The Good: Blatant Homerism’s excellent Dobbs for Heisman campaign continues with a pair of podcasts. First, he talks to Heisman Pundit writer Chris Huston about the award in general, including Ricky’s chances. In the second podcast, he interviews the man himself.

Adam Nettina conducted his own interview of Huston here.

Speaking of notorious set-asides like Ricky Dobbs, he’s been nominated for the American Football Coaches’ Association Good Works Team. One more black eye for Canoe U.

The Bad: The new NCAA Tournament format, if you ask Billy Lange. And if you were a head coach in the Patriot League looking at a tournament with four auto-bid teams going to play-in games, you’d probably say the same thing. John Feinstein says that while the new 68-team tournament could have been worse, that’s a far cry from saying that it’s better.

The Good Again: Since we’re on the topic of basketball… The Naval Academy doesn’t announce its new class of athletic recruits until after I-Day, since incoming athletes don’t sign LOIs and therefore have nothing binding them to the school until they’re actually enrolled. That means that even though we’re gearing up for football season, we also get our first official look at the new class in every other sport at the same time. Billy Lange talked with the Sun’s Matt Bracken in pretty good detail about Navy’s incoming basketball class and how they’ll fit into the big picture.

The Ugly: This week has served as a reminder as to why athletic departments have compliance directors. It can be really, really easy to commit a violation. Florida and Ole Miss coaches also got a slap on the wrist for writing on recruits’ Facebook walls. Far more serious for Florida, though, are the allegations that Maurkice Pouncey was paid $100K by an agent prior to the Gators’ Sugar Bowl appearance. The NCAA is apparently cracking down in the wake of the USC/Reggie Bush investigation, because Florida isn’t alone; similar stories are coming out of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Alabama. For the record, Pouncey says that he received no such payment.

I usually have no problem reveling in the DAMN DIRTY CHEATING SEC talk that usually follows such stories, but it’s hard to point fingers at these schools when agents are essentially predators hunting their players. You can educate your players, but those lessons can be hard for them to remember when someone is waving thousands of dollars in their faces.

The Case Study: Vanderbilt head coach Bobby Johnson stepped down after 8 years in Nashville. For spread option fans, Johnson is an interesting case study. No coach has faced Paul Johnson’s offense more. Not only is Bobby the only head coach to have faced Paul at Georgia Southern, Navy, and Georgia Tech, but they also squared off as coordinators in the 1985 I-AA title game. There will probably be a blog post on this in the future.

The Poetry: You all know of my fondness for haiku.

The Industry: I’m fascinated by the newspaper industry. I enjoy getting glimpses into how the news world works. Knowing how things operate leads to more educated criticism, which helps if you want your lousy blogger opinion to be taken serously by anyone. HAHA WHO AM I KIDDING WE DON’T CARE IF WE’RE INFORMED THIS IS THE INTERNET. There were a pair of boomshakalaka haymakers thrown this week. First, we have Pete Pelegrin’s parting shot as he left the Miami Herald and the FIU sports beat. Then there was Jason Whitlock’s piledriver on Mitch Albom and the newspaper industry in general, which I hesitate to link because I’m pretty sure half my readers like Mitch Albom. My willingness to alienate all of you is second only to my work ethic when it comes to reasons why I will never be paid to write this blog.

The Air Farce: Pre-Snap Read looks at Team Jesus Christ in his countdown.

The Chargers: As much as I want to believe this study on Petco Park’s economic benefits, the critics make some good points.

The iPod: Liz Phair– May Queen

The Padres: Having swept them to start the second half of the season, the Arizona Diamondbacks are the cure for what ails you. Unless you sneeze.