RIP: Myles Brand, NCAA president, 67
I might not have always agreed with Brand on some issues -- the fight against Native American mascots went too far -- but his focus on academics is to be applauded. And no one can deny that college football, in particular, thrived while he was at the helm. Thoughts and prayers, of course, to his family and all who knew him.
TENNESSEE-FLORIDA
'Dude, are you really this stupid?'
That is the not altogether unreasonable response from one Gators beat writer after Boy Wonder's latest remarks about Florida, this time about the Gators' spread offense.
"You see some kids that don't want to play in that system because a lot of times it hurts them going to the next level for their draft status," Kiffin said.
I'm sure the recruits are flocking to Tennessee's door after seeing how Jonathan Crompton thrived in Kiffin's system during the UCLA game. Urban Meyer responds after gameplanning to score another 10 points on Saturday.
"Last year we had two (Louis Murphy, Percy Harvin) and I think they are both starting. C.I. (Cornelius Ingram) would have started and Bubba Caldwell is starting. So we’ve done a good job developing NFL talented (receivers). Billy Gonzales has done a great job developing them.'' ...
Also of note: Florida has had six wide receivers selected in the NFL Draft during Meyer's tenure from 2006-09, tied for the most of any school in the nation along with LSU and Ohio State. Southern Cal has had three, Florida State 2, and Miami, Georgia and Tennessee one each.
Facts are apparently not part of The Plan.
He also accused Tebow of being involved in dogfighting
Or maybe I'm misreading this.
No, really it's not
There's such a thing as being counterintuitive just to be counterintuitive.
It is hard to imagine Urban Meyer, the Florida football coach, retaliating against Tennessee and Lane Kiffin on Saturday in Gainesville considering Monte Kiffin sat down with the Florida staff and discussed defense after the Gators’ four-loss season in 2007.
At least they don't buy into The Plan.
Tebow to Jacksonville?
It's actually not a ridiculous idea for him or for the team.
Fulmer not happy about his 'resignation'
Not that it's really a surprise to hear that, but I think this might be his most direct comments yet.
"I'm still PO'd to say the least. There's probably a couple of people there that I'm not going to invite to Christmas dinner any time soon," Fulmer said. "I've chosen the best I can to take the high road. I really love Tennessee, so let there be no doubt about that. It's very much a part of me."
He's still planning to coach again somewhere.
OTHER NEWS
Schedule shuffle. ESPN undertakes a game of musical chairs to arrange for an LSU-North Carolina matchup for the kickoff classic next year, and forgive me if I think South Carolina ends up the only one worse off because it will pay $850,000 to go from playing an up-and-coming ACC program to an above-average Conference USA team. Meanwhile, Southern Miss gets a better team to start the season and the kind of national exposure C-USA teams don't get very often while LSU and UNC get perhaps the game of the first weekend.
South Carolina fans are not impressed. One really has to wonder if this is what the folks in Columbia thought they would be getting when ESPN promised a "suitable opponent" in return for North Carolina. I'm not saying this to rip Southern Miss to shreds. There's no doubt that they are a quality mid-major program. But the Tar Heels are a regional BCS opponent with some history of playing the Gamecocks and are located in a state South Carolina regularly recruits in. That in addition to the perception that they are a team on the verge of contending for ACC titles. Southern Miss is none of those things.
Southern Miss is as pleased as you would expect them to be, even if the move rips through their future schedule like a tornado.
Southern Miss was scheduled to open next season against Southeastern Louisiana but that game will move to a later date during the season or another year.
"This is a huge opportunity to be the first nationally televised game of the year that signals the start of the 2010 season," USM athletics director Richard Giannini said in a news release. "This game generates a tremendous amount of attention and it gives us a chance to showcase our football program to the nation."
In other changes, USM's game at LSU has moved from 2010 to 2011 and a trip to Knoxville to play Tennessee was pushed back from 2011 to 2017.
Tulane could also be counted as a loser, depending on how "voluntary" their agreement to cancel the rest of their LSU series is. Then again, the Green Wave's coaching staff might very well be giddy to remove that particular game from the schedule.
Is there any part of Joe Cox that isn't broken?
He jammed his finger against South Carolina.
Caleb King 'very probable' for Arkansas game
But Richard Samuel is still your starter.
Maurice Langston back on team at Mississippi State
He remains on something called "team probation," which might sound more ominous than it actually is.
RIP: Dave Fuller, former Florida baseball coach, 94
Thoughts and prayers.
Proof that 1915 was a long, long time ago
Well, perhaps in some ways not. They were, after all, coming off of a 2-8 season.