[Farm93]

Again, I doubt it had anything to do with the the team Under Stanford Control offense.  Draco Malfoy isn't going to want to spin a soft football, and what the receivers want doesn't matter, they're going to have to catch the rock hard game balls in the NFL too.  Somebody was trying to help the kickers.

But there were like two punts in the whole game and really no FGs!  So helping the kickers would have been an even more ridiculous idea.  Punt the ball 14 yards or 70 yards and it does not matter if the D can't stop the Oregon O.  As the game went on it was clear that going for it on 4th down, which is the norm for Oregon, was going to be the SC game too.

The spin and catch thing has been noted on several sites, so perhaps O-Line snappers want something different than WRs?  There too though it is odd.  There is no doubt that SC has the most gifted WRs in the conference.  Do those guys need a softer ball?

And the benefits must be so marginal.  Why would any manager do this clearly unethical thing on their own to "help" the team?  This is not like watering the field for hours on gameday or letting the grass grow nice and tall where the benefits are clear and a coach could encourage the behavior with a wink.  Here the benefits are marginal, questionable or both.  This seems like an idea that a student manager would not develop or implement on their own.

And therefore, I am still in the same place.

Either Kiffin has no organizational control over his staff (a very bad sign given the probation rationale) or somebody very high up knew of the attempt and is fond of cheating (also a bad sign given Kiffin's personal probation history).

So for me it is not the benefit that is the story, the story is in the attempt given the rule problems of the program and the coach.

In any event, it does make the AP headline from two weeks ago rather amusing.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?sect...id=8564636

Maybe they deflated the balls to match their spirit!  ;)

[Farm93]

Again, I doubt it had anything to do with the the team Under Stanford Control offense.  Draco Malfoy isn't going to want to spin a soft football, and what the receivers want doesn't matter, they're going to have to catch the rock hard game balls in the NFL too.  Somebody was trying to help the kickers.

But there were like two punts in the whole game and really no FGs!  So helping the kickers would have been an even more ridiculous idea.  Punt the ball 14 yards or 70 yards and it does not matter if the D can't stop the Oregon O.  As the game went on it was clear that going for it on 4th down, which is the norm for Oregon, was going to be the SC game too.

The spin and catch thing has been noted on several sites, so perhaps O-Line snappers want something different than WRs?  There too though it is odd.  There is no doubt that SC has the most gifted WRs in the conference.  Do those guys need a softer ball?

And the benefits must be so marginal.  Why would any manager do this clearly unethical thing on their own to "help" the team?  This is not like watering the field for hours on gameday or letting the grass grow nice and tall where the benefits are clear and a coach could encourage the behavior with a wink.  Here the benefits are marginal, questionable or both.  This seems like an idea that a student manager would not develop or implement on their own.

And therefore, I am still in the same place.

Either Kiffin has no organizational control over his staff (a very bad sign given the probation rationale) or somebody very high up knew of the attempt and is fond of cheating (also a bad sign given Kiffin's personal probation history).

So for me it is not the benefit that is the story, the story is in the attempt given the rule problems of the program and the coach.

In any event, it does make the AP headline from two weeks ago rather amusing.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?sect...id=8564636

Maybe they deflated the balls to match their spirit!  ;)