Music City Bowl officials announced today that last December’s game between Vanderbilt and NC State had a $13.9 million positive impact on the city of Nashville.  The problem, however, is the fact that that’s the third smallest economic boom since the bowl began matching SEC and ACC teams back in 2006.

Why might the money have been down?  Uh, Vanderbilt is located in Nashville, of course.  Bowls were initially started as a means of bringing tourists into touristy destinations in non-touristy times of year.  To an extent, that’s still the goal for bowl and city officials.  And when it comes to tourism, grabbing a local team never makes sense.  Indeed, fewer than 30,000 out-of-towners traveled to Nashville to watch the Commodores and Wolfpack butt helmets.

Last year’s game ranked #3 on the list of least-profitable bowls for the city since ’06 and we bet you can guess which one finished dead last.  Yep, the 2008 Music City Bowl which also featured Vanderbilt.  That game brought in just $9.9 million for the city and just 17,000 visitors as the Dores were matched up with faraway Boston College.

Some bowls hold their nose on the travel numbers in exchange for creating a good television matchup.  What’s more valuable — bringing thousands of fans into Nashville for one game or promoting Nashville as a tourist destination in front of millions of television viewers?  But the television numbers for last year’s Music City Bowl were also lackluster.  Its 1.62 national household rating was the game’s lowest in seven years.

The problem for Vanderbilt is one of reputation.  James Franklin and the VU administration are having to build a program out of the ashes of dozens of failed football seasons.  Until Vandy gets a better name, it likely won’t become a major television draw (the school also lacks the massive alumni base of many of the nation’s larger state schools).  Bowl committees know what kind of television draw Vanderbilt is.  They know, too, about the smaller alumni base.  Those issues are largely to blame for the Commodores being trapped inside the Volunteer State — Music City Bowl twice, Liberty Bowl once — during their recent uptick in success.

To continue to move forward and grow Vanderbilt into an honest-to-God football program, VU officials need to loudly trumpet the fact that the school sold out its allotment of tickets for the 2011 Liberty Bowl.  Otherwise future bowl committees looking at sub-standard TV ratings and generic stories regarding low economic impact — even though its unfair to blame Vandy for not bringing fans into its own city — might decide to pass on inviting the black and gold to their party.

Northwestern has traveled the same road.  Ditto Stanford.

Franklin and Vanderbilt have made tremendous strides in the past two years alone.  But there are further issues to overcome before the school can start to land invitations to top-notch, out-of-state bowl games.  And until that happens, Vandy’s success story will remain more of a regional story than a national one.

The NCAA has been investigating the recruitment of players courted by two Auburn assistant coaches, according to several sources.
Virginia Tech AD Jim Weaver says “There may potentially be some interest” from the SEC toward adding the Hokies
Sources tell MrSEC.com Jon Gruden is “intrigued” by Tennessee’s head coaching job and might be dropping his price tag
Recovering from a concussion, Missouri quarterback James Franklin could be a game-day decision
Thursday SEC basketball scores
Missouri 78 – Stanford 70
Davidson 75 – Vanderbilt 62
Weekend SEC Football Schedule
LSU at Arkansas (Friday)
Georgia Tech at Georgia
Kentucky at Tennessee
Auburn at Alabama
Florida at Florida State
Vanderbilt at Wake Forest
Missouri at Texas A&M
Mississippi State at Ole Miss
South Carolina at Clemson
Follow the SEC every day at MrSEC.com and twitter.com/mrsec

LSU’s search for a quarterback in the class of 2013 has come to an end.

The Tigers offered a scholarship on Monday night to Hayden Rettig from Cathedral High School in Los Angeles. He was ready to accept it by Tuesday morning.

Rettig’s relationship with LSU quarterbacks coach Steve Kragthorpe played a role in Rettig’s decision, according to Cathedral coach Kevin Pearson.

“Hayden and him kept in contact and built a relationship in the last couple of weeks,” Pearson told ESPN RecruitingNation. “Hayden really liked him a lot … and the LSU program kind of sells itself.”

LSU had trouble selling itself to other quarterbacks in the 2013 class. Cooper Bateman (Alabama), Mitch Connor (South Carolina) and Jeremy Johnson (Auburn) all committed elsewhere earlier this month after considering offers from LSU.

The Tigers beat out such schools as Arizona, Arizona State, Boston College, UCLA and Vanderbilt to land Rettig, who’s ranked the nation’s No. 12 pocket passer by ESPNU.

LSU has 12 commitments for the 2013 class.

Defensive back Jonathan Jones from Carrollton (Ga.) High School committed to Auburn during the weekend.

Jones chose Auburn over Mississippi State and Georgia. Other schools to offer include Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Boston College, Illinois and Stanford.

“I liked everything about Auburn, from the winning tradition to the coaching staff, along with the proximity from home,” Jones told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Coach (Gene Chizik) made it feel like one big family at Auburn, and that’s one thing I really liked.”

Jones is Auburn’s 14th commitment for the class of 2012.

1.  Florida State president Eric Barron says he has not had any talks about Florida State leaving the ACC for the SEC.

2.  Virginia Tech athletic director Jim Weaver says that the Hokies “always wanted to be in the Atlantic Coast Conference” and that he thinks “that’s where we’re going to stay.”  The governor of Virginia forced the University of Virginia to welcome Tech into the ACC just a few years ago.  We’ve said that it’s doubtful the Hokies would jump again so soon.  (Interestingly, Tech’s AD cited travel in the SEC as a concern calling the ACC a “bus league.”  Not sure how often he buses to Miami or Boston College, but okey-dokey.)

3.  Tony Barnhart of CBSSports.com writes that he believes Mike Slive would still prefer to avoid expansion… but he’ll be ready to make a move if he thinks it would be in the SEC’s best interest.

4.  The Texas legislature has called a meeting for next week to discuss “matters pertaining to high education, including collegiate athletics.”  Translation: What’s up with Texas A&M?

5.  The SEC’s commissioner will be invited to attend the Texas legislature’s meeting.  Here’s guessing he won’t attend.  According to Dan Branch, R-Dallas, the legislature wants to know if an A&M move to the SEC would be good for the Aggies… and if such a move might hurt Texas, Baylor and Texas Tech.

6.  And that’s why one Texas A&M official said today that he believes Houston would be a viable candidate to replace the Aggies in the Big 12.  In other words, you guys take Houston and let us be on our way.

7.  Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe has told A&M officials that Texas is the school that holds the key to the league’s future, not A&M.  (That should help A&M’s case in the legislature… if it comes to that.) 

8.  NC State AD Debbie Yow put out a note this morning reading: “State is a founding member of the ACC.  Our goal continues to be to do our part to strengthen the ACC.”  Good to know.  Of course, that’s the equivalent of me putting out a press release to announce I’m not in the running for the head coaching job of the Orlando Magic.  Sorry, Wolfpack, you would bring nothing to the SEC and the SEC knows it.

Vanderbilt has received a commitment from Paris Head from Buford (Ga.) High School.

Head is the eighth prospect to commit to Vanderbilt’s 2012 class. Seven of those commitments are from Georgia.

“I think that’s awesome because I feel like Georgia is one of the top states in the country for football,” Head told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I think they are doing a great job of recruiting here, and I feel like Vanderbilt’s program is going in the right direction.”

That appears to be the case now that Vanderbilt has landed another prospect with offers from several BCS schools. Head chose the Commodores over Boston College, Louisville and others.

As John Pennington pointed out on Monday, Vanderbilt coach James Franklin is turning heads on the recruiting trail.

Tight end Colin Thompson from Archbishop Wood (Pa.) Catholic High School has committed to Florida.

“I just wanted to get it out of the way now,” Thompson said on Thursday. “It’s just the right place for me, and it’s the right fit.”

Thompson, who chose the Gators over Boston College and Wisconsin, credited a close relationship he’s built with Florida coach Will Muschamp.

“He’s a guy who’d run through a wall for you,” Thompson said. “He’s just a great guy, a great family guy.”

Thompson is the 10th commitment for Florida’s class of 2012.

New Vanderbilt defensive coordinator Bob Shoop opened up to The Tennessean yesterday about his plans for the Commodore defense.  Two words: Tampa Two.

“If you’re asking my beliefs in a perfect world, the Tampa 4-3 is something I have always studied,” Shoop said.  “Coach (Mike) Tomlin has had a great effect on me when he was at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  He’s now the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers and he’s a William & Mary graduate, so he and I have spend a great deal of time together.

“My experiences at Boston College, we were a big zone-blitz, fire-zone team.  And a little bit of what we call our ‘chaos package,’ which is our third-down deal.  If you watch the Packers or the Steelers, or the Ravens or maybe the Eagles or Jets… some of the unorthodox style of things that they do to create pass-rush mismatched and to get after the quarterback.  Those are the things we will ultimately end up being.”

At least that’s the goal.  The Packers, Steelers, Ravens, Eagles and Jets all have an awful lot of talent on their defensive units.  Whether VU can recruit the players necessary to make such a gambling style pay off is yet to be seen.

If the Commodores are going to run more Tampa Two defense (from a 4-3 base), James Franklin and crew will need to recruit fast defensive ends, cornerbacks who can jam receivers at the line of scrimmage, and smaller, faster linebackers who will be called upon to drop into coverage quite a bit.  Speed is the key, not necessarily size in the traditional Tampa Two.

Here are some recent commitments in the SEC coming out of the weekend.

-Defensive end Trey Flowers has switched his commitment from Georgia Tech to Arkansas.

“I changed my mind and committed to Arkansas … mainly because I wanted to play in the SEC,” Flowers told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “To be the best, you have to play with the best. The SEC is the best.”

Flowers, who is from Huntsville, Ala., received his offer from Arkansas during his official visit this past weekend.

-Florida finally got some good recruiting news. Linebacker Graham Stewart from Middletown, Conn., committed to the Gators. He was once committed to Boston College.

-Mississippi State offered a scholarship during the weekend to defensive back Taveze Calhoun, who accepted and committed to the Bulldogs.

“Nobody thought I would be playing in the SEC except the people in my hometown,” Calhoun said. “I’m definitely going in there with a chip on my shoulder and to let everybody know that I am good enough to play in the SEC. I still have a lot to prove.”

-Tight end Dillon van der Wal decided to switch his commitment from Arizona State to Vanderbilt.

“They have me playing tight end in the SEC, and on top of that, the education can’t be beat,” van der Wal said.

SEC Football

1. Did a UCF player punch a Georgia player after the Liberty Bowl?

2. Kevin Scarbinsky: Anyone still think the SEC is down?

3. If it seems like there were a lot of points scored in yesterday’s bowl games – you are correct. Highest January 1st total in history.

4. Following another bowl loss – South Carolina plays the what if game.

5. The LSU football team has arrived in Dallas for Friday’s Cotton Bowl.

6. This will be the 50th meeting between LSU and Texas A&M.

7. How Oregon’s receivers match-up against Auburn’s defensive secondary.

8. It took three years but Ryan Mallett and Terrelle Prior are finally playing each other.

9. The highs and lows of the 2010 Tennessee football team.

10. How predictions about the 2010 Kentucky football team turned out.

11. UK’s co-defensive coordinator Rick Minter has a no-nonsense style.

SEC Basketball

12. Boston College 85 – South Carolina 70. Gamecocks have dropped three of last four.

13. Does a weak SEC West give those teams an advantage in the conference tournament?

14. Rick Pitino likes Kentucky’s chances in a weakened SEC.

15. The struggling Tennessee basketball team needs to play better defense.

16. Time for Bruce Pearl to make some “tough decisions.”

17. The Ole Miss basketball teams hopes to be back at full strength by the time conference play starts next weekend.

18. Vandy plays Davidson today.