My CP7 for Heisman notepad just dropped in value again

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

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?

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

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?

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

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?

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.