Two years ago this weekend, Lane Kiffin recorded the biggest victory of his one-year Tennessee coaching career with a resounding 31-13 thumping of #22 South Carolina.

He did so with the help of some black jerseys that seemed to fire up his team.  (Nevermind that nothing matched in the ghastly white helmet / black jersey / orange pants combination.)

Now a pair of Vols have tweeted their desire for another “black out” game, once again with Carolina heading to Knoxville.

Da’Rick Rogers:  “just a little something to spark the team when we need it the most … black jerseys for halloween!!”

Tyler Bray:  “Volnation needs to blackout Neyland stadium.  That would really show your support in this must win game.”

Da’Rick Rogers:  “I know yal want a black out! All black everything.  Ha and the orange power T.”

Apparently someone in the UT athletic department got to Bray because moments after that exchange, he tweeted the following:

“Just to clear things up we want our fans to wear black.”

Uh, that’s not what Rogers said.  In fact, Rogers’ initial tweet could be taken as news that the team has already been told they’ll be outfitted in black.

As we said yesterday regarding Kentucky’s new black unis… if everyone wears special black duds, what’s really special about wearing that color?

We all know that Nike has a tendency to go a little overboard when it comes to the company’s Pro Combat football uniforms.  Okay.  A lot overboard.

Thankfully, LSU won’t be going full Power Ranger as Georgia did earlier this year.

When the Tigers take on Auburn Saturday, they’ll be outfitted in an all-white number that actually looks pretty snazzy.  There’s a white helmet, white jersey and white pants in the combo.  All mesh with the Tigers’ current designs and logos.

The only downside?  Tiger stripes inside the purple numerals on the jersey.

But hey, when some teams are sporting looks befitting a comic book villain, small tiger stripes aren’t so bad.

1. AP Top 25 Poll.  Oklahoma No. 1, Alabama No. 2, LSU No. 4, South Carolina No. 12, Arkansas No. 15, Georgia No. 19, Mississippi State No. 20, Florida No. 22, Auburn No. 23. Entire list here.

2. The latest on an investigation into a fight allegedly involving “15-20″ LSU players. More here.

3. LSU’s first-game opponent – Oregon – is dealing with some off-field issues as well.

4. Tigers cornerback Tyrann Mathieu forced the most fumbles of any SEC player last year and now sports Patrick Peterson’s #7 jersey.

5. The Tigers have a trio of offensive guards that are at the heart of a strong offensive line.

6. Ole Miss braces for a possible lawsuit from an ex-assistant coach over violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

7. A south suite at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium will set you back $100,000 plus a $45,000 yearly donation starting in 2015.

8. His college career has taken him from Wake Forest to West Virginia to Eastern Kentucky to Fullerton Community College and now to Ole Miss.  Defensive tackle Uriah Grant says he finally feels at home.

9. Learning from the tragedy at Notre Dame, Florida pays $675,000 for six permanent steel towers.

10. Florida’s John Brantley is a starting quarterback, a senior and a vocal leader. Wide receiver Deonte Thompson: ” (H)is confidence is just higher.”

11, Frankie Hammond, Jr. should be one of Brantley’s top targets.

12. The Iron Bowl rivalry: “It didn’t start with the trees.”

13. Auburn freshman quarterback Kiehl Frazier on naming Barrett Trotter as the starter: “(D)idn’t change anything for me.”

14. Trotter on Frazier: “I know he’s really disappointed.”

15, Alabama’s second and final dress rehearsal at Bryant-Denny stadium is this afternoon.  Don’t expect an answer on a starting quarterback.

16, Kentucky quarterback Morgan Newton teaches the playbook to his backups.

17, South Carolina defensive tackle Aldrick Fordham is undersized but smart. A preview of the Gamecocks.

18. Vanderbilt cancels practice and goes bowling.

19. Mississippi State is still sorting out the depth chart.

20. Some position switching and jersey swapping for Tennessee. Were down to three healthy wide receivers.

21. The banged up Vols will scrimmage this afternoon. Malik Jackson says he feels 100%.

22.  John Adams:  ”UT’s problem with the NCAA was nothing more than bad timing.”

23. Georgia welcomes Isaiah Crowell back to practice, John Jenkins goes down with a hamstring pull and Rantavious Wooten looks to impress at wide receiver. Wide receiver Marlon Brown is drawing rave reviews.

24, The Bulldogs opening game uniforms are set to be revealed. Here’s a sneak peek. More here.

25. South Carolina quarterback coach G.A. Mangus pays $470 to settle the public nuisance charge that got him suspended.

26, Jon Solomon on the Miami scandal:  (T)his is a good time to bring in more outsiders.“

Still waiting.

That’s the situation in Tuscaloosa where transfer wide receiver Duron Carter has been held out of a full week of practice while Alabama officials await final approval of the player’s junior college transcript. 

Carter — who began his career at Ohio State before transferring to Coffeyville Community College in Kansas — is expected to have a major impact for the Tide.  In fact, he’s likely to wear the #8 jersey worn by Julio Jones last year.  (He can probably run over to T-Town Menswear to pick one up.)

Carter’s father is former NFL great Cris Carter.

This morning we linked you to the latest T-Town Menswear photo dump from SportsByBrooks.com.  That site’s photos of Julio Jones — then an Alabama player — signing a jersey (with a stack of other jerseys nearby) has led OutkickTheCoverage.com to release a few more photos, too.

It seems someone took photos of Jones in Tom Al Betar’s office at T-Town Menswear.  One shows Jones with a college-age girl on his lap and Al Betar smiling happily to his left.  (Al Betar’s name has been spelled Albetar, Al-Betar and Al Betar on various sites… we’re going with the latter.)

Is it against NCAA rules for a player to be in the office of a business owner?  No.  But we all know how this looks.  After all, Al Betar was later disassociated from the Crimson Tide program for some reason.  So here was a Tide star sitting in the office of a man who would eventually be barred from UA’s program.

Go ahead and add this to the pile of circumstantial evidence that’s already leading to a Bama conviction in the court of public opinion. 

Meanwhile, we await the next photos to appear in three… two… one…

When the nation’s reporters and broadcasters reach for their SEC media guide this fall, they’ll quickly be reminded of just how many BCS titles the league has won in a row.

The SEC unveiled the cover of its 2011 guide yesterday (at left) and the cover art can’t exactly be called subtle.  That’s a tight shot of a football jersey bearing the number five.

And in case someone doesn’t get the message from the number alone, the following line is tossed in just beneath it:

“HOME OF FIVE CONSECUTIVE BCS NATIONAL CHAMPIONS”

Perhaps Mike Slive and crew should mail one to the Big Ten’s Jim Delany just for kicks.

As always, click the headline of this story for a closer look at the pic.

Under Armour has updated South Carolina’s football uniforms for the first time since 2007, but the visible changes aren’t too significant.  What do we mean by that?  We mean Gamecock fans will notice the adjustments made to the striping, but non-Carolina fans probably won’t pick up on the differences.

That’s a good thing.  It’s called branding and Carolina is definitely better developing its brand by avoiding major changes.  There will be all-black uniforms, a garnet-jersey/white-pants set, and a white-jersey/garnet-pants road set… all with the traditional white helmet.

Eventually, Under Armour could begin using elements from the South Carolina state flag — the palmetto and crescent — in the unis, but no final decision has been made on that front.

Thumbs up on the current batch of unis.

Over the weekend, former Florida linebacker Channing Crowder suggested on his new radio show that “hypothetically” he might have sold his UF jerseys to some folks in Jacksonville who liked the way he played.  As you know, selling collectibles and merchandise is a no-no for college athletes.

Yesterday, Crowder backed off of his hypothetical suggestion while on ESPN’s “SportsCenter”:


“I have all four of them (UF jerseys).  My momma has two of my jerseys on her wall in her house, and I have the other two in my house.

I was playing off the whole Terrelle Pryor thing when businessmen were buying his stuff.  I was saying that, if somebody wanted to buy my jerseys while I was in school, why can’t I sell them because they’re my jerseys and have my name on the back?  When I was at Florida, I made ’55′ a relevant jersey number at Florida, so why couldn’t I sell my jersey when I was there with my name on the back?  That was the point.”


And that is the sound of a man trying to remove his foot from his mouth.

Kevin Stallings’ Vanderbilt basketball team has signed up to play in the 2011 Legends Classic at the IZOD Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey this November.  Vandy, Texas, NC State and Oregon State will each host two games in their home arenas and then move on to the semifinals of the “tournament” which will be played in Jersey the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Vandy — as well as the other aforementioned schools — will all move on to Jersey regardless of the outcomes of the two games they’ll play on their home courts… so this isn’t a true tourney in the traditional sense.

Oh, for a publicity shot of Snookie kissing Stallings’ brilliant bald head.

Mark Richt will be on the hot seat when the 2011 season begins.  He’s been in place for a decade — which is just too much time at one place in the modern sports world — and he’s coming off a 6-7 season.

We think that’s too bad. 

And while we can no longer defend Richt’s record by pointing to “a one-year slump” (as we did last year), we can tell you that Georgia’s coach remains the one coach in the SEC we’d most like to see a relative play for.  The man is first class.

Three weeks ago, a 17-year-old from Valdosta named James Eunice drowned while duck hunting.  Eunice had been accepted at the University of Georgia and he had planned to walk-on for the football team. 

During the run-up to signing day, Richt took the time to write the boy’s family.  He told them that Eunice had made the team and he sent along a jersey to the family with the boy’s name and number on the back.

When Richt’s letter was read at Eunice’s funeral — and the jersey was shown — those in attendance applauded.  Two of Eunice’s Valdosta teammates who have signed to play at Georgia were on hand for the presentation.

“I’m going to play for an incredible man,” Jay Rome said of Richt.  Malcolm Mitchell said the gesture made him “proud to be a Bulldog.”

Kudos to Bill King of The AJC’s “Junkyard Blawg” for bringing the original story to light.  You can read his take and link to earlier versions here.

As for our feelings here at MrSEC.com… if there’s a better man heading up an SEC program today, we don’t know who he is.