That better have been some amazing party, Carlos

Urban Meyer normally doesn't reveal suspensions in advance, but he had no other choice but to announce Carlos Dunlap wouldn't play in the SEC Championship as a result of yesterday morning's DUI arrest. Dunlap has damaged his NFL Draft stock a great deal - a DUI is bad, but the lack of focus to have it happen the week of a one versus two game for a shot at the national title will raise more questions for scouts than the offense itself. It's a huge mistake, although I'm not going to brand Dunlap as a "thug/criminal" like one Gainesville media member did on his Facebook page yesterday. Lots of kids I went to college with made poor choices with regards to drinking and driving, smoking pot, being drunk in public and so forth. It's unfair to athletes that when they make the same mistake it's treated like the end of the world. Putting Dunlap's DUI, Dorian Munroe's decision to put a parking boot in the trunk of his car, and Ronnie Wilson firing off an AK-47 in public in the same category seems pretty stupid to me.

For some reason it was big news to people that Steve Spurrier is getting a one year contract extension from South Carolina. He'll be under contract through 2013, which has absolutely nothing to do with how long he'll serve as coach of the Gamecocks. Remember, Charlie Weis had six years remaining on his contract. Phil Fulmer got a seven year deal last summer and was out the door by Halloween. I believe Spurrier intends to coach for at least two more seasons, and if things have progressed past the current seven win level he may want to stick around after that. If it hasn't, I doubt he sees the end of this or any other "extensions" they give him for recruiting purposes.

Keep an eye on the situation at LSU, where the AD has acknowledged that they're looking into possible NCAA rules violations by their WR coach. Les Miles has already lost his running backs coach, who was considered maybe their best recruiter, to the Memphis head coaching position. If there turns out to be something significant here, it's the kind of thing that could not only cost the WR coach his job but also have serious repercussions on the recruiting trail. Rumors can be just as bad as the actual penalties. Other schools would love to get a bigger foothold in Louisiana, especially Tennessee with Ed Orgeron.

The NFL is considering expanding their season to 18 games while dumping at least one preseason week. That's not a surprise. What would be news is if they begin playing every Thursday and Saturday night as part of their plan to do so. It's one thing to play a few Thursday games as a way to work around the World Series, but are fans who spend big money for tickets really going to want to have four nights a week potentially be when a game could come up? Lots of people are fans of the NFL and college football - playing on Saturday would be forcing them to make a choice that in some markets the NFL will lose. Going after Saturday viewing and ticket money isn't likely to go over well with the colleges, who can make scouting life really difficult for the pros if they want to. The NFL needs to rethink this idea - it sounds like when ABC went nuts and put Who Wants To Be A Millionaire on every night for hours. There can in fact be too much of a good thing.

Chip Caray is out as TBS play by play man for baseball. Chip seems like a nice enough guy, but sometimes you are simply not good at what you want to do. I know announcing baseball was the family business, but he's terrible at it. This year's playoffs were so outlandishly bad that this was bound to happen, but the fact he couldn't win over people in either Chicago or Atlanta should have told TBS something. Not sure who they'll go to next, but hopefully it's someone who's chosen based on being good at what they do as opposed to their relatives having been good at what they did. Caray didn't seem too bad back in his Orlando Magic TV days - maybe basketball's a better fit for his skill set.