What a weird year this has been

It's hard to understand just how relations between Mike Leach and Texas Tech's brass got strained to the point that the school was obviously dying to find an excuse to fire him, but they did. As a result of an apparently mild concussion, Adam James was either trapped in an "electrical closet" or told to stay in the visiting coach's media room in Lubbock. There are now dueling videos purporting to show what really happened. Leach has now been fired, an incredible act of hypocrisy from a school that eagerly hired Bob Knight even after the whole country saw him choke Neil Reed on video. It's not in dispute that Leach did no physical harm to James regardless of whether his approach to the situation was correct or not. To claim that's grounds for firing him with cause and not paying him a dime more is absurd. If Leach winds up coaching Colorado in 2011, which seems like a pretty decent fit with his personality and experience in the conference, that would make me a very happy Buffs fan.

If, as seems to be the buzz, it turns out that John Chavis is Mark Richt's pick to be the new defensive coordinator at Georgia then color me unimpressed. Richt is known to have attempted to hire Bud Foster from VT and Vic Koenning (who he lost to Zook, of all people) from K State. That makes Chavis at best a third choice, and possibly worse. Those three men we do know about do not employ similar defensive schemes, which makes me think Richt is sort of grasping at straws right now. Chavis is not a factor in recruiting and showed no sign of being able to deal with Florida or spread offenses in general the past few years. If he's hired, I don't anticipate UGA making huge strides on that side of the ball. Should Chavis take the UGA job, LSU ends up looking for their fourth defensive coordinator in as many years. The impact of that constant shifting of scheme on their recruiting's effectiveness would be interesting to follow.

Everyone seems to be doing best/worst of the decade lists with today being the final day of the 00s, and most don't really register with me because they're just someone's opinion. This list of the best/worst teams against the spread for the decade in all major sports is kind of interesting though. I have to admit I was woefully unaware of Fordham basketball's pariah status prior to reading this story. Can't say I'm shocked that the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning have proved to be a poor bet, especially since they had the one exciting year when they won the Stanley Cup and little else to work with.

Can anyone explain exactly why the demolition of Texas Stadium is going to be sponsored by Kraft Macaroni and Cheese? Maybe there's an ad campaign I'm not creative enough to imagine that will make it all clear, but this seems truly bizarre. I like macaroni and cheese, but associating it with an old building being blown up doesn't seem likely to make me like it more. Is there anything that can't be sponsored these days? Funerals, maybe?