SEC Coverage

Tennessee has announced its self-imposed penalties in response to the violations racked up by former coaches Bruce Pearl and Lane Kiffin. The headliner is two years of probation, but it does not include the loss of any scholarships. Hit the link for the rest of the details.

Clay Travis is reporting that the NCAA will charge Tennessee, Lane Kiffin, and Kiffin assistant David Reaves (now with New Mexico) with a failure to monitor violation. It largely stems from the improper use of hostesses from the now-defunct Orange Pride organization, some of whom were seen and photographed at high school games of recruits. Travis says the NCAA will charge Reaves with spearheading the campaign, but UT and Kiffin will be hit as well. Failure to monitor is usually a major violation, but it's not as bad as lack of institutional control. I personally am still left wondering how Tennessee AD Mike Hamilton has a job. He presided over the disastrous Fulmer-to-Kiffin transition, and now he's got violations in the two most visible sports on campus. We'll have more on this as the story develops.

We've been following the investigations at Florida, Alabama, and especially South Carolina pretty closely, but there's one going on at Tennessee too. They're looking into Lane Kiffin's recruiting practices that resulted in secondary violations, specifically the sending of hostesses to high school games and the ways recruits were contacted. Most of the investigation has centered on Kiffin himself and his former assistants who are still at Tennessee, but now they're going so far as to talk to David Reaves. He's Kiffin's brother-in-law and now is working at New Mexico. If you thought the NCAA was not really paying attention to this case like I did, well, I guess we're wrong.

A recent news item we didn't report was that USC hired former Tennessee Titans running backs coach Kennedy Pola to be the offensive coordinator there. Pola had previous ties to USC and it's a title upgrade and a pay bump, so no big deal, right? Well, Titans coach Jeff Fisher complained that USC didn't ask for permission first and called Lane Kiffin "unprofessional," so that makes it more interesting. But, if we reported every unprofessional thing the man did, we'd have to change the site's name to Kiffin Watch 24/7. Anyway, the Titans have sued USC and Kiffin for inducing Pola to break his contract. It's true that coaches change jobs all the time without getting sued, but when teams go through official channels to get permission, it's not a problem. USC didn't ask first though, and Fisher had fired his old running backs coach to hire Pola specifically. This could get ugly, and it couldn't have happened in a more fitting state.

One of the denizens of Bruins Nation has pointed out that Dillon Baxter's lying about violations by other schools may get him suspended. It's possible that he broke the same bylaw that Dez Bryant did last year, which resulted of course in Bryant being suspended for much of the year. The bylaw in question here is 10.1 (d), which says that "[k]nowingly furnishing the NCAA or the individual's institution false or misleading information concerning the individual's involvement in or knowledge of matters relevant to a possible violation of an NCAA regulation" is considered unethical conduct. What separates Baxter's accusations from Lane Kiffin's accusations last year is that Baxter told the school about it and USC's compliance director wrote a report on it. What, if anything, will happen to Baxter depends on whether the NCAA feels there is a case and if so, if it's worth pursuing. UPDATE The author of the Bylaw Blog doesn't think Baxter's in much trouble as the bylaw I cited above is about investigations already in progress. Crying wolf, it seems, is not an NCAA violation regardless of whether paperwork is filed or not.

ESPN's Ivan Maisel one upped Rivals' Tom Dienhart by getting four coaches to go on record in breaking down the SEC title game participants: Lane Kiffin, Dan Mullen, Rich Brooks, and South Carolina's Ellis Johnson. All of them, in one way or another, think Tim Tebow's the key to the game. To me, the best insight unsurprisingly came from the guy who used to coach the Florida quarterback: "We really encouraged them to run Tim Tebow. One thing with Tim is he will wear you down but he will not beat you with the big play. They moved the ball on us, but we stopped them in the red zone." Mullen's exactly right: you're better off having Tebow rush for two to six yards than having Jeff Demps go for 50 or letting Riley Cooper get open behind the defense.

Posted yesterrday at RTT. For those unfamiliar, the preferred etiquette at RTT is to put a "[fulmerized]" where there would otherwise be objectionable language.

I have a feeling this has gone around as a rumor for a while, but this is the first time I've seen confirmation of it. In 2005, Pete Carroll chose to take away play calling duties from Norm Chow and give them to now-Washington head coach Steve Sarkisian and now-Tennessee head coach Lane Kiffin. The reason was that the two were getting job offers from elsewhere, and Carroll had to do something to keep them from leaving. Chow wasn't fired, but for a guy with his experience and stature, taking away play calling duties basically meant he had to go elsewhere. He did, jumping to the NFL's Tennessee Titans. Chow is now offensive coordinator at UCLA, and USC has yet to win a national title without him despite loaded rosters and lofty expectations.

Yes, you read that correctly: 27 points. Sure, it's only preseason, but I don't know that I've ever seen that large a line between two of the conference's traditional powers. For comparison's sake, Florida is "only" giving 16 to Georgia and giving 17 to South Carolina. (HT: Blutarsky)

Here is audio of the much-ballyhooed "confrontation" between Steve Spurrier and Lane Kiffin. It's difficult to hear what Kiffin says (though you can hear, "Whadya mean whadya mean whadya mean?" in there), but you can hear the Ol' Ball Coach loud and clear. Found via the GSMB.