Ramius

You do realize that Christian Ponder has already earned a Bachelors and a master's degree, don't you? He enrolled in a doctoral degree program to maintain his last year of eligibility.

Your argument was that the money given to them was in form of a scholarship. My point was that the scholarship is worthless. There's not enough time for 99.9% of D-I athletes to pursue a rigorous course of studies and spend the necessary amount of time weight training, practicing, etc. I've seen it happen as an undergrad at a school with a D-I hockey team, and i've seen and heard it happen down here. Paying the players is necessary because the NCAA exploits the collegiate player for untold millions, and these guys can't even get $10 to buy a pizza.

Yeah, i dont get that either. I guess its ok to make up outrageous lies about someone else when you're backed into a corner.

Yes. A large number of players simply show up and are the BMOC and expect everything to be done with them. There's also another subset of players who want to study and actually make something of themselves, and find it very difficult to succeed. I've been in the room when the Dean basically told an FSU recruit's handlers that its simply not possible for the kid to be both on the football team and to be able to graduate with an engineering undergrad degree. Football players are essentially limited to choosing from a handful of majors...that is, the ones that actually care about an education. I shouldn't have expected you to understand this, as you are normally incapable of any type of critical thought. So there, i broke it down for you. I'd recommend having someone read the first couple of sentences to you, then perhaps take a nap and regain your strength before you try to wrap your lump of gray matter around the final few sentences.

So Donte was wearing #90 on sunday? Because thats who got burned on 1 of the Lewis TDs last week. #31 got burned on the other one. So apparently he changed to jersey #31 for the second TD allowed? I will commend you on a spectacular display of ignorance however.

How exactly is a starting CB, one who is developing and showing some serious flashes of talent, a "gadget" player? Oh wait, i know this answer. Any 1st round pick that isn't an OL is a "waste" and a "gadget" player.

Thanks for showing complete ignorance on how college"academics" work. The universities reap untold millions from the students, all while making it nearly impossible to play on a D-I team and actually pay enough attention to class to get a worthwhile degree. As for the giant signing bonuses, sure thats great for the 30-40 players that good money from the draft. But what about the other 8,000 D-I football players?

What the hell games are you watching? Ponder and the defense have FSU at 5-1 currently. FSU's defense was ranked 108th last season, and they are ranked in the 20s. The defense has been excellent this season, save the OU debacle.

Colleges should give their "student" athletes 4 years of paid tuition to be used at a future date, when these guys might actually use it to better themselves. 2% of these kids actually give a crap about school and studies. I've had friends work in the academic assistance program for the D-I athletes. It's amazing how many of the guys come in and from the outset, expect the tutors to simply do their homework for them and the like. Also, one new tactic (or maybe not new) that some universities are doing (especially in basketball), is that if Jr. decides to commit to X university, X will then by some magic find a cush $50k per year "job" for Jr's friend, who will funnel that $ directly to Jr.

Before the burn, they had a citrusy flavor. I took some to work and one guy who loves crazy hot stuff teared up when he ate one. I've been using them the past few days in cooking, and they give off a real nice heat in the food. I wouldn't recommend eating them plain. I've got another batch from the same seed pack that were planted a week ago. My jalapeno plant is done so we'll see if this batch comes out at the same heat.

If you are leaving, why are you going to come back and check on people's replies? Are you that attention starved?

Not as big of a "need" position as others, but FSU OG Rodney Hudson is a road grading beast. He's anchored our OL for 3 years. He's also a huge reason why as a team, FSU has 1,000 rushing yards in the last 4 games alone.

To me, it was never about Reggie taking the money. Anyone who's been do a big time D-I school knows whats going on. With the reggie bush scenario, the scumbag NCAA is at fault. It was plain as day what was going on, but they were holding USC to a differnt set of standards due to their perceived "greatness." Make no mistake, if USC went 7-5 back in '06 or '07, the NCAA would have been all over them at that point. They used USC for their own good, and then handed "punishment" down when it became conveinent for them.

Care to enlighten all of us as to where exactly Cutler and McNabb were drafted? Repeating your asinine "aisle 8" QB theory doesn't make it any less idiotic. Outside of the first 35 picks, the chances of getting a franchise QB are astronomically small. Change your screen name, write 10 more paragraphs on the topic, but your argument is baseless and idiotic.

Just like the Jets are doing with Vernon Gholston?

Plenty of first round QBs far failed. However, when you try to rely on QBs from the later rounds, the failure rate is astronomically higher than in round 1. If you want a guy to be a franchise QB, your best bet is to draft one as early as possible. That doesn't mean just take any QB. But if a guy who you think is a "franchise" QB is available, you take him, no questions asked.

I didn't know the Bills held practice after the games.

its George Edwards' fault that we dont have a single LB on this team that can rush the passer or cover a TE?

Bot, do you guys have Ponder going solid round 2, or in that gray area of late round 1/early round 2? (ie picks 20-35)

I got some seeds back in the spring to grow, seeing how these peppers were mild to medium heat. I've never grown these before, but i like peppers and figured a little bit of heat would be nice changeup to go along with sweet peppers. I planted these guys back in march, they grew to about 6-7" tall, and then simply sat there all summer. They stayed green, and looked healthy, just never produced any fruit. Finally they started to grow some peppers about. They are growing small red peppers, about 1-1.5" long. I picked one the other day and tried it, and holy crap, these peppers are hot as hell. My mouth burned for a good 15-20 minutes. And its not just the seeds, the flesh is blazing hot as well. Anyone know if these peppers are naturally that hot? The ones i have growing are tear inducing they burn so bad. Milk and bread do nothing to dull the heat/pain. (They spiced up my chili nicely however) My only other thought is that they were growing right near my jalapeno plant, so perhaps they cross-bred with the jalapeno to grow these ridiculously hot peppers.

Whitner will never live up to the #8 draft spot. But, the guy's been a solid safety this season, and he, along with Kyle Williams, are the only 2 defenders to show up week in and week out, and are the only 2 willing to lay the lumber on anyone. Of course, you can't get any of the mouth breathers here to understand that you can judge a players play without any mention of his draft position. Whitner is in on almost every single defensive play. Yet somehow people think this means he "sucks." There are 8 bigger problems on defense than Donte Whitner.

Funny how the golden boy, jairus Byrd, has looked terrible this season, but everyone seems to blame every completion on Whitner. Whitner was at fault for a few catches today. He got burned on 4 or 5 plays to the TE, but he was wearing jersey #37 on a few of those plays and #31 on the others.

I think he was being sarcastic. The NFL has become a passing league, and you need a passing game to win, but nothing beats a great defense.

Or you have some guys on a bye, and are left with a flex choice of an injured McFadden, Marion Barber, F-Jax, or Manningham.

Wow, you weren't kidding Bart. I took a look at FSU over the last 5 years (the years of suck), and the last 10, which takes us back to the championship game loss to OU. In the last 10 years, FSU is 86-44 overall. When holding an opponent to less than 20, our record is 56-6 over that same time span. Even mroe striking is the "years of suck" analysis. Since 2005, FSU was a sad 38-27, but a remarkable 20-2 when holding an opponent to less than 20 points. Ridiculous. The trend is continuing this season so far, as we're 4-1, and 4-0 in games of less than 20.