We’re in the heart of basketball season and just six days away from national signing day.  So naturally spring football practice is on everyone’s mind, right?

Below are the dates for spring practice across the SEC.  You’ll note that all of the spring games have been scheduled, but some coaches have yet to determine when exactly they’ll begin their 15 permissible practice sessions.

There’s been some recent movement on our MrSEC recruiting Big Board and we wanted to get you that information first thing this morning.  While most recruiting services judge a class based upon its high-end commitments, we look at the entire class.  After all, who’s to say if a 15-man class with five 5-star players is really better than a 28-man class with 28 three-star players?

Below you’ll find our latest tabulations.  As always, we assign one point for every star rating handed out by the people at Rivals.com.  We also give 0-star players a point.  If you look at your school’s list and see a commitment missing, it’s not a conspiracy on our part.  We simply want to use one source of information on commits and that source is Rivals.  So if your school has added someone in the last 24 hours, that player may not be represented here.

First, a look at the total amount of talent committed to each SEC school this morning:

If you’re keeping score at home, five schools have added points and two have lost points since our last check of the Big Board:

Ole Miss +9
Auburn +7
Tennessee +4
Georgia +3
Arkansas +2
Vanderbilt -1
South Carolina -3


Finally, let’s take a quick look at the type of talent each program is attracting.  Below are the average points-per-commitment for each SEC school to date:

Defensive back Floyd Raven from East St. John High School in Reserve, La., has once again given his commitment to Ole Miss.

Raven originally committed to Ole Miss in November but later opened up his recruitment. He considered schools such as Pittsburgh and Utah. Rumors swirled Monday that he had committed to Texas A&M.

Raven denied that had happened and confirmed he was once again committed to Ole Miss on Wednesday night.

Ole Miss has 28 commitments for the class of 2011.

Auburn’s first commitment on Wednesday came from defensive end Devaunte Sigler from B.C. Rain High School in Mobile, Ala.

Sigler made the announcement at his school, choosing Auburn over LSU and Mississippi State.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, and now I know,” Sigler said, according to the Mobile Press-Register.

Sigler’s goals are high as he prepares to enter college. He said he plans to be the “next Nick Fairley,” referring to the former Auburn defensive tackle expected to be drafted near the top of April’s NFL Draft.

Auburn might have also found the next running back to make an instant impact in Gus Malzahn’s offense. Tre Mason from Park Vista High School in Lake Worth, Fla., committed to Auburn over Ole Miss.

“It was the place that felt the most like home to me,” Mason told ESPN.com. “The coaching staff is great. The players were cool. Everything was great.”

Mason became Auburn’s 21st commitment for the class of 2011.

Arkansas defensive coordinator Willy Robinson is in line to get a pretty nice raise… a 7% bounce, in fact.  That will take his pay to $375,000 per year.  Not bad.

Unless you compare it to the raise being given to offensive coordinator Garrick McGee.  McGee — who just completed his first year as OC and then interviewed for head coaching jobs at Tulsa and UConn — is getting a 29% bump.  His pay will jump to $425,000 per year making him the highest paid assistant on Bobby Petrino’s staff.

A 12% raise had been proposed for McGee prior to his interview with Tulsa.  One day after entering into negotiations with his hometown school, McGee withdrew his name from consideration. 

Perhaps we now know why.

The new Longhorn Network — a partnership between ESPN and the University of Texas — will create a $300 million windfall for the Texas athletic department over the next 20 years.  You’d think that would be the worst of it for Texas’ Big 12 rivals.

You would be wrong.

When the deal for the network was announced, one small part of the press release caught the attention of the people at Texas A&M.  It seems the Longhorn Network plans to carry some high school games in addition to all those many hours of Texas’ football, basketball, baseball, tic-tac-toe, badminton, and cross-country ballroom dancing. 

Texas A&M athletic director Bill Byrne — no doubt speaking for every other person attached to a Big 12 school not located in Austin — believes the NCAA might want to take a look into those plans.

“I can’t speak for the NCAA, but I would imagine the governing body will look into the use of a collegiate television network airing games of prospective student-athletes,” Byrne said.  “I understand networks such as FSN and ESPN airing high school sports, but whether or not employees under contract with a university that may have additional contact would seem to be an issue.”

Yes.  A huge issue.

Let’s say Mack Brown spots a high school running back out of College Station that he likes.  He tells the folks with the Longhorn Network of his interest.  All of a sudden, said prospect’s high school games are picked up and aired by the official University of Texas sports channel.  A recruiting advantage for Texas?  You bet.

No one in the Big 12 trusts one another after the backdoor dealings, backstabs, and attempted double-crosses of last summer.  So launching Texas’ new network is akin to pouring gasoline on a fire.  Sooner or later — probably sooner — the Big 12 is going to go up in flames.

When it does, expect A&M and possibly Oklahoma to call Mike Slive in hopes of finding new living arrangements.

Maybe Stan Drayton is staying put in Gainesville after all.  Maybe.

Last night The Cleveland Plain-Dealer reported that Florida’s running backs coach (and recruiting coordinator) was planning to accept a job offer from Ohio State to become the Buckeyes’ receivers coach.

One problem: The University of Florida says today that that’s not true.

“Coach (Will) Muschamp is on the road recruiting and our coaching staff remains intact at this time,” said a UF spokesman.  The words “at this time” could be key, of course.

A few things could be playing out here:


1.  The Plain-Dealer is completely off base and Drayton never planned to take the OSU job.

2.  Florida has made Drayton a counteroffer and convinced him to stay in Gainesville.  (He was one of only three Urban Meyer assistants retained by Muschamp in the first place.)

3.  Drayton is planning to take the OSU job and he’s told Muschamp about it… but he also agreed to keep a lid on the move until after signing day so as not to damage the Gators’ class.


Stay tuned.

The East is a beast and the West is a mess.  Such is the state of SEC basketball in 2011.  For that reason, we’ll take a closer look here at the East Division only.  (Handicapping the West seems unfair as that division is handicapped enough as is.)

Last night’s win by Florida in Athens was the second road game the Gators have stolen from an East rival this year.  First Tennessee, then Georgia, both in overtime… which says something for the Gators’ maturity. 

For an up-and-down team, Billy Donovan’s squad seems to have hit a prolonged up.  It looks like they’re in the driver’s seat in the East Division.  But are they really?  Here are the current division standings:

Now let’s look at each squad’s remaining games:

Florida 5-1
SEC Games Remaining: 10
Against SEC West: 3
Home Games: 5

Kentucky 3-2
SEC Games Remaining: 11
Against SEC West: 3
Home Games: 6

South Carolina 3-2
SEC Games Remaining: 11
Against SEC West: 4
Home Games: 5

Vanderbilt 2-2
SEC Games Remaining: 12
Against SEC West: 5
Home Games: 6

Tennessee 2-2
SEC Games Remaining: 12
Against SEC West: 5
Home Games: 6

Georgia 3-3
SEC Games Remaining: 10
Against SEC West: 4
Home Games: 4


Tennessee and Vanderbilt still have five West teams remaining on their schedules.  That’s a big plus.  Kentucky and Florida only have three games each remaining with West foes.  And that’s a minus.

To break things down further, let’s take a closer look at the games against the West and the remaining home games for each East Division team.  Any East team hoping to win the division title in 2011 needs to avoid losses to the weaker teams from the West.  Also, any team aiming for the division crown can’t afford to lose at home to their East Division rivals.  Consider those two areas to be a simple matter of “taking care of business” or “TCB” as Elvis would have said. 

The East championship will be decided by those two factors:

1.  Who slips up against the West?

2.  Who slips up at home against East foes?

If we count each team’s remaining West Division games as victories, the standings board looks like this:

Now let’s go ahead and hand out wins for each SEC East game a team has remaining in its own gym, too.

East vs East home games remaining:

Florida (4) — Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia

Kentucky (5) – Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Florida, Vanderbilt

South Carolina (3) — Florida, Georgia, Tennessee

Vanderbilt (4) — South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida

Tennessee (3) — South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky

Georgia (2) — Vanderbilt, South Carolina


Clearly, Kentucky holds an advantage in this area as all five of its home games against East foes still lay ahead.  South Carolina and Tennessee have already played two East opponents at home and each lost one of those games.  That hurts.  But Georgia is in real trouble in this area.  The Bulldogs have just two more East Division games at home this year… and they’ve already lost two of the three East home games they’ve played.

Let’s go ahead and count each team’s East Division home games as victories and look at the updated standings:

So what does all this tell us?  It tells us that based on the games already played plus the remaining games versus the West and the remaining games at home versus East foes…  Florida is in the driver’s seat in the SEC East.  Kentucky and Vanderbilt are just a game back — waiting for a Gator slip-up — if they handle matters as they should.

The climb is a bit more steep for South Carolina and Tennessee.  And Georgia — having lost two East battles at home already — will have to do some serious road work to capture the division title this season.

If you’re a betting man, you might want to drop a couple of bucks on the Gators in the East.  The remaining schedule is setting up pretty nicely for Donovan’s crew.

1.  Erving Walker’s “miracle” 30-foot three-pointer made up for two key missed free throws in Florida’s 104-91 double-overtime win at Georgia last night.

2.  Chandler Parsons took over in the second overtime.

3.  The loss was Georgia’s second in a row to an East foe at home.

4.  Mark Fox said he was proud of his team’s effort last night, “but we’ve got to win the heartbreaker.” 

5.  This writer believes “the sting from this one will linger for a while” for the Dawgs.

6.  A healthy Trinton Sturdivant is looking forward to spring practice in Athens.

7.  The mayor of Lexington has called for a study to determine the feasibility of redesigning and renovating Rupp Arena.  (In other words, he’s not onboard with the idea of a new downtown arena just yet.)

8.  Here’s a by-the-numbers look at UK’s basketball players this season.

9.  Bruce Pearl says “Tennessee is going to regain its identity for its toughness and physicality.”

10.  Festus Ezeli is the SEC’s most improved player this season.  By far.

It’s a week before signing day and all through the house, not a creature is stirring… except Nick Saban with a stack of resumes.

Saban is searching for a replacement for departed receivers coach and recruiting coordinator Curt Cignetti who took the head coaching job at Indiana University of Pennsylvania last week.

Yesterday, reports surfaced connecting Kentucky receivers coach — and Alabama native — Tee Martin to the Tide’s job.  Former Minnesota head coach Tim Brewster has also been named as a candidate.

Now rumors are increasing that South Carolina’s Shane Beamer is a candidate as well.  Beamer worked with the Gamecocks’ special teams and strong safeties last year.  Two weeks ago, Steve Spurrier took the safeties duties off his plate so he could focus on the specialty units.  He is also Carolina’s recruiting coordinator.

It’s doubtful that Alabama will hire Cignetti’s replacement before next Wednesday.  If they do, it means some assistant has left his old school in quite the lurch just prior to signing day.  Here’s guessing neither Joker Phillips nor Steve Spurrier would be very appreciative of such a move.