Purdue quarterbacks’ lifespan nasty, brutish and short, from Holly at her new home at SI (with some additions from myself). But despite 5,000 ACL injuries to current and former players, there may be some room for optimism: “What the Boilermakers do have on their side, sort of, is time: a home opener against Middle Tennessee State, a road trip to Rice, a visit from Southeast Missouri State and a bye week give more cushion than most teams could reasonably expect to enjoy between what remains of fall camp and the meat of the schedule. That meat, when it arrives, will be a tough cut: Notre Dame comes to town in Week 5, and subsequent conference games include Ohio State, Iowa, and road trips to Penn State and Wisconsin.”
– Watch this on your iPad: Steve Jobs in 1984:
– Relatedly, new Apple CEO Tim Cook is an Auburn grad:
“I have so much Auburn memorabilia, you might think it’s the Auburn outpost of J&M and Anders.”
Also: “When I was in high school, some teachers advised me to attend Auburn. Some teachers advised me to attend the University of Alabama,” Cook said in his address. “And, well, like I said, some decision are pretty obvious.”
– Graham Harrell is making a run at it. Does anyone else see coaching in this guy’s future? Lots of interesting tidbits from the article:
So Harrell headed to the Canadian Football League’s Saskatchewan Roughriders. He was on their injured list, the CFL’s weird way of keeping players, especially American players, on the payroll so they aren’t claimed elsewhere. But he was healthy and practiced all season and said the bigger field helped expand his range. “It forced you to make bigger throws,” said Harrell. “One of the knocks of Texas Tech quarterbacks – me or anyone out of there – is that we don’t make big throws, don’t want to go deep. You go to Canada with a 65-yard wide field, you have to make the big throw.”
The Browns called him back for a minicamp in 2010 again, but the numbers were against Harrell. He was let go. And then an unusual thing happened. “Carl Smith said, ‘I’m going to get you somewhere,’ and he called six teams to get tryouts lined up,” said Harrell. “One of the teams he called was Green Bay. He knows Dom Capers pretty well and he called Dom. In this business, you don’t get people to do that for you too much.”
I also thought this was interesting, which may be a reason why Green Bay has done well in developing its quarterbacks:
Then the lockout offered a potential setback. Harrell missed all of coach Mike McCarthy and Clements’ quarterback school, instruction that Rodgers and Flynn found valuable in their development. “The lack of the off-season probably did hurt him the most. Matt and Aaron had been through our off-season,” said Clements. “It’s a tough thing to refine the offense. It was hardest on Graham. The off-season would have been important for him.”
In quarterback school, the Packers go over the offense slowly, reviewing basics and instilling philosophies. They may work on a single drill in a 50-minute session. There’s no time for that now in training camp, said Clements, so they’ve taken an abbreviated version, going over a drill or two a day and getting in a little extra meeting time.
– Reggie Wayne is not a fan of Kerry Collins. Sort of a surprise:
Wayne, a five-time Pro Bowl pick and one of Manning’s favorite targets, has supported backup Curtis Painter. And while he called Collins “a great guy,” he said he was worried about the Colts improving. “Who says Kerry’s going to be the starter?” Wayne said. “Just because we bring him in doesn’t mean he’s the starter. He’s got to learn too, right? Unless they gave him a playbook months ago, he’s got to learn, too. “I don’t care who you are, I mean I’m not going to let anyone just come in here and just push someone (like Painter) aside like you’re that dog now, you know what I mean?” Wayne added.
– GameStop, watch out. From the WaPo.