Rippee Writes: SEC expansion, a medal meaning more to some and injury news
Texas and Oklahoma are officially leaving the Big 12, the impact of Olympic golf on South Koreans and a pair of Ole Miss football injuries
Hope everyone is having a good Tuesday. We have a new podcast out with former Ole Miss recruiting staffer Weldon Rotenburg. We talked NIL, his time working for Matt Luke and (briefly) Lane Kiffin, NIL, some defensive evaluations and more. Check that out here or anywhere you get podcasts. We’re thrilled to welcome Weldon as a regular podcast guest for the 2021 football season. He’ll provide some great insight given that he helped recruit most of this roster, and he will bring an element to the podcast that I cannot provide as it pertains to individual evaluation and some schematic stuff. I am excited to chat with him once or twice a week as the football season gets going.
We’ve got some realignment, Olympics an injury news to get to today.
Texas, Oklahoma officially announce exit
In a joint letter released on Monday, both UT and OU announced their intention to leave the Big 12 upon the expiration of the current Grant of Rights that runs through the 2024-25 athletic seasons.
What a time to be alive. Two bitter rivals issuing joint statements to announce their aligned intention to move on to greener pastures. This isn’t the end of realignment, but rather just the beginning, though it is certainly going to end up being the most consequential piece of this rapidly changing puzzle. One thing that should immediately be noted in the letter and the reporting around this story is that the two schools stating that they intend to see out the end of this current deal is merely public-facing language to avoid being accused of breach of contract. Neither school actually has intentions of letting the Grant of Rights run its course and will likely be members of the SEC by this time next year or shortly after. I was skeptical at how fast all of this would actually move, partly out of ignorance, but it certainly seems that the goal here is to have both the Longhorns and Sooners playing in SEC stadiums next fall if possible. So, there’s that for the rapidly changing landscape of college athletics.
As for Texas A&M, it was reported over the weekend that the University’s Board of Regents would meet to discuss how to proceed with the fact that another school in their state would be joining the SEC.
The horror. This could also be written as such: “The Texas A&M Board of Regents will meet on Monday to change each other’s soiled diapers, soothe hurt feelings and formulate hollow threats.”
Nothing, not even Ross Bjork being eager to tell ‘our side of the story,’ was going to stop this. Snark aside, I don’t really fault Bjork for being publicly against this and putting up the façade that he could successfully fight it. His bosses don’t want it and neither does his fanbase. But again, nothing was ever going to stop this.
Money talks, as I keep repeating over and over again when discussing this story. It talks louder and has more influence than one member institution not wanting its rival to get in on the fun. It trumps geography, perceived competitive balance and the fact that it will work to detriment to other schools in the Big 12. Literally nothing else matters in college athletics other than winning and money — and those two go hand-in-hand more often than not. If you are just now learning this, you were either being willfully ignorant or desire a state of purity in sports that was and will never be feasible.
Embrace it. Most of you are, I know. This will be interesting and fun. It’s not like the current set up was doing Ole Miss and Mississippi State any favors. Plus, maybe Texas A&M-Texas can replace the proverbial clown show on Thanksgiving night the Egg Bowl has become over the last half decade.
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Cohen Trolio finishes runner up at the U.S. Junior Amateur.
West Point, Mississippi, native Cohen Trolio finished runner up at the U.S. Junior Amateur over the weekend at Country Club of North Carolina. This is the largest junior tournament in the world and Trolio held a lead with 10 holes to play in the 36-hole finale, but ran out of gas on the back nine. Trolio is an LSU signee and another rising star coming out of the state of Mississippi. He made it to the semifinals of the 2019 U.S. Amateur — the largest amateur tournament in the world — at the ripe age of 16 and lost to fellow Mississippian Andy Ogletree. Pretty remarkable stuff.
Trolio heads to LSU this fall and will have a monster college career.
Mack, David to miss 2021 season
Ole Miss lost a pair of defensive linemen for the season. Outside linebacker Brandon Mack suffered a Lisfranc injury in his foot in and defensive tackle Sincere David’s injury was not disclosed. While neither are catastrophic blows, it is a hit to the Rebels’ limited depth on the defensive line. Mack was expected to play a fairly significant role this fall, both as an edge rusher and an outside linebacker. David likely would’ve been a backup or potential rotational guy on the interior defensive line.
It’s July, so I hesitate to do the whole next man up thing, but it does add more intrigue to who might find a role behind Sam Williams and Tariqious on the edge. I’d point toward Cedric Johnson, Demon Clowney or Tavius Robinson. As for the interior, junior college transfers Isaiah Iton and Jamond Gordon were already going to be needed, but perhaps more so now. DeSanto Rollins and Patrick Lucas will now likely get more opportunities too. Then there’s true freshman Tywone Malone, I just have no clue how to gauge his potential impact this fall.
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Im, Kim seek military exemption via Olympic medal
Golf returned to the Olympics in 2016 after a hiatus that lasted over a century. The significance winning of a gold, silver or bronze medal in terms of how it stacks up in the game’s hierarchy of accomplishments is still relatively unclear to many.
It’s certainly crystal clear for South Korean players Sungjae Im and Si Woo Kim. South Korea requires two years of military service for all male citizens ages 18-35. For athletes, the only way to be exempt from this is to win an Olympic medal. How’s that for pressure? Im is a phenom in every sense of the word. The 23-year-old finished No. 1 on the Korn Ferry Tour money list. He was still a teenager at the time of his first win on that Tour. He won PGA Tour rookie of the year in 2019 and won the Honda Classic last spring, along with a T-2 finish in the Masters last November.
Kim has three PGA Tour wins, including a Players Championship, at age 26.
Both fear the potentially career-altering consequences of finishing outside the medal slots in these Olympics. Take fellow South Korean player Sang Moon Bae as an example. He won two PGA Tour events in less than 18 months from 2013-14, and looked poised to become one of the best players in the world. Then came his time to serve, and he’s never returned to form. The PGA Tour gave Bae a major medical exemption, but he missed seven of his first eight cuts after returning to pro golf in 2017, never held PGA Tour status for longer than a year and is now 933rd in the world.
Here is a great in-depth look at the story, the pressure and the entire South Korean system as a whole.
Chase Parham and I got paired up with Sungjae in the Pro Am of the 2018 Korn Ferry event in Oxford. He’s easy to root for and I hope this week goes well for both of them, despite the long odds. It’s safe to say this event means more to these than some others, and understandably so.
On the horizon:
SEC opponent preview podcast series continues
Olympic golf coverage, Magnolia State golf update
Mailbag Friday
Football preview content.
That is all from me today. Thanks for reading and for being a loyal subscriber. Send to your friends and tell them to join in on the fun. Back with more soon.