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SEC POWER POLL 2009
1. ALABAMA (12), 243
2. FLORIDA (9), 240
3. LSU, 207
4. TENNESSEE, 175
5. AUBURN, 169
6. OLE MISS, 132
7. GEORGIA, 118.5
8. ARKANSAS, 116.5
9. SOUTH CAROLINA, 103
10. MISSISSIPPI STATE, 64
11. KENTUCKY, 49
12. VANDERBILT, 21
Sprints Thinks It Can Win Five National Titles Over the Next Four Years // 02.09.10
by cocknfire on Feb 9, 2010 1:22 AM EST
in Sprints
1 comment
You say goodbye ... and so do we
It appears that those of you who were concerned about Florida recruits in the wake of George Edwards' oddly timed decisions to leave Gainesville need not be concerned anymore.
Edwards' 27-day tenure ended Thursday, the day after National Signing Day.
Miami Booker T. Washington DE Lynden Trail, who met Edwards once, said he's talked to numerous recruits in recent days and nobody has mentioned Edwards.
"He didn't seem to fit the mold of a Gators coach," Trail said. "I'm sure he's a great guy, great family guy, but he didn't have the intensity of every other Gators coach when he got here. It doesn't change anything for me. We're all ready to come play anyway."
1 comment | 0 recs |
SEC Basketball at the Half
by Year2 on Feb 8, 2010 2:17 PM EST
in Basketball
1 comment
The title of this post is not some sort of terrible new halftime show like what we saw last night in the Super Bowl ("I tell you Jim, if the Colts can get back to doing what they were doing when they were doing well, they'll be right back in it!" Right, because the Colts aren't trying to play well anymore). Rather, thanks to a weekend where all 12 teams had a game on Saturday, everyone has played at least eight of their 16 conference games.
To me, the biggest news is not Kentucky being atop the SEC East. That was fully expected, and though being 22-1 is indeed a big deal, it's not really a shock. The biggest deal to me is the sight of Arkansas alone atop the West division.
A week ago, I said the Hogs looked like a classic spoiler. Now, they are somewhat unbelievably the leaders in the division after a wild and woolly win over Auburn. Just a season ago, the program was a wreck after going 2-14 in conference. John Pelphrey looked like he might have been in over his head. Heck, this season didn't start so great either. Pelphrey kept things together though, and underwhelming seasons by division favorites Ole Miss and Mississippi State have opened the door for the Pigs. I have doubts about whether they'll be getting a first round bye in the league tournament, but then, I had doubts as to whether they'd be in the top half of the division before SEC play began too.
But anyway, back to those 22-1 guys. They had no trouble in whomping hapless LSU two days ago, looking every bit like the frontrunner they are. Taking care of business with authority is what great teams do.
With that in mind, I can safely say that Vanderbilt is not a great team.
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An Appreciation: LB Eric Norwood
by cocknfire on Feb 8, 2010 11:00 AM EST
in Football
3 comments
Fifth in a series on seniors leaving the SEC.
There are a lot of things you can do for the first time in South Carolina history that wouldn't be particularly noteworthy at other universities. For example, Steve Spurrier's being the first head coach to defeat Florida, Tennessee, Georgia and Clemson might be significant in Columbia as a mark of how far the program has developed -- but it's not exactly something that would make him a nominee for best coach ever at most programs.
| APPRECIATIONS 2009 |
| QB Jonathan Crompton (Tennessee) |
| RB Anthony Dixon (Mississippi State) |
| WR Brandon LaFell (LSU) |
| RB/WR Dexter McCluster (Ole Miss) |
Just about any school, though, probably doesn't have a lot of three-time All-SEC players among its ranks. Eric Norwood might not have been the first at other schools, as he was at South Carolina. But he likely would have been in fairly exclusive company -- and he deserves to be.
For all four years of his college career, and for the last three years in particular, Norwood was almost as constant a presence in the other team's backfield as he was in South Carolina's games. He ended up with more tackles for loss than games played, and averaged five tackles a game even with his somewhat limited stats in his first campaign. And again, any doubts that he was among the most respected defensive players in the game during his career have to contend with those three consecutive years where the league's coaches voted him among the best.
All of that while earning a degree in three and a half years after being turned down for admissions multiple times. At a time when too many programs -- including, lately, South Carolina -- want to improve their APR scores the easy way by pushing out marginal athletes, Norwood is a test case for the idea that it can be done another way: By taking academically marginal athletes with good character and turning them into student-athletes.
But he will be remembered more for his accomplishments on the field -- in part because there's no better way to recognize a player of his caliber. Where he played didn't matter. Whenever he walked into the stadium, Norwood was guaranteed to be among the best.
| Eric Norwood, 2006-09 | ||||
| G | TKL | SOLO | TFL | SACKS |
| 51 | 255 | 175 | 54.5 | 29 |
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Sprints Wonders Why We All Paid So Much Attention to the Tim Tebow Super Bowl Ad // 02.08.10
by cocknfire on Feb 8, 2010 12:40 AM EST
in Sprints
6 comments
That's it? Your humble correspondent must admit that he actually laughed when the CONTROVERSIAL TIM TEBOW ABORTION SEEK AND DESTROY LIBERALS ad finally aired. I laughed because, well, we all lost our collective minds over this:
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Super Bowl XLIV Links: Where the NFL Steals College Football's Naming Convention
by cocknfire on Feb 7, 2010 3:57 PM EST
in Football
0 comments
It's time for the Super Bowl, which features the No. 1 team from the National Football Conference playing the No. 1 team from the American Football Conference. Look at those carefully again -- National Football Conference. Sounds vaguely socialist, especially when compared to the AMERICAN Football Conference. (Yeah, the Falcons are in the NFC, but that's for another year.) So Americans will obviously not cheer for the Saints.
In any case, SBNation.com is covering the big infomercial game so we don't have to.
Go here for the SBN-wide open thread. Works the same way our weekend threads here on Team Speed Kills work, only with hopefully more people from all over the sporting Interwebs.
Before the game, you can look at our comprehensive Super Bowl preview. It's up to 59 updates as of this writing, so I think it's about as complete a look at the game as you'll find.
But always check out the team-specific sites. In this case, Stampede Blue has your Colts coverage and Canal Street Chronicles follows the other guys.
Enjoy the game.
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Sprints Wonders If a Meme Is a Meme If Your Coach Repeats It // 02.05.10
by cocknfire on Feb 5, 2010 2:24 AM EST
in Sprints
9 comments
NATIONAL SIGNING DAY REACTION
Another person echoes mainstream media meme about Georgia's defensive coordinator search
Why can't these anti-Georgia commentators stop talking about how the hiring process hurt the Dawgs? The latest is ... Mark Richt?
"Recruiting is a lot about relationships," Richt said. "Anytime there is some kind of change on your staff for whatever reason, the relationships that had been built throughout this recruiting process were broken. I think the timing of the hire, taking as long as it did, it did put a strain on some of these young men who had committed. We know some guys changed their mind."
That's obviously different. Just because.
9 comments | 0 recs |
Florida DC George Edwards is Buffalo Bound, ESPN can't use Wikipedia
by Year2 on Feb 4, 2010 2:31 PM EST
in Football
9 comments
UPDATE, 4:10
Jeremy Fowler of the Orlando Sentinel and Ben Volin of the Palm Beach Post are reporting via Twitter that a UF spokesman gave them additional information. Edwards' move "surprised" the rest of the coaching staff, and Steve Addazio and not Urban Meyer will coordinate the search for a new coordinator. Volin additionally reports that the spokesman said Edwards' move "happened quickly."
It's likely that one of two things happened here. One is that the school knew about this before NSD and worked out a deal with Edwards so that he would wait to go until after. The other is that the school didn't know, and either Edwards himself waited to leave until after NSD or Gailey waited until after to extend a job offer. Both scenarios are plausible, but it's highly unlikely that any recruits knew about it before yesterday. New UF signee DE Lynden Trail commented on the situation to the Miami Herald, and he doesn't seem to have had any knowledge of the move until this afternoon.
--
After roughly a month on the job, Florida defensive coordinator George Edwards is taking the same job with the Buffalo Bills. New Bills head coach Chan Gailey had Edwards as an assistant when Gailey was head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, so the two have a history. Gailey also attended UF, so he's screwing over his alma mater with this hire. Looks like Urban Meyer's leave of absence is beginning with another defensive coordinator search.
At first, I was a bit suspicious of the report because ESPN, who broke the news, had fact errors about Edwards' experience in its writeup of the story. I knew for a fact that Edwards wasn't a UF coach the last five seasons. I went to Edwards' Wikipedia page as a quick reference while also searching for his bio on GatorZone, UF's official athletics site, and I found where those errors come from. The section in question from ESPN:
Edwards coached the defensive line for the Dallas Cowboys in 1997 before moving to the Washington Redskins from 1998-2002 to coach the same position. He was the Cleveland Browns' defensive coordinator in 2003. He coached linebackers for the Miami Dolphins in 2004 before accepting the linebacker job at Florida from 2005-09.
Here's what the sidebar on Edwards' experience from Wikipedia looks like, with lines drawn to show the proper delineations:
It's a somewhat confusing graphic, since the years line up with the position and not the employer. However, this information is correct and matches the bio information on GatorZone. It also matches the Wikipedia article text.
However, if you quickly scan the thing and interpret it incorrectly, the information morphs into this:
DL coach with Dallas in '97, Redskins from 1998-02, DC with the Browns in '03, linebackers for a year with Miami, and then linebackers at Florida from '05-'09. That matches the text from ESPN's report. I guess John Clayton, or whoever wrote this for him, can't read Wikipedia infograms. Even worse is this line from later on:
Edwards also spent seven years coaching at the college level, including stops at Georgia, Duke, Appalachian State and Florida. He coached current Bills defensive tackle Marcus Stroud at Georgia in 1997.
Apparently, Edwards was coaching in both Dallas, TX and Athens, GA in 1997. He's an even more remarkable coach than we all thought. In case ESPN updates the site to include accurate information (which it really should), here's a screenshot of the original article text. For shame, WWL.
Click to embiggen.
9 comments | 0 recs |
National Signing Day Headlines
by Year2 on Feb 4, 2010 10:01 AM EST
in Football
8 comments
Florida, Florida über alles
As expected, Florida brought in the nation's top rated class according to two of the three major services (and is a close second on Rivals). Just getting signed letters of intent from all of the verbal commits prior to today would have made for the best class in the conference, but the Gators added two more four star recruits in Chaz Green and Adrian Coxson. This is all still a minor miracle considering how unstable everything in Gainesville looked just over a month ago.
UF has now taken the league's recruiting crown from Alabama, who has held it the last two years. Since 2006, either Florida or Alabama has been ranked as having the best class in the SEC. Given the participants of the last two SEC Championship games, that should come as no surprise.
The Yellowhammer State ended a split decision.
The services disagree as to who had the best class in the state of Alabama, and that in and of itself is a victory for Auburn. Bama showed some chinks in the armor, losing coveted CB Keenan Allen to Cal, while Auburn picked up big name after big name.
It's not like having either the fourth or fifth best class in the country is anything for Crimson Tide fans to be upset about; roughly 115 teams in the land would probably want to swap classes with Bama. Still, for Auburn to end up neck and neck after a season in which the Tide was 14-0 and the Tigers were 8-5 is a win for Gene Chizik and his staff. We still need to see them coach up a better team that what we saw in 2009, but closing the gap in recruiting is a key step towards closing the gap between the teams' records.
Derek Dooley is a fine salvage man.
Lane Kiffin bolted a few weeks ago, taking Tennessee's best recruiter with him. The school was rejected by its first few head coaching choices. Recruits appeared to be wavering at best and bailing at worst. I don't think anyone would have blamed Dooley if his first class wasn't stellar, especially when even good recruiters turn in transitional classes below their potential all the time.
Despite some inevitable losses, Dooley firmed up most of the existing commitments. He added some good prospects too, headlined by former Georgia commit WR Da'Rick Rogers. If this is what Dooley can do with a couple weeks, then Tennessee is likely just fine when it comes to recruiting in the future. Of course, the same caveats about coaching them up that apply to Chizik apply here.
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