Much Ado About Nothing: Tuesday Midsummer Gumbo

The summer is slow for our favorite sports topics. So we've allowed you to make your usual daily BS visit short and to the point and helped you focus on you job for just a bit...Things are going to change in the next few weeks. Football camp gets underway soon and the horrible, arid sports desert that we've been in will become a lush tropical rain forest of sports goodness.

Sure, J had a little love affair with the World Cup, and some of you may have as well...and some of you guys enjoy baseball as I watch a few IndyCar races...but none of it holds a candle to football season- pro, and definitely college, in particular, God's Country's team.

Danny Hope seems to be getting busier with the media too as his politician-like duties of being a BT football coach slowly ramp up as his squad approaches September.

But, behind the scenes, he's been busy and successful as he's recruited a smaller, but higher-octane class for 2011. The class will be around 18 players come February, but currently stands at five verbal commitments...and it just feels like we might get another one very soon. Two years ago, Hope lost a few to the likes of IU and simply couldn't muster up any commitments as a coach-in-waiting. Last year, he still couldn't get many early verbals, but started to beat out IU and other lower-major conference teams as the fall progressed. This season, it seems he's getting the guys he targets and is competing with larger programs in the process.

This is good progress, in my opinion. We're watching Hope and his staff organically grow their brand and convince 17 & 18 year old players that there's big potential in West Lafayette and a reason to be excited. The overall roster is getting faster and specific needs are being met.

I've been asked quite a bit recently about what we're going to see as fans this fall. I think we'll see what we've seen in recruiting- a step forward for the program, a visibly-quicker and faster team and a team that wins more than it loses...We'll get into more prognostications in the next month.

The Biggest Loser (you the viewer)

We intentionally stayed away from the made-for-TV free agency blitz in the NBA for lots of reasons. And there's not a lot to talk about here, especially for two guys that don't care much about the NBA and a third who watched his favorite team being dismantled by an egomaniac on national TV.

But, one thing that we were reminded about was how much of a joke EsPN is as a journalistic outlet. We've expressed our disgruntlement with the network since our site's inception, but Bron Bron's 1-plus hour shravesty of an announcement removed all doubts of what the network is about.

All hail Queen James!!!

It's about pop culture, hype and revenue. Perhaps they're following the business model of MTV as they slowly phase out one of the words that once defined the network. Perhaps soon, any real sports will be removed as they become simply a sports-culture network?

Just for J

Tomorrow, the IndyCar Series will announce the future of its chassis as they've accelerated the development and advancement of the current spec chassis/engine combo.

Things might get very interesting for the league as things return to closer to what they were in the 80s and before. Multiple engine manufacturers will most-definitely be involved as a more-open format allows for wiggle room with 4 and 6 cylinder engines, turbo chargers and other changes. Sadly, there will be no loud, hump-backed Buicks in the running...but maybe we'll see a similarly-revolutionary and fast engine on the track...hopefully this time it can stay together for longer than 25 laps before blowing up.

And that's the rub- Honda's powerplants have been amazingly-reliable and consistant. But, there's not much excitement in those words. The Dallara chassis has also been trusty, but hasn't changed much in the last decade.

I think we'll see Dallara and hopefully, Lola involved once again. Regardless of whom is chosen to go forward, this change is long overdue.