Those deep fried avocados will get you every time

I keep wondering when the NCAA is going to show some teeth again by issuing a significant punishment to a major program. It would remind everyone the organization's still relevant, since it hasn't been very often lately and is completely out of all the playoff and conference expansion discussions. USC football's the one everybody's been waiting on, but I'd actually forgotten that UConn basketball still has a pending problem on their hands. With a pair of assistants being pushed out the door and a press conference pending to explain the situation further, it would appear there's fire to go with the smoke kicked up when Yahoo Sports originally busted the Huskies for cheating in the recruitment of Nate Miles last March. This could get really interesting depending on what the school acknowledges this morning.

The Big Ten may believe expansion is the answer to becoming the powerhouse conference in college football they love to pretend they still are. ESPN's Ivan Maisel demonstrates that may well be easier said than done, because none of the schools they may add are in the places producing top talent. The state of Florida has more players in ESPN's top 150 ratings this season by itself than Pennsylvania, Ohio or Michigan did in the past four. It's not like the trend is likely to change anytime in the forseeable future either - the northern economy isn't going to prompt mass moves back that way. beyond that, it's not like the northern schools are holding onto all the talent they do have. Mark Ingram of Flint, Michigan just won a Heisman for Alabama. Sharif Floyd was the top DT recruit in the country coming out of Philadelphia - he'll be playing in Gainesville. Adding five more teams with slower athletes than SEC teams isn't going to magically make the Big Ten king of th hill, no matter how much money it makes them.

Once again the Oakland Raiders are trying to get out of the terms of a contract once they cut someone loose from their organization. This is nothing new - they've done it as far back as when Mike Shanahan was fired in the late Eighties. This time it's JaMarcus Russell, who they're trying to get just under ten million dollars from by claiming his bonus money was a salary advance for years he's not going to play for them now. While I haven't seen Russell's contract, no experienced agent (which Russell's guy is) would ever let that kind of clause be put in a contract. Couple that with Oakland's frequently demonstrated disregard for contracts they don't like and I know who I believe. The Raiders made a horrible decision to draft a guy who was more interested in partying than being a great player. That's their problem, not his.

If there's one thing radio does well, it's come up with ways to attract attention to itself through guerilla marketing. My senior year of high school saw a station in Tampa play "Stairway to Heaven" for 24 hours in a row, then do an all-Led Zeppelin format for a few days before eventually emerging as 98 Rock. Police showed up because they thought the DJ might have keeled over, and the whole thing got national attention. Twenty years later things haven't changed too much, as a station in Milwaukee has rebranded itself as "Tiger Radio" in "honor" of Tiger Woods. No matter how catchy "the brand new station for liars and cheaters" is as a slogan, I'll go out on a limb and say this might just be a gimmick.

I'll be traveling to the SEC meetings in Destin on Memorial Day, With that being a holiday as well, I'll wait an extra day before updating again. Sunday I may be at Charlotte Motor speedway covering the 600 and meeting the cast of the A-Team movie, so it could prove to be an interesting weeekend. The Twitter feed @heathradio will be updated whenever something seems noteworthy, so please follow along there. Have a great holiday and I'll see you back here Tuesday.

Any hot seat list without Zook at the top is suspect

Dennis Dodd of CBSsports.com is one of my least liked national college football writers, for a variety of reasons dating back to the time he wrote Eric Crouch should win the Heisman Trophy because he came to media day at Nebraska every week. Dodd does have a big platform though, and his annual coaching hot seat ratings get a decent level of attention. I have no problem with most of the guys he has on the hottest seats, but some of this is just absurd. The four SEC coaches whose seats Dodd feels are warmest are at 3.0 on his scale of 0 to 5 - which translates as "on the bubble -- you never know". They are LSU's Les Miles, Georgia's Mark Richt, South Carolina's Steve Spurrier, and TENNESSEE'S DEREK DOOLEY. Let me get this straight - in Dodd's mind there's the same chance Tennessee will dump Dooley and embark on their third coaching search in three years as there is Les Miles will get the broom after a third straight underachieving season in Baton Rouge?! That's insane. Derek Dooley can go 0-12 and he's not going anywhere this year. It would cost UT millions and devastate their program for years. Short of Dooley personally pulling a stickup robbery at a convenience store, he's as safe as Nick Saban. Spurrier's not going anywhere either unless he chooses to, which isn't what this is supposed to measure (hence Urban Meyer's a 0 and Joe Paterno a .5 even though there are some questions about each's future). The idea 91 coaches are safer than him and Richt in their jobs is ridiculous. Now you see why I'm not a big Dodd fan.

The news of Jarvis Williams death was a stunner to everyone yesterday. I never interviewed Williams, but over the years when people of his era talked about him it was always with total love and respect. He was a terrific college player and had a nice career with the Dolphins as well. It's shocking to think he's gone at 45 - just another reminder to all of us that there's no way to have a clue when your time might be up.

The NCAA is trying to reform the process by which recruits get themselves academically eligible to come in and play college ball. As a result, they have announced they'll stop taking credits from two correspondence schools effective August 1. It's a start, because both of these have been abused in the past (especially the BYU one) but it's not enough. There will always be more diploma mills and eligibility shortcuts popping up to take their place. If they really want to do something about this, here's my suggestion: no more than one "internet" class credit will be accepted for any recruit. If they're so far behind academically that they need more than one of those to qualify, they'd be better off going to prep school/junior college or repeating classes at their high school than trying to do college level work while adapting to college life. Being a year or two older when they start their college careers won't hurt them a bit, especially on the off chance they actually want to take advantage of the opportunity to get an education rather than just stay eligible.

The food cops at the Center for Science in the Public Interest have issued their "Xtreme Eating Awards". This is the annual exercise where they break the shocking news that bacon cheeseburgers are still not healthy. Thanks for the update, guys! Would have never been able to figure that out without your help. What annoys me about this is it assumes people are eating fat laden high calorie foods not because they wanted to but because they're somehow oblivious to what they're doing. Would we be healthier if everyone ate skinless chicken and salads without dressing while drinking only water and juices with no sugar added? Yes, we would. People know that yet will continue to eat things which are bad for them at times, and no amount of scolding is going to change that. Maybe if the CSIPI actually told us something we didn't know, they might succeed in helping solve America's weight problem. Their powers will be useless against the upcoming onslaught of pizza consumption though, thanks to the exciting news we will now be able to get an NBA logo baked right into the center of our pies. Who among us hasn't dreamed of eating pizza with a Charlotte Bobcats logo on it?

Apparently no one at NFL offices saw the DC storm this year

The NFL has made a horrible decision by putting the 2014 Super Bowl in New Jersey. That's where it will be played, not New York. The teams will land there and they will stay there. The media and the parties will be in New York. As someone who's covered Super Bowls in San Diego, Atlanta, Tampa and Jacksonville, I can tell you that's going to be a logistical nightmare. No one cares about the media's concerns though, and that's not why I'm so ticked off about this. The Super Bowl is supposed to be about determining who the best team in pro football is for that particular season. Cold weather teams can earn the benefit of having home field advantage in the conference playoffs if they win enough games, but the title game site is predetermined and has nothing to do with records. Why, therefore, should a team that builds itself for cold weather out of necessity - let's say a 9-7 Cleveland Browns team - have a distinct advantage against a warm weather team which might well have a better record? Thanks to likely evening temps in the teens or lower and a strong possibility of snowy conditions, they would if they reach this New Jersey game. If both participants are warm weather or dome teams, no one will have an advantage but both are likely to struggle mightily against the conditions. How's that any good for those of us who want to say a great game? Why should a fan of a team that might be making the Super Bowl for the first time in decades have to endure such conditions to see his team play their most important game ever? Sometimes the NFL does something stupid as a favor for an owner or a payoff for a stadium. Jacksonville getting Super Bowl 39 was like that - this makes that choice seem brilliant by comparison.

Hiring Steve Yzerman to be their GM is a huge move for the Tampa Bay Lightning. We'll see whether Stevie Y is as good a front office guy as he was a player, but he instantly gives the new ownership credibility that the last embarrassing mess never had a chance of securing. Yzerman would not leave his secure role with Detroit to come to a situation where he lacked confidence in the willingness of ownership to do things the right way. Having been with the most consistent hockey franchise of the past two decades, he's seen what it takes to succeed first hand. If he's convinced it'll be there at his disposal in Tampa, I am too.

I thought I had seen every ridiculous idea possible on how to cram fans into buildings and squeeze money out of them, but I should have never sold the folks who own Madison Square Garden short. They plan to build "sky bridges" five stories over the playing surface and charge fans big dollars to stand on them. Why anyone would want to pay to look down at people the size of ants who may go underneath them and be completely out of view, I have no idea. Think they'll have nets up to keep anyone from deciding to drop things onto the court or ice? Nothing about this plan seems like a good idea to me.

if you get into MMA as a career, you probably want to feel like a tough guy. Unfortunately for Jason Frank, his past is coming back to haunt him a little bit when it comes to that. The reason: Frank's previous gig was being the Green Mighty Morphin Power Ranger. Now he's trying to be an MMA fighter, but one of his opponents showed up dressed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. My personal favorite part of the story is that Frank says he "just got kind of tired with the whole Hollywood thing" as a way of explaining his career switch. I'm sure producers were knocking down his door with offers.

Normally the court can't even unanimously agree on lunch time

Supreme Court rulings don't often come into play in the sports world, but the unanimous decision in yesterday's American Needle case against the league was important. Had the NFL won, they would have been able to be vastly more aggressive in the coming labor battle with the players union. Make no mistake, the owners still have the upper hand, but losing this case will make them much more likely to be willing to negotiate rather than overplay that hand. There's simply no reason for us to miss a second of football because billionaires and millionaires can't get their acts together. Hopefully this will prevent that from happening for the first time since 1987.

If you're reading this after 7 AM, we now know what Michigan's self proposed penalties for their NCAA violations case are. The real hearing isn't until August, so this is the school's bid to avoid anything worse than these penalties at that hearing. Don't expect them to offer anything too meaningful, because the NCAA hasn't hammered a program in years. Between this and USC, maybe that's finally going to change. It's worth noting that Rich Rodriguez may face penalties specific to him for the practice time violations both in Ann Arbor and potentially at West Virginia as well. Maybe instead of Michigan paying a high price, it eventually turns out to be Rodriguez who does. That would void his contract out, something I'm sure the school could cope with.

For some reason its being treated as big news that Tiger Woods is not a sure thing to be a part of the Ryder Cup team this year. At this point, what can be taken as a given with Tiger? We have no idea where his game will be in a few months, what his physical situation is, or even whether he would want to play. Beyond that, the last US team won the Cup without him. Tiger hasn't exactly been great in the Ryder Cups he has played in either - not disastrous, but certainly not irreplaceable. If you're Corey Pavin, why would you make any public indication that having Woods as a part of your team is a priority right now? if Tiger's playing well, of course he'll be offered a spot. If 80 percent of his drives are still missing the fairway, why would it be a good fit for either party?

LOST wrapped up Sunday, and Jack Bauer put down the torture tools for good on 24 last night. We'll see what the ratings are for that, but it probably won't be better than what LOST did. I wasn't a LOST viewer - haven't watched any episodic TV on a regular basis in over a decade. Despite that, I knew the basic story of the show and the names of the key characters. The end of the show was an official BIG DEAL EVENT, which is why it blew me away to see it didn't even beat Mr. Belvedere's final episode in the ratings. That list speaks volumes about how much more fractured our entertainment interests are as a society. Only four of the forty most watched series finales happened in the past decade, while mediocrities like Growing Pains and Who's the Boss? are in the top thirty. With the options available to us all now, even the best the networks can crank out isn't good enough to hold a big portion of the country's interest anymore.

People like having the last word, but it appears Mark Twain is going for the all time record. Volume one of the author's autobiography will come out this fall, with two more to follow. Apparently he's not pulling any punches but wanted to wait a hundred years after his death so none of his contemporaries knew what he had to say. My question is this: who that's currently alive is a big enough figure that they could write a book people would be interested in 100 years after their death? It's easy to focus on political figures, but I'm not sure a Woodrow Wilson "tell all" autobiography would be a hot ticket right now. Right now, Oprah's a giant but by then she'd be long since forgotten. I'm seriously trying to think of someone - Dalai Lama? Bill Gates? Anyone have an idea?

Bulls and chickens

Florida wound up winning the SEC baseball championship Friday night. Both games between them and South Carolina were tight, well played affairs. While either side would have liked to have won this series, the reality is both will judge their season by whether they're in Omaha next month. You don't have to win it, but when you're a national seed (as Florida will be and South Carolina also likely is) that's the standard you have to meet. Based on my firsthand look at both teams, I think there's an excellent chance they're both there.

Has any team had as radical a shift in their fortunes in one playoffs as the Orlando Magic without there being some obvious explanation like injuries? Two sweeps to start things, including three dominant wins in round two, and now likely to be swept themselves by a Boston team seeded lower than them. It's nothing short of bizarre how poorly they've played. These whole playoffs have been a giant letdown thus far - almost no one's shown any fight at all with the exception of the Hawks winning the last two (as the higher seeded squad) against Milwaukee and the Suns last night. Hopefully Boston and L.A. will give us a classic because nothing else can redeem this postseason.

Can't say that I've ever understood what the supposed thrill of bullfighting is. It's not like it's a fair fight - the picadors have already done so much damage to the animal that the matador has a huge advantage. Every now and then though, the bulls still pick up a moral victory since there are no outright wins for them. Over the weekend we saw the best performance by a bull since Jordan. Be warned - the picture at that link may be tough for you to look at. I'm glad the matador will apparently live, but put one on the board for El Toro.

If you're a fan of Chick-fil-A, as I am, you enjoy their chicken sandwich. They're breaking a new one out next week, a spicy version, and they're giving people a chance to try it free. in case you haven't heard about that, I figured I'd pass it along to you should you wish to sign up and try one. I'll probably stick with the original sandwich, but I'll at least give this one a try.

The Biggest Loser (in sports)

It's not often that someone reveals themselves to be utterly without redeeming qualities as a human being. Floyd Landis did that yesterday. If I knew a huge part of the reason I had achieved success in my chosen profession was massive cheating, I'd feel lousy. If caught, I might make some lame excuse but then I would slink away in shame. Landis did give ridiculous explanations for his positive test for absurdly elevated testosterone levels. ("I drank a couple of beers" was my favorite initial excuse he gave, edging out "I'm really manly, so I produce a lot of testosterone") Instead of slinking away though, he attacked everyone involved in the testing process. The whole world was out to get Floyd Landis, as he claimed in his book. He raised money for years for his legal fees to clear his name. And after all of that, he then has the gall to try and cast himself now after four years as the whistle blower, a noble truth teller who didn't want to cheat but was dragged into it by the corrupt cycling culture. Naturally he's accusing Lance Armstrong of being dirty, and even though he lacks any supporting evidence he expects people to believe the guy who's lied to everyone's face for years. It wouldn't shock me if Armstrong did cheat, but no one's ever been able to pin anything on the guy. I wouldn't believe Floyd Landis if he told me this was my blog, so I'm certainly not going to take his word for it. If you still don't get how loathsome Landis is, read the opening of Dan Wetzel's Yahoo! column on him. I hope someone will pursue him on fraud charges for his fundraising activities.

Arkansas basketball assistant coaching moves don't normally prompt reaction here, but it's noteworthy that John Pelphrey has hired Brett Nelson as a Razorbacks assistant. Nelson is completing his tour of Billy Donovan assistants, having started his career with Anthony Grant at VCU before joining Donnie Jones at Marshall. He was expected to be a part of the UCF staff under Jones, but apparently being back in the SEC was enough to prompt a change of plans. To be an SEC assistant seven years after your playing career wrapped up is a pretty impressive accomplishment. When I covered Nelson at UF, he never seemed to have the kind of personality that would lead observers to think he had coaching in his future. For guys as sharp as those three to hire him, he's got to be pretty good. I thought maybe he got the Marshall gig because of the obvious home state ties, but if so he clearly did enough to make a big time impression.

With word surfacing of a previously unknown way for the BCS to strip a team of its championship if the school is found guilty of major rules violations, there's suddenly speculation about what might happen with USC's 2004 title. Some are arguing, as Clay Travis does here, that Auburn should be declared BCS Champs for that season since they would be the lone remaining undefeated team. That was a terrific Tiger team, and had they gotten a shot at the title maybe they could have won it. (Although USC had beaten them soundly in Auburn the year before.) To say that Oklahoma, who did get the shot and was thumped 55-19 by the potentially now ineligible Trojans, should be penalized for having played them is absurd. If USC is stripped of its title, that should be the end of the story. The idea of taking the crystal football out of the trash and handling it to Auburn as "champs" six years later would be demeaning to that team and unfair to the Sooners as well. There's not going to be an AP revote based on what they've told the LA Times, and who knows if all the voters are even alive? Some things can't be fixed - what happened to Auburn in 2004 is one of them.

If you've watched sports on television or listened to the radio, you've doubtless come across advertisements for LifeLock. The spots feature the company's CEO giving out his social security number and basically daring any prospective identity thieves to do something with it. Well, the Phoenix New Times reports his identity has in fact been successfully stolen thirteen different times. But hey, other than that the service works really well! Have a great weekend and I'll see you back here Monday. Keep an eye on the twitter feed @heathradio for anything that's amusing and/or interesting between now and then.

Rich Rodriguez - still sharp as a bowling ball

College baseball has never been something I particularly enjoy, but tonight will be different. Florida visits South Carolina for the start of a three game set that will determine who the SEC Champs are. I've covered regionals, and when there's something on the line it adds a lot to the atmosphere. Both teams are sure regional hosts and likely national seeds, but there's still something about being able to celebrate a championship that will make it special even though there are bigger fish to fry down the line. South Carolina coach Ray Tanner says he can't remember ever being in a scenario like this before where one showdown series decides it all - should be fun.

It's not exactly a secret that pro athletes have access to lots of women. Every now and then someone comes along and chooses to be a little more specific about just how that happens. The latest to do that is Kansas City wide receiver Dwayne Bowe, who decided to share details with ESPN the Magazine about how Chiefs veterans "had it set up so there was a girl in every room" when the team went to San Diego his rookie year. I'm sure all the married guys on the team will be thrilled to see Bowe the next time he strolls into the locker room. Even if they didn't do anything wrong, every guy with any kind of serious relationship now has to deal with suspicion. What could possibly go through someone's mind that would make him think sharing this was a good idea?

Big Ten coaches want to have official football recruiting visits in the month of June. That's an idea that they tried to push before and got shot down, and Rich Rodriguez, PI has why all figured out...

“Maybe it didn’t pass because if you compare visiting way down south in June (to) Ann Arbor in June, they might rather be in Ann Arbor, right?”

The Weather Channel forecast for Ann Arbor six of the next nine days is for a high between 80 and 84 - the lowest high forecast is 73. The forecast high for Miami each of the next nine days is 85 degrees. Yes, Rich, clearly southern schools are scared that kids will fall in love with the 2-3 degree cooler temperatures if they visit in summer. And if recruits don't come when it's 26 degrees and snowing in January, they'll never hear about it. Honestly, it's like this guy tries to sound stupid sometimes.

The New York Post reports Floyd Mayweather is a huge fan of A-1 steak sauce, to the point that his entourage carries a bottle of it at all times in case a restaurant doesn't have it. The claim is made that he puts it on everything, including cereal, which sounds fairly repulsive. The paper ignores the obvious problem, which is that Mayweather orders his steaks well done. Going to a high end Vegas steak house and ordering your meat charred to a crisp is like having Elton John play Chopsticks on the piano. The A-1 thing also reminds me of one of Kwame Brown's embarrassing rookie foibles. He went to a French restaurant with a veteran Wizards teammate and was outraged to learn they didn't have French dressing. After that, Brown carried around a bottle of the dressing with him the rest of the year - one can only imagine what would have happened had Kwame been hungry for French toast.

Tennessee hopes they have their quarterback of the future in Tyler Bray. Lane Kiffin stole Bray away from San Diego State, and the true freshman is expected to begin this year as backup for Matt Simms, but will likely have a chance to play this fall. Hopefully for the Vols, his decisions as a quarterback on the field will be better than his decisions in personal body art. If there's a more embarrassing tattoo in college football this season, I fervently hope I will not see it.