Oh, what a missed field goal can bring.

Georgia’s fans watched in horror yesterday as the Bulldogs coaching staff went conservative with a 27-20 lead late in the Outback Bowl.  Mark Richt had been on the attack all season long with fourth-down gambles and Aaron Murray deep balls.  But with the game on the line, UGA’s braintrust puckered.  The offense went conservative.  The defense went into a prevent zone that allowed Michigan State to march 85 yards in less than two minutes.  Tie game.  27-27.  Overtime.

But in overtime, Georgia caught a break, picking off its third pass of the day from Spartan quarterback Kirk Cousins on MSU’s first possession.  Remarkably, the Dawgs went conservative again.  They appeared to be fine and dandy with a 42-yard field goal attempt from inconsistent kicker Blair Walsh.  Bad move.  He missed.

Overtime continued and you know the rest of the story — Michigan State 33, Georgia 30.

And everything has now changed in the Peach State as a result of that missed potential game-winner.

Up 16-0 at the half on a Top 5 defense, most Georgia fans were saying things like this: “You know, 11 wins this year, easy schedule next year, I really think we’re sitting pretty when it comes to winning the national title!”

After the loss — at least on the UGA messageboards — the talk changed to this:  “You know, we didn’t beat a good team all season.  10 wins against teams we should beat and then another bowl choke.  Nothing’s changed.”

A bowl loss is the worse thing in the world.  Instead of an offseason of positive dreaming, negative grumbling fills the airwaves.  Richt will get his contract extension from Georgia… as he should.

But if the coach’s status were left to fans — after yesterday’s loss — Richt’s seat really wouldn’t be all that much cooler entering 2012.  Especially with the Dawgs’ much-maligned schedule.

His conservatism and a missed field goal will have a lot of Georgians saying that Richt had better win big next season.  Or else many folks will be right back calling for his head.

There’s nothing like the mood swing after a bowl loss.

Derek Dooley is developing quite the reputation for being a stickler.  Maybe that’s just the lawyer in him.  But Tennessee’s head coach is now — for the third time — putting his foot down when it comes to a player looking to transfer.

Yesterday, freshman receiver DeAnthony Arnett let it be known that he wants to return to his home state of Michigan to be closer to his father, whose poor health has worsened in recent months.

Soon after, UT announced that Dooley would not allow Arnett to have a free pass out of town.  According to an email the player sent to the media, Michigan and Michigan State are off limits to him:

“If I wanted to attend The University of Michigan and Michigan State University then I would have to pay for school instead of be on the Scholorship.  I dont know whats next my family cant afford to pay for school and my father health reason isnt good enough excuse for me to attend a BCS school close to home.”

Sidenote — It’s ridiculous what Twitter and texting are doing to the English language.  Do kids even know what an apostrophe is anymore?

Back to the topic, Dooley appears A-OK with Arnett heading to the Mid-American Conference, but he doesn’t want him going to a football power.  Here’s a UT spokesperson’s take on the situation:

“We’re not denying him a release to be near his family, get a good education and play Division I football at the same time, but we do have a policy of not releasing players to schools we either play or recruit against.”

Outside of bowl games — and Dooley didn’t have to worry about that one this year — the Vols don’t meet up with the Wolverines and Spartans often.  In fact, in more than a century of football, UT has played Michigan once and State never.  And it’s not as if Tennessee squares off with great regularity against those schools on the recruiting trail, either.

Admittedly, no one can be sure if Arnett is seeking a transfer just because he wants to be near his father.  Rumors suggest he was tight with departed receivers coach Charlie Baggett.  So maybe he wants out because he’s disgruntled.  And it’s also possible that UT coaches feel Michigan or MSU might have tampered with the player.  Who knows?

But for Dooley, this is a PR battle he doesn’t need to fight right now.  He’s already played hardball with two players who wanted to transfer when he took over — Lane Kiffin-signee Bryce Brown and Phillip Fulmer-signee Aaron Douglas both met major resistance in their attempts to leave Knoxville.  Now Arnett is getting the same treatment and not everyone on the Tennessee messageboards is thrilled about it.

Nick Saban — who Dooley served under — and Les Miles can get away with being tough guys in these types of matters because they win.  Dooley hasn’t.  So he’s not getting universal support in his decision to block a player whose father is sick from playing at a big school (which could aid Arnett’s professional aspirations).

We view it as another public relations misstep for a coach who lost at Kentucky to close the season and then decided to go into silent mode.  Many ornery Vol fans have voiced their displeasure with their coach’s disappearance since November.

Dooley should be worried about winning with the guys he’s got.  If a kid wants to transfer because he’s homesick or his playing time isn’t what he’d hoped, fine, he should hold onto him.  But this one looks bad.  And UT fans are split over their coach’s move.

That’s not what Dooley needs right now.  Because if he doesn’t start winning in 2012, he might spend the next few years of his career in the MAC right along with Arnett.

The financial magazine Forbes has put together it’s latest list of college football’s most valuable teams and — not surprisingly — the SEC is well represented.

The magazine used a four-pronged scoring system based on:


1.  The value of a team to its university
2.  The value to its athletic department
3.  The value to its conference
and 4. The value to its surrounding community


Like any list of this type, there’s plenty of room or debate (which is exactly what the good folks at Forbes want in the first place).

This year’s list?  Here goes…


1.  Texas — current value: $129 million
2.  Notre Dame — $112 million
3.  Penn State — $100 million (here’s guessing that’s drop a bit next year)
4.  LSU — $96 million
5.  Michigan — $94 million
6.  Alabama — $93 million
7.  Georgia — $90 million
8.  Arkansas — $89 million
9.  Auburn — $88 million
10.  Oklahoma — $87 million
11.  Florida — $86 million
12.  Tennessee — $82 million
13.  Ohio State — $78 million
14.  Nebraska — $77 million
15.  Wisconsin — $67 million
16.  South Carolina — $64 million
17.  Texas A&M — $63 million
18.  Southern Cal — $62 million
19.  Michigan State — $59 million
20.  Iowa — $48 million


Five of the top nine, seven of the top 12, and nine of the top 17 most “valuable” college football programs call the SEC home.  Impressive.

1.  Auburn slipped past Florida A&M 76-69 last night, but Tony Barbee isn’t happy his team plays down to the level of its competition.

2.  Might AU use a “mystery tailback” in the Chick-fil-A Bowl?

3.  Alabama is getting back to basics for its bowl preps.

4.  Outgoing offensive coordinator Jim McElwain got emotional when Nick Saban praised him to the team during practice… and the team responded with applause.

5.  Freshman quarterback Brandon Allen is drawing praise at Arkansas during bowl practice.

6.  Will tailback Knile Davis play in the Cotton Bowl and burn a medical redshirt?  Will he return next year?  Or turn pro?  No one’s saying.

7.  Of LSU’s two All-American cornerbacks, Morris Claiborne is the low-key one.

8.  MSU’s linebacking corps jelled as the season played out.

9.  Quarterback Tyler Russell will play through the pain of an MCL sprain in the Music City Bowl.

10.  Mississippi’s Hugh Freeze and his staff of five assistants are trying to play catch-up on the recruiting trail.

11.  The Rebels’ new head coach said yesterday that he’ll be calling plays next season… even though he still might give someone else the “offensive coordinator” title.

12.  In hindsight, Will Muschamp says he should have put his first Florida team through a more physical August camp.

13.  The roundball Gators whooped up on Mississippi Valley State 82-54 last night.

14.  Georgia has wrapped up the on-campus part of its Outback Bowl preps.

15.  The Dawgs want to make amends for last season’s bowl loss to UCF when they face Michigan State.

16.  Mark Fox’s basketball team hosts Mercer tonight.

17.  Kentucky’s Darius Miller says he’s been rushing the 3-point shot.

18.  John Calipari is trying to create a “Breakfast Club” on his Wildcat team.  (That’s my cue to do this for those of you who are children of the ’80s.)

19.  UK and the city of Lexington continue to differ over the future of Rupp Arena.

20.  Melvin Ingram told fellow Carolina defensive end Jadeveon Clowney to “keep pushing” through the freshman wall.

21.  When Ellis Johnson is announced as Southern Miss’ new head coach, Steve Spurrier will lose a solid recruiter.

22.  Tennessee may be on a four-game losing streak but Cuonzo Martin is “sticking to the script.”

23.  Martin also won’t cut Trae Golden’s minutes just because he’s got a broken nose.

24.  Vanderbilt got a 29-point performance from Jeffery Taylor — who was coming off a bad stomach bug — in a 99-71 win over Longwood last night.

25.  It looks like Cincinnati will have a healthy Zach Collaros at quarterback when they face the Commodores in the Liberty Bowl.

1.  Freshman Bradley Beal already looks comfortable at Florida… what with that 15.2 points-per-game average.

2.  Erik Murphy will be back in the Gators’ starting lineup tonight.

3.  Prepping to meet Michigan State in the Outback Bowl, Georgia defensive coordinator Todd Grantham remember his own three years in East Lansing.

4.  This writer puts odds on which UGA underclassmen will turn pro.

5.  John Calipari was happy with the play of point guard Marquis Teague this weekend.

6.  For freshman All-American defensive end Jadeveon Clowney, his best days at South Carolina are ahead of him.

7.  It doesn’t show in the record, but this writer says Tennessee’s hoopsters are making progress.

8.  Vanderbilt will hope to get more than 15 combined points from John Jenkins and Festus Ezeli tonight against Longwood.

9.  Alabama is a healthier team as it resumes preparations for the BCS Championship Game…

10.  And it resumes those preps today.

11.  One area of consistency for Auburn in 2011?  Punter Steven Clark.

12.  The basketball Tigers will face Florida A&M tonight before heading to Hawaii for Christmas.

13.  You can probably forget finding cheap tickets to the BCS title game.  (Duh.)

14.  Trent Johnson’s Tigers have won four in a row, but tonight they host #11 Marquette.

15.  Linebacker Ferlando Bohanna — now that’s a name — gives Mississippi State options moving forward.

UPDATE – The SEC has named its Players of the Week.

UPDATE/BONUS — We usually don’t cover baseball, but the league announced today that the SEC tourney will go from 8 to 10 teams in May.

1.  The AP has handed out its postseason All-SEC honors and awards.

2.  A look inside the Harris Poll vote — part of the BCS system — might scare you.

3.  Auburn fans are trying to get the skinny on bowl opponent Virginia.

4.  One Heisman pundit says Alabama’s Trent Richardson would have won the award… had he played last Saturday.

5.  The Cotton Bowl was a good landing spot for Arkansas.

6.  LSU will do some healing up over the next month.

7.  Les Miles is a finalist for the Eddie Robinson National Coach of the Year award.

8.  Florida will get a tough test from Arizona tomorrow night.

9.  There are a lot of similarities between Georgia and Michigan State heading into the Outback Bowl.

10.  John Calipari says he’s only looking out for his team — which he says will always be filled with young players — in deciding to drop a rivalry game with either Indiana, Louisville or North Carolina.

11.  South Carolina supporters are studying up on bowl opponent Nebraska.

12.  Tennessee’s compliance department is reminding car dealers not to give Vol athletes any special deals.

13.  James Franklin says the fact that Vanderbilt didn’t have a first-team All-SEC selection shows what a great job his staff did this year.

In the minds of many, conference expansion isn’t about business, it’s about simplicity and fun.  You grab a list of last year’s standing and your latest Rand McNally atlas and you pick two teams with good records who happen to be a short drive away.

But that’s not how things work anymore.  The goal is to expand outward, not inward.  Leagues want bigger television revenue, so they look for new state’s worth of fans to reach and new TV markets to annex.

They also look for new recruiting ground.  Like Texas, for example.

Nick Saban was coaching at Michigan State as an assistant when Penn State was added to the Big Ten’s roster.  He remembers the impact that move had on his program, a couple of states away:

“I wouldn’t oppose (expansion because of) my experience in the Big Ten.  At the time Penn State came in, there were all kinds of naysayers… saying, ‘Why would we let a team as good as Penn State in the league?  It’s going to mess up the balance of the league.

The fact of the matter was that Penn State opened up the whole East (as recruiting territory) for the Big Ten.  Before that, we could never get a player anywhere in the East at Michigan State.  When Penn State got in, it became one of our best far-away recruiting areas because the Big Ten got a tremendous amount of exposure in the East that they never had before.

So it actually helped Michigan State that Penn State got in the league.  It was another tough game we had to play, but we always played one more tough game than we had to anyway.”

Saban added that the SEC is a great league that “doesn’t need to get changed… unless change benefits the league as a whole.”

Change like adding the states of Texas, Virginia or Missouri to the SEC’s footprint.

Alabama has extended a scholarship offer to defensive tackle Danny O’Brien from Flint (Mich.) Powers Catholic High School.

“I’m pretty excited,” O’Brien told 247Sports.com. “I was kind of waiting on this one for a little while, and it’s great to get it.”

Alabama is the second SEC school to offer O’Brien, who told the website he still favors Tennessee. O’Brien also has offers from Michigan, Michigan State, Cincinnati, Illinois, Indiana, Pittsburgh and Syracuse.

O’Brien, who said he would like to make his college decision before his senior season begins, has upcoming trips scheduled to Michigan State and Alabama.

Alabama and Auburn are two teams being considered by offensive lineman Dan Voltz, who will announce his college decision on Tuesday.

Voltz, who attends Barrington (Ill.) High School, is also considering Michigan, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Notre Dame, Iowa and Northwestern.

Notice that in-state Illinois is not on the list for Voltz. He took a visit to Auburn earlier this month and most recently visited Northwestern on March 9.

Wondering what the gamblers think of your favorite basketball team?  Wonder no more.  Here are the current Vegas odds on the SEC’s teams when it comes to winning the NCAA Tournament:


Kentucky — 12/1 odds (opened at 10/1)
Only Duke (3/1), Ohio State (5/1) and Kansas (8/1) are heavier favorites than the Cats right now.  Pittsburgh and Michigan State are on the same line with UK at 12/1.

Florida — 35/1 odds (opened at 18/1)
The Gators are 12th on the list in terms of being a favorite.  At 35/1 they’re bunched in with Georgetown and Baylor.

Tennessee — 50/1 odds (opened at 30/1)
The Vols are tied at 16th along with Memphis, Missouri, and Arizona.


And that’s it, folks.  The nine remaining SEC teams are all categorized as being part of the “Field” which carries 20/1 odds.