Friday, It's So Fetch! Vol. 41

What's really good folks?! Been a slow week here at ITB but we'll explain all that as we get into the Fetch. Right now I must remind you people that St. Patrick's Day is tomorrow. That means beer and by beer we mean the official beer of St. Patrick's Day; Guinness. Unless you've been living under a rock you oughta know that we've got a little contest running with Guinness to help them while we also help ourselves for SPD2k12. Oh and SPD2k12 means St. Patrick's Day 2012 for all you non-hip folks.

Head over to Guinness.com and then enter your age, first name, THE PROMO CODE "BLEA" (so they know I sent you) and you'll be all set to help Guinness set a record and give myself and yourself a shot at a trip to Ireland later on this year. Go, do that and you will make SPD2k12 just that much better come Saturday.

In other news let's go ahead and get into the fetch:


A littlle Bob on a Friday that is set to be another gorgeous Carolina day, yes that is even including the thunderstorms that are coming. Alright folks we've got a housekeeping issue coming up after the jump then some thoughts on NCAA drug testing policies.

So, if you haven't noticed things have been a bit slow this week at In The Bleachers and the podcast has been off the radar for going on two months. Well that reason got revealed this week as you oughta know that your fearless leader is now manning a new job. I'm now a national college football blogger for Bleacher Report, part of the gang running the Your Best 11 blog over there. It was a great opportunity for me; get paid cash moneys to write about college football while the team they're assembling really pushes to move B/R up a few notches into the sports fans' mind.

A win for me and while I am doing a lot of short things there will still be plenty of Michael Felder thoughts and opinion sprinkled into the reads everyday. As for ITB, we're getting rolling again folks but with a bit of a different schedule. We're going to hammer out at least three posts a week; some long form stuff on Monday, the return of the podcast on Wednesdays and then obviously we'll keep Fetch Friday rolling, duh. So don't worry ITB isn't going anywhere. Fetch Friday isn't going anywhere. The ITB Podcast and Slate of Eight aren't going anywhere. Also, I'll still be contributing in spots on Crystal Ball run.

Don't be afeared to run by B/R and check me out. Here's my first spot for them, a bit of an introduction but you can find me at #YB11 where you'll click my beautiful face, the one that makes ladies swoon, and you'll be all over everything that I'm doing. Writing all day folks. But also watching a ton of television because you know I'm really about that TV swag. Thanks to all the support and I hope it continues, the twitter as you all have noticed this week, aside form the articles pumping out, is still filled with odd television discussion including learning that Golden Girls comes on at noon on WE. Who knew?!

Now to hit on one of our favorite topics of discussion ever sense the TCU news broke, the school drug test. Our guy John Infante of Bylaw Blog fame dropped this earlier in the week in reaction to the Syracuse situation. Basically John let's us know that it is pretty simple why the school's drug test, because the NCAA wants them to. If the NCAA sees that a school is not drug testing then they are more apt to come to campus. If they show up and a school has no clue what their players are up to, substance-wise, these guys can absolutely get blindsided with some harsh penalties.

He's right about that. The smart question for fans shouldn't be about why they drug test or have a policy in place. No the smart question, especially in Syracuse's case, is why the heck they keep drug testing kids who they know will fail. Add that in to the more general question of why schools write dickish drug policies that they don't really have designs on sticking to.

Let me put it this way; coaches aren't stupid. They have a pretty solid idea of which of their kids enjoy the smoke or the blow or going out drinking a lot. Strength coaches are largely muscleheads, they know what steroids do to people. They understand the standard human edification process and when it becomes accelerated. These dudes aren't dumb.

You talk to college football teams and you'll realize how often walk-ons and straight laced guys are targeted by drug tests as compared to others. It isn't a mystery; maybe once a year or every few years you'll have a full team test but beyond that you're looking at a third to a quarter of the roster being tested every few months or so.

So to wrap up, a couple different things; if you're going to play by your own rules then that's great and fine. If you're not going to play by your own rules first and foremost don't write them so damn strict. Sure it looks good in your handbook but ultimately it doesn't do much good if you're just going to grease the wheels to let kids play.