
I told you it would be a short one.
ROCK CHALK!