Heath Cline.com

The 582nd and final daily post on this blog - thank you for visiting

2010-11-09T00:15:00.001-05:00

Hi. What you typically would see in this space Monday through Friday is a rundown of four to five sports stories that have caught my attention, along with my thoughts on them. Today I'm afraid things are different. I've come to the conclusion I have to end my daily presence on the blog.

If you look at the times on the posts I've made, you'll notice they typically come at all hours of the night. Normally my wife goes to bed and then I stay up and work on preparing my show for the next day while writing some of that up for the blog. Yesterday my wife let me know she's tired of it being that way. As a result, I've made the decision you're reading about right now.

I first started the blog in May 2008 as a way to maintain the connection with my Gainesville radio audience. When I left town I had the top rated sports show in the city by a wide margin. If you're one of those original readers, please know again how much I appreciated both that and your continued interest in anything I've had to say.

What's been interesting is to see how the blog's readership has grown. The tracking stats have shown visitors from almost every state in the US, plus some other countries. I've never mentioned the existence of the blog once on my Columbia radio show, but somewhere along the way a fairly good sized number of people here have found it and chosen to read it too. Stuff written on this blog turned up in the Las Vegas Sun, St Pete Times and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Wherever you are and however this came to your attention, I want to extend my thanks for your decision to visit as well.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm no longer going to post daily items on the blog. That doesn't mean it will go completely dark. While I'm still not crazy about the Twitter phenomenon, it does make it easy to communicate with anyone who's interested in doing so. I'll continue to be a regular presence there - to read my feed, go to twitter.com/heathradio and you'll be able to see what's on my mind and give me any feedback you wish to if you have a Twitter account.

When there are times I want to write a longer form post not reacting to daily news - for example, about the Heisman Trophy vote - I will still do so and post it here. To this point I have never sent out any messages about the blog on Twitter. Now, when I do write a post, I'll announce it there and send the link out in case you want to come read it. Once again, thank you for your time these past few years. I hope you'll choose to stay in touch with me through the new means to do so.

Fire Dan Hawkins - now, or sooner if possible

2010-11-08T04:45:00.002-05:00

This week was already going to be interesting for me, as it has been since I began working in Columbia when South Carolina and Florida cross paths. Now the game's officially for the SEC East championship and what I think will be a much better shot at winning the conference than most will anticipate thanks to LSU beating Alabama over the weekend. I'll spend plenty more time on the Gamecocks and Gators as the week goes on, but here are my thoughts on South Carolina's debacle against Arkansas I wrote up for my friend Chuck Oliver's site. I'll save most Florida thoughts for later, because I was on the air for most of the game and haven't had time to go back and watch anything after the score hit 28-0 during the second quarter. Jordan Reed's reemergence in a significant role at quarterback is certainly an interesting twist. I'm surprised to see Urban Meyer calling for a "blue-out" at Florida Field this week though. Noise bothers players - colors don't. UF's won tons of big games in the Swamp without any cutesy crap like orange jerseys or this stunt - what's with the gimmicks this year?

Lord knows I've ripped Les Miles plenty over the years, and justifiably so. The clock management bumbling and inept use of the tremendous offensive talent at LSU would be grounds for a malpractice suit if there was such a thing for football coaches. Fairness requires that I give the man his due for Saturday's win though. Miles and his coaches finally got the offense working, made some gutsy calls at critical times that worked, and knocked Alabama out of the BCS picture (and likely down to the Capital One Bowl). The fact Miles chooses to eat grass during games is perfect. Of course he does. LSU's quarterback Jordan Jefferson said Miles told him the grass was good protein. Of course he did. Grass = protein. That sums up Miles in so many ways, but he coached a terrific game Saturday.

So, about that FSU program being back and Jimbo Fisher being a genius.... losing to a completely depleted UNC squad at home for the first time ever might cause a few people to reconsider some things they were writing three weeks ago. As awe inspiring as wins over Samford, Wake Forest and Virginia were, perhaps some folks reacted just a little too strongly to the Seminoles beating a mediocre at best Miami team? FSU's had two chance to take control of their division of the ACC and gave them both away. This week they should be able to handle a Clemson team that's playing very poorly right now, but even then they'll need help to reach the title game. At least Bobby Bowden had a good Saturday with his new commercial debuting. Compared to those horrible insurance company ads with the Bowden grill and statue that aired the past couple of years, this spot looks like Oscar material.

Dan Hawkins should have been fired by the time you read this, but he hasn't been. He should have been fired on the field immediately after Colorado blew a 25 point halftime lead against Kansas. To give you an idea of how bad it was to lose to the Jayhawks like this, here are two facts:

1. Colorado has only won two games outside the borders of the state of Colorado since Hawkins took over with the 2006 season - the last win came in Lubbock over Texas Tech in 2007.

2. Despite fact #1, a three win Colorado team was FAVORED in Lawrence over the Jayhawks by eight points.

The Buffs allowed five touchdowns in the fourth quarter to a team that had scored forty points in their last FOUR GAMES COMBINED. The only reason Hawkins hasn't been fired yet is because his son is the only healthy, experienced QB left and the school's apparently afraid he'll quit if they can his dad. That doesn't matter - Hawkins can not be allowed to walk onto Folsom Field as coach again.

Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari got the chance to meet with Warren Buffett last week. When you have the chance to sit down with one of the most renowned investors of this or any time, where better to take him than the KFC buffet? I know Buffett isn't big into fancy restaurants, but surely there's a good local sandwich place in Lexington? Despite the K in the name, KFC really doesn't qualify at this point.

Randy's next explanation: it's not the heat, it's the humidity

2010-11-05T04:08:00.002-04:00

The only way Florida's game with South Carolina next Saturday isn't for the SEC East title is if the Gators trip up in Nashville tomorrow. Vanderbilt has won a conference game this season, but lacks a credible offense. Losing Warren Norman for the season this week only exacerbates that problem. We'll see how Florida's efforts at a hurry up offense look against an opponent who's spent time preparing for it. I'd anticipate the Commodores blitzing heavily in this game, especially when Brantley is taking the snap. If UF isn't minus two or more in turnovers, they shouldn't have to worry late in this one.

Auburn's got the easiest game on their schedule all year this weekend, which is a good thing when national stories suddenly call into question whether your Heisman front running quarterback was being offered for sale during his post JUCO recruitment process. The NCAA is investigating Cam Newton's recruitment, which puts both him and Auburn in an incredibly difficult position. Newton will now be viewed as potentially shady by most and outright dirty by some, even though he may have had no role in this even if it turns out money did change hands. There was a rumor six weeks or so ago that the price for Newton was 150 grand and that his father's church was involved in some way. Reading about the way the church has apparently gotten into compliance with area building codes recently makes that seem conceivable. The problem is with Newton potentially both a Heisman winner and BCS title game participant there's going to be quite a bit of pressure to get this investigation finished quickly, yet that might not be possible to do. I hope nothing happens that's unfair to the kid, yet Gene Chizik's out of his mind if he thinks saying Newton is eligible at Auburn - "end of story" - is actually the end of something that's just beginning.

Minnesota needs a new football coach. They've got the only BCS conference job known to be open right now, so they're getting a lot of attention as their search process gets started. The St. Paul Pioneer-Press claims their top three candidates to lead the Golden Gophers are: Boise State's Chris Petersen, Stanford's Jim Harbaugh, and TCU's Gary Patterson. I've done a little digging and come up with the next three names on the list:

4. Hayden Fox

5. Woody Hayes

6. Prince

You may think my list is stupid, but I promise you there's an equal chance of one of my three candidates taking the job as there is those three. This is at most the eighth best job in the new Big Ten, and likely lower than that. Harbaugh's getting NFL interest - other than Michigan he's not going to another college gig. The other two have had better opportunities than Minnesota ask them to leave and turned them down. Being honest with yourself about what you are is one of life's big challenges. Minnesota appears to be failing it at the moment.

I've heard lots of explanations from coaches over the years for why things aren't working out as planned for their teams. Some are legit (normally injuries) and others are really excuses. It takes a really special one to stand out as downright bizarre. I didn't think anyone could approach Ron Zook's "You don't know it was a close game" comment in response to a question after 2002's 21-17 UF win over Vandy. Zook explained "we could have scored more" (except for, you know, they didn't - hence the question about it being a close game). Randy Shannon has stepped up to challenge Zook with this doozy he gave to the Miami Herald...

"The hardest thing now -- unlike when I went to school -- is we have thunderstorms now. When I was playing, it was just rain storms. We counted up, we might have missed 12 to 14 days [of practice]. Not in August, I’m talking during the season."

These crazy kids today, with their IPods and Twitter accounts and thunderstorms! If only we could go back to the good times in the Eighties, when Miami had never heard of lightning. If the Canes lose to Maryland tomorrow, I look forward to hearing about the impact of the tides on their pass rush.

A man actually attempted to eat the entire Applebee's "2 for $20" menu last night. He came up about ten percent short of putting away the twelve pounds of food. Why someone would want to do that is a mystery to me, particularly the "provolone stuffed meatballs" they feature in their commercial which look like Cadbury Creme Eggs. I hope you have better plans for your weekend than that. I will be at Arkansas/South Carolina Saturday and New Orleans/Carolina in Charlotte Sunday, and will be sharing thoughts on Twitter along the way. Follow along at twitter.com/heathradio if you're interested. Have a great weekend, and I'll see you back here Monday.

Think this'll tick Lane off?

2010-11-04T03:55:00.001-04:00

The NCAA hands down its punishment on Michigan football today, and all indications are it will be a mild one. The Wolverine program has been under scrutiny for misconduct with regard to the amount of practice time players were being required to participate in as well as grad assistants doing things they shouldn't have been. Some will wonder whether the NCAA has decided to back away from its punishment power again after showing its teeth in unleashing devastating penalties on USC. That case was particularly egregious though, and this one involves far fewer charges and a school with no previous history of violations. Odds are also good that unlike USC's Mike Garrett, tonight Michigan's AD won't publicly blame any punishment they get on haters who all wish they were WOLVERINES.

What Georgia defensive coordinator Todd Grantham did the other day in giving the choke signal and yelling when Chas Henry was about attempt the game winning field goal was classless. That doesn't mean he needs to be suspended and fined substantially, though. Tony Barnhart is a well respected voice in college football, but he overreacted here. The idea players will be less disciplined as a result of a coach doing that seems like a major stretch to me, particularly since Georgia's players have shown they're quite capable of being undisciplined long before anyone in Athens ever heard of Grantham. Give Henry credit for downplaying the whole thing yesterday - presumably that's the end of this particular storyline.

Womens college sports are mostly ignored overall, so for a story from George Washington womens basketball to get national attention you know it has to be a pretty unusual one. One of the Colonial players has decided to switch genders, going from a woman to a man. Henceforth, the former Kay-Kay Allums wishes to be known as Kye. Kye's a junior, meaning for the next two years the GWU womens basketball team will feature someone who lives life as a male. Allums apparently intends to wait until the end of senior season before beginning the hormonal and surgical part of the change, which is why this is considered legal under NCAA rules. Two things spring to mind as a result of this: 1. Thank goodness I've never had to deal with the kind of internal questions about my identity or sexual orientation that some people have, because it has to have been terribly unpleasant for them. 2. What if Allums did begin to transition early? At what point does the process cross the NCAA lines, and could they stand up in court anyway? I'm no attorney, but it seems there are issues which need to be settled there.

Miami will take on a surprising Maryland team this week without not only starting quarterback Jacory Harris, but also top tailback Damien Berry. The Miami Herald reported earlier this week that Miami president Donna Shalala will not cut Shannon loose as long as he can win eight games a season and graduate his players. He'd better hope they're right, because the Canes look like a team that's falling apart at the moment. They still will have more talent than the Terps, but Maryland's on a roll this season and controls their own ACC fate. They're not going to be awestruck to be on the same field with the Hurricanes, that's for certain.

Hola! Como esta usted?

2010-11-03T14:06:00.001-04:00

Greetings from the Qdoba Mexican grill in Columbia's Five Points. The internet access here is working, unlike the way things were at my house this past late night/early morning. No blog for today as a result - back to the usual routine tomorrow.

No more political ads after today, thank goodness

2010-11-02T11:07:00.000-04:00

Freshman safety Jonathan Dowling being dismissed from Florida's program yesterday may be important or completely irrelevant in the broad scheme of things. I don't know, because I've never seen the kid play. Dowling was a big deal recruit, but that doesn't mean he can adjust to college life or play well once he does. What does stand out is that Dowling is the third member of the 2010 signing class to qualify, arrive at UF and be gone by Halloween. That's very unusual to see, and once again reflects the chaos that was going on during the month leading up to signing day earlier this year. The Gator staff was in a major transition, Urban Meyer's status was up in the air, and they were fighting to put together a recruiting haul that eventually was ranked as the supposed best in the nation. I believe some of the current issues Florida has stem from the staff being assembled too quickly to try and save that class. There's no way the coaches and kids could have the same understanding of each other's expectations a more established staff would have, given the circumstances. The "throw some guys together and get them recruiting" ploy appears to have been a short term success, but as this point it's looking very questionable if it was worth it.

A terribly sad story is unfolding at Mississippi State. Defensive end Nick Bell is in intensive care as a result of a cancer that has apparently spread throughout his body. A few weeks ago a cancerous mass had been removed from his brain, but it wasn't known that the problem was elsewhere too. This has been an unbelievable season for Dan Mullen and the Bulldogs, but having to deal with this has to impact them emotionally going forward. Hopefully doctors can get Bell's health back under control, but it sounds really bad right now.

Lots of people are calling for Wade Phillips to be cut loose as coach of the Dallas Cowboys right now because of how pathetic they've been playing. Maybe Jerry Jones will do it now or maybe he'll wait until the end of the year, but everyone knows it will happen. Without anyone on their staff being a legit option to take over (because Jason Garrett would be a ridiculous hire at this point), it really doesn't matter in the end. The Cowboys chances are done for this year. What I can't figure out is how Brad Childress has a job today. The man had to beg Brett Favre to come save him last year, and then got mad when it became clear Favre regarded him as an ineffectual nobody not worthy of any respect. Despite that, he went through the same process this season only now that Favre's played poorly Childress has gotten pissy about him publicly. Childress has just traded a third round pick for Randy Moss and cut him within the same month, while also being inept enough as a manger to notify Moss's teammates before speaking to him. The man has shown zero people skills, playcalling acumen, or game management instinct. I am at a loss to think of anything he is considered good at by NFL standards. Vikings defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier is well regarded as a possible head coach candidate around the league - why don't they give him a shot to pull this mess out of the ditch now while there's still some playoff hopes? There's not a chance Childress can win back that locker room after this fiasco.

The Big East is reportedly conducting meetings today about the possibility of adding new members. The idea is to keep the football schools happy enough that they won't go off on their own to form a new conference. TCU's been the highest profile name linked to this, but if they're smart the Big East would add UCF. The Knights would give them another good sized media market and a natural rivalry with USF. I have no idea how they think they're going to work this out with basketball, since the conference is absurdly oversized already at 16 for that sport, but at least teams could be scheduled on a "Florida swing" of back to back road games with the Knights and Bulls to reduce costs. For football, make sure every school plays UCF and USF on the road in different years as a way to tell Florida recruits they'll get to play a home game in their state each season. UCF's not a bad program either, and the Big East needs some of those to improve its current awful image as a football conference. The funniest part of the Big East's search for bodies is that they're talking about Temple - the same school they kicked out of the league a few years ago for being so awful.

This was not a "hurry up" post

2010-11-01T03:57:00.001-04:00

Florida's win over Georgia was huge for the program in the short term. With a loss, it becomes a distinct possibility that the Gators go 6-6 and are in a crappy bowl game. It would be an open question whether guys would be motivated to work hard the rest of the way knowing any hope of a conference championship was already gone. It was terrific to see Chas Henry get the satisfaction of making a winning field goal after all the grief he's put himself through over the past couple of weeks while struggling as the substitute kicker, particularly considering the classless "choke" gesture TV cameras caught UGA's defensive coordinator making prior to the winning kick. To conclude Florida has turned things around at this point would be a grave mistake though. Having watched every game both they and South Carolina have played this year, there's no question in my mind the Gamecocks are a better football team right now. That doesn't mean they're going to win in two weeks, but UF has got to be a lot sharper by then or they're not going back to Atlanta. A few other thoughts....

1. Will Hill's performance this year continues to be hard to understand. His two interception returns were both impressive, but neither of them came as result of him actually making a play on the ball himself. He certainly appeared to be at least in part responsible for the first UGA touchdown by not providing deep support for Jeremy Brown. No play all game was more annoying than the one where Hill delivered a big hit on Kris Durham and got up dancing and flexing - after allowing a 17 yard completion for a first down. Hill has too much talent to have played the way he has this season. We'll see if he's able to get some momentum coming out of this game.

2. Florida's offensive line's inability to pass block reliably is inexplicable given the overall level of experience in the group. Blitzes will work sometimes against any line, but Georgia got some major heat on Brantley out of a basic four man rush. The Gamecocks are among the national leaders in sacks, and they're not blitzing much to get them. If this isn't shored up in two weeks, John Brantley will find himself on the turf a lot.

3. Playing "hurry up" sounds good in theory, but UF wasn't able to get their "banzai" package to work last season with Tim Tebow running the offense. I find it very hard to believe that they're going to be able to do it on any reliable basis while mix and matching three different guys taking snaps, plus some wildcat stuff with at least one other guy that they haven't showed yet but have worked on. Against Georgia, they had the benefit of surprise. Now that teams know to anticipate it and prepare accordingly, it's even less likely to work. Imagine facing either Auburn (who sees their offense every day) or Alabama (who will have just got done facing Auburn's offense) in the SEC title game. Is a hurry up to run a dive play really going to throw them for a loop or wear their stamina out?

4. When there's 6:36 to go and you have a chance to put your opponent in 2nd and 20 from their 47 versus 3rd and 10 from your 43, you take the holding penalty. Because Florida won, Urban Meyer's decision won't be discussed much today. It still is worth noting. Down 7, that was an obvious four down situation for Georgia. Under those circumstances, the yards are worth more than the down.

5. Aaron Murray's really going to be a nice QB for Georgia by the time his career's done. I was skeptical of how good he could be this season, but in a year with a lot of chaos for the Bulldogs he's performed very well considering his lack of experience. The throw he made for their final TD was absolutely perfect. Not sure how well Georgia will do without Green or Durham at WR next season, though. Tavares King's the only WR they'll have coming back who's shown much, although Orson Charles should be a good weapon too. Meanwhile, UGA now has to beat either Auburn (not likely) or Georgia Tech (doable) or they're not going bowling. That would be a major problem for them, because it would mean missing out on all the bowl practices that give coaches a chance to work with younger players without the pressure of an imminent game.

Other college football stuff...

1. Baylor beat Texas in Austin for the first time since 1991. The Longhorns have lost back to back games to them and Iowa State, and three straight at home overall for the first time since 1938. Somehow, the only game they've won in their last five is over Nebraska in Lincoln. If the incredibly awful Kansas beating Georgia Tech is the weirdest result of the season so far, that Longhorns win isn't too far behind.

2. Another mystifying result from the weekend was Boston College beating Clemson 16-10, giving them a win for the first time since September 11th. Clemson didn't score an offensive touchdown against a bad BC squad, and lost their best running back Andre Ellington to a knee injury. At 4-4 with NC State and at FSU as their next two games, they're in serious danger of not bowling.

3. Ron Zook has probably saved his job at Illinois with his new coordinator hires on both side of the ball. Win one of his last four (and with Purdue on the schedule, he will) and his Illini are going bowling. This week they get Michigan. Rich Rodriguez has lost three in a row and still has a disaster on the defensive side of the ball after three years. Lose to Zook with Wisconsin and Ohio State still on the schedule and the Wolverines are probably looking at no better than a .500 record. Not what they had in mind in Ann Arbor, which could cost Rodriguez his job.

My CP7 for Heisman notepad just dropped in value again

2010-10-29T11:48:00.000-04:00

With Florida's struggles this season, the sudden theme of commentators has been that FSU is now the dominant team in the state. Sure, the Seminoles have lost every game to UF from 2004 on. Yes, they got steamrolled by the most credible opponent they'd faced this year. Still, if UF could lose to Alabama, LSU and a Mississippi State team that's already bowl eligible then clearly FSU is now better than they are. Further proof was to come last night, when Jimbo Fisher and company were supposed to move one step closer to returning to the ACC title game by knocking off NC State in Raleigh. It didn't quite work out that way. Now, should NC State run the table, they'll be the Atlantic Division champs. If they get past a road game at Clemson next week, there's a very good chance that will happen. As for FSU, their one "good" win is a pounding of an athletic but poorly coached Miami squad. Perhaps some folks can now ease up on proclaiming the Seminoles are back as an elite team just because they've handled the likes of Boston College and Virginia?

In the same vein of overreaction, some people have made too much of Georgia's recent run of success just as they did with their early run of losses. Their wins have come against the two worst teams in the SEC so far and a decent Kentucky team coming off an important win. The Bulldogs have a good young quarterback in Aaron Murray and some nice weapons for him to throw to, but also have been shaky on the OL this season. Their defense is a work in progress in the first year under a new coordinator, although Justin Houston can bring serious heat on the QB at times. UGA is a good but flawed team. If Florida regains some big play making capability with the return of Rainey and Demps and improved overall performance as a result of the bye week, it can definitely beat them.

One of the things I'd been hearing that I alluded to in yesterday's blog was that Caleb Sturgis was still not close to right health wise but was going to try to go. That will now not be the case, which is probably the right decision. From what I understand, Chas Henry has taken his recent struggles filling in for Sturgis extremely hard, which is only making it more difficult for him to try and improve his performance as emergency kicker. Simply put, Florida needs to be preparing as if they are always in a four down situation once they cross the UGA 40 and should be calling plays accordingly. Anything outside a 30 yard field goal is going to be extremely dicey,which is a huge problem given this team's inability to finish drives for the last month.

John Brantley has had his version of the 2005 Chris Leak talk. There are times where he'll have input on what plays are being run, although it wasn't made clear to me exactly how that's being done. In Leak's case they had asked him in advance for the plays he was most comfortable with in a certain situation. Brantley might be given choices during the game. Either way, he's got to be able to stay confident, stand and deliver the throws which are there for him to make. Too often against Mississippi State in particular there was a willingness to settle for shorter stuff or inaccuracy when he did throw it. Trey Burton will see plenty of time at QB as well, but he HAS to be allowed to throw some early for that to keep working.

I have no true feel for what's going to happen in Jacksonville tomorrow. All the history and Urban Meyer's record with extra time says take Florida, which is what I did for the newspaper picks competition I take part in for the Columbia paper each week. Suffice to say I wouldn't be in a hurry to put money down on it in Vegas were I there this weekend. I'll be live on the air in Columbia doing postgame after South Carolina's win over Tennessee while the game's going on, and I'll be extremely curious to see how it unfolds. As always, thoughts from the college and pro weekend can be found on the Twitter feed at heathradio as they occur to me. Hope you have a great weekend and I'll see you back here Monday.

LaMont gets crazy if he misses DVRing Cake Boss

2010-10-28T03:12:00.003-04:00

Two days prior to the Florida-Georgia game, Mark Richt isn't sure who will be starting at tailback for his Bulldogs. Washaun Ealey wouldn't have been able to be full strength if yesterday was gameday, and Caleb King's coming back from a two game suspension. I assume the Bulldogs will look to use their big receivers A.J. Green and Kris Durham to attack UF's secondary considering the difficulties they had with Terrence Tolliver, but with a freshman at QB they're still going to need to be able to run well enough to keep heat off of him. I'm hearing a lot of things out of Gainesville right now, and it's decidedly a mixed bag as to what they mean. One thing I am fairly sure of is that fans expecting some kind of 2005 restructuring of the offense are going to be sorely disappointed. There are a couple of wrinkles they're putting in, in large part due to having Chris Rainey available and Jeff Demps healthier, but when Urban Meyer's saying he believes they just have to execute what they've been doing better he's not kidding.

The death of a Notre Dame student as a result of the lift he was filming football practice from being knocked over by wind naturally saddens anyone who hears about it. Once you read more about it though, it makes you angry. Declan Sullivan wasn't a victim of a fluke gust - he was up there in conditions the National Weather Service had been saying were 51 mile an hour winds. Sullivan himself sent multiple tweets indicating he was terrified while he worked. The obvious question is why he didn't come down, and the answer is almost certainly because he wanted to do his job and not seem scared of some wind. He's not to blame, but whoever was irresponsible enough to put him up there most certainly is. How could they not react to the way that lift had to be swaying during practice? It is incomprehensible someone could fail to grasp the risk that kind of wind poses in those situations. I've been to plenty of football practices and seen multiple teams choose not to endanger their video guys as a result of winds far calmer than that. There will be major consequences in the wake of this death, and there should be. Hopefully no other program will make such a foolish choice anytime soon.

Think you're pretty swamped with work? Odds are you aren't as busy as Jason Benetti. He's working four different broadcasting jobs at once, all while going to Wake Forest law school. Still not impressed? How about the fact he's also dealing with cerebral palsy on top of all that. Makes it a little harder to come up with a good excuse why you can't find time for something after you read that story.

I've never heard Benetti call a game, but I'm sure he'll never have an on air moment as embarrassing as Dave LaMont's epic meltdown while calling FAU's loss to Arkansas State over the weekend. LaMont not only raved like a lunatic about his displeasure with what he considered to be a missed call on a late hit, he actually challenged the entire press box to a fight! Amazingly, Florida Atlantic's AD is not suspending LaMont for any games or just dismissing him altogether. Lamont has also done some midweek work for ESPN in recent years. If I was ESPN, there's no way I'd put someone capable of being that big of a loose cannon on my airwaves ever again.

Game one of the World Series was reasonably watchable considering I have no particular rooting interest in either Texas or San Francisco and it wasn't a very close game. Tonight with FSU at NC State in college football that game will be the higher priority for me, although I'll occasionally check the baseball out too. No idea whether others will do what I'm doing, nor do I care. At some point today, a story will likely come out about whatever the TV ratings were for the night before's game. For some reason, some media people think you and I are concerned what they are. Odds are you're not buying advertising during the World Series, so why would the numbers mean anything to you? As long as the games are on, it makes no difference to almost all of us whether they're watched by millions or hundreds. Wish the commentators would take that into account when the ratings are talked about today.

Is this really that much easier to read at 50 miles an hour THAN THIS?

2010-10-27T05:45:00.008-04:00

When the SEC announced the so called "Cowbell Compromise", which allowed Mississippi State fans to bring their cowbells to football games as long as they rang them only at appropriate times, anyone with more than five functioning brain cells knew it wasn't going to work. Guess what? It isn't. The compromise was supposed to be a way for MSU fans to preserve their "tradition", but when the whole tradition has been to make a mockery of the rule against noisemakers how can anyone think it wouldn't end up like this? The only way this will stop is for officials to penalize MSU 15 yards every time enough cowbells ring to be any kind of issue for the visiting team. Fans don't care about fines, but they will stop if doing what they're doing is screwing their own team on the field. Either the SEC wants to do something about artificial noise or they don't, and it's time to make it clear which one it is and treat all fanbases accordingly.

Here's a stunner: the New York Knicks apparently treated NBA rules as something to be ignored, and the trouble started under Isiah Thomas. In this case, the issue is repeated workouts for prospective players at a time of year franchises aren't allowed to do that. Thomas was in charge of the Knicks when this began happening, and after reading the well researched Yahoo! Sports piece it's very hard to imagine an explanation for the events chronicled in the article that didn't involve him knowing about them. This may seem relatively tame given Isiah's disastrous tenure as a whole, but remember the Knicks were trying to rehire him just a few weeks ago. Most NBA observers still believe owner Jim Dolan will eventually bring Thomas back to the Knicks, so he has to be held accountable for this if that happens. Will David Stern make the inept showcase franchise in his biggest market pay for flaunting the rules, or not?

In February, I noted the crude behavior of recruit Markeith Ambles. The supposedly talented WR prospect from Georgia had been a commitment to Tennessee before Lane Kiffin's departure, and eventually joined the USC signing class instead after a drawn out "look at me" recruitment. Ambles did visit Tennessee post-Kiffin, a process that included him making a direct sexual proposition to a female Knoxville radio host publicly via Twitter. Everything about this kid screamed trouble at a very high volume, but talent trumps all in recruiting. Two months into his freshman season, Ambles has now been suspended indefinitely from the Trojans - turns out he's an irresponsible jerk. Go figure. People tell the world who they are all the time - it's up to you to believe them.

As Florida moves closer to bringing Chris Rainey back to the playing field, I thought some of you might enjoy checking in on another former UF guy who missed a substantial chunk of a season due to a suspension. Marcus Thomas was given another chance by Urban Meyer, but the defensive tackle blew it because he felt like going to Halloween Horror nights rather than comply with the terms of his reinstatement. (We'll see if Rainey can hold up his end of the restrictions placed on him). In his fourth NFL season, Thomas just got his first sack and appears to have grown up somewhat. The flakiness is still definitely there though: he lists his hometown as Yokosuka, Japan rather than Jacksonville and thinks next year's lockout will be good because it will allow him to start his acting career. If they make another Friday movie, Marcus could be a strong contender for a role. Otherwise, he'd better hope they play next season.

Somehow it had been off my radar that the federal government is requiring street signs no longer be in ALL CAPS by 2015. They say research shows a capitalized first letter followed by lower case is easier for older drivers to read. Maybe so, but in my experience it's hard enough to find the signs when you're driving in different cities to begin with. The bolder the letters, the easier it is for me to either be able to tell what they say or at least judge from a distance if the length is right to potentially be the street I'm looking for. Leaving the question of the cost to replace signs out of this and strictly focusing on the two lettering options, does this seem necessary to you?

Dooley watched a lot of Hogan's Heroes as a kid

2010-10-26T04:26:00.007-04:00

Yesterday's post mentioned Brian Kelly already being under intense (and I would say unfair) scrutiny midway through his first year at Notre Dame. I'm not sure why people expect to be able to have instant success with new coaches taking over unsuccessful programs, but they certainly seem to in a lot of places. One guy who's beginning to make me think he's earned the criticism is Tennessee's Derek Dooley. The Vols are not a bad team because of the coaching of Dooley or his staff. The lack of depth and elite players resulting from three different head coaches and staffs in three years means they simply don't have enough horses to win against anyone decent in the SEC right now. On the other hand, they should be good enough to not go to double overtime with UAB. That's not the bone I have to pick with Dooley though. Week after week at his press gathering he downgrades his team's chances. In doing that yesterday, he came up with an ineffective analogy between his team and the Germans at D-Day. That's just not very bright. Between this, the "we need to learn to wash ourselves properly" stuff and his poor handling of multiple transfer requests since he arrived, I'm starting to wonder if the job is just too much for Dooley. Tennessee still would be insane to make any move before he gets at least three years and likely four, but he's likely burned through a lot of good will (for not being Lane Kiffin if nothing else) from folks in Knoxville really quickly.

At least Dooley's not changing his offensive coordinator right in the middle of the season, without even waiting for a bye week. Vanderbilt's Robbie Caldwell has made that move for his squad, meaning they're on their third OC and second head coach this season. It's not a formula for success, that's for sure. Unlike Dooley, Caldwell doesn't know he'll back next season. That doesn't mean he should be making desperation moves to try and win enough to keep the job, which is what this feels like. Having watched Vandy against South Carolina the other night, play calling's not their main issue. An overall lack of offensive talent is, and I'm not sure how changing the person making the decisions again is supposed to do something about that.

With the Giants likely ending Tony Romo's season last night in Dallas, there will be plenty of speculation about Jerry Jones making a coaching move to dump Wade Phillips. It's worth remembering that he's never fired anyone during the season, and its hard to see what the benefit is of doing it now. Remember, offensive coordinator Jason Garrett is supposed to be the coach in waiting. Putting him in charge for the first time with Jon Kitna as his quarterback does not seem like a formula for success. I'm guessing I could have gotten really good odds on the Bucs to have more wins than Dallas this year, but it sure looks like that's going to happen.

Apparently someone in the ESPN hierarchy thought they didn't have enough conflicts of interest and decided this would be a good way to add one. If ESPN partners with Texas to create the new Longhorn channel, they'll officially be business partners on an individual basis in a relationship unlike any the network has with any other school. There's no way to get around that being a potential problem for analysts who may be legitimately praising the Horns but have people wondering if they're doing so because of ESPN's business goals. ESPN controls most of the postseason setup at this point - will they put pressure on selection committees for their business partner Texas to get better bowl bids? Considering how much grief the guys in Bristol already get for supposedly favoring certain conferences, you'd think they would realize this isn't a great idea. In reality though, they're too big to care what anyone thinks about them. Hopefully a legit competitor will eventually emerge.

The Florida football team and visiting alums weren't the only ones having a miserable Homecoming weekend when the Gators lost to Mississippi State. ESPNU's Elizabeth Moreau, who had been in town previously working the sidelines for the Kentucky football game, wound up getting fooled by a prank phone call into smashing the window out of her room at the Hilton Garden Inn with the lid of her room's toilet tank. Moreau was in town to work a volleyball match this time, so I don't know if she actually did or not. Amazingly the losers doing this have had quite a bit of success fooling people with this type of routine over the years. Moreau has taken her Twitter page down altogether and I'm sure she feels humiliated. She's been on the big Ten Network as a volleyball analyst but had just begun to transition to football stuff as well. I hope this doesn't short circuit her TV career - no one deserves to have something like that happen to them.

Seriously, Raheem?

2010-10-25T00:50:00.001-04:00

Sunday summed up the mixed bag that is currently life as a Tampa Bay fan. The Bucs trailed throughout their game with St. Louis but hung around until they finally pulled out the victory in the final seconds. They're now 4-2, a surprising accomplishment even if it's built entirely on close wins over mediocre or outright awful teams. It was in front of a stunningly small crowd, one that's been reported as being just 36,000 people. Everyone I know in Tampa Bay who's a Bucs fan seems to be so disgusted with the ownership's cheapness as well as having turds like Jerramy Stevens getting arrested (again) the day before a game that they've just stopped caring. Raheem Morris saying Tampa Bay's the best team in the NFC is ridiculous. If he's talking about records, he's wrong because the Falcons record is better. If he's talking about quality of team, then that means Bucs fans have a right to expect this team to not only make the playoffs but do something once they're there, right? Somehow I doubt Raheem would like that to be the standard his body of work this year is judged by, because they will not be in the postseason. I see five conceivably winnable games left on the schedule. Let's give them three of those and one upset - it would mean an 8-8 year. That would be much better than expectations, but nowhere close to "best in the NFC".

The college football weekend produced some more surprises, none bigger than Iowa State beating Texas. The Cyclones hadn't beaten a ranked team in two decades, and had lost by 52 points to Oklahoma a week ago. To say they're angry in Austin would be an understatement - even the surefire, can't miss next great coach Will Muschamp is being questioned. Pat Forde did an extensive piece for ESPN on Texas earlier this season, in which Mack Brown more or less predicted exactly what's happening right now to his team. Less reasonable than the anger of Longhorn fans is for anyone to be questioning Brian Kelly's ability to do the job at Notre Dame already. The Fighting Irish lack adequate athletes on defense and were missing two of their three best options on offense and had another one playing hurt. Kelly's more than proven he's a capable coach - this exact same column could have been written after Nick Saban lost to Louisiana-Monroe his first year at Alabama.

As much as Cam Newton's terrific play is responsible for Auburn being number one in the latest version of the BCS, it would be a shame for people not to fully appreciate the job Nick Fairley's doing at defensive tackle. He's been as disruptive as any player I've seen in college football this year. LSU had a shot to spring the upset on Auburn after Gene Chizik inexplicably went for a 4th down and 8 and gave them excellent field position near midfield with seven minutes to go in a tie game. Fairley blew up the ensuing attempt at a drive singlehandedly and bailed his coach out. LSU lost the way they've often won, with an embarrassingly inept final offensive play that featured no one knowing what to do despite it being after a timeout. Even Les Miles runs out of luck eventually.

I'm not sure the recent spate of people in the football world wearing pink stuff is making a huge difference in raising funds and awareness for breast cancer, but it certainly can't hurt. It's pretty hard to imagine what kind of person would genuinely have a problem with it. Meet the petty bureaucrat in charge of Washington's high school football officials, who intends to punish refs for using pink whistles and donating their game checks to the Susan G Komen Foundation. He's upset they didn't get his permission first and thinks this is an appropriate response, which makes him as big a tone deaf jackass as I have ever seen.

Hope you didn't have UCLA +46.5 last night

2010-10-22T00:49:00.002-04:00

Cam Newton is a lot of people's choice for the Heisman Trophy right now because of what he's doing at Auburn. That's why there were a lot of Tiger fans who were unhappy or chose to not believe the story when word came out yesterday that he told ESPN's Mark Schlabach he'd still rather be at Florida. Considering he chose to come to Gainesville originally and had never indicated any dissatisfaction prior to the infamous laptop episode, I'm not sure why this would come as a shock to anyone. It's not like he's trashing Auburn, but common sense says the kid would have preferred for his career not to take the detour that it did. Given were Florida's offense is right now, I'm sure the feeling from Gator fans is mutual.

This isn't a terrific weekend for college football. Although there are some games worth watching. As little as I think of Les Miles, LSU has a decent shot to beat Auburn if he doesn't screw it up. Their defense is sound against the run, which is essential to make Newton put the ball in the air. Whoever eventually beats Auburn is going to have forced Newton to try to be accurate down the field, which he isn't reliably. LSU's got offensive talent, they just aren't very good at utilizing it. Considering Auburn's D has given up 34 points or more and won in back to back games for the first time in 26 years, I think it's safe to say there will be opportunities for LSU to make some plays. If their D can keep Auburn under 30, I believe LSU wins.

If you're looking for an undefeated team that may lose to one that isn't also undefeated, keep your eye on Michigan State. The Spartans become a legit threat to run the table if they get past next week's game with Iowa still unbeaten, but Northwestern is a good team as well. They've got a really good QB you likely haven't heard much about yet in Dan Persa and are very well coached. If MSU is looking ahead even a little bit, they will lose to the Wildcats. Even if they are focused, they might lose anyway.

Miami isn't ranked, but this weekend's game against UNC could be very important for Randy Shannon. Butch Davis has dominated the matchups with his old program, and this time he's coming in incredibly short handed. With the loss of tight end Zack Pianalto for the year, QB T.J. Yates is missing his most reliable target he's had during this already diminished season. If the Canes can't win at home against the Tar Heels now, when are they going to be able to do so? With former Canes already questioning what Shannon's doing, this is a critical game for him. I think there's a very good chance he loses it.

NBA owners have apparently set a goal of cutting salaries by a third when they do battle with the players union after the coming season. Should they succeed, I'm sure the fans will also benefit in the form of reduced concession, ticket and parking prices. All joking aside, the NBA's problem is a simple one. It's given entirely too much money to people no one cares that much about seeing play. This is a league that has seen people like Bryant "Big Country" Reeves get six year, 61 million dollar contracts. Why should the union help the NBA owners not be stupid by agreeing to cut their own pay? If the NBA doesn't think players should make the money they do, all it takes is owners not being willing to give it to them. The problem with that approach is that owners like Mark Cuban want to win and will pay guys whatever it takes to make their team better. The cheap owners in places like Memphis don't like that, so they're trying to keep it from being possible any more with the upcoming labor battle. The only question is whether the lockout will last all season, but there's no question it's coming.

I'll be in Columbia this weekend, and with the Gamecocks on the road in Nashville Saturday should be a pretty busy college football watching day. Sunday it's another terrific NFL matchup as I head to Charlotte for San Francisco at the Panthers. follow along on Twitter at heathradio should you be so inclined. Have a great weekend and I'll see you back here Monday.

How do you really feel, Mike?

2010-10-21T03:47:00.002-04:00

As often as we interview sports figures, you'd think there would be lots of blunt honesty on display. The reality is that most coaches and players keep things polite on the public level, even though privately they'll blast them. Cincinnati Bengals defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer isn't known for being a extraordinarily lively sound bite, but he threw the typically "coach speak" aside yesterday as emphatically as anyone ever has. The topic of discussion was Zimmer's return to Atlanta after being DC on the Falcons staff Bobby Petrino screwed over by quitting with three games to go in 2007. Zimmer unloaded both barrels on Petrino, then reloaded and did it again. From the Cincinnati Enquirer's Joe Reedy...

“He came in and said he resigned, he would talk to us all at a later date, walked out of the office and no one has ever talked to him since. Not that anybody wanted to.

“He’s a gutless b—–d. Quote that. I don’t give a s—.”

When told that we might might not be able to use the B word, Zimmer went one better: “How about this, gutless MF. You can use that."

It's nice to see someone in sports show legitimate emotions for once rather than insult everyone's intelligence by pretending all competitors are equally dangerous and there's no special satisfaction in beating some of them. It also helps that Zimmer's absolutely right - Petrino is a gutless MF for the way he handled that situation. He's pretty tough with female reporters wearing hats he doesn't like though.

One of the toughest challenges for people and companies is to be honest with themselves about what they are. North Texas failed that test miserably when they decided to fire their football coach after the 2006 season. Sure they'd won four conference titles with the guy, but he'd had a down year. This is the MEAN GREEN of Denton, Texas we're talking about. Greatness is not just expected, it is demanded! Compounding their error in canning the coach, UNT then decided to hire a successful Texas high school coach to take over. After he went 6-37 in the last three and a half seasons, they fired him yesterday. So what do their fans think they should do now? Go get Mike Leach! Riiiiight. To quote a Ben Folds song, "You've got to learn to live with what you are".

Someone in Hollywood actually thinks there's money to be made with a movie based on the Family Circus comic strip. They're hoping to own the movie going grandmother audience, apparently. Can't wait for the hilarity of "NOT ME" being brought to the big screen. Some people might have tried to adapt a funny comic strip rather than one that's seemed stale and out of date since the Reagan administration, but the producers of this epic clearly knew better.

A quick one

2010-10-20T05:54:00.002-04:00

Only have time for a brief post this morning, because I'm headed to Charlotte for ACC basketball media day. Wish I could go to the SEC's in Birmingham tomorrow, but I have to be in Columbia for a remote broadcast so it's not feasible. One thing has to be addressed though:

Today the NFL will announce more on their plans to take serious disciplinary action toward players who are guilty of helmet to helmet hits or delivering other unnecessarily vicious blows during the flow of play. They fined several players for those offenses yesterday, but now the threat of suspension is out there. Channing Crowder believes this will make the game of football less manly. In the meantime, would you like to buy a photo of one of the hits a player was fined for? The NFL will sell you the photo of James Harrison destroying Mohammed Massaquoi for as low as $15.95 or as expensive as $249.95. The hypocrisy of that isn't surprising, but it needs to end at once. I'm all for trying to protect people playing a dangerous game, but rather than threaten tougher penalties the number one thing the NFL could do to stop this kind of play is have its officials actually enforce the rules they already have. Many hits that lead to NFL fines never drew a flag on the field.

I may sponsor the St Pete Bowl once Beef O'Brady's stops

2010-10-19T12:51:00.001-04:00

What's a coach's job in any sport? My position is that they're responsible for having the players properly prepared physically and mentally to compete. They need to be able to adjust strategy to account for the circumstances of the game. On the other hand, they can't do the players jobs for them. I had some South Carolina fans wanting Steve Spurrier fired yesterday for a loss to Kentucky seven days after the biggest win in school history. Spurrier fumbled when the Gamecocks were in field goal range Saturday night, and also failed to field a punt deep in his own territory which led to a UK field goal. His busted coverage on 4th and 7 allowed Randall Cobb to easily score the game winning touchdown for the Wildcats. Sounds ridiculous, right? In the end, players have to do their jobs once coaches put them in position to do that. Coaches will be held accountable for their team's record, but people have got to ease up on trying to blame everything up to and including their case of gout on the coach of their favorite team. That seeming race folks are in to be as negative as possible leads to things like Randall Cobb lashing out at his own team's "fans" after their biggest win in a few years. It's not good for anybody.

The BCS numbers are completely meaningless right now, with half a season left to play, but they were released on Sunday. By the end of the year there may be the usual controversy or things may have worked out to the point only two teams remaining have popular support for the title game. What can not be disputed, regardless of the final outcome, it how ridiculous the formula is. It uses half a dozen computer ratings designed by people with little to no qualifications. It has no check and balance to make sure the ratings turned in have been done correctly. As an example, back in 1998 Jeff Sagarin accidentally had included Kansas State as having beaten Indiana soundly in a game as part of his calculations. They'd actually beaten Indiana STATE, a 1-AA team. He caught the mistake later, but if K State hadn't blown the Big 12 title game to Texas A&M that could have accidentally put the wrong team in the national title game. You'd think that would have been a warning, but a dozen years later there's still no safety net for that kind of mistake or for someone intentionally skewing the data. I've asked this question for years: why can't the BCS have one computer rating designed which can be understandably explained to coaches and fans while also being verified by outside sources? How can they possibly claim the way it's done now makes sense?

There hasn't been a Poulan Weedeater Bowl for years, but when people are looking for a ridiculous bowl name to mention that still tends to be the one that springs to mind. There's now a new contender, with the Mobile Alabama game turning into the Go Daddy bowl. Can't wait to see the jackets those bowl scouts will be wearing in the press box. Wonder what new "shocking" content they'll come up with to try and drive people to their web site during the game. Can't keep trying to convince people Danica Patrick's doing a stripper routine on your site forever, guys.

The Miami Herald is holding a LeBron James poetry contest. One of those whose six line or less masterpieces about LeBron coming to the Heat are chosen will get tickets to a game and read their poetry on air. Here's my entry...

LeBron is a king

who has no ring

His show "The Decision"

displayed with precision

why he'll face derision

because he's a tactless jerk who can't handle playoff pressure and wants an easy way to win

All of you are competing for second place.

And how was your weekend?

2010-10-18T02:26:00.005-04:00

Whenever Florida's losing, I know some friends are going to call me. Because I only cover South Carolina and have no personal tie to the school, I know fewer people who are likely to be upset and look to me for an explanation while the game's on (but it does happen). As noted in Friday's post, I was at a 5 PM wedding Saturday. While it wasn't my choice to be there, once you are you have to behave appropriately. As a result, my phone was off for a lengthy portion of both the Gamecock and Gator games. When I turned it on and had 29 text messages and 7 voicemails, I had a feeling things had not gone well for somebody. Turns out it was both. I'd thought having to hear hours of stuff like "Single Ladies" and "Cupid Shuffle" was going to be the worst part of my night - so much for that.

I'll spend three hours today discussing the Gamecock situation on the air, and since the core readership for this blog is my old Gainesville audience that's going to be the sole focus today. I'll look at the rest of the weekend tomorrow when I've had more time to watch my DVR'd games like Arkansas/Auburn. Fairness requires me to note again that injuries/stupidity are playing a significant role in the debacle the Gators offense has become this season. The current run of losing and total offensive futility dovetails with Jeff Demps getting hurt and being available only in an extremely limited role. Chris Rainey might have been able to help, but he texted himself out of commission. Caleb Sturgis being out at kicker has been gigantic. Matt Patchan's still missing at tackle, as are guys like Jon Halapio and James Wilson at guard. Andre Debose going out early in Saturday's game with an ankle injury removed someone who supposedly was going to play a meaningful role in the attack as well. Chris Dunkley might have been a factor at receiver this season but will likely redshirt with a hamstring injury. All of these things are clearly out of anyone's control, and have to be taken into account when judging the situation.

To me, the biggest thing Florida fans have to be concerned about can be summed up in a comment Chris Spielman made early in Saturday's game. After noting UF's struggle with blitz pickup (on a play where neither of the tackles Marcus Gilbert or Xavier Nixon either one came close to blocking the defensive ends either), Spielman mentioned he had discussed the topic with offensive coordinator and line coach Steve Addazio leading up to the game and Addazio said they were fine. To quote Spielman, "Right now, you're not fine." If Addazio refuses to acknowledge problems, it's hard to have a lot of faith he knows what's necessary to solve them. The things he tried at times to get the offense going Saturday night were nothing short of bizarre.

Going for it on 4th and 1 at your own 39 down ten early in the second quarter is the act of a desperate team. If you're doing it, you have to come with the best possible play call you have. Addazio inserted Jordan Reed to run a wildcat look at quarterback, the first time he had taken a snap in the game, and brought Robert Clark in motion toward the short side of the field. Reed handed it off to Clark - not sure if he had the option to keep it himself or not. The timing of Reed and Clark wasn't good (go figure, since neither guy had touched the ball yet) and MSU read it all the way. It didn't have a chance in hell of succeeding. The defense bailed them out, or the game would have been over right then.

Later in the quarter, once Florida actually put together a drive into MSU's red zone, it was time for another critical call. It's 3rd and 5, and you again need one of your best plays. Addazio's call was for Brantley to run an option to the right which was clearly supposed to set up a pitch to what appeared to be Deonte Thompson lining up in the backfield. The play was blown up and never had a chance, because it made no sense. If you want to run option against a blitzing team that's been blowing up your OL all half, you can not do it with your slowest possible choice at the QB position. How could that possibly have seemed like the best choice in that situation?

Was the idea behind the bizarre Brantley call that MSU wouldn't expect it? That certainly wasn't a priority on any of the Trey Burton stuff, because he never threw a single pass to force them to respect that threat despite being a quarterback. The Bulldogs weren't even covering John Brantley on numerous plays when he lined up at WR, meaning whatever offensive numerical edge is gained by having a running QB is nullified. There's never been any indication of using Brantley off a reverse from a sweep to throw deep either - so why bother even having him out there?

As frustrated as people justifiably are with Addazio, Brantley's level of play has not been good enough to win. Whatever the factors are - his injuries, concern he won't have enough time to make the throw, being shuffled in and out of the position, maybe inexperience too - he's not making accurate enough passes or going through enough reads. There were times in that game where plays were actually there to be made and he either settled for shorter options or failed to make the necessary throw. There's no question the failure of his line to deliver plays a significant role in that. The continuing inability of guys like Mike Pouncey to play at the level they have previously shown they are capable of is baffling.

I hope Gator fans haven't all gone completely nuts - lord knows some of my friends apparently have. Among the suggestions/ideas I heard on my drive back from Charlotte were to fire Steve Addazio immediately, fire Teryl Austin immediately, bench John Brantley permanently "because he sucks", and demand Urban Meyer resign if he doesn't get to Atlanta "because the talent's too good not to be there". Midseason firings of staffers accomplish nothing (ask Tommy Tuberville how well his decision to do that his final year at Auburn worked out for him), and while there are people on Florida's staff like Brian White with previous OC experience I'm not sure the schemes he's run square up well with either Florida's current personnel or the schemes they've been using.

Anyone suggesting UF should remotely consider ousting a guy who's won two BCS titles and another BCS bowl game in his first five years if this year turns into a total failure is too stupid to boil water. If Urban Meyer had actually taken a full year leave of absence and this was going on, fans would want him to come back and fix it. Do some of the current problems stem from the "leave of absence" situation? Probably, but that doesn't mean Meyer's lost his coaching mojo for good. The next two weeks will determine whether this season turns into a disaster or a semi-disappointing transitional year in Gainesville. With time to focus on improvements rather than a game and for guys to heal, perhaps there will be meaningful progress versus Georgia. If there's not, even Steve Addazio won't be able to say things are fine.

Can't wait for the electric slide part of the evening

2010-10-15T03:25:00.004-04:00

It's kind of a mediocre week in college football, but there's always stuff worth keeping an eye on. We'll see whether Jeff Demps is back to something close to full strength and if that's enough to put some big play pop in the Florida offense against Mississippi State. The Bulldogs are more aggressive on defense under their new coordinators, and there will be opportunities to take advantage of that if UF's offensive staff can recognize when the blitzes are coming. I don't think the MSU secondary's a great matchup for the Gator WRs, but it's anyone's guess whether John Brantley is physically ready to exploit that or will be given the opportunity to do so. In the end, it's hard to imagine Florida losing a third straight and doing it on their home field. I doubt they will. Other stuff I'll be interested in:

1. Nebraska is dying to kick the crap out of Texas. The Longhorns have had two weeks to figure out what's wrong with them this year, but I'm not sure they've got the ability to fix things like a mediocre offensive line that appears to be in poor shape. I've got the Cornhuskers in the national title game right now. A road game at Oklahoma State's as tough as it gets for them after this until the Big 12 title game.

2. Arkansas and Auburn may team up to put 80 plus on the board given what's expected out of their two defenses. If the Razorbacks win the SEC West officially becomes a giant jumble, while if they lose then they're pretty much eliminated. If Arkansas doesn't hit at least 35, I don't think they win.

3. I know everyone expects Alabama to thump Ole Miss, but history says beware. Houston Nutt's been a double digit underdog seven times and covered all seven of them, winning three games outright. He's 4-0 against the spread as a double digit underdog since getting to Ole Miss. I don't think the Rebels can beat Alabama, but they may give them more of a scare than you'd think.

4. I'm far from sold on the idea Ohio State's the best team in the country, but I don't think this weekend tells us they aren't. Wisconsin is what they usually are, a slightly above average Big Ten team who played garbage non conference games and won them all. Austin Peay, UNLV and San Jose State couldn't beat the Badgers if they formed a combo team. Minnesota's awful too. The Buckeyes should win comfortably. Failure to do so will be further evidence they're overhyped at the moment.

I'm a believer in the concept of instant replay as a way to make sports better. It can't solve every problem created by the inevitable human errors of officiating, but if it fixes some of the obvious ones it's still worth having. Having said that, college football does as bad a job of executing it as it possibly can. I'll never forget listening to Al Ford, the SEC replay official who did a dreadful job on the Chris Leak "fumble"/incomplete pass during the Florida-Auburn game in 2006, explain while sitting at the same table as me in the press box in Columbia a week later that he "knew it was a fumble" because of Leak's reaction on the play. Apparently anyone who tries to gather a loose ball must have fumbled it. That's incompetence personified, and it's what we see far too often from replay officials. Rather than being specially trained guys who know how to use video equipment and have no loyalty to the guys on the field, they're former officials who may not have even been good at that. Even by the low standards I have for these guys though, what the Pac-10 allowed to happen at Arizona last week blows my mind. If an SEC team's fans found out the replay ref who sided with one school over theirs on four different reviews was an alum of that school who's also an athletics program booster, they'd be ready to riot. The Pac-10 officiating chief doesn't grasp why this is a problem, which is why the Pac-10 apparently needs a new officiating chief.

Ole Miss finally has a mascot. The Admiral Ackbar idea was vastly more amusing than what they came up with, which turned out to be the "Rebel Black Bear". What makes the bear a rebel is that he wears a Houston Nutt style hat and a necktie, not conforming to the clothing free lifestyle of your typical bear. The fact the issue of what Ole Miss's mascot should be has captivated Mississippi for nearly a decade is pretty remarkable - hopefully this will be the end of the story.

There are fourteen college football Saturdays each year. I'll get to spend tomorrow's at a wedding in Charlotte wearing a suit - lucky me. Note to the single guys reading this: make sure your future wife doesn't choose any bridesmaids who went to places like Ithaca College. Otherwise, you will be forced to go to their fall wedding which will start at 5 pm to make sure you don't get to see any of the important games of the day live. Whenever I do have a chance to make observations via Twitter, I'll do so - the handle's heathradio should you feel like following. Have a better Saturday than me (maybe we'll get to do the Chicken Dance!) and I'll see you back here Monday.

No agent wants to be friends with Todd McShay - too dumb

2010-10-14T05:22:00.009-04:00

Chris Rainey's likely reinstatement to the Florida football team has some folks up in arms. There's nothing people in the media like better than being able to feel righteous about something. I've already written my thoughts on Rainey's eventual return previously and don't see the point of repeating myself. One argument I've seen made repeatedly in the past day has been to say "if it was Meyer's daughter Rainey threatened, he wouldn't have been reinstated". Guess what? A judge in an auto theft case would probably sentence the guy who stole his car to a stiffer sentence than the one who stole someone else's. That's why we have a justice system that's at least theoretically based on reason as opposed to a personal desire for revenge. Sentences for crimes aren't uniform, they're based on the facts of a case. If there's no evidence of intent to carry out a threat and no previous history of violence, doesn't common sense say that should be treated differently than a case where someone did get violent? Rainey's not a saint. He's also not Lawrence Phillips or O.J. Simpson either. Urban Meyer knows him and his situation, and has chosen to allow Rainey the chance of being back by the Georgia game. I don't have a problem with that.

The Sports Illustrated piece with an ex-agent naming names on college players that he paid over two decades has stirred up lets of interest. One of the people who it appeared might have consequences from it was Mel Kiper, Jr. Well, never mind all that. Less than a day after the original story appeared, ESPN has ceased investigating what was alleged by Josh Luchs - that Kiper assisted in recruiting players for agent Gary Wichard by talking them up in phone calls and hyping them to the public. The odds are the answer to the question are mixed - Kiper does seem to excessively favor some Wichard clients like Kentwan Balmer, but not so many that he's become a pure shill for Wichard. Not sure how they exonerated Kiper so quickly, but I think the network's done themselves and him a raw deal by not giving off the image of a proper investigation being conducted. It makes sense for Kiper to be in frequent contact with agents considering his quest for info on all sides of the draft process, but he needs to be careful going forward about how that interaction is perceived even if he considers the guys he's dealing with friends.

Bud Selig and company want to expand the baseball postseason further. They'll try to cover up the reasons why by saying it gives more teams an opportunity to reach the playoffs (specifically that the Red Sox never miss them again). As usual, it's actually all about money and television programming. The new playoff games would reportedly become fodder for the Major League Baseball owned television channel. My concern is what this will do to the timetable for the postseason, because there are already way too many games played in absurdly cold outdoor temperatures in places with perpetual contenders like New York and Philadelphia. Adding more playoffs also diminishes the value of playoff statistics, not an inconsequential thing in a sport whose best fans tend to be obsessed with the numbers. I'm just not convinced this is the right move to make right now, even though they almost certainly will.

I've had several people ask me what I think of the radio situation in Gainesville, with Renee Gork being brought in to pair with Steve Russell on 850 in the mornings. First of all, I'm glad Renee got away from what was going to be an uncomfortable situation as long as she continued to live in Fayetteville as a result of the infamous "hat episode". The reaction to that was insanely over the top, and while it certainly wasn't designed to get her back to Gainesville I'm glad to see something positive come from it. I haven't heard Steve's show since he moved to mornings, but going from two to four hours a day without a partner was asking a lot. Steve believes callers are the primary focus of a show (which is a fundamental difference between us, but it's his show so he has every right to run it his way), and as someone who's worked mornings before I know there won't be that many callers before 8:30 unless there's a topic people are going crazy about. Having Renee there for him to go back and forth with and add some new ideas and energy should make that a better program. Gainesville listeners are lucky that beginning at 7 there's also Jeff Cardozo on 105 the Game and Brady Ackerman on 1230. That's a lot of worthwhile options for morning sports talk. As someone who's friends with all of them, I hope they're all able to succeed. (I was also asked if there was any chance I'd be returning to Gainesville radio. The circumstances that brought me to Columbia haven't changed, so that's not in the cards. Always glad to be on as a guest though.)

Sorry it took so long

2010-10-12T13:24:00.001-04:00

A few things have to be acknowledged when looking at this season's Florida football team. They've suffered a remarkable number of injuries, especially on the offensive side of the ball. Between losing Matt Patchan before the season and James Wilson during the year plus other guys getting nicked up, there's been a less than ideal blend on the line. The kicker's not available for around half the season. Jeff Demps is banged up and missed the most recent game after he shouldn't have been used against Alabama. John Brantley himself is also not right physically, although just how badly he's hurt isn't clear. It's impossible to know how big a factor those things have been in the poor play of the Gator attack, but they clearly do play a role. Having said that, with the season at the halfway point it's impossible to ignore the reality that this group is not coming close to fulfilling its potential.

So what needs to happen now? Here are my thoughts:

1. More receivers have to play. Deonte Thompson and Carl Moore have been useful, but there has to be a way to get young guys on the field. Andre Debose, Robert Clark and Stephen Alli have athleticism that can help a team. If they don't know the full package, figure out one they can run and use it. This edition of Florida is not good enough to refuse to use players as a motivational tactic. Trey Burton is not Percy Harvin - there's no reason he should be the primary weapon at this point of his career.

2. Mike Gillislee almost always seems to be productive when he touches the ball. He's a sophomore. Emmanuel Moody's a senior, and while people have waited for him to be the force he was touted as coming from USC it's never really happened. Gillislee averages two more yards a carry and a yard more per catch, plus he's someone who's still improving. It's time for more 23 and less 21.

3. There has to be a more efficient way of calling plays to avoid wasting timeouts and rushed snaps that lead to penalties. The perfect example came in the first quarter with a first and goal at the 6. There was obvious confusion by the 17 second mark on the play clock, and time out called at the 10 second mark. What did Steve Addazio come up with? The exact same Burton up the middle "wildcat" look that everyone in the building anticipates for a one yard gain. What was the problem there? Why is the playcalling process so slow? Why have the gameplans been so poor that the only team Florida's scored on in the first quarter is Kentucky? Shouldn't those early plays be creative stuff you've got to attack the opponent based on what you've seen on tape?

4. It's understandable when a freshman like Jon Halapio gets blown up by an SEC defensive lineman. It's not when it's happening to seniors like Marcus Gilbert and Mike Pouncey. Whatever people may think about his playcalling, Steve Addazio is a good offensive line coach. Do some of these guys have senioritis, and if so what can be done to change that?

Florida could desperately use a bye week this week. Instead, they get Dan Mullen and a decent Mississippi State team coming to town. Florida should be able to beat the Bulldogs, but the contrast between what Mullen is doing with a stable of players nowhere near as talented as UF's and what is happening in the Swamp could make some people very uncomfortable Saturday evening.

When Florida changed their offense in 2005, Mullen told me they went to Chris Leak and asked him what plays he was most comfortable running in various situations and built the plan around that. At this point, it appears a similar conversation with Brantley would be wise for the Gator staff.

There are fewer obvious issues on the defensive side of the ball, but LSU repeatedly exposed UF directly down the middle of the field with Terrence Tolliver because of horrible tackling by the Gator secondary. For all the hype about the fake field goal (and for the record, I think it was a forward pass although I've given up trying to figure out what replay refs are thinking), it was actually not that effective a call. All it netted LSU was a new set of downs with no timeouts and 27 seconds remaining at the UF 31. The killer for Florida was once again getting gashed down the middle to the three on the next play. If Will Hill doesn't feel like playing this year, put him back on the bench and keep him there.

Georgia finally getting a win was a positive for Mark Richt, but the happiness didn't last too long. Tailback Caleb King was taken into custody on a bench warrant for failure to appear in court or pay his fine from a speeding ticket. Should Richt hammer him for that? I'd think not, but considering the "enough is enough" tone he set with the dismissal of the most recent player to run afoul of the law Richt might feel he needs to do something to discipline King and show he's serious about getting the Dawg arrest issues in check. Meanwhile, can someone explain why athletes seem to constantly trip up on stuff like this? Sure speeding tickets are annoying, but you still have to pay them. It's not that hard a concept.

North Carolina football's performance this season has been remarkably strong considering all the players who've had to miss time while in NCAA limbo. After winning three in a row, they finally got official word yesterday three of their stars won't be back. The really puzzling part of the whole thing is that two of these kids could have gone pro but chose to return for another year. Maybe they thought their stock would go up with another successful season, but if Marvin Austin and Greg Little wanted trips to Miami that bad they could have had as many as they wanted. By returning, they chose to delay that another eleven months. Apparently they thought this was a "best of both worlds" option. My wife did a story on Robert Quinn in high school and liked him. This is a kid who beat a brain tumor to emerge as a top college football player and likely first rounder. He couldn't wait a few more months for "two black diamond watches, a pair of matching earrings and travel to Miami"? There should be ways for star kids to make money while in college - my suggestion remains allowing them to do endorsements - but this stuff appears to had little to do with needing money and everything to do with wanting to live the NFL lifestyle before it was actually available to them.

Been a weird month in Hogtown

2010-10-11T00:44:00.001-04:00

I'm going to need another day before I'm ready to write a full blog post. Between being on the air five hours prior to South Carolina's upset of Alabama and then going into the night with expanded local postgame, I didn't get a chance to see several games I want to write about more extensively. One of those was LSU/UF, and considering this blog was originally created for me to keep in contact with my old Gainesville radio audience I want to make sure I know the full details when I write about it. Now that I'm back from the Panthers game, I'm busy going through my DVR'd games tonight and tomorrow during the day and will have an expanded post here tomorrow.

By the way, for those of you who do read this from Gainesville, it appears Rock 104 may soon be getting the gas pipe in favor of a country format called 103.7 the Gator. Between that and wearing those ridiculous orange jerseys this weekend, it appears some people's decision making skills down there are seriously out of whack right now.

Stupidity has to be punished, so LSU has to lose

2010-10-08T02:43:00.003-04:00

This weekend's LSU-Florida game's going to be fascinating because neither team comes in feeling good even though combined they have one loss (and that's on the road against the #1 team). Despite that and both being ranked in the top 14, these two programs are perceived as largely inept right now. LSU's looking for answers on offense and may try moving their coordinator downstairs. I don't think that'll solve the issues ailing them. It's up to Florida how this game goes. The buzz I'm hearing from Gainesville is that they're going to open up the playbook and let John Brantley execute an offense more suited to his skills. If that turns out to be true, the Gators should be able to pull away in the second half as LSU inevitably makes mistakes. If the playcalling is more of the same, it'll probably be a tight game late. I think Andre Debose has his "Trey Burton" game and becomes a guy national people are talking about, and Florida wins by two touchdowns or more.

South Carolina gets their shot at Bama tomorrow, and I'll be curious to get a firsthand look at the Crimson Tide. I've believed all year the Gamecocks have a chance in this one, not because they're better but because of the setup. They've had two weeks to get ready, while Bama's coming off back to back huge games at Arkansas and at home with UF. South Carolina has good enough WRs to make plays in the passing game if they can protect the QB. I'm not predicting the upset, but there are a lot of people who think Alabama -7 is free money. If you're one of them, I suspect you'll feel otherwise watching that game during the second half.

Other CFB thoughts:

1. I don't completely trust either side in the FSU at Miami game. For all the hype about FSU's supposed defensive improvement, I have yet to see proof of it against a team with quality athletes. Miami's not well coached, but they have the better horses in this one. Odds are that's good enough to walk out winners.

2. One of two things is going to happen in Athens Saturday. One possibility is Georgia's going to bow up on the offensive line, blow an undersized Tennessee off the ball and help get the Dawg offense really going for the first time all year. The other is that even with some Mark Richt gimmicks this week (full pad practice on Monday for first time ever, he's leading the team out of the tunnel for the first time too) nothing gets better and Georgia loses again. If they do, I think it's the point of no return for Richt. As long as A.J. Green stays on the football field for 60 minutes, I think the former storyline is what we see.

3. ESPN has spent the last few years revealing almost everything there was to know about the BCS math before it was released on FOX. Now that they're dedicating a lengthy show to the ratings release every Sunday night, what do you think the chances are of them spoiling their own show? Haven't heard a single mention of their "BCS guy" Brad Edwards lately - hmmmm.

Tampa Bay will always have the 2010 AL East title to look back on, but it appears the franchise decided to get started on showing people what next year's stripped down team will like early by completely failing to show up at the plate . It's not like this is some kind of shocker, since the Rays offense was uninspiring at best throughout the season, but it's a shame that such an amazing run the past three years is going to end on this note. The Yankees concerted efforts to lose enough to avoid Texas and Cliff Lee in the first round have been rewarded, as they're about to sweep Minnesota out of the playoffs too. Tim "F**k Yeah!" Lincecum made the Braves look silly during his complete game win, and considering tonight's intended starter Tommy Hanson got injured while not even playing it's safe to say this may not be Atlanta's year.

Busy weekend for me, with College Gameday in town for the Gamecocks and Bama. I'm hosting a pregame show outside the stadium at 10:30, and if SC pulls it off I'll be on for another two-three hours afterwards. Sunday it's on to Charlotte for Bears at Panthers. Todd Collins versus Jimmy Clausen in a QB duel - can't wait! Somewhere in the midst of all that, I'll be sharing thoughts on Twitter. Follow along @heathradio should you be so inclined. Have a great weekend and I'll see you back here Monday.

He even had an RBI!

2010-10-07T02:24:00.000-04:00

Day one of the MLB playoffs didn't feature any superb games, but will long be remembered by anyone who watched Philadelphia's Roy Halladay mow down Cincinnati with ease on his way to a no hitter. We had the game on one of the three TVs in my studio, and even though I have zero personal rooting interest in it I started giving Halladay updates by the fifth inning. It was that obvious that the Reds hitters were completely overmatched Wednesday afternoon. Ordinarily Cliff Lee's easy domination of Tampa Bay might have been the signature pitching performance of the day. The Yankees clearly tried to wind up as the wild card team to stay away from Lee in a five game series. Based on what they and the Rays did yesterday, that was a very wise move.

Intriguing game in Manhattan tonight, as Nebraska ventures in to take on Kansas State. It'll be the first stop on the Cornhuskers Big 12 "farewell tour", and the reception's not likely to be friendly. The Wildcats have been better than expected thanks to a terrific ground game, but probably don't have the horses to win. Right now Nebraska is one of the teams I believe is most likely to play for the BCS title. They're not going to get past Alabama, Ohio State or Oregon if those teams keep winning, and Boise will always have its worshippers. There are many more potential trouble spots for those teams (besides Boise) than there are Big Red though, and their defense is tremendous. If I had to pick a BCS title game today, it would be Oregon and Nebraska for the championship.

I'll spend more time on the LSU-Florida matchup tomorrow, but it's puzzling to see Will Hill's name coming up again as someone who's not living up to expectations. Everyone expected Janoris Jenkins and Hill to be in top shape this season and play well, because they're major talents with substantial experience who likely would be able to jump to the NFL early with a successful year. Only half of that equation has turned to be accurate. Not sure what Hill's deal is, but with a kid like Matt Elam around he'd better figure it out pretty quickly.

Michigan State visits Michigan this week, and fans of both teams are ticked off that ABC has assigned Matt Millen to call the game. Millen ran the Detroit Lions into the ground, and they're still trying to recover from his tenure in charge of the team. He was in over his head from the beginning, and was allowed to keep his job despite multiple embarrassing episodes like calling one of his players a "devout coward" on the radio. Having said that, it's not like the guy set out to intentionally screw Detroit's football team up. Acting like he did comes off as pretty silly. If people are going to go this crazy every time Millen works a game involving a Michigan team, he should start having fun with it. Just drop a comment like "If I was a GM, there's no way I pass up the chance to draft Denard Robinson as a wide receiver." and then continue to say it about other players regardless of whether they play the WR position or not. People in Michigan's heads would explode.

Looking for a shirt that combines the athletic vibe of basketball with the stylish look of an old Dokken concert souvenir? Well, you're in luck. Announcer Gus Johnson has teamed up with the NCAA to market a t-shirt based on his "Rise and Fire" catchphrase, which they are prepared to sell you for the low, low price of just $34.95 plus $4.99 for shipping. Make sure you order early to beat the holiday shopping run.

In a fantasy league, this deal would get vetoed

2010-10-06T00:13:00.001-04:00

There's no way New England trading Randy Moss right now makes any sense at all. Multiple reports insist they're talking about it, and there are rumors he may have gotten into a dispute with Bill Belichick. I don't care if that's true or not, there's no way it's a good idea to trade one of the most dangerous weapons in the league a few weeks into the season. Add in that the supposed price Minnesota would pay is likely a third round pick and it's even stranger. New England already has the first round pick from a bad Oakland team and the second rounder from winless Carolina, plus their own picks. What good's an extra third rounder going to do for them in comparison to what Moss could this year? Brett Favre will be ecstatic if the Vikings can get him a target with Sidney Rice out for weeks still, but I'm not sure Moss gets the offense back to the level they were last season until Rice returns.

If the Moss talk makes no sense, Miami firing its special teams coach after Monday night's debacle did. It's hard to understand how someone capable of rising to the level of an NFL assistant could have so many problems coaching the position he's been assigned, but John Bonamego's unit was an absolute disaster. Apparently any kind of stunting rush by an opposing team was enough to completely stump his protection unit on what to do next. Some in south Florida are using roster turnover as an explanation for what's gone wrong, and that may have hurt. It still can't explain a total breakdown in every phase of special teams.

Mack Brown wouldn't be on my list of the top five head coaches in college football because he's not much of a game manager or strategist. He's a terrific recruiter and face of a program though, and he was the perfect choice for Texas. That's an incredible job, yet for two decades people like Fred Akers, David McWilliams and John Mackovic proved it was possible to fail to win there. So why would anyone in Austin float the idea of shoving Brown out the door after this year to keep Will Muschamp in case Georgia comes after him? I know Muschamp worked under Saban and is a young emotional guy, but sometimes talented assistants still fail to be good head coaches. Texas is one of the few jobs that has the combination of financial resources and incredible instate talent to hire almost anyone they want. I was amazed they made the coach in waiting deal with Muschamp in the first place. Let him take a gig somewhere else like Gene Chizik did before him, and if he turns out to actually be a quality head coach you can always offer him more money than anyone else later. If they lean on brown to leave, Texas will wind up wishing they hadn't.

A guilty plea from a guy you've likely never heard of could turn out to be a major problem for a lot of people in the National Football League. If the name Mike Ornstein means anything to you, it's from being associated with Reggie Bush as his marketing agent. Now Ornstein's pleading guilty to charges including mail fraud as well as conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. He was involved in selling Super Bowl tickets obtained for face value as well as fraudulent certificates of authenticity for "game used" jerseys that weren't. What no one knows is what happens next, because the people Ornstein was getting his tickets from are NFL personnel and/or players. He's known to be particularly close with the Saints, but if prosecutors are being aggressive this could impact a lot of people. Meanwhile, why was a guy who already had a previous federal conviction for mail fraud involving NFL Properties being allowed to be involved with anything the league did? This will be an interesting story to follow.

Ordinarily if I heard an "illiterate clown" had been elected to office, I'd assume I'd made the mistake of tuning in to one of the cable news shows that rant about politics all the time. In this case however, that's not a statement of opinion but rather of fact. Meet Tiririca, Brazil's newest elected member of congress. Here in the US we've got someone whose primary business is pro wrestling running for the Senate from Connecticut, but at least it's not Doink the Clown.

Catring fever

2010-10-05T03:53:00.001-04:00

Nothing like starting off the baseball playoffs by having to address the ridiculous conditions at one of the featured ballparks. To try and avoid the quirks of Tropicana Field from coming into play and altering the outcome of a key postseason moment, MLB has changed the ground rules at the stadium. For all the national lecturing of the Tampa Bay fans for not supporting their team sufficiently, this kind of thing demonstrates a big part of why that is the case. Going to a game at the Trop doesn't feel anything like it does at other stadiums. They've tried to make it better, but there's only so much you can do with a charmless concrete non-retractable dome in the middle of a crappy part of town. I imagine there will be solid crowds for the playoff run, but scheduling the games in the middle of the day during the work week certainly won't help things either.

The headline of this Gainesville Sun piece focuses on Kenny Boynton being named to the Wooden Award watch list heading into basketball season, but to me that's not the most noteworthy part of the story. Kentucky's resurgence and the new TV deal brought the SEC considerably more national exposure last season, yet a year later only three conference players are in the perceived "top 50". The award field isn't closed off to only these fifty, and there are players not on the list who will wind up being stars by the end of the season. Whether the SEC eventually has more contenders isn't the issue to me, the lack of any progress toward national respect for the talent in the league is. A guy like Travis Leslie of Georgia makes this list with the same numbers and ability playing at a Big East school. Hopefully the SEC can change that mindset this season.

One thing that's definitely not helping the perception of SEC hoops is Bruce Pearl's situation at Tennessee. ESPN's turned up details of Pearl committing the exact same violation at his last job - having a junior player he was recruiting over to his house - that he lied to NCAA investigators about before confessing to the falsehood last month. Does that mean Pearl will get a more severe punishment from the NCAA as a repeat violator? Maybe not, but the fact he had extra cause to know exactly what rule he was violating and chose to do so again anyway certainly can't help UT's chances.

Cycling isn't a prime subject for discussion here on the blog, but since we got one of the great sports excuses of all time from it recently I'll make an exception. Alberto Contador claimed his positive drug test which may cost him the Tour de France win was caused by tainted meat. Some even made the argument he might have a case due to the small amount of the substance in question showing up in his blood. Turns out Contador failed another test for a different banned substance the day before the "tainted meat" test. Gosh, I know I'm shocked. At least the "tainted meat" defense was better than Floyd Landis's "I had some beers, plus I'm really manly" excuse for how his testosterone levels were off the chart in his failed test.

The latest example of Hollywood's complete inability or unwillingness to come up with new material comes from an interview with Bruce Willis. He says Die Hard 5 is probably going to happen in 2011. If John McClane just happens to stumble onto another massive terrorist plot, he officially becomes Angela Lansbury from "Murder She Wrote". (After someone's had more than 100 people killed with her around, especially with her friend or someone close to them almost always accused of the murder, wouldn't you stop inviting her to go places?) Die Hard 4 was officially called "Live Free or Die Hard" - this one will be called "Go Ahead and Die Already".

Maybe Addazio's seeing the the 2 in 12 backwards as a 5?

2010-10-04T00:27:00.007-04:00

Florida losing to Alabama didn't surprise any of us, but the way they did was ridiculous. If you ever watched "The West Wing", you may remember an episode called "Let Bartlet Be Bartlet". Urban Meyer and Steve Addazio have got to let Brantley be Brantley. The continued practice of calling a Tim Tebow offense with a natural drop back passer is foolish, and it will cost them again if it continues. It took the Alabama humiliation in 2005 followed by a loss at LSU while plus-5 in turnovers for Urban Meyer to reassess what his team was doing on offense that season and make the necessary adjustments. If you're a Gator fan, you have to hope Saturday was enough of a lesson to skip the second part. John Brantley needs to be able to focus on reading the D, going through his progressions and delivering a catchable ball. Every second he wastes of practice time on option stuff is only making him less effective at the things he clearly is capable of doing well. That doesn't mean he needs to work on the jump pass so it'll surprise Bama when he does it in the SEC title game instead of Burton. (That ridiculous call was the end of any hope UF had, even though the score was still 3-0. With a chance to take the lead and have killed off almost a quarter, you can not let that happen. Addazio said postgame he "felt great about it" - of course he did.)

The Gators get LSU next, a team coming off a win despite the most incompetent coaching performance I have ever seen. Anyone can focus on the circus at the end (to run a play from the Vol 2 with 32 seconds remaining in the game and only get another play off because the center saw the clock was at :02 and just snapped the ball without the QB being ready is pretty amazing) but that would ignore the ineptitude shown throughout the afternoon. On 4th down with the game on the line, LSU actually took a delay of game despite having a timeout left. Then, after they'd been penalized to 4th and 14, they went ahead and used the timeout. Two horribly coached QBs led an offense that lost four turnovers, including (my personal favorite) a fumble when a guy stretched out the ball next to two Vol defenders to reach for yardage three yards away from a first down. After the game, I listened as Les Miles explained on the LSU Radio Network that they were substituting personnel at the end because they "wanted to throw a throw". The man is an imbecile - see for yourself. The fact he and his staff didn't bother to plan for third down because they were sure the second down call would work should be enough reason for the entire bunch to be dismissed immediately if there was any way to do so. It is coaching malpractice of the highest order.

Colorado beating Georgia was terrific to see, but shocking at the same time. Mark Richt's been about as unlucky as a guy can get this season. UGA was up 24-14 and then A.J. Green left the game with cramping issues. As has been the case all year, without him they're not very effective on offense. With Green gone and the Dawgs no longer able to just ride his athleticism to easy catches (7-119, 2 TDs) CU was able to mount a comeback and get the lead. Despite it all though, they were going to blow the game thanks to Dan Hawkins trying a 54 yard FG his kicker had zero chance of making with 3:48 left rather than punt. Down just two, all UGA needed was to drive thirty yards and they'd be in easy field goal range. That's exactly what they did, and then tailback Caleb King coughed up the football. If he doesn't do that, the Dawgs probably win. If Green doesn't cramp, the Dawgs do win. Instead, Georgia's 1-4 and can not go to a bowl unless they beat someone out of the combo of Florida, Auburn and Georgia Tech while being perfect in every other game. I didn't think Mark Richt could be in true danger this year, but if they miss a bowl it could legitimately happen. It shouldn't, but it might.

A few other quick CFB thoughts...

1. I don't care how much the Dan Le Batards of the world try to wish him into being one, Jacory Harris is not a very good quarterback. Miami beat Clemson because the Tigers have no pass game to speak of and the deeper group of Cane athletes were able to prevail, but that's not a football team that's growing as the season progresses.

2. Butch Davis must hate Yahoo Sports more than Al Qaeda. Even though his team improved to 2-2 and is still in the race for the ACC Championship game (and oh, what fun that would be if they actually are contending for it in November) tomorrow the only thing anyone's going to be talking about is Yahoo's latest scoop on the agent fiasco. According to Marcell Dareus of Alabama, John Blake called him to pitch the idea he should sign with agent Gary Wichard while he was coaching for the Tar Heels. Blake reportedly also called South Carolina's Weslye Saunders, who the word is may have been considerably less candid with the NCAA than Dareus was.

3. The best highlight of the weekend came from the Colorado game. It had nothing to do with the action itself - watch Ralphie run, and check out the sideline reporter becoming collateral damage.

One of the curious things about my business is that everyone's convinced they can do it. After all anybody can talk, right? I'm not going to try and convince you it's the toughest gig in the world, but there's a little more to it than most realize. Celebrities who try any type of radio generally fail like Whoopi Goldberg, David Lee Roth and so many others have before them. The latest who thinks sports radio would be fun is Robert Wuhl. Westwood One hopes a three hour daily show with the guy who wasn't able to be funny on sports in scripted half hours as "Arliss" on HBO is going to be an in demand national commodity. Putting it in afternoon drive, the one time slot where every sports radio station of any size in the country has a local program because of the ability to sell remotes and reach the drive time audience, is a particularly inspired choice. Good luck with that, guys.

Bud takes pride in not making the same mistake twenty years in a row

2010-10-01T03:57:00.002-04:00

This will be an unusual weekend for me. It's a bye week for South Carolina so I'm not scheduled to cover anything, and once Miami at Clemson got scheduled for noon any chance of me going to that was gone (not doing a 7AM wakeup to drive a couple of hours and then fight notoriously awful game day traffic). It looks like I'll be having my first "home" Saturday during a college football season in years.

Thanks to Florida's visit to Alabama, at least I'll have something to focus on as the day unfolds. There's no logic based way to pick UF here. The Tide hasn't lost a regular season game since the end of 2007, beat UF on a neutral field in their last meeting and is playing a night game at home. Does that mean Florida has no shot? Not at all, but they'll have to play at a much higher level than I've seen them show they're capable of so far - last week included. This Gator squad has yet to put together sixty solid minutes of football against anyone. Without that type of performance, they're not winning in Tuscaloosa.

I suspect Alabama will look to throw the ball more than usual early knowing Florida's keying on the run - will Greg McElroy show any effects of his injured thigh when they do? Can Jeremy Brown reliably deal with Marquis Maze since Jenkins should do a reasonable job on the talented but highly overrated Julio Jones? UF can allow yards, but they have to make Alabama work the ball down the field instead of them hitting big plays. One of the biggest differences between this season's Bama and last year's edition is their red zone performance. Curiously, the 2009 Tide weren't very good at scoring TDs in that situation while this year's squad has been. Will the refs give Alabama the incredibly generous whistle they got in the last meeting (1 penalty called all game)? If so, that only makes UF's task that much more challenging.

For all the Trey Burton hype this week, the guy I think might be the key offensive player for UF this game is Carl Moore. The Gators need to move the sticks and keep the football - on third down, he can do that. John Brantley will have opportunities against the Tide secondary, especially if Marcell Dareus isn't right physically to bring pass rush heat. One place Florida's clearly better is special teams, and they need to maximize the value of that advantage. Winning this one would be one of Urban Meyer's most impressive moments - they've got a chance to make it happen.

LeBron James and his buddy/marketing guy Maverick Carter should be embarrassed for indicating their belief the backlash to their "Decision" stunt is related to race. LeBron's Q score did get twenty points worse with whites than it did with blacks. To conclude anything meaningful about the Q score numbers, we'd have to know whether a split turns up by age/education level/income as well. James was foolish to answer CNN's question about race playing a role in his public criticism with anything other than a no or a "no comment". His buddy Maverick was even stupider to assert media criticism of their actions was tied into race without a single example to cite to support that claim.

Major League Baseball and Fox have finally realized there's no benefit to playing World Series games later than necessary. As a result, all but one of this year's games are slated to begin by 8 PM. This isn't going to spur a mad rush of younger fans embracing baseball just because they have a better chance of seeing the endings of the most important games of the year, but it can't hurt. For those who have to work the next day in the east, the change makes it more likely they'll feel able to see the end of the game and actually take time to watch. This is one thing Bud Selig and company have to be given credit for getting right, although it's a shame it took them so long to figure it out.

Follow me on Twitter at heathradio for assorted thoughts on the football weekend and other stuff. Have a good weekend and I'll see you back here Monday.

Sloppiness doesn't pay with the NCAA (until they let it)

2010-09-30T04:50:00.002-04:00

We may have the biggest NCAA football scandal since SMU got the death penalty unfolding in Chapel Hill. Terrific work by Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports establishes that there were unquestionably links between not only Gary Wichard's agency and John Blake while Blake was coaching at UNC but also that Wichard's agency was involved in paying for Marvin Austin's trips to California. Blake supposedly had a credit card from Wichard's agency in his name. That's incomprehensible, and it's probably going to lead to penalties that make USC's look tame. The Trojans got slammed in large part because the NCAA concluded a coach knew Reggie Bush was ineligible and did nothing. Here the accusations are that a coach was personally involved with the agency that made one of the school's players ineligible two seasons ago. I don't see any way Butch Davis can survive this, even if he had no personal role in it. It will be quite a while before the NCAA tells us what they're going to do to UNC, but when they take action it will be devastating.

The past few days on the air here in Columbia have been interesting. There's a segment of the South Carolina fanbase that's already throwing the towel in on their season in the wake of their loss to Auburn last weekend. The idea that a 3-1 record (with the loss coming on the road at night against a team that's currently unbeaten and in the top ten) is a letdown seems silly to me, but there seems to be a race amongst the negative folks to see who can proclaim impending doom first. If the Gamecocks can take care of business on imminently winnable road trips to Vandy/Kentucky and home games with Tennessee/Troy, that alone would give them seven wins and a decent bowl trip. Get just one of the Bama/Ark home games or at UF/Clemson and it's progress, and two would be among the best seasons the school's ever had. I thought the bitter fans were being ridiculous until I saw Jeff Elliott's blog on the Florida Times-Union's website. According to Elliott, only Florida has not disappointed their fans so far the way the Jaguars/Noles/Bulldogs have. However, "Florida will need a win Saturday to avoid joining the other three in the disappointment category". Apparently, according to a "professional" sportswriter, anything short of being undefeated = disappointing team. UGA being 0-3 in the SEC for the first time since the 70s, and UF potentially dropping a road game to the reigning national champs who haven't lost in the regular season since 2007 - just a couple of disappointments alright. I know people care intensely about college football, but this is just absurd. Every team can't win every game - if losing on the road to high quality programs is just too much for you to bear, you need to reevluate what's reasonable to expect as a fan and try to learn how to have fun again.

I don't agree with coaches like Randy Shannon demanding their players not have Twitter or Facebook accounts. If these guys are supposed to be capable of handling college level academic work while playing football, how can you say they aren't mature enough to handle a Twitter page? The guys who are demanding their kids stay off social networks will point to Jaz Reynolds as an example of why they're right. The Oklahoma receiver got the brillliant idea to tweet that Austin's Longhorn fans should just kill themselves. It's a dreadful decision by him, with some of the resulting fallout entirely predictable. Reynolds has been suspended indefinitely by Bob Stoops for being a dumbass, which shouldn't be a factor in this weeekend's Texas game but still has the potential to be.

Somehow the NCAA is letting Dee Bost play basketball again this season for Mississippi State. Considering Bost stayed in the draft despite there being ample evidence he knew or should have known when the date to withdraw was, that's remarkable. The claim Bost wasn't aware of the deadline seems far fetched at best, but with the rule having recently changed the NCAA's giving Bost and others who may have screwed up a pass. I normally err on the side of giving kids more chances, but this ruling seems wrong to me. Bost had ample time to learn that going undrafted meant his college career was over. If, as he claims, he didn't then that means he made no effort to read anything about himself prior to the deadline. Does that sound legit? Didn't think so either.

Only three years from Tiffany and Debbie Gibson being eligible

2010-09-29T03:54:00.000-04:00

Jacksonville's season is already in the tank, and their move to sign Trent Edwards tells you they're in panic mode. Edwards was cut by the horrible Buffalo Bills after he not only failed to succeed as their QB but also had the entire league pass on trading even a late round choice for him. Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio described the move to bring in Edwards as "like adding a draft pick", which is true if the draft pick is a stiff like Johnathan Quinn was for them in the second round. Surely this is the last season for Del Rio - eight years as coach of an NFL franchise and you've never won your division and won only one playoff game?

One of the minor issues to crop up earlier in the NFL season was Dez Bryant refusing to carry Roy Williams pads at training camp. The rookie wide receiver had to pay for that yesterday by being on the hook for a meal for his colleagues. Despite there being multiple Taco Cabana locations in the Dallas area, they instead opted for Pappas Bros. Steakhouse. The final tally on the night came to an astounding $54, 896. If every player on the roster came along and ate a 500 dollar steak, the bill still shouldn't have been that much. Guys must have been ordering shots of every liquor the bar has and then just pouring the ones they didn't like on the floor to amass a total like that. It's both impressive and nauseating at the same time.

The Big East is clearly the least impressive of the six conferences with automatic BCS bids. Even the ACC was able to win key head to head matchups between the two leagues, with NC State thumping Cincinnati, Miami dominating Pittsburgh and even UNC minus twelve guys over Rutgers. Whether it's because of fear of someone raiding them or concern that they may lose their automatic bid if they become the first conference to send an unranked team to the BCS, the New York Post claims the Big East is looking at adding TCU. The only way this makes sense is if it's for football and nothing else, because the costs of travel to Texas in nonrevenue sports will be prohibitive and it's already hard enough trying to make sense of a 16 team basketball conference.

The new list of nominees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is out. I was glad to see Tom Waits, who should have been inducted the second he was eligible, is finally on the list. Warren Zevon should be there too, but still isn't. Looking at the list, it's clear they're running low on strong contenders overall. Just because people have heard of Donna Summer doesn't make her influential. Donovan had some hits, but is "Mellow Yellow" really up there with the best of the best? I continue to believe they need to do this every two or three years instead of as an annual thing so more high quality artists care in the eligibility pool. Not sure if Ben Folds will ever have a shot at the R&R HOF unless he has some more "chart hits", but he's a terrific musician. Check out tracks from his new album "Lonely Avenue" on his Myspace page if you have time.

Get ready to ride the wave of outrage

2010-09-28T03:28:00.003-04:00

The discussion in the aftermath of Chris Rainey being charged with aggravated stalking focused on two things: the number of arrests in the Gator program under Urban Meyer and demands that the dangerous thug Rainey be banished from UF. The inconvenient details to that narrative - Rainey had apparently never been physically aggressive toward any woman, even on the night in question - were ignored in the race to see who could bleat more about their outrage. It was over the top and unfortunate. Rainey's charges have been reduced to a misdemeanor, which seems to have been the appropriate charge based on what a friend of mine who's a prosecutor in Florida tells me. He made a bad decision, and he's missing his third game of the season this week. We don't know what process Rainey has to do to be reinstated to the team, but you'll likely see him in a Florida uniform again. Despite the reaction from hysterical people who tried to paint him as the next O.J., I don't think that'll be a terrible thing.

The NFL is going to an 18 game regular season, one way or the other. Colts GM Bill Polian became the latest to make it clear that's the case, calling it a "fait accompli" yesterday. The extra games may make the league more TV money, but I wonder how many fans who are already not buying tickets at the rate they once did in many cities will respond. I'm not sure ripping them off a little less (charging full price for just one practice game instead of two) will prompt much of a resurgence in crowd size. For players the key will be to get as much as they can to do this - multiple bye weeks, a bigger practice squad, no more missing the full year if put on IR, better long term health care - because it's clear the owners could do it without their consent under the current deal if they really wanted to but they're willing to negotiate for PR reasons. 18 games will mean earlier fantasy league drafts then ever and the Super Bowl potentially interfering with Valentine's Day, but the owners are convinced it also will mean boatloads of cash.

One of the things that fascinates me about football is how certain coaches constantly get jobs despite there being considerable evidence they are not good at what they are being asked to do. Jimmy Raye was bad as the offensive coordinator for Tampa Bay in the mid-80s and has continued to perform poorly at multiple stops around the NFL since then, yet he was still employed as an offensive coordinator until San Francisco cut him loose yesterday. Raye must be a great interview, because there's been a quarter century of evidence he's bad at calling plays for NFL teams and somehow he keeps getting chances to do it. I suspect this will be the end for Raye, but then I thought Bill Curry having the nation's top passing recruit QB Tim Couch try to run the option while making his first college start against the defending national champs in the Swamp would be the end of him too. Who knows, Gerry DiNardo may still get another head coaching gig again someday.

News that Southwest Airlines is purchasing AirTran has me extremely curious to see where this will go. Living in South Carolina now, I can't emphasize enough how much I miss the easy access I had to Southwest in Florida. They don't fly to any city in the state - neither does AirTran. As a result of this merger it appears SWA will now get into Charlotte which would be a good thing for me, but I have real questions about how this is going to work. Southwest's success has been built around their particular culture, and I'm not sure it's easy to mesh another good sized airline into that. Things like using just one style of plane to simplify maintenance and not charging a hundred bucks to use the funds from a ticket you wind up having to cancel are at the core of Southwest's success. Hopefully they're smart enough to remember that and not change it.

Wish I could have seen Richt's reaction

2010-09-27T06:37:00.009-04:00

Interesting Saturday in college football, with a few significant upsets and some excellent games. I enjoyed my first trip to Jordan-Hare Stadium as a media member rather than a ticket holder. It's a really good place to see a game, although the PA system operator's fixation with 80s rock is a little puzzling (multiple crowd sing-a-longs with Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer" in the same night? Seriously?). South Carolina lost a game they easily could and probably should have won. Florida put the kind of beating on Kentucky that they should have put on Tennessee the week before. Lots of different things stand out from the weekend for me - here's some quick hits on a variety of topics...

1. Trey Burton's six touchdown night understandably got most of the attention after Florida's win over Kentucky, but there were other noteworthy developments. Andre Debose began to emerge as a factor in the offense, although I doubt having Frankie Hammond set picks on the guy covering Debose is going to reliably get him open against Bama. Robert Clark is someone who needs to see more opportunities with the ball going forward. He's shown the ability to make some tough catches. Beating the Crimson Tide is going to require being unpredictable - maybe UF won't actually have Brantley try to run option plays next week?

2. Imagine if Cam Newton was still at UF as a two headed QB with John Brantley. South Carolina knew Newton was going to take the ball right up the middle repeatedly, but they weren't able to control him with any consistency. Newton lacks accuracy down the field, but Auburn was so happy running the ball with him and throwing shorter stuff that they never bothered to do that. The Gamecocks have a good defense - if Newton could do that to them, he's got a shot against anybody.

3. Nothing sums up this nightmare of a season for Mark Richt better than the arrest of a freshman linebacker for DUI just hours after Georgia lost to Mississippi State. Richt's already kicked the kid off the team, presumably because he must be too dumb to boil water to do that after everything that's gone on in Athens. The Bulldogs get A.J. Green back this week, which will help them. They also get to play Colorado, which will really help. I still don't think Richt is in danger after this season, but there's legit anger out there among UGA fans right now. At minimum OC Mike Bobo may have to go after the season to cool some people down.

4. The guy a lot of Georgia fans would probably like to hire is Texas DC Will Muschamp. It's safe to say their demolition at the hands of UCLA wouldn't be a featured moment on his resume tape. The Longhorns have been overhyped based on what they did last season, but I never thought UCLA was going to be the one to expose them for what they really are. Nebraska's going to wreck them in mid-October.

5. UAB should have beaten Tennessee. The Blazer kicker missed five field goals, which proved to be the difference in the game, but UAB was the better overall team for 60 plus minutes in Knoxville. The Vols were 2-15 on third down at home against a midlevel Conference-USA team. Without any turnovers and with two overtimes to play in, they still mustered just 287 yards of offense. They're going to have a losing season unless they beat Georgia, because they aren't beating LSU, Bama or SC and there won't be much left to play the soft November once they try.

6 . Most people I know who are sports fans root for their teams to win. If the incessant commercials for one national sports bar chain are to be believed, the fans who watch games there don't actually cheer for teams but rather for games to go on forever so they don't have to leave the bar and go back to their pathetic lives. Seems like an odd way to try and convince people to come to your place.

Should be a fun weekend

2010-09-24T12:44:00.002-04:00

I'm headed to Auburn this weekend to cover South Carolina's game with them. Should be one of the better matchups of the weekend, and especially given the sad circumstances of Kenny McKinley's suicide earlier this week it's a hard one to get a handle on. Will his former teammates be distracted or inspired? One thing that really stood out to me in watching Auburn's win over Clemson was how effective stuff on the perimeter was for Clemson. A lot of the Gamecocks running has been up the middle with Marcus Lattimore, but this week they may need to mix in more wide receiver screens and some Wildcat stuff to help open it up for him.

Florida gets Kentucky in Gainesville, a game that's got potential to be dangerous but is another one they should be able to handle. At some point the Gators have got to show an ability to put points on the board early in the action, and they clearly have better athletes on offense than Kentucky does on defense. If they let Kentucky get confidence after being roadkill against UF the past two seasons, that's a significant breakthrough for the Wildcats and then there's the chance a guy like Randall Cobb or Derrick Locke does does something special.

A few other games that have my attention:

Alabama should be able to take care of business against Arkansas. Ryan Mallett is more effective at home and has a stable of quality WRs against an inexperienced Bama secondary, but to be effective against the Crimson Tide you have to be able to run the ball as well. There's nothing to indicate the Razorbacks are capable of that. Alabama's actually not favored by much, but I think they win by double digits.

Boise State is going to kill Oregon State. Their victory over a team with a 1-2 record that only beat a bad Louisville team 35-28 will then be proclaimed as further evidence of them "doing everything you can ask them to do" and being worthy of playing for the national title. Alabama's win will be proclaimed a "good division win" and the start of a tough SEC stretch by the same people, who will be oblivious to how ridiculous the combination of the two sounds.

Stanford has punted less than any other team in college football this season. They head to South Bend to take on Notre Dame. My buddy Chris Fallica, ESPN's college research guru, believes there may be a trap here for them and I respect him too much to completely dismiss that possibility. If ND gets worked over, the possibility of a really rough start for Brian Kelly looms large. Harbaugh's going to be an NFL coach soon unless Michigan calls with a boatload of money.

In a normal week it would be hard to have a worse coaching matchup than Les Miles against Bill Stewart, but thanks to last night's Miami/Pittsburgh slopfest there actually was one. Some people are starting to raise the question about what could happen if WVU wins this game, because they would head into Big East play undefeated and as the clear favorite because the conference's performance has been horrid overall. My worst nightmare: Boise versus a mediocre WVU for the national title, with the win "proof" of their greatness. It's not often I'd say this, but let's go Les Miles.

Did Alabama's Nick Saban pressure non-productive players to accept a medical scholarship, thus ending their college careers and freeing up extra scholarships for the Crimson Tide to use in recruiting? Of course he did, and everyone who's been paying attention knows he has. The Wall Street Journal actually got some guys to acknowledge it on the record though, which is somewhat newsworthy. Coaches used to just tell these guys their scholarship wasn't renewed and to go away, but thanks to the APR that could have negative consequences now. As a result, more schools will go to a kid and inform him he has a "health problem" and suggest he quit football. If it's a choice between completing your education and being a former "fill in the blank" who caught a tough break or transferring down to a school like North Alabama and still playing, a lot of guys will take the deal. Saban's just been more obvious in his use of the loophole than most coaches are.

I'll be busy this weekend between covering the South Carolina at Auburn game and then the final round of the Tour Championship in Atlanta Sunday. I'm not sure how much time there will be for me to put stuff out on Twitter along the way, but I will when I can. Follow along at heathradio if you're so inclined. Have a great weekend and i'll see you back here Monday.

It just wouldn't be the holidays without the Eaglebank Bowl

2010-09-23T02:37:00.000-04:00

The NCAA is acknowledging the reality that this may be the year of the Bowlpocalypse. With 35 bowls approved to be played, there have to be seventy eligible teams at the end of the season to fill all the slots. This year, thanks to things like USC being ineligible, that may well not happen. What to do about it? How's letting teams with losing records play in bowls sound? Even though the NCAA has vowed for years it wouldn't let that happen, it's now in play as a possibility rather than have a scheduled bowl wind up cancelled for lack of participants. The idea is ridiculous. This isn't some unexpected development or fluke season - it was already close to happening multiple times before they chose to add another bowl. Either there are standards, or there aren't. If 5-7 teams are now bowl worthy, then just abandon all pretense of the regular season being relevant and allow whoever wants to put together a game to make it happen if their wallet's big enough. If somebody thinks a 4-8 Ole Miss versus a 3-9 UCLA team in the Gateway Bowl in St. Louis three days before Christmas would make money, let them do it. At least it would be a clear cash grab and we wouldn't have to hear any more happy talk about "rewarding teams for a great season" with a trip to Detroit at Christmas.

What had been a surprising start for Tampa Bay took a turn for the worse with the news safety Tanard Jackson is suspended for the rest of the season as a result of violating the NFL's substance abuse policy. It's the second year in a row he's been suspended for this type of issue, and Jackson has acknowledged his problems existed before he was chosen by the Bucs. I've noted before here that I believe bringing in this kind of guy is a big part of why the team has gotten off track in recent years. Players like Jackson can't be counted on despite being talented, as Tampa Bay just learned again. Meanwhile, if this means the return of Sabby Piscitelli to a meaningful role on the Buc defense then they're completely screwed. Piscitelli couldn't cover a dead body with a sheet - he's as bad a player as I saw in any regular capacity in the NFL last season.

The good news for UNC football is that the status of two more of their players got resolved yesterday. The bad news is there are ten more with issues still lingering out there. One player received a six game suspension, the other four. In a remarkable coincidence, the same Chris Hawkins who just happened to purchase A.J. Green's jersey turns out to have been linked to Tar Heels cornerback Kendric Burney's trips to Las Vegas and Atlanta. Maybe they were looking at jerseys to buy? (Just like the Green situation and his felony cocaine trafficking charges, Hawkins says this is all a big misunderstanding. Of course it is.) UNC says it will appeal the penalties, because they can't count on that losing teams get to go to bowls thing happening yet.

It is entirely possible that the Big Ten this week is playing the worst slate of games in the history of any conference for a single week. The Chicago Tribune points out it is so awful that the game ABC selected for its 3:30 network slot features Ohio State as more than a six touchdown favorite. The best game anyone is playing appears to actually be Penn State hosting Temple. The folks on the Big Ten Network are going to earn their money trying to polish this turd of a Saturday.

Interesting game in college football tonight, with Miami at Pittsburgh. Neither team has actually beaten a D-1 opponent yet, but they're both supposedly favorites in their respective pathetic conferences. The Hurricanes have had twelve days to regroup after their dreadful offensive performance in Columbus, and now that Randy Shannon made all players get off Twitter they're claiming to be "more focused". Pittsburgh is the perpetually underachieving squad they always seem to be under the Wannstache. Someone has to win, although history tells us with these two coaching masterminds at work it'll be more like "losing less".

The beginning of the end for Andy Reid in Philly

2010-09-22T11:52:00.000-04:00

The Philadelphia Eagles will start Michael Vick at quarterback for the forseeable future. The decision by Andy Reid to pull an about face on what he's said throughout the season and as recently as Monday is to me a bad one. You traded Donovan McNabb because you said Kevin Kolb was ready to be your guy. Then, after one poor half against a really good Packers team that included a concussion you change your mind? What kind of leadership is that? Vick played terrific against Detroit in week 2, and appears to have made major strides with a full year under his belt. We'll see if he can replicate that success against better teams who are preparing for him. There may have been a time during the season to make this move, but I think the way Reid handled it was incredibly poor. If you're a player in that locker room, how can you trust anything the guy says now? Beyond that, Vick's a free agent after this year. How exactly can you turn around and say "Kolb's really ready now" if he leaves? This has the potential to be a major mess.

Had a few drinks while you're out? You have a decision to make: line up a ride, or potentially lose big money and go to jail. Sounds simple, but it's a choice lots of people make incorrectly every day. Braylon Edwards of the New York Jets took it even further as he picked up his DUI though. Despite Edwards and his two teammates riding with him all having been given a number by the Jets to call which would have brought trained security people to get them and their vehicles home, he decided it wasn't worth the time to call. The stupidity of not just hailing one of the umpteen easily accessible NYC cabs boggles the mind as well. The point here is not that DUIs are bad, which I suspect you'd already figured out. It's that these guys have a "nothing's going to touch me" arrogance that overrides any effort at rational analysis. Even with people bending over backward to help them, they refuse to accept it's a bad idea to get in the car with a buddy whose BAC is more than double the legal limit. People regularly wonder how so many guys wind up broke after their playing days - this kind of thinking is why.

Even when an athlete is trying to advocate for responsible driving behavior it can sometimes turn out less than ideal. Dexter McCluster of the Chiefs has a deal with a cel phone company, which had him do an anti-texting while driving PSA. Unfortunately, they decided to have him dance and rap his way through it. Think the rookie will be catching a little grief for this in his locker room? Tupac he's not.

It's no secret radio personalities sometimes display poor taste in their attempts at humor. When you're live working without a net, occasionally an ad lib that doesn't work will happen. Some shows intentionally try and push the boundaries of good taste and go too far. I can understand how that happens. What I can't understand is how someone can be stupid enough to script out a routine (for a filmed video appearing on his radio station's website) making jokes about someone who's still in the hospital recovering from a heart attack. The "joke" was that God was punishing Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio for beating Notre Dame on an overtime field goal by giving him a heart attack. HOHOHO, isn't that hilarious? There are some things which should be left alone, and someone dealing with a serious health issue would be one of them.

Kenny McKinley (1987-2010)

2010-09-21T00:04:00.002-04:00

Incredibly sad news out of Denver last night, with word coming of the death of Broncos wide receiver Kenny McKinley. McKinley is South Carolina's all time leader in receptions, and was a terrific player for the Gamecocks. He'd been drafted by Denver in 2009 but hadn't been able to play much yet due to injury issues, including a knee problem that had him on IR for this season. Having covered McKinley his senior year, it's inconceivable to imagine he's gone. Indications are that his death was a suicide, which is hard to understand considering what an upbeat and positive guy he was. McKinley was just in Columbia ten days ago for the Georgia game. My wife talked to him and said he seemed the same as ever. It's just another reminder that you never know what's really going on with anyone but yourself.

Even though McKinley last played for the Gamecocks in 2008, he's got tons of friends in that locker room. With a roadtrip to Auburn next on their schedule, Steve Spurrier will have a major challenge getting them focused and ready for a big game. He dealt with a death at Florida in 2001 with Eraste Autin, but that came in July so there was more time to regroup. Autin was also a true freshman, and while that certainly hit Spurrier and his team hard it's not the same impact as the death of a guy you spent years with. Mckinley was a quarterback in high school and developed into a terrific college player under the tutelage of Spurrier and his son Steve JR. as WR coach. Here's a signature McKinley moment against Kentucky a few years ago.

There's other stuff going on worth blogging about on an ordinary day, but I don't think this entry should have anything else on it. This has to be incredibly hard on McKinley's family and friends, and I hope they eventually find peace about it. R.I.P.

College stuff today, pros tomorrow - crazy that the Bucs are 2-0 though

2010-09-20T02:20:00.009-04:00

Interesting weekend in college football, even though we didn't see many upsets. Florida continues to figure out who they are on offense, with the line having just gotten its first game together this season. Young talent at the skill spots are still sorting out their roles. The unit will continue to get better, but that doesn't mean the playcalling will. John Brantley is not Tim Tebow, and calling Tebow era red zone plays like a short side option/shovel pass look (going to the left!) with him is stupid. Steve Addazio excels as a line coach and is a terrific motivator, but there's no evidence to this point that he's a brilliant offensive mind. I keep waiting for a creative game plan that impresses me, and it just hasn't happened. Meyer loves Addazio for having stayed loyal rather than accepting a couple of opportunities to be HC at schools like Holy Cross, but if the performance does not improve he is doing himself and his team a disservice if he refuses to consider a change in the OC role after the year. Other stuff from UF/Tennessee...

1. Matt Simms is delusional about his skill level and that of his team. He threw two picks, and easily could have been intercepted three other times. Tennessee's only two touchdowns came on busted secondary assignments that led to long passes to wide open receivers for the score. The Vols showed little ability to put together a clock chewing touchdown drive, which is what they'll desperately need in the coming weeks of SEC play to keep their defense from getting worn down to nothing. They'll have to be extremely lucky to have a .500 season.

2. Justin Hunter is a seriously impressive physical specimen at wide receiver. Tennessee has got to figure out a way to get him more involved going forward.

3. Gary Danielson is an intelligent analyst most of the time, but him repeatedly asserting there's no such thing as momentum in a game makes about as much sense as asserting there's no such thing as gravity. Having momentum doesn't mean you'll win, but it's impossible to deny the obvious surge of confidence a team like Auburn got in the second half of their game once they got a field goal to finally get on the board at the end of the first.

Other college football thoughts:

1. Michigan's Denard Robinson has justifiably gotten a ton of attention, but Nebraska's Taylor Martinez is the more impressive and relevant QB right now. Robinson's a sophomore, Martinez is a freshman. The Cornhuskers have a terrific shot at playing for the national title if Martinez can maintain this level of performance.

2. Best wishes for a quick recovery to Michigan State head coach Mark Dantonio, who suffered a heart attack just a little bit after calling for a game winning fake field goal on 4th and 14 in overtime. To say it was a daring call would be a gigantic understatement. If Notre Dame is in a safe defense against the fake, Dantonio's being called the biggest idiot in coaching today.

3. Worst weekend of any program goes to Houston. The Cougars went to UCLA as a ranked team with a theoretical Heisman candidate at quarterback in Case Keenum. They then lost Keenum and his backup for the year, as well as the game.

4. Lane Kiffin's stunt of going for two points for no reason is going to burn him if he tries it against better teams than Hawaii and Minnesota. As it is, USC beat the Gophers 32-21 after Lane's guys missed three 2-pt tries (now 2 of 7 for year). The spread on the game was 11.5 points. Think a few alums who lost their bets were ticked off about that?

5. Al Golden has Temple 3-0 headed to Penn State this week. They soundly beat UConn over the weekend. Having brought the Owls program back from the dead may be the single biggest accomplishment of any coach this decade if judged by degree of difficulty. Golden may be Joe Paterno's successor, but if he's not he's going to be a fantastic hire for some big school soon.

6. There's only one team from a BCS conference that's played three games and hasn't had a single one shown on TV other than via pay per view. Considering Texas A&M almost found a way to lose to FIU Saturday, that's probably been a good thing for the Aggies and for viewers.

Florida 45, Tennessee 21

2010-09-17T02:02:00.003-04:00

Sorry for no post yesterday - occasionally the personal life gets in the way. Expectations for this weekend in college football won't be anywhere close to what they were last week, but sometimes it's those kind of weekends that turn out terrific. Instead of a few five star games, we've got a lot of three star ones that have some potential. While the Furman - South Carolina matchup I'm scheduled to cover isn't one of them, Florida - Tennessee may be although it shouldn't. If Florida plays as they are capable, they should gut Tennessee like a fish.

The Vols likely won't have their starting center who's part of a line that isn't very good to begin with. Their quarterback is mediocre at best, and they lack proven performers at receiver. Other than Tauren Poole at tailback and Luke Stocker at tight end (who Matt Simms has thus far ignored) it's hard to find guys who qualify as special talents on offense. The Gators should be able to blow them off the line when UF has the ball - the Vol DTs and MLB are absurdly undersized. It's all up to UF. They can play sloppy and make things interesting, or they can play average and crush Tennessee. The Vols got a pep talk from Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, so they do have that going for them. Not sure how well that makes up for the NCAA knowing former UT assistant coach David Reaves committed a major violation by not reporting the Vol hostesses visit to Byrnes High after he was informed of it though.

Other games I'll have my eye on...

Arkansas at Georgia - Ryan Mallett's performance on the road has been garbage. Will that change? How much more will Georgia be willing to let Aaron Murray do now that they're desperate to avoid falling to 0-2 in the SEC?

Texas at Texas Tech - Texas hasn't impressed me at all with their performance in their first two games, and this is Garrett Gilbert's first road start. I was already thinking Tech had a decent shot at an upset before my buddy Chris Fallica, ESPN's college research guru, told me he believes it's coming too. Wish I had a better idea exactly how Tommy Tuberville will approach this one, but the Red Raiders definitely have a good shot.

Nebraska at Washington - What will Jake Locker do against a defense much better than most he normally sees? Will I still get a Heisman Trophy campaign postcard from UW even if his team falls to 1-2? Freshman QB Taylor Martinez is the guy I really want to see in this one. If he can produce on the road against a legit BCS team, Nebraska becomes a legit national title contender because their schedule's a joke from here on out other than the Texas game.

Clemson at Auburn - No one has any idea if Clemson can play, because they've opened with two junk teams. I expect an Auburn win, but I'm curious to see how they look while getting it after slowing their tempo last week against Miss State.

Sunday I'll be in Charlotte for what may be my only in person look at the Bucs this year as they take on the Carolina Panthers. My expectations aren't very high, but it will be good to get to check them out. If you're an NFL fan, you need to read this column with statistical analysis for this week from the Washington Post. It's very good stuff from the people at Football Outsiders.

I'll be active over the weekend on Twitter reacting to games and other stuff that catches my attention. Follow along @heathradio if you're so inclined. Have a great weekend and I'll see you back here Monday.

The guy holding press conferences dressed like a clown wants to question others behavior? Please

2010-09-15T03:31:00.005-04:00

When Bruce Pearl confessed to lying to the NCAA Friday, the thing everyone wanted to know was why he'd done it. What had prompted the Tennessee basketball coach to try and BS his way out of a tight spot, and how had he gotten busted doing so? Gary Parrish of CBS Sports has that answer: Pearl violated rules by welcoming a recruit at his house while he was a high school junior, then denied he'd done so. Unfortunately for Pearl, the NCAA already had a photo of the player with him in his house. The cuts in salary and time recruiting for the Vols announced the other day were Tennessee's bid to keep Pearl, but make no mistake the NCAA is not done with this subject. Pearl could easily be gone right around the time UT starts conference play, or he could be there for years. It's too bad, because he's been great for that program and a real asset for the conference. When you do something stupid though, a price must be paid.

I wasn't planning to weigh in on the Ines Sainz/New York Jets controversy, because her situation is a strange one to get a handle on. The standards for appropriate on air behavior and dress are different for someone in her role with Mexican TV than they would be in the USA. It's not clear just how bad the Jets harassment of her was or whether she made it known to them it was bothering her. With that much grey area, I intended to steer clear of the topic. Then Clinton Portis decided to pop off about it yesterday, with the Redskins running back making the idiotic claim that woman reporters "get to go and look at 53 packages" in the locker room. Actually, they don't. Most players are dressed when media is allowed in the locker room during the week. Postgame only some players walk around without clothes, and the stench of sweaty shoulder pads doesn't exactly set a sexy mood. Portis has since "apologized" with zero sincerity, since it's clearly forced. It's kind of amazing to me we're having to even discuss this topic in 2010. Women who are covering the NFL have every right to be anywhere a male reporter can go, and the idea they've spent their entire careers struggling to reach the pinnacle with the hope of someday seeing the Buffalo Bills kicker nude is beyond stupid.

Reggie Bush finally made a savvy PR move, although by waiting until the last possible minute to give up his Heisman Trophy he limited the value of that move. No one knows whether Bush was given a warning that the Heisman Trust was going to strip him of the award or whether he came to that conclusion on his own. Either way, it sounds better to have given the trophy back than it would have for them to demand it be returned. Bush still didn't actually apologize for anything, but this is probably as close as he's going to get to doing that. Kudos to Vince Young for making the decision not to seek to be awarded the Heisman retroactively - you don't take things like that out of the trash once someone has thrown them away.

LeBron James could have used some good PR guidance this offseason, but instead he went with whatever his crew suggested. It was known that he'd done damage to his reputation with the general public, but now we have specific info on just how bad it really is. Only five other sports figures are more disliked than James, a fairly extraordinary number considering he was liked by 24 percent of sports fans earlier this year. James seems determined to drive that number down even further based on his behavior on Twitter.

It's not that good to be Chris Rainey today

2010-09-14T09:16:00.000-04:00

Before Florida's last critical SEC game, the championship with Alabama, they had to deal with a key player getting arrested for doing something stupid after Monday's practice. That didn't work out so well, so Chris Rainey apparently wanted to give them a chance to handle dealing with the scenario a second time. The Gator wide receiver was arrested for aggravated stalking, and has apparently admitted to sending the woman in question a text saying "time to die". Florida needs Rainey against Tennessee a lot less than they needed Carlos Dunlap against Alabama, but this still can't be anything but a huge distraction. Rainey's never had arrest issues before that I know of, so if nothing comes out indicating he's been violent with a woman he may survive with a suspension. Otherwise, I suspect this is the end of his Gainesville run.

The National Football Post reports the NFLPA is expecting a report on the NCAA agent investigation to reach them within the next week. The report adds that "several agents, runners, and financial advisors" will be named in the document. This may mean we're closer to getting a final answer on the consequences for all the players potentially tied into this mess. The NFLPA can and will discipline the guys who have ties with the league already, but there's nothing they can do to punish the uncertified ones who are trying to buy a player or two to begin their agent career.

Season ticket sales have become an issue for lots of teams that have never had them before, both college and pro. Darren Rovell of CNBC explores the reasons why, and it's really not that hard if you pay attention to what's been going on. People are tighter with their finances than ever, plus TV technology has improved to the point watching at home can give you a vastly superior view to being there. You don't have to deal with traffic and five dollar sodas, either. Every college football fan I know with season tickets is stuck paying for at least two dog games per season like Presbyterian at Clemson. By not spending all the money for booster contributions and tickets to those games, you can easily have enough to scalp for every other game on the schedule with room left over. Unless you're obsessive about being in the same seats every game, what is the point of having season tickets now?

The loathsome Jay Mariotti will be charged with seven misdemeanor counts, including four of domestic violence, as a result of the episode which led to his arrest a few weeks ago. This will put Mariotti on the shelf until there's either a plea deal (career suicide) or his legal proceedings conclude without any convictions. Somehow Mariotti's avoided his mugshot being released, which is a minor miracle since every prominent sports blogger in the country has been trying to get it. As I noted, Jay has the right not to be judged before his trial but the decision to charge him this way strikes me as unlikely if the prosecutors did not feel they had solid evidence.

Anyone want a CP7 for Heisman notepad?

2010-09-13T12:51:00.000-04:00

The anticipated big college football Saturday was a little bit of a letdown in that some of the expected great matchups failed to live up to their billing, but it was a fascinating one nonetheless. Week one of the NFL's not done, but there was some interesting stuff to work with there too. Here are some quick hits on a variety of topics.

Florida pulling away from USF in the second half seemed to convince some that they've "found themselves" on offense. I'm not so sure. They still don't seem to have any receiving personnel they trust except for Carl Moore and potentially Deonte Thompson. The OL got better with the return of Carl Johnson and the end of snap chaos, but it needs Xavier Nixon back badly. John Brantley's looked fine to me - his throws are accurate, although he stared down a receiver and threw a pass down in the red zone that would have been a pick six if USF's DB wasn't playing with a cast on his hand. Some plays from the past, like the return of the "Percy counter", make sense. Brantley trying to execute a shovel pass look when he's not a running threat does not. Defensively, UF should be able to focus on stopping Tauren Poole this week and do alright because Matt Simms is mediocre at best as UT's QB. Many Vols pass plays have only two reads because the players don't know the offense well enough yet - think Janoris Jenkins and Ahmad Black can have some fun with that?

The ACC is officially a punchline for the rest of the year now that all of their five preseason ranked teams have suffered a loss by two weeks into the season. I didn't think FSU was ready for a test like Oklahoma on the road, and they clearly weren't. The Seminoles defense is being coached by different people, but it's the same group of guys that have been a mess for multiple seasons now. BYU's coming into Tallahassee off a loss of their own this week - it will be interesting to see how that one turns out. Miami seemed to have a decent chance in Columbus, but it serves me right for thinking a group of guys who managed to lose a bowl to Wisconsin had come far enough to beat a good Buckeye squad in the Horseshoe.

While those two losses were bad for the conference, they were by underdogs. There's no explaining Georgia Tech losing to a Kansas squad that lost to North Dakota State a week earlier. The absolute stunner was Virginia Tech falling at home to James Madison. FSU almost fell into the same trap as the Hokies several times - the Noles were pushed to the brink by overmatched opponents like Troy on the Saturday after their Labor Day night games, which is part of why they aren't playing them anymore. As I noted last week, VT is notorious for poor early season performances, which is why it was a brilliant move for Boise State to schedule them as their potential "good" win. Does VT losing to JMU make Boise any less legit of a national championship contender? It shouldn't, because they shouldn't have been one in the first place. If however you're one of those Pat Forde types who've been making a show of pretending Boise's the best just to be cute, this shouldn't change your annoying little poser routine one bit.

Other quick CFB thoughts:

1. Tim Brewster's a dead man coaching. He was a terrible choice when Minnesota hired him, and losing to a South Dakota team UCF destroyed is the finishing blow.

2. Denard Robinson's off to an amazing start for Michigan and is a blast to watch, but being able to outrun UConn and Notre Dame's defenses is a little different than some he'll see down the line.

3. I'm really surprised just how awful UCLA is at this point. Rick Neuheisel's had some tough luck with injuries, but between him and Norm Chow it's hard to understand how they're so bad on offense.

4. ESPN's SEC Network crew is miles better than Raycom/J-P was, but Andre Ware kills me sometimes. B.J. Daniels lobs a pick six to Justin Trattou on a ball that never should have been thrown, and Ware starts in about how that's not on the quarterback. Say what? Also, if you go back and look at the starting lineup graphics it was apparently Deonte Thompson's first start at defensive tackle.

5. Keep your eye on Texas this week. They're starting their third running back in as many games, and they just don't look very good to me right now. Texas Tech has a shot there.

Tampa Bay winning their first game was nice, although I fully expect a 4-5 win year still. The Jaguars won as they usually do if they get a western team in the Florida heat in September. Why people are trying to make the experimental use of Tim Tebow for two plays into something more, I have no idea. Their plan is clearly to get him on the field for some snaps here and there and try to use his skills, but that's Orton's team in 2010. Miami winning against the Bills tells us very little, other than that the Bills are still not good. The NFL story of the day was the Calvin Johnson "catch" that wasn't under NFL rules. Not sure why people are surprised by this - it's come up several other times and they refuse to change the rule to something that actually makes sense. You have to feel for Detroit fans though. Their first road win in three years was stolen away under brutal circumstances, Matthew Stafford's injured, and their season is screwed before the first week's even over.

As a compromise, I suggest burning A.J. Green's jersey

2010-09-10T05:04:00.002-04:00

It's been bizarre the past couple of weeks hearing about this imbecile with his pseudo-church who's somehow made Gainesville the center of the storm for possible retaliation if he burns a Quran on 9/11. There's a chance the nonsense has now ended, but attention whores like this guy don't tend to stop once they get a taste of it. Hopefully everyone will be able to go to the USF-UF game and enjoy themselves without the circus impeding their ability to do that. I'll be covering Georgia at South Carolina at the same time, so I'll have to see how the Gators looked on the field later on. With the bodies they're getting back this week and last week's dose of humility that was served up, I anticipate a strong performance.

There are so many terrific games this weekend - it's the best one I can remember in years. Miami at Ohio State's the best pure matchup, and one I think the Canes are ready to win. I'd feel even better if their QB didn't think this was a stylish outfit to wear to class. Penn State at Alabama won't be that great of a game, not when the Nittany Lions start a true freshman QB against a Nick Saban defense. You should still read this column from Jay Paterno about the connection between Bear Bryant and his father. FSU at Oklahoma should tell us a lot about both teams - seems like the Seminoles have gotten an inordinate amount of hype for having put a bunch of points against Samford. One game that could easily get ugly is Oregon at Tennessee. It's never good when the head coach of an SEC squad is lamenting his team's lack of shower discipline to the general public.

The guy who bought A.J. Green's jersey for a thousand dollars says he he isn't an agent. Sure he set up interviews for multiple UNC players with agents, but where would you ever get the idea he's an agent himself? The south Florida party that unleashed a cloud of NCAA issues across the south has now led to South Carolina receiving an official letter of inquiry. Hard to say just yet what this means, but given a choice between operating under an NCAA cloud indefinitely or taking their medicine now most people would prefer getting it over with.

One time when I was working at WRUF in my student days, I was solo hosting an evening sports show when I saw former Pixies lead singer Frank Black walking down the hall with a guitar. Apparently he played a couple of songs on Rock 104 to promote his gig in town later that evening. By the time I was done with the show, he was already gone - a seriously disappointing missed opportunity. Frank and the rest of the Pixies tore it up last night in Charlotte. I may be deaf in my left ear today, but I can cross another band off my all time "musical acts I have to see play live someday" list. If you like the band and haven't checked out some of Black's post-Pixies work you should. A couple of personal favorites of mine are "I Don't Want to Hurt You" and "I'm Not Dead (I'm in Pittsburgh)". Have a great weekend and I'll see you back here Monday - follow me on Twitter @heathradio for college football thoughts and other stuff between now and then.

Georgia will never play in the Independence Bowl again - it's a collector's item!

2010-09-09T00:12:00.004-04:00

If Georgia did believe that A.J. Green was going to be back for this week's game (and there were several indications that they did) they greatly misread the NCAA's thoughts on the matter. Green was suspended for the Bulldogs next three games, all of which are SEC affairs and two of which are on the road. Green being punished for selling his own jersey when Georgia and Nike are selling thousands of them is extremely ironic, but some people are choosing to ignore the real issue here. Green got a thousand dollars for his Independence Bowl jersey from someone the NCAA considers an agent. We don't if it's an actual agent or a runner, but either way a sizable amount of money changed hands from an "agent" to a current college player. Whether they got a jersey in the deal or not, that scenario is always going to lead to big trouble if the NCAA finds out about it. This doesn't doom the Bulldogs, but they have no one with proven high level SEC skill left to catch passes right now. Orson Charles is a nice weapon at tight end and maybe they get Branden Smith's speed more involved on the offensive side of the ball, but right now for Georgia to win these next few games their new 3-4 scheme is going to have to work very well right away. I wouldn't want to have to count on that if I was Mark Richt.

The NFL season's about to start, and who knows just how much we'll see of Tim Tebow from this point forward. He's going to be the Broncos number two QB, and there's a chance he may be used on short yardage or goal line situations as soon as this week in Jacksonville. Tebow is apparently planning to keep his presence in the public eye more prominent though, as he's launched his web and social media pages. Not sure what to expect from this - if Tebow shares things like pictures from his day to day activities and an occasional funny thought or bible verse it'll just blend in with the rest of the web. If he begins advocating for political causes or aggressively promoting his faith, it may rub some people in his locker room the wrong way. We'll see what Tebow has in mind.

Monday afternoon I happened to see the final couple of minutes of a high school game football on ESPN that was airing prior to Navy/Maryland. It featured West Palm Beach's Dwyer High against Glenville High from Cleveland, and was played at Ohio State's Stadium as part of a yearly event called "The Kirk Herbstreit Challenge". I saw the most obvious example of referees apparently intentionally stealing a game I have ever witnessed. Dwyer scored what should have been the game winning TD three separate times, and the officials refused to call any of them scores. The first call was a spectacular catch, and with no replay I could see how they missed it. When Dwyer appeared to get the ball across the goal line later on the drive it seemed clear enough that it was a puzzle how they missed it. The final play was simply inexcusable - it was a touchdown by a full yard at least, and still the refs said no and allowed the clock to expire. The announcers were baffled, as anyone watching had to be. Herbstreit had nothing to do with what happened of course, but to his credit still apologized to Dwyer for the fiasco. The Ohio high school association should do that and end the officiating careers of everyone involved. It was a disgrace - they're either completely incompetent or willfully cheated but either way it's unacceptable.

I've mentioned before that no one from the national media or the northeast should be allowed to discuss or write about college football unless they pass a test given by me. It's fair to say Phil Mushnick of the New York Post wouldn't pass. Mushnick writes primarily about media and fan issues, and seems to flog the same topics to death on a regular basis. In looking for something else to bash ESPN about, he decided to focus on their use of college football stats. Mushnick objected to the network pointing out Steve Spurrier was now 19-1 in first games of the season and that South Carolina has won their last eleven openers, a longer streak than anyone but the Gators in the SEC. According to Phil, this is a meaningless stat because SEC openers are "cakewalks". Mushnick managed to:

1. Apparently not realize Spurrier won some of those openers at Duke

2. Incorrectly state the Gamecocks played New Mexico State for an opener

3. Fail to know that under Spurrier their openers have actually included a home and home with North Carolina State, Mississippi State on the road, and a Southern Miss team that was in a bowl last year

4. Write this on the weekend SEC teams were playing games with "respectable" teams from the ACC, Big Ten, Big East and C-USA

5. Write it the weekend Ole Miss showed anyone can find a way to lose even as a heavy favorite

But hey, other than that he nailed it.

Normally tonight's games would be must see TV for me. I'm really intrigued by Auburn at Mississippi State, and Minnesota's visit to New Orleans to kick off the NFL season should be an excellent matchup. Instead of being at a sports bar, I'll be in Charlotte catching the Pixies in concert. The last time I missed a sports event of significance for a concert like this was the Chicago Cubs "Bartman" game. That was for Robert Cray and John Hiatt in Jacksonville. If something amazing happens tonight, I'll have to invest in a phone with video streaming.

Even Mike's got standards, apparently

2010-09-08T00:08:00.000-04:00

Chuck Oliver of 680 the Fan in Atlanta reports A.J. Green's NCAA issue is over the sale of a jersey for a thousand dollars. This had been one of the popular rumors, but Chuck is the first media person to actually report that it's the reason Green hasn't been cleared to play yet. He's got excellent Georgia sources, and wouldn't go with this if he wasn't sure of it. No one can be sure what the NCAA will do, although Chuck says UGA believes Green will be cleared by Thursday with the one game he's sat out considered sufficient punishment. The Gamecocks can beat Georgia with him in the lineup, but it would be a lot easier if he's not.

Derek Dooley's attitude toward transfers is a mistake. The Tennessee coach has been spiteful and classless in refusing to release players who want to transfer out of his program, seemingly just because he can. Having said that, the much hyped and unspectacular "number one recruit" Bryce Brown handled his decision to leave Knoxville this summer about as poorly as he could have. Now his dad is threatening to sue Dooley and Tennessee for not releasing Brown to Kansas State. I'm no attorney, but I'm pretty sure "I'm pissed" is not an acceptable legal argument. What this would do though is further focus attention on how Dooley's handling things, which is not to his or the school's benefit. Compare the way Urban Meyer allowed two of his signees to transfer out before ever even completing their first preseason camp to the way Dooley's handled kids who in some cases signed based on promises made two coaching staffs ago. That will be an issue on the recruiting trail, whether Dooley grasps it yet or not. The wiser move would have been to release Brown and make this crap go away.

Kentucky basketball has another "insta-team" full of stars coming in to try and repeat the success of year one under John Calipari. It's not anticipated that they'll do as well, in part because there's not a Patrick Patterson to be the steady veteran on the roster and also because this just isn't considered as strong a year for talent. One guy who was expected to be a huge factor may have a major problem that can't be overcome, as the New York Times reports the GM of a Turkish pro team claims they paid Enes Kanter between 100-150 thousand dollars over three years. There is a chance he's lying, because the team could benefit financially from an NBA team paying his transfer fee, but there's no question the kid got money. How the NCAA sorts out this high profile mess will be the key to overseas recruiting in the future. On the other hand, when your overseas recruiting brings in Christian Drejer and Nimrod Tishman the idea of signing foreign players being impossible might sound appealing.

ESPN has done great work with its "30 for 30" series of documentaries, but last night's "One Night in Vegas" didn't really do much for me. The piece was about Tupac Shakur being shot (and dying a few days later as a result) the night of Mike Tyson's victory over Bruce Seldon (in what turned out to be the final heavyweight title bout he ever won). Unlike my 107.5 the Game colleague Duce Staley, I'm just not that into Tupac's music so I probably just wasn't the right audience for the film. Tyson said something hilarious in his interview with ABC News to promote the piece, though. His biggest regret about his friendship with Tupac? They never got to smoke weed together. Mike didn't want word to get out that he was a marijuana user. Tyson's rape conviction, his frequent psychotic behavior, the suicide attempt in his Bentley - those things and so much more were all okay to have out there, but if word got out Tyson liked to get high THEN his image would be shot?

Only Oregon State can save us now

2010-09-07T03:03:00.000-04:00

Exactly the scenario I was afraid of played out last night at Fedex Field, as Boise State got their latest "this will be our resume for the entire season" opening day win against Virginia Tech. Give the Broncos credit for the victory. They're a good, solid team. What they are not is one of the top three teams in the country, but thanks to yet another Hokie gag job in their opener they will be touted as such all season long. Boise State did a brilliant job of picking this game, because VT has perpetually been overhyped (3-5 vs. ranked teams the last two years, yet billed as a top ten team again) and unprepared to start the season. This is the fourth loss in their last six openers against Division 1 teams, and their third in a row. Among those giants they've managed to lose an opener to since 2004 is East Carolina. Last night VT was down 17-0 after a disastrously sloppy first quarter (botched snap leading to field goal, blocked punt for short TD drive, missed FG) and STILL should have won. The decision to throw deep on third down with Boise out of timeouts and 2 minutes remaining on the clock was so idiotic I thought Les Miles had hacked into the VT headsets to make it. Even with a kneel down, VT's best case scenario is getting the ball back with about 1:10 to go and considerably more pressure. A running play, which they should have done, would have made that closer to a minute if it didn't get a first down. Instead, the incomplete pass left Boise plenty of time to comfortably execute their offense and win the game. Thanks to a backloaded ACC schedule VT won't play another ranked team until November 4th at the earliest, meaning the value of this win will be artificially inflated deep into the season as the Hokies move back up in the rankings by beating teams like James Madison, Central Michigan, Wake Forest and Duke. How delightful.

One of the NCAA's limitations in investigating potential violations is that it has no true authority over anyone who's not either a current athlete or employee. It's not a governmental body, and has no subpoena power. The state of North Carolina does have those powers, and once their Secretary of State decided to use them on Marvin Austin in her investigation Friday then things got interesting. If Austin decides to lie to her and gets caught, he can face perjury charges with jail time involved. Suddenly defensive line coach John Blake, the guy who once worked for the agent who's been most closely linked to the current scandal in reports, has resigned from the Tar Heel football staff. That is a really interesting coincidence of timing. Also noteworthy is that his attorney, when asked if Blake got money from any agents while he was coaching, does not deny it but instead calls it "a complicated question". Doesn't sound that complicated to me, which speaks volumes.

Tennessee has suffered their first noteworthy injury of the season, as wide receiver Gerald Jones will likely miss at least the Oregon and Florida games with a broken hand. This will only get worse now that the Vols are playing teams capable of competing in a way their opening week FCS opponent could not hope to do so. It's going to be a long year in Knoxville.

Tony Dungy and Rich McKay showed the way to build a successful team in Tampa Bay. They drafted talented players also known for good character, while taking passes on guys who might have more pure talent but who were also sketchy personalities. In recent years, that philosophy has changed as the team spent draft choices on guys like Aqib Talib. Apparently they're so thrilled with Talib's behavior - getting into a fight at the rookie symposium, about to serve a league suspension for punching a cab driver, etc. - that they thought he needed a sparring partner. Welcome the newest Buccaneer, LeGarrette Blount. The guy's a proven trouble maker in both collge and pro situations. Why do the Bucs think this is a good idea? It's going to be a long season.

No more ads with Bergwood the Allstate tool! This season's already gotten better

2010-09-03T00:45:00.001-04:00

Not a lot of stunners on day one of college football. South Carolina shredded Southern Miss and made a statement that Spurrier's offense does have legit playmaking talent now. The Wannstache lost a non-conference game in the first two weeks of the season, as he always does. Tim Brewster isn't fired effective immediately as Minnesota's coach after narrowly avoiding losing to Middle Tennessee State without their primary offensive weapon. Now it's on to the weekend, and things should be fun although it's not a great slate of games. I'm going to be in Atlanta for LSU versus whatever's left of UNC, and I'm looking forward to seeing a bunch of the action with buddies during the afternoon. Here's a list of the ESPN games with announcers.

The NCAA finally gave someone a ruling on their part of the agent situation, with Alabama's Marcell Dareus getting two games. They also said it should have been four, but they reduced the suspension for "mitigating circumstances". Naturally Nick Saban says they'll appeal, because he doesn't want to not have Dareus against Penn State and thinks he should get whatever he wants. That's not what he actually said, but it is what he meant. We'll see what other rulings come down before the weekend, if any.

I'm writing this from the Williams-Brice Stadium press box, and since it's been a pretty full day i'm not planning on adding anything else to today's post. If something big does happen between now and the weekend, I'll add it in. Otherwise, enjoy your three day weekend and I will see you back here Tuesday. I'm sure I'll be sharing some thoughts on Twitter as we go - follow along @heathradio if you're interested.

Let's go Hawaii!

2010-09-02T06:04:00.002-04:00

The college football season opens tonight. While Presbyterian at Wake Forest is technically the very first game of the season, I'll be at the game that is for all practical purposes the opener as South Carolina hosts Southern Miss. This is one the Gamecocks should win, but they've staggered through their last few openers so there's always the chance of an upset. I previewed it for my friend Chuck Oliver's site should you wish to read some extended thoughts on the game.

Also in action tonight will be Utah and Pittsburgh, with the Panthers heading west for the game, and Marshall at Ohio State. One matchup that was supposed to be a featured game on Saturday has now turned into a debacle, with UNC's agent/academic messes expected to cost them use of as many as sixteen players. I'll be at that game with a friend who typically likes to try and leave early if things are decided. If this many guys are missing, I'll have to make sure he's still even going. Back to tonight, Lane Kiffin and USC are at Hawaii beginning at eleven eastern meaning there's at least two games worth of action easily available in the night. I'm looking forward to taking advantage of as much as possible.

Nike unveiled their latest ridiculous alternate uniforms for ten schools yesterday, with Florida among those jumping through hoops for them. The Gators didn't do nearly as poorly as some teams, but I'm not a big fan of the scaly pattern on the helmet. What I don't get is why these programs are willing to feature these uniforms in key games. Boise State and Virginia Tech will go at it Labor Day in prime time with tons on the line, yet the Hokies will be wearing a ridiculously ugly black getup and Boise will be in helmets that look like something out of a bad movie football scene. I've talked to guys after these "alternate uniform" games, and more than one has told me something about their outfit took some getting used to. Why have players adjusting to their uniforms as a game's being played if you don't have to? Can these schools really sell that much extra merchandise with these outfits?

There's a difference between being willing to speak unpopular truths and saying really stupid things you happen to believe. Former Reds reliever Rob Dibble has always been closer to the second part of that than the first throughout his broadcast career, but he's always found someone else to employ him after he gets bounced from another venue. Now he's looking for work again after his bonehead "suck it up" routine about Stephen Strasburg got him fired as Washington Nationals color analyst. Curt Schilling, a pitcher who certainly has the ability to be a polarizing figure like Dibble, was able to explain on ESPN before the word on Strasburg's injury came down that the rookie almost certainly would need Tommy John surgery. He used his experience as a pitcher to explain why that was and what to look for, as opposed to trying to brag how much tougher he was than anyone else. There's a lesson to be learned from this episode (not by Dibble, it's too late for him) by other jocks about how to handle stuff like this going forward if they become a broadcaster.

Big "Ten" with twelve making dollars, but not sense

2010-09-01T00:53:00.002-04:00

It appears the Big Ten will be announcing its future football divisional setup sometime today, possibly in a special on its own network. It makes some sense to do it now rather than have it be an issue during the season, although considering the conference has made vague claims of potential further expansion this seems kind of premature. It seems likely they will separate Michigan and Ohio State in the hopes of creating an annual rematch for the league title. If so, it's a horrible decision and one they will live to regret. You don't screw with the tradition that's built up around that game, yet they seem eager to do so in pursuit of a little more cash for championship game rights. When the Pac-10 announces divisions, it won't split the Oregon teams or the L.A. teams and move their rivalry games to September. It would be stupid, and their fans would go crazy. How are the OSU and Michigan leaders dumb enough to sit back and let this happen?

It's hilarious that Houston Nutt's last second free agent ploy to grab Jeremiah Masoli has blown up in his face without the kid even doing anything stupid. The NCAA acknowledged the obvious - Masoli is not transferring because he's an aspiring grad student looking for a hard to find major, he's a bad guy who got booted out of school for his criminal actions - and refused to grant his request for a rules exception. It appears to have never occurred to Nutt this might happen, because his response of "what they ought to do is change the rule" ignores the fact they DID change the rule in 2006 to allow athletes who'd graduated to transfer without sitting out. Coaches pitched a fit, and after less than a year the NCAA changed the rule back to requiring a grad student to get a waiver if he wanted not to have to sit out a year. Should've fought for the rule when you had a chance, Houston. Good luck keeping Masoli out of trouble for eighteen months instead of five.

BYU has decided to say so long to the MWC after all, making their move to the WCC for basketball and all their other sports. That means the Cougars not only are an independent in football, they're an independent with a deal for ESPN to hook them up with games. Hopefully this will lead to some interesting matchups in the future - I know South Carolina fans would be more intrigued by BYU than the Southern Miss game tomorrow that was set up by ESPN as their opener. This puts another nail in the WAC's coffin. If that league falls apart, having more independents may help schools set up more nonconference games at reasonable prices as opposed to the million dollar amount that seems to be becoming standard for a D-1 team now.

There was a rumor going around the last couple of days a Brandon Spikes sex video of some sort that had been up on Chatroulette. Turns out the rumor was true. How many more athletes are going to get burned on crap like this before they stop doing it? If some random guy who works as a plumber wants to get freaky on the internet, no one cares. When you're a star athlete, everything you do can become news. Spikes will be hearing crap about this for a long time, and for what? Can't say that I've ever seen Chatroulette in action but I'll take the Ben Folds version of it over Brandon's, thank you very much.

Guess I should have gone to Mark's more than once

2010-08-31T02:17:00.003-04:00

Kirk Herbstreit's annual Herbie Awards are out, with a televised special this evening to further expand on some of them. (I'm assuming his ongoing love affair with Mark's US Prime in Gainesville as one of his top five favorite restaurants will not make the cut for that.) Kirk's extremely good at what he does, but there are always a few bones to pick with any list. Jim Tressel and Gene Chizik are on his list of candid coaches. Steve Spurrier is not. In what universe is Tressel considered more candid than Spurrier? Not this one. Also, Ole Miss is "undervalued" because they won't have much value. It's a good primer for the first week - just two more days before I'm covering Southern Miss and South Carolina and the season's underway.

Some people are making a big deal of the fact FSU still has 15 thousand seats available for its opener, the first game of the Jimbo Fisher era. I don't understand how they've been able to sell that many tickets in the first place. Most people have a three day weekend, and they have better things to do than spend it driving back and forth to Tallahassee for an obvious mismatch with Samford. Even if you are willing to consider going to that crapfest, it's not like you're worried about being able to get a ticket. Why pay full price when you know very well there will be tickets available on the street for five bucks? If Doak Campbell still has 15 thousand seats available for BYU in two weeks, which it won't, that's noteworthy. This is just people voting against a garbage game with their wallets.

There aren't many storylines in sports I haven't heard before at this point, but this is a new one to me. Could NFL agents be planning to steer their players away from signing with the Dolphins because they're tired of Drew Rosenhaus stealing their clients who go there? Maybe they're talking about it, but people say lots of stuff in a casual setting that doesn't get followed up on when things are for real. If this was happening with an agent in Nashville, that might be different. Not that many guys specifically want to go there. Tons of players want to be a part of the south Florida scene, and being in an income tax free state is a huge priority when they look at free agency. I don't see how agents are going to be able to steer a client away from the Dolphins if the team's telling the media or friends of the player that they have interest. Hard to buy the concept of a Rosenhaus related embargo being a problem for Miami.

There's still a lot of tension in the media business between those who are a part of old school media and those who have risen to relevance on the web. I don't know what in particular set Washington Post sports columnist Mike Wise off yesterday, but he decided to pitch a "the internet is ruining everything" tantrum by intentionally Tweeting out inaccurate news. Apparently this was supposed to show that no one "checks facts or sourcing", even though all followups attributed the "report" to Mike Wise. If Wise had published the same lie in the dead tree edition of the Post, that would have been credited to him as well. It's not hard to understand how modern media works. Whatever venue you're working in - print, broadcast, webpage or Twitter/Facebook - if you put your name on something and are considered a legit reporter, people will relay your information to others quickly. If Wise had started the "rumor" as random guy skinsfan777 on Twitter and then seen it treated as legit news, that might have shown something about the nature of modern media. All this inane stunt showed was that Mike Wise should be punished by his bosses and none of us should regard him as a credible reporter going forward.

There are some terms you should never use to describe yourself. "Edgy" is one of them - if you're a radio host calling yourself edgy and "in your face", it's more likely that you're just an annoying jerk. Such was the case for Marc Benarzyk, who was cut loose by ESPN 1040 in Tampa yesterday. His Twitter feed has been taken offline, but check the "edgy" content left in Google's cache of it. A list of the "top ten douches in sports" and lots of CAPITAL LETTERS FOR NO REASON - now that's edgy! When I heard this guy for the first time, he was ripping the idea of the Bucs taking Percy Harvin because he was a Gator receiver like "Renee" Caldwell. Aside from the incorrect talent assessment (who wants the rookie of the year anyway?) I was embarrassed for the guy that he was still doing schtick Jim Rome was getting punched for in 1995 fourteen years later. Normally I feel bad when a fellow radio host loses their gig. This guy never should have had one in the first place - good riddance.

It's finally game week

2010-08-30T01:26:00.004-04:00

As I was watching some of the fifth year anniversary coverage of the Katrina disaster on the Gulf Coast, I was thinking about Danny Wuerffel. The former UF QB had seen not only his house but the Desire Street ministry school project he had worked so hard to build up destroyed by the floodwaters in New Orleans. I was filling in for Todd Wright on his "All Night" program on ESPN Radio Labor Day night and was able to get Danny to join me for what at that point was his first national interview. Somehow, even after a personal loss like that, Wuerffel was able to keep himself focused on the task at hand. David Whitley updates what Danny's done in the five years since the disaster, and it really is amazing. There are tons of good charities that could use your assistance, including others working to rebuild New Orleans, but Desire Street is one you can always feel good about helping.

ESPN went crazy with high school football coverage this weekend, something I've always opposed. There are high school coaches making six figures now, and Texas schools dropping sixty million dollars on stadiums. The level of commercialism creeping into what is supposed to be a high school extracurricular activity is insane, and getting worse. You may think the additional coverage is well worth it if it helps the schools out financially, right? According to the Sacramento Bee, the total money ESPN gave the two schools in the game it broadcast from there was three thousand dollars. They also demanded they use a certain sports drink's branded coolers and bottles on the sidelines. Think that even after production costs ESPN made a little more money on that broadcast than three grand? The attendance for the game might have been more if it wasn't on TV, so they may have cost the school money there as well. Remind me why is this supposed to be a good thing?

An admitted Ponzi schemer claims he's writing a book that will expose NCAA violations in the Miami football program. The 41 year old loser is stunned to learn that the college football playing kids twenty years younger than him weren't really his pals after they got their own money and didn't need his. (It'll be really tough on this tool when he finds out the Hooters waitresses didn't really think his jokes were all funny.) Assuming this guy can assemble enough crap on paper to call it a "book", it's doubtful any publisher will want to put out a manuscript from a confessed con artist without extensive documentation of its claims, a problem fellow felon Tim Donaghy ran into. My guess is he's not likely to have enough to make them happy. This guy may very well know about violations by members of the Hurricanes, but unless he's willing to talk to the NCAA without a check I doubt much comes of this.

The Seattle Times conducted a survey of roughly a quarter of the FCS level head coaches on a variety of issues. One question: which coach do you have the least regard for. Of those who answered, only one guy got multiple votes. You guessed it, it's Lane Kiffin. No one will feel any pity if someone runs the score up on Lane now that he's in charge of the Trojans, and my guess is at least one coach is going to do just that. There are some interesting restaurant suggestions from the coaches in there too in case you're a traveler.

No link on this, and it won't mean anything to those of you who read this outside of the Gainesville TV market, but I wanted to congratulate TV 20 on their hiring of Chris Price to be the sports director there. Price works harder and genuinely cares about doing his best work far more than that particular outlet deserves. They're very fortunate to have him. (Given the way their news director treats people, they're actually fortunate to have anyone.)

University of Non Compliance - oops

2010-08-27T12:32:00.001-04:00

What's happening with North Carolina football as well as South Carolina's hotel situation should serve every college program as the ultimate reminder: do not attract the NCAA's attention. Even if the original situation doesn't prove to be a crisis, they'll inevitably look under enough rocks that something else turns up. Thanks to Marvin Austin tweeting about his glamorous South Beach lifestyle enough to make people ask questions, suddenly the Tar Heels are in the middle of a major academic scandal. Another lesson: just because players stay rather than leave for the draft, it's not always a good thing. As for Butch Davis, he's got a DL coach who's reportedly tied extremely closely to an agent that's been reported at the center of the South Beach mess and now a cheating tutor who also was paid by him to work with his son. How much more mud can his image get before it starts to leave a stain?

Georgia's got a problem on their hands today, thanks to Washaun Ealey's arrest on hit and run and driving with suspended license charges. Caleb King has shown little to indicate he's special or an every down back even though he's the projected starter, and now the Bulldogs aren't likely to have Ealey for their game with South Carolina. That will up the pressure on starting QB Aaron Murray, who'll be starting his first road game in college, to play at a high level because it will be easier for SC to take away the run. No way that's a good thing for Mark Richt and company.

FSU's decision to begin going after high schools for using the Seminoles name and imagery might make sense to an attorney in an office, but in the real world it's idiotic. The Seminoles have recruited players out of Bradenton Southeast High for years - they just noticed the helmet and name were the same? When Miami tried this crap with Umatilla High they looked petty and foolish, and maybe FSU realized too late the same was true for them. Now they're trying to work it out, which is simple to do. Southeast agrees they can't market their logo nationwide in competition with FSU (not that they were ever going to) - problem solved. My hourly rate's a lot cheaper than the attorneys.

Is there anything in sports lamer than self proclaimed "Super Fans"? Every team seems to have a couple of guys who've decided they're the next "Big Dawg" from Cleveland and dress up like clowns to try and make it happen. Meet "Boltman", the San Diego Chargers biggest fan. This guy tried to sell his getup for $75,000. Shockingly, no one took him up on the offer. That might be because any mascot gear is smelly and disgusting, and most people are smart enough not to want to wear it to games unless they're getting paid for it. The guy now is babbling something about "Boltman" protecting kids from "Stranger Danger". I'm pretty sure I know the first stranger I'd want them to stay away from. Have a good weekend and I'll see you back here Monday. Follow along on Twitter @heathradio for anything that catches my interest between now and then.

Who doesn't enjoy a nice fried beer once in a while?

2010-08-26T06:56:00.003-04:00

A week from today I'll be at Williams-Brice stadium as South Carolina gets the college football season going by hosting Southern Miss. How many Gamecocks will miss it due to running afoul of NCAA rules is becoming a more unclear situation. Joe Person of the Columbia State has given us the first figures to chew on that may show players were charged a lower rate than what's available to the general public at an area hotel, although it's not clear from the story whether the rates he cites are per person or per room since some guys were splitting rooms. That's an NCAA violation if it happened, although not necessarily one that costs kids a game as opposed to being required to pay the difference. If, as Person reports, tight end Weslye Saunders is still living in the hotel after Steve Spurrier strongly encouraged all players to pay their bills and find somewhere else to live then you have to wonder if he's actually trying to get kicked off the team. This whole situation is incredibly frustrating to try and cover - hopefully we can get some hard facts on what the NCAA has found sooner rather than later.

The NCAA is busy with a lot of investigations right now, but the most fascinating interview from one could have been when they talked with David Reaves this week about goings on under Lane Kiffin at Tennessee. If you're Reaves and you know some things happened that weren't kosher under NCAA policies while you were in Knoxville, do you blow the whistle on your brother in law when he humiliated you? The guys who left with Lane won't tell the NCAA anything that hurts their continued employment, and the guys still in Tennessee can't afford to admit being involved in any way with NCAA messups. Only Reaves is positioned to be a truth teller should he choose to do so - wonder if he stayed with the "oh, the hostesses drove to South Carolina on their own" routine as an explanation or not.

The "Gee, you think?" headline of the year comes from the New York Times this morning: "Woods Admits Divorce Has Affected His Game". Yeah, maybe a little. Meanwhile, the former Mrs. Woods finally broke her silence in an interview with People magazine. I applaud the way she's handled things overall, because this could have easily become an even bigger circus had Elin decided she wanted to play the scorned woman card publicly and maximize her celeb status. Having said that, she maintains one part of the reason she did the interview is that she wants to put the word out she didn't hit Tiger. That may be legally accurate, but whether she hit him directly or hit the vehicle and caused him to wreck, the explanation given for smashing the vehicle's windows makes no sense. Regardless, now that the situation is resolved I just wonder what's going to happen the next time Tiger attempts to do anything with a woman as a single guy. He's got the right to bring home the entire Hooters staff with him if he so desires now, but you know the paparazzi will be killing each other to try and land that first shot of Tiger with someone.

The St. Petersburg Times reports Bucs safety Sabby Piscitelli is "upset over losing his starting job". Please let him be angry enough to demade a trade so that Tampa Bay can make it clear that no one wants him anywhere in the league. When Piscitelli was drafted some tried to compare him to John Lynch based on them both being white guys from the Pac-10, but Piscitelli has proven that's as far as the situation goes. If Tampa Bay ever needs to lose a game and commit personal fouls while doing so, they've got the right guy. Otherwise, Piscitelli should be extremely grateful he gets a paycheck from anyone to be involved with pro football and hush up.

Texas State Fair food: now featuring fried beer. Read it and weep, cardiologists.

Between the Buffs and the Bucs, this football season will be as fun for me as licking a belt sander

2010-08-25T04:15:00.002-04:00

Colorado threw the Big 12 a curveball yesterday by announcing they'll stay in the conference for two years rather than head to the Pac-10 next season. This is all a financial thing for CU, as leaving the conference is going to be very tough on an already depleted athletics budget in Boulder. It's why they just signed up to lose, errr, play a one way game with Ohio State for 1.4 million next season. By waiting the full two year exit period, they'll save a lot of money. CU's hoping the Big 12 will eventually make concessions for easier financial exit terms to avoid having an 11 team lineup for just one season. The Pac-10 would have to wait another year to have their title game too, so this is good news for no one. I'd love to pretend it's going to matter which conference the Buffs are in, but they're going to get killed in either one until someone comes in to clean up after Dan Hawkins.

Notre Dame football's going to be good again, sooner than you think. As someone who's been a Fighting Irish football skeptic for pretty much my entire career, this is an unusual thing for me to say. Brian Kelly's a different kind of guy than the last few coaches who haven't worked out though, and he proved it again yesterday. Kelly acknowledged he has spoken with NBC about not having commercials disrupt the pace of his no-huddle offense. This is a guy who has a broader perspective on his responsibilities in South Bend than just running his offensive scheme, and he finds ways to succeed wherever he goes. I don't know if anyone can reduce the constant breaks in college football (some of the CBS ones feel like they last seven minutes), but if anyone can it's Kelly with NBC. I'm really looking forward to seeing what he can do with ND this season.

Last week it was announced that ESPN's Jenn Brown was going to do a year long stint as the public face of Icehouse beer. This isn't new ground at ESPN, as Chris Berman, Tom Jackson and Dan Patrick are among those who've done beer spots in the past. Yesterday, word came down that the network had reversed field and was refusing to let Brown do the campaign for Icehouse after all. The reason is apparently because of criticism from Sports Illustrated's media columnist that she's covering college football for the network as opposed to the NFL. Wouldn't want to give college kids the idea to start drinking alcohol, you know. Let's be real here: the only way a college guy is more likely to drink beer because of Jenn Brown would be if she handed him an Icehouse personally. (For that matter, if Jenn Brown was offering a college guy a jar of bat urine he would drink that if he thought it would give him a shot with her.) Otherwise, the kids that drink in college are going to drink regardless of who does the ads. They will base their buying decisions on price more often than taste, but they will never debate "do I start drinking to please the beauty from the ad". ESPN just featured an appearance by a beer's "most interesting man in the world" character on one of their shows. On their website, they offer a feature called "The Next Round" sponsored by a bourbon. Sitting around drinking and talking about sports is described in ESPN Radio ads for it as "what men do". Do college kids watch ESPN's afternoon shows, listen to ESPN Radio or visit their website? Since the answer's clearly yes, exactly how is pulling Jenn Brown from these ads sending any kind of message at all, other than that ESPN is still capable of mammoth hypocrisy?

Year one for Brett Favre and the Vikings went better than anyone could have imagined. He put up some of the very best numbers of his career, and they nearly went to the Super Bowl. Already there are signs this year may not go so smoothly. First it was Percy Harvin's massive migraine difficulties, and now Sidney Rice having hip surgery that will sideline him for half the season. Suddenly Favre is missing his best target from last year and has uncertainty with another outstanding weapon. He has a much more difficult early schedule this season, is a year older, and has supposedly not fully healed from his ankle problem. Bernard Berrian's a nice player, but he's not a number one receiver. By the time this season's over, I believe Favre will wish he really had retired.

Bad endings galore

2010-08-24T12:15:00.000-04:00

Bobby Bowden's book is out today, and the former FSU coach is not being bashful in his promotional interviews. Bowden tells Sporting News that he was fired as the head coach, and that no one even came to say goodbye to him as he was cleaning out his office. T.K. Wetherell acknowledges the relationship between him and Bowden is no longer good. It can not be ignored that Bowden brought most of this on himself. He brought the program down with his refusal to hire a qualified OC instead of his son Jeff. When it became clear Bowden was putting his personal interests ahead of the program's, people began wondering if he was ever going to retire or if he genuinely believed the job was a lifetime appointment like a Supreme Court seat. It all culminated in the decision not to subject FSU to another year of meandering leadership rather than a plan moving forward, because Bowden refused to take the hints (statue, stained glass window, field naming) that the school was ready to move on. I hope for both sides this doesn't turn out like Tennessee and Johnny Majors, where the bitter former coach still is lobbing bombs at his old school on the airwaves periodically, but if this season isn't a big success in Tallahassee I wouldn't be surprised at all if Bobby has some zingers for them.

Many of the reasons college basketball's recruiting scene became a cesspool can be laid at the foot of one man. Sonny Vaccaro was the one who began the trend of funneling shoe money to coaches and then to AAU and travel team coaches without any regard for what kind of people they were. If they had influence with the potential "next Jordan", Vaccaro wanted them to have the kid in his company's shoes. Eventually Sonny worked his way through three different shoe companies, and he last turned up convincing Jeremy Tyler to leave high school after his junior season to turn pro overseas. Now there's a Chinese shoe company looking to break into the US basketball market, and guess who they're about to let flood the court scene with cash and gear again? This will not end well. Meanwhile, an Indianapolis media figure claims an investigation is underway involving the recruitment of star Kansas signee Josh Selby. Shockingly, Kentucky's name is linked to it. Hard to imagine there's much real danger for them on a kid Cal didn't even get though.

Would have loved to see the looks on their faces at the courthouse in Panama City yesterday when Tiger Woods and Elin roll in to finalize their divorce. Far as I can tell Tiger didn't hit the wet t-shirt contest at the Spinnaker later, but as this whole episode showed you never know. Maybe having this off his plate will finally free up Woods to begin getting his game in some kind of familiar shape again. Dan Wetzel of Yahoo had the line of the day yesterday when he tweeted that Elin's real revenge will be when she shows up as Rory McIlroy's date for the Ryder Cup.

Watch the car crash video from this link. That guy's alive, and after watching him vaporize that automobile I have no idea how.

Jay's girlfriend should stay in a locker room - he'll never find her there

2010-08-23T04:14:00.007-04:00

Troubled times have officially arrived for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Josh Freeman is out for at least the rest of preseason with a broken bone in his thumb, meaning the second year guy is missing out on a lot of valuable prep time for his first full season as the starting QB. I was stunned to learn that only 30 thousand people even bothered to show up for Saturday's game with the Chiefs. Part of that is because preseason football is awful - seven turnovers and zero TDs in the dreadful Jets/Panthers game I was covering - but a crowd that small is making a statement. The franchise has seemingly done everything in its power to alienate their fans, and the bill for their previous poor decisions is coming due. Any chance of them getting people back on board by winning early just vanished with Freeman's injury.

Perhaps the single most loathed person in all of sports media found trouble over the weekend. Jay Mariotti, currently a columnist for Fanhouse and one of the panel clowns on ESPN's Around the Horn, was arrested for suspicion of felony domestic assault. The sports media world reacted to the news with shock - not that Mariotti was arrested but that he had a girlfriend. It is not a stretch to say Mariotti is despised by everyone he's come into contact with. He's an unpleasant person to deal with, but it's more than that. Mariotti's commentary has always been the definition of the phrase "all heat, no light" - fire everyone, unless they're the champs in which case they're the best ever. He refuses to go to the locker room and actually interview the people he rips, or face their response. It's completely unsurprising that a man who's scared of Ozzie Guillen might do something like this, but even a jerk like Jay Mariotti is entitled to defend himself before people judge him. Most people won't give him that consideration, because if it was another media figure in this spot he wouldn't do it for them either. I assume he'll be suspended from any of his public roles until this is resolved. If he's guilty, that'll likely be the last we ever see of him. Should that happen, good riddance.

The AP college football poll came out Saturday, with Boise State ranked ridiculously high at number three. That puts them ahead of Florida, meaning a majority of AP voters contend the Broncos would be favored on a neutral field in a game between the two. Look at the level of talent on the two teams and explain to me how that's possible. The answer, of course, is that it isn't possible. Florida would be a sizable favorite over the "teacher's pet" Broncos team anywhere away from BSU's blue turf. USC would probably be favored as well, even though they're really thin on depth right now. People in Los Angeles are actually floating scenarios where an undefeated USC wins the AP national title. These folks clearly haven't watched Lane Kiffin coach if they're worried about that right now.

Now that Lou Piniella has stepped down as manager of the Chicago Cubs, who will replace him? How's John Cusack grab you? Okay, that would only be in the movies although Cusack would have as good a chance as Piniella of getting something done with this Cubs team. I like Cusack's work, but this would be the least convincing casting since John Goodman as Babe Ruth.

For sustained rambling stupidity it's hard to top this column from Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News ripping Tony Dungy for having the nerve to criticize Rex Ryan for cursing up a storm on HBO's Hard Knocks program. Raissman's argument is based on the notion Dungy is a hypocrite for saying he wouldn't hire someone known for a blue streak like Ryan is when Dungy didn't see the context of the remarks. By that standard, Dungy can't say he'd rather not eat something without tasting it first. One bite's not enough as a sample either, he has to eat the whole thing to know whether it all tasted good or not. Whatever Raissman's point was in writing this, it's hard to imagine Dungy wound up on the wrong side of a rip job column for coming out against sustained public cursing bad enough that the curser's own mother criticized him for it. Who knew THAT was a controversial stance?

Based on Clemens legal strategy so far, he'll find a way to get the death penalty

2010-08-20T04:46:00.000-04:00

So many things stand out about Roger Clemens being indicted yesterday. It's amazing that he managed to put himself in this position, because the only reason there were congressional hearings in the first place was because Clemens insisted on it. Once he got there he couldn't have looked worse, apparently having deluded himself into believing the congressmen would ask for his autograph and lob up some softball questions to help rehab his image. The thing that struck me most though was how unloved this guy is despite all his success. As annoying as Brett Favre has become, Packer fans still want to love him again one day. LeBron at least has Miami and some other non-Cleveland fans who didn't mind his ego trip. Even in Roger's heyday, I can't remember anyone really loving him. He wore out his welcome in Boston, was never embraced in Toronto despite winning Cy Youngs there, and always felt suspect as a Yankee. Houston fans seemed to like him I guess, but that was before all this. If he ever gets into Cooperstown, who's going to be there to cheer?

Glad to see everything is apparently going to be relatively alright for Percy Harvin after a scary moment yesterday when he was reported as having collapsed and been unresponsive on the Vikings practice field. Harvin had a shaky personal reputation when he came to UF, but in the time I covered the kid he was a pretty good guy. He's no angel, as the positive marijuana test at the combine proved, but he's the single most impressive offensive player physically I've ever covered on a regular basis. No one accelerates through cuts the way that guy can. For him to consistently struggle with migraines like this should emphasize just how brutal they are. There aren't too many people still with Minnesota who were there for the collapse and death of Korey Stringer, but I can't imagine what those unresponsive moments for Harvin yesterday were like for them.

While the NCAA investigation into the Great Agent Crisis of college football 2010 continues, Steve Spurrier said last night he believes it's close to being resolved for his player Weslye Saunders. Spurrier says he expects to know the status of Saunders before the season opener, which is currently two weeks away. Agent Jack Bechta wrote a piece about the issue for the National Football Post which indicates a committee is being formed to attempt to resolve the agent issue going forward by revamping the entire system. Whatever the answer they come up with is, colleges have to figure something out soon. With the abundance of ways for athletes to get caught now if they get anything extra, the problem will only get worse if it's set up the way it is.

I'm fascinated by the lengths some people will go to avoid having to do things honestly. Take the genius described in this piece from the Smoking Gun, whose strategy is demanding "refunds" from various businesses for meals supposedly eaten there. He claims to them that the meals were ruined by inappropriate sex conversation from workers. We're talking about places like Chili's, yet this guy turned his efforts to bilk them into an Ocean's 11 style routine. If times are tight and you can't afford to go out, don't. If you can afford it and want to go out, pay. It's really not that complicated. Have a good weekend and I'll see you back here Monday. Follow me on twitter @heathradio for anything noteworthy that gets my attention between now and then.

Brett Favre says he may join the WAC now

2010-08-19T05:19:00.000-04:00

The twists and turns of the college conference situation this year make the plot of Mad Men seem quite tame. As noted yesterday, BYU plans on leaving the Mountain West and going independent in football while placing its other teams in the WAC. The MWC has other ideas, and stole Nevada and Fresno State away from the WAC as a ploy to make it an undesirable landing spot for BYU. Nevada was sneaky enough to have avoided signing a previously reported five million dollar penalty clause for leaving the WAC, meaning they'll owe the conference nothing. Now word is that BYU may instead go to the WCC for their other sports, meaning Gonzaga would get an interesting new basketball rival and also that the MWC effort to destroy the WAC may have worked yet failed at the same time. More plot twists sure to follow today.

Yet again a group of schools is going to throw their regular college football uniforms aside for at least one game this season as part of a Nike stunt. Ten of them are doing it, including Alabama and Florida. I know Nike spends a bunch of money with these schools and in return they get great cooperation. It's what's given us Urban Meyer and Les Miles holding up BCS trophies in leather jackets and Ohio State in white helmets. Shouldn't there be a point where these schools say enough, though? I've talked to kids after games where they wore some of these "one game wonders", and frequently they've mentioned things like the helmet not feeling quite right or the uniform being a bit of a distraction while they got used to it. That's been after wins, too. Why do these coaches who micromanage every single other detail of their programs keep allowing their kids to be lab rats for uniform experiments when it could distract them enough to impact a game?

If the infamous "Florida hat" episode in Arkansas earlier this week wasn't enough to convince people outside SEC country that the football is taken a little too seriously down here, a ridiculous tale from Alabama should do the trick. A candidate for mayor of Bessemer thought it might help to let folks know Nick Saban has endorsed her candidacy. She decided a good way to go about sharing that news would be to photoshop herself into a picture next to Saban (in place of his wife). Why didn't she just pose for a shot with Saban, you ask? Because the next mayor there had apparently made the entire Saban endorsement up, with the campaign's latest claim being that he told her campaign manager's dad while golfing it was okay to use his name. Of course he did. The bigger question: why anyone weighing who the right person is to handle zoning issues and school budgets would care what non-Bessemer resident Saban "thought" of the situation.

While making my way around the web yesterday, I came across a report indicating KFC was test marketing a new menu item called the Skinwich. The sandwich was described as being made up of five pieces of fried chicken skin, bacon and cheese - with photos purporting to show the monstrosity. I'm happy to report this was an internet hoax, and a pretty well done one. The page I first saw the story on had bought it as legit, but once someone let me know about the link above (where the story originally appeared) it was easy to see that it was a put on. What's unfortunate is that serving up hideous gut bombs like this has become so common that it was completely believable someone might be experimenting with doing it. Would it surprise you if a KFC executive was at their headquarters right now asking why they hadn't already thought of this? Yeah, me neither.

Wish the MTN was on my cable system here today

2010-08-18T04:31:00.005-04:00

Looks like the next domino to fall in the college conference realignment will be a school removing itself from conferences altogether in football. BYU is apparently going to go independent in football while the rest of its sports rejoin the WAC. The story was first mentioned as possible on Jeff Goodman of Fox's Twitter account and then fleshed out more thoroughly on Sports by Brooks before being reported as a done deal by Colorado State football's official Twitter feed, with a press conference reportedly coming tomorrow. BYU apparently envisions itself as the Notre Dame of the west after being ignored in the conference restructuring talks this summer. Not sure they have the national following in football to pull that off, but it will be interesting to see them try. My question is whether other schools in their area will still schedule BYU for games, because if the MWC says we won't play you then they're going to really have their work cut out for them finding 3-4 teams yearly from Big 12 country eastward to agree to a home and home in Provo.

The waiting game continues for schools with players tied into the NCAA's investigation of the Miami area party allegedly connected to an agent that came to light last month. Frustrated coaches have made pleas for more action to penalize agents for unscrupulous tactics, but an AP study shows the laws that are in place to deal with the problem are almost never used. Beyond that, states like Virginia don't even have a law on the books yet there've been no links to agent problems at their schools which have come to light. Short of a federal law with serious teeth and a commitment to enforcing it, there's little that can be done to keep this kind of scenario from happening again.

Nothing makes more clear how difficult a situation Tennessee is in as a result of Lane Kiffin's 14 month reign of error than the news the school has cancelled their two game series with North Carolina that was to begin next year. The reason is simple to understand: Tennessee doesn't think they can win six games with the schedule the way it's set up for 2011. In addition to the usual Florida/Georgia/Bama trio of tough games, LSU is a western division rotating opponent and Cincinnati is coming to Neyland. Having UNC there as well leaves almost no room for error against teams like South Carolina that are fully capable of beating UT in Knoxville next year. This schedule's also why Lane Kiffin made his PR ploy "proposal" to have USC face UT in the annual kickoff game at the Georgia Dome next season. Derek Dooley's got a couple of long years ahead of him.

A column from the Arizona Republic on Kurt Warner in retirement notes there are still plans for a movie of his life. According to Warner's wife Brenda, the actor she'd like to be cast to play Kurt is Denzel Washington. That would be a curious choice by the producers, because Denzel Washington is undersized at 6 feet tall to pass for Warner. I think he might be lefthanded too. Even if Denzel was offered the role, I assume he'd have concerns about being typecast as Kurt Warner after the film came out.

Oh yeah, Brett Favre's going to play again. This time three of his teammates had to leave camp and come down to Mississippi and put on a dog and pony show to satisfy his ego. Now that he's been able to blow off most of camp and once again been stroked about how wonderful he is, Favre will deign to show up and collect his 13 million dollars this year. Can't wait to see what hoops he'll have the Vikings jump through next year - maybe they'll be required to stage a commando style raid to destroy Jenn Sterger's computer hard drive and cel phone.

Burn the nonbelievers at the stake!

2010-08-17T00:18:00.002-04:00

It's not very often that I devote this entire blog to just one subject, but today's one of those days. There's a story out of Arkansas which is nothing short of infuriating. A reporter was fired by a radio station for the egregious offense of wearing a cap with her alma mater's logo to cover a Bobby Petrino post scrimmage press conference.

Full disclosure here: the reporter in question, Renee Gork, is a friend of mine. That doesn't mean she's perfect - Renee acknowledged herself that wearing a Gators cap wasn't the right move and in retrospect she'd change it. It was raining and she was headed to the scrimmage so she grabbed a hat. Since she wasn't anticipating her attire being a discussion topic, it just didn't register that someone might take offense. Unfortunately, the Razorbacks coach did and commented on it at the presser. With that, insane Arkansas fans on the internet were off to the races in the quest to see who could send the most hateful email or tweet to Renee and her station. After a couple of days of their psychotic behavior, her radio station bowed down to the mob and canned her while promising to be "pro-Razorback".

The idea of an army of "love it or leave it" fans lining up behind the notorious perpetual job searcher Petrino would be amusing if it wasn't so pathetic. It's not like Renee was trying to make some kind of point by wearing the hat, and the question she asked wasn't anything controversial either. Despite that, once a man totally lacking loyalty to anything other than his personal interests makes a pissy remark about her wearing the logo of a team Arkansas isn't even playing this season a section of "fans" demands her head on a plate. Heaven forbid we let someone apologize or explain their actions these days - if you're not with us, you're against us. Which makes more sense - that a reporter was looking to tick off the person she's trying to cover, or that she happened to wear her alma mater's hat?

In so many ways this story symbolizes what I hate about the state of our country. I've mentioned before how troubling I find the current polarized political climate. The incredible range of options available to us all has led so many people to stop considering any views other than their own. If you want to get information only from your personal "Amen Corner", you can easily do it now. Regardless of which side of issues you're on, there is much to be gained from reading both the National Review and Mother Jones, the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal. If things have gotten to the point where the only people we're willing to hear comment even on something as minor as how a college football team's offensive line is doing are those who've professed their undying love to that team, we're in big trouble.

He also converted two Bengals at the two minute warning

2010-08-16T03:10:00.002-04:00

Day one of game action for Tim Tebow went pretty well. There were some times he held the ball longer than he's going to be able to against starting caliber defenders, but overall it was a solid debut. Already one national columnist has called for Tebow to move ahead of Brady Quinn to the backup spot. You'll remember that Quinn was deemed worthy of being a first round pick because he has good physical measurables and had played in a pro style offense. That Quinn wasn't very impressive against any good college defense he played didn't bother the Todd McShays of the world at all. It's not like he was some bum like Tebow, who McShay has decreed clearly has no chance of succeeding as a pro. Kyle Orton's the definite Denver starter, but we will see Tebow contributing in some way this season.

If your appetite for embarrassing trials involving college basketball coaches wasn't met by the Rick Pitino fiasco a couple of weeks ago, you're in luck. Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy's defamation lawsuit against the cabdriver and a witness in his incident in Cincinnati goes to trial today. Kennedy is suing each man for just two dollars, saying that proves this is not about the money. Maybe so, but it also proves it's a really stupid thing to do. How Ole Miss hasn't leaned on Kennedy to let it go is beyond me. Just as the incident had faded from memory (along with the humiliating "the incident damaged our sex life" lawsuit filed by the coach's wife) he's going out of his way to bring it back into the spotlight?! Why would you do that?

Whenever Mark Cuban's name surfaces as a possible owner for a baseball franchise (most recently when he bid for the Texas Rangers) there are always articles and broadcaster comments asserting MLB wouldn't be comfortable with him as an owner. Frank and Jamie McCourt "buying" the Los Angeles Dodgers on the other hand? That was fine, despite the fact they were leveraged to the hilt. Now, thanks to their imminent divorce, the world knows the loathsome McCourts are bleeding the Dodgers franchise to the tune of 14 million a year for "rent" on the stadium the team's owned for years. The money goes into their pockets, of course, because the exorbitant salaries they've been paying themselves and their kids from the team pocketbook just aren't enough to sustain their lifestyle. Cuban is a legit billionaire who's proven to be a master at marketing his Dallas Mavericks. The idea he is less desirable as an owner than the McCourts is asinine, but given the supposed leadership of MLB it's completely unsurprising they would think that way.

It has occurred to the head of FIFA that perhaps the World Cup games would be more fun if someone actually won them. As a result, he says they are looking at doing away with draws in favor of a potential sudden death OT with a shootout to follow. This would definitely be progress, although getting the officiating selection process improved and goal line technology resolved are both necessary as well. For the World Cup to have become as huge as it is without any of that is amazing - imagine what it might be once there aren't as many obvious flaws.

Lou also predicts the Pope will be Catholic

2010-08-13T03:23:00.001-04:00

Congratulations to Greg McGarity for getting the job as Georgia's AD. For Jeremy Foley to now compete directly against the guy who's been his right hand man at UF for eighteen years will be interesting to say the least. Even those of us who know and like McGarity don't really know what to expect here. Is he a full subscriber to the Foley creed of "What must be done eventually should be done immediately"? Does he share Foley's knack for finding young coaching talent? Some observers will speculate about what this may mean for Mark Richt. I'd be surprised if McGarity was looking to make a move there anytime soon, although it probably helps him in making any assessments to know what UF's post-Urban plan was should that come up again. At this point former key UF figures with ties to Foley's era are now in place around the SEC as UGA AD, football coaches at South Carolina and Mississippi State, and basketball coaches at Arkansas and Alabama. It's safe to say people are looking to copy the blueprint.

Reggie Bush reportedly called Pat Haden to apologize to the USC AD for the NCAA fiasco he basically caused. Haden says Bush told him "If I could give the Heisman back, I would." Well, what's stopping you Reggie? Is it the same thing that stopped you from paying off the wannabe agents when you decided not to actually live up to your agreement with them? Can't say I'm too impressed with more empty words from a guy who has yet to step up and take any real public accountability for his actions.

Former Oakland quarterback JaMarcus Russell now admits to being a user of codeine without a prescription, but in a terribly surprising development he has an alibi for everything. His first positive test was just because he didn't have a prescription from the team doctor. The other times Russell took codeine syrup without a prescription are old news - no way was he using the last couple of years! The codeine laced drink found in his room when the police raided his house? Totally not his. Hey, I know I believe him. Now I'll wait for the interview where Russell explains whose fault it was that he was out of shape and his performance totally disastrous whenever he went on the field for the Raiders.

Self confidence is a good thing. Like most positives, there is such a thing as too much of it. Miami Dolphins wide receiver Brandon Marshall's comment that he'll go play in the NBA next season if there's an NFL labor stoppage would be an example of that. It's this kind of thinking that has the owners well ahead of the players as they head toward the expected collective bargaining agreement skirmish. Marshall not only is delusional enough to think he can make an NBA team, he's also uninformed enough not to realize the NBA is expected to have a major labor dispute next season as well. Think guys like him are carefully planning for 2011 financially?

I'm going to spend the weekend looking to see if I can find a single story more predictable than this one from the South Bend Tribune. Lou Holtz thinks Notre Dame will be favored in every game this season? I'm stunned! After picking them to play for the national title last year and win at least ten the year before that I was sure he would downgrade expectations. Have a good weekend, follow along on Twitter @heathradio and I'll see you back here Monday.

The fun never stops in Knoxville

2010-08-12T01:27:00.002-04:00

Bryce Brown's father tells ESPN that the NCAA wants to meet with the former Volunteer running back to discuss his recruitment by Lane Kiffin's staff. I'm sure they're just trying to find out more info on those minor secondary violations though, since Lane assured everyone there was nothing for Tennessee to worry about. I know this will sound like crazy talk, but just on the chance there might have been something funky about the recruitment of a player who dragged his signing process out for weeks while a former cel phone dealer acting as his "advisor" tried to charge for recruiting updates perhaps Derek Dooley's decision to antagonize the Browns by refusing to release Bryce to any other schools wasn't the best idea. Meanwhile, former Vol NuKeese Richardson has moved from Hampton to a Kansas junior college where he's reuniting with one of his partners in the Great Prius Robbery attempt. Hopefully he'll keep tweeting about his pot use as well, because this guy is a strong contender for the biggest imbecile I've ever seen in college sports.

The list of people in broadcasting who have less credibility than Jim Gray at this point is a really short one. For some reason the same guy who was mocked for his insipid performance as personally selected interviewer for LeBron James during his informercial is now doing something for the Golf Channel. Gray reported US Ryder Cup captain Corey Pavin had told him he would select Tiger Woods for the team if he didn't automatically qualify. Pavin denied that, leading to the hilarious spectacle of Jim Gray trying to come off a tough guy by telling Pavin "You're going down!" That's right, the guy who asked LeBron about his fingernails rather than getting to the point is suddenly acting like someone from a bad '80s movie. We'll see how the PGA Championship goes today, but given Gray's increasingly desperate efforts to stay relevant in the sports world don't be shocked if he tries to start a "look at me" confrontation with Tiger on camera like he did with Pete Rose at the World Series.

The NASCAR Hall of Fame is not doing anywhere close to the business they expected in year one. It's a nice facility too, which only drives home what's been a recurring them with these kind of places. They always open with great attendance expectations and typically fail to come anywhere close to meeting them. Either the HOF will have to get more aggressive about its regional marketing and possibly trim its prices for locals to attract more repeat visits or it will eventually find itself in a major financial hole. The College Football Hall of Fame currently slated for Atlanta should be taking notes.

I'm fascinated by players in pro sports who think they have the right to demand a trade when things aren't to their liking, particularly when the guy doing it doesn't grasp that no one would want to trade for him. Jeff Francoeur thinks he's got some muscle to use on the New York Mets, with his agent saying he wants to play everyday. The fact he's been bad enough for his hometown team to dump him and now has failed miserably to put up numbers with a second team doesn't seem to have registered at all with him. MLB Trade Rumors does a terrific job of breaking down just how incredibly delusional and arrogant this is.

I mentioned yesterday that casting had begun on Redneck Riviera, the southern themed version of Jersey Shore. I sure hope that this guy put this together as his audition tape, because it's just depressing to think there's someone walking around who's like that every day.

You're also welcome to name your own price for reading

2010-08-11T00:19:00.001-04:00

Tiger Woods says he wants to play in the Ryder Cup and would accept a captain's selection if necessary. Imagine what it's going to be like for US captain Corey Pavin if he decides not to offer him one. If you don't do it and the guys you select instead don't succeed, you'll be criticized for not taking Tiger even though in his prime Woods wasn't anywhere nearly as dominating in the event as he was in tour play. Despite that, unless Woods shows significant improvement at some point between now and the event Pavin should say no. Tiger has not only struggled badly at times, but has appeared to lack desire to even be out on the course at some events. The us team can't be based on what guys were, it has to be based on what they are. Right now, Tiger's a trainwreck.

The man in charge of the SEC package for CBS is expressing concern that ratings for the conference may drop this season without Tim Tebow playing for Florida. To me, that's ridiculous. People watch the SEC game each week because it typically features highly ranked teams, great rivalries and competitive games. Maybe some people tuned into Arkansas at Florida last year because of Tebow at the beginning, but I guarantee viewership went up throughout the game as it became clear there was a serious upset threat brewing. If the SEC has games like last year's Auburn-Alabama battle each Saturday, the viewership's going to be fine. Speaking of those two teams, they've decided not to continue playing on the Friday after Thanksgiving once the two year contract ends this year. Does that mean we go back to LSU-Arkansas, or will someone else get a look?

FSU is really getting hit hard early in camp with injuries and stupidity. Two more players are gone for the season with ACL tears, including one of their better defensive tackle options in Moses McCray. The Seminoles are already down a sure starter on each side of the ball for the season and now a likely defensive starter as well. They haven't recruited well enough for the last few years to sustain an attrition rate like this, especially when Mark Stoops is putting in a new defensive scheme.

The Florida Panthers have come up with a pretty savvy idea on how to stimulate ticket sales in a fanbase that's not exactly fired up about their product. They're letting fans suggest what they're willing to pay for season ticket packages and then deciding whether to accept the offers or not. This may be the way of the future. If you're the Charlotte Bobcats and no one wants to buy your seats at full price, why not put some on EBay yourself and see what happens? As more and more fans realize the experience of watching the game at home has often become better than seeing it in person, ticket sales are going to continue to drop unless teams come up with reasons why you need to be there. This might be a way to slow the erosion in sales down - I'll be curious to see if it works.

I'm quite comfortable with the fact I've never seen a second of MTV's Jersey Shore. Making celebrities out of people for being imbeciles doesn't seem to be a positive trend to me. Unfortunately the ratings say otherwise, which means it's time for the inevitable ripoff shows to begin. What's another easily stereotyped group? That's right, it's time for the southern version of the show. The casting process has begun for Redneck Riviera. I'm sure it'll be Emmy level stuff.

Quick one today - early scrimmages not a favorite of mine

2010-08-10T05:46:00.001-04:00

Yahoo sports contributes the latest info to the ongoing College Football Agent Panic, with a detailed report that says the NCAA is focused on the relationship between North Carolina defensive line coach John Blake and agent Gary Wichard's company. It certainly seems at minimum Wichard is caught in a lie, although there's nothing legally wrong with lying to a reporter. Also of interest is Yahoo's report that nine schools have been contacted in some way by the NCAA as past of this investigation, with East Carolina a new name and two more not mentioned. This has always been where most of the rumors around the investigation have focused, but Yahoo has put some actual meat into the rumor sandwich about Blake's relationship with Wichard. With three weeks before the season starts, we'll see soon if this ends up costing anyone the chance to play their opening game.

One of the sillier controversies I can think of in recent years is playing out at UCF. With coach George O'Leary's approval, an Orlando area magazine shot photos and video of a UCF MBA student posing in the football team's locker room. This would not be of any particular interest if the grad student wasn't also Playboy's Miss July for this year. Now the university is apologizing for allowing the photo shoot (which didn't feature nudity, but was suggestive) to happen. They shouldn't be. UCF getting attention for having a gorgeous female fan is not something to regret - look at how much mileage FSU's gotten out of Jenn Sterger. Playboy didn't shoot any photos in the locker room, and it's not like this situation's likely to come up again (unless UCF is suddenly a Playmate recruiting hotbed), so why should anybody get worked up about this?

The latest edition of Sports Illustrated features a "where are they now" them, and one of the guys they chose to update was former Florida guard Teddy Dupay. As always, it appears Dupay is still delusional about his possibilities for future success. At the moment Dupay's still head of a marijuana legalization movement/semi-pyramid scheme, but says he'd like to coach. The assault incident, the gambling investigation at UF, the current Cheech and Chong meet Amway persona - none of this says "future coach" to me. Hard to think of many people who've squandered more good will than Dupay.

Making Whoopi Goldberg coach like in that movie would have been a better idea

2010-08-09T04:47:00.009-04:00

The easy thing to do in the wake of the New York Knicks astounding Friday announcement that they had rehired Isiah Thomas in a consultant role is to bash the move. Thomas was a disaster for the Knicks, getting them into salary cap hell while not coming anywhere close to winning and also embarrassing them off the court by losing a sexual harassment trial. Bringing him back into the fold makes as much sense from a PR standpoint as it would for BP to rehire their deposed CEO for a high powered role around Memorial Day. The Knicks are not my concern though. This is a disaster for college sports if it's allowed to proceed, and right now it will be. The NBA may step in and stop it, and hopefully that will happen. Otherwise the same NCAA that treats it as a crisis if a player is given a t-shirt on his visit to a school will be signing off on the idea it's fine for a coach to be able to recruit that same player by making promises about drafting him for the NBA. This idea will spread to other sports like wildfire too - how's New England Patriots "consultant" Urban Meyer sound? Listing every reason this is a terrible idea would take hours - there's no way it should be legal.

ESPN reported Friday that an NCAA letter of inquiry is likely coming to Knoxville in the near future, as the bill for the actions of Lane Kiffin's Tennessee staff in recruiting comes due. Kiffin is of course telling people they did nothing wrong and he's not concerned about the NCAA investigation- ask Seantrel Henderson about how reliable Lane's word proved on that subject at USC. The idea that Vol hostesses spontaneously headed to see a football game in South Carolina on a Friday night wearing cute dresses and holding signs for specific players without any encouragement and guidance from the coaching staff defies all common sense. That story may have initially attracted the interest, but there's plenty more for the NCAA to look into. Remember, UT "recruiting intern" Steve Rubio had a huge hand in UCF's NCAA troubles before heading to Knoxville. As if potential NCAA problems aren't bad enough, now Derek Dooley's squad has lost two key defensive linemen for the year before they got out of the first week of practice. Couple that with reports from the recruiting trail that Dooley's staff has taken a ton of early commitments from three star "good character" kids - the kind who take time to develop - and it's beginning to look like Vol fans will be waiting a long time to be relevant in the SEC again.

Big loss for FSU, as wide receiver Jarmon Fortson has been kicked off the team for what reportedly is multiple failed drug tests. Fortson had the potential to be by far the most dangerous weapon in the Seminoles passing game. This puts more pressure on Bert Reed to be a big time performer and keep out of trouble, neither of which he's proved particularly great at doing. Taiwan Easterling has a lot of work to do as well. For all the preseason hype FSU's been getting thanks to their supposed Heisman candidate QB Christian Ponder, this exposes a major issue for them in the receiving corps. Easterling is now the Seminoles only WR who actually caught a TD pass last season.

I'm not a NASCAR guy. I've covered some races, but in general it's still completely lost on me why fans passionately follow one driver over another. One exception, of course, has been Dale Earnhardt, Jr. That one I was able to put together - it's because people really love Amp energy drink. The New York Times sports magazine featured a terrific story on Junior over the weekend. Regardless of whether you're a fan of him or the sport, I suggest giving it a read. Dale Jr. comes across as a good guy who has no idea what else to do other than play the role life has assigned him, but you get the feeling he wishes he did.

Minor league baseball promotions are always good for a laugh or two, but the one coming up this weekend in Savannah isn't going for chuckles at all. A fan is going to get to set a guy on fire and then everyone will watch the human torch round the bases. What could possibly go wrong? I'd love to know how much insurance it took to get this thing approved.

Greg Kite will be so jealous when he hears about this play

2010-08-06T10:38:00.000-04:00

The first college football coaches poll is officially out (AP is on the 21st.) and has Alabama at number one as expected. I was pleasantly surprised to see Florida and Texas at 3 and 4 ahead of Boise State. I suspect the media will have the Broncos higher, which is a joke because either of those teams would destroy them. Been a long time since the SEC had only two teams in the top 15 to start a season, but no one quite knows which ones of the Arkansas/Auburn/LSU/Georgia/South Carolina grouping will turn out to be special this season. The fact LSU is 16th and Ole Miss got a lot of votes also drives home just how many coaches vote on reputation rather than paying attention - the poll should have been abolished years ago.

John Curtis was a talented football walk on at Florida who suffered multiple ACL injuries during his time in Gainesville that kept him from getting a chance to really shine. He stood out to me immediately upon his arrival in 2004 as being a guy with enough ability to be an SEC player despite not being a signee. It's being reported that Curtis has apparently committed suicide at the age of 24. I only recall specifically interviewing Curtis once, but he seemed like a nice kid. It's really strange to think he's gone, and my condolences go out to his family and friends.

Two years ago Quinn Pitcock decided to put an end to his NFL career after just one season with Indianapolis. He announced his retirement despite having been a third round pick, and that was that until now. The former Buckeye has resurfaced after signing with Seattle and has an explanation for his two years away from the NFL: video game addiction. Depression was an issue as well, but Pitcock actually underwent treatment specifically for the video game addiction. Addiction issues are tough to understand for those of us who haven't dealt with them personally, but VIDEO GAMES? Get off the couch and do something else - you're cured. Sell the system if you're afraid of relapsing. There was plenty of talk about Tiger Woods and the legitimacy of sex addiction as a true disorder earlier this year. If this can be an "addiction" then no one should say another word questioning whether Tiger can play the addiction card to explain the Perkins waitress.

Not sure I remember the last time I went to a theater and saw a play, but now there's one for me to hope gets produced somewhere nearby. Someone has written a play called "Rambis", which features a character who views former Laker and current Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Kurt Rambis as "omnipresent and endowed with superhuman powers". When Rambis was with the Phoenix Suns he came as close to resembling Chewbacca as any human is likely to be able to do so, which is why it's hard to accept him as a sophisticated coach wearing a GQ wardrobe with the T-Wolves these days.

This weekend we get football back for the first time since the Super Bowl. Sure it's just the crappy preseason Hall of Fame game, but it's still football. Enjoy it and I'll see you back here Monday. Follow along on twitter at heathradio for any news or random observations between now and then.

Maybe they were trying to trick UK's lawyer into saying "It was 250 thousand"?

2010-08-05T04:04:00.007-04:00

When did sports media decide there were no longer any standards at all for reporting if you're writing on the internet? Did I miss a meeting or something? I was surprised yesterday at Deadspin's A.J. Daulerio running a piece that trashes Brett Favre's personal character without any evidence to support the charges or even permission to make the allegation in the first place from their reluctant "source" Jenn Sterger. That was really bad but hey, what else would you expect from some crazy sports blog, right? How about the Chicago Sun-Times then, which inexplicably decided to include the idea Kentucky basketball had bought a player for 200 thousand dollars in the ninth paragraph of a story about his anticipated commitment without any proof at all. The story was first revised and later pulled off the web altogether, but The Big Lead has a screenshot of it for you to see for yourself how outrageously inappropriate this was. This is a major city newspaper alleging massive NCAA rule breaking, and the best they've got for support is "sources/rumors"?! That can't possibly happen, but it just did. What a disgrace.

Not many athletes who've been linked to PED use over the past decade have really meant that much to most of the public. Folks might have been surprised when Rafael Palmeiro got busted, but was there anyone really torn up inside about it? Lance Armstrong is different. People believe in the guy because his story is inspiring and it's legit. For so many whose lives have been impacted by cancer, he's special. Considering the cycling world may have been more aggressive about finding ways to cheat through science than any other sport, it's always been hard to believe that Armstrong never took part in any of those kinds of activities yet was able to beat everyone that did. With no positive tests though, to me Armstrong's got to be given the benefit of the doubt. The New York Times reports this morning that the government does not see it that way. The same agent who spent years working on bringing down Barry Bonds has now focused his energies on proving Armstrong was a PED user as well. I'm not sure I see why this is a particular investigative priority at the moment (as opposed to the BALCO case, where a lab was actively making illegal substances) but it clearly is. I suspect Lance has skeletons in his closet, but without a positive test (or an understandable, provable and believable explanation of how he's avoided having one while constantly being tested) it's going to be really hard to convince people he cheated.

Ole Miss head coach Houston Nutt has been justifiably ripped for his decision this week to allow Jeremiah Masoli to transfer in from Oregon and play QB for the Rebels this season despite his multiple arrests and lying to his coach (which got him booted out of Eugene). Nutt rolled the dice on ex-Gator DB Jamar Hornsby last season coming out of JUCO last year and received an embarrassing arrest in return for his trouble. In one of those weird quirks of timing that life serves up, Hornsby pled guilty to the charges yesterday and will serve half a year in prison as a result. We don't know how Masoli will do in Oxford, but if nothing else we know what coach is the frontrunner to pursue former UGA QB Zach Mettenberger when his JUCO season ends this winter. Stay classy, Houston.

If Nutt could sign former Tennessee quarterback Erik Ainge, I'm sure he would. Ainge's career with the New York Jets will be over the second he gets through with his stay in rehab for recreational drug use. Ainge was a talented player who had a rough middle part of his Vol career, with alcohol apparently playing a factor in him falling out of favor with the coaches. He had a steroid related issue with the Jets two years ago and now has moved on to other drugs. Not many guys sharp enough to be QBs have gone down this particular path - only Todd Marinovich and Quincy Carter sprung to mind for me in the past couple of decades as guys who snorted their way out of the league. Hopefully for Ainge he gets his life together, but it's hard to understand how someone can be foolish enough to waste his talent this way.

I can't remember a period of time where I've had less interest in the movies than the past couple of years. My wife just had a surgery that's had her laid up for a few days, so I went to rent some recent release DVDs for the two of us to watch together. It was hard finding any that seemed even semi-promising at the .99 cent per night rate - there's a reason we hadn't gone to see them in the first place. Hot Tub Time Machine was mediocre, although it had its moments. Couples Retreat was just plain bad. I'm 37 now, so I thought maybe it was just one of those "getting older" things. Turns out the reason I can't find any decent comedies anymore isn't that I'm too old as much as it is that I'm American. Overseas audiences don't get our humor, and it turns out that's who Hollywood's more concerned about liking films these days than people here in the States. Every once in a while they'll crank out a Will Ferrell flick, but generally if you like American comedies you're screwed. Yippee.

At least Forbes didn't pick Manchester United

2010-08-04T01:45:00.001-04:00

While Brett Favre appears determined to treat us all to another helping of his "will he or won't he" BS after all, another quarterback is showing how to retire the right way. Kurt Warner cracked a joke about returning in the wake of the morning's Favre "news", but made clear he's still done with pro football. The Washington Post reports he's going to be a part of Dancing with the Stars next season. While both QBs have a single championship, Warner went to three Super Bowls to Favre's two. Warner's career QB rating is seven points higher as well. Yet Warner stepped away from the game when he clearly could have chosen to continue, and did so with no lengthy period of drama. He was ready to call it a career, and he did. If Favre had shown one tenth as much class as Warner over the past half dozen years, he wouldn't be a joke right now.

Florida basketball released its nonconference schedule yesterday, and I love what Billy Donovan has done with it. Last year SEC commissioner Mike Slive challenged his schools to do better than serving their fans up garbage for the first two months of the season, and now Florida's not doing that anymore. Ideally more of the quality games like Ohio State would be in Gainesville, but having teams like Kansas State and Xavier on the schedule is miles better than what the defending national champions saw four years ago. Beyond that, while Florida will beat UNC-Wilmington at least it's a team with a pulse as opposed to the Florida A&M and Bethune Cookman squads that had no chance even if UF started its managers. South Carolina's also going to have some good games on their schedule when it comes out this week, including Michigan State and Ohio State. There's no reason this shouldn't have been the norm the last few years, but I'm glad the change has finally come.

Not sure why Forbes magazine has been sports list crazy on its website in recent months, but they seem to do a lot of them. When they rank the value of teams or the wealthiest athletes, that makes some sense to me even though there are usually arguments with the accuracy of their numbers. For Forbes to try and rank America's best sports fans was taking things a little too far. Don't believe me? Check out the eleventh best group of American sports fans - the supporters of the Montreal Canadiens. I know some people regard Canada as our 51st state, but perhaps the name CANADIENS might have indicated to Forbes that Montreal fans shouldn't be on this list? (Although that still makes more sense than Blackhawks fans being on there - assuming this list is based on anything before this past May.)

If there wasn't already enough reason to wonder whether Michigan was ready to rebound in year three under Rich Rodriguez, one of his seniors has raised serious questions about the team chemistry in the locker room. Senior cornerback Troy Woolfolk wasn't content just to say good things about quarterback Denard Robinson. He criticized last year's starter Tate Forcier for not being at enough offseason workouts and added...

"The only reason he's not really labeled as diseased is because of the way he was able to carry the team last year before we started losing. People still trust him a little bit, but he's starting to lose that."

Michigan opens up with a solid UConn squad. If they don't get everyone unified behind a leader on offense, they'll lose that game. Should that happen, Rodriguez will be highly unlikely to reach the kind of record it will take to save his job (especially if the NCAA hits them hard later this fall).

Could our long national nightmare really be over?

2010-08-03T11:25:00.001-04:00

I hope Brett Favre really is done, but no one can trust him at this point. If he goes a full year without football and doesn't make noises in the offseason about playing again, maybe we'll start to believe Favre's career is really over. If this is it, Minnesota will have no one but themselves to blame for being in a very tight spot at quarterback. The decision not to draft Jimmy Clausen or Colt McCoy seemed poor at the time, and really looks bad now. As for Favre, it's been a shame to see him become a punchline. The guy was a lot of fun to watch during his better days with the Packers. The never ending "will he retire" storyline that dominated his final half dozen years in the league washed away lots of that goodwill though. Favre became like Pete Rose - excellent players, but guys who dominated far more of the discussion of their sport than their on field performances justified. (No, angry Favre fan, I'm not comparing the pair's actions in any way - just the never ending discussion of them.)

Governments around the country are looking for ways to balance their budget, and more of them seem to be figuring out there's an obvious source sitting in plain sight that they aren't benefitting from. A California state senator is the latest to call for legalized sports betting in a state currently barred from having it. This is not a choice between whether it's good or bad for society to have sports betting. We have it, and we're going to have it. The question is whether governments can benefit financially from the activity while also trimming by one the list of things police have to deal with. How is it a bad thing for a guy to be able to put a hundred dollars on the Packers to win legally but perfectly fine for the guy to spend the same amount on lottery tickets? At least on the football game he has a 50-50 shot of winning. Sooner or later this is going to happen - the pro leagues don't like it, but the need for revenue is greater than threats of taking the Super Bowl away.

Normally GQ magazine is not the first place I'd turn to for sports insights, but they do have a moderately amusing piece this month about the eight stupidest things sports fans say. Not sure why they chose to name just eight, but I'll throw in two more to even things out at ten. All the variations of "we need to run more trick plays" that get brought up on coaches shows and at booster meetings would certainly qualify. My personal favorite is "we should trade our below average players and mid level prospects for someone else's All-Star". Thanks to dopes like the Memphis Grizzlies GM that does happen occasionally in real life, but it's not a viable strategy to plan around.

The Princeton Review's list of the nation's top party schools is out, with Georgia sitting in this year's number one spot. Considering their AD got caught for DUI with a pair of someone else's panties in his lap, it's safe to say there's a little partying going on in Athens. The best part of this is that it's going to drive Georgia president Michael Adams crazy. Ole Miss at five and Florida at seven were the only other SEC schools in the top ten - the conference is slipping. The only things I know about DePauw are that it's Dan Quayle's alma mater and it shows up on this list every year - I'll have to go by that campus someday.

For some reason I can't access need4snead.com anymore

2010-08-02T03:03:00.001-04:00

While teams were signing first round draft picks all over the NFL this past weekend, the move I was most interested in barely registered on the radar. Tampa Bay released Ole Miss quarterback Jevan Snead, the guy who began last year being touted as a top five pick by supposed ESPN draft guru Todd McShay. I never bought into Snead as a future NFL star, but even I would have assumed he could make it to a training camp. It's too late for Snead, but hopefully some people learn lessons from this. For players it's simple: don't get caught up in what you're supposedly going to be at the expense of what you actually are. QBs who throw 20 picks in a college season have no business declaring for the draft early, no matter what some empty suit with good hair said about their potential on an episode of College Football Live before the season. For everyone else: don't believe in guys who are afraid of competing. Snead bailed on his Florida commitment because he was afraid of Tebow. He bolted from Texas because he was going to have to keep fighting for PT with Colt McCoy and wanted a guaranteed starting job at Ole Miss. After two years there showing talent but being wildly inconsistent, Snead went pro rather than fight to stay the starter in Oxford. Players looking for the easy way are generally losers, yet every recruiting season you see school fanbases panting after some of them. Stop.

It was really classy of the Miami Heat organization to handle their new found status as the hot ticket in Frontrunnerville, USA by firing their entire season ticket sales staff. They could have assigned those people other duties with the organization, things like making sure all those new season ticket customers are getting top notch service on gameday or handling the extra demands for merchandise sales and community involvement. Someone's going to have to be responsible for hand peeling the "King"'s grapes, too. This way saves Heat ownership a couple of million bucks though, so who cares whether you're screwing over people with families who did absolutely nothing wrong? Words can't do justice to how much I want this team to lose, which is too bad considering I like Udonis Haslem and Mike Miller a lot.

ESPN quietly let word out over the weekend that they wouldn't be disciplining reporter Arash Markazi for the way he reported the LeBron in Vegas piece the network killed last week after it appeared on its website for a few hours. Let's review the facts:

1. nothing Markazi wrote has been alleged to be inaccurate (in fact other non-ESPN reporting on the evening backs up details of his piece)

2. LeBron's people claim they had nothing to do with the story being yanked

3. ESPN maintains Markazi walked in with LeBron's crew and got access to LeBron's personal table at the club, but they somehow didn't know he was an ESPN reporter (which ESPN somehow is now aware of despite "fact" 2).

4. Now, despite the supposed journalistic transgression by Markazi, he faces no penalty for his actions.

When ESPN denies they pulled this piece because of pressure from James and his people, they are insulting everyone who hears them do so's intelligence. Remember the confiscating of any video footage from LeBron's camp last year that showed him getting dunked on? The "King" and his people believe he makes no errors, and when he does they demand the evidence be erased. ESPN should be ashamed of themselves for toadying up like this, but it's completely unsurprising that they have.

Reggie Bush still doesn't get it. He could have saved USC from a huge portion of the problems its football program faces, even after he chose to take money from agents while still in school. Once Bush and his family decided not to live up to their business agreements with the aspiring agents, it should have been obvious they would have to be paid back the money they'd put into the venture. Instead, Bush tried to ignore the problem and hope it would go away even after lawsuits and other actions had made it very clear it wouldn't. I can't say what percentage of Bush's horrible decision making gets credited to greed versus being stubborn and outright stupidity, but it was almost entirely his years of poor judgement that got the program hammered. Rather than take responsibility and apologize, in his first comments since the probation came down Bush says it "bothers me and it sucks" that the university is whitewashing all evidence of his existence from the school's football program. USC should sue Bush for every dime his selfishness cost them, but they won't because of what that would do to recruiting. That Bush thinks there's a chance on Earth he'll eventually be welcomed back only further illustrates how oblivious the guy is.

Future lame headline: "Tebow Jockeys for QB Position"

2010-07-30T04:36:00.000-04:00

As expected, Tim Tebow's contract got done before Denver's real training camp actually commences this weekend. Now comes the potentially annoying part of things. Once we get into the season, Tebow will likely either not play or see limited time in a specialty role of some sort. Between now and then there is lots of room for insane levels of over analysis about each day's workout and what it means. The answer is: nothing. Even preseason games, where there's almost no gameplanning, will mean very little unless Tebow looks completely befuddled out there. All rookie NFL QBs who eventually turned out to be solid pros have still taken their lumps, from Peyton Manning on down. They didn't all have "First Around the PTI on SportsNation" debating every move they make daily. I hope this next month doesn't go that way, but given Tebow's stature I suspect it will.

Peter King of Sports Illustrated is doing a daily "postcard" from whichever NFL camp he happens to be visiting, with the Cincinnati Bengals yesterday's team. As you'd expect most of it focuses on skill position guys and so forth, but one part of it is hilarious to me. (I'm not a Bengals fan.) According to King, Cincy coach Marvin Lewis is upset with Alabama's coaching staff. He feels they weren't honest enough in warning him that last year's first rounder Andre Smith might have a suspect work ethic. That's the same Andre Smith who appeared to have prepared for the predraft combine by eating a honeybaked ham per day and then left the event early without telling anyone. It's the same Andre Smith who became a punchline throughout the football world for his flopping manboobs after a shirtless run during a disastrous workout. To not have grasped that Smith was a major question mark when it came to work ethic required an astonishing level of naivete and incompetence that only the Bengals were able to provide. Lewis's complaint is ridiculous - if Nick Saban had hired a banner plane to fly around Cincinnati with a sign saying DON'T DRAFT ANDRE SMITH BECAUSE HE'S A FAT LAZY BUM the situation couldn't have been any more obvious. The Bengals simply chose to ignore that and much like when they ignored Odell Thurman's well known character issues and took him in round two it appears to have blown up in their face.

USF football is trying to move forward with Skip Holtz as their coach, but the recent past keeps returning to haunt the Bulls. An academic adviser claims she was dismissed on racial grounds and that the school is trying to cover up NCAA violations. The attorney for her case is the same one being used by former coach Jim Leavitt, so he's already been preparing to hit the school with anything damaging he can. Now he'll get the chance to take whatever embarrassing stuff he can scrape together before a pair of juries rather than just one, which might make USF more willing to look at the possibility of settling. It sure sounds like there's been some shady stuff going on around the USF program - I'll be curious to see how much eventually gets out.

On a normal day, a story about a guy calling 911 repeatedly to demand the return of the Winnipeg Jets to their home city after a decade and a half in Arizona would be the oddest thing I'd see online. (Drinking was involved? Stunning.) Thanks to WAFF in Huntsville's report on a break in and attempted assault, it wasn't. The interviews during this clip are very high on the unintentional comedy factor. Hope you have a good weekend - follow along on Twitter @heathradio for random news notes or observations during the weekend and I'll see you back here Monday.

Beebe is the Animal House guy: "ALL IS WELL!"

2010-07-29T12:24:00.002-04:00

The Big 12 is having its media days right now, and has been dishing the PR spin that everything will be just great going forward as a ten team league. This morning Texas A&M made it clear again that the only reason they're still there is because of commissioner Dan Beebe's "I can get you 20 million a year, trust me" promise, and if he doesn't deliver they're bailing. Beebe reprimanded Tommy Tuberville for being honest that the conference isn't going to work longterm, but he can't do anything about this situation. Unless the Aggies get their money, the Big whatever remains a house of cards.

It mystifies me why Houston Nutt and Ole Miss are going to allow former Oregon QB Jeremiah Masoli to enroll and play for the Rebels this fall. Masoli is a proven multi time criminal offender, including burglary charges. Beyond that, he can only play for a year. With him, the Rebels might win seven games if they're lucky. There are four games on the schedule they should win with my dog Mader under center, so we're not talking about a huge season changer here. Why would you bring in a bad guy, slow any development of QBs you have for the future, and do it all a year after signing Jamar Hornsby blew up in your face?

Sports Illustrated has come up with their list of the 25 all time most hated sports teams. Selected as the baddest boys on the block: the 1986 football Miami Hurricanes. Not buying that, although they ticked off a lot of people with their "we're wearing camo because we're in a war" routine. Lots more people care about pro sports than college on a national level. Number one should have been one of the Cowboys squads, possibly the 86 Mets or the Reggie era Yankees. LeBron's Heat team has a great chance to move up that list really quickly though.

On the subject of LeBron, something very strange happened yesterday. ESPN Los Angeles posted a piece by Arash Markazi which followed James on his recent Vegas excursion as a nightclub party host for cash (because if there's one thing LeBron needs right now it's tacky public exposure). The piece, which portrays James as a self-centered guy with almost no thoughts beyond whatever makes him happy at any given moment, was inexplicably yanked from ESPN's site soon after it was posted. You can read it for yourself right here. The question is what led to the piece being pulled - was ESPN worried about hurting recent business partner LeBron's feelings? They deny that, of course, but other reporting from that night verifies the truth of what Markazi wrote. Markazi's a well respected former Sports Illustrated writer, so there's no reason to doubt his version of things unless some specific allegation is made that it's incorrect. This is why ESPN had no business being involved in Lebron's ego trip TV show. Even if there's an innocent explanation for what happened with the Markazi piece, it comes off looking sleazy.

Washington Nationals fans were extremely unhappy the other night when rookie phenom Stephen Strasburg was unable to make his scheduled start due to tightness in his arm. The last minute fill in was Miguel Batista, who was booed but went on to pitch five shutout innings and get the win. After the game, Batista sympathized with the fans by saying, "Imagine if you go to see Miss Universe, and you end up having Miss Iowa." The reigning Miss Iowa was not pleased to be portrayed as the disappointing consolation prize, and I can't argue with her since she's pretty much drop dead gorgeous. The best part of this story is that they've since settled the dispute - Batista sent Miss Iowa flowers and has been invited to serve as a judge at this year's Miss Iowa pageant. In the spirit of that agreement, I would just like to say Playboy playmates, SI swimsuit models, and the women of Hooters are all highly overrated. Oh, and really expensive steaks don't taste good either.

Maybe the bill got lost in the mail?

2010-07-28T03:17:00.003-04:00

Sports Business Journal is doing a tremendous job of covering every angle of the ongoing College Football Agent Crisis. So far this week, they've turned up the fact North Carolina defensive tackle Marvin Austin worked out at a facility called Proactive Sports performance which often has trained clients of agent Gary Wichard (who has denied any involvement with Austin). Would be interesting to know who paid for Austin to do that, right? Remarkably the only person who would know that won't be available until late August. You'd think there might be billing information available to employees even when the owner's out of town, but there isn't in this case. Remarkably convenient for folks hoping this story will cool off, but it's not going away anytime soon.

Tim Tebow's expected to sign with Denver by the time the team brings veterans into camp over the weekend. I've heard some people including Fox Sports Radio's Ben Maller floating the idea that not signing on time would be greedy on Tebow's part and un-Christian of him. Not sure where they got the idea the Bible contains camp reporting dates, but to me it's pretty silly to argue a guy shouldn't get as much value as he can when it's his time to negotiate his salary. Tebow did sign one deal yesterday, becoming the new spokesman for Jockey undergarments. CNBC's Darren Rovell matches his public awareness numbers against Michael Jordan, who shills for Hanes. This is the first Tebow endorsement deal to push the envelope a bit - video games and Nike were natural tie-ins, but Tebow unleashing his inner Jim Palmer may not work for some fans.

I'm a member of the Football Writers Association of America, and I think they're about to make a poor decision. The current president indicated yesterday that the FWAA is strongly considering awarding its 2004 national title to Auburn in the wake of USC's NCAA penalties. This is just absurd. There's no way to justify declaring Auburn the champs over an Oklahoma team that finished the regular season ranked higher than them and thus had to play the tainted USC squad. Utah also went undefeated that season, and their Fiesta Bowl win was considerably more dominating than Auburn's 16-13 win over Virginia Tech. Who's to say the Utes weren't better than anyone but USC? The reality is there's no way to know, which is why you shouldn't try and retroactively pick champions more than half a decade after the season wrapped up. If the FWAA wants to strip USC of their championship that's fine, but no one should be "awarded" the trophy out of the trash.

There are very few female play by play voices on mens sports, which is part of the reason ESPN's Pam Ward stands out so much. Opinions on broadcasters always vary, but I have yet to meet anyone who enjoys her call of a game. She doesn't have a good flow to what she's saying and frequently struggles to pick up key details, understand rules questions, etc. There are plenty of mediocre male play by play announcers who do the same thing. None of them, however, are on the pages of the Washington Post asking "I wonder why no one has even bothered to at least talk to me about the possibility" of working NFL games. Pam, let me help you with that. For a network to discuss an announcer working an NFL game, they're looking for one of the better voices out there. You, Pam, are not one of those voices. There will likely be a female NFL play by play voice one day, but it will be someone who's much better at it than you are. Hope this helped you solve the puzzle.

Boise State wants to be considered a big time college football program. They're not coming off that way in a public spat between them and Idaho. BSU's president is aghast at the nerve of Idaho fans mocking the academic offerings at the Harvard of Boise, so he wants to stop playing road games against the Vandals. The gist of his argument is "Boo hoo, they made fun of us - they're a bunch of drunks anyway!" Instate rivalries don't just die off because someone's feelings are hurt by an article in a school paper. Time for Boise State's president to put on the big boy pants and grow up.

Some FSU traditions endure

2010-07-27T04:20:00.004-04:00

I'm back in Columbia after a two day visit to the ACC's Kickoff event. It's their version of SEC Media Days, only with vastly better access to players and coaches than we could ever hope to have in Birmingham. Sunday night some fellow media types and I sat at the same table for dinner with Clemson coach Dabo Swinney and his wife. The closest the SEC will ever get to that is if someone happens to eat at Shula's at the same time as some big shot is in the same restaurant. A couple of quick thoughts:

1. Every year the voters in the media poll at the ACC event pretend it's a decade ago when they vote on where to put FSU. Yet again the Seminoles are overwhelming favorites in their division, despite having been thoroughly mediocre last year. Now that Jimbo's fully in charge, things may be better on offense. It's still a squad learning a completely different defensive scheme and facing good passing teams in Oklahoma and BYU in weeks two and three. Now they'll probably be doing it without expected starting linebacker Nigel Carr, thanks to his multiple arrests in the past week. None of this is saying FSU's back to me.

2. Virginia head coach Mike London is an impressive guy in person. I thought a lot of his background coming in, and he did not disappoint. If you didn't read the Washington Post story about London's work as a police officer prior to becoming a coach that I linked here last year, you should check it out now.

3. Randy Shannon has improved as an interview subject. He's still not the life of the party, but at least some personality is beginning to shine through after Shannon was robotic the last couple of years.

4. Butch Davis can tell as many kids as he wants that nothing's going happen as a result of the NCAA's agent investigation. Lane Kiffin did the same crap at USC. The reality is he doesn't know because he can't, which is why Davis shouldn't be making the claim in the first place.

Speaking of Lane, his unwillingness to do things correctly has led to him getting sued. Turns out NFL franchises aren't big on college teams hiring guys away who are already under contract - who could have guessed? Lane has not only succeeded in getting USC sued but also ticked off an NFL guy who's a prominent alum of the school. Great way to make an impression on the new AD, especially since Pat Haden is believed not to be a fan of Lane's way of doing things. The odds are pretty good that Jeff Fisher and the Titans would have allowed Kiffin's new OC to interview for the post had they been approached honestly prior to him being hired. No team would put up with this, though. Remember when Lane was committing all his bonehead mistakes at Tennessee, and we were being told it was part of some master PR plan? Think he wants to try that spin on this debacle?

Jacksonville finally sold their stadium name, which is the good news. It's too bad it's a bank I've never heard of that does not have offices in most of the country, but you take what you can get sometimes. It's the first positive PR thing the Jaguars have had for their longterm survival in the city in quite a while, and at least it's not a dot com or a goofy sounding beer tie in like Miami did.

Greetings from Greensboro

2010-07-26T15:11:00.002-04:00

I'm at ACC football kickoff, their version of SEC Media Days. it's a vastly superior experience overall, providing great access to all the coaches and players. Unfortunately my hotel last night did not provide working access to the internet - hence, no regular blog post today. I'm driving home to Columbia once we wrap things up this evening, so there should be a fresh post up Tuesday. Thanks for your patience.

He means pimp in the nicest possible way

2010-07-22T01:43:00.000-04:00

Day one of SEC media days here in Birmingham will largely be remembered for the fact Nick Saban used the word pimp to refer to agents, but it was an unusually lively day at the Wynfrey Hotel. The typically blander than oatmeal commissioner Mike Slive took a jab at Lane Kiffin, referring to him only as Derek Dooley's "predecessor who returned to his western roots" and noting how glad he was to welcome Dooley to the SEC. Dan Mullen cracked back on Saban for questioning the effectiveness of the spread offense. For an event that normally features a lot of safe comments about being sound in the kicking game and so forth, it was a very unusual opening session. Today we get South Carolina, and all eyes will be on Steve Spurrier to keep the quips coming. (Hopefully the Wynfrey has finally got the internet going reliably as well, because day one on that front was a nightmare for everyone here.)

Also making their appearance today is Georgia. With a new defensive scheme and a redshirt freshman at quarterback, there was already going to be plenty to ask about before they became the latest school linked to a potential NCAA issue. A.J. Green is the guy the speculation is focused on, but he's maintaining he had nothing to do with the big agent bash down in South Beach. No idea whether other players are involved or not, but there are still plenty of rumors about multiple players and schools that haven't found their way into the public spotlight yet. There are lots of ideas on how to try and deal with the problem, but there's no getting around the obvious here. Coaches are receiving at least a million dollars, and frequently three or four times that much, to coach players. The players are receiving a dorm room, meals and the chance to get a degree (as long as it's not in a major that will force them to miss practice time or one that's challenging enough that they might become academically ineligible). They can't get any money as a reward for their efforts, no matter how well they do or how many people might want to give it to them. As long as that imbalance remains in place, some kids are going to decide to get theirs before the rules say they're allowed to do so.

Cheerleading may require athletic ability, but it's not a sport. That hasn't stopped some schools from trying to count it as one for Title IX purposes, but yesterday a judge shot that scheme down. It would be great if there was a womens sport equivalent to football so that it would be easier to maintain the balance required under the law without constantly cutting back on mens programs. There's not a a womens sport that does that, but schools can't be allowed to just make something that women do enjoy in large numbers into a sport.

One out of nowhere development yesterday came on the recruiting front. Florida picked up the nation's top rated outside linebacker - in the 2010 class. Chris Martin had signed with Cal, but is transferring to Gainesville without even taking part in a single practice as a Bear. I have no idea how good the kid will turn out to be, and his reasons for making the late switch sound like they were well thought out, but it's hard to understand a decision process getting screwed up enough that you wind up doing this.

The circus comes to town today

2010-07-21T00:16:00.024-04:00

Another day, another college football big name linked to a possible agent issue. This time's it's Alabama's Marcel Dareus, who was voted to the coaches All-SEC first team announced earlier in the day, being linked to the big South Beach shindig. In response, Nick Saban offered a spectacularly inane suggestion on how to fix the problem: colleges should banish the NFL from their campuses. That would do nothing to reduce kids desires to go pro and make big money as soon as possible, but it would make it much more difficult for teams to accurately evaluate talent. As a result, guys who have no business going pro would be even more likely to do so thanks to getting their info from people with agendas flattering them or the Todd Mcshays of the world. Saban doesn't seem to get that the guys involved in the Reggie Bush fiasco weren't agents. They were wannabes who thought Bush could be their cash cow, but they weren't even registered with the NFLPA. How would banning NFL teams from getting game films have done anything to stop that or something similar happening in the future? Considering Saban hypes his NFL connections and ability to develop players for the pros all the time, this is a completely hypocritical thing for him to have said. That's not surprising, but it is annoying. We'll see what more Saban says about the situation this afternoon.

Everyone knew that USC was going to make a change at its AD spot, but the replacement for Mike Garrett will still surprise some people. Pat Haden, known to dislike Garrett's style of conducting business, gets the job beginning in August. We'll see how he handles the hiring and firing, but Haden is a respected college broadcaster and has a solid background. USC also has appointed a Vice President of compliance, believed to be the highest ranking person in that position at any school in the country. The university is planning to give back its copy of Reggie Bush's Heisman Trophy to the trust which presented it. Considering they still are keeping O.J.'s Heisman, it's safe to say the standard for Trojan legends is pretty low but Bush still fell short of it. For his part, Bush failed to turn up for a scheduled online chat with his remaining fans last night. Probably just a coincidence.

When no one will pay you to do something anymore, does that mean you're retired or unemployed? Tyrone Willingham likes the sound of choice number one better, and says he will not coach again. After the way things went for him with Washington, I could have told him that. Willingham got a raw deal at Notre Dame, where he was given only three years while every other coach before and since has fulfilled at least his original five year contract. That said, Willingham was an awful coach. He has one conference title out of eleven years in the Pac-10, and won just one of five bowl games. There was nothing in his resume that should have gotten him a job better than his initial head coaching gig with Stanford. The media made Willingham's reputation and helped him sustain it despite lots of evidence to the contrary, and they appear to still be cutting him huge slack on what went down over the past decade.

Still waiting for the big Zapped! remake

2010-07-20T00:12:00.003-04:00

The Great Agent Scare of 2010 arrived in Gainesville yesterday, with Pat Forde of ESPN revealing UF was looking into allegations of Maurkice Pouncey having taken 100 thousand dollars from an agent during the weeks between the SEC Championship game and the Sugar Bowl. This didn't make sense to me, because Pouncey's a sharp guy. What would he be so eager to buy that he wouldn't be able to wait less than a month to line up the money legally as a likely first round pick? Especially with his brother still scheduled to play for Florida this season, why would he take that chance? It's being reported that the Pouncey family will deny anything of the sort today, and if Joe Schad's report for ESPN saying the claim was made in an anonymous letter sent from Canada is accurate then I see no reason not to believe them. The letter apparently contained photos of a supposed agent runner interacting with the Pounceys at awards shows. As someone who's been to the College Football Awards event at Disney for years, I can tell you that agents are everywhere. One guy would repeatedly follow players into the bathroom - either he had the weakest bladder ever, or he was trying to make a pitch while someone was taking care of business. I even had one approach me while I was on stage broadcasting and offer me money during a break to help him make connections with kids. Does this mean Florida's free and clear on any agent issues? Not necessarily, but I don't think this specific claim is going to be a problem going forward.

A website I've previously never encountered makes the claim Nebraska and South Carolina will be matching up in Atlanta's 2011 Chick-fil-a game to open their respective college football seasons. That would be Nebraska's first game as a Big Ten member, and while I'd be all for the two teams matching up I doubt the Huskers are willing to take the chance of playing their first game in a new conference against anyone with a pulse. The Gamecocks already have a game scheduled with East Carolina in Charlotte that day as well as games with Navy and Clemson out of conference that season. Hard to see what the benefit for them would be with a matchup against Big Red. Would love to see more Big Ten-SEC regular season matchups, but I don't believe this will be one.

The Tampa Bay Lightning finally appear to be on the right track for the first time since their Stanley Cup season. Yesterday's acquisition of Simon Gagne from Philadelphia is a terrific move. Gagne adds scoring punch and veteran savvy in the locker room, plus the deal shows that new ownership is willing to spend money. It's hard to imagine Gagne being willing to accept this deal and waive his no trade clause without Steve Yzerman being Tampa Bay's GM. It remains to be seen how Stevie Y will do in the job for the long term, but it's nice to finally be rooting for a team with credibility again.

All indications are that the one fight which holds the potential to genuinely excite boxing fans - Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather - will not be happening anytime soon. As usual, Mayweather is the one stalling to keep it from coming together. Unfortunately for all of us who want to see them match up, there's no way to but genuine pressure on either one to make it happen. Both are used to being able to dictate terms of their bouts, and they can with anyone else but each other. No sanctioning body has the clout to press them, and no one's likely to beat either one in the meantime so they can keep making money fighting lesser opponents. MMA is not my thing, but one thing fans of that sport know is that they will get chances to see interesting bouts. The heavyweight division is completely irrelevant to most fans these days, and the entire sport of boxing seems determined to go down the same path.

Inception is doing big numbers at the box office right now, with people raving about it being a complex and interesting piece of moviemaking. What does Hollywood have in mind as a possible followup? How's a remake of "Oh, God!" with Betty White standing in for George Burns as the deity sound? What do you mean, it sounds awful? This is BETTY WHITE we're talking about! The kids love her - have her say some dirty things and it'll be comedy gold!

Next up: Birmingham

2010-07-19T04:13:00.002-04:00

I spent last week in Los Angeles and San Diego with my wife. We had a terrific time, and while I won't bore you with a full recap of the journey I did want to share a few thoughts...

The statues outside the Staples Center are hilarious. The one of Magic Johnson is so astoundingly bad as to defy belief. It not only looks nothing like him facially, it makes him appear to have been eighty years old. The ones of Oscar de la Hoya and Wayne Gretzky are better, but not terribly lifelike either. Only the one of legendary play by play man Chick Hearn really resembles the guy it's supposed to be.

Dodger Stadium is a great place to watch a baseball game. It was one of the final baseball stadiums on my "need to get to" list, and it was worth it. Didn't get a chance to see a Padres game at Petco Park, but was able to walk through the stadium. It's a nice venue, and I really like the way it fits in with the Gaslamp District around it. Very bummed they didn't have this Padres shirt in my size at the team store the day I was there.

Saw Pete Carroll speak in San Diego Thursday night. It hadn't hit me before, but watching him talk I realized that Carroll is what Jeremy Foley convinced himself he was hiring when he chose Ron Zook as Steve Spurrier's successor. Carroll described himself as being "a little ADD", and his high energy routine reminded me a lot of Zook had Zook been able to articulate a philosophy beyond "we're getting better". Still not sure how well Carroll's going to work out in Seattle, but he did better than people gave him credit for in his two previous NFL head coaching gigs.

Pepperdine University's Malibu campus is the most beautiful one in the country. The best anyone can hope to do is play for a tie, and I don't think anyone has the goods to even make that claim.

Delta Airlines approaches customer service the same way Rachel Phelps approached team building in Major League as head of the Cleveland Indians - the goal is to make things as unpleasant as possible. I took four flights on Delta week. Three of them were delayed by over an hour because of "paperwork" and a supposed problem with "the engine starting thing". Delta also managed to lose my bag going to L.A. despite charging me 23 dollars for the privilege of bringing it on the plane. I can't think of a single reason to fly Delta again if the price to do so is even close to competitive with another airline's.

Nothing like a potential NCAA agent scandal with a program you cover to welcome a guy back to work after vacation time. It was acknowledged late last week that the NCAA was looking at possible agent involvement with players at North Carolina, and now South Carolina tight end Weslye Saunders is in the spotlight too. What remains to be seen is how many other schools will have players also turn up on the NCAA's radar, because the buzz in the college football world is that there will be more. While no school wants to deal with this, any of them should be grateful if misbehavior comes to light before an ineligible player sees time in a game. Since one of the UNC players under scrutiny indicated on his Twitter account that the trip in question happened earlier in the summer, it may only be the players who deal with significant consequences here. Saunders is a talented kid who's been sporadic at best in his level of intensity and desire to play - I still remember reading a litany of complaints from him about having to play in cold as well as practice on thanksgiving last season. Losing him wouldn't be insignificant for the Gamecocks, but would not be a season wrecker by a long shot.

Last entry until July 19th - thanks for visiting

2010-07-09T03:38:00.001-04:00

The LeBron James infomercial lived down to expectations. ESPN promised James would give his answer in the first ten minutes - he dragged it out until 27 minutes in and after multiple commercial breaks had aired. After the insufferable Jim Gray finally asked the only question anyone actually cared about the answer to, James went through with tearing the guts out of his hometown on national TV in favor of teaming up with buddies in Miami. His explanation for the choice made little sense, with him claiming Miami was the best chance for him to win - Chicago actually would have been, since the Heat now have to piecemeal an entire minimum salary team around three guys. James did not let Cleveland know his choice in advance, which boggles the mind. Choosing to leave is one thing, but for James to lack enough respect for a franchise that has catered to his every whim for seven years to even give them any advance notice ahead of you and me is incredible. That may be why Cavs owner Dan Gilbert issued a ridiculously over the top statement, vowing Cleveland would win a championship before "the self titled former King" does. Cleveland has everyone's sympathy, because they've just clinched the title of most miserable sports city for decades to come, but that's just idiotic for the owner to say. You couldn't win with James, nor could you sell any quality free agents on coming to town to join him, but you'll win it without him on the strength of Delonte West? Let's at least try to make some sense here. No one comes out of this whole LeBron free agency saga looking good except for ticket scalpers with good seats for Heat games.

David Lee has spent the past few years playing for a terrible team in a great city as a member of the New York Knicks, which makes him a perfect fit for life as a member of the Golden State Warriors. The team is acquiring him in a sign and trade as the Knicks try to sell fans that the chance to build around Amare Stoudamire is really what they're thrown away two whole seasons waiting for. I'm glad to see Lee get the 80 million dollar deal. He was a good guy to cover at UF, and has made himself an excellent player with very little help from the crack Knicks operation. Hopefully for him new ownership will make the Warriors less of a pit of misery once the sale of the team to someone is completed.

If you've listened to ESPN Radio's Sunday NFL show during the season the past few years, one of the voices you've heard as a host was Jeremy Green. He's former coach Dennis Green's son and, like Todd McShay, a member of the "Scouts Inc." branch of ESPN. It will be a major shocker if you hear him in any role like that again, because Green has been arrested and charged with possession of child pornography as well as narcotics and drug paraphernalia. How can people who are seemingly fully functioning adults have a sickness in their head like this? How many more do and are either not caught or have enough restraint and sanity not to act on it? I don't have kids, and stories like this and Steve Babik's arrest make me grateful I don't because it would make it mighty difficult to trust anyone at all to be around them.

One hazard of my line of work is that people confuse what you think will happen with being what you want to happen (when frequently you don't care one way or the other). I don't typically make a bunch of predictions on games a central part of my show like some hosts do, but it's inevitable that people want to know whether you think the home team's going to win or not. Most people can grasp that just because I might pick Alabama to beat South Carolina that doesn't mean I have a rooting interest in that outcome, but there are always a few who take it the wrong way and email or call to blast me for it. As such, I feel for Paul the Octopus. The creature correctly predicted the outcome of every German game in the World Cup, including their eventual semifinal loss to Spain. Naturally, some idiots think the octopus is to blame for the defeat and want to have him killed. After the Gamecocks lost to Vandy in week two of my first season covering them, a fan sent me a lengthy email blaming my supposed "negativity" (I had actually expected them to win, but I guess not by as much as this guy) for not just that defeat but losses that had happened as far back as 14 years earlier. If he could have had me turned into calamari, I'm sure the suggestion would have sounded good to him. Paul has picked Germany to win their consolation game, with Spain taking the overall title.

With remakes and sequels dominating the entertainment options coming out of Hollywood these days, there's one possibility for a rebirth that sounds pretty promising. Beavis and Butthead may resurface after more than a decade of no new episodes. Like WKRP in Cincinnati, you can't really see the original shows because of the music licensing issues although they were able to put out some that got cleared. At this point B & B would need to have moved beyond music video commentary, but there's no reason they can't be written for the 2010s and be hilarious. Hopefully this will happen.

I will be going on vacation with my wife next week, heading out to California for our second anniversary. She has made it very clear she would prefer I not spend any of that time cranking out blog entries. As such, the next daily blog will appear Monday July 19th. Because I can't just ignore the internet for a week in favor of whatever's in the L.A. Times print edition, I will still be on Twitter periodically. Follow along at @heathradio should you be interested. Two days after I get back to work I'll be in Birmingham for SEC football media days - the summer has really flown by. Thanks for reading and I'll see you back here on the 19th.

Next ad campaign: Mother Theresa is kooky for Kraft!

2010-07-08T02:28:00.007-04:00

As soon as USC hired Lane Kiffin as their head coach, it was a given that they'd have to start apologizing for things on a regular basis. Yesterday the "I'm sorry" letters went out to Florida, Alabama and other schools that were accused by the Trojan athletic department of improperly contacting freshman running back Dillon Baxter once USC was hammered by the NCAA. Imagine that, a Lane led program making false charges of rules violations. So if there was nothing to base the Baxter allegations on, why did USC make them? To try and divert attention from their disastrous news, of course, while also insinuating that lots of other programs were dirty as well. So what happened when the negative attention from the apologies began to register? Suddenly a story by an L.A. based reporter came out that USC wanted to play Tennessee in the Chick-Fil-a kickoff game in Atlanta and the Vols had refused. (USC's PR strategy: look, media, shiny things!) The implication, of course, is that Tennessee is scared to face the coach they despise. That would be the same coach who helped put them in the difficult personnel situation they're currently in, which will be even worse next year. Kiffin knew very well that UT's schedule was already full for that 2011 season, which is why the Vols booked the 2012 game instead when they signed up to play NC State in the C-F-A game WHILE HE WAS THEIR COACH. For him to act surprised UT wouldn't play the Trojans next season is disingenuous, but why would you ever expect anything else from Lane?

There's no point in me bashing LeBron James again today. Everyone's doing it, and no one's going to do a better job than Adrian Wojnarowski's scorching demolition of the self proclaimed King for Yahoo. Instead, I want to praise Kevin Durant. It's entirely possible that Durant will be a better player over the next half decade than LeBron - both are currently top five players in the league. Rather than complain about being in a low profile media market like Oklahoma City, Durant has embraced the fans and the town and been the cornerstone of his team's rise to relevance. Yesterday, rather than make a big production of his potential pending free agency or even holding a press conference, Durant signed a new deal with the Thunder for five seasons. The difference in approach as well as the level of class displayed versus what will be happening on ESPN tonight at nine couldn't have been any greater. For whatever it's worth, Newsday indicates LeBron's going to Miami and since they're owned by the same Dolan family as the Knicks maybe they know something.

What will fill Sportscenter hour after hour once LeBron speculation's no longer in the mix? Odds are pretty good it will be a blend of Brett Favre speculation and the Tim Tebow watch. Just this week alone we've seen:

1. Tebow continue to be the most purchased NFL jersey ever since his Bronco uni became available.
2. Tebow touted as the toughest player on the Broncos by the new Madden ratings, ahead of all his offensive linemen.
3. The debut of a website selling nine different Tebow themed t-shirts, including one featuring him decked out as The Dude from The Big Lebowski.

Next week will be the debut of the NCAA video game with him on the cover. As sick as people got of hearing about Tebow's exploits during his college career, they're about to get an even bigger dose as soon as he does anything good or bad in Broncos camp.

A National Academy of Sciences study makes the claim voters are more likely to support an incumbent if the college team they're a fan of is winning during the two weeks leading up to the election. Considering I live in a state where the incumbent US Senator is running against an unemployed guy who suggests selling action figures of himself would be a good way to spur economic growth and job development, I'm not sure what the Gamecocks do the week before the election is going to turn out to be too critical.

Thomas Jefferson is sort of an important guy in America's history, what with that whole writing the Declaration of Independence thing. He's considered to have been an intellectual giant of his time, and one of our greatest presidents. Can anyone explain why there's now a series of commercials depicting him as a macaroni and cheese obsessed twit looking to pick up chicks? Just because he mentioned a recipe in some notes from his time in office the guy's now a punchline?

Brett Favre's got work to do to regain his title as biggest drama queen in sports

2010-07-07T00:54:00.000-04:00

So LeBron James will tell the world which team he's going to allow to give him the max dollars as a free agent during an ESPN special at 9 PM Thursday night. Gosh golly, I know I'm sure excited about it. The guy's a terrific player, but I've lost a lot of respect for him in the past year. First there was his poorly handled exit from the playoffs last season, then this year's total failure to show up against the Celtics in the postseason. We've seen James and his high school buddies act out an entire season worth of Entourage this week with their drawn out meeting process being conducted in gym shorts. There's been the LeBron website relaunch, the Twitter feed launch, and now this crap. LeBron's fun to watch on the court, but this "pay attention to me" routine is the kind of lame shtick I expect from a high school kid who's going to put four hats on the table and then fake putting two on before throwing them away and putting on the real one. James has tried to give the impression he's a serious pro, but this is amateur hour all the way.

Andy Staples of SI.com posted a terrific piece yesterday chronicling the trip by a group of Miami area kids to a 7 on 7 football challenge, with informal recruiting drop ins at several schools as well. These are largely kids who are considered big time talents, yet some of them are already finding ways to blow their opportunity at playing college football. While visiting LSU's locker room, one player steals current Tiger Patrick Peterson's watch and another rips off a set of football cleats. Not only are they thieves, but they're stupid enough to not realize locker rooms have security cameras. Knowing the NCAA has spent the past decade making it more difficult for coaches to really get to know the kids they're recruiting (no text messages, limited phone calls, no spring evaluation by head coaches, etc) how can anyone be surprised when it turns out they landed a guy who's a complete turd? Not everyone does the schools the favor of letting them in on that before they ever sign.

Over the weekend the St. Paul Pioneer-Press had an interesting claim in a writer's notes column. It said that star recruit Seantrel Henderson, the big offensive lineman who chose USC on signing day but waited a number of weeks to sign while hoping for more info on the Trojans potential NCAA probation, had evidence he had been given assurances by Lane Kiffin and his staff that USC would not be severely punished. Since they had, Henderson was prepared to present that as part of his case to get out of the Letter of Intent he signed with the school. Yesterday, USC announced it was releasing Henderson free and clear to go to any school he wanted to. What a remarkable coincidence. It appears Miami or Ohio State will benefit from Henderson's change of heart. I could care less where he goes, and we'll see once he gets there whether the kid can back up the hype or not. I do think it's hilarious that as soon as the word was out Henderson was about to expose Lane as a lying weasel the school suddenly was able to find a way to release him. Surely the word is starting to get around about Kiffin's tactics by now after Bryce Brown and now this - better get it in writing, kids.

JaMarcus Russell seemed to be a lock for the most embarrassing weekend moment for any sports figure after he was arrested for possession of codeine syrup. The whole thing's pretty pathetic, but in a weird way this may wind up helping Russell eventually get another shot at the NFL. If his horrid, disinterested performance with the Raiders in his three years there can be attributed to something other than sheer laziness, it makes easier for a team to convince itself and its fans that a "clean" Russell deserves another chance. On the other hand, former Seton Hall coach Bobby Gonzalez is about as toxic as it's possible to be thanks to his arrest for shoplifting a leather messenger bag from the Polo store at a mall. Keep in mind this is a guy who in the past three and a half months alone has been fired for cause from his job as head coach of the Pirates while also having multiple players arrested, other recruits fail to qualify, and suing his former employer. There wasn't much more he could do to damage his reputation short of accumulating a Dave Bliss style body count, yet he found a way. While I share the sentiment this bag is not worth 1400 dollars, there's no way to shrug an accusation like this off if you're that rare AD who would even consider hiring this jerk. Short of provable total innocence on his part, Gonzalez is done for good.

An English study makes the claim that listening to sports radio is just as risky as driving drunk. While I'm sure Damon Evans would love to say his problems were caused by listening to a Braves game or my friends Chuck and Chernoff on 680 the Fan in Atlanta, I'm afraid I'm not buying. Can sports discussion or an actual game be a distraction in the car? Sure, just like air drumming to your favorite song, a conversation with your buddy in the passenger seat, or Christie Brinkley racing you on the freeway. The difference is that should you have an issue concentrating while driving for whatever reason, you can always stop talking/turn the CD off/hang up the phone and resolve the problem. It's hard to turn off being hammered.

At least they were Bulldog red, right?

2010-07-06T00:31:00.002-04:00

When Georgia AD Damon Evans's DUI first came to light Thursday, I thought he might be able to survive the negative publicity if nothing else damaging came out and people had a three day weekend to cool off. Then came Friday afternoon's release of the police report, complete with details like Evans having the female passenger's panties sitting between his legs and his immortal quote "We go through life and we all drink and jump in a car". At that point it was clearly game over for Evans, the only question was how soon and at what price. The answer turns out to be Monday, for three months salary and a nearly earned 100 thousand dollar longevity bonus. As I assumed it would, UF associate AD Greg McGarity's name has already been floated for the Georgia AD job. McGarity has been brought up for Auburn and LSU in the past, and maybe this will prove to be his time. He's a good guy, but has had little opportunity to really show a public persona because Jeremy Foley is such a dominant figure on the UF and SEC landscape.

With the recent passing of John Wooden, I wondered who could ascend to the role of Grand Old Man of college basketball. Given Bobby Knight's abrasive nature, it's hard to imagine him as a revered senior statesman type of guy. Dean Smith, whose personality did seem a better fit, has been largely off the public stage since his retirement. I assumed it was his usual reticence to deal with the media, but it turns out Smith is apparently battling either Alzheimer's or other age related dementia. Both of my grandmothers have been affected by Alzheimer's, and it is a terrible feeling as a family member to see what it does to a loved one. I feel for Dean Smith's family that they have to witness his decline. It's a huge loss for the college hoops community that we've likely seen the last of him in any kind of public role.

On Friday, TMZ posted a story claiming the NCAA is looking hard at Kentucky basketball, with particular questions about two former players and two current ones dealing with agents. Four days later, neither they nor anyone else has done something to advance that story. Much as I'd like to dismiss this as silliness from a site that spends more time on what Lindsay Lohan had for lunch than sports, they clearly found something legit with their story on an Oklahoma basketball player receiving money from a financial planner in Tampa earlier this year. John Calipari got burned by agents giving Marcus Camby early benefits at UMass - could it be about to happen again? It's never going to be a dull moment in Lexington as long as he's there.

I mentioned previously that Football Outsiders does terrific work on the NFL and I'm looking forward to seeing their takes on college football. They've now posted a teaser preview from this year's guide, and fortunately it's of the SEC East race. Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina all being between 19 and 23 can't realistically happen, but it does show each has some positives in the numbers to fall back on as well as some potential trouble spots.

NBC shoved Conan O'Brien out the door to bring back Jay Leno on the Tonight show under the premise he would immediately regain all those viewers O'Brien's humor was supposedly too hip for. Whoops - looks like the people who watched Jay at ten and realized just how lame he was have decided to stay away. Now Leno's numbers are notably worse than Conan's were - even more remarkable since Leno doesn't have himself for a lead in. Couldn't happen to a more deserving network or guy.

Call a cab - it's not that hard, even if you're drunk

2010-07-02T12:53:00.000-04:00

It amazes me when successful people get DUIs. I understand how some 22 year old with six beers in him thinks he won't get pulled over between Archer Road/Five Points and his apartment so he doesn't want to deal with getting a cab. When you're in a six figure job that revolves around your personal credibility, you can't allow yourself to think that way. Georgia AD Damon Evans didn't pay attention to his own PSA, and after getting busted for a late night DUI with a 28 year old who's not his wife in the car with him Evans might lose his job as a result. Georgia has been extremely aggressive about increasing its penalties for players with alcohol issues, which makes Evans failure to drink responsibly even more mystifying. Losing a half million dollar job to save cab fare is pretty stupid - only the three day weekend might be capable of cooling the story down enough for Evans to survive. If the UGA gig opens, it will be fascinating to see who they target for the post.

USC football began its appeal to the NCAA of the penalties which have nuked the future of their program by leaking supposed inaccuracies in the report to the Rivals website which covers their program. A great deal of time was spent on the idea that running backs coach Todd McNair didn't actually know what was going on with Reggie Bush. They even claim the photo of him partying with the two wannabe agents might be faked somehow. So if that's their argument, why did USC fire McNair yesterday? Lane Kiffin clearly wanted to keep him as a part of the staff when he came in, he's supposedly been framed by the NCAA and is actually innocent as the day is long - so what's the problem?

It wasn't stunning news that former NFL and college head coach Don Coryell died at the age of 85 yesterday. It had been known for some time that he was ill. What does amaze me is that even with that knowledge voters still did not put him into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Coryell was a terrific offensive coach, one who was way ahead of his time with the design of his passing attack. Just because the Chargers never broke through and went to the Super Bowl under his coaching doesn't mean he wasn't a gigantic influence on the league. Those teams with Dan Fouts and company were a blast to watch. I'm sure eventually Coryell will be inducted in Canton - it's a shame that he won't be around to see it happen.

All the NBA free agent talk has been more heat than light to this point, but that doesn't mean nothing noteworthy's happening. The Nets put up a billboard featuring their new billionaire Russian owner and Jay-Z right across from New York's Madison Square Garden. James Dolan, the embarrassingly inept owner of the Knicks, reportedly called the 227 foot billboard "intimidating to my employees". So to review: Isaiah Thomas sexually harassing employees and explaining why it's ok for black men to call black women bitches, Stephon Marbury taking interns out to his truck for encounters, and wholesale use of the Knicks and Rangers dancers as a staff dating service - not intimidating. Billboard with rapper - intimidating. Glad we could clear that up. David Lee's the only good thing that organization has - hopefully they'll lose him too. Hope you enjoy your three day weekend. I'm certainly going to enjoy relaxing and catching up to my sleep. See you back here Tuesday.

Thank you Whit Merrifield

2010-07-01T03:19:00.001-04:00

With the CWS finally over, I went to Kansas City's win over the White Sox last night. Kaufman Stadium is a terrific place to see a game. It's got fans who love the sport, the fountains are even cooler in person than they look on TV, and the between innings "entertainment" isn't incredibly loud and annoying like it is at some parks. Unfortunately everything there is focused on looking back at the good times rather than being competitive right now. They gave us a copy of game 5 of the 1985 World Series on DVD as we entered the stadium, and the team shop had more shirts of former Royals - George Brett, Bret Saberhagen, Bo Jackson, Willie Wilson and many more - than it did of anyone current other than Zack Greinke. There's no reason the Royals couldn't duplicate what's gone on in Tampa Bay, but they continue to draft players not based on ability but rather on signability. It's a shame - their fans deserve better. We ate beforehand at Oklahoma Joe's, which turns out to be able to back up its hype as a terrific barbecue establishment. KC is not likely to be your next vacation destination, but it's an underrated city. It does have one of the weirder airports you'll ever encounter, which is where I'll be early today making my way back to Columbia and some semblance of normalcy again.

NBA free agent mania commenced at midnight, and the best part of all of this is that I won't have to hear any more inane speculation about it soon. If, as has been claimed in New York, the Knicks top priority is signing Joe Johnson then the entire decision making structure of the organization should be fired immediately. Johnson is a useful player, but he's demonstrated beyond any doubt he is not the lead figure of a championship contending team. You don't tank seasons for two years to go after Joe Johnson. There are several free agents other than LeBron James who are genuine difference makers, but Johnson's not one of them.

Tommy Tuberville hasn't coached a game at Texas Tech yet, but he's already stirring people up with his comments about the Big 12 minus 2. The conference has been trying to convince people it's going to be just fine as a ten team league going forward, with a supposed "ten year commitment" letter being drawn up and schools like Iowa State signing it (as if anyone wanted them). Tuberville didn't mince words, saying the revenue and power disparity everyone else has with Texas and to a lesser extent Oklahoma and Texas A&M will eventually wreck the league. He's probably right, although it's hard to see what would cause the collapse right now. OU and TAMU had SEC opportunities but didn't pull the trigger. No one's really excited about adding any of the other seven teams, and Texas is happy as long as the new TV deals generate the revenue the Big 12 commissioner claimed they would.

I've been in a college baseball bubble, so I don't know if a disclosure from Sean Payton's new book that I read about a few days ago got any real attention or not. Most of the story focuses on the book's revelations about how the Saints won last season's Super Bowl, but a brief mention is given to Payton's interview with Al Davis for the Raiders head coaching job seven years ago. Their menu? McDonald's hamburgers and KFC cole slaw. If that's what Al thinks is the good stuff to break out for a potential head coach, what does he eat when he's not looking to make a positive impression? Asbestos on crackers? Ten slim Jims a day? No wonder the guy looks like he's been dead for ten years.

Go Gamecocks!

2010-06-29T04:44:00.004-04:00

No regular blog post today, because it's 4:44 AM eastern and I just got done editing all the interview sound from game one of the College World Series. If South Carolina wins today, I can finally leave Omaha and go down to Kansas City Wednesday before catching my 9:23 AM Thursday flight. If they lose, I'll be at Rosenblatt Stadium from early Wednesday afternoon until around 2 am and then drive two and a half hours to KC's airport to catch that same flight. Did I mention I'd be doing that on my birthday? Words can not describe how much I would prefer the Gamecocks win this baseball game - which of course means they won't. Will post if and when I get time, but depending on what happens it might be Friday before things here get back to normal. Thanks for your patience.

Renting a house would have been cheaper

2010-06-28T01:15:00.002-04:00

This is day nine for me in Omaha. I'm beginning to feel like Scott Bakula's character in Quantum Leap - circumstances out of my control dictate whether I can ever get home. He had "Ziggy" to make sense of his situation, while I have to try and do it on my own. Not sure what Ziggy would have calculated the chances of a relief pitcher who hadn't started all season and hadn't worked more than 3.1 innings in his career pitching a complete game during his first career start, but that's what happened. With South Carolina battling UCLA for the title tonight, I'm here for the duration. The consensus seems to be that the Bruins are the favorite, but who can possibly tell at this point? The Gamecock players are a good group of kids and Ray Tanner's a great guy. It'll be fun to see if they can bring the national title back to Columbia.

FIFA's World Cup continues to be an embarrassing fiasco when it comes to refereeing the games. The USA's final Cup game featured repeated, obvious stalling through faking of injuries by the Ghana squad, but that wasn't anywhere close to the biggest official related issue of the weekend. England got robbed of an incredibly obvious goal against Germany, and the mistake couldn't be corrected because FIFA opts not to use goal line technology which would show if the ball had crossed the goal line or not. This isn't comparable to baseball choosing not to expand replays beyond what they already are, something I agree with. The equivalent to this would be refusing to look at replay on the very occasional foul pole close call to check whether a ball was actually a home run. Between the bizarre issues with the ball for this World Cup and the huge problems with referees, FIFA should be ashamed of its performance.

The NCAA is looking to put an end to stunts like offering players a scholarship when they're 13, the way Lane Kiffin did with a QB from Delaware once he got to USC. Under a proposed rule, no formal offer could be made prior to July 1 before a kid's senior season in high school. There's no way this will keep schools from still doing it on a "wink wink" basis, but if it keeps kids from putting themselves in the kind of uncomfortable public spotlight Tamir Goodman did at Maryland, that would be a positive change.

If there turns out to be anything to the L.A. Times report that Showtime is considering giving Stephen A. Smith his own late night talk show, two things stand out for me. One is that there are literally hundreds of millions of Americans who have never hosted a late night TV show. Doing this would mean Showtime's intentionally seeking out one of the dozen or so who have done so and failed miserably. Maybe they never saw "Quite Frankly" - understandable, since no one else did either - but surely it appears on the man's resume. What would possibly lead anyone to think this guy needs another platform when he's been proven ratings death with everything he does? The other thing that stands out about this story is that whoever Smith's agent is, he must be absolutely incredible at his job.

Think you've heard every air travel horror story? How about an airline reacting to a girl having brought a 2 inch, caged pet turtle on board by refusing to let her fly unless the turtle was thrown away? Even doing something as basic as keeping the turtle long enough for the girl's father to show up was too much to ask of AirTran personnel in Atlanta. When did common sense become something to be avoided at all costs? It's hard to think of another business that has gone more out of its way to alienate customers than the airlines have.