A little while back, in one of the blogpoll roundtables I averred that Oklahoma should be considered quite overrated. Now, I feel more confident in that prediction with this news.

Oklahoma starting quarterback Rhett Bomar will not play for the Sooners this season following an investigation by the team, according to a television report.

Oklahoma confirmed that two players had been dismissed by the team but did not identify them. The school said in a statement that the players violated NCAA rules by working at a private business and taking “payment over an extended period of time in excess of time actually worked.”

Oklahoma City television station KWTV reported that Bomar, who set an Oklahoma freshman record with 2,018 passing yards after taking over as the Sooners’ starter in the second game last season, was one of the two players who had been permanently dismissed.

“We spend a considerable amount of time addressing our players regarding their personal conduct and the NCAA rules,” head coach Bob Stoops said in a statement. “They know exactly what we expect from them. Ultimately, they have to make right decisions. The same holds true for our boosters. When they do not, the consequences are serious, and we will not tolerate this behavior.

“Our team and university actions are necessary because of the intentional participation and knowledge of the student athletes in these violations,” Stoops said.

Gee, who’d a thunk that Oklahoma would display higher standards than Ohio State in the new century?

The Fulmer Cup — especially with the recent one-man, taser fueled surge from San Jose St. to throw the contest into complete disarray — as noted by MountainLair is lacking real presence from the Big East.

That’s not fair. The Bulls are trying to show they are a player in the realm of arrests and criminal activity. It’s just that the damn academics keep them from being part of the team. Case in point:

I caught the arrest late enough Monday night that I wasn’t able to get a lot of details beyond the basic charges. In short, police say Stirrups stole digital cameras worth about $300 each and other small items from cars parked in the parking lot near Tampa International Airport where he and his mother worked.

When I called Pearl River Community College, where Stirrups was set to play this fall after failing to qualify academically at USF, coach Tim Hatten was blunt: This was not the kind of activity he’d tolerate in his program, not the kind of character he wanted to bring to Mississippi. Unless the charges go away very quickly, Stirrups has no place on his team.

The easy reaction is that it’s slightly hypocritical that one day after he takes Carlton Hill off USF’s hands, knowing he’s had a recent arrest for possession of marijuana, Hatten says he wants no part of Stirrups and his error in judgment. With Stirrups though, the issue is greater, because it attacks a coach’s ability to trust the young man. If he’s willing to steal from customers of a business that employs both himself and his own mother, what conscience would stop him from stealing from a teammate’s locker?

What’s truly mindless in all of this, both funny and sad at the same time, is how Stirrups got caught: With both cameras, police say he took a few pictures of himself and friends before pawning them, never deleting the images. So when police were able to recover the cameras, they saw the post-theft pics and showed them around at the parking lot office. Of course, they could identify him; he worked there. It’s the kind of silliness you normally laugh at while reading Carl Hiassen novels.

His six felony counts are remarkably similar to another USF signee who failed to qualify academically and wound up at Pearl River three years ago, a linebacker named Gene Coleman.

[Emphasis added.]

They are trying. That’s important. They just need to get that element academically qualified first. Right now, they aren’t quite there yet.

Last night, while over some Commodore Perry IPA at the Grovewood Tavern — which conveniently enough offers Wi-Fi — Adam helped me move the archives over to the new site. They will remain as “uncategorized” because if you think I’m going to go back and log some 3000+ posts into the right groupings… There’s still some things to work out, like making the “next page” icon at the bottom of the site visible to see older posts in the month. It’s there, but blends in the background.

We also took a look at the coding for the layout to see why some people were having some troubles with overlaps. The conclusion: it’s your fault. It was fine on our computers and on others of some people I called and checked. You may need to check your screen resolution and sharpen it more.

On the subject of commenting, here’s the thing. Everything is being caught when the e-mail field isn’t filled in. You don’t even need to use a real e-mail address. Pitt@pitt.com would be fine. The comment spam catchers just need to know you are a real person and not some spambot. I’m trying to find the right balance between giving everyone their comfort level for privacy/anonymity versus the beasts of comment spam and having to moderate and/or review all comments.

I suppose you have say things like this, but it still makes me wince.

“We get to find out what kind of a team we are and what kind of men we are after dealing with, basically, a season that was from hell,” Palko said two weeks ago at the Big East Football Kickoff in Newport, R.I., where media members picked Pitt to finish third among the conference’s eight teams in 2006. “It was horrible. Everybody knows that.

“I think last season will be able to teach us a lot. I guess that’s really the only thing you can take out of it. You learn your lessons.”

Palko believes the way the Panthers respond to adversity this season will determine whether they succeed or fail, win or lose.

“That is going to dictate how far we go,” said Palko, who wondered how his team will

respond the first time it has a three-and-out series or the first time he throws an interception that the opposition returns for a touchdown.

“How do you deal with it and how does your team deal with it? We’ll find out when that adversity hits. You can deal with adversity through summer workouts and preseason practice, but that isn’t the real test. The real test is when the lights come on.

“If you aren’t a man, you won’t be able to handle all of the ups and downs that you face.”

Palko attributes the Panthers’ poor performance in 2005 to their inability to overcome adversity rather than their new coach and his new schemes.

“When we were playing well, we were OK; when we weren’t, we felt sorry for ourselves,” said Palko, who completed 193-of-341 passes for 2,392 yards with 17 touchdowns and nine interceptions in 2005 compared to 230-of-409 passes for 3,067 yards with 24 touchdowns and seven interceptions in 2004.

See, I would have attributed it to just playing badly. Bad line play on the offense that produced no holes for the running game and no time to throw. The defense had equally bad line play that gave a QB all day to throw and couldn’t stop anyone who ran.