Travis has become enamored of several objects, phrases or events which he frequenly references in the column. Among the most frequent:
'Bama Bangs - a term coined by Travis to refer to southern men's hairstyles that feature prominent bangs for no apparent reason. Brodie Croyle and John Parker Wilson are oft-cited violators of 'Bama Bangs rules.
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When Clay Travis, acclaimed author of Dixieland Delight, decided to spend the 2008 season up close and personal with UT football, he—and every other college football aficionado—thought he was in for a rollicking ride with one of the leading contenders for the national title. After all, when the Vols kicked off the season on September 1, the defending SEC East champions were ranked 18th in the country. As head coach Phillip Fulmer prepared for the game, he reflected upon a coaching career that included an astounding 147 victories, two SEC championships, and a national title. With 34 years at UT under his belt as both a player and coach, the Tennessee native had just signed a contract extension that projected to keep him at the university long enough to become the winningest coach in program history.
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There is no college ball more passionate and competitive than football in the Southeastern Conference, where seven of the twelve schools boast stadiums bigger than any in the NFL and 6.5 million fans hit the road every year to hoot and holler their teams to victory.
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The newly favored man is not really a man at all, but a hairless, effeminate, germ-fearing, non-meat-eating, exfoliating, wristband-wearing woman of the worst order. We as men are told that we must embrace the sacred feminine in ourselves, even if it doesn't actually exist, and become the very quintessence of woman, plus penises. This situation is untenable. This trend must stop.
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Clay Travis is the only former student manager in the history of college athletics to marry an NFL cheerleader. He managed to pull this off despite an irrational affinity for the television shows Dawson's Creek and My Super Sweet 16. While being raised in Nashville, Tenn., Travis developed a healthy obsession with college sports and Alyssa Milano. As a teenager his greatest accomplishment was taking a doo-rag wearing Luke Duke (balling as Tom Wopat) to the hole at the Nashville YMCA.
In the midst of a stellar legal career during which he specialized in rewarding the unjust and punishing the oppressed, Travis began writing for CBS Sports's SPiN section in September 2005...
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Frustrating, for sure. I wouldn't be surprised if ESPN pulled a fast one, but even if they weren't supposed to use the footage, it's still a violation. It's not the publication that breaks the rule, it's the act of having any contact with a recruit in front of a media member.
Also, I'd guarantee that ESPN sent a feeler to Al Davis just so they could have some more juicy stuff to talk about.
I love the Raiders' press release.
The Raiders press release is outstanding. Can you imagine being their PR person when Al Davis shows up with handwritten releases?
On the ESPN angle, what did that thirty seconds of footage really add to their story? Would we have doubted that Kiffin really cared about recruiting if they hadn't shown him saying hello to a recruit? That makes it look like low-level gotcha journalism.
One thing to keep in mind is that this thing might have been filmed several months ago. Lots of the footage was from the Orange and White game. I'd be interested to know the date on the footage with the recruit.
They give the date of the recruit footage... the weekend of the spring game.
I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been more backlash from the media over the way he's started his recruiting (so many minor violations). What do you UT guys think? I guess it won't matter too much until Kiffin starts winning. Can you imagine if Calipari was self-reporting minor violations?
Okay, so two months ago, basically. Maybe it wasn't intentional then, who knows?
The secondary violations count isn't that out of whack, what's amazing is that they're being reported at all. Georgia released four different ones a few weeks ago, Auburn knocked down a couple two weeks ago. It's all kind of weird that they get attention now.
I think part of it has to do with Kiffin's smarmy response to Spuurier wondering out loud whether Kiffin had taken and passed the recruiting test before he called recruits. For someone who allegedly only missed one question on the test, Kiffin sure has missed a lot in real life.
Clay.
It's time for you to do some investigative research. Kiffin is getting all this flack about having 5 or 6 secondary violations, and yet I read today that someone claims Ohio State reported almost 400 secondary violations in its football program since 2001.
Isn't there a list somewhere so we can actually see what's an average amount of violations? I'd love to see the list, and then do some analysis by conference, by win/loss record, by cheerleader clamslammability rating, etc. Are you up for it?