Video: UMass raps in their season promo

Charley Molnar and UMass had a rough first season of FBS and MAC conference play, finishing 1-11 with their lone win coming against conference opponent Akron.

Heading into the 2013 season, UMass is promoting their "All In" campaign, and came up with a DJ Steve Porter style rap that is both creative and entertaining. For those of you who don't recognize the DJ Steve Porter name, he has made quite the name for himself with videos like this.

Louisville AD Tom Jurich explains the key to winning

Louisville's athletic department as a whole has absolutely dominated the college sports landscape this season. You'd be hard pressed to find an athletic department that has put together a resume like theirs over the past 10 months or so.

Their football team finished 11-2 on the season with a big Sugar Bowl win over Florida, the men's basketball team won the national title, the women's basketball team made it to the national title game (as a 7 seed) before losing a nail biter to Maryland by four points, and the baseball team recently won the Nashville Super Regional and is headed to the College World series for just the second time in school history.

We're all aware of how enrollment spikes after a successful football season, so imagine how Louisville's enrollment is going to look with the combined success of their football, men's and women's basketball and baseball teams. We're willing to bet that everyone in their admissions office is putting in long hours with a huge smile on their face.

Cardinals athletic director Tom Jurich explained the key to their success across all platforms and it starts with recruiting the right kids.

"When you recruit great kids with great character and have wonderful attitudes, these things are going to happen. Talent plays a big part in it, but it's not all of it, because I've seen a lot of talented teams across the country that go nowhere." he explained.

Three and Out - It's time to start worrying about the CFB Playoff

For most college football observers, the College Football Playoff is a bridge miles and miles away from being crossed. The Playoff won't truly come to the forefront until December 2014 and, obviously, the entire 2013 season, plus the remainder of this off-season and the entire 2014 off-season still lies between today and the first Selection Sunday. But the Playoff's structure is taking shape now, and the time to worry about a snake is when it escapes its cage, not when its looking at your ankle like a finely-grilled steak.

1. In today's Mailbag, SI.com's Stewart Mandel fields a question about the make-up of the College Football Playoff's selection committee. It's arguably the most crucial portion of the entire Playoff, and it's one of the few major decisions yet to be rendered. Each conference was asked to submit a list of names and, while no one but those involved knows exactly who's on the list, consensus says the committee will consist of a combination of former administrators, former coaches, former players and possibly former media members. Mandel throws out three names - Tom Osborne, Phil Steele and Mike Tranghese - as examples of the types of names we could see on the finalized committee come 2014. No one is going to doubt the resumes and accomplishments of Nebraska coaching legend Osborne and former Big East commissioner Tranghese, for example, but what do they know about the college football landscape in 2014?

The same goes for a list produced by Tony Barnhart last month that has served as the closest thing we have to a rough draft to date. With names like Jack Ford, Condoleezza Rice, and Roy Kramer, it's a group that can stack its collective accomplishments from here to the moon. But what does that have to do with their ability to compare and contrast 2014 Oregon vs. 2014 Ohio State vs. 2014 LSU vs. 2014 Florida State? A national championship won in 1981, a Master's degree and a best-selling book are impressive feats, but they say nothing about fairly and accurately forecasting the four best college football teams in America. And with the amount of dollars and jobs sitting in their collective hands, the powers that be should seek a committee that can best accomplish the ladder and not be starstruck by the former.

2. Michael Kelly, the Chief Operating Officer of the College Football Playoff, stated Wednesday at the College Athletics Business Management Association (CABMA) annual convention that the semifinals will operate under the normal bowl schedule. That means teams will be required to arrive on site close to a week before the game. Assuming Kelly is correct, and we have no reason to think otherwise, that shows that no matter how far the game has come in the last 18 months, the bowl industry still has college football wrapped around its finger. While coaches would understandably prefer to focus their team on, you know, winning a national semifinal game, they'll still be asked to preform the traditional dog-and-pony bowl traditions like a trip to the local amusement park or a night at the comedy club. Could college football even survive without the Lawry's Beef Bowl? (For the record, the championship game will be crafted much more closely to an actual playoff game, with teams arriving the Friday night before Championship Monday.)

3. According to Kelly, the proper way to refer to the playoff semifinals in the year it happens to be played at the Rose Bowl is "the College Football Playoff at the Rose Bowl." No offense to anyone involved in the naming process, but we, along with the rest of the public, will just refer to it as "the Rose Bowl." 

"Body language screams, it never whispers"

Every once in a while we'll listen to a basketball coach's press conference or radio interview, or read an article, and hear or see something that resonates across the barriers of the coaching profession.

According to Vaughts Views (who handles all things Kentucky Sports) John Calipari was speaking to a group of adults and parents at one of his basketball camps Monday about the importance of body language and used his son as an example.

Apparently coach Cal's son, Brad, had a sleepover at a friends house the night before an early morning basketball game. As you could probably guess, Brad showed up to the game with very little rest. 

Calipari admits that he normally doesn't say a whole lot at his son's games, but Brad's body language was so negative that it had to be addressed.

“Now, I don’t say things at (his) games. I don’t speak one way or another. I’ve probably got a camera on me. I don’t say anything. But on that morning I got up, walked the baseline, his coach was done talking to him, I said, ‘Come here, son. You’re not going to have that kind of attitude on the court. I will take you immediately off the court.’"

Then Cal turned his attention to his high school coach told him that if his son ever showed that kind of body language on the court that he would personally go out there and embarrass everyone by dragging him off the court if he didn't take action first.

Then Cal dropped this nugget that really hit us.

“Body language screams; it never whispers."

"When a baby is hungry or is frustrated, what does it do? Screams and cries. Well, how about when a 13-year-old is frustrated or anxious? They cop an attitude, the body language goes bad. So then you have to figure out, ‘What is going on here, because you’re a good kid, and you’re acting like a knucklehead, and you’re not.’"

That's an excellent point and a very good analogy for both parents and coaches. Body language is something that most teenagers (and even some college kids) don't pay attention to. However, as coaches and administrators it can be the difference between landing a job and finishing runner up.

Getting kids to understand that their body language screams and never whispers will help prepare them on the field and beyond.

10 Questions With: Arizona head coach Rich Rodriguez

After spending his first 28 years in coaching east of the Mississippi, Rich Rodriguez trekked far west, to Arizona, to take over a struggling Wildcats program. After an 8-5 debut campaign in which his squad won three of its final four games, capped by a thrilling New Mexico Bowl win over Nevada, Rodriguez has the Wildcats primed for bigger things in 2013. We caught up with Rich Rod to talk about how important off-the-field personnel is to building a winner on the field, advance scouting, his role in the proliferation of the zone read and just how creative the Wildcats plan to get with their facemasks.

To see past installments of 10 Questions With, please click here. 

1) We've had a chance to meet some of your off-the-field operations staff this off-season, guys like Mike Parrish, Matt Dudek, Andrew Warsaw and Billy Kirelawich. How do you find people like that where there's not as much data out there like there may be when you're looking for, say, a wide receviers coach?

Whether it's on the operations side or the personnel side, guys that have a passion for football, certainly have a passion to help build a program and then being a people person. If you're going to be running camps and clinics and dealing with your players on their various issues then you want somebody that's a joy to be around and enjoys helping young guys achieve college success. I've been lucky. These guys have been really good and I've been around a bunch of good ones in my career. 

2) Guys like that all have jobs that hardly existed a decade ago. Is that a situation where you've always needed people to, for example, run your camps and clinics and never had the budget for it, or have you created new jobs for people as budgets have expanded over the last 10 years?

Ours is really small compared to some of our colleagues and other schools in similar situations. We have a relatively small staff. I'd like for it to grow like some of the other staffs. It is certainly bigger than what it was 10 years ago and a whole lot bigger than they were 20 years ago. I think it's been very beneficial in a lot of ways. The biggest benefit, obviously from a structural standpoint and an organizational standpoint, I think the biggest benefit is the things they're able to do to help your current players. Whether it's helping them when they have emergencies, helping them navigate through some tough times or making a transition from high school to college. I think that's been a big thing. Just a little bit ago a couple guys came back from helping guys do community service, visiting some children at the hospital. There's a lot of benefits to having some guys on your staff that are in non-coaching roles.

3) How do you set expectations for your off-the-field staff?

I think the biggest thing is to communicate. It starts with the head coach. We've got to communicate our message, what we want from our program and then everybody has to be on board with that same message and that same kind of goal and mindset. If there are issues that come up it's usually because of a lack of communication. As a head coach, we've got to make sure that we communicate what we want out of the program, what our expectations are from them, and I also believe that our whole staff has to communicate amongst each other. We have a really, really tight staff. A lot of us have worked together a really long time. We tease each other, we have a lot of fun. There's also a professionalism there that everybody understands as well.

4) The Pac-12 South is expected to be a wide open race this year. Is that something you stress to your players, or is it no different from any other year?

Our goal every year is to win the league. I think that's the same no matter where I've coached, no matter where I've been. I think that's always going to be your first goal. We don't talk about it too much. A lot of people talk about the process, talk about what you've got to do every day to get better. We always look at our opponents. Like now, in June, we do some scouting of our opponents. Watch some film and talk about them a little bit. More than anything, we're always concerned with us first and foremost and what we're doing to get better.

5) How much time do you devote in the off-season to scouting your upcoming opponents?

There's about a two week window where we'll watch some of our opponents in our league, our rivalry game, we'll watch that a little bit. When camp starts in August it's all about us. After about a week and a half of looking at opponents our focus is still mainly on us for the rest of the time.

6) So when the Arizona State games roll around in November, how much will the notes you took in June factor into your game-planning?

In the spring we looked at it a little bit and then a little bit again in June. We'll make notes of it and when that game comes back up we'll refer to it. But there's a lot of things that can happen between now and the time we play them again. They're always on our mind and we certainly think about them but not nearly as much as we think about ourselves.

7) How much tinkering do you do with your offense every year?

We study some other people that are doing spread principles just to see if we can learn anything, and over the years we've added quite a few things to our package. At the end of the day we're always more concerned with what we do and making sure we're able to execute and those types of things. We tweak it and we've been tweaking it for 20 years. I think the base is still the same but for 20 years we've looked at ways we can make it better.

8) The story I've always heard about the berth of the zone read came from your backup quarterback suggesting one day in practice that he could keep the ball instead of simply handing it off to the running back. How close is that to reality?

That was at Glenville State, actually by our starting quarterback Jed Drenning. This was way back in 1991 or 1992. We didn't run a lot and he wasn't a zone read type of guy. We ran it some at Glenville, that's when we first started doing it, but then it really became part of the package at Tulane with Shaun King. We already kind of knew what we wanted to do with it but it was new to college football, particularly to Division I football. With Shaun at Tulane was when it really kind of took on its own life, I guess.

9) How has the Pac-12 Network impacted your program on an everyday basis?

I think it's been positive for everybody. Our guys know that every game we have during the season and even our spring game are going to be on a national network. I think it's fun for them and it certainly should help in recruiting. The network has been really good about their coverage and getting content and getting our message out in a lot of ways. I think the Pac-12 is probably in a better place than it's ever been.

10) Some very unique facemask prototypes popped up on the Internet earlier this week. Is there any chance they see the field this season?

We haven't been talking to anybody about that. I think that's an individual that's come up with a unique idea. It's not anything that we're going to be wearing this year, but they look pretty neat. 

This video will have you ready to max out

At the end of each year South Alabama invites the public to come in for their "Rumble in the Jungle" lifting event where players showcase their strength gains.

Much like last year's version, you'll want to make sure to pay special attention toward the end when one player goes for a school record squat of 775 pounds, shattering his own record from last year's event (730 pounds) .

These guys are throwing around some serious weight.

Time-lapse video of Boise State's new logo going down

We told you a few weeks ago that Boise State was updating their mid field logo by removing the "Boise State" under the Bronco, as well as giving the Bronco a more modern look.

With the logo now officially changed, here's an interesting look at how that went down with a nicely done time lapse video. These things are always fun to watch.

The Ravens sent Cam Cameron a Super Bowl ring

The toughest, but most brilliant, call any NFL head coach made in the 2012 season was undoubtedly Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh's decision to fire offensive coordinator Cam Cameron during the stretch run of the regular season. 

In Harbaugh's eyes, the 9-4 Ravens had stagnated on offense, so Harbaugh got the entire franchise's attention by letting the respected Cameron go on Dec. 10. "It was a brilliant move," Cameron later told The New York Times. "Everyone on the team took a look in the mirror after that."

Under new boss Jim Caldwell, the Ravens jumped from 344.4 yards of total offense per game to 406.2 for the remainder of the regular season, and to 424.7 during their run through the NFL playoffs. Baltimore lost two of the three remaining regular season games after Cameron's dismissal, but ultimately played a perfect postseason en route to claiming the franchise's second Super Bowl title.

Though it was no doubt a hard pill to swallow watching his former team's run to ultimate glory, Cameron landed squarely on his feet as the SEC's highest-paid offensive coordinator. And as the time arrived to share in the spoils of victory, the Ravens made sure to remember Cameron's contribution to the cause. 

The newly-hired LSU offensive coordinator shared this with the Twitter world on Tuesday evening.

Thank you, Baltimore. twitter.com/LSUCoachCam/st…

— Cam Cameron (@LSUCoachCam) June 11, 2013