Florida fan may cost Tebow the Heisman

Sometimes, the bizarro world of NCAA compliance is has more pitfalls and gotchas than even Federal tax or weapons exports. This is a perfect example:

GAINESVILLE - SI.com has listed an orange license plate which reads HE15MAN as one of its top Christmas gifts this year. The plates are being sold on the Web site TEBOW4HE15MAN.com, which is owned by Melbourne resident Brett Black.

There's only one problem.

The plates may be an NCAA violation that could put the eligibility of University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, a Heisman Trophy candidate, in danger. UF officials are certainly concerned about the unlicensed and unauthorized selling of products promoting the sophomore quarterback -- which has become rampant on numerous Web sites.

Look, Tebow wouldn't be my pick for the Heisman, but he certainly deserves consideration, and he is surely the favorite. I really don't blame the Florida fans for doing this, nobody in their right mind would think that selling licensed plates to fans hyping Tebow's candidacy would run afoul of NCAA rules.

If it does turn out costing Tebow the Heisman, I'm absolutely going to spare no aspect of the NCAA in series of diatribes -- it's just wrong to punish the young man for something clearly well-intentioned fans did.

The hogs are being called, but them pigs ain't a-commin'

Hmm, what can we talk about today? How 'bout them Hawgs? Yeah, the University of Arkansas is just having all kinds of fun and adventure searching for a new coach to replace the fired departed Houston Nutt. It has turned into a bit of a three-ring circus, really, and people are beginning to talk.

First there was Tommy Tubberville, then there wasn't. Then, there was Tommy Bowden, and then there wasn't. Then, there was Jim Grobe, and then there wasn't. If this is beginning to sound like one of the "begats" from the Bible to you, take comfort in the fact that you are not alone.

There are post-mortems aplenty but let's look at what Razorback Expats has to say about the abortive Grobe hire:

1. Negotiations hit an impasse when the Razorback Foundation wouldn’t give him a cell phone plan with unlimited text messaging.

2. Was promised that his name would be displayed on banners all over the state…then he found out what that meant.

3. Beck Campbell wouldn’t sign off on the hire until Grobe could talk Pete Carroll into guaranteeing playing time for her Mitchy.

4. Read some Razorback message boards and realized that, by taking the job, he was denying Jimmy Johnson the opportunity to come home and fulfill his lifelong dream. Being a noble guy, Grobe didn’t want to stand in the way.

5. Learned about the unbreakable voodoo curse that Houston Nutt put on the program before leaving…like Davis, Tuberville, Bowden, Fisher and countless others, he didn’t want to deal with that.

I think the real reason is #5. Houston Nutt is just the kind of guy who would have left a Zuni Fetish Doll around to wreak murder and mayhem on the next head coach. Fear the doll. Oh yes, I'm afraid we must do video:




Well, I'm sure you get the idea. Better tell Nutt to come back and get his lil' friend, Razorback fans.

Bill Maloney at Fanhouse says the ACC coaches are just using Arkansas to get themselves raises:

Tommy Bowden almost said yes...only to stay at Clemson with the predictable contract extension. Still coachless, it appears the next thought was "if you can't have Tommy Bowden, how about hiring a coaching who actually won the ACC." Enter Jim Grobe. The Wake Forest coach seemed like the better fit. Grobe is a guy who has won at schools with limited resources. His ground-based scheme would work with the talent Houston Nutt left behind. He was ready to take the next step. Yet, you know how the story ends. Grobe left Arkansas at the alter and is staying at Wake Forest. No immediate announcement on a contract extension but I would guess that part of Wake's plea for him to stay included future compensation.

Heh. Not just the ACC, Bill. Tuberville got one too, and he is an SEC coach. In fact, some might say that Tubby almost overplayed his hand. Almost. Kevin Donahue at Fanblogs says that the Hawg fans are getting a little karmic payback:

It bears repeating that the way Nutt was... basically abused... by the Razorbacks fan base poisoned the pool at Arkansas.

If you're going to have fans digging through your personal life, blasting you in the media, booing you at public appearances, and running banners calling for you to be fired during games -- all while your team is winning -- then why would any coach in their right mind willingly step into that environment?

The Arkansas fans are reaping what they sowed and until they own up to that... it may be a long couple of years for the Hogs.

Ouch. I seem to remember another school (who shall remain nameless), somewhere east and south of Fayetteville, who had a rather interesting coaching search last year. Some were suggesting the very same thing. The difference is, that school would seem to have much deeper pockets.

The Hawg Blawg is starting to wonder if Sesame Street characters might be up to a stint of SEC coaching:

So, Grobe isn’t coming. I think we’ll end up hiring Big Bird before this is all over.

You think he'd take the job? Well, if Big Bird can't reach a deal, you can always consider Karl Dorrell or Chan Gailey. They've been almost as successful as Tommy Bowden.

But of course you remember that Arkansas is rather famous for difficult coaching searches, as TipsterHog reminds us. Still, this is bound to be a bit frustrating to Razorback fans, as I'm sure they figured to have a fish in the boat by now (well, Grobe technically made it to the boat, but he jumped back in).

Look at the bright side, Hawg fans. The basketball search turned out all right, despite some ... uh ... adventurous moments. This one will probably be fine also.

Awards, rewards, and searches around the SEC

Well, I guess the biggest news so far today (or actually, yesterday) is that Tommy Tuberville finally signed his extension with Auburn, thereby largely ending the Tubby-to-Arkansas and Tubby-to-A&M speculation that has been percolating on the Plains. War Eagle Reader says, "Fear the extension:"

Tommy Tuberville is the grandfather who doesn’t know what a blog is, the Dad who talks to the media on his cell-phone while at the mall (telling them things, oh, like that he’s never been contacted by Texas A&M) while his son is buying a game for something called a Playstation.

Tuberville is the football coach who has repeatedly accomplished what no other Auburn coach has accomplished. Tuberville is the man with the 9 trillion square foot new Auburn house (it is beautiful) who loves Auburn, who’s aging Mom is reportedly in love with the place, and Tommy Tuberville is the man who cried at the thought of leaving (or from the joy of staying).

Hmm. Well, okee-doakee then. I guess all is good down in Auburn, and the Tiger fans can sit back, relax and enjoy the bowl season. Meanwhile, Arkansas is still without a coach, and the search continues. Whole Hog Sports reports that Tommy Bowden doesn't want the job:

Clemson Coach Tommy Bowden apparently had an overnight change of heart, declining an overture from Arkansas to succeed Houston Nutt as the Razorbacks’ head football coach.

A source close to the negotiation said Arkansas was ready to present Bowden a multiyear contract worth more than $ 2 million per year, but in a news conference announcing his acceptance of a raise and contract extension at Clemson, Bowden said he was “never offered” a job by Long during talks Monday night.

The Hog Blogger says Bowden was a crappy choice anyway:

Jeff Long scours the entire nation, and he comes back with Tommy Bowden? Really? If Long is foolish enough to think he can wow fans with a big name who isn’t actually a good coach, (Dave Wannstedt?) this is not the job for him. We’re all for giving guys a chance, but this offer makes absolutely no sense. There’s a reason Bowden has been on the hot seat for what seems like forever. People may have given Nutt a hard time for only winning ten games once, but Bowden has pulled it off in a grand total of zero seasons. In Mike Leach’s case, at least he plays in a division with three of the premier programs in college football and has an excuse for never winning anything.

He has a point. Tommy Bowden has been anything but impressive at Clemson, and you all remember that lil' ol' UK beat them convincingly in last year's Music City Bowl when the Tigers were heavily favored. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for Tommy Bowden's coaching prowess.

Heisman Pundit wonders if there is a Tebow backlash building for the Heisman:

For the record, I don't think there is a Tebow backlash going on. I do think that what we are seeing is a race that is not a landslide, like we have been used to in recent years. The voices rising up against Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush and Troy Smith were few and far between. In a relatively close race, there is going to be a variety of opinions. In a chaotic race like this year's, even more so.

So what does this mean? Well, HP goes on to say he thinks Tebow will win comfortably, but McFadden is still an issue. Senator Blutarsky is on point:

Ladies and gentlemen, Knowshon Moreno is your SEC freshman of the year. Unanimously so.

As a sidenote, it’s interesting that McFadden was named offensive player of the year and not Tebow. Could that be a foreshadowing of the Heisman vote?

Hmm. Sophomores are known to have difficulty winning the Heisman. McFadden had an incredible year, as did Tebow. Part of the reason Tebow's was so incredible was his relative youth. Will this work against him in the Heisman voting? I note that Heisman Pundit's final straw poll showed only a 2-vote differential between Tebow and McFadden, 23-21. Tebow has been holding in the 20-23 range for 3 weeks and has apparently topped out, while McFadden has lately been moving up dramatically. This one could be close. And in another late development, McFadden has won the SEC offensive player of the year award.

And in case anyone didn't notice, Sylvester Croom strikes again, taking Coach of the Year honors. Kyle Veazey has the goods:

Back from The Hump, where I spoke with Ben Hansbrough.

But you guys probably don't care too much about that right now, seeing as how Sylvester Croom has just been named Southeastern Conference coach of the year by his peers.

More to come on clarionledger.com

Congratulations to Coach Croom on his well-deserved recognition. Mississippi State has really improved this year, and Croom has shown that he is a better coach than many gave him credit for. [UPDATE] Croom also won the AP Coach of the Year award.

That's all for now.

Some administrative notes

Sorry about the long absence. Life happens, Internet outages happen. But I'm back in the saddle again.

I have changed the news box on the right a bit. Mostly what will appear there are the days best blog posts from SEC bloggers. As I update the box throughout the day, we will see some scroll off. I am trying to figure out a way to get better news as well, but the mission of this site is the Southeastern Conference bloggers, not promote big media. But I would like a better newsfeed than we currently have. I'm working on it. For now, really important stories will appear in the box as well, but mostly it will be great blog posts.

You will notice I maintain very few tags on this site. That is by design -- I currently have one for each SEC school, plus a couple more. I will probably be changing that just a bit over the next few weeks, but you can expect the tag list to be kept to a couple dozen at most. I hate big tag clouds, and I can never make sense of them, so I'm going to keep it short here.

The site will also be transitioning over to basketball coverage. I know there is still a lot going on in the football realm, and I am not going to ignore that. But basketball is now in full swing, and there will be gradually decreasing football news of note in the interregnum between now and the bowls.

Over the holidays, I hope to make a few small changes to our rather Spartan design, but not too much. I don't do pictures (I consider that to be a copyright violation without express permission) and don't do many graphics. This blog is all about content, and it is all about the hard-working SEC bloggers out there bringing us the great angles and insights on the news of the day. I know many of my readers have their own blogs, and I want this site to be about the great work they are doing.

Which brings me to another point -- What makes a great blog post? Well, like beauty, that is pretty much in the eye of the beholder. What I like is a fresh take, or some clever humor combined with real insight. I know that is vague, but bottom line, I like blog posts that are either:

• very informative
  
• very entertaining
  
• very insightful, or
  
• a combination of all three

If you think you have written something particularly good, or know of a great post I haven't listed or commented on, drop me a note and I'll look at it. I have to skim quite a bit. As you can see from the blogroll on the left, ther are lots and lots of SEC blogs, and every one you see is in my feed reader, and I go through that thing every day. So it is way more than possible for me to overlook something good.

As always, thanks for visiting the site and reading my drivel.

Blogging? You mean I have to actually write stuff here?

Contrary to popular belief (and the fact that I haven't posted in like 4 days), I am not dead. Nor am in jail, or kidnapped. Merely a victim of excessively demanding customers and AT &T's DNS, having been without Internet service for over 24 hours.

Well, life can be frustrating. But on we go.

So LSU is the pick to play in the BCS championship game. Meh. I was hoping for carnage, and I got so much of my wish that everything worked itself out. My crusade against the BCS is likely to be futile until next season at least. Life is like that sometimes -- first you can't blog, then your best-laid plans go in the toilet. Oh well ...

Let's just see for a second what is interesting out there in the SEC blogosphere? What could possibly be interesting ... hmm, lessseee ....

Garnet and Black Attack has an interesting post today, musing over the second best team in the BCS right now:

So by wins alone -- and by the cumulative strength of their schedule -- the Sooners should get the second spot on my ballot. But wait. Close margin or not, injuries aside, Oklahoma lost to a mediocre Colorado team and an above-average Texas Tech team. Ohio State, on the other had, lost to a team currently headed to the Rose Bowl. Yes, commercial considerations played into it, but if Illinois were not regarded as a good team, they wouldn't even be eligible to go to Pasadena.

Hmm. Well, I couldn't figure it out either. I say, flip a coin or something.

I just knew this crap was coming:

But, really, Hawaii was the only team that could summon a no-spin argument for engaging Ohio State in the championship game.

Sure, you'd like to see a tougher nonconference gantlet than Northern Colorado, Charleston Southern and UNLV. And, yeah, Hawaii used its overwhelming home advantage against Boise State and Washington, and if the officials hadn't mistakenly flagged Jake Locker for an illegal pass, the Huskies might have won.

Well, sure, if you throw strength of schedule out the window. How do you suppose the Rainbows would have done in the SEC? About like Kentucky, I figure, and nobody is arguing for them to have a shot at OSU, who itself can't point too many fingers at Hawai'i schedule-wise.

Look, I love Hawai'i. Love it. I am going there next year for vacation, and I have been there many times. But playing football in paradise comes with a cost, and if the WAC is the best comp you get, you just can't get into the big game. Sorry.

Jai Eugene at Loser With Socks wonders why Ohio State gets to go to the BCS championship:

LSU is a very decent team but tOSU just fucking blows, but OSU played in a weak Big 10 and struggled in games they shouldn’t have, and LSU is lucky they don’t have 4 losses. It sure is gonna be interesting to see what happens when the Failboats match up with the athleticism of a top-tier SEC team. WTF did I just say? Every team in the SEC, with the exception of Ole Miss, is top tier.

Heh. You'd have to say that getting 10 teams bowl eligible in one conference is one hell of a thing.

When enough is not enough ...

Ah, yes. It's time to pull out my favorite ax again for a little grinding -- the BCS.

Turns out, there are quite a few interesting articles on the BCS today, some from bloggers and some from regular old MSM'ers. But I'll start with the MSM, just for the heck of it.

This first piece comes from the Lawrence Journal-World out in Kansas. The piece is written by Gil Lebreton from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and he is very much on the same page as I am:

The cynics and troublemakers want to see chaos.

They want to see upsets. They want to see Missouri, the college football Cinderella, turn into a pumpkin. They want to see Dave Wannstedt’s underachieving Pitt team spoil West Virginia’s heavenly dreams.

They want bloodshed in Baton Rouge and Columbus.

They want a total Bowl Championship Series meltdown. They want to see some sort of combination of aligned planets, howling dogs and Southeastern Conference losses where the final rankings send, oh, Hawaii and Appalachian State to the BCS title game.

And it’s hard to blame them. The BCS deserves all the misery and criticism that it gets.

Oh, hell yes! That describes my attitude to a T. I want outrageous injustice, something as over-the-top as anyone can imagine ... except apparently this guy -- Hawai'i and Appy State? But I like your thinking, Gil.

His argument is that whenever the BCS works out, it is more by accident than by design, and I think he has it exactly right, as is his ultimate conclusion:

As colleague Nico Van Thyn put it so well Sunday, the path to the BCS title game is often clearly drawn. It begins with basic geography: Play in a major conference that lacks major competition. If a team can count the dangerous opponents on one hand, it probably has a chance at playing in the BCS title game.

That's exactly what we have seen this year. Yes, we have seen the humans and to some extent the cyborgs try to insert some semblance of schedule strength in there, but with only a modicum of success. Extreme top-heavy conferences have a much easier path to the BCS championship than, say, any SEC team. Add the league championship game into the equation, and you wind up with virtually two different levels of football. Try to imagine, if you will, an NCAA basketball tournament where one team gets to play nothing but 7 seeds and lower until it gets to the championship game.

Sweet deal, if you can get it -- and some conferences have it (I'm looking at you, Big 10 and Big East).

The always outstanding Sunday Morning Quarterback sideswipes this issue in a recent post, where he quotes Kirk Herbstreit thus:

... Ohio State will gain more respect if it plays USC in the Rose Bowl and wins that game, than if it goes and beats West Virginia and wins the national title. From an image standpoint, Ohio State would score more points going to the Rose Bowl than by going to the national championship game. If you can believe that, that's the truth.

Well. So Kirk is sayin' that the Rose Bowl means more than the BCS championship, I guess, because the quality of the teams likely to be playing there are better than that of the BCS championship? How else could a victory there "gain more respect" for anyone, or is this some sort of nouveaux logique that keeps the Worldwide Leader ... well, the Worldwide Leader?

Naturally, SMQ reaches the same conclusion:

But this remains the only time I'm aware of that a well-known, mainstream talking head has suggested there is a greater reward than being selected for the concocted championship. USC got a little sympathy in 2003 with the AP vote, but that didn't seem to dent the myth of a real, be-all, end-all championship. I don't remember anyone on ESPN in 2004 arguing that Auburn should be considered on par with USC for its 13-0 season. The Tigers were just screwed. Sorry, guys, and better luck next time.

Let's see -- Does that only work for Ohio State, Kirk, or can, say LSU or Georgia play? Sheesh.

LSU's student newspaper, The Daily Reveille, has an excellent interview with SEC Commissioner and BCS coordinator Mike Silve about the BCS system. In spite of this year's season Silve is still sticking to one of two possible changes to the BCS:

One potential system would produce an additional set of standings after the bowl games. The No. 1 and No. 2 teams based on that week would then play in the title game.

The other possibility would mimic a tournament. The top teams would be seeded in bowls based on the regular season standings with the winners playing for the title the following week.

Slive said there are three components that he considers in developing such a system. He said he aims to protect the regular season, the bowl system and the length of the season interfering with the academics of athletes.

Silve also admitted that undefeated Auburn in 2004 being left out of the mix for the championship affected his thinking, but I personally don't think it affected it all that much. Still, either of the two possibilities Silve appears open to would be an improvement over the current (non) system.

AEM, writing for MVN's SEConds to Victory, notes that #1 Missouri is a 3-point dog against #9 Oklahoma in their face off in San Antonio for the Big 12 championship:

So, a neutral site, number one against number nine, a 11-1 team against a 10-2 team, should be that Missouri is going to be the favorite, since the BCS has them as the top team in the nation. Well, surprise surprise to one and all, Oklahoma is the team that is favorite in this game, by all means, a small 3 points, but it still makes no sense does it now. The number one team in the country playing either at home or on a neutral site should be favorite against anyone except maybe the number two team. However Oklahoma is the ninth team in the nation, not the second, and is favored in this game. And in my non professional opinion the Sooners will win this game pretty easily.

I don't really know who wins, but he has a point. There is no way that the #1 team in the nation should be a dog at a neutral site against the #9. The only way that happens is with a seriously flawed system, and perhaps this is the most egregious example of all. It might not be an issue if Oklahoma were #3 or even #4. But #9?

An argument would be that Vegas doesn't care about BCS rankings, but let's get serious -- Vegas probably knows these teams' potentials better than any voter in the BCS system. Not one of the BCS voters have any money at stake in the BCS, and the Vegas casinos most certainly do. The argument that "Vegas doesn't vote in the BCS" is true, facile and utterly flawed if applied to the argument.

Bottom line -- we need something better, and this year is just one more reason.

The SEC goes Nutts

Hump day. I posted that on a blog one day and somebody asked me what that meant. Maybe I am dating myself a bit, but good grief.

Just so all you Mississippi State fans out there don't get confused, hump day doesn't have anything to do with your gym. It means "over the hump", as in heading on the down side of the week. Just kidding.

Moving right along, there are understandably lots and lots of blogs and news items and what have you about Houston Nutt and his trip down I-40 to Oxford. I have to admit, I wasn't surprised Arkansas and Nutt parted ways. I was surprised that they spun it as an amicable parting when nobody is going to believe it. All I can say is, Nutt came out waaaayyy ahead in this deal money-wise, and all his recruits appear to be fleeing their vows to Fayetteville like rats deserting a sinking ship. Is this karma, Razorback fans?

HogBlogger writing for RazorBloggers has the explanation of why Houston Nutt had to go. Basically he cites a number of weird email exchanges that is just to complex for me to get my mind around, but sums it up this way:

It’s easy to say that the real issue was that a small group of fans were simply out to get Houston Dale…but that is a total cop-out. The things I’ve mentioned above are part of the public record today and have been so for quite a while. These things alone are enough to justify why Houston Dale had to go. No fan caused his, or his wife, or his coaches, or their wives, involvement in the e-mails. Houston and Diana Nutt did this to themselves.

Interesting. I think maybe you had to be there. Scott at the Hog Source says Nutt will be missed:

As you all know by now, Houston Nutt has “resigned” from the head coaching job at Arkansas. Not alot of resignations come with a payout of 2.4-3.5 million bucks, sounds more like a buyout where they let him go out on a high note. They are alot of people out there who dislike Houston Nutt, and those are the ones that really made it public. The unfortunate thing is that it wasnt public how many people really did like him. Love him or hate him there is one thing for sure, he will be missed.

He, along with his brother Danny Nutt helped bring in 2 of the best players that have ever played Arkansas Razorback football. We, over the last 10 years, have had one of the best running games in the country.

Sunday Morning Quarterback decides to skewer the Hog fans a bit:

Actually, I think Nutt did a fine job at Arkansas: three division titles, two ten-win seasons, however many bowl games, etc. He was 18-8 there the last two years with wins over Alabama, Auburn, LSU, and Tennessee, and was a few minutes away in three very close losses this season from finishing the regular season 11-1, almost entirely with one of the most dangerous offensive weapons in the country (Marcus Monk) on the bench. At Arkansas, that's a solid record on the field.

It's not necessarily his fault that the crazy underbelly of his Ozarkan fan base gave the impression the program was careening out of control and helped drive away possibly the program's most significant recruiting class in decades while specializing in vicious personal attacks, lawsuits, and melodramatic amateur sleuthing.

Heh. Funny, that. What isn't funny is the whole recruiting class thing. As a Kentucky fan, though, I can't be too upset that Nutt's departure drove the best player in the state of Kentucky to decommit from the Hogs and become a Wildcat. So hey, I'm feeling a little sympathetic towards Nutt. For sure, though, he doesn't need it. Will Collier writing for From The Bleachers has this observation:

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.

Hey, that's mister 3.5 million-buyout+2.4million/year middling, just run off from his own alma mater coach to you, bub. Houston may be a Nutt-case, but his banker just don't care.

I have to give it to the Arkasas Athletic Administration -- they really know how to generate publicity for themselves. First they go through the whole Heath/Altman/Gillispie soap opera in basketball, and now this. The bad news is that it doesn't look as likely to work out well for the football team. But who knows, maybe I'm wrong about that.