1.  This writer believes Lane Kiffin owes Tennessee AD Mike Hamilton an apology.  (A pound of flesh might be more like it.)

2.  Meet the 12-member NCAA committee on infractions that will decide UT’s fate later this year.

3.  Meanwhile, Bruce Pearl’s basketball players say they’re not distracted by the NCAA mess.

4.  The Vols need to play better at home when they host Mississippi State Saturda.

5.  Vanderbilt’s Jeffery Taylor is dealing with a sore wrist.  “It kind of flares up and gets really sore when I dunk a lot.”  (Has the kid never heard of a lay-up?)

6.  Mississippi State will be without freshman guard Jalen Steele when they visit his hometown of Knoxville tomorrow.  Steele is out for the year with an injured ACL and meniscus.

7.  Here’s another good salute to longtime MSU play-by-play man Jack Cristil (who’ll call his final game tomorrow).

8.  Cristil had hoped his health would allow him to complete the season, but that’s not the case.

9.  Andy Kennedy is on the hot seat for not reaching the NCAA Tournament in five seasons… but he’s also the first Ole Miss coach since the 1920s to lead the Rebels to five-straight winning seasons.  And he’s the fastest coach in program history to reach 100 wins (102-61 overall).  Tough call, Pete Boone.

10.  UM running back Brandon Bolden has been pushing “The Prowler.”

Earlier this week, word leaked that HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” had scored an interview with former Auburn defensive end Stanley McClover.  According to sources, McClover will go on tape to reveal that he received extra benefits from an assistant coach while playing on The Plains in the early/mid-2000s.

Now a few of McClover’s former teammates and coaches are speaking out about the accusations.  According to Charles Goldberg of The Birmingham News:


Former Auburn running back Ronnie Brown said he has spoken to McClover about his claims and doesn’t understand them.  Former teammate Jeris McIntyre said he never heard of players being paid.  Ken Scott, McClover’s coach at Dillard High School in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., said Auburn never paid any of the players it signed from his school, and other elements of McClover’s story are wrong.


Interestingly, McClover has since tweeted the following:


READING ALL THESE RUMORS BLOGS ABOUT ME.. AND ALL I CAN SAY IS WOW..HOW YOU WRITE A STORY WITHOUT FACTS IS BEYOND MY MIND.


Gotta love what Twitter is doing to the English language.  But I digress…

Brown told Goldberg that he hopes “(McClover) feels like he made a mistake.”  He also said he doesn’t believe the report will be credible, “but I think the damage will already have been done.”

Brown claims that McClover told him he was doing the story to get publicity for his charity.


“I found out that Stanley was talking about he had a choice to go to different colleges, and one of the reasons he chose Auburn was because they offered him money,” Brown said.  “So I called him.  I said, ‘Whoa, what is this?  What is this about?”

He said, “Well, it has nothing to do with Auburn.  I was just telling my story about me trying to help kids.  I figured it would be good to tell my story.’

“I said, ‘What are you talking about?  If you tell that story, people are going to say you were paid.’  He said, ‘This has nothing to do with the school.  This is about me and my story, and trying to help kids.’

“I said, ‘You can’t implicate a school eight or nine years later.  Why would you say that anyway?’”

Brown said McClover didn’t have an answer.

“I said, ‘Yeah, because you never did anything wrong.  You were never offered anything.  This is kind of detrimental to Auburn.’”


If McClover thinks HBO’s “Real Sports” segment will devote more than 10 seconds of time to his charity, he’s probably in for a great disappointment.  This story is believed to be an expose on street agents and dirty recruiting in the SEC.  Unless HBO decides to make the whole story about McClover instead, his charity won’t be the focus of “his story.”  His claims of receiving extra benefits will be.

Radio host Scott Moore of WZZN-FM 97.7 in Huntsville, Alabama will be making the rounds today.  That’s because yesterday he revealed that he has heard Kenny Rogers’ audio tapes regarding Cam Newton’s recruitment.

“There are tapes.  There is some very incriminating, damning things on those tapes.”

Moore also said there are text messages that Rogers has kept that also shine a bad light on two programs in particular — Auburn and Tennessee.

“The bottom line is these numbers that we keep hearing about — this $150,000 offer from Tennessee, this $180,000 from Auburn — those came from Cecil Newton (to Rogers on the tapes).  They didn’t come from Auburn or Tennessee, they came from Cecil Newton.  He’s the one that said these offers were made to him.”

Moore said that he never heard anything on the tapes “that would implicate Mississippi State.”

“What I’ve heard is offers… (Newton) saying on these tapes that these offers were from Tennessee for $150,000 and a $180,000 offer from Auburn.  I heard him say that, I’ve seen the text messages.  And they exist, that’s the bottom line.”

Interestingly, Moore said there are “several tapes” from “several different people.”


First things first, once again, we’re hearing someone talk about the tapes and not the tapes themselves.  Is Moore going to make this up?  You certainly wouldn’t think so.

Second, we have to wonder if the tapes are real.  It’s hard to imagine why Kenny Rogers would manufacture false tapes unless he plans to sell them off at some point in the future.  It’s unlikely he would go to such lengths, but I saw a recent, poorly done documentary claiming the whole 1960′s “Paul is dead” ruse was real… just the other night.  There are nuts out there who will go pretty far to make a buck.  But the odds that Rogers (and others) faked phone calls and text messages?  Tinier than tiny.

Third, until we hear the tapes and see the messages, we have to wonder if Newton is simply talking big.  Just because he said it, it doesn’t mean it’s true.

As Moore says: “You get back to Cecil Newton coming to these guys in Mississippi and saying, “Hey, I got an offer from Tennessee for $150,000… I have an offer from Auburn for $180,000… Hey, Mississippi State, what are you gonna do?’”

It’s certainly possible Newton was trying to drive up a price from Mississippi State, the school his son wanted to attend in the first place.

But that’s enough of the “possible explanation” stuff.  If Moore is correct, this sounds awfully damning for Auburn and Tennessee.

Which is why one has to wonder just how much the NCAA has talked to — or attempted to talk to — Rogers.  The NCAA has been looking into Auburn but has yet to send a formal letter of inquiry announcing an investigation.  (There’s usually preliminary digging before the investigation is made official, but still, the NCAA hasn’t found/heard enough yet to dive in with both feet.)  The NCAA also just wrapped an investigation into Tennessee and Lane Kiffin.  Judging by the accusations they’ve shipped off to LA, it’s clear that the NCAA would love to get their hands around Kiffin’s neck.  If they had access to or knowledge of credible information showing that Kiffin made a $150,000 offer to the Newtons, it’s quite likely UT’s letter of allegations would have been considerably more brutal.


UPDATE – One more quote from Moore in summary:

“(Newton) went to Mississippi State and said, ‘Hey, what can you guys do for us?’  I mean that’s a fact.  That’s what he did.  And you know Mississippi State came back and said, ‘Listen, we’re not gonna do anything for you, but if you go to Auburn, we’re gonna turn you in.’  And that’s what happened.”


ANOTHER UPDATE TO THE STORY HERE.

1.  Florida wrapped up a portion of the SEC East title with a 71-62 win over Georgia in Gainesville last night.

2.  Chandler Parsons came off the bench to contribute, saying afterwards: “There was no shot I was missing this game.  You’d have to have cut my leg off.”

3.  Kenny Boynton’s three consecutive second-half 3-pointers helped the Gators pull away.

4.  For Georgia, it was yet another case of blowing a halftime lead.

5.  “We’re not the most mature group when it comes to handling success,” Mark Fox said…

6.  Want proof?  Look at this rundown of UGA’s blown leads this season.

7.  It’s getting pretty late in the year for Kentucky to start developing more toughness.

8.  John Calipari wants his team to get mad.  In the words of Patches O’Houlihan: “You’ve got to get angry, you’ve got to get meeean!  That’s the only way you can play.”  (NSFW and bad quality, but maybe Cal needs to deliver the speech offered up at the 4:35 mark of this clip.)

9.  It sounds like former South Carolina tight end Weslye Saunders might finally be assuming some accountability for his past struggles.

Here are some headlines for your Thursday evening.

1. This former South Carolina commit feels “shoved away” by the Gamecocks.

2. Brian McLaughlin looks at some of the top quarterbacks prospects for 2012.

3. Gainesville (Fla.) High School has two prospects very much on the SEC’s radar.

4. The NCAA’s investigation of Tennessee went through Atlanta.

5. New Florida commit Mike Davis is another in a long line of impressive players from Stephenson High School.

6. ESPN’s Greg Biggins has several notes from the recent Nike combine in Miami.

7. Here’s a look at Virginia Tech’s recruiting now that the Hokies have made some coaching changes.

8. There will be plenty of top prospects at Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando this weekend.

9. John Pennington asked earlier today if the SEC is cleaning up its act.

10. A look at the 2011 class for North Carolina – a direct recruiting competitor of the SEC.

Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy is feeling heat to his seat in Oxford.  His Rebels have lost back-to-back games to so-so Mississippi State and South Carolina.  Kennedy has lost five in a row to Rick Stansbury head-to-head, never good in the UM-MSU rivalry.

Making matters worse, Kennedy is in his fifth season at Mississippi but he’s yet to reach an NCAA Tournament.  And the only way he’ll get there this year is with an SEC tourney championship.

If he doesn’t reach the Big Dance and is retained by UM, Kyle Veazey of The Jackson Clarion-Ledger points out that Kennedy would be just the third SEC coach since the NCAA Tournament expanded in 1985 to coach a sixth season without reaching the tourney in a previous year.  Kennedy’s take on that?

“That’s the way college basketball coaches are judged at the end of the day.  At the end of the day, it comes down to ‘Did you get to the dance?’  ‘Did you not get to the dance?’  And that’s really — it’s been amplified tremendously over the past five or six years.  It’s all about the tournament.  You’ve got guys that are making a lot of money, creating terms such as ‘bracketology’ and ‘bubble watch’ and this and that, and it becomes the en vogue thing to talk about.  For our team not to hav ebeen in the conversation this year, certainly, as a coach, is frustrating.  But now, honestly, is not the time for me to reflect and say, ‘Hey what should we have done?’  That time will come.”

What a refreshingly honest answer from a college coach.  Not exactly the “Fifty years!” speech Houston Nutt delivered in his own defense just a few short months ago, huh?

Athletic director Pete Boone has said that he will discuss the situation with Kennedy at the end of the season.  If Ole Miss chooses to buy Kennedy out it’ll cost the school $3.9 million.

The folks at CBSSports.com believe — not surprisingly — that Bruce Pearl is going to be hit hard when the NCAA doles out penalties to Tennessee in June.

“We could argue for days that buying a player is way worse than lying to the NCAA about a cookout at your house, but it doesn’t matter because the NCAA doesn’t view it that way,” Gary Parrish said.  “Lying is the one thing that can absolutely get you buried, and I think Bruce is going to be lucky to survive this and honestly I’m not sure he’s going to.”

Parrish is joined in a video discussion by Seth Davis, Jim O’Connell and Jeff Goodman.

If you feel you still need a breakdown of what Pearl and Tennessee are facing, this video is an excellent breaker-downer.  (Probably just a pure “downer” for Vol fans.)

Urban Meyer’s decision to up and retire at the end of the 2010 football season left a number of coaches — and their families — looking for new homes.  As of today, all nine of Meyer’s ex-aides have jobs.

DJ Durkin (linebackers/special teams) and Brian White (tight ends/fullbacks) were retained by Will Muschamp. 

Zach Azzani, who served as UF’s receivers coach was hired as Western Kentucky’s offensive coordinator today.  The remaining coaches who’ve found work elsewhere are:

* Steve Addazio — head coach at Temple
* Chuck Heater — defensive coordinator at Temple
* Scot Loeffler — offensive coordinator at Temple
* Teryl Austin — secondary coach for the Baltimore Ravens
* Dan McCarney — head coach at North Texas
* Stan Drayton — running backs coach at Ohio State

It’s been a long, hard, bad season in Auburn, Alabama.  And we’re talking basketball here, of course.

The Tigers are just 9-18 overall and 2-11 in the SEC.  They’ve dealt with injuries and depth issues.  Last night they fought hard only to lose to their rival Alabama on a last-second tip-in.  Tony Barbee’s team needs something to look forward to… and now they have it.

Next year Auburn will take part in the Diamond Head Classic in Hawaii.  Clemson, Hawaii, Kansas State, Long Beach State, Southern Illinois, UTEP and Xavier will fill out the field in the December 22-25 tourney.

“This is part of the process in building a national program at Auburn, and it will be a wonderful experience for our players both on and off the court,” Barbee said.

Mississippi State took part in the tournament this past December.  Barbee might want to make sure his guys don’t get into a fistfight in between games.

Now here’s a surprise.  The Georgia Athletic Association today decided to pass on an opportunity to raise ticket prices for this year’s Georgia-Florida football game.

In December, Florida’s athletic board — and McGarity’s old boss Jeremy Foley — voted to raise the price of UF-UGA tickets by $10 a pop.  It was assumed Georgia wouldn’t turn down cash and McGarity wouldn’t disagree with his old boss.  But they and he did.

“It takes two of us to tango, so to speak,” McGarity told the board.  Wonder what Jeremy Foley thought about that decision?

Instead of exploring a price hike this year, McGarity did say that he will present a proposal in May regarding a ticket price hike for 2012.

Surprising.

In other news, UGA decided today to spend about $1.4 million to make improvements to the video board at Sanford Stadium.