Urban Meyer is happy with the way he’s going out and Will Muschamp is coming in at Florida.  He told an Outback Bowl press gathering as much this week.

“The guy we hired is fantastic,” Meyer said.  “I think that eased a lot of the burden because the first priority is the players and the coaches.  I’ve really enjoyed these last two weeks.”

“If there’s ever a good time (to resign) — obviously I don’t know that there ever is — but this kind of worked out very well.”

According to the coach, Meyer’s resignation was not a sudden reaction to a bad season.

“I have a great family, as close as you can imagine.  … At one point in a five-year period we lived in four different states bouncing kids in and out of school, not by choice, but just with that in mind that we’re going to go as hard as we can and then at some point pull away.”

Meyer also said, “I think last December was kind of a frontal blow and let’s evaluate this whole thing for a minute, and we did.”

The coach and his family spent the holidays in New York.  ESPN gave him a ring and asked him to drive up.  He did.  And there was a spark.

“What I found out, what a place, what great people,” the coach said.  “I’ll have to do something.” 

For Muschamp’s sake, Meyer doing something in Bristol, Connecticut would be an enormous plus.  For all the talk of keeping Meyer involved, no new coach needs his players being able to drop in and talk with their old coach. 

The thought when Alabama hired Nick Saban in 2007 was that he would go back to Louisiana and steal recruits from LSU.

That hasn’t necessarily happened. But could another school inside the state of Alabama be challenging LSU’s recruiting supremacy inside its own state?

Auburn turned some heads last year when wide receiver Trovon Reed signed with LSU. Recently, the Tigers picked up a commitment from offensive lineman Greg Robinson, who happens to be a former teammate of Reed at Thibodaux (La.) High School.

Scott Ferrell has a post on the Bayou Bengals Blog about other prospects Auburn is hoping to steal away from LSU (and perhaps Alabama, too).

Read it here.

With Mississippi State preparing for a game against St. Mary’s in Las Vegas tomorrow, Andy Katz reported today that “sources close to the team” have told ESPN that Rick Stansbury is “working off an investigation that (Elgin) Bailey was the instigator” in last week’s much-publicized fight with teammate Renardo Sidney.

Supposedly, Bailey did not “move his feet in the aisle while Sidney was trying to walk past him.”  (Well, that’s something to fight about.)  According to Katz’ sources, if Sidney had started the fight — and not Bailey — then Sidney would have already been dismissed from the team.

As for his eventual discipline, Stansbury said: “It’s going to be my decision.  Our athletic department can be a part of it, and Scott (Stricklin) and I have talked about it.  But the one thing I’ve always done in my program is to make the right decisions about my program.  This was an embarrassing situation for everybody.”

One would have to question at this point if bringing the controversial Sidney onto his team was, in fact, the right decision for his program.

“I don’t like the perception, but anybody who knows our program over the past 13 years knows we’ve had no problems,” Stansbury said.  “In my 13 years, there hasn’t been a public embarrassment.  This isn’t the norm.  It just happened.  I won’t understand why it happened.  It just happened.  And if people don’t do right in our program, then we’ll hold them accountable.”

And when might his discipline be handed down?

“When I get back from this trip, (the decision) will be pretty quick.”

The case of former Texas Tech assistant James Willis — rumored to be a target of Florida’s Will Muschamp — continues to grow more and more odd.

First, the backstory: Willis was an assistant coach under Tommy Tuberville (and under D-coordinator Muschamp) at Auburn.  He then became an assistant at Alabama where he won a national championship ring last year.  This past season he served as Tuberville’s defensive coordinator at Texas Tech.

This weekend, Willis and Tech parted ways.  The school said Willis was leaving to pursue other opportunities.  Tuberville wished the coach well.  Willis then wrote “The truth shall set you free” on his Facebook page (whatever that means).

Eventually, reports emerged that Tuberville had learned — through third parties — that Muschamp had been talking to Willis about joining his staff in Gainesville.  It’s not considered Kosher for a coach’s ex-aide to poach said coach’s current staff without so much as a heads-up to his old boss.

Here’s the new twist: Last night the Fox television affiliate in Lubbock reported that “a domestic dispute” had taken place at the Wolfforth, Texas home of Willis last week.

Police were called to the residence at 3:15am on December 22nd.  A 33-year-old female alleged an incident of domestic violence.  Police reported her injuries as minor.

The suspect was a 38-year-old male who was not at home when police arrived.  No arrest has been made and the case has since been turned over to detectives.

Willis just happens to be 38 years old.

Not the kind of publicity you want floating around while you’re trying to land a new job, eh?

1.  Auburn defensive coordinator Ted Roof sees similarities between Oregon’s offense and the Tigers’ offense.  “… They score a lot of points and they go up and down the field real fast.”

2.  Defensive tackle Zach Clayton didn’t get a lot of pub… and he’s fine with that.

3.  These beatwriters believe Oregon’s offensive line gets the edge over Auburn’s defensive line.

4.  Nick Saban moved yesterday’s practice indoors due to high winds.

5.  Receiver Julio Jones is still weighing his NFL options.

6.  On Saturday he’ll test an eager Michigan State secondary in the Capital One Bowl.

7.  Alabama’s basketball team will host Pepperdine tonight.

8.  Arkansas is getting ready for its biggest bowl game since 1989.

9.  John Pelphrey says Marshawn Powell escaped a car accident on Christmas Day without injury.

10.  Meanwhile, forward Michael Sanchez is expected to return from a foot injury for the Hogs’ SEC schedule.

11.  Forward Malcolm White came off the bench (for a change) to lead the Tigers to victory.

12.  The LSU basketball team pulled away from Southern U. 62-41 last night after another slow start.

13.  Job One for Ole Miss?  Find a quarterback for 2011.

14.  The Rebels did get some good news with tailback Brandon Bolden’s decision to return for his senior season.

15.  Cool the basketball arena talk… UM AD Pete Boone tells this writer that Tad Smith Coliseum won’t be replaced for five or six years.

16.  The Rebels’ weak schedule could come back to bite them come tournament time.

17.  Dan Mullen needs to continue to improve Mississippi State’s offense.

18.  Mullen said his team looked rusty in its first Florida practice for the Gator Bowl.

19.  Surprisingly, a few tickets still remain from MSU’s original allotment.

20.  This writer says, “It appears the (Renardo) Sidney experiment — a calculated risk to begin with — has failed.”

1.  Florida’s offense in the Outback Bowl is expected to look a lot like the system the Gators used down the stretch — up-tempo, multiple quarterbacks.  In other words, Urban Meyer and crew still have no answers for this year’s offensive woes.

2.  John Brantley says a transfer is still a possibility.

3.  Ever-injured running back Jeff Demps hopes to be ready for the Outback Bowl.

4.  If Georgia loses in the Liberty Bowl it will result in Mark Richt’s first losing season since his days as a high school coach a quarter-century ago.

5.  UGA seniors aren’t going out the way they had hoped.

6.  The Bulldogs will move its spring game in order to avoid a conflict with the third round of The Masters.

7.  The UGA basketball team is closing out its non-conference slate this week.

8.  Kentucky faces Coppin State tonight… then Louisville on Friday.

9.  From the looks of his tweets, Terrence Jones wasn’t felling well last night.

10.  Doron Lamb is making a case for more minutes.

11.  Florida State folks still love to hate Steve Spurrier.

12.  Some of Spurrier’s assistants could be targeted by other schools.

13.  The Gamecocks are hoping to fix their secondary woes in the Chick-fil-A Bowl.

14.  The Music City Bowl between Tennessee and North Carolina is bringing in record crowds.

15.  UNC has lost yet another starter… this time to academics.  (Butch Davis may need to suit up against Tennessee.)

16.  While Carolina’s starting tailback is out, Tauren Poole will be looking for six yards to join UT’s 1,000-yard rusher club.

17.  Bruce Pearl says falling from the Top 10 to out of the polls altogether has been a “reality check” for his Vols.

In case you’re wondering, Vanderbilt is in a sports lull right now.  No anti-Vandy bias… just nothing much to report.

Mississippi State will be playing in its first Florida bowl in nearly 70 years against the nation’s all-time winningest program.  The Bulldogs are trying to garner national respect as a program on the rise.

That’s pretty good motivation.

Michigan’s players might just be playing for their coaches’ jobs.  That’s bigger motivation.  Or more pressure, depending on how you look at it. 

Michigan officials have said they will evaluate head coach Rich Rodriguez after the Gator Bowl against Mississippi State.  This after a tear-filled football banquet in which RichRod got all gushy over a Josh Groban song.  (Even Groban poked fun at the coach’s actions.)


So it’s not a good time to be a member of Michigan’s staff.  In turn, that means it’s not a good time to be a member of Michigan’s team.  Advantage: Mississippi State in the Gator Bowl.

With such long layoffs, it’s impossible to predict which teams will show up in January and which ones won’t.  But the idea of — basically — putting a coach’s fate in the hands of his players for one mega-big game probably isn’t a wise one.

UM officials should realize the following:


* They hired a coach with a unique system who had to tear down the Wolverines’ program and build it up from scratch.

* This season was Michigan’s best (of three) under Rodriguez.

* Michigan boasts the nation’s sixth-best offense.


The coach deserves another year.  Period.  But Mississippi State fans should be glad that the power-brokers in Ann Arbor haven’t given it to him.  Because now their Bulldogs will face a team feeling some serious pressure.  And how many college teams do you remember that won a “must win” game to save their coach’s job?

Again, advantage: Mississippi State.

Despite being declared ineligible over an academic issue last week, LSU tailback Stevan Ridley continues to practice for the Tigers’ Cotton Bowl appearance against Texas A&M.  But the status of LSU’s appeal to the NCAA won’t be known for at least a week.

“On the fourth (of January) there will be information (from the NCAA) forthcoming that will give us great direction,” Les Miles said.  “I’d be hard-pressed to represent the process verbatim, but I believe it’s a conference call with the committees there.  People that will represent key issues in the appeal would be there with Stevan.  I think our chancellor (Mike Martin) is going to be there to represent the school.”

Ridley’s practice carries have been limited, but he is staying involved.  If he isn’t reinstated, LSU will have to depend upon Michael Ford, Alfred Blue and Richard Murphy.

“It definitely changes our thoughts in a number of ways,” Miles said.  “There are some things that Stevan gives this team that the other guys don’t.  It’s just that simple.”

For the record, below are LSU’s top six leading rushers for 2010:

As you can see, LSU’s second-leading rusher for the season has been quarterback Jordan Jefferson.  Ridley has accounted for 49% of LSU’s rushing yards and 52% of its rushing scores.

No wonder Miles says losing Ridley would change LSU’s thoughts heading into the Cotton Bowl.

Tonight’s schedule basketball game between Florida and Fairfield has been canceled due to weather.  Not weather in Gainesville, mind you, but weather in the Northeast.

This week’s blizzard has made it impossible for the Fairfield team to leave wherever it is Fairfield is located.  (That would be Connecticut, FYI.)

“We’re certainly disappointed for our fans that the game had to be canceled,” said Billy Donovan.  “But it wasn’t for any lack of effort from Fairfield trying to get here.  It was conditions that were out of everyone’s hands.”

The game will not be rescheduled for later this season.

When Will Muschamp accepted the head coaching job at Florida ripples spread across the Southeastern Conference:

* Muschamp would hire defensive coordinator and former teammate Kirby Smart from Alabama… thus leaving the Crimson Tide with a hole to fill.

* Muschamp might also make a run at former colleague and Tennessee linebackers coach Lance Thompson… which would send the Vols scrambling for a replacement.

* Some internet rumors also popped up suggesting Muschamp might recruit his buddy Mike Bobo from Georgia to be the Gators’ offensive coordinator.

* And Muschamp’s departure from Texas opened up a job that’s been rumored to have been offered to both Florida’s Teryl Austin and Tennessee’s Justin Wilcox.

That’s a lot of movement.  But not a lick of it has happened yet.

Florida and Texas are two of the five best programs in the country.  Their coaches can take their time on searches and still — for the most part — land the guys they want.  (One big reason: Florida and Texas assistants become head coaches with pretty good regularity.)

In this case, Mack Brown and Muschamp seem to truly be waiting until after the bowl season to make their hires.  That’s smart for both coaches.  Not only can they cherry-pick the best assistants in the nation, but their deep recruiting bases make it unlikely that they’ll suffer on Signing Day.  There’s no rush for UF and UT.  Best to show patience and conduct thorough searches.

Unfortunately, fans of other schools around the SEC will just have to be patient, too.  That means dealing with a few more days of rumors and internet reports linking their current coaches to the openings in Gainesville and Austin. 

For the next week at least, best to keep the Rolaids handy, folks.