Message Board Thread of the Day

It's been a long time since there's been a Message Board Thread of the Day, but this one is priceless.

This is a post from SixPackSpeak.com, a Mississippi State fan board. The post describes a Bulldog fan's trip to Morgantown, West Virginia. MSU got whipped in their trip to the Mountain State last weekend.

LSU fans, please forgive me...

According to this poster, it's pretty bad when a place makes LSU look like Buckingham Palace.

MySpace Sports

This is interesting: MySpace and Scout Are Getting Married

I wrote last week about the meltdown of the network known as Scout.com. Apparently, they are in the process of merging with Myspace.com. Both entities are owned by the News Corporation, owner of the Fox network.

I have a MySpace account. I don't do much with it, and I don't go there that often. I do get many random friend requests there from twenty-something young women, often looking for love in all the wrong places. It is obviously spam, as my wife is in my profile picture with me. They definitely don't know me. I put the "Deny" button to good use in those cases.

This is synergy with Fox attitude. Now, I can go to a site for my favorite team, or for a team I don't even care about, and receive friend requests from random women all over the world. That's what the Internet is all about. Yeah, right. Fox can laugh all the way to the bank, if Scout doesn't blow up first.

Actually, the comment from the great Brian Bishop, publisher of OU Insider, is more accurate: "Imagine that -- you'll now be crossing paths with your fourth grader as you visit your favorite team site. That's not exactly the affiliation we wanted when we signed on with Scout."

Once again, if you're an OU fan, and you're looking for the best independent source for OU information, go to OU Insider.

Declaration of Independence

A big change was made today at my favorite college message board, OUInsider.com. The site has been part of the Scout.com network, until today, when the publishers of OU Insider reached the end of their contract with Scout, and broke away from Scout. There was much rejoicing in the Sooner Nation.

Scout.com and Rivals.com are networks of independent websites and magazines, providing premium recruiting content, and both pay and free message boards. Rivals is primarily a college site, while Scout is a network of both college and pro sites, dominated by college ones. Independent publishers partner with Scout to provide content, while Scout hosts the website and message boards. Scout also publishes fan magazines for many schools. Scout is now owned by Fox Interactive Media.

The Scout network has taken some major hits this year. Three of their most popular sites have declared their independence and have broken away from Scout, for various reasons. The leading sites for Ohio State (Bucknuts), Florida (Gator Country), and Oklahoma (OUInsider) have all broken away from Scout, and none have departed on good terms. The USC fan site, WeAreSC.com, has announced their departure. Word is that sites for Stanford and Texas are soon to follow. There have been differences of opinion on content for each of the sites, as the publishers did not experience the freedom they desired for each of their sites. Furthermore, Scout moved all their sites away from the popular EZboards platform, to their own message board software. This was met with anger from the masses. Currently, the leading site left on Scout is InsideCarolina.com, a North Carolina fan site.

This is a bitter divorce, and Gator Country, Bucknuts, The Bootleg (Stanford), OUInsider, and Inside Texas are now party to a lawsuit against Scout, due to disagreements over the terms and length of contracts, unpaid advertising monies, and major customer service issues. Scout is in danger of losing a large portion of their subscriber base. Ohio State, Florida, USC, and OU represent four of the last seven national football champions.

I applaud today's move by OUInsider. I lurk there every day, but rarely post. I have found a lot of independent sites that I find superior to a lot of what is found on the Scout and Rivals networks. This is purely a matter of opinion, because I don't subscribe to recruiting information, and only peruse message boards. Some good independent sites belong to schools such as TCU (KillerFrogs.com), Baylor (BaylorFans.com), Texas A&M (Texags.com), Nebraska (Huskerpedia.com), Arkansas (Hogville.net), and Virginia Tech (TechSideline.com).

Good luck to the new OUInsider.com!

Message Board Threads Of The Day

Any site associated with Virginia Tech is being flooded with traffic today.

Tech Sideline is the largest VT site, and is not affiliated with the Rivals or Scout networks. It has crashed at least once today, and has become a large gathering place for Hokies.

The VT Rivals and Scout sites are smaller, but are drawing a record amount of traffic today. The Hokie Rivals board has already had over 2000 posts of condolence from fans of other schools.

An incredible mix of order and expression occurs during such a time as this. Fans of lots of different schools will have their own individual thread, as if they all migrated from their home board at one time. As I write, the VT Rivals site is stacked with condolence threads, mostly saying "Prayers from (your school here)".

Hokie Haven (Rivals)

VT Insider (Scout)

The Lounge (off-sports topic board) at Techsideline.com

Message Board Thread Of The Day

Out at USC, hip-hop star Romeo (formerly Lil' Romeo) has committed to play basketball for the Trojans, beginning in 2008. His father, Master P, tried for years to make an NBA roster, to no avail. Romeo has a friend, DeMar DeRozan, who is a highly recruited shooting guard prospect. It is rumored that USC is letting Romeo play for the Trojans in order to entice his best friend, DeRozan, to play for the Trojans.

USC is a football school. However, North Carolina is a basketball school, so there is lots of traffic on their basketball board at Inside Carolina.com. Their fans have some interesting comments on this situation here:

Romeo to USC

Here's a great post from the thread:

Come on, man. You can't be serious. With this news on Lil Romeo, USC is quickly becoming a joke and a circus. (O.J.) Mayo lets his "friend" do his business deals with Floyd. I wonder how much Master P is going to be involved with Floyd? Maybe Floyd can get a record deal next? What's next for USC? Jay-Z as an assistant manager? Tattoo artist sitting on the bench during the games? Drinking Gatorade out of a pimp cup? Maybe Floyd will let them skip practice so they can do movies?.....

USC is attempting to become "Showtime". There was only one "Showtime": the Lakers.

Here is the USC take on the situation: WeAreSC.com

Message Board Thread of the Day

Actually, it's an entire message board.

The TCU site at Rivals.com is lightly visited. The message boards there get very little traffic, as the best TCU internet coverage and discussion is at www.killerfrogs.com.

The TCU basketball program has been mediocre at best in the last few years. Thus, bad basketball team + little fan interest + lightly visited site = dead message board. Enter the Big Blue Nation.

Kentucky fans have taken over the TCU board at rivals.com. This is priceless:

Kentucky Horned Frogs

Strange things happen when you have basketball fans from a basketball school take over the hoops board of a football school.

I spent 14 years in Fort Worth. I like TCU. I have several friends that went there. But, this is funny.

In spite of all that, Go Frogs!

(special thanks to Truzenzuzex at A Sea Of Blue for the mention in the blog today..)

Update, 10:10 pm CDT: Thanks to the guys at The Cats' Pause, this blog experienced a record day of traffic. With two hours left in the day, this blog has had 1,550 visits. This is a record, breaking the record set by Arkansas fans in January when I posted the email sent by a friend of Hog football coach Houston Nutt to QB Mitch Mustain. The Big Blue Nation has been a lot of fun today. Thank you, Kentucky!

Message Board Thread of the Day

In Kentucky, Big Blue Nation is still abuzz with the hiring of the program's latest high priest, Billy Clyde Gillispie. However, that is not the only change in the Kentucky athletic department.

Catspause.com currently has a two page thread on the athletic director's reassignment of the longtime secretary in the basketball office.

Basketball Secretary Reassigned

This is probably good for her. She wouldn't want to try to keep up with a coach that calls up players at 3 A.M. just to chat, and that sends 8,000 text messages per month.

Only in Kentucky would it be a big deal for an athletic department secretary to be reassigned.

Message Board Thread of the Day

Something I spend way too much time doing is reading internet message boards. The Internet has produced a new type of armchair fan. The Web has provided a place where people can go, anonymously, and post their feelings (and schtick) among people of like mind (or of unlike mind). Anybody with a screen name and a password can say whatever they want to, whether it makes sense or not, and whether it makes them look smart or not. Some people look really wise on the Internet. Others look really foolish.

I am entertained by reading the message boards of different universities. I read them more than I should. I get a lot of information from them, as do legitimate journalists. A lot of what is said in these forums turns out to be true. Just like you can't believe everything you hear, you can't believe everything you read on the Internet. However, many of these Internet communities do a good job of keeping fellow posters accountable for truth.

From time to time, I am going to post a thread from an Internet message board that I find interesting. Sometimes, it will be informative. Other times, it will be entertaining. Coaches hate message boards, and the rumors that they can sometimes produce, as well as the pressure they can create. I like them. I enjoy reading them.

Billy Gillispie left Texas A&M for Kentucky last week. According to some, he was looking for a place to go as early as last year. Some are saying that he had agreed to take the Arkansas job, before he decided to wait on Kentucky. There are those that are saying that Frank Broyles was so sure Gillispie was going to Arkansas, that he had made plans in February to fire coach Stan Heath at the end of the season. Once Billy G turned down Arkansas, the Hogs were looking bad. According to others, Gillispie was playing Arkansas and Texas A&M off of each other, while pushing for the Kentucky job all along.

There are two threads from Texags.com that are enlightening. One discusses a blog entry from this morning by the Houston Chronicle's John P. Lopez. Lopez takes the side of Gillispie in this mess.

Texags on Lopez Blog

Another Texags thread is by a poster with the handle of "Ball Gravy". He throws Gillispie under the bus over the weekend with some of the first information on Gillispie's flirtation with Arkansas. Apparently, Ball Gravy has a source in the athletic department. The thread was locked for a time, then was reopened as the allegations appeared more true.

Ball Gravy on Gillispie and Arkansas

Where there's a soap opera, there you will find Arkansas in the middle of it. Actually, this one belongs more to the Aggies.