Phillips shows two coaches the door
The Joker appears to be rather serious about turning things around after another .500 season in Lexington.
Running backs coach Larry Brinson and safeties coach Chris Thurmond have been let go. Also, Phillips will hire a new defensive assistant who will serve as co-coordinator with Steve Brown.
Brown might not be completely to blame for the Kentucky defensive falloff, but apparently Phillips isn't going to wait around to see progress.
Farewell to the Wannstache
Dave Wannstedt is out at Pittsburgh after having been resigned. (Note: This is not re-signed, but resigned. In other words, it wasn't his decision to leave.) That could matter to you for one of two reasons. The first: Kentucky will face Pittsburgh in its bowl game, though we have yet to hear whether the Panthers will be sans Wannstedt or not.
The second: Alabama outside linebackers coach Sal Sunseri
Roll Bama Roll points out why this might be an offer he would listen to.
Well, as long as he's getting 'support and sponsorship' for the football team
From USA TODAY's round-up of off-the-wall coaching contract clauses.
South Carolina: The school pays for Steve Spurrier's membership fees, monthly dues and related assessments (excluding food, beverages and related charges) for two country club and one dining club to allow Spurrier to "develop and promote interest in and support and sponsorship of the football program and the University."
However does he find the time to do anything for himself, with such a burdensome requirement to help the football program succeed?
Was this the only mistake?
So we all know about the mistake in the BCS formula that was found in Alabama-Huntsville researcher Wes Colley. (Huntsville represent!) But see if you have the same question I have after reading this post from Jon Solomon.
The mistake was caught by CollegeBCS.com's Jerry Palm, who reviews Colley's work. Colley said he neglected to include that one score because it wasn't initially on the database of Peter Wolfe, another BCS computer ranker.
Colley is the only person who makes his formula publicly available. ...
Colley said he and other proprietors have discussed this week how to produce one accurate database of scores. Three of the computers get data from Wolfe.
Wait -- the only one who makes his numbers available was found to have the error, but it came from a source that provides data to at least two other computer polls. Does anyone else see the issue that could be here, and does anyone think we would know if some of the other computers also got it wrong?
Bob Kustra is going a bit too far here
Many of the points that Boise State President Bob Kustra makes in hist latest BCS screed -- does he really not have anything better to do than say something about the BCS every week? -- are right on. That said, he's kind of being creative with part of his argument.
It's egregious enough to see teams with mediocre seasons climb into the BCS bowl games because they happen to be in privileged conferences, while others with better records are written off as second-class citizens. When we cannot see how these decisions are made, it becomes an affront to the concepts of integrity and fair play that we claim to value.
Except that's not what happened or what could happen here. The only team that got in this year after what you could call a "mediocre season" would be Connecticut, and we know exactly why that happened. (The Big East has an automatic BCS bid that it has done nothing to earn over the last five years.) The non-transparent part is not why Boise State isn't going to the BCS; Boise State isn't going to the BCS because it didn't beat Nevada. The non-transparent part, in fact, only affected two teams that didn't go to the BCS.
Even if the error had sent, say, LSU to the BCS instead of Boise -- how would that have rewarded a team with a mediocre season? It wouldn't have. Boise has plenty of good reasons to be angry with the mistake, but this isn't one of them.