Friday, It's So Fetch! Vol. 11

Hell of week here at the site so be sure to go check out everything and get yourself caught up folks. To kick off yet another Fetch Friday we've got a podcast after giving you a break last week. That's right the fine folks over at ESPN 99.9 in Raleighwood were kind enough to have me on again. Adam Gold and I discuss the Georgia Tech findings briefly before we get right into the heart of the matter; the judge's ruling against Michael McAdoo by not granting the injunction that would allow him to finish his career at North Carolina.

And FYI I also get into a bit of what really just stuck in my craw about the investigation and the way the administration handled things. Sheds some light on the different thoughts that a guy like myself and Marvin Austin had as we saw McAdoo lose his last chance to play football at UNC. If the green button doesn't tickle your fancy then click here to download.



So now, on to the fetch.



Sunday our Women's National Team has got a shot to get their first World Cup championship since the 1999 epic PK victory over China that exploded women's soccer on to the map. We're going to be playing Japan, they're talented technicians, which makes them the polar opposite of the last three teams that we've played.

Sweden, Brazil and France were all flash and dash, great on offense, haphazard in the back end with players that can make you pay if you get lazy on defense. Japan is surgical and calculated. It isn't a bad match up for us, we're physically bigger, faster and stronger it will just be a matter of us controlling the ball for longer stretches than we have recently.

Oh, and we have Hope Solo.

Go Heels. Go America.

And we'll close with something that is a bit sobering and mighty infuriating. ESPN has decided to indefinitely suspend their senior college football writer, Bruce Feldman. As Brooks discusses in the article the suspension is thought to be over the new Mike Leach book, Swing Your Sword, which Bruce helped Leach write. It sucks. No better way to say it than this absolutely blows on so many levels.

 

First and foremost, for my money Bruce Feldman is the best college football writer. Period. He's damn sure the best that ESPN has between their website and the magazine. He is the guy that gives the WWL instant credibility and is someone who, regardless of platform or agenda, we all universally respect.

Secondly he's just a great guy. A guy that returns his emails to me when I ask him questions. A guy that doesn't mind doing a podcast when you ask him to come on. A guy that will send you a direct message when he likes something that you said and asks how you're doing.

This all stinks. I'm not hopping on the "Fire Craig James" bandwagon because quite honestly I do not care about Craig James. I'm pissed off at the decision ESPN made. They made the decision, not Craig James. They sat in the meeting and decided that they were going to align themselves with one side during a news story. They sat in the meeting and decided that they were going to keep pushing this ridiculous agenda when Leach's book debuted.

They made the call and suspended my favorite sportswriter.

I'm pissed. This is something that, for people like us, the college football fan, is going to be a big deal until they either take the shackles of Feldman or he goes elsewhere but for ESPN it will largely be business as usual. They deal so heavily in the casual fan that I doubt they care much about our voice. Joe Casual Fan who uses ESPN.com for his "source" of information it going to keep the WWL as his homepage and he'll keep hitting refresh all day to feed at the trough of what they tell him is news.

In all this chaos there is one thing that does stand out, one thing that does make me appreciate all the readers and our college football community; we know who is good. We support out local beat guys that grind for us and we know which guys are just tossing stuff out there and who is truly plugged into happenings of the landscape. We'll keep fighting with the #FreeBruce and hopefully ESPN will realize they're screwing up the best college football thing they have.

Oh and if you've got ESPN Insider/Mag call 1-888-549-ESPN to cancel your subscription.