Fourth and Dumb

Timmy got 22 out of 50 on the notorious Wonderlic test given to potential NFL draftees, and which includes questions like, “Paper costs 12 cents per pad; how many pads could be bought with 60 cents?” Unfortunately, Timmy answered that question, “Jesus?”

But keep in mind that Dan Marino got a 15, and he ended up pretty good. Still, it’s amusing.

Huzzah! The day of signing twelfth form matriculates to commitments for college is upon us! No popinjays allowed!

So much for trying to sound like Montgomery Burns, an idea that Red Stripe has made me think would be funny. Yay, Beer, indeed!

Not too many surprises on signing day, but a couple things:

Gators get OL Chaz Green late in the afternoon to cement the overall #1 consensus class. Like every year, the boilerplate reminder that dudes still have to pan out is well taken, but note that Bama and Texas and Florida have had multiple top-five consensus classes in the last four seasons and have lived at the top of the rankings.

Kiffy showed he’s not to be taken lightly as a recruiter, snagging Huge Human Seantrel Henderson at dinner time to stay in the top ten.

As a Gator, I’m constitutionally bound to hate Tennessee, but I will always keep a soft spot in my heart for signee Da’Rick Rogers, as he said today that he picked the Vols partly because Kiffin had left. My kind of kid!

FSU has restocked the pantry, and we can expect them to be very dangerous sooner rather than later, though for next season the defense should still be a bit of a disaster.

Sigh. One problem. After today, truly college football is over for now. Let’s start counting down till spring games, baby!

As if we really needed one.

In the whirlwind of Kiffy’s hiring by USC, he had to make some quick decisions regarding assistants. Understandably, not all could come with him, as some of the USC staff know Lane and have PAC-10 and team knowledge he’d want to retain. One guy left out in the cold was David Reaves, the WR coach for Tennessee under Kiffin.

Reaves learned of Kiffy’s departure, and his joblessness, the way the rest of us did: at Kiffy’s hastily called news conference.

The difference? Reaves is also Kiffy’s brother-in-law, sibling to his bikini-model wife Layla (and son of former Gator great John Reaves). You’d think at least sissy-poo could have given him a text or something as a heads-up, right?

When Derek Dooley got hired, he didn’t have any room for Reaves, leaving him out of work at a time when other programs have finished their hiring and firing. Don’t feel too bad for the guy, though: he still has to get paid his $150k salary, which is almost as much as CC English profs make. But still, I can imagine some awkwardness at the buffet line at the Thanksgiving dinner.

Just two days before the high school class of ‘10 signs their college lives away! Of course, Fourth and Dumb will offer spotty and highly selective coverage of aspects of signing day of interest to us, or, at least, to me.

Can the Gators hold onto all of their high-profile recruits and maintain the overall #1 class? Can FSU pull in a few last-minute five stars, particularly Christian Jones from the high school one mile from my house (Lake Howell in Seminole County, FL, by the way)? Will Kiffy be able to keep WR Kyle Prater and other stars to their oral commitments to USC?  Inquiring minds want to know, and we’ll try to sort it all out on Wednesday night and Thursday.

As a long-time Gator, and also a long-time secularist, I’ve gotten used to not worrying about politics and religion when it comes to my love for the Gators. I was at UF with QB Kerwin Bell, a devout evangelical Christian who thanked god in interviews after games, and no Gator will probably ever rival the gutty Danny Wuerffel, he of the praying hands after each of his 100+ touchdowns, in my affections.

But clearly no Gator, and no other football player I can think of, has mixed his faith and football as much and as powerfully as Tim Tebow. As our core readership surely knows, Timmy is appearing on a commercial during this year’s Super Bowl to extol the virtues of choosing against abortion, as his mother did when doctors advised her after a bout of malaria to abort the baby who became Timmy, as they figured he’d be unlikely to live anyway. But she chose to have the baby that BECAME TIM TEBOW!!!! Who could argue against such a powerful narrative?

Well, forgetting for a moment that not every woman in that situation is already a mother who wants to raise another child, or that not all such women are in a financial or social position to have a baby, or that the sample size of one that Timmy represents may not be statistically significant in describing the situations of babies who are born to women considering abortion, Tebow is still clearly putting himself in some bad company.

Whose company? Focus on the Family, the group that’s paying for the ad. This is the group founded and led till a couple months ago by James Dobson, who has said that Obama is not a real Christian, that legal gay marriage MUST also allow marriage between fathers and daughters and people and donkeys, and that gay hate crimes legislation shouldn’t pass because it would outlaw a person saying that pedophilia is wrong.

Timmy’s going to alienate a lot of fans, a lot of Gators with this. Of course, I’m sure he doesn’t care—he believes what he believes and will continue to say it. But one wishes he could be like Wuerffel, who has built a thriving center helping African-American kids in a rough part of New Orleans and who has never, to my knowledge, used his faith to attack other people.

Keep in mind that Timmy’s Dad, Bob Tebow, has called abortion doctors “murderers” and has always specifically chosen to try to evangelize in Philippine areas in which Islam is the central religion. Bob Tebow wants to take down other religions and force his beliefs on everyone else. And now his son’s heading that way.

I’m glad Tebow’s time as a Gator is up. I’ll always love him as a member of Gator Nation, but if he’s going to “pal around with” guys like Dobson, I won’t be rooting for him in the future.

Yes, Vols, hang down your head and cry! You’ve just hired the Louisiana Tech head coach, your fifth choice (at best), scion of Vince Dooley, who comes in sporting a 17-20 record.

What is it about the Vols hiring relatively inexperienced HCs who don’t even have winning records? At least he seems like a polite young man, unlike that boor who they used to have. One hopes he will take his beatings respectfully, without all that gum flapping.

Let the wild speculation about the replacement at La Tech begin!!!!!

Only a few details remain to be worked out today before Skip Holtz is introduced at USF. This is a good hire; East Carolina has made a name for itself the last couple years with big wins over Virginia Tech and West Virginia to open 2008 (on the way to the C-USA title). Still, if I were a Bulls’ fan, I’d be a bit underwhelmed. Holtz will build on the foundation Jim Leavitt built, but it remains to be seen if he can take a BCS program to a conference title. But I reckon there’s only one way to find out!

Scuttle all over the internet tubes tells us that USC is going to hire Lane Kiffin. To be their FOOTBALL COACH!!!!

Just yesterday I was reading on the Gator Country forums a series of posts mocking the Vol Nation for posting their worries about their new coach getting stolen back by the Trojans, as if USC would be happy to get a guy who led a 7-6 team and got his program into all kinds of hot water!

Well, so much for the USC dynasty. But what about the hatred stirred up in Saban, Miles, Meyer, and Spurrier? Only one year of satisfaction? Weak. And it’s not like they’ll get to play his team in any BCS bowls, either.

And now Tennessee fans: wish you had Phat Phil back around now? Wide receivers coach Kippy Brown as interim isn’t going to make many recruits excited!

Just a brief post to throw out some random candidates, both plausible and implausible, for the two open BCS Conference coaching jobs at USC and USF. Please comment on what you think might happen!

USC: Jack Del Rio is supposedly the favorite of the USC administration. I suppose if you had such incredible success with a NFL coach who led underachieving teams in the NFL before coming to SoCal, you’d be willing to try it again. Steve Sarkisian’s name is in the mix, though he says he’s not going anywhere. Yesterday, Gary Patterson of TCU said he didn’t know what he’d do if he was asked, which is interesting. Who else might be in the mix?

USF: Florida’s defensive line coach Dan McCarney, who has head coaching experience at Iowa State and was an assistant for the Bulls a couple years ago, has indicated he’d take the job if offered. Tony Dungy visited the USF players yesterday, getting ESPN all lathered up, but Dungy won’t come back for a college gig. Kevin Sumlin of Houston would be a great choice, but he may want to wait for a bigger job next year. Rick Stockstill of Middle Tennessee State would be an awesome hire; a former QB at FSU, Stockstill has done a great job recruiting mid-level players in Florida and has a lot of connections down here, but is he “sexy” enough as a hire to make Bulls fans happy? Finally, there’s Tommy Bowden, who would likely love a chance at such a gig, but if USF is going to tap the Bowden tree, one hopes they’d go for Terry. Who else?

Thanks to intrepid F&D friend Ahmad Ragab for giving me first alert that reports say Jim Leavitt will get shitcanned in about 38 minutes (noon) when USF has called a press conference.

The old-school bullying of players by coaches doesn’t seem to be tolerated anymore; this is an interesting trend, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, I don’t think college kids need to get slapped or have their coaches make fun of family members’ murders (right, Mark Mangino?), but on the other hand this is big-time college football, and it’s a pretty rough world. Sounds like a good off-season post topic!