First, don’t expect the SEC to go to nine games in 2013:

“The general feeling is we want to stay with eight.  But we have not sat down as a group of ADs to talk about 2012 and beyond.  We just had to get 2012 solved to move forward.  So who knows what 2013 through either a two-year or six-year rotation.  But that’s what we’re going to meet to (talk about) and dedicate a whole day to (during the SEC’s women’s basketball tournament).”

The fears of a nine-game slate are the same — you can’t schedule as many patsies:

“Nine games, and Georgia Tech, that makes 10 games.   If you ever wanted to schedule Clemson or Ohio State, like we have, then that only leaves one guarantee game.  That’s a pretty tough schedule.  Fans would love it.  But I don’t know if your coaches or players (would).  That’s strapping it up 11 of 12 weeks there.  You have to have some time where some players play who never get a chance to be on the field.”

The ACC has announced that it will go to a nine-game conference slate when Pittsburgh and Syracuse begin league play.  The Big Ten and Pac-12 will engage in a yearly conference-versus-conference agreement that will guarantee that both leagues’ teams will face at least nine BCS opponents per year.  In addition, the ADs at Iowa and Michigan have already stated that facing nine BCS teams per season won’t lead them to end their annual series with Iowa State and Notre Dame, respectively.

In other words, only the SEC is scared of guaranteeing nine to 10 games per year against BCS competition.

Clearly, the goal of most SEC athletic directors is to keep more teams bowl eligible via laughable non-conference schedules.  We find that to be embarrassing and we believe it will eventually bit the league right in the polls.  But then again, it’s you the fan who gets to pay 50+ bucks a seat to watch Jackson State come to town… just so you can then travel to Memphis to watch your 6-6 SEC squad play in the Liberty Bowl against a Conference USA team.  Fun, no?

Additionally, McGarity makes it clear that some of the league’s oldest, most-stories, most-important rivalries could still go away:

“I think if you ask Alabama and Tennessee, like us and Auburn, we’d like to retain the (permanent cross-divisional) games.  But does that work?  What do the other 10 schools think?  Those four schools like having those games but there’s no other East-West match-up that has that piece of history to it.  So I don’t (know) where that fits in.”

A history lesson for Mr. McGarity: Ole Miss and Vanderbilt have played 86 times.  That’s one of the 10 most played rivalries in SEC history.  If the SEC is about everyone being equal, then that rivalry means something, too.

Also, you can bet Missouri likes keeping its toes dipped in the deep recruiting waters of Texas thanks to its cross-divisional partnership with Texas A&M.

But in the end, Georgia’s AD is right about one thing:

“With 14 teams, not everybody will be happy.  Some will have a problem with everything.  But we’ll make decisions based on the best situation of the league.”

Well, there’s nothing better for the league than protecting the very thing that made it great — long-time, heated, tradition-rich rivalries.

The best way to do that is to go to a nine-game conference slate or somehow convince the NCAA to dump its requirements for conference championship games.

2.  Georgia put a whoopin’ on Arkansas to climb out of the SEC cellar.

3.  This writer believes John Calipari has his best shot at a national title with this year’s Kentucky team.

4.  South Carolina has now lost 10 basketball games in a row to Tennessee.

5.  The Vol football team will be a lot more multiple on defense next season.

6.  Meanwhile, assistant coach Darin Hinshaw wants more production from his receiving corps.

7.  After a sluggish first half, Vanderbilt dropped 49 on LSU in final stanza to win 76-61.  (Up next: VU hosts top-ranked Kentucky and the Dores have toppled the last four #1 teams to visit the West End.)

That’s what many Auburn and SEC fans would like to know following last year’s post-Cam Newton season.  But Auburn AD Jay Jacobs isn’t reading too much into last season because he says he and Chizik knew early on what was coming:

“2010 was a magical year for us.  Back when I interviewed Gene in December ’08, we knew that 2011, as far as the number of players, was going to be challenging.  I couldn’t be more proud of how the guys played.  There was only one institution that played more freshmen than we did this past season.  I’m proud of how hard they worked and how they stayed to the task at hand and continued to build this foundation that’s going to take us back to an SEC championship.”

Sounds good.  And we believe it’s too soon for anyone to start writing Chizik off as a one-year wonder.  But…

For Jacobs to have known back in 2008 that the roster would be so full of holes in 2011, he would have to have foreseen some real problems coming with Chizik’s first two signing classes.  After all, 43% of the players from Auburn’s ’09 and ’10 classes aren’t at Auburn or never arrived.

For that reason — while we say it’s way too soon to panic on the Plains — we also aren’t buying Jacobs’ “we knew it was coming” message.

He’s accomplished much, but now Pinkel is determined to break new barriers:

“We’re getting our brand name down in Atlanta.  We’re in South Florida, Tampa, Jacksonville, Orlando.  But we’re back to like we were when we first went into Texas.  You have to sell yourself.  They have a great pride in the SEC down there and you’re welcome down there.  But it’s just like when we first went into Texas, and the coaches would tell us, ‘Okay, these (five-star) guys are going to Texas, Oklahoma and A&M.  You can’t talk to them.  But you can look at these guys.’  Well, they don’t do that in Texas anymore.  They say, ‘These are our best guys, go recruit them.’  Well, now when we go into SEC territory to recruit, we hear, ‘Well, these guys are going to Alabama or Auburn.  But you can talk to these guys.’”

The coach told The St. Louis Dispatch that his program is ready for the challenge of its new home.  “That’s all we’ve been talking about to our football team,” Pinkel said.  “That’s what it’s all about.  Proving ourselves.  No one knows us in the SEC.  We have to earn their respect, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

So when Michael Adams says this:

“My best guess is we’re going to end up with either a four- or eight-team playoff by the time we get to ’14,”

We listen.

Now, it’s no surprise that a playoff-scenario is in the works.  At this site, we suggested in December that Alabama and LSU — two teams from the same (hated) conference  – reaching the BCS title game might be enough to spur the other BCS leagues into action.  The day we wrote that, Big 12 interim commissioner Chuck Neinas came out and said a “Plus One” format should be discussed.

It was bad enough that the SEC was winning the national crown every year, but when they were then facing themselves in the title game?  Other leagues couldn’t abide with that.

In the past month, many ADs and presidents and commissions have mentioned a four-team, seeded Plus One as the most likely end result of this year’s BCS discussions.  Even NCAA president Mark Emmert has said that such a “Football Final Four” seems like a solid idea.  And by now you know what kind of money such a plan would generate.  What kind of television ratings it would grab.  All that’s been written and re-written, postulated and re-postulated ad nauseum.

In the last week, the Big Ten let word leak out that it, too, might be in favor of a Plus One.  That was big news in itself as commissioner Jim Delany has long been against any type of playoff.  Additionally, the league’s plan tossed out the idea of the two highest-seeded teams hosting the “semifinals” on their own campuses.

Adams has taken all that a step further.  He has thrown an eight-team format into the discussion.  That’s not new on websites and blogs and messageboards, but it is a first in terms of real discussion.

According to Adams — who was speaking to the University of Georgia Athletic Association board yesterday — the Big Ten and Pac-12 have been the leagues most opposed to a playoff in past years.  Mike Slive pushed a Plus One idea several years ago and ACC commish John Swofford has also backed such a plan.  When Adams previously suggested an eight-team plan in 2008, it was dead on arrival.  But Delany’s change of heart on the subject is a “very significant development,” in Adams’ words.

According to The Athens Banner-Herald, Adams also said:

“The conference commissioners are finally coming together on that point.  There’s been great division among the commissioners the last six or eight years. The change in the conference realignments, the fact that most of the media contracts are up in either ’13 or ’14 are creating a situation. If there’s going to be a change, this is probably the natural time to do it…

I don’t say this about very much, but I think we were at the front of the train on that issue.  I could see it down the track and I think we will end up with something that I think the fans feel better about. We may never get anything that the fans feel perfectly happy about.  

One of my major concerns all along has been that I didn’t think we were paying enough attention to the fans who foot the bills for all this. I think that realization is beginning to come home.”

Back in December of 2008, we at MrSEC.com put together our own “perfect” college football plan.  Eight teams.  First-round games hosted on campus sites.  It’s not far from what’s being discussed by Delany to the north and Adams to the south this week.

You can read the plan in full right here.  (And, yes, I’m sure there are some uncorrected typos in that piece somewhere.)

Once we put our playoff system together, we brought in one of the top sports business wheeler-dealers in the country to tear it to shreds.  Anyone can come up with a playoff plan.  We wanted to come up with a playoff plan that would pass muster with everyone from the TV executives to advertisers t0 university presidents.  So we asked Bill Schmidt — the former sports marketing head of Gatorade and someone who’s been called in to broker advertising deals between professional teams and mega-brands — to nitpick our idea.

He did.

The issue of venues became the Snake Canyon we could not jump over.  If you play with eight teams (seven games) at bowl sites, no fans are going to travel to three different locations to follow their teams.  Plus, moving 85 student-athletes from site to site isn’t near as easy as moving 10-15 student-athletes from site to site during a basketball tournament.

So we suggested the first round be played on campuses.  Schools would love a shot at extra gate, parking and concession revenue.  But what of the four teams having to travel to on-campus sites?  As Schmidt reminded us, schools like to use bowl trips — even crummy ones — as a reward to boosters.  In return, they hope to draw more cash out of their biggest backers for future years.  Would a booster enjoy a trip to Lubbock, Texas or Boise, Idaho if his school lost?  Where’s the day at the beach or in the casino?

Again, read the above piece and you’ll see our arguments for an eight-team playoff and you’ll also see a sports marketing guru’s pooh-poohing of said plan.  We’re surprised that things have come as far as they have on the playoff from since that piece was posted in 2008.  But who foresaw a season in which the BCS Championship Game would feature two teams from the same conference?  And that’s really what’s made everything else suddenly feasible.

In our view, a seeded Plus One system remains the most likely scenario to come of this year’s discussion.  For traditionalists, it would be easier to go from zero to four than it would from zero all the way to eight.  We also expect that the three games involved will be sold off to the highest bidder.  For travel purposes and fan ease, one site might get all three games.  For the sake of pulling in more cash, the semifinals might be given to one city while the finals are handed to a even higher bidder.

Whatever the format, the end of the college football season is about to change.  If that gives us a truer national champion, restores meaning to New Year’s Day, pushes the smaller bowls back into December, and stops the creep of games into mid-January… then we’re all for it.

2. Here’s a breakdown of the initial group from Rivals.

3. Alabama is making a push for Georgia quarterback commit Brice Ramsey.

4. Sounds like a move by Urban Meyer, who called the upset talk in the Big Ten last week “nonsense.”

5. If you missed it last week, Florida basketball coach Billy Donovan said he doesn’t recruit prospects committed to other schools.

6. Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin believes the Aggies need to focus their recruiting on Texas and Louisiana.

1. Best recruiter and coach in the SEC.
2. Two-year professional coaching job with mild success.
3. Returned to college with major success at one school > moved to a better school with even bigger success.
4. Awakened a sleeping giant of a program and returned it to elite status almost overnight.
5. Coached multiple programs to a #1 ranking.
6. First head coaching job around 1989.
7. Born in WVU-Pennsylvania area.
8. Played college, but not professional ball.
9. “Defense first” guy who coaches like he’s possessed.
10. Coaches the most tradition-rich school in the SEC (top-three in the country).

So, who are we talking about?

Al from Dadeville: “CNS, of course!”

Willy from Waddy: “Cal, of course!”

Herbstreit/Bilas from Bristol: “Nope, it’s both.”

Tyler from Louisville: “Yes, we have two coaches who are the best in their respective profession despite being personality polar opposites. And, yes, I do know that Nick Saban has three national title belts to Cal’s zero.”

For a sample size let’s look at the last three years for both coaches – UK’s obviously still playing – since they are in their prime and ruling their sport.

SABAN: Two national titles… One SEC title… Overall record of 34-4 (89%)… Three top-2 recruiting classes… 19-2 (90%) at home.

CAL: Zero national titles… Two SEC titles… One Elite Eight… One Final Four… Three #1 recruiting classes… Overall record of 88-13 (85%)… 48-0 at home. (UK is by far and away the favorite for Cal to win his first national title.)

SABAN: Dictator… Process… System first, players later… Coach’s program… Don’t speak until spoken to… Coach is always right… Rigid… Static… No PR… Vanilla.

CAL: Liberator… Invisible process… Player’s first, system later…  Player’s first program… Speak before spoken to… Coach isn’t always right… Flexible…Fluid… Greatest PR guy ever… Rainbow.

Simply put, this is John Calipari enjoying the moment (first two minutes), and this is Nick Saban (1:47 mark) doing the same.

Just because the personality differences are so opposite, can it prevent the authentic belief that CNS and Cal are truly one and the same?

While Bama fans might hate and openly ignore the comparison, and UK fans marinate in the idea of it, ultimately it’s proof that there’s more than one way to skin any animal on the schedule. *Bama fans, just like Saban, Cal’s name is clean with the NCAA and he simply enjoys recruiting in the shadows of gray; just like another coach I know. And if anything, SEC fans should be cheering for the Cats and Cal so SEC domination will continue right up until spring practice.

Tyler B. works as a communications specialist for a Louisville, Kentucky company.  A lifetime SEC fan – long before it became “acceptable” to cheer for every team in the conference – he plans on writing several books about college football that have a fantastic chance of never being written. 

Except in the case of ex-Tennessee employee Steve Rubio.  The school announced yesterday that he is no longer employed by the university and no longer holds the title of director of player personnel.

Rubio was a Lane Kiffin hire in Knoxville.  He came to Tennessee from Central Florida where he had served as the Golden Knight’s director of player personnel.  After his arrival at Tennessee, UCF got spanked by the NCAA and coach George O’Leary — along with the NCAA — laid plenty of the blame at Rubio’s doorstep.

In October of 2009, Rubio — serving as a recruiting intern for the Vols — visited his old Florida high school along with Kiffin while UT’s head coach made a recruiting visit there.  That’s a no-no.  The NCAA investigated the matter.

Still, Rubio was eventually promoted to the position of director of player personnel and stayed on Tennessee’s staff after Derek Dooley’s arrival.  Now gone, the school won’t say if he left on his own or was asked to depart.

Asked about Mullen’s remarks by The Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Freeze took the high road… as Houston Nutt often tried to do before him:

“I’m sure that all of us express our faith in different ways.  I have said from Day One that I’m far from perfect and do not claim to be and certainly don’t judge others.  I have said from Day One also that I have great respect for what he’s done there.  I give credit where credit’s due.  I look forward to trying to increase our momentum against them, but whether or not he meant that toward me — I don’t know why he would, because I will never.  I’m not going to talk about something I don’t know, Number One, and have no reason to think anything about me.

We’re not going to enter into negative recruiting.  It’s just not what we’re going to do. … Will we be 100% in that?  Probably not as a whole staff, but I don’t think that’s going to be the practice we adhere to…

I look forward to talking with him.  I do.  I know how we feel about that rivalry and I certainly understand it and I get it.  I’ve lived here.  But at the end of the day, I don’t know that it has to be a rift between the coaching staff because of it.  I’m going to want to beat them as bad as we can and he’d going to want to do the same, but I still think you can have a professional relationship.  I hope.

I don’t think he in any way in recruiting tried to do anything that was hurtful towards me personally or say anything about me.  And I know I didn’t him.”

Mullen is a needler.  He’s got a touch of Spurrier and a dash of Kiffin about him.  (Cue the “he’s a sweetheart” emails from MSU fans.)

We’ll see how long it take for MSU’s coach to get under the skin of UM’s new head man.

(Sidenote — Because MSU fans are already yelping we’ve changed the word “faith” above to “values.”  Mullen was referring to preaching about values, not preaching about faith.  This changes nothing, of course, as Rebel fans still took it as a shot at Freeze who is vocal about his faith, values, beliefs, etc.  And UM fans taking Mullen’s comment as an insult was what led the reporter from The JCL to ask Freeze his thoughts on the remark… and that’s what led us to post it here.

Here’s a link to the web clip.)

As acting President of College Football here’s what NCAA football will look like in 2017.

FBS Teams: 80

Conferences: Five conferences with 16 teams; each with two divisions of eight.

Since we’re all things SEC, let’s use the SEC and Bama as examples.

SEC South: Alabama, Auburn, Ole Miss, Miss. State

SEC North: Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Virginia Tech

SEC East: Georgia, Florida, Florida State, South Carolina

SEC West:  Arkansas, Missouri, Texas A&M, LSU

Schedule: Nine conference games. Bama always plays the three teams in the SEC South division to determine a division champion. Six more SEC games against any of the other 13 SEC teams outside of the SEC South on a two-year home and home rotational basis. One or two of these games can be permanent to preserve rivalries. Of the two remaining regular season games on the schedule, one must be an FCS team to give them a guaranteed payment.

*If two teams in the SEC South end up with a 2-1 record the tiebreaker goes to the team with a better overall SEC record.

SEC Tournament: There will be an SEC Final Four. The South winner plays the North winner in one semifinal, and the West plays the East in the other. The two highest-ranked teams host the semifinal games and the title game remains in Atlanta.

**ALL FIVE CONFERENCES USE THIS FORMAT**

National Champion:  

-          Winners of the five conferences play in the Final Four tournament.

-          Two lowest-ranked conference champions play to get into the NCAA Final Four as the #4 seed.

-          Seeds 1-3 get a week of rest while the game for the #4 seed is played.

-          In the Final Four #1 plays #4 in their home stadium and #2 plays #3 in their stadium; tickets are distributed evenly.

-          The national championship game is played in rotating venues, just like now.

Bowl Games: The number of bowl games is reduced to 15, and there is no longer a bowl/conference affiliation. Teams don’t have to have a certain amount of wins to be eligible and all teams can practice during the “bowl season.”

Are there a few mistakes and omissions? Of course, this is college football after all…

ACC South: Miami, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Virginia

ACC North: Boston College, Pittsburg, Syracuse, Rutgers

ACC East: UCONN, Army, Navy, Maryland

ACC West: North Carolina, N.C. State, Wake Forest, Duke

Big-10 South: Notre Dame, Louisville, Indiana, Purdue

Big-10 North: Penn. State, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio State

Big-10 East: Illinois, Northwestern, Michigan, Michigan State

Big-10 West: Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa, Iowa State

Big 12 South: UTEP, Central Florida, South Florida, Houston

Big North: Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Nebraska

Big 12 East: Cincy, East Carolina, Miami (OH), West Virginia

Big 12 West: Texas, Houston, TCU, Baylor

PAC-10 South: UCLA, USC, Stanford, Cal

PAC-10 North: Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State

PAC-10 East: Colorado, Utah, BYU, Air Force

PAC-10 West: Arizona, Arizona State, Boise State, Fresno State

Tyler B. works as a communications specialist for a Louisville, Kentucky company.  A lifetime SEC fan – long before it became “acceptable” to cheer for every team in the conference – he plans on writing several books about college football that have a fantastic chance of never being written. 

2. The top-rated unsigned prospect for the 2012 class is getting closer to making a decision.

3. Here are some signing day grades for the 2012 class from CBSSports.com.

4. Alabama signee Dalvin Tomlinson had nothing to do with Darius Philon losing his scholarship at Bama, according to Tomlinson’s coach.

5. Chris Hays of the Orlando Sentinel takes an early look at the 2013 class in Florida.

6. Here’s a look into Kentucky’s efforts to sign its class for 2012.

7. Nkemdiche won’t be the only highly-touted prospect in the state of Georgia for 2013. The group will be large again.

8. South Carolina received a visit from offensive lineman Tyrone Crowder from Rockingham, N.C.

And both were told in the final days leading up to signing day that Nick Saban would only take them on if they waited a full year to enroll at Alabama in 2013.

Now you can say the Crimson Tide lived up to the letter of the SEC’s new soft 25-man signing cap law.  It did.  But that won’t mask the stink of these two players’ situations.

Taylor signed with Kentucky and admitted that he felt he’d been wronged.  His high school coach — former NFL running back Stanley Pritchett who’s seen recruiting from every angle — wasn’t happy with Alabama’s actions.

Philon — after a painful to watch signing day press conference — inked with Arkansas.  He’s never even been on Arkansas’ campus.

Is Alabama alone in this kind of activity?  No.  It’s recruiting.  It’s a dirty business known for broken promises.  Commitments from players and schools are steel strong… right up until a better player or a better school comes along.

But Saban and Alabama certainly get more ink than most when it comes to their methods of roster management.  Talk of a signing cap was tied to UA.  Chatter about unwarranted medical hardships once swirled around Bama.  And now the buzz is focused on Saban for backpedaling from committed prospects like an All-America corner in an SEC title game.

Is it enough to create some bad vibes for the Alabama program?  Jeff Sentell of The Birmingham News suggests as much:

“If there’s such a thing as football karma, maybe Taylor uses this diss to spark Kentucky to an Alabama upset?  Maybe Philon does the same for Arkansas?  What if those losses kept Alabama from both the SEC and BCS title games?  That’s one way that troubled look on Philon’s face on signing day could come back to haunt Alabama’s bottom line.”

That’s not likely to happen.  Instead, Saban’s juggernaut Tide will continue to roll right along.  And top recruits will continue to commit to Alabama believing that what happened to Taylor and Philon could never happen to their superstar selves.

But Tide fans are going to have to learn to live with all this negative talk until Bama changes its ways.  That’s got to be maddeningly tiresome.  Whether UA fans will admit it or not.

The old saying goes: To make an omelette you have to break a few eggs.  Well, there’s a price to pay for the eggs.  There’s a cost.

And the cost is headshakes and tsk-tsks from the rest of the sporting world everytime another teenager says he was left at the altar or kicked to the curb by Saban.  Nothing’s free.  Not even well-made omelettes.

(Story corrected… Justin Taylor — who we’ve referenced several times here — is the Alabama commit who wound up signing with Kentucky.  Jason Taylor was a future Hall of Fame defensive end for the Miami Dolphins.  And I am the guy who has to have extra proof-reading time for my morning posts.)

2. Derek Dooley on multi-year scholarships: “We forget this is a contract, a two-way street.”

3. And on the season-ending loss at Kentucky: “It eats me alive. I didn’t sleep for a week after that game.”

4. Urban Meyer is doing to the Big Ten what Lane Kiffin did to the SEC.

5.  ”(J)ust admit everyone’s guilty of poaching on some level…”

6. The Darius Philon story will not go away.

7. Neither will the Jarrett Lee BCS championship game saga.

8. Jordan Jefferson leads two scoring drives but the North beats the South in the Players All-Star Classic.

9. Avery Johnson will legally change his last name to Peterson when he arrives on the LSU campus.

10.  A signing day breakdown for the Ole Miss Rebels.

11. And one for Mississippi State.

12. How to work a living room – Kentucky Wildcats style.

13. Alabama 69 – Ole Miss 67 (2 OT).  Key plays by Trevor Releford prove to be  the difference. Ole Miss loses seven-point halftime lead.

14. LSU 71 – Arkansas 65.  Four scorers in double figures for the Tigers. Arkansas still winless on the road.

15. Mississippi State 91 – Auburn 88. Bulldogs connect on 12 3-point shots. Beat Auburn despite Dee Bost fouling out with 3.29 to go.

16. Florida 73 – Vanderbilt 65.  19 straight at  home for the Gators. Press and double teams doom the Commodores.

17. Kentucky 85 – South Carolina 62. 22 points, eight rebounds and eight blocked shots for Anthony Davis in a record-setting game for the freshman. Worst loss in Darrin Horn’s coaching career.

18. The Big Blue Nation Occupy Movement.

19, Tennessee 73 – Georgia 62. Lineup shuffle a winner for the Vols. Georgia coach Mark Fox ejected.

20. Mike Strange: “I pity the teams who have to prepare a scouting report on Tennessee.”

21. Is selfishness killing college basketball?

Extras

22. The NFL wants more Thursday night games.

23. Former Kentucky player Dermontti Dawson elected to Pro Football Hall of Fame.

24. IBM says Twitter prefers Eli.

25. The 21 strangest Super Bowl prop bets.

26. The Super Bow is over when this happens.

2. Mike Bianchi: “He’s not just Urban Liar anymore, he’s Urban Hypocrite as well.”

3. Alabama’s early enrollees spoke on Friday.  You won’t hear them again until 2013.

4. When nobody cares if you flip schools.

5.  A Madden ’12 NFL tournament is part of the team-building process at Tennessee.

6. Cap on signing class comes back to burn the Volunteers.

7. Tennessee  makes the Derrick Ansley hire official on Friday.

8. Adam Henry is the new wide receivers coach at LSU.

9. Steve Spurrier fills the final vacancy in the South Carolina staff.

10. Signing day turns adults into children.

11. Happy 25th birthday - 3-point shot.

12. Arkansas at LSU.  Can the Razorbacks finally deliver a win on the road? Senior LSU forward Malcolm White suspended for today’s game.

13. Auburn at Mississippi State.  Arnett Moultrie’s transer to Mississippi State  is still a sore point with Auburn coach Tony Barbee. Moultrie has NBA potential.

14. Ole Miss at Alabama.  When Alabama scores 70 or more points or when opponents shoot less than 40% - Crimson Tide is almost a lock to win. Rebels should be rested - they’ve had a week off between games.

15. Alabama still controls its tournament destiny.

16. Vanderbilt at Florida.  A battle between two veteran coaches, Billy Donovan and Kevin Stallings have known one another for almost 20 years. With Vandy today and Kentucky on Tuesday, a key stretch for the Gators.

17. Kentucky at South Carolina.  John Calipari hasn’t forgotten the last time a No. 1 ranked Kentucky team played in Columbia.  A brutal first-half SEC schedule for the Gamecocks.

18. Calipari on Darrin Horn: “South Carolina’s hard. Hard deal to get going.”

19. Georgia at Tennessee.  Kentavious Caldwell-Pope hits the freshman wall.   Bulldogs struggling offensively – shooting less than 40% as a team. The Vols’ Cameron Tatum can identify – he’s in a  1-for-21 shooting slump.

20. Jerry Palm and Joe Lunardi agree on five SEC teams that should make the NCAA tournament. They disagree on a possible sixth.

Extra

21. Does the Big Ten have more integrity than the SEC?

22. New York Times rips the NCAA.  NCAA fires back.

“The format will consist of each team playing all six in its division each year, plus its primary crossover partner each year and two rotating opponents from the opposite division.  This six-year cycle allows each team to play each divisional opponent and its primary crossover partner six times (three home and three away) while also playing each rotating crossover opponent two times (one home and one away).

If you read MrSEC.com with any regularity, you know that’s the exact format that we’ve pushed as the SEC’s best method of protecting traditional rivalries and moving forward into a new age.

We still believe that the league will go to such a plan at some point in the future so long as the bowl-eligibility standard isn’t raised to seven wins.

But the SEC’s coaches and athletic directors — for now — are scared to death of a nine-game plan.  They don’t want to give up the cash brought in by an extra home game every year (even though the new TV contracts more than make up for the loss of a home every other season).  They cry that a nine-game schedule would kill the league’s national title hopes (even though just the opposite happened when the league expanded to eight games and added a conference title game).

Barring a nine-game format, we recently pushed this divisionless format… assuming the SEC could convince the NCAA to drop its schedule requirements for a conference championship game.  But even if the SEC moved to an eight-game, non-divisional plan — the best fallback option out there — its coaches and ADs would still have to live with this disappointing fact:

They’re scared of doing what the ACC is planning to do.

Where’s the fearless leadership of Roy Kramer when you need it?  (And don’t think there weren’t shrieks of terror when he added a title game and shifted the league from six to seven to eight contests per year.)

Well, it seems that Vanderbilt’s James Franklin and MSU’s Dan Mullen have some growing up to do, too.  (There may be more across the SEC, but those are the three cases we’ve come across so far.)

In the cutthroat world of recruiting, coaches rise and fall on the commitments and de-commitments of teenage boys.  Naturally, when a coach loses a player, he’s going to be a) ticked and b) hurt.  But as adults representing major universities, they need to show a bit more maturity than the kids doing the flip-flopping.

Especially when coaches have no problem talking recruits into flipping and flopping to their programs.

On Wednesday, Miles questioned the heart and leadership capabilities of quarterback prospect and Notre Dame signee Gunner Kiel.  In contrast, he talked up the “style” of Jeremy Liggins, a Mississippi quarterback who inked a last-minute deal with the Tigers.

Liggins had been a top target of Mullen’s Mississippi State program.  So when he lost out on Liggins, he offered a scholarship to quarterback Nick Schuessler instead.  And here’s what he had to say about that move:

“It was actually funny.  During that whole weekend (leading up to signing day) we were sitting there with Nick, I kind of came to the conclusion Nick was the better quarterback.  Then it kind of became real heavy that he was the much better quarterback.”

Funny how that works.  You study two players for months and target one.  That one decides to go elsewhere and suddenly it’s obvious that he really wasn’t that good after all.  The other guy was “much better.”

How childish and small of Mullen to make a crack like that about a teenager who’s was trying to make the biggest decision of his young life.

But the immaturity and pettiness didn’t stop there.  In Nashville, James Franklin told a group of Vanderbilt backers that players who de-committed from his program were “not men of honor” and “not men of integrity,” according to Jeff Lockridge of The Tennessean via Twitter.

Hmmm.  Could that have been a shot at last minute flip-flopper Josh Dawson, who decided his skills as a defensive end would be better honed at his homestate school of Georgia?  (It should be noted, Dawson called Vandy’s coaches with the news on the night prior to signing day.  Even VU assistant Sean Spencer said “he was a man” about it.)

What’s ironic is that Franklin’s signing class includes a quarterback named Patton Robinette who walked out of orientation at North Carolina to drive to Nashville and join Franklin’s squad at the last possible instant.

I don’t recall Franklin closing his door to Robinette, do you?  I suppose a player isn’t a man of honor or integrity when he’s leaving you for someone else.  If he’s leaving someone else for you, well, that’s a sign of high character.

I get that coaches like players who sign with them and dislike many kids who sign elsewhere.  I understand that coaches need to spin “lesser” signees to the fanbase when they lose a higher-ranked prospect.  I also understand that coaches like to be applauded and there’s no easier way for a coach to gain applause than by acting angry and wronged in front of his fanbase.  Talk about rallying the troops.

But the fact remains, these coaches are dealing with teenagers.  Regardless of how they might feel post-signing day or what they might say behind the closed doors of the football complex, they need to show enough maturity to not insult and belittle young men who are being pulled in a thousand directions by grown men promising them everything from playing time, to jobs, to an education.

Miles questioned a teen’s heart and talent.  Mullen dissed a teen’s abilities.  Franklin questioned at least one teenager’s honor and integrity.

I wonder if there’s anyone at any of those coaches’ institutions who will question the scorned, schoolgirl behavior of their highest-paid employees?

You’re older than the players, guys.  You’re supposed to be more mature.  Act like it.