Fourth and Dumb

So Uber-Recruit Bryce Brown, a RB from Oklahoma, chose the Volunteers yesterday (um, so much for my Oklahoma prediction). This is another recruiting coup for Lane Kiffin, and I’m sure a happy respite from the media and fan scorn that’s been heaped on him for all of his dumb comments since Signing Day. 

In perusing the article about this on The Sporting News, I came across this comment from a Vols fan explaining Brown’s choice:

Bryce Brown and his family and advisor are all people of faith. A deep, abiding faith in God. Bryce prayed constantly, asking God to give him a sign, and this Friday the sign was revealed to him in Knoxville. A facet of Lane Kiffin that the general public never suspected was revealed too. 

Now all good Christian men are obliged to make a public apology to Kiffin for attacking his character and besmirching his name. 

Now how this person knows that Brown “prayed constantly” I don’t know. Further, God gives signs to players to decide where to matriculate? I wonder if the “sign” was 5,000 Vols fans chanting his name when he attended UT’s first practice, which was made open to the public (coincidence? Hmm.). If so, at least it was hard to miss. Way to go, Yahweh!

Best part:  Lane Kiffin is a “spiritual epiphany to young athletes”??? Dang–I reckon that will indeed help haul in some serious football players. And think of what recruiting power that brings when joined with his wife’s recruiting power; after all, that former bikini model is certainly a “physical epiphany” to men of all ages. 

Oh, and as to the obligation to make a public apology, well, praise to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I’m not a good Christian man, so I can still publicly recommend that Lane Kiffin suck my balls!

Let’s hope not! As you likely know by now, the NCAA finally handed down sanctions in the two-year-old academic fraud case at Florida State. FSU agreed with three penalties, involving four years’ probation, minor reductions in scholarships, and crap like that which they know none of their mulleted fans care about. But they have righteously drawn the line at accepting the vacating of victories for the football team over the last two seasons, which could take as many as 14 games away from Papa Bowden, who is currently one behind Grampa Paterno, who has 383.

I think most of us fans believe that getting the all-time wins record is what has mostly driven JoePa and Bowden for the last 3-4 years. Sure, both have football in their blood, etc., and I believe Bowden when he says that he fears simply dying if he gives up coaching, usually citing Bear Bryant’s death soon after crowning his career with a Liberty Bowl win.

But still, though Penn State was pretty good last year, neither man is up to running the kind of brutal machine they did for previous decades. But both are like rutting elks with loins swollen with blood when they think about surmounting the doe that is the all-time coaching wins record (mmmmm . . . metaphor!). Surely, whoever gets it will never be surpassed, so I’m pretty sure that neither man will ever retire, barring some sort of injury that renders him unable to coach. No, both of these guys will die while coaching.

This statement above is even more stupid than most things I write, though, considering that FSU has to replace Bowden with Jimbo Fisher by the end of the 2010 season, right? Well, I’m confident that if Bowden is unwilling to go gently into that good night (mmmmm . . . allusion!) by then, FSU will have no choice but to create some bizarre type of “coach emeritus” position or something for him, especially if Joe Pa is grumping around College Station hobbling toward the bathrooms on crutches every ten minutes.

Anyway, we don’t have to worry about an end to the old-man show, as FSU is going to aggressively appeal the vacating of wins, and they’ll succeed. The NCAA made its toothless point, and FSU will in the end get to keep Bobby in the game. Now if only they can put together a defense in time for next year. Oh, and most important, the stellar FSU track team gets to keep its two NCAA outdoor titles. Get ‘em, Gramps!

Because Florida is a state in such good economic and political shape, our state house and senate have time to take on important legislation like recent House Bill 671 and Senate Bill 926. Both of these propose to offer exemptions to universities allowing them to only offer five acres in order to serve as a columbarium, rather than the usually mandated 30.

What’s that? You say you’re not familiar with this term “columbarium”? Shame on you: it’s a cement thing with niches in it allowing corpses’ ashes to be stored. The University of Florida is leading a charge to change the rules so The Swamp can be the resting place for the sooty remains of wealthy Gators.

Considering that something like 60% of the Florida legislature went to UF, I imagine this one will be a slam dunk (a play, by the way, which the Gator basketball team seems unable to complete, but I digress). Anyway, I don’t have much opinion on this, except to say that as much as I love the Gators and my time at UF, I can thnik of better places to store my ashes. Like the trade paperback literature section at Powell’s in Portland. Anyway, we’ll see how many requests the University of West Florida and Florida Atlantic get when the bill passes.

So Tennessee decided to fire Phil Fulmer toward the end of last season, apparently assuming the coaching shark tank that is the SEC East had passed him by. To replace him UT did what a lot of NFL and college teams seem to be doing: rather than trying to steal a “name” coach from an established school, they went for a young hotshot, namely Lane Kiffin, who had stunk it up with the Raiders, but hey, who hasn’t lately?

Kiffin was a top assistant under Pete Carroll at USC, where he earned a reputation as a good recruiter, able to charm and fire up good players. Tennessee obviously saw him as a guy who could recruit with the Sabans and Meyers of the world and kick start the Vols back into SEC relevance (I know, I know, they were in the SEC title game just two years ago, but that still seems like a weird dream).

What the Vols braintrust probably couldn’t have predicted was Kiffin’s becoming perhaps the conference’s number-one, most-hated target of the Vols’ biggest rivals so soon. Turns out Lane is quite the loudmouth, a guy who so far hasn’t been able to make his foot big enough that he can’t cram it into his mouth. Let’s have a list of Lane’s stupid soundbites!

1. First, Lane decided to make Urban Meyer take an interest in him. The morning after Signing Day, at a Vols booster breakfast, Kiffin told the crowd about WR recruit Nu’Keese Richardson that Meyer had “cheated” by calling the player while he was visiting UT. Problems with that statement: A) Calling a player while on a school visit is NOT an NCAA violation; B) Meyer didn’t know Richardson was on the visit; C) Kiffin just ensured that Tim Tebow will be throwing deep against the Vols in the fourth quarter with the Gators ahead by 56.

2. Why did Meyer not know Richardson was at UT? Because Kiffin told Richardson to LIE to UF coaches about UT’s interest. Note that Richardson was an oral commit to UF since spring 2008 and had never shown any inclination to change his mind. His own teammates and head coach at Pahokee were stunned when he put on a Vols cap at his signing ceremony.

3. About Pahokee, a school that has produced numerous NCAA and even NFL players, Kiffin told those same boosters this: “You take that hour drive up from south Florida, there ain’t a gas station that works. Nobody’s got enough money to even have shoes or a shirt on.” And also: ”[Richardson's aunts] didn’t [fax his letter of intent] at the school because they knew somebody at the school was going to screw it up. The fax machine wouldn’t work, or they would have changed signatures, all the things that go on in Pahokee now.”  The Pahokee coach was outraged, and that town’s city council (!) actually formally scolded Kiffin. Considering how many great players come from the muck down there around the southern shores of Lake Okechobee, Kiffin has just closed a strong possible pipeline.

4. Kiffin “stole” Alabama’s top recruiter, Lance Thompson, by throwing some serious caysh his way (one positive you have to note about Kiffin is that he’s paying his assistants more than anybody in college–but, of course, one of them is his pops, Monte, the DC). Then Thompson and Kiffin crowed about how they had hurt Bama’s recruiting. So besides pissing off Meyer, who has already shown that he carries a grudge and will pay it back (right, Mark Richt?), Kiffin has now pissed off the Devil himself, Nick Satan. Better yet, Thompson bragged that UT would now “own” the fertile recruiting area of Memphis, but within a week Saban had gotten an oral commit for 2010 from consensus top-ten WR from, you guessed it, Memphis.

5. After falsely accusing Meyer of cheating to get Richardson, the Lord of Irony smote Kiffin by having him truly get hit with two secondary violations: first, it was discovered he had had recruits give a dummy press conference, and then he had players run onto the field at Neyland Stadium with fog machines running. Though minor, these are infractions regarding simulating game-day conditions, forbidden by the NCAA.

6. And then Kiffin got a third violation a couple days ago, when he mentioned stud RB Bryce Brown, who is waiting until March to sign (my guess is he’ll go to Oklahoma, not Miami, btw), which, of course, is forbidden.

You can make an argument that none of this matters. He’s certainly fired up the Volunteer nation, sparking comparisons to the way Steve Spurrier shook up other folks with his big mouth when he came in. But remember that Spurrier came in having unbelievably won an ACC title at Duke, giving him a bit of a pedigree as a college head coach. Kiffin has never even (head) coached a college game, and he’s made sure that his two main rivals will want even more badly to punish him. And keep in mind that at his hiring press conference, Kiffin told Vols fans he looks forward to singing “‘Rocky Top’ all night after beating the Gators at the Swamp.” Something tells me that Tebow and Meyer, notorious for using even perceived slights as motivation, will be reminding each other about that all summer. Thanks for making the SEC East even more exciting to look forward to, Lane!

Here at F&D Headquarters, we’re always thinking about ways to make our product better for you, our readers. That, and how many squirrels Charlie Weis could fit in his pants.

To that end, I mean the first one, we thought we’d solicit some feedback from you regarding things you’d be interested in seeing here. It’s very simple: reply to this post with your thoughts regarding either of these two questions or anything else that would make you check us out even more than you do now:

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Some random thoughts about the 2009 SEC classes:

Lane Kiffin seems to have passed his first test as an SEC coach (well, second, if you have a test for having a hot-blonde-model wife who inspires facebook groups and websites of her own, as I most certainly do) by getting Tennessee’s best class in a few years.  Phat Phil had allowed Georgia, Florida, and especially Bama to make inroads into Tennessee, but Kiffin mostly locked down his in-state targets (with the notable exception of a last-second decommit by stud WR Marlon Brown, who’s heading to UGA), and he managed to steal two Gator commits: Nu’Keese Richardson and Marsalis Teague, both of whom looked to flourish in the Gator spread (and boy will I miss not being able to yell “Nu’Keese” at the TV set . . . well, in a positive way, that is). This should all come as welcome news to Vols fans, who are itching to be relevant in the SEC again (I know, I know, they were in the championship game last year!!! But that still doesn’t seem real).

One theory I heard that I think makes sense is the idea that a big year, like winning a national title, pays off not immediately but the next season out. This talk centered on LSU, which did well but not crazy good last year after their NC, but this year had a ridiculously good class. The rationale is that by the time your team wins a title, the vast majority of players have made trips or declared or at least are strong leans someplace. But the juniors, just starting the process, can get geeked about joining a team that just won big.

This effect might have been going on with the Gators, who saw some big decommits (the two WRs listed above as well as #1 DB Greg Reid, who went to FSU) despite their title run. The Gators just didn’t have many scholarships to give this year, so they only signed 16, including just one WR (Andre Debose, from Seminole HS, about 12 miles north of where I write this). But already there’s a lot of interest from kids in the 2010 class. The Gators were also likely hurt by the glut of returning players–being two-deep at EVERY defensive position will indeed frightenaway kids who aren’t either super-confident or willing to believe that it’s okay to get better and learn rather than being promised immediate playing time at a program that has less talent.

Georgia did great, and they’re going to have the big receiver Marlon Brown to go with last year’s freshman sensation A.J. Green. Now they just have to get a QB to throw it to them. UGA’s big-time QB recruit is Aaron Murray from Tampa Plant HS. All I know about that kid is that while visiting my brother-in-law in Tampa in October, I picked up the Tribune on a Saturday morning and saw that Murray had gotten an early rest after throwing seven TDs the night before . . . in the first half. Whether he can handle the SEC East right away is questionable, but the Dawgs look to be scary on offense in 2010.

South Carolina’s big coup was stealing WR Alshon Jeffrey from that other USC out West. If Stephen Garcia can stay out of jail, he can throw some balls his way.

Ole Miss signed 37 dudes. 37!!! Houston Nutt is awesome.

Dan Mullen didn’t do much with just a few weeks to recruit for Miss State, but they’re going to be fun to watch right away.

Everybody else? Eh, you know, they did fine, I’m sure.

The dust is settling on signing day, and the usual suspects are at the top of all the experts’ consensus winners. ESPN has it like this: LSU, USC, Texas, Ohio State, Alabama, Florida, Miami, Georgia, Oklahoma, FSU.  No real surprises there.

Les Miles and Nick Satan continue to work wonders by bringing in stars. With this class, luring big names like Russell Shephard away from Texas, Miles has proven that he doesn’t need Saban’s recruits to win. Keep in mind that if LSU had had a good starting QB last year, they could’ve likely beaten anybody. So they’ve reloaded. Satan kept his best players ins state and out of Auburn, and he held onto consensus #1 RB Trent Richardson.

Like anyone else watching ESPNU today, I got to see some clips of LSU’s Shephard; that kid is fast and strong, and I imagine that in fall 0f 2010 he’ll be starting for LSU, unless, of course, he lives his life like Ryan Perriloux, who got tossed out of Baton Rouge last season–therein lies the inherent difficulty of getting too excited about signing day.

Sure, championships are won based on what teams bring in today, but for every Percy Harvin there’s a Steve Shipp, a Gator recruit back in ‘95 who was the top-rated WR on everyone’s board, and by some lights the best overall player recruited that year. He barely got onto the field at UF during a stretch when they didn’t have the best receiving corps.

The one team that never ceases to amaze is USC. They pick up the country’s top QB prospect again, which appears to be a yearly prerogative for the Trojans. This year it’s Matt Barkley, who attended California’s QB assembly line, Mater Dei High School. Other notable QBs out of there: Matt Leinart, Colt Brennan, and 1964 Heisman winner John Huarte. Crikey. In the meantime, they can have verbal commitments broken by a top-five recruit like Manti Te’o or top-five OL Xavier Sua-Filo, and they still may have the best group in the country. What’s even more shocking is that some Samoan/Hawaiian dudes didn’t go to USC–isn’t it some kind of law for those guys to go to USC?

Okay, more to come. Stay tuned.

So in 24 hours we’ll all be able to see the shiny new 4.2 40 freshmen that our favorite coaches will be leaving under our trees. Till then I’ll be singing carols and watching grainy YouTube videos of high school seniors whomping each other. Tomorrow night I’ll provide a recap of how the SEC teams appeared to do and some general thoughts on the national scene, all cobbled together from sources who, unlike me, actually know stuff. Fourth and Dumb is still here, Baby!

So, a college football blog should probably provide some attention to the sport’s biggest game. As an unabashed Gator, it’s hard for me to even get close to objective, but I am aware how razor thin the Gators’ margin was in that game. How different might the result have been had Oklahoma gotten seven on either of its two trips inside teh Gator five yard line in the first half? What if Ahmad Black doesn’t rip that ball away from Manuel Iglesias?

Of course, championships are won by making those plays, and Oklahoma didn’t make them. Add today’s announcement that Tebow will return for his senior season, and you’ve got a lot of happy Gators out there.

I figure that Harvin and Spikes are gone. Both should be first round picks, unlike Timmy, and both now have two rings. There’s no reason for them to risk injury and leave money on the table. I want them to go off and have big careers (please, Ahura Mazda, steer Percy to the Bucs).

Still, as is perenially the case, there are a bunch of teams with beefs, the two most legitimate of which are, in order, Utah’s and USC’s. Texas’s argument lost some of its strength because of the closeness of its win against Ohio State (who, fairly or unfairly, is now considered BCS dogmeat forever until it can blow away a Southern team) and by the poor performance of the Big 12 in the bowls. Utah, however, beat Bama more handily than UF did and went undefeated. Still, few folks not wearing magic underwear would seriously argue that Utah would’ve gone 13-0 in the SEC. USC, however, plays in a big-time conference (well, sort of) which shone in the post season, going 5-0. And then they laid a big whipping on Penn State, though I suspect that the fact that they let the Nittanies kind of hang around in the second half doesn’t help their cause too much, nor does the fact that right now no one expects the Big Ten to be able to win BCS games against anybody. As much as I respect what Utah did, the game I’d sure like to see is UF-USC. These two programs have to hook up sometime soon, and if they can do so in the BCS CG as undefeated teams next year, it will be the biggest college football game of the BCS era, and maybe ever. If Mark Sanchez stays, we might just get to see it; well, as long as USC can get by the ferocious Beavers and UF can get by its visit to Starkville, where they’ll not only meet up with former OC Dan Mullen, who might have some ideas how to slow the offense he ran, and where they’ll have to face their Mississipi Curse, which somehow for twenty years has seen them play poorly against teams from that state.

Now to find something to do for the next nine months . . . better go to Rivals to check out the recruits . . .

In earlier columns, I announced the matchups for this year’s hypothetical (as opposed to mythical) national championship tournament for the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision and put forth my ideas for reforming the bowl system.  One set of details I left out of my bowl reform piece was how the national champion would be determined.  To wit, I did not mention a BCS National Championship Game.  Chris suggested that the game would exist, as the last game on New Year’s Day, but that was not my intention.  However, neither was it not my intention to necessarily exclude it.  In addition, I mentioned a loosening of conference bowl tie-ins, with the caveat that historical tie-ins like the Rose Bowl’s Big Ten-Pac 10 lineup would remain in place.

Based on my observations throughout this year’s bowl season, I decided to explore the idea of a Plus One.  For the uninitiated, the Plus One is a system where the bowls are held as normal, then a separate championship game is held between the two highest rated teams about a week after the conclusion of the bowl season.

For the purposes of this framework, lets have five BCS bowls exclusive of the BCS National Championship Game.  Keep the Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange Bowls in the mix, and return the Cotton Bowl to the top tier of bowls after 15 years as a second class bowl.  Now is a good a time as any with the game set to move to Jerry World next year.  For the bowl tie-ins, have the Big Ten and Pac 10 meet as usual in the Rose Bowl, the SEC host the Sugar Bowl, the ACC host the Orange Bowl, and the Big 12 host the Cotton Bowl.  For the Fiesta Bowl, have the automatic at-large selection from the lesser conferences host the game; otherwise, if there is no qualifier from Les Petit Cinq, the Big East is the host conference.  Under this system, the 2009 matchups would have been as follows:

Rose Bowl: Penn State v. USC

Fiesta Bowl: Ohio State v. Utah

Cotton Bowl: Alabama v. Oklahoma

Sugar Bowl: Texas v. Florida

Orange Bowl: Cincinnati v. Virginia Tech

If you have been following this bowl season carefully, then you realize that something is wrong with these matchups.  Yes, the matchups have been put together in such a way that we effectively have national semifinals in the Sugar Bowl and Cotton Bowl, based on the BCS standings and using the pre-existing bowl tie-ins as best as can be done.  That will be the natural inclination of the powers that be.  But are the four best teams in the country the four teams in those two games?  What about USC?  There are many people who would have put the Trojans in the top four, even before their smackdown of Penn State in the real Rose Bowl.  What about Utah?  The Utes were the only team in the BCS bowls that came in undefeated.  After we saw how good they were in taking care of Alabama, would anyone outside of Columbus pick against them in this Fiesta Bowl matchup?  Even before their romp of Alabama, they would not have been a significant underdog against the Buckeyes.

There are then four (0r three, if you begrudge Texas for not covering the spread against Ohio State) worthy teams in play for two spots in the National Championship Game.  We are back in the same situation we were in December 7, except we have one more period of data to work with.  While the margin of error is larger under the Plus One compared to the current BCS, it still comes down to chance as to whether this system will work well.  When there are four teams that are clearly superior to the rest, and those four teams are matched up in two bowls, the system is guaranteed to work well.  However, when that does not happen, there is a chance that a very deserving team will be excluded from the national championship picture.  You cannot have both the full tradition and a non-mythical national champion.  The Plus One is not going to change that.