Well, they don’t call him Superman for nothing.

Saw this AP Photo from Gary W. Green on The Orlando Sentinel’s website today and had to share it.

Love Tim Tebow or hate him, you have to admit that’s a pretty cool photo at left.  (Click our story headline to see the photo larger.)

Tebow appears to be levitating above the field and directing the ball to his receiver Jedi-style.

In fact, it was an incomplete pass… proving that Tebow looks like a good player even in a rare moment of failure.

Cool pic.

This week's Rinnai Who's Hot Student-Athlete expands to a trio of student-athletes that led the Bulldogs to a 30-24 win over in-state rival Georgia Tech. The win improved the Bulldogs road record under Mark Richt to 33-6 including 11-3 against ranked opponents.
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1.  The Arkansas defense collapsed late and kicker Alex Tejada struggled throughout as the Hogs lost in overtime at LSU.

2.  Joe Adams, the receiver who suffered a small stroke earlier this season, took some wicked hits from LSU’s Chad Jones on Saturday.

3.  In basketball news, Arkansas has now dropped consecutive games to Morgan State, East Tennessee State and South Alabama.

4.  Here are some more notes regarding UA basketball.

5.  In Baton Rouge, this writer believes that 9-3 should be satisfactory for Tiger fans.  (But I bet losing to Nick Saban and blundering away the Ole Miss game aren’t.)

6.  Les Miles says his team was just one win away from elite status.

7.  LSU’s win over Arkansas should help their bowl destination considerably.

8.  Running backs coach Larry Porter will take over as head coach at Memphis (he’s doomed) after it was initially reported that the Tigers had hired someone else.

9.  Ole Miss might have had their best back-to-back seasons since 1989-1990, but after a Top 10 preseason ranking and a brutal Egg Bowl defeat Houston Nutt and the Rebels need to regroup.

10.  This writer believes a couple of changes could be coming to UM’s coaching staff.

11.  In basketball news, the Rebels wiped out Texas A&M-Corpus Christi yesterday.

12.  Mississippi State’s Egg Bowl victory set off a wild celebration on Saturday.

13.  Dan Mullen was talking up his team after the 41-27 upset.

14.  This writer believes Anthony Dixon proved Saturday that he’s the best college football player in the state of Mississippi.

15.  Other than Dixon, most of State’s team should return next year, according to this notes column.

16.  All eyes are on Bama’s SEC title game rematch with Florida.

17.  The Tide wants another shot in a fourth quarter against the Gators.

18.  Nick Saban gave his team the weekend off to rest up for Florida.

19.  In basketball news, Anthony Grant’s Crimson Tide scored a 68-66 upset of #15 Michigan last night.

20.  After a good showing in the Iron Bowl, Gene Chizik is turning his attention to recruiting.

21.  Auburn could absolutely land anywhere in this year’s bowl scenario.

22.  Tiger fans won’t like this, but this writer believes Auburn did Bama a favor on Friday.

Granted, we haven’t reached Lane Kiffin-Urban Meyer levels of bad blood, but the Egg Bowl rivalry is starting to percolate.

Two weeks ago, Mississippi’s Houston Nutt made it clear that he wasn’t happy other SEC programs were using a small KKK rally to negatively recruit against the Rebels. 

“Without a doubt (they’re using it).  And that’s fine.  It’s not going to help them.  This is one program in the state that’s getting very strong.”

Get that last dig?  Sure sounds like Nutt believed Dan Mullen and Mississippi State were using the KKK rally to their advantage.

Well, Mullen denied that… and then he took Nutt to the woodshed on Saturday in a 41-27 Egg Bowl win.

After the game, Mullen had this to say:

“And, also, to show that this program is certainly on the rise, I can tell you that much — maybe to the contrary of what other people are saying in this state.  I know one program that’s certainly on the rise and that’s right here in Starkville.”

Nutt’s response?

“I just don’t worry about that.  I’ve been in this league a long time.  You’ve got to be consistent.  You’ve got to have winning seasons.  Gotta go to bowl games and eventually get to Atlanta.  Words are not going to affect us.”

Hmmm.  Winning season = Ole Miss, not MSU.  Bowl game = Ole Miss, not MSU.  Get to Atlanta = Nutt, not Mullen yet.

Can’t wait to hear how Mullen responds.

A word of warning: better not get personal, boys.  Mike Slive is listening.

When the ACC brought in Florida State followed by Boston College, Miami and Virginia Tech, it was supposed to make the league more competitive football-wise with the big, bad SEC.

Uh, that hasn’t happened. 

Saturday’s ACC Championship Game — which usually draws the crowd of a Kentucky basketball game — will feature Clemson versus Georgia Tech.

When last we saw the Tigers, they were being de-clawed by a 7-5 South Carolina team. 

As for the Yellow Jackets, 7-5 Georgia made them look like a rambling wreck on defense Saturday night.

Florida also embarrassed Florida State on CBS last weekend.  And if you go back to the season’s start, Alabama whipped the ACC’s other “good” team — Virginia Tech — in Atlanta.

Who knows what history will eventually record regarding the ACC’s recent expansion moves?  But at this early date, it seems that it’s at least fair to consider the possibility that the moves did nothing other than water down the nation’s top basketball conference.

‘Cause the best teams on the Atlantic Coast sure can’t go toe-to-toe with their SEC neighbors in football yet.  We’ll see how the ACC does in bowl games, but if they’d taken care of business in the regular season, they’d probably be playing in much better bowl games this holiday season.

1.  Virginia finally pulled the trigger on Al Groh.  Among those being listed as potential candidates in Charlottesville are Florida defensive coordinator Charlie Strong and Tommy Tuberville and a slew of former UVA assistants.

2.  Some of those rumored to be candidates at Louisville include Strong, Alabama offensive coordinator Jim McElwain, and Houston coach Kevin Sumlin.

3.  It’s still Florida, Alabama and Texas in all the major polls — BCS included.

4.  If Nebraska can upset Texas in the Big 12 Championship Game, expect a lot of arguing over who gets into the BCS Title Game to face the winner of Alabama/Florida.

5.  Matt Hayes of The Sporting News says don’t expect a Bama-Florida rematch in the BCS Title Game.

6.  Oh, yeah?  Well Tony Barnhart of The AJC says there could, too, be a rematch twixt the Gators and Tide.

7.  Stewart Mandel of SI.com writes that college football had too many dominant teams in 2009.



8.  Two ESPN.com writers have posted their latest bowl projections.

BCS Title Game — one says Alabama, one says Florida
Sugar Bowl — naturally, one says Florida and the other Alabama
Capital One Bowl –  LSU, LSU
Cotton Bowl –  Tennessee, Ole Miss
Outback Bowl — Ole Miss, Tennessee
Chick-fil-A Bowl — Georgia, Georgia
Music City Bowl — South Carolina, South Carolina
Liberty Bowl — Arkansas, Arkansas
Independence Bowl — Auburn, Auburn
Papajohns.com Bowl — Kentucky, Kentucky


9.  A third ESPN.com writer has posted his bowl predictions, too.

BCS Title Game — Alabama
Sugar Bowl — Florida
Capital One Bowl — LSU
Outback Bowl — Ole Miss
Cotton Bowl — Tennessee
Chick-fil-A Bowl — Georgia
Music City Bowl — South Carolina
Liberty Bowl — Arkansas
Independence Bowl — Auburn
Papajohns.com Bowl — Kentucky


10.  SI.com is playing the bowl projection game, too.

BCS Title Game — Alabama
Sugar Bowl — Florida
Capital One Bowl — LSU
Cotton Bowl — Ole Miss
Outback Bowl — Tennessee
Chick-fil-A-Bowl — Georgia
Music City Bowl — South Carolina
Liberty Bowl — Arkansas
Independence Bowl — Kentucky
Papajohns.com Bowl — Auburn

Greetings from New Orleans.  A city where when you arrive after midnight on November 30th the humidity still feelslike it’s about 110%.

As for the headline… trust me, I loves me some Charleston.  But that’s a city divided by South Carolina fans, Clemson fans, and tourists.  It’s not a city that lives and dies with SEC football.

New Orleans — the South’s other great “unique culture” city — is all about LSU.  For every Tulane sign or t-shirt you see, you see 10 more that are pro-Tiger.  Granted, the Saints are making a lot of noise in the Crescent City right now, but I guarantee you the talk of New Orleans last week was Les Miles’ end-o-the-game mind melt. 

Throw in the Sugar Bowl and NOLA is the SEC’s finest burg.



This week, we’ll be doing our news posts from New Orleans, but due to travel schedules and my own tweaked radio schedules, we won’t be bringing you quite as much news as usual during the first three days of the week.

Consider it an extended Holiday schedule.  Since May of last year, we’ve brought you SEC news updates (and recruiting updates) for every school… every day.  That’s includes Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day and even Elvis’ Birthday.  But on those holidays, instead of bringing you every single note from around the league, we bring you only the biggest notes from around the league.

So today and tomorrow you can expect just that.  And on Wednesday, due to flights, I’ll be posting a plethora of SEC stats that will make your head spin.

Just wanted you to know what was up early this week.  Come Thursday, we’ll be back to our regular team-by-team news-and-notes blitzkrieg.

So, as Paul Harvey used to say… Stand by for news!

Wide receiver Ivan McCartney from Miramar (Fla.) could be favoring Florida after his visit to Gainesville this past weekend.

“It was crazy,” McCartney told GatorBait.net. “It’s overwhelming. There’s nothing much more I can say. I loved everything – coaches, players, atmosphere, campus, education, everything is just great.”

McCartney also has scholarship offers from Georgia, Oregon, Miami and West Virginia. He’s already visited Oregon but doesn’t have any other trips scheduled.

Florida has received a commitment from junior athlete A.C. Leonard from Ribault High School in Jacksonville, Fla.

Leonard is the second commitment for Florida’s 2011 class. He joins De’Ante “Pop” Saunders.

Leonard said he wanted to end the process early.

“I wanted to go ahead and commit to get it out of the way to go ahead and focus on school,” Leonard said.

Defensive tackle James Carmon from Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College has committed to Mississippi State, according to ESPN.com.

Carmon, who’s originally from Baltimore, Md., chose Mississippi State over offers from Ole Miss, Tennessee, Southern Miss, Memphis and South Florida.

“It was just everything,” Carmon told ESPN Web site BullDawgJunction.com. “I visited some schools this year and nothing came close to Mississippi State.”

Here’s a look at Carmon from 2008. The video contains music along with a clip from the movie “Ali,” starring Will Smith. FYI.