Back to Columbia - yippee

Good morning from JFK Airport in NYC. I'm headed back to Columbia today after spending the weekend here and covering the Heisman ceremony. The story on Tim Tebow's third place finish is simple. He got squeezed by the Big Twelve people, and they didn't get the same treatment in SEC territory. With no one besides Tebow relevant in the south this year, Colt McCoy and Sam Bradford got on most ballots of anyone I know. With guys like Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree available, plenty of people in the southwest went for them and blew off Tebow altogether. If you're a Gator fan, I'm not sure this is a bad thing. It was clear afterward that Tebow's fired up, and so are his teammates. The last time Florida played a Heisman winner in the BCS game it worked out pretty well. Having Bradford dealing with the media responsibilities and hype over the next couple of weeks can only help the Gators. If Tebow won, the amount of people rooting for him to fail on January 8th because they're sick of hype overload would have been off the charts. Not clear as of yet is how many voters this song cost Tebow.

Mel Kiper proclaims Tebow will enter the NFL as an H-Back or tight end, not a quarterback. Perhaps. Mel's also the guy who described Andre Ware as being not only the best quarterback in the 1990 draft, but in any draft. I'll wait and see what the league has to say once they've worked Tebow out at the combine (and postseason all-star games, if he stays for 2009).

Auburn's hiring of Gene Chizik is bizarre. They ran Tommy Tuberille out of town for having a losing season, and then hired a guy who's never had a winning season. Chizik has won as many games in his two years as a head coach as Tuberville did this season. Iowa State doesn't seem all that sad about him leaving. This column eviscerates Chizik as viciously as anything I've seen. One particularly harsh passage...

"If Mike Sanford and Tom Amstutz and Doug Martin hand you your lunch with inferior talent, what's Saban going to do with superior talent? When the clock ticks down to 0:00 on future Iron Bowls, there will be nothing left to do but I.D. the Auburn bodies."

Ouch. When Mike Kruzcek is the best the media can do to find someone to sing your praises, you've got a lot of work to do to sell people you're the right guy for the job.

Jacksonville won yesterday, but the season has been a huge disappointment. Even though it sure seems like Jack Del Rio's lost the locker room, it appears his head will not roll. Defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, on the other hand, is toast. This guy's gone from being head coach of the Bills to "head coach in waiting" with the Redskins to fired by the Skins and hired by the Jags and now he's on the move again after one year. For a guy with a reputation as one of the sharpest defensive minds in the league, Williams must have some seriously weak people skills.

If you're in New York anytime soon, I encourage you to visit the Shake Shack on the upper west side. My friends who took us there swore it was the best burger they'd ever had, which is a pretty high standard to meet. It was really good, and although I maintain my loyalty to Fatburger I can recommend Shake Shack highly.