Charlie Kelly's News and Notes

It's a great day to be alive! Tonight is the season premier of my favorite show on T.V., It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. And to honor that I am going to give my 5 favorite quotes from my favorite character on the show: Charlie Kelly.

• "Here's a confession. I'm in love with a man...a man named God. Does that make me gay? Gay for God? You betcha!"


• "All right, later dudes! S you in your A's, don't wear a C, and J all over your B's."


• "Cannibalism? Racism? Dude, that's not for us. That's best left to the suits in Washington. We're just here to eat some dude."


• "Yes, my good man, I'll have the milk steak boiled over hard, and your finest jelly beans...raw."


• "I'm gonna rise up, I'm gonna kick a little a**, I'm gonna kick some a** in the USA, gonna climb a mountain, gonna sew a flag, gonna fly on an eagle. I'm gonna kick some but, I'm gonna drive a big truck, I'm gonna rule this world, I'm gonna kick some a**, I'm gonna rise up, I'm gonna kick a little a**. ROCK, FLAG and EAGLE!

AWWWWWW YEEAAAAHHH! On to the sporting news:

• More good news on Kanter per KSR. Jeff Goodman was on the radio show and there is a chance that the Turkish documents were falsified. Suck it Turkey.


• The Rays took 2 out of 3 games in an important series against the Yanks. A). It's cool b/c someone else other than the Yankees has a chance to win the division; B). It sucks because the Yanks will still win the Wild Card; C). The Red Sox are out so I really don't care.


• Kevin Kolb failed his concussion test. Those of you that have Vick on your fantasy team need to go ahead and start him. The Eagles play the Lions.


• Darrell Revis called Randy Moss a slouch. I respect Revis' game. A lot. But he just ticked off the wrong guy. Moss gets 2 TD's Sunday. Pats by 20.


• The Heisman committee leaves Reggie Bush's Heisman spot vacated. Vince Young will not get the award. This is fair because Reggie Bush really was the best player that year.

That's all for now. Enjoy the show tonight. I will have full break downs of this weekend's Kentucky and Louisville football games. Keep it real.

Kanter to be Eligible?

The anti-Pete Thamel could the bearer of good news for UK.

Last night it was reported that Enes Kanter has been granted a waiver by the NCAA to continue practicing with Kentucky. Jon Rothstein is a college basketball insider and he works for MSG Network. He also has written about college basketball of CBSSPORTS.com. Rothstein tweeted this statement when asked about Enes Kanter's eligibility status: "Hearing he will be cleared."

Then another Wildcat fan asked him how good his sources are and he then tweeted: "Strong...rest easy Big Blue Nation." Follow him on Twitter.

If this is true then words will not be able to describe my happiness and relief. Until then we still play the waiting game.

Free Enes!

The Istanbull Has Life

While the NCAA is still reviewing Kanter's eligibility status he has been granted a waiver to continue practicing with the team. The NCAA rules state that a player can only practice 45 days while they look into an eligibility case. After the 45 days, if the case is not resolved, the player is no longer allowed to practice with the team.

Kanter's 45 day period is gone but the NCAA has granted him a waiver to continue practicing with the team. What does this mean? Hard to say. I don't want to get too optimistic but it gives me hope. They are at least being thorough with this issue and giving the kid the benefit of the doubt for now instead of relying on Pete Thamel's "reporting". We will see sooner or later if The Instanbull will be wearing the blue.

Bledsoe Talk- Every body's favorite sports talk television program discussed Bledsoe, Cal and the NCAA today. Mike Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser from PTI said what many have been saying, including myself, if there is blame to be laid it is on the NCAA Clearinghouse and the high school that Bledsoe attended. Damn straight.

Athlon Yearbook Predictions

Probably the greatest yearbook picture ever.

Rick Bozich blogged the predictions for the postseason for Kenctucky, Louisville and IU basketball according to the good people of Athlon Sports. What did they predict? UK: Sweet Sixteen; Louisville: NIT; IU: NIT.

The question I have is whether or not the predictions were made based on UK with Enes Kanter or without Enes Kanter. With Kanter I say Final Four. Without him I think Sweet Sixteen. I also agree with both predictions for IU and Louisville. Although I can also see Louisville missing the NIT with this team. They will be horrible.

Still no final word on Gorgui Dieng. I am guessing the Card Chronicle's Mike Rutherford effed up royally by saying that Dieng was ruled ineligible. I think Dieng will be seeing the court this for the Cards.

Update: The Card Chronicle is also reporting, accurate or not, that Louisville QB Dominique Brown is practicing with the wide receivers. This tells me 2 things: A). Adam Froman has "solidified" his starting job and B). Louisville is looking for Brown to be their Cobbesque type guy. Good Luck. There is Only One Randall Cobb.

Eric Bledsoe Links of the Day!

The fallout from Eric Bledsoe is in the future or it might not exist at all but some UK fans may be feeling like the heat has been intense with stories of Bledsoe, Enes Kanter and Anthony Davis. And where does it all stem? Some may say John Calipari is the reason for the heat but John Clay from the Lexington Herald Leader wrote an article that highlights problems that other universities are having that are far more serious. Examples? Of Course!

• Steve Spurier at South Carolina


• Butch Davs at North Carolina


• Urban Meyer at Florida


• Bruce Pearl at Tennessee


• Nick Saban at Alabama


• USC


• Josh Selby at Kansas

Ok, some of those are not mentioned in the article but they are great examples of what all college coaches go through. The article also goes on to talk about Darrell Arthur at Kansas, where the exact same thing happened and Kansas did not face any penalties. It's a great read. I suggest you check it out.

Other Bledsoe related links: The role of the NCAA eligibility center and the joke that it is; the NCAA cleared Bledsoe, therefore UK went forward with his enrollment; Reginald McDaniel, Bledsoe's lawyer, says that Bledsoe will be vindicated soon.

That's about all I have for now. Keep checking back for more updates on this and other interesting UK and non-UK related sporting news. Free Enes.

Bledsogate and the NCAA

The report on Eric Bledsoe's grades from an independent investigation has been released. It appears that there is a mysterious discrepancy in a night class that he took for an Algebra 3 course. His high school transcripts showed that he received an A average in the class but the grade report from the night school showed that he had a C average. If he made anything less than an A in that class he would not have been eligible to play Division I college basketball. A few things to look at here:

1. The NCAA Cleared Him- The NCAA investigated Eric Bledsoe's academic standings twice and declared him eligible. They checked his grades with the Alabama High School Athletic Association and found nothing wrong. If there was a problem and the NCAA did not catch it, wouldn't one think that the mistake would be on them and not the school that they attended? If the NCAA tells colleges across America that a student-athlete is ok to play basketball and the student athlete attends school, then the NCAA retroactively says, "No, we made a mistake, he wasn't eligible," then the University should not have to be punished.


2. This was going on Before He was a Wildcat- The UK haters will be coming out in droves. The fact is that all of this was going on while Bledsoe was being recruited by a number of schools including Florida, the Gold Standard that is Duke, Memphis as well as Kentucky. This all started his Junior year when he transferred from Hayes High School to Parker High School when he was not even being recruited by Kentucky. None of these schools backed off of Bledsoe even though they new that he was being investigated. His final choice came between Florida and Kentucky. He chose Kentucky. Again, he was cleared by the NCAA twice so there was no reason for a school to not recruit him. Of course you will have people fantasizing that John Calipari himself forged documents, sorry but that is just not true.


3. Bledsoe took Algebra 3 before he took Algebra 2- For some reason Bledsoe was allowed to take Algebra 3 before Algebra 2. He was also allowed to take a BYU independent study course to improve a D he got in Biology which the NCAA later outlawed after Bledsoe had already done it. Michael Ohr did this as well when he was in high school. It seemed that Bledsoe's high schools dropped the ball as well.


4. He was Never Ineligible- He was eligible to play basketball every year that he was in high school. His grades were always good enough for him to be on the court and he never missed a game because of grades. That being said, it doesn't mean that there was something fishy going on the entire time. Having read books like Friday Night Lights I have come to realize that elite athletes are treated differently in high school than other students. Teachers, coaches and administrators seem to look in the other direction if a star athlete is less than stellar in the classroom.

What will be the fallout from this? At this point it is unclear. This was not an NCAA investigation so it is not known whether or not the NCAA will take any action from this point forward. Something tells me that this is not over by a long shot.

However, when is the NCAA going to start taking responsibility of itself on these issues? This is not like Bledsoe was cheating while at UK or taking money from agents with the help of UK. This was happening pre-college. The Universitys know only what the NCAA and the high school transcripts tell them and then they go from there when accepting students to their program.

This is all very confusing at this point and there are still a number of questions to be answered but the bottom line is this: there is not enough money in the world that I would accept to be an NCAA coach. The NCAA is one of the most dishonest, shoddy, and wish-washy businesses in the country. And yes, it is a business. The NCAA makes millions of dollars a year at the expense of students athletes that get little to nothing in return. The rules change daily and the rule book that the NCAA adheres to seems to be edited if the situations determines it.

Update: This has happened before. Former Kansas star Darrell Arthur was found to be ineligible after high school due to his grades being changed. His high school was punished but Kansas' 2006 championship team was not punished. The NCAA said that Kansas had no knowledge of any wrong doing previous to him coming to Kansas. No transgressions were committed at Kansas, therefore no punishment for Kansas. I am hoping that the same will happen with UK.

Ravens to Jets: Shut Up

I had no idea that Fat Bastard from Austin Powers coached the Jets.

There was so much preseason hype around the New York Jets you would think that they were the New York Yankees, even though the last time (and the only time) they won a world championship was 1969. You could've fooled the talking heads. Everyone was following the Big Fat Pied Piper that is Rex Ryan. He rivals Flava Flave as the all time greatest hype man. The defense was supposed to be staunch, the run game was supposed to be potent and Mark Sanchez was supposed to break out.

Well, one out of three isn't bad. The defense for the Jets was everything it was supposed to be, the Ravens only scored 10 points, but it bent just enough in the end because the Jets offense was terrible and couldn't stay on the field. The D was tired and it showed by the Ravens grinding it out on the ground with Ray Rice and Willis MacGahee. The Jets were also committing tired penalties against the Ravens receivers.

Joe Flacco had a so-so game. He fumbled and threw an interception but threw for 248 yards, 110 of them to his new best friend Anquon Boldin. T.J. Hoshebfjebnub also had a good game by drawing penalties toward him by outrunning the Jet's DB's. The only thing they could do to slow him down was grab a handful of jersey.

And then there was the Sanchize. I can't believe how awful he was. 78 yards passing. That was it. Ray Lewis and company were all over the Sanchize all night long. He couldn't breath and aside from a few LT runs, the whole offense looked like the University of Louisville's. Shon Green fumbled twice and couldn't catch a pass.

Hopefully now everyone will quit talking about the Jets going to Dallas. I can't believe that people actually bought into blowhard Rex Ryan. They backed into the playoffs by beating a Colts team that basically forfeited and a Bengals team that had clinched the division and was resting their starters. They stunk last year and they stink now. I hope the Patriots beat them by 30 next week.

Whatever criticism the Jets get they deserve it. From HBO's Hard Knocks to their silly proclamations, they put a Super Bowl sized target on their backs and they will pay for it. You can't run your gums about being champs if you aren't the champs. I believe Drew Brees and the Saints have a little something to teach the Jets about how to win with humility.