Flip Out?

According to West By God Virginia, the SEC's real evil genius--Jimmy Sexton--is at it again:

Sources close to University President Mike Garrison have informed WBGV that Nick Saban’s agent has contacted WVU regarding our vacant head-coaching position.

These sources tell us that Saban is extremely unhappy in Tuscaloosa and has failed to recapture the situation he had in Baton Rouge with LSU. The purpose of the agent’s call was to express initial interest in the position and to have WVU athletics put together a compensation package enough to lure Saban from Alabama. This package would not need to be as much as Saban is currently making at Alabama, but enough to not result in a 50% paycut.

In an update, WBGV adds that WVSports.com (Rivals.com's West Virginia affiliate) has confirmed the story on the premium ($$) side of their site.

For what it's worth, I'd personally score this one in the "extremely unlikely at best" category, but then again, there's this:

Interestingly, while working the story last year, a source in West Virginia told me that the governor would essentially be the one who would hire the new Mountaineer coach when Rodriguez left for Alabama.

Of course, I didn't know at the time that the governor was Joe Manchin -- who is a close friend of Nick Saban and godfather to Saban's son Nicholas.

(No, not starting the Saban-to-West Virginia rumors. Just pointing out an interesting sidebar).

Manchin was a quarterback for the Mountaineers and now, as governor, has his own parking spot outside the West Virginia stadium.

Interesting. Here's quite a bit more background on Saban's relationship with Manchin.

Lame Excuses at the Alex City Outlook

As promised in emails from publisher Tim Reeves and editor Kevin Taylor, the Alexander City (AL) Outlook published an apology, of sorts, for the Bruce Meyers column noted here. The Sunday column, written by sports editor Matt Dischinger, opens with,

Dozens of readers responded to the mistakes made in the commentary section of Friday's sports page.

Some found significant mistakes on the part of a guest columnist Bruce Meyers, with the most noteworthy one being a section of the column that was inadvertently plagiarized from a column by Pat Forde appearing on ESPN.com. The mistakes were not caught by The Outlook's editorial staff, and we apologize for the mistake on our part and Bruce's part. It was certainly not intentional.
...

We appreciate the many responses from readers calling attention the problems with Friday's column. Those mistakes have been addressed with the author. The Outlook staff will always try to minimize mistakes when they are found in any guest column.

That's it. The piece also contains several column-inches of scolding, but the scolding is directed at readers who complained about the content of Meyers' column, rather than at Meyers himself for blatantly (and really stupidly) plagiarizing one of the most widely-read national columns on Bobby Petrino from last week.

For whatever it's worth, I have no problem with Bruce Meyers writing whatever opinions he wants to write, and no problem with the AC Outlook publishing them--no matter how dumb, irrelevant, or badly-written those opinions happen to be. As a commenter to my previous post noted, it's not worth getting worked up over an unknown columnist for a paper with a miniscule readership.

But I do have a problem when Meyers or anybody else goes out and steals somebody else's words and claims them as his own. I have a big problem when his section editor blithely writes off outright plagiarism as "a mistake," and the paper's editor and publisher sign off on a lame whitewash.

What Meyers did Friday is not "a mistake," Mr. Reeves. It's not "inadvertent," Mr. Taylor.

It's plagiarism. It's theft. And you ought to be ashamed of yourselves for excusing it.

Plagiarism at the Alex City Outlook

From Pat Forde's column at ESPN.com on December 11, 2007:

[T]hose Arkansas fans ready to embrace their new hotshot coach and his pretty ball plays need to understand one thing:

The disingenuous drifter doesn't love you or any other fan base. He doesn't love any school or any NFL franchise. He loves himself, his playbook and his bank account.

That's it. Don't expect it to change.

Bobby Petrino will return your embrace, Hog fans. But while he's hugging you he'll be looking over your shoulder, scanning the terrain for his next hook-up.

Even in a profession rife with dishonest posturing, Petrino is singularly mercenary. Loyalty, allegiance, commitment and honesty are foreign concepts to him. It must be a sad existence.

I apologize to Alabama's Nick Saban -- last year I named him president of the Liar's Club. He's been impeached and replaced by the disingenuous drifter.

(Emphasis mine above and below.)

From Bruce Meyers' column in the Alexander City (AL) Outlook, December 13, 2007:

Nick Saban should send flowers to Petrino for taking the Arkansas job. Now the media can get off of Saban's back about how he handled the job change. They are calling Petrino the disingenuous drifter.

To the Hog fans: Petrino doesn't love you or any other fan base. He doesn't love any school or NFL franchise. Petrino loves himself, his playbook and his bank account. Petrino is a mercenary at best. Loyalty, allegiance commitment and honesty are foreign concepts to this guy.

Coach Saban, you have been impeached and replaced.

Meyers makes it a point to say twice in the column linked above, "I am not an Alabama fan." Maybe, maybe not, Bruce, but you are a plagiarist.

UPDATE: As of the morning of December 15, the Alex City Outlook has replaced Meyers' column at the link above with an unrelated AP article.

Uh, guys, this is the internet. We can save stuff. And we have. Try again.

UPDATE UPDATE: Per an email response from AC Outlook publisher Tim Reeves, the Meyers column was replaced on the website due to the site's policy of posting items on consecutive days under the same "tagline." I've replaced the link above with the correct link to the Friday Meyers column, and also corrected the date of that column above to December 13.

Dang.

Just dang.

H/T: EDSBS

Shameless Self-Promotion

I've got a post up at VodkaPundit regarding John Feinstein's recent dumb column on Nick Saban's dumb statements. Fair warning (which is more than Feinstein gave his WaPo readers): there's political content.

All Your Nutt Are Belong To Us

Forget Steve Spurrier. The real Evil Genius in college football isn't even a coach. He's uber-agent Jimmy Sexton.

According to published reports, Sexton's just-unemployed-at-Arkansas client Houston Nutt is in the midst of entertaining offers from Ole MIss and Georgia Tech, both of whom fired their own coaches within the last 72 hours.

That's mind-boggling. Here we have a middling, just run off from his own alma mater coach who'd be the biggest clown in the SEC if not for Les Miles and Ed Orgeron (and I guess now I should limit that to Miles)... and Sexton's got two founding members of the conference firing their coaches and upping the ante to hire the guy. Yeah, they're founding members who ain't what they used to be by a long shot, but still.

Even if this is just another example of Sexton spinning to gullible mediots, it's still amazing. Sexton's evil, but he's like, Darth Vader, Hannibal Lecter evil. You can't help but watch in awe.

UPDATE: Ole Miss "wins" the Nuttstakes, per this AP article in the Clarion-Ledger (I like the Department of Redundancy Department notice about Nutt's record: "He is 111-70 in 15 years as a head coach, compiling a 111-70 record at Arkansas, Boise State and Murray State").

It's obvious that Nutt will be a better coach than Ed Orgeron; then again, my sister's dog would be a better head coach than Ed Orgeron. The questions are whether Nutt can (a) recruit in a small state that unlike Arkansas, he doesn't have to himself, (b) manage the unrealistic (to be polite) expectations of the Ole Miss fanbase, and (c) keep his clown act in enough check to placate the "Ole Miss Whiteheads" who bankroll that program.

Fear The Toes

Back on September 22, the ESPN Gameday circus came to Tuscaloosa for the Alabama-Georgia game. UAT was 3-0, and had just watched Auburn slump to 1-2 with a loss to Mississippi State. The crowd behind ESPN's stage was filled with signs sneering at the cross-state archrival, and most of them were personally directed at Auburn's quarterback: "We Love Brandon Cox" and "Cox For Heisman" were prominently featured for the national television cameras.

As in most of the decisions made in Tuscaloosa over the past decade, putting those signs up turned out to be a spectacularly bad call. By the time the Iron Bowl rolled around, UAT had suffered its own ignominious Crooming, and worse. By the time the Iron Bowl was over, Brandon Cox finished his career with a perfect record against Alabama, and had his own sign for the bammies who'd mocked him a few weeks earlier:


It goes without saying that I've enjoyed all of Auburn's wins during the current streak, but with the possible exception of the 2002 upset, I don't think any of them have been quite as satisfying as Saturday's 17-10 triumph.

I'm willing to bet the Auburn team feels the same way. After eleven months of having The Great Saban shoveled down our throats by the in-state press and legions of loudmouth idiots in Alabama's fan base (as ever, please forgive the redundancy), watching the Tide get outplayed and outcoached for the duration went down sweeter than Toomer's lemonade on a hot August day.

For the last several years, you could get a good read on how Auburn was going to finish a game by watching how they started. Against Florida, Arkansas and LSU, the Tigers came out strong, scoring on their first possession and stuffing the opposition. Against Georgia and MSU, early turnovers led quickly to defensive breakdowns, and things tended to go downhill from there. When AU came out of the gate Saturday to slam Alabama for three-and-out and followed up with a solid opening touchdown drive, they set a tone that UAT couldn't answer, even with help from an interception and some awful officiating later in the game.

There were a lot of reasons why Auburn won again in '07, but the most important was this: Auburn is a lot tougher than Alabama, which is just this side of soft. Rather inexplicably, UAT's coaching staff tried to play AU straight up with the running game rather than attacking the Tigers' most glaring weakness, the long ball. Suffice to say, it didn't work, even with a freshly-un-suspended Glenn Coffee running the ball behind also un-suspended linemen. When Minor--whoops, sorry, Major Applewhite did try to go to the air, Will Muschamp showed that with a strong push up front and a steady cover-two, Sarah Jessica Parker Wilson is an exceptionally average passer.

The much-vaunted Tide passing game rarely got anything done, and never hit the big strike that Auburn fans had been fearing all week. Even with "El Matador" Chris Capps confined to the bench for his last Iron Bowl, UAT's linemen were rarely able to do more than hold and pray nobody would notice; Auburn successfully rushed four defenders for most of the game. The only Alabama receiver even close to impressive was Nikita Stover, who was wiling to take a hit to make a big catch. That's a lot more than I can say for D.J. Hall, who appeared to be more concerned about messing up his pretty hairdo than playing physical football. Hall botched UAT's lone chance to take control of the game just before halftime; his end-zone bobble to Jerraud Powers was the biggest nail in the Tide's sixth coffin.

Not only was the Auburn defense more than capable of stuffing an anemic Tide offense--which is going to be feeling the bruises dispensed Saturday night by Tray Blackmon until roughly 2010--you could tell by AU's first offensive play that Auburn had come prepared for a physical game and Alabama hadn't. Auburn wide receiver Rod Smith laid a crushing, get-off-the-field block on UAT linebacker Rashad Johnson, setting the tone for the rest of the night. Here's a tip: when their wideouts are out-hitting your linebackers, you're probably going to lose. By the game's last meaningful play, Auburn had established dominance across both lines of scrimmage, making Brad Lester's in-your-face 12-yard run on fourth and one perfectly predictable, if no less satisfying.

Defensively, Alabama was lucky that things weren't much worse. Cox's standard workmanlike performance was good enough to win, but if he hadn't misfired on wide-open routes to Carl Stewart in the first half and Smith and Montez Billings in the second, the fourth quarter would have amounted to little more than a formality. Al Borges was able to take advantage of Saban's habit of setting the defense based on the tight end positions by returning to the shifts that served AU so well during 2004-05 (I should add that they've been sorely missed ever since), and turned in a solid game plan, although I think if he'd stuck to the run in the third quarter, the final margin would have been at least a bit larger. Then again, if Auburn had pulled away, we'd have missed the return of that icon of the Mike Shula era, the late, fruitless onsides kick. That would have been a shame.

Believe it or not, this isn't a criticism, but Nick Saban's defense is not one that's known for sophistication or trickery. Again, not kidding, that's to Saban's credit. When he has the players, he'll try and beat you straight up, and in my mind that's smarter tactics than, say, John Thompson's manic scheming. The weakness, of course, is when he doesn't have the players, and he definitely doesn't have them right now. Alabama's front seven is simply no match for a physical offense, and Auburn proved that again by gashing the Tide up the middle for the duration of the game (and with three true freshmen to boot). The contrast between the two teams was striking; on one side you had a finesse-oriented team trying to play smash-mouth, and on the other a physical team doing all the smashing.

Ah, it was fun, maybe best of all because Tommy Tuberville had coached up Auburn to play the kind of football that Alabama claims to take great pride in, while Nick Saban was unable do the same. Cutting corners on discipline and throwing your own players under the bus in the media will do that to you, Nicky. I can only imagine the grimacing among the UAT beat writers who'd been pushing the phony "Tubs is gone to A&M" story for the last couple of months as they watched the carnage. This is what they wanted to see for their team, but instead they had to watch it happen to their team.

$666,666: The Paycheck of the Beast

So, let's see here. UAT's "savior" just finished 6-6 with loss #6 to Auburn. His $4 million annual salary works out to $666,666 per win (none of which, I hasten to add, was earned against Louisiana-Monroe, much less Auburn).

No wonder the little jerk is widely known as "Nick Satan." Makes perfect sense.

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

Oh, and bammies: you could have kept Mike Shula, saved $3 million, and still finished 6-6. Heck, Little Mikey proved in '06 that could beat La-Mo (by a lot), so odds are he'd have probably done even better. Talk about wasted money. But then again, you've provided the rest of us with so much entertainment over the last month, maybe it wasn't entirely wasted after all...

Looking At The Numbers

With a combined twenty-two games in the books over the 2007 season, we might as well do a little statistical evaluation of Auburn and Alabama before this Saturday's closer.

Turning to the SEC's official site, the first thing that jumps out at you is how little separation there is between the two teams in most categories. Given Auburn's much-noted offensive woes, you'd think the Tide would be way ahead in scoring offense, but no, UAT is number 7 in the SEC with a 28.4 average while AU is just over a field goal behind at number 9 and 25.0. Conversely, Auburn's reputation as run-first vs. Alabama's more-heralded passing game would make you think the Tigers are way ahead on the ground, but #8 AU actually trails #7 UAT by an average of a rushing yard per game.

This goes on and on. In 15 of the 29 significant categories tracked by the conference, Auburn and Alabama are either right next to each other in the team standings or separated by just one other team (I didn't count stuff like on-side kick recovery, since that's such a rare occurrence that the stats aren't meaningful). One of the more surprisingly-even stats to me was passing efficiency, where both teams are essentially tied near the bottom of the conference pack (AU is #7 at 117.4, UAT #8 at 115.7). Neither team is very good at either converting on third down or stopping opponents from doing the same.

So let's look at where we do see some separation between these teams. The first item that jumps out at you is scoring defense, where Auburn leads the conference allowing 17.3 points a game; Alabama's defense is a respectable #5 with 22.3 ppg, but still nearly a touchdown behind the Tigers. On the other hand, the Tide's large lead in passing offense (#5 at 231.8 vs. AU's #9 at 178.8) gives Alabama a corresponding lead in total offense, but as noted above, that advantage hasn't translated into a lot of additional points on the scoreboard.

The most eye-popping differentials on the page come in a couple of exceptionally important categories. Alabama has a huge advantage in first downs, second in the conference with an impressive 259 over eleven games; Auburn is nearly bringing up the rear at number 10 with fifty (fifty!) fewer first downs. Then again, that offensive production just hasn't been translated into points for the Tide, and surprisingly to me, it also hasn't translated into an advantage in time of possession, where #7 UAT trails #3 AU 29:36 to 31:27. Two minutes can be a very big deal in a game like this.

The second big difference illustrates Auburn's team strength this year, namely the defense. AU is second in the conference in Red Zone Defense, allowing opponents only 15 touchdowns and 10 field goals in 34 red zone situations. Alabama is dead last in this category, allowing points to opponents in scoring position over 90% of the time (30-33, 8 field goals and--ouch--22 touchdowns). That's pretty lousy, especially for a team coached by a "defensive genius." I'd call it a game-decider--but that would assume the Auburn offense can drive to the red zone enough times. I'm not ready to make that claim just yet.

It's worth noting that two categories with big discrepancies could be turned upside-down Saturday due to injuries. Alabama has a big lead in kick returns, but their star returner, Javier Arenas, has a bad ankle sprain and won't play. On the other side, Auburn is bringing up the SEC rear in kickoff returns this year, but the Tigers will welcome speedster Tristan Davis back this week in the lead return slot after a season-long injury spell. How those changes will play out this weekend, I can safely say nobody knows.

Blowback

From Mobile Press-Register columnist Neal McCready today:

Nick Saban said he saw it coming.

How clairvoyant. I wish he'd said something. I would have caught the first flight to Las Vegas, taken the 24 points and laid a bundle on my alma mater.

While I would have listened, Saban's warning would have primarily fallen on deaf ears. Many Alabama fans, as the Crimson Tide's $32 million man is learning the hard way, have an aversion to the truth.
...
We've learned that despite the considerable hype and the worshipping adoration of his followers, Saban isn't some omnipotent football god who can reverse the fortunes of a struggling program merely by showing up. We've learned that despite the absurd comparisons to a coach from a bygone era, Saban can't take his and beat yours and then take yours and beat his.
...
For myriad reasons, the regional and national college football landscapes have permanently changed. Alabama, like many other programs around the country and in the SEC, is still wandering in the wilderness a bit, searching for a comfortable spot to settle down. Shoot the messenger if it makes you happy, but all the bullying in the world doesn't change the truth in the message.

Of course, the truth hurts sometimes, especially when you refuse to open your eyes to see it.

A bit of background is in order here. McCready, who attended Ole Miss and graduated from Louisiana-Monroe (back when it was Northeast Louisiana), hosted a drive-time sports call-in show on Mobile's WNSP radio up until last Wednesday, when he was unceremoniously fired by programming director Tim Camp.

In an email sent to other journalists afterwards, McCready said, "While the ownership of the station has not spoken to me about the situation, I was told that I wasn't pro-Alabama enough," and went on to say, "I knew some Alabama boosters down here who were advertisers on the station were applying pressure to the Johnson family [the owners of WNSP], who are huge Alabama fans and boosters in their own right."

Camp has denied that accusation, but admitted in the same breath that he was responding to advertiser complaints by firing McCready. WNSP has reportedly suppressed callers complaining about McCready's firing over the last week, and a number of other sports writers who'd previously done call-in work for WNSP's shows have resigned in protest.

The whole fracas is interesting for a couple of reasons. Number one, it illustrates the UAT fan base's weird insistence on having smoke blown up its collective hindquarters at all times, particularly by the local media. Second, it's a sign that the old red (neck) guard of boosters is actively trying to intimidate the media in Alabama, and specifically in Mobile (hmm, why there in particular, I wonder?).

If so, that kind of buffoonery certainly isn't new. For decades, negative stories about Alabama football were spiked before they could see print in the state papers. In 1991, I knew personally about one very damaging story regarding an Alabama player that a reporter for the Birmingham News had chapter and verse on--but it never saw print. That kind of thing Just Wasn't Done in the days when a very few people controlled an even smaller number of media outlets.

What the guys trying to bully McCready and his colleagues don't seem to understand, as McCready notes in a different context above, is that the world has changed. Leaning on a radio station owner or depending on a "friendly" sports editor or publisher won't kill a story in the 21st Century. And if you try the old bullying tactics these days, you're just going to draw attention to yourself and cause more trouble.

I thought all intelligent people knew that. Then again, we're not really talking about intelligent people here, are we?

Off The Reservation

Over the last 11 months, the in-state media in Alabama has acted as an extension on Alabama coach Nick "I'm not going to be the Alabama coach" Saban's press office. While the national media has given Saban a richly-deserved pummeling for his apparently endless reservoir of obnoxious attitude, empty aphorisms and utter lack of character, the in-state press and delusional Alabama fan base (please forgive the redundancy) motored along spouting happy talk about the "Great Saban," and seldom was heard a discouraging word.

Until today. Here's Kevin Scarbinsky, the feature sports columnist of the Birmingham News:

I've never heard, and I hope I've never made, a statement about college football as outrageous, over-the-top and offensive as the one Nick Saban made at his weekly press conference/psychology lecture Monday.

Listen. These were his words. His exact words.

"Changes in history usually occur after some kind of catastrophic event," Saban said. "It may be 9/11, which sort of changed the spirit of America relative to a catastrophic event. Pearl Harbor got us ready for World War II or whatever, and that was a catastrophic event.

"And I don't think anyone in this room would've bet that we would lose back-to-back games to Mississippi State or ULM, no disrespect to either one of those teams."

That's right. The head football coach at Alabama included the lost lives in New York, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania and Hawaii with the lost games against Mississippi State and Louisiana-Monroe in his very serious discussion of "catastrophic events."

What historical tragedy will he reference Saturday when Alabama loses a sixth straight game to Auburn? The Holocaust?

Here's radio host and Mobile Press-Register columnist Paul Finebaum, who led the charge to hire Saban, and who's been a relentless advocate for "Flipper" since January, going so far as to call Alabama's loss to LSU "inspiring" in a remarkably silly (and well-parodied) column a few weeks ago:

That sound you heard late Saturday afternoon was Bear Bryant rolling over in his grave. Nearly a quarter century after his death, his beloved football program has seemingly fallen and it can't get up.

On Saturday, against a directional school from northeast Louisiana, one who plays in a league whose champion earns an automatic berth into something called the New Orleans Bowl, the Tide(tanic) hit another iceberg, shredding this season into four million pieces and raising questions for the first time whether Nick Saban has a solid handle on his job as head football coach at Alabama.
...
Saban warned the Alabama faithful in the offseason that booing is bad for business. He repeated that admonition at every stop on the rubber-chicken circuit. However, based on Saturday's embarrassing scene, it appears the fans now pay about as much attention to him as his Alabama players.

Do you think Saban will be able to go into the home of top recruits and make a case that Alabama is a program built on class, integrity and discipline?

Saban also appeared to be throwing his senior class under the bus in his post-game comments by saying part of the problem could be a "pattern of personality." He said the problems now seem to be the same ones that cropped up in the past.

Translation: This is Mike Shula's fault.

Well, no it isn't, Nick. This has happened on your $32 million watch.
...
So what's the problem here?

Saban said he stressed all week that you can't take a team like this lightly. Well, apparently, they didn't listen. Why not?

Could it be the team has tuned out the master of the process? Could it be they don't care what he has to say any more? Or perhaps, they simply can't relate to a coach who makes so much money and who has crisscrossed the nation the last few years like an Amway salesman.

One could assume that's the case with DJ Hall, the team's most talented offensive weapon. Hall didn't play in the first half (Saban said he violated team rules), but with Alabama struggling at halftime, Saban suddenly decided that Hall's suspension was over.

Asked for an explanation afterward, Saban said: "It was what it was?"

Huh?

When a reporter challenged him, Saban silenced him like a stern father talking to a teenager asking for his car keys a second time.

At least Saban could been honest and said, "Hey man, I'm trying to win the stupid football game. Aight! That's what you people are paying me $4 mil to do."

Here's Huntsville Times columnist Mark McCarter:

[N]ot long ago I interviewed a former NFL player who was casually talking football with a friend on the 94th floor of a World Trade Center tower when the phone line suddenly went dead. "If there's a blessing, he never knew what hit him," the ex-player said of his friend, whose office was struck by the nose of a hijacked plane.

The ex-player lost his New York apartment near the World Trade Center and 150 people that he personally knew. I don't think he'd ever equate that with any games he lost.

Nick Saban did so on Monday.
...
Saban arrived with a rich reputation for his insensitivity. Usually it's directed toward media or minions.

On Monday, that insensitivity stretched well beyond the protected confines of his kingdom when he concocted such an insulting, ill-advised analogy. An experienced, expensive coach has to do better.

Maybe Saban was just too wrapped up in emotion and hyperbole. Maybe, like some fourth-and-two play, he didn't give it enough thought. Maybe it was dramatic effect. Maybe it was self-preservation, a bold statement to a fan base where some are already second-guessing the investment.

Whatever the reason, to borrow from his war-time comparisons, Nick Saban bombed.

Sounds like somebody has worn out his welcome. I'm guessing the off-season of 2008 just might be a bit different from the extended Nick Sucking honeymoon of 2007.

Heh

Louisiana-Monroe's Charlie Weatherbie is the lowest-paid head coach in Division 1-A football, with a $130,000 annual salary.

D.J. Hall and The Incredible Shrinking Suspension

Alabama fans were greeted Saturday with the game-time announcement that the team's star player, receiver D.J. Hall, would be suspended for what was expected to be a "tune-up game" against lightly-regarded Louisiana-Monroe. AL.com bloggers Paul Gattis (Huntsville Times) and Ian Rapoport (Birmingham News) both reported before kickoff that Hall's suspension would be for the ULM game; there was no mention in the contemporaneous accounts of a "one half suspension."

Flash forward a couple of hours. As Alabama was tied with ULM in the second half and being dominated throughout the third quarter, Hall's suspension was magically lifted and he returned to play (as it happened, it didn't matter whether Hall was on the field or not; UAT was shut out in the second half). Gattis, to his credit, reiterated the point about Hall's suspension at that time:

Alabama leading receiver DJ Hall, who was said to have been suspended for today's game, started the second half for the Tide.

Hall did not play in the first half.

UA football SID Jeff Purinton said that Hall would not play today because of a violation of team policy.

After the game, Rapoport asked Alabama Coach Nick "I am not going to be the Alabama coach" Saban about Hall's sudden reinstatement, and received the following enlightening response:

I asked Saban post-game if receiver DJ Hall was suspended for 30 minutes from the beginning. As in, was it a game suspension that turned into a half suspension?

"It was what it was," he said.

So, I asked, a half suspension?

"What it was," Saban said.

C'mon, Flipper. Everybody knows you're a snake and a liar who'll do anything to win football games. Why not go ahead and admit it: not losing to a bottom-feeder was a lot more important to you than maintaining discipline in your program. You panicked and put Hall back in the game because you didn't think you could win without him (you were wrong, of course, but that's beside the point).

You know, this team looks more and more like it's still being coached by Mike Shula. Discipline problems, charges of favoritism from the coaches, long losing streaks and now a loss to one of the worst teams in the country. Has anything really changed other than the coach being a jackass and the school paying a whole lot more money for the same results? Why not just give Hall an ice cream cone and make it official?

Nelson Muntz Alert

Final score: Louisiana-Monroe 21, Alabama 14.
HA-Ha!

MORE:

The players on the University of Alabama sideline began to head for the locker room before the clock struck 00:00. Most exited without a handshake for the opponent, and all exited with their chins hanging in the dirt.

When the Crimson Tide's humbling 21-14 loss to Louisiana-Monroe became official on Saturday, when the 92,138 at Bryant-Denny Stadium finished booing their team as it fled the field, even those who participated couldn't believe the result.

"Just looking at the scoreboard, seeing Louisiana-Monroe 21, University of Alabama 14 ... Kind of crazy. Real crazy," said Alabama receiver Matt Caddell.
...

22 Alabama players are part of the sixth consecutive senior class to head into a losing locker room on senior day. Instead, it was the third loss in a row this season for Alabama (6-5).

It's Nutt-Cuttin' Time...

... in Arkansas:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -- Arkansas head football coach Houston Nutt will not return in 2008, 40/29 News has learned.

Multiple sources have confirmed with 40/29 sports director Mark Lericos that Nutt will be leaving at the end of the season. Sources could not confirm whether Nutt would offer his resignation, be fired or possibly accept another position.

There is no word of any plans for an official announcement. The Razorbacks still have two games left to play this season.

More here. No official announcement yet, but when your hometown paper leads up a story with your name followed by the words "Stick A Fork In Him," it's pretty much over.

UPDATE: Or not. In Saturday's Ark Dem-Gaz:

While reports and rumors flew Friday on the Internet and TV and radio that Houston Nutt won't return to coach the Razorbacks next season, Nutt himself spent the day prepping Arkansas for today's 1 p.m. SEC West game with Mississippi State in Little Rock.

" I haven't gone anywhere, " Nutt said Friday by phone in Little Rock. " I've got these games to coach. And we're recruiting. That's what I am concerned with. "
...
Tysen Kendig, the vice chancellor of University Relations, issued a statement Friday night reiterating what White said Thursday regarding Nutt's future and also chastising some of the rumors and reports Friday.

At Thursday's announcement that the UA is merging its Razorback and Lady Razorback athletic departments, White said he always discusses the football program after the season with retiring athletics director Frank Broyles and in the meantime supports Nutt and his staff for today's game and the Nov. 23 game at LSU which concludes the regular season.

" It seems some media outlets chose to falsely legitimize baseless rumors with unknown details from unnamed sources without first seeking the benefit of fact from the University, " Kendig's statement read. " The fact is, there has been no determination regarding the status of Houston Nutt nor would there be until the normal review process for coaches takes place after the season. "

Kendig said White affirmed this Thursday and that " nothing has changed in regard to the coach's status with the Razorback football team since that time. Reports to the contrary are misleading and irresponsible. "

So there you are.

I think Nutt is toast at Arkansas, but things obviously aren't as cut-and-dried as they seemed about 18 hours ago.

Ugh

Sorry for the long delay, life is busy these days (and let's face it, this isn't exactly a column I was looking forward to).

There wasn't much to take away from Auburn's collapse in Athens on Saturday night. There isn't the bleak despair that followed September's Crooming (which has gotten somewhat easier to bear with all the recent company in the Valley of the Croomed), but that's a decidedly low standard. Even after the LSU loss, as tough as it was, there was something to take away from the game: a solid performance against a top team on the road. This time? Not so much.

While driving over, an old friend asked me what I thought about the game. I told him, "Auburn's key is to prevent the big play, keep moving the ball, and not turn it over." Not exactly brilliant analysis, I'll grant you, but when the Tigers went 0-for-three on those points, the outcome might as well have been chiseled in granite.

Georgia exposed once again AU's lack of playmakers on offense, and also took advantage of a defense that stayed on the field too long and made too many mistakes. It's not an excuse, but it is a partial reason: Auburn played eleven straight games without a break, and there was nowhere near enough left in the tank to cover a relatively-fresh UGA. This defensive performance reminded me a bit of the Ole Miss game from three years ago, when an obviously tired and footsore Auburn gave up some big plays in the passing game. In 2004, Auburn had more than enough offensive firepower to overcome the general fatigue. In 2007, that kind of heavy ordinance just isn't on hand.

Give Georgia the credit: amidst the bush-league uniform switch and goofy sideline dancing, the Bulldogs put together a heck of a good football game. This is the second year in a row that Will Muschamp and Hugh Nall have been schooled by Mark Richt and Willie Martinez, and let's not even start on Greg Knox or Steve Ensminger. AU's been hurt all year by a receiving corps that can't get separation, and Georgia provided an object lesson in the value of that particular trait. In addition, the next time this season I see an Auburn defensive back look back for the football will also be the first.

I will, however give one bit of credit where it's due to the AU staff: for once, the kick return coverage was pretty good.

It said something about the character of this team when it was able to come back from a 14-point halftime deficit to take the lead, but it unfortunately also says a lot about the limitations of this team that it then proceeded to give up four unanswered touchdowns.

Where we go from here is obviously an open question. This Auburn team is an odd reflection of the entire SEC and national football seasons of 2007: calling it up-and-down is as big an understatement as you'd ever care to make, and the opposition in the final game is almost as mercurial. Auburn is certainly capable of bouncing back from the Georgia loss for a big win; they did so just last season, to say nothing of 2002 and 2003.

Whether they can and will do so again... we'll see.

Homecoming

As per my usual, I'm not going to go into any kind of detail about Auburn's Homecoming game against Tennessee Tech. It was what it was: a breather and a chance to clear the bench on a beautiful fall day. The only notable thing to come out of the afternoon was Blake Field's supplanting Kodi Burns as the second-team quarterback, but even that is a footnote; Burns will retain his job as a situational replacement for Brandon Cox, while Field will be the back-up should Cox have to leave the game. You could tell from the stands that Burns was hyped-up and over-excited, and putting too much on the ball as a result. That's going to happen sometimes--the guy's eighteen. Burns threw for nearly 9,000 yards in high school. He hasn't forgotten how in the last 10 months.

Oh, Auburn's kick coverage was terrible. Again.

Elsewhere, I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the score updates from Lawrence, Kansas on Saturday. If there's any team in college football that deserves to have the score run up on them, it's Nebraska, and if any individual deserved to have to sit there and watch it happen, his name is Tom Osbourne. As any corn farmer can tell you, you reap what you sow. Along similar lines, if you can't enjoy the continuing implosion of Notre Dame and the fraud named Charlie Weis, you probably need a schadenfreude transplant.

We listened to LSU's radio network courtesy of XM during the drive home, and I nearly drove off the road laughing when color man Doug Moureau said, "The quarterback sometimes referred to as Sarah Jessica Parker Wilson is getting the kid-gloves treatment from the officials today." Yet another sign that the message board and blog cultures are just saturating college football.

Speaking of LSU, watching the Bengals make every attempt to self-destruct in Tuscaloosa made me think that the program is slowly reverting to the "old LSU," meaning a hugely talented team that's completely lacking in discipline either on or off the field. So far they're been more-or-less able to get away with it, but these things tend to snowball over time. If the trend of off-the-field incidents and on-the-field buffoonery continues, don't be surprised of LSU's results start to look a lot more like the DiNardo years before too much longer.

Oh, and regarding the Ivan Maisel Plan for a six-way tie in the SEC East? Still on track. It'll stay that way after this Saturday if: Auburn beats Georgia, Tennessee beats Arkansas, South Carolina beats Florida, and Kentucky beats Vanderbilt. All of those results are well within the realm of possibility.

Mission Not Implausible

From Ivan Maisel:

If Georgia loses to Auburn and to Kentucky;
If Tennessee beats Arkansas and loses to Vanderbilt and Kentucky;
If South Carolina loses to Arkansas and beats Florida;
If Florida beats Vanderbilt and loses to South Carolina;
If Kentucky loses to Vanderbilt and beats Tennessee and Georgia;
And if Vanderbilt loses to Florida and beats Kentucky and Tennessee;
The SEC East will have a six-way tie for the championship at 4-4.

Yikes.

Spencer Tillman and My Sister's Dog

I was all ready to hand over a second-consecutive My Sister's Dog award to a Can't Broadcast Sports employee, in this case talking (empty) head Spencer Tillman for a really spectacular bit of mediocy, but Phillip Marshall beat me to the punch.

So go read Marshall's take. As usual, he's dead on.

Wild Boys Falling, Far From Glory

Despite the absolutely gorgeous early fall weather on Saturday, I walked away from Jordan-Hare with the beginnings of a nasty head cold that really came into its own by Sunday, so this one is going to be short and sweet.

Tommy Tuberville was clearly looking to show nothing new to either Georgia or Alabama against Ole Miss, and I have to guess that he succeeded. The offense was back to unflavored yogurt, the defense rarely broke out of a standard cover-two with a four-man rush. And for the most part, it worked. Ole Miss was stymied for all but two drives, earning only a field goal on the night, and AU rolled up over 400 yards of offense--but still couldn't get many points on the board. I can't recall ever seeing Auburn dominate a game so thoroughly while still managing to struggle in scoring, and as a side-effect, keeping an outmanned opponent in the game into the final period.

The defense played well all around; the stars this week were Antonio Coleman and Tray Blackmon. Coleman is having something of a "David Pollack Year" in 2007. His success reminds me a lot of Pollack's sophomore season of 2002, when Pollack was able to wreak havoc thanks in no small part to the constant double-teaming of his Georgia teammate and eventual first-rounder Johnathan Sullivan. This time around, Coleman is reaping the benefits of the miasma of fear and accompanying double-teams generated by senior end Quentin Groves, and he's making the most of it. Coleman's blowing up (real good) of that attempted reverse in the second half was a signature play in a season full of highlights for the big sophomore. Blackmon's speed and instincts continue to be dazzling, and he put on a defensive how-to against Ole Miss. Will Muschamp has to be licking his chops at the thought of having these guys and most of their teammates around for another season or two.

I did think UM's quarterback Seth Adams played well, considering how close he was being to losing life and limb for most of the night. Auburn gave him the short pass for most of the game, and he made some nice quick throws to take advantage. As the end of Ole Miss's late attempt at a scoring drive proved, Adams was clearly the best option Ed Orgeron has at QB right now. "Yaw-Yaw" jokes aside, I knew the game was over as soon as Brent Schaeffer hopped onto the field. Schaeffer is the Nuke LaLoosh of SEC football: million-dollar talent and a fifty-cent head. When he tossed up that last interception into the end zone, it was hard to resist jumping up and yelling, "AFLAC!" (Honesty compels me to admit that I did not in fact resist doing so.)

Offensively, beyond yet another textbook Brandon Cox drive for a late touchdown, it was a pretty boring night for Auburn. The chains moved up and down the field, but just about every time the Tigers threatened, a mistake or a penalty would kill the drive (this game did feature the first no-contact pass interference call I've ever seen--is there a rule against using The Force to break up a pass now?). All in all it was a pretty lackadaisical display, and that goes for the crowd as well as the team. That had to be the quietest home conference game at night that I've attended. After Auburn methodically punched in the first score and held UM to several three-and-outs, the home fans mentally checked out and so did most of the team's intensity (and brother, if you think this was bad, just wait until next week). There were some nice plays. Pass protection was good, Brad Lester had another fine night, Rod Smith continues to shine, and Montez Billings had a nothing-short-of-heroic catch on third down late in the game, but Ole Miss '07 isn't going to go down as anything more than a timecard punch when the history of Auburn offense is rewritten.

So, that was it, a workaday win against probably the worst team in the SEC. The only real question coming out of it is whether Orgeron will survive to Yaw-Yaw for another season on the Ole Miss sideline. Next week's game promises to make A-Day look exciting, but after that...

Hoooah

From Taji, Iraq:

The Long Road

It's no fun being on the losing side of a classic. Don't believe me? Ask an LSU fan what he thinks about last year's game. In many ways it feels worse to lose by a hair's-breadth than it does to get blown out before halftime--and to be perfectly frank, I would have been a lot less surprised by that outcome than I was by Saturday night's result.

That doesn't do anything to diminish the stature of yet another amazing game and finish in this remarkable rivalry. What a series this has been over the last four seasons! After a stretch of flip-flopping blowouts from 1998 to 2003, the Auburn-LSU rivalry has produced four straight knock-down-drag-out games that were all in question until the last snap. That's an astonishing run, one made more remarkable by the high level of play on both sides.

What did I like? Montez Billings stepping up to join Rod Smith as a viable option at receiver. The tremendous improvement on third-down conversions. Brandon Cox, mocked mercilessly by LSU fans last week, playing from start to finish, passing for one short of 200 yards and two touchdowns without an interception, and once again leading his team down the field to take the lead late in the fourth quarter. Given another 90 seconds, there's little reason to think he couldn't have done it yet again. Defensively, taking away two turnovers and stuffing the Bengals for most of the first half was huge.

But, of course, it wasn't enough.

Once again, Auburn was able to take control of a road game and dominate the first half, but also once again, AU was not able to maintain that control after halftime. Whether it was due to the fan-decried "Tubershell" of conservative play-calling with a lead or simply LSU stepping up its game in the third quarter (I think it was the latter), Auburn stopped moving the ball until after the Bengals had taken the lead midway though the final period.

What I didn't like is fairly obvious: Auburn's running game lost steam and the pass defense all but fell apart in the third quarter. I didn't like the pooch kickoffs, and I really didn't understand pooch-kicking after Auburn's last score. Yes, AU's kick coverage has been awful this year and LSU has a great return game, but I don't think that validates giving them the ball on the 40 for that last drive.

Auburn has a lot to be proud of from Saturday night, but let's have no talk about "moral victories." The program is well beyond that level by now. Yes, it was heartening to see all those AU freshmen and sophomores on the road going toe-to-toe with LSU's juniors and seniors. Certainly there's optimism to be taken for the future, but also lessons for players and coaches alike about maintaining intensity and playing for a full four quarters--something Auburn still hasn't done yet against a quality opponent.

Lessons to learn, games still to be played. Auburn is now all but eliminated from SEC title contention (I'm willing to entertain the possibility that LSU could lose another game, but not two more), but the Tigers earned a fair amount of respect from Saturday's showing, and should be favored for the rest of the season. Now it'll be up to this very young team and its very few seniors to pick up the pieces and make the most of the opportunities remaining.

They've come a long way already, and I'm guessing they're done with falling short from here on out. We'll see.

D'oh!

To everybody who's tried to email me through the address here at FTB over the last few months, I have not been ignoring you. I switched my email program back in August and have just realized that I neglected to set the thing up to receive mail sent to the FTB address. I am in the process of digging through the backlog, and I apologize profusely to everybody who probably (and reasonably) thinks I'm a stuck-up jerk for not getting back to them.

My bad all around. Thanks for writing, I will get back to you, and soon.

Colonel Reb Is Cryin'...

... but it's hard to imagine that he won't be laughing after he watches this. Great stuff, hat tip to The Dead Guy's SEC Site:

Lies and the Lying Corn Dogs Who Tell Them

There's an amusing little post making the rounds in message board land today, originating on the Tiger's Lair LSU board and written by a dude going by the name "lsub," who's apparently been boasting about 'firing up the masses' going into this week's Tiger Bowl grudge match.

(As an aside, this pre-game "firing up" business appears to be an oddity of LSU fandom. Why anybody would need to try and "fire up" any SEC fanbase for a huge conference game that's also an SECCG elimination match between two teams who've been at each others' throats for well over a decade is way beyond me, but you see this very often when LSU has a big game coming up. There's always some largely-imagined slight that gets tossed around in the Corn Dog echo chamber before the game, presumably to encourage the LSU fans to get even more drunk, obnoxious and abusive at the stadium. There's a weird obsession with being "disrespected" down in Red Stick. Pretty silly when viewed from the outside, but there you are.)

At any rate, here's the post:

"Now, this picture was sent to me by an Auburn graduate. The comment was made to me that this was taken by a sports photographer for a newspaper in Alabama. The player for Auburn in this picture is Zach Gilbert #38. Zach is a cornerback who made the non-called pass interference on Doucet. Zach is a Senior this year and has changed his number to 22.

Old Zach was on the sideline during the last play and when the game was over, ran across the field to do this. He was not standing there at the end of the play.

I was told Muschamp knew about the cigar situation at LSU and to fire up his players, he informed them that LSU planned to do the same at Auburn to return the favor. According to the Auburn people, Gilbert ran across the field when the game was over took off his helment and told Davis, "Close but not Cigar." He laughed at him and as he walked off said, "Smoke em if you got em." Now the picture was snapped when he was laughing at him. This I know is true. The quotes, came from an Auburn fan , true or not true, don't really matter.

Don't ever run across the field after a game, take your helmet off, stand over a player, and laugh at him. The picture says it all. Players will see this today and I assure you no matter how hurt or tired you are, you better come out swinging. This fired Miles up and the coaching staff. They don't win with class, that's evident. They don't have class. And just for Gilbert doing this, they need to be put on their ass.

Different strokes for Different folks but to me, this picture is a hell of a lot worse than smoking a cigar on my field. Don't stand over me and taunt me after a game. POS. LSUB is out."

Here's the picture our pal "lsub" is talking about:It's a nice story "lsub" tells here, and it is surely doing its job in "firing up" a fan base that needs very little encouragement to act like goons towards opponents. Just one problem: it isn't true.

Here's a clip from CBS's broadcast of the 2006 Auburn-LSU game. It's a replay of the final play shot from behind the end zone, and you can see #38 Zach Gilbert playing nickleback in the middle of the field (he's just to the left of the right-side goalpost), and running towards the football after JaMarcus Russell releases it. The camera cuts away before Gilbert arrives at the now-over play, but you can see by the path he's taking before he goes out of frame that he was heading towards Craig Davis while the ball was in the air, and obviously arrived shortly after Davis was tackled and the clock expired. The picture here is a little fuzzy thanks to YouTube's compression, but you can see Gilbert's number at the bottom of the screen before the camera pans (it's crystal clear in the original HD video):



Now, was it the greatest thing in the world for Gilbert to give Davis some chin music after that play? Probably not. I'd like to think I wouldn't have done it, but then again, those guys had been on the field swapping abuse both physical and verbal for over three hours, and the game had just ended seconds before the photo above was shot. It's not hard to understand players on either team (or any team, for that matter) getting in a little what-for in the heat of that moment.

I'm not under any illusions that pointing out the facts of the matter will make any difference to the Corn Dog Nation. They've made up their minds to be mad, and good for them. But just so you know, guys, you're getting mad over a made-up story.

Pulled Pork

Arkansas '07 was arguably Will Muschamp's finest moment to date as Auburn's defensive coordinator, and certainly ranks among his best two games (shutting out Florida in the first half was pretty darn impressive in its own right). Holding both Darren McFadden and Felix Jones under 50 yards, and Arkansas under 70 net rushing yards for the game on the road is a little like going into Japan and cornering the market on rice. It just isn't done--but Muschamp and his troops did it.

One thing we know for sure: Auburn has a dominant, championship-quality defensive line. Once again, the Tigers front four absolutely demolished a quality opponent up front, and they did it without the defense's superstar and leader, Quentin Groves. It's way past time to acknowledge Groves' teammates up front: Josh Thompson, Pat Sims, Sen'derrick Marks and Antonio Coleman are just killing people out there. They might be the best defensive front Auburn has fielded since the legendary 1988 defense, and their ability to blow up the middle of the line has cleared the path for the defensive backfield to wreak havoc on quarterbacks and running backs--that is, when the D-line doesn't smash those guys down first. I doubt anybody was happy with giving up the late touchdown drive, but after 58 minutes of gut-busting football, both defenses had to be running on fumes.

Offensively, Tommy Tuberville said afterwards that Auburn intentionally stuck to a minimal, conservative gameplan, counting on the defense to control Arkansas and the game. That worked out in the end, but it drove fans (and I would hazard a guess Al Borges as well) mildly nuts as the game went on. Arkansas DC Reggie Herring, a veteran of Pat Dye's Auburn staffs, noted after last year's debacle that Auburn's offense had become predictable.* Herring, who also did a nice job of defending against AU this year, probably thought the same thing Saturday night; I doubt the Tigers ran as many as 15 different plays the entire ball game, but again, it was good enough.

Auburn's trio of running backs, Mario Fannin, Brad Lester, and whoa-Nellie Ben Tate, vastly out-rushed Arkansas (bet you thought you wouldn't read that this year), and the offense took what it could get in the passing game. It helped a lot that AU spent most of its time on the Razorbacks' side of the field, especially in the second half. Then again, this was the second SEC road game when the Tigers fumbled away an opportunity to put the game away, the punting game went south, hurting field position (which the defense, to its credit, was able to overcome) and the two uncharacteristic missed kicks from Wes Byrum didn't help any. Some more fireworks in the offense might have saved a lot of heartburn up until the point when Byrum knocked in the game-winner, but again: what Auburn actually did was enough.

Receiver Robert Dunn drives me completely crazy. The guy won't just catch the ball and run up the field on punt returns. He's dropped more touchdown passes than, er, the Auburn secondary. But damn if he doesn't come up with at least one amazing clutch play a week. Against Vanderbilt he broke at least six tackles to gain extra yardage after a catch, and against Arkansas he reeled in Brandon Cox's biggest and most crucial pass of the night, netting thirty yards and putting the Tigers well within Byrum's range. So credit where it's due: great catch, great run. Now let's work on doing that more often, eh?

Speaking of Cox, this was just another ho-hum evening for a guy to get the stuffing beaten out of himself and still lead his team to another big win on the road. Cox is making a lot of people who were mocking him during the early-season slump look pretty foolish these days. It's high time for folks out there to notice that he's the winningest active quarterback in the SEC, and he's now passed for over a thousand yards in 2007 with five to seven games still to go. Major kudos are also due to center Jason Bosley, who was carried off the field with a knee injury last week but still played every snap against Arkansas.

I would be remiss if I didn't wish Arkansas head coach and male cheerleader Houston Nutt a less-than-fond farewell. Nutt was never a good fit in the SEC; among many other faults, he'd obviously rather be in the Big-12 where he could play Texas every year. Even if he weren't an egotistical clown with delusions of grandeur and an enlarged whining gland (he is all of the above, and more), Nutt is an undisciplined goon who inspires and very likely encourages undisciplined goonishness from his players. Arkansas is the only college team I've ever heard of where the coaches are known to taunt opposing players from the sidelines, and as we saw Saturday, under Nutt the Razorbacks have a well-deserved reputation for cheap shots, late hits, and all-around dirty football. After ten years of smoke and mirrors, Nutt's career is finally on the chopping block, and it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Buh-bye, Houston. You won't be missed.


* UPDATE: I've been credibly assured that Reggie Herring did not publicly accuse Auburn of being predictable on offense in 2006. That said, I'll bet you he thought it... and probably still does.

What He Said

Great piece from Yahoo Sports national columnist Dan Weitzel today (H/T: Best of the SEC Blogs):

Consider Ohio State, which considered this a rebuilding year. Its nonconference schedule consisted of Youngstown State, Akron, last-place Washington and Kent State. Not surprisingly, the Buckeyes won them all.

It's not Ohio State's fault that everyone else lost and the Buckeyes now are the likely No. 1. But it doesn't change the fact that perhaps no team ever has reached the top of the polls this late in the season with a less impressive body of work.

...

But that's just the kind of schedule the BCS rewards. Play no one but win, and you've got a heck of a shot of making the title game as the rest of the country beats one another's brains in. The best route to the title game is to play in a mediocre to moderate league with no more than one or two other good teams.

That's the Big Ten, ACC and, to maybe a slightly lesser extent, the Big East.

None of which means that an unbeaten champion of those leagues are better than a one- or even two-loss team from the SEC, Pac-10 or perhaps even Big 12.

...

But LSU now is playing catchup thanks to a wild loss in Lexington. This was surprising in the specific but not the general – the chance of the Tigers surviving the SEC meat grinder was unlikely.

For the second consecutive week, the SEC should have seven ranked teams. Seven! The Pac-10, meanwhile, had four of the top 14 teams last week.

This is your BCS, though. It punishes good leagues and rewards bad ones.

Former SEC commissioner Roy Kramer might have designed the original BCS, but in its current form, in this current landscape, it is killing his old conference. In a sport with such a disparity in schedule strength, a playoff is most needed, not least. Let 16 teams play it out, and you might wind up with all-SEC title games or three of the final four.

Every week isn't a playoff, as the apologists like to claim, when not everyone is playing playoff competition.

But until the SEC's current commissioner Mike Slive decides to stand up and fight for his teams, rather than following the Big Ten's lead in protecting a system perfect for the Big Ten, nothing is going to change.

One loss, to a ranked team, on the road, in triple overtime will send you reeling behind someone with no losses, but no challenges either. It's quite a system. It needs to go.

Hear, hear. Read the whole thing.

Hoovergate Released

Here's a quick take on the contents of the just-released internal report on Hoovergate:

1. It confirms that Alabama assistant coach Kevin Steele called Terrie Borie directly regarding STUDENT #1's (based on press reports, most probably Alabama freshman Josh Chapman) grades. An excuse was given (I assume by Borie) that Steele "couldn't reach" the normal people in the Hoover administration regarding transcripts. I scoff at this. Borie got the call because she's an Alabama alum and well-known as a booster.

2. It puts off the Chapman incident as innocent human error. I think that's a stretch, but the Chapman thing was (minus the direct influence from the UAT coaching staff) a sideshow all along.

3. I'll quote from the conclusion, regarding STUDENT #2 (based on press reports, most probably Alabama signee Kerry Murphy):

Most of the other incidents relate to the grades of STUDENT #2, a star football player classified as a Special Education student needing special support outlined in an approved Individualized Education Program. During his years at HHS, Assistant Principal Carol Martin and Counselor Terrie Borie became so engrossed in trying to shepherd STUDENT #2 through the academic challenges that, by his senior year, they had in essence lost their objectivity and self-restraint. Though well-intentioned, their constant and unrelenting requests to teachers to allow make-ups, extended deadlines, retake exams, etc. -- frequently beyond any accommodations justified by his IEP -- became a signal that the teachers had a responsibility to see that STUDENT #2 got the grades he needed. This implicit pressure was particularly significant for a non-tenured teacher wanting to return the following year.

I don't know anything about Carol Martin, but it's a fact that Terrie Borie is an Alabama booster. Kerry Murphy had been considered a "lock" for Alabama for years if my memory is correct (actual recruitniks, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), which brings into question just why Borie in particular was so adamant about getting him through high school.

This report is not, as some expected, a "whitewash," nor is it as others expected, a "smoking gun." The investigators were remarkably incurious regarding the connections between Borie and the Alabama football program. That said, the report is a pretty damning indictment of Murphy as a student, and of Martin and Borie's efforts to get him graduated and eligible for college football. There's more than enough evidence here to merit an NCAA investigation into booster and assistant coach misconduct, but as anybody who's seen this stuff in the past will tell you, there's no way of knowing whether one will actually take place.

For those interested, there's quite a bit more in the report regarding the personal, professional and financial antics of Hoover coach Rush Propst. Speaking for myself, I wasn't all that interested, but your mileage may vary.

UPDATE: Here's an interesting tidbit regarding Murphy, from a footnote on page 37 of the report:

It is also worth noting that STUDENT #2's satisfactory HHS GPA is largely attributable to the fact that each semester he received an A in Borie's academic support class and an A in weight lifting.

Worth noting, indeed.

Hoovergate Strikes Back

From the Birmingham News "breaking news" blog at al.com:

Hoover's school board voted tonight to make public in full at 9 a.m. Saturday a report on a special investigation into possible academic improprieties involving Hoover High School's athletics program.

The board voted 4-1 to release the report. Only board member Bill Veitch voted against the decision.
...

The 68-page report will be posted on-line and at the Hoover Public Library, board Vice President Suzy Baker said. Copies also will be available at the school system's central office.

Good for the Hoover board. Should make very interesting reading. Here's an updated story from Thursday's News.

Oh, and that lone vote against releasing the report? That was the same guy who arranged to have felony charges against Alabama linebacker Juwan "Ice Cream Cone" Simpson reduced to misdemeanors last year, conveniently in time for football season.

For more background on Hoovergate, click here.

What He Said

From Yost at M-Zone:

Does ESPN really think that "naming" the weekend's slate of college football games makes them bigger or more important?

I don't think it would have been humanly possible for any ESPN on-air host, announcer, commentator, sideline reporter and anchor to have mentioned more times that last weekend's football games had been dubbed "Gut-Check Saturday!" by the network. Put it this way, if my friends and I had been playing one of those college drinking games, in which a person has to drink each time the phrase in question is uttered on the TV show being watched, we'd all be dead today.

Seriously. Can't we just enjoy the games?

Can't add a thing to that, other than noting that the idiotic "naming" carried over to ESPN Radio, where it was, if possible, even more annoying than on TV, since "Gut-Check Saturday" was repeated more often.

Yost is dead-on. Give it a rest, ESPN.

Letdown, Shmetdown

There's not a whole lot to say about Auburn's 35-7 beatdown of Vanderbilt, or at least there wouldn't have been much to say about it if not for AU's early-season woes. Auburn handled Vandy the way to SEC's top teams are supposed to handle Vandy. The thing is, Auburn of 2007 wasn't supposed to be one of the SEC's top teams, at least not after dropping two home games to lightly-regarded opponents. ESPN shouting head Woody Paige actually equated AU to VU less than three weeks ago, and to be perfectly frank, it didn't look at the time like there was a lot in Paige's dismissal to argue about. Plenty has changed since then.

To state the exceptionally obvious, Auburn has a phenomenally better football team in early October than it did in mid-September. The Tigers' first-quarter performance against Vanderbilt demonstrated arguably the team's most flawless execution since the game against Arkansas in 2004. Missing four starters on defense? No problem--led in no small part by linebacker Chris Evans, Auburn swamped the Commodores' well-regarded passing attack and limited Vandy to 66 first half yards.

On offense, Brandon Cox showed no signs of reverting to early-season form, going 11 for 13 with a touchdown in the first half. His only blemish was a moderately-dumb interception after the game was in the bag (and long after Cox should have been pulled anyway). Brad Lester's return to the field certainly didn't hurt any, as Cox and Al Borges finally have something like a full backfield available, but for me the real story of this offense's resurrection is up front. You just can't say enough about an offensive line composed mostly of true freshman that's playing this well. I've taken a lot of shots at line coach Hugh Nall over the years, but I have to take my hat off to him right now. He's got those kids playing like they have no business playing at this stage in their careers (although if I were being mean, I'd ask why a bunch of guys he's coached for three months are so far ahead of the guys he's coached for three or four years). It's an amazing thing to see those eighteen-year-olds pushing around SEC defenses.

There's only so much you can get out of bludgeoning an outmanned opponent, but in my mind the very best thing about the Vandy game was that Auburn showed no signs of the dreaded "big win letdown" or "early kickoff flu." The entire team was sharp from the kickoff, and didn't let up until the game was long-since decided and the sides were riddled with second- and third-teamers. That's a big deal for a team as young as Auburn. A whole lot of people were speculating before the game that the Tigers would take a step backwards amidst all the adulation of the Florida win. It's a huge credit to the coaching staff that they could keep this team's heads on straight for a game against the SEC's synonym for "losers."

Where we go from here--especially in a season as insane as this one--is of course above my pay grade (and yours, too). Arkansas has been a trouble game for Auburn for about as long as the Razorbacks have been in the SEC, and the game after that one, also on the road, will be a bit challenging in its own right. I can't help thinking that all the injuries are going to catch up with Auburn eventually. Most notably, we don't know yet how badly center Jason Bosley's knee was hurt on Saturday. Losing any offensive lineman right now is bad, losing the line's center and upperclassman leader is really bad. In addition, Auburn's kick coverage is still terrible, especially on kickoffs.

But. Even for all of that, this team is, beyond all expectations (mine emphatically included) good and getting better every week. If they can keep that up, if they can continue to improve week after week, there's a whole lot Auburn can accomplish in 2007.

Who'd'a thunk it?

Requiem For Vanderbilt, Again

I think Vanderbilt football is a lost cause.

I've thought that for a long time. Seven seasons ago, I wrote the following:

The year 2000 was supposed to be Next Year for the endlessly-suffering Vanderbilt Commodores. After a long rebuilding process engineered by head coach Woody Widenhofer, Vandy was considered a better-than-even bet to have a winning season and finally make it back to a bowl game (as every Vanderbilt fan is sick of hearing, the Commodores haven't managed either of those feats since 1982).

Just about everybody who looked at Vanderbilt before the season saw an experienced team, deep by Vanderbilt standards, that had come within an eyeblink of going 6-5 and earning a berth in the hometown Music City Bowl. Widenhofer was justifiably confident, and in August promised that his team would finally make it to the post-season this time around.

Flash forward one month. Vanderbilt is now 1-4, 0-3 in the SEC. On Saturday, they were utterly dominated by Auburn, losing 33-0. The Commodores didn't cross the fifty yard line in the first half, and never threatened to score. Still waiting on the schedule: Georgia (3-1), South Carolina (4-1), Florida (4-2) and Tennessee (2-2).

Vanderbilt will not have a winning season in 2000.

Vanderbilt will not go to a bowl game in 2000.

Vanderbilt probably will not have a winning season or go to a bowl in 2001, or 2002, or 2003.

And they didn't. Nor did they do so in 2004, 2005, or 2006, and odds are, they won't in 2007, either. Continuing:

I say this with no malice, no spite, and no hard feelings towards Vanderbilt University, its alumni, its fans, its players, or its coaches--but it's time somebody said it: Vanderbilt cannot compete with the rest of the Southeastern Conference in football, and it is time for VU to consider other options.

Yes, Vanderbilt does play a lot of people very tough. Certainly, Vanderbilt pulls off one or two huge upsets almost every year, and I will be the least surprised person watching when they pull off one of those upsets sometime this very season.

But an occasional upset does not make a program, and eighteen [now twenty-four] consecutive losing seasons is as close to scientific proof of futility as you're liable to find.

The freshmen of this season's Vanderbilt team [and the entire squad in 2007] weren't even alive the last time their team finished above .500. Vanderbilt football should exist for some better purpose than to provide Alabama and Tennessee with an annual guaranteed win. It's not fair to those kids to continually put them in positions where they can't reasonably be expected to win, year after year.

God bless them for hanging in there, every week, every miserable year, but enough is finally enough.

It's time for Vanderbilt to take their pride and their traditions and their undying spirit to someplace where those kids can compete. The Commodores would be middle-of-the-pack in the Atlantic Coast Conference, or a top-three team in Conference USA, or one of the two best teams in the Mid-Atlantic Conference. No, those are not places where any self-respecting SEC fan wants to see their team--but aren't they better than last or next-to-last, one season after another?

Sadly, I see no reason to change any of that thinking today. Bobby Johnson is the best head coach Vanderbilt has had in decades. He's done an entirely admirable job of building Vandy up from a punch line to at least a respectable weak sister or better--and the Commodores still can't win six games.

Vandy is a lost cause. It's time enough for them to move on, and long past time for the rest of the conference to stop subsidizing a sister so weak she hasn't contributed a dime of football revenue in a quarter century. Yes, Vandy is strong in basketball and baseball and many other sports, and there's no reason why they shouldn't stay in the conference as a non-football member. But in football, Vanderbilt no longer has a place in the SEC.

Ray Melick: Nick Sucker

It's my pride and pleasure to announce the creation of a new award here at FTB, the Nick Sucker Award, to be presented as needed to the state of Alabama media figure who makes the most egregious show of fealty to Alabama coach Nick "I'm not going to be the Alabama coach" Saban.

There have been many notable candidates for the Nick Sucker Award over the past ten months, as the horde of delusional UAT fans and in-state media employees (please pardon the redundancy) sought to outdo each other in praise of the latest Savior. Paul Finebaum was practically Saban's unofficial press agent, at least until Alabama dropped two straight last month (although it should be noted that even after those Shula-esque collapses, Paul was back on the party line by Tuesday of the following week).

But even Finebaum falls short in the Nick Sucker sweepstakes compared to Birmingham News employee Ray Melick, who in a typically-turgid column on Tuesday managed to set off a media fracas between Saban and South Florida head coach Jim Leavitt. The only part you need to read is the following quote, elicited by a question from Melick (although Melick himself didn't identify it as such in the column):

"The distribution of players is not the same for everybody," said Alabama head coach Nick Saban. "There's a significant amount of players who don't qualify (at some schools) and they end up being pretty good players at some other schools. I think there are six guys starting on South Florida's defense who probably could have gone to Florida or Florida State but Florida and Florida State couldn't take them. And if you do a good job of recruiting that way..."

As you might imagine, that didn't sit well with Leavitt, a coach who turned down the job Saban currently holds not once but twice. In the Tampa Tribune, Leavitt said,

'That's amazing, a guy can make a quote like that when he doesn't have any idea,' Leavitt said. 'The truth is we have two non-qualifiers out of 110 on our team or I'll resign tomorrow. And those two will both get their degree.

'Why that bothers me is it takes a hit at the credibility of our program that we can't do it with just hard work. There always has to be some reason. That is the heart and soul of our program. So he's attacking the heart and soul.'

Saban's comments were not about schools admitting non-qualifiers, but about schools having different admission policies, said The Birmingham News' Ray Melick, whose story contained Saban's quotes.

'Six starters on our defense? He Saban doesn't know what he's talking about,' Leavitt said. 'Why's he making a statement like that? Florida, Florida State didn't recruit those guys anyway.

'I think he blew it, they Saban and Melick blew it. ... They'll hide behind the shroud of this and that. Nobody takes responsibility. If they made the comment, they need to come out and say I'm wrong.

'What bothers me is that story goes all over Alabama and they'll accept that as truth. That's why I get upset about media. There's no way I'm going to go out there and share this with 3 million people. It's not the truth. That's too bad, that's sad.'

Leavitt was certainly right about the last part; the Alabama media barely reported on the USF coach's response (other than nothing Leavitt was upset and had denied Saban's charges), didn't report on the factual details of Leavitt's rebuttal, and certainly didn't report on his calling out Saban and Melick for getting their facts wrong. But the story didn't end there.

In a post to his al.com blog, Alabama graduate and Huntsville News UAT beat writer Paul Gattis reported on Leavitt's reaction and took a few shots of his own at the south Florida media.

(As an aside, the mind simply boggles at the chutzpah of Gattis, a former sports editor of the UAT student newspaper and leading Nick Sucker in his own right, referring to Saban "Giving his ol' media buddies in Miami something to shill about." Gattis is the about the last newspaper employee on the planet with any business referring to others as "shills." But I digress.)*

The interesting portion of Gattis's post was when he more accurately quoted Saban's original statement:

I think that the distribution of players is not the same for everyone. We can't take Props (partial qualifiers) in the SEC. They can't take them in the ACC. And there's a significant amount of players who don't qualify. And they end up being pretty good players at some of these schools. I think there are six guys starting on South Florida's defense who probably could have gone to Florida or Florida State but Florida and Florida State couldn't take them. And if you do a good job of recruiting that way--now the Big East has passed a rule that they aren't going to take Props at some time in the future. I don't know if it's next year or the year after or whenever.

"Now, will that affect their league? It shrinks the pool of players that they can recruit from. I'm not saying it's not a good rule by the NCAA that we have NCAA eligibility requirements. I think that's a good rule. I'm not saying that. But it's not the same for everyone and it does create a lot of parity when you're playing those schools, you're playing against guys you couldn't recruit."

On Wednesday, Melick was asked about the differences in the quotes on a WJOX Birmingham radio show he regularly co-hosts, in particular Saban's use of the term "Props," which was often used to describe NCAA Proposition 48, a now-obsolete term for incoming recruits who don't qualify academically. Melick, who changed Saban's actual quote from "Props" to "players who don't qualify" was asked why he didn't quote what the coach had actually said. Melick's response: "I was trying to protect Nick."

Now, I don't think it's all that big of a deal to clarify "Props" or even "Prop 48's" (we're not sure which version Saban actually used) to "players who didn't qualify." "Prop 48" isn't just obsolete, it's also fairly esoteric to the casual fan. If Melick had made the change for the sake of clarity, that's no big deal, even if he did turn out a disingenuous column in the aftermath.

But "to protect Nick?" Since when is it in the job description of a newspaper employee, much less an alleged "journalist" to be 'protecting' a $4 million-a-year football coach? That's so far outside the bounds of media ethics, one has to wonder what else Melick is 'protecting' Saban and Alabama from. He certainly hasn't had much to say about the Alabama boosters on staff at Hoover High School who've been allegedly involved in grade fixing for UAT signees, for instance.

I took it upon myself to ask Melick just what business he had "protecting Nick" in an email, and received a non-response worthy of Saban himself. Apparently Melick is among the many media employees who believe that asking and expecting to have answered pointed questions is for me, but not for thee.

So, Ray, congratulations. You're the Nick Sucker of the week. It's an award I've no doubt you'll wear with pride.


*Incidentally, Gattis was quite right about the south Florida media taking its shots at the man known as "Flipper." This particularly delicious column by Ray McNulty is my favorite to date. Best line: "I mean, we're talking about Alabama, which is little more than Ole Miss with indoor plumbing."

Mandel, Right And Wrong

From Stewart Mandel's mailbag column at SI.com today:

For me, the main reason Tuberville has never cracked my "Top 10 coaches" list in three years of doing them is that for all those big wins, his teams (with the exception of that one, perfect season) always seem to lose at least a couple games they shouldn't. Just look at this season: The Tigers beat No. 4 Florida in The Swamp but lost at home to Mississippi State. Last year, they beat two of the top three teams (Florida and LSU) in the season's final AP poll but lost at home to Arkansas and Georgia teams that were unranked at the time.

I was trying to figure out this phenomenon when I remembered something ESPN sideline reporter Holly Rowe said during the first half of Saturday night's game. She said she'd seen Tuberville in the tunnel prior to kickoff and that he looked "as intense as I've ever seen him." Well, of course she hadn't seen him like that before -- prior to her much-deserved promotion this season, Rowe had been stuck doing the Noon ESPN2 games (or something like that). She's probably used to seeing Tuberville before some of those not-so-big games. If you've never been around Tuberville, he is without question the most laid-back head coach of any major program. While most of his colleagues are Type A, tightly wound balls of stress, Tuberville's every-day demeanor is that of a guy who's out fishing.

Don't get me wrong, I love the guy's personality. But it may also explain the disparity. Because Tuberville is so laid back most of the time, I bet when he gets really fired up for a big game (as Rowe saw him), his players truly take notice. (Whereas if they played for a guy like Ed Orgeron, they probably wouldn't know whether they were about to face Florida or Florida International). Players feed off that kind of energy. But then when Auburn plays Mississippi State, he's probably more like his every day self, and the players feed off that energy -- or lack thereof -- as well.

Can you tell I put a little bit too much thought into this?

Nope. I think that is a dead-on piece of analysis. The only thing I'd add would be to expound on your thesis a bit by observing that Tuberville's 'laid-back' attitude has tended to lead to complacency, which in my mind is his real weakness as a coach. He's at his best when his back is against the wall--just look at the 15-game winning streak that started days after the fabled private jet flight--but he does have a hard time sustaining that high level of success. Prime example, that streak ended one game into the 2005 season, after a summer of unending accolades and a year when the program was surrounded by an aura of invincibility. I can't bring myself to get too down on Tuberville over that; every coach gets complacent after successes--which, of course, doesn't make the apparently-inevitable letdown afterwards any easier to take.

There's no questioning Tuberville's abilities when he's on his game. He just isn't on his game all the time. That's who he is, and that's what you get. What you get is some damn effective coaching... except when it isn't.

Then Mandel goes and blows it answering the very next question, which echoes my own take on the "Urban Myth" offense:

We've seen the spread work at enough different places in different conferences -- from Oregon to Louisville to Northwestern to Cincinnati -- that I simply don't buy the "SEC-is-too-fast-for-it-to work" argument. Shoot, it just worked to the tune of 59 points against Tennessee two weeks ago! The Vols may not have one of the conference's better defenses this year, but do you really think if we lined up Tennessee's defenders and Auburn's defenders at the goal-line, pressed our stop watches and let them to the run to the 40 that the Tigers would all be waiting at the finish line by the time the Vols got there? I highly doubt it.

Uh, Stewart, nobody ever said Tennessee's defense was slow, but they did say it was bad. The Vols are at or near the bottom of the SEC in nearly every defensive category, and they're a dismal 111th nationally in points allowed. The signature of Meyer's offense isn't that it only works against slow defenses (although it certainly does)--it's that it only works against bad defenses. Tennessee has a bad defense. Auburn doesn't.

Weekend Wrap-Up

Before moving on, as we must, to this week's game with Vanderbilt (anger not the god of football lest he take away your mojo), here are a few disparate items on the weekend past.

The wife and I made the trip from Atlanta to Gainesville for the game. I lived in Baja Alabama for most of the 1990's, and even if I hadn't been expecting Auburn to get blown out (which I did), the less time I spend in the state's central Tacky Belt--where redneck north Florida and Yankee south Florida meet, with catastrophic aesthetic results--the happier I generally am.


But hey, it was a fun trip. Our local friends not only had a great parking spot a block from the stadium, they also knew the lunatics who've converted an old Baptist church bus into one of the most impressive tailgate shelters you're ever likely to run across (Florida folks familiar with the University Avenue tailgate scene know exactly which bus I'm talking about). We had a fine time all around.

Also on the Florida front, fans susceptible to superstition on gamedays (I readily confess to be among their number) can but sympathize with the plight of Saurian Sagacity's Mergz, who says of the game, "It Was My Fault." Seriously, read it. One of the funniest non-exaggerated real-life posts I've seen in a very long time.

The morning after the game, I went out in seach of the Sunday paper. When I finally located a copy of the Gainesville Sun (no sarcasm, I'm a big Pat Dooley fan), I was greeted with the following photo on the front page:



That shot triggered a wave of emotion, and I'm not just talking about schadenfreude at the agony of a young man whom every male announcer on ESPN would apparently love to cart off to Massachusetts for a few minutes with a Justice of the Peace, followed by two torrid weeks on Fire Island. No, what I was feeling was... deja vu. Now, where had I seen this before?

And then I remembered:



Finally, no Auburn-Florida recap would be complete without recognizing the foul results of ESPN's "Hire The Senile" outreach program. Ladies and Germs, I give you Cheatin' Lou Holtz's pregame spluttering:

I'd like to be the firtht to congrathulate Thenator Holth on hith electhion. Hail thoo the thief!