Fourth and Dumb

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!

As most of us expected, Alabama proved to be too much for Texas last night, but surely everyone on earth is wondering if it would have been different if Colt McCoy had not gotten hurt on the fifth play of the game. The UT freshman QB Garrett Gilbert finally warmed up a bit in the late second half and got Texas to 24-21, and after the Longhorns’ D shut down a Bama drive, Gilbert and the offense got the ball inside their fifteen yard line with less than three minutes to go: just your standard national-championship-winning drive of 85+-yards staring a true frosh in the face.

Kirby Smart called a good LB blitz, Anders crushed the kid, and Bama won its first NC of the 21^st century.

Good for them. That’s why you hire Nick Satan—to win you a NC. Of course, with that guy one always has to wonder if/when he’s going to leave. Is it possible for him to stay in Tuscaloosa for 15 years or so until retirement? Certainly there’s not a better college job out there (equal jobs exist, but there’s no place where one can recruit and win any better). You have to think that Saban will want another shot at the NFL someday, but Bama fans can likely rest easy for a couple years anyway.

Of course, like all Gators, I’m already scoping the Tide out for next year. UF goes to Tuscaloosa on October 2 of next year, where they’ll presumably be playing the #1-ranked, defending national champions. Both teams will have lost significant performers, though it looks a little worse for the Gators due to the diminished shine in the absence of Timmy Tebow’s halo.

Gators lose: Tebow, WR Riley Cooper, OLs Pouncey twins (or at least Mike), TE Aaron Hernandez, S Joe Haden, MLB Brandon Spikes, OLB Ryan Stamper, DE Jermaine Cunningham, probably DE Carlos Dunlap.

Tide loses: RB Roy Upchurch, CBs Javier Arenas and Tyrone King, OLB Anders, DT Terence Cody, Kicker Tiffin, both punters, two OL starters, and almost certainly MLB and defensive captain Rolando McClain.

Again, the Gators’ losses seem worse because of Tebow’s moving on, but most observers are pretty confident in the ability of redshirt junior John Brantley to step in and throw it better than Tebow ever did. They lose the running at the QB position, but they get back Percy Harvin impersonator Andre Debose, who was hurt before the first game.

Bama gets another year of Greg McElroy and Mark Ingram, and we can expect to see a lot more of the home-run-threat running of Trent Richardson.

Alabama should be preseason #1, and I figure the Gators to be around 4-5. The game in Tuscaloosa actually may not end up mattering too much, as it very likely could be just round one between the Gators and the Tide in 2010. If nothing else, it’s pretty clear that those two teams have set themselves up as the twin peaks of the SEC, and the road to the national title will have to include stops in their home cities.

In case you have been away from your information muse this week, the big news in college football, aside from Idaho converting a two-point conversion to win the Humanitarian Bowl and Nebraska beating the snot out of Arizona in the Holiday Bowl, is the firing of Texas Tech head coach Mike Leach. Leach was fired after he legally challenged his suspension from coaching in the upcoming Alamo Bowl. He was suspended because of his suspected treatment of one Adam James.

Note that this is not a simple Mark Mangino case. Mike Leach has no major anger management issues and no significant history of mistreatment of players. This Adam James is no ordinary James; he is the son of Craig James, a former running back at Southwest Conference rival Southern Methodist University who is better known by young whippersnappers as a college football analyst on ESPN and ABC. There is no doubt the heft of Adam being the son of an influential person play a major role in how this went down. Had Adam James been the son of a nobody, this never would have seen the light of day. Leach also has had run-ins with the administration, such as his wandering eye for other jobs and contentious contract negotiations. Perhaps the administration saw fit to get rid of this thorn in their side when they had a convenient out. The administration is now going to get its worst from Leach, who promises extensive legal action over his firing with cause.

As for the bigger picture, this is a serious blow to the Texas Tech football program. Leach is forced out as only the best coach is school history, with an 84-43 record in ten years. Barring a home run hire in the next few weeks, if there was any chance the Red Raiders would become a regular contender in the Big XII South, that chance is gone. While Texas Tech never achieved the elite level of Texas and Oklahoma except for 2008, they consistently served as a major thorn in the side of those programs, always good for an upset to derail conference or national championship hopes. The Raiders were the third best program in the division. With that status likely to be forfeited, there is now room for a new program to step up and consistently challenge the Longhorn-Sooner hegemony. Will it be Oklahoma State under Mike Gundy? Will Mike Sherman help Texas A&M recover from a mediocre decade? Will Art Briles lead Baylor (Baylor!) to division glory?

As for Leach, he is still young (48 years old) and he is the singular kind of coaching talent that schools on the fence about keeping their coach would dump their guy for in a Lubbock minute. That is, if potential suitors are not scared off by his anti-establishment persona. Even if he sits out 2010 while the legal process plays out, the Cap’n is sure to be back on the sidelines in 2011, enriching our college football experience both on and off the field.