Monday Morning Sentimonies: Odds and Ends

Well now that your brief forray into the world of college basketball has ended is cursing, disappointment and crumpled paper, you are probably eager to get on with football season. Once again the Rider Prophet endorsed Wichita St. Shockers failed to win a championship and me lot of money. Is it too much to ask for a sport I know nothing about to play out exactly according to my wild ass guesses?

A few Rider related news items to touch on...

If you had told me a few years back that Avon Cobourne would be on our coaching staff and Rey Williams would have a front office job I would have laughed, but that is our reality today after Cobourne became our RB coach and Williams retired and was named Director of Player development (which is a nade up position that essentially means glorified babysitter). This coaching thing will be new to Cobourne but he was good in all 3 phases (running, catching, blocking) when he played so that's a postive. Also the fact that we passed on the convinience hire of Kerry Joseph into that role tells me that Chamblin and Cortez see something of value in Cobourne. Only thing I'm curious about is why Cobourne wants to come up here to coach. I remember when the Ticats had to coax him back into the league a few years back he had a real world job and forced the Cats to pay him a ridiculous salary to return. I wonder what happened to that job? Maybe it never existed and he just sharked the Cats real good.

Its sad to see Williams' playing time come to an end. He was always a treat to watch. Whether it was when he burst into the spotlight in '08 or his steady play in the middle in '09 and this year (that incidentally both resulted in McCullough assuming the starter role) he was always fun to watch. I just hope that both Cobourne and Williams realize that somewhere in the planning for the season they are emergency plan D and might have a few more playing days left. I kid... mostly.

The Riders continued to bring in DL competition by adding Trent Allmang-Wilder and Lindsey Witten.Of the two Allmag-Wilder intrigues me the most. He's 6'6, 290 and only 22 years old. Guess we will see good he is come the Florida Camp. They also added DBs Greg McCoy, Mark LeGree and Canadian Hugo Lopez. Given that most of our secondary is set, I'm not ass interested in the DBs but you never know when someone might play themselves onto the team.

The Riders should try a bit harder to mask their desperation for selling REDBLACKS preseason tickets. I just got my second reminder in the past week. What's next a personal phone call from Jim Hopson begging me to buy my ticket? Singing telegrams rom Richie Hall. I'll likely end up going but plan on taking advantage of the deals they will be forced to offer in order to get a decent crowd to the park. Guessing I'll end up with better seats for less $ than the "special season ticket holder" price they are hoping I will blindly pay.

CFL Combine went this weekend. While it is still expected to be a weak draft overall, based on the combine results it looks like their is top end talent to be had in the early rounds. Looks like a strong year for lineman on both sides so I expect the Rider will be taregting a DL at #8 though a DB is also a possibility. Eithway it'll likely be a defender. I'll have far more draft coverage in he coming weeks.

Until then please return to tearing up your brackets and cursing schools and players you've never heard of before Thursday.