In the meantime, yes, in case you were wondering, that's me licking another man's ear in Las Vegas. Happy New Year. By the time you read this I'll be on a pre-dawn flight to New Orleans. And if the happy New Year picture that's up above doesn't scare you too much, I'll be on Twitter tomorrow, from somewhere in the French Quarter, during the UT-Virginia Tech game.
Texas Tech fired head football coach Mike Leach today. For the past two days we've all discussed the Adam James situation and whether or not Leach mistreated James as he recovered from a concussion. Since the firing, talk has focused on whether or not Leach's alleged treatment of James justified that firing. But examining the contract in consultation with the last contract provides an interesting subtext: When Texas Tech signed Mike Leach to a new contract on Feb.19th, 2009, the school modified the Article IV language of an otherwise form contract to expressly include the following language: "[Leach] shall assure the fair and responsible treatment of student-athletes in relation to their health, welfare and discipline. Breach of such standards, whether willful or through negligence, may be subject to disciplinary action and penalties ranging from termination ..."
You can read the full 2009 contract here.
In other words, when Leach signed his new contract in February, he walked right into the contractual trap laid out by the university. Suddenly Leach, a trained lawyer, opened up a new avenue that permitted him to be fired if an issue arose that was exactly like the current Adam James situation. In addition to being fired for a breach under Article V of his contract, which deals primarily with NCAA violations and criminal acts, Leach opened himself up to specific termination relating to his treatment of athletes.
What's more and, this is key, to be fired under this prong of the contract only requires that Leach was negligent in his treatment of players, not that he was willfully wrong. Who makes the determination of whether or not Leach was willful or negligent in his treatment of student-athletes? Per the contract, "the President following consultation and review with the Director of Intercollegiate Athletics."
The proverbial ball was, it would seem, entirely in the Texas Tech administration's court.
Does this qualify as a blockbuster legal trap?
I think so.
Particularly if you consider that Texas Tech's president and athletic director may have had prior knowledge of Leach's questionable treatment of student athletes and wanted to protect themselves in the event future instances arose. Could this even be one of the reasons the two sides took so long to come to a contractual agreement?
Perhaps.
It seems particularly possible if you review how similar the two contracts are otherwise. Much of the language remains virtually identical with the exception of the addition of Section IV in the 2009 contract. The case seems even stronger when you add in the fact that Texas Tech is pointing specifically to this language in their notice of termination provided to Leach. In the letter, the University president says that Leach is fired "for breach of the provisions of Article IV of that contract."
So the university is citing language that didn't exist in his prior contract to fire Leach. Whether or not they intentionally set this legal trap for him remains a question, but there's no doubting that this language drastically strengthened the hand of the university. If you're a glutton for legal punishment, or a law student home for the holidays, you can review both versions of the contract here.
First is the older contract and here is the newer one.
Do you suddenly have more respect for why it takes a while for coaches to sign their contracts these days?
You should.
With tens of millions of dollars at stake, each side is jockeying for the utmost protection. While most of us are focusing on how much money the coaches are going to get, the real devil is in the details. Ask Billy Gillispie or Rich Rodriguez.
And at least in this case, it appears Texas Tech knew exactly what they were doing when they signed their coach to a contract extension ten months ago with brand new language.
Chances are, if you're anything like the rest of us, your investments haven't done much in the BCS era. At best, your investment returns have been middling. Never has a zero percent return looked so good.
But maybe that's not you, maybe you're an investing genius. Maybe you poured money into technology stocks during the NASDAQ's rise and sold out at the perfect time, or maybe you were the only real estate guru out there who cashed out before the sub-prime implosion brought down the housing market.
But odds are, like us, you didn't. And right now, as the decade comes to a close, you're staring at your 401k or your kid's college fund or your depleted stash of beer money and thinking to yourself, "How could I have been so stupid?"
Don't worry, I've got the cure for what ails you. Or, more likely, something that will make you feel even sicker. You could have thrown away all the investment books, turned off CNBC, eschewed buying stocks on margin never even walked into a bank to take out a mortgage loan or set up a home equity line.
And you could have still returned 32 times your initial investment over the past 11 years.
Sound too good to be true, like I'm pitching you a pyramid scheme built on a mountain of air?
All you needed to do was bet on the SEC to win the five title games the league has been featured in during the BCS era.
That's it.
Because there has been no surer bet in all of American society.
That's because the five SEC teams that have played for the BCS title have all won, a perfect 5-0 mark. As if that weren't enough, all five teams have won by at least a touchdown and all have covered the spread.
Think about that for a moment.
You wouldn't have even had to stress very much during these games.
Why?
Because the SEC teams have only ever trailed in these games twice: for less than four minutes when Ted Ginn took back the opening kick in the 2007 Florida-Ohio State game and in the first quarter of the 2008 LSU-Ohio State game.
That's it.
Both teams went on to beat Ohio State easily. Hell, Florida, as the underdog, was even giving you a full touchdown leading into that game. So if you'd taken the Gators to win straight up you would have more than doubled your money.
In fact, here's a stat that is going to boggle your mind. There have been 300 total minutes in the five title games featuring SEC teams.
The SEC team has been trailing for -- wait for it -- 19 total minutes in those games.
Never in the second half.
Right now, you're probably sitting there shaking your head. Your mind is blown. You're a lot like my dad who had the first Shoney's open up next door to his work.
"No one," he famously told my mom, "will ever pay a $1 for a hamburger."
Shoney's would mint many millionaires in a public stock offering five years later.
Dad repeated his investing sagacity a few years later when he ate at the original Cracker Barrel for a decade. "I'm not sure Yankees would like this place," he said.
My family could have been multi-millionaires.
Just by buying stock where we ate.
And you could be rich too, just by betting on the teams that you already knew would win.
Former Fidelity Magellan mutual fund guru Peter Lynch talks about stalking ten-baggers, stocks that would return 10 times your initial investment, in his amazing book, One Up on Wall Street.
Ten-baggers?
If you'd merely started with a thousand dollars and wagered it on the SEC team when they got to the first BCS title game in 1999, you'd have turned your $1,000 into $32,000 in a decade when the stock market has remained virtually even. Make five easy decisions and you'd have paid for four years of state school tuition for your son or daughter. To hell with 529s, the only three letters you need to be concerned with during the BCS era are S and E and C. (Not the Securities and Exchange Commission, they've been much worse at their job during the past decade or so).
Just to make you sick to your stomach, here's a 401k investing strategy that would have returned 32 times the investment when you've lost half of your money.
$2,000 --Tennessee over Florida State 23-16 (The Vols are two-point underdogs) $4,000 -- LSU over Oklahoma 21-14 (LSU, the underdog by four points, wins by 7) $8,000 -- Florida over Ohio State 41-14 (The Gators are touchdown underdogs and win 41-14) $16,000 -- LSU over Ohio State 38-24 (LSU is favored by four and wins 38-24) $32,000 -- Florida over Oklahoma 24-14 (The Gators are favored by five and win 24-14)
What makes the money that we all could have made even more impressive is considering the SEC's 5-0 mark in the context of the BCS title game. With five wins, the SEC is just one win behind every other conference in America, who have combined to win the other six title games.
And no other conference is remotely close to the SEC's overall mark. That's even though the Big 12 actually has more appearances than the SEC, six to the SEC's five. But the Big 12 has gone just 2-4 in the big game. The ACC, Big Ten and Big East (Miami counts for them) all have 1-2 records.
What's the second best record among the Big Six conferences in the title game?
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- With the wind swirling at up to 435 miles an hour -- potentially inflated due to my lack of meteorological training -- the Kentucky Wildcats and Clemson Tigers kicked off for the always exhilarating night game in late December. In Nashville. Between two Southern teams. The only thing less popular among these collective fan bases was the drive to legalize gay marriage via state constitutional referendum.
As I walked across the Cumberland River buffeted by the strong air current, suddenly two small children were swept from their parents' grasp and floated, like tiny mewling dirigibles, slowly across the dark ribbon of the river to the east bank of Nashville. There the children, jaws still agape from their ride on the wind, sat in the shadows of the stadium awaiting the arrival of their stunned parents.
OK, that didn't happen.
But if it had it would have been indicative of the game to come: the wind was the MVP of the Music City Bowl. Ultimately, Clemson withstood the wind better than Kentucky did, pulling away for an uninspiring 21-13 victory and send Kentucky's Rich Brooks into retirement. "I told my team, [there's] probably [an] 80 percent chance that I'm not coming back," Brooks said immediately after the loss.
Let's break down how the game played out:
1. The Cats set the tone early by kicking to C.J. Spiller.
Brooks won't be intimidated by the most electric playmaker in college football. Nope, not at all.
In fact, Brooks is a madman until he faces Tennessee on the other sideline. Then he turns into the most conservative man on earth.
2. Why doesn't the health of skill position players get more attention in bowl games?
C.J. SpillerI hate to make arguments in favor of the bowl system, but one of the only good aspects of the current system is that players who have been dinged up for months get the chance to recover from injuries and put up stellar final games of the season. And we all get to see them without the distraction of a million other games going on.
That's a small endorsement, but it's a true one.
The two most explosive players in this game, Kentucky's Randall Cobb and Clemson's C.J. Spiller, both took beatings during the course of a grueling regular season. Cobb definitely needed the break since the Wildcats give him the ball as often as his body can bear. And I'm sure C.J. Spiller did as well. In fact, I think everyone in the stadium is hoping that both of these men are going to have stellar games.
So is everyone watching at home.
3. Early on, Kentucky's freshman quarterback Morgan Newton, who throws passes like a young soldier throws grenades at basic training -- i.e. with the general goal of getting within 10 yards of the target -- tosses a perfect 17-yard touchdown pass.
Kentucky takes a 7-0 lead.
As if we needed further evidence of the importance of the Music City Bowl to the Kentucky program, the Wildcats have arrived fired up to play yet again.
4. Right now Clemson fans are thinking, "Why didn't the season end three weeks ago?"
They're thinking, back then we hadn't yet lost to South Carolina or gotten our hearts ripped out in a game no one in the nation noticed against Georgia Tech.
And now we've managed to fall all the way to a cold weather game against Kentucky? A team that puts up flippin' banners outside their stadium if they win the Music City Bowl?
What did we do to deserve this?
5. Also, Clemson fans could be wondering, "Why did we wear these purple tops?"
Even Prince thought they were a bit louche.*
*louche may or may not be a word.
6. Just when it looks like Clemson might be looking to rush back to the sideline and sit on the warm benches all night, C.J. Spiller, gee, he's fast, breaks out for a 42-yard gain on a screen pass.
In that moment, when he hits full speed racing down the sideline in front of Kentucky's bench, Spiller is breathtaking to watch.
Unfortunately, Spiller will not hit his full stride very often in this game.
A few plays later Clemson scores on a 32-yard touchdown pass to tie the score. The play features the Kentucky defensive back diving for no reason at the end of the play.
You see this so often.
Get beat.
Dive.
Do you get extra points in film study if you dive at the end of the play?
Why else dive?
It's such a little league move.
7. College football titles are becoming more and more like Dwight Shrute's title on The Office.
Rich Brooks Check out these at Kentucky:
Joker Phillips is head coach of the offense. But Randy Sanders is offensive coordinator.
Rich Brooks is head coach. But Joker Phillips is also, "coach-in-waiting.
With all of these minds, you'd think Kentucky might have an offensive game plan that didn't consist of, "Give the ball to Randall Cobb."
And if they stop Randall Cobb?
"Give the ball to Randall Cobb again."
And if they stop Randall Cobb again?
I think you get the picture.
8. It's 14-10 Clemson at the half and the Clemson majorettes make the most impressive play of the game by stripping down to their bikini-esque outfits and, shoeless, performing for the band.
I'm still in awe over this.
Not just because they're hot, young and nubile, but because they're willing to strip down for this game to be surrounded by a bunch of geeks in the band.
I wouldn't have been willing to do this.
And I have amazing upper thighs.
9. Five minutes into the third quarter, Lones Seiber makes a field goal to cut the score to 14-13.
At no point does the kick ever get more than 10 feet off the ground.
That's fairly impressive.
What's more impressive?
Lones Seiber is a IV!
How did I not know that before now?
And Seiber is a senior? A thousand curses to everyone who didn't make this a national story.
Namely, Verne Lundquist.
10. Chris Johnson, the man who has made C.J. Spiller a lot of money with his NFL success, is at the game tonight. He just tweeted the following to his 40,000 followers: "YO!! Yo."
Still think Twitter isn't going to revolutionize our universe?
It's been barely an hour since news broke that Urban Meyer was resigning for health reasons as head coach of the University of Florida. Immediately Meyer's resignation became the second biggest story of the college football bowl season -- second only to the Alabama-Texas BCS title game, and maybe not even second to that. Meyer's resignation sets off the kind of coaching dominoes that only the most shrewd of forecasters can even hope to predict where it will all end.
Immediately, my e-mail flooded with gloating fans of rival SEC programs who have perished under the harsh beat downs administered during Urban Meyer's 56-10 tenure at Florida.
"Christmas came late, but oh so perfectly!!!!" gushed one Bulldog fan.
A Tennessee fan wrote as follows, "Christmas has never been more joyous in my household."
If you ever doubted how much college football turns on the men at the top of the coaching pyramid, Meyer's resignation should erase all doubt. He single-handedly turned what was on pace to be the slowest sports news day of the year into a Twitter explosion. But now it's time to consider the ramifications of Meyer's departure. Here are 11 immediate questions worth pondering as the college football universe spins out of control.
1. What becomes of the power structure in the SEC east?
Suddenly, the world looks entirely different in what is typically the most competitive division in major college football. Georgia's Mark Richt, rebounding from the worst year of his tenure and bound for a bowl game in Shreveport, is on shaky footing and without a defensive coaching staff. Tennessee's Lane Kiffin, just completing his first season, is a wild card, Kentucky and Vandy are still Kentucky and Vandy. Meanwhile, Florida has not just lost their head man,they've also lost Charlie Strong and Dan Mullen in the past year or so.
So who's the big winner in the SEC east as 2010 looms?
Here's one vote for South Carolina and Steve Spurrier.
Because suddenly South Carolina might be the favorite in the SEC east.
Stunning, right?
That's how quickly things can change in the SEC.
But in the longer term?
Man, it's completely wide open.
2. Is the war for Florida's football fate wide open as well?
Suddenly Randy Shannon at Miami, Jimbo Fisher at Florida State and whomever replaces Meyer at Florida are in a dead heat to be the next Florida power.
How unbelievable is that?
Much has been written about Meyer's domination of the country, but equally as important was Meyer's complete domination of the state. Simply put, the collapse of the other Florida football powers during Meyer's tenure went a long way towards permitting the national domination that led to two Gator national titles in five years. Florida State under Bobby Bowden waddled toward the finish line of his tenure, the caretaker reign of Larry Coker at Miami imploded and Meyer lapped his foes by stealing the best prospects in the Sunshine State.
In fact, at no time since the early 1980s had both Florida State and Miami ever been this weak. It doesn't look like either program is going to stay weak.
It's important to look at Meyer's domination within that context. Namely, Meyer arrived at the most fertile possible time for Gator football to flourish. Now, Meyer also beat these teams on the recruiting trail, but his timing was perfect.
The rest of the country needs the Florida powers to replicate our nation's political system, i.e. the power needs to be balanced. Just as we can't allow the White House or Congress or the Supreme Court to run roughshod across our Constitution, we can't allow one Florida school to dominate the other two. The teams can be individually strong, but they need to counteract one another and keep any one team from emerging dominant.
Suddenly, in the wake of Meyer's blockbuster announcement that's much more likely to happen.
3. Where is the floor when it comes to Florida's coaching search?
We'll spend a decent amount of time on this in the coming weeks, but in these situations I think it's always instructive to establish a floor before you start reaching for the stars. So I'll give you two names that represent different perspectives on where the floor should be. That is, do you want an interregnum hire, a guy designed to last for five or six years, or a program hire, someone who could be there for a decade or more?
If you want interregnum:
a. Tommy Tuberville
Tuberville, Auburn's erstwhile coach, would leap at the chance to coach at Florida. He has South Florida connections, SEC bona fides and a reputation as a hell of a recruiter at a school without Florida's natural recruiting benefits.
And, oh by the way, he's handled Florida and Urban Meyer better on the field than anyone else in the SEC.
Or
Do you want a program hire:
b. Dan Mullen at Mississippi State
Mullen knows Meyer's system, he's proven with the Gator fan base and he would doubtless ascend with Meyer's blessing.
But do you trust him to handle the job?
And if he does get the job, will Mississippi State football fans ever catch a break?
4. Where is the ceiling on the search?
Two more names.
a. Bob Stoops
If he thought the Notre Dame heat was intense, he ain't seen nothing yet. For those who aren't aware, Stoops was Spurrier's dominant defensive coordinator before he departed for Oklahoma.
b. Steve Spurrier
Would he do it as a couple of year farewell tour?
Would athletic director Jeremy Foley have him?
Would Gator fans want him back after his losing record at South Carolina?
5. Why announce Meyer's resignation now?
The Sugar Bowl is less than a week away. Do you really gain anything by announcing this on the Saturday after Christmas?
Why not wait until after the Sugar Bowl and allow the announcement then?
As is, dropping it on a Saturday afternoon in the wake of our nation's biggest holiday makes it seem rushed, unplanned and as if the full story isn't being reported.
That's unnecessary and poorly planned.
6. How much does Florida wish that former defensive coordinator Charlie Strong was still on staff?
Did Strong have any idea this was coming? If he had, would it have changed his pursuit of the Louisville job? And if he didn't have any inclination this was coming, doesn't this tie in with the rapidity of the decision?
7. Fun coaching search possibility: Brian Kelly at Notre Dame.
Can you imagine what Fighting Irish fans would do if Florida swept in and hired their new coach before he even made it through a month?
I'm rooting for this to happen just so the absurdity of college football coaching contracts can once more play itself out.
8. What becomes of the Gator recruits?
Currently the Gators have the No. 3 recruiting class in the nation. Signing day is Feb. 3. By my count that means we are just five weeks away from the big finish.
Keep in mind that the Gators aren't just losing Meyer. They've also lost two other coordinators who were very involved with their 2010 commits, Charlie Strong and Dan Mullen.
No matter who they hire can they overcome the uncertainty factor?
Put cogently: Will the Gators be able to both a) hire a coach and b) keep a top 10 recruiting class in place in the next 35 days?
That seems highly unlikely.
Again, the timing couldn't be worse for the Gators.
9. Was Meyer ever enjoying this year?
I've been writing on this for the entire 2009 season, but Meyer's sideline persona, commentary and everything associated with the season suggested that 2009 was a colossal trudge, the time when coaching really stopped being fun for him.
In particular, his feud with Lane Kiffin seemed beneath him. Not because he was above the jabbering back and forth, but just because he seemed genuinely angry at Kiffin's antics. How much of this was health related? We may never know.
But Meyer's persona seemed much different, more prickly, in 2009 than it ever did before. Read the rest here.
For the past two days, I've been sick for the first time in ten years. I can thank my son for sending a stomach virus racing through the Travis household. Now I'm back, just in time for Christmas with an SEC bowl guide. Enjoy it here.
In the past three seasons, as the SEC has won three consecutive national titles, the conference has also proven dominant in bowl games -- SEC teams are a college best 19-7. The next most wins among big six conference opponents is 12, a number shared by the Pac-10, Big 12, and the Big East. The used-to-be big Ten (now not worthy of having the B capitalized) is 6-16. Putting that into context, that's four less wins than the ACC, which is 10-16 in bowl games the past three seasons.
What's more remarkable about that SEC record? In all three seasons the SEC teams have been playing up in terms of where they are slotted for bowl games because the BCS has selected two members of the conference each year. That means that the erstwhile second best team in the league has always been the third best, and on down the line. The Big Ten has dealt with the issue each of the last three years to disastrous consequences. As if that weren't enough, other big conferences slot their top non-BCS teams against SEC teams in lower-tier bowl games. I'm looking at you Chik-fil-A Bowl when you draw the SEC's fifth or sixth best representative to take on the ACC's top at-large pick.
After dominating for the past three seasons, college football fans should take a breath, this year 10 SEC teams are playing in bowl games.
So if you want to be safe in your bowl pick 'em leagues, you should have selected at least seven teams from the SEC to win.
It's probably too late for that, but in the event you don't pick until after Christmas, which some bowl pick-ems do, I'm picking them against the spread as the conclusion to my season-long contest with my family's former French exchange student, Audrey.
You'll recall that we've waged an epic struggle all season long. Currently here are our standings:
Clay: 30-27-3
Audrey: 26-30-4
Audrey has never been to a college football game and I'm currently dominating her by four games in the correct picks column. Plainly, I own France.
Call me de Gaulle.
I've decided to end our competition once and for all with a grand finale, picking all 10 SEC bowl games. So here we go.
But as if picking all 10 against the spread wasn't enough, I've also ranked the 10 games according to confidence points since all the bowl pick' ems require you to do this. (By the way, is this the most complicated challenge that most people compete in every year? How hard is it to keep track of the numbers 1-34 and assign values for bowl games? What's more, isn't picking against the spread for 34 games regardless of what value you place on the game, likely to be difficult enough that there aren't many ties? I mean, no pool that I've ever participated in requires confidence value for the NCAA tournament. Anyway, that's a pet peeve of mine because my wife always shows up a with a paper copy and asks me to fill in the confidence values for her after she's made the pick. And inevitably I get the numbers crossed up somehow.)
In other words, the first game here -- Florida and Cincinnati in the Sugar Bowl -- is the easiest game on the board for any SEC team. So wager your mortgage on that one.
1. Florida -11 vs. Cincinnati, Sugar Bowl
The Gators are going to beat Cincinnati so badly that in the post-game news conference Mardy Gilyard is going to say, "Now I understand why Coach Kelly left. If we played in the SEC, we'd have gone 4-4."
Because with that defense, they would have been 4-4 ... at best. Cincy's given up 45, 36, and 44 in three of the past four weeks to vastly inferior offensive talent than they'll see against the Gators. That means the Gators are going to score more than 40 against them.
And if there is one thing we've learned in the past three seasons it's this: SEC defenses, when given a month to prepare for an opponent, can shut down otherwise high-flying offenses. (See, 12, Big; See also, Ten, Big)
Cincinnati, you've been forewarned. Tim Tebow is going to make you worship him.
Okay, maybe not, that violates the Bible.
He's going to proselytize you.
Which sounds so much dirtier than it actually is.
Clay: Florida
Audrey: Cincinnati
2. Alabama -4 vs. Texas, BCS Title Game
There has been no surer bet in the BCS era than two things: A.) The SEC will win in the BCS title game if they're allowed to play and B.) The SEC will win by at least a touchdown.
Yep, not only is the SEC 5-0 in title games, but they've won all of these games by at least a touchdown. That's a stat that deserves more attention than it receives.
As if that weren't enough, let me toss out two names for you: Nick Saban and Mack Brown.
Who you rolling with if your life depends on one man developing a gameplan for a single game with a month to prepare?
Bama will make it 6-0 and will win by at least a touchdown.
Late Thursday night Lauren Conrad is going to turn to Lo Bosworth and say, "What is with all these bangs in Hollywood tonight?"
And Lo is going to say, "Didn't you read Dixieland Delight? It's totes Bama Bangs."
Clay: Alabama
Audrey: Alabama
3. Arkansas -8 vs. East Carolina Liberty Bowl
I'm going to be honest with you, I don't know much about East Carolina. Just that they will be playing in a virtual home stadium for Arkansas since Memphis is the default state capital of Arkansas and Mississippi.
Also, that Bobby Petrino has no compassion and would score 50 points -- while faking punts -- against a charity team fielded by cancer ward patients.
East Carolina is healthier.
Which, in general, is a good thing.
Not against Petrino.
FYI, Arkansas has covered the spread in seven of its last nine games -- and one of those games that they didn't cover was against Eastern Michigan and they scored 63.
East Carolina has neither the offensive firepower nor the stout defense to keep this game close.
Arkansas rolls.
After the win, Ryan Mallett is going to text Erin Andrews, "I told you'd we win." And Erin Andrews is going to text back, "Who is this?"
Clay: Arkansas
Audrey: East Carolina
4. LSU vs. Penn State -2.5 Capital One Bowl
I have zero doubt that right now LSU has three times as many future NFL players on its roster as Penn State does. So initially I had this game ranked as my 10th most comfortable game and was convinced Les Miles would lose by two and think he won by three.
But want a stat that will blow your mind? Les Miles is 4-0 in bowl games at LSU having outscored his opponents by a total of, wait for it, 157-44 in the process. And his victims have been name programs. He's beaten Miami, Notre Dame, Ohio State, and Georgia Tech those four seasons.
All of them by at least two touchdowns.
Yep, that's how screwed up the bowl system is, Les Miles turns into Bear Bryant as soon as the bowl season comes around.
But is this really that surprising when you think about it?
Wouldn't it stand to reason that if you have a month to prepare, the more talented team is likely to win? And that even if you're an idiot, which Miles clearly is, with bowls you get the time you need to put together a gameplan that leads to success.
So you're telling me that I get LSU, the better team, and the points?
Let's all climb aboard the Les Miles express, destination Orlando. Or as Les Miles calls it, "The place where Mickey lives with Pluto."
Clay: LSU
Audrey: Penn State
5. Ole Miss -3 vs. Oklahoma State, Cotton Bowl
Dexter McCluster will have an entire month off to rest up for Oklahoma State. Why is this important? Because when McCluster is rested, the Rebels are a different team.
Oklahoma State, thanks to their losses on offense to injuries and the NCAA, lacks explosiveness on offense. Unfortunately for them, the Rebels don't. And, oh by the way, Ole Miss is going to dominate the line with their defensive tackles.
The Rebels win big in this game. At least assuming that someone has stuffed Hotty Toddy man in the trunk of the car and hasn't allowed him to make the trip to the Cotton Bowl.
Clay: Ole Miss
Audrey: Ole Miss
6. Kentucky vs. Clemson -7, Music City Bowl
At Kentucky, they put up murals when they win Music City Bowls. At Clemson, they cry quietly in their grits over the fact that they're playing in the Music City Bowl.
Advantage: Kentucky
Given that the SEC has the best bowl record in America over the past three seasons, you rarely get to take an SEC team and pocket a full touchdown as a cushion against your loss. So I think you have to take Kentucky here. Especially with Clemson coming off two straight losses and Kentucky having turned the Music City bowl into a virtual home game.
Put this another way, would Kentucky be a touchdown underdog if this game was being played in Lexington?
No, right?
Well, effectively this game is being played in Lexington.
So all the value is with Kentucky.
That's even if you didn't know that Rich Brooks, SEC coach of the year, has won his last three bowl games.
I've been off for a couple of days, then sickness took over the Travis household. Wife and Fox are down for the count. So far I'm healthy.
Look for an epic 2500 word SEC bowl preview up on FanHouse in the next few hours. In the meantime, we've got ClayNation radio tonight from 7-9 on Nashville's 104.5. Listen live here.
Should be fun.
Feel free to call in as always.
Also, very good news forthcoming after the first of the year.
The BCS Championship game is so big in Alabama that it has shut down school for three days and now led to an accidental-death case being delayed so an attorney can attend the game.
In a move that is becoming as much of a trend as SEC teams playing for and winning the national title, an Alabama lawyer filed a motion seeking a trial date continuance based upon a conflict with the Alabama-Texas BCS title game. Jon B. Terry, a 57-year-old defense attorney for Energen Corporation filed the motion in Jefferson County, Alabama stating as grounds for the continuance, the well-established Roll Tide exception to general court business.
In a call to his office, Mr. Terry's secretary "not the Auburn one" said she was not at liberty to announce the judge's response to the motion. But a call to the judge's chambers, the honorable Dan C. King presiding -- an Auburn man no less -- , confirmed that the judge has granted the motion although an official order has not yet been released.
Judge King told the Birmingham News, "If I didn't, they'd say, 'He just didn't grant it because he's an Auburn fellow. I wouldn't do that to 'em."
Doubtless, Judge King found the legal reasoning provided in the motion for continuance to be far too compelling.
Stated Jon Terry esquire,
"1. This case was set for trial several months ago before certain monumental events occurred that were beyond the anticipation of the attorneys and the clients.
2. Since the setting of this case, one of the two great college football teams in this State has reached levels on a national scale that have not been enjoyed by any team in this State in 17 years next preceding the date hereof.
3. Currently, one of the two great teams in this State are playing for a national championship and has enjoyed an undefeated season and clinched the SEC Title Game.
4. Most of the attorneys representing all of the named Defendants have tickets and reservations to be in Pasadena on the 6th day of January, 2010, which date would conflict with the trial date as travel times and schedules for the game overlap the trial as currently set." The motion concludes with a stirring eloquence that set hearts aflutter throughout the great state of Alabama:
"9. ROLL TIDE!! (although my secretary is for the other great team of this State, she feels that I need to attend this championship game!); and may the Longhorns be defeated."
The plaintiffs in the case were not as taken with the motion for continuance. "This case is a very serious case involving the death of the plaintiff's mother. The case was filed in 2005, and is ready to be tried. ... Simply stated, some things are more important than football."
Let's be honest, Mark Ingram is the worst running back to win the Heisman trophy in 30 years. Ingram finished with the fewest rushing yards of any running back since Archie Griffin in 1975. And that's despite Ingram getting at least one and often two more games than other running backs who have won the award. In fact, as I've pointed out for a month now, Ingram was the second-best running back in the SEC West behind Anthony Dixon. And maybe third behind a healthy Dexter McCluster. Hell, before all is said and done Ingram might even end up the second-best running back on his own team. In fact, let's play which of these names does not belong with the three most recent running backs to win the Heisman from the SEC: Bo Jackson, Herschel Walker, Mark Ingram.
Yeah, I thought so.
Somewhere Darren McFadden is cursing the fact that he wasn't around for the 2009 football season. He would have won by one of the biggest margins in the history of the Heisman Trophy. I can just see him staring at Oakland Raiders teammate JaMarcus Russell thinking, "Ingram gets a Heisman and I got to play football with this idiot at quarterback?"
Having said that, Ingram gave a great Heisman acceptance speech, was genuinely humble, and this year's slate of candidates, since Boise State's Kellen Moore was inexplicably ignored, was far from stellar. So somebody had to win.
More than anything else, what this year's Heisman selection has proven is that the Heisman selection process is fundamentally broken beyond repair. It's time for a remake. And I've got the key for you in this week's Starting 11.
Presently there are 926 Heisman Trophy voters. Most of them are superfluous. In fact, here is a list of a few august media organizations that have voting rights: Huskers Illustrated, Hawgs Illustrated, FightinGators.net, VolQuest.com, DawgPost.com, RebelSports.com, and Buckeye Sports Bulletin. These are just the ones we know thanks to the Heisman voter list located here. I applaud those writers for being willing to go public with their voting rights, but how many more sites like these have votes?
Scroll through that group of voters and look at how many minor radio stations and local television stations have votes. Is this really who we want voting?
I don't think so.
Which brings me to the first prong of my revamp the Heisman campaign (I'll alternate with observations from this year's Heisman.)
1. Eliminate 3/4ths of the voters because they're lazy.
There are 870 media members (the remaining voters are past winners). Are you really telling me that a carefully calibrated list of 200 media plus the past winners wouldn't be a better list?
I have zero doubt that it would.
Especially since the Heisman has become a de facto referendum on which team is the best. Lazy voters scan the rankings, pick a team, select a player, and brand him the best.
Is it a coincidence that six of the past seven winners have been going to the BCS title game?
Of course not.
But is it lazy voting.
Yes, definitely.
Put it this way, if you replaced Mark Ingram with any of the 10 running backs that had more yards per game than him this season, those guys would have also won the Heisman.
Including Toby Gerhart.
When you're voting for the best player, doesn't that defeat the entire purpose? Especially in football when you give an offensive player credit for half of the game that he never takes part in?
In other words, why should a team's good defense benefit an offensive player?
Give me 200 really plugged in voters and jettison the rest.
2. No sitting on stools in suits.
At some point in time a television executive decided that what all awards shows needed was an element of casual relaxation to go along with the uncomfortable atmosphere.
And guys wearing full suits sitting on stools was the answer.
Message: "Hey, look, we're just like you, we're sitting on a bar stool! Don't mind the suit, Or the way our suit pants ride up and expose our socks. Or the fact that no one has ever sat down on a stool before while wearing a suit and not looked uncomfortable. We're just like you. High five!"
Can we rescind this decision now?
It's uncomfortable to watch, no one looks good, and those tight pants make my baubles hurt by proxy.
3. Do away with three votes on the Heisman ballot and make it a single vote for the winner.
Is this a sorority and fraternity matching service or the selection of the best player in college football? Why should voters pick three choices? Name me another voting system in America where you rank your three favorite choices. (Okay, so my esteemed editor immediately said they use the same system for Major League Baseball's MVP, which has first-through-10th balloting, and the Cy Young Award. Anyway, they're also idiots for voting that way.)
It's positively un-American. This is how France would select the best flutist, not how America should select the best football player.
Everyone agrees with this logic except for Sam Bradford, who otherwise wouldn't have won the Heisman trophy last year.
No one walks into the booth on election day and picks Obama, followed by McCain, followed by Ralph Nader.
When you vote for your local state senator or your mayor, you don't rank three different choices.
Nope, you make a choice.
If that works for just about every election, why do we have a different voting system for the Heisman? All this does is encourage gamesmanship with voting. That is, ff you really want your preferred candidate to win, you can play the system and not just vote for your candidate in the first place, but leave the other candidate off the ballot entirely so he receives no second or third place votes.
Why make this gamesmanship a part of the system at all?
You could still have the same number of finalists, the only difference is your finalists would be based entirely on first place votes as opposed to who got the most overall votes.
It's more honest, more direct, and simpler.
It should happen.
Now.
4. Why did Mark Ingram's father being in prison get four billion times more coverage than every other parent that wasn't in prison?
I just don't get it.
Why is this story angle so compelling? So compelling, in fact, that Ingram's dad has gotten more attention than every other parent, including Ingram's own mother, who isn't in prison.
To confirm this fact, I did a highly scientific search. I went to Google and typed in "mark ingram's father" as my search query.
I got 4,180 results.
Then I typed in "mark ingram's mother," and I can't even make this up, Google asked me if I meant to type in, "mark ingram's father."
There were just 71 results for Ingram's mother.
So Ingram's father got roughly 59 times as much coverage as his mother.
Can you imagine what would have happened if Ingram's mother were also in prison? ESPN would have set a record for slow camera shots accompanied by maudlin music.
Seriously, though, can national news editors do a simple Google search like this in the future to find out if a story angle is overplayed?
5. Focus on national writers when it comes to doling out the Heisman ballots.
College football is a national sport now. There was a time when regional voters were necessary because people in other parts of the nation may not have been familiar with the best players in the country or had the opportunity to watch them play on television.
That's no longer the case.
People all over the country are exposed to the best players now.
So why do we need a regional voting system?
Because the way the Heisman is structured favors the parochial over the national. That needs to be revamped now.
6. Ingram owes his win to the timing of the SEC Championship game because it allowed him to make a closing argument.
In fact, I'll toss out this thesis: If Gerhart and Stanford played Notre Dame the last week of the season, on the same day as the SEC Championship game, Gerhart wins the Heisman instead of Ingram.
Isn't this an indictment of Heisman voters? That when games are played can have such a huge outcome on the result?
It's a year-long award, yet the final game of the season counts for about 50 percent of the overall vote tally. And some players don't even get a chance to play the final week of the season. Hell, Big Ten players almost don't get a chance to play the final month of the season.
Anyway, keep this in mind, the Heisman now favors the SEC, Big 12, and, to a lesser extent since no one watches, the ACC teams because they play on the final week of the season in championship games.
Granted some Pac-10 and Big East teams play regular season finales, but often those games usually don't matter in the grand scheme of things.
More viewers in the final week = more likely Heisman.
7. Publicize all ballots and make a searchable database of writers' selections over the years.
This would open up all votes to public ridicule, public commendation, and public analysis.
It would keep voters on their toes, and alert us all to biases. More importantly, it would make voters consider their own biases.
The Heisman should include this on their Web site along with a complete list of all voters.
You should be able to click on any voter's name and see who he has picked for as long as he's had voting rights. If you aren't willing to publicize your ballot, that's fine, but you shouldn't get a ballot either. .
New York Times' George Vecsey Is "Old Appalachian Hand," Awful Columnist
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
It's rare that I read a column that is so bad I feel compelled to point out how bad it is. In fact, I don't think I've ever done this before because generally I have a pretty lenient standard on these things. But George Vecsey of the New York Times, who I'd never heard of before this work, managed to string together a column that is an epic in absurdity: John Kennedy Toole meets college recruiting. Read it here.
But first, let's review how the New York Times has turned a secondary violation, at best, into the story equivalent of Lane Kiffin dumping three million dollars out of a helicopter, spreading out the cash on the field, bringing over hostesses, and filming an orgy for recruits.
Trust me, I know how to get attention for stories. But generally those stories are rooted in opinion, that is, they're supposed to take a side one way or the other.
This story is different, it's ostensibly hard news. Only, as you've seen from my prior writing, there has been a clear agenda from the get-go. Yep, the New York Times has played a game with the Tennessee recruiting scandal. They've done everything they could to turn a couple of plain old rocks into shiny gold bullion. Welcome to the new alchemy of sports reporting, if you don't have the goods, fake it and hope no one calls you on it.
Why? Because they're trying to brand themselves as a muckraking investigative team policing the world of college sports. Only they've failed.
Miserably.
And I'll confess that disappoints me. Because I'm a New York Times subscriber and have been for years. I rely on them to bring me solid news from some of the most intelligent minds on earth.
I even, and this is a bit embarrassing, have a New York Times t-shirt that I bought at their online store.
Seriously, a t-shirt.
I also have a Washington Post t-shirt from my college days in D.C., and I might have to break that one out more regularly from now on.
So my point is, usually the Times delivers, and I appreciate that delivery because it helps keep me informed in a world where complexity and nuance isn't often examined.
But not this time.
Here's their formula for the Tennessee story for the unaware.
1. Break the huge story that girls went to a high school football game. Include in that article many factual inaccuracies, rush it to print, and don't bother contacting anyone at Tennessee beforehand.
In fact, rush this story to such an extent that it never appears in the paper delivered to the market that would most likely read it, the Southeastern edition.
2. Hit the interview circuit where a fawning news media does nothing to call you on any of the errors in your reporting.
Wax eloquent about things you don't actually know about, including the prevalence of secondary violations under Lane Kiffin--they aren't really out of the ordinary--and accept the praise of a news media that desperately needs a new story to trumpet every day lest their viewers fritter away.
3. Follow-up your story with a reaction story the next day.
4. On Friday, spring a new story that features quotes from an AAU basketball promoter, the slimiest people in all of sports and there isn't a close second, about how hostesses were trained to rub their breasts on recruit's arms.
The story provides nothing but salacious content.
Aside from the sheer ludicrousness of this story--how long could the breasts touching the arms training possibly take and what were the other steps?-- the AAU guy took five recruiting visits in the past four years.
Five!
If you're really that offended by your treatment wouldn't you stop going? Wouldn't most people? 5. Write an opinion piece about the story that you broke in your newspaper.
This latest move by the New York Times is the weakest. In fact, it makes every other story pale in comparison. Let's dive in to this Vecsey column, shall we?
a. Vecsey gives us the definition of a hostess.
Thanks, I guess.
He also puts the word "hostesses" in quotation marks.
Why?
Does he dispute that they are actually hostesses? If so, why does he he then give us the definition of hostess?
And why is the New York Times allowing him to obliquely hint at prostitution when there is no evidence whatsoever of that fact? Quoth Vecsey: "I thought there was a law against this kind of thing, across state borders or something."
Calumny meets columny.
He also drops this beautiful line, "I'm not suggesting anything untoward happened on the little trip from Knoxville, Tenn., to Duncan, S.C."
Thanks for that. I'll echo your faint praise with my own, "I'm not suggesting that George Vecsey couldn't write his way out of a paper sack if it was open on both ends and other writers wrote the beginning, middle and end of his little column, I think he's quite capable."
b. Vecsey writes: "The N.C.A.A. seems to find this a trifle irregular. Whether Coach Lane Kiffin actually handed the hostesses a road map and chits for gasoline fill-ups is not the point. It happened on his watch, the way Watergate happened on the watch of Richard M. Nixon."
First of all, where does his authority that "The NCAA seems to find this a trifle irregular," come from? There is no evidence that the NCAA finds it a trifle anything. Because they haven't issued any commentary on any findings.
And unlike the New York times, the NCAA has not made a ton of factual errors in their reporting about this issue. So pardon me if I'm not willing to take a leap of faith and follow Vecsey's logic.
Second, did he really equate two girls holding up a sign that says, "Miller and Willis have our hearts," with Richard Nixon subverting the American electoral process?
Yes...he did.
And he "writes" for the newspaper of record in America.
c. Next Vecsey memorably shares: "By the way, I am no Tennessee-basher. I'm an old Appalachian hand. Been to Kingsport and Monteagle and Oak Ridge."
So, wait, you're "an old Appalachian hand"--whatever that means-- if you've been to three cities in Tennessee?
That's three real cities!
In the same state he's writing about!
I can't wait until the World Cup. Because then I can write this sentence when I jot off a column that makes no sense about European soccer.
"By the way, I am no Europe-basher. I'm an old European hand. Been to Rome and Prague and Paris."
Do you see how ridiculous that sounds?
To say nothing of the lame attempt at writing in a folksy manner. Which is, you guessed it, patronizing and insulting to intelligent Southerners.
If our good ole boy Vecsey was writing about going to Memphis to hear the blues would he write, "Lordy, I'se excited to see them mens strum dem fingers."
Probably not, right?
So why insult Southerners of all races by employing a bad vernacular in his column?
d. Vecsey continues his bad Southern writing: "Makes me want to get in a car and take a drive. The Web tells me that Interstate 40 is cut off by a rock slide west of Asheville, N.C. (I am not making this up), so if I had time and the weather were benign, I would take Route 441 out of Knoxville through Sevierville and Pigeon Forge, put on a Dolly Parton tape in homage, and think about taking a hike in the Smokies, haven’t done that in years, and then meander around Asheville on local roads, bowing toward Thomas Wolfe's gravesite (damn, I am getting nostalgic just writing about this) before picking up Interstate 26 toward Spartanburg, S.C., and adjacent Duncan. Two hundred and three miles. That's what it adds up to on my AAA map. Each way. Actually don't know how the hostesses got to the high school football game. Maybe they were flown on a private jet donated by some fat-cat Tennessee Vols booster."
I think this is a direct response to my assertion that arguing "nearly 200 miles" in the Times' initial article was an attempt to skew the facts. And, credit to Vecsey, he's correct that there is presently a rock slide blocking part of I-40.
But that rock slide happened at the end of October. So when the girls went to the game, at the end of September, they took a major interstate. Ashame, really. Because doesn't Vecsey write so purty about the roads he would take?
Meaning, you guessed it, the trip to the high school game is still shorter than the Times asserts...on their fifth try to get it right.
e. Insert random rumination about Hofstra football. (I am not making this up.) f. Finally the stirring conclusion: "Could the N.C.A.A. mandate an autumn without the sound of "Rocky Top" echoing off the hills? Could happen. Maybe should happen. And if it does, I recommend a hike in the Smokies on Saturday afternoon. No hostesses up there, however."
Aside from making no argument in his entire column, Vecsey comes to the logical conclusion that the NCAA should do...what exactly?
He isn't even clear on that.
He suggests that either the NCAA should give a team the death penalty--which hasn't happened in the NCAA since the early 1980's and happened then because SMU was rife with corruption--because two girls went to a game and held up a sign for guys that weren't even on UT's team.
This suggestion is so laughable it makes flat-Earthists seem rational.
Or.
He's suggesting that the NCAA penalize Tennessee by forbidding the playing of Rocky Top. Which, to be fair, is even funnier, albeit unintentionally.
That's your newspaper of record in America, gents.
As the decadent city of Rome burned in 64 A.D., Nero fiddled. As the world of sports descended into decadence throughout the first decade of the 21st century, Pacman Jones made it rain. No single incident more summarizes the decade that was, than Jones' rainstorm in the final hours of the NBA's 2007 All-Star Weekend in Las Vegas.
Pacman, then a defensive back for the Tennessee Titans, began to make it rain -- throwing money in the air as if it were raining -- in a strip club called Minxx. Jones, who reportedly arrived with $100,000 in cash -- gambling winnings, carried in black trash bags -- stood on the stage and made it rain while the strippers cavorted around him. Shortly after the rainstorm began, a fight broke out as the strippers scrambled to grab the money on the gilded stage. From there a bouncer was shot outside the club, and chaos reigned.
The "making-it-rain" story grabbed headlines for months, was the pivotal event surrounding the NFL's new personal conduct policy, and represented, in a matter of minutes, the perfect illustration of our own decade of sports decadence. For the unaware, decadence is defined thusly: "A process, condition, or period of deterioration or decline, as in morals or art; decay." And while Pacman's making it rain might have crystallized the decadent decade of sports, he had many compatriots. Dive in for the 10 most decadent events that summed up the decade that was in sports.
Before we begin, let's keep in mind that sports merely served as a reflection of our larger society's decline. Indeed, sports' own decade of decadence was set in motion by larger market forces that embraced excess. On March 10, 2000, the NASDAQ stock market hit 5132.52. New millionaires were being crowned each day thanks to the love affair with a newfangled contraption called the information superhighway. As sports fans across the country geared up for the release of the NCAA Tournament brackets in a few short days, it appeared likely that we were all going to be fabulously wealthy. Only it was not to be. March 10, 2000 was the peak of the internet bubble.
Just short of 10 years later, the NASDAQ currently trades at 2,200. Perhaps no two numbers better symbolize the decade of decadence in our country at large than the unrealized potential that fueled the stock market's charge, and the past decade that we've spent toiling in the shadows of that giant number. The stirring collapse in financial markets at the decade's dawn also provided an excellent prelude to our own decade in sports. As fans we watched players chase soaring contracts, leagues shut down for financial disputes that would lead to advanced revenue sharing and complex salary cap structures, quarterbacks fight dogs, Tiger Woods become the first billionaire athlete in sports, the continued explosion of sports coverage in a variety of media worlds, and the ongoing slugfest between athletes and the law. When all was said and done, as 2009 comes to a close, we fans had witnessed the most decadent decade in the history of sports.
10. Pacman Jones makes it rain.
As we discussed in the introduction, no other single act better personifies the decade that was.
Consider the requisite points of excess that coalesced in this single incident.
a. More than twice the salary of the average American family of four
b. is tossed into the air
c. for strippers
d. whereupon a fight emerges
e. that leads to a bouncer being shot and paralyzed.
9. College coaches get filthy rich.
In 1996. Steve Spurrier became the first college coach to make a million dollars a year. By the end of the current decade, Mack Brown was making $5 million a year to coach football at Texas. If the currently escalating coaching contracts continue at this rate, by 2025 the top coach will be making $25 million a year.
That's 15 years away.
And we won't even blink an eye at $25 million a year.
Or $50 million.
Because $5 million is already chicken feed.
8. Latrell Sprewell of the Minnesota Timberwolves turns down a multi-million dollar contract extension because, "I got my family to feed."
Sprewell, then 34, described a three-year, $21-million deal as insulting.
''Why would I want to help them win a title?," Sprewell went on to say. "They're not doing anything for me. I'm at risk. I have a lot of risk here. I got my family to feed.'' At the time, Sprewell made $14.6 million per year playing basketball.
After rejecting the team's offer, Sprewell played his final NBA game in 2005. No other team offered him anywhere close to the amount of money he rejected from the Timberwolves. Since his final game Sprewell's 70-foot yacht, Milwaukee's Best, has been foreclosed upon and so has one of his homes in the city.
Sprewell, along with Antoine Walker and Mike Tyson, take your pick, represent the perfect poster-children for athlete excess.
7. Kobe Bryant is charged with rape.
Setting the template for the athletes' struggle with both courts and fidelity, Kobe Bryant is charged with sexual assault in Colorado in 2003. The companies whose products Bryant endorses abandon him. Amazingly, he continues to play basketball throughout the proceedings and ultimately the case crumbles as Bryant pays an undisclosed amount of money and apologizes to the victim.
Bryant's reputation among fans does not suffer, indeed, in a sign that forces us to ask whether sports fans are the most culpable of all for our decade of decadence, Kobe's jersey sales skyrocket in the immediate wake of the arrest.
Six years later, Bryant's being charged with rape is almost completely forgotten. His endorsements have returned, and his wife, Vanessa, has a bigger diamond ring.
And athletes everywhere have their template for how to behave when caught in the wrong.
6. Mike Vick fights dogs.
If I'd told you in 2000, that by 2008, one of the five most famous quarterbacks in the NFL would be in jail for dogfighting, would you have ever believed me?
Of course, you wouldn't have.
That's because dogfighting existed in a dark netherworld, a place most Americans didn't really believe existed. It wasn't so much shocking that Mike Vick, hundred millionaire quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, fought dogs, it was shocking that anyone fought dogs.
And in the wake of Vick's conviction, fans were left wondering, what other sordid and decadent practices are embraced by the athletes we make millionaires?
5. Jerry Jones' $1.15 billion Dallas Cowboys stadium, the Roman Colisseum of America, opens.
The stadium features an 11,520-square foot video screen. Shortly after opening the field makes news for two major reasons. a. the gigantic scoreboard screen is sometimes in play for punts and b. a couple takes advantage of the voluminous bathroom stalls to have sex inside one during the game. The man, predictably, is wearing a Michael Irvin jersey.
Watching a Monday night game from Cowboys' Stadium, as Tony Romo prepared to surge onto the field, we couldn't help but think this: The NFL is the closest experience to the Roman gladiators that we will ever know.
And the coda to that thought is this, like the Roman gladiatorial era, one day this will all end as well.
4. Steve McNair is murdered by a jealous girlfriend.
The murder by Saleh Kazemi causes athletes everywhere to enter into deep contemplation of their sexual infidelities for approximately three minutes.
Then life returns to normal.
McNair's dalliances with multiple women who aren't his wife reinforces the baronial lifestyle that awaits successful athletes in today's society. And while McNair's antics may be no more decadent than those of athletes before him, today's media culture brings those transgressions into the public eye in a way they never been before.
Athletes be warned.
3. Indiana Pacer Ron Artest runs into the Detroit Pistons' crowd after having a beer tossed on him.
After the ensuing melee -- forever dubbed Malice at the Palace -- Artest is suspended for the season.
At the time, American sports fans engaged in a short period of intense hand wringing about what Artest's actions meant for sports and fandom. Our national mourning lasted long enough to watch Artest attempt to hawk his newest CD on the Today Show, and then, predictably, Artest faded from the national discourse and we went back to our games.
Five years later, with the benefit of distance, Artest's sprint into the crowd looks a bit different. Rather than a dangerous assault upon fans, it emerges as an early preview of the rising influence of fans upon the games we watch. The angry fan as lonely heckler with an audience of a few rows has given way to the angry fan typing away for an audience as large as the market sees fit. Angry fans are all tossing metaphorical beers for the world at large to review now, and the discourse of the game has changed.
If you're a person of prominence in America today, and you Google your name, someone hates you with every fiber of their being.
The public era of Haterade is upon us. And Artest getting drenched by a beer was the first liquid salvo in our new world order.
It's clear the state of Alabama doesn't value education as highly as it does winning football games. That's the biggest conclusion you can draw from the decision of Alabama's flagship state university to, wait for it, shut down classes from Jan. 6-8 for the BCS Title Game. If you've ever wondered why the state of Alabama ranks 44th in percentage of college graduates at 20.6 percent, it's decisions like this one.
The news of canceled classes arrived via an email sent to students. In making the decision, the university cited the number of students who must be in Pasadena for the game and the number of faculty and students who will be attending the title game, played on a Thursday night.
What Alabama did not cite is the fact that far less students must be at the game than must be at a fraternity or sorority's formal each year. Is Alabama also prepared to alter the academic calendar for the Kappa Sigs? At most 150 students must be at the national championship game, that's players, managers, and assorted student-trainers affiliated with the team (a robust .00517 percent of the 29,000 that comprise student body). And believe me that number is generous. The rest of the students and faculty who are going to the game are choosing to skip class. That's fine. If I was an Alabama student and had the money, I'd go to Pasadena for the game too. But that doesn't mean that the university should alter their academic calendar to make that easier for me or anyone else.
Why not?
Because it sends the wrong message to kids who aspire to go to college at Alabama's flagship university one day. it's all well and good to know how to do the speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s, but you know what's even better than being able to apply that number for a tough physics equation?
Being able to run a 4.4 40.
You know what distinguishes those talents? One is given at birth, the other is earned.
Which one is more prized in Alabama?
One of the most important things you learn in college is how to handle the consequences of your decisions. You don't get to have your cake and eat it, too. If you decide to go halfway across the country for a football game while class is in session, then you have to be prepared for the consequences of making that decision. That might involve missing out on class and making a lower grade than you otherwise would. It might mean that you get stuck in a crappy class for a semester because you didn't get to audit it and switch to a better one.
So be it.
Alabama footballYou'd be able to balance out an awful class with a great time in California. And in the process your state wouldn't be sending a message that it sends all too often, education isn't that important compared to sports. As it is, your state's flagship university has taken the unprecedented step of canceling classes for three days for a football game. If someone can point me to another school in the BCS era that has made this decision, I'll be happy to rip them too.
But they haven't.
And it's not just a message that Alabama is sending to their own state, it also resonates across teh country and impacts how the South is perceived. We already have an image problem, decisions like this just offer further validation to the idea that we aren't very smart as a region. Ultimately, Alabama's decision just devalues all SEC degrees, one of which I happen to hold.
Need more on the message that you're sending and it's trickle down impact on the value of education to younger students? Tuscaloosa city and private schools are considering shutting down for the games as well. How many parents in Birmingham are going to have fights with their sons and daughters over going to elementary school on the day of the game? To their credit, Alabama's faculty has joined in on the criticism. Pointing out, quite rightly, that 95 percent of the students and faculty at Alabama won't be going to the game. Indeed, the university decision is primarily a gift to the richest students at the school.
You know, those students whose parents can afford to send them across the country via air or car, find them a place to stay for multiple days, pay for food and lots of drinks, get tickets that will cost a ton on the open market -- StubHub's cheapest current seat is going for $900, none of this travel is cheap. In fact, it's so expensive that virtually no college kid can pay for all of this out of his or her own pocket.
Nope, mommy and daddy are footing the bill.
Add it all up and some Alabama students will be spending more on their trip to Pasadena than they spend on tuition for the spring semester.
Don't believe me?
Tuition at Alabama for the spring semester is $3,500.
And finally, let's not let the president of the university, Dr. Robert E. Witt, off on this decision. Because, you know, it's university presidents who oppose the idea of a college football playoff because it would impact academics too much. And it's Dr. Witt who made the ultimate and unprecedented call to cancel classes for three days at the university. Thank God that won't impact academics at all.
Right.
Meanwhile, isn't it amazing that the BCS ends up impacting college academics anyway?
Or as they would say in Alabama: Ain't that a purty irony?
This morning the New York Times reported that the NCAA is investigating Tennessee's recruiting practices. The investigation centers on the Vol hostesses, undergraduate women who host recruits when they visit campus on official visits. Tennessee's hostesses, who are, not surprisingly, attractive coeds, wear an easily identifiable sleeveless white-button down top with orange skirts. Now an NCAA investigation focuses on purported off-campus trips these women may have made to high school football recruits' games and their relationships with those recruits.
At least one hostess is alleged to have driven 200 miles to James F. Byrnes High School in South Carolina and held up a sign encouraging players to join the Vols. Two of Byrnes' standout defensive players, Brandon Willis and Corey Miller, have committed to Tennessee. Both men made their commitment public on September 12 in the wake of a visit to Tennessee's campus for the UCLA football game.
Is the NCAA's investigation significant or just capturing public attention due to the intersection of a high profile program with attractive women and top recruits? Much of that will depend on if the NCAA can prove two things: 1. that the Tennessee hostesses traveled to the high school game (or games) under the direction of the coaching staff and 2. that the hostesses are considered representatives of the university and that such contact would be improper.
Let's dive in and ask some other interesting questions and observations about this investigation.
1. Every major college football program has a hostess program.
They are always attractive, friendly, and "welcoming." In his book, Meat Market, about Ole Miss's recruiting machine under Ed Orgeron, Bruce Feldman describes the Ole Miss contingent as jaw-droppingly beautiful.
Believe it or not, 17- and-18-year-old old football players like to be around attractive girls when they visit campuses.
I know, shocking.
That's why every school has a similar program.
2. The New York Times describes UT's hostesses as "folk heroes on message boards."
In their opening paragraph no less.
Writing:
"A significant part of the investigation is focused on the use of recruiting hostesses who have become folk heroes on Tennessee Internet message boards for their ability to help lure top recruits."
Given that I wrote a book about Tennessee athletics and the fan experience, I feel confident in noting what topics occur on UT message boards. And hostess-related threads -- a thread is a topic on a board -- comprise far less than one in every 10,000 posts on these sites.
If this amount of posting makes the UT hostesses, "folk heroes," then I'm Davy Crockett and General Andrew Jackson incarnate.
Let's just call that opening paragraph what it is, a colossal exaggeration that helps make a story sexier.
3. What do I mean by a written record that might illustrate a directive to attend this game?
If a coach or representative of the university, for instance, e-mailed or texted a hostess and specifically instructed them to go on a trip, that would be a written record. Or if, perhaps, the university picked up the tab for gas or lodging for a trip of this nature. Both of these would offer an element that the NCAA desperately needs, tangible proof that the Tennessee staff was involved in orchestrating these trips.
Absent that, it's virtually impossible to prove a major violation. And even it that occurred, it's probably still not a major violation, as I'll discuss below.
4. The article does not say whether or not the hostesses attended the Byrnes high school game before or after the players went public with their commitment, but given that the hostesses probably didn't meet the players until they visited campus, it would appear likely that the September visit happened after the commitment.
Why is this significant?
Because if the players have already publicly committed to the university before the trip occurred, it's hard to argue that the players at Byrnes high school were making their decision based on any hostess trip or any hostess sign at a game.
That's a pretty compelling point that should have been examined in the New York Times article. Not just whether the trip occurred, but whether it had any actual influence.
Here it probably didn't have any impact.
And how about using "nearly 200 miles" as the distance instead of writing, "3 hours in a car." Is it really that surprising that a college student would take a road trip of 3 hours? Especially in the South, is it even that uncommon for someone to drive three hours to watch a sporting event? Nearly 200 miles makes the trip sound much further, especially to east coast readers.
But if you're going to use "nearly 200 miles" as the number, wouldn't it make sense to actually give the correct distance if you're the paper of record. The trip to that high school is actually 178 miles from downtown Knoxville. At least according to a simple search on google maps.
So why not just write the actual distance? It's less words, more precise.
But less exotic.
Bingo.
Putting that monumental 178 mile trip into state of Tennessee context, from Knoxville to Byrnes high school is less miles than a trip from Knoxville to Nashville.
Does anyone think that's much of a trip now?
5. Similarly, "an investigation spanning three states" and "wide-ranging investigation" is the kind of charged language used in the article that the facts don't justify.
Isn't it kind of significant that the investigation spans three states because that's where the players are from? Or does the investigation literally span the entire state involving governors, state legislatures and water rights?
Also, the opening sentence says the story is "wide-ranging" yet the story focuses on hostesses traveling to high school football games. Is that really that wide-ranging of an investigation? Wouldn't that, in fact, be a really narrow investigation?
Read this opening sentence: "The N.C.A.A. is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into the University of Tennessee's football recruiting practices, according to interviews with several prospects, their family members and high school administrators."
Now read this one: "The NCAA is conducting an investigation to determine whether Tennessee Volunteer hostesses attended the high school football games of top prospects, and if they did, whether coaches had any knowledge of these trips."
Which is more salacious of a lead?
Which is more accurate?
Look, I like the New York Times. I'm probably their only subscriber 30 or under in the entire city of Nashville who has been a subscriber for five or more years, but, come on, these facts are all played up to make this story look much more significant than it actually is.
6. Where did the New York Times initial tip come from?
The NCAA does not comment on ongoing investigations. Nor does Tennessee.
That makes it seem likely that this story was the result of a tip from a rival program. Why would a rival program tip off Lane Kiffin and Tennessee?
Because we're in the midst of a huge recruiting period and Tennessee is a hot program, with Rivals' overall number 5 ranking in the country.
All's fair in love, football, and recruiting.
In stories such as these, I always think one of the most interesting angles that doesn't get reported is how the reporter ends up with the story. Because, to me, that tells as much as the story itself. If we want to play the inference game, the same writers quoted Steve Spurrier yesterday talking about the Heisman Trophy. Would it be a surprise if Spurrier was aware of what went on in South Carolina high school games?
Especially when he's competing for recruits with Kiffin and has already had several public dust-ups with Kiffin over recruiting?
To me, that's a more interesting story than the one the New York Times wrote. That is, who stands to gain from this story being written?
7. It's important to note that Lane Kiffin didn't install the hostess program.
Nor does he have a say in the selection of hostesses each year. The Vol hostesses -- there are around 50 -- go through an interview process and are selected independently from the football program.
What's more, at least half of these girls were hostesses under the prior Phil Fulmer regime. So any suggestion that Kiffin has somehow remade the group is fundamentally inaccurate.
The Vol hostesses existed long before Lane Kiffin arrived and will exist long after he leaves.
8. Does this investigation have anything to do with Lane Kiffin's six secondary violations in the field of recruiting?
Probably.
It's also no doubt related to Lane Kiffin's public boasting that his recruiting is going to be topnotch. Kiffin hasn't made many friends during his time at Tennessee, but he has brought in top players who respect his bravura.
Evidently the NCAA doesn't respect this boasting.
In fact, one could even wonder if the NCAA helped leak this story because they can't prove anything untoward happened in this case, but they want to give Kiffin a public rapping on the knuckles.
Put another way, is this story news if Phil Fulmer is still coach?
9. Do Vol hostesses even know the specific NCAA rules?
Absolutely not.
No Vol hostess has ever seen an NCAA rulebook, and they don't receive specific training in NCAA rules. Most of their training concerns how to treat family members and what the game day protocol is for recruiting visits; all of those things that they regularly deal with on a day-to-day basis.
None of it deals with obscure NCAA bylaws.
Keep in mind that these girls are just students on campus. They have as much knowledge as your average student would of the NCAA rules, potentially less.
A couple of weeks ago, Les Miles made one of the dumbest coaching decisions at the end of a game that any of us had ever seen. I wrote about that and called Miles an idiot. If you're an LSU fan you still see the end of that Ole Miss game in your nightmares. Given that a head coach is paid millions of dollars for his judgment, I thought the ridicule was much deserved. But then Mack Brown went and one-upped Les Miles with the dumbest decision in the history of the conference championship game, snapping the ball with seven seconds left and his team already in field goal range.
By the grace of God, Texas' offensive line was unable to stop Ndamukong Suh from putting heat on Colt McCoy and the Texas quarterback casually tossed the ball out of bounds with one second left. Of course Texas went on to make the field goal to win the game, but that's beside the point, stupidity deserves ridicule. And in this case, Mack Brown's decision-making was every bit as bad as Les Miles'. Especially when you consider that Texas would have been left with a timeout if the clock ran out.
Let's begin with a clear thesis: Running a play with a running clock as the game nears the end is a recipe for disaster. No team worth it's salt should ever do this when they've got a timeout left. At the end of this game, Texas could have called a timeout with 29 seconds left and set up a final offensive play. Get a first down, and you spike the football. Fail to get a first down and you still have plenty of time to run your field goal team onto the field after gathering them near you during the preceding timeout. There would have been plenty of time to make this happen.
It's what an intelligent coach who manages his team well would have done.
Instead Texas, who had allowed McCoy to be sacked eight times, ran a pass play. That decision alone is inexplicable. Why, oh why, would you risk giving up a sack, potentially having the clock run out in the process, and knocking yourself out of field goal range, with no probability for success? But on top of this idiocy, the Longhorns ran such a slow developing play that even if they'd completed a pass, they would have lost the game. In other words, Mack Brown and Texas so bungled the next-to-last play call of the game, that the only way they could have succeeded was by throwing an incomplete pass out of bounds.
Think about this if you're a Texas fan. You won that game despite your head coach putting the team in a completely untenable position. The only reason you didn't lose on that play, in other words, is because Nebraska did such a good job of defending the pass and putting pressure onto Colt McCoy. Effectively, once Texas took the snap with seven seconds remaining, the best thing that could happen to them did.
And yet Brown has dodged all significant criticism.
That's crap. And I can't believe I'm writing this, but what Brown did at the end of that game was even dumber than what Les Miles did at the end of the Ole Miss game. If you're a Texas fan, the fact that you won the game shouldn't wash away the profound stupidity of Brown's decision. Once Texas ran the pass play, they effectively took the ball out of their team's hands and relied on complete luck to survive.
In the process, Mack Brown did what I heretofore believed was impossible, looked like more of an idiot than Les Miles. Yet, I haven't heard or read a peep of criticism of Brown since that kick sailed through the uprights.
Going up against Nick Saban, Mack Brown is going to get exposed. Really utterly and completely exposed for the sideline coach that he is.
In the meantime let's dive into the Starting 11 with a nice batch of Heisman commentary now that we know the five finalists.
1. How improbable was Cincinnati's comeback from 31-10 down on the road in Pittsburgh?
The victory relied on a missed extra point. Perhaps, to be fair, the most expensive missed extra point in BCS history. How difficult is it as a Pittsburgh fan to deal with that missed extra point?
A missed extra point is like a football hangnail, a piece of food caught in your teeth that you can't quite dislodge. So congrats to the Bearcats for taking advantage of that hangnail. Cincinnati's defense, however, is not ready for primetime. In three of their past four games, the Bearcats have given up 45, 36, and 44 points. Even with Florida's limited offensive firepower when it comes to stretching the field, the Gators are going to roll up huge offensive numbers in the Sugar Bowl.
Assuming, that is, the Gators are actually interested in playing a game in the Sugar Bowl.
2. I know he's not involved in college football, but does everyone else die laughing each time they hear Tiger Woods say, "Huge," at the end of that voicemail message asking his mistress to remove her name from her voicemail?
If not, you should.
In fact, like me, you have to incorporate the one word sentence huge into your conversations now.
"Can you get me a beer? Huge."
"Can you change the channel? Huge."
It really doesn't get old, trust me.
3. Pittsburgh's Dion Lewis carried 47 times for 194 yards.
That's unbelievable, an average of just 4.1 brutal yards a carry. But what's even more amazing, about this? Pittsburgh only completed 13 passes. Five of them were to Lewis. So he accounted for 52 rushes and pass catches out of Pittsburgh's 68 completed passes or rushes.
Has one player ever been that utilized in a game?
That means that 76 percent of Pittsburgh's offensive plays (excluding incompletions) ended with the ball in Lewis' hands.
This is the kind of game that takes five years off a running back's life. If this happened in little league, the coach would get fired.
Presumably, Lewis had to come out for a few plays, right? I want someone to run the numbers and find out the percentage of the time that Lewis was on the field that he ended up with the football in his hands. It's got to be a record for a non-quarterback, right?
4. Would Ndamukong Suh have won the Heisman outright if he went by the name Kong Suh?
In fact, what percentage of Ndamukong Suh's vote tally will be undercut because sportswriters can't spell his first name and chose to ignore him for this season?
Think about this, Kong Suh would be one of the most menacing names for a defensive tackle ever.
In fact, I'll go this far, Suh would have won the Heisman if he went by Kong as a first name.
By the way, last year Suh had two interceptions.
He returned both for touchdowns.
Huge.
5. Has a quarterback ever had to sit next to the defensive player that is responsible for making him so sore?
Colt McCoyColt McCoy was sacked 4.5 times by Suh. He was drilled more than 10 times on pass attempts. Meaning, he's got to be hurting, right?
Mack Brown should slip Suh a $20 for beating the Texas interior line so bad on that final play and forcing McCoy to throw the ball out of bounds.
Thereby sending Texas into the BCS title game.
What a system.
6. If I'd told you in 2007 that we'd swear-in a black president in 2009 and that a white running back would win the Heisman that same year, would you have believed me?
Even better, if you had to pick the most likely of the two, wouldn't you have gone with black president?
Enter Toby Gerhart.
It's why, of the five finalists, I'm rooting for him.
7. Screw all of you who ignored Kellen Moore.
The guy leads a 13-0 team, threw for 39 touchdowns against just three interceptions, leads the nation in passer efficiency, and he doesn't even merit an invite to New York?
Please explain to me why the media grabs onto the story of the small schools being ignored by the BCS, but never mentions the small players being ignored in the Heisman race? Especially considering that's the one place where the media can really influence the outcome.
Moore got screwed.
8. Was the Charlie Weis blindside hit on Pete Carroll the most effective defensive play of the Weis era?
I think so.
For those of you who have been sleeping through a post-holiday funk, Weis accused Carroll of living with a grad student in Malibu.
Carroll should have opened up his press conference by saying, "Congratulations to Charlie Weis, for the most unexpected move of his coaching career since he ordered a Cobb salad at a Chicago-area Denny's."
9. Tim Tebow gets to take another trip to New York City.
Last year, I thought Tebow was robbed when Sam Bradford won the Heisman over him.
This year, I don't think Tebow's a legitimate contender. He is, however, the first player since Herschel Walker to be invited to New York in three consecutive seasons.
Anyone else think Tebow should go Bible verse eye black for the ceremony? Why not? I mean, Randy Moss wore sunglasses inside. Read the rest here.
If you needed a sign that the BCS muckety-mucks are beginning to tremble behind the Big Six castle walls, a Fiesta Bowl matchup between Boise State and TCU is the latest evidence that something is rotten in Denmark.
I've written before about Congress's antitrust investigations and the fig-leaf design of the BCS entity -- it's not actually named -- that makes everyone gnash their teeth at the end of the season. The Fiesta Bowl matchup between Mountain West and WAC teams is the latest in a string of panicked moves that demonstrate true BCS fear.
First, the BCS named a new leader, then, and you can't even make this stuff up, they added Ari Fleisher, formerly the White House spokesperson for George W. Bush, to help with public relations. Next the BCS added a Twitter page, @insidethebcs, that reads, strangely, as if the Iranian government joined Twitter. Finally, in perhaps the biggest snafu of all, they created a Web site called, wait for it, playoffproblem.com
All of these moves reflected an inability to comprehend the rapidly shifting sands of social media in the modern era. So this isn't a column about why there should be a playoff -- those have been done plenty of times in the past. This is a column about the BCS's inability to prevent a playoff from happening. And each of these moves has provided further evidence that the BCS will crumble before all is said and done. Why? Because each of these decisions is an attempt at pacification. And pacifiers only work for babies.
The Web site does for the BCS what MTV's Jersey Shore does for the state of New Jersey. That is, it confirms that all of your worst impressions about the state and the system are actually true. Don't believe me, read this language taken directly from the front page of the site:
"Just try to create an eight-team playoff based on latest rankings (December 6th). Should two-loss Oregon (10-2, #7) and Ohio State (10-2, #8) get in but not the other FOUR teams with two losses: Georgia Tech (11-2, #9), Iowa (10A2, #10), Penn State (10-2, #13), BYU (10-2, #14)? If you think the BCS is controversial, try sorting that out. A playoff would guarantee bigger problems, more controversy, more disappointed teams and more frustrated fans."
Read that last sentence again.
Seriously, read it again.
Let's break it down argument style. Keeping in mind, of course, that this is the BCS's official position on why there is no playoff.
Per their Web site, playoffproblem.com, which, by the way, looks as if was designed by eighth graders for a school assignment, the BCS anti-playoff rationale relies on four key points:
A playoff would:
A.) "guarantee bigger problems"
Such as?
If your son or daughter came up to you and said, "I have to get a new car or we're guaranteeing bigger problems," you'd laugh at them, right?
You'd be insulted that they thought so little of your intellect that merely saying, "guarantee bigger problems" would make you consider their situation anew.
Well, the BCS doesn't respect your intellect. That is their argument.
B.) "more controversy"
Again, if you take words that exist with a negative connotation, such as controversy, and put the word "more" in front of them, you aren't really making a constructive argument. You just sound like a lame politician used a charged word to elicit a reaction.
For instance, who is in favor of more robbery? More abortion?
Put simply, tossing the word more in front of a word like controversy is the last refuge of scoundrels.
C.) "more disappointed teams"
Here we go again with the use of the word more. This time it's paired with another negative word.
Who in the world could be in favor of more disappointment?
I'll tell you.
Proponents of genocide and playoffs.
As evidence for their argument, the BCS has once again, brought the strong intellectual capital. They capitalized FOUR in the paragraph, "the other FOUR teams with two losses." Presumably, these would be the disappointed teams, those that are narrowly left out of a playoff. Even if, you know, the teams that are left out include three teams that didn't win their conference and one, Georgia Tech, that not even Tech fans would defend in the wake of the Georgia loss.
Since they want to play the argument via capitalizing words game, I'll play along. Only, I'll raise them one all caps number.
FIVE.
As in: There are FIVE undefeated teams this season. That means THREE teams that haven't lost a game have nothing to play for.
d. "more frustrated fans"
Really?
Would the teams that are left out of the playoff really be more frustrated than they are now? Would teams like Boise State and TCU, who will never get a chance to play for a championship, really be more frustrated by this outcome?
Which brings me to this, matching Boise State and TCU proves that the BCS is running scared.
ATLANTA -- Florida is the new money of the Southeastern Conference: showy, driving a car they want to make sure you notice, never seeing a bottle of hair gel that doesn't look attractive, and generally making certain that their national championship bling is as well-disguised as a rapper whose first album just went double platinum. The Gators run a fashionable offense with a demi-god at quarterback, they've been on CBS 23 times in their 35 SEC games over the past four seasons and they want you to bow before their dominance.
Kiss their rings.
Even the Gator uniforms on this Saturday are new for this season. The Gators, perhaps betting that Tim Tebow might ascend into the skies after the final horn, wear white from head to toe. Love them or hate them, no matter your personal feelings as a fan, you know the Gators are good.
Alabama is different.
On Saturday they take the field in crisp Crimson jerseys and helmets and white pants. Nothing flashy. They're the colors and uniforms they've worn for generations. Alabama feels like they own the SEC and that they don't need to advertise that fact as ostentatiously as the new money Gators. After all, Alabama has 21 SEC titles, most in the league by eight, a bevy of national championships -- numbers differ -- and a solid work ethic rooted in offensive- and defensive-line dominance.
Even still, while Bama fans believe their program is still the premier one in the SEC, in the 10 years since the Crimson Tide last won an SEC championship in 1999, the Gators have won two national titles and three SEC titles. What's worse for 'Bama, since 1990 the Gators have eight SEC titles to the Crimson Tide's two. So for Crimson Tide fans, this game represents their chance to put the Internet billionaires in their place. To establish once and for all that, new money be damned, they are still the preeminent program in the nation's best league.
So this game represents not just a contest on a field, but a cultural conflict, an epic tilt between two fan bases without a lot in common and two styles of play that share very little. Lots of programs in the SEC don't like each other, but often that's because the schools share so much in common.
Alabama and Florida?
They're as different as two Southern schools can be.
Even the states reflect the difference in style. Florida, a languid afterthought before the air-conditioning boom brought in an influx of northeasterners and turned the state into an entirely new environment. Explosive growth, outsiders, sunshine and money all combined into a perfect mix to create football dominance in the state's preeminent university. The state of Florida then, serves as a perfect metaphor for Gator football, explosive, new, and impossible to ignore.
Meanwhile, Alabama continues to plod along, not that much different in terms of population or growth in 1988 as in 2009. Except for one thing: football matters just as much today as it ever has. But suddenly the Crimson Tide has a new upstart challenger, the new money SEC champ Florida Gators.
And they hate each other, oh they surely do. Follow Us on Twitter Friend Us on Facebook
Follow along with me as we count down the most-watched game in SEC history.
1. Strained faces are everywhere in the CNN Center next door to the dome.
As the winds buffeted down the concourse outside the Georgia Dome, Alabama and Florida fans stood in lines 58 deep for Chik-fil-A and assorted other food court delicacies.
The mood was curiously somber, like you were certain, as was the case, that someone's day was going to be wrecked in a few hours and just hoping it wasn't your own. Occasionally a "Go Gators" chant or a "Roll Tide Roll" rang out over the crowded concourse, but for the most part fans were quiet.
An Alabama fan wearing an understated ensemble of houndstooth cap, bright red Alabama pants with white A's sewn in them with a red-and-white fronded pom-pom draped out of his back pocket and a red Bama pullover, shook his head as he greeted a fellow fan, "I just hope we can smile after this one is over," he said, not smiling.
2. My friend Tardio pays $225 for a single seat in the upper deck of the Georgia Dome.
He later texts me, "I would have paid more just so I didn't have to stand in the cold anymore."
3. Inside the Georgia Dome, the stands are over half-full with an hour to go before kickoff. Seriously, an hour beforehand.
When I was a kid my dad always wanted to get there an hour before the game started. We'd sit on bleachers and stare down at the field as the clock ticked away. As a kid, this was the most awful moment, the anticipation was enough to kill you.
An hour has never seemed so long.
Now thousands of Alabama and Florida fans agree.
Stomachs are rumbling, hands are shaking, nerves are atwitter as the clock ticks down. By 30 minutes before kickoff, the Georgia Dome is almost completely full and it's already getting loud.
4. Speaking of the cultural conflict, I overheard an Alabama girl last night speaking for women across the state of Alabama, "You can tell who the 'Bama girls are, they have class. Gator girls have no class. They're all dirty."
The antipathy that Alabama girls bear for Florida girls cannot be understated. Putting this into context, I think 'Bama girls hate Florida girls more than 'Bama men hate Tim Tebow, Mike Shula and Phil Fulmer combined.
5. Regional potato chip company Golden Flake maintains an amazing marketing power over the SEC. There are oodles of free Golden Flakes lying everywhere in the press box.
Is this the weirdest connection of major national program with minor potato chip company in the history of football?
I think so.
Every time I see these Golden Flake commercials, I'm baffled how the SEC is so connected to this product. Do you think Golden Flake signed an endorsement deal in 1933 when the SEC was formed?
6. I'm seated at midfield in the press box right where Florida and 'Bama fans meet beneath us in the expensive seats.
In 2008, the SEC altered the seating patterns so that fans of rival teams now meet at midfield. Fans used to meet in the end zones.
In general, I'm assuming this was done based on the Travis Rooting Rule: If you're going to cheer loudly, pay more for your seats because the people sitting around you have something to lose.
People in the upper deck end zones will stab you in the temple with sharpened ends of their pompoms if you have the audacity to stand up during big plays. They have absolutely nothing to lose up there.
So while this seating arrangement might lessen fights, this also means that the rooting atmosphere inside the dome is changed. If a team is close to the end zone of the rival side, it's incredibly loud, deafening almost. In front of your fans, it's quiet. Basically, the cheering isn't evenly distributed on all parts of the field anymore.
7. Heath Shuler of Tennessee is introduced as a legend of the game, and 'Bama and Florida fans boo in unison for the first, and only, time of the day.
Somewhere, Redskins fans are pumping their fists in solemn agreement.
8. As the game nears, I'm reminded more and more of what this game reminds me of: an old school Mike Tyson heavyweight fight.
Remember how excited we all were every time Tyson fought when we were kids?
There was so much anticipation for those bouts you could spend months living off the excitement. Then they finally arrived and Tyson would knock someone out within 30 seconds.
For some reason, I've got the same fear about this game as kickoff nears. We've all built this game up so much in our minds that it's almost impossible for the game to live up to expectations.
9. As the tension builds in the stadium and the teams enter the field, Alabama's flag-bearer carrying a crimson A flag almost flattens the Florida flag-bearers.
Can you imagine if they'd run into each other and the game had been stopped to carry them off the field?
The stupid flag-bearers?
Even they're intense to begin the game.
10. As the third SEC championship game of his career commences, Tim Tebow is curiously calm.
I've noticed this of late, the Tebow of freshman season, when he ran onto the field and exploded in emotion has given way to a more silent player as the game commences.
11. 'Bama takes the opening possession down the field, bombs a 48-yard field goal and on their next possession Mark Ingram scores to make it 9-0 Crimson Tide.
Time for mind-blowing stat time; believe it or not, 9-0 is the biggest deficit Florida has faced in a game since the 2008 Capital One bowl against Michigan.
That's 27 games ago.
12. My buddy Tardio sends along the best sign in the Alabama section where he is sitting, "Shhh, Dunlap is sleeping."
Already Carlos Dunlap's absence is reflected in Florida's inability to get to the quarterback. The Gators can't get any pressure on Alabama QB Greg McElroy with their front four.
13. I've officially seen everything. Alabama's punter, P.J. Fitzgerald, makes an open field tackle on Florida's Brandon James to save a touchdown.
How many times would Fitzgerald take James down in the open field if this happened 10 times?
Once, twice?
It's an amazing play that serves notice this might be 'Bama's night.
14. A few plays later, McElroy flexes for the Florida sideline after throwing a block for Trent Richardson. Next play McElroy zips a completion for 34 yards on third-and-3.
Who knew that McElroy had this much swagger in him?
He's channeling Tim Tebow and right now he's becoming the most dominant player on the field.
15. As the second quarter commences, Florida begins to bring safeties and linebackers on exotic blitzes.
Alabama gets caught on one of these blitzes on second down from inside Florida's 20 and settles for a field goal.
It's 12-3 Alabama.
16. And then just as it appears that Florida is going to get run out of the Georgia Dome in the first half, Tebow and the Gators go 70 yards in 1:34 to slice Bama's lead to 12-10.
During this drive Tebow carries twice for first downs.
Leaving me wondering, is there any player that feeds off momentum more than Tebow?
He gets an awful lot of attention for his fiery, Rick Rude, circa-1989 antics on the field, but the thing that is key about Tebow's celebrations is that getting fired up makes him play better. Some guys expend their energy or get overly psyched up with their celebrations. Tebow doesn't.
17. But on this day, Alabama answers Tebow's enthusiasm with a 69-yard screen reception by Mark Ingram.
Ingram follows up that catch with a three-yard score to put 'Bama back up by nine, 19-10.
18. On the next drive, Florida's Caleb Sturgis kicks a field goal that sounds like a shotgun going off.
When I kick a football you can barely hear the foot making contact.
When Caleb Sturgis kicks a field goal you can hear the sound of the kick even with 70,000 people screaming at the same time.
The Gators now trail 19-13 and will receive the ball to begin the second half.
19. Halftime commentary: A. The girl goes 9-for-10 on passes into a large Dr. Pepper bottle to win over $100K in the halftime contest. Worst of all for the guy who lost to her has to stand and watch her coolly drop pass No. 9 to beat him.
He will never live down this defeat. For the rest of his life people are going to recognize him and say, "Why do you look familiar?" And this guy is going to immediately take off running in the opposite direction.
Also, Archie Manning's sports coat is extraordinary. A couple of months ago I said Archie's hair reminded me of the hairstyle that Scarlett's first husband -- the one who died of TB before the war started -- rocked in Gone With the Wind.
But that sports coat?
That's the sports coat you wear if you've sired two Super Bowl winning quarterbacks. It just screams, "My sperm is not ordinary!"
Neither are my jackets.
Even if they're taken from a 1963 love seat.
20. 'Bama stops Tecmo Te-Bo on the first drive of the second half and McElroy, outplaying Tebow, hits Colin Peak for a touchdown.
Suddenly it's 26-13 Bama and the Gators are on the ropes.
Across from me Gator fans are silent, in shock. After 22 consecutive wins, the Gators' knees are buckling and their fans don't know quite how to respond.
Gators cheers are tremulous, quiet, drowned out by Crimson clad fans chanting "Ala-Bama."
I'm off to Atlanta for the SEC championship game. Hope everyone has a good weekend.
Mark Richt is Phil Fulmer. I've been saying it for two years. I predicted it in this year's preseason column.
In August, I wrote:
"This is the year when Richt stumbles. And this is the year when it becomes more apparent than ever before that Martinez is to Richt what Randy Sanders was to Phillip Fulmer, the first chink in the armor.
If you'd seen Joe Cox at SEC Media Days, you'd be more nervous. Somebody elbowed me, "Travis," he said, "you look like a better quarterback than Cox."
Chances are, so do you.
Looks can be deceiving, but the problem for Georgia was that Cox needed to be as good as Stafford. Immediately. Last year Georgia's defense gave up 40 touchdowns. The offense behind Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno helped cover up those lapses. This year there isn't that luxury."
The 2009 season was Georgia's 2005. Look for a one or two year bounce back -- although Georgia is not winning nine games in 2010 like Tennessee did in 2006 -- followed by Richt's resignation, firing, or departure for another school. The one advantage Richt has is that he's younger than Fulmer. So he can rebound from failure in a more rapid fashion.
Let me run some numbers for you. In his best four-year stretch, Fulmer went 45-5 (29-3 in the SEC) from 1995 to 1999 with two SEC titles and one national title. Similarly, in his best four-year stretch at Georgia from 2002-2005, Richt went 44-7 (25-7 in the SEC) with two SEC titles. In 1999, David Cutcliffe, Fulmer's offensive coordinator, left to become head coach at Ole Miss. Fulmer promoted from within, naming Randy Sanders as his replacement.
Similarly, Richt's defensive coordinator during this dominant stretch was Brian VanGorder, who also left for a better job, departing for the NFL. As his replacement, Richt elevated Willie Martinez to the role of defensive coordinator.
Both Sanders and Martinez bore the brunt of the criticism for the inability of their offense and defense, respectively, to match the successes of prior units. Eventually Fulmer fired Sanders and brought back Cutcliffe. A resurgence followed, but once Cutcliffe left again, this time for Duke, Fulmer's offense stumbled, and he was fired.
It's uncertain who Richt will hire, but the blueprint for the end of his tenure at Georgia has already been written. He's Phil Fulmer in red.
But in the meantime defensive coordinator Willie Martinez is out along with his defensive ends and linebackers coach.
And every other SEC East fan is shedding a tear over their departure.
In other news, my picks contest with Audrey, my family's former French exchange student, continued anew. Audrey went 4-2 and so did I.
(Then I blew it and didn't have us pick new games over Thanksgiving weekend thanks to travel.)
Our current tally looks like this:
Clay: 30-27-3
Audrey: 26-30-4
As a result of messing up the final full week of the year, we're going to end this picks contest by picking all the BCS games and five other bowl games of my choosing.
So we'll have an epic 10-game finale to determine who the champion is for this season.
Our beaver pelt trader of the week is Tiger Woods for leading idiot Americans all over the country to drive the amazingly difficult word "transgressions" to the top of Google search results.
Think about that for a minute, these are people who are actually smart enough to look up the word on Google. What percentage of Americans didn't even know this was a word before Tiger released his statement?
Seriously, I don't even want to think about this.
On to All That and a Bag of Mail:
Jason L. writes:
Do you agree with my assessment of Les Miles as a modern-day King George III of England?
Both are/were insane. Coach Miles is obviously "mad" as many of his previously endearing -- currently demeaning -- nicknames, and his sideline antics from Ole Miss, portray. Further, King George was at the wheel of the most powerful nation in the world while Coach Miles is in charge (and has been since 2005) of arguably the most talented college football team in America. In the universe of SEC fandom, I think those two positions are comparable, don't you? The only difference I see is that it is thought that King George had a medical condition. What is Les Miles' excuse?
There is probably a litany of comparisons available and I give you full rights to this nugget of intellectual property should you choose to explore it more. This comparison kept me up for hours (no idea why) on Saturday night following the Ole Miss game. I was not sure if you thought of this angle but I figured you would appreciate the connection.
E-mails like this are why we do the mailbag. You can look at the Seven Years' War victory for King George III as the equivalent of Les Miles' national championship, a function of the English strength over the French, just like LSU's strength over the rest of the world, more than the ability of Miles.
The Stamp Act was George's equivalent of calling the spike play.
I could go on with this for days.
Genius comparison.
The peripatetic Nick Saban would, of course, be King Henry VIII.
Scott A. writes:
I want to first say that I am not a Texas fan. However, why does Colt McCoy not get mentioned as Tim Tebow does as the greatest college player of all time ? If McCoy wins the Heisman this year and the Longhorns win the national championship, McCoy would finish with the same hardware, a Heisman and a national title that Tebow has. He also has three other bowl wins, one of which being a BCS bowl win and is the all-time NCAA leader in games won and will finish with close to 5,000 more career yards than Tebow while accruing similar total touchdown numbers. Tebow has been great for college football and the SEC, and I don't want to take anything away from his accomplishments but can't you make the argument that it is McCoy, not Tebow that is the greatest ever in the college ranks?
Look, I'm a lawyer, so the idea that you aren't entitled to make any argument you want to make is one that is foreign to me. So, yeah, you can make that argument.
I just don't think it's as strong as arguing for Tebow.
First, your argument relies on a hypothetical Heisman and a hypothetical national title.
Tebow already has the Heisman and a pair of national titles. In my mind, in order to argue for greatest ever status in a sport, you'd have to have at least two Heismans or two national titles. Tebow has the chance to have two Heismans and three national titles.
Then, let's take a step back and put them within the context of their respective programs. Because in order to be the greatest player ever, you'd have to be the best that your team has ever had, right? At a minimum.
If they had to pick a quarterback to play any game, would very many Florida Gator fans pick a player other than Tebow?
I don't think so.
Now, flip that to Texas.
What percentage of Longhorn fans would pick Colt McCoy over Vince Young as their signal caller?
Half at best.
Probably not even that many.
So I've danced around the issue a bit to come to this conclusion, I think you have a stronger argument for Vince Young than you do for McCoy. And I think that will stay the same regardless of how 2009 plays out. So if McCoy isn't even the strongest argument in your own program, then I don't think McCoy is arguably the greteast player ever in the college ranks.
It's a good bar debate, but I'm coming down pretty firmly on the side of Tebow in this one. And in order for Tebow to be in that conversation for years to come, I think he needs to win a second Heisman or a third national title this season. Read the rest here.
Saturday afternoon, a love affair like no other will come to a close, CBS's Verne Lundquist will call the final game of Tim Tebow's SEC career. Verne, the avuncular Benjamin Franklin doppelganger in the booth for CBS Sports, has been there since the inception of the Tim Tebow myth, when a true freshman No. 15 converted a fourth down play in Knoxville leading to a Gator touchdown to take a 21-20 lead over Tennessee.
That was in 2006, when the world was just becoming exposed to a professional wrestler in an evangelist's body. Four years later, Verne was there when Tebow scored on fourth-and-1 against Florida State. Along the way, Verne has called 22 Tim Tebow games, virtually all of them the most significant of Tebow's career. Saturday will mark the 23rd and final time the word Te-Bow, uttered with that particular Vernian inflection that turns the word into a hearty slap on the back, will pass Lundquist's lips for an audience of millions.
In our media fragmented age, the connection of one national announcer to a single player is unheard of. That's because the big games are sliced and diced a variety of ways so that many broadcast networks end up with the ability to showcase star athletes. Not with Tebow. The SEC's unique arrangement with CBS has led to virtually every big game the Gators have played in the past four years, outside of the bowls, being telecast on the network. And when you get right down to it, Tebow and Verne are connected in a way that only has one parallel, Howard Cosell and Muhammad Ali.
Sure, you can quibble with this analogy, Lundquist's connection to Tebow only extends for four years and won't carry Tebow into the professional arena. But it's as close to a modern version as we're likely to see. And does anyone really believe that Tebow is going to further define himself as a professional athlete? What we see with Tebow is what we get, and what we see is due, in no small measure, to Verne Lundquist's calling of the games. Lundquist has an affection that is undisguised when it comes to Tebow. You get the feeling that when Lundquist passes off the mortal coil, he's going to leave his home in Steamboat Springs, Colo., to the Gators' wunder-quarterback.
It's worth noting that Gary Danielson has also sat alongside Verne for these games, but Danielson, although he's warmed up to become perhaps the paramount Tebow cheerleader, has never been as astounded and entertained by Tebow as Verne. Danielson has been more clinical and dispassionate, the Holmes to Verne's Watson. For instance, when Verne exploded in delight over Tebow's jump pass against LSU in 2006, Danielson went back and diagrammed why the play worked.
But over time, Verne's homerism has won over Danielson as well. Particularly this season, where the duo's love affair with Tebow has turned the six CBS broadcasts this season into a valentine to number 15. By the 2009 LSU game, when Tebow threw a horrific interception late in the contest and Danielson exhorted, "Oh, no!," you felt like Danielson felt genuine pain for Tebow's failing.
It's probably a good thing that Verne and Gary weren't calling the Kentucky game when Tebow was knocked cold. Both men might have had to excuse themselves from the booth.
And while he's been an unabashed Tebow homer, Verne's homerism has never been as artificially saccharine and over the top as Thom Brennanman's call of last year's national championship game. Whereas Brennaman nasally extolled the virtues of Tebow and set loose more Tebow hate in four hours than Verne had in three years, memorably including the phrase about everyone who has been around Tebow being better for it, Lundquist's homerism has always been that of a eager and entertained grandfather.
By golly did you see what my grandson just did?
His calls of Tebow games have been laced with wonder and moments of genuine pleasure, as if he has never quite believed what he has seen on the field. Moreover, I think Verne has hit the right tone to sum up the Tebow canon at Florida, the soundtrack of a Gator football life, replete with clashing helmets and primordial Tebow screams of exhortation, is inextricably bracketed with Verne Lundquist guffaws and cackles.
But that doesn't mean SEC fans, myself included, haven't occasionally rolled our eyes at Lundquist's excesses. Just as we've rolled our eyes at our own grandparents oft-told stories about the time we used the bathroom by ourselves or scored our first goal in soccer. It's not that the stories aren't true, it's just that we've all heard them before so many times that we could tell them ourselves.
Tell us again, Verne, about Tim Tebow and Riley Cooper being roommates.
Only, just as your grandparents did, Lundquist retains a childlike glee on each good-natured retelling.
And maybe that's the ultimate difference between Lundquist and Tebow, Cosell and Ali. The latter duo entertained each other on a national stage, playing off the subtle intricacies of one another to create something new. Lundquist's call of Tebow's successes has never sounded particularly new or creative, but it has sounded authentic. And ultimately that's why both men are connected so clearly, because neither brings artifice to their craft, they are as you see and hear them.
Having written all this, you knew I couldn't offer up the sweet without the satire. Now as the final days of the Tebow-Lundquist union come to a close, it's the winter of CBS's telecast, and only one game remains. How, you might wonder, is Lundquist coping with Tebow's departure.
Fortunately, I know.
1. Tearfully watching General Douglas McArthur's farewell address to Congress and repeating to himself, "Old quarterbacks don't die, they just fade away."
2. Wearing eyeblack featuring obscure Bible verses to impress the Tebow's.
His favorite?
Galatians 5:22
But the fruit of the Tebow is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith.
3. Practicing jump passes in his senior water aerobics class.
4. Rewriting The Secret Life of Walter Mitty with new exploits and a new title, The Secret Life of Verne Tebow.
Sample:
"Verne, put on your gloves, it's cold out," said his wife as they drove to Whole Foods market.
Lundquist pulled on his gloves, it was hot in the steamy jungles of the Phillipines and there were still many foreskins left to be circumcised.
5. Contemplating moving to Gainesville and being Tebow and Riley Cooper's roommate for his final semester in Gainesville.
6. Trying to decide if it's asking for too much to let him line up in Aaron Hernandez's place at practice one day to catch the underhanded Tebow shovel pass and score a touchdown.
Upon scoring, Lundquist would take off his helmet, fashion a kite from a brown paper sack on the sideline, toss it up in the air, pretend that the paper sack had been struck by lightning, fall to the ground, and then spring back up running his hand through his long white mane.
He calls it: Doing the Ben Franklin.
Not that he's actually thought about it that much.
Michael Jordan was the most famous athlete in the universe. He was also the first family man with kept women. Sure, we didn't know about them when Jordan was in his prime. As soon as his star began to wane and his wife filed for divorce all of a sudden Jordan's mistresses, effectively kept women who he set up in NBA cities across the country, began to emerge. Maybe that's why it wasn't such a surprise that Tiger Woods, a man who has eclipsed Jordan to become the most famous athlete in the world, has had the family man rug pulled out from underneath his feet as well. What's more interesting than Woods' peccadilloes, titillating as those details may be, is what his descent tells us about the change in modern media in the 11 years since Jordan's career peaked as he drained a jumper over a flailing Bryon Russell.
In that time, we've moved from a society where sexual dalliances rely on a tenuous he said/she said dance to something more interesting, a "we said" society. No longer can athletes merely deny all accusations and move forward with their lives. And modern reporting has something that never existed before, a firm technological imprint of whether we're telling the truth. In 1998, Bill Clinton was felled because Monica Lewinsky kept a blue dress with a stain on it. In 2009, every single one of us has a technological stain that we can't escape.
Think about this for a minute. In 1998, Bill Clinton could have denied the relationship with Monica Lewinsky until the cows came home, and we might have believed him if Lewinsky hadn't kept a blue dress with his DNA on it. If the same situation happened in 2009, there would be a technological footprint the size of a small Pacific island. And that footprint is there for the ravenous media to consume. Text messages, email, video files, Facebook, Twitter, we've created a portable technological universe that reflects our every move and offers tangible evidence of whether or not we're being truthful.
What's more, that technological universe doesn't just reflect our every move, it also provides a copy to every recipient of that footprint. It isn't enough to scroll through your own phone or email frantically hitting delete, that bird has already flown the nest, it's copied out there somewhere in the wireless ether, a perfect record of what he said or she said.
That's why we've moved to a "we said" society. If you're in any sort of relationship with anyone, there's a technological record of it somewhere. Lawyers know, reporters know, and eventually the entire public knows. Not just if you're a sports superstar. That's true for all of us. Tiger's personal situation, therefore, isn't just a story of one star's flying too close to the sun, it's a story of one society's present ability to recreate the past in a more efficient manner than any before. In a more efficient manner than many of us would have ever believed. Today, it's easier to contact someone than it ever has been before in the history of the world, but once you contact them it's impossible to erase that contact forever.
Tiger's imbroglio and the resulting media craziness has created a modern day Rorschach test for the intersection of sports, media, celebrity and sex. And I think with our modern day "we said" society, we're going to be a seeing a ton more of these situations in the future.
Having said that, there are several details of this story that I can't stop thinking about. Let's dive in.
1. First, a lesson: if you're married, don't ask women who aren't your wife to send you naked photos via text message.
Text messages, like email, don't die. They can live forever. More importantly, so can your request for naked photos.
That's really hard to explain away to your wife or husband. It's also, often, admissible in courts as a hearsay exception.
(Pick up your jaw and stop silently cursing now.)
2. If you need a further sign that the media environment has completely changed, the fact that Tiger's situation unfolded on the early morning hours after Thanksgiving is a really instructive case study.
How often in the past has dirty laundry news been dumped heading into a weekend news cycle surrounding a holiday? More often than you can possibly imagine. The rationale is that people are traveling, not paying attention to most news stories. Holiday weekends is when stories go to die.
I'm sure that's what Team Tiger expected would happen with his car accident and the hospital report. News of the accident trickled out on Friday, and most people who advised Tiger probably said that the storm would die down before the new week's news cycle began. That he didn't need to be aggressive in getting his own story out there.
But those advisers were completely wrong.
Why?
Because the internet now drives the news and the internet doesn't pause for holidays. With mobile devices -- Confession: I have the TMZ app downloaded on my iPhone -- I could follow every breaking detail even while I was hanging out with my family. I didn't need television or the internet or, god forbid, my local newspaper. What's more, the celebrity scandal narrative has so overtaken our national conversation that many families spent their Thanksgiving gossiping about Tiger's situation. Meaning that, paradoxically, the timing of a domestic dispute might have actually worked against Tiger.
Everyone had an opinion because everyone could identify, to a certain degree, with someone in the story.
Prior to Tiger's case, if you had to construct an ideal scenario for marital discord to occur featuring a famous person, the early morning hours just after Thanksgiving would have been one of the top choices.
Now?
All bets are off.
There is no dead time.
3. Can you imagine being Tiger's neighbor and seeing this thing unfold and having to make the 911 call?
I can't stop thinking about this.
The world's richest pro athlete wrecks his car at 2:40 in the morning, he's bleeding and unconscious, and his wife is standing above him holding a golf club.
Seriously, think about this.
Take Tiger out of it, even.
What if this happened to your neighbor?
How shocked would you be?
That explains why the guy who made the 911 call sounds like he's just seen fornicating aliens on his front lawn.
4. What if we reverse the situation and Tiger is standing above a bleeding Elin holding a golf club after she's just wrecked her car?
Tiger's in jail, right?
I think it's pretty fascinating how society has a complete double standard when it comes to domestic disputes (of course, there's no proof that there was a dispute of any kind involved here, and Tiger has denied being physically attacked by his wife). The wife attacks the husband and we think it's funny. The husband attacks the wife and we want him locked up and the key thrown into the Atlantic.
Does that really make sense?
5. How are old white men going to respond to products that Tiger endorses now?
Remember when Kobe Bryant was charged with rape and people went out and bought his jerseys? This is really underdiscussed, but Kobe's criminal charges actually made him more popular with the most desirable market, young men with disposable income.
How are old white men, the top players of golf with the most disposable income to purchase the products he endorses, going to respond to Tiger's scandal?
Will they be as forgiving as younger fans were of Kobe's much more serious transgressions?
On a broader level, will golfers of all ages be as forgiving? Especially considering that golfers as a group are the most conservative sports fans out there?
Basically, how is Tiger's role as pitchman, the role that has made him a billionaire, going to be impacted by these stories?
6. Celebrity scandals are the new M*A*S*H.
Recently, I read an article in the New York Times lamenting that we no longer share stories as a culture. The idea was that the golden age of broadcast television, when families gathered in front of a television to share a story, has passed. I use M*A*S*H as the example because the 1983 season finale of that show is the most-watched show in television history, everyone watched together.
I think that theory is completely wrong. Because our new national narrative is scandal.
We've replaced, "Who shot JR?" with "What did Tiger do?"
People from 8 to 80 are talking about Tiger's mess. It's our national conversation.
At 3:25 on Tuesday morning when Florida Gator defensive end Carlos Dunlap was found passed out in his running car, the SEC championship game just got a whole lot more interesting. Because combined with the intrigue, the attention, and the amazing stakes came a test of Urban Meyer's two greatest weaknesses: A.) his lax discipline record and B.) his thin skin. As we noted in the offseason, Florida has had 24 arrests in the past three seasons. At the time, the Florida public relations staff helpfully noted, "The 24 arrests represent 19 different players."
Whew, that makes me feel so much better.
Since June, Florida has played a football season and their players have stayed out of trouble. Until now. On the very week of the most-hyped game in SEC football history Urban Meyer has to deal with a huge national distraction that leaves him with only one possible response: he has to suspend Carlos Dunlap for this week's game.
In some ways, Dunlap did his coach a favor by committing such a egregious error. If Dunlap had failed a drug test, gotten in an altercation on University Avenue, or stabbed someone with a shiv fashioned out of an old mouthpiece on the football field while they're buried under a pile of players, Meyer could have faced a difficult decision. But now Dunlap's fate for this week's game is sealed.
At least it would be for any other coach in America.
With Meyer, especially in the wake of the Brandon Spikes imbroglio, you never can quite be sure.
After all, Dunlap was just a) underage b) passed out at 3 in the morning c) on the week of the biggest game of your life d) arrested e) and allegedly wasted.
Let's not be too tough on the kid.
Some positives: he wasn't armed or carrying drugs. There was no one tied up in the trunk of his car -- assuming the trunk was searched -- and he wasn't wearing Gator football gear while robbing someone at a campus gas station.
So, really, when you consider all the facts, it's kind of a difficult decision for Urban Meyer.
Right.
Now let's dive in and consider the implications of this arrest.
1. Can Julio Jones get down the field against a weaker Florida pass rush?
After a first-half of the season in which his number wasn't called very often, Julio Jones has exploded on the scene. With Alabama's running game ineffective against Auburn, Julio singlehandedly led Alabama on the drive that gave them the lead against the Tigers.
But most of those passes were underneath against a zone defense.
Will Greg McElroy have the time to dial up Julio for a big play down the field?
Maybe.
Certainly the odds are better.
2. How in the world are you that drunk and driving alone?
Dunlap isn't a 45-year-old longshoreman, he's a college student. That means he probably wasn't drinking alone on Monday night.
Leaving me with this question: how in the world did his friends let him drive away in his car? What's more, and I'm not condoning drunk driving, how did they let him drive away in his car alone?
Again, part of being in college is not just making the right decision all the time, we all do dumb things, but it's also about making sure that you make the wrong decisions with the right people. That might sound counterintuitive, but if you do something wrong you want to surround yourself with friends who don't allow you to compound your errors.
Here Dunlap was already making a bad decision -- drinking heavily late at night on the week of a big game -- and compounded the error by driving.
3. Florida's pass defense is currently No. 1 in the nation.
They've given up only six touchdown passes all season long. Granted their talent in the secondary is extraordinary and partly that's the reason, but how much has an explosive pass rusher like Dunlap helped in forcing teams to throw the ball short?
A ton.
This is a big hit for the pass defense even though you're actually subtracting a defensive lineman.
4. Tim Tebow continues to mask the Gator team in an aura of saintliness.
I wrote this back in June:
"99 percent of all national media and sports fans equate Florida football with Tebow. Period. It doesn't matter what anyone else does, Tebow is perfection on and off the field. So the program is perfect as well. Sure it's a lazy and harebrained way to judge a team, by projecting Tebow's moral code onto the rest of the team, but clearly it's happened. Tebow is a stand-in for the entire Gator team.
You have to wonder whether Tebow ever looks around the locker room, shakes his head, and thinks, "Man, an awful lot of these guys are going straight to hell."
Again, just because one man is Jesus incarnate doesn't mean the rest of the team is made up of saints.
5. By the way, can you imagine how awkward this situation was if the arresting officer is a huge Gator fan?
He had to run the license and then slam his hat down and jump on top of it.
No one talks about the number of times players don't get arrested for doing dumb things like this, but I tend to think players in college towns get away with a lot more than what they're charged with.
It figures, Thanksgiving weekend brought us some of the most compelling football of the season. Only, like me, you probably found yourself tied up in obligations during big games on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. Perhaps, poor you, all three days. Instead of lamenting the games we all missed, let's get the Starting 11 off and rolling with this question: In the wake of their 39-point implosion against Texas A&M, is Texas's defense national championship caliber?
I think the answer is no. And, for a change, I'm actually going to back up this opinion with some numbers. Beginning with this one, in the BCS era, no national champion has given up more than 34 points in regulation and gone on to win the BCS title. What team was that? LSU in 2007. That same season LSU also gave up 50 to Arkansas and 43 to Kentucky but both of those totals came in three overtime games.
And that begs the true question, can Texas really hold up to either Alabama or Florida in the BCS title game? I think the answer is no. In fact, I will guarantee you that Florida would open as at least a touchdown favorite over the Longhorns. I'll also guarantee you that Texas is going to lose to either Alabama or Florida and that they won't score more than 21 points in the game. Dive in for the rest of the ClayNation Starting 11.
1. Erin Andrews humiliates Arkansas's Ryan Mallett and then LSU wins in overtime to toss salt in Hog wounds.
ESPN cuts to Andrews as Arkansas takes possession in overtime. Andrews talks about the recent celebration on the Arkansas sideline after the touchdown on fourth-and-9 and says Mallett turned to her and said, "I told you so!"
Then Andrews says, "I don't know why he's telling me that, I haven't talked to him all week."
Which makes me wonder, how many college football players contact Erin Andrews every week? And how entertaining would those texts be to see?
2. Toby Gerhart's Midwestern incisors deserve the Heisman if Kellen Moore doesn't get it.
Someone tweeted to me that Gerhart looks like Corky. I don't think that's fair, but Gerhart does have a trait that I've noted but never put into word: Midwestern incisors.
You know, the gargantuan incisors that so many people from Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin seem to have. They're the Bama Bangs of the Big Ten.
I'm not sure where in Europe the genetic code for large incisors comes from, but Gerhart has it. So does the midwest.
3. BYU's Max Hall had the quote you wish your quarterback would have about a hated rival after he beat Utah in overtime:
"I don't like Utah. In fact, I hate them. I hate everything about them. I hate their program, their fans."
Am I the only person that had a flashback to Big Love? That's exactly what Sarah Henrickson would say about the Grants if she was quoted in the newspaper after the latest family kerfuffle.
Also, I'm ashamed to admit that 99 percent of my knowledge about the state of Utah comes from Big Love. It's the second best drama in television behind Friday Night Lights. Follow Us on Twitter Friend Us on Facebook
4. Ho hum, Boise State's Kellen Moore threw for five touchdown passes.
He has 41 touchdowns and continues to lead the country in passing efficiency. He's attempted 362 passes this season and just three of them have been picked off.
That's also, you guessed it, the lowest interception percentage in the country. That's paired with, you guessed it, the highest rate of touchdowns per pass attempt -- fully 11percent of Moore's pass attempts go for touchdowns.
Ultimately, 41 touchdowns to 3 interceptions.
Last year, Sam Bradford had 48 touchdows and 6 interceptions and people claimed he walked on water. With one game left, Moore is going to get awfully close to the touchdown mark and probably not approach the interceptions.
Which leaves me wondering, am I the only person who watches him play? In a season marked by up-and-down performances by every other contender, Moore has been the most consistently excellent player in the country.
And, oh by the way, he plays for an undefeated team.
Since I'm the only person trumpeting his candidacy, it's got me wondering, why don't I have a vote for the Heisman Trophy?
I'd understand if they only let 50 media people or so vote, but 870 media people vote.
870!
Are you telling me I'm less qualified than 870 other media people who have been given votes? Look at this list. How many of these people have you even heard of?
Some guy named Larry Vetell from FightinGators.net gets to vote?
I wonder who he's voting for.
They have a voter with the first name of Clay but he writes for, wait for it, Hawgs Illustrated.
Seriously, Hawgs Illustrated gets a vote?
The Tulsa World gets five votes?
I'm writing an entire column throwing this list under the bus.
5. Sandra Bullock stars in The Blind Side as you know if you watched any football games this weekend.
Ads are trumpeting The Blind Side as "the performance of Sandra Bullock's career."
Which is such crap.
Miss Congeniality 2 and Speed 2 are getting completely overlooked.
Les Miles6. Should SEC rivals be celebrating Les Miles' ninth win and Georgia's beating of Georgia Tech?
I think so.
And here's why, getting to nine wins and the Capital One bowl probably means that assuming the wheels don't come off next season, Miles is going to be back for another couple of years. But does anyone really think that he can match wits with Nick Saban at Alabama or Bobby Petrino at Arkansas?
Even Houston Nutt at Ole Miss has now beaten him two years in a row. And when Houston Nutt is outclassing you in coaching, you've got issues.
In fact, let's rank the SEC West coaches based on this year, past year's and my always perceptive opinion. Here's my take:
1. Nick Saban 2. Bobby Petrino 3. Houston Nutt 4. Dan Mullen (TBD) 5. Les Miles 6. Gene Chizik (TBD)
Les may end up sixth on my list by the end of next season. No matter what happens he's not climbing into the top three. Yet buoyed by this win, he's probably going to be around a lot longer than he would have with a loss.
So chalk this one up to LSU winning the battle and losing the war.
As for Georgia, I know defensive coordinator Willie Martinez has come under fire, but with the win over Georgia Tech and a potential bid in the Chik-fil-A bowl -- where Georgia should be favored over whichever ACC team they draw -- can he survive another season?
Maybe.
And if he does, every other team in the SEC East is the big winner.
The lesson: sometimes even wins over rivals can cost a program. I should know.
I'd like to give back Tennessee's 2004 win over Ron Zook.
7. Tennessee beats Kentucky for the 25th straight season.
Which, for some reason, puts me in the mind of Hemingway. And here is one of my favorite quotes that I believe is apropos:
"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."
It's clear that Kentucky fans are "none of these," because there has been no special hurry in the death of their "rivalry" over the past quarter-century.
But I still think this is the game that broke Kentucky fans. The second straight overtime loss at home. A giftwrapped fumble that was too good to be true at the end of the game. A first-and-goal that ends with the head coach saying he couldn't use their best player on third and goal because he didn't know the two-minute offense.
Condolences, Cat fans.
Especially after Lane Kiffin, now responsible for four percent of the longest consecutive winning streak in college football, urinated in Rich Brooks's commemorative bottle of bourbon. "It's still Tennessee, and it's still Kentucky," Kiffin said after the game.
8. Thesis: The pump fake is the white man's greatest athletic weapon.
This came to me during the Alabama-Auburn game when Chris Todd pumpfaked before hitting Darvin Adams for a 72-yard touchdown.
Think about it, is there any one move that transcends a single sport -- the move works in basketball and football -- than the pump fake?
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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