15 years ago today, LSU beat Alabama for the National Championship
The MLB draft is over and it wasn't too big of a hit on LSU this year. Of the current players drafted, aside from Kevin Guasman, only closer Nick Goody appears to be a risk to leave early. Raph Rhymes, drafted by the Yankees in the 30th round, has already confirmed that he'll be coming back next season. As for the signees, the top names in the class are probably gone as you might expect, but a few gems like Alex Bregman will be making it to campus. Saturday Night Slant has an excellent breakdown of the entire class and a projected starting lineup for next season that I tend to agree with.
The MLB draft as a whole was an odd one by most experts accounts, with the new signing rules causing a run on college seniors in the later rounds due to their lack of leverage at the bargaining table, which had the double bonus effect of getting college seniors signed and leaving many high school recruits untouched and available for college teams. The best high school talents still go straight to the pros, but there is a much larger and better talent pool left over for college teams to build their rosters from, which will be a benefit to the college game in the long run. Baseball America has a great explanation of the specifics behind this.
One last note i'd like to make on the draft. It is unbelievable to me how low Rhymes went. We're talking about a player who went .458 in conference play in an SEC that had 16 pitchers drafted in the first 15 rounds. I'm glad that scouts think so low of him that we get him back for another season, but I wonder what else could he do to get his name higher next year?
There have been two odd attrition news bits from the LSU football team over the last few days. First CB Ronnie Vinson, who was originally transferring to SELA, is now headed for Tennessee St. And just yesterday Soph S Sam Gibson transferred to Arkansas St. No reason has been given for either
While the the LSU System is still in flux, there are contract adjustments that need to be made. Nearly every FB assistant is getting an adjustment of some kind, including DC John Chavis hitting the million dollar mark next season and a substantial pay cut for Kragthorpe, who will now permanently move to the QB coaching position, with Studrawa as the OC. Also in the list is the contract for new head basketball coach Johnny Jones which will run through 2017.
Jones's staff is in a bit of flux after the sudden resignation of Asst. Shawn Forrest. While LSU's release on the matter cites the cryptic "personal reasons", WBRZ did some digging and found that he may have faked his Master's degree from Troy. Also on the basketball front, LSU has drawn Seton Hall at home in the SEC/BigEast challenge in a game that will be the Thursday before the SEC Football championship. The SEC also announced that in the new division-less basketball format, Texas A&M will become our only permanent opponent.
The death scourge of Shreveport in December has returned, as the SEC has signed a new deal that sends the 10th bowl team to the Independence Bowl v ACC.
Everyone went crazy about CBS's announcement that the LSU Bama game will be at night, but it should have been no surprise. AD Alleva told us all about this change when it was first announced....last October. Meanwhile, Jackie Sherrill seems to think that LSU/Texas A&M will be moved to Thanksgiving night. It's an idea i'm not entirely opposed to, but I'd wait until someone who is actually employed by a member of the SEC says something about it before making plans.
One small rule change from the SEC meetings last week that has been lost in the shuffle is that schools are now allowed to host recruits at off-campus games (it should be noted that this was an SEC restriction, not an NCAA one) which has Arkansas fans happy that War Memorial Stadium will no longer be such a recruiting hindrance.
We won't get started with in-depth football coverage until baseball's season is done, but TeamSpeedKills is already going full bore previewing the entire conference.
It's a very Ole Miss type of thing to say, but even though the softball team did not win the World Series, they still won the tailgate.
Our SB Nation friends at STL's Turf Show Times have a long and excellent film breakdown of Michael Brockers and what they think he'll be able to bring to the Rams.
Have $1.25 million lying around and looking for a slightly used LearJet? LSU's is for sale (PDF Link)
Tulane's fight for a home stadium continues next week when the planning commission meets to decided if it should get involved in the matter of re-zoning the uptown neighborhood to prevent the construction.
While the SEC has imminent plans for a conference network, there are lessons to be learned from it's failed predecessors. This post-mortem on the Mtn., the MWC network that never really took off, may not be entirely applicable to the SEC's case, but it is a fascinating read nonetheless.
Player and Team ratings in NCAA 13 are starting to leak out, I'll be doing a full breakdown of the roster at some point in the near future. You should also be aware that the demo for the game is out right now and features Bama @ LSU as a playable matchup this year.